Ukraine and Only Ukraine. If it isn't about Ukraine then fuck off

[Olsonist]

I know her husband, Mr-representing

No, that's her dad.

 

[d'ranger]

Latest offensives from RU not going well, those poorly trained tank crews? When one tank starts a smoke screen the others bunch of and the drones target them. Reports are losses running about 1k per day, one battle shows 30 tanks left. Someone forgot to instruct them on the danger of mines in the ground.
Here is a general google page as don't have time to go back and get each source. https://news.google.com/stories/CAA...kdG5QYk9PdWF5Z0FQAQ?hl=en-US&gl=US&ceid=US:en
RU is getting very poor mileage (or kilometer if you prefer).

This is what happens when someone making the decisions has zero skin in the game and is determined to win no matter the cost. Echoes of Hitler's brilliant strategies as motivation for the Ivans. The thought of all the newer weapons being delivered now is sure to increase their willingness to die for mother Russia. is potato.

 

[Mike G]

 

[badlatitude]

Well, this is a new one. Since when do companies who aid a defensive effort get to decide that suddenly they don't? A possible answer lies right here:
"Elon Musk Spoke to Putin Before Tweeting Ukraine Peace Plan: Report" (not a great source, but it verifies & has enough keywords you can verify it yourself)
https://www.vice.com/en/article/ake44z/elon-musk-vladimir-putin-ukraine

 

[Keith]

 

[LeoV]

Ukraine has been using Starlink for drones for nearly a year, and SpaceX suddenly decides it’s against the rules just as the long-expected big new Russian offensive starts?

 

[Ishmael]

Ukraine has been using Starlink for drones for nearly a year, and SpaceX suddenly decides it’s against the rules just as the long-expected big new Russian offensive starts?

Space-X should be nationalized. Get Musk the fuck away from anything important.

 

[MR.CLEAN]

Space-X should be nationalized. Get Musk the fuck away from anything important.

Biden can use DPA to fix it almost immediately, if it's actually an issue and not clickbait.

 

[Ex Machina]

I know her husband, Mr-representing

Wouldn’t that be her father ?

 

[Olsonist]

Wouldn’t that be her father ?

Some elk will wander by shortly and ask why not both?

 

[Lark]

Joe Blogs suggests sanctions really are biting the Russian economy. Using January numbers as released by Russia, they took a 46% hit on gas and oil revenue YOY. Non oil income down 28%. Expenditures were up well over budget as well. Value added tax was down 40% and income tax is a loss with rebates outweighing revenue.

 

[LeoV]

Russia has reserves to last two years at least to finance the war.

 

[LeoV]

Shaheed drones over Ukraine, could be folllowed by missiles later. The biweekly terror campaign.

 

[veni vidi vici]

 

[Lark]

Russia has reserves to last two years at least to finance the war.

Putin has a lot of rifles and quasi infantry. He has to import better weapons COD or start accepting leans on various islands. I hope this hurts his toy budget, offsetting German and US Conservative miserliness.

 

[Virgulino Ferreira]

Lula vai apresentar a Biden ideia de 'clube da paz' para Ucrânia com participação da China

Brasileiro falará sobre fórum para negociar fim da guerra, a despeito da rivalidade entre Washington e Pequim

www1.folha.uol.com.br

Lula will present to Biden the idea of a 'peace club' for Ukraine with China's participation

Speaking in the Oval Office of the White House on Friday (10), President Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva intends to present to his American counterpart, Joe Biden the proposal of a "peace club" to negotiate a way out of the conflict in Ukraine. The forum would include countries like India and China - and Lula should also propose the idea to the Chinese leader, Xi Jinping, in his visit to Beijing, which will take place in March.

Lula wants to bring together a group of countries that, in the view of the Brazilian government, are not directly involved in the war to discuss a long-term perspective and a solution to the conflict. Brazil recognizes that Russia was an aggressor when it invaded Ukraine, but thinks that imposing sanctions and sending weapons or ammunition will not help to achieve peace.

