Tag: Russia

Ukraine, What Say You?

Back when this whole Ukraine/Russia debacle started many of us, including myself, called for there to be some sort of ceasefire to avoid all the death and destruction of a beautiful country…but right on cue the US put the whammy on any such occurrence.

Most of the war hawks did not like the idea that the East of Ukraine would remain in Russian hands….and then Trump came to town and proposed his brand of diplomacy which is now the War Department’s stand as well.

And now we know where the Trump Admin is coming from…..Howdy Doody tries to make it clear….

Secretary of Defense Pete Hegseth on Wednesday dismissed the idea of NATO membership for Ukraine as part of a peace deal with Russia and said the goal to restore Ukraine to its pre-2014 borders was “unrealistic.”

Hegseth made the comments while addressing a meeting of the Ukraine Defense Contact Group in Brussels. “The United States does not believe that NATO membership for Ukraine is a realistic outcome for a negotiated settlement,” he said.

Hegseth said the Trump administration’s goal is to end the war through diplomacy, which he said must start “by recognizing that returning to Ukraine’s pre-2014 borders is an unrealistic objective. Chasing this illusionary goal will only prolong the war and cause more suffering.”

Restoring Ukraine’s pre-2014 borders has been a war goal of Ukrainian President Volodomyr Zelensky, although there have been signs in recent months that he’s accepted that’s unrealistic. But he is still calling for strong security guarantees from the US that involve the deployment of troops, which Hegseth also dismissed.

“Any security guarantee must be backed by capable European and non-European troops. If these troops are deployed as peacekeepers to Ukraine at any point, they should be deployed as part of a non-NATO mission, and they should not be covered under Article 5,” he said.

“There also must be robust international oversight of the line of contact. To be clear, as part of any security guarantee, there will not be US troops deployed to Ukraine,” Hegseth added.

…

Hegseth said that the US wanted to reduce involvement in Ukraine to focus on the border and a military buildup in the Asia Pacific aimed at China and claimed Beijing was a threat to the US homeland.

“The United States faces consequential threats to our homeland. We must, and we are focusing on the security of our own borders. We also face a peer competitor in the Communist Chinese with the capability and intent to threaten our homeland,” he said.

(antiwar.com)

An ambitious plan but we will see just how serious these people are when the arms industry kicks in to high gear.

For all those that we against the earlier ceasefire conditions…..I ask….whay say you now?

I Read, I Write, You Know

“lego ergo scribo”

 

Will This End The War?

On the campaign trail Trump promised that he would end the conflict between Ukraine and Russia and now we have a ‘leaked’ Trump plan to do just that….

Now this is a ‘leaked’ peace proposal from the Trump side and has not been authenticated…..but for the sake of argument I post it….

The Ukrainian news outlet Strana has published leaked details of President Trump’s alleged plan to end the war in Ukraine in 100 days.

According to Newsweek, which said it couldn’t verify if the details were accurate, the plan starts with holding a phone call between Trump and Russian President Vladimir Putin in late January or early February, followed by meetings with both Putin and Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky in February or March.

The leaked plan calls for a ceasefire to be declared by Easter, which falls on April 20. The truce would involve Ukraine withdrawing troops from Russia’s Kursk Oblast.

Once the ceasefire comes into effect, a peace conference will begin hammering out the details of a lasting agreement. The plan calls for a deal to be reached by May 9.

Once the details of the agreement are released, Ukraine will be instructed to end martial law and mobilization. That would mean Zelensky could lose power since his presidential term expired in May 2024, and he used martial law as the justification for not holding new elections. The plan would require allowing parties who oppose continuing the war with Russia to run for office.

Some of the proposed ideas under the plan for a Russia-Ukraine peace deal include barring Ukraine from joining NATO, an agreement for Ukraine to join the EU by 2030, and the EU facilitating Ukraine’s construction. Ukraine would also be able to keep its military and continue receiving military aid from the US, which could be a non-starter for Moscow.

The proposal would also require Ukraine to cede the territory Russia has captured. Ukraine would have to “refuse military and diplomatic attempts to return the occupied territories” and “officially recognize the sovereignty of the Russian Federation over them.”

