I'm not sure if people genuinely believe someone is going to say, "Wow, if some people say I'm a moron for not believing this, it clearly must be true."
It's not much a persuasive argument. It really just sounds like a bunch of miniature dachshunds barking because the first one one barked when it thought it heard something.
Gen. Bankshi is not a big believer, to say the least, in the impact of the next wonder weapon hope (F-16's). Really, I think he has a point in that the air defenses on both sides are pretty good/no non-stealth operations over the other side are going to last very long.
The choice for the West narrows down to negotiating with Russia on its terms, or to expect a military solution, which might mean the obliteration of Ukraine as a nation and the eviction of NATO.
Make no mistake, Russian offensive plans have been drawn up. There is talk among opinion makers in Moscow about creating new facts on the ground a De-Militarised Zone along the Polish border. Now, that entails Russian forces crossing the Dnieper and liberating Kiev as well as liberate Kharkov and Odessa, two other Russian cities historically. Russia has no interest in annexing the western regions of Ukraine, which is hostile territory that Stalin annexed.
But western Ukraine has other neighbours Poland included who would have unfinished business of partition of their historical lands to settle. The unresolved nationality question is explosive, as Poles still remember the killings by the Ukrainian nationalists aligned with the Nazis. Historians say that more than 100,000 Poles, including women and even the smallest children, perished at the hands of their Ukrainian neighbours in a nationalist drive in areas that were then in southeastern Poland and are mostly in Ukraine now. To put it mildly, what remains of Ukraine under the weight of a crushing military defeat no one can predict.
The Kremlin will exercise its options depending on the exigencies of the situation. Moscow seems to have concluded that there is no real alternative to a military solution. It will not allow Ukraine to remain a chronic wound infected by the microbial species from the transatlantic universe. Cauterisation of the wound is necessary, albeit with potential risks.
On June 17, the Russian Ministry of Defense announced that it had targeted decision-making centers in the Ukrainian capital, Kiev.
In a statement, the ministry said that the Russian military launched strikes with long-range sea- and air-based high-precision missiles against one of the decision-making centers of Kiev forces, adding that the was successful.
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"The assigned target has been neutralized," the statement reads.
The ministry added that Kiev forces launched more attacks in the south Donetsk and Zaporozhye and Donetsk sectors over the past 24 hours.
Close to the Vremevka salient, three attacks were repelled by the troops, air strikes and artillery of the Russian Vostok Group of Forces near Novodonetskoye in the Donetsk region and Levadnoye in the Zaporozhye region. Kiev forces lost 30 personnel, two tanks tanks and two infantry fighting vehicles during the attacks, according to the ministry.
Meanwhile in the Zaporozhye direction, Russian troops repelled three attacks near the settlements of Zherebyanka, Malaya Tokmachka and Mirnoye.
In addition, as a result of the shelling of advancing Ukrainian reserves, five armoured fighting vehicles were destroyed near Stepovoye in Zaporozhye.
Ukrainian losses in this direction amounted to 235 troops, four tanks, two infantry fighting vehicles, 14 armored fighting vehicles, a U.S.-manufactured M777 howitzers, as well as a D-20 howitzer.
Tracey: The Government Keeps Lying To Us About Ukraine; Where Is The Outrage? https://t.co/UdjkCKeEfl
What doesn't the Biden(*) government lie to us about? I can't think of a single thing off the top of my head.
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On June 4, a group referring to itself as the "Polish Volunteer Corps" issued a boastful announcement confirming its participation in a series of cross-border ground offensives into Russia.
News of these audacious raids was jarring enough, given the many prior assurances of U.S. and Ukrainian war planners, who insisted no attacks would be carried out inside Russian territory. It was all the more conspicuous that the incursion units were apparently comprised of Polish soldiers.
Poland, of course, is not only a NATO member state, but the NATO member state with which the U.S. has most assiduously aligned itself since Russia's February 2022 invasion of Ukraine (Polish government officials deny any formal connection to the "Polish Volunteer Corps").
