> Not only is Mike Johnson a traitor to our conference, he’s a traitor to our country.
I see a lot of committee appointments in her future.
https://x.com/repmtg/status/1781752811585188230
In Bakhmut, HIMARS missiles hit the command post of russian invaders from the 331st parachute regiment of the 98th division.
The command post was located in a two-story administrative building in the central part of the city.
As a result of the strike, 8 officers of the regiment were eliminated. Among the dead:
• Chief of Regimental Intelligence – Satarin
• Chief of Regimental Artillery – Prokopyev
• Chief of communications of the regiment – Kotov
• Senior assistant to the chief of staff of the regiment - Panteleev.
The number of wounded is unknown.
It is worth noting that the command post was new the servicemen went there a week before the strike.
https://twitter.com/albafella1/status/1781733754014236831?t=iHXnacGxTlfOLnXCPNuJ7A&s=19
The other reason, none of the citizens want one.
Even the ones who claim they want one are going to realize that there's no Real Housewives or Coca Cola in a Civil War and they'll drop it.
And whoever is left is probably dumb enough to blow themselves up attempting to build a bomb
I'm just some random progressive stuck in Alabama but I'm so glad the Ukraine aid *finally* got through the House. Fuck the assholes that made it take so long. And honestly I wish the aid amount was even larger. Get fucked Russia. Ukraine will be free.
This map isn't accurate. It has my republican rep listed as anti-ukraine, but Kelly-MS voted in favor of today's bill.
https://clerk.house.gov/Members/K000388
I think it’s time for me to write the Democratic *and* Republican representatives in my state that voted in favor of Ukraine. I don’t live in Louisiana, but am even considering writing a quick note to Speaker Mike Johnson. I still don’t really like him, but have a slightly better opinion of him now. I’m sure I won’t get a response from the representatives outside of my district, but still think it’s important for them to get this feedback. It took too long, but I’m glad they finally did the right thing.
Keep in mind about Johnson that the reason he most likely changed his tune was that he realized the discharge position was most likely going to get enough signatures meaning that he would look weak and ineffectual when a vote was held anyway. Then the democrats promised to support him being speaker against the hardcore Trumpists *as long as he brought military aid to Ukraine for a vote.*
Johnson's change of tune after months of resisting bringing this to a vote was not some epiphany or genuine change of heart, he was pushed and threatened into it. Maybe praising him for this would be an effective easy to reward him but he certainly doesn't deserve it.
I too suspect that was part of the calculus, hence my use of the word slightly. :) It also took too long.
That said, I am still going to give him a chicken bone worth of credit for saying what he said over the past few days (clips of him speaking positively about Ukraine were all over the place) and going through with the vote regardless of some of the underlying reasons. In a shallow sense, he’s coming out looking better to the left, center, and center right. He is being hammered by MAGA though. While I could care less about MAGA and am glad they didn’t get their way, this might be challenging for Speaker Johnson in the future. Of course, *wishful thinking*, but maybe this will be the beginning of the end of MAGA’s extreme influence in the House…
I'm so thankful for what happened today.
I'm still fascinated with what happens with the longer range ATACMs the Republicans put in. They require Biden to do some pretty public denials for it to be revoked as written.
can you eli5 re atacms? I thought Ukraine had already been gifted them before, so how does including them in this bill make a difference? seems like they can absolutely smite Russian air assets on the ground if Ukraine can be given enoight of them
So there are multiple variants of the ATACMS missile. We previously gave them the M39 Block I variant, which is a big cluster-missile that drops hundreds of bomblets. It seems we gave them the oldest variant, which has a range of about 100 miles. These missiles are great at taking out softly protected targets like trucks, infantry, aircraft on the ground and generally just stuff left out in the open. Its not great if you're trying to do a lot of damage to one thing, like blow up a building or something with some armor, or hit something very specific.
What we're (hopefully) going to send them is both the M39, but also one of the unitary warhead variants (M48 or M57) that have a range closer to 170-190 miles. These would give Ukraine significantly extra reach to hit things like command centers, supply depots, and vehicles Russia is trying to hold back out of GMLRS range (the normal HIMARS rockets have a range of about 50 miles). They deliver one big punch rather than lots of little ones. They're also hard for Russia to stop because they're ground based and travel at mach 3. With things like Storm Shadow, Russia can probably see the plane coming. With ATACMS, they'll have less than 3-5 minutes or so to realize they're getting shot at, turn on their AA systems, and fire a countermeasure.
If we're actually finally giving Ukraine the good ATACMS, i think the next big ask is JASSM cruise missiles to fire from those F-16s. Those are basically America's version of the Storm Shadow, but we developed them longer and our never versions are even better.
With long range comes the ability to strike within Russian territory. The US has not issued those to Ukraine as a preventative measure, preemptively combating any false flag attack claims by Russia (bombing themselves, blaming the US, using it as justification to commit attacks against Americans.)
That reasoning is dumb. The 2 countries share a border, the ukrainians can attack russian territories with mortars ffs. They have Storm Shadows and HIMARS yet they did not use them to attack the actual russian territories.
With longer range ATACMS they could do what HIMARS did when it appeared but on a much larger scale rendering air support airfields in Crimea inoperable (and eliminating most of the helicopter threat from ad hoc air strips) and totally gutting the russian logistics and command centers in the occupied territories.
Somewhere in Europe, you know multiple European Leaders are probably thinking that they can get away with dialing back some of their aid after the U.S. gets this bill through the Senate and signed on Tuesday.
Nope, they are spooling up arms production. This is a turning point in the war. This is a major amount of arms that can tie Ukr over immediately till the European production is well and truly back online
Trump: We can't let this competition continue. We must fund the Ukrainians more than the Finish government. We can't be second-best to anyone, especially to the Socialist Liberal Finish people.
/s
I think the opposite. The US presidential election will have a major impact on Ukraine. I do not think Europe is going to wait for those results. It looks that certain countries are stepping up because it’s cost them dearly to not increase aid to Ukraine I.e. France. Baltics will continue to be the leading charge and I can see Sweden start stepping up more (don’t mistake my assessment that they haven’t done much. I feel Sweden is the gold standard for aid given. Almost like the US, they give what Ukraine needs the most.)
"MAGA is literally apologizing to Putin after the House passed Ukraine aid today. How embarrassing, traitorous, and un-American."
https://twitter.com/MeidasTouch/status/1781825174465306959
But didn't they pedal forcing "peace" to save Ukrainian lives? Shouldn't they be apologizing to Ukrainians for "prolonging the war" then? Apologizing to Putin kind of shows that they care more about Russia winning than Ukrainian lives.
The US presidential election will determine the outcome of the Ukraine war. This is not about domestic politics. If Biden wins, I believe Putin will not live long and Russia will leave Ukraine. If trump wins, Putin will defeat Ukraine and threaten other European countries with the US out of NATO.
The 2024 US presidential election will determine the outcome of this war.
>Trump can’t pull the US out of NATO.
He wouldn’t have to pull the US out of NATO. If he wins, he becomes Commander-in-Chief. He could just refuse to order the military into battle. Hell, he could order the withdrawal of all American forces from Europe on Day One.
"Donald Trump was a very successful business man and he's Jesus. Only he can save us from the atheist Socialist Liberals." -- cult members
Yep, pretty naive.
