Gotcha, Vlad

In the middle of "No aid is going to Ukraine until the Republicans get their heads outa their asses", Biden sneaked a few ATACMS to Kyiv, and Zelensky used them to knock the shit out of a Russian airbase in Crimea.

And then the White House lets it slip that, "Yeah, we did that - we told you guys not to fuck with our friends."

• We just got another $61B to buy stuff that's even better than the ATACMS (and all the other stuff) we're sending to Ukraine
• Ukraine continues to gut the Russian military for us
• Putin's position in the Kremlin is weakened - which in turn makes Erdogan and Orban play nice
• Xi has to slow his roll on Taiwan - cuz he has to see we're not fuckin' around, and besides, now he can look at taking pieces of eastern Russia (eg)
• Iran, you idiots watching?
• NATO gets stronger and more secure - and more likely to go along with practically anything Biden wants

Biden's message with all this: "We can be really nice guys, and we can be really great friends. But don't try to push us around. We will fuck you up."

The US quietly shipped long-range ATACMS missiles to Ukraine

WASHINGTON, April 24 (Reuters) - The United States in recent weeks secretly shipped long-range missiles to Ukraine for use in its battle to fight off Russian invaders, and Ukraine has now used them twice, a U.S. official said on Wednesday.

The missiles were contained in a $300 million military aid package for Ukraine that U.S. President Joe Biden approved on March 12, said the U.S. official, speaking on condition of anonymity. The official would not say how many of the missiles were sent.

The missiles were used for the first time in the early hours of April 17, launched against a Russian airfield in Crimea that was about 165 km (103 miles) from the Ukrainian front lines, the official said.

The official said Ukraine used the weapon a second time overnight against Russian forces in southeastern Ukraine.

Whether to send the Army Tactical Missile Systems (ATACMS) with a range up to 300 km was a subject of debate within the Biden administration for months. Mid-range ATACMS were supplied last September.

The Pentagon initially opposed the long-range missile deployment, fearing the loss of the missiles from the American stockpile would hurt U.S. military readiness. There were also concerns that Ukraine would use them to attack targets deep inside Russia.

Russia's use of North Korean-supplied long-range ballistic missiles against Ukraine in December and January, despite U.S. public and private warnings not to do so, led to a change in heart, the U.S. official said.

Also a factor in U.S. decision-making was Russia's targeting of Ukraine's critical infrastructure, the official said.

"We warned Russia about those things," the official said. "They renewed their targeting."

In late January the U.S. military found a way to satisfy their concerns about military readiness, which enabled the administration to move forward. They began acquiring new missiles coming off the Lockheed-Martin (LMT.N), opens new tab production line.

Biden met with his national security team in mid-February and agreed to accept the unanimous recommendation of his advisers to send the missiles to Ukraine. Involved in the discussion were national security adviser Jake Sullivan, Defense Secretary Lloyd Austin, Secretary of State Antony Blinken and Joint Chiefs of Staff Chairman C.Q. Brown.

The challenge at that point was to figure out how to pay for the missiles. The United States had exhausted all of its funding options and congressional gridlock stymied further aid.

An opportunity arose in March, when several Pentagon contracts came in under bid. Biden was able to use the difference to send $300 million in assistance to Ukraine.

Biden told his team to include the long-range ATACMS in this funding package, but to do so secretly in order to maintain operational security and the element of surprise for Ukraine, the official said.

All of Crimea, BTW, is now untenable. The Russians could be leaving abruptly and rapidly. And they need to do that before Zelensky takes down what's left of the Kerch bridge.

Слава Україні

Freedom finds a way.

Senate passes Ukraine, Israel aid bill after months-long debate

The $95 billion foreign aid bill now heads to the president’s desk

The Senate overwhelmingly passed a $95 billion foreign aid bill on Tuesday, delivering billions of dollars in weapons and support to key U.S. allies Ukraine and Israel despite some opposition from both parties’ bases. The legislation, which passed by a 79-18 vote, had seemed all but dead for several months due to opposition in the GOP-led House.

President Biden said in a statement he would sign the bill into law as soon as it crosses his desk on Wednesday, and send aid to Ukraine this week. The funds help him deliver on his promise to the nation’s NATO allies to continue to aid Ukraine as it enters its third year fending off Russia’s invasion.

Passage of the legislation marks the first significant new tranche of aid passed by the U.S. Congress to the beleaguered nation in more than a year, as some Republicans aligned more with former president Trump’s “America First” foreign policy waged a fierce battle against it. They ultimately lost out when Speaker Mike Johnson (R-La.) decided to put the $61 billion in Ukraine aid on the floor last Saturday, citing his belief that Russia posed a serious threat.

“Today the Senate sends a unified message to the entire world,” Majority Leader Charles E. Schumer (D-N.Y.) said on the floor on Tuesday. "America will always defend democracy in its hour of need.”

Nine Republican senators flipped their votes to support the legislation on Tuesday after voting against an earlier version of the aid in February.

The legislation also sends $26 billion in funds for Israel and humanitarian aid for Gaza and other places, at a time when some congressional Democrats are calling for further aid to Israel to come with conditions.

Just three senators who caucus with Democrats opposed the aid package as progressives continue to decry the mounting civilian casualties in Gaza. University protests are growing and becoming more volatile, and the State Department released a report saying the human rights situation has significantly deteriorated in the region because of the conflict.

“Israel does not have the right to go to war against the entire Palestinian people, which is exactly what it is doing,” Sen. Bernie Sanders (I-Vt). said on the Senate floor ahead of the vote.

Sanders and other Democrats, including Schumer, have criticized Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s handling of the war in Gaza that’s left more than 34,000 Palestinians dead and much of the region’s housing and civilian infrastructure destroyed. Famine is spreading, humanitarian aid officials and USAID administrator Samantha Power said this month.

The Senate measure also would force TikTok’s Chinese-owned parent company to sell off the social media site or face a ban, as well as allocating $8 billion for Taiwan, other IndoPacific allies and countering China. A portion of the $61 billion in Ukraine funds are given via a loan to Ukraine that the U.S. president may forgive beginning in 2026.

The Ukraine funds come at a key juncture for the country in its war with Russia, as Ukrainian forces, running low on ammunition, have begun to cede frontline towns to Russia. The Pentagon has warned for months that a U.S. failure to arm Ukraine would prove catastrophic, and potentially spur Russian military advancement into other neighboring countries.

