Posted on 06/03/2023 9:36:03 AM PDT by Kazan
Russia continues to pummel Ukrainian positions throughout the country and Ukraine continues to insist that it is shooting down Russian missiles and that the Russian attacks are inconsequential. Well, as Chris Berman of ESPN was fond of saying, “let’s go to the video tape.” The following video provides clear evidence that Ukraine’s air defense system is not working (you can see the launches from Patriot or IRIS batteries) and that Russia is blasting the Ukrainian air defense system into smithereens. Focus on the lower left hand quadrant of the video (at link).
Ukraine launched a few missiles and they disappeared into the night. At the .17 second mark you will see the first massive explosion on a position that had been launching missiles. Given the size of the explosion the Ukrainian units at a minimum suffered significant damage. Take a look at the 1:39 mark on the video. Ukraine apparently tried to launch a missile that failed to intercept and fell back into the city of Kiev and exploded.
Ukraine does not have the weapon systems capable of doing the same thing to Russia. All Ukraine can do is fire artillery rounds at civilian targets along the border. Killing Russian civilians reinforces the Kremlin’s view that Ukraine is no long operating as a conventional military and must be treated as a terrorist threat. That means we can expect Russia to expand its attacks on “decision making” centers in Ukraine, which means targeting Ukrainian leadership responsible for military and intelligence activities. I am sure the West will howl with outrage but there is little it can do to compel a change in Russia’s strategy.
The ability of the West to continue its open ended support for Ukraine is being eroded by a string of negative economic news. The European Union as a whole is slipping into recession. Philip Pilkington reports:
Last week Germany announced that, after the government statistics agency revised its recent GDP figures, it was clear that the country was in recession. In recent history it has tended to hold up well as the global economy softened relative to some of Europe’s weaker economies. But this time it seems that Germany is leading the pack into recession.
This is because the recession that is currently looming over Europe is fundamentally different from previous iterations. The coming recession is no simple turning of the business cycle. Instead, it could be the beginning of the deindustrialisation of the European economy, which no longer has access to cheap Russian energy.
The United States also is showing signs of weakness. The Bureau of Labor Statistics revised previous optimistic reports with a more gloomy assessment:
Nonfarm business sector labor productivity decreased 2.1 percent in the first quarter of 2023, the U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics reported today, as output increased 0.5 percent and hours worked increased 2.6 percent. (All quarterly percent changes in this release are seasonally adjusted annual rates.) Labor productivity was revised up 0.6 percentage point, the combined effect of a 0.3-percentage point upward revision to output and a 0.4-percentage point downward revision to hours worked. From the same quarter a year ago, nonfarm business sector labor productivity decreased 0.8 percent, reflecting a 1.4-percent increase in output and a 2.2-percent increase in hours worked. (See table A1.) The 0.8-percent productivity decline is the first time the four-quarter change series has remained negative for five consecutive quarters; this series begins in the first quarter of 1948.
A moment of reckoning looms on the horizon. The United States and Europe will not be able to sustain its financial and military support to Ukraine regardless of what Ukraine achieves in its highly anticipated offensive. The United States has made a fatal mistake by assuming it could conduct or encourage military operations as it did in Iraq and Afghanistan without creating a war economy. Washington’s support of terrorist attacks inside Russia is hardening Moscow’s position towards the West and makes it more unlikely that there can or will be a negotiated settlement to the war in Ukraine.
Yeah, we can have the American taxpayer provide endless funding. Awesome. You are quite the Patriot!
Strange thinking coming from a freeper if he is one
You serve the Motherland well.
Your stipend will be increased by 17 rubles, next year.
The check will be in the mail, the following year.
Big boom in your hometown, last month.
We hope that your Lada was not damaged.
“The U.S. and Europe and NATO, are many times more capable of sustaining financial and military supporet, than Russia can for itself.”
Good one!
Guess the offensive is coming and this nonsense won’t prevent it.
Try harder dad.
You know it’s coming, the slitting of Putin’s throat.
And NATO could wipe out the Russian army tomorrow if we intervened.
Duh.
Bkmk
“You know it’s coming, the slitting of Putin’s throat.”
Daily Mail, much?
“And NATO could wipe out the Russian army tomorrow if we intervened.”
With what? They’ve shot their wad, they’ve been disarmed. NATO telling Kosovo to cool it has just proven that. NATO is now afraid to even fight Serbia.
Maybe in 5 to 10 years NATO will be able to re-arm, but ONLY after the making sure that their new arms had enough LGBT and Grooming content.
But you think Putin and China will just sit around waiting?
I guess these pretend conservatives want to defund our military now because they think it’s all “homos”.
We’re broke
Russia is DOOMED! They can not fight nor can they support the war for much longer. By Summer they will fall to Civil War and China will attack to seize all of Serbia. Russian History will mock Putin as the man who killed Russia! The USA will re-build Ukraine into the Disneyland of East Europe! Crimea a new Las Vegas (once you drive out all those ungrateful Russians). Hunter Biden will build his mansion there overlooking the Black Sea. President Jill Biden will open the new gas pipeline from the gas fields of Greater Ukraine to Europe and a new Ukraine will lead Europe (with American guidance) into a new woke/Progressive socialism.
Well it's good that at least some are admitting that this is a war between us and NATO against Russia. Seems like it started out that we were just going to give Ukraine some anti tank missiles.
China won’t sit around, they’re going to take half of your beloved Russia.
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