Ukraine / Russia - Actions and Reactions

GURPS

INGSOC
PREMO Member
🚀 Let’s glance back at that remarkable Politico article from Wednesday that quoted high ranking Ukrainian officers. In the part I quoted for you, the officer essentially forecast that the Russians could win not in ten years, but as soon as this summer:

The sad truth is that even if the package is approved by the U.S. Congress, a massive resupply may not be enough to prevent a major battlefield upset. Essentially, everything now depends on where Russia will decide to target its strength in an offensive that’s expected to launch this summer.



Summer? Like, July? Or August? In other words, just before the elections?

Coincidentally this week, urgent calls ensued to both Russia and China.

The Hill reported the first urgent call in a story mind-numbingly headlined, “Biden holds call with China’s Xi ahead of Japan, Philippines meetings.” The first thing to note is Biden is not apparently big on phone calls. According to the Hill, the last time the two leaders spoke by phone was in July 2022.

Think about that. Biden hasn’t called Xi in nearly two years. Hilariously, the Hill quoted a senior administration official who pathetically explained, “Both President Biden and President Xi agreed to try to pick up the phone a bit more, use that tool as a means of responsibly managing the relationship, of being in closer touch at the leader level on a more regular basis.”

Talking to the president of China is Biden’s job.

Tellingly, neither the Hill article, nor the official summary of the 90-minute call mentioned Ukraine. Instead the U.S. reports focusing on a giant menu of distracting non-emergencies like artificial intelligence, fentanyl, trade, TikTok, and Taiwan. But the Chinese issued their own official summary, and guess what?

According to the Wall Street Journal— based on the Chinese call summary — the call was really about Biden threatening China to stop helping Russia in Ukraine:


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So right around the same time Politico got intel direct from high-ranking Ukrainian military officials expecting the Russian offensive this summer — the worst possible political time for Biden — intel presumably shared with the White House — Biden suddenly decided to ring up President Xi and tell the Chinese leader to back off.

The WSJ noted, “the Biden administration is preparing to raise some Trump-era tariffs on Chinese goods, including electric vehicles.” So, again, like with the Houthis, Biden is embarrassingly falling back to Trump’s China policies, which Biden had promptly reversed after getting hold of the office.

But that wasn’t all. Enter the French.

🚀 The next day after Joe’s call to President Xi, the French called the Russians — also for the first time in years. France24 ran the story Wednesday with a remarkably similar-sounding headline:



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According to French reports, the call was merely to convey the country’s sympathies over the recent Moscow terror attack. But the official Russian report described the call quite differently. The Russian report said the French had called “urgently.” And one of the topics discussed was a peace dialog for Ukraine:



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Like Biden’s official report about the Xi call, the French official report completely failed to mention the Ukraine discussion. And in another astounding coincidence, on Tuesday U.S. neocon mastermind Secretary of State Anthony Blinken happened to be in France, right before this call.

Now, we don’t know anything beyond the scraps I’ve reported. So we can only guess at the “plan,” if there is a plan. But, especially combined with the Houthi debacle, Biden’s Ukraine “strategy” looks to everyone watching like something totally disorganized, reactive, and desperate.

Biden doesn’t talk to President Putin. He barely talks to President Xi. Could the explanation really be that Biden isn’t cognitively capable of those kinds of conversations anymore?





 

GURPS

INGSOC
PREMO Member
🔥 Speaker Mike Johnson is under withering pressure to let an Ukraine aid proposal to the floor for a vote. For two days, in a news search for “Ukraine,” Google returned CNN’s headline as the first result: “Ukraine ‘will lose the war’ if US aid not approved, says Zelensky.



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Poor Zelensky. “If the Congress doesn’t help Ukraine, Ukraine will lose the war,” Zelensky flatly told fund-raising group UNITED24 on Sunday. Then the tearful former-actor-turned-dictator warned, “If Ukraine loses this war, other countries will be attacked. This is a fact.”

Well, maybe that is not so much of “a fact,” not at least in the sense of something real and verifiable. But why let “facts” get in the way of helpful opinions?

So apparently the Proxy War is now Congress’s to win or lose. My vote is to lose it; cut our losses. Stop the Ukrainians from dying and let Russia take over; I assume it’s better to become a live Russian than to become a dead Ukrainian. (Cue all the Putin-loving accusations in the comments.)

