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

Botch

Interesting read about the mindset of Ukranians vs russians:
 

Opinion How Ukrainians define their enemy: ‘It’s not Putin; it’s Russia’

David Ignatius

A man works in a building after a missile strike damaged a residential area near Kyiv's main train station on Tuesday in Ukraine. (Ed Ram/Getty Images) 

During a visit to Kyiv last weekend, I kept asking Ukrainians a question that vexes me: Is your war against President Vladimir Putin — or against Russia itself? Nearly every time, I got the same unyielding answer. The enemy is a Russia that must be defeated and transformed.

Through Ukrainian eyes, this terrible conflict has become a clash of civilizations. They argue that most Russians support Putin’s brutal war in the way that most Germans supported Adolf Hitler. Unless Russia as a nation abandons the imperial dreams that Putin has evoked, the conflict cannot be resolved through negotiations.

“Russia has to go through the same process that Germany did after World War II,” presidential adviser Mykhailo Podolyak insisted Saturday in an interview with me and the other members of a group organized by the German Marshall Fund, of which I’m a trustee. “If Russian society doesn’t understand what they’ve done, the world will be brought into chaos.” He enthusiastically predicts that postwar Russia will dissolve into five or six smaller nations.

This Ukrainian desire for total victory — though understandable for a country that has suffered a vicious assault on its civilian population — poses a painful dilemma for the Biden administration. As President Biden made clear in a May 31 essay in the New York Times, the United States seeks “a negotiated end to the conflict” in which Russia withdraws from occupied territory. Biden seeks a Ukrainian victory, but not a total Russian defeat.

For me, thinking about how this war ends juxtaposes two conflicting lessons of the 20th century. Historians generally agree that the punitive peace imposed on Germany after World War I helped bring on the vicious Nazi quest for revenge. But historians also agree that the decisive outcome of World War II, with Germany and Japan pounded into unconditional surrender, allowed the miraculous postwar rebirth of both countries.

Ukrainians, from senior leaders to ordinary citizens, appear convinced that Putin’s Russia must be vanquished, not just Putin himself. Olga Datsiuk, a 33-year-old television producer, relaxing over lunch in a cafe, was smiling but emphatic in an interview Saturday. “We feel that Russia and Russians are responsible for all of it,” she said. The same view was expressed by Sergiy Gerasymchuk, who runs a foreign policy think tank called Prism: “It’s not Putin; it’s Russia,” he told us. “There is a chance for reconciliation, but not in my lifetime.”

The Ukrainian narrative centers on the diverging paths the two countries took after the collapse of the Soviet Union in 1991. Ukrainians turned West, toward the European Union and embraced a freewheeling if corrupt version of democracy. Russia flirted with the West at first, under President Boris Yeltsin, but after a decade of chaos and humiliation, Russians welcomed the strong hand of Putin when he was elected president in 2000.

Russia never had a thorough post-communist housecleaning, and in the Ukrainian view, that’s the root of the current catastrophe. “Russians, somehow, are afraid [of democracy],” said Datsiuk. “This is what Ukrainians will never understand. They choose safe space and warm food instead of freedom.” The two societies diverged, says Alina Frolova, a former deputy defense minister who now heads a think tank called the Center for Defense Strategies. “Russia had 10 years of freedom after 1991, but they chose to go back to their traditional empire.”

Ukraine’s pro-Western democracy threatened Putin, and he has worked relentlessly, obsessively, to crush it. His war against Ukraine began in 2014, when he seized Crimea and parts of the Donbas region, and it culminated in this year’s scorched-earth invasion.

But Russian assaults have only deepened Ukraine’s separate identity. A gathering of Ukrainian intellectuals in June sponsored by two leading universities drew up a list of 74 ways the war had changed society. Valerii Pekar, a member of the group, described this new spirit as “civic Ukrainianism” — in its national pride, love for its armed forces and embrace of a European, democratic future.

So how will this clash of civilizations end? In the West, people try to imagine a negotiated peace. Putin might withdraw to the preinvasion lines. … Or mediators might devise a formula to defer final resolution of the status of the occupied territories. … Or the Russian army might rebel against the Kremlin’s dictates. ... Or Putin might be replaced by a successor who is unable or unwilling to continue the war.

Ukrainians I met in Kyiv unanimously rejected any such interim settlement. They want Ukraine to win back all of its territory, and Russia to lose decisively. The war will end, said Oleksiy Danilov, the secretary of the national security and defense council, “when the Russians understand that they have zero chance of victory.”

Americans have the painless exhilaration of watching Ukrainians fight for freedom. But there will be growing risks for us, too, if the war continues to escalate. We should calibrate them carefully and avoid direct U.S.-Russian conflict. But we can’t escape the dangers entirely.

Surely, this is a war worth winning. I don’t want to see Russia destroyed, and I think any argument that it is forever an alien civilization is wrong. But the ideology that Putin represents, and that many Russians embrace, must be defeated.

