5333 private links
Agreement for funding from UAE fell through after Russia invaded Ukraine. //
Because it lacks the funding to modernize its most historic launch pad, Russia now instead plans to turn "Gagarin's Start" into a museum.
The pad is known as Gagarin's Start because it hosted the world's first human spaceflight in 1961, when the Vostok 1 mission carrying Yuri Gagarin blasted into orbit. Between 1961 and 2019, this workhorse pad accommodated a remarkable 520 launches, more than any other site in the world.
Lest one of my trolls accuse me of a "victory is just around the corner" mentality, I can assure you that is not the case. As Clausewitz observed, war is a continuation of "political intercourse" by other means. Ending the war is a political, not a military, problem. Victory is defined in world capitals, not on the battlefield. What the Ukrainian Armed Forces are showing is that in planning, leadership, and execution, they are overmatching the Russians. Whether that leads to victory and what that victory looks like remains to be seen. //
Shashank Joshi
@shashj
·
Follow
I thought figure was over 600. Didn’t realise it was over 700. That suggests there have been many non-public expulsions of suspected Russian intelligence officers from Europe.
Christopher Miller
@ChristopherJM
“At least 705 diplomats suspected of spying have been expelled from Russian embassies across the world since 2022 – almost twice as many as the whole of the previous 20 years.”
9:05 AM · Aug 25, 2023 //
Russia went into this war a second-tier power. It's going to come out of it with the political and military clout of Burkina Faso...with nukes. //
Yevgeny Prigozhin did not have long to work out who had killed him. But he had long enough. He must have twigged.
It can’t have been more than a few seconds between the explosion aboard the otherwise reliable Embraer Legacy 600 executive jet, and the moment the Russian thug blacked out in his vertiginous acceleration to earth; and yet in that instant I am certain that he knew with perfect clarity what had happened.
He knew whose hidden hand was sending him 28,000 ft down, to be immolated with the rest of his Wagner group companions in a fireball in the countryside of the Tver region north of Moscow — and then on downwards, of course, for the shade of Prigozhin: down, down to Hades and the Tartarean pit below.
CJ @CasualArtyFan
·
ICYMI: US Army just dropped a massive update to our C-UAS doctrine, and clearly took quite a few drone-related lessons from Ukraine to heart.
https://irp.fas.org/doddir/army/atp3-01-81.pdf
8:30 PM · Aug 25, 2023 //
The latest drone strikes using cardboard planes is just adding insult to injury.
In my view, the mission was much less a scientific one than a political one. The target was the lunar south pole, a previously unexplored area. The mission was scaled back from including a lunar rover because of Western sanctions after Putin's War in Ukraine began. It is speculated that it went ahead to prove to the world that sanctions would not affect Russia's ability to lead the world. The landing coinciding with BRICS would also be a political thumb in the eye of the West over the ICC kerfuffle, and it would bolster Russia's image in that group, particularly by one-upping India by two days. This is not just an egg in the face. This is Putin being held down and letting the henhouse drop their product on him.
I still expect to see the Russians taking a page of Irish history and using the Red Hand of the O'Neills rule to claim it arrived first at the south pole area of the moon.
Operations are slow, but the cause is not a lack of supplies; it is the insane use of mines by the Russians. As an aside, when you’re using the volume of mines the Russians are, it shows that they have no plans to counterattack in that area because they’d be caught in their minefields.
The hope for a Third Army-style ramble to the sea is probably past, but I think the measured, careful light infantry advance in the southern area will carry the day.
Reports that there has been a decrease in artillery support around Bakhmut and the willingness to give ground near Kupiansk could be significant. It is a sign that the Ukrainian high command is not trying to fight everywhere and that the resources that could make life easier on the troops in those two areas are needed elsewhere.
The Russian government today handed down a treason conviction and 14-year prison sentence on Iyla Sachkov, the former founder and CEO of one of Russia’s largest cybersecurity firms. Sachkov, 37, has been detained for nearly two years under charges that the Kremlin has kept classified and hidden from public view, and he joins a growing roster of former Russian cybercrime fighters who are now serving hard time for farcical treason convictions.
