#putin's military fiasco in ukraine

[tomorrowusa]

Pro-Putin stooges in the West are trying to rile up public opinion by claiming that aid to Ukraine will provoke World War III.

In fact, it is Putin who already considers himself at war with the West. His agents have been assassinating critics in the West since the 2000s. And since his illegal invasion of Ukraine, Putin's agents have engaged in acts of sabotage and terrorism in NATO countries.

The attempt to assassinate German arms executive Armin Papperger is just the latest blatant act of aggression by Russia.

The plot was one of a series of Russian plans to assassinate defense industry executives across Europe who were supporting Ukraine’s war effort, these sources said. The plan to kill Armin Papperger, a white-haired goliath who has led the German manufacturing charge in support of Kyiv, was the most mature. When the Americans learned of the effort, they informed Germany, whose security services were then able to protect Papperger and foil the plot. A high-level German government official confirmed that Berlin was warned about the plot by the US. For more than six months, Russia has been carrying out a sabotage campaign across Europe, largely by proxy. It has recruited local amateurs for everything from arson attacks on warehouses linked to arms for Ukraine to petty acts of vandalism — all designed to stymie the flow of weapons from the West to Ukraine and blunt public support for Kyiv. But the intelligence suggesting that Russia was willing to assassinate private citizens underlined to Western officials just how far Moscow was willing to go in a parallel shadow war it is waging across the west. Papperger was an obvious target: His company, Rheinmetall, is the largest and most successful German manufacturer of the vital 155mm artillery shells that have become the make-or-break weapon in Ukraine’s grinding war of attrition. The company is opening an armored vehicle plant inside of Ukraine in the coming weeks, an effort that one source familiar with the intelligence said was deeply concerning to Russia.

People constantly pooping in their pants worrying about World War III have probably forgotten that World War II was triggered by people endlessly trying to placate Hitler.

As a practical matter, consider that Putin's "3-day special operation" is now 866 days behind schedule. At the time the invasion began he had the second most powerful military in the world; he now has the second most powerful military in Ukraine.

Even before Western countries responded to the invasion with additional arms to Ukraine, resourceful local farmers were a factor in thwarting Putin's planned conquest.

Putin was not capable of defeating Ukrainian farmers in 2022 and he's even less capable of defeating NATO in 2024.

Ignore bullshit scares from Russian bots or MAGA weasels. Russia produces second-rate military equipment which is operated by poorly trained personnel who are little more than cannon fodder.

[milverton]

I watch Jake Broe's update videos on the war in Ukraine pretty religiously, so I wanted to share what he had to say in his latest video because I at least felt a little better about this whole new trumpocalypse fiasco after hearing some of the points he made.

Here's his tweet that summarises what he says in the video, but I would recommend still watching the whole thing! (I've bolded the main points)

Okay! We all needed a day to reflect on what happened and I have good news and bad news for Ukraine about Trump returning to the US Presidency.

Let's start with the bad news for Ukraine…

Trump could end all US military cooperation

Trump could lift all sanctions on Russia

Trump could return all frozen assets to Russia

Yes, that is all very bad, but there might be good news.

First, Trump is always transactional. It does not matter if Russia was helping Trump or not in the past, Trump does not feel like he owes anyone anything for past favors. If Trump ever gives something up, then he will want something in return at the same time.

Russia will make demands that Trump is happy to accommodate, but only if Russia agrees to something that makes Trump look good. If Russia refuses, then Trump will rapidly escalate against Russia out of spite. American weapons in Ukrainian hands have already killed hundreds of thousands of Russian soldiers. Putin might refuse any kind of transactional deal with Trump. Nobody knows what either Trump or Putin will do. Trump could inadvertently destabilize Russia without even meaning to.

Second, Trump does not take over until January 20th, which means we know for a fact that Russia is not going to use a nuclear weapon before Trump returns to office. Russia is not going to start a nuclear war if they think Trump will give them favorable terms. Meaning there is no risk of escalation management the next two months. Take the gloves off!

For the next two months Ukraine should be given permission to hit whatever they want with whatever is given to them anywhere on Russian territory. Additionally, Biden now is forced to rush deliver and allocate the rest of America's available funds allocated by Congress to Ukraine this winter.

If instead Harris was re-elected and MAGA controlled Congress, military aid would have ended anyways and Biden would have tried to stretch these funds out until next summer. Biden can't do that now. So Ukraine is actually going to get a huge boost in military aid right away.

Third, even though I do not think Trump cares at all about Ukraine, he does care about his own image and legacy. He is never running for office ever again, but he loves to be loved by his supporters. He does not want to look weak and if Ukraine refuses to a negotiated capitulation and instead fights on without US help, these are going to be top headlines daily (maybe the fall of Kharkiv or the fall of Odesa) and this will make Trump look weak. He hates that. These would be images that would look worse for America than the US withdrawal of Afghanistan.

Forth, Trump hates Iran. Trump fiercely supports Israel and Iran is currently trying to destroy Israel. If Trump takes any military action against Iran (or looks the other way when Israel does) this could weaken or cripple one of Russia's most important allies. Harris was never going to do anything about Iran. Trump might actually cripple Iran and their Russian allied proxies in the Middle East.

Fifth, Trump loves the idea of cheap oil. He might actually find ways (cutting regulations, building more pipes, granting access to more public lands) that brings the global price of oil down so much that this ends up bankrupting Russia faster. That is not Trump's goal, but he might accidentally do it.

Sixth, Europe might finally militarily wake up once Trump stops answering their phone calls. Europe has the population and the economic power to support Ukraine and defeat the Russians without America's help. This is Europe's moment. They can't use America as an excuse anymore for holding them back.

Lastly… this is crazy, but Trump's economic plan of tariffs and trade wars might actually trigger a massive recession in the United States. When the US goes into recession, this almost always triggers a global recession. We realistically need an economic collapse of Russia to defeat them and Trump might accidentally cause this without even wanting to.

It is all weird to think about. But we just do not know what will happen or what the state of the war will be three months from now. It is a complete mystery to everyone, including the Russians.

Keep supporting Ukraine. Russia will be defeated.

[generallemarc]

This is a transcript of a CNN interview by Secretary Rubio regarding the Zelenskyy fiasco yesterday, and in a first for both the Trump administration and CNN I think both sides have a point here. Insulting Putin won't help end the war, which Ukraine needs to have happen to avoid losing more land and more people, as reconquest is no longer feasible thanks to manpower shortages that are only going to get worse the longer things go on. But at the same time, while Zelenskyy may have said that a specific thing was a Russian lie when it wasn't, I feel like he, with his imperfect English, may have been intending to say that Trump has been saying other things that really are Russian lies, like blaming Ukraine for the war starting. I feel like it should've been obvious to a man who's dealt with Trump before that he was just trying to butter up Putin, but at the same time I can only imagine the level of frustration that one could have from trying to work with such an aggravating person as Trump.