David Ignatius writes a twice-a-week foreign affairs column for The Washington Post. His latest novel is “The Paladin.

lousubcap

Frictionless conduit here but a quick and informative top level national security read:
"

BY ALEXANDER WARD, MATT BERG AND LAWRENCE UKENYE

President Joe Biden, joined by from left, national security adviser Jake Sullivan, Secretary of State Antony Blinken, and Secretary of Defense Lloyd Austin, listens during a meeting. | Susan Walsh/AP Photo

With help from Daniel Lippman, Phelim Kine and Lara Seligman Subscribe here | Email Alex | Email Matt Your friends here at NatSec Daily read the Biden administration’s National Security Strategy, so you don’t have to. If you’ve listened to President JOE BIDEN or national security adviser JAKE SULLIVANtalk at all about the state of world affairs, then you’ll recognize a lot of what’s to follow. The post-Cold War era is “definitively over,” the Biden administration declared in the document delayed by the war in Ukraine, describing its intention to compete ferociously against China and Russia — while also collaborating with them on global threats like climate change. In a foreword, Biden calls this the “decisive decade to advance America’s vital interests.” The most pressing problem, per the strategy: “powers that layer authoritarian governance with a revisionist foreign policy” — that is, China and Russia. China “is the only competitor with both the intent to reshape the international order and, increasingly, the economic, diplomatic, military and technological power to do it,” the administration declares in the strategy. To win that competition, the Biden administration says it will help countries meet their needs without the reciprocation China typically expects, work to maintain peace between China and Taiwan, align a diplomatic approach toward China with allies, and work with Beijing on areas where U.S. and Chinese interests align. As for Russia, which the document says “has chosen to pursue an imperialist foreign policy with the goal of overturning key elements of the international order,” the U.S. will proceed to punish the country for the invasion of Ukraine. But, just like with China, the Biden administration is open to working with Russia in areas where a partnership can be “mutually beneficial.” The language in the new document echoes the Trump administration’s national security strategy, which asserted “ great power competition returned,” and the second Obama-era iteration, which emphasized the need to revitalize democracy at home while partnering with allies on global issues. It makes sense, as Biden, Sullivan, and Secretary of State Antony Blinken have spoken repeatedly in both Trumpian and Obamian terms on world affairs, sometimes in the same sentence. Read more of your host’s coverage of the National Security Strategy here."

lousubcap

Clearly the LCD (Lowest Common Denominator) ignores the following;
"It makes sense, as Biden, Sullivan, and Secretary of State Antony Blinken have spoken repeatedly in both Trumpian and Obamian terms on world affairs, sometimes in the same sentence."
Are we going back to G.W. Bush and a different world stage?? 
No worries as I am just highlighting the "dislikeowarts" and their campaign.  
Perhaps someday the moderators will get the stones to once again unmask them.  Wishful thinking I'm sure.
Talk about wolves...a true wolf would never hide.  Just post up the dislike and then post a comment that you own it-spineless is where you all hide now.  You can do better if you had the stones!  Stay healthy and safe out there-

 

lousubcap

Thursday Russia-Ukraine update:

"The U.N. General Assembly yesterday voted to adopt a U.S.-sponsored resolution condemning Russia’s illegal annexation of territory in Ukraine. The resolution won by a vote of 143-5, with 35 abstentions, following significant diplomatic efforts by the U.S. and its allies. However, whilst the resolution won by far more than the required two-thirds majority of the U.N.’s 193 members, the vote was numerically nearly identical to the one in March, just 10 days after Russia’s invasion, despite over 7 months of brutal war. Karen DeYoung reports for the Washington Post. 

President Biden said "the world has sent a clear message," after the U.N. General Assembly overwhelmingly approved a resolution condemning Russia's annexation of four Ukrainian zones as illegal. "Russia is tearing at the very foundations of international peace and security. The stakes of this conflict are clear to all — and the world has sent a clear message in response: Russia cannot erase a sovereign state from the map. Russia cannot change borders by force. Russia cannot seize another country’s territory as its own," Biden said in a statement. "Nearly eight months into this war, the world has just demonstrated that it is more united, and more determined than ever to hold Russia accountable for its violations." CNN reports. 

Russia has imposed border rules in Zaporizhzhia in an attempt to solidify its illegal annexation of the region. Ukrainian civilians who fled Russian-held territory in recent days have reported being required to provide extensive documentation to leave, including birth certificates, expected return dates, and even the serial numbers of their cell phones. “The Russians are trying to install a permanent, official border crossing, and so these are the measures that they are trying to establish,” said Oleksii Savytskyi, a Ukrainian official who oversees the arrival of civilian convoys from Russian-held territory to the regional capital, also called Zaporizhzhia, which is still under Ukrainian control. The new measures have slowed the exodus of civilians from illegally occupied areas to a trickle, officials have said. Louisa Loveluck, Emily Rauhala and Robyn Dixon report for the Washington Post. 

Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdoğan has reiterated his calls for an end to the war in Ukraine while speaking at a conference in Kazakhstan. "Each of us is feeling the regional and global impact of the crisis in Ukraine ... Despite these difficulties on the ground, our priority is to end the bloodshed as soon as possible," Erdoğan said. Erdoğan and Russian President Vladimir Putin are expected to meet later today for a bilateral meeting on the sidelines of the Conference on Interaction and Confidence-Building Measures in Asia summit in the Kazakh capital Astana, according to Russian state-run news agency TASS. Alex Stambaugh and Josh Pennington report for CNN. "

lousubcap

More on the Russia-Ukraine front:

"The view from Berlin: "Vladimir Putin and his enablers have made one thing very clear: this war is not only about Ukraine," but it's "part of a larger crusade, a crusade against liberal democracy," German Chancellor Olaf Scholz reportedly said during an ongoing speech Thursday in the capital city. 

Battlefield latest: Russian troops are digging a trench system in occupied Luhansk,according to drone footage allegedly obtained from the region recently. There also seems to have been a brief, drone-on-drone dogfight recently in the skies of Ukraine (Kyiv allegedly came out on top in that one, but it's difficult to say with certainty). 

Stunning alleged casualty update: An estimated 90,000 Russian soldiers have been categorized as "irrecoverable losses," which means they are either dead, disabled, or missing—according to the Latvia-based independent Russian news website Meduza, which claims to have sourced that figure from a contact in Russia's FSB. If true, that would be about half of all the soldiers Russia has sent to Ukraine, according to U.S. historian Aaron Astor. 

Repairs seem to be underway at the only bridge linking occupied Crimea to Russia, according to new satellite imagery released Wednesday by Maxar. An explosion, likely from a truck bomb, rocked one lane of the bridge over the weekend in an apparent attack Russian officials blamed on Ukraine. But by Wednesday, vehicles were seen traveling along the single remaining car lane on the Kerch Bridge, and a ferry appeared to be carrying trucks around the area, according to Maxar. "

FlyOverCountry

JohnInCarolina

http://twitter.com/Osinttechnical/status/1580293815357042688?s=20&t=iT3UnwStfTIHa56tcVlmQg

lousubcap

Friday Russia-Ukraine update:

"The United Nations General Assembly on Wednesday voted to condemn Russia’s annexation of four occupied areas of Ukraine amid the ongoing war, but four countries sided with Russia in the vote.  

Of the U.N.’s 193-member body, 143 voted in favor of the resolution criticizing Russia’s “illegal so-called referendums,” with 35 abstaining, according to an update. 

Syria, North Korea, Belarus and Nicaragua joined Russia as the five opposing votes.  

The now-passed resolution calls on the U.N.’s member states not to recognize Russia’s annexation move — and calls for Russia to rescind its claims over the Ukrainian land. 

Moscow made the controversial move to hold Russian-controlled referendums and annex parts of Ukraine amid a number of battlefield setbacks, including a counteroffensive from Ukraine that forced Russian troops to the border in some areas.

Ukraine’s allies vowed Thursday to supply the besieged nation with advanced air defense systems as Russian forces attacked the Kyiv region with kamikaze drones and fired missiles elsewhere at civilian targets, payback for the bombing of a strategic bridge linking Russia with annexed Crimea.

Missile strikes killed at least five people and destroyed an apartment building in the southern city of Mykolaiv, while heavy artillery damaged more than 30 houses, a hospital, a kindergarten and other buildings in the town of Nikopol, across the river from the Russian-occupied Zaporizhzhia Nuclear Power Plant.

Russia has intensified its bombardment of civilian areas in recent weeks as its military lost ground in multiple occupied regions of Ukraine that Russian President Vladimir Putin has illegally annexed. Kremlin war hawks have urged Putin to escalate the bombing campaign even more to punish Ukraine for Saturday’s truck bomb attack on the landmark Kerch Bridge. Ukraine has not claimed responsibility for the attack.

Civilians in the illegally occupied Kherson region of Ukraine have been advised to travel to Russia or Crimea. Russia has made the decision “to organize assistance for the departure of residents” of the Kherson region, Russia’s deputy prime minister, Marat Khusnullin, said on Russian state television yesterday. The first civilians fleeing from Kherson are expected to arrive in Russia’s Rostov region on Friday. The decision to ask civilians to evacuate comes as Kyiv’s forces continue to advance south, and has been described by Ukrainian officials as a sign of panic. Matthew Mpoke Bigg reports for the New York Times. 

