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mariacallous · 4 months

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It was almost two years ago that Russia launched its full-scale invasion of Ukraine. As another winter of war arrives, voices skeptical of the country’s prospects are growing louder—not in diplomatic meetings or military planning sessions, but rather in news reports and in expert commentary. Most do not openly argue that Ukraine should simply give up its fight, but the pessimism, buttressed by supposedly pragmatic arguments, carries clear strategic implications that are both dangerous and wrong.

These skeptics suggest that the current situation on the battlefield will not change and that, given Russia’s vastly greater resources, the Ukrainians will be unable to retake more of their territory. They argue that international support for Ukraine is eroding and will plummet sharply in the coming months. They invoke “war fatigue” and the supposedly bleak prospects of our forces.

The skeptics are correct that our recent counteroffensive did not achieve the lightning-fast liberation of occupied land, as the Ukrainian military managed in the fall of 2022 in the Kharkiv region and the city of Kherson. Observers, including some in Ukraine, anticipated similar results over the past several months, and when immediate success did not materialize, many succumbed to doom and gloom. But pessimism is unwarranted, and it would be a mistake to let defeatism shape our policy decisions going forward. Instead, policymakers in Washington and other capitals should keep the big picture in mind and stay on track. A Ukrainian victory will require strategic endurance and vision—as with our recent counteroffensive, the liberation of every square mile of territory requires enormous sacrifice by our soldiers—but there is no question that victory is attainable.

Over nearly two years of brutal war in Ukraine, Russian President Vladimir Putin has upped the ante to the point that half-solutions are impossible. Any outcome besides a clear defeat of Russia in Ukraine would have troubling implications, and not just for my country—it would cause a global disarray that would ultimately threaten the United States and its allies, as well. Authoritarian leaders and aggressors around the world are keeping a close watch on the results of Putin’s military adventure. His success, even if partial, would inspire them to follow in his footsteps. His defeat will make clear the folly of trying.

STAGES OF VICTORY

Wars of this scale are fought in stages. Some of those stages may be more successful than others. What matters is the end result. In Ukraine, that means both fully restoring our territorial integrity and bringing those responsible for international crimes to justice—goals that are both clear and feasible. Meeting those objectives would ensure not only a just and lasting peace in Ukraine but also that other malicious forces around the world are not left with the impression that mimicking Putin will ultimately pay off.

The current phase of the war is not easy for Ukraine or for our partners. Everyone wants quick, Hollywood-style breakthroughs on the battlefield that will bring a quick collapse of Russia’s occupation. Although our objectives will not be reached overnight, continued international support for Ukraine will, over time, ensure that local counteroffensives achieve tangible results on the frontlines, gradually destroying Russian forces and thwarting Putin’s plans for a protracted war.

Some skeptics counter that although such goals are just, they simply aren’t achievable. In fact, our objectives will remain militarily feasible as long as three factors are in place: adequate military aid, including jets, drones, air defense, artillery rounds, and long-range capabilities that allow us to strike deep behind enemy lines; the rapid development of industrial capacity in the United States and Europe as well as in Ukraine, both to cover Ukraine’s military needs and to replenish U.S. and European defense stocks; and a principled and realistic approach to the prospect of negotiations with Russia.

With these elements in place, our effort will bring marked progress on the frontlines. Yet that requires not veering off course and concluding that the fight is hopeless simply because one stage has fallen short of some observers’ expectations. Even with significant challenges, Ukraine has achieved notable results in recent months. We won the battle for the Black Sea and thereby restored a steady flow of maritime exports, benefiting both our economy and global food security. We’ve made gains on the southern front, recently securing a bridgehead on the eastern bank of the Dnieper River. And elsewhere, we have held off enormous Russian assaults and inflicted major losses on Russian forces, including by thwarting their attempts on Avdiivka and Kupiansk. Despite their gargantuan effort, Russian troops failed to secure any gains on the ground.

Indeed, over the last year and a half, the Ukrainian military has proved its ability to surprise skeptics. Against all odds, Ukrainian forces have liberated more than half the territory taken by Russia since February 2022. This did not happen with a single blow. After the liberation of Ukraine’s northeast in the first months of the war, we lost some ground in the east before regaining momentum—a sequence that demonstrates why drawing broad conclusions based on one stage of fighting is misleading. If the war were only about numbers, we would have already lost. Russia may try to outnumber us, but the right strategy, advanced planning, and adequate support will allow us to effectively strike back.

THE FALLACY OF NEGOTIATIONS

Some analysts believe that freezing the conflict by establishing a cease-fire is a realistic option at the moment. Proponents of such a scenario argue that it would lower Ukrainian casualties and allow Ukraine and its partners to focus on economic recovery and rebuilding, integration into the European Union and NATO, and the long-term development of our defense capabilities.

The problem is not just that a cease-fire now would reward Russian aggression. Instead of ending the war, a cease-fire would simply pause the fighting until Russia is ready to make another push inland. In the meantime, it would allow Russian occupying troops to reinforce their positions with concrete and minefields, making it nearly impossible to drive them away in the future and condemning millions of Ukrainians to decades of repression under occupation. Russia’s 2024 budget for the temporarily occupied territories of Ukraine, amounting to 3.2 trillion Russian rubles (around $35 billion), is clear evidence of Moscow’s plan to dig in for the long haul and suppress resistance to Russian occupation authorities.

Moreover, whatever the arguments that such a scenario would be less costly for Ukraine and its partners, the reality is that such a negotiated cease-fire is not even on the table. Between 2014 and 2022, we endured approximately 200 rounds of negotiations with Russia in various formats, as well as 20 attempts to establish a cease-fire in the smaller war that followed Russia’s 2014 illegal annexation of Crimea and occupation of Ukraine’s east. Our partners pressed Moscow to be constructive, and when they ran into the Kremlin’s diplomatic wall, they insisted that Ukraine had to take the “first step,” if only to demonstrate that Russia was the problem. Following this flawed logic, Ukraine made some painful concessions. Where did it lead? To Russia's full-scale attack on February 24, 2022. Declaring yet again that Ukraine must take the first step is both immoral and naive.

If the frontline were frozen now, there is no reason to believe that Russia would not use such a respite to plan a more brutal attack in a few years, potentially involving not only Ukraine but also neighboring countries and even NATO members. Those who believe Russia will not attack a NATO country after celebrating success in Ukraine should recall how unimaginable a large-scale invasion of Ukraine seemed just two years ago.

SUPPORTING UKRAINE IS NOT CHARITY

Skeptics also argue that supporting Ukraine’s fight for freedom is too expensive and cannot be sustained indefinitely. We in Ukraine are fully aware of the amounts of assistance that we have received from the United States, European countries, and other allies, and we are immensely grateful to the governments, legislators, and individuals who have extended a helping hand to our country at war. We manage the support in the most transparent and accountable way: U.S. inspectors of military aid to Ukraine have found no evidence of significant waste, fraud, or abuse.

This support is not, and never has been, charity. Every dollar invested in Ukraine’s defense returns clear security dividends for its supporters. It has enabled Ukraine to successfully rebuff Russian aggression and avert a disastrous escalation in Europe. And Ukraine has done all this with American assistance totaling roughly three percent of the annual U.S. defense budget. What is more, most of this money has in fact been spent in the United States, funding the U.S. defense industry, supporting the development of cutting-edge technology, and creating American jobs—a reason that some local business leaders in the United States have publicly opposed withholding or cutting military aid to Ukraine.

Moreover, while the United States is Ukraine’s top defense partner—and Washington’s leadership in rallying support for Ukraine has been exemplary and essential—the United States has hardly borne the burden alone. As NATO’s secretary-general, Jens Stoltenberg, recently noted, other NATO members, including European countries and Canada, account for more than half of Ukraine’s military aid. A number of countries have provided more support as a percentage of GDP than the United States has: the Czech Republic, Denmark, Estonia, Finland, Latvia, Lithuania, the Netherlands, Norway, Poland, Slovakia, and the United Kingdom. Germany's assistance continues to grow, making it Ukraine's largest European supporter in absolute terms.

