tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-252060812024-03-15T17:37:26.531-07:00Maya's cornerMaya Mhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/10877457709995369246noreply@blogger.comBlogger495125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-25206081.post-86898948587032338522024-03-15T17:36:00.000-07:002024-03-15T17:36:38.882-07:00Russia openly proclaims its goal to destroy Ukraine<p> From the <a href="https://www.understandingwar.org/backgrounder/russian-offensive-campaign-assessment-march-14-2024">Institute for the Study of War</a>:</p><p>Karolina Hird, Riley Bailey, Grace Mappes, and Frederick W. Kagan</p><p>
March 14, 2024, 8:15pm ET</p><p><strong>"Russian Security Council Deputy Chairperson Dmitry Medvedev
posted a detailed call for the total elimination of the Ukrainian state
and its absorption into the Russian Federation under what he
euphemistically called a “peace formula.”</strong><strong>[1]</strong><strong> Medvedev’s
demands are not novel but rather represent the Kremlin’s actual
intentions for Ukraine — intentions that leave no room for negotiations
for purposes other than setting the precise terms of Ukraine’s complete
capitulation. </strong>Medvedev begins the “peace plan” by rhetorically
stripping Ukraine of its sovereignty, referring to it as a “former”
country and placing the name Ukraine in quotation marks. Medvedev laid
out the seven points of his “peace formula,” which he sardonically
described as “calm,” “realistic,” “humane,” and “soft.”[2] The seven
points include: Ukraine’s recognition of its military defeat, complete
and unconditional Ukrainian surrender, and full “demilitarization”;
recognition by the entire international community of Ukraine’s “Nazi
character” and the “denazification” of Ukraine’s government; a United
Nations (UN) statement stripping Ukraine of its status as a sovereign
state under international law, and a declaration that any successor
states to Ukraine will be forbidden to join any military alliances
without Russian consent; the resignation of all Ukrainian authorities
and immediate provisional parliamentary elections; Ukrainian reparations
to be paid to Russia; official recognition by the interim parliament to
be elected following the resignation of Ukraine’s current government
that all Ukrainian territory is part of Russia and the adoption of a
“reunification” act bringing Ukrainian territory into the Russian
Federation; and finally the dissolution of this provisional parliament
and UN acceptance of Ukraine’s “reunification” with Russia.[3]</p><p>The tone of Medvedev’s post is deliberately sardonic, and the calls he
is making appear extreme, but every one of the seven points in
Medvedev’s “peace formula” are real and central pieces of the Kremlin’s
ideology and stated war aims and justifications — Medvedev just
simplified and synthesized them into a single brutal Telegram post. The
first two of the seven points call for the complete military defeat,
disarmament, “demilitarization,” and “denazification” of Ukraine.
Russian President Vladimir Putin identified the full “demilitarization”
(stripping Ukraine of all its military and self-defense capabilities)
and “denazification” (complete regime change) as Russia’s main goals in
Ukraine when initially announcing the invasion on February 24, 2022.
Putin and other Kremlin officials have frequently re-emphasized these
goals in the subsequent two years of the war.[4] Medvedev’s calls for
the resignation of all Ukrainian authorities and the creation of a new
provisional government are calls for regime change simply made with more
specificity about the methods. The demand that any successor state to
Ukraine be forbidden to join military alliances without Russian
permission is a call for Ukraine’s permanent neutrality, a demand that
Putin and other Kremlin officials reiterate regularly.[5]</p><p>Putin established the principles that align the Kremlin’s objectives in
Ukraine with Medvedev’s seven points in Putin’s 2021 essay “On the
Historical Unity of Russians and Ukrainians.” Putin claimed in that
article that Ukrainians and Russians are historically one united people
who were violently and unjustly separated by external nefarious
forces.[6] Putin used this essay to undermine Ukraine’s sovereignty and
claims over its own political, social, historical, linguistic, and
cultural development — all suggestions that underpin Medvedev’s calls to
dissolve Ukraine as a legal entity and fully absorb it into the Russian
Federation. Putin and other Russian officials have long set
informational conditions to define Ukraine as an integral and
inseparable part of Russian territory and set Russia’s goal in Ukraine
as “reuniting” Ukrainian territories with their supposed historic
motherland.[7] <strong>Medvedev’s “peace formula” makes explicit and
brutal what Putin and the Kremlin have long demanded in somewhat more
euphemistic phrases: that peace for Russia means the end of Ukraine as a
sovereign and independent state of any sort with any borders. Those
advocating for pressing Ukraine to enter negotiations with Russia would
do well to reckon with this constantly reiterated Russian position."</strong></p><p>[1] <a href="https://t.me/medvedev_telegram/464">https://t.me/medvedev_telegram/464</a></p>
<p>[2] <a href="https://t.me/medvedev_telegram/464">https://t.me/medvedev_telegram/464</a></p>
<p>[3] <a href="https://t.me/medvedev_telegram/464">https://t.me/medvedev_telegram/464</a></p>
<p>[4] <a href="https://isw.pub/UkrWar121423; https://isw.pub/UkrWar040723;">https://isw.pub/UkrWar121423; https://isw.pub/UkrWar040723;</a> <a href="https://isw.pub/UkrWar022823">https://isw.pub/UkrWar022823</a></p>
<p>[5] <a href="https://isw.pub/UkrWar122823;">https://isw.pub/UkrWar122823;</a> <a href="https://isw.pub/UkrWar121423">https://isw.pub/UkrWar121423</a></p>
<p>[6] <a>http://kremlin dot</a> ru/events/president/news/66181</p>
<p>[7] <a href="https://isw.pub/UkrWar121923">https://isw.pub/UkrWar121923</a></p><p><strong> </strong> </p><p> <br /></p>Maya Mhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/10877457709995369246noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-25206081.post-48684750350197264382024-03-04T11:42:00.000-08:002024-03-04T11:43:04.647-08:00The Modest Request of Valiant Ukrainians<p> The photo below is from the Ukrainian town of Chasiv Yar which is at risk now that the Russian invaders have taken Avdiivka.</p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjpqa9O3cw1ok6-hwsEwxQ-SlHS36kmqNhTfOV8lYNIW_mdHUrAaqaArDcbKBCxieH6lUOiSrkzTXBM-KQP7xdjiLuTn1jKg06ghBvPttVFWbCND3ZwIuK2GE9Q1JiPxLQgrcMd-TNYFmZrAfYf34H9oy0qBMcsKV9TKEGmc4a1xtWnnw5dc4rG/s860/240223-ukraine-mb-1036-1d3a21.webp" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="573" data-original-width="860" height="397" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjpqa9O3cw1ok6-hwsEwxQ-SlHS36kmqNhTfOV8lYNIW_mdHUrAaqaArDcbKBCxieH6lUOiSrkzTXBM-KQP7xdjiLuTn1jKg06ghBvPttVFWbCND3ZwIuK2GE9Q1JiPxLQgrcMd-TNYFmZrAfYf34H9oy0qBMcsKV9TKEGmc4a1xtWnnw5dc4rG/w597-h397/240223-ukraine-mb-1036-1d3a21.webp" width="597" /></a></div><br /><p>“We are not asking too much,” reads the graffiti in Chasiv Yar, which
two years of intense fighting has slowly razed to the ground. “We just
need artillery shells and aviation. Rest we do ourselves. Armed Forces
of Ukraine.”</p><p>(Source: <a href="https://www.nbcnews.com/news/world/ukraine-desperate-supplies-russia-advances-invasions-2-year-anniversar-rcna139935">NBC</a>) <br /></p>Maya Mhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/10877457709995369246noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-25206081.post-88086430340774460292024-02-15T14:23:00.000-08:002024-02-15T14:23:09.851-08:00Why there cannot be "two-state solution"<p> Copying from Gadi Taub,<i><a href="https://www.tabletmag.com/sections/israel-middle-east/articles/sorry-there-is-no-two-state-solution"> Tablet</a></i>:</p><p>"<b>Sorry, but There Is No Two-State Solution</b></p><p> I don’t fault any Zionist or ally of Israel for having embraced the
two-state solution, as I did for many years. No other peace plan could
reconcile self-interest and lofty principles so seamlessly...</p><p>The two-state solution was also naturally appealing to Israel’s friends
in the West, especially liberal Jews: Faced with attempts to paint
Zionism as colonialism, Judaism as fundamentalist messianism, the IDF as
an army of occupation, or Israel as an apartheid state, the two-state
solution would dissolve such smears with a single flourish.</p><p>But compelling as it is as a debating strategy, or a form of
self-therapy, the two-state solution is, sadly, no solution at all.
Rather, it is a big step down the road to another Lebanon. It would doom
the Zionist project, not save it, while producing much greater misery
and more bloodshed for Israelis and Palestinians alike. By now most of
us in Israel understand this dreadful math. If there was still a
substantial minority among us who clung to the two-state promise against
the evidence of the Second Intifada and everything that followed, that
minority has shrunk considerably since Oct. 7.</p><p>We now know exactly what our would-be neighbors have in mind for us. We
see that a majority of Palestinians support Hamas and are well pleased
by its massacres. Most of us therefore believe that turning Judea and
Samaria into another Hamastan to satisfy those who see the massacre as
an inspiration and its perpetrators as role models would be suicidal.
Who in their right mind would inflict the ensuing bloodshed on their
partners, children, friends, and parents? If one is determined to feel
overwhelming sympathy for one of the many stateless peoples of the
world, why not start with the Kurds, or the Catalans, or the Basques, or
the Rohingya, or the Baluchis, or any of one of dozens of subnational
groups—none of whom seem likely to attain their longed-for goals of
statehood anytime soon. After all, it took nearly 2,000 years for the
Jews to succeed in refounding their state. If the Palestinians are
determined to kill us on the road to replacing us, then presumably they
can wait, too...</p><p>To be sure, the two-state solution was a noble dream. But it turns out
it always was just that—a dream. What enabled those who clung to it long
enough to continue sleepwalking through the wrecks of exploding buses,
the bodies of slain civilians, the constant wild calls for violence
against us, the massive efforts to build terror infrastructures under
our noses and on our borders, was our own tendency to imagine
Palestinians in our own image. For all the fashionable talk of
diversity, we too find it hard to imagine a people that is not like
ourselves. Knowing our own striving for self-determination, we assumed
that the Palestinians, too, want above all to be masters of their own
fate in their own sovereign state.</p><p>But that is not what they want. The huge amount of international aid
Palestinians have received since 1948 was never used for
nation-building. It wasn’t used for building houses and roads or for
planting orange groves. It was harnessed to one overarching cause: the
destruction of the Jewish state. This is what the United Nations Relief
and Works Agency for Palestine Refugees (UNRWA) does: subsidize and
shield Palestinian terror infrastructure. This is what the PA does with
its pay-for-slay salaries—underwritten by the U.S.—to the families of
terrorists. And this is what Hamas was able to do as a result of the
billions invested in Gaza: It bought weapons, trained terrorists, and
built a sprawling network of terror tunnels—and not one bomb shelter for
civilians.</p><p>As Einat Wilf and Adi Schwarz demonstrate in their bestselling book <em>The War of Return</em>,
the Palestinian national movement has built its ethos and identity
around the so-called “right of return” of the Palestinian “refugees”—by
which they mean the destruction of Israel through the resettlement of
the Palestinian diaspora, the so-called refugees that UNRWA numbers at
5.9 million, within Israel’s borders. But there’s no such thing as the
right of return: First, it is not an internationally recognized right;
second, if implemented it would not be a return, since almost all of
those who demand it have never been to Israel themselves. And finally,
of those who fled or were expelled from the land of Israel in 1948, only
an <a href="https://www.timesofisrael.com/us-senate-dramatically-redefines-definition-of-palestinian-refugees/">estimated</a> 30,000 are still alive today.</p><p>No other group of people on Earth is considered to be refugees decades
after so many of its members have resettled as passport-holding citizens
of other countries. No other group has its refugee status conferred
automatically on its offspring. And no group of actual refugees is
excluded from the purview of the U.N. High Commissioner for Refugees
(UNHCR), entrusted instead to the care of a special agency, UNRWA, whose
mandate is to perpetuate the problem rather than solve it. UNRWA
cultivates Palestinian hopes for a “free” Palestine “from the river to
the sea,” allows for weapons to be <a href="https://unwatch.org/un-admits-palestinians-fired-rockets-unrwa-schools/">stored</a> inside its <a href="https://www.cbsnews.com/news/israel-photos-hamas-gaza-weapons-un-facilities-including-schools/">facilities</a> and schools, and for a Hamas intelligence and communications center to be <a href="https://www.wsj.com/world/middle-east/hamas-military-compound-found-beneath-u-n-agency-headquarters-in-gaza-7e29c758">built under</a> its headquarters, indoctrinates children to glorify <a href="https://www.israelhayom.com/2023/12/01/un-teachers-in-gaza-glorify-hamas-massacre-report-finds/">terrorists</a>—whom it also <a href="https://www.cbsnews.com/news/israel-hamas-unrwa-un-staff-intelligence-dossier-oct-7-terror-attack/">employs</a>—and <a href="https://www.jpost.com/arab-israeli-conflict/over-100-unrwa-teachers-incite-violence-antisemitism-online-report-675691">disseminates</a> wild <a href="https://unwatch.org/un-teachers-call-to-murder-jews-reveals-new-report/">antisemitism</a>,
while still steering clear of what it should have been doing all along:
resettling those who were, or still are, actual refugees.</p><p>What the centrality of the “right of return” to the Palestinian ethos
means, of course, is that Palestinian identity itself is structured as a
rejection of the two-state solution, and denies the legitimacy of any
form of Jewish sovereignty anywhere in the land of Israel. The two-state
solution presupposes mutual recognition between both peoples. Each
would affirm the right of the other to national self-determination. If
you demand partition but also insist on the right of return then what
you are really asking for is a two-Palestinian-states solution: one
state in the West Bank and Gaza, ethnically cleansed of Jewish settlers,
and one in Israel, where the Jews would eventually become a minority,
and would consequently suffer the fate of the Jewish communities in
every other Arab state. There has never been a Palestinian leadership
ready to give up the right of return, which means that they have always
manipulated their Israeli counterparts, as well as all mediators
(including, of course, American mediators) with fake negotiations
intended to extract temporary benefits, and to buy time, in preparation
for the larger goal of eradicating all traces of Jewish sovereignty
between the river and the sea. Fortunately, they have failed each time.
