Russia Invades Ukraine. Again
POSTED BY: captaincrunch
UPDATED: Sunday, September 6, 2026 21:09
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Oh, THUGR: YOU never served in combat anywhere either. 
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"It may be dangerous to be America's enemy, but to be America's friend is fatal." - Henry Kissinger
Loving America is like loving an addicted spouse - SIGNYM
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How Russia Stopped Ukraine’s Momentum
A Deep Defense Is Hard to Beat
By Stephen Biddle | January 29, 2024
https://www.foreignaffairs.com/ukraine/how-russia-stopped-ukraines-mom
entum
the Russians had adopted the kind of deep, prepared defenses that have been very difficult for attackers to break through for more than the last century of combat experience. Breakthrough has been—and still is—possible in land warfare. But this has long required permissive conditions that are now absent in Ukraine: a defender, in this case Russia, whose dispositions are shallow, forward, ill prepared, or logistically unsupported or whose troops are unmotivated and unwilling to defend their positions. That was true of Russian forces in Kyiv, Kharkiv, and Kherson in 2022. It is no longer the case.
The implications of this for Ukraine are grim. Without an offensive breakthrough, success in land warfare becomes an attrition struggle. A favorable outcome for Ukraine in a war of attrition is not impossible, but it will require its forces to outlast a numerically superior foe in what could become a very long war.
The German Wehrmacht of World War II is commonly considered among the modern era’s most proficient armies at the tactical and operational levels of war. Yet the German breakthrough attempt at Kursk in southwestern Russia in 1943 failed when confronted with deep, well-prepared Soviet defenses. Erwin Rommel’s German Afrika Corps failed to break through deep Allied defenses at Tobruk in Libya in 1941 despite its air superiority and a major advantage in tanks, and Rommel failed to break through deep Allied defenses at Alam el Halfa in Egypt in 1942.
In fact, it has been very rare historically for attackers to break through defenses of this kind. During World War II, Allied armies with air superiority and crushing numerical advantages still failed against such defenses in Operations Epsom, Goodwood and Market Garden and the battles of Monte Cassino, the Siegfried Line and Villers-Bocage in 1944-45. Nor did this pattern end in 1945. Iraqi armored offensives became bogged down against even moderately deep Iranian defenses in the siege of Abadan in 1980-81, and Iranian offensives failed to penetrate Iraqi defenses in depth at Basra in 1987. More recently, the 1999 battle of Tsorona between Ethiopia and Eritrea and the Israeli invasion of southern Lebanon in 2006 showed a similar pattern, with mechanized offensives making slow progress when they encountered deep, prepared defenses.
Offensive breakthroughs do happen. But they typically require a combination of offensive skill and a permissive environment created by shallow, forward defensive deployments or unmotivated or logistically unsupported defenders or both. The German invasion of France in 1940 knocked France out of the war in a month, and the German invasion of the Soviet Union in 1941 advanced to the gates of Moscow in a season, but both offensives were enabled by shallow, ill-prepared defenses that committed too much of their combat power forward where it could be pinned down, away from the point of attack. The American offensive in Operation Cobra in Normandy in 1944 broke through an atypically shallow, forward German defense. The Israeli offensive in the 1967 War broke through Egyptian defenses in the Sinai in less than six days, but this was enabled by poor Egyptian combat preparations and motivation.
The American offensive in Operation Desert Storm of 1991 reconquered Kuwait in 100 hours, but this was enabled by fatally flawed Iraqi fighting positions and the limited skills of Iraqi soldiers. Similarly, Ukrainian offensives at Kyiv and Kharkiv in 2022 broke through shallow, overextended Russian defenses, and the Ukrainian offensive at Kherson in 2022 overwhelmed a logistically unsustainable Russian defense that was isolated on the western side of the Dnipro River.
By 2023, however, the Russians had adapted and deployed a more orthodox defense in depth without the geographical vulnerability that had undermined them at Kherson. And these better-designed d
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Does Biden Have a Plan to Win the War in Ukraine?
It is all too easy to lay the blame on opposition Republicans for the log jam in funding for Ukraine but even when the money is released how will it be used to ensure success for Kyiv?
By Jonathan Sweet By Mark Toth | January 30, 2024, 12:29 pm
https://www.kyivpost.com/opinion/27358
President Joe Biden does not have a plan to win the war, other than to keep arming Ukraine to defend itself. The US Army’s General George Patton gave his opinion on that course of action: “Nobody ever defended anything successfully, there is only attack and attack and attack some more.”
Biden’s avowed strategy to “stand for liberty and freedom today, tomorrow, and for as long as it takes” has become a toxic recipe for just another “forever war.”
Killing more Russians will not win the war. Russian President Vladimir Putin is prepared to conscript and send more. Ukraine’s Commander-in-Chief of the Armed Forces General Valerii Zaluzhny acknowledged that reality in November: “That was my mistake. In any other country, such casualties would have stopped the war.”
Meanwhile, as Washington struggles to come up with a solution, Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky and his generals are “doggedly forging ahead and boldly implementing new military tactics” throughout the depth of the battlespace – to include Russia.
It is not the primary responsibility of Congress to present military plans to the White House. That responsibility is on the President of the United States, as the Commander-in-Chief, and his National Security team. The responsibility of Congress is to fund the plan when it is submitted. Yet three powerful Republicans penned a plan in November 2023 entitled, “Proposed Plan for Victory in Ukraine.” The proposal was submitted by Michael McCaul (R-TX), Mike Rogers (R-AL), and Mike Turner (R-OH), Chairmen of the House Foreign Affairs Committee, House Armed Services Committee, and the House Permanent Selection Committee on Intelligence respectively.
The proposal calls for the President to “present a credible plan for victory and arm Ukraine with the weapons it needs to win as soon as possible.” They have even identified “the longest-range variant of ATACMS, F-16s and sufficient quantities of cluster munitions, artillery, air defenses, and armor to make a difference on the battlefield” as part of the solution.
It is not an unreasonable request. Defensive weapons cannot win wars – and Ukraine lacks the offensive capabilities right now needed to expel Russian forces from the Donbas and Crimean Peninsula.
The President needs to embrace and build off the Republican proposal, assemble his Flag Officers – active and retired (Keane, Petraeus, Stavridis, McCaffrey, Hodges, Hertling, and H. R. McMaster, to name but a few), then put together a plan. As with any endeavor - it starts with a plan.
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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Russia shows no willingness to return the bodies of dozens of Ukrainian prisoners of war Moscow says died in a military plane crash in Belgorod region last week.
Kyiv has said Moscow has provided no evidence to support its assertion that 65 captured Ukrainian soldiers were aboard the Russian military transport plane, which crashed last Wednesday in Belgorod in Russia near the border.
https://en.defence-ua.com/news/update_on_the_il_76_aircraft_crash_russ
ia_is_not_ready_to_hand_over_the_bodies_and_what_does_it_mean-9348.html
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:
How Russia Stopped Ukraine’s Momentum
A Deep Defense Is Hard to Beat
By Stephen Biddle | January 29, 2024
Thank you, Cap'n Obvious.
Quote:
Does Biden Have a Plan to Win the War in Ukraine?
By Jonathan Sweet By Mark Toth | January 30, 2024, 12:29 pm
Short answer: NO
Quote:
Kyiv has said Moscow has provided no evidence to support its assertion that 65 captured Ukrainian soldiers were aboard the Russian military transport plane, which crashed last Wednesday in Belgorod in Russia near the border.
I guess a video isn't good enough.
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"It may be dangerous to be America's enemy, but to be America's friend is fatal." - Henry Kissinger
Loving America is like loving an addicted spouse - SIGNYM
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Do you recall Russia denying it would invade Ukraine? Denial was followed by invasion:
The West’s belief that Russia could invade the Baltic nations, Sweden and Finland after Moscow’s so-styled “special military operation” in Ukraine, is absurd, Russia’s foreign minister said Tuesday.
Discussing the situation in Ukraine with the heads of diplomatic missions, Sergei Lavrov ridiculed Western concerns that Russia could go on to invade other former Soviet states, like the Baltic countries of Latvia, Lithuania or Estonia, or its neighbor Finland or Sweden. The latter two countries have either joined NATO or are expecting to gain membership.
“The mentality is [that] everything related to Ukraine must be used to inflict, as they say, a strategic defeat on Russia,” he said, according to Google-translated comments reported by Russian state news agency Tass.
“They directly say: ‘If Russia wins and defends its interests in this war, then the Baltic states, Sweden, Finland will be next’,” Lavrov added.
“The absurdity of such statements is clear to everyone, to anyone who understands history in the slightest degree and understands the goals that we openly, without hiding, announced regarding the special military operation in Ukraine.”
Lavrov repeated claims made by Russian President Vladimir Putin and other Russian officials that Ukraine was a historical part of Russia, and that Ukrainians and Russians are “one people.” He also reiterated that NATO intended to threaten the security of Russia.
NATO denies such accusations.
“We are eliminating historical injustice,” Lavrov said, adding that “we are eliminating attempts not only to rewrite the history of the peoples of our country ... [but to] turn the modern territories on which Russians and other peoples of Russia have lived for centuries into a springboard that NATO, led by the United States, would use to threaten the security of the Russian Federation.”
Kyiv rebuffs Russia’s historical claims, as it looks to restore its territorial integrity and independence following Russia’s invasion.
— Holly Ellyatt https://www.cnbc.com/2024/01/30/ukraine-war-live-updates-latest-news-o
n-russia-and-the-war-in-ukraine.html
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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For Kremlin, divide with West isn’t just geopolitical. It’s moral.
By Fred Weir Special correspondent | January 30, 2024 | MOSCOW
https://www.csmonitor.com/World/Europe/2024/0130/For-Kremlin-divide-wi
th-West-isn-t-just-geopolitical.-It-s-moral
For over a decade, experts have noted that Russian political culture has been drifting away from the pragmatic, technocratic authoritarianism that characterized the first stage of the Vladimir Putin era, which was open to all sorts of cooperation with the West.
Now, it is taking a more ideological stance that sees the West as not merely a geopolitical foe but also the source of destructive moral and cultural contagion.
Russia is considering a law that will require any foreigners entering the country to sign a “loyalty agreement,” pledging not to defame Russia’s history or state institutions, nor to advocate for any “nontraditional” sexual ideas while visiting the country. Under the proposed legislation, which is being prepared by the Kremlin, there will be legal consequences for violators.
Another bill presently before the Duma, Russia’s lower house of parliament, would target foreigners and Russians living abroad for statements and actions deemed “Russophobic” – expressing hatred or contempt toward Russia or things Russian. Punishments could include confiscation of property within Russia or a ban on entering the country.
In Soviet times, there was a coherent state ideology strictly curated by the Communist Party. But Russia’s emerging order seems a mix of tough but often vaguely worded laws designed to limit critical speech and public protest, strengthen military preparedness, and ban “deleterious” Western influences such as gender-affirming care and public homosexuality. At the same time, the government is pushing an ill-defined campaign to celebrate Russia’s distinctly conservative civilizational qualities, historical greatness, and adherence to “traditional” moral values.
“This is a way of consolidating the ‘good Russians,’ the patriotic ones, around [President] Putin and the Kremlin,” says Maria Lipman, co-editor of the Russia Post, a journal of Russian affairs published by George Washington University. “The government is the main trendsetter, but there are many public actors who put forward their own initiatives, sometimes a bit too much. But in the present atmosphere, it’s unacceptable to come up with any progressive proposal, but perfectly OK to float any socially conservative idea.”
An anti-progressive atmosphere
The Duma has erected a legislative fortress aimed at blocking the penetration of Western influence, beginning in 2012 with laws against foreign-connected civil society groups. Those laws have since led to the banning of most big, internationally connected organizations and the extension of the “foreign agent” label to hundreds of groups and individuals that are critical of authority.
The pace of anti-Western measures has intensified amid Russia’s war in Ukraine, which the Kremlin has convinced most Russians is a struggle for survival against a West united in its hostility.
While the Kremlin’s legal campaign is sweeping, lower-level officials are often eager to push further with their own socially conservative proposals, says Ms. Lipman. Some regional officials have suggested measures to prohibit young women from wearing pants, while a leading Duma deputy recently suggested the restoration of traditional shop classes in which girls learn to make borscht and boys learn to use tools.
“Some of these ideas are too much, and not likely to get official support,” she says. “But they have the effect of changing the atmosphere, and driving public moods further in the same direction.”
For example, growing calls to ban abortion, despite having support of the Russian Orthodox Church, will probably not go far in a society in which women tend to be better educated than men and have been part of the workforce, with full rights to control their private choices, for about a century.
But the mounting campaign against the “propaganda of no
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Russia claimed Japanese islands. Yesterday, Japan countered Russian claims. Russians were instantly angered, claiming their constitution made that part of Japan forever Russian land. Where did Russia do the same? In Ukraine.
Russian Security Council Deputy Chairperson Dmitry Medvedev made offensive and inflammatory comments about Japan while asserting Russia’s rights to the disputed Kuril Islands, likely as part of wider Kremlin efforts to demonstrate Russia’s support of China against the US alliance system in the Indo-Pacific. Japanese Prime Minister Fumio Kishida stated on January 30 that Japanese sanctions against Russia and support for Ukraine will continue but that Japan is interested in resolving its territorial issues with Russia and signing a peace treaty.[17] Japan never signed a formal peace treaty with the Soviet Union after the end of World War II.
Russian Security Council Deputy Chairperson Dmitry Medvedev responded to Kishida’s statement and claimed that the disputed Kuril Islands are Russian and that the “territorial question” between Russia and Japan about the islands is “closed” according to Russia’s constitution – referring to amendments to Russia’s constitution in 2020 that banned territorial concessions.[18] Medvedev claimed that Russia will “actively” develop the Kuril Islands and that their “strategic role” will grow as Russia stations new weapons there.[19] Russia has been installing military infrastructure on the Kuril Islands since at least 2015.[20] Medvedev used highly offensive language to imply that Russia would not negotiate with Japan about the islands and to criticize Japan’s relations with the United States.[21]
Medvedev posted these comments on his English-language X (formerly Twitter) account as opposed to his Russian-language Telegram channel, suggesting that his objective was specifically to offend Japan in the English-speaking world and posture aggressively towards the US and its allies in the Indo-Pacific. The Russian Pacific Fleet also conducted an anti-submarine exercise in the South China Sea on January 29.[22] Medvedev’s claims and the Pacific Fleet exercises are likely aimed at demonstrating that Russia is a strong Pacific power that supports China against the US alliance system in the Indo-Pacific, as the Kremlin has routinely stressed in the past.[23]
https://www.understandingwar.org/backgrounder/russian-offensive-campai
gn-assessment-january-30-2024
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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Joe Biden Is Arming Greece So Greece Can Arm Ukraine—And Pro-Russia Republicans Can’t Stop Him
‘Excess defense articles’ is a powerful authority
By David Axe | Jan 30, 2024, 09:45pm EST
https://www.forbes.com/sites/davidaxe/2024/01/30/joe-biden-is-arming-g
reece-so-greece-can-arm-ukraine-and-pro-russia-republicans-cant-stop-him/?sh=4048cdb5424e
As the Republican Party’s blockade of aid to Ukraine drags into its fourth month, the U.S. government under Pres. Joe Biden has found a clever new way to give Ukraine’s forces the weapons and ammunition they need to defend their country.
It is, in essence, an American version of Germany’s circular weapons trade—the so-called Ringtausch. The United States is gifting older surplus weapons to Greece with the understanding that Greece donates to Ukraine some of its own surplus weapons.
Greek media broke the news last week. According to the newspaper Kathimerini and other media, the Biden administration offered the Greek government three 87-foot Protector-class patrol boats, two Lockheed Martin C-130H airlifters, 10 Allison T56 turboprop engines for Lockheed P-3 patrol planes plus 60 M-2 Bradley fighting vehicles and a consignment of transport trucks.
All this hardware is U.S. military surplus—and is available to Greece, free of charge, under a U.S. legal authority called “excess defense articles.” Federal law allows an American president to declare military systems surplus to need, assign them a value—potentially zero dollars—and give them away on the condition that the recipient transport them.
The law caps annual EDA transfers at $500 million. The same law doesn’t dictate the value the president assigns to surplus weapons. In a letter to Greek prime minister Kyriakos Mitsotakis, U.S. Secretary of State Antony Blinken described the ships, planes, engines and vehicles as “free concessions.”
The EDA gifts to Greece sweeten a larger arms package that includes 40 Lockheed F-35 stealth fighters, which Greece is buying for $8.6 billion. The Biden administration previously approved, in 2022 and 2023, $60 million in financing for arms-purchases by Athens.
In exchange for this largess, the Americans want the Greeks to donate more weapons to the Ukrainians. “We continue to be interested in the defense capabilities that Greece could transfer or sell to Ukraine,” Blinken wrote.
The Americans even offered a reward once the donation is complete. “If these capabilities are of interest to Ukraine, and pending an assessment of their status and value by the U.S. government, we can explore opportunities for possible additional foreign armed forces financing of up to $200 million for Greece.”
The Greek military operates, or holds in storage, an array of Soviet- and U.S.-designed weaponry that would be of immediate value to the Ukrainian military—in particular, S-300 and Hawk long-range air-defense batteries, Tor and Osa short-range air-defense vehicles and ZU-23-2 air-defense guns. Also: ammunition for all these systems.
Some or all of those weapons could be heading to Ukraine. “Political and military leadership has already given the necessary directions so that obsolete systems and equipment that are no longer used by the Greek army are transferred to Ukraine,” Kathimerini reported.
The Greek ring-transfer was a delicate one, as tensions between Greece and Turkey mean the United States usually offers both countries new weapons at the same time—and in roughly the same quantity.
So it’s no accident that, simultaneous with the Greek arms deal, the U.S. State Department cleared Turkey to spend $23 billion on 40 new Lockheed F-16 fighters and 79 upgrade kits for older F-16s, plus munitions for the fighters. The deal also was a reward for Turkey finally consenting to Sweden joining NATO.
Germany’s Ringtausch program has speeded to Ukraine scores of tanks and other heavy weapons. America’s own ring trade could do the same—potentially on an even grander scale. Greece isn’t the only country with old weapons that it might give away, if the United States offers somet
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SECOND, when you post walls of bullcrap, nobody bothers to read it.
Just saying.
-----------
"It may be dangerous to be America's enemy, but to be America's friend is fatal." - Henry Kissinger
Loving America is like loving an addicted spouse - SIGNYM
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Joe Biden* isn't doing shit anyhow. His biggest accomplishment every day is not drooling all over his suits, and he fails at that most of the time.
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Political correctness is just tyranny, with a smiley face.
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Quote:You have written approximately that same sentence hundreds of times. I got the message the first time, years past, but a different one than the one you think you are sending. The real message is that you are a retard, Signym. That's why you wrote the same message over and over. You can't stifle yourself. Your buddy 6ixStringJack sends stupid messages while under the illusion that he is communicating brilliantly. He has proved that he is a retard who, afraid of the new, left the wide world to live alone in a lower-class Trumptard neighborhood. What will he do if Trump isn't the next President? If Trump proves to be not fine? More sound and fury signifying nothing from 6ix? See this:
Originally posted by SIGNYM:
SECOND, when you post walls of bullcrap, nobody bothers to read it.
Just saying.
Quote:
Originally posted by 6ixStringJack:
Joe Biden* isn't doing shit anyhow. His biggest accomplishment every day is not drooling all over his suits, and he fails at that most of the time.
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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Fuck Ukraine, fuck Russia, and fuck you.
Don't talk about Sigs repeating herself. I've got to listen to the same old bullshit coming out of your dumb face every single day I show up here, fucktard.
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Political correctness is just tyranny, with a smiley face.
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Quote:
Originally posted by SIGNYM:
SECOND, when you post walls of bullcrap, nobody bothers to read it.
Just saying.
SECOND: You have written approximately that same sentence hundreds of times. I got the message the first time, years past, blah blah blah
Why don't you take a chill pill and listen to some nice music?
Go out for a walk and enjoy some sunshine?
Cook and enjoy a good meal, or paint a picture?
Yanno, do something pleasant for a change?
Achieve some peace in your life?
-----------
"It may be dangerous to be America's enemy, but to be America's friend is fatal." - Henry Kissinger
Loving America is like loving an addicted spouse - SIGNYM
NOTIFY: Y | REPLY | REPLY WITH QUOTE | PERMALINK | TOP | HOME
Quote:What? The European model of life? The EU failed its small promise, shrugged its shoulders, and made a smaller promise for 2025:
Originally posted by SIGNYM:Quote:
Originally posted by SIGNYM:
SECOND, when you post walls of bullcrap, nobody bothers to read it.
Just saying.
SECOND: You have written approximately that same sentence hundreds of times. I got the message the first time, years past, blah blah blah
Why don't you take a chill pill and listen to some nice music?
Go out for a walk and enjoy some sunshine?
Cook and enjoy a good meal, or paint a picture?
Yanno, do something pleasant for a change?
Achieve some peace in your life?