Attempts by some skeptics to brand Ukraine’s fight for freedom as just another futile “forever war” ignore these facts. Ukraine has never asked for American boots on the ground. The deal is fair: our partners provide us with what we need to win, and we do the rest of the job ourselves, defending not only our borders but also the borders of global democracy.

The United States has spent decades, and hundreds of billions of dollars, building and protecting an international order that could sustain and protect democracy and market economies, thus ensuring security and prosperity for Americans. It would be foolish to give up on that investment now. If democracy is allowed to fall in Ukraine, adversaries of the United States will perceive weakness and understand that aggression pays. The price tag for defending U.S. national security against such threats would be many times higher than the one for supporting Ukraine and could spark decades of global turbulence with an uncertain outcome.

Scholars and analysts often warn of a World War III involving nuclear conflict between great powers. But they may overlook the risk of a world of smaller hot wars between states, with bigger powers feeling empowered to take advantage of their smaller neighbors—World Wars I, plural,rather than World War III. Without a common commitment to Ukrainian victory, Russian aggression could in hindsight mark the onset of such a world.

LISTEN TO UKRAINIANS

No country in the world desires peace more than Ukraine. It is not our side that wants this war to drag on indefinitely—Putin does. (We have a clear vision of the path to peace, as laid out in President Volodymyr Zelensky’s ten-point Peace Formula.) And it is Ukraine that is paying the greatest price for this war. We are losing some of our best men and women every day. There is hardly a Ukrainian family that has not directly felt the pain of war. Our warriors have in many cases been serving for more than 20 months, stuck in muddy or icy trenches under daily Russian bombardment, with no return date in sight; the toll on civilians, whether enduring brutal airstrikes or occupation, keeps growing, and the horror of Ukrainian children being stolen and then “adopted” by Russian families for “re-education” continues to haunt us all.

Yet even with our suffering, weariness, and struggles, Ukrainians are not willing to give up, to opt for “peace” at any price. Eighty percent of Ukrainians oppose making territorial concessions to Russia, according to a recent survey conducted by the Kyiv International Institute of Sociology. Another poll found that 53 percent of Ukrainians were prepared to endure years of wartime hardship for the sake of a Ukrainian victory. Ukrainians would not be ready to give up even in the event of a significant decrease in foreign military aid: polling in November by the New Europe Center showed that only eight percent of Ukrainians think that such a reduction should push us into negotiations with Russia. (Thirty-five percent said that a Russian willingness to withdraw troops from Ukraine would be the necessary condition for starting talks, and 33 percent said that under no conditions should talks begin at all.)

Western analysts who urge Ukraine to accept a hasty cease-fire on unfavorable terms neglect such views. For years, policymakers and experts in Europe and the United States failed to listen to Ukrainian warnings that both diplomacy and business as usual with Russia were no longer possible. It took a large-scale invasion and enormous destruction and suffering for them to recognize that the Ukrainian warnings were right. They should not fall into the same trap again.

ALLIES AT WAR

In the summer of 1944, in the weeks after the World War II Allies’ D-Day landing, the headlines in allied capitals were often pessimistic: “Allied Pace Slows,” “Delays in Normandy: Overcaution of Allies and Bad Weather Seen as Factors Upsetting Schedule,” “Terrain Slows Tanks, U.S. Officer Explains.” Even after Allied success in Normandy, the massive Operation Market Garden in the German-occupied Netherlands in September 1944 proved challenging. It had been expected to bring the war to a close but instead yielded limited successes and massive Allied losses. Yet pessimistic headlines and disappointing, even costly, setbacks did not cause the Allies to give up.

At the end of last month, I attended a NATO ministerial meeting in Brussels. What struck me most was the disparity between the mood inside the chamber and the mood outside it. On the sidelines, reporters opened their questions by asserting that the war had reached a “stalemate” and that “war fatigue” would cripple support, before wondering why Ukraine wouldn’t offer to trade territory for peace. Yet such defeatist narratives were absent in the official discussions, with ministers making a firm commitment to additional military aid and sustained support.

However prevalent a false narrative of attrition becomes, we should not allow it to set policymaking and our shared strategy on a disastrous course. Nor should we be duped into believing that Moscow is ready for a fair negotiated solution. Opting to accept Putin’s territorial demands and reward his aggression would be an admission of failure, which would be costly for Ukraine, for the United States and its allies, and for the entire global security architecture. Staying the course is a difficult task. But we know how to win, and we will.

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cuprohastes · 4 months

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Things to Come

It is the year 2024: Amazon wants to have wholly owned company towns to persuade poor people to enter into indentured servitude. There is an election between an old guy who's quietly doing a generally good job, and a very loud serial rapist conman who's being taken to court for his many crimes including treason. Somehow there is still a debate as to who will win.

It is the year 2030: There are now four Amazon towns powered off grid by Tesla batteries. There is no news in or out. People are starting to notice this. Jeff Bezos and Elon musk are having a public fight over who owns Mars. Bezos brought up Twitter and Elon's announced X-Mart a direct competitor to Amazon. The Cybertruck's been recalled again, this time after the 50th person was cooked alive by the burning battery pack, which also locked all the doors.

It is 2040: Elon's died on Mars ina. 8ft cabin from every cancer known to man and three that are getting named after him. Apparently he declared that radiation shielding wasn't needed because Mars is too far from the sun for radiation to reach it. Jeff Bezos freeze dried corpse is still circling hte earth as of two years ago. The world watches with glee as Amazon is torn to shreds by ten thousand parties all of whom are laying claim to the 3 trillion dollars held by the company. Nobody is trying to take over Space-X or Teslas due to the historic 1.4 trillion dollars in fines and debt they collectively owe. Mark Zuckerberg is replacing all his organic parts with life support machines to keep his brain alive until a perfect way to upload himself to the metaverse is available. The metaverse is still shit and has only 1008 concurrent users.

Is tis 2042: Donald Trump has choked to death in his cell. The rumour is it was corpophilia: This will persist even after a FOIA reveals it was a cold two day old Big Mac smuggled in to him. The world rejoices. There is still a 24/7 video feed of Elon musk slowly mummifying in the remains of X-Mars. Questions regarding the rest of the colonists are answered when a Marsbot finally accesses the dome and finds that Elon turned off the oxygen after the twenty three women in the first wave of colonists refused to breed with him. There were twenty eight colonists and four of them had received vasectomies two months before liftoff. They had to take an axe to the thing Zuckerberg because it wouldn't stop screaming. In the UK, all politicians from the last 30 years have been placed in Wadsworth prison and are tried and guillotined daily. The Scottish won't stop laughing. The Irish have been drunk of their tits for the last six months. The Welsh have banned speaking English. This is not going well but they get much respect for taking a stand.

2050: Republicans are now legal to be hunted for food if you have a bow hunting license. Guns are finally restricted. Republicans state that this will result in a civil war. Gun crime and school shootings are down 1000%. The most popular book in the US is "Eating the Rich" a combination how-to on bow hunting, butchering and serving human flesh. The rest of the world is watching this with interest. The Russian federation is taking special notes. This year 80 clones of Vladimir Putin are euthanised in their tubes and eaten.

2055: There is no civil war and surprisingly few instances of Kuru. Texas has built a wall around the entire state to keep "the left" out. All jokes about marrying your cousin are now attributed to Texas, now known as the Lone Surname State. They have still managed not to secede.

2060: Gender is abolished, not through decree but by common agreement of the third generation brought up by Millenials, Gen Z and Gen Blue: The Green Generation. Cities are walkable. It is considered weird if you cannot walk to the shops in bare feet safely for at least half a year. Air quality has improved, winters are returning. Urban deer keep grasses down and provide local meat. Men and women wear dresses, biological sex can now be changed trivially with around 60 months of treatment. Marriage is now merely a fun tradition and churches all pay tax after the 2056 ruling that if they cannot provide evidence for their god that they have no more claim to universal truth than a social club. World hunger is solved by levying back taxes on jsut three megachurches. Summers are brutal but can be managed by passive cooling, and thermal gradient power generators for cooling.

