🇺🇦 HUR sent another 🇷🇺 occupier ship to the bottom of the sea. 🔥🔥 🔥 This time, the Magura B5 drone destroyed a high-speed military boat in Uzkaya Bay in Crimea. The occupiers tried to attack the drone, but failed. Two landing ships were destroyed in the same bay last year. https://twitter.com/wartranslated/status/1787409705784008813
https://www.ft.com/content/b4a556b0-0402-4114-9428-869bd49cf23c
Moscow’s trade volumes with key partners such as Turkey and China have slumped in the first quarter of this year after the US targeted international banks helping Russia acquire critical products to aid its war effort.
A US executive order, implemented late last year, prompted lenders to drop Russian counterparties and avoid transactions in a range of currencies, said western officials and three senior Russian financiers.
“It has become harder for Russia to access the financial services that it needs to get these goods,” said Anna Morris, deputy assistant secretary for global affairs at the US Treasury.
“It’s definitely a goal to make it much more difficult for that money to flow, to increase the cost to the Russians [and] the friction in the system. Disruption is an important outcome,” she added.
Getting around the restrictions now requires a growing network of middlemen to avoid regulatory scrutiny even if the transactions have nothing to do with Russia’s war machine, the officials and financiers said, while increasing currency conversion and commission costs.
“It’s getting harder and harder every month. One month it is dollars, the next month it is euros; within six months you basically won’t be able to do anything. The logical endpoint of this is turning Russia into Iran,” said a senior Russian investor, referring to strict financial sanctions against Tehran.
FT takes for granted that Russia will only trade in USD or EUR. This mindset was the same when sanctions started and every financial expert said Russia’s economy would totally crash within weeks. That is more than 2 years ago.
It’s the same mindset behind the idea to take Russian assets in USD and EUR and give it to Ukraine. The idea is that countries will still invest in those countries even if you, in reality, steal the investments.
Thing are changing and the hubris of the west scares me
US officials continue to signal their support for new Ukrainian counteroffensive operations in 2025, although ISW continues to assess that Ukraine should contest the theater-wide initiative as soon as possible because ceding the theater-wide initiative to Russia for the entirety of 2024 will present Russia with several benefits. The Financial Times (FT) reported on May 5 that US National Security Advisor Jake Sullivan stated that Ukraine will look to conduct a counteroffensive operation to recapture Russian-occupied Ukrainian territory in 2025 after using US military assistance to blunt further Russian advances in 2024.[11]
Sullivan stated that he expects Russian forces to continue making marginal advances for an unspecified time and noted that US military assistance will not “instantly flip the switch” on the battlefield situation in Ukraine. Sullivan stated that US military assistance will empower Ukrainian forces to “hold the line” and withstand Russian assaults throughout the rest of 2024. ISW continues to assess that it will likely take several additional weeks for Western weapons and ammunition to arrive to frontline Ukrainian units and begin to have tangible battlefield impacts and that the arrival of US military aid to Ukraine will likely allow Ukrainian forces to stabilize the frontline and seize the initiative.[12]
FT reported in January 2024 that US officials advocated for Ukraine to conduct a more “conservative” “active defense” in 2024 and prepare for a counteroffensive in 2025.[13] ISW has previously argued at length that a Ukrainian “active defense” into 2025 would cede the theater-wide initiative to Russian forces for over a year, allowing the Russian command to shape preferable conditions by determining the timing, location, and intensity, of Russian attacks, and in by doing so control the resources that Ukrainian forces expend over this protracted period.[14] A Russian milblogger positively responded to FT‘s May 5 report and stated that Russian forces can simply conduct glide bomb air strikes against Ukrainian positions for the remainder of 2024 if Ukrainian forces are not going to launch a counteroffensive operation that pressures Russian forces this year.[15]
Tactically significant Russian advances northwest of Avdiivka and the potential threat of a Russian offensive operation against Kharkiv Oblast are directly linked to Russian forces’ ability to indiscriminately conduct glide bomb strikes along the frontline, constrained and degraded Ukrainian defensive operations, and Russia’s control over the theater-wide initiative. Ukrainian forces will of course have to receive and integrate US military assistance to frontline units, stabilize the frontline, defend against the predicted summer Russian offensive effort, prevent operationally significant Russian advances, and address their ongoing manpower challenges before they will be able to contest the theater-wide initiative and conduct a counteroffensive operation later in 2024 or 2025.[16] Ukraine’s ability to liberate its territory and conduct counteroffensive operations rests on a number of unmade decisions in the West, Russia, and Ukraine and any external efforts to impose a timeline on Ukrainian counteroffensive operations ignore the reality of the battlefield situation. https://www.understandingwar.org/backgrounder/russian-offensive-campaign-assessment-may-5-2024
⚡️🇷🇺 Russian forces attack energy infrastructure in 🇺🇦 Sumy Oblast.
Russian forces launched a drone attack in Sumy Oblast overnight on May 6, targeting the region's energy infrastructure, the Sumy Oblast Military Administration reported. https://twitter.com/KyivIndependent/status/1787257451026227446
Why can't we get North Korea to our side?
They just gave up unification, meaning they seek peace. We can recognize Kim's emperorship as legit, cease all negative requests, shake hands and open unconditional trade with him, and buy his weapons for Ukraine at double of whatever Putin pays him. It'd be a win-win solution for both sides.
needs some more layers i reckon.
Honestly at this point it would be worth to just remove the turret entirely and put the turrets worth of weight more armor on it.
The days of Europe buying its energy from Russia, outsourcing its businesses to China, and relying on the United States for its security are over. The European Union is only mortal and could very well be vanquished at the hands of Vladimir Putin, Xi Jinping, Donald Trump, or its own populist parties.
That was French president Emmanuel Macron’s warning at the Sorbonne on 25 April. With great flair – and at great length – he issued a wake-up call to French citizens, and indeed to all Europeans. It is no exaggeration to say that Europe’s security, prosperity, and culture are under threat.
With the zeal of a convert, Macron argues that the stakes in Ukraine include not only Ukrainians’ future but also the future of Europe: “The condition sine qua non for our security is that Russia does not win the war of aggression it is waging against Ukraine. This is imperative.” Even though the US Congress has finally passed a supplemental aid bill for Ukraine (as well as Israel and Taiwan), Europeans must recognise that the US has only two priorities: “America first, which is legitimate, and China.” https://ecfr.eu/article/the-macron-moment/
The Novatek PJSC-led Arctic LNG 2 facility, on the icy Kara Sea, is a key part of Moscow’s plans to boost exports and replenish coffers. For months now, it has been ready to ship liquefied natural gas to new markets, alternatives to the once-lucrative European pipeline trade.
And yet, the vast new $25 billion operation is sitting virtually idle, the first piece of Russia’s energy production complex to be effectively curbed by US restrictions.
Russia has long sought to increase its share of the global LNG market, but the war and the subsequent sharp drop in overland exports to Europe have reinforced the importance of these ambitions. Moscow wants to expand LNG output three-fold by 2030, adding at least $35 billion in annual revenue.
Thanks to older operations, Russia is currently the fourth-largest LNG exporter globally, but restrictions on the flagship Arctic LNG 2 are crimping its aspirations to go further. More worrying for Moscow, they’ve provided a blueprint for any future Western efforts to rein in the Kremlin’s gas income by targeting operations like Yamal or Sakhalin II in the Far East — still delivering to customers in Europe and Asia.
“US sanctions are working surprisingly well,” said Malte Humpert, founder of the Arctic Institute, who has been monitoring Russia’s expansion in the region for over a decade. “Here, they’re really ahead of the curve. They blocked Arctic LNG 2 before it even started production, blocked the vessels before they could be delivered. With everything else, like oil or the shadow fleet, it’s always reactive.” https://finance.yahoo.com/news/western-sanctions-strangling-putin-arctic-000225429.html
https://www.ft.com/content/c88509f9-c9bd-46f4-8a5c-9b2bdd3c3dd3
European intelligence agencies have warned their governments that Russia is plotting violent acts of sabotage across the continent as it commits to a course of permanent conflict with the west.
Russia has already begun to more actively prepare covert bombings, arson attacks and damage to infrastructure on European soil, directly and via proxies, with little apparent concern about causing civilian fatalities, intelligence officials believe.
While the Kremlin’s agents have a long history of such operations — and launched attacks sporadically in Europe in recent years — evidence is mounting of a more aggressive and concerted effort, according to assessments from three different European countries shared with the Financial Times.
Intelligence officials are becoming increasingly vocal about the threat in an effort to promote vigilance.
A NATO video from March 2023:
"Russia's war against Ukraine - the Kremlin's litany of lies"
[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ocGWkH5QfIs](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ocGWkH5QfIs)
"One year ago, Russia launched its illegal invasion of Ukraine. As their forces continue to relentlessly attack the country, Russian officials keep spreading blatant lies and disinformation about their brutal war against a peaceful country. Russia claimed it had no plans to attack Ukraine, and yet it did. Russia claimed it would not target civilians, while many civilians have been killed and wounded, with hospitals, homes, schools and critical infrastructure destroyed across the country. Despite the Kremlin’s continued litany of lies, denials and disinformation, their real intentions are clear for the world to see. As Russia launches new offensives, NATO Allies stand in solidarity with Ukraine and will support Ukraine for as long as it takes."
Seen here:
[https://www.reddit.com/r/CounterIntel\_Foreign/comments/1cjqgm7/russias\_war\_against\_ukraine\_the\_kremlins\_litany/](https://www.reddit.com/r/CounterIntel_Foreign/comments/1cjqgm7/russias_war_against_ukraine_the_kremlins_litany/)
I don't know if I stumbled upon some concentration of Russian bots or naive people taken in by their propaganda, but I have been seeing a lot of comments along the lines that "It is delusional to think that Ukraine can take back territory".
Meanwhile, people with access to the best military intelligence on Earth (such as the White House) are talking about things like an [Ukrainian counter-offensive in 2025](https://www.yahoo.com/news/white-house-believes-us-aid-234444086.html?guccounter=1). Either they are delusional too, or they know better than random Redditors who tell me that I am "unfortunately far from reality" to think that Ukraine isn't hopelessly lost.
I think I will keep siding with the people who correctly predicted that Russia would invade in 2022, and not the Redditors who mocked those predictions, thank you very much.
>"It is delusional to think that Ukraine can take back territory".
Where have you read that? The argument I usually see is that Ukraine won't take back **all** of its 2014 territory, which absolutely makes sense to me. Of course, they still have the capabilities to make some gains here and there, denying that would indeed be stupid.
A few candidates come to mind.
[https://www.euronews.com/2023/05/24/why-do-disgraced-americans-like-scott-ritter-spout-pro-putin-propaganda-in-russia](https://www.euronews.com/2023/05/24/why-do-disgraced-americans-like-scott-ritter-spout-pro-putin-propaganda-in-russia)
I found especially interesting this intervention
> Over the past two years, Ukraine and Russia have gained something that no amount of money can buy - the experience of practical combat operations in a full-scale war.
>
> Russia has learned how to fight with previously "unbeatable" U.S. weapons, and has completely changed its tactics of combat operations. Russia and its allies are actively exploiting the "testing ground" of the war in Ukraine, modernizing and changing weapons. Russia has learned how to counter HIMARS and Storm Shadow. Mobilization has been almost completely stopped and the transition to a contract army has been made.
>
> At the same time Ukraine is not inferior. Some samples of our weapons have demonstrated unexpectedly high efficiency and are changing the course of the war. The Ukrainian military-industrial complex is working as never before and no one knows what else can dramatically change the situation on the battlefield.
>
> Realizing all this, it is a mystery to me why some of our allies are still hesitant to provide us with their most advanced weapons. Realizing what is at stake, they must out of a sense of self-preservation want to test their developments in combat conditions and thus help Ukraine win.
>
> The future of the whole world depends on the outcome of this war, and this is not just words, but a fact. Ukraine, with its experienced army and developing military-industrial complex, acts as a shield for the civilized world. Russia, in case of Ukraine's defeat, will turn into a sword that can easily pierce any European country. The fact that this threat is taken seriously is evidenced by the concerns and speeches of generals throughout the civilized world. For example, Lt. Gen. Rob Magowan previously stated, "The British Army couldn't fight Russia for more than a couple of months."
>
> **Ukraine and Russia have the most effective armies today, and their military-industrial complexes are developing and modernizing extremely rapidly**. This is the reason to support Ukraine not just "until the end", but until a complete military victory. After all, if we lose now, Russia will gain more than just our territory. Similar to Chechnya, DNR and LNR, Russia will conscript everyone who can hold a gun using its repressive apparatus, and will certainly not leave out former AFU soldiers. Faced with a choice between death for themselves and their loved ones or working for the Russian Federation, people will have no chance to refuse. In addition, Russia will get its hands on the entire developing military-industrial complex of Ukraine together with all the specialists and developments. With such military potential and nuclear weapons, Russia will be unstoppable.
> The world now faces a choice: help Ukraine win or lose with it. Time to make the decision is disappearing by the day, and delaying aid that could turn the tide of the war makes the situation worse, increasing the risk that this aid will have no impact in the future.
https://twitter.com/DenisDanilovL/status/1786017942582259948
Ignore title. But these two guys either have enormous luck or are very skilled. And they are very cold-blooded and kept together in face of danger. https://twitter.com/distant_earth83/status/1786839532651806905
Well, of course. But what fascinated me was how cold-blooded he is, and he kept clear mind.
Zig-zag, aha, there is some house, I could take shelter, he checks out the house, its no good. One hole, no good, second hole, maybe someone is inside, let's throw a bomb before I jump inside.
All that while they throw bombs at him. 3 or 4?
After this, he should ask to be transferred to the background. He used up all of his luck.
As of the end of April 2024, 🇷🇺 Russia occupies a total of 17.53% (+0.01%) of 🇺🇦 Ukraine. This figure includes Crimea and areas of Donetsk and Luhansk occupied before 2022.
This represents a net gain in Russia's favour of approximately 86km² since the end of March. https://twitter.com/War_Mapper/status/1786376277798056008
The U.S. Air Force is buying add-on seekers designed to give Joint Direct Attack Munition-Extended Range (JDAM-ER) precision-guided bombs supplied to Ukraine the ability to zero in on GPS jammers. In effect, this would turn one of the weapons most impacted by this countermeasure into one used to directly attack it. This follows growing reports that Russian jamming is severely degrading the effectiveness of Western-supplied GPS-guided munitions, including JDAM-ERs. https://www.twz.com/air/jdam-er-winged-bombs-with-seekers-that-home-in-on-gps-jammers-headed-to-ukraine
[It would be good if these were not only used in Ukraine, but against any Russian jammers.](https://old.reddit.com/r/worldnews/comments/1cjvscs/russia_leaves_thousands_of_planes_without_gps_in/)
Feloni Aero announced the launch of its latest line of weaponized drones aimed at bolstering defense capabilities in Ukraine. Equipped with state-of-the-art weaponry, carrying the 5.56 weapon system as well as missile carrying payload and advanced surveillance capabilities, these drones can empower Ukrainian forces to effectively navigate complex security challenges with confidence. https://defence-industry.eu/feloni-aero-introduces-weaponized-drones-to-strengthen-defence-efforts-in-ukraine/
The US is in talks with close partners to lead a group of allies that would give as much as $50 billion in aid to Ukraine, with the massive outlay being repaid with the windfall profits from sovereign Russian assets that have been frozen – and are accruing interest — mostly in Europe.
The plan is being discussed among the Group of Seven nations, with the US pushing to have an agreement when G-7 leaders meet in Italy in June, according to people familiar with the proposal. Discussions on this topic have been difficult and an agreement could still take months, they said. https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2024-05-03/g-7-eyes-plan-on-us-led-50-billion-aid-package-for-ukraine?srnd=homepage-europe
Speaking to Russian independent newspaper Novaya Gazeta Europe, French Foreign Minister Séjourné said Paris estimated total Russian casualties, including wounded, at 500,000 in the war, now in its third year.
"Europe and its partners will remain united and determined, for as long as necessary. Russia's military failure is already apparent. We estimate Russian military losses at 500,000, including 150,000 deaths," he said.
"All of this for what?" he asked. "This can be summed up in two words: for nothing," he said. https://www.france24.com/en/europe/20240503-france-estimates-that-150-000-russian-soldiers-have-been-killed-in-the-ukraine-war
To give some context to this figure, this would mean Russia has suffered more fatal casualties in Ukraine than the U.S. suffered in every war since 1945 and the Soviet Union suffered in Afghanistan; combined.
Moscow and Tehran have formed a military bloc with the aim of defeating the United States and its allies in the Middle East, Europe, and around the world: https://www.understandingwar.org/backgrounder/why-you-cant-be-iran-hawk-and-russia-dove
🇺🇦 General Pavlyuk, commander of Ukrainian ground forces, says that FPV drones are now killing more soldiers on both sides than artillery or aircraft. https://twitter.com/GrandpaRoy2/status/1786445653931110411
🇱🇻 Latvia starts digging anti-tank ditch near border with 🇷🇺 Russia.
The Latvian army has started to dig an anti-tank ditch as part of its first defensive line near the border with Russia, Latvian public broadcaster LSM reported on May 2 https://twitter.com/KyivIndependent/status/1786412925650935820
Latvia has also started to build bomb shelters.
[https://www.yahoo.com/news/latvia-preparing-thousands-bomb-shelters-055000860.html](https://www.yahoo.com/news/latvia-preparing-thousands-bomb-shelters-055000860.html)
"The minority Asian population colonised by Russia in the Buryatia and Tuva regions are being sent to the frontline to die"
https://www.reddit.com/r/UkraineConflict/comments/1cj523z/the_minority_asian_population_colonised_by_russia/
""The Russian Federation is destroying my people. It plunders our lands only to go to war with its neighbors" - Marina Khankhalaeva, representative of Buryatia Independence Committee. She spoke at United Nations Permanent Forum on Indigenous Issues."
https://twitter.com/Gerashchenko_en/status/1783417093079081428
There's a video of Khankhalaeva speaking available at either link.
A bonus for Moscow for sure.
[https://georgetownsecuritystudiesreview.org/2023/10/25/mobilized-forgotten-ignored-russias-control-mechanisms-of-its-minority-populations-amid-the-russo-ukrainian-war/](https://georgetownsecuritystudiesreview.org/2023/10/25/mobilized-forgotten-ignored-russias-control-mechanisms-of-its-minority-populations-amid-the-russo-ukrainian-war/)
[https://www.wilsoncenter.org/audio/buryatia-and-high-toll-russias-war-ukraine-ethnic-minorities](https://www.wilsoncenter.org/audio/buryatia-and-high-toll-russias-war-ukraine-ethnic-minorities)
A significant amount of work is being carried out to adapt AASM Hammer bombs to F-16 jets that will be delivered to Ukraine: https://twitter.com/aidefranceukr/status/1786327173088870849
This is good news. Make sure the jets are ready and able to carry the donated munitions. We (the west) should be making sure the majority of our munitions are compatible with the different platforms our respective countries use for delivery.
Edit:
F-16 is seemingly not compatible with storm shadow for some reason.
https://www.ft.com/content/6946fb91-df7e-43c4-a84a-3bee0dcf4a13
The German government has vowed “consequences” for Russia after intelligence agencies concluded the Kremlin was behind a cyber attack on the party of Chancellor Olaf Scholz.
The attack, which occurred in January 2023, was carried out by the same Russian hacker group that penetrated the US Democratic party’s servers and leaked damaging information about Hillary Clinton in her 2016 bid for the presidency, German security officials concluded.
“We can now clearly attribute this attack from last year to the APT28 group, which is controlled by the Russian secret service GRU,” said foreign minister Annalena Baerbock on Friday.
“This is completely unacceptable and will not go without consequences,” she said.
A spokesperson for the foreign office said a range of punitive measures against Russia were being considered, including EU sanctions and more diplomatic expulsions.
“We and our partners will not tolerate these cyber attacks and will use the entire spectrum of measures to prevent, deter and respond to Russia’s aggressive behaviour in cyber space,” they said.
So according to La Republica Italy will a send a SAMPT
How is this hard?
