Update from Ukraine | Frontlines are Boiling Ukraine Advances on the South Ruzzia sends more forces

Youtube.com ^ | 11-18-2023 | Denys Davydov

[BroJoeK]

Fresh Wind: "I have to agree with Trump when he says that the Russian invasion would not have happened if he was still president.
A weak and feckless US administration has negative impacts worldwide as our enemies and competitors see opportunities galore, and they know that Biden and his cronies are literally for sale.
Corruption on one side emboldens corruption on the other side."

It sounds like we agree on the basics, at least.

As for how much corruption is currently involved, I have no idea, though I've seen claims that there is actually none, and that we know how & where every piece of equipment sent to Ukraine is being used.
I hope that's true, but regardless, you remember US Secretary of Defense Donald Rumsfield saying from December 2004:

“You go to war with the army you have, not the army you might want or wish to have at a later time”

So, regardless of how much we regret the 2020 election results, we still should help Ukrainians defend themselves against Vlad the Invader's illegal orcs, trolls & Uruk-hai.

[Gaffer]

I remember back during my time (68-76) that the BIG thing in Viet Nam was ‘body count.’ Body count here, body count there of the VC and and NVRs. Westmoreland viewed this as the primary indicator of success, IMO. In he end, we lost 50,000 + and to my knowledge NV never ran out of soldiers - or the will.

My takeaway from all this? Counting dead and tank, artillery, trucks, ships, etc. hulks. IT seems to me something is always showing up to replace them and the attrition of UKR forces is what will finally decide this.

[gleeaikin]

Based on your statement “to my knowledge NV never ran out of soldiers—or the will.”

My takeawy from all this is: Ukraine will never run out of creative weapons—or the will. And Putin or whichever hard liner continues in power will never run out of the willingness to turn their non-Russian minority soldiers into meat. Until minority “Russians” and/or “true” Russians they also need to conscript start to rebel.

[BroJoeK]

Worldtraveler once upon a time posting links to articles on Ukrainian corruption:

"Any Hint" of Corruption "Unacceptable": interview for Kyiv Post NAFTO GAZ, 17 October 2023"

It's not clear to me what is the point of your long list of articles about corruption in Ukraine.
However, what is certain is that Ukraine wants to join the European Union and the EU wants Ukraine.
But that cannot happen until Ukraine's perceived corruptions improve to the EU's minimum standards which, if we judge by countries like Poland and Czechia, must score over 50.
That means a 50% improvement in Ukraine's Index scores.

50% improvement sounds like a lot, but Ukraine has already more than doubled its scores from 1990s levels, so they certainly know how do what needs to be done here.

maddog55 to Worldtraveler once upon a time: "Rambling again.. I don’t read rambles.
F’ Ukraine and Russia.. it’s a European problem."

As for whose problem is Ukraine, this recent article from CNN claims total world commitments to Ukraine are around $350 billion, of which the USA has promised circa $113 billion, or less than one-third.

"Russia’s invasion has pitted Ukraine against a country with a massive military and one of the world’s biggest economies. Ukraine has been able to keep the fight going in large part due to nearly $350 billion in aid that’s been committed by mostly Western nations since January of 2022."

How much of that aid has actually been delivered is not said, though my guess is just over half overall.
Numbers from May 31, 2023 say $156 billion delivered, roughly half of it financial and humanitarian, the other half military.

[BroJoeK]

gleeaikin: "I must say, I don’t remember ever seeing that particular ad."

It's said to be the most famous political ad of all time, perhaps on a par with the "Mean Joe Green" Pepsi ad.

I well remember seeing it at the time, and thinking then that this was LBJ's excuse for not winning in Vietnam.
Events of the following four years bore that out, though it took until 1975 for the final humiliations:

gleeaikin: "If what I saw about certain Texas companies and the Texas Book Repository Bldg. plus some things I heard this evening about the Warren Commission report on the assassination are true, then the only thing that mattered was that Johnson become president, and keep the MIC money flowing into Texas."

Over the years since October 1963 I've seen many conspiracy theories come a go regarding the Kennedy assassination, and I've never been interested enough to spend the time necessary to learn all the facts needed to judge which theories are more likely right than wrong.

