#and with Putin preparing to invade Ukraine

[ohsalome]

In the aftermath of Prigozhin’s media empire collapse, former employees spoke out about the dark tactics employed, including hiring individuals to portray “victims of Ukrainian Armed Forces” in staged reports that underpinned Russia’s fake pretext for the full-scale invasion of Ukraine — its Big Lie about alleged “genocide in Donbas.”

Following the unsuccessful mutiny of the Wagner Private Military Company, its financier Evgeny Prigozhin had closed down his media empire, including the infamous troll factory. This included Prigozhin’s media holding “Patriot” and such media outlets as RIA FAN, Politics Today, Economics Today, Nevskiye Novosti, and Narodniye Novosti.

Employees of the Prigozhin media were long unable to disclose the state of affairs in the editorial offices, as they were all forced to sign non-disclosure agreements. However, now, they speak. Russian media website Bumaga interviewed several former employees of “Patriot,” who revealed unknown details about its operation and propaganda tactics.

Notably, one RIA FAN journalist who worked with military coverage from Donbas told that the source files of the interview often contained off-screen instructions for the heroes of the reports, who were hired people coached by an off-camera operator who offered advice on how to say their pre-memorized lines more realistically (and with more propaganda effect):

“Most of the people who were portrayed in such stories as ‘victims’ of the Armed Forces of Ukraine were stand-ins, hired individuals. These characters repeated pre-memorized lines to themselves, trying to ‘squeeze out a tear.’ They were also instructed off-camera by the operator to speak ‘slower’ or to ‘repeat this moment again’,” told the former employee of RIA FAN.

This admission is crucial, as it offers more proof of how Russia fabricated its 9-year-long propaganda narrative about the Ukrainian “Nazis” deliberately attacking the “people of Donbas.”

Other famous debunked examples of this narrative included a story that state TV channel Pervyi Kanal ran on 12 July 2014, showing an “interview” with a woman who claimed to have witnessed the crucifixion of a three-year child by Ukrainian nationalists. However, bloggers and journalists from Ukraine and Russia could quickly prove that the woman was an actor and the story was a hoax.

Another well-known debunked “Donbas genocide” propaganda case happened in April 2015. The Russian TV channel NTV claimed that a ten-year-old girl had been killed by Ukrainian government forces in eastern Ukraine, echoing the disinformation story about the crucified boy from the year before. A BBC reporter working on the ground in the conflict managed to prove that also this story was a hoax. (For more examples of Russian propaganda that demonizes Ukrainians, check out our article A guide to Russian propaganda. Part 1: Propaganda prepares Russia for war).

Since Russia first invaded Ukraine in 2014 and occupied part of eastern Ukraine’s Donbas, Russian propaganda has meticulously demonized Ukraine and the Ukrainian Army. One of the grand narratives of its propaganda claimed that the Ukrainian forces attempting to liberate their lands from the Russian invaders were actually “punishing” the Ukrainians in occupied Donbas for their alleged “choice” to be with Russia, which is how Russia called its fake “referenda” that led to the creation of two puppet republics, the Luhansk and Donetsk “People’s Republics.” The revelation from Prigozhin’s media empire’s employees reveals how this narrative was forged, one fake report played by actors after the other.

The final result was the creation of Russia’s Big Lie, the alleged “Donbas genocide,” which Putin used to launch an invasion of Ukraine on 24 February 2022.

Bumaga’s material revealed other fascinating details about the operations of Prigozhin’s media empire.

Former “Patriot” employees revealed the security checks and the workplace atmosphere to Bumaga anonymously. According to a former employee, each media was allocated a floor, and smaller editorials sat together.

“They did not check me on a polygraph, but I heard stories from newcomers. They were taken to a room where security service specialists worked with them and asked questions,” said the source.

These questions, asked during a “lie detector” test, intended to weed out any drug addicts or Russian opposition sympathizers, especially fans of Alexei Navalny, another source told Bumaga.

Moreover, the media empire had extensive surveillance measures in place. An anonymous source disclosed that they “followed electronic passes, cameras, and all records from computer screens were broadcast to the security service.” When Patriot was just opened, a special department existed in the holding that was engaged in custom materials about the opposition.

Two former employees of the Patriot holding, in a conversation with Bumaga, claimed that everyone at the “troll factory” knew that the goal of Evgeny Prigozhin’s media was to create informational noise to “clog the agenda.”

“Information noise was generated along with the implementation of Prigozhin’s interests. While some [journalists] distracted people with the problems of other countries, with these reports from Africa and so on, with our local celebrities and reviews of dumb movies, others, on the front lines, were brainwashing people with materials from the ‘Special Operation Zone‘,” a former journalist of RIA FAN told, referring to Russia’s codename for its invasion of Ukraine, where Prigozhin’s Wagner PMC played a key role.

Now, the former employees of Prigozhin’s once-famed “troll factory,” who sowed disinformation in Russia and abroad, are left without a job. Luckily for them, prominent Russian media managers are stepping in to give them decent work in top Russian outlets:

“Dmitry Sherikh, the head of the St. Petersburg branch of the Russian Union of Journalists, has volunteered to help the employees of the ‘Troll Factory’ find jobs: ‘The Russian Union of Journalists will, whenever possible, appeal to the heads of other media outlets to help find employment for our dismissed colleagues, as well as provide other information support.’ The chief editor of ‘Moskovsky Komsomolets in Petersburg,’ Timofey Shabarshin, who is also the former head of ‘Nevsky News’ (up until 2021), also agreed to welcome the colleagues. Vladimir Yagudaev [an SMM manager from Prigozhin’s media empire who talked with Bumaga – Ed.] does not know if the Union of Journalists helped his former colleagues, but he notes: ‘Certain chief editors have begun to hire the most interesting employees into St. Petersburg publications. However, this is a limited contingent.'”

Located near St. Petersburg, Prigozhin’s troll factory, also known as Internet Research Agency (IRA), was one of the more-studied elements of the Russian propaganda machine. To achieve its goals, the troll factory employed fake accounts registered on major social networks, online media sites, and video hosting services. It expanded threefold in 2018. The troll factory’s employees were given messages they should push in social media and online debates in what a US indictment called “activities as a strategic communications campaign with an emphasis on target group awareness.”

#ukraine #russia #war in ukraine #russo ukrainian war #russian propaganda #all the major tankies have me blocked someone rub their faces into this thx

[crimethinc]

When Russian troops invaded Ukraine a year ago, it took many people by surprise—especially Putin apologists, who had been insisting that reports about Russian military preparations were just saber-rattling from the United States government.

It didn't take us by surprise, because we had been corresponding with Russian and Ukrainian anarchists for years.

We still believe that it is most important to listen to anarchists from the region rather than commentators thousands of miles away.

For Russian anarchist perspectives, you could start here:

https://avtonom.org/en

For Ukrainian anarchist perspectives, you could start here:

https://libcom.org/tags/assemblyorgua

For Belarusian anarchist perspectives, you could start here:

https://pramen.io/en

[ukrainenews]

(This situation is very much a developing thing and there's a lot of conflicting and wrong information out there right now. I know I've been absent lately, but I'm keeping an eye on things.)

Russian mercenary boss Yevgeny Prigozhin said on Saturday his Wagner fighters had crossed the border into Russia from Ukraine and were prepared to go "all the way" against Moscow's military, hours after the Kremlin accused him of armed mutiny.

As a long-running standoff between Prigozhin and the military top brass appeared to come to a head, Russia's FSB security service opened a criminal case against him, TASS news agency said. It called on the Wagner private military company forces to ignore his orders and arrest him.

Wagner fighters had entered the southern Russian city of Rostov, Prigozhin said in an audio recording posted on Telegram. He said he and his men would destroy anyone who stood in their way.

Prigozhin earlier said, without providing evidence, that Russia's military leadership had killed a huge number of his troops in an air strike and vowed to punish them.

He said his actions were not a military coup. But in a frenzied series of audio messages, in which the sound of his voice sometimes varied and could not be independently verified, he appeared to suggest that his 25,000-strong militia was en route to oust the leadership of the defence ministry in Moscow.

Security was stepped up on Friday night at government buildings, transport facilities and other key locations in Moscow, TASS reported, citing a source at a security service.