2070: Everyone has UBI. Work is 4 hours a day, 4 days a week for most people. Many people have two or three jobs, not for money, but because they have diverse interests. Most companies are profit sharing or Co-operatives. The biggest global trauma is the English wearing socks with sandals. Global temperatures have dropped. The kids are kind and bemused by their aging relatives. Texas is still Republican and angrily making memes about "This is the future the left want" that are still really cool and fun looking suggestions. The southen US has replaced it's statues with Dolly Parton, who's revered as a saint. 40% of men have great tits. The President of the USA is catgirl. Things are going to be OK. Tomorrow is the anniversary of the day the last Boomer died and everyone's going to get their grill out. Life's good: We're going to to be OK.

#shitposting #the future

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dreaminginthedeepsouth · 1 year

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Vladimir Kara-Murza delivered these remarks on Monday at the closing session of his trial in Moscow:

Members of the court: I was sure, after two decades spent in Russian politics, after all that I have seen and experienced, that nothing can surprise me anymore. I must admit that I was wrong. I’ve been surprised by the extent to which my trial, in its secrecy and its contempt for legal norms, has surpassed even the “trials” of Soviet dissidents in the 1960s and ’70s. And that’s not even to mention the harshness of the sentence requested by the prosecution or the talk of “enemies of the state.” In this respect, we’ve gone beyond the 1970s — all the way back to the 1930s. For me, as a historian, this is an occasion for reflection.

At one point during my testimony, the presiding judge reminded me that one of the extenuating circumstances was “remorse for what [the accused] has done.” And although there is little that’s amusing about my present situation, I could not help smiling: The criminal, of course, must repent of his deeds. I’m in jail for my political views. For speaking out against the war in Ukraine. For many years of struggle against Vladimir Putin’s dictatorship. For facilitating the adoption of personal international sanctions under the Magnitsky Act against human rights violators.

Not only do I not repent of any of this, I am proud of it. I am proud that Boris Nemtsov brought me into politics. And I hope that he is not ashamed of me. I subscribe to every word that I have spoken and every word of which I have been accused by this court. I blame myself for only one thing: that over the years of my political activity I have not managed to convince enough of my compatriots and enough politicians in the democratic countries of the danger that the current regime in the Kremlin poses for Russia and for the world. Today this is obvious to everyone, but at a terrible price — the price of war.

In their last statements to the court, defendants usually ask for an acquittal. For a person who has not committed any crimes, acquittal would be the only fair verdict. But I do not ask this court for anything. I know the verdict. I knew it a year ago when I saw people in black uniforms and black masks running after my car in the rearview mirror. But I also know that the day will come when the darkness over our country will dissipate. When black will be called black and white will be called white; when at the official level it will be recognized that two times two is still four; when a war will be called a war, and a usurper a usurper; and when those who kindled and unleashed this war, rather than those who tried to stop it, will be recognized as criminals. This day will come as inevitably as spring follows even the coldest winter. And then our society will open its eyes and be horrified by what terrible crimes were committed on its behalf.

From this realization, from this reflection, the long, difficult but vital path toward the recovery and restoration of Russia, its return to the community of civilized countries, will begin.Even today, even in the darkness surrounding us, even sitting in this cage, I love my country and believe in our people. I believe that we can walk this path.

[Opinion:: Vladimir Kara-Murza’s last statement to Russian court: A reckoning will come ::: WAPO]

#dissent #resist #Russia #WAPO #Vladimir Kara-Murza #Russian Court #the price of war

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sushigrade · 1 year

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At the conclusion of his trial in Moscow, the Russian opposition politician Vladimir Kara-Murza addressed the court, declining to express “remorse for his misdeeds” or to plead with the judges for mercy. The anti-Putin dissident is charged with disinformation about the Russian military, complicity with an undesirable organization (a charge connected to the political foundation Open Russia), and, finally, with high treason. Based on the accumulated charges, the prosecution has asked the court for a 25-year sentence, despite the fact that, after surviving two poisoning attempts, Kara-Murza suffers from lower-body polyneuropathy, listed as one of the conditions that should legally preclude a person from serving a prison sentence. The politician has been in custody since April 2022. This is the full text of his courtroom statement.

I’d been convinced that, after two decades in Russian politics, and after all I’d seen and experienced myself, nothing could surprise me anymore. I must admit I was wrong. I have been surprised to see that, in the degree of opacity and discrimination against the defense, my 2023 trial leaves the Soviet dissident trials of the 1960s and 1970s in the dust. The requested sentence and the use of words like “enemy” are redolent not of the 1970s, but of the 1930s. As a historian, I see this as a cause for reflection.

At the stage of the defendant’s testimony, the moderator reminded me that expressing “remorse” for my “misdeeds” would be considered an extenuating factor. Although I’m rarely amused these days, I couldn’t help smiling at this. Criminals can express remorse for their misdeeds, but I am in jail because of my political views. I’m here because I’ve spoken against the war in Ukraine; because of my many years of struggling against Putin’s dictatorship; because of my contribution to effecting personal international sanctions against human rights violators under the Magnitsky Act. Not only do I not feel remorseful about any of it, I’m proud of what I’ve done. I’m proud of having come to politics thanks to Boris Nemtsov. I’d like to hope that he isn’t ashamed of me.

I would sign under every word that I’ve ever said and that’s now being used against me. I have only one cause for remorse: that in all my years in politics, I haven’t been able to persuade enough of my compatriots and politicians from democratic countries of the danger presented by the current Kremlin regime to both Russia and the rest of the world. It’s become self-evident by now, but at a terrible price that is war.

An allocution statement is usually a time to plead for an acquittal. For someone who committed no crime, an acquittal is the only lawful outcome in a trial. But I ask this court for nothing. I know my verdict; I knew it even a year ago, when I looked in my rear-view mirror and saw the men in black running after my car. This is the price of non-silence in Russia at present.

But I also know the day will come when the darkness that’s enveloped our country will be dispelled; when people will see something that’s black and call it black, and when they call what’s white white; when it’s officially recognized that two times two equals four; when a war is called a war, and an impostor an impostor; when those who started this war will be called criminals, instead of those who tried to stop it. That day will come just as inevitably as the spring that follows even the most ferocious winter. On that day, our society will open its eyes and stand in horror of the crimes committed in its name. This realization, this consciousness will be the beginning of a long and difficult journey to Russia’s recovery and its return into the company of civilized countries.

Even today, in the darkness that surrounds us, and even sitting in this cage, I love my country and believe in our people. I believe that we can make this journey.

This is the bravest motherfucker on the planet.

#russia #ukraine #dissident #antifascist

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ukrainenews · 1 year

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Daily Wrap Up March 28-29, 2023

Under the cut:

Ukraine struck a railway depot and knocked out power in the Russian-occupied city of Melitopol deep behind front lines on Wednesday amid growing talk from Kyiv of a counterassault against Russian forces worn out by a failed winter offensive.

The head of the UN nuclear watchdog, Rafael Grossi, has described the situation at Ukraine’s Russian-occupied Zaporizhzhia nuclear plant in southeastern Ukraine as “very dangerous” and very unstable. The nuclear facility has lost its external power supply six times since Russia’s invasion of Ukraine more than a year ago, forcing emergency diesel generators to kick in to cool its reactors.

Ukrainian Defense Minister Oleksii Reznikov suggested that Ukrainian offensive action involving Western tanks may begin in April or May in an interview with Estonian television.

The German federal government has agreed to allocate an additional 12 billion euros (over $13 billion) worth of military support to Ukraine over the next nine to 10 years, it announced Wednesday in a statement.

The US has not seen any indications that Russia is getting closer to using tactical nuclear weapons in the war in Ukraine, White House spokesperson John Kirby has said. It comes after Vladimir Putin announced on Saturday that Moscow has made a deal to station tactical nuclear weapons on Belarusian territory. The Russian president said he was acting after negotiations with his Belarusian counterpart, Alexander Lukashenko, who he said had “long raised the question” of a nuclear deployment on his country’s territory.

