TheOldGuy @TheOldGuy@qoto.org
I am a Democrat who supports Ukraine in their battle against The Russian Z fascist invaders.
I am a 73 year old Covid hermit who
lives on 10 acres in a sparsely populated area of the Ozarks. I heat with wood that is leftover by the lumber industry. When cutting oak for lumber only the trunk is used.
The largest town is population 2992. The county is 13k people scattered over 713 square miles.
Joined Dec 2022
Tomorrow they will start circulating a discharge petition
🇮🇳The Indian Embassy in Russia has announced the death of its citizen, 30-year-old Shri Mohammed Asfan. According to Indian media, he was fraudulently recruited into the Russian army and sent to fight against Ukraine, where he died
According to Asfan's relatives, he and several other men were deceived by a blogger who runs the YouTube channel Baba Vlogs (305 thousand subscribers). He allegedly helps Indians get work permits in Russia.
In particular, he took $3.6 thousand from Asfan, promising to employ him as a security guard in Russia. But after arriving and signing the contract, Asfan realized that he had been recruited as an "assistant" to the Russian army.
The BBC has previously reported on this scheme. Indians between the ages of 22 and 31 are employed as alleged "assistants" in Russian military institutions, and then sent into battle under the pretext of "training".
@liveukraine_media
🕯On the International Women's Day, the soldiers of the 47th separate mechanised brigade honour the memory of their sisters-in-arms who died at the front, fighting for Ukraine's right to sovereignty, independence and free life
These are Yuliia Shevchenko, Eleonora Didkovska, Viktoriia Darii, Svitlana Smolenska, and Nadiia Smuk.
Each of them gave the most precious thing — their lives for their homeland. Honour and gratitude to the Heroines!
The Humanitarian and Information Policy Committee
TOP NEWS TODAY
🇸🇪 Sweden officially joined NATO and became the 32nd member of the Alliance!
🇫🇷 Emmanuel Macron told political parties there are 'no limits' to French support for Ukraine.
🇳🇴 Norway will allocate $153 million for the purchase of ammunition for Ukraine.
🇬🇧 Zelensky approved the candidacy of Zaluzhny for the position of Ukraine ambassador to UK.
🇺🇦 Ukraine will stabilize the front line and start preparing for counteroffensive , — Pavlyuk.
❗️Russia can fight on in Ukraine for at least two years with the current intensity, - Reuters
✅ Europe collect the entire amount necessary for the purchase of 800,000 ammunition.
🇬🇧 UK to supply more than 10,000 drones to Ukraine, - Sky News
US President Joe Biden addressed Congress in his State of the Union speech. He devoted the first few minutes to Ukraine and the Russian threat.
"Overseas, Putin of Russia is on the march, invading Ukraine and sowing chaos throughout Europe and beyond.
If anybody in this room thinks Putin will stop at Ukraine, I assure you, he will not.
But Ukraine can stop Putin if we stand with Ukraine and provide the weapons it needs to defend itself. That is all Ukraine is asking. They are not asking for American soldiers.
In fact, there are no American soldiers at war in Ukraine. And I am determined to keep it that way.
But now assistance for Ukraine is being blocked by those who want us to walk away from our leadership in the world.
It wasn’t that long ago when a Republican President, Ronald Reagan, thundered, “Mr. Gorbachev, tear down this wall.”
Now, my predecessor, a former Republican President, tells Putin, “Do whatever the hell you want.”
A former American President actually said that, bowing down to a Russian leader.
It’s outrageous.
It’s dangerous.
It’s unacceptable.
America is a founding member of NATO the military alliance of democratic nations created after World War II to prevent war and keep the peace.
Today, we’ve made NATO stronger than ever.
We welcomed Finland to the Alliance last year, and just this morning, Sweden officially joined NATO, and their Prime Minister is here tonight.
Mr. Prime Minister, welcome to NATO, the strongest military alliance the world has ever known.
I say this to Congress: we must stand up to Putin. Send me the Bipartisan National Security Bill.
History is watching.
If the United States walks away now, it will put Ukraine at risk. Europe at risk. The free world at risk, emboldening others who wish to do us harm.