In 2003, Sachkov founded Group-IB, a cybersecurity and digital forensics company that quickly earned a reputation for exposing and disrupting large-scale cybercrime operations, including quite a few that were based in Russia and stealing from Russian companies and citizens. //
Prior to his arrest in 2021, Sachkov publicly chastised the Kremlin for turning a blind eye to the epidemic of ransomware attacks coming from Russia. In a speech covered by the Financial Times in 2021, Sachkov railed against the likes of Russian hacker Maksim Yakubets, the accused head of a hacking group called Evil Corp. that U.S. officials say has stolen hundreds of millions of dollars over the past decade.
In mid-February, one year after Russia’s full-scale invasion of Ukraine, the Finnish internet was hit with a deluge of near-identical messages chastizing Finland’s ambitions to join western security alliance NATO.
On social media platforms like Twitter, an army of users parroted the same sentence: “NATO can’t save Finland.” Some posts received tens of thousands of views in the lead-up to the country’s admission to NATO on April 4.
But there was a catch: the sentence that spread like wildfire was grammatically incorrect. In the Finnish language, there are two verbs that mean “to save.” One means to rescue, and the other means to save in the form of recording or storing. The viral phrase used the latter.
The erroneous use of the verb, alongside the proliferation of seemingly fake accounts tweeting the slogan — many were only a few months or weeks old — alerted the Finnish public that the viral message was not the product of an organic uprising at home. The origin of the campaign hasn’t been determined, but many believe it was an act of disruption, or disinformation warfare, likely stemming from pro-Kremlin actors using bots, paid trolls and influencers relying on Google Translate to carry out the failed campaign.
What began as an effort to stoke discord in Finnish society and discredit Finland’s efforts to join NATO became a running joke in the nation, inspiring a flood of wisecracks and memes. The country’s public broadcaster Yle published a story in late February with a headline that read: “Finnish grammar foils pro-Russia trolls.”
Given these factors, the pathway for NATO membership offered by Biden and NATO members could have two dangerous consequences for European and American security.
First, the assurance that Ukraine will join NATO after the war may extend this conflict and make peace negotiations much more difficult. As hard as it will be to get Putin to agree to a ceasefire or peace talks, the prospect of guaranteed NATO membership for Ukraine after the fighting ceases could make a settlement impossible and convince Putin to continue the war indefinitely. I see zero chance that Putin will agree to any settlement as long as it has been predetermined that Ukraine will join the alliance after the war.
Second, and even more serious, is the real possibility that, if a ceasefire could somehow be arranged and NATO membership for Ukraine followed, Putin would invade Ukraine again despite its membership in the alliance. Putin’s strong sensitivity about Ukraine joining NATO may mean he would not be deterred from attacking the country again if it became a member. Ukraine’s membership could even embolden him to attack. //
Because NATO membership for Ukraine is so provocative for Putin, this idea should be put on hold for an extended period, maybe 25 years. Such a decision by the United States and NATO members might open the door to peace talks.
Mickey
@Mickey4x
·
Follow
"All our hope is in the famine, here is what it means
It means that the famine will start now, and they will lift the sanctions, and be friends with us, because they will realize it is necessary"
- Margarita Simonyan, Editor-in-Chief of RT
They are telling you, and you aren't… Show more
Last edited
1:07 PM · Jul 20, 2023 //
I think we have to believe this because it is on official state television and directed at a Russian audience, and because the propagandists have been damned accurate in their statements so far. Also, this kind of casual brutality is absolutely on-brand for the Putin Regime and for Russia at large. If that comes to pass, it is easy to see the Turks stepping in to safeguard grain shipments and risk expanding the war in a direction Moscow never considered. An additional side effect of this is more support for Ukraine wresting control of Crimea, particularly Sebastopol, from Russia because with a Russian base in Crimea, Ukrainian grain shipments will never be safe or guaranteed.
olexander scherba🇺🇦 @olex_scherba
·
Memorial plaques on a school in russia. His dad died 21-year-old in Chechnya in 2001. He died 21-year-old in Ukraine and left no son.
All for the sake of the garbage in putin's head.
