Russia Invades Ukraine. Again by captaincrunch

REAL WORLD EVENT DISCUSSIONS

Russia Invades Ukraine. Again

POSTED BY: CAPTAINCRUNCH
UPDATED: Saturday, November 23, 2024 10:01
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PAGE 149 of 150

Monday, October 28, 2024 5:07 AM

The Joss Whedon script for Serenity, where Wash lives, is Serenity-190pages.pdf at https://www.mediafire.com/two

Russia works around international sanctions designed to cripple the economy amid war with Ukraine

60-minutes By Sharyn Alfonsi

October 27, 2024 / 7:45 PM EDT / CBS News

https://www.cbsnews.com/news/russia-works-around-international-sanctio
ns-amid-war-with-ukraine-60-minutes-transcript/

When Russia invaded Ukraine it sparked international outrage. It also triggered a wave of international sanctions designed to cripple Russia's economy so badly...it couldn't fight the war.

And yet…two-and-a-half years later, the fighting continues and the International Monetary Fund predicts, this year, Russia's economy will grow over 3%. More than the U.S. and Europe.

The architect behind the United States sanction strategy is Daleep Singh - the deputy national security advisor for international economics at the White House.

We first interviewed him in the weeks after the 2022 invasion…when he told us he expected a barrage of sanctions to bring Russia's economy to its knees.

Earlier this month, we went to Washington to ask Daleep Singh about those early predictions of a nosedive.…and he told us something we don't hear very often on 60 Minutes.

Daleep Singh: So let's be-- let's be honest. This is not the nosedive that I predicted two years ago.

The Joss Whedon script for Serenity, where Wash lives, is Serenity-190pages.pdf at https://www.mediafire.com/two

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Tuesday, October 29, 2024 5:36 AM

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The Kremlin had dismissed the allegations as "fake news," while a North Korean representative to the United Nations called the reports "groundless." What allegations?

On Monday, NATO Secretary General Mark Rutte said he could confirm that North Korean troops have been sent to Russia, and that North Korean military units have been deployed to the Kursk region.

https://www.msn.com/en-us/news/world/kursk-videos-show-ukrainian-bradl
ey-abrams-engage-russian-tanks/ar-AA1t4Ah2

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Tuesday, October 29, 2024 6:30 AM

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Ukrainians are scamming Russians out of their life savings in an underground operation that steals money from Moscow’s citizens and donates it directly to Kyiv’s military.

In call centers throughout Ukraine, the operation, known as “the Office,” equips workers with a headset, computer program, and the phone numbers of Russians.

Until Feb. 24, 2022, in Ukraine, the Office focused its scam on targets in Western countries like the U.S. as well as various European Union-based companies. In the aftermath of Russia’s invasion, it shifted all of its work onto Russian civilians. The fraud begins with the victim receiving a call purportedly from a phone company seeking a payment, and ends with all of the money in their victims’ bank accounts being drained.

According to the Global Initiative Against Transnational Crime (GI-TOC), there may be thousands of scam call centers throughout Ukraine as examples of “patriotic criminals” — pro-Ukrainian criminals that are working to support Kyiv’s war efforts — which have proliferated since the invasion.

More at https://www.thedailybeast.com/ukrainian-criminal-network-takes-vengean
ce-on-putins-people/

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Tuesday, October 29, 2024 3:17 PM

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The US Army may have the answer to the bogged-down bloodbath warfare of Ukraine
A way of striking deep past enemy front lines which might just work

David Axe | 29 October 2024 2:19pm GMT

https://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/2024/10/29/ukraine-war-positional-att
ritional-airborne-tiltrotor-101st/

Photo of Soldiers of the US Army's 101st Airborne Division carrying out a helicopter-borne assault in Afghanistan, 2008. Such operations would be suicide in a war like that in Ukraine today

The US Army won’t take delivery of its first new tiltrotor assault craft until 2030. But it’s already writing new doctrine for the speedy, far-flying Bell V-280 Valor. If it works in practice, this doctrine could solve one of the Army’s most serious battlefield problems: how to break through stiff enemy defences. Both Russia and Ukraine have struggled to do this in their ongoing war, and while many Western soldiers have argued that’s because they’re doing it wrong, it seems at least possible that traditional Blitzkrieg style land assaults have become less effective in the age of the drone and the “cautious tank”.

With the V-280, which takes off and lands like a helicopter but cruises like an aeroplane thanks to its pivoting rotors, the Army could simply bypass the defences – and land thousands of troops hundreds of miles away in the span of one night.

Major General Brett Sylvia is commander of the 101st Airborne Division. This was once a force of paratroopers but today it is the US Army’s specialist helicopter-borne assault formation. The general revealed the new doctrine at an industry event in Washington DC earlier this month.

“We can’t actually do the large-scale, long-range air assault today,” Sylvia said, “because the platforms that we have organic to the 101st are not enough in order for us to be able to do that in one period of darkness.”

Today, the 101st Airborne Division has around 50 UH-60 Black Hawk assault helicopters and 30 CH-47 Chinook heavy lift helicopters. A UH-60 can haul a squad of 11 infantry 300 miles. A CH-47 can move a platoon of 40 nearly the same distance. But both helicopters are slow, with a cruising speed no faster than 180 miles per hour.

That weighs on the 101st Airborne Division’s reach. In one recent war game, the division moved one of its three brigades – around 3,000 troops – more than 500 miles. But the simulated operation required nearly a thousand support troops to set up refuelling points, and took three nights.

Sylvia wants to do better. He wants to move a brigade the same distance, but in one night. And once V-280s start arriving, it should be possible. Sylvia said he’s “incredibly optimistic.” After all, a V-280 can carry 14 troops nearly a thousand miles at a cruising speed faster than 300 miles per hour.

As a bonus, the 101st is set to replace all its UH-60s with V-280s – and then some. Where today’s 101st has just 30 or so rotorcraft that qualify as “heavy lift,” with V-280s it’ll have four times that number, Sylvia said. The basic idea, it seems, is for each V-280 in the division’s future inventory to make at least two round-trips in one night in order to transport a whole brigade.

There’s another key advantage for the V-280. Fully loaded normal helicopters generally can’t fly very high. They are within reach of even light shoulder-fired anti-aircraft missiles all the time, and in some cases they have also been brought down by drones: for this reason, helicopters of both sides generally avoid going anywhere near the front line in Ukraine. Chinooks can get high enough to be out of reach of many missiles, but only at the cost of reducing their load.

The V-280, however, when flying in aeroplane mode, will be able to get a lot higher. It still won’t be able to fly near heavy, long-ranging missile launchers in any safety, but it will be safe from lighter types.

To take advantage of the new tiltrotor, the air assault division is rewriting its logistics plans. If it went to war today, the 101st would try to capture an enemy airfield and use that as its main base for an assault deep behind enemy lines. But that base would be vulnerable to enemy counterattack. So Sylvia’s staff has been hashing out new schemes that spread support troops across a larger number of small refueling points that should be harder for the enemy to detect.

Flying farther and faster with more troops compared to a UH-60, the V-280 could take some of the pressure off the spread-out support troops. If the 101st Airborne Division can match equipment with doctrine and training, it should be able to move thousands of troops hundreds of miles between sunset and sunrise, combining mass, mobility and surprise in a way that could throw an entrenched enemy off-balance. US Army tank brigades could attack from the near side at the same time 101st Division troops attack from the far side.

That should help the Army solve the dilemma currently plaguing Ukrainian forces. Lacking a major air-assault capability, the Ukrainians have just one way of breaking through Russian defences: a frontal ground assault.

But mines, artillery and all-seeing, ever-present drones have made these assaults practically suicidal. It’s not for no reason that Ukrainian commanders measure their biggest battlefield advances in single miles. And those are rare. Most battles in Russia’s 32-month wider war on Ukraine are “attritional” and “positional.” That is, the front line barely budges. The winner is the side that loses the fewest troops and vehicles.

The US Army hasn’t fought that way in many decades – and has no appetite to. It craves mobility. The V-280 could be just the thing to keep the Army’s main air assault formation moving.

The Joss Whedon script for Serenity, where Wash lives, is Serenity-190pages.pdf at https://www.mediafire.com/two

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Wednesday, October 30, 2024 6:44 AM

The Joss Whedon script for Serenity, where Wash lives, is Serenity-190pages.pdf at https://www.mediafire.com/two

The rate of Russian advances in Ukraine has increased in recent weeks but remains slow and consistent with positional warfare rather than with rapid mechanized maneuver—emphasizing how generally stagnant Russian advances have been after over two and half years of war. Recent Western reporting linking the Russian rate of advance in September 2024 with Russian advances at the start of the war is highly misleading.[1] ISW assesses that Russian forces advanced at an average rate of 1,265 square kilometers per day in March 2022—roughly 90 times the roughly 14 square kilometers that ISW calculates that Russian forces have taken per day in September 2024. Rapid Russian advances deep into Ukrainian territory, including the temporary seizure of large portions of Kyiv, Chernihiv, Sumy, and Kharkiv oblasts characterized the first month of the Russian full-scale invasion, whereas more recent Russian advances have been characterized by small-scale, localized, tactical advances.[2] Russian forces have been making gains in eastern Ukraine recently, but comparing those gains to the initial deep Russian penetration into Ukraine at the start of the war misleadingly frames these most recent advances. For example, Russian forces seized the settlement of Vuhledar as of October 1, 2024, have continued to advance north and northwest of Vuhledar, and have made significant tactical gains in and near Selydove (southeast of Pokrovsk) over the course of the past week.[3] These respective advances are tactically significant but do not represent a general increase in the pace of Russian advances across the frontline, much of which remains relatively stagnant, nor are they within two orders of magnitude of the rate of Russian advance in the first stage of the war.[4] The current rate of Russian advances is consistent, rather, with ISW's recent assessment that the Russian command has likely ordered Russian forces to significantly increase their tempo of mechanized attacks throughout the theater before the full onset of muddy ground conditions in the fall months.[5]

https://www.understandingwar.org/backgrounder/russian-offensive-campai
gn-assessment-october-29-2024

The Joss Whedon script for Serenity, where Wash lives, is Serenity-190pages.pdf at https://www.mediafire.com/two

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Wednesday, October 30, 2024 7:04 AM

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In Toretsk, Ukrainian Engineers Are Demolishing Entire Buildings Filled With Russian Troops

The strategy is brutal but effective: wreck the city in order to save it.

