#Ukrainian transport infrastructure

[mariacallous]

An air raid alert has just started when Victoria Itskovych joins a Zoom call from Kyiv. “It’s, like, a usual situation,” she says. “But really, it’s not usual.” February 24 will mark the second anniversary of Russia’s full-scale invasion of Ukraine. For nearly two years now, Kyiv has been under bombardment. Some weeks, people have to trudge to their shelters night after night, checking text alerts and Telegram channels to figure out where the missiles are falling and when it’s safe to come out—although, it’s never really safe.

That relentless stress, and the trauma of losing family, friends, and colleagues on the front, has taken its toll. A poll by the city government last year found that 80 percent of residents reported symptoms of post-traumatic stress disorder. Russia’s full-scale invasion of Ukraine has exposed the whole of Ukrainian society to battle shock. “We’ve all suffered from this,” says Itskovych, who is director of the Kyiv City Council’s IT department. “Almost every person has somebody who was injured or died during the war, or lost their home or lost their health.”

In the face of such widespread injury, the Kyiv government has turned to Ukraine’s now-famous civic tech infrastructure for help. As the war enters its third year, the municipal government is starting to build a citywide system for providing mental health support to citizens. It’s a vast challenge, but also a unique opportunity—the first time that such a mass-trauma event has happened to a society that has already built the tools of digital government. Dealing with the mental health impacts of the invasion will be absolutely vital to keep society resilient, functioning, and committed enough to repel the invaders. It’s also the key to Ukraine’s postwar recovery, laying the groundwork now for a society that can rebuild itself physically and psychologically from the horrors of war. “This is the future of our society,” Itskovych says. “We are building the basis for the resilience of the community itself.”

At the heart of the plan is the Kyiv government’s digital platform, Kyiv Digital, which it launched in 2017. Before the invasion, it was largely used to manage parking and public transport, and to notify residents of disruptions to services such as road closures or power outages. When the war began, those notifications became more urgent: incoming attacks, the locations of bomb shelters, and the safest routes to reach them. Like other parts of Ukraine’s civilian technology, the city pivoted its tools to keep people safe and support the war effort, bootstrapping and rewiring the systems at pace.

“The first changes to the notifications we did in hours,” says Oleg Polovynko, adviser on digitalization to Kyiv’s mayor. Since then, the digital teams have been engaged in a constant cycle of innovation, trying to figure out what services they can bring online. The war has pushed them to act more quickly, to adapt tools they have and invent things that don’t exist.

They’ve expanded tools for civic participation, letting citizens vote on petitions, send feedback to the city government, and ask for help, such as financial support to repair bomb-damaged homes. And they’ve collected a lot of data, which is how the Kyiv government has been able to measure the scale of the city’s distress—and people’s reluctance to seek help. Of the 80 percent of residents who show signs of trauma, “40 to 45 percent are afraid to have contact with doctors who can help,” Polovynko says.

But this is only half of the problem that needs solving. For those who do want to seek treatment, there simply aren’t enough resources to help them. Clinical psychologists are supposed to limit the number of patient consultations they do in a day, so they don’t burn out. Before the full-scale invasion, Inna Davydenko saw a maximum of four patients daily. Today, Davydenko, a mental health specialist at the City Center of Neurorehabilitation in Kyiv, sees twice that number. When we speak, she’s just finished a video call with a soldier stationed near the front, whom she’s helping cope with stress and anxiety.

Even before the war massively increased the number of people dealing with trauma, depression, and anxiety, Ukraine’s medical system suffered from an underinvestment in mental health provision. “In most hospitals, you have maybe one psychologist. In good hospitals, it’s maybe two,” Davydenko says. “A lot of people need psychological help, but we can’t cover everything.” There is simply no way that the current system can grow to match the enormous jump in demand. But, Davydenko says, “almost every Ukrainian person has a smartphone.”

This is exactly what Polovynko and Itskovych want to exploit, using Kyiv Digital’s platforms and data to digitize mental health support for the city, and so close the gap between need and resources. Their project will focus first on those they’ve identified as being most vulnerable—war veterans and children—and those most able to help others: teachers and parents. The next six months of the project will be a “discovery stage,” Polovynko says. “We need to understand the real life of our veterans now, of the children, of the parents, what’s their context, how they survive, what services they use.”

The project will track people through the process of recovering from trauma, monitoring the treatments they ask for and the ones they receive, their concerns as they move through the mental health system, and their outcomes. Once the team has a detailed map of services and bottlenecks, and data on what’s working and what’s not, they can match individual needs with treatments. A full roll-out is scheduled for early 2025.

“It doesn't mean that the whole chain of the service will be absolutely digital,” Itskovych says. Some patients may be directed to group therapy or one-on-one meetings with psychologists, others will be given access to online tools. The aim, she says, is to create efficiency, to close the service gap, but also to provide comfort, meeting people where they are. “For a big part of our clients, there is more comfort with getting the service online, in different ways. Some people are not comfortable meeting a specialist one-on-one; they prefer a digital way to get the service.”

The project is being supported financially and operationally by Bloomberg Philanthropies, a charitable organization created by former New York mayor and Bloomberg founder Michael Bloomberg. James Anderson, head of government innovation at the organization, says that the project comes at a critical time for Kyiv, where people continue to suffer even though global attention has shifted away to other crises.

“There's always a tremendous amount of attention when the immediate crisis hits,” Anderson says. “But mayors continue to have to deal with the human costs of crises, long after the newspapers have turned to new subjects. That’s certainly what we sense and see in Kyiv.”

The size of the challenge in Kyiv is clearly daunting. But, Anderson says, there are reasons for optimism. Cities have got better over the past two decades at responding to common crises, such as Covid-19, which also required rapid, mass digitization of services. “Every crisis is distinct and different, and awful, in its own way,” Anderson says, “but there are lessons learned.” The Kyiv government, and Ukrainian society more widely, have demonstrated a capacity for rapid innovation to meet urgent needs, and Anderson hopes that success in this project could see it replicated internationally. “This is not the last war. This is not the last crisis,” he says. “I think Kyiv has lessons that they can share with cities around the globe.”

For Kyiv, and Ukraine, the crisis won’t end when the war does. “Psychological health is the number one problem for Ukraine,” Davydenko says, before correcting herself. “Number one is Russia, number two is our psychological health,” she says. “PTSD is our future.”

[spitzobsessed]

A week from now us Ukrainians will have the second anniversary of being at War. The craziest part? While too many people died or had their lives otherwise destroyed? There's a great deal of people who live on bitching about how sick they are of war time regulations and restrictions.

Really, stores and public transport not working 24/7 is NOT the biggest issue in Ukraine right now.

But the reality of living in a relatively safe city is sometimes making me nauseous. People ignoring 12 to 5 am curfew, private businesses ignoring the last winter major blackouts and this winter government asking to lower the electricity usage during freezing temperatures and in case of another wave of major infrastructure attacks. And many others. It's sad that the war for so many of us has become a background noise.

[usafphantom2]

U.S. Army Officer Confirms Russian A-50 Radar Jet Was Shot Down With Patriot Missile

The U.S. Army colonel described how Ukrainian Patriot operators staged a “SAMbush” to bring down the A-50 in January of this year.

Thomas NewdickPUBLISHED Jun 10, 2024 6:55 PM EDT

The Beriev A-50U ‘Mainstay’ airborne warning and control system (AWACS) aircraft based on the Ilyushin Il-76 transport aircraft belonging to Russian Air Force in the air. ‘U’ designation stands for extended range and advanced digital radio systems. This aircraft was named after Sergey Atayants – Beriev’s chief designer. (Photo by: aviation-images.com/Universal Images Group via Getty Images).

A U.S.-made Patriot air defense system was responsible for shooting down a Russian A-50 Mainstay airborne early warning and control (AEW&C) aircraft over the Sea of Azov on January 14, according to a U.S. Army officer. The high-value aircraft, one of only a handful immediately available to Russia, was the first of two brought down in the space of five weeks. Previously, a Ukrainian official confirmed to TWZ that the second A-50 was brought down by a Soviet-era S-200 (SA-5 Gammon) long-range surface-to-air missile.

Speaking on a panel at the United States Field Artillery Association’s Fires Symposium 2024 last week, Col. Rosanna Clemente, Assistant Chief of Staff at the 10th Army Air and Missile Defense Command, confirmed that the first A-50 fell to a German-provided Patriot system, in what she described as a “SAMbush,” or surface-to-air missile ambush.

“They have probably about a battalion of Patriots operating in Ukraine right now,” Col. Clemente explained. “Some of it’s being used to protect static sites and critical national infrastructure. Others are being moved around and doing some really, really historic things that I’ve haven’t seen in 22 years of being an air defender, and one of them is a SAMbush … they’re doing that with extremely mobile Patriot systems that were donated by the Germans, because the systems are all mounted on the trucks. So they’re moving around and they’re using these types of systems, bringing them close to the plot … and stretching the very, very edges of the kinematic capabilities of that system to engage the first A-50 C2 [command and control] system back in January.”

Fifteen crew members were reportedly killed aboard the A-50.

Col. Clemente also provided some other interesting details of how the Ukrainians worked up their capabilities with these particular systems, which included a period of validation training involving the U.S. Army in Poland in April 2023.