I think the CNN interviewer has a point in pointing out how Rubio is suddenly unwilling to say alot of the things he said about Putin as a Senator, and I think Rubio has a point in saying that that was before he was America's top diplomat with a mandate to end a war that still primarily hinges on bringing Putin to the table. Because, at the end of the day, this shouting matches changes very little, arguably nothing about what everyone wants and needs. Trump still wants the war to end whether or not he follows through on his threat to withhold military aid(which I personally doubt as Zelenskyy is far more likely to just swallow his pride and apologize rather than risk people actually dying for the sake of said pride, shitty as it is for Trump to tacitly use that to get what he wants from him). Zelenskyy still wants the war to end because he knows there's not going to be an indefinite supply of weapons regardless of whether it stops now or later, and also because manpower is something that can't be supplied at all and can't be fixed in a manner that Russia can't just roll over with more North Korean meatshields. Europe still wants peace while giving Russia as little as possible, and in fact following the argument Rubio spoke with the UK's Foreign Secretary regarding ending the war.

Is this a bad look? Absolutely. Is Trump to blame? I'd love a full transcript of what was said, as Rubio only provided snippets, but I'd put good money on "probably, or at the very least to a greater extent than Zelenskyy was." But is this going to change anything? Aside from that mineral deal maybe needing to be a bit more in America's favor, probably not. Regardless of your stance on both this incident and the war, I encourage you to read the interview, to get a more detailed perspective on both from two sides who, against all odds, manage to overcome the usual insanity that surrounds Trump to be reasonable and coherent with each other.

[mariacallous]

At a glance, Germany’s chancellor, Olaf Scholz, and his defense minister, Boris Pistorius, share much in common. The two longtime members of the Social Democratic Party (SPD), both in their mid-60s, were born in the same city, namely the old market town of Osnabrück in northern Germany, at the height of the Cold War. While Scholz moved on to become mayor of Hamburg, Pistorius took the post in Osnabrück’s city hall. From there, Scholz entered the federal government as then-Chancellor Angela Merkel’s finance minister, Pistorius to interior minister in the state of Lower Saxony. And Pistorius, like Scholz—in fact, like their party overall—long saw chummy relations with Vladimir Putin’s Russia as the best means to ensure stability in Europe, even well after Russia’s 2014 annexation of Crimea.

But today, at the center of Germany’s painful debate on defense and security, the two men offer starkly contrasting styles and priorities—and the German public’s estimation of them is rapidly diverging, too. The tough-talking Pistorius, a hawk on rebuffing Russia and rebuilding Germany’s armed forces, is currently basking in the glow of being Germany’s most popular politico (by a long shot). His self-styled image is of a doer who says directly what he wants—and does it. What people like about Pistorius, opined the Süddeutsche Zeitung on June 13, is that he’s a “straight shooter” who trusts Germans to understand complicated issues when explained in plain language.

The dispassionate Scholz, on the other hand, comes off as indecisive, conflicted, and equivocal. Scholz understands himself as both Germany’s “peace chancellor” (Friedenskanzler) and at the same time as a cornerstone of NATO’s bulwark against Russia. As for the public eye, Scholz has plummeted—becoming one of the least popular of all of the country’s leading politicians—after his party bombed spectacularly in the June 6 to 9 European Parliament elections. It garnered a miserable 14 percent of the vote, which landed the SPD behind the fiercely far-right Alternative for Germany (AfD).

Scholz’s dire numbers and the fiasco of the bitterly divided three-party coalition have fueled speculation that Pistorius, rather than Scholz, would make the better chancellor candidate in 2025. Were elections today, the SPD, liberals, and Greens would fall woefully short of a parliamentary majority. Germans are distinctly unhappy with the coalition’s work and Scholz’s bland leadership. Leading Social Democrats, including Pistorius, adamantly deny any musings about replacing Scholz (they have to, of course).  SPD member and deputy minister for economic cooperation and development, Niels Annen, told Foreign Policy: “There is no talk of this in the higher levels of the SPD. It would not have been the first time that people underestimated the chancellor. The autumn 2025 elections are much too far away to write off Olaf Scholz.”

And yet, so poorly is the current government faring, there is a real chance that Scholz may not run again—and if not, then who better to step into his shoes than Germany’s new favorite politician?

By any account, Pistorius’s turnaround of the defense ministry has been impressive. Scholz called Pistorius to the position to replace Christine Lambrecht, a senior SPD official who failed to step up to the mammoth job of overhauling the dysfunctional, underfunded, and understaffed German military in the aftermath of Russia’s February 2022 attack on Ukraine. Within the armed forces themselves, said insiders, confidence in Lambrecht was next to zero. In Lambrecht’s defense, the post had long been a thankless one in Germany—hobbled by meager budgets and German inhibitions. Yet, nevertheless, she, a non-expert with no military background, appeared particularly ill-suited to steer an unprepared armed forces suddenly obliged to respond to a full-scale war on the EU’s eastern border.

Pistorius took over in January 2023 and was tasked with fleshing out Scholz’s declared Zeitenwende (turning point) for Germany’s military, his response to the 2022 Russian invasion. Pistorius was made responsible for no less than turning the German armed forces into a military actually capable of repelling a threat to Germany’s security. Although Scholz announced shortly after the beginning of the invasion that a special one-off 100 billion euro fund—more than double the annual defense budget—would bankroll the endeavor, he didn’t go into specifics or say what would happen when it ran out. But Germany, Scholz promised, would no longer fall short of devoting 2 percent of its budget to defense, as NATO had long insisted its member states do.

Pistorius rolled up the sleeves of his fatigues and demanded that Germany’s armed forces provide “deterrence, effectiveness, and operational capability.” A month after he assumed office, the bulk of the 100 billion euros is spent: on new orders of F-35 fighter jets, main battle tanks, heavy transport helicopters (mostly purchased from the United States, not, to French chagrin, from France), and a digitalization drive to modernize the forces. The troops’ equipment—from weaponry to personal kit, long a sore spot—has been upgraded, lending Pistorius credibility with the armed forces that his recent predecessors never had.

Annen recognizes that Germany has long been uncomfortable with military issues—a legacy of World War II and the Nazi dictatorship—and that Pistorius is the first defense chief who dares to say things like, “We must be ready for war by 2029.” Annen said that in a very short period of time, Pistorius has resuscitated the Bundeswehr’s prestige in the public sphere.

Conscription is another taboo that Pistorius has violated, though tentatively. On June 13, he made public a new military service model for Germany, the goal of which is to recruit 5,000 conscripts a year as soon as 2025, building up troop size gradually from 180,000 to 200,000 soldiers. This is not a draft as such but rather a campaign to contact all 18-year-old men and women and entice them to join the armed services of their own volition. (Only men will be obliged to indicate their interest.)

“I make no secret of it,” Pistorius said on June 13. “I would like to train 20,000 conscripts every year.” But not only are too few young Germans interested, he also admitted that the Bundeswehr doesn’t have the capacity to turn 20,000 teenagers into soldiers. Eventually, Pistorius said, German women, too, will be included in the mandatory campaign.