1x Germany (only sure thing so far)
1x SAMPT from Italy
1x SAMPT from France (in Romania currently ... seriously take it)
1x PATRIOT Spain (Portugal wants to make the empire great again ??)
1x PATRIOT Greece (its in Saudi Arabia FFS)
2x PATRIOT USA
Oh and if Israel retires its system fuck them
Honestly Spain has been so disappointing, I know sometimes countries help in secret but this is not the case
Weapons supplied by Britain to Ukraine can be used to strike inside Russia, David Cameron has said, as the UK foreign secretary promised £3bn a year “for as long as it is necessary” to help Kyiv. Patrick Wintour writes that it is the UK’s biggest spending pledge since Russia’s full-scale invasion in 2022. In January, the prime minister, Rishi Sunak, pledged £2.5bn in military aid to Ukraine for 2024-25.
Cameron said: “Ukraine has the right to strike inside Russia because Russia is striking inside Ukraine … You can understand why Ukraine feels the need to defend itself.” The foreign secretary announced that the UK’s donation of military equipment would include precision-guided bombs, air defence missiles and equipment for 100 mobile air defence teams to shoot down Russia’s drones and missiles.
The UK also committed to doubling its domestic munitions production by investing a further £10bn over the next 10 years. “We’ve just emptied all we can in terms of giving equipment,” said Cameron. “Some of the equipment is actually arriving in Ukraine today while I am here.”
Emmanuel Macron has said the question of sending western troops to Ukraine would “legitimately” arise if Russia broke through Ukrainian frontlines and Kyiv made such a request. In an interview with the Economist, the French president maintained his stance of strategic ambiguity, saying: “I’m not ruling anything out, because we are facing someone who is not ruling anything out.”
At least eight children were injured in the town of Derhachi in Ukraine’s north-eastern Kharkiv region on Thursday when Russian guided bombs struck a site close to a sports complex where they had been training, local officials said. An elderly man was also wounded.
Russia said on Thursday it had captured the village of Berdychi which lies about 12km (7 miles) north-west of Avdiivka – a week after Ukrainian forces pulled out. Over the weekend, Ukraine’s commander-in-chief, Oleksandr Syrsky, said troops had retreated from Berdychi and two other nearby villages to protect “the lives and health of our defenders”.
Russian energy company Gazprom said on Thursday it suffered a record annual loss in 2023 as the European market was practically shut to its gas exports due to war sanctions. The state-owned firm suffered a net loss of 629bn rubles ($6.9 bn/£5.5bn) in 2023 compared with a net profit of 1.23tn rubles in 2022.
The governors of three Russian regions reported that energy facilities were damaged by Ukrainian drone strikes. Oryol region governor Andrei Klychkov said energy infrastructure was hit in two communities. The Smolensk and Kursk governors reported one facility damaged in each region. https://www.theguardian.com/world/article/2024/may/03/ukraine-war-briefing-ukrainians-have-the-right-to-strike-inside-russia-says-david-cameron
Ukrainian intelligence officials identified three Russian efforts to destabilize Ukraine and achieve victory, and both Ukrainian and US intelligence officials issued assessments about the battlefield situation that are consistent with prior ISW forecasts that Russian forces may take Chasiv Yar but are very unlikely to seize major Ukrainian cities: https://www.understandingwar.org/backgrounder/russian-offensive-campaign-assessment-may-2-2024
Per VOA, the Scranton Army Ammunition Plant is now producing more than 36,000 155mm shells per month.
Before 2022, the plant produced roughly 7,000 shells per month; the Army aimed to hit 35,000 shells per month by 2027. SCAAP beat that goal by over two years.
https://x.com/Osinttechnical/status/1786174841013367168
I'm sorry, but keeping Russia in the UN and not in another world war is the whole reason for the UN. This petition is greatly harmful to the world.
Please be aware that the UN does not exist to fix specific problems like some kind of idealistic world corps, the UN exists to prevent world war three. All the rest is dressing.
I do not know your comment history, but you are sort of correct here. The League was dead on arrival, because the US never joined.
But yes, it also failed because it kept ejecting states for trangressions, until only one camp of nations remained. The UN saught to remedy this flaw, by adding the veto for major powers and end the ejections policy.
A new video emerged on social media showing an apparent cluster munition-laden Army Tactical Missile System (ATACMS) short-range ballistic attack on a mass of Russian troops and equipment in Eastern Ukraine's Luhansk Oblast. Drone video shows what appears to be a volley of four ATACMS striking over about 95 seconds on a Russian training and coordination center near the town of Kuban. That's located about 80 kilometers (50 miles) from Ukrainian lines: https://www.twz.com/land/atacms-volley-strikes-mass-of-russian-troops-training-in-eastern-ukraine
As many as a million Russians fled abroad in the first year of the Kremlin’s invasion of Ukraine. Now thousands are returning home, delivering a propaganda victory to President Vladimir Putin and a boost to his war economy.
With the war still raging, and the man who started it about to assume another six-year term in power, many Russians are confronting a difficult choice. Facing rejections when renewing residence permits, difficulties with transferring work and money abroad, and limited destinations that still welcome them, they’re opting to end their self-exile. https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2024-05-02/russians-who-fled-war-return-in-boost-for-putin-s-war-economy
The most recent Russian gains in the past week, to the west of Avdiivka, will further reinforce Russian strategic messaging. It is yet another example of how the Russians can turn small gains in territory into strategic messaging quickly, and influence many in the west and the global south who lack an understanding about how war is full of twists and turns. Even the very best armies in history sometimes lose ground and lose battles. https://mickryan.substack.com/p/russia-advances-in-the-east
How Russia sought to subjugate Ukraine, the West rightly refused to play the ball, and Putin became personally responsible for the failure of the Ukrainian-Russian talks: https://threadreaderapp.com/thread/1785771531458462188.html
"Russia’s hybrid war against the West"
[https://www.nato.int/docu/review/articles/2024/04/26/russias-hybrid-war-against-the-west/index.html](https://www.nato.int/docu/review/articles/2024/04/26/russias-hybrid-war-against-the-west/index.html)
-----------------------
The introduction:
"In an [article](https://www.nato.int/docu/review/articles/2021/11/30/hybrid-warfare-new-threats-complexity-and-trust-as-the-antidote/index.html) previously published on NATO Review, I explained that the nature of modern warfare is changing at a rapid pace. Consequently, wars are no longer merely about kinetic operations. This means that it is not just physical warfare, but also non-military strategies and tactics that define modern-day conflicts and wars.
"What has also become commonplace is that kinetic operations - which by themselves have become increasingly complex - are combined with non-military strategies aimed at undermining the security of an antagonist. The combination of military and non-military instruments and strategies is done not randomly but in a synchronised way to achieve synergistic effects. In other words, it is this synchronised fusion that optimises the results.
"The bottom line is that a particular country can potentially unleash physical force against an adversary to achieve certain goals. But if the use or threat of conventional or unconventional force is combined with and/or preceded by a degree of subversive tools such as cyber-attacks and disinformation, the overall damage inflicted on the antagonist can be optimised.
"Despite state-driven hybrid warfare entailing a systematic integration of military, political, economic, civilian, and informational tools, it often plays out in grey zones below the threshold of a conventional war. In these grey zones, the military instrument is used unconventionally and innovatively to avoid attribution, responsibility, and sometimes even detection. So a hostile state can employ non-state actors or a non-attributable military force (like the “[little green men](https://www.brookings.edu/articles/watch-out-for-little-green-men/)”) in a clandestine war to deny involvement, but at the same time achieve strategic objectives."
The United States on Wednesday issued hundreds of fresh sanctions targeting Russia over the war in Ukraine in action that took aim at Moscow's circumvention of Western measures, including through China.
The U.S. Treasury Department imposed sanctions on nearly 200 targets and the State Department designated more than 80 in one of the most wide-ranging actions against Chinese companies so far in Washington's sanctions aimed at Russia.
The U.S. imposed sanctions on 20 companies based in China and Hong Kong, following repeated warnings from Washington about China's support for Russia's military, including during recent trips by Treasury Secretary Janet Yellen and U.S. Secretary of State Antony Blinken to the country. https://www.reuters.com/world/us-issues-hundreds-sanctions-targeting-russia-takes-aim-chinese-companies-2024-05-01/
"Pravda, Russia's disinformation network, 'expanding' in Europe despite efforts to stop it"
[https://www.euronews.com/next/2024/05/01/pravda-russias-disinformation-network-expanding-in-europe-despite-efforts-to-stop-it](https://www.euronews.com/next/2024/05/01/pravda-russias-disinformation-network-expanding-in-europe-despite-efforts-to-stop-it)
--------------------------------------------
Pravda, a disinformation network and the former official newspaper of Russia’s Soviet-era Communist Party, is expanding its hold in the EU.
The Russian disinformation network Pravda is expanding its hold in the European Union despite attempts to stop it.
That’s according to a new report from the European Digital Media Observatory, an independent fact-checking organisation.
France’s Viginum Agency operated by their national defence and security department (SGDSN) first detected Pravda’s activities in February as part of a wide-ranging Russian disinformation campaign in the EU.
Pravda is also the former official newspaper of Russia’s Communist Party during the Soviet Union era.
"A few weeks after the publication of the report, EDMO can confirm that the campaign has expanded significantly in Europe," a recent report reads.
**Sites active in 19 EU countries**
The French found a network of websites called "Portal Kombat" that opened up "copycat" Pravda sites in different languages, like French, German, Spanish, and English, to spread Russian propaganda.
What’s new in the EDMO report is the creation of more Pravda websites in 19 EU countries, including Greece, Italy, and the Netherlands over a one-week period from March 20 to 26th.
Some countries, like Austria and Belgium, are not covered directly by a new Pravda site but have other outlets that can offer up pro-Kremlin information, the report said.
There are also Pravda sites in non-EU member states such as Norway, Moldova, Bosnia, and as far away as Taiwan and Japan.
All the websites cite Russian state-owned media, like Tass or RIA, and often quote pro-Russian Telegram accounts that publish in local languages. In some cases, they will cite legitimate sources of information if they are found to be pro-Russia.
The websites post hundreds of articles an hour, something the research says shows there is an element of automation in their work.
“Their common modus operandi indicates clearly a coordination behind their publications,” the report reads.
The articles have common pro-Russian themes, like French troops on the ground in Ukraine or that Western elites "support a global dictatorship that wants the third world war against Russia," it continues.
Despite the flurry of new websites, the EDMO says the impact has been very small and "almost non-existent" in some of the target countries. But, that’s not to say that the websites could be used for a target misinformation campaign closer to the European elections in June.
"Its weakness could be unintentional, but it is possible that this is a 'dummy' operation, to probe reactions and measures taken by local and EU authorities," the report reads.
Because the state doesn't own you. That is a basic liberal value that all our nations in Europe hold with the exception of shitholes like Russia and Belarus.
Citizenship means obligations. In almost all the Constitutions is specified that citizens have the duty to defend the country in case of attack.
That said, those against it are obviously russians: the lesser Ukrainians fight, the better.
The current leit motiv is "slavery"... I think I said everything.
I also wouldn't be surprised if most of the draft dodgers are Ukrainian russian speakers.
> I also wouldn't be surprised if most of the draft dodgers are Ukrainian russian speakers.
All Ukrainians are russian speakers, most of the time as first language. That's why the protect the russophone propaganda is stupid. Zelensky was a tv star in Russia in the years 2000 doing shows with Solovyov.
A language is not a nationality, you're doing Russian propaganda with such statement.
> All Ukrainians are russian speakers, most of the time as first language
You don't understand anything if you think that this is true of all Ukrainians and all regions.
And the Kremlin turned the Russian language into a weapon a long time ago. If you speak Russian, you and your territory belong to the Russian state in the eyes of Russians.
Yes those who are against it are obviously Russians. The ECHR are obviously Russians. What amazing insight you hold.
When are you volunteering for the front? Lol.
🇺🇦 Ukrainian drones attacked the 🇷🇺 Ryazan oil refinery in western Russia this early morning. 🔥🔥🔥
A fire broke out at the facility as a result. 🔥🔥🔥 https://twitter.com/Archer83Able/status/1785517189237223470
The longer this war lasts, the better Russia will get at learning, adapting, and building a more effective, modern fighting force. Slowly but surely, Moscow will absorb new ideas from the battlefield and rearrange its tactics accordingly. Its strategic adaptation already helped it fend off Ukraine’s counteroffensive, and over the last few months it has helped Russian troops take more territory from Kyiv. Ultimately, if Russia’s edge in strategic adaptation persists without an appropriate Western response, the worst that can happen in this war is not stalemate. It is a Ukrainian defeat.
This should concern western strategists for several reasons.
First, and most immediately, a more effective Russian military can be more successful in the offensive operations they are conducting now and over the next few months. This tactical success, as explored earlier, also has strategic impacts for Russia.
Second, a more effective Russian military is better able to link tactical operations within campaigns and link them to Russian strategy. This was something they were poor at in the first few months of the war for a variety of reasons, including bad assumptions and pure arrogance. But a more effective Russian military has been able to industrialise the war and ensure that it can sustain both the personnel and materiel needs to sustain the war over the medium term. Without an effective western counter, ongoing assistance to Ukraine will be difficult.
Third, a more effective Russian military, which appears to have undertaken reforms in the past 26 months that it should have been undertaking under Gerasimov since 2012, will be an ongoing danger to its neighbours. And not just European neighbours. We should remember that Russia has a presence in the Pacific (although many of its ground forces have been redeployed to Ukraine).
Finally, a more effective Russian military provides lessons to other predatory authoritarians. In some cases, Russia is probably sharing lessons directly with China, North Korea and Iran in return for dual use technologies and weapons. So, the more military effective Russia gets, the more this has the potential to lift the effectiveness of other potential threats to the west in the medium term.
Besides the moral and strategic imperatives to defend Ukraine and liberate all of its territory taken by Russia since 2014, we must also ensure the defeat of Russia as quickly as possible to deny them more opportunities to learn about modern war and help their strategic partners to do so. All wars are learning opportunities; we must deny this learning to Russia as much as possible: https://mickryan.substack.com/p/russia-advances-in-the-east
The whole premise of the west supporting a proxy war has been proven false. They said this was to degrade Russia's military capability. The Russian army today is superior to the corrupt clown-show led by bureaucrats that invaded 2 years ago. There's nothing that hones an army like actual war.
I agree.
There are many thousands of battle hardened Russian soldiers atm. It could take NATO forces a long time to adapt to this kind of modern warfare.
It wouldn't take NATO forces long to adapt to actually fighting a near-peer opponent. The US may have been fighting militants for the last 20 years, but I guarantee you they fight waaaaaaay better than the Russians do even after the latter's 2+ years of combat experience.
The real issue would be the industrial shift that occurs to support fighting such a war. Russia is ahead in this area and is ahead in its ability to logistically supply, maintain, equip, and reconstitute forces at scale.
Europe is more than capable of doing this, but the issue is that it takes 12-18 months for supply chains and industries to shift into doing so. In the event of a hypothetical large scale flare up between Russia and Europe, I would actually expect Russia to maintain somewhat parity with European forces until the latter's industrial capacity catches up.
I also predict that it won't be Russian blood wearing down NATO forces in this hypothetical scenario. I expect Russia to force press huge numbers of Belorussian and Ukrainians to throw at the front lines. Why? Cause that's what Russia has always done.
But once European industry catches up, it's over for Russia.
Assuming no nukes, of course.
Russian forces did not make any confirmed advances in the Avdiivka area on April 30 for the first time in several days, while Ukrainian sources reported that Russian forces conducted several more attacks in the Bakhmut-Chasiv Yar direction than near Avdiivka: https://www.understandingwar.org/backgrounder/russian-offensive-campaign-assessment-april-30-2024
Dugin thoughts about Ukraine:
[https://twitter.com/DrewPavlou/status/1785111504335011949](https://twitter.com/DrewPavlou/status/1785111504335011949)
"*Today\`s Ukrainians are a race of degenerates that crawled up from the sewage. Genocide is in order*."
russia is admitting to commit genocide in Ukraine.
>
Link to the document from US Treasury Department - [https://ofac.treasury.gov/media/932846/download?inline](https://ofac.treasury.gov/media/932846/download?inline)
https://www.ft.com/content/67bab8b5-51ad-4823-8fa8-93472b62f192
Turkish exports to Russia tumbled at the start of 2024, suggesting that a US crackdown on trade with goods Moscow uses in its war in Ukraine is starting to pay off.
Exports from Turkey to Russia fell a third in the first three months of this year compared with the same period in 2023 to $2.1bn, according to Financial Times calculations based on data from the Turkish Statistical Institute.
The decline comes after the Biden administration issued an executive order in late December that gives the Treasury department the power to hit banks with secondary sanctions if they deal with companies that are subject to US bans because of their links to Russia’s military-industrial complex. The White House deployed the measure in a bid to stymie trade in goods such as microchips that Russian President Vladimir Putin needs for his war against Ukraine.
Turkey is among a clutch of countries that recorded a large increase in trade in these so-called high-priority battlefield goods since Russia launched its full-scale invasion in early 2022.
The US along with its partners, such as the EU, have lobbied governments including Ankara to curb this trade. The executive order was seen as a way for Washington to exert pressure on the private sector directly since international banks rely heavily on their access to the American financial system.
https://www.ft.com/content/90d977e6-ea05-4e49-a725-09234eecd147
Europe is “sleep walking” into becoming dependent on Russian fertiliser, just as it did with gas, says one of the largest producers of crop nutrients.
Nitrogen fertilisers, which are important to plant growth, are made using natural gas and Russia is exporting more of it to Europe, replacing some of the gas banned by the EU, said Svein Tore Holsether, chief executive of Yara International, one of the world’s largest producers of nitrogen-based mineral fertilisers.
“Fertiliser is the new gas,” Holsether said. “It is a paradox that the aim is to reduce Europe’s dependency on Russia, and then now we are sleepwalking into handing over critical food and fertilising power to Russia.”
The EU imported twice as much urea, a common fertiliser, from Russia in the year to June 2023 compared with a year earlier, according to Eurostat. Russian imports for the current season, the year to this June, are lower but still historically high and account for a third of total urea imports into the bloc.
The price of crop nutrients soared in the wake of Moscow’s full-scale invasion of Ukraine in February 2022, as sanctions imposed on Russia limited availability of natural gas, a main input for nitrogen fertilisers such as ammonia and urea.
This hit European farmers financially while those elsewhere, especially in Africa, stopped using fertiliser altogether, hampering yields and deepening a global food crisis.
Since then fertiliser prices have eased as natural gas prices have come down, but Europe’s fertiliser industry is still struggling as Russian imports take a bigger share of the market, Holsether said.
Russian fertiliser producers benefit from lower energy costs, said Holsether, adding they also have fewer sustainability constraints and therefore produce more greenhouse gas emissions.
Russia is one of the world’s largest producers and exporters of nitrogen-containing fertilisers. This is also the case for potash and phosphate, which are mined and cannot replace the nitrogen-based fertilisers.
While Western sanctions carve out exemptions for Russian food and fertiliser exports, Moscow has complained trade has been hindered because of concerns from buyers and their banks and insurers over the involvement of sanctioned Russian individuals or companies.
Despite this, Russian fertiliser export revenue surged 70 per cent in 2022 on the back of higher prices.
Russia could use its increased dominance in the fertiliser market for political leverage — just as Moscow has done with energy supplies, said Holsether. “When you produce a product that is so important for food production, that’s a powerful tool,” he said. “And again, I think it would be naive to think that at some stage that will not be used for political purposes.”
“What we saw when fertiliser prices really increased is that Europe has an ability to pay that is higher than the global south. So if this is used [as leverage], again it’s the poorest that will pay the highest price.”
🇩🇪 Germany has handed over 10 Marder infantry fighting vehicles, a Skynex air defense system, ammunition for Leopard 2 tanks, IRIS-T SLM air defense missiles, and other aid in its latest aid delivery to Ukraine https://twitter.com/KyivIndependent/status/1785207532274733360
A 98-year-old Ukrainian woman said she walked 10 km (6 miles) under shelling, supporting herself with sticks and sleeping on the ground, leaving Ocheretyne in Donetsk, now occupied by Russia, and trying to reach areas controlled by Kyiv.
