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
Good morning Resisters everywhere. Terrible storm here last night. Arrived about midnight. Was gone when I got up, but is now back. Thunder, lightning, wind and rain. And the skies actually getting darker instead of lighter
Deliberately got lead poisoning trying to sell his product. And then he had another bright idea.
https://www.cnn.com/2024/05/24/world/thomas-midgley-jr-leaded-gas-freon-scn/index.html
Good evening Resisters. I am going in now. I did a lot of brush work today. I burned my brush pile because no wind and no rain. Then built one just as big and all green tree limbs.
Who Feeds our Fighters?
A Report from the Legion's Kitchen
Balanced nutrition, an effective combination of proteins, fats, carbohydrates, and flavour make the kitchen of the "Freedom of Russia" Legion a true place of strength for each unit fighter.
"Food should be not only healthy but also tasty, and for that, it needs to be cooked with soul," explains LSR's head chef, a fighter with the call sign "Phantom." Due to a severe concussion sustained in battles in the Donetsk region, he traded his infantry camouflage for a chef's apron.
"Just because our country is led by a mad old man doesn't mean we can't be on our own land. I want all our volunteer units to unite into one fist and knock this Putin vermin off the throne," says Phantom, sharpening his knives.
@ukrainejournal
💔 Kharkiv, relatives say goodbye to Anzhelika Taran, who was killed by a Russian missile on May 19.
The girl and her friends were at a recreation center in the village of Cherkaska Lozova when the enemy struck. When rescuers and medics arrived, the occupiers struck a second time.
7 people died, including 25-year-old Angelica. She was 7 months pregnant.
"We met her family at the cemetery the day after the burial. They wanted to talk to us, they gave permission to shoot and publish these photos: they want their grief to be known. They want the world to see that every figure in this war is a real person, not a statistic," wrote photographers Kostyantyn and Vlada Liberov, who published the photos.
Workers of the printing house "Faktor-Druk" who were killed by a Russian missile on May 23 in Kharkiv.
💔 Tatyana Khrapina, typist-sealer
💔 Roman Strict , gluing machine operator
💔 Svitlana Ryzhenko, brochure maker
💔 Olga Kurasova, operator of sewing machines and machines
💔 Olena Ninadovska, operator of sewing machines and machines
💔 Hanna Minayeva, operator of a picking machine
💔 Dmytro Shilo, brochure maker
Another 22 people were injured. The rocket hit the center of a large workshop, over 4,000 square meters were destroyed, equipment was damaged, and more than 45,000 copies of books were destroyed. Currently, the work of the enterprise has been stopped.
Vadim Shamarin, deputy chief of the General Staff of the Armed Forces of the Russian Federation, was detained, "Kommersant" report
Deputy of Valery Gerasimov was searched in a criminal case about alleged fraud.
🪐 Subscribe to Live: Ukraine
⚡️NBC: Intelligence officials say Russia, North Korea planning to disrupt US elections.
U.S. President Joe Biden's administration is increasingly concerned that Russia and North Korea could be planning an "October surprise" to create turmoil and increase global tensions in the run-up to the U.S. presidential election in November, NBC News reported on May 24, citing senior U.S. officials.
"We have no doubt that North Korea will be provocative this year. It’s just a matter of how escalatory it is," a U.S. intelligence official told the news outlet.
Ukrainians are well trained. Russians are horse feces.
PURGE RIPS THROUGH RUSSIAN LEADERSHIP
We have already seen Putin use the constitutional process of a new administration to his advantage as he begins his fifth term. It’s one of the few things that are similar in appearance to the US - all cabinet members must submit their resignations.
Putin used this to move Shoigu into the waiting room for old timers to prepare to slip away, by making him head of the Security Council, where he is boss of former president and drunken war monger Dmitry Medvedev. The former head of the SC and FSB, Petrushev, was sent off to manage Russian ship building, of which he knows nothing and cares less.