David Axe | Oct 29, 2024, 06:10pm EDT

https://www.forbes.com/sites/davidaxe/2024/10/29/in-toretsk-ukrainian-
engineers-are-demolishing-entire-buildings-filled-with-russian-troops/

The Joss Whedon script for Serenity, where Wash lives, is Serenity-190pages.pdf at https://www.mediafire.com/two

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Thursday, October 31, 2024 8:05 AM

The Joss Whedon script for Serenity, where Wash lives, is Serenity-190pages.pdf at https://www.mediafire.com/two

The Kremlin is reportedly struggling to prepare for the September 2026 Russian State Duma elections campaign due to uncertainty about the course of the war in Ukraine, suggesting that the Kremlin is not confident that Russia will be able to win the war over the next two years. Russian opposition outlet Meduza reported on October 30 that Presidential Administration First Deputy Head Sergei Kiriyenko has not started to plan the "contours" of the 2026 Duma elections even though the Kremlin usually does so two years in advance of the elections.[8] A source close to the Presidential Administration told Meduza that the Duma elections’ policy framing depends on whether the war in Ukraine will continue in 2026. Meduza reported that a source within United Russia's leadership stated that it is unclear if United Russia's 2026 campaign should feature military personnel or a person who "symbolizes a return to peaceful life," such as Prime Minister Mikhail Mishustin. A political strategist who works with the Kremlin and several regional governments reportedly stated that if the war continues during the 2026 election campaign season, then the Kremlin will need "a force that leans on ultra-patriotism," such as an entirely new political party or a "slightly updated" A Just Russia party. The source stated that if the war ends, then the Kremlin will need "moderate forces." A Just Russia notably held a congress on October 26 and announced that its new political course will be "patriotic socialism," which the party described as necessary during Russia's war in Ukraine and "firmly based on the great achievements of Russian civilization and the most important condition for [Russia's] further development."[9]

https://www.understandingwar.org/backgrounder/russian-offensive-campai
gn-assessment-october-30-2024

The Joss Whedon script for Serenity, where Wash lives, is Serenity-190pages.pdf at https://www.mediafire.com/two

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Thursday, October 31, 2024 1:46 PM

T

Russians, Russians Everywhere

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Friday, November 1, 2024 7:28 AM

The Joss Whedon script for Serenity, where Wash lives, is Serenity-190pages.pdf at https://www.mediafire.com/two

The Moldovan Constitutional Court confirmed on October 31 the passing of the October 20 European Union (EU) referendum with a 50.72 percent turnout rate.

https://www.ipn.md/en/constitutional-court-confirms-results-of-october
-20-referendum-8013_1108601.html

The Joss Whedon script for Serenity, where Wash lives, is Serenity-190pages.pdf at https://www.mediafire.com/two

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Saturday, November 2, 2024 4:02 AM

I believe in solving problems, not sharing them.

-----------
"It may be dangerous to be America's enemy, but to be America's friend is fatal." - Henry Kissinger

AMERICANS SUPPORT AMERICA

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Saturday, November 2, 2024 6:39 AM

The Joss Whedon script for Serenity, where Wash lives, is Serenity-190pages.pdf at https://www.mediafire.com/two

It makes perfect sense that North Korea would send troops to fight Ukrainians. North Korea has an enemy, South Korea, a nation controlled by evil Nazis, the same accusation Russia uses against Ukraine.

Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov met with his North Korean counterpart Choe Son-hui in Moscow on November 1, securing strong affirmations of North Korea's support for Russia amid updated Western reports on the number of North Korean troops deployed to Russia.[10] Lavrov emphasized that Russia and North Korea share "respect and reverence" for their common history and claimed that Russian-North Korean relations are developing "at an accelerated pace in terms of the qualitative level of interaction in all areas."[11] Choe claimed that North Korean dictator Kim Jong Un instructed North Korea to support Russia's "holy war" against Ukraine until Russia's victory.[12] Choe's invocation of the concept of a "holy war" against Ukraine is notable, as the Russian Orthodox Church has used parallel language to rhetorically justify Russia's illegal invasion of Ukraine as an existential and civilizational struggle—a struggle into which North Korea has now willingly entered.[13]

https://www.understandingwar.org/backgrounder/russian-offensive-campai
gn-assessment-november-1-2024

The Joss Whedon script for Serenity, where Wash lives, is Serenity-190pages.pdf at https://www.mediafire.com/two

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Sunday, November 3, 2024 8:08 AM

The Joss Whedon script for Serenity, where Wash lives, is Serenity-190pages.pdf at https://www.mediafire.com/two

Russia has struggled to source the microelectronic components necessary to produce complex weapons and air defense systems due to Western sanctions, and Russia may not be able to produce or repair a sufficient number of air defense systems to maintain the current density of Russia's air defense coverage over occupied Ukraine if Ukraine destroys a significant number of Russian systems.[6] Further degradation of Russia's air defense umbrella, particularly over occupied Ukraine, may impact how close to the frontline Russian pilots are willing to operate and could limit Russia's ability to effectively use glide bombs against both frontline areas and rear Ukrainian cities.

Ukrainian forces have reportedly struck seven Russian radars and air defense systems since the night of October 20 to 21.

https://www.understandingwar.org/backgrounder/russian-offensive-campai
gn-assessment-november-2-2024

The Joss Whedon script for Serenity, where Wash lives, is Serenity-190pages.pdf at https://www.mediafire.com/two

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Sunday, November 3, 2024 8:14 AM

The Joss Whedon script for Serenity, where Wash lives, is Serenity-190pages.pdf at https://www.mediafire.com/two

Russian Troops' Most Common Cause of Death Revealed in Report

74.5 percent of deaths had been due to explosions.

14.7 percent were fatalities due to gunshot injuries from small arms, with the vast majority of incidents (83.7 percent) from single wounds.

https://www.newsweek.com/russia-ukraine-war-explosions-1970605

The Joss Whedon script for Serenity, where Wash lives, is Serenity-190pages.pdf at https://www.mediafire.com/two

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Sunday, November 3, 2024 10:39 AM

I believe in solving problems, not sharing them.

If they are using Russian equipment, the language barrier alone would keep N Koreans from fighting effectively.

Just imagine facing a complex instrument panel with everything labelled in a foreign language. Then imagine you have to "do something" ... or, rather, a complex set of somethings ... while being shot at.

And we're supposed to take this seriously?

Even if you imagine this as a live- fire, real- world training exercise, where N Korean troops with N Korean weapons and N Korean local commanders are inserted into a Russian battlefield, with the Russian tactics of using small probing groups (6-7) to find resistance and call down bombs or artillery, each small group would need a translator.

Nah.

I just can't see it happening. Inserting foreign troops into an active battle is just asking to muck things up, as many former American military, from colonels to tech specialists, have said.

This is just more fabricated nonsense, for those lacking critical thinking.

-----------
"It may be dangerous to be America's enemy, but to be America's friend is fatal." - Henry Kissinger

AMERICANS SUPPORT AMERICA

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Monday, November 4, 2024 6:03 AM

The Joss Whedon script for Serenity, where Wash lives, is Serenity-190pages.pdf at https://www.mediafire.com/two

Moldova is on the western border of Ukraine.

Incumbent Moldova President Maia Sandu has claimed victory in the Moldovan presidential runoff election held on November 3, 2024.[1] Preliminary results reported by the Moldovan Central Election Commission (CEC) show that Maia Sandu has won around 55 percent of the vote, defeating Kremlin-friendly presidential candidate Alexandr Stoianoglo.[2]

Moldovan authorities reported extensive Russian interference and sabotage efforts during the runoff presidential elections held on November 3, 2024, in a likely effort to favor pro-Kremlin Stoianoglo. Sandu’s National Security Advisor Stanislav Secrieru warned on November 3 of significant Russian interference in the runoff election, noting the organization of voter transport in Transnistria (which is illegal under Moldovan law); the organization of buses and charter flights from Russia to polling stations in Azerbaijan, Turkey, and Belarus; the distribution of vouchers to Moldovan voters in Moscow; and cyberattacks against the Moldova CEC's voter education site.[4]

https://www.understandingwar.org/backgrounder/russian-offensive-campai
gn-assessment-november-3-2024

The Joss Whedon script for Serenity, where Wash lives, is Serenity-190pages.pdf at https://www.mediafire.com/two

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Monday, November 4, 2024 6:43 AM

The Joss Whedon script for Serenity, where Wash lives, is Serenity-190pages.pdf at https://www.mediafire.com/two

Ukraine’s AI drones are now actively deployed in combat. And they hit targets.

