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
From our friend, the Analyst:
SLOVAKIAN PRIME MINISTER ATTACKED
Robert Fico, the Pro-Russian Slovakian Prime Minister faced an assassination attempt this afternoon and has been placed in an extremely critical condition, he was hit multiple times.
So why does this matter? Why am I bothering with this event?
Fico is as corrupt as it gets. His primary aim on getting elected again after a term out of office, was to stop the multiple investigations into him and his party resulting from their last spell in government. That included the murder of journalists investigating them.
The Slovakian spy agency is riddled with his cronies and their agenda, so much so that neither NATO or the EU forwards any intelligence briefings or classified information to the Slovaks at all. They simply can’t be trusted. The SIS (Slovak Information Service) is effectively run by Pavel Gaspar, whose appalling record you can search out for yourselves. The SIS is now so political it’s wrapped up mostly in using its resources to find kompromat on Fico’s enemies at home and undermine Slovakian democracy.
Now while we should all be saddened by an assassination attempt on a democratically elected leader, this one if he survives - and his successors if he doesn’t, will I guarantee you, jump on the bandwagon of clamping down on opposition politicians and use it to strengthen ‘security’ laws to hold on to power. They’ll unquestionably blame the opposition and extremists and ride this opportunity out as far as they can to bolster their own position.
It’s just about the worst thing that could have happened in Slovakia right now. It plays directly into the governments hands and worsens the situation for any really democratic future in the country. Forget the sympathy messages and the outrage coming from the other leaders - they have to say what they say. What they’re really afraid of is what happens next. And they have every reason to be concerned.
@ukrainejournal
US Secretary of State Anthony Blinken and Ukrainian Foreign Minister Dmytro Kuleba held a briefing. Here are the main theses.
📍 A first-of-its-kind fund for defense enterprises will be created as part of the $2 billion aid.
📍 Money from the new package will also be used to purchase weapons in other countries.
📍 The US "pays special attention to Patriot and other air defense equipment" that Ukraine needs.
📍 Washington does not encourage strikes against Russia with American weapons, but "Ukraine must decide for itself what to do."
📍 Also, Ukraine itself will decide on negotiations with Russia. The US supports Ukrainian decisions, but sees that Putin is not in the mood for serious negotiations.
📍 The US and Ukraine may sign a bilateral security agreement with Ukraine in a few weeks.
https://share.newsbreak.com/6woo2jlk
@ukrainejournal
This was sent to me by a friend in Ukraine. I always ask him to tell me the bad stuff as well as the good stuff which is going on. This story is the sad reality at this moment, at least in some areas.
Dianna
If the Ukrainian Armed Forces do not receive reinforcements, the front will collapse. This was stated by a Ukrainian military man with the call sign “Ronin”
“If there are no reinforcements, the front will fall, because we simply will have no one to fight. Our battalion has weapons, but there is no one to shoot them,” said a mobilized military doctor in an interview with Mirror of the Week.
According to him, “in our brigade now a fifth of the company is fighting.”
“During the last six months, there were no replenishments at all. Before that, all the waves were more or less even. For the most part, they tried to row drug addicts, alcoholics, people from the village and the like. Whom you don’t really feel sorry for and who won’t pay off,” says the military man.
According to him, due to the need to quickly replenish units, basic military training was reduced from three to one month. The military man believes that this is a “conveyor belt without consolidating skills.” He considers the quality of replenishments to be low, which ultimately affects the retention of positions.
“Ronin” considers the lack of professionalism of the command of the Armed Forces of Ukraine to be the main reason for evading mobilization. According to him, “people are afraid of falling under the power of fools who will simply kill them.”
“Because many orders are frankly insane. In pursuit of crosses and arrows on the map, some commanders do not care about their people in principle... Why do you need a new mobilization if you don’t take care of the people who are there?” says the military man.
“If you are sent to some kind of landing and they say that there is no one there, then there is definitely someone there. Therefore, many of those who have been fighting for a long time and still want to survive in this war react to various kinds of threatening orders very simple: they agree, and they themselves sit in dugouts, realizing that the chances of fulfilling the order and staying alive are very slim,” says “Ronin”.
He cited a case where one of the commanders was stripped of his rank for refusing to send the 18 people he had left to an assault.
Due to the fact that commanders do not take care of people, many soldiers go AWOL. According to the military, good soldiers also do this. Among the reasons for refusing to fight is the transfer to attack aircraft of those who are not ready for this.
“Ronin” describes a situation in which an entire detachment left the front without permission and was sent to recapture positions lost by another unit. The military cited fatigue from previous battles and the fact that the brigade that previously held the position did not prepare them for defense.
Moreover, for the most part, no one is punished going AWOL, the military man reports, since then there will be no one to fight at all. Basically, AWOL is a “vacation at your own expense.” After persuasion from commanders, many who left returned to their units without consequences.
