REAL WORLD EVENT DISCUSSIONS

Russia Invades Ukraine. Again

POSTED BY: CAPTAINCRUNCH
UPDATED: Tuesday, April 1, 2025 10:08
SHORT URL:
VIEWED: 201926
PAGE 162 of 162

Monday, March 24, 2025 7:00 AM

SECOND

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


Trump’s Lust for Canada Echoes Putin’s Lust for Ukraine

Expansionist rhetoric, economic grievance, and fantasies of erasing an “artificial” border.

By Will Saletan | Mar 18, 2025

https://www.thebulwark.com/p/trump-lust-for-canada-echoes-putin-lust-f
or-ukraine-artificial-borders-greenland

America’s allies are reportedly stunned by two things Donald Trump has done since returning to power. One is his alignment of U.S. foreign policy with Russia. The other is his fixation on annexing Canada.

Here’s the key to understanding these two confounding moves: They’re related. Trump thinks about Canada in much the same way Vladimir Putin thinks about Ukraine. He identifies with his fellow imperialist.

In July 2021, Putin published an article outlining his view of Ukrainian history. Historically, “Russians and Ukrainians were one people—a single whole,” he asserted. “The idea of Ukrainian people as a nation separate from the Russians” had “no historical basis.” He dismissed this idea as an artificial result of “chopping the country into pieces.”

Putin also belittled Ukraine as dependent on Russian money. “Throughout the difficult 1990’s and in the new millennium, we have provided considerable support to Ukraine,” he wrote. Russia was “the largest trade and economic partner of Ukraine,” he noted. For these and other reasons, he concluded, “true sovereignty of Ukraine is possible only in partnership with Russia.” This sounded like—and in a few months would prove to be—Putin’s rationale for seizing Ukraine.

In February 2022, days before launching his invasion, Putin delivered a speech elaborating on these themes. “Our Ukrainian colleagues . . . turned to us for financial support many times,” he complained. “The subsidized loans Russia provided to Ukraine, along with economic and trade preferences . . . amounted to $250 billion” over two decades, he said. But “the Ukrainian authorities always preferred dealing with Russia in a way that ensured that they enjoy all the rights and privileges while remaining free from any obligations.”

Trump shared Putin’s view of Ukraine as weak, subordinate, and ripe for annexation. In 2016, he defended Putin’s seizure of Crimea, asserting that “the people of Crimea, from what I’ve heard, would rather be with Russia.” Two years later, Trump repeated that Crimea should be Russian. Fiona Hill, the senior Russia expert on Trump’s national security council, later told New York Times reporter David Sanger that “Trump made it very clear that he thought . . . Ukraine, and certainly Crimea, must be part of Russia. . . . He really could not get his head around the idea that Ukraine was an independent state.”

In his second term, Trump has suggested that all of Ukraine could be folded into Russia. “They may be Russian someday, or they may not be Russian someday,” he told Bret Baier in an interview in early February. Putin spokesman Dmitry Peskov welcomed Trump’s suggestion. “A significant part of Ukraine wants to become Russia” and in fact “has already become Russia,” said Peskov.

Trump has also talked about folding Canada into the United States. It’s not clear how this notion got into his head. But the idea that the America should think about Canada the same way Russia thinks about Ukraine—as a barely distinct neighbor, essentially an extension of itself—is at least four years old. And the person who proposed that analogy was Putin.

“Look at how Austria and Germany, the USA and Canada live next to each other,” Putin wrote in his 2021 article. These paired countries, he observed, were “close in ethnic composition, culture, in fact sharing one language,” with “the closest integration” and “very conditional, transparent borders.” In a similar way, Putin proposed, Russians viewed Ukrainians in Russia “as our own close people.”

It’s unlikely that Trump, who seldom reads past a headline, paid any attention to Putin’s article. But the way Trump talks about annexing Canada bears a disconcerting resemblance to the way Putin talks about annexing Ukraine.

Trump first raised the Canadian annexation idea in late November, during a meeting with Prime Minister Justin Trudeau. Canadian officials brushed it off as a joke, but Trump kept pushing.

Trump made the same economic case for absorbing Canada that Putin made for absorbing Ukraine. “Canada has been taking advantage of the United States for years,” Trump complained on January 25. “Without our subsidy, Canada, you know, doesn’t exist really. . . . Canada is totally reliant on us. Therefore, they should be a state.”

Trump didn’t talk about invading Canada. Instead, he threatened to destroy it financially. He even cited—albeit in a shorter time frame—the same figure Putin had cited to justify taking Ukraine. “We lose $250 billion a year on Canada,” Trump alleged, misrepresenting both the size and the meaning of the U.S.-Canada trade deficit. “I could stop that in one day. And if I stopped that, Canada wouldn’t exist . . . as a country.”

On February 9, in his interview with Baier, Trump added another bogus rationale for his threats against Canada. “Canada has a very big car industry. They stole it from us,” Trump lied. Later that day, as he signed a proclamation declaring “Gulf of America Day,” Trump bragged that “with a stroke of a pen,” he could impose economic consequences that “would not allow Canada to be a viable country.”

In his February 9 remarks, Trump fantasized about obliterating the U.S. border with Canada. He sounded eerily like Putin talking about Russia’s border with Ukraine. “Think of how beautiful that country would be without that artificial line running right through it,” said Trump, referring to the Canadian border. “Somebody drew it many years ago with a ruler.” (Actually, the border isn’t exactly straight, and it’s the result of multiple treaties and agreements.)

On February 20, Trump said Canada would eventually have to capitulate. “They get 95 percent of their product from the United States. I think they have to become the 51st state,” he predicted. At a cabinet meeting on Feb. 26, he repeated: “We subsidize them $200 billion a year. Without us, Canada can’t make it. . . . Canada should be our 51st state.”

Last week, standing in front of the White House with Elon Musk, Trump mused again about erasing the Canadian border. “When you take away that artificial line . . . and you look at that beautiful formation of Canada and the United States, there is no place anywhere in the world that looks like that,” he boasted.

“Plus Greenland,” Musk added. And Trump chimed in: “If you add Greenland . . . that’s pretty good.”

Two days later, in a meeting with NATO Secretary General Mark Rutte, Trump again brought up the idea of absorbing Canada. “This would be the most incredible country visually. If you look at a map, they drew an artificial line right through it—between Canada and the U.S.,” he lamented. It “makes no sense.”

Rutte tried to humor the president. When Trump talked about annexing Greenland—essentially threatening Denmark, the island’s sovereign state and a founding member of NATO—the secretary general pleaded, “I don’t want to drag NATO in[to] that.” Instead, he praised Trump for having “started the dialogue with the Russians” to end the war in Ukraine.

Good luck with that. Trump will never see the war through NATO’s eyes. He sees Ukraine through Putin’s eyes. They’re the same eyes through which Trump stares hungrily at Canada, Greenland, Gaza, and the Panama Canal. They’re the eyes of a predator.

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

NOTIFY: Y   |  REPLY  |  REPLY WITH QUOTE  |  TOP  |  HOME  

Monday, March 24, 2025 9:52 AM

SECOND

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


A Lot More Russian Troops Are Attacking In Compact Cars, Vans And Golf Carts

The growing abundance of civilian-style vehicles is evident in the tallies of Russian losses.

By David Axe | Mar 24, 2025, 03:04am EDT

https://www.forbes.com/sites/davidaxe/2025/03/24/a-lot-more-russian-tr
oops-are-attacking-in-compact-cars-vans-and-golf-carts/

Armored trucks and civilian vehicles such as vans, compact cars and all-terrain vehicles—that is, golf carts—now account for around 70 percent of Russian losses, according to one recent survey.

But the growing proportion of civilian-style vehicles in the wreckage of Russia’s 37-month wider war on Ukraine doesn’t mean there are fewer Russian tanks and fighting vehicles—the traditional mounts for mechanized troops—along the 700-mile front line.

No, there are actually more destroyed and abandoned tanks and fighting vehicles dotting the line of contact today than there were a year ago, even as these purpose-made armored vehicles represent a smaller proportion of Russian losses.

The growing abundance of vehicles of all sorts—unarmored and armored—speaks to the intensity of the overlapping Russian offensives that have kicked off along multiple sectors in eastern Ukraine and western Russia in the last 18 months.

Until recently, the Russians were attacking almost everywhere, in large numbers, in whatever vehicles they could source from official or unofficial channels.

But Russian losses rose in proportion to Russian assaults, and stocks of traditional tanks and infantry fighting vehicles ran low relative to increasing demand, compelling regiments and brigades to switch to golf carts, Lada compact cars and Bukhanka vans in order to lend mobility to increasingly frequent attacks.

The numbers tell the story. As illustrated by analyst Chris Jones, armored tanks and fighting vehicles accounted for around half of the roughly 375 vehicles Russia lost in February 2024.

A year later this February, Russia lost around 1,100 vehicles—and 250 were tanks and fighting vehicles. Fully half of Russian losses that month were civilian vehicles or armored trucks. But the half that included tanks and fighting vehicles still represented a raw increase in the number of these vehicles appearing along the front line.

Vehicular output

Russian industry builds maybe 200 new BMP-3 fighting vehicles and 90 new T-90M tanks annually as well as a few hundred other new armored vehicles, including BTR-82 wheeled fighting vehicles.

Since Russian mechanized regiments have been losing armored vehicles at an annualized rate of 6,000 a year, or 500 a month—largely to Ukrainian mines, artillery and drones—there’s a shortfall.

Growing desperate for battlefield mobility as early as 2022, the Russians opened up vast storage bases that once sheltered tens of thousand of obsolete Cold War vehicles.

But even these old vehicles couldn’t fully equip front-line regiments fast enough, given the accelerating pace of the regiments’ operations. Open-source analyst Jompy explained it best in January, taking BTR wheeled fighting vehicles as a case study. “It looks like Russia still has overall 2,358 stored BTR-60/70/80s out of the 3,673 it had in storage before the war,” Jompy wrote.

Looks can be deceiving. “In reality, most of the vehicles are older BTR-60s and -70s, and in poor condition” and very difficult to reactivate, Jompy explained.

Civilian-style vehicles were the last resort. But it was a last resort that became normal. “I guess this Lada storming is the norm now?” open-source analyst Moklasen mused as they scrutinized yet another video feed from a Ukrainian drone unit blowing up Russian compact cars attacking Ukrainian positions in late January.

Two months later, the norm is entrenched. So many Russians are attacking in so many unarmored civilian vehicles that these vehicles now account for more than two-thirds of losses.

But there are still plenty of armored tanks and fighting vehicles in the mix. More and more, in fact—even if many of them are decades old.

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

NOTIFY: Y   |  REPLY  |  REPLY WITH QUOTE  |  TOP  |  HOME  

Monday, March 24, 2025 5:34 PM

SIGNYM

I believe in solving problems, not sharing them.


Ukraine continues to attack Russian energy facilities. It destroyed part of the gas pipe and metering system that crosses thru Ukraine to western nations, and attempted to destroy an international pipeline carrying Russian oil.

Also, Zelensky wants another negotiator besides Witkoff, claiming that he has been influenced by Russian disinformation.

Clearly, Zelensky et al want to derail any possible cease fire.