The European Union (EU) will reportedly fall short of its promise to provide Ukraine with one million artillery shells by March 1, 2024, as European leaders call on EU member states to intensify deliveries of ammunition to Ukraine. Bloomberg reported on January 31 that Western diplomats stated that EU partners will only deliver 600,000 artillery shells to Ukraine by the March 1, 2024 deadline.[20] European Union (EU) Internal Market Commissioner Thierry Breton stated on January 20 that the EU will have the capacity to produce one million shells per year by March or April 2024 and will ensure that it delivers the “majority” of the shells to Ukraine.[21] German Chancellor Olaf Scholz, Danish Prime Minister Metter Frederiksen, Czech Prime Minister Petr Fiala, Estonian Prime Minister Kaja Kallas, and Dutch Prime Minister Mark Rutte acknowledged that the EU fell short of its promise to deliver one million shells to Ukraine by March 2024 in a letter published by the Financial Times on January 31.[22] The letter noted that new orders for artillery ammunition will not reach the battlefield in Ukraine until 2025 and urged the EU to find ways to accelerate the delivery of promised shells to Ukraine, either through provisions of existing stocks or through joint procurement efforts.[23]
https://www.understandingwar.org/backgrounder/russian-offensive-campai
gn-assessment-january-31-2024
The EU doesn't want to strain itself. It is simpler and quicker to surrender to circumstances. Let the Russians and Trumptards take what they want because they really, really want it bad.
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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France wishes to turn the Ukraine war into a welfare program for EU defense contractors.
Average Europeans are cheese-eating surrender monkeys and the Russians know it.
https://www.msn.com/en-us/news/world/ukraine-launches-massive-storm-sh
adow-missile-attack-on-crimea/ar-BB1hz7Rc
War chest funds
Leaders from the bloc’s 27 member states hope to sign off on the latest update of the European Peace Facility, a Brussels war chest used to fund arms transfers to Ukraine, at a summit on Thursday.
On the negotiating table is a €5 billion (£4.2 billion) top-up to the fund, but also a shift away from reimbursing countries’ military donations to Kyiv to financing arms production.
The latest scheme, which will only guarantee deliveries for the rest of the year, marks a step back from previous plans to finalise a four-year commitment of €20 billion.
France is pushing to ensure the money is only funnelled through European arms manufacturers in joint procurement orders by the member states.
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 survival: Three scenarios for the war in 2024
Russia has gained the upper hand in its war on Ukraine. To reverse Moscow’s progress, the West will need to invest more in supporting Kyiv. With this in mind, here are three scenarios for what could happen in 2024
By Gustav Gressel | 31 January 2024
https://ecfr.eu/article/ukraines-survival-three-scenarios-for-the-war-
in-2024/
Last year, I sketched out how Russia’s war on Ukraine might unfold during the course of 2023. Since that time, the conflict has drifted towards the more negative end of expectations. Over the past year, Ukraine was unable to reverse many of Russia’s territorial gains, and by the winter Moscow had regained the strategic initiative.
At the end of 2022, Russia was in a worse predicament than Ukraine is now, but after hitting this low it found ways to fix its main problems. It began to innovate in terms of its military tactics in order to use its forces more effectively, used innovative recruitment tactics to fill its ranks, and transitioned towards a war economy to increase production of much-needed equipment.
In contrast, the West failed to enact the policies necessary to ease Ukraine’s materiel shortages. Over 2023, there was no concerted defence-industrial effort to resupply Ukraine with armoured fighting vehicles of various kinds. Even the production of ammunition is a long way behind schedule, particularly in Europe: of the 2.3 million shells used by Ukraine in 2023, only 300,000 were European. Joint European procurement initiatives on ammunition only became a reality in late 2023, and similar initiatives for military equipment will get going by 2024 at the earliest.
The time this takes to materialise exacerbates Ukraine’s dependency on American support, with the US presidential election in November likely to determine the country’s fate. While current budgetary battles in the United States and partisan fights over military assistance have kicked in earlier than expected, Europeans nevertheless failed to use the last 12 months to prepare for this turn of events. The European Union’s much-vaunted strategic autonomy goal is a mirage.
As I predicted a year ago, there is no ceasefire, no negotiation, and no stalemate. Time and again, Vladimir Putin has made clear his aim is not to conquer just 20 per cent of Ukraine. In his mind, Russia and Ukraine are one, and the existence of an independent Ukrainian nation is an anti-Russian plot cooked up through foreign interference. His speech to the Russian defence ministry last month reconfirmed this ambition. He wants to annex the eastern and southern parts of Ukraine and would likely be content to turn the remainder into an occupied puppet state, little different to today’s Belarus.
Furthermore, Putin’s political aim is to re-establish Russia as a new great power, reshaping the political order of Europe. Re-establishing the “unity” of Russia-Ukraine-Belarus is the precondition for this resurrection. A true ceasefire, or the abandonment of further attempts to conquer Ukraine, would for Putin mean not only the abandonment of his aspirations in that country, but his entire political vision for the future international order. He has invested immense resources in this gamble and will not easily reconsider, if not forced to do so. For these reasons, only binary outcomes are possible: either Russia wins or Ukraine wins.
2024 will be the most challenging time for Ukraine since the first two months of the full-scale invasion
Given Western hesitation to ramp up arms production, and the lack of planning for the period after the counter-offensive, 2024 will be the most challenging time for Ukraine since the first two months of the full-scale invasion. By mid-2023, Kyiv had more or less given up relying on the West to resupply it with what it needed to sustain the war: drones, electronic warfare systems, and armoured combat vehicles such as tanks and infantry fighting vehicles. The Ukrainian government looked at producing these locally and initiated an ambitious programme not on
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Quote:
Originally posted by second:Quote:What? The European model of life? The EU failed its small promise, shrugged its shoulders, and made a smaller promise for 2025:
Originally posted by SIGNYM:Quote:
Originally posted by SIGNYM:
SECOND, when you post walls of bullcrap, nobody bothers to read it.
Just saying.
SECOND: You have written approximately that same sentence hundreds of times. I got the message the first time, years past, blah blah blah
Why don't you take a chill pill and listen to some nice music?
Go out for a walk and enjoy some sunshine?
Cook and enjoy a good meal, or paint a picture?
Yanno, do something pleasant for a change?
Achieve some peace in your life?
This is every post Second makes.
His AIDS riddled ADHD brain leaves him completely able to focus on a topic for longer than it takes him to finish his last post.
--------------------------------------------------
Political correctness is just tyranny, with a smiley face.
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Quote:You must have flunked out of college because the Professors wouldn't give you the personal instruction you felt was your due, but rather they left it to you to make the connections in your head, all by yourself. (P.S. 6ix, you made the wrong connections in college. Make this connection: you and Signym are mistaken if you think I believe you are real. You are the meat versions of spam bots. "Trump will be fine? He will be your next President?" 6ix, do you recall writing those words thousands of times? The catchphrase with Signym is "Blah-blah-blah" written thousands of times. You two are spam bots.)
Originally posted by 6ixStringJack:
This is every post Second makes.
His AIDS riddled ADHD brain leaves him completely able to focus on a topic for longer than it takes him to finish his last post.
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 second:Quote:You must have flunked out of college because the Professors wouldn't give you the personal instruction you felt was your due, but rather they left it to you to make the connections in your head, all by yourself. (P.S. 6ix, you made the wrong connections in college. Make this connection: you and Signym are mistaken if you think I believe you are real. You are the meat versions of spam bots. "Trump will be fine? He will be your next President?" 6ix, do you recall writing those words thousands of times? The catchphrase with Signym is "Blah-blah-blah" written thousands of times. You two are spam bots.)
Originally posted by 6ixStringJack:
This is every post Second makes.
His AIDS riddled ADHD brain leaves him completely able to focus on a topic for longer than it takes him to finish his last post.
I didn't flunk out. I dropped out. I didn't need college. I'm doing far better than the vast majority of Americans are without it.
Trump will be fine. He will be your next President.
Fuck Ukraine. Fuck Joe Biden*. Fuck Democrat voters.
I'm going to go do some productive things. Have fun wasting more of your time in your current anguish of the day. I got shit to do.
Later loser.
--------------------------------------------------
Political correctness is just tyranny, with a smiley face.
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Russia State TV Discusses Attacking Degenerate NATO for Moral Salvation
Updated Feb 01, 2024 at 10:16 AM EST
In a discussion on state TV channel Russia-1, Vitaly Tretyakov, a journalist and dean at Lomonosov State University, discussed launching attacks on both France and Italy.
Kremlin propagandists have routinely warned of a looming world war and strikes by Russia on NATO territory. Russian officials and guests on Russian state TV have called for strikes on both the U.S. and other NATO members.
"I don't know, is it some kind of selective approach, like we would attack this one and this one we won't attack?" Tretyakov responded. "There's always something legalized somewhere, like pedophilia, LGBT. Why would we attack them? To bring them proper, decent moral standards because they've lowered them? Apart from all other aspects: economic, feeding them, watering them, etc."
"So if we have to attack someone for salvation, there are only two countries—France and Italy—where the main wealth of European, West-European, Central-European culture is concentrated," Tretyakov said. "This is where there is something you have to save."
Newsweek has contacted Russia's Foreign Ministry for comment by email.
https://www.newsweek.com/russia-state-tv-attack-nato-nations-france-it
aly-1865971
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 Push to Join NATO Faces Roadblocks
By Robbie Gramer, Jack Detsch | January 30, 2024, 3:58 PM
https://foreignpolicy.com/2024/01/30/ukraine-nato-membership-delay-war
-russia-alliance/
Ukraine and some of its strongest supporters are pushing NATO to formally invite Kyiv to become a member of the military alliance during a major upcoming summit, but their efforts are facing significant behind-the-scenes pushback from the United States and Germany, according to a dozen current and former officials familiar with the matter.
Kyiv has backing from Eastern European countries already in the military alliance, including Poland and the Baltic states, which view extending NATO membership to Ukraine as the most effective and least costly way to blunt Russia’s irredentist ambitions in Eastern Europe. Yet other Western NATO officials, mostly notably in Washington and Berlin, believe that it’s too soon to kick-start the process of admitting Ukraine to NATO while the country is still fighting a war against Russia.
Both the United States and Germany are top donors of military and economic aid to Ukraine. Officials in both countries insist that Ukraine should join NATO eventually, but that now isn’t the time to start the process. They said they believe the immediate focus should be on continuing to supply Ukraine with weapons and munitions to keep up the fight against Russia in the near term.
The fierce debate that is playing out behind the scenes in Washington and Brussels is existential for Ukraine and will determine the future of Europe’s security landscape as NATO continues to adjust to the reality of Russian President Vladimir Putin’s territorial ambitions.
A Ukraine in NATO could deal a death blow to Putin’s neoimperialist ambitions to annex Ukraine and possibly even further encroach on European territories. Only Ukraine’s NATO membership, some officials believe, will finally convince Russia to pump the brakes on its invasion and end the war.
Among the most vocal backers of rush-ordering Ukraine’s NATO membership invitation is Anders Fogh Rasmussen, the former Danish prime minister and NATO Secretary-General Jens Stoltenberg’s predecessor. “Very often, I hear the argument that we cannot invite Ukraine to join NATO as long as the war is going on,” he said. “I think that’s an extremely dangerous argument to use, because that de facto provides Putin with a veto over NATO and gives him an incentive to continue hostilities in Ukraine indefinitely.”
Other proponents of this view believe that bringing Ukraine into NATO sooner rather than later will be cheaper in the long run than the current Western strategy of funneling arms and munitions to Ukraine in perpetuity while keeping NATO membership on the back burner. Ukraine can only halt a Russian invasion once it is brought into the alliance’s fold, they argue.
“Delays in moving toward membership are not only pricey for Ukraine, but are also expensive for the alliance,” said Kristjan Prikk, Estonia’s ambassador to Washington.
Letting Ukraine into NATO too soon, however, particularly as large swaths of its territory are still occupied by Russian forces, could trigger a full-scale NATO-Russia conflict, given the 31-member alliance’s bedrock collective defense clause that calls for all NATO countries to defend any one country that has been attacked. The prospect of a Russia-NATO conflict turning nuclear looms in the background of these debates.
So, too, does the upcoming U.S. presidential election, where incumbent President Joe Biden looks slated to face off again against former President Donald Trump. Trump, long a critic of NATO, hasn’t said much on the campaign trail about Ukraine’s NATO membership, but many officials and experts believe he wouldn’t work to admit Ukraine into the alliance if he were elected—pushing Ukraine’s hope for joining back at least four years.
The debate also comes as some allies have begun wavering on their commitments to Ukraine, with some populist leaders in Europe, includ
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Ukrainian forces successfully struck and sunk a Russian Black Sea Fleet (BSF) vessel in the Black Sea near occupied Crimea on the night of January 31 to February 1. The Ukrainian Main Military Intelligence Directorate (GUR) published footage on February 1 showing Ukrainian maritime drones striking the Ivanovets Tarantul-class corvette (41st Missile Boat Brigade) near Lake Donuzlav in occupied Crimea.[4] The Ukrainian Navy reported that the sinking of the Ivanovets is a significant loss to the BSF since the BSF has only three ships of its project 1241.1 (Tarantul) class and noted that Ukrainian forces previously damaged a project 1239 Bora-class corvette in the 41st Missile Boat Brigade.[5] The Ukrainian Navy stated that the Ivanovets is usually staffed with 40 personnel, and the GUR stated that Russian search and rescue operations were unsuccessful.[6] ISW continues to assess that successful Ukrainian strikes on BSF vessels and infrastructure have limited the BSF’s ability to operate in the western part of the Black Sea.[7]
https://www.understandingwar.org/backgrounder/russian-offensive-campai
gn-assessment-february-1-2024
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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Russian milbloggers continued to voice frustrations about Russian forces’ continued tactical blunders during offensive operations in western Donetsk Oblast. Several Russian milbloggers criticized the Russian military command on January 31 and February 1 for failing to account for the “[drone] factor” when planning tactical assaults in response to footage posted on January 30 showing Ukrainian forces striking a column of advancing Russian vehicles and tanks near Novomykhailivka.[11] A Kremlin-affiliated milblogger noted that Ukrainian minefields are canalizing Russian routes but argued that the Russian military command still needs to stop attacking in mechanized columns due to consistently taking high equipment losses.[12] The milblogger also criticized the Russian command for failing to account for Ukrainian drone operations and to equip Russian armored vehicles with electronic warfare (EW) systems to counter Ukrainian drones.[13] Another Russian milblogger questioned how Russian commanders can fail to account for Ukrainian drones in attack plans and afford to lose so much equipment and manpower, accusing the Russian commanders of “complete stupidity and incompetence.”[14] Other Russian milbloggers seized on the discourse to advocate for continued domestic support for drone and EW production in Russia and to argue that Russian sources should not have to censor themselves if they have constructive criticism for Russian commanders.[15] The Russian military command has actively censored some Russian milbloggers in recent months for criticizing the military likely to encourage and enforce self-censorship among other Russian milbloggers.[16]
https://www.understandingwar.org/backgrounder/russian-offensive-campai
gn-assessment-february-1-2024
The Joss Whedon script for Serenity, where Wash lives, is Serenity-190pages.pdf at
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Crimea Air Base Attack Sees Top Russian Air Force General 'Liquidated'
Updated Feb 02, 2024 at 9:53 AM EST
Multiple Russian Telegram channels, including Crimean Wind, reported that Russian Air Force Lieutenant General Alexander Tatarenko was killed during a Ukrainian strike on the Belbek military airfield in Crimea.
Telegram channel Public Reserve Stugna said 10 Russian military personnel were "liquidated" in the attack, including Tatarenko, the commander of the aviation unit at the Belbek air base.
Newsweek has contacted Russia's Defense Ministry for comment by email. The Kremlin hasn't commented on the reports. Moscow rarely confirms reports about the deaths of its top commanders.
https://www.newsweek.com/crimea-airbase-attack-ukraine-general-alexand
er-tatarenko-killed-1866261
A List of American Commanders in WWII Who Lost Their Lives
Relatively few U.S. generals lost their lives in World War II.
By Thomas R. Cagley | July 2005
https://warfarehistorynetwork.com/article/list-american-commanders-wwi
i-lost-their-lives/
General George S. Patton, Jr., once said, “An army is like a piece of cooked spaghetti. You can’t push it, you have to pull it after you.” He was referring to commanders being leaders as he had little use for commanders that were not out in front of their units. This attitude was the norm for American commanders in WWII, and the amazement is not that a few dozen general officers were lost, but that U.S. armed forces did not lose more!
Leaders being out front is not a unique military concept, nor exclusively that of the United States. Since the earliest days of recorded warfare, good leaders have always been at the forefront of battle.
Some nations have a unique concept of control over military leadership. This was especially evident in the Soviet Union in the years before the onset of World War II. During the war, Hitler not only directed military battles, but controlled the general officer corps to an incredible, and as it turned out, disastrous degree.
Russia and Germany Both Hard Up for Officers
A few years before World War II Soviet Dictator Josef Stalin purged the Soviet military of most of its high-ranking and experienced officers. During his frenzied attack on the officer ranks through the end of 1938, Stalin had executed at least 65,000 officers, including 13 of 15 generals of the army, 93 percent of all officers ranked lieutenant general and above, and 58 percent of all officers ranked colonel through major general. Ironically, one of the few senior commanders to survive, Dimitri Pavlov, would be executed within days of Germany’s invasion of the Soviet Union because of incompetence.
During the war, Hitler executed 84 German generals, and another 135 generals were killed in action.
More at https://warfarehistorynetwork.com/article/list-american-commanders-wwi
i-lost-their-lives/
Besides Hitler and Stalin, another infamous head of government who would execute generals: Trump Accused General Mark Milley of Treason
Trump suggested that former Chairman of the Joint Chiefs Mark Milley be executed for the treasonous act of preventing him from starting a war to stay in office, as detailed in a long piece in The Atlantic. (In truth, and in the abstract, having the JCS chief contacting China to reassure it regarding the ostensible commander-in-chief made me a little nervous.) https://www.esquire.com/news-politics/politics/a45305390/trump-tweet-n
bc-news-mark-milley-treason/
The Joss Whedon script for Serenity, where Wash lives, is Serenity-190pages.pdf at
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Quote:
When the General Staff have been discussing with President Vladimir Putin the timing of the Russian offensive to force the Kiev regime into capitulation, it has been agreed, understood, and repeated that the strategic reserves of the Ukrainian forces should be destroyed first, together with the supply lines for the weapons and ammunition crossing the border from the US and the NATO allies.
This process, they also agreed, should take as long as required with least casualties on the Russian side, as determined by military intelligence. Also agreed and pre-conditional, there should be no repeat of the political intelligence failures of the Foreign Intelligence Service (SVR) which precipitated the failed special forces operation known as the Battle of Antonov (Hostomel) Airport from February 24 to April 2, 2022.
Taking account of the mistakes made then by the SVR director, Sergei Naryshkin, and the subsequent mistakes of military officers around Yevgeny Prigozhin, the General Staff has also accepted that their tactical operations must run least risk of Russian casualties through March 17, the final day of the presidential election.
Reinforcing these preconditions for the timing of the Russian offensive, General Winter and General Patience have joined the Stavka meetings.
This week military sources believe there has been a turning point – on the Ukrainian battlefield, and on the Russian clock.
The daily Defense Ministry briefing and bulletin from Moscow reported last Thursday, before the Friday weekly summary, that the Ukrainian KIA (killed in action) for the previous twenty-four hours totaled 795, with the ratio of offensive tactics to defence, 3 to 3. On Monday, the KIA total was 680, the ratio 4 to 3. On Tuesday, KIA came to 885, the ratio 5 to 1. The casualty rate is unusually high; the shift to offence is recognizably new, if not announced.
The “Stavka Project”, a military briefing which is broadcast by Vladimir Soloviev, confirms the positional breakthroughs this week on several of the fronts or “directions”, as the Defense Ministry calls them, along the Donbass line; click to watch (in Russian).
In Boris Rozhin’s summary of the Defense Ministry briefing materials, published before dawn on Wednesday morning, the leading Russian military blogger (Colonel Cassad) identifies “small advances”, “slight movements”, some positional “successes”, other positional “counter-fighting”, and “no significant progress yet”. The adverb is military talk for timing.
According to a military source outside Russia, “the Russian breakthrough is beginning to happen now. It’s being coordinated with strikes and raids along the northern border. The commitment of the ‘crack’ Ukrainian brigades at the expense of other sectors shows how desperate [General Valery] Zaluzhny is to plug the holes. He knows that the target is the isolation of Kharkov, the establishment of a demilitarized ‘buffer zone’, as well as the development of a situation whereby all Ukrainian forces east of the Dnieper are threatened with being cut off… and he’s quickly running out of ammunition, not to mention cannon fodder.”
“By the end of the winter,” the source has added overnight, “the Ukrainians will barely be able to move along the roads they use to feed the front due to the Russian drone, missile, conventional air, and artillery strikes. Once they can no longer plug the gaps with mechanized units acting as fire-fighting brigades, it’s just a matter of time before the big breakthroughs and encirclements begin. At the current burn rate of Ukrainian forces, I imagine we’ll start seeing Russian tanks with fuel tanks fitted for extended range appearing and Russian airborne troops making air assaults in the Ukrainian rear within weeks.”