I was most curious to hear RFK, Jr. recently claim it was the CIA which arranged his uncle's murder, something to do with the Bay of Pigs, though I didn't catch the connection.
So, if I were to rank the Top Ten conspiracy theories on JFK's assassination, then RFK, Jr.'s ideas would be up there somewhere near the top.

[Gaffer]

If the latest news out there that the average age of the Ukraine soldier fighting is in the early 40s, they WILL run out of soldiers before they run out of ‘will.’ As to whether that is true or not it’s anybody’s guess.

We are not getting the truth from our local twice-weekly spammer Zeepers and we are not getting the truth from the Russian side, either.

All I can say is that I am much more concerned about my government paying tax dollars by the billions to Ukraine with virtually no accounting while it COMPLETELY ignores the invasion by third world slugs on our Southern Border. And until that is remedied I see no purpose in supporting Ukraine.

[gleeaikin]

Whose idea was it to have Trump release 5,000 Taliban from prison?

[gleeaikin]

It seems pretty clear from various comments that we have been saying we are giving Ukraine more than we actually are. Of course we need to separate military costs from human interest costs like running a government when tax income is down or supporting refugees. So how much of the $3 trillion mentioned in this comment are real expenses? Specifically, how much of the circa $55 billion a year to Ukraine has been real?

If we have already paid for tanks and other major equipment in past budget cycles, then we should only have to count the cost of shipping this pre-existing equipment and training the recipients as new money. If we are regularly paying for storing and maintaining this equipment in the US, then when we send it elsewhere we should be subtracting these savings from somewhere. This was made clear in the argument over cluster munitions. They were approaching elimination date, and now they are in Ukraine and we no longer pay for storage. Nor will we have to pay for deconstruction.

Since we also send equipment and other material foreign aid to Israel, South Korea and others, how much of our national debt is based on double billing, and how much is actually real. Do we really have over $20 trillion in national debt, or should these figures actually be recalculated to reflect real conditions? Are we actually paying interest on a huge national debt, or is some of this interest being misapplied? Are we paying interest on used military equipment given as foreign aid which was already paid for in a previous budget cycle?
It seems that large chunks of money/debt have been moving around in our treasury in a number of different administrations. This sounds like a topic for investigation that should concern us all, whether we are Republicans, Democrats, Independents, or some other organized/disorganized party. Are we kept in a state of fear by faulty accounting methods misused by opposing political parties? WHAT IS OUR TRUE NATIONAL DEBT???

[2CAVTrooper]

"You Ukrainiacs have a genetic contempt for Russians and others I’ve only seen in Nazis."

Well then, by your standards General George S. Patton is a Nazi too.

"On May 13, 1945, he reportedly entertained and decorated the commander of the Soviet Fourth Guards Army at a luncheon in Linz, Austria. Patton noted in his diary that after a bout of heavy whiskey drinking during and after the meal, the Russian “went out cold,” while he himself “walked out under my own steam…. They are a scurvy race and simply savages. We could beat hell out of them.”"

https://warfarehistorynetwork.com/article/real-story-general-george-patton-jr-death-final-days/

"The difficulty in understanding the Russian is that we do not take cognizance of the fact that he is not a European, but an Asiatic, and therefore thinks deviously. We can no more understand a Russian than a Chinaman or a Japanese, and from what I have seen of them, I have no particular desire to understand them, except to ascertain how much lead or iron it takes to kill them. In addition to his other Asiatic characteristics, the Russian has no regard for human life and is an all-out son of bitch, barbarian, and chronic drunk.”

https://freerepublic.com/focus/f-chat/4134536/posts

[2CAVTrooper]

Facts? What facts?

Your boi Putin has thrown more than eight brigades at Avdiivka, and has walked away with barely two under strength brigades.

Yet you jump on here and beat your chest claiming that you’re “winning”.

How’s that advance on Kyiv going for you? Or the whole three week campaign to conquer Ukraine and once again make it a Soviet vassal state?

