TheOldGuy @TheOldGuy@qoto.org

Finnish companies suspected of selling Russia 3500 drones

https://www.ukrinform.net/rubric-crime/3796099-finnish-customs-suspects-two-companies-of-sending-almost-3500-drones-to-russia.html

Today, there is a decision to open negotiations on accession to the EU. This step will be followed by the next ones. This is a massive job – to integrate the state, all the institutions, all the norms into the European Union. But we will do it. Ukraine has repeatedly proved what we are capable of. There will be another victorious decision – the time will come when we will be able to celebrate Ukraine's accession to the EU.

Many people in Ukraine are now in high spirits, and this is important, this is motivation. And I congratulate all of you, each and every one of you, on what has been achieved! Achieved by all of us who, through the unity of Ukraine, are strengthening the unity of the whole of Europe. I would like to especially thank all our boys and girls, all men and women who have fought and are fighting for Ukraine, who are now in combat, who are defending the freedom of Ukraine, who are helping our warriors by treating, training, bringing in weapons, producing weapons. All that we are achieving would not have been possible without the heroic courage of our people, our nation, which inspires the whole world.

No matter what happens, we are working, fighting, and building up the strength of Ukraine. Believe in yourself!
Glory to Ukraine!

Goodnight Resisters. May tomorrow find Iran with another dead Ayatollah.

Most Ukrainian tanks are repaired when damaged. Not abandoned as the Russians.
https://www.forbes.com/sites/davidaxe/2023/12/12/tanks-get-hit-repaired-hit-again-and-repaired-again-ukraines-armor-is-a-renewable-resource/?sh=29fb3c523f3f

10 years ago, Ukrainians with the flags of Ukraine and the European Union came out to the Revolution of Dignity to defend our European choice.

655 days ago, on 28 February 2022, the President of Ukraine Volodymyr Zelenskyi, myself and the Prime Minister signed the application for EU membership. At a time when the enemy was mercilessly bombing our cities, launching a full-scale invasion.

Today, Ukraine is one step closer to full membership in the European Union!

This is a historic decision. And we are paying an extremely high price for this decision.

The Armed Forces of Ukraine, our warriors, prove every day what a victorious struggle for a free future and a free Ukraine is.

For the fact that there will be no russia in Ukraine.

And for Ukraine to be in a free Europe.

I am grateful to our defenders for their daily defence of Ukraine and our choice.

I thank all European leaders for today's unity.

I thank the President of Ukraine for his leadership, the Ukrainian Parliament for its unity and speed, and the Government for its efficiency. I thank everyone who has made and will continue to make efforts for Ukraine's full membership in the EU.

And, of course, I thank the courageous Ukrainian people!
The people whose "truth has never been conquered by anyone".
A united people. An unbreakable people. The victorious people!

The Chairman of the Verkhovna Rada of Ukraine Ruslan Stefanchuk

Who is behind the push for Biden impeachment?
https://open.substack.com/pub/robertreich/p/impeaching-biden?r=70k1h&utm_campaign=post&utm_medium=email

Morally wrong
https://open.substack.com/pub/robertreich/p/moral-clarity-on-campus-about-the?r=70k1h&utm_campaign=post&utm_medium=email

Hunter Biden stood in front of the Capitol talking about Republican tomfoolery.
https://open.substack.com/pub/jefftiedrich/p/hunter-biden-just-fucked-james-comers?r=70k1h&utm_campaign=post&utm_medium=email

Russians say make peace, rebuild the army, then try again for the rest of Ukraine.
https://t.me/WarriorsUkrainian/16558

Vaccine Shortage Putin lies.
https://t.me/WarriorsUkrainian/16545

Are farmers too busy dying to produce eggs?

https://t.me/WarriorsUkrainian/16544

CONTINUES…

Additionally it’s arguable it has no long term value, launching an offensive from there into such heavy defences would be suicidal next year. And if the Russians don’t try now, they will try later and it’s still never going to be worth the cost to defend it to death simply because it took so much to take.
It’s just one of those things you have to suck up and live with. Live to fight another day, learn from it and move on.

Ukraine is still here, still fighting, still making Russian life a misery on the front.
Russia is sorely depleted, expends huge resources for little gain but remains committed to carrying on regardless of its death toll.
Ukraine is costing Russia more than it ever imagined. Can they even remember that this was meant to be over in three days?

Slava Ukraini 🇺🇦!

From "The Analyst":

UKRAINE UPDATE 13-14 DECEMBER

The main concerns over Avdivka - at least for now - seem to be abating.
Russian forces in the central industrial zone tried to seize the forest just to its north.
Russian assaults spiked and yet the Russian forces were completely eliminated by the capable Ukrainian 110th Brigade and the Border Troops.
This so called ‘active defence’ - an excuse for offensive failure on the Russians part, has been catastrophic for the army. At least 30,000 dead troops for very little relative gain may mean nothing to the government in general, but it’s been a catastrophic loss of what morale remained.

Regrettably the Russians have sliced off quite a tranche of territory in front of Bakhmut, but apparently at terrible loss. Most of the land taken in the summer around Berkhivka has been retaken by the enemy. The Russians took the Khromove heights and now look to have their sights set on Chasiv Yar. It’s a long way off yet and it’s heavily defended, surrounded by very challenging terrain.
The Russians have really pushed back hard from the Kopani towards Robotyne - the whole salient looks in increasing danger as I’ve long predicted . It’s simply not easy to defend or big enough to justify heavy losses to keep. Despite the huge effort expended to take it.
The Krynky front seems stable with Russians having called off their infantry attacks on the scale they were. Ukraine seems to have expanded the bridgehead a little, but it’s a tough environment.