Elements of a German Patriot air defense system stand on a snow-covered field in Miaczyn, southeastern Poland, in April 2023. Photo by Sebastian Kahnert/picture alliance via Getty Images

According to Col. Clemente, the German soldiers tasked with training the Ukrainians on the mobile Patriot systems woke up the Ukrainian battery in the middle of the night, marched them to a location where they fought a simulated air battle, and then made them march again. “I was like, ‘Huh, wonder why they did that?’ And it was a month later, they conducted some of their first ambushes where they’re shooting down Russian Su-27s along the Russian border.”

As we reported at the time, the use of Patriot to engage the radar plane over the Sea of Azov seemed likely, especially as it followed the pattern of an anti-access counter-air campaign that Ukraine was already waging against Russian military aircraft using the same air defense system.

Accordingly, in May 2023, Ukraine began pushing forward Patriot batteries to reach deep into Russian-controlled airspace. Most dramatically, a string of Russian aircraft was downed over Russian territory that borders northeastern Ukraine. Among them may have been the Su-27s (or perhaps another Flanker-variant aircraft) that Col. Clemente mentioned.

A screen capture from a Ukrainian Air Force video shows images of three Russian helicopters and two Russian fighters painted on the side of a Patriot air defense system. The three helicopter and two jet images bear the date May 13, 2023. Defense Industry of Ukraine

While the use of German-supplied weapons within Russian territory previously led to friction between Berlin and Kyiv, German officials more recently approved the use of Patriot to target aircraft in Russian airspace.

In December 2023, similar tactics were used against tactical jets flying over the northwestern Black Sea.

These kinds of highly mobile operations were then further proven with the destruction of the first A-50, on the night of January 14.

A Russian Il-22M radio-relay aircraft was also apparently engaged by Ukrainian air defenses the same night, confirmed by photo evidence of the aircraft after it had made it back to a Russian air base. It’s not clear whether the Patriot system was also responsible for inflicting damage on this aircraft, but it’s certainly a probable explanation.

A photo of the Il-22M which purportedly made an emergency landing in Anapa, in the Krasnodar region of western Russia. via X

Both incidents appear to have taken place in the western part of the Azov Sea and, as we discussed at the time, the distances involved suggested that, if Patriot was used, it was likely at the very limits of its engagement envelope.

Based on Col. Clemente’s account, it seems likely that the Patriot system in question was not only being pushed to the limits of its capabilities but was likely being deployed very far forward in an especially bold tactical move.

As we wrote at the time: “Considering risking a Patriot system or even a remote launcher right at the front is unlikely, and these airborne assets were likely orbiting at least some ways out over the water, this shot was more likely to have been around 100 miles, give or take a couple dozen miles.”

Of course, all this also depends on exactly where the targeted aircraft were at the time of the engagement.

A map showing the Sea of Azov as well as Robotyne, which is really the closest Ukraine regularly operates to that body of water, a distance of roughly 55 miles. Google Earth

Once again, the A-50 shootdown may be the most important single victory achieved so far by Ukrainian-operated Patriot systems, but it was part of a highly targeted campaign waged against the Russian Aerospace Forces which has seemingly included multiple long-range downings of tactical aircraft.

The Ukrainian tactics first found success in pushing back Russian airpower and degrading its ability to launch direct attacks and even those using standoff glide bombs, which have wreaked havoc on Ukrainian towns.

The same anti-access tactics extended to Russia’s small yet vital AEW&C fleet have arguably had an even greater effect. After all, these aircraft offer a unique look-down air picture that extends deep into Ukrainian-controlled territory. As well as spotting incoming cruise missile and drone attacks, and low-flying fighter sorties, they provide command and control and situational awareness for Russian fighters and air defense batteries. According to Ukrainian officials, the radar planes are also used to direct Russian cruise missile and drone strikes.

Dmitry Terekhov/Wikimedia Commons

The importance of these force-multipliers has seen earlier efforts to disable them, with A-50s in Belarus having been targeted by forces allied with Ukraine.

The recent appearance of a photo showing a Ukrainian S-300PS (SA-10 Grumble) air defense system marked with an A-50 symbol also indicates that previous attempts were made to bring these aircraft down using this Soviet-era surface-to-air missile, too.

With all this in mind, it’s not surprising that Ukraine’s highly valued, long-reaching Patriot air defense system was tasked against the A-50.

In demonstrating the vulnerability of Russian aircraft patrolling over the Sea of Azov, the January 15 shootdown might have been expected to push these assets back. That may have happened, but another example was then shot down at an even greater distance from the front line, on February 23. The fact that the second A-50 came down over the Krasnodar region fueled speculation that it may have been a ‘friendly fire’ incident.

However, Lt. Gen. Kyrylo Budanov, the head of the Ukrainian Ministry of Defense’s Main Directorate of Intelligence (GUR), subsequently confirmed to TWZ that the second A-50 — as well as a Tu-22M3 Backfire bomber, in a separate incident — were brought down by the Soviet-era S-200 long-range surface-to-air missile system.

Undoubtedly, there are more details still to emerge about the shootdowns of the two A-50s, not to mention other engagements that the Ukrainian Patriot has been involved in.

However, Col. Rosanna Clemente’s comments confirm that the Ukrainian Air Force is using these critical systems in a sometimes-daring manner, using limited numbers of assets not only to protect key static infrastructure but also to maraud closer to the front lines and bring down high-profile Russian aerial targets. Not only does this force Russia to adapt its airpower tactics for its own survival, reducing its effectiveness, but it also provides another means for Ukraine to fight back against numerical odds that are stacked against it.

Contact the author: thomas@thewarzone.com

[dreaminginthedeepsouth]

mike luckovich :: [@mluckovichajc]

* * * *

"America last."

February 8, 2024

ROBERT B. HUBBELL

On Wednesday, the dysfunction of congressional Republicans plumbed new depths: Senate Republicans blocked a procedural vote to advance funding for Ukraine, Israel, and Taiwan. Supporting each of those nations is in America’s vital interest. Failing to do so undermines global order and brings America closer to active confrontation with Russia, China, and Iran, at least.

The defeat was expected because Donald Trump wants to continue the crisis at America’s southern border to advance his partisan political interest. But the move also advanced the partisan interests of another politician—Vladimir Putin. Like Trump, Putin is temporizing, biding time in the hope that the clock will run out on Ukraine’s resources to resist Russia’s invasion. In Donald Trump's world, the hierarchy of interests is Trump first, Putin second, and America last.

The notion that Trump has re-ordered the national interests to put America last is not mine. It belongs to Thomas L. Friedman, who wrote an op-ed in the NYTimes, The G.O.P. Bumper Sticker: Trump First. Putin Second. America Third. (Accessible to all.)

Friedman writes,

There are hinges in history, and this [aid bill] is one of them. What Washington does — or does not do — this year to support its allies and secure our border will say so much about our approach to security and stability in this new post-post-Cold War era. Will America carry the red, white and blue flag into the future or just a white flag? Given the pessimistic talk coming out of the Capitol, it is looking more and more like the white flag, autographed by Donald Trump. “Trump First” means that a bill that would strengthen America and its allies must be set aside so that America can continue to boil in polarization [and] Vladimir Putin can triumph in Ukraine . . . .

A meme is developing that asserts that the GOP has surrendered to Trump. While that may be true, the deeper truth is that Trump has delivered the GOP into the hands of Vladimir Putin. The GOP is no longer serving the interests of the Americans who elect Republicans to Congress but instead acts as a skulk of useful idiots who unwittingly advance Putin’s interests.

Just ask Tucker Carlson, the poster boy for MAGA’s Putin Caucus. He traveled to Moscow to interview Putin because Carlson believes that major media outlets have not reported the truth about Russia’s invasion of Ukraine. Tucker Carlson believes that Putin will “tell the truth” about Russia’s invasion.

Remember that time when Putin assured the world he had no intention of invading Ukraine? See CBS News (2/24/22), Putin attacked Ukraine after insisting for months there was no plan to do so. Shortly after issuing those denials, Putin brutally attacked the civilian populations and infrastructure in Ukraine and kidnapped hundreds of thousands of Ukrainian children. The International Court of Claims has issued an arrest warrant for Putin for the war crime of unlawful transportation of children from Ukraine to Russia.

It is that Vladimir Putin—the fugitive war criminal and inveterate liar--that Tucker Carlson is preparing to lionize in an interview that will be lapped up by useful idiots who skitter at the mere arching of an eyebrow by Trump. As Trump prolongs a crisis at the US border and delays aid to Ukraine, he is serving Vladimir Putin’s interests first. Commentators are right in asserting that a megalomaniac has engineered a hostile takeover of the GOP—but it is not Trump. It is Putin.

How should we react? Should we despair? Should we shrink from another story that seems to turn the world on its head? No. We need only recognize that the rot in the GOP is beyond repair and that electing Joe Biden is a necessary condition to preserving democracy.

There is no gray area in the 2024 election. A vote for Trump is a vote for Putin. A vote for RFK Jr. is a vote for Putin. A vote for No Labels is a vote for Putin. Staying home is a vote for Putin. A vote for Joe Biden is a vote for Democracy. It’s that simple.

Robert B. Hubbell Newsletter

[darkmaga-retard]

Report that Ukrainian team destroyed Nord Stream puts Germany in awkward position.