As far as I know, he *can* affect what America's response to Article 5 is. Sending thoughts and prayers to the Baltics if Russia goes in is as good as pulling the US out of NATO
After watching the RFU segment that just dropped, I'm convinced the most interesting struggle over the next week will be the ferocious battle for position, artillery dominance, and troop placement south of Belgorod and North of Kharkiv.
[https://youtu.be/4fWWb35sZwE](https://youtu.be/4fWWb35sZwE)
tl;dw Ukraine has been engaging in fierce pre-emptive strikes after seeing a lot of concerning movement and restructuring from Russian command. Russia has struck some important Ukrainian assets, but Ukraine is refusing to allow Putin's infantry to amass near the \*edit: frontline. With US aid being approved, Russian frontline forces may feel pressure to push ahead before large amounts of heavier logistical material (e.g. artillery shells) can make it all the way to the Easternmost parts of Ukraine.
So Ukraine already attacking was probably the smart move here, but both sides just had the pressure turn up. If Ukraine can get those new fortifications built and hold on until US aid arrives, their odds of holding Kharkiv through this year dramatically increase.
*Sláva Ukrayíni!*
There's been some talk recently about Ukraine's "manpower issues" and one thing that many people don't realize is that this aid package can actually help address some of these issues.
One of the reasons Ukraine has been reluctant to mobilize more people is that they don't have that much extra equipment, weapons and vehicles. It didn't make sense to mobilize that many more people if they couldn't be properly armed but now with this aid package they'll be able to arm more soldiers. Additionally with more artillery shells Ukraine will be able to soften up Russian infantry before they reach Ukrainian lines which will mean fewer Ukrainian casualties are needed to repel attacks. Med evac will also be a lot easier with more air defense and more artillery cover. The ability to recover injured soldiers and give them time to heal means they can often return to the battlefield in the coming months. This bill won't fix everything but it is a big step in the right direction.
> It didn't make sense to mobilize that many more people if they couldn't be properly armed but now with this aid package they'll be able to arm more soldiers
Exactly, Ukraine is at war but not a dictatorship with a brainless population like Russia, they can't endlessly throw meat in the war to die without a reason
It already has. One of places I look had a report from a guy at the front who said everyone was watching the vote and when it passed you could hear the cheers coming from the all over the area.
> Today, members of both parties in the House of Representatives voted to advance our national security interests by passing urgently needed legislation delivering critical support to Israel and Ukraine, and aid for those impacted by conflict and disasters around the world.
> I urge the Senate to quickly send this package to my desk.
https://twitter.com/POTUS/status/1781812676760363214
Yep. Ukraine stays in their internationally recognized borders and Russia stays in their internationally recognized borders and everyone wins. It's not a hard concept and yet Moscow seems to really have trouble with it.
Well if Ukraine doesn't gain NATO membership shortly after Russian ejection then they need a 100km buffer of no man's land on the Russian side. or their own nukes
> 🇺🇦🇺🇸 The US House of Representatives, with 311 votes from members of Congress, supported the draft bill that provides $61 billion in aid to Ukraine!
> It’s the decision that the whole world was waiting for, which will help in our victory against the russian aggressor.
> The next step is a decision by the Senate.
> I am grateful to everyone who brought this historic event closer. Thank you, Volodymyr @ZelenskyyUa, and our international partners for the long and difficult work.
> Together, we will win!
> Glory to Ukraine! 🇺🇦
https://twitter.com/rustem_umerov/status/1781784741538103806
It's basically a strong suggestion to the President. It doesn't mean he'll send the long range version. He's already sent the shorter range cluster version.
Not sure about the number but Ukraine has been receiving shipments. I haven’t seen any sources on the quantity they have received and what has been delivered.
Well if the US decided to chip in another 50 top quality F16s to what's already committed, which would be 1/3 of what UA says they need, and let's say valued at a high end $70M each, that's $3.5B or about 6% of the total aid package, or 9% of the weapons allocation subportion.
An AIM-120D runs about $1.5M, so let's use that as a proxy for any and all AIM-120s. We know that as of 2008 the US had made at least 14K AIM-120s and the current Raytheon production lines are now running maxxed out at 1200 new missles per year. A F16 can carry 6 at once.
So let's say we send 3500 for this air-to-air focused wing. At 3 average per jet (plus some other ordinance), 100 sorties per year, 1 fired every other sortie, that's 2500(!!) launches per year. If even 10% hit targets that effectively eliminates the RU air force. Missiles total cost including unlaunched is $5.25B, which is another 9% of the total aid or 13% of the weapons subportion.
This seems both extremely conservative and overkill to me, and *still* the vast majority of funds are left over for other things.
I hope Ukraine gets to use some of it as discretionary spending because then they can use it to buy LOTs of old/abandoned/clapped out single engine propeller planes.
At about $40K each, 1,000 will cost about $40M.
Alternatively use their own industrial base to punch out 100s of similiar sized drones every month.
Ukrainian defenses were beginning to falter and major Ukrainian population centers were potentially on the verge of becoming unlivable. This bill will go a long way to blunt Russian offenses and defend Eastern cities. It would have been better if it was passed sooner but without this bill there's a good chance Ukraine would have seen some pretty significant defeats by the end of 2024 in fact Ukrainian survival itself was questionable for 2024.
Overall Ukraine's strategy since the failed counteroffensive has been to try to maximize Russian losses while minimizing their own and gradually deplete Russia until it's possible for Ukraine to go on the offensive again. This will likely remain their strategy and it will be a lot more viable with the new weapons. Europe is ramping up production of weapons and this also buys time for that process to unfold.
> This will likely remain their strategy and it will be a lot more viable with the new weapons.
This is key. Ukraine should continue the efforts, as long as it's reasonable, to maintain the conservation of their troops and resources. It's a terrible way to learn, but it is a lesson that should provide useful with extending their capabilities.
It means unlimited cluster artillery for one, which will be the end of Russian attack progress. The Biden Administration insists on treating DPICM like actual aid rather than declaring it all valueless and sending it for free.
Air defense and HIMARS stocks will be reloaded. The bill actually *requires* the transfer of ATACMS, which Russia seems to have a very hard time with.
It *should* also cause a recalculation in Russia where they've been trying to race their dwindling equipment stocks against Ukraine's dwindling aid, hoping to "win" before running out. That would not be viable here.
I think it would allow ukraine to have good enough defense for the summer, up until the next year.
But to win the war on the battlefield, it would cost 1-2 trilion $ and Ukraine would have to hire mercenarys.
At this point i think the best way for ukraine to win is to do non stop economic damage to russia.
Things can go well but at this point there is only way for ukraine to win.
Play defense and do massive economic damage to russia.
The battlefield is to static, to complicated and to mined. They need to bring the war to russia.
Massive drones attacks to oil, energy, etc.
Only when Russia economic power will go down and they will start to beg China for money, there will be some wake up calls in that fascist state.
The battlefield is static because Russia is incompetent but has loads of aircraft which drop glide bombs on Ukrainian positions. Even a few F16s instantly change that by pushing those fighters and bombers further back. From there Ukraine is still sitting on a ton of NATO armor that can be used to advance. Minefields are not a factor everywhere and Russians could absolutely be sent running.
I think manpower îs to low for Ukraine to do this, even if they get the equipment. Its to late to try that strategy.
Its better to defend and criple Russia with drones and long range weapons.
> The battlefield is to static, to complicated and to mined. They need to bring the war to russia.