MORE AT https://johnhelmer.net/breakthrough-on-all-fronts-ahead-of-schedule/#m
ore-89289
-----------
"It may be dangerous to be America's enemy, but to be America's friend is fatal." - Henry Kissinger
Loving America is like loving an addicted spouse - SIGN
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Russian President Vladimir Putin evoked a wide Russian social and economic mobilization reminiscent of the Soviet Union’s total mobilization in the Second World War during a February 2 speech. Putin attended the “Everything for Victory” event at the Tulatochmash plant in Tula Oblast on February 2 and promoted Russian efforts to expand its defense industrial base (DIB) to an audience of 600 representatives of various professions from across Russia.[1]
“Everything for Victory” is a Soviet-era slogan that Soviet authorities first used during the Russian Civil War and then extensively during the Second World War to promote the widespread mobilization of Soviet industry and society.[2] Putin stated that defense industrial workers in Tula Oblast are currently working under this slogan just as their grandfathers and great-grandfathers did.[3] Putin asserted that modern Russian defense industrial workers have proven themselves worthy of these “ancestors,” who won the industrial battle against Nazi Germany.[4]
Putin followed his Soviet predecessors in ignoring the critical role the US defense industry played in facilitating the Soviet victory through the Lend-Lease program. The Kremlin has previously appealed to the myths of the Great Patriotic War to reassure the Russian public that the Russian war effort will bring to bear overwhelming manpower and materiel for victory in Ukraine as the Soviet Union did for the Red Army against Nazi Germany.[5]
Putin claimed that 6,000 Russian enterprises and 3.5 million workers are part of Russia’s DIB and that 10,000 more enterprises are connected to the DIB in auxiliary or supporting roles.[6] Putin stated that in the previous 16 months, Russia’s DIB has created 520,000 new jobs; has increased the production of armored protection for personnel by a factor of 2.5; and has increased the production of armored vehicles and other equipment for combined arms warfare by an unspecified percentage.[7] Putin claimed that Russian enterprises are fulfilling the entirety of the state defense order and that the Kremlin significantly increased and fully funded the 2024 state defense order.[8]
Putin also repeatedly stressed that all of Russia’s latest weapons are superior to weapons produced by NATO countries.[9]
https://www.understandingwar.org/backgrounder/russian-offensive-campai
gn-assessment-february-2-2024
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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NATO has a munitions problem, and Europe needs to step up
By Katherine Kjellström Elgin and Tyler Hacker | Feb 1, 09:11 AM
https://www.defensenews.com/opinion/2024/02/01/nato-has-a-munitions-pr
oblem-and-europe-needs-to-step-up/
This is an urgent requirement: NATO cannot plan on Russia being too weak or distracted to be a threat. If Europe’s industrial base cannot meet these demands quickly enough to ensure NATO’s near-term readiness requirements, members should consider foreign suppliers or purchases of alternate capabilities, like novel loitering munitions or air defense solutions.
Sustained munitions requirements for protracted conflict are likely much higher than previously assessed, as NATO’s secretary general admitted last year.
Europe must foster a munitions-industrial base capable of competing with a mobilized Russian industrial base. Commentators often point to Europe’s gross domestic product being nearly eight times that of Russia, but GDP alone does not produce weapons.
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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I recently read a book by the great historian William Shirer, a book about the Third French Republic, which was between World War I and World War II. One of the most haunting parts of that book was about the failure of the European allies, particularly France and Great Britain to face Hitler when stopping him would have been relatively easy. Whenever people write to my office, asking why are we supporting Ukraine, I answer, Google “Sudetenland in 1938.” We could have stopped a dictator; we, the West, at a relatively low cost. The result of not doing so was 55 million deaths. That chapter has haunted me because it echoes so strongly in what's happening in Ukraine.
https://time.com/6591083/america-support-ukraine-angus-king/
google Sudetenland in 1938
https://www.google.com/search?q=Sudetenland+in+1938
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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Russian officials continue to hint at Russia’s interference in Western elections despite Russian President Vladimir Putin’s previous denials. Russian Security Council Deputy Chairperson Dmitry Medvedev claimed on February 3 that the West funds Russian opposition politicians in Russia and that Russia should support isolationist and anti-US political parties and politicians during elections in the West.[87] Deceased Wagner Group financier Yevgeny Prigozhin sarcastically admitted to his involvement in Russian election interference in November 2022, claiming, “We interfered, we interfere, and we will interfere.”[88] Putin has previously denied Western investigations that suggest that Russia meddled in the American 2016 presidential election.[89]
https://www.understandingwar.org/backgrounder/russian-offensive-campai
gn-assessment-february-3-2024
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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Two Years Into the Ukraine War, Europe Has No Strategy
By Harrison Stetler | Feb 3, 2024
https://jacobin.com/2024/02/russia-ukraine-war-eu-aid
The European Council had last met to discuss Ukraine funding in December, when Hungary blocked an agreement. This came despite the body’s move to free up €10 billion for Budapest, nominally on the grounds that Orbán had made progress in acceding to EU demands for liberal political reforms as EU officials alleged, although it was not hard to see geopolitical priorities trumping concerns about rule of law. However, this olive branch from the European Commission only served to clear the Hungarian veto during a vote on granting Ukraine candidacy status for EU membership. Orbán left the room during the final tally, effectively abstaining from a vote that would otherwise have been vetoed by the opposition of a single member state.
In the lead-up to this Thursday’s meeting, EU officials had threatened drastic retaliatory measures against Hungary if it persisted in blocking a new European aid package requiring unanimous approval. According to the Financial Times, Commission officials were drawing up plans to provoke a run on the Hungarian currency, the forint. Orbán at first dismissed what he called “blackmail” from Brussels, but those threats appear to have been successful. The Hungarian premier retreated to the less ambitious demand that an annual vote be held on the Ukraine funding package. In the final agreement that emerged on Thursday, this was reduced to an annual debate with the possibility for a substantive review after two years. (EU countries that do not use the euro as their currency are Bulgaria, Croatia, Czech Republic, Denmark, Hungary, Poland, Romania, and Sweden. https://www.investopedia.com/articles/investing/050515/why-these-europ
ean-countries-dont-use-euro.asp )
But another round of propping up Ukraine’s defenses will not make up for the glaring absence of a serious strategic debate about where this conflict is going and what is to be expected of Europe’s investment in it. Instead, there has been much chest thumping and finger wagging — both at Orbán, deemed the EU’s own Vladimir Putin, or indeed anyone lured by so-called “Ukraine fatigue.”
EU powers are by no means cobelligerants in this conflict, even though they have made Ukraine’s self-defense into their own national interest. Yet by extending substantial backing they should at least be discussing what can be expected or hoped for from their engagement in the conflict. After two years of interstate war, however, talk about the contours of a possible settlement is nowhere to be found in mainstream coverage and political debate.
Much more about the EU’s jarring strategic wandering at https://jacobin.com/2024/02/russia-ukraine-war-eu-aid
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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It seems to me that our deep state -linked media has decided on a strategy for Ukraine: scrape it off and blame the EU and UK. How othwerwise to interpret the spate of articles on the EU failing to support Ukraine with enough money and weapons?
And then there is the Zelensky- Zaluzhny feud, with Budanov (internal security), Syrsky (ground forces general) and Poroshenko (oligarch and former President) circling in the background. The feud reached such a pitch, with statements that Zelensky was going fire Zaluzhny within "days" that Victoria 'fuck the EU" Nuland had to rush off to Kiev to stick things back together again. For what purpose, I don't know.
The rumors continued that if Zelensky were to replace Zaluzhny with Budanov, that would mean a change in strategy from conventional military warfare to spec ops/ terror attacks, which is Budanov's specialty. And for sure, there have been high- profile drone attacks on a Russian missile corvette and on a couple of Russian refineries fairly deep inside Russia lately.
These come as the front is falling apart in Avdiivka, Kupiansk and other places.
Biden's* embargo on LNG exports is going to hit Germany hard, especially since they geared their economy over decades towards natural gas (once they decided to shut down their nuclear power plants after Fukushima) and we blew up their supply pipelines. We are hitting Germany so hard, it appears that the neocons not only wanted to carve up Russia, they wanted to derail that budding Russia-Germany axis too, even if they had to destroy Germany to do it. But since Germany was the EUs industrial powerhouse, and it takes energy to fuel large industry, who do they expect will make those shells and weapons for Ukraine and NATO??
Probably USA neocons had already decided that the EU NATO states were essentially parasitical, and decided to sacrifice them if necessary.
But in the long run ... the VERY long run, 25 years or so .... I think this will all backfire as reality red-pills Germans and they discover they've been hosed, and rediscover their backbone and their national interest, and will partner with Russia again, economically.
Militarily, the war is decidedly in Russia's favor. I wonder when the Russian command will decide that Ukraine and NATO are attrited enough be swarmed.
It would be interesting to set up a betting pool on the month and year we should expect to see Ukraine collapse militarily.
-----------
"It may be dangerous to be America's enemy, but to be America's friend is fatal." - Henry Kissinger
Loving America is like loving an addicted spouse - SIGNYM
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Quote:Are you wondering when will the Russian Army stop traffic on Boulevard Leopold III in Brussels, Belgium? Soon a glorious victory for Russia, Signym!
Originally posted by SIGNYM:
Militarily, the war is decidedly in Russia's favor. I wonder when the Russian command will decide that Ukraine and NATO are attrited enough to be swarmed.
https://www.nato.int/cps/en/natohq/topics_49284.htm
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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Why Patriarch Kirill received this year’s presidential prize
By Lera Furman | 11 November 2023
https://novayagazeta.eu/articles/2023/11/11/putins-true-believer-en
Kirill is the main proponent of a special “theology of war”, which boils down to two main arguments. First, a stronger nation has the right to subjugate a weaker one that does not submit to it voluntarily. Second, entry to heaven is guaranteed for anyone who gives their life to bring about this subjugation.
Russian World
Kirill’s radical stance on the war in Ukraine understandably shocked many Christians worldwide. But it was far less surprising to anyone who’d followed the patriarch’s ideological evolution. Even before his appointment to Russia’s most important clerical role, Kirill had spent the last three decades gradually advancing a new xenophobic and isolationist religious doctrine that aligned perfectly with the prevailing worldviews of the emergent Putin regime.
A key element in Kirill’s doctrine is his belief in the so-called Russian World, which advocates the creation of a single “all-Russian nation” to include Russia, Ukraine, and Belarus, and placed under the control of the Russian Orthodox Church.
On the eve of the Russian invasion of Ukraine last year, when most people — including a majority of Russians — still believed that war could be avoided, Kirill seemed to think otherwise, warning that there was “no war without sacrifice,” after laying a wreath at the Tomb of the Unknown Soldier in Moscow.
Last December, after thousands of civilian casualties and months of Russian missile strikes on Ukrainian cities, the spiritual leader of Eastern Orthodox Christians, Patriarch Bartholomew of Constantinople, officially declared the Russian World a heretical doctrine. Patriarch Kirill’s distorted theology had become, Bartholomew said, “the ideological basis of the Putin regime”.
Forging new alliances
Having denounced — and been denounced by — many Christians abroad, the Russian Orthodox Church has found new allies among the world’s Muslims, and Iranian Muslims in particular. In this regard, too, Kirill followed Putin’s lead, recalling that when asked by journalists about the attitude of Orthodoxy to Christianity and Islam, the Russian president had answered: “We are closer to Islam.” Kirill said that he agreed with Putin: “Both Islam and Orthodoxy belong to the same Eastern group.”
These comments are reminiscent of the politically convenient theology espoused by one of Kirill’s Soviet predecessors, Metropolitan Nikodim of Leningrad, who insisted rather unconvincingly that Russian Orthodoxy and atheism — the state-sponsored religious preference at the time — were similar. “Communist atheism is a system of beliefs, including moral principles, which do not contradict Christian morals,” he said.
Much more at https://novayagazeta.eu/articles/2023/11/11/putins-true-believer-en
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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Known Untruths
Former prisoners fighting in Ukraine are finding out that the Russian state does in fact quite often abandon its own
08:18 AM, 1 February 2024
https://novayagazeta.eu/articles/2024/02/01/known-untruths-en
Prison inmates granted pardons or early releases from jail to serve in Russia’s Storm Z penal military units are frequently discovering that the promises made to them when they enlisted weren’t worth the paper they were written on.
Sergey Cherepanov, 34, from the Novosibirsk region in western Siberia, signed a six-month contract with the Defence Ministry on 28 April. He had nine months of his six-year term still to serve when recruitment officers turned up at his prison. He refuses to say what he was in prison for, but will say that he “committed no crime” and “had been convicted without real evidence”.
Cherepanov was one of about 150 convicts recruited from his prison on that occasion, though many others had previously opted to fight as Wagner Group mercenaries, he says. When Wagner had come to the prison to recruit new fighters, Cherepanov had not been interested. “I was sure Wagner was lying about something. I trusted the state. But it turns out the state was lying.”
He agreed to enlist due to what he called his “strong love of Russia”. The money and a pardon, he says, only played a secondary role. In the combat zone, he was appointed commander of a company of assault troops, all of whom had been at the same prison.
He refused to discuss combat missions, but did say that “wherever Storm is fighting, life expectancy is in the hours”.
On 20 May, within a month of signing his contract, Cherepanov stepped on a mine near the town of Soledar in occupied eastern Ukraine. Half his foot was blown off and his leg was broken below the knee. As is the case for most former prisoners, the hospital refused to give him the certificate he needed for an insurance payout of 3 million rubles (€30,900). To date, he has only received the 500,000 rubles (€5,150) the government pays to wounded soldiers.
Cherepanov blames the non-payment on “corrupt Defence Ministry officials” who “want to rip people off and pocket the money”. He continues to have faith in Russian President Vladimir Putin, however.
“I admit there’s a lot he doesn’t know, and he only sees what is reported to him. We have only one of him, unfortunately. The country is huge, and he is on his own. And I don’t believe for a moment that he would approve if he knew what was really going on.”
‘There’s nothing frightening about war’
Another former prisoner, Igor Kharaponov, from Kaluga in western Russia, signed a six-month contract with the Defence Ministry on 30 August, but within two months of fighting was caught in artillery fire and had to have his right leg amputated. In his case too, the hospital refused to issue the certificate required to be eligible for the insurance payout of 3 million rubles.
Kharaponov was released from a maximum security correctional facility with five years still to serve for murder. The Defence Ministry recruited 15 of the prison’s inmates to serve in its ranks.
His decision to go to war was based, he says, on his desire to “clean up his life and defend Russia”. Most former prisoners recruited into the military we spoke to used similar phrases.
Kharaponov says that “there’s nothing frightening about war”, and that, on the contrary, he enjoyed carrying out combat missions.
Military and prison life have discipline in common, but differ, according to Kharaponov, in that “there is no social rank at the front”.
“That doesn’t exist in the combat zone. We were told straight away to forget prison and codes of conduct. You can get killed for that sort of thing here. Everyone is equal in the war zone,” he says.
When asked about serial killers and cannibals being granted early release to fight in Ukraine, Kharaponov says such people should be executed or left to rot behind bars since “they would surely return to their old habits” if released. He has a different view of “ordinary killers”,
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Trump and Ukraine
By Gideon Rachman | February 5, 2024
https://www.ft.com/content/18c5296a-f0d5-47d5-aacd-af5210d638fc
There are still many months to go before the US presidential election. But Donald Trump is already having a deeply malign effect on American foreign policy. At Trump’s behest, Republicans in Congress are blocking military aid for Ukraine.
Although the US Senate may agree an aid package this week, Republicans in the House of Representatives remain completely intransigent. As a result, it seems increasingly unlikely that military aid for Ukraine will get through Congress in the coming months — or even this year.
The consequences of that decision could be disastrous. Ukraine is already suffering from a shortage of ammunition — in particular artillery shells. That will become more acute this year, with increasingly dangerous results.
Jack Watling of the Royal United Services Institute, a frequent visitor to the frontline in Ukraine, says the situation there is now “extremely serious”. The ammunition shortage has already led to an increase in Ukrainian casualties. With no certainty about when new supplies of materiel will arrive, the Ukrainian military is finding it impossible to plan future operations.
The shortage of weaponry is also having an effect on the willingness of Ukrainians to volunteer for military service. The mounting pressure on the Kyiv government is part of the explanation for the public falling out between President Volodymyr Zelenskyy and his commander-in-chief, Valeriy Zaluzhny.
One piece of positive news for Ukraine was last week’s agreement that the EU will provide €50bn in new financial support for the Ukrainian government. In a joint letter to the FT, Chancellor Olaf Scholz of Germany and four other EU leaders also called for an increase in European military aid.
But European production lines are not yet ready to fill the munitions gap left by the Americans. That will take until at least 2025, and makes the second half of this year potentially very dangerous for Ukraine.
Watling believes that the consequences of the munitions shortage “will initially be felt slowly and then felt fast”. He warns that “when it reaches the point that the consequences are very obvious, it will already be too late”.
Trump and his Republican party supporters do not seem to care. They are apparently prepared to risk a Russian victory — if it even slightly increases Trump’s chance of defeating President Joe Biden in November.
Some of the Republican reluctance to pass new aid for Ukraine is driven by genuine scepticism about the war. But most of the foot-dragging is simply about Trump’s refusal to give Biden anything that looks like a “win” ahead of the presidential election.
Last year, the Republicans demanded that military aid for Ukraine be tied to new measures and money for border security in the US. The Democrats have agreed. But Trump and the Republicans are refusing to take yes for an answer. Trump evidently wants to run on the idea that Biden has presided over chaos and failure — stretching from the southern border to Kabul and Kyiv.
If the freedom of Ukraine and the security of Europe are collateral damage in Trump’s bid to win back the White House, the former president seems to regard that as a price worth paying.
It is even possible that he would welcome a Ukrainian defeat — if it came in time for the presidential election and enabled him to bash home his favourite claims about the Biden administration’s weakness and failure.
Of course, Trump could not do any of this on his own. The connivance of Republicans in Congress is critical. Trump’s victories in the presidential primaries have persuaded most Republicans — always feeble in their opposition to him — that they need to fall in line even more slavishly. If he continues to demand that no aid for Ukraine goes through Congress, Republicans in the House of Representatives will almost certainly deliver for him.
Those in Washington who take American global leadership
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Although Zelenskiy claims that Ukraine's army is above the 800,000 mark, that is "paper"strength. That is, what the numbers would be IF all of the formations were up to strength. Most people estimate the actual fighting force as somewhere in the realm of 450,000.
Meanwhile, Putin mentioned that the Russian military is somewhat north of 600,000. (I forget the exact figure.)
Since many people assume that Russia is going to start a major offensive "soon", applying the normal ratio of 3 attackers for each defender, that implies that Russia would need at least 1.2 million soldiers for a successful offensive. Russia isn't anywhere near that, and won't be for a long time, they may be absorbing a lot of volunteers into their military but they still have to be trained.
So, what's at the heart of Russia's confidence?
At a guess, I think it has to be Russia's current success with its local offensives with minimal personnel losses. They're waging weapons-heavy, soldier-light war. There seems to be no end to the bombs, missiles, shells, drones, and helicopters used to "prepare" the ground for an assault, and they seem to regard their armored vehicles as "use once and abandon".
Maybe the Russian army has been experimenting with and refining its tactics all along the front and they think they can achieve a big offensive with minimal losses.
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"It may be dangerous to be America's enemy, but to be America's friend is fatal." - Henry Kissinger
Loving America is like loving an addicted spouse - SIGNYM
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Quote:Ammo. Russia does not depend on European cheese-eating surrender monkeys for ammo. Plus, Putin can depend on Trump to stall for 12 months a Congressional bill paying for American ammo for Ukraine. Once Ukraine is out of ammo, Russia wins the game and takes the prize.
Originally posted by SIGNYM:
So, what's at the heart of Russia's confidence?
Trump urged Republicans Monday to reject $60 billion in Ukraine funding
https://www.france24.com/en/americas/20240205-trump-urges-republicans-
to-reject-senate-deal-on-border-measures-ukraine-aid
Ukrainian Minister of Internal Affairs Ihor Klymenko stated on February 5 that Russian forces intensified their rate of artillery strikes by nearly 25 percent over the last week and shelled Ukraine over 1,500 times, targeting over 570 settlements.[13] The New York Times reported on February 4 that, by contrast, Ukrainian forces in critical areas of the front, such as Avdiivka, are increasingly rationing shells and can therefore only target masses of advancing Russian soldiers, noting that Russian forces have apparently adapted and are now advancing in smaller groups that are harder for Ukrainian artillery to strike.[14]
Ukrainian military analyst and retired Colonel Petro Chernyk noted that Ukrainian forces possess relatively better counterbattery capabilities writ large than Russian forces, particularly because they have American AN/TPQ-36, -48, and -50 radars and the German COBRA radar system.[15] Counterbattery radars are effective in that they detect incoming fire and calculate its point of origin so that artillery forces can conduct return fire — for which artillery forces require sufficient artillery ammunition, however. A lack of artillery ammunition thus severely degrades counterbattery systems: AN/TPQ, COBRA, and other Western counterbattery systems are only as effective as the number of shells that Ukrainian forces have at their disposal to pursue the targets that counterbattery radars identify. ISW previously reported that Russian forces are benefitting from the combined dynamic of Ukraine’s ammunition shortage and its subsequent inability to conduct sufficient counterbattery warfare, and this dynamic is likely to become more acute as Ukraine’s period of shell shortages protracts.[16]
https://www.understandingwar.org/backgrounder/russian-offensive-campai
gn-assessment-february-5-2024
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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Russia’s Adaptation Advantage
Early in the War, Moscow Struggled to Shift Gears — but Now It’s Outlearning Kyiv
By Mick Ryan | February 5, 2024
MICK RYAN is a military strategist, retired Australian Army major general, and an Adjunct Fellow at the Center for Strategic and International Studies.
https://www.foreignaffairs.com/ukraine/russias-adaptation-advantage
Throughout the war in Ukraine, Kyiv and Moscow have waged an adaptation battle, trying to learn and improve their military effectiveness. In the early stages of the invasion, Ukraine had the advantage. Empowered by a rapid influx of Western weapons, motivated by the existential threat posed by Russia’s aggression, and well prepared for the attack, Kyiv was able to develop new ways of fighting in remarkably short order. Russia, in contrast, fumbled: a big, arrogant, and lumbering bear, overconfident of a rapid victory. The institutional shock of Russia’s lack of success, in turn, slowed its ability to learn and adapt.