Brasilia considers that Beijing would be among such countries, even though the Chinese regime has not condemned Russia's aggression against Ukraine and has chosen to abstain on UN Security Council resolutions that condemned Moscow. Recently, the Chinese ambassador to the UN, Zhang Jung, said that the war is "the result of long-standing security imbalances in Europe" and that these imbalances need "a political solution."

In the Brazilian government's view, China is unavoidable in the peace negotiation. Other countries that should be invited to the initiative are India, which did not adhere to Western sanctions and increased its purchases of oil, coal, and fertilizer from Russia, and Turkey, which mediated the agreement for Ukraine to resume grain exports.

For one interlocutor, the "peace club" proposed by Lula to end the Ukraine War would have to be like a negotiation for the resolution of the conflict between Israel and Palestine, exemplifies one interlocutor: it could not have countries directly aligned to either party.

It is not clear how Biden will receive Lula's proposal. Washington and Beijing have for years been experiencing an escalation of tensions, aggravated more recently by trade disputes, the American position in relation to Taiwan and even the Chinese balloon that the USA shot down in its airspace.

On Wednesday (8), John Kirby, of the White House National Security Council, said that the Ukraine War will be on the agenda of the conversation between the two presidents. While the U.S. government is articulating a new arms package for Kiev to the tune of $ 1.75 billion, the Brazilian maintained the policy of former President Jair Bolsonaro to avoid more direct interference in the conflict and denied Germany's request to send ammunition to tanks on the Ukrainian side.

Asked by Folha if Brazil's neutrality bothers Biden, Kirby said the country's stance is part of "sovereign decisions that nations have to make." "And we respect that," he said, before describing the war as "totally despicable" and making the American position clear: "I can only speak for the United States. We don't believe this is the time for 'business as usual.

Lula had already launched the idea of a peace club after a meeting with German Premier Olaf Scholz on January 30 in Brasilia. At the time, he said that Brazil has no interest in sending munitions to Ukraine because it does not want to have any participation in the conflict, even an indirect one.

"We have to create another organism, the same way we created the G20 when the [economic] crisis of 2008 occurred," Lula said at a press conference. "We try to create, we create an ecological club and we create a club of people who will want to build peace on the planet." The president said Beijing could play an important role in brokering an end to the conflict. "It's time for China to put its hand in and try to help find peace between Russia and Ukraine."

The divergence over Brazil's approach to the war extends to Europe as well. "Let me be very clear: there is a country that has been attacked, Ukraine, and an aggressor, Russia," the French chancellor, who went to Brasilia on Wednesday (8) on a preparatory trip for the visit of French President Emmanuel Macron, said in an interview with Folha. "By promoting an illegal war against a sovereign and independent country, Russia, a permanent member of the UN Security Council, has deliberately violated the principles of the UN Charter. By deliberately targeting civilian infrastructure, Russia is committing war crimes. It is our responsibility to ensure that these crimes do not go unpunished."

Lula arrives in Washington on Friday, accompanied by Ministers Mauro Vieira (Foreign Relations), Fernando Haddad (Finance), Marina Silva (Environment) and Anielle Franco (Racial Equality), and special advisor Celso Amorim. Also traveling are Secretary of the Ministry of Economic Development Marcio Elias Rosa and Senator Jaques Wagner.

He will stay at Blair House, the American government residence opposite the White House where foreign heads of state stay. The Brazilian said he would prefer to stay in a hotel, but security issues were taken into account, due to the aggressiveness of some Bolsonaro supporters and the possibility of demonstrations. At Blair House, the security scheme does not allow any kind of non-peaceful protest, and access to the square where the residence is located is usually restricted during the visit of foreign delegations.

