quote:

Originally posted by heydrich:
Anybody else see the irony of German tanks in Ukraine?

Just hitting you now?

quote:

Originally posted by P220 Smudge:
Yeah, museum tanks and more drafts and all that. I keep seeing that stuff mentioned in the same breath as "they're almost finished." It could be as simple as they're using up their old inventory and throwing low-level conscripts at this thing to watch and learn for a bit. Tell me that's unimaginable. Shit, that's exactly what we're doing.

As for your percentages, I'd ask you to cite them, but honestly? I think it's all such suspect propaganda at this point that I believe you believe the claim to be valid, but I think it's probably complete nonsense.

It's from the same leaked documents widely cited for the dire state of Ukrainian forces: out of 544 Russian battalions available, 527 are committed to Ukraine, 474 inside Ukraine, and 110 considered combat ineffective. See here, for example. If that's propaganda, the statements on Ukraine are bound to be, too, and we know nothing.

What we do know is that Russia is on Day 428 of its 15-day operation to "de-nazify and de-militarize" Ukraine because they believed their own propaganda that Kiev is run by corrupt Jewish Nazi puppets of the decadent West, and Ukrainians were just waiting to be liberated and reunited with Mother Russia; and they are controlling less Ukrainian territory now than they did nine months ago. When their eastern front collapsed last year, the pro-Russian internet hoped it was just part of a genius plan to draw Ukrainian troops out in the open and destroy them by fires, too. That didn't happen either.

Since they withdrew from the initial thrust on Kiev, Russia has had its best successes by grinding attrition warfare, chewing off a couple kilometers of territory every month. In theory they can keep feeding people into that approach much longer than Ukraine can to defend against it, but for now Ukrainian popular will supporting mobilization remains more solid than on the Russian side. The next offensive may very well decide if there is a decision in the field, a permanent frozen conflict, or an eventual negotiated settlement. But again, that will be Ukraine's move, though on the basis of the leaked information and progress of Western deliveries, I now expect it in summer rather than spring.

The sad truth is, China has been at war with us for decades. They didn't do it with guns, planes, missiles or bombs, but are achieving the same objectives.

A partial list would be:

Stole significant technology through reverse engineering, mostly offered willingly by companies moving to China to produce goods

China became the sole source for many key technologies giving them the opportunity to cripple our industry

China has undermined our economic system, placing themselves in a position of world power

China has acquired large portions of our territory

China has installed their own governmental entities here for regional control (Chinese Police Stations)

They all but destroyed our steel industry and returned total crap to us

They all but destroyed our recycling industry

China holds $1 trillion in US debt

China has sent millions of their people here to assume positions in a variety of levels including the highest in business.

It is fairly clear they have had influence on the last several elections

They didn't even have to be sneaky about this, all they had to do was give people an opportunity to make money and they fell all over themselves to do whatever the Chinese wanted.

They were patient, calculating, and strategic.

In essence, they turned Capitalism against us and many went willingly into their arms.

AS for Russia.... all they have to do is sit back, grab some popcorn, and watch.

quote:

Originally posted by BansheeOne:
It's from the same leaked documents widely cited for the dire state of Ukrainian forces: out of 544 Russian battalions available, 527 are committed to Ukraine, 474 inside Ukraine, and 110 considered combat ineffective. See here, for example. If that's propaganda, the statements on Ukraine are bound to be, too, and we know nothing.

The same documents that said Ukrainians were dying seven to Russia's every one? The ones that people then said Russia altered and then re-released to reflect that? I'm suspect of all of it, and that, of course, is the intention: cast doubt on the material so people don't know what to believe. This whole thing from the very start has been a massive propaganda shitfest and I'm tired of the overbearing "YOU MUST SUPPORT UKRAINE BECAUSE THEY'RE THE GOOD GUYS AND THE RUSSIANS ARE EVIL AND THAT'S AS DEEP AS IT GETS!" Life just doesn't work that way.

quote:

Originally posted by BansheeOne:
What we do know is that Russia is on Day 428 of its 15-day operation to "de-nazify and de-militarize" Ukraine because...

