OT subject but worth a main-stream read- OT News Feeds...

lousubcap

The Atlantic article on the next gen Covid booster about to become available:
https://www.theatlantic.com/health/archive/2022/08/fall-covid-vaccine-new-booster-shot-omicron/671265/?utm_source=nextdraft&utm_medium=email

Botch

WaPo just indicated that the first drone orders from Iran have arrived in Russia, but they're not working very well.  
 
Here they are on their high-tech launcher; I remember building something that looked like that when I was 16.    
 

lousubcap

Atlantic's Tom Nichols and some great words about classified documents.  Worth a read especially if you wonder about all the hype-
https://www.theatlantic.com/newsletters/archive/2022/08/whats-in-a-classified-document-trump/671284/?utm_source=newsletter&utm_medium=email&utm_campaign=atlantic-daily-newsletter&utm_content=20220829&utm_term=The Atlantic Daily  

lousubcap

Tuesday Russia-Ukraine update:

"Ukrainian forces launched ground assaults along the front in the Kherson region of southern Ukraine yesterday, an apparent stepping up of a counteroffensive aimed at recapturing territory seized by Russia. For months, Ukrainian officials have promised a broad counteroffensive in the Kherson region to push Russian forces from the western bank of the Dnipro River. It was unclear if the fighting on Monday was the start of that larger effort. Andrew E. Kramer reports for the New York Times. 

The Ukrainian military has used a fleet of decoys resembling advanced U.S. rocket systems to trick Russian forces into wasting expensive long-range cruise missiles, according to senior U.S. and Ukrainian officials. The Ukrainian decoys are made out of wood but can be indistinguishable from an artillery battery through the lens of Russian drones, which transmit their locations to naval cruise missile carriers in the Black Sea. After a few weeks in the field, the decoys drew at least 10 Kalibr cruise missiles, an initial success that led Ukraine to expand the production of the replicas for broader use, a senior Ukrainian official said. John Hudson reports for the Washington Post. 

The International Atomic Energy Agency (I.A.E.A.) is dispatching a team of experts to inspect the Zaporizhzhia Nuclear Power Plant in southern Ukraine.The inspection team will not reach the plant until at least Wednesday, according to an official familiar with the agency’s plans. Inspectors from the U.N.’s nuclear watchdog agency will provide the international community with an objective, third-party perspective on what was happening at the plant, hopefully easing global alarm over the safety of Europe’s largest nuclear plant. A list of the team’s members seen by The New York Times includes the nuclear agency’s chief, Rafael Mariano Grossi of Argentina, and 13 other experts from mostly neutral countries. Neither the United States nor Britain, which Russia has pilloried as unfairly biased because of their strong support for Ukraine, is represented. The New York Timesreports. 

Russian-installed authorities have accused Ukrainian troops of once again shelling the territory of the Zaporizhzhia nuclear power plant in the run-up to a planned visit by the I.A.E.A.. Writing on Telegram, Russian-appointed Zaporizhzhia regional official Vladimir Rogov said: "The reason for the shelling is the deliberate intention of the Kyiv leadership to disrupt the IAEA mission". Ukraine and Russia have repeatedly accused each other of attacking Europe's biggest nuclear power plant, which was captured by Russia in March but remains close to the frontlines. Reuters reports. 

Iran delivered two types of military drones to Russia this month according to an Iranian adviser to the government and two U.S. administration officials. This first delivery forms part of a larger order totaling hundreds of the aerial war machines which could be used in Russia’s war against Ukraine. However, whilst the weapons could provide a significant boost for Russia, the transfer of these weapons has been marred by technical problems. In early tests by the Russians, the Iranian drones experienced numerous failures, officials from the U.S. and an allied government said. Ellen Nakashima and Joby Warrick report for the Washington Post. "

lousubcap

Tom Nichols and The Atlantic and the place with are now with the base,  Worth a read:
https://www.theatlantic.com/newsletters/archive/2022/08/fear-of-fascism/671289/

lousubcap

Wednesday Russia-Ukraine update:

"A team of international nuclear experts is making its way toward the Zaporizhzhia nuclear plant in Ukraine today, after securing safety guarantees from both the Russian and Ukrainian militaries. The group includes 14 experts from the International Atomic Energy Agency, the United Nations nuclear watchdog. The monitors intend to spend several days in the Russian-occupied nuclear facility and will seek to establish a permanent monitoring mission at the plant. Andrew E. Kramer and Marc Santora report for the New York Times. 

