Posted on 03/24/2023 5:41:43 PM PDT by UMCRevMom@aol.com
Update from Ukraine | It is time to run away for Wagner army | Ruzzia goes to full defense
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TjKpPXON4uk
****NEW SUMMARY Military MAPS & COMMENTS here:
Invasion Day 394 – Summary March 25, 2023 Jerome News
The summary of the situation of Russian re-invasion to Ukraine covering the last 48 hours, as of 25th March 2023 – 22:00 (Kyiv time).
https://militaryland.net/news/invasion-day-394-summary/
*****
Khartia unit joins Offensive Guard March 23, 2023 Jerome
“Ukrainian National Guard is being expanded by a new military brigade.” https://militaryland.net/news/khartia-unit-joins-offensive-guard/
Russia Advances Bakhmut, Avdeyevka, Kremennaya
“I’ll mark you down as a Biden/DS/NWO/WEF groupie”
Once again your conjecture would be wrong.
A valuable suggestion would be to try avoiding assumptions that create misunderstandings.
Your labeling statement can make a person that indulges in “labeling” feel more superior. But actually, use of labeling is only an attempt to score discussion points and certainly not truthful so NOT a good habit to form.
Oliver Stone drank deeply from the hippie well in the 60’s and has hated America ever since.
VIDEOS
1. Zelenskiy visits military hospital during visit to Bakhmut, meets the wounded
Kanal13
1.5M subscribers
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SuXuk-oEhHo
2. Zelensky took part in an event of the occasion of the 9th anniversary of the National Guard and awarded the military
Ukrinform TV
603K subscribers
3-24-2023 8:30 a.m. DST
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XRDWMbqViEk
* Select Closed Caption;
Then click on GEAR; Select Subtitles-
Scroll to find English [auto generated]
propagandizing for??
No.
I FIRMLY stand against the invasion of the sovereign nation of Ukraine by the mad-man Putin. You have freedom of thought and expression to form personal opinions. Just remember, many Germans supported Hitler as well.
Putin unflinchingly will murder political adversaries as well as former friends. i.e. According to the Kremlin allied publication Moskovskij Komsomolets, Zhanna Shamalova is being hunted down for slander under Russia’s criminal code, although they never specify what slanderous comments landed her in such hot water. The ex-wife of Vladimir Putin’s ex son-in-law is the latest entry on the Russian president’s Most Wanted list. Mad Vlad put a warrant out for her arrest after the model made alleged “slanderous offenses.”
Putin sees himself both in the the footsteps of a czar & Stalin. Putin unabashedly sends the Russian military into a meat-grinder battlefield to continue to develop his legacy.
Russia’s Elite Knows ‘Something Is Wrong’ With Putin, Ex-Diplomat Says
Story by David Brennan • Yesterday 9:20 AM
https://www.msn.com/en-us/news/world/russias-elite-knows-something-is-wrong-with-putin-ex-diplomat-says/ar-AA191Vfe
A former Russian diplomat who resigned in protest of Moscow’s war in Ukraine has said that the elite around President Vladimir Putin are broadly unsettled by his latest disastrous military gambit, but lack the resolve to move against “the boss.”
“They really don’t see any alternative to Putin,” Boris Bondarev—who quit his post representing Russia at the United Nations in Geneva in May 2022 after declaring he had “never been so ashamed of my country”—told Newsweek in an interview.
Despite rumblings of discontent among Moscow’s political and business giants, Putin is still believed to have a firm grip on power. The 70-year-old has used the full-scale invasion of Ukraine to further neuter Russian civil society and silence any organized opposition, as his allies publicly tout a supposed coalescence of the Russian nation behind the Kremlin’s so-called “special military operation.”
“I believe those people are very much frustrated by what is going on, but I don’t think they have any resolve to counter these policies,” Bondarev said of Russia’s most powerful politicos and businesspeople. “The most influential and informed people, I think they realize that something is wrong,” he added.
Putin’s Children
Members of Russia’s so-called “party of peace” camp now rarely risk voicing their discontent in public. “All they can do is to mitigate the consequences,” Bondarev said. “They are serving Putin, they still help him to get away with everything. They keep saying, ‘What can we do? We cannot do anything. We cannot risk it, because our lives may be at risk or our children.’”
“They may be very discontented, dissatisfied, and worried about the future, but at the same time, I don’t think can imagine their own futures without Putin. Without Putin, I think they would be totally lost. They feel that without Putin, without his protection, without his authority, they will be left to their own devices,” he said.
