Russia Invades Ukraine. Again
POSTED BY: captaincrunch
UPDATED: Thursday, September 17, 2026 12:14
VIEWED: 571382
PAGE 63 of 112
Quote:Putin doesn't care if 12,756 Russians die to take a town with a population of 12,756. A victory is a victory no matter the cost.
Originally posted by SIGNYM:
Attack on Chasiv Yar begins with Russians in eastern district.
"Since the February 2022 invasion, Russian forces have sustained 658 losses a day on average," the UK's defense ministry said in a post on X, which collated the number of Russian casualties and injured.
"Each year has seen a rise in the daily average loss rate from 400 in 2022, to 693 in 2023, to 913 through the first quarter of 2024," the post continued. "The increase reflects Russia's ongoing reliance on mass to sustain pressure on Ukrainian frontlines."
https://www.businessinsider.com/russia-losing-about-1000-soldiers-dail
y-not-stop-mass-attacks-2024-4
In Rebuilding Russia (1990), Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn wrote about how Russia's past leaders squandered lives in the same way Putin does now as he achieves small goals:
Quote:Inept and suicidal describe how Russians fight now in Ukraine. But at least proud Putin slides forward majestically over the corpses of Russians.
For seventy years in labored pursuit of a purblind and malignant Marxist-Leninist utopia, we have lost a full third of our population—lives yielded up to the executioner or squandered in the ineptly, almost suicidally waged “Patriotic War.”
The Joss Whedon script for Serenity, where Wash lives, is Serenity-190pages.pdf at
https://www.mediafire.com/folder/1uwh75oa407q8/Firefly
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How Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn Became Putin’s Spiritual Guru
The strange story of a global literary hero who went on to inspire Russia’s war on Ukraine.
April 7, 2024, 7:00 AM
By Casey Michel, head of the Human Rights Foundation's Combating Kleptocracy Program and author of American Kleptocracy: How the U.S. Created the World’s Greatest Money Laundering Scheme in History.
In 1990, as the Soviet Union hurdled toward its final crackup, a renowned Russian writer sketched out a plan for a post-Soviet future. As this author outlined, Russia must toss off its Soviet shackles by voting out the reeling Communist Party and enacting a wholesale restructuring of the economy. Additionally, the author added, the Kremlin should let a range of Moscow’s former colonies go free, most especially in places like the Baltics, the Caucasus, and across much of Central Asia.
Other borders, however, would be up for grabs. Chunks of northern Kazakhstan—areas, according to the writer, that were never truly Kazakh—should revert to Russia. So, too, should Belarus, which was hardly a distinct nation from Russia. Most importantly, swaths of Ukraine remained rightfully Russian, from eastern Ukraine to Crimea and beyond—even up to and including Kyiv. All of these lands comprised traditional Russian holdings. And all of them, this writer proposed, should comprise a future “Russian Union”—not only returning millions of ethnic Russians suddenly outside the Russian Federation’s borders to their homeland, but restoring Moscow to its rightful place in the world.
At the time, these policy proposals generated little interest, or even concern, in the West. On the one hand, that oversight is understandable, given that the West was primarily focused on securing a stable Soviet disintegration. But on the other hand, the ignorance is almost shocking, given that the author of such a blueprint, bundled into a book called Rebuilding Russia, was Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn, the Nobel Prize-winning author and the “dominant writer of the 20th century,” as New Yorker editor David Remnick once described him.
While much of Solzhenitsyn’s work—not least Gulag Archipelago, as well as books like Cancer Ward and One Day in the Life of Ivan Denisovich—remains widely dissected and discussed, Rebuilding Russia is arguably his most overlooked read. And given how closely the Kremlin has hewed to Solzhenitsyn’s policy recommendations in Rebuilding Russia in the years since, that oversight is all the more unfortunate—not least because of what it tells us about what the Kremlin wants in Ukraine, and even beyond.
The book itself is relatively scant, with its English translation coming in at around 90 pages—more of a manifesto than a fully developed manuscript. But even in those pages, Solzhenitsyn reveals himself not only as a Russian nationalist, but as someone who dabbles in the kinds of conspiracies and mysticism that would later saturate Russian President Vladimir Putin. Like Putin, Solzhenitsyn approvingly cites Russian fascists like Ivan Ilyin, praising the “spiritual life of a nation.” He also claims that many of the smaller nations colonized by tsarist-era Russian forces “lived well” in the Russian Empire—wholly ignoring how Russian forces brutalized entire nations in northern Asia, stripping them of population and sovereignty alike, even to the point of genocide. He even wrote that countries like Kazakhstan were “stitched together … in a completely haphazard fashion”—downplaying Kazakhs’ historic claims not only to their modern country, but even to formerly Kazakh territory still considered part of the Russian Federation.
But it is in Ukraine—and in Solzhenitsyn’s calls for a Russian Union—that Solzhenitsyn’s revanchism shines through and provides insight into the forces propelling the Kremlin and designs to come. Like many other writers, including figures such as Alexander Pushkin and Joseph Brodsky, Solzhenitsyn drenched his writings on Ukraine in unabashed Russian chauvinism. In a talking point that other Russian nationalists
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Putin miscalculated on Finland’s border
If Russia wants to intimidate Finland by announcing it’ll avenge the country’s NATO accession with troops on the border, it needs to have plenty of troops at its disposal. And Russia simply doesn’t.
By Elisabeth Braw | April 8, 2024 4:00 am CET
https://www.politico.eu/article/vladimir-putin-russia-miscalculated-on
-finland-border/
Putin’s complaint was much like that of a bully or abusive partner claiming everything was fine until the other person went to the police or moved out. Indeed, one wonders whether the Kremlin’s top occupants have ever considered the effect their words and actions have on other countries, as it was, of course, Russia’s belligerence that prompted Finland to apply for NATO membership.
But the problem with constantly menacing others is that it requires considerable resources. If Russia wants to intimidate Finland by announcing it’ll avenge the country’s NATO accession with troops on the border, it needs to have plenty of troops at its disposal. And Russia simply doesn’t.
“The Russians won’t have the resources to build infrastructure, produce new heavy weaponry and recruit considerable numbers of forces to our border before the 2030s,” retired Major General Pekka Toveri, a former chief of Finnish military intelligence and recently elected member of the Finnish parliament, told me.
The Joss Whedon script for Serenity, where Wash lives, is Serenity-190pages.pdf at
https://www.mediafire.com/folder/1uwh75oa407q8/Firefly
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Quote:
'Dangerous Provocation': Kremlin Blasts Ukraine For Drone Strike On Zaporizhzhia Nuclear Plant
The International Atomic Energy Agency is once again sounding the alarm over the potential that disaster could strike the Russian-controlled Zaporizhzhia Nuclear Power Plant in southeastern Ukraine, which is the largest in Europe.
On Sunday, for the first time since 2022, Ukraine apparently sent a drone against the facility and it struck one of the plant's six nuclear reactors. While Kiev has firmly denied it was behind the attack, Moscow has denounced it as a "very dangerous provocation" from Ukraine forces. Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov denounced it as "a very dangerous practice with very bad negative consequences." He said it's but the latest example of Kiev's "terrorist activity."
"IAEA staff who are on site have had the opportunity to witness these attacks," Peskov added. Russian state-owned nuclear agency Rosatom reported casualties as a result of the strike, detailing that three people were wounded in the "unprecedented series of drone attacks."
MORE AT
https://www.zerohedge.com/geopolitical/dangerous-provocation-kremlin-b
lasts-ukraine-drone-strike-zaporizhzhia-nuclear-plant
Oh, Budanov, Budanov ....
-----------
"It may be dangerous to be America's enemy, but to be America's friend is fatal." - Henry Kissinger
Why SECOND'S posts are brainless: "I clocked how much time: no more than 10 minutes per day. With cut-and-paste (Ctrl C and Ctrl V) and AI, none of this takes much time."
Or, any verification or thought.
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The West is failing to rise to the challenge of Russia’s threat
By Alexander J. Motyl | April 8, 2024, 10:00 AM ET
https://thehill.com/opinion/international/4580536-the-west-is-failing-
to-rise-to-the-challenge-of-russias-threat/
Norwegian Minister of Foreign Affairs Espen Barth Eide recently told a Ukrainian journalist that “I think we should all be honest and say: Nobody does enough” to help Ukraine defeat Putin’s Russia. Eide had in mind the countries of NATO, which is currently celebrating the 75th anniversary of its founding on April 4, 1949.
Let’s look more closely at Eide’s statement. The logical proposition underpinning it is this: If you believe, as Eide and most NATO countries claim to, that Putin’s Russia is an existential threat to Europe, then you will do everything possible to counter that threat by helping Ukraine win.
Now consider the “contrapositive,” whereby the negation of the conclusion logically implies the negation of the premise: If, as Eide says, one is not doing everything possible to help Ukraine, then it follows that one does not consider Putin’s Russia to be an existential threat to Europe.
The conclusion is inescapable: NATO countries talk about the Russian threat, but their dilly-dallying, their insufficient support of Ukraine and their unwillingness to impose truly punitive sanctions all testify to the fact that they don’t really mean what they say.
In this respect, Hungary’s tinpot authoritarian prime minister, Viktor Orbán, and his counterpart in Slovakia, Robert Fico, are being honest. They openly support Putin because they share his totalitarian values and admire his hard-knuckled regime. Ditto for Donald Trump and his MAGA Republican base. Why worry about Ukraine and Russia if a Russian victory means only that “family values” will triumph and lucrative commercial relations with Russia can resume?
Some instances of Putinophilia are less explicable. Consider the well-known Columbia University economist Jeffrey Sachs, who still believes that NATO wanted to accept Ukraine into its ranks and that the U.S. engineered a “coup” during the Revolution of Dignity of 2014. Not only is there absolutely no evidence to support his claims — if anything, NATO suffered from “Ukraine fatigue” and couldn’t even begin to imagine Ukrainian membership in anyone’s lifetime — but to reduce Ukrainian “people power” to a CIA plot is not only preposterous, but deeply insulting to the millions of Ukrainians who took to the streets and risked their lives in 2014. Small wonder, alas, that Sachs is a regular on some of the crudest Russian propaganda talk shows.
At this point, critics of Putin, like me, will jump into the fray and insist that Russia is a mortal threat, not just to Ukraine, but to all of Europe, the United States and indeed the world. We’ll also insist that this is so obviously, so manifestly the case that only a dolt would fail to recognize that Putin is the 21st century’s answer to Adolf Hitler. Our arguments are legion, and few have made the case for immediate assistance to Ukraine better than Yale University historian Timothy Snyder.
And yet, not only do the Orbáns and Ficos and their cheerleaders remain unpersuaded, but evidently so too do the Americans and most Europeans, including Eide’s Norway. The Baltic states definitely see the threat — their geographic proximity to Russia makes sure of that. French President Emmanuel Macron has recently seen the light and gone over to the side of Putin’s strongest critics, albeit rhetorically, but even Poland, which is one of Ukraine’s most steadfast allies, doesn’t seem to get that blocking its border to Ukrainian trucks and ruining Ukraine’s economy is no way to show its understanding of the Russian threat.
The U.S. is the biggest hypocrite. Except for a small group of Trump’s diehard supporters in Congress, the American political class claims to overwhelmingly support Ukraine and to comprehend the magnitude of the Russian threat. And yet, Washington has proven to be incapable of subordinating election politics an
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Russian missile ship Serpukhov on fire in Kaliningrad region, source says
Story by Uliana Bezpalko, Oleksandra Bashchenko
https://www.msn.com/en-us/news/world/russian-missile-ship-serpukhov-on
-fire-in-kaliningrad-region-source-says/ar-BB1lh4Zm
The Joss Whedon script for Serenity, where Wash lives, is Serenity-190pages.pdf at
https://www.mediafire.com/folder/1uwh75oa407q8/Firefly
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Quote:The Russians did the same at the Nova Kakhovka dam. Russia blamed Ukraine. Most experts agree that between Russia and Ukraine, it is more likely that Russia attacked the dam.
Originally posted by SIGNYM:Quote:
'Dangerous Provocation': Kremlin Blasts Ukraine For Drone Strike On Zaporizhzhia Nuclear Plant
MORE AT
https://www.zerohedge.com/geopolitical/dangerous-provocation-kremlin-b
lasts-ukraine-drone-strike-zaporizhzhia-nuclear-plant
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Destruction_of_the_Kakhovka_Dam#Responsi
bility
The Joss Whedon script for Serenity, where Wash lives, is Serenity-190pages.pdf at
https://www.mediafire.com/folder/1uwh75oa407q8/Firefly
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Quote:
Originally posted by SIGNYM:Quote:
'Dangerous Provocation': Kremlin Blasts Ukraine For Drone Strike On Zaporizhzhia Nuclear Plant
MORE AT
https://www.zerohedge.com/geopolitical/dangerous-provocation-kremlin-b
lasts-ukraine-drone-strike-zaporizhzhia-nuclear-plant
SECOND: The Russians did the same at the Nova Kakhovka dam.
Bullshit. That makes as much sense as Russia blowing up its own pipeline (which you accused Russia of a woman doing) or Russia shelling the Zaparozhiy Power Plant (which you ALSO accused Russia of doing.)
If Russia wanted to flood downstream, all they needed to do was open the gates, since they controlled the dam. Then, if Russia wanted to dry out the area downstream -say, to launch an offensive across the river - they could later dam the river again
They controlled the dam. How would they benefit from ruining it?
You're stupid.
-----------
"It may be dangerous to be America's enemy, but to be America's friend is fatal." - Henry Kissinger
Why SECOND'S posts are brainless: "I clocked how much time: no more than 10 minutes per day. With cut-and-paste (Ctrl C and Ctrl V) and AI, none of this takes much time."
Or, any verification or thought.
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Quote:The European Parliament announced on 15 June 2023 that it had adopted a resolution that condemned in the strongest possible terms Russia's destruction of the Kakhovka dam on 6 June, saying that this constituted a war crime. The Parliament also called for Ukraine to join NATO.[101] According to The New York Times, "a senior American military official" reported that the U.S. government "had ruled out an external attack on the dam, like a missile, bomb or some other projectile, and now assesses that the explosion came from one or more charges set inside it, most likely by Russian operatives."[9]
Originally posted by SIGNYM:
Bullshit.
They controlled the dam. How would they benefit from ruining it?
You're stupid.
Russian government figures initially said the dam was undamaged, but later denied responsibility and blamed Ukraine.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Destruction_of_the_Kakhovka_Dam#Responsi
bility
Signym, Russians are comparatively poor because they are crazy, violent, drunk, and stupid. Signym, you can deny that all you want, but Russians are what they are and they need to change themselves. There are history books, i.e. The Great West Ukrainian Prison Massacre of 1941, written about Russian murder rampages in Ukraine. Russians have not changed.
http://library.lol/main/0F04F28B7CA826E9304475833E9BDABE
The Joss Whedon script for Serenity, where Wash lives, is Serenity-190pages.pdf at
https://www.mediafire.com/folder/1uwh75oa407q8/Firefly
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You really expect me to accept the word of the European Parliament? That's called "Appeal to authority" and one of the things that people do when they can't come up with a single logical reason or piece of evidence for their stupid idea.
And then you follow one stupid idea with another equally stupid one.
-----------
"It may be dangerous to be America's enemy, but to be America's friend is fatal." - Henry Kissinger
Why SECOND'S posts are brainless: "I clocked how much time: no more than 10 minutes per day. With cut-and-paste (Ctrl C and Ctrl V) and AI, none of this takes much time."
Or, any verification or thought.
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Quote:In all construction jobs I have been associated with, there have been numerous screwballs just like Signym who argue with the boss, contradict all reasonable ideas, throw up obstacles, complain bitterly, threaten to sue, sabotage the work, etc. If such screwballs are allowed to remain on a job site, the project will fail because the screwballs are consciously being obnoxious, stupid, destructive assholes who can't even stop lying, let alone accomplish some useful work. On the best-managed projects, the screwballs like Signym will get immediately terminated. Off in Ukraine, Signym's Russian screwballs get permanently terminated, but not fast enough or with sufficient brutality for what they have done to Ukraine.
Originally posted by SIGNYM:
You really expect me to accept the word of the European Parliament? That's called "Appeal to authority" and one of the things that people do when they can't come up with a single logical reason or piece of evidence for their stupid idea.
And then you follow one stupid idea with another equally stupid one.
The Joss Whedon script for Serenity, where Wash lives, is Serenity-190pages.pdf at
https://www.mediafire.com/folder/1uwh75oa407q8/Firefly
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Quote:
Originally posted by SIGNYM:
You really expect me to accept the word of the European Parliament? That's called "Appeal to authority" and one of the things that people do when they can't come up with a single logical reason or piece of evidence for their stupid idea.
And then you follow one stupid idea with another equally stupid one.
SECOND: In all construction jobs I have [pretended to be] associated with, there have been numerous screwballs just like Signym who argue with the boss, contradict all reasonable ideas, throw up obstacles, complain bitterly, threaten to sue, sabotage the work, etc.
And then you follow "appeal to authority" with extended name-calling!
But you still haven't come up with an explanation why Russians would destroy the dam they controlled (or why they would blow up their own pipeline or shell the nuclear power plant they controlled) when it was not only unnecessary but might impede their future war plans. And you haven't come up with any evidence either.
Son, I accept that there are certain theories and assumptions in chemistry and physics and engineering because they've been usefully applied repeatedly in the real world.
You have yet to move your ideas into the real world, and so far all of your assumptions about Russia have led you to a failure to comprehend.
-----------
"It may be dangerous to be America's enemy, but to be America's friend is fatal." - Henry Kissinger
Why SECOND'S posts are brainless: "I clocked how much time: no more than 10 minutes per day. With cut-and-paste (Ctrl C and Ctrl V) and AI, none of this takes much time."
Or, any verification or thought.
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Russian Orthodox Church declares “Holy War” against Ukraine and West
By Brian Mefford | April 9, 2024
https://www.atlanticcouncil.org/blogs/ukrainealert/russian-orthodox-ch
urch-declares-holy-war-against-ukraine-and-west/
Churches often issue decrees stating official positions on key issues, but rarely do these proclamations involve calls to violence or territorial ambitions. Russia is mentioned 53 times in the 3000-word document, underlining the very clear focus on the Russian state’s earthly interests. “From the spiritual and moral point of view, the Special Military Operation is a Holy War, in which Russia and its people are defending the single spiritual space of Holy Russia,” the document states, using the Kremlin’s preferred euphemism for the full-scale invasion of Ukraine.
The decree goes on to stress Ukraine’s status as part of the wider “Russian World,” while underlining the need to extinguish Ukrainian statehood once and for all. Following the conclusion of the current war, it states, “the entire territory of modern Ukraine should enter Russia’s exclusive zone of influence. The possibility of a political regime hostile to Russia and its people existing on this territory must be completely excluded.”
Russian Orthodox Church leader Patriarch Kirill’s meaning could be summarized: “Kill them. Kill them all.”
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Patriarch_Kirill_of_Moscow#Ban_of_Jehova
h's_Witnesses
The Joss Whedon script for Serenity, where Wash lives, is Serenity-190pages.pdf at
https://www.mediafire.com/folder/1uwh75oa407q8/Firefly
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The Russian Foreign Intelligence Service (SVR) claimed on April 9 that US authorities are recruiting several hundred Mexican and Columbian citizens from US prisons to fight in Ukraine and that US officials plan to continue recruiting foreign citizens for the Ukrainian military.[115]
The Russian occupation regime in Crimea is systematically persecuting clergy and parishes affiliated with the Orthodox Church of Ukraine (OCU) in occupied Crimea. Ukraine’s Permanent Presidential Representative in Crimea reported on April 9 that Russian occupation authorities dismantled the dome of the Cathedral of the Holy and Equal-to-the Apostles Prince Volodymyr and Princess Olga in occupied Simferopol on April 8.[101] This cathedral is the Cathedral of the Crimean Diocese of the OCU, and the Ukrainian government attempted to transfer rights for the diocese to the Ukrainian representative of the Autonomous Republic of Crimea in October 2022 to protect the rights of OCU minorities in occupied Crimea.[102] Ukraine’s Permanent Presidential Representative in Crimea noted that between the first Russian invasion of Crimea in 2014 and the full-scale invasion in 2022, the number of OCU religious communities in occupied Crimea, including parishes, missions, and monasteries, decreased from 49 to seven.[103] Russian occupation authorities have also reportedly illegally mobilized OCU clergy to fight in the Russian Armed Forces. ISW has previously written at length about Russia’s persecution of religious minorities in occupied Ukraine and assessed in 2023 that the Kremlin particularly views the OCU as schismatic from the Kremlin-controlled Russian Orthodox Church (ROC), seeking to eradicate it from occupied areas.[104]
The Luhansk People’s Republic (LNR) militia also reported on April 9 that Luhansk Oblast occupation authorities are working to remove Ukrainian satellite dishes to remove access to Ukrainian language news and gain further control over the information space in occupied areas.[108] The removal of Ukrainian satellite dishes and their replacement with the “Russkiy Mir” television satellite will further allow Russian occupation authorities to disseminate anti-Ukrainian and pro-Russian propaganda throughout occupied areas of Ukraine.[109]
https://www.understandingwar.org/backgrounder/russian-offensive-campai
gn-assessment-april-9-2024
The Joss Whedon script for Serenity, where Wash lives, is Serenity-190pages.pdf at
https://www.mediafire.com/folder/1uwh75oa407q8/Firefly
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Quote:Signym, what the hell is wrong with you? Ukraine does NOT destroy its property, especially power plants and hydroelectric dams. But Russia does that. Why is this so hard for you to understand?