Map from The Guardian

Unverified images on the internet showed explosions lighting up the night sky with streaks of contrails in Melitopol, base of the Russian-controlled administration in Zaporizhzhia, one of five Ukrainian provinces Russia claims to have annexed.

Ukraine's exiled mayor of the city confirmed there were explosions there. Russia's state TASS news agency, citing Moscow-installed officials, said a railway depot was damaged and power knocked out to the city and nearby villages.

Melitopol, which had a pre-war population of around 150,000, is a railway logistics hub for Russian forces in southern Ukraine and part of the land bridge linking Russia to the occupied Crimea peninsula.

There was no public information about the weapons Ukraine might have used for the strike. The city is at the far edge of the range of Ukraine's HIMARS rockets and within reach of newer weapons it is said to be deploying, including air-launched JDAM bombs and ground-launched GLSDB munitions promised by the United States. Russia said it shot down a GLSDB on Tuesday, the first time it has reported doing so.

The strike could hamper Moscow's rear logistics at a time when Kyiv has suggested it could soon mount a counterattack against Russian invasion forces who have scored no big victories in a months-long offensive despite the war's bloodiest fighting.

Melitopol is south of the Russian-held Zaporizhzhia nuclear power plant, visited on Wednesday by U.N. nuclear agency chief Rafael Grossi, who repeated calls for a safe zone there, saying the situation had not improved and fighting nearby had worsened.

-via Reuters

The nuclear facility has lost its external power supply six times since Russia’s invasion of Ukraine more than a year ago, forcing emergency diesel generators to kick in to cool its reactors.

Grossi, who heads the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA), said the water level in a nearby reservoir controlled by Russian forces was another potential danger. Water supplied by the reservoir is used to cool the reactors.

He told Reuters:

If the reservoir level goes down beyond a certain level, then you don’t have water to cool down the reactors, and we have seen especially in January that the levels of the water were going down significantly. They recovered somehow in the past few weeks.

He added that there had been increasing military activity in the region without giving details.

Grossi, who yesterday met with President Volodymyr Zelenskiy at the Dnipro hydroelectric power station, northeast of the Zaporizhzhia plant, said his attempt to broker a deal to protect the plant was still alive, and that he was adjusting the proposals to seek a breakthrough.

He was speaking a day before he is expected to travel to the nuclear plant, the largest in Europe.

Grossi has been pushing for a safety zone to be created at the plant to prevent a possible nuclear disaster as Moscow and Kyiv have accused each other of shelling the site of the power station. Kyiv does not want a deal that will in effect recognise or allow a Russian military presence at the plant.

Grossi added:

I am confident that it might be possible to establish some form of protection, perhaps not emphasising so much the idea of a zone, but on the protection itself: what people should do, or shouldn’t do to protect (the plant) instead of having a territorial concept.

-via The Guardian

Ukrainian Defense Minister Oleksii Reznikov suggested that Ukrainian offensive action involving Western tanks may begin in April or May in an interview with Estonian television.

Reznikov said that German Leopard tanks, which have begun arriving in Ukraine, will be part of “the counteroffensive campaign under the decision of our General Staff. … They are planning that in different directions.”

“And it will depend on the time, the best time,” Reznikov said, speaking in English. “It will depend on weather conditions. During the springtime, we have wet land. And you know, you can use only tracked vehicles without wheels for example.” “I think that we will see [the tanks] during these two months. I mean April and May,” Reznikov said.

Last week, Oleksandr Syrskyi, the commander of Ukraine’s land forces, said on his Telegram channel that the Russians are "losing significant forces [in Bakhmut] and are running out of energy."

“Very soon, we will take advantage of this opportunity, as we did in the past near Kyiv, Kharkiv, Balakliya and Kupyansk,” he said.

-via CNN

"Germany has been supporting Ukraine in the war against Russia for more than a year with money, equipment and material and will continue to do so. This must also be reflected in the budget. On the one hand, for the procurement of armaments for Ukraine, and on the other hand, for the replacement of weapons and material handed over to Ukraine from Bundeswehr stocks," the government noted. Around $4.3 billion will go to the German military to replace the military aid Berlin has given to Kyiv since the invasion, German Defense Minister Boris Pistorius added.

-via CNN

The US has not seen any indications that Russia is getting closer to using tactical nuclear weapons in the war in Ukraine, White House spokesperson John Kirby has said.

It comes after Vladimir Putin announced on Saturday that Moscow has made a deal to station tactical nuclear weapons on Belarusian territory. The Russian president said he was acting after negotiations with his Belarusian counterpart, Alexander Lukashenko, who he said had “long raised the question” of a nuclear deployment on his country’s territory.

Speaking to reporters today, Kirby said:

We’re watching this as best we can. We haven’t seen any movement by Mr Putin to act on what he pledged he would do.

The Belarusian foreign ministry today confirmed it will host Russian tactical nuclear weapons, saying the decision was a response to years of western pressure.

-via The Guardian

#Daily Update #Ukraine #Russia #War in Ukraine #Bakhmut #Germany #nuclear weapons #zaporizhzhya nuclear plant #UN #melitopol

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leeenuu · 2 years

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How many buildings have been obliterated in Ukraine? How many limbs lost, children brutalized, refugees put to flight? How many mothers and fathers, sons and daughters killed in 100 days? How many dreams have been destroyed? There is no accounting of a war that launched in late winter, continued through spring and is likely to drag on for seasons to come. The conflict unleashed by Russian President Vladimir Putin defies statistics. It is a story best told in unsparing images of human suffering and resilience. In the war’s 100 days, Associated Press photographers have captured the terror -- people diving to the floor of a Mariupol hospital as bombs fall around them; a mob of refugees, huddled under a bridge. They have captured the tears of grieving survivors, and of families separated by the war.

#war in ukraine

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beardedmrbean · 1 year

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Russian President Vladimir Putin has ordered his military to observe a 36-hour cease-fire in Ukraine for Russian Orthodox Christmas this weekend and called on Kyiv to do the same, a move that Ukraine appeared to swiftly reject.

Putin instructed his defense minister to institute the cease-fire “along the entire line of contact between the parties in Ukraine” starting at midday local time (4 a.m. ET) Friday, the Kremlin said in a statement posted on Telegram on Thursday. The proposed Christmas truce would last until midnight local time (4 p.m. ET) Saturday.

Kyiv indicated its forces wouldn’t observe the cease-fire and has long viewed suggestions of a truce as efforts to buy time for Moscow.

“First. Ukraine doesn’t attack foreign territory and doesn’t kill civilians. As [Russia] does. Ukraine destroys only members of the occupation army on its territory...” Ukrainian presidential adviser Mykhailo Podolyak said on Twitter after Putin’s announcement. “Second. [Russia] must leave the occupied territories — only then will it have a “temporary truce.” Keep hypocrisy to yourself," he added.

Putin did not appear to make his order conditional on Ukraine agreeing to follow suit, and it wasn’t clear what the unilateral announcement would mean for the status of fighting across the conflict's front lines.

Ukrainian officials earlier dismissed the idea when it was first raised by Patriarch Kirill, the head of the Russian Orthodox Church, who enjoys a close association with the government and has provided a kind of spiritual cover for the invasion.

Podolyak had dismissed Kirill’s call as “a cynical trap and an element of propaganda.”

The Russian Orthodox Church, which uses the ancient Julian calendar, celebrates Christmas on Jan. 7 — later than the Gregorian calendar. Some Orthodox Christians in Ukraine recently started celebrating Christmas on Dec. 25 to show their anger at and defiance of Moscow.

"Based on the fact that a large number of citizens professing Orthodoxy live in the areas of hostilities, we call on the Ukrainian side to declare a cease-fire and give them the opportunity to attend services on Christmas Eve, as well as on the Day of the Nativity of Christ," Putin said.

Putin's proposal comes with the war finely poised after 10 months.