Ukrainian officials have urged the Red Cross (ICRC) to conduct a mission to a notorious prison camp in the illegally occupied Donetsk region. The Ukrainian president's chief of staff, Andriy Yermak, demanded that the ICRC visit the Olenivka prison within three days. "We just can't waste more time. Human lives are at stake," he tweeted. Last month, the Red Cross tried to secure access to the camp, but said it was denied by Russian authorities. In a statement today, the ICRC said: "We want to stress that our teams are ready on the ground - and have been ready for months - to visit the Olenivka penal facility and any other location where POWs are held. However, beyond being granted access by high levels of authority, this requires practical arrangements to materialize on the ground. We cannot access by force a place of detention or internment where we have not been admitted." Oliver Slow reports for BBC News. "

lousubcap

A great read from Tom Nichols (The Atlantic)  but a Friday so likely lost on most.  Time to face the music and as Americans first, do the right thing.
"

Tom Nichols STAFF WRITER

The final hearing of the House January 6 Committee made clear that a duly elected and sworn president of the United States tried to overthrow the constitutional order. When are we going to act on that knowledge?

Unnatural Disaster An image of former President Donald Trump displayed during the third hearing on the January 6 attack (Anna Moneymaker / Getty) View in browser There are days when the presidency of Donald Trump seems like just another natural disaster that we can allow to recede into history after we count its victims and repair the damage. But earthquakes and volcanoes do not have will and cannot choose to return and destroy again. Trump, however, is like a hurricane pacing just offshore, waiting and plotting to flatten and flood our political system, perhaps for good. And the hell of it is, we Americans know he’s there. We know what he’s done and what he can do (again). Yet millions of us would gladly welcome his landfall again. Millions more of us have thrown up our hands in exasperation as Trump and most of his regiment of Renfields have, for now, managed to escape any consequences for their actions. Yesterday, in what was likely the final hearing of the January 6 committee, the nation was told, once more and without ambiguity, that Donald Trump, the commander in chief, actively sought to subvert our democratic order. My Atlantic colleague David Frum summed up the committee’s findings—and the nation’s reaction—in one tweet: “Decisive [and] irrefutable documentary evidence that the 45th president of the United States tried to overthrow the US Constitution by violence, no big deal, just another news day.” For years, I have been wondering when Americans would draw the line on Trump and his minions. We could rehearse the litany of Trump’s awfulness: his vulgarity, his racism, his callous disregard for veterans, his pathetic submissiveness around Vladimir Putin. We could remind ourselves of the attempt to pressure the Ukrainian government that got him impeached (the first time). None of it seems to matter, because for a large swath of the American public, nothing really matters. And here, I do not mean only the “MAGA Republicans,” loyalists who are already a lost cause. (Trump was tragically prescient when he said that he could shoot someone on Fifth Avenue and they would not abandon him.) Nor do I mean the people who have attached their parasitical careers to their Trumpian host. No, I mean the ordinary Americans who shrug at a violent insurrection and the near-miss of a coup. As the historian Michael Beschloss said on MSNBC last night after the hearing, Trump “probably wanted to declare martial law.” He also pointed out that the insurrection was a close-run thing, noting that if “Trump and those rioters had been a little bit faster, we might be living in a country of unbelievable darkness and cruelty.” But who cares? After all, inflation is too high, and gas is still too expensive, and that’s a bigger problem than the overthrow of the government, isn’t it? The worst of the worst, however, are the people in public life who know better but who refuse to condemn the candidates flying Trump’s banner. Ohio Senator Rob Portman, for example, supports J. D. Vance, a former Trump critic who now slathers himself in the stink of Trumpism like a teenage kid with his first bottle of cheap body spray. Portman is retiring and had nothing to lose—well, nothing except his long-standing reputation as a decent man—but he declared his support anyway. Apparently, with a Senate seat in play, Portman thought it gauche to be too judgmental about Vance emulating Trump, the president who put his own vice president in mortal danger. In a country that still had a functional moral compass, citizens would watch the January 6 hearings, band together regardless of party or region, and refuse to vote for anyone remotely associated with Donald Trump, whom the committee has proved, I think, to be an enemy of the Constitution of the United States. His party, as an institution, supports him virtually unconditionally, and several GOP candidates around the country have already vowed to join Trump in his continuing attack on our democracy. To vote for any of these people is to vote against our constitutional order. It’s that simple. Many GOP supporters, particularly in the conservative-media ecosystem, would reject all of this as guilt by association—as if somehow, a candidate who embraces Trump may be excused for supporting lawlessness and sedition. This is how, for example, The Wall Street Journal justifiedendorsing Kari Lake in Arizona. Lake is one of the most extreme election deniers and Trump sycophants in the GOP, but the Journal thinks she’d be great on the issue of school choice, as though the funding of education would be the big issue if Lake conspires with other Trump cultists across the United States to deliver the final blow to the notion of the peaceful and constitutional transfer of power. In the confusion of the moment back in January 2021, it was easier to believe that perhaps the mob was spontaneous, that elected Republicans were sincere in reviling Trump for his part in creating it, and that the GOP might come to its senses, at least where Trump is concerned. Today, thanks to the January 6 committee and the evidence it has amassed, we know better. To vote for anyone still loyal to a party led by the narcissistic sociopath who put our elected officials and our political system itself in peril is to abandon any pretense of caring whether the United States remains a constitutional democracy. The question is whether enough of us will care, in little more than three weeks from now, to make a difference."

littlerascal56

Per the last paragraph, don’t expect a lot of voters to care about this in 3 weeks. Old news.  Most will vote per their family’s pocketbook (inflation/grocery costs/gas prices)…..it won’t fare well for Dems, especially those that have supported the Biden administration cluster fvck. 