John Leake

Aug 19, 2024

For my first book about the Viennese serial killer (of prostitutes), Jack Unterweger, I read a fair amount of literature on the ways in which pimps psychologically manipulate the women who work for them. Even though the pimp exploits and abuses the woman, he impresses upon her the belief that he is her protector, and that she must therefore continue to work for him. Nevertheless, in spite of the pimp’s constant psychological coercion, it may nevertheless be possible for the woman to break free of him, though it may require that she completely disappear for a while.

I thought of this psychology when I read a recent report in the Frankfurter Allgemeine newspaper that the German government has proclaimed that there is no money left in its budget to continue sending military aid to Ukraine.Frankfurter Allgemeine Zeitung: “No new money for Ukraine.”

German officials stated that the decision was purely a matter of Euros and cents—that is, there is only so much money to go around, especially considering that the German taxpayer will be on the hook for it, even though military aid for Ukraine has been obtained by state debt financing.

Given how little concern German politicians have shown for the country’s increasing national debt in recent years, another explanation for the German money spigot for Ukraine turning off may be the recent, rather awkward Wall Street Journal report that it was a Ukrainian team that blew up the Nord Stream pipeline. As some people in the West may know, Nord Stream is—legally and technically speaking—critical German infrastructure that was built with a considerable German investment.

Contrary to the mendacious assertions of Green propagandists, natural gas is an energy dense and clean-burning fuel that was (until the pipeline was sabotaged) transported with great efficiency from Russia to Germany. Everyone who has ever cooked on a gas stove knows this to be the case.

Indeed, as I have written about in earlier posts, I believe it’s a plausible hypothesis that one of the U.S. government’s objectives with its aggressive Ukrainian policy has been to drive a wedge between Russia and Germany, which had, until recently, enjoyed a fruitful partnership, with Russian mineral interests benefitting from Germany’s strong industrial demand for natural gas. Self-serving American interests sing the praises of shipping Liquified Natural Gas (LNG) to Europe without mentioning the huge amount of diesel burned with each transatlantic freighter shipment, never mind the energy required to liquify natural gas.

[workersolidarity]

I was hoping in this article The Grayzone would be able to highlight more individual instances of direct and indirect spending in Ukraine, but unfortunately most of that information remains secret.

But The Grayzone was able to audit some detail out of the documented spending by the US Government and it sure doesn't fail to shock with its absurdity.

So US Government debt, as always, is only an problem when the money is being spent on American Workers.

Though Joe Biden likes to pretend to be a big defender of Social Security and Medicare, his history is one of someone waiting eagerly for the opportunity to gut and privatize Social Security, and along with his Republican counterparts, has largely succeeded in Privatizing Medicare. Which is, of course, turning into one big scam where Insurance companies charge the Govt whatever they feel like and being largely reimbursed for it.

At every opportunity, Joe Biden quietly reaffirms to his donors his commitment to cutting Social Security and uses the usual coded language of "adjustments" and "saving" the program, in other words, cutting it.

But when it comes to money for Ukraine, no "adjustments", "changes" or "saving" of the program is necessary, even a year and a half and at least $100 Billion dollars into it.

This is also important to keep in mind. The CIA's "Black Budget" allows the Agency to spend nearly unlimited amounts of money, ammunition, equipment and weaponry with little to no oversight whatsoever.

Even as the infrastructure of the United States falls apart from disrepair, we send billions to Ukraine for their own infrastructure needs.

Just as with Social Security and Medicare, it's okay for Americans to die in large numbers due to accidents related to failing infrastructure.

As a NY Times article from November 2015 describes:

"The Federal Department of Transportation estimates that obsolete road designs and poor road conditions are a factor in about 14'000 highway deaths each year. Research by Ted Miller, a senior research scientist at the Pacific Institute for Research and Evaluation, which receives financing from the Transportation Department, put the medical cost of highway injuries from poor road conditions at $11.4 billion for 2013 according to the latest data available."

"The problem extends beyond roads. Research by the National Transportation Safety Board shows that since 2004, about 77 deaths and 1'400 injuries could have been prevented if railroads had installed a safety system known as Positive Train Control. That includes an Amtrak derailment in May that killed eight people and injured hundreds more in Philadelphia."

But that's okay, we're preventing road deaths in Ukraine. We can always feel good about that!

But we're also suspiciously sending money designated for Ukraine to companies and governments completely unrelated to Ukraine, because literally anything can be tied to this war for Govt Lawyers and bureaucrats

Vast sums are also being spent on various psy-op programs and propaganda efforts through various media organizations, NGOs and think-tanks.

"The funds were earmarked 'to strengthen the International Center for Ukrainian Victory (ICUV) initiative in implementing international advocacy campaigns to keep high levels of International solidarity with Ukraine' "

AKA Propaganda and psy-ops

Interestingly, much of the funds spent by USAID earmarked for Ukraine seems to have gone to various programs completely unrelated to Ukraine.

It shows us that these organizations are NOT in fact humanitarian organizations, and they have little interest in actually helping real Ukrainians.

Rather, the point of all these "Humanitarian" organizations, NGOs, etc. is wash public funds and put them into the pockets of Western Oligarchs through a web of programs and organizations that always conveniently hire all the well known Washington DC Law Firms and Consulting Firms, big Wall Street investors, Silicon Valley Tech Giants, and huge Western Corporations to get involved in these regime change wars and "Humanitarian" Interventions, as well the "rebuilding" after war.

Wall Street gets to collect public funds in the run-up to wars, during wars, and after the wars they funded are over.

Rinse and repeat in Afghanistan, Syria, Libya, Iraq, and now Ukraine.

And then there are some expenditures that will raise eyebrows for another reason, because it very suspiciously looks like the funding for the Nordstream Pipeline terrorist attack and the supplies needed for the operation.

The Pentagon sponsors diving contractor with “history of fraud” to send mysterious explosives to Ukraine

The Department of Homeland Security sent $5.48 million to Gravois Aluminum Boats LLC on June 8, 2021 for the following purpose: “PROCUREMENT OF TWO 38-FOOT FULL CABIN RESPONSE BOATS, FOUR 38-FOOT CENTER CONSOLE RESPONSE BOATS, TRAILERS, SPARE PARTS, AND TRAINING AS REQUIRED UNDER FMS LOA DB-P-LCL FOR THE COUNTRY OF UKRAINE.”

The Department of Defense transferred $4.75 Million to Atlantic Diving Supply Inc. as of February 3rd, 2023 for "PRO SAPPER AND EOD EQUIPMENT [CONTRACTING SQUADRON] UKRAINE" and "Marine lifesaving and diving equipment.

Explosive Ordinance Disposal (EOD) and Sapper equipment is exclusively used to blow things up or clear up explosives. And Atlantic Diving Supply is a military contractor originally founded to provide tactical gear to Navy Seal divers.

When a company like this is tasked with a highly specific delivery of explosives gear to any foreign nation, including Ukraine, it should prompt questions about the mission, particularly when US Intelligence is blaming Ukraine's Military for attacking the Nordstream pipelines without the knowledge of President Zelensky. (The payment does not necessarily correlate with the date of delivery from the vendor; in other words the equipment could have been provided at an earlier date.)

Luke Hillier, the founder of Atlantic Diving Supply paid a $20 Million dollar settlement in 2019 to resolve charges that he defrauded the Pentagon by falsely claiming his company was a small business. Atlantic Diving is consistently listed as one of the top 25 largest military contractors in the country.

In 2021, Hillier raked in a massive $33 Billion dollar contract under the same program, prompting fresh accusations of fraud. The pattern of malfeasance prompted a member of the Senate Armed Services Committee to bluntly denounce Atlantic Diving as a "fraudulent company."

Hillier currently owns $13 Million dollar Mega-Yacht in the Cayman Islands, $24 Million worth of beachfront property in Hawaii, and two Bahamas-based companies with murky operations, according to the Project on Government Oversight.

This goes on and on and on and on.

I mean, I'm literally out of room to put more of these expenditures into this post, so instead I will just write out some more egregious examples I haven't yet included:

The Department of Defense has paid $4.9 Million to BAE Systems GCS International as of September 12th, 2022 for "UKRAINE LCS LW 155 SPARES" and "Guns over 155mm to 200mm." In Navy terminology, LCS means "Littoral Combat Ship" while "LW" refers to the Lightweight Gun. And "155mm SPARES" refers to the Gun mounted on the ship's main battery off the bow.

USAID sent $3 million to the World Health Organization (WHO) in 2022 “to improve health outcomes in drought affected areas in Ethiopia.” The description stated, “partially funded with response funds and Ukraine Supplemental Funds.”

USAID sent 30.9 million to Chemonics International, Inc. for the “Ukraine confidence building initiative (UCBI) 4. A private, for-profit aid contractor, Chemonics’ founder said he launched the company to “have my own CIA.” The Grayzone has documented Chemonics’ role in delivering US government funding and supplies to the Syrian White Helmets, which served as the propaganda wing of the Al Qaeda-tied armed opposition. Chemonics previously reaped a massive windfall from the US occupation of Afghanistan, raking in as much as $600 million from USAID.