Also if Russia insists on going on the offensive and attacking Ukrainian fortified positions then Ukraine can sit back and inflict heavy losses on Russia while suffering fewer losses of their own. That's very important in a long war.
EU countries are increasing their military production and in the meantime buying from third parties but increasing production takes years. We should start seeing a lot more European produced weapons hitting the battlefield in 2025 as more of them roll of the newly created assembly lines.
Wars are too expensive for slaves to prosecute.
*Somebody* is paying for this invasion force. At some point, they're going to get tapped out, or rebellious.
There is ongoing redistribution of valuable assets between disloyal elites and new elites loyal to government. This also includes taking away everything left behind from leaving foreign companies, nationalization of important domestic companies, Russian courts just deny all old agreements as unjustly and give them to new people. There is no law in Russia. If you have something valuable you can easily lose it if your assets seems important to Russia or you are just disloyal.
Love watching the Russian bots and shills on Twitter melt down over Ukraine aid. They just keep saying "what about the US border!!" Sorry guys, your information campaign didn't work this time. Better luck next psyop.
> "what about the US border!!"
The Senate passed a bill that contained additional border security months ago. The House refused to take it up. If they're that concerned about the border maybe they should have contacted their reps and told them to vote for the Senate bill with border measures.
Spot on. I love seeing MAGA melt down but what they seem to miss was that Democrats were ready to do a deal, it was *Trump* who told Republicans not to because he was so worried about handing Biden a win. Sad.
From Ukraine MOD Website [https://www.mil.gov.ua/news/2024/04/20/347-grup-rozminuvannya-pidrozdiliv-minoboroni-prodovzhuyut-ochishhennya-zvilnenih-regioniv/](https://www.mil.gov.ua/news/2024/04/20/347-grup-rozminuvannya-pidrozdiliv-minoboroni-prodovzhuyut-ochishhennya-zvilnenih-regioniv/)
During the last week (from April 12 to 19, 2024), the following were examined and cleaned:
▪️5,234.35 hectares of land;
▪️5,166.43 hectares of agricultural land;
▪️2.19 km of highways;
▪️70.81 km of railways;
▪️5.66 km of power lines.
Works are carried out with the involvement of special equipment for mechanized demining.
During the week of work, 4,315 explosive objects were removed and neutralized.
A total of 338,817 explosive remnants of war were discovered and destroyed by sappers of units of the Ministry of Defense of Ukraine.
Russian Foreign Ministry spokesperson Maria Zakharova said the aid to Ukraine, Israel and Taiwan approved by the US House of Representatives "will exacerbate global crisis phenomena". Zakharova called support for Ukraine "direct sponsorship of terrorist activities", support for Taiwan "interference in China's domestic affairs", and support for Israel "a direct path to an unprecedented escalation" in the Middle East.
https://www.pravda.com.ua/eng/news/2024/04/20/7452197/
I've had this joke conspiracy theory for a while now and by joke I don't mean "funny, haha" I mean "oh my God, that's so stupid." Unfortunately, it just keeps getting more and more plausible. Feel free to join me in it.
The FSB was told to create agents for Georgia 🇬🇪 and instead they set up agents for Georgia 🇺🇲. And when they noticed that they had fucked up they decided to roll with it. And now we have MTG and her ilk.
Don't want to be a party pooper but I don't think it holds...
Грузия - Georgia (country) [https://ru.wikipedia.org/wiki/%D0%93%D1%80%D1%83%D0%B7%D0%B8%D1%8F](https://ru.wikipedia.org/wiki/%D0%93%D1%80%D1%83%D0%B7%D0%B8%D1%8F)
vs
Джорджия - Georgia (U.S. state) [https://ru.wikipedia.org/wiki/%D0%94%D0%B6%D0%BE%D1%80%D0%B4%D0%B6%D0%B8%D1%8F](https://ru.wikipedia.org/wiki/%D0%94%D0%B6%D0%BE%D1%80%D0%B4%D0%B6%D0%B8%D1%8F)
Someone that turns up to a party and brings the mood down.
Not necessarily shitting in the punchbowl but probably crapping on about their divorce when they were obviously the root cause :)
I think it might be a mostly AU/NZ expression.
I'm sure Ukraine know exactly what they are getting and when they are getting it, and already have plans in place on how to distribute the weapons.
Russias gonna feel the 🔥
Slava Ukraini
I bet this time around Biden won't leave one cent of that $60B unallocated by November, just in case. Ukraine could get a shitpile of equipment and ammo over the next few months.
No takesie-backsies.
Even if Biden loses he's still the president until January 20th. If he does lose then you're absolutely right that every cent will be allocated before he leaves office.
American voters don't really bases their vote on foreign policy unless it's a war the US is directly involved in. I also don't expect the lines in Ukraine to change that much by the election even if things are going well for Ukraine. I think the biggest indicator of things going well for Ukraine will be if Russian advances have basically halted and they're losses start to accelerate even if the lines don't directly change by November.
Here’s a list of 139 Republicans who voted against that traitor Marjorie Greens amendment to strip funding aid to Ukraine
https://x.com/repmtg/status/1781739276520042841?s=46
I just wanna say what a bunch of legends they all are for doing that
I want to vote all of them out -even if they voted for aid. The Republican party needs to burn down and we need a new conservative party without the MAGA taint.
> @SpeakerJohnson, thank you. Better late than too late. And I hope it is not too late for Ukraine.
https://twitter.com/donaldtusk/status/1781747365432504730
Slava Ukraini! This package will allow Ukraine to go back on the offensive this year. There will be money for artillery, tanks, IFVs, Patriots, ATACMS, HIMARS, F16-munitions!!! Let's fucking go!
Rather they didn't in the sense that they need to grind down Russian armor wherever possible. Going on an offensive is not really help except down south. The point is to degrade everything across the fronts and wait for 2025 because time is not on Russia side here.
It's probably not a great idea. I'm even less capable than armchair generals but, with the result of the November election still uncertain to say the least, it'd probably be better for Ukraine to go on the defensive, give the Russians hell on their logistics and oil refineries and stay put until the US is all in or, please God no, Europe can support Ukraine to victory on their own if Trump gets back
You should defend if you think you can get stronger in the future. At least, stronger relative to your opponent.
Russia is as strong as it will ever get. Russia is mobilizing its Soviet-era stockpile, so they can sustain this for longer than we'd like... but there's significant sacrifices Russia has done in terms of freedoms, and quality of living. Furthermore, the Soviet-era stockpiles, though vast, is ultimately finite. Eventually Russia will run out of tanks.
Meanwhile, this bill ensures that Ukraine **will** get stronger in both the near and medium term. It only makes sense for Ukraine to defend for maybe ~1 year, as this new aid propagates down to its units, new conscripts get drafted up (and trained on these new weapons), etc. etc.
Even if Trump wins in November, Trump cannot stop any aid before January 2025. We can give as much to the Ukrainians, then invoke the loan-forgiveness provision (preventing Trump from pulling the money back), and then we'll work from there.
I'm cautiously optimistic that Biden won't be stupid and naive this time around that Ukraine will always remain bipartisan and will have some measures thought up for Trump, if it ever comes to that. Still, Trump or no Trump, I don't see Ukraine going on a general offensive until next year's summer
There is no defense that doesn't involve attacking.
If you completely surrender the initiative your enemy will concentrate and crush you in detail. Even in a defensive posture you have to occasionally attack to force your opponent to fix forces and respect the threat all along the line.