Originally posted by SIGNYM:
And then you follow "appeal to authority" with extended name-calling!
But you still haven't come up with an explanation why Russians would destroy the dam they controlled (or why they would blow up their own pipeline or shell the nuclear power plant they controlled) when it was not only unnecessary but might impede their future war plans. And you haven't come up with any evidence either.
Son, I accept that there are certain theories and assumptions in chemistry and physics and engineering because they've been usefully applied repeatedly in the real world.
You have yet to move your ideas into the real world, and so far all of your assumptions about Russia have led you to a failure to comprehend.
Other characteristics of screwballs like Signym who get terminated from construction projects:
Stiff neck and puffed up with self-pride, slow to learn, quick to misunderstand, self-righteousness, How dare you talk to me with that disrespectful tone?! The Russians have these faults in abundance. It is no surprise at the misfortunes that have happened to Russia in the last century when it is filled with such people.
The Joss Whedon script for Serenity, where Wash lives, is Serenity-190pages.pdf at
https://www.mediafire.com/folder/1uwh75oa407q8/Firefly
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Ukraine's FPV Drones Are Destroying Russian Tanks
By Jack Detsch | April 9, 2024, 10:24 AM
https://foreignpolicy.com/2024/04/09/drones-russia-tanks-ukraine-war-f
pv-artillery/
More than two-thirds of the Russian tanks that Ukraine’s military has destroyed in recent months have been taken out using first-person-view (FPV) drones, a NATO official told Foreign Policy, an increasing sign of Kyiv’s reliance on the unpiloted aircraft as it awaits more artillery ammunition from the United States and other Western countries.
With much-needed funding and artillery rounds held up in Washington, the Ukrainian military has largely turned to FPV drones to carry out anti-tank attacks. Ukrainian troops operate the drones via a controller and are able to watch the machines’ “suicide” attacks on Russian vehicles through video feeds, which now play on a loop on Ukrainian social media channels on Telegram and other platforms.
In the third year of Russia’s full-scale invasion, FPV drones have become nearly ubiquitous on the Ukrainian battlefield. Many of them can carry 10 pounds of explosives or more, and after nearly 780 days of nonstop war, drone pilots on both sides have gotten plenty of practice.
“I used to shoot such ‘cinematic’ videos with the help of FPV-drones before the war,” Ukrainian documentary filmmaker Anton Ptushkin posted on X (formerly Twitter) last November. “Now we use FPV to defend our land.”
But for every success, there are nearly as many blooper reel-worthy incidents. These aren’t the $20 million-a-piece Predator drones that the United States uses to hunt terrorist targets in the Middle East. These are inexpensive off-the-shelf drones that go for $400. They have cheap cameras, making them more difficult to aim at night or in cloudy weather, and they often carry improvised munitions such as grenades or homebuilt bombs, which sometimes detonate midflight. Some are duds. In one video shared on Telegram, a Ukrainian FPV drone gets stuck in the front window of a Russian minivan and doesn’t explode. Others hit Russian quadcopters and tanks that have already been abandoned.
“What we’re seeing probably is a fraction of what’s actually happening,” said Samuel Bendett, an advisor at CNA and a member of the think tank’s Russia studies program. “FPV drones have a short range. So even if the Ukrainians lack enough long-range artillery, they can only use a few drones up to 10 kilometers [about 6 miles] because that’s the normal range.”
Analysts tracking the Ukrainian military believe the attacks are having mixed results. Rob Lee, a senior fellow in the Foreign Policy Research Institute’s Eurasia program who last traveled to Ukraine to embed last November, said the overall accuracy of FPV drones is less than 50 percent. It’s an experienced pilot who is going to score a “kill” of a tank—and the soldiers inside—with an FPV drone, not a newbie.
Even those drones that get through Russia’s increasingly sophisticated, if unchic, countermeasures—boxes of signals equipment strapped to tanks—might not deal a fatal blow. “You usually don’t kill a tank the first few times,” Lee said. “It can take 10 or more [FPV drones] to kill a tank.”
Still, Russia has a good reason to cover up its tanks with camouflage and jamming equipment, Lee said. It is running low on armored vehicles and tanks. If Ukraine keeps attriting at this rate and Russia keeps sending in more tanks to replace the destroyed ones at the rate it has been, the Kremlin could lose its numerical edge in tanks, which could make it more difficult for the Russians to carry out offensive operations in the future.
But Russia still has more troops. “The issue is that Russia’s getting a lot of manpower,” Lee added.
The all-out use of cheap drones indicates that the Ukrainians are turning to increasingly desperate measures to improvise weapons to fight back the Russian assault, which has moved farther west into the contested areas of Donetsk. Ukraine is using a network of microphones—similar to the one you might find on your iPhone—t
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US European Command (EUCOM) Commander General Christopher Cavoli warned on April 10 that Russian forces currently have a five-to-one artillery advantage along the frontline – a statement consistent with Ukrainian officials’ reports – but that Russian forces could have a 10-to-1 artillery advantage “in a matter of weeks” if the United States continues to delay the provision of military aid to Ukraine.[7] Zelensky and senior Ukrainian military officials have recently warned that delays in Western military assistance have forced Ukraine to cede the battlefield initiative to Russia and that the Ukrainian military cannot plan a successful counteroffensive or defensive effort without knowing when and what kind of aid Ukraine will receive. ISW continues to assess that delays in Western military assistance have forced the Ukrainian military to husband materiel and that Ukrainian forces must make difficult decisions prioritizing certain aspects of its defense at the cost of lives and lost territory as well as at the expense of contesting the initiative to constrain Russian military capabilities or planning for future counteroffensive operations.[8]
Zelensky stated that there are no mitigations for insufficient air defense systems and indicated that Russian strikes are forcing Ukraine to reallocate already scarce air defense assets to defend Kharkiv City. Zelensky told BILD that drones cannot replace air defenses and that Ukraine needs air defenses to survive.[9]
https://www.understandingwar.org/backgrounder/russian-offensive-campai
gn-assessment-april-10-2024
The Joss Whedon script for Serenity, where Wash lives, is Serenity-190pages.pdf at
https://www.mediafire.com/folder/1uwh75oa407q8/Firefly
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Wow, this has turned into a VERY unpopular thread, hasn't it?
-----------
"It may be dangerous to be America's enemy, but to be America's friend is fatal." - Henry Kissinger
Why SECOND'S posts are brainless: "I clocked how much time: no more than 10 minutes per day. With cut-and-paste (Ctrl C and Ctrl V) and AI, none of this takes much time."
Or, any verification or thought.
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Quote:I'm pretty sure you, Putin, Stalin, Hitler, Robert E Lee, George B. McClellan, and especially Trump don't or didn't understand how to win a war efficiently, which is why Russians and Confederates have died by the tens of millions in wars. An efficiently run war has heroes but they aren't the main focus, except in exciting war stories, of conducting a war successfully with the fewest causalities on the winning side.
Originally posted by SIGNYM:
Wow, this has turned into a VERY unpopular thread, hasn't it?
Ukraine and Latvia signed a bilateral security agreement on April 11 providing for long-term Latvian assistance and security commitments to Ukraine.[20] Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky stated that the agreement will provide annual aid to Ukraine valued at 0.25 percent of Latvia’s GDP from 2024 through 2026 and confirms Latvia’s 10-year commitment to aid Ukraine in reconstruction, the protection of critical infrastructure, de-mining, unmanned technology, and cyber security.[21] Latvia will also provide about 112 million euros (about $120 million) worth of military aid to Ukraine in 2024.[22]
Russian courts have commuted sentences in over half of all criminal cases against Russian veterans and active-duty servicemen due to military service in Ukraine.[52] Novaya Gazeta Europe reported that Russian authorities have brought criminal charges against at least 2,605 Russian veterans and active-duty servicemen since the start of Russia’s invasion in February 2022. Criminal charges against Russian servicemen are roughly split evenly between violations of civil laws and military laws, and the majority of Russian military criminal charges are for leaving a military unit without permission and desertion. Novaya Gazeta Europe noted that Russian courts commuted sentences against Russian veterans and servicemen in roughly 57 percent of all criminal cases because of a defendant's military service. Russian President Vladimir Putin signed a law on March 23 releasing individuals from criminal liability if they are called up for mobilization or sign a military service contract.[53]
The Ukrainian Main Military Intelligence Directorate (GUR) stated on April 11 that the Kremlin spent 58 billion rubles (about $621 million) to create propaganda in 2023.[56] The GUR stated that Russia used private organizations not formally related to the Russian government to create “patriotic content,” such as blogs, films, television series, and video games. The GUR stated that the organizations pledged to create positive public opinion about Russian President Vladimir Putin, justify Russia’s war in Ukraine, and influence Russian military personnel by glorifying their participation in the war.
https://www.understandingwar.org/backgrounder/russian-offensive-campai
gn-assessment-april-11-2024
The Joss Whedon script for Serenity, where Wash lives, is Serenity-190pages.pdf at
https://www.mediafire.com/folder/1uwh75oa407q8/Firefly
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Quote:
Originally posted by SIGNYM:
Wow, this has turned into a VERY unpopular thread, hasn't it?
SECOND: I'm pretty sure you, Putin... Trump don't or didn't understand how to win a war efficiently...
Seems like your whole issue with Russians is that they DO know how to wage war efficiently, which means destroying the opposing army without taking huge losses yourself.
Seems like they learned from WWII after all.
One big lesson: don't fight on your own territory.
-----------
"It may be dangerous to be America's enemy, but to be America's friend is fatal." - Henry Kissinger
Why SECOND'S posts are brainless: "I clocked how much time: no more than 10 minutes per day. With cut-and-paste (Ctrl C and Ctrl V) and AI, none of this takes much time."
Or, any verification or thought.
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Quote:Finland defeated Russia twice during WWII. Hitler invaded Russia because of those defeats. With tens of millions of dead Russian soldiers, Russia did NOT know how to win WWII. Germany only had a few million dead soldiers and more than half were killed on the Western Front. The USA and UK only had hundreds of thousands of dead soldiers for comparison.
Originally posted by SIGNYM:Quote:
Originally posted by SIGNYM:
Wow, this has turned into a VERY unpopular thread, hasn't it?
SECOND: I'm pretty sure you, Putin... Trump don't or didn't understand how to win a war efficiently...
Seems like your whole issue with Russians is that they DO know how to wage war efficiently, which means destroying the opposing army without taking huge losses yourself.
Seems like they learned from WWII after all.
One big lesson: don't fight on your own territory.
Even today, Russians love to bring up Hiroshima and Nagasaki but didn't learn the simple truth that the USA would have nuked Germany into surrender without any help from the Russians. Russians completely forgot the many millions of tons of weaponry sent to Russia from the USA during WWII. Russians completely forgot that the USA bombed German weapons factories. Without this help, all Russian soldiers would have been dead rather than tens of millions.
And the Ukraine War shows Russians still do NOT know how to win or else they would have won two years ago.
The Joss Whedon script for Serenity, where Wash lives, is Serenity-190pages.pdf at
https://www.mediafire.com/folder/1uwh75oa407q8/Firefly
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The Clock Is Ticking: Russia Has A One-Year Reserve Of Weapons
But Ukrainian troops need U.S. support to defeat increasingly fragile Russian formations
By David Axe | April 11, 2024
https://www.forbes.com/sites/davidaxe/2024/04/11/the-clock-is-ticking-
russia-has-a-one-year-reserve-of-weapons/?sh=10982a4c15e0
As Russia’s wider war on Ukraine grinds into its third year, three main dynamics are shaping the battlefield.
First: Russia is fully mobilized—politically, industrially and militarily. But this mobilization is depleting resources the Kremlin can’t renew. Most importantly, stocks of old Cold War-vintage weapons.
In other words, Russia is strong, but fragile.
Second: Ukraine is mobilizing, too, but it still relies on foreign aid to meet urgent financial and military needs—and Russia-friendly Republicans in the U.S. House of Representatives are withholding a decisive portion of that aid.
Third: Ukrainian tactics are superior to Russian tactics, helping Ukrainian formations to defeat much larger Russian formations. But tactics are irrelevant when and where Ukrainian forces simply run out of ammunition.
The interplay of these three dynamics explains the seeming contradictions that are evident every day along the 600-mile front line of the wider war. The Ukrainians defeat most Russian attacks, inflicting catastrophic casualties on increasingly under-equipped Russian assault groups.
But the Russians keep coming, and keep gaining ground. And the one person who can stop them—Republican Speaker of the U.S. House of Representatives Mike Johnson—so far has refused to do so.
All Johnson has to do is bring to a vote an overwhelmingly popular bill that would send $60 billion in aid to Ukraine. Aid that would pay for the ammunition Ukrainian forces need to hold off Russian forces until the Russians finally deplete their reserves of old Cold War weapons.
In 26 months of hard fighting, the Russian military has lost 15,300 tanks, fighting vehicles, howitzers and other weapons in Ukraine, along with hundreds of thousands of troops. The Ukrainian military’s own losses are a third as heavy.
And yet the Russian force in Ukraine is bigger than ever. “The army is actually now larger—by 15 percent—than it was when it invaded Ukraine,” U.S. Army general Christopher Cavoli, NATO's top commander, told the House Armed Services Committee. “Over the past year, Russia increased its front-line troop strength from 360,000 to 470,000.”
That’s possible only because the Kremlin drafted more than 300,000 men starting in late 2022 in addition to increasing bonuses for volunteers. At the same time, Russian brigades have curtailed basic training for new recruits in order to speed fresh forces to the front.
But these unprepared new recruits don’t survive very long on the front line. Lately, between 800 and a thousand Russians have been dying every day in the wider war, according to the Ukrainian defense ministry.
Russian soldiers die as fast as they arrive in Ukraine. The Estonian defense ministry concluded, in one recent study, that killing 100,000 Russians this year would permanently damage, if not collapse, the Kremlin’s mobilization effort.
Ukraine is on track to kill 300,000 Russians this year. It isn’t sustainable.
Nor are Russia’s vehicle losses sustainable. Russian industry produces 500 or 600 new tanks and maybe a little more than a thousand new fighting vehicles every year. The Russian military loses more than a thousand tanks and close to 2,000 fighting vehicles every year—and the loss rate is increasing.
There’s a gap—one the Kremlin fills by pulling out of long-term storage tanks and fighting vehicles dating back to the 1970s, or even the ’60s or ’50s in some cases. But these old vehicles are a finite resource. Built during the Soviet Union’s industrial heyday, they cannot be replaced with new production.
Ominously for the Russians, the most recent projections anticipate that, as early as mid-2025, there won’t be any more old tanks and fighting vehicles left in st
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Quote:
Originally posted by SIGNYM:
Wow, this has turned into a VERY unpopular thread, hasn't it?
SECOND: I'm pretty sure you, Putin... Trump don't or didn't understand how to win a war efficiently...
SIGNY: Seems like your whole issue with Russians is that they DO know how to wage war efficiently, which means destroying the opposing army without taking huge losses yourself.
Seems like they learned from WWII after all.
One big lesson: don't fight on your own territory.
SECOND: With tens of millions of dead Russian soldiers, Russia did NOT know how to win WWII.
But this is not WWII, is it?
And Russia is not the Soviet Union and Putin is not Stalin.
Do try to keep up!
-----------
"It may be dangerous to be America's enemy, but to be America's friend is fatal." - Henry Kissinger
Why SECOND'S posts are brainless: "I clocked how much time: no more than 10 minutes per day. With cut-and-paste (Ctrl C and Ctrl V) and AI, none of this takes much time."
Or, any verification or thought.
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Quote:Signym, Putin says this is a continuation of past wars, both hot and cold wars. You could claim he doesn't know Russia like you know it, but you'd be nutty.
Originally posted by SIGNYM:
But this is not WWII, is it?
And Russia is not the Soviet Union and Putin is not Stalin.
Do try to keep up!
https://www.npr.org/2024/02/24/1233598356/putin-russia-ukraine-war-2-y
ear-anniversary
Solzhenitsyn described the real history of Russia: We have lost a full third of our population—lives yielded up to the executioner or squandered in the ineptly, almost suicidally waged “Patriotic War.”
Download Rebuilding Russia by Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn from the mirrors at https://libgen.is//search.php?req=Rebuilding+Russia+Aleksandr+Solzheni
tsyn
Quote:
Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn wrote in Rebuilding Russia (1990):
Time has finally run out for communism.
But its concrete edifice has not yet crumbled.
And we must take care not to be crushed beneath its rubble instead of gaining liberty.
AT THE END OF OUR ENDURANCE
Can there still be anyone among us who is unaware of our troubles, covered up though they are by mendacious statistics? For seventy years in labored pursuit of a purblind and malignant Marxist-Leninist utopia, we have lost a full third of our population—lives yielded up to the executioner or squandered in the ineptly, almost suicidally waged “Patriotic War.” We have forfeited our earlier abundance, destroyed the peasant class together with its settlements, deprived the raising of crops of its whole purpose and the soil of its ability to yield a harvest, while flooding the land with man-made seas and swamps. The environs of our cities are befouled by the effluents of our primitive industry, we have poisoned our rivers, lakes, and fish, and today we are obliterating our last resources of clean water, air, and soil, speeding the process by the addition of nuclear death, further supplemented by the storage of Western radioactive wastes for money. Depleting our natural wealth for the sake of grandiose future conquests under a crazed leadership, we have cut down our luxuriant forests and plundered our earth of its incomparable riches—the irreplaceable inheritance of our great-grandchildren—in order to sell them off abroad with uncaring hand. We have saddled our women with backbreaking, impossibly burdensome labor, torn them from their children, and have abandoned the children themselves to disease, brutishness, and a semblance of education. Our health care is utterly neglected, there are no medicines, and we have even forgotten the meaning of a proper diet. Millions lack housing, and a helplessness bred of the absence of personal rights permeates the entire country. And through-out all this we cling to only one thing: that we not be deprived of unlimited drunkenness.
Human beings are so constituted that we can put up with such ruination and madness even when they last a lifetime, but God forbid that anyone should dare to offend or slight our nationality! Should that occur, nothing can restrain us in our state of chronic submission: with furious courage we snatch up stones, clubs, spears, and guns and fall upon our neighbors, intent on murder and arson. Such is man: nothing has the capacity to convince us that our hunger, our poverty, our early deaths, the degeneration of our children—that any of these misfortunes can take precedence over national pride.
And that is why, in this attempt to propose some tentative steps toward our recovery and reconstruction, we are forced to begin, not with our unendurable wounds or debilitating suffering, but with a response to such questions as: How will the problem of the nationalities be approached? And within what geographical boundaries shall we heal our afflictions or die? And only thereafter shall we turn to the healing process itself.
The Joss Whedon script for Serenity, where Wash lives, is Serenity-190pages.pdf at
https://www.mediafire.com/folder/1uwh75oa407q8/Firefly
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Quote:
Originally posted by SIGNYM:
But this is not WWII, is it?
And Russia is not the Soviet Union and Putin is not Stalin.
Do try to keep up!
SECOND: Signym, Putin says this is a continuation of past wars, both hot and cold wars. You could claim he doesn't know Russia like you know it, but you'd be nutty.
There is WHY one wages war ... in Russia's case, a continuation of defense against continued western aggression...
And there is HOW one wages war.
I see you've conflated the two with your usual scrambled narrative.
You, personally, are a reflection of the bizarre mess that's overtaken current western political class.
They are leading us to failure, and you're urging them on.
Speaking of "ruination and madness".
-----------
"It may be dangerous to be America's enemy, but to be America's friend is fatal." - Henry Kissinger
Why SECOND'S posts are brainless: "I clocked how much time: no more than 10 minutes per day. With cut-and-paste (Ctrl C and Ctrl V) and AI, none of this takes much time."
Or, any verification or thought.
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Quote:Good heavens! You have absorbed Putin's viewpoint and made it your own. If you threw in a couple of references to Satan ruling over the West and the EU specifically run by Nazis, you be perfect, Signym.