His campaign in Ukraine suffered a series of setbacks at the end of last year, with counterattacks by Kyiv's military forcing retreats from large areas Russia's military had seized and Putin claimed to have annexed in the east and the south of the country.

The Kremlin has responded by calling up hundreds of thousands of reservists and intensifying its commitment to the conflict.

With fighting on the ground largely frozen in the thick of winter, Moscow's military has bombarded civilian targets across Ukraine from the air — including a series of missile strikes on New Year's Eve.

Kyiv has warned that Putin's regrouped and reinforced army might be planning a major new offensive in the next few months and has urged its Western allies to deliver more powerful weapons.

President Joe Biden has indicated that Bradley Fighting Vehicles, an armored combat vehicle that can serve as a troop carrier, could be sent to Ukraine.

While further fueling support for Kyiv from the United States and Europe, Russia's ongoing invasion has also stoked rare criticism at home.

Earlier this week the Russian military blamed its soldiers’ use of cellphones for a Ukrainian missile attack that killed dozens and fueled a new round of domestic criticism at how the war is being fought.

The strike dealt another blow to the Kremlin’s public image and renewed criticism of military leaders from nationalist bloggers and pro-war voices within the country.

#nunyas news #ya ok dude so now you want a pause

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argumate · 2 years

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Russian President Vladimir Putin’s announcement of “partial mobilization” on September 21 reflected many problems Russia faces in its faltering invasion of Ukraine that Moscow is unlikely to be able to resolve in the coming months. Putin’s order to mobilize part of Russia’s “trained” reserve, that is, individuals who have completed their mandatory conscript service, will not generate significant usable Russian combat power for months. It may suffice to sustain the current levels of Russian military manpower in 2023 by offsetting Russian casualties, although even that is not yet clear. It will occur in deliberate phases, Russian Defense Minister Sergei Shoigu said in an interview on September 21, likely precluding any sudden influx of Russian forces that could dramatically shift the tide of the war. Russia’s partial mobilization will thus not deprive Ukraine of the opportunity to liberate more of its occupied territory into and through the winter.

Putin and Shoigu emphatically said that only reservists who have completed their initial military service will be mobilized, making clear that Russia will not be expanding conscription. Shoigu also declared that students will not be affected and told them to go about their studies without concern. These comments were clearly intended to allay fears among the Russian population that “partial mobilization” was code for general conscription.

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jerseydeanne · 2 years

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"Under Obama, Ukraine lost Crimea. Under Biden, Ukraine lost everything." /Trump/

Trump was right again. Dementia Joe is slowly coming to the realization that he has lost. Why I'm not even surprised? After the enormous amount of weapons that US, UK and Germany sent to Ukraine, and $53billion that the US Congress authorized as a humanitarian aid for Ukraine, under the Brendan administration leadership the West collectively lost!

"I think he has been wrong on nearly every major foreign policy and national security issue over the past four decades,” former Defense Secretary Robert Gates says of Vice President Joe Biden in his new book coming out later this month. /2014/

WTF, Why did we ask China for 40 billion?

Something has to give when a superpower wants to drop a Nuke on your backyard.

Here we go with limited wars, right we have drained the taxpayer's money.

Fall and Winter are coming; we have zero chance of making it without diesel and Europe without food.

Hey Joe, you stupid F**K, how about reopening the pipeline and letting good people return to work in the energy field.

Let's boil the frog slowly after Biden's defeat by African Nations and the WHO. Something wrong, Joe? Did you get your ass handed to you? I'm sure Somalia doesn't want us there.

Love, JD 😜💋

#Joe Biden #loser #Ukraine #Russia #pipeline

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tomorrowusa · 6 months

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Hmm, this description seems to remind me of somebody...

For Russian President Vladimir Putin, the Israel-Hamas war is like every other crisis around the world: an opportunity to further Russia's aims in its invasion of Ukraine, says former oil tycoon and Russian opposition activist Mikhail Khodorkovsky. "They are not supporting anyone," Khodorkovsky said of the Kremlin. "They are for chaos. Putin today needs chaos to get what he wants out of increasingly muddy, murky waters. And what they want is not to lose in Ukraine." "Putin is creating chaos wherever he can to distract people, to distract resources, to distract politicians, and to be able to finish his dirty work [in Ukraine]," he said in an interview with Current Time, the Russian-language network led by RFE/RL in cooperation with VOA.

Okay, I think I recall the person.

Up to February of 2022 Putin was successful because few countries called his bluff. He thinks he can still play his old games even though he's done more than anybody since Hitler to weaken Russia.

Putin is no longer playing chess or poker. He's resorted to Hungry Hungry Hippos.

#invasion of ukraine #mikhail khodorkovsky #vladimir putin #winter is coming for vladimir putin #chaos #israel #hamas #petyr baelish #arya stark #владимир путин #путин хуйло #хаос #добей путина #игра престолов #михаил ходорковский #руки прочь от украины!#геть з україни #слава україні!#героям слава!

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mariacallous · 4 months

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While the failure to break through Russia’s fortified defensive lines on the southern axis this summer has been disappointing for Kyiv, the news on the diplomatic and political front is far more alarming.

Speaking about the progress of Ukraine’s counteroffensive in early December, Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky told The Associated Press: “We wanted faster results. From that perspective, unfortunately, we did not achieve the desired results. And this is a fact.”

While Ukraine has achieved some limited successes this year, with results in the Black Sea in the summer and a Kherson-region bridgehead firmly established east of the Dnipro River in the fall, the lack of significant territorial gains is a bitter pill to swallow for Kyiv.

But despite these setbacks, with the final taboos overcome regarding providing the heavy weaponry and long-range missile capabilities needed to win this war, the trajectory of the conflict was still arguably trending in Ukraine’s favor, according to many Western military experts, just as long as the coalition of democratic nation states maintaining Ukraine’s wartime economy held strong and the arms transfers kept arriving.

Winter’s developments, however, paint a far worse picture. Given the immense risks ahead, it is imperative that Kyiv starts preparing now for a future in which that coalition has fragmented.

In Europe, election victories for allies of Russian President Vladimir Putin in Slovakia’s Robert Fico and the Netherlands’ Geert Wilders have potentially added further blocks on European Union financial and military aid packages. Hungary’s Viktor Orban now has more leverage in his attempts to disrupt the bloc’s Ukraine policy, including holding up a new round of sanctions on Russia and a proposed 50 billion euro ($54.9 billion) aid package, even if his opposition to the EU opening accession talks for Ukraine has been successfully navigated by the bloc.

Orban was previously isolated inside the EU, which overtook the United States as the largest overall donor of aid to Ukraine over the summer. If Wilders manages to form a governing coalition and become prime minister, it could not only imperil the planned transfer of Dutch F-16 fighter jets to Ukraine, but also become a major threat to future EU aid packages going forward.

Winter has also seen a truck driver protest in Poland and Slovakia, which have been blocking Ukrainian border crossings in a dispute over EU permits for Ukrainian shipping companies, which has in turn impacted the flow of volunteer military aid coming into Ukraine.

While Kyiv will be disappointed by these events, they are not insurmountable. Support for Ukraine remains high in Brussels, and Orban has proved himself capable of relenting on similar packages in the past, leveraging Hungary’s veto in exchange for EU concessions toward Budapest. Individually, member states such as Germany and the Baltic nations also continue to send substantial military aid to Kyiv outside of the structures of the European Union.

The news from the United States, however, is far more bleak. Speaking to reporters on Dec. 4, White House National Security Advisor Jake Sullivan laid out in stark terms that the funds allocated by the government for Ukraine were spent, warning that if Congress did not pass further funding bills, it would impact Ukraine’s ability to defend itself.

“Each week that passes, our ability to fully fund what we feel is necessary to give Ukraine the tools and capacities it needs to both defend its territory and continue to make advances, that gets harder and harder,” Sullivan said.