#PutinIsaWarCriminal #StandWithUkraine
9:08 AM · Jun 16, 2023
Between the war and emigration to avoid transcription, Russia may have lost most of a generation of young men. //
Chuck Pfarrer | Indications & Warnings | @ChuckPfarrer
·
PUTIN'S MISTAKE: RU’s demolition of the Kakhovka Dam was not only inhumane, but stupid. @bayraktar_1love posts this video of the’ desertification' of the Kakhovka reservoir. By August, this bottom land will be baked hard and UKR will use it to cross the Dnipro & flank Melitopol. //
The demolition of the dam leaves the Zaporizhzhia nuclear power plant (ZNPP) with reduced access to cooling water. Keep in mind that it is the Russians who’ve used ZNPP as a bargaining chip and periodically seemed poised to cause a nuclear accident.
While Crimea will have two years to wait before feeling the impact of the destruction of the Kakhovka dam, Ukrainian agriculture will feel it in the next weeks as water for irrigation becomes scarce.
Historically, this is not the first time the Russians have destroyed a dam in Ukraine to slow down an opposing army.
Marcus M. Keupp 📯 // @MMKeupp@mas.to @MMKeupp
·
for some historic reference, this is not the first time a #dam is blown up in #ukraine. in 1941, the dam at #Zaporizhia was breached by #stalin's secret police:
rferl.org
Ukrainian Activists Draw Attention To Little-Known WWII Tragedy
1:19 AM · Jun 6, 2023 //
If you look at the reservoir level, you can see where the Russians opened the floodgates to put a scare into the IAEA over the wellbeing of the ZNPP. You can also see where the Russians closed the floodgates and raised the water level to the highest in the dam’s history. In early May, the water spilled over the top of the dam and caused flooding and evacuations downstream. //
To me, this points to Russia’s willingness to weaponize the dam. YMMV. //
At this point, the preponderance of the evidence indicates Russia destroyed the dam. The dam’s location behind the lines and the denial by the quisling mayor of any large-scale Ukrainian artillery barrage means the destruction was by means of planted explosives. The focus pro-Russian sources are placing on the flooding of Russian fortifications and the loss of water to Crimea are, in my view, bullsh** on stilts. The flooded fortifications had largely been abandoned as untenable, and Crimea has a two-year water reserve. In short, the Russians lost nothing.
On the other hand, Ukraine will be stuck with the rebuilding of the dam. Any potential to open a supporting attack across the Dneiper to aid the main offensive is off the table. The river forms a nearly impassable obstacle, permitting Russia to withdraw forces from Kherson Oblast for use elsewhere. The biggest argument against Ukraine demolishing the dam is the environmental damage caused by the flooding and the harm that would do to Ukraine’s political offensive in Europe.
Finally, wanton destruction is part of Russia’s brand. This action, like holding ZNPP hostage, slaughtering civilians, kidnapping children, and consciously targeting Ukrainian cities by missile strikes, is just the Russian way of war. That is who they are.
The importance of last night’s performance can’t be overstated. For years the anti-American left that has opposed Ballistic Missile Defense ever since President Ronald Reagan’s “Star Wars” speech has claimed that Patriot doesn’t work and that an anti-missile system can’t hit either a hypersonic missile or a missile with some maneuverability. //
Last night should put to rest, for once and for all, the bullsh** slung by the “arms control” kibitzers who have made tenure and a lot of money chanting “you can’t hit a bullet with a bullet” for 40 years. It is apparent that Patriot is a viable system for defending a city against a variety of simultaneous missile attacks. Patriot’s performance demonstrates it has capabilities that haven’t been advertised and lead one to think that THAAD can do a lot that we don’t know about.
As I write this, another Russian missile attack is targeting Ukrainian cities. Kiev is not among them.
Dieter Schultz SupplyGuy
a day ago edited
Had we provided air superiority this war would have been over shortly after it began... Did we choose not do so out of incompetence?... Fear of escalation (I'm so sick of that yellow bellied excuse)?
Laocoon, arguably our best, and a much better than average, source of information and tactics with respect to air power, has made it fairly clear, air superiority is not something that will occur with the snap of our fingers or, for that matter, with the delivery of air-superiority fighters like the F-16.
Air superiority occurs when the totality of the equipment, ground support, training, and air doctrine is aligned in something resembling what the US air force has developed and implemented.
