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

lousubcap

Something to consider on a slow Saturday; Life and evolution.

It starts at 'midnight' with the first emergence of visible life on our planet, about 2 billion years ago. Strictly speaking one could go back around another billion years and find primitive bacteria etc, but 2 billion years takes us to early plant life that you could actually see.

On this scale, each 'hour' on the clock represents 83 million years, each 'minute' is thus 1.4 million years and each 'second' would be about 23,000 years.

Hence the Neanderthals would have appeared at about 17 'seconds' to midnight at the end of this 24 'hour' period and recognizably 'human' forms wouldn't have been walking the streets much before about two-and-a-half 'seconds' to midnight.

It makes the Dinosaurs look like pretty good 'stayers' and reminds us what fleeting beings we humans are."

Recall that one billion seconds is 31.67 years.  So we are on this planet for about 2.5 billion seconds-with clean livin' and sheer desire!
Stay healthy and safe out there-

lousubcap

Monday Russia-Ukraine update:

"The U.S. has decided to designate the Russian paramilitary organization Wagner Group as a significant transnational criminal organization. The move will allow the government to freeze any assets the company may have in the U.S. and ban Americans from providing money, goods or services to the group. The new measures against the group, which is already under U.S. sanctions, will take effect this week. Katie Rogers reports for the New York Times. 

The Pentagon will keep several thousand American troops in southeast Romania for at least nine more months. The buildup is part of President Biden’s commitment to increasing U.S. forces in Europe in response to Russia’s invasion of Ukraine. The decision to extend U.S. troops deployment in Romania “would ensure the United States continues to be well positioned to provide a robust deterrent and defensive posture alongside our allies across the European continent,” the Army said in a statement. Lara Jakes reports for the New York Times.  

U.S. and European officials believe that Russian agents directed associates of a far-right Russian-based militant group to carry out the recent letter bomb campaign in Spain. The campaign, which took place in late November and early December, targeted Spanish Prime Minister Pedro Sánchez, as well as the country’s defense minister and foreign diplomats. U.S. officials say that the Russian officers who directed the campaign, which investigators believe was carried out by the Russian Imperial Movement, appeared intent on keeping European governments off guard and may be testing out proxy groups in the event Moscow decides to escalate a conflict. Edward Wong, Julian E. Barnes and Eric Schmitt report for the New York Times. 

Germany would not stop Poland from sending German-made Leopard 2 combat tanks to Ukraine if asked, German Foreign Minister Annalena Baerbock said yesterday. Under German law, the German government must consent to any delivery of German-made weapons to a war zone, with the final decision resting with German Chancellor Olaf Scholz. Scholz has been heavily criticized over his reluctance to send Leopard 2 tanks to Ukraine. Inke Kappeler reports for CNN. 

Polish Prime Minister Mateusz Morawiecki said today that Warsaw would submit a request to Germany to reexport its Leopard 2 tanks to Ukraine. Poland sees Annalena Baerbock's comments as a “glimmer of hope” Morawiecki said, according to the Polish Press Agency. Loveday Morris and Emily Rauhala report for the Washington Post. 

Continued deliveries of weapons to Ukraine by Western allies will lead to retaliation with “more powerful weapons,” the chair of Russia’s lower house, the State Duma, said yesterday. In a statement on Telegram, Vyacheslav Volodin threatened Europe and the U.S. with “global catastrophe” over their continued military support for Ukraine. He also called arguments that nuclear powers have not previously used nuclear weapons in local conflicts “untenable.” Carlo Martuscelli reports for POLITICO. "

lousubcap

And more on the war front:

Now France is considering sending some of its heavy Leclerc tanks to Ukraine, but only if the process for doing so doesn't make France weaker or escalate the war in Ukraine, according to President Emmanuel Macron. He said he has tasked a team of officials to look into the matter, and could have more to say in the coming days. 

Berlin's official message on Sunday: "We will continue to provide Ukraine with all the support it needs for as long as necessary—together, as Europeans, to defend our European peace project," said Chancellor Olaf Scholz during a visit with Macron in Paris. Despite the flak Berlin has taken for not arming Ukraine more aggressively, Scholz promised that Vladimir Putin's "imperialism will not win," he said Sunday standing beside his French counterpart. "We will not allow Europe to revert to a time when violence replaced politics and our continent was torn apart by hatred and national rivalries," the chancellor said. The Associated Press has more from that meeting.

By the way: France is raising its military spending by about a third, with an emphasis on "drones and intelligence," Macron announced last week. "We need to be one war ahead," the president said Friday in Paris. According to Reuters, "The budget for the period will stand at 413 billion euros ($447 billion), up from 295 billion euros in 2019-2025, which will mean that by 2030, France's military budget would have doubled since [Macron] took power in 2017." More from Reuters, here. 

New: Norway's military chief said around 180,000 Russian troops have been killed or injured in Ukraine so far. "Russian losses are beginning to approach around 180,000 dead or wounded soldiers," and "Ukrainian losses are probably over 100,000 dead or wounded," Defense Minister Eirik Kristoffersen told TV2 on Sunday. He also said an estimated 30,000 civilians have been killed in the war so far, though he didn't elaborate on how he arrived at any of his numbers. 

