quote:

Originally posted by P220 Smudge:
Vlarpamir must have some pretty good dirt on "the big guy" for him to be so desperate to keep the money flowing.

The people keeping the money flowing into Ukraine are embezzling it and a good portion of it is going into their offshore bank accounts. You need weapons more than anything to fight a war.

You need people for those weapons

If anyone is wondering whether or not Ukraine is money well spent this is worth reading. For those that think we're flushing money down the toilet it will confirm what you already know.

Elon Musk Challenges Zelensky to Explain Why an American Citizen Is Being Held in Ukrainian Prison

Here we go again

Zelenskyy is back in Washington this week to beg for more money

"The aid has become embroiled in US domestic, partisan politics, with Republicans demanding concessions on border funding in exchange."

How about President Zelenskyy, the answer is no?

Zelensky Leaves Empty-Handed: McConnell Admits Ukraine Aid Talks Going Nowhere, Punts to January

Ukraine President Volodymyr Zelensky will come up empty in his latest swing through the U.S. Capitol.

Negotiations on additional American aid to Ukraine paired with a border security package are dead for 2023, Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell (R-KY) reportedly told his fellow Senate Republicans at their weekly lunch Tuesday.

The Republican leader’s comments come as Zelensky makes his third trip in a year through the U.S. Capitol with his hands out.

Republican opposition to additional aid to Ukraine has steadily grown as voters have balked at Zelensky’s pleas for more handouts from American taxpayers.

Congress has already authorized well over $100 billion in aid to Ukraine.

Earlier Tuesday, Zelensky met individually with Speaker Mike Johnson (R-LA). Afterward, Johnson reiterated his position that the White House and Senate must get serious about securing the border before any additional aid to Ukraine can be considered, arguing that the Biden administration has failed to outline clear goals in further assisting Ukraine’s war against Russia.

“We need a clear articulation of the strategy,” he said.

https://www.breitbart.com/poli...=breaking_news_email

quote:

Originally posted by downtownv:
Zelensky Leaves Empty-Handed: McConnell Admits Ukraine Aid Talks Going Nowhere, Punts to January

Ukraine President Volodymyr Zelensky will come up empty in his latest swing through the U.S. Capitol.

I think I saw him on the street corner here begging with a sign "I can't lie I need a drink and 556 ammo".

Now stand by for the brass to get their thongs in a knot and start telling us because we're not sending ships full of gold we'll have to put boots on the ground and since recruiting is failing we'll have to have a draft and our sons and daughters and aunts and cousins and uncles and school teachers and the Nigerian that cleans our pool will have to go so now aren't we all sorry.

quote:

Originally posted by wishfull thinker:
...and the Nigerian that cleans our pool will have to go...

No. That guy gets to stay. He also gets a prepaid Visa card with ten grand on it.

The Daily Beast ran an entertaining piece yesterday about an official, pro-Ukraine Paris conference where international delegates mused about ‘creative’ ideas for helping Ukraine, like recruiting Taylor Swift, or shuttling Ukrainian Baptists over to America so they can convince their protestant brothers, probably Republicans, to be more generous with the war funding. The article’s headline was the funniest part:

Ukraine Is on the Cusp of Losing This War: ‘We’re Screwed’

— The New York Times ran an all too telling headline yesterday confirming what we have long known: the government has no idea what it’s doing in Ukraine. It still wants another $100 billion dollars to do it, whatever it is, of course. Just pour money on the problem and and hope for the best:

U.S. and Ukraine Search for a New Strategy After Failed Counteroffensive

The Times said it, not me. So.

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

quote:

Originally posted by wishfull thinker:
Now stand by for the brass to get their thongs in a knot and start telling us because we're not sending ships full of gold we'll have to put boots on the ground and since recruiting is failing we'll have to have a draft and our sons and daughters and aunts and cousins and uncles and school teachers and the Nigerian that cleans our pool will have to go so now aren't we all sorry.

Absolutely! There will be talk of Dominos falling and much calamity ensuing. Don't even rule out some type of Gulf of Tonkin shenanigans.