Pistorius is not satisfied with the jump-start alone—and this is where he has run into his parteifreund, Scholz. Pistorius has demanded that the defense budget increase beyond the 52 billion euros currently allotted for 2025. Pistorius told Germany’s finance minister, Christian Lindner, that he needs up to 6.5 billion euros more, not least for 35 new Leopard tanks. Lindner, the guardian of the constitutionally inscribed debt ceiling, said no-go—and Scholz backed his finance minister.

Pistorius, off the record, apparently blew his top, exclaiming, “I don’t have to keep this job!” Afterward, he cooled off and denied any intention to resign. But he is not the only Social Democrat insisting that debt constraints are madness at a time with so many convergent crises and a stagnant economy. Observers say that this bone of contention could well bring down the coalition and prompt early elections.

Even before the EU election debacle, rumors were flying that Pistorius could make a play for the top spot on the SPD ticket in 2025. The obstacles to this, however, even if Pistorius desired it, which we don’t know, are considerable. For one, there are many Social Democrats who have not come around entirely in rethinking Germany’s defense and security positions.

“They remain nostalgic for the old days of Willy Brandt, who they think of a Friedenskanzler,” explains Christian Mölling, a security expert at the German Council on Foreign Relations, a Berlin-based think tank. “The old answers from that past: reconciliation and detente, cannot be wrong, that is the strong belief in the SPD party base.“ Scholz, tries to keep this constituency in his camp by playing the Friedenskanzler, says Mölling, but also because he has no alternative idea how to shape security.

Moreover, Pistorius has never had a strong following or faction loyal to him within the party. When the SPD was struggling in 2019 (in the aftermath of a bruising EU election result), the minister from Lower Saxony ran for the party leadership in a crowded field together with Petra Köpping, a minister in the state of Saxony. The duo came in fifth place, receiving only 14.4 percent of the vote. It remains unclear whether a hawkish faction has emerged within the “peace party” to back Pistorius’s newest incarnation. From the tenor within its ranks, however, the answer is negative.

The SPD is currently in deep trouble, perhaps the deepest of its many troubles over the last 25 years. It has now in front of its eyes the real-time disaster of a major party—namely the Democratic Party in the United States—running an unpopular candidate who could very well flop because others in the party didn’t dare point out that the king is wearing no clothes. The Social Democrats have about one year left to stave off the worst—and perhaps a suitable successor will enable it to rise from the ashes.

[ammg-old2]

President Vladimir V. Putin long styled himself as Russia’s guarantor of stability and the uncompromising protector of its statehood.

In his absence, he left stunned Russians wondering how the leader of a paramilitary group, Yevgeny V. Prigozhin, could stage an armed mutiny on Saturday that threatened to reach Moscow. And it raised uncomfortable questions about the Russian president’s future: What did his failure to prevent the revolt mean for their security — and his staying power?

Russians with ties to the Kremlin expressed relief on Sunday that Mr. Prigozhin’s uprising did not spark a civil war. But at the same time, they agreed that Mr. Putin had come off looking weak in a way that could be lasting.

Konstantin Remchukov, a Moscow newspaper editor with Kremlin connections, said in a telephone interview that what once had seemed unthinkable was now possible: that people close to Mr. Putin could seek to persuade him not to stand for re-election in Russia’s presidential vote next spring. With Saturday’s events, he said, Mr. Putin had conclusively lost his status as the guarantor of the elite’s wealth and security.

The idea that “Putin is in power and provides stability and guarantees security — it suffered a fiasco on the 24th,” Mr. Remchukov said. “If I was sure a month ago that Putin would run unconditionally because it was his right, now I see that the elites can no longer feel unconditionally secure.”

“Stability” was the Kremlin’s refrain amid the 2020 referendum that cleared the way for Mr. Putin to serve two additional terms, until 2036. And it is the security of the Russian state that Mr. Putin describes as his guiding motivation for invading Ukraine.

Even amid the 16-month-old war in Ukraine, the Kremlin has been focused on normalcy at home. Mr. Putin has resisted hard-line calls to declare martial law or to close the country’s borders. For the elite, the sting of Western sanctions has been compensated by the new business opportunities of Russia’s wartime economy and a domestic market suddenly free of competition from many Western businesses.

But Mr. Prigozhin’s challenge to the Kremlin’s authority this weekend upended that calculus. The leader of the Wagner paramilitary group, Mr. Prigozhin had his forces seize a Russian military headquarters in the south, then sent a column of troops north toward Moscow, vowing to enter the capital. The crisis was defused late Saturday, when Mr. Prigozhin agreed to pull back his forces in a deal that allowed him and his troops to avoid prosecution.

The immediate threat was averted. But in the process, Mr. Putin lost more than his reputation for providing stability: The fact that Mr. Prigozhin and his forces were not being punished punctured Mr. Putin’s reputation as a decisive leader who would not tolerate disloyalty.

That impression was compounded by reports from Russian military bloggers that Prigozhin forces had shot down Russian combat aircraft. Mr. Putin also called Mr. Prigozhin a traitor after he launched his insurrection — and after the mercenary chieftain questioned Mr. Putin’s very rationale for the war in Ukraine. Those transgressions seemed to melt away with the deal that ended the crisis.

Experts said this made Mr. Putin look less in control of the Russian state than previously known. And foreign adversaries were quick to seize on that theme.

Secretary of State Antony J. Blinken said on Sunday that Mr. Prigozhin’s rebellion had revealed cracks emerging in Mr. Putin’s hold on power. “It was a direct challenge to Putin’s authority,” Mr. Blinken said on CBS’s “Face the Nation.’’

One of the more confounding aspects of the crisis was why Mr. Putin allowed Mr. Prigozhin’s very public conflict with Russia’s Defense Ministry to escalate for months without addressing it. Mr. Prigozhin had been brazenly outspoken in assailing and belittling the Russian military’s leadership.

Two people close to the Kremlin, speaking on condition of anonymity to discuss sensitive political issues, described the crisis as first and foremost the product of a dysfunctional system of governance verging on chaos — vividly captured in the Russian word bardak.

Decisions on how to handle Mr. Prigozhin’s uprising were made on the fly Saturday, they said, after months in which the president and his inner circle kept on kicking the can down the road rather than finding a way to deal with the iconoclastic mercenary chief.

“This was a rather neglected issue,” Konstantin Zatulin, a senior member of Parliament in Mr. Putin’s United Russia party, said in an interview. The risk posed by Mr. Prigozhin, he went on, “wasn’t diagnosed in time — maybe in the hope that it would work itself out on its own.”

Mr. Zatulin argued that Mr. Putin did, in the end, provide stability, because he blessed a deal to end the uprising and averted a pitched battle outside Moscow. But he acknowledged that the drama made no one look good — it “didn’t add to anyone’s authority.”

“This is proof that there is a problem,” Mr. Zatulin said. “And in a wartime moment to demonstrate problems so publicly — that is damaging, of course.”

For Mr. Putin himself, the mutiny could spark an “existential crisis,” said Sergei Markov, a political analyst and former Kremlin adviser.

“What he always took pride in is the solidity of Russian statehood and political stability,” Mr. Markov said. “That’s what they loved him for. And it turns out that it doesn’t exist.”