Originally posted by SIGNYM:
There is WHY one wages war ... in Russia's case, a continuation of defense against continued western aggression...
And there is HOW one wages war.
I see you've conflated the two with your usual scrambled narrative.
You, personally, are a reflection of the bizarre mess that's overtaken current western political class.
They are leading us to failure, and you're urging them on.
Speaking of "ruination and madness".
The Joss Whedon script for Serenity, where Wash lives, is Serenity-190pages.pdf at
https://www.mediafire.com/folder/1uwh75oa407q8/Firefly
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ISW continues to assess that the development of Ukraine’s defense industrial base (DIB) over time can allow Ukraine to sustain its defense against Russia and longer-term national security needs with significantly reduced foreign military assistance.[4] Ukrainian officials have expressed their intention to expand Ukraine’s DIB domestically and abroad since the start of Russia’s full-scale invasion, and Ukrainian Defense Minister Rustem Umerov previously identified increased Ukrainian domestic production of weapons and military equipment as a priority for 2024.[5] US State Department Spokesperson Matthew Miller has stated that the short- and medium-term provision of Western air defenses to Ukraine will be a critical element of Ukraine’s ability to stand up its defense industry, which will, in turn, decrease Ukrainian dependence on Western aid and especially US aid to Ukraine in the long term.[6] Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky recently emphasized that Ukraine cannot mitigate the lack of sufficient air defense systems and that only Western-provided air defense systems, namely Patriot systems, allow Ukraine to defend Ukraine against the intensified Russia strike campaign.[7] ISW continues to assess that the US will not need to send large security assistance packages to Ukraine indefinitely if Ukraine can sufficiently expand its defensive industrial capacity, but the West’s provision of air defense systems and missiles to Ukraine is crucial for Ukraine’s ability to defend its energy infrastructure and its developing defense industry against Russian strikes.[8]
https://www.understandingwar.org/backgrounder/russian-offensive-campai
gn-assessment-april-12-2024
The Joss Whedon script for Serenity, where Wash lives, is Serenity-190pages.pdf at
https://www.mediafire.com/folder/1uwh75oa407q8/Firefly
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Exclusive | Putin Told IAEA Russia Plans to Restart Zaporizhzhia Nuclear Plant
By Laurence Norman, Drew Hinshaw and Joe Parkinson | April 12, 2024 12:35 pm ET
https://www.wsj.com/world/europe/putin-told-iaea-russia-plans-to-resta
rt-zaporizhzhia-nuclear-plant-f2045f50
Russian President Vladimir Putin has told the United Nations atomic agency that the Kremlin plans to restart Ukraine’s Zaporizhzhia nuclear plant, currently under Russian occupation, further flaring the risks of an incident at Europe’s biggest nuclear station.
The 6-gigawatt plant is perched on a front line, artillery passing overhead, and encircled by Russian land mines. Its roof is manned by Russian soldiers in machine-gun nests, who regularly fire rounds at incoming self-detonating drones.
Just in the past week, several drones struck one of the plant’s six reactors, the roof of a training center, and a military vehicle parked outside a laboratory, causing one casualty. Russian security forces patrolling the complex have detained and, in many cases, tortured hundreds of its workers, to quell staff dissent.
In September 2022, such dangers prompted the plant’s Ukrainian director, Ihor Murashov, to shut down its last active reactor and join the thousands of nuclear technicians who fled to government-held territory.
But in recent months, the International Atomic Energy Agency in Vienna received technical reports, written by a small team of inspectors it has posted to the plant, suggesting that Russia has been looking to bring Zaporizhzhia back online this year. Russia’s goal, said European diplomats familiar with those assessments, appears to be to bring at least one reactor back into operation. One of the diplomats said Russia may do this possibly in time for the 40th anniversary of the plant’s December 1984 connection to the Soviet Union’s electrical grid.
When IAEA chief, Rafael Grossi, traveled to the Russian resort of Sochi last month for meetings with Putin and the head of Moscow’s nuclear company Rosatom, Grossi asked if the plant would be restarted, according to people familiar with discussions. Putin said it definitely would. The Russian officials didn’t detail the plans or timeline.
Restarting a reactor at Zaporizhzhia would be a technical challenge and symbolic milestone for Russia, normalizing its seizure of a plant that provided about a fifth of Ukraine’s electricity before 2022. The Wall Street Journal spoke to numerous people who have worked at the plant who doubt Russia has enough technicians to do so safely or successfully. It would also inject new jeopardy into a safety crisis already grave enough that the IAEA board held an emergency meeting on Thursday to discuss the recent drone attacks.
“Rolling the dice is not the way to do it in nuclear safety,” Grossi told the meeting. Ukraine and Russia traded accusations at the meeting on who was to blame for the attacks, each accusing the other.
Never before in the history of the tightly regulated nuclear industry has a hostile power captured and operated another country’s active power plant. The Zaporizhzhia station, among the last of the Soviet Union’s megaprojects, was a centerpiece of the empire’s prized nuclear technology.
After 1991, it was also, to Moscow’s frustration, gradually becoming westernized, running on European Union-funded computer systems and, in recent years, fuel provided by Pennsylvania-based Westinghouse Electric Co.
Russian tanks seized the plant in the early days of the war, one of the biggest trophies from an otherwise faltering invasion. Ukraine and its Western backers repeatedly demanded Russia return the plant to Ukrainian officials, but Russia deployed Rosatom technicians to oversee the station and agents from Russia’s Federal Security Service, or FSB, bundled suspected dissidents into a basement prison they called “the Hole.” Soldiers looted homes in the town of Enerhodar, where staff live, residents complained. Most of the plant’s 11,000 employees fled, leaving behind a skeleton crew o
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The Russian military command likely assesses that Ukrainian forces will be unable to defend against current and future Russian offensive operations due to delays in or the permanent end of US military assistance. Russian forces have recently periodically shifted their focus among offensive operations in the Lyman, Chasiv Yar, and Pokrovsk directions; Russian forces first prioritized the capture of Avdiivka in early 2024, alongside simultaneous but less intense operations along the Kupyansk-Svatove-Kreminna line, then leaned into the Lyman direction while slightly decreasing the tempo near Avdiivka, and now are intensifying efforts to seize Chasiv Yar in March-April 2024.[5] Though Russian forces likely lack the ability to conduct more than one simultaneous effective large-scale operational effort as they have throughout the war, Russian forces are now able to use multiple alternating offensive efforts to stretch Ukrainian defensive capabilities amid Ukrainian artillery and air defense shortages.[6] The current pattern of Russian offensive operations allows elements of units participating in less intensive efforts to rest and reconstitute while other units, presumably those that are more rested or those that have recently received reinforcements. They can then intensify efforts in another operational direction, forcing Ukrainian forces to reallocate their defensive resources across the theater and creating vulnerabilities that Russian forces can exploit. Russian forces are reportedly developing operational- and strategic-level reserves capable of sustaining ongoing offensive operations in Ukraine, likely to support an anticipated spring-summer offensive effort.[7] ISW continues to assess that these reserves are unlikely to be ready to act as a first-echelon penetration force or second-echelon exploitation force capable of conducting large-scale mechanized assaults in 2024 as long as Ukrainian forces have the wherewithal to resist them.[8] Russian forces would more likely use these reserves to restaff or reinforce existing formations and continue grinding, infantry-led assaults with occasional limited mechanized pushes in their direction of choice at key moments. If the United States does not resume providing aid to Ukraine and Ukrainian forces continue to lack essential artillery and air defense munitions in particular, however, even badly-trained and poorly-equipped Russian troops might be able to conduct successful offensive operations.
https://www.understandingwar.org/backgrounder/russian-offensive-campai
gn-assessment-april-13-2024
The Joss Whedon script for Serenity, where Wash lives, is Serenity-190pages.pdf at
https://www.mediafire.com/folder/1uwh75oa407q8/Firefly
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All the money in the world ... whether it's $60 billion or $600 billion ... can't make munitions and weapons appear in time for Ukraine.
"The West" gave Ukraine all of the weapons and munitions it could safely spare, and sometimes more. MAYBE if our elites hadn't underestimated Russia so badly to begin with, and started Kiev out with an entire panoply of weapons and if Kiev had started out hard and fast instead of giving Russia time to gear up production?
But at this point, Russia is getting stronger and western militaries are flat-footed.
So, what is the $$ for?
My guess is "payoffs". There are a lot of transnationals that invested $$$ into project Ukraine, including Black Rock, Monsanto and one of the big pharmas. And that's not including the IMF and Ukrainian oligarchs. Considering how highly leveraged these investments are (were?) $60 billion ain't gonna be enough. Sooner or later they're gonna have to grab that $300+ billion in Russian assets. Not to "rebuild Ukraine" ... Ukraine isn't gonna see a penny of that ... but to keep those firms from imploding.
-----------
"It may be dangerous to be America's enemy, but to be America's friend is fatal." - Henry Kissinger
Why SECOND'S posts are brainless: "I clocked how much time: no more than 10 minutes per day. With cut-and-paste (Ctrl C and Ctrl V) and AI, none of this takes much time."
Or, any verification or thought.
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Quote:
Originally posted by SIGNYM:
There is WHY one wages war ... in Russia's case, a continuation of defense against continued western aggression...
And there is HOW one wages war.
I see you've conflated the two with your usual scrambled narrative.
You, personally, are a reflection of the bizarre mess that's overtaken current western political class.
They are leading us to failure, and you're urging them on.
Speaking of "ruination and madness".
SECOND Good heavens! You have absorbed Putin's viewpoint and made it your own. If you threw in a couple of references to Satan ruling over the West and the EU specifically run by Nazis, you be perfect, Signym.
Maybe Putin absorbed mine?
Or maybe we're both looking at the real world and seeing the same facts.
What was the Russian military doing from 1990 to 2014?
Meanwhile, what was NATO doing?
-----------
"It may be dangerous to be America's enemy, but to be America's friend is fatal." - Henry Kissinger
Why SECOND'S posts are brainless: "I clocked how much time: no more than 10 minutes per day. With cut-and-paste (Ctrl C and Ctrl V) and AI, none of this takes much time."
Or, any verification or thought.
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Quote:Garry Kasparov on GOP lawmakers repeating Russian propaganda
Originally posted by SIGNYM:
So, what is the $$ for?
My guess is "payoffs".
The Joss Whedon script for Serenity, where Wash lives, is Serenity-190pages.pdf at
https://www.mediafire.com/folder/1uwh75oa407q8/Firefly
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Finally! The Russians sideline the idiots and bring in competent people who understand electric generation. If Russians had done this two years ago, and kept the competent people in charge despite the idiots wanting to do things differently by destroying maternity hospitals, orphanages, and shopping centers, Ukraine would be without electricity by now and Russia would be victorious. But the idiotic waste of weaponry continues: Russian double-tap strikes hit civilians then rescuers too https://www.bbc.com/news/world-europe-68761490
Recent large-scale Russian strike packages using drones, cruise missiles, and ballistic missiles against Ukraine have caused significant damage to Ukrainian energy infrastructure. All 15 ballistic missiles and seven of the 44 cruise missiles that Russian forces launched against Ukrainian energy facilities on the night of March 21 to 22 successfully penetrated Ukrainian air defenses.[9] Some of the missiles significantly damaged the Dnipro Hydroelectric Power Plant (HPP) in Zaporizhzhia City and took it completely offline, and it will take some time to repair the plant.[10] Three of seven ballistic missiles and eight of 30 cruise missiles that Russian forces launched against Ukrainian HPPs on the night of March 28 to 29 successfully penetrated Ukrainian air defenses, damaging HPPs and thermal power plants (TPPs) in central and western Ukraine.[11] All 18 ballistic missiles and six of the 24 cruise missiles that Russian forces launched against Ukrainian energy infrastructure on the night of April 10 to 11 successfully penetrated Ukrainian air defenses, of which five missiles completely destroyed the Trypilska TPP in Kyiv Oblast.[12] The Russian strikes against Ukrainian energy facilities on the night of April 10 to 11 also damaged energy facilities in Zaporizhia and Lviv oblasts.[13] The Wall Street Journal (WSJ) reported on April 11 that Russian strikes, not including the April 10 to 11 strike series, have disrupted 80 percent of the generation capacity of DTEK, Ukraine’s largest private energy company, which supplies about 20 percent of Ukraine’s power.[14]
Ukrainian Deputy Energy Minister Svitlana Hrynchuk told CNN in an article published on April 14 that successful Russian strikes over the course of just a few days in the past few weeks have destroyed a year's worth of Ukrainian repairs to energy facilities following the winter 2022-2023 Russian strike campaign.[15] A Ukrainian source told CNN that Russian forces have changed their strike tactics to launch a large number of missiles and drones simultaneously against a limited number of targets. DTEK Head Maksym Timchenko stated that Russia began targeting Ukrainian energy generation infrastructure, instead of transmission systems, in late March 2024.[16] DTEK previously warned that more accurate and concentrated Russian strikes are inflicting greater damage against Ukrainian energy facilities than previous Russian attacks did.[17] Israel, the US, and their allies and partners should be cognizant of the risk that even small numbers of missiles penetrating defense umbrellas can cause nonlinear damage to modern societies if they hit the right targets.
https://www.understandingwar.org/backgrounder/russian-offensive-campai
gn-assessment-april-14-2024
The Joss Whedon script for Serenity, where Wash lives, is Serenity-190pages.pdf at
https://www.mediafire.com/folder/1uwh75oa407q8/Firefly
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Quote:
Originally posted by SIGNYM:
So, what is the $$ for?
My guess is "payoffs".
SECOND: SECOND, on repeating deep state propaganda.
Since neither you nor the video were unable to ANSWER THE QUESTION, I fixed your post for you.
And I'll ask it again: What IS the money for???
Is there a secret stash of weapons we don't know about, just waiting for some big bucks to unlock it?
If there is, let us know.
And if not ...???
*****
Here's another question you failed to answer
What was the Russian military doing from 1990 to 2014?
Meanwhile, what was NATO doing?
These are foundational questions to our foreign policy, and Russia's. You avoid them like a plague, and you try to get others to avoid thinking about them too, by throwing up a shitstorm of propaganda that even YOU admit you don't think about.
And then you cavil that nobody but you understands "How the world works"?
Son, you're so confused NOBODY should use you as an example of how to think, much less be a human being.
-----------
"It may be dangerous to be America's enemy, but to be America's friend is fatal." - Henry Kissinger
Why SECOND'S posts are brainless: "I clocked how much time: no more than 10 minutes per day. With cut-and-paste (Ctrl C and Ctrl V) and AI, none of this takes much time."
Or, any verification or thought.
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Quote:I'm guessing you missed out on American schizophrenic motivation for fighting WWII. On one hand, there were Democrats who wanted to send ammo and aid to Europe to fight Nazis because Nazis deserve to die screaming. On the other hand, there were Republicans (and Southerners Democrats who were okay with slavery) who were certain what happened in Europe or Asia was none of America's business. But once Hitler declared War on America, the Republicans' and Southerners' true motives became obvious: get rich. Those two different motivations never went away. One kind of American (call them Democrats) wants to see evil Russians die screaming for what they have done. Another kind of American (call them Trumptards) has no idea what evil is and never will know which is why they vote for Trump (the Vietnam draft dodger and Putin supporter), but they do know what money is.
Originally posted by SIGNYM:
And then you cavil that nobody but you understands "How the world works"?
Son, you're so confused NOBODY should use you as an example of how to think, much less be a human being.
The Joss Whedon script for Serenity, where Wash lives, is Serenity-190pages.pdf at
https://www.mediafire.com/folder/1uwh75oa407q8/Firefly
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The Cheese Eating Surrender Monkeys Are Paying Putin:
France talks tough on Ukraine while gobbling up more Russian gas
France has paid Russia over €600 million this year for liquefied natural gas, new data shows. That’s an EU-leading rise from last year.
In the first three months of this year, Russian liquefied natural gas deliveries to France grew more than to any other country in the EU compared to last year, according to data analyzed by the Centre for Research on Energy and Clean Air (CREA) think tank for POLITICO.
France insists its gas buys are necessary to keep supplies flowing to households across Europe and that it’s locked into a long-term agreement with Russia that is legally complex to escape.
The French disconnection
Within months of Russia’s full-scale assault on Ukraine in 2022, the EU presented a plan to end the bloc’s reliance on Moscow's fossil imports by 2027.
So far, it's largely been successful. Though some in the EU continue to buy nuclear fuel and some pipeline oil and gas from Russia, the bloc has slashed its dependence on Moscow's gas by around two-thirds and imposed a blanket ban on coal and oil imports by sea.
But similar efforts to cut out liquid natural gas, or LNG, have floundered. Although the fuel accounted for just five percent of the EU’s gas consumption last year, EU countries paid Moscow more than €8 billion for its exports, according to a new report from CREA out Thursday.
France is far from the only culprit. At least nine EU countries continue to buy Russian LNG, the shipping data showed. But Paris led the bloc in both absolute volumes imported in 2024 — 1.5 million tons in total — and the increase in purchases compared to the same period last year.
Belgium, Spain and the Netherlands — the three largest buyers of Moscow’s LNG after France — have all indicated they would support steps to reduce these purchases but argue that everyone has to act together or it will be pointless.
More at https://www.politico.eu/article/france-talk-tough-ukraine-while-gobble
-up-more-russia-gas/
I love the excuse that France is legally required to buy from Hitler during WWII and Putin during WW3. The other excuse is that unless everybody stops buying from Hitler and Putin, stopping will be pointless. It is easy to see how Hitler was able to conquer Europe. Putin will be able to do the same if he tries hard. It is very European to politely resist, but not go to extreme effort, especially if effort interferes with the cheese eating good life.
The Joss Whedon script for Serenity, where Wash lives, is Serenity-190pages.pdf at
https://www.mediafire.com/folder/1uwh75oa407q8/Firefly
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The US says it won't shoot down drones over Ukraine, despite doing the same to protect Israel
By Sinéad Baker | Apr 16, 2024, 5:55 AM CDT
https://www.businessinsider.com/us-says-wont-down-drones-over-ukraine-
did-for-israel-2024-4
• The US helped shoot down Iranian drones and missiles fired at Israel over the weekend.
• Ukraine's president said the response showed what could be done to protect his own country.
• But the White House said it wouldn't do the same for Ukraine, calling it a "different threat picture."
Israel said that Iran fired more than 300 drones and missiles at it on Saturday night. The US, UK, France, and Jordan said they helped to stop the barrage, including through the use of aircraft.
White House National Security Council spokesperson John Kirby was asked in a media briefing if the US could also help to shoot down drones over Ukraine.
Kirby responded: "I knew this question was coming too. Look, different conflicts. Different conflicts, different airspace, different threat picture."
He said that President Joe Biden "has been clear since the beginning of the conflict in Ukraine, the United States is not gonna be involved in that conflict in a combat role, and we haven't."
Russia has been firing drones and missiles across Ukraine as part of its full-scale invasion, often hitting and destroying energy infrastructure, as well as residential buildings, and killing civilians.
Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy said the response to Iran's aerial attack on Israel "demonstrated how truly effective unity in defending against terror can be when it is based on sufficient political will."
"Together, they prevented terror from prevailing," he added. "And they are working together, and in coordination with others, to prevent further escalation."
Zelenskyy said that similar actions should be taken to protect Ukraine.
Many of Ukraine's allies, including the US, have said they are trying to help without escalating the conflict with Russia. But some world leaders have rebuffed this, saying Russia will escalate the war either way.
Zelenskyy said the response to the attack on Israel also showed that NATO members can protect non-member states, and could protect Ukraine, which is not part of the military alliance, in the same way.
"Israel is not a NATO member, so no action, such as triggering Article 5, was required," he said, referring to the alliance's collective defense clause.
"No one was dragged into the war," Zelenskyy added. "They simply contributed to the protection of human life."
Zelenskyy went on to say that "European skies could have received the same level of protection long ago if Ukraine had received similar full support from its partners in intercepting drones and missiles."
Ukraine is running critically low on air defense missiles, which means Russia's attacks are more likely to get through.
Republicans in Congress have stalled further aid for Ukraine over the past six months, preventing any new supplies coming from the US.
Kirby said the US had previously given Ukraine "the tools that they need to help defend their space. And unfortunately, we can't do that right now, because we don't have the National Security Supplemental funding that they so desperately need."
Experts previously told BI that Ukrainian shortages would likely allow Russia's air force to fly freely, which could have effects so devastating that it could bring about a quick end to the war.
The Joss Whedon script for Serenity, where Wash lives, is Serenity-190pages.pdf at
https://www.mediafire.com/folder/1uwh75oa407q8/Firefly
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Quote:
Originally posted by SIGNYM:
And then you cavil that nobody but you understands "How the world works"?
Son, you're so confused NOBODY should use you as an example of how to think, much less be a human being.
