Russia Invades Ukraine. Again by captaincrunch

The Joss Whedon script for Serenity, where Wash lives, is Serenity-190pages.pdf at https://www.mediafire.com/folder/1uwh75oa407q8/Firefly

Quote:
Originally posted by 6IXSTRINGJACK:
Nobody cares.

6ix, Signym and Putin act as if they are non-living computer simulations of long-dead people inside the movie “Discontinued”. Movie Info: Sarah is a millennial with high anxiety and a low opinion of what the future holds for humanity. When a bizarre broadcast reveals that reality is just an elaborate computer simulation that will be shut down in one week, she watches on as madness ensues.
https://www.rottentomatoes.com/m/discontinued

Download “Discontinued” for Free from https://yts.mx/movies/discontinued-2022

The Joss Whedon script for Serenity, where Wash lives, is Serenity-190pages.pdf at
https://www.mediafire.com/folder/1uwh75oa407q8/Firefly

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

Saturday, May 13, 2023 7:52 AM

The Joss Whedon script for Serenity, where Wash lives, is Serenity-190pages.pdf at https://www.mediafire.com/folder/1uwh75oa407q8/Firefly

Quote:
Originally posted by SIGNYM:

I think what we're seeing is reality seeping into SECOND's fevered brain. He senses that Ukraine is on the losing side of this war... by extension so is NATO ... and he just can't cope.

The Russians are anxious. They are realizing that all their nukes and all their imagined superiority do not guarantee another WWII victory against Nazis. It is not even guaranteed the Russians will be able to maintain a life style that is, at present, less than half as prosperous as being Canadians. The Russians could sink lower, down to the level of a North Korean looking at how much better life is just across the border in South Korea.

Russian milbloggers and other prominent voices in the pro-war information space continue to respond to recent Ukrainian counterattacks with varying degrees of caution and anxiety. Many milbloggers claimed that Ukrainian activity around Bakhmut marks the official beginning of the anticipated spring counteroffensive and speculated about where Ukraine’s main effort will take place.[9] Several prominent Russian voices, however, urged caution and restraint in responding to the counteroffensive, suggesting that some milbloggers are advocating for the application of certain lessons they took from the information space meltdown during Ukraine’s successful Kharkiv and Kherson counteroffensives. Some milbloggers warned that reports about Ukrainian success could be a deliberate Ukrainian attempt to sow panic.[10] Another milblogger warned against accepting all reports that Ukrainian activities are “psychological operations” at face value and voiced concern about Russian propaganda responses to the counterattacks.[11] One milblogger suggested that credible reports of Ukrainian counterattacks do not mean that “everything is on fire,” cautioning the audience against falling into despair.[12] The milblogger remarked that telling the truth about Ukrainian operations does not amount to ”sowing panic.”[13] The overall Russian information space response appears to be focused on the idea of avoiding spreading panic.

https://www.understandingwar.org/backgrounder/russian-offensive-campai
gn-assessment-may-12-2023

The Joss Whedon script for Serenity, where Wash lives, is Serenity-190pages.pdf at
https://www.mediafire.com/folder/1uwh75oa407q8/Firefly

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

Sunday, May 14, 2023 5:13 AM

The Joss Whedon script for Serenity, where Wash lives, is Serenity-190pages.pdf at https://www.mediafire.com/folder/1uwh75oa407q8/Firefly

Ukrainian forces continue to counterattack in the Bakhmut area amid unconfirmed claims of further marginal Ukrainian gains southwest of the city as of May 13. A Russian milblogger claimed that Ukrainian forces established new positions on the outskirts of Kurdyumivka (14km southwest of Bakhmut) and pushed Russian forces behind the Siversky Donets-Donbas canal in the area.[1] The milblogger also claimed that Ukrainian forces advanced towards Klishchiivka (7km southwest of Bakhmut) from the direction of Predtechyne (16km southwest of Bakhmut). ISW has not observed visual confirmation of these additional Ukrainian gains southwest of Bakhmut or elsewhere in the wider Bakhmut area as of May 13. Ukrainian Eastern Grouping of Forces Commander Colonel General Oleksandr Syrskyi stated on May 13 that Ukrainian forces are advancing in unspecified areas of the front, and the Ukrainian General Staff reported that Ukrainian forces are currently conducting active operations in the Bakhmut area.[2] Ukrainian Eastern Grouping of Forces Spokesperson Colonel Serhiy Cherevaty stated on May 13 that Ukrainian forces liberated 17.3 square kilometers of territory in the Bakhmut direction over three days of counterattacks.[3] ISW has assessed as of May 13 that the Ukrainian forces have liberated 16.85 square kilometers in the Bakhmut area during recent counterattacks. Russian sources amplified footage purporting to show the aftermath of a recent Ukrainian counterattack on Russian positions near Mayorsk (20km southwest of Bakhmut) and claimed that the Donetsk People’s Republic (DNR) 3rd Brigade of the 1st Army Corps repelled the assaults.[4] A prominent Russian milblogger claimed that recent successful limited Ukrainian counterattacks north of Khromove (immediately west of Bakhmut) degraded Russian forces’ ability to interdict the O0506 highway between Khromove and Chasiv Yar (13km west of Bakhmut), a significant ground line of communication (GLOC) for Ukrainian forces operating in Bakhmut itself.[5] The milblogger claimed that Russian retreats in response to recent Ukrainian counterattacks have occurred in relatively small areas of the frontline but warned that these “regroupings” could become more significant if Russian forces fail to stabilize the frontline.[6] Wagner Group financier Yevgeny Prigozhin claimed on May 12 that talks of tactical Russian withdrawals are nonsense as Russian forces continue to outright abandon positions in unspecified locations.[7]

https://www.understandingwar.org/backgrounder/russian-offensive-campai
gn-assessment-may-13-2023

The Joss Whedon script for Serenity, where Wash lives, is Serenity-190pages.pdf at
https://www.mediafire.com/folder/1uwh75oa407q8/Firefly

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

Sunday, May 14, 2023 5:27 AM

The Joss Whedon script for Serenity, where Wash lives, is Serenity-190pages.pdf at https://www.mediafire.com/folder/1uwh75oa407q8/Firefly

The West must cross more red lines in the Ukraine war, says Lithuanian president

Gitanas Nauseda would like to see the Allies send fighter jets and long-range missiles as soon as possible: ‘All the lost time means more broken lives and more destroyed infrastructure’

by Carlos Torralba
Madrid - MAY 12, 2023 - 13:56 EDT

His exquisite manners clash with the forcefulness of his messages. Over the last 15 months, the president of Lithuania, Gitanas Nauseda, 58, has become one of the main allies of the Ukrainian government. Since the beginning of the Russian invasion, he has demanded an ever greater commitment from the West: more and better weapons for Ukraine and the adoption of new sanctions against Russia. The Lithuanian leader urges the members of the EU and NATO to ignore the so-called red lines and to support Kiyv with everything necessary to win the war.

On a recent visit to Madrid as part of a European tour to address the future summit of the Atlantic Alliance, to be held in Lithuania in July, Nauseda spoke to EL PAÍS after meeting with Spain’s Prime Minister Pedro Sánchez and before visiting King Felipe VI.

Question. You have argued in recent months that the West needs to deliver many more weapons to Ukraine. Don’t you think there is any chance of reaching a negotiated solution?

Answer. We all are interested to see peace negotiations, but those peace negotiations should not be performed at the cost of the territorial integrity of Ukraine. Otherwise, it would be difficult to expect that this will be a frank and honest negotiation, and probably Russia will use the opportunity to consolidate resources and to organize the offensive again. Both sides are too far away from each other to find a compromise on many issues. So this is the reason why right now I am not very optimistic about possible chances to sit at the table and to discuss issues which are relevant. In order to have a frank negotiation, it’s very important to see the progress of Ukrainian forces on the battlefield.

Q. What does Ukraine need to achieve these gains on the ground?

A. I think that Western countries are living up to the expectations of the Ukrainians, but unfortunately we are being very slow in making important decisions. It has taken us too long to cross the red lines. At first, there were doubts about the possibility of sending any type of weaponry; then one red line after another was crossed, as with missile launcher systems or tanks.

Q. What red lines need to be crossed now? Modern fighter jets and long-range cruise missiles?

A. Yes, I think those red lines can be crossed now too. And we had better do it as soon as possible, because all the hesitations of the past have been a waste of valuable time. All the lost time means more broken lives and more destroyed infrastructure.

Q. The European Commission is working on a new package of sanctions against Russia. What else can be included?

A. Lithuania has consistently advocated for even tougher sanctions, and we would like to see [state-owned energy company] Rosatom and its board of directors added to the sanctions list. Diamonds and dual-use [civilian and military] technology should also be included, in addition to making a greater effort to prevent Russia from circumventing sanctions.

Q. Do you think China can act as a mediator?

A. China can prove that it can be a global player on the international scene, but only with one precondition. It has to condemn the war in Ukraine and clearly state who is the aggressor and who is the victim. From this moment on, China might be very constructive in solving this conflict and especially providing the forum for peace negotiations.

Q. The next NATO summit will be held in July in Vilnius, the Lithuanian capital. What do you expect from that appointment?

A. We have a very ambitious agenda for the summit. One of the main issues will be to implement all the agreements reached last year in Madrid in relation to the Alliance’s Reinforced Forward Defense operation in the Baltics, which is essential for the defense of the eastern flank and will serve as a deterrent against the unlimited imperialist ambitions of Russia. It’s also very important to find a compromise on the defense investment pledge and to treat the 2% [of GDP] as a baseline, not as a ceiling anymore. If we want to increase the productive capacity of the arms industry and continue to supply Ukraine with weapons as before, it is necessary to further increase our military spending.