Because of that, giving Ukraine F-16 fighters, or for that matter Abrams tanks, regardless of their capabilities, without adopting the totality of the war doctrine, training, and infrastructure that supports and expecting what the US gets is just... dreaming.
Air superiority, or even superiority on the ground, comes about not because we have great fighter jets like the F-16s or tanks like the M-1, but because of all of the other things that our air and armed forces have put in place to go along with the equipment.
I'm all for giving Ukraine what it needs and, I'm even in favor of giving it more than it can use as long as it is a net-positive in the war, but I'm not in favor of arguing that just giving them 'stuff' will win them the war.
If the Ukrainians do... good enough... and eject Russia from their territory... then I'm OK with that even if we might have been able to do it with less. But, right now, I'm not convinced that giving them just the air-superiority tools that they, and you, say they need will result in them winning the war. //
Dieter Schultz Laocoon
a day ago edited
Thankfully, I'm not omniscient and, regardless of what equipment they have or don't have, I don't know whether the Ukrainians will win or not win but if it were just 'hardware' that mattered the Russians would have won a year or so ago.
In fact, if it were just those factors then Afghanistan wouldn't have fallen when we left because we left more than enough equipment to allow the Afghani government to continue operating without falling to ISIS.
I realize this may seem a bit blasphemous but there's an awful lot of what's missing in these discussion that closely resembles what is missing in the area of religions... there's something more than just 'bread' that people need and, similarly, there's more than these 'things' that people want to talk about that matters in these discussions.
It is the 'other' things... that shadow our spiritual world... that matters and we fail Him if we don't realize that the spiritual... the abstract... that comes into play and powerfully affects the outcomes. //
Laocoon Dieter Schultz
a day ago
Completely right. There is a spiritual componant to alot of this that we often just gloss over. Otto Von Bismarck once said:
“God has a special providence for fools, drunkards, and the United States of America.”
I actually think that the old Prussian got alot of that right.
In October, the New York Times did an in-depth investigative story headlined, Using Adoptions, Russia Turns Ukrainian Children Into Spoils of War.
Since Russia’s invasion of Ukraine began in February, Russian authorities have announced with patriotic fanfare the transfer of thousands of Ukrainian children to Russia to be adopted and become citizens. On state-run television, officials offer teddy bears to new arrivals, who are portrayed as abandoned children being rescued from war.
In fact, this mass transfer of children is a potential war crime, regardless of whether they were orphans. And while many of the children did come from orphanages and group homes, the authorities also took children whose relatives or guardians want them back, according to interviews with children and families on both sides of the border. //
The material impact of this indictment will be limited, at least insofar as Putin is concerned. The ICC has no police force. It cannot compel nations to execute the arrest warrant. So, like fellow ICC-indicted war criminal and head of state, Sudan’s Omar Hassan al-Bashir, Putin will be free to travel to any place that doesn’t mind the stench.
More significant will be the political fallout. Putin’s status as an indicted war criminal will affect his ability to deal with other heads of state. Making it worse, he’s not indicted for run-of-the-mill atrocities. Instead, by charging him with kidnapping kids, he’s basically been labeled a pedophile masquerading as a head of state.
Any claim Putin could ever lay to a world leadership role is effectively finished. It is also tough to imagine anyone trying to broker a peace deal with someone indicted by the ICC. If the ICC is following the model of the UN report, we can expect more indictments to follow.
AFP News Agency @AFP
·
VIDEO: A Czech company producing inflatable weapon decoys including Himars rocket launchers and Abrams tanks has seen its profits soar as the Russian invasion in Ukraine continues.
0:37 / 1:47
7:00 AM · Mar 7, 2023
Good ideas, it seems, are forever. //
Poland has decided to send 29 MiG-29 fighters, and Slovakia will send 11; this will make up for about half the losses the Ukrainian Air Force has suffered over the last year. //
I think it is safe to say that whatever offensive operation the Russians had planned is floundering. Ukrainian troops will complete their training on the Challenger 2 and Leopard 2 tanks, and the Bradley and Marder (among other) modern infantry fighting vehicles, in the next 3-4 weeks. Staff training should be finished by that time. In addition, the introduction of the JDAM places previously secure areas within the range of Ukrainian attacks. Then the question will be if the Ukrainians can put together an offensive that can breach Russian defenses and achieve a breakout at the operational level. If they can, we will see Russia forced to abandon nearly all of Ukraine except Donbas. If not, we’re in for a long grind.