USAID sent $20.7 million to PACT, INC. for “USAID Ukraine’s public health system recovery and resilience activity and will strengthen the Government of Ukraine (GOU) capacity to address COVID-19 and other public health threats, sustain health services during a crisis, and protect the health of all Ukrainians including vulnerable and marginalized populations. According to its 2022 impact statement [PDF], “In Ukraine, Pact’s work empowers citizens to push for transparent and democratic governance, advances gender equality and human rights for women and girls, and accelerates efforts to achieve HIV epidemic control.” The contractor’s work contributed to “172 people increas[ing] their net income,” according to Pact.

USAID sent 7.6 million to UNICEF IDA for emergency nutrition response in ASALs (Arid and Semi-Arid Lands) in Kenya. The description stated, “partially funded with response funds and Ukraine Supplemental Funds”

USAID sent $1.2 million to University of Georgia Research Foundation, Inc. located in Atlanta, GA to “support humanitarian information management through geographic information systems, data analytics and visualizations”. Ukraine was listed as the place of performance.

Washington funnels cash to a private equity firm, Georgian finance corporation, a ‘private entrepreneur’ via Ukraine aid

US International Development Finance Corporation (DFC) sent $25 million to Horizon Capital Growth Fund IV, a “leading private equity firm in emerging Europe, “to back high-growth tech and export-oriented [Small and Medium Sized Enterprises] succeeding globally, based on platforms in Ukraine and Moldova.”

US International Development Finance Corporation (DFC) sent $1.5 million to the Gazelle Fund LP, another private equity firm, to relocate Ukrainian businesses to Georgia. Georgia does not border Ukraine, nor is it a primary location for Ukrainian refugee resettlement.

The Federal Trade Commission (FTC) sent $882'291 to a single individual described as an “private entrepreneur” in exchange for “overseas technical assistance program support services.” The private entrepreneur listed, Igor Lavreniuk, serves as the Program Coordinator for USAID’s Competitive Markets Program according to his LinkedIn.

The National Science Foundation sent 1.3 million to University of Illinois for faculty and curricular development in remote sensing. The place of performance is listed as Ukraine.

The Department of State has paid 8.3 million to Catholic Relief Services (CRS) to help “refugees from Ukraine meet their essential needs during initial displacement.” According to SpendingUS.gov, Catholic Relief Services is listed as having received a total of 657 million from the State Department in 2021, 5.7 billion since 2008 and 670 million during the last 12 months.

As the war drags on, lawmakers like Sen. Lindsey Graham have marketed military aid to Ukraine in increasingly grim terms. As the senator boasted during a recent trip to Kiev, “The Russians are dying…it’s the best money we’ve ever spent.” Meanwhile, Congress has rejected any mechanism that would guarantee transparency on the billions sent to Kiev, and shunned a war powers debate over the US military’s presence on the Ukrainian battlefield.

President Joseph Biden, for his part, has pledged that official Washington will support Kiev “as long as it takes.” As the potential for blowback grows from Western pressure to push Ukraine into NATO, and a nuclear-armed Moscow is backed into an existential fight for its survival, while economic powers including China gradually decouple from the Western financial system, Americans can only wonder how much will this war cost them when it is finally over.

Of course this is nowhere near a full accounting of Washington's Proxy-war in Ukraine which is surely costing in the hundreds of Billions by now between the direct financial aid listed above, to weapons systems and ammunition deliveries, to the training of Kiev's Forces taking place in secret locations across Europe and the US.

And for all we can see, our Country's oligarchs and politicians seem satisfied to continue on the gravy train until they can no longer suck one more penny of wealth out of US public coffers.

[head-post]

Peace talks with Kyiv impossible after incursion into Kursk region, Putin says

By attempting to enter the Kursk region, Ukraine made negotiations with Russia impossible, President Vladimir Putin stated. Ukrainian troops have not demonstrated new breakthroughs, are losing scarce vehicles and manpower amid stalled defences in Donbas and the Kharkiv region, while there is still no understanding of Kyiv’s intentions.

Lost hope for talks

Putin held an operational meeting on the Kursk Region situation.

But what kind of negotiations can we even talk about with people who indiscriminately strike civilians, civilian infrastructure, or try to threaten nuclear power facilities? What can we talk about with them at all?

Commenting on the situation in the border regions, the Russian leader said that Moscow’s priority task would be to “push” Ukrainian troops out of the border regions.

By its actions in the Kursk region, Kyiv is trying to improve its negotiating position. The situation in the region shows why [Ukraine] has refused peace offers from Moscow and mediators.

Russia further mobilised

Military officials noted that 28 settlements in the Kursk Region are currently under Ukrainian control. About two thousand people live in the area.

The breakthrough of Ukrainian troops in the Kursk region is 12 kilometres, with the front line stretching up to 40 kilometres. Of the 180,000 people to be evacuated, 121,000 have left the dangerous area, according to the report.

Russian Defence Minister Andrey Belousov also spoke at the meeting, where he named four conditions for success in an armed confrontation. Among those are: modern high-accuracy weaponry, new tactics using unmanned systems and robotic systems, an effective command and control system, including artificial intelligence, and improved training of military personnel, mainly commanders.

Current situation in Kursk region

According to Ukrainian media, the command is making tactical mistakes, such as persistently fighting for Martynovka, in which Ukrainian troops lost several armoured groups during the day. Meanwhile, the offensive in the town of Sudzha stalled.

Russian soldiers gained full control of the urban-type settlement of Korenevo, Ukrainian sources reported. However, reports vary from increased activity of Ukrainian troops to their complete standstill.

Some sources report fighting for the village of Snagost and in the north-east of the village of Kremyanoe. Meanwhile, the fuss about the capture of Beloe village by Ukrainian troops is believed to have been a provocation, according to Ukrainian media. Footage of a Russian drone strike on a cluster of Ukrainian equipment is circulating on the Internet.

Despite the tactical doubtfulness of the Ukrainian Armed Forces’ (AFU) attacks on Martynovka, military experts note that Ukrainian soldiers are in serious mood, with fighting likely to be fierce in the coming days.

Against the backdrop of strengthening offensive efforts, Kyiv continues to pull down scarce equipment to the Kursk region. However, the move deprives Donbas (Donetsk and Luhansk regions) and the Kharkiv region of equipment needed for defence.

Near the village of Giryi, locals spotted Ukrainian BTR-4E APCs (armoured personnel carriers). Ukrainian media reported that fighters of the Russian Akhmat Special Forces seized the APC and were transporting it to the rear.

AFU defence on other frontline areas stalled

According to Ukrainian media, Russian forces have taken control of the mouth of the Zherebets River, Donbas area.

In the Toretsk area, the Russians have also advanced between Zalizne, formerly Artemove, and the town of Niu-York, formerly known as Novhorodske. Ukrainian commanders also note a major Russian advance near the Panteleimonivka-Oleksandropil line.

In the Vuhledar area, Russian troops advanced near the Solodke-Vodiane road, at the intersection of the Kostiantynivka-Vuhledar road.

Global media not understanding Ukraine’s intentions

The Economist reports that the Ukrainian forces have thrown their most capable units into the Kursk region. Despite the rapid progress of the military operation, the results remain “inconclusive.”

On early evidence, the results are inconclusive. Russia has shifted troops from the Kharkiv front, but so far it has moved far fewer from the vital Donbas front.

A source in the Ukrainian General Staff also points out the tactical skill of Russian commanders:

Their commanders aren’t idiots. They are moving forces, but not as quickly as we would like. They know we can’t extend logistics 80 or 100 km.

According to The Economist, wounded Ukrainians complain of heavy losses from Russian air strikes.

The Guardian reports that Ukraine could try to seize the Russian nuclear power plant at Kurchatov near Kursk. However, the plant is more than 30 miles away from the current fighting. It is believed that it would be difficult for Ukrainian forces to get that far.

Ukraine’s leaders and its military have said little about the purpose of the incursion. It is generally believed to be intended to ease pressure on the eastern Donbas front where Russian forces have been grinding out advances.

With its actions in the Kursk region, Ukraine intended to strengthen its position ahead of possible negotiations. However, after Putin announced that peace talks were impossible against the backdrop of the Ukrainian incursion, many questioned the Ukrainian command’s intentions, especially amid Ukrainian officials’ statement of readiness for talks.

Read more HERE

[ukrainenews]

Daily Wrap Up November 19, 2022

Under the cut:

Ukraine’s government will pay for all costs related to voluntary evacuations from areas of the southern Kherson and Mykolaiv regions that have been liberated from Russian forces, according to a Ukrainian official.

Ukrainian electricity supplies are under control despite a series of Russian attacks on power-generating infrastructure and there is no need to panic, the energy ministry said on Saturday. Separately, the head of DTEK, the country's largest private energy company, said there was no need for people to leave Ukraine. Russian missile strikes have crippled almost half of Ukraine's energy system and Kyiv authorities said on Friday that a complete shutdown of the capital's power grid was possible.

British Prime Minister Rishi Sunak is in Kyiv to meet with Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky in a show of support for the country in his first visit since becoming UK leader.

The first train arrived in Kherson from Kyiv on the morning of Nov. 19, as Ukraine resumed railway traffic between the capital and the recently liberated southern city.

“Ukraine’s government will pay for all costs related to voluntary evacuations from areas of the southern Kherson and Mykolaiv regions that have been liberated from Russian forces, according to a Ukrainian official.