Rolled out to combat Russian signal jamming, Ukraine is deploying new AI systems to drive its drone warfare. Early tests find the automated pilots are far more likely to hit targets, though only a small proportion of Ukraine’s fleet uses the new technology.

By Max Hunder | Nov. 01, 2024, 11:39 a.m. ET

https://www.csmonitor.com/World/Europe/2024/1101/drone-Ukraine-Russia-
war-AI-combat

Ukraine is using dozens of domestically made AI-augmented systems for its drones to reach targets on the battlefield without being piloted, a senior official said, disclosing new details about the race against Russia to harness automation.

Systems that use artificial intelligence allow cheap drones carrying explosives to spot or fly to their targets in areas protected by extensive signal jamming, which has reduced the effectiveness of manually piloted drones.

The shift towards the use of AI, particularly in drone target finding and flight control, is an important emerging front in the technology race that has unfolded since Russia launched its full-scale invasion in February 2022.

“There are currently several dozen solutions on the market from Ukrainian manufacturers ... they are being purchased and delivered into the armed forces and other defense forces,” Ukraine’s deputy defense minister Kateryna Chernohorenko said of drone AI systems.

She said they were currently being used in a targeted way in special operations.

Automated drone systems are in high demand among soldiers searching for ways to beat the rapidly increasing use of electronic warfare on the battlefield.

Electronic warfare systems create a protective dome around their location by sending out powerful signals that disrupt communication between drones and their pilots, causing them to lose control of the craft and miss their target.

These systems, once only used to protect the highest-value pieces of equipment, have become a common feature in trenches and on regular vehicles used by soldiers as they seek to protect themselves from the threat of first person view (FPV) drones.

These small and cheap drones, originally built for civilian enthusiasts to race, have since become the most commonly used strike drone on the battlefield, with both countries ramping up their production into the millions per year.

Next phase of the war

A Ukrainian official told Reuters in July that most first-person view units’ target strike rate had fallen to 30%-50%, while for new pilots that can be as low as 10%, and that signal jamming was the main problem.

The official predicted that AI-operated first-person view drones could achieve hit rates of around 80%.

Samuel Bendett, adjunct senior fellow at the Center for a New American Security, a Washington-based think-tank, said statements from officials on both sides showed automation would likely play an important role in the next phase of the war, but that it was currently not widespread.

“At this point in the conflict, we’re seeing small scale application of these technologies as multiple developers are trying to position themselves and their drones as the go to solution,” he said.

“Right now, the solutions are relatively simple and often based on commercial technologies that have been available even before the war, but more complicated features can also become available.”

Ukraine is also using interceptor drones to down the vast numbers of Russian camera reconnaissance drones helping target artillery and missile strikes on Ukrainian targets behind the lines.

Ms. Chernohorenko, the defense official, said that these also needed to be equipped with AI targeting.

“Russian reconnaissance drones are causing huge problems on the frontlines [but] they are now being shot down rather effectively by our interceptors.”
Computer vision

Dmytro Vovchuk, the chief operating officer of NORDA Dynamics, a Ukrainian company which makes software for drones, told Reuters they had been making a product which used computer vision, a type of AI technology, to guide strike drones towards their target.

The software allows a pilot to select a target via the drone’s camera, at which point the craft completes the rest of the flight autonomously.

The company has sold over 15,000 units of its automated targeting software to drone manufacturers, with over 10,000 of those already delivered.

Although in raw terms that is a large number, it is still a tiny proportion of the 4 million drones Ukraine says it is now capable of producing annually.

Mr. Vovchuk said strikes could not always be visually confirmed due to the heavy presence of electronic warfare systems around high-value targets.

“From what we have seen, three tanks were definitely destroyed with our systems, as well as a lot [of strikes] on logistics targets,” he said, adding that it had also been used to hit field headquarters.

“Those things which are defended by electronic warfare ... this system has enabled strikes on targets which previously it was not cost-effective to hit.”

The Joss Whedon script for Serenity, where Wash lives, is Serenity-190pages.pdf at https://www.mediafire.com/two

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Monday, November 4, 2024 7:15 AM

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Putin never got over Russia’s defeat in the Cold War, and his ambition is to make Russia a true superpower once again. That means that the reconquest of former Soviet republics like Belarus, Georgia, and Ukraine is just the first part of his long-term plan. Putin also wants to regain control over the Baltic states of Lithuania, Latvia, and Estonia, which were once part of the Soviet Union, and ultimately, he wants to expand Moscow’s sphere of influence over the old Warsaw Pact satellite countries in Eastern Europe: Poland, Hungary, Bulgaria, Romania, Albania, the Czech Republic, and Slovakia. If he stays in power long enough, he may even go for the grand prize: retaking that portion of Germany that was once East Germany. All of that may sound far-fetched, but it has only been 35 years since the Berlin Wall fell, a time when Putin was a young KGB officer stationed in East Germany and was forced to watch the Soviet empire dissolve around him.

https://theintercept.com/2024/11/02/trump-russia-putin-election/

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Monday, November 4, 2024 8:04 AM

I believe in solving problems, not sharing them.

Quote:
Originally posted by second:
Moldova is on the western border of Ukraine.

Incumbent Moldova President Maia Sandu has claimed victory in the Moldovan presidential runoff election held on November 3, 2024.[1] Preliminary results reported by the Moldovan Central Election Commission (CEC) show that Maia Sandu has won around 55 percent of the vote, defeating Kremlin-friendly presidential candidate Alexandr Stoianoglo.[2]

Moldovan authorities reported extensive Russian interference and sabotage efforts during the runoff presidential elections held on November 3, 2024, in a likely effort to favor pro-Kremlin Stoianoglo. Sandu’s National Security Advisor Stanislav Secrieru warned on November 3 of significant Russian interference in the runoff election, noting the organization of voter transport in Transnistria (which is illegal under Moldovan law); the organization of buses and charter flights from Russia to polling stations in Azerbaijan, Turkey, and Belarus; the distribution of vouchers to Moldovan voters in Moscow; and cyberattacks against the Moldova CEC's voter education site.[4]

https://www.understandingwar.org/backgrounder/russian-offensive-campai
gn-assessment-november-3-2024

The Joss Whedon script for Serenity, where Wash lives, is Serenity-190pages.pdf at https://www.mediafire.com/two

I guess the way this was supposed to work is that the vote would apply to Transnistrians,but that Transnistrians weren't allowed to vote.

-----------
"It may be dangerous to be America's enemy, but to be America's friend is fatal." - Henry Kissinger

AMERICANS SUPPORT AMERICA

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Monday, November 4, 2024 9:24 AM

The Joss Whedon script for Serenity, where Wash lives, is Serenity-190pages.pdf at https://www.mediafire.com/two

Quote:
Originally posted by SIGNYM:

I guess the way this was supposed to work is that the vote would apply to Transnistrians but that Transnistrians weren't allowed to vote.

You are mistaken:

At a polling station for residents of the breakaway Moldovan region of Transnistria - which is economically, politically and militarily supported by Russia - the BBC stumbled upon evidence of vote-buying.

A BBC producer heard a woman who had just dropped her ballot in the transparent box ask an election monitor where she would get paid.

Outside, we asked directly whether she had been offered cash to vote and she admitted it without qualms. She was angry that a man who had sent her to the polling station was no longer answering her calls. “He tricked me!” she said.

She would not reply when asked who she had voted for.

https://www.bbc.com/news/articles/c1wnr5qdxe7o

The Joss Whedon script for Serenity, where Wash lives, is Serenity-190pages.pdf at https://www.mediafire.com/two

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Monday, November 4, 2024 4:44 PM

I believe in solving problems, not sharing them.

Voting from Transnistria was difficult, as no polling stations were opened there.
People had to cross from Transnistria into Moldova proper in order to vote.

https://gov.md/en/content/addresses-polling-stations-destined-voters-t
ransnistrian-region

In addition, altho the Moldovan govt allowed diaspora voting from western foreign nations without restriction, (where the majority of the Moldovan diaspora resides https://www.atlanticcouncil.org/blogs/new-atlanticist/moldovas-diaspor
a-flexes-its-political-muscles/) it made voting in Russia difficult, with only two polling stations, both in Moscow. Since both polling stations clocked exactly 4999 ballots each, it looks as if the number of ballots was deliberately limited.

https://www.msn.com/en-us/news/world/moldovan-diaspora-in-moscow-shows
-tremendous-activity-in-election-in-moldova/ar-AA1ttBur

So overall it appears that the Moldovan government was doing its level best to suppress the anti-Sandu vote.

Inside Moldova itself, Sandu's opponent, Stoianoglo, won handily.

-----------
"It may be dangerous to be America's enemy, but to be America's friend is fatal." - Henry Kissinger

AMERICANS SUPPORT AMERICA

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Monday, November 4, 2024 4:54 PM

I believe in solving problems, not sharing them.

I guess there are no more stories about Ukraine "winning"?

Tass supposedly ran a story about those North Koreans. They are not involved in fighting, which they shouldn't be, seeing as integrating them into ongoing battles woild be ridiculously counterproductive.

They are there as "observers" as part of "training".

Which tells me they're tripwires. Especially since, as non- combatants, any attack on them would explode the situation. This also tells me that Moscow is/ was anticipating a possible long range missile attack by NATO, and is attempting to forestall it.