So the raids raised an obvious, yet oft-neglected question: Just what the hell is U.S. policy in Ukraine? If you turn on the TV, you'll find pundits on every channel loyally reciting from memory the broad parameters of the U.S. missionat least as it's being conveyed in daily rhetorical flourishes by Biden Administration officials, assorted Congressional chest-thumpers, and brave think tank warriors. Freedom and autocracy are locked in a great cosmic battle of good versus evil, or so goes the usual storylinemost often narrated with a degree of moral complexity that can be generously compared to a lower-tier Marvel Movie.
But apart from this steady stream of heavily recycled platitudes, was it ever plainly disclosed to Americansthe chief financial sponsors of the Ukraine war effort, after allthat the scope of the war effort they've found themselves subsidizing would eventually expand to include platoons of Polish soldiers marching straight into Russia? Did anyone back in Washington, D.C. sign off on this, or was there ever an opportunity granted for public consideration of its potentially foreboding implications?
The latest edition (4th) of Biden's Art of War: The Wisdom of Joe Tzu is now available on Amazon. This new edition includes teachings from the Ukraine proxy war and the Chinese Spy Ballon along with his surrender of Afghanistan. https://t.co/RFg2QptntBpic.twitter.com/vimzXb0lXP
🇫🇷🤝🇷🇺French TV report on how the Russian army repels the offensive of the Armed Forces of Ukraine caused hysteria in Ukraine ▪️The plot of the most popular French channel shows the intensive movement of Russian military equipment, fortifications, fire on the Armed Forces of… pic.twitter.com/PXLL0crxmk
China is betting on the US not wanting to fight a war on two fronts. China wants the Ukraine war to last as long as possible to deplete Western military capacity before invading Taiwan. It's working. Strike a deal now. Achieve peace and stop the China-Russia military alliance before it's too late.
So there is a Russia-China alliance that wants the war to last as long as possible, and we should counter that by… "striking a deal" as soon as possible? Those ideas back to back make no sense. Once again Vivek is catering to the orange man lemmings. Not a serious person.
Don't you see? We need to stick it to Russia by letting them have Ukraine. They will never recover after we thwart their master to plan to be in a years long quagmire.
China is betting on the US not wanting to fight a war on two fronts. China wants the Ukraine war to last as long as possible to deplete Western military capacity before invading Taiwan. It's working. Strike a deal now. Achieve peace and stop the China-Russia military alliance before it's too late.
So there is a Russia-China alliance that wants the war to last as long as possible, and we should counter that by… "striking a deal" as soon as possible? Those ideas back to back make no sense. Once again Vivek is catering to the orange man lemmings. Not a serious person.
Just because extending the war benefits China and is something they want doesn't mean that China and Eussia "have an official deal" to extend the war.
Do you think China would outright tell Russia they are rooting for a long dragged out war or that they want to rig it that way?
Don't be absurd. China is sitting back, watching g the situation, helping Russia because it knows whether its a protracted war or a short war, a war of any sort here helps China's interests.
War helps Chinese I Teresa's, and hurts American interests. That is one of the reasons to push for peace talks.
As outlined above (which BTW none of yall bothered to try to counter) there are a multitude of reasons to push for peace talks.
And the only reasons you neocons can come up with is "Russia bad. Putin bad".
Ur as bad as the "orange man bad" crowd. So easily brainwashed and misled.
China is betting on the US not wanting to fight a war on two fronts. China wants the Ukraine war to last as long as possible to deplete Western military capacity before invading Taiwan. It's working. Strike a deal now. Achieve peace and stop the China-Russia military alliance before it's too late.
So there is a Russia-China alliance that wants the war to last as long as possible, and we should counter that by… "striking a deal" as soon as possible? Those ideas back to back make no sense. Once again Vivek is catering to the orange man lemmings. Not a serious person.
Don't you see? We need to stick it to Russia by letting them have Ukraine. They will never recover after we thwart their master to plan to be in a years long quagmire.
FYI I am going to start flag ur trolling posts. You have refused to engage in debate many times, and almost everything u put up now are merely inflammatory trolls.
There are people on here willing to have legit discussions but ur posts are reducing the conversation to trolls.
It's very telling that is all you have but ur act is getting tiresome.
I couldn't care less that you disagree but ur refusal to debate actual points and actually contribute short of posting straw men and mocking those on the other side of the debate hurts the conversation.