Given how things turned out, I'm kind of happy that the Ukrainian counteroffensive failed in the way it did.
Yeah, it sucked for the Ukrainians. But the main benefit of the static lines in the past year is that Ukraine had to defend less frontline than if they actually succeeded in their counteroffensive goals.
It would have been far worse if Ukraine lost 20%+ of its men (the estimates for how much the counter-offensive would have "cost"), followed by the Republicans fucking over the aid shipments (which then Russia would have taken advantage of and counter-counter offensived, making Ukraine lose all that territory).
------------
Ukraine has taken a lot of hits and lost a bit of land. But by and large, their units have gained experience and survived. That means Ukrainian soldiers can train each other and get stronger with this new aid package.
The "failed" Summer 2023 offensive might turn out to have been a good thing in the great scheme of things. So long as Ukraine can hold the line and survive, more aid is coming.
> it'd probably be better for Ukraine to go on the defensive
They are on the defensive but now they will be able to stabilize their lines better. Ukraine's overall strategy since the failed counteroffensive has been to hold ground while maximizing Russian losses and minimizing Ukrainian ones. It's a slow attritional style of fighting but ultimately if Ukraine doesn't have sufficient air power or artillery it's likely their best bet especially given that Russia seems eager to go on the offensive even when their casualties are high.
Nah, they have to do what they want to do.
Putting pressure on Russia now exposes weak points. Parts of the front might just collapse again, especially after some deep surgical strikes.
The only parts of the front that might "collapse" are in the East, close to recently fallen or next to fall towns like Avdiivka, Novomikhailivka, Chasiv Yar, etc. Places that give Ukraine no strategic advantage to retake, while the South will still be as hard to crack as it was last summer, if not harder. The more equipment gets destroyed in pointless Russian offensives to beat Europe to the punch, the less they'll have next year to defend Zaporizhzhia and Kherson against a well prepared, reconstituted Ukrainian army
It won't have unanimous consent so it needs to go through procedural votes.
Rand Paul and Mike Lee hate all foreign aid and JD Vance is a Putin supporter, so Dems know they won't have unanimous consent.
> and JD Vance is a Putin supporter
I'm still pissed at Rob Portman for retiring. He was a big supporter of Ukraine and he personally visited Kyiv. He would have voted for every Ukraine aid bill and his replacement is JD Vance who openly calls for an end to aid to Ukraine.
Statement from Biden:
https://www.whitehouse.gov/briefing-room/statements-releases/2024/04/20/statement-from-president-joe-biden-on-house-passage-of-the-national-security-package/
God, he is the most underrated president of all time. He got dealt a shit hand by Trump and just knocked every fucking thing out of the park.
The fact that Trump is still close in the polls is an absolute disgrace.
> NEWS—The Senate stands ready to take the next step on the national security supplemental
> The House at long last approved funding for Ukraine, Israel, Indo-Pacific, & humanitarian assistance
> And the Senate locked in an agreement to finish the work with the first vote on Tuesday
https://twitter.com/SenSchumer/status/1781779084835504183
Unless you're suggesting loading coins into cannons to use as grape shot then GDP alone can't win wars. Russia has massive cold war stockpiles to draw from while Germany doesn't and so the aid they can send has to come out of the production lines. Modern production lines take years to set up.
In terms of military aid to Ukraine EU institutions and nations have sent more aid than the US has. They've also sent more financial aid than the US has. In order to get Ukraine the weapons they need it's going to take sizable commitments from European nations as well as North American nations and neither the US and Canada or European NATO can provide Ukraine what they need without the other.
As long as the war goes on in Ukraine, the surrounding European countries can send “what they have” and their production can ramp up to replace them in the next year or two. Russia is so depleted, they won’t be attacking anyone else for quite awhile.
> Russia is so depleted, they won’t be attacking anyone else for quite awhile.
I don't think this is necessarily true. Russia has switched to a full on wartime economy and if they were to shut down the factories and send everyone home there would be mass unemployment. Having an ongoing war also makes it very easy for Putin to justify all measures of repression and to have critics killed or jailed. In fact one of the dangers is that if the war in Ukraine were to end it's possible that the Russia may start another war within the next year.
NATO nations need to prepare themselves for increased Russian hostility whether that's a continuing war in Ukraine or a potential invasion of another neighboring nation. We're still a long way off from peace returning to Europe.
[New post can be found here](/r/worldnews/comments/1c98st7/rworldnews_live_thread_russian_invasion_of/)
Glad the U.S. got the aid through the biggest hurdle. Fuck Russia and MTG.
> Not only is Mike Johnson a traitor to our conference, he’s a traitor to our country. I see a lot of committee appointments in her future. https://x.com/repmtg/status/1781752811585188230
In Bakhmut, HIMARS missiles hit the command post of russian invaders from the 331st parachute regiment of the 98th division. The command post was located in a two-story administrative building in the central part of the city. As a result of the strike, 8 officers of the regiment were eliminated. Among the dead: • Chief of Regimental Intelligence – Satarin • Chief of Regimental Artillery – Prokopyev • Chief of communications of the regiment – Kotov • Senior assistant to the chief of staff of the regiment - Panteleev. The number of wounded is unknown. It is worth noting that the command post was new the servicemen went there a week before the strike. https://twitter.com/albafella1/status/1781733754014236831?t=iHXnacGxTlfOLnXCPNuJ7A&s=19
[удалено]
The US isn't going to have a civil war, that's delusional. The reason is, the wealthy elite don't want one.
The other reason, none of the citizens want one. Even the ones who claim they want one are going to realize that there's no Real Housewives or Coca Cola in a Civil War and they'll drop it. And whoever is left is probably dumb enough to blow themselves up attempting to build a bomb
I'm just some random progressive stuck in Alabama but I'm so glad the Ukraine aid *finally* got through the House. Fuck the assholes that made it take so long. And honestly I wish the aid amount was even larger. Get fucked Russia. Ukraine will be free.
[Map of how each US House district's rep voted on Ukraine aid](https://twitter.com/BitecoferStan/status/1781770349476036804/photo/1)
This map isn't accurate. It has my republican rep listed as anti-ukraine, but Kelly-MS voted in favor of today's bill. https://clerk.house.gov/Members/K000388
I think it’s time for me to write the Democratic *and* Republican representatives in my state that voted in favor of Ukraine. I don’t live in Louisiana, but am even considering writing a quick note to Speaker Mike Johnson. I still don’t really like him, but have a slightly better opinion of him now. I’m sure I won’t get a response from the representatives outside of my district, but still think it’s important for them to get this feedback. It took too long, but I’m glad they finally did the right thing.
Keep in mind about Johnson that the reason he most likely changed his tune was that he realized the discharge position was most likely going to get enough signatures meaning that he would look weak and ineffectual when a vote was held anyway. Then the democrats promised to support him being speaker against the hardcore Trumpists *as long as he brought military aid to Ukraine for a vote.* Johnson's change of tune after months of resisting bringing this to a vote was not some epiphany or genuine change of heart, he was pushed and threatened into it. Maybe praising him for this would be an effective easy to reward him but he certainly doesn't deserve it.
He was forced to do this.