SECOND: BLAH BLAH BLAH about irrelevant stuff....
I noticed you trying to drag the thread off course with your usual shitstorm of pointless distractions.
But you still haven't answered the foundational questions
Quote:
Originally posted by SIGNYM:
So, what is the $$ for?
My guess is "payoffs".
SECOND: SECOND, on repeating deep state propaganda.
SIGNY: Since neither you nor the video were unable to ANSWER THE QUESTION, I fixed your post for you.
And I'll ask it again: What IS the money for???
Is there a secret stash of weapons we don't know about, just waiting for some big bucks to unlock it?
If there is, let us know.
And if not ...???
*****
Here's another question you failed to answer
What was the Russian military doing from 1990 to 2014?
Meanwhile, what was NATO doing?
These are foundational questions to our foreign policy, and Russia's. You avoid them like a plague, and you try to get others to avoid thinking about them too, by throwing up a shitstorm of propaganda that even YOU admit you don't think about.
-----------
"It may be dangerous to be America's enemy, but to be America's friend is fatal." - Henry Kissinger
Why SECOND'S posts are brainless: "I clocked how much time: no more than 10 minutes per day. With cut-and-paste (Ctrl C and Ctrl V) and AI, none of this takes much time."
Or, any verification or thought.
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Quote:
Originally posted by SIGNYM:Quote:
Originally posted by SIGNYM:
And then you cavil that nobody but you understands "How the world works"?
Son, you're so confused NOBODY should use you as an example of how to think, much less be a human being.
SECOND: BLAH BLAH BLAH about irrelevant stuff....
I noticed you trying to drag the thread off course with your usual shitstorm of pointless distractions.
But you still haven't answered the foundational questionsQuote:
Originally posted by SIGNYM:
So, what is the $$ for?
My guess is "payoffs".
SECOND: SECOND, on repeating deep state propaganda.
SIGNY: Since neither you nor the video were unable to ANSWER THE QUESTION, I fixed your post for you.
And I'll ask it again: What IS the money for???
Is there a secret stash of weapons we don't know about, just waiting for some big bucks to unlock it?
If there is, let us know.
And if not ...???
*****
Here's another question you failed to answer
What was the Russian military doing from 1990 to 2014?
Meanwhile, what was NATO doing?
These are foundational questions to our foreign policy, and Russia's. You avoid them like a plague, and you try to get others to avoid thinking about them too, by throwing up a shitstorm of propaganda that even YOU admit you don't think about.
-----------
"It may be dangerous to be America's enemy, but to be America's friend is fatal." - Henry Kissinger
Why SECOND'S posts are brainless: "I clocked how much time: no more than 10 minutes per day. With cut-and-paste (Ctrl C and Ctrl V) and AI, none of this takes much time."
Or, any verification or thought.
Russian war crimes comrade signym. And your denying it doesn't fool anyone. Your being alright with what Russia is and has been doing, makes you a piece of shit. Pretending it is not happening or declaring it is Ukraine doing it won't fly either. Nobody's that stupid.
T
New Russian Tactics: Glide Bombs and Double-Tap
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Far Right’s Ties to Russia Sow Rising Alarm in Germany
By Erika Solomon | April 15, 2024
https://www.nytimes.com/2024/04/15/world/europe/germany-afd-russia.htm
l
As cases proliferate, opponents fear the Alternative for Germany party is becoming a tool of Russian influence operations to undermine support for Ukraine.
To enter a secret session of Germany’s Parliament, lawmakers must lock their phones and leave them outside. Inside, they are not even allowed to take notes. Yet to many politicians, these precautions against espionage now feel like a farce.
Because seated alongside them in those classified meetings are members of the Alternative for Germany, the far-right party known by its German abbreviation, AfD.
In the past few months alone, a leading AfD politician was accused of taking money from pro-Kremlin strategists. One of the party’s parliamentary aides was exposed as having links to a Russian intelligence operative. And some of its state lawmakers flew to Moscow to observe Russia’s stage-managed elections.
“To know with certainty that sitting there, while these sensitive issues are discussed, are lawmakers with proven connections to Moscow — it doesn’t just make me uncomfortable. It worries me,” said Erhard Grundl, a Green party member of the Parliament’s foreign affairs committee.
The AfD called such comments “baseless.”
While some accusations against the AfD may be attempts at point-scoring by political rivals, the security concerns are real. As evidence of the party’s links to Moscow accumulates, suspicions are being expressed across the spectrum of mainstream German politics.
“The AfD keeps acting like the long arm of the terrorist state Russia,” Roderich Kiesewetter, the deputy head of the Parliament’s intelligence committee and a member of the center-right Christian Democrats, wrote on social media.
(AfD is the strongest in former East Germany, once under Russian control. The East German voters have a propensity for a strongman rule. In the former East Berlin the AfD came in second after SPD with 20.5% of the vote.)
The Joss Whedon script for Serenity, where Wash lives, is Serenity-190pages.pdf at
https://www.mediafire.com/folder/1uwh75oa407q8/Firefly
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THUGR: A) It's bullshit.
B) By ignoring the YEARS I asked about, you managed to (clumsily) avoid the question.
SECOND: Bullshit. Again.
-----------
"It may be dangerous to be America's enemy, but to be America's friend is fatal." - Henry Kissinger
Why SECOND'S posts are brainless: "I clocked how much time: no more than 10 minutes per day. With cut-and-paste (Ctrl C and Ctrl V) and AI, none of this takes much time."
Or, any verification or thought.
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Quote:
Originally posted by SIGNYM:
THUGR: A) It's bullshit.
B) By ignoring the YEARS I asked about, you managed to (clumsily) avoid the question.
SECOND: Bullshit. Again.
So you know comrade signym. If you ask a question that is designed to change a topic or to just deflect away from facts that are posted, or waste someone's time, you should expect it to go unanswered.
That said, I have no idea what question you are talking about. And what I've posted about Russia's' behavior is pure fact. No bullshit about it.
T
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--------------------------------------------------
Political correctness is just tyranny, with a smiley face.
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Quote:Russia is sure to lose in Ukraine, reckons a Chinese expert on Russia
Originally posted by SIGNYM:
THUGR: A) It's bullshit.
B) By ignoring the YEARS I asked about, you managed to (clumsily) avoid the question.
SECOND: Bullshit. Again.
Feng Yujun says the war has strained Sino-Russian relations
https://archive.ph/xdfHe
Apr 11th 2024
THE WAR between Russia and Ukraine has been catastrophic for both countries. With neither side enjoying an overwhelming advantage and their political positions completely at odds, the fighting is unlikely to end soon. One thing is clear, though: the conflict is a post-cold-war watershed that will have a profound, lasting global impact.
Four main factors will influence the course of the war. The first is the level of resistance and national unity shown by Ukrainians, which has until now been extraordinary. The second is international support for Ukraine, which, though recently falling short of the country’s expectations, remains broad.
The third factor is the nature of modern warfare, a contest that turns on a combination of industrial might and command, control, communications and intelligence systems. One reason Russia has struggled in this war is that it is yet to recover from the dramatic deindustrialisation it suffered after the disintegration of the Soviet Union.
The final factor is information. When it comes to decision-making, Vladimir Putin is trapped in an information cocoon, thanks to his having been in power so long. The Russian president and his national-security team lack access to accurate intelligence. The system they operate lacks an efficient mechanism for correcting errors. Their Ukrainian counterparts are more flexible and effective.
In combination, these four factors make Russia’s eventual defeat inevitable. In time it will be forced to withdraw from all occupied Ukrainian territories, including Crimea. Its nuclear capability is no guarantee of success. Didn’t a nuclear-armed America withdraw from Korea, Vietnam and Afghanistan?
Though the war has been hugely costly for Ukraine, the strength and unity of its resistance has shattered the myth that Russia is militarily invincible. Ukraine may yet rise from the ashes. When the war ends, it can look forward to the possibility of joining the European Union and NATO.
The war is a turning-point for Russia. It has consigned Mr Putin’s regime to broad international isolation. He has also had to deal with difficult domestic political undercurrents, from the rebellion by the mercenaries of the Wagner Group and other pockets of the military—for instance in Belgorod—to ethnic tensions in several Russian regions and the recent terrorist attack in Moscow. These show that political risk in Russia is very high. Mr Putin may recently have been re-elected, but he faces all kinds of possible black-swan events.
Adding to the risks confronting Mr Putin, the war has convinced more and more former Soviet republics that Russia’s imperial ambition threatens their independence, sovereignty and territorial integrity. Increasingly aware that a Russian victory is out of the question, these states are distancing themselves from Moscow in different ways, from forging economic-development policies that are less dependent on Russia to pursuing more balanced foreign policies. As a result, prospects for the Eurasian integration that Russia advocates have dimmed.
The war, meanwhile, has made Europe wake up to the enormous threat that Russia’s military aggression poses to the continent’s security and the international order, bringing post-cold-war EU-Russia detente to an end. Many European countries have given up their illusions about Mr Putin’s Russia.
At the same time, the war has jolted NATO out of what Emmanuel Macron, the French president, called its “brain-dead” state. With most NATO countries increasing their military spending, the alliance’s forward military deployment in eastern Europe has been greatly shored up. The addition of Sweden and Finland to NATO highlights Mr Putin’s
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America’s Stark Choice in Ukraine and the Cost of Letting Russia Win
By Fredrick W. Kagan | April 16, 2024
https://www.understandingwar.org/backgrounder/america%E2%80%99s-stark-
choice-ukraine-and-cost-letting-russia-win
The current US debate about providing additional military assistance to Ukraine is based in part on the assumption that the war will remain stalemated regardless of US actions. That assumption is false.[1] The Russians are breaking out of positional warfare and beginning to restore maneuver to the battlefield because of the delays in the provision of US military assistance to Ukraine. Ukraine cannot hold the present lines now without the rapid resumption of US assistance, particularly air defense and artillery that only the US can provide rapidly and at scale.[2] . . .
The bottom line is very clear. An independent Ukraine with a strong military and a pro-Western government will make a Russian attack on NATO much more difficult, risky, and costly for Moscow. An independent and strong Ukraine will thus help NATO deter such a Russian attack and defeat it if deterrence fails. A victorious Russia that succeeds in its aim of destroying Ukraine entirely, on the other hand, will pose a major conventional military threat to NATO in a relatively short period of time. It will be much harder to deter future Russian aggression and both more difficult and far more costly to defeat it if deterrence fails. The choice before the US today is thus stark, but the answer is clear. American interests now and in the future are served far better by resuming aid to Ukraine now than by allowing Russia to win.
The Joss Whedon script for Serenity, where Wash lives, is Serenity-190pages.pdf at
https://www.mediafire.com/folder/1uwh75oa407q8/Firefly
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Quote:
Originally posted by THG:Quote:
Originally posted by SIGNYM:
THUGR: A) It's bullshit.
B) By ignoring the YEARS I asked about, you managed to (clumsily) avoid the question.
SECOND: Bullshit. Again.
So you know comrade signym. If you ask a question that is designed to change a topic or to just deflect away from facts that are posted, or waste someone's time, you should expect it to go unanswered.
That said, I have no idea what question you are talking about. And what I've posted about Russia's' behavior is pure fact. No bullshit about it.
T
Jets, Drones & Refineries: Europe Remembers Geopolitics
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Quote:
Originally posted by second:
America’s Stark Choice in Ukraine and the Cost of Letting Russia Win
By Fredrick W. Kagan | April 16, 2024
https://www.understandingwar.org/backgrounder/america%E2%80%99s-stark-
choice-ukraine-and-cost-letting-russia-win
The current US debate about providing additional military assistance to Ukraine is based in part on the assumption that the war will remain stalemated regardless of US actions. That assumption is false.[1] The Russians are breaking out of positional warfare and beginning to restore maneuver to the battlefield because of the delays in the provision of US military assistance to Ukraine. Ukraine cannot hold the present lines now without the rapid resumption of US assistance, particularly air defense and artillery that only the US can provide rapidly and at scale.[2] . . .
The bottom line is very clear. An independent Ukraine with a strong military and a pro-Western government will make a Russian attack on NATO much more difficult, risky, and costly for Moscow. An independent and strong Ukraine will thus help NATO deter such a Russian attack and defeat it if deterrence fails. A victorious Russia that succeeds in its aim of destroying Ukraine entirely, on the other hand, will pose a major conventional military threat to NATO in a relatively short period of time. It will be much harder to deter future Russian aggression and both more difficult and far more costly to defeat it if deterrence fails. The choice before the US today is thus stark, but the answer is clear. American interests now and in the future are served far better by resuming aid to Ukraine now than by allowing Russia to win.
The Joss Whedon script for Serenity, where Wash lives, is Serenity-190pages.pdf at
https://www.mediafire.com/folder/1uwh75oa407q8/Firefly
Fuck NATO.
Shut it down.
--------------------------------------------------
Political correctness is just tyranny, with a smiley face.
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Quote:
Originally posted by SIGNYM:
A) It's bullshit.
B) By ignoring the YEARS I asked about, you managed to (clumsily) avoid the question.
THUGR: So you know comrade signym. If you ask a question that is designed to change a topic or to just deflect away from facts that are posted, or waste someone's time, you should expect it to go unanswered. ....
That said, I have no idea what question you are talking about.
So .... you DON'T KNOW what question I'm referring to, but you won't answer it anyway???
Quote:
And what I've posted about Russia's' behavior is pure fact
And this is where I call bullshit. I watch Military Summary Channel almost every day, twice a day. Dima is NOT pro- Russian - if anything he's pro-Ukrainian - but one thing he insists on is VIDEO EVIDENCE.
Russians will double tap Ukrainian soldiers all day long! They will bomb military positions and then drone -strike vehicles that are evacuating wounded or even just retreating soldiers.
But I have NEVER seen video evidence of civilians being double - tapped. And if Kiev had video evidence, don't you think they'd splash it all over Telegram and elsewhere?
Maybe one of the confusions is that AFU establishes military positions in civilian structures, using those old durable Soviet high rises for communication/ radar/ drone operators and anti- tank positions; hotels as control centers etc. Dima has always been careful to establish which kinds of positions are being struck. When they're civilian he says so. When they're occupied by military forces, he says so.
BTW, I don't condone attacks on civilians by either side. But I think it's entirely fair that Kiev attack Russian refineries, just as Russia attacks Ukrainian refineries (and power stations) because they support the war effort.
Also, FYI MOST of Ukraine's electricity is produced by nuclear power plants (NPPs), not Thermal or hydro power plants (TPPs, HPPs). IIRC peak demand before the war was about 10.5GW, NPPs produced about 7.5GW of the total.
Russia refuses to bomb NPPs. However, they CAN bomb the substations and lines that distribute that electricity, so altho the plants are still operational they don't do anybody any good.
Just reporting facts as I know them.
Feel free to correct me if you have evidence (not allegations) that I'm wrong.
-----------
"It may be dangerous to be America's enemy, but to be America's friend is fatal." - Henry Kissinger
Why SECOND'S posts are brainless: "I clocked how much time: no more than 10 minutes per day. With cut-and-paste (Ctrl C and Ctrl V) and AI, none of this takes much time."
Or, any verification or thought.
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Quote:
Originally posted by SIGNYM:Quote:
Originally posted by SIGNYM:
A) It's bullshit.
B) By ignoring the YEARS I asked about, you managed to (clumsily) avoid the question.
THUGR: So you know comrade signym. If you ask a question that is designed to change a topic or to just deflect away from facts that are posted, or waste someone's time, you should expect it to go unanswered. ....
That said, I have no idea what question you are talking about.
T
So .... you DON'T KNOW what question I'm referring to, but you won't answer it anyway???Quote:
And what I've posted about Russia's' behavior is pure fact
And this is where I call bullshit. I watch Military Summary Channel almost every day, twice a day. Dima is NOT pro- Russian - if anything he's pro-Ukrainian - but one thing he insists on is VIDEO EVIDENCE.
Russians will double tap Ukrainian soldiers all day long! They will bomb military positions and then drone -strike vehicles that are evacuating wounded or even just retreating soldiers.
But I have NEVER seen video evidence of civilians being double - tapped. And if Kiev had video evidence, don't you think they'd splash it all over Telegram and elsewhere?
Maybe one of the confusions is that AFU establishes military positions in civilian structures, using those old durable Soviet high rises for communication/ radar/ drone operators and anti- tank positions; hotels as control centers etc. Dima has always been careful to establish which kinds of positions are being struck. When they're civilian he says so. When they're occupied by military forces, he says so.
BTW, I don't condone attacks on civilians by either side. But I think it's entirely fair that Kiev attack Russian refineries, just as Russia attacks Ukrainian refineries (and power stations) because they support the war effort.
Also, FYI MOST of Ukraine's electricity is produced by nuclear power plants (NPPs), not Thermal or hydro power plants (TPPs, HPPs). IIRC peak demand before the war was about 10.5GW, NPPs produced about 7.5GW of the total.
Russia refuses to bomb NPPs. However, they CAN bomb the substations and lines that distribute that electricity, so altho the plants are still operational they don't do anybody any good.
Just reporting facts as I know them.
Feel free to correct me if you have evidence (not allegations) that I'm wrong.
You spew the same old shit Polish Russian Collaborator signym. But you can't change facts, and those facts show you to be trash. Just like your Russian friends.
T
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That's racist as shit.
--------------------------------------------------
Political correctness is just tyranny, with a smiley face.
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Quote:
Originally posted by SIGNYM:Quote:
Originally posted by SIGNYM:
A) It's bullshit.
B) By ignoring the YEARS I asked about, you managed to (clumsily) avoid the question.
THUGR: So you know comrade signym. If you ask a question that is designed to change a topic or to just deflect away from facts that are posted, or waste someone's time, you should expect it to go unanswered. ....
That said, I have no idea what question you are talking about.
T
So .... you DON'T KNOW what question I'm referring to, but you won't answer it anyway???Quote:
And what I've posted about Russia's' behavior is pure fact
And this is where I call bullshit. I watch Military Summary Channel almost every day, twice a day. Dima is NOT pro- Russian - if anything he's pro-Ukrainian - but one thing he insists on is VIDEO EVIDENCE.
Russians will double tap Ukrainian soldiers all day long! They will bomb military positions and then drone -strike vehicles that are evacuating wounded or even just retreating soldiers.
But I have NEVER seen video evidence of civilians being double - tapped. And if Kiev had video evidence, don't you think they'd splash it all over Telegram and elsewhere?
Maybe one of the confusions is that AFU establishes military positions in civilian structures, using those old durable Soviet high rises for communication/ radar/ drone operators and anti- tank positions; hotels as control centers etc. Dima has always been careful to establish which kinds of positions are being struck. When they're civilian he says so. When they're occupied by military forces, he says so.
BTW, I don't condone attacks on civilians by either side. But I think it's entirely fair that Kiev attack Russian refineries, just as Russia attacks Ukrainian refineries (and power stations) because they support the war effort.
Also, FYI MOST of Ukraine's electricity is produced by nuclear power plants (NPPs), not Thermal or hydro power plants (TPPs, HPPs). IIRC peak demand before the war was about 10.5GW, NPPs produced about 7.5GW of the total.
Russia refuses to bomb NPPs. However, they CAN bomb the substations and lines that distribute that electricity, so altho the plants are still operational they don't do anybody any good.
Just reporting facts as I know them.
Feel free to correct me if you have evidence (not allegations) that I'm wrong.
You spew the same old shit Polish Russian Collaborator signym. But you can't change facts, and those facts show you to be trash. Just like your Russian friends.
T
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More evidence-free bullshit.
Show me the evidence to back up your so-called "facts".
No evidence?
No facts.
-----------
"It may be dangerous to be America's enemy, but to be America's friend is fatal." - Henry Kissinger
Why SECOND'S posts are brainless: "I clocked how much time: no more than 10 minutes per day. With cut-and-paste (Ctrl C and Ctrl V) and AI, none of this takes much time."
Or, any verification or thought.
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If T swapped in the N word every time he says Polish or Russian, somebody on Twitter would find him and dox him and somebody else would have his house swatted.
--------------------------------------------------
Political correctness is just tyranny, with a smiley face.
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The Polish President Revealed That Foreign Companies Own Most Of Ukraine's Industrial Agriculture
Andrzej Duda represents what’s widely considered to be one of the most pro-American and anti-Russian governments at any time in history so he can’t credibly be accused of “pushing Kremlin propaganda” on this scandalous subject.
The Oakland Institute published a detailed report in February 2023 titled “War and Theft: The Takeover of Ukraine’s Agricultural Land”, which exposed how foreign firms have clandestinely taken control of a significant share of Ukrainian farmland by exploiting a liberal law in collusion with local oligarchs. Their findings made waves around at the time but eventually receded from the public’s attention over half a year later once Western outlets like the USA Today misleadingly “fact-checked” it.