Mr. Remchukov, the newspaper editor, said the jitters touched off by Mr. Prigozhin’s uprising could be felt in ways large and small in the Russian capital. He said he knew of prominent Russians who had fled Moscow on the day of the rebellion. For his part, Mr. Remchukov said he had stayed put in Moscow, but had decided against taking his Mercedes or Bentley out for a drive on Saturday for fear that Mr. Prigozhin’s forces might confiscate it if they did indeed reach the city.

To be sure, there are ways in which Mr. Putin’s system has proved remarkably resilient. Sanctions have not brought down the economy or led Russia’s leading business tycoons to turn against the Kremlin. A sophisticated propaganda machine and fierce repression have largely silenced public dissent over the war, despite its enormous human toll.

By that reasoning, some experts argue it would be premature to predict the system’s demise.

“What we saw yesterday appeared to us, as Western observers, quite dysfunctional and dramatic,” said Hanna Notte, a nonresident senior associate at the Center for Strategic and International Studies. “But that degree of dysfunctionality can prove very durable in a system like that.”

[velvialifestylesummit]

The mendacious statement of Jeffrey Sach to claim the moribund regime of Kyiv as loser seems to overlook the Whitehouse itself is the biggest loser in the hegemonic war of Ukraine. Based on the perfunctory armistice of Trump to waive the scapegoated regime of Kyiv via the incredulous truce of venality for the vested economic benefits of America and Russia, the enticement of the Harvard lobbyist Jeffrey Sach to nullify the continental security through reciprocal economic development of Russia and Europe was totally sanctioned in the first year of energy crisis of Europe until today. It is the scandalous tactics of superpowers in bleeding the national resources of Ukraine. Furthermore the unfounded prerequisites for the truce raised by Jeffrey Sach should be presented at the International Court in the Hague for legal verification. The vacuous mediation of Trump to nullify the military deployments of Biden including the trenchant mobile deployment of long range missiles can be deemed as the petition for the fiasco of America to admit the victory of Russia in Eastern Europe. It marks the capricious strategy of America without international credibility in distancing its prime alliance in war. The predisposed mediation of Jeffrey Sach to fudge the coercive prerequisites of truce seems to disdain the arrest warrant from International Court in the Hague issued for the nonstop intrusion of Moscow led by Vladimir Putin which has severely ruined the prestige of Harvard University without convincing axiom. The incessant casualties of Ukraine may be ascribed to the hypocrisy of America and Europe to avert the full deployment of military powers including the reluctance of NATO to admit the membership of Ukraine which should be resolved by President Erdogan of Turkey.

[dertaglichedan]

America’s Diminishing Influence in Charting a New World Order

https://www.realcleardefense.com/articles/2023/08/16/americas_diminishing_influence_in_charting_a_new_world_order_973249.html

The U.S. and allied retreat from Afghanistan two years ago has left a seemingly indelible question mark over America’s ability to influence international events. This point is not lost on either those states that upheld the U.S. as a security provider or those that looked up to it as a democratic model to emulate. America’s adversaries—most importantly China, Russia, Iran and North Korea—could not be more pleased to see the U.S. on the back foot in the conduct of global affairs.

U.S. President Joe Biden’s administration has sought to contain and repair the damage resulting from the Afghanistan and Iraq fiascos and the corrosive persistence of Trumpism that has polarised the American public to such an extent that the very fabric of America’s democratic institutions and values are under threat.

On the foreign policy front, Washington has made a concerted effort to ensure the unity and strength of NATO in the face of Russia’s invasion of Ukraine, to subject Russia to a regime of maximum sanctions and to provide Ukraine some U.S.$43 billion worth of military and humanitarian assistance to help defeat Russia. It has also sought to forge an alliance of democracies against autocracies and theocracies and to beef up such measures as the Quad and AUKUS to contain China’s assertive regional and global ambitions.

Domestically, the administration has focused on economic recovery, the renewal of America’s ageing infrastructure, innovative measures in such areas as climate change, and welfare services and race relations. The aim is to restore America’s status as a world power, erode the appeal of the legally besieged Donald Trump and boost Biden’s re-election chances next year.

Yet none of these foreign and domestic policy steps have so far produced the desirable results. While NATO has held together despite occasional cracks threatening its unity and its support for Ukraine in the long run, Vladimir Putin’s Russia has survived the sanctions with an ability to continue the Ukraine war for much longer than was expected.

Many countries have either stood behind Russia or precariously found it expedient to continue and in some cases strengthen their relations with Moscow. Whereas China, North Korea, Iran and Syria have openly thrown their lot in with Russia, India and many of the Middle Eastern, South and Southeast Asian, African and Latin American states have chosen not to take sides in the Ukraine conflict. Moscow’s resource diplomacy, involving delivery of cheap oil and grain, along with disillusionment with or doubt about U.S. power, has been effective in this respect.

The Biden administration’s policies of containing China haven’t been productive either. They have done little to diminish President Xi Jinping’s autocratic and nationalist ambitions to make China a world power or reduce his resolve to unite Taiwan with the mainland in one way or another. Despite the ups and downs in China’s rate of economic growth and dependence for prosperity on the import of raw materials and export of goods, the country’s march towards economic and military parity with the U.S. now looks unstoppable, unless there’s a catastrophic internal implosion.

[brazenautomaton]

the war in Ukraine is the worst possible thing for Russia to be doing, it's the most unforced error ever and showing in no uncertain terms that the Russian military is dogshit and their leadership is completely incapable of carrying out very simple goals. it showed Putin has no idea what is going on in his own country and refuses to learn. Putin is absolutely mulching manpower and resources in Ukraine in exchange for nothing. He learned absolutely nothing from the Iraq war and septupled down on every mistake.

What do you think the West is doing that is close to the fiasco in Ukraine by any tangible metric?

I guess I was completely wrong on the topic of US empire but I also guess that it was easier to assume the empire wasn't run by terminal retards before last year

[qqueenofhades]

Hi! It’s not an ask, just read your post about whether ordinary people in Russia support the war and commented on it, hope you don’t mind.

I can recommend a Russian channel that I love where recently there have been a lot of interviews with Russian people about what’s happening. The interviews are in Russian, but some of them have English subtitles. They offer a perspective of educated intelligent people, so it’s not an opinion shared by everyone, but they try to make sense of what’s happening.

Here is a link to the playlist https://youtube.com/playlist?list=PLynm3_86ldoTv06Qb-0MhzyDGgPxzZm3-

I can particularly recommend these two

https://youtu.be/8CW-WAJq0ts

https://youtu.be/vq7bAYFi-jE

So if you’re interested in this topic, you can watch them :)

Hope you have a nice day!

Thanks very much, and I'm glad to hear that you, as an actual Russian, thought that my analysis was accurate. I'll post this as future reference for me or anyone else who might be interested, though I'm still having to manage my information intake and trying not to check Twitter every three minutes. So we will see, but definitely a good resource to have, especially as the fog of war hangs heavy over much of the available information and it drags on into a second month.