The Defence Ministry however is undergoing a shake up like it hasn’t seen since the days of Stalin. Every one of the deputy defence ministers - the equivalent of the Secretary’s of the Navy, Air Force, Army and Strategic Rocket Forces, all of their assistant secretary equivalent’s, have been picked off one at a time time.
These aren’t civilians, they are serving military officers who do administrative jobs.
These are the people who sign the contracts and make the decisions about who gets what and how much the state pays.
In the past these jobs were considered highly lucrative, a reward for good service (by which we mean unquestioned boot licking and loyalty), and if you managed to profit from them that was fine. That’s how the state worked and as long as you didn’t make it too obvious what you were doing it was perfectly acceptable to skim a percentage off the top.
Those who did so are now finding that loyalty, as it always is in a dictatorship, is a one way street; you give yours but you can’t expect a paranoid leader growing afraid of his own position to return the favour.
These generals aren’t just being dismissed. They’re being arrested for corruption and humiliated. The purpose of that is to send a clear message down the line that the way things have been done in the past will no longer be tolerated.
The scale of corruption has become so onerous in the military that estimates suggest as much as 30% of the defence budgets have been used to engorge personal fortunes. The state can no longer afford the luxury of such a system. The Special Military Operation is nearly two and a half years in, Ukraine was almost out of weapons and still, still even then it carried on and is still in the game. How is that even possible, given what Russia has spent?
The only way to make things change is to change the way things operate.
To make the ministry an honest and professional institution that does what it’s supposed to do, not finance the flashy lifestyles of wealthy generals.
Yet there is more to this.
Officers who had honest reputations but were sidelined from field commands by being too outspoken about the failures in the field caused by crap equipment and supplies, have also been charged.
Rather than letting them get in and make things right, only in such a rotten system are they too being punished and forced out. It’s not really corruption in their case, it’s about having had the gall to complain. They were disloyal. Shoigu protected them to a point, but he’s gone. To Putin they’re a threat and raising them up, even having them around is a potential source of a military coup.
Better they too, are gone.
And the purge continues down the line.
This could have been an opportunity to raise up quality commanders and reward competence. But this is Russia, competence and loyalty are rarely found together.
Competence means you know what’s wrong and how to correct it. Loyalty means you know what’s wrong but say nothing and learn quickly you say only what’s required to be heard.
Loyalty in Russia is far more valuable than competence ever has been or ever will be. Keeping Putin in power, unchallenged is all that matters. As he ages and his absolute power corrupts him absolutely, it’s only going to get worse.
@EveryUkraineWarVideo Subscribe
France flies nuclear-capable missile as Russia holds drills
France has carried out its first test firing of an updated nuclear-capable missile, the ASMPA-R, designed to be launched by a Rafale fighter jet, according to the French defence minister, Sebastien Lecornu. It came a day after Russia said it began nuclear drills in its southern military district, which stretches from Russia into occupied Ukrainian territory. The announcement of Russian drills is partly directed at France after its president, Emmanuel Macron, said he would not rule out sending in troops on Ukraine’s side.
Sebastien Lecornu said, the missile was fired without a warhead by a plane in an exercise “above national territory … at the end of a flight representing a nuclear air raid”. He congratulated “all the forces, [defence] ministry teams and industrial partners involved” in a “long-planned” operation.
Read more
@Ukraine_Report
🇺🇦🤝🇮🇩 Blue
India's Russian oil imports rose a nine-month high in April after shipments on non-sanctioned tankers operated by Russia's largest shipping company Sovcomflot resumed, tanker data obtained from shipping and trade sources showed.
Refiners in India briefly stopped importing Russian oil in tankers belonging to Sovcomflot after the company's ships, along with its 14 tankers, were designated by Washington in February as being in breach of Western sanctions.
The West has imposed the sanctions against Russia since it invaded Ukraine in 2022 and has enacted price caps on oil and oil products loaded at Russian ports aimed at cutting Moscow's oil revenue that funds the war.
India, the world's third-biggest oil importer and consumer, is the top client for Russian seaborne oil.
🇺🇦@ukraine_report 🇺🇦🔱 Liz
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
TheOldGuy's choices:
