Extended edition: Episode 5-15-23

Hello, my friends!

Thank you for being a support of The View from the Front.

Here’s the Monday update for paid subscribers (with a partial preview for free subscribers). This includes a brief round-up of news and some daily motivation.

If you just happened to stumble by, here’s what I’m doing with The View from the Front extended edition.

My name is Stan R. Mitchell and I’m a prior Marine, journalist, and man who loves this country with all of my heart. I also like to focus on covering our military and looming hot spots, while also trying to unite the country as best I can.

I truly do appreciate all my supporters and listeners, and The View from the Front extended edition is just a small way I want to add value and repay those who have signed up as paid subscribers. (And it also is another step forward toward the long-term dream and vision I currently have.)

I will also continue to do my weekly podcast each Thursday.

If you’d like to upgrade and go from free to paid, here’s the link:

But no pressure. I’ve already got a nice contingent of awesome, paying supporters.

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REMINDER: If you missed Thursday’s podcast, make sure you listen to that here: Podcast Episode 5-11-23. It’s FREE to do so!

In this edition, we cover:

• Turkey’s longtime president to face down main rival in runoff as uncertainty looms

• A far-right nationalist politician may decide Erdogan’s political fate

• Ukraine achieving some success in besieged Bakhmut, Russia says

• Germany to supply Ukraine with largest aid package yet, worth nearly $3 billion

• Wagner chief offered to give Russian troop locations to Ukraine, leak says

• Wagner boss denies Washington Post report he offered Russian intelligence to Kyiv in exchange for territory

• Russia may have just lost four aircraft in one day. Here’s what we know

• A former U.S. Army general predicts 'successful' Ukrainian offensive

• Strikes in Russian-held Luhansk showcase Ukraine’s longer-range missiles

• China sentences 78-year-old US citizen to life in prison on spying charges

• And at the end of this edition, we’ll cover plenty of motivation and wisdom at the end.

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Turkey election news:

Turkey’s longtime president to face down main rival in runoff as uncertainty looms

Conservative Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan faces a runoff with his main rival in two weeks that will decide who leads a country struggling with sky-high inflation and hosting Syrian refugees as it plays a key role in the Middle East and in NATO expansion.

Election officials said Monday that the May 28 second round will allow Turks to decide if their nation remains under the increasingly authoritarian president’s firm grip for a third decade, or if it can embark on the more democratic course that Kemal Kilicdaroglu has claimed he can deliver.

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Erdogan faced electoral headwinds due to a cost-of-living crisis and criticism over the government’s response to a devastating February earthquake. But with his alliance retaining its hold on the parliament, Erdogan is now in a good position to win in the second round.

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A far-right nationalist politician may decide Erdogan’s political fate

Until Sunday, Sinan Ogan was a fringe, ultranationalist Turkish politician virtually unknown outside Turkey. But for the next two weeks, he may become the most important figure in Turkish politics, potentially deciding President Recep Tayyip Erdogan’s political fate.

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Ogan, the third candidate, received 5.17%, enough to swing the runoff vote in favor of either of the candidates. With that, he found himself as the kingmaker in the most important elections in modern Turkey’s history.

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Russia and Ukraine news:

Ukraine achieving some success in besieged Bakhmut, Russia says

Russian and Ukrainian forces are engaged in heavy fighting in Bakhmut, the eastern city where Ukrainian soldiers have held out against a months-long assault by the Russian army, officials of both countries said Thursday. But accounts differed on whether it’s the start of Kyiv’s much-anticipated spring counteroffensive.

Yevgeniy Prigozhin, head of the mercenary group Wagner, a key element of the Russian assault on Bakhmut, said the Ukrainian operation was “in full swing” and its forces were attacking his flanks.

“Unfortunately, in some places they are successful,” Prigozhin said in an audio message posted to Telegram. “All the units that have received the necessary training, weapons, equipment, tanks, everything else — they are already fully engaged.”

Later Thursday, he said the attack was “shaping up according to the worst of the predicted scenarios.”

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