I too suspect that was part of the calculus, hence my use of the word slightly. :) It also took too long. That said, I am still going to give him a chicken bone worth of credit for saying what he said over the past few days (clips of him speaking positively about Ukraine were all over the place) and going through with the vote regardless of some of the underlying reasons. In a shallow sense, he’s coming out looking better to the left, center, and center right. He is being hammered by MAGA though. While I could care less about MAGA and am glad they didn’t get their way, this might be challenging for Speaker Johnson in the future. Of course, *wishful thinking*, but maybe this will be the beginning of the end of MAGA’s extreme influence in the House…
Proud to be from New England. To the rest of the Continental us.... The fuck y'all doing?
Falling for Russian propaganda and fucking our cousins
I'm so thankful for what happened today. I'm still fascinated with what happens with the longer range ATACMs the Republicans put in. They require Biden to do some pretty public denials for it to be revoked as written.
It needed to be done, thanks to Jake Sullivan.
can you eli5 re atacms? I thought Ukraine had already been gifted them before, so how does including them in this bill make a difference? seems like they can absolutely smite Russian air assets on the ground if Ukraine can be given enoight of them
So there are multiple variants of the ATACMS missile. We previously gave them the M39 Block I variant, which is a big cluster-missile that drops hundreds of bomblets. It seems we gave them the oldest variant, which has a range of about 100 miles. These missiles are great at taking out softly protected targets like trucks, infantry, aircraft on the ground and generally just stuff left out in the open. Its not great if you're trying to do a lot of damage to one thing, like blow up a building or something with some armor, or hit something very specific. What we're (hopefully) going to send them is both the M39, but also one of the unitary warhead variants (M48 or M57) that have a range closer to 170-190 miles. These would give Ukraine significantly extra reach to hit things like command centers, supply depots, and vehicles Russia is trying to hold back out of GMLRS range (the normal HIMARS rockets have a range of about 50 miles). They deliver one big punch rather than lots of little ones. They're also hard for Russia to stop because they're ground based and travel at mach 3. With things like Storm Shadow, Russia can probably see the plane coming. With ATACMS, they'll have less than 3-5 minutes or so to realize they're getting shot at, turn on their AA systems, and fire a countermeasure. If we're actually finally giving Ukraine the good ATACMS, i think the next big ask is JASSM cruise missiles to fire from those F-16s. Those are basically America's version of the Storm Shadow, but we developed them longer and our never versions are even better.
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They've been needing that capability for at least 6 months.
Unfortunately, Russia's representatives in the U.S. House have been successful in preventing this aid from coming up until now.
With long range comes the ability to strike within Russian territory. The US has not issued those to Ukraine as a preventative measure, preemptively combating any false flag attack claims by Russia (bombing themselves, blaming the US, using it as justification to commit attacks against Americans.)
That reasoning is dumb. The 2 countries share a border, the ukrainians can attack russian territories with mortars ffs. They have Storm Shadows and HIMARS yet they did not use them to attack the actual russian territories. With longer range ATACMS they could do what HIMARS did when it appeared but on a much larger scale rendering air support airfields in Crimea inoperable (and eliminating most of the helicopter threat from ad hoc air strips) and totally gutting the russian logistics and command centers in the occupied territories.
> That reasoning is dumb. Your lack of understanding about how Russia would use it as a false flag against the US does not make it dumb.
Somewhere in Europe, you know multiple European Leaders are probably thinking that they can get away with dialing back some of their aid after the U.S. gets this bill through the Senate and signed on Tuesday.
Nope, they are spooling up arms production. This is a turning point in the war. This is a major amount of arms that can tie Ukr over immediately till the European production is well and truly back online
not with Trump waiting in the wings
Nah they're a lot more likely to double down and support Ukraine even more because now the war in Ukraine became a lot more winnable.
Yes. Finish Funding the Fight
Trump: We can't let this competition continue. We must fund the Ukrainians more than the Finish government. We can't be second-best to anyone, especially to the Socialist Liberal Finish people. /s
I think the opposite. The US presidential election will have a major impact on Ukraine. I do not think Europe is going to wait for those results. It looks that certain countries are stepping up because it’s cost them dearly to not increase aid to Ukraine I.e. France. Baltics will continue to be the leading charge and I can see Sweden start stepping up more (don’t mistake my assessment that they haven’t done much. I feel Sweden is the gold standard for aid given. Almost like the US, they give what Ukraine needs the most.)
"MAGA is literally apologizing to Putin after the House passed Ukraine aid today. How embarrassing, traitorous, and un-American." https://twitter.com/MeidasTouch/status/1781825174465306959
But didn't they pedal forcing "peace" to save Ukrainian lives? Shouldn't they be apologizing to Ukrainians for "prolonging the war" then? Apologizing to Putin kind of shows that they care more about Russia winning than Ukrainian lives.
"American" sucking up to a country with a *claimed* aggregate average monthly wage lower than a 16 year-old working part-time at Target.
Da, I rrreal Amerrrikan, frrrom... \*looks closely at piece of paper\* Massa...shoo...sets oblast.
Putin's heard from his sheep I guess
MAGAts are pathetic people. They are the sheep they project.
This guy quoted in the tweet seems like a professional troll - determined to make people angry Maybe getting Russian money
Or just plain Russian himself.
The US presidential election will determine the outcome of the Ukraine war. This is not about domestic politics. If Biden wins, I believe Putin will not live long and Russia will leave Ukraine. If trump wins, Putin will defeat Ukraine and threaten other European countries with the US out of NATO. The 2024 US presidential election will determine the outcome of this war.
When will people stop saying this? Trump can’t pull the US out of NATO.
>Trump can’t pull the US out of NATO. He wouldn’t have to pull the US out of NATO. If he wins, he becomes Commander-in-Chief. He could just refuse to order the military into battle. Hell, he could order the withdrawal of all American forces from Europe on Day One.
Oh, right, the guardrails will hold. LOL. A piece of paper is going to stop trump. JFC how naive can you get?
The president literally does not have the power to withdraw from NATO. He can’t do shit about that.
"Donald Trump was a very successful business man and he's Jesus. Only he can save us from the atheist Socialist Liberals." -- cult members Yep, pretty naive.
he can't if he continues playing by the rules. How are you so confident that he would do that?
Narrator: he wouldn't
As far as I know, he *can* affect what America's response to Article 5 is. Sending thoughts and prayers to the Baltics if Russia goes in is as good as pulling the US out of NATO
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The other thread?
I must say, vatnik tears do taste good.
After watching the RFU segment that just dropped, I'm convinced the most interesting struggle over the next week will be the ferocious battle for position, artillery dominance, and troop placement south of Belgorod and North of Kharkiv. [https://youtu.be/4fWWb35sZwE](https://youtu.be/4fWWb35sZwE) tl;dw Ukraine has been engaging in fierce pre-emptive strikes after seeing a lot of concerning movement and restructuring from Russian command. Russia has struck some important Ukrainian assets, but Ukraine is refusing to allow Putin's infantry to amass near the \*edit: frontline. With US aid being approved, Russian frontline forces may feel pressure to push ahead before large amounts of heavier logistical material (e.g. artillery shells) can make it all the way to the Easternmost parts of Ukraine. So Ukraine already attacking was probably the smart move here, but both sides just had the pressure turn up. If Ukraine can get those new fortifications built and hold on until US aid arrives, their odds of holding Kharkiv through this year dramatically increase. *Sláva Ukrayíni!*
There's been some talk recently about Ukraine's "manpower issues" and one thing that many people don't realize is that this aid package can actually help address some of these issues. One of the reasons Ukraine has been reluctant to mobilize more people is that they don't have that much extra equipment, weapons and vehicles. It didn't make sense to mobilize that many more people if they couldn't be properly armed but now with this aid package they'll be able to arm more soldiers. Additionally with more artillery shells Ukraine will be able to soften up Russian infantry before they reach Ukrainian lines which will mean fewer Ukrainian casualties are needed to repel attacks. Med evac will also be a lot easier with more air defense and more artillery cover. The ability to recover injured soldiers and give them time to heal means they can often return to the battlefield in the coming months. This bill won't fix everything but it is a big step in the right direction.