-----------
"It may be dangerous to be America's enemy, but to be America's friend is fatal." - Henry Kissinger

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Tuesday, November 5, 2024 6:17 AM

The Joss Whedon script for Serenity, where Wash lives, is Serenity-190pages.pdf at https://www.mediafire.com/two

Russian drone and missile strikes against Ukrainian energy infrastructure in Summer 2024 reportedly significantly impacted Ukrainian electrical generation capacity compared to March 2024.

Ukrainian energy experts told Politico in an article published on November 4 that Ukrainian power generation capacity decreased by over nine gigawatts between March 2024 and Summer 2024 after Russian forces launched more than 200 missiles and drones at Ukraine’s power production facilities in late August 2024. Experts estimated that Ukrainian power production facilities generated 37.6 gigawatts of electricity in early 2022, likely referring to the period prior to the start of the Russian drone and missile campaign targeting Ukrainian energy infrastructure in October 2022; 18.3 gigawatts in April 2023; 21.4 gigawatts in March 2024; and 12.1 gigawatts in Summer 2024.
https://www.politico.eu/article/ukraine-shortage-energy-russia-missile
-attack-nuclear-infrastructure-research/

A Ukrainian energy expert told Politico that Ukraine needs additional air defense systems to protect its energy infrastructure. Artur Lorkowski, Director of The Energy Community (an international organization that manages Ukraine’s energy procurement), also stated that repairing damaged Ukrainian energy infrastructure may require a significant amount of time because it can take up to one year for specialized equipment to be manufactured and installed.

https://www.understandingwar.org/backgrounder/russian-offensive-campai
gn-assessment-november-4-2024

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Tuesday, November 5, 2024 12:19 PM

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Linus Torvalds kicked the Russians out of Linux, now they're creating a sovereign Linux community in Russia — Ministry of Digital Development steps in

Linus Torvalds was very forthright in his explanation for the dismissal of the dozen or so Russian kernel driver maintainers last month. In brief, the creator and lead developer of the Linux kernel stated that the dismissals were simply made in line with the policy of sanctions on the Russian aggressors in the Ukraine war.

Moreover, Torvalds didn’t pull any punches when he said “lots of Russian trolls” were working to make the recent decision look unpopular. Torvalds directly accused Russia of wielding its army of social media bots in an attempt to fake a grassroots campaign and reverse the Russian maintainer cull.

https://www.tomshardware.com/software/linux/linus-torvalds-kicked-the-
russians-out-of-linux-now-theyre-creating-a-sovereign-linux-community-in-russia-ministry-of-digital-development-steps-in

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Tuesday, November 5, 2024 12:48 PM

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Joe Biden’s big blunder: how the war in Ukraine became a global disaster

Sat 26 Oct 2024 12.00 EDT

In Warsaw, Biden was candid, almost boastful: back in January 2022, US intelligence knew that the invasion was imminent. He said he had repeatedly warned Putin it would be a big mistake. Yet, given his passionate belief that Ukraine’s fight for democracy and freedom has vital universal significance, surely what Biden should have done is told Russia’s dictator bluntly: “Forget it. Don’t invade. Or else you will find yourself fighting a better-armed, more powerful Nato.”

It’s called deterrence. It’s what Nato is for. Containment was never enough. Putin might still not have listened. But coward that he is, he probably would have – and saved everyone a world of pain.

https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2024/oct/26/ukraine-russia-w
ar-nato-biden-putin

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Wednesday, November 6, 2024 5:31 AM

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Radio Free Europe/Radio Liberty's (RFE/RL) Sistema project released an investigation on November 4 detailing Russia's initial 2022 demands for Ukraine's total capitulation, further supporting ISW's long-standing assessment that Russia has never been willing to engage in good-faith negotiations with Ukraine on any terms but its own.[10]
https://www.radiosvoboda.org/a/rfe-rl-rosija-ukrajina-dohovir-myr-kapi
tulyatsiya/33185063.html
https://www-radiosvoboda-org.translate.goog/a/rfe-rl-rosija-ukrajina-d
ohovir-myr-kapitulyatsiya/33185063.html?_x_tr_sl=auto&_x_tr_tl=en&_x_tr_hl=en&_x_tr_pto=wapp

RFE/RL reported on November 4 that it obtained a draft of the treaty that Russia offered to Ukraine on March 7, 2022, entitled "Treaty on the Settlement of the Situation in Ukraine and the Neutrality of Ukraine." The draft document includes seven provisions, all of which amount to Ukraine's complete surrender and disarmament and the abandonment of its sovereignty, lands, and people. The document calls for Ukraine to reduce its army from nearly 197,000 personnel to 50,000 personnel, which RFE/RL notes would have meant that the Ukrainian army would be smaller than the Belarusian army, despite the fact that the Belarusian population in 2022 was one-fifth of the Ukrainian population. The document also states that Ukraine would not be able to develop, produce, buy, or deploy missile systems with a range of more than 250 kilometers; that Ukraine would have to recognize occupied Donetsk and Luhansk oblasts as independent Donetsk and Luhansk People's Republics (DNR and LNR) and cede parts of Donetsk and Luhansk oblasts that Ukraine still controlled in March 2022; that Ukraine would have to commit to the financial costs of rebuilding parts of the Donbas that Russia had destroyed following its initial 2014 invasion; that Ukraine and the international community would lift all sanctions and cancel all lawsuits that had been levied against Russian since 2014; that Ukraine would grant the Russian language the status of a "state language" and restore all property rights of the Kremlin-controlled Ukrainian Orthodox Church Moscow Patriarchate; and that Ukraine would re-legalize Soviet and communist symbols.[11] In essence, Moscow was asking Ukraine to willingly give up its military, its offensive and defensive capabilities, its land, a significant portion of its population and economic capacity, and cease protecting its language, history, and culture.

The Kremlin has been incessant in its claims that it set out to negotiate in March 2022 (after illegally invading Ukraine) but that it was Ukraine and the collective West that destroyed the prospect of negotiations.[12] The RFE/RL investigation supports ISW's long-standing assessment that this was never the case, however, and that Russia never intended to negotiate in good faith with Ukraine.[13] Russia presented outrageous demands calling for Ukraine to surrender its security and sovereignty, knowing that Ukraine would (rightly) refuse to do so, and then blamed Ukraine for the supposed "failure" of negotiations. ISW continues to assess that Russia has constructed a narrative around the concept of negotiations that it is using in an effort to encourage the West to make concessions on Ukrainian sovereignty and territorial integrity, and the RFE/RL investigation emphasizes that Russia's "diplomatic" engagements with Ukraine and the West since the full-scale invasion have always been oriented around this destructive objective.[14]

https://www.understandingwar.org/backgrounder/russian-offensive-campai
gn-assessment-november-4-2024

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Wednesday, November 6, 2024 5:32 AM

Fuck Ukraine.

That's just about over with now. We'll retire this thread very soon.

--------------------------------------------------

Trump will be fine.
He will also be your next President.

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Thursday, November 7, 2024 3:58 AM

I believe in solving problems, not sharing them.

The Ukraine army may collapse before January.

Russia isn't going to slow down bc Trump won. They aren't going to negotiate with Zelenskiy, or any of the European nations, or the EU. They definitely won't negotiate with Biden*, and they may not negotiate with Trump. But I'll bet they'll be willing to accept terms of surrender.

Unlike SECONDS history rewrite, it was the West (Ukraine, Germany, France, and the USA) that broke multiple treaties with Russia, not the other way around

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Thursday, November 7, 2024 7:38 AM

The Joss Whedon script for Serenity, where Wash lives, is Serenity-190pages.pdf at https://www.mediafire.com/two

Coppins: And the other thing that I think we’ve seen is that a big purpose of propaganda and disinformation is not even just to convince people that a certain thing is true but to almost exhaust their ability to tell the difference between what’s true and what’s not, and make them cynical and fatigued and disinclined to even try.

I remember in 2020, I spent a lot of time covering disinformation in the campaign. And that was the thing that I would encounter when I talked to Trump voters. It wasn’t so much that they believed everything he said. Some would even acknowledge that he would lie or exaggerate. But they would throw their hands up and say: Yeah, they all lie, right? Who even knows what’s true? And that, I think, is the thing that we need to guard against over these next few years.

Applebaum: That is the essence of Putinist propaganda. It’s not so much that you’re expected to believe everything he says about whatever, the greatness of Russia or the horror of Western civilization. But you’re expected to become so confused by the multitude and number of lies that you’ve been told that you throw your hands up in the air, and you go home, and you say, I don’t know anything. I can’t be involved in this. I don’t want anything to do with politics. I’m just going to live my life.

And that turns out to be a really, really successful form of propaganda, probably more successful than the old-fashioned Soviet thing of telling everybody that everything is great, which you can disprove pretty easily.

https://www.theatlantic.com/podcasts/archive/2024/11/are-we-living-in-
a-different-america/680565/

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Thursday, November 7, 2024 1:41 PM

I believe in solving problems, not sharing them.

Quote:
Coppins: And the other thing that I think we’ve seen is that a big purpose of propaganda and disinformation is not even just to convince people that a certain thing is true but to almost exhaust their ability to tell the difference between what’s true and what’s not, and make them cynical and fatigued and disinclined to even try.

And you're working on that every day, aren't you honey?
All of your lies about Russia, they're just being proven wrong, aren't they?

-----------
"It may be dangerous to be America's enemy, but to be America's friend is fatal." - Henry Kissinger

AMERICANS SUPPORT AMERICA

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Friday, November 8, 2024 6:21 AM

The Joss Whedon script for Serenity, where Wash lives, is Serenity-190pages.pdf at https://www.mediafire.com/two

Trump has vowed to end the war in Russia before his inauguration in January. The Wall Street Journal obtained the details of Trump’s plan — and they incentive the Russians to attack as hard as they can as fast as they can in Kursk.