Russia has completely halted gas supplies to Europe via a major pipeline, saying repairs are needed. The Russian state-owned energy giant, Gazprom, said the restrictions on the Nord Stream 1 pipeline would last for the next three days. Russia has already significantly reduced gas exports via the pipeline. It denies accusations it has used energy supplies as a weapon of war against Western countries. Matt Murphy reports for BBC News. 

The United Kingdom said Ukrainian formations in the south had pushed Russian front-line forces back some distance in places, exploiting relatively thin Russian defences.

Ukrainian forces are shelling ferries used by Russia to supply its forces on the west bank of the Dnieper River, Ukrainian presidential adviser Oleksiy Arestovych said.

Russia’s defence ministry said the radiation level at the Zaporizhzhia nuclear power plant remains normal.

Ukraine accused Russia of deliberately shelling a corridor the IAEA officials would need to use to reach the plant in an effort to get them to travel via Russian-annexed Crimea instead. There was no immediate response from Moscow.

The US government has assessed that Russia is preparing to stage sham referendums in parts of Ukraine under its control to claim that Ukrainian people want to join Russia, the state department said.

lousubcap

Mikhail Gorbachev- 
https://www.theatlantic.com/ideas/archive/2022/08/gorbachev-legacy-russia/671288/?utm_source=nextdraft&utm_medium=email

JohnInCarolina

http://twitter.com/maxseddon/status/1565234707587125250?s=20&t=CSVAtGJ5dldiCplR5fx3Pg

lousubcap

Thursday Russia-Ukraine update:

"Ukrainian army units pushing toward Kherson in the south are retaking ground held for months by Russia’s invading troops, according to Ukrainian soldiers taking part in the offensive. Russian soldiers seemed well equipped and were putting up stiff resistance, the Ukrainians said.“They’re throwing everything against us,” said a 22-year-old Ukrainian soldier who said Russians were fighting with artillery, tanks, helicopters and mortars. “They have a lot of equipment but few men.” The Pentagon’s assessment, given at a briefing by its spokesperson yesterday, appeared to support the soldiers’ cautious optimism. “We are aware of Ukrainian military operations that have made some forward movement, and in some cases in the Kherson region we are aware of Russian units falling back,” Air Force Brig. Gen. Patrick Ryder told reporters. Matthew Luxmoore reports for the Wall Street Journal. 

U.N.  inspectors set off on the final part of their journey to the Russian-controlled Zaporizhzhia nuclear-power plant today. To reach the facility, the 14-member team from the U.N.’s International Atomic Energy Agency (I.A.E.A.) must travel 75 miles from the Ukrainian city of Zaporizhzhia, across the front line with Russian forces to the town of Enerhodar. I.A.E.A. Director General Rafael Grossi said early Thursday that he was aware of intensified fighting near the team’s planned route, but that the mission would continue. Isabel Coles reports for Wall Street Journal. 

Moscow and its separatist allies in Ukraine have forcibly transferred hundreds of thousands of Ukrainians to Russia since the start of the war, according to U.S. officials and human rights investigators. Many are sent through a vast and punitive “filtration” system that includes detentions, interrogations and mass data collection. The system operates in Russian-occupied areas and is overseen by the Kremlin, which is using “advanced technology” to gather data on Ukrainian citizens, a U.S. State Department official said in a briefing with reporters yesterday. In recent days, two reports — from the New York-based Human Rights Watch and Yale University’s Humanitarian Research Lab — have shed new light on the scale of the filtration network and its impact on civilians. Both reports say there is evidence the system violates the laws of war. Claire Parker reports for the Washington Post."

lousubcap

Friday Russia-Ukraine update:

"Two inspectors from the International Atomic Energy Agency (I.A.E.A.) will remain at the Zaporizhzhia nuclear power plant permanently. This is according to Russia’s representative to the International Organizations in Vienna. BBC News reports. 

