Where Are the Rockets for Ukraine?

But the U.S. hasn’t provided nearly enough launchers to blunt the Russian equipment advantage. Ohio Republican Rob Portman, who is co-chairman of the Senate Ukraine caucus, on the Senate floor this week offered a blunt assessment of the facts on the ground: Brutal fighting continues in Severodonetsk, where the Russians are making grinding progress, and the Luhansk region could fall within weeks if the Ukrainians can’t get longer-range artillery.

“Because the Russians have more artillery than the Ukrainians and their weapons have longer ranges,” the Senator explained, “the Russian forces concentrate massive firepower on Ukrainian positions at distances, which the Ukrainian forces cannot reach.” Then the Russians “move in. They destroy territory. They occupy it.” The “disparity in the quality and quantity of artillery” has put Ukraine at “a distinct disadvantage.”

A Ukrainian military adviser told the Guardian earlier this month: “If we get 60” systems “then the Russians will lose all ability to advance anywhere, they will be stopped dead in their tracks. If we get 40 they will advance, albeit very slowly with heavy casualties; with 20 they will continue to advance with higher casualties than now.”

And how many rocket systems has the U.S., the world’s premiere military power, offered so far? Four. And these launchers, which the Biden Administration announced on June 1, won’t reach the battlefield with trained crews until roughly the end of the month, U.S. defense officials have estimated. The Brits and Germans have offered their own rocket systems—but only three apiece.

As Sen. Portman noted, the U.S. is also withholding rockets with the longest range. The ostensible reason is that the Biden Team worries about Ukrainians striking into Russian territory. But the Ukrainians have promised only to defend their sovereign land, and withholding the weapons suggests we don’t trust them.

Zlochevsky is *still* the owner of Burisma. What’s so far-fetched about Putin continuing to funnel payments to Biden through Burisma? Again, the bread crumbs suggest a link between Putin and Zlochevsky.

Because you haven't yet established that Putin is funnelling payments through Zlochevsky and Burisma for *anything*.

What reason did Zlochevsky have to pay Biden on his own initiative? Burisma’s operations don’t involve anything in the US.

There's a lot of things that don't involve the US that Americans nonetheless get involved with regardless. What interest did America have specifically in getting Victor Shokin fired?

But I can think of a much simpler reason: given that Joe Biden had a major role in America's Ukrainian policy as of 2014 (openly speaking about how "the United States [was] a driving force behind the IMF, working to provide a multi-billion package to help Ukraine address [their] immediate needs", Zlochevsky had a vested interest in getting someone in his corner given the ongoing money laundering investigation against him. Hiring Hunter Biden to the tune of $50K a month so that Hunter could help Burisma with "corporate governance best practices" would be a small price to pay if it meant the corruption investigations against him went nowhere; given that no charges were filed against him in December 2017 (with Zlochevsky returning in February 2018), it must have seemed a worthwhile investment at the start. Only after the Solomyansky District Court overturned the prior decision to close the criminal proceedings against Zlochevsky did he once again flee the country again at some point after June 2018 (allegedly Monaco, according to most reports that I can see).

No need to invoke unsubstantiated data to craft a "Putin controls Burisma" narrative; an explanation can be established already with just the known facts without invoking 'Putin hypotheticals' whatsoever.

Note that Putin paid Hillary $500K through Russian oligarchs, so it’s not like bribing American bigwigs is a foreign concept to him

Yeah, through *Russian* oligarchs. Not Ukrainians.

All of the rest of your post is special pleading: giving reasons as to why, hypothetically, no one has investigated the link between Putin and Burisma, when the only person suggesting that there is in fact a connection is you.

Because if Putin did have the inside link to Burisma that you think he does, then why would GRU have allegedly bothered hacking into Burisma's to get whatever information they had in November 2019?

Leftist games have had to be played for political optics enrichment, and survival in DC, the EU, Beijing, and Moscow.

Human life is literally of no more value than livestock to any leftist, so death due to totalitarian gain is perfectly acceptable and calculated.

Historocally, the Clinton, Obama, and Biden puppet continuum has been squirrely behind Putin since the beginning, and on nearly every level.

There is no difference today, other than the need for greater smoke and mirrors.

Baselines are grossly in favor of RU proper (not even counting RU’s subordinate CIS)

— RU is 34 times larger than UA not counting coastline. — RU is the largest nuclear, biological, and chemical weapons power in the world.
— RU is the single largest provider of energy to both the EU and Russia’s economic and defense axis partner China (since 2009).
— Witb the exception of Trumps presidency, NATO is significantly weaker today than at any point in its history.
— No nations bordering RU have joined NATO since 2004
— At no time or geographic point during the formal Cold War I was there more than 150 meters between the CCCP and NATO.
— Bottom line, UA pulled out of their subordination to Moscow controlled CIS in 2012, as despite all the “DCM” carried out by Moscow and DC, they desired to no longer be subordinate to RU.
— With NATO weaker and more compromised by Berlin/Moscow than at any point excluding Trump, Putin invaded UA under Biden, just as he did under Obama.