Take a look at dozens of miles of battlefield trenches and fortifications the Russian military has installed throughout southern and eastern Ukraine over the past few months. Brady Africk of the American Enterprise Institute compiled the imagery in a Twitter thread you can review, here. 

How well is Russia working around war-related sanctions? A new study released Monday by four analysts with the Silverado Policy Accelerator zeroed in on a few recommendations for U.S. allied officials, including recognition that global semiconductor supply chains are "vast and opaque," but China and Hong Kong have stepped up their export game when it comes to providing Russian industry with components it now can't legally access from the U.S. and partner nation markets. Russia is also still apparently having trouble importing vehicle parts; but China is stepping up in that realm, too. "

JohnInCarolina

http://twitter.com/KaivanShroff/status/1617613877868662785?s=20&t=fAxhxWW_GQnTRHtgzV7WaA

lousubcap

From Tom Nichols of The Atlantic- worth a read:

Tom Nichols STAFF WRITER

Some NATO nations are wavering about sending tanks and other advanced weapons to Ukraine. I understand fears of escalation, but if Russia wins in Ukraine, the world will lose.

No Other Choice A Ukrainian tank sits under covering in the Kharkiv district of Ukraine (Spencer Platt / Getty) View in browser I don’t often find myself agreeing with Senator Lindsey Graham, the South Carolina conservative who long ago rebranded himself as Donald Trump’s faithful valet and No. 1 fan. Last week, however, Graham lashed out in frustration at the dithering in Europe and America over sending more weapons to Ukraine. “I am tired of the **** show surrounding who is going to send tanks and when they’re gonna send them,” he said during a press conference in Kyiv, flanked by Democratic Senators Richard Blumenthal of Connecticut and Sheldon Whitehouse of Rhode Island. “World order is at stake. [Vladimir] Putin is trying to rewrite the map of Europe by force of arms.” Graham is right. Germany, for example, has been reluctant to send Leopard tanks to Ukraine; the Germans, for their part, would likely prefer to see the United States send American tanks first. But everyone in the West should be sending anything the Ukrainians can learn to use, because a lot more than mere order is at stake, and order, by itself, is not enough. As Rousseau wrote, “Tranquility is found also in dungeons,” but that does not make dungeons desirable places to live. Global civilization itself is on the line: the world built after the defeat of the Axis, in which, for all of our faults as nations and peoples, we strive to live in peace and cooperation—and, at the least, to not butcher one another. If Russia’s campaign of terrorand other likely war crimes erases Ukraine, it will be a defeat of the first order for every institution of international life, be it the United Nations or the international postal union. I suspect that many people in Europe and the United States are having a hard time getting their arms around the magnitude of this threat. We are all afflicted by normalcy bias, our inherent resistance to accept that large changes can upend our lives. I struggled with this in the early stages of the war; I thought Ukraine would probably lose quickly, and then when the Russians were repulsed by the heroic Ukrainian defenses, I hoped (in vain) that the fighting would fizzle out, that Putin would try to conserve what was left of his shattered military, and that the world’s institutions, damaged by yet another act of Russian barbarism, would somehow continue to limp along. We’re long past such possibilities. Putin has made clear that he will soak the ground of East-Central Europe with blood—both of Ukrainians and of his own hapless mobiks, the recently mobilized draftees he’s sending into the military meat grinder—if that’s what it takes to subjugate Kyiv and end the Kremlin’s unexpected and ongoing humiliation. At this point, the fight in Ukraine is not about borders or flags but about what kind of world we’ve built over the past century, and whether that world can sustain itself in the face of limitless brutality. As the Finnish Prime Minister Sanna Marin said in Davos last week: “We don’t know when the war ends, but Ukraine has to win. I don’t see another choice.” Neither do I, and it’s past time to send Ukraine even more and better weapons. (Or, as my colleague David Frum tweeted last June: “If there’s anything that Ukraine can use in any NATO warehouse from Vancouver to Vilnius, that’s a scandal. Empty every inventory.”) I say all this despite my concerns about escalation to a wider European and even global war. I still oppose direct U.S. and NATO intervention in this fight, and I have taken my share of criticism for that reticence. I do not fear that such measures will instantly provoke World War III. Rather, I reject proposals that I think could increase the odds of an accident or a miscalculation that could bring the superpowers into a nuclear standoff that none of them wants. (Putin, for all his bluster, has no interest in living out his last days eating dry rations in a dark fallout shelter, but that does not mean he is competent at assessing risks.) Americans and their allies must face how far a Russian victory would extend beyond Ukraine. In a recent discussion with my old friend Andrew Michta (a scholar of European affairs who is now dean at the George C. Marshall European Center for Security Studies, in Germany), he referred to the conflict in Ukraine as a “system-transforming” war, as Russian aggression dissolves the last illusions of a stable European order that were perhaps too quickly embraced in the immediate post–Cold War euphoria. Andrew has always been less sanguine about the post–World War II international order than old-school institutionalists like me, but he has a point: The pessimists after 1991 were right about Russia and its inability to live in peace with its neighbors. If Ukraine loses, dictators elsewhere will draw the lesson that the West has lost its will to defend its friends—and itself. If Russia finally captures Ukraine by mass murder, torture, and nuclear threats, then everything the world has gained since the defeat of the Axis in 1945 and the end of the Cold War in 1991 will be in mortal peril. Putin will prove to himself and to every dictator on the planet that nothing has changed since Hitler, that lawless nations can achieve their aims by using force at will, by killing and raping innocent people and then literally grinding their ashes into the dirt. This is no longer about Russia’s neo-imperial dreams or Ukraine’s borders: This is a fight for the future of the international system and the safety of us all."

