Russia Invades Ukraine. Again by captaincrunch

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

Europe Eyes Unprecedented €700 Billion Military Aid Plan for Ukraine

In 3 years European sent $140.16 billion versus U.S. sending $110 billion to Ukraine

By Vlad Litnarovych | Feb 18, 2025

https://united24media.com/latest-news/europe-eyes-unprecedented-eur700
-billion-military-aid-plan-for-ukraine-5981

The European Union is reportedly working on a multi-billion-euro defense package to support Ukraine’s war effort, with German Foreign Minister Annalena Baerbock hinting at the sheer scale of the upcoming package, suggesting it could be worth around $732.2 billion (€700 billion), German media Berliner Zeitung reported on February 18.

However, EU leaders recognize the sensitivity of the plan. According to Bloomberg, the spending initiative will only be announced after Germany’s regional elections on February 23 to avoid controversy before the vote.

Select European heads of state met in Paris on Monday to coordinate their response after U.S. officials urged Europe to take concrete action.

“We will launch a large package, the likes of which we have never seen before,” Baerbock told Bloomberg during the Munich Security Conference.

“Just as we had a financial package for the euro crisis or COVID-19, we now need one for European security. This will happen soon.”

Speaking on Bloomberg Television, Lithuanian Defense Minister Dovile Sakaliene stressed that Europe must prepare for a dramatic shift in its security landscape:

“Realization that it’s not the U.S. which will defend Europe, but Europe defending ourselves with help from the U.S. means we will all have to move fast, Germany included,” he said.

Baerbock added that peace can only be achieved through strength, stating that “this requires hard and long-term security guarantees for Ukraine, a strong NATO, and progress in Ukraine’s EU accession talks.”

“As Europeans and as Germans, we stand firmly with Ukraine — militarily, humanitarianly, and financially. Since Russia’s full-scale invasion, we, Europeans, have provided over $140.16 billion (€134 billion) in aid to Ukraine, with Germany contributing nearly $46 billion (€44 billion) alone.”

Baerbock further stressed that Europe’s unity is its greatest strength, stating:

“Despite our differences, we move forward together — from Paris to Munich. As Europeans, we must take greater responsibility for our own security. Given the existential threat we face, a major collective effort is required to safeguard our peace and prosperity.”

Polish Prime Minister Donald Tusk and European Commission President Ursula von der Leyen also made it clear that Europe’s response to Trump’s stance will be increased military spending.

“If we, Europeans, fail to spend big on defense now, we will be forced to spend 10 times more if we don’t prevent a wider war. As the Polish PM, I’m entitled to say it loud and clear, since Poland already spends almost 5% of its GDP on defense. And we will continue to do so,” Tusk wrote on X.

Arriving in Paris, von der Leyen echoed this urgency, writing that “we need an emergency mindset” and “we must reinforce defense now.”

German Chancellor Olaf Scholz voiced support for an EU emergency mechanism that would allow massive increases in defense spending — a proposal pushed by von der Leyen at the Munich Security Conference last week.

Under this plan, EU nations would be exempt from debt and deficit limits when financing military expenditures. This marks a fundamental shift in EU financial policy, as such exemptions have previously been impossible under EU rules.

The new multi-billion-euro defense package could be financed through joint EU debt, similar to the COVID-19 recovery fund.

Earlier, NATO Secretary General Mark Rutte declared that Europe is ready to take the lead in providing security guarantees for Ukraine following an “emergency summit” in Paris.

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Thursday, February 20, 2025 8:21 AM

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Defiant Ukrainian Drone Operators Followed Fiber Optic Cables To Track A Russian Drone Team Back To Its Base

By David Axe | Feb 19, 2025, 07:46pm EST

https://www.forbes.com/sites/davidaxe/2025/02/19/spotting-fiber-optic-
cables-reflecting-sunlight-defiant-ukrainian-drone-operators-tracked-a-russian-drone-team-back-to-its-base/

The drone operators from the Ukrainian national guard’s Kara Dag Brigade may not have realized they were committing a profound act of political defiance when, on or just Tuesday, they hunted down a Russian drone team on the snowy battlefield just south of Vodyane in eastern Ukraine’s southern Donetsk Oblast.

The same day, U.S. and Russian negotiators met in Riyadh to discuss closer ties between Russia and the United States and possible paths toward ending the war in Ukraine — on terms favoring Russia, the aggressor. Russia would keep the roughly 20 percent of Ukraine it occupies.

Notably, Ukraine was not invited to send its own diplomats to the talks.

And as the United States veered away from longstanding alliances with European democracies and toward a brutal authoritarian regime, U.S. Pres. Donald Trump tried to shift blame for Russia’s three-year wider war on Ukraine onto Ukraine. “You should have never started it,” Trump said from his Florida estate, addressing Ukrainian leaders who did not start the war.

“You could have made a deal,” Trump added, apparently unaware that Ukraine did make a deal with Russia — the 2014 Minsk Accord — and that Russia used the deal as cover to rearm for further attacks on Ukraine.

But there’s very little the United States can do to compel Ukraine to stop fighting against its Russian invaders and their North Korean allies. And Ukrainian Pres. Volodymyr Zelensky knows it. “If we didn’t accept this ultimatum at the most difficult time, why there is a feeling that Ukraine will accept it now?” he said.

Contrary to Trump’s claim, the United States is not Ukraine’s biggest supporter. With European pledges of $130 billion versus U.S. pledges of $110 billion, “Europe as a whole has clearly overtaken the U.S. in terms of Ukraine aid,” the Kiel Institute in Germany noted.

As Trump led his party, his administration and the country he governs into Russia’s authoritarian embrace on Tuesday, Zelensky immediately pivoted — meeting or calling Turkish Pres. Recep Tayyip Erdogan and French Pres. Emmanuel Macron to firm up European support for a continuing Ukrainian war effort.

Meanwhile, a German official has hinted at a possible $730 billion European aid deal that, if enacted in the coming months, could radically transform Ukraine’s military and sustain Ukrainian resistance for years.
https://united24media.com/latest-news/europe-eyes-unprecedented-eur700
-billion-military-aid-plan-for-ukraine-5981

All that is to say, Ukraine can keep fighting regardless of what Trump says. And that Ukrainian drone patrol near Vodyane on Tuesday demonstrated this enduring capacity for resistance.

The Kara Dag Brigade operators were hunting for Russian drone teams. In particular, teams deploying fiber-optic drones that send and receive signals via millimeters-thick wires rather than via radio — a method of control that helps the operators circumvent intensive Ukrainian radio jamming.

Ukraine has fewer troops and less artillery than Russia, but it has more and better drones, many of which are made in Ukraine and paid for with Ukrainian and European funds.

Preserving that drone advantage — and thus preserving Ukraine’s main means of resistance — requires the Ukrainians blunt any effort by the Russians to boost their own robotic capabilities. Spotting the reflection of fiber-optic cables, the Kara Dag Brigade operators showed the way forward for the Ukrainian Unmanned Systems Forces and its legion of drones.

They followed the sunlight-reflecting fibers back to the Russian team’s hidden base in a clutch of snow-covered buildings — and struck the hapless Russian operators with explosive first-person-view drones.

It was a tactical victory with a strategic message. America may choose to bow to Russia, but Ukraine doesn’t have to.

Sources:

1. Kara Dag Brigade via WarTranslated

2. The New York Times

3. Kiel Institute https://www.ifw-kiel.de/publications/news/ukraine-support-after-3-year
s-of-war-aid-flows-remain-low-but-steady-shift-towards-weapons-procurement/

4. Volodymyr Zelensky

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Thursday, February 20, 2025 8:22 AM

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Meat in the Grinder

Russian milbloggers continue to raise alarm about the Russian military command's poor treatment of wounded personnel. A Russian milblogger published an address reportedly from a battalion commander in the 5th Motorized Rifle Brigade (51st Combined Arms Army [CAA], formerly 1st Donetsk People's Republic [DNR AC], Southern Military District [SMD]) to wounded personnel who requested to be pulled from combat, in which the battalion commander reprimanded the injured soldiers for using their injury payments and complaining about their injuries.[82] Another Russian milblogger and former Storm-Z instructor, who frequently complains about systemic issues in the Russian military, criticized the battalion commander for his reprimands.[83] The milblogger accused the battalion commander of failing to manage his forces and criticized the commander's belief that being able to shoot a gun is sufficient recovery from an injury.

https://www.understandingwar.org/backgrounder/russian-offensive-campai
gn-assessment-february-19-2025

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Thursday, February 20, 2025 8:24 AM

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'I think NATO is over': Retired general declares death of key U.S. alliance

By Sarah K. Burris | February 19, 2025 5:07PM ET

https://www.rawstory.com/trump-nato-2671184645/

For 76 years, NATO has prevented war, but not anymore, so long as Trump is President.

"Unfortunately, my own view is the damage is done," he said of Trump's failures in foreign policy. "It's now irrevocable. There's not a shred of rational argument among European powers to trust the United States' commitment to NATO and Article Five."

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Thursday, February 20, 2025 8:54 AM

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Zelenskyy commits cardinal sin: he tells the truth about Trump

All America’s allies know that Trump is trapped in a disinformation bubble, but Zelenskyy said it out loud

https://www.theguardian.com/world/2025/feb/19/kyivs-white-house-wooing
-implodes-as-zelenskyy-tells-the-truth-about-trump

Trump, he observed, is “trapped in this disinformation bubble”. He was stating the obvious, but not even Zelenskyy could have known how fetid the air inside Trump’s bubble has become. Now we know.

Trump’s tirade on his own app, Truth Social, is a distillation of the greatest hits of Russian disinformation from the past three years. He said Zelenskyy was “A Dictator without Elections” (something Trump has never said about Putin) who had hoodwinked the Biden administration into a $350bn war of choice, which only “TRUMP” could fix. The president’s repeated references to himself in the third person and all caps erased any lingering doubts about the single unifying compulsion now driving Trump foreign policy.

The child who guilelessly points out the emperor has no clothes is the hero of the folk tale, but the emperor in Hans Christian Andersen’s story did not have a vast nuclear arsenal and the world’s mightiest army. Telling the truth is cathartic, but getting into a personal spat with Trump amid the dizzying euphoria of his restoration to the Oval Office risks serious damage to your country.

That begs the question: what will work with Trump now? He admires autocrats and is eager to please them, but that is not really an option for the world’s remaining democracies. The hope in western European capitals, based on patchy evidence from the first Trump term, is that if they can make discreet common cause with the calmer heads around Trump he can be gently steered away from his more extreme whims.

In that regard, they have some faith in Marco Rubio and Trump’s special envoy, Steve Witkoff. They may be able to talk the president out of his stated plan to own and ethnically cleanse Gaza, if only because it would be so disastrous for the US. But from the evidence of Trump’s rants, the poison about Ukraine has seeped deeper into the president’s nervous system.

Zelenskyy’s best option might be to persevere with the offer of an American share in Ukraine’s rare earths. Trump’s first offer was to take half of the spoils with no security guarantees in return. But the absurd opening offer is likely to be just part of his “art of the deal” brinkmanship. Further negotiations may distract him, like a dog with a bone, from his profound pro-Putin impulses.

It is a long shot. It is also an act of faith to believe this Trump episode in American history will eventually pass. But we are not even one month into his chaotic second term. For a country like Ukraine, facing an existential threat, it is going to be a very long four years.

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Thursday, February 20, 2025 9:55 AM

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Ukraine’s capitulation means entire West fall - Polish Prime Minister

February 20, 2025, 07:12 AM

https://english.nv.ua/nation/tusk-ukraine-s-fate-will-decide-the-futur
e-of-the-west-50491669.html

A forced capitulation of Ukraine will amount to the collapse of the entire Western community, Polish Prime Minister Donald Tusk wrote on X on Feb. 19.

His statement comes amid US-Russia negotiations in Riyadh and controversial remarks by Donald Trump, who echoed Russian propaganda claims and downplayed Ukraine’s role in the talks.

"A forced capitulation of Ukraine would mean a capitulation of the whole community of the West," he wrote.

Tusk emphasized that this outcome will have global consequences.

"And let no one pretend that they don’t see this," he added.

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Thursday, February 20, 2025 10:13 PM

THG

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Thursday, February 20, 2025 10:18 PM

Quote:
Originally posted by second:
Ukraine’s capitulation means entire West fall - Polish Prime Minister

February 20, 2025, 07:12 AM

https://english.nv.ua/nation/tusk-ukraine-s-fate-will-decide-the-futur
e-of-the-west-50491669.html

A forced capitulation of Ukraine will amount to the collapse of the entire Western community, Polish Prime Minister Donald Tusk wrote on X on Feb. 19.

His statement comes amid US-Russia negotiations in Riyadh and controversial remarks by Donald Trump, who echoed Russian propaganda claims and downplayed Ukraine’s role in the talks.

"A forced capitulation of Ukraine would mean a capitulation of the whole community of the West," he wrote.

Tusk emphasized that this outcome will have global consequences.

"And let no one pretend that they don’t see this," he added.

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

I feel bad for Poland. They're one of the only few European countries that are keeping all the Democrats and Muslims and other gutter trash out of their country.

They celebrate the fact that whites are a minority in London now.

Europe was already invaded a long time ago.

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

"I don't find this stuff amusing anymore." ~Paul Simon

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Friday, February 21, 2025 5:31 AM

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Quote:
Originally posted by 6ixStringJack:

I feel bad for Poland. They're one of the only few European countries that are keeping all the Democrats and Muslims and other gutter trash out of their country.

They celebrate the fact that whites are a minority in London now.

Europe was already invaded a long time ago.

I believe your racism is showing.

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Friday, February 21, 2025 5:31 AM

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Revealed: Trump’s confidential plan to put Ukraine in a stranglehold

By Ambrose Evans-Pritchard | Mon, February 17, 2025 at 10:00 AM CST

https://www.yahoo.com/news/revealed-trump-confidential-plan-put-160000
461.html

Donald Trump’s demand for a $500bn (£400bn) “payback” from Ukraine goes far beyond US control over the country’s critical minerals. It covers everything from ports and infrastructure to oil and gas, and the larger resource base of the country.

The terms of the contract that landed at Volodymyr Zelensky’s office a week ago amount to the US economic colonisation of Ukraine, in legal perpetuity. It implies a burden of reparations that cannot possibly be achieved. The document has caused consternation and panic in Kyiv.

The Telegraph has obtained a draft of the pre-decisional contract, marked “Privileged & Confidential’ and dated Feb 7 2025. It states that the US and Ukraine should form a joint investment fund to ensure that “hostile parties to the conflict do not benefit from the reconstruction of Ukraine”.

The agreement covers the “economic value associated with resources of Ukraine”, including “mineral resources, oil and gas resources, ports, other infrastructure (as agreed)”, leaving it unclear what else might be encompassed. “This agreement shall be governed by New York law, without regard to conflict of laws principles,” it states.

The US will take 50pc of recurring revenues received by Ukraine from extraction of resources, and 50pc of the financial value of “all new licences issued to third parties” for the future monetisation of resources. There will be “a lien on such revenues” in favour of the US. “That clause means ‘pay us first, and then feed your children’,” said one source close to the negotiations.

It states that “for all future licences, the US will have a right of first refusal for the purchase of exportable minerals”. Washington will have sovereign immunity and acquire near total control over most of Ukraine’s commodity and resource economy. The fund “shall have the exclusive right to establish the method, selection criteria, terms, and conditions” of all future licences and projects. And so forth, in this vein. It seems to have been written by private lawyers, not the US departments of state or commerce.

President Zelensky himself proposed the idea of giving the US a direct stake in Ukraine’s rare earth elements and critical minerals on a visit to Trump Tower in September, hoping to smooth the way for continued arms deliveries.

He calculated that it would lead to US companies setting operations on the ground, creating a political tripwire that would deter Vladimir Putin from attacking again.

Some mineral basins are near the front line in eastern Ukraine, or in Russian-occupied areas. He has played up the dangers of letting strategic reserves of titanium, tungsten, uranium, graphite and rare earths fall into Russian hands. “If we are talking about a deal, then let’s do a deal, we are only for it,” he said.

He probably did not expect to be confronted with terms normally imposed on aggressor states defeated in war. They are worse than the financial penalties imposed on Germany and Japan after their defeat in 1945. Both countries were ultimately net recipients of funds from the victorious allies.

A new Versailles

If this draft were accepted, Trump’s demands would amount to a higher share of Ukrainian GDP than reparations imposed on Germany at the Versailles Treaty, later whittled down at the London Conference in 1921, and by the Dawes Plan in 1924. At the same time, he seems willing to let Russia off the hook entirely.

Donald Trump told Fox News that Ukraine had “essentially agreed” to hand over $500bn. “They have tremendously valuable land in terms of rare earths, in terms of oil and gas, in terms of other things,” he said.

He warned that Ukraine would be handed to Putin on a plate if it rejected the terms. “They may make a deal. They may not make a deal. They may be Russian someday, or they may not be Russian someday. But I want this money back,” he said.

Trump said the US had spent $300bn on the war so far, adding that it would be “stupid” to hand over any more. In fact the five packages agreed by Congress total $175bn, of which $70bn was spent in the US on weapons production. Some of it is in the form of humanitarian grants, but much of it is lend-lease money that must be repaid.