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

AMERICANS SUPPORT AMERICA


NOTIFY: Y   |  REPLY  |  REPLY WITH QUOTE  |  TOP  |  HOME  

Tuesday, March 25, 2025 6:34 AM

SECOND

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


Quote:
Originally posted by SIGNYM:

Clearly, Zelensky et al want to derail any possible cease fire.
Signym, do you ask yourself why don't Ukrainians surrender? Or move to the EU? A partial answer:

Putin is Still Stealing Ukrainian Children

By Karolina Hird | Mar 24, 2025

https://www.understandingwar.org/backgrounder/putin-still-stealing-ukr
ainian-children

Russian President Vladimir Putin invaded Ukraine over three years ago with the intent, among other things, of stealing its children. Putin launched his imperial conquest to first and foremost dominate the Ukrainian people, and he recognized that to deprive Ukraine of its children would be to deprive it of its multigenerational potential. When Russian troops rolled across the border into Ukraine on the night of February 24, 2022, the groundwork for the massive deportation of Ukraine’s children was already in place. Ukrainian human rights activists uncovered Kremlin documents dated February 18, 2022, which laid out plans to remove Ukrainian children from orphanages in occupied Luhansk and Donetsk oblasts and bring them to Russia under the guise of “humanitarian evacuations.” These documents revealed that Russia planned to target vulnerable Ukrainian children, especially those without parental care before the full-scale invasion had even begun. In the subsequent three years, Russia has embarked on a Kremlin-directed, deeply institutionalized project to abduct Ukrainian children and forcibly turn them into the next generation of Russians.

Ukraine has been able to verify Russia’s deportation of 19,456 children to date, although the true figure is likely to be much higher because Russia frequently targets vulnerable children without anyone to speak for them.[1] Yale’s Humanitarian Research Lab placed the number of deported children closer to 35,000 as of March 19, 2025.[2] Putin’s Children’s Rights Commissioner Maria Lvova-Belova (against whom the International Criminal Court issued an arrest warrant in March 2023 for her role in abducting children alongside Putin) claimed that Russia has “accepted” 700,000 Ukrainian children between February 2022 and July 2023—a terrifying benchmark for the lengths that Russia is willing to go to rob Ukraine of its own people.[3] The true number of deported children is near-impossible to verify, but the implication remains the same—Russia has stolen tens, potentially hundreds of thousands of Ukrainian children with the explicit intent of eradicating their Ukrainian identities and turning them into Russians. International law explicitly forbids the forcible transfer of children from one group to another group for the purpose of destroying, in whole or in part, a national or ethnic group, and considers these violations as constituent acts of genocide.[4]

Russia's crimes against Ukrainian children have been remarkably well-documented, particularly by the perpetrators themselves. The Russian legal system made immediate accommodations for the intended influx of stolen Ukrainian children, signaling the intentionality behind Putin’s deportation project. Putin signed a decree in May 2022 providing for a simplified procedure for the acquisition of Russian citizenship for Ukrainian “children left without parental care and incapacitated persons,” which amounted to a legalization of the process of deporting Ukrainian children and forcibly granting them Russian citizenship.[5]

With the legal framework in place before the full-scale invasion, Russian occupation administrators and occupation officials have blatantly advertised programs that take Ukrainian children from their homes in occupied Ukraine to Russia under a variety of guises, such as camps for their supposed rest, relaxation, and rehabilitation.[6] As recently as March 19, 2025, Zaporizhia Oblast occupation head Yevgeny Balitsky announced that his administration, with financial support from the Russian Ministry of Education, plans to remove 70 children from occupied Zaporizhia Oblast to a Russian government-controlled children’s camp in occupied Crimea in order to give the children an opportunity to “rest and improve their health” after living in proximity to the frontline.[7] Russia has gone to great lengths to claim that these crimes are humanitarian gestures, but the legally-consistent humanitarian response would be to transfer Ukrainian children back to Ukrainian-controlled territory and return them to the care of their fellow Ukrainians—not deport them to the invading country.

Much more at https://www.understandingwar.org/backgrounder/putin-still-stealing-ukr
ainian-children

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

NOTIFY: Y   |  REPLY  |  REPLY WITH QUOTE  |  TOP  |  HOME  

Wednesday, March 26, 2025 8:36 AM

SECOND

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


Russia Produces $189 Billion Of Oil A Year. Ukraine Is Determined To Blow It All Up.
It’ll take many more, and much more destructive, oil raids to nudge Russia toward a meaningful peace.

By David Axe | Mar 25, 2025, 11:43pm EDT

https://www.forbes.com/sites/davidaxe/2025/03/25/ukraines-drones-and-m
issiles-hit-russia-where-it-hurts-the-189-billion-oil-industry/

Back in August, workers broke ground for a new drone factory in Oryol Oblast, in western Russia 100 miles from the Ukrainian border. Four months later, the factory was ready to churn out Shahed one-way attack drones, one of Russia’s main munitions for bombarding Ukrainian cities.

But Ukrainian intelligence was watching. And on Dec. 26, Ukrainian air force Sukhoi Su-24 bombers flung several British-made Storm Shadow cruise missiles at the factory. “As a result of the strike, a storage, maintenance and repair facility for Shahed kamikaze drones, consisting of several reinforced concrete shelters, was destroyed,” the Ukrainian general staff reported.

A follow-up attack on Jan. 26 compounded the damage. In total, at least 200 Shaheds burned.

But does it really matter? Russian factories produce nearly 1,000 Shaheds a month, each ranging farther than 900 miles with a 110-pound warhead. In destroying 200 drones, the Ukrainians may have slightly reduced the pace of Russia’s attacks on Ukrainian cities for a few weeks or months.

Overall, Ukraine’s campaign of deep strikes targeting munitions depots and factories hundreds of miles inside Russia has yielded mixed results.

Yes, they may have offered some relief to bombarded civilians. More broadly, however, “air-launched cruise missiles were often out of sequence with combat operations,” explained Michael Kofman, a senior fellow in the Russia and Eurasia Program at the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace in Washington, D.C.

Sure, the Oryol raids may have spared a few Ukrainians, but they and other deep strikes on the most explosive targets—even the most visually impressive ones that produce towering fireballs and dramatic videos that circulate on social media—haven’t altered the fundamental problem facing Ukrainian and Russian forces.

“Both sides struggled to overcome a prepared defense,” Kofman observed. While deep strikes may have “shaping effects on enemy forces,” Ukrainian brigades are “often not in a position to capitalize on them.”

It isn’t particularly helpful for the Ukrainian air force to blow up, say, a Russian field army’s entire stock of heavy mortar rounds if the adjacent Ukrainian army corps is boxed in by minefields or lacks the manpower to mount an offensive and exploit the dip in the Russians’ short-term ammunition stocks.

Failure to destroy

In that sense, a major part of Ukraine’s deep strike campaign—the raids targeting military supply—is impressive but far from decisive. According to Ukrainian analysis group Frontelligence Insight, more than half of the observed Ukrainian strikes between September and February “had limited impact.”

Drones and missiles may have struck a few Russian factories and depots and triggered a few frightening blazes, but firefighters eventually extinguished the flames and workers eventually rebuilt. All the while, Ukrainian forces were still incrementally losing ground in eastern Ukraine.

Attacking more often, and with heavier munitions, might inflict lasting damage. But Ukraine doesn’t get enough of the best foreign-made deep-strike munitions to mount a sustained and intensive campaign on Russian logistics. And it doesn’t yet build enough similar munitions on its own.

It’s not for no reason that, in recent months, Ukrainian strike planners have shifted their aim—and are now mounting more raids targeting Russian oil infrastructure. And not just any oil infrastructure, but refineries in particular: the beating chemical hearts of the Russian economy ... and any war effort that economy sustains.

“As these are more technically complex and expensive structures, their importance for the Russian oil refining industry and exports of oil products is also higher, and they are more difficult and expensive to restore,” Frontelligence Insight explained.

Recent raids on refineries have cost Russia between $658 million and $863 million, Frontelligence Insight estimated. But Russia's total revenue from oil exports in 2024 was $189 billion. So far, the oil attacks are also too infrequent and insufficiently destructive to inflict the kind of economic damage that could alter the course of Russia’s 37-month wider war on Ukraine.

That could change. “To enhance the effect of the strikes, Ukrainian troops should conduct regular attacks on large unique cracking units at modern Russian refineries,” Frontelligence Insight advised, citing economist Vladimir Milov.

The cracking units, which break down crude oil into useful products, are delicate and complex and extremely difficult for Russian industry to replace under the current sanctions regime.

Frequent and precise strikes might prevent them from being repaired, Milov told the analysis group. Maybe that would accomplish what the deep strikes on munitions depots haven’t accomplished—and hurt Russia badly enough to end the war on terms that favor Ukraine.

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

NOTIFY: Y   |  REPLY  |  REPLY WITH QUOTE  |  TOP  |  HOME  

Wednesday, March 26, 2025 9:39 AM

SECOND

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


The ‘America First’ Masquerade

Though packaged as a kind of foreign policy realism, the doctrine guiding the Trump administration is riddled with contradictions

By Danny Postel | March 25, 2025

https://newlinesmag.com/argument/the-america-first-masquerade/

It seemed at the time like a Freudian slip.

A few years ago, when Tucker Carlson still had his prime-time show on Fox News, he asked: “Why do I care what’s going on in the conflict between Ukraine and Russia? And I’m serious. Why do I care? And why shouldn’t I root for Russia? Which I am.”

Putting to the side the glaring internal contradiction — If you really don’t care what happens in Ukraine, then why are you rooting for Russia? — Carlson’s utterance speaks to a pervasive tendency to conflate two very distinct (indeed incompatible) foreign policy outlooks. This slippage, which has a long history, has had a confusing and mystifying effect on the debate about U.S. foreign policy in the Trump era.

The first half — “Why do I care what’s going on in the conflict between Ukraine and Russia?” — expresses an outlook that is typically characterized as “America First” nationalism or foreign policy realism, while the second half — “Why shouldn’t I root for Russia? Which I am.” — conveys something much darker and much closer to the views of Vice President JD Vance, who shares deep ideological affinities with Carlson.

Realizing that his comments had raised some hackles, Carlson attempted to walk them back. “Earlier in the show, I noted I was rooting for Russia in the contest between Russia and Ukraine,” Carlson said. “Of course, I’m joking. I’m only rooting for America.” But this was far from an isolated remark. On another occasion, Carlson grumbled: “Why would we take Ukraine’s side? Why aren’t we on Russia’s side? I’m totally confused.” And on another broadcast, he made it even more explicit: “I think we should probably take the side of Russia if we have to choose between Russia and Ukraine. That is my view.”

And Carlson is hardly alone in this regard. In certain quarters of the American right — the ones Carlson and Vance represent — sympathy with Vladimir Putin abounds. Christopher Caldwell, a senior fellow at the conservative Claremont Institute, has called Putin “the preeminent statesman of our time.” “On the world stage,” Caldwell asked, “who can vie with him?”

Pat Buchanan, a veteran of the Nixon and Reagan White Houses and a founding editor of The American Conservative magazine, went further, arguing in 2013 that in “the culture war for mankind’s future,” Putin is “one of us” — meaning a so-called paleoconservative. (Unlike libertarians and free-market Republicans, “paleocons” oppose free-trade deals, favor strict controls on immigration and support policies that benefit the working class; unlike neoconservatives, they generally oppose military interventions and are deeply skeptical of schemes for democratization.)

Putin’s appeal “as a defender of traditional values” is especially strong, Buchanan wrote, “when we reflect on America’s embrace of abortion on demand, homosexual marriage, pornography, promiscuity, and the whole panoply of Hollywood values.”