There are several issues in the liberated areas as winter approaches, according to Minister of Reintegration of Temporarily Occupied Territories Iryna Vereshchuk, who spoke at a briefing with Ukrainian media Saturday in Mykolaiv. A large amount of territory in southern Ukraine suffered extensive damage to infrastructure after Ukrainian forces took it back, making it hard for the local residents to survive without electricity, heat and water supply.

“It is about preparing for winter. The temperatures are dropping as we speak; we understand we won’t be able to repair the damage done to the infrastructure in time,” she said.

“It is only voluntary evacuation; we are not talking about mandatory evacuations at the moment. And voluntary evacuations means that the state assumes all costs and responsibilities associated with transportation, people needing to be taken to the areas where they are going to spend the winter, also accommodations and living expenses and also medical assistance. If people have kids, we need to make sure we provide all the necessary care for the kids,” Vereshchuk said. She said residents of Kherson will be able to evacuate through Mykolaiv.

Vitalii Kim, head of the regional military administration in Mykolaiv, said that lists of those willing to evacuate are being drawn up in the liberated settlements of his region.

“A transit point has been created in Mykolaiv where people can stay for a week before departure. From there, they are sent to different regions of Ukraine, where places to stay have been prepared for them,” Kim said.”-via CNN

~

“Ukrainian electricity supplies are under control despite a series of Russian attacks on power-generating infrastructure and there is no need to panic, the energy ministry said on Saturday.

Separately, the head of DTEK, the country's largest private energy company, said there was no need for people to leave Ukraine.

Russian missile strikes have crippled almost half of Ukraine's energy system and Kyiv authorities said on Friday that a complete shutdown of the capital's power grid was possible.

"Denying the panicky statements spread by social networks and online media, we assure you that the situation with the energy supply is difficult, but under control," the energy ministry said in a statement.

Authorities across the country have scheduled blackouts to help the repair effort, it said, urging families to cut their energy consumption by at least 25%.

Ukraine's national grid operator Ukrenergo said while planned blackouts will take place in all regions on Sunday, it does not envisage unexpected emergency shutdowns of electricity.

"We continue to work to return the light to Ukrainians," the company said in a statement late on Saturday on the Telegram messaging app.

"It is difficult, sometimes longer than we expected, but we find solutions."

Ukraine President Volodymyr Zelenskiy accused Russia last month of trying to destabilise the country by forcing millions to flee westwards, creating a refugee crisis for the European Union.

DTEK CEO Maxim Timchenko said the armed forces, the energy industry and individual Ukrainians were working miracles to maintain supplies.

"That is why there is no need to leave Ukraine today," a company statement cited him as saying.

Zelenskiy said on Saturday the supply problems were worst in and around Kyiv as well as in six other regions.

"We are working throughout the country to stabilize the situation," he said in a video address.”-via Reuters

~

“British Prime Minister Rishi Sunak is in Kyiv to meet with Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky in a show of support for the country in his first visit since becoming UK leader.

“The Prime Minister is in Ukraine today for his first visit to Kyiv to meet President Zelenskyy and confirm continued UK support,” a Downing Street spokesperson said.

A CNN crew in Kyiv earlier spotted Sunak and Zelensky on Saturday during the visit, while they were touring an outdoor square.”-via CNN

~

“The first train arrived in Kherson from Kyiv on the morning of Nov. 19, as Ukraine resumed railway traffic between the capital and the recently liberated southern city.

The overnight sleeper train departed from Kyiv on the evening of Nov. 18, with 200 passengers on board. Some of the train's cars were painted by Ukrainian artists for the occasion. A few top officials took the train, including deputy prime minister Iryna Vereshchuk and culture minister Oleksandr Tkachenko.

Ukraine liberated Kherson after eight months of occupation on Nov. 11. The Russian troops had to withdraw from the west bank of the Dnipro River, where the city sits, after Ukrainian forces had spent months systematically destroying their logistics with high-precision attacks.

Recently, the state railway operator Ukrzaliznytsia started selling the so-called “tickets to the victory” to the cities still under Russian occupation, including to Simferopol, the capital of Crimea. The tickets help fund the state railway company amid the war. They can be used after the cities are liberated and the railway connection is resumed with them.”-via Kyiv Independent

[plethoraworldatlas]

Transportation Secretary Pete Buttigieg made a surprise visit to Ukraine to meet with government leaders to discuss the county’s economic recovery, the Department of Transportation announced Wednesday.Buttigieg will discuss efforts to “return Ukraine to economic self-sufficiency,” including supporting investments in transportation infrastructure that will “return to private-sector led growth,” the department said.

...

U.S. Ambassador to Ukraine Bridget A. Brink also posted a photo with Buttigieg at a train station in Ukraine.“Our message today is clear: the United States supports Ukraine and the Ukrainian people,” Brink wrote on X.

[ultrajaphunter]

Marichka, the New Ukrainian Underwater Drone!

The Ukrainians has published footage of tests of the Marichka Underwater Drone, claiming it has a range of up to 1000 km. This Drone is versatile and can be used for Strike, Transport, or Reconnaissance Missions.

In terms of Strike Capabilities, these Devices are designed to Destroy Bridges, Disrupt Ships/Vessels, Submarines, Drilling Platforms, and other Offshore Objects, including Pipelines.

This poses a significant threat to the RuZZian Black Sea Fleet, and there seems to be little they can do to counter this new threat.

If Ukraine begins Mass-Producing these Drones, the RuZZian Fleet may need to relocate to Safer Bases.

Drones are emerging as a major threat across Land, Sea, and Air.

Existing Military Doctrines are quickly becoming outdated and in need of Modernization to remain effective in Future Conflicts.

UKRAINE’S UNDERWATER DRONE: The 'Marichka' is the Prototype of Multi-Mission, Long-Range, Uncrewed Underwater Vehicle (UUV) capable of Strike Missions against RuZZian Warships and Maritime Infrastructure.

Its ability to Operate Submerged will facilitate the Penetration of Heavily Defended Naval Targets.

[mariacallous]

NATO will call for all 32 members to put in place civil defense plans in case of an Article 5-level attack at the alliance’s Washington summit, officials familiar with the plan told Foreign Policy.

“We’re going to push the idea in Washington that all allies should commit to having some kind of national planning process that brings together both the military planning and civilian planning for Article 5,” said one NATO official, speaking anonymously based on conditions set by the alliance.

The move is part of an ongoing effort within NATO to prepare for a possible future Russian attack on the alliance that members believe is likely to include long-range missile strikes, disinformation, disruption of ports, and assaults on the energy grid—similar to what the Ukrainians have faced during the country’s full-scale invasion.

The expectation is that countries may have to plan to fend for themselves while they wait for NATO’s political leaders to decide whether to invoke self-defense.

“You have to be capable of being defendable while waiting for Article 5 to come into play,” said Dalia Bankauskaite, a nonresident senior fellow at the Center for European Policy Analysis, a Washington-based think tank. “You have to be self-sufficient for self-defense within your territory with whatever resources you have.”

The notion that Europe has to prepare for war after NATO’s 75 mostly peaceful years of post-World War II life is slowly becoming the status quo in many allied governments as they grapple with a resurgent Russia that is picking itself up off the canvas from the initial beating it took in Ukraine far faster than anyone expected. But the alarm bells are coming as a shock to the global public square.

Swedish defense chief Gen. Micael Byden’s January statement that all Swedes should mentally prepare for conflict went viral on TikTok. Frightened children and teens flooded the telephone lines of Sweden’s largest child protection group. Then-British Army chief Gen. Patrick Sanders called on Britons to get ready for a level of mobilization not seen since World War II, forcing the press flacks at No. 10 Downing St. to clarify that they weren’t reinstating the draft. (Sanders also got a tongue-lashing from his boss.) German officials have even suggested that Russia could conduct missile attacks against NATO countries.

The reaction within NATO has been to call on member states to further link military planning and civil planning in the event of a regional war. “Deterrence is not only something for the minister of defense and the armed forces—it is a whole-of-society event,” said Royal Netherlands Navy Adm. Rob Bauer, the chair of NATO’s Military Committee. “Financial institutions have a role to play. Industry has a role to play. We need the right infrastructure in our nations to transport military equipment over roads, over bridges. A bridge has to be able to carry a tank.”

NATO countries need sufficient harbor facilities, airports, rail gauges, and energy infrastructure that are not dependent on a small handful of nations. The idea is for each country to have a plan for ensuring continuity of civil government, food, and fuel in the event of a crisis, NATO officials said.

NATO will also have to think about how to deconflict roads and transportation networks in a war if masses of people move west while tanks and logistics trains move east. Countries such as Estonia, Finland, Lithuania, Latvia, and Poland are coming up with plans to evacuate civilians at least 50 miles from the front lines of a conflict with Russia, Bankauskaite said.

The problem of preparedness for an alliance covering more than 10 million square miles and 970 million people—about 4 million of them in uniform—is sprawling. It doesn’t lend itself well to neatly drawn government organizational charts and jurisdictional boundaries; it’s somewhere between defense and homeland security.

But the idea that NATO members need to build up antibodies to resist an attack dates back to the alliance’s founding. Eight years ago, NATO leaders built on that foundation with seven planning requirements for resilience. And they added to that in the 2023 Vilnius summit communique, calling resilience a basis for credible deterrence and defense.

