Ukraine knocks out one of Putin's newest £51million Su-57 warplanes in drone blitz on Russian airfield - "Ukrainian forces knocked out one of Vladimir Putin's newest warplanes when a kamikaze drone exploded a Su-57 multi-purpose fighter plane, it has emerged. The £51million aircraft was on the ground in Akhtubinsk military airfield in the Astrakhan region of southern Russia. The drone - one of three - flew some 365 miles from the frontline, evading Russian air defences... 'Su-57 damage is the first such case in history.'... Russia has previously boasted the warplane is 'the best combat fighter in the world'. The Ukrainian agency said the plane, which is capable of carrying stealth missiles across hundreds of miles, was among 'a countable few' of its type in Moscow's arsenal."
How Putin's gas empire crumbled - "Vladimir Putin is throwing everything he has got at ramping up Russia’s war machine. That is why the nation’s economy – if one believes Moscow’s figures – has held up better than might have been expected in the face of Western sanctions. Rather than reflecting anything remotely like prosperity, the statistics show more weapons being produced for the meat grinder of eastern Ukraine. The resources funding this include oil revenues. Higher oil prices send more cash into the Kremlin’s coffers, thanks in large part to sales via Moscow’s “shadow fleet” of embargo-busting tankers, ferrying black gold to customers without moral qualms in supportive or non-aligned nations. But Putin’s financial firepower does not include one previously reliable source of cash: natural gas. Gazprom, the largely state-owned energy giant, has tumbled to its worst loss in a quarter of a century, losing 629bn roubles, equivalent to £5.5bn, last year, as its revenues dived by more than one quarter in rouble terms. It is the biggest loss in at least 25 years... In 2021, more than 40pc of European Union gas imports came from Russia. That dropped to 8pc last year, according to the European Commission... Europe replaced the loss of Russian gas at considerable expense, but new networks have now been established which mean Moscow has lost its grip on the Western market forever. Liquefied natural gas, imported on tankers, has grown in importance. The EU added capacity to import an extra 40bn cubic metres of LNG last year, and plans to add capacity for another 30bn this year."
Too bad Trudeau wants to weaken European "allies" by not helping
Russia Is Running Out of Missiles. That’s Bad News for Ukraine (Sep 2022)
Russia firing ageing cruise missiles because stocks are depleted, MoD suggests | Ukraine | The Guardian (Nov 2022)
Russia May Run Out of Missiles in Three Months: Intelligence Report (Jan 2023)
The Clock Is Ticking: Russia Has A One-Year Reserve Of Weapons (Apr 2024)
Trust the Experts!
Is Russia running out of ammunition? (Dec 2022)
Exclusive: Russia producing three times more artillery shells than US and Europe for Ukraine | CNN Politics (March 2024)
BBC Radio 4 - From Our Own Correspondent, Confronting racism on Chinese social media - "‘Frankly, I have an extremely negative attitude towards Ukrainians, he answers. Before adding, if I were Putin I'd smash all those Nazis. I reckon that's what all Russians think. His friend Sergey chimes in over the phone line: you know in 1941 everyone was telling Stalin that the fascists would invade the Soviet Union, but he didn't believe them, and then 27 million people died. But this time, to make sure it didn't happen again, we began a preemptive operation, Sergey goes on. Putin did the right thing by starting it literally a day or two before we were going to be attacked, he adds. As I tune in to one television program at work one morning, a presenter is warning what Ukraine could do if it somehow manages to liberate the now devastated city of Mariupol. The Ukrainians view the people there as collaborators, the Russian TV anchor tells her viewers. If they take the city back, they could stuff the children there into gas chambers. And as my conversation with Victor illustrates, there's a perverse sense of victimhood permeating the way many Russians view their country's actions in Ukraine. Why has the whole world turned on us?, he asks me. Just because we're giving the Nazis a good kicking. Well, that means they support the Nazis then. And state TV is not shy about threatening the West with Russia's wide array of nuclear weapons’"