As to my last post, my point was not that 1) everyone in Russia supports the war, or 2) everyone in Russia opposes the war, because clearly neither of those things are true. It's just to point out that since literally all the Russian state-sponsored information about this entire fiasco has been proven to be deeply and risibly false, we simply do not know what any kind of percentage or exact proportion of support or opposition might consist of, and there's no way to derive it from the existing numbers. One Russian sociologist estimates that only about 25% of Russian citizens are willing to talk to pollsters at all, and that they universely conclude that such surveys are conducted by the government, which in turn influences the answers they give. Besides (as you yourself already know, of course, but this is just for me to elaborate for my other followers), Russia exists, and has existed, for so long in its alternate information universe. Even a casual study of Russian and Soviet history makes plain that propaganda and ideology occupy a pivotal place in the intellectual and civic ecosystem, and that it is, to be blunt, largely or entirely fed by the dezinformatsiya of the ruling class. At least in terms of television or any other accessible media, and which obviously has an impact on shaping public mindset at the most molecular level.

I believe that two things can be true: i.e. that public support for Putin has probably ticked up to some degree, due to the Russian instinct to circle the wagons and support the leader in times of crisis, and due to the Kremlin propaganda machine's exceptional success in promoting its worldview and playing on the ancestral Russian hatred of "Nazis" (who are by now anyone that Putin and the siloviki don't like). Actual, genuine information doesn't really enter into it, and has been purposefully made as difficult and dangerous as possible to obtain. I also believe that we can't have any accurate notion of how widespread, authentic, or deeply rooted the public support for the "special military operation" actually is. If only 25% of people answer the poll at all, and then are willing to give genuinely honest answers on a topic as sensitive as Ukraine, and then you come up with 83% of 25% supporting the war, that translates to something like... maybe twenty percent of the population of a country of 144 million. Which is still a significant chunk, but not a majority, not even close to a majority, only counts the people willing to complete the exercise in the first place, and definitely doesn't count all the anti-war protesters who have either been arrested or already left the country. In short, as I said, it really doesn't ultimately tell us anything or allow us to draw informed conclusions, especially without any kind of detailed demographic breakdown or rigorous sampling method made available to check the poll's crosstabs independently. When you have demonstrably bad data from a source (the Russian government and state media apparatus) that has been proven to be manifestly and repeatedly untrustworthy, you can't just cite it as if it has self-evident authority and without extensive qualifications. This is Scholarship 101.

I do think that this war is exposing Russia's many shortcomings as a modern nation-state in all their ugly glory, and one of those is, as Anne Applebaum put it in her excellent and utterly harrowing history of the Gulag, "the political consequences of absent memory." The Russian people have simply not had a reckoning with their past the way Germany did after WWII, and which is begrudgingly happening in America despite all the kicking and screaming from the right-wing nutjobs. It's often felt that they tried liberalization in the 90s, that didn't work and led to the economy crashing, and now that Putin and his cronies are in power, it is in their interest to shut down any responsible or informed study of the past among their own people. In a sense, yes, of course the Russians support what they have been told for their entire existence is the Russian thing to do, and despite repeated sociopolitical and economic catastrophes resulting from this fact, they still have not yet been able to fundamentally change that system. It remains to be seen if they will, yet again, get away without doing so.

I can think of no more dramatic and stunning way to encapsulate this "absent memory" and its dire consequences than the reports currently coming out of Chernobyl. Literally the entire world knows what happened there in 1986, and many of us are also aware how it directly contributed to the collapse of the USSR, the polity which Putin so openly hankers to rebuild. So the fact that Russia would send soldiers in there, completely unprotected, to capture it -- and for that matter, recklessly shell the Zaphorizhia nuclear plant in an apparent attempt to force a new catastrophe -- is bad enough. This is especially the case since Chernobyl is defunct (it shut down in 2000) and doesn't actually produce power, but still requires round-the-clock monitoring. So it's not actually a valuable military or civic-infrastructure target (and this was even before the Russian forces went whole hog on the war crimes due to being unable to make meaningful progress otherwise). Why go there? Just to say you have it? Or... something?

Except now they're evidently evacuating the Russian soldiers from the Exclusion Zone, and the soldiers are -- you guessed it -- suffering from Acute Radiation Sickness, which means they will almost certainly die painfully in a short time. They were digging trenches in the goddamn Red Forest, the most irradiated place on earth where even the Chernobyl plant workers aren't allowed to go, and when the Chernobyl staff asked them directly if the soldiers had any goddamn hell idea where they were and what they were doing, the soldiers didn't know. They had no clue what Chernobyl was or why it was important. They just repeated over and over that it was "critical infrastructure." They had no idea that the world's worst nuclear accident had happened there or that it directly contributed to the breakdown of the USSR. And now, for that reason, they're all going to Belarus to probably, as I said, die painfully of radiation poisoning. That is... wow.

So yes. Until the Russian public finally comes to grips with the sheer depths of its absent memory and the terrible domestic and international political consequences, the Russian system which produced and enabled Putin and his fellow war criminals can't ever fundamentally and meaningfully change. As someone who studies Russian history, literature, and language, and is deeply interested in it overall, I sure hope it can do that, not least before it destabilizes the rest of the world. Whatever form this is going to take, who knows, but that is the Russian people's responsibility as a whole, and needs to be acknowledged.

[mistressemmedi]

Ok i know you’re going to hate me but here are my two cents on the Russia Mazepin fiasco. The FIA is banning Russia from taking part not Russian civilians. Like whole governments are sanctioning Russia and not their civilians, the FIA is doing the same. Mazepin can’t control what happens in his country and so it’s not his fault (or any other athlete’s fault) for the sanctions against his country. He’s still allowed to compete as a citizen of the world and not if Russia. This also applies to other athletes and drivers like Robert Schwartzman. I know everyone is angry but for argument’s sake it could have been Germany or England in Russia’s position and people would argue to keep Seb and Mick or the merc boys and Norris. I know what it means to represent your country as i have done so a few times. When on the international stage you can’t fuck up because you are wearing your flag, but with the sanctions posed, you are no longer considered a citizen of a particular country but of nowhere in particular, so you are bonded with nothing. You compete to show the best of you and not your nation.

Sorry for the long rant but people are not seeing the 2 sides of the disaster and speaking from their asses.

You're going in with the mentality that there are two sides to this issue - there arent.

There's Ukraine and it's citizens (including athletes) who are quite literally fighting for their lives against a military invasion.

And then there's Russian athletes who spoke up the moment that their status in the sport was threatened. And the worst part is that they spoke up against the hypothetical decision made by the sports governing body and not against what's actually causing all of this.

And I can appreciate the fact that it's not easy to speak up, particularly considering the worst case scenarios for... Uh... Dissidents? (Is that the right word?) but it's a piss poor excuse considering that there's plenty of 'nobodies' protesting in the streets against Putin (and getting arrested and all that fun jazz) and they don't have the leverage that a famous actor/singer/etc. has.

[tomorrowusa]

Putin has effectively fired his hunting buddy Sergei Shoigu as defense minister. He is being replaced by an economist with no military background. What could possibly go wrong?