Still, there’s no 2 percent standard for resilience. Just as NATO nations have the ability to set their own defense budgets and structure their own militaries to fit their plans, officials said, member states are likely to be able to set their own requirements for civil defense. The standards will vary from country to country.

“It doesn’t have to be the same, because each country is different,” said one Nordic official involved in the planning. “But everybody should have a minimum level of resilience.”

NATO also has a pool of civil experts to build capacity for resilience in countries that are less prepared. The European Union also has pre-positioned medical stockpiles and supplies of equipment to protect civilians from chemical, biological, radiological, and nuclear threats.

Some think that the urgency is still being driven by the United States putting more and more troops in Europe to reinforce NATO soil against Russia. “Since the beginning of this war, the U.S. presence in Europe has steadily gained,” said retired U.S. Air Force Gen. Philip Breedlove, a former NATO supreme allied commander and head of U.S. European Command. “What we see today are further refinements and continued efforts toward getting more ready.”

Historically, the Nordic countries have set the pace for NATO, and many of the new alliance members in the region are already out in front. Newly minted NATO member Sweden has a so-called “total defense” plan that calls on every citizen between the ages of 16 and 70 to help the nation prepare for war, whether through military conscription or assisting with emergency services. Stockholm is set to update the plans this year. They’ve been learning from the Ukrainians: Swedish Civil Defense Minister Carl-Oskar Bohlin has made multiple visits to Kyiv since the Russian invasion began.

Sweden, which already regularly issues a pamphlet to all 10 million citizens with checklists for how to prepare for a terrorist attack or war, plans to update it later this year. “It will reflect the more dire security situation that we are finding ourselves in now,” Bohlin said. There is even consideration about whether to invoke civil conscription for the rescue services.

Finland, which has universal male conscription, can mobilize 300,000 reservists to fight with a snap of its fingers. The Finns also have a rule of thumb to stockpile enough food, water, and medicine to last 72 hours. Helsinki has increased stockpiling requirements for petroleum by businesses and government entities to a five-month supply. Even the mindset in Finland is changing toward a more wartime economy, the Nordic official said.

Countries have also begun dusting off and tallying up their Cold War-era bomb shelters. Sweden has 65,000 shelters, enough for about 7 million people. Finland has 50,500 shelters, with space for about 90 percent of Finns. Norway has some 20,000, enough for about half the population.

The Baltic countries took up “total defense” plans after the Kremlin’s annexation of Crimea and invasion of the Donbas in 2014. Estonia, Latvia, and Lithuania are building a 600-mile line of defense installations along their borders with Russia. Latvia has reinstated a military draft.

These are necessary measures, Baltic officials said, with Russia already conducting low-level hybrid warfare activities on NATO soil, from vandalism to beatings of dissidents in Eastern Europe.

“We know for a fact that there is an active kinetic activity happening in the Baltic states, in the wider region, today,” Gabrielius Landsbergis, Lithuania’s top diplomat, said at an event in March at the National Press Club in Washington. “Russia is able to have people for hire that would in some cases vandalize buildings, tear down the flags—such things that have happened in Lithuania—and attack people.”

The call for new civil defense requirements is a window into how European societies are changing—and how they will need to change—in light of Russia’s growing military threat. Russia has fired missiles at Ukraine’s electrical grid, kidnapped Ukrainian children, and attacked the transit corridors for much of the world’s grain. NATO is preparing for Russian President Vladimir Putin to use the same playbook in an Article 5-level assault on the allies.

“It’s not only about military effects,” said Bauer, the NATO military chief. “It’s also about hybrid warfare. It’s about energy. It’s about migration. It’s about food. All these things have been used by Putin [and] will be used again by Putin.”

A new reality of preparing for war could have expansive ripple effects on civilian life after seven decades of mostly peaceful times on the continent. But NATO nations will need a plan to deal with Russia’s efforts to target civilians—through attacks on critical infrastructure and buildings, neighborhoods, and schools as well as through disinformation that has been on display in two years of full-scale war in Ukraine.

NATO militaries have become adept at dealing with small numbers of wounded soldiers in the past two decades, as most of the alliance fought in Afghanistan. But in an Article 5-level war, there might be mass military and civilian casualties all at once, and hospitals may need to run around the clock.

The logic goes that the quicker NATO countries can prepare, the readier they will be for massive numbers of troops to flow in. Especially in NATO’s front-line states, where nations are on heightened alert about Russia’s hybrid threats, there’s a desire to start pushing back.

“They are pushing the line,” said Landsbergis, the Lithuanian foreign minister. “They are testing us. And I’m sure that somewhere down the line, we will have to start pushing back

[follow-up-news]

Russian drones pounded grain storage facilities and ports along the Danube River that Ukraine has increasingly relied on as an alternative transport route to Europe, after Moscow broke off a key wartime shipping agreement using the Black Sea. At the same time, a loaded container ship stranded at the Black Sea port of Odesa since Russia’s full-scale invasion more than 17 months ago set sail along a temporary corridor established by Ukraine for merchant shipping. Ukraine’s economy, crunched by the war, is heavily dependent on farming. Its agricultural exports, like those of Russia, are also crucial for world supplies of wheat, barley, sunflower oil and other food that developing nations rely on. A month ago, the Kremlin tore up an agreement brokered last summer by the U.N. and Turkey to ensure safe Ukraine grain exports through the Black Sea. Since then, Kyiv has sought to reroute transport through the Danube and road and rail links into Europe. But transport costs that way are much higher, some European countries have balked at the consequences for local grain prices, and the Danube ports can’t handle the same volume as seaports.

[usafphantom2]

Croatia transfers 14 Mi-8 helicopters to Ukraine

Fernando Valduga By Fernando Valduga 10/20/2023 - 19:17in Helicopters, War Zones

On October 19, 2023, Croatia confirmed the transfer of 14 Mi-8-MTV-1 helicopters to Ukraine, a measure supported by U.S. and Croatian defense authorities.

These helicopters, which have served for more than three decades in various functions, will join the Ukrainian armed forces, accustomed to this type of Russian-made multifunctional helicopter.

According to a transcript from the Pentagon, Croatian Defense Minister Mario Banozic and U.S. Defense Secretary Lloyd Austin discussed the transfer during a meeting. The helicopters were assembled at Zagreb Franjo Tudjman Airport and the adjacent Aeronautical Technical Center. All national markings and serial numbers have been removed in preparation for their transfer to Ukraine.

The Mi-8 of the 395º Transport Helicopter Squadron (ETH) based in Divulje were gathered on the military ramp of Zagreb Franjo Tudjman Airport and adjacent to the Zrakoplovo-Tehnicki Centar (ZTC; Aeronautical Technical Center) and will be delivered very soon to Ukraine.

The Mi-8 is a medium-sized biturbine helicopter, originally designed by the Soviet Union and now produced by Russia. It is used in various functions, including as an air command post, attack, reconnaissance platform and cargo transport. The Mi-8 is one of the most produced helicopters in the world, used by more than 50 countries.

The Croatian helicopter fleet was mainly equipped with two squadrons of Mi-8-MTV Hip H; Mi-8T Hip C; Mi-171Sh. Among the Mi-8 fleet to be delivered to Ukraine, three cargo Mi-8Ts and 11 multifunctional Mi-8MTV-1s (also known as Mi-17-1Vs) underwent revisions between 2003 and 2005, and then between 2013 and 2014.

The Mi-8T, of which 3 will be delivered to Ukraine, is a utility version without seats, equipped with round windows, gun hangers, winch system and pulleys for the loading area and, optionally, electric winch near the front door. All versions have large shell-shaped doors at the rear with built-in ladder for the passenger version. BRDM type vehicles or light vehicles can enter through these doors.

Mi-171 helicopters of the Croatian Air Force.

With the withdrawal of its fleet of Mi-8 transport helicopters, Croatia now has four UH-60M Black Hawks and ten Mi-171Sh helicopters to meet any air transport requirements, although the former is mainly used by specialized military units. The Croatian Ministry of Defense, however, plans to acquire up to 15 UH-60L helicopters in the coming years to replace its Mi-8.

Tags: Military AviationCroatian Air ForceUkrainian Air ForceHelicoptersMi-8

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Fernando Valduga

Fernando Valduga

Aviation photographer and pilot since 1992, has participated in several events and air operations, such as Cruzex, AirVenture, Dayton Airshow and FIDAE. He has work published in specialized aviation magazines in Brazil and abroad. Uses Canon equipment during his photographic work in the world of aviation.

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[dreaminginthedeepsouth]

Phil Hands, The Wisconsin State Journal

@PhilHands

* * * *

LETTERS FROM AN AMERICAN

July 18, 2023

HEATHER COX RICHARDSON

JUL 19, 2023

“I approve this message.”

Joe Biden’s Twitter account put that line over an ad using the words of Georgia Republican representative Marjorie Taylor Greene’s Turning Points Action Conference speech from last weekend, in which she set out to tear down the president’s policies but ended up making him sound terrific. 

The description she intended to be derogatory—that Biden “had the largest public investment in social infrastructure and environmental programs that is actually finishing what FDR started, that LBJ expanded on”—was such an argument in Biden’s favor that the Biden-Harris campaign used it to advertise what the Democratic administration stands for: “[p]rograms to address education, medical care, urban problems, rural poverty, transportation, Medicare, Medicaid, labor unions.”