Although Buchanan, now 86, no longer enjoys the prominence he once had on the national stage (he was for many years a regular on cable news and ran for president three times — in 1992, 1996 and 2000), it’s important to underscore how important he was in laying the groundwork for Trump’s rise. “America First!” (with an exclamation mark) was the slogan of Buchanan’s presidential campaign in 2000. He staked out the ideological ground that Trump would make his calling card many years earlier. The veteran journalist Jeff Greenfield has called Trump “Pat Buchanan with better timing.”

Vance is more careful in the way he frames his position. Unlike Buchanan, he doesn’t wax enthusiastic about Putin — at least not explicitly. “Get America out of Ukraine!” he exclaimed in 2023 at a confab celebrating the 50th anniversary of the Heritage Foundation, a conservative think tank in Washington. MAGA fixture Kari Lake, who ran unsuccessfully for governor of Arizona in 2022 and for the U.S. Senate in 2024, and is currently a senior adviser to the U.S. Agency for Global Media, expressed the America First position succinctly when she declared at the 2023 Conservative Political Action Conference (CPAC) in Budapest, “I say we should invest in protecting our borders, not Ukraine’s.”

America First nationalism and foreign policy realism are not identical, but the two outlooks converge on the belief, expressed in Lake’s remark, that U.S. interests should take precedence over those of other countries, that we should prioritize our problems at home above those in foreign lands. This view has deep roots in U.S. history. In his 1796 farewell address, George Washington warned against foreign entanglements and argued that “inveterate antipathies against particular nations, and passionate attachments for others, should be excluded.” In 1821, Secretary of State (and future president) John Quincy Adams famously admonished against venturing “abroad in search of monsters to destroy” — a reference point to this day for advocates of “restraint” in foreign policy. In 1992, at the onset of the war in Bosnia, Secretary of State James Baker is reported to have remarked, “We don’t have a dog in this fight.”

These views are often characterized as “isolationist,” but I prefer to avoid that loaded term, which is mainly used as a form of disparagement. (In 1952, the American political writer Walter Lippmann argued that the term isolationist “must be handled with the greatest care, or it can do nothing but confuse and mislead.”) Very few people actually call themselves isolationists. In contrast, Trump enthusiastically embraces the America First label. “America First will be the major and overriding theme of my administration,” he declared in a foreign policy speech in 2016. And virtually everyone likes to be thought of as a realist.

But a truly consistent America First-er wouldn’t take sides in wars between other countries, let alone in their internal politics. In the language of international relations theory, realists see other states like billiard balls: It doesn’t matter what’s inside them, just how they bounce off each other, and the point is to pursue the strategic interests of your state on the global pool table. The domestic affairs of other states are not our business, only what they do on the international stage.

But that is decidedly not the approach of the Trump administration. The president and vice president in particular are partial to Russia and actively hostile to Ukraine. They are not neutral on the war. Indeed, they sympathize with Putin, albeit in slightly different ways: Trump identifies with the Russian leader on a mainly psychological and aesthetic level, as a strongman who projects power and doesn’t let anything stand in his way, whereas Vance sympathizes with Putin’s ideological project and sees him as a fellow culture warrior against liberalism and “globalism.” Vance and others in his intellectual orbit don’t merely side with Russia against Ukraine, but side with Putin against his domestic enemies — opposition leaders like the late Alexei Navalny, members of the feminist rock band Pussy Riot, critics of his invasion of Ukraine, dissident intellectuals and writers (most of whom have fled the country) and others.

It goes well beyond Russia. Vance was far from neutral about Germany’s recent elections. Breaking a taboo, he met with the leader of the Alternative for Germany (AfD), Alice Weidel, and made it perfectly clear that he feels an affinity with the far-right party. In his much-discussed speech at the Munich Security Conference during the same trip, the vice president lambasted European leaders not for their foreign but rather their domestic policies, taking them to task for marginalizing far-right movements and squelching free expression. “The threat that I worry the most about vis-a-vis Europe is not Russia, it’s not China, it’s not any other external actor. What I worry about is the threat from within,” Vance inveighed.

The Bulgarian writer Ivan Krastev has noted that Trump and Vance routinely chastise democracies over their internal affairs but rarely (if ever) apply the same standards to authoritarian regimes guilty of far more severe repression. Incidentally, it’s hardly surprising that Putin’s longtime right-hand man Dmitry Medvedev gloated over Vance’s address, which he summarized as saying to the Europeans, in effect: “Your democracy is weak, your elections are garbage, and your rules, which violate basic human morality, are crap. And you don’t even have freedom of speech!”

And let’s not forget the American right’s “special relationship” with Viktor Orban. CPAC held its 2023 conference in Budapest, at which the Hungarian prime minister delivered the keynote address. At the U.S. edition of the event, Orban said that Hungary must resist becoming a “mixed-race” country like various European states that have opened their doors to large immigrant populations. (One of Orban’s top aides resigned over the comments, saying his speech sounded as if it were given by a “Nazi.”) Trump has similarly warned that immigrants are “poisoning the blood” of America.

The term “America First” is just as confusing and misleading as Lippmann argued “isolationism” had become. Its advocates would have us believe that they are merely pursuing a realist foreign policy, one of neutrality and restraint, while in actuality they have dogs in various fights, both between warring countries and inside them. In one breath, they profess indifference about “what’s going on” in faraway lands, and in the next breath, they let slip their fondness for dictators and war criminals. Or, in a sleight of hand, they disavow it. Carlson is more loose-lipped than JD Vance but they are kindred ideological spirits to the core. Vance has said that he is “plugged into a lot of weird, right-wing subcultures.” Affinities for Putin, the AfD and other far-right parties and leaders are pervasive in those subcultures.

This ambiguity goes back to the America First Committee in 1940, which was formed to oppose U.S. entry into World War II. In principle, the argument was for neutrality: Let the Europeans fight it out. It doesn’t concern us. And the committee appealed to people across the ideological spectrum. Its adherents included pacifists and socialists. But the body’s most visible member, the aviator Charles Lindbergh, openly sympathized with the Nazis and promoted the regime’s propaganda, as did other prominent spokespeople for the cause. Eventually, this drove away the committee’s progressive and centrist supporters and damaged its reputation nationally. The body collapsed under the weight of these contradictions, dissolving in 1941.

These contradictions have bedeviled “America First” nationalism from its inception and remain present to this day. In his recent book “America Last: The Right’s Century-Long Romance With Foreign Dictators,” the political writer Jacob Heilbrunn examines conservative enthusiasm for the German emperor Wilhelm II during World War I, for Mussolini in the 1920s and Hitler in the 1930s, for Spanish dictator Francisco Franco and Chilean General Augusto Pinochet, and for apartheid South Africa in the 1980s.

Heilbrunn emphasizes that while conservatives often frame their position on issues like Ukraine in realist terms, the actual motivation goes unacknowledged. They often blame NATO expansion for pushing Putin into a corner, but such complaints are “not about foreign policy realism,” Heilbrunn argues. Rather, they are rooted in real admiration for Putin — for his disdain for LGBTQ rights, for his support for the Russian Orthodox church, and for his cult of masculinity.”

In the worldview of Buchanan and Vance, the realms of foreign and domestic policy are impossible to disentangle. Buchanan makes this explicit in his paean to Putin. “As the decisive struggle in the second half of the 20th century was vertical, East vs. West, the 21st century struggle may be horizontal, with conservatives and traditionalists in every country arrayed against the militant secularism of a multicultural and transnational elite.”

Putin, according to Buchanan, “is seeking to redefine the ‘Us vs. Them’ world conflict of the future as one in which conservatives, traditionalists and nationalists of all continents and countries stand up against the cultural and ideological imperialism of what he sees as a decadent West.”

It’s revealing that in his ambush on Volodymyr Zelenskyy in the Oval Office on Feb. 28, Vance made a point of complaining that the Ukrainian president “went to Pennsylvania and campaigned for the opposition in October.” Thus, from Vance’s perspective, “Putin is not so much a potential foreign policy partner as an ideological ally in the common struggle against ‘global liberal elites,’” the Russian political theorist Ilya Budraitskis, author of “Dissidents Among Dissidents: Ideology, Politics and the Left in Post-Soviet Russia” (2022), told New Lines. (As it happens, Vance’s claim was false. As PolitiFact pointed out, Zelenskyy met with Pennsylvania’s Democratic governor Josh Shapiro, but it was not a campaign event. The meeting took place at an ammunition plant, where the Ukrainian leader thanked the workers producing munitions for Ukraine.)

The historians Matthew Specter and Varsha Venkatasubramanian also underscore this point in their recent essay “‘America First’: Nationalism, Nativism, and the Fascism Question, 1880–2020.” The slogan “America First” has always operated on two discrete levels, they argue. It is both “an answer to a question about national identity: ‘Who are we?’” and “the answer to a question about action: ‘How should we act in international affairs?’ — thus serving to “condense the realms of immigration policy and foreign policy into a single symbol.” Indeed, they note, Trump originally deployed the slogan “to promote the fear of migrant ‘hordes’ coming in from the southern border and endangering the safety of (white) American citizens.”

It is this overriding preoccupation with domestic issues — particularly identitarian and racial ones like immigration and demographic change — that makes America First nationalism ultimately incompatible with foreign policy realism. While the administration and its supporters present the foreign policy orientation of Trump and Vance in a realist guise, they then smuggle in a very different agenda.

They can’t have it both ways. Either they don’t care who wins, or they’re rooting for a side — it’s one or the other.

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

NOTIFY: Y   |  REPLY  |  REPLY WITH QUOTE  |  TOP  |  HOME  

Wednesday, March 26, 2025 10:42 AM

SECOND

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


If it survives another year, Kyiv can win the war

By Sam Kiley | Wednesday 26 March 2025 13:43 GMT

https://www.independent.co.uk/news/world/europe/russia-ukraine-ceasefi
re-war-putin-zelensky-b2721859.html

An analysis by the Kiel Institute concludes that the cost of replacing all US military support for Ukraine “would be possible with relatively little additional effort”.

“Currently, European governments contribute about €44 billion annually to Ukraine’s defence, or roughly 0.1% of their combined GDP, a relatively modest fiscal commitment,” the Kiel study found.

“To replace total US aid, Europe would need to increase its annual support to approximately €82 billion per year, or 0.21% of GDP — essentially doubling its current financial effort,”

It went on to put that financial commitment into context “...the Baltic countries, Sweden or Norway are already contributing more than 0.3% of their GDP each year to Ukraine’s defence”.

The UK spends about 0.17% of its GDP on Ukraine while Sir Keir Starmer is leading an effort to establish a “coalition of the willing” to defend a future peace deal, he has yet to point out the relatively small proportion of GDP replacing US help would entail for his “coalition”.

The US has spent less on Ukraine’s forces ($50 billion) than it did on the Afghan army and air force ($80 billion).

Ukraine is desperate for air defences, especially the US-made Patriot missile system – although Germany has supplied three systems compared the US two.

The US has not supplied a single modern aircraft to Ukraine. It has given Kyiv 20 Mi-17V5 Soviet era helicopters once destined for Afghanistan but no fighter jets.

Denmark, the Netherlands, Norway, and Belgium, have supplied F-16s while North Macedonia and Slovakia sent Kyiv four Su-25 attack aircraft and over 10 MiG-29 fighter jets.