lousubcap

Tuesday Russia-Ukraine update:

"Russia has said that any agreement by Germany to send its Leopard 2 tanks to Ukraine, would “not bode well” for future relations. The comments by Kremlin spokesperson Dmitry Peskov come after Poland’s defense minister said he had sought official consent from Germany to send the German-made weapons to the front line. The Washington Post reports.

Germany will decide “very soon” whether to allow the delivery of Leopard 2 tanks to Ukraine, Defense Minister Boris Pistorius said. If the decision is taken to send the tanks, Germany will be able to “act very soon,” he added. Pistorius’s comments were made during a joint press conference with NATO Secretary-General Jens Stoltenberg. Inke Kappeler and Claudia Otto report for CNN. 

Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan yesterday threatened to block Sweden’s entrance to NATO. The threat came after the country permitted a far-right politician to publicly burn a copy of the Koran outside the Turkish embassy in Stockholm over the weekend. In televised remarks, Erdogan said that unless Sweden showed “respect to the religious beliefs of Muslim and Turkish people” they would not find “any kind of support from us on NATO.” Jared Malsin and Sune Engel Rasmussen report for the Wall Street Journal.  

A Ukrainian intelligence report has revealed the battleground tactics of Russian paramilitary organization Wagner Group around the city of Bakhmut. The report, obtained by CNN, concludes that Wagner represents a unique threat, given the group's indifference to casualties. “The deaths of thousands of Wagner soldiers do not matter to Russian society,” the report asserts. Wounded Wagner fighters are often left on the battlefield for hours, and unauthorized retreat is punishable by execution on the spot. Tim Lister, Frederik Pleitgen and Victoria Butenko report for CNN."

Gulfcoastguy

I think that I would trade Turkey for Finland and Sweden.

JohnInCarolina

https://www.cnn.com/2023/01/24/europe/germany-leopard-2-tanks-ukraine-announcement-intl/index.html

lousubcap

From The Atlantic and economy/tech lay-off related.  Good points throughout.  

"

Isabel Fattal ASSOCIATE EDITOR

The American economy is doing fine. So why are tech companies laying off tens of thousands of workers?

Copycats Google's Bay View campus in San Jose, California (Zhang Yi / VCG via Getty) View in browser Last Friday, Google’s parent company, Alphabet, laid off 12,000 of its employees—about 6 percent of its total workforce. Yesterday, Spotify announced layoffs for a similar percentage of its staff. By now, you might be used to the steady drip of news about tech companies slashing jobs. About 130,000 people have been laid off from large tech and media companies in the past 12 months, according to one estimate. The reasons for this are not obvious. America’s overall unemployment rate is 3.5 percent, which ties for the lowest mark of the 21st century. And tech has long been one of the country’s most dynamic industries. So why is it struggling during an otherwise optimistic moment for America’s economy? Our staff writers Annie Lowrey and Derek Thompson, who both recently published articles on the tech layoffs, offer several explanations for the trend. The first and most obvious is the Federal Reserve’s effort to ease inflation by raising interest rates sharply over the past year. As Annie writes: Pretty much all American businesses across all business sectors are reliant on borrowed cash in one way or another … But many tech companies were especially conditioned to very low interest rates: Uber, an enormous and long-established business, for instance, loses money on many rides, and thousands and thousands of start-ups accrue huge losses and rely on their financiers to foot their bills while they grow. But when inflation and then interest rates increased, these companies—which were making long-term promises at the expense of short-term profits—“got clobbered,” as Derek puts it. The second reason: the pandemic. Annie reminds us what the economy looked like when Americans were in the thick of isolation: People stopped going to theaters and started watching more movies and shows at home—hurting AMC and aiding Netflix and Hulu. Families stopped shopping as much in person and began buying more things online—depressing town centers and boosting Amazon and Uber Eats, and spurring many businesses to pour money into digital advertising. Companies quit hosting corporate retreats and started facilitating meetings online—depriving hotel chains of money and bolstering Zoom and Microsoft. Here’s Derek on how that played out: Many people predicted that the digitization of the pandemic economy in 2020, such as the rise in streaming entertainment and online food-delivery apps and at-home fitness, were “accelerations,” pushing us all into a future that was coming anyway. In this interpretation, the pandemic was a time machine, hastening the 2030s and raising tech valuations accordingly. Hiring boomed across tech, as companies added tens of thousands of workers to meet this expectation of acceleration. But perhaps the pandemic wasn’t really an accelerant. Maybe it was a bubble. Consumer spending has normalized, and Americans have returned to paying for restaurants and hotels and flights. As a result, tech companies are seeing declining revenues in parts of their businesses, and some corporate officers have admitted that they grew too quickly. (Apple is an exception that might prove the rule: The company expanded more slowly than some of its counterparts and has thus far avoided layoffs.) But even though tech companies are facing a hard dose of reality, many of them are still very profitable. And, as Annie notes, the future is brightening: “The Fed is likely to stop hiking interest rates soon. Artificial intelligence has started making amazing breakthroughs … Maybe a tech summer is just around the corner.” Reporting in November on the tech industry’s apparent collapse, Derek used an entertaining and useful metaphor: The industry is having a midlife crisis. And that means once the crisis is over, a new era will begin. “One mistake that a journalist can make in observing these trends is to assume that, because the software-based tech industry seems to be struggling now, things will stay like this forever,” he writes. “More likely, we are in an intermission between technological epochs.” Some argue that, as they wait out this intermission, CEOs are copying one another—laying off workers not simply as an unavoidable consequence of the changing economy, but because everybody else is doing it. “Chief executives are normal people who navigate uncertainty by copying behavior,” Derek writes. He cites the business professor Jeffrey Pfeffer, who told Stanford News: “Was there a bubble in valuations? Absolutely … Did Meta overhire? Probably. But is that why they are laying people off? Of course not … These companies are all making money. They are doing it because other companies are doing it.” Pfeffer believes that this “social contagion” could spread to other industries. “Layoffs are contagious across industries and within industries,” he said in the Stanford News article. If so, the story of tech layoffs could end up being a much broader story about work in America."