Zelensky’s office has denied that the peace plan is authentic, although other media reports have said that Trump tasked his envoy to the conflict, Keith Kellog, with ending the war within the first 100 days of the Trump administration. If the plan is legitimate, leaking it could have been an attempt to sabotage it from moving forward.

Trump has said he wants to speak with Putin, but the Kremlin said on Monday that it hasn’t heard anything from the US about setting up a potential call.

(antiwar.com)

Is this a way to end this thing?

If accurate I do not see this actually working as the conflict stands today……do you?

On a side note:  I agree that Biden should have to tell is what the Ukraine war was all about….

It is no longer easy to tell what the Ukraine War was for. Very early on, U.S. goals got grafted onto Ukrainian goals, and the hybrid braid became hard to disentangle. “This is a war that is in many ways… bigger than Ukraine,” the State Department announced in the first weeks of the war. But, whatever those goals, few of them remain: There will be no NATO membership for Ukraine, there will be no recovery of all of its territory, and there will be no weakening of Russia.

Former President Joe Biden has a lot of explaining to do, as does Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky.

Zelensky will need to explain to his exhausted nation why choosing the path of war over the path of diplomacy after the Istanbul talks in March and April of 2022 was worth the cost. At that time, what still seemed to be the Ukrainian goals—continued sovereignty and the withdrawal of Russian troops to pre-war boundaries—might have been met. Zelensky must explain why he succumbed to Western pressure to pursue wider ones.

He is going to have to explain why pursuing those wider goals was worth the loss of so much life, limb and land. And, if he is to survive politically and, perhaps, even physically, he is going to have to find someone to blame.

Biden Must Explain What the Ukraine War Was For

Probably got ever going to happen but those idiots in Congress have investigated many lame things….why not one more?

I Read, I Write, You Know

“lego ergo scribo”

It Was Never About The Win

We enter into a new (for lack of a better word) world Biden has left the building and Donald has arrived doing what he does best….make nothing into some sort of filet…..but that is for others who care to write about I want to write about Biden’s waste of taxpayers money (he will not be last)…..

The US pissed away billions on its support for Ukraine in its struggle with Russia….was Ukraine ever gonna win this conflict?

Nope!

It was never about a Ukraine win.

President Biden spent hundreds of billions of dollars supporting Ukraine in its war with Russia, but according to a report from Time Magazine, a Ukrainian victory was never his goal.

Throughout the nearly three-year proxy war, the Biden administration never set any clear goals and only repeated mantras, such as the promise to support Ukraine for “as long as it takes.”

Eric Green, who was on Biden’s National Security Council at the time of the invasion, told Time that the administration never gave any promises to help Ukraine take back the land Russian forces had captured.

“We were deliberately not talking about the territorial parameters,” Green said. “That was not going to be a success story ultimately. The more important objective was for Ukraine to survive as a sovereign, democratic country free to pursue integration with the West.”

The report said Biden set three objectives for the war: ensure Ukraine would survive as a sovereign state, keep the US and its allies united, and avoid a direct war with Russia.

However, there was another goal not mentioned in the report: weakening Russia, something then-Secretary of Defense Lloyd Austin acknowledged back in April 2022 after his first trip to Ukraine during the war. Austin’s trip came after the US and its allies discouraged peace talks between Russia and Ukraine even though there was a deal on the table that could have led to a Russian withdrawal in exchange for Ukrainian neutrality.

On their way out, Biden administration officials claimed the proxy war was a success despite Ukraine’s lack of a path toward victory. “It’s unfortunately the kind of success where you don’t feel great about it,” Green told Time. “Because there is so much suffering for Ukraine and so much uncertainty about where it’s ultimately going to land.”

The Time report noted that Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky, who defined victory as expelling Russian forces and taking Crimea, recently complained about Biden despite the massive amount of aid he provided.

“With all due respect to the United States and the administration,” Zelensky told podcast host Lex Fridman, “I don’t want the same situation like we had with Biden. I ask for sanctions now, please, and weapons now.”