Etc -

He actually said the bridge was his #1 target:

Asked if the Kerch Bridge would be one of the targets after the Ukrainian military received the promised weapons, Marchenko said: “Yes, it’s 100%. It’s not a secret either for their military or for our military. Not for their civilians, not for our civilians. This will be the number one target to defeat,” he said.

According to him, “we, as it were, should simply cut off the main gut of pulling up reserves. As soon as this gut is cut off, they will start to panic.”

“And believe me: those who ran in Simferopol and Crimea with Russian flags, they will quickly get Ukrainian ones and will run with Ukrainian ones. Well, because, unfortunately, the population there is like that,” Marchenko said.

It should be noted that through the bridge, in particular, the Russian Federation is transferring its troops and equipment to the territory of Crimea and then to the south of Ukraine.

On April 20, Alexei Danilov, Secretary of the National Security and Defense Council, said that if the opportunity arises, the bridge over the Kerch Strait, which Russia built after the occupation of Crimea, would be struck.

https://odessa-journal.com/general-marchenko-kerch-bridge-is-the-military-target-number-one/

“Ukraine is not getting missiles that could reach any part of the bridge from the territory they hold.”

That’s right!
And these statements help explain the US decision not to give them weapons that could reach it.
And why the US “doesn’t trust” Ukraine not to hit Russian targets...

They could have given them rocket with triple the range using this same system, but declined to do so.

Ukraine ping

[But I can think of a much simpler reason: given that Joe Biden had a major role in America’s Ukrainian policy as of 2014 (openly speaking about how “the United States [was] a driving force behind the IMF, working to provide a multi-billion package to help Ukraine address [their] immediate needs”, Zlochevsky had a vested interest in getting someone in his corner given the ongoing money laundering investigation against him. Hiring Hunter Biden to the tune of $50K a month so that Hunter could help Burisma with “corporate governance best practices” would be a small price to pay if it meant the corruption investigations against him went nowhere; given that no charges were filed against him in December 2017 (with Zlochevsky returning in February 2018), it must have seemed a worthwhile investment at the start. Only after the Solomyansky District Court overturned the prior decision to close the criminal proceedings against Zlochevsky did he once again flee the country again at some point after June 2018 (allegedly Monaco, according to most reports that I can see).

No need to invoke unsubstantiated data to craft a “Putin controls Burisma” narrative; an explanation can be established already with just the known facts without invoking ‘Putin hypotheticals’ whatsoever. ]

If Zlochevsky was paying Joe Biden to pressure Ukraine’s AG not to move against him, why did Zlochevsky continue paying him from 2017 to 2019, when Biden was no longer in a position to help him? Again, the simple answer is that Zlochevsky wasn’t the man behind the payments. He was acting as an intermediary for Putin. Note that after Hillary lost in 2016, donations to the Hillary slush fund (aka the Clinton Global Initiative) immediately petered off. Putin wisely continued showering Biden with what, to him, was pocket change even after Trump was in office, stopping only around the time Biden made his candidacy official.

[Yeah, through *Russian* oligarchs. Not Ukrainians.]

It really doesn’t much matter which conduits Putin used to pay Hillary or Biden. The bottom line is that whether Russian or Ukrainian, these oligarchs were controlled by Putin. Suggesting that pro-Russian Ukrainian oligarchs were independent entities is like suggesting that the Austrian Nazi Party was independent of the NSDAP prior to the Anschluss or that the German American Bund wasn’t a creature of Adolf Hitler.

[All of the rest of your post is special pleading: giving reasons as to why, hypothetically, no one has investigated the link between Putin and Burisma, when the only person suggesting that there is in fact a connection is you.]

The fact is that no one in the media is investigating why the coroner declared that George Floyd might have expired from a fentanyl overdose, yet the prosecutor decided to go after the Minneapolis cops who secured the scene while waiting for the ambulance. The media’s not interested in anything negative about Democrats and Democratic constituencies, and a good chunk of the right-wing media would prefer that Ukraine end up in Russia’s maw, because some of its audience either likes Putin or (thanks to Russian propagandists) blames Ukraine for having a hand in the Democrat plot to falsely brand Trump as Putin’s puppet.

More important, the media doesn’t have the resources to go after this story. Putin has had entire families killed. Putin is a genuine stone killer, not the made-up one some have alleged Hillary to be. What reporter or newsroom editor wants to look over his shoulder for the rest of his life? What leaker does?

Exemplary violence works. Think of Putin as a Mafia don with unlimited resources and reach. And the ability to get his button men out of the country in a diplomatic pouch.

https://archive.ph/2Ws0P

[Because if Putin did have the inside link to Burisma that you think he does, then why would GRU have allegedly bothered hacking into Burisma’s to get whatever information they had in November 2019?]

Allegedly. Like I said, it’s all bread crumbs. Heck, if you ask Hillary, she’ll say the Russians hacked her server on Trump’s behalf.

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