Jan 6 will fade away, just like all the Hillary and Obama crimes, and the Biden family (Hunter) corruption.  The FBI is so corrupt it’s also become a useless entity at this point. The Dept of justice has been made a mockery by Joe himself. 

Most people will be burdened by the high cost of heating their homes this winter, and Jan 6 will drop off-the radar screens of most news channels, as will much of the Trump drama after the mid-term election is over. And the Fed will again raise the interest rates on Nov 2nd, so the housing market will take another hit! Lets go Brandon.

lousubcap

Monday Russia-Ukraine update:

"RVitaly Klitschko, mayor of Kyiv,  has called today's drone strikes on Kyiv part of the “genocide of the Ukrainian people.” “The Russians need a Ukraine without Ukrainians. They want to leave without heating, without electricity, without life. They need territory – not residents of Ukraine,” he told reporters. All available resources have been deployed to clear the rubble from devastated areas, he said, adding that city authorities are expecting the arrival of air defense systems to protect the capital from drone attacks. BBC News reports. 

The Russian region of Belgorod was subject to more than a dozen explosions on Sunday. RIA Novosti reported that 16 explosions had hit Russia’s Belgorod region, an important staging ground for its invasion. This was a sharp increase in what had previously been mostly isolated attacks, apparently by Ukraine, on Russian territory close to the border. Ukrainian officials did not comment, in keeping with an official policy of near-total silence about explosions inside Russia’s internationally recognized border. Andrew Higgins, Megan Specia and Ivan Nechepurenko report for the New York Times. 

Two gunmen opened fire on Russian military recruits at a training ground in Russia’s Belgorod region on Saturday, killing at least 11 people and wounding another 15. The attack happened during a training session at the Western Military District, according to Russia’s state news agency TASS, which cited the Russian Defense Ministry. The gunmen were said to be from former Soviet states. Russian officials have branded the attack an act of terrorism. Mariya Knight reports for CNN.

A pro-Moscow official in the illegally occupied Donetsk region claimed on Sunday that the mayor’s office had been hit by Ukrainian rockets. “According to incoming information, today at 7:37 there was a direct hit by enemy ordnance on Donetsk’s city administration building,” Alexey Kulemzin, who has served as Donetsk’s mayor since 2016, said in a statement on his Telegram channel. Kulemzin later published several videos and images of the purported attack’s aftermath, showing a badly damaged building amid sparse flames and thick smoke. Ukraine has so far not claimed the attack. Gian Volpicelli reports for POLITICO. 

Russian troops and military planes have started to arrive in Belarus in preparation for the formation of a new joint Russia-Belarus force, the Belarusian Defense Ministry said yesterday. Belarus is Ukraine’s neighbor to the north and a close ally of Russia, from whose territory Moscow launched an abortive attack on Kyiv in February. A renewed Russian offensive in northern Ukraine from Belarus would further expand the conflict, and the establishment of a joint force with Russia will most likely reinforce the view in Ukraine that Belarus is clearly a “co-aggressor” - a label that  Belarusian President Aleksandr Lukashenko has rejected. Andrew Higgins reports for the New York Times. 

Russian President Vladimir Putin has signaled that his unpopular mobilization drive is coming to an end. “This work is coming to an end,” he told journalists on Friday after a conference attended by regional leaders in Kazakhstan’s capital, Astana. Indicating that the mobilization drive would be concluded in two weeks, he added that 222,000 out of an expected 300,000 reservists had already been conscripted. The order — the first mobilization of reservists in Russia since World War II —triggered protests across the country, while thousands attempted to avoid the call-up by fleeing to neighboring countries like Georgia, Belarus and Armenia. Hyder Abbasi reports for NBC News. "

lousubcap

From the Chinese Communist Party Congress:

"CHINESE COMMUNIST PARTY CONGRESS

In his opening speech at the Chinese Communist party congress, Chinese leader Xi Jinping called on the party’s 97 million members to steel themselves for a “critical time” in the country’s history. The two-hour speech, which was delivered in the Great Hall of the People in Beijing, outlined goals ranging from an “all-out people’s war” against the Covid-19 pandemic to realizing the unification of China and Taiwan. In one of the speech’s biggest applause lines, Xi pledged that the party would “never renounce the use of force [to achieve unification] and will take all necessary measures to stop all separatist movements.” “The resolution of the Taiwan issue is a matter for the Chinese people themselves, to be decided by the Chinese people,” said Xi. Without mentioning the U.S. specifically, he added that the party would combat “protectionism and bullying” by other nations. The week-long congress will end on October 22, with a new leadership line-up unveiled a day later. Xi’s reappointment to a third term as party leader and head of the Chinese military is widely seen as settled, despite a series of controversial policies that have dramatically slowed growth in the country. Tom Mitchell and Primrose Riordan report for the Financial Times. "

lousubcap

Tuesday Russia-Ukraine update:

"Russia is threatening to refuse to extend the U.N.-brokered deal that resumed Ukrainian agricultural exports by sea. In a meeting yesterday, Col. Gen. Alexander Fomin, the Russian deputy defense minister, told Martin Griffiths, the U.N.’s humanitarian chief, that Moscow’s support for the deal, known as the Black Sea Grain Initiative,  depended on its demands regarding Russia’s food and fertilizer exports being met. Whilst the deal’s primary goal was to end the block on Ukrainian exports, which had been contributing to a global food crisis, as part of the deal, the U.S. and E.U. gave assurances that banks and companies involved in trading Russian grain and fertilizer would be exempt from sanctions. However, Sergey Lavrov, Russia’s foreign minister, has criticized the deal for not increasing Russian exports as promised. Carly Olson reports for the New York Times. 

Ukrainian technicians working at the Zaporizhzhia Nuclear Power Plant have been told by Russian authorities that they have until Thursday to choose sides in the escalating struggle for control of the reactor complex. Senior officials of Russia’s Rosatom said Ukrainian staff who sign up as employees of Moscow’s atomic-energy company would keep their jobs and could be offered Russian passports, according to plant workers, Ukrainian officials and diplomats posted to the U.N.’s nuclear agency. Under Ukrainian law, joining Rosatom could make the technicians collaborators and subject to arrest, trial, and imprisonment. However, Ukrainian officials have said that there may be concessions for workers who sign the Russian contracts since they are needed to prevent an accident at the plant. Drew Hinshaw and Joe Parkinson report for the Wall Street Journal. 

lousubcap

The synopsis here:
"Fiona Hill knows a thing or two about Putin, and she doesn't see him backing down. "Whenever he has a setback, Putin figures he can get out of it, that he can turn things around. That's partly because of his training as a KGB operative ... Another hallmark of Putin is that he doubles down." Hill also sees Putin "trying to get the West to accede to his aims by using messengers like billionaire Elon Musk to propose arrangements that would end the conflict on his terms. 'Putin plays the egos of big men, gives them a sense that they can play a role. But in reality, they're just direct transmitters of messages from Vladimir Putin.'" 
Edit for the interview.  Nails the man.  

lousubcap

Wednesday Russia-Ukraine update:

"Thirty percent of Ukraine's power stations have been destroyed in the last week causing "massive blackouts" across the country, Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy has said. Russia yesterday attacked several energy facilities across Ukraine, including in the capital Kyiv, amid ongoing attempts to cripple the country's energy infrastructure. Zelenskyy called it a "terrorist" attack and reiterated that there is "No space left for negotiations with [Russian President Vladimir] Putin's regime." Wilhelmine Preussen reports for POLITICO. 

The illegally occupied city of Enerhodar in southeastern Ukraine is facing power and water outages due to shelling overnight, Mayor Dmytro Orlov said in a Telegram post. “At night, Enerhodar came under fire again. The city is partially without electricity and water. The shelling, first of the industrial zone, and then of the city itself, began around midnight and did not stop in the morning,” Orlov said. “There are reports of damage to one of the substations, as well as to the building of the executive committee of the city council,” he continued, adding there was no information regarding potential casualties yet. The city sits on the south bank of the Dnipro River, near the illegally occupied Zaporizhzhia nuclear power plant. Olga Voitovych reports for CNN.  

Moscow’s strikes on critical energy infrastructure in Ukraine constitute “war crimes,” according to the head of the European Commission. In a speech to lawmakers at the European Parliament, Commission President Ursula von der Leyen described the attacks as “acts of pure terror,” which she said were “marking a new chapter in an already very cruel war.” Allegra Goodwin reports for CNN. 

Russia’s top military commander in Ukraine has signaled that Moscow’s hold on the southern city of Kherson is weakening. Gen. Sergei Surovikin, the recently appointed commander of Russian Armed Forces in Ukraine, gave a rare pessimistic take of his invading forces’ position, telling state television yesterday that the situation in Kherson “is not at all easy right now” and that the priority in the south was preserving civilians and military personnel. “Difficult decisions cannot be ruled out,” he said, without elaborating, in his first significant public comments since taking over the role. Thomas Grove and Yuliya Chernova report for the Wall Street Journal. 