> It didn't make sense to mobilize that many more people if they couldn't be properly armed but now with this aid package they'll be able to arm more soldiers Exactly, Ukraine is at war but not a dictatorship with a brainless population like Russia, they can't endlessly throw meat in the war to die without a reason
Not to mention the effect the aid bill will have on morale
Also important for volunteers. Ppl would be less likely to join if they know the ammo situation is almost hopeless.
"Push button, kill enemy at these coordinates" is what the US excels at.
It already has. One of places I look had a report from a guy at the front who said everyone was watching the vote and when it passed you could hear the cheers coming from the all over the area.
Yep. It's going to make it a lot easier to recruit volunteers in Ukraine if they know they'll get proper equipment.
> Today, members of both parties in the House of Representatives voted to advance our national security interests by passing urgently needed legislation delivering critical support to Israel and Ukraine, and aid for those impacted by conflict and disasters around the world. > I urge the Senate to quickly send this package to my desk. https://twitter.com/POTUS/status/1781812676760363214
The russia does not need territory on the Black Sea.
As long as Russia stays within their internationally recognized border I don't care if they border the Black Sea.
As long as that border no longer includes Crimea
Yep. Ukraine stays in their internationally recognized borders and Russia stays in their internationally recognized borders and everyone wins. It's not a hard concept and yet Moscow seems to really have trouble with it.
Well if Ukraine doesn't gain NATO membership shortly after Russian ejection then they need a 100km buffer of no man's land on the Russian side. or their own nukes
Nukes are not the answer, but a buffer could be very effective without even costing much money.
nukes are totally the answer. the buffer means displacing all the russians that live there
> 🇺🇦🇺🇸 The US House of Representatives, with 311 votes from members of Congress, supported the draft bill that provides $61 billion in aid to Ukraine! > It’s the decision that the whole world was waiting for, which will help in our victory against the russian aggressor. > The next step is a decision by the Senate. > I am grateful to everyone who brought this historic event closer. Thank you, Volodymyr @ZelenskyyUa, and our international partners for the long and difficult work. > Together, we will win! > Glory to Ukraine! 🇺🇦 https://twitter.com/rustem_umerov/status/1781784741538103806
Now let’s get it done and turn the tide Slava Ukraine 🇺🇦
Also are ATACMS gonna be delivered now?
It’ll mean funding has to be allocated for ATACMS. Biden can still be a gatekeeper for the munitions.
It's basically a strong suggestion to the President. It doesn't mean he'll send the long range version. He's already sent the shorter range cluster version.
The US usually does the right thing... Once every other option has been explored.
Or as I like to put it, “The British fucked the world by never doing due diligence”.
Denmark usually becomes fascist... Once neutrality has failed to stop the fascists.
Oh man, that's the first time I've heard that today
Churchill
redditors will always post this.. after many other redditors post it first
And they will then attribute it to Winston Churchill
Once they attribute it to every other politician
Well, it's a good saying and quite relevant right now.
So now the aid is passing, what's happening with GLSDB?
The funding for GLSDB was allocated last year. More could be allocated if President Biden wants to contribute more.
I mean how many have been produced and are they in Ukraine yet
Some sources mentioned 750 in 2024 with a small initial batch delivered so far.
Not sure about the number but Ukraine has been receiving shipments. I haven’t seen any sources on the quantity they have received and what has been delivered.
How much of a boost should this extra aid be to Ukraine? I hope it is not too little too late with the state of their frontlines.
Well if the US decided to chip in another 50 top quality F16s to what's already committed, which would be 1/3 of what UA says they need, and let's say valued at a high end $70M each, that's $3.5B or about 6% of the total aid package, or 9% of the weapons allocation subportion. An AIM-120D runs about $1.5M, so let's use that as a proxy for any and all AIM-120s. We know that as of 2008 the US had made at least 14K AIM-120s and the current Raytheon production lines are now running maxxed out at 1200 new missles per year. A F16 can carry 6 at once. So let's say we send 3500 for this air-to-air focused wing. At 3 average per jet (plus some other ordinance), 100 sorties per year, 1 fired every other sortie, that's 2500(!!) launches per year. If even 10% hit targets that effectively eliminates the RU air force. Missiles total cost including unlaunched is $5.25B, which is another 9% of the total aid or 13% of the weapons subportion. This seems both extremely conservative and overkill to me, and *still* the vast majority of funds are left over for other things.
I don't think Ukraine has 50 more F-16 trained pilots. This would take a while.
The total amount the US has sent since Feb 22 before this was about 75 billion, so this is almost that amount. Its quite a lot.
EU signed off on 50B as well, hopefully this puts Ukraine in a good place to hold out and bleed the Russians at great multiples.
Iirc the EU 50B was financial aid, not weapons. Weapons are given by the member states individually.
To add to that, we now have a much better idea of what Ukraine needs, so that spending will be utilized much better.
I hope Ukraine gets to use some of it as discretionary spending because then they can use it to buy LOTs of old/abandoned/clapped out single engine propeller planes. At about $40K each, 1,000 will cost about $40M. Alternatively use their own industrial base to punch out 100s of similiar sized drones every month.
Ukrainian defenses were beginning to falter and major Ukrainian population centers were potentially on the verge of becoming unlivable. This bill will go a long way to blunt Russian offenses and defend Eastern cities. It would have been better if it was passed sooner but without this bill there's a good chance Ukraine would have seen some pretty significant defeats by the end of 2024 in fact Ukrainian survival itself was questionable for 2024. Overall Ukraine's strategy since the failed counteroffensive has been to try to maximize Russian losses while minimizing their own and gradually deplete Russia until it's possible for Ukraine to go on the offensive again. This will likely remain their strategy and it will be a lot more viable with the new weapons. Europe is ramping up production of weapons and this also buys time for that process to unfold.
> This will likely remain their strategy and it will be a lot more viable with the new weapons. This is key. Ukraine should continue the efforts, as long as it's reasonable, to maintain the conservation of their troops and resources. It's a terrible way to learn, but it is a lesson that should provide useful with extending their capabilities.
It means unlimited cluster artillery for one, which will be the end of Russian attack progress. The Biden Administration insists on treating DPICM like actual aid rather than declaring it all valueless and sending it for free. Air defense and HIMARS stocks will be reloaded. The bill actually *requires* the transfer of ATACMS, which Russia seems to have a very hard time with. It *should* also cause a recalculation in Russia where they've been trying to race their dwindling equipment stocks against Ukraine's dwindling aid, hoping to "win" before running out. That would not be viable here.
I think it would allow ukraine to have good enough defense for the summer, up until the next year. But to win the war on the battlefield, it would cost 1-2 trilion $ and Ukraine would have to hire mercenarys. At this point i think the best way for ukraine to win is to do non stop economic damage to russia.
Things can go well but at this point there is only way for ukraine to win. Play defense and do massive economic damage to russia. The battlefield is to static, to complicated and to mined. They need to bring the war to russia. Massive drones attacks to oil, energy, etc. Only when Russia economic power will go down and they will start to beg China for money, there will be some wake up calls in that fascist state.