If anything, China sees how the West responded and remembers that when they want to take Taiwan.
Ukraine isn't even in NATO yet we all supported and helped them stop the Russians. China must assume that the same will happen with Taiwan.
I think they also have to see how hard Russia has had it and how easily we went into Afghanistan and Iraq and realize that the US military is still the dominant force in the world.
I'm simply highlighting the complete absurdity in the line of thinking that Russias complete failure is some kind of grand strategy of theirs
No. Your posts have gradually devolved nto nothing but trolls and incendiary posts with no purpose other than to troll. This thread was created to have legit discussion since that was banned on the logistical update thread and you are intentionally ruining the discussion because u disagree with other posters.
Disagree all you want but respectfully and by having a conversation instead of trolling. That is what this thread is for.
You will be treated like a troll until you actually start debating and having a conversation again.
Kicking the Russians out of Sevastopol in a war of "liberation" with a blitskrieg of 30 German tanks remains the mythologized fantasy. It's as absurd as ever.
The latest fiction is that it will happen in 2016 with F-16s as air cover. Based in Poland. Or something.
To be fair, anyone who actively enjoyed the propaganda they were digesting for months on end (totaling over a year) is going to have to go through some pretty serious cognitive dissonance as they come back to reality. Imagine just now finally realizing there is no path to a "victory". I bet the trolling gets worse before it shuts off.
I'm not sure if people genuinely believe someone is going to say, "Wow, if some people say I'm a moron for not believing this, it clearly must be true."
It's not much a persuasive argument. It really just sounds like a bunch of miniature dachshunds barking because the first one one barked when it thought it heard something.
To be fair, anyone who actively enjoyed the propaganda they were digesting for months on end (totaling over a year) is going to have to go through some pretty serious cognitive dissonance as they come back to reality. Imagine just now finally realizing there is no path to a "victory". I bet the trolling gets worse before it shuts off.
Good point. They should immediately surrender the entire country. Totally wasn't worth it.
Don't try and deflect from how wrong you were on yet another issue.
I'm not sure if people genuinely believe someone is going to say, "Wow, if some people say I'm a moron for not believing this, it clearly must be true."
It's not much a persuasive argument. It really just sounds like a bunch of miniature dachshunds barking because the first one one barked when it thought it heard something.
For the record my opposition is multifaceted and all of reasons for opposing it are good. The only reason you neocons have been able to present for contuing aid is "putin is bad. Dead Russians good. Must kill evil russians"
Putin apologists calling out Neocons. LMAO. This thread never fails to disappoint.
I'm not sure if people genuinely believe someone is going to say, "Wow, if some people say I'm a moron for not believing this, it clearly must be true."
It's not much a persuasive argument. It really just sounds like a bunch of miniature dachshunds barking because the first one one barked when it thought it heard something.
Ukraine, once known as the 'breadbasket' of Europe, will need at least twenty years for its agricultural sector to recover following the eventual end of the war with Russia.
According to a report from the Kyiv School of Economics, Ukraine's farming industry has been severely damaged during the past year of fighting with Russia, with staple crops such as maize, oats, rapeseed, and rye not expected to recover to previous production levels until at least 2050. Other sectors such as barley, sunflower, and wheat are meanwhile not expected to recover to pre-war levels until 2040.
"This means that it may take as long as 20 years for Ukraine to regain its strength in agriculture after the devastation brought by the Russian military assault," the report said.
The report found that the total damage to the Ukrainian agricultural sector was $9 billion as of April or more than 26 per cent of its physical assets. They noted that this came in large part as a result of naval blockades imposed by the Russians on the Black Sea in the initial phases of the war, forcing many crops to rot rather than being sent abroad.
Before the war, the report claims, approximately 33 million hectares of Ukrainian land were devoted to the cultivation of grand and oilseeds. Last year, following the invasion, this had declined to 25 million hectares, a figure that is expected to further decline without an end to the conflict.
“We spent $16 trillion on the lockdowns. We got nothing for it. $8 trillion on the Ukraine war. That’s $24 trillion that they had to print to pay for nothing. That money, the way they’re paying it back, it’s a hidden tax called inflation, and it hits the poor and the middle… pic.twitter.com/Ic4VHoGnLt
The claim that support for Ukraine is a 'bargain' is an abject falsehood.