“So much of the hesitation and shortsightedness that has delayed this moment is premised on sheer fiction,” Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell (R-Ky.) said on Tuesday. “Make no mistake: delay in providing Ukraine the weapons to defend itself has strained the prospects of defeating Russian aggression.”

The months of congressional inaction may also have dealt long-lasting damage to America’s reputation and alliances, officials and analysts say.

“The perception of the reliability of the United States is severely damaged,” said Kurt Volker, who served as a liaison to Ukraine under the Trump administration. “That has ripple effects.” NATO member states may be more doubtful that the U.S. would uphold its commitment to mutual defense as a member of the alliance, he said.

The Senate passed a version of the aid bill in February, following months-long negotiations to come up with a GOP-demanded bipartisan border deal linked to the aid that fell apart after Trump announced his opposition. The effort divided Senate Republicans at the time, and only 22 of them voted for it. But on Tuesday, 31 Republicans voted to advance the measure, including Sen. Lindsey Graham (R-S.C.) a longtime hawk who flipped his vote from February.

At a celebratory news conference after a key procedural vote succeeded, McConnell said he believed the vote showed Republicans rejected an isolationist worldview that he said was promoted by ex-Fox News personality Tucker Carlson, whom he mocked for recently interviewing Russian Leader Vladimir Putin.

“I think we’ve turned a corner on the isolationist movement,” McConnell said.

In February, Trump said at a rally that he’d encourage Russia to do "whatever the hell they want” to any NATO member country that is not spending a sufficient amount of money on its own defense.

“I think it’s an insult to the American people the idea that, again, we’re going to send another 60 billion to secure the borders of another country,” said Sen. Eric Schmitt (R-Mo.), who voted against the bill.

The aid package has been long awaited by the White House, which requested the current version of the funds in October, shortly after Israel came under attack by Hamas in the Oct. 7 assault that left about 1,200 Israelis dead.

Schumer and McConnell were largely united in pushing for Ukraine aid, despite fierce House GOP opposition that hung over Johnson as he weighed his decision. The speaker may yet lose his job over the Ukraine aid vote due to lingering anger on his right flank, but Trump has so far praised him and cautioned against ejecting Johnson.

“McConnell and I locked arms on this, we were shoulder to shoulder the whole way through,” Schumer said of the Senate’s efforts in an interview. The two men strategized on how to convince Johnson to let the House vote on their measure, and made a pact not to separate Israel aid from Ukraine funds, he said.

The bill prohibits any U.S. aid funds from going to the U.N. Relief and Works Agency (UNRWA) — the organization that distributes most of the food, medicine and basic services to Palestinians in Gaza and across the Middle East — operating in Gaza and the West Bank following Israeli allegations that a dozen of its employees were involved in the Oct. 7 Hamas attack on Israel. An independent review of the latter claim commissioned by the United Nations found no evidence to support it.

The bill prohibits any of the bill’s humanitarian funds from going to the U.N. Relief and Works Agency (UNRWA), the organization that distributes most of the food, medicine and basic services to Palestinians in Gaza and across the Middle East. That ban follows allegations that a dozen of UNRWA’s employees were involved in Hamas’ Oct. 7 attack on Israel, and that the agency has been widely infiltrated by Hamas. An independent review of the latter claim commissioned by the United Nations found no evidence to support it.

Polling suggests Democrats are deeply divided about Israel’s approach to the war, but Democratic senators largely stuck together in approving the aid package on Tuesday. Some Democrats cited Iran’s recent strike on Israel as a development they believed would make clear to voters the need for the aid.

“The notion that we ought to help Israel defend itself I think also is a little more obvious to people than it might have been in February,” said Sen. Tim Kaine (D-Va.). The senator added that he believes Israel has allowed more humanitarian aid into the strip in recent weeks, following a deadly Israeli strike on World Central Kitchen aid workers.

Others cited the impracticality of trying to put conditions on the aid, saying such action is more effective coming from the president.

“The more I have looked into the mechanics of what would it actually mean to try to condition aid in response to a specific event at a specific time — it was always going to require cooperation and partnership from the executive,” said Sen. Chris Coons (D-Del.). “Because aid that we approve or vote for now will not arrive for months or years.”

Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky, who traveled to the Capitol in December to ask for more support, thanked Congress for their actions ahead of the Senate vote. “We are glad that the United States remains with Ukraine, that it remains our main powerful ally,” Zelensky wrote on social media.

As the Senate considered the aid package Tuesday, Ukrainian lawmakers hoisted the American flag in Ukraine’s parliament.

“This critical legislation will make our nation and world more secure as we support our friends who are defending themselves against terrorists like Hamas and tyrants like Putin,” Biden said in a statement.

And now we can ponder what this might portend for the Putin's Boot-Licker Caucus.

Enemies

Sending beans, bullets, and bandaids to Ukraine now means we won't be sending body bags to Poland later.

Ukraine

Opinion
Does Trump have a point about Ukraine?

As House Speaker Mike Johnson (R-La.) and former president Donald Trump blockade further U.S. aid to Ukraine, you might wonder why the United States should send billions to a faraway country when Americans need help here at home.

Notice above, WaPo's willingness to play into the bullshit rhetorical construct that pits Americans against Ukrainians, as if we're enemies.

What do the facts suggest? Some of the questions below might seem easy. But they weren’t for many of the people we asked. (We partnered with Gapminder, a Swedish nonprofit, to survey 600 people ages 18 to 65 about Ukraine spending. The sample was balanced to reflect U.S. demography.)

Some 20 other nations have spent more supporting Ukraine, as a share of their economies, than the United States has. Even so, the entire U.S. economy is so big it’s hard to grasp. How about comparing U.S. aid for Ukraine with spending on critical domestic programs?

In fairness, the U.S. government spends a lot on Social Security every year. The program is the federal government’s second-biggest budget item. Let’s find a more modest comparison.

"In fairness"? Are you really trying to be "fair", WaPo? Or are you backhanding retired people because you think we cost you more than we're worth? Sounds like you're doing that standard bullshit again - pitting older Americans against newer Americans.

Now let’s explore how Ukraine military aid compares with U.S. defense programs.

Millions, billions, trillions — the numbers can seem the same: impossibly large. Perhaps that is why this essential reality is not more commonly understood: Investing in Ukraine’s defense doesn’t cost the United States all that much in the grand scheme of U.S. priorities, particularly if it deters Russia from threatening NATO allies that the United States is treaty-bound to defend — or China from committing acts of aggression, perhaps against Taiwan. Not to mention that, as Marc A. Thiessen explained in a recent Post column, much of the spending goes to U.S. firms manufacturing weapons for Ukrainian use.