Russian President Vladimir Putin was getting around-the-clock updates, TASS said, while the White House said it was monitoring the situation and would consult with allies.

Kyiv, meanwhile, said the major thrust in its counteroffensive against Moscow's invasion had yet to be launched. "The main blow is still to come," Deputy Defence Minister Hanna Maliar told Ukrainian television.

A top Ukrainian general reported "tangible successes" in advances in the south - one of two main theatres of operations, along with eastern Ukraine.

'OBEY PRESIDENT,' GENERAL SAYS

The deputy commander of Russia's Ukraine campaign, General Sergei Surovikin, told Wagner fighters to obey Putin, accept Moscow's commanders and return to their bases. He said political deterioration would play into the hands of Russia's enemies.

"I urge you to stop," Surovikin said in a video posted on Telegram, his right hand resting on a rifle.

The standoff, many of the details of which remained unclear, looked like the biggest domestic crisis Putin has faced since he sent thousands of troops into Ukraine in February last year.

Prigozhin, a one-time Putin ally, in recent months has carried out an increasingly bitter feud with Moscow. Earlier on Friday, he appeared to cross a new line, saying the Kremlin's rationale for invading Ukraine, which it calls a "special military operation," was based on lies by the army's top brass.

Wagner led Russia's capture of the Ukrainian city of Bakhmut last month, Russia's biggest victory in 10 months, and Prigozhin has used its battlefield success to criticise the leadership of the defense ministry with seeming impunity - until now.

For months, he has openly accused Defence Minister Sergei Shoigu and Russia's top general, Valery Gerasimov, of incompetence.

Army Lieutenant-General Vladimir Alekseyev issued a video appeal in which he asked Prigozhin to reconsider his actions. "Only the president has the right to appoint the top leadership of the armed forces, and you are trying to encroach on his authority," he said.

UKRAINE SAYS MAJOR THRUST AHEAD

On the ground in Ukraine, at least three people were killed in Russian attacks on Friday, including two who died after a trolleybus company came under fire in the city of Kherson, regional officials said.

Addressing the pace of the Ukrainian advances, several senior officials on Friday sent the clearest signal so far that the main part of the counteroffensive has not yet begun.

"I want to say that our main force has not been engaged in fighting yet, and we are now searching, probing for weak places in the enemy defences. Everything is still ahead," the Guardian quoted Oleksandr Syrskyi, the commander of Ukraine's ground forces, as saying in an interview with the British newspaper.

General Oleksandr Tarnavskyi, commander of Ukraine's "Tavria," or southern front, wrote on Telegram: "There have been tangible successes of the Defence Forces and in advances in the Tavria sector."

Tarnavskyi said Russian forces had lost hundreds of men and 51 military vehicles in the past 24 hours, including three tanks and 14 armoured personnel carriers.

Although the advances Ukraine has reported this month are its first substantial gains on the battlefield for seven months, Ukrainian forces have yet to push to the main defensive lines that Russia has had months to prepare.

#russia #wagner group #ukraine

[warsofasoiaf]

Russia has demonstrated that they can inevitably attrite ukraine. defeating Russia would require a radical expansion of ukrainian offensive capabilities far above the threshold that Putin will seek nuclear escalation. unless biden is prepared to end the world (over ukraine and not Chinese Taipei or Israel as he is willing to), how do propose "beating" CSTO .

This is cute. Russian cope always has this distinct flavor of "we're a great power and we can't be beaten," despite the fact that Russia has experienced numerous failures and has largely been exposed as an incompetent military power.

Frankly speaking, CSTO doesn't really need to be beaten. Given that Kazakhstan has dismissed CSTO troops and Armenia largely sees no hope for CSTO, the world has largely seen Russian security commitments as worthless - they are incapable of fulfilling said agreements given that Russia has largely bled out its force in Ukraine. It's a zombie organization, shuffling on in a semblance of life as opposed to an actual living organization. I predict it largely collapses as Russia loses the ability to influence the near-abroad and Central Asia seeks other partners that can actually fulfill obligations to ally nations.

I don't think Russia has demonstrated the ability to attrit Ukraine. In fact, given the numerical superiority, any competent military would have succeeded their battlefield objectives relatively easily, even if they lost the peace and occupation to come after. Avdiivka was supposed to fall - Russia kept saying it was, and it hasn't. As I've mentioned before, Russia is an incapable force conventionally and has been for a long time. Economically, they're weak and coring out their economy to sustain their fool's crusade. Militarily, they're sluggish, uncreative, and reduced to begging Iran and North Korea for aid to conquer a country with a fraction of the size and manpower, had no navy to speak of and the faintest wisp of an air force. In a conventional conflict, Russia has no advantages against a NATO country other than perhaps the zeal to throw themselves on the enemy's spears - an emotion that only comes from the realization that you live in Russia.

Fact of the matter is, revitalizing the defense industrial base and actually producing HIMARS and other quality armaments would be more than enough to destroy Russia, and wouldn't even reach the Russian nuclear escalation as defined in Russian doctrine. Hell, if we actually had courage in our foreign policy establishment, Russia would have been defeated and sued for peace already as the aid shipments quadrupled. That would be better off for the whole world, including Russia. Especially for the minority populations Russia keeps sending off to die so the elites in St. Petersburg and Moscow don't have to feel the consequences of their actions.

I don't fear nuclear escalation because Russia isn't willing to end the world because the elites like having their vast wealth and the wide array of perks that it offers access to. They wouldn't do it just because they can't have Ukraine. Honestly, Russia should count its lucky stars that they have a nuclear deterrent, otherwise China would have invaded it already to seize resources from the Central Siberian Basin. Alas for the rest of us, Russia was free in the 1990's to launch damn fool wars in Central Asia and Eastern Europe to reassert its own imperialist glories, rather than being brought to heel. Alas, now it can continue to pretend it's anything other than a decrepit excuse for a country run by a wannabe tsar with a Napoleon complex crying over the fact that his country lost the Cold War and no one fears or respects the Russian bear. Boo-hoo. In the words of your fearless leader after the Beslan school siege where you simply mowed down your own people because you couldn't handle a single hostage operation: "You've shown yourselves to be weak, and the weak get beaten."

Also, as a pro-tip: the verb attrite means to wear down by use (as in to wear down a tool through using it for hours on end). You want the verb attrit, which means to use sustained offensive pressure to weaken an opponent. You might want to brush up on your English; this goes double against someone who not only takes great pleasure in laughing at Russian trolls but someone who actually studies the terminology of military science.

Cry more, Anon.

SomethingLikeALawyer, Hand of the King

#russia #troll #pathetic

[dostoyevsky-official]

Russian General Knew About Mercenary Chief’s Rebellion Plans, U.S. Officials Say Tuesday, June 27

A senior Russian general had advance knowledge of Yevgeny Prigozhin’s plans to rebel against Russia’s military leadership, according to U.S. officials briefed on American intelligence on the matter, which has prompted questions about what support the mercenary leader had inside the top ranks.

[...] General Surovikin is a respected military leader who helped shore up defenses across the battle lines after Ukraine’s counteroffensive last year, analysts say. He was replaced as the top commander in January but retained influence in running war operations and remains popular among the troops.

American officials also said there are signs that other Russian generals may also have supported Mr. Prigozhin’s attempt to change the leadership of the Defense Ministry by force. Current and former U.S. officials said Mr. Prigozhin would not have launched his uprising unless he believed that others in positions of power would come to his aid.

[...] Still, American officials have an interest in pushing out information that undermines the standing of General Surovikin, whom they view as more competent and more ruthless than other members of the command. His removal would undoubtedly benefit Ukraine, whose Western-backed troops are pushing a new counteroffensive that is meant to try to win back territory seized by Moscow.

[...] General Surovikin spoke out against the rebellion as it became public on Friday, in a video that urged Russian troops in Ukraine to maintain their positions and not join the uprising.

But one former official called that message akin to “a hostage video.” General Surovikin’s body language suggested he was uncomfortable denouncing a former ally, one who shared his view of the Russian military leadership, the former official said.

Russian General Arrested Following Wagner Mutiny – MT Russian Wednesday, June 28

Russian General Sergei Surovikin has been arrested, The Moscow Times' Russian service reported Wednesday, citing two sources close to the Defense Ministry who spoke on the condition of anonymity.