The White House has been trying to pass a $61.4 billion aid package for Ukraine (part of which would go to replenishing U.S. Defense Department stocks), tied together with a package of aid to Israel and Taiwan, which is being blocked by congressional Republicans in a dispute over the Biden administration’s border policies.

Despite a majority of Republicans supporting increased military aid to Ukraine, bills trying to secure further funding have stalled in both the Senate and the House of Representatives since the caucus of far-right, pro-Trump House Republicans ousted Kevin McCarthy as the speaker of the House of Representatives, replacing him with Ukraine military aid opponent Mike Johnson.

After Johnson was elected speaker, he appeared to walk back his opposition to Ukraine funding, in an apparent bid to win over some of his Reaganite skeptics in the Republican Party. However, he has chosen to try to leverage the urgency of the Biden administration’s Ukraine package to advance the Republicans’ anti-immigration platform.

This is no longer isolated to the House, as even pro-Ukraine senators, such as Lindsey Graham, joined Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell in blocking the White House’s security package amid chaotic scenes in the Senate. With Senate Republicans falling in line with the legislative agenda of the House’s hard-right “Freedom Caucus” Republican wing, Ukraine will enter the Christmas period under sustained Russian aerial bombardment with depleted air defense ammunition stocks.

The United States is incapable of replenishing those stocks due to the domestic political wrangling of a small band of hard-line, anti-immigration Republican lawmakers, and Ukrainian civilians will likely die as a result of this amoral legislative obstinance. In Kyiv, where I live, the sense that these conservative lawmakers are willing to recklessly endanger Ukrainian lives for selfish political ends is palpable.

The Biden administration has expressed a willingness to compromise in order to try to break the impasse, but there is no certainty in where these negotiations could go. The size of this aid bill is itself a strategic move. The $61.4 billion package dwarfs any of the previous U.S. aid packages to Ukraine (which as of August 2023 totaled more than $77 billion), representing a more “one and done” approach to meeting Ukraine’s military aid needs for the entirety of 2024 and the remainder of President Joe Biden’s term.

If it passes, there will be no further opportunities in the short term for the Make America Great Again caucus to hold Ukrainian aid to ransom.

But the problems don’t stop there. The United States and Europe have both failed to produce enough artillery ammunition to meet Ukraine’s needs, and this shortfall led to South Korea becoming a larger supplier of artillery ammunition in 2023 than all European nations combined. But Korea’s supplies are not limitless, and U.S. and European production is still not at the levels needed to sustain Ukraine going forward. If this shortfall is not addressed, the consequences could be disastrous.

There are more hopeful signs that these problems are well understood, and that the coalition of nations supporting Ukraine remains committed to the cause in the long term. “Wars develop in phases,” said NATO Secretary-General Jens Stoltenberg in a recent interview with the German public broadcaster ARD in early December. “We have to support Ukraine in both good and bad times,” he said.

Everything now points to a long war in Ukraine, although none of this should have been unforeseeable for Western policymakers and defense chiefs. Ukraine’s top military c, Gen. Valery Zaluzhny, gave a much-publicized interview with the Economist in November, in which he said “just like in the first world war, we have reached the level of technology that puts us into a stalemate.”

These comments, however, despite appearing to create the impression of a public rift between Zaluzhny and Zelensky, are not a concession of defeat from the four-star general. Zaluzhny made clear that he is trying to avoid the kind of grinding attritional warfare that favors Russia’s long-term strategy for wearing Ukraine down.

But a long war also heightens one of the biggest threats. Even if the Biden administration manages to get the new aid package over the line, effectively securing Ukraine’s military funding for 2024, the specter of another presidency for Donald Trump still looms large on the horizon. The polling for Biden less than one year away from an election is deeply concerning, and Trump’s prospects for victory need to be taken seriously, even in the face of his growing legal jeopardy.

A second Trump presidency would imperil not just U.S. democracy, but also the entire global world order, and the consequences for Ukraine could be potentially devastating. Trump’s refusal to commit to continuing to support Ukraine should be setting off alarm bells—not just in Kyiv, but across Europe too, where the greatest impacts from this change of policy would be felt.

Trump’s first��impeachment was over his attempt to extort Ukraine to search for compromising material that he could use against Biden in the 2020 election, and there is no reason to believe that Trump has moved on from this. Many in Washington expect that a second Trump presidency will be marked by his desire for revenge against anyone that stood in his way. As the U.S. analyst and author Michael Weiss told me, “Trump’s first impeachment was over Ukraine, and he sees it as an abscess to be lanced. … A Trump presidency would be an unmitigated disaster for Ukraine.”

There are also signs that the Russians are acutely aware of this, and that their strategy in the short-to-medium term is simply to hold out in Ukraine long enough for a Trump presidency to pull the plug on the vital military aid keeping the Ukrainians in the fight. Russian Defense Minister Sergei Shoigu recently remarked that the Russians expect the war to last beyond 2025, and in an address to his own propaganda think tank, Putin said that Ukraine would have a “week to live” if Western arms supplies were halted.

Ukraine cannot plan for a war that may extend beyond 2025 without preparing for a potential Trump presidency and all that would entail. The Ukrainian government must prepare for every eventuality, including a White House that is actively hostile toward Kyiv. To his credit, Zelensky appears to have acknowledged this possibility, going as far as inviting Trump to visit Kyiv.

Putin has made it perfectly clear that he sees his war in Ukraine as being part of a wider war that he is waging against the entire West. Western policymakers to take him at his word on this. Putin and his regime have been waging a hybrid war against the West for many years, and he considers his support for European extremists such as Fico, Wilders and France’s Marine Le Pen to be part of that war and part of undermining the Western liberal democratic institutions, such as the EU and NATO, that stand in opposition to Putin’s tyranny.

But there is no single individual on the planet more important to Putin’s global war agenda than his pet authoritarian in Mar-a-Lago.

Moscow’s goals in Ukraine remain unchanged; the Putin regime still maintains maximalist aims in Ukraine and is in this war for the long haul, with the total subjugation of Kyiv as its goal. Putin made his position very clear during his annual news conference. Russian Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov has also been explicit about this, and Europe should take the ongoing threat that a Trump administration poses to Ukraine seriously. There may well be a potential future in which Europe is forced to carry the burden of Ukraine’s war without its North American ally at the helm of the coalition, or even at the head of the collective defense strategy at the heart of European foreign policy.

Looking forward to 2024, there remains no path to peace in Ukraine without a Russian defeat. Looking beyond 2025, the future of Ukraine as a free and democratic nation-state, and potentially the entire security of Europe, hang in the balance.

This is why Europe, in particular, cannot afford to be complacent in the face of the rising threat of a Trump presidency. Opening EU accession talks for Ukraine is a good start, but until the bloc can match or outperform Russia’s current levels of ammunition production, the tide will start to turn against Ukraine if U.S. leadership on this war continues to falter. The truth is that U.S. leadership on this and on any other pressing international issue cannot be guaranteed.

For Ukraine to stand a chance of victory, its allies must begin preparing for catastrophe now.

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considerourknowledge · 1 year

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Putin Tells Generals to Deploy The Winter Soldier

Russia launched a new wave of airstrikes on Ukrainian cities Monday, marking its latest attempt to knock out power and other basic services to civilians as the country copes with subfreezing temperatures. In addition to these recent strikes, Soviet dictator Vladimir Putin has told his top generals that the time has come to deploy the Winter Soldier, a mysterious assassin with a bionic arm. “Ukraine may think they have stopped our attack and saved their power grid, but wait until they have to deal with the Winter Soldier,” said Putin in a televised address. Reports that the Winter Soldier is actually brainwashed former U.S. soldier James Buchanan “Bucky” Barnes are unconfirmed.

#ukraine #Russia #Vladimir Putin #winter soldier

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dreaminginthedeepsouth · 5 months

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Pat Bagley, The Salt Lake Tribune :: @Patbagley

* * *

LETTERS FROM AN AMERICAN

December 11, 2023

HEATHER COX RICHARDSON

DEC 12, 2023

As is sometimes the case in American politics, a bill that many people are likely not paying a great deal of attention to is likely to have enormous impact on the nation’s future.