They took advantage of social media users conflating indirect ownership through stakes with direct control to discredit the institution’s report, after which it largely faded from the general discourse. Few could have expected that it would be none other than Polish President Andrzej Duda who just breathed new life into it during his interview with Lithuanian National Radio and Television. He was explaining Poland’s problem with Ukrainian agricultural imports when he dropped the following bombshell:
“I would like to draw particular attention to industrial agriculture, which is not really run by Ukrainians, it is run by big companies from Western Europe, from the USA. If we look today at the owners of most of the land, they are not Ukrainian companies. This is a paradoxical situation, and no wonder that farmers are defending themselves, because they have invested in their farms in Poland […] and cheap agricultural produce coming from Ukraine is dramatically destructive to them.”
https://korybko.substack.com/p/the-polish-president-revealed-that
-----------
"It may be dangerous to be America's enemy, but to be America's friend is fatal." - Henry Kissinger
Why SECOND'S posts are brainless: "I clocked how much time: no more than 10 minutes per day. With cut-and-paste (Ctrl C and Ctrl V) and AI, none of this takes much time."
Or, any verification or thought.
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Zelenskyy recently signed a separate law cutting the draft age to 25 from 27 to try to secure more fighting power.
https://www.aljazeera.com/news/2024/4/16/ukraines-zelenskyy-signs-new-
army-draft-law-to-boost-conscription
Why is the lowest draft age set to 25 in Ukraine? Is the Ukrainian legislature stupid? Are they unaware of how a real war is fought by a winner, the USA in WWII? If Ukrainians want to win, all Ukrainians, not just a select few, have to change their ways to become effective warriors rather than cheese-eating surrender monkeys or else surrender their land to Russia and then flee to the EU or become landless slaves serving the Russians.
After the Pearl Harbor attack the STSA was further amended (December 19, 1941), extending the term of service to the duration of the war plus six months and requiring the registration of all men 18 to 64 years of age. During World War II, 49 million men were registered, 36 million classified, and 10 million inducted.[31] 18 and 19 year olds were made liable for induction on November 13, 1942. By late 1942, the Selective Service System moved away from a national lottery to administrative selection by its more than 6,000 local boards.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Conscription_in_the_United_States#World_
War_II
The Joss Whedon script for Serenity, where Wash lives, is Serenity-190pages.pdf at
https://www.mediafire.com/folder/1uwh75oa407q8/Firefly
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Ukraine Supercharges Neptun Missile Range, Aims for Tenfold Production Boost
April 17, 2024
https://www.msn.com/en-us/news/world/ukraine-supercharges-neptun-missi
le-range-aims-for-tenfold-production-boost/ar-BB1lNpoJ
The Ukrainian armed forces have announced an upgrade for the missile that was used to sink the cruiser Moskva in 2022. The missile, known as the R-360 Neptun, will now have a range of up to 621 miles in its updated version, significantly increasing from its previous range of 249 miles.
According to updates shared by the Ukraine Battle Map profile on the X platform, Ukraine is working to extend the reach of its R-360 Neptun missiles and aims to boost their production by tenfold. This enhancement will enable the country's defenders to strike virtually any target within the Black Sea region. With the missile's extended range, all Russian ports in the area will be vulnerable to attacks from the improved Neptun.
Although initially developed as an anti-ship missile, modifications have also enabled the Neptun to be used against land targets. Consequently, according to reports, once the enhanced missile goes into serial production, 59 out of the 99 Russian air bases will be within its reach.
An added feature, the radar altimeter, ensures the missile can maintain a flight height of 10 to 33 feet and remain undetectable by enemy radars.
The Joss Whedon script for Serenity, where Wash lives, is Serenity-190pages.pdf at
https://www.mediafire.com/folder/1uwh75oa407q8/Firefly
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Numbers of missiles, SECOND, not "intentions".
Kiev has announced all kinds of intentions.
Heck, Zelenskiy is still yakking about a 2025 offensive.
HOW do they intend to do this?
Real, practical steps.
Do they have the resources?
Do they have enough to make a significant difference?
Do they have the time?
It's a question people don't ask, but should! (You included.)
It's not that I discount EVERYTHING that comes out of Kiev, but quite often I comment to hubby "Must be the coke talking!"
-----------
"It may be dangerous to be America's enemy, but to be America's friend is fatal." - Henry Kissinger
Why SECOND'S posts are brainless: "I clocked how much time: no more than 10 minutes per day. With cut-and-paste (Ctrl C and Ctrl V) and AI, none of this takes much time."
Or, any verification or thought.
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Ukraine is ignoring US warnings to end drone operations inside Russia
Its superdrones can reach targets as far away as Siberia | April 18, 2024
https://www.economist.com/europe/2024/04/18/ukraine-is-ignoring-us-war
nings-to-end-drone-operations-inside-russia
A guard looks on nervously. With every step, the air thickens with the smell of petrol. Around a corner is the workshop, and the buzz of manufacturing. Inside, lab-coated technicians are busy assembling grey birds under the glow of overhead lights. Young men in t-shirts scuttle about, before packing the drones in boxes for onward delivery. The destination for some of them will be 1,000km away and more — hunting for important targets inside Russia.
Since President Volodymyr Zelensky prioritised the technology, Ukraine has invested hundreds of millions of dollars into long-range drones, capable of searching out and striking distant targets. Half a dozen firms now make them.
The best of the new models has a range of 3,000km, able to reach Siberia. Born out of necessity — the West has been reluctant to provide Ukraine with long-range weapons — the programme has disrupted much of Russia’s oil and military infrastructure. But the White House is not happy. It is pushing the Ukrainians to stop the strikes.
America’s concerns have varied, from a rise in the oil price to the prospect of an uncontrollable tit-for-tat in which Ukraine could end up the loser. Fears of the latter rose in late March, when Russia inflicted millions of dollars of damage on Ukraine’s energy infrastructure. The attacks revealed gaps in air defences and vulnerabilities to Russia’s new Kh-69 low-altitude cruise missile. On April 11th such missiles destroyed Ukraine’s Trypilska power station, 40km from Kyiv, though it was in range of the capital’s Patriot air-defence systems.
So far, Ukraine is ignoring American advice to call off the strikes. “Detective”, an intelligence officer responsible for part of the programme, says he has not received instructions to dial down operations. Yes, there has been a switch away from aiming at oil infrastructure in the past week, but it is probably temporary. “Our targets change day to day. We keep the Russians on their toes.”
One long-range-drone producer claims that not every American representative agrees with its policy. His contacts “winked” while they delivered warnings. “They’re privately telling us to keep going.” The producer predicted an expansion of Ukraine’s drone programme in the months to come. “Russia is scorching Ukrainian earth. It’s time we did the same to European Russia.”
The Joss Whedon script for Serenity, where Wash lives, is Serenity-190pages.pdf at
https://www.mediafire.com/folder/1uwh75oa407q8/Firefly
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America Should Force a New Trans-Atlantic Deal on Europe
By Eoin Drea | April 17, 2024
https://foreignpolicy.com/2024/04/17/washington-europe-nato-spending-m
ilitary-security-russia-ukraine/
In March 1945, the New York Times called Europe a “dark continent” in a condition that “no American can hope to understand.” Destroyed by political extremism and laid waste by a catastrophic war, Europe had become a problem for “every human being in Capetown, in Kansas City, in Brisbane, in Lhasa.”
Quickened by the emergence of the Soviet Union as a global rival, the United States’ reordering of a prostrate, rubble-strewn Western Europe in the late 1940s produced an unprecedented economic, political, and societal success. Leveraging its economic strength to shape structural change, Washington facilitated the rebirth of the Western European economy, which quickly recovered from wartime destruction. With the Marshall Plan and other programs, the U.S. government conditioned its support on cooperation among European countries, which kick-started the process of economic and political integration, as the late Tony Judt described so well in his magisterial Postwar.
With U.S. nudging, Germany’s erstwhile enemies also accepted West German rearmament and integration into NATO, which kept the Soviets in check and Western Europe secure. All of this produced a period of peace and prosperity that was unprecedented in modern European history, and it laid the foundation for the continent’s peaceful unification after the collapse of the Soviet bloc.
Alas, Europe has lived off the diminishing returns of this epic achievement. Despite the European Union’s vast wealth and potential power, it remains reliably incapable of projecting unitary political action. As Ukraine burns, the Middle East festers, and China looms, European countries seem to be returning to their age-old state of division, competition, and distrust. Governments are divided on everything from Russia to Gaza to the U.S. Inflation Reduction Act. The traditional Franco-German engine of European integration and policy is divided; a dearth of strategic leadership is fragmenting Europe from within. The inability of Paris and Berlin to “speak with one voice” on supporting Kyiv’s war effort, for example, has resulted in protracted disagreements on how to handle the continent’s most serious aggression since World War II.
What the ongoing wars in Ukraine and the Middle East—and Europe’s growing panic over the possibility of no longer having the United States at its side—really highlight is that a window of opportunity now exists for Washington, as in 1945, to bend Europe toward a more strategically responsible direction.
The outcome could be a broadly Atlanticist EU that defends itself by combining NATO resources with far greater European military capabilities. It would be an EU that once again views energy and resource security as a core strategic objective and makes economic relations with like-minded allies a central pillar in its own geopolitical ambitions.
Without more pressure from Washington, the EU will very likely remain a diffident, divided, and awkward partner in confronting Russia, China, and other threats, putting both itself and the United States in danger.
Today, three overlapping events provide Washington with the opportunity to reshape Europe. The first is the ongoing war in Ukraine. Without continued U.S. military support, Ukraine not only lacks the capabilities to regain its occupied territories, but could also fail to defend itself from future Russian offensives. And while the EU loves to trumpet its overall financial aid to Ukraine, Washington has so far provided more military aid to Kyiv than all other major donors combined.
The reality is that the EU remains politically unwilling and militarily unable to compensate for current pause in U.S. military aid. In fact, the decades since 1989 have witnessed a dramatic reduction in European military spending, capabilities, and equipment stocks, and most countries have only recently and
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Quote:
Originally posted by SIGNYM:
Numbers of missiles, SECOND, not "intentions".
Kiev has announced all kinds of intentions.
Heck, Zelenskiy is still yakking about a 2025 offensive.
HOW do they intend to do this?
Real, practical steps.
Do they have the resources?
Do they have enough to make a significant difference?
Do they have the time?
It's a question people don't ask, but should! (You included.)
It's not that I discount EVERYTHING that comes out of Kiev, but quite often I comment to hubby "Must be the coke talking!"
When challenged with real-world issues you either spew insult or propaganda that even YOU don't bother to read!
-----------
"It may be dangerous to be America's enemy, but to be America's friend is fatal." - Henry Kissinger
Why SECOND'S posts are brainless: "I clocked how much time: no more than 10 minutes per day. With cut-and-paste (Ctrl C and Ctrl V) and AI, none of this takes much time."
Or, any verification or thought.
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Quote:Lumbering M270 Launchers Just Lobbed Eight ATACMS Rockets With 8,000 Submunitions At A Russian Base In Crimea.
Originally posted by SIGNYM:
When challenged with real-world issues you either spew insult or propaganda that even YOU don't bother to read!
The damage was extensive.
By David Axe | Apr 18, 2024,05:19pm EDT
https://www.forbes.com/sites/davidaxe/2024/04/18/lumbering-m270-launch
ers-just-lobbed-eight-atacms-rockets-with-8000-submunitions-at-a-russian-base-in-crimea/?sh=47fd53d93f78
On March 12, the administration of U.S. President Joe Biden unexpectedly gifted to Ukraine a $300-million consignment of weapons—the last consignment paid for with funds the U.S. Congress approved before Republicans gained narrow control of the U.S. House of Representatives in January 2023.
Five weeks later, the Ukrainian finally put the weapons to good use.
The arms package reportedly included a small number of long-range M39 rockets, also known as Army Tactical Missile Systems, or ATACMS. On Tuesday night, the Ukrainian army fired some—maybe all—of the M39 ATACMS at a single Russian air base in occupied Crimea.
The damage was extensive. Imagery from the ground at Dzhankoy air base, 100 miles south of the front line, confirms the Russians lost at least four launchers belonging to an S-400 long-range surface-to-air missile battery. The Ukrainian defense ministry claimed the rockets also knocked out the S-400’s control center and four precious air-defense radars.
According to the Ukrainian Center for Defense Strategies, a regiment of helicopters and three squadrons of attack jets—dozens of aircraft in all—fly from Dzhankoy. It’s unclear whether any of the aircraft were damaged or destroyed on Tuesday night, however. “The enemy carefully hides the number of affected aircraft,” the defense ministry in Kyiv noted.
A video the ministry released on Thursday seems to depict seven or eight M39s streaking into the night sky, presumably somewhere around the free city of Kherson. Each 100-mile-range rocket carried nearly a thousand grenade-sized submunitions inside its 13-foot body—meaning as many as 8,000 individual explosions rocked the Russian base.
While the Ukrainian army’s wheeled High-Mobility Artillery Rocket Systems can each launch a single two-ton M39, the M270s can launch two. Considering the Ukrainians tend to operate their HIMARS and M270s in platoons of four launchers, it’s likely the latter carried out the raid on Dzhankoy.
The speedy HIMARS are media darlings in Ukraine: symbols of one of the Ukrainian military’s few technological advantages over the bigger and better-funded Russian military. The Tuesday raid was a rare chance for the lumbering M270s to shine.
The first consignment of M39s from the United States arrived in Ukraine last fall, a few weeks before the initial U.S. funding for the Ukrainian war effort began to run out.
Considering that aid package included just 20 or so M39s, it’s likely the belated aid package in March—which the White House paid for with unexpected savings from a previous contract for weapons for Ukraine—included fewer of the 1990s-vintage munitions. It’s possible there were just eight rockets, and that platoon of M270s fired all of them at Dzhankoy in a single fiery barrage.
If the damage was as bad as the Ukrainian defense ministry claimed, it may have been worth it to fire all the M39s. The Ukrainians can take comfort in knowing it’s highly likely they’re about to get more ATACMS rockets—potentially a lot more.
That’s because the Republican Speaker of the House, Louisiana Rep. Mike Johnson, is finally bringing to a vote Biden’s proposal to spend $61 billion on weapons and other aid for Ukraine through the end of the year. The long-delayed vote, which is strongly opposed by a minority of Russia-friendly Republicans, is scheduled for Saturday—and is expected to pass.
A provision in the bill requires Biden to send more ATACMS to Ukraine. There are hundreds of the old rockets in the U.S. inventory, and their solid fuel is expirin
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Quote:
If the damage was as bad as the Ukrainian defense ministry claimed...
And yet, despite this supposedly happening yesterday, as of this noon Dima says no photographic confirmation of damage.
He's been burned too many times by Kiev fake news.
BTW Ive seen videos of the launch. I counted five.
Like him, I'll wait until some ... what is that, again? Oh yeah ... EVIDENCE ... shows up, before I assess what happened.
-----------
"It may be dangerous to be America's enemy, but to be America's friend is fatal." - Henry Kissinger
Why SECOND'S posts are brainless: "I clocked how much time: no more than 10 minutes per day. With cut-and-paste (Ctrl C and Ctrl V) and AI, none of this takes much time."
Or, any verification or thought.
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Ukrainian Main Military Intelligence Directorate (GUR) Head Lieutenant General Kyrylo Budanov specified that the Russian offensive effort that Ukrainian officials have been forecasting will likely begin in June 2024. Budanov stated in an April 17 article in the Washington Post that Russia will launch a “big” offensive in June 2024 with the aim of seizing all of Luhansk and Donetsk oblasts.[1]
Budanov also stated that Russian forces will try to make battlefield gains throughout 2024 as part of efforts to influence Western decision-making. Budanov had previously forecasted that a future major Russian offensive would begin in late May or early June 2024, and it is notable that Budanov has now narrowed his forecast to June and identified the likely aim of the Russian offensive. Previous major Russian offensive efforts have similarly aimed to seize the remainder of Donetsk and Luhansk oblasts.[2]
Ukrainian officials, including Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky, have recently warned about the threat of a potential future Russian ground offensive operation targeting Kharkiv City.[3]
Ukrainian officials have repeatedly warned that US security assistance is vital to Ukraine’s ability to defend against possible future Russian offensive operations in summer 2024.[4]
https://www.understandingwar.org/backgrounder/russian-offensive-campai
gn-assessment-april-18-2024
The Joss Whedon script for Serenity, where Wash lives, is Serenity-190pages.pdf at
https://www.mediafire.com/folder/1uwh75oa407q8/Firefly
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You would think Russia would have ten million volunteers eager to accept less than normal pay since the Nazis of NATO are an existential threat to Russia.
Russia to Hire Contract Soldiers (at 10 times normal pay) in Bid to Avoid Unpopular Draft
Kremlin anxious not to stir fears that triggered 2022 exodus
Young men walk past a billboard promoting contract army services in St. Petersburg, Russia.
By Bloomberg News | April 18, 2024 at 3:47 AM CDT
https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2024-04-18/war-in-ukraine-russ
ia-to-enlist-more-hired-soldiers-to-avoid-conscription
Russia is preparing to enlist more contract soldiers as it presses its invasion of Ukraine, aiming to avoid at least for now another mass call-up that could undermine popular support for the war.
The Kremlin is anxious not to repeat the September 2022 mobilization, which shook public confidence and triggered an exodus of as many as a million Russians from the country, three people informed about discussions on the matter said.
The Joss Whedon script for Serenity, where Wash lives, is Serenity-190pages.pdf at
https://www.mediafire.com/folder/1uwh75oa407q8/Firefly
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Mysterious Accidents at US and UK Defense Facilities Spark Russian Sabotage Fears
Published Apr 19, 2024 at 7:28 AM EDT
https://www.newsweek.com/us-nato-defense-facilities-ukraine-russia-sab
otage-1892099
A recent string of mysterious accidents at defense facilities in the U.S. and U.K. that have been producing weapons and equipment for Kyiv's forces in the war in Ukraine has fueled speculation on social media of possible Russian sabotage.
It comes amid rising tensions between Russia and the West, more than two years into Russian President Vladimir Putin's full-scale invasion of Ukraine. Russian officials have regularly accused the United States of instigating a new world war in coordination with members of the NATO military alliance.
On Wednesday, two Russian nationals who were taken into custody by German police in the Bavarian city of Bayreuth were accused of preparing to bomb industrial and military sites in the country.
The federal prosecutor's office said Dieter S, 39, and Alexander J, 37, both German-Russian nationals, had been in contact with Russia's military intelligence agency (GRU) and had plotted to carry out acts of sabotage with the intention of disrupting the supply of military aid to Ukraine.
The Russian Embassy in Berlin called the accusations an "outright provocation," Russia's state-run news agency Tass reported.
More itty-bitty details at https://www.newsweek.com/us-nato-defense-facilities-ukraine-russia-sab
otage-1892099
The Joss Whedon script for Serenity, where Wash lives, is Serenity-190pages.pdf at
https://www.mediafire.com/folder/1uwh75oa407q8/Firefly
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Military Summary Channel
More Russian missile strikes on the Ukrainian military.
Boy, it's a good thing Russia is running out of missiles!
*****
Zelenskiy has until May 21 to negotiate a surrender. After that, his LEGAL term as Predident expires and there will be no one for the Russians to negotiate with. Dima believes at that point Russia will opt for a purely military solution.
-----------
"It may be dangerous to be America's enemy, but to be America's friend is fatal." - Henry Kissinger
Why SECOND'S posts are brainless: "I clocked how much time: no more than 10 minutes per day. With cut-and-paste (Ctrl C and Ctrl V) and AI, none of this takes much time."
Or, any verification or thought.
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Why Donald Trump ‘hates Ukraine’
The once and possibly future U.S. president blames the country for his political woes.
By Veronika Melkozerova | April 18, 2024 4:00 am CET
https://www.politico.eu/article/why-donald-trump-hates-ukraine-us-cong
ress-kyiv-war/
As Trump’s Republican allies in the United States Congress block military aid that Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy says Kyiv desperately needs to avoid defeat in its war with invading Russian forces, it’s clear the former U.S. president’s ill will toward Ukraine has deep roots.
It was, after all, a phone call with Zelenskyy that led to Trump’s first impeachment in December 2019, after he was accused of seeking to influence the 2020 election by leaning on the Ukrainian leader to investigate current President Joe Biden and his son Hunter.
There’s every sign the country is still preying on his mind. When Congress moved this month to reauthorize the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act — legislation governing the surveillance of suspected international adversaries — Trump took to social media to object.
“KILL FISA,” he posted on Truth Social. “IT WAS ILLEGALLY USED AGAINST ME, AND MANY OTHERS.”
That Trump was likely referring to the wiretapping of his former campaign chairman Paul Manafort is unlikely to have gone unnoticed in Ukraine, where officials are watching the U.S. presidential election campaign for signs of what it could mean for their war effort.