The Defense Ministry has yet to comment on the alleged arrest of Surovikin, who has not been seen in public since Saturday, when Wagner Group chief Yevgeny Prigozhin launched an armed rebellion against Russia's military leadership.

"The situation with him was not 'OK.' For the authorities. I can't say anything more," one of the sources said.

According to the second source, the arrest was carried out "in the context of Prigozhin."

"Apparently, he [Surovikin] chose Prigozhin's side during the uprising, and they've gotten him by the balls," the source said.

When asked about the general's current whereabouts, the source replied: "We are not even commenting on this information through our internal channels."

U.S. Suspected Prigozhin Was Preparing to Take Military Action Against Russia Saturday, June 24

American intelligence officials briefed senior military and administration officials on Wednesday that Yevgeny Prigozhin, the leader of the mercenary Wagner Group, was preparing to take military action against senior Russian defense officials, according to officials familiar with the matter.

U.S. spy agencies had indications days earlier that Mr. Prigozhin was planning something and worked to refine that material into a finished assessment, officials said.

The information shows that the United States was aware of impending events in Russia, similar to how intelligence agencies had warned in late 2021 that Vladimir V. Putin was planning to invade Ukraine.

But unlike with the initial invasion, when U.S. officials declassified the intelligence and then released it to try to deter Mr. Putin from invading, intelligence agencies kept silent about Mr. Prigozhin’s plans. U.S. officials felt that if they said anything, Mr. Putin could accuse them of orchestrating a coup. And they clearly had little interest in helping Mr. Putin avoid a major, embarrassing fracturing of his support.

if surovikin really was arrested about 12 hours after the NYT article dropped—a big if, nothing is guaranteed—then the IC penetration of russia looks downright humiliating. every CIA leak to the NYT i can think of has come true since december 2021. for what it’s worth, US intel shows that russia is not planning on blowing up the zaporozhye nuclear power plant

#edited typo* surovikin was arrested not prigozhin

[dreaminginthedeepsouth]

mike luckovich :: [@mluckovichajc]

* * * *

"America last."

February 8, 2024

ROBERT B. HUBBELL

On Wednesday, the dysfunction of congressional Republicans plumbed new depths: Senate Republicans blocked a procedural vote to advance funding for Ukraine, Israel, and Taiwan. Supporting each of those nations is in America’s vital interest. Failing to do so undermines global order and brings America closer to active confrontation with Russia, China, and Iran, at least.

The defeat was expected because Donald Trump wants to continue the crisis at America’s southern border to advance his partisan political interest. But the move also advanced the partisan interests of another politician—Vladimir Putin. Like Trump, Putin is temporizing, biding time in the hope that the clock will run out on Ukraine’s resources to resist Russia’s invasion. In Donald Trump's world, the hierarchy of interests is Trump first, Putin second, and America last.

The notion that Trump has re-ordered the national interests to put America last is not mine. It belongs to Thomas L. Friedman, who wrote an op-ed in the NYTimes, The G.O.P. Bumper Sticker: Trump First. Putin Second. America Third. (Accessible to all.)

Friedman writes,

There are hinges in history, and this [aid bill] is one of them. What Washington does — or does not do — this year to support its allies and secure our border will say so much about our approach to security and stability in this new post-post-Cold War era. Will America carry the red, white and blue flag into the future or just a white flag? Given the pessimistic talk coming out of the Capitol, it is looking more and more like the white flag, autographed by Donald Trump. “Trump First” means that a bill that would strengthen America and its allies must be set aside so that America can continue to boil in polarization [and] Vladimir Putin can triumph in Ukraine . . . .

A meme is developing that asserts that the GOP has surrendered to Trump. While that may be true, the deeper truth is that Trump has delivered the GOP into the hands of Vladimir Putin. The GOP is no longer serving the interests of the Americans who elect Republicans to Congress but instead acts as a skulk of useful idiots who unwittingly advance Putin’s interests.

Just ask Tucker Carlson, the poster boy for MAGA’s Putin Caucus. He traveled to Moscow to interview Putin because Carlson believes that major media outlets have not reported the truth about Russia’s invasion of Ukraine. Tucker Carlson believes that Putin will “tell the truth” about Russia’s invasion.

Remember that time when Putin assured the world he had no intention of invading Ukraine? See CBS News (2/24/22), Putin attacked Ukraine after insisting for months there was no plan to do so. Shortly after issuing those denials, Putin brutally attacked the civilian populations and infrastructure in Ukraine and kidnapped hundreds of thousands of Ukrainian children. The International Court of Claims has issued an arrest warrant for Putin for the war crime of unlawful transportation of children from Ukraine to Russia.

It is that Vladimir Putin—the fugitive war criminal and inveterate liar--that Tucker Carlson is preparing to lionize in an interview that will be lapped up by useful idiots who skitter at the mere arching of an eyebrow by Trump. As Trump prolongs a crisis at the US border and delays aid to Ukraine, he is serving Vladimir Putin’s interests first. Commentators are right in asserting that a megalomaniac has engineered a hostile takeover of the GOP—but it is not Trump. It is Putin.

How should we react? Should we despair? Should we shrink from another story that seems to turn the world on its head? No. We need only recognize that the rot in the GOP is beyond repair and that electing Joe Biden is a necessary condition to preserving democracy.

There is no gray area in the 2024 election. A vote for Trump is a vote for Putin. A vote for RFK Jr. is a vote for Putin. A vote for No Labels is a vote for Putin. Staying home is a vote for Putin. A vote for Joe Biden is a vote for Democracy. It’s that simple.

Robert B. Hubbell Newsletter

#Robert B. Hubbell Newsletter #Robert B. Hubbell #The Putin Caucus #MAGA extremists #Putin #Tucker Carlson #Tom Friedman #war in ukraine

[queeranarchism]

Ukraine War 101 thingy

This week I had a bad day and I started complaining that a lot of leftists don't really seem to understand the military aspects of the fighting in Ukraine. Today I'm having a better day so I decided I could just write a 'Ukraine War 101' thingy for people who want to understand it a little better.

It'll be imperfect, incomplete, simplified and biased. This is a big story where sorting through all the misinformation is almost impossible. Here's my attempt anyway. I'm going to leave out most of the political stuff and the war crimes and focus only on things that directly impact the progress of the war. I’ll be using a few maps by Aljazeera. Let's dive in:

THE SPRING

When Russia invaded Ukraine on February 24th (2022), everyone expected Russia to win and it's worth mentioning the numbers for context:

Russia had 900.000 soldiers, 2.000.000 reservists and an annual military budget of 62 billion dollars. It had 42.500 tanks and armoured vehicles, 1500 military aircraft, 500 helicopters.

Ukraine had 210.000 soldiers, 220.000 reservists and an annual military budget of almost 6 billion dollars. It had 14.7000 tanks and armoured vehicles, 100 military aircraft, 34 helicopters.

All in all, that's a huge difference. But Russia couldn't use all that military power, for two reasons:

A reservist is someone with limited military training who can only be called upon to protect against invasion, not to attack. So when the war started, Ukraine could use its reservists and Russia could not. Ukraine also mobilised all male citizens and started training them.

Russia is geographically the biggest country in the world and it must defend all it's borders, so it can not send its entire army to Ukraine.

It is believed that when the war started, Russia committed 175.000 or 200.000 troops. Meaning that in manpower, there were more Ukrainian soldiers in the fight. Still the difference in military equipment was huge and everyone expected the Russians to defeat Ukraine within weeks or a few months. But a couple of things went very wrong for Russia:

Russia scattered it's army, attacking from the north, east and south at the same time. The goal was probably to quickly overwhelm the Ukrainian army and take Kiev. But this means they were outnumbered or matched almost everywhere, and one thing that is fairly consistent in warfare is that defending territory is easier than attacking.

Russia did not destroy Ukraine's' tiny air force. Normally, if you're invading a country, you start by trying to surprise and destroy the enemies' air force while it's still on the ground. After that, you basically have almost unlimited opportunity to attack your enemy from above. It's a huge advantage. Russia did not destroy Ukraine's air force and does not seem to have really tried. Maybe it thought the numbers were too small to matter. Big mistake.

Russia did not mentally prepare its troops for the attack. Moments before the attack, many soldiers still believed there would be no war and that they were just gathered at the border to intimidate Ukraine. When the war did start, soldiers were shocked, confused and not ready to risk their lives. Ukrainian soldiers on the other side were incredibly motivated. It looks like Putin also did not trust his mid-level commanders enough to inform them about the coming invasion, meaning they too were not well prepared and made a lot of tactical mistakes.

Russia committed most of its tanks in a massive attack on Kiev and royally fucked it up. The thing is: any tank has vulnerable spots, so unless you protect your tanks well, a few soldiers with a simple hand-held anti-tank weapon can destroy a tank if they can just get close enough to target its vulnerabilities. Once a tank has been taken out, it becomes a huge dead weight on the road. Russia put all its tanks in one 17-miles-long column, which means that Ukrainian soldiers could easily destroy the tanks at the front and the back and the entire column was stuck in place. To get un-stuck, you need a tank-tow-truck. The Russians had brought those but had not positioned them close to the front or back of the column. So now all the Ukrainian army needed to do was find the tow trucks that were slowly trying to reach the front of the column, and take out those. This very basic tank-tactics-101 mistake pretty much ruined the main attack on Kiev.

THE SUMMER

By the end of March, Russia's plans had clearly failed and Ukraine was even succeeding in launching small counterattacks. Ukraine had used up a lot of its own weapons but was by now receiving regular supplies of light weapons from the EU en US. At first these weapons could only really make small dents in the Russian advance but at least the Ukrainian troops still had something to fight with.

Russia gave up its big ambitious Plan A (overwhelm and defeat all of Ukraine) and went for Plan B: take the south and east regions of Ukraine and hold them. Russia pulled it's troops away from Kiev, regrouped and resupplied them, and then started a renewed attack in the south and east. This time, their plan was to concentrate far more troops in a small area. This part of the fighting included long attacks on cities like Mariupol.

This was much harder of Ukraine to counter and things were starting to look badly for them. This was when Ukraine started pushing its allies to receive long range missiles. It might be worth explaining why these are crucial: basically, if you can hit your opponent from 30 mile away, but your opponent can hit you from 40 miles away, then he can hit you whenever you enter the 40 mile zone, so you will face heavy losses every attack. But if you then get the power to hit an opponent from 50 miles away, you can stay in a safe location while shooting at them. This is a massive advantage, especially if you're trying to limit your losses because you're running out of manpower (which would become an issue for both sides over the summer). Ukraine demonstrated the importance of long range missiles by taking out the Russian flagship Moskva (using its own limited supply of anti-ship missiles).

By the middle of the summer, Russia had mostly completed Plan B (take the south and east regions of Ukraine) but it hadn't won the war. The next step of Plan B appeared to be: hold out for the winter. Russia started targeting Ukraines electricity grid and power plants, while at the same time limiting Russian gas supplies to Europe.

A couple of things were brewing under the surface though:

Both sides were running low on troops. Even the ones that weren't dead or wounded were in need of more rest than at the start of the war.

Russia was running out of missiles and out of spare parts for tanks, armoured vehicles and artillery. This is where the sanctions (which failed miserably at their original goal of destroying the Russian economy) proved very impactful. In the 2020s a piece of artillery requires highly specialized parts, computer chips and semi-conductors, a lot of which are not produced in Russia. By now it was getting harder and harder to get these parts. So Russia was forced to start using outdated 1970s equipment, which doesn't require so much digital tech to function.  

By June, the US promised HIMARS rocket launchers to Ukraine. These have a great range and at the end of July the US added smart missiles with a long range, which can find their own target. They're expensive and ridiculously effective. Basically: with a non-smart missile you might have to shoot dozens of them to hit a target. With a smart missile, one shot is enough. (the idea that such precision creates less civilian causalities is bullshit though, they will destroy anything that happens to be near the target). Other countries also started providing more and better weapons to Ukraine. I’m mentioning the US here because they provided the biggest most impactful chunk and I don’t have time to go over them all.

Russia's command structure was doing badly. A lot of generals had died or been fired, there was a lot of distrust, and from the outside it seems like Putin has started micromanaging the war. This is a bad idea. One man can not oversee something as large and complex as the war, especially when that man has to handle politics and diplomacy at the same time. But Putin no longer seemed to trust that his generals could do the job.

THE FALL

On September 6th, Ukraine launched a mayor counter offensive. It was able to do this largely because of a lot of new weapons from the US and EU, including long range and smart missiles. Before the counter attack, Ukraine did kind of a classic trick: it did a small attack in the south, where there are valuable ports to recapture. Russia quickly pulled a LOT of troops south, leaving the North vulnerable. Ukraine then launched its main counter attack in the North, recapturing vital railway connections and electricity grids instead. There were very few Russian troops, the HIMARS took out key bridges and communication, and as a result the Russian defenses in the North collapsed fast. It was just a ridiculously effective counter offensive and the Ukrainian army made quick progress. This wasn’t only due to a good deception and good weapons, it was also just incredibly well organized.

The area that Russia had lost in Ukraine wasn’t massive, but Putin PANICKED. In a short time he did three or four things:

Organize fake referenda in the conquered regions, so these regions could 'request' to join Russia and Russia could officially annex them. The moment these regions became Russian, it would become legal for Putin to commit the reserves there (remember: A reservist can only be called upon to protect against invasion, not to launch an attack) and to deploy nuclear weapons.

Announce the mobilisation of 300.000 reserves. In reality, it is believed that Russia is actually trying to mobilize 1.000.000 reserves.

Threaten, once again, to use nuclear weapons if needed.

At this time it is believed by many that Russia may have sabotaged two gas pipelines from Russia to Europe (North Stream I and II). This has no direct military effect because Russia had already stopped supplying Russian gas to Europe through these pipelines. However, the sabotage occurred at the exact moment that a new gas pipeline between Norway and Denmark, Germany and Poland was being opened for the first time. This new pipeline was created specifically to reduce Europe's dependency on Russian gas. The sabotage seems to have been a threat to Europe. It says "we can not openly declare war on the EU, but we can secretly sabotage your gas connections and you will not be able to prove that we did it". This is a very serious threat.

So where are we now?

At the moment, the Ukrainian counteroffensive has stalled. It's hard to say but it seems that Ukraine is running low on combat-ready troops and on smart long-range missiles. It will probably need some time to patch up and move troops, and it will need new supplies of missiles before it will be able to advance further. Given that Ukraine has just demonstrated how effectively it can regain territory when it has the right tools for the job, it will probably get those new supplies of high quality weapons. (This will be expensive and the US is no longer giving away existing weapons from its storage, it is now increasing weapon production just to keep supplying Ukraine, but it will probably keep sending weapons to Ukraine.)

Putin is today announcing the annexation of the conquered territories. It is unlikely (but not impossible) that he will be quick to use nuclear weapons to defend them. What he does seem to be doing is filling them with hundreds of thousands of newly mobilized Russian reserves as quickly as possible. By all accounts these are badly trained or untrained men who lack a lot of basic armor and weapons. And above all: these reserves do not want to be there. They're not going to any be good at attacking any time soon, so they'll probably be used for defense only until they get more experience and better tools.

This means that once Ukraine is ready to advance again, a small, motivated,  experienced and well equipped Ukrainian army that has so far had excellent tactical leadership will go up against a massive unmotivated inexperienced and poorly equipped army with a failing command structure. This is probably going to be incredibly bloody and most casualties will be Russians, but that does not necessarily mean that Ukraine will win. So far Ukraine has never been truly vastly outnumbered before. That is about to be a real issue and there is a lot of territory left to reconquer. Ukraine is going to be unable to risk too many lives of their own troops, so it’s going to have to rely on good long range equipment to do part of the job from a safe distance.

Meanwhile both sides are going to have to deal with colder weather as the fall and winter sets in. Neither are in a good position to do this. Electricity is failing, in the regions that have seen battle there is a lack of good housing. Behind the battlefield civilians and hospitals need the same scarce energy and warmth that the army needs. Russia will certainly continue to target civilians, hospitals, power plants and infrastructure. Humanitarian aid from the EU is going to be as important as military aid in the months to come. Russia is confident that it can win a winter war because it has always been good at winter wars in the past. But it has never done this on foreign soil, with such unmotivated and ill-equipped troops. This might be a lot harder for them than they realize.

From a military perspective, the next stage of the war looks slow, cold and bloody, but you can never entirely predict war and you can’t predict Putin. He has demonstrated consistently that he doesn’t play by the rules of conventional warfare. Chemical weapons, nuclear weapons, war crimes against Ukrainian civilians and covert attacks on Europe’s power supplies are all possible. Of these, my guess would be we’ll mostly see the last two. But I could be proven wrong within the next few days.

[1americanconservative]

@simonateba

Today is March 1, 2024, and because you are about to be hit by an unprecedented amount of propaganda and a deluge of disinformation from the left, I would like to state the facts again. 1- Vladimir Putin invaded Ukraine in 2014 when Democrat Barack Obama was in power. 2. Vladimir Putin invaded Ukraine in 2022 when Democrat Joe Biden was in power. 3. Vladimir Putin invaded no territory when Republican Donald Trump was in power between 2017 and 2021. 4. Special Robert Mueller concluded that Donald Trump did not connive or conspire with the Russians to win the 2016 presidential election and defeat Hillary Clinton. 5. I hate repetitions but let me repeat that the Robert Mueller investigation did not establish that Donald Trump or his campaign conspired or coordinated with the Russian government in its election interference activities. 6. While in power between 2017 and 2021, Donald Trump did not start a new war, he did not enrich the military-industrial complex. 7. Claims by the mainstream media that Vladimir Putin is blackmailing Donald Trump are false. 8. Claims by the mainstream media that the Hunter Biden laptop was Russia's disinformation are false. 9. The laptop belongs to Hunter Biden and seems to show what appears to be criminal activities. He's like everyone else innocent until proven guilty. 10. Claims that the Russians are AGAIN trying to interfere in the 2024 election to elect Trump are false and seem to be disinformation by the left. 11. Claims that everyone who questions sending billions of dollars to Ukraine for a war they may likely not win makes them a Russian agent or stooge are false and disinformation by the left. 12. Donald Trump is facing four criminal indictments and 91 counts. But indictments are accusations that have to be proven in court. He's innocent until proven guilty. 13. Claims that Trump if re-elected will be deadlier than Hitler and end the presidency and democracy as we know them are unproven since he was president for four years and did not do those things. 14. Yes, Trump often says some outrageous things but he actually acted differently once in power between 2017 and 2021. 15. Claims that Tucker Carlson is a Russian agent because he interviewed Putin are false, he's a journalist who has more influence than many media houses combined. 16. Claims that everything the White House says is true and everything the Kremlin says is a lie is false. They both lie all the time, more often than they tell the truth. 17. I can go on and on, but because you will hear about Russia, Russia, Russia, disinformation, disinformation and disinformation, and election interference by the Russians every day until after the presidential election in 2024, I want you to be prepared and see everything for what it is. 18. Never forget to subscribe to my X because that's what allows me to keep doing this, to go to war every day against propaganda and disinformation, and to hit close to half a billion views here every month.

[rvps2001]

Russia-Ukraine Daily Briefing

🇷🇺 🇺🇦 Monday Briefing:

- France to provide new missiles, used armored vehicles to Ukraine - Prepare for Putin pivot to invade us, say Baltic states - Paris mayor says Russian, Belarusian athletes not welcome at Olympics - Russia withdraws most valuable ships from occupied Crimea - EU bans Turkish airline, its Egyptian partner over links with Russia - France eyes spent uranium plant to bypass Russia - Russia reinforces borders in 3 regions following volunteer raids - Russian Orthodox Church declares “holy war” against Ukraine - Ex-Austria security official held on suspicion of spying

📨 Daily newsletter: https://russia-ukraine-newsletter.beehiiv.com/

💬 Telegram: https://t.me/russiaukrainedaily Socials: https://linktr.ee/rvps2001

#russia ukraine war #ukraine russia war #ukraine war #russian army #russian war crimes #news #newsletter #russia #ukraine

[mariacallous]

Last year, the Ukrainians defeated Russia’s invading army on the battlefield, denying Russian President Vladimir Putin all of his core objectives for the war. He failed to de-militarize Ukraine, install a puppet government in Kyiv, bring Ukraine back into Russia’s fold, and stop NATO expansion. Today, Ukrainians are more committed to their nationhood than ever, and their democratically elected president, Volodymyr Zelensky, remains in power. Ukraine now has a stronger military and closer ties to NATO than ever before; Finland has joined the alliance, and Sweden is set to follow. In 2022, Ukraine’s armed forces won the Battle of Kyiv, the Battle of Kharkiv, and the Battle of Kherson, liberating more than 50 percent of the territory that Russia had occupied since launching its full-scale invasion.

Now, some of these successes could be reversed because of waning U.S. support. The false claim of a battlefield stalemate has brought about a new narrative that Americans should stop helping Ukraine because it cannot win. Alarmingly, the U.S. House of Representatives has delayed voting on the Biden administration’s request for supplemental military aid. Without new assistance from the United States, Ukraine will soon run out of arms, ammunition, and funds to fight effectively against the occupying Russian forces. Most urgently, the Ukrainian government needs air defense systems to protect its people and civilian infrastructure against Russian missiles and Iranian drones this winter. And Ukraine also needs additional weapons to defend and extend last year’s gains.

Putin clearly understands Ukraine’s precarious position in the U.S. Congress. Recently, he boasted that Ukraine would last only a week if the United States stopped providing military assistance. Putin is wrong: The Ukrainians have made it abundantly clear that they will continue to fight. Recall how, in February 2022, thousands of Ukrainians across the country prepared Molotov cocktails to defend against the Russian invaders. Putin’s statement, however, once again proves that he is not seeking to negotiate. Instead, he is waiting for the United States to quit on its Ukrainian partners so he can launch a new offensive to seize more of Ukraine and destroy its democracy. Without U.S. assistance, more Ukrainians will certainly die, and Ukraine may well lose more territory.

By delaying further assistance to Ukraine, House Speaker Mike Johnson and his supporters are acting against the United States’ own interests. Congress should approve new aid to Ukraine as fast as possible—not as a gesture of charity for Ukraine but as a hard-nosed and clear-headed investment in U.S. security objectives.

The moral argument for supporting Ukraine is clear. Despite the United States’ numerous past mistakes and current flaws, I still believe that it should be a force for good in the world. Russia’s war of colonial conquest is immoral and wrong. We cannot allow the world to return to a state of anarchy, where powerful countries can change borders at will. We cannot stand by as civilians are slaughtered, prisoners tortured, people raped, and children kidnapped. Withdrawing military assistance to Kyiv will not end the war but rather prolong it, leading to more deaths on both sides. The war in Ukraine is a democracy defending itself against a dictatorship. It is simply wrong to let an autocrat invade, occupy, annex, and destroy a country with a political system that Americans and so many others around the world deeply believe in. Global public opinion polls show that a majority of the world’s people prefer democracy to other forms of government. Unlike some other wars, there can be no confusion about right and wrong in this conflict. Those in Congress who cherish international law, human rights, and democratic values should not find it hard to pick a side.

But if moral arguments are not enough to sway members of Congress and their constituents, there are also some compelling realpolitik arguments for providing more aid to Ukraine. U.S. military assistance to Ukraine directly serves U.S. national security far beyond Ukraine. There are four ways a Ukrainian victory advances core U.S. interests.

1. A Ukrainian victory will dramatically diminish the threat from Russia. Even this year, which some observers have wrongly described as a military stalemate, Ukrainian forces have been systematically degrading the Russian army, destroying military infrastructure, and pushing the Russian Black Sea Fleet out of Crimea and the western Black Sea. The U.S. government now estimates more than 350,000 Russian military casualties—enormous losses for a fighting force once thought to be the world’s third-most powerful. The Ukrainians have destroyed massive amounts of Russian weaponry, including main battle tanks, fighter aircraft, submarines, and landing ships.

Without any direct U.S. involvement in fighting Russia, U.S. assistance has helped substantially degrade a major military threat to U.S. allies and potentially the United States itself—a strategy called “offshore balancing.” A defeated or vastly depleted Russian army will allow the United States to spend less on European defense, send fewer soldiers to NATO bases in the Baltics and Poland, worry less about being drawn into a future European war, and shift its money and attention toward other problems at home and abroad. Ukrainians are fighting the Russians today so that Poles, Estonians, and perhaps Americans do not have to fight them tomorrow. Russia’s imperial appetites will be neutralized only after a clear, humiliating defeat. A Russia that finally stays within its own borders is clearly in the U.S. national interest.

It is also premature to give up on Ukraine winning back its territory. This year, Ukrainian forces had to launch a counteroffensive without the weapons they needed to do so effectively. If the United States and Ukraine’s many other supporters stay the course, that will not be the case in future counteroffensives. Senior Ukrainian officials I met in Kyiv in September believe, as many outside experts do, that time is on Ukraine’s side in a drawn-out fight, especially when their warriors are better protected by fighter jets and air defenses, better armed with longer-range missiles, and better equipped with more sophisticated, domestically developed drones.

After the war ends, Ukraine will emerge as a powerful U.S. and NATO ally. Ukraine’s military will be one of Europe’s largest and best-armed, a defensive bulwark to deter future renewed Russian aggression and keep the peace. Already, Ukraine is moving away from its Soviet-era systems and adopting U.S.- and NATO-made weapons. After the war, Ukraine should quickly be invited to join NATO as it will become a serious provider of security for all of Europe. Ukraine could also become a reliable weapons supplier to NATO—who is building better sea drones than Ukraine today? It will also emerge as a major customer of U.S. weapons. More generally, a democratic, market-oriented, reconstructed Ukraine embedded in the European Union and NATO will be a significant economic partner for both Europe and the United States.

For Russia, defeat in Ukraine will speed up the demise of Putin’s domestic system of autocratic rule, just as the Soviet Union’s bloody and humiliating defeat in Afghanistan hastened the end of the Communist dictatorship. The end of Putinism will not happen overnight; it will most likely gain momentum only after Putin’s death or incapacitation. The United States and its European allies have a profound interest in weakening autocratic rule in Russia. A Russian defeat on the battlefield accelerates that outcome.

The opposite in equally true. If the United States abandons Ukraine now, the Russian threat to U.S. allies in Europe will only grow. Putin’s regime will become even stronger and threaten the United States’ democratic European allies even longer into the future.

2. The war’s outcome has clear implications for U.S. security interests in Asia. A Ukrainian victory, bolstered by strong U.S. and allied support, will make Chinese President Xi Jinping think harder about invading Taiwan, an assessment I heard repeatedly from top officials in Taiwan during a trip there last summer. If the United States continues to help Ukraine, Xi will be more likely to believe that the U.S. commitment to help Taiwan is credible. A U.S.-supported Ukrainian victory will also undermine Xi’s hypothesis that the United States is a declining, overextended power and that the democratic world can no longer act in unity for any sustained period.

Again, the opposite is equally true: If Putin succeeds in Ukraine, Xi will feel emboldened. If the United States stopped supporting Ukraine, Xi might assess that U.S. support for Taiwan would be temporary and feckless. Just as Putin is trying to do today in Ukraine, Chinese leaders will wait for politicians in Washington to doubt the wisdom of military and financial assistance to an embattled Taiwan and then call on Taipei to negotiate. To all those Republican members of Congress who argue that the focus should be on countering the China threat: Defeating Putin is a critical component of that grand strategy. Cutting military aid to Kyiv is precisely the wrong message to send to Beijing.

3. The war’s outcome will affect global U.S. interests. A Ukrainian victory would be a win for all those wanting to preserve the rules-based international order established and maintained by the United States since the end of World War II. Among that order’s amazing achievements have been the end of European overseas imperialism, establishing the taboo of annexation, and setting the global rules that brought an unprecedented era of peace and prosperity to the world. Wars of outright conquest and annexation, so frequent before 1945, rarely occurred, even during intense superpower competition during the Cold War. These outcomes served U.S. interests and made the world safer for Americans. A return to a Hobbesian world of annexation and imperialism would not serve U.S. interests. Americans would be dragged into these conflicts and potentially be at war with other major powers. The United States has no interest in returning to that kind of world.

4. The outcome of the war will have major implications for the contest between democracies and autocracies. Throughout its history, the United States’ enemies and rivals have been dictatorships, not other democracies. Think of imperial Japan, imperial Germany, Nazi Germany, the Soviet Union, Russia, Iran, and North Korea. When autocracies become democracies, it makes the United States safer. Think of post-1945 Japan, Germany, and Italy and then post-communist Europe, including Russia during its brief democratic phase in the early 1990s. Similarly, powerful autocracies make Americans less secure. Think of China, Russia, Iran, and North Korea. A Ukrainian victory will chalk up a win in the democracy column, perhaps even helping to reverse a nearly two-decade global trend of democratic erosion. In the great-power contest with China over the next several decades, democratic and liberal ideas constitute some of the greatest advantages of the United States and its democratic allies; this makes defending democracy a national interest. This is not just idealism: As former U.S. Secretary of State Madeleine Albright argued, “Promoting democracy … is not just the right thing to do. For America it is the smart thing to do.” Nowhere is this struggle of ideas more acute than in Ukraine. If Ukraine wins, the momentum for democrats around the world will grow, including those in neighboring Russia and Belarus. If Ukraine loses, the momentum for dictators will grow. The stakes are that high.

It is time for Congress to vote on a new assistance package for Ukraine. A yea vote is not only good for Ukraine but also a prudent investment in the national security of the United States.

[tomorrowusa]

Trump's style of projection mirrors that of his sponsor Vladimir Putin. Accuse your opponents of things which you yourself are resoundingly guilty of.

It's important to call out Trump's lies and not to assume that they are too outlandish to be believed. We know that people will believe anything.

Jen Psaki reminded viewers of what Joe Biden did as Putin was preparing to invade Ukraine in February of 2022. Biden anticipated the lies which Putin was about to use to justify the attack on Ukraine. In an unusual move, Biden declassified US military intelligence on Russia's war preparations and revealed various items which undercut Putin's planned excuses.

We need to undercut Trump's unhinged bullshit ahead of time whenever possible.

You don't win by only playing defense. Keeping Trump constantly on the defensive is largely the same as keeping him from winning. And do not fear repetition; repetition is your friend – just ask any successful advertising executive.

#projection #lying #vladimir putin #crimea #invasion of ukraine #stand with ukraine #joe biden #jen psaki #undercutting lies in advance #donald trump #lyin' donald #keep trump on the defensive #election 2024 #владимир путин #путин хуйло #дональд трамп #трамп хуйло #лжецы #путлер #путин - военный преступник #руки прочь от украины! #геть з україни #вторгнення оркостану в україну #слава україні! #героям слава!

[taylorscottbarnett]

Putin is talking about peace with Ukraine.

From a war he started.

My dude that's simple:

Immediate withdrawal of Russian troops from occupied Ukraine territories, the return of Crimea to Ukraine control, as well as 1.3 Trillion USD paid to Ukraine for the cost of reconstruction and reparations.

$800 Billion for the cost of the war directly, and $500 Billion fine for Putin being a gigantic megalomaniacal ass, as well as the immediate halting of support to separatists.

My dudes, let me clarify. This is less a groundbreaking news revelation and more a "Putin is full of fucking shit and can choke" commentary from me.

A rehash of what the megalomaniac has already been saying what he demands of Ukraine.

The "de-Nazification" of Ukraine, based on the bullshit state line that Russia had to invade Ukraine -- err sorry "special military operation" or whatever bullshit RT news is spewing, that Ukraine promise never to join NATO, and -- I shit you not "disarmament" of the country, and amending Ukraine's constitution to expressly declare it "neutral" in regards to NATO v Russia.

As well as mocking the fact that Russia has occupied Ukrainian territory for over a decade now and maybe they should GTFO. (And if Putin wants this war to end, Ukraine should demand immediate withdrawal of Russia from Ukrainian territory and publically recognize that Crimea belongs to Ukraine.)

"$800 Billion for the cost of the war directly, and $500 Billion fine for Putin being a gigantic megalomaniacal ass, as well as the immediate halting of support to separatists."

Kinda thought this bit would have made that clear but, my bad guys if it was not, but this demand is something Ukraine should not negotiate on. Putin has caused massive destruction in the country, committed atrocious war crimes.

Russia needs to learn a lesson from this. It needs to learn that Europe will not be bullied into accepting a two-bit dictator's demands.

It needs to learn that the US will not shy away from defending our allies.

It needs to learn that breaking international norms leads to consequences.