Republican Senator Lindsey Graham suggested at the Munich Security Conference over the weekend that Trump’s demand was a clever ploy to bolster declining popular support for the Ukrainian cause. “He can go to the American people and say, ‘Ukraine is not a burden, it is a benefit,’” he said.

Sen Graham told the Europeans to root hard for the idea because it locks Washington into defending a future settlement. “If we sign this minerals agreement, Putin is screwed, because Trump will defend the deal,” he said.

Ukrainian officials had to tiptoe though this minefield at the Munich forum, trying to smile gamely and talking up hopes of a resource deal while at the same pleading that the current text breaches Ukrainian law and needs redrafting. Well, indeed.

Talk of Ukraine’s resource wealth has become surreal. A figure of $26 trillion is being cast around for combined mineral reserves and hydrocarbons reserves. The sums are make-believe.

Ukraine probably has the largest lithium basin in Europe. But lithium prices have crashed by 88pc since the bubble burst in 2022. Large reserves are being discovered all over the world. The McDermitt Caldera in Nevada is thought to be the biggest lithium deposit on the planet with 40m metric tonnes, alone enough to catapult the US ahead of China.

The Thacker Pass project will be operational by next year. The value of lithium is in the processing and the downstream industries. Unprocessed rock deposits sitting in Ukraine are all but useless to the US.

It is a similar story for rare earths. They are not rare. Mining companies in the US abandoned the business in the 1990s because profit margins were then too low. The US government was asleep at the wheel and let this happen, waking up to discover that China has acquired a strategic stranglehold over supplies of critical elements needed for hi-tech and advanced weapons. That problem is being resolved.

Ukraine has cobalt but most EV batteries now use lithium ferrous phosphate and no longer need cobalt. Furthermore, sodium-ion and sulphur-based batteries will limit the future demand growth for lithium. So will recycling. One could go on. The mineral scarcity story is wildly exaggerated.

As for Ukraine’s shale gas, a) some of the Yuzivska field lies under Putin control, and b) the western Carpathian reserves are in complex geology with high drilling costs, causing Chevron to pull out, just as it did in Poland. Ukraine has more potential as an exporter of electricity to Europe from renewables and nuclear expansion, but that is not what is on Donald Trump’s mind.

The second violation of Ukraine

Ukraine cannot possibly meet his $500bn demand in any meaningful timeframe, leaving aside the larger matter of whether it is honourable to treat a victim nation in this fashion after it has held the battle line for the liberal democracies at enormous sacrifice for three years. Who really has a debt to whom, may one ask?

“My style of dealmaking is quite simple and straightforward,” says Trump in his book The Art of the Deal. “I aim very high, and then I just keep pushing and pushing and pushing to get what I’m after.”

In genuine commerce the other side can usually walk away. Trump’s demand is iron-fist coercion by a neo-imperial power against a weaker nation with its back to the wall, and all for a commodity bonanza that exists chiefly in Trump’s head.

“Often-times the best deal you make is the deal you don’t make,” said Trump, offering another of his pearls.

Zelensky does not have that luxury. He has to pick between the military violation of Ukraine by Putin, and the economic violation of Ukraine by his own ally.

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Friday, February 21, 2025 5:34 AM

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Russia is reportedly increasing its production of glide bombs and modernizing its cruise missiles. The Royal United Services Institute (RUSI) reported on February 14 that the Russian Ministry of Defense (MoD) plans for Russia to produce more than 750 9M723 Iskander ballistic missiles and more than 560 Kh-101 cruise missiles in 2025.[68] RUSI stated that Russia is adding a wider variety of warheads, including cluster warheads, to Kh-101 missiles and have upgraded the camera and processing units such that the missiles can perform much better visual terrain tracking and avoid disruption from Ukrainian electronic warfare (EW) during the missile's terminal phase. RUSI reported that the Russian MoD ordered over 70,000 glide bombs for 2025 — up from 40,000 produced glide bombs in 2024.

https://www.understandingwar.org/backgrounder/russian-offensive-campai
gn-assessment-february-20-2025

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Saturday, February 22, 2025 9:39 AM

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Ukraine Is Daring Russia To Open Fire On Swarms Of New Trembita Drones. Many Of The Drones Will Be Decoys.

The 100-mile-range Trembita costs just a few thousand dollars.

By David Axe | Feb 21, 2025, 04:14pm EST

https://www.forbes.com/sites/davidaxe/2025/02/21/ukraine-is-daring-rus
sia-to-open-fire-on-swarms-of-new-trembita-drones-many-of-the-drones-will-be-decoys/

Ukraine’s Trembita attack drone isn’t much to look at. Seven feet long with a brute-simple layout—engine on top, rocket booster in the back—it’s effectively a smaller version of Nazi Germany’s World War II V-1 buzz bomb, albeit with modern GPS guidance.

But Trembita and other locally made drones are, alongside front-line manpower, the key to Ukraine’s survival and potential victory as the United States under President Donald Trump turns from close ally to, at best, Russia-friendly irritant. At worst, the Trump administration risks actively siding with autocratic Russia in the latter’s three-year wider war on democratic Ukraine.

With support from its European allies, Ukraine can fight on without U.S. help—especially now that Ukrainian industry is building many of the Ukrainian military’s most important weapons. Wisely, Ukrainian firm Pars focused on keeping the 100-mile-range, 250-mile-per-hour Trembita cheap: reportedly just a few thousand dollars apiece.

“We use simple technologies, such as aluminum cutting and bending, actually repeating the design of World War II aircraft,” Pars CEO Akim Klemenov told Militarnyi at a recent technology conference in Kyiv. “This allows us to significantly reduce the cost of the product.”

“The missile is built around a pulsating jet engine, which consists of stainless steel and no moving parts,” Klemenov added. “It is cheap and simple. Yes, it has some disadvantages”—middling range and accuracy—“but its advantages are worth it.”

The ramp-launched Trembita is still in testing after around 18 months of development, but once it’s finally ready for action, the idea would be for Kyiv to buy the type by the thousands using its own funds, European funds and whatever is left over from the money the previous U.S. administration sent to Ukraine.

Some Trembitas would carry warheads. Others would be decoys with extra fuel and range. Launched dozens at a time by mobile teams, the decoy Trembitas would distract and exhaust Russian air defenses, allowing the explosive Trembitas to slip through and strike their targets.

“We want them to see and shoot at these missiles,” one of the drone’s developers told Euromaidan Press. “That benefits Ukraine.”

The Trembita isn’t Ukraine’s farthest-flying drone—that honorific apparently belongs to the country’s modified Aeroprakt A-22 sport plane bomber with its approximately 1,000-mile reach. But the modern buzz bomb might represent the best balance of range, destructive potential and cost. All Russian troops, supply lines, air bases and air defense batteries within 100 miles of the front line would be at risk of massive, repeated Trembita raids.

“Mass” is a watchword of Ukrainian drone development as Kyiv becomes the world’s leading robotic power. Ukrainian developers are working on control methods that, carefully leveraging A.I., allow small teams to operate large swarms of drones.

In that way, Ukraine can make most efficient use of its rarest and most precious resource—people—while scaling up use of its most abundant and increasingly affordable resource: drones. “We already have about 10 companies working on this,” Mykhailo Fedorov, the head of Ukraine’s Ministry of Digital Transformation, said at the Kyiv confab.

Drones are already Ukraine’s best weapons. “Since 2024, the vast majority of front-line losses are inflicted by drones, which are produced domestically using locally manufactured or imported components, often from countries like China,” explained Tatarigami, founder of the Ukrainian Frontelligence Insight analysis group.

And they’re becoming more important by the day as Ukraine fights increasingly alone, but with increasing efficiency.

Sources:
1. Army T.V. via WarTranslated

2. Militarnyi

3. Euromaidan Press

4. Tatarigami

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Saturday, February 22, 2025 9:43 AM

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Ukrainian officials continue to highlight the growth of Ukraine's defense industrial base (DIB) through significant expansion in the domestic production of key military equipment. Ukrainian Prime Minister Denys Shmyhal announced on February 21 that Ukrainian forces have tripled domestic artillery production, increased armored personnel carrier production fivefold, and doubled the output of anti-tank weapons.[24] Shmyhal noted that Ukraine's ammunition production has grown 2.5 times and drone manufacturing has surged tenfold between January 2024 and January 2025. Shmyhal stated that Ukraine currently produces about one-third of its weapons domestically and is actively working to increase this share and that Ukraine is allocating an additional 7.9 billion hryvnia (about $189 million) to boost drone production in 2025.

Ukrainian Digital Transformation Minister Mykhailo Fedorov also stated on February 21 that 19 Ukrainian companies joined the Ukrainian defense innovation platform Brave1 to support the production of short and medium-range missiles as well as ballistic missiles.[25] Fedorov added that the Brave1 platform will also create a separate grant program to support the development and production of explosives and gunpowder for Ukrainian forces.[26]

Ukrainian Defense Minister Rustem Umerov announced on February 20 the launch of the new State Rear Operator (DOT)-Chain System model of efficiently delivering drones to Ukrainian forces on the frontline.[27] The DOT-Chain System expedites drone delivery through forecasting orders and better informs Ukrainian DIB companies of upcoming drone requirements. ISW assesses that such enhancement of Ukraine's DIB – in part through continued Western support – is part of a continued plan to create a sustainable basis for Ukraine to be able to defend itself over the long term with dramatically reduced foreign military assistance.[28]

https://www.understandingwar.org/backgrounder/russian-offensive-campai
gn-assessment-february-21-2025

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

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Saturday, February 22, 2025 1:57 PM

Reality Is Winning the Ukraine Narrative War

https://www.compactmag.com/article/reality-is-winning-the-ukraine-narr
ative-war/

Tick Tock

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

"I don't find this stuff amusing anymore." ~Paul Simon

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Saturday, February 22, 2025 8:52 PM

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

Quote:
Originally posted by 6ixStringJack:
Reality Is Winning the Ukraine Narrative War

Reality is Putin Blackmailing Trump over video recorded in Moscow during Trump's Miss Universe Pageant.

U.S. Pushes Kyiv to Kill Its U.N. Resolution Marking War’s Anniversary

In a new rift, Washington and Kyiv pitch competing texts, with Europe backing Ukraine and the U.S. refusing to blame Russia for the war

By Laurence Norman and Michael R. Gordon | Feb. 22, 2025 4:45 pm ET

https://www.wsj.com/world/europe/u-s-pushes-kyiv-to-kill-its-u-n-resol
ution-marking-wars-anniversary-ed6db571

The diplomatic rift between the Trump administration and Ukraine over Russia’s invasion escalated Saturday after the U.S. pushed to kill a United Nations resolution that Ukraine had crafted with European support marking the war’s third anniversary. Instead, the U.S. submitted its own draft resolution.

The clash pits the U.S. and Russia on one side against Ukraine and Europe on the other, in the most dramatic display of trans-Atlantic tensions in years.

The U.S. resolution, according to a draft obtained Friday by The Washington Post, is four lines long. Titled “The Path to Peace,” it “mourns” the loss of life, notes that the “principal purpose of the United Nations” is to maintain peace and settle disputes, and “implores a swift end to the conflict and further urges a lasting peace between Ukraine and Russia.”

By contrast, Ukraine’s lengthy resolution, with dozens of co-sponsors, details charges of Russian extraterritorial aggression and human rights abuses and reaffirms Ukraine’s right to sovereignty over all of its territory. It notes provisional rulings against Russia at the U.N.’s International Court of Justice, emphasizes “the need to ensure accountability for the most serious crimes,” and warns that involvement of North Korean troops fighting alongside Russia “raises serious concerns regarding escalation.”

It “reiterates the urgent need to end the war this year” through multilateral diplomacy and to “achieve a comprehensive, just and lasting peace” consistent with the U.N. Charter and international law.

Trump administration officials have characterized the Ukrainian resolution as overly antagonistic toward Russia.

The Ukrainian version is closely similar to U.S. co-sponsored resolutions passed overwhelmingly during the Biden administration. Only seven member states voted against the 2023 version — Russia, North Korea, Belarus, Eritrea, Mali, Nicaragua and Syria.

After Washington reviewed the Ukrainian resolution, it “demanded to make some changes to make it weaker,” including “pro-Russian” language, said one of the officials familiar with the exchange. The United States then proposed a new resolution and demanded Kyiv withdraw its version, which had already been scheduled for the Monday General Assembly session.

The U.S. proposal “shocked” the Ukrainians, the official said, and Zelensky ordered his Foreign Ministry not to withdraw Ukraine’s existing resolution.

“Their proposition is very short and totally new language,” the official said of the U.S. version. “Many representatives of other nations say that this looks more like a call for appeasement with Putin rather than a call for peace.”

The Trump administration’s request to Kyiv suggested that it is trying to “bypass all possible procedures in the U.N.” by requesting Ukraine withdraw its text voluntarily to pave the way for other nations to sign on to the U.S. text.

“We have a lot of signs of possible bad things, but it is shocking that they’re making pressure on [Ukraine] but not on Russians,” the official said.

“It’s self-explanatory” what is happening, a senior European diplomat said. (Putin is blackmailing Trump.)

https://www.washingtonpost.com/world/2025/02/22/ukraine-war-un-resolut
ion-trump/

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

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Saturday, February 22, 2025 9:52 PM

Quote:
Originally posted by second:
Quote:
Originally posted by 6ixStringJack:
Reality Is Winning the Ukraine Narrative War
Reality is Putin Blackmailing Trump over video recorded in Moscow during Trump's Miss Universe Pageant.

Shut up, fag. We're done listening to bullshit out of the likes of you.

And if you think for a second that Milena doesn't know that Trump has cheated on her multiple times, and you really think that Trump would sell out his country to weasel his way out of his infidelity when she's reading the same bullshit you're reading, you're out of your fucking mind. And if you think there are some Golden Showers on that tape that he'd be willing to sell us out to make sure Milenia doesn't see, you're equally brainfucked.

Dude. If Trump likes being pissed on when he's popping viagra, she's already pissed on him a hundred times herself. And she knows the name of every woman that he's fucked since they got married.

This is just another in a very long trail of bullshit and lies and inconsequential stuff that you've repeatedly convinced yourself would finally be the thing that takes down Trump once and for all. You've got nearly a decade of failure behind you now.

This bullshit story is going to just disappear from the face of the earth 2 weeks from now, only to remain in your scrambled little brain full of nothing but misleading headlines and out-of-context sound bytes.

Nobody gives a fuck.

And when you go around telling people about it, they actively and even hostilely go the other way.

America hates you.

Shut the fuck up.

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

"I don't find this stuff amusing anymore." ~Paul Simon

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Sunday, February 23, 2025 3:05 AM

I believe in solving problems, not sharing them.

Kompromat .... North Koreans... SECOND'S flight from a reality he can't bear. Pretty soon he'll be babbling in looney-tuneville.

-----------
"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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Sunday, February 23, 2025 10:04 AM

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

Turning Tanks Into Flames And Wreckage, Ukrainian Drones Blunt A Yearlong Russian Offensive
But American intervention against Ukraine could undermine Ukrainian efforts.

By David Axe | Feb 22, 2025, 05:57pm EST

https://www.forbes.com/sites/davidaxe/2025/02/22/turning-tanks-into-fl
ames-and-wreckage-ukrainian-drones-blunt-a-yearlong-russian-offensive/

A Russian T-80 tank, transformed into a pillar of flames and wreckage by a Ukrainian drone near Pokrovsk on or before Saturday, wasn’t just a tragedy for any Russians in the tank and a spectacle for the Ukrainian drone operators — it was also a symbol of a dangerous dilemma for the Russians as their wider war on Ukraine grinds into its 37th month.

A major Russian offensive is reaching its endgame. And it’s possible only American intervention against Ukraine may reverse the Russians’ faltering fortunes.

For an entire year since capturing the ruins of Avdiivka in eastern Ukraine, the Russian Center Operational Grouping — one of as many as six such groupings along the front line of Russia’s wider war on Ukraine — has been crawling toward the fortress city of Pokrovsk, 30 miles to the west.

The Center Operational Grouping’s forces — on paper, at least 50,000 troops, many of them belonging to the 41st Combined Arms Army — have finally managed to reach Pokrovsk’s outskirts. But it cost them potentially tens of thousands of soldiers and no fewer than 2,200 vehicles including that T-80 that burst into flames this weekend.

According to Gen. Oleksandr Syrskyi, the Ukrainian commander in chief, around 15,000 Russians were “neutralized” around Pokrovsk in January alone.

Ukraine’s own losses in the area have been much lighter since its battered brigades finally retreated from Avdiivka last February. Independent analyst Naalsio has tallied 2,300 destroyed, damaged and captured Russian vehicles on the Pokrovsk axis, but just 700 destroyed, damaged and captured Ukrainian vehicles: a more than three-to-one ratio favoring the Ukrainians.

The staggering losses explain why the Russian may advance near Pokrovsk without actually capturing the city, which anchors a long chain of fortified cities stretching north toward Kharkiv. “The enemy’s Center Operational Grouping on the Pokrovsk direction has made no advances on any of its fronts for three days and was forced to retreat from previously occupied positions in several areas,” the Ukrainian Center for Defense Strategies explained on Saturday.