Seriously, what possible chance of winning does a country have if it is totally dependent on other countries for its war resources? It’s like a bankrupt guy asking for one more loan and this time his latest scheme will be wildly successful and then he can pay everybody back. Just another 61 billion and we can do it this time, I promise.


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Speaker Johnson’s question — and every Congressman’s question who is not under deep state management — should be what is the plan? How will the $61 billion, or any amount of money, help achieve the objective? What is the objective? Is the new aid package just meant to help Ukraine hang on until after the election, while poor Ukrainians keep dying? What are we getting for the money? What about our border?

An hour ago, the Hill ran a story headlined, “Greene drama builds for embattled Johnson.” “This is not an easy job right now,” Johnson understatedly told Fox News last week. The House reconvened this week after its Easter break, and Johnson has hinted that he will soon allow a Ukraine aid package to the floor for a vote. Nearly every U.S. and every NATO leader have been constantly hectoring Johnson around the clock and giving the inexperienced Speaker not a minute’s rest.

This time, outspoken conservative Representative Marjorie Taylor Greene (R-Ga.) seems to be taking point for the House Freedom Caucus (last time Florida’s Matt Gaetz led the charge against now-removed former Speaker Kevin McCarthy). She opposes any Ukraine aid, at least while our border remains unsecured, and has threatened trying to remove Johnson if he allows a vote on any bill including Ukraine aid.

It may be an empty threat. It’s not clear Marjorie has the votes. Also, democrats have “promised” to support Johnson and help keep him in the position, but that would be a horrible look for the brand-new Speaker. And that’s if he trusts them at all, which, well, you know.

Johnson does have an excruciating job. He has so far masterfully delayed Ukraine aid for months under terrific pressure. But it seems like eventually, one way or the other, Johnson will be pressed into allowing a vote on the best package he can scrape together. We’ll see.



 

GURPS

INGSOC
PREMO Member
🚀 Yesterday, Russia’s top criminal investigative body — its version of the FBI — announced commencing a criminal investigation into “senior officials in the United States” and of NATO member countries for financing terrorism. As you can imagine, the story was completely invisible to Western corporate media, but the Daily Beast trotted out the old ‘no evidence’ canard and ran the story as a joke:


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The Daily Beast jumped the gun a little, since Russia’s announcement didn’t specifically name Hunter, just Burisma, where Hunter used to earn a cool million a year simulating a potted rhododendron. Here’s what the Russians said, in sanitized words dripping with terrible import:


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Beyond that, it’s all speculation at this point. But we can expect more disclosures from the Russians, including at some point the evidence, which democrats will inevitably dismiss as “no evidence.” But it will assuredly expose a reprehensible new chapter in the odious book of of the Biden crime family and their Ukrainian contacts.

Drip, drip.


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🚀 Thanks, Joe Biden! The Wall Street Journal ran a story yesterday headlined, “Russia and China Double Down on Defying U.S.” I would just like to take a moment to point out, don’t cancel me, that Russia and China were always adversaries until Joe Biden invaded the White House. Just saying.

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Days after Joe Biden “urgently” called President Xi on Friday — for the first time since 2022 — and warned the Chinese leader to stop helping Russia or else face sanctions, and we mean it this time, Russia and China yesterday publicly pledged to “deepen their growing alliance and shared opposition to what they describe as the U.S.’s attempts to dominate the world order.”

While NATO leaders increase their deranged threats to supply another $100 billion to Ukraine and even send NATO troops there, Russia and China are sending a clear message that Russia will not face NATO alone in the event of a direct kinetic conflict. That is a clear message that, unfortunately, Joe Biden cannot hear, since the batteries in his hearing aids have run down.


In the aftermath of Joe’s sanctions catastrophe against Russia, which just poured jet fuel into Russia’s economy while leading the United States’ economy to the brink of a tall cliff, the Biden Administration’s threats to sanction China seem particularly hollow:


Treasury Secretary Janet Yellen repeated Biden’s concerns during a visit to China this week, telling officials that Chinese companies that aid in Russia’s military procurement “will face significant consequences.”​



Please, no more significant consequences. I don’t know how many more “significant consequences” we can take.



🚀 Well, I hardly know what to say about this ridiculous story. CNN Politics ran the article yesterday, headlined “US transfers thousands of seized Iranian guns, rocket launchers and munitions to Ukraine.” It was mostly Iranian small arms, like rifles, and one wonders whether the Ukrainians will be enthusiastic to get them or mostly confused about the dizzying array of incompatible weapons.

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It’s like we’re trying to accelerate Ukraine’s inevitable collapse.