“Even after looking at the “terrible laws” that they passed, we realized that it only became easier to refuse to carry out an order. Because twice you can refuse. On the third you comply. Then you can go AWOL. And so on in a circle,” reports "Ronin".
He also believes that “russians are really growing, developing their army, working on mistakes and no longer allowing themselves to do what they did two years ago.” Therefore, “we cannot continue to say that we will win tomorrow.”
“We watched as everyone in the rear said that we were fighting with the “Ivanushka-fools,” and everyone at the front was disgusted to the point of nausea. Because if we are fighting with fools and cannot defeat them, then we ourselves are fools,” - says "Ronin".
Report of the Commander-in-Chief General Oleksandr Syrskyi regarding the situation at the northern frontline:
In connection with the complication of the situation in the east of Ukraine, I have been working for several days in a row in the units that are conducting combat operations in the Kharkiv region.
The enemy expanded the zone of active hostilities by almost 70 kilometers, thus trying to force us to use an additional number of brigades from the reserve.
The main efforts of the enemy were concentrated in the direction of Strelech - Lypka and on the captured Vovchansk, with further access to Bily Kolodyaz and the deployment of the offensive in the rear of our troops.
For this purpose, the enemy created and significantly strengthened the Sevier operational-tactical grouping of enemy troops, which included combat units of the 6th Army, 11th and 44th Army Corps.
The enemy launched an offensive well ahead of schedule when he noticed the overturning of our troops, however, he failed to break through our defenses.
However, we understand that there will be tough battles ahead and the enemy is preparing for it.
Under such circumstances, we must prevent the further advance of the enemy troops by steadily maintaining the occupied lines and positions, inflicting maximum losses on him with air strikes, missile systems, artillery and tank fire, and also create conditions for defeat by the actions of mobile assault groups and units with attacks to the flank and rear from different directions.
Of course, we must make the most of our advantage in attack UAVs in combination with the use of EW and accurate artillery fire.
My work was devoted to these issues, as well as to the regrouping of troops and the simplification of the system of comprehensive support.
I worked in all the brigades conducting combat operations in the Kharkiv region, was in one of the battalions defending Vovchansk, and made all the necessary decisions on the spot to ensure the stability and efficiency of the defense.
I went around and checked all the units that are preparing for defense in the Sumy direction.
I regularly report to the President of Ukraine on the situation and the progress of the specified tasks.
It is felt that the leadership of regional military administrations provides maximum assistance to commanders and commanders of units in solving all problematic issues.
Kharkiv residents and residents of the Kharkiv region are actively involved and help the Defense Forces in whatever way they can.
I thank each and every one of the Defense Forces, Kharkiv residents individually and all our citizens in general for their courage and resilience.
Let's defeat the enemy!
We believe and bring Victory closer together!
Glory to Ukraine!
@ukrainejournal
👀 The Starlink terminals of Ukrainian Armed Forces fighters failed on the day of the Russian troops’ offensive in the Kharkov region.
The publication writes that due to Russian interference, the terminals were completely out of order for the first time. On the morning of May 10, communication with the drones “simply disappeared,” all video channels were lost, the unit commander said: “at a certain moment we were left completely blind.”
The military did not see how the Russian Armed Forces were moving and worked only with radios or telephones.
- The Washington Post
🇺🇸 The United States maintains its position that Ukraine should use American weapons within its territory
This was stated by Pentagon spokesperson Sabrina Singh when asked whether Washington had changed its mind in the wake of the Russian offensive in Kharkiv region.
▪️ The other day, US Secretary of State Anthony Blinken said that the United States does not encourage strikes against Russia with American weapons, but "Ukraine should decide for itself what to do."
👀Drunk Man vs. Z Scumbag 💥😏
A drunk man leveled a National Guard soldier at the Atan gas station in Sevastopol.👏
Russia reported a 500% increase in trade with the Taliban
Russia has sharply increased trade with Taliban-controlled Afghanistan. If in 2022 the trade turnover between the countries “was about $170 million, now it has already crossed the $1 billion mark,” Rustam Khabibullin, head of the Russian Business Center in Afghanistan, told RIA Novosti. “The main areas of export-import are gas, oil products, flour, wheat, sunflower oil, and recently dairy products,” he clarified, adding that Russia purchases metal products and construction materials from Afghanistan.
He linked such growth rates in trade with the rise to power of the Taliban and the US decision to end the almost 20-year military presence in the Islamic state in 2021. Khabibullin accused the Americans and their NATO allies of “impeding in every possible way the active development of economic and political relations” between Russia and Afghanistan. He added that Russia intends to further correct this situation, including by creating jobs and investing in local projects of the Taliban-led state. “These are the same plants, factories, agriculture,” Khabibullin clarified. According to him, the construction of the Kush-Tape water canal is of high interest, and several Russian companies are already issuing long-term leases for land plots for agricultural purposes next to it.