The "physical integrity" of the Zaporizhzhia nuclear plant has been "violated several times", the head of the I.A.E.A. has said. Speaking to reporters after he returned to Ukrainian-controlled territory yesterday, Rafael Grossi said he continued to be worried "until we have a more stable situation" at the plant, and explained inspectors were not there to assess whether the damage was deliberate or accidental. BBC News reports. 

lousubcap

Tom Nichols (edit: from The Atlantic) wrote the below regarding the POTUS speech Thursday:

"Joe Biden told us last night that American democracy is under attack. He did so in plain language and left no doubt about either the dire nature, or the source, of the threat. Most important, he named names—including, finally, Donald Trump. The president took a political risk and spoke the hard truth: that a significant number of citizens of the United States of America, concentrated in the rotted-out shell of the Republican Party, have become extremists who are engaged in anti-constitutional opposition to our system of government.

Whenever a president gives a speech, pundits, analysts, and citizens all jump to grade the exercise. Was it a great speech or just a good speech? Did it hit the right marks? Did it serve the right constituency? Did it help or hurt his party?

This speech, however, defies such analysis. (I have some serious complaints about the optics and staging. I’ll get to those.) Instead, we should be deeply troubled that Joe Biden had to give this speech at all.

And make no mistake: He had to give it. His duty demanded it. As Biden rightly said, the American democracy faces an “ongoing attack” from what he termed “MAGA Republicans” who do not respect the Constitution, the rule of law, the will of the people, or the results of free elections. No president could remain silent under such circumstances.

Indeed, I’m not sure it was strong enough. I bristled a bit when the president spoke of the reasonable Republicans with whom he could work. (“Joe Manchin?” I wondered.) Who are these Republicans? Where are they? If you’re going to give a speech about how millions of people now live, as Biden said, in the “shadow of lies,” and you think there are also reasonable people among them, you should encourage them to come into the open and fight alongside you.

As someone who once wrote speeches for a few politicians, I would also take points off here and there for a loss of focus. I’m sure it was important to some staffers to get in digs about prescription drugs, guns, and clean energy, but whoever took the final pass on the draft should have gotten out the red pen. This wasn’t the time.

Mostly what I felt watching the president was both sympathy and a kind of horror that he was having to say any of this at all. And so I simply cannot judge it as anything but a sad duty, the same kind of speech a president must give in the face of a national tragedy. These are not speeches anyone wants to write or give. Nonetheless, if I had to pick out a line that will resonate in history, I think—or I hope—that it will be Biden’s reminder that democracy requires sensible, tolerant, and mature human beings in order to work:

Democracy cannot survive when one side believes there are only two outcomes to an election: Either they win or they were cheated … You can’t love your country only when you win.

It really is that simple.

Substance aside, if there’s one place this speech was a bungle, it was in the staging. Optics matter; bathing the president in red so that he looked like His Infernal Eminence, Joseph Biden, Lord of the Underworld, was a bad idea. The podium looked like it was set up for a reading from the Necronomicon. Biden, using light as a metaphor, should have been standing in actual light.

I have also taken a galactic amount of steam on social media for being among those who objected to the placement of two Marines in semidarkness behind Biden. People on Twitter flooded me with pictures of presidents and military people, proving only that no one understood the problem. Yes, presidents routinely use military people as backdrops, something I rarely like seeing. It is almost always, however, at the White House, or on military bases, in front of military audiences, at military-themed events, and so on. Giving a speech about democracy in downtown Philadelphia and bringing your own Marines is not something I recall ever seeing. Frankly, staging Marines as if they are the president’s praetorian guards is the sort of thing Trump would love.

In any case, Biden did what he had to do. We have reached a watershed in American politics. The president of the United States has told us directly that our system of government is under attack. What happens next is, in every way, up to us."

lousubcap

A list of interesting bites for today from Politico:

BY RYAN LIZZA AND EUGENE DANIELS

Presented by

With help from Eli Okun and Garrett Ross

NRCC Chair Tom Emmer (R-Minn.) speaks in Rochester, Minn., on Oct. 30, 2020. | Bruce Kluckhohn/AP Photo

DRIVING THE DAY

Happy Labor Day! It’s quiet on the news front, so rest up and get ready for the fall: Election Day is nine weeks from tomorrow. First, a couple of breaking news updates that popped as we were getting ready to hit send this morning: — OPEC+ announced it will roll back its September boost in production. AP: “OPEC and allied oil-producing countries, including Russia, cut their supplies to the global economy by 100,000 barrels per day, underlining their unhappiness with crude prices that have sagged because of recession fears.” — LIZ TRUSS is the new Tory leader and Britain’s next PM. She meets with the queen Tuesday before assuming her duties. The Guardian adds that “the euphoria of victory will quickly give way to the hard reality of the economic challenges ahead, with the country gripped by a cost of living crisis leaving families struggling to pay their energy bills this winter.” How she won, by our London crew CURTAIN-RAISING SEASON HAS OFFICIALLY BEGUN — As you may have heard, we have some elections of our own coming up soon. We prefer midterm curtain-raising pieces on the traditional Tuesday after Labor Day. But, like pumpkin spice lattes in August, they are arriving early. The AP frames the next 63 days with the question that has dominated the late summer: “Red wave crashing?” Steve Peoples sifts through the various reasons for GOP angst — President JOE BIDEN’s recent legislative successes; the unpopular DONALD TRUMP’s return to center stage; the “candidate quality”issue, as Senate Minority Leader MITCH McCONNELL calls it — and lands on abortion as the biggest driver of change. “[N]othing has undermined the GOP’s momentum more than the Supreme Court’s stunning decision in June to end abortion protections, which triggered a swift backlash even in the reddest of red states,” he writes. In Pennsylvania, where Biden will spend the day, the Democrats’ gubernatorial candidate, AG JOSH SHAPIRO, has been presented with a target-rich environment when choosing what parts of his GOP opponent DOUG MASTRIANO’s record to attack. He’s zeroing in on Mastriano’s support for a total ban on abortion with no exceptions for the life of a mother, rape or incest: “Shapiro will launch his first TV ad of the fall campaign on Tuesday, casting Mastriano’s fierce opposition to abortion rights and gay marriage as a threat to Pennsylvania’s economy. The ad is the first spot in a $16.9 million television advertising investment the campaign reserved for the nine weeks leading up to Election Day.” In Alaska, we would add, Rep.-elect MARY PELTOLA’s first TV spotof the general election is all about the Dobbs decision, framed in libertarian language about “personal privacy rights” and government intrusion. “Six Supreme Court justices took away one of Alaska’s most fundamental freedoms,” she says. “Our right to choose.” The abortion question even has the always-on-offense RNC Chair RONNA McDANIEL running away from the politically toxic position taken by Mastriano — and plenty of other Republicans: “[T]he past four Republican presidents since Roe believe in the exception, and that is where I think a lot of the American people are, according to polling.” The kicker to the AP piece is from Rep. TOM EMMER (R-Minn.), head of the NRCC, who had this message to his Republican House colleagues: “Don’t be measuring the drapes. This isn’t the typical midterm that we’re talking about.”

Voters fill out ballots in Sullivan, Wis., on Aug. 9. | Alex Wroblewski/Getty Images

Over at the NYT, Lisa Lerer and Jennifer Medina have a novel framing of the midterms that sounds almost like a psychological diagnosis of the country. The electorate is undergoing “a national anxiety disorder” and “has lost its bearings.” The midterms are “shaping up to be a referendum on which party is more to blame for a country that has decidedly not returned to normal.” It’s a difficult election to handicap, given the surfeit of unusual issues hammering Americans: “Some voters say the instability has prompted them to grapple with decisions they never thought to make. How secure is your child’s school from shootings? Do you send your college student to school with abortion medication? Does the cost of beef make you skip over the butcher’s section in the grocery store?” But they, too, come back to abortion as the biggie: “Democrats hope they can offset economic concerns by energizing voters on abortion rights. In the weeks after the Supreme Court overturned Roe v. Wade, new voter registrations among women surged, according to a New York Times analysis, as abortion rocketed up the list of voter concerns in polling. “Already, the party has spent $92 million on advertising mentioning the issue, according to data from AdImpact, a media-tracking firm. They spent $5.6 million on ads about abortion rights over the same time period in the 2018 midterms.” Emmer gets the kicker quote in the Times piece, too, but here he has a slightly more optimistic take: “Republicans have yet to unleash much of their spending raised from outside groups, which is expected to begin after Labor Day. Their goal is to shift attention away from abortion and Mr. Trump by focusing on crime and attacking the Inflation Reduction Act and student loan forgiveness plan as excessive government spending that will not help voters. “‘It’s cost of living, and it’s the economy,’ said [Emmer]. ‘This is a groceries-and-gas election.’”