(antiwar.com)

There you have it….it is what I have been saying for these many years….it is not about the win but rather keeping the CEOs in bonuses and stock prices high….

Let’s see how the kakistocracy handles this and other of our proxy wars….

I am not looking for much to be different.

I Read, I Write, You Know

“lego ergo scribo”

Nukes In Space

Does anyone remember the movie Meteor starring Sean Connery and Natalie Wood?

There was a huge meteor headed toward Earth and the USSR and the US had to combine their nukes in space to thwart an ELE.

Well that was fiction there were no nukes in space or so we are told…..but that just may not be the case….

A Russian spacecraft launched higher than most satellites has long had the Pentagon worried — and new revelations about what it contains have made those concerns all the greater.

Launched in February 2022 just a few weeks before Ukraine was invaded, Russia’s Cosmos 2553 spacecraft is nominally built to test out “newly developed onboard instruments and systems.” According to new reporting from the New York Times, however, the mysterious satellite system contains a “dummy warhead” — a precursor of what could come should the Russians decide to arm the craft for real.

As scary as the concept of a space nuke sounds, it wouldn’t necessarily harm life on Earth — unless you consider eliminating all satellites in its vicinity harm, in which case the people down on the planet below would be seriously screwed.

Back in 1962, the US military actually did detonate a nuclear weapon in space, though the damage from the electromagnetic pulse it emanated seems mostly to have been limited to streetlights dimming in Hawaii, which was below the test.

Scientists learned from that formerly-classified test that doing so was probably a pretty bad idea, and in 1967, both Russia and the United States signed the Outer Space Treaty to prevent, essentially, space warfare. In the years since, however, concerns have grown that Russia may violate the treaty — especially as more and more communications satellites began littering our planet’s orbit.

https://futurism.com/the-byte/russian-space-nuke-revelations

Because of the test in 1962 the Outer Space Treaty was born…..in case the reader is not up on this thingy…..

The Outer Space Treaty of 1967

The treaty was aimed at preventing the militarization of space but that has fallen by the wayside….with the US Space Force and now this Russian news things could get a bit testy in space.

How long before the US side steps the treaty and launches its nukes into space?

Or is it possible they are already out there?

Something else to worry about in the coming year.

I Read, I Write, You Know

“lego ergo scribo”

Russia, What Went Wrong?

+++I start my infusion today and I do not know how it will go so this may be my only post for the day….sorry about that+++

In the mid-90s there was a lot of optimism that Russia would join the world with market economy and our wealthy would have new regions to hunt.

But something went wrong and instead we got Putin and his band of thugees.

While I was out there reading I found a declassified document that could answer some of the question being asked.

Once in a great while, a diplomatic memorandum—the outline of a proposed change in policy sent from a foreign service officer to his political masters back in Washington—has momentous impact. The most famous of these is George Kennan’s “Long Telegram” of February 1946, which urged “a long-term patient but firm and vigilant containment of Russian expansive tendencies.”

…

Now a similarly long memo, written nearly 50 years later, in the early days of the post–Cold War era and post-Soviet Russia, raises questions about how the world today might be different if Bill Clinton had heeded it as much as Harry Truman heeded Kennan’s.

The newly discovered memo, written in March 1994 by Wayne Merry, chief of the U.S. Embassy’s internal politics division at the time, didn’t make the same impact as Kennan’s for two reasons. First, Merry did not go public. Second, unlike Kennan’s memo, Merry’s was at odds with U.S. policy and was ignored, then buried, and its author was blackballed, by the policymakers at the time. In fact, it was buried so deeply that it was declassified just last week as the result of a lawsuit filed under the Freedom of Information Act by the National Security Archive, a private research firm at George Washington University.

Looking at it today, more than 30 years after the fact, it’s a remarkably prescient document that should prompt several lessons about how to run foreign policy.