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

NOTIFY: Y   |  REPLY  |  REPLY WITH QUOTE  |  TOP  |  HOME  

Wednesday, March 26, 2025 1:50 PM

SECOND

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


Ukraine Unleashes Nikola Tesla’s Weapon In The Black Sea

By David Hambling | Mar 26, 2025, 06:58am EDT

https://www.forbes.com/sites/davidhambling/2025/03/26/ukraine-unleashe
s-teslas-weapon-in-the-black-sea/

In 1898 famed inventor Nikola Tela unveiled a new development which he believed would transform war: a radio-controlled boat which would allow small powers to fight off larger ones.

“War will cease to be possible when all the world knows to-morrow that the most feeble of the nations can supply itself immediately with a weapon which will render its coast secure and its ports impregnable to the assaults of the united armadas of the world,” Tesla declared. “Battleships will cease to be built, and the mightiest armorclads and the most tremendous artillery afloat will be of no more use than so much scrap iron.”

Needless to say, the technology took longer to mature than Tesla expected. But now Ukraine has launched a new type of drone boat carrying torpedoes which may fulfil Tesla’s prophecy.

Robots Of The Black Sea

Ukraine has already fought a highly successful campaign on the Black Sea, pitting small robot speedboats – Uncrewed Surface Vessels of USVs – against Russian warships. In the vast majority of attacks, these USVs have been packed with explosives for one-way attacks to ram opposing vessels and explode.

As HI Sutton has recorded in detail, the drone boats, in conjunction with aerial drones and long-range anti-ship missiles, have successfully driven back the Russian fleet, allowing Ukraine to continue grain exports. Ukraine has deployed at least fifteen different types of USV, from simple robot jet skis and repurposed commercial boats to the large custom-built Sea Baby which carried out attacks on the Kerch Bridge. http://www.hisutton.com/Russia-Ukraine-USVs-2024.html

Evolutions have included arming the boats with unguided rockets to attack land targets, and USVs with surface-to-air missiles. One of these shot down a Russian helicopter last December, the first ever such kill from a drone boat.

More recently, Ukrainian USVs have acted as aircraft carriers for small FPV attack drones, carrying out strikes on coastal targets including radar and surface-to-air missile launchers.

Introducing A Shark With Torpedoes

On Tuesday, Mykhailo Fedorov, Ukraine’s Deputy Prime Minister – and drone supremo – unveiled a new USV called Katran (“Shark”) on his official Telegram channel. This is a multipurpose vessel for attack and reconnaissance missions. https://t.me/zedigital/5619

Katran (also known as Katran VENOM) is advertised as having a range in excess of 1,000 kilometers/ 600 miles and able to destroy targets on land, sea and air. Speed, powered by two waterjets, is estimated at 130 kph / 80 mph. It communicates via secure satellite link and may also have considerable autonomy allowing it to operate in radio silence.

It carries its own electronic warfare system, probably designed to known down Russian FPVs previously used to attack drone boats. It also has decoy flares and smoke launchers.

Katran can be armed with miniguns, machine guns, surface-to-air missiles or torpedoes. This last addition makes Katran the fulfilment of Tesla’s dream.

We do not know what sort of torpedoes might be carried. But previously Sweden provided Ukraine with unspecified underwater weapons, possibly Torped 47 or SLWT guided torpedoes. These are modern guided torpedoes which can target submarines as well as surface ships. The Torped 47 weighs some 340 kg/ 750 pounds, of which 50 kg/110 pounds is the warhead, and has a range of more than 20 km / 12 miles.

Such weapons are expensive and in short supply. But for the first time USVs can carry out long-range attacks against Russian warships with a high probability of success.
https://defence-ua.com/weapon_and_tech/shvedska_pidvodna_zbroja_dlja_u
krajini_scho_tse_mozhe_buti_ta_jak_magura_v5_ta_sea_baby_stanut_sche_efektivnishimi-14507.html

“Literally everything about this vehicle is impressive,” notes Ukrainian magazine Defense Express reviewing the new release.

Russian bloggers reported sightings of a Ukrainian torpedo-armed USV earlier this month, but this had not previously been confirmed. The Katran was developed in association with the Ukraine’s Brave1 technology accelerator, which assists the development of defense systems and has been a great driver of innovations in the drone world.

Russian Roulette

The very existence of Katran makes defending against USVs far more challenging. Ukraine operates a mixed fleet of drone boats, and an attacking flotilla could include low-cost expendable USVs carrying explosives, others with missiles, and others with torpedoes, while still others might be carriers with FPVs.

Previously, a standard tactic was to send out helicopters to destroy the drone boats at long distance. However, if some of the USVs have surface-to-air missiles the helicopters may be flying into a trap. The Katran’s machine-gun also seems to be on a high-angle mount to engage helicopters.

The alternative is letting the drone boats get closer and destroying them with machine guns or cannon fire. That may be effective against boats which need to run into a vessel, but torpedoes change the equation. A Russian vessel which allows drone boats to get within ten miles of it risks being sunk without warning.

And while it takes years to build a warship, Ukraine’s drone fleet is growing by the week, both in size and in sophistication. It appears to be evolving much faster than the countermeasures to stop it, which may have a dramatic effect on sea power.

“I have no desire that my fame should rest on the invention of a merely destructive device, no matter how terrible,” Tesla told reporters when he showed off his drone boat in 1898. “I prefer to be remembered as the inventor who succeeded in abolishing war.”

The second part still looks some way off, though a fleet of drones may be an effective asymmetric way of discouraging aggression for Ukraine, Taiwan and other nations threatened by large, more powerful neighbors.

But in the near term, the Katran and other USVs may started a serious debate on whether crewed warships are likely to become “no more use than so much scrap iron.”

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

NOTIFY: Y   |  REPLY  |  REPLY WITH QUOTE  |  TOP  |  HOME  

Thursday, March 27, 2025 6:58 AM

SECOND

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


Artillery Is Still King, And Ukraine Has Mastered Producing Howitzers

By Vikram Mittal | Mar 26, 2025, 11:59am EDT

https://www.forbes.com/sites/vikrammittal/2025/03/26/artillery-is-stil
l-king-and-ukraine-has-mastered-producing-howitzers/

Until recently, Ukrainian artillery accounted for the majority of Russian combat losses in the Russia-Ukraine War. However, drones have now taken on this role, partly due to Ukraine’s significant losses of howitzers. In response, Ukraine has increased its ability to deploy large numbers of its domestically produced 2S22 Bohdana self-propelled howitzers. This progress is the result of adjustments to the system’s development process, allowing Ukraine to emerge as a leader in howitzer production. Ukraine’s ability to manufacture these weapons is crucial, as combining artillery with drones and infantry tactics creates a powerful combat advantage.

Production of the Ukrainian 2S22 Bohdana

In a recent interview, Igor Fedirko, the Executive Director of the Ukrainian Defense Industry Council, indicated that Ukraine has the capacity to domestically produce 40 Bohdana self-propelled howitzers per month. The Bohdana is a self-propelled howitzer mounted on a wheeled truck chassis, featuring an autoloading gun capable of firing 155mm shells with a range exceeding 40 km. Ukraine started developing the Bohdana in 2016, with the initial system fielded in 2022.

Ramping production up to 40 howitzers per month is an impressive feat when compared to the production capacities of other countries. A report by the Kiel Institute approximates that Russia, with its established defense industry and large military budget, also produces 40 howitzers per month. The same report indicates that France can now produce 8 Caesar cannons per month and that Germany can only produce 5 to 6 of their Panzerhaubitze 2000 howitzers per year. Meanwhile, BAE Systems delivered 216 M109A7 Paladins to the United States military over 54 months, equating to 4 howitzers per month.
https://www.ifw-kiel.de/publications/fit-for-war-in-decades-europes-an
d-germanys-slow-rearmament-vis-a-vis-russia-33234/

To achieve its current production levels, Ukraine leveraged its domestic manufacturing capabilities to streamline component production. However, chassis availability became a bottleneck. Initially, the Bohdana was mounted on the KrAZ-6322 6×6 truck chassis. To accelerate production and reduce dependence on a single supplier, Ukrainian manufacturers introduced alternative chassis, including the Ukrainian Bogdan-6317 chassis and the Czech Tatra Phoenix 8×8. Ukraine also introduced a towed variant of the howitzer. Despite these efforts, the limited availability of truck chassis remains a primary constraint on production rates.

The Need For Artillery On The Modern Battlefield

Last month, Ukrainian drones were responsible for approximately two-thirds of Russian combat losses. While drones have become an essential asset, this figure may be inflated due to Ukrainian artillery shortages and ammunition conservation. According to Oryxspionkop.com, Ukraine has lost 735 howitzers, including towed and self-propelled, averaging 20 per month. Since Oryxspionkop only includes those items that have been verified through open-source images, the actual number of losses would be higher. As Ukraine’s artillery production likely now outpaces its losses, combined with its domestic shell production, artillery should return to playing a very prominent role in the conflict.

Artillery Strikes Guided by Ukrainian Drone

The ability to deploy large quantities of artillery is a decisive factor on the modern battlefield. Both Russia and Ukraine have refined the integration of artillery and drones to maximize effectiveness. Reconnaissance drones operate above jamming range, using advanced optics to detect enemy vehicles and troops. They then use a combination of artillery and FPV drones to strike these targets and suppress the enemy formations. Artillery offers several advantages compared to the more precise FPV drones, including that artillery rounds are cheaper than most drones, can carry heavier payloads, and are not vulnerable to jamming.

Artillery also plays a critical role in supporting infantry operations, particularly in assaults aimed at securing territory. To gain control of an area, Ukrainian troops must push forward and dislodge Russian forces. While drones excel at targeting key equipment, the sheer firepower of an artillery barrage forces Russian troops out of fortified positions and vehicles. Once enemy defenses are weakened, Ukrainian infantry can advance and eliminate any remaining opposition, securing the area. Ukraine recently used these tactics successfully in a counterattack in Chasiv Yar, reclaiming positions held by Russian forces.

When Russia launched its invasion in 2022, few expected Ukraine to still be fighting three years later. A key factor in Ukraine’s resilience has been its ability to innovate in both technology and tactics. While drones and electronic warfare have drawn significant attention, Ukraine’s rapid expansion of howitzer production has been equally remarkable. With a monthly output of forty Bohdana howitzers, Ukraine’s production capacity rivals that of Russia and surpasses every Western military. Combined with its advancements in other defense domains, Ukraine’s growing howitzer arsenal enhances its ability to sustain and adapt to a very uncertain battlefield.

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

NOTIFY: Y   |  REPLY  |  REPLY WITH QUOTE  |  TOP  |  HOME  

Thursday, March 27, 2025 6:59 AM

SECOND

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


The French Caesar and Swedish Archer in Ukraine
Mar 18, 2025



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

NOTIFY: Y   |  REPLY  |  REPLY WITH QUOTE  |  TOP  |  HOME  

Friday, March 28, 2025 5:25 AM

SECOND

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


The Triple Tap Raid On the Engels Bomber Base Cost Russia $960 Million

By David Axe | Mar 27, 2025, 07:29pm EDT

https://www.forbes.com/sites/davidaxe/2025/03/27/the-triple-tap-raid-o
n-the-engels-bomber-base-cost-russia-96-billion/

Those 96 destroyed missiles accounted for two months of production at the Raduga Design Bureau munitions factory near Moscow. Each Kh-101 costs at least $10 million. That means the strike on Engels may have carried a price tag of $960 million — not counting the additional damage to fuel storage and other facilities at the base.