That’s because Trump’s proposal is for Ukraine and Russia to agree to an armistice along the current front line. And the current front line threads through southern and eastern Ukraine before looping into Kursk, where a Ukrainian force invaded back in August.

If Trump’s plan actually was accepted by Putin, Russia would effectively surrender 270 square miles of Russian soil in exchange for the roughly 20 percent of Ukraine — that’s 45,000 square miles — it occupies.

Russian Pres. Vladimir Putin might blanche at this seemingly favorable exchange: he previously demanded his forces eject Ukrainian troops from Kursk by Oct. 1 — a deadline the Russians missed.

https://www.wsj.com/world/trump-presidency-ukraine-russia-war-plans-00
8655c0

https://www.forbes.com/sites/davidaxe/2024/11/07/russian-and-north-kor
ean-troops-storm-kursk-apparently-aiming-to-take-advantage-of-trumps-armistice-plan/

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Friday, November 8, 2024 6:27 AM

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Russian President Vladimir Putin congratulated Donald Trump on his election victory, calling him a "courageous man" who was "hounded from all sides" and saying he was ready to talk to the president-elect about Ukraine.

They were Putin's first public remarks on Trump since he won Tuesday's presidential vote. Russia's leader made them late Thursday during an event where he spoke for several hours in the Black Sea resort of Sochi.

Trump has repeatedly spoken favorably of Putin and a recent book by the journalist Bob Woodward asserted that Trump may have had as many as seven private phone calls with Putin since leaving the White House.

https://www.usatoday.com/story/news/world/2024/11/08/putin-trump-elect
ion-victory/76125177007/

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Saturday, November 9, 2024 6:14 AM

The Joss Whedon script for Serenity, where Wash lives, is Serenity-190pages.pdf at https://www.mediafire.com/two

During his November 7 address, Putin doubled down on an existing information operation falsely claiming that Ukraine violated its neutral status in an attempt to justify Russia's illegal and unprovoked invasion of Ukraine. Putin, answering a question about which borders of Ukraine Russia recognizes, claimed that Russia always recognized Ukraine's borders as defined in the 1991 Ukrainian Declaration of Independence as long as Ukraine agreed to remain neutral, but said that Russia did not agree when Ukraine announced its intent to join NATO.[10] Putin did not mention, however, that Ukraine's parliament did not vote to abandon Ukraine's neutral status until December 2014 – months after Russia's illegal invasion and annexation of Crimea in February and March 2014 respectively.[11] Russia also committed to respecting the independence, sovereignty, and existing borders of Ukraine, including Crimea and Donbas, in the 1994 Budapest Memorandum in exchange for the return and decommissioning of Soviet-era nuclear weapons in Ukraine.[12] Putin also attempted to use Article I of the UN Charter on the right to self-determination to justify Russia's invasions of Crimea in 2014 and broader invasion in 2022, claiming that these occupied areas voted to join Russia.[13] Russia notably conducted sham annexation referendums in Crimea in 2014 and Donetsk, Luhansk, Zaporizhia, and Kherson oblasts in 2022 under conditions of occupation and intense militarization, using the referendums to create a veneer of legality and local support for Russia's occupation.[14]

https://www.understandingwar.org/backgrounder/russian-offensive-campai
gn-assessment-november-8-2024

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Saturday, November 9, 2024 3:15 PM

I'm happy for the people of Ukraine. This war is just about over now.

--------------------------------------------------

Trump is fine.
He is also your current President.

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Sunday, November 10, 2024 7:20 AM

The Joss Whedon script for Serenity, where Wash lives, is Serenity-190pages.pdf at https://www.mediafire.com/two

Quote:
Originally posted by 6ixStringJack:
I'm happy for the people of Ukraine. This war is just about over now.

--------------------------------------------------

Trump is fine.
He is also your current President.

6ix, Trump has not been inaugurated, so he is actually nobody's President.

6ix, too bad that you are not good with numbers, but Russian forces seized and recaptured a total of 1,517 square kilometers--an area less than a third the size of Delaware--throughout Ukraine and Kursk Oblast over the last two months. Only 500,000 more square kilometers to go.

Russian milbloggers continue to complain about disproportionately high personnel losses, and wider discontent about losses within the Russian ultranationalist milblogger community may also influence Putin's calculus in the future. A former Russian Storm-Z instructor and milblogger complained on November 8 that it takes at least six months to train assault personnel but that the Russian military command is treating assault personnel as "meat" who do not require a high level of training and whose primary task is to "catch drones [and] shrapnel."[11] The milblogger claimed that Russian infantry losses are high due to the ongoing Russian tactic of sending small assault groups in multiple, successive waves in an attempt to overwhelm Ukrainian forces, which the milblogger labeled as "stupid" and "improperly organized." The milblogger concluded that Russian advances "do not seem proportionate to the irretrievably spent resources – human and material."

https://www.understandingwar.org/backgrounder/russian-offensive-campai
gn-assessment-november-9-2024

The Joss Whedon script for Serenity, where Wash lives, is Serenity-190pages.pdf at https://www.mediafire.com/two

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Monday, November 11, 2024 6:47 AM

The Joss Whedon script for Serenity, where Wash lives, is Serenity-190pages.pdf at https://www.mediafire.com/two

Ukrainian officials continue to report Russian executions of Ukrainian prisoners of war (POWs). The Ukrainian Prosecutor General's Office reported on November 9 that it was investigating a video showing Russian forces executing a captured and unarmed Ukrainian servicemember in violation of the Geneva Convention on POWs.[5] Ukrainian Ombudsman Dmytro Lubinets stated that he sent a letter to the United Nations (UN) and the International Committee of the Red Cross (ICRC) concerning the reported war crime.[6] ISW has extensively reported on previous footage and reports of Russian servicemembers executing Ukrainian POWs and observed a wider trend of Russian abuses against Ukrainian POWs across various sectors of the front that appeared to be enabled, if not explicitly endorsed, by individual Russian commanders and unpunished by Russian field commanders.[7]

https://www.understandingwar.org/backgrounder/russian-offensive-campai
gn-assessment-november-10-2024

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Tuesday, November 12, 2024 5:25 AM

The Joss Whedon script for Serenity, where Wash lives, is Serenity-190pages.pdf at https://www.mediafire.com/two

Map Shows Putin's Top Target as Russia 'Amassing 50K Troops' in Kursk

Nov 11, 2024 at 8:58 AM EST

Ukraine's forces in Russia's Kursk oblast face an imminent offensive by Moscow involving a force of tens of thousands, it has been reported, as a map shows the state of play on the front line three months on from Kyiv's incursion.

While initially tardy in its response, Russia is gathering 50,000 soldiers ahead of a major push, North Korean troops among them, The New York Times reported on Sunday, citing unnamed U.S. and Ukrainian officials.

https://www.newsweek.com/ukraine-russia-north-korea-kursk-map-1983733

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Tuesday, November 12, 2024 5:40 AM

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Wars Are Not Won by Military Genius or Decisive Battles

We place the battle on a high pedestal, but attrition has a far greater impact on the war.

https://aeon.co/ideas/wars-are-not-won-by-military-genius-or-decisive-
battles

War is the most complex, physically and morally demanding enterprise we undertake. No great art or music, no cathedral or temple or mosque, no intercontinental transport net or particle collider or space programme, no research for a cure for a mass-killing disease receives a fraction of the resources and effort we devote to making war. Or to recovery from war and preparations for future wars invested over years, even decades, of tentative peace. War is thus far more than a strung-together tale of key battles. Yet, traditional military history presented battles as fulcrum moments where empires rose or fell in a day, and most people still think that wars are won that way, in an hour or an afternoon of blood and bone. Or perhaps two or three. We must understand the deeper game, not look only to the scoring. That is hard to do because battles are so seductive.

Losers of most major wars in modern history lost because they overestimated operational dexterity and failed to overcome the enemy’s strategic depth and capacity for endurance. Winners absorbed defeat after defeat yet kept fighting, overcoming initial surprise, terrible setbacks and the dash and daring of command ‘genius’. Celebration of genius generals encourages the delusion that modern wars will be short and won quickly, when they are most often long wars of attrition. Most people believe attrition is immoral. Yet it’s how most major wars are won, aggressors defeated, the world remade time and again. We might better accept attrition at the start, explain that to those we send to fight, and only choose to fight the wars worth that awful price. Instead, we grow restless with attrition and complain that it’s tragic and wasteful, even though it was how the Union Army defeated slavery in America, and Allied and Soviet armies defeated Nazism.

More at https://aeon.co/ideas/wars-are-not-won-by-military-genius-or-decisive-
battles

Free download of Cathal J Nolan’s books, including The Allure of Battle: A History of How Wars Have Been Won and Lost from the mirrors at https://libgen.is//search.php?&req=Cathal+J+Nolan

The Joss Whedon script for Serenity, where Wash lives, is Serenity-190pages.pdf at https://www.mediafire.com/two

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Tuesday, November 12, 2024 9:13 AM

The Joss Whedon script for Serenity, where Wash lives, is Serenity-190pages.pdf at https://www.mediafire.com/two

Taiwan May Have Rearmed Ukraine’s Air Defense Force

There are more indications Taipei sent Kyiv a huge consignment of HAWK systems.