The investment isn’t costless or without risk. It’s possible that Ukraine might never develop into the full-fledged, Western-oriented democracy it has the potential to become. But the opportunity to cultivate one of Europe’s largest countries, rich in resources, as a U.S. partner holds the promise of direct benefits to the United States and its allies. Even if you aren’t persuaded by the moral case for helping a vulnerable democracy fight for its freedom, the spending is still worth it.

Ukraine

War is a laboratory. I'm not saying there's a positive side to war. There isn't.

And no, not even if you win it. Nobody wins a war. The "winner" is just the side that either loses the least, and gives it up last.

The point here is that the ridiculous shit going on in Ukraine is teaching us a lot about the ridiculous shit we can look forward to when the next ridiculous shit gets going.

If The Drones Wars aren't here already, we don't have long to wait.

2 years on, Ukraine's drone makers look to deliver 'a peaceful sky, a quiet life, a victory'

In the two years since Russia launched its full-scale invasion, Ukraine's home-grown defence tech - especially drones - has kept the country going.

"Instead of using human capital, let's use autonomous vehicles because it will save our lives," said Ivan Kaunov, co-founder of start-up Finmap turned officer in Ukraine’s army.

"That's the main change that I see on the battlefield since the very beginning," he told Euronews Next ahead of the second anniversary of Russia’s invasion of its neighbour.

Speaking from an undisclosed location in a car, Kaunov, who serves in the army and develops drone technologies, says defence technology has become essential to the fight.

The start-up co-founder graduated from the military department at Kyiv-Mohyla Academy in 2012 and at the beginning of the war, he was an officer in the ground forces.

"I was the second person in command of 110 people and went to line zero (the farthest edge of the front lines) and had some personal close combat experience," Kaunov said.

"But then in the summer of 2022, I had a serious concussion," he added, an injury which forced him to spend a few months in rehabilitation. He was then moved to another department of the army that he cannot disclose.

"Since that time, I learned how to work with more than 25 different ISR (​​intelligence, surveillance, and reconnaissance) long-range drones from various countries".

The drone war

Drones are "absolutely crucial" in the war, according to Kaunov. While there are the kamikaze and explosive drones that attack the enemy, intelligence drones that can provide information in real-time from enemy territory are important too.

Without the latter, he said, you cannot actually strike the enemy’s headquarters or ammunition warehouses with long-range artillery systems as you are "blind".

Another reason drones are so important in the war is they are relatively cheap to make and can make an impact when destroying the opponent’s expensive military weapons.

"If we can destroy something which cost millions [with] something that cost hundreds of dollars, that's how we're going to win this war," Kaunov said.

With his battlefield experience and knowledge of drones, he co-founded his latest company Buntar Aerospace, which digitalises first-hand experience from the battlefield into both hardware and software solutions for long-range ISR drones.

It helps to plan missions and manages real-time video broadcasting in areas that are jammed due to electronic warfare.

"We have to accept the reality that we have a huge enemy here on our border. And this enemy doesn’t just want us to leave, he wants to vanish us as a nation," Kaunov said.

"So we have to defend ourselves. That means we have to rebuild lots of different things to manage it all. And I believe it will be done".

But drones do have their drawbacks. For them to complete a task, they must have a stable connection between the control panel and the drone itself.

They can also be easily detected as they emit frequencies into the air.

"Around the world, the main manufacturers of components for drones make modules for them developed on the same components," said Serhii Titkov, an inventor and developer of Kseonics Technology.

He created the DDSR1 drone detector, which detects enemy drones in Ukraine.

"They have a limited number of communication channels, and if the video connection is analogue, they do not have any encryption, and the video signal is available to anyone who has standard and commercially available video receivers," he told Euronews Next.

This means the drones can become jammed and tracked by enemies.

The only way to overcome this, he said, is by producing control and video transmitters using expensive imported components, or by equipping the drone with a machine vision system, where the operator fixes his target before radio interference occurs, and the drone flies to it on autopilot.

The funding issue

This is expensive to do, and Ukrainian defence tech start-ups say they need more funding.

"I hope that manufacturers of electronic chips designed for telemetry will join in supporting Ukraine and develop chips that can significantly help Ukrainians in confronting the aggressor [to] gain a technological advantage," said Titkov.

He said the company has lots of ideas for new developments that they plan to mass-produce, which requires not only funding but also good specialists.

He hopes Ukraine will this year see "a peaceful sky, a quiet life, a victory, and for new technologies to be used only for medicine, fighting hunger, and building alternative energy sources and the environment".

Despite Ukraine’s government initiatives, such as Brave1, a defence tech coordination platform that this year has a budget of more than $39 million (€36 million) to award to tech companies, funding is the biggest headache.

This is in part because investment lifecycles in defence tech are much longer than those of regular start-ups.

"Investors are sometimes afraid because they have pre-agreed [funding] life cycles. So, like three years of investments and in defence tech, it is not so fast," said Daria Yaniieva, head of our start-ups division at Ukrainian IT company Sigma Software.

But she said defence tech should be treated like any other start-up or company when it comes to investing, and she is confident there are returns on these investments.

"What we see in Ukrainian defence tech, is that the solutions that are born [on] the battlefield, they are actually tailored for the new era," she told Euronews Next.

"And this is where Ukraine can take the stage… So in terms of the investments, this is a sweet spot for everyone".

Investing in Ukraine’s tech ecosystem is also helping to keep the country’s economy afloat.

Last year, the tech sector contributed 4.9 per cent or €6.5 billion to Ukraine’s GDP, according to Lviv IT Cluster.

The number of Ukrainians working in the tech sector has also increased by over 7 per cent.

'Not just about weapons'

Investors are also cautious about defence tech as they believe it is just about killing machines, which is a common misassumption.

"Let's be clear that defence tech is not only about weapons. It's about smart solutions for logistics, media propaganda, software solutions, and drones. Weapons are just a small part of it," Yaniieva said.

But funding is even difficult for Ukranian start-ups that are trying to save lives.

Anima is a Kyiv-based start-up that tries to understand mental health by tracking eye movement via a computer camera. It does this by looking at attention behaviour, which can determine what is happening with the psyche in terms of mental health.

The company claims it can predict whether a person is going to develop any kind of disorder, a person’s current mental state and whether they need help.

Anima was started in response to the COVID-19 pandemic but is being used by Ukraine’s military and hospitals in unofficial clinical tests.