Zelensky Dubiously Pledges 'Victory' While Biden Says 'Don't Give Up Hope'

https://www.zerohedge.com/poli...ds-case-capitol-hill



Simply judging by the below somewhat chaotic scene of Zelensky at the White House, the Ukrainian leader is no longer the star of the show as he was in the war's first year. Gone are the days of the press pool fawning over him or being in awe at his presence. Instead the press primarily peppered Biden with questions.

Even Biden's words struck a more dour tone than previous meetings with Zelensky: "I don’t want you giving up hope," the US President told Zelensky. "We’re going to stay at your side." This after Zelensky dubiously tried to push a message of "Ukraine can win" - a narrative which as the Financial Times noted Ukrainian citizens themselves are in increasing disbelief of. Biden still gave out another $200 million of what's left before DoD funding runs dry for the year...



During the Q&A in the post-meeting presser, both Zelensky and Biden rejected the idea of Ukraine ceding territory for the sake of achieving permanent ceasefire and peace. Notably, Zelensky went so far as to call this "insane".

Amid ongoing meetings between Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky and lawmakers and US defense officials on Capitol Hill Tuesday, one thing is becoming clear: no breakthrough is expected in terms of GOP Congressmen being swayed to push through Biden's $106 billion defense aid package.

Sen. Eric Schmitt (R-Mo.) was among those that are unmoved. He said after senators heard Zelensky's appeal: "It is striking to me that we’re in this place in this last week here and we’re hearing from the president of Ukraine again but we’ve yet to hear from our own president about the border, our border," Schmitt said.

More at link

A Ukrainian defeat will be a US victory. China will see that we are not distracted by Europe and that our main focus is and will always be them. Whatever the Republican party can do to undermine Ukraine and hasten their defeat will bring us closer to the withdrawal of US forces and material support from NATO and Europe (under Trump in 2025) and a shift of all of our available forces to China's borders. I am genuinely convinced the DNC has been bought by China and European arms manufacturers.

America has come to the defense of Britain in two world wars. Boris Johnson convinced Ukraine early on not to negotiate and end the war with Russia. Look how weak Britain is, yet they want war on their own continent.


From the Wall Street Journal:

Alarm Grows Over Weakened Militaries and Empty Arsenals in Europe

https://archive.vn/VULqA

The British military—the leading U.S. military ally and Europe’s biggest defense spender—has only around 150 deployable tanks and perhaps a dozen serviceable long-range artillery pieces. So bare was the cupboard that last year the British military considered sourcing multiple rocket launchers from museums to upgrade and donate to Ukraine, an idea that was dropped.

France, the next biggest spender, has fewer than 90 heavy artillery pieces, equivalent to what Russia loses roughly every month on the Ukraine battlefield. Denmark has no heavy artillery, submarines or air-defense systems. Germany’s army has enough ammunition for two days of battle.

In the decades since the end of the Cold War, weakened European armies were tolerated by governments across the West because an engaged America, with its vast military muscle, underpinned the North Atlantic Treaty Organization and defense policy in Europe. The U.S. accounted for nearly 70% of NATO’s defense spending last year.

But alarm has grown as America has moved toward a more isolationist stance, and as the understanding of a potential threat to Europe from Russia re-emerges, after nearly two years of bloody fighting in Ukraine.

There is no immediate military danger to Europe from Russia, and Western military and political leaders think that Russia is for now contained by its war of attrition in Ukraine. But if Russia ultimately wins in Ukraine, few doubt Moscow’s capacity to rearm completely within three to four years and cause trouble elsewhere. Russian President Vladimir Putin has for years mourned the loss of a Russian empire that encompassed Ukraine and other Eastern European nations including the Baltics.

Much of Europe’s industrial capacity to make weapons has eroded over years of budget cuts, and turning that around is a challenge at a time when most governments face budget constraints amid slow economic growth and aging populations, as well as large political opposition to cutting back on welfare spending to fund defense.

Europe has “systematically demilitarized itself because it didn’t need to spend the money,” thanks to the lack of an apparent threat and U.S. military dominance around the globe, said Anthony King, a professor of war studies at the University of Warwick. “They have basically gone to sleep.”

The Ukraine war has made clear the depth of Europe’s problem.

