1/4
Hindustan Times
11/27/22
Putin’s war empties arsenal of 20 NATO nations after U.S; Setback for Ukraine | Report
2/4
Twitter
Joost Neimoller
11/26/22
“This is the reality for the Ukrainian soldiers in Backmut. Half in the freezing water in the trenches, under constant artillery fire. ...”
https://twitter.com/JoostNiemoller/status/1596663342256775168
3/4
France 24 English
11/27/22
Ukraine power grid under pressure: electricity and heating supply disrupted
“Temperatures hovered around freezing on November 27 as millions in and around the Ukrainian capital struggled with disruptions to electricity supply and central heating caused by waves of Russian air strikes.”
From a comment there:
Traiano Wellcome
2 hours ago
BELGRADE, May 24 – NATO airstrikes on Yugoslavia’s power grid left millions of people without electricity or water service today, bringing the war over Kosovo more directly into the lives of civilians across the country. Three consecutive nights of air attacks caused extensive blackouts in Belgrade, Novi Sad, and Nis, the three largest cities in Serbia, Yugoslavia’s dominant republic. In contrast with previous attacks on the power supply – in which allied warplanes triggered temporary outages by dropping carbon-fiber filaments that shorted out electrical lines – NATO forces this time struck at Serbia’s five major power-transmission stations with high-explosive munitions, causing damage that could take weeks to repair.
What?!!! I was told RUSSIA was out of weapons? This must be some form or Russian propaganda!!!
4/4
Washington Post
Pressure builds to step up weapons tracking in Ukraine
11/27/22
https://www.washingtonpost.com/national-security/2022/11/27/biden-ukraine-weapons/
Day late and a dollar short.
Per the Pandora Papers, how much ended up in the black market, how much ended up in Zelensgay’s pockets, in the pockets of other beauracrats, etc, wherever they might be?
This is the point.
More profits for Raytheon and the like.
The question I always pose when they say this: What foe were those weapons made for? The answer is Russia.
And we are not close to being tapped out. Maybe some of the NATO countries should have been spending their allocations all those years.
pretty soon they will be down to sparklers and snakes
No problem. We all know defense of the nation is about 4th or 5th on the Pentagon’s list of priorities.
And on NATO’S Priority list defense is probably even further down.
No problem though, all of both their quotas and LGBTQ friendly programs are in place and fully funded.
Record Profits Raytheon and other Defense industries
Likely chi-nuh has plenty.
The problem for NATO is that when they end a production run of hardware, they SHUT IT ALL DOWN as fast and as thoroughly as possible, with complete disregard for spending just a few dollars to keep critical items (such as tooling and cheap, but critical parts, in storage) and a few key people around. That also includes the people who worked on these programs, who are off into the wind, usually with other companies, if not other careers.
So, when it comes to restarting production for NATO, it’s like starting from scratch, new people, new tooling needed, new procedures, new suppliers, etc. So, 3 to 5 years to get production up to useful levels.
NATO can thank our top-notch, high-power, MBAs for this disaster.
I’d like to think that NATO is learning a HUGE LESSON from this war - but no, when our countries are run by people who hate the military and have been anti-war (except for Russia) all their lives...nothing will change.
Needless to say, Russia has been through enough in their history so as to not be so complacent.
China’s CCP has to be pretty excited about this...
Putin’s purpose of the war is paying dividends.
The USA has so far provided $19.7 Billion in military assistance to Ukraine, since the war started in February (including this week’s $400 Million package).
The FY22 Defense budget was $777.7 Billion, so it amounts to about 2.5% of that, but the $19.7 Billion in expenditures was spread across the FY22 and FY23 budgets, so we are running a bit below 2.5% of our annual defense budget to support Ukraine in this war.
Economic/humanitarian aid has been roughly an equivalent amount in dollars, but out of a much larger (~$5.5 Trillion) non-Defense budget, or about 1/4 of one percent.
Another year like that this last one (six months, actually) will effectively demilitarize Russia of its conventional arsenal left over from the Soviet Union. They are roughly half depleted, on average now.
“...most NATO members have run out of weapons....”
Putin playing rope a dope with NATO.