Roman Havrysh, CEO and Co-Founder of Anima, told Euronews Next that about 22,000 people in Ukraine are using the service to improve their mental health.

"The war is probably the worst condition a human can find themselves [in] and so that was the idea to give people the tool, to understand themselves better and to better navigate through challenging times," he said.

But then when it was used by military psychologists and hospitals, it was seen as useful as the psychologist questionnaires usually given to soldiers can easily be manipulated by the soldiers to get the results they want.

"They started using our company to assess military personnel’s conditions between missions and whether people are capable of doing the mission or not. Because the psychological condition is probably the biggest influencer on the battlefield," Havrysh said.

The company is also planning to use the technology to better understand the impacts of concussions on the brain, which is a common problem for soldiers.

Despite the promising tech, Havrysh said it is bad timing for funding due to the "war and investment climate in Ukraine".

"Even before the war, Ukraine was not the best country to invest in," he said, adding he is having to reinvest from his other companies into Anima.

The foreign funding problem

On top of Ukrainian investors being wary of investing in Anima as they are careful with the new technology, foreign investment is also difficult.

"Unfortunately, our investors are not protected by law because they are in the United States or somewhere else. So we are struggling heavily with this," he said.

"Despite President [Volodymyr] Zelenskyy saying that we are very welcoming of investment, unfortunately, that's not the case right now. They are kind of trying to get there, but it's still a long journey ahead".

Havrysh said this creates a brain drain, with many Ukrainian companies relocating to countries such as Canada.

"Investor relations on the global governmental level should be updated to help us. We will probably at some point need to also relocate, otherwise we will probably fail".

Army SOS, which does not use weapons but defence strategies such as defence mapping software for logistics and Unmanned Aerial Vehicles, has also seen funding dry up.

"People were more invested in the start of the war because they were expecting it to be a quick victory in a couple of months," said Mykhailo Yatsyshyn, head of the UK office of Army SOS.

"We are defending not just our country, we are defending the war and if you invest, you are investing in saving people’s lives and that’s the most important," he told Euronews Next.

"We have only one target and that is Russia. So we need to just destroy this regime and bring Ukraine to victory and back to normal life. That's my hope for 2024," he added.

Today's Beau

70% of us recognize that helping Ukraine is important to US interests.

58% of us see Ukraine as important to us personally.

This should not be an issue. Trump needs to get Putin's dick out of his mouth, and Speaker Johnson needs to get Trump's dick out his mouth - and take the fucking vote.

Ukraine

Moscow owns (used to own) the 2nd greatest military establishment in the world. But those crafty cossacks keep turning the tables and hitting Putin where it hurts him the most.

The stories of how Ukrainians have been able to reach deep inside of Russia, and effectively attack critical infrastructure, will be studied at the War Colleges for decades.

Ukraine

E.U. throws Ukraine $54 billion lifeline after Hungary drops opposition

BRUSSELS — European Union leaders agreed Thursday to $54 billion in aid for Ukraine, overcoming opposition from Hungary to secure critical funding as battlefield progress stalls and support from the United States looks uncertain.

In emergency meetings in Brussels, Hungarian Prime Minister Viktor Orban, who has spent months railing against the aid, finally agreed to sign on.

The agreement is a win for E.U. leaders who have increasingly struggled to work with Orban on key issues, particularly Russia’s war in Ukraine, and it is good news for Ukraine, which is running desperately short of both ammunition and cash.

The macro-financial assistance is a mix of grants and loans to be dispensed over four years. The first tranche could arrive in March, Ukraine’s Ministry of Economy said.

With Hungary blocking Ukraine aid, E.U. desperate for workarounds

“This locks in steadfast, long-term, predictable funding for Ukraine,” European Council President Charles Michel said in announcing the deal.

Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky welcomed the news, writing that “continued E.U. financial support for Ukraine will strengthen long-term economic and financial stability, which is no less important than military assistance and sanctions pressure on Russia.”

The E.U. is also trying to surge desperately needed ammunition to Ukraine, but will not meet the goal it set last year of sending a million rounds to Ukraine by March.

The weeks of fraught negotiations have spotlighted how a single strongman can disrupt the E.U., even on issues, such as Russian aggression, that many see as “existential” for the union. And it has hinted at how precarious and unpredictable long-term support for Ukraine could be.

In the United States, a $60 billion aid package for Ukraine is being blocked by Republicans in Congress as they seek concessions on border security, something German Chancellor Olaf Scholz hoped would be resolved soon as well.

“This by the way is also a good signal towards the U.S. The American president is a good friend and ally who is working hard to win support for his demands from the Congress,” he said in Brussels after the deal was announced.

In Europe, Orban used his veto to block the funding at a summit in December, forcing heads and state and government to fly back for a second gathering. Top E.U. officials and various country leaders have been working furiously for weeks to secure his support.

As if to underscore the sense of uncertainty and chaos, the meeting took place amid a massive protest by farmers who arrived in tractors, blocked traffic and set fires in the heart of the city. They called on leaders to focus more on cost-of-living issues, including high taxes and what they see as excessive regulation from E.U. headquarters in Brussels.

A surge in populist sentiment on the continent could help the likes of Orban and challenge Ukraine at a dangerous moment in the war. Ukraine’s strategy for 2024 is still uncertain, and behind the scenes close allies are concerned about their prospects on the battlefield and political disruption in Kyiv.

On Thursday, however, Orban did not get his way.

The Hungarian leader had pushed hard for the possibility of a yearly veto over the money for Ukraine. Instead, leaders agreed to reviews of how it is being spent — with no veto.

Bad blood between Brussels and Budapest is not new. For years now, Orban has clashed with E.U. officials and leaders, using his acrimony — and veto — to extract concessions while playing to populist sentiment at home.

But in recent months, he seems to have crossed a new line. Fellow leaders see his latest antics as a genuine threat to European security — and they are increasingly willing to work around him.

“There is no problem with so-called Ukraine fatigue,” Polish Prime Minister Donald Tusk said as he entered the summit Thursday. “We have Orban fatigue right now in Brussels.”

“This is for Mister Orban to decide,” he continued, “If Hungary is part of our community, or not.”

In the lead-up to the summit, top E.U. officials and leaders sought to pressure Orban to come back to the table and made plans to move forward by, for instance, cutting a deal among the 26 other member states without him.

A paper written by the Council of the E.U. and leaked to the Financial Times ahead of the summit explored ways that E.U. countries could deliberately rattle Hungary’s economy to get Orban on board.