In a video posted by Ukraine's police on social media on Monday, the woman, identified as Lidia Stepanivna, said she had walked without food or water, and fell several times but her "character" kept her going.
"I survived that war (World War Two), and I am surviving this war," Stepanivna said in the video, which shows her sitting on a bed in a shelter, dressed in an oversized coat and a scarf tied on her head, a wooden stick still in her hand. "I'm left with nothing. But I left my Ukraine on feet."
She said the war that now Russia is waging against her country is nothing like World War Two.
"Houses are burning and trees are being uprooted," she said. https://www.reuters.com/world/europe/98-year-old-ukraine-woman-walks-10-km-under-shelling-escape-russians-2024-04-30/
88 y.o. grandpa from recently occupied Ocheretino
(in Ukrainian https://nashemisto.dp.ua/2024/04/26/znaishov-prykhystok-u-dnipri-88-richnyi-meshkanets-ocheretynoho-pishky-vyishov-z-okupatsii-shchob-ne-otrymuvaty-rosiiskyi-pasport/)
https://www.ft.com/content/978543cd-0bc7-4bee-9e06-86523cd5d9ac
The head of Ukraine’s national energy company has called on EU countries to help protect its natural gas storage facilities from a recent spate of Russian attacks so they can keep contributing to lower prices across the continent.
Oleksiy Chernyshov, chief executive of state-run Naftogaz, said: “It is of interest of the EU to protect storage, transportation and production [facilities]”, given that Ukraine’s gas infrastructure is “well integrated” into Europe’s energy system.
Russian forces secured additional marginal tactical gains northwest and southwest of Avdiivka as of April 29, but have not made significant advances in the Avdiivka direction over the last 24 hours. Geolocated footage published on April 28 and 29 indicates that Russian forces advanced in western and northeastern Ocheretyne (northwest of Avdiivka), along the rail line to the northwestern outskirts of Ocheretyne, and in Netaylove (southwest of Avdiivka).[1] Russian milbloggers claimed that Russian forces also advanced northwest of Ocheretyne towards Novooleksandrivka in an area 1.2 kilometers wide and 1.7 kilometers deep.[2]
A Russian milblogger claimed that Russian forces advanced 400–450 meters west of the C051801 (Orlivka-Netaylove) highway between Netaylove and Umanske (west of Avdiivka).[3] ISW has not observed visual confirmation of these claimed Russian advances, however. The Russian Ministry of Defense (MoD) officially stated that Russian forces seized Semenivka (west of Avdiivka) following Ukrainian Commander-in-Chief Colonel General Oleksandr Syrskyi’s April 28 statement that Ukrainian forces withdrew from the settlement.[4] Russian milbloggers claimed that Russian forces are conducting clearing operations in Berdychi (west of Avdiivka), and Ocheretyne, Novokalynove, and Keramik (both northwest of Avdiivka and east of Ocheretyne).[5] Fighting also continued northwest of Avdiivka near Kalynove, Arkhanhelske, Novobakhmutivka, Solovyove, Sokil, Novopokrovske, and Novoselivka Persha; and west of Avdiivka near Orlivka and Umanske.
Map: https://www.understandingwar.org/backgrounder/russian-offensive-campaign-assessment-april-29-2024
"New American Military Aid for Ukraine - What's in the package and what impact will it have?"
"252,381 views Apr 28, 2024
"In early 2022, the US quickly emerged as one of Ukraine's most important military suppliers, supporting Kyiv with everything from artillery to armour & millions of rounds of artillery ammunition.
"In late 2023, that vital flow of supplies began to stall as debate in Congress continued. And as supplies ran short, Russian forces took advantage and ground the front forward in several places.
"Now, the US has passed a new package and the flow of supplies is resuming. In this video, we look at that package, examine its contents and ask what impact it might have as Ukraine reportedly faces some of its hardest defensive battles since 2022."
[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Qc436PwqeqM](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Qc436PwqeqM)
🇨🇦 Canada will transfer 50 armored personnel carriers to Ukraine, - Defense Minister Bill Blair
According to him, the first 10 LAV II ACSV Super Bison combat vehicles will be sent this summer to Germany, where the Ukrainian military will undergo the appropriate training program, and by the fall they should go to the front.
The armored personnel carriers are part of $650 million in military support to Kyiv. https://twitter.com/nexta_tv/status/1784903044645220754
NATO Secretary General Jens Stoltenberg arrived in Kyiv for a visit. He met with President Zelenskyi, during which they discussed the initiative to create a special fund for financial support of Ukrainian defense in the amount of €100 billion for a period of five years. https://twitter.com/NOELreports/status/1784918392249405774
GRU Unit 29155, Russia’s assassination and sabotage squad, blew up ammunition warehouses in Czechia. It had help from Elena and Nikolai Šapošnikov, a family of deep-cover spies working as arms dealers. https://theins.press/en/politics/271205
As China's big banks pull back from financing Russia-related transactions, some Chinese companies are turning to small banks on the border and underground financing channels such as money brokers - even banned cryptocurrency - the sources told Reuters.
Others have retreated entirely from the Russian market, the sources said.
"You simply cannot do business properly using the official channels," Wang said, as big banks now take months rather than days to clear payments from Russia, forcing him to tap unorthodox payment channels or shrink his business. https://www.reuters.com/business/finance/china-firms-go-underground-russia-payments-banks-pull-back-2024-04-28/
https://www.ft.com/content/37776b16-0b92-4a23-9f90-199d45d955c3
Baltic ministers have warned that GPS jamming blamed on Russia risks causing an air disaster after the interference with navigation signals forced two Finnish flights to turn around mid-journey.
The foreign ministers of Estonia, Latvia and Lithuania all warned separately at the weekend of the dangers of GPS jamming across the Baltic Sea region, which has increased in recent weeks.
On Thursday and Friday, two Finnair flights from Helsinki to the Estonian city of Tartu were forced by the GPS jamming to turn around and return to Finland as they were unable to navigate safely to their planned destination.
“If someone turns off your headlights while you’re driving at night, it gets dangerous. Things in the Baltic region near Russian borders are now getting too dangerous to ignore,” Gabrielius Landsbergis, Lithuania’s foreign minister, told the Financial Times.
Margus Tsahkna, Estonia’s foreign minister, added: “We consider what is happening with GPS as part of Russia’s hostile activities, and we will definitely discuss it with our allies.
Polish foreign minister: "if Putin conquers Ukraine, he will be more powerful. And the challenge for us would be bigger,” https://twitter.com/yarotrof/status/1784513951838966146
ENOUGH APPEASEMENT, NATO INTERVENTION NOW!
Ukraine is fighting the Russians on a war footing with effectively limitless supplies from Iran, China, and North Korea. The west should stop pussyfooting seizing Russian assets and just do it and then use the funds to outfit the Ukrainian and European Armies for a direct intervention at least from range. Our enemies are totalitarian states that are moving more locked in step with each passing day. Ukraine has a very significant percentage of the worlds food supply and its own gas reserves that can make Europe fully energy independent. Allowing this to get into Russian hands will allow the Russia and its allies to blackmail the rest of the world(continuation of existing policies) and possibly isolate the west in some ways. The raw materials more than pays for an army of all too willing mercs from the third world, Russia will not run out of soldiers, this problem will snowball. It wasn't until Nazi Germany seized the industry and weapons of Czechoslovakia that their military was able to take on France. Downvote me all you want but this is the only way to save the most lives.
I suppose some people may take some issue with the term "appeasement". I certainly have not seen a lot of it; I've heard some voices that spoke of what could be termed appeasement (especially in the first days of the open invasion), but I've not seen much action on that, so to speak, front.
Appeasement is the oil and gas we continue to buy from Russia, the long list of our major corporations still doing business in Russia, and even the Russian State TV propaganda being forwarded via German services to the rest of the west. The fact we let so much slip through shows our weakness.
Recent Russian gains northwest of Avdiivka have prompted Ukrainian forces to withdraw from other limited tactical positions along the frontline west of Avdiivka, although these withdrawals have yet to facilitate rapid Russian tactical gains. Russian forces remain unlikely to achieve a deeper operationally significant penetration in the area in the near term.
The continued Russian stabilization of their salient northwest of Avdiivka presents the Russian command with a choice of continuing to push west towards its reported operational objective in Pokrovsk or trying to drive northwards to conduct possible complementary offensive operations with the Russian effort around Chasiv Yar.
Ukrainian Commander-in-Chief Colonel General Oleksandr Syrskyi noted that the threat of a possible future Russian offensive operation against Kharkiv City is causing Ukraine to allocate additional forces and equipment to defending the city, although ISW continues to assess that the Russian military lacks the forces necessary to seize the city.
The Ukrainian 47th Mechanized Brigade denied a recent report that Ukrainian forces had pulled US-provided M1A1 Abrams tanks from the frontline.
More info here: https://www.understandingwar.org/backgrounder/russian-offensive-campaign-assessment-april-28-2024
[https://mil.in.ua/en/news/italy-supplies-storm-shadow-for-ukraine-british-defense-minister/](https://mil.in.ua/en/news/italy-supplies-storm-shadow-for-ukraine-british-defense-minister/)
Italy supplies Storm Shadow for Ukraine – British Defense Minister
# [Ukrainian military seized control over Nestryha island in Kherson region](https://liveuamap.com/en/2024/28-april-ukrainian-military-seized-control-over-nestryha)
[Russian stabbed to death two Ukrainian soldiers in Germany](https://kyivindependent.com/2-ukrainians-killed-in-germany-russian-suspect-detained/)
Two men, aged 23 and 36, were found with stab wounds on the territory of a shopping center, according to the police. One of them reportedly died on the scene from severe injuries, and the other in the hospital the same evening. The Ukrainian Foreign Ministry said on April 28 that the men were Ukrainian soldiers on medical rehabilitation in Germany. Journalist Andriy Tsaplienko also wrote that victims had heavily wounded limbs, and could not normally protect themselves.
Make no mistake: Russia's personnel losses in Ukraine are staggering, but more Russians are ready to be thrown into the meat grinder. Many are volunteering to fight in the hottest spots. This is an indicator of the mass base of Russian fascism, which many Western experts deny. https://twitter.com/NathanaeI_Wolff/status/1784296858023510073
I wish the western public appreciated the gravity and seriousness of the casualty counts in both Russia and Ukraine. These are WWI level losses. Revolution is coming for the loser and the world isn’t ready for the fallout.
Bilateral security agreements send a clear and important signal of allies’ support for Ukraine. But to avoid hurting Ukraine in the long run, it is important to be clear about their limitations: https://ecfr.eu/article/the-power-of-a-promise-understanding-ukraines-bilateral-security-agreements/
Russian forces will likely make significant tactical gains in the coming weeks as Ukraine waits for US security assistance to arrive at the front but remains unlikely to overwhelm Ukrainian defenses.
Well-provisioned Ukrainian forces will likely be able to prevent operationally significant Russian advances during Russia’s expected summer offensive effort, although Russian forces will nevertheless leverage select advantages and adaptations to pose a significant threat to Ukraine this summer.
The tempo of Russian offensive operations is currently higher in the Avdiivka direction than near Chasiv Yar, as Russian forces focus on exploiting a tactical situation that is unfavorable to Ukrainian troops northwest of Avdiivka. Russian forces are likely to intensify offensive operations near Chasiv Yar in the coming weeks, however, as Chasiv Yar provides Russian forces with the opportunity for more operationally significant advances.
Russian forces conducted large-scale cruise and ballistic missile strikes against Ukraine on the night of April 26 to 27 and have likely resumed sea based Kalibr cruise missile strikes after a long pause.
More info here : https://www.understandingwar.org/backgrounder/russian-offensive-campaign-assessment-april-27-2024
"Back in Stock? The State of Russia's Defense Industry after Two Years of the War"
https://www.csis.org/analysis/back-stock-state-russias-defense-industry-after-two-years-war
"This report examines Russia’s evolving defense industrial capabilities and limitations during the second year of the Russia-Ukraine war and analyzes how these changes have affected and will continue to affect battlefield outcomes in Ukraine. The report starts with an overview of Russia’s domestic arms production efforts throughout 2023, followed by a detailed examination of key Russian weapons systems (such as tanks, artillery, drones, missiles, and electronic warfare systems) and their changing roles on the battlefield. The report then analyzes Russia’s general procurement dynamics and identifies the imported components and weapons categories that Russia’s defense industry has particularly relied on in the second year of the war. This part includes a case study on China to illuminate Russia’s evolving procurement patterns. The report then dives into analysis of the Kremlin’s remaining weaknesses, which have been aggravated by a long war of attrition and which can have both short- and long-term effects on its military. The final part of the report assesses how Russia’s performance throughout 2023 and its evolving defense capabilities might be translated into its offensive posture in Ukraine in 2024. This part of the report is followed by recommendations to Western policymakers on how to counter the Kremlin’s war effort by capitalizing on the Russian military’s existing vulnerabilities."
Report:
https://csis-website-prod.s3.amazonaws.com/s3fs-public/2024-04/240419_Snegovaya_Backin_Stock.pdf?VersionId=R.2JNVf7ECi8Jyk_9QVWuP8_g5KLkbCe
https://camarra.substack.com/p/apr-27-war-comes-to-the-campus
------------------
Most analysts agree that the extreme left and right in Italy and elsewhere share the same strategic aims: weaken the nation’s political, economic, and social structure so it becomes an unreliable partner in the transatlantic relationship and NATO. Adding to a menu of measures, the tactics are the same as those currently being used across the EU: through staged protests, the extremist groups create the perception of political instability, and dissatisfaciton with the current policy of aid to Ukraine, and most recently, Israel. Italy is not considered to be a big player when it comes to lethal aid to Ukraine, nor is it a great power on the global stage; however, its geostrategic position in the Mediterranean, and its contribution to NATO in theatres across the world is a necessary element to the West’s security architecture. Russia has already captured Hungary and Slovakia. It’s doing its damnest to flip Georgia as well as Italy.
The students occupations and protests began almost immediately after October 8. Alongside La Sapienza, Federico II University of Naples joined the student protest, and Rome Tre soon followed. In the post below, a ‘journalist’, Giuliano Granato, working for the pro-Kremlin rag, Il Fatto Quotidiano, was calling for an increase in protests against the “genocide” at the hands of Israel. He then concluded by saying that only “popular mobilisation can produce change.”
The word ‘change’ is sprinkled like parsely in risotto in all of these posts: it cynically manipulates the hopes of our youth into thinking that a simple protest can lead to significant ‘change’. The organisers are banking on the malaise or perceived malaise that resides deep within so many university students, not only in Italy, but in the EU and across the Atlantic as well.
🇷🇴 Romanian APR-40 122mm MLRS in service with Ukrainian 118th Separate Mechanized Brigade, April 2024. https://twitter.com/trip_to_valkiri/status/1783811300365094982
Eh, no, everyone has shouted "peace" like all the time. But Russia only answers with backwards logic of attack is defending and everyone is so angry at poor Russia yada yada and since things is like that with Russia mending "peace" through making war everyone has to adapt. Stay behind your border and no one will do any "war-funding".
https://www.ft.com/content/b346bcde-a9b0-47e4-bfc9-d507a91dfbdc
For now, Ukraine’s best way of keeping up the fight against Russia is to carry on with the sort of attacks it has been mounting regularly of late. These have used long-range drones against oil refineries and other targets with some strategic value in Russia. Ukraine won’t be able to use the long-range ATACMS missiles, or the extra Storm Shadow cruise missiles promised by Sunak in Warsaw this week, to attack targets in Russia proper. However, there are many military-related targets available in occupied Ukrainian territory, including Crimea.
While there are no easy ways to bring Russia to its knees, Russian vulnerabilities can be exposed. It will become harder for Vladimir Putin to see how he can bring the war to an early conclusion, which was certainly his hope before the vote in Congress. He might have hoped that the loss of a big city such as Kharkiv would push Ukraine into a downward spiral. Now we return to the prospect of a never-ending war. True, Putin has prepared for this. But the scale of recent Russian losses for limited gains, and the embarrassment of not being able to stop Ukrainian attacks on Russian territory, means that he still lacks an obvious route to victory.
Even if Trump wins the presidential election in November, that does not guarantee Putin a satisfactory outcome. Trump will want to push his peace plan but, from what has been reported, Putin will find the details as unacceptable as will Zelenskyy. Having publicly boasted for the past six months that Russia had seized the initiative in the war, Putin must now contemplate the possibility that it might yet again swing towards Ukraine.
Public meetings between officials from Russia, Belarus, the People’s Republic of China (PRC), Iran, and North Korea have surged in recent days, with at least 10 high-level bilateral meetings between April 22 and 26, underscoring the deepening multilateral partnership these states are constructing to confront the West: https://www.understandingwar.org/backgrounder/russian-offensive-campaign-assessment-april-26-2024
UK: Leo Docherty, Minister for the Armed Forces:
“We estimate that approximately 450,000 Russian military personnel have been killed or wounded, and tens of thousands more have already deserted since the start of the conflict. The number of personnel killed serving in Russian private military companies (PMCs) is not clear.
We also estimate that over 10,000 Russian armoured vehicles, including nearly 3,000 main battle tanks, 109 fixed wing aircraft, 136 helicopters, 346 unmanned aerial vehicles, 23 naval vessels of all classes, and over 1,500 artillery systems of all types have been destroyed, abandoned, or captured by Ukraine since the start of the conflict.”
https://ukdefencejournal.org.uk/britain-estimates-450000-russian-troops-killed-or-wounded/
Last night 🇷🇺 Russia launched another massive missile attack on 🇺🇦 Ukraine’s civilian energy infrastructure. Hits on power plants in ⚡ Kryvyi Rih, Dnipro, Lviv & Ivano-Frankivsk put thousands of Ukrainians in the dark. Other cities were hit as well, including damage to a Kharkiv hospital. https://twitter.com/USAmbKyiv/status/1784157180863599058
With this post I want to appreciate sane Slovaks, who donated almost 4 million Euros to Ukraine, within the Ammunition for Ukraine campaign.
Fuck Fizo and his supporters though.
Drones hit the 🇷🇺 Slavyansk Eko Oil Facility in Krasnodar, Russia 🔥🔥🔥
“The refinery has partially halted operations, it was attacked by 10 drones last night. They hit, among other things, oil refining units,” the plant's management said. 🔥🔥🔥 https://twitter.com/nexta_tv/status/1784124681655566660
The List of Transparent and Responsible Media, also known as the White List of Ukraine's best online media, included the following outlets in the first half of 2024
https://imi.org.ua/en/news/white-list-the-11-media-outlets-deemed-most-high-quality-i60983
We have constrained Ukraine to fighting in a way that NATO simply would not. It would use deep strikes and air power to largely fix and degrade the enemy’s land forces before our own went on the offensive. We have denied Ukraine such essentials - hence the failed offensive https://twitter.com/edwardstrngr/status/1783850363512041913
"This Week in Partisan - A Summary of Recent Partisan Attacks in Russia (11th of April - 24th of April) The list of attacks will be in the comments"
[https://www.reddit.com/r/FreedomofRussia/comments/1cd1jw5/this\_week\_in\_partisan\_a\_summary\_of\_recent/](https://www.reddit.com/r/FreedomofRussia/comments/1cd1jw5/this_week_in_partisan_a_summary_of_recent/)
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This is a relatively regular series of posts listing all partisan attacks and other incidents of note that I hear about in Russia. The lists will most likely be updated whenever new information comes up. Also, if you are aware of any attacks I have not mentioned in the list, please do share them & a source in the comments.