“The 41st Combined Arms Army is unable to continue its offensive to the north and northwest to accomplish its primary objective — to envelop Pokrovsk from the west and cut off the road to Pavlohrad.”

Stymied, the Russians are pivoting to other objectives. “The Russian command in the theater of war is focusing its main attention not on Pokrovsk but on the adjacent Novopavlivka and Toretsk directions,” CDS explained. And the command is willing to rob the 41st Combined Arms Army in the process, reportedly transferring its most powerful formation — the 90th Tank Division — from the Pokrovsk sector south toward Andriivka, where a pair of Russian regiments have achieved “tactical successes,” according to CDS.

It’s obviously not great news for Russia’s war effort that one of its main offensives is losing momentum. It’s better news for the Russians that their commanders are willing and able to adapt to changing conditions.

Adaptation is the key for both sides as the war grinds on and the politics surrounding it shift. The United States, one of Ukraine’s staunchest allies under former President Joe Biden, is quickly realigning toward Russia under the chaotic leadership of President Donald Trump.

After Ukrainian Pres. Volodymyr Zelensky rejected Trump’s attempt to extort Ukraine for up to $500 billion in mineral wealth, Trump’s administration threatened to cut off Ukraine’s access to Starlink satellite terminals, which many Ukrainian units use to communicate with each other and, equally critically, with their drones.

Starlink is operated by SpaceX, itself largely owned by rightwing billionaire Elon Musk, who was a top Trump donor and is currently heading an extralegal “efficiency” organization that has haphazardly fired tens of thousands of federal employees and gutted entire agencies in Washington, D.C.

Without Starlink, Ukraine may struggle to deploy the very drones that blew up that T-80 and many hundreds of other Russian vehicles on the long bloody road to Pokrovsk. It’s not for no reason that one of Ukraine’s top European allies quickly rose to Ukraine’s defense amid the threats over Starlink access.

“We pay and will continue to pay a subscription fee for satellite internet for Ukraine,” Polish Deputy Prime Minister Krzysztof Gawkowski wrote on X, a Musk-owned social media platform. “I cannot imagine that someone could decide to terminate a business contract for a commercial service to which Poland is a party,” Gawkowski added.

Ukrainian and allied officials would do well to expand their conception of what’s possible in this dangerous new era of American-fueled geopolitical chaos. After all, few imagined that Trump would move so swiftly to not only abandon Ukraine, but also to threaten it — undermining Ukraine’s self-defense at the very moment that defense is complicating Russian war plans. But he did.

Sources:
1. Kyiv Post
2. Center for Defense Strategies
3. Krzysztof Gawkowski
4. Naalsio

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

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Sunday, February 23, 2025 10:26 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:
Quote:
Originally posted by second:
Quote:
Originally posted by 6ixStringJack:
Reality Is Winning the Ukraine Narrative War
Reality is Putin Blackmailing Trump over video recorded in Moscow during Trump's Miss Universe Pageant.

Shut up, fag. We're done listening to bullshit out of the likes of you.

And if you think for a second that Milena doesn't know that Trump has cheated on her multiple times, and you really think that Trump would sell out his country to weasel his way out of his infidelity when she's reading the same bullshit you're reading, you're out of your fucking mind. And if you think there are some Golden Showers on that tape that he'd be willing to sell us out to make sure Milenia doesn't see, you're equally brainfucked.

Dude. If Trump likes being pissed on when he's popping viagra, she's already pissed on him a hundred times herself. And she knows the name of every woman that he's fucked since they got married.

This is just another in a very long trail of bullshit and lies and inconsequential stuff that you've repeatedly convinced yourself would finally be the thing that takes down Trump once and for all. You've got nearly a decade of failure behind you now.

This bullshit story is going to just disappear from the face of the earth 2 weeks from now, only to remain in your scrambled little brain full of nothing but misleading headlines and out-of-context sound bytes.

Nobody gives a fuck.

And when you go around telling people about it, they actively and even hostilely go the other way.

America hates you.

Shut the fuck up.

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

"I don't find this stuff amusing anymore." ~Paul Simon

Putin has video of Trump raping children while visiting Russia for the Miss Universe Pageant. Trump said that he could shoot somebody and not lose any voters. The rape video won't be a problem for Trump's voters because the children lived after Trump raped them and his Trumptards don't have a problem with his behavior once you take into consideration the depravity of Trumptards' lives.

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

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Sunday, February 23, 2025 10:27 AM

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

Russian drones continue to be a threat to Ukrainian troops, so Ukraine tried an unusual attack to take out the operators piloting the drones.

By Nicholas Slayton | Feb 22, 2025

https://taskandpurpose.com/news/russia-drones-exploding-goggles/

Ukraine planted explosives in the first person view goggles Russian drone operators wear.

The goggles, imported into Russia as donated humanitarian aid, would then blow up, taking out the drone pilots. And if they exploded beforehand, they might make Russian troops afraid to wear the gear, which helps them coordinate their drone attacks.

The plot was first reported by Russian state media and confirmed by Ukrainian officials, who also spoke about the plan to the New York Times. According to pro-war Russian Telegram channels, the goggles contained anywhere between 10-15 grams of explosive material, that would detonate when turned on.

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

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Monday, February 24, 2025 3:05 AM

I believe in solving problems, not sharing them.

A video of Trump raping children?

How the fuck would YOU know?

-----------
"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, February 24, 2025 8:08 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:
A video of Trump raping children?

How the fuck would YOU know?

Signym, you have abundant information about Trump's sex drive, his affinity for Putin, and his lawlessness. The KGB blackmails people like Trump:

https://medium.com/war-is-boring/the-cia-and-kgb-tried-to-blackmail-th
is-world-leader-with-sex-tapes-927fc7ddbd48

Quote:
And the Soviets did at one point attempt to blackmail Sukarno by filming him having sex with a group of flight attendants. “When … Sukarno visited Moscow in the 1960s, the KGB sought to take advantage of his renowned sexual appetite, sending a batch of glamorous young women posing as air hostesses to his hotel,” Tim Lister wrote in a CNN piece on sex and espionage.

Lister’s timeline might be off, as other sources suggest that the KGB was cooking up stories about Sukarno and flight attendants as far back as 1957 or 1958. Regardless of the timing, the KGB misread a crucial aspect of Sukarno’s sexual proclivities — he never tried to hide those tendencies.

If anything, he flaunted them.

Sukarno openly supported polygamy, Elizabeth Martyn explained in The Women’s Movement in Postcolonial Indonesia. He took on four “official” wives while maintaining a “de facto” marriage with a fifth wife. And Sukarno once bragged to a U.S. diplomat that he was “a very physical man who needed sex every day,” and shocked his government hosts in Washington when he demanded they provide him with call girls during a visit, according to Peter Arnett’s Live From the Battlefield.

Given Sukarno’s boasts, the KGB shouldn’t have been too surprised that its efforts to blackmail him went astray. “When the Russians later confronted him with a film of the lurid encounter, Sukarno was apparently delighted,” Lister wrote.

“Legend has it he even asked for extra copies.”

Trump would scream fake news.

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

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Monday, February 24, 2025 8:09 AM

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

Ukrainians kill seven Russians for every Ukrainian soldier the Russians kill

By David Axe | Feb 23, 2025, 06:30pm EST

In the best-defended sectors, the Ukrainians kill seven Russians for every Ukrainian soldier the Russians kill, one Russian defector claimed. https://bsky.app/profile/chriso-wiki.bsky.social/post/3lh6uusgzbe2p

Drones are among the biggest killers on both sides. But the Ukrainians deploy more drones — 2.2 million last year, according to Zelensky — and enjoy greater freedom of flight as widespread Ukrainian jamming grounds all but the best Russian drones: the radio-free fiber-optic models.

Ukraine’s drone superiority is the main reason Zelensky can reject, and so far has rejected, attempts by the increasingly Russia-aligned administration of U.S. Pres. Donald Trump to force Ukraine into an unfavorable ceasefire while also extorting the war-torn country for hundreds of billions of dollars worth of rare minerals.

But Ukrainian drone coverage is uneven and fragile in places. Many Ukrainian teams depend on Starlink satellite terminals to connect them to their drones. But Starlink is largely owned by rightwing billionaire Elon Musk, a top Trump donor and a major purveyor of Russian propaganda. After Zelensky rejected the mineral extortion, the United States reportedly threatened to cut off Starlik access for Ukrainian forces.

Fortunately for Ukraine, Polish officials intervened, reminding the Americans that Poland pays for much of Ukraine’s Starlink services on the basis of commercial contracts.

There are other vulnerabilities in the Ukrainian drone system. At least one drone team in Kursk has run out of the infrared sensor equipped “vampire” drones that the Ukrainians use to harass Russian positions and supply lines at night. “We really just don’t have night drones anymore and it’s very important,” operator Kriegsforscher wrote.

At the same time, Zelensky claimed Ukraine would further ramp up drone production, possibly implying any current shortages are temporary. “This year, we will make more,” he said. And that could make it even harder and costlier for Russian troops to advance.

https://www.forbes.com/sites/davidaxe/2025/02/23/a-ukrainian-drone-cha
sed-a-blind-russian-turtle-tank-into-a-deep-hole-and-blew-it-up/

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

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Monday, February 24, 2025 8:11 AM

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

US Special Envoy to the Middle East Steve Witkoff referred to the early 2022 Istanbul protocols as offering "guideposts" for negotiations between Russia and Ukraine on February 23. An agreement based on those protocols would be a capitulation document.[1] Russian President Vladimir Putin and other senior Russian officials have repeatedly identified the 2022 peace negotiations in Istanbul as their ideal framework for future peace negotiations to end Putin's war in Ukraine, as such a framework would force the West to concede to all of Russia's long-standing demands.[2] The Wall Street Journal (WSJ) and the New York Times (NYT) reported in March and June 2024 that both publications obtained several versions of the draft treaties from the March and April 2022 Ukrainian-Russian peace negotiations in Istanbul that indicate that both sides initially agreed that Ukraine would forgo its NATO membership aspirations and be a "permanently neutral state that doesn't participate in military blocs."[3] The draft treaties also reportedly banned Ukraine from receiving any foreign weapons or hosting any foreign military personnel. The WSJ and NYT reported that Russia pushed for the Ukrainian military to be limited to 85,000 soldiers, 342 tanks, and 519 artillery systems. Russia also reportedly demanded that Ukrainian missiles be limited to a range of 40 kilometers (25 miles), a range that would allow Russian forces to deploy critical systems and materiel close to Ukraine without fear of strikes. The draft treaties reportedly listed the United States, United Kingdom (UK), the People's Republic of China (PRC), France, and Russia as guarantors of the treaty, and Russia reportedly wanted to include Belarus as a guarantor. The guarantor states were supposed to “terminate international treaties and agreements incompatible with the permanent neutrality [of Ukraine]," including military aid agreements. The draft treaties did not specify if other non-guarantor states would have to terminate their agreements with Ukraine as well, although this is likely considering that the treaty would ban Ukraine from having any foreign-supplied weapons. Russia insisted on these terms in the first and second months of the war when Russian troops were advancing on Kyiv City and throughout northeastern, eastern, and southern Ukraine and before Ukrainian forces conducted successful counteroffensives that liberated significant swaths of territory in Kharkiv and Kherson oblasts.

Ukraine is unlikely to accept any peace agreement based on the Istanbul negotiations as such terms are effectively a full Ukrainian surrender to Russia's long-term war goals.

https://www.understandingwar.org/backgrounder/russian-offensive-campai
gn-assessment-february-23-2025

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

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Monday, February 24, 2025 9:37 AM

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

The Russian president can’t win his war against Ukraine unless he persuades its allies to betray it.

By Anne Applebaum | February 24, 2025, 7 AM ET

https://www.theatlantic.com/international/archive/2025/02/putins-three
-years-of-humiliation/681810/

Out of all the ugly and dishonest things that Donald Trump said about Volodymyr Zelensky last week, the ugliest was not dishonest at all. “I’ve been watching for years, and I’ve been watching him negotiate with no cards,” Trump said of Zelensky. “He has no cards. And you get sick of it.”

Sick of it. Stop and think about that phrase. Trump inserted it into a stream of falsehoods, produced over several days, many of which he must have known to be untrue. He has been lying about the origins of the war, about Zelensky’s popular support, about the levels of U.S. funding for Ukraine, about the extent of European funding, about the status of previous negotiations. But sick of it—that, at least, has the ring of truth. Trump is genuinely bored of the war. He doesn’t understand it. He doesn’t know why it started. He doesn’t know how to stop it. He wants to change the channel and watch something else.

Also, he has no cards: That probably reflects Trump’s true belief as well. For Donald Trump, the only real cards are big money and hard power. Players, in his world, are people whom no court can block, no journalist can question, no legislator can oppose. People whose money can buy anything, whose power cannot be checked or balanced.

But Trump is wrong. Zelensky might not have money, and he might not be a brutal dictator like Vladimir Putin or Xi Jinping. Yet he does have other kinds of power. He leads a society that organizes itself, with local leaders who have legitimacy and a tech sector dedicated to victory—a society that has come, around the world, to symbolize bravery. He has a message that moves people to act instead of just scaring them into silence.

Today, on the third anniversary of Russia’s full-scale invasion, stop and remember what happened on the night it began. I’d had plane tickets to Kyiv that week, but my flights were canceled, and on February 24, 2022, I stayed up and watched the war’s start on television, listening to the sounds of explosions coming from the screen. That night, everyone expected Russia to overrun its much smaller neighbor. But that capitulation never came. Six weeks later, I made it to Kyiv and heard and saw what had happened instead: the hit squads that had tried to kill Zelensky; the murders of civilians in Bucha, a Kyiv suburb; the Ukrainian journalists who had driven around the country trying to tell the story; the civilians who had joined the army; the waitresses who had started cooking for the troops.

Three years later, against all obstacles and all predictions, the civilians, journalists, soldiers, and waitresses are still working together. Ukraine’s million-man army, the largest in Europe, is still fighting. Ukraine’s civil society is still volunteering, still raising money for the troops. Ukraine’s defense industry has transformed itself. In 2022, I saw tiny workshops that made drones out of what looked like cardboard and glue. In 2024, Ukrainian factories produced 1.5 million drones, and this year they will make many more. Teams of people in underground control centers now use bespoke software to hit thousands of targets every month. Their work explains why Russia has taken territory only slowly, despite being on the offensive for most of the past year. At the current rate of advance, the Institute for the Study of War estimates, Russia would need 83 years to capture the remaining 80 percent of Ukraine.

Russia doesn’t have the resources to fight indefinitely against that kind of organization and determination. Putin’s military production is cannibalizing his country’s civilian economy. Inflation has skyrocketed. The only way Putin wins now—the only way he finally succeeds in destroying Ukraine’s sovereignty—is by persuading Ukraine’s allies to be sick of the war.

He wins by persuading Trump to cut off Ukraine, because Zelensky has no cards, and by convincing Europeans that they can’t win either. That’s why Putin’s money bought American influencers in Tennessee and probably many other places, too, and it’s why his propaganda supported the pro-Russian far right in Germany’s elections yesterday, along with other pro-Russian parties across the continent. Putin can’t win on the ground, but he can win in his enemies’ heads—if we let him.

Europeans and Americans, Democrats and Republicans, can resist the temptations of boredom and distraction. We can refuse to give in to the cynicism, nihilism, and lies of Russian propaganda, even when they are repeated by the president of the United States. And we can refuse to believe that Ukraine has no cards, that we have no cards, and that the democratic world has no sources of power other than Donald Trump and Elon Musk.

Three years into this war, the stakes are the same as they were on the night it began. Putin, who yesterday launched one of the largest attacks of the entire war, still seeks to destroy Ukraine’s sovereignty, civil society, democracy, and freedom. He still wants to show the world that the era of American power is over, that America will not defend allies in Europe, Asia, or anywhere else. He still wants to nullify the rules and laws that kept Europe peaceful for eight decades, to create instability and fear, not only in the countries that border Russia but across the continent and even around the world.

The war will only end, truly end, when Putin gives up these goals. Don’t accept any peace deal that allows him to keep them.

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

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Monday, February 24, 2025 6:33 PM

I believe in solving problems, not sharing them.