But failure hardly keeps them from trying.</p><p>There never was a Palestinian leadership ready to recognize the
legitimacy of a Jewish nation-state. That is a constant fact of life in
the conflict. The Arab side has rejected any and all partition plans
starting with the Peel Commission in 1937, the United Nations partition
resolution of 1947, and all the way through the various American
mediation plans and Israeli offers, and those offered by Israeli
leaders, including the Camp David 2000 offer, in which Prime Minister
Ehud Barak agreed to the partition of Jerusalem, and the further
concessions offered later by Prime Minister Ehud Olmert. All have
crashed on the nonnegotiable demand for the right of return. Even
Salam Fayyad, the technocrat former Palestinian prime minister, a
figurehead with no popular support at home but beloved by Western peace
processors—and who’s receiving renewed attention in
administration-friendly media—insisted on the right of return in an <a href="https://www.economist.com/by-invitation/2023/10/11/the-palestinian-cause-has-been-damaged-by-factionalism-argues-a-former-prime-minister">article</a> he wrote mere days after the Oct. 7 pogrom.</p><div class="BlockContent col-12 lg:col-10 xl-wide:col-8 mxauto"><p>Luckily,
the Palestinians were never patient enough to even temporarily put a
stop to terrorism or defer their demand for return until they could
muster better-organized forces. It seems that the cult of death and the
worship of martyrs make for an addiction to terror, and a need for
violent venting. If you bring your children from kindergarten to stage
plays where they pretend to kill Jews, you cannot also tell them to hold
back forever on acting them out once they’ve grown up. The tree of
Palestinian identity, it seems, must be constantly watered with the
blood of Jews to sustain it through the many sacrifices required for a
nonproductive life of permanent victimhood.</p><p>Had our neighbors been able to restrain themselves for a time, our
seduction by the two-state illusion, the game we played with ourselves
to relieve our moral pangs from the imperative to rule over another
people, could easily have been fatal...</p><p>Israel is a strong country, but it is also a small country surrounded by
enemies. It is important for Israel to mark the difference between
embracing folly and being polite. It is time that Israel and her leaders
be more vocal about the folly of America’s misguided Middle East
policy. We can afford to continue limping along with the burdens of the
occupation for another generation or two, by which point many unforeseen
things will have come to pass that may make a solution either more or
less obvious. But we will not live that long if we are once again
seduced by the two-state siren song."</p><p>***</p><p>Hattip for this article: Prof. Jerry Coyne's post <i><a href="https://whyevolutionistrue.com/2024/02/15/the-myth-of-the-two-state-solution/">The myth of the two-state solution</a></i>. I want to add two comments from there:</p><p>"<b class="fn">Emily </b><a href="https://whyevolutionistrue.com/2024/02/15/the-myth-of-the-two-state-solution/#comment-2082228"><time datetime="2024-02-15T10:16:55-06:00">February 15, 2024 at 10:16 am</time></a> </p>
<div class="comment-content">
<p>When I leaned that the PA pays sizable sums to the families of
terrorists for committing their acts of terror against innocent Israelis
with money it receives from Europe and the US my stomach sank and I
understood immediately there is no effing way that a two state
settlement is a viable solution to the conflict. </p>
<p>There is just no way to live in peace next to a state and people who
value their own deaths and the deaths of their enemy more than their
self determination and peaceful development. It’s impossible. That’s the
sad reality Israelis have to live with."</p><p>"<b class="fn">Doug </b><a href="https://whyevolutionistrue.com/2024/02/15/the-myth-of-the-two-state-solution/#comment-2082273"><time datetime="2024-02-15T13:02:21-06:00">February 15, 2024 at 1:02 pm</time></a> </p>
<div class="comment-content">
<p>A point about language: perhaps best to refrain from using the
terms set by one’s opponents. Whether that be in the DEI realm, “gender”
wars, or a host of other contentious topics, the “progressive” left
excels at dictating the terms of discussion and, thus, controlling the
perceptions and bounds of debate.</p>
<p>The two-state “solution.” Notice it isn’t a proposal, an idea, a
wish, a dream. It is a solution. Who could be against a solution? A
solution SOLVES things! Except that this “solution” would prove quite a
bit like another “Solution” the Jews once faced." <br /></p></div>
</div></div><p> </p>Maya Mhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/10877457709995369246noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-25206081.post-24215100777690964052024-02-05T10:52:00.000-08:002024-02-05T10:52:52.095-08:00US Republicans - allies of Putin<p> </p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhGzqPbutVSzqhjzV28NZ1qpWoDx9ISv8saQYhTHgls919ZwH1Rl2KHnkijbDHZTBUtVPydnunAVH8SiIfVqdriTj90R9ie9saMXAaD-bBGKdvsEM_QUGKbVtaQPp1XCHsM-oZaAEP1-ZSW7YPGUXOF5oCzAefrDlp0SH_hwjf_b31lxBPvpcW3/s1040/photo_2024-01-12_12-22-34_7.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="585" data-original-width="1040" height="310" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhGzqPbutVSzqhjzV28NZ1qpWoDx9ISv8saQYhTHgls919ZwH1Rl2KHnkijbDHZTBUtVPydnunAVH8SiIfVqdriTj90R9ie9saMXAaD-bBGKdvsEM_QUGKbVtaQPp1XCHsM-oZaAEP1-ZSW7YPGUXOF5oCzAefrDlp0SH_hwjf_b31lxBPvpcW3/w551-h310/photo_2024-01-12_12-22-34_7.jpg" width="551" /></a></div><p></p><p>Cartoon from the Financial Times.<br /></p>Maya Mhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/10877457709995369246noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-25206081.post-4670479349462237252024-01-13T15:20:00.000-08:002024-01-13T15:21:49.135-08:00Islam, in one picture<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiPia0qxfWMDzFJxWfsx-TaMsaL5CW7Luj6DCElevql-AhvKkg9XWUVvXqRzt9inZr-cvls51a8AWM6C-Fc2npI0V_KbUws68M3qbAjxr2QpkHT60Xh0gL97IH_Dxb9dR_AcO-7bHG816ZkrSCjPJjG4erLFZhp-z4I_ttuGbcscmlKgk8VwfI4/s2399/0f8e813e448c207f9867022614f85778.webp" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="1500" data-original-width="2399" height="359" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiPia0qxfWMDzFJxWfsx-TaMsaL5CW7Luj6DCElevql-AhvKkg9XWUVvXqRzt9inZr-cvls51a8AWM6C-Fc2npI0V_KbUws68M3qbAjxr2QpkHT60Xh0gL97IH_Dxb9dR_AcO-7bHG816ZkrSCjPJjG4erLFZhp-z4I_ttuGbcscmlKgk8VwfI4/w573-h359/0f8e813e448c207f9867022614f85778.webp" width="573" /></a></div><br /><p></p><p>Afghanistan under theTaliban. Photo by Ebrahim Noroozi/AP, copied from <a href="https://www.yahoo.com/news/teenage-girls-detained-lashed-taliban-191633593.html">this report</a>.</p><p>Readers' comments:</p><p>"<span class="Typography__text--11-4-6 Typography__t4--11-4-6 Typography__l6--11-4-6">What a shame! They look like closed up patio umbrellas!</span>"</p><p>"<span class="Typography__text--11-4-6 Typography__t4--11-4-6 Typography__l6--11-4-6">Why leftists cheer and support this is beyond me.</span>"</p><p>"<span class="Typography__text--11-4-6 Typography__t4--11-4-6 Typography__l6--11-4-6">We should have armed the women.</span>"<br /></p>Maya Mhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/10877457709995369246noreply@blogger.com2tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-25206081.post-83494248627212899942024-01-11T15:21:00.000-08:002024-01-11T15:21:21.369-08:00Australia prefers to destroy helicopters instead of giving them to Ukraine<p> From <a href="https://www.kyivpost.com/opinion/26548">Kyiv Post</a>:</p><p>"<b><span class="label-title">OPINION:</span> Australia – Let Ukraine Have Your “Retired” Taipan Helicopters</b></p><p>by Stefan Romaniw</p><p></p><p>The idea of transferring <a href="https://www.kyivpost.com/topic/australia">Australia’s</a> retired fleet of MRH-90 helicopters to <a href="https://www.kyivpost.com/topic/ukraine">Ukraine</a>
has been suggested by several parties since the government decided upon
early retirement. Yet the most recently reported development in the
MRH-90 saga is that the ADF <a href="https://asiapacificdefencereporter.com/armys-mrh-90-taipan-helicopters-expected-to-be-scrapped-and-buried-despite-years-of-useful-life-remaining/">plans to dismantle and bury</a> these aircraft rather than donate them to Ukraine.</p> <p>There are compelling reasons why donating the MRH-90 fleet to Ukraine makes much more sense than scrapping them.</p> <p>Ukraine
has had a chronic shortage of helicopters since Russia initiated its
partial invasion in 2014, and its full-scale invasion of Ukraine almost
two years ago.</p> <p>The Armed Forces of Ukraine inherited more than
400 military helicopters when the USSR collapsed three decades ago,
mostly Mi-8 HIP multi-purpose helicopters and Mi-24 HIND helicopter
gunships. By 2014 most of these helicopters were no longer airworthy,
with worn out engines, gearboxes and rotor blades, and many had been
cannibalized to keep others flying. Ukraine lacked production
capabilities for many spare parts and was only able to get replacement
rotor blades into production shortly before the 2022 full scale
invasion.</p><p>The Ukrainian helicopter fleet numbering a few dozen flyable aircraft
was heavily overused from the earliest days of the 2022 full-scale
invasion. During the Battle for Kyiv in the first weeks of the war, the
fleet was used round the clock to strike at Russian forces besieging the
capital, with many helicopters and courageous aircrew lost to Russian
air defenses. The besieged Ukrainian garrison at Mariupol was resupplied
for weeks by helicopters that flew in under Russian air defenses. But
that heroic operation ceased after the Russians blocked access and shot
down a flight killing the crew and wounded troops that were being
evacuated.</p><p>NATO allies, including the US, donated what remaining Soviet and Russian
helicopters they had to partially compensate for Ukraine's losses. The
fleet now comprises a proverbial “zoo” of no less than sixteen variants
of the two main helicopter types.</p><p>As the HIND gunships are scarce, many of the HIP transports have been
modified to fire Western supplied Hydra and Zuni air to surface
rockets. But modifying leftover transport helicopters into gunships
cannot not solve the more basic headache of a worn-out, understrength,
shrinking, and largely obsolete fleet of military helicopters.</p> <p>Ukraine needs modern Western helicopters, both quickly, and in large numbers.</p> <p>Why
the Australian government did not pre-emptively offer the MRH-90
helicopters to Ukraine when the decision was made on early retirement
remains an unanswered question. Agreeing to the ADF plan to scrap and
bury assets for which taxpayers had spent over $3 billion dollars, and
which have years of remaining life in them, qualifies as bizarre.</p> <p>No
doubt the defense ministry can dredge up any number of irrelevant
“explanations”, as we have seen with their ongoing media campaign which
seems designed to discourage Ukraine from asking for the forty plus
mothballed RAAF F/A-18 Super Hornet multirole fighter aircraft.</p> <p>Donating
the MRH-90 fleet, remaining spare parts, documentation and support
equipment does not incur any future financial or support obligations for
Australia. Variants of the NH-90 series are operated by nine European
allies of Ukraine all of whom have been generous donors of military
equipment and training.</p><p>Ukraine already operates the Airbus Super Puma and has established
supply chains in Europe. So, the supply chain and maintenance woes that
bedeviled the ADF while operating the MRH-90 simply do not apply to
Ukraine – Ukraine's European allies can solve these problems.</p> <p>No
differently, airlifting the MRH-90 fleet to Europe is also a task
Ukraine's other allies can handle should the defense department decide
that it is too expensive or inconvenient.</p> <p>Donating the remaining
MRH-90s to Ukraine would offer a strategic payoff to Australia. Russia's
long running campaign to destabilize Europe and the Middle East, and
meddle in Western politics, directly threatens Australia's interests as a
global exporter.</p> <p>In the zero-sum game between Russia and the
West scrapping the MRH-90s, instead of donating them to Ukraine, is in
effect aiding <a href="https://www.kyivpost.com/topic/russia">Russia</a> in its genocidal campaign to conquer Ukraine.</p> <p>The
Australian Government might want to ask some hard questions of its
defense department - especially as Ukraine has requested these
helicopters as aid.</p> <p>The Kafkaesque episode of the disposal of the
MRH-90s is one of many we have seen play out in the ADF over the last
two decades and one that should have politicians and the public asking
for some real explanations – not contrived excuses that make little
sense.</p><p>The bottom line is that donating the MRH-90 fleet to Ukraine is cheap
and yields good strategic and political payoffs with no baggage for the
Government or the taxpayer." <br /></p><p> </p><p> </p>Maya Mhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/10877457709995369246noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-25206081.post-31970736187883238412023-12-27T12:56:00.000-08:002023-12-27T12:56:51.268-08:00The US Democratic Party's Troubling Recent History Concerning Russia<p> From <a href="https://www.brookings.edu/articles/why-its-hard-to-take-democrats-seriously-on-russia/">Brookings</a>:</p><p><b>"Why it’s hard to take Democrats seriously on Russia</b> </p><h5><span class="tooltip theme-white p-3 shadow-person-hover max-sm:!hidden uk-drop uk-open" id="person-tooltip-0" role="tooltip" style="left: -45.8px; max-width: 1233px; top: 128.733px;"><div class="people people-name-and-title-desktop" data-filter-research-programs="" data-filter-topics="">
<div class="people-wrapper">
<a class="photo expert-link" href="https://www.brookings.edu/people/james-kirchick/">
<div class="img-wrapper relative overflow-hidden">
<figure class="overflow-hidden relative aspect-[1/1] w-full rounded-full" data-gtm-vis-first-on-screen2341590_309="4136" data-gtm-vis-has-fired2341590_309="1" data-gtm-vis-recent-on-screen2341590_309="4136" data-gtm-vis-total-visible-time2341590_309="100">
<div class="img-wrapper">
</div>
</figure>
</div>
</a>
<div class="info">
<a class="text-link-underline" href="https://www.brookings.edu/people/james-kirchick/">
<span class="name">James Kirchick</span>
</a>
<span class="titles">
<span class="title-wrapper">
<span class="title">Former Brookings Expert </span>
</span>
</span>
<a class="twitter btn text-btn group" href="https://twitter.com/@jkirchick" rel="noreferrer" target="_blank">
<span class="text-twitter-blue w-3">
<svg fill="none" height="14" viewbox="0 0 16 14" width="16" xmlns="http://www.w3.org/2000/svg">
</svg></span></a></div></div></div></span></h5>
<div>
<p class="text-medium">July 27, 2017</p>
</div><div class="byo-block -narrow wysiwyg-block wysiwyg ">
<p>Democrats are exasperated that Republicans don’t share their
outrage over the ever-widening scandal surrounding Donald Trump and
Russia. The president’s personal solicitousness toward Vladimir Putin,
the alacrity of his son in welcoming potential assistance from Russians
during the 2016 campaign, and mounting questions as to whether Trump
associates colluded with Russia as part of its influence operation
against Hillary Clinton are leading Democrats to speak of impeachment
and even treason.</p>
</div>
<div class="byo-block -narrow wysiwyg-block wysiwyg ">
<p>As a longtime Russia hawk who has spent most of the past decade
covering Kremlin influence operations across the West, I share their
exasperation. Over the past year, I have authored pieces with headlines
like <a href="https://www.commentarymagazine.com/articles/how-putin-plays-trump-like-a-piano/" target="_blank">“How Putin plays Trump like a piano,”</a> <a href="https://www.washingtonpost.com/posteverything/wp/2017/01/06/how-trump-got-his-party-to-love-russia/?utm_term=.982b6a1f06c3" target="_blank">“How Trump got his party to love Russia,”</a> and, most recently in this space, <a href="http://www.politico.com/magazine/story/2017/07/18/how-the-gop-became-the-party-of-putin-215387" target="_blank">“How the GOP became the party of Putin.”</a> As