In the morning, the President will receive U.S. Senator Bernie Sanders and meet with members of the Democratic Party shortly afterwards. In the afternoon, he will meet with representatives of the AFL-CIO (American Federation of Labor and Congress of Industrial Organizations), the country's largest trade union group. Afterwards, he will be received by Biden at the White House. He returns to Brazil on Saturday (11).

 

[hobie1616]

Ukraine’s rocket campaign reliant on U.S. precision targeting, officials say

Ukrainian officials say they require coordinates provided or confirmed by the United States and its allies for the vast majority of strikes using its advanced U.S.-provided rocket systems, a previously undisclosed practice that reveals a deeper and more operationally active role for the Pentagon in the war.

The disclosure, confirmed by three senior Ukrainian officials and a senior U.S. official, comes after months of Kyiv’s forces pounding Russian targets — including headquarters, ammunition depots and barracks — on Ukrainian soil with the U.S.-provided High Mobility Artillery Rocket System, or HIMARS, and other similar precision-guided weapons such as the M270 multiple-launch rocket system.

One senior Ukrainian official said Ukrainian forces almost never launch the advanced weapons without specific coordinates provided by U.S. military personnel from a baseelsewhere in Europe. Ukrainian officials say this process should give Washington confidence about providing Kyiv with longer-range weapons.

A senior U.S. official — who like others, spoke on the condition of anonymity because of the sensitivity of the issue — acknowledged the key American role in the campaign and said that the targeting assistance served to ensure accuracy and conserve limited stores of ammunition for maximum effectiveness. The official said that Ukraine does not seek approval from the United States on what to strike and routinely targets Russian forces on their own with other weapons. The U.S. provides coordinates and precise targeting information solely in an advisory role, the official said.

The GPS-guided strikes have driven Moscow’s forces back on the battlefield and been celebrated as a key factor in Kyiv’s underdog attempt to stave off the nearly year-old Russian assault. When President Volodymyr Zelensky visited the White House in December, he gave President Biden a military medal that had been approved for meritorious service by the commander of a Ukrainian HIMARS unit.

Senior Pentagon officials declined for days to answer questions about whether and how they provide coordinates for the strikes, citing concerns about operational security. They instead provided a statement highlighting the limitations of American involvement.

“We have long acknowledged that we share intelligence with Ukraine to assist them in defending their country against Russian aggression, and we have optimized over time how we share information to be able to support their requests and their targeting processes at improved speed and scale,” Brig. Gen. Patrick Ryder, a Pentagon spokesman, said in the statement. “The Ukrainians are responsible for finding targets, prioritizing them and then ultimately deciding which ones to engage. The U.S. does not approve targets, nor are we involved in the selection or engagement of targets.”

The senior Ukrainian official described the targeting process, generally: Ukrainian military personnel identify targets they want to hit, and in which location, and that information is then sent up to senior commanders, who then relay the request to U.S. partners for more accurate coordinates. The Americans do not always provide the requested coordinates, the official said, in which case the Ukrainian troops do not fire.

Ukraine could carry out strikes without U.S. help but because Kyiv doesn’t want to waste valuable ammunition and miss, it usually chooses not to strike without U.S. confirmation, the official said, adding that there are no complaints about the process.

 

[Dervish]

Article in Stripes, not paywalled.

Ukraine's rocket campaign reliant on US precision targeting, officials say

Ukrainian officials say that they almost never launch HIMARS rounds without precise coordinates provided by U.S. military personnel, revealing a more operationally active role for the Pentagon in the war than previously known.

www.stripes.com

 

[LeoV]

Explosions heard across Ukraine amid latest Russian mass missile strike.

Explosions were reported in Kyiv, Kryvyi Rih, Kherson, Ivano-Frankivsk, Zaporizhzhia, Vinnytsia, Kharkiv, Khmelnytskyi, and Lviv on Feb. 10, as part of Russia’s latest mass missile attack on Ukraine.

 

[LeoV]

Targets as usual, energy facilities. Bastards.