As the presumptive Republican candidate, Trump has already triggered fear in Kyiv by boasting he could end the war in 24 hours and musing that he hopes it ends before he is forced to decide whether to give Ukraine to Moscow.
The mention of Manafort, oblique though it was, will only heighten concerns in Ukraine that the U.S. president still holds a grudge against a country he sees as intimately involved with delegitimizing his presidency.
From the first intimations of Russian interference in America’s 2016 presidential campaign, to an investigation by a special prosecutor, to Trump’s 2019 impeachment, all roads — it can sometimes seem — lead through Kyiv.
“Trump hates Ukraine,” said Lev Parnas, a Ukrainian-American businessman who once served as a fixer in Ukraine for Trump’s lawyer, Rudy Giuliani, and later turned against the former president. “He and people around him believe that Ukraine was the cause of all Trump’s problems.”
Many more details about how Ukraine makes Trump's skin crawl at https://www.politico.eu/article/why-donald-trump-hates-ukraine-us-cong
ress-kyiv-war/
The Joss Whedon script for Serenity, where Wash lives, is Serenity-190pages.pdf at
https://www.mediafire.com/folder/1uwh75oa407q8/Firefly
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Quote:Everything about this sentence is wrong.
As Trump’s Republican allies in the United States Congress block military aid that Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy says Kyiv desperately needs to avoid defeat in its war with invading Russian forces, it’s clear the former U.S. president’s ill will toward Ukraine has deep roots.
Speaker Johnson is bringing a funding bill up for a vote, WITHOUT "border protection" funding.
Trump gave him the go-ahead.
The only thing the money is meant for is to stave off a Ukrainian collapse unyil aftrr November. And I don't think it'll work.
I'm pretty sure Trump blames "the interagency"- and especially Hillary and the FBI - for his problems.
It's just one ridiculous narrative after another, isn't it?
-----------
"It may be dangerous to be America's enemy, but to be America's friend is fatal." - Henry Kissinger
Why SECOND'S posts are brainless: "I clocked how much time: no more than 10 minutes per day. With cut-and-paste (Ctrl C and Ctrl V) and AI, none of this takes much time."
Or, any verification or thought.
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Quote:Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov signaled Russia’s intent to seize Kharkiv City in a future significant Russian offensive operation, the first senior Kremlin official to outright identify the city as a possible Russian operational objective following recent Ukrainian warnings that Russian forces may attempt to seize the city starting in Summer 2024. Lavrov stated during a radio interview with several prominent Russian state propagandists on April 19 that Kharkiv City “plays an important role” in Russian President Vladimir Putin’s idea of establishing a demilitarized “sanitary zone” in Ukraine to protect Russian border settlements from Ukrainian strikes.[1]
Originally posted by SIGNYM:
It's just one ridiculous narrative after another, isn't it?
Lavrov stated that Putin has very clearly stated that Russian forces must push the frontline far enough into Ukraine – which Lavrov explicitly defines as into Kharkiv Oblast – to place Russian settlements outside of the Ukrainian strike range. This requirement is a very vague definition that could include the entirety of Ukrainian territory as long as an independent Ukrainian state exists and is willing to defend itself.
Lavrov stated in response to a question about where Russian forces will go after creating a “sanitary zone” that Russian authorities are “completely convinced” of the need to continue Russia’s war against Ukraine. Lavrov responded in seeming agreement to a comment from one of the interviewers, who suggested that Lavrov’s earlier remarks meant that Russian forces will have to continue to attack further into Ukraine after creating the “sanitary zone” to protect the settlements that would then be within the zone and Ukrainian strike range.
Lavrov’s remarks suggest that the Kremlin will likely use the idea of a constantly shifting demilitarized “sanitary zone” to justify Russian offensive operations further and further into Ukraine.
Lavrov claimed during a radio interview with Russian state media on April 19 that the West made Moldovan President Maia Sandu “openly drag Moldova into NATO, either directly or through unification with Romania” and that the West did the same with Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky.[27]
Lavrov criticized both Moldova’s and Armenia’s moves towards the West and urged them to rethink their decisions by claiming that the West will force its citizens to fight in a possible future war against Russia. Russian officials have recently claimed that the West is “dragging” the South Caucasus region into a “geopolitical confrontation” between Russia and the West and explicitly threatened Armenia over Armenian outreach to the West.[28]
Lavrov’s comparison of the Moldovan government to both the Armenian and Ukrainian governments is likely a tacit threat. ISW continues to assess that the Kremlin is likely trying to destabilize Moldovan society, attack Moldova’s democratic government, and prevent Moldova’s accession to the European Union.[29]
https://www.understandingwar.org/backgrounder/russian-offensive-campai
gn-assessment-april-19-2024
The Joss Whedon script for Serenity, where Wash lives, is Serenity-190pages.pdf at
https://www.mediafire.com/folder/1uwh75oa407q8/Firefly
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Quote:War in Ukraine
Originally posted by SIGNYM:
It's just one ridiculous narrative after another, isn't it?
Inside the Efforts to Try Russians for Ukraine War Crimes — In Argentina
In a country long traumatized by torture, Putin’s victims hope to get their day in court.
By Janine di Giovanni | April 18, 2024, 05:19pm
https://www.vanityfair.com/news/story/prosecutors-seek-to-try-russians
-for-ukraine-war-crimes-in-argentina
The American peace advocate Norman Cousins once said, “Death is not the greatest loss in life. The greatest loss is what dies inside of us while we live.” The quote has often been linked to Ariel Dorfman’s profoundly moving play, Death and the Maiden. Therein, a middle-class Chilean woman who is a trauma survivor, having been subjected to torture and other unspeakable torments, confronts the man who had terrorized her years earlier during her country’s brutal dictatorship.
For decades, I have documented torture and war crimes, first as a journalist for Vanity Fair and now as executive director of the Reckoning Project (TRP), an organization that gathers evidence on the systematic horrors Ukrainians have endured since Russia’s full-scale invasion in February 2022. When survivors tell me how they managed to bear unimaginable physical pain, a common yet excruciating description I have heard is that they had to kill something deep inside their psyches.
How can these survivors ever hope to heal? One way—which is the main mission of the Reckoning Project—is to ensure that at least some of those who have committed war crimes are held accountable in court. If authoritarian leaders remain in power—as in Argentina in the 1970s and ’80s, and in Russia today—accountability is impossible. The question then becomes: how to create a reliable legal framework so these victims and crimes don’t go unnoticed? A method gaining traction utilizes a principle known as universal jurisdiction, which allows existing global laws to be applied to serious international crimes in territories where the crimes weren’t committed. In many ways, this is justice without borders.
Perpetrators of heinous crimes could now be investigated—in some cases prosecuted—in foreign countries. Ukraine took notice. The level of criminality inflicted on the country’s citizens has been so vast—Prosecutor General Andriy Kostin’s office has identified over 120,000 incidents—that TRP’s legal experts began to consider where outside of Ukraine or Russia they might plan trials against the transgressors.
Since the war began, TRP has gathered more than 300 testimonies from victims of crimes that occurred in Ukraine. This week, thanks to key stakeholders in Argentina and Ukraine, the first universal jurisdiction complaint against members of Vladimir Putin’s military and its affiliates was filed in Buenos Aires. The initial case will present charges based on the testimony of one key survivor—and loads of supplemental evidence—accusing occupying soldiers of committing thousands of acts of extreme torture.
Why Argentina? Partly because of that country’s painful past. During the so-called Dirty War of 1976–1983, some 30,000 Argentinians were kidnapped, tortured, and killed. One favored method of torture involved electrocution (also allegedly used by Russians against Ukrainian captives). Thousands of Argentinians “disappeared.” In several instances, political prisoners were pushed out of airplanes into the Atlantic.
Today, a kind of solidarity has emerged between Ukraine and Argentina. Not only have the countries’ lawyers and prosecutors shared harrowing stories, but on Ukraine’s battlefields Argentinian forensic teams have been working closely with their Ukrainian counterparts to identify remains and determine causes of death.
. . .
Why do people resort to such brutality in wartime? And what can be done to help alleviate the lingering agony of those who survive that brutality?
Thirty years and eighteen wars later, I still haven’t answered the first question. But I am beginning to see how the pain of
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Quote:Russia doesn’t have capability to knock Ukraine out of war: Ex-US commander
Originally posted by SIGNYM:
It's just one ridiculous narrative after another, isn't it?
By John T Psaropoulos | April 19, 2024
https://www.aljazeera.com/news/2024/4/19/west-needs-to-overcome-fear-o
f-winning-in-ukraine-says-ex-us-commander
Delphi, Greece – For General Ben Hodges, who once commanded NATO forces in Europe, the worst-case scenario for Ukraine is for Western powers to “keep doing what we’re doing, exactly right now”.
He told Al Jazeera in an interview on the sidelines of the recent Delphi Economic Conference in Greece that a paralysed US Congress, over-cautious White House administration and fearful allies in Europe constitute a Russian marketing success.
Take the German refusal to send Ukraine 500km-range (310-mile) Taurus missiles.
“That is 99 percent because [Olaf Scholz] is convinced that if [Donald] Trump is [US] president, then he will withdraw the nuclear shield from Europe and turn his back on NATO,” said Hodges, referring to the former US Republican leader who is running again this year.
“Germany then, unlike France and the UK if it ended up in a conflict with Russia over Taurus, would be without a nuclear deterrent.”
Or take the administration of US President Joe Biden, which Hodges described as “unduly scared”.
“They think that if Ukraine liberates Crimea, that will lead to the collapse of the regime [of Russian president Vladimir Putin], or that Putin will think he has no choice but to use a nuclear weapon to prevent that from happening,” said Hodges. “I think those are two false, unfounded fears. I hope it does lead to the collapse of the Putin regime. It’s not something we should fear. It’s something we should plan.”
Believing Russia’s nuclear threats is likely to produce a split in the Western alliance, with more ambitious leaders providing more provocative forms of help to Ukraine.
“I think there is a very real possibility that certain European countries will insert themselves,” he said. “I can imagine Poland, even France, some others, in some way saying, ‘We can’t afford not to do it’.”
French President Emmanuel Macron caused Russia to renew its nuclear threats after he suggested last month that NATO troops on the ground in Ukraine should not be ruled out.
Macron’s generals and foreign policy wonks later finessed that message, suggesting NATO troops could only ever play a supporting role, and not participate in active combat.
Russian forces ‘do not have the capability’
Hodges was deeply sceptical about how well Russia has succeeded in conventional warfare.
Since the fall of Avdiivka in Ukraine’s east on February 17, its forces have “oozed” forward, swallowing several villages, as Ukrainian forces have performed tactical retreats.
“Here we are in April, and [the Russians] are oozing out. Why is that? I think it’s because that’s the best the Russians can do. They do not have the capability to knock Ukraine out of the war.”
Russia, he said, lacked the ability to equip large armoured formations that could move rapidly, with supporting artillery, engineers and logistics.
“I don’t think it exists. That’s why I feel fairly confident that the mission for [Ukrainian] general Oleksandr Syrskyi for the next several months is to stabilise this as much as he can to buy time for Ukraine to grow the size of the army, to rebuild the defence industry of Ukraine, as well as give us time to find more ammunition for them. I think of 2024 as a year of industrial competition. So the army has got to buy time.”
On the day Hodges spoke to Al Jazeera, Ukraine’s parliament passed a new mobilisation law that aimed to raise about 300,000 new troops and bring the standing army to 1.2 million.
Contrary to the punitive measures for avoiding the draft that had circulated, Ukraine doubled down on incentives in the new law, such as free downpayments and lower mortgage rates for front-line soldiers, and a payout of $400,000 if they are killed.
In what may
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Quote:Russia’s War Against Evangelicals
Originally posted by SIGNYM:
It's just one ridiculous narrative after another, isn't it?
By Peter Pomerantsev | April 20, 2024 6:00 AM EDT
https://time.com/6969273/russias-war-against-evangelicals/
After they beat Azat Azatyan so bad blood came out of his ears; after they sent electric shocks up his genitals; and after they whacked him with pipes and truncheons, the Russians began to interrogate him about his faith. “When did you become a Baptist? When did you become an American spy?” Azat tried to explain that in Ukraine there was freedom of religion, you could just choose your faith. But his torturers saw the world the same way as their predecessors at the KGB did: an American church is just a front for the American state.
Azat was dragged back to the makeshift cell in the occupied city of Berdiansk, in southern Ukraine, where he was held with six others in a cellar that had a bucket for a toilet and hard mattresses on the floor. The other inmates wondered how he could be religious when the punishments meted out to him were so much worse than to them. Azat answered he felt God was always with him. He prayed for the other inmates to be spared. When the torturers returned they left the others alone but told him to come with them: “This time we will kill you.”
Russia’s invasion of Ukraine is accompanied by a strategic effort to repress, control, and crush religious groups outside of the Kremlin-controlled Moscow Patriarchate, the Russian Orthodox Church. There are over thirty cases of religious clergy killed and kidnapped. 109 known cases of interrogations, forced expulsions, imprisonments, and arrests. 600 houses of worship were destroyed. And these are just the confirmed numbers, with the real ones in the information blackout of the occupied territories will likely be higher.
Evangelicals are targeted by the Russians disproportionally, and Azat’s story is typical of Russia’s systemic persecution of Protestants in occupied Ukraine. Protestants were the victims of 34 percent of the reported persecution events, and 48 percent in the Zaporizhzhia region where Azat was held. Baptists made up 13 percent of victims – the largest single group after Ukrainian Orthodox. Under Russian control 400 Baptist congregations have been lost, 17% of the total in Ukraine.
There’s a reason for this. Protestants flourished in the democratic decades since the end of the U.S.S.R. Baptists are the third largest denomination in Ukraine. The mayor of Kyiv between 2006-2012 was an evangelical. And for the Russian occupiers, they are perceived as agents of America.
Petro Dudnyk, Pastor of the Good News Church, explains that the occupying forces "thought and spoke like this: you are the American faith, the Americans are our enemies, the enemies must be destroyed." Inside Russia Jehovah’s Witnesses are banned, as is missionary work for Mormons. Evangelical groups are constrained by laws banning missionary activity and labeling some groups as “undesirable organizations.” The U.S. Congress Commission on International Religious Freedom considers Russia one of the world’s “worst violators” of religious freedom, on par with Iran and Pakistan.
What this persecution highlights is that Russia’s invasion of Ukraine is more than just the latest iteration of the Kremlin’s centuries-old attempt to crush Ukraine’s freedom. It is also part of the Kremlin’s larger war against America. By hurting those who practice an “American” religion the Kremlin can claim it is striking against American power—while picking on the powerless.
The Russian persecution of Protestants is pursued through intimidation, expropriation, enforced conversion, and even murder.
"Your church has no right to exist, as it has connections with America and other Western countries," Russian authorities told the deacon of the Pentecostal church in Nova Kakhovka, Oleksandr Prokopchuk. They arrested him and his 19-year-old son. Both were later found dead in a forest. In occupied S
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Quote:
Originally posted by SIGNYM:Quote:Everything about this sentence is wrong.
As Trump’s Republican allies in the United States Congress block military aid that Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy says Kyiv desperately needs to avoid defeat in its war with invading Russian forces, it’s clear the former U.S. president’s ill will toward Ukraine has deep roots.
The House of Representatives on Saturday passed a series of foreign aid bills that include $60.8 billion in aid to Ukraine, $26.38 billion in aid to Israel, $8 billion in aid to the Indo-Pacific region, including Taiwan, and a foreign aid bill that includes a TikTok ban provision.
House approves $95 billion in aid to Ukraine, Israel and Taiwan
https://www.msn.com/en-us/news/politics/house-approves-95-billion-in-a
id-to-ukraine-israel-and-taiwan/ar-AA1nlCHL
Yup, and half the republicans voted against it.
tick tock...
T
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Quote:
Originally posted by SIGNYM:Quote:
As Trump’s Republican allies in the United States Congress block military aid that Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy says Kyiv desperately needs to avoid defeat in its war with invading Russian forces, it’s clear the former U.S. president’s ill will toward Ukraine has deep roots.
SIGNY: Everything about this sentence is wrong.
THUGR:Quote:
The House of Representatives on Saturday passed a series of foreign aid bills that include $60.8 billion in aid to Ukraine, $26.38 billion in aid to Israel, $8 billion in aid to the Indo-Pacific region, including Taiwan, and a foreign aid bill that includes a TikTok ban provision.
House approves $95 billion in aid to Ukraine, Israel and Taiwan
https://www.msn.com/en-us/news/politics/house-approves-95-billion-in-a
id-to-ukraine-israel-and-taiwan/ar-AA1nlCHL
Yup, and half the republicans voted against it.
So.
Neither Trump nor his allies "blocked" aid to Ukraine.
In FACT, the part that Trump objected to ...$10 billion financial aid to the Zelenskiy regime ... he said would let pass if written as a loan.
Funny how so much of what you post doesn't even have a passing resemblance to reality!
Rumor, lies, libel, allegation, and spin.
No facts?
It would be nice to see some.
-----------
"It may be dangerous to be America's enemy, but to be America's friend is fatal." - Henry Kissinger
Why SECOND'S posts are brainless: "I clocked how much time: no more than 10 minutes per day. With cut-and-paste (Ctrl C and Ctrl V) and AI, none of this takes much time."
Or, any verification or thought.
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Quote:Signym, you are full bullshit. Trumptards always turn into lying sacks of shit when it serves them. As Trump does, so do his Trumptards. But doing as Trump does has not served them well in Congress.
Originally posted by SIGNYM:
So.
Neither Trump nor his allies "blocked" aid to Ukraine.
In FACT, the part that Trump objected to ...$10 billion financial aid to the Zelenskiy regime ... he said would let pass if written as a loan.
Funny how so much of what you post doesn't even have a passing resemblance to reality!
Rumor, lies, libel, allegation, and spin.
No facts?
It would be nice to see some.
On aid to Ukraine, Trump got his way for 16 months. When Democrats held the majority in the House of Representatives in 2022, they approved four separate aid requests for Ukraine, totaling $74 billion. As soon as Trump’s party took control of the House, in January 2023, the aid stopped. Every Republican officeholder understood: Those who wished to show loyalty to Trump must side against Ukraine.
At the beginning of 2024, Trump was able even to blow up the toughest immigration bill seen in decades—simply to deny President Joe Biden a bipartisan win. Individual Senate Republicans might grumble, but with Trump opposed, the border-security deal disintegrated.
Three months later, Trump’s party in Congress has rebelled against him—and not on a personal payoff to some oddball Trump loyalist, but on one of Trump’s most cherished issues, his siding with Russia against Ukraine.
The anti-Trump, pro-Ukraine rebellion started in the Senate. Twenty-two Republicans joined Democrats to approve aid to Ukraine in February. Dissident House Republicans then threatened to force a vote if the Republican speaker would not schedule one. Speaker Mike Johnson declared himself in favor of Ukraine aid. This weekend, House Republicans split between pro-Ukraine and anti-Ukraine factions. On Friday, the House voted 316–94 in favor of the rule on the aid vote. On Saturday, the aid to Ukraine measure passed the House by 311–112. Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer said the Senate will adopt the House-approved aid measures unamended and speed them to President Biden for signature.
As defeat loomed for his anti-Ukraine allies, Trump shifted his message a little. On April 18, he posted on Truth Social claiming that he, too, favored helping Ukraine. “As everyone agrees, Ukrainian Survival and Strength should be much more important to Europe than to us, but it is also important to us!” But that was after-the-fact face-saving, jumping to the winning side after his side was about to lose.
. . .
The Ukraine vote gives the most significant clue. Here is the issue on which traditional Republican belief in U.S. global leadership clashes most directly with Trump’s peculiar and sinister enthusiasm for Vladimir Putin’s Russia. And on this issue, the traditional Republicans have now won and Trump’s peculiar enthusiasm got beat.
To make an avalanche takes more than one tumbling rock. Still, the pro-Ukraine, anti-Trump vote in the House is a very, very big rock. On something that mattered intensely to him—that had become a badge of pro-Trump identity—Trump’s own party worked with Democrats in the House and Senate to hand him a stinging defeat. This example could become contagious.
Republicans lost the House in 2018 because they were beaten in districts once held by George H. W. Bush, Newt Gingrich, and Eric Cantor. They lost the presidency in 2020 in great part because their vote eroded among white suburban men. They lost the Senate in 2021 because Trump fatigue cost them two seats in Georgia. They lost Senate seats and governorships in 2022 because they put forward Trump-branded candidates such as Blake Masters and Kari Lake in Arizona and Doug Mastriano in Pennsylvania.
Republicans alienated too many of their own—and paid the political price. They alienated their own because of Trump’s hostility to Ukraine, and that price was paid in blood and suffering by Ukraine’s soldiers and civilians.