Generally, Biden and Harris have so far made the case for their reelection by meeting with voters in their home districts, emphasizing job growth and infrastructure investment in those districts, seemingly trying to demonstrate—without fanfare—that a well-run Democratic government can help ordinary Americans. But Greene’s misfire was just too good not to highlight. The programs she was denigrating are, in fact, enormously popular.

Biden has generally stayed out of the headlines that involve the 2024 election, giving Republicans free rein to define themselves for the American people.

That definition became clearer this morning, when former president Trump wrote on the right-wing Truth Social network that the Department of Justice’s special counsel Jack Smith has issued him a target letter associated with the investigation into the attempt to overturn the results of the 2020 election. A target letter usually means that prosecutors have enough evidence to charge someone with a crime. It offered Trump four days to appear before the grand jury to tell his side of the story, an offer Trump is expected to refuse. 

Then, it is likely that he will be indicted.

Trump reacted exactly as one would expect, called Smith “deranged,” and claiming his own legal troubles were political: an attempt on the part of President Biden to eliminate his chief 2024 rival. (There is no sign that Biden has touched the investigation, but of course Trump tried to eliminate Biden in 2020 by pushing Ukraine president Volodymyr Zelensky to announce an investigation into Hunter Biden’s work with Ukrainian company Burisma.) 

Trump harped on the idea that the investigation into his attempt to overturn the results of the 2020 election is “A COMPLETE AND TOTAL WEAPONIZATION OF LAW ENFORCEMENT,” an accusation echoed by Trump loyalists Representative Jim Jordan (R-OH) and Marjorie Taylor Greene, both of whom were also involved in the attempt to overturn the results of the 2020 presidential election. 

House speaker Kevin McCarthy (R-CA) also echoed the accusation that the target letter is a sign of political “weaponization” of government, prompting Representative Ted Lieu (D-CA) to respond: “As Speaker, you are expected to uphold the rule of law. A target letter does not reveal what evidence the grand jury saw, nor what all the charges might be. Attacking a potential indictment before seeing the evidence and charges is irresponsible.”

But if Trump received the target letter on Sunday, why did he complain about it only today? 

That delay might have had something to do with another legal issue: today’s hearing about the national security documents case, overseen by Judge Aileen Cannon. One of the issues to be discussed at that hearing was setting a date for the trial. The Department of Justice wants to go to trial in December; Trump wants to delay it until after the 2024 election. 

MSNBC legal analyst Lisa Rubin noted that today’s target letter changes the calculations for the documents trial because no matter what Cannon decides, it seems likely that Trump will face another federal trial in Washington, D.C., over the events surrounding January 6, 2021. The Washington, D.C., trials for those involved in the events of January 6, 2021, have moved forward with few delays.

This week’s bad legal news for Trump did not end there. 

On Friday of last week, Trump’s lawyers tried to stop Georgia’s probe into his attempt to overturn the results of the 2020 presidential election in that state. They asked the court to disqualify Fulton County district attorney Fani Willis, who has been investigating that attempt, and to stop Willis from using any of the material gathered by the grand jury investigating the case. Yesterday, the Georgia Supreme Court unanimously rejected his petition, allowing the probe to go forward.

Then, today, Michigan’s attorney general Dana Nessel charged sixteen fake electors who signed fake certificates claiming that Trump had won Michigan’s electoral votes in 2020 with felonies: forgery, conspiracy to commit forgery, election law forgery, conspiracy to commit election law forgery, publishing a counterfeit record, and conspiring to publish a counterfeit record. 

The sixteen Republicans met in the basement of the state Republican Party’s headquarters and signed fake documents claiming that they were the state’s legitimate electors and that Trump had won the state. Their actions were part of a plan to claim that the electoral votes of certain states were “contested,” allowing then–vice president Mike Pence to reject the votes of those states and throw the election to Trump. 

The fake electors attested they were “the duly elected and qualified electors for president and vice president of the United States of America for the state of Michigan,” Nessel said. “That was a lie. They weren’t the duly elected and qualified electors, and each of the defendants knew it.” “The false electors' actions undermine the public's faith in the integrity of our elections and not only violated the spirit of the laws enshrining and defending our democracy, but we believe also plainly violated the laws by which we administer our elections in Michigan and peaceably transfer power in America,” Nessel said. “This plan, to reject the will of the voters and undermine democracy, was fraudulent and legally baseless.”

Text messages at the time show that the sixteen were “all asked to keep silent [so] as to not draw attention to what the other states were doing similar to ours!” One of those charged was former co-chair of the state Republican committee, Meshawn Maddock, who called the charges “political persecution.”   

Legal analyst Renato Mariotti noted that the charges against the sixteen fake electors send a powerful message for those at the state level who might consider abetting Trump in the future. Those fake electors aren’t part of Trump’s inner circle who might get some kind of a reward for their trouble. They are just party operatives who are facing an expensive, stressful, and humiliating experience that could lead to hefty fines or imprisonment. Their example might well make others think carefully before they sign on to similar plans.

Josh Marshall pointed out in Talking Points Memo today that the lines of the 2024 election are coming clearer. Trump’s many legal troubles simply strengthen the loyalty of his base, making his nomination for the Republican presidential candidacy even more likely. But voters in the general election are unlikely to rally to someone facing multiple indictments in several different cases, especially ones related to the attempt to overthrow the results of the 2020 election, which horrified most Americans. 

The Republican Party is now “handcuffed to Donald Trump,” Marshall writes. 

President Biden’s policy of focusing on his job while letting the Republicans define themselves might be a smart strategy.

LETTERS FROM AN AMERICAN

HEATHER COX RICHARDSON

[croowdly]

Russia Ukraine war: Moscow launches air strikes as Putin’s forces ‘repel Kyiv attack on Crimea’

Crimean Bridge badly damaged after ‘multiple blasts’ in early hoursFor free real time breaking news alerts sent straight to your inbox sign up to our breaking news emailsSign up to our free breaking news emailsRussia launched overnight air attacks on Ukraine‘s south and east using drones and possibly ballistic missiles, Ukraine‘s Air Force and officials said early on Tuesday.A fire broke out at one of the “facilities” in the port of Mykolaiv late on Monday, the city mayor said. The port city provides Ukraine with access to the Black Sea.“It’s quite serious,” Mayor Oleksandr Senkevich said on the Telegram messaging app of the fire, adding that more detail will come in the morning.The southern port of Odesa and the Mykolaiv, Donetsk, Kherson, Zaporizhzhia and Dnipropetrovsk regions were under threat of Russian drone attacks, the Air Force said on the Telegram messaging app.It added that Russia may be using ballistic weaponry to attack the regions of Poltava, Cherkasy, Dnipropetrovsk, Kharkiv and Kirovohrad.It comes as Russian defence ministry said they repelled a Ukrainian drone attack on Crimea in the early hours of Tuesday - a day after an explosion on the bridge killed two people. The ministry said their air defences destroyed 17 drones and another 11 drones were intercepted by electronic warfare systems.