Another angle is to bring Ukraine closer to the Euro-Atlantic security architecture. It doesn’t mean that in Vilnius we will have decisions on the membership of Ukraine, but it should send a very clear signal to Ukraine that we tried to do our best in order to bring them closer to NATO.

Q. Lithuania is the EU country that has increased military spending the most in the last decade, and one of the countries that has donated the most military and financial aid to Ukraine in relation to its economy. Can this increase in spending be sustained as long as the war lasts?

A. Of course. The people understand there is no trade-off between social benefits and defense expenditures because they understand that security is number one. If there is no security, there will be nothing else at all. It is important to understand that Ukraine is not the last target of Vladimir Putin’s regime. There will be next targets. And those countries might be Baltic countries, Poland. But I cannot exclude any country of Europe which could become the target in the future.

Q. Lithuania has been experiencing a migration crisis at its border with Belarus for almost two years. In late April, the Lithuanian Parliament passed legislation authorizing immediate deportations without immigration proceedings. How do you justify a practice that runs contrary to international law?

A. It must be kept in mind that these immigrants are used as a pressure tool by autocrats, first of all by Aleksandr Lukashenko, a close ally of Putin. These vulnerable people become both victims and a weapon for these autocrats. And to stem the flow of migrants, the only option is to take measures that discourage Belarus and Russia from employing these practices. In Lithuania we have been able to stop the arrival of migrants at the border, but we are observing that soon there will be flights again between the Middle Eastern capitals and Minsk and [the Russian enclave of] Kaliningrad, with the only goal to collect these people and to send them again to the border and challenge our security systems. We see attempts at the border of Latvia, Lithuania and Poland. Those are the target countries.

https://english.elpais.com/international/2023-05-12/the-west-must-cros
s-more-red-lines-in-the-ukraine-war-says-lithuanian-president.html

The Joss Whedon script for Serenity, where Wash lives, is Serenity-190pages.pdf at
https://www.mediafire.com/folder/1uwh75oa407q8/Firefly

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

Monday, May 15, 2023 7:37 AM

The Joss Whedon script for Serenity, where Wash lives, is Serenity-190pages.pdf at https://www.mediafire.com/folder/1uwh75oa407q8/Firefly

Russia’s Air Force Has a Very Fiery Day at the Border as It Tries to Bomb Ukraine

Apocalyptic scenes were on display in Russia’s Bryansk region Saturday as four military aircraft were apparently blown out of the sky near the border, killing at least 9 Russian service members.

Officially, authorities blamed the Mi-8 helicopter crash on a mysterious engine fire, but video shared on social media by local residents appeared to show a missile hit the chopper just before it exploded.

Around the same time the chopper crashed, an Su-34 fighter jet also came crashing down from the sky engulfed in flames. Residents in the town of Klintsy could be seen gathering around to gaze in horror at the fiery wreckage of the jet in a nearby wooded area.

Separately, Russian media reported that a different Mi-8 helicopter and an Su-35 jet had also been shot down in the region.

Russia’s Kommersant newspaper reported that all crew members aboard all four aircraft were killed. Russian authorities, meanwhile, remained mum on the simultaneous catastrophes, confirming only the crash of a single chopper.

According to Kommersant, all four aircraft had been tasked with carrying out strikes on Ukraine’s Chernihiv region, with the choppers assigned to back up the fighter jets.

But they were apparently shot down instead. According to Baza, at least 9 Russian service members are dead.

Authorities in the region are now said to be frantically searching for Ukrainian “saboteurs” who shot down the aircraft, though some questioned if Russia may have actually shot down its own planes in its paranoia over Ukraine obtaining new long-range cruise missiles.

Pro-war Russian military bloggers are now demanding revenge over what they described as an “ambush” on Russia’s air force by Ukrainian forces.

“Our aviation has not suffered such losses as today since March of last year,” one pro-Kremlin Telegram channel complained.

“We will avenge everyone, we will kill everyone,” another pro-war channel said.

https://www.thedailybeast.com/russias-air-force-has-a-very-fiery-day-a
t-the-border-as-it-tries-to-bomb-ukraine

The Joss Whedon script for Serenity, where Wash lives, is Serenity-190pages.pdf at
https://www.mediafire.com/folder/1uwh75oa407q8/Firefly

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

Monday, May 15, 2023 9:57 AM

The Joss Whedon script for Serenity, where Wash lives, is Serenity-190pages.pdf at https://www.mediafire.com/folder/1uwh75oa407q8/Firefly

Translation of https://t.me/istories_media/2518

The Kremlin has banned high-ranking officials from resigning during the war. Dissenters threatened with prosecution

Four sources told Important Stories about this: a former FSB officer, a political strategist working with the governor of one of the Russian regions, and two acquaintances of high-ranking officials of the presidential administration (AP).

“I am aware of at least two cases when governors tried to leave their posts, but in the UVP (the internal policy department of the Presidential Administration - Ed.), they were not just banned, but hinted at criminal cases,” says a former FSB officer. An acquaintance of the official from the Presidential Administration also heard about this ban: “There are many who want [to leave] after the start of the war. If everyone leaves, control will be lost.” In the Presidential Administration, the desire to leave the post is regarded as a betrayal, so the task of “demonstrating unity” was set before civil servants.

Previously, several FSB officers complained to "Important Stories" that because of the mobilization announced by Putin, they could not quit. According to a presidential decree, servicemen under contract (the majority of FSB employees also belong to them) cannot quit even after the end of the contract. However, the fact that the ban also applies to civil servants was not previously known.

Interlocutors of Important Stories emphasize that the ban on dismissal is informal and illegal, so there may be exceptions to it - for example, for health reasons or for corruption reasons.

The Joss Whedon script for Serenity, where Wash lives, is Serenity-190pages.pdf at
https://www.mediafire.com/folder/1uwh75oa407q8/Firefly

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

Monday, May 15, 2023 9:58 AM

The Joss Whedon script for Serenity, where Wash lives, is Serenity-190pages.pdf at https://www.mediafire.com/folder/1uwh75oa407q8/Firefly

Putin’s Reportedly Had to Ban His Top Officials from Quitting as Ukraine War Falters

Two governors were even threatened with talk of criminal cases.

https://www.thedailybeast.com/putin-bans-top-officials-from-quitting-d
uring-ukraine-war

The Joss Whedon script for Serenity, where Wash lives, is Serenity-190pages.pdf at
https://www.mediafire.com/folder/1uwh75oa407q8/Firefly

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

Monday, May 15, 2023 11:46 AM

OK

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

Growing up in a Republic was nice... Shame we couldn't keep it.

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

Monday, May 15, 2023 1:40 PM

I believe in solving problems, not sharing them.

I heard about the four lost Russian military aricraft, but been too busy to read in detail. A good discussion can be found at Simplicius the Thinker's substack https://simplicius76.substack.com/p/black-day-for-russian-vvs-as-speci
al

Scanning his very detailed discussion leads me to believe that this particular grouping (an Mi8 heli specially outfitted as a jammer for incoming anti-aircraft missiles?), an Mi8 heli as a recovery craft, an Su34 fighter-bomber (to launch glide bombs, which has become an important part of Russian warfare) and an Su35 (fighter-interceptor, to cover the Su34) is the standard gouping believed to be able to protect all military aircraft on bombing missions.

This particular mission BTW, launched from and remaining over Russian terrirtory, was to (glide) bomb specific bridges between Ukraine and Russia in order to prevent further border incursions and terrorist attacks on Russian civilians as happened a few months ago. Per Military Summary channel (Dima).

Since rumors are rife, I can't say for certain what happened but, again, according to Simplicius, the aircraft damage is far too extensive to implicate a shoulder-fired anti-aircraft (Stinger) missile, and an attack by a Kiev Su29 is improbable. The guess is that Kiev snuck a heavyduty anti-aircraft missile up to the border and fired from there. If any of this is true, I'm sure the MoD is frantically analyzing the wreckage and whatever other data available trying to figure out how a supposedly invincible grouping was brought down.

Speculation that Z will use this success to once again demand F-16s.

In general I'd say the pace of the war is heating up.

Kiev apparently launched a significant counteroffensive May 12 against both the northern and southern flanks near Bakhmut. According to Prigozhin (Wagner part owner) his fighters are advancing thru Bakhmut and have only a score or so of high rise apartment buildings to take, but had to run to the aide of Russian MoD soldiers who were supposed to be protecting the flanks, with Russian airforces nowhere to be seen. According to the MoD, they repelled the flank attacks using (among other things) aircraft (don't know if ground support helicopters or fighter-bombers or what) . Apparently there is serious bad blood not only between Prighozin and the upper echelon of Russian MoD but has filtered down to individual field commanders, which is a problem.

Meanwhile, Russia has bombed deep inside Ukraine and hit three large targets with bombs that created fireballs reminiscent of nuclear warheads. Apparently also releasing radioactive waste from stored depleted uranium shells (Simplicius https://simplicius76.substack.com/p/nuclear-fallout-russian-strikes-cr
eate. Complete with videos of resulting mushroom clouds, fireballs, and firenadoes) Russia also brought down two of Ukraine's aircraft (I think an Su29 and a Mig something) when they tried to fire Britain's newly donated air-to-ground long-range Storm Shadow missile

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

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

Monday, May 15, 2023 3:58 PM

The Joss Whedon script for Serenity, where Wash lives, is Serenity-190pages.pdf at https://www.mediafire.com/folder/1uwh75oa407q8/Firefly

Quote:
Originally posted by SIGNYM:
I heard about the four lost Russian military aricraft, but been too busy to read in detail.

