Looks as if the bridge got hit pretty good.


Crimean Bridge Traffic Halted Due To "Emergency", Explosions Reported

https://www.zerohedge.com/geop...-explosions-reported

This message has been edited. Last edited by: wcb6092,

So it’s Trumps fault that Ukraine is getting cluster bombs. Got it.

These people are truly deranged.

Too bad our own press in America lets Biden slide.

quote:

Originally posted by wcb6092:
Too bad our own press in America lets Biden slide.

I blame the press more than the evil corrupt politicians. Politicians by nature are usually corrupt and frequently evil. Scorpions are scorpions.

But the media are necessary for a free people to keep their liberty. When the media is corrupted, the evil power hungry politicians go unchecked. That's why we are in banana republic territory now.

Russia is Devastating Ukraine’s Ports.

https://thenationalpulse.com/2...ting-ukraines-ports/

Russia launched “truly massive” air strikes against Ukraine’s ports overnight, and is making advances in the Kharkov (Kharkiv) region, where it has amassed a 100,000-strong force, according to Ukraine’s own lawmakers.

After the Ukrainian attack on the Kerch Bridge linking Crimea to Russia proper, Moscow terminated a grain export deal allowing Ukrainian ships to continue exporting its product. Vessels on the Black Sea coast are now subject to a naval blockade, and “all ships proceeding to Ukrainian ports in Black Sea waters will be considered as potential carriers of military cargo” from Wednesday night.

Odessa (Odesa) and smaller port cities such as Chornomorsk have also been hammered by “truly massive” air strikes, damaging infrastructure and grain terminals. “It was hell in Odesa [last] night, so many missiles, so many drones,” commented Ukrainian lawmaker Oleksiy Goncharenko, adding that it was “[p]robably the most massive attack of all time” on the city.

Compounding these issues, European Union (EU) member-states including Poland – one of Ukraine’s strongest backers – are pushing to extend EU restrictions on Ukrainian grain exports to their countries which had hurt local farmers. President Volodymyr Zelensky is also facing bad news from the front line, where a long-awaited Ukrainian counter-offensive strengthened by Western equipment is still failing to produce significant breakthroughs – and Russian forces are now advancing in the Kharkov oblast.

Ukrainian commanders say they are facing “[m]ore than 100,000 personnel, more than 900 tanks, more than 550 artillery systems and 370 rocket salvo systems” in the northerly region, and acknowledge the Russians have been making territorial gains. On Wednesday, the Kremlin claimed it had captured the region’s Movchanove railway station, a claim which remains unverified at the time of publication.

Opinion piece from The Wall Street Journal.
======================

The Ukraine War Wouldn’t Have Surprised Richard Nixon
By Luke A. Nichter

A declassified 1994 letter to Bill Clinton shows how well the former president understood the Russians.

When Bill Clinton eulogized Richard Nixon on April 27, 1994, he spoke of the former president’s “wise counsel, especially with regard to Russia . . . based on our last phone conversation and the letter he wrote me just a month ago.” For nearly 30 years, the content of that letter remained a secret. Thanks to its declassification this week through Mr. Clinton’s presidential library, it is hidden no longer.

What is most striking about the seven-page, single-spaced letter dated March 21, 1994, is that Nixon anticipated a more belligerent Russia, the rise of someone like Vladimir Putin, and worsening relations between Moscow and Kyiv. Nixon, who was 81, had just returned from a two-week trip to Russia and Ukraine. In 1972 he became the first sitting president to visit Moscow, where he signed the Anti-Ballistic Missile Treaty and the Strategic Arms Limitation Treaty. After leaving office he continued to have access to elites in governments and opposition leaders around the world. That Mr. Clinton was a Democrat and Nixon a Republican made no difference. The ultimate Cold Warrior was an elder statesman interested in the contours of the post-Cold War era.