JohnInCarolina

Good read for sure there, @lousubcap

lousubcap

While on a roll-from Fareed Zakaria-Tanks for Ukraine.
Just a frictionless conduit here but again worth the read:
"

Insights, analysis and must reads from CNN's Fareed Zakaria and the Global Public Square team, compiled by Global Briefing editor Chris Good   Seeing this newsletter as a forward? Subscribe here.   January 24, 2023

A New ‘Iron Fist’ for Ukraine? With German outlet Der Spiegel reporting that Berlin will send long-awaited and much-anticipated Leopard 2 tanks to Ukraine, the Western alliance’s biggest impasse may have been broken.     For months, German-made Leopard 2 tanks have been the focus of analysts proposing more and heavier weapons for Kyiv. Poland has expressed willingness to send some to Ukraine itself—if Berlin would approve their re-export. (That approval, which could apply to other European countries that own Leopard 2 tanks, is a different but related matter besides any tank shipments Germany might make.)     Exploring the hesitancy of German Chancellor Olaf Scholz, Der Spiegel’s Matthias Gebauer and Marina Kormbaki had notedconcerns about moving unilaterally (particularly without the US sending tanks of its own) to escalate the war in Ukraine and risking a spiral into Russia–NATO conflict. Still, the Chancellor’s governing-coalition partners had grown frustrated. “Scholz’s silence on the tank issue ha(d) become a problem,” Gebauer and Kormbaki wrote. NATO allies had appeared dissatisfied, too. “Far from being Europe’s leader,” The New Statesman’s Jeremy Cliffe wrote recently, Germany “is becoming the great roadblock at the heart of the continent.”    As for what Leopard 2 tanks would mean for Ukraine, The Economist describes them as figuring to complete or complement a “new iron fist” Kyiv has attained, thanks to Western military aid in the form of armored fighting vehicles (American Bradleys, French AMX-10s and German Marders) whose planned delivery to Ukraine was announced earlier this month. This comes at a critical time, The Economist writes, as a new Russian offensive is expected sometime in spring and as some analysts see Ukraine as having a chance to break through some of Russia’s front lines, which have been reinforced by President Vladimir Putin’s troop call-up last year. Ukrainian troops are receiving Western training on new weapons, the magazine writes, but still lacking from Kyiv’s arsenal are longer-range missiles that could target Russian command centers farther from the front.

To the Limit, One More Time Last week, the US reached its statutory debt limit, prompting emergency measures by the Treasury to avoid a default, as congressional Republicans demand spending reductions in exchange for raising the cap. At The New York Times, columnist Paul Krugman finds debt-and-deficit concerns ill-founded: “(T)he case for debt panic is, if anything, even weaker than it was in 2011,” when a similar debt-limit fight led to a congressional supercommittee, a round of federal-budget “sequestration” of funds Congress had already committed to spending, and a US-credit downgrade by S&P.     America’s debt burden is big, but so is its economy, Krugman writes, and inflation-adjusted interest payments are “likely to remain below 1 percent of G.D.P for the next decade. This doesn’t sound like a crisis.”   Meanwhile, making the rounds is a zany idea (floated before, during past debt-limit drama) that the Treasury could mint a $1 trillion coin and deposit it with the Federal Reserve, to fund already-committed federal spending without the messy congressional politics. At The Atlantic, Annie Lowrey hears from legal scholar Rohan Grey that it might be the best of bad options. “Look at the history of extraordinary measures that the Treasury secretary has been taking since the 1980s!” Grey gripes. “They’re all accounting gimmicks, every single one of them. People in the corporate-finance world say that [minting the coin] is a joke; this is a gimmick. They’re really saying it’s populist, not technocratic.”"