My message to President Putin is simple.
We will not walk away. We will not bow down. I will not bow down.
History is watching, just like history watched three years ago on January 6th. "
From "The Analyst":
FRONTLINE UPDATE/STRATEGY SHIFTING?
Before we get to deep, Ukraine announced last night that Valeri Zaluzhnyi has been appointed Ambassador to the Court of St James - the official title for Ambassador to the UK. That’s welcome news and I personally look forward to it, it’s exciting news knowing someone so experienced and knowledgeable will work closely with those who want to help Ukraine.
In the north above Lyman-Pershy the Russians have advanced to the Oskil River - however it’s a major obstacle if they plan to cross it. Some suggestion is that they don’t intend to. It’s been rumoured that the Oskil is their ideal ‘new frontier’ line in this sector generally, offering defensive options for them as much as it does Ukraine. The truth is that the west bank of the river is considerably higher than the east bank, with high limestone cliffs, giving the Ukrainians a significant advantage.
Generally speaking there has been little movement in the area all the way down to Avdivka. Ukraine clearly has ammunition it didn’t have a week ago and its impact has been noticeable.
In the Avdivka area, Russians have started to reach the first of the prepared Ukrainian defence lines, which are on hills behind a river - not too different from that described above.
The advance from Avdivka has largely stopped, Russians complain their own EW is interfering with their drones, and that there are huge issues over combat coordination and units not knowing what other units are doing. Two years on and they still haven’t worked this out.
Ukraine seems to be using the Russian lethargy and lack of follow up to put in a defence line that wasn’t there before.
Elsewhere things have been static.
Strategic shifts in Europe have started to cause some to fall into one of two camps. President Macron is clearly alarmed by something. His ‘there are no red lines in supporting Ukraine’, have been parried by Medvedev’s ‘well then we have no red lines regarding France’. That’s mostly just rhetoric but it means France has been heard loud and clear. Macron is making a massive effort to convince France it has to get off its butt and do something. Two years late but he’s there at last.
So the question is what’s rattled him?
On one side the argument is the Ukrainians are struggling to hold on and they need men (and they still haven’t resolved that issue which is frankly outrageous), and they need LOTS more ammo than they have.
On the other side, Ukraine is doing well under the circumstances but needs obviously more help. The threat though is in a major Russian summer offensive post-mud season, that they are preparing even now. With some 40-80,000 troops and equipment massing for months unused, training in Luhansk.
Others think that these are just rolling training sites that feed the meat grinder and that the Russians don’t have the ability to mount such a devastating offensive.
As with all these things it will likely be a mix of both - an offensive being planned but not quite on the scale imagined, but dangerous nonetheless.
There’s also growing concern about the lack of missile strikes in Ukraine. I have often said why this would happen and I’ll say it again.
First the number of launchers is restricted and the defences are strong, it’s not cost effective and parts for the missiles are getting harder to come by. The loss of so many A50-U AWACS planes has also hindered attacking as they were used to map Ukraine’s territory and likely defence sites. However Russian drones do try much the same thing, less successfully.
Secondly they are holding back for the airbases.
As soon as F-16’s appear those airbases are going to get hammered.
I don’t know what the Ukrainians are doing to mitigate this but it had better be big and cleverly effective. It’s going to take imagination and some serious defences to keep those aircraft intact on the ground and their runways operational. This is the F-16’s weakest link and always has been. That’s why the Gripen would have been a far better fit. It may still be.
So we have interesting months ahead.
WSJ provides some interesting details of the activity of Ukrainian forces in Sudan .
ℹ️ The head of the Transitional Military Council of Sudan, Lieutenant General Abdel Fattah al-Burkhan, appealed to the President of Ukraine Volodymyr Zelenskyi for help after he was besieged by the rebel Rapid Response Forces in the Sudanese capital, Khartoum, in the summer of 2023.
ℹ️ According to the Ukrainian and Sudanese military, Burhan secretly supplied weapons to Ukraine after the Russian invasion of Ukraine in 2022.