My point being Ukraine (and the west) should not accept peace terms dictated by Russia, and (the west) be prepared to continue supporting Ukraine against its invaders. Russia is not the US. It cannot finance a war via issuing new debt. (Unlike how the US has financed the Afghanistan and Iraq wars for two decades at some 8 Trillion USD and counting).

#politics #russia Ukraine putin #Ukraine russia war #us politics #Ukraine

[ukrainenews]

Daily Wrap Up December 20-21, 2022

Under the cut:

Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky is preparing for an inspiring speech to Congress tonight in which he will address the American people, noting shared values and directly thanking Americans and politicians of both parties, sources tell CNN.

The U.S. will send a Patriot surface-to-air missile system to Ukraine to bolster its air defense capabilities, a move that represents one of the most advanced defense systems that the Americans have so far provided to support Ukraine since Russia invaded last winter.

The United States will provide $1.85 billion in additional military assistance for Ukraine, including a transfer of the Patriot Air Defense System, President Joe Biden and Secretary of State Antony Blinken said on Wednesday.

The Ukrainian president, Volodymyr Zelenskiy, has visited the frontline city of Bakhmut to meet military representatives and hand out awards to soldiers, his office has said. Ukrainian officials said on Tuesday that five people had been killed in the eastern Donetsk and southern Kherson regions, with eight wounded, and that 21 missiles had knocked out power in the southern city of Zaporizhzhia.

President Vladimir Putin said on Wednesday that the Russian army must learn from and fix the problems it had suffered in Ukraine, promising to give the military whatever it needed to prosecute a war nearing the end of its 10th month.

“Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky is preparing for an inspiring speech to Congress tonight in which he will address the American people, noting shared values and directly thanking Americans and politicians of both parties, sources tell CNN.

The biggest news, these sources say, is that he will discuss a peace formula he told US President Joe Biden about and express a willingness to have a peace summit of some sort this winter to achieve the peace.

But in order to continue to protect his country, he will continue to ask for help with sanctions, weapons, financial assistance and justice – but underlining he has never asked for US troops on the ground.

Zelensky will also discuss his visit yesterday to the frontlines — Bakhmut in Donbas — which has been under siege since May.

The Christmas fight there resembles that of US troops during the Battle of the Bulge during Christmas against another tyrannical power: the Nazis.

He might quote FDR, and there is an inspiring gift from Bakhmut he will bring Congress.”-via CNN (According to CNN live news feed, the gift is a Ukrainian flag signed by Ukrainian soldiers fighting in Bakhmut.)

~

“The U.S. will send a Patriot surface-to-air missile system to Ukraine to bolster its air defense capabilities, a move that represents one of the most advanced defense systems that the Americans have so far provided to support Ukraine since Russia invaded last winter.

The transfer is part of a $1.85 billion package of new military assistance to Ukraine announced amid a months-long Russian assault on the country's critical infrastructure as the long, cold winter season sets in.

"Over the past three hundred days, the Kremlin has tried and failed to wipe Ukraine off the map. Now, Russia is trying to weaponize winter by freezing and starving Ukrainian civilians and forcing families from their homes," said U.S. Secretary of State Antony Blinken in a statement announcing the aid package.

"In response, President Biden will announce today that the United States is providing critical new and additional military capabilities to help Ukraine defend itself from Russia's ongoing brutal and unprovoked assault," he said.

The announcement was made on a day that Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy was in Washington, D.C. — his first trip outside of Ukraine since the war began — to plead for additional air defense capabilities as Russian strikes have repeatedly disrupted power and water supply across his country.

"It becomes a real humanitarian issue when you're trying to deprive an entire country of its electrical grid and water and everything else," said Jeffrey Edmonds, a 22-year Army veteran who now works as a Russia analyst at the Center for a New American Security. "I think they see that as a necessary step to help Ukrainians sustain themselves in the fight."

Ukrainian troops are expected to be trained in Germany by Americans. (Hundreds of Ukrainian soldiers already travel to Germany each month for other weapons training. Pentagon officials had recently announced they would increase that number early next year.) Even on a compressed schedule, the training requirements mean that the Patriot system is unlikely to be operational until late winter or early spring, perhaps in February or March.”-via NPR

~

“The United States will provide $1.85 billion in additional military assistance for Ukraine, including a transfer of the Patriot Air Defense System, President Joe Biden and Secretary of State Antony Blinken said on Wednesday.

The announcement came as Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskiy arrived in Washington to meet Biden and address Congress in his first known overseas trip since Russia invaded Ukraine 300 days ago.

The Patriot system is "a defensive system, it's not escalatory, it's defensive" Biden said in a joint news briefing with Zelenskiy. "We'd love not to have them used, just stop the attacks," Biden added.

The assistance includes a $1 billion drawdown to provide Ukraine with "expanded air defense and precision-strike capabilities" and $850 million in security assistance, Blinken said in a separate statement.

The Patriot is considered to be one of the most advanced U.S. air defense systems and offers protection against aircraft, cruise and ballistic missiles. It typically includes launchers along with radar and other support vehicles.

Zelenskiy on Wednesday said the U.S. promise to provide the Patriot surface-to-air missile defense system was an important step in creating an effective air shield.

Russia said last week that U.S. plans to supply Patriot missile defense systems to Ukraine were a "provocation" and a further expansion of U.S. military involvement in the Ukraine conflict.

The Kremlin had said that if delivered, U.S. Patriot missile defense systems would be a legitimate target for Russian strikes against Ukraine.

"Today's assistance for the first time includes the Patriot Air Defense System, capable of bringing down cruise missiles, short range ballistic missiles, and aircraft at a significantly higher ceiling than previously provided air defense systems," Blinken said in the statement released by the U.S. State Department.

The Pentagon said the aid package would also include ammunition for high-mobility artillery rocket systems (HIMARS), precision-guided artillery rounds and precision aerial munitions.

Since Russia's invasion of Ukraine on Feb. 24, the United States has committed about $21.2 billion in military assistance to Kyiv.

Zelenskiy said earlier that his U.S. visit was meant to strengthen Ukraine's "resilience and defense capabilities" amid repeated Russian missile and drone attacks on the country's energy and water supplies in the dead of winter.”-via Reuters

~

“The Ukrainian president, Volodymyr Zelenskiy, has visited the frontline city of Bakhmut to meet military representatives and hand out awards to soldiers, his office has said.

Reuters reports that, earlier, he renewed calls for more weapons after Russian drones hit energy targets in a third air strike on power facilities in six days. In his evening address, he said:

Weapons, shells, new defence capabilities … everything that will give us the ability to speed up the end to this war.

Ukraine’s military said it had shot down 30 of 35 “kamikaze” drones fired by Russia on Monday, mostly at the capital, Kyiv. The unmanned aircraft fly towards their target, then plummet and detonate on impact.

Ukrainian officials said on Tuesday that five people had been killed in the eastern Donetsk and southern Kherson regions, with eight wounded, and that 21 missiles had knocked out power in the southern city of Zaporizhzhia.”-via The Guardian

~

“President Vladimir Putin said on Wednesday that the Russian army must learn from and fix the problems it had suffered in Ukraine, promising to give the military whatever it needed to prosecute a war nearing the end of its 10th month.

In a speech to defence chiefs in Moscow, Putin said there were no financial limits on what the government would provide in terms of equipment and hardware.

"We have no funding restrictions. The country and the government are providing everything that the army asks for," he said.

Putin acknowledged, not for the first time, that the call-up of 300,000 reservists that he ordered in September had not gone smoothly.

"The partial mobilisation that was carried out revealed certain problems, as everyone well knows, which should be promptly addressed," he said.

The call-up drew strong criticism even from Kremlin allies, as it emerged that military commissariats were enlisting many men who were physically unfit or too old, and new recruits were lacking basic equipment such as sleeping bags and winter clothing.

Putin also referred to other unspecified problems in the military and said that constructive criticism should be heeded.

"I ask the Ministry of Defence to be attentive to all civilian initiatives, including taking into account criticism and responding correctly, in a timely manner," he said.

"It is clear that the reaction of people who see problems - and there are always problems in such major, complex work - can be emotional, but we need to hear those who do not hush up the existing problems, but strive to contribute to their solution."