Merry’s memo, titled “Whose Russia Is It Anyway: Toward a Policy of Benign Respect,” was written as Russian President Boris Yeltsin’s experiment with democracy and free-market economics was in heightened turmoil. The party of his prime minister, Yegor Gaidar, the architect of his economics policy, had recently lost an election—the result of popular discontent with the policy’s extreme inflation and displacement. Yeltsin mobilized tanks in downtown Moscow to put down an attempted putsch—launched for a variety of motives—in Russia’s Parliament. Yet, to the frustration of specialists in the U.S. Embassy, including Merry, many senior officials back in Washington saw Yeltsin as a still-strong figure and his “shock therapy” economics—which they had been pushing, along with a bevy of academic advisers, many of them from Harvard—as a success.

Merry stressed the urgent need for a course correction:

https://slate.com/_pages/cm51dbke8005qx9l0xtr1litr.html

It reads like ‘greed’ played a part in the rise of the Putin clan….maybe ambition should be tabled in favor of critical thinking….but that is not what big business pays the Congress to do….critically think.

I Read, I Write, You Know

“lego ergo scribo”

Ukrainian Realization

The conflict between Ukraine and Russia has been going on for damn near 3 years. The US and NATO has done everything it can to keep the conflict going but now there will soon be a new president that has a desire for the war to end.

My guess this bold statement by Zelensky has something to do with our past election.

Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky has conceded that Ukraine does not have the ability to drive Russian forces out of the territory Russia has captured since the 2022 invasion, as well as Crimea, which Russia has controlled since 2014.

“We cannot give up our territories. The Ukrainian constitution forbids us to do so. De facto, these territories are now controlled by the Russians. We do not have the strength to recover them,” Zelensky told the French newspaper Le Parisien.

“We can only count on diplomatic pressure from the international community to force Putin to sit down at the negotiating table,” the Ukrainian leader added.

Zelensky has long maintained that his war goals include driving Russian troops out of Russian-controlled Ukraine, which includes about 80% of the eastern Donbas region and parts of the Kherson and Zaporizhzhia oblasts. A “peace formula” pushed by Zelensky called for a full Russian withdrawal before peace talks could even happen.

A potential peace deal that was on the table in March and April of 2022 would have involved a Russian withdrawal from the territory it had captured following the invasion in exchange for Ukrainian neutrality. But the deal was discouraged by the US and its allies and fell apart. Later that year, Moscow formally annexed Donetsk, Luhansk, Kherson, and Zaporizhzhia, and it now considers all of the oblasts, even the Ukrainian-controlled areas, a part of Russia.

Back in June, Russian President Vladimir Putin laid out Moscow’s conditions for peace, which included a Ukrainian withdrawal from the oblasts he considers part of Russia.

(antiwar.com)

Let’s say this comes to be how will the Ukrainian people react to the knowledge that this conflict could have ended much earlier and spared all those lives and destruction?

After months of promoting Ukraine’s excursion into Russia….things have changed….

The Joe Biden administration believes that Ukrainian forces are on the verge of a total loss in Russia’s Kursk Oblast and is now advising Kiev to pull its troops back. Reporting on Kiev’s losses in Kursk, the AP reports the Ukrainian forces have become “demoralized.”

In August, tens of thousands of Ukrainian troops stormed across the Russian border and seized a large swath of lightly defended territory in the Kursk Oblast. Since then, Moscow has slowly won back over half the territory. Now, the White House says Ukraine must abandon its foothold in Russia before its troops become encircled.

Discussing the situation facing Ukrainian forces in Kursk, one US official told Bloomberg, “it was a question of time whether Russian forces could envelop it, creating a dilemma for Ukrainian forces to either retreat or surrender.”

Two officials confirmed to the outlet that the White House believes that the Kremlin is now pushing into the Kursk battlefield, and Ukrainian forces will be defeated within months. This assessment has the White House telling Kiev to pull its remaining forces out of Russia.  

The strategy behind the Kursk offensive was always in question. Many of the proponents of the attack argued it would give Kiev additional bargaining chips at the negotiating table. However, it now appears Ukraine will lose the territory before talks begin.

https://libertarianinstitute.org/news/white-house-tells-ukraine-to-pull-its-demoralized-forces-from-russia/

This situation will be interesting to see how the US will handle this and the reaction of the Ukrainian people.