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

NOTIFY: Y   |  REPLY  |  REPLY WITH QUOTE  |  TOP  |  HOME  

Friday, March 28, 2025 5:28 AM

SECOND

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


Russia seen ready for big troop move year after Ukraine truce

By Rudy Ruitenberg | Mar 27, 2025, 12:09 PM

https://www.defensenews.com/global/europe/2025/03/27/russia-seen-ready
-for-big-troop-move-year-after-ukraine-truce-dutch/

Russia is seen ready to execute a “large scale” troop move about one year after the conclusion of a ceasefire or peace in Ukraine, Dutch Minister of Defence Ruben Brekelmans said in a speech at a security conference on Thursday, citing the military intelligence service of the Netherlands.

Brekelmans asked his audience in the Dutch town of Baarn to imagine Russian President Vladimir Putin stationing hundreds of thousands of troops on the border with the Baltic countries for a large-scale exercise. Ukraine’s experience shows “we know only one week in advance” whether such a move would indeed be an exercise or a preparation for an attack, he said.

The Dutch threat assessment appears even more acute than warnings by European Commissioner for Defence Andrius Kubilius that Russia may be ready to test NATO’s Article 5 mutual defense clause by 2030, citing Danish and German intel. The European Commission is pushing European Union countries for more defense spending to build up a credible military deterrent to Russia by the end of the decade.

Russia will be able to free up “significant” military resources in case the war in Ukraine stops or freezes, thus increasing its military capability to pose a credible threat to NATO countries, the Danish Defence Intelligence Service assessed in a February report. In that case, Russia would be ready to fight a regional war in the Baltic Sea area within about two years, according to the DDIS.

Brekelmans said Putin has repeatedly said he wants revenge for the breakup of the Soviet Union, and wants to restore its sphere of influence. The Dutch minister said Russia only continues to invest more in its war industry and in recruiting soldiers.

He said the Russian economy is running entirely on the war industry, and the country will face “a big problem” should thousands of soldiers return to society with post-traumatic stress disorder.

“In short, Putin has the intention, capabilities and incentives to continue his aggression beyond Ukraine,” Brekelmans said.

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

NOTIFY: Y   |  REPLY  |  REPLY WITH QUOTE  |  TOP  |  HOME  

Saturday, March 29, 2025 8:02 AM

SECOND

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


Russian President Vladimir Putin is reintensifying efforts to portray the current Ukrainian government as illegitimate and unable to engage in negotiations to end the war in Ukraine. Putin reiterated longstanding boilerplate rhetoric during a visit to a Russian submarine command post in Murmansk Oblast on March 27, claiming that "Nazis" and people with "neo-Nazi views" have significant influence in the Ukrainian government and that "neo-Nazi groups" have the "actual power in their hands" in Ukraine.[1] Putin reiterated claims that Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky is illegitimate because Ukraine did not hold presidential elections in 2024 and additionally alleged that all Ukrainian civil authorities are therefore illegitimate since the president appoints regional officials. The Ukrainian Constitution explicitly prohibits elections during periods of martial law and invasion by a hostile country, however.[2] Putin claimed that "neo-Nazi formations" are ruling Ukraine in the absence of a legitimate Ukrainian government and questioned how Russia can negotiate with these groups. Putin has previously characterized the Ukrainian government as illegitimate in an effort to justify Russia's unwillingness to engage in good faith negotiations to end the war and has consistently identified "denazification" – a phrase the Kremlin uses to make its demand for the removal of the Ukrainian government and the installation of a pro-Russian puppet regime – as a goal of his full-scale invasion since February 2022.[3]

https://www.understandingwar.org/backgrounder/russian-offensive-campai
gn-assessment-march-28-2025

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

NOTIFY: Y   |  REPLY  |  REPLY WITH QUOTE  |  TOP  |  HOME  

Saturday, March 29, 2025 9:01 AM

SECOND

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


A Ukrainian Drone Sneaked Up On Russian Troops Snug In Their Sleeping Bags

Night-vision fiber-optic drones are especially dangerous.

By David Axe | Mar 28, 2025, 01:41am EDT

https://www.forbes.com/sites/davidaxe/2025/03/28/a-ukrainian-drone-sne
aked-up-on-russian-troops-snug-in-their-sleeping-bags/

The nightmarish drone strike, captured in real time by the drone’s camera, was a bloody reminder that tiny drones are everywhere all the time all along the 700-mile front line of Russia’s 37-month wider war on Ukraine.

A simple net or screen — or even just closing a door — might’ve saved the sleeping Russians. Their negligence doomed them. One unfortunate Russian seemed to wake up and notice the drone right before it struck.

The nighttime strike on somnolent Russians might not have been possible just a few months ago. The first generation of Ukrainian fiber-optic FPVs was awkward and inefficient in design — and potentially too bulky to maneuver through a building.

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

NOTIFY: Y   |  REPLY  |  REPLY WITH QUOTE  |  TOP  |  HOME  

Saturday, March 29, 2025 12:25 PM

SIGNYM

I believe in solving problems, not sharing them.


Where do you find the time to dig up so much cope, SECOND?


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

AMERICANS SUPPORT AMERICA


NOTIFY: Y   |  REPLY  |  REPLY WITH QUOTE  |  TOP  |  HOME  

Saturday, March 29, 2025 2:43 PM

SIGNYM

I believe in solving problems, not sharing them.


Quote:
Originally posted by second:
Putin reiterated claims that Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky is illegitimate because Ukraine did not hold presidential elections in 2024 and additionally alleged that all Ukrainian civil authorities are therefore illegitimate since the president appoints regional officials. The Ukrainian Constitution explicitly prohibits elections during periods of martial law and invasion by a hostile country,


The Ukrainian Constitution is SILENT on the status of President under martial law.

Quote:
The Constitution explicitly extends the five-year authority of the Verkhovna Rada (the national parliament of Ukraine) [BUT NOT THE PRESIDENT] in the state of martial law until the first meeting of the Verkhovna Rada of Ukraine of the next parliamentary term, elected after the cancellation of the state of martial law.


And also

Quote:
The Constitution of Ukraine shall not be amended in conditions of martial law or a state of emergency.


The Constitution of Ukraine

https://rm.coe.int/constitution-of-ukraine/168071f58b




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

AMERICANS SUPPORT AMERICA


NOTIFY: Y   |  REPLY  |  REPLY WITH QUOTE  |  TOP  |  HOME  

Saturday, March 29, 2025 4:52 PM

6IXSTRINGJACK


Man...

How many times is Second going to suffer a brutal beatdown by the Truth?

You've had a bad week, buddy.



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

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

NOTIFY: Y   |  REPLY  |  REPLY WITH QUOTE  |  TOP  |  HOME  

Saturday, March 29, 2025 5:44 PM

SECOND

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


Quote:
Originally posted by 6ixStringJack:
Man...

How many times is Second going to suffer a brutal beatdown by the Truth?

You've had a bad week, buddy.



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

"I don't find this stuff amusing anymore." ~Paul Simon
Russia’s Latest Combat Vehicle Is A Truck From 1952

GAZ-69s appear along the front line.

By David Axe | Mar 29, 2025, 02:02pm EDT

https://www.forbes.com/sites/davidaxe/2025/03/29/russias-latest-combat
-vehicle-is-a-truck-from-1952/

The GAZ-69 was one of the earliest Soviet off-roads vehicles. The first example of the 3,500-pound, four-wheel-drive truck rolled off the assembly line at the Molotov plant in Moscow in 1952. The last was completed in 1972.

Developed in the late 1940s, the GAZ-69 is—generously speaking—an 80-year-old design. It’s also one of the latest vehicle types to roll into battle with the Russian army in Ukraine. Recent photos have depicted GAZ-69s near the front line of Russia’s 37-month wider war on Ukraine. At least one deployed GAZ-69 has been fitted with anti-drone screens.

The arrival of the aged off-road vehicles is the latest evidence of the Russian military’s accelerating de-mechanization as losses of purpose-made armored vehicles and other heavy equipment exceed 20,000. To put into perspective how many vehicles that is, the entire British military operates around 18,000 vehicles.

Losing far more armored vehicles than they can replace through new production or by retrieving older vehicles from long-term storage, the Russians increasingly depend on civilian vehicles not just for battlefield logistics—but also for direct assaults on Ukrainian positions.

“I guess this Lada storming is the norm now?” open-source analyst Moklasen mused as they scrutinized yet another video feed from a Ukrainian drone unit blowing up Russian Lada compact cars attacking Ukrainian positions in late January.

Vehicular death spiral

But civilian vehicles are even more vulnerable to mines, artillery, drones and missiles than armored vehicles. Up-armored trucks and civilian vehicles such as vans, trucks, compact cars and all-terrain vehicles—that is, golf carts—now account for around 70 percent of Russian losses, according to one recent survey.

In switching to civilian transport, Russian regiments risk accelerating their de-mechanization as the civilian vehicles get destroyed even faster than the increasingly precious armored vehicles, resulting in greater demand for even less suitable modes of transportation such as electric scooters and even horses and donkeys. The only other alternative, of course, is for Russian troops to walk into battle.

The de-mechanization of the Russian military doesn’t mean Russia can’t sustain an offensive and incrementally advance in Ukraine. The Russian armed forces still have more people and, incredibly, more vehicles than the Ukrainians—and they’re willing to expend them for modest territorial gains.

But the loss of militarily appropriate vehicles does constrain Russian forces. De-mechanized Russian regiments might overwhelm and push back Ukrainian brigades under certain circumstances. But realistically, these hollowed-out regiments can’t exploit the resulting gaps in Ukrainian defenses.

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

NOTIFY: Y   |  REPLY  |  REPLY WITH QUOTE  |  TOP  |  HOME  

Saturday, March 29, 2025 6:01 PM

SIGNYM

I believe in solving problems, not sharing them.


SECOND keeps quoting David Axe bc Axe is the biggest bald-faced liar, after Zelensky of course.

I watch, or listen to, Military Summary Channel nearly twice a day. And Dima - who keeps an eagle eye on Telegram Channels, "Kiev says", and especially videos from the front ... and who is so pro-Ukrainian he would pounce on any indication of Russian frontline deficiency ... hasn't once shown a video of Russian civilian cars or 1952 vehicles on the front.

I've seen plenty of UKRAINIAN civilian vehicles tho... station wagons, trucks, sedans ... on the front. Usually from an FPV drone, just before it strikes.

*****

Meanwhile, all indications are that Russia is building up for a major offensive in May once the mud season is over.


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

AMERICANS SUPPORT AMERICA


NOTIFY: Y   |  REPLY  |  REPLY WITH QUOTE  |  TOP  |  HOME  

Sunday, March 30, 2025 6:30 AM

SECOND

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


Black Sea Ceasefire Deal

By Brendan Cole | Mar 30, 2025 at 4:00 AM EDT

https://www.newsweek.com/russia-ukraine-zelensky-black-sea-2051529

Yörük Isik, head of the Istanbul-based Bosphorus Observer consultancy, told Newsweek the Riyadh talks had not yielded a deal but rather "a surrender document to Kremlin talking points."

"It gives Russia the opportunity to bring its navy out to rest of the Black Sea and will reset all the gains obtained by Ukraine," he said. "That means, at any given moment, Ukraine's operational posts are under Russian threat again."

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

NOTIFY: Y   |  REPLY  |  REPLY WITH QUOTE  |  TOP  |  HOME  

Sunday, March 30, 2025 6:31 AM

SECOND

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


The U.S. Has Changed Its Mind About Europe

After following America’s lead for 80 years, the continent’s democracies do not recognize the danger now before them.

