Zelensky must be at his wits end dealing with these gutless western countries.
Must have almost bitten his tongue in half.
Just give the ■■■■■■■ go ahead you cowards so they at least have at chance.
9 Likes
As I understand it, there are four western States with the capacity to deliver longer range missiles to Ukraine.Reportedly Germany won’t, France and the UK would be prepared to do so, but are blocked by USA.
1 Like
What ■■■■■■■ genius gave the shambolic, inward looking, now insipid, Stars and Stripes the power of veto?
The lunatics have taken over the asylum.
1 Like
I’m just reposting this @Mackster - as no truer words have ever been typed out… Well reasoned, well said.
5 Likes
Here’s hoping that the predicted collapse comes early.
Vladimir Putin ‘fears Soviet-style collapse’ amid budget pressures to fund war in Ukraine
Warning comes after Russia’s government unveiled plans to hike defence spending to highest levels since the Cold War
3 HOURS AGO
Vladimir Putin is all too aware that economic pressure brought down the Soviet Union as he is forced to hike defence spending and slash social benefits to fund his war in Ukraine, according to Western officials.
Despite each side hoping for a breakthrough, the war is set to “grind on” in eastern Ukraine, where Russian forces this week took the strategic town of Vuhledar, and in Russia’s Kursk region following a surprise Ukrainian incursion there.
Ukraine will be keeping a wary eye on November’s White House election given Donald Trump’s chilly attitude towards extending further US aid.
But President Joe Biden’s administration remains determined to leave Kyiv in the “strongest possible position” with the latest funding package, one Western official said.
Russian losses will continue at an average of 1,200 casualties a day, further straining the war effort given President Putin’s reluctance to widen mobilisation for fear of the impact on economic sectors where labour shortages are already rife.
Russia’s central bank last month hiked its key interest rate by a full point to 19%, highlighting the inflationary pressures unleashed by the invasion of Ukraine.
This week, draft budget documents showed the Russian government plans to increase state spending on national defence by a quarter next year to 6.3% of GDP, the highest level since the Cold War.
That will be more than twice the amount allocated for social needs, including pensions and subsidies, which is being cut by some 15%.
“So Putin knows his economy is under pressure,” the Western official said.
“He takes the advice of the central bank governor, because he is very well aware that this is what brought down the Soviet Union.
“But this is a very high interest rate, and it’s not really addressing the underlying inflation, the critical shortages in componentry [caused by Western sanctions] and in manpower.”
The official stressed: “I’m not suggesting an imminent sort of financial crisis in Russia. What I am saying is that there is mounting economic and political pressure which will build over 2025.”
5 Likes
Cheers for the question.
Western nations have realistically run out of Soviet aircraft to donate to Ukraine. I think Poland has a squadron remaining, so they might send a few more when they finish receiving F-35, but none announced.
The main focus has been F-16s from European nations like the Netherlands, Belgium, Denmark and Norway which are upgrading to F-35. These F-16s are fairly old, with outdated radars.
Around 79 jets have been promised, 6 have so far been delivered and of those 1 was shot down in a friendly fire incident. More will be donated over the next 2 years as F-35s replace the F-16 fleets and pilots are trained up. There currently aren’t enough pilots to fly the jets even if they were all made available.
Tactically, these F-16s are less capable than the modern Russian jets. The missiles available to Ukraine are shorter range than the Russian ones and the Russians have advantages in radar and can fly at high altitude. Ukraine needs to fly low and slow to avoid enemy SAMs, so any missiles they fire into Russia have to fight thick air and gravity in order to reach Russian jets, which drastically limits their range.
What F-16 does is provide another layer of cruise missile defence. They can be used for niche bombing roles, but mostly right now Ukraine is learning how to use the new jets.
France will be providing an unknown number of Mirage 2000-5 jets, which are of a similar outdated vintage as the European F-16s. Pilots are currently being trained on these and they’ll perform a similar cruise missile defence role.
Maybe in 2025 or 2026 Sweden will provide Saab Grippen, having just spent a few hundred million Euro on buying extra parts and equipment needed to set the groundwork for such a delivery.
There’s no good option for Ukraine to get air dominance near the front. Maybe if they got a huge number of Patriot batteries they could pull off a few more SAMbushes, but those systems have been drip fed.