But after two years of war, the adaptation battle has changed. The quality gap between Ukraine and Russia has closed. Ukraine still has an innovative and bottom-up military culture, which allows it to quickly introduce new battlefield technologies and tactics. But it can struggle to make sure that those lessons are systematized and spread throughout the entire armed forces. Russia, on the other hand, is slower to learn from the bottom up because of a reluctance to report failure and a more centralized command philosophy. Yet when Russia does finally learn something, it is able to systematize it across the military and through its large defense industry.
These differences are reflected in the ways the two states innovate. Ukraine is better at tactical adaptation: learning and improving on the battlefield. Russia is superior at strategic adaptation, or learning and adaptation that affects national and military policymaking, such as how states use their resources. Both forms of adaptation are important. But it is the latter type that is most crucial to winning wars.
The longer this war lasts, the better Russia will get at learning, adapting, and building a more effective, modern fighting force. Slowly but surely, Moscow will absorb new ideas from the battlefield and rearrange its tactics accordingly. Its strategic adaptation already helped it fend off Ukraine’s counteroffensive, and over the last few months it has helped Russian troops take more territory from Kyiv. Ultimately, if Russia’s edge in strategic adaptation persists without an appropriate Western response, the worst that can happen in this war is not stalemate. It is a Ukrainian defeat.
THE LONG GAME
After struggling during its early military operations in Ukraine, Russia adapted its command-and-control structure. In April 2022, the country appointed a single commander to oversee its full-scale invasion, jettisoning the dysfunctional, fractured system through which Moscow had run the war to that point. The result was a more unified effort, one that shifted the Russian invasion from multiple separate and uncoordinated campaigns in the north, east, and south of the country to a more synchronized approach—with the main effort clearly being the ground operations in eastern Ukraine. This led to Russian advances and the capture of cities such as Severodonetsk, in mid-2022.
Russia also changed how it conducted close combat. Early in the war, Russia employed combined arms, battalion-sized ground units that were often not strong enough and that demonstrated a limited capacity to integrate air and land operations and carry out ground combined-arms operations. But over the last 12 months, the Russians evolved away from such battalions. They are now integrating elite forces and conventional forces—and buttressing that combination with what many Ukrainians deride as a “meatstorm”: waves of poorly trained, disposable forces who can overwhelm and exhaust Ukrainian soldiers before more talented Russian troops arrive.
Some of this tactical innovation has been driven by
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The Clock Is Ticking As Ukraine Destroys More Russian Vehicles, Faster.
The Kremlin Could Run Out Of Fighting Vehicles In Six Months.
By David Axe | Feb 4, 2024, 05:08pm EST
https://www.forbes.com/sites/davidaxe/2024/02/04/the-clock-is-ticking-
as-ukraine-destroys-more-russian-vehicles-faster-the-kremlin-could-run-out-of-fighting-vehicles-in-six-months/?sh=17adf709c5e2
On each of 705 days since Russia widened its war on Ukraine, Russian forces on average have lost—destroyed, abandoned or captured—19 tanks, fighting vehicles, howitzers or other heavy weapons.
On Saturday, they lost at least 54. Another 16 were damaged. Saturday was, in other words, one of the worst days of the war for Moscow.
Open-source analyst Andrew Perpetua, who tallies vehicles losses and publishes a daily list, noted the tragic record on Sunday, after adding up Saturday’s losses. “It’s the most I've ever found in a day,” he wrote.
Ukrainian losses were light: nine vehicles destroyed, abandoned or captured and other 21 damaged.
Worse for the Russians, their losses included 16 tanks and a staggering 29 fighting vehicles and armored personnel carriers, while Ukraine’s losses mostly were trucks and civilian vehicles the military apparently was using for supply runs. The Ukrainians lost two tanks and a single APC.
To be clear: the wrecked vehicles Perpetua counted on Sunday weren’t necessarily lost on Saturday. But since he counts losses every day, the date he tabulates a loss is a useful stand-in for the actual date of the write-off. Just subtract 24 hours.
The obvious question is whether this loss-rate is sustainable for the Kremlin. The obvious answer is: no. As production of new armored vehicles continues to lag, the Russians still mostly ride in older Cold War-vintage vehicles they’ve pulled out of long-term storage.
These reserves are finite. One analyst who goes by @HighMarsed scours satellite imagery in order to track Russia’s stocks of old vehicles. In December, they concluded the Kremlin had reactivated 1,081 of its pre-war inventory of 4,811 old BMP fighting vehicles.
But of the remaining 3,730, at least 765 were “visibly broken beyond repair.”
In 2022 and 2023, according to the analysts at Oryx, the Russians lost around 80 BMPs a month. If that rate of loss had continued into 2024, while production of new BMPs also remained steady at between 30 and 40 a month, the Kremlin would’ve run out of fighting vehicles in two years or so. Say, early 2026.
The problem, of course, is that so far this year the Russians are losing more and more vehicles, faster than ever. They lost 13 BMPs—plus addition BTR fighting vehicles—in a single day, according to Perpetua’s Sunday tally.
That implies a monthly loss-rate for BMPs approaching 400. Five times the rate we observed in 2022 and 2023. At the current rate, Russia doesn’t have a two-year reserve of fighting vehicles.
No, it has maybe a six-month reserve. The uptick in losses—to levels that are far beyond sustainable for Russian forces—also is evident among tanks and APCs.
Despite pro-Russia Republicans in the U.S. Congress cutting off aid to Ukraine last fall, despite the best efforts of authoritarian Hungary to block European aid to Ukraine, despite Russia’s bigger population and bigger economy compared to Ukraine’s, despite everything, Ukrainian troops aren’t just holding. Launching drones and firing from trenches, they’re winning the war of attrition.
The even better news for friends of free Ukraine is how much ground the Ukrainians are losing as they wreck Russian assault groups: very little. In the most violent sector of the front—around Avdiivka—on one of their costliest days of the war, the Russians advanced a hundred yards in the south and three-quarters of a miles in the north.
No rational and moral commander would trade 54 armored vehicles and, according to the Ukrainian general staff, more than 800 troops ... for a few hundred yards.
The Joss Whedon script for Serenity, where Wash lives, is Serenity-190pages.pdf at
https://www.mediaf
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In air combat during World War II, five percent of pilots—the luckiest and most skilled aces—accounted for 40 percent of aerial kills, according to author and historian Mike Spick.
In ground combat in Russia’s 23-month wider war on Ukraine, this truism holds. The luckiest and most skilled fighters do a disproportionate share of the killing.
As in World War II, the aces in the Ukraine war do the most killing—and may also have a higher rate of survival thanks to the same instincts and finely-honed skills that make them such fearsome killers.
If there’s anything that can defeat the Aces, it’s the American Republican Party, which for months has refused to vote on additional aid to Ukraine. Aid that would include more Javelin missiles.
https://www.forbes.com/sites/davidaxe/2024/02/05/one-ukrainian-paratro
oper-and-his-partner-working-alone-near-vuhledar-have-knocked-out-40-russian-vehicles-he-got-a-taste-for-blood/?sh=78d4294828eb
It's called marksmanship. Most soldiers are very poor marksmen. Their fear makes them unsuccessful killers. It is mostly dumb luck when the poor marksman gets a kill and the main reason why Armies fire tens of thousands of rounds for every kill. It is also the reason why artillery is so extremely important because, despite ridiculously poor aiming, the exploding shell can still kill if it lands in the general vicinity of an enemy soldier.
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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Avdiivka Is About to Fall [Population 32,436 (2020), 31,392 (2022 estimate)]
Updated Feb 06, 2024 at 10:34 AM EST
https://www.newsweek.com/russia-ukraine-avdiivka-fall-donetsk-1866925
Wall Street Journal correspondent Yaroslav Trofimov, writing on Sunday that Avdiivka "increasingly looks likely to become the first Ukrainian city to fall since the capture of Bakhmut last May."
He added that the acute ammunition shortage has been caused by the U.S. Congress withholding further military aid to Ukraine.
Leon Hartwell, senior associate at the London School of Economics think tank LSE IDEAS, said that the Russian capture of Avdiivka could strengthen the position of Western skeptics advocating for a reduction in military and financial support for Ukraine.
"The seizure of Avdiivka holds significant political importance for Putin, driven by the urgent need to showcase victories for Russia ahead of the presidential election and a potential new wave of mass mobilization of soldiers."
Battle of Avdiivka (2022–present)
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Battle_of_Avdiivka_(2022%E2%80%93present)
The fighting started on 21 February 2022
Mykola Bielieskov of the National Institute for Strategic Studies, a Kyiv-based think tank, assessed in late 2023 that the Russian capture of Avdiivka would not have a strategic impact on the overall war, but "would make the situation more tenable for occupied Donetsk as a major Russian logistics hub." The capture of Avdiivka would serve as a morale boost for Russian forces and deal a psychological blow to the Ukrainians, Bielieskov added.
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 Army plans to significantly increase US domestic production of 155mm artillery shells and shell components for Ukraine in 2024 and 2025, should the proposed Congressional supplemental appropriations bill pass.
US Assistant Secretary of the Army for Acquisition, Logistics, and Technology Doug Bush stated on February 5 that the US Army aims to double the US monthly production of 155mm artillery shells from 28,000 shells per month in October 2023 to about 60,000 shells per month in October 2024 - if the Congressional bill passes.[11]
The US Army hopes to further increase production to 75,000 shells per month in April 2025 and 100,000 shells per month in October 2025. Bush stated that the construction of a new factory in Texas, which will “have an entirely new way” of using technology to make artillery shells, will contribute to the Army’s increased production goals. Bush noted that US shell production in part depends on US domestic production of explosive materials. Bush stated that the proposed supplemental bill includes $600 million for increasing the production of explosives at the Holsten Army Ammunition Plant in Tennessee from five million pounds of explosives a year to 13 million pounds.[12]
The proposed bill would also include $93 million to reestablish the production of M6 propellant (used to fire artillery shells but no longer in production in the US) at the Radford Army Ammunition Plant in Virginia, and $650 million would go to constructing a facility (likely also at the Radford Army Ammunition Plant) to domestically produce TNT, which the US currently does not produce. Bush stated that the proposed bill also includes $14 million to construct and recommission a black powder explosive production line in Louisiana. Such investments in US manufacturing are necessary to help support US strategic readiness by rebuilding America’s atrophied defense industrial base, separate and apart from the need to support Ukraine in its fight against Russia.
https://www.understandingwar.org/backgrounder/russian-offensive-campai
gn-assessment-february-6-2024-0
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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Ukrainian Minefields Are Complicating The New Russian Offensive
By Vikram Mittal | Feb 6, 2024, 10:47am EST
https://www.forbes.com/sites/vikrammittal/2024/02/06/ukrainian-minefie
lds-are-complicating-the-new-russian-offensive/?sh=6f753f6026fc
For over a century, armies have used mines to limit the maneuverability of their adversaries on the battlefield. Recently, the Ukrainian counter-offensive was halted by an extensive network of Russian minefields. As the conflict shifts into a new phase with Ukraine on the defensive against a renewed Russian offensive, the Russian forces must now face similar challenges as they deal with Ukrainian minefields.
The Ukrainian minefields currently appear to be much less extensive than the Russian minefields, which were 20 km deep at locations. Since the Ukrainian minefields are less formidable, Russian forces are attempting to clear paths through them. However, once the Russian forces enter the minefield, they are canalized to these cleared paths. As they proceed down these paths, they can be quickly detected by Ukrainian surveillance drones and targeted by an artillery strike.
Last week, the Russians reportedly experienced minefields near Novomykhailivka in the western Donestk Oblast, where a column of armored vehicles was destroyed by Ukrainian artillery as it attempted to pass through the minefield. Russian military bloggers have reported that Ukrainian minefields are causing similar issues along the Kharkiv-Luhansk axis.
The use of minefields, though effective, does have its controversy. Unlike Russia, Ukraine signed the Ottawa Treaty, which limits the use of anti-personnel mines; however, the Ottawa Treaty does not limit the use of larger anti-tank mines, of which the Ukrainians have an ample stockpile. Indeed, Ukraine had a large pre-existing supply of anti-tank mines that it inherited from the Soviet Union, including the TM-62, TM-83, and PTM-1. The Ukrainians have also received mines from several NATO countries including the German DM-22, DM-31, and DM-1399, the French HPD-2A2, the Danish M/56, and the American RAAMS. While some of these mines are hand-emplaced, others can be put in place by mine-laying machines, yet others can be scattered from helicopters or artillery. Additionally, they differ in their detonation mechanisms, with some activated by the vehicle's pressure and others triggered by detecting the magnetic signature of an armored vehicle.
Similar to the tactic used by the Russians, the Ukrainians are combining their dated mine systems with modern drone technology. Indeed, the use of drones allows the Ukrainians to provide constant overwatch of the minefield. The Ukrainians have a vast armada of surveillance drones including systems provided by other countries, including the American Puma and the Polish FlyEye, and those that are domestically produced, including the A1-SM Fury and the ASU-1 Valkyrja. Many of these drones feature advanced optics that can see through smoke screens and other obscurants that are commonly used to hide military movements. Further, many of these systems include advanced autonomy features and long loitering times.
Given that some of the mine systems can be remotely delivered from artillery shells and helicopters, the Ukrainians have been able to emplace minefields forward of their lines. Moreover, the use of drones allows the Ukrainians to maintain overwatch of these minefields even if they are forward of their lines. If the Russians are able to push through these initial minefields and approach the Ukrainian lines, they will likely find much thicker minefields, similar to what the Russians used against the Ukrainian counter-offensive. The slow progress of the Russian assault is providing the Ukrainians with enough time to build out their defensive minefields.
The Russians will likely try to mitigate these minefields through enhancing their counter-drone technology, limiting the ability of the Ukrainians to overwatch the position. While Russian counter-drone technology, especially using electronic warfare equipm
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Ukraine says Russia's Black Sea Fleet suffered debilitating losses since collapse of grain deal
Ukraine has made major gains in taking back control of the western Black Sea with a months-long campaign
By Peter Aitken | February 7, 2024 9:18am EST
https://www.foxnews.com/world/ukraine-says-russias-black-sea-fleet-suf
fered-debilitating-losses-collapse-grain-deal
The grain deal, brokered in July 2022, helped ensure that the "breadbasket of Europe," responsible for 30% of the global grain supply, would continue to ship vital grains despite a Russian blockade. Russia started attacking grain silos after ending the deal in 2023.
Instead of folding, Ukraine hit back and struck major blows against the Russian fleet, which had initially scored Russia’s strongest victories in the early stages of the invasion. Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy proudly claimed at the end of the year that the fleet "is no longer capable of operating in the western part of the Black Sea and is gradually retreating from Crimea."
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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I discussed tanks and other armored vehicles already.
Tanks were a formidable weapon in WWII. Since then, many anti-tank weapons have been developed: anti tank mines, ATGMS, RPGS, drones (all with shaped charges), artillery, even helicopter gunships. I probably missed a few.
Tanks were outfitted with reactive armor, active defenses, and anti-drone EW. Even so, they don't seem to be useful to lead offensives against prepared defenses. We saw that near Rabotyno when Ukies tried to charge across a minefield, destroying so many Bradleys the field became known as "Bradley Square", and also southwest of Adiivka, when Russians tried to cross a minefield.
Really, armored vehicles only work when MOST anti-tank defenses have been neutralized and only scattered infantry is left. Or when a defense belt has collapsed and the area behind is hollow of defenses.
*****
Your focus on sharpshooting must come from first person shooter games, because a whole army of sharpshooters (or drone operators) can't stop an army that is well- supplied with a variety of both heavy and light weapons. Each weapon has its purpose. Some are used to destroy fortifications or ammo or fuel depots. Others - like TOS "flamethrowers"- can wipe out a football field of soldiers, even dug in in trenches or tunnels. Others can pick off individual soldiers or vehicles. Still others are used for deep underground command centers etc.
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"It may be dangerous to be America's enemy, but to be America's friend is fatal." - Henry Kissinger
Loving America is like loving an addicted spouse - SIGNYM
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Feb 6, 2024 - Damage to Ukraine caused by the ongoing war with Russia has an estimated cost of between $411 billion and $1 trillion.
https://www.weforum.org/agenda/2024/02/even-as-the-war-persists-ukrain
e-is-rebuilding-heres-how/
Signym, if Russia conquers Ukraine, then Russians and Ukrainians will pay this cost. If Russia fails to conquer, Russia can avoid the cost of rebuilding Ukraine, except for what the EU can extract. Financial institutions in the United States and Europe hold about $300 billion worth of Russian state assets that were frozen at the start of the war and which, if seized, could go a long way toward paying for the damage wrought by the invasion.
https://foreignpolicy.com/2024/01/30/biden-russia-ukraine-assests-bank
s-senate/
Signym, Russia has two choices:
1) it is in Russia's best interest to kill Putin now and withdraw from Ukraine, but
2) it is in Putin's best interest to continue fighting in Ukraine until he dies.
The two choices are the same: Either choice ends with Putin's death, with the only difference being how long he lives and how large a bill he leaves for Russia to pay the longer he lives.
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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Fuck Ukraine.
--------------------------------------------------
Political correctness is just tyranny, with a smiley face.
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Quote:If Ukraine committed to not being in NATO, if NATO committed to not creating a "security agreement" with Ukraine, if Ukraine were to be a neutral nation likee Austria, the war would end tomorrow.
Originally posted by second:
Feb 6, 2024 - Damage to Ukraine caused by the ongoing war with Russia has an estimated cost of between $411 billion and $1 trillion.
https://www.weforum.org/agenda/2024/02/even-as-the-war-persists-ukrain
e-is-rebuilding-heres-how/
Signym, if Russia conquers Ukraine, then Russians and Ukrainians will pay this cost. If Russia fails to conquer, Russia can avoid the cost of rebuilding Ukraine, except for what the EU can extract. Financial institutions in the United States and Europe hold about $300 billion worth of Russian state assets that were frozen at the start of the war and which, if seized, could go a long way toward paying for the damage wrought by the invasion.
https://foreignpolicy.com/2024/01/30/biden-russia-ukraine-assests-bank
s-senate/
Signym, Russia has two choices:
1) it is in Russia's best interest to kill Putin now and withdraw from Ukraine, but
2) it is in Putin's best interest to continue fighting in Ukraine until he dies.
The two choices are the same: Either choice ends with Putin's death, with the only difference being how long he lives and how large a bill he leaves for Russia to pay the longer he lives.
The Joss Whedon script for Serenity, where Wash lives, is Serenity-190pages.pdf at
https://www.mediafire.com/folder/1uwh75oa407q8/Firefly
But NATO (i.e. the USA) can't agree to let Russia alone.
I was reminded what set this all off.
Regime change in Ukraine.
Attempted ethnic cleansing of Russian-spraking people.
Civil war.
The west ignoring not one, but TWO, peace agreements, and bragging about it afterwards.
Shelling civilians in Donbas.
Including in Ukraine's constitution the goal of joining NATO (2014)
Massing Ukrainian troops on the border.
Stuffing Ukraine with weapons.
Increased shelling of Donbas civilians, which the west blamed as "false flags"(!)
But I think the thing that pushed this over the edge was Zelensky prancing around the Munich Security Conference in 2022 and bragging he was going to get nukes. Not in his official speech, but when he was hobnobbing with attendees. And none of the EU attendees told him to STFU. That was in February 2022, just two or three days before Russia launched its SMO.
Russia wasn't intending a full-on war. Despite a botched airborne operation, Russia managed scare Kiev into negotiating. Negotiators had reached an cease fire agreement leaving Donbas part of Ukraine and giving Ukraine security guarantees from wester narions AND Russia.
Russia would have been happy to sign, but Boris Johnson twisted Zeneskys arm to continue the war with a promise (We'll give you everything you need for as long as it takes) but worse, a THREAT:
If you sign this agreement there will be no security guarantees from the west.
The west NEVER intended to reach a negotiated settlement. EVER. They (we) just wanted to use Ukraine to bludgeon Russia and topple Putin. Even if it meant fighting Russia to the last Ukrainian.
Has nothing to do with defending democracy or territorial integrity. We were provoking a fight with Russia intneding to destroy them.
stop rewriting history.
-----------
"It may be dangerous to be America's enemy, but to be America's friend is fatal." - Henry Kissinger
Loving America is like loving an addicted spouse - SIGNYM
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Quote:You have repeated Putin's tired old stories many times. When Putin dies, storytime ends and Russia goes back to being like North Korea threatening its neighbors with nukes, but not crossing into neighboring countries.
Originally posted by SIGNYM:
If Ukraine committed to not being in NATO, if NATO committed to not creating a "security agreement" with Ukraine, if Ukraine were to be a neutral nation likee Austria, the war would end tomorrow.