By Phillips Payson O’Brien | March 29, 2025, 11:30 AM ET

https://www.theatlantic.com/ideas/archive/2025/03/europe-trump-nato-ru
ssia/682239/

Democracies in Europe and their detractors in Washington have radically different understandings of why the continent depends on American military protection. Donald Trump and his aides constantly talk as if crafty Europeans have cynically manipulated the United States for decades, making Americans pay for their defense while Germany, France, and the like enjoy their lavish welfare states, early retirements, and carefree lives. “I fully share your loathing of European freeloading,” Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth told Vice President J. D. Vance in the Trump-administration Signal chat that accidentally included The Atlantic’s Jeffrey Goldberg. “It’s PATHETIC,” Hegseth added.

European leaders, meanwhile, believe their countries have been dutifully following America’s direction on geopolitical matters for 80 years. Hundreds of millions of Europeans have completely subordinated their fate to the desires of the United States, which looks after them, protects them, and even thinks for them. Most Europeans now alive have known no other security arrangements. Contemplating the disappearance of NATO, the U.S.-led military alliance, is so unnerving for many in Europe, including many of the continent’s political leaders, that they seem incapable of thinking for themselves.

But they need to confront that possibility soon. In practice, NATO may already be doomed. The U.S. commitment to European defense was grounded not in the long-ago NATO treaty, but in a political consensus among Americans that a free and democratic Europe was in their interest. Presidents of both parties defended the continent in the Cold War and then oversaw NATO’s subsequent expansion. This policy was a brilliant success. Freedom and democracy spread across the old Eastern bloc, leading to growing prosperity.

Today, Trump and his movement—which dominates the Republican Party—declare that they despise liberal Europe. In the now-infamous Signal chat, when Vance appeared to endorse a delay in bombing Yemen, he implied that Europe would benefit disproportionately from an American attack on the Houthis. The vice president visited Greenland yesterday as part of an American effort to wrest the island from Denmark, a faithful NATO member.

For reasons that are difficult to comprehend as a matter of geopolitical strategy, Trump is moving the United States closer and closer to Vladimir Putin’s Russia, an economically weak but militarily expansionist state that is committed to ending the period of American global dominance. In part because Ukraine, an emerging democracy, sought integration into a U.S.-led security framework in democratic Europe, Russia has attacked that country’s very existence and called for the Ukrainians to surrender much of their internationally recognized territory. Putin had previously invaded one other neighbor—Georgia—and has threatened many others, including the Baltic States, Poland, and Finland. Russia has also worked hard to promote extremist parties across Europe and to subvert democracy in NATO states such as Hungary and Slovakia.

After decades of protecting Europe against Russia, the U.S. has abruptly lurched away from its past commitments. The Trump administration has deprived Ukraine of weapons and intelligence at crucial moments. Trump is helping Russia try to escape from the harsh economic sanctions that have been placed on its economy since the invasion of Ukraine. At this moment, the U.S. could very well be classified as a noncombatant ally of Russia, much like it was a noncombatant ally of Great Britain before Pearl Harbor. While the U.S. was not yet fighting alongside Britain, President Franklin D. Roosevelt wanted the British to defeat Nazi Germany, so he choreographed support for them even without formally siding with them. Trump is offering Russia similar help against Ukraine.

Under these circumstances, a key question is whether European leaders can now emotionally break away from the United States. They have outsourced their strategic thinking, and arguably sacrificed their self-respect, for so long that they no longer know how to defend their continent by themselves. As Trump has moved progressively closer and closer to Putin, European leaders continued to think they could build bridges with Trump’s White House and maintain the Atlantic alliance for a few more years.

Extreme optimists might hold out hope that, however dangerous Trump is, he will be in office only for a few years, and NATO’s unity can be restored once he leaves. But how likely is the post-Trump Republican Party to return to an Atlanticist outlook? Comments by Vance, perhaps the likeliest of Trump’s political heirs, suggest that such a reversion is a long way off. And even if the Democrats regain power, they cannot simply undo the damage Trump has caused. Europe needs to start facing the future, not harkening back to a probably lost past.

A few weeks ago, Germany’s new chancellor, Friedrich Merz, spoke of the need for Europe to be more independent from the United States. French President Emmanuel Macron struck a similar note last year when he discussed sending European forces to Ukraine without American help if need be.

But Europe will need to go beyond rhetoric. Europe has underfunded its own defense for more than 30 years. Military budgets on the continent started collapsing when the Cold War ended. Governments on the continent need to spend more on defense—in some cases twice as much. They must also use their money far more efficiently. European states don’t all need to make their own tanks or other armored personnel carriers. Rationalizing and consolidating production of arms and supplies will be a key long-term survival skill.

In the short term, Europe must also do everything it can to help Ukraine survive—either by providing the supplies that the country needs to continue fighting or by offering real security guarantees in the event of a truce. The more NATO withers and the closer the U.S. draws to Russia, the more Europe needs a strong, democratic Ukraine to help protect its eastern flank.

Europe’s devotion to the United States has left the continent, in a word, pathetic. It now has an opportunity to rebuild its strategic thinking and capabilities, and to learn again how to protect its own freedom and liberties. As Trump flirts dangerously with authoritarianism, Europe needs to save itself. If it can, Europe might also someday play a role in saving the United States.

Phillips Payson O’Brien is a professor of strategic studies at the University of St Andrews, in Scotland. He is the author of The Strategists: Churchill, Stalin, Roosevelt, Mussolini, and Hitler—How War Made Them, and How They Made War.

Download his books for free from the mirrors at
https://libgen.rs/search.php?req=Phillips+Payson+O%E2%80%99Brien
or from https://annas-archive.org/search?q=Phillips+Payson+O%E2%80%99Brien

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

NOTIFY: Y   |  REPLY  |  REPLY WITH QUOTE  |  TOP  |  HOME  

Sunday, March 30, 2025 12:10 PM

6IXSTRINGJACK


They're all practically Muslim countries now, and that's their own doing.

Nobody cares.

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

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

NOTIFY: Y   |  REPLY  |  REPLY WITH QUOTE  |  TOP  |  HOME  

Sunday, March 30, 2025 2:46 PM

SECOND

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


Quote:
Originally posted by 6ixStringJack:
They're all practically Muslim countries now, and that's their own doing.

Nobody cares.

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

"I don't find this stuff amusing anymore." ~Paul Simon
Trump thinks he is going to win at Russian Roulette, but the revolver pointed at his own head has 6 bullets in it:

Trump holds gun to Zelensky’s head with unprecedented reparation demands to force Ukraine to restore Putin’s gas empire

By Ambrose Evans-Pritchard | 27 March 2025 5:34pm GMT

https://www.telegraph.co.uk/business/2025/03/27/revealed-trump-plan-fo
rce-ukraine-restore-putin-gas-empire/

Donald Trump is holding a gun to the head of Volodymyr Zelensky, demanding huge reparations payments and laying claim to half of Ukraine’s oil, gas, and hydrocarbon resources as well as almost all its metals and much of its infrastructure.

The latest version of his “minerals deal”, obtained by The Telegraph, is unprecedented in the history of modern diplomacy and state relations.

“It is an expropriation document,” said Alan Riley, an expert on energy law at the Atlantic Council. “There are no guarantees, no defence clauses, the US puts up nothing.

“The Americans can walk away, the Ukrainians can’t. I’ve never seen anything like it before.”

The text leaves little doubt that Mr Trump’s chief objective is to incorporate Ukraine as a province of America’s oil, gas and resource industries.

It dovetails with parallel talks between the US and Russia for a comprehensive energy partnership, including plans to restore West Siberian gas flows to Europe in large volumes, with US companies and Trump-aligned financiers gaining a major stake in the business.

The revived gas trade would flow through Ukraine’s network, and later via the Baltic as the sabotaged Nord Stream pipelines are brought back on stream.

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

NOTIFY: Y   |  REPLY  |  REPLY WITH QUOTE  |  TOP  |  HOME  

Sunday, March 30, 2025 3:46 PM

SIGNYM

I believe in solving problems, not sharing them.


Reading articles by people pretending to explain something can be amusing.
Quote:
Originally posted by second:
The U.S. Has Changed Its Mind About Europe

After following America’s lead for 80 years, the continent’s democracies do not recognize the danger now before them.

By Phillips Payson O’Brien | March 29, 2025, 11:30 AM ET

https://www.theatlantic.com/ideas/archive/2025/03/europe-trump-nato-ru
ssia/682239/

Democracies in Europe and their detractors in Washington have radically different understandings of why the continent depends on American military protection. Donald Trump and his aides constantly talk as if crafty Europeans have cynically manipulated the United States for decades, making Americans pay for their defense while Germany, France, and the like enjoy their lavish welfare states, early retirements, and carefree lives. “I fully share your loathing of European freeloading,” Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth told Vice President J. D. Vance in the Trump-administration Signal chat that accidentally included The Atlantic’s Jeffrey Goldberg. “It’s PATHETIC,” Hegseth added.

European leaders, meanwhile, believe their countries have been dutifully following America’s direction on geopolitical matters for 80 years. Hundreds of millions of Europeans have completely subordinated their fate to the desires of the United States, which looks after them, protects them, and even thinks for them. Most Europeans now alive have known no other security arrangements. Contemplating the disappearance of NATO, the U.S.-led military alliance, is so unnerving for many in Europe, including many of the continent’s political leaders, that they seem incapable of thinking for themselves.
It's a combination of both. Ending NATO was contemplated in the early 1990s wgen the Soviet Union fell. That would have been the logical time to disband. But America's MIC and EU and American bureaucracy didn't want to go quietly into that great good night.

Quote:
But they need to confront that possibility soon. In practice, NATO may already be doomed. The U.S. commitment to European defense was grounded not in the long-ago NATO treaty, but in a political consensus among Americans that a free and democratic Europe was in their interest. Presidents of both parties defended the continent in the Cold War and then oversaw NATO’s subsequent expansion. This policy was a brilliant success. Freedom and democracy spread across the old Eastern bloc, leading to growing prosperity.


Europe, under the EU, is not democratic. And its national leaders are mostly integrationist, pro-globalist idiot puppets who literally can't see reality or think of their nations' interests, especially long term. Right now, they're throwing themselves into a pit of unending debt, decay,and misery.

Quote:
Today, Trump and his movement—which dominates the Republican Party—declare that they despise liberal Europe. In the now-infamous Signal chat, when Vance appeared to endorse a delay in bombing Yemen, he implied that Europe would benefit disproportionately from an American attack on the Houthis. The vice president visited Greenland yesterday as part of an American effort to wrest the island from Denmark, a faithful NATO member.

For reasons that are difficult to comprehend as a matter of geopolitical strategy, Trump is moving the United States closer and closer to Vladimir Putin’s Russia, an economically weak
Wrong.

Quote:
but militarily expansionist


Wrong.

Quote:
state that is committed to ending the period of American global dominance.

Dollar dominance, financial dominance

Quote:
In part because Ukraine, an emerging democracy, sought integration into a U.S.-led security framework in democratic Europe,


Because Ukraine has been the USA's "destroy Russia" proxy ever since its legitimately elected government was toppled by a USA-led coup

Quote:
Russia has attacked that country’s very existence and called for the Ukrainians to surrender much of their internationally recognized territory


Russia never wanted a full-on war. They don't need or want more territory, and they don't want to capture a bunch of Ukrainians who hate them.

Quote:
Putin had previously invaded one other neighbor—Georgia—

He "forgot" that Georgia, under US prompting, fired missiles first. Georgia started the war. Russia ended it.