The leak was widely seen as an E.U. effort to bring Hungary back in line.

Some think it may have worked. “The swift agreement shows that Viktor Orban backs down when economic pressure is increased,” said Rasmus Andresen, spokesman for the German Greens in the European Parliament, in a statement.

“He has lost on all fronts,” he continued. “Today should mark the end of his power games.”

Ukraine

Reports from Russian frontline fighters indicate some units are suffering upwards of 80% casualties.

It seems Moscow will keep ordering meatwave assaults until the Ukrainians get tired of killing them, or run out of bullets.

Ukraine

Russia says controls Maryinka in east Ukraine, Kyiv denies the claim

MOSCOW/KYIV, Dec 26 (Reuters) - Russia said on Sunday that its forces have gained full control of Maryinka in Ukraine's east, but Kyiv's military denied Moscow's claim, saying Ukrainian troops were still within the borders of the blighted town.

"Our assault units (...) have today completely liberated the settlement of Maryinka," Defence Minister Sergei Shoigu told Russian President Vladimir Putin in a televised meeting.

Putin said control of the town, which lies some five kms (three miles) southwest of the city of Donetsk, will allow the Russian forces to move enemy combat units away from Donetsk.

"Our troops (now) have the opportunity to reach a wider operational area," he said in a video of the exchange between him and Shoigu posted online by a Kremlin journalist.

But Oleksandr Shtupun, a spokesman for the Ukrainian military, told the Ukrainian national broadcaster on Monday, that fierce fighting for the town continued.

"Our troops are in the administrative borders of Maryinka, the battles for the city continue," Shtupun said. "The city is completely destroyed, but it is incorrect to talk about the complete capture of Maryinka."

Reuters could not independently verify the reports or who controls Maryinka, a small town in the Donetsk region that had a pre-war population of about 10,000 people and has since been turned into rubble.

The reports on the assault on Maryinka came as Moscow pushes on with its most recent offensive along the whole eastern front aiming to take control of more Ukrainian territory.

Ukraine troops have long built strong fortification in Maryinka, allowing them to repel numerous Russian attacks there. If Russia's claims about taking over the town prove true, it would be Moscow's most significant battlefield gains since May.

Moscow captured in May the Ukrainian town of Bakhmut, the theatre of some of the bloodiest fighting in the 22-month long war. Ukraine's counteroffensive that followed in June has aimed to retake land in the country's south and east, including Bakhmut.

Kyiv's forces, however, have struggled to make significant progress in their counteroffensive in the face of entrenched Russian resistance.

Russian troops have also intensified land and air-based attacks on the nearby town of Avdiivka since mid-October as the focal point of their slow-moving push through eastern Ukraine's Donbas region.

Avdiivka was briefly captured in 2014 by Russian-backed separatists who seized large chunks of eastern Ukraine. Fortifications were later built around the town - seen as a gateway to Donetsk.

What do these idiots think they've won?

Mar'inka.... 😡 completely wiped off the earth by the Russians. They captured ruins. pic.twitter.com/Wx1wPwhmYn

— NOELREPORTS 🇪🇺 🇺🇦 (@NOELreports) December 25, 2023

Making America Grumpy Again

While Republicans continue to bitch about how we need to unbundle the budget, and vote on individual spending bills, they insist on tying Ukraine aid to their demands to fund shittier treatment of immigrants.

There is no bottom that these clowns can't dig under.

Opinion

How Trump is wrecking hopes for a ‘reasonable’ Ukraine deal

Sen. Thom Tillis wants you to know that he’s very “reasonable.” That’s the word the North Carolina Republican used with reporters this week while describing immigration reforms that the GOP is demanding from Senate Democrats in exchange for supporting the billions in Ukraine aid that President Biden wants.

But the demands from Tillis and his fellow Republican leading the talks, Sen. James Lankford of Oklahoma, are not reasonable at all — they’re following Donald Trump’s playbook. Under the guise of seeking more “border security,” they’re insisting on provisions that would reduce legal immigration in numerous ways that could even undermine the goal of securing the border.

According to Democratic sources familiar with the negotiations, Republican demands began to shift soon after the New York Times reported that in a second Trump term, he would launch mass removals of millions of undocumented immigrants, gut asylum seeking almost entirely, and dramatically expand migrant detention in “giant camps.”

As one Senate Democratic source told me, Republicans started acting as though Trump and his immigration policy adviser Stephen Miller were “looking over their shoulders.”

Biden has asked Congress to provide tens of billions of dollars in aid to Ukraine and Israel, and an additional $14 billion to buttress the southern border with new law enforcement agents, expanded detention and other increased security measures. But Republicans won’t agree to that latter request — or the Ukraine aid — without substantial changes to immigration policy as well.

This week, Tillis told reporters that without “language on parole,” any compromise would not constitute “border security,” and without it, Republicans will oppose aid to Ukraine. That’s a reference to Biden’s use of parole authority for humanitarian purposes to allow 30,000 people from Cuba, Haiti, Nicaragua and Venezuela to gain entry to the U.S. each month.

According to the Democratic sources, Republicans are demanding that presidential parole authority be scaled back so it can only be applied on an individual case-by-case basis, not to large groups from a single nationality.

That would functionally gut those programs entirely — an absurd demand. Under those parole grants, if migrants gain U.S. sponsors and pass background checks, they can live and work here for two years. This provides an orderly alternative to the mode of entry that enrages Republicans, in which migrants breach the border, seek asylum and disappear into the country while awaiting a hearing. Gutting parole could mean more of the latter.

“Canceling parole would significantly heighten the pressures on the border and the numbers of migrant crossings,” said Doris Meissner, a senior fellow at the Migration Policy Institute. “It’s the opposite of what’s needed to strengthen border security.”

In another absurdity, Republicans have said publicly that Democrats must agree to reduce illegal border crossings by more than 50 percent. But that’s a fuzzy demand: It’s unclear how policy changes could dramatically slash the number who attempt to enter and simply get intercepted by law enforcement. When Democratic staffers sought clarification on this point, the sources say, they got nothing back.

Republicans would also raise the legal standard to qualify for asylum, and here the situation gets particularly frustrating. One can envision a compromise that provides changes to the asylum standard in exchange for, say, legalizing “dreamers” brought here illegally as children. But Republicans have ruled out making any such concessions. (Spokespeople for Tillis and Lankford didn’t respond to requests for comment.)

