The vote means that Meloni will be authorized to continue providing weapons without having to seek support from Parliament for every shipment.
RuZZian Artillery losses Running Total: 453
December 2022 – 19
November 2022 – 55
October 2022 – 64
September 2022 - 73
August 2022 – 21
July 2022 – 21
June 2022 – 18
May 2022 – 20
April 2022 – 52
Feb 24 - March 2022 – 110
How many HIMARs have been destroyed?
ZERO, 0, nada, none, nil, nought, zilch, zip, diddly-squat, goose egg.
Ukraine: military situation update with maps, Dec 14, 2022
(’Orc’ is associated with the various hoards of 13th century Mongol invaders, as well as LOTR evil villains)
War in Ukraine
https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCP2QApi8G2TKc8NZmeDWSUg/videos
Artillery (key to success in this war), Fuller explanation of Orc military structure, Other Bonus articles - see previous postings in “Attack on Europe” (FR title search).
(Numbered printed material below - Some of the items below may be out of date, and not updated yet)
••Denotes Transcribed Dialogue. The entirety of the analysis is from a Ukrainian guy named War in Ukraine’s daily video - I only transcribe it. Extras are just that - from other sites, or my comments marked (Edit: .... )
-—> Current to date and past MAPS: <——
https://militaryland.net/
———————————————————————————————————————
Summary:
No essential changes.
Key areas:
- North Lugansk: no changes.
- North Donbass: no changes.
- Central Donbass (Donetsk West): no changes.
- Zaporizhya: no changes.
———————————————————————————————————————
Extra:
-—> Patriot Missile Batteries In Ukraine Would Be Top Targets For Russia <——
In Ukraine, the Patriot air defense system would face threats unlike any it’s faced before, but they would still be a very tough target.
https://www.thedrive.com/the-war-zone/patriot-missile-batteries-in-ukraine-would-be-top-targets-for-russia
———————————————————————————————————————
••Russia:
Russian Ruble went down to 64. 64 rubles per per US dollar yesterday was 63 so as you can see the situation is definitely going becoming through difficult for us pretty quickly so again this is reflection of the financial and economic situation and a result of inability to export natural gas which is really on the low, and then there’s a lot of problems with crude oil that’s - just for the reference, before the war started Russian Ruble was about like in a range between 72-78 rubles per US dollar - so it still has a ways to go, but the point is the trend has clearly changed, and the pace of the change is accelerating, that’s the key point.
••Germany:
Germany is planning to borrow in 2023 540 billion euros to deal with energy crisis, which is a self-made crisis by the German government, German authorities; the problem is their policies are totally insane because by borrowing money, or by creating unfunded credit, you’re not gonna solve any energy crisis, because you’re not gonna bring into existence natural gas or crude oil or whatever else, you’re not gonna make energy with the money - that’s a whole problem about the strategy and this approach and all it will do is increase inflation in Germany; again that means there is no real strategy or plan how to deal with this, or to reverse those failed policies - so the pain will continue.
••US:
The Strategic Petroleum Reserve based on the reported numbers is at the lowest level since January 1984, the US government is selling from the SPR to keep prices for crude low; whatever we’re seeing right now, this is an artificial picture of the price of crude oil, because there is a significant release of US from the SPR that holds prices of crude a low level but not as high as where they could have been otherwise, but the key point of it is that ability to do that is quickly diminishing, because the the size of the SPR is roughly 8,800 million barrels barrels and has less than half of it - its just a very clear we’re all living on borrowed time with respect to crude oil, and the prices may go higher.
The Federal Reserves is increasing interest rates which it did today again by 50 basis points, so that’s one of the most important events economic and financial events of the day. This means interest rates are going higher still, which should address commodity inflation, however the problem is that there’s simply not enough production; we’ll see who wins and at what cost, but what may happen is the Federal Reserve will win, but by destroying a lot of demand and that’s not just an abstraction, I mean many people will be unemployed as a result, and unfortunately, that is probably unavoidable. (Edit: another self-made crisis.)
