TheOldGuy @TheOldGuy@qoto.org
I am a Democrat who supports Ukraine in their battle against The Russian 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 2993. The county is 13k people scattered over 713 square miles.
Joined Dec 2022
Her career in politics is over whether she knows it yet or not. Vicious beast.
https://www.palmerreport.com/analysis/the-end-of-kristi-noem/55810/
A 36 point lead is quite a blowout.
https://www.palmerreport.com/analysis/democrats-win-special-election-in-blowout/55811/
Here is another idiot with a big mouth
https://www.palmerreport.com/analysis/marjorie-taylor-greene-just-cant-help-herself/55807/
All he has to do is say something stupid. He is good at that.
The not really human is through in politics.
https://www.palmerreport.com/analysis/the-end-of-kristi-noem/55810/
Still hitting those refineries hard. Puts Russia in a spot. Loss of income plus difficulty getting replacements because of sanctions.
Pentagon chief Lloyd Austin has stated that he is urging countries that have Patriot anti-aircraft missile systems to transfer them to Ukraine amid a shortage of air defense stocks.
“There are countries that have Patriot, and we are continuing to negotiate with them. I've personally spoken to several leaders in the last two weeks, encouraging them to give up more equipment or provide more equipment,” he said.
It is known that in Europe, in particular, Spain, Greece, Germany, the Netherlands, Poland, and Sweden have Patriot batteries.
“I hope that cluster bombs are provided to Ukraine as quickly as possible. We have excesses that need to be destroyed. I know a way to destroy them, and that is to send them to the people of Ukraine," Congressman Joe Wilson at a hearing in the US House of Representatives.
On his part, Defense Secretary Lloyd Austin, answering a question about further deliveries of long-range ATACMS missiles, said that "the United States will provide Ukraine with as much of the capabilities as we can."
Alexander Lukashenko said that Belarusian athletes should decide for themselves whether to participate in the Olympics under a neutral status. However, he advised those who choose to participate to "punch their opponents in the face."
"It is the responsibility of the athletes. If they choose to participate in the Olympics, they should do so with even more determination. You see, mood and determination are crucial in sports. But if you're selected and compete under a neutral status, show them what it means to be a true Belarusian. We'll still recognize your Belarusian identity, and if you emerge victorious, it will give us a good reason to metaphorically 'punch them in the face' politically," Lukashenko said during a meeting with the residents of Kastsyukovichy.
The SBU Successfully Apprehended a Traitor Spying for the Enemy
The counter-intelligence of the Security Service foiled a new attempt by the Russian Federation to obtain up-to-date information about the Defense Forces in Donetsk region.
As a result of a special operation, an agent of the Russian military intelligence was detained in Slovyansk, who was collecting intelligence on the redeployment of units of the Armed Forces of Ukraine in the direction of the front line.
First of all, she tried to identify pontoon-bridge complexes and locations where they are used to transport heavy weapons across local rivers.
The occupiers needed such information to plan combat ground operations and prepare airstrikes on the concentration points of personnel and military equipment of the Armed Forces.
The Security Service learned about such plans of the aggressor at the initial stage of the intelligence activity of the Russian agent. This made it possible to secure the positions of Ukrainian troops in a timely manner.
Also, in the course of documenting the figure, it became known about her curator from the military intelligence of the Russian Federation.
At the final stage of the special operation, the enemy agent was detained in her own apartment.
Mobile phones were seized from the detainee, on which she regularly changed accounts for conspiratorial communication with the occupiers.
According to the investigation, the traitor turned out to be a 25-year-old local resident, an ideological supporter of racism.
She was recruited when Yampil village was under Russian occupation
For a long time, she was in a "sleeping" mode, but in the spring of this year, the agent was "activated" for reconnaissance and subversive activities in the frontline region.
In order to carry out enemy tasks, she went around the area, and also tried to "darkly" ask her acquaintances for the information she needed.
She faces life in prison.
Ukraine Requires 1,000 more APCs for its War Effort. It’ll take Canada Roughly a Year to Send 50.
More than anything, Ukraine needs artillery, air defenses and fresh infantry for its battered combat brigades.
In fourth place: armored personnel carriers. These nimble, easy-to-maintain vehicles can speed troops between fighting positions while protecting them from gunfire and artillery fragments.
The desperate need for APCs—as well as infantry fighting vehicles, which are more heavily armed—helps to explain the frustration over Canada’s glacially slow transfer of Bison APCs to Ukraine.
Any APCs are better than no APCs. But a few hundred APCs would be much better than the 89 Bisons—also known as “Armored Combat Support Vehicles,” or ASCVs—that Ukraine has been getting from Canada for more than two years.
The government in Ottawa announced the donation of 89 Bisons starting in June 2022. First, the Canadians offered 39 used Bisons from Canadian army surplus stocks. Then, in September 2023, they pledged an additional newly-built Bisons fresh off General Dynamics’ assembly line. Together, the 89 vehicles—plus spare parts and crew training—are worth around $900 million.
The 39 used Bisons arrived quickly and likely equipped no more than one battalion in one brigade in a military with a hundred brigades overseeing several hundred battalions. The Ukrainians lost one of the 14-ton, 10-person Bisons in action in southern Ukraine last year.
The 50 new Bisons—enough for another battalion—are taking a very long time to reach the front line. “The first 10 of 50 Armored Combat Support Vehicles that Canada will donate to Ukraine will be delivered to Europe this summer,” Canadian Defense Minister Bill Blair announced Friday. “Ukrainians will be trained on the vehicles in the summer, and the vehicles will move to Ukraine in the fall.”
From pledge to delivery, it will have taken Canada a year to supply 50 APCs.