STAT OF THE DAY — Another reminder of how much Dobbs has altered the political terrain comes from the WSJ’s polling editor, Aaron Zitner, who highlights this stunning change in the Journal’s latest survey: “Women who are independents … shifted 20 percentage points in the Democrats’ direction, and Hispanic women moved by 15 points” since the paper’s March poll."

lousubcap

Tuesday Russia-Ukraine update:

"Russia is buying millions of artillery shells and rockets from North Korea, according to newly declassified U.S. intelligence. The disclosure comes days after Russia received initial shipments of Iranian-made drones. According to U.S. government officials, Russia’s decision to turn to Iran, and now North Korea, was a sign that sanctions and export controls imposed by the U.S. and Europe were hurting Moscow’s ability to obtain supplies for its army. Julian E. Barnes reports for the New York Times. 

Europe’s largest nuclear power plant was disconnected from the nation’s power grid after renewed shelling on Monday, according to Ukrainian energy officials. This once again placed critical cooling systems at risk of relying solely on emergency backup power. Herman Galushchenko, Ukraine’s energy minister, said a fire resulting from the shelling had severed the Zaporizhzhia plant’s last connection to a reserve line that had provided its only source of outside power. However, the International Atomic Energy Agency, which is part of the U.N. said that, according to Ukrainian officials, the reserve line had been “deliberately disconnected in order to extinguish a fire.” “The line itself is not damaged, and it will be reconnected once the fire is extinguished,” the agency said. The New York Times reports. 

Russia’s gas supplies to Europe via the Nord Stream 1 pipeline will not resume in full until the “collective west” lifts sanctions against Moscow over its invasion of Ukraine, the Kremlin has said. Dmitry Peskov, President Vladimir Putin’s spokesperson, blamed E.U., U.K. and Canadian sanctions for Russia’s failure to deliver gas through the key pipeline, which pumps gas to Germany from St Petersburg via the Baltic Sea. Although Moscow continues to claim technical faults have caused the cuts in gas supplies, Peskov’s comments were the starkest demand yet by the Kremlin that it wants the E.U. to roll back its sanctions in exchange for Russia resuming full gas deliveries to the continent. The announcement came just hours after the Group of Seven nations announced efforts to introduce a price cap on Russian oil exports. Max Seddon, David Sheppard and Henry Foy report for the Financial Times."

Gulfcoastguy

The UK is purchasing artillery ammunition from Pakistan for Ukraine. 

Legume

Gulfcoastguy said:

The UK is purchasing artillery ammunition from Pakistan for Ukraine. 

Is it dry?

lousubcap

Worth a read- Tom Nichols from The Atlantic and where we are today with the MAGA supporters-
linked here-
https://www.theatlantic.com/newsletters/archive/2022/09/the-nihilism-of-maga-world/671355/?utm_source=newsletter&utm_medium=email&utm_campaign=atlantic-daily-newsletter&utm_content=20220906&utm_term=The Atlantic Daily

lousubcap

Wednesday Russia-Ukraine update:

"At an emergency meeting of the U.N. Security Council yesterday, top officials called for immediate demilitarization of the Russian-occupied Zaporizhzhia Nuclear Power Plant.  Russian forces, which have occupied the plant since shortly after the invasion, should withdraw from the facility and Ukraine’s army should commit to not entering the plant, U.N. officials said. The meeting came after the council received the report of the U.N.’s atomic watchdog, the International Atomic Energy Agency (I.A.E.A.), whose inspectors gained access to the site last week for the first time since the conflict began. Rafael Grossi, the I.A.E.A. chief who led the team of inspectors, told the council that the hits the plant had received were “simply unacceptable,” and warned that “something very, very catastrophic could take place.” The New York Times reports.  

