I realize there is a lot going on in our country right now with the election of a president and all the silliness around the issues…..but while we are scratching our heads the conflict in Ukraine remains and thanx to Biden is beginning to expand.

Those long range missiles that Biden told to fire into Russia…..

Ukraine fired six US-made missiles at Russia’s Bryansk region, Russia’s Defense Ministry said Tuesday, days after US President Biden eased restrictions on Ukrainian use of American-made weapons in the war that has reached its 1,000-day milestone, per the AP. Ukraine claimed it hit a military weapons depot in Bryansk in the middle of the night, though it didn’t specify what weapons it used. In a statement carried by Russian news agencies, the Russian Defense Ministry said the military shot down five Army Tactical Missile System, known as ATACMS, and damaged one more. The falling debris sparked a fire at an unspecified military facility, but didn’t inflict any damage or casualties, the ministry said.

Neither side’s claims could be independently verified. The announcement came after Biden authorized Ukraine to use US-supplied missiles to strike deeper inside Russia, easing limitations on the longer range weapons after Russia deployed thousands of North Korean troops in the conflict. Earlier on Tuesday, Ukrainian officials reported a third Russian strike in three days on a civilian residential area in Ukraine killed at least 12 people, including a child. The strike by a Shahed drone in the northern Sumy region late Monday hit a dormitory of an educational facility in the town of Hlukhiv and wounded 11, including two children, authorities said, adding that more people could be trapped under the rubble.

Ukrainian civilians have repeatedly been hit by Russian drones and missiles during the war, while on the battlefield its army is stretched extremely thin at places on the 600-mile front line against a bigger adversary. On Sunday, a Russian ballistic missile with cluster munitions struck a residential area of Sumy in northern Ukraine, killing 11 people and wounding 84 others. On Monday, a Russian missile barrage sparked apartment fires in the southern port of Odesa, killing at least 10 people and wounding 43. Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky said that the series of aerial strikes proved that Russian President Vladimir Putin wasn’t interested in ending the war. “We must force Russia to a just peace by force,” he added.

For a couple of years I have read about how Putin will use nukes…..and now did Biden make that a possibility?

Russia just loosened its rules on when it can unleash nuclear weapons, and Reuters sees the timing as a clear warning to the US. On Tuesday, Vladimir Putin formally changed Moscow’s nuclear doctrine by lowering the threshold for when it can use nukes against its enemies. The move follows through on a pledge Putin made in September, notes the New York Times, but implementation of the change comes just days after the US reversed itself and gave Ukraine permission to fire longer-range American missiles inside Russia. In fact, Ukraine fired the first of those missiles on Tuesday.

• New doctrine: Russia reserves the right to use nuclear weapons in response to a conventional weapons attack that creates “a critical threat to their sovereignty and (or) their territorial integrity,” per Reuters. The previous doctrine stipulated a threat to the “very existence of the state,” per CNN.
• Joint attack: Further, the new doctrine considers an attack by a nonnuclear nation backed by a nuclear ally to be a joint attack by both, per the AP. Putin spokesman Dmitry Peskov called this a “very important paragraph,” notes the Times.

“The big picture is that Russia is lowering the threshold for a nuclear strike in response to a possible conventional attack,” Alexander Graef of the Institute for Peace Research and Security Policy at the University of Hamburg tells Reuters

Is this escalation?

The United States Embassy in Kyiv closed its doors Wednesday as it issued a warning that Russia might launch “a significant air attack.” It said it had “received specific information” about a possible attack but did not elaborate; employees were advised to shelter in place and Americans were told to heed air-raid alerts. The New York Times reports Ukraine’s capital is frequently the target of drone and missile attacks, “but the embassy rarely issues such a specific alert or shuts down.” CNN goes further, reporting the embassy had not previously fully closed since the war began in February 2022. More:

• Russia on Tuesday promised to “react accordingly” to what Russia Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov called “a qualitatively new phase of the Western war against Russia.” He was speaking of Ukraine’s first-ever use of American-made ballistic missiles, which were fired into Russian territory on Tuesday. Over the weekend, President Biden authorized the use of long-range missiles provided by the US for strikes deeper into Russia.
• CNN sees the closure as “a stark reflection of how this war is escalating,” though “it is unlikely Russians will hit the US Embassy directly—that would be a severe escalation in the closing months of a White House soon to be replaced by a more sympathetic President-elect Donald Trump.”
• The Times puts some numbers to what Kyiv has suffered so far: It reports that in the first 1,000 days of war, more than 2,500 missiles and drones have been unleashed on the capital from Russia, per data from the city’s military administration. About half of the attacks have occurred in 2024.
• And while there have been around 1,370 air alerts to date, the paper notes there is rarely much of a heads up when ballistic missiles are launched. Due to their speed, they can reach their target within minutes. The AP reports Italy and Greece also closed their embassies in Kyiv, but the UK opted to keep its embassy open.

Something that is not reported much oin this conflict is the Ukrainian people unless there are children killed then it is a major story (not so much for Gaza or Lebanon)

To cap off his finally few days Biden has done an unthinkable…..mines.

The Biden administration announced Wednesday that it will be providing Ukraine with widely-banned anti-personnel mines, breaking its own policy that’s meant to prohibit the transfer of the indiscriminate weapons.

The provision of anti-personnel mines is the latest escalation from the Biden administration and comes after President Biden authorized Ukraine to launch long-range strikes on Russian territory using US missiles, which Ukrainian forces have already begun firing into Russia.

Anti-personnel mines, which are designed to kill or maim people, are banned by 164 countries under the Ottawa Treaty, but the US and Russia are not signatories. Ukraine has signed the treaty but has violated it by using anti-personnel mines in the conflict.

(antiwar.com)

To continue his final days Biden will forgive loans to Ukraine….

The State Department announced on Wednesday that it has moved to forgive about $4.7 billion in US loans to Ukraine as the Biden administration is trying to spend as much as it can on Ukraine during the transition period.

The $61 billion in aid for Ukraine that was authorized by Congress earlier this year included about $9.4 billion in economic and budgetary aid provided in the form of loans, an idea first promoted by President-elect Donald Trump. However, the law allows the president to forgive the loans if Congress doesn’t stop him.

After November 15, President Biden was allowed to forgive the first half of the loan. “We have taken the step that was outlined in the law to cancel those loans,” said State Department spokesman Matt Miller. On January 1, 2026, Trump will be able to forgive the second half of the loan if he chooses to do so and Congress allows it.

(antiwar.com)

Is it not time to make these slugs in DC start thinking about the taxpayer and the money they throw at this despots?

It seems the war is popular only with those that make their living with it….

A poll released by Gallup on Tuesday found that the majority of Ukrainians want peace talks to end the war with Russia.

The poll, conducted in August and October, found that 52% of respondents wanted talks with Russia to end the conflict as soon as possible, while 38% believed Ukraine should keep fighting, and 9% said they didn’t know or refused to answer.

Out of the 52% who favor negotiations, 52% said Ukraine should be open to territorial concessions, while 38% disagreed, and 10% said they weren’t sure.

The survey marked the first time since the Russian invasion that a Gallup poll found the majority of Ukrainians favored negotiations to end the war. The support for peace talks is stronger in eastern areas of Ukraine near the frontlines, where 63% want negotiations to end the war, and only 27% want the fighting to continue.

The poll, published on the 1,000th day of the war, came amid a major US escalation in the war as Ukraine began striking Russian territory with long-range US-provided missiles. The Biden administration appears to be doing whatever it can to escalate the conflict before President-elect Donald Trump is sworn in on January 20.

The US is escalating the proxy war despite Ukraine having no clear path to victory. Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky has been pushing for more US support as part of his so-called “victory plan,” but even he has acknowledged the war will likely end through diplomacy in 2025.

(antiwar.com)

2025 looms and we all known what the president-elect has said, right?

I Read, I Write, You Know

“lego ergo scribo”