Russian losses have now reached the point where they have apparently lost 90% of the troops who originally entered combat operations in February 2022. In other words, just 1 in 10 of the professional army that went to war is left alive. Losses like that haven’t been experienced since 1914-1917.
Russia entered a new era of depravity and illegality yesterday, as Ukrainian drones spotted Russian troops using what appears to be prisoners of war as human shields to advance down a tree line. Clearly visible without combat gear and their hands tied, Russian soldiers pushed and shoved them forward at gunpoint as they approach an assumed Ukrainian trench where they throw grenades. Ukraine didn’t provide a location for the video but there’s no doubt about what’s happening in it.

Russia launched ten ballistic missiles at Kyiv yesterday - with barely 2-4 minutes warning there was no time for evacuations to shelters. Ukrainians woke up to Patriots destroying all ten - but wreckage again caused damage and injured sixty. It’s looking like these may be Iranian made short range ballistic missiles launched from closer to the border. This needs confirming.

There has been a big move in the US with the Senate extending its stay to the 21st rather than the 15th. Senator Murphy is no longer in charge of negotiations with the republicans and it looks like some sort of compromise may be reached to get an aid bill passed in the the senate. The House is another matter but if one side gets it done the pressure is on. As one British commentator said, ‘the Republicans haven’t reached the point where they want the Russians to win’.

Meanwhile the new Polish Prime
Minister Donald Tusk, is demanding Europe gets off its backside and pushes key economic levers to get arms industries working together and not letting Russia think its ‘war track’ economy can beat a common desire of The West to prevail.

Overall while Ukraine has retreated in many areas to better defend its forces, the land lost has been generally minimal. Avdivka lives to fight another day.
The front north of Bakhmut however is an area almost twice that of the areas regained in the south.
There’s growing evidence the Russians have every intention to push Ukraine from the Robotyne salient.
I have to be honest and say you really can’t expect them not to try to do this. It’s a lose-lose for Ukraine. Defending it will be costly, (as taking it back will be for the Russians), but the propaganda value is too much of a lure for them. CONTINUES

This is something that may affect us all:

SATELLITE 🛰️ SECRET WARS

There’s so much space junk up there it’s almost impossible to quantify it. Everything from flakes of paint to lumps of dead boosters and old satellites. If it was just sat there doing nothing it would be one thing, but it’s orbiting the Earth at speeds averaging 17,000kph. Every last piece represents a threat to existing and new satellites.
Some of that rubble has been utterly unnecessary and is the result of anti-satellite weapons tests and from Russia and China.
If any of you are fans of the classic live action Jerry Anderson series U.F.O. they remarkably, predicted this problem and based an entire episode on it - in 1970!  Aliens used the rubble to undermine Earth’s defences by hiding in it. Ed Bishop who played Colonel Ed Straker later ended up as my  neighbour, and is buried in our local churchyard. Life’s odd. His character was my childhood hero.  Cold, selfless and unthanked. Sacrificing even his own family for the greater good. What does that say about me? Age 10 when I first saw that episode! Anyway…
So here we are 53 years later and guess what? Russians and Chinese have both been using the space rubble to conceal their activities. On top of that they’ve been restricting their operations to ‘down hours’ - the times they know the US and its allies have lowest coverage to spot what they’re up to. They also trend heavily to using American but also allied nations public holidays to enact their mysterious and suspicious behaviours, knowing the chances of being detected are far smaller.
Recently a new generation of Russian satellites - still labelled with innocuous numbering by Roscosmos - in this case Cosmos-2570 - has turned out to be a Matryoshka; one of those ‘nested dolls’ where there are several smaller duplicates it then deposits, in almost impossible to spot orbits - often protected by accompanying debris in the local area. It’s high risk but the purpose of the satellites is still not clear.
These are not the first; Cosmos-2565 launched in November last year did a similar thing.
China has also deposited similar satellites in key areas on at least two occasions this year.
So the question is what are they?
Regrettably it’s not good news.
The general consensus is they’re weapons designed to move quickly and take out key comms or reconnaissance satellites, sitting dormant and deliberately difficult to track, obfuscated by the amount of debris they hide behind.
These remain highly classified and deniable - the mere fact of their existence is deeply destabilising. If they were used for instance, to remove the early warning satellites that spot strategic missile launches - and add to that the Russians advanced launch technology that already reduces the ability to see when these missiles fire, it seriously undermines Western early warning of a nuclear strike.
As a whole such systems contribute to an increasingly sophisticated and dangerous strategic posture - not so much by the Chinese who have other interests than nuclear war. For Russia they regard this strategic nuclear option as ever more critical to their survival as a world power.
For Russia, their vast nuclear arsenal is the ultimate card to play, when the rest of their might is revealed largely as a modern military embarrassment from outside.
We should not be surprised. Russians have lived by the sword, died by the sword, and creation of fear is their greatest strength and characteristic, while also their weakness. Their brutality is legendary. Why should holding the world to the threat of destruction not be entirely in keeping if it came to it? And if a few more satellites make us afraid and press us into accepting submission? What of it? Job done.
That’s why the phrase, “the price of freedom is eternal vigilance”, may be cliché, but remains endlessly true.

The Analyst
c/- @Dianna_DiDi

Russian Losses
https://t.me/WarriorsUkrainian/16529

From hospital grounds.
https://t.me/NewsWorld_23/3187

Hamas surrender.
https://t.me/NewsWorld_23/3179

Rest in Peace Adar
https://t.me/NewsWorld_23/3173

The commander of Moskva.
The ship is underwater. The commander should serve on board.

https://t.me/pilotblog/8488

Lines for eggs in Russia.
https://t.me/pilotblog/8485