Meme - "'Unfriendly' countries according to Russia
Countries where you can drink tap water
*very high overlap*"
Renson Seow | Facebook - "Let's talk about the deal between Russia and North Korea for artillery ammo. Some media outlets are dismissing NK ammo as unreliable, low tech etc. But the important thing to note is the potential 𝙫𝙤𝙡𝙪𝙢𝙚 NK can supply, and 𝙬𝙝𝙮 NK artillery stockpiles (which match Russian artillery calibres) are exceptionally large compared to other nations: Because NK battle doctrine plans for use of artillery as a pseudo-weapon of mass destruction (WMD) equivalent / deterrence against civilian populations, compared with conventional battle doctrine of other nations where artillery fire is usually used as battlefield support against military targets (see the graphic drawn from 2020 research showing how NK artillery will be used in a pseudo WMD role). The NKs know that in order for such a pseudo WMD to be effective as a deterrent, it will need to hit hard, fast, and in overwhelming numbers before US and South Korean counterfire / counterbattery gets to degrade the amount of outgoing fire. Means ammo supply cannot be a limiting factor when the NK guns are going at full rate. Unlike the slower arty ammo consumption of other nations which will likely depend on availability of battlefield targets, NK artillery used in a pseudo WMD role will not run out of (civilian) targets, and is thus expected to continue shooting until destroyed. We can thus conclude that arty ammo is stockpiled to the eyeballs in NK, and the NK ammo supply deal to Russia can't be easily dismissed as insignificant. (Nb: also note that the South Koreans took quite a risk to supply stocks of 155mm artillery shells to the US (and thus Ukraine) as this would degrade their counter battery fire capabilities. But this move likely led to NKs decision to free up some of their ammo as well, ironically demilitarising the Koreas a bit more.)"
Opinion | Everyone Wants to Seize Russia’s Assets. The REPO Act Is a Terrible Idea. - The New York Times - "The very act of seizing Russian assets would pose dangers to the U.S. economy, because other countries, not just Russia, would view it as an act of brigandage. This could weaken the dollar’s status as the main global reserve currency. The dollar is probably the most valuable strategic asset the United States has. We exercise a degree of control over the world economy because the world, for trading purposes, allows its transactions to pass through our currency. This leaves us with cheaper transaction costs and lighter financial burdens. It gives us leeway to run up debt ($34 trillion of it so far) that other countries lack. If Russia, China and other diplomatic rivals were to decide that their dollar assets were vulnerable and that they could no longer trust the dollar as a means of exchange, we would feel the pain of that $34 trillion in debt in a way that we don’t now. Retaining the advantages of a reserve currency depends on our behaving as a trustworthy and neutral custodian of others’ assets. If we start stealing people’s money, that could change... If the REPO Act is enacted, then currency seizures, now seen as a tool of last resort, might turn into standard operating procedure, to America’s detriment. Any foreign government liable to having an American voting bloc riled up against it — China, for starters — would think twice before parking its assets in the United States or with one of its NATO allies."
