Zelensky's posturing only gets you so far, sooner or later, reality comes home to roost — Ritter

And right now, in places like Krasnoarmeysk and Kupyansk, 'reality has come home to roost'

'If it falls... This will create a cascading crisis along the entire line of contact'

Adding: 

AP: US Agent Tried to Recruit Maduro’s Pilot in a Failed Plot

➡️A retired Department of Homeland Security agent secretly pitched Nicolás Maduro’s personal pilot to divert the Venezuelan leader’s plane for US arrest on trumped up drug charges, offering riches in return - and only slightly threatening the pilot's family and kids in the process.

➡️Over 16 months of encrypted chats, the pilot stayed noncommittal — ultimately rejecting the plan and affirming loyalty: “We Venezuelans aren’t traitors.”

➡️US seized two Maduro-linked jets in the Dominican Republic due to their illegal sanctions against Venezuela. 

➡️A leaked photo caused a brief scandal in Venezuela, but the operation failed.

➡️Daddy's administration later doubled Maduro’s bounty to $50M and authorized (further) CIA covert actions in Venezuela.

➡️AP coldwar spy novel (https://apnews.com/article/dhs-plan-capture-maduro-pilot-planes-7915d5a0819ceb518a8ca2b47da8b2e5) quotes:

The untold, intrigue-filled saga of how Lopez tried to flip the pilot has all the elements of a Cold War spy thriller — luxury private jets, a secret meeting at an airport hangar, high-stakes diplomacy and the delicate wooing of a key Maduro lieutenant. There was even a final machination aimed at rattling the Venezuelan president about the pilot’s true loyalties.

... 

Two hours later, Lopez tried one last time, mentioning Villegas’ three children by name and a better future he said awaited them in the U.S.

“The window for a decision is closing,” Lopez wrote, shortly before Villegas blocked his number. “Soon it will be too late.”

🐻The latest CIA/Clancy Fanfic: "Heroic (=psychotic) US agent vs. "cowardly" (=loyal) Venezuelan pilot." The US criminal regime is as cliché as its so called "journalists" writing such trash - as their unholy quest for Venezuelan natural resources wealth continues.