I Read, I Write, You Know

“lego ergo scribo”

More Ukraine News

The conflict between Ukraine and Russia and the whole NATO apparatus is not reported as it once was…..so it falls to me to keep the news flowing.

Now Ukraine is saying it is willing to cede some territory to Russia to end this long conflict.

Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky said he was willing to temporarily cede territory to Russia to bring an end to the war in exchange for NATO protection over Ukraine.

“If we want to stop the hot stage of the war, we should take under [the] NATO umbrella the territory of Ukraine that we have under our control,” Zelensky told Sky News. “That’s what we need to do fast, and then Ukraine can get back the other part of its territory diplomatically.”

Zelensky’s suggestion is almost certainly a non-starter for Russia since the invasion was launched to keep Ukraine out of NATO, but it does reflect a shift in his position. Zelensky previously maintained that his war goals included driving Russia out of all of the territory it has captured since February 2022, as well as Crimea.

In a recent conversation with German Chancellor Olaf Scholz, Russian President Vladimir Putin pointed to a speech he made earlier this year that outlines his conditions for peace, which include a Ukrainian withdrawal from all territory Russia has annexed, Ukrainian neutrality, and the lifting of all Western sanctions on Russia.

Ukrainian neutrality was Russia’s main demand during short-lived negotiations that took place in the early days of the invasion. Ukrainian and Russian officials held talks in March and April of 2022, but the negotiations were discouraged by the US and its allies.

In the interview with Sky News, Zelensky said Ukraine wouldn’t agree to a ceasefire without guarantees of NATO protection. “We need [NATO protection] very much, otherwise [Putin] will come back. Otherwise, how are we going to go to a ceasefire? So for us, it’s very dangerous,” he said.

While Zelensky and Putin’s terms are extremely far apart, the Ukrainian side could be forced to make more concessions if President-elect Donald Trump follows through with his campaign promise to end the war and pressures Zelensky to negotiate.

(antiwar.com)

But I thought there was no way Ukraine would cede territory to Russia….if the US had applied pressure 2 years ago along these lines then maybe there would not have been so many deaths on both sides.

Is Zelensky just hedging his bets for 2025?

Recently the US has said that Ukraine should start drafting 18 year olds…..

The White House is pressuring Ukraine to increase the size of its military by lowering the minimum age of conscription from 25 to 18, The Associated Press reported on Wednesday.

A senior Biden administration official said the outgoing administration wants Ukraine to start drafting 18-year-olds to expand the current pool of fighting-age males. The pressure from the US comes as polling shows the majority of Ukrainians want peace talks with Russia to end the war.

National Security Advisor Jake Sullivan recently hinted that the US was pressuring Ukraine to expand conscription, saying Ukraine’s biggest problem in the war was the lack of manpower.

“Our view has been that there’s not one weapon system that makes a difference in this battle. It’s about manpower, and Ukraine needs to do more, in our view, to firm up its lines in terms of the number of forces it has on the front lines,” Sullivan said on PBS News Hour last week.

The Biden administration’s push for Ukraine to draft younger men comes as it is doing everything it can to escalate the proxy war before President-elect Donald Trump is inaugurated on January 20. President Biden is seeking another $24 billion to spend on the conflict even though it’s clear there’s no path to a Ukrainian military victory.

(antiwar.com)

Has Ukraine lost that many young to this war…..or could it be the massive amounts of desertions.

Ukrainian soldiers refusing to report for duty or walking away from their front-line positions are becoming an increasing problem for Kiev. One Ukrainian lawmaker said that there have been as many as 200,000 desertions. 

Ukrainian officials and soldiers told the AP that “Facing every imaginable shortage, tens of thousands of Ukrainian troops, tired and bereft, have walked away from combat and front-line positions to slide into anonymity.” The report adds, “Entire units have abandoned their posts, leaving defensive lines vulnerable and accelerating territorial losses, according to military commanders and soldiers.”