Opinion | J.D. Vance: The Math on Ukraine Doesn’t Add Up - The New York Times - "President Biden wants the world to believe that the biggest obstacle facing Ukraine is Republicans and our lack of commitment to the global community. This is wrong. Ukraine’s challenge is not the G.O.P.; it’s math. Ukraine needs more soldiers than it can field, even with draconian conscription policies. And it needs more matériel than the United States can provide. This reality must inform any future Ukraine policy, from further congressional aid to the diplomatic course set by the president... The most fundamental question: How much does Ukraine need and how much can we actually provide? Mr. Biden suggests that a $60 billion supplemental means the difference between victory and defeat in a major war between Russia and Ukraine. That is also wrong. This $60 billion is a fraction of what it would take to turn the tide in Ukraine’s favor. But this is not just a matter of dollars. Fundamentally, we lack the capacity to manufacture the amount of weapons Ukraine needs us to supply to win the war. Consider our ability to produce 155-millimeter artillery shells. Last year, Ukraine’s defense minister estimated that the country’s base-line requirement for these shells was over four million per year but that it could fire up to seven million if that many were available. Since the start of the conflict, the United States has gone to great lengths to ramp up production of 155-millimeter shells. We’ve roughly doubled our capacity and can now produce 360,000 per year — less than a tenth of what Ukraine says it needs. The administration’s goal is to get this to 1.2 million — 30 percent of what’s needed — by the end of 2025. This would cost the American taxpayers dearly while yielding an unpleasantly familiar result: failure abroad. Just this week, the top American military commander in Europe argued that absent further security assistance, Russia could soon have a 10-to-1 artillery advantage over Ukraine. What didn’t gather as many headlines is that Russia’s current advantage is at least 5 to 1, even after all the money we have poured into the conflict. Neither of these ratios plausibly leads to Ukrainian victory. Proponents of American aid to Ukraine have argued that our approach has been a boon to our own economy, creating jobs here in the factories that manufacture weapons. But our national security interests can be — and often are — separate from our economic interests. The notion that we should prolong a bloody and gruesome war because it’s been good for American business is grotesque. We can and should rebuild our industrial base without shipping its products to a foreign conflict. The story is the same when we look at other munitions. Take the Patriot missile system — our premier air defense weapon. It’s of such importance in this war that Ukraine’s foreign minister has specifically demanded them. That’s because in March alone, Russia reportedly launched over 3,000 guided aerial bombs, 600 drones and 400 missiles at Ukraine. To fend off these attacks, the Ukrainian president, Volodymyr Zelensky, and others have indicated they need thousands of Patriot interceptors per year. The problem is this: The United States only manufactures 550 per year. If we pass the supplemental aid package currently being considered in Congress, we could potentially increase annual production to 650, but that’s still less than a third of what Ukraine requires. These weapons are not only needed by Ukraine. If China were to set its sights on Taiwan, the Patriot missile system would be critical to its defense. In fact, the United States has promised to send Taiwan nearly $900 million worth of Patriot missiles, but delivery of those weapons and other essential resources has been severely delayed, partly because of shortages caused by the war in Ukraine. If that sounds bad, Ukraine’s manpower situation is even worse. Here are the basics: Russia has nearly four times the population of Ukraine. Ukraine needs upward of half a million new recruits, but hundreds of thousands of fighting-age men have already fled the country. The average Ukrainian soldier is roughly 43 years old, and many soldiers have already served two years at the front with few, if any, opportunities to stop fighting. After two years of conflict, there are some villages with almost no men left. The Ukrainian military has resorted to coercing men into service, and women have staged protests to demand the return of their husbands and fathers after long years of service at the front. This newspaper reported one instance in which the Ukrainian military attempted to conscript a man with a diagnosed mental disability. Many in Washington seem to think that hundreds of thousands of young Ukrainians have gone to war with a song in their heart and are happy to label any thought to the contrary Russian propaganda. But major newspapers on both sides of the Atlantic are reporting that the situation on the ground in Ukraine is grim. These basic mathematical realities were true, but contestable, at the outset of the war. They were obvious and incontestable a year ago, when American leadership worked closely with Mr. Zelensky to undertake a disastrous counteroffensive. The bad news is that accepting brute reality would have been most useful last spring, before the Ukrainians launched that extremely costly and unsuccessful military campaign. The good news is that even now, a defensive strategy can work... By committing to a defensive strategy, Ukraine can preserve its precious military manpower, stop the bleeding and provide time for negotiations to commence. But this would require both the American and Ukrainian leadership to accept that Mr. Zelensky’s stated goal for the war — a return to 1991 boundaries — is fantastical. The White House has said time and again that it can’t negotiate with President Vladimir Putin of Russia. This is absurd. The Biden administration has no viable plan for the Ukrainians to win this war. The sooner Americans confront this truth, the sooner we can fix this mess and broker for peace."