Meanwhile, the New York Times reported yesterday that Britain is now lobbying President Trump for Ukraine aid, in an article headlined “Cameron, on U.S. Trip, Takes a Risk and Meets With Trump.” Mar-a-Lago was Britain’s foreign secretary, David Cameron’s first stop on his U.S. fundraising tour on Monday night. Yesterday he went on to DC.

Following the meeting with Trump, Cameron told reporters “The best thing we can do this year is to keep the Ukrainians in this fight.” This election year, he meant. Given all the trouble Ukraine has caused Trump, including two impeachments and several criminal investigations, one suspects the 45th President was not, shall we say, gushing with enthusiasm to help.

More and more, the Ukraine conflict resembles the War Theatre of the Absurd.



https://www.coffeeandcovid.com/p/consequences-day-april-xx-2024-c
 

GURPS

INGSOC
PREMO Member
🚀 But Biden’s foreign policy, if you can call a foreign policy resembling a drunken bar fight a “policy,” is faring even worse than his domestic policy. Specifically, the broad outlines of Russia’s punchback strategy are beginning to emerge so clearly and so obviously they can now be seen from the International Space Station, nevermind by a lawyer like me, who never attended military college or took political science at Harvard.

Bloomberg ran a breaking story this morning with the understated headline, “Russia Targets Ukraine Power System With Ballistic Missiles.” It appears the Russians are in fact preparing for something big, a major offensive action, something bigger perhaps than we’ve ever seen before in the Proxy War. That’s what this looks like. Whatever it is, however big for Ukraine, it’s the tiniest part of Russia’s strategy, a tiny wooden doll in the middle of all the other dolls.

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Bloomberg reported that last night Russia used over 40 of its top-end hypersonic missiles against at least five of Ukraine’s biggest cities, including its capitol Kiev, plus top cities Kharkov, Odessa, Zaporizhzhia, and even Lviv, which is far from the front lines in Western Ukraine. Russia’s attacks were carefully-planned, and despite reports that Ukraine’s biggest power plants have now been irreparably damaged, no deaths have been reported so far this morning.

For comparison, it was like someone permanently disabling the power in New York, DC, Atlanta, Chicago, and Los Angeles in one night.

There was a short period back at the beginning of the war when I was skeptical the Russians were serious, since they didn’t wipe out Ukraine’s power infrastructure — something that was obviously within Russia’s power. It seemed to me that if Russia really wanted to win, it would first switch off the lights.

Well. That predictable strategy now seems finally to be the strategy the Russians are employing. But that’s not even close to all. The strategy that is emerging is breathtaking and hideous. Let’s dig in.

First, in an otherwise poorly-covered story, on Monday Bloomberg published this headline:


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It was a big deal. Putin signed an executive order nationalizing a US-based conglomeration that had bought up 650,000 acres of Russian farmland. Russia just took it all, placing all that acreage under the “temporary management” of Rosimushchestvo, Russia’s federal property management agency.

Setting aside the obvious wisdom of reclaiming Russia’s strategically-critical farmland from their murky, opaque U.S. corporate owners, it was an entirely predictable response, one that Russia waited two long years to trigger. As you may recall, the U.S. sanctions war against Russia began with America seizing the personal property of “Russian oligarchs,” like their yachts and houses.

Biden stupidly bragged the seizures would lead to regime change, since the Russian billionaires would thow out Putin to placate America and get all their stuff back.

Not only did that not happen, but on Monday Putin began doing it back to us. Corporate media, which celebrated the seizures of Russia assets at the sanction war’s beginning, pretty much had nothing to say about the much bigger and more meaningful nationalization of 650,000 acres of U.S.-owned property in Russia. But it was a totally predictable tit-for-tat response.

What did Biden think would happen?

Biden’s plan was even dumber than it looks. It’s costing us a fortune to maintain all the seized Russian property, which is not easy to sell:


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In other words, after two patient years, Russia has just begun to fight back economically. And Putin is fighting against DEI-promoted morons.

The military part of Russia’s emerging strategy is its — again, predictable — strengthening of America’s enemies. Also on Monday, in the Eurasian Times, we learned Russia has given nuclear North Korea access to hypersonic technology:


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Remember: the U.S. currently lacks any effective answer to hypersonic missile technology. The missiles are so fast they defeat our air defenses. The hypersonics can easily take out an aircraft carrier. They could also be used effectively in a first strike. Now North Korea has them, since North Korea has been supplying Russia with artillary shells.