By David Axe | Nov 12, 2024, 12:48am EST

https://www.forbes.com/sites/davidaxe/2024/11/12/taiwan-may-have-rearm
ed-ukraines-air-defense-force/

Without much fanfare, Taiwan may have become one of the Ukraine air force’s biggest boosters. According to former Pentagon official Tony Hu, Taiwan has donated its surplus HAWK surface-to-air missile batteries to the Ukrainian air force.

Hu’s comments to YouTube channel RJ War Room seem to confirm reporting from 2023 hinting at a U.S.-brokered air-defense deal between Taiwan and Ukraine. The Taiwanese MIM-23 Homing All-the-Way Killer missiles, plus their launchers and radars, would complement additional HAWKs donated to Ukraine by the United States and Spain.

In all, Ukraine could deploy as many as 15 of the Raytheon-made HAWK batteries, each with at least six three-missile launchers and associated radars. The Ukrainian air force went to war in February 2022 with around 50 SAM batteries—S-300s and other ex-Soviet models, mostly—and has since swapped out many of the surviving Soviet batteries for more modern Western systems, including American-made Patriots.

Assuming the overall Ukrainian air-defense force structure has remained roughly the same size after subtracting combat losses and adding donated equipment, the HAWKs could comprise nearly a third of the force. Taiwan isn’t a vocal supporter of Ukraine’s war effort, but it is a significant one.

The HAWK is more than 60 years old. But it’s simple, reliable, highly-mobile on its towed launchers, easy to upgrade and works just fine against slower drones, cruise missiles and manned aircraft. As a bonus, the 17-foot HAWK missile is compatible with another, more modern air-defense system that Ukraine uses: the U.S.-Norwegian National Advanced Surface-to-Air Missile System, or NASAMS.

As early as the summer of 2023, U.S. officials were reportedly negotiating with their counterparts in Taiwan to buy back from Taipei the dozen or so HAWK batteries—with around a hundred launchers in all—that Taiwanese forces began retiring back in 2015 and replacing with locally-designed systems and imported NASAMS.

At the time, a big consignment of HAWKs promised to help Kyiv resolve a looming crisis: the imminent depletion of missile stocks for ex-Soviet S-300 and Buk SAM batteries. Since then, Ukraine has diversified its air-defense network by integrating a wide array of foreign missiles, launchers and radars.

That diversification is key. The more different SAM systems Ukraine operates, the more different missile stockpiles and production lines it can tap to arm those systems with replacement missiles as they fire away at nearly daily Russian missile and drone raids. Dozens of countries operate or operated HAWK batteries. Ukraine should be able to source hundreds of missiles, with or without direct U.S. involvement.

The HAWK isn’t in the same class as Ukraine’s best SAM, the Patriot, which ranges as far as 100 miles with an onboard radar seeker. A HAWK missile ranges just 30 or so miles, homing in on energy from a ground-based radar reflecting from the airborne target.

The main downside to the HAWK system is that its radar is susceptible to jamming. It might help Ukraine if integrated the old missiles and launchers with the superior radar associated with the newer NASAMS.

The Joss Whedon script for Serenity, where Wash lives, is Serenity-190pages.pdf at https://www.mediafire.com/two

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Tuesday, November 12, 2024 9:16 AM

I believe in solving problems, not sharing them.

Quote:
War is the most complex, physically and morally demanding enterprise we undertake. No great art or music, no cathedral or temple or mosque, no intercontinental transport net or particle collider or space programme, no research for a cure for a mass-killing disease receives a fraction of the resources and effort we devote to making war.

Who is this "we", kimosabe? Don't paint the entire world with our brush. Our drive to make war on the entire planet, if our warmongering oligarchs decide to, drives everyone else to spend $ on war when they would really just like to develop their economies.

Chop our world-straddling military down to size, restrict its mandate to defending our shores, and you'll eliminate 90% of current global conflict.

Just saying.

-----------
"It may be dangerous to be America's enemy, but to be America's friend is fatal." - Henry Kissinger

AMERICANS SUPPORT AMERICA

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Tuesday, November 12, 2024 12:12 PM

The Joss Whedon script for Serenity, where Wash lives, is Serenity-190pages.pdf at https://www.mediafire.com/two

Quote:
Originally posted by SIGNYM:
Quote:
War is the most complex, physically and morally demanding enterprise we undertake. No great art or music, no cathedral or temple or mosque, no intercontinental transport net or particle collider or space programme, no research for a cure for a mass-killing disease receives a fraction of the resources and effort we devote to making war.

Who is this "we", kimosabe? Don't paint the entire world with our brush. Our drive to make war on the entire planet, if our warmongering oligarchs decide to, drives everyone else to spend $ on war when they would really just like to develop their economies.

Chop our world-straddling military down to size, restrict its mandate to defending our shores, and you'll eliminate 90% of current global conflict.

Just saying.

The author you are quoting, whose book you will never bother to download, despite it being free, wrote this about Putin's 3-day war that is now almost 3 years long:

Quote:
We walk the knife edge always between misunderstood lessons of wars past and new mistakes waiting to be made by the next generation, which will not remember real war and might think it would like to try it. That, too, has happened before.

Has the phenomenon of the allure of battle ended in our own time? There are a legion of examples that say no. Among the more salient, Saddam Hussein rushed Iraq to war with Iran in September 1980, intending to take advantage of the chaotic Iranian Revolution to seize limited territorial goals but in fact commencing a large-scale conflict that lasted almost eight years, to August 1988. His invasion of neighboring Kuwait just two years later on August 2, 1990, led to international intervention and enforcement of no-fly zones and routine bombings by several foreign air forces that lasted to 1998. In 2001, NATO intervened in Afghanistan to overthrow the Taliban. It did, yet is still fighting there. In 2003, the United States led a truncated coalition in an invasion of Iraq expected to defeat the eroded and second-rate Iraqi Army quickly and decisively. It did, but a long war against regime elements and Islamist radicals was not formally declared over until 2011, when in fact it still was not. A widening and worsening civil war between Shi’a and Sunni continued for years after that. Thirteen years on, there is no end in sight as this is written. Related conflict shattered Syria and spilled across the greater Middle East into the Arabian peninsula and North Africa. And elsewhere? In September 2015, Indian Army Chief General Dalbir Singh Suhag declared that his forces were fully prepared for the “swift, short nature of future wars.” Pakistan Army Chief General Raheel Sharif boasted back: “Our armed forces stand fully capable to defeat all sorts of external aggression … short or long.”2 So the illusion abides. So the next war looms.

Free download of Cathal J Nolan’s books, including The Allure of Battle: A History of How Wars Have Been Won and Lost from the mirrors at https://libgen.is//search.php?&req=Cathal+J+Nolan

The Joss Whedon script for Serenity, where Wash lives, is Serenity-190pages.pdf at https://www.mediafire.com/two

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Tuesday, November 12, 2024 4:51 PM

I believe in solving problems, not sharing them.

Quote:
Among the more salient, Saddam Hussein rushed Iraq to war with Iran in September 1980, intending to take advantage of the chaotic Iranian Revolution to seize limited territorial goals but in fact commencing a large-scale conflict that lasted almost eight years, to August 1988.

Promoted and funded by the USA. We hoped to have Iraq and Iran weaken each other.

Quote:
His invasion of neighboring Kuwait just two years later

Prompted by slant drilling under Iraqs border. Approved by USA Ambassador to Iraq

Quote:
August 2, 1990, led to international intervention and enforcement of no-fly zones and routine bombings by several foreign air forces that lasted to 1998.

You think this wasn't a trap?

Quote:
In 2001, NATO intervened in Afghanistan to overthrow the Taliban.

USA behind that "GWOT" that we spread across the mideast and north Africa?.

Quote:
In 2003, the United States led a truncated coalition in an invasion of Iraq expected to defeat the eroded and second-rate Iraqi Army quickly and decisively. It did, but a long war against regime elements and Islamist radicals was not formally declared over until 2011, when in fact it still was not.

A widening and worsening civil war between Shi’a and Sunni continued for years after that.

Thanks to having destroyed Iraq.

Quote:
Thirteen years on, there is no end in sight as this is written. Related conflict shattered Syria and spilled across the greater Middle East into the Arabian peninsula and North Africa.

Seriously? This all "just happened"? Saudis and Qataris weren't competitively funding and arming extremists? The USA wasnt training and weaponizing jihadists in Syria, Chechnya, and Libya?

Quote:
And elsewhere? In September 2015, Indian Army Chief General Dalbir Singh Suhag declared that his forces were fully prepared for the “swift, short nature of future wars.” Pakistan Army Chief General Raheel Sharif boasted back: “Our armed forces stand fully capable to defeat all sorts of external aggression … short or long.”2 So the illusion abides. So the next war looms.

Don't forget Israels perpetual genocide and land grabbing, and the war in Ukraine (provoked by the USA).

Like I said, eliminate the USA'S role and the vast majority of conflict goes away.

Not all, but a lot.

There are still India- Pakistan and India -China border disputes to settle.

-----------
"It may be dangerous to be America's enemy, but to be America's friend is fatal." - Henry Kissinger

AMERICANS SUPPORT AMERICA

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Tuesday, November 12, 2024 5:38 PM

Trump reminds Putin that Daddy's home.

https://fortune.com/2024/11/10/trump-vladimir-putin-call-ukraine-war-u
s-military-europe-election/

I'm going to get a great laugh out of Trump fixing Democrat created problems in record time.

--------------------------------------------------

Trump is fine.
He is also your current President.

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Tuesday, November 12, 2024 6:11 PM

I believe in solving problems, not sharing them.