Maybe the plan is to wait until Biden is out, then blame Ukraine's loss on Trump
Good luck to the US in its next war, when it will need even more than what Ukraine needs. But of course the left still wants to cut defense spending, while labelling those who don't want to provide unlimited support for Ukraine as traitors
Vice president of Russian bank falls to her death in Moscow apartment in latest mysterious fatality - "Kristina Baikova, 28, an executive at Loko-Bank, is just the latest mysterious casualty involving Russia's top business people. Ms Baikova allegedly fell from her 11th floor apartment on the Khodynsky Boulevard in the early hours of last Friday. She died instantly at the scene... A spate of unexplained deaths of high-ranking energy officials has taken place since the start of Vladimir Putin's war in Ukraine in February last year. In May this year, Russia's deputy science minister, allegedly a private critic of the 'fascist' invasion of Ukraine, died suddenly after falling seriously ill on a flight to Moscow. Pyotr Kucherenko, 46, was returning from a business trip to Cuba when his plane was forced to make an emergency landing in southern Russia, the Science and Higher Education Ministry said. Doctors performed CPR but were unable to save the official. His family said the death was linked to an underlying heart condition. Independent journalist Roman Super wrote after the announcement that his 'old friend' had spoken in private about his inability to escape Russia following what he called the 'fascist invasion' of Ukraine. In April, energy boss Igor Shkurko was found dead in his prison cell after he was accused of taking a bribe. The 49-year-old was the deputy general director of Russian energy company Yakutskenergo. He was a member of the pro-Putin United Russia political party but his membership was suspended when the bribe allegation was made. Only two months prior, Russian oil magnate Viatcheslav Rovneiko, 59, was 'found unconscious' late at night at his home. Doctors were unable to save him from dying, according to a report by Moskovsky Komsomolets newspaper. In February, a top Russian defence official was found dead after plunging 160ft from a tower block window last week. Marina Yankina, 58, was a key figure in the funding of Vladimir Putin's illegal war in Ukraine as head of the financial support department of the Ministry of Defence for the Western Military District, which is closely involved in the dictator's invasion... On December 26, Pavel Antonov - the richest deputy of the Russian Duma (Russia's parliament) and a Putin critic - died in India falling out of a hotel window. His companion Vladimir Bidenov was found dead in the same hotel four days earlier. Aleksey Maslov, 69, the former chief of Russian Ground Forces, died in hospital on December 25 while Aleksandr Buzakov - who had been the head of Russia's 'admiralty shipyards' for a decade - died on December 24 2022. In July, 76-year-old Yevgeny Lobachev - a retired Major General of the Federal Security Service of the Russian Federation - was found dead in Moscow with a pistol nearby. His death was also ruled as suicide. Other recent deaths have included the editor of a popular Russian propaganda magazine, the vice-president of Gazprombank and a senior Gazprom official. Dmitry Zelenov, a real estate tycoon, died on December 9 in the French Riviera town of Antibes. The oligarch, 50, was out to dinner with some friends when he began feeling unwell and tumbled down a flight of stairs, sustaining serious head injuries... The circumstances around the real estate tycoon's death are remarkably similar to those of Anatoly Gerashchenko, the former head of Moscow's Aviation Institute (MAI) who is said to have tumbled down a flight of stairs at the institute's headquarters in the Russian capital in September... Vladimir Putin's point man for developing Russia's vast Arctic resources 'fell overboard' while sailing off the country's Pacific coast. Ivan Pechorin, 39, was managing director of Putin's Far East and Arctic Development Corporation and had recently attended a major conference hosted by the Kremlin warmonger in Vladivostok... The corporation's former CEO Igor Nosov, 43, also died suddenly in February, reportedly from a stroke. On September 1, oil tycoon Ravil Maganov, 67, fell to his death from the sixth floor window of a Moscow hospital. One report said the chairman of Lukoil - Russia's second largest oil company - was 'beaten' before he was 'thrown out of a window', though this has not been independently confirmed. Lukoil had previously voiced opposition to the war in Ukraine... Yuri Voronov, 61, head of a transport and logistics company for a Gazprom-linked company, was found dead in his swimming pool amid reports of foul play. Two more deaths of Gazprom-linked executives were reported in elite homes near St Petersburg, stoking