Nixon warned that Boris Yeltsin’s brief experiment with democracy was already over. “As one of Yeltsin’s first supporters in this country and as one who continues to admire him for his leadership in the past, I have reluctantly concluded that his situation has rapidly deteriorated since the elections in December, and that the days of his unquestioned leadership of Russia are numbered,” Nixon wrote to Mr. Clinton. “His drinking bouts are longer and his periods of depression are more frequent. Most troublesome, he can no longer deliver on his commitments to you and other Western leaders in an increasingly anti-American environment in the Duma and in the country.”

Nixon also said that Moscow’s relationship with Kyiv would worsen. Though the dynamic had improved during Yeltsin’s tenure, the situation in Ukraine was “ highly explosive.” “If it is allowed to get out of control,” Nixon warned, “it will make Bosnia look like a PTA garden party.”

The former president didn’t think American diplomats were taking the issue seriously enough. “Because of the importance of Ukraine, I reluctantly urge that you immediately strengthen our diplomatic representation in Kiev,” he wrote. It was equally important that the U.S. anticipate Yeltsin’s potential successor. “Bush made a mistake in sticking too long to Gorbachev because of his close personal relationship. You must avoid making that same mistake in your very good personal relationship with Yeltsin.”

It wasn’t clear who that successor might be. “There is still no one who is in Yeltsin’s class as a potential leader in Russia,” Nixon wrote. “The Russians are serious people. One of the reasons Khrushchev was put on the shelf back in 1964 is that the proud Russians became ashamed of his crude antics at the U.N. and in other international forums.” In other words, if the U.S. didn’t act promptly to cultivate Yeltsin’s successor, Russia could again shift to a more nationalist, hard-line leader, as when Leonid Brezhnev succeeded Khrushchev.

Nixon also warned Mr. Clinton about presidential personnel. “I learned during my years in the White House that the best decisions I made, such as the one to go to China in 1972, were made over the objections of or without the approval of most foreign service officers,” he wrote. Nixon evidently didn’t think Mr. Clinton was being served well by his own people. “Remember that foreign service officers get to the top by not getting into trouble. They are therefore more interested in covering their asses than in protecting yours.” Always inspired by the big play—the lunar landing, the unilateral ending of the gold standard, and trips to China and Russia—Nixon encouraged Mr. Clinton to do the same. That would require that the best ideas not be stifled by his administration.

Mr. Putin has sparred with five presidents to date, but it was Nixon who saw him coming. “After he died, I found myself wishing I could pick up the phone and ask President Nixon what he thought about this issue or that problem, particularly if it involved Russia,” Mr. Clinton said in 2013. Nixon didn’t live to see Mr. Putin succeed Yeltsin, but his newly declassified correspondence with Mr. Clinton shows that he wouldn’t be surprised by Russia today.

Mr. Nichter is a professor of history at Chapman University and author of “The Year That Broke Politics: Chaos and Collusion in the Presidential Election of 1968,” forthcoming in August.


LINK

Thanks for posting this Sigfreund.

Time for escalation

quote:

Originally posted by 2PAK:
Thanks for posting this Sigfreund.

I thank you as well. That was an eye opener.

The Economist ran a story yesterday about the Biden Administration’s gift to Taiwan of $350 million in military equipment headlined, “Joe Biden donates weapons to Taiwan, as he does to Ukraine.”

The Economist pointed out that the U.S.’s gift to Taiwan is a historic first: There was no declaration of war. There was no Congressional authorization. There wasn’t even a declaration of emergency. Even more specifically, there was no declaration of any change in the U.S.’s stated policy of neutrality between China and Taiwan.

It was just an old man with a pen.

The weapons are being supplied through something called the “presidential drawdown authority” (PDA), and Biden’s authorizing order generically said that it would provide “defense articles and services,” whatever that is, as well as “military education and training.” A Pentagon spokesman explained the arms package would include unspecified anti-tank and anti-aircraft weapons, as well as “multi-domain awareness,” as if "awareness” could be put in a shipping crate. (According to leaks, the Pentagon meant high-tech MQ-9A surveillance drones).