lousubcap

Wednesday Russia-Ukraine update:

"The U.S. plans to send M1 Abrams tanks to Ukraine, U.S. officials said yesterday, reversing its longstanding resistance. The move would be part of a broader diplomatic understanding with Germany in which Berlin would agree to send its own Leopard 2 tanks and would approve the delivery of more of the German-made tanks by Poland and other countries. The U.S. is expected to send about 30 tanks, according to U.S. officials. Michael R. Gordon Lubold and Bojan Pancevski report for the Wall Street Journal.

Germany will provide 14 leopard tanks from its own stocks as part of a first shipment to Ukraine, the German government confirmed in a statement. According to the statement, Germany will also “give the partner countries that want to quickly deliver Leopard 2 tanks from their stocks to Ukraine the corresponding authorizations to transfer them.” Stephanie Halasz reports for CNN. 

The Pentagon is racing to increase its production of artillery shells by 500 percent within two years. It is hoped that the effort will make up for shortfalls caused by the war in Ukraine as well as build stockpiles for future conflicts. John Ismay and Eric Lipton report for the New York Times. "

lousubcap

More on tanks and US-Europe:

"Germany has officially authorized the transfer of its Leopard 2 tanks to Ukraine. The decision, which opens the door for others to do the same, followed weeks of very public pleading from officials in Kyiv, whose military leaders said in December they want to acquire as many as 300 tanks from allies, particularly in Europe, to push Russian forces out of Ukrainian territory. 

The announcement was also preceded by weeks of increasingly anxious finger-pointingby Poland and other would-be donor countries (Norway, Finland, the Netherlands, and Spain) waiting on Germany's approval to send their German-made Leopards to Ukraine.

"We will provide Ukraine with Leopard battle tanks," German Chancellor Olaf Scholz told lawmakers in the Bundestag on Wednesday. That includes 14 tanks from Germany's own stocks—though likely not before April; and that's just a "first step," German officials said. Eventually, Berlin has promised to send two battalions of Leopards to Ukraine. "It was necessary to take our time to reach a coordinated approach," Scholz said, and assured parliamentarians, "We are not alone."

Berlin's plan would train Ukrainian troops on the tanks first, then sending them east to Kyiv's military. That last part isn't expected to happen for about three months, German Defense Minister Boris Pistorius said Wednesday. "I think this is the right decision," he told reporters. "It is an historic decision in many ways, and it is a necessary one.

Developing: White House officials could soon announce the U.S. will send perhaps a few dozen M1 Abrams tanks to Ukraine, which could take some attention and pressure off Berlin after Scholz's Wednesday announcement. Politico and CNN reported Tuesday possibly 30 U.S. Abrams tanks were on the drawing board; the New York Times reported as many as 50 were under consideration.

The view from industry: Executives from Abrams tank maker General Dynamics said Wednesday that the company has enough workers and people to meet deliveries for Ukraine. "It's well within the capacity of the industrial base to accommodate," CEO Phebe Novakovic said on a quarterly earnings call. She also said the company's Lima, Ohio, production line can meet the demand of sending tanks to Ukraine if the U.S. decides to send them.
"Staffing is not an issue here," said Novakovic. "There is plenty of capacity on the combat vehicle side [of the company] both tracked and wheeled" vehicles. "So to the extent that the U.S. government intends to execute any contracts with respect to some of these bilateral agreements they are developing," she said.

Strategy alert: U.S. officials are reportedly pushing Ukraine's military to draw up a ground campaign to retake occupied territory across the south. CNN reported Tuesday that Ukrainian and U.S. officials are leaning this new direction after many weeks spent defending the eastern city of Bakhmut. Instead of a standoff at Bakhmut, U.S. officials are emphasizing "a style of mechanized maneuver warfare that uses rapid, unanticipated movements against Russia." The new tank announcements could reinforce that general plan."

JohnInCarolina

Sounds like Russian troops are about to find out.

dmchicago

JohnInCarolina said:

Sounds like Russian troops are about to find out.

I'm constantly hopeful that a more forward thinking "comrade" will find Uncle Vlad near a window and put an end to this "operation".   

HeavyG

Whodathunk that a few decades after WWII Ukrainians would be so happy to have German tanks once again inside Ukraine?

Gulfcoastguy

When one is about to be hanged tomorrow it focuses one’s mind wonderfully. I am probably paraphrasing but that is the gist of Ukraine’s thoughts I imagine. In unrelated news Zelensky is cleaning house on corrupt officials. Handing them a rifle and sending them to the front would be better but this will do. Another inherited $1 million US and promptly donated it to civilians relief funds.