Russian President Vladimir Putin has vowed to revise the terms of the U.N.-brokered deal that allows Ukraine to export its grain via the Black Sea, after accusing Kyiv and the West of using it to cheat developing countries and Russia. "What we see is a brazen deception ... a deception by the international community of our partners in Africa, and other countries that are in dire need of food. It's just a scam," Putin said, speaking at an economic forum in the city of Vladivostok in Russia's Far East. Putin warned of a global food crisis if the situation was not addressed and said he would contact Turkey's President Tayyip Erdogan to discuss amending the deal to restrict which countries can receive shipments. Reuters reports. 

Putin and Chinese President Xi Jinping will meet next week at a summit in Uzbekistan, a Russian official has said. The two leaders will meet at the Shanghai Cooperation Organization summit, held in the Uzbek city of Samarkand on Sept. 15-16, Russian Ambassador to China Andrei Denisov told reporters.“Less than 10 days from now another meeting of our leaders will take place at the SCO summit in Samarkand. We are actively preparing for it,” Denisov was quoted by Russia’s state news agency Tass as saying. AP reports."

lousubcap

Another Tom Nichols article from The Atlantic worth a read. 

https://www.theatlantic.com/newsletters/archive/2022/09/the-new-anti-soviet-resistance/671367/?utm_source=newsletter&utm_medium=email&utm_campaign=atlantic-daily-newsletter&utm_content=20220907&utm_term=The Atlantic Daily

Great perspective.  

lousubcap

Thursday Russia-Ukraine update:  (hoping for more later)

"The United States is sending quite a bit more artillery to Ukraine's military. It's part of a new $675 million package of arms, and it comes with a related assortment of more than $2 billion in financial aid to help 18 neighboring countries "who are most potentially at risk for future Russian aggression," according to the U.S. State Department. 

The new weaponry includes ammunition for High Mobility Artillery Rocket Systems; four howitzers and 36,000 rounds of ammo for them; an unspecified number of additional High-speed Anti-radiation missiles; a thousand Remote Anti-Armor Mine System rounds; 100 more humvees; night-vision devices; at least 5,000 unspecified anti-armor systems; grenade launchers; 1,500,000 rounds of small arms ammunition; and more.

Almost 200 days into Putin's Ukraine invasion, the U.S. military is now hoping Kyiv's troops can begin to "reclaim their sovereign territory," as Pentagon chief Lloyd Austin said Thursday, shortly before his fifth meeting of the Ukraine Defense Contact Group, which ties together allies to help strategize in Ukraine's defense.

"So far Russian strategic objectives have been defeated," said Joint Chiefs Chairman Army Gen. Mark Milley, standing beside Austin on Thursday. "The war's not over," he cautioned, before repeating that first line once more, and adding, "It's a war; there is give and take, action and reaction, and counteraction." 

"We are seeing real and measurable gains" for Ukraine using U.S.-made weapons, like HIMARS artillery, Milley said. "The nature of war is often unpredictable," he said; "but we are committed, along with Ukraine, to maintaining [that] they are a free and sovereign country."  

Battlefield latest: Ukraine says its troops have advanced 50 kilometers inside occupied territory around Kharkiv, in northeast Ukraine. That's according to a statement from Brig. Gen. Oleksiy Gromov on Thursday, and it followed an advance retaking approximately 400 square kilometers of ground in the region on Wednesday, according to the Institute for the Study of War, which called that operation "an opportunistic yet highly effective counteroffensive northwest of Izyum." Otherwise, a vast array of strikes and counterstrikes took place across the east and the south in the past 24 hours; and those are enumerated in greater detail by the Ukraine military's general staff, here. "

lousubcap

More Thursday Russia-Ukraine info:  (off the gird for several hours...)

"Ukraine is considering shutting down the Zaporizhzhia Nuclear Power Plant due to the deteriorating security situation, according to Oleh Korikov, the chief state inspector for nuclear and radiation safety of Ukraine. "The continued deterioration of the situation, the prolonged lack of power supply from an external source of electricity will force us to deploy standby diesel generators, and it is extremely difficult to top up the diesel fuel supply during the war,” Korikov added, warning that maintaining the diesel generators running would not be sustainable. Yulia Kesaieva and Vasco Cotovio report for CNN. 