It was the latest in a series of recent comments in which Putin has acknowledged, albeit obliquely, the challenges his army is facing.”-via Reuters

#Daily Update #Ukraine #russia #war in ukraine #US #Bakhmut

[uss-edsall]

So how are you going to suck Biden’s warmongering dick for forcing Putin to invade the Ukraine?

only one person is responsible for the invasion and it is Vladimir Putin

to say Biden and NATO forced him is literally repeating Russian propaganda

to say Ukraine made him do it, that he didn’t want to do it, to say Ukraine should’ve just bent over and allowed him to annex them, is to repeat Russian propaganda

Hitler didn’t stop at the Munich conference which fully went his way because he didn’t care for a second about it. He wanted war, needed war to accomplish his goals. It’s the exact same with Putin. He pretended to be interested in peace so he could prepare for his war - and make no mistake, this is Putin’s War - but it’s gone completely tits up for him and thank fuck for that

[collapsedsquid]

In a mailout sent to Eurasia Group subscribers, Ian Bremmer wrote that Tesla CEO Musk told him that Putin was “prepared to negotiate,” but only if Crimea remained Russian, if Ukraine accepted a form of permanent neutrality, and Ukraine recognised Russia’s annexation of Luhansk, Donetsk, Kherson and Zaporizhzhia.

US should take the Musk approach, sign the peace deal and then immediately invade Crimea

[dreaminginthedeepsouth]

David Whamond, Toronto Star

* * *

LETTERS FROM AN AMERICAN

March 14, 2024

HEATHER COX RICHARDSON

MAR 15, 2024

This morning, Senate majority leader Chuck Schumer (D-NY), one of the highest-ranking Jewish officials in the U.S. government, said Israelis need to call new elections to replace Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, who, Schumer said, “has lost his way by allowing his political survival to take precedence over the best interests of Israel.” Schumer, who is a strong ally of Israel and who also blamed Hamas for the crisis in the Middle East, warned that the deadly toll on civilians in Gaza under the policies of Netanyahu’s government is “pushing support for Israel worldwide to historic lows. Israel cannot survive if it becomes a pariah.”

Netanyahu needs to hold his far-right coalition together to escape the corruption trial in which he is currently at risk, and that coalition wants continued attacks on Hamas. Netanyahu has announced that Israel’s forces are planning to invade the city of Rafah, where about 1.4 million Palestinians are sheltering, despite President Joe Biden’s warning that such an invasion must have a plan to protect civilians “that was actually planned, prepared and implementable.” 

Meanwhile, the humanitarian crisis in Gaza is so bad that the U.S. and other countries are conducting airdrops of essential relief—airdrops are a poor substitute for land-based aid—and Netanyahu’s government has rejected the call of neighboring Arab states, the U.S., and the European Union for a real path to a Palestinian state, instead trying to prevent such a state by pushing more settlements in the West Bank. On a hot mic at the State of the Union address last Tuesday, Biden told Secretary of State Antony Blinken and Senator Michael Bennett (D-CO): “I told him, Bibi…you and I are going to have a come to Jesus meeting,” slang for a moment that precipitates a major change.  

Netanyahu’s far-right government is deeply unpopular in Israel. In January, only 15% of Israelis wanted him to keep his job after the war on Hamas ends, and three days ago the U.S. intelligence community assessed in its annual report on the threats facing the United States that “[d]istrust of Netanyahu’s ability to rule has deepened and broadened across the public from its already high levels before the war, and we expect large protests demanding his resignation and new elections.” It concluded: “A different, more moderate government is a possibility.” Centrist political rival Benny Gantz has visited the U.S. and the U.K. recently. 

“As a democracy, Israel has the right to choose its own leaders, and we should let the chips fall where they may,” Schumer said. “But the important thing is that Israelis are given a choice.”

Netanyahu has forged strong ties in the U.S. with Republicans; in 2015 he spoke before Congress at the invitation of Republicans in an attempt to undermine then-president Barack Obama’s negotiations with Iran to stop that country’s development of nuclear weapons. Today, Republicans slammed Schumer’s speech. House speaker Mike Johnson (R-LA) said: “We need to be standing with Israel. We need to give our friends and allies our full support.”

In Hungary today, the U.S. ambassador launched a similar pushback against a far-right leader whose personal interests are driving his country’s policies. 

Today is the twenty-fifth anniversary of Hungary’s joining the North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO). U.S. Ambassador David Pressman used the occasion to warn Hungarian prime minister Viktor Orbán that the United States has lost patience with his embrace of Russian president Vladimir Putin, his undermining of support for Ukraine, and his open advocacy of Trump’s return to the White House. 

Pressman noted that the U.S. and Hungary have long historic ties, reaching all the way back to the American Revolution and the influence of revolutionary leader Lajos Kossuth—who is one of two foreign leaders whose busts are in the U.S. Capitol—on the defense of democracy in the years before the Civil War. “What unites these connections between our two nations is the shared longing of our peoples for liberty and democracy,” Pressman said. 

When Hungary joined NATO in 1999, Pressman noted, Viktor Orbán was prime minister, and he was proud of the country’s democratic future aligned with a transatlantic community of democracies. Now, he said, Hungary’s choices are increasingly isolating it from its friends and allies. 

“We cannot ignore it when the Speaker of Hungary’s National Assembly asserts that Putin’s war in Ukraine is actually ‘led by the United States,’” Pressman said. “We cannot ignore a sitting minister referring to the United States as a corpse whose nails continue to grow. We can neither understand nor accept the Prime Minister identifying the United States as a ‘top adversary’ of our Ally, Hungary. Or his assertion that the United States government is trying to overthrow the Hungarian government—literally, to ‘defeat’ him.” 

“While the Hungarian government’s wild rhetoric in state-controlled media may incite passion, or ignite an electoral base, the choice to issue, on a daily basis, dangerously unhinged anti-American messaging is a policy choice, and it risks changing Hungary’s relationship with America,” Pressman said.    

The ambassador called out Orbán’s “systematic takeover of independent media,” the use of government power to “provide favorable treatment for companies owned by party leaders or their families, in-laws, or old friends,” and law defending “a single party’s effort to monopolize public discourse.” “[T]his is not something we expect from allies,” Pressman said. The U.S. seeks to engage through dialogue and is willing to speak honestly, he said, but he warned that the U.S. is ready “to act in response to choices the government is making.”

“Hungary’s allies are warning Hungary of the dangers of its close and expanding relationship with Russia,” Pressman said. “If this is Hungary’s policy choice—and it has become increasingly clear that it is with the Foreign Minister’s sixth trip to Russia since Russia’s invasion of Ukraine, and with his next trip to Russia scheduled in two weeks, following his engagement with Russia’s Foreign Minister earlier this month, and the Prime Minister’s meeting with Vladimir Putin in China—we will have to decide how best to protect our security interests, which, as Allies, should be our collective security interests.”

Pressman called out Orbán for his open support for Trump—Orbán visited Trump at Mar-a-Lago last week and has repeatedly expressed his hope that he will be returned to the White House—and his active participation in U.S. partisan political events. Orbán is a darling of the far right and has appeared at the Conservative Political Action Conference (CPAC) more than once.  

“While Hungary attempts to wait out those it disagrees with, whether in the United States or the European Union, the rest of the world is moving forward,” Pressman said. “While the Orbán government may want to wait out the United States Government, the United States will certainly not wait out the Orbán administration. While Hungary waits, we will act,” he said. 

“[W]e want what polls consistently show the vast majority of Hungarians want: a close relationship between the United States and Hungary, rooted in democratic values and shared security and prosperity. Exactly what the Prime Minister said he wanted 25 years ago,” he said. “And that is what we still want today.”    

The U.S. has pledged to defend member states in the family of democracies, Pressman said, and while Hungary tied itself to those democracies 25 years ago, “this government’s actions and rhetoric make it sound like it does not feel so firmly anchored. The United States would not be acting as your ally if we did not forthrightly express concern about the course Hungary is charting, through rough seas of its own choosing. We anchored together 25 years ago as democratic Allies; it remains our hope that we sail forward together as part of a stronger, and now larger, democratic Alliance—a choice that remains up to Hungary, its government and its people.”  

LETTERS FROM AN AMERICAN

HEATHER COX RICHARDSON

#Letters From An American #Heather Cox Richardson #Hungary #Orban government #totalitarianism #democratic rule #NATO