[ransomnote]

In the General/Chat forum, on a thread titled Update from Ukraine | Frontlines are Boiling Ukraine Advances on the South Ruzzia sends more forces, 2CAVTrooper wrote:

"You Ukrainiacs have a genetic contempt for Russians and others I’ve only seen in Nazis."

Well then, by your standards General George S. Patton is a Nazi too.

"On May 13, 1945, he reportedly entertained and decorated the commander of the Soviet Fourth Guards Army at a luncheon in Linz, Austria. Patton noted in his diary that after a bout of heavy whiskey drinking during and after the meal, the Russian “went out cold,” while he himself “walked out under my own steam…. They are a scurvy race and simply savages. We could beat hell out of them.”"

https://warfarehistorynetwork.com/article/real-story-general-george-patton-jr-death-final-days/

 

"The difficulty in understanding the Russian is that we do not take cognizance of the fact that he is not a European, but an Asiatic, and therefore thinks deviously. We can no more understand a Russian than a Chinaman or a Japanese, and from what I have seen of them, I have no particular desire to understand them, except to ascertain how much lead or iron it takes to kill them. In addition to his other Asiatic characteristics, the Russian has no regard for human life and is an all-out son of bitch, barbarian, and chronic drunk.”

https://freerepublic.com/focus/f-chat/4134536/posts

Seriously, who talks about an entire nation/ethnicity etc. as pigs who should be shot?  Nazis.

You people desperately try to keep the Soviet Union alive, but it's long gone. The oppression was so intense the public turned to alcohol to forget they were kept as slaves.

I spoke with a hairdresser from Russia. She was a trained doctor there - she recalled that when she woke up in the morning when the SOviets were in power, she started her day by drinking. She doesn't drink now, but the misery of Soviet oppression back then made it a common way of life.

No, what's most similar to Nazis is identifying a people, declaring them sub human, and defending the genetic extermination of that people. THerefore, the Ukrainiacs on FR are most like Nazis.

[ransomnote]

In the General/Chat forum, on a thread titled Update from Ukraine | Frontlines are Boiling Ukraine Advances on the South Ruzzia sends more forces, 2CAVTrooper wrote:

Facts? What facts?

Your boi Putin has thrown more than eight brigades at Avdiivka, and has walked away with barely two under strength brigades.

Yet you jump on here and beat your chest claiming that you’re “winning”.

How’s that advance on Kyiv going for you? Or the whole three week campaign to conquer Ukraine and once again make it a Soviet vassal state?

I don't support Putin or Zelensky, but you're desperate so you HAVE to follow the propaganda tactic of declaring anyone who doesn't support the pointless pouring of AMerican wealth in to foreign aid that goes to oligarchs and people like Zelensky.

The little guy in sequens and high heels is being abandoned by those he ignores when they tell him to 'negotiate' (surrender). So now there's talk of replacing him - he knows it and is trying to defend himself but he IS going to be replaced and the Ukraine will admit defeat.

[2CAVTrooper]

“Seriously, who talks about an entire nation/ethnicity etc. as pigs who should be shot?”

It’s the same as your ilk posting on here that all Ukrainians need to be exterminated.

“You people desperately try to keep the Soviet Union alive, but it’s long gone.”

Wrong. We want to keep the Soviet Union gone, but YOU neo-soviets/neocons are the ones wanting to bring back the glory days of the Soviet Union.

Your boi Putin and his neanderthal generals even admitted their desire to bring back the Soviet Union, and Ukraine is the stepping stone on the path of “liberating” those eastern European countries who have escaped the clutches of Soviet communism.

[2CAVTrooper]

“pouring of AMerican wealth in to foreign aid that goes to oligarchs and people like Zelensky.”

And your proof of that is what exactly?

[BroJoeK]

gleeaikin: "It seems pretty clear from various comments that we have been saying we are giving Ukraine more than we actually are.
Of course we need to separate military costs from human interest costs like running a government when tax income is down or supporting refugees."

You raise some good points.
We can start with this: roughly half of US aid to Ukraine is military equipment, the rest is humanitarian and financial aid.
And my understanding is that virtually all of the military equipment and ammo sent to Ukraine came from old US stocks which were due for scrap anyway.
So, the actual $ amounts represent the cost of replacing our old stocks with all new stuff, with latest updates, not some kind of market value of the equipment shipped.

gleeaikin: "So how much of the $3 trillion mentioned in this comment are real expenses?
Specifically, how much of the circa $55 billion a year to Ukraine has been real?"