But NATO (i.e. the USA) can't agree to let Russia alone.
I was reminded what set this all off.
Deputy Chairperson of the Russian Security Council Dmitry Medvedev continued his nuclear saber-rattling rhetoric likely aimed in part at deterring Western aid to Ukraine. Medvedev claimed on February 7 that Russia has repeatedly “underscored” that it’s “plans” do not include any conflict “with NATO and EU member states.”[12] Kremlin officials, including Russian President Vladimir Putin, however, have recently and consistently rhetorically threatened NATO member states, and Kremlin-affiliated actors appear to be attempting to sow instability and set information conditions for possible future Russian aggressive actions against various European states.[13]
Medvedev stated that NATO’s military budget and population are significantly larger than Russia’s, so that if a war were to break out between Russia and NATO, Russia would have to respond “asymmetrically” by using “ballistic and cruise missiles carrying special warheads” — referring to nuclear warheads — resulting in an “apocalypse.” Medvedev posted these claims on his English language X (formerly Twitter) channel and Russian language Telegram channel, suggesting that his statements are meant for both an international and domestic audience.
Kremlin officials and pundits have consistently threatened to use nuclear weapons against NATO members, and ISW continues to assess that this nuclear rhetoric is aimed at deterring Western aid to Ukraine.[14] Medvedev‘s statements about NATO’s larger size and military budget relative to Russia are likely aimed at domestically promoting Kremlin narratives that NATO — and the West generally — poses an existential threat to Russia — a claim the Kremlin has used to try to justify its full-scale invasion of Ukraine.[15]
https://www.understandingwar.org/backgrounder/russian-offensive-campai
gn-assessment-february-7-2024
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:You have written that almost as frequently as Trump will be President. I can see why you flunked out of college, lost your girlfriend, live on $7,000 per year, and obsessively work on repairing your house, seldom leaving its protection from reality. You are a gopher in a hole in the ground, but with internet to connect you to Trump.
Originally posted by 6ixStringJack:
Fuck Ukraine.
--------------------------------------------------
Political correctness is just tyranny, with a smiley face.
Russia simply can’t win a war against Europe. The mathematics are inexorable
Even if the US pulls out, Putin would be crazy to start something
By Andrew Lilico | 6 February 2024 • 1:36pm
https://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/2024/02/06/russia-war-europe-nato-eu-
ukraine-economics/
Consider two opposed countries. One has a larger population; the other has higher GDP. To create matching militaries, in terms of personnel and equipment, the country with the larger population need only devote a smaller percentage of its population to the military, but must devote a higher share of its GDP.
Suppose, instead, that the two countries devoted equal shares of personnel and GDP, and thus the more populous country had more personnel but they were less well-equipped, so each soldier is less effective – eg in killing opponents. In that case we can gain insight from an ingenious piece of military mathematics worked out during World War I: the “square law”. https://apps.dtic.mil/sti/pdfs/ADA225484.pdf (. . . “presents the results of the statistical analysis and suggests that an exponential law is more appropriate” than square law.)
This tells us that, in pure attrition terms, if one military force is more numerous than another but less effective, then in order to win, the ratio of the smaller military’s effectiveness advantages needs to be greater than the square of the ratio of its numerical disadvantage. So, for example, that means that if you have 10 percent fewer troops, your troops need to be more than 21 percent more effective to win an attrition-based war.
The proportion of the population that different countries can mobilise to fight might differ. An authoritarian state might be able to conscript more of its population to fight. But an authoritarian state might also have what we might term a “morale” disadvantage – its forces might become unable or unwilling to fight at a lower loss rate than would be the case for forces fighting for what they regard as a more noble cause. On the other side there are those that would argue that some democratic liberal countries have become sufficiently self-hating or decadent that they do not regard their own cause as noble enough to fight for.
Let’s apply some of these insights to a consideration of Russia’s medium-term threat to the EU. The Russian economy is about 10 percent of the size of the EU’s. The EU spends about 1.3 percent of GDP on its military and the Russians have recently raised their spending to about 6 percent. So EU military spending will be about twice that of Russia. If we assume spending more produces greater troop effectiveness, then by the square law, to compensate for spending half as much, Russia would need to mobilise more than 40 percent more troops than the EU that it was able to devote to battle, if Russian forces continued to be able to fight at the same loss percentages that EU troops were. The EU’s combined militaries have about 1.4 million troops. So Russia would need to have around 2 million troops available in an attrition war. If we assume Russia would be attacking, and apply the classical rule of thumb that attacking forces need a 1.5:1 advantage across a theatre, Russia would need about three million. Russia has around 1.2 million troops at present, but notionally around 2 million reservists.
If the above analysis is correct, then, in the medium term, even setting aside any “morale” differences, in order to have a chance against a combined EU (and thus be in any position to threaten Britain) Russia would need either to dou
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It is time for the Ukrainian army to pull out of the ruins of Avdiivka.
Ukraine’s Fortress City Held For A Decade. But Russia Was Willing To Trade Tens Of Thousands Of Lives For It.
By David Axe | Feb 7, 2024, 05:15pm EST
https://www.forbes.com/sites/davidaxe/2024/02/07/ukraines-fortress-cit
y-held-for-a-decade-but-russia-was-willing-to-trade-tens-of-thousands-of-lives-for-it/?sh=941335a54bfa
For 10 years since Russia first attacked Ukraine, Ukrainian troops held out in Avdiivka, a city with a pre-war population of 30,000 that lies just five miles northwest of Russian-occupied Donetsk in eastern Ukraine.
But now it’s time for the Ukrainians to pull back, according to one Ukrainian analysis group. “The fall of Avdiivka is not a matter of if, but when,” Frontelligence Insight explained in a new report.
There are very few civilians left in Avdiivka’s ruins, and rescuers are working to get them and their pets out of the city. Which is not to say Ukraine stands to lose nothing by pulling the army’s 110th Mechanized Brigade—which has garrisoned Avdiivka since Russia widened its war on Ukraine 23 months ago—from the city.
There’s propaganda value for both sides in either holding or taking Avdiivka. Russian president Vladimir Putin surely would enjoy the ruins as a gift ahead of his sham re-election next month.
But Avdiivka has actual military value, too. It’s one of Russia’s main objectives to fully control Donetsk Oblast—and to prevent Ukraine from ever liberating the oblast. That means eliminating pockets of resistance such as Avdiivka while also digging in and firming up local logistics.
From Avdiivka, Ukrainian troops can threaten the railways in Donetsk, forcing the Russians to find alternate—and less efficient—ways to ship people and materiel around eastern Ukraine.
If the survivors of the 110th Brigade’s 2,000 troops quit Avdiivka and retreat to prepared positions several miles to the west, it becomes much harder for them and adjacent forces to hold at threat Russian supply lines threading through Donetsk. That in turn firms up Russia’s occupation in the east.
All the same, it may be time. The 110th’s troops have fought a valiant defense for four months straight, without a break, bleeding a 40,000-person Russian force for every yard the Russians gained. The Ukrainian army’s 47th and 53rd Brigades have helped, by defending Avdiivka’s flanks with drones, mines, artillery and—in the 47th’s case—American-made M-2 fighting vehicles.
Since launching their latest campaign against Avdiikva back in October, the Russians likely have lost tens of thousands of troops, killed or maimed, as well as many hundreds of tanks and fighting vehicles. At times, it was possible the loss ratio—Russian casualties to Ukrainian ones—was seven-to-one or even 10-to-one in the Ukrainians’ favor.
But that was earlier in the campaign, when the Ukrainians’ supply lines into Avdiivka weren’t threatened by incremental Russian advances along the city’s flanks and, as of late January, Russian incursions directly into the city from the north and south.
Now the Russians are just a few hundred yards from the main roads into Avdiivka, and can strike Ukrainian supply trucks with handheld weapons.
It’s a turning point. One Ukrainians veterans have observed before. In May last year, in a grinding battle not dissimilar to that in Avdiivka, a Ukrainian garrison held out for months in the ruins of Bakhmut. They killed as many as 10 Russians for ever person they lost—until the Russians traded blood for ground and pinched the city’s supply lines.
Running low on ammunition, the Ukrainians in Bakhmut lost their advantage. “Once Russian forces managed to seize Ukrainian flanks and disrupt supply routes, the casualty rates almost equaled,” Frontelligence recalled.
Waiting too long to retreat from Bakhmut, Ukrainian commanders partially surrendered their attrition advantage and—in the process—lost credibility with the Ukrainian public.
The lives the generals wasted at the end of the Bakhmut campaign
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Trump’s already back and America has ditched Ukraine
February 8, 2024 4:01 am CET
https://www.politico.eu/article/olaf-scholz-joe-biden-united-states-su
pport-ukraine-trump-return/
BERLIN — During a visit to Washington this week, German Chancellor Olaf Scholz is likely to find that Donald Trump has already returned — at least in terms of U.S. policy toward Europe's worst strategic nightmare in Ukraine.
Scholz arrives just as Republicans in Congress, acting at Trump’s behest, are blocking military aid for Kyiv, imperiling the fate of the embattled country.
The Washington setback comes as Ukraine's frontline troops complain of ammunition shortages, and as Russian forces make a major push to capture the shattered ruins of the city of Avdiivka.
It's a particularly grim scenario for the Germans, who fear they will now be on the hook as Kyiv's main champion — a role they never wanted, preferring the part of Washington's sidekick.
“The discussions between the House of Representatives and the Senate on funding support for Ukraine is of course a topic that we are following particularly closely,” a senior German government official said ahead of Scholz’s trip.
That, to put it mildly, is an understatement. Since Russia invaded Ukraine nearly two years ago, the U.S. has been the largest provider of military aid to Kyiv by a wide margin. With that support now on hold, and little assurance it will resume soon, the world has been upended for Ukraine's European allies.
Germany and Europe have a lot more riding on Ukraine’s survival than the U.S. does.
European leaders fear that if Putin wins in Ukraine and Trump returns to the presidency, countries like Latvia or Moldova might be next.
Discussing that prospect, a senior European diplomat, speaking on condition of anonymity, recently told POLITICO and other media outlets: “These are the things that keep me up at night.” (Why the anonymity? All European cheese-eating surrender monkeys will do no more than overeat cheese to make themselves feel better about Ukraine's downfall.)
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 second:Quote:You have written that almost as frequently as Trump will be President.
Originally posted by 6ixStringJack:
Fuck Ukraine.
--------------------------------------------------
Political correctness is just tyranny, with a smiley face.
Yes. I have.
Quote:
I can see why you flunked out of college,
Dropped out of college and did better than most Americans will ever do.
Quote:
lost your girlfriend,
Everybody's lost girlfriends.
Quote:
live on $7,000 per year,
Zero shame. This is a source of great pride.
Quote:
and obsessively work on repairing your house,
It comes and goes. If I obsessively worked on it, it only would have taken me a few years instead of going on 13.
Quote:
seldom leaving its protection from reality.
Reality is overrated when you own your own castle free and clear.
Quote:
You are a gopher in a hole in the ground, but with internet to connect you to Trump.
And yet I have very little knowledge of anything Trump is doing or saying on any given day because I'm not the one here who obsesses over Trump and his daily goings on.
That would be you, buddy.
Fuck Russia.
Trump will be fine.
He will also be your next President.
--------------------------------------------------
Political correctness is just tyranny, with a smiley face.
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Quote:You are like every Trumptard, bragging about your nothingness. The first Trumptard I knew was Joe Duncan in 1962, before Trump was out of high school. Joe was around 45 years old, a pilot for Eastern Airlines, red-faced, and never sober when home. A big blowhard like you about his "successful" life. Joe was the most unpleasant asshole I knew as a 10-year-old. His greediness and bad temper caused his marriages to end and his children to avoid him. But he didn't get fired from Eastern. In 1965 he choked on a chicken bone and died. Good riddance. I have seen thousands of Trumptards since then. They are all screwed up in the head. When I follow their stories, the ending is stupid and early in life, just like Joe Duncan's, possibly because they cannot believe they are the cause of their problems, not their wives' fault or their employers' or their children's or the government's fault.
Originally posted by 6ixStringJack:Quote:
I can see why you flunked out of college,
Dropped out of college and did better than most Americans will ever do.
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 second:Quote:You are like every Trumptard, bragging about your nothingness.
Originally posted by 6ixStringJack:Quote:
I can see why you flunked out of college,
Dropped out of college and did better than most Americans will ever do.
It ain't bragging if it's true.
If you don't want me to talk about how awesome I am, you should probably start sticking to the political topics at hand and stop bringing my personal life into everything because you can't ever win an argument with facts.
--------------------------------------------------
Political correctness is just tyranny, with a smiley face.
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Quote:Trumptards don't realize they screwed up, but it is inevitable because the same brain makes their political and personal choices. I knew all about Trumptard Joe Duncan's political opinions and his drunken life. Joe is the reason I never drink and continue despising his political beliefs which live on without him. 6ix, too bad you didn't have a Joe Duncan's poor example teaching you about alcohol and politics. You've had to learn very slowly over many years what was immediately obvious to 10-year-old me about alcohol and people who vote Republican.
Originally posted by 6ixStringJack:
It ain't bragging if it's true.
If you don't want me to talk about how awesome I am, you should probably start sticking to the political topics at hand and stop bringing my personal life into everything because you can't ever win an argument with facts.
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 second:Quote:Trumptards don't realize they screwed up, but it is inevitable because the same brain makes their political and personal choices. I knew all about Trumptard Joe Duncan's political opinions and his drunken life. Joe is the reason I never drink and continue despising his political beliefs which live on without him. 6ix, too bad you didn't have a Joe Duncan's poor example teaching you about alcohol and politics. You've had to learn very slowly over many years what was immediately obvious to 10-year-old me about alcohol and people who vote Republican.
Originally posted by 6ixStringJack:
It ain't bragging if it's true.
If you don't want me to talk about how awesome I am, you should probably start sticking to the political topics at hand and stop bringing my personal life into everything because you can't ever win an argument with facts.
The Joss Whedon script for Serenity, where Wash lives, is Serenity-190pages.pdf at
https://www.mediafire.com/folder/1uwh75oa407q8/Firefly
You don't see me crying over spilled milk.
You should worry about yourself. Nobody else is going to do it because you're the only person who cares about you. You are unlovable. You are miserable. You are a waste of carbon.
Have a nice day. I've no more time to waste on you this morning.
--------------------------------------------------
Political correctness is just tyranny, with a smiley face.
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SECOND doesn't obsess over what Putin says, or what Trump says, or what "Trumptards" say or do.
He obsesses over his DELUSIONS, polishing those turds to a brilliant shine.
Hey, SECOND, how did you get Ukraine so wrong? Russia is winning. Ukraine will be destroyed and NATO will be reduced to fomenting terrorist actions in Russia, just like we armed and funded terrorists in Syria, Chechnya, Afghanistan, Libya ... El Salvador (except there we called them "death squads")... we have been reduced to destroying nations like Yugoslavia and Iraq because we don't have the capacity to protect and build.
And you, SECOND, are an epitome of that hate and destruction. That's all you know, and that's all you advocate, 24/7/365.
How about putting some "real world" into that brain of yours? Yanno, stop obsessively posting hate, emerge from your dark inner world and get out in the sunshine once in a while? Do something useful for a change?
-----------
"It may be dangerous to be America's enemy, but to be America's friend is fatal." - Henry Kissinger
Loving America is like loving an addicted spouse - SIGNYM
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Quote:
Originally posted by SIGNYM:
SECOND doesn't obsess over what Putin says, or what Trump says, or what "Trumptards" say or do.
He obsesses over his DELUSIONS, polishing those turds to a brilliant shine.
He obsesses over me too.
I still think the dude is madly in love with me.
--------------------------------------------------
Political correctness is just tyranny, with a smiley face.
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Quote:Signym, I don't know how this war ends, but somehow you know for certain that Russia wins. How do you know? Could it be Putin's talking points that convinced you? But he is not an orator. More an indefatigable blabbermouth. But so is Trump. And yet both Putin and Trump can emotionally manipulate a subspecies of homo sapiens called Trumptards in America and Putin's people in Russia who know in their hearts that Trump will win in America and Putin will win in Ukraine.
Originally posted by SIGNYM:
SECOND doesn't obsess over what Putin says, or what Trump says, or what "Trumptards" say or do.
He obsesses over his DELUSIONS, polishing those turds to a brilliant shine.
Hey, SECOND, how did you get Ukraine so wrong? Russia is winning. Ukraine will be destroyed and NATO will be reduced to fomenting terrorist actions in Russia, just like we armed and funded terrorists in Syria, Chechnya, Afghanistan, Libya ... El Salvador (except there we called them "death squads")... we have been reduced to destroying nations like Yugoslavia and Iraq because we don't have the capacity to protect and build.
And you, SECOND, are an epitome of that hate and destruction. That's all you know, and that's all you advocate, 24/7/365.
How about putting some "real world" into that brain of yours? Yanno, stop obsessively posting hate, emerge from your dark inner world and get out in the sunshine once in a while? Do something useful for a change?
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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Russian President Vladimir Putin attempted to use an interview with American media personality Tucker Carlson published on February 8 to present to a wider Western audience a long-standing Kremlin information operation that falsely asserts that Russia is interested in a negotiated end to its war in Ukraine. https://tuckercarlson.com/the-vladimir-putin-interview/
Putin illustrated throughout the interview that Russia has no interest in meaningful or legitimate negotiations, however, and that Putin still seeks to destroy Ukraine as a state. Putin also displayed his overarching hostility towards the West and falsely accused the West of forcing Russia to attack Ukraine. Putin repeatedly stressed that Russia is open to negotiations in order to falsely frame Russia as a reasonable actor and “Western ruling elites” as the main obstruction to a negotiation.[2] Putin also repeatedly reiterated a Russian information operation alleging that Western officials coerced Ukraine to reject an agreement favorable to Russia during negotiations between Ukraine and Russia in Istanbul in March 2022.[3] Western leaders, in fact, offered to help President Volodymyr Zelensky escape Kyiv in the days immediately following the invasion, and Zelensky responded that he needed “ammunition, not a ride.”[4]
The Kremlin routinely frames the West as the only meaningful negotiating party in Ukraine as part of its effort to gain Western acceptance of its premise that Ukraine has no independent agency in order to secure concessions from the West on Ukraine’s behalf that undermine Ukraine’s sovereignty and destroy Ukraine’s territorial integrity.[5] The Kremlin has periodically intensified this information operation feigning interest in negotiations to seize on actual Western interest in a negotiated settlement to undermine Western support for Ukraine and degrade Western efforts to send more security assistance to Ukraine.[6] Putin and the Kremlin have intensified rhetoric in recent weeks indicating that Russia continues to pursue maximalist objectives in Ukraine that ISW assesses would amount to full Ukrainian and Western capitulation.[7] ISW continues to assess that Putin’s negotiating position has not changed: He still seeks the destruction of Ukraine and seeks to use an armistice to set favorable condition for the Russian military to launch a subsequent more successful war against Ukraine.
Putin also attempted to use the interview to absurdly reframe Russia as the wronged party and not the initiator of Russia’s unprovoked war of conquest against Ukraine. Putin falsely claimed that Ukrainian “neo-Nazis” started the war in Ukraine in 2014 and that Russia’s full-scale invasion is an attempt to bring that war to an end.[8] Putin repeated tired Russian rhetoric presenting Russia’s annexation of Crimea and intervention in Donbas in 2014 and its full-scale invasion of Ukraine in 2022 as a defensive campaign aimed at protecting Russian people and the Russia nation. This ongoing information operation is meant to obfuscate the obvious fact that Russia launched a war of aggression against its neighbor in 2022 in order to confuse Western memories of what actually happened. Putin’s revisionism also aims to bolster long-standing Kremlin narratives justifying his maximalist goals in Ukraine.
Putin continued attempts to justify Russia’s invasions of Ukraine in 2014 and 2022 as responses to Ukraine’s and the West’s actions in order to defend his long-standing calls for regime change in Kyiv and Ukraine’s “demilitarization,” “denazification,” and “neutrality.” Putin falsely claimed that a US-backed “coup” in Ukraine in 2014 forced Russia to invade Crimea and begin military operations in Donbas in 2014.[9] Putin falsely claimed that Ukraine initiated a military operation in the Donbas starting in 2014 and that Ukraine failed to implement the Minsk Agreements establishing the armistice that Putin broke in February 2022. Putin accused NATO of exploiting Ukraine in order to build military bases in Ukraine under the guise of training the Ukrainian military. There
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Ukraine risks critical shortage of western ammunition, officials warn
Congressional delays create a ‘hole in the hose’ of supplies needed on the battlefield
By Henry Foy in Brussels, Felicia Schwartz in Washington and Christopher Miller in Kyiv | Feb 8, 2024
https://www.ft.com/content/6594e548-8b2e-4c95-a589-7d9e358062d2
Ukraine faces a critical gap in western artillery ammunition needed to withstand Russian attacks, officials have warned, as US assistance runs out and Europe fails to hit its own targets for increased arms production.
Kyiv has already been struggling to hold back Russia’s troops along a 1,500km active frontline, with Ukrainian forces rationing stockpiles and firing only about a third of the number of rounds they need each day to maintain their position.
Further aggravating their situation is the failure in Washington to pass $60bn in military and financial aid, which means most American shipments are at an effective pause, while a promised European ramp-up of production has not been fast enough, according to US and European officials.