Soldiers failing to report to their posts are a rapidly worsening problem for Kiev. In 2022, only 9,000 Ukrainians were prosecuted for desertion. That number increased to 24,000 in 2023. Ukrainian government data showed prosecutions skyrocketed to 50,000 during the first nine months of 2024. 

https://libertarianinstitute.org/news/as-many-as-200000-ukrainian-soldiers-have-deserted/

But not to worry Biden made sure that Ukraine got another money dump before the end of his term….

The Biden administration on Monday announced a new $725 million weapons package for Ukraine, which includes anti-personnel mines, ammunition for the HIMARS rocket systems, and other equipment.

President Biden just recently approved the provision of anti-personnel mines for Ukraine, a step that goes against his own policy meant to limit the use of the indiscriminate weapon. In 2022, Biden re-implemented an Obama-era policy that prohibited the transfer and use of US anti-personnel mines outside of the Korean Peninsula.

Biden’s decision to send the mines has been condemned by arms control groups and many countries that are signatories to a treaty banning the weapon. The mines, which are designed to kill or maim people, have been banned by 164 countries under the Ottawa Treaty. The US and Russia are not signatories, but Ukraine is and has been in violation of the treaty.

(antiwar.com)

Treaty violation?  The US is famous for treaty violations….just ask a Native American.

That is all I have for now but I will continue to report the unreported news as I see it.

I Read, I Write, You Know

“lego ergo scribo”

News From Ukraine

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”

Ukraine: The Push Is On

This week’s good news (for some that is) is that Ukraine has sent troops into Russia in a bold move….this is said to have many facets although few are available to peasants like me…..

But what does it all mean?

A week after the biggest military invasion of Russia since World War II, details are beginning to solidify about Ukraine’s stunning move.

  • Numbers: Ukraine forces have advanced nearly eight miles into the country and control more than two dozen villages, the acting governor of Russia’s Kursk region told Vladimir Putin and other officials Monday. The Washington Post is tracking military movements here. Ukraine’s top military commander said his forces control nearly 400 square miles, per the AP. More than 100,000 Russians have been evacuated or left of their own accord, and Russia says 12 civilians have been killed.
  • Big picture: “It’s an attempt to give Russia somewhat of a shock,” Eric Schmitt of the New York Times tells that newspaper’s Morning Briefing. “It could give Ukraine a win, or at least make them feel good for a few days. Does it change the larger calculus on the battlefield? That remains to be seen.” One big question is whether Ukraine will be able to hang on to the territory it seizes.
  • Momentum shift? Vladimir Putin is downplaying the move, suggesting that Ukraine is trying to gain leverage for potential peace talks and that his troops will soon oust the invaders. It is nonetheless “an embarrassment” for Putin and his army, per Reuters. The move has the potential to divert Russian troops from other areas, lift morale back in Ukraine, and boost support from the US and the West for Ukraine’s military fight, per the Times.
  • Ukraine’s hope: “The clearest logic behind Ukraine’s latest move has been provided by President (Volodymyr) Zelensky who says he wants to ‘bring the war home’ to Russia,” and erode support for it, writes Jonathan Beale at the BBC. “Whatever happens, Ukraine may believe that this gamble was worth it.” He adds, however, that such sentiment shifts often turn out to be fleeting and “won’t win the war.”
  • Senators swayed: Sens. Richard Blumenthal and Lindsey Graham visited Ukraine, spoke with Zelensky, and said Ukraine seems more optimistic than ever, per the Washington Post. “The breakthrough in Kursk on that front is historic,” said Blumenthal on Monday. “It is a seismic breakthrough.” Both senators want to free up Ukraine to use US weaponry for long-range attacks within Russia.

When Ukraine stops will they be able to hold the territory?

Some NATO countries think they will out soon….

NATO countries think it’s unlikely Ukraine will be able to hold territory in Russia’s Kursk Oblast even if it takes weeks for Russian forces to drive the Ukrainians out, Bloomberg reported Tuesday, citing a Western intelligence official.

Despite that assessment, the report said NATO doesn’t “harbor reservations” about Ukraine’s invasion of Russian territory, which the US and NATO claim they were unaware of until the attack started. Another NATO official told Bloomberg that the incursion shows Ukraine can challenge Russia.