Quote:
Trump reportedly warns Putin against escalating war in Ukraine and reminds him of U.S. military presence in Europe

US President-elect Donald Trump has spoken to Russian President Vladimir Putin and urged him not to escalate the war in Ukraine, the Washington Post reported Sunday.

Meanwhile

Quote:
Kremlin says reports that Trump and Putin spoke in recent days are 'pure fiction'

Im telling ya, SIX, Russia has every reason to delay negotiations until they can present the west with a fait accompli.

-----------
"It may be dangerous to be America's enemy, but to be America's friend is fatal." - Henry Kissinger

AMERICANS SUPPORT AMERICA

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Wednesday, November 13, 2024 6:28 AM

The Joss Whedon script for Serenity, where Wash lives, is Serenity-190pages.pdf at https://www.mediafire.com/two

Helping Ukraine Is Europe’s Job Now

Trump is closer to Putin than to any of the continent’s democratic leaders.

By Phillips Payson O’Brien | November 11, 2024, 6 AM ET
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Phillips_O%27Brien

https://www.theatlantic.com/international/archive/2024/11/trump-ukrain
e-survive-europe/680615/

Europeans should pay Donald Trump the compliment of believing what he does and says, not what they desperately want to hear. He has clearly indicated that he wants the United States out of the Ukraine war as soon as possible. Both the president-elect and his most important supporter, Elon Musk, have reportedly been in frequent contact with Russian President Vladimir Putin. Vice President–elect J. D. Vance has outlined a “peace” deal with Ukraine that would serve Russian interests. American aid to Ukraine, which has been vital to the beleaguered country’s ability to resist Russia’s ongoing invasion, could stop not long after Trump is inaugurated. European nations must accept this reality and make their own plans — not just to support Ukraine in its existential fight but also to protect their own security as America’s global role shrinks.

Perhaps the best that Ukraine and its supporters can hope for is that Trump doesn’t walk away from NATO and allows European states to purchase U.S. weapons for Ukraine. This minimal position might represent a victory of sorts for Europeans who believe in democracy and the transatlantic alliance — but it would still signal a historical break. The United States will likely stop leading the global opposition to Russian aggression, and perhaps stop caring about the results of the largest war in Europe since 1945. Indeed, the president of the United States will be closer personally to the head of Europe’s largest dictatorship than to any of the continent’s democratically elected leaders.

Those leaders should have started preparing for another Trump presidency long ago. They had been warned. But for the past year many Europeans have been surviving on hope. Surely the American people won’t vote for Trump, particularly after the January 6 insurrection. The prudent assumption now is that the U.S. will no longer guarantee Europe’s security from Russia and other threats. Leaders should envisage a world where NATO no longer exists — or where the United States is no longer the leading force in the alliance.

In some ways, this is more scary psychologically than in practice. Europe — which is to say, the democratic countries enmeshed in institutions such as NATO and the European Union — has the economic and technological resources to underwrite a serious defense effort. It has a large and educated enough population to staff modern armed forces. It also has some strong and growing military capabilities. For instance, European states either have received or will receive in the coming years as many as 600 F-35 fighters — the most advanced and capable aircraft in the world. Such a force could dominate the skies against a clearly inferior Russian opponent.

Yet Europe also has many weaknesses. It has developed a shockingly large number of military-hardware systems but then only builds a small number of each. This boutique way of addressing military capability has been exacerbated by a weakness in investing in logistics and a limited ability to produce supplies and equipment quickly and reliably enough to sustain a war effort.

Russia’s full-scale invasion of Ukraine in early 2022 prompted a lot of dramatic talk. The continent had supposedly reached a turning point — a Zeitenwende, in the phrase of German Chancellor Olaf Scholz. But Europe has frittered away much of the past two and a half years, making the smallest and most incremental of changes even as a grotesque war raged to the east; even as Russian forces regularly attacked civilian targets; even as military technology, particularly relating to drone systems, raced forward. European defense spending has only crept up. Even now, a number of NATO states fail to meet the alliance’s agreed-upon target of spending at least 2 percent of their GDP on defense. The United States, even after a significant decline in defense spending after the War on Terror, spends 3.5 percent. Two percent — a standard set in 2014, when European states felt far more secure than they currently do — won’t cut it now.

Scaling up defense systems quickly will be difficult, but it is essential. In the meantime, the highest priority from the European perspective should be to keep Ukraine supplied and in the fight in case Trump pulls the plug on American military support for Kyiv. Europe can provide more ammunition and more ground-based air-defense equipment. It can give Ukraine long-range weapons, such as German-made Taurus cruise missiles.

Just as important, European democracies can work with Ukraine to upgrade and expand its drone capacity — and in doing so help establish that industry elsewhere in Europe. Europe and even the United States have much to learn from Ukraine about unmanned aerial vehicles. The innovation cycle in Ukraine is quick; major advances take mere months or even just weeks. In this dynamic environment, where homegrown Ukrainian technology looms so large, few Western systems are of much use if sent whole. What Ukraine needs is the ability to mass-produce the drone technology that its engineers develop, working with European partners. That will require specialized components and equipment — and Europe can help with that.

If the United States abandons Ukraine, European states can start taking steps that the Biden administration, in its excess of caution, did not allow. The four most powerful states in Europe today — the U.K., France, Germany, and Poland — could give Ukraine their blessing to attack any Russian military targets. After all, Russia is using its weapons — and those provided by its allies, such as Iran, to attack targets in Ukraine; the American refusal to let Ukraine use Western systems against military infrastructure in Russia itself makes no sense.

European countries could go still further, by openly deploying their forces at least to western Ukraine. They could take over air-defense responsibilities — shooting down Russian missiles and drones without directly killing Russian soldiers. European forces could also openly assist in training Ukrainian forces in Ukraine and assist with air defense and training. Moves like these will reassure the Ukrainian people that they are not alone if the U.S. withdraws — and that their future is in Europe.

To be sure, the continent suffers from a collective-action problem. French President Emmanuel Macron asked this week, “The question we, as Europeans, must ask ourselves, is: Are we ready to defend the interests of Europeans?” Detractors might ask why he was raising the issue only now. In Germany, Scholz’s government appears on the verge of collapse. Even if it survives, it likely lacks the boldness to move decisively to help Ukraine.

And yet the greatest obstacle is a mental one. After decades of expecting the United States to act wisely and forcefully in defense of the broader democratic world, Europe needs to start thinking and acting on its own and in its own interests. Trump’s return means that things previously inconceivable must be faced. And in Ukraine, a new Europe can be born.

The Joss Whedon script for Serenity, where Wash lives, is Serenity-190pages.pdf at https://www.mediafire.com/two

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Thursday, November 14, 2024 6:11 AM

The Joss Whedon script for Serenity, where Wash lives, is Serenity-190pages.pdf at https://www.mediafire.com/two

South Korean and US intelligence separately confirmed that North Korean troops have deployed into combat alongside Russian forces in Kursk Oblast. South Korea's National Intelligence Service (NIS) confirmed on November 13 that it "assesses that the North Korean troops deployed to Russia" are already participating in combat after having completed their training and gradual battlefield deployment over the past two weeks.[18] US State Department Spokesperson Vedant Patel stated during a briefing on November 12 that over 10,000 North Korean troops deployed to eastern Russia, most of whom have now moved to western Kursk Oblast "where they have begun engaging in combat operations with Russian forces."[19] ISW assessed on November 5 that North Korean troops had entered combat in Kursk Oblast, citing reports by Ukrainian intelligence and Ukrainian Defense Minister Rustem Umerov.[20]

https://www.understandingwar.org/backgrounder/russian-offensive-campai
gn-assessment-november-13-2024

The Joss Whedon script for Serenity, where Wash lives, is Serenity-190pages.pdf at https://www.mediafire.com/two

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Thursday, November 14, 2024 7:25 AM

The Joss Whedon script for Serenity, where Wash lives, is Serenity-190pages.pdf at https://www.mediafire.com/two

Acting On Bad Intel, ‘Rigid’ Russian Forces Keep Attacking Along The Same Roads In Kursk—And Rolling Into The Same Ukrainian Kill Zones

‘Every day they attack,’ one Ukrainian drone operator reported.

By David Axe | Nov 14, 2024, 01:00am EST

https://www.forbes.com/sites/davidaxe/2024/11/13/acting-on-bad-intel-r
igid-russian-forces-keep-attacking-along-the-same-roads-in-kursk-and-rolling-into-the-same-ukrainian-kill-zones/

A week into their counteroffensive aimed at eliminating Ukraine’s 250-square-mile salient in western Russia’s Kursk Oblast, Russian forces have suffered staggering casualties—and have very little to show for it so far.

They’ve retaken the village of Pogrebki, on the northern edge of the salient. But that’s little consolation to the hundreds of Russians who have died in failed assaults elsewhere along the salient’s northern and western sides.

The Russians’ problem is twofold. First, there are only so many roads into the salient from the north and west—and the Russians keep attacking along them, day after day despite previous defeats. Second, it’s not clear Russian commanders are giving their troops accurate intelligence on the disposition of Ukrainian forces in the salient.

All that is to say, the Russian attacks are both predictable—and blind. It’s a recipe for massive losses. Kreigsforscher, a Ukrainian drone operator supporting the defense of Kursk, has tallied 88 destroyed Russian vehicles on three main roads threading through and around the settlement of Zelenyi Shylakh, in the no-man’s-land on the salient’s northwestern flank.