House Minority Leader Kevin McCarthy (R-CA) has signaled that the Republican Party is likely to oppose more aid to Ukraine if it wins the House majority in next month’s midterm elections. “I think people are gonna be sitting in a recession and they’re not going to write a blank check to Ukraine,” he recently told Punchbowl News. “They just won’t do it.” McCarthy suggested that Americans want Congress to focus on issues closer to home. “There’s the things [the Biden administration] is not doing domestically,” he said. “Not doing the border, and people begin to weigh that. Ukraine is important, but at the same time, it can’t be the only thing they do, and it can’t be a blank check,” he added. Eugene Scott reports for the Washington Post. "

Botch

I find it interesting that, when we use them, they're called "guided munitions".
When they use them, they're called "kamikaze drones".  

lousubcap

More on Russia-Ukraine today:

"Russia's military says it's racing to evacuate citizens from occupied Kherson as columns of Ukrainian forces are allegedly advancing closer to the region's main city, publicly worrying Russia's top commander.  

"Our plans in the city of Kherson will depend on the tactical military situation that is already very uneasy," Vladimir Putin's new invasion commander Gen. Sergei Surovikin saidTuesday. But "The Russian army will above all ensure the safe evacuation of the population" of Kherson, he promised, and added, "Difficult decisions cannot be ruled out." The Russia-installed official in charge of Kherson also urged people to evacuate on Tuesday, writing on Telegram, "Please take my words seriously, I'm talking about evacuating as quickly as possible."

Big picture: "Four of the five generals with direct operational command of elements of the invasion in February 2022 have now been dismissed," the British military said Wednesday, and noted, "Their replacements have so far done little to improve Russia's battlefield performance."

Also: "Russia is now visually confirmed to have lost 1,400 tanks since it started its invasion of Ukraine on February 24," open-source watchers noted Tuesday evening on Twitter. Find the latest full and updated list of destroyed Russian military equipment inside Ukraine, here. 

Developing: Putin just declared martial law in those four illegally annexed regions of Ukraine. The five-point decree says the new clampdown will go into effect Thursday, Oct. 20, and extends across Ukraine's occupied Donetsk, Luhansk, Zaporozhye, and Kherson oblasts. However, the decree also says officials must "submit proposals on measures to be taken…within three days," so—coupled with Ukraine's ongoing counteroffensive around Kherson—this is likely an evolving situation. Read more via the Kremlin, here. "

HeavyG

Botch said:

I find it interesting that, when we use them, they're called "guided munitions".
When they use them, they're called "kamikaze drones".  

Those are actually two different types of weapons.

Guided munitions are typically dropped from an aircraft or fired from the ground/sea via cannon/artillery/rockets/guns and guided to their intended target via GPS/satellite/inertial systems or just use a ballistic trajectory and then rely on a laser illuminated target to guide them in. The US HIMARS systems are, for instance, a rocket launched guided munition that the Ukrainian army has used with amazing accuracy to selectively punch holes in many bridges the intent of which isn't to completely destroy the bridge - it will still be usable by civilian cars - but damage it enough that it is unusable by heavy Russian military equipment/vehicles.

The "kamikaze drones - the Russians are using Iranian Shahed-136's - are ground launched autonomous "loitering munitions" which will fly to a general area and can then just fly around until a suitable target is found. What separates them from "regular" drones is that a "normal" drone would drop/deliver its payload and then return to base whereas the "kamikaze" drone is itself destroyed along with its explosive payload. The Shahed's are fairly cheap and thus can be launched en masse and are small enough that radar tracking is tricky.

I've read that the Israelis have a weapons system that can be effective against them and heretofore Israel has said they won't send weapons to Ukraine, however, since these kamikaze drones are Iranian the Israelis are likely to now want to help Ukraine with some weaponry.

nolaegghead

Israel has been ruled by the minority right wing fascists and orthodox hardliners for too long.  Not surprised they won’t contribute to Ukraine.  But yeah, maybe the Iranians helping Putin will change that.

HeavyG

nolaegghead said:

Israel has been ruled by the minority right wing fascists and orthodox hardliners for too long.  Not surprised they won’t contribute to Ukraine.  But yeah, maybe the Iranians helping Putin will change that.

A big factor with Israel not substantially aiding Ukraine so far is that Israel and Russia have a years long arrangement that the Roooskies won't retaliate against Israel if/when Israel feels the need to hit the occasional Syrian  (a Russian ally) target. Also, there are a lot of Jews in Russia and there is a concern that if Israel gets too involved in Ukraine that Putin may do more to ramp up anti-Semitism in Russia (which is already pretty high).

With Iranian involvement now tho, I'll bet that Israel will provide some types of defensive weaponry but certainly no offensive weapons. We'll see.

lousubcap

Thursday Russia-Ukraine update:

"Ukrainians are set to experience rolling blackouts starting Thursday after Russia’s military continued attacks on the country’s energy facilities this week, officials said. Ukraine’s electricity grid operator told residents to charge their phones, flashlights and other key appliances, adding: “The weather is getting worse.” Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy, who will join a European Council summit to address Kyiv’s energy challenges later in the day, pledged to do “everything possible to restore the normal energy capabilities of our country.” Victoria Bisset and Erin Cunningham report for the Washington Post. 