Wagner Group founder Yevgeny Prigozhin suggested Russia may have shot down its own aircraft near the Ukrainian border. Ukrainian Air Force spokesperson Colonel Yurii Ihnat also said during a Sunday appearance on Ukrainian television that Russia's own air defenses may be responsible for the downed aircraft.
https://www.newsweek.com/wagner-founder-thinks-russia-shot-down-its-ow
n-aircraft-1800201

It is NOT absurd that Russia would shoot down the wrong aircraft. For example: Malaysia Airlines flight MH17 was shot down over Ukraine by a Russian-made surface-to-air missile, fired by Moscow-backed separatists. All 298 people, most of whom were Dutch, died in the crash. Russia has denied responsibility for the disaster, though the Dutch government claims it played a key role.

The case may result in Russia being obliged to pay damages to victims' families, but Moscow is unlikely to accept this verdict and be forthcoming with support. Russia was among the 47 countries to sign up to the European Court of Human Rights, which is designed to protect human rights and basic freedoms in Europe, but left in September 2022 due to tensions with the West over Ukraine.
https://www.euronews.com/2023/01/25/case-against-russia-over-downing-o
f-malaysia-airlines-flight-mh17-can-go-ahead-court-rules

The Joss Whedon script for Serenity, where Wash lives, is Serenity-190pages.pdf at
https://www.mediafire.com/folder/1uwh75oa407q8/Firefly

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

Monday, May 15, 2023 4:06 PM

I believe in solving problems, not sharing them.

Prigozhin has spent the last month+ trash-talking the Russian MoD.

But what goes around comes around: WaPo has an article claiming that Prigozhin offered to give Kiev the locations of Russia's forces in exchange for w/drawal from Bakhmut. https://www.washingtonpost.com/national-security/2023/05/14/prigozhin-
wagner-ukraine-leaked-documents/

I think the guy needs a long, long vacation. He's not a military man and after having bonded with his forces, but without the military command training that desensitizes commanders to the inevitable loss of their soldiers, my guess is that Prigozhin is suffering from PTSD.

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

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

Monday, May 15, 2023 4:53 PM

The Joss Whedon script for Serenity, where Wash lives, is Serenity-190pages.pdf at https://www.mediafire.com/folder/1uwh75oa407q8/Firefly

Quote:
Originally posted by SIGNYM:
Prigozhin has spent the last month+ trash-talking the Russian MoD.

But what goes around comes around: WaPo has an article claiming that Prigozhin offered to give Kiev the locations of Russia's forces in exchange for w/drawal from Bakhmut. https://www.washingtonpost.com/national-security/2023/05/14/prigozhin-
wagner-ukraine-leaked-documents/

I think the guy needs a long, long vacation. He's not a military man and after having bonded with his forces, but without the military command training that desensitizes commanders to the inevitable loss of their soldiers, my guess is that Prigozhin is suffering from PTSD.

You missed the point. The Ukrainians are NOT taking credit for shooting down those Russian aircraft. The Ukrainians also did NOT take credit for shooting down flight MH17. (The Dutch government picked up all the pieces of MH17 and came to the conclusion in court that Russia did it.) If Ukraine didn't do it, who does that leave? It leaves the Russians shooting down their own aircraft and, many years earlier, shooting down MH17, but Russia is still denying MH17.

The Joss Whedon script for Serenity, where Wash lives, is Serenity-190pages.pdf at
https://www.mediafire.com/folder/1uwh75oa407q8/Firefly

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

Monday, May 15, 2023 6:20 PM

I believe in solving problems, not sharing them.

Kiev lies about everything. They take credit for bringing down more missiles than Russia ever launches, but refuse to take credit for terrorist attacks on Russia proper. They even refused to officially take credit for damaging the Kerch bridge, even tho they did everything but.

That's probably because the USA has told Kiev not to admit to attacking Russia proper.
And that's probably bc it would give Russia the excuse to launch a full-scale war instead of an SMO.

****

Where is Zaluzhny? He seems to be MIA. And Zelenskiy has been taking extended tours of ... anywhere but Ukraine.

****

With what little time I spend on the topic I do a lot better job than you at sussing out a situation. You seem to be permanently MIA, mentally.

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

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

Tuesday, May 16, 2023 4:00 PM

I believe in solving problems, not sharing them.

Quote:
Russia Says It Took Out US-Supplied Patriot Missile In Hypersonic Strike On Kiev

Russia's military may have taken out a US-supplied Patriot anti-air battery in Ukraine, which if true would be a very significant first since the advanced Raytheon-made defense weapon was deployed there.

This came as Ukrainian officials have cited an exceptionally dense attack on Kyiv overnight, which included cruise missiles and drones, and even allegedly Kinzhal hypersonic missiles. Ukraine was hit by at least 18 missiles and nine drones were sent, with media reports saying some six ballistic missiles (including Kinzhal) were launched. But the Ukrainians are claiming that most or all of them were intercepted.

https://www.zerohedge.com/geopolitical/russia-says-it-took-out-us-supp
lied-patriot-missile-unit-hypersonic-strike-kiev

Saw Kiev's Patriot(?) battery firing away on Twitter. So many missiles launched I lost count.

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

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

Tuesday, May 16, 2023 5:25 PM

The Joss Whedon script for Serenity, where Wash lives, is Serenity-190pages.pdf at https://www.mediafire.com/folder/1uwh75oa407q8/Firefly

General Richard Barrons: There's a lot of fighting to come at the cost of terrible destruction. But the most likely outcome is one of exhaustion and stalemate followed by profound disagreement for as long as you can imagine. And we may be staring at an outcome where you can't count [on] the war as being over for decades.

RFE/RL: That's an even bleaker prediction than the earlier one of yours, when you said that this war might last until 2025. And if, indeed, we need to be bracing ourselves for such a long war, let me ask you whose side is time on strategically?

Barrons: The question of who prevails is one of choice. From the Western perspective, it has always been absolutely clear that Ukraine can be supported to achieve an outcome that Ukraine is content with, provided the West mobilizes a relatively small fraction of its money and its industry.

Because Ukraine wins, or prevails, or at least it doesn't lose, so long as it is connected to money, at about $6 billion a month, and [the] Western defense industry to supply the weapons and ammunition and other equipment and stores that Ukraine needs to equip a mobilized society with. And if the West continues to choose to provide that support -- and let's be absolutely clear, that support is a very small fraction of the economic power of the West, so it is a matter of choice -- yes, there's a cost. But it's a very small percentage of the economic wealth of the West. If the West does that and Ukraine retains the will to fight, it can keep fighting.

From the Russian perspective, well, Russia is mobilizing its society more and more and reenergizing its defense industry, which employs around 2 million people. So, it's a very big enterprise. And Russia believes that it has the money, the will, and the social control, and the industry to outlast the West's will to continue.

And no one really knows the outcome of that. The Russian offensive...has been a surprise for its continuing lack of, essentially, professional competence.

https://www.rferl.org/a/ukraine-war-general-barrons-interview-tavberid
ze/32359148.html

The Joss Whedon script for Serenity, where Wash lives, is Serenity-190pages.pdf at
https://www.mediafire.com/folder/1uwh75oa407q8/Firefly

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

Tuesday, May 16, 2023 8:00 PM

K2PO

Quote:
Originally posted by SIGNYM:
Quote:
Russia Says It Took Out US-Supplied Patriot Missile In Hypersonic Strike On Kiev

Lol at this title - they are interceptor missiles, they're supposed to get "taken out".

Russia also "took out" 5 Ukrainian anti-aircraft missiles at the weekend... with its planes and helicopters

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

Tuesday, May 16, 2023 8:39 PM

I believe in solving problems, not sharing them.

I saw a bunch of missiles being launched but not, apparently, intercepting anything. What would be the coup de grace would be if the launchers themselves were destroyed. (You can't launch a missile without a launcher) Or if a bunch of launchers (battery) along with their radar system (installation) went POOF!

Another possibility - altho not what happened in this case, AFAIK- would be to destroy missiles and launchers on the ground, or in the wharehouse.

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

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

Tuesday, May 16, 2023 9:23 PM

Quote:
Originally posted by K2PO:
Russia also "took out" 5 Ukrainian anti-aircraft missiles at the weekend... with its planes and helicopters

That's what your face did to all the branches on the ugly tree when you were falling down it.

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

Growing up in a Republic was nice... Shame we couldn't keep it.

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

Tuesday, May 16, 2023 11:52 PM

The Joss Whedon script for Serenity, where Wash lives, is Serenity-190pages.pdf at https://www.mediafire.com/folder/1uwh75oa407q8/Firefly

Quote:
Originally posted by SIGNYM:
I saw a bunch of missiles being launched but not, apparently, intercepting anything. What would be the coup de grace would be if the launchers themselves were destroyed. (You can't launch a missile without a launcher) Or if a bunch of launchers (battery) along with their radar system (installation) went POOF!

Another possibility - altho not what happened in this case, AFAIK- would be to destroy missiles and launchers on the ground, or in the wharehouse.