Now wait a minute. You started off strong, but then you went off on the Nazi tangent. The only guy I've ever met who was a legit anti-semite and hated Jews is a Ukrainian I worked with for a while. He was very open about it. The only no-shit Nazis I've met on the internet are Ukrainians, and that was recently, too. Scoff at it if you like, but I think there's something to it. You know, plus the whole 14th Waffen SS Grenadier Division thing, and the fact that basically nothing happened to those guys, and they're still celebrated today. You don't do that in your country, and though I see accusations of the "rise of the far right" in places like Chemnitz, I'm not sure the political terms actually mean anything these days. Anyways Russia actually has a history of hunting and killing Nazis, so I'm leaning more towards taking their word for it, and it jibes with things I've encountered independently. Maybe your search results are limited because, well... Germany. Here:

Giant SS banner at a soccer match.

How about some Nazi parades?
https://www.timesofisrael.com/...f-nazi-collaborator/
https://www.timesofisrael.com/...ng-nazi-ss-soldiers/

Searching on Google, Bing, Brave, and DuckDuckGo yields some fairly sparse, really inconsistent results. This is not a shock. However...

https://yandex.com/images/sear...xt=ukrainian%20nazis

Now, do I think it's a legit reason to invade Ukraine? Eh, I think it makes a flimsy pretext at best, but it's going to far in the other direction to act like Ukraine isn't the last, perhaps best European vestige of what your country has worked so hard to stamp out since 1945. This was pretty much a known thing to anyone who was paying attention up to about ten years ago.

quote:

Originally posted by BansheeOne:
Since they withdrew from the initial thrust on Kiev, Russia has had its best successes by grinding attrition warfare, chewing off a couple kilometers of territory every month. In theory they can keep feeding people into that approach much longer than Ukraine can to defend against it, but for now Ukrainian popular will supporting mobilization remains more solid than on the Russian side. The next offensive may very well decide if there is a decision in the field, a permanent frozen conflict, or an eventual negotiated settlement. But again, that will be Ukraine's move, though on the basis of the leaked information and progress of Western deliveries, I now expect it in summer rather than spring.

Yeah, either way, we'll see what happens. Either way, Ukraine isn't winning this thing. Russia will go at it however best screws with my country, so maybe they'll play the long game and keep baiting President Mushmouth into sending troops. We'll see.

quote:

Originally posted by P220 Smudge:

quote:

Originally posted by BansheeOne:
What we do know is that Russia is on Day 428 of its 15-day operation to "de-nazify and de-militarize" Ukraine because...

Now wait a minute. You started off strong, but then you went off on the Nazi tangent.

It's not a tangent. It is one of the reason Putin decided to embark on his "Special Military Operation." Unless, of course, you think his translator was playing around:

quote:

Giant SS banner at a soccer match

P220 Smudge, I've gotta ask - where was that soccer game being played and between which teams? 'Cause that looks a lot more like a Swedish crest (lion, three crowns) than it does any SS banner I've ever heard of.

And, for what its worth, what DanH is saying has been borne out for some time.

http://www.theguardian.com/wor...ntisemitism-denazify

No, it's definitely the Galician/Ruthenian lion, not the Swedish lion.

Similar colors and themes (blue/yellow and lions/crowns), but not the same.


But while the Galician/Ruthenian lion was co-opted by the Ukrainian SS volunteer division from 1943-45 as one of their symbols, its use in the region as a Ukrainian/Ruthenian/Galician/Rus symbol predates the Nazis by hundreds of years.


Ukrainian/Ruthenian/Galician lion crest:


Swedish lion crest:

Biden’s team fears the aftermath of a failed Ukrainian counteroffensive

Behind closed doors, the administration worries about what Ukraine can accomplish.

https://www.politico.com/news/...ive-defense-00093384

The Biden administration is quietly preparing for the possibility that if Ukraine’s spring counteroffensive falls short of expectations, critics at home and allies abroad will argue that America has come up short, too.