I see it, conservatives’ nonchalance about Russia’s attempt to disrupt
and discredit our democracy ranks as one of the most appalling
developments in recent American political history.</p>
<p>But as much as Democrats may be correct in their diagnosis of
Republican debasement, they are wholly lacking in self-awareness as to
their own record regarding Russia. This helps explain why conservatives
have so much trouble taking liberal outrage about Russia seriously: Most
of the people lecturing them for being “Putin’s pawns” spent the better
part of the past eight years blindly supporting a Democratic president,
Barack Obama, whose default mode with Moscow was fecklessness. To
Republicans, these latter-day Democratic Cold Warriors sound like
partisan hysterics, a perception that’s not entirely wrong.</p>
<p>Consider the latest installment of the unfolding Trump-Russia saga:
Donald Trump Jr.’s meeting last summer with a Russian lawyer promising
dirt on Clinton. Before inexplicably publicizing his own email
correspondence, which revealed him eager to accept information that
would allegedly “incriminate” his father’s opponent, Trump Jr. claimed
the confab concerned nothing more salacious than the issue of
“adoption.” Democrats have rightly pointed out that this was a ruse:
When the Russian government or its agents talk about international
adoption, they’re really talking about the Magnitsky Act, a 2012 measure
sanctioning Russian human rights abusers named after a Russian lawyer
tortured to death after exposing a massive tax fraud scheme perpetrated
by government officials. The law’s passage so infuriated Putin that he
capriciously and cruelly retaliated by banning American adoption of
Russian orphans. Five years after its enactment, the law continues to
rankle Russia’s president. According to Trump himself, it was the
ostensibly innocuous issue of “adoption” that Putin raised with him
during a previously undisclosed dinner conversation at the G-20 summit
in Hamburg earlier this month.</p>
<p>Yet for all the newfound righteous indignation in defense of the
Magnitsky Act being expressed by former Obama officials and supporters,
it wasn’t long ago that they <a href="http://foreignpolicy.com/2014/05/15/the-magnitsky-flip-flop/" target="_blank">tried to prevent its passage</a>,
fearing the measure would hamper their precious “reset” with Moscow. In
2012, as part of this effort, the Obama administration <a href="http://foreignpolicy.com/2012/06/21/abandoning-sergei-magnitsky/" target="_blank">lobbied</a><strong> </strong>for
repeal of the Jackson-Vanik amendment, a Cold War-era law tying
enhanced trade relations with Russia to its human rights record. Some
voices on Capitol Hill proposed replacing Jackson-Vanik with Magnitsky, a
move the administration vociferously opposed. Shortly after his
appointment as ambassador to Moscow, Michael McFaul (today one of the
most widely cited critics on the subject of Trump and Russia) publicly
stated that the Magnitsky Act would be “<a href="http://foreignpolicy.com/2012/03/12/mcfaul-no-human-rights-bill-trade-for-granting-russia-top-trade-status/" target="_blank">redundant</a>”
and that the administration specifically disagreed with its naming and
shaming Russian human rights abusers as well as its imposition of
financial sanctions. McFaul even invoked the beleaguered Russian
opposition, which he said agreed with the administration’s position.</p>
<p>This was a mischaracterization of Russian civil society, the most
prominent leaders of which supported repeal of Jackson-Vanik only on the
express condition it be superseded by the Magnitsky Act. “Allowing
[Jackson-Vanik] to disappear with nothing in its place … turns it into
little more than a gift to Mr. Putin,” Russian dissidents Garry Kasparov
and Boris Nemtsov <a href="https://www.wsj.com/articles/SB10001424052702304692804577281210489679138" target="_blank">wrote</a> for the <em>Wall Street</em> <em>Journal</em> days
after McFaul’s remarks. (Nemtsov, one of Putin’s loudest and most
visible critics, was assassinated in 2015 just a few hundred meters from
the Kremlin walls). Anti-corruption activist Alexei Navalny,
meanwhile, <a href="https://www.the-american-interest.com/2012/04/13/resetting-the-reset/" target="_blank">wrote</a> that
while he supported repealing Jackson-Vanik, “no doubt the majority of
Russian citizens will be happy to see the U.S. Senate deny the most
abusive and corrupt Russian officials the right of entry and
participation in financial transactions in the U.S., which is the
essence of the Magnitsky Bill.”</p>
</div>
<div class="byo-block -narrow wysiwyg-block wysiwyg ">
<p>Nevertheless, the Obama administration not only persisted in
opposing Magnitsky, but continued to claim that it had the support of
the Russian opposition in this endeavor. “Leaders of Russia’s political
opposition,” then-Secretary of State Hillary Clinton <a href="https://www.wsj.com/articles/SB10001424052702303836404577475061208876588" target="_blank">wrote</a> in an op-ed for <em>The Wall Street Journal</em>,
“have called on the U.S. to terminate Jackson-Vanik, despite their
concerns about human rights and the Magnitsky case.” Despite
administration protestations, Congress passed the Magnitsky Act and
Obama reluctantly signed it into law. Reflecting on the legislative
battle two years later, Bill Browder, the London-based investor for whom
Magnitsky worked and the driving force behind the bill, <a href="http://foreignpolicy.com/2014/05/15/the-magnitsky-flip-flop/" target="_blank">told</a> <em>Foreign Policy,</em> “The
administration, starting with Hillary Clinton and then John Kerry, did
everything they could do to stop the Magnitsky Act.”</p>
<p>Today’s liberal Russia hawks would have us believe that they’ve
always been clear-sighted about Kremlin perfidy and mischief. They’re
displaying amnesia not just over a single law but the entire foreign
policy record of the Obama administration. From the reset, which it <a href="http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2009/02/07/AR2009020700756.html" target="_blank">announced</a> in
early 2009 just months after Russia invaded Georgia, to its removal of
missile defense systems in the Czech Republic and Poland later that
year, to its ignoring Russia’s <a href="https://www.nytimes.com/2014/01/30/world/europe/us-says-russia-tested-missile-despite-treaty.html?_r=0" target="_blank">violations</a> of
the 1987 Intermediate-Range Nuclear Forces Treaty (while simultaneously
negotiating New START) and its ceding the ground in Syria to Russian
military intervention, the Obama administration’s Russia policy was one,
protracted, eight-year-long concession to Moscow. Throughout his two
terms in office, Obama played down the threat Russia posed to America’s
allies, interests and values, and ridiculed those who warned otherwise.
“The traditional divisions between nations of the south and the north
make no sense in an interconnected world nor do alignments of nations
rooted in the cleavages of a long-gone Cold War,” Obama lectured the
United Nations General Assembly in 2009, a more florid and verbose way
of making the exact same criticism of supposed NATO obsolescence that
liberals would later excoriate Trump for bluntly declaring.</p>
<p>When it abandoned missile defense installations in Poland and the
Czech Republic that same year—announcing the decision on the anniversary
of the Soviet Union’s invasion of Poland, no less—the Obama
administration insisted that the move wasn’t about kowtowing to Moscow
but rather more robustly preparing for the looming Iranian threat.
Notwithstanding the merits of that argument, perception matters in
foreign policy, and the perception in Central and Eastern Europe was
that America was abandoning its friends in order to satiate an
adversary. That characterizes the feelings of many American allies
during the Obama years, whether Israelis and Sunni Arabs upset about a
perceived tilt to Iran, or Japanese concerned about unwillingness to
confront a revisionist China. Liberals are absolutely right to criticize
the Trump administration for its alienation of allies. But they seem to
have forgotten the record of the man who served as president for the
eight years prior.</p>
<p>Three years later, in the midst of what he thought was a private
conversation about arms control with then-Russian President Dmitri
Medvedev, Obama was famously caught on an open microphone <a href="https://www.washingtonpost.com/politics/obama-tells-medvedev-solution-on-missile-defense-is-unlikely-before-elections/2012/03/26/gIQASoblbS_story.html?utm_term=.bf4fe93129e3" target="_blank">promising</a> that
he would have “more flexibility” (that is, be able to make even more
concessions to Moscow) after the presidential election that fall.
(Imagine the uproar if Trump had a similar hot mic moment with Putin.)
Later that year, after Mitt Romney suggested Russia was America’s “No. 1
geopolitical foe,” Obama ridiculed his Republican challenger. “The
1980s are now calling and they want their foreign policy back,” Obama <a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QS2a44F5TgM" target="_blank">retorted</a>, in a line that has come back to haunt Democrats. An <a href="http://freebeacon.com/national-security/former-hillary-clinton-spokesman-democrats-wrong-2012-mock-romneys-russia-worries/" target="_blank">entire procession</a> of
Democratic politicians, foreign policy hands and sympathetic
journalists followed Obama’s lead and repeated the critique. According
to soon-to-be secretary of state John Kerry, Romney’s warning about
Russia was a “preposterous notion.” His predecessor Madeleine Albright
said Romney possessed “little understanding of what is actually going on
in the 21<sup>st</sup>century.”</p>
<p>This wasn’t merely a debate talking point. Downplaying both the
nature and degree of the Russian menace constituted a major component of
mainstream liberal foreign policy doctrine until about a year ago—that
is, when it became clear that Russia was intervening in the American
presidential race against a Democrat. It provided justification for
Obama’s humiliating acceptance in 2013 of Russia’s cynical offer to help
remove Syrian chemical weapons after he failed to endorse his own “red
line” against their deployment. Not only did that deal fail to ensure
the complete removal of Bashar Assad’s stockpiles (as evidenced by the
regime’s repeated use of such weapons long after they were supposedly
eliminated), it essentially opened the door to Russian military
intervention two years later.</p><div class="byo-block -narrow wysiwyg-block wysiwyg ">
<p>Even after Putin annexed Crimea in 2014, the first violent
seizure of territory on the European continent since World War II, Obama
continued to understate the severity of the Russian threat. Just a few
weeks after the annexation was formalized, asked by a reporter if
Romney’s 2012 statement had been proven correct, Obama stubbornly
dismissed Russia as “a regional power that is threatening some of its
immediate neighbors not out of strength but out of weakness.” Truly.
Russia is such a “regional power” that it reached across the Atlantic
Ocean and intervened in the American presidential election, carrying out
what Democrats today rightly claim was the most successful influence
operation in history. “It is the hardest thing about my entire time in
government to defend,” a senior Obama official, speaking of the
administration’s halfhearted response to Russia’s intrusion, <a href="https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/the-fix/wp/2017/06/23/the-russia-2016-blame-game-finds-obama/?utm_term=.39a3b1518b04" target="_blank">told</a> the <em>Washington Post</em>. “I feel like we sort of choked.”</p>
<p>Yet rarely in the course of accusing Trump of being a Kremlin agent
have liberals—least of all the president they so admire—reflected upon
their hypocrisy and apologized to Romney, whose prescience about Russia,
had he been elected in 2012, may very well have dissuaded Putin from
doing what he did on Obama’s watch. In Obama, Putin rightly saw a weak
and indecisive leader and wagered that applying the sort of tactics
Russia uses in its post-imperial backyard to America’s democratic
process would be worth the effort. The most we’ve seen in the way of
atonement are Clinton’s former campaign spokesman Brian Fallon admitting
on Twitter, “We Dems erred in ’12 by mocking” Romney, and Obama
speechwriter Jon Favreau sheepishly <a href="http://freebeacon.com/politics/former-obama-speechwriter-admits-democrats-criticize-romney-russia/" target="_blank">conceding</a>, with a chuckle, “we were a little off.” If Obama feels any regret, maybe he’s saving it for the memoir.</p>
<p>But even if liberals do eventually show a modicum of humility and
acknowledge just how catastrophically wrong they were about Romney, this
would not sufficiently prove their seriousness about Russia. For their
current criticisms of the Trump administration to carry water, liberals
will have to do more than simply apologize for regurgitating Obama’s
insult that Republicans are retrograde Cold Warriors. They will have to
renounce pretty much the entire Obama foreign policy legacy, which both
underestimated and appeased Russia at every turn. Otherwise, their grave
intonations about “active measures,” “kompromat” and other Soviet-era
phenomena will continue sounding opportunistic, and their protestations
about Trump being a Russian stooge will continue to have the appearance
of being motivated solely by partisan politics.</p>
<p>For now, the newfangled Democratic hawkishness on Russia seems
motivated almost entirely, if not solely, by anger over the (erroneous)
belief that Putin cost Clinton the election—not over the Kremlin’s
aggression toward its neighbors, its intervention on behalf of Assad in
Syria, its cheating on the Intermediate-Range Nuclear Force Treaty, or
countless other malfeasances. Most Democrats were willing to let Russia
get away with these things when Obama was telling the world that
“alignments of nations rooted in the cleavages of a long-gone Cold War”
are obsolete, or that Russia was a mere “regional power” whose
involvement in Syria would lead to another Afghanistan, or when he was
trying to win Russian help for his signal foreign policy achievement,
the Iran nuclear deal. If the Democrats’ newfound antagonism toward the
Kremlin extended beyond mere partisanship, they would have protested
most of Obama’s foreign policy, which acceded to Russian prerogatives at
nearly every turn. As the former George W. Bush speechwriter Matt
Latimer <a href="http://www.politico.com/magazine/story/2017/07/08/what-if-trump-had-won-as-a-democrat-215351" target="_blank">cleverly imagined</a> in
these pages, had Trump ran for president and won with the assistance of
Russia but as a Democrat instead of a Republican, it’s not difficult to
imagine Democrats being just as cynical and opportunistic in their
dismissal of the Russia scandal as Republicans are today.</p>
<p>Democrats’ lack of introspection about their past policy failures,
along with their amateurish, newfound zeal for opposing Russia, hurts
the wider effort to convince the American public that Russian meddling
in our democracy is a serious issue. The most credible voices in this
discussion are those genuinely knowledgeable about Russia’s grand
strategy to disrupt Western democracy, of which the Trump case is but
one element of a long-running global campaign. Not coincidentally, these
people have also been consistent in their hawkishness across
presidential administrations, as willing to confront the Obama
administration over its failures as they are today lambasting Trump. Yet
largely because of a media preference for sensationalism, these nuanced
voices are being drowned out in favor of Democratic partisans and
internet conspiracy theorists peddling wild accusations of “treason.”