Thanks, Joe Biden!

Also Monday, the Chatham House published a story about Russia which for the first time used its Security Council veto to stop sanctions against North Korea:


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Our ally South Korea is freaking out, creating a whole new major strategic demand on U.S. military resources, spreading our efforts and forces even more thinly.

Last month, media quietly informed us that somehow, the pesky Houthis — who Biden have given up trying to beat and is now trying to bribe — have also acquired indefensible hypersonic technology. Somehow.


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Five months ago in November, Iran — which has been supplying Russia with drones for Ukraine — announced it had also acquired hypersonic missile technology:


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Hypersonic missiles could defeat Israel’s Iron Dome air defense system. Like South Korea, our ally Israel is also freaking out, requiring — as we’ve seen — massive amounts of U.S. military resources staged in the Middle East. Where’d Iran get that hypersonic technology? Russia, obviously.


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Yesterday — yesterday! — the Biden Administration seemed to finally awaken to the awful possiblity that, instead of being isolated by sanctions, Russia had created a massive military alliance instead, composed of China, Russia, Iran, and North Korea:


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On Tuesday, Bloomberg reported that China has just sent its highest-ranking diplomat to North Korea since before the pandemic:


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So that’s what we know. Now I will speculate some. What I think is happening is that Russia has been carefully preparing a global anti-NATO strategy for two years now, and it is now begining to pull the trigger. The tragedy is that the Russian strategy was completely obvious and utterly predictable, unless your pugnacious president has dementia and always wants to challenge everyone to pathetic push-up contests.

Russia began this war with one obvious advantage. It had developed a game-changing military technology, hypersonic missiles, which surpassed U.S. military technology — even though America’s woke generals pridefully believed they owned the category of high-tech weaponry. But in the face of existential threats from Biden’s reckless administration and escalatory rhetoric, Russia responded by arming all the U.S.’s biggest enemies, trading its high-tech missile system for other, more mundane war material that it needed in Ukraine.

Biden, Blinken, Nuland, Sullivan — without even an hour of real military experience between them — were drunk on their own self-esteem but were too stupid to envision this perfectly predictable eventuality.

We used to talk about America’s woke, diminished military needing the ability to fight wars on two fronts or three fronts. Well, how about four fronts? Ukraine, Israel, Taiwan, and South Korea — each an ally the U.S. has committed to defending. How about that? Are we prepared for four fronts?

I think we will soon find out, at least if Biden and his team of incompetent neocons are stupid enough to continue pushing the Russians. Give them Ukraine before you get us all killed, morons.

Meanwhile, back in Ukraine, as described in yesterday’s UK Times headline, they are running out of irreplaceable Ukrainians:


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They are going to make an army of Amazonian female fighters! That’s the plan! I bet Russia is terrified.

According to democrats, if only the Republicans would get out of the way and approve that $61 billion, it would solve everything. It would solve everything, if by “everything” they mean “nothing at all.” The Russians have outfoxed us. We can’t possibly fight a four-front war, never mind a kinetic war against a China-Russia-North Korean nuclear axis.

Now what, Joe?

Don’t take this as defeatist. We can come out of this fine. The proper path through this treacherous quagmire is the path of humility and standing down. Get NATO and the CIA out of Ukraine. Quit poking the Russian bear.




 

GURPS

INGSOC
PREMO Member
🚀 The Ukrainians are fighting a different war this week, a propaganda war to convince the U.S. Congress to fork over more billions in new war aid. The surprising result has been that some veiled truths are emerging about the lagging war effort; more than we are accustomed to seeing. Alarabiya News ran a story yesterday headlined, “Russian forces outnumber Ukrainian troops 7 to 10 times in the east, general says.


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Don’t pass by that headline too quickly. “The east” is where the war is. The Russians outnumber the Ukrainians seven to ten times? Ten times as many Russians as Ukrainians? Apparently:


Russian forces outnumber Ukrainian troops seven to ten times in eastern regions, Ukraine's General Yuriy Sodol told parliament on Thursday. “The enemy outnumbers us by 7-10 times, we lack manpower,” said Sodol, who is commanding the troops in Kharkiv, Donetsk and Luhansk regions in eastern Ukraine.



When did they plan to let us know about this bad news?

General Sodol’s testimony was intended to prompt Ukraine’s parliament into approving a new round of drafts. It worked, too. A headline in the Guardian late yesterday confirmed the vote: “Russia-Ukraine war live: Ukraine passes controversial bill to broaden civilian mobilisation in attempt to boost military.