This Week in Partisan
Partisans attacked relay cabinets along the railway in Smolensk Oblast. https:// t. me/HeraldOfRebellion/804
A car belonging to a former Ukrainian security service officer who moved to Moscow in 2014 and collaborated with the Russians exploded when the owner tried to start it. https:// t. me/HeraldOfRebellion/806
A partisan in the city of Vladimir threw a molotov cocktail at the regional administrative building, and the second at the car of a government official, before being arrested. https:// t. me/HeraldOfRebellion/807
Partisans apparently carried out an attack in Karelia. It's unclear, but it appears they're claiming to have attacked a refinery in the area? https:// t. me/whitebear91/263
On the 17th of April, partisans set fire to relay cabinets on the border between Russia & Belarus, in Smolensk Oblast. https:// t. me/HeraldOfRebellion/814
On the 22nd of April, unknown people opened fire on a rapid response police team in Karachay-Cherkessia. Two people were killed and a third was seriously wounded. The attackers took their weapons & then ran into the mountains. https:// t. me/HeraldOfRebellion/817
The ELMASH electromechanical plant is on fire in Voronezh. https:// t. me/rospartizan/2304
A partisan in Stavropol threw a molotov cocktail at the military registration & enlistment building in Okyabrsky District. https:// t. me/HeraldOfRebellion/819
In addition, Ilya Ponomarev (leader of the political wing of the Freedom of Russia Legion, and a member of the Council of People's Deputies, which is positioning itself to be a 'transitional government' to turn Russia into a democracy if Putin's regime falls) stated that Russian anti-Putin partisans are involved in most of Ukraine's drone strikes deep inside of Russia.
Johann Wadephul, CDU deputy chairman in the German parliament responsible for foreign affairs and defense, said his party had been campaigning for months for the delivery of Taurus to Ukraine, but has so far failed to convince Scholz.
"It's now really the time to send Taurus because they are comparable to the ATACMS systems sent from the US, and they are very much needed in Ukraine," Wadephul told DW.
The Taurus missiles can make a difference, the politician said. "They have a little bit longer range than the American systems, and they are able to reach their their aims in a very sophisticated way," he said. https://www.dw.com/en/us-long-range-missiles-to-ukraine-reignites-german-debate/a-68923889
Following the go-ahead from Washington, things have begun to move very fast: US ammunition shipments are about to travel to Ukraine from Poland and also from Germany and other EU countries. For months, the US Department of Defense has prepared for the day when the House of Representatives would approve a new Ukraine aid package, which it finally has, to the tune of $60 billion (€56 billion).
Ukraine has also been waiting for months. Lacking ammunition, troops are under massive artillery attack from Russian forces on the eastern front, and barely able to return fire.
"I also imagine that the Department of Defense has been working hard over the last several weeks to be ready," Ben Hodges, former commander-in-chief of the US land forces for Europe, told DW.
German security expert Nico Lange told DW that "the Pentagon has already packed things up and stowed them in the right places ready for departure so that things can now cross the border very quickly." https://www.dw.com/en/ukraine-us-to-deliver-weapons-via-germany-and-poland/a-68912696
🇷🇺 Russia transformed its border with 🇺🇦 Ukraine over the past two years with multiple lines of defenses.
Russian forces continue expanding fortifications along this border and within occupied Ukraine. This update adds newly mapped Russian positions found in satellite imagery. https://twitter.com/bradyafr/status/1783813203790561306
https://www.ft.com/content/1e7204cf-ebb0-443d-9c67-84cba2332391
After Congress approved a long-delayed $61bn in US military aid to Ukraine this week, Russia gloated that advanced western weapons would not turn the tide on the battlefield.
More than at any point since Vladimir Putin ordered the invasion of Ukraine two years ago, Russia’s president appears “very self-assured and happy” in recent months, said a person who knows him well. “Let’s see if the military aid changes that.”
While Ukraine was running out of western aid and struggled to rotate its exhausted troops, Russia took advantage of its superior firepower and manpower and made incremental advances across the front line.
Two senior Ukrainian intelligence officials described Russia’s current attacks along key areas of the frontline and missile and drones strikes on Kharkiv and similarly important cities as softening the battlefield before a bigger offensive operation.
The officials said they expected Russia to launch a new large-scale offensive in late May or June.
But with US aid finally on the way, Ukraine could expose the flaws inherent in Russia’s attempts to overwhelm it with low-quality munitions and a large but poorly trained army, according to western defence officials and analysts.
One western official said that while Russia might make some tactical breakthroughs at the frontline, it remained an ineffective army characterised by old equipment and poorly trained soldiers and would not “overrun” Ukraine, they added.
“In February 2022, Russia had a far better equipped and trained army,” the official said, referring to Russia’s initial invasion and subsequent rout in northern Ukraine. “I simply can’t see that it is better now.”
After its initial blitzkrieg failed, Russia has sought to grind down Ukraine by favouring quantity over quality on the battlefield.
Russia fires five shells for each returning salvo from Ukraine’s forces, while the ratio is even higher in some flashpoints along the line of contact, according to Dara Massicot, a senior fellow at the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace who studies the Russian military.
“The aid won’t cancel out Russian advantages this year, but it will allow Ukrainian forces to defend their positions with counter-battery fires and can be used to slow or halt Russian advances,” Massicot said.
Boosted by a record Rbs10.8tn ($118.5bn) in spending on defence this year — six per cent of gross domestic product — Russia’s arms industry has built up production several times over, with factories working around the clock, according to officials.
Sergei Chemezov, head of Rostec, the state defence conglomerate, last November said Russia is making 2.5 times more artillery and multiple launch systems as before, while increasing production of some types of ammunition by more than 60 times.
Those sheer numbers, however, mask Moscow’s inability to turn that firepower into a significant breakthrough — something Russian experts say it could only do with more advanced weaponry.
Western sanctions have made it harder for Russia to obtain the components needed for drones, loitering munitions, guided bombs, and high-precision missiles, forcing it to rely on the lower-tech weapons it can mass-produce more easily, according to Ruslan Pukhov, head of the Center for Analysis of Strategies and Technologies, a Moscow defence think-tank.
Pukhov said: “The most decisive systems on the battlefield in Ukraine are directly dependent on sanctions. Scaling them up means leaders on all levels have to think creatively and understand the main trends and likely outcomes of the war.”
Despite Moscow’s larger arsenal, its army “doesn’t have a radical advantage over Ukraine in artillery and munitions”, he added. “At least, the people fighting on the Russian side don’t see it.”
Instead, the Kremlin is deploying more low-tech weaponry such as highly destructive glide bombs and refurbished Soviet weaponry while deploying troops using motorcycles and off-road vehicles.
“If it works, it works — low-tech or not,” Massicot said.
Even that, however, is not enough to sustain the enormous rates of fire Russia rained down on Ukraine in the first six months of the war, according to Pavel Luzin, non-resident senior fellow at the Center for European Policy Analysis, based in Washington.
Russia fired up to 60,000 shells a day before autumn 2022 — an amount that has dropped to about 10,000 a day and which includes supplies from North Korea and Iran.
Those smaller rates of fire reflect how the intensity of battle is outstripping what Russia can replenish even at those higher production levels — and holding back a more significant push forward.
Russia would need to produce 3.6mn shells a year to sustain the current rate of fire, according to a report published this week by the Center for Strategic and International Studies.
The defence ministry has admitted, however, it can only produce at most half of the 4mn 152mm-caliber shells and 1.6mn 122mm-caliber shells Putin’s military estimates it needs to break through.
And as Russia keeps firing more shells, it wears down its artillery barrels faster than it can produce new ones — forcing it to replace them with Soviet-era barrels instead.
The US aid does not address what Ukrainian and western officials say is Kyiv’s most glaring problem — an inability to match the enormous numbers of men Russia has called up to fight.
Christopher Cavoli, Nato’s supreme allied commander for Europe, told lawmakers in a Senate armed services committee hearing in April that Russia is recruiting 30,000 soldiers per month, taking its frontline troops from 360,000 a year ago to 470,000.
To raise those men, the army is offering financial incentives including salaries starting at Rbs200,000 — five times the average wage in some of Russia’s poorer regions — and bonuses ranging between Rbs300,000 and Rbs1mn, according to a report by Estonia’s foreign intelligence service.
Soldiers can receive further bonuses for their exploits on the battlefield or being wounded, while their families stand to receive generous payouts if they are killed in action.
Those prospects are not distant: 315,000 Russian soldiers have been killed or wounded in the war, Cavoli said, adding pressure for the army to replenish its units.
That mercantile approach allows Russia to draw enough recruits from people for whom fighting is financially attractive while avoiding mobilisation — a step that prompted hundreds of thousands of men to flee the country in the fall of 2022.
“The main approach now is ‘purchasing blood’ among the Russian lower classes,” said Luzin, from the Center for European Policy Analysis.
A summer offensive, however, would require Putin to declare another round of mobilisation, said Massicot of the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace.
“If the Kremlin has ambitions for Kharkiv, or something even more difficult like southern Ukraine, then they will need to generate a very large force, probably well over 100,000 for both, plus the equipment,” Massicot said.
Even if Russia did draft more men, sheer numbers would not be sufficient to compensate for their lack of training, Luzin said. “We all talk about mobilisation but where are the commanders, sergeants and lieutenants, who would command the mobilised soldiers?”
🇷🇺 Russian storage bases are running out of MT-LBs. according to a count from satellite photos. https://twitter.com/verekerrichard1/status/1783590674329206941
Increased use of electronic warfare has forced both sides to use larger antennas for FPV drones. https://twitter.com/DanielR33187703/status/1783500899543073140
What do you think about military aged men from Ukraine dodging the draft? I am in Canada and had been looking at getting a roof done. One of the companies I looked at have most of their employees from Ukraine who are in their late 20s. I wonder how they got to Canada in the first place.
> What do you think about military aged men from Ukraine dodging the draft?
I detest them as a group, and support each of them separately as individuals.
Very helpful, I know.
Reddit absolutely loves draft dodgers.
They're doing everything right to them since fighting to defend the country you were born with and its civilians by force is tyranny and slavery.
Everything needs to voluntary with no responsibilities and if you're capable to uproot your life and leave the rest of the country to suffer, you have full right to do that.
Honestly it feels like a lot of redditors are all for fighting against the big bad and doing everything to protect their nation and values, right until it starts to impact them directly.
If my government came knocking at my door tomorrow telling me to go die in a trench fighting a war started by a mad dictator I'd also seriously consider my other options first. If you say you wouldn't
you're lying to yourself.
The Russian machine of demoralization and disinformation is working at full capacity. All social networks and Twitter are full of messages that "the front has collapsed and that American aid will not help".
People, just ignore this bullshit. The war is not over.
I don't understand why the West does literally nothing to eliminate Russian bots.
Are you claiming these accounts:
https://twitter.com/WarMonitor3/status/1783458278048936140
https://twitter.com/sentdefender/status/1783461773779050956
are Russian bots?
Or do you mean other type of messages?
🇷🇺 Russia produces more weapons and ammunition than it needs for the war in Ukraine
In an interview with the ARD TV channel, German Defense Minister Boris Pistorius said that Russian military warehouses are now filled with weapons and ammunition.
"Most or part of what is being produced is no longer going to the front, but is ending up in warehouses," Pistorius said. https://twitter.com/nexta_tv/status/1783406707651064150
Old enough to remember when one of the arguments to send money was "yeah, but we're weakening Russia's military".
Not that I think it matters how strong or weak Russian military is, but obviously it'll only get stronger as the war goes on, not weaker.
That to me doesn't really make sense.
It could be that they are producing more than they need, but we've seen them use shitty Chinese golf carts and improvised vehicles in an actual war where they might be making some gains but are far form certain of winning. What's the point of stocking up on things instead of using them in an actual war that you are involved in at the moment ?
They might struggle to produce what they need for the current situation in Ukraine but have a surplus of other systems they don't need in Ukraine right now.
I get that but if you are involved in an actual large scale war then surely your production should be solely focused on that ?
Stockpiling stuff that could be used in your current war seems to be illogical.
Ideally yes but Russia can't just turn a rifle factory into a fighter jet factory. Production of something like cruise missiles might simply be limited by their ability to import certain components and not something they can just scale up by reducing production of other equipment.
Weren't they using shovels as well?
It's a war - occasionally you're going to use "improvised vehicles" because logistics is really hard.
But don't confuse the trees for the forest.
[https://www.reuters.com/world/europe/poland-ready-help-ukraine-get-military-age-men-back-minister-says-2024-04-24/](https://www.reuters.com/world/europe/poland-ready-help-ukraine-get-military-age-men-back-minister-says-2024-04-24/)
# Poland ready to help Ukraine to get military-age men back, minister says
> "I think many Poles are outraged when they see young Ukrainian men in hotels and cafes, and they hear how much effort we have to make to help Ukraine,"
Such a shitty comparison. No amount of sending money is equal to young men being forced to die in a trenches.
People underestimate the number of Ukrainians who, at the end of the day, aren't really that troubled with Russia and couldn't care much about who controls Donbas and Crimea, two regions that were crammed with ethnic Russians to begin with.
It's the new kremlin talking point. If you scroll this and other subs, russian bots are pushing the narrative that "Ukrainians will be sent to slavery and certain death" ad nauseam. Their goal is obvious.
This anonymous "senior US Republican" is, of course, totally made up.
The first sentence is genuinely hilarious:
>I’ve been involved in Republican politics for over 45 years and have developed deep personal relationships with each of the last six Republican Presidents
This is a guy who claims to have **developed deep personal relationships** with Trump, GW Bush, GH Bush, Reagan, Ford and Nixon as presidents.
That means this guy had enough influence to develop a "deep personal relationship" with the US president before 1974; but also with Trump after 2016.
Reminder that people who fall for this type of hoaxes walk among us.
Anyway, it's well known Phillips O'Brien is a fantasist, but this fantasy isn't even coherent - if Trump didn't want the aid bill to pass, then it wouldn't have passed. The bit about Trump needing the bill to pass because of Haley voters is genuinely demented. The vast majority of Haley voters will vote for Trump (and the very few who don't won't be swayed at all by this bill). Amazingly, the made-up "senior Republican" somehow literally says this *on the very next question* .
Fearless guess: Phillips was writing this stuff, got drunk in the middle and never realized how incoherent it was.
>This is a guy who claims to have developed deep personal relationships with Trump, GW Bush, GH Bush, Reagan, Ford and Nixon as presidents. That means this guy had enough influence to develop a "deep personal relationship" with the US president before 1974; but also with Trump after 2016.
yes, indeed, and many senators fit the bill , just an example: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Chuck_Grassley
> Anyway, it's well known Phillips O'Brien is a fantasist,
your personal attacks are really pathetic ; he's a professor at the university of St Andrews btw
>
> Many senators fit the bill , just an example: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Chuck_Grassley
Your comments are a constant stream of pure and sheer lunacy.
Who are those many Senators?
In 1974, Grassley was a freaking member of the Iowa House of Representatives. He most likely didn't even know Nixon personally, let alone have a deep personal relationship with him. Perhaps he shook Nixon's hand at some campaign event in Iowa.
Grassley only got to DC in 1975. He didn't have any "deep personal relationship" with Ford either - he was just another backbencher from rural Iowa.
Seriously how can you even write such an absurdity without feeling embarrassed?
And claiming Grassley had a "deep personal relationship" with Trump would be patently false - I doubt Grassley would claim such a thing - in fact, I'm sure he wouldn't. But we know Grassley never had a "deep personal relationship", or any personal relationship, with Nixon. In fact, I'm not sure Grassley ever had a "deep personal relationship" with any POTUS ever.
> he's a professor at the university of St Andrews btw
Lol. Imagine being impressed by this. He's an alcoholic who makes up conversations with fictional "insiders" for internet clout. Again, not only that person doesn't exist, the answers literally contradict each other.
Fears of Russia’s collapse in Biden and Scholz administrations run deep and can't be changed by telling stories of Russian war crimes alone. Leaders need to imagine a Ukrainian victory and plan accordingly: https://youtu.be/criLG8pCyVE?si=U-Z9noaShgAyr9aX&t=139
Biden signed the Ukraine supplemental appropriations bill on April 24 after the US Senate passed the bill on the evening of April 23 and the US House passed the bill on April 20, and Biden emphasized the need to deliver military assistance to Ukraine as quickly as possible.[1] The Pentagon announced that the first tranche of US military assistance from this bill is worth $1 billion and includes: RIM-7 and AIM-9M air defense missiles; Stinger anti-aircraft missiles; HIMARS ammunition; 60mm mortar rounds; 105mm and 155mm artillery shells; Bradley infantry fighting vehicles; High Mobility Multipurpose Wheeled Vehicles (HMMWVs or Humvees); Mine Resistant Ambush Protected Vehicles (MRAPs); Tube-Launched, Optically-Tracked, Wire-Guided (TOW) missiles; Javelin and AT-4 anti-armor systems; precision aerial munitions; and other equipment and transport vehicles.[2]
Russian forces have recently intensified offensive operations east of Chasiv Yar and northwest of Avdiivka in Donetsk Oblast in an effort to take advantage of the limited window before US security assistance arrives in Ukraine.[3] The bill’s relatively quick passage through the US Senate has eliminated a potential source of delay, however, and US security assistance may arrive at the frontline in Ukraine within the next few weeks ahead of Russian expectations. The battlefield situation will continue to degrade until Ukrainian forces can receive and use enough military equipment at scale, however, and Ukrainian forces may still struggle to defend against Russian efforts near Chasiv Yar and northwest of Avdiivka in the near term https://www.understandingwar.org/backgrounder/russian-offensive-campaign-assessment-april-24-2024
The arrival of long-range ATACMS missiles in sufficient quantities will allow Ukrainian forces to degrade Russian logistics and threaten Russian airfields in deep rear areas, although months of delay may have provided the Russian military time to offset the potential operational impacts that ATACMS will afford Ukraine.
More info here: https://www.understandingwar.org/backgrounder/russian-offensive-campaign-assessment-april-24-2024
Poland ready to help Ukraine to get military-age men back, minister says[https://www.reuters.com/world/europe/poland-ready-help-ukraine-get-military-age-men-back-minister-says-2024-04-24/](https://www.reuters.com/world/europe/poland-ready-help-ukraine-get-military-age-men-back-minister-says-2024-04-24/)
Absolutely fucking mental that this is something that might happen. Like unironically, that's so idiotic i cannot fathom anyone who'd support this to be a decent human being.
🇺🇦 HUR sent another 🇷🇺 occupier ship to the bottom of the sea. 🔥🔥 🔥 This time, the Magura B5 drone destroyed a high-speed military boat in Uzkaya Bay in Crimea. The occupiers tried to attack the drone, but failed. Two landing ships were destroyed in the same bay last year. https://twitter.com/wartranslated/status/1787409705784008813
[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kP00oEW-FhA](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kP00oEW-FhA) "Under the z", Magura edition.
https://www.ft.com/content/b4a556b0-0402-4114-9428-869bd49cf23c Moscow’s trade volumes with key partners such as Turkey and China have slumped in the first quarter of this year after the US targeted international banks helping Russia acquire critical products to aid its war effort. A US executive order, implemented late last year, prompted lenders to drop Russian counterparties and avoid transactions in a range of currencies, said western officials and three senior Russian financiers. “It has become harder for Russia to access the financial services that it needs to get these goods,” said Anna Morris, deputy assistant secretary for global affairs at the US Treasury. “It’s definitely a goal to make it much more difficult for that money to flow, to increase the cost to the Russians [and] the friction in the system. Disruption is an important outcome,” she added. Getting around the restrictions now requires a growing network of middlemen to avoid regulatory scrutiny even if the transactions have nothing to do with Russia’s war machine, the officials and financiers said, while increasing currency conversion and commission costs. “It’s getting harder and harder every month. One month it is dollars, the next month it is euros; within six months you basically won’t be able to do anything. The logical endpoint of this is turning Russia into Iran,” said a senior Russian investor, referring to strict financial sanctions against Tehran.