ℹ️ A few weeks after the appeal, Ukrainian special forces arrived in Sudan and began operations to push rebel forces out of the capital, Khartoum, according to several Ukrainian military personnel involved in the operation.
ℹ️ For Ukraine, sending troops to Africa is a bold new venture — part of a strategy aimed at disrupting Russia's military and economic operations abroad, raising the price of war for Moscow and positioning itself as a bulwark against Russian incursions.
💬 It is impossible to defeat Russia by simply fighting on a small patch of land, such as the front line in Ukraine. If they have gold mines in Sudan, we should make them unprofitable, said a 40-year-old Ukrainian officer in the pseudonym Prada , who heads one of the Ukrainian groups in Sudan.
ℹ️ The first wave of Ukrainian special forces - almost 100 fighters, mostly from the "Timur" unit of the GUR - landed on board a chartered plane in Sudan in mid-August 2023.
ℹ️ Their first mission was to help get Burhan out of Khartoum, where he was surrounded by the Rapid Response Force. Shortly after their arrival, Burhan went under escort to the complex outside the capital, where the Ukrainians were based.
ℹ️ Ukrainian troops secured Burhan with new AKM assault rifles and silencers, and then turned their attention to efforts to dislodge the Wagner-backed rebels from Khartoum.
ℹ️ None of the opposing local forces in Sudan fought at night. Ukrainian special forces took advantage of this when they started planning operations at night using night vision goggles and thermal imaging drones.
ℹ️ Wagner's troops are keen to stay out of the fighting in Sudan.
Wagner has become like a franchise in Sudan. They fight with the help of local residents. They give them patches, pay them a salary, and say, "Now you're Wagner." It was never our aim to persecute individual Wagner soldiers. The goal was to disrupt Russian interests in Sudan
ℹ️ Ukrainian forces have also begun training Sudanese soldiers in some of the same tactics that helped them contain the Russian army, particularly in the use of drones.
ℹ️ Ukrainians helped Sudanese forces purchase Turkish Bayraktar TB2 UAVs, which arrived in February 2024.
ℹ️ The influence of Ukraine in Sudan is still felt. In recent weeks, Burhan's forces have regained control of much of Omdurman, their first major advance in the conflict. Experts attribute the success to high-precision drone strikes, as well as the deployment of elite units of the Sudanese army.
Russians
On International Women's day, Russia advises its women to get pregnant, preferably at 18.
"Give a new pregnancy on March 8!" - Vitaly Milonov, Russian MP.
According to him, other surprises will not bring real joy.
Milonov also warned against "inebriating" women on this day - it is impossible to allow "drunken conception."
"The best gift for a woman is a new pregnancy. A baby is the truest joy. Booze gives you a hangover and everything, empty dishes, feeling used. Men should be men, if possible. If not, then flowers are used, and so on. The main thing - do not get your women drunk, a bottle of champagne is enough. There should be no mass drinking
because on March 8, there are alcohol parties, and then it comes to relationships - and as a result, conception in a drunken state, this should not happen. I urge women to voluntarily give up alcohol on March 8 and celebrate it sober because a sober woman is beautiful."
Russian deputy PM Tatyana Golikova called Russian women to give birth at an age from 18 to 24.
A U.S. official told Reuters that Liberia is actively cooperating with the Treasury Department and that tankers hit by the sanctions have about 3 months to switch to another flag.
Marshall Islands registry officials are also in contact with U.S. agencies on the issue.
Gabon Transport Minister Loic Moudouma confirmed to Reuters that many tankers had left the Liberia registry for Gabon recently, and said Gabon would de-list them if they are found to be engaged in illegal activity.
"We are not a flag registry for the world’s rogue navigators or transporters," he said.
🇺🇦@ukraine_report🇺🇦🔱Liz
India has closed down a major human trafficking network
I am a Democrat who supports Ukraine in their battle against The Russian Z fascist invaders.
I am a 73 year old Covid hermit who
lives on 10 acres in a sparsely populated area of the Ozarks. I heat with wood that is leftover by the lumber industry. When cutting oak for lumber only the trunk is used.
The largest town is population 2992. The county is 13k people scattered over 713 square miles.
Joined Dec 2022
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