In that same span of time, the Ukrainians will have lost—at the average rate—around 500 APCs and IFVs, according to data from the analysts at Oryx.
Canada isn’t the only country supplying Ukraine with armored vehicles, of course. The United States, Germany and Poland in particular have donated hundreds of APCs and IFVs.
Since Russia widened its war on Ukraine 26 months ago, Ukraine’s allies have delivered around 2,000 personnel carriers and fighting vehicles.
Subtracting the 1,000 or so APCs and IFVs the Ukrainians have lost, it might seem that Kyiv’s forces have a thousand more personnel carriers and fighting vehicles than they need.
The problem is that, since 2022, Ukraine’s armed forces have roughly doubled in size.
The 2,000 Soviet-made APCs and IFVs the Ukrainians had before the wider war may have been enough for 50 brigades, but they weren’t nearly enough for 100 brigades. Add 2,000 donated vehicles and subtract a thousand lost vehicles and you get a 1,000-vehicle shortfall.
Ukrainian commanders knew this would be a problem. “We need everything, but [IFVs/APCs] are probably the most urgent need we have,” an unnamed officer in a Ukrainian mechanized brigade told Foreign Policy early last year.
It’s not unreasonable for Canadian industry to take a year to produce and ship 50 brand-new APCs.
What might seem unreasonable, to friends of a free Ukraine, is that the Canadian government didn’t have to wait for workers to finish those 50 new Bisons. Ottawa had—and still has—options for sending APCs to Ukraine immediately.
The Canadian army is replacing its older armored vehicles with newer models. The modernization drive has freed up more than 400 older vehicles, including variants of the M-113 APC along with Bisons and similar Coyotes.
There was an uproar last fall when the Canadian government announced plans to scrap all 400 vehicles instead of donating them to Ukraine.
The Canadian defense ministry stressed that many of the vehicles are “in very poor condition” after decades of hard use.
At least one Ukrainian official said she didn’t mind. “Ukrainians are ready to take even junk, tear it apart and make one out of three machines,” Oleksandra Ustinova, the head of a parliamentary commission on munitions, told CBC News.
Moreover, Ontario company Armatec Survivability submitted an unsolicited bid to refurbish and update the aged vehicles, reportedly at a rate of eight per month.
*Neither Ustinova’s plea nor Armatec’s proposal compelled the government in Ottawa to offer the old vehicles to Ukraine, however.*
Instead, the Ukrainians are waiting a year for 50 new Bisons in order to meet approximately five percent of their demand for APCs.
- David Axe, Forbes
Chasiv Yar Continues to Hold Out
A dispatch by Sarah Ashton-Cirillo. She is an American-born journalist and medic with the Ukrainian territorial forces, just spent a few days in the front-line city of Chasiv Yar. Main points of Sarah’s report highlighted by David Axe.
Ukrainian Defenses [remain] Intact
Nearly a month after the Russian army launched its first direct assaults on Chasiv Yar, an industrial city with a pre-war population of 12,000 that straddles a north-south canal a few miles west of Bakhmut, the city holds.
*Not only does the city hold—its most vulnerable district, on the eastern side of the canal, also holds. *
What’s most remarkable is that the unit that once garrisoned the canal district, the 67th Mechanized Brigade, was disbanded earlier this month after investigators from the defense ministry in Kyiv uncovered deep incompetence in its command staff, which has ties to a far-right political group.
Ukraine’s eastern command clearly was able to rush forces into the canal district to replace the 67th Brigade—and in time to prevent a Russian advance into the district. Ashton-Cirillo visited elements of the 56th and 41st Mechanized Brigades and 5th Assault Brigade.
Ukrainian Warplanes are Active over Chasiv Yar
“Jets flew over our position from both directions as the small but brave Ukrainian air force made its presence known,” she wrote.
This is news. We knew Russian air force planes—in particular, Sukhoi Su-25 attack jets—had been ranging over Chasiv Yar, their pilots practically taunting the Ukrainian brigades on the ground.
Fearing Ukrainian air-defenses, Russian pilots normally would keep miles away from any fortified city. But Ukraine ran low on air-defenses earlier this month—and for obvious reasons.
Ukraine gets many of its best air-defense munitions from the United States, but U.S. supplies all but ran out in late December as pro-Russia Republicans in the U.S. Congress successfully blocked legislation approving additional aid.
It’s possible the Ukrainian pilots Ashton-Cirillo observed were risking Russian air-defenses in order to stiffen the Ukrainian defenses over Chasiv Yar. It also is possible the pilots were flying attack missions in support of the city’s garrison.
Aid legislation finally passed the U.S. Congress last Tuesday. Stinger air-defense missiles and other equipment are on their way. Help is coming for those Ukrainian pilots flying over Chasiv Yar.
Ukrainian Troops are Convoying with Radio-Jammers
“A Humvee and a truck with a personal [electronic-warfare] defense system protruding from its roof comprised our caravan provided by a recon squad from the 41st Brigade into Chasiv Yar,” Ashton-Cirillo wrote.
Best guess is the jammer was a $50,000 Bukovel. A very effective system that has helped to suppress Russia’s drones all along the 600-mile front line.
The Ukrainian girl Sasha Pascal impressed with her dance at the charity Vienna Ball in Kyiv ❤️🩹
Sasha lost her leg due to a missile strike by Russia in the Odesa region in May 2022. After rehabilitation, the girl has resumed dancing.
The resilience of this little girl symbolizes the unbroken spirit of Ukrainians.
I am a Democrat who supports Ukraine in their battle against The Russian 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 2993. The county is 13k people scattered over 713 square miles.
Joined Dec 2022
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