suspicions that the deaths may well have been murders. Alexander Tyulakov, 61, a senior Gazprom financial and security official at deputy general director level, was discovered by his lover the day after war started in Ukraine in February. His neck was in a noose in his £500,000 home in the elite Leninsky gated housing development, yet multiple reports claim his body had been badly beaten, leading to speculation he was under intense pressure from bad actors. That came just three weeks after Leonid Shulman, 60, head of transport at Gazprom Invest, was found dead with multiple stab wounds in a pool of blood on his bathroom floor in the same gated housing community. Billionaire Alexander Subbotin, 43, also linked to Kremlin-friendly energy giant Lukoil where he was a top manager, was found dead in May. One theory is that Subbotin - who also owned a shipping company - was poisoned by toad venom triggering a heart attack. And in April, wealthy Vladislav Avayev, 51, a former Kremlin official closely linked to Russian financial institution Gazprombank, appeared to have taken his own life after killing his wife Yelena, 47, and daughter, 13... multimillionaire Sergey Protosenya, 55, was found hanged in Spain, with his wife Natalia, 53, and their teenage daughter, Maria, found dead from stab wounds... Yevgeny Palant, 47, and his wife Olga, 50, both Ukrainian-born, were found by their daughter Polina, 20, having suffered multiple stab wounds. An official briefing to the media claimed the woman took her own life in a jealous rage after Palant said he was leaving her - claims which were strongly disputed by the couple's best friend."
From June 2023
In Ukraine men aren't safe, no matter the age : MensRights - "Few days ago, in village Pryozerne of Odesa Oblast, a truly terrifying situation has happened - a 14 y/o boy literally got kidnapped by Ukrainian military commissariat (ТЦК). When he was walking to meet his girlfriend, three military men stopped near him, wrung his hands, and forcibly dragged him into their minivan, without asking any questions. Since he was scared and tried to resist, they began to apply the barrel of a gun to his temple, than to his forehead, afterwards he was hit with that gun on his back, and had his hands tied up. As was later found out during a medical exam, that military personal were quite experienced on hitting people "in the right way", since there were almost no bruises on the boys body, apart from hand ties, yet all his internal organs hurt. That boy got lucky, that the military guys decided to verify his age, in the middle of the ride. Only then he got released, and got threatened not to tell anyone about this situation, since they can easily find out where his relatives live. Since he was left in the middle of nowhere, he was forced to walk 7 km home by himself. After his teacher found out about the whole situation, she immediately notified the head of the village, and the police, who ended up doing nothing. Only after two days, when this story started spreading across the whole country, police decided to simply come there, just to take a look. As of today, no comments were left neither by the Odesa military commissariat, nor by police, and no criminal investigation was started. After all of this I just have one question: why such a country, that violates basic human rights, instead of being investigated, and having all responsible people tried in International court, offered benefits such as EU membership negotiations?"
Meme - "Senator Rand Paul single-handedly holds up $40bn US aid for Ukraine
Paul, a libertarian who often opposes U.S. intervention abroad, said he wanted language inserted into the bill, without a vote, that would have an inspector general scrutinize the new spending."
"40 billion is a metric fuckload of money. We should at least have someone keep track of how it's being spent."
"Treason charges are feasible."
"So one man is threatening the lives of millions. think we have a word for that. Terrorist."
"When are they hanging him for treason?"
"He is a Russian spy that's treason"
"He should be investigated for high treason, he is actively sabotaging US interests and aiding Russias."
"Rand Paul is a Fascist."
"He is the worst. I truly think he is a communist. Definitely a Russian sympathizer."
Government accountability is fascism and treason. Fascinating
Russians still enjoying American burgers and sandwiches as companies refuse to leave - "The franchises of Carl’s Jr., Papa John’s, Costa Coffee, Burger King, and TGI Fridays have continued to operate, business as usual. Of these six, Subway and Carl’s Jr. boast a unique accolade — they are the only Western food chains to never have stopped advertising on their Russian Instagram accounts at any point since the start of the full-scale invasion, actively marketing non-stop to their 20k and 6k followers, respectively."