“Although NATO countries’ combined economic and industrial might dwarfs that of Russia and its allies, we are allowing ourselves to be outproduced,” said Anders Fogh Rasmussen, the former NATO Secretary-General. “Ukraine is now in a war of attrition, if we do not get serious on ammunition production the threat of war will likely come closer to us.”

Aid for Ukraine

President Biden has reaffirmed America’s steadfast support for NATO and said the alliance was stronger than ever. But former President Donald Trump, running again for the 2024 election, has repeatedly questioned NATO’s value. While he endorsed NATO’s clause of collective defense, he clashed with NATO leaders over funding and U.S. troop numbers. Leaders of both political parties have long urged Europe to pay more for its own defense.

Efforts to pass new U.S. aid for Ukraine have hit resistance from Republicans in Congress, and fighting in Gaza has pulled U.S. political focus away from Ukraine. The White House has said the U.S. will be unable to continue providing more weapons and equipment to Ukraine if Congress doesn’t approve additional funding by the end of the year.

European nations have pledged billions in aid to Kyiv but have said they face economic constraints and production limits on weapons. If the U.S. pulls back from providing the bulk of aid, Europe doesn’t have the stockpiles to make up the difference, nor can it resupply Ukraine and rebuild its own forces at the same time. The head of NATO’s military committee, Dutch Adm. Rob Bauer, said this year that Europe could now “see the bottom of the barrel” in terms of what it could offer Ukraine.

The European Union looks unlikely to keep a promise to supply a million desperately needed artillery shells to Kyiv by this spring, achieving only around a third of that so far.
North Korea, an impoverished dictatorship with a population of 25 million, has shipped over a million shells to Russia in the same period, according to Western officials and Russian government statements.

Ukrainian officials have said that if aid dries up completely they will be unable to continue an already struggling military campaign to retake lost land and may be unable to hold back Russian units supported by a far larger country with superior reserves of manpower.

“The armed forces are lacking in everything,” Eva Högl, the parliamentary commissioner for Germany’s armed forces, said as she presented the findings of her report earlier this year. German military bases not only lack armaments and ammunition, but functioning toilets and internet, she said. One attack helicopter unit has been waiting a decade to be fitted with helmets, her findings show.

Today, Russia, China and India are all ranked as more potent military powers than the U.K., the highest rated European military, while South Korea, Pakistan and Japan are ranked above France, the second-highest rated European power, according to Global Firepower, a website that uses public data to publish an annual ranking of military strength.

South Korea, where the Cold War never ended given the threat from North Korea, now has a military of equal size—roughly half a million personnel—as the U.K., France and Germany put together. It also has a world-class military industry that is helping arm Poland.

Germany is currently unable to fight a war of defense and must rearm in light of Russia’s massive military buildup, the commander of Germany’s armed forces said. “We must get used to the idea that we will maybe have to fight a war of defense,” Gen. Carsten Breuer told the Frankfurter Allgemeine newspaper on Sunday. The reign of peace that society has become accustomed to “exists no more,” he said.

Much more at link

^ Why should they help themselves, when they've got US?

Backlash Grows Among Ukrainians In Response To Zelensky's 'Rose-Tinted' Speeches

As Ukraine continues feeling the intense strain of the war with Russia, more cracks have been appearing in terms of government and military unity in Kiev. Extreme doubts about Ukraine's ability to fight back Russia, and to sustain enough Western support while doing it, have become increasingly obvious to all.

This has led to some rare and significant backlash against the Zelensky administration by some of the Ukrainian populace and even among military officials. As of Tuesday, President Zelensky visited the White House where he stuck by his message of "Ukraine can win". He at one point in a joint press conference with Biden called the idea of ceding territory to the Russians for the sake of achieving peace "insane".

But a Ukrainian official interviewed by Financial Times has said the military and the people are ready for more realism. She pointed to the widening rift being created given the Zelensky administration is needlessly painting a 'rosier' picture than everyone knows actually exists on the ground.

"In order for society not to build castles in the air, and to take off its rose-tinted glasses... it is necessary to stop being afraid to speak the truth," Iryna Zolotar, adviser and head of communications for Ukraine’s former defense minister Oleksii Reznikov, told the publication.

She described a situation where "expectations are overstated and do not correspond to the real state of affairs." She complained that the public can no longer be fed a message of Ukraine being always "about to win".