Most liberals, to put it bluntly, are new to the cause, and their
obvious overcompensation and shrill rhetoric is degrading our civic
culture. “We were and are under attack by a hostile foreign power and …
we should be debating how many sanctions we should place on Russia or
whether we should blow up the KGB, GSU [sic], or GRU,” Democratic
factotum Paul Begala recently blathered on CNN, referring to,
successively, the Soviet-era intelligence service, a non-existent
agency, and Russian military intelligence. On Twitter, MSNBC host Joy
Reid recently <a href="https://twitter.com/JoyAnnReid/status/888418586473136128" target="_blank">opined</a>,
apropos of nothing, that “Donald Trump married one American (his second
wife) and two women from what used to be Soviet Yugoslavia:
Ivana-Slovakia, Melania-Slovenia.”</p>
<p>Put aside the weird, inquisitorial implication that Trump, solely by
virtue of his having married two women from the former Eastern bloc,
must therefore be a Russian mole. Reid’s assertion managed to fit three
basic errors into a single sentence: 1) Ivana Trump was born in the
present-day Czech Republic, not Slovakia 2) Slovakia, furthermore, was
never part of Yugoslavia and 3) Yugoslavia, though socialist, was never
part of the Soviet Union and famously resisted incorporation into the
Warsaw Pact. This is what happens when partisan Democrats who never
expressed an iota of interest in Russia before June 2016 try to
impersonate Scoop Jackson: They end up sounding like a less methodical
Joe McCarthy.</p>
<p>Taken too far, liberals’ Russia obsession could hurt them. Many
Democrats seem to genuinely believe that Putin is the only reason
Clinton isn’t America’s first female president. Seeing Russian meddling
as the single or most significant explanation for their electoral woes
conveniently lets Democrats ignore the many other factors—a lousy
candidate, an uninspiring and unconvincing platform, a left-wing
identity politics that alienates many Americans, just to name a few—that
thwarted what ought to have been an easy victory against the most toxic
and unqualified individual ever to run for president. While the
American people certainly need to be better educated about the breadth
of Kremlin influence operations and the multifarious ways Russia
threatens the free world, a fixation on Russia to the exclusion of all
else will not win elections.</p>
<p>Hypocrisy is no stranger to politics, of course, and it’s never too
late for people to come around to the realization that Russia poses a
danger. But with Democrats seriously talking about impeachment or even
treason, a reckoning is in order. Constantly harping on Trump’s strange
affinity for Putin and suspicious connections to Russia isn’t
sufficient; the far more substantive policy concessions made to Russia
by the previous administration did at least as much damage to American
interests, if not more. Are liberals willing to admit the reset was a
giant miscalculation from the start? Are they willing to support sending
arms to Ukraine? To redeploy missile defense systems to allies in
Eastern Europe? Are they willing to concede that Obama’s Syria policy
was an epic disaster that paved the way for Russia’s reemergence as a
Middle Eastern military power? Are they, in other words, willing to
renounce the foreign policy legacy of one of their most popular leaders?
Because only that will demonstrate they’re serious about confronting
Russia. Anything short reeks of partisanship."</p></div></div><p> </p><p><br /></p>Maya Mhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/10877457709995369246noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-25206081.post-57468106781627640242023-12-25T16:45:00.000-08:002023-12-25T16:45:10.896-08:00Ukraine abandoned<p> From the <i><a href="https://www.latimes.com/politics/story/2023-12-24/mcmanus-column-congress-has-left-ukraine-in-the-cold-aid">Los Angeles Times</a></i>:</p><p>"<b>Congress has left Ukraine in the cold. The consequences will be dire if aid isn’t renewed soon</b></p><div class="authors"> <div class="author-name"><span class="byline-prefix">By</span> <a aria-label="Doyle McManus" class="link" data-click="standardBylineAuthorName" href="https://www.latimes.com/people/doyle-mcmanus">Doyle McManus</a><span class="author-title">Washington Columnist </span> </div> </div><p> <span class="published-date-day">Dec. 24, 2023</span></p><p>Ukraine’s war to repel Russia’s invasion suffered two major setbacks this year.</p><p>The
first was on the battlefield, where a long-promised Ukrainian ground
offensive was stymied by Russian fortifications that were stronger than
expected.</p><p>The second is underway in Washington, where Republicans
in Congress have held up President Biden’s request for $61 billion to
keep Ukraine’s war effort going in 2024.</p><p>The battlefield setback
was a painful disappointment for Ukrainian leaders, who hoped the
offensive could turn the tide of the war. </p><p>The political problem
could be even worse. If U.S. funding isn’t approved quickly, aid from
Europe could dry up as well, and Ukraine’s ability to fight could erode
dramatically.</p><p>Andriy Yermak, chief of staff to Ukrainian President Volodymyr
Zelensky, told an audience in Washington that if the deadlock persists,
it will create a “big risk to lose this war.”</p><p>His warning was for
naught. Republican leaders in both houses of Congress say they support
helping Ukraine in principle, but they‘re holding the aid hostage to
bargain for tougher immigration rules, especially toward asylum seekers.
.</p><p>The House of Representatives went home 10 days before Christmas
without acting on the administration’s request. Senate negotiators from
both parties stayed behind last week to try to <a class="link" href="https://www.latimes.com/world-nation/story/2023-12-21/a-deal-on-u-s-border-policy-is-closer-than-it-seems-heres-how-it-is-shaping-up-and-whats-at-stake">strike a deal</a>, but they fell short, too.</p><p>As
a result, Ukraine doesn’t know whether it can count on more funding for
the artillery shells and air defense weapons it needs to defend its
cities from Russian onslaught.</p><p>Military experts say Ukraine’s armed forces can keep fighting until the
end of January with ammunition they already have. But the uncertainty
over future supplies has forced them to <a class="link" href="https://www.latimes.com/world-nation/story/2023-12-20/ukraines-forces-pivot-to-defense-after-russia-holds-off-counteroffensive-analysts-says">scale back operations</a> and reduce their rate of artillery fire.</p><p>“A lower level of resources is going to mean a lower chance of
success,” said Michael Kofman, a military analyst at the Carnegie
Endowment for International Peace. “The effect of delayed funding … will
result in tangible deficits at the front line.”</p><div class="enhancement" data-align-center="" data-click="enhancement"></div><p>There’s a broader political impact, too.</p><p>If
Congress doesn’t approve funding quickly, the lesson to other
countries will be that domestic politics has made the United States an
unreliable ally. </p><p>For almost two years, Biden promised that the
United States would support Ukraine “as long as it takes,” and urged
other governments to do the same.</p><p>This month, faced with pushback, he downsized the commitment. Now it’s “as long as we can.”</p><p>“If Congress passes new funding by the end of January, it won’t be a
major blow to our credibility,” said Alexander Vershbow, a former U.S.
ambassador to Moscow. “But if it drags on for months, it will be a
disaster.”</p><p>GOP leaders said their decision to delay the funding
was ordinary legislative hardball — a bargaining chip to win concessions
on immigration, which most voters consider more important than Ukraine.
But their willingness to stiff-arm Zelensky also reflected eroding
support among GOP voters for Ukraine’s battle against Russian President
Vladimir Putin.</p><p>Polls show most Americans support helping Ukraine
at current or higher levels of aid. But conservative Republican voters —
the ones most likely to turn out for primary elections — are
disproportionately opposed.</p><p>The logjam has left Ukraine in the cold, literally and figuratively.</p><p>The
Ukrainians’ short-term military goal is to survive Russia’s winter
offensive, which is likely to focus on civilian targets such as cities,
electrical power plants and other economic infrastructure.</p><p>After
that, the Ukrainians hope to use long-range missiles supplied by the
U.S. and other countries plus home-grown drones to strike Russian
targets.</p><p>In a recent interview with the Economist, Ukraine’s
military commander, Gen. Valery Zaluzhny, called the situation a
“deadlock,” adding that trench warfare does not favor Ukraine in the
long run.</p><p>Without a technological breakthrough, he warned, “Sooner
or later, we are going to find that we simply don’t have enough people
to fight.”</p><p>In some wars, a deadlock might open the way for peace negotiations. Not this one.</p><p>At his four-hour-long <a class="link" href="https://www.latimes.com/world-nation/story/2023-12-20/putin-ratchets-up-military-pressure-on-ukraine-as-he-expects-western-support-for-kyiv-to-dwindle">news conference </a> Dec. 14, Putin buoyantly declared: “Victory is ours.”</p><p>One reason for his confidence, he said, is how shaky Ukraine’s Western support appears.</p><p>Ukraine
is “getting everything as freebies,” he said. “But those freebies can
run out at some point, and it looks like they’re already starting to run
out.”</p><p>He did not sound interested in seeking a compromise settlement. “There will be peace when we achieve our goals,” he said.</p><p>Those goals, he added, include replacing Zelensky’s government and disbanding Ukraine’s armed forces.</p><p>He doesn’t sound ready to give up his ambition to absorb Ukraine into Russia.</p><p>Our aid to Ukraine isn’t an act of charity. It’s in our interest to prevent Putin from expanding his empire.</p><p>Putin
still thinks he can wait out the West — that the United States and
Europe will tire of helping Ukrainians defend themselves and walk away.</p><p>The grim lesson of the last few weeks is that he may turn out to be right."</p><p> </p><p> </p><p> </p><p> </p><p> </p><p> </p><p><span class="published-date-day"> </span></p><p> </p>Maya Mhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/10877457709995369246noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-25206081.post-21823974518633092822023-12-14T13:41:00.000-08:002023-12-14T13:41:08.909-08:00Grief, anger and hope on Chanukah<p> Today is the last day and culmination of <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hanukkah">Chanukah (Hanukkah)</a>, the Jewish festival of light. Here is the synagogue in my city of Sofia, illuminated for the occasion:</p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEj06gru-hZRFs_eo6b_EeUALXG8lT3sOKwq4yvcnRWU5GPGW-0pSms1vgYbNCXodQ1D4yurlafBWiQXLPEPq8UIhD8L8Nq8OhDBJf8GqexUkC-caxG2klG_5LbK8i8VjaeKstmiN2RFuvF4M04d8PeM1s8NCyTxNqMR7VEfo8blCN5KVdp_ZjAg/s1316/chanukah_2023.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="1284" data-original-width="1316" height="485" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEj06gru-hZRFs_eo6b_EeUALXG8lT3sOKwq4yvcnRWU5GPGW-0pSms1vgYbNCXodQ1D4yurlafBWiQXLPEPq8UIhD8L8Nq8OhDBJf8GqexUkC-caxG2klG_5LbK8i8VjaeKstmiN2RFuvF4M04d8PeM1s8NCyTxNqMR7VEfo8blCN5KVdp_ZjAg/w497-h485/chanukah_2023.jpg" width="497" /></a></div><p></p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgBZ9RriIIzFZpXcqE8M6ShLf6R_DRdLjefx70zHKPrkQpt2fY1fBniUf-UljHMfAv7ZiKFadr8YizUpiWfRflKJm4G8qGZrFY0eJryDuJ-v3rYpZ7LLgH4P3SU_dKr5_iWC0qYRSicXlRdIYeOt3nzjIRTIiO7nNlyJv1IQSWOYhE1wo8HlzXU/s1270/chanukah_2023_1.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="1000" data-original-width="1270" height="395" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgBZ9RriIIzFZpXcqE8M6ShLf6R_DRdLjefx70zHKPrkQpt2fY1fBniUf-UljHMfAv7ZiKFadr8YizUpiWfRflKJm4G8qGZrFY0eJryDuJ-v3rYpZ7LLgH4P3SU_dKr5_iWC0qYRSicXlRdIYeOt3nzjIRTIiO7nNlyJv1IQSWOYhE1wo8HlzXU/w501-h395/chanukah_2023_1.jpg" width="501" /></a></div><br /><p>This year, sadly, the festival is passing under the shadow of the <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2023_Hamas-led_attack_on_Israel">Oct. 7 massacre</a> when Hamas launched a massive attack and killed about 1,200 innocent Israelis - the worst mass murder of Jews since the Holocaust. A young man from the kibbutz <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kfar_Aza">Kfar Aza</a> was a guest of the Jewish community of Sofia. He had suffered from Palestinian terrorists before, having lost an eye in Gaza during his military service in 2014. He told how on Oct. 7, together with other residents, he desperately fought to protect his kibbutz from the surprise attack, while his wife and baby were hiding in the "safe room" for 30 hours. Many people of the kibbutz were killed, and some were taken hostage. The survivors became refugees in their own country because it is still too dangerous to return to Kfar Aza. The young man angrily condemned the hypocrisy of the world which pressures Israel for cease-fire while the terrorists are still holding Israeli hostages. I am glad that two days ago in the UN, my Bulgaria <a href="https://www.aljazeera.com/news/2023/12/12/un-general-assembly-votes-overwhelmingly-in-favour-of-gaza-ceasefire">abstained </a>when an anti-Israeli resolution in this line was voted:</p><p></p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEi3NHHLNYkdmkY1rSh0kVwtppSK5jU51pQAxSOhkfJEgREL46hKwHiULVqOJROO-at6kGYF2z-8f7AzXZh0N5Yncb7HwqAJ7UeNbSWy_byFk-A4_IE7o5mZ72oYB4w0zYotYgCgj22f_056Fcj7pzakD-JaPDE0D7CKN1YFS8wblNQejZRyPWiV/s770/INTERACTIVE-UNGA-vote-demands-immediate-ceasefire-1702442981.webp" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="769" data-original-width="770" height="605" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEi3NHHLNYkdmkY1rSh0kVwtppSK5jU51pQAxSOhkfJEgREL46hKwHiULVqOJROO-at6kGYF2z-8f7AzXZh0N5Yncb7HwqAJ7UeNbSWy_byFk-A4_IE7o5mZ72oYB4w0zYotYgCgj22f_056Fcj7pzakD-JaPDE0D7CKN1YFS8wblNQejZRyPWiV/w605-h605/INTERACTIVE-UNGA-vote-demands-immediate-ceasefire-1702442981.webp" width="605" /></a></div><br /> Throughout the world, a <a href="https://www.yahoo.com/news/hating-israel-not-free-palestine-154238789.html">terrifying anti-Semitic orgy</a> has been raging since the Oct. 7 massacre, with Arab immigrants and morally and intellectually degraded Westerners celebrating it and condemning Israel and the Jews. In these dark times, anyone who has at least a little integrity should support Israel to its victory.<p></p><p>May light banish darkness!</p><p>Happy Chanukah!<br /></p><p><br /></p><p><br /></p>Maya Mhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/10877457709995369246noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-25206081.post-15833051446378503102023-09-03T11:20:00.001-07:002023-09-03T11:20:11.569-07:00Artifacts Discovered after the Kakhovka Dam Destruction<p>On June 6, Russian troops <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Destruction_of_the_Kakhovka_Dam">destroyed the Kakhovka Dam</a>, inflicting an ecocide on downstream Ukrainian territory in an
attempt to stop the Ukrainian counter-offensive. For all the horror of this man-made disaster, Ukrainian archaeologists saw in it a silver lining. As said one of them, Dmitriy Nikonenko (<a href="https://donpress.com/news/11-06-2023-nazvany-esche-posledstviya-podryva-damby-kakhovskogo-vodokhranilischa-my-mechtali-o" rel="nofollow">source in Russian</a>):
</p><p>“<em>The draining of the Kakhovka Reservoir will reveal the submerged
Zaporozhian Sich, settlements and necropols of many archaeological
cultures, the Kuchugurski Islands with their medieval landmarks, the
villages submerged in the 20th century. Water has preserved even the
giant trees on the island opposite the Zaporozhian Sich. I’ll be lying
if I say that archaeologists didn’t dream of draining the Kakhovka
Reservoir. But not this way, of course, because we cannot yet even
imagine the level of problems that Ukraine will face.</em>”</p><p>These hopes seem to have been fulfilled. From the New Voice of Ukraine from June 13, only days after the man-made disaster:<br data-mce-bogus="1" /></p><p>"<a data-mce-href="https://english.nv.ua/life/man-finds-ancient-byzantine-amphora-on-odesa-beach-after-kakhova-dam-flood-ukraine-news-50331636.html" href="https://english.nv.ua/life/man-finds-ancient-byzantine-amphora-on-odesa-beach-after-kakhova-dam-flood-ukraine-news-50331636.html"><strong>Ancient Byzantine amphora discovered on Odesa beach</strong></a><br data-mce-bogus="1" /></p><div class="subtitle">
<p>An ancient Byzantine
amphora has been discovered on an Odesa beach following the Russian destruction
of the <a href="https://english.nv.ua/nation/kakhovka-dam-destruction-kills-10-40-missing-in-two-ukrainian-oblasts-interior-ministry-50331333.html" target="_blank">Kakhovka Dam</a>, the Kherson Local History Museum reported <a href="https://www.facebook.com/hokmksua/posts/pfbid02V6N1teDbTwAG4n9aiasZbgtsXr56nvkP1ndswun2FAnWYyv5aBkcc9dZRCxBWEzFl" target="_blank">on Facebook</a> on June 12.</p>