The bill was originally labeled as a “de-mobilization” bill. Even though it would have added a new draft, it would also have allowed soldiers who’ve already been at the front for two years now to come home. That part, the de-mobilization part, was stripped out at the last second.

Many commenters believe passing the new draft was a behind-the-scenes requirement imposed by the U.S. to pass the emergency funding package. After all, Ukraine’s manpower shortage is its biggest current problem, and if we send more tanks, who will drive them? But while the new draft may scrape up some more young, untrained Ukrainians who’ll be promptly killed, it cannot possibly get anywhere close to equalizing the mismatched forces.

They stripped out the de-mobilization for exhausted troops at the last minute in a backroom, parliamentary sleight of hand. Imagine the message that sent, both to existing troops who were promised limited terms of service — now you’re only coming home in a body bag — as well as to whatever luckless young Ukrainians who are still hanging around waiting to be drafted this round: you can check in, but you’ll never check out.

Most of the long, complicated draft bill consists of new punishments for resisting the draft. We are told the Ukrainian public is totally behind the war effort and isn’t interested in negotiating with the Russians. If that’s true, why do they seem not to want to fight? And why are we making them?



 

GURPS

INGSOC
PREMO Member

The Math on Ukraine Doesn’t Add Up

April 12, 2024

President Biden wants the world to believe that the biggest obstacle facing Ukraine is Republicans and our lack of commitment to the global community. This is wrong.

Ukraine’s challenge is not the G.O.P.; it’s math. Ukraine needs more soldiers than it can field, even with draconian conscription policies. And it needs more matériel than the United States can provide. This reality must inform any future Ukraine policy, from further congressional aid to the diplomatic course set by the president.

The Biden administration has applied increasing pressure on Republicans to pass a supplemental aid package of more than $60 billion to Ukraine. I voted against this package in the Senate and remain opposed to virtually any proposal for the United States to continue funding this war. Mr. Biden has failed to articulate even basic facts about what Ukraine needs and how this aid will change the reality on the ground.
The most fundamental question: How much does Ukraine need and how much can we actually provide? Mr. Biden suggests that a $60 billion supplemental means the difference between victory and defeat in a major war between Russia and Ukraine. That is also wrong. $60 billion is a fraction of what it would take to turn the tide in Ukraine’s favor. But this is not just a matter of dollars. Fundamentally, we lack the capacity to manufacture the amount of weapons Ukraine needs us to supply to win the war.

Consider our ability to produce 155-millimeter artillery shells. Last year, Ukraine’s then defense minister assessed that their base line requirement for these shells is over four million per year, but said they could fire up to seven million if that many were available. Since the start of the conflict, the United States has gone to great lengths to ramp up production of 155-millimeter shells. We’ve roughly doubled our capacity and can now produce 360,000 per year — less than a tenth of what Ukraine says it needs. The administration’s goal is to get this to 1.2 million — 30 percent of what’s needed — by the end of 2025. This would cost the American taxpayers dearly while yielding an unpleasantly familiar result: failure abroad.
 

GURPS

INGSOC
PREMO Member
🚀 First, on April 11th, several Ukrainian drones struck an ammunition factory in Russia:


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Then, four and six days following Ukraine’s strike on the Russian ammo plant, two ammunition factories — one in the United States and one in Britain, both producing artillery shells for Ukraine, both within two days of each other — ‘accidentally’ burst into flames, purely coincidentally, nothing to see here, no conspiracies, it happens all the time. From the Sun: “Reports: Fire breaks out at Scranton plant producing shells for Ukraine. The UK Express: “South Wales explosion: Firefighters rush to BAE systems military weapons factory.


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If we can suss out the rules of the game of this tit-for-tat, factory-fire competition, why can’t the government see it? Call me naive, but I assume the FBI would have said something, if only to warn manufacturing plant owners to hire some more security guards or something.

And … why can’t the media see it? Is there a single independent journalist left who is not a sold-out government agent?

That said, I did appreciate how the Sun’s headline editor at least tossed us a little hint, by mentioning right in the headline the key fact that the damaged Scranton plant makes artillery shells for Ukraine. Hmm. Could that fact be somehow related? The article didn’t speculate.

One supposes it won’t matter how many billions are approved for Ukraine if the shell-making factories can’t work.