11 Likes
Trickle down economics is more about tax cuts and deregulation to stimulate investment - which benefits those with wealth to invest - with the theoretical flow on effect of benefiting the poor as the business owners need to employ labour.
Economically there is evidence it does fuel economic growth if you measure growth with the ridiculous metric of % change in GDP. Just to ram home that point, the Russian economy is performing brilliantly on that measure as they invest 25% of their national income in more bombs which destroy the (economic, social and environmental) futures of both Russia and Ukraine. That’s death not growth!
Socially, trickle down is bullshit. The gap between rich and poor increases, and although jobs are created the obvious socially efficient method is to directly target those in need with the economic stimulus eg the method used during covid.
5 Likes
Balance between the two is the critical piece. It’s a lot easier to add social programs than it is to take them away. A society that rewards effort / exceptionalism, takes care of those in need, and allows people to climb up from the dirt is the goal and I think Australia gets it mostly right.
8 Likes
As to Crimea and the Black Sea, Zelensky is not on song with its closest European ally in Poland. The Polish Foreign Minister has suggested that Crimea should be some sort of UN protectorate for 20 years, after which a referendum would be called to determine whether Crimea should decide to become part of Russia or Ukraine.
Poland and Ukraine are also at odds on the timing of Ukraine membership of NATO.
Reportedly, the sequencing is that NATO membership comes after EU membership.
Poland has discounted Zelensky’s view that Ukraine could join the EU in 2025.
Poland has agricultural interests to protect and has been successful in securing tighter EU restrictions on Ukraine agricultural products crossing into Poland, including the re-introduction of some import tariffs.
1 Like
Grab 'em by the ■■■■■
2 Likes
Strap yourself in for a FP ride in the Blyat mobile
3 Likes
Thanks Benny and Sine.
Much appreciated with all the relevant information you and others post. You put a lot of hours into this forum and I know myself and others value the input.
14 Likes
4 Likes
7 Likes
2 Likes
Years after his capture in Mariupol, his family received only his broken body
The case highlights Ukrainians’ desperation to get news about their loved ones missing in the war and fears over their fates in Russia.
A photo of Oleksandr Ishchenko is attached to his grave in a cemetery for for Ukrainian soldiers in Dnipro on Aug. 10. (Ed Ram for The Washington Post)
Updated October 4, 2024 at 9:32 a.m. EDT|Published October 4, 2024 at 3:00 a.m. EDT
DNIPRO, Ukraine — The day Oleksandr Ishchenko’s body returned to Ukraine, police warned the soldier’s family not to look.
The scene inside the morgue was gruesome: Ishchenko’s remains spent days in transit from the prison in Russia where he died. Russian medics hadn’t sewn him back up after performing an autopsy. His body was in decay, and a Ukrainian doctor concluded his ribs had been broken by blunt force trauma before his death.
But Ishchenko’s widow, Olena, 54, had waited nearly 2½ years for her husband to return home. She wanted to see him, one last time.
“He was completely torn apart,” Olena recalled. “It seemed the Russians did everything so we wouldn’t identify him and wouldn’t know the real cause.”
Ishchenko’s mysterious death in Russian captivity in July represents the greatest worry of the many Ukrainian families who have little to no contact with their loved ones in Russian prisons and fear each day that they are being mistreated or may die. More than 177 Ukrainian prisoners of war have died in Russian custody, Ukrainian authorities say, and more than 2,000 have been tortured. The United Nations has expressed concerns over widespread torture in Russian prisons.
Pressure on Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky over POWs is so high that part of the justification for Ukraine’s risky incursion into Russia’s Kursk region in August was to take Russian prisoners and replenish the POW “exchange fund.”
Ishchenko’s case also offers a glimpse into the extreme steps families have taken involving third-party operators when the government can’t seem to help — or at least not fast enough.
The family said they had to turn elsewhere to get the body back after unclear communications with Ukraine’s official POW coordination center, which did not respond to a request for comment on the case.
Ishchenko joined an informal territorial defense unit in February 2022, his family said, which later linked up with the Azov Brigade amid the chaos of the last stand in Mariupol. The brigade has been celebrated in Ukraine but has also faced accusations of links to Nazi ideologies, and Russia has declared it a terrorist group. Amid the chaos of the Mariupol surrender, Ishchenko probably did not even know he was considered part of Azov, the family said.