How residents in Kharkov react to Russian drones: They wave at them (video taken by Russian FPV drone)

https://rr2---sn-a5meknsy.googlevideo.com/videoplayback?expire=1740468
567&ei=1wC9Z8mGK6aosfIPm_HFwQc&ip=2603:8000:806:67d5:f913:5b19:7d0c:ba91&id=1e6f75f940408376&itag=18&source=blogger&xpc=Egho7Zf3LnoBAQ%3D%3D&met=1740439767,&mh=0C&mm=31&mn=sn-a5meknsy&ms=au&mv=m&mvi=2&pl=35&rms=au,au&susc=bl&eaua=Wpzgd6E5UZs&mime=video/mp4&vprv=1&rqh=1&dur=21.153&lmt=1740372691951975&mt=1740439259&txp=1311224&sparams=expire,ei,ip,id,itag,source,xpc,susc,eaua,mime,vprv,rqh,dur,lmt&sig=AJfQdSswRAIgadAu1azCqc9hTGHY5SaxhnpMDzOAgRBIeo6rMY0ZcssCIGq8GDy0LtxM50zDBZiYFy8lP9N_SpQZGN7Mhjzx5OZF&lsparams=met,mh,mm,mn,ms,mv,mvi,pl,rms&lsig=AGluJ3MwRQIgC5sPF4tXVsBJC86TH7M9-6cu-B87FhNwRvm7nFfyHtICIQCUczqBwzQH0bVE2N6Y9BHunKAMt6dIdQFcFVKf679STQ%3D%3D&cpn=_RRokprNad39Mwqj&c=WEB_EMBEDDED_PLAYER&cver=1.20250219.01.00

-----------
"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, February 24, 2025 6:39 PM

I believe in solving problems, not sharing them.

Axe and Applebaum: neocons who lie in service to "the cause".

-----------
"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, February 24, 2025 11:36 PM

I believe in solving problems, not sharing them.

Quote:
Signym, you have abundant information about Trump's sex drive, his affinity for Putin, and his lawlessness. The KGB blackmails people like Trump:

IDK about Trump's sexual misdeeds, but I know something about Bill Clinton's and Hunter Biden's.

All you have is hot air, as usual.

-----------
"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, February 25, 2025 12:08 AM

Quote:
Originally posted by SIGNYM:
Quote:
Signym, you have abundant information about Trump's sex drive, his affinity for Putin, and his lawlessness. The KGB blackmails people like Trump:

IDK about Trump's sexual misdeeds, but I know something about Bill Clinton's and Hunter Biden's.

All you have is hot air, as usual.

This is just another example of why the Democrats and the Media have lost all of their power virutally overnight.

One half of any of their arguments are against what people want.

The other half accusing everyone else of doing horrible things that they themselves have done, or of predicting everyone else is going to do terrible things that they've already done.

And now their mic was taken away and nobody is listening to any of them about anything anymore.

That's why you and I have to remain vigilant and focus on what is going on with the idiots like Ted and Second unwittingly working for Trump and providing him with a constant smoke screen for the next 4 years.

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

"I don't find this stuff amusing anymore." ~Paul Simon

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Tuesday, February 25, 2025 8:03 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:

That's why you and I have to remain vigilant and focus on what is going on with the idiots like Ted and Second unwittingly working for Trump and providing him with a constant smoke screen for the next 4 years.

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

"I don't find this stuff amusing anymore." ~Paul Simon

There is NO SMOKE SCREEN around Trump. He shows everyone what he is. People with foggy brains can't see the hideously fat and ugly Trump, with monstrously evil Musk at his side, because they don't even look or they listen to Trump/Musk's sweet and soothing words. It's like most Russians either ignore the war in Ukraine or the listen to Putin about Ukraine being run by Nazis. Russians have either foggy brains or are indifferent to the War. The Russians who aren't that way have left the country or hide within it as undeclared secretive conscientious objectors. If they were to make their objections known they would be imprisoned as was Alexei Navalny, Alexei Gorinov and Vladimir Kara-Murza.

Russia: Authorities punishing imprisoned anti-war critics and dissenters
https://www.amnesty.org/en/latest/news/2024/06/russia-authorities-puni
shing-imprisoned-anti-war-critics-and-dissenters-by-denying-family-contact/

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

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Tuesday, February 25, 2025 8:04 AM

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

Ukrainian Commander-in-Chief General Oleksander Syrskyi reported on February 24 that Ukrainian forces have regained more than 50 percent of the territory that Russian forces have occupied since February 24, 2022.[1] ISW has observed confirmation that Ukrainian forces have regained 50.03 percent of the territory that Russian forces had seized since February 24, 2022.

Russia has accumulated unsustainable personnel and vehicle losses in the last three years since Russia's full-scale invasion on February 24, 2022. Ukrainian Commander-in-Chief General Oleksander Syrskyi reported on February 24 that Russian forces have lost over 10,100 tanks, 21,100 armored combat vehicles, and 23,300 artillery systems presumably destroyed and damaged in the three years of Russia's full-scale invasion.[2] The British International Institute for Strategic Studies (IISS) recently estimated that Russia had lost about 14,000 tanks, infantry fighting vehicles, and armored personnel carriers since February 2022.[3] (IISS's numbers likely differ from those from Syrskyi as IISS data likely only accounts for destroyed vehicles.) Syrskyi stated on February 24 that Russian forces have lost almost 870,000 personnel, including about 250,000 dead.[4] Russian opposition outlets Meduza and Mediazona published a joint report on February 24 wherein they used the Russian Register of Inheritance Cases (RND) to estimate that at least 160,000 to 165,000 Russian servicemembers have died in the past three years of the war.[5] Syrskyi previously reported that Russian forces suffered more than 434,000 casualties in 2024 alone, and Meduza and Mediazone estimated in February 2024 that Russia had lost at least 66,000 to 88,000 personnel during the first two years of the war — suggesting that Russian loses significantly increased in 2024.[6] ISW continues to assess that Russian forces have suffered vehicle and artillery system losses on the battlefield that are unsustainable in the medium- to long-term given the limitations of Russia's defense industrial capacity and Soviet-era weapons and equipment stocks, and that Russia's force generation apparatus is struggling to recruit enough soldiers to sustain Russia's current rate of offensive operations and loss rates.[7]

The Russian military appears to be employing a method of advance in Ukraine based on the assumption that the war will continue indefinitely and that the Russian military does not need to make rapid or significant territorial gains in a single offensive operation.[19] ISW recently assessed that it would take Russian forces over 83 years to capture the remaining 80 percent of Ukraine, assuming that they can sustain their current rate of advance and massive personnel losses indefinitely — which is unlikely.[20]

https://www.understandingwar.org/backgrounder/russian-offensive-campai
gn-assessment-february-24-2025

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

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Tuesday, February 25, 2025 1:04 PM

I believe in solving problems, not sharing them.

Quote:
Ukrainian Commander-in-Chief General Oleksander Syrskyi reported .... ISW ...

Your sources are tainted.
No wonder you like them so much.

-----------
"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, February 25, 2025 1:24 PM

I believe in solving problems, not sharing them.

Quote:
Ukraine Already Lost The War But The EU Hasn't Figured That Out

Quote:
Lost in a Hobbesian World

For a European, being isolated is probably the worst thing that can ever happen to you. [The definition of bureaucratic impulses] Not getting invited to the Munich Security Conference would be an unrecoverable career setback. When Emmanuel Macron invited a few selected leaders to a summit a couple of weeks ago, the big debating point amongst EU folk was, who was invited and who was not. It was not about what the meeting should accomplish. Sitting at a table is really important to Europeans.

This is all fine for as you are dealing with relatively unimportant things, like financial regulation. But this is not the mindset with which you want to fight a war. We have yet to meet a European with a worked-out strategy to defeat Vladimir Putin. We are red-liners. We argue from first principles. We claim that we will support Ukraine for however long it takes. This idea worked spectacularly well for the ECB in the fight against speculators. But it does not translate to wars.

Ukraine has lost the war. We have no strategy to change this. Of all the nonsense Trump said and tweeted last week – and most of it was nonsense – he was correct on the essential issue – that the war is not winnable. He told us during his campaign that he wants to cut a deal.

The Europeans are in their unfortunate situation on the cats’ table of international diplomacy because they outsourced strategic thinking. The US acts, we react. Trump speaks. We are outraged. When Trump threatens tariffs, we threaten retaliation. Strategic thinking means making sacrifices, thinking ahead, factoring in what your opponent will do in response to your actions, have a strategy for second-best outcomes, and one for retreat and defeat.

In a world in which strategic thinking counts, the EU is hopelessly lost.

https://www.eurointelligence.com/

Quote:
Delusions of Nonsense
Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky said that he was “ready” to resign as leader if it meant it would bring peace to his country, suggesting he could swap it for NATO membership – while also pushing back against US demands for Ukraine’s critical minerals and other natural resources as part of negotiations to end the war.

Asked at a press conference Sunday if he was ready to quit if it ensures peace for Ukraine, Zelensky said: “If (it guarantees) peace for Ukraine, if you really need me to resign, I am ready. I can exchange it for NATO.” [NOT GONNA HAPPEN] ...

Quote:
No, Yes, No, then Nonsense

Zelensky said no to a deal for minerals, then reportedly yes, then no again, and now nonsense about stepping down if the US will let Ukraine in NATO.

Heck, not even the EU wants Ukraine in NATO or the EU now because of the dollar commitment it would take.

And where is the EU going to get troops or weapons....

MORE AT https://mishtalk.com/economics/ukraine-already-lost-the-war-but-the-eu
-hasnt-figured-that-out/

-----------
"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, February 26, 2025 6:53 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:
Quote:
Ukrainian Commander-in-Chief General Oleksander Syrskyi reported .... ISW ...

Your sources are tainted.
No wonder you like them so much.

This comes from Putin's mouth: a bigger bribe than Ukraine can pay to Trump.

Putin offered to make a deal with the United States on Russian rare earth minerals as part of efforts to outbid Ukraine on this matter and to push the United States to accept Russian offers of economic measures in lieu of any actual Russian concessions on Ukraine. Putin claimed to Zarubin on February 24 that Russia has an "order of magnitude" more rare earth materials than Ukraine and stated that Russia can cooperate with both the US government and US companies in capital investment projects for rare earth materials.[7] Putin included mineral reserves both within Russia and within occupied Ukraine in his attempts to appeal to the United States to invest in Russian rare earth minerals. Putin also offered to conclude deals with the United States on the supply of Russian aluminum. Putin held a meeting with senior Kremlin officials on February 24 specifically about the importance of further developing Russia's domestic rare earth minerals industry and identified this as a priority effort.[8]

The Kremlin is framing any future US-Russian cooperation on rare earth minerals as conditional on the conclusion of a Russian-friendly peace deal on the war in Ukraine. Kremlin Spokesperson Dmitry Peskov stated on February 25 that any US-Russia cooperation on rare earth minerals can only begin after normalizing bilateral relations and achieving a peace settlement in Ukraine.[9] ISW assessed that Russian officials used the recent US-Russian talks in Saudi Arabia to start an effort to push the United States to accept economic benefits that are unrelated to the war in Ukraine in return for Ukrainian and Western concessions that are related to the war.[10] ISW continues to assess that American acceptance of these Russian-offered economic measures — without demanding any Russian concessions on Ukraine in return — would give away leverage that the United States will need to achieve Trump's stated objective of achieving a lasting and enduring peace that benefits the United States and Ukraine.

https://www.understandingwar.org/backgrounder/russian-offensive-campai
gn-assessment-february-25-2025

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

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Wednesday, February 26, 2025 6:55 AM

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

Sweden Makes Some Of The Best Short-Range Air Defenses. Three Countries Just Teamed Up To Ship the Gear To Ukraine.

Saab’s RBS 70 missiles, Tridon guns and Giraffe radars work together in a single system.

By David Axe | Feb 25, 2025, 04:27pm EST

https://www.forbes.com/sites/davidaxe/2025/02/25/sweden-makes-some-of-
the-best-short-range-air-defenses-three-countries-just-teamed-up-to-ship-the-gear-to-ukraine/

As the United States strands Ukraine, Ukraine’s European allies are moving swiftly to fill the security void. Sweden, Lithuania and—perhaps most surprisingly—neutral Ireland have pledged to Ukraine a powerful air-defense system with millions of dollars worth of mobile missile launchers, guns and radars.

Sweden will provide the Saab-made Tridon guns and, alongside Lithuania, the Saab RBS 70 launchers. Ireland is providing the Giraffe radars, also made by Saab in Sweden. The radars detect targets for the missiles and guns to shoot down. “Good news for Ukraine,” Lithuanian Pres. Gitanas Nauseda said.

The RBS 70 is an air-defense classic: a 120-pound launcher firing a 70-pound, laser-guided missile that can hit airplanes, helicopters and drones as far as five miles away and three miles high. Three soldiers can carry an RBS 70 unit, broken down into portable packs, and set it up in a minute or two.

A four-person Giraffe radar, mounted to a truck or—in the case of Ireland’s seven Giraffes—a Bv 206 snowcat, extends an RBS 70 crew’s detection range to around 30 miles. The radar can beam target coordinates to the missile crew or pass them through a cable connected to the launcher. The launcher gives its operator a visual target cue and also an audio cue: a tone that grows louder as the target comes into view in the operator’s magnified optics.

The operator thumbs a launch button. The missile blasts into the air. A laser fitted to the launcher activates. The missile looks for the laser light reflecting from the target. “To hit the target, the gunner has only to keep it in the middle of the crosshairs,” explained Weapon Detective, a popular video channel.

Ukraine got its first RBS 70s and Giraffes from Sweden in early 2023 and assigned them to the 47th and 93rd Mechanized Brigades and potentially other units. The Swedish military trained the operators in Sweden. “You are also fighting for the security of Europe,” one instructor told his trainees. The Ukrainian brigades wasted no time shooting down Russian drones and, in at least one case, a Kamov Ka-52 attack helicopter.

The three-person Tridon gun is new. Essentially a truck-mounted version of Sweden’s iconic 40-millimeter Bofors gun, the Tridon plugs into the same command and control network as the Giraffes and RBS 70s. As a bonus, the fast-firing gun—lobbing a two-pound shell as far as four miles—can engage armored vehicles as well as aircraft.

The Russians should anticipate additional aerial losses as the new air-defense gear begins arriving in Ukraine. Crucially, Sweden is pledging to keep sending weapons. “Sweden’s support to Ukraine will continue for as long as necessary,” the defense ministry in Stockholm stated.

That neutral, lightly armed Ireland is now supplying Ukraine with critical military equipment alongside Ukraine’s more martial allies is telling. The United States under the chaotic, impulsive leadership of President Donald Trump is abandoning its longstanding alliances with fellow democracies in favor of, at best, strategic ambivalence.

At worst, the U.S. risks “siding with Russia,” warned Tatarigami, the founder of Ukrainian analysis group Frontelligence Insight. Trump’s demand that Ukraine share its vast mineral wealth in exchange for any future support is particularly egregious, Tatarigami wrote. “We are being robbed.”

But even if it fights without American support, Ukraine will not fight alone. More and better weapons are coming from more European countries.

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

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Wednesday, February 26, 2025 7:18 AM

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

Ukraine reconstruction and recovery will cost $524bn over the next decade - report

The cost of reconstruction and recovery in Ukraine after three years of Russia’s full-scale invasion will be $524bn over the next decade, according to a report released by the Government of Ukraine, the World Bank Group, the European Commission, and the United Nations.

This is approximately 2.8 times the estimated nominal GDP of Ukraine for 2024, the Rapid Damage and Needs Assessment (RDNA4) report adds.

The RDNA4, which covers damages incurred over almost three years – from 24 February 2022, to 31 December 2024 – finds that direct damage in Ukraine has now reached $176bn, which is up from $152bn in February 2024, the World Bank has estimated.

According to the report’s current assessment, “13% of the total housing stock has been damaged or destroyed, affecting more than 2.5m households”.

Responding to the findings, the prime minister of Ukraine Denys Shmyhal said:

In the past year, Ukraine’s recovery needs have continued to grow due to Russia’s ongoing attacks. The fourth phase of the Rapid Damage and Needs Assessment remains vital to our recovery strategy.

He added:

This year, the government continues the rapid recovery programme, focusing mainly on repairing and developing energy infrastructure and rebuilding housing for Ukrainian families.

https://www.theguardian.com/world/live/2025/feb/25/ukraine-russia-trum
p-putin-zelenskyy-macron-ceasefire-latest-news-updates-live

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

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Wednesday, February 26, 2025 8:08 AM

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

The EU is spending more money on Russian fossil fuels than on financial aid to Ukraine, according to a new report. The EU bought €21.9bn (£18.1bn) of Russian oil and gas in the third year of the war, an amount equalling one-sixth greater than the €18.7bn the EU allocated to Ukraine in financial aid in 2024.

https://www.theguardian.com/world/2025/feb/24/eu-spends-more-russian-o
il-gas-than-financial-aid-ukraine-report

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

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Thursday, February 27, 2025 8:11 AM

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

Ukraine Is Jamming Russian Glide Bombs All Along The Front Line, Erasing One Of Russia’s Main Battlefield Advantages

It now takes up to 16 glide bombs to hit one target.

By David Axe | Feb 26, 2025, 04:47pm EST

https://www.forbes.com/sites/davidaxe/2025/02/26/ukraine-is-jamming-ru
ssian-glide-bombs-all-along-the-front-line-erasing-one-of-russias-main-battlefield-advantages/

A year ago, Russian air force fighter-bombers were lobbing a hundred glide bombs every day all along the 800-mile front line of Russia’s wider war on Ukraine.

The satellite-guided KAB or UMPK glide-bombs, each traveling 25 miles or farther under pop-out wings, were a “miracle weapon” for the Russians, the Ukrainian Deep State analysis group noted at the time. And the Ukrainians had “practically no countermeasures.”