Ukraine’s ever-imminent counteroffensive will attempt to retake Russian-seized territory most likely in the east and south, though for operational reasons no senior officials from Kyiv have detailed specifics.

Publicly, President Joe Biden’s team has offered unwavering support for Ukraine, pledging to load it up with weapons and economic aid for “as long as it takes.” But, if the impending fighting season yields limited gains, administration officials have expressed privately they fear being faced with a two-headed monster attacking it from the hawkish and dovish ends of the spectrum.

One side will say that Ukraine’s advances would’ve worked had the administration given Kyiv everything it asked for, namely longer-range missiles, fighter jets and more air defenses. The other side, administration officials worry, will claim Ukraine’s shortcoming proves it can’t force Russia out of its territory completely.

That doesn’t even account for the reaction of America’s allies, mainly in Europe, who may see a peace negotiation between Ukraine and Russia as a more attractive option if Kyiv can’t prove victory is around the corner.

Inside the administration, officials stress they’re doing everything possible to make the spring offensive succeed.

“We’ve nearly completed the requests of what [Ukraine] said they needed for the counteroffensive as we have surged weapons and equipment to Ukraine over the past few months,” said one administration official who, like others, was granted anonymity to discuss sensitive internal considerations.

But belief in the strategic cause is one thing. Belief in the tactics is another — and behind closed doors the administration is worried about what Ukraine can accomplish.

Those concerns recently spilled out into the open during a leak of classified information onto social media. A top secret assessment from early February stated that Ukraine would fall “well short” of its counteroffensive goals. More current American assessments are that Ukraine may make some progress in the south and east, but won’t be able to repeat last year’s success.

Ukraine has hoped to sever Russia’s land bridge to Crimea and U.S. officials are now skeptical that will happen, according to two administration officials familiar with the assessment. But there are still hopes in the Pentagon that Ukraine will hamper Russia’s supply lines there, even if a total victory over Russia’s newly fortified troops ends up too difficult to achieve.

Moreover, U.S. intelligence indicates that Ukraine simply does not have the ability to push Russian troops from where they were deeply entrenched — and a similar feeling has taken hold about the battlefield elsewhere in Ukraine, according to officials. Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy says the U.S. hasn’t adequately armed his forces properly and so, until then, the counteroffensive can’t begin.

There is belief that Kyiv is willing to consider adjusting its goals, according to American officials, and a more modest aim might be easier to be sold as a win.

There has been discussion, per aides, of framing it to the Ukrainians as a “ceasefire” and not as permanent peace talks, leaving the door open for Ukraine to regain more of its territory at a future date. Incentives would have to be given to Kyiv: perhaps NATO-like security guarantees, economic help from the European Union, more military aid to replenish and bolster Ukraine’s forces, and the like. And aides have expressed hope of re-engaging China to push Putin to the negotiating table as well.

But that would still lead to the dilemma of what happens next, and how harshly domestic critics respond.

“If the counteroffensive does not go well, the administration has only itself to blame for withholding certain types of arms and aid at the time when it was most needed,” said Kurt Volker, the special envoy for Ukraine during the Trump administration.

A counteroffensive that doesn’t meet expectations will also cause allies in foreign capitals to question how much more they can spare if Kyiv’s victory looks farther and farther away.

“European public support may wane over time as European energy and economic costs stay high,” said Clementine Starling, a director and fellow at the Atlantic Council think tank in Washington, D.C. “A fracturing of transatlantic support will likely hurt U.S. domestic support and Congress and the Biden administration may struggle to sustain it.”

Many European nations could also push Kyiv to bring the fighting to an end. “A poor counteroffensive will spark further questions about what an outcome to the war will look like, and the extent to which a solution can really be achieved by continuing to send military arms and aid alone,” Starling said.