The rest is just more blah blah blah....



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

AMERICANS SUPPORT AMERICA


NOTIFY: Y   |  REPLY  |  REPLY WITH QUOTE  |  TOP  |  HOME  

Monday, March 31, 2025 3:13 AM

SIGNYM

I believe in solving problems, not sharing them.


Quote:
Quote:
Russia has attacked that country’s very existence and called for the Ukrainians to surrender much of their internationally recognized territory


Russia never wanted a full-on war. They don't need or want more territory, and they don't want to capture a bunch of Ukrainians who hate them.


This needs adding:

Russia doesn't want to conquer all of Ukraine because all they'd do is lose more men, just to move their border right up to NATO nations. They'd multiply their internal security problems (restive anti-Russians inside their borders) WITHOUT having secured their (new) western border.

Conquering all Ukraine?
All downside, no benefit.

Military people want a military victory.

BUT THEN WHAT?

It's a little like a dog chasing a bus: What do you do if you catch it?

What they REALLY need is a neutral, non-NATO, non-nuclear, demilitarized BUFFER NATION. LIKE AUSTRIA. That's why they need a political solution.

Now, apply that reasoning to Europe. What would conquering Poland do except add a lot of pissed off Poles to their population, and move their western border to Germany? Just keep applying that reasoning moving further westward: more losses, more headaches, less border security

This bogeyman scenario of Russia conquering all of Europe?
Piffle!
Scare stories for unreasoning people.

THAT is Trump's trump card. Not sanctions, not bluster, not bullying the global majority, not more weapons to Ukraine.

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

AMERICANS SUPPORT AMERICA


NOTIFY: Y   |  REPLY  |  REPLY WITH QUOTE  |  TOP  |  HOME  

Monday, March 31, 2025 3:40 AM

SIGNYM

I believe in solving problems, not sharing them.



Quote:
Key Takeaways From NYT's Secret History Detailing US 'Shocking' Involvement In Ukraine War

In essence many counter-Russia operations happening on Ukraine's battlefields were simply run from the [Wiesbaden] base in Germany.




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

AMERICANS SUPPORT AMERICA


NOTIFY: Y   |  REPLY  |  REPLY WITH QUOTE  |  TOP  |  HOME  

Monday, March 31, 2025 6:23 AM

SECOND

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


Quote:
Originally posted by SIGNYM:

He "forgot" that Georgia, under US prompting, fired missiles first. Georgia started the war. Russia ended it.

The rest is just more blah blah blah....
Signym, do your Russian reinterpretation of reality on this news story:

US angered that Ukraine sank cruiser Moskva without warning – NYT

Sun, March 30, 2025 - 14:11

https://newsukraine.rbc.ua/news/us-angered-that-ukraine-sank-cruiser-m
oskva-1743332194.html

US and Ukrainian naval officers were on a routine call when radar screens showed the sinking of the Russian cruiser Moskva.

This move caused anger among US officials, as the Ukrainian military had not warned them of the planned operation.

Also, the US was surprised that Ukraine had missiles to hit the cruiser. It also caused panic among Americans, as the then Joe Biden administration did not intend to allow Ukraine to attack such a powerful symbol of Russian power.

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

NOTIFY: Y   |  REPLY  |  REPLY WITH QUOTE  |  TOP  |  HOME  

Monday, March 31, 2025 6:32 AM

SECOND

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


Trump adamant on Ukraine’s NATO membership

March 31, 2025, 01:56 AM

https://english.nv.ua/nation/trump-doubles-down-no-nato-for-ukraine-ze
lenskyy-understands-that-50502147.html

US President Donald Trump once again ruled out the possibility of Ukraine’s NATO membership, Reuters reported on March 30.

"He [Zelentskyy] wants to be a member of NATO, but he's never going to be a member of NATO. He understands that," Trump told reporters aboard Air Force One.

Trump previously supported Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth's statement that Ukraine's NATO membership was an unrealistic outcome of the peace deal.

But during recent talks in Saudi Arabia, Ukraine refused to compromise on its NATO aspirations as a part of a potential peace agreement with Russia.

“We also discussed the issue of NATO and stated unequivocally that for Ukraine, it cannot be taken off the agenda for Ukraine,” said a source in the Ukrainian negotiating team.

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

NOTIFY: Y   |  REPLY  |  REPLY WITH QUOTE  |  TOP  |  HOME  

Monday, March 31, 2025 6:58 AM

SECOND

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


An Assault Group Attacked Pokrovsk While Flying A Giant Russian Flag—And Got Destroyed
Artillery and drones struck all 12 attacking vehicles.

By David Axe | Mar 30, 2025, 02:01pm EDT

https://www.forbes.com/sites/davidaxe/2025/03/30/an-assault-group-atta
cked-pokrovsk-while-flying-a-giant-russian-flag-and-got-destroyed/

It’s tempting fate to roll into a battle in Ukraine while flying a giant flag from your armored vehicle. But that’s exactly what a Russian regiment did on Thursday as they attacked under the white, blue and red banner of the Russian Federation.

Marshaling a dozen increasingly precious armored vehicles, the Russians attacked toward the fortress city of Pokrovsk in eastern Ukraine. The Ukrainian 35th Marine Brigade and the Birds of Magyar drone group were waiting for them with drones and artillery.

“The entire column was completely destroyed,” one Ukrainian blogger reported. The same thing happened the last time the Russians attacked under a giant flag—in that case, the blood-red flag of the defunct Soviet Union.

The wholesale destruction of the flag-waving Russian assault group came as the Kremlin is once again increasing pressure on Pokrovsk, the anchor of a chain of fortified settlements stretching toward the north.

Russian forces spent a year marching the roughly 25 miles from the ruins of Avdiivka to Pokrovsk. But the offensive ground to a halt a few miles outside of Pokrovsk as it ran into the thickest concentration of Ukrainian drones and artillery last month.

There was a weeks-long lull in assaults as Russian forces first focused on ejecting Ukrainian troops from western Russia’s Kursk Oblast, which they finally did late last month. Now “Russian forces increase the intensity of their attacks on the Pokrovsk direction and attempt to reach the same level of intensity as in January 2025,” the Ukrainian Center for Defense Strategies observed.

For the Thursday assault, a Russian regiment assembled a dozen armored vehicles in one column—an increasingly rare sight as Russian losses of armored vehicles and other heavy equipment exceed 20,000 and regiments turn to civilian vehicles to keep their troops moving.

The Russians were victorious in Kursk because the Ukrainians occupied a narrow salient with vulnerable supply lines—and the Russians deployed their best drones to sever the main road into the salient.

The only salients around Pokrovsk are held by the Russians. And the only vulnerable supply lines are also Russian. The doomed flag assault was “unnecessary confirmation of the offensive weakness of the Russians, who, even having accumulated equipment, cannot do anything” around Pokrovsk, the Ukrainian blogger concluded.

Given the conditions, it was imprudent for Russian troops to call their shot and attack under a giant Russian flag as though they’d already won the battle.

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

NOTIFY: Y   |  REPLY  |  REPLY WITH QUOTE  |  TOP  |  HOME  

Monday, March 31, 2025 8:53 AM

SECOND

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


The Kremlin's ongoing effort to characterize the Ukrainian government as an illegitimate negotiating partner casts serious doubt on the Kremlin's willingness to negotiate in good faith about a settlement of the war and sets informational conditions for Russia to violate any future peace agreement on the grounds that the Ukrainian government had no legal right to conclude it.[3]

A Russian diplomat provided additional details following Russian President Vladimir Putin's recent thinly veiled demand for regime change in Ukraine by having external parties establish a “temporary international administration” in Ukraine under the auspices of the United Nations (UN). Russian Permanent Representative to the European Union Kirill Logvinov presented a detailed plan to Kremlin newswire TASS on March 30 that supports Putin's recent demand for the UN, United States, and European countries to establish a temporary government in Ukraine in the near future.[4] Logvinov argued that the UN should reach an agreement between the parties to the conflict following the implementation of a ceasefire, either directly or indirectly through intermediaries, on the appropriate transfer of power to the UN. Logvinov suggested that one of the parties, mediators, or the UN Secretary General should submit an official appeal that the UN establish a temporary internal administration in Ukraine.

https://www.understandingwar.org/backgrounder/russian-offensive-campai
gn-assessment-march-30-2025

New Russian Requirement Before A Ceasefire With Ukraine: Putin insists that Ukrainians shave off one eyebrow to demonstrate sincerity, or else Putin will not negotiate.

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

NOTIFY: Y   |  REPLY  |  REPLY WITH QUOTE  |  TOP  |  HOME  

Monday, March 31, 2025 9:28 AM

SIGNYM

I believe in solving problems, not sharing them.


Quote:
Originally posted by second:
Quote:
Originally posted by SIGNYM:

He "forgot" that Georgia, under US prompting, fired missiles first. Georgia started the war. Russia ended it.

The rest is just more blah blah blah....
Signym, do your Russian reinterpretation of reality on this news story:


I see that instead of misrepresenting my posts you decided to insinuate that I'm "reinterpreting" reality.
I'm not.

And you ALMOST called me a "Russian troll", but couldn't quite pull the trigger.

You're a cowardly liar.

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

AMERICANS SUPPORT AMERICA


NOTIFY: Y   |  REPLY  |  REPLY WITH QUOTE  |  TOP  |  HOME  

Monday, March 31, 2025 10:41 AM

SECOND

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:
Originally posted by second:
Quote:
Originally posted by SIGNYM:

He "forgot" that Georgia, under US prompting, fired missiles first. Georgia started the war. Russia ended it.

The rest is just more blah blah blah....
Signym, do your Russian reinterpretation of reality on this news story:


I see that instead of misrepresenting my posts you decided to insinuate that I'm "reinterpreting" reality.
I'm not.

And you ALMOST called me a "Russian troll", but couldn't quite pull the trigger.

You're a cowardly liar.
Signym, do your corkscrew-twisting of reality with this story. I know you can do something clever. You have talent!

US angered that Ukraine sank cruiser Moskva without warning – NYT

Sun, March 30, 2025 - 14:11

https://newsukraine.rbc.ua/news/us-angered-that-ukraine-sank-cruiser-m
oskva-1743332194.html

US and Ukrainian naval officers were on a routine call when radar screens showed the sinking of the Russian cruiser Moskva.

This move caused anger among US officials, as the Ukrainian military had not warned them of the planned operation.

Also, the US was surprised that Ukraine had missiles to hit the cruiser. It also caused panic among Americans, as the then Joe Biden administration did not intend to allow Ukraine to attack such a powerful symbol of Russian power.

What does Russia believe caused the Sinking of the Moskva?
No Mention of Ukrainian Missiles:
Russia has consistently denied that the sinking was the result of a Ukrainian missile strike, despite Ukrainian claims to the contrary.
https://www.google.com/search?q=What+does+Russia+believe+caused+the+Si
nking+of+the+Moskva%3F

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

NOTIFY: Y   |  REPLY  |  REPLY WITH QUOTE  |  TOP  |  HOME  

Monday, March 31, 2025 11:52 AM

SIGNYM

I believe in solving problems, not sharing them.




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

AMERICANS SUPPORT AMERICA


NOTIFY: Y   |  REPLY  |  REPLY WITH QUOTE  |  TOP  |  HOME  

Monday, March 31, 2025 3:42 PM

SECOND

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


Putin to conscript 160,000 more Russians for war with Ukraine

Ukraine warned the Kremlin is preparing for a massive new military offensive.