Kyiv said air defences intercepted six Kinzhal hypersonic missiles, which Russia has claimed can overcome all existing air defence systems.

Russia denies its Kinzhals were stopped and said one destroyed** a US-supplied Patriot air defence system.

On Tuesday evening Russian Defence Minister Sergei Shoigu said Moscow had not fired as many of the Kinzhal missiles as Kyiv had claimed to have shot down.

Russia continues to insist that the missiles, which it says can travel at more than 11,000kmh (7,000mph), cannot be destroyed by any of the world's air defence systems.

During Tuesday's barrage footage showed air defences destroying targets over the city.

Kyiv resident Kseniia told BBC Radio 4's Today programme that she and her husband were asleep when they heard a "series of very loud explosions" above their building. She compared the intensity of the attack to a Star Wars film or an action video game.

https://www.bbc.com/news/world-europe-65606385

** A US-made Patriot air defense system was likely damaged, but not destroyed, as the result of a Russian missile barrage in and around Kyiv early Tuesday morning local time, a US official tells CNN. The US is still assessing to what degree the system was damaged, the official said. That will determine whether the system needs to be pulled back entirely or simply repaired on the spot by Ukrainians forces. Russia’s Defense Ministry said on Tuesday in a post on Telegram that “a high-precision strike by the Kinzhal hypersonic missile system in the city of Kyiv hit a US-made Patriot anti-aircraft missile system.”
https://www.cnn.com/2023/05/16/politics/patriot-missile-damage-ukraine
/index.html

The Joss Whedon script for Serenity, where Wash lives, is Serenity-190pages.pdf at
https://www.mediafire.com/folder/1uwh75oa407q8/Firefly

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

Wednesday, May 17, 2023 8:05 AM

I believe in solving problems, not sharing them.

Quote:
Originally posted by SIGNYM:
I saw a bunch of missiles being launched but not, apparently, intercepting anything. What would be the coup de grace would be if the launchers themselves were destroyed. (You can't launch a missile without a launcher) Or if a bunch of launchers (battery) along with their radar system (installation) went POOF!

Another possibility - altho not what happened in this case, AFAIK- would be to destroy missiles and launchers on the ground, or in the wharehouse.

SECOND: Kyiv said ....

BWAHAHAHAHAHA!!!!

BTW, it was the Patriot system that failed to stop Houthi drones from damaging a Saudi oil storage and loading facility.

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

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

Wednesday, May 17, 2023 8:07 AM

The Joss Whedon script for Serenity, where Wash lives, is Serenity-190pages.pdf at https://www.mediafire.com/folder/1uwh75oa407q8/Firefly

Russian State TV Issues Stark Warning Over Threat of Defeat

"If we lose, we're taking the whole world with us," Vladimir Solovyov said on the Russia 1 channel.

Kremlin propagandist Vladimir Solovyov has again invoked Armageddon on his TV show in which the consequences of a Russian defeat in Ukraine were discussed.

In a clip on his evening show on the Russia 1 channel, which was tweeted by journalist and Russia watcher Julia Davis, Solovyov listened to his guest Karen Shakhnazarov, a filmmaker, talk about how the war was now "a question of our destruction."

Shakhnazarov wondered whether Russian people fully understood "the gravity of the threat" that the war's outcome poses, and that the conflict was "a lot more complex and dangerous" than World War II.

He also described how modern Russian society was nothing like the one that existed in 1941 when Nazi Germany invaded the Soviet Union because there was no unifying ideology.

Contemporary Russians, in his view, had grown up consuming American culture and he said there were internal divisions in the country and a lack of younger people, which meant that older citizens were serving on the frontlines.

The war "is fateful for us," Shakhnazarov said, "our political elites have to realize this. We should start admitting that this is not simply a special military operation but a war. If we lose this war, we will disappear" like some Native American tribes which "have simply vanished." He went on to suggest that defeat for Moscow's forces in Ukraine would lead to books being written about "how Russia lost itself and Eurasia."

Solovyov chimed in to say he hoped Ukraine understood that "if we lose, we are taking the whole world with us."

"Let me remind you what the Supreme Commander said, 'who needs the world if Russia isn't in it?'" Solovyov said, referring to a quote by President Vladimir Putin.

The anchor then went on say that Russia should use its nuclear weapons, shed restrictions against testing and "convincingly demonstrate what we have."

Since the start of Putin's invasion, Solovyov has repeatedly said that Russia should draw on its nuclear weapons capability to strike against Western countries that back Ukraine. Last week, he said on his radio show Full Contact that "nuclear war is inevitable."

The threat of Russia using tactical nuclear weapons in the war in Ukraine has hung over the conflict since it started.

However, experts have said that Kyiv's demonstrated ability to shoot down six Kinzhal nuclear-capable hypersonic missiles fired by Russia this week could lessen the chances of Moscow considering an escalation from conventional weapons.

"We know that these missiles are neither hypersonic nor unstoppable," said Sergej Sumlenny, founder of the European Resilience Initiative Center, a German think tank.

"From this perspective, we should also analyze other Russian threats like nuclear threats. Are they really capable of hitting us?" he told Newsweek.

https://www.newsweek.com/russia-ukraine-solovyov-war-1800807

The Joss Whedon script for Serenity, where Wash lives, is Serenity-190pages.pdf at
https://www.mediafire.com/folder/1uwh75oa407q8/Firefly

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

Wednesday, May 17, 2023 8:45 AM

The Joss Whedon script for Serenity, where Wash lives, is Serenity-190pages.pdf at https://www.mediafire.com/folder/1uwh75oa407q8/Firefly

Quote:
Originally posted by SIGNYM:

BTW, it was the Patriot system that failed to stop Houthi drones from damaging a Saudi oil storage and loading facility.

Signym, where is the story that Patriot missiles were fired by Saudi Arabia and missed drones? I looked for this instance where Patriot missiles were used but failed to stop drones. It didn't happen, Signym, until you prove it happened by citing a particular story. Yes, there were drones, but no Patriot missiles. Just because Saudi Arabia owns missiles does not mean Saudi Arabia fired the missiles at the drones.

Sept. 14, 2019, Two Major Saudi Oil Installations Hit by Drone Strike
https://www.nytimes.com/2019/09/14/world/middleeast/saudi-arabia-refin
eries-drone-attack.html

Better late than never: August 2, 2022, Saudi Arabia buying missiles – PATRIOT MIM-104E Guidance Enhanced Missile-Tactical Ballistic Missiles (GEM-T) https://www.dsca.mil/press-media/major-arms-sales/kingdom-saudi-arabia
-ksa-patriot-air-defense-system-pac-3-enhancement

The Joss Whedon script for Serenity, where Wash lives, is Serenity-190pages.pdf at
https://www.mediafire.com/folder/1uwh75oa407q8/Firefly

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

Wednesday, May 17, 2023 11:21 PM

I believe in solving problems, not sharing them.

Patriot Missiles have been used by Saudi Arabia since 1991. It's the Saudis only air defense system, and it has failed to protect Saudi Arabia from numerous drone and cruise missile attacks over many years.

*****

The Patriot missile story in Kiev

In sum, Kiev claimed (hoax warning!) that the Patriot missile system took down 6 of 6 Kinzhal missiles.

Meanwhile, as Kiev was claiming a miraculous score,

Russia said that Kiev doesn't know what missiles Russia fired, but that there were a lot fewer Kinzhals than Kiev claimed, and that the missile(s) that Russia fired against the Patriot system hit their target(s).

And to put a cap on Kiev's ridiculous claim, the Pentagon said that a Patriot installation had been "damaged".

Alex supposes, and it sure sounds plausible, that there is a big procurement up for air defenses using Patriot Missiles, and this whole sequence of events... the original claim that a Patriot missile brought down a Kinzhal missile, followed up by Kiev's ridiculous claim of 6 of 6 hypersonic missiles downed... was just one giant advert for Raytheon. And if it hadn't been for the video uploaded by bloggers we would all be none the wiser.

Oh, and apparently the bloggers who uploaded the video were arrested by the SBU.

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

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

Thursday, May 18, 2023 7:31 AM

The Joss Whedon script for Serenity, where Wash lives, is Serenity-190pages.pdf at https://www.mediafire.com/folder/1uwh75oa407q8/Firefly

Quote:
Originally posted by SIGNYM:
Patriot Missiles have been used by Saudi Arabia since 1991. It's the Saudis only air defense system, and it has failed to protect Saudi Arabia from numerous drone and cruise missile attacks over many years.

*****

The Patriot missile story in Kiev

In sum, Kiev claimed (hoax warning!) that the Patriot missile system took down 6 of 6 Kinzhal missiles.

Meanwhile, as Kiev was claiming a miraculous score,

Russia said that Kiev doesn't know what missiles Russia fired, but that there were a lot fewer Kinzhals than Kiev claimed, and that the missile(s) that Russia fired against the Patriot system hit their target(s).

And to put a cap on Kiev's ridiculous claim, the Pentagon said that a Patriot installation had been "damaged".

Alex supposes, and it sure sounds plausible, that there is a big procurement up for air defenses using Patriot Missiles, and this whole sequence of events... the original claim that a Patriot missile brought down a Kinzhal missile, followed up by Kiev's ridiculous claim of 6 of 6 hypersonic missiles downed... was just one giant advert for Raytheon. And if it hadn't been for the video uploaded by bloggers we would all be none the wiser.

Oh, and apparently the bloggers who uploaded the video were arrested by the SBU.