My figure of $3 trillion is the total US Federal deficit for the past two years -- $1.7 trillion in 2022 and $1.3 trillion in 2023.
I'm saying that most or all of that money was spent on insane Democrat vote-buying schemes, and we need only eliminate such nonsense to bring our budgets back into balance.

Total aid to Ukraine since February 2022 is said to be now $113 billion, of which not all has yet been delivered, so the average is roughly $55 billion per year.
Of that total, roughly half is hardward and the rest in humanitarian and financial aid.

gleeaikin: "If we have already paid for tanks and other major equipment in past budget cycles, then we should only have to count the cost of shipping this pre-existing equipment and training the recipients as new money."

My understanding is that virtually all of the money spent on hardware for Ukraine is actually going to replace our own obsoleted inventories with brand new state-of-the-art stuff.
Ukraine is getting our old stuff, and it's still good stuff, just not the best we have.

gleeaikin: "If we are regularly paying for storing and maintaining this equipment in the US, then when we send it elsewhere we should be subtracting these savings from somewhere.
This was made clear in the argument over cluster munitions.
They were approaching elimination date, and now they are in Ukraine and we no longer pay for storage.
Nor will we have to pay for deconstruction."

Right. Money's voted by Congress pay to replace those old stockpiles.

gleeaikin: "Since we also send equipment and other material foreign aid to Israel, South Korea and others, how much of our national debt is based on double billing, and how much is actually real.
Do we really have over $20 trillion in national debt, or should these figures actually be recalculated to reflect real conditions?"

Total US national debt today is approaching $33 trillion.
Of that, something like $8 trillion can be blamed on the 20-year long War on Terror, but all the rest, so far as I can tell, is simply insane Democrat vote-buying schemes, intended to keep them in political power, and so-far, highly successful at that.

So, there's no reason to doubt that our national debt is as reported, since it represents simply the excess of Federal spending over Federal revenues, there's nothing more complicate than that in it.

gleeaikin: "Are we actually paying interest on a huge national debt, or is some of this interest being misapplied? Are we paying interest on used military equipment given as foreign aid which was already paid for in a previous budget cycle?"

I'm saying: no, it's not about potential accounting gimmicks, it's very simply the same as your own checkbook or credit card account.
The debt is whatever we actually spend minus whatever revenues we actually received.
Nothing complicated there.

gleeaikin: "It seems that large chunks of money/debt have been moving around in our treasury in a number of different administrations.
This sounds like a topic for investigation that should concern us all, whether we are Republicans, Democrats, Independents, or some other organized/disorganized party.
Are we kept in a state of fear by faulty accounting methods misused by opposing political parties?
WHAT IS OUR TRUE NATIONAL DEBT???"

Those are great questions for Congress to submit to our Treasury Dept for clear and direct answers.

I noted very recently another news story saying the Pentagon has yet again failed an independent audit of its books.
My understanding is, the Pentagon has never, ever passed such an audit, in large part because of highly secret budgets for undisclosed projects.
And from time to time, we hear reports of the Pentagon "lost" $1 billion here or $6 billion there and supposedly nobody knows where it went.
But somebody knows, and maybe those are just accounting gimmicks catching up to final reconciliations.

Bottom line, my understand of the true values of all national committments over the revenues now available to pay them -- i.e., social security or medicare -- is not just $33 trillion, but several times that amount over the next decades.
All of it should be and must be addressed, once our Democrats are removed from national political power.

[BroJoeK]

gleeaikin: "Whose idea was it to have Trump release 5,000 Taliban from prison?"

By all accounts, it was a negotiated prisoner exchange.

[JonPreston]

💥 Russian Ka-52 helicopter crews have destroyed an AFU command post and armoured equipment in the Donetsk direction.@ukraine_watch pic.twitter.com/NVpeDeSEpP— Zlatti71 (@djuric_zlatko) November 24, 2023