The commander of Ukraine’s armed forces has acknowledged publicly for the first time that Ukrainian forces were behind last month’s missile strikes on a Russian air base in Crimea. The commander, Gen. Valeriy Zaluzhnyi, and a colleague wrote in an article published on Wednesday by Ukrinform, a Ukrainian news agency, that as many as 10 Russian warplanes were destroyed in the attack on the Saki Air Base, on Crimea’s western Black Sea coast. The attack was crucial, he added, to shifting the war’s center of gravity and bringing home the costs of the conflict to Russian citizens. Victoria Kim reports for the New York Times. 

The U.S. yesterday accused Moscow of forcibly deporting up to 1.6 million Ukrainians to Russia or Russian-controlled territory and subjecting them to a “filtration” process involving invasive security screening, interrogation, family separation and detention. The accusation was made during a U.N. Security Council meeting that was requested by the U.S. and Albania to discuss the forced displacement of Ukrainians. During the meeting, Linda Thomas-Greenfield, the U.S. ambassador to the U.N., said that Moscow’s reason for deporting Ukrainians was “to prepare for an attempted annexation” and “to provide a fraudulent veneer of legitimacy for the Russian occupation and eventual, purported annexation of even more Ukrainian territory.” Thomas-Greenfield said Russia’s actions amounted to a war crime and a violation of the Fourth Geneva Convention, which mandates the protection of civilians in conflict zones. She called on Russia to grant access to international observers to investigate the camps and detention facilities where Ukrainian civilians are held. Farnaz Fassihi reports for the New York Times. 

The U.S. intends to send another $2 billion in long-term military support to Ukraine and 18 other countries that are at risk of Russian invasion, Secretary of State Antony Blinken said during a visit to Kyiv. Separately, President Biden has approved a further $675 million in military support for Ukraine, Defense Secretary Lloyd J. Austin III said, as the U.S.  seeks to bolster Ukraine’s defenses and its efforts to reclaim territory lost to Russia. Michael Crowley and Matthew Mpoke Bigg report for the New York Times. "

JohnInCarolina

http://twitter.com/IlvesToomas/status/1568134896991739904?s=20&t=s2vsG0StJ9tmPzCdmGGDkg

lousubcap

Friday Russia-Ukraine update:

"At the U.N. Security Council yesterday, Russia and the U.S. clashed over the supply of foreign weapons and military equipment to Ukraine. Russia accused the U.S. and Europe of launching “the largest proxy war” against it through Ukraine, while U.S. officials shot back that Russia was the “sole aggressor” in a brutal and unnecessary war. During the meeting, Izumi Nakamitsu, the U.N.’s top official for disarmament affairs, expressed concerns about the delivery of foreign weapons to Ukraine, noting that there were widespread and verified reports of heavy weaponry, including artillery rocket systems, going to local armed groups. “Large-scale influx of weapons to conflict-affected zones raises many concerns, including potential for diversion,” Nakamitsu said, adding that beyond the supply issue, the impact of weapons on Ukrainian civilians and infrastructure had been devastating. Farnaz Fassihi reports for the New York Times.

The U.S. Treasury Department yesterday announced sanctions against Iranian companies involved in the sale of drones to Russia. The sanctions form part of a continuing effort to pressure military supply chains and make it more difficult for Moscow to resupply its forces fighting in Ukraine. The Treasury Department’s Office of Foreign Assets Control placed sanctions on four companies, including an Iranian air transport provider, and one company executive in connection with Tehran’s sale of Shahed drones. As a result of the action, any international foreign bank or financial institution that conducts a transaction involving one of the designated companies could be subject to sanctions. Julian E. Barnes reports for the New York Times. 

Ukraine claims it has regained significant territory on multiple fronts following an offensive launched this week in the Kharkiv region. “In total, more than a thousand square kilometers of the territory of Ukraine have been liberated since the beginning of September,” Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy told the nation in his nightly address yesterday. Gen. Mark A. Milley, chairman of the U.S. Joint Chiefs of Staff, confirmed that tangible gains had been made by Ukraine in recent days. However, he also sought to temper expectations for what will probably continue to prove a bloody campaign. Marc Santora reports for the New York Times. "

lousubcap

Tom Nichols and some insight into the Russian military mindset.  Worth a read-
https://www.theatlantic.com/newsletters/archive/2022/09/why-the-russian-military-brutalizes-ukraine/671396/?utm_source=newsletter&utm_medium=email&utm_campaign=atlantic-daily-newsletter&utm_content=20220909&utm_term=The Atlantic Daily

JohnInCarolina

Lots of good news out of Ukraine today.  Sounds like the Russians are on the run in several sectors.  