Eleven of those vehicles—divided between the 51st Airborne Regiment, 83rd Air Assault Brigade and 155th Naval Infantry Brigade—were knocked out on Wednesday. Without a doubt, more are coming. “Every day they attack with [armored fighting vehicles],” Kriegsforscher reported. “Mostly four to six per attack.”

The Ukrainian 17th Heavy Mechanized Brigade, 41st and 47th Mechanized Brigades and 95th Air Assault Brigade, among other units, have met the Russians with mines, artillery, missiles, drones and tanks. The fighting on Saturday was so close and chaotic that a pair of Ukrainian tanks rolled right past a clutch of four Russian vehicles without the tank crews even noticing.

The tankers finally spotted the Russian vehicles as they disgorged 15 paratroopers. That’s when the tanks opened fire, destroying one of the vehicles.

It’s possible the Russian crews were acting on bad intelligence. Consider the Russian 810th Naval Infantry Brigade’s attack around Pogrebki on Nov. 7. Graphic drone footage depicted several of the brigade’s BTR-82 vehicles getting blown up at short range by dug-in Ukrainian troops.

“What you see in the footage is the result of yet another lie from the local command to the general staff,” Russian blogger Romanov explained. Marine commanders assured their superiors that Rusisan forces were fully in control of the road through Pogrebki. “Logically, after receiving this information, the general staff issued an order to storm the settlement,” Romanov wrote.

But the Russians weren’t in control of the road. There were still Ukrainian mines on the ground—and no one in the 810th Naval Infantry Brigade bothered to clear them before the BTRs barreled in, according to Romanov.

The problem is systemic in this brigade, if not in adjacent units. “In general, deliberate disinformation [to] the general staff by the command of the 810th Brigade has become a routine practice,” Romanov warned.

Feeding bad information up their chain of command and then relaying bad orders back down, Russian commanders in Kursk are setting their troops up for bloody tactical failures. That doesn’t mean the Russians will lose in Kursk. It does mean they’ll probably suffer catastrophic casualties, regardless of the ultimate outcome of the battle.

Sheer numbers are the Russians’ main advantage. There are an estimated 50,000 Russian and allied troops in the area—and only 20,000 or 30,000 Ukrainian troops. The Kremlin will probably need those extra people. It has made the elimination of the Kursk salient a top priority, and is clearly willing to expend thousands of lives in the process.

The clock is ticking. Anticipating that the administration of U.S. President-elect Donald Trump will cut Ukraine off from vital U.S. aid, potentially compelling the Ukrainians to acquiesce to an armistice that freezes the front line in place, the Russians are trying to advance as far as possible as fast as possible before Trump’s January inauguration. “This locks them into an unnecessarily rigid political position,” wrote Emil Kastehelmi, an analyst with the Black Bird Group.

The Ukrainians in Kursk know the Russians are coming. And they know how, where and usually when the Russians are coming. All the Ukrainians have to do is lay their mines, dial in their artillery, launch their drones, position their missile launchers … and wait for the inevitable attacks.

Sources:

1. Kriegsforscher

2. Moklasen

3. Romanov

4. Emil Kastehelmi

https://x.com/OSINTua/status/1856722697738178662
https://x.com/moklasen/status/1855627362655736093
https://x.com/wartranslated/status/1855893059700944947
https://x.com/emilkastehelmi/status/1856795815433351345

The Joss Whedon script for Serenity, where Wash lives, is Serenity-190pages.pdf at https://www.mediafire.com/two

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Thursday, November 14, 2024 7:29 AM

Quote:
Originally posted by SIGNYM:
Quote:
Trump reportedly warns Putin against escalating war in Ukraine and reminds him of U.S. military presence in Europe

US President-elect Donald Trump has spoken to Russian President Vladimir Putin and urged him not to escalate the war in Ukraine, the Washington Post reported Sunday.

Meanwhile

Quote:
Kremlin says reports that Trump and Putin spoke in recent days are 'pure fiction'

Im telling ya, SIX, Russia has every reason to delay negotiations until they can present the west with a fait accompli.

I have to admit, Sigs, I had to look up fait accompli since it's the first time I've ever been presented with it.

That being said, I'm still not catching what you're throwing here.

Care to explain it to me without the Latin?

--------------------------------------------------

Trump is fine.
He is also your current President.

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Friday, November 15, 2024 5:47 AM

The Joss Whedon script for Serenity, where Wash lives, is Serenity-190pages.pdf at https://www.mediafire.com/two

Quote:
Originally posted by 6ixStringJack:

Care to explain it to me without the Latin?

Too many Russians are getting shot so Putin decided to reduce how much he pays when a Russian is shot:

Putin originally introduced the policy offering all wounded Russian servicemen three million rubles ($30,124) to incentivize military recruitment after he had decided against declaring general mobilization in Spring 2022.[5] Financial incentives became the key pillar of the Russian military's recruitment campaign and personnel retention efforts over the past nearly three years, and the reversal of such incentives indicates that the system is becoming economically unsustainable for the Kremlin. ISW notably assessed in Summer 2022 that the Kremlin's reliance on high financial incentives for force generation was committing Russia to short- and long-term financial responsibilities to thousands of Russians, such as paying veterans pensions, compensations to families of deceased servicemen, and other state benefits.[6]

Putin signed a decree on November 13 that restricted the one-time payments of three million rubles only to servicemen who sustained serious injuries in combat, only offering one million rubles ($10,152) to lightly wounded servicemen, and 100,000 rubles ($1,015) to servicemen who sustained minor injuries on the battlefield.[2] Putin's decree generated significant backlash from the Russian ultranationalist milblogger community, and Putin attempted to placate this community on November 14 by increasing the one-time payments to four million rubles ($40,136), but still only for Russian servicemen who sustain severe battlefield injuries that result in a disability.[3] A Russian milblogger noted that Putin's authorization to increase compensation for disabled servicemen does not alter the fact that the Kremlin is reneging on promises to thousands of Russian servicemen who joined the Russian military solely due to large financial incentives.[4] The milblogger added that Russian military medical commissions are also becoming increasingly — and often deliberately unfairly — selective in diagnosing Russian servicemen with severe injuries.

https://www.understandingwar.org/backgrounder/russian-offensive-campai
gn-assessment-november-14-2024

The Six Million Ruble Man
"Help. I don't know what to do. My husband, Aleksandr Nikolaevich Putintsev, is being refused discharge from military unit 72164, despite his severe injuries. After one of the assaults, his leg was torn off, he was given a prosthesis and sent to the front again. In the next assault, he lost his other leg. And you know what? He was given a prosthesis again to send him back into battle. If this continues, there will be nothing left of my husband."

https://imgur.com/gallery/russia-is-weird-place-with-weird-people-570X
Tat

The Joss Whedon script for Serenity, where Wash lives, is Serenity-190pages.pdf at https://www.mediafire.com/two

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Friday, November 15, 2024 8:22 AM

I believe in solving problems, not sharing them.

Quote:
Originally posted by SIGNYM:
Quote:
Trump reportedly warns Putin against escalating war in Ukraine and reminds him of U.S. military presence in Europe

US President-elect Donald Trump has spoken to Russian President Vladimir Putin and urged him not to escalate the war in Ukraine, the Washington Post reported Sunday.

Meanwhile

Quote:
Kremlin says reports that Trump and Putin spoke in recent days are 'pure fiction'

Im telling ya, SIX, Russia has every reason to delay negotiations until they can present the west with a fait accompli.

SIX: I have to admit, Sigs, I had to look up fait accompli since it's the first time I've ever been presented with it.

That being said, I'm still not catching what you're throwing here.

Care to explain it to me without the Latin?

--------------------------------------------------

Trump is fine.
He is also your current President.

I think Russia intends to accomplish its goals (demilitarize, de-Nazify, and neutralize Ukraine) militarily, not thru negotiation with either the current regime in Kiev, the EU or any combination of EU states, or Trump. Why should Russia negotiate? It's winning on the battlefield, and Kiev, the EU, and USA (incluing Trump) have broken every agreement, contract, or treaty we (collectively) ever made with them.

So I think Russia will say it is willing to negotiate. Maybe even start talks. But it will drag out talks, meanwhile continue destroying Ukraine's military until Kiev is beaten and bleeding on the ground.

My analysis is that Trump wants to split Russia from China by applying "maximum pressure" to China (tariffs, sanctions) while offering concessions (territory, sanctions relief) to Russia on Ukraine. This might work for the USA, which weasels out of every agreement ever signed, but Russia keeps its commitments. Putin just reaffirmed Russian alliance with China a couple of days ago.
BTW Putin also reaffirmed Rusdia's commitment to Iran.

-----------
"It may be dangerous to be America's enemy, but to be America's friend is fatal." - Henry Kissinger

AMERICANS SUPPORT AMERICA

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Saturday, November 16, 2024 6:49 AM

The Joss Whedon script for Serenity, where Wash lives, is Serenity-190pages.pdf at https://www.mediafire.com/two

US Deputy Pentagon Press Secretary Sabrina Singh stated during a press briefing on November 14 that the US remains committed to disbursing around $7.1 billion in Presidential Drawdown Authority (PDA) assistance to Ukraine before President-elect Donald Trump's inauguration in January 2025. Singh noted that the Pentagon plans to send military assistance packages to Ukraine "almost weekly" until the inauguration.

https://www.defense.gov/News/Transcripts/Transcript/Article/3965597/de
puty-pentagon-press-secretary-sabrina-singh-holds-a-press-briefing/

The Joss Whedon script for Serenity, where Wash lives, is Serenity-190pages.pdf at https://www.mediafire.com/two

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