“Putin grew them, raised them in this atmosphere where he decides for everybody. You don’t have to decide for yourself. Putin will do it better than you can. They’re like grown-up children, in a sense. People who are not used to making their own decisions, not only the elite but I think it can more or less be applied to the entire population, to some extent.
“People have been taught that you shouldn’t make too many decisions. You can decide what to do with your daily life, to some extent, but all the key decisions are Putin’s privilege. Everyone was quite happy about this for many years. I don’t think it’s easy for people to abandon this.”
The Russian troops spearheading last February’s invasion reportedly carried with them dress uniforms for their expected victory parade through Kyiv. One year later—and with a significant portion of that vanguard dead—the Kremlin’s war goals appear unachievable. Russian troops still hold swathes of territory in the south and east of the country but have proved ineffective and vulnerable in the attack.
Meanwhile, Kyiv is preparing its own spring offensive which will be supported by NATO heavy armor. Russian troops will not be able to hold occupied Ukraine without more bloody fighting.
“The war is evidently not going as they expected,” Bondarev said of Russia’s most influential people. Both the pro- and anti-war camps, he said, are unsettled. “Some are annoyed and irritated by Putin’s weakness, or his unwillingness to escalate and bomb NATO bases or something like that, some of the hawks in Putin’s entourage.”
“Others are more like ‘pigeons,’ and they want this war to stop as soon as possible, to return to business as usual, to lift all sanctions, and so on,” he said. “I think they may soothe themselves with these illusions that there can be business as usual. I don’t think that a lot of people around Putin think that what is going on now is exactly what was planned. Maybe some very stupid people.”
“Maybe they realize that Putin is the key to all their problems, but I still don’t think they are ready to move against him,” he added.
ARTICLE
India complains that Russia isn’t delivering weapons it owes because it’s throwing everything at Ukraine
Tom Porter
Mar 24, 2023, 8:22 AM
Business Insider
-Russia hasn’t fulfilled a weapons delivery contract, India says.
-India says the Ukraine war meant Russia was unable to export the weapons it ordered.
-Russia has long been a major arms exporter, but is now struggling to supply its own army in Ukraine.
ADDENDUM COMMENT #51
Russia failed to supply weapons it had been contracted to deliver because of being embroiled in the war in Ukraine, according to the Indian military, one of the Kremlin’s main customers.
The Indian Air Force disclosed this week to its parliament that a “major delivery” contracted from Russia would not be showing up.
The delay was blamed on Russia’s invasion of Ukraine, which has cost vast numbers of lives and destroyed tanks, helicopters, planes and other equipment in large numbers.
It did not say what was missing, though Reuters reported that Russia had been due to deliver two S-400 Triumf air-defense systems.
The S-400s would have completed an order for five systems, which India bought for a total $5.4 billion in 2018.
According to the report, India also relies on Moscow for parts for its fleet of Su-30MKI and MiG-29 fighter jets: both Russian models.
Russia has long been India’s largest arms supplier, with a March report from Stockholm International Peace Research Institute saying that Russia supplies around 45% of its weapons and military equipment.
That study noted that invading Ukraine harmed Russia’s ability to export its weapons, as so many were diverted to the front in Ukraine.
A US official in February said that Russian forces were suffering acute ammunition shortages, and its number of tanks was running low. Reports have abounded of Russian soldiers on the front complaining of inadequate weaponry.
As Insider reported in March, Russia is still touting its wares at international arms shows despite leaving its troops in Ukraine to get by with Soviet-era equipment.
The report came as Russia attempted to gear up its weapons production in the hope of gaining ground in Ukraine.
**At a visit to an arms-manufacturing plant in Tula last December, Russian President Vladimir Putin said that Russia must increase the rate of its weapon production and improve their quality, the US-funded site Voice of America reported.
Dmitry Medvedev, the former Russian president, ramped up the pressure at a recent meeting on arms supply, reading out a WW II-era MESSAGE from Soviet dictator Josef Stalin threatening to “CRUSH” factory chiefs who didn’t boost production.
A spokesperson at the Russian embassy in New Delhi told Reuters that “we don’t have information which may confirm” what was in the Indian report.
ARTICLE
Russia is showing off advanced military tech around the world while its troops in Ukraine struggle with obsolete Soviet-era weapons
Sinéad Baker
Mar 3, 2023, 11:18 AM
https://www.businessinsider.com/russia-parades-advanced-military-tech-soldiers-die-ukraine-soviet-weapons-2023-3?inline-endstory-related-recommendations=
-Russia has been showing off advanced military technology around the world, according to the UK MOD.