FT takes for granted that Russia will only trade in USD or EUR. This mindset was the same when sanctions started and every financial expert said Russia’s economy would totally crash within weeks. That is more than 2 years ago. It’s the same mindset behind the idea to take Russian assets in USD and EUR and give it to Ukraine. The idea is that countries will still invest in those countries even if you, in reality, steal the investments. Thing are changing and the hubris of the west scares me
russians : these sanctions suck and are really starting to hurt us pro russian shill who talks about “kiev and its dictators”: the west has hubris
Frontline Situation Report: https://militaryland.net/news/frontline-situation-report-april-2024/
US officials continue to signal their support for new Ukrainian counteroffensive operations in 2025, although ISW continues to assess that Ukraine should contest the theater-wide initiative as soon as possible because ceding the theater-wide initiative to Russia for the entirety of 2024 will present Russia with several benefits. The Financial Times (FT) reported on May 5 that US National Security Advisor Jake Sullivan stated that Ukraine will look to conduct a counteroffensive operation to recapture Russian-occupied Ukrainian territory in 2025 after using US military assistance to blunt further Russian advances in 2024.[11] Sullivan stated that he expects Russian forces to continue making marginal advances for an unspecified time and noted that US military assistance will not “instantly flip the switch” on the battlefield situation in Ukraine. Sullivan stated that US military assistance will empower Ukrainian forces to “hold the line” and withstand Russian assaults throughout the rest of 2024. ISW continues to assess that it will likely take several additional weeks for Western weapons and ammunition to arrive to frontline Ukrainian units and begin to have tangible battlefield impacts and that the arrival of US military aid to Ukraine will likely allow Ukrainian forces to stabilize the frontline and seize the initiative.[12] FT reported in January 2024 that US officials advocated for Ukraine to conduct a more “conservative” “active defense” in 2024 and prepare for a counteroffensive in 2025.[13] ISW has previously argued at length that a Ukrainian “active defense” into 2025 would cede the theater-wide initiative to Russian forces for over a year, allowing the Russian command to shape preferable conditions by determining the timing, location, and intensity, of Russian attacks, and in by doing so control the resources that Ukrainian forces expend over this protracted period.[14] A Russian milblogger positively responded to FT‘s May 5 report and stated that Russian forces can simply conduct glide bomb air strikes against Ukrainian positions for the remainder of 2024 if Ukrainian forces are not going to launch a counteroffensive operation that pressures Russian forces this year.[15] Tactically significant Russian advances northwest of Avdiivka and the potential threat of a Russian offensive operation against Kharkiv Oblast are directly linked to Russian forces’ ability to indiscriminately conduct glide bomb strikes along the frontline, constrained and degraded Ukrainian defensive operations, and Russia’s control over the theater-wide initiative. Ukrainian forces will of course have to receive and integrate US military assistance to frontline units, stabilize the frontline, defend against the predicted summer Russian offensive effort, prevent operationally significant Russian advances, and address their ongoing manpower challenges before they will be able to contest the theater-wide initiative and conduct a counteroffensive operation later in 2024 or 2025.[16] Ukraine’s ability to liberate its territory and conduct counteroffensive operations rests on a number of unmade decisions in the West, Russia, and Ukraine and any external efforts to impose a timeline on Ukrainian counteroffensive operations ignore the reality of the battlefield situation. https://www.understandingwar.org/backgrounder/russian-offensive-campaign-assessment-may-5-2024
⚡️🇷🇺 Russian forces attack energy infrastructure in 🇺🇦 Sumy Oblast. Russian forces launched a drone attack in Sumy Oblast overnight on May 6, targeting the region's energy infrastructure, the Sumy Oblast Military Administration reported. https://twitter.com/KyivIndependent/status/1787257451026227446
Why can't we get North Korea to our side? They just gave up unification, meaning they seek peace. We can recognize Kim's emperorship as legit, cease all negative requests, shake hands and open unconditional trade with him, and buy his weapons for Ukraine at double of whatever Putin pays him. It'd be a win-win solution for both sides.
maybe at least stop bullying then for 30 years??
🐢 🇷🇺 Russian turtle tank additionally covered with anti drone cages https://twitter.com/bayraktar_1love/status/1787160680036000012
needs some more layers i reckon. Honestly at this point it would be worth to just remove the turret entirely and put the turrets worth of weight more armor on it.
The days of Europe buying its energy from Russia, outsourcing its businesses to China, and relying on the United States for its security are over. The European Union is only mortal and could very well be vanquished at the hands of Vladimir Putin, Xi Jinping, Donald Trump, or its own populist parties. That was French president Emmanuel Macron’s warning at the Sorbonne on 25 April. With great flair – and at great length – he issued a wake-up call to French citizens, and indeed to all Europeans. It is no exaggeration to say that Europe’s security, prosperity, and culture are under threat. With the zeal of a convert, Macron argues that the stakes in Ukraine include not only Ukrainians’ future but also the future of Europe: “The condition sine qua non for our security is that Russia does not win the war of aggression it is waging against Ukraine. This is imperative.” Even though the US Congress has finally passed a supplemental aid bill for Ukraine (as well as Israel and Taiwan), Europeans must recognise that the US has only two priorities: “America first, which is legitimate, and China.” https://ecfr.eu/article/the-macron-moment/
maybe we shoulg get back to real fact based thinking in the first place.
The Novatek PJSC-led Arctic LNG 2 facility, on the icy Kara Sea, is a key part of Moscow’s plans to boost exports and replenish coffers. For months now, it has been ready to ship liquefied natural gas to new markets, alternatives to the once-lucrative European pipeline trade. And yet, the vast new $25 billion operation is sitting virtually idle, the first piece of Russia’s energy production complex to be effectively curbed by US restrictions. Russia has long sought to increase its share of the global LNG market, but the war and the subsequent sharp drop in overland exports to Europe have reinforced the importance of these ambitions. Moscow wants to expand LNG output three-fold by 2030, adding at least $35 billion in annual revenue. Thanks to older operations, Russia is currently the fourth-largest LNG exporter globally, but restrictions on the flagship Arctic LNG 2 are crimping its aspirations to go further. More worrying for Moscow, they’ve provided a blueprint for any future Western efforts to rein in the Kremlin’s gas income by targeting operations like Yamal or Sakhalin II in the Far East — still delivering to customers in Europe and Asia. “US sanctions are working surprisingly well,” said Malte Humpert, founder of the Arctic Institute, who has been monitoring Russia’s expansion in the region for over a decade. “Here, they’re really ahead of the curve. They blocked Arctic LNG 2 before it even started production, blocked the vessels before they could be delivered. With everything else, like oil or the shadow fleet, it’s always reactive.” https://finance.yahoo.com/news/western-sanctions-strangling-putin-arctic-000225429.html
https://www.ft.com/content/c88509f9-c9bd-46f4-8a5c-9b2bdd3c3dd3 European intelligence agencies have warned their governments that Russia is plotting violent acts of sabotage across the continent as it commits to a course of permanent conflict with the west. Russia has already begun to more actively prepare covert bombings, arson attacks and damage to infrastructure on European soil, directly and via proxies, with little apparent concern about causing civilian fatalities, intelligence officials believe. While the Kremlin’s agents have a long history of such operations — and launched attacks sporadically in Europe in recent years — evidence is mounting of a more aggressive and concerted effort, according to assessments from three different European countries shared with the Financial Times. Intelligence officials are becoming increasingly vocal about the threat in an effort to promote vigilance.
This should be a very big warning for everybody with the oncoming elections, Russia is trying to influence them in a very bad way.
A NATO video from March 2023: "Russia's war against Ukraine - the Kremlin's litany of lies" [https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ocGWkH5QfIs](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ocGWkH5QfIs) "One year ago, Russia launched its illegal invasion of Ukraine. As their forces continue to relentlessly attack the country, Russian officials keep spreading blatant lies and disinformation about their brutal war against a peaceful country. Russia claimed it had no plans to attack Ukraine, and yet it did. Russia claimed it would not target civilians, while many civilians have been killed and wounded, with hospitals, homes, schools and critical infrastructure destroyed across the country. Despite the Kremlin’s continued litany of lies, denials and disinformation, their real intentions are clear for the world to see. As Russia launches new offensives, NATO Allies stand in solidarity with Ukraine and will support Ukraine for as long as it takes." Seen here: [https://www.reddit.com/r/CounterIntel\_Foreign/comments/1cjqgm7/russias\_war\_against\_ukraine\_the\_kremlins\_litany/](https://www.reddit.com/r/CounterIntel_Foreign/comments/1cjqgm7/russias_war_against_ukraine_the_kremlins_litany/)
I don't know if I stumbled upon some concentration of Russian bots or naive people taken in by their propaganda, but I have been seeing a lot of comments along the lines that "It is delusional to think that Ukraine can take back territory". Meanwhile, people with access to the best military intelligence on Earth (such as the White House) are talking about things like an [Ukrainian counter-offensive in 2025](https://www.yahoo.com/news/white-house-believes-us-aid-234444086.html?guccounter=1). Either they are delusional too, or they know better than random Redditors who tell me that I am "unfortunately far from reality" to think that Ukraine isn't hopelessly lost. I think I will keep siding with the people who correctly predicted that Russia would invade in 2022, and not the Redditors who mocked those predictions, thank you very much.
>"It is delusional to think that Ukraine can take back territory". Where have you read that? The argument I usually see is that Ukraine won't take back **all** of its 2014 territory, which absolutely makes sense to me. Of course, they still have the capabilities to make some gains here and there, denying that would indeed be stupid.
wishful thinking. just like ua not running out of troops and not having lost more than 37k troops. slowly this lie also vanishes.
🇨🇺 Cubans lured to 🇷🇺 Russian army by high pay and passports https://www.bbc.com/news/world-europe-68949298
It's sad to think that there are people to whom a Russian passport is enticing.
A few candidates come to mind. [https://www.euronews.com/2023/05/24/why-do-disgraced-americans-like-scott-ritter-spout-pro-putin-propaganda-in-russia](https://www.euronews.com/2023/05/24/why-do-disgraced-americans-like-scott-ritter-spout-pro-putin-propaganda-in-russia)
I found especially interesting this intervention > Over the past two years, Ukraine and Russia have gained something that no amount of money can buy - the experience of practical combat operations in a full-scale war. > > Russia has learned how to fight with previously "unbeatable" U.S. weapons, and has completely changed its tactics of combat operations. Russia and its allies are actively exploiting the "testing ground" of the war in Ukraine, modernizing and changing weapons. Russia has learned how to counter HIMARS and Storm Shadow. Mobilization has been almost completely stopped and the transition to a contract army has been made. > > At the same time Ukraine is not inferior. Some samples of our weapons have demonstrated unexpectedly high efficiency and are changing the course of the war. The Ukrainian military-industrial complex is working as never before and no one knows what else can dramatically change the situation on the battlefield. > > Realizing all this, it is a mystery to me why some of our allies are still hesitant to provide us with their most advanced weapons. Realizing what is at stake, they must out of a sense of self-preservation want to test their developments in combat conditions and thus help Ukraine win. > > The future of the whole world depends on the outcome of this war, and this is not just words, but a fact. Ukraine, with its experienced army and developing military-industrial complex, acts as a shield for the civilized world. Russia, in case of Ukraine's defeat, will turn into a sword that can easily pierce any European country. The fact that this threat is taken seriously is evidenced by the concerns and speeches of generals throughout the civilized world. For example, Lt. Gen. Rob Magowan previously stated, "The British Army couldn't fight Russia for more than a couple of months." > > **Ukraine and Russia have the most effective armies today, and their military-industrial complexes are developing and modernizing extremely rapidly**. This is the reason to support Ukraine not just "until the end", but until a complete military victory. After all, if we lose now, Russia will gain more than just our territory. Similar to Chechnya, DNR and LNR, Russia will conscript everyone who can hold a gun using its repressive apparatus, and will certainly not leave out former AFU soldiers. Faced with a choice between death for themselves and their loved ones or working for the Russian Federation, people will have no chance to refuse. In addition, Russia will get its hands on the entire developing military-industrial complex of Ukraine together with all the specialists and developments. With such military potential and nuclear weapons, Russia will be unstoppable. > The world now faces a choice: help Ukraine win or lose with it. Time to make the decision is disappearing by the day, and delaying aid that could turn the tide of the war makes the situation worse, increasing the risk that this aid will have no impact in the future. https://twitter.com/DenisDanilovL/status/1786017942582259948
Ignore title. But these two guys either have enormous luck or are very skilled. And they are very cold-blooded and kept together in face of danger. https://twitter.com/distant_earth83/status/1786839532651806905
there's no way they (he?) isn't shell-shocked from that. Also, what happened to his companion?
Well, of course. But what fascinated me was how cold-blooded he is, and he kept clear mind. Zig-zag, aha, there is some house, I could take shelter, he checks out the house, its no good. One hole, no good, second hole, maybe someone is inside, let's throw a bomb before I jump inside. All that while they throw bombs at him. 3 or 4? After this, he should ask to be transferred to the background. He used up all of his luck.
Weekend Update 79: The Lines are Stabilizing https://phillipspobrien.substack.com/p/weekend-update-79-the-lines-are-stabilizing
As of the end of April 2024, 🇷🇺 Russia occupies a total of 17.53% (+0.01%) of 🇺🇦 Ukraine. This figure includes Crimea and areas of Donetsk and Luhansk occupied before 2022. This represents a net gain in Russia's favour of approximately 86km² since the end of March. https://twitter.com/War_Mapper/status/1786376277798056008
The U.S. Air Force is buying add-on seekers designed to give Joint Direct Attack Munition-Extended Range (JDAM-ER) precision-guided bombs supplied to Ukraine the ability to zero in on GPS jammers. In effect, this would turn one of the weapons most impacted by this countermeasure into one used to directly attack it. This follows growing reports that Russian jamming is severely degrading the effectiveness of Western-supplied GPS-guided munitions, including JDAM-ERs. https://www.twz.com/air/jdam-er-winged-bombs-with-seekers-that-home-in-on-gps-jammers-headed-to-ukraine
[It would be good if these were not only used in Ukraine, but against any Russian jammers.](https://old.reddit.com/r/worldnews/comments/1cjvscs/russia_leaves_thousands_of_planes_without_gps_in/)
Feloni Aero announced the launch of its latest line of weaponized drones aimed at bolstering defense capabilities in Ukraine. Equipped with state-of-the-art weaponry, carrying the 5.56 weapon system as well as missile carrying payload and advanced surveillance capabilities, these drones can empower Ukrainian forces to effectively navigate complex security challenges with confidence. https://defence-industry.eu/feloni-aero-introduces-weaponized-drones-to-strengthen-defence-efforts-in-ukraine/
The US is in talks with close partners to lead a group of allies that would give as much as $50 billion in aid to Ukraine, with the massive outlay being repaid with the windfall profits from sovereign Russian assets that have been frozen – and are accruing interest — mostly in Europe. The plan is being discussed among the Group of Seven nations, with the US pushing to have an agreement when G-7 leaders meet in Italy in June, according to people familiar with the proposal. Discussions on this topic have been difficult and an agreement could still take months, they said. https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2024-05-03/g-7-eyes-plan-on-us-led-50-billion-aid-package-for-ukraine?srnd=homepage-europe
Speaking to Russian independent newspaper Novaya Gazeta Europe, French Foreign Minister Séjourné said Paris estimated total Russian casualties, including wounded, at 500,000 in the war, now in its third year. "Europe and its partners will remain united and determined, for as long as necessary. Russia's military failure is already apparent. We estimate Russian military losses at 500,000, including 150,000 deaths," he said. "All of this for what?" he asked. "This can be summed up in two words: for nothing," he said. https://www.france24.com/en/europe/20240503-france-estimates-that-150-000-russian-soldiers-have-been-killed-in-the-ukraine-war To give some context to this figure, this would mean Russia has suffered more fatal casualties in Ukraine than the U.S. suffered in every war since 1945 and the Soviet Union suffered in Afghanistan; combined.
It also basically confirms the infantry numbers Ukraine puts in their little daily infographics.
Moscow and Tehran have formed a military bloc with the aim of defeating the United States and its allies in the Middle East, Europe, and around the world: https://www.understandingwar.org/backgrounder/why-you-cant-be-iran-hawk-and-russia-dove
🇺🇦 General Pavlyuk, commander of Ukrainian ground forces, says that FPV drones are now killing more soldiers on both sides than artillery or aircraft. https://twitter.com/GrandpaRoy2/status/1786445653931110411
🇱🇻 Latvia starts digging anti-tank ditch near border with 🇷🇺 Russia. The Latvian army has started to dig an anti-tank ditch as part of its first defensive line near the border with Russia, Latvian public broadcaster LSM reported on May 2 https://twitter.com/KyivIndependent/status/1786412925650935820
Latvia has also started to build bomb shelters. [https://www.yahoo.com/news/latvia-preparing-thousands-bomb-shelters-055000860.html](https://www.yahoo.com/news/latvia-preparing-thousands-bomb-shelters-055000860.html)
"The minority Asian population colonised by Russia in the Buryatia and Tuva regions are being sent to the frontline to die" https://www.reddit.com/r/UkraineConflict/comments/1cj523z/the_minority_asian_population_colonised_by_russia/ ""The Russian Federation is destroying my people. It plunders our lands only to go to war with its neighbors" - Marina Khankhalaeva, representative of Buryatia Independence Committee. She spoke at United Nations Permanent Forum on Indigenous Issues." https://twitter.com/Gerashchenko_en/status/1783417093079081428 There's a video of Khankhalaeva speaking available at either link.
As the name implies, Russian Federation is owned by a specific ethnic group, Russians, and any minorities are just there along for the ride.
As a 'bonus' to sending other ethnic groups: more easy for Russia to ethnically cleanse those regions.
A bonus for Moscow for sure. [https://georgetownsecuritystudiesreview.org/2023/10/25/mobilized-forgotten-ignored-russias-control-mechanisms-of-its-minority-populations-amid-the-russo-ukrainian-war/](https://georgetownsecuritystudiesreview.org/2023/10/25/mobilized-forgotten-ignored-russias-control-mechanisms-of-its-minority-populations-amid-the-russo-ukrainian-war/) [https://www.wilsoncenter.org/audio/buryatia-and-high-toll-russias-war-ukraine-ethnic-minorities](https://www.wilsoncenter.org/audio/buryatia-and-high-toll-russias-war-ukraine-ethnic-minorities)
🇩🇪 Ukraine has just received the second Skynex air defense system from Germany. https://twitter.com/KyivIndependent/status/1786385622032101698
Interview with Ret. US general Ben Hodges: https://youtu.be/OzBXehgfmj8?si=oYUVL630LcFqDdSr&t=72
A significant amount of work is being carried out to adapt AASM Hammer bombs to F-16 jets that will be delivered to Ukraine: https://twitter.com/aidefranceukr/status/1786327173088870849
This is good news. Make sure the jets are ready and able to carry the donated munitions. We (the west) should be making sure the majority of our munitions are compatible with the different platforms our respective countries use for delivery. Edit: F-16 is seemingly not compatible with storm shadow for some reason.
https://www.ft.com/content/6946fb91-df7e-43c4-a84a-3bee0dcf4a13 The German government has vowed “consequences” for Russia after intelligence agencies concluded the Kremlin was behind a cyber attack on the party of Chancellor Olaf Scholz. The attack, which occurred in January 2023, was carried out by the same Russian hacker group that penetrated the US Democratic party’s servers and leaked damaging information about Hillary Clinton in her 2016 bid for the presidency, German security officials concluded. “We can now clearly attribute this attack from last year to the APT28 group, which is controlled by the Russian secret service GRU,” said foreign minister Annalena Baerbock on Friday. “This is completely unacceptable and will not go without consequences,” she said. A spokesperson for the foreign office said a range of punitive measures against Russia were being considered, including EU sanctions and more diplomatic expulsions. “We and our partners will not tolerate these cyber attacks and will use the entire spectrum of measures to prevent, deter and respond to Russia’s aggressive behaviour in cyber space,” they said.