Vladimir Putin has removed his longtime ally Sergei Shoigu as defence minister in the most significant reshuffle to the military command since Russian troops invaded Ukraine more than two years ago. In a surprise announcement, the Kremlin said Andrei Belousov, a former deputy prime minister who specialises in economics, will replace Shoigu. Putin, who was sworn into his fifth term as Russia’s leader earlier this week, proposed that Shoigu take the position as head of Russia’s powerful security council. It is currently led by Nikolai Patrushev, a hawkish former spy and one of Putin’s closest advisers. Shoigu, Russia’s longest-serving minister, assumed leadership of the defence ministry in 2012 after his tenure as the emergency services minister. He has been leading Russia’s military through its full-scale invasion of Ukraine, which began in 2022.

That Russian 3-day "special operation" in Ukraine is now in Day 809.

Russian losses in Ukraine make Soviet losses in Afghanistan seem like a day at the beach.

Shoigu must have had an especially difficult time explaining to Putin how a country with no conventional navy managed to sink 26 Russian warships as well as a submarine.

Ukraine is not just playing defense. It continues to hit oil installations and other heavy industry deep inside Russia. At the very least, that looks embarrassing for Russia.

Media: Drones attacked Russia’s Volgograd oil refinery, Kaluga oil depot, Lipetsk steel mill

Of course Putin himself has only himself to blame for this military fiasco. His unhinged desire to restore the decrepit Soviet Union in all but name is the real cause of this ongoing disaster.

Analysis of the departure of Shoigu via DW.

[pinksoultyphoon]

WASHINGTON: Indian-American Republican presidential candidate Nikki Haley has vowed that if voted to power, she will cut every cent in foreign aid for countries like China, Pakistan and Iraq which hate America, saying "a strong America doesn't pay off the bad guys".The 51-year-old two-term Governor of South Carolina and the former US Ambassador to the United Nations formally launched her 2024 presidential bid earlier this month."I will cut every cent in foreign aid for countries that hate us. A strong America doesn't pay off the bad guys. A proud America doesn't waste our people's hard-earned money. And the only leaders who deserve our trust are those who stand up to our enemies and stand beside our friends," she wrote in an op-ed in the New York Post.She said that America spent $46 billion on foreign aid last year, which is given to countries like China, Pakistan, and Iraq. American taxpayers deserve to know where that money is going and what it's doing, she added."They will be shocked to find that much of it goes to fund anti-American countries and causes. As president, I'll put a stop to this fiasco,” she said.According to Haley, the Biden administration resumed military aid to Pakistan, though it's home to at least a dozen terrorist organisations and its government is deeply in hock to China.She said that as the US ambassador to the UN, she strongly supported then president Donald Trump's decision to cut nearly $2 billion of military aid to Pakistan because that country supported terrorists who kill American troops."It was a major victory for our troops, our taxpayers and our vital interests, but it didn't go nearly far enough. We've still given them way too much in other aid. As president, I will block every penny,” she added.She said that the Biden administration restored half a billion dollars to "a corrupt United Nations agency" that's supposed to help the Palestinian people but in fact covers for deeply anti-Semitic propaganda against our ally Israel. She added the US has given Iraq more than $1 billion over the last few years, even though its government is getting closer to Iran.She said American taxpayers still give money to "Communist China for ridiculous environment programmes, despite the obvious threat China poses to Americans.""We give money to Belarus, which is Russian dictator Vladimir Putin's closest ally. We even give money to Communist Cuba — a country our own government has designated as a state sponsor of terrorism,” she said, adding that it's been happening for decades under presidents of both parties."I am running for president to restore our nation's strength, our national pride and our people's trust. Backing American allies and friends like Israel and Ukraine is smart. Sending our tax dollars to enemies isn't," she added."At the UN, I put together a book of how much money we give other countries and how often they vote with us. It was eye-opening. We are giving huge amounts of cash to countries that vote against us most of the time. That doesn't make sense. I'll stop it. America can't buy our friends. We'll certainly never buy off our enemies," she added.Less than a fortnight after entering the race to the White House, Haley is leading against President Joe Biden in a hypothetical match, according to the latest opinion poll on Friday. But she trails badly against leading GOP candidate former president Trump, Rasmussen Report said based on a survey it conducted between February 16 to 19.Among the Republicans, she comes at the third position after Trump (52 per cent) and Florida Governor Ron DeSantis (24 per cent).Born Nimrata Nikki Randhawa to immigrant Punjabi Sikh parents, Haley is the third Indian-American to run for the US presidency in three consecutive election cycles. Bobby Jindal ran in 2016 and Vice President Kamala Harris in 2020.Days after Haley announced her White House bid, Indian-American tech entrepreneur Vivek Ramaswamy, another Republican, also launched his 2024 presidential bid.Before

entering the presidential ballot, Haley has to win the Republican Party's presidential primary which will start in January next year. The next US presidential election is scheduled to be held on November 5, 2024. !(function(f, b, e, v, n, t, s) window.TimesApps = window.TimesApps )( window, document, 'script', 'https://connect.facebook.net/en_US/fbevents.js', );if(typeof window !== 'undefined') window.TimesApps = window.TimesApps

[jesuslists]

Jesus’ Top 10 New Year’s Resolutions for 2023

Each year, Dad and the Blessed Virgin Mary get after You to make resolutions to improve Yourself and the mankind You supposedly redeemed through Your crucifixion. Here are Your Top 10 resolutions for the Son of God in 2023. Review last year’s resolutions to see if You followed through.