Speaking out against the Ukraine War today reminds me of what it felt like to speak out against wokeism back in 2020. It was contrarian then, now it’s the cool thing to do. The tides will change on Ukraine too, but only after thousands of lives lost & hundreds of billions wasted.
For decades, U.S. officials have widely recognized that enlarging NATO, especially to Ukraine, ran at least some risk of putting the United States on a collision course with Russia. Below are some quotations that I didn't have room to include in my piece. https://t.co/TIsQ27UGMR
Simplicius has a long update out today, though much of it is a bit conspiracy-minded, imho. I think he's right though that Zelensky looks quite a bit unhinged in his most recent media appearances.
I'm dubious about his speculations as to the Istanbul peace negotiations, nuclear plant stuff, and of course the mass US mobilization panic stuff. Take for instance the B-2's flying around a bit. So what? Talk about a silver bullet fleet, they have basically 'unlimited' range with refueling and moving them a round some in the US is not indicative of an intent to station them suddenly in Europe or use them for a strike in Ukraine/Russia. Crazy talk. I think we only have 15 of the expensive things.
Anyway, more soberly his references to the disaster that is/was the 'probing' or mythologized 'counter offensive' are probably much more accurate though, including Ukrainians deliberately breaking Leopard tanks to avoid being used as pointless cannon fodder/kamikaze's.
This part also makes sense from a narrative engineering/propaganda perspective;
"NATO needs to brace itself for the prospect of Ukraine's counteroffensive failing to achieve major success. Indeed, so far, Kiev has attained only limited gains. But those who expected a lightning breakthrough were always going to be disappointed. This is not German panzers against Polish horse cavalry, nor is it American shock and awe against demoralised Iraqi forces in antiquated tanks with no air cover".
The new narrative continually being reworked is that Russian Ka-52s are decimating Ukraine's armor and that Ukraine's lack of air cover is unsustainable in light of having any offensive success.
This, of course, is simply going to be pushed into the next agenda of providing the F-16 wunderwaffe as the panacea to buoy sagging Western support for the next arc of the year. Eurocrats and their slavering constituency will simply be reprogrammed into believing that airpower is all that Ukraine lacks in achieving victory.
It will be complemented with the recent announcement that Biden intends to supply ATACMs in an upcoming arms tranche.
It will be complemented with the recent announcement that Biden intends to supply ATACMs in an upcoming arms tranche.
But as others have calculated, at $1.5M per missile, the $80M procurement would buy about 50 missiles. Will that be a 'game changer?' The U.S. itself reportedly only owns about 500 of the missiles, as ~1,500 or so were ever built in total, and those for many foreign customers. And the U.S. can only build a tiny amount of these per year, likely not even 100 at the most. If anything, the ATACMS would likely be a one-time use mass surprise attack on the Kerch to try to disable it.
Meh, overall Ukraine has hit a huge ammo depot to create a big fire ball, and suffered huge losses taking a few hamlets (one I saw in the video I linked yesterday was literally just a 1 building farm).
Now apparently they have 'called off' (or 'temporarily halted') the mythologized offensive (clown show) with some military sabotage/mutinies and zero progress to show for the bloodshed/$$$.
The latest Duran videos again posit Jake Sullivan as pushing to keep it going through the 2024 US election cycle.
Tonight, Russian assault troops attacked an AFU stronghold near the so-called "Zverinets" southeast of Marinka and took control of it.
The position was of great tactical importance: without control over it, it would not be possible to advance towards Pobeda and encircle Marinka pic.twitter.com/PBwZ7Ia8DT
This was Ukraine's chance to take back their territory, and in hindsight it never really had a chance.
This war is going to devolve into a WWI-esque conflict where each belligerent takes a couple hundred meters here or there every couple months and can't do anything else because they both lack offensive capability. It truly will take several years and trillions of US support to get Ukraine in any kind of shape to go on a successful offensive.
Dems are happy though because they can use the Ukraine war in 2024 against republicans because republicans are rightly starting to ask questions about cost and plans for an end-game.