That $110.5 billion national security supplemental package was designed to provide additional funding for Ukraine in its war to fight off Russia’s invasion; security assistance to Israel, primarily for missile defense systems; humanitarian assistance to citizens in Gaza and the West Bank, Ukraine, and elsewhere; funding to replenish U.S. weapon stockpiles; assistance to regional partners in the Indo-Pacific; investments in efforts to stop illegal fentanyl from coming into the U.S. and to dismantle international drug cartels; and investment in U.S. Customs and Border Protection to enhance border security and speed up migrant processing.

President Joe Biden asked for the supplemental funding in late October. Such a package is broadly popular among lawmakers of both parties who like that Ukraine is holding back Russian expansion that would threaten countries that make up the North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO). If Russia attacks a NATO country, all NATO members, including the U.S., are required to respond.

Since supplying Ukraine with weapons to maintain its fight essentially means sending Ukraine outdated weapons while paying U.S. workers to build new ones, creating jobs largely in Republican-dominated states, and since Ukraine is weakening Russia for about 5% of the U.S. defense budget, it would seem to be a program both parties would want to maintain. Today, even Trump’s former Secretary of State Mike Pompeo said: “If Ukraine loses, the cost to America will be far greater than the aid we have given Ukraine. The least costly way to move forward is to provide Ukraine with the weapons needed to win and end the war.”

But now that former president Trump has made immigration a leading part of his campaign and a Trump loyalist, Mike Johnson (R-LA), is House speaker, Republican extremists are demanding their own immigration policies be added to the package.

Those demands amount to a so-called poison pill for the measure. The House Republicans' own immigration bill significantly narrows the right to apply for asylum in the U.S.—which is a right recognized in both domestic and international law—and prevents the federal government from permitting blanket asylum in emergency cases, such as for Afghan and Ukrainian refugees. It ends the asylum program that permits people to enter the U.S. with a sponsor, a program that has reduced illegal entry by up to 95%.

It requires the government to build Trump’s wall and allows the seizure of private land to do it.

When the House passed its immigration measure in May 2023, the administration responded that it “strongly supports productive efforts to reform the Nation’s immigration system” but opposed this measure, “which makes elements of our immigration system worse.”

And yet House Republicans are so determined to force the country to accept their extreme anti-immigration policies, they are willing to kill the aid to Ukraine that even their own lawmakers want, leaving that country undersupplied as it goes into the winter.

When he brought the supplemental bill up last week, Senate majority leader Chuck Schumer (D-NY) promised the Republicans that he would let them make whatever immigration amendments they wanted to the bill to be voted on, if only they would let the bill get to the floor. But all Senate Republicans refused, essentially threatening to use the filibuster to keep the measure from the floor until it includes the House Republicans' demands.

This unwillingness to fund a crucial partner in its fight against Russia has resurrected concerns that the Trump-supporting MAGA Republicans are working not for the United States but for Russian president Vladimir Putin, who badly needs the U.S. to abandon Ukraine in order to help him win his war.

Media outlets in Moscow reinforced this sense when they celebrated the Senate vote, gloating that Ukraine is now in “agony” and that it was “difficult to imagine a bigger humiliation.” One analyst said: “The downfall of Ukraine means the downfall of Biden! Two birds with one stone!” Another: “Well done, Republicans! They’re standing firm! That’s good for us.”

Today, allies of Hungary’s far-right prime minister Viktor Orbán were in Washington, D.C., where they are participating in an effort to derail further military support for Ukraine (an effort that in itself suggests Putin is concerned about how the war is going). Flora Garamvolgyi and David Smith of The Guardian explained that the right-wing Heritage Foundation think tank, which leads Project 2025—the far-right blueprint for a MAGA administration—and which strongly opposes aid to Ukraine, is hosting a two-day event about the war and about “transatlantic culture wars.”

This conference appears explicitly to tie the themes of the far right to an attack on Ukraine aid. Orbán has dismantled democracy in his own country, charging that the equality before the law established in democracies weakens a nation both by allowing immigration and by accepting that women, people of color, and LGBTQ+ people should have the same rights as heterosexual white men, principles that he maintains undermine Christianity. In Hungary, Orbán has cracked down on immigration, LGBTQ+ rights, and women’s rights while gathering power into his own hands.

In the U.S. the Conservative Political Action Conference (CPAC) and its allies—including former Fox News Channel personality Tucker Carlson and Arizona representative Paul Gosar—openly admire Orbán’s Hungary as a model for the U.S. Indeed, some of the anti-LGBTQ+ laws Florida governor Ron DeSantis has pushed through the Florida legislature appear to have been patterned directly on Hungarian laws.

Orbán—a close ally of Russia’s president Vladimir Putin, who embraces the same “illiberal democracy” or “Christian democracy” Orbán does—is currently working to stop the European Union from funding Ukraine. Now Orbán’s allies are openly urging their right-wing counterparts in the U.S. to join him in backing Putin. A diplomatic source close to the Hungarian embassy told Garamvolgyi and Smith: “Orbán is confident that the Ukraine aid will not pass in Congress. That is why he is trying to block assistance from the EU as well.”

Former U.S. ambassador to Russia Michael McFaul today noted that even the delay in funding has hurt the U.S. “Delaying a vote on aid to Ukraine, Israel, and Taiwan will do great damage to America's reputation as a reliable global leader in a very dangerous world. Delay is a gift to Putin, Xi, and the mullahs in Iran,” he wrote. “The stakes are very high.”

Republican determination to push their own immigration plan seems in part to be an attempt to come up with an issue to compete with abortion as the central concern of the 2024 election. As soon as he took office, Biden asked for funding to increase border security and process asylum seekers, and he has repeatedly said he wants to modernize the immigration system. To pass the national security supplemental appropriation, he has emphasized that he is willing to compromise on immigration, but the Republicans are insisting instead on a policy that echoes Trump’s extreme policies.

Immigration, on which Orbán rose to power, has the potential to outweigh abortion, which is hurting Republicans quite badly.

We’ll see. The story out of Texas, where 31-year-old Kate Cox has been unable to get an abortion despite the fact that the fetus she is carrying has a fatal condition and the pregnancy is endangering her health and her ability to carry another child in the future, illuminates just how dangerous the Republicans’ abortion bans are. Under Texas’s abortion ban, doctors would not perform an abortion, so Cox went to a state court for permission to obtain one.

The state court ruled in Cox’s favor, but Texas attorney general Ken Paxton immediately threatened any doctor who performed the abortion, and appealed to the Texas Supreme Court to block the lower court’s order, saying that allowing Cox to obtain an abortion would irreparably harm the people of Texas. All nine of the justices on the state supreme court are Republicans.

Late Friday night the Texas Supreme Court blocked the lower court’s order, pending review, and today, Cox’s lawyers said she had left the state to obtain urgently needed health care. This evening the Texas Supreme Court ruled against Cox, saying she was not entitled to a medical exception from the state’s abortion ban.

The image of a woman forced by the state to carry a fetus with a fatal condition at the risk of her own health and future fertility until finally she has to flee her state for medical care is one that will not be erased easily.

Meanwhile, Russian opposition leader Alexei Navalny has disappeared. His lawyer says he was told Navalny was “no longer listed” in the files of the prison where he was being held, and Navalny’s associates have not been able to contact him for six days.

LETTERS FROM AN AMERICAN

HEATHER COX RICHARDSON

#Letters from An American #Heather Cox Richardson #MAGA #support for Ukraine #Russia #Texas Supreme Court #Orban #Senate Republicans #$110.5 billion national security supplemental package #NATO #national security

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newstfionline · 2 years

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Sunday, October 9, 2022

Biden calls the ‘prospect of Armageddon’ the highest since the Cuban missile crisis. (NYT) President Biden delivered a striking warning on Thursday night that recent threats from President Vladimir V. Putin of Russia could devolve into a nuclear conflict, telling supporters at a fund-raiser in New York City that the risk of atomic war had not been so high since the 1962 Cuban Missile Crisis. Mr. Biden’s references to Armageddon were highly unusual for any American president. Since the Cuban Missile Crisis, 60 years ago this month, occupants of the Oval Office have rarely spoken in such grim tones about the possible use of nuclear weapons. The president’s warnings, delivered bluntly to a group of Democratic donors rather than in a more formal setting, came as analysts in Washington have been debating whether Mr. Putin might resort to tactical nuclear weapons to counter his mounting military losses in Ukraine.