The congressional delay risked creating an “airbubble” or “gap in the hose” of supplies to Kyiv, said a senior US military official.
The US Senate on Thursday voted to move forward with more debate over a new bill to send $60bn in additional funds to Ukraine, giving some hope of a last-gasp breakthrough to secure more lethal aid, but Congress’s backing remains far from certain.
Western officials have warned that the coming months will stretch Ukraine’s ability to fight with fewer resources, with Russia already exploiting the resource advantage to make gains in key locations such as around the strategic town of Avdiivka.
“This is really as grave as we have been portraying it,” a US defence official said, noting that the US had run out of money to fund new weapons contracts for Ukraine or funds that would allow the Pentagon to take inventory from its stockpiles and replenish those stocks.
“My take is that this is a very grim scenario,” the defence official said, adding that the Pentagon was particularly concerned about maintaining Ukrainians’ air defence systems and ammunition supplies.
National security adviser of the United States Jake Sullivan said there was ‘no alternative’ to the scale of resources that the US could offer.
“It is a desperate situation on the front lines for the Ukrainians, far worse than they are letting on,” said a senior Nato diplomat.
Nearly two years since the start of Russia’s full-scale invasion, Moscow’s superior ammunition and manpower has forced Ukraine to adopt a strategy of “active defence” this year, after a much-vaunted counteroffensive in 2023 failed to make a significant breakthrough.
The risk of a gap in military assistance was “the main concern” for the first half of this year, a senior European diplomat said, warning that even holding on to current positions would be hard for Ukrainians to achieve.
“It will not be easy for the Europeans to substitute for the US. That’s not entirely realistic,” said one senior European diplomat. “Can [the EU] be enough if the US changes course of its direction? I’m not sure.”
President Joe Biden acknowledged the problem this week, saying the US was the “essential nation”. His national security adviser Jake Sullivan added on Wednesday that there was “no alternative” to the scale of resources that the US could offer — if Congress authorises more spending on Ukraine aid.
The European diplomat expressed concerns when “discussing the tactical situation” with Ukrainian commanders who were aware “they will suffer?.?.?.?and it will be very hard for them to make advances”.
The EU had pledged to send 1mn 155mm artillery shells to Ukraine in the 12 months to March, but has admitted that it will fail to hit that target. Officials now say that they will reach a new target of expanding its 155mm production capacity to 1.4mn shells by the end of 2024.
“The old truism still holds true — the side with the most ammunition to fight usu
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European Lawmakers Issue Dire Warnings Over Stalled Ukraine Aid Package
“If you don’t want another Pearl Harbor, you better listen to us,” cautioned one Lithuanian politician.
By Amy Mackinnon | Feb 8, 2024
https://foreignpolicy.com/2024/02/08/europe-ukraine-aid-package-warnin
g-war-russia/
European lawmakers are issuing increasingly bleak warnings about the future of the war in Ukraine and the continent’s security as a $60 billion U.S. aid package for Kyiv continues to languish on Capitol Hill and the war is set to enter its third year later this month.
European lawmakers are issuing increasingly bleak warnings about the future of the war in Ukraine and the continent’s security as a $60 billion U.S. aid package for Kyiv continues to languish on Capitol Hill and the war is set to enter its third year later this month.
Since Russia’s full-scale invasion, Washington has welcomed a steady stream of lawmakers, government ministers, and heads of state from Europe amid transatlantic efforts to coordinate military and humanitarian support for Ukraine. But there has been a palpable ratcheting up in the intensity and urgency of their message.
“You can’t help but wonder what has happened here. We seem to have drifted apart,” said Diljá Mist Einarsdóttir, chair of the Icelandic parliament’s Foreign Affairs Committee.
Einarsdóttir and a delegation of six other chairs of the parliamentary foreign affairs committees of the Baltic and Nordic states spoke with a small group of journalists on Thursday morning as the U.S. Senate voted to advance a stand-alone aid package for Ukraine, Israel, and Taiwan. It remains unclear whether the bill will be able to garner enough votes to pass the Senate and House.
A bipartisan effort to combine the aid with an immigration reform package was shot down by Senate Republicans on Wednesday evening after former U.S. President Donald Trump urged his party to reject the legislation.
“Dear Republican Senators of America,” Polish Prime Minister Donald Tusk wrote on X, formerly known as Twitter, following the vote. “Ronald Reagan, who helped millions of us to win back our freedom and independence, must be turning in his grave today. Shame on you.”
Dire warnings from European lawmakers come as Ukraine has stalled on the battlefield and Russia is making significant investments in defense spending and production. In the early days of the war, Moscow appeared to be on the back foot as its economy was pummeled with international sanctions and its armed forces struggled through a poorly planned invasion.
But two years on, the Russian economy is projected to grow, albeit marginally, in the coming year fueled by a significant boost in defense spending. One-third of the country’s state budget has been allocated for defense in 2024, and arms manufacturers have been urged to work around the clock.
“If we cannot manage, together with the U.S., to stop Russia in Ukraine, it’s a matter of time if it is a war against NATO in general, and that will be much higher cost,” said Aron Emilsson, chair of the Swedish parliament’s Foreign Affairs Committee.
Emilsson’s Latvian counterpart, Rihards Kols, said he was struck by the lack of urgency in Washington about the war. “I got the notion that the war in Ukraine is something very far away, distant from the U.S.,” said Kols, who noted that by comparison, Latvian public discourse had been dominated by the possibility of a wider war.
Last month, top military officials in Sweden and the United Kingdom warned their populations to prepare for a potential war.
Zygimantas Pavilionis, chair of the Lithuanian parliament’s Foreign Affairs Committee, who has made several trips to Washington since the beginning of the war, said that the reception he and his colleagues get on Capitol Hill is “getting worse with every visit.” Pavilionis, like many lawmakers and officials from the Baltic states, sought to sound the alarm about Russia’s revanchist intentions long before the full-scal
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"The froth and hyperventilation is strong with this one"
-----------
"It may be dangerous to be America's enemy, but to be America's friend is fatal." - Henry Kissinger
Loving America is like loving an addicted spouse - SIGNYM
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There is a simple way to attain peace and stability in Europe: stop trying to destroy Russia. Stop trying to extend NATO to Russia's borders. Stop running regime change operations in Europe. Pledge that Ukraine and Georgia will stay neutral ... and KEEP the agreements this time instead of going back on them at every opportunity.
Withdraw USA missile bases from Poland and Romania. Russia will breathe a huge sigh of relief and tensions will flow away.
Of course, if we remain committed to destroying Russia ... and Iran ... and North Korea .... and committed to provoking a war with China, and killing civilians in Gaza .... well, you reap what you sow.
*****
Oh and BTW ... WE CAN'T SUPPLY WHAT WE DON'T HAVE. We could give all kinds of $$$ to Ukraine, but we gave them all of the shells in store, and our combined western production simply can't keep up. So let the printing presses go "brrrrrrrr..." It would be just one last payday for oligarchs, MIC, speculators, and politicians.
What a joke.
Ukraine should have heeded Kissinger's warning.
-----------
"It may be dangerous to be America's enemy, but to be America's friend is fatal." - Henry Kissinger
Loving America is like loving an addicted spouse - SIGNYM
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Quote:Too late. NATO has already been extended to Russia's border for decades. The sensible Russian move would have been to attack those NATO nations, not Ukraine. But then there is the part about Russia murdering tens of millions of Russians, which makes it absurd that Russia can attain peace and stability. Recall the Soviet Union collapsing. That is not exactly what stable people, sane and sensible, would do to themselves.
Originally posted by SIGNYM:
There is a simple way to attain peace and stability in Europe: stop trying to destroy Russia. Stop trying to extend NATO to Russia's borders. Stop running regime change operations in Europe.
https://www.nato.int/cps/en/natohq/115204.htm
Map shows Russia's border with NATO
https://ca.finance.yahoo.com/news/map-shows-russias-border-nato-090247
369.html
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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Everything That Was Wrong With Tucker Carlson’s Putin Interview
By Fred Kaplan | Feb 09, 2024, 1:51 PM
https://slate.com/news-and-politics/2024/02/tucker-carlson-putin-inter
view-fact-check-history.html
It is legitimate, in principle, for a journalist to interview a murderous dictator. The uproar over Tucker Carlson’s announcement that he would interview Vladimir Putin was that the session would amount to pure Kremlin propaganda. Carlson, after all, is an admirer of Putin who, in his days as a Fox News host, hoped out loud that Russia would win its war against Ukraine. It was also feared that Putin would spout a stream of lies and that Carlson, who is not a real journalist, much less a historian, would be incapable of pushing back.
In this sense, the two-hour interview, which aired Thursday night on X and Carlson’s website, exceeded all expectations. It is a thoroughly repellent show—for the perniciousness of Putin’s falsehoods, the thoroughness of Carlson’s complicity, and the possible impact it might have at a time when many in Congress are looking for any excuse to cut off further aid to Ukraine’s embattled military.
One bit of good news is that Putin kicked off the big event with a half-hour-long monologue about Russian history, and, amid his holding forth on Yaroslav the Wise, the Ryurik dynasty, and the baptism of Rus (and this was all merely leading up to 1000 A.D.), many viewers likely tuned out and turned it off.
The upshot of Putin’s lecture, it soon became clear, was that Ukraine never existed as a nation, a culture, or an ethnicity separate from Russia; that there was no mention of such a place until 1919, when the Bolsheviks created the Soviet Socialist Republic of Ukraine; and, therefore, the assertion of Ukrainian independence, after the breakup of the USSR, was an absurdity and a gesture of ingratitude.
This is total nonsense, as many analysts and historians noted when Putin laid out his thesis in a 5,000-word essay in 2021 called On the Historical Unity of Russians and Ukrainians. Carlson, who sat listening with the expression of a listless undergrad who wondered if he’d stumbled into the wrong seminar, challenged none of it.
The true depths of Putin’s mischief, and Carlson’s collaboration, were plumbed when the discussion turned to Russia’s invasion of Ukraine. In Putin’s account, the war was brought on by the United States and Ukraine. In 2008, President George W. Bush opened the door to Ukraine’s membership in NATO, which had already taken over many of Russia’s former allies in central and Eastern Europe. In 2014, the CIA engineered a coup in Kyiv, which brought to power “neo-Nazis” who sent soldiers into Donbas province, where many Russian speakers lived, forcing Moscow to come to their aid.
This account had the virtue of being half-true, but the half that was false is crucial. It is true that, at the 2008 NATO summit in Bucharest, Bush declared (and pressured the Western allies to agree) that Ukraine and Georgia would become members, but he didn’t lay out a timetable, thus feeding Ukrainians’ false hopes and Putin’s paranoia—the worst of both worlds.
Putin omitted or distorted much context. First, the expansion of NATO, which began under Bush’s father and President Bill Clinton, was encouraged most of all by the small central and Eastern European countries—chiefly Czechoslovakia, Poland, and Hungary—which did not want to be left defenseless in the face of what they saw as Russia’s inevitable revanchism. (Putin repeated to Carlson his claim that Clinton had promised NATO would expand “not one inch” to the east; as historian M.E. Sarotte proves in her book, titled Not One Inch, this is a myth.)
Second, the events of 2014 began when Ukraine’s president, Viktor Yanukovych, reversed his pledge to seek formal affiliation with the European Union—after Putin offered the country $17 billion if he did so. This backpedaling sparked a mass rebellion on the Maidan, Kyiv’s public square. Yanukovych tried to suppress it with gunfire, but in the end fled to R
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Quote:During negotiations to unite Germany,
Originally posted by second:Quote:Too late. NATO has already been extended to Russia's border for decades. The sensible Russian move would have been to attack those NATO nations, not Ukraine. But then there is the part about Russia murdering tens of millions of Russians, which makes it absurd that Russia can attain peace and stability. Recall the Soviet Union collapsing. That is not exactly what stable people, sane and sensible, would do to themselves.
Originally posted by SIGNYM:
There is a simple way to attain peace and stability in Europe: stop trying to destroy Russia. Stop trying to extend NATO to Russia's borders. Stop running regime change operations in Europe.
https://www.nato.int/cps/en/natohq/115204.htm
Map shows Russia's border with NATO
https://ca.finance.yahoo.com/news/map-shows-russias-border-nato-090247
369.html
The Joss Whedon script for Serenity, where Wash lives, is Serenity-190pages.pdf at
https://www.mediafire.com/folder/1uwh75oa407q8/Firefly
Quote:
Washington D.C., December 12, 2017 – U.S. Secretary of State James Baker’s famous “not one inch eastward” assurance about NATO expansion in his meeting with Soviet leader Mikhail Gorbachev on February 9, 1990, was part of a cascade of assurances about Soviet security given by Western leaders to Gorbachev and other Soviet officials throughout the process of German unification in 1990 and on into 1991, according to declassified U.S., Soviet, German, British and French documents posted today by the National Security Archive at George Washington University ( http://nsarchive.gwu.edu).
The documents show that multiple national leaders were considering and rejecting Central and Eastern European membership in NATO as of early 1990 and through 1991, that discussions of NATO in the context of German unification negotiations in 1990 were not at all narrowly limited to the status of East German territory, and that subsequent Soviet and Russian complaints about being misled about NATO expansion were founded in written contemporaneous memcons and telcons at the highest levels.
https://nsarchive.gwu.edu/briefing-book/russia-programs/2017-12-12/nat
o-expansion-what-gorbachev-heard-western-leaders-early
You certainly persist trying to rewrite history, SECOND. But reality is against you.
-----------
"It may be dangerous to be America's enemy, but to be America's friend is fatal." - Henry Kissinger
Loving America is like loving an addicted spouse - SIGNYM
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Meanwhile. Zaluzhny is out bc he might be a political or military threat to Zelenskiy. "Meat grinder" Sirsky, who is 100% loyal to Zelenskiy, is in. Sirsky, who's was responsible for the Debaltsevo cauldron and the bloody but fruitless defense of Bakhmut, is supposedly taking his "not one millimeter" approach to Avdiivka and is calling in more reinforcements for the Russian army to bomb to smithereens.
Since Sirsky seems to be taking orders directly from "cokehead in a bunker" Zelenskiy, I expect this will just lead to a faster unraveling of the Ukrainian army, and - at some point- another Maidan movement as those remaining in Ukraine object to getting pushed into an endless string of fire sacks.
-----------
"It may be dangerous to be America's enemy, but to be America's friend is fatal." - Henry Kissinger
Loving America is like loving an addicted spouse - SIGNYM
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Some Day, Ukraine Will Run Out Of Su-25 Attack Jets. That’s Why It Wants Ex-American A-10s.
By David Axe | Feb 8, 2024, 06:44pm EST
https://www.forbes.com/sites/davidaxe/2024/02/08/some-day-ukraine-will
-run-out-of-su-25-attack-jets-thats-why-it-wants-ex-american-a-10s/?sh=3b04619f4753
Russian forces shot down a Ukrainian air force Sukhoi Su-25 attack jet while it was flying a combat sortie over eastern Ukraine on Thursday. Pilot Stanislav Rykov, the veteran of more than 380 missions — that’s one sortie every other day since Russia widened its war on Ukraine — tragically died.
Mourn for Rykov, but don’t mourn — yet — for the air force’s 299th Tactical Aviation Brigade, the sole Ukrainian operator of the subsonic, twin-engine Su-25. Nearly two years after Russia attacked, the 299th Brigade has ... exactly as many Su-25s as it started with.
Which is not to say the air force isn’t looking ahead to the day when the aging Su-25s begin to run out. It’s not for no reason that some Ukrainian officials have been asking for ex-U.S. Air Force Fairchild Republic A-10 attack jets.
The Ukrainian air force inherited scores of the armored Su-25s from the Soviet air force as the latter withdrew from Ukraine after 1991. By early 2022, 43 of the aging planes still were flyable, according to aviation journalist Vladimir Trendafilovski.
The journalist counted 30 operational Su-25s, one that was undergoing overhaul at the Zaporizhzhia State Aircraft Repair Plant plus another 12 that were in flyable storage at Mykolaiv-Kulbakino, the 299th’s Brigade home base in southern Ukraine.
When Russia invaded on Feb. 24, 2022, the Su-25s and their pilots and crews scattered across Ukraine to dodge Russian missiles — and then flew into action, streaking toward Russian forces at extremely low level to drop bombs and fire rockets.
The Russians over the next two years shot down or blew up on the ground 18 Su-25s, and killed many pilots. But between them, Macedonia and Bulgaria donated to Ukraine — you guessed it — 18 Su-25s. While it’s possible the 299th Brigade has stripped some of the donated airframes for spare parts, it’s equally possible the unit instead cannibalized older ex-Soviet Sukhois — and sent the donated jets into action.
All that is to say that, despite heavy losses, the 299th Brigade very much remains in the fight. It’s the same situation the Ukrainian air force’s other brigades are in. Units flying Sukhoi Su-24 bombers, Sukhoi Su-27 fighters and Mikoyan MiG-29 fighters have maintained their front-line strength by acquiring fresh jets from abroad — in the MiG-29 brigades’ case — or by reactivating old stored jets.
Still, Ukrainian officials seem to appreciate that there no longer is an abundance of excess Su-25s in the arsenals of allied countries. Any further losses could eat into the 299th Brigade’s strength.
So it should come as no surprise that Gen. Oleksandr Syrsky — formerly chief of the ground forces, now the head of the entire armed forces — has his heart set on American A-10s. The subsonic, twin-engine A-10 broadly is similar to the Su-25. If anything, it’s better-protected and much better-armed.
“This is not a new machine,” Syrsky said about the A-10, “but a reliable one that has proven itself in many wars, and which has a wide array of weapons for destroying land targets to help the infantry.”
The U.S. Air Force operates around 200 of the 1970s- and ’80s-vintage A-10s. Hundreds more are in storage. There’s no reason that, given a few months of training, Ukrainian pilots couldn’t fly the tough attack jets.
But there are political reasons the 299th Brigade might never get A-10s. Starting last fall, Russia-aligned Republicans in the U.S. Congress refused to vote on any further aid to Ukraine: aid that could provide the Ukrainians with ammunition, armored vehicles, artillery and — yes — warplanes.
So the 299th Brigade must make do with its 40 or so Su-25s — or get in line for fresh jets from some donor other than the United States. Say, Lockheed Martin F-16s from Norway, The Netherlands a
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Putin Defends Hitler's Invasion of Poland in Carlson Interview
Feb 09, 2024 at 12:46 PM EST
https://www.newsweek.com/fact-check-putin-defends-hitlers-invasion-pol
and-carlson-interview-1868582
Putin's claim that Hitler was "forced" to invade Poland is not accepted by historical evidence. Hitler broke Germany's non-aggression pact with Poland, signed in January 1934, under the guise of what it claimed was Polish aggression.
The National WWII Museum in New Orleans writes "Hitler was determined to make it look as if the Poles had provoked the hostilities and the SS obliged by staging numerous false-flag operations and 'Polish provocations' against Germans."
It adds "According to the testimony of Sturmbannführer Alfred Naujocks at Nuremberg, Reinhard Heydrich and Heinrich "Gestapo" Müller ordered Operation Himmler to make the Poles appear to be the aggressors and to justify the coming war."
The United States Holocaust Memorial Museum says that to justify the invasion, Nazi propagandists accused Poland of persecuting ethnic Germans living in Poland.
"They also falsely claimed that Poland was planning, with its allies Great Britain and France, to encircle and dismember Germany. The SS, in collusion with the German military, staged a phony attack on a German radio station. The Germans falsely accused the Poles of this attack. Hitler then used the action to launch a 'retaliatory' campaign against Poland."
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 of SECOND'S blah-blah-blah and misrepresentation.
Nobody believes you any more, SECOND. Not even THUGR.
-----------
"It may be dangerous to be America's enemy, but to be America's friend is fatal." - Henry Kissinger
Loving America is like loving an addicted spouse - SIGNYM
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Quote:Have you asked why Belarus is NOT treating NATO as if it is threatening to destroy Belarus? And why doesn't Belarus attack those Ukrainian Nazis? These are big questions, Signym. There is one answer:
Originally posted by SIGNYM:
More of SECOND'S blah-blah-blah and misrepresentation.
Nobody believes you any more, SECOND. Not even THUGR.
Belarus President Alexander Lukashenko has not been as successful as Putin at persuading his citizens to back the Ukraine war.
Ukraine war: why propaganda doesn’t work as well in Belarus as it does in Russia
By Natasha Lindstaedt, Professor, Department of Government, University of Essex | February 9, 2024, 11:50am EST
https://theconversation.com/ukraine-war-why-propaganda-doesnt-work-as-
well-in-belarus-as-it-does-in-russia-222038
Though Russia has accidentally bombed one of its own villages, implemented a harsh conscription policy, and already faced 315,000 casualties, Russian support for the “special military operation” in Ukraine has not wavered much. Throughout the conflict, levels of support have averaged about 75%.
In contrast, Belarusian people are far more wary of being drawn into the conflict. Based on a survey conducted by the thinktank Chatham House in August 2022, only 25% supported Russia’s actions (if it meant not getting directly involved), while a whopping 97% opposed the deployment of Belarusian troops.
Additionally, a surprisingly low number of Belarusians (26%) said they would feel negatively if Belarusian soldiers refused to fight or follow orders. Some Belarusians have even become directly involved in the conflict to support Ukraine, such as in May 2023 when Belarusian volunteers tricked the Russians into firing on their own positions in the town of Bakmut.