Last summer, the Taliban invited Russia to take part in the construction of the Termez-Mazar-i-Sharif-Kabul-Peshawar railway, which was conceived as part of a transport corridor from India to the EU countries and was frozen due to lack of funding after the change of power in Afghanistan.
The Prosecutor's Office of St. Petersburg demanded that bookstores and publishing houses report on the printing and sale of books by "foreign agents".
n St. Petersburg, the prosecutor's office demanded that bookstores and publishing houses report on the printing and sale of books by "foreign agents". A photo of the document was published on his Facebook by journalist Giorgi Urushadze.
In March, State Duma deputies introduced a project designed to restrict access to books by "foreign agents" in libraries. The explanatory note to the project reported that now "documents created by foreign agents, extremists and terrorists" are freely placed and provided for temporary use in public libraries. Amendments to the law should limit the access of library visitors to such literature.
But already a month before, books by writers Lyudmila Ulitskaya and Boris Akunin stopped appearing in the search on the electronic system "Libraries of Moscow". And an employee of one of the Moscow libraries confirmed that they have received instructions since January 31 to send Ulitskaya's books to write-off, and those that have not yet been registered to waste paper.
Source
The next steps are obvious. A register of people who read "forbidden books" and prosecution of people who have read or possess any book declared taboo.
@freerussia_report
Criminal cases have been opened in Belarus against 104 Belarusians for participating in Freedom Day rallies abroad.
The country's Investigative Committee reported this, calling the citizens of Belarus “incredible puppets abroad.”
The department said that 104 names have been added to the list of suspects in the case of “Belarusians Abroad”.
According to the Investigative Committee, searches, inspections and other “procedural measures” are now being carried out against participants in the protests in Batumi, Prague, Vilnius and other cities.
Freedom Day (Independence Day) is celebrated on March 25, the anniversary of the declaration of independence of the first national state - the Belarusian People's Republic, its flag is white-red-white. It is banned and people are persecuted for it in BelaruZ.
Belarusians celebrated 2024 Freedom Day again in Vilnius and other cities in the hope they will one day mark the day in their home country.
“I really want to be able to express myself, to express my thoughts without the fear of imprisonment [...]. We won’t be able to break the system just with flowers and white slippers. We shouldn’t probably do it by force, we shouldn’t kill, but we need to show that the nation is a united force,” Alexander Selekh said.
Belarusian opposition leader Sviatlana Tsikhanouskaya and other representatives of the opposition residing in Vilnius also addressed the gathering.
@freerussia_report
Would be assassin linked to pro-Russian group
The US Department of the Treasury's Office of Foreign Assets Control (OFAC) has imposed sanctions on two Russian individuals and three Russian organizations for facilitating arms transfers between Russia and North Korea, — US Department of the Treasury.
In this way, the Ministry is trying to prevent North Korea from supplying Russia with weapons, including ballistic missiles, which the Kremlin uses against Ukraine.
They explained that acting through networks located in Russia, the violators are trying to avoid sanctions by using shell companies to move military equipment to support Russia's illegal aggression against Ukraine.
In particular, it concerns Rafael Gazaryan, who cooperates with the sanctioned Ashot Mkrtychev and related companies. After the imposition of sanctions, Mkrtychev and his associates continued to facilitate the shipment of military equipment from North Korea to Russia. Gazaryan was the contact person and intermediary in the negotiations between the Russian government and the North Korea.
The companies involved in the arms transfer activities were “Verus”, “Rafort” and “Trans Kapital”.
Another person on the updated sanctions list is Aleksey Budnev. According to the Ministry of Justice, he facilitated the supply of North Korean military communications equipment to Russia to support the Russian military. Budnev is the sole owner of the Russian LLC “ Technologiya”.
As the Ministry of Justice emphasized, all property and interests of these persons located in the United States or owned or controlled by US persons are now blocked.
In addition, any entity that is directly or indirectly more than 50% owned by a sanctioned person is blocked. OFAC's regulations generally prohibit all transactions with or through the United States that involve sanctioned persons.
British historian Timothy Garton Ash donated 1.4 million Ukrainian hryvnias to the Armed Forces from his own award.
Together with the “Come Back Alive” foundation, he provided the Ukrainian military of the 22nd Mechanized Brigade with drones and night optics, giving his Lionel Gelber Prize for the book “Homelands: A Personal History of Europe.”
“I can't imagine a better use of the award I received for my book on modern European history than to donate it to equip the Ukrainian Armed Forces to win. After all, nothing less than the future of Europe is at stake in this war,” says the professor.
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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