If those six Kinzhal missiles didn't hit six targets in Kyiv equivalent to the White House and the Capitol building and the Pentagon, those six missiles were misses. It is deer versus deer hunter in Ukraine. If the hunter (Russia) does NOT come back with meat, then the hunter missed the deer (Ukraine). Where is the meat?

The fabrication of one Kh-47 Kinzhal hypersonic missile costs about US$10 million.[1]
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kh-47M2_Kinzhal

The Joss Whedon script for Serenity, where Wash lives, is Serenity-190pages.pdf at
https://www.mediafire.com/folder/1uwh75oa407q8/Firefly

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

Thursday, May 18, 2023 7:35 AM

The Joss Whedon script for Serenity, where Wash lives, is Serenity-190pages.pdf at https://www.mediafire.com/folder/1uwh75oa407q8/Firefly

I’ve never seen the Kremlin so rattled
By Anna Nemtsova
May 17, 2023 at 7:15 a.m. EDT

Anna Nemtsova is a Daily Beast correspondent and a contributing writer for the Atlantic.

A mysterious drone attack on the Kremlin. A car bombing that wounded a key advocate of the invasion of Ukraine. Four military aircraft shot down in a single day — inside Russia’s borders.

If the Ukrainians and their allies wanted to rattle the Russian leadership, it’s working.

Never, in more than two decades of covering Vladimir Putin’s regime, have I seen it in such an obvious state of chaos and disarray. These days, Kremlin-watchers don’t have to read tea leaves or decode cryptic utterances from the leadership to spot the signs of intrigue — it’s all out in the open, thanks to Putin confidant Yevgeniy Prigozhin.

In one of several recent videos, Prigozhin, founder of the mercenary army known as the Wagner Group, stood over dead Russians in a field and cursed the Russian military leadership, demanding punishment for Defense Minister Sergei Shoigu as well as for Chief of the General Staff Valery Gerasimov. He blamed the two men — both close Putin associates he accused of neglecting supplies for his troops — for “tens of thousands of Wagner dead and injured.”

Putin himself has yet to comment.

Top officials in Kyiv must have been rubbing their hands in glee. While the Kremlin is primarily to blame for its own troubles, given its obvious corruption and incompetence, the Ukrainians have been doing everything they can to undermine morale and exacerbate divisions among their enemies. A constant drumbeat of drone attacks on military bases, oil refineries and fuel depots has added to the sense of unraveling. (Officially, Kyiv does not acknowledge striking targets inside Russia. It’s also hard to determine whether some of the most mysterious attacks — such as the one on the Kremlin — were actually launched by Ukrainian forces.)

Just note how loudly and persistently the Ukrainians have been publicizing their plans for a spring counteroffensive. Good military planners don’t usually telegraph their intentions quite so openly.

But the Ukrainians have been here before. Last year, they spent weeks suggesting that they were preparing an attack somewhere in the country’s southeast — only to launch a stunningly successful offensive against Kharkiv in the north. Kyiv is doing its best to keep the Russians off balance once again.

Another Prigozhin tirade echoed that earlier disaster when he accused soldiers from the regular army of “fleeing” from the front in Bakhmut in eastern Ukraine, blaming the military command for “betraying the motherland.” (Meanwhile, Prigozhin himself is being accused of betrayal after a Post report revealed that he tried to trade information with Ukrainian authorities earlier in the war — for reasons that remain murky.) Moscow propagandists can’t even begin to address the stunning losses they’ve incurred since Putin launched his full-scale invasion last year. U.S. analysts recently estimated that the Russians have incurred 100,000 casualties since December alone.

No wonder Russian leaders are spooked. Earlier this month, as the country prepared to commemorate the Soviet Union’s 1945 triumph over Nazi Germany, one official made a revealing slip. Vyacheslav Gladkov, the governor of a region not far from the border with Ukraine, announced he was canceling the usual Victory Day parade — because he didn’t want “to provoke the enemy with a large number of equipment and military personnel in the city center.”

Putin’s own Victory Day celebration stood out for its subdued tone and the presence of only a single tank — a fact that gave the Ukrainians a welcome opening for mockery.

Russian political insiders are increasingly questioning the rationale for the war. Sen. Lyudmila Narusova, the widow of Putin’s political mentor Anatoly Sobchak, recently went public with her concerns.

“Nobody has explained how victory is supposed to look,” she told an interviewer. “If we think of the originally declared goals, ‘denazification’ and ‘demilitarization,’ the entire Ukrainian army must have been already destroyed by now.” Noting that Russian forces now face Ukrainian troops armed and equipped by the West, she went on: “Does that mean we are demilitarizing NATO? That goal is unattainable.”

If Narusova does not understand Putin’s plan for victory, then no one else does, either.

The sense of confusion at the highest ranks of the Kremlin is boosting the chances that Kyiv’s counteroffensive will succeed. Chechen leader Ramzan Kadyrov, a longtime Prigozhin ally, has now appeared to break with the Wagner chief, harshly criticizing his threats to withdraw from the front. As a result, the three principal Russian forces in Bakhmut — the Wagner Group, Kadyrov’s Chechen militias and the regular army — are openly feuding with each other as Ukrainian troops advance.

Meanwhile, Putin has conspicuously failed to explain to the public how his security forces failed to prevent two drones from reaching the Kremlin and neglected to thwart the car-bomb attack on a key Russian warmonger, Zakhar Prilepin.

Former Putin speechwriter Abbas Gallyamov told me the Kremlin is “shaking.”

None of this, of course, guarantees that Ukraine’s counteroffensive will be a success. For the time being, though, Kyiv has every right to congratulate itself on the effectiveness of its psychological war against Putin’s regime.

https://www.washingtonpost.com/opinions/2023/05/17/rattled-kremlin-ukr
aine-psychological-warfare/

The Joss Whedon script for Serenity, where Wash lives, is Serenity-190pages.pdf at
https://www.mediafire.com/folder/1uwh75oa407q8/Firefly

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

Thursday, May 18, 2023 7:38 AM

Quote:
Originally posted by second:
Anna Nemtsova is a Daily Beast correspondent and a contributing writer for the Atlantic.

Nothing more needs to be said.

Congrats though to Anna for surviving Daily Beast's first round of layoffs and having a backup side gig at The Atlantic... for now.

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

Growing up in a Republic was nice... Shame we couldn't keep it.

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

Thursday, May 18, 2023 7:42 AM

I believe in solving problems, not sharing them.

Quote:
Originally posted by second:
Quote:
Originally posted by SIGNYM:
Patriot Missiles have been used by Saudi Arabia since 1991. It's the Saudis only air defense system, and it has failed to protect Saudi Arabia from numerous drone and cruise missile attacks over many years.

*****

The Patriot missile story in Kiev

In sum, Kiev claimed (hoax warning!) that the Patriot missile system took down 6 of 6 Kinzhal missiles.

Meanwhile, as Kiev was claiming a miraculous score,

Russia said that Kiev doesn't know what missiles Russia fired, but that there were a lot fewer Kinzhals than Kiev claimed, and that the missile(s) that Russia fired against the Patriot system hit their target(s).

And to put a cap on Kiev's ridiculous claim, the Pentagon said that a Patriot installation had been "damaged".

Alex supposes, and it sure sounds plausible, that there is a big procurement up for air defenses using Patriot Missiles, and this whole sequence of events... the original claim that a Patriot missile brought down a Kinzhal missile, followed up by Kiev's ridiculous claim of 6 of 6 hypersonic missiles downed... was just one giant advert for Raytheon. And if it hadn't been for the video uploaded by bloggers we would all be none the wiser.

Oh, and apparently the bloggers who uploaded the video were arrested by the SBU.
If those six Kinzhal missiles didn't hit six targets in Kyiv equivalent to the White House and the Capitol building and the Pentagon, those six missiles were misses. It is deer versus deer hunter in Ukraine. If the hunter (Russia) does NOT come back with meat, then the hunter missed the deer (Ukraine). Where is the meat?

The fabrication of one Kh-47 Kinzhal hypersonic missile costs about US$10 million.[1]
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kh-47M2_Kinzhal

The Joss Whedon script for Serenity, where Wash lives, is Serenity-190pages.pdf at
https://www.mediafire.com/folder/1uwh75oa407q8/Firefly

Oh, so now you're COMPLAINING that Russians don't fight like barbarians? Yanno, like the USA fights, bombing and destroying indiscriminately?

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

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

Thursday, May 18, 2023 7:42 AM

The Joss Whedon script for Serenity, where Wash lives, is Serenity-190pages.pdf at https://www.mediafire.com/folder/1uwh75oa407q8/Firefly

US officials reported that a Patriot air defense system is operational after Russian Ministry of Defense (MoD) claimed that Russian missile strikes on Kyiv destroyed the system on May 16. CNN cited three US officials as stating that a Patriot air defense system is still operational despite the Russian MoD claims that a Kinzhal missile destroyed it.[8] An unidentified US defense official had previously told CNN that the Patriot system likely suffered damage, but three officials specified that the system suffered minimal damage that does not impede its operations.[9] Officials did not specify if Russian missiles or debris caused the damage.