“If Ukraine can’t gain dramatically on the battlefield, the question inevitably arises as to whether it is time for a negotiated stop to the fighting,” said Richard Haass, president of the Council on Foreign Relations. “It’s expensive, we’re running low on munitions, we’ve got other contingencies around the world to prepare for.”

“It’s legitimate to ask all these questions without compromising Ukraine’s goals. It’s simply a question of means,” Haass said.

Earlier this month, Andriy Sybiha, a deputy head in Zelenskyy’s office, told the Financial Times that Ukraine would be willing to talk if its forces reach Crimea’s doorstep. “If we will succeed in achieving our strategic goals on the battlefield and when we will be on the administrative border with Crimea, we are ready to open [a] diplomatic page to discuss this issue,” he said.

That comment was quickly rebuffed by Tamila Tasheva, Zelenskyy’s Crimea envoy: “If Russia won’t voluntarily leave the peninsula, Ukraine will continue to liberate its land by military means,” she told POLITICO earlier this month.

It doesn’t help America’s confidence that the war has slowed to a brutal slog.

Both sides have traded punishing blows, focused on small cities like Bakhmut, with neither force able to fully dislodge the other. The Russian surge ordered up earlier this year, meant to revitalize Moscow’s struggling war effort, seized little territory at the cost of significant casualties and did not do much to change the overall trajectory of the conflict.

The fighting has taken a toll on the Ukrainians as well. Fourteen months into the conflict, the Ukrainians have suffered staggering losses — around 100,000 casualties — with many of their top soldiers either sidelined or exhausted. The troops have also gone through historic amounts of ammunition and weaponry, with even the West’s prodigious output unable to match Zelenskyy’s urgent requests.

U.S. officials have also briefed Ukraine on the dangers of overextending its ambitions and spreading its troops too thin — the same warning Biden gave then-Afghan President Ashraf Ghani as the Taliban moved to sweep across the country during the U.S. military withdrawal in 2021.

But the chances of Ukraine backing down from its highest aspirations is, to say the least, unlikely. “It’s as if this is the only and last opportunity for Ukraine to show that it can win, which of course isn’t true,” said Alina Polyakova, president and CEO of the Center for European Policy Analysis in Washington, D.C.

We are shipping troops to the Phillipines also, in prep for Taiwan

Russian oil exports rebound to pre-invasion levels even with Western sanctions

https://justthenews.com/govern..._campaign=newsletter

Russian oil exports are at their highest since April 2020 despite Western sanctions imposed on the country after Russian President Vladimir Putin ordered the invasion of Ukraine last year.

"Russian oil exports in March soared to the highest since April 2020 thanks to surging product flows that returned to levels last seen before Russia invaded Ukraine," the International Energy Agency wrote in April's monthly oil market report.

Total exports rose 0.6 million barrels a day to 8.1 million barrels a day in March, with estimated export revenues growing by $1 billion to $12.7 billion, but it is still 43% lower than a year ago.

Russia's profit comes after the United States and European allies imposed a $60-per-barrel price cap on Russian oil late last year. Putin banned countries with price caps from receiving oil exports.

Other countries, such as China and India, have still been willing to purchase oil from Russia to replace the European countries and the U.S. Additionally, Japan heavily relies on imports to meet its energy requirements and is still buying Russian oil above the $60 price cap.

About 45% of Russia's budget relies on oil and gas exports, according to the International Energy Agency.

Meanwhile, oil prices are down from last year, contributing to Russia's lower oil revenue. A barrel of crude oil cost $82.78 on Friday, compared to $103.82 a year before, according to the Brent crude oil benchmark.

“A huge ball of fire is raging in Crimea after a suspected Ukrainian aerial drone strike hit a major fuel depot in the heart of an annexed naval port Sevastopol today.

Footage showed a fireball with huge flames and a mushroom-like black cloud from a major fire triggered by two explosions in Cossack Bay, in the Crimean Peninsula.

The blasts came at 4:20am and 4:21am local time (2.20am and 2.21am UK time), and appear to be the latest attempt by Ukraine to strike at Russia's naval firepower base in the annexed peninsula.