-But its soldiers are struggling in Ukraine with Soviet-era equipment and limited supplies.
-Russia showed off a tank protection system it likely hasn’t deployed yet in Ukraine, the MOD said.
Russian defense companies are showcasing advanced military equipment at fairs around the world, according to the UK’s Ministry of Defence. This comes at the same time as Russia’s own soldiers are dying in droves in Ukraine using old Soviet-era equipment.
“Despite the war in Ukraine, Russian defence companies continue to showcase their products at major international arms fairs,” the MOD said in an intelligence update on Friday.
The MOD said Russia recently displayed an Arena-E active protection system (APS), which is designed to protect armoured vehicles, at one event.
The promotional material for the system says that it “defeats the threats that are most dangerous for armoured vehicles … if you value your armour and crews you need Arena-E.”
But, the MOD said, “there has been no evidence of Arena-E systems being installed on Russia’s own vehicles in Ukraine, where it has lost over 5,000 armoured vehicles. This is likely due to Russian industry’s inability to manufacture high-tech systems at scale; a problem which is exacerbated by the effect of international sanctions.”
Russian state news agency TASS reported last month that the company behind the Arena-E system would display it at the IDEX-2023 international weapons show in the United Arab Emirates in late February. TASS also said that other Russian defense companies were due to show off “more than 200 full-scale samples of weapons and military equipment, ammunition and gear” at the event.
The global presentations come as Russia struggles to replace tanks and other equipment being lost in Ukraine.
Russia has lost around 1,800 tanks since February 2022, according to open source intelligence platform Oryx, with the country losing about 150 tanks a month in Ukraine. Its only tank factory is able to produce just 20 vehicles a month.
As a result, the country’s military has had to take Soviet-era tanks out of storage to fight, and has been using less-accurate Soviet-era missiles.
US Deputy Treasury Secretary Wally Adeyemo said last month that Russia has lost up to half of its tanks in Ukraine since the start of the war and is running low on ammunition.
On the other hand, Hitler was not Ukraine's leader but the Nazis were greeted with gusto by the Ukrainians. Now in all fairness the main reason for that was because they'd been starved and murdered by the Bolsheviks so the Nazis looked like a way out of that nightmare. But then, like so many other Eastern Europeans wo'd been occupied by the Nazis, they stridently and enthusiastically got in on the act of rounding up and murdering Jews. The Ukrainians and the Lithuanians were among the most brutal and dedicated of them all. Take a look at the history of Ukrainian and Lithuanian concentration camp guards. Brutal.
Now for a personal insight, one based on direct, long-term experiences: I have worked with many Eastern Europeans. I have worked closely with Russians, Ukrainians, Slovenians, Serbians and Estonians. I generally did not care for them because it seemed to me that 1) Everything was considered a financial transaction to them; everything was for sale - it was only a matter of price. 2) There seemed to be something missing from their souls/consciences. Perhaps 80 years of communism hollowed their collective consciousness.
Propaganda: spreading "news" which is not true; which is not based on any objective reality. That is what propaganda is.
The objective reality is that Ukraine's getting ground into dust and my guess is that Russia will outlast the West's attempts to prop up the gay-dancing grifter it installed. At the end of the whole show, huge swaths of Ukraine will be piles of smoking rubble, its people betrayed by the little clown and by the scumbags in the West who lead them to hell while protecting their own interests, money and agendas.
“if we drilled, fracked and pumped like there’s no tomorrow we could bankrupt Putins Russia easily”
The problem with this is we are not yet a dictatorship, so getting all the INDEPENDENT oil and gas companies to do something just because govt says so, is a non starter. Companies are currently not exercising large numbers of lease options because the cost of oil is still low enough that higher cost wells such as in the Dakotas are still not very profitable to be drilling or operating. When gasoline prices were really low we were producing oil like mad and every place we could store it was filled up. It got so bad that for a short time companies were giving the oil away and paying people to take it away.
Markets work, something the Russians are learning. Last I read, Russia was producing faster than they could get rid of their oil, and it was being stored in ships to the point of no more space available. Shipping to new available markets takes a lot longer than just pipe lining to Europe. Bargain prices such as to India have helped get new customers, and now India is happy selling Russia’s cheap oil back to Europe.