Putin Withdraws From Ukraine After Celebrities Threaten To Sing 'Imagine' | Babylon Bee - "At publishing time, the celebs had confirmed the song will not be available on Spotify unless Joe Rogan's podcast is pulled."
Meme - Putin: "Let me in"
Ukraine: "Why?"
Putin: "So I can save you."
Ukraine: "From what?"
Putin: "From what I'm going to do to you if you don't let me in."
Richard Hanania on X - "If the right wanted to find a masculine hero, they could've had Navalny. The man was poisoned by a *nerve agent.* I consider myself brave, but when I hear nerve agent I think I would do whatever it took to avoid that fate. But the man goes back to Russia to go on trial for fake charges cooked up by the Putin regime, and predictably faced a slow death in prison, maintaining his dignity through the entire process. Instead they slobber over Putin. A man who sends tens of thousands to their deaths and has never shown any personal courage. He doesn't even have the honesty to call the major war he launched a war, or openly prosecute his opponents, instead sneakily working behind the scenes to frame them for crimes like the sadistic paper pusher that he is and then shrugging in interviews when asked about what happened. Remember, Zelensky regularly visited the front line of the war from the beginning, which only much later finally shamed Putin into making a few stage managed trips. Of course, the reason many on the right like Putin and not Navalny is hatred of America is their driving motivation. All foreigners are simply props, judged by the nature of their relationship with the Great Satan. Between Tucker's videos of him going into ecstasy over Russian shopping carts and Navalny's death, I hope this week has seen a final discrediting of the anti-American right. Yes, Eva Vlaardingerbroek will continue to slobber over Putin's "grasp of history," and losers driven by a combination of impotent resentment and horniness will give her an audience, but anyone with a minimum level of intelligence and sense of decency will see this style and mode of thought for what it is."
Ravaged by war, Russia's army is rebuilding with surprising speed - "Only nine months ago, American intelligence officials were telling the U.S. Senate Armed Services Committee that it would take a decade — or more — for Moscow to recover from the staggering losses inflicted by Ukrainian defenders. The German Council on Foreign Relations refined that estimate last fall, warning that the window would be more like five to eight years. "They are sparing no effort in their reconstitution," Gen. Christopher Cavoli, NATO's supreme allied commander, said last month after a meeting of the alliance's chiefs of defence staff."
Meme - Lucas Lynch: "This woman is on the New York City council, lolllllll. "Where are these leftists They are literally on the city Council" Kristin Richardson Jordan (KRJ) @Kristin4Harlem: "The US, has been sending the Ukrainian military weapons ($650M in military assistance this past year alone) which have ended up in the hands of neo-nazi militias like the Azov Battalion. The ethnically Russian Donbass region (Donetsk and Luhansk ) has been under heavy violence and shellings from the Ukrainian military for the last 8 years. Last week a kindergarten was destroyed. Civilians are being targeted and killed for opposing fascism. Over 14,000 people have died as a result and Kyiv, with U.S. and NATO backing, has refused to implement the Minsk II Agreements which calls for a ceasefire and the withdrawal of illegal armed groups, military equipment, fighters and mercenaries. This is the tip of the iceberg. The U.S. and NATO have a violent history destabilizing the region, such as when it facilitated the breakup of Yugoslavia after bombing Serbia for 78 days. Ignoring or excusing the U.S.' role in this crisis is ahistorical and chauvinist."
Lift and strike (Bosnian War) - Wikipedia -"At the beginning of the Yugoslav Wars, the United Nations Security Council passed Resolution 713 on September 25, 1991. The resolution imposed an international arms embargo on all Yugoslav territories, in an effort to prevent escalating violence"
People got very upset Elon Musk wouldn't let Ukraine use Starlink to escalate the war
Top Russian general issues stark warning over Ukraine war - "A top Russian commander has admitted that the war in Ukraine is ‘a stepping stone’ for the rest of eastern Europe. General Andrey Mordvichev hinted at Vladimir Putin’s future plans to expand the frontline, setting off alarm bells in Poland, Moldova and Georgia, which have long feared such escalation."
How can anyone deny Russia's right to self-defence?