🚀 What tit comes after this tat? An increasingly desperate Ukraine just drone-bombed part of Russia’s long-range ICBM radar, deep inside Russia, far from Ukraine. The radar is not used in the Proxy War. It is a key component in Russia’s long-range nuclear missile detection system, which warns Russia of an incoming nuclear strike. Newsweek: “Ukraine may have just crossed Putin's nuclear red line.


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The neocons are practically sprinting across Russia’s nuclear red lines.




 

GURPS

INGSOC
PREMO Member

Secret Russian foreign policy document urges action to weaken the U.S.


  • A secret Kremlin foreign policy document, revealed by the Washington Post, suggests Russia should exploit the war in Ukraine and weaknesses in unfriendly states to diminish U.S. Leadership in global affairs.
  • The document, an addendum to the "Foreign Policy Concept of the Russian Federation," was acquired through a European intelligence service.
  • It outlines an offensive information campaign against a coalition of foes, emphasizing the importance of targeting their vulnerabilities to weaken Russia's adversaries.







The April 11, 2023 document uses much more harsh language regarding Russia’s relations with the West than the The Foreign Policy Concept of the Russian Federation, approved by Russian President Vladimir Putin only 12 days before. The March document calls for “the democratization of international relations,” “sovereign equality” and states that “Russia does not consider itself an enemy of the West … and has no ill intentions toward it,” adding that Russia hoped the West would “realize the lack of any future in its confrontational policy and hegemonistic ambitions, and will accept the complicated realities of the multipolar world,”

But the April 2023 secret document utilizes harsher rhetoric, as The Washington Post reports, writing, “We need to continue adjusting our approach to relations with unfriendly states. It’s important to create a mechanism for finding the vulnerable points of their external and internal policies with the aim of developing practical steps to weaken Russia’s opponents.”

The Post noted last week, “In an ongoing campaign that seeks to influence congressional and other political debates to stoke anti-Ukraine sentiment, Kremlin-linked political strategists and trolls have written thousands of fabricated news articles, social media posts and comments that promote American isolationism, stir fear over the United States’ border security and attempt to amplify U.S. economic and racial tensions …”
 

GURPS

INGSOC
PREMO Member
🚀🚀 Ukraine’s shrinking manpower problem is quickly draining the testosterone from the battlefield, not that it made any difference to the Senate. Consider yesterday’s dramatic headline from Forbes:


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Two of Ukraine’s most celebrated and veteran brigades, the 47th and 67th Mechanized Brigades, both separately refused to fight this week and abandoned key strategic positions along the front lines. They were reportedly exhausted and upset about having had no real leave since being mobilized at the start of the war, and being forced unlawfully to soldier on past the ends of their contracts.

Ukraine only has about 100 brigades. It can’t afford to lose any, nevermind losing its two most experienced brigades. Even worse, the reason the 47th Mechanized threw in its battle towel was because when their relief brigade, the 115th, saw the scorched earth they were ordered into, they said ‘nope’ and stood down. That, apparently, was the last straw for the overworked warriors in the 47th.

So three Ukrainian brigades refused to fight this week at the worst possible times.

Forbes cogently noted that “billions of dollars of fresh weapons are on their way, but those weapons are useless if there aren’t enough deployed, orderly and well-rested units to use them.”

As we also have said, many times before. But deaf adders, shrinkage, and so forth.

Yesterday’s Guardian headline was even more dire:


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And Foreign Policy also didn’t seem to think the exciting new aid package would make much difference for Ukraine, at least not this year:


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The trouble appears to be that coming up with more high-tech weapons isn’t magic. You can’t just Venmo a couple billion over to the Military-Industrial Complex and — Shazam! — more tanks and bombs magically appear. The West isn’t exactly the world capital of manufacturing these days and it seems like everybody knows it:

“The problem is there is a huge shortage—worldwide—of artillery shells,” said Oleksandra Ustinova, a Ukrainian lawmaker. “The Europeans said they would provide us a million shells—they provided only 30 percent of those. The Americans have dried out their stocks, and they’re also delivering to Israel. And they are only ramping up the production line.”

Europe’s stockpiles are empty. Most of the output from the European Union’s initiative to get 1.4 million shells into Ukrainian hands—about half of which have already been delivered—won’t get there until the end of 2024. So Ukraine’s partners on the continent are searching under the couch cushions and looking for suppliers outside the European bloc to find enough artillery to keep Kyiv’s gun barrels hot.




But don’t worry, Ukraine will win any minute now. Somehow.




 
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