As conducting surveys in authoritarian regimes draws concern that the responses may be biased in favour of the regime, this makes the results in Belarus even more surprising. Meanwhile, the country’s president, Alexander Lukashenko, has allowed Russian troops to pass through his territory to invade Ukraine, and supported Putin’s invasion.
Why Belarus is different
For the most part, the majority of urban Belarusians surveyed want Belarus to distance itself from the war and express neutrality. In contrast to Russians, Belarusian society considers the war senseless and harmful to Belarus.
What explains these diverging views? In general, Belarusians are much more war averse than Russians, with very different memories of what they call “the great patriotic war” (the second world war). Of all of the former Soviet republics, Belarus sustained the most casualties per capita, and since gaining independence in 1991, it aspired for neutrality – something that was built into its constitution. But this was put into jeopardy from 2020, when Lukashenko was forced to cosy up to Russia’s president, Vladimir Putin, after protests broke out challenging the Belarus election.
Russian propaganda wins
But Russia also lost millions of men to the great patriotic war, so why is Putin so much more effective in convincing Russians to support another conflict, compared with Lukashenko?
In stark comparison to Belarus, Russia has developed a successful propaganda machine that is entertaining, confusing and overwhelming. Flooding citizens with information that demonises its opponents is a key component to Russia’s propaganda strategy.
Russian propaganda uses a large number of channels and constantly disseminates falsehoods at high volume and speed. This onslaught of propaganda makes it even harder for its citizens to discern what is false and what is the truth. Indeed, research has demonstrated that receiving similar messages from multiple sources, no matter the veracity, is very persuasive.
Russia has been agile in targeting social media, using the popular messaging platform Telegram to create different channels that support pro-Kremlin narratives. In gearing up for the war against Ukraine, Russia promoted
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--------------------------------------------------
Political correctness is just tyranny, with a smiley face.
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Quote:
Originally posted by SIGNYM:
More of SECOND'S blah-blah-blah and misrepresentation.
Nobody believes you any more, SECOND. Not even THUGR.
SECOND: Have you asked why Belarus is NOT treating NATO as if it is threatening to destroy Belarus? And why doesn't Belarus attack those Ukrainian Nazis? These are big questions, Signym. There is one answer
Because up until a couple of years ago, when the CIA tried overthrowing Lukashenko, Lukashenko never considered Belarus a USA target. And that's bc, for decades, it never was. Because it was never big enough, or rich enough, or had enough military resources to get a bullseye painted on it.
So Lukashenko was allowed (by the west) to remain as President since 1994 (30 years) without any massive propaganda campaigns, and Belarus was alowed to continue its Soviet-style economy, which never went thru the same upheavels as Russia, and Belarussians were more or less content with the way things were without western agitprop winding things up.
But once the CIA tried a (premature, not fully prepared) regime change operation there, Lukashenko realized which side his bread was buttered on.
You post ridiculous propaganda that has nothing to do with reality.
*****
Syrsky's appt is not going down well in Ukraine, or anywhere.
Quote:
Zaluzhny Finally Dismissed as Chaos Reigns in AFU
He’s being called a ‘butcher’ and is known in other circles as a meat-grinder who refused to give an inch in Bakhmut while calling for frontal meat-assaults, leading to the extermination of an entire field army group.
Zelensky on the other hand praises him for his grand achievements: the Kiev “defense” and the Kharkov offensive. Unfortunately, as sector commander in 2015, he was also reportedly responsible for the infamous Debaltsevo cauldron:
*We have collected the most famous operations of Syrsky, the new commander-in-chief of the Armed Forces of Ukraine:
Debaltsevo-2015
Soledar-2022
Bakhmut-2022
All these operations of the Ukrainian Armed Forces ended in encirclement and defeat for them. Two majors.
...
But here’s the most important angle that few others, it seems, have noticed.
Ask yourself, why would Zelensky appoint a commander that the entire armed forces allegedly hates?
In fact, this is a ‘design feature’ not a bug.
Recall that the reason Zaluzhny was given the boot was he had become too powerful: he was too loved by the troops, and by the people. Why? One of the reasons is likely because he fought for the troops multiple times. In early 2023, documents were leaked showing that he nearly begged Zelensky to pull troops back from Bakhmut, but the narco-Fuhrer refused, wanting it as a symbolic city defense—perhaps taken with romantic delusions of Stalingrad.
During the grand summer ‘counteroffensive’, Zaluzhny pulled the brigades of the 10th Army Corps back and began to use them sparingly—much to the chagrin and disapproval of US sponsors—after the initial first few wipes devastated columns of Leopards and Bradleys along the infamous road of death near Rabotino and Mala Tokmachka.
Recently it was claimed Zaluzhny likewise attempted to get Avdeevka totally withdrawn. It does not seem that he likes to waste men for what he knows to be fruitless efforts. Syrsky on the other hand appears glad to grind them down.
So, has it become obvious yet? Zelensky needs a commander-in-chief he can control, someone not universally loved by the troops; someone who cannot use those troops at a time of opportunity to ‘march on Kiev’ and oust Zelensky from his citadel. Syrsky appears to fit the perfect prototypical role: undefiant, unpopular, uncharismatic, and most importantly, untempted by political ambitions—the ideal subserviant factotum to Zelensky’s regime.NOTIFY: Y | REPLY | REPLY WITH QUOTE | PERMALINK | TOP | HOME
At the end of 2023, total U.S. aid to Ukraine reached more than $79 billion. America's Department of Defense said in a release on Friday that $43 billion of that has included defense capabilities.
The European Union and its member states have pledged $148.5 billion in aid — including military, financial and humanitarian assistance — since the start of the war in February 2022.
https://www.newsweek.com/ukraines-military-receive-double-boost-nato-a
llies-1868679
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:Belarus has not invaded Ukraine. Explain why no invasion, Signym.
Originally posted by SIGNYM:Quote:
Originally posted by SIGNYM:
More of SECOND'S blah-blah-blah and misrepresentation.
Nobody believes you any more, SECOND. Not even THUGR.
SECOND: Have you asked why Belarus is NOT treating NATO as if it is threatening to destroy Belarus? And why doesn't Belarus attack those Ukrainian Nazis? These are big questions, Signym. There is one answer
Because up until a couple of years ago, when the CIA tried overthrowing Lukashenko, Lukashenko never considered Belarus a USA target. And that's bc, for decades, it never was. Because it was never big enough, or rich enough, or had enough military resources to get a bullseye painted on it.
So Lukashenko was allowed (by the west) to remain as President since 1994 (30 years) without any massive propaganda campaigns, and Belarus was alowed to continue its Soviet-style economy, which never went thru the same upheavels as Russia, and Belarussians were more or less content with the way things were without western agitprop winding things up.
But once the CIA tried a (premature, not fully prepared) regime change operation there, Lukashenko realized which side his bread was buttered on.
You post ridiculous propaganda that has nothing to do with reality.
Belarusian people are far more wary of being drawn into the conflict. Based on a survey conducted by the thinktank Chatham House in August 2022, only 25% supported Russia’s actions (if it meant not getting directly involved), while a whopping 97% opposed the deployment of Belarusian troops.
https://theconversation.com/ukraine-war-why-propaganda-doesnt-work-as-
well-in-belarus-as-it-does-in-russia-222038
Why has Belarus not invaded Ukraine? Because Putin is not its head of state and the Belarusian people aren't soaking up Putin's propaganda.
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 second:Quote:Belarus has not invaded Ukraine. Explain why no invasion, Signym.
Originally posted by SIGNYM:Quote:
Originally posted by SIGNYM:
More of SECOND'S blah-blah-blah and misrepresentation.
Nobody believes you any more, SECOND. Not even THUGR.
SECOND: Have you asked why Belarus is NOT treating NATO as if it is threatening to destroy Belarus? And why doesn't Belarus attack those Ukrainian Nazis? These are big questions, Signym. There is one answer
Because up until a couple of years ago, when the CIA tried overthrowing Lukashenko, Lukashenko never considered Belarus a USA target. And that's bc, for decades, it never was. Because it was never big enough, or rich enough, or had enough military resources to get a bullseye painted on it.
So Lukashenko was allowed (by the west) to remain as President since 1994 (30 years) without any massive propaganda campaigns, and Belarus was alowed to continue its Soviet-style economy, which never went thru the same upheavels as Russia, and Belarussians were more or less content with the way things were without western agitprop winding things up.
But once the CIA tried a (premature, not fully prepared) regime change operation there, Lukashenko realized which side his bread was buttered on.
You post ridiculous propaganda that has nothing to do with reality.
Belarusian people are far more wary of being drawn into the conflict. Based on a survey conducted by the thinktank Chatham House in August 2022, only 25% supported Russia’s actions (if it meant not getting directly involved), while a whopping 97% opposed the deployment of Belarusian troops.
https://theconversation.com/ukraine-war-why-propaganda-doesnt-work-as-
well-in-belarus-as-it-does-in-russia-222038
Why has Belarus not invaded Ukraine? Because Putin is not its head of state and the Belarusian people aren't soaking up Putin's propaganda.
The Joss Whedon script for Serenity, where Wash lives, is Serenity-190pages.pdf at
https://www.mediafire.com/folder/1uwh75oa407q8/Firefly
Because Ukraine wasn't shelling close to Belarus' border. Because Ukraine wasn't massing troops on Belarus' border.
You dolt.
-----------
"It may be dangerous to be America's enemy, but to be America's friend is fatal." - Henry Kissinger
Loving America is like loving an addicted spouse - SIGNYM
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Quote:But Ukrainians are Nazis who could attack Belarus for no reason! And Russia is being attacked by those Nazis! Why won't the Belorussians save their Russian-speaking comrades? Because Putin is not Belarus's head of state and Belorussians aren't soaking up Putin's propaganda. It is almost like this war is solely Putin's idea for expanding Russia territory into an adjacent country with a small Army that should have been trivial for Russia to steamroll.
Originally posted by SIGNYM:
Because Ukraine wasn't shelling close to Belarus' border. Because Ukraine wasn't massing troops on Belarus' border.
You dolt.
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 attacking Russia BECAUSE THE WEST AIMED THEM AT RUSSIA. THAT WAS ALWAYS THE PLAN.
USA neocons figured that if Ukraine, with western help, couldn't beat Russia militarily then the west would impose "crippling" sanctions on Russia and engineer regime change that way.
My god, you're Mr Oblivious.
RUSSIA WAS ALWAYS THE TARGET. Belarus simply isn't rich enough, big enough, powerful enough, or have enough resources or nukes to be interesting to the west. Russia is the prize that speculators and financiers wanted to grab.
AGAIN.
It is the nail that refuses to be hammered down.
And neocons grossly miscalculated and AFAICT got their ass handed to them instead.
Fuck neocons.
Fuck you too.
DOLT!
-----------
"It may be dangerous to be America's enemy, but to be America's friend is fatal." - Henry Kissinger
Loving America is like loving an addicted spouse - SIGNYM
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Quote:Do you really and truly believe Putin's story for why he invaded? Goodness gracious! You are a precious little thing.
Originally posted by SIGNYM:
Ukraine is attacking Russia BECAUSE THE WEST AIMED THEM AT RUSSIA. THAT WAS ALWAYS THE PLAN.
The Kremlin's Occupation Playbook: Coerced Russification and Ethnic Cleansing in Occupied Ukraine
Feb 8, 2024
The war in Ukraine is primarily a war for control of people, not land. Russian President Vladimir Putin has invaded Ukraine twice not mainly because he desires Ukraine’s land, but rather because he seeks to control its people. Putin’s project, explicitly articulated in the 2021 article he published justifying the 2022 full-scale invasion, is the destruction of Ukraine’s distinctive political, social, linguistic, and religious identity.[1] Putin seeks to make real his false ideological conviction that Ukrainians are simply confused Russians with an invented identity, language, and history that a small, Western-backed minority is seeking to impose on the majority of inhabitants. He sees language as one of the primary determinants of ethnicity—Russian speakers, he claims, must be Russians regardless of the state they live in.[2] The Russian Federation has claimed special rights to protect Russians in the former Soviet states since the 1990s, although the Kremlin did not act on those claims until Putin became president.[3] Putin’s aim to destroy Ukrainian identity, language, and culture is thus one of the primary objectives of his entire enterprise.
The stakes of this war thus transcend hectares of land. They include the lives, freedom, and identities of nearly five million Ukrainians currently living under Russian occupation, the nearly five million more whom the Kremlin has illegally deported to Russia and the additional millions who have fled their homeland to other parts of Ukraine or abroad.[4] Dry, abstract, “realist” discussions about pressuring Ukraine to make “concessions”—to “trade land for peace”—ignore the reality of the war. This war is about people as well as land, and Western leaders cannot dismiss the consequences of the policies they pursue and demand.
Russia first experimented with its occupation playbook in 2008 when it invaded Georgia and occupied the Georgian territories of the South Ossetia and Abkhazia “republics.”[5] Russia further developed means and methods of occupation in Ukraine after it invaded and seized Crimea and parts of Donbas in 2014. The international community denounced the 2014 invasion, refused to recognize Russia’s claims to these areas, and heavily sanctioned involved Russian actors.[6] The international response, however, failed to discourage Russia from continuing its occupation of Ukraine and setting conditions for the 2022 full-scale invasion. Russia succeeded in forcing the international community to accept and internalize the 2014 occupation enough that many even in the West now view the 2014 territories as different from the rest of Ukraine.
Russia is now applying these means and methods of occupation on an expanded scale in the Ukrainian territories it occupied since the full-scale invasion that began on February 24, 2022. The Kremlin’s occupation design aims to eliminate Ukrainian identity by forcibly integrating occupied Ukraine into Russia socially, culturally, linguistically, politically, economically, religiously, and bureaucratically. Moscow ultimately seeks to persuade Kyiv and its supporters that the forced integration of Ukraine into Russia, and the resulting elimination of Ukrainian identity, are permanent and irreversible so that the Kremlin can fully subjugate these territories and people for its own gain.
Putin also seeks to use Ukraine as a source of mobilizable manpower in part to address Russia's demographic issues. Russia has been struggling since the beginning of the 1990s with a demographic crisis, caused by declining birthrates, an aging population, low life expectancy (particularly among males of working age), and high levels of emigr
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The propagandized, brainwashed idiot is laughing at the free thinkers.
That's amusing.
--------------------------------------------------
Political correctness is just tyranny, with a smiley face.
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Quote:‘Want to go home’: Nepalis fighting for Russia in Ukraine describe horrors
Originally posted by 6ixStringJack:
The propagandized, brainwashed idiot is laughing at the free thinkers.
That's amusing.
They were lured by the promise of $3,000 paycheques and Russian citizenship. Now they’re trapped, wounded or dead.
By Samik Kharel | 10 Feb 2024
https://www.aljazeera.com/features/2024/2/10/want-to-go-home-nepalis-f
ighting-for-russia-in-ukraine-describe-horrors
On a bitterly cold morning in early January, somewhere near Tokmak city in Ukraine’s Zaporizhzhia region, Bimal Bhandari began a risky journey to desert the Russian army he had been serving with. The 32-year-old Nepali national was with another compatriot who also was fighting for the Kremlin, in and against Ukraine.
The two men knew that getting away from the Russians would be a dangerous task, but they concluded that the risk was worth it, when weighed against their chances of survival as soldiers in Moscow’s savage war.
It was three hours before a vehicle arrived. There were no rescuers inside. Instead, it had a Russian border patrol team that handcuffed them and took them in the vehicle. They were jailed for a day, their passports seized before Bhandari was taken to a health facility, suffering from hypothermia.
“It was our one and only chance to escape this brutal war and we failed,” he told Al Jazeera, from his hospital bed. “I do not want to recover – as soon as I get better, I’ll be pushed to the front line.”
It’s a far cry from the hope and promise of a life in Europe that first drew many of the recruits to Moscow’s side.
Three months into the war, Bhandari has not been paid even once.
More at https://www.aljazeera.com/features/2024/2/10/want-to-go-home-nepalis-f
ighting-for-russia-in-ukraine-describe-horrors
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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Whatever that bullshit was had nothing to do with my quote.
--------------------------------------------------
Political correctness is just tyranny, with a smiley face.
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Quote:You keep reminding me that you are goddamn fucking stupid. People are telling you in detail that you are a shitty person but you refuse to learn who you are and change your ways of living for the better. Get a job, you worthless asshole. Stop smoking. Stop lying. The Russians are the same. They act horribly, deny they are horrible, and then blame the West, not themselves, for Russians being poor, suffering and short-lived. Putin achieved power by repeatedly telling Russians they are admirable people despite plenty of proof they are lying sacks of shit, lazy, drunken, dishonest, violent fools. Putin keeps telling Russians that it is not their rotten behavior that causes Russia's problems. Nothing is Russia's fault. It is the West's fault.
Originally posted by 6ixStringJack:
Whatever that bullshit was had nothing to do with my quote.
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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Russian State TV Host Says 'We Are Aggressors and Extremely Evil'
By Ellie Cook | Feb 11, 2024 at 10:17 AM EST
https://www.newsweek.com/russia-state-tv-sergey-mardan-ukraine-1868844
Russian citizens "always come back for what is theirs," a Russian state media host has said, dubbing Moscow's troops the "aggressors" as the grueling war in Ukraine fast approaches its 2-year mark.
The Russian people are "aggressors and extremely evil," Sergey Mardan, said in a clip translated and posted to social media by Anton Gerashchenko, a former adviser to Ukraine's Interior Ministry.
Throughout the war, the Kremlin has framed Ukraine as part of historical Russia. Back in 2021, ahead of Russian forces crossing into Ukraine for Moscow's full-scale invasion, President Vladimir Putin said "Russians and Ukrainians were one people — a single whole."
But Kyiv and many Western analysts describe the war as a fight for survival for Ukraine, with its soldiers battling against cultural erasure.
"They say that we are aggressors and extremely evil, cruel people, and so on," Mardan said, making no distinction between Russian citizens, the military or the government. "I always reply to that: 'Yes, yes, you are right.'"
"Yes, Russians are aggressors; yes, Russians can be cruel and do not forget anything. Russians always come back from what is theirs," Mardan said, according to Gerashchenko's translation.
"Russians don't feel guilty. Russians are not prone to reflection. Russians are engaged in cultural appropriation and don't even understand what it is."
Newsweek has reached out to the Russian Defense Ministry for comment via email.
"We are aggressors, extremely evil, cruel people," Russian propagandist Mardan started telling the truth about Russians out of the blue.
By the way, what do you really think about Russians now? What are the main common national traits you see? https://t.co/UBIHcfsQQY https://t.co/2fgazVKkZF
— Anton Gerashchenko (@Gerashchenko_en) February 11, 2024
Putin appeared to double down on this well-worn tactic of justifying his country's invasion of Ukraine in his much-examined interview with former Fox News anchor, Tucker Carlson, earlier this week.
"Ukraine is an artificial state," the Russian leader said, according to a Kremlin readout.
"The president of Russia told the Western world as carefully and in detail as possible why there was no Ukraine, there is not and there will not be," former Russian president and current deputy head of the country's security council, Dmitry Medvedev, said in a post to messaging app Telegram.
Russian state media has, throughout the war, amplified similar rhetoric. Mardan, a prominent voice among Kremlin propagandists, has previously claimed being Ukrainian is a "completely deliberate" and political choice.
In a graphic analogy, Mardan then compared claiming Ukrainian identity to "swearing an oath with the devil."
"A person stands in front of the mirror, looks in the mirror, and says, 'I am a Ukrainian.'" Mardan said, according to a translation provided by the Russian Media Monitor project, run by journalist Julia Davis. "He swears some kind of an oath and slits his vein, I don't know all that they do during it."
"You denounce Christ and say, 'Now I am a Ukrainian,'" Mardan said.
"Russia has sought for centuries to sideline and extinguish the Ukrainian language and culture," it has targeted Ukrainian communities within Russia systematically," Rory Finnin, an associate professor of Ukrainian Studies at the University of Cambridge, U.K., told Newsweek in January.
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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SECOND, you spew so much bullshit Im surprised there's anything left but an empty husk.
No, I don't "believe Putin". But (unlike you) I DO remember facts.
It has been the west's ambition, since 1917, to destroy, conquer, or partition Russia. Russia is an ideological and military rival. Except for a few brief years when the USA, UK, and Russia allied to fight the Nazi exigency (NO, Russia did NOT start WWII. NO, Russia was NOT an ally of Hitler. NO, the USA did NOT win the war against the Nazis.) we have strived to defeat, contain, collapse, or conquer Russia.
Don't you remember YOUR OWN slavering over an anticipated "decolonization" (i.e. breakup) of Russia?
Your whinges how "unfair" it was that Russia is so resource-rich?
That gleeful hand-rubbing about Russia's hoped for demise?
Your calls to assasinate Putin?
And now you're trying to convince ... anyone ... that it was all a joke?
Dood, your posts are an ACCURATE reflection of neocon intent and tactics since 2000.
Like I said, nobody believes you any more. Not even THUGR. So why do you keep lying? You're only hurting your own psyche by being divided from reality.
Stop that nonstop posting of hate and lies. Come out from your dark and twisted inner space. Get out in the sun and breathe some fresh air. Do something useful.