What’s really bizarre about the impasse is that Republicans should support much of what’s in Biden’s initial request for border security funding. After all, it would also fund expedited asylum processing, which could reduce the window for migrants to exploit the system and prompt faster removals for those who don’t qualify. Aren’t those things Republicans want?

To his credit, Tillis did compromise on this issue last year, when he and Sen. Kyrsten Sinema (I-Ariz.) negotiated reforms that ultimately died in Congress. And Democrats say Lankford, who has acknowledged the need for both sides to compromise, is acting mostly in good faith. But Trump’s seemingly unshakable influence over the GOP stands to reshape these ongoing negotiations.

Trump’s loud broadcasting of plans for an extraordinarily cruel immigration crackdown if he is elected president again appears to be rendering Republicans even less open to compromise without him being in the room. Hence, their slapdash demand for cuts to legal immigration and other radical measures, which seems to cast about for some way to satiate the former president’s taste for draconian nativist savagery.

The bottom line: Senate Republicans are demanding that Democrats add numerous extreme concessions to a package that already gives Republicans many border security measures they ordinarily support, in exchange for Ukraine aid that many already back anyway.

Tillis and Lankford can either be “reasonable” in these negotiations, or they can satisfy Trump and Miller. But they can’t do both. Unfortunately, they appear to be privileging the latter.

Ukraine

This thing in Ukraine is pretty fuckin' scary in more than a coupla ways.

The bit about Putin using Iran to fuck with Israel in an attempt to divert our attention, and buying artillery ammo from N Korea, and the constant subterfuge to get components to build weapons, and to slither around the sanctions to sell their oil in order to finance the war, etc etc etc.

That's all spooky enough because it threatens a wider war, raising the potential for a direct conflict between NATO countries and Russia, but now the Ukrainians have robot machine guns?

Ukraine

We keep getting distracted by assholes in Gaza and assholes in Tel Aviv, and we don't get to see what the assholes in Moscow are trying to pull in Ukraine.

Which means we're not seeing what could be pretty significant.

Russia deployed all available reserves, military expert says

The Russian military has committed all available reserves to the frontlines in Ukraine, Ukrainian Armed Forces reserve Colonel and military expert Roman Svitan said in an interview with NV Radio on Nov. 8.

“The Russians have deployed all of their reserves,” said Svitan.

“Furthermore, they have done so in areas like Avdiivka, Vuhledar, Robotyno, Luhansk, and, of course, Bakhmut. In other words, their reserves are now fully engaged.”

Thereby, according to Svitan, Moscow is limited in how it can respond to Ukriane’s growing presence on the left bank of the Dnipro River in Kherson Oblast.

He added that transferring troops from combat to other directions results in a loss of at least half their combat capability.

“They need to be replenished and rested...; if a military unit is moved from one combat area to another, it only exacerbates the problem,” the expert said.

“Given that the Russians don't have any reserves left, this is the only operation they can undertake. Again, this move takes a significant amount of time.”

He mentioned that the frontlines' locations are particularly inconvenient for the redeployment of Russian troops because there are nearly no roads running parallel to the front at a depth of 40-50 kilometers, beyond the range of Ukrainian artillery.

On Nov. 7, Ukrainian intelligence reported that Russians were rigging critical infrastructure in the occupied areas of Kherson Oblast with explosives, suggesting the invaders are planning for a potential retreat.

Ukraine vs MAGA

A lot of the weird political shit that goes on here in USAmerica Inc seems a little clearer when I keep in mind that the MAGA faction is totally bent on tearing down the whole democratic self-government thing in order to replace it with a corporate-style plutocracy.

So these MAGA boobs love to bitch about our helping Ukraine because Ukraine is kickin' Russia's ass, and that makes Putin look bad, and that threatens the pipeline that's pumping millions of Russian mob dollars into American politics through wingnut organizations like the NRA and the various other "conservative" SuperPACs, along with American hyper-wealthy dildos like Charlie Koch and Harlan Crow.

Paul Krugman brings a little light to the subject of the cost of things.

Why MAGA Wants to Betray Ukraine

So the federal government wasn’t shut down over the weekend, although we may have to go through this whole drama again in six weeks. Kevin McCarthy, the speaker of the House, ended up doing the obvious: bringing a funding bill to the floor that could pass only with Democratic votes, because the hard-liners in his own party wouldn’t agree to anything feasible. And the bill didn’t include any of the spending cuts Republicans have been demanding, except for one big, bad thing: a cutoff of aid to Ukraine.

Democrats appear to have agreed to this bill because they expect to get a separate vote on Ukraine aid; President Biden has indicated that he believes he has a deal with McCarthy to that effect. I hope they’re right.

But why did things turn out this way? Michael Strain of the right-leaning (but mostly not MAGA) American Enterprise Institute has called the fiscal confrontation the “‘Seinfeld’ shutdown” — that is, a shutdown about nothing. That’s a good line, but if we’re going to do popular culture references, I think it might be better to call it the “Network” shutdown, as in people shouting “I’m mad as hell, and I’m not going to take it anymore!”

Nothing short of a coup can satisfy this inchoate rage. But McCarthy evidently thought he could reduce the backlash against his deal with Democrats by betraying, or at least pretending to betray, Ukraine. That’s clearly something MAGA wants. But why?

Whatever anti-Ukraine voices like Elon Musk may pretend, it’s not about the money.

Right-wing hard-liners, both in Congress and outside, claim to be upset about the amount we’re spending supporting Ukraine. But if they really cared about the financial burden of aid, they’d make the minimal effort required to get the numbers right. No, aid to Ukraine isn’t undermining the future of Social Security or making it impossible to secure our border or consuming 40 percent of America’s G.D.P.

How much are we actually spending supporting Ukraine? In the 18 months after the Russian invasion, U.S. aid totaled $77 billion. That may sound like a lot. It is a lot compared with the tiny sums we usually allocate to foreign aid. But total federal outlays are currently running at more than $6 trillion a year, or more than $9 trillion every 18 months, so Ukraine aid accounts for less than 1 percent of federal spending (and less than 0.3 percent of G.D.P.). The military portion of that spending is equal to less than 5 percent of America’s defense budget.

Incidentally, the United States is by no means bearing the burden of aiding Ukraine alone. In the past, Donald Trump and others have complained that European nations aren’t spending enough on their own defense. But when it comes to Ukraine, European countries and institutions collectively have made substantially larger aid commitments than we have. Notably, most of Europe, including France, Germany and Britain, has promised aid that is higher as a percentage of G.D.P. than the U.S. commitment.