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Show latest update 1689667500Taiwan says looking to buy NASAMS air defence system from USTaiwan is looking to buy National Advanced Surface-to-Air Missile Systems, or NASAMS, from the United States to upgrade its air defence capabilities having seen how well they work in Ukraine, the island’s defence minister said on Tuesday.China, which claims Taiwan as its own territory, has stepped up military and political pressure over the past three years to try to force the democratically governed island to accept Beijing’s rule.NASAMS have been provided by the United States for use in Ukraine, with U.S. officials saying they have had a 100% success rate in intercepting Russian missiles.The system, developed and built by Raytheon Technologies and Norway’s Kongsberg Gruppen is a short- to medium-range ground-based air defence system that protects against drone, missile, and aircraft attack, which both Canada and Lithuania have also bought, or are buying for Ukraine.Asked on the sidelines of parliament about Taiwan buying NASAMS, Defence Minister Chiu Kuo-cheng said “certainly” there was a proposal to get them.“This work must be done in accordance with the enemy situation,” he said. “We have seen from the Russia-Ukraine war that these weapons definitely have good performance.”However, Taiwan has not received any official notification from the U.S. that they will sell NASAMS to Taipei, Chiu said.“But we need this work to be done as soon as possible.”The U.S., Taiwan’s main foreign source of weapons, formally makes notifications to the island about the arms Washington is willing to sell.The U.S. is bound by law to provide Taiwan with the means to defend itself, despite a lack of formal diplomatic relations. China routinely denounces such arms sales.Taiwan’s military has been paying close attention to the war in Ukraine for lessons on defending against a much larger opponent, for example by the use of drones.Maryam Zakir-Hussain18 July 2023 09:051689665497Odesa port infrastructure damaged in overnight Russian attacksRussia carried out missile and drone strikes on southern and eastern Ukraine overnight that caused damage to infrastructure in the Black Sea port of Odesa, Ukrainian officials said on Tuesday.The attacks followed a pledge of retaliation by Russia after a blast on a bridge linking Russia to the Crimean Peninsula on Monday. Moscow accused Ukraine of attacking the bridge, which is used to transport military supplies to Crimea, seized and annexed by Russia in 2014.Ukraine‘s air force said all six Kalibr missiles that were fired overnight, and 31 out of 36 drones, were shot down. The missiles and most of the drones were downed over Odesa and Mykolaiv regions in the south, while the rest were destroyed over the eastern regions of Donetsk, Kharkiv and Dnipropetrovsk.Ukraine‘s southern operational military command said that all six Kalibr cruise missiles fired by Russia overnight were shot down over Odesa, and that 21 Iranian-made Shahed drones were downed over the surrounding region.It said falling debris and blast waves damaged several homes and unspecified port infrastructure in Odesa, but gave few details. There was no word of any deaths but an elderly man was wounded in his home and was taken to hospital, it added.Odesa has often been attacked since Russia‘s full-scale invasion of Ukraine in February 2022 although the port was part of the U.N.-brokered deal allowing the safe Black Sea export of grain that Russia pulled out of on Monday.The latest attack was “further proof that the country-terrorist wants to endanger the lives of 400 million people in various countries that depend on Ukrainian food exports,” Andriy Yermak, the head of the presidential staff, said on Telegram.Maryam Zakir-Hussain18 July 2023 08:311689663012A B&Q generator and a commandeered truck: Behind the British Wolfram vehicles helping Ukraine fight PutinWolfram vehicles are now standard weaponry for the British military, with possible export orders pending, writes Kim Sengupta:The Wolfram armoured vehicle headed for the armoured column coming through the valley and fired salvos from its Brimstone missile system, setting the Russian T-57 tank aflame. Further along the frontline, a rider on an electronic bike was carrying out a lone attack, hitting the convoy at the flank using a Carl-Gustaf Mk4 rocket launcher.The operation taking place was a military exercise in Lulworth, Dorset – but the tactics and weapons being used were from the Ukraine war. The Wolfram was developed by the British military in the early days of Vladimir Putin’s invasion with an urgent plea for help from Kyiv to counter Russian heavy armour.Maryam Zakir-Hussain18 July 2023 07:501689662963Russia launches drones and missiles on Ukraine’s south and eastRussia launched overnight air attacks on Ukraine‘s south and east using drones and possibly ballistic missiles, Ukraine‘s Air Force and officials said early on Tuesday.A fire broke out at one of the “facilities” in the port of Mykolaiv late on Monday, the city mayor said. The port city provides Ukraine with access to the Black Sea.“It’s quite serious,” Mayor Oleksandr Senkevich said on the Telegram messaging app of the fire, adding that more detail will come in the morning.The southern port of Odesa and the Mykolaiv, Donetsk, Kherson, Zaporizhzhia and Dnipropetrovsk regions were under threat of Russian drone attacks, the Air Force said on the Telegram messaging app.It added that Russia may be using ballistic weaponry to attack the regions of Poltava, Cherkasy, Dnipropetrovsk, Kharkiv and Kirovohrad.Reuters could not independently verify the reports.Air raid alerts blared in many Ukrainian regions for hours, before being called off at around 04:30 a.m. local time (0130 GMT).Oleh Kiper, the head of the Odesa region’s military administration, said air defence systems there were engaged in repelling several waves of Russian drone attacks.Maryam Zakir-Hussain18 July 2023 07:491689661775Russia foils Ukrainian drone raid on CrimeaRussia repelled a Ukrainian drone attack on Crimea in the early hours of Tuesday, the Russian defence ministry said, a day after an attack on the Crimean bridge which damaged it and disrupted car traffic.Russian air defences destroyed 17 drones and another 11 drones were intercepted by electronic warfare systems, the ministry said. The “terrorist attack” did not inflict any damage or casualties, it added.On Monday, a blast knocked out Russia‘s bridge to Crimea in what Moscow called a strike by Ukrainian sea drones, killing two people.Moscow annexed the Crimean Peninsula from Ukraine in 2014.A satellite image shows a view of the Crimea bridge, in Kerch Strait (via REUTERS)Maryam Zakir-Hussain18 July 2023 07:291689658081Russia says Ukrainian drone raid foiled over CrimeaRussia’s defence ministry has claimed the country’s air defences and electronic countermeasure systems downed 28 Ukrainian drones over Crimea in the early hours of today, reported the RIA news agency.No casualties or damages have been seen so far, the ministry said.The raid comes a day after an attack by suspected Ukrainian sea drones on the Kerch Bridge to Crimea, which damaged it and disrupted car traffic.Ukraine has neither confirmed nor denied it carried out the attack.Arpan Rai18 July 2023 06:281689657455Crimea bridge attack: Everything to know about the Kerch BridgeThe Kerch Bridge saw traffic halted for six hours following reports of multiple explosions at around 3am yesterday.Europe’s longest bridge connects the Russian city of Krasnodar in the east to Kerch in Crimea, which was illegally annexed from Ukraine by Moscow in 2014.The Crimean Bridge runs over the Kerch Strait and is the only direct road link between Russia and the annexed peninsula. It consists of a separate roadway and railway – fortified by concrete stilts – which give way to a wider span held by steel arches at the point where ships pass between the Black Sea and the smaller Azov Sea.Here’s everything you need to know about the bridge, now a sensitive target in the invasion:Arpan Rai18 July 2023 06:171689655690Russia's Kharkiv troop levels close to Soviet-era, says UkraineRussia has amassed more than 100,000 troops and hundreds of tanks in Ukraine’s northeastern region of Kharkiv, officials in Ukraine said.“For two days running, the enemy has been actively on the offensive in the Kupiansk sector in Kharkiv region,” deputy defence minister Hanna Maliar wrote on Telegram.“We are defending. Heavy fighting is going on and the positions of both sides change dynamically several times a day.”More than 100,000 Russian troops and more than 900 tanks are now deployed in the area, said Serhiy Cherevatyi, spokesperson for Ukraine’s eastern command.Russia has drafted in airborne units and their best motorised infantry units to the area, he said, with the deployment now close to the around 120,000 seen in the region at the height of the Soviet Union’s 1979-89 war in Afghanistan.In May, around 370,000 Russian troops were inside Ukraine as a whole, according to an estimate by Ukraine’s intelligence chief Kyrylo Budanov.Russia is building up its defences and lining up troops near towns Kupiansk and nearby Lyman, regions retaken by Ukraine late last year as Kyiv’s forces remain stacked in the east and south for the counteroffensive launched several weeks ago.Large groups of Russian personnel were now trying to break through Ukrainian defence lines in the area, officials have said.“The enemy is concentrating everything in order to break through the defences of Ukrainian troops,” he said.“Our soldiers are holding their defences, preventing the enemy from fully seizing the initiative and they are continuously launching counterattacks,” the spokesperson said.Arpan Rai18 July 2023 05:481689653347Russia fires drones, missiles on Ukraine’s south and eastRussia resumed overnight air attacks in the early hours today on Ukraine’s south and east using drones and possibly ballistic missiles, Ukraine’s Air Force and officials said.A fire broke out at one of the “facilities” in the port of Mykolaiv late on Monday, the city mayor said. The port city provides Ukraine with access to the Black Sea.“It’s quite serious,” mayor Oleksandr Senkevich said about the blaze on the Telegram, adding that more detail will come in the morning.The air force warned that the southern port of Odesa and the Mykolaiv, Donetsk, Kherson, Zaporizhzhia and Dnipropetrovsk regions were under threat of Russian drone attacks.Russia may be using ballistic weaponry to attack the regions of Poltava, Cherkasy, Dnipropetrovsk, Kharkiv and Kirovohrad, it addedArpan Rai18 July 2023 05:091689649239Putin vows revenge after Crimea bridge attackVladimir Putin has said his defence ministry is readying proposals for a response to an overnight attack on a bridge in Crimea as he blamed Ukraine for carrying out the strike.Calling it a cruel and senseless act, the Russian president said the bridge “has not been used for military transportation for a long time”. He was speaking after a televised video meeting with national and regional officials to assess the consequences of the attack.While Kyiv has not claimed any responsibility for the attack, Ukrainian media said the war-hit nation’s security services had deployed maritime drones against the bridge.The attack killed a Russian couple and injured their 14-year-old daughter. The family was driving over the bridge to go on a holiday in the annexed peninsula.Ukraine has said Russians have no business holidaying on seized territory, especially while Moscow is bombing the country.The attack on the bridge, the second in less than 10 months targeting a symbol of Russia’s illegal occupation of Crimea, comes around summer holiday season as Russians drive to or from the peninsula.Arpan Rai18 July 2023 04:00 Source link Read the full article

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European nations are rejecting calls from Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenksy to repatriate fighting-age male refugees to their homeland to assist on the frontline.

Zelensky appealed to several EU countries to deport men of military age back to bolster military numbers both prior to and during Ukraine’s counter-offensive push into Russia this month.

The request was unanimously rejected by EU member states.

Ukrainian news site New Voice specifically referenced opposition from Hungary, Poland, and the Czech Republic because these countries have a shortage of workers. In Poland and the Czech Republic, for example, Ukrainians make up 30 percent of the workforce in the construction and transport sectors, and they would be reluctant to give up this labor. “Frankly speaking, many Czech companies depend on the skills and hard work of Ukrainian refugees. The construction industry, for example, would come to a complete halt without Ukrainian workers,” said Tomasz Prouza, the head of a hospitality lobbying group in Czechia, to Bloomberg.

According to the UN Refugee Agency, there are currently more than 6 million Ukrainian refugees abroad, and it is likely that another 400,000 will leave the country in 2024 due to the persistent Russian attacks on infrastructure across the country.