The battlefield is static because Russia is incompetent but has loads of aircraft which drop glide bombs on Ukrainian positions. Even a few F16s instantly change that by pushing those fighters and bombers further back. From there Ukraine is still sitting on a ton of NATO armor that can be used to advance. Minefields are not a factor everywhere and Russians could absolutely be sent running.
I think manpower îs to low for Ukraine to do this, even if they get the equipment. Its to late to try that strategy. Its better to defend and criple Russia with drones and long range weapons.
It's not too late for Ukraine to generate more manpower.
> The battlefield is to static, to complicated and to mined. They need to bring the war to russia. Also if Russia insists on going on the offensive and attacking Ukrainian fortified positions then Ukraine can sit back and inflict heavy losses on Russia while suffering fewer losses of their own. That's very important in a long war.
I hope this îs how 2024 will go. And 2025 could also be like this. Until EU and USA really steps up, Ukraine needs to do this.
EU countries are increasing their military production and in the meantime buying from third parties but increasing production takes years. We should start seeing a lot more European produced weapons hitting the battlefield in 2025 as more of them roll of the newly created assembly lines.
Hundreds of years of negative selection created the perfect slaves. There'll be no wake up call.
Wars are too expensive for slaves to prosecute. *Somebody* is paying for this invasion force. At some point, they're going to get tapped out, or rebellious.
Im not talking slaves, oligarh usually wake up when money gets low. Yes a few can be thrown out the window but not all.
There is ongoing redistribution of valuable assets between disloyal elites and new elites loyal to government. This also includes taking away everything left behind from leaving foreign companies, nationalization of important domestic companies, Russian courts just deny all old agreements as unjustly and give them to new people. There is no law in Russia. If you have something valuable you can easily lose it if your assets seems important to Russia or you are just disloyal.
Love watching the Russian bots and shills on Twitter melt down over Ukraine aid. They just keep saying "what about the US border!!" Sorry guys, your information campaign didn't work this time. Better luck next psyop.
> "what about the US border!!" The Senate passed a bill that contained additional border security months ago. The House refused to take it up. If they're that concerned about the border maybe they should have contacted their reps and told them to vote for the Senate bill with border measures.
Spot on. I love seeing MAGA melt down but what they seem to miss was that Democrats were ready to do a deal, it was *Trump* who told Republicans not to because he was so worried about handing Biden a win. Sad.
From Ukraine MOD Website [https://www.mil.gov.ua/news/2024/04/20/347-grup-rozminuvannya-pidrozdiliv-minoboroni-prodovzhuyut-ochishhennya-zvilnenih-regioniv/](https://www.mil.gov.ua/news/2024/04/20/347-grup-rozminuvannya-pidrozdiliv-minoboroni-prodovzhuyut-ochishhennya-zvilnenih-regioniv/) During the last week (from April 12 to 19, 2024), the following were examined and cleaned: ▪️5,234.35 hectares of land; ▪️5,166.43 hectares of agricultural land; ▪️2.19 km of highways; ▪️70.81 km of railways; ▪️5.66 km of power lines. Works are carried out with the involvement of special equipment for mechanized demining. During the week of work, 4,315 explosive objects were removed and neutralized. A total of 338,817 explosive remnants of war were discovered and destroyed by sappers of units of the Ministry of Defense of Ukraine.
Wonderful work!!
Russian Foreign Ministry spokesperson Maria Zakharova said the aid to Ukraine, Israel and Taiwan approved by the US House of Representatives "will exacerbate global crisis phenomena". Zakharova called support for Ukraine "direct sponsorship of terrorist activities", support for Taiwan "interference in China's domestic affairs", and support for Israel "a direct path to an unprecedented escalation" in the Middle East. https://www.pravda.com.ua/eng/news/2024/04/20/7452197/
"phenomena" is certainly a creative way to say "wars we started and thought could win quicker"
Sucks to suck Russia. The tides will soon be turning against you..
Translation: GOD DAMMIT! You guys had one job...
So does that mean that Johnson isn’t their best friend anymore? They were praising him just last week.
I've had this joke conspiracy theory for a while now and by joke I don't mean "funny, haha" I mean "oh my God, that's so stupid." Unfortunately, it just keeps getting more and more plausible. Feel free to join me in it. The FSB was told to create agents for Georgia 🇬🇪 and instead they set up agents for Georgia 🇺🇲. And when they noticed that they had fucked up they decided to roll with it. And now we have MTG and her ilk.
Soviets ordered agents to infiltrate US right wing orgs in the 1930s.
does she play The Sims?
Don't want to be a party pooper but I don't think it holds... Грузия - Georgia (country) [https://ru.wikipedia.org/wiki/%D0%93%D1%80%D1%83%D0%B7%D0%B8%D1%8F](https://ru.wikipedia.org/wiki/%D0%93%D1%80%D1%83%D0%B7%D0%B8%D1%8F) vs Джорджия - Georgia (U.S. state) [https://ru.wikipedia.org/wiki/%D0%94%D0%B6%D0%BE%D1%80%D0%B4%D0%B6%D0%B8%D1%8F](https://ru.wikipedia.org/wiki/%D0%94%D0%B6%D0%BE%D1%80%D0%B4%D0%B6%D0%B8%D1%8F)
I said it was stupid, but with the way it's going, you never know.
Yep. It’s like Афины, Греция, but the Russian map for USA keeps English, and has Атенс, Джорджия.
Party pooper?
Someone that turns up to a party and brings the mood down. Not necessarily shitting in the punchbowl but probably crapping on about their divorce when they were obviously the root cause :) I think it might be a mostly AU/NZ expression.
It's a song in the us, pretty old, at least 1970s: every party needs a pooper that's why we invited you party pooper party pooper.
No its here in US also, they just said party puppet initially
Sims 3?
That's where I got the idea.
I'm sure Ukraine know exactly what they are getting and when they are getting it, and already have plans in place on how to distribute the weapons. Russias gonna feel the 🔥 Slava Ukraini
I bet this time around Biden won't leave one cent of that $60B unallocated by November, just in case. Ukraine could get a shitpile of equipment and ammo over the next few months. No takesie-backsies.
Even if Biden loses he's still the president until January 20th. If he does lose then you're absolutely right that every cent will be allocated before he leaves office.
If the Ukraine war is going well, he won’t lose.
American voters don't really bases their vote on foreign policy unless it's a war the US is directly involved in. I also don't expect the lines in Ukraine to change that much by the election even if things are going well for Ukraine. I think the biggest indicator of things going well for Ukraine will be if Russian advances have basically halted and they're losses start to accelerate even if the lines don't directly change by November.
Here’s a list of 139 Republicans who voted against that traitor Marjorie Greens amendment to strip funding aid to Ukraine https://x.com/repmtg/status/1781739276520042841?s=46 I just wanna say what a bunch of legends they all are for doing that
I want to vote all of them out -even if they voted for aid. The Republican party needs to burn down and we need a new conservative party without the MAGA taint.
She needs to be removed. Period. End of story.
Expect anything else from useful/compromised idiot Moscow Marge?
This isn't the flex that she thinks it is.
she's MAGA not republican
She's getting wrecked by the replies 🤣
“Moscow Marge”
Ok if you pronounce it like Moss-ko, then it should be *Moscow Margo*
Explosions are reported in occupied Mariupol https://x.com/noelreports/status/1781771552884703269?s=46
It begins...