The
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SECOND, you lie about everything, even yourself.
Not gonna bother to read yet another wall of crap that even YOU don't bother to read.
(See your quote, below)
-----------
"It may be dangerous to be America's enemy, but to be America's friend is fatal." - Henry Kissinger
Why SECOND'S posts are brainless: "I clocked how much time: no more than 10 minutes per day. With cut-and-paste (Ctrl C and Ctrl V) and AI, none of this takes much time."
Or, any verification or thought.
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Quote:
Originally posted by second:Quote:Signym, you are full bullshit. Trumptards always turn into lying sacks of shit when it serves them. As Trump does, so do his Trumptards. But doing as Trump does has not served them well in Congress.
Originally posted by SIGNYM:
So.
Neither Trump nor his allies "blocked" aid to Ukraine.
In FACT, the part that Trump objected to ...$10 billion financial aid to the Zelenskiy regime ... he said would let pass if written as a loan.
Funny how so much of what you post doesn't even have a passing resemblance to reality!
Rumor, lies, libel, allegation, and spin.
No facts?
It would be nice to see some.
On aid to Ukraine, Trump got his way for 16 months. When Democrats held the majority in the House of Representatives in 2022, they approved four separate aid requests for Ukraine, totaling $74 billion. As soon as Trump’s party took control of the House, in January 2023, the aid stopped. Every Republican officeholder understood: Those who wished to show loyalty to Trump must side against Ukraine.
At the beginning of 2024, Trump was able even to blow up the toughest immigration bill seen in decades—simply to deny President Joe Biden a bipartisan win. Individual Senate Republicans might grumble, but with Trump opposed, the border-security deal disintegrated.
Three months later, Trump’s party in Congress has rebelled against him—and not on a personal payoff to some oddball Trump loyalist, but on one of Trump’s most cherished issues, his siding with Russia against Ukraine.
The anti-Trump, pro-Ukraine rebellion started in the Senate. Twenty-two Republicans joined Democrats to approve aid to Ukraine in February. Dissident House Republicans then threatened to force a vote if the Republican speaker would not schedule one. Speaker Mike Johnson declared himself in favor of Ukraine aid. This weekend, House Republicans split between pro-Ukraine and anti-Ukraine factions. On Friday, the House voted 316–94 in favor of the rule on the aid vote. On Saturday, the aid to Ukraine measure passed the House by 311–112. Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer said the Senate will adopt the House-approved aid measures unamended and speed them to President Biden for signature.
As defeat loomed for his anti-Ukraine allies, Trump shifted his message a little. On April 18, he posted on Truth Social claiming that he, too, favored helping Ukraine. “As everyone agrees, Ukrainian Survival and Strength should be much more important to Europe than to us, but it is also important to us!” But that was after-the-fact face-saving, jumping to the winning side after his side was about to lose.
. . .
The Ukraine vote gives the most significant clue. Here is the issue on which traditional Republican belief in U.S. global leadership clashes most directly with Trump’s peculiar and sinister enthusiasm for Vladimir Putin’s Russia. And on this issue, the traditional Republicans have now won and Trump’s peculiar enthusiasm got beat.
To make an avalanche takes more than one tumbling rock. Still, the pro-Ukraine, anti-Trump vote in the House is a very, very big rock. On something that mattered intensely to him—that had become a badge of pro-Trump identity—Trump’s own party worked with Democrats in the House and Senate to hand him a stinging defeat. This example could become contagious.
Republicans lost the House in 2018 because they were beaten in districts once held by George H. W. Bush, Newt Gingrich, and Eric Cantor. They lost the presidency in 2020 in great part because their vote eroded among white suburban men. They lost the Senate in 2021 because Trump fatigue cost them two seats in Georgia. They lost Senate seats and governorships in 2022 because they put forward Trump-branded candidates such as Blake Masters and Kari Lake in Arizona and Doug Mastriano in Pennsylvania.
Republicans alienated too many of their own—and paid the political price. They alienated their own because of Trump’s hostility to Ukraine, and that price was paid in blood and suffering by
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Quote:After the fact face-saving, Trump jumped to the winning side after his side was about to lose Ukraine. Too many words to read, Trumptard?
Originally posted by SIGNYM:
SECOND, you lie about everything, even yourself.
Not gonna bother to read yet another wall of crap that even YOU don't bother to read.
The Joss Whedon script for Serenity, where Wash lives, is Serenity-190pages.pdf at
https://www.mediafire.com/folder/1uwh75oa407q8/Firefly
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AS IF you read your own bullshit!:
You lie about everything.
-----------
"It may be dangerous to be America's enemy, but to be America's friend is fatal." - Henry Kissinger
Why SECOND'S posts are brainless: "I clocked how much time: no more than 10 minutes per day. With cut-and-paste (Ctrl C and Ctrl V) and AI, none of this takes much time."
Or, any verification or thought.
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Quote:In a powerful effort to sum up the stakes before the vote, the former Democratic speaker, Nancy Pelosi, made a stridently graphic appeal: “I hope our colleagues will choose democracy and decency rather than autocracy and evil because I fear if you choose the Putin route, you will have blood on your hands, blood of the children, blood of their mothers raped in front of their parents, raped in front of their children,” she said.
Originally posted by SIGNYM:
AS IF you read your own bullshit!
You lie about everything.
Too long for you to read, Signym? The Soviet Union collapsed because of the Afghanistan War. It will be justice if Russia collapses because of the Ukraine War.
https://www.google.com/search?q=did+the+afghanistan+war+cause+the+sovi
et+union+to+collapse
The Joss Whedon script for Serenity, where Wash lives, is Serenity-190pages.pdf at
https://www.mediafire.com/folder/1uwh75oa407q8/Firefly
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More bullshit from The Swamp, via Swamp Thing SECOND.
Dood. You really expect anyone to believe Pelosi? Or you?
It's not the length.
It's the crap.
-----------
"It may be dangerous to be America's enemy, but to be America's friend is fatal." - Henry Kissinger
Why SECOND'S posts are brainless: "I clocked how much time: no more than 10 minutes per day. With cut-and-paste (Ctrl C and Ctrl V) and AI, none of this takes much time."
Or, any verification or thought.
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Quote:It is not surprising you act this way, Signym. You have been in trouble for a very long time.
Originally posted by SIGNYM:
More bullshit from The Swamp, via Swamp Thing SECOND.
Dood. You really expect anyone to believe Pelosi? Or you?
It's not the length.
It's the crap.
Signym, it is not a surprise when someone who rated you as a slow-reading, slow-thinking, lazy employee would be called a “sociopathic supervisor” by you. I’m pretty sure that you were as worthless as a worker as you are at fff.net. The Trumptards I know are the crappiest employees, squandering their energy in diversions, coming back from lunch mentally exhausted and drunk, ready for a nap at their desk:
http://fireflyfans.net/mthread.aspx?bid=18&tid=65350&mid=11912
52#1191252
Quote:
Originally posted by SIGNYM:
But we also had a rummy game, and THAT table was fierce. Gave me a headache.
I was just looking for some good-natured fun and relaxation at lunch. I had enough headaches at work with a sociopathic supervisor. A little levity always helps the day along.
Signym, it is not a surprise that you are diseased, either:
http://fireflyfans.net/mthread.aspx?bid=18&tid=65350&mid=11912
53#1191253
Quote:
Originally posted by SIGNYM:
Did some research on my latest dx. I was just happy to finally get one, but most of my doctors are serious about it. Turns out the treatment, while not as bad as the disease, is pretty consequential and can lead to "irreversible" immune suppression and lifelong risk of serious infections requiring hospitalization.
Reactivation of dormant diseases like TB and the various hepatitises is a real possibility, so I've been tested for all that.
No more live-virus immunizations. They want me all updated on that. Been told I'm gonna have to mask up and wash my hands, a lot.
Then there is the problem of my gardening. The soil is full of mold spores and gram negative (the kind that's hard to treat) bacteria. I may have to give that up. Since I'm on an antibiotic that makes people sensitive to sunlight, I practiced gardening in long sleeves, with a sun hat, N95, and glasses. It wasn't too bad but I think my doctors and family may put theur collective feet down.
Gardening is both my responsibility, and my passion. It's one thing I really enjoy.
The only one happy is my ENT surgeon. Just had another debridement on Wednesday. She was all smiles, very happy with the results and doesn't anticipate any more outpatient surgical procedures, just in-office. I think what's making her happy is that she and ny rheumatologist are communicating, and she's not in this all by herself.
Well, on with my day. Gotta get thru all the non-fun stuff (dishes, laundry pre-scrubbing, cooking prep, paperwork) before I get to the fun stuff (gardening). On a bit of a steroid energy high ... SIX, this must be what you feel like a lot of the time ... so gotta burn off all this good energy doing something useful. When the steroids come down, I know I'll droop.
The Joss Whedon script for Serenity, where Wash lives, is Serenity-190pages.pdf at
https://www.mediafire.com/folder/1uwh75oa407q8/Firefly
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Political Warfare and Congress
My Testimony from 17 April
By Timothy Snyder | Apr 19, 2024
https://snyder.substack.com/p/political-warfare-and-congress
The essence of “political warfare,” in the sense defined by the Chinese communist party, is that Beijing uses media, psychology, and law to induce adversaries to do things counter to their own interests.
Political warfare works through you or it does not work. So if you are not willing to think about yourself, you are not thinking about political warfare.
I had the honor of testifying to Congress on the question of Chinese political warfare this past Wednesday, April 17th. This testimony was before the Oversight Committee, which has devoted months of time, money, and attention to an impeachment inquiry which is based on a mendacious claim by a man in contact with Russian intelligence services.
That congressional impeachment inquiry, based on a Russian fabrication, then became the subject of Chinese propaganda tropes, designed to spread the lie that President Biden took a bribe. This false notion, generated by Moscow, can only be spread by Beijing because there are Americans in the middle, American elected officials, who do their part.
A hearing on political warfare in Congress, and especially before this particular committee, requires self-reflection.
The hearing had some moments of interest, many of which are circulating as clips. Feel free to post your favorites in the comments.
The below text is my formal written testimony, which you can find in with all the notes and references on the congressional website. https://oversight.house.gov/wp-content/uploads/2024/04/Snyder-Testimon
y.pdf
Video of my opening remarks is here. https://twitter.com/TimothyDSnyder/status/1781006324697895358
The entire session can be viewed here. https://www (dot) youtube (dot) com/watch?v=VoQZjUCT6bU&t=2030s
Download all Timothy Snyder’s books for free from https://libgen.is//search.php?&req=Timothy+Snyder
https://www.amazon.com/s?k=timothy+snyder
•••
Testimony to Oversight Committee, “Defending America from the Chinese Communist Party’s Political Warfare, Part I”
Professor Timothy Snyder, 17 April 2024
Democracy is in decline, dragged down by the autocratic lie. The autocrats offer no new visions; instead they lie about democracies and insert lies into democracies. The test of disinformation is its power to alter the course of crucial events, such as wars and elections.
Russia undertook a full-scale invasion of Ukraine on the basis of a big lie about Nazis.
Even as we meet today, Russian (and Chinese) propaganda shapes House debates about Ukraine, the most important foreign policy decision of our time. In domestic politics, the most important matter in coming months the coming presidential election.
To begin with the war. Beijing cares about Ukraine because it is the decisive conflict of our time. It can spread lies about Ukraine thanks to prior Russian labor. Beijing wrongly blames the war on Washington. Chinese information actions seek to attract American actors around to Russian propaganda tropes meant to justify Russian aggression and bring about American inaction.
Though Americans sometimes forget this, Ukrainian resistance is seen around the world as an obvious American cause and an easy American victory. So long as Ukraine fights, it is fulfilling the entire NATO mission by itself, defending a European order based in integration rather than empire, and affirming international order in general. It is also holding back nuclear proliferation.
Given these obvious strategic gains, American failure in Ukraine will lead other powers to conclude that a feckless and divided United States will also fail to meet future challenges. The fundamental goal of Russian (and thus Chinese) propaganda is to prevent American action, thereby making America seem impotent and democracy pointless -- also in the eyes of Americans themselves.
Russia's invasion of Ukraine is intimately connected to a possible Chin
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Quote:wow!
Originally posted by second:
Political Warfare and Congress
My Testimony from 17 April
By Timothy Snyder | Apr 19, 2024
https://snyder.substack.com/p/political-warfare-and-congress
The essence of “political warfare,” in the sense defined by the Chinese communist party, is that Beijing uses media, psychology, and law to induce adversaries to do things counter to their own interests.
That happens here in the USA all the time!
We're inveigled, stupefied, lied to, convinced... to support self- destructive things ALL THE TIME!
Whooda thunk was a Chi-Com invention??
-----------
"It may be dangerous to be America's enemy, but to be America's friend is fatal." - Henry Kissinger
Why SECOND'S posts are brainless: "I clocked how much time: no more than 10 minutes per day. With cut-and-paste (Ctrl C and Ctrl V) and AI, none of this takes much time."
Or, any verification or thought.
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Quote:Specifically, who is doing the lying? It is an easily identified American sub-culture. Since I can remember back to Richard Nixon and General William Westmoreland, who ran for governor of South Carolina as a Republican after he retired from lying about how close to victory he was in the Vietnam War, it is Republicans doing the lying.
Originally posted by SIGNYM:Quote:wow!
Originally posted by second:
Political Warfare and Congress
My Testimony from 17 April
By Timothy Snyder | Apr 19, 2024
https://snyder.substack.com/p/political-warfare-and-congress
The essence of “political warfare,” in the sense defined by the Chinese communist party, is that Beijing uses media, psychology, and law to induce adversaries to do things counter to their own interests.
That happens here in the USA all the time!
We're inveigled, stupefied, lied to, convinced... to support self- destructive things ALL THE TIME!
Whooda thunk was a Chi-Com invention??
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/William_Westmoreland#Later_years
Nixon and Westmoreland are long dead, but I am still hearing the constant yammering of liars. They are Republicans, just ordinary people who cannot stop lying about everything all the time and they are big supporters of Trump.
The Joss Whedon script for Serenity, where Wash lives, is Serenity-190pages.pdf at
https://www.mediafire.com/folder/1uwh75oa407q8/Firefly
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The Five Futures of Russia
By Stephen Kotkin | April 18, 2024
https://www.foreignaffairs.com/russian-federation/five-futures-russia-
stephen-kotkin
(This one is on us. You are currently enjoying a Foreign Affairs article.)
STEPHEN KOTKIN is Kleinheinz Senior Fellow at the Hoover Institution at Stanford University. He is the author of the forthcoming book Stalin: Totalitarian Superpower, 1941–1990s, the last in his three-volume biography. https://libgen.is//search.php?req=Stephen+Kotkin
Vladimir Putin happened to turn 71 last October 7, the day Hamas assaulted Israel. The Russian president took the rampage as a birthday present; it shifted the context around his aggression in Ukraine. Perhaps to show his appreciation, he had his Foreign Ministry invite high-ranking Hamas representatives to Moscow in late October, highlighting an alignment of interests. Several weeks later, Putin announced his intention to stand for a fifth term in a choiceless election in March 2024 and later held his annual press conference, offering a phalanx of pliant journalists the privilege of hearing him smugly crow about Western fatigue over the war in Ukraine. “Almost along the entire frontline, our armed forces, let’s put it modestly, are improving their position,” Putin boasted in the live broadcast.
On February 16, Russia’s Federal Penitentiary Service announced the sudden death of the opposition activist Alexei Navalny, aged 47, in a penal colony above the Arctic Circle, from which he had continued to reach his millions of followers with instructions on how to protest Putin’s plebiscite. A month later, the most one could say was that the Kremlin had at least waited until after the voting was staged to announce Putin’s victory.
Putin styles himself as a new tsar. But a real tsar would not have to worry about a looming succession crisis and what it might do to his grip on power in the present. Putin does; that is partly why he must simulate elections. He is now set in his office until 2030, when he will be in his 78th year. Male life expectancy in Russia does not even reach 67 years; those who live to 60 can expect to survive to around 80. Russia’s confirmed centenarians are few. Putin might one day join their ranks. But even Stalin died.
Putin’s predecessor, Boris Yeltsin, turned out to be that rare would-be tsar who named a successor and smoothed his path to power. In 1999, Yeltsin, facing chronic health challenges and fearing that he and his “family” of corrupt cronies might face prison after he stepped down, chose Putin to preserve his liberty and legacy. “Take care of Russia,” Yeltsin offered as a parting instruction. In 2007, aged 76, he died a free man. But the protector has refrained from emulating his patron’s example. In 2008, Putin briefly stepped aside from the presidency, in recognition of the same two-consecutive-term limit that Yeltsin faced. Putin appointed a political nonentity in his place, shifted himself to the position of prime minister, and came right back for a third presidential term in 2012 and then a fourth. Finally, he induced his counterfeit legislature to alter the constitution to effectively remove any term limits. Stalin, too, had stubbornly clung to power, even as his infirmities worsened. He refused to countenance the emergence of a successor; eventually, he suffered a massive, final stroke and fell into a puddle of his own urine.
Putin is not Stalin. The Georgian despot built a superpower while dispatching tens of millions to their deaths in famines, forced labor camps, execution cellars, and a mismanaged defensive war. Putin, by contrast, has jerry-rigged a rogue power while sending hundreds of thousands to their deaths in a war of choice. The juxtaposition is nevertheless instructive. Stalin’s system proved unable to survive without him, despite having an institutionalized ruling party. And yet, amid the breakdown that began with the collapse of the Soviet Union but lasted well beyond 1991, Putin consolidated a new autocracy. This fusion of fragility and path dependence derives from m
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This is around the 1,000,000th time Russia has threatened to nuke the world, almost as many times as Russia's protege, North Korea, has made the same threat:
Russia warns the world is on the brink of a ‘direct military clash’ between nuclear powers
Holly Ellyatt | Mon, Apr 22, 2024, 11:57 AM EDT
https://www.cnbc.com/2024/04/22/ukraine-war-live-updates-latest-news-o
n-russia-and-the-war-in-ukraine.html
Russia warned Monday that the risk of a “direct military clash” between Russia and nuclear powers in the West is rising.
“Westerners are dangerously balancing on the brink of a direct military clash between nuclear powers, which is fraught with catastrophic consequences,” Russian Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov said in a video message to the participants of the Moscow Nonproliferation Conference.
The comments come after Russia reacted angrily to the U.S. House of Representatives passing a $61 billion foreign aid package for Kyiv at the weekend.
The Joss Whedon script for Serenity, where Wash lives, is Serenity-190pages.pdf at
https://www.mediafire.com/folder/1uwh75oa407q8/Firefly
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Quote:In case you were wondering about the philosophy of life motivating Russia to threaten a million times to nuke the world . . .
Originally posted by second:
This is around the 1,000,000th time Russia has threatened to nuke the world, almost as many times as Russia's protege, North Korea, has made the same threat.
Behind the New Iron Curtain
Caviar, counterculture, and the cult of Stalin reborn
by Marzio G. Mian, Translated by Elettra Pauletto
https://harpers.org/archive/2024/01/behind-the-new-iron-curtain/
The city is generally known as the Russian Chicago, because of its great industrial vitality and popularity with merchants and criminals. But in the summer, Samara becomes the Saint-Tropez of the Volga, with elegant beaches and a fashionable riverside promenade that is second only to Sochi’s. And just like Sochi, it seems to be a destination for hardcore Putin supporters. Bourgeois kids traverse its streets on scooters, wearing expensive American sneakers and the hottest T-shirt of the season—one bearing Stalin’s face and the phrase 'If I were here, we wouldn’t be dealing with all this shit'.
Stalin built a secret bunker under an old Communist Committee building in town in 1942, just after the narrow Soviet victory at the Battle of Moscow. These days it’s a pilgrimage destination. I went on a tour of the bunker, in which at least half my group consisted of people in their twenties. We descended to find the control room and apartment for the head of the USSR. The bunker was never used, but the guide explained that it was updated during the Cuban Missile Crisis and again after the annexation of Crimea in 2014. Today it can hold up to six hundred people for five days and “even gets cell phone service.” Andrei, a twenty-four-year-old electrical engineer who was visiting from Moscow with three friends, spontaneously told me of Stalin that “he was a winner.” We were in front of an original military map of the Soviet counteroffensive. “For us young people, Stalin is number one. We must fight evil like during the Great Patriotic War.” Did any negative associations come to mind? “They say a lot of things, but what matters is the results,” he said. “I think there were more deaths in the Nineties with the gang wars and alcohol. That was our first experience with democracy—the worst period of our history.”