By Veronika Melkozerova | March 31, 2025 6:12 pm CET

https://www.politico.eu/article/vladimir-putin-ordered-conscript-16000
0-more-russians-army-spring/

KYIV — Russian President Vladimir Putin has ordered another 160,000 Russian citizens be called up to serve in the military, Russian news agency Interfax reported Monday. https://www.interfax.ru/russia/1017479

Russia drafts men aged 18 to 30 years old. The new order, starting April 1 and to be completed by July 15, comes amid the ongoing negotiations for a ceasefire between Russia and Ukraine, brokered by the United States.

Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy claims Russia is dragging out the peace process as it is preparing a massive new offensive to grab more Ukrainian land before actual peace talks.

“According to our intelligence, Russia is preparing for new offensives in Sumy, Kharkiv, and Zaporizhzhia regions,” Zelenskyy said last week.

“They are dragging out negotiations and trying to drag the U.S. into endless, meaningless discussions about fake conditions to buy time and then try to seize even more land. Putin wants to negotiate territory from a stronger position. He only thinks about war. So, our job — all of us — is defense in the broadest sense of the word,” he added.

Yet U.S. President Donald Trump, who on Sunday said he was "pissed off" by Putin’s desire to remove Zelenskyy from power for a peace treaty to become possible, still believes the Kremlin’s leader will stick to his word and that he wants the war to end.

Some conscripts will also be dismissed from the military, having served their terms. Independent Russian journalists managed to verify the names of over 100,000 Russian soldiers who have been killed since Putin invaded Ukraine, though Kyiv claims overall Russian losses are getting close to a million dead and wounded as of March. https://zona.media/casualties https://en.zona.media/article/2025/03/28/casualties_eng-trl

Ukraine has lost more than 46,000 troops and over 380,000 have been wounded, Zelenskyy said in February. In March, Kyiv managed to improve the survival rate of Ukrainian soldiers, Ukrainian Army Chief Commander General Oleksandr Syrskyi said in a statement on Monday. https://t.me/osirskiy/1115

“We have modernized [the] basic military training course and increased its duration to 1.5 months, and also introduced a mandatory adaptive period for new recruits to combat brigades. And this is giving positive results — this month we recorded a decrease in losses compared to the previous ones," Syrskyi said.

Putin, though, thinks his troops "will finish" the Ukrainian army, as the Kremlin leader said last week.

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

NOTIFY: Y   |  REPLY  |  REPLY WITH QUOTE  |  TOP  |  HOME  

Monday, March 31, 2025 4:56 PM

SECOND

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


The militarization of Ukrainian children also continues within occupied territories. Ukrainian outlet Suspilne published an investigation on March 24 detailing how Russia is building a "Voin" (Warrior) training camp at the site of a demolished children's camp in occupied Mariupol, Donetsk Oblast.[17] This will be the fourth such "Voin" military training camp in occupied Ukraine. "Voin" camps are primarily intended to teach Ukrainian children basic military skills, such as small arms fire, tactical first aid, and drone operation, under the supervision of Russian veterans and active military personnel.[18] Beyond instilling hyper-militaristic ideals in Ukrainian children, the "Voin" program also supports various Russian efforts to prepare Ukrainian children for eventual service in the Russian military. Ukrainian Luhansk Oblast Head Artem Lysohor noted on March 25 that upwards of 12,000 children in occupied Luhansk Oblast alone are undergoing military-patriotic indoctrination and military training in programs such as "Voin" and "Yunarmia (Russian Young Army Cadets National Movement)."[19] The Ukrainian Resistance Center similarly reported that Russian occupation authorities in occupied Melitopol, Zaporizhia Oblast, have mandated military training for all 10th and 11th grade students in order to prepare students for the Russian military's "conscription standard."[20] The "Voin" branch in occupied Zaporizhia Oblast will oversee this military training.[21]

https://www.understandingwar.org/backgrounder/russian-occupation-updat
e-march-31-2025

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

NOTIFY: Y   |  REPLY  |  REPLY WITH QUOTE  |  TOP  |  HOME  

Monday, March 31, 2025 8:21 PM

SIGNYM

I believe in solving problems, not sharing them.


Quote:
Moscow. March 31. INTERFAX.RU - Russian President Vladimir Putin ordered to recruit 160 thousand people for military service in April-July 2025.

The corresponding decree was published on the official portal of legal information.

“To carry out from April 1 to July 15, 2025, the conscription for military service of citizens of the Russian Federation aged 18 to 30 years, not in reserve and subject (...) conscription for military service, in the amount of 160 thousand people”, – stated in the document.

Implement in accordance with the Federal Law of March 28, 1998. 53-FZ "On Military Duty and Military Service" dismissal from military service of soldiers, sailors, sergeants and petty officers, the term of military service on which has expired.

The President instructed the government, the executive bodies of the constituent entities of the Russian Federation and the conscription commissions to ensure the implementation of measures related to the conscription of Russian citizens.

According to official data, during the last autumn draft for military service (one year) 133 thousand recruits were sent to the army.

During the spring campaign last year, according to the decree of the President of the Russian Federation, 150 thousand people were drafted into the army.

On January 1, 2024, changes in the conscription system came into force, the maximum age for conscription for military service was increased to 30 years.


This conscription is far too late for any meaningful role in Ukraine in the next 6-12 months. It sounds like this is standard replacement of soldiers due to be released from service.

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

AMERICANS SUPPORT AMERICA


NOTIFY: Y   |  REPLY  |  REPLY WITH QUOTE  |  TOP  |  HOME  

Tuesday, April 1, 2025 6:11 AM

SECOND

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


Ukraine's European allies continue to provide financial and military aid to Ukraine. The Dutch Ministry of Defense (MoD) announced on March 30 that the Netherlands is allocating 500 million euros (roughly $541 million) for Ukraine's Drone Line project that aims to integrate drone and ground operations in the Ukrainian military.[18] The Dutch MoD stated that this package is part of the Netherland's two billion euros (roughly $2 billion) accelerated support package in 2025. Sweden announced on March 31 its largest military aid package to Ukraine to date, worth roughly 16 billion Swedish kronor (roughly $1.6 billion) to strengthen Ukraine's air defense, artillery, satellite communications, and naval capabilities.[19] The package includes 9.2 billion Swedish kronor (roughly $920 million) for the supply of materiel from the defense industrial bases (DIBs) of Sweden, other Nordic states, and European states; over five billion Swedish kronor (roughly $500 million) in financial donations to the Ukraine Defense Contact Group; and roughly 500 million Swedish kronor (roughly $50 million) worth of materiel donated from the Swedish military.

https://www.understandingwar.org/backgrounder/russian-offensive-campai
gn-assessment-march-31-2025

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

NOTIFY: Y   |  REPLY  |  REPLY WITH QUOTE  |  TOP  |  HOME  

Tuesday, April 1, 2025 8:06 AM

SECOND

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


Why Norway is restoring its Cold War military bunkers

By Mark Piesing | March 30, 2025

https://www.bbc.com/future/article/20250328-why-norway-is-restoring-it
s-cold-war-military-bunkers

At the peak of the Cold War, the sparsely populated, mountainous country had around 3,000 underground facilities where its armed forces and allies could hide and make life difficult for any invader.

The role of the reactivated base which has had structural and equipment upgrades is to help the "resilience and survivability" of Norway's F-35s in the face of a Russian attack.

Construction of the naval base mostly occurred in stages from the 1950s onwards in response to the buildup of the Soviets' Northern Fleet, with the purpose of helping to turn a bear gap into a bear trap. Costing around $450m (£360m), the base – with its underground command centre, storage, deep-water dock, dry dock, and exit tunnel –was such a massive undertaking for Norway that Nato had to fund a great deal of it. The Soviet Union had collapsed by the time it was fully completed.

The reason for the reactivation of these bases is simple: Russia.

Putin's Russia is not the Soviet Union. But from a Norwegian security point of view there are the same issues. How do you deter Russia and, if you end up in a war, how do you fight Russia?

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

NOTIFY: Y   |  REPLY  |  REPLY WITH QUOTE  |  TOP  |  HOME  

Tuesday, April 1, 2025 10:08 AM

SIGNYM

I believe in solving problems, not sharing them.


Quote:
Ukraine Has Secret Nuclear Doomsday Plan, According To Former Zelensky Advisor
Tuesday, Apr 01, 2025 - 05:40 AM

Via Remix News,

Ukraine has a secret last-ditch “scorched earth” plan to render its entire territory uninhabitable in the event of a Russian victory in the war – and perhaps the rest of Europe with it.

This is according to Oleksiy Arestovych, a former adviser to Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky.

In an interview with a Ukrainian journalist that he gave last month, Arestovych claimed that Ukraine’s current head of military intelligence, Kirill Budanov, has floated a plan to blow up all of Ukraine’s nuclear power plants, and possibly some of Russia’s as well, if all other defensive measures fail.

Ukraine currently operates four nuclear power plants with a total of 15 reactors. One of them, the Zaporizhzhia Nuclear Power Station, is the largest plant in Europe and has been under Russian occupation since March 2022. Russia, for its part, has 37 reactors divided among 11 power plants.

If all or even some of these reactors were attacked and destroyed simultaneously, the destructive impact would be beyond calculation. The Chernobyl nuclear accident that occurred in Ukraine in 1986, and which remains the worst disaster involving nuclear energy in history, killed dozens and led to long-term health problems for thousands of others. It also led to the evacuation of tens of thousands of people and rendered the surrounding area permanently uninhabitable, spreading radioactivity over a large area and even into Western Europe

MORE AT https://rmx.news/article/ukraine-has-secret-nuclear-doomsday-plan-acco
rding-to-former-zelensky-adviser/

IF TRUE, Budanov and Zekensky share the same stash of coke.

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

AMERICANS SUPPORT AMERICA


NOTIFY: Y   |  REPLY  |  REPLY WITH QUOTE  |  TOP  |  HOME  

YOUR OPTIONS

NEW POSTS TODAY

USERPOST DATE
second 04.01 06:11
second 04.01 08:06
SIGNYM 04.01 10:08

OTHER TOPICS

DISCUSSIONS
Science given the boot at White House
Tue, April 1, 2025 21:16 - 175 posts
Cry-Baby Trump
Tue, April 1, 2025 21:11 - 95 posts
Let The Hypocrisy Begin
Tue, April 1, 2025 21:09 - 166 posts
TRUMP AND HIS SUPPORTERS ARE NAZI PEDOPHILES
Tue, April 1, 2025 18:59 - 414 posts
The U.S. Has Changed Its Mind About Europe
Tue, April 1, 2025 18:08 - 15 posts
In the garden, and RAIN!!! (2)
Tue, April 1, 2025 18:07 - 5257 posts
MAGA losers
Tue, April 1, 2025 15:06 - 54 posts
A painful retooling is coming for the Democratic Party
Tue, April 1, 2025 15:03 - 1 posts
Chat Messages Show FBI Imposed Biden Laptop 'Gag Order'
Tue, April 1, 2025 14:57 - 1 posts
Health Department Begins Sweeping Job Cuts
Tue, April 1, 2025 12:24 - 2 posts
The bill’s due for lawmakers making bank on stocks
Tue, April 1, 2025 10:55 - 1 posts
#YesterdaysDemocrats
Tue, April 1, 2025 10:43 - 1 posts
 VIEW MORE TOPICS 

FFF.NET SOCIAL