JohnInCarolina

HeavyG said:

Whodathunk that a few decades after WWII Ukrainians would be so happy to have German tanks once again inside Ukraine?

More than a few sentiments along those lines today.  The Germans have certainly put a lot of distance between themselves and their WWII past, and this is another important move.  

lousubcap

Late Thursday Russia-Ukraine update:

"Ukrainian air defenses are working to intercept Russian attacks after Russia’s forces fired more than 30 missiles at Ukraine this morning. According to the head of the Kyiv city military administration, more than 15 cruise missiles had been launched in the direction of the capital and all had been shot down. Maria Kostenko reports for CNN. 

Ukrainian forces have retreated from the town of Soledar near the strategic eastern city of Bakhmut, a military spokesperson said yesterday. The capture of Soledar brings Russia closer to encircling and possibly capturing Bakhmut. Col. Sergei Cherevaty, the spokesperson for Ukraine’s eastern military command, said that the retreat from Soledar was ordered “to preserve our personnel.” Matthew Mpoke Bigg and Michael Schwirtz report for the New York Times."

Botch

A good view on possible realities in Ukraine, and Europe  (WARNING: biker-looking dude with a southern drawl, at least two of you Karens should not click on it!)  
 
https://youtu.be/h5LyoQ6cXQw

lousubcap

Friday, another late Russia-Ukraine update:

"Russian forces fired dozens of missiles at Ukrainian cities yesterday, killing at least 12 people across the country. Ukraine managed to shoot down 47 of the 55 missiles, according to its Air Force command, including 20 in the area around the capital, Kyiv. Michael Schwirtz and Alan Yuhas report for the New York Times. 

U.S. officials are pressuring Turkey to stop Russian airlines from flying American-made airplanes to and from the country, senior officials familiar with the talks have said. The U.S. last month issued a warning that Turkish individuals are at risk of jail time, fines, loss of export privileges, and other measures if they fail to comply with U.S. export controls involving the servicing of Russian, Belarusian and Iranian commercial aircraft. The warning to Turkey is a key test of whether the U.S. and its allies can succeed in isolating Russia over the long term, or whether Moscow can find a way to continue economic activity with the help of third countries. Jared Malsin reports for the Wall Street Journal.  

The U.S. has sanctioned a Chinese company for allegedly providing satellite imagery of Ukraine to assist Russian paramilitary organization Wagner Group. Spacety China had provided Terra Tech, a Russia-based technology firm, with the images, which “were gathered in order to enable Wagner combat operation in Ukraine,” the U.S. Treasury Department said in a statement. Kelly Ng reports for BBC News.

It also said Russia launched 37 air strikes, 17 of them using Iranian-made Shahed-136 drones – all of which were downed.

The International Atomic Energy Agency reported powerful explosions near Ukraine’s Russian-occupied Zaporizhzhia Nuclear Power Plant and renewed calls for a security zone around it.

Canada will send four Leopard 2 battle tanks to Ukraine, the Canadian defence minister said, after Germany this week allowed other countries to re-export the German-built tank.

The Kremlin said it sees the Western commitments to deliver tanks as evidence of the growing “direct involvement” of the United States and Europe in the 11-month-old war."

Legume

Wait, Russia said it's a war?

lousubcap

Some interesting background on the US-Germasny tank dance:

"President Biden and German Chancellor Olaf Scholz cut a deal on Tuesday: Biden agreed to send Ukraine some Abrams M1 tanks; in response, Scholz agreed to send Ukraine some of its Leopard 2 tanks—and to let several European allies send Ukraine some of their Leopards, bought from Germany, as well.

Scholz had resisted sending Leopards, fearful of alienating constituents or provoking Russia into escalating the war further. He had demanded that the United States send some of its main battle tanks as a precondition.

Now the terms have been agreed upon: The U.S. will send 31 tanks, enough to fill a single Ukrainian tank battalion—a substantial but not enormous number—and those will arrive not in weeks, but in several months, and possibly not for another year.

This is because the tanks will be ordered from the General Dynamics factory, which will have to build them from scratch, and will not be drawn from America’s existing stockpile, though the U.S. Army has about 4,400 Abrams tanks, many of them already in Europe.

I could not get a straight answer when I asked officials why they decided not to take 31 tanks from American stocks and later replace them with newly produced tanks. If they were to do so, the tanks would have to be modified—export versions of the Abrams don’t have all the high-tech features of those built for the U.S. Army—but that would take less time than building completely new vehicles.

Until today, officials in the Pentagon and the White House had opposed sending any M1s, saying the tanks were too complex—too prone to breaking down and too dependent on staggering supply lines, especially when it comes to refueling—for the Ukrainians to operate, maintain, and sustain. As recently as Friday, a White House official told me the administration wasn’t sending M1s because it was pointless to send weapons that the Ukrainians couldn’t use.