The Kremlin reportedly accused three hypersonic missile scientists of treason. Employees of the Institute of Theoretical and Applied Mathematics of the Siberian Branch of the Russian Academy of Science published an open letter on May 15 in defense of three of their scientists — Anatoly Maslov, Alexander Shiplyuk, and Valery Zvegintsev — whom Russian authorities reportedly arrested in the past year under suspicion of committing “high treason.”[10] The open letter also noted that these arrests deter the younger generation from pursuing careers in science, which contributes to a decrease in the quality of scientific research. Kremlin Spokesperson Dmitry Peskov claimed that the Kremlin was aware of the open letter and that Russian security services are involved.[11]

https://www.understandingwar.org/backgrounder/russian-offensive-campai
gn-assessment-may-17-2023

The Joss Whedon script for Serenity, where Wash lives, is Serenity-190pages.pdf at
https://www.mediafire.com/folder/1uwh75oa407q8/Firefly

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

Thursday, May 18, 2023 7:50 AM

The Joss Whedon script for Serenity, where Wash lives, is Serenity-190pages.pdf at https://www.mediafire.com/folder/1uwh75oa407q8/Firefly

Quote:
Originally posted by SIGNYM:

Oh, so now you're COMPLAINING that Russians don't fight like barbarians? Yanno, like the USA fights, bombing and destroying indiscriminately?

If the Russians had hit Kyiv's equivalent of the White House/Lincoln Memorial/Jefferson Memorial/Washington's Monument with Russia's finest weapons, six Kinzhal hypersonic missiles, Russia would be demonstrating efficiency and competence at making war. There are stories of Russia demonstrating the opposite:

“They abandoned their own”: a captured “Wagnerian” spoke about the “meat grinder” near Bakhmut

Antonina Dolomanzhi 21:06, 17.05.23

The losses of PMC “Wagner” are very large, said the captured mercenary.

The Ukrainian Defense Forces near Bakhmut captured one of the fighters from the PMC “Wagner”, who spoke about the significant losses of militants, the “meat grinder” at the front and executions for failure to comply with the order.

The video of the interrogation of the prisoner was published by the commander of the Ground Forces of the Armed Forces of Ukraine, Colonel-General Alexander Syrsky. The “Wagnerian” said that his name is Denis Vatrushev, he is from the Khanty-Mansiysk Okrug, he is 39 years old, and his wife is from Maryinka, which the Russian invaders almost razed to the ground.

According to him, in December 2022, he was recruited into the Wagner PMC from prison, where he was serving a sentence for premeditated murder. According to Vatrushev, he was promised that he would stand at checkpoints, and in 6 months he would be able to be free. Instead, they had to deal with the evacuation of the wounded from the battlefield.

He said that he lay wounded in a trench for four days and waited for evacuation, but was taken prisoner. “They abandoned me… they abandoned my own people… Their damn evacuation doesn’t work…”, the captive “Wagnerian” emphasized.

The Russian also spoke about the large number of dead “Wagnerites”, problems with food among the “Wagnerites” and executions for failure to comply with the order.

“If you do not follow the order, then the commander … simply “zeroes” you – shoots you, a bullet in the head … The losses in the Wagner are very large. There is a trench – they call it the “trench of death.” There is a corpse on the corpse … 300-400 people… On the way, even “200s” are not taken out, they cannot be taken out…, there is almost no evacuation…”, he added.

Russian military slang for killed is “200s” and injured is “300s”.

https://ukrainetoday.org/2023/05/17/they-abandoned-their-own-a-capture
d-wagnerian-spoke-about-the-meat-grinder-near-bakhmut-video/

After thought: war is more than destroying property and killing enemies. It is psychological -- to convince your enemy to surrender years before so much property and people are destroyed that the enemy cannot fight. That is why the Russians should hit Kyiv's equivalent of the White House/Lincoln Memorial/Jefferson Memorial/Washington's Monument with Russia's finest weapons, six Kinzhal hypersonic missiles.

The Joss Whedon script for Serenity, where Wash lives, is Serenity-190pages.pdf at
https://www.mediafire.com/folder/1uwh75oa407q8/Firefly

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

Thursday, May 18, 2023 8:05 AM

Fuck Ukraine.

#Rootin4Putin

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

Growing up in a Republic was nice... Shame we couldn't keep it.

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

Thursday, May 18, 2023 8:37 AM

The Joss Whedon script for Serenity, where Wash lives, is Serenity-190pages.pdf at https://www.mediafire.com/folder/1uwh75oa407q8/Firefly

Quote:
Originally posted by 6IXSTRINGJACK:
Fuck Ukraine.

#Rootin4Putin

The TV talking heads can repeat “no collusion” over and over, but Trump does keep saying all those complimentary things about Vladimir Putin, no matter what atrocities the Russian president commits. Some of the less anesthetized Republicans are bound to wonder: Why?

The Joss Whedon script for Serenity, where Wash lives, is Serenity-190pages.pdf at
https://www.mediafire.com/folder/1uwh75oa407q8/Firefly

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

Thursday, May 18, 2023 4:38 PM

I believe in solving problems, not sharing them.

Quote:
SECOND: The TV talking heads can repeat “no collusion” over and over, but Trump does keep saying all those complimentary things about Vladimir Putin, no matter what atrocities the Russian president commits.

Only in your delusions. Just like "Trump Russia collusion" was a delusion.

There are many complimentary things to say about Putin, bc Putin is looking out for Russia's interests in a realistic way. Unlike Biden* who... well, IDK who he's representing bc it sure isn't Americans.

Quote:
$77 Billion sent to Ukraine

https://www.newsweek.com/fact-check-have-us-taxpayers-sent-200-billion
-ukraine-1796322
Probably more

Quote:
NYC building that once housed 'Brooklyn's hippest hotel' turned into migrants shelter https://t.co/8T1mfecEcr via @nypmetro >><> A shelter for illegal aliens – while at the same time homeless citizens, some hungry and mentally ill – get ZERO resources.

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

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

Thursday, May 18, 2023 5:07 PM

I believe in solving problems, not sharing them.

Meanwhile, back on topic (which SECOND persistently tries to derail)...

Russian missiles are striking far into western Ukraine, targeting foreign weapons warehouses, ammo dumps, air defenses and command centers.

THAT'S how you win a war. Not by targeting civilian administrative buildings.

Poor SECOND. So wrapped up in delusion.

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

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

Thursday, May 18, 2023 5:43 PM

I believe in solving problems, not sharing them.

This comment was pointed out to me under

Quote:
Ukraine’s Suicidal Offensive is Bleeding Out While the CIA Loses Its Mind

Comment...
“Russians actually want this nazi offensive to happen, to destroy vast amounts of Ukranazistani equipment and manpower, which would allow freedom for a Russian offensive to develop. ”

Agreed. As I have noted in other comments, this is exactly what the Soviet trained Iraqis repeatedly did to the US trained Iranians in the Iran-Iraq War in the 80’s.

When the UAF launches its offensive expect:

1. Token resistance from the forward line of defense, followed by withdrawal in good order to the second line.
2. Stiffer resistance from the second line, followed by withdrawal in good order to the third line.
3. As the UAF advances into the salient, they enter a pre-planned and targeted kill zone,
4. 2 or 3 weeks of slaughter, 10’s of thousands of Ukrainian dead.
5. After the Ukrainian offensive is shattered, there may be an opportunity for a Russian breakthrough that could unhinge Ukraine’s entire defensive line in the Donbas.

https://sonar21.com/ukraines-suicidal-offensive-is-bleeding-out-while-
the-cia-loses-its-mind/

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

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

Thursday, May 18, 2023 9:49 PM

The Joss Whedon script for Serenity, where Wash lives, is Serenity-190pages.pdf at https://www.mediafire.com/folder/1uwh75oa407q8/Firefly

Pentagon accounting error overvalued Ukraine weapons aid by $3 billion

Reuters reports:

The Pentagon overestimated the value of the ammunition, missiles and other equipment it sent to Ukraine by around $3 billion, a Senate aide and a defense official said on Thursday, an error that may lead the way for more weapons being sent to Kyiv for its defense against Russian forces.

The error was the result of assigning a higher than warranted value on weaponry that was taken from U.S. stocks and then shipped to Ukraine, two senior defense officials said on Thursday.

“We’ve discovered inconsistencies in how we value the equipment that we’ve given” to Ukraine one of the senior defense officials told Reuters. The officials and the Senate aide spoke on the condition of anonymity. Congress is being notified of the accounting adjustment on Thursday, the sources said.

The defense official said it is possible the amount of overvalued weaponry could grow beyond $3 billion as the Pentagon examines the situation more thoroughly.

In its accounting, the Pentagon used replacement cost to value the weapons aid, instead of the weaponry’s value when it was purchased and depreciated, the senior defense officials said.

Since August 2021, the United States has sent weapons valued at about $21.1 billion to Ukraine from its stockpiles.

https://www.reuters.com/world/europe/pentagon-accounting-error-overval
ued-ukraine-aid-by-3-billion-sources-2023-05-18/

The Joss Whedon script for Serenity, where Wash lives, is Serenity-190pages.pdf at
https://www.mediafire.com/folder/1uwh75oa407q8/Firefly

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

Thursday, May 18, 2023 10:00 PM

The Joss Whedon script for Serenity, where Wash lives, is Serenity-190pages.pdf at https://www.mediafire.com/folder/1uwh75oa407q8/Firefly

Quote:
Originally posted by SIGNYM:
Meanwhile, back on topic (which SECOND persistently tries to derail)...

Russian missiles are striking far into western Ukraine, targeting foreign weapons warehouses, ammo dumps, air defenses and command centers.

THAT'S how you win a war. Not by targeting civilian administrative buildings.

Poor SECOND. So wrapped up in delusion.