Four giant storage tanks erupted at the Sevastopol oil depot hit by a Ukrainian strike.

The Russian-appointed Sevastopol authorities rushed 18 firefighting teams to the inferno. …”

DailyMail article:
https://mol.im/a/12027959

In Proxy War news, on Thursday Newsmax ran a story headlined, “Ukraine Tried to Kill Putin With Drone Strike.”

According to German newspaper Bild, Ukrainian secret service agents tried to assassinate Russian President Vladimir Putin with a drone carrying explosives last Sunday, but it fell short of its target.

Bild reported a UJ-22 drone, Ukraine’s most advanced medium-range drone, having a range of nearly 500 miles, took off from Ukraine on Sunday carrying about 37 pounds of C-4 explosives. Its target was a newly built industrial park in Rudnevo, southeast of Moscow, that Putin was said to be visiting.

A Ukrainian activist claimed responsibility, saying “Last week, our intelligence officers received information about Putin’s trip to the Rudnevo industrial park. Accordingly, our kamikaze drone took off, which flew through all the air defenses of the Russian Federation and crashed not far from the industrial park.”

Putin, who doesn’t seem like the type of leader who takes this kind of thing lightly, did not comment on the explosive story.

https://www.coffeeandcovid.com...ack&utm_medium=email

That's a good way to get the full brunt of the Russian military to come at you.

What have they been doing thus far, playing patty-cake?

Unless you're talking about going nuclear, 8t already is.

quote:

Originally posted by Shaql:
That's a good way to get the full brunt of the Russian military to come at you.

quote:

Originally posted by oldbill123:
We are shipping troops to the Phillipines also, in prep for Taiwan

We've in/out of the PI over the last 20-years doing joint work with locals and then some; only difference is the PI has a new president that's woken up to the threat and they doubled the number of bases we can operate out of. Same also for Australia, USMC has had at-least a battalion there on rotation, and the USAF constantly has squadrons in/out over the last decade. Navy will soon be operating out of Western Australia on a regular basis.

Report: Due to Ukraine aid, US ammo supply in Israel running low

The arms depots, which unofficially serve as an emergency supply for Israel, have been nearly emptied to aid the Ukrainian war effort.

https://www.israelnationalnews.com/news/370607

American emergency ammunition depots in Israel are beginning to run low, and it is unknown when they will be replenished.

According to a report by Israel Hayom, part of the ammunition that the US stored in Israel was sent to Ukraine to aid its war efforts against Russia.

The arms depots belong to the United States Military, are officially intended to be used by them, and are subject to diplomatic immunity. Despite this, there has been an unofficial understanding between the two allies that the depots were placed in Israel to be used in the event that the Jewish state found itself in an emergency situation.

An American source confirmed Israel Hayom's report, telling the paper that it is currently unknown when the supply would be replenished, adding that it would depend on American ammo production rates.

According to a source in the Israeli defense establishment, the White House decided to send the ammunition to another front. With the current threats, the move to reassign the arms is worrying. "These are Israel's wartime arms reserves," explained a former minister.

Former defense establishment officials say President Biden's Middle East policy endangers Israel. The US President's attitude to Saudi Arabia allows Iran to grow its influence and has even opened the door for China to enter the region.

Wah.

Why Israel can't afford to fill it's own emergency ammo dumps is beyond me. IMI appears to be able to make plenty of bullets.

WTF am I missing here?

quote:

Originally posted by wcb6092:
Report: Due to Ukraine aid, US ammo supply in Israel running low

The arms depots, which unofficially serve as an emergency supply for Israel, have been nearly emptied to aid the Ukrainian war effort.

I'm just waiting for the "We stand with Ukraine" crowd to catch up with the reality of what's going on. When push comes to shove, the United States will be on its own and then we'll suffer the consequences of draining our resources down to nothing to support a wholly ungrateful Ukrainian government which will never be satisfied no matter how much we give them.