It turns out that Biden has also been supplying Ukraine under the “presidential drawdown authority.” This week the Biden Administration announced its 43rd drawdown order for Ukraine, worth $400 million, bringing the total to $24 billion to date.

As the Economist noted, now that Taiwan is also being supplied with PDA weapons, many of which are the same ones Ukraine wants, an interesting question has emerged. Does this signal a shift in the Pentagon’s focus from the Proxy War to the Strait of Taiwan? Or, can Biden keep up with two wars at once without getting confused?

I report, you decide.

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

Looks as if China has some decisions to make.

China currently being flooded. 19 inches of rain in 24 hours

Corporate media’s new, improved Ukraine narrative is that they always knew the Proxy War would end this way, because the Ukrainians are bad at war, and because NATO was too stingy with its very best weapons.

The New York Times ran the story yesterday headlined, “Ukrainian Troops Trained by the West Stumble in Battle.” Yikes. The sub-headline added more context: “Ukraine’s army has for now set aside U.S. fighting methods and reverted to tactics it knows best.”

Well that ought to do it.

Keep two things in mind as this story continues. First, remember all the braying laughter from pro-Ukes all year long, as they bragged until our ears bled about the one successful Ukrainian military action late last summer repelling the Russians from a single advance on Kiev that in hindsight looks like it was always a feint. It is now more obvious than ever these war boosters are execrable scumbags, because of the second thing.

Second, remember all the unfortunate, ordinary Ukrainians whose war-torn country has been used as the Deep State’s ashtray, and who were sold out by their elected leaders and an Eastern European culture of corruption that allowed the country to be hawked to the highest bidder. We pray for them, and will gladly share our last cracker.

The Times quoted Michael Kofman, a senior fellow at the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace who recently visited the front lines, who explained that Ukrainians are just too stupid to understand modern warfare. Plus, everybody knew it wasn’t likely going to work:

“Arguably, the problem was in the assumption that with a few months of training, Ukrainian units could be converted into fighting more the way American forces might fight, leading the assault against a well-prepared Russian defense, rather than helping Ukrainians fight more the best way they know how,” Kofman explained.

The Western-trained brigades received only four to six weeks of combined arms training, and units made several mistakes at the start of the counteroffensive in early June that set them back… Some units failed to follow cleared paths and ran into mines. When a unit delayed a nighttime attack, an accompanying artillery bombardment to cover its advance went ahead as scheduled, tipping off the Russians.

In the first two weeks of the counteroffensive, as much as 20 percent of the weaponry Ukraine sent to the battlefield was damaged or destroyed

Military experts said that using newly learned tactics for the first time was always going to be hard.

Haha! It was always going to be hard! That’s what they always told us, right? They always warned there wasn’t enough time to train the Ukrainians properly. Right?

So there’s that. And there was another narrative reversal. Remember back when they laughed and predicted Russia would be out of ammo and manpower in no time? Consider this ominous line from the article: “President Vladimir V. Putin of Russia has increasingly signaled that his strategy is to wait out Ukraine and its allies and win the war by exhausting them.”

Oh.

Try to keep up, dummies. At this point, the narrative has spun around to the reverse opposite of what they were telling us ten minutes ago. It used to be our strategy to wear down the Russians. Now it’s Russia’s strategy to “exhaust” Ukraine plus all of its NATO allies. And now Vladimir “V” Putin — oddly now including his middle initial — does have a strategy. So after all he’s not just a mindless, bloodthirsty warlord bent on destruction at all costs. And not only does Putin have a strategy, but — per the New York Times! — his strategy is working.

According to the old, now discarded narrative, the Russian people are totally sick and tired of Putin’s lack of a strategy for Ukraine and this endless war, and corporate media assured us that the Russian troops also hated Putin so much they were ready to defect and join the Wagner uprising. Remember that one?

But the “Wagner uprising” doesn’t look much like an uprising anymore, not in hindsight, since the Wagner forces are now happily threatening Poland — and thus NATO — along Poland’s border with Belarus, and Wagner is single-handedly capturing the entire continent of Africa. For Russia.