But back to the costs of aiding Ukraine: Given how small a budget item that aid is, claims that aid to Ukraine somehow makes it impossible to do other necessary things, such as securing the border, are nonsense. MAGA types aren’t known for getting their numbers right or, for that matter, caring whether they get their numbers right, but I doubt that even they really believe that the monetary costs of helping Ukraine are insupportable.

And the benefits of aiding a beleaguered democracy are huge. Remember, before the war, Russia was widely viewed as a major military power, which a majority of Americans saw as a critical threat (and whose nonwoke military some Republicans exalted). That power has now been humbled.

Ukraine’s unexpectedly successful resistance to Russian aggression has also put other autocratic regimes that might have been tempted to engage in wars of conquest on notice that democracies aren’t that easy to overrun. Not to put too fine a point on it, but Russia’s failures in Ukraine have surely reduced the chances that China will invade Taiwan.

Finally, what even Republicans used to call the free world has clearly been strengthened. NATO has risen to the occasion, confounding the cynics, and is adding members. Western weapons have proved their effectiveness.

Those are big payoffs for outlays that are a small fraction of what we spent in Iraq and Afghanistan, and let’s not forget that Ukrainians are doing the fighting and dying. Why, then, do MAGA politicians want to cut Ukraine off?

The answer is, unfortunately, obvious. Whatever Republican hard-liners may say, they want Putin to win. They view the Putin regime’s cruelty and repression as admirable features that America should emulate. They support a wannabe dictator at home and are sympathetic to actual dictators abroad.

So pay no attention to all those complaints about how much we’re spending in Ukraine. They aren’t justified by the actual cost of aid, and the people claiming to be worried about the cost don’t really care about the money. What they are, basically, is enemies of democracy, both abroad and at home.

One more thing about the weapons - we're sending all the old stuff that's being superseded and replaced. By sending it to Ukraine, we can prove the worth of past expenditures, and make the new stuff more easily justifiable. (and holy fuck - wait'll ya see what the new stuff can do)

I'm not a fan of our over-bloated military industry, and I'll continue to push for spending the money on more human-friendly approaches to geopolitics. But you still have to be ready willing and able to kick a bully in the solar plexus, cuz that's all some of these assholes understand.

A Ukraine Thought

Even though there are no US military boots on the ground over there, we are, in fact, fighting Russia - in Bakhmut and Crimea and Kherson - with second-hand surplus conventional weapons.

That way, we won't have to fight Russia - in Poland and France and Colorado - with top tier nuclear weapons.

Don't get stupid

Stand with Ukraine

Ukraine

No such thing as a good war. Sometimes we can find justification that sounds reasonable to us, but no - there are no good wars.

Troop deaths, injuries in Ukraine war nearing 500,000 - NYT citing US officials

Aug 18 (Reuters) - The number of Ukrainian and Russian troops killed or wounded since the war in Ukraine began in February 2022 is nearing 500,000, the New York Times reported on Friday, citing unnamed U.S. officials.

The officials cautioned that casualty figures remained difficult to estimate because Moscow is believed to routinely undercount its war dead and injured, and Kyiv does not disclose official figures, the newspaper said.

Russia's military casualties are approaching 300,000, including as many as 120,000 deaths and 170,000 to 180,000 injuries, the newspaper reported. Ukrainian deaths were close to 70,000, with 100,000 to 120,000 wounded, it added.

The NYT quoted the officials as saying the casualty count had picked up after Ukraine launched a counter-attack earlier this year.

Mykhailo Podolyak, a senior adviser to Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskiy, commenting on the NYT article, said only the General Staff could disclose such figures.

"We have adopted a model that only the General Staff has the right to voice the figures on the wounded, the disabled, people who lost limbs, and the missing, and, of course, the number of people who died in this war," he said in a live broadcast on the Youtube channel of journalist Yulia Latynina on Friday.

The Ukrainian military on Thursday claimed gains in its counter-offensive against Russian forces on the southeastern front. Kyiv said its forces had liberated a village, the first such success since July 27, signaling the challenge it faces in advancing through heavily mined Russian defensive lines without powerful air support.

There was no immediate response from Ukrainian officials to Reuters requests for comment. Russia made no immediate comment on the report.

To Sum It Up

1. Putin sucks
2. Ukrainians are awesome
3. NATO is getting off cheap

Money quote:

(paraphrasing Yitzhak Rabin) "Ukrainians are going about their everyday lives as if there is no war, while waging war as if there is no everyday life."

What I Learned in Ukraine

WARSAW — Last week, a friend asked me what I could learn from a four-day trip to Ukraine I was planning that I couldn’t glean just by reading the news. It was a fair question. With the trip now behind me, I can answer.

I learned how strange it is to visit a country to which no plane flies and, as of last Monday, no ship sails — thanks to Vladimir Putin’s cruel and cynical withdrawal from the Black Sea Grain Initiative through which Ukrainian farm products reached hungry countries like Kenya, Lebanon and Somalia. The only feasible way for a visitor to get from the Polish border to Kyiv is a nine-hour train ride, where the sign inside the carriage door urges, “Be Brave Like Ukraine.”

I learned that you need to download the Air Alert! app to your smartphone as soon as you enter the country. It sounds an alarm every time the system detects drones, missiles or other incoming aerial threats in your vicinity, something that happened time and again during my short stay. Following the alarm, a recording — in English by the “Star Wars” actor Mark Hamill — intones: “Proceed to the nearest shelter. Don’t be careless. Your overconfidence is your weakness.”

I learned that Kyiv is hopping. Despite what the U.S. Embassy says have been 1,620 missile and drone attacks on the city — and despite an economy that contracted 29 percent in the first year of the war — cars jam the roads, people dine in outdoor cafes on well-swept sidewalks and activists, civil servants and elected officials freely share divergent views with visiting columnists. To adapt a phrase attributed to Yitzhak Rabin, Ukrainians are going about their everyday lives as if there is no war, while waging war as if there is no everyday life.

I learned that every member of the American Embassy staff in Kyiv, led by our courageous and cleareyed ambassador, Bridget Brink, volunteered for the duty. They have been separated from their families and living for months on end in hotel rooms. They have the job of overseeing one of the largest U.S. assistance efforts since the Marshall Plan, ensuring that tens of thousands of individual pieces of American military hardware in Ukrainian hands are properly accounted for, reconstituting an embassy that was gutted on the eve of Russia’s invasion and keeping tabs on Russian war crimes — some 95,000 of which have been documented so far by the Ukrainian prosecutor general’s office.