</div><p> The ancient jar was found by an internally displaced resident of
Kherson, Yuriy Poslovskyi, who has been rescuing freshwater turtles
drifting downstream on the Dnipro River to Odesa. Together with his
family, he spotted a jar in the water. It was floating because a mud
plug spontaneously formed in its neck.</p><p>Being a historian, Poslovskyi immediately realized the value of the
find. He handed over the ancient artifact to the Kherson Local History
Museum. Later analysis established the object to be a Byzantine amphora
that may have washed down due to floodwaters from the coastal area, or
from an ancient shipwreck.</p><p>"Anyway, the generous southern land has shared its treasures with Kherson residents," the message on Facebook reads.</p><p>Other
amphoras have also been recently found in Odesa Oblast, one of which
was discovered by a Territorial Defence unit building fortifications in
the area.</p><p>These artifacts have been passed to the Odesa Archaeological Museum."</p><p></p><p></p><p>Below is a photo of the family with the amphora from the linked report:<br data-mce-bogus="1" /></p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgZeb_aqNcFFVQ68_GBoRALu1k8aXXSxIqfI94B2La6xUA-87xnVkkbCwgZxZxScMse81QLqOIMTew9kDIX589OX3-hxs2owEsO3G5yIpKC7XQVrFSKECXfGSNdgXxSn20GGCHjBTITTpyxsboMwWG25CsqkzyKx8VjYcMgMaJ6N7jCBTxMxgha/s900/b08e06916fcbf04ad1a3a9f7ad8db171.webp" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="450" data-original-width="900" height="326" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgZeb_aqNcFFVQ68_GBoRALu1k8aXXSxIqfI94B2La6xUA-87xnVkkbCwgZxZxScMse81QLqOIMTew9kDIX589OX3-hxs2owEsO3G5yIpKC7XQVrFSKECXfGSNdgXxSn20GGCHjBTITTpyxsboMwWG25CsqkzyKx8VjYcMgMaJ6N7jCBTxMxgha/w652-h326/b08e06916fcbf04ad1a3a9f7ad8db171.webp" width="652" /></a></div><br /><p></p><p>And
here is the more recent report about findings on land emerging from
subsiding waters, which actually directed me to the story of the
amphora:<br data-mce-bogus="1" /></p><p>"<a data-mce-href="https://www.yahoo.com/news/over-one-thousand-artifacts-discovered-103800024.html" href="https://www.yahoo.com/news/over-one-thousand-artifacts-discovered-103800024.html"><strong>Over one thousand artifacts discovered on Khortytsia Island because of Russia’s blast at Kakhovka Dam</strong></a><br data-mce-bogus="1" /></p><p>Russia’s ecocidal destruction of Ukraine’s Kahkovka Dam is proving to be a boon for the understanding of Ukrainian history.</p><p>Over <a class="link " data-rapid_p="10" data-v9y="1" data-ylk="slk:one thousand artifacts;elm:context_link;itc:0" href="https://english.nv.ua/life/man-finds-ancient-byzantine-amphora-on-odesa-beach-after-kakhova-dam-flood-ukraine-news-50331636.html" rel="nofollow noopener" target="_blank">one thousand artifacts</a>
have been discovered on the island of Khortytsia in Zaporizhzhia Oblast
because of flooding after Russia caused an explosion at Ukraine’s
Kakhovka Hydroelectric Dam...</p><p>Examples of newly discovered artifacts include ceramic fragments of
various sizes, coins, bullets, buckles, and buttons. While these items
may not be considered treasures in the traditional sense, they hold
valuable historical information connected to Ukrainian culture and
history...</p><p>These archaeological excavations became possible due to the destructive
impact of the explosion at Kakhovka Dam. The efforts open new horizons
for scientific research and expand our understanding of the history of
this unique territory."</p><p>Below is a map of the disaster zone
and a photo of the beautiful landscape of the island:</p><p></p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgpiAvKCNw-7rsYdOSjRFauHFigMqauJlXMWe6gc4oa_OsZZUkidRIEKxvYfAWFFyU_k_OVN7M4xuerjUO0msNl-r1paV-e-99oXQND1f61zR8t2UeoK43-IkiWSVgAz-8sd53EbstAR3CqhukLcARlZMGUToE2cyNZGBixUl4R_RefUg1XYTW3/s1080/4236aa28928f651e8abdd6976ac48615.webp" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="1080" data-original-width="1080" height="617" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgpiAvKCNw-7rsYdOSjRFauHFigMqauJlXMWe6gc4oa_OsZZUkidRIEKxvYfAWFFyU_k_OVN7M4xuerjUO0msNl-r1paV-e-99oXQND1f61zR8t2UeoK43-IkiWSVgAz-8sd53EbstAR3CqhukLcARlZMGUToE2cyNZGBixUl4R_RefUg1XYTW3/w617-h617/4236aa28928f651e8abdd6976ac48615.webp" width="617" /></a></div><br /> <p></p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEilK0DzWtMbZISTK8Bp9uGAk-w1RHVYC6-g8O081C62pXdflE1L-zCkIBT3LFILc4yEbVyQO5skPLB8tL1b_yn0z_rCzSXDfvWQ9vhkGMyMDHDE_H9mGPOLks-mnRzUIsThIFi0m7lbf6ndEzOgJHe7wK-xKPiSbHgELGEkWLApbE_Y-9VGw1-g/s900/c8cfd9ef4786f2cd81d83fe18d8e2331.webp" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="450" data-original-width="900" height="311" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEilK0DzWtMbZISTK8Bp9uGAk-w1RHVYC6-g8O081C62pXdflE1L-zCkIBT3LFILc4yEbVyQO5skPLB8tL1b_yn0z_rCzSXDfvWQ9vhkGMyMDHDE_H9mGPOLks-mnRzUIsThIFi0m7lbf6ndEzOgJHe7wK-xKPiSbHgELGEkWLApbE_Y-9VGw1-g/w621-h311/c8cfd9ef4786f2cd81d83fe18d8e2331.webp" width="621" /></a></div><br /><p>I wonder
whether there are truly ancient artifacts among the finds; in the
Antiquity, there were Scythian lands.<br data-mce-bogus="1" /></p><p><br /></p>Maya Mhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/10877457709995369246noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-25206081.post-56538119918217722062023-02-10T11:15:00.002-08:002023-02-10T11:15:21.966-08:00Zelensky says harsh truths about the West<p> Ukrainian president Volodymyr Zelensky to <i>Der Spiegel</i>, through <a href="https://www.pravda.com.ua/eng/news/2023/02/9/7388717/">Ukrainian <i>Pravda</i></a>:</p><p>"We are all afraid of war, this is an instinct. I am not blaming
anyone here. People feel really sorry for us Ukrainians. But the worst
outcome would be if the war were to come to them [other countries –
ed.].
</p><p>Citizens and their leaders see a potential threat to the stability of
their countries, specifically to their political leadership. This is
why they want to stop the war. The best way to do so is at the expense
of others, and certainly not at the expense of any victims in their home
country... <br /></p><p>The easiest way to end the war is to cede Ukrainian territories to
Russia. To give them back the influence on Ukraine and inside Ukraine
that they used to have for many years. This is why the Minsk agreements
were created…I think, the Minsk agreements were a concession."</p><p>He is right.<br /></p>Maya Mhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/10877457709995369246noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-25206081.post-19099131224011165952022-12-25T11:56:00.004-08:002022-12-25T11:56:53.296-08:00Merry Christmas, with thoughts of Ukraine<p> Merry Christmas everyone!</p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEheQuzchOSxtS2hg5TYGBJW_kSFvxftrliUTbjblO-Y6fe5NORMSKZC0IfqbhmgnMtZg3TrLFzkkQat3tYAqfmP62gxQPdlrSz-ckX8Ap0q6iek0viOR2AJUVHQw_qISBy3DdtpDdnC66lPgpf4WqWh3ZiJKueCBe-AUyVxiJpZdFLfOZUQtg/s1280/photo2022-12-1918-27-47.webp" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="853" data-original-width="1280" height="382" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEheQuzchOSxtS2hg5TYGBJW_kSFvxftrliUTbjblO-Y6fe5NORMSKZC0IfqbhmgnMtZg3TrLFzkkQat3tYAqfmP62gxQPdlrSz-ckX8Ap0q6iek0viOR2AJUVHQw_qISBy3DdtpDdnC66lPgpf4WqWh3ZiJKueCBe-AUyVxiJpZdFLfOZUQtg/w575-h382/photo2022-12-1918-27-47.webp" width="575" /></a></div><p>The public Christmas tree of Kyiv (<a href="https://news.obozrevatel.com/kiyany/s-trezubom-i-v-tsvetah-ukrainskogo-flaga-v-kieve-zazhgli-ogni-na-glavnoj-elke-stranyi-foto.htm">source</a>).</p><p><br /></p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiPFZGInumWqfqx548d83_r_mFqKNMN7-W_1SDMBrpY1u4IXeTp929eGD7Kwo_oQWiMdss2I8sFA2gO2_fKSmuQJEd-AcwYKHw5Nbqkoye0zHlbMn4LGQYYZ2AdfZNgox0U-sb_11RHa-w3OLoTCL9eqOxjxVdXixp_X0RwNRhHBXc3F4H8rw/s2000/32179885612521151387021074447453490793509870n.webp" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="1114" data-original-width="2000" height="324" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiPFZGInumWqfqx548d83_r_mFqKNMN7-W_1SDMBrpY1u4IXeTp929eGD7Kwo_oQWiMdss2I8sFA2gO2_fKSmuQJEd-AcwYKHw5Nbqkoye0zHlbMn4LGQYYZ2AdfZNgox0U-sb_11RHa-w3OLoTCL9eqOxjxVdXixp_X0RwNRhHBXc3F4H8rw/w583-h324/32179885612521151387021074447453490793509870n.webp" width="583" /></a></div>Ukrainian air forces detected Santa's sledge in the air space of the country (generally closed for civilian aircraft) and guaranteed him a safe flight (<a href="https://news.obozrevatel.com/society/vozdushnyie-silyi-vsu-pokazali-prolet-santyi-nad-ukrainoj-i-zaverili-chto-garantiruyut-emu-bezopasnost.htm?_gl=1*gf8j0y*_ga*MTcwNjA3MzgwNC4xNjQ2MDI2MTUy*_ga_JBX3X27G7H*MTY3MTk1MTk2NC44OTguMS4xNjcxOTUyMDIwLjQuMC4w&_ga=2.197203887.1815272191.1670307360-1706073804.1646026152">source</a>).<br /><p><br /></p><p><br /></p>Maya Mhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/10877457709995369246noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-25206081.post-88229627344805103512022-10-26T13:16:00.004-07:002022-10-26T13:22:06.749-07:00Winter Is Coming<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEje-OGAsi6MZ8cyIM4RucIM7ItgfNiAWWW17w5cH2OeizXPubaOMglsWasFzKNgVD7nRhg_Uhxjuh_CkG6fUqalluoCoDnPYLOW5zjTFZIyLWnLajTYCEvGHRCpG8zRtOyZ_dTPtZadoL0DUpXrWxZvMCxJYijQLfcbr59KvZRyqg66_TwMqQ/s601/hat_and_scarf1.jpg" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="456" data-original-width="601" height="243" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEje-OGAsi6MZ8cyIM4RucIM7ItgfNiAWWW17w5cH2OeizXPubaOMglsWasFzKNgVD7nRhg_Uhxjuh_CkG6fUqalluoCoDnPYLOW5zjTFZIyLWnLajTYCEvGHRCpG8zRtOyZ_dTPtZadoL0DUpXrWxZvMCxJYijQLfcbr59KvZRyqg66_TwMqQ/s320/hat_and_scarf1.jpg" width="320" /></a></div>The hat and scarf that I decided to keep because of their problematic color pattern. The hat is an industrial product, and the scarf has been knit by me to match (but I hadn't the exact same red yarn).<br /><p><br /></p><p>It is late October, and Europe is bracing itself for a difficult winter, with fuel and electric shortages due to the Russian aggression against Ukraine. Among the most vulnerable are the Ukrainian refugees. The Deputy Prime Minister of Ukraine, Iryna Vereshchuk, yesterday <a href="https://www.kyivpost.com/ukraine-politics/ukrainian-refugees-should-not-return-in-winter-deputy-prime-minister.html">asked </a>them to stay where they are until the spring. The reason is that Ukraine’s energy system, all but destroyed by recent Russian attacks, would not cope if they return. However, in a relatively poor and disorderly country such as Bulgaria, their situation is precarious even in peacetime. Volunteers try to help as best as they can. </p><p>Near my workplace is a bar run by Vasko Krapkata ("<a href="https://www.vaskothepatch.com/en/">Vasko the Patch</a>"), a renowned freedom-loving blues singer. His people periodically collect items and money donations and then distribute them among Ukrainian mothers and children who have found refuge in Bulgaria. In addition to new purchases, reused clothes, blankets and toys are welcome. This is also a nice opportunity to part with things that we no longer need but cannot simply discard because of their good quality and/or sentimental value.</p><p>Today, I gave away some things, including a baby blanket which I had kept unused for more than a decade. It is surprisingly difficult to find a nice baby blanket to buy. So what? I am well into post-reproductive age, and shall never have another baby. If in a vague and distant future a baby of a new generation appears in the family, we'll find a new blanket somehow. The same is valid for a ton of my sons' toys and puzzles which I had kept until now.<br /></p><p>A vest which was an early knitting success for me. Off it goes!</p><p>A coat which I bought long ago for another difficult winter. It was too thin, but a true winter coat simply couldn't be found at the market. My late mother modified it and made it warm by adding a layer of woolen cloth from inside. I wore this coat for years, even during my honeymoon. But I haven't worn it recently, though it is still good. Off it goes!</p><p>My sons' childhood winter hats, and scarves I have knit to match them. Off they go! My sons are in their late teens now. In the last moment, I brought a hat and a scarf out of the bag because I realized that their broad blue, red and white stripes resembled the Russian flag. Putin has created aversion to an otherwise nice combination of colors (though this is the very least of his evils). So this particular set may not be the best for a Ukrainian refugee child. It will go to someone else.</p><p>I was just a little bit sad to part with these material traces of the past, but now I feel lighter. It is true that <a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0CzTetpGBi8">memories can weigh you down</a>. For their new owners, they will be nothing more than means to help make it through the winter, probably to be discarded in spring.<br /></p><p><br /></p>Maya Mhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/10877457709995369246noreply@blogger.com2tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-25206081.post-62231832530824640872022-09-26T16:02:00.002-07:002022-09-26T16:03:59.890-07:00Edward Snowden Adopted by Putin's Russia<p>Russian president, bloody dictator and genocidal warmonger Vladimir Putin has <a href="https://www.latimes.com/world-nation/story/2022-09-26/putin-grants-russian-citizenship-to-edward-snowden">granted Russian citizenship</a> to the wretched US traitor Edward Snowden. I think that these two creeps fully fit and deserve each other. It would be best if they embrace as good buddies and together embark on the well-known <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Russian_warship,_go_fuck_yourself">route of the Russian warship</a>.<br /></p>Maya Mhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/10877457709995369246noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-25206081.post-72683430030428476382022-09-16T11:17:00.006-07:002022-09-16T11:19:11.805-07:00In Iran, another victim of the Islamic headscarf<p> </p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhuTiZ9fkXCAlfkCRlvEDRfEAh1JkqKNMHZvv3aYm8lIv1-i2xlZkpJb-62nWrAoje4pv2uXB1_sW-boSpnqf1WvtPJ8Q9JdMo9AHWuEU-gKWvhOb0SfOrrryD7e1RQuPvbiLKzW9ZTc0Lp7EwnFPPUIbNPd8ub0C-iUBRABEGXKKjbunbjRw/s960/92226262c2080c57d2e63575078f0c9c.webp" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="540" data-original-width="960" height="180" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhuTiZ9fkXCAlfkCRlvEDRfEAh1JkqKNMHZvv3aYm8lIv1-i2xlZkpJb-62nWrAoje4pv2uXB1_sW-boSpnqf1WvtPJ8Q9JdMo9AHWuEU-gKWvhOb0SfOrrryD7e1RQuPvbiLKzW9ZTc0Lp7EwnFPPUIbNPd8ub0C-iUBRABEGXKKjbunbjRw/s320/92226262c2080c57d2e63575078f0c9c.webp" width="320" /></a></div><p></p><p>As we all know, theocrats in Iran insist that women cover their heads with hijabs (Islamic headscarves), whereas many women do not want this at all. That's why the theocrats maintain morality police to enforce the Islamic dress code. Mahsa Amini (22, pictured) was arrested by the morality police on Tuesday for "education about the hijab", beaten inside the police van, and brought to a hospital several hours later in a coma. She <a href="https://www.yahoo.com/finance/news/fury-iran-young-woman-dies-141857583.html">died </a>today.<br /></p>Maya Mhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/10877457709995369246noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-25206081.post-89549499291524278142022-06-11T15:52:00.002-07:002022-06-11T15:52:24.803-07:00Putin abandoned rhetoric, admitted land grab<p> From the <a href="https://www.thedailystar.net/news/world/2022-russian-invasion-ukraine/news/putin-hails-peter-the-great-admits-his-own-war-ukraine-land-grab-3044611">Daily Star</a>:</p><p>"<b>Putin hails Peter the Great, admits his own war on Ukraine is land grab</b><br /><br />Russian President Vladimir Putin paid tribute on Thursday to Tsar Peter the Great on the 350th anniversary of his birth, drawing a parallel between what he portrayed as their twin historic quests to win back Russian lands. <br /><br />"Peter the Great waged the Great Northern War for 21 years. It would seem that he was at war with Sweden, he took something from them. He did not take anything from them, he returned (what was Russia's)," Putin said after a visiting an exhibition dedicated to the tsar.</p><p>In televised comments on day 106 of his war in Ukraine, he compared Peter's campaign with the task facing Russia today.</p>
<p>"Apparently, it also fell to us to return (what is Russia's) and
strengthen (the country). And if we proceed from the fact that these
basic values form the basis of our existence, we will certainly succeed
in solving the tasks that we face."</p><p>...Putin has repeatedly sought to justify Russia's actions in Ukraine,
where his forces have devastated cities, killed thousands and put
millions of people to flight, by propounding a view of history that
asserts Ukraine has no real national identity or tradition of statehood...</p><p>In July 2021, the Kremlin published a long essay by Putin in which he
argued that Russia and Ukraine were one nation, artificially divided.