There are only seven continents. So.

The so-called “Wagner uprising” now looks like it was yet another successful Putin strategy to dupe the hapless CIA out of $3.2 billion dollars in U.S. taxpayer dollars, I mean failed bribe money, that is now sitting around earning interest on deposit in the Russian treasury.

Those Wagner boys are pretty busy, considering they were just brutally suppressed after an alleged failed coup attempt:

Do you suppose the CIA’s botched billion-dollar bribe violated sanctions? Maybe the CIA needs a special prosecutor. How many bad calls does the agency get before we fire them and get a new CIA? Or … can the CIA even be fired anymore? Whose CIA is it anyway, these days?

But I digress.

The New York Times’ point was: the Ukrainians are following their own strategy now. So if it fails, guess what? It won’t be NATO’s — I mean Joe Biden’s — fault. Try to keep up.

In other words, the political blame balloons are now aloft, bobbing around Eastern Europe, and they are going to blow up all over someone else so that Biden can have a clean presidential campaign. Well. Clean except for filing seventy criminal cases against his political opponent. Except for that.

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

And all this talk of giving F-16’s to Ukraine? They cannot operate off of Ukraine’s Soviet era FOD-filled runways with that giant intake:

The F-16 has a large air intake under the nose that "sucks everything from the ground directly into it,"

So all this talk of F-16’s appears to be bullshit.

Anyone that believes the lies now have to be useful idiots. Everything the D's accuse the R's of doing are things the D's are currently doing.
Whatever narrative is pushed in the media the truth is likely the exact opposite.
Not sure it matters anymore as we are quickly sliding into Communism

Russian Tanker Hit By Ukrainian Sea Drones, Likely With Help From US Intelligence

https://www.zerohedge.com/geop...help-us-intelligence

Overnight saw a major escalation on the Black Sea in the wake of the grain deal collapse, and as Russia is waging war on Ukrainian ports and its ability to export foodstuffs to international markets.

Ukrainian drones reportedly scored a direct hit on a Russian tanker in the Kerch Strait, resulting in damage, however there have been no reports of casualties among the 11 civilian crew members on board. The attack happened at about 11:20 pm Friday (local) just south of the Kerch Strait, according to a statement by Russia's Federal Agency for Sea and Inland Water Transport.

The Russian tanker has since been identified in various international reports as the chemical tanker SIG . The Russian maritime agency described damage "presumably as a result of an attack by a marine drone," in a Telegram statement. "The ship is afloat," it added.

The statement detailed that there is a hole "near the waterline on the starboard side, presumably as a result of a sea drone attack" and confirmed there were no casualties.

SIG has previously come under Washington sanctions for transporting jet fuel to Russian forces in Syria. This strongly suggests US intelligence assisted the Ukrainians with targeting information. Again, this is given that this specific tanker happened to be a sanctioned vessel, connected with Russian logistics in Syria.

"The detonation due to the explosion on the ship was visible from the peninsula, which the local residents thought was an explosion in the vicinity of Yakovenkovo settlement not far from the Crimean bridge," a Russia-installed official in Zaporizhzhia region said additionally.

More at link

quote:

Originally posted by PASig:
And all this talk of giving F-16’s to Ukraine? They cannot operate off of Ukraine’s Soviet era FOD-filled runways with that giant intake:

The F-16 has a large air intake under the nose that "sucks everything from the ground directly into it,"

So all this talk of F-16’s appears to be bullshit.

Not sure about it being BS, UA forces getting F-16's appears to be a certainty, which ones, how much updating they'll need and when is the question. Took quite a while for them to get a handful of M-1 Abrams, now UA forces are raising an issue of how much maintenance and replacement parts are needed...welcome to the world of mechanized warfare.
Bronk for a long time has been advocating the JAS-39 Grippen from Saab, a much more appropriate aircraft compared to the F-16. The F-16 will require a lot more maintenance and TLC than the JAS-39 but, you know, somebody is making it big after this deal