I learned what it was like to sit in conference rooms and walk along corridors that would soon be shattered by Russian ordnance. On Tuesday, I joined a diplomatic group led by Administrator Samantha Power of the United States Agency for International Development on a visit to the port of Odesa. Power met first with Ukrainian officials to discuss logistical options for their exports after Putin’s withdrawal from the grain agreement, then with farmers to discuss issues like de-mining their fields and de-risking their finances. The stately Port Authority building in which the meetings took place, a purely civilian target, was struck barely a day after our departure.

I learned that Ukrainians have no interest in turning their victimization into an identity. Years ago, in Belgrade, I saw how the Serbian government had preserved the wreck of its old defense ministry, hit by NATO bombs in the 1999 Kosovo war, in keeping with its self-pitying perceptions of that war. By contrast, in Bucha, the Kyiv suburb that suffered some of the worst atrocities during Russia’s brief occupation in the early days of the war, I witnessed the transformation of apartment buildings dotted with patched-up bullet holes into trendy co-working spaces. As Anatoliy Fedoruk, the mayor of Bucha, told Power, “Memory will stay in memoirs but residents want to rebuild without reminders.”

I learned that Ukrainians aren’t likely to trade sovereign territory for Western security assurances, much less for some kind of armistice deal with Moscow. They tried the former in the 1990s with the Budapest Memorandum, in which they surrendered the nuclear arsenal on their soil to Russia for the sake of toothless guarantees of territorial integrity. They tried the latter with the equally toothless Minsk agreements after Russia’s first invasion in 2014. The goal of Western policy should be to provide Ukraine with the military means they need to win, rather than to pressure Ukraine into again bargaining away its rights to sovereignty and security for the sake of assuaging our anxieties about Russian escalation.

I learned that, for all the aid we’ve given Ukraine, we are the true beneficiaries in the relationship, and they the true benefactors. Ben Wallace, Britain’s usually thoughtful defense minister, suggested after this month’s NATO summit that Ukrainians should show more gratitude to their arms suppliers. That gets the relationship backward. NATO countries are paying for their long-term security in money, which is cheap, and munitions, which are replaceable. Ukrainians are counting their costs in lives and limbs lost.

I am writing this column from Warsaw Chopin Airport. Parked outside the terminal are jetliners destined for Doha, Istanbul, Rome, Toronto, New York. The sight of them here could scarcely have been imagined 40 years ago. It came true because the Polish people remained, in Ronald Reagan’s apt words, “magnificently unreconciled to oppression.”

Today, it is Poland’s neighbors in Ukraine who are magnificently unreconciled to invasion. What I learned from four days under closed skies is never to take a bustling airport scene like this for granted.

Say What, Vlad?

What up here, dude?

Is this another shot at extortion?

Take hostages and maybe the world will overlook the shit you're always trying to pull?

Russia Pulls Out of the Black Sea Grain Deal

The Kremlin terminated an agreement that had allowed Ukraine to export its grain by sea despite a wartime blockade, a deal seen as essential to keeping global food prices stable.

Russia said on Monday that it was ending an agreement that had allowed Ukraine to export its grain by sea despite Moscow’s naval blockade, upending a deal that had helped to keep global food prices stable and alleviate one element of the global fallout from the war.

Ukraine is a major producer of grain and other foodstuffs, and the United Nations secretary general, António Guterres, said he was “deeply disappointed” by the decision. Millions of people who face hunger, or are struggling, as well as consumers around the world facing a cost of living crisis, will “pay a price,” he said.

"Today’s decision by the Russian Federation will strike a blow to people in need everywhere,” he told journalists.

A Kremlin spokesman, Dmitri S. Peskov, told journalists earlier on Monday that the agreement was “halted.”

“As soon as the Russian part is fulfilled, the Russian side will immediately return to the implementation of that deal,” he said. He added that the decision was not connected to the attack hours earlier on the Kerch Strait Bridge linking Russia to occupied Crimea. Russian officials blamed Ukraine for the attack, but Kyiv has not taken responsibility.

“Only upon receipt of concrete results, and not promises and assurances, will Russia be ready to consider restoring the ‘deal,’” the statement said.

The agreement, known as the Black Sea Grain Initiative and brokered by the United Nations and Turkey, had been set to expire on Monday following the latest in a series of short-term extensions.

Turkey’s president, Recep Tayyip Erdogan, said he would speak to President Vladimir V. Putin of Russia about the agreement and signaled hope that it could be revived.

“Despite the statement today, I believe the president of the Russian Federation, my friend Putin, wants the continuation of this humanitarian bridge,” Mr. Erdogan told reporters in Istanbul.

President Volodymyr Zelensky of Ukraine said that Moscow had broken its agreement with the United Nations and with Mr. Erdogan, rather than with his country itself, given that Ukraine had made a separate deal with the two mediators over grain. Ukraine demands a complete withdrawal of Russian forces from its territory and an end to aggression before any talks can take place.

“Even without the Russian Federation, everything must be done so that we can use this Black Sea corridor,” Mr. Zelensky said in remarks sent by his press office, adding that Ukraine was ready to restart shipments if the United Nations and Turkey agreed.

The deal successfully eased shortages that resulted from blockades in the first months of the war, which caused global wheat prices to soar. It allowed Ukraine to restart the export of millions of tons of grain that had languished for months, and it has been renewed multiple times, most recently in May. Wheat prices surged on Monday, exposing vulnerable countries to the prospect of a new round of food insecurity.

But Moscow has complained that Western sanctions continued to restrict the sale of its own agricultural products, and sought guarantees that would facilitate its exports of grain and fertilizers. In an effort to extend the deal, Mr. Guterres sent Mr. Putin proposals last week that he said would “remove hurdles affecting financial transactions” through Russia’s agricultural bank.

Ukraine has exported 32.8 million tons of grain and other food since the initiative began, according to U.N. data. Under the agreement, ships are permitted to pass by Russian naval vessels that in effect have blockaded Ukraine’s ports since the start of Russia’s full-scale invasion in February 2022. The ships are inspected off the coast of Istanbul, in part to ensure they are not carrying weapons.

Last year, Russia halted participation in inspections that were part of the deal, only to rejoin in a matter of days.

Ukraine

... via today's Beau

Battle of The Bulge (1965) - some fairly decent history in a pretty bad movie.

"Get this message through to headquarters: They've abandoned their tanks, and they're walking back to Germany."