-----------
"It may be dangerous to be America's enemy, but to be America's friend is fatal." - Henry Kissinger
Loving America is like loving an addicted spouse - SIGNYM
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Quote:I need to hold on to this one so that Signym can't change a word. Signym, you need a citation for every point you make and you can't use a Russian source.
Originally posted by SIGNYM:
SECOND, you spew so much bullshit Im surprised there's anything left but an empty husk.
No, I don't "believe Putin". But (unlike you) I DO remember facts.
It has been the west's ambition, since 1917, to destroy, conquer, or partition Russia. Russia is an ideological and military rival. Except for a few brief years when the USA, UK, and Russia allied to fight the Nazi exigency (NO, Russia did NOT start WWII. NO, Russia was NOT an ally of Hitler. NO, the USA did NOT win the war against the Nazis.) we have strived to defeat, contain, collapse, or conquer Russia.
Don't you remember YOUR OWN slavering over an anticipated "decolonization" (i.e. breakup) of Russia?
Your whinges how "unfair" it was that Russia is so resource-rich?
That gleeful hand-rubbing about Russia's hoped for demise?
Your calls to assasinate Putin?
And now you're trying to convince ... anyone ... that it was all a joke?
Dood, your posts are an ACCURATE reflection of neocon intent and tactics since 2000.
Like I said, nobody believes you any more. Not even THUGR. So why do you keep lying? You're only hurting your own psyche by being divided from reality.
Stop that nonstop posting of hate and lies. Come out from your dark and twisted inner space. Get out in the sun and breathe some fresh air. Do something useful.
-----------
"It may be dangerous to be America's enemy, but to be America's friend is fatal." - Henry Kissinger
Loving America is like loving an addicted spouse - SIGNYM
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 deny that USA, UK, and USSR briefly were allies in WWII?
You deny that the USA and Soviet Union, and now Russia, have been rivals and cold warriors since 1917?
You deny that USA has been angling to contain, conquer, or destroy Russia, and to regain the grip and wealth that it lost in 2000?
Dood, you have been proving my point with every neocon statement from CNN, MSN, Financial Times, NYT, WaPo, Institute for the Study of War, outlet, think tank, politician, and bureacracy that YOU so helpfully splattered everwhere.
I don't need to cite anybody except YOU to prove my point. Go back and read your own posts, dolt!
-----------
"It may be dangerous to be America's enemy, but to be America's friend is fatal." - Henry Kissinger
Loving America is like loving an addicted spouse - SIGNYM
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Quote:
Originally posted by second:Quote:I need to hold on to this one so that Signym can't change a word. Signym, you need a citation for every point you make and you can't use a Russian source.
Originally posted by SIGNYM:
SECOND, you spew so much bullshit Im surprised there's anything left but an empty husk.
No, I don't "believe Putin". But (unlike you) I DO remember facts.
It has been the west's ambition, since 1917, to destroy, conquer, or partition Russia. Russia is an ideological and military rival. Except for a few brief years when the USA, UK, and Russia allied to fight the Nazi exigency (NO, Russia did NOT start WWII. NO, Russia was NOT an ally of Hitler. NO, the USA did NOT win the war against the Nazis.) we have strived to defeat, contain, collapse, or conquer Russia.
Don't you remember YOUR OWN slavering over an anticipated "decolonization" (i.e. breakup) of Russia?
Your whinges how "unfair" it was that Russia is so resource-rich?
That gleeful hand-rubbing about Russia's hoped for demise?
Your calls to assasinate Putin?
And now you're trying to convince ... anyone ... that it was all a joke?
Dood, your posts are an ACCURATE reflection of neocon intent and tactics since 2000.
Like I said, nobody believes you any more. Not even THUGR. So why do you keep lying? You're only hurting your own psyche by being divided from reality.
Stop that nonstop posting of hate and lies. Come out from your dark and twisted inner space. Get out in the sun and breathe some fresh air. Do something useful.
-----------
"It may be dangerous to be America's enemy, but to be America's friend is fatal." - Henry Kissinger
Loving America is like loving an addicted spouse - SIGNYM
The Joss Whedon script for Serenity, where Wash lives, is Serenity-190pages.pdf at
https://www.mediafire.com/folder/1uwh75oa407q8/Firefly
You know that's not how quotes work on this ancient website, right dude?
Quote:
Originally posted by second:
I'm a dumb fucking Communist pirate dipshit who still has no clue how to wipe his ass.
It's in quotes.
You must have said it.
--------------------------------------------------
Political correctness is just tyranny, with a smiley face.
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Quote:If the USA was under a king, an emperor, a Fuhrer, an absolute dictator, you could talk about it as an entity with one mind, one goal, a purpose, a direction. But it is none of those things, does not do those things. The funny thing about Russia, for centuries it has always been like that and continues to be like that with this particular leader who has been in power since 1999. Funny how the highest leadership in Russia keeps killing off millions of Russians. The leadership position keeps changing, (Peter the Great, Stalin, Putin) but the killing of millions of Russians goes on and on in foreign war after foreign war. And tens of millions of Russians died from government violence within its borders.
Originally posted by SIGNYM:
You deny that USA, UK, and USSR briefly were allies in WWII?
You deny that the USA and Soviet Union, and now Russia, have been rivals and cold warriors since 1917?
You deny that USA has been angling to contain, conquer, or destroy Russia, and to regain the grip and wealth that it lost in 2000?
Dood, you have been proving my point with every neocon statement from CNN, MSN, Financial Times, NYT, WaPo, Institute for the Study of War, outlet, think tank, politician, and bureacracy that YOU so helpfully splattered everwhere.
I don't need to cite anybody except YOU to prove my point. Go back and read your own posts, dolt!
Signym you have flat-out denied Russia killed 62,000,000 Russians and counting. I am certain you understand nothing about Russia since you refuse to understand that.
For comparison with Russia, 646,596 American troops have died in battle since the Revolutionary War ended. Russia would be a very different country if it could have kept its deaths that few. But Russia's rulers never needed to keep the death numbers low because the Russian citizens, unlike Americans, did not place an extremely high value on their own lives.
https://www.military.com/memorial-day/how-many-us-militay-members-died
-each-american-war.html
6,872,000 Victims: Post-Stalin Period, 1954-1987
With Stalin’s death, the terror was gradually alleviated, though not really ended until the 1980s under Gorbachev. Beria, Stalin’s chief enforcer and head of the KGB, was executed; many other lesser lights were purged.1
The “crimes” of the Stalin years, particularly the Great Terror (in which, be it remembered, top party members were executed) were secretly revealed by Khrushchev. As mentioned in the previous chapter, the camp population was gradually reduced and the camp regime improved in the post-Stalin 1950s. However, the death camps at Kolyma still continued into the early 1960s, when they were also subject to reform, and perhaps largely closed by the middle 1960s.2
The overall camp deathrate also was gradually reduced.3 Commissions were sent to all camps to review sentences with the authority to release prisoners. Amnesties were declared. And the average citizen gradually became more secure in what he could say and do.
But all this was relative. Freedom of thought and expression, security from arbitrary arrest and imprisonment, the right to a fair trial, are not yet guaranteed to the Soviet citizen, even under Gorbachev. For example, in April 1989 the Soviet Presidium issued a decree making it illegal to insult or discredit the government.4 Until recently, citizens who spoke out or demonstrated against the party could yet end up in labor camps, possibly to die from any of a number of causes with which the reader of Solzhenitsyn has become familiar,5 not the least of which is being beaten or confined in a punishment cell. Even in reference to the late 1960s, Solzhenitsyn wrote that camps differed from Stalin’s not in regime, but in composition—there were no longer many millions of those sentenced for political reasons, or for no reason at all.6 In fact, numerous camp inmates had written Solzhenitsyn to point out that their conditions in the middle 1960s were just as bad as under Stalin.7
Moreover, while improved, the diet still
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After Russia’s invasion, the people of Bessarabia switched sides
A traditionally pro-Russian part of Ukraine now feels very differently
https://www.economist.com/europe/2024/02/11/after-russias-invasion-the
-people-of-bessarabia-switched-sides
Feb 11th 2024
WHEN RUSSIA first attacked Ukraine in 2014 Bessarabia was a place to worry about. Less than half of its people identified as Ukrainian. The region was poor and, for historical and economic reasons, many people thought that Vladimir Putin might be their saviour. But Russia’s endeavours to stir up trouble in this strategic Ukrainian borderland have failed. Ukrainian forces beat back Russian attempts to land commandos at the beginning of the full-scale invasion in 2022, and the security services arrested dozens of agents. Although the Russians damaged and closed one of the two bridges linking Bessarabia to the rest of the country, they have failed to shut down the other.
In just over 200 years the ownership of what is now Ukrainian Bessarabia has changed nine times. It is bounded by the Danube and Dniester rivers, the Black Sea to the south and Moldova to the north. Seized from the Ottomans by Russia in the early 19th century, it became Romanian between the world wars and part of Soviet Ukraine after that. Apart from Ukrainians its people include Russians, Moldovans, Gagauz, Bulgarians and Albanians who speak Russian rather than Ukrainian as a lingua franca and for whom Russia was their historical patron.
Oleh Kiper, the governor of the Odessa region, which includes Bessarabia, says that pro-Russian sentiment there dwindled after 2014 and “crashed” in the wake of the Russian invasion in February 2022. One reason why, he says, is that, thanks to help from France, “Russian satellite TV propaganda” has been blocked there since 2015. Since then Bessarabia has been not only peaceful, but a crucial lifeline for Ukraine. Hundreds of lorries thunder through daily, loaded with grain and other goods. They carry vital currency-earning exports to the Danube-river ports of Izmail and Reni, or into Romania and onwards.
A decade ago the main road across Bessarabia from Odessa was awful, and Izmail felt like the dingy end of the world. No longer. The road has been improved and a ferry service opened in 2020, linking the region to Romania and the rest of Europe. Russian attacks have failed to put it out of service. On the Danube in Izmail a Togolese-flagged grain ship rests at anchor; hardy old men do squats on the riverbank nearby before defying a ban on swimming in the river. Others prefer a dip in Izmail’s smart new municipal sport centre.
In the past few years wineries and tourism have flourished in Bessarabia, though the post-Soviet recovery has been patchy. In Izmail money has poured in from up to 8,000 sailors who call this port home. Those who were here when the invasion happened two years ago were caught by the ban on men aged 18-60 leaving the country, but most of those who were at sea have stayed abroad. Although it has been hit by Russian rockets, Izmail has had a good war. Businesses and refugees from now-closed Black Sea ports like Kherson and Mykolaiv have moved here. “People got a sense of pride in being Ukrainian,” says Andriy Abramchenko, the mayor, who made clear in 2014 and in 2022 that his city would have no truck with Russia.
In the predominantly Moldovan village of Hlyboke, history comes alive at the cemetery. The village lies on the banks of Sasyk, a lagoon that suffers from a disastrous Soviet-era attempt to turn it into a freshwater lake. The water is rising and the shoreline is eroding. The bones of Cossacks buried here in the 18th century, and of their descendants, jut out of the graveyard’s sandy cliff edge, eventually tumbling onto the beach below. At the other end of the cemetery lies Sasha Gorun, the school’s history teacher, who died fighting the Russians last May.
Maria Chekir, aged 80, who taught Mr Gorun when she was the headmistress of the school, says she knows no one in the village who supports Russia. Outsiders often
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Ukrainian military observers indicated that the Russian defense industrial base (DIB) is not as productive as Russian authorities portray it to be, but that the Russian DIB is still capable of sustaining Russia’s war effort. Ukrainian military observer Kostyantyn Mashovets reported on February 11 that the Russian Security Council’s own DIB production data for 2023 indicates that the Russian DIB reached a peak output in September 2023 that was 38.9 percent higher than its average 2022 monthly output and has steadily declined in the following months.[10] Mashovets stated that the Russian DIB is struggling to compensate for moderately- and highly-skilled labor shortages and Russia’s inability to obtain the necessary industrial production equipment, spare parts, and servicing to sustain the pace and breadth of DIB production efforts.[11] Mashovets noted that Chinese companies in particular are less willing to provide Russia with equipment and spare parts, as ISW previously reported, and that Russia purchased many industrial production systems from Western states before the full-scale invasion but that Western companies are now unwilling to service or supply parts for these machines due to sanctions.[12]
Ukrainian military analyst Oleksandr Kovalenko stated that Russia’s reported tank production numbers in recent years largely reflect restored and modernized tanks drawn from storage rather than new production.[13] Kovalenko stated that Uralvagonzavod, Russia’s primary tank manufacturer, can produce roughly 60-70 T-90 tanks per year under perfect conditions and assessed that Uralvagonzavod is likely only producing between three and six new T-90 tanks per month.[14] Kovalenko noted that tank manufacturers Uralvagonzavod, Omsktransmash, and the 103rd Armored Tank Repair Plant in Chita, Zabaykalsky Krai are primarily focused on restoring, repairing, and modernizing Russian tanks and that Uralvagonzavod is the only manufacturer producing new tanks.[15] Kovalenko stated that Russia is only modernizing T-54/55 and T-62 tanks and assessed that these may be Russia’s main battle tanks in the future. Kovalenko added that Russian manufacturers very rarely modernize T-72 and T-80 tanks. Russian Security Council Deputy Chairperson Dmitri Medvedev previously stated that Russian forces received 1,600 tanks in 2023, and Kovalenko attributed this number primarily to restored and modernized rather than serially produced tanks.[16]
Russia’s current limited DIB production capacity and insufficient serial tank production lines are not guarantees that Russia will struggle to produce enough materiel to sustain its war effort at its current pace or in the long term. Russia’s ability to modernize and use tanks retrieved from storage still gives Russian forces an advantage on the battlefield in the overall number of available tanks. Mashovets noted that some newly-produced tanks such as the T-14 Armada are poorly produced whereas older tanks such as T-72s (which Russia actively repairs) are more reliable.[17] Russia has consistently attempted to adapt to the limitations resulting from Western sanctions and to circumvent sanctions and will persist in these efforts. Russia’s DIB may struggle in the near term and increasing sanctions evasion measures and partnerships with states including China and North Korea may help compensate for existing DIB shortcomings in the medium to long term.[18]
https://www.understandingwar.org/backgrounder/russian-offensive-campai
gn-assessment-february-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 second:Quote:If the USA was under a king, an emperor, a Fuhrer, an absolute dictator, you could talk about it as an entity with one mind, one goal, a purpose, a direction. But it is none of those things, does not do those things. The funny thing about Russia, blah blah blah
Originally posted by SIGNYM:
You deny that USA, UK, and USSR briefly were allies in WWII?
You deny that the USA and Soviet Union, and now Russia, have been rivals and cold warriors since 1917?
You deny that USA has been angling to contain, conquer, or destroy Russia, and to regain the grip and wealth that it lost in 2000?
Dood, you have been proving my point with every neocon statement from CNN, MSN, Financial Times, NYT, WaPo, Institute for the Study of War, outlet, think tank, politician, and bureacracy that YOU so helpfully splattered everwhere.
I don't need to cite anybody except YOU to prove my point. Go back and read your own posts, dolt!
And, without a scintilla of insight, you prove me right - again- by reflexively adding even MORE neocon crap to the 100+ pages of neocon crap you already posted.
Are you really THAT stupid?
America is an oligarchy. Presidents and Congresses come and go, but neocon policies remain. AMERICANS may not have a united goal, but the elites in charge sure do. You want to find out how little democracy remains here? Just try challenging the narrative in a serious way.
Oh, that's right: you never will.
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"It may be dangerous to be America's enemy, but to be America's friend is fatal." - Henry Kissinger
Loving America is like loving an addicted spouse - SIGNYM
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Quote:Signym, there you go with the "blah blah blah" once again. I have witnessed your brain stop taking information from outside and turn inward to your self-fascinating delusions. There is no conflict here between my values and yours. The conflict is between you and the reality beyond your brain. You are crazy inside your head, Signym. Your understanding of America is that of a crazy person, of someone who would think Trump should be President. I am completely not surprised when life treats you bad because that is what happens to crazy people.
Originally posted by SIGNYM:Quote:
Originally posted by second:Quote:If the USA was under a king, an emperor, a Fuhrer, an absolute dictator, you could talk about it as an entity with one mind, one goal, a purpose, a direction. But it is none of those things, does not do those things. The funny thing about Russia, blah blah blah
Originally posted by SIGNYM:
You deny that USA, UK, and USSR briefly were allies in WWII?
You deny that the USA and Soviet Union, and now Russia, have been rivals and cold warriors since 1917?
You deny that USA has been angling to contain, conquer, or destroy Russia, and to regain the grip and wealth that it lost in 2000?
Dood, you have been proving my point with every neocon statement from CNN, MSN, Financial Times, NYT, WaPo, Institute for the Study of War, outlet, think tank, politician, and bureacracy that YOU so helpfully splattered everwhere.
I don't need to cite anybody except YOU to prove my point. Go back and read your own posts, dolt!
And, without a scintilla of insight, you prove me right - again- by reflexively adding even MORE neocon crap to the 100+ pages of neocon crap you already posted.
Are you really THAT stupid?
America is an oligarchy. Presidents and Congresses come and go, but neocon policies remain. AMERICANS may not have a united goal, but the elites in charge sure do. You want to find out how little democracy remains here? Just try challenging the narrative in a serious way.
Oh, that's right: you never will.
As individuals, Russians act crazy. That has not worked well for them. Same with Trumptards. Their craziness causes their problems, not neoCons, not Democrats, not banks. It is nonstop craziness, year after year, with them.
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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This is what happens when Ukrainian president Volodymyr Zelensky, a comedian turned politician, turns into a general:
Brig. Gen. Oleksandr Tarnavskyi, commander of the Tavriya group of forces in Avdiivka, announced the reinforcement on Telegram on Saturday. “We strengthen the blocking line, set up additional firing positions and use fresh effective forces,” Tarnavskyi wrote. “Logistical delivery continues.”
That the Ukrainians would reinforce Avdiivka was not a foregone conclusion. In apparently choosing to stay and fight, Ukrainian forces are accepting enormous risk.
After four months of hard fighting, Russian troops from the 2nd and 41st Combined Arms Armies finally breached Avdiivka — a key Ukrainian stronghold just five miles northwest of Russian-occupied Donetsk — earlier this month and approached within a few hundred yards of the main road by which the Ukrainian garrison, centered on the 110th Mechanized Brigade, gets supplies into the city.
At that point, Tarnavskyi had two options. Pull back the 110th Brigade’s survivors from the exposed eastern part of the city and consolidate the Ukrainian line in central Avdiivka or just outside the city, to the west.
Or: reinforce the 110th Brigade and try to push the much larger Russian force away from the garrison’s supply lines.
It’s possible it wasn’t Tarnavskyi’s decision to make.
Last week, Ukrainian president Volodymyr Zelensky removed his popular top general, the charismatic Valery Zaluzhny, and replaced him with the unpopular former head of the ground forces, Gen. Oleksandr Syrskyi.
Zaluzhny has a reputation — deserved or not — for embracing a mobile defense in order to minimize Ukrainian casualties. Syrskyi by contrast has a reputation — again, deserved or not — for accepting high casualties in stubborn, static fights.
It’s possible that, in promoting Syrskyi, Zelensky signaled his intention to fight for Avdiivka. Even at high cost.
https://www.forbes.com/sites/davidaxe/2024/02/11/ukraine-may-have-depl
oyed-one-its-best-brigades-to-try-to-save-avdiivka/?sh=6c59c7385e95
Ukraine vs Russia is Dumb vs Dumber. Politicians are stupid.
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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Exhausted Ukraine struggles to find new men for front line
By Sarah Rainsford | Feb 12, 2024
https://www.bbc.com/news/world-europe-68255490
When Pavlo Zhilin and his patrol hit the streets of Cherkasy, men often swerve to avoid them.
Pavlo is a conscription officer looking for soldiers for Ukraine's army.
But almost two years into Russia's full-scale invasion, there's no flood of volunteers to the front line anymore.
Most of those who wanted to fight are either dead, injured or still stuck at the front waiting to be relieved by new recruits.
In the central town of Cherkasy, like elsewhere, finding them isn't easy now that the first burst of enthusiasm and energy has faded.
Ukraine is exhausted.
Pavlo's story
"I don't get it. People are out and about, like the war is somewhere far away. But this is a full-scale invasion, and it's like people still don't care," Pavlo says.
He is frustrated by what he sees as indifference. (Pavlo, it is fear, not indifference.)
"We need everyone to come together like they did on the first day. Everyone was united then, like brothers."
Instead, the security service in Cherkasy is constantly shutting down local social media channels that warn people when the conscription teams are in town and alert them to areas to avoid.
When I ask Pavlo whether he's lost friends in the fighting, he admits that there's "almost no one left" from his entire company.
"The only ones left are [injured] like me. The others are dead."
(Pavlo, it is fear. For Ukrainians who can't be brave, their smartest move is to leave Ukraine and join the cheese-eating surrender monkeys of the EU.)
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 resurgent in Germany:
Germans now view issues like migration and the threat from radical Islam as more immediate concerns than the menace in the Kremlin. That’s according to new research published Monday ahead of the Munich Security Conference, a gathering of top political and defense officials which kicks off in Germany on Friday. While Russia was perceived as the number one threat in Germany in last year’s Munich Security Index, it has now slipped back to seventh place in the annual report.
https://www.politico.eu/article/russia-no-longer-top-threat-germany-g7
-munich-security-conference-concern-ukraine-war-fades/
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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