Did you forget that the US firebombed Tokyo, the Capital of Japan? No nukes. Ordinary ordinance. Nothing was spared, except the Emperor, because he was needed by the US after WWII. Everything else burned. The equivalent would be to firebomb Kyiv, the Capital of Ukraine, except that Volodymyr Zelenskyy would not be spared because he is merely a President, not an Emperor, and the culture of Ukraine is not similar to Japan's. For some unknown reason, the Russians can't get their bombers over Kyiv. I wonder what is stopping them?

A more recent example? The US bombing Baghdad, the Capital of Iraq. Saddam Hussein's residences were not spared. That ended the Iraq War pretty damn quickly. Why don't the Russians try Shock and Awe? I wonder what is stopping them?

Shock and Awe
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Shock_and_awe

The Joss Whedon script for Serenity, where Wash lives, is Serenity-190pages.pdf at
https://www.mediafire.com/folder/1uwh75oa407q8/Firefly

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

Friday, May 19, 2023 1:11 AM

I believe in solving problems, not sharing them.

Quote:
Originally posted by second:
Quote:
Originally posted by SIGNYM:
Meanwhile, back on topic (which SECOND persistently tries to derail)...

Russian missiles are striking far into western Ukraine, targeting foreign weapons warehouses, ammo dumps, air defenses and command centers.

THAT'S how you win a war. Not by targeting civilian administrative buildings.

Poor SECOND. So wrapped up in delusion.
Did you forget that the US firebombed Tokyo, the Capital of Japan? No nukes. Ordinary ordinance. Nothing was spared, except the Emperor, because he was needed by the US after WWII. Everything else burned. The equivalent would be to firebomb Kyiv, the Capital of Ukraine, except that Volodymyr Zelenskyy would not be spared because he is merely a President, not an Emperor, and the culture of Ukraine is not similar to Japan's. For some unknown reason, the Russians can't get their bombers over Kyiv. I wonder what is stopping them?

A more recent example? The US bombing Baghdad, the Capital of Iraq. Saddam Hussein's residences were not spared. That ended the Iraq War pretty damn quickly. Why don't the Russians try Shock and Awe? I wonder what is stopping them?

Shock and Awe
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Shock_and_awe

The Joss Whedon script for Serenity, where Wash lives, is Serenity-190pages.pdf at
https://www.mediafire.com/folder/1uwh75oa407q8/Firefly

Oh, you want Russia to go berserk, like you?

Scratch a virtue-signaller and find a sociopath.

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

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

Friday, May 19, 2023 7:18 AM

The Joss Whedon script for Serenity, where Wash lives, is Serenity-190pages.pdf at https://www.mediafire.com/folder/1uwh75oa407q8/Firefly

Quote:
Originally posted by SIGNYM:

Oh, you want Russia to go berserk, like you?

Scratch a virtue-signaller and find a sociopath.

In Ukraine, Russia is repeating WWII as if the Eastern Front was a big success rather than a huge slaughter of Russians by Russians. If Russia does not change its ineffective methods carried over from 1940-1945, Russia will kill many millions of Russians before the Ukrainian War is all over, assuming this new war is allowed by Western powers to run as the old war did in WWII. (FDR and Churchill were horrified at how wasteful Stalin was with Russian lives but could do nothing.) Unfortunately, Signym has denied that Russians lacked finesse in WWII and are no better today:

The Soviet people were under attack from two directions: the Nazi military machine and the Soviet Communist Party. The imprisonment and killing of enemies of the people by the party not only continued during the war, but was intensified. A large number of the Soviet World War II dead were killed by Stalin, not Hitler — probably 10,000,000 more. Had Ripley written a “Believe It or Not” of incredible tales of murder and death, the two-front war suffered by Soviet citizens and foreigners subject to Soviet occupation surely would provide prominent entries.

As the Red Army retreated before Nazi invasion forces, the NKVD often tried to deport prisoners east before the Nazis arrived. In some cases prisoners were beaten and shot in death marches along the roads or, if evacuation were impossible or too difficult, prisoners were shot en masse in the prisons,15 whether pickpockets, crooks, black marketeers, or political prisoners. For example, they were shot as prisons were evacuated in Tallin, Smolensk, Kiev, Kharkov, Zaporozhye, Dnepropetrovsk, and Orel; in Tartu at least 192 prisoners were killed.16 Upon the approach of German forces, all in Minsk’s prison were killed. It held about 10,000 inmates, although constructed for 1,000.17 All prisoners doing forced labor at a mining complex near Nalchik were machine gunned to death. At the Olginskaya camp, more than 2,000 of those sentenced for over four years were shot.18 And in the Ukraine:

In the majority of prisons NKVD troops shot all inmates who had been sentenced to more than three years. In some towns the NKVD burned prisons with all their inmates. According to Ukrainian sources, 10,000 prisoners were shot in Lvov, Zolochevo, Rovno, Dubno, Lutsk, and other cities.19

In all, perhaps 80,000 Ukrainians were massacred during the Red Army retreat.20

Now, one’s mind can soon become dulled by all the figures being given here; one can read about 80,000 Ukrainians murdered but not absorb this magnitude. But consider: more Ukrainians were apparently murdered in this retreat than all the Englishmen killed (70,000) by all the Nazi bombs dropped on England during the war;21 it is more than all the American Marine and Navy battle-dead in all theaters of action in World War II (56,683);22 it is virtually equal to all the American battle dead in the Korean and Vietnam wars together (80,950).23

From the book Lethal Politics: Soviet Genocide and Mass Murder since 1917 by R. J. Rummel
Download the free book from https://libgen.unblockit.asia/search.php?req=R.+J.+Rummel

https://www.amazon.com/Lethal-Politics-Soviet-Genocide-Murder-ebook/dp
/B073RQ94KF/

The Joss Whedon script for Serenity, where Wash lives, is Serenity-190pages.pdf at
https://www.mediafire.com/folder/1uwh75oa407q8/Firefly

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

Friday, May 19, 2023 7:28 AM

The Joss Whedon script for Serenity, where Wash lives, is Serenity-190pages.pdf at https://www.mediafire.com/folder/1uwh75oa407q8/Firefly

Ukrainian officials indicated that Ukrainian forces have seized the battlefield initiative in the Bakhmut area. Cherevaty stated on May 18 that Ukrainian forces regained the battlefield initiative and are forcing Russian forces to respond to Ukrainian actions, including by transferring Russian Airborne (VDV) elements to Bakhmut’s flanks to defend against the Ukrainian advances.[4] Malyar stated that Russian forces have deployed most of their reserves to the Bakhmut area, very likely to the detriment of other areas of the frontline.[5]

Wagner Group financier Yevgeny Prigozhin admitted on May 18 that Wagner mercenaries are unable to encircle the Ukrainian forces in Bakhmut due to the loss of stable flanks north and south of Bakhmut. Prigozhin accused the Russian Ministry of Defense (MoD) of losing advantageous positions after MoD-subordinated units retreated from their positions on Bakhmut’s flanks necessary for an encirclement.[11] Prigozhin and Wagner sources have long indicated Wagner’s intent to encircle Bakhmut and trap Ukrainian forces but proved unable to do so after the Ukrainian military command decided to defend the city. ISW had previously assessed that Russian forces were unlikely to encircle Bakhmut after Wagner forces made several rapid breakthroughs north, south, and east of the city in winter-spring 2023.[12] Prigozhin likely anticipated that Ukrainian forces would entirely withdraw from Bakhmut out of fear of imminent encirclement and even offered to allow President Volodymyr Zelensky to withdraw Ukrainian forces from the city on March 3.[13] The Ukrainian defensive operation, however, prioritized the defense of the Ukrainian ground lines of communication (GLOCs) west of Bakhmut, which forced Wagner forces into urban warfare and grinding directly through the city itself. Prigozhin’s admission further supports Ukrainian officials’ statements that Wagner is losing the initiative on the battlefield.

Prigozhin and Wagner-affiliated milbloggers are blaming Russian conventional forces for military failures in and around Bakhmut. Prigozhin directly appealed to Russian Defense Minister Sergei Shoigu and Chief of the Russian General Staff Army General Valery Gerasimov to hold Sakko i Vantsetti for at least few more days.[14] Prigozhin also blamed Gerasimov for the retreats of Russian conventional forces from Bakhmut‘s flanks.[15]

https://www.understandingwar.org/backgrounder/russian-offensive-campai
gn-assessment-may-18-2023

The Joss Whedon script for Serenity, where Wash lives, is Serenity-190pages.pdf at
https://www.mediafire.com/folder/1uwh75oa407q8/Firefly

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

Friday, May 19, 2023 8:44 AM

I believe in solving problems, not sharing them.

Quote:
Originally posted by SIGNYM:

Oh, you want Russia to go berserk, like you?

Scratch a virtue-signaller and find a sociopath.

SECOND: In Ukraine, Russia is repeating WWII as if the Eastern Front was a big success rather than a huge slaughter of Russians by Russians. If Russia does not change its ineffective methods carried over from 1940-1945, Russia will kill many millions of Russians before the Ukrainian War is all over,

SECOND, nearly everything you think you know about everything is wrong. You made one lucky guess (assuming that you're not lying) about oil, but that glow doesn't extend to anything else bc you're not uneducated, you're MISeducated. And yuo did it to yourself.

Russians aren't losing hundreds of thousands of soldiers in Ukraine, Kiev is.
Russians didn't use "human wave" tactics in WWII either.