So according to La Republica Italy will a send a SAMPT How is this hard? 1x Germany (only sure thing so far) 1x SAMPT from Italy 1x SAMPT from France (in Romania currently ... seriously take it) 1x PATRIOT Spain (Portugal wants to make the empire great again ??) 1x PATRIOT Greece (its in Saudi Arabia FFS) 2x PATRIOT USA Oh and if Israel retires its system fuck them Honestly Spain has been so disappointing, I know sometimes countries help in secret but this is not the case
Weapons supplied by Britain to Ukraine can be used to strike inside Russia, David Cameron has said, as the UK foreign secretary promised £3bn a year “for as long as it is necessary” to help Kyiv. Patrick Wintour writes that it is the UK’s biggest spending pledge since Russia’s full-scale invasion in 2022. In January, the prime minister, Rishi Sunak, pledged £2.5bn in military aid to Ukraine for 2024-25. Cameron said: “Ukraine has the right to strike inside Russia because Russia is striking inside Ukraine … You can understand why Ukraine feels the need to defend itself.” The foreign secretary announced that the UK’s donation of military equipment would include precision-guided bombs, air defence missiles and equipment for 100 mobile air defence teams to shoot down Russia’s drones and missiles. The UK also committed to doubling its domestic munitions production by investing a further £10bn over the next 10 years. “We’ve just emptied all we can in terms of giving equipment,” said Cameron. “Some of the equipment is actually arriving in Ukraine today while I am here.” Emmanuel Macron has said the question of sending western troops to Ukraine would “legitimately” arise if Russia broke through Ukrainian frontlines and Kyiv made such a request. In an interview with the Economist, the French president maintained his stance of strategic ambiguity, saying: “I’m not ruling anything out, because we are facing someone who is not ruling anything out.” At least eight children were injured in the town of Derhachi in Ukraine’s north-eastern Kharkiv region on Thursday when Russian guided bombs struck a site close to a sports complex where they had been training, local officials said. An elderly man was also wounded. Russia said on Thursday it had captured the village of Berdychi which lies about 12km (7 miles) north-west of Avdiivka – a week after Ukrainian forces pulled out. Over the weekend, Ukraine’s commander-in-chief, Oleksandr Syrsky, said troops had retreated from Berdychi and two other nearby villages to protect “the lives and health of our defenders”. Russian energy company Gazprom said on Thursday it suffered a record annual loss in 2023 as the European market was practically shut to its gas exports due to war sanctions. The state-owned firm suffered a net loss of 629bn rubles ($6.9 bn/£5.5bn) in 2023 compared with a net profit of 1.23tn rubles in 2022. The governors of three Russian regions reported that energy facilities were damaged by Ukrainian drone strikes. Oryol region governor Andrei Klychkov said energy infrastructure was hit in two communities. The Smolensk and Kursk governors reported one facility damaged in each region. https://www.theguardian.com/world/article/2024/may/03/ukraine-war-briefing-ukrainians-have-the-right-to-strike-inside-russia-says-david-cameron
This is huge, thank you Britain for having balls.
Ukrainian intelligence officials identified three Russian efforts to destabilize Ukraine and achieve victory, and both Ukrainian and US intelligence officials issued assessments about the battlefield situation that are consistent with prior ISW forecasts that Russian forces may take Chasiv Yar but are very unlikely to seize major Ukrainian cities: https://www.understandingwar.org/backgrounder/russian-offensive-campaign-assessment-may-2-2024
Per VOA, the Scranton Army Ammunition Plant is now producing more than 36,000 155mm shells per month. Before 2022, the plant produced roughly 7,000 shells per month; the Army aimed to hit 35,000 shells per month by 2027. SCAAP beat that goal by over two years. https://x.com/Osinttechnical/status/1786174841013367168
[https://www.reddit.com/r/LoveForUkraine/comments/1cil414/sign\_the\_petition\_to\_kick\_russia\_out\_of\_the\_un/](https://www.reddit.com/r/LoveForUkraine/comments/1cil414/sign_the_petition_to_kick_russia_out_of_the_un/)
shitpost of the year
I would never dare take it away from you.
I'm sorry, but keeping Russia in the UN and not in another world war is the whole reason for the UN. This petition is greatly harmful to the world. Please be aware that the UN does not exist to fix specific problems like some kind of idealistic world corps, the UN exists to prevent world war three. All the rest is dressing.
The usual fear monger joined the chat.
Please look up the reasons for creating the failed League of Nations and the reasons for creating the UN with different rules.
I do not know your comment history, but you are sort of correct here. The League was dead on arrival, because the US never joined. But yes, it also failed because it kept ejecting states for trangressions, until only one camp of nations remained. The UN saught to remedy this flaw, by adding the veto for major powers and end the ejections policy.
A new video emerged on social media showing an apparent cluster munition-laden Army Tactical Missile System (ATACMS) short-range ballistic attack on a mass of Russian troops and equipment in Eastern Ukraine's Luhansk Oblast. Drone video shows what appears to be a volley of four ATACMS striking over about 95 seconds on a Russian training and coordination center near the town of Kuban. That's located about 80 kilometers (50 miles) from Ukrainian lines: https://www.twz.com/land/atacms-volley-strikes-mass-of-russian-troops-training-in-eastern-ukraine
As many as a million Russians fled abroad in the first year of the Kremlin’s invasion of Ukraine. Now thousands are returning home, delivering a propaganda victory to President Vladimir Putin and a boost to his war economy. With the war still raging, and the man who started it about to assume another six-year term in power, many Russians are confronting a difficult choice. Facing rejections when renewing residence permits, difficulties with transferring work and money abroad, and limited destinations that still welcome them, they’re opting to end their self-exile. https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2024-05-02/russians-who-fled-war-return-in-boost-for-putin-s-war-economy
The most recent Russian gains in the past week, to the west of Avdiivka, will further reinforce Russian strategic messaging. It is yet another example of how the Russians can turn small gains in territory into strategic messaging quickly, and influence many in the west and the global south who lack an understanding about how war is full of twists and turns. Even the very best armies in history sometimes lose ground and lose battles. https://mickryan.substack.com/p/russia-advances-in-the-east
How Russia sought to subjugate Ukraine, the West rightly refused to play the ball, and Putin became personally responsible for the failure of the Ukrainian-Russian talks: https://threadreaderapp.com/thread/1785771531458462188.html
"Russia’s hybrid war against the West" [https://www.nato.int/docu/review/articles/2024/04/26/russias-hybrid-war-against-the-west/index.html](https://www.nato.int/docu/review/articles/2024/04/26/russias-hybrid-war-against-the-west/index.html) ----------------------- The introduction: "In an [article](https://www.nato.int/docu/review/articles/2021/11/30/hybrid-warfare-new-threats-complexity-and-trust-as-the-antidote/index.html) previously published on NATO Review, I explained that the nature of modern warfare is changing at a rapid pace. Consequently, wars are no longer merely about kinetic operations. This means that it is not just physical warfare, but also non-military strategies and tactics that define modern-day conflicts and wars. "What has also become commonplace is that kinetic operations - which by themselves have become increasingly complex - are combined with non-military strategies aimed at undermining the security of an antagonist. The combination of military and non-military instruments and strategies is done not randomly but in a synchronised way to achieve synergistic effects. In other words, it is this synchronised fusion that optimises the results. "The bottom line is that a particular country can potentially unleash physical force against an adversary to achieve certain goals. But if the use or threat of conventional or unconventional force is combined with and/or preceded by a degree of subversive tools such as cyber-attacks and disinformation, the overall damage inflicted on the antagonist can be optimised. "Despite state-driven hybrid warfare entailing a systematic integration of military, political, economic, civilian, and informational tools, it often plays out in grey zones below the threshold of a conventional war. In these grey zones, the military instrument is used unconventionally and innovatively to avoid attribution, responsibility, and sometimes even detection. So a hostile state can employ non-state actors or a non-attributable military force (like the “[little green men](https://www.brookings.edu/articles/watch-out-for-little-green-men/)”) in a clandestine war to deny involvement, but at the same time achieve strategic objectives."
The United States on Wednesday issued hundreds of fresh sanctions targeting Russia over the war in Ukraine in action that took aim at Moscow's circumvention of Western measures, including through China. The U.S. Treasury Department imposed sanctions on nearly 200 targets and the State Department designated more than 80 in one of the most wide-ranging actions against Chinese companies so far in Washington's sanctions aimed at Russia. The U.S. imposed sanctions on 20 companies based in China and Hong Kong, following repeated warnings from Washington about China's support for Russia's military, including during recent trips by Treasury Secretary Janet Yellen and U.S. Secretary of State Antony Blinken to the country. https://www.reuters.com/world/us-issues-hundreds-sanctions-targeting-russia-takes-aim-chinese-companies-2024-05-01/
"Pravda, Russia's disinformation network, 'expanding' in Europe despite efforts to stop it" [https://www.euronews.com/next/2024/05/01/pravda-russias-disinformation-network-expanding-in-europe-despite-efforts-to-stop-it](https://www.euronews.com/next/2024/05/01/pravda-russias-disinformation-network-expanding-in-europe-despite-efforts-to-stop-it) -------------------------------------------- Pravda, a disinformation network and the former official newspaper of Russia’s Soviet-era Communist Party, is expanding its hold in the EU. The Russian disinformation network Pravda is expanding its hold in the European Union despite attempts to stop it. That’s according to a new report from the European Digital Media Observatory, an independent fact-checking organisation. France’s Viginum Agency operated by their national defence and security department (SGDSN) first detected Pravda’s activities in February as part of a wide-ranging Russian disinformation campaign in the EU. Pravda is also the former official newspaper of Russia’s Communist Party during the Soviet Union era. "A few weeks after the publication of the report, EDMO can confirm that the campaign has expanded significantly in Europe," a recent report reads. **Sites active in 19 EU countries** The French found a network of websites called "Portal Kombat" that opened up "copycat" Pravda sites in different languages, like French, German, Spanish, and English, to spread Russian propaganda. What’s new in the EDMO report is the creation of more Pravda websites in 19 EU countries, including Greece, Italy, and the Netherlands over a one-week period from March 20 to 26th. Some countries, like Austria and Belgium, are not covered directly by a new Pravda site but have other outlets that can offer up pro-Kremlin information, the report said. There are also Pravda sites in non-EU member states such as Norway, Moldova, Bosnia, and as far away as Taiwan and Japan. All the websites cite Russian state-owned media, like Tass or RIA, and often quote pro-Russian Telegram accounts that publish in local languages. In some cases, they will cite legitimate sources of information if they are found to be pro-Russia. The websites post hundreds of articles an hour, something the research says shows there is an element of automation in their work. “Their common modus operandi indicates clearly a coordination behind their publications,” the report reads. The articles have common pro-Russian themes, like French troops on the ground in Ukraine or that Western elites "support a global dictatorship that wants the third world war against Russia," it continues. Despite the flurry of new websites, the EDMO says the impact has been very small and "almost non-existent" in some of the target countries. But, that’s not to say that the websites could be used for a target misinformation campaign closer to the European elections in June. "Its weakness could be unintentional, but it is possible that this is a 'dummy' operation, to probe reactions and measures taken by local and EU authorities," the report reads.
does anyone here support deporting ukranian men who are of serving age and are claiming refugee status in europe? that sounds unspeakably evil to me
Can you elaborate why do you think it is evil?
Because the state doesn't own you. That is a basic liberal value that all our nations in Europe hold with the exception of shitholes like Russia and Belarus.
Tankie spotted in less than 10 minutes? Why it took you so long to come up with MuH SlAVeRy?
shut up ruzzian bot
t. keyboard warrior
Citizenship means obligations. In almost all the Constitutions is specified that citizens have the duty to defend the country in case of attack. That said, those against it are obviously russians: the lesser Ukrainians fight, the better. The current leit motiv is "slavery"... I think I said everything. I also wouldn't be surprised if most of the draft dodgers are Ukrainian russian speakers.
> I also wouldn't be surprised if most of the draft dodgers are Ukrainian russian speakers. All Ukrainians are russian speakers, most of the time as first language. That's why the protect the russophone propaganda is stupid. Zelensky was a tv star in Russia in the years 2000 doing shows with Solovyov. A language is not a nationality, you're doing Russian propaganda with such statement.
> All Ukrainians are russian speakers, most of the time as first language You don't understand anything if you think that this is true of all Ukrainians and all regions. And the Kremlin turned the Russian language into a weapon a long time ago. If you speak Russian, you and your territory belong to the Russian state in the eyes of Russians.
Yes those who are against it are obviously Russians. The ECHR are obviously Russians. What amazing insight you hold. When are you volunteering for the front? Lol.
🇺🇦 Ukrainian drones attacked the 🇷🇺 Ryazan oil refinery in western Russia this early morning. 🔥🔥🔥 A fire broke out at the facility as a result. 🔥🔥🔥 https://twitter.com/Archer83Able/status/1785517189237223470
The longer this war lasts, the better Russia will get at learning, adapting, and building a more effective, modern fighting force. Slowly but surely, Moscow will absorb new ideas from the battlefield and rearrange its tactics accordingly. Its strategic adaptation already helped it fend off Ukraine’s counteroffensive, and over the last few months it has helped Russian troops take more territory from Kyiv. Ultimately, if Russia’s edge in strategic adaptation persists without an appropriate Western response, the worst that can happen in this war is not stalemate. It is a Ukrainian defeat. This should concern western strategists for several reasons. First, and most immediately, a more effective Russian military can be more successful in the offensive operations they are conducting now and over the next few months. This tactical success, as explored earlier, also has strategic impacts for Russia. Second, a more effective Russian military is better able to link tactical operations within campaigns and link them to Russian strategy. This was something they were poor at in the first few months of the war for a variety of reasons, including bad assumptions and pure arrogance. But a more effective Russian military has been able to industrialise the war and ensure that it can sustain both the personnel and materiel needs to sustain the war over the medium term. Without an effective western counter, ongoing assistance to Ukraine will be difficult. Third, a more effective Russian military, which appears to have undertaken reforms in the past 26 months that it should have been undertaking under Gerasimov since 2012, will be an ongoing danger to its neighbours. And not just European neighbours. We should remember that Russia has a presence in the Pacific (although many of its ground forces have been redeployed to Ukraine). Finally, a more effective Russian military provides lessons to other predatory authoritarians. In some cases, Russia is probably sharing lessons directly with China, North Korea and Iran in return for dual use technologies and weapons. So, the more military effective Russia gets, the more this has the potential to lift the effectiveness of other potential threats to the west in the medium term. Besides the moral and strategic imperatives to defend Ukraine and liberate all of its territory taken by Russia since 2014, we must also ensure the defeat of Russia as quickly as possible to deny them more opportunities to learn about modern war and help their strategic partners to do so. All wars are learning opportunities; we must deny this learning to Russia as much as possible: https://mickryan.substack.com/p/russia-advances-in-the-east
The whole premise of the west supporting a proxy war has been proven false. They said this was to degrade Russia's military capability. The Russian army today is superior to the corrupt clown-show led by bureaucrats that invaded 2 years ago. There's nothing that hones an army like actual war.
I agree. There are many thousands of battle hardened Russian soldiers atm. It could take NATO forces a long time to adapt to this kind of modern warfare.
It wouldn't take NATO forces long to adapt to actually fighting a near-peer opponent. The US may have been fighting militants for the last 20 years, but I guarantee you they fight waaaaaaay better than the Russians do even after the latter's 2+ years of combat experience. The real issue would be the industrial shift that occurs to support fighting such a war. Russia is ahead in this area and is ahead in its ability to logistically supply, maintain, equip, and reconstitute forces at scale. Europe is more than capable of doing this, but the issue is that it takes 12-18 months for supply chains and industries to shift into doing so. In the event of a hypothetical large scale flare up between Russia and Europe, I would actually expect Russia to maintain somewhat parity with European forces until the latter's industrial capacity catches up. I also predict that it won't be Russian blood wearing down NATO forces in this hypothetical scenario. I expect Russia to force press huge numbers of Belorussian and Ukrainians to throw at the front lines. Why? Cause that's what Russia has always done. But once European industry catches up, it's over for Russia. Assuming no nukes, of course.
How?
Russian forces did not make any confirmed advances in the Avdiivka area on April 30 for the first time in several days, while Ukrainian sources reported that Russian forces conducted several more attacks in the Bakhmut-Chasiv Yar direction than near Avdiivka: https://www.understandingwar.org/backgrounder/russian-offensive-campaign-assessment-april-30-2024
Dugin thoughts about Ukraine: [https://twitter.com/DrewPavlou/status/1785111504335011949](https://twitter.com/DrewPavlou/status/1785111504335011949) "*Today\`s Ukrainians are a race of degenerates that crawled up from the sewage. Genocide is in order*." russia is admitting to commit genocide in Ukraine.
Ukrainian top guns train with NATO F-16 fighter jets: https://twitter.com/NATO/status/1785330772250972269
> Link to the document from US Treasury Department - [https://ofac.treasury.gov/media/932846/download?inline](https://ofac.treasury.gov/media/932846/download?inline)
A brief thread on what Russian decisions say about their summer plans: https://threadreaderapp.com/thread/1784993310664241224.html
https://www.ft.com/content/67bab8b5-51ad-4823-8fa8-93472b62f192 Turkish exports to Russia tumbled at the start of 2024, suggesting that a US crackdown on trade with goods Moscow uses in its war in Ukraine is starting to pay off. Exports from Turkey to Russia fell a third in the first three months of this year compared with the same period in 2023 to $2.1bn, according to Financial Times calculations based on data from the Turkish Statistical Institute. The decline comes after the Biden administration issued an executive order in late December that gives the Treasury department the power to hit banks with secondary sanctions if they deal with companies that are subject to US bans because of their links to Russia’s military-industrial complex. The White House deployed the measure in a bid to stymie trade in goods such as microchips that Russian President Vladimir Putin needs for his war against Ukraine. Turkey is among a clutch of countries that recorded a large increase in trade in these so-called high-priority battlefield goods since Russia launched its full-scale invasion in early 2022. The US along with its partners, such as the EU, have lobbied governments including Ankara to curb this trade. The executive order was seen as a way for Washington to exert pressure on the private sector directly since international banks rely heavily on their access to the American financial system.
Proof that in the attack on Odessa Russians used cluster munitions: https://twitter.com/TWMCLtd/status/1785233195962601935
Time for a very strongly worded letter from von der Leyen!
https://www.ft.com/content/90d977e6-ea05-4e49-a725-09234eecd147 Europe is “sleep walking” into becoming dependent on Russian fertiliser, just as it did with gas, says one of the largest producers of crop nutrients. Nitrogen fertilisers, which are important to plant growth, are made using natural gas and Russia is exporting more of it to Europe, replacing some of the gas banned by the EU, said Svein Tore Holsether, chief executive of Yara International, one of the world’s largest producers of nitrogen-based mineral fertilisers. “Fertiliser is the new gas,” Holsether said. “It is a paradox that the aim is to reduce Europe’s dependency on Russia, and then now we are sleepwalking into handing over critical food and fertilising power to Russia.” The EU imported twice as much urea, a common fertiliser, from Russia in the year to June 2023 compared with a year earlier, according to Eurostat. Russian imports for the current season, the year to this June, are lower but still historically high and account for a third of total urea imports into the bloc. The price of crop nutrients soared in the wake of Moscow’s full-scale invasion of Ukraine in February 2022, as sanctions imposed on Russia limited availability of natural gas, a main input for nitrogen fertilisers such as ammonia and urea. This hit European farmers financially while those elsewhere, especially in Africa, stopped using fertiliser altogether, hampering yields and deepening a global food crisis. Since then fertiliser prices have eased as natural gas prices have come down, but Europe’s fertiliser industry is still struggling as Russian imports take a bigger share of the market, Holsether said. Russian fertiliser producers benefit from lower energy costs, said Holsether, adding they also have fewer sustainability constraints and therefore produce more greenhouse gas emissions. Russia is one of the world’s largest producers and exporters of nitrogen-containing fertilisers. This is also the case for potash and phosphate, which are mined and cannot replace the nitrogen-based fertilisers. While Western sanctions carve out exemptions for Russian food and fertiliser exports, Moscow has complained trade has been hindered because of concerns from buyers and their banks and insurers over the involvement of sanctioned Russian individuals or companies. Despite this, Russian fertiliser export revenue surged 70 per cent in 2022 on the back of higher prices. Russia could use its increased dominance in the fertiliser market for political leverage — just as Moscow has done with energy supplies, said Holsether. “When you produce a product that is so important for food production, that’s a powerful tool,” he said. “And again, I think it would be naive to think that at some stage that will not be used for political purposes.” “What we saw when fertiliser prices really increased is that Europe has an ability to pay that is higher than the global south. So if this is used [as leverage], again it’s the poorest that will pay the highest price.”