These officials haven’t changed their minds on this question. Many in the Pentagon still insist that the Abrams is not suitable for the war in Ukraine. However, Biden decided, and many top advisers agreed, that he had to send some M1s in order to prod Scholz into sending Leopards. A few outside advisers had suggested sending a handful of M1s, just for show. However, officials, including those opposed to sending any tanks, thought that this would be worse than nothing: a too-transparent sign that the shipment was merely symbolic. So the compromise was for the U.S. to send just enough to make a tangible difference to the fight—hence, enough for a Ukrainian tank battalion."

Gulfcoastguy

This is kind of silly. They don’t want Russians to capture normal US M1s that have modified Chobham armor with depleted uranium layers. But British Challenger tanks will be there with their improved version of chobham armor. Both the export versions of the M1 and the regular versions of the Leopard II have been shown to be vulnerable to anti tank missiles in Yemen and Syria.

JohnInCarolina

lousubcap said:

Some interesting background on the US-Germasny tank dance:

"President Biden and German Chancellor Olaf Scholz cut a deal on Tuesday: Biden agreed to send Ukraine some Abrams M1 tanks; in response, Scholz agreed to send Ukraine some of its Leopard 2 tanks—and to let several European allies send Ukraine some of their Leopards, bought from Germany, as well.

Scholz had resisted sending Leopards, fearful of alienating constituents or provoking Russia into escalating the war further. He had demanded that the United States send some of its main battle tanks as a precondition.

Now the terms have been agreed upon: The U.S. will send 31 tanks, enough to fill a single Ukrainian tank battalion—a substantial but not enormous number—and those will arrive not in weeks, but in several months, and possibly not for another year.

This is because the tanks will be ordered from the General Dynamics factory, which will have to build them from scratch, and will not be drawn from America’s existing stockpile, though the U.S. Army has about 4,400 Abrams tanks, many of them already in Europe.

I could not get a straight answer when I asked officials why they decided not to take 31 tanks from American stocks and later replace them with newly produced tanks. If they were to do so, the tanks would have to be modified—export versions of the Abrams don’t have all the high-tech features of those built for the U.S. Army—but that would take less time than building completely new vehicles.

Until today, officials in the Pentagon and the White House had opposed sending any M1s, saying the tanks were too complex—too prone to breaking down and too dependent on staggering supply lines, especially when it comes to refueling—for the Ukrainians to operate, maintain, and sustain. As recently as Friday, a White House official told me the administration wasn’t sending M1s because it was pointless to send weapons that the Ukrainians couldn’t use.

These officials haven’t changed their minds on this question. Many in the Pentagon still insist that the Abrams is not suitable for the war in Ukraine. However, Biden decided, and many top advisers agreed, that he had to send some M1s in order to prod Scholz into sending Leopards. A few outside advisers had suggested sending a handful of M1s, just for show. However, officials, including those opposed to sending any tanks, thought that this would be worse than nothing: a too-transparent sign that the shipment was merely symbolic. So the compromise was for the U.S. to send just enough to make a tangible difference to the fight—hence, enough for a Ukrainian tank battalion."

I hate this kind of sh!t.  I’m fairly certain the Ukrainians aren’t interested in having a tank battalion they really won’t be able to use very well.  

lousubcap

Monday Russia-Ukraine update:

"Former U.K. prime minister Boris Johnson has said that Russian President Vladimir Putin threatened him with a missile strike during a phone call in the run-up to Russia’s invasion of Ukraine. The comment, which according to Johnson was delivered in a “jolly” manner, was made after he warned that a war in Ukraine would be an “utter catastrophe.”  BBC News reports. 

German Chancellor Olaf Scholz reiterated this weekend that Berlin would not send fighter jets to Ukraine. “The question of combat aircraft does not arise at all,” Scholz said in an interview with Tagesspiegel. “I can only advise against entering into a constant competition to outbid each other when it comes to weapons systems.” His comments come after a top Ukrainian official said on Saturday that Kyiv and its Western allies were engaged in “fast-track” talks on possibly sending military aircraft as well as long-range missiles to help fight the invasion by Russia. Jones Hayden reports for POLITICO. 

Russia’s deputy foreign minister Sergei Ryabkov has accused Ukraine of “dragging its feet” on negotiations to create a safety zone around the Zaporizhzhia nuclear power plant. "The negotiation process is not easy. We forwarded our proposals to Rafael Grossi, the director general of the [International Atomic Energy Agency]. To the best of our knowledge, Kyiv has not yet provided a clear answer to the initiative of the I.A.E.A. head.” Ryabkov said in an interview with Russian state news agency RIA Novosti. Josh Pennington reports for CNN. 

Over 66,000 alleged war crimes have been reported to Ukrainian authorities since the Russian invasion began, according to Ukraine’s Office of the Prosecutor General. Whilst this is a staggering number, Ukraine’s prosecutor general, Andriy Kostin, has vowed to investigate all of them and to bring to trial all those which met the evidential threshold. The issue of securing justice for the victims of war crimes is as important for Ukraine as defeating the Russian militarily if Russia is to be deterred from attacking Ukraine in the future, Kostin said. Liz Sly reports for the Washington Post. 