If you could just take a peek at reality once in a while you might correct some of that misinformation encrusting your brain, but I know you won't.

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

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

Friday, May 19, 2023 9:55 AM

The Joss Whedon script for Serenity, where Wash lives, is Serenity-190pages.pdf at https://www.mediafire.com/folder/1uwh75oa407q8/Firefly

Quote:
Originally posted by SIGNYM:

Russians aren't losing hundreds of thousands of soldiers in Ukraine, Kiev is.
Russians didn't use "human wave" tactics in WWII either.

If you could just take a peek at reality once in a while you might correct some of that misinformation encrusting your brain, but I know you won't.

Where is your proof, Signym, of those Ukrainian deaths? Show the bodies.

But if you want to prove Ukraine is incompetent at warfare, the proof is that the Kerch Strait Bridge between Russia and Ukraine's Crimea is still carrying traffic. That should have been the first target for Ukraine back on Feb 24, 2022.

Did Ukraine need a weapon that it doesn't own to stop traffic on that bridge? Ukraine should have either bought it or built the weapon starting at the same time as Putin announced the bridge back in 2014.

That is proof that Ukrainians are as stupid as Russians about how to win a war without almost destroying themselves, which Stalin nearly did to Russia during WWII. On the other hand, the US had relatively few causalities because FDR didn't line up ten million US citizens and execute them. Stalin killed at least ten million Russians just because of political differences during WWII. The closest that FDR got to doing something Stalinesquely self-destructive to the US was when FDR imprisoned US citizens for being related to Japan.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Crimean_Bridge

The Joss Whedon script for Serenity, where Wash lives, is Serenity-190pages.pdf at
https://www.mediafire.com/folder/1uwh75oa407q8/Firefly

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

Friday, May 19, 2023 12:42 PM

I believe in solving problems, not sharing them.

When I post videos and pictures of corpses or battlefields you complained it doesn't belong here.

Nonetheless, I have occasionally posted videos of Ukrainian graveyards with row on row of fresh graves with Ukie flags flapping over them, and there are plenty more of those videos available

Interviews of frontline Ukie soldiers is another non-Russian source. They often recount that a third to a half of their company has been killed or wounded.

Long days of gravediggers tell story of Ukraine's war dead
-Newsweek

Kiev, of course lies about everything, especially about the number of their dead and Russian dead, so you can shitcan anything "Kiev says" and shitcan any repetition of it.

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

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

Friday, May 19, 2023 2:02 PM

The Joss Whedon script for Serenity, where Wash lives, is Serenity-190pages.pdf at https://www.mediafire.com/folder/1uwh75oa407q8/Firefly

Biden says US will help Ukraine with F-16s:

President Biden has told G-7 leaders during his trip to Japan that the U.S. will back an allied effort to train Ukrainian pilots on some aircraft, including F-16s, according to a CNN first report Friday morning.

The months-long training probably won’t happen in the U.S. — instead taking place in Europe. But U.S. personnel may take part in the effort, according to CNN’s sources.

It was already reported overnight that the Biden administration had signaled to European allies that the F-16 fighter jets would be sent to Ukraine.

https://thehill.com/newsletters/1230-report/4012353-the-hills-1230-rep
ort-more-developments-in-the-us-involvement-in-ukraine/

The Joss Whedon script for Serenity, where Wash lives, is Serenity-190pages.pdf at
https://www.mediafire.com/folder/1uwh75oa407q8/Firefly

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

Friday, May 19, 2023 2:06 PM

The Joss Whedon script for Serenity, where Wash lives, is Serenity-190pages.pdf at https://www.mediafire.com/folder/1uwh75oa407q8/Firefly

Putin’s tenure in power has had a cumulative effect on his worldview. His assertiveness has grown in step with his strengthened grip on domestic power and his growing perception that he faces only limited international pushback. His personal resentment of geopolitical slights has grown and fed back into Russia’s national security dialogue. The influence of other forceful national security leaders has also grown. Putin has responded to internal challenges by seeking foreign policy distractions. The direction of his aims has always been consistent even if the vigor and rancor with which they are pursued has increased.

https://www.understandingwar.org/report/how-we-got-here-russia-kremlin
s-worldview

The Joss Whedon script for Serenity, where Wash lives, is Serenity-190pages.pdf at
https://www.mediafire.com/folder/1uwh75oa407q8/Firefly

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

Friday, May 19, 2023 2:58 PM

I believe in solving problems, not sharing them.

Quote:
Originally posted by second:
Biden says US will help Ukraine with F-16s:

President Biden has told G-7 leaders during his trip to Japan that the U.S. will back an allied effort to train Ukrainian pilots on some aircraft, including F-16s, according to a CNN first report Friday morning.

The months-long training probably won’t happen in the U.S. — instead taking place in Europe. But U.S. personnel may take part in the effort, according to CNN’s sources.

It was already reported overnight that the Biden administration had signaled to European allies that the F-16 fighter jets would be sent to Ukraine.

https://thehill.com/newsletters/1230-report/4012353-the-hills-1230-rep
ort-more-developments-in-the-us-involvement-in-ukraine/

The Joss Whedon script for Serenity, where Wash lives, is Serenity-190pages.pdf at
https://www.mediafire.com/folder/1uwh75oa407q8/Firefly

Of course. Every wunderwaffe that NATO has provided... javelins, HIMARS, Patriot missiles, leopard tanks, APCs, Storm Shadow missiles etc has pretty much turned out to be a dud. Bc really, if any of these had turned the tide, if Ukraine was WINNING!, would we be supplying YET ANOTHER weapons system?

How long will it take us, do you think, before we finally reach into our back pocket and pull out a nuke?

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

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

Friday, May 19, 2023 8:23 PM

The Joss Whedon script for Serenity, where Wash lives, is Serenity-190pages.pdf at https://www.mediafire.com/folder/1uwh75oa407q8/Firefly

Quote:
Originally posted by SIGNYM:

Of course. Every wunderwaffe that NATO has provided... javelins, HIMARS, Patriot missiles, leopard tanks, APCs, Storm Shadow missiles etc has pretty much turned out to be a dud. Bc really, if any of these had turned the tide, if Ukraine was WINNING!, would we be supplying YET ANOTHER weapons system?

How long will it take us, do you think, before we finally reach into our back pocket and pull out a nuke?

"Nobody has explained how victory is supposed to look," Narusova told an interviewer. "If we think of the originally declared goals, 'denazification' and 'demilitarization,' the entire Ukrainian army must have been already destroyed by now."

Narusova added that Russian soldiers are now up against NATO-armed Ukrainian troops.

"Does that mean we are demilitarizing NATO?" she asked. "That goal is unattainable."

The widow of Putin's political mentor and mother of his rumored goddaughter is increasingly voicing concerns about Russia's war in Ukraine
https://www.businessinsider.com/lyudmila-narusova-putins-political-men
tor-widow-concerns-war-ukraine-2023-5

The Joss Whedon script for Serenity, where Wash lives, is Serenity-190pages.pdf at
https://www.mediafire.com/folder/1uwh75oa407q8/Firefly

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

Saturday, May 20, 2023 6:04 AM

The Joss Whedon script for Serenity, where Wash lives, is Serenity-190pages.pdf at https://www.mediafire.com/folder/1uwh75oa407q8/Firefly

• A Ukrainian official stated that Russian forces have concentrated most of their available reserves to the Bakhmut area and slowed Ukrainian counterattacks in the past 24 hours.

• Ukrainian counterattacks near Bakhmut have notably likely eliminated the threat of a Russian encirclement of Ukrainian forces in Bakhmut and forced Russian troops to allocate scarce military resources to defend against a limited and localized offensive effort, as Ukrainian command likely intended.

https://www.understandingwar.org/backgrounder/russian-offensive-campai
gn-assessment-may-19-2023-0

The Joss Whedon script for Serenity, where Wash lives, is Serenity-190pages.pdf at
https://www.mediafire.com/folder/1uwh75oa407q8/Firefly

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

Saturday, May 20, 2023 12:17 PM

I believe in solving problems, not sharing them.

Quote:
Wagner Declares Full Capture Of Bakhmut After 224 Days Of Fighting

Head of the Russian private military group Wagner, Yevgeny Prigozhin, has announced Saturday that after months of grinding warfare and heavy casualties, Russia has now taken full control of the strategic city of Bakhmut.

https://www.zerohedge.com/geopolitical/wagner-declares-full-capture-ba
khmut-after-224-days-fighting

The Duran, Brian Berletic, Sonar 21, even the pro-Ukrainian Military Summary Channel, have been following Russia's progress in Bakhmut. A week ago, there were 20 buildings yet to be captured. Yesterday, there were two.

And then there were none.

The Russian MoD usually follows the field commander's declaration by a few days to a few weeks. Buildings must be searched for soldiers, bodies, or booby traps,, the area de-mined, unexploded ordnance removed etc. Kiev generally takes a weeks to months to acknowledge lost territory.

Russia will probably want to "mop up" some of the surrounding villages Chasiv Yar has been mentioned over and over.

Next: Avdiika? Which is almost completely surrounded.

BTW most Russian troops are NOT in Bakhmut. Nobody knows where they are and the Russian MoD isn't saying, but there are an estimated 300,000 -500,000 somewhere. If they were all in Bakhmut they'd be stepping on each other's toes

Will Zelenskiy finally return to Ukraine now? Will Zaluzhny re-appear?

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

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

Saturday, May 20, 2023 1:03 PM