Russian forces settled into a comfortable routine. Glide bombs rained down on Ukrainian defenses. As the dust cleared, Russian infantry attacked the battered and traumatized Ukrainian survivors. The bomb-first, assault-next tactic helped the Russians capture the fortress city of Avdiivka in eastern Ukraine and then advance 25 miles along the same axis toward the next fortress city, Pokrovsk.

Gradually, and without many outsiders noticing, something changed. Now, as Russian forces stall outside Pokrovsk, it’s evident that “the golden era of the divine UMPK turned out to be short-lived,” noted Fighterbomber, the unofficial Telegram channel of the Russian air force.

“The bombs are still flying,” Fighterbomber noted in a missive translated by Estonian analyst WarTranslated. Indeed, the Ukrainian Center for Defense Strategies has recently noted KAB/UMPK attacks in Sumy, Chernihiv and Donetsk Oblasts in eastern and northern Ukraine.

“But there’s a catch,” Fighterbomber explained. “All satellite-guided correction systems have left the chat.” And for one main reason: Ukrainian radio jammers have become so effective, and so numerous, that they “saturate the front line.”

The glide bombs can’t communicate with the GLONASS satellite constellation, Russia’s less sophisticated and less expansive answer to the United States’ own GPS satellite constellation. Without a steady connection for course correction, the glide bombs tend to stray and harmlessly explode on some fields.

“All high-value targets are guaranteed to be covered by [electronic warfare],” Fighterbomber claimed. It might take eight or even 16 glide bombs to reliably hit one target, the channel added. And while the glide bombs are inexpensive for a precision munition—each costing around $25,000—the Sukhoi jets that lob them two or four at a time aren’t cheap.

Launching four jets to maybe hit one target is risky and inefficient for an air force that has just a thousand or so modern jets, and has already lost 120 of them in action in Ukraine.

The intensive Ukrainian jamming has also grounded many of Russia’s drones, compelling desperate Russian operators to switch to pricier fiber-optic drones that send and receive signals via long thin cables instead of via radio.

The jamming has effectively accomplished what the Ukrainian air force struggled to accomplish with its expensive, vulnerable S-300, Patriot and SAMP/T surface-to-air missile batteries, which can hit Russian jets from scores of miles away but were always too few in number to fully protect the front line and safeguard Ukrainian cities.

The Russians jam, too, of course—but Russian jamming doesn’t have the impact that Ukrainian jamming does. Many Russian jammers are badly made and ineffective.

Equally importantly, the best Ukrainian munitions—American-made Joint Direct Attack Munition glide bombs and French-made Hammer glide bombs—include GPS guidance but also have backup inertial navigation systems, or INS, that are entirely self-contained and are thus impervious to jamming.

Consider that both American and Ukrainian jets have, in their respective bombing campaigns, blown up enemy GPS jammers using GPS-guided munitions with INS backups. “I’m also pleased to say they've had no effect on us,” Victor Renuart, then a U.S. Air Force general, said of Iraqi GPS jammers after USAF warplanes dropped GPS munitions on them back in 2003.

By contrast, Russia’s own inertial guidance backups—complex systems that internally calculate a munition’s direction, altitude and speed in order to keep the munition on course—tend to be inaccurate. In a 2022 essay for Proceedings, the professional journal of the U.S. Navy, analyst Mark Schneider concluded Russian missiles are often a tenth as accurate as their makers claim.

Filling the air with radio noise that bothers them less than it bothers the Russians, the Ukrainians may have erased one of Russia’s main battlefield advantages. It’s time for Russian commanders to “acknowledge this reality,” Fighterbomber urged. “The future belongs to autonomous INS.”

But when it comes to INS, Ukraine has the edge.

Sources:
1. Fighterbomber via WarTranslated
2. DeepState
3. Center for Defense Strategies
4. Proceedings
5. Voice of America

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

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Thursday, February 27, 2025 5:00 PM

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

Putin Ally Threatens to Nuke Germany – 'Erase' NATO Ally 'Off the Face of the Earth'

Andrew Stanton | Feb 27, 2025 at 4:34 PM EST

https://www.newsweek.com/putin-ally-vladimir-solovyov-threatens-german
y-nato-2037345

Vladimir Solovyov, a Russian state TV host and key ally to Russian President Vladimir Putin, said Moscow could "erase" Germany "off the face of the earth" during a recent broadcast.

Newsweek reached out to the German embassy for comment via email on Thursday.

Why It Matters

Trump's latest round of comments about the Russia-Ukraine war, including calling Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky a "dictator" and suggesting Ukraine is to blame for the Russian invasion, have stirred criticism in the U.S. His comments are out of step with many more traditional conservatives, as well as most Americans, who view Russia as the aggressor in the war, which passed its three-year anniversary this week.

Solovyov's recent remarks shed light on how Russia may be interpreting Trump's latest remarks and apparent shift in foreign policy.

What to Know

During Solovyov's recent broadcast, a video of which was posted to X, formerly Twitter, by journalist and Russian Media Monitor founder Julia Davis, Solovyov and his guests discussed the shift in U.S. foreign policy under Trump, as well as the recent German elections.

Andrey Sidorov, dean of the Faculty of World Politics at Moscow State University, noted that Friedrich Merz, who is expected to be Germany's next chancellor, plans to continue the European nation's support for Ukraine. He said that Merz has been more open to providing medium-range Taurus missiles to Ukraine than acting current Chancellor Olaf Scholz.

Solovyov said Russia may act if Germany provides the missiles to Ukraine.

"So now we can strike them," he said. "We will erase Germany off the face of the earth

His comment sparked pushback from Sidorov, who noted that Russia is "yet to erase anything."

"If Merz makes this decision, despite the fact that America said it's against this and wants peace, if Merz chooses an escalation, Trump will say, 'I'm washing my hands of this.' He will say 'I warned you,'" Solovyov predicted.

Throughout the conflict, Solovyov has frequently made inflammatory remarks about member states of the North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO). Just last month, he said Russia would put London "underwater.", i.e. nuke London. His comments often go further than those of Putin and other Kremlin officials.

What People Are Saying

Davis, in a post to X: "The Trump admin is delivering what Russia wants."

Trump on Wednesday when asked about the "concessions" he would like to see to end the war: "Oh, I don't want to tell right now. But I can tell you that NATO you can forget about. I think that's probably the reason the whole thing started."

John Bolton, Trump's former national security adviser, on X on Tuesday: "It is a huge embarrassment that Trump has effectively switched sides in the Russo-Ukraine war, joining Russia. The U.S. has aligned itself not with our allies in NATO, but with the longstanding, principal threat to NATO: Moscow. It's unthinkable that an American president would do this."

What Happens Next?

Negotiations are expected to continue over the coming days and weeks, though it's unclear at this point how successful peace talks will be.

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

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Thursday, February 27, 2025 5:27 PM

Quote:
Originally posted by second:
Quote:
Originally posted by 6ixStringJack:

That's why you and I have to remain vigilant and focus on what is going on with the idiots like Ted and Second unwittingly working for Trump and providing him with a constant smoke screen for the next 4 years.

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

"I don't find this stuff amusing anymore." ~Paul Simon
There is NO SMOKE SCREEN around Trump. He shows everyone what he is.

Right.

That's why I suggest that the two retards here actually listen to his words instead of USAID funded shills like Kevin Drum and Peter Zeihan.

Unlike Joe Biden* who never got in front of a camera, Trump is in front of a camera all day long, nearly every day. He's already had more than twice the screen time of Joe Biden* in 4 weeks than Joe* did in 4 years.

I'll listen to Trump. You keep banging your head against the fucking wall for the next 4 years until you crack it open like a coconut.

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

"I don't find this stuff amusing anymore." ~Paul Simon

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Thursday, February 27, 2025 6:34 PM

I believe in solving problems, not sharing them.

Russia and the USA are NOT negotiating for peace.

They're simply trying to normalize relations, and are currently working out how to get ambassadors in each other's nations again.

Everything SECOND posts, or implies, or assumes, is wrong. I'm beginning to think he's in the confabulation stage of dementia.

-----------
"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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Thursday, February 27, 2025 6:35 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:
Russia and the USA are NOT negotiating for peace.

They're simply trying to normalize relations, and are currently working out how to get ambassadors in each other's nations again.

Everything SECOND posts, or implies, or assumes, is wrong. I'm beginning to think he's in the confabulation stage of dementia.

Trump says you are mistaken, Signym:

Trump just dealt Russia a devastating blow

By Marc A. Thiessen | Feb 27, 2025

https://www.washingtonpost.com/opinions/2025/02/27/minerals-deal-ukrai
ne-russia/

The minerals deal negotiated between the United States and Ukraine is a devastating development for Russia. Indeed, it is in some ways more important than any peace deal President Donald Trump might negotiate to end the fighting. Once implemented, it will mean that Russia has effectively lost the war.

Russian President Vladimir Putin wanted to conquer his neighbor. Instead, the United States has just gone into business with Ukraine — entering into, as the agreement puts it, “a durable partnership” with Kyiv to jointly develop Ukraine’s untapped minerals and other natural resources and pledging “a long-term financial commitment to the development of a stable and economically prosperous Ukraine.”

With this deal, the United States is now invested — literally, not figuratively — in what the deal calls “a free, sovereign and secure Ukraine.” That means the United States now has a massive financial incentive to help safeguard Ukraine’s independence. If Ukraine survives, the United States will stand to gain hundreds of billions of dollars; if Ukraine falls, we get nothing. After all, does anyone think that if Putin conquers Ukraine, he is going to repay the United States for the weapons we gave Ukraine to fight his troops? Of course not.

The deal creates “a Reconstruction Investment Fund” that will be jointly owned and managed by the two countries. Ukraine will contribute 50 percent of all revenue earned from the “future monetization” of all government-owned natural resource assets, including “minerals, hydrocarbons, oil, natural gas, and other extractable materials.” The fund will use this revenue to “invest in projects in Ukraine and attract investments to increase the development” of its natural resources, as well as “infrastructure, ports, and state-owned enterprises.”

Those who say Ukraine failed to win security guarantees in exchange for the minerals deal are missing the point: The minerals deal is a security guarantee. Trump has made clear that he is not going to send American troops to Ukraine. But with this deal, he is going to send something better: American workers, bulldozers and earthmovers.

“It’s a great deal for Ukraine, too, because they get us over there,” Trump explained during his Cabinet meeting on Wednesday. “We’re going to be working over there. We’ll be on the land. And you know, that way it’s this sort of automatic security, because nobody’s going to be messing around with our people when we’re there.”

With the minerals deal done, Trump must now negotiate a peace deal that secures his investment by making sure the war ends — and never resumes. Ukraine’s minerals only have value to America if they are extracted from Ukrainian soil, processed and sold. If Ukraine does not have security, that won’t happen. U.S. businesses won’t be able to mine for minerals under fire from Russian forces and will not make long-term investment in Ukraine if they fear the fighting will resume. And if they don’t invest, American taxpayers won’t get paid.

Trump certainly knows that as soon as there is a peace agreement, China, Iran and North Korea will help Russia rearm — and that in time, Russia will reconstitute its forces and rebuild its defense-industrial base in preparation for a new offensive.

To stop that from happening, the United States needs to help Ukraine establish deterrence. And that will require allowing Ukraine to purchase the American weapons it needs to discourage Russia from ever restarting the conflict. The minerals deal creates a mechanism to repay the United States for the weapons we have given Ukraine over the past three years, but not for Ukraine to buy weapons in the future to defend our joint investments.

Jack Keane, a retired Army general, and I laid out a plan in these pages on transitioning Ukraine from an aid recipient to a defense consumer, and using frozen Russian assets and loans guaranteed by Ukraine’s natural resources to buy weapons. This will be critical if we want to ensure that the war never starts up again, and Ukraine’s resources can be developed for the benefit of both countries. This does not require a new agreement or action by Congress; the mechanisms for such sales exist under existing law.

But this deal is a critical step forward. Russia wanted to diminish Ukraine economically, politically and militarily. With this deal, Trump has enhanced Ukraine economically and politically. Now, to secure our new investments, the United States must enhance Ukraine militarily as well.

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

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Friday, February 28, 2025 7:30 AM

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

Russia's efforts to consolidate a bloc of America's most significant adversaries continue even as the Kremlin pretends to seek an improved relationship with the United States. As Russian diplomats have re-established contacts with their American counterparts, they have also continued to court allies whose core ideologies are premised on the elimination of US leadership in the world and the destruction, conquest, or absorption of important US allies. Putin's victory in Ukraine, either on the battlefield or through negotiations, will empower and enable the PRC, North Korea, and Iran in their respective theaters. These adversaries are counting on a Russian victory in Ukraine—and it is in America’s national security interest to deny them this victory and weaken the entente that has coalesced around Russia’s invasion of Ukraine rather than strengthening it. Russia, in particular, appears to be relying on a charm offensive toward Washington to obscure its deep commitment to weakening the United States and its friends and allies around the world. The Trump administration should be clear-eyed about this larger Russian threat.

https://www.understandingwar.org/backgrounder/putin-deepens-russias-ti
es-us-adversaries-us-russia-talks-begin

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

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Saturday, March 1, 2025 6:16 AM

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

As Trump Rages, A Ukrainian Jet Armed With French Bombs Hammers A Russian Intel Base

European countries rally behind Ukraine as America aligns with Russia.

By David Axe | Feb 28, 2025, 05:10pm EST

Streaking fast over the landscape of northern Ukraine or western Russia, a Ukrainian warplane delivered a literal hammer blow on a Russian outpost in Russia’s Bryansk Oblast—and showed a way forward for Ukraine as U.S. President Donald Trump aligns the United States with Russian interests.

A Ukrainian drone caught the results on camera as the Ukrainian air force jet—either an ex-Soviet MiG or Sukhoi or a recently donated ex-French Dassault Mirage 2000—landed what was reportedly at least one 550-pound Hammer precision glide bomb on a facility belonging to the Russian Federal Security Service, the successor of the old KGB.

As a result of the precision strike on or before Friday, “critical enemy military infrastructure was destroyed, including communication systems, signal amplifiers, satellite communication equipment and other technical assets used for coordinating combat operations,” the Ukrainian general staff reported. “This significantly degraded the enemy’s ability to command and control forces in the region.”

The daylight raid was clearly part of a wider campaign targeting Russian commanders in Bryansk, a staging area for the Russian and allied forces battling a strong Ukrainian force in neighboring Kursk Oblast. The Ukrainians have recently expanded their 250-square-mile salient in Kursk, putting pressure on the Russian Northern Grouping of Forces to step up their counterattacks.

But counterattacks require command and logistics. Both are under strain as Ukraine targets them with manned and unmanned warplanes. The Friday bombardment was a “step in weakening enemy forces and reducing their military potential,” the general staff explained.

In another striking display of Ukrainian air power on or just before Thursday, a robotic Aeroprakt A-22 bomber, presumably flown by the Ukrainian Unmanned Systems Forces, flew low over Bryansk under the cover of darkness and dropped a 550-pound bomb on a Russian installation. A hapless Russian infantryman shot back at the drone, apparently without hitting it.

Critically, both recent Ukrainian raids in Bryansk involved European and Ukrainian technology—and not American technology.

In a catastrophic press conference on Friday, Trump and Vice President J.D. Vance berated visiting Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky for not being sufficiently “grateful” for American aid, even though Zelensky has frequently thanked the United States and has even directly singled out Trump for flattery.

Trump aligns the U.S. with Russia

Trump has moved swiftly to find common cause with Russian interests, mirroring Kremlin disinformation and even blaming Zelensky for the unprovoked Russian invasion of his country, which has killed tens of thousands of Ukrainians. On Friday, Trump threatened Zelensky with an abrupt cessation of U.S. aid. “I have determined that President Zelenskyy is not ready for Peace if America is involved,” Trump raged on social media following his Oval Office attack on the Ukrainian president.

Ukrainian troops were aghast. “I didn’t expect that a number-one country will become a freak show,” breathed Kriegsforscher, a Ukrainian marine corps drone operator who has been fighting in Kursk.

But America doesn’t have to be involved for Ukraine to continue defending itself. A strongly pro-Ukrainian party won the recent election in Germany. France, the United Kingdom, the Nordic and Baltic States and even Iceland have expressed continuing support for Ukraine.

Most of NATO is behind Ukraine. Most of the European Union is, too. European weapons and ammunition will continue flowing into Kyiv’s arsenals. “There is an aggressor: Russia,” French President Emmanuel Macron wrote as Zelensky left the White House. “There is a people being aggressed: Ukraine. We were all right to help Ukraine and sanction Russia three years ago and to continue doing so.”

Indeed, France’s help—in the form of Hammer glide bombs and potentially also a Mirage 2000 fighter—led directly to the Friday blast that devastated that Russian outpost in Bryansk.

At least six Mirages are already in Ukraine. More are coming, along with: fresh air defenses from Sweden, Lithuania, Norway and even Ireland; new armored vehicles from Finland; ammunition and drones from the United Kingdom; and, most critically, potentially billions of dollars in weapons and ammo from the new government in Germany.