FT says multiple other officials said something similar - that while an atmosphere of optimism was crucial toward surviving the opening part of the war, continuing to blindly push inaccuracies about the state of the conflict on the public is blowing back negatively...

"But with Ukraine enjoying few military achievements this year and western support faltering, the communications strategy is creating a rift between the presidential administration and military leadership, say officials from the armed forces, former presidential staffers and communication strategists," FT writes.

Another official connected to the Zelensky administration's press strategy had this to say: "We need to add more realism... and we have to be as courageous about it as we were on February 24 [2022]."

One former government staffer pointed to the ground truth of "the incredible levels of exhaustion, the suffering of thousands of families, enormous numbers of daily deaths, the tension and doubt."

The official complained that attempting to hide or cover this up is creating the perception from abroad that "two propagandists" are "fighting propaganda narratives" - in reference to Russia on the other side.

The unspoken truth underlying all of this is that more 'realism' would set Kiev down a path toward inevitable negotiations to end the war with Russia. The Kremlin will certainly never give up Crimea, nor will it be willing to let go of the four annexed territories. It's unlikely that the war will finally come to an end before Ukraine acknowledges this. But this is precisely what Zelensky refuses to contemplate at this point.

Hence, the only moral path forward for the United States is to tell President Zelenskyy it's well past the time to sue for peace and that he must accept neutrality and the loss of the regions that seceded from Ukraine in 2014.

This is a bitter pill to swallow for Ukrainian nationalists and those in the United States who hoped Ukraine would do far more damage to Russia, but the alternative is accelerating Ukraine’s diminishing chances of remaining a viable nation-state, a whole lot more fruitless Ukrainian deaths, and peace terms substantially worse than those that can be negotiated today.

https://www.zerohedge.com/geop...rose-tinted-speeches

This message has been edited. Last edited by: chellim1,

One Killed, 26 Injured After Local Politician Throws Grenades at Ukrainian Council Meeting

A local government deputy set off a series of grenades at a council meeting in western Ukraine, killing at least one and leaving several in critical condition among 26 injured.

A handful of grenades were thrown into a local government meeting at Keretsky in Transcarpathia (Zakarpattia) on Friday morning, a region in the west of the nation far from the front lines. Ukrainian government media outlet Ukrinform relays that 26 people were injured, six of them “gravely”, and one person was killed.

The meeting was being recorded and video footage of the attack has been released by police, showing a man in a dark coat entering the packed council room as the meeting was ongoing and blocking the door while listening to proceedings briefly. As an animated discussion continues the man interjects, shouting at the officers sitting at the head table while pulling the grenades out of his coat pocket.

As the video shows, even as he pulls the pins and throws the grenades into the middle of the floor nobody present appears to react until after a series of blasts which tears the room apart.

Ukrainian media states the man who threw the grenades was himself a deputy, or local politician, and that he was among the wounded.

The Kyiv Independent reports police are treating the blasts as a potential terrorist attack and that the councilor alleged to have launched the attack is an elected member of Volodymyr Zelensky’s Servant of the People Party called Serhii Batryn. The deputy is reported to have gotten into a heated argument with other local politicians over the council’s 2024 budget, and payments and bonuses to be paid to council members, which he apparently disagreed with.

Police have not confirmed these assertions about motives and identity made in Ukrainian media.

The apparent attack at the council meeting is not the first time the widespread proliferation of military equipment occuring as a natural consequence of the war in the country has seen fatalities by secondary effect. As previously reported, a top military aide in Ukraine was killed this year after a grenade he was presented as a birthday present exploded. Apparently, the man had been playing with the live munition at home with his family, and his son was also injured.

The head of Poland’s police was injured last year after a grenade launcher he’d been given as a gift by a Ukrainian counterpart went off at his office. Apparently, the Polish recipients didn’t understand they had been given a live weapon, assuming it was instead a decorative piece.





Link

Instead of sending cash , why not ramp up our military industries and provide weapons and logistics ? Seems like it would be a boost for our economy as well .Am I over simplifying things ?

https://twitter.com/MomsJustic...qu59QWbjPzGQPNg&s=19




https://twitter.com/MarioNawfa...IxuqP-VTXB_aTig&s=19




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