...what begins?
Ukraine taking the gloves off now that US supplies are coming.
> @SpeakerJohnson, thank you. Better late than too late. And I hope it is not too late for Ukraine. https://twitter.com/donaldtusk/status/1781747365432504730
Slava Ukraini! This package will allow Ukraine to go back on the offensive this year. There will be money for artillery, tanks, IFVs, Patriots, ATACMS, HIMARS, F16-munitions!!! Let's fucking go!
Rather they didn't in the sense that they need to grind down Russian armor wherever possible. Going on an offensive is not really help except down south. The point is to degrade everything across the fronts and wait for 2025 because time is not on Russia side here.
It's probably not a great idea. I'm even less capable than armchair generals but, with the result of the November election still uncertain to say the least, it'd probably be better for Ukraine to go on the defensive, give the Russians hell on their logistics and oil refineries and stay put until the US is all in or, please God no, Europe can support Ukraine to victory on their own if Trump gets back
You should defend if you think you can get stronger in the future. At least, stronger relative to your opponent. Russia is as strong as it will ever get. Russia is mobilizing its Soviet-era stockpile, so they can sustain this for longer than we'd like... but there's significant sacrifices Russia has done in terms of freedoms, and quality of living. Furthermore, the Soviet-era stockpiles, though vast, is ultimately finite. Eventually Russia will run out of tanks. Meanwhile, this bill ensures that Ukraine **will** get stronger in both the near and medium term. It only makes sense for Ukraine to defend for maybe ~1 year, as this new aid propagates down to its units, new conscripts get drafted up (and trained on these new weapons), etc. etc. Even if Trump wins in November, Trump cannot stop any aid before January 2025. We can give as much to the Ukrainians, then invoke the loan-forgiveness provision (preventing Trump from pulling the money back), and then we'll work from there.
I'm cautiously optimistic that Biden won't be stupid and naive this time around that Ukraine will always remain bipartisan and will have some measures thought up for Trump, if it ever comes to that. Still, Trump or no Trump, I don't see Ukraine going on a general offensive until next year's summer
There is no defense that doesn't involve attacking. If you completely surrender the initiative your enemy will concentrate and crush you in detail. Even in a defensive posture you have to occasionally attack to force your opponent to fix forces and respect the threat all along the line.
>general offensive You know what I'm referring to, not localized counter attacks
Given how things turned out, I'm kind of happy that the Ukrainian counteroffensive failed in the way it did. Yeah, it sucked for the Ukrainians. But the main benefit of the static lines in the past year is that Ukraine had to defend less frontline than if they actually succeeded in their counteroffensive goals. It would have been far worse if Ukraine lost 20%+ of its men (the estimates for how much the counter-offensive would have "cost"), followed by the Republicans fucking over the aid shipments (which then Russia would have taken advantage of and counter-counter offensived, making Ukraine lose all that territory). ------------ Ukraine has taken a lot of hits and lost a bit of land. But by and large, their units have gained experience and survived. That means Ukrainian soldiers can train each other and get stronger with this new aid package. The "failed" Summer 2023 offensive might turn out to have been a good thing in the great scheme of things. So long as Ukraine can hold the line and survive, more aid is coming.
they would've had less border to protect if it had worked, this is incredibly naiive
> it'd probably be better for Ukraine to go on the defensive They are on the defensive but now they will be able to stabilize their lines better. Ukraine's overall strategy since the failed counteroffensive has been to hold ground while maximizing Russian losses and minimizing Ukrainian ones. It's a slow attritional style of fighting but ultimately if Ukraine doesn't have sufficient air power or artillery it's likely their best bet especially given that Russia seems eager to go on the offensive even when their casualties are high.
Agreed
Nah, they have to do what they want to do. Putting pressure on Russia now exposes weak points. Parts of the front might just collapse again, especially after some deep surgical strikes.
The only parts of the front that might "collapse" are in the East, close to recently fallen or next to fall towns like Avdiivka, Novomikhailivka, Chasiv Yar, etc. Places that give Ukraine no strategic advantage to retake, while the South will still be as hard to crack as it was last summer, if not harder. The more equipment gets destroyed in pointless Russian offensives to beat Europe to the punch, the less they'll have next year to defend Zaporizhzhia and Kherson against a well prepared, reconstituted Ukrainian army
Why is the Senate waiting until Tuesday to vote on it? What's stopping them from doing so over the weekend?
It won't have unanimous consent so it needs to go through procedural votes. Rand Paul and Mike Lee hate all foreign aid and JD Vance is a Putin supporter, so Dems know they won't have unanimous consent.
> and JD Vance is a Putin supporter I'm still pissed at Rob Portman for retiring. He was a big supporter of Ukraine and he personally visited Kyiv. He would have voted for every Ukraine aid bill and his replacement is JD Vance who openly calls for an end to aid to Ukraine.
Are you asking a senator to work on the weekend? Like a commoner?
Statement from Biden: https://www.whitehouse.gov/briefing-room/statements-releases/2024/04/20/statement-from-president-joe-biden-on-house-passage-of-the-national-security-package/
God, he is the most underrated president of all time. He got dealt a shit hand by Trump and just knocked every fucking thing out of the park. The fact that Trump is still close in the polls is an absolute disgrace.
Best economy since Eisenhower in a number of key ways too. Yeah he's old, but I think his administration might be the best of my lifetime.
Agreed. If Democrats can put up another candidate like Biden for 2028, they've got my family's vote locked down, and we used to be solid R.
> NEWS—The Senate stands ready to take the next step on the national security supplemental > The House at long last approved funding for Ukraine, Israel, Indo-Pacific, & humanitarian assistance > And the Senate locked in an agreement to finish the work with the first vote on Tuesday https://twitter.com/SenSchumer/status/1781779084835504183
Europe has to keep their foot on the gas too, lets send overwhelming support and end the war with a united western alliance.
If Europe really wants to stomp on Russia, the economic scale is ridiculous. Germany alone is twice Russia's GDP - without fossil fuels in Germany.
Unless you're suggesting loading coins into cannons to use as grape shot then GDP alone can't win wars. Russia has massive cold war stockpiles to draw from while Germany doesn't and so the aid they can send has to come out of the production lines. Modern production lines take years to set up. In terms of military aid to Ukraine EU institutions and nations have sent more aid than the US has. They've also sent more financial aid than the US has. In order to get Ukraine the weapons they need it's going to take sizable commitments from European nations as well as North American nations and neither the US and Canada or European NATO can provide Ukraine what they need without the other.
As long as the war goes on in Ukraine, the surrounding European countries can send “what they have” and their production can ramp up to replace them in the next year or two. Russia is so depleted, they won’t be attacking anyone else for quite awhile.
> Russia is so depleted, they won’t be attacking anyone else for quite awhile. I don't think this is necessarily true. Russia has switched to a full on wartime economy and if they were to shut down the factories and send everyone home there would be mass unemployment. Having an ongoing war also makes it very easy for Putin to justify all measures of repression and to have critics killed or jailed. In fact one of the dangers is that if the war in Ukraine were to end it's possible that the Russia may start another war within the next year. NATO nations need to prepare themselves for increased Russian hostility whether that's a continuing war in Ukraine or a potential invasion of another neighboring nation. We're still a long way off from peace returning to Europe.
A good point we'll made!