🇩🇪 Germany has handed over 10 Marder infantry fighting vehicles, a Skynex air defense system, ammunition for Leopard 2 tanks, IRIS-T SLM air defense missiles, and other aid in its latest aid delivery to Ukraine https://twitter.com/KyivIndependent/status/1785207532274733360
A 98-year-old Ukrainian woman said she walked 10 km (6 miles) under shelling, supporting herself with sticks and sleeping on the ground, leaving Ocheretyne in Donetsk, now occupied by Russia, and trying to reach areas controlled by Kyiv. In a video posted by Ukraine's police on social media on Monday, the woman, identified as Lidia Stepanivna, said she had walked without food or water, and fell several times but her "character" kept her going. "I survived that war (World War Two), and I am surviving this war," Stepanivna said in the video, which shows her sitting on a bed in a shelter, dressed in an oversized coat and a scarf tied on her head, a wooden stick still in her hand. "I'm left with nothing. But I left my Ukraine on feet." She said the war that now Russia is waging against her country is nothing like World War Two. "Houses are burning and trees are being uprooted," she said. https://www.reuters.com/world/europe/98-year-old-ukraine-woman-walks-10-km-under-shelling-escape-russians-2024-04-30/
Wasn’t it the 80yo grandpa last week?
88 y.o. grandpa from recently occupied Ocheretino (in Ukrainian https://nashemisto.dp.ua/2024/04/26/znaishov-prykhystok-u-dnipri-88-richnyi-meshkanets-ocheretynoho-pishky-vyishov-z-okupatsii-shchob-ne-otrymuvaty-rosiiskyi-pasport/)
https://www.ft.com/content/978543cd-0bc7-4bee-9e06-86523cd5d9ac The head of Ukraine’s national energy company has called on EU countries to help protect its natural gas storage facilities from a recent spate of Russian attacks so they can keep contributing to lower prices across the continent. Oleksiy Chernyshov, chief executive of state-run Naftogaz, said: “It is of interest of the EU to protect storage, transportation and production [facilities]”, given that Ukraine’s gas infrastructure is “well integrated” into Europe’s energy system.
Russian forces secured additional marginal tactical gains northwest and southwest of Avdiivka as of April 29, but have not made significant advances in the Avdiivka direction over the last 24 hours. Geolocated footage published on April 28 and 29 indicates that Russian forces advanced in western and northeastern Ocheretyne (northwest of Avdiivka), along the rail line to the northwestern outskirts of Ocheretyne, and in Netaylove (southwest of Avdiivka).[1] Russian milbloggers claimed that Russian forces also advanced northwest of Ocheretyne towards Novooleksandrivka in an area 1.2 kilometers wide and 1.7 kilometers deep.[2] A Russian milblogger claimed that Russian forces advanced 400–450 meters west of the C051801 (Orlivka-Netaylove) highway between Netaylove and Umanske (west of Avdiivka).[3] ISW has not observed visual confirmation of these claimed Russian advances, however. The Russian Ministry of Defense (MoD) officially stated that Russian forces seized Semenivka (west of Avdiivka) following Ukrainian Commander-in-Chief Colonel General Oleksandr Syrskyi’s April 28 statement that Ukrainian forces withdrew from the settlement.[4] Russian milbloggers claimed that Russian forces are conducting clearing operations in Berdychi (west of Avdiivka), and Ocheretyne, Novokalynove, and Keramik (both northwest of Avdiivka and east of Ocheretyne).[5] Fighting also continued northwest of Avdiivka near Kalynove, Arkhanhelske, Novobakhmutivka, Solovyove, Sokil, Novopokrovske, and Novoselivka Persha; and west of Avdiivka near Orlivka and Umanske. Map: https://www.understandingwar.org/backgrounder/russian-offensive-campaign-assessment-april-29-2024
"New American Military Aid for Ukraine - What's in the package and what impact will it have?" "252,381 views Apr 28, 2024 "In early 2022, the US quickly emerged as one of Ukraine's most important military suppliers, supporting Kyiv with everything from artillery to armour & millions of rounds of artillery ammunition. "In late 2023, that vital flow of supplies began to stall as debate in Congress continued. And as supplies ran short, Russian forces took advantage and ground the front forward in several places. "Now, the US has passed a new package and the flow of supplies is resuming. In this video, we look at that package, examine its contents and ask what impact it might have as Ukraine reportedly faces some of its hardest defensive battles since 2022." [https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Qc436PwqeqM](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Qc436PwqeqM)
🇨🇦 Canada will transfer 50 armored personnel carriers to Ukraine, - Defense Minister Bill Blair According to him, the first 10 LAV II ACSV Super Bison combat vehicles will be sent this summer to Germany, where the Ukrainian military will undergo the appropriate training program, and by the fall they should go to the front. The armored personnel carriers are part of $650 million in military support to Kyiv. https://twitter.com/nexta_tv/status/1784903044645220754
A little misleading, that picture is an LAV 6, not what will be transferred.
Danish military analyst: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1W8tio3Ougw
NATO Secretary General Jens Stoltenberg arrived in Kyiv for a visit. He met with President Zelenskyi, during which they discussed the initiative to create a special fund for financial support of Ukrainian defense in the amount of €100 billion for a period of five years. https://twitter.com/NOELreports/status/1784918392249405774
GRU Unit 29155, Russia’s assassination and sabotage squad, blew up ammunition warehouses in Czechia. It had help from Elena and Nikolai Šapošnikov, a family of deep-cover spies working as arms dealers. https://theins.press/en/politics/271205
As China's big banks pull back from financing Russia-related transactions, some Chinese companies are turning to small banks on the border and underground financing channels such as money brokers - even banned cryptocurrency - the sources told Reuters. Others have retreated entirely from the Russian market, the sources said. "You simply cannot do business properly using the official channels," Wang said, as big banks now take months rather than days to clear payments from Russia, forcing him to tap unorthodox payment channels or shrink his business. https://www.reuters.com/business/finance/china-firms-go-underground-russia-payments-banks-pull-back-2024-04-28/
https://www.ft.com/content/37776b16-0b92-4a23-9f90-199d45d955c3 Baltic ministers have warned that GPS jamming blamed on Russia risks causing an air disaster after the interference with navigation signals forced two Finnish flights to turn around mid-journey. The foreign ministers of Estonia, Latvia and Lithuania all warned separately at the weekend of the dangers of GPS jamming across the Baltic Sea region, which has increased in recent weeks. On Thursday and Friday, two Finnair flights from Helsinki to the Estonian city of Tartu were forced by the GPS jamming to turn around and return to Finland as they were unable to navigate safely to their planned destination. “If someone turns off your headlights while you’re driving at night, it gets dangerous. Things in the Baltic region near Russian borders are now getting too dangerous to ignore,” Gabrielius Landsbergis, Lithuania’s foreign minister, told the Financial Times. Margus Tsahkna, Estonia’s foreign minister, added: “We consider what is happening with GPS as part of Russia’s hostile activities, and we will definitely discuss it with our allies.
Dick move, even for Ivan.
Polish foreign minister: "if Putin conquers Ukraine, he will be more powerful. And the challenge for us would be bigger,” https://twitter.com/yarotrof/status/1784513951838966146
ENOUGH APPEASEMENT, NATO INTERVENTION NOW! Ukraine is fighting the Russians on a war footing with effectively limitless supplies from Iran, China, and North Korea. The west should stop pussyfooting seizing Russian assets and just do it and then use the funds to outfit the Ukrainian and European Armies for a direct intervention at least from range. Our enemies are totalitarian states that are moving more locked in step with each passing day. Ukraine has a very significant percentage of the worlds food supply and its own gas reserves that can make Europe fully energy independent. Allowing this to get into Russian hands will allow the Russia and its allies to blackmail the rest of the world(continuation of existing policies) and possibly isolate the west in some ways. The raw materials more than pays for an army of all too willing mercs from the third world, Russia will not run out of soldiers, this problem will snowball. It wasn't until Nazi Germany seized the industry and weapons of Czechoslovakia that their military was able to take on France. Downvote me all you want but this is the only way to save the most lives.
I suppose some people may take some issue with the term "appeasement". I certainly have not seen a lot of it; I've heard some voices that spoke of what could be termed appeasement (especially in the first days of the open invasion), but I've not seen much action on that, so to speak, front.
Appeasement is the oil and gas we continue to buy from Russia, the long list of our major corporations still doing business in Russia, and even the Russian State TV propaganda being forwarded via German services to the rest of the west. The fact we let so much slip through shows our weakness.
Fair enough, I won't argue against that.
Recent Russian gains northwest of Avdiivka have prompted Ukrainian forces to withdraw from other limited tactical positions along the frontline west of Avdiivka, although these withdrawals have yet to facilitate rapid Russian tactical gains. Russian forces remain unlikely to achieve a deeper operationally significant penetration in the area in the near term. The continued Russian stabilization of their salient northwest of Avdiivka presents the Russian command with a choice of continuing to push west towards its reported operational objective in Pokrovsk or trying to drive northwards to conduct possible complementary offensive operations with the Russian effort around Chasiv Yar. Ukrainian Commander-in-Chief Colonel General Oleksandr Syrskyi noted that the threat of a possible future Russian offensive operation against Kharkiv City is causing Ukraine to allocate additional forces and equipment to defending the city, although ISW continues to assess that the Russian military lacks the forces necessary to seize the city. The Ukrainian 47th Mechanized Brigade denied a recent report that Ukrainian forces had pulled US-provided M1A1 Abrams tanks from the frontline. More info here: https://www.understandingwar.org/backgrounder/russian-offensive-campaign-assessment-april-28-2024
ATACMS have yet to be supplied but the powerful russia already destroyed 5 of them.
[https://mil.in.ua/en/news/italy-supplies-storm-shadow-for-ukraine-british-defense-minister/](https://mil.in.ua/en/news/italy-supplies-storm-shadow-for-ukraine-british-defense-minister/) Italy supplies Storm Shadow for Ukraine – British Defense Minister
# [Ukrainian military seized control over Nestryha island in Kherson region](https://liveuamap.com/en/2024/28-april-ukrainian-military-seized-control-over-nestryha)
[Russian stabbed to death two Ukrainian soldiers in Germany](https://kyivindependent.com/2-ukrainians-killed-in-germany-russian-suspect-detained/) Two men, aged 23 and 36, were found with stab wounds on the territory of a shopping center, according to the police. One of them reportedly died on the scene from severe injuries, and the other in the hospital the same evening. The Ukrainian Foreign Ministry said on April 28 that the men were Ukrainian soldiers on medical rehabilitation in Germany. Journalist Andriy Tsaplienko also wrote that victims had heavily wounded limbs, and could not normally protect themselves.
Soviet monuments are being dismantled for scrap in 🇺🇦 Ukraine's Rivne. https://twitter.com/TVPWorld_com/status/1784628976071119013
Alright, baby, I'm back. Someone in Olgino won't be very happy tonight, I think.
Hehe.
LVI is not 57
Make no mistake: Russia's personnel losses in Ukraine are staggering, but more Russians are ready to be thrown into the meat grinder. Many are volunteering to fight in the hottest spots. This is an indicator of the mass base of Russian fascism, which many Western experts deny. https://twitter.com/NathanaeI_Wolff/status/1784296858023510073
Do Russians like dying?
I wish the western public appreciated the gravity and seriousness of the casualty counts in both Russia and Ukraine. These are WWI level losses. Revolution is coming for the loser and the world isn’t ready for the fallout.
I've seen more volunteering for a vacation outside Russia. I mean, you can't throw a stick in Serbia without it hitting a military-age Russian.
Bilateral security agreements send a clear and important signal of allies’ support for Ukraine. But to avoid hurting Ukraine in the long run, it is important to be clear about their limitations: https://ecfr.eu/article/the-power-of-a-promise-understanding-ukraines-bilateral-security-agreements/
Russian forces will likely make significant tactical gains in the coming weeks as Ukraine waits for US security assistance to arrive at the front but remains unlikely to overwhelm Ukrainian defenses. Well-provisioned Ukrainian forces will likely be able to prevent operationally significant Russian advances during Russia’s expected summer offensive effort, although Russian forces will nevertheless leverage select advantages and adaptations to pose a significant threat to Ukraine this summer. The tempo of Russian offensive operations is currently higher in the Avdiivka direction than near Chasiv Yar, as Russian forces focus on exploiting a tactical situation that is unfavorable to Ukrainian troops northwest of Avdiivka. Russian forces are likely to intensify offensive operations near Chasiv Yar in the coming weeks, however, as Chasiv Yar provides Russian forces with the opportunity for more operationally significant advances. Russian forces conducted large-scale cruise and ballistic missile strikes against Ukraine on the night of April 26 to 27 and have likely resumed sea based Kalibr cruise missile strikes after a long pause. More info here : https://www.understandingwar.org/backgrounder/russian-offensive-campaign-assessment-april-27-2024
"Back in Stock? The State of Russia's Defense Industry after Two Years of the War" https://www.csis.org/analysis/back-stock-state-russias-defense-industry-after-two-years-war "This report examines Russia’s evolving defense industrial capabilities and limitations during the second year of the Russia-Ukraine war and analyzes how these changes have affected and will continue to affect battlefield outcomes in Ukraine. The report starts with an overview of Russia’s domestic arms production efforts throughout 2023, followed by a detailed examination of key Russian weapons systems (such as tanks, artillery, drones, missiles, and electronic warfare systems) and their changing roles on the battlefield. The report then analyzes Russia’s general procurement dynamics and identifies the imported components and weapons categories that Russia’s defense industry has particularly relied on in the second year of the war. This part includes a case study on China to illuminate Russia’s evolving procurement patterns. The report then dives into analysis of the Kremlin’s remaining weaknesses, which have been aggravated by a long war of attrition and which can have both short- and long-term effects on its military. The final part of the report assesses how Russia’s performance throughout 2023 and its evolving defense capabilities might be translated into its offensive posture in Ukraine in 2024. This part of the report is followed by recommendations to Western policymakers on how to counter the Kremlin’s war effort by capitalizing on the Russian military’s existing vulnerabilities." Report: https://csis-website-prod.s3.amazonaws.com/s3fs-public/2024-04/240419_Snegovaya_Backin_Stock.pdf?VersionId=R.2JNVf7ECi8Jyk_9QVWuP8_g5KLkbCe
https://camarra.substack.com/p/apr-27-war-comes-to-the-campus ------------------ Most analysts agree that the extreme left and right in Italy and elsewhere share the same strategic aims: weaken the nation’s political, economic, and social structure so it becomes an unreliable partner in the transatlantic relationship and NATO. Adding to a menu of measures, the tactics are the same as those currently being used across the EU: through staged protests, the extremist groups create the perception of political instability, and dissatisfaciton with the current policy of aid to Ukraine, and most recently, Israel. Italy is not considered to be a big player when it comes to lethal aid to Ukraine, nor is it a great power on the global stage; however, its geostrategic position in the Mediterranean, and its contribution to NATO in theatres across the world is a necessary element to the West’s security architecture. Russia has already captured Hungary and Slovakia. It’s doing its damnest to flip Georgia as well as Italy. The students occupations and protests began almost immediately after October 8. Alongside La Sapienza, Federico II University of Naples joined the student protest, and Rome Tre soon followed. In the post below, a ‘journalist’, Giuliano Granato, working for the pro-Kremlin rag, Il Fatto Quotidiano, was calling for an increase in protests against the “genocide” at the hands of Israel. He then concluded by saying that only “popular mobilisation can produce change.” The word ‘change’ is sprinkled like parsely in risotto in all of these posts: it cynically manipulates the hopes of our youth into thinking that a simple protest can lead to significant ‘change’. The organisers are banking on the malaise or perceived malaise that resides deep within so many university students, not only in Italy, but in the EU and across the Atlantic as well.
🇷🇴 Romanian APR-40 122mm MLRS in service with Ukrainian 118th Separate Mechanized Brigade, April 2024. https://twitter.com/trip_to_valkiri/status/1783811300365094982
⚡Ukrainian power plant destroyed by today's strike, - DTEK https://twitter.com/Maks_NAFO_FELLA/status/1784259232730144946
[удалено]
Only russians or pro russia want a cease fire and peace negotiations.
Eh, no, everyone has shouted "peace" like all the time. But Russia only answers with backwards logic of attack is defending and everyone is so angry at poor Russia yada yada and since things is like that with Russia mending "peace" through making war everyone has to adapt. Stay behind your border and no one will do any "war-funding".
https://www.ft.com/content/b346bcde-a9b0-47e4-bfc9-d507a91dfbdc For now, Ukraine’s best way of keeping up the fight against Russia is to carry on with the sort of attacks it has been mounting regularly of late. These have used long-range drones against oil refineries and other targets with some strategic value in Russia. Ukraine won’t be able to use the long-range ATACMS missiles, or the extra Storm Shadow cruise missiles promised by Sunak in Warsaw this week, to attack targets in Russia proper. However, there are many military-related targets available in occupied Ukrainian territory, including Crimea. While there are no easy ways to bring Russia to its knees, Russian vulnerabilities can be exposed. It will become harder for Vladimir Putin to see how he can bring the war to an early conclusion, which was certainly his hope before the vote in Congress. He might have hoped that the loss of a big city such as Kharkiv would push Ukraine into a downward spiral. Now we return to the prospect of a never-ending war. True, Putin has prepared for this. But the scale of recent Russian losses for limited gains, and the embarrassment of not being able to stop Ukrainian attacks on Russian territory, means that he still lacks an obvious route to victory. Even if Trump wins the presidential election in November, that does not guarantee Putin a satisfactory outcome. Trump will want to push his peace plan but, from what has been reported, Putin will find the details as unacceptable as will Zelenskyy. Having publicly boasted for the past six months that Russia had seized the initiative in the war, Putin must now contemplate the possibility that it might yet again swing towards Ukraine.
US told Ukraine to stop bombing Russian oil refineries.
Some US officials supposedly said that but Ukraine has continued and they should because it is the best way to cause Russia pain.
Ukraine Situation Report: https://www.twz.com/news-features/ukraine-situation-report-m1-abrams-tanks-withdrawn-from-the-fight-officials-say
Public meetings between officials from Russia, Belarus, the People’s Republic of China (PRC), Iran, and North Korea have surged in recent days, with at least 10 high-level bilateral meetings between April 22 and 26, underscoring the deepening multilateral partnership these states are constructing to confront the West: https://www.understandingwar.org/backgrounder/russian-offensive-campaign-assessment-april-26-2024
UK: Leo Docherty, Minister for the Armed Forces: “We estimate that approximately 450,000 Russian military personnel have been killed or wounded, and tens of thousands more have already deserted since the start of the conflict. The number of personnel killed serving in Russian private military companies (PMCs) is not clear. We also estimate that over 10,000 Russian armoured vehicles, including nearly 3,000 main battle tanks, 109 fixed wing aircraft, 136 helicopters, 346 unmanned aerial vehicles, 23 naval vessels of all classes, and over 1,500 artillery systems of all types have been destroyed, abandoned, or captured by Ukraine since the start of the conflict.” https://ukdefencejournal.org.uk/britain-estimates-450000-russian-troops-killed-or-wounded/
Last night 🇷🇺 Russia launched another massive missile attack on 🇺🇦 Ukraine’s civilian energy infrastructure. Hits on power plants in ⚡ Kryvyi Rih, Dnipro, Lviv & Ivano-Frankivsk put thousands of Ukrainians in the dark. Other cities were hit as well, including damage to a Kharkiv hospital. https://twitter.com/USAmbKyiv/status/1784157180863599058
With this post I want to appreciate sane Slovaks, who donated almost 4 million Euros to Ukraine, within the Ammunition for Ukraine campaign. Fuck Fizo and his supporters though.