In this second summer of what Andrei called the “war on evil,” even the most zealous popes indulge the Stalin worship, despite his confiscation of Orthodox Church assets and the fact that he has turned many of their cathedrals into prisons, factories, and army barracks. It was Piotrovsky, at the Hermitage, who suggested I meet a young priest named Mikhail Rodin, whom he called “an emerging voice.” He lived in Balakovo, Piotrovsky added, “a place forgotten by God.”
Father Rodin, who is forty-four and has four children, belongs to the Russian Orthodox Old Believer Church, which was born out of a seventeenth-century schism with the official Orthodox Church. A long history of repression and semi-clandestine masses followed. But today, the conflict with the main church, presided over by the crusading Patriarch Kirill of Moscow, seems to have subsided, with both factions supporting Russia’s sacred mission in Ukraine.
I arrived in Balakovo in the evening, the smell of ammonia in the air. Though the city revolved around two of the biggest power plants on the Volga, all its roads were dark. The only sign of life came from the Lucky Pub, which was hosting a concert by the Kiss, a popular local rock band—all the kids seemed to know their songs. I entered and felt like I was in the Midwest; there were pool tables, darts, French fries in baskets with checkered paper, and a sign reading make love not war.
Batyushka Rodin, who speaks excellent English, said that his church near Balakovo’s squalid industrial zone—a luxury lodge with fragrant pine logs, an oven to make the communion bread, icons donated by parishioners—had been financed by one Robert Stubblebine, an American native wh
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Dutch Defense Minister Kajsa Ollongren stated on April 19 that the Netherlands will contribute 150 million euros (about $159 million) to the German-led initiative to supply Ukraine with air defense systems and will purchase 60 million euros (about $64 million) worth of short-range air defense equipment for Ukraine to combat drone strikes.[62]
German Minister of Economic Affairs and Vice Chancellor Robert Habek and Head of Diehl Defense Helmut Rauch announced on April 18 that Germany will deliver an additional IRIS-T air defense system to Ukraine in a few weeks.[63]
Latvian Defense Minister Andris Spruds stated on April 22 that Latvia is prepared to give Ukraine a short-range air defense system.[64]
Denmark announced on April 16 that it will allocate 2.2 billion Danish kroner (about $314 million) worth of military assistance to Ukraine, including funds to strengthen Ukraine’s naval capabilities, purchase ammunition and drones, and produce missile components.[65]
Denmark announced that it would allocate 200 million Danish kroner (about $28 million) of this package to buy materiel for the Ukrainian military from Ukrainian manufacturers, becoming the first country to commit to this system of Western aid procurement for Ukraine.[66]
A crowdfunding campaign in Slovakia to support the Czech initiative that began on April 16 has raised $3.4 million as of April 22.[67]
The Office of the President of Ukraine stated on April 18 that Ukraine and the Czech Republic have begun negotiations on a bilateral security agreement.[68]
German State Secretary of Economic Affairs and Climate Action Sven Giegold stated on April 19 that Germany approved 5.2 billion euros (about $5.5 billion) worth of military equipment exports in the first quarter of 2024, of which about 3.8 billion euros (about $4 billion) went to Ukraine.[69]
https://www.understandingwar.org/backgrounder/russian-offensive-campai
gn-assessment-april-22-2024
The Joss Whedon script for Serenity, where Wash lives, is Serenity-190pages.pdf at
https://www.mediafire.com/folder/1uwh75oa407q8/Firefly
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Quote:In case you were wondering what philosophy of life motivates Russia to threaten a million times to nuke the world, an excellent place to start:
Originally posted by second:
He went on: “If Russians believe in something, they believe until the end. They believe in God. They’re ready to die for their faith. They believe in communism. They’re ready to die for that. They believe in Russia and they’re ready to sacrifice themselves for Russia.”
Even the atomic bomb, batyushka?
“Of course,” he replied quickly. “We’re ready to sacrifice ourselves. Because if we don’t win, we’ll burn it all down. If we can’t achieve this bright future, then what’s the point in living?” He grew more heated. “Our president is saying what everyone is thinking. If we don’t have the Russia we want, we’re ready to martyr ourselves, sacrifice ourselves and the whole world if it’s unjust and evil. There’s no need for a world like that.”
Leo Tolstoy on Finding Meaning in a Meaningless World
By Maria Popova | June 3, 2014
https://www.themarginalian.org/2014/06/03/tolstoy-confession/
The Joss Whedon script for Serenity, where Wash lives, is Serenity-190pages.pdf at
https://www.mediafire.com/folder/1uwh75oa407q8/Firefly
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Opinion | Ukraine Aid in the Light of History
By Paul Krugman | April 23, 2024
https://www.nytimes.com/2024/04/23/opinion/ukraine-aid-military.html
On Saturday the House of Representatives finally overcame MAGA opposition and approved a new aid package for Ukraine. The Biden administration presumably had matériel ready to ship, just waiting for congressional authorization, so the effects of this legislative breakthrough will be quick.
Like many observers, I’m simultaneously relieved, ashamed, angry and worried by what has happened. I’m relieved that a nation under siege will probably — probably — get aid in time to survive, at least for a while, something that was increasingly in doubt given overwhelming Russian artillery superiority. I’m ashamed that things got to this point — that America came so close to betraying a democracy in danger. I’m angry at the political faction that blocked aid for so many months, not, as I’ll explain below, because of reasonable concerns about the cost, but probably because they want Vladimir Putin to win. And I’m worried because that faction remains powerful — a majority of Republicans in the House voted against Ukraine aid — and could still doom Ukraine in the years ahead.
But let me set emotions aside and try to do some analysis. In particular, let me take on some myths about aid to Ukraine. No, spending on Ukraine isn’t a huge burden on America, coming at the expense of domestic priorities. No, America isn’t bearing this cost alone, without help from our European allies. Yes, U.S. aid is still crucial, in part because Europe can supply money but isn’t yet in a position to supply enough military hardware.
To understand these points, I find it useful to look back at the obvious historical parallel to current aid to Ukraine: Franklin Roosevelt’s Lend-Lease program, which began delivering aid to Britain and China in 1941, before Pearl Harbor brought America officially into World War II.
It is often forgotten how controversial that aid was at the time. Many people are probably aware that there was an America First movement that opposed any aid to embattled Britain, in part because some of its prominent leaders, notably Charles Lindbergh, were racist and openly sympathetic to the Nazis.
I suspect that fewer people are aware that even in Congress, Lend-Lease was a deeply partisan issue. The initial bill, enacted in early 1941, passed the House with very little Republican support. Even more strikingly, support for Lend-Lease (triangles pointing up in the chart below) was closely correlated with economic ideology (Dimension 1). Almost all liberals favored supporting Britain in its darkest hour; many conservatives didn’t:
Credit...Voteview.com https://voteview.com/rollcall/RH0770006
Yet the aid passed. Congress appropriated $13 billion before the attack on Pearl Harbor. This was an immense sum at the time — about 10 percent of America’s annual gross domestic product. Somewhat surprisingly, however, not much of that total consisted of weaponry. As the American Historical Association noted: “Our munitions industry was still largely in the tooling up state. And the flow of finished weapons was at first only a trickle.”
Indeed. Europe had begun rearming years before World War II started, while an isolationist United States hadn’t developed much of a defense industry — to take a famous example, the Sherman tank didn’t go into production until 1942. As a result, most of America’s initial aid took the form of food — at first we were less the arsenal of democracy than its breadbasket.
How does aid to Ukraine compare with that experience?
First, it’s vastly smaller relative to the size of our economy. The just-passed package will roughly double the cumulative aid we’ve given Ukraine, but at about $60 billion it’s less than one-fourth of 1 percent of G.D.P. — around one-fortieth the size of the initial Lend-Lease appropriation. Anyone claiming that spending on th
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United Kingdom (UK) Prime Minister Rishi Sunak announced the UK’s largest ever package of military assistance to Ukraine valued at 500 million pounds (around $662 million) on April 23.[19]
Sunak announced on April 23 that the UK will provide over 400 vehicles, 4 million rounds of small arms ammunition, 60 boats, air defense equipment, and Storm Shadow missiles to Ukraine. Sunak also stated that the UK will increase its military spending to 2.5 percent of its GDP by 2030, with spending gradually increasing to 87 billion pounds (about $108 billion) in the next six years.[20]
Sunak stated that the increased defense spending will put the UK “on a war footing” as the UK is facing an “axis of authoritarian states with different values...like Russia, Iran, North Korea, and China.”[21]
https://www.understandingwar.org/backgrounder/russian-offensive-campai
gn-assessment-april-23-2024
For reference to Sunak stating that 2.5% defense spending puts the UK “on a war footing” – at the height of the Second World War, the UK was spending around 53% of its GDP on its military. Defense spending was budgeted at 2.53 percent GDP in 2021. So Sunak’s “increase” to 2.5% in 2030 is a decrease from 2.53% in 2021.
Military expenditure (% of GDP) - United Kingdom
https://data.worldbank.org/indicator/MS.MIL.XPND.GD.ZS?locations=GB
Defence Spending since 1900
https://www.ukpublicspending.co.uk/past_spending
The Joss Whedon script for Serenity, where Wash lives, is Serenity-190pages.pdf at
https://www.mediafire.com/folder/1uwh75oa407q8/Firefly
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Europe — but Not NATO — Should Send Troops to Ukraine
By Alex Crowther, Jahara Matisek, and Phillips P. O’Brien | April 22, 2024
https://www.foreignaffairs.com/ukraine/europe-not-nato-should-send-tro
ops-ukraine
ALEX CROWTHER is a Senior Fellow with the Transatlantic Defense and Security Program at the Center for European Policy Analysis and a retired U.S. Army Colonel.
JAHARA MATISEK is a Military Professor at the U.S. Naval War College, Research Fellow at the European Resilience Initiative Center, and a Lieutenant Colonel in the U.S. Air Force. The views expressed here are his own.
PHILLIPS P. O’BRIEN is Head of the School of International Relations and Professor of Strategic Studies at the University of St. Andrews.
A taboo has been broken in Europe. Only a few months ago, it would have been inconceivable for European leaders to propose sending European troops to Ukraine. But on February 26, French President Emmanuel Macron said the deployment of European forces to Ukraine could not be “ruled out.” Since then, other European officials have joined the chorus; the Finnish defense minister and Polish foreign minister have both suggested that their countries’ forces could end up in Ukraine. These comments, combined with existing support for such measures in the Baltic states, show that there is a growing bloc of countries open to direct European intervention in the war.
These explosive comments are driven by shifting conflict dynamics. The debate in the U.S. Congress over sending military aid to Ukraine has been a debacle. A new aid package is finally on track for approval, but the months of dithering in Washington have dismayed Europeans and given Moscow hope that Western resolve to support Kyiv is cracking. Russian forces—bolstered by equipment from China, Iran, and North Korea—have taken advantage of the gap in U.S. military support for Ukraine by stepping up their attacks on civilians and nonmilitary infrastructure. In early April, knowing that Ukraine was running short of antiaircraft ammunition, Russia launched a missile attack that destroyed the largest power plant in the Kyiv region. Earlier, in March, Russian forces targeted a hydroelectric dam in Dnipro and other electrical facilities around Kherson, undermining Ukrainian industry and making the country’s economy more dependent on the European electrical grid. Further damage to critical infrastructure, nuclear power plants, and agricultural land will dramatically raise the costs of reconstruction, for which Ukraine’s partners in the West will likely have to foot much of the bill.
As Russian forces speed up their advance, the possibility that they could break through Ukrainian defenses along the eastern front and challenge Ukrainian control of Kharkiv or even Kyiv presents Europe with a security threat it cannot ignore. A Russian victory in Ukraine would vindicate President Vladimir Putin’s revisionist ambitions and belief in the inherent weakness of the West. It would enable the Kremlin to keep Russia on a war footing—an all-of-society approach to conquest that European countries would be unable to match. There is no reason to expect Putin to stop with Ukraine. He has called the breakup of the Soviet Union “the greatest geopolitical catastrophe” of the twentieth century, lamenting that “tens of millions of our co-citizens and compatriots found themselves outside Russian territory.” The Baltic states are in danger, as is Poland: last year, the former Russian prime minister and Putin loyalist Dmitri Medvedev described the Baltics as “our” (meaning Russian) provinces? and Poland as “temporarily occupied” (meaning by NATO).
By threatening to send troops, European countries are trying to disrupt this worrying trajectory. To truly change the outcome in Ukraine, however, European countries must do more than simply talk about deployments. If the United States continues to delay aid, and especially if it elects Donald Trump (who has pledged to end the war in Ukraine within 24 hours, presumably by allowing Putin to keep his ill-gotten gains) as
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Lawmaker Complains That Young Russians Value Their Lives Too Much
“The person for whom life is the most important thing will sell out their country.”
By Allison Quinn | Apr. 23, 2024, 8:47 AM EDT
https://www.thedailybeast.com/lawmaker-complains-that-young-russians-v
alue-their-lives-too-much
Alexei Zhuravlev, the first deputy chairman of the State Duma’s defense committee, also reminded the audience on Tuesday of the time he told a German journalist on live TV that Russia would “come and kill you all.”
(Russia is paying contract soldiers 10 times more than ordinary jobs, but Zhuravlev is displeased that only 1,000 Russians are signing contracts daily. The Russian Army needs more manpower to “come and kill you all.” )
The Joss Whedon script for Serenity, where Wash lives, is Serenity-190pages.pdf at
https://www.mediafire.com/folder/1uwh75oa407q8/Firefly
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German Chancellor to Putin: Stop "Appropriating" Kant
By Camilla Jessen | Apr. 23, 2024, 2:46 PM CET
https://www.dagens.com/news/german-chancellor-to-putin-stop-appropriat
ing-kant
While Putin has referred to Kant as his "favorite philosopher," the German Chancellor highlighted that Kant's concepts of human rights and human dignity, as well as his ideas about war and peace, are fundamentally at odds with Putin's practices in Russia and his aggressive actions in Ukraine.
Kant was born, lived, and died in Königsberg, which became part of the Soviet Union in 1945 and was later renamed Kaliningrad in 1946.
P.S. – Russia stole Königsberg and refuses to return it to the rightful owners, who either fled or were “expelled” (a euphemism for a bullet into the back of the head). You’ve got to love those Russians for being straightforward murderers and thieves, but you can’t love that Russians lie about how they came to own the land.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/K%C3%B6nigsberg
The Joss Whedon script for Serenity, where Wash lives, is Serenity-190pages.pdf at
https://www.mediafire.com/folder/1uwh75oa407q8/Firefly
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Ukraine Is Still Outgunned by Russia
Even with the approval of new U.S. aid, most of the artillery Ukraine needs won’t get to the front until next year.
By Jack Detsch | April 23, 2024, 5:49 PM
https://foreignpolicy.com/2024/04/23/ukraine-war-artillery-shortage-pr
oduction-military-aid-bill/
Ukraine is still likely to be outgunned by Russian artillery for much of the rest of 2024 despite Congress nearing the passage of a $60 billion military aid bill for Kyiv, officials and analysts told Foreign Policy, as both the United States and Europe ramp up production of NATO-standard rounds and restock their own arsenals.
For months, Ukrainian troops have been firing about 2,000 rounds a day, barely enough to sustain a defensive war against the Russians. And even with the approval of new U.S. aid, most factories have yet to ramp up production.
“The problem is there is a huge shortage—worldwide—of artillery shells,” said Oleksandra Ustinova, a Ukrainian lawmaker. “The Europeans said they would provide us a million shells—they provided only 30 percent of those. The Americans have dried out their stocks, and they’re also delivering to Israel. And they are only ramping up the production line.”
The congressional seal of approval, expected to come Tuesday or Wednesday, will mean that the Biden administration can begin to replenish the U.S. Defense Department’s stockpiles of ammunition that the United States might need to fight a war of its own someday, thereby allowing the White House enough leeway to begin sending artillery to the Ukrainians from storehouses in Europe without harming U.S. military readiness. Reuters reported that the Biden administration is preparing a $1 billion package that will include artillery, rockets, and lots of vehicles.
But the expectation is that the administration will spend much of the year rebuilding U.S. stockpiles to prewar levels as the U.S. Army aims to level up artillery production to 100,000 rounds per month by the end of 2025.
Across the Atlantic Ocean, Europe’s stockpiles are empty. Most of the output from the European Union’s initiative to get 1.4 million shells into Ukrainian hands—about half of which have already been delivered—won’t get there until the end of 2024. So Ukraine’s partners on the continent are searching under the couch cushions and looking for suppliers outside the European bloc to find enough artillery to keep Kyiv’s gun barrels hot.
The Czech Republic appears to have sourced enough money from a consortium of European countries to buy 500,000 rounds of 155 mm artillery ammunition and is currently working on getting the first batch to Ukraine. The Estonian government, which also has an initiative to crowdfund artillery shells for the Ukrainians, has not started fundraising.
Refurbishing old artillery ammunition is about 30 percent cheaper than buying new shells, European officials said, but much of it comes from former Soviet satellite countries that aren’t keen to be on the Kremlin’s bad side.
“I think it’s fair to assume that the Ukrainians for the next 12 months will be able to have a monthly fire rate of maybe roughly 75,000 to 85,000 [shells] per month, which boils down to something like 2,400 to 2,500 rounds per day,” said Franz-Stefan Gady, an associate fellow at the International Institute for Strategic Studies in London who conducted a study recently examining Ukraine’s rate of artillery fire.
Gady said that is about the minimum amount that Ukraine needs to sustain a defensive war against the Russians. “That doesn’t leave any room for offensive operations this year,” Gady added. And congressional critics of U.S. aid to Ukraine—such as Sen. J.D. Vance, who argued in the New York Times this month that the United States simply doesn’t have “the capacity to manufacture the amount of weapons Ukraine needs us to supply to win the war”—are going to continue to make that case loudly.
In the meantime, Russia is on track to produce 3.5 million rounds in 2024 and might be able to surge to produce 4.5 million rounds by the end of the
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Ukraine still has a major problem that aid can't fix
By Tom Porter | Apr 24, 2024, 8:11 AM CDT
https://www.businessinsider.com/ukraine-still-has-major-problem-that-u
s-aid-fix-russia-2024-4
"The most important source of Ukrainian weakness is the lack of manpower," Konrad Muzyka, director of the Rochan military consultancy in Poland, told Reuters.
Oleksandr, a battalion commander, told The Washington Post in February that companies in his unit are staffed at around 35% of normal levels.
This week, Ukraine said it had suspended consular services for military-age male Ukrainians abroad, in an apparent attempt to get tough on young men who fled the country to avoid being sent to fight.
Meanwhile, Ukraine's government has reduced the draft age from 27 to 25. (25 years shows the Ukrainians are not being serious. For an example of seriousness, on November 11, 1942, the US Congress approved lowering the minimum draft age to 18 and raising the maximum to 37. If the Ukrainians don’t get serious, they will lose and deserve to lose.)
The Joss Whedon script for Serenity, where Wash lives, is Serenity-190pages.pdf at
https://www.mediafire.com/folder/1uwh75oa407q8/Firefly
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Biden admin isn’t fully convinced Ukraine can win, even with new aid
Few Biden administration officials or lawmakers say the $60 billion package means Ukraine walks away from the battlefield with its country fully restored.
By Alexander Ward | 04/24/2024 02:27 PM EDT
https://www.politico.com/news/2024/04/24/biden-ukraine-russia-war-aid-
00154143
Biden administration officials expect the $60 billion will last at least through the end of this presidential term. Should Biden win reelection against former President Donald Trump, it’s unclear if he would need to ask Congress — which could see Republicans lead both the Senate and House — for another authorization.
(It is perfectly clear that this war will continue for years. What is unclear is why anybody thinks it won't. It is also unclear why those dummies in Ukraine have not devised a workable plan to close the Kerch Strait Bridge permanently. Surely some Ukrainian knows how. If nobody does, this is very sad for Ukraine.
On a similar note, surely some Ukrainian knows how to cross or go around a Russian minefield without their weaponry, ammo, and other supplies being blown to smithereens. If nobody does, this is also very sad for Ukraine.)
The Joss Whedon script for Serenity, where Wash lives, is Serenity-190pages.pdf at
https://www.mediafire.com/folder/1uwh75oa407q8/Firefly
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Still beating a dead horse, I see.
Ukraine can't win this conventional war.
NATO can't win this conventional war.
Not only that, but even with our "secret" delivery of ATACMS in February and this most recent aid package, there is a strong possibility that Ukraine will collapse before November. Now THAT would be poetic justice.
The only bloc that might be motivated to go nuclear is the west because time is on the BRICS' side.
Got the "I told you so's" primed and ready to go.
-----------
"It may be dangerous to be America's enemy, but to be America's friend is fatal." - Henry Kissinger
Why SECOND'S posts are brainless: "I clocked how much time: no more than 10 minutes per day. With cut-and-paste (Ctrl C and Ctrl V) and AI, none of this takes much time."
Or, any verification or thought.
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