It laid the groundwork for his deployment of troops to Ukraine.</p>
<p>Moscow says it acted to disarm and "denazify" its neighbour. Ukraine
and its allies say Putin has launched an unprovoked war of aggression.</p>
<p>In the run up to what Russia calls its "special military operation",
Putin blamed Vladimir Lenin, the founder of the Soviet Union, for
creating Ukraine on what Putin said was historically Russian territory."</p><p> </p><p> </p>Maya Mhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/10877457709995369246noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-25206081.post-64129197871823128802022-06-05T07:09:00.001-07:002022-06-05T07:09:27.375-07:00Western leaders criticized over war in Ukraine<p> From Simon Tisdall at the <a href="https://www.theguardian.com/world/2022/jun/05/timid-biden-condemns-ukrainians-to-an-agonising-war-without-end">Guardian</a>:</p><p>"<b>Timid Biden condemns Ukrainians to an agonising war without end</b></p><p><span class="dcr-1of5t9g">It seems odd, to put it
mildly, that Joe Biden is happy to supply Ukraine with advanced rockets
as long as it does not fire them at Russia. Vladimir Putin can aim
missiles at Ukrainians from across the border whenever he wants – but
Volodymyr Zelenskiy’s troops <a data-link-name="in body link" href="https://www.theguardian.com/world/2022/jun/01/us-says-ukraine-will-not-use-us-supplied-rocket-systems-to-hit-russian-territory" title="">can’t shoot back</a> at their tormentors.</span></p><p class="dcr-1of5t9g">Strange, too, that the UN is seeking <a data-link-name="in body link" href="https://www.theguardian.com/world/2022/jun/02/russia-and-the-west-compete-to-secure-safe-passage-for-ukraines-grain" title="">Russia’s agreement</a> for convoys to <a data-link-name="in body link" href="https://www.reuters.com/world/un-aid-chief-moscow-discuss-ukraine-grain-exports-2022-06-02/" title="">escort grain</a>
from Odesa and other Ukrainian ports. It’s Putin who is preventing 22
million tonnes of grain reaching the Middle East and Africa, where
millions face famine. Don’t ask permission. Send a multinational force
to smash his illegal blockade.</p><div id="sign-in-gate"></div><p class="dcr-1of5t9g">The
US and UK have made a big fuss in the past about preserving freedom of
navigation in international waters, including the Black Sea. Puzzlingly,
they in effect <a data-link-name="in body link" href="https://www.theguardian.com/world/2021/jun/23/russian-ship-fired-warning-shots-at-royal-navy-destroyer-hms-defender-moscow-says" title="">ceded these waters</a> on 24 February to Russia, whose navy bombards and besieges Ukraine’s cities and ports at will...</p><p class="dcr-1of5t9g">Left to fight alone, Zelenskiy <a data-link-name="in body link" href="https://www.pbs.org/newshour/politics/watch-live-pentagon-officials-give-update-on-weapons-package-to-support-ukraine-against-russia" title="">pleads for heavy weapons</a>
but his pleas still often go unmet or responses are delayed. “We need
to get serious about supplying [Ukraine’s] army so that it can do what
the world is asking it to do: fight a world superpower alone on the
battlefield,” says US Gen Philip Breedlove, formerly NATO commander in
Europe. He’s right.</p><p class="dcr-1of5t9g">It’s no good relying on
sanctions, as the EU proved again last week. Its decision to let
Hungary’s mini-Putin, Viktor Orbán, water down an oil embargo was weird.
Yet Germany’s Olaf Scholz and fellow euro-wobblers are content. Duty
done on oil, they will now more stubbornly resist what their bankers and
businessmen most fear: <a data-link-name="in body link" href="https://www.politico.eu/article/eu-ban-sanctions-russian-gas-oil-orban-ukraine-war/" title="">sanctions on gas</a>.</p><p class="dcr-1of5t9g">Hardest
of all to understand, perhaps, is why some Western governments persist
in attempting business as usual with Putin, who they know, for certain,
is <a data-link-name="in body link" href="https://www.theguardian.com/world/2022/may/28/russia-takes-control-lyman-ukraine-missiles-donbas-region" title="">overseeing atrocities and war crimes</a>. <a data-link-name="in body link" href="https://www.politico.eu/article/olaf-scholz-kaiser-complex-ukraine-lurch/" title="">Scholz and France’s Emmanuel Macron</a> hold regular phone chats with him. It’s said they are realists seeking peace. No. They are dupes, normalising mass murder...</p><p>Another puzzle: why is Russian foreign minister Sergei Lavrov’s
shameless spewing of disinformation tolerated around the world? Why do <a data-link-name="in body link" href="https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/av/world-europe-61623278" title="">Russia’s ambassadors get free airtime</a> to spin their lies?...</p><p>One reason such impunity endures is that <a data-link-name="in body link" href="https://apnews.com/article/russia-ukraine-putin-china-united-states-8c2466d549f6d082d0295cf0efb635d9" title="">China and India</a>,
though sworn to uphold the UN charter and international law, prefer
instead to profit from Ukraine’s agony by buying cut-price Russian
energy...</p><p>But, ultimately, it’s the western allies’ own policy contradictions and timidity that most undermine Kyiv at a critical moment, <a data-link-name="in body link" href="https://www.nytimes.com/2022/06/01/world/europe/ukraine-russia-losses-east.html" title="">100 days into the war</a>. Half-measures are their default position. They won’t go the whole hog.</p><p class="dcr-1of5t9g">Intimidated
by Putin’s nuclear hints, fearful of escalation, and alarmed at rising
domestic costs, western leaders are scared, deep down, that <a data-component="auto-linked-tag" data-link-name="in body link" href="https://www.theguardian.com/world/ukraine">Ukraine</a> may win. At the same time, they are committed – politically, morally, rhetorically – to ensuring it does not lose.</p><p class="dcr-1of5t9g">The resulting confusion, representing the worst of both worlds, is <a data-link-name="in body link" href="https://www.nytimes.com/2022/05/31/opinion/biden-ukraine-strategy.html" title="">personified by Biden</a>.
Ostensibly clarifying US war aims last week, he insisted Russia that
must “pay a heavy price”. If it went unpunished, it would “open the door
to aggression elsewhere, with catastrophic consequences the world
over”.</p><p class="dcr-1of5t9g">Yet even as he raised the stakes, Biden
avoided any mention of Ukrainian victory. There was nothing about
winning. Instead, he spoke vaguely of future negotiations while offering
personal assurances to Putin. The US did not seek his overthrow, he
said. Nor would NATO attack unless attacked...</p><p class="dcr-1of5t9g">Biden’s too-modest war aims are a manifesto for
the muddled middle. Where does this leave Ukraine? Still solitary, still
lacking essential modern weapons, and still fighting for its life with
one hand tied behind its back – by its closest friends.</p>And
where does it leave the West? Afraid, in equal measure, of victory and
defeat, and hoping, fingers crossed, for some form of shabby compromise... <br /><p class="dcr-1of5t9g">This weak-kneed approach guarantees only one
thing: the war will run and run. Diplomacy is stalled. Sanctions are
having limited effect and, in <a data-link-name="in body link" href="https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2022/jun/02/russia-economic-war-ukraine-food-fuel-price-vladimir-putin" title="">terms of energy prices</a>, are harming Europe more than Russia. Only increased direct and indirect NATO military pressure can shift this dynamic.</p><p>Campaigning
in 2020, Biden pledged an end to what he called America’s “forever
wars”. Now, tremulously pulling their punches, he and other Western
leaders condemn Ukrainians to exactly that."<br /></p>Maya Mhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/10877457709995369246noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-25206081.post-66903723388470655822022-06-02T15:40:00.006-07:002022-06-02T15:43:27.405-07:00Diplomatic solution in Ukraine "augurs horrifying prospects"<p> From <span class="caas-author-byline-collapse" data-id="m-0"><a href="https://finance.yahoo.com/news/russia-won-t-return-occupied-083135993.html">Benjamin Teitelbaum, Daily Beast / Yahoo!News</a>:</span></p><p><span class="caas-author-byline-collapse" data-id="m-0">"<b>Russia won't return occupied land. So don't ask</b></span></p><p>Former U.S. Secretary of State <a class="link" data-rapid_p="7" data-v9y="1" data-ylk="slk:Henry Kissinger" href="https://www.thedailybeast.com/henry-kissinger-pushed-trump-to-work-with-russia-to-box-in-china" rel="nofollow noopener" target="_blank">Henry Kissinger</a> recently roiled the foreign policy community by becoming the most prominent voice <a class="link" data-rapid_p="8" data-v9y="1" data-ylk="slk:urging" href="https://www.weforum.org/agenda/2022/05/kissinger-these-are-the-main-geopolitical-challenges-facing-the-world-right-now/" rel="nofollow noopener" target="_blank">urging</a> Ukraine to pursue <a class="link" data-rapid_p="9" data-v9y="1" data-ylk="slk:peace talks" href="https://www.thedailybeast.com/female-senators-want-women-included-in-russia-ukraine-peace-talks" rel="nofollow noopener" target="_blank">peace talks</a> with Russia.</p><p>Kissinger prioritized <a class="link" data-rapid_p="10" data-v9y="1" data-ylk="slk:Putin appeasement" href="https://www.thedailybeast.com/america-first-maga-tough-guys-are-modern-day-neville-chamberlains" rel="nofollow noopener" target="_blank">Putin appeasement</a> over <a class="link" data-rapid_p="11" data-v9y="1" data-ylk="slk:Ukrainian victory" href="https://www.thedailybeast.com/enough-a-no-fly-zone-over-ukraine-is-necessary-and-overdue" rel="nofollow noopener" target="_blank">Ukrainian victory</a>,
critics alleged, exposing his wanton priorities in the process. But
critics did him a favor by ignoring the specifics of his vision...</p><p><span class="caas-author-byline-collapse" data-id="m-0">Kissinger stands out among advocates of a ceasefire because of how <i>much</i>
detail he was willing to offer. Most others avoid discussing specifics
about the content, prospects, and consequences of their diplomatic
solutions. You won’t hear meaningful details from leftist academics like
<a class="link" data-rapid_p="13" data-v9y="1" data-ylk="slk:Noam Chomsky" href="https://www.currentaffairs.org/2022/04/noam-chomsky-on-how-to-prevent-world-war-iii" rel="nofollow noopener" target="_blank">Noam Chomsky</a>, nor <a class="link" data-rapid_p="14" data-v9y="1" data-ylk="slk:The New York Times" href="https://www.nytimes.com/2022/05/19/opinion/america-ukraine-war-support.html" rel="nofollow noopener" target="_blank"><i>The New York Times</i></a> editorial board, nor foreign policy experts like <a class="link" data-rapid_p="15" data-v9y="1" data-ylk="slk:Charles Kupchan" href="https://www.theatlantic.com/ideas/archive/2022/05/ukraine-war-russia-putin-end/629890/?utm_source=twitter&utm_medium=social&utm_campaign=share" rel="nofollow noopener" target="_blank">Charles Kupchan</a>, nor the ragtag gang of <a class="link" data-rapid_p="16" data-v9y="1" data-ylk="slk:German intellectuals" href="https://www.emma.de/artikel/offener-brief-bundeskanzler-scholz-339463" rel="nofollow noopener" target="_blank">German intellectuals</a> urging their country’s chancellor to withhold military support for Kyiv...</span></p><p>Voices pushing Ukraine to trade land for peace rarely specify how much territory should be sacrificed, or where.</p><p>Russian
forces currently occupy an area stretching from pieces of the Kharkiv
region in Ukraine’s north, circling around the Donbas in the east, and
extending along the country’s southern Black Sea coast near the city of
Mykolaiv. The occupied territories include rich agricultural land,
multiple seaports, and a nuclear power plant. Russia has sacrificed
considerably for some of it, especially in places like Mariupol, along
front lines in the Donbas, and on the outskirts of Kherson city. Putin
is building local governments in some of these areas, too, and his share
of the Donbas is increasing.</p><p>If this is the territory Ukraine should sacrifice, hardly anyone seems
willing to say so. Kissinger came close, as did Columbia University
professor <a class="link" data-rapid_p="19" data-v9y="1" data-ylk="slk:Jeffrey D. Sachs" href="https://www.project-syndicate.org/commentary/only-negotiation-can-end-ukraine-war-of-attrition-by-jeffrey-d-sachs-2022-05" rel="nofollow noopener" target="_blank">Jeffrey D. Sachs</a>...</p><p>Perhaps one reason nobody wants to talk specifically or realistically
about a diplomatic solution is that it, like war, augurs horrifying
prospects.</p><p>Consider a peace that leaves all occupied territory in
Russian hands. In reality, this would mean Ukraine loses seaports, much
of its core agricultural base, and substantial, vital energy sources.
