Category: Ukraine

D Is For Desertion

Gradually Then Suddenly It's Probably Nothing Ukraine 31 Comments

Historically, a nation has about three years to win a war or at least demonstrate that victory is imminent. If they don’t, public support starts to wane dramatically. The window for success is closing for the Ukraine, and the cracks are already starting to show.

The Ukrainian prosecutor’s office has opened 51,000 cases of desertion through the first nine months of 2024. The number of soldiers abandoning their posts is likely to double last year’s total.

Kiev has struggled to fill its ranks with fresh soldiers, leading Ukraine to drop its conscription age from 27 to 25. As Kiev is still facing manpower shortages, American politicians are pushing Ukraine to drop draft age to 18.

Ukraine has also resorted to allowing prisoners to leave jail if they join the military

Down The Primrose Path (bumped)

It's Probably Nothing Ukraine 176 Comments

NEW: The government that fails at sleeping bag procurement demands escalation, yessiree!

Polish MEP Grzegorz Braun on Antony Blinken visiting Poland today

…small group of officials inside the White House.

Stan, in the comments;

The dog that didn’t bark: Why are no politicians calling for a cease fire in Ukraine? We hear them call for a ceasefire in Gaza every day.

That Sinking Feeling

Gradually Then Suddenly It's Probably Nothing There Goes The Narrative Ukraine 12 Comments

Even the mainstream media is belatedly acknowledging what many SDA readers have known for a long time: the Ukraine is running out of soldiers who are willing and able to fight.

As a battalion commander, Dima was in charge of around 800 men who fought in some of the fiercest, bloodiest battles of the war – most recently near Pokrovsk, the strategic eastern town that is now on the brink of falling to Russia.

But with most of his troops now dead or severely injured, Dima decided he’d had enough. He quit and took another job with the military – in an office in Kyiv.

CNN spoke to six commanders and officers who are or were until recently fighting or supervising units in the area. All six said desertion and insubordination are becoming a widespread problem, especially among newly recruited soldiers.

Tit for Tat

Putin Ukraine 29 Comments

How it started…

France 24- Allies freeze $330 bn of Russian assets since Ukraine invasion

The Russian Elites, Proxies, and Oligarchs Task Force (REPO) said in a joint statement that they had blocked $30 billion in assets of Russian oligarchs and officials, and immobilized $300 billion owned by the Russian central bank.

How it’s going…

Express- Russia seized £76m from Google ‘to support war in Ukraine’

The Kremlin seized more than £76m from Google’s accounts in Vladimir Putin’s Russia – and used this to fund propaganda supporting the war in Ukraine, court documents claim.

The assets seizure came after a Russian court ruled that Google must pay damages to three Russian TV channels.

Reversing The Onus

Cronies I, Napoleon Ukraine 44 Comments

Offering up yet another example of his incredible arrogance, Volodymyr Zelenskyy demands to know how Donald Trump would end the war if he becomes President again. I’ve got a better question: how does Zelenskyy propose to win it?

“If Trump knows how to finish this war, he should tell us today,” Zelenskyy said in a Bloomberg Television interview in Kyiv on Wednesday.

“It’s not a deadlock, it’s a problematic situation,” he said. “A deadlock means there’s no way out. But a problem can be solved if one has the will and has the tools. We do have the will, and the tools – they haven’t arrived yet.”

 

 

Endless War

Baiting The Left Baiting the Right Democrats Ukraine Vast Right Wing Conspiracy 112 Comments

NATO Secretary General, Jens Stoltenberg, explaining how Putin’s peace proposal is not real, and how the peaceful solution is actually to keep fighting a war they cannot win.

NATO are in no position to negotiate. Whatever leverage they had is now gone. Putin is offering an olive branch. NATO/Ukraine can admit defeat, spare the remaining Ukrainians and negotiate, or Putin is just going to take what he wants by force.

The West know they cannot take the political hit by admitting they lost this war, especially before the US election, so they will continue to sacrifice the Ukrainian People to advance their own nefarious agenda.

Video

Schadenfreude

Climate Cult More Pavilions At Folkfest Ukraine 33 Comments

Telegraph- Germany is descending into chaos – and it will take the rest of the eurozone down with it

It is now little more than a “developing country”. Its stock market is a “junk shop” selling old tat. And its reputation as a place to do business has “never been so bad’. In the middle of the UK’s dismal election campaign, it would be easy to imagine that Britain was the country under discussion.

But Theodor Weimer, the head of the once mighty Deutsche Börse, was describing his native Germany. And he was absolutely right. After a series of catastrophic policy mistakes by centrist leaders, there is no way back for Germany – and its decline is only going to accelerate from here.

“The same architects of our insane energy policy… are also the architects of our military strategy.”

Drill, Baby, Drill Ethical Energy Ukraine 9 Comments

I believe I’ve mentioned this.