The US government also slapped more than 30 Chinese semiconductor manufacturers with another round of sanctions, where they cannot get equipment an expansion of what’s being done before - includes one of the largest Chinese memory chip manufacturer YMT. The US is consistently trying to cut off oxygen from the Chinese semiconductor manufacturing industry. Also ARM, which is pretty big non-US chip designer and also chip manufacturer, said that they will not be exporting its technology anymore to China; ARM is UK based, but obviously this is all coordinated with US. China has less and less oxygen in this respect, the Chinese government came up with the statement they are against it, that its not right ,and all that - they also went to World Trade Organization to dispute all of this.
••Japan:
It is preparing for a potential war with China; it is modernizing its airports like commercial airports in the western part of the country, in the most western islands - one of the islands is as close as 110 kilometers to Taiwan - so they are investing money to modernize those airports commercial airports so F-35s can land on those airports; another very clear sign of preparation for potential war with China.
••Ukraine:
There were relatively small Russian attacks using Iranian drones, particularly against Kiev; its unclear what they were targeting looks like some military assets or what Russian military believes is the military asset, which frequently not really a military asset or target.
••North Luhansk’:
Things here are somewhat quiet: no large attacks by either side; there is a lot of action and smaller size units like a squad type of units and the reconnaissance action, but there were no nothing, no relatively major attack attacks by either side here.
••North Donbas:
Things here are somewhat similar: no news, no changes here - the mercenaries continuing their attacks, so far no advances by them reported today; for whatever reason they were fairly quiet in the southern section, which is usually very busy.
••Central Donbas:
Things here are also pretty quiet; the only active area is really just Russian troops continuing their push, but without really much success; then an update: the attack against Velyka Novoslika died out, so looks like there won’t be any continuation of that attack anymore.
••Zaporizhya:
Things here are as always quiet so far and we’ll see looks like they probably will remain there for some time.
Lots of scrap metal.
Lots of scrap metal.
A map of the situation in Bakhmut as posted 15 hours ago.
https://twitter.com/War_Mapper/status/1603184710087512065?s=20&t=QaoggpTxcaHgBsUC6NonFw
[Notice that the Russians are probably passed out around the champagne winery, which might explain why they went no farther.]
The North Atlantic Treaty Organization's (NATO) arms stockpile is dwindling due to the Russia-Ukraine war, according to a U.S. ambassador.
Ambassador Julianne Smith, permanent U.S. representative to NATO, made the comments during an interview Tuesday with Dr. Kathleen McInnis, a senior fellow in the Center for Strategic and International Studies' International Security Program.
"This is a very serious challenge, both for NATO allies that are giving serious commitment, significant military assistance/lethal assistance to the Ukrainian military forces, but it is a significant challenge for the Ukrainian military forces themselves that are facing shortfalls and declining stockpiles," said Smith, who was appointed in November 2021.
###
"NATO doesn't really plan to fight wars like this, and by that I mean wars with a super intensive use of artillery systems and lots of tank and gun rounds," Frederick Kagan, a senior fellow with the American Enterprise Institute, told the publication. "We were never stocked for this kind of war to begin with."
The vote means that Meloni will be authorized to continue providing weapons without having to seek support from Parliament for every shipment.
Another wave of cruise missiles:
@visegrad24 2h
Russia fired more than 60 missiles against Ukraine today in another wave of missile attacks.
More than 50% of the country is without electricity again.
Tail numbers of participants in today’s (16 Dec) war crime cruise missile strikes on the Ukraine’s civilian infrastructure:
Ukraine Front Lines @EuromaidanPR 7h
Russian TU 95ms boards that are in the air right now:
— 721
— 722
— 714
— 718
— 716
— 717
— 712
@WarMonitor3 3h
37 out of 40 cruise missiles sent towards Kyiv were shot down by Ukrainian air defence.