Alternatively, any deal that incentivized Russia to return to the 2014
boundaries would likely entail spectacular concessions.</p><p>Indeed, it
is hard to conceive of a settlement that maintains Ukraine’s
fundamental nationhood while not emboldening Russian expansionism.
Rather, toleration of Putin’s land-grab or offering major bounty in
exchange will likely forge a new order not simply honoring Russia’s
borders, but also accepting that its foreign escapades—however immoral
or poorly executed—get to succeed.</p><p>Why would an agreement hold? To abandon
military resistance in favor of diplomacy at this point is to put
exceptional faith in the Russian government. This is the same government
that, in recent decades, habitually invaded its neighbors while lying
about its actions and intentions up to and during the operations
themselves.</p><p>Forget the emotional impact of trying to engage in a
dialogue with the unrepentant perpetrators of the massacre of civilians
in Bucha. Can Kyiv trust a military that marched into Crimea in 2014
with unmarked uniforms; that told the world it was withdrawing its
troops from Ukraine’s borders before invading this year; and whose
obvious battlefield effort to take Kyiv diverged from its stated war
aims?</p><p>Then there’s the long-term challenge of ideology. Western
commentators seldom take seriously the depth of Russian nationalists’
assertion that Ukrainians are an artificial people maintaining an
artificial state. Russia’s pseudo-religious claims to Ukraine are not
only the pastime of obscure fanatics; they animated Putin’s <a class="link" data-rapid_p="21" data-v9y="1" data-ylk="slk:speech" href="https://www.americanrhetoric.com/speeches/vladimirputindonbassandukraine.htm" rel="nofollow noopener" target="_blank">speech</a>
at the outset of the invasion (“Modern Ukraine was entirely created by
Russia,” he said). Why would this Russian leadership and intelligentsia
ever affirm Ukraine’s sovereignty?</p><p>The advocates of “negotiation” should not be excused from addressing these topics.</p><p>Perhaps
they think that Ukraine should be sacrificed and crimes against
humanity tolerated for the sake of preventing inflation, food and energy
crises, or a power vacuum in Russia. Fine. Let them then argue for it.</p><p>But the current strategy of proclaiming the consequences of war but
not its alternatives amounts to little more than a petulant moan. At
best, generic odes to diplomacy will be meaningless, given that
Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy <a class="link" data-rapid_p="22" data-v9y="1" data-ylk="slk:acknowledges" href="https://www.aljazeera.com/news/2022/5/20/russia-says-last-ukrainian-fighters-in-mariupol-surrendered-liveblog" rel="nofollow noopener" target="_blank">acknowledges</a> that the war will end in negotiations.</p><p>A
more concerning prospect is that these calls will distract from the
urgent task of assisting a society under heinous attack from a
nuclear-armed madman.<span class="caas-author-byline-collapse" data-id="m-0">"<br /></span></p>Maya Mhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/10877457709995369246noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-25206081.post-37161797089192643592022-05-22T13:41:00.004-07:002022-05-22T13:42:07.169-07:00Fundraising campain in support of Raif Badawi<p> I have written before (e.g. <a href="https://mayas-corner.blogspot.com/2015/01/petitions-in-support-of-saudi-blogger.html">here</a>) about the Saudi blogger Raif Badawi who was sentenced to 10 years in prison and 1000 lashes for posts that the authorities did not like. After the first 50 lashes led to worldwide protests, this part of the sentence was quietly abandoned but the prison term remained.</p><p>These days, I checked to see whether Raif has been released. It turned out that he has, but he is not allowed to emigrate to Canada where his family is until he pays the hefty fine that was also included in the sentence. Therefore, a fundraising campaign is underway, under the auspice of the <a href="https://www.giordano-bruno-stiftung.de/en/news/solidarity-with-raif-badawi-and-his-family">Giordano Bruno Foundation</a>. I believe that nobody who reads this blog likes the idea of pouring money into the budget of Saudi Arabia of all states, but for the sake of Raif, you might consider it if you wish.<br /></p>Maya Mhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/10877457709995369246noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-25206081.post-21547306956320834332022-05-16T12:52:00.002-07:002022-05-16T12:52:51.852-07:00Russian invaders booby-trap dead bodies<p>When Ukrainian troops liberate a town from Russian invaders, they warn residents to return with caution because retreating Russians often booby-trap homes, cars, playgrounds, and even dead bodies. An example is described by <span class="caas-author-byline-collapse" data-id="m-0"><a href="https://www.yahoo.com/news/russian-soldiers-stuffed-ukrainian-mans-014354053.html">Azmi Haroun, Yahoo!News</a>:</span></p><p><span class="caas-author-byline-collapse" data-id="m-0">"</span>Russian soldiers killed a Ukrainian army volunteer on the outskirts
of Kyiv and left his dead body in his car trunk fitted with a mine that
later exploded when Ukrainian forces attempted to move him, <a class="link " data-rapid_p="7" data-v9y="1" data-ylk="slk:according to Politico." href="https://www.politico.com/news/2022/05/09/kyiv-ukraine-russia-war-horrors-00030992" rel="nofollow noopener" target="_blank">according to Politico.</a></p><p>Lyudmyla Kyrpach, the soldier's widow, told Politico... that the day after the invasion began in late February,
Oleksandr, a mechanic, organized volunteer fighters in his village of
Kalynivka, near Kyiv.</p><p>By March 1, days after Russian troops had
encroached on their village, Oleksandr's friends set out driving to see
if they could source more intel about Russian troop movements up close... After they failed to return,
he set out to find them.</p><p>"He said he would be right back," Lyudmyla told Politico. Oleksandr
never returned, and unable to sleep, Lyudmyla set out the following day
with her friends to find him.</p><p>She noticed his sedan on the road, with the keys in the ignition but no passengers in the car, she told Politico.</p><div class="caas-share-section "><div class="caas-share-buttons sticky-flow sticky-active" style="position: fixed; top: 165px;"><a class="link caas-button noborder caas-tooltip facebook top" data-rapid_p="3" data-v9y="1" data-ylk="t4:ctrl;elm:share;elmt:sh-fb;slk:Facebook;itc:0;outcm:share;rspns:op" href="https://www.facebook.com/dialog/feed?app_id=458584288257241&link=https%3A%2F%2Fnews.yahoo.com%2Frussian-soldiers-stuffed-ukrainian-mans-014354053.html%3Fsoc_src%3Dsocial-sh%26soc_trk%3Dfb%26tsrc%3Dfb" rel="noopener noreferrer" target="_blank" title="Share"><span class="facebook icon"><svg height="20" viewbox="0 0 32 32" width="20"></svg></span></a><a class="link caas-button noborder caas-tooltip twitter top" data-rapid_p="4" data-v9y="1" data-ylk="t4:ctrl;elm:share;elmt:sh-tw;slk:Twitter;itc:0;outcm:share;rspns:op" href="https://twitter.com/intent/tweet?text=Russian%20soldiers%20stuffed%20a%20Ukrainian%20man's%20body%20in%20his%20car%20trunk%20with%20a%20weight-sensitive%20mine%20that%20detonated%20when%20Ukrainian%20soldiers%20moved%20it%2C%20Politico%20reports&url=https%3A%2F%2Fnews.yahoo.com%2Frussian-soldiers-stuffed-ukrainian-mans-014354053.html%3Fsoc_src%3Dsocial-sh%26soc_trk%3Dtw%26tsrc%3Dtwtr&via=YahooNews" rel="noopener noreferrer" target="_blank" title="Tweet"><span class="twitter icon"><svg height="20" viewbox="0 0 32 32" width="20"></svg></span></a><a class="link caas-button noborder caas-tooltip mail top" data-rapid_p="5" data-v9y="1" data-ylk="t4:ctrl;elm:share;elmt:sh-ma;slk:Email;itc:0;outcm:share;rspns:op" href="mailto:?subject=Russian%20soldiers%20stuffed%20a%20Ukrainian%20man's%20body%20in%20his%20car%20trunk%20with%20a%20weight-sensitive%20mine%20that%20detonated%20when%20Ukrainian%20soldiers%20moved%20it%2C%20Politico%20reports&body=https%3A%2F%2Fnews.yahoo.com%2Frussian-soldiers-stuffed-ukrainian-mans-014354053.html%3Fsoc_src%3Dsocial-sh%26soc_trk%3Dma" rel="noopener noreferrer" target="_blank" title="Email"><span class="mail icon"><svg height="20" viewbox="0 0 512 512" width="20"></svg></span></a></div></div><div class="caas-content-wrapper"><div class="caas-body"><figure class="caas-figure"></figure><p></p><p></p><p></p><div class="caas-yvideo-wrapper yvideo caas-yvideo-elem" data-video-index="0"><div style="padding-bottom: 56%;"><div class="caas-content-wrapper"><div class="caas-body"><p></p><div class="caas-yvideo-wrapper yvideo caas-yvideo-elem" data-video-index="0"><div style="padding-bottom: 56%;"><div class="caas-yvideo caas-yvideo-rendered" data-videoconfig="{"autoplay":false,"duration":0,"height":360,"lang":"en-US","media_id_1":"cfd45193-2950-3107-9b27-1c2fdd332702","pageSpaceId":"1197618800","queryParams":null,"region":"US","site":"news","startScreen":{},"url":"https://news.yahoo.com/business-insider-video/meet-patron-heroic-dog-sniffing-141500246.html?format=embed&region=US&lang=en-US&site=news&player_autoplay=0&expName=y20","width":640,"thumbnail":{"type":"image","size":{"raw":null}},"YVAP":{"accountId":"145"},"expName":"y20","playlist":{"mediaItems":[{"id":"cfd45193-2950-3107-9b27-1c2fdd332702"}],"videoRecommendations":true,"id":"business-insider-video"},"videoAlias":"meet-patron-heroic-dog-sniffing-141500246","hidePlaylist":true,"comscoreC4":"US News","articleUuid":"c67abc20-ce5a-32c3-93dd-cbd5311acbb5","pct":"story","pblob":"revsp:insider_articles_922;lpstaid:c67abc20-ce5a-32c3-93dd-cbd5311acbb5;lu:1;pct:story","expBucket":"snel-srch-ybar-ctrl","expBucketName":"snel-srch-ybar-ctrl"}"><div class="player">Lyudmyla's friend noticed that
the trunk was riddled with bullets... and they opened the
trunk to find Oleksandr's dead body. Her friend pulled her away from the
car in fear that the trunk could be booby-trapped...</div><div class="player"> </div><div class="player">By March 4 they returned to the scene with Ukrainian soldiers.</div><div class="player"> </div><div class="player">According
to the report, the soldiers tied ropes to his limbs and moved far from
the car to pull slowly and see if the car was rigged. As soon as they
pulled, the "car exploded in a ball of flames." Russian soldiers had
placed weight-triggered mine under Oleksandr, Lyudmyla told Politico.</div><div class="player"> </div><div class="player"></div><div class="player">"Lyudmyla
picked up the pieces of the man she had spent decades with and placed
them in a box," Politico reported. Later, she buried him in the garden
where they used to plant vegetables together.<span class="caas-author-byline-collapse" data-id="m-0">"</span></div></div></div></div></div></div></div></div></div></div>Maya Mhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/10877457709995369246noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-25206081.post-79848081190814662262022-05-10T12:15:00.000-07:002022-05-10T12:15:24.959-07:00A Russian Antigone<p> From Allison Quinn at the <a href="https://www.yahoo.com/news/tall-person-russians-reveal-secret-102227444.html">Daily Beast</a>:</p><p>"Russian authorities in Ukraine’s occupied city of Donetsk are tossing the bodies of their <a class="link rapid-noclick-resp" data-rapid_p="6" data-v9y="1" data-ylk="slk:dead soldiers" href="https://www.thedailybeast.com/russian-state-television-admits-vladimir-putins-army-has-been-totally-embarrassing-in-ukraine-war?ref=wrap" rel="nofollow noopener" target="_blank">dead soldiers</a> in a secret dump “by the thousands” and charging their loved ones money to find them.</p><p>That’s according to a new audio recording released by <a class="link rapid-noclick-resp" data-rapid_p="7" data-v9y="1" data-ylk="slk:Ukraine’s Security Service" href="https://www.facebook.com/SecurSerUkraine" rel="nofollow noopener" target="_blank">Ukraine’s Security Service</a>
on Tuesday, which is purportedly an intercepted telephone conversation
between two Russians discussing how one of their missing friends was
finally found.</p><p>In the two-and-a-half minute recording, an
unidentified man tells his female relative that the fate of “Inna’s
brother” is finally known after he went missing a month ago.</p><p>“It’s better that you don’t hear this,” the man says at first, reluctant to spill all the grim details.</p><p>After more urging, he finally explains that the unidentified dead man’s
“sister went to Donetsk, and there, basically, roughly speaking, is a
dump.”</p><p>“They just toss them there. And then later it’s easier to make as if
they disappeared without a trace. It’s easier for them to pretend they
are just missing, and that’s it,” he said, noting that “there are
thousands.”</p><p>“There’s nowhere left to place them. It’s a dump. I’m
telling you in plain Russian—a dump. It’s as tall as a person,” he said,
adding that the site is “fenced off, sealed, they don’t let anyone in.”</p><p>According
to him, the only reason local authorities at the dump site let the
woman find her brother was because she paid “good money.”</p><p>After that, he said, “they rearranged it until she found [the body.]”</p><p>“It’s not a morgue, it’s a dump.… They are bringing [bodies] by the thousands,” he said, calling it a “shitshow.”...</p><p>The disturbing intercept comes after Al Jazeera on Monday released <a class="link rapid-noclick-resp" data-rapid_p="9" data-v9y="1" data-ylk="slk:footage" href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?time_continue=65&v=RWpT4P8GuDE&feature=emb_logo" rel="nofollow noopener" target="_blank">footage</a>
of refrigerated train cars holding the unclaimed bodies of Russian
troops killed in Ukraine. Inside, there appeared to be human-size bodies
stacked on top of each other in white bags. Ukrainian authorities said
Moscow has refused to take the bodies back home, apparently to keep the
lid on the sky-high death toll..."</p><p><br /></p><p>Wake up, Russia!<br /></p>Maya Mhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/10877457709995369246noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-25206081.post-67912761515513965682022-05-04T10:24:00.005-07:002022-05-04T10:24:47.277-07:00Bulgaria now to give Ukraine "phantom" military aid<p> From Tsvetelia Tsolova / Reuters:</p><p><br />"<a href="https://www.yahoo.com/news/bulgaria-approves-repairs-ukrainian-military-151122297.html"><b>Bulgaria approves repairs to Ukrainian military equipment, not military aid</b></a></p><p><br /></p><p>Bulgaria's parliament voted on Wednesday to allow repairs of
Ukrainian heavy military equipment and seek ways to help Ukrainian
exports of grains and electricity, sidestepping proposals to provide
direct military aid to Kyiv.</p><p> </p><p>European Union and NATO member state
Bulgaria has condemned the Russian invasion of Ukraine, supported
sanctions against Moscow, refused to pay for Russian gas with roubles
and hosted over 90,000 Ukrainian refugees.</p><p> </p><p>But the Black Sea
country remains one of the few in the 27-member EU to have not sent arms
and ammunitions to Kyiv as one of the four coalition partners, the
Russia-friendly Socialists, opposed the move and threatened to bolt if
it were approved.</p><p> </p><p>Lawmakers voted to allow the government to
provide military-technical support to Ukraine and see how it can repair
Ukrainian heavy military equipment...</p><p> </p><div class="caas-da"><div id="sda-INARTICLE"></div></div><p>Two other proposals that supported sending military aid to Ukraine did not win enough support in the chamber."<br /></p><p></p>Maya Mhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/10877457709995369246noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-25206081.post-62137701083164880112022-05-04T10:20:00.002-07:002022-05-04T10:20:14.550-07:00Repairmen who showed Hunter Biden's laptop now suing media<p> From <span class="caas-author-byline-collapse" data-id="m-0">Caroline Downey / National Review:</span></p><p><span class="caas-author-byline-collapse" data-id="m-0"> </span></p><p><span class="caas-author-byline-collapse" data-id="m-0">"</span><a href="https://www.yahoo.com/news/hunter-biden-laptop-whistleblower-sues-122939243.html"><b>Hunter Biden Laptop Whistleblower Sues Schiff, CNN, the Daily Beast , Politico</b></a></p><p> </p><p>The Delaware computer repairman who alerted authorities to the existence of <a class="link " data-rapid_p="27" data-v9y="1" data-ylk="slk:Hunter Biden’s laptop" href="https://www.nationalreview.com/2022/04/investigating-hunter-biden/" rel="nofollow noopener" target="_blank">Hunter Biden’s laptop</a> sued on Tuesday Democratic Representative Adam Schiff, CNN, the <em>Daily Beas</em>t and <em>Politico</em>, claiming that he suffered financial and reputational damage after they alleged that the leak was Russian disinformation.</p><p> </p><p>Business owner John Paul Mac Isaac filed for the suit, he told the <a class="link " data-rapid_p="28" data-v9y="1" data-ylk="slk:New York Post" href="https://nypost.com/2022/05/03/repairman-who-revealed-hunter-biden-laptop-sues-schiff-cnn-politico-beast/" rel="nofollow noopener" target="_blank"><em>New York Post</em></a>,
because his livelihood was significantly disrupted by tech platforms,
mainstream media, and Delaware locals after he turned in the laptop,
which would eventually become the subject of a federal investigation.</p><p> </p><p>“After
fighting to reveal the truth, all I want now is for the rest of the
country to know that there was a collective and orchestrated effort by
social and mainstream media to block a real story with real consequences
for the nation,” Mac Isaac told the <em>Post</em>...</p><div class="caas-da"><div id="sda-INARTICLE"></div></div><p><br /></p><p>Mac Isaac said he came
into possession of the laptop when President Biden’s son Hunter dropped
it off at his shop for repairs in April 2019 and never came back to
claim it. Authorities have since unearthed questionable content on the
device relating to Hunter’s foreign business dealings and the
president’s knowledge of them. The store owner first gave the laptop
hard drive <a class="link " data-rapid_p="29" data-v9y="1" data-ylk="slk:to the FBI" href="https://www.nationalreview.com/news/fbi-reportedly-in-possession-of-hunter-bidens-laptop/" rel="nofollow noopener" target="_blank">to the FBI</a>
in December 2019 and then to former head of the Trump campaign legal
team Rudy Giuliani, who provided a copy of the hard drive to <em>The Post</em>.</p><p> </p><p>After
the story surfaced in October 2020 right before the presidential
election, Twitter and Facebook made a concerted effort to bury it and
censored the<em> Post’</em>s article, arguing it was unsubstantiated and illegitimate reporting. Biden and over 50 former intelligence officials <a class="link " data-rapid_p="30" data-v9y="1" data-ylk="slk:smeared" href="https://www.nationalreview.com/corner/sure-seems-joe-biden-knowingly-lied-about-the-hunter-biden-laptop-story/" rel="nofollow noopener" target="_blank">smeared</a> the laptop revelation as part of a <a class="link " data-rapid_p="31" data-v9y="1" data-ylk="slk:Russian disinformation operation" href="https://www.nationalreview.com/news/psaki-dodges-on-bidens-smear-of-authenticated-hunter-biden-laptop-story/" rel="nofollow noopener" target="_blank">Russian disinformation operation</a>. Over a year later, the <em>New York Times</em> and the <em><a class="link " data-rapid_p="32" data-v9y="1" data-ylk="slk:Washington Post" href="https://www.nationalreview.com/corner/the-washington-post-finally-gets-around-to-confirming-the-hunter-biden-laptop-story/" rel="nofollow noopener" target="_blank">Washington Post</a> </em>finally
confirmed the story after dismissing it as unsubstantiated for months.
Hunter Biden had previously admitted that the laptop did in fact belong
to him.</p><p> </p><p>Some Republicans have argued that the early tech and liberal media suppression of the story <a class="link " data-rapid_p="34" data-v9y="1" data-ylk="slk:misled the public" href="https://www.nationalreview.com/2020/12/the-embarrassing-russian-disinformation-canard/" rel="nofollow noopener" target="_blank">misled the public</a> and may have effected the results of the 2020 election. <span>Mac Isaac said he suffered great harm as a result of the conduct of the social media companies after the story went live.</span></p><p><span> </span></p><p>“Twitter
initially labeled my action hacking, so for the first day after my
information was leaked, I was bombarded with hate mail and death threats
revolving around the idea that I was a hacker, a thief and a criminal,”
he told <em>The Post</em>. Schiff, who chairs the House Intelligence
Committee, “has some explaining” to do after he rejected the new
information outright back in October 2020 in what looks like an act of
political favoritism, Mac Isaac noted.</p><p> </p><p>“Without any intel, the
head of the intel committee decided to share with CNN and its viewers a
complete and utter lie,” Mac Isaac said. “A lie issued in the protection
of a preferred presidential candidate.”</p><p> </p><p>Mac Isaac alleges that
Schiff and those around him unfairly labeled him a prop of the Russian
regime for submitting the laptop to the FBI. The lawsuit includes a
defamation allegation stemming from Schiff’s interview with CNN two days
after <em>The Post</em> broke the story, during which he claimed Moscow was involved.</p><p> </p><p>“Well
we know that this whole smear on Joe Biden comes from the Kremlin.
That’s been clear for well over a year now that they’ve been pushing
this false narrative about the Vice President and his son,” Schiff told
CNN host Wolf Blitzer, according to the suit...</p><p> </p><p>As
a result of the false accusations, Mac Isaac says he faced intimidation
and hostility at his business. He shut down the shop after people
started throwing vegetables, eggs and dog excrement at his store, he
told the <em>Post</em>. Mac Isaac is seeking “at least $1 million in
compensatory damages [and] punitive damages which will be the much
bigger number and will be determined at trial,” his lawyer Brian Della
Rocca confirmed to the publication.<span class="caas-author-byline-collapse" data-id="m-0">"<br /></span></p>Maya Mhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/10877457709995369246noreply@blogger.com4tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-25206081.post-19938674544745460722022-05-03T11:27:00.005-07:002022-05-03T11:27:45.424-07:00The Pope is mad<p>From today's article <a href="https://www.yahoo.com/news/pope-francis-says-nato-started-135952616.html"><b><i>Pope Francis Says NATO Started War in Ukraine by ‘Barking at Putin’s Door</i></b></a>’by Barbie Latza Nadeau / Daily Beast: </p><p>"Since the beginning of Russia’s invasion of Ukraine, <a class="link rapid-noclick-resp" data-rapid_p="6" data-v9y="1" data-ylk="slk:Pope Francis" href="https://www.thedailybeast.com/pope-francis-finally-admits-some-catholic-priests-are-deplorable" rel="nofollow noopener" target="_blank">Pope Francis </a>has floated the idea that he wants to <a class="link rapid-noclick-resp" data-rapid_p="7" data-v9y="1" data-ylk="slk:take a trip to Kyiv" href="https://www.thedailybeast.com/volodymyr-zelensky-believes-president-biden-will-visit-ukraine-soon" rel="nofollow noopener" target="_blank">take a trip to Kyiv</a> to try to broker a ceasefire. But now he says he would prefer to go to Moscow to try to talk some sense into <a class="link rapid-noclick-resp" data-rapid_p="8" data-v9y="1" data-ylk="slk:Vladimir Putin" href="https://www.thedailybeast.com/the-shadowy-russian-scheme-that-dumped-nazis-into-ukraine-before-vladimir-putins-war" rel="nofollow noopener" target="_blank">Vladimir Putin</a>,
who he has not outwardly condemned in the now nearly three-month-old
war and only did so lightly in a lengthy interview with an Italian
newspaper.</p><p>“I feel that before going to Kyiv, I must go to Moscow,” he told <em>Corriere Della Sera</em>
in an interview that ran Tuesday. But the meeting would not exactly be
to condemn Putin, based on what he told the paper. He said that the real
“scandal” of Putin’s war is “NATO barking at Russia’s door,” which he
said caused the Kremlin to “react badly and unleash the conflict.”</p><p>Never
mind that the 85-year-old pontiff is unable to walk after tearing a
ligament in his knee (for which he says he will soon have surgery), or
that Putin won’t even answer his calls. Francis repeated comments he has
made in general audiences and in other interviews that the war is
nothing more than a giant opportunity for a “trade in arms” and that it
is still ongoing because of the constant shuttling of weapons to
Ukraine. He has spoken twice by phone to Ukrainian President Volodymyr
Zelensky, but mostly to urge him not to fight back... </p><p>“I don’t know
how to answer—I’m too far away—the question of whether it is right to
supply the Ukrainians,” he told the paper. “The clear thing is that
weapons are being tested there. The Russians now know that tanks are of
little use and are thinking of other things. This is why wars are waged:
to test the weapons we have produced. Few people are fighting this
trade, but more should be done.”</p><p>Whether the Italian journalists
didn’t ask—or whether he didn’t answer— there was no mention about what
would happen if Ukrainians were not fiercely fighting back, whether it
would mean a full annexation of the entire country, millions of deaths,
or empowering an already insatiably power-hungry Putin.</p><p>Francis
veered toward conspiracy theory as he blamed the international community
for instigating the war. “You cannot think that a free state can make
war on another free state,” he said. “In Ukraine, it seems that it was
others who created the conflict. I am pessimistic but we must do
everything possible to stop the war.”..."<br /></p>Maya Mhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/10877457709995369246noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-25206081.post-76182265398549470662022-04-24T09:51:00.002-07:002022-04-24T09:53:26.868-07:00Russia learned the wrong lessons from previous wars<p> From<span class="caas-author-byline-collapse" data-id="m-0"> <a href="https://www.yahoo.com/news/embarrassing-truth-behind-putin-war-035249261.html">David Volodzko / Daily Beast</a>, <b><i>The Embarassing Truth Behind Putin's War Failures</i></b>:<br /></span></p><p><span class="caas-author-byline-collapse" data-id="m-0">"</span><span class="caas-author-byline-collapse" data-id="m-0">Russia has been forced, humiliatingly, to withdraw some 40,000 troops
from around Kyiv and Chernihiv, having failed to make any significant
progress in those regions—falling back to their old targets in eastern
Ukraine. This raises the question of exactly what the Kremlin learned in
Syria and, more importantly, what it should have learned but obviously
has not...</span></p><p><span class="caas-author-byline-collapse" data-id="m-0">Some of the lessons that were not learned well enough include use of
drones for artillery spotting, the danger of MANPADS on the contested
battlefield, and the need for secure supply lines. Each of these factors
has proven devastating for Russian forces in Ukraine...</span></p><p><span class="caas-author-byline-collapse" data-id="m-0">Russia learned a few more things in Syria. Namely, how to destroy
cities, terror tactics to make civilians flee, and the use of proxies as
holding forces/cannon fodder.</span></p><p><span class="caas-author-byline-collapse" data-id="m-0">So what went wrong? For one thing, Russia is one of the <a class="link rapid-noclick-resp" data-rapid_p="18" data-v9y="1" data-ylk="slk:most corrupt" href="https://www.transparency.org/en/cpi/2021/index/rus" rel="nofollow noopener" target="_blank">most corrupt</a>
nations in the world, and by far the most corrupt major power. Ruling a
mafia state has its advantages if you’re the Godfather, but it’s hard
to know whom to trust. Moscow recently <a class="link rapid-noclick-resp" data-rapid_p="19" data-v9y="1" data-ylk="slk:purged" href="https://www.thetimes.co.uk/article/putin-purges-150-fsb-agents-in-response-to-russias-botched-war-with-ukraine-lf9k6tn6g" rel="nofollow noopener" target="_blank">purged</a>
150 Federal Security Service (FSB) agents and sent Sergei Beseda, the
head of the FSB’s 5th Service, which handles intelligence in Ukraine, to
Lefortovo Prison, which was used under Stalin to conduct torture-based
interrogations and mass executions. One theory says Beseda gave
information to the CIA, but the official reason, which may very well be
true, is that he lied to the state and stole funds meant for espionage
activities in Ukraine. If true, this means Putin’s own spy chiefs not
only let him bring a knife to a gun fight—they sold off the combat blade
and bought a cheap butter spreader...</span></p><p><span class="caas-author-byline-collapse" data-id="m-0">Russian communications are very lowbrow, and they are using unencrypted
mobile phones in Ukraine, a bad habit picked up in Syria, where few
opponents could understand Russian or had the technical competence to
intercept...</span></p><p><span class="caas-author-byline-collapse" data-id="m-0">One thing’s for certain, Russia looked at Ukraine and mistook a tiger
for a cat. Now even if it decides to cut its losses and completely
withdraw, it may not be so easy. As the old Chinese saying goes, when
you’re riding a tiger, the hard part is getting off."<br /></span></p>Maya Mhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/10877457709995369246noreply@blogger.com0