It's just silly propaganda, imho. His whole job is NBC warfare so those guys tend to be 'hyper active' about how dangerous/pressing it is at all times (for funding, and because every soldier everywhere hates NBC training).
The DoD having an involvement with a bio vector of malaria patent doesn't…mean we are about to break loose swarms of huge mosquito's on the Russian army.
I don't have any familiarity/expertise in it, but I am guessing the research was probably more like what strains could be developed to improve resistance/serious illness/death for troops and populations in places like Africa where it's a big endemic problem still. Happy to wear a conspiracy foil hat at times nowadays but this one…I don't believe at all.
More Ukrainian corruption with the Bidens uncovered, this time with a fresh bank account at a bank in Malta that was opened the month after peepaw got Burisma to hire Hunter, where the bank was later shut down for money laundering.
“Biden strong-arms Burisma into hiring his druggie son and next month Hunter opens up an offshore account in Malta with a bank that’s so dirty, it got shut down for money laundering.”@JesseBWatterspic.twitter.com/uF3COqStQW
Obviously, there are still some dots to be connected, but it doesn't get much more suspicious than Hunter Biden opening up an account with Burisma at a bank that was later shuttered (but not until 2018) due to a money-laundering investigation. Why would the Bidens need an off-shore account in Malta? That's the question everyone should be asking right now, including GOP investigators in the House that are diving deep into this situation.
The tangled web of bank accounts and personal businesses set up by the Biden family is a rat's nest of probable corruption. So much of what we are seeing simply doesn't make any sense unless one assumes that something nefarious was going on. As RedState reportedpreviously, numerous members of the Biden family received a total of millions of dollars from Chinese sources. What was that money for? And that's just one example.
The Biden family's entanglements in Ukraine look like a smoking gun. You've got a confidential source with a long FBI track record accusing the Bidens of taking bribes, and lo and behold, Hunter Biden had an account at a bank used for money laundering. Sen. Ron Johnson reacted to the news this way.
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'No one should find this latest revelation surprising,' he told DailyMail.com. 'The Bidens knew exactly the type of people they needed to deal with alleged money launderers like Patrick Ho, Mykola Zlochevsky, and now, allegedly, Mr. Pillow. The question now is what did the FBI know, when did they know it, and what did they do about it?'
LOL at anyone feigning surprise/indignity the FBI didn't do anything about it, but it's quite pathetic to consider how many are being killed in this war Xiden's team is keeping going to help cover up his family's acts in Ukraine/Russia for many years.
Oh, and tying this corruption as well with China (Blinken visit) this week, the CCP seeks to ratchet up their power/control in Germany, with American weakness on full display. The Chinese PR is unmistakably linked to the Ukraine war:
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The optics of Li working to peel away vital U.S. allies as American influence fades under the Biden administration were unmistakable.
China's state-run Global Times was not subtle about playing up those optics on Sunday:
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This is Li's first foreign trip since taking office in March to be the Chinese premier, with experts saying it shows that China attaches great importance to the bilateral ties with the two European countries and to the China-EU strategic ties. They noted that Li's visit will bring more certainty for the China-Europe cooperation and will benefit the global economic recovery when the world is still in turbulence caused by the Ukraine crisis and when the US unilateralism and hegemony threaten the trend of multipolarization.
The Global Times hammered the notion of European powers looking for an off-ramp from American foreign policy so they can sign up for China's model of amoral authoritarian hegemony:
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The world is deeply impacted by two pairs of relations the confrontation between Russia and the West over the Ukraine crisis, and the US-launched great power competition against China, experts said. Under the impacts of these two factors, the EU, especially its leading members, need to find possibility from cooperation with China to break the deadlock on the Ukraine crisis and restore peace and stability for the continent, and to deal with US' bullying that aims at undermining EU's economic environment and potential.
China also needs to make sure the EU keeps neutral on the issues that are China's core interests, and to seek more cooperation with European countries, especially in the fields such as science and technologies, as well as economy and trade, to balance the pressure from the US, analysts noted.
The Chinese Foreign Ministry explicitly told the Germans to feel honored by Li's presence during his first overseas trip as premier, because it "fully shows the importance China attaches to its relations with Germany," and demonstrates Beijing's eagerness to build a "super engine of cooperation between the two countries."