A Russian company has said it will offer five million roubles ($72,000) in cash to the first soldiers who destroy or capture western-made tanks in Ukraine. Echoing language used by Russian officials, the Urals-based company Fores said NATO was pumping Ukraine with an “unlimited” amount of arms and escalating the conflict. The company also said it would pay a 15-million rouble ($215,000) bounty on Western-made fighter jets, should they ever be delivered to Ukraine. Reuters reports. "

lousubcap

Some interesting regarding Israel and Iran and a recent military strike;

"Alleged Iranian arms production facilities appear to have been attacked Saturday night in the city of Isfahan, which is about a five-hour drive south of Tehran. The New York Timesreported U.S. officials said Israel's Mossad intelligence agency was behind the attack, which used drones to hit facilities believed to be involved in the production of medium-range ballistic missiles. 

Tehran's foreign minister called it "a cowardly drone attack on a military site in central Iran." But he said on Sunday it "will not impede Iran's progress on its peaceful nuclear program."

Three small quadcopters were used in the attack, according to the Wall Street Journal, which also reported Israel was behind the attack. The drones carried "bomblets" and one of them was shot down before attacking, Iranian officials said. 

The targeted site suggests the strike had more to do with Israel's security than anything related to the Ukraine war, according to the Times. "It is not clear why Iran would build an ammunition production plant in the middle of a city of roughly two million people," the Timeswrote afterward. The city is also "home to both a large air base built for its fleet of American-made F-14 fighter jets and its Nuclear Fuel Research and Production Center," the Associated Press reported Sunday. "

lousubcap

Why weather guessers minor in high drama: The history of the "Wind Chill."
https://www.popularmechanics.com/science/environment/a14283/the-ridiculous-history-of-wind-chill/

lousubcap

Tuesday Russia-Ukraine update:

"President Biden has ruled out sending F-16 fighter jets to Ukraine, despite calls from Ukrainian officials for urgent air support. Asked by a reporter yesterday if the U.S. would be providing the planes, Biden simply replied "no." His comment comes a day after Germany's leader Olaf Scholz also ruled out sending jets. Kathryn Armstrong reports for BBC News. 

The new U.S. ambassador to Russia Lynne M. Tracy began work in Moscow this week.  Yesterday, Tracy presented her diplomatic credential to the Russian Foreign Ministry and met with the country’s Deputy Foreign Minister. Tracy will be “focused on maintaining dialogue between our capitals,” the U.S. Embassy in Russia said in a statement. She will also “advocate for the safety and fair treatment of all U.S. citizens detained in Russia,” the embassy said. Carly Olson reports for the New York Times. 

Russian President Vladimir Putin’s former speech writer believes that a military coup is becoming a possibility in Russia. Talking to CNN, speech writer turned political analyst Abbas Gallyamov said that as Russian losses mount in Ukraine and the country experiences hardship, Russians will begin to blame Putin. “At this moment, I think a military coup will become possible,” he said, signaling that this may come in the next 12 months. Mitchell McCluskey reports for CNN.

Russian missiles have killed three people in the southern Ukrainian city of Kherson, while fighting rages in the eastern Donetsk region where Russia again shelled the key town of Vuhledar, Ukrainian officials said.

Russia has moved additional forces and equipment to its western Kursk region on the border with Ukraine, according to the region’s governor.

President Emmanuel Macron has said France does not exclude sending fighter jets to Ukraine, provided such equipment will not be used “to touch Russian soil” or “weaken the capacities of the French army”.

Norway will send part of its fleet of German-made Leopard 2 battle tanks to Ukraine “as soon as possible”, perhaps by late March, its defence minister said."

lousubcap

Wednesday Russia-Ukraine update:

"Russia says it has captured the village of Blahodatne on the northern outskirts of Bakhmut as it intensifies efforts to surround the front-line city in Ukraine’s eastern Donetsk region.

Bakhmut came under renewed fire as did Klishchiivka and Kurdyumivka, villages on the southern approaches to Bakhmut, the General Staff of the Ukrainian Armed Forces has said in a statement.

Russian forces made no headway in attempts to advance on Avdiivka, the second focal point of Russian attacks in the Donetsk region, Kyiv’s military general staff said. Russian forces also tried to advance near Lyman, a town further north that was recaptured by Ukrainian forces in October, the military said.

Russia was reaching further west in Donetsk by firing on the town of Vuhledar and a half dozen other towns and villages, the Ukraine military said. Vuhledar is about 148km (90 miles) from the main fighting in and around Bakhmut.

In an unusually detailed intelligence update, the British defence ministry said Russian forces had advanced hundreds of metres across a river towards Vuhledar and could make more localised gains there. It said the assault was unlikely to lead to a significant breakthrough but could be intended to draw Ukrainian efforts away from defending Bakhmut."

And a link to a good article about the Russian's Tank killing robot project:

https://taskandpurpose.com/news/russia-ukraine-marker-tank-ugv/?utm_campaign=dfn-ebb&utm_medium=email&utm_source=sailthru&SToverlay=2002c2d9-c344-4bbb-8610-e5794efcfa7d