Heavy fighting has been raging in Kursk since over 1,000 Ukrainian soldiers and dozens of armored vehicles, including many provided by the US, entered Russian territory last Tuesday. While Ukrainian forces have captured dozens of villages, they are also taking heavy losses.

(antiwar.com)

Will they be able to hold what they have taken?

I believe if they can then it will be used as a bargaining chip any future ceasefire talks….a way to counter the loss of territory within Ukraine to the Russians.

One other question….Why now?

Any thoughts?

I Read, I Write, You Know

“lego ergo scribo”

News From The Front

The Ukraine/Russia front that is…..

This does not seem to be a popular meme these days…..I think all the propaganda and armchair analyst that know everything about nothing have moved on.

Enough said about buffoons.

Looks like we may have an all out cross border war going on……Ukraine enters Russia …..

Vladimir Putin is calling it a “major provocation.” NBC News refers to it as an “unprecedented cross-border incursion.” Russia on Tuesday said as many as 300 Ukrainian troops had attacked the Kursk region in southern Russia with support from tanks and armored vehicles. The details remain somewhat hazy, Ukraine’s leaders have not confirmed the attack, and the AP reports open-source monitors have not yet verified the claims. The Guardian, however, reports it got confirmation from a junior official that an attack was underway. More:

  • On the ground: Things are murky, with Russia’s Defense Ministry originally stating the “Ukrainian sabotage group retreated to its territory,” per the Guardian. But Russian military bloggers have suggested the Ukrainian troops were not pushed out but rather made it up to 9 miles deep into the territory, and the New York Times reports the Ministry confirmed fighting was continuing on Wednesday.
  • What could make it ‘unprecedented’: The Times explains that Ukraine’s previous cross-border assaults involved armed groups of Russian exiles that had military backing. This attack, however, appears to be the work of Ukrainian troops.
  • Implications: If confirmed, NBC News reports it “would mark a dramatic shift in strategy” and raise “questions about why Ukraine might have launched an incursion into Russian territory with regular troops just as military observers say it’s bleeding soldiers and weapons in the vulnerable east, particularly near the towns of Pokrovsk and Toretsk in the Donetsk Region.”
  • Analysts’ take: Those NBC News spoke with suggested Ukraine could be trying to force Russia to shift troops to an area that hasn’t seen much action since spring 2022, or it could be a “publicity stunt” designed to grab the world’s notice.

Now there is an idea I had not considered….a PR stunt….but when I think about it it makes sense….the world has turned a blind eye to this particular conflict and something is needed to return the attention to Ukraine.

Will this continue or will it be short lived?

Will Ukraine use its new F22 jets and attack deeper into Russia?

Did Ukraine sacrifice troops to make a point?

What will they do?

This is getting to the point of ridiculous….this conflict needs to be resolved and save what lives they can now.

Keep in mind that this war is all about the money and will continue as long as there is cash to be made…..

Lindsey Graham voiced out loud part of an agenda that is usually hidden from public view or the media – it isn’t talked about (admitted) openly. It’s a veritable “gold mine,” Graham confessed, and America can’t afford to lose control of it. Here’s the translation of Graham’s admission:

It’s About the Money.

Our reliably hawkish Republican Senator is well known for provocative statements. As early as 2022 (at the beginning of the Ukraine war) Graham was all in for regime change in Russia, when everyone else in the West was trying to downplay such a prospect. Moreover, he is quoted as saying at a press conference with Zylensky that “Russians are dying” in the war, while US aid was the “best money we’ve ever spent.”

But with the panache and subtlety of a train wreck the good senator created another stir recently, admitting on CBS’s “Face the Nation,” why Russia must not be allowed to prevail in Ukraine. The latter possesses $10 to $12 trillion worth of rich deposits of critical minerals.

https://original.antiwar.com/F_Andrew_Wolf/2024/08/05/us-ukraine-russian-war-its-about-the-money/

Not a fan of Graham’s but in this case he is being up front about this conflict.

I Read, I Write, You Know

“lego ergo scribo”