SHOCK: Leading Democratic presidential hopeful is now publicly admitting the Biden administration rejected Putin’s peace offering in exchange for Ukrainian neutrality. Biden wanted this proxy war - he has the blood of hundreds of thousands on his hands. pic.twitter.com/lQ9g6sscm6
Damning leaked audio emerges of Biden telling the former Ukrainian president that an FBI investigation into Burisma had been "stopped."https://t.co/dXOjbEdIzT
If you thought this was bad, here's the real shocker. Shortly after Poroshenko's aide blew the whistle, Poroshenko asked Biden whether the aide was now cooperating with the FBI. Incredibly, Biden assured Poroshenko that the FBI wasn't pursuing it. How would Biden have known? https://t.co/FdkBQEdQMYpic.twitter.com/qMbZF6ODPb
The Ukrainian counter-offensive has failed. Its army is getting slaughtered on the battlefield. The 'counteroffensive' of the 'NATO trained' Ukrainian brigades has made no real progress on any front. The high level of losses of men and material make it impossible that it will ever again regain the initiative.
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President Biden on Saturday said he won't make it easier for Ukraine to join NATO, adding that the country at war with Russia has to meet the requirements to be a member. "They got to meet the same standards. So, I'm not going to make it easier," Biden told reporters. "I think they've done everything relating to demonstrating the ability to coordinate militarily, but there's a whole issue of is their system secure? Is it noncorrupt? Does it meet all the standards … every other nation in NATO does."
And yes, that is a change. A big one:
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Biden has reportedly previously expressed that he is open to removing the Member Action Plan hurdle for Ukraine to join NATO, which requires countries that want to join the alliance make reforms militarily and democratically.
Biden has not said anything new. Biden senses that the US lost the proxy war but he must not and cannot admit it. So, in the absence of a time machine, which could have taken him all the way back to 1999 when the NATO's expansion began unfolding, Biden simply walked back to the default position of the 2008 NATO Summit at Bucharest welcoming Ukraine into the alliance via the MAP route as if that moment fifteen years ago is now the past and cannot be pulled back to the present. Russia is not going to accept it.
Though packaged in nice words the European Union gave Ukraine a similar negative outlook (machine translation):
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An EU report on Ukraine's membership bid states that Kiev has so far met two of the seven conditions required to start formal EU accession negotiations. ... "There is progress. The report will be moderately positive. This is not about embellishing reality, but about recognizing progress, for example, there are well-known anti-corruption cases. In particular, in the case of the head of the Supreme Court Knyazev," said the official, who spoke on condition of anonymity. ... "In terms of reforms, the glass would be half full, we would never take a negative tone towards Ukraine at the moment. Judicial reforms have made some progress, although there are still key ones that need to be carried out. Not everything is satisfactory."
The much hyped counter-offensive has indeed become a death trap for the U.S. EU and NATO.
Without CAS Ukraine will fail on its offensive but the US keeps blocking the F16s from being delivered. Plus the USA is already behind delivering aircraft to countries that said they would give the older F16s once they received and were trained on the newer aircraft such as the F35. The last I have seen was the earliest Ukraine would get F16s would be September and by then you are getting close to winter where you cannot pull an offensive due to the lack of time before the ground freezes.
In other words, the delay in CAS means at best the war will be drawn out for another year so politicians can get more money in their pockets for defense contracts. Proxy war after proxy war for the US where they have no end goal in sight and do not heed to the lessons of the past.
Without CAS Ukraine will fail on its offensive but the US keeps blocking the F16s from being delivered. Plus the USA is already behind delivering aircraft to countries that said they would give the older F16s once they received and were trained on the newer aircraft such as the F35. The last I have seen was the earliest Ukraine would get F16s would be September and by then you are getting close to winter where you cannot pull an offensive due to the lack of time before the ground freezes.
In other words, the delay in CAS means at best the war will be drawn out for another year so politicians can get more money in their pockets for defense contracts. Proxy war after proxy war for the US where they have no end goal in sight and do not heed to the lessons of the past.
Not really. The problem is their lack of short range air defense (SHORAD) to protect their advancing armor from Ka-52's. The war may well drag on but their lack of F16s isn't the root cause.