Summary
I’m not sure we learned anything new from this speech. The big news, as far as I’m concerned, is the hyping of the speech as “historic” and the disappointed reaction of the pro-Russian vatniks on social media, particularly on the pro-war Russian Telegram channels. The suspension of participation in the New START Treaty isn’t particularly significant beyond the symbolism. As far as I’m concerned, the more arms control treaties ****canned, the safe we are. His critique of contemporary Western culture may be correct, but that is no reason to sympathize with him or his actions.
On the anniversary of a brutal and unprovoked invasion of a non-threatening neighbor, we deserved better.
In the past year, we’ve been treated to many speeches by Putin concerning the Ukraine war.
...
They started out bellicose and warning about the use of nuclear weapons. Over time, they’ve become more whiny and pleading. Instead of being Master of the Universe, we now have Holy Russia beset by the overwhelming forces of the West.
This change in tone and the fact that Putin is obviously afraid to attack NATO supply depots in Poland or the main rail lines moving military supplies from Poland into Ukraine leads me to believe that Putin knows something that his fan club on Twitter and Facebook don’t. That is, he is much more worried about tripping “red lines” with NATO than NATO is with him.
Financial Times @FinancialTimes
·
Vladimir Putin and Wang Yi, China’s top foreign policy official, vowed to ‘strengthen’ ties between Moscow and Beijing at a meeting in the Kremlin ahead of the first anniversary of Russia’s invasion of Ukraine https://on.ft.com/3YRShq3
8:30 AM · Feb 22, 2023 //
As we reported, Russia also announced they were pulling out of START.
As my colleague Streiff observed,
The biggest solid news item was Putin’s announcement that Russia would suspend its participation in the “New START” treaty signed in Prague in 2010. That treaty places a cap on the number of nuclear warheads held by the US and Russia and the delivery systems for those warheads.
I am forced to announce today that Russia is suspending its participation in the strategic offensive arms treaty.
Putin’s decision to “suspend” the treaty means he gets to keep the treaty in force but deny the US the ability under that treaty to carry out inspections. It’s good work if you can get it and something he would never have tried to pull on President Trump. I’m sure Biden and Blinken will go along with this bullsh**. //
Mr. President, any reaction to Putin pulling out of New START [nuclear treaty]?"
BIDEN: "I don't have time" pic.twitter.com/um4YEE3zsd
— RNC Research (@RNCResearch) February 22, 2023
This would be the point where you’re supposed to make a statement criticizing Russia, Joe. You shouldn’t have to be told that. But he’s having to work too hard just figuring out where to stand.
That’s part of the problem — he never has time — or the ability or inclination to respond appropriately — to balloons, to Afghanistan, to the border, to much of anything that is in the best interests of the United States. Our antagonists look at who we have in “charge” and it has emboldened them all.
[Tom Cotton] believes anything short of a complete Ukrainian victory — however improbable that might be — would be a disaster and wants an American commitment to “war to the hilt” against Russia.
That may resonate with Republicans who came of age after the Vietnam War when Americans critiqued leaders who didn’t fight to win the wars they blundered into. He believes America should have a “strategy of victory” that will put an end to Russia’s ability to threaten Europe and deter China from invading Taiwan.
Unlike the declining regime in Moscow, Beijing does pose a global threat to U.S. interests. But Cotton gives no explanation for how disarming the American military in order to feed Zelensky’s war machine with no coherent plans for an arms buildup that would put us in a position to help anyone will achieve such deterrence.
More importantly, Republicans don’t seem to have given any serious consideration to the consequences of their plans.
No serious person thinks Ukraine can achieve a total victory over Russia in a war that, following Moscow’s setbacks last year, has settled into a World War One-style trench warfare stalemate.