The team riffs with Doomberg, a renowned energy analyst, to discuss a range of issues from the global energy landscape to geopolitical tensions and the changing nature of warfare. The conversation also delves into the intricacies of the global natural gas market, the impact of sanctions on Russia, and the potential future of nuclear energy.

Doomberg is a good, though pricey Substack to subscribe to. I wish more of his material was open to free viewing.

Into The Meat Grinder?

Shiny Pony Ukraine 85 Comments

This is nuts.

Toronto Star- Under the right conditions, Canada open to sending noncombat troops to Ukraine, Defence Minister Bill Blair says

OTTAWA—Canada is open to sending a limited number of military personnel to train Ukrainian troops within Ukraine, so long as such an operation took place far from the front lines of the war with Russia in a clear, noncombat role, Defence Minister Bill Blair says.

Francisco- If Canada wants to do more they should be looking at making things like artillery shells which are in incredibly short supply.

Down The Primrose Path

Democrats Drain The Swamp Trump Ukraine 20 Comments

A follow-up to the Taibbi piece of yesterday. Read it first if you missed it.

BURN NOTICE: The most interesting fact was the CIA’s obvious decision to burn its vast, unimaginably-expensive, militarized, networked, anti-Russia intelligence operation in Ukraine.

Do you think Trump was briefed on the CIA’s massive network of bases and its captive army in Ukraine? Could that have been what Trump was trying to figure out when he called Ukraine’s president, a call the deep-state immediately leaked and impeached him over? Was the great quid-pro-quo-ing of Trump really intended to send a message: keep your hands off Ukraine, or else?

Is that what Chucky Schumer meant when he gleefully warned Rachel Maddow the CIA has six ways from Sunday to get back at you?

Greenwald: You’ll notice that no NYT reporters are being arrested or put on trial for this supposedly sensitive disclosure.

(h/t LindaL)

Down The Primrose Path

Democrats Drain The Swamp RINO Ukraine 80 Comments

This is why I subscribe to Matt Taibbi: CIA, Ukraine Exchange Pre-Divorce Propaganda

Over the weekend the New York Times published an epic exposé. “The Spy War: How the C.I.A. Secretly Helps Ukraine Fight Putin,” by Adam Entous and Mitchell Schwirtz, described a decade of CIA-Ukrainian cooperation, featuring details that would never reach public ears under normal circumstances. The opening is worth quoting at length:

“Nestled in a dense forest, the Ukrainian military base appears abandoned and destroyed… But that is above ground. Not far away, a discreet passageway descends to a subterranean bunker where teams of Ukrainian soldiers track Russian spy satellites and eavesdrop on conversations between Russian commanders…

“The listening post in the Ukrainian forest is part of a C.I.A.-supported network of spy bases constructed in the past eight years that includes 12 secret locations along the Russian border.”

Yowza! Officials have long scolded the public that even minor disclosures of “sources and methods” could “risk lives” and must be prevented at all costs. Yet here comes the Times, helping “current and former officials in Ukraine, the United States and Europe” blab a long list of extraordinary details, down to the number of CIA-supported secret bases along the Russian border. An abridged list of revelations:

• CIA director William Burns made a “secret” visit to Ukraine last Thursday, his tenth since Russia’s invasion;

• On the night of February 14, 2014, in the middle of the Maidan coup, Ukrainian spy chief Valentyn Nalyvaichenko called the heads of the CIA and Britain’s MI6 and asked for help in rebuilding his agency “from the ground up”;

• Ukrainian intelligence officials, seeking to prove their value to American counterparts, handed the CIA proof that Russian separatists downed Malaysia Airlines Flight 17 “within hours of the crash” in July of 2014;

• Then-head of Ukrainian military intelligence Valeriy Kondratiuk handed the CIA “detailed information about the latest Russian nuclear submarine designs” in 2015;

• “Around” 2016, the CIA “began training an elite Ukrainian commando force” called “Unit 2245” which “captured Russian drones and communications gear so that CIA technicians could reverse-engineer them and crack Moscow’s encryption systems”;

• The CIA’s chief of station in Kyiv was nicknamed “Santa Claus”;

• A Ukrainian agent “duped an officer from Russia’s military intelligence service” into providing intelligence that “allowed the C.I.A. to connect Russia’s government to the so-called Fancy Bear hacking group, which had been linked to election interference.”

Former CIA head John Brennan sitting for a month of interviews with Kitty Kelley wouldn’t produce this many juicy reveals. They even recounted the CIA hauling Kondratiuk to a Washington Capitals game to boo Alex Ovechkin, for God’s sake. Are these spy agencies or people pitching a Netflix series?

Sign up for the free trial period if you must to read it.

Blog note: If you cannot refrain from insults and trolling the same people for the thousandth time, refrain from commenting or find another blog. – ED

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