HeavyG

https://twitter.com/EvansRyan202/status/1569082004586565632

One of the commenters to the Julia Davis tweet cracked me up...

https://twitter.com/gregstoll316/status/1569094006532972546

JohnInCarolina

http://twitter.com/MalcolmNance/status/1569095892048691200?s=20&t=HYeFod4hgCgwcGo8Q3_ceA

dmchicago

This is some sh!t right here. 

Botch

JohnInCarolina said:

http://twitter.com/MalcolmNance/status/1569095892048691200?s=20&t=HYeFod4hgCgwcGo8Q3_ceA

This was an incredible watch, for me.  
I watched it twice.  The first time, with the sound off (it was in russian, anyway; just read the subtitles).  I was struck by the increasing animation of the pro-russian hosts/commentators (their breathing patterns got so much more accelerated than, say, Faux News hosts; lack of training, I guess).  Just from watching.
I watched it again, with the sound on.  Initial impressions confirmed.  I also would wager that one, and maybe two, of the guests will be dead, by Thursday.  

lousubcap

Monday Russia-Ukraine update:

"Ukraine has claimed to have recaptured more than 1,000 square miles in the northeastern Kharkiv region over recent days, handing Moscow one of its biggest setbacks since the invasion began. Ukraine’s military said yesterday that it was recapturing villages in the area around Kupyansk and Izyum, two cities that Russian forces fled Saturday as Ukrainian troops advanced on them. A battlefield map released by Russia’s Defense Ministry yesterday appeared to indicate that Russian forces had vacated all northern parts of the Kharkiv region where Ukraine is continuing to press its counteroffensive and hasn’t claimed to have recaptured. North of Kharkiv, Ukrainian forces also appeared to be pushing toward the border with Russia. Daniel Michaels and James Marson report for the Wall Street Journal. 

Russian attacks on critical infrastructure knocked out power in the Kharkiv and Donetsk regions, Ukrainian officials said on Sunday night. Officials condemned the attacks as an apparent act of revenge for Kyiv’s recent gains in the region, with Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy calling the strikes “deliberate and cynical.” Water and electricity were mostly restored by Monday morning, Ukraine’s Ukrinform news agency reported. Carly Olson reports for the New York Times. 

Ukraine has begun turning off the last working reactor at the Zaporizhzhia Nuclear Power Plant. The step, which has been urged for weeks by the U.S. and the International Atomic Energy Agency, was made after Ukraine’s nuclear regulator, Energoatom, concluded that keeping it running could result in a nuclear meltdown. The plant, at full operation, provided about a fifth of Ukraine’s electricity supply. And there is a fear that once shut down, Russia might seek to find ways to connect it to Russia’s grid, instead of Ukraine’s. Marc Santora and David E. Sanger report for the New York Times. "

Edit to add the following;

"By Hugo Bachega, BBC News, Kyiv

Ukraine's rapid progress seems to have stunned Russia. The Kremlin says its troops are regrouping, but pictures from some liberated areas in the Kharkiv region suggest a hasty departure by the invading forces, with military vehicles, ammunition, and equipment left behind.

If the gains are confirmed - and if they hold - it's the most significant change on the frontlines since Russian troops left the Kyiv region five months ago. The extraordinary advance would mark a humiliating setback for Russia, and be a boost to Ukraine's position that it can push the Russians out while asking for more Western weapons.

President Zelensky has talked about a possible breakthrough, suggesting that more advances could happen before winter. But the country still faces huge challenges. Around a fifth of it remains under occupation and, in the south, Ukrainian troops have reportedly faced more resistance in their offensive, as Russia has fortified its positions."

HeavyG

https://twitter.com/WhereisRussia/status/1569317899436978176

Love the mind games.