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

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Saturday, March 1, 2025 7:31 AM

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

The Imperialist Philosopher Who Demanded the Ukraine War

For decades, Alexander Dugin argued that Russia had a messianic mission, and that destroying an independent Ukraine was necessary to fulfilling it.

By James Verini | March 1, 2025

In August, 2022, six months after Russian troops invaded Ukraine, a cultural festival named Traditions was held outside Moscow, at the onetime summer retreat of Alexander Pushkin. The star speaker was Alexander Dugin, a scholar and a prominent proponent of the war who has been called the prophet of the new Russian Empire. In his book “Being and Empire” (2023), which runs to a Heideggerian length of seven hundred and eighty-four pages, Dugin characterizes Russia as nothing less than “the last place of the true subject of history in time and space.” His lecture at the festival, “Tradition and History,” was as sprawling as its title suggested. Sitting under a canopy, he extemporized on the seasonal labors of the Russian peasantry, finding in the pre-modern past the “secret center” of the nation’s spiritual life.

For Dugin, the greatest enemy of Russia is liberalism, which he has defined as the “false premise that a human is a separate, autonomous individual—a selfish animal seeking its own benefit. And nothing more.” He has written that “such a liberal person—completely detached from God, history, and society; from the people and culture; from the family and loved ones; from collective morality and ethnic identity—does not exist; and if they do exist, they ought not to.”

After the talk, some members of the audience gathered around Dugin. A young man asked, “This liberalism thing—is it possible that concealed within it is some link to the Lord that will take it and bring it down?”

“Perhaps,” Dugin told him. “That’s why there are people who fight against the liberal world, even within the liberal world.”

“Maybe there is simply a certain substance that has flooded everything, all the brains,” the young man went on. “Then a flame is lit inside it by its offspring, which instantly turns the game upside down?”

The crowd looked befuddled, but Dugin cottoned at once. “Ah,” he said. “That would be Donald Trump!”

Everyone laughed, including Dugin’s daughter, Daria Dugina, who’d accompanied him to the event. A writer and broadcaster, Dugina also worked as a publicist and scheduler for her father. That evening, as they drove in different cars, an explosive attached to the underside of Dugina’s S.U.V. detonated. Her father got out of his vehicle as other drivers stopped. Someone taped the scene; Dugin can be seen stepping among the flaming wreckage, holding his hands to his head. The next day, Russia’s President, Vladimir Putin, sent Dugin a telegram calling Dugina’s death “a vile, cruel crime.”

An obscure Russian paramilitary group claimed responsibility for the bombing, but Moscow insisted that the order had come from Ukraine’s intelligence services. Ukraine denied the charge, but Biden Administration officials reportedly agreed with Russia. The intended victim was presumably Dugin. In some ways, he was a curious target: Dugin is not a politician or a military commander, nor does he seem to be a secret agent, despite predictable rumors to the contrary. Yet his voluminous writings, from books to online essays, have indelibly shaped Russian politics and policy. His conviction that the Russian Federation’s destiny is to become a holy empire along tsarist lines, a notion that he has been promoting for more than three decades, has been adopted by much of the Russian political élite—including by Putin himself. So has Dugin’s long-held belief that Ukraine is a proxy battlefield for a larger mortal conflict with the West. Whereas the Biden Administration opposed Russia’s imperial aggression, the Trump Administration appears willing to ratify it, if not to mimic it.

Since invading Ukraine, Putin has regularly invoked old arguments about Russia’s imperial role in the world, yet his references amount to a mercenary patchwork. In contrast, Dugin’s fluency with these arguments is as formidable as his loathing for liberalism is sincere. A close reading of his work offers an answer to the central question of the war, a question that, after three years, has still not been adequately addressed: Just why did Putin want to conquer Ukraine?

Only some of Dugin’s writing is about matters of state. Other pet subjects are literature, art, theology, music, and philosophy. He composes poetry (the not bad “In a Soviet Basement” contains the lines “He spins in a waltz, black as a cat / In his hands a Walter, in his hands a Walter / In his hands, Walter Scott”), records experimental music, and translates an array of right-wing European writers into Russian, releasing the books through his publishing house. Until 2014, he taught sociology at Moscow State University. He is not a Kremlin insider but, rather, a member of Moscow’s intelligentsia—or what now passes for it. He has written, co-written, or edited nearly a hundred books, and in his graphomania, if not in the quality of his work, he is a throwback to the Golden Age of Russian literature, in the nineteenth century. And, like the conservative Slavophile authors of that era who first formulated the nativist views that have resurged under Putin—such as the historian Mikhail Pogodin—Dugin assails the West and its values. He inveighs against democracy, secularism, individualism, civil society, multiculturalism, human rights, sexual openness, technology, scientific rationalism, and reason in general, which he rejects in favor of the mystical revelations of the Russian Orthodox Church. Although he is an avid tweeter and frequently posts on Telegram and Facebook, he claims to have no use for modernity. He once wrote that “the best course would be to eradicate the state and replace it with the Holy Empire.”

“Dugin can write a book in one night,” Marat Guelman, a former political consultant to the administration of Boris Yeltsin and a former acquaintance of Dugin’s, told me. “He is full of words.” Some of those words are sound enough. In “Templars of the Proletariat,” from 1997, Dugin observes that “the Russian national idea” is “paradoxical,” and “a colossal labor of the soul is required in order to make sense of it.” But, just when you think he is onto something serious, he says something risibly unserious. In his 2012 book, “Putin vs. Putin,” he presents pages of admissible arguments about Putin’s lack of vision for Russia’s future, only to announce, with a note of portentous climax, that Putin took office on a date predicted by Nostradamus. A critique of the Soviet leader Mikhail Gorbachev, which lucidly dissects the contradictions of perestroika, is undercut by musings on the occult implications of the “characteristic mark” on the former premier’s forehead. Dugin’s Russian critics like to say that he has kasha v golove—porridge in the head. Alexander Verkhovsky, a scholar of Russian extremism, dryly told me, “His books are very impressive, especially if, when you read them, you’re not thinking much.”

Nevertheless, you can find Dugin’s latest works in Russian bookstores, and he has found some avid readers abroad. The more extreme elements of the European New Right love his disdain for democracy. His books have been translated into French, Spanish, German, Italian, and English; in the United States, at least one of them—a 2014 treatise on Martin Heidegger—was published by a company run by the white nationalist Richard Spencer. Dugin makes President Trump’s accounts of American decline seem modest by comparison. In “Being and Empire,” Dugin calls the U.S. an immoral wasteland—“the direct opposite of the Holy Empire.” (His writing is full of italics.)

Last April, Dugin was interviewed by Tucker Carlson during the pundit’s tour of Russia. The expression of amiable skepticism that Carlson had worn through an earlier interview with Putin descended into a baffled frown when Dugin told him that the triumph of Western liberalism, which promotes “individualism” and rejects all kinds of “collective identities,” had led mankind to “the historical terminal station” where all ties to the past—religion, family, nation-state—were cut and “human identity” was “abandoned.” His anti-Western militancy is so intense that the U.S. and the European Union have both placed sanctions on him.

More dramatically, Ukrainian prosecutors have charged Dugin with genocide, though he appears to have played no material role in the war. His crime is rhetorical: he argues that the destruction of Ukraine is essential to Russia’s continued existence. In his 1997 book “Foundations of Geopolitics: The Geopolitical Future of Russia,” which brought him to fame in his home country, he writes, “The existence of Ukraine within its current borders, and with its current status as a ‘sovereign state,’ is tantamount to delivering a monstrous blow to Russia’s geopolitical security.” Although other Russian intellectuals have called for Ukraine’s incorporation into the Russian Federation, none have done so for quite so long, or with such a murderous tone, as Dugin. “Russia can be either great or not at all,” he writes in his 2014 book “Ukraine: My War,” adding, “Of course, for greatness, people always, in all centuries, pay a very heavy price, sometimes shedding entire seas of blood.”

Putin was once known for his distaste for ideology. Just before becoming his country’s acting President, in 2000, he wrote, “I am against the restoration of an official state ideology in Russia in any form.” In the decade after he took office, whenever he did resort to violence abroad—continuing the war in Chechnya; invading Georgia, in 2008—no grand ideology lay behind it. These were acts of opportunism by a cold-eyed pragmatist. The same could be said of Russia’s 2014 annexation of Crimea, which was brazen and unlawful but also virtually bloodless, so much so that it moved Henry Kissinger to call Putin “a serious strategist.” (The mandarin of Realpolitik knew no higher praise.)

Putin’s decision, in 2022, to try to conquer all of Ukraine can’t be arrived at by extrapolating from those prior invasions. This was less the gambit of a master of Realpolitik than the reckless gamble of an ideologue, and the impulse to invade belongs to an antique tradition of Russian political thought—a messianic imperialism that originates not in the Soviet Union (which the former K.G.B. agent Putin has been accused, imprecisely, of wanting to revive) but in tsarist Russia.

Today, Putin talks like a Romanov-era zealot. This once terse apparatchik seems to have succumbed to the notion, as Dostoyevsky put it in “The Brothers Karamazov,” that “all true Russians are philosophers.” Putin has even taken to quoting Dostoyevsky; not too long ago, the idea that he’d ever read Dostoyevsky would have been laughable. Putin waxes on about the “civilizational identity” that underlies Russia’s claims to cultural dominance, and about the “historical and spiritual space” of Greater Russia, which, naturally, includes all of Ukraine. “The world has entered a period of fundamental, revolutionary transformation,” he declared in a speech several months after attempting to topple Kyiv. Russia, he said, was defending not only its national interests but also the oppressed of the world against the “Western élites” who exploited them. His country had made “a glorious spiritual choice.”

The speech could have been written by Dugin. In “Foundations of Geopolitics,” he writes, “The Russian people certainly belong to the messianic peoples, and, like any messianic people, it has a universal, pan-human significance.” Putin has come to sound like Dugin to such an extent that Dugin has been called Putin’s Rasputin and Putin’s philosopher. “Putin’s Brain” was the headline of a Foreign Affairs profile of Dugin; “Inside ‘Putin’s Brain’ ” is the title of a recent book. All oversell the point. Putin’s telegram of condolence to Dugin notwithstanding, there is little to suggest that the two men have a personal relationship. But wars don’t arise from personal relationships. They arise from ideas—from the accretion, and corruption, of ideas over time. Putin’s assimilation of Dugin’s thinking is likely indirect, maybe even unconscious. It might be more apt to call Dugin the Russian President’s imperial id. When I asked the historian Andrei Tsygankov, the author of “Russia and the West from Alexander to Putin,” about the pair’s connection, he said, “Putin uses Dugin in the way that the tsars used the Slavophiles”—for “mobilizing the population to their cause.”

When Putin announced the start of his “special military operation” in Ukraine, on February 24, 2022, he didn’t mention that country by name until the latter half of a nearly four-thousand-word speech. The first half was taken up with excoriating the West, and especially the U.S., that “empire of lies,” for forcing the war on Russia by seeking to “destroy our traditional values and force on us their false values . . . that are directly leading to degradation and degeneration, because they are contrary to human nature.” That speech, too, could have been written by Dugin, who has written that “the entirety of Russian history is a dialectical argument with the West and against Western culture.”

Putin and Dugin came to prominence simultaneously, in the nineteen-nineties. After leaving the K.G.B., Putin became the deputy mayor of St. Petersburg, then joined the staff of President Yeltsin, who made him chief of the Federal Security Service (the K.G.B.’s successor), then Prime Minister, and eventually tapped him for the Presidency. This was one way up in post-Soviet Russia. Another was through the reactionary underground. This was Dugin’s path. February 24, 2022, can be seen as the day those two trajectories, the official and the unofficial, collided.

Putin describes himself as a “pure and utterly successful product of Soviet patriotic education” in “First Person,” a collection of interviews with him published in 2000 and the closest thing we have to an autobiography. Dugin is a more exotic specimen in Russia: a child of the sixties, almost in the same sense that Westerners would use that term. He was born in Moscow to a minor official in 1962, nine years after the death of Joseph Stalin, from whose murderous purges the Russian intelligentsia was slowly recovering. Writers and other educated élites were then “under such monstrous ideological pressure that one wonders why art and the humanities have not altogether vanished in our country,” the dissident Andrei Sakharov wrote.

Stalin suppressed Ukrainian culture and caused the death of untold numbers of Ukrainians. While Stalin’s successor, Nikita Khrushchev, continued expanding the Soviet imperium, he reversed Stalin’s policy on Ukraine. Khrushchev, who grew up in Ukraine, elevated it to the status of the second most powerful Soviet republic after Russia and, in 1954, transferred Crimea to its control—an act for which Putin assails him today. He also instituted the thaw, as it was known, relaxing cultural restrictions. The year Dugin was born, Khrushchev both precipitated the Cuban missile crisis and approved the publication of Alexander Solzhenitsyn’s account of a Soviet Gulag, “One Day in the Life of Ivan Denisovich,” arguably the most subversive novel to have been legally published in the U.S.S.R. Beneath the sanctioned renaissance sprang up an illicit counterculture that defied the Soviet cult of reason with occult religion.

From this spiritualist subculture emerged the young Dugin, by all accounts unforgettably. Tall, regal, and formal looking, he looked like “a representative of a higher race,” one of his friends said. He was a walking paradox: in the aristocratic Russian manner, he wore cavalry jodhpurs and rolled his “R”s; at the same time, he adopted the style of a medieval peasant, complete with a “pudding bowl” haircut. The writer and poet Eduard Limonov recalls in his memoir “My Political Biography” that Dugin was a “plump, cheeky, belly, busty, bearded young man” who was “full of exaggerated emotions.”

While Putin got a law degree and entered the intelligence services, Dugin dropped out of aviation school and took up with a different sort of secret society: the Iuzhinskii Circle, a group of writers in Moscow’s “metaphysical underground.” The circle had been formed, in the nineteen-sixties, by Yuri Mamleev, a novelist who has noted, “We felt distinctly that there was a bottomless chasm beneath us and that the whole planet was sinking into it.” The first members of the salon gathered in Mamleev’s small Moscow apartment to listen to him read from his writings, which were too outlandish to be published even during the thaw. One novel, “Shatuny,” was regarded as a kind of sacred text. A late-twentieth-century answer to “Crime and Punishment,” it follows a half-witted, sex-crazed serial killer as he screws and slaughters his way through Russia, in an effort to glimpse his victims’ souls. Dugin said that the novel was “the secret seed of the nineteen-sixties,” writing, “It is as though what you hold in your hands is not a book, but an empty space, a black, impish vortex that can suck large objects into itself.” A similar feeling may have been induced by the circle’s initiation rites—Bacchic episodes with copious drinking and sex.

Mamleev immigrated to the U.S. in 1974, before Dugin joined the circle. When Dugin became a member, the group was meeting at the dacha of Sergey Zhigalkin, a mystical philosopher who became Dugin’s close friend. Zhigalkin told me that life in the circle was not just intellectually risky; members were in danger of being arrested or sent to a mental asylum. He said that Dugin opposed both the Soviet system and “modern civilization as a whole.” This gave Dugin a grim outlook, Zhigalkin explained: “In Russia, and America, too, we live in the paradigm of a new time: in postmodernism, which is purely earthly and has no spiritual dimension—that is the tragedy.”

Dugin began not as a writer but as a musician. He brought a guitar and an accordion to circle gatherings and performed original material. Charles Clover, who was a Financial Times correspondent in Moscow at the time, chronicles the metaphysical underground in his book “Black Wind, White Snow,” and writes that Dugin’s songs were “composed of as many antisocial elements as its creator could find.” Clover recalls, “Strumming away around a bonfire in the evening sunset, he belted out a song, ‘Fuck the Damn Sovdep.’ ” (The Soviet Deputies were the organs of local government in the U.S.S.R.) The lyrics essentially called for mass murder of the Soviet leadership: “Two million in the river / two million in the oven / Our revolvers will not misfire.” Eventually, Dugin had his own cult following. “We just fell down and worshipped him,” one acolyte told Clover. “He was like a messiah.”

Soon enough, Dugin came to the attention of Putin’s colleagues in the K.G.B. Dugin’s father—his government career hindered, or possibly ruined, by his son—may have tipped off agents. In 1983, Dugin was sent to K.G.B. headquarters after performing dissident songs at a Moscow art studio. Agents later discovered a samizdat archive of Mamleev’s writings at the home of Dugin’s parents. According to Clover, Dugin was told by his interrogator, “The U.S.S.R. will stand forever. It’s an eternal reality.”

Dugin was released after a night of questioning and started working odd jobs while exhausting library shelves. He inhaled the European canon and Eastern philosophy. M. Gessen, in their book “The Future Is History,” relates an anecdote about Dugin wanting to read Heidegger’s “Being and Time.” He couldn’t locate a Russian translation, so he tracked down a German copy—on microfilm. He retrofitted a 35-mm. hand-cranked projector on his desk. “By the time he was done with ‘Being and Time,’ Dugin needed glasses,” Gessen writes. He’d also taught himself German. He then learned English, French, and Italian, too, along with various ancient languages. He gravitated to latter-day Continental metaphysicians—Heidegger, the German radical conservatives Oswald Spengler and Carl Schmitt, the traditionalist school of René Guénon and Julius Evola—who shared a hopelessness about Western civilization, if not civilization generally, and a morbid aversion to modernity. A striking number of these thinkers were members of the Nazi Party, or were otherwise fascist. Dugin could declaim on their work for hours, and did.