But what would happen if a massive infusion of American high-tech weaponry as well as cash along the lines of Cotton’s dreams of escalation did lead to a Ukraine victory and, ultimately, Putin’s fall? Do the GOP hawks really think Putin’s regime would be replaced by a Western European-style liberal democracy that poses no threat to its neighbors? Perhaps those who have swallowed the myth that Zelensky is a paladin of American values rather than a typical leader of a corrupt, oppressive former Soviet republic actually believe that’s a possibility.
But the most likely outcome would be a bitter revanchist regime that would probably be even more dangerous than that of Putin. This might also entail the breakup of the Russian Federation and the emergence of unstable, dangerous states in places like Chechnya that could go to war with each other for control of Russia’s nuclear arsenal.
The Bush-era Republicans who still dominate the Senate GOP caucus have learned nothing from what happened in Iraq, where similarly well-intentioned schemes not only failed to defend American interests but made the world a more dangerous place. //
If instead of heeding the war hawks, Biden begins pushing for a compromise peace deal, Ukraine could be spared more years of a devastating war with countless casualties and damage to an already broken country. The same terms that the Ukrainians will eventually have to accept to end the war years from now are currently available if the West is willing to prioritize diplomacy over escalation. That will mean fewer dead and a lower price for the rebuilding of Ukraine that the United States will be expected to pay.
Now would be the time to negotiate an end, except Russia has unilaterally annexed four more Ukrainian oblasts. Even the “foreign policy realists” are belatedly coming to the conclusion that there are exactly three ways to end this war.
- Ukraine is forced to accede to Russia’s terms and give up its entire Black Sea coastline, and be reduced to a satrapy of Moscow;
- A truce line is established along the current line of contact, creating another “frozen conflict” and setting the stage for another Russian invasion in the future; or,
- Russia is driven out of Ukraine, possibly even Crimea, and NATO gives Ukraine security guarantees against any future Russian invasion.
Much of NATO is leaving toward option number three.
Earlier this week, the Brits announced they would transfer a single squadron, 14 tanks, of top-of-the-line Challenger 2 tanks to Ukraine. These working with the 50 Bradleys receiving training at Grafenwoehr, Germany, would make a battalion task force that, if supported by artillery and properly handled, could break the developing stalemate.
Wrapped inside the “what next” question is how much capability does NATO want Ukraine to have? Does it want Ukraine dishing out payback on Russian cities in proportion to the criminal attacks on Ukrainian population centers the Russians are carrying out? I think Ukraine’s strikes against Russian strategic bomber bases using homegrown “kamikaze” drones have put some of the BigBrainThinkers® at State and the Pentagon off their feed as they are sensing that Ukraine is unwilling to play by the losing set of rules for losers trying to lose hatched by the McNamara Defense Department during Vietnam.
Zelensky has been putting me in a tough position lately, mostly because I agree with my colleague streiff that some investment in demolishing Russian military strength actually makes sense. The question for me has always been how much and with what accountability. We spend $858 billion a year on defense in the United States. If it costs us $100 billion over two years to degrade Russia’s military capability and decimate its stockpiles (modern Russia is a third-world economy that can’t just replace everything), that’s actually a much better return on our money compared to what we normally spend on the Department of Defense.
With that said, if we look at funding the war in Ukraine as an expenditure for our national defense, shouldn’t we carve those appropriations out of the already sky-high defense budget, reducing spending in other places? It’s no secret the US military is one of the most wasteful, unaccountable entities in existence, but instead, we’ve been handling Ukraine as a separate matter via separate spending packages, stacking money on top of money. //
It is also not our “common victory” if Ukraine is successful in pushing Russia out of its territory. It will be largely Ukraine’s victory because it is their country being attacked. Why does that kind of language rub me the wrong way? Because it is an attempt to make it seem as if the stakes for the United States are equal to that of Ukraine, thereby justifying unlimited spending with absolutely no end game articulated. //
Sojourner
5 days ago edited
The main question and one that should remain at the forefront is: Is US support of UKR in the US' national interest?
I think, yes.
But I also agree with Bonchie; the text rubs me the wrong way. I'm in a good mood this a.m. so I will chalk it up to the problem of crossing over the language divide. But also, having worked in that region for a third of my (30 yr) military career, it's how "they" phrase things. It's always irritating, but often not meant to offend or be pushy. YMMV in how you read it.