Starting and stopping producing wells is not a simple “turn off the lights” process, US oil companies with technical expertise are not longer working in Russia. Russia is having trouble getting insurance and other related market problems. So it seems like the bankrupting process is already working. They have done it to themselves by egoistic overreaching. Putin is not Peter the Great or Catherine the Great. He is doing a fair immitation of Ivan the Terrible.
Now for a personal insight, one based on direct, long-term experiences: I have worked with many Eastern Europeans. I have worked closely with Russians, Ukrainians, Slovenians, Serbians and Estonians. I generally did not care for them because it seemed to me that 1) Everything was considered a financial transaction to them; everything was for sale - it was only a matter of price. 2) There seemed to be something missing from their souls/consciences. Perhaps 80 years of communism hollowed their collective consciousness.
““Putin grew them, raised them in this atmosphere where he decides for everybody. You don’t have to decide for yourself. Putin will do it better than you can. They’re like grown-up children, in a sense. People who are not used to making their own decisions, not only the elite but I think it can more or less be applied to the entire population, to some extent.”
I’m reminded of the joke about an ordinary American husband who was bragging about how well his marriage worked because he made all the important decisions. His friend asked, “What decisions does your wife make?” “Oh, she decides which house to buy, what schools our children should attend, and whether we need a new car this year.” Then the friend asks, “What decisions do you make?” “Well, I decide if we should send troops to Ukraine, plan a Mars voyage, or remain friends with China.”
Putin has done something similar in Russia. When the oligarchs were snapping up resources and monopolizing various business avenues, Putin left them alone. But when any aligarch decided to use his wealth for political purposes, he was immediately stomped on and made to suffer. Thus instead of building Russia, once rich these people had to be content with playing with their boats and ball clubs. In the past year or two, a number of business leaders and their families have been brutally murdered or tried to fly out of windows. Were they guilty of desplaying the capacity for independent thought? On the other hand more than a million younger Russians, mostly male, have decided to think for themselves, and say, “I’m out of here, MF,” and head for other countries, both European and the Stans and neighbors like Georgia and Armenia.
If Russia is lucky, once Putin is gone and the dust settles, many of these independent thinkers will return to Russia and reestablish their lives and families. If not, Europe and the areas south of Russia will benefit from their energy and capacity for decision making and independent thought.
“Russia had been due to deliver two S-400 Triumf air-defense systems. The S-400s would have completed an order for five systems, which India bought for a total $5.4 billion in 2018.”
2018, OK? It looks like Russia is reverting to the 5 Year Plan system. Five years to not accomplish their planned production goals. A standard set during the Stalin years. At that rate, how long will Putin/Russia be able to maintain their diplomatic successes/business deals with places like India, Saudi Arabia, Iran, and China? Why would India want to continue overabsorbing Russia’s oil glut if Russia has already been paid $billions for military products that Russia is failing to deliver? No wonder India has been warning Russia and seeming to create distance given they are learning the reality behind Russia’s “great war machine.”
The US is benefitting from these Russian failures. Our providing gas and oil to Europe promises good future business for our petroleum companies. If we can get behind more robust production of war materiel, we should not only be able to resupply our own military reserves, but increase business overseas. Poland has already planned serious purchases of tanks and other supplies from the US. Who knows what changes India might make in it’s purchasing decisions? Is there a brave new world ahead if some nut doesn’t decide to blow it to kingdom come? As an optimist, I will continue to make my life decisions from that perspective. I hope you can too.
Hear, hear. One of the best posts I’ve ever come across on FR. You’re a great writer.
Your comment on Eastern Europeans is quite interesting. I’ve noticed the same ‘soulless’ disposition in recent Cuban émigrés to the US, the ones who have lived most of their lives in Castro’s gulag. Humorless, nasty, rude bunch, who care about nothing else but money. In fact, I think I’ve coined a term for them, ‘NeoCubans’.
Perplexingly, they tend to have a positive view of the Castro regime and tend to vote Dem. They are quite different from the initial waves of Cubans that fled the revolution.
Communism does destroy the soul, after all, that is the point.
“2018, OK? It looks like Russia is reverting to the 5 Year Plan system. Five years to not accomplish their planned production goals. A standard set during the Stalin years. At that rate, how long will Putin/Russia be able to maintain their diplomatic successes/business deals with places like India, Saudi Arabia, Iran, and China? Why would India want to continue over-absorbing Russia’s oil glut if Russia has already been paid $billions for military products that Russia is failing to deliver? No wonder India has been warning Russia and seeming to create distance given they are learning the reality behind Russia’s “great war machine.”
Thank you for your excellent comment!
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