1. Rehire Katharine Gibbs as Your Personal Secretary. Rosemary Woods was Such. A. Disaster. She was horrible at keeping accurate records of summit meeting between Dad and Lucifer. You will never understand why God the Almighty even asked Richard Nixon for a personal referral. 2. Grant Nine More Lives to Volodymyr Zelenskyy. Instruct Your legal team to draft the memo to Dad authorizing more lives for the President of Ukraine. Remind Him how well the whole nine lives thing has worked for Tom Cruise. Doing his own stunts, are you kidding Me? 3. Release Diego Maradona from Purgatory. Now that Lionel Messi has replaced him in the pantheon of Argentina greats, it is time for Maradona’s final judgment. He was a naughty boy, not the least of which crediting that World Cup goal where he cheated to the “Hand of God.” Clearly a hand ball as well as blasphemous. He could end up in the hot place for all eternity if the tie-breaking vote is cast by St. Peter Shilton, who is set to take the rotating at-large seat on the Final Judgement Committee (FJC). 4. Reset Elon Musk’s Soul After the MOU Expires. The Archangel Michael wagered Mephistopheles over the war in Ukraine with the winner gaining control of Musk’s soul until 12:01 AM (GMT) on January 1, 2023. Michael has always been under the spell of the so-called Russian military might and  prowess, but the dark angel put the fix in with the Russian generals by promising them what Lucifer had promised Me in the wilderness that one time. Maybe once the MOU has expired, Grimes will take Musk back. 5. Get a New Girlfriend. The Blessed Virgin Mary has been after You for 2,000 years to enter into a meaningful, long-term relationship with a nice Jewish girl, but all the women in Heaven are just too nice for Your tastes. You’ve tried dabbling with earthly women, but they end up dying, are too complicated (e.g., Sharon Stone, an older woman fiasco), or like Natalie Portman, married. Your siblings Scott, Rachel, and Joseph, Jr. suggested someone more age appropriate, like Emma Watson. Also, St. Alan Rickman has been whispering in Your ear. 6. Commission a Dramedy About the War in Ukraine. On Spec. Have that New Archangel Abner inspire Adam McKay to write and direct. Antony Starr, who plays Homelander on “The Boys” as Vladimir Putin, Tom Cruise (see #2 above) as Volodymyr Zelensky, and Dame Helen Mirren as Joe Biden. Special appearances by Jonah Hill as Sergey Surovikin, the Russian commander for operations in the war, and Clare Danes as Zelensky’s wife, Olena Zelenska. 7. Flood the Hamptons. It’s been a while since the heavens really flooded the earth and You would like to jump-start the Earthly Climate Change Initiative. Also, You always get a kick out of watching wealthy and powerful people panic and cry that life is unfair. 8. Grant Pay-Per-View Rights for Lauren Boebert v. Marjorie Taylor Greene Mud Wresting Contest to Higher Ground Productions. 9. Designate Diet Mountain Dew the Official Soft Drink of Heaven. You saw this dude’s Instagram account, and now You are hooked. 10. Invent Limbo. Leave it to the morons at the Catholic Church to invent the concept of limbo (here). It’s not real despite Dante Alighieri imagining the virtuous Virgil residing for eternity in its gloom. However, everything the 45th President of the United States touches turns to [redacted] and You don’t want to spoil heaven or hell (or purgatory, because Dad cares). In Limbo, President Voldemort will be sad, and no one will hear his cries and accusations. No gold toilets, gilded thrones, or cheeseburgers. Only arugula salads. He will be instructed that if he completes all his tax returns correctly, he will be granted entrance to Heaven. Good luck with that!

[mariacallous]

Foreign Policy Situation Report: Truss wilts in record time

By Jack Detsch and Robbie Gramer

Welcome back to Foreign Policy’s SitRep! Jack and Robbie here. Robbie is off in Brazil, which is in the throes of a heated presidential race. But the biggest news is in Britain, where Liz Truss’s resignation won’t…ahem…lettuce focus on anything else today.

Alright, here’s what’s on tap for the day: Liz Truss becomes Britain’s shortest-serving prime minister, a change at the commanding heights of think tank land, and Russia is making more militaries feel unsafe.

Liz Truss became Britain’s prime minister on Sept. 6, two days before the death of Queen Elizabeth II. After 10 days of mourning for the late monarch, Truss swung for the fences with tax cuts and energy-price promises on borrowed money that sent the British pound tumbling near parity with the U.S. dollar for the first time in a generation and the U.K. Conservative Party into a political nosedive. In all, the Economist wrote last week, the amount of time that Truss had in actual control of the country was a week—or roughly the shelf life of a head of lettuce—and a British tabloid immediately put the proposition to the test, placing Truss’s portrait up against a cluster of salad leaves to see who would last longer.

Two heads were on the chopping block, so to speak; in the end, Truss wilted, and the lettuce prevailed. The Conservative government was already on life support after the tax cut fiasco that forced Truss to fire her finance minister and perform a U-turn on her biggest policy move. And on Thursday morning, just hours after the Tories barely beat back a parliamentary vote to ban fracking in the United Kingdom, Truss resigned in front of No. 10 Downing Street, making her time at the helm—44 days—the shortest ever in British history, putting the freshly crowned King Charles III on pace to surpass his mother’s record of 15 prime ministers during a seven-decade reign within two years. The editors at the Daily Star decked out the victorious head of lettuce with googly eyes, disco lights, and a wig. “God Save the King” played. Truss’s portrait was placed face down on the desk.

The Tories will send another fleet of leadership contenders to duke it out. But the damage from the resignation of two prime ministers in as many months (Truss lasted just four “Scaramuccis,” a nod to former U.S. President Donald Trump’s ill-fated communications chief, who lasted 10 days in 2017 and himself pegged Truss’s reign at exactly 4.1 Scaramuccis) could have wider foreign-policy ripple effects beyond the Tory ranks. In the Kremlin, Russian President Vladimir Putin’s acolytes already appeared ready to pop champagne over the demise of one of Ukraine’s closest allies on the international stage. “Bye bye,” former Russian President Dmitry Medvedev tweeted after Truss’s resignation speech, which lasted barely more than a minute. “[C]ongrats to lettuce.”

And with U.S. and European officials worried about Russian influence campaigns to back far-right parties and dissuade Western governments from backing Ukraine in light of a looming winter energy crisis, experts fear the Kremlin is preparing to pounce on another propaganda victory. “Do not doubt this: The failure of Britain to stabilize, the elections of autocrats in several European countries & the surge of US @GOP performance artists gives Putin hope of future NATO/western division,” tweeted Mark Hertling, a retired U.S. Army lieutenant general who served as top commander of U.S. forces in Europe.

But Truss’s resignation also throws into question the fate of her hawkish defense buildup: The outgoing prime minister had pledged to raise defense spending to 3 percent of GDP by 2030, a doubling of the British military’s annual budget and a full percentage point higher than NATO’s minimum requirement. (British officials already hinted this pledge could get walked back last week.) Plans to rewrite the integrated defense review championed by Truss’s predecessor Boris Johnson (who is reportedly mulling a disastrously unpopular return) are likely to be on the back burner, unless hawks such as Ben Wallace, the current defense secretary, or Penny Mordaunt, who served in the role in 2019, emerge from the fray.

Whoever takes over, Truss’s successor—who could be chosen within the week—is almost certain to be more consumed with the political and economic mess she left behind than with what goes on, as one of her predecessors said, “in a far-away country, between people of whom we know nothing.”

Let’s Get Personnel

The head of the Council on Foreign Relations, Richard Haass, is preparing to leave his post after almost two decades in the job, the New York Times reports.

Chris Estep is joining the Defense Department as a special assistant to the assistant secretary of defense overseeing Indo-Pacific security affairs.

On the Button

What should be high on your radar, if it isn’t already.

New line of work. Ostracized British pundits David Miller and Chris Williamson, who have previously faced accusations of antisemitism, have found a new line of work: launching careers for themselves on Iranian state TV. That’s according to the German Marshall Fund of the United States, which has tracked Miller and Williamson’s descent as they have used their new platform to dabble in conspiracy theories and traffic in COVID-19 and Russian disinformation.

Unsafe interactions. Technical malfunctions caused a Russian aircraft to release a missile near a British plane over the Black Sea last month, British Defense Secretary Ben Wallace revealed on Thursday. The encounter, which occurred over international airspace, found an unarmed Royal Air Force RC-135 Rivet Joint plane tailed by two Russian Su-27s, one of which accidentally released the weapon. The British defense ministry has responded by adding armed escorts to surveillance flights.