“He liked to give a lecture,” Misha Verbitsky, a mathematician and a former friend of Dugin’s, told me. “He dared to think in directions where nobody else would. Like Nietzsche, I suppose. Of course, some of the directions were very unhealthy.”

Dugin also read deeply in the Russian canon. The notion that Russia is more than a state or nation—that it is a holy empire with a world-saving duty—goes back at least half a millennium. “All Christian realms will come to an end and will unite into the one single realm of our sovereign, that is, into the Russian realm, according to the prophetic books,” the Russian theologian Filofei predicted in 1510. “Both Romes fell, the third endures.” The idea was brought to its highest polish in the nineteenth century, the apex of tsarist imperialism and, not coincidentally, of Russian letters. That era is the origin of Dugin’s views of the West and Ukraine, and of Putin’s recent thinking. Indeed, it can be seen as the true start of the Ukraine war.

As hard as it is to imagine now, Russia was then seen, and saw itself, not as the existential foe of the West but as its protégé. When Tsar Alexander I chased Napoleon Bonaparte from a charred Moscow to Paris, in 1814, he was hailed as the deliverer of Europe. Alexander came to believe that God had ordained him to save Europe, and also all of humanity and Christianity. Russia was both a physical and a spiritual empire—the Third Rome, as Filofei suggested. So holy was Russia that the two words merged in the language: svetlorusskaia, or Holy Russia. Tellingly, in “Being and Empire” Dugin calls Russia “the last kingdom—the Third Rome.”

If Alexander was the progenitor of the messianic imperialism that Putin expresses today, Alexander’s most imaginative acolytes were poets and novelists, not his court propagandists. As Eugene Onegin rides home from Europe, in Alexander Pushkin’s verse novel, he longs for “Holy Russia, her fields, her deserts, cities and her seas.” In “Dead Souls,” Nikolai Gogol rhapsodizes at Russia, “You are overtaking the whole world, and shall one day force all nations, all empires to stand aside,” and, geographically speaking, at least, he wasn’t wrong. By the time Alexander expired, in a fog of lunatic spiritualism, in 1825, his empire was the largest the world had ever known, stretching from the Baltic Sea to the far side of the Pacific Ocean, from the Black Sea to the Arctic Ocean.

Simultaneously, the Russian intelligentsia was in a debate about the empire’s soul. The so-called Westernizers, reform-minded writers who believed that Russia must continue looking to Europe to keep up in a changing world, stood against the Slavophiles, who countered that Russia was its own place with its own history, its own Church and traditions, with no need of a constitution, a free press, settled law, or other indignities of Western modernity. Ironically, the Slavophiles’ argument came straight out of European Romanticism and idealism, which similarly questioned the rationalist claims of the Enlightenment. The Slavophiles’ distinction was their tone of self-pity. The radical journalist Alexander Herzen, a Westernizer, determined that Slavophilia was not so much a philosophy as “a wounded national feeling.”

The debate remained largely theoretical until the Crimean War broke out, in 1853. Russia’s former allies France and Britain became its opponents, joining the Ottoman Empire against Tsar Nicholas I, Alexander’s younger brother. The war gave the Slavophile argument a deadly rationale, and convinced Nicholas that Europe could no longer be trusted. When Mikhail Pogodin, the leading Slavophile historian, wrote a memorandum to the tsar, saying, “We can expect nothing from the West but blind hatred and malice,” Nicholas commented in the margin, “This is the whole point.” Nicholas came to see the war as a personal holy struggle—but this time Russia was not saving Europe from conquest but saving the world from Europe.

Russia lost the Crimean War, but the aftershocks can still be felt today. In Putin’s 2014 speech celebrating the annexation of Crimea, he suggested that he was belatedly righting the defeat of Nicholas, whose bust greets visitors to Putin’s Kremlin offices. Nicholas never psychologically recovered from his loss, but his ideology permanently shaped Russian politics and literature. Perhaps its most impassioned proponent was Dostoyevsky. Although he turned out monuments to humanism in his fiction, in his political writings Dostoyevsky adopted an apocalyptic nativism. “Any closer intercourse with Europe might even exercise a harmful and corrupt influence upon the Russian mind,” he warns in “A Writer’s Diary,” which brought him to fame when it was published, in the eighteen-seventies.

Dugin has written that Dostoyevsky is his country’s “greatest national genius” and “the writer who wrote Russia,” and Dugin’s political writing can be seen as a decades-long fugue on “Diary.” In “Putin vs. Putin,” he writes that the Russian Empire is “something alive, sacred,” chosen by God to “speak for all of those who have been humiliated and insulted.”

The Crimean War also helped incite an independence movement in Ukraine, which was then known in Moscow as Malorussiya, or Little Russia. The Russian intelligentsia had once admired Ukraine, seeing in it the birthplace of the Muscovite dynasty and Orthodoxy. That admiration ended, and contempt for the prospect of Ukrainian autonomy was one matter on which the Slavophiles and Westernizers agreed. The literary critic Vissarion Belinsky, a Westernizer, argued that Ukrainians were “a people without consciousness of itself.” Dugin echoes this in “Foundations of Geopolitics,” calling Ukrainian culture “devoid of any universal meaning.”

Alexander II, Nicholas I’s son and successor, banned Ukrainian-language publications. The tsar did this even as he abolished serfdom, with an eye on a new empire with messianic pretensions: the United States. Certain Westernizers such as Herzen saw promise in the U.S. But Slavophiles such as Pogodin, who, in his essay “The Slav and World Mission of Russia,” called America “no state, but rather a trading company,” saw the zenith of the soulless materialism that they believed was ruining Europe. America was the future, and the future was loathsome.

The Slavophilia debate ended with the Bolshevik Revolution of 1917, which gave rise to Russian fascism and to the short-lived Ukrainian People’s Republic, a state that was stamped out by Moscow. In the Soviet era, Slavophilism was eventually revived by exiled thinkers such as Nikolai Trubetzkoy, an accomplished linguist and Lithuanian royalty. Trubetzkoy’s hatred for his Communist dispossessors was matched by his hatred for Europe, which had, after all, exported Communism to Russia. He envisioned a post-Soviet Russian Empire based on Orthodoxy, high Russian culture, anti-Westernism, and the subjugation of Ukraine. In his 1927 essay “The Ukraine Problem,” Trubetzkoy argued that Ukraine was the vector of inferior Western ideas into Russia. For Russia to realize its imperial destiny, he wrote, “Ukrainian culture must become an individualized variant of all-Russian culture.” Dugin, whose publishing house has reissued Trubetzkoy’s work, repeats this argument nearly verbatim in “Foundations of Geopolitics,” demanding that “Ukraine should be strictly a projection of Moscow.”

As it turned out, the Soviet regime that Trubetzkoy opposed was meeting his demands. Stalin reinstituted the ban on the Ukrainian language, liquidated Kyiv’s political class and intelligentsia, and starved millions of Ukrainians to death.

In Dugin’s 1997 book “Templars of the Proletariat,” he writes that, after the U.S.S.R. disbanded, “that which had seemed without end had collapsed in a single moment.” What this meant intellectually was that “the meaning and content of Russian history is a question addressed these days to everyone.”

In the West, we tend to view the end of the Soviet Union as the beginning of a tragically brief period of Russian democracy. In Russia, it is thought of less wistfully, as a period of social collapse and economic ruin. Former Soviet territories descended into a civil war that recalled the nineteenth century. The Russian Federation’s first President, Boris Yeltsin, wrote in his 1994 memoir that he was choosing “a path of internal development rather than an imperial one.” Yeltsin signed an agreement with the newly independent Ukraine that deemed it and Russia “equal and sovereign States.”

The fear and shame felt by Russians in this era can’t be overstated. Putin once said, “We remember the horrible nineteen-nineties,” when the West “called us friends and partners, but they treated us like a colony, using various schemes to pump trillions of dollars out of the country.” One result was the resurgence of Russian fascism. The movement was led by the National Patriotic Front, a party that had, for a time, a banner depicting the Romanov double eagle, a swastika, and Jesus, along with the slogan “God! Tsar! Nation!” The group’s manifesto stated that democratic reform was a plot to “open the floodgates to Western capital,” which sounds like something Dugin would write, though it’s unclear whether he contributed to the document. The main appeal for him may have been that the name by which the party was popularly known, Pamyat, or Memory, was apparently taken from an experimental novel.

Dugin ultimately left the National Patriotic Front and began meeting with Eduard Limonov, the writer, who had just returned to Russia after nearly two decades in exile. In his absence, Limonov had become an underground legend. He had been a petty thief in Kharkiv, a samizdat poet in Moscow, a punk sensation in New York, and an acclaimed litterateur in Paris. In a series of autobiographical novels about his poverty, crimes, and sexual exploits, he helped invent the genre we now call autofiction. But Limonov, though a libertine, was no liberal. His success in the West hadn’t left him applauding its freedoms but, rather, made him despise its materialism; in “My Political Biography,” he describes the U.S. as “the enemy of all.” Dugin wrote, “When I saw Limonov at an opposition rally for the first time, it seemed to me that a myth was coming true.”

Limonov loathed what he found in the new Russia no less. He wrote that he abhorred “Yeltsin with all my being,” as Dugin did, for adopting Western neoliberal policies—and for relinquishing the Soviet Empire. The two men were in synch: Dugin wrote that “all of Russia’s misfortunes can be attributed” to it being a “copy of the secular European model,” and Limonov argued that “what the insensitive Russian citizens, who react only to extremely brutal, horrifying and shocking events, really want is the arrival of Fascists.”

In 1993, Dugin and Limonov founded the National Bolshevik Party. Article 1 of its charter stated, “The essence of National Bolshevism is the incinerating hatred of the anti-human system of the Trinity: liberalism/democracy/capitalism.” Article 2 was the party’s enemies list: the U.S., Europe, NATO, and the United Nations. Article 3 was the group’s main policy goal: the creation of a “giant continental empire” that must include “the accession of the former union republics.” In other words, the independent state of Ukraine would be abolished.

The group cited a mishmash of historical inspirations, ranging from Russian heroes of the Second World War to Hermann Göring and Joseph Goebbels. This paradox was reflected in its official banner: a red background with a white circle in the middle and, in the place of a black swastika, a black hammer and sickle. According to Limonov, they liked to suggest at press conferences that he was the Hitler to Dugin’s Goebbels. Marat Guelman, the former political consultant for Yeltsin, who knew Dugin and Limonov, told me that Limonov didn’t himself know whether the party was “an art project or real politics.” From one perspective, their fascism was a punk gesture. The National Bolshevik headquarters, the basement of a residential building near a metro station, also served as a performance space, a literary salon, a drinking hall, a sex den, and the sole bureau of the party newspaper Limonka, which can translate to either little lemon or grenade. Dugin claims to be descended from a radical priest who was beheaded by the state, and the proof of it may be in his fearlessly splenetic Limonka columns. In one such column, he lambasts Yeltsin’s Kremlin, writing, “We are disgusted by the mafia-market society of violence and oppression, we passionately love our Motherland, our people and our culture and do not want traders and bastards to squander the lands watered with the blood of our fathers.”

But Dugin and Limonov were also fascists in the foulest sense. They craved absolutism and suffering, believed in cruelty for its own sake, and thought war to be the most exultant mode of existence. Their movement was an imperial death cult. The National Bolshevik greeting was an arm thrown forward and to the side—Sieg heil style, but with a clenched fist—alongside the exclamation “Yes, death!” Dugin’s former friend Misha Verbitsky told me that Dugin’s “favorite idea is that the whole world will be destroyed, and that it’s actually a good thing.”

Yet the National Bolsheviks, who gained an international following, did at least reject the bigotry of classical fascism: they forbade ethnic and religious discrimination. The party had Asian, Muslim, and Jewish members and at least one Black member—a Latvian activist who would later be arrested in Ukraine for supporting pro-Russia activists. Although Dugin’s obsession with Nazis is undeniable, there is surprisingly little antisemitism in his writing.

In the nineties, Limonov joined separatists fighting in Georgia and Moldova. After attempting to smuggle weapons into Kazakhstan to incite a pro-Russia insurgency, he spent two years in prison. He then went to Crimea to urge on pro-Russia separatists, and got banned from Ukraine in the process. Dugin’s concession to action was a 1995 run at a parliamentary seat. The title of his platform was “With the People Against the Dictatorship of Scum.” He won less than a per cent of the vote. But by that point he’d found a surer entry into the main arena of Russian politics.

Dugin was hired to write for another publication, Den: Journal of the Spiritual Opposition, by its editor, Alexander Prokhanov, a veteran of the Iuzhinskii Circle, a cult novelist, and an unabashed imperialist who wrote the mission statement for a group of reactionary politicians and generals who tried to depose Gorbachev in a coup, in 1991. Prokhanov told me that Dugin “astonished me with his vocabulary, terms, philosophical categories, which he brought into our public debate.” Den ran a column called “Conspiratology.” In a nine-part series, “The Great War of the Continents,” published in 1992, Dugin outlined the “geopolitical conspiracy” of the Soviet Union’s demise and the establishment of Ukrainian independence. Among other things, he claimed that NATO was turning Ukraine into a cordon sanitaire through which it would infiltrate Russia—the very claim that Putin would adopt two decades later. The West was, Dugin wrote, “luring Russia into a Ukrainian trap.”

The Russian intelligentsia, many of whom had opposed Ukrainian independence when the Soviet Union fell, was receptive to this line of thinking. In the book “Rebuilding Russia,” Alexander Solzhenitsyn, who had gone from being an anti-Soviet dissident to a neo-Slavophile, says that the Ukrainian language was a “falsehood” and warned against Ukrainian self-governance, even though much of his family was Ukrainian.

Prokhanov introduced Dugin to Moscow’s reactionary élite, and in the mid-nineties Dugin became an informal adviser to Gennady Zyuganov, the leader of the still powerful Communist Party, who ran against Yeltsin for the Presidency on a platform of a “voluntary” reconstitution of the Soviet Union. Dugin simultaneously advised the candidate Vladimir Zhirinovsky, the leader of the Liberal Democratic Party, who wanted to invade Ukraine and even go to war with NATO, to win back the Soviet Empire. Zhirinovsky was the son of a Ukrainian Jew, but such was the vicious vaudeville of Russian politics in the nineties. When he and Zyuganov overperformed in parliamentary elections, in 1995, a chill went through Ukraine and the West.

Dugin’s Den series was the basis for his 1997 book “Foundations of Geopolitics.” It appeared shortly after Yeltsin won reëlection. Russian conservatives were crestfallen, and Dugin’s book provided fresh inspiration. “The battle for Russian world domination is not over,” he reassured readers. Describing the Russian Federation as a merely “transitional formation,” he wrote that, throughout history, the Russian people had perpetually moved “towards the creation of an Empire.” More than that, any “refusal of the empire-building function” wasn’t just unnatural but “national suicide.” And the first order of business of the new empire must be the end of Ukraine: “The continued existence of a unitary Ukraine is unacceptable.”

“Foundations of Geopolitics” was a sensation. The historian John B. Dunlop observed, “There has perhaps not been another book published in Russia during the post-Communist period” that has exerted as much influence “on Russian military, police, and foreign policy elites,” adding, “If its ideas were to be implemented, then Ukraine would cease to exist.”

After Putin took office, three years later, Dugin told an interviewer that the new President was “the ideal ruler” for the times—ideal not because he was particularly competent but because he was “a tragic figure.” This was an unseasonable claim; Putin was then being hailed as an optimist, an internationalist, and a reformer. He declared that Russia might even join NATO. He was one of the first heads of state to call George W. Bush on 9/11, and, on meeting him, Bush found him “straightforward and trustworthy.” But Dugin looked at Putin’s sphinxlike frown and sensed something else. With Putin, Dugin promised, “the dawn is breaking,” but it would be a “dawn in boots.”

On December 30, 1999, Putin published an essay in the newspaper Nezavisimaya Gazeta titled “Russia at the Turn of the Millennium.” He has since lamented the collapse of the Soviet Union, but he didn’t take that view in the essay. Concentrating instead on the “outrageous price our country and its people had to pay for that Bolshevist experiment,” he wrote that “only fanatics or political forces that are absolutely apathetic and indifferent to Russia and its people can make calls to a new revolution.”

Putin didn’t mention Ukraine. Not until 2004 did his thoughts seem to turn to his country’s neighbor. Ukraine held a Presidential election that year. In the memoirs of Condoleezza Rice, then Bush’s national-security adviser, she recounts paying a visit to Putin in the Kremlin. Rice was surprised when a Ukrainian politician, Viktor Yanukovych, suddenly emerged from a side room. “Oh, please meet Viktor,” Putin said to her. “He is a candidate for President of Ukraine.” Rice writes that she “took the message that Putin had intended: the United States should know that Russia had a horse in the race.”