Low Mississippi River (Bloomberg) The water level of the Mississippi is abnormally low owing to a lack of rain in the Midwest and the Plains states, and it’s jeopardizing the most important conduit for agriculture in the country. The river is closed near Stack Island, Mississippi, which has led to a backup of 117 vessels and 2,048 barges. About 92 percent of American agricultural exports come from the Mississippi river basin, traveling on barges. Those barges are massive: Each carries 1,750 tons of dry cargo, enough to fill 70 trucks, and a tow hauling 15 barges can move 900,000 bushels of grain. The low river level is sending prices up to ship, and the timing could not be worse.

Haiti’s leader requests foreign armed forces to quell chaos (AP) Haiti’s government has agreed to request the help of international troops as gangs and protesters paralyze the country and supplies of water, fuel and basic goods dwindle, according to a document published Friday. The document, signed by Prime Minister Ariel Henry and 18 top-ranking officials, states that they are alarmed by “the risk of a major humanitarian crisis” that is threatening the life of many people. It authorizes Henry to request from international partners “the immediate deployment of a specialized armed force, in sufficient quantity,” to stop the crisis across the country caused partly by the “criminal actions of armed gangs.” It wasn’t clear if the request had been formally submitted, to whom it would be submitted and whether it would mean the activation of United Nations peacekeeping troops, whose mission ended five years ago after a troubled 11 years in Haiti.

Britain’s grid warns of winter blackouts if Europe energy crisis escalates (Washington Post) Britain’s electricity operator said homes and businesses could face three-hour blackouts this winter if supplies run too low, preparing for a worst-case escalation of Europe’s energy crisis. The company described it as “unlikely” that the lights would go out but still outlined the prospect of a “more extreme scenario” in its winter forecast. The energy crunch fueled by Russia’s war in Ukraine has left European countries scrambling to build reserves as temperatures drop. A European Union official also warned this week that the 27-nation bloc could see blackouts this winter.

Spain’s Senate OKs law banning praise of former dictator Franco (Worldcrunch) The Spanish Senate has approved a new bill which bans expressions of support for the former dictator Francisco Franco. Called the “Law on Democratic Memory” it also includes honoring Franco’s victims and makes the state responsible for searching for the 114,000 people who are still unaccounted for after the Civil War.

Kremlin, shifting blame for war failures, axes military commanders (Washington Post) Russian Ground Forces Gen. Alexander Dvornikov, who over a 44-year military career was best-known for scorched-earth tactics in campaigns he led in Syria and Chechnya, was named overall operational commander of the war in Ukraine in April. He lasted about seven weeks before being dismissed. Around the same time, Col. Gen. Andrey Serdyukov, another four-decade serviceman, the commander in chief of the elite airborne troops, was stripped of his post after nearly all divisions of the airborne forces suffered major losses. And just last week Col. Gen. Alexander Zhuravlev, the head of the Western Military District responsible for Kharkiv, where Russian forces lost huge swaths of territory in early September, was removed after four years on the job. Far from bestowing glory on Russia’s military brass, the war in Ukraine is proving toxic for top commanders, with at least eight generals fired, reassigned or otherwise sidelined since the start of the invasion on Feb. 24. Western governments have said that at least 10 others were killed in battle, a remarkably high number that military analysts say is evidence of grievous strategic errors.

Crimea bridge blast (AP) A truck bomb Saturday caused a fire and the collapse of a section of a bridge linking Russia-annexed Crimea with Russia, Russian officials say, damaging a key supply artery for Moscow’s faltering war effort in southern Ukraine. The speaker of Crimea’s Kremlin-backed regional parliament immediately accused Ukraine, though the Kremlin didn’t apportion blame. Ukrainian officials have repeatedly threatened to strike the bridge and some lauded the attack, but Kyiv stopped short of claiming responsibility. The bombing came a day after Russian President Vladimir Putin turned 70, dealing him a humiliating blow that could lead him to up the ante in his war on Ukraine. Russia’s National Anti-Terrorism Committee said that the truck bomb caused seven railway cars carrying fuel to catch fire, resulting in a “partial collapse of two sections of the bridge.”

Five Hong Kong teenagers sentenced in first security case involving minors (Reuters) Five teenagers with a Hong Kong group advocating independence from Chinese rule were ordered by a judge on Saturday to serve up to three years in detention at a correctional facility, for urging an “armed revolution” in a national security case. The five, some of whom were minors aged between 15 and 18 at the time of the alleged offence, had pleaded guilty to “inciting others to subvert state power” through a group named “Returning Valiant”. Justice Kwok Wai-kin detailed how the defendants had advocated a “bloody revolution” to overthrow the Chinese state at street booths, and on Instagram and Facebook after adoption of a sweeping, China-imposed national security law. Authorities in Beijing and Hong Kong say the security law has restored stability to the global financial hub after mass anti-government and pro-democracy protests in 2019. Human rights experts on the United Nations Human Rights Committee, however, called for the law to be repealed in a July report, amid concerns it is being used to crack down on fundamental freedoms.

A pending new migrant crisis at Europe’s border? (Die Welt) Refugees in Turkey feel increasingly unwelcome. The mood in the country is at times openly hostile. Less than a year before Turkish presidential and parliamentary elections, many politicians are escalating their rhetoric. Time and again, they turn into attacks. And President Recep Tayyip Erdogan, who long acted as the patron saint of refugees, is seeking rapprochement with the man from whom Syrians once fled: Bashar al-Assad. As a result, more and more people now want to make their way to the EU. When the civil war broke out in Syria in 2011, many Turks welcomed their fleeing neighbors with open arms. Turkey has taken in the most refugees in the world, with almost four million people with protection status registered in the country. An enormous achievement. But while a welcoming culture prevailed in the beginning, most Turks would now prefer to get rid of their supposed guests. A 2021 survey by the United Nations Refugee Agency found that 48% of respondents thought Syrians “should definitely be sent back.”

Syria’s cholera outbreak spreads across country, hits neighboring Lebanon (Washington Post) A recent outbreak of cholera in Syria has hit nearly all its provinces and spread to neighboring Lebanon, triggering alarms in both countries, where economic crises have exacerbated deteriorating health conditions. Syria’s cholera outbreak was declared on Sept. 10, and, by the end of the month, surveillance data showed more than 10,000 suspected cases across the country, UNICEF said this week. By Friday, Lebanon had recorded two cholera cases in Akkar province, the northernmost part of the country bordering Syria, according to Health Minister Firass Abiad. No cholera vaccines are available in the country at this time, Abiad told The Washington Post. Both Syria and Lebanon are mired in economic meltdowns that have wreaked havoc on every facet of life, including health conditions and water sanitation.

Lebanese banks to close ‘indefinitely’ as hold-ups continue (Aljazeera) Lebanese banks have decided to close their doors to clients indefinitely, two bankers have told Reuters, amid an unprecedented wave of hold-ups by frustrated depositors seeking access to their savings. The two sources told the news agency on Friday that banks would continue urgent operations for clients and back-office services for business, but front-office services would remain suspended. In mid-September, a young Lebanese woman, Sali Hafiz, was lauded as a national hero after forcing staff at a BLOM Bank branch in Beirut to give her thousands of dollars from her own account by waving a replica gun in order to fund her sister’s cancer treatment in hospital. She told Al Jazeera that her actions were a response to the bank “stealing” her money. Her case triggered a snowball effect with multiple hold-ups taking place since then as the population grows more frustrated over strict measures preventing depositors from accessing most of their dollar savings.

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