Covering fire. Russia has been violating Moldovan airspace to lob missiles from its ships in the Black Sea into Ukraine, and Moldova isn’t exactly pleased about that. Now, Moldova’s defense ministry is exploring plans to purchase air defense systems in response, as Defense News reports, in another sign of the blowback across Europe that Russia faces over its invasion of Ukraine. The Moldovan government is eyeing plans to set up a new multiyear defense acquisition program and dropping some oh-so-subtle hints that it wouldn’t say no to Western governments opening up their checkbook and pitching in.

A woman looks at a screen displaying a video of Iranian climber Elnaz Rekabi competing, sans hijab, in an international championship in Seoul, in the Cypriot capital of Nicosia on Oct. 18.

Shocking Stats

Internet unfreedom. Worldwide internet freedom declined for the 12th straight year in 2022, according to the democracy and human rights watchdog Freedom House, with Russia, Myanmar, Sudan, and Libya among those taking the biggest hits. More than 50 countries also have penalties for free expression online, including draconian prison sentences. But a slight bit of good news from this annual report: 26 countries got better marks than the previous year, including the United States.

Put on Your Radar

Saturday, Oct. 22: Brazil’s presidential candidates hold a final debate ahead of runoff elections at the end of the month.

Sunday, Oct. 23: Slovenia holds presidential elections.

Tuesday, Oct. 25: Germany convenes a reconstruction conference for Ukraine in Berlin.

Quote of the Week

“If Iran walks like a duck, talks like a duck and admits to supplying drones to the biggest duck in the world then I think we have enough evidence to say that Iran is a duck. Let’s sanction the duck out of them.”

—Gabrielius Landsbergis, Lithuania’s foreign minister, in response to Iran supplying Russia with drones to aid its invasion of Ukraine.

FP’s Most Read This Week

• Biden Is Now All-In on Taking Out China by Jon Bateman

• The Thaw on Russia’s Periphery Has Already Started by Daniel B. Baer

• As War Hits the Home Front, Russia’s Defeat Inches Closer by Alexey Kovalev

Whiskey Tango Foxtrot

Nuclear laugh codes. Your friends at SitRep only see TikToks when they come over to Twitter, but this one was too funny to ignore: a one-man show about J. Robert Oppenheimer checking in with old (country) friends during the height of the Manhattan Project during World War II.

That’s it for this week.

For more from Foreign Policy, subscribe here or sign up for our other newsletters. You can find older editions of Situation Report here.

[lapdropworldwide]

‘Just a Shit Show’: Putin’s Troops Gearing Up for Ukraine Are Gunned Down on Russian Soil Instead

‘Just a Shit Show’: Putin’s Troops Gearing Up for Ukraine Are Gunned Down on Russian Soil Instead

Getty Russian defense officials have been forced to confirm yet another fiasco among troops after several volunteer fighters were mowed down at a training facility in Belgorod on Saturday. The shooting, which reportedly took place at a military training ground in Soloti, left at least 11 troops who were preparing to join the war against Ukraine dead, according to Russia’s Defense Ministry. At…

[cyberbenb]

Letter to the editor: The Oval Office fiasco was a calculated setup to humiliate Ukraine and undermine democracy

The recent Oval Office meeting between U.S. President Donald Trump and Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky wasn’t just a diplomatic disaster — it was a setup.

From the moment Zelensky walked into that room, the stage had already been set. This wasn’t about serious discussions on aid or strategy. It was about weakening Ukraine, pressuring its leader, and crafting a narrative that justifies pulling back U.S. support.

Trump’s accusation that Zelensky was “gambling with World War III” and Vice President J.D. Vance’s rebuke for supposed “ingratitude” weren’t off-the-cuff remarks. They were planned. Carefully constructed talking points designed to turn Zelensky from an ally into a liability in the eyes of the American public.

And the goal? To shift blame away from Russia, excuse future inaction, and force Ukraine into a losing position — all while making it look like Zelensky’s fault.

Let’s be clear: Zelensky didn’t walk into a discussion. He walked into a trap.

Rather than focusing on ways to strengthen Ukraine’s defenses, Trump and Vance ambushed him — portraying Ukraine as a dependent nation that demands too much and gives too little. It was an act of public humiliation, not diplomacy.

By demanding that Zelensky negotiate with Vladimir Putin — a man who has lied, invaded, and slaughtered without hesitation — Trump isn’t pushing for peace. He’s pushing for Ukrainian surrender.

No serious strategist believes that handing over territory will stop Russia’s war. History has shown us that appeasement doesn’t work. If Ukraine concedes today, Putin will push further tomorrow. The Baltics, Poland, other NATO allies — they’re all watching.

European leaders reaffirm support for Ukraine after Zelensky-Trump clash

A number of European leaders on Feb. 28 reaffirmed their support for Ukraine and President Volodymyr Zelensky, following his tense meeting with U.S. President Donald Trump at the White House.

The Kyiv IndependentTim Zadorozhnyy

Beyond the Oval Office theatrics, there was something even more disturbing: the so-called minerals deal.

According to leaked reports, Trump’s team floated the idea that the U.S. should gain control over Ukraine’s critical natural resources in exchange for continued military aid.

Think about that for a moment. The deal wasn’t just about weakening Ukraine politically — it was about exploiting it economically.

When the U.S. helped Britain during World War II, did we demand control over its coal and steel industries? When NATO defended West Germany during the Cold War, did we insist on taking its most valuable resources?

No. Because allies don’t extort each other.

The only person who really benefits from this? Vladimir Putin.

Trump’s performance in the Oval Office played right into Kremlin propaganda — painting Ukraine as desperate, Zelensky as ungrateful, and U.S. support as a burden for America. This kind of messaging isn’t just harmful — it’s dangerous. It sends a clear signal to Putin: America’s commitment to Ukraine is weakening.

Editorial: A president just disrespected America in the Oval Office. It wasn’t Zelensky

It’s time to say it plainly. America’s leadership has switched sides in the war. The American people have not, and they should speak up. In the past several weeks, the U.S. leadership has demonstrated explicit hostility towards Ukraine and aligned its rhetoric and policy with Russia. The

The Kyiv IndependentThe Kyiv Independent

If Putin believes that, he’ll double down. More aggression, more escalation, more war.

And it won’t stop with Ukraine. If America turns its back now, Taiwan, South Korea, and NATO allies will wonder — are they next?

This wasn’t just an attack on Zelensky. It was an attack on American credibility.

Some argue that the U.S. has already done enough for Ukraine. That billions in military aid and weapons should be enough. That the American people are tired of endless commitments abroad. That’s a fair concern.

But let’s be honest: This isn’t just about Ukraine. It’s about whether the free world still stands against tyranny, or if we’re willing to let dictators redraw borders at will.

President Zelensky did not cave. He did not concede. He did not betray his country.

The question now is: Will America do the same?

Editor’s Note: The opinions expressed in the op-ed section are those of the authors and do not purport to reflect the views of the Kyiv Independent.

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