When Yanukovych prevailed in the second round of the election, amid allegations of fraud, Ukraine erupted with protests that became known as the Orange Revolution. When he relented to his Western-friendly opponent, Viktor Yushchenko, suspicious Russians smelled a plot: Ukraine had been host not to a popular uprising, they believed, but to a foreign coup. At a 2005 press conference in Moscow, Dugin warned that “an absolutely serious threat of the Orange Revolution looms over Russia.” Putin appears to have adopted the same view around this time. Looking back, the Orange Revolution may have marked a switch in his thinking comparable to that of Tsar Nicholas I’s revelation during the Crimean War: Putin became convinced that the West could not be trusted, and that its leaders sought only to undermine Russia’s domestic stability.

In a 2007 speech to the Munich Security Conference, Putin jolted the room when he said that the U.S. had “overstepped its national borders in every way.” He was actually voicing a sentiment felt by many, as the U.S. was carrying on two wars, in Iraq and Afghanistan, and making noises about a third, in Iran. But it was a breach of diplomatic decorum. At a NATO summit in Bucharest the next year, Bush, possibly wanting to return the favor, shocked the assembled statesmen when he called for Ukraine to be fast-tracked for membership. Russia was not in NATO, but the organization and the Kremlin had a good rapport, so much so that Putin was at the summit. The American diplomat Angela E. Stent was also present, and in her 2014 book, “The Limits of Partnership,” she recalls that Putin took Bush aside and said, “You have to understand that Ukraine is not even a country.” Four months later, Russia invaded Georgia, which, like Ukraine, was in talks with NATO.

At the same time, Putin was becoming a more devout Orthodox believer, and he was evidently doing some reading. “If you look at the reasoning of our thinkers, philosophers, and representatives of classical Russian literature, they see the reasons for the disagreements between Russia and the West,” he said in an interview. “The Russian world view is based on the idea of good and evil, higher powers, and the divine principle. The basis of Western thinking—I don’t want this to sound awkward, but the basis is still interest, pragmatism.”

In 2012, Putin published a series of essays in Russian papers laying out his new vision of the country’s future—and the world’s. In Nezavisimaya Gazeta, he noted that the West was foundering because of its lack of traditional values. Russia offered a more conservative and harmonious alternative. The echoes of Dugin were unmistakable. “European politicians have started to talk openly about the failure of the ‘multicultural project,’ ” Putin wrote. He compared the “U.S.-style ‘melting pot,’ where most people are, in some way, migrants” to Russian culture, which “has been a joint affair between many different peoples.” Putin cited Dostoyevsky’s claim that the “great mission” of the Russian people was to “unite and bind together a civilization,” one in which identity is “based on preserving the dominance of Russian culture.” (Putin didn’t mention that Dostoyevsky had arrived at this vision only after spending four years in a Siberian prison.) As though answering Dugin’s call, in “Templars of the Proletariat,” for the new Russia to wash itself in blood, Putin declared that Russians “have confirmed their choice time and again during their thousand-year history—with their blood, not through plebiscites or referendums.”

Dugin’s emerging intellectual alliance with Putin was underscored when Dugin quit the National Bolshevik Party, having fallen out with Limonov, who dismissed his old friend as a “degenerate servitor of the regime.” Dugin was given a chair in the sociology department of Moscow State University, where he formed a think tank, the Center for Conservative Studies.

He also founded a party of his own: the Eurasia Party. Ostensibly, the party was devoted to promoting Nikolai Trubetzkoy’s notion, articulated in the nineteen-twenties, that Russia’s future rested among the ancient truths and autocratic traditions of Asia. Dugin apparently believes in this notion, but, on a practical level, the party, with minimal membership and no seats in parliament, may have been a front for a more shadowy political group led by Dugin: the International Eurasian Movement. One of this group’s projects was forming a pro-Russia Fifth Column in Ukraine. Dugin’s followers set up branches around the country, according to Anton Shekhovtsov, a Ukrainian researcher who spent time with them. A member of the group told Shekhovtsov, “Our foremost priority is to focus on the creation of the empire.” They trained for violent street protests and collected signatures for a referendum to establish a breakaway republic in the Donbas region of Ukraine. The Ukrainian government learned of Dugin and his followers’ insurrectionary activities, and he was banned from the country.

As for Putin, his distrust of the West increased with his hostility toward Ukraine, which he contended was both a security problem and the primary vector of Western cultural infection. He may have arrived at the same syllogism as the Slavophiles and Trubetzkoy: Ukraine was essentially the West, the West was modernity, and modernity was loathsome; therefore, Ukraine was loathsome. Thomas Graham, a senior director of Russian affairs on the National Security Council in the Bush Administration, told me, “The evolution in Putin’s thinking about Ukraine parallels the evolution in his thinking about the United States.”

Russian politicians and media portrayed Ukraine as a puppet of the U.S. Russian diplomats increasingly spoke about NATO aggression and Ukrainian waywardness, often depicting them as the same phenomenon. The idea that the Ukrainians might have their own legitimate concerns about their powerful neighbor was dismissed. In February, 2014, Russia invaded Crimea. Putin claimed that he was heading off a NATO takeover of the peninsula—the threat that Dugin had warned of more than two decades before.

Dugin lavishly praised Putin. He called the President “predetermined by history,” and said, “Putin is becoming more and more like Dugin, or at least implementing the program I have been building my entire life.” In “Ukraine: My War,” published the same year as the invasion, he writes that at stake was not just Crimea or the Donbas, where Russia had begun backing an insurgent war, but “the victory or defeat of Russia in the battle with the existential enemy (Atlanticism, the global financial oligarchy, the West).”

In an interview, Dugin offered a revelation. “I myself am Ukrainian,” he said. “I’m ashamed of that small but still significant part of my blood. And I want this blood to be cleansed with the blood of the scum, the Kyiv junta.” He went on, “And I think, Kill, kill, and kill! There is nothing else to say.” That is never true of Dugin, of course, so he added, “I am saying so as a professor.”

By that point, however, such rhetoric was commonplace among Russia’s growing movement of neo-imperialists, and a rebuke from the traditional intelligentsia was a badge of honor. Dugin was made the editorial director at Tsargrad TV, a network affiliated with the Russian Orthodox Church. His fame spread abroad, and his Twitter account surpassed two hundred thousand followers.

Dugin has said that “the American scenario in Ukraine is to bring neo-Nazis to power,” along with “their Jewish sponsors.” This was far-fetched even for him. But by 2021—as Russia prepared to invade Ukraine again—these claims, too, were commonplace. In an essay that Putin published on the Kremlin’s Web site that summer, titled “On the Historical Unity of Russia and Ukraine,” he claimed that Ukraine, with its Jewish President, was overrun by neo-Nazis. Many other passages of the seven-thousand-word essay, which is full of tendentious scholarship and specious interpretations, call to mind Dugin’s “The Great War of the Continents” series in Den three decades earlier. “Western authors of the anti-Russia project set up the Ukrainian political system,” Putin wrote, adding—in what could have been a direct quote from “Foundations of Geopolitics”—that this was “comparable in its consequences to the use of weapons of mass destruction.” He concluded, “Our spiritual unity has also been attacked.”

Putin even attempted to marshal literature to his cause. He listed famous Ukrainian writers to make the case that, although they may have been born in a place called Ukraine, they wrote in Russian. His chief example was Nikolai Gogol, whom Putin saw as “a Russian patriot.” He failed to mention that Gogol wrote his magnum opus, “Dead Souls,” not in Russia, where Nicholas I censored him, but in Europe. Putin also omitted the fact that Gogol was as proud of his Ukrainian heritage as he was of his Russian heritage. Gogol once wrote, “I never would give preference to the ‘Little Russian’ before the Russian, nor to the Russian before the ‘Little Russian.’ ”

After Russia launched its full-scale invasion of Ukraine, Dugin became one of the war’s most vocal advocates. He wrote that it followed “the logic of the entire historical path of Russia.”

In his lecture at the Traditions festival, Dugin moved from peasants to a survey of modern Russian intellectual history. “The eighteenth century was generally serfdom, Westernism, total degeneration, rejection of all sacred aspects, traditions, modernization, science, these damned institutions,” he told the audience. “But in the nineteenth century the Slavophiles, and our colossal achievements, begin.” And “when our children begin to see history this way,” he said, “they begin to love our past.” A few hours later, the child whom Dugin had taught to see history this way—his daughter, Daria Dugina—was incinerated.

The Moscow élite turned out for her memorial service, at Ostankino Tower, near the headquarters of Channel One, Russia’s largest state TV channel, which broadcast the event. National Bolshevik demonstrators had once occupied the tower as Dugin cheered them on in the pages of Limonka. Now, in a cavernous, black-draped studio, politicians and oligarchs lined up at a microphone and read aloud condolences from Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov and Patriarch Kirill I, of the Russian Orthodox Church. The billionaire Konstantin Malofeev, the chairman of Tsargrad TV, vowed that there would be a Daria Dugina Street in the Ukrainian capital after Russia rebuilt “Kyiv and all the other cities of Ukraine as part of a future Great Russia.”

The parliamentarian Sergey Baburin said, “The entity that was the most interested in this atrocious crime is the demonic West.” The organizer of Traditions, Zakhar Prilepin, singled out “the civilized world, all Europe.”

Dugin finally stepped to the microphone, looking noble in his grief. He said, of his daughter, “Almost her first words, which of course we taught her, were ‘Russia,’ ‘our state,’ ‘our people,’ ‘our empire.’ ” Tearing up, he went on, “She lived in the name of victory and died in its name, in the name of our Russian victory.”

Putin awarded Dugina the Order of Courage—a state medal whose prior recipients include generals, an astronaut, and the President of Chechnya. In a speech commemorating the annexation of portions of Ukraine, he said that “the collective West,” which seemed to encompass Ukraine, “sees our thought and our philosophy as a direct threat,” He added, “That is why they target our philosophers for assassination.”

In a macabre form of poetic justice, Dugina’s death has become the subject of the sort of conspiracy theories that her father traffics in. A former Russian parliamentarian claims to have proof that she was actually killed by Russians, as part of a false-flag operation. In Paris, a man stood before the Eiffel Tower yelling that French intelligence was involved. A British scholar of Russia tweeted, “There is zero evidence that Alexander Dugin killed his daughter as part of a ritual sacrifice. I can’t believe I have to write that.”

Since his daughter’s death, Dugin has remained prodigiously productive: along with publishing “Being and Empire,” among other books, he has posted many essays online. He has a fellowship at Fudan University, in Shanghai, and has given lectures and interviews. But Dugina is never far from his thoughts. On Facebook, he regularly posts her picture or writes something about her. Last year, he told The Spectator that her death had made the war personal for him: “They have killed not only her. They have killed me and my wife. Everything stopped on 20 August 2022. It was a success for Satan and his slaves.” In the same interview, he urged Putin to use nuclear weapons on Ukraine.

In Dugin’s preface to “Eschatological Optimism,” a book of inspirational Neoplatonic philosophy that Dugina had been writing, which was published posthumously, he says, “I’d rather believe that I don’t exist, that we all don’t exist, than her.” He calls her a “philosophical hero,” adding, “A Russian hero is first and foremost a victim. He knows that his fate is tragic, and his path is suffering.”

Suffering was also the theme of a speech that Putin gave, in September, 2022, celebrating the annexation of captured Ukrainian territories. For a speech meant to mark a victory, it was oddly victimized in tone. Before Putin fell in thrall to the idea that Ukraine is a Western puppet and an existential threat to Russia that must vanish from maps, he was—publicly, at least—as allergic to self-pity as he was to ideology. But the speech was a paean to that “wounded national feeling” which the journalist Alexander Herzen had identified in the Slavophiles. Putin didn’t dwell on the suffering of the thousands of Russian soldiers who had died for the cause of annexing Ukraine, nor did he touch on the suffering of the millions of Ukrainians whom he claimed to be saving from themselves. Instead, he focussed on the centuries of Russian suffering at the hands of the West, which was “ready to cross every line to preserve the neocolonial system that allows it to live off the world, to plunder it thanks to the domination of the dollar and technology.” He decried the Western “overthrow of faith and traditional values,” which was “coming to resemble a ‘religion in reverse’—pure Satanism.” The invasion, then, was meant to save not just Ukraine, or Russia, but Christianity, and therefore all mankind. The speech might have been written by Nicholas I or Fyodor Dostoyevsky—or Alexander Dugin.

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

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Saturday, March 1, 2025 12:39 PM

I believe in solving problems, not sharing them.

SECOND, do you really expect me to waste my time reading the crap that you say only takes you minutes to find and thst EVEN YOU don't read?

However, I did scan this

Quote:
The minerals deal negotiated between the United States and Ukraine is a devastating development for Russia. Indeed, it is in some ways more important than any peace deal President Donald Trump might negotiate to end the fighting. Once implemented, it will mean that Russia has effectively lost the war.

I think this "deal" is as rapacious as Trump's proposed Gaza "Riviera of the eastern Mediterranean". With Ukraine over a barrel, it seems Trump tried to "do a deal", cheap.

In any case, Zelensky refused to sign it for other reasons ... not bc it granted the USA rights to half of Ukraine's resources and infrastructure (ports) in perpetuity on two sheets of a badly written document.... but bc Zelensky wants security guarantees from the USA that will allow him to yank us into a direct conflict with Russia at any time.

Without the deal, the USA presumably stops assisting Ukraine.

So let's say that Trump stops helping Ukraine completely. The EU is pretty much out of everything except words of support and newly-printed Euros. (They, too, need a USA "backstop" for their tripwire troops!) So Ukraine's donated weapons and supplies run down and Russia takes over not only the four oblasts that they partially occupy (Donetsk, Luhansk, Zaparozhiy, Kherson) but also Karkhov (in the north), and the entire Black Sea coast all the way to Moldova (Mikolaiv and Odessa).

Those are all the areas Russia might want to keep, for historic or ethnic (high proportion of Russian- speaking population) or strategic (logistics) reasons.

Well, there go most of Ukraine's valuable assets!

So unless Trump keeps assisting Ukraine, "the deal" won't amount to much. As a business opportunity, rump Ukraine would be more expense than income.

It's a conundrum. It's possible Trump proposed the deal in a "heads I win, tails you lose" move: He either gets out of Ukraine or the USA acquires a lot of business opportunity and locks Russia out. At this point I don't know how serious he is about pursuing this deal, but it does seem to put Russia under pressure to put the pedal to the metal.

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"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, March 1, 2025 7:56 PM

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

Separate European ammunition initiatives more than make up for faltering American support under pro-Russian President Donald Trump

By David Axe | Mar 1, 2025, 01:44am EST

https://www.forbes.com/sites/davidaxe/2025/02/28/as-supply-chains-come
-online-ukraines-artillery-blasts-away-firing-millions-of-shells-a-year/

All told, Ukrainian artillery fires 5,000 or more 155-millimeter rounds every day for an annual total of around 2 million shells. That’s fewer shells than Russian artillery fires, but enough to shatter attacking Russian formations—and make them pay dearly in troops and vehicles for every yard they advance.

The Czech initiative delivered 1.5 million shells last year and will continue. The Estonian initiative is just spooling up—and aims to ship 1 million shells in 12 months.

Germany has shipped nearly half a million 155-millimeter shells to Ukraine—and is expanding domestic shell production in order to sustain supplies through 2025. More importantly, German arms manufacturer Rheinmetall has partnered with a Ukrainian firm to build a new factory for 155-millimeter shells in Ukraine—one that should begin producing hundreds of thousands of rounds annually starting next year.

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

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Sunday, March 2, 2025 6:43 AM

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

The Kremlin launched another informational effort intended to discourage additional US and European military assistance to Ukraine by claiming that Russia has won the war in Ukraine. Kremlin newswire TASS asked former Austrian Foreign Minister and current head of the St. Petersburg State University Geopolitical Observatory for Russia's Key Issues (GORKI) Center Karin Kneissl on March 1 if Russia has won the war in Ukraine.[14] Kneissl stated that "Russia has won in the sense that it was not defeated," "the [Russian] population supports the government," and "no one expected Russia to be so stable" after years of war. This new narrative is likely part of an ongoing rhetorical effort aimed at depicting Russian victory over Ukraine as inevitable in order to deter further Western military assistance and other support of Ukraine. Ukraine's Main Military Intelligence Directorate (GUR) recently warned that the Kremlin was preparing to declare "victory" over Ukraine amid reports that the Kremlin had ordered Russian state media personalities to intensify narratives intended to fracture Ukrainian society and discredit Ukraine among Western allies.[15]

The Russian MoD continues to recruit medically unfit soldiers in an effort to address personnel shortages. A Russian milblogger claimed on March 1 that Russian authorities are targeting vulnerable individuals, including those with alcoholism, developmental disabilities, and mental health disorders, through deception and coercion schemes to meet contract soldier recruitment quotas.[63] The milblogger also complained that Russian federal subject recruitment programs incentivize bringing another unwitting person to sign a military service contract and that the Russian MoD recently recruited at least one prisoner convicted of sexual crimes. The milblogger criticized the quality of these recruits and claimed that this is a systemic issue, and that the Russian military leadership is aware of and driving these issues.

https://www.understandingwar.org/backgrounder/russian-offensive-campai
gn-assessment-march-1-2025

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

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Sunday, March 2, 2025 2:10 PM