The U.S. has “abundant evidence” that Russia is using Iranian drones to strike Ukraine, U.S. State Department spokesperson Ned Price said yesterday.“The United States began warning in July that Iran was planning to transfer UAVs to Russia for use in Russia’s brutal war against Ukraine, and we now have abundant evidence that these UAVs are being used to strike Ukrainian civilians and critical civilian infrastructure,” Price said in a statement. The U.N.’s Security Council received expert briefings on Iran’s transfer of such drones to Russia, Price said, and the issue was collectively raised by the U.S., U.K. and France at a closed-door Security Council meeting yesterday. Kylie Atwood and Paul LeBlanc report for CNN. 

The U.S. government has examined the wreckage of Iranian-made drones shot down in Ukraine, two U.S. officials have said. Information about the drones’ structure and technology could prove crucial in helping the U.S. and its Ukrainian allies better identify and ultimately defeat them before they can reach their targets. Officials said the process has been used in the past to study weaponry deployed by Iran’s proxies in conflicts in the Middle East. Shane Harris, Dan Lamothe, Alex Horton and Karen DeYoung report for the Washington Post.

Israel has repeated its long-standing refusal to sell air defense weapons to Ukraine despite a fresh appeal from Kyiv after this week's “kamikaze” drone strikes. Israeli Defense Minister Benny Gantz said yesterday that Israel “will not provide weapon systems,” but said that Jerusalem will continue to side with Western support for Kyiv. Israel's reluctance to be drawn into weapons sales to Ukraine stems from the impact it believes the decision could have in the Middle East. Russia has controled much of the airspace over Israel’s northern neighbor Syria since it entered the civil war in 2015 to prop up President Bashar al-Assad's regime. "The Russians are sitting on our borders, in the Golan mountains, in Syria and along the Mediterranean shores, the navies are close all the time. Israel [can't] be in an open conflict with the Russians," Israeli military analyst Alex Fishman told the BBC. Israel has, however, sent humanitarian assistance to Ukraine, publicly condemned Russia’s invasion, and is reportedly sharing intelligence with Kyiv. Tom Bateman reports for BBC News. "

HeavyG

https://twitter.com/TadeuszGiczan/status/1583042663426584578?cn=ZmxleGlibGVfcmVjcw%3D%3D&refsrc=email

Oooops!

dmchicago

I hope that man lives in a windowless apartment.

Canugghead

dmchicago said:

I hope that man lives in a windowless apartment.

...on the ground floor.

Botch

dmchicago said:

I hope that man lives in a windowless apartment.

"Russian man falls to his death thru clothes-drier vent" 

Gulfcoastguy

Russian man slips and falls in bathtub. 9mm fracture in skull.

JohnInCarolina

http://twitter.com/jftaveira1993/status/1583424852039729152?s=20&t=2cou9i9MQEPm4-Bt8MIugA

lousubcap

Friday Russia-Ukraine update:

"Russia is preparing a “false flag” operation to blow up a large hydroelectric dam in the south of the country, Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy warned yesterday. Destroying the dam at the Kakhovka Hydroelectric Power Plant in the city of Nova Kakhovka could potentially flood 80 towns, villages, and cities, including the strategically important city of Kherson. Zelenskyy said that the plot to attack the dam was aimed at framing Ukraine for the devastating humanitarian and ecological disaster that would ensue. He called for the creation of an international observation mission at the plant, saying it was imperative to prevent a potential catastrophe. Dan Bilefsky reports for the New York Times. 

Russian errors in operating drones purchased from Iran prompted the deployment of Iranian personnel to Crimea, a senior U.S. official said yesterday. John F. Kirby, a National Security Council official, said in a briefing that Iran had deployed drone trainers to Crimea after the Russian military had suffered “operator and system failures early on” with the drones. Kirby also warned that Russia may try to obtain other advanced weapons from Tehran. Julian E. Barnes and John Ismay report for the New York Times. 

There is a growing danger that Russia will open a new front in the war through its coordination with Belarus, using it to cut military supplies to Ukraine, a senior Ukrainian military official has said. “The threat of the Russian armed forces resuming the offensive on the northern front is growing,” Oleksii Hromov, a senior official in the military’s General Staff, said at a news conference in Kyiv. “This time, the direction of the offensive may be changed to the [western part] of the Belarusian-Ukrainian border to cut the main logistics arteries of supplying weapons and military equipment to Ukraine from partner countries.” Hromov said Ukraine’s defense forces were “taking measures to ensure reliable coverage of the state border of Ukraine and the city of Kyiv from the northern direction. In case the enemy decides to open the so-called second front, namely, to conduct offensive actions from the Republic of Belarus, we will be ready for an adequate response.” Tim Lister reports for CNN. "

fishlessman

russian man dies falling up a set of stairs.

lousubcap

Worth a read concerning the role of $$ in the influencers that pull the strings behind the Gubmint scene:

https://hartmannreport.com/p/ending-money-is-speech-is-the-only?utm_source=substack&utm_medium=email