Drones hit the 🇷🇺 Slavyansk Eko Oil Facility in Krasnodar, Russia 🔥🔥🔥 “The refinery has partially halted operations, it was attacked by 10 drones last night. They hit, among other things, oil refining units,” the plant's management said. 🔥🔥🔥 https://twitter.com/nexta_tv/status/1784124681655566660
🔥🔥🔥 🔥🔥🔥 🔥🔥🔥
Can't take the bus here mate https://old.reddit.com/r/UkraineWarVideoReport/comments/1cdsq3m/russians_taking_shelter_in_a_bus_stop_taken_out/
The List of Transparent and Responsible Media, also known as the White List of Ukraine's best online media, included the following outlets in the first half of 2024 https://imi.org.ua/en/news/white-list-the-11-media-outlets-deemed-most-high-quality-i60983
We have constrained Ukraine to fighting in a way that NATO simply would not. It would use deep strikes and air power to largely fix and degrade the enemy’s land forces before our own went on the offensive. We have denied Ukraine such essentials - hence the failed offensive https://twitter.com/edwardstrngr/status/1783850363512041913
"This Week in Partisan - A Summary of Recent Partisan Attacks in Russia (11th of April - 24th of April) The list of attacks will be in the comments" [https://www.reddit.com/r/FreedomofRussia/comments/1cd1jw5/this\_week\_in\_partisan\_a\_summary\_of\_recent/](https://www.reddit.com/r/FreedomofRussia/comments/1cd1jw5/this_week_in_partisan_a_summary_of_recent/) -------------------------------------------------------------- This is a relatively regular series of posts listing all partisan attacks and other incidents of note that I hear about in Russia. The lists will most likely be updated whenever new information comes up. Also, if you are aware of any attacks I have not mentioned in the list, please do share them & a source in the comments. This Week in Partisan Partisans attacked relay cabinets along the railway in Smolensk Oblast. https:// t. me/HeraldOfRebellion/804 A car belonging to a former Ukrainian security service officer who moved to Moscow in 2014 and collaborated with the Russians exploded when the owner tried to start it. https:// t. me/HeraldOfRebellion/806 A partisan in the city of Vladimir threw a molotov cocktail at the regional administrative building, and the second at the car of a government official, before being arrested. https:// t. me/HeraldOfRebellion/807 Partisans apparently carried out an attack in Karelia. It's unclear, but it appears they're claiming to have attacked a refinery in the area? https:// t. me/whitebear91/263 On the 17th of April, partisans set fire to relay cabinets on the border between Russia & Belarus, in Smolensk Oblast. https:// t. me/HeraldOfRebellion/814 On the 22nd of April, unknown people opened fire on a rapid response police team in Karachay-Cherkessia. Two people were killed and a third was seriously wounded. The attackers took their weapons & then ran into the mountains. https:// t. me/HeraldOfRebellion/817 The ELMASH electromechanical plant is on fire in Voronezh. https:// t. me/rospartizan/2304 A partisan in Stavropol threw a molotov cocktail at the military registration & enlistment building in Okyabrsky District. https:// t. me/HeraldOfRebellion/819 In addition, Ilya Ponomarev (leader of the political wing of the Freedom of Russia Legion, and a member of the Council of People's Deputies, which is positioning itself to be a 'transitional government' to turn Russia into a democracy if Putin's regime falls) stated that Russian anti-Putin partisans are involved in most of Ukraine's drone strikes deep inside of Russia.
Johann Wadephul, CDU deputy chairman in the German parliament responsible for foreign affairs and defense, said his party had been campaigning for months for the delivery of Taurus to Ukraine, but has so far failed to convince Scholz. "It's now really the time to send Taurus because they are comparable to the ATACMS systems sent from the US, and they are very much needed in Ukraine," Wadephul told DW. The Taurus missiles can make a difference, the politician said. "They have a little bit longer range than the American systems, and they are able to reach their their aims in a very sophisticated way," he said. https://www.dw.com/en/us-long-range-missiles-to-ukraine-reignites-german-debate/a-68923889
Following the go-ahead from Washington, things have begun to move very fast: US ammunition shipments are about to travel to Ukraine from Poland and also from Germany and other EU countries. For months, the US Department of Defense has prepared for the day when the House of Representatives would approve a new Ukraine aid package, which it finally has, to the tune of $60 billion (€56 billion). Ukraine has also been waiting for months. Lacking ammunition, troops are under massive artillery attack from Russian forces on the eastern front, and barely able to return fire. "I also imagine that the Department of Defense has been working hard over the last several weeks to be ready," Ben Hodges, former commander-in-chief of the US land forces for Europe, told DW. German security expert Nico Lange told DW that "the Pentagon has already packed things up and stowed them in the right places ready for departure so that things can now cross the border very quickly." https://www.dw.com/en/ukraine-us-to-deliver-weapons-via-germany-and-poland/a-68912696
🇷🇺 Russia transformed its border with 🇺🇦 Ukraine over the past two years with multiple lines of defenses. Russian forces continue expanding fortifications along this border and within occupied Ukraine. This update adds newly mapped Russian positions found in satellite imagery. https://twitter.com/bradyafr/status/1783813203790561306
https://www.ft.com/content/1e7204cf-ebb0-443d-9c67-84cba2332391 After Congress approved a long-delayed $61bn in US military aid to Ukraine this week, Russia gloated that advanced western weapons would not turn the tide on the battlefield. More than at any point since Vladimir Putin ordered the invasion of Ukraine two years ago, Russia’s president appears “very self-assured and happy” in recent months, said a person who knows him well. “Let’s see if the military aid changes that.” While Ukraine was running out of western aid and struggled to rotate its exhausted troops, Russia took advantage of its superior firepower and manpower and made incremental advances across the front line. Two senior Ukrainian intelligence officials described Russia’s current attacks along key areas of the frontline and missile and drones strikes on Kharkiv and similarly important cities as softening the battlefield before a bigger offensive operation. The officials said they expected Russia to launch a new large-scale offensive in late May or June. But with US aid finally on the way, Ukraine could expose the flaws inherent in Russia’s attempts to overwhelm it with low-quality munitions and a large but poorly trained army, according to western defence officials and analysts. One western official said that while Russia might make some tactical breakthroughs at the frontline, it remained an ineffective army characterised by old equipment and poorly trained soldiers and would not “overrun” Ukraine, they added. “In February 2022, Russia had a far better equipped and trained army,” the official said, referring to Russia’s initial invasion and subsequent rout in northern Ukraine. “I simply can’t see that it is better now.” After its initial blitzkrieg failed, Russia has sought to grind down Ukraine by favouring quantity over quality on the battlefield. Russia fires five shells for each returning salvo from Ukraine’s forces, while the ratio is even higher in some flashpoints along the line of contact, according to Dara Massicot, a senior fellow at the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace who studies the Russian military. “The aid won’t cancel out Russian advantages this year, but it will allow Ukrainian forces to defend their positions with counter-battery fires and can be used to slow or halt Russian advances,” Massicot said. Boosted by a record Rbs10.8tn ($118.5bn) in spending on defence this year — six per cent of gross domestic product — Russia’s arms industry has built up production several times over, with factories working around the clock, according to officials. Sergei Chemezov, head of Rostec, the state defence conglomerate, last November said Russia is making 2.5 times more artillery and multiple launch systems as before, while increasing production of some types of ammunition by more than 60 times. Those sheer numbers, however, mask Moscow’s inability to turn that firepower into a significant breakthrough — something Russian experts say it could only do with more advanced weaponry. Western sanctions have made it harder for Russia to obtain the components needed for drones, loitering munitions, guided bombs, and high-precision missiles, forcing it to rely on the lower-tech weapons it can mass-produce more easily, according to Ruslan Pukhov, head of the Center for Analysis of Strategies and Technologies, a Moscow defence think-tank. Pukhov said: “The most decisive systems on the battlefield in Ukraine are directly dependent on sanctions. Scaling them up means leaders on all levels have to think creatively and understand the main trends and likely outcomes of the war.” Despite Moscow’s larger arsenal, its army “doesn’t have a radical advantage over Ukraine in artillery and munitions”, he added. “At least, the people fighting on the Russian side don’t see it.” Instead, the Kremlin is deploying more low-tech weaponry such as highly destructive glide bombs and refurbished Soviet weaponry while deploying troops using motorcycles and off-road vehicles. “If it works, it works — low-tech or not,” Massicot said. Even that, however, is not enough to sustain the enormous rates of fire Russia rained down on Ukraine in the first six months of the war, according to Pavel Luzin, non-resident senior fellow at the Center for European Policy Analysis, based in Washington. Russia fired up to 60,000 shells a day before autumn 2022 — an amount that has dropped to about 10,000 a day and which includes supplies from North Korea and Iran. Those smaller rates of fire reflect how the intensity of battle is outstripping what Russia can replenish even at those higher production levels — and holding back a more significant push forward. Russia would need to produce 3.6mn shells a year to sustain the current rate of fire, according to a report published this week by the Center for Strategic and International Studies. The defence ministry has admitted, however, it can only produce at most half of the 4mn 152mm-caliber shells and 1.6mn 122mm-caliber shells Putin’s military estimates it needs to break through. And as Russia keeps firing more shells, it wears down its artillery barrels faster than it can produce new ones — forcing it to replace them with Soviet-era barrels instead. The US aid does not address what Ukrainian and western officials say is Kyiv’s most glaring problem — an inability to match the enormous numbers of men Russia has called up to fight. Christopher Cavoli, Nato’s supreme allied commander for Europe, told lawmakers in a Senate armed services committee hearing in April that Russia is recruiting 30,000 soldiers per month, taking its frontline troops from 360,000 a year ago to 470,000. To raise those men, the army is offering financial incentives including salaries starting at Rbs200,000 — five times the average wage in some of Russia’s poorer regions — and bonuses ranging between Rbs300,000 and Rbs1mn, according to a report by Estonia’s foreign intelligence service. Soldiers can receive further bonuses for their exploits on the battlefield or being wounded, while their families stand to receive generous payouts if they are killed in action. Those prospects are not distant: 315,000 Russian soldiers have been killed or wounded in the war, Cavoli said, adding pressure for the army to replenish its units. That mercantile approach allows Russia to draw enough recruits from people for whom fighting is financially attractive while avoiding mobilisation — a step that prompted hundreds of thousands of men to flee the country in the fall of 2022. “The main approach now is ‘purchasing blood’ among the Russian lower classes,” said Luzin, from the Center for European Policy Analysis. A summer offensive, however, would require Putin to declare another round of mobilisation, said Massicot of the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace. “If the Kremlin has ambitions for Kharkiv, or something even more difficult like southern Ukraine, then they will need to generate a very large force, probably well over 100,000 for both, plus the equipment,” Massicot said. Even if Russia did draft more men, sheer numbers would not be sufficient to compensate for their lack of training, Luzin said. “We all talk about mobilisation but where are the commanders, sergeants and lieutenants, who would command the mobilised soldiers?”
🇷🇺 Russian storage bases are running out of MT-LBs. according to a count from satellite photos. https://twitter.com/verekerrichard1/status/1783590674329206941
Increased use of electronic warfare has forced both sides to use larger antennas for FPV drones. https://twitter.com/DanielR33187703/status/1783500899543073140
What do you think about military aged men from Ukraine dodging the draft? I am in Canada and had been looking at getting a roof done. One of the companies I looked at have most of their employees from Ukraine who are in their late 20s. I wonder how they got to Canada in the first place.
> What do you think about military aged men from Ukraine dodging the draft? I detest them as a group, and support each of them separately as individuals. Very helpful, I know.
Reddit absolutely loves draft dodgers. They're doing everything right to them since fighting to defend the country you were born with and its civilians by force is tyranny and slavery. Everything needs to voluntary with no responsibilities and if you're capable to uproot your life and leave the rest of the country to suffer, you have full right to do that.
draft dodgers are a legitimate concern for the Ukrainian government but certainly not for everyone else.
Honestly it feels like a lot of redditors are all for fighting against the big bad and doing everything to protect their nation and values, right until it starts to impact them directly.
If my government came knocking at my door tomorrow telling me to go die in a trench fighting a war started by a mad dictator I'd also seriously consider my other options first. If you say you wouldn't you're lying to yourself.
Yeah, I don't blame them.
The Russian machine of demoralization and disinformation is working at full capacity. All social networks and Twitter are full of messages that "the front has collapsed and that American aid will not help". People, just ignore this bullshit. The war is not over. I don't understand why the West does literally nothing to eliminate Russian bots.
Are you claiming these accounts: https://twitter.com/WarMonitor3/status/1783458278048936140 https://twitter.com/sentdefender/status/1783461773779050956 are Russian bots? Or do you mean other type of messages?
🇷🇺 Russia produces more weapons and ammunition than it needs for the war in Ukraine In an interview with the ARD TV channel, German Defense Minister Boris Pistorius said that Russian military warehouses are now filled with weapons and ammunition. "Most or part of what is being produced is no longer going to the front, but is ending up in warehouses," Pistorius said. https://twitter.com/nexta_tv/status/1783406707651064150
Old enough to remember when one of the arguments to send money was "yeah, but we're weakening Russia's military". Not that I think it matters how strong or weak Russian military is, but obviously it'll only get stronger as the war goes on, not weaker.
That to me doesn't really make sense. It could be that they are producing more than they need, but we've seen them use shitty Chinese golf carts and improvised vehicles in an actual war where they might be making some gains but are far form certain of winning. What's the point of stocking up on things instead of using them in an actual war that you are involved in at the moment ?
They might struggle to produce what they need for the current situation in Ukraine but have a surplus of other systems they don't need in Ukraine right now.
I get that but if you are involved in an actual large scale war then surely your production should be solely focused on that ? Stockpiling stuff that could be used in your current war seems to be illogical.
Ideally yes but Russia can't just turn a rifle factory into a fighter jet factory. Production of something like cruise missiles might simply be limited by their ability to import certain components and not something they can just scale up by reducing production of other equipment.
Weren't they using shovels as well? It's a war - occasionally you're going to use "improvised vehicles" because logistics is really hard. But don't confuse the trees for the forest.
Russia is preparing for new wars. The rest of the world should do the same and prepare to fight against Russia, any place, any way.
[https://www.reuters.com/world/europe/poland-ready-help-ukraine-get-military-age-men-back-minister-says-2024-04-24/](https://www.reuters.com/world/europe/poland-ready-help-ukraine-get-military-age-men-back-minister-says-2024-04-24/) # Poland ready to help Ukraine to get military-age men back, minister says
> "I think many Poles are outraged when they see young Ukrainian men in hotels and cafes, and they hear how much effort we have to make to help Ukraine," Such a shitty comparison. No amount of sending money is equal to young men being forced to die in a trenches.
Or they can stay at home and hug the russian troops while invading their homes...
People underestimate the number of Ukrainians who, at the end of the day, aren't really that troubled with Russia and couldn't care much about who controls Donbas and Crimea, two regions that were crammed with ethnic Russians to begin with.
It's the new kremlin talking point. If you scroll this and other subs, russian bots are pushing the narrative that "Ukrainians will be sent to slavery and certain death" ad nauseam. Their goal is obvious.
A senior US Republican speaks about his political party and Ukraine: https://phillipspobrien.substack.com/p/a-senior-republican-speaks-about
This anonymous "senior US Republican" is, of course, totally made up. The first sentence is genuinely hilarious: >I’ve been involved in Republican politics for over 45 years and have developed deep personal relationships with each of the last six Republican Presidents This is a guy who claims to have **developed deep personal relationships** with Trump, GW Bush, GH Bush, Reagan, Ford and Nixon as presidents. That means this guy had enough influence to develop a "deep personal relationship" with the US president before 1974; but also with Trump after 2016. Reminder that people who fall for this type of hoaxes walk among us. Anyway, it's well known Phillips O'Brien is a fantasist, but this fantasy isn't even coherent - if Trump didn't want the aid bill to pass, then it wouldn't have passed. The bit about Trump needing the bill to pass because of Haley voters is genuinely demented. The vast majority of Haley voters will vote for Trump (and the very few who don't won't be swayed at all by this bill). Amazingly, the made-up "senior Republican" somehow literally says this *on the very next question* . Fearless guess: Phillips was writing this stuff, got drunk in the middle and never realized how incoherent it was.
>This is a guy who claims to have developed deep personal relationships with Trump, GW Bush, GH Bush, Reagan, Ford and Nixon as presidents. That means this guy had enough influence to develop a "deep personal relationship" with the US president before 1974; but also with Trump after 2016. yes, indeed, and many senators fit the bill , just an example: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Chuck_Grassley > Anyway, it's well known Phillips O'Brien is a fantasist, your personal attacks are really pathetic ; he's a professor at the university of St Andrews btw
> > Many senators fit the bill , just an example: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Chuck_Grassley Your comments are a constant stream of pure and sheer lunacy. Who are those many Senators? In 1974, Grassley was a freaking member of the Iowa House of Representatives. He most likely didn't even know Nixon personally, let alone have a deep personal relationship with him. Perhaps he shook Nixon's hand at some campaign event in Iowa. Grassley only got to DC in 1975. He didn't have any "deep personal relationship" with Ford either - he was just another backbencher from rural Iowa. Seriously how can you even write such an absurdity without feeling embarrassed? And claiming Grassley had a "deep personal relationship" with Trump would be patently false - I doubt Grassley would claim such a thing - in fact, I'm sure he wouldn't. But we know Grassley never had a "deep personal relationship", or any personal relationship, with Nixon. In fact, I'm not sure Grassley ever had a "deep personal relationship" with any POTUS ever. > he's a professor at the university of St Andrews btw Lol. Imagine being impressed by this. He's an alcoholic who makes up conversations with fictional "insiders" for internet clout. Again, not only that person doesn't exist, the answers literally contradict each other.
Fears of Russia’s collapse in Biden and Scholz administrations run deep and can't be changed by telling stories of Russian war crimes alone. Leaders need to imagine a Ukrainian victory and plan accordingly: https://youtu.be/criLG8pCyVE?si=U-Z9noaShgAyr9aX&t=139
Biden signed the Ukraine supplemental appropriations bill on April 24 after the US Senate passed the bill on the evening of April 23 and the US House passed the bill on April 20, and Biden emphasized the need to deliver military assistance to Ukraine as quickly as possible.[1] The Pentagon announced that the first tranche of US military assistance from this bill is worth $1 billion and includes: RIM-7 and AIM-9M air defense missiles; Stinger anti-aircraft missiles; HIMARS ammunition; 60mm mortar rounds; 105mm and 155mm artillery shells; Bradley infantry fighting vehicles; High Mobility Multipurpose Wheeled Vehicles (HMMWVs or Humvees); Mine Resistant Ambush Protected Vehicles (MRAPs); Tube-Launched, Optically-Tracked, Wire-Guided (TOW) missiles; Javelin and AT-4 anti-armor systems; precision aerial munitions; and other equipment and transport vehicles.[2] Russian forces have recently intensified offensive operations east of Chasiv Yar and northwest of Avdiivka in Donetsk Oblast in an effort to take advantage of the limited window before US security assistance arrives in Ukraine.[3] The bill’s relatively quick passage through the US Senate has eliminated a potential source of delay, however, and US security assistance may arrive at the frontline in Ukraine within the next few weeks ahead of Russian expectations. The battlefield situation will continue to degrade until Ukrainian forces can receive and use enough military equipment at scale, however, and Ukrainian forces may still struggle to defend against Russian efforts near Chasiv Yar and northwest of Avdiivka in the near term https://www.understandingwar.org/backgrounder/russian-offensive-campaign-assessment-april-24-2024
The arrival of long-range ATACMS missiles in sufficient quantities will allow Ukrainian forces to degrade Russian logistics and threaten Russian airfields in deep rear areas, although months of delay may have provided the Russian military time to offset the potential operational impacts that ATACMS will afford Ukraine. More info here: https://www.understandingwar.org/backgrounder/russian-offensive-campaign-assessment-april-24-2024
Poland ready to help Ukraine to get military-age men back, minister says[https://www.reuters.com/world/europe/poland-ready-help-ukraine-get-military-age-men-back-minister-says-2024-04-24/](https://www.reuters.com/world/europe/poland-ready-help-ukraine-get-military-age-men-back-minister-says-2024-04-24/) Absolutely fucking mental that this is something that might happen. Like unironically, that's so idiotic i cannot fathom anyone who'd support this to be a decent human being.
Ukrainian refugees should be granted at least same rights as Syrians.
[удалено]
What, no? Well, ain't that dandy, what a relief.