The brigade provided the Russian and Ukrainian autopsy reports to The Washington Post for review. The Russian document said a cause of death could not be established “due to putrefactive changes in the organs and tissues of the corpse.” The initial Ukrainian assessment, however, reported “shock, multiple rib fractures, closed blunt chest injury, damage due to contact with a blunt object, the intention is unknown.” The family said that they are still waiting for a final report, and that the cause of death remains unclear.
The Russian Defense Ministry did not respond to queries about Ishchenko’s death or reports that he had been severely beaten in prison. There have been sporadic reports in Russian state media of Ukrainians soldiers shooting captured Russian servicemen but no systemic, detailed accusations by Russian authorities about POW mistreatment by Ukraine.
Ukraine and Russia do not disclose how many POWs are in custody in either country, but many are waiting to be exchanged in swaps that families do not understand. More than 3,000 Ukrainian prisoners have been returned home since 2022, including more than 100 in September alone who arrived on buses, thin and hollow-eyed, but alive. Kyiv did not disclose whether they were exchanged for prisoners seized in Kursk.
For Ishchenko’s relatives, the viral footage of the latest prisoner exchanges and family reunions were bittersweet.
“We’re happy for the guys who endured two years of suffering, but it’s very painful that we no longer have that chance and our dad didn’t live to see the reunion with us,” said Ishchenko’s daughter, Kristina, 33. “And for us, this sorrow will last a lifetime.”
Olena Ishchenko, right, and daughter Kristina Koshka on the banks of the Dnieper River in August. (Ed Ram for The Washington Post)
‘I’m sorry I went’
Ishchenko never intended to fight. A commercial sailor, he had last served in the military in the Soviet Union as a young man. He preferred the sea to any battlefield and wanted to watch his grandchildren grow up by the same waters where he met his wife, in their native Mariupol.
But when Russian forces invaded in February 2022 and laid siege to the city, he took up arms again — even as Olena begged him on her knees not to go.
She last saw him in March that year, when he briefly left the Azovstal factory to visit the basement where she was hiding.
“He told us, ‘I couldn’t leave my guys here, I was a guide for them,’” Olena recalled.
The rest of the family fled to Dnipro and lost contact with him as Mariupol fell. Weeks later, they watched in shock as Russia reported that more than 1,000 Ukrainian troops had surrendered after the last stand at the factory.
For months, they heard nothing of his fate. Then, in August 2022, Kristina’s husband’s phone rang. It was Ishchenko. He told them he was in prison in the Russian-occupied Donetsk region, in eastern Ukraine. A lawyer had tracked down his son-in-law’s phone number — and then asked the family to pay her $1,000.
“We said, ‘I love you,’ and he said, “I’m sorry I went to serve,’” Olena recalled. They wept when they heard his voice crack. “He understood he was in big trouble,” she said. “He told me, ‘You knew.’”
Olena Ishchenko shows a photo of the couple’s wedding day. (Ed Ram for The Washington Post)
Sending letters and food
The proof of life energized the family to bring him home. They wrote letters to every official they could think of, they said, hoping Ishchenko’s history of a stroke would make him a priority for an exchange. Then they heard from the lawyer in Donetsk that he had been moved to Rostov-on-Don in southern Russia.
Months passed without news. “We heard only rhetoric from the government,” Olena said. “‘You need to wait; we are doing everything possible.’”
Then, last summer, photos circulated of him in a Russian courtroom, bald and so thin that his son-in-law didn’t recognize him. But Kristina and Olena saw his bright blue eyes and just knew.
In Rostov, he and more than 20 others faced trial on terrorism charges for their alleged ties to Azov. A cellmate there told him how he could be reached if his family paid on a Russian website called Zona Telekom to send him food and letters, and that he would be given paper to respond, his family recounted.
The prisoner sent numbers for Ishchenko’s family to his own family, and they then called Kristina and Olena to explain how it worked.
For those months as they exchanged many letters, “we were together with him,” Olena said. “Not in person, but we supported him and received his support.”
In blue ink, he scrawled descriptions of how he imagined his cell to be a ship and how he dreamed of returning to Ukraine. The letters did not appear to be censored, they said: In Donetsk, he told them, he had been beaten most days and allowed only two showers in 13 months. The family sent food to Rostov, including canned fish that he told them was so popular, fellow prisoners licked clean the plastic bags the guards served it in.
“Lesik, when I step onto our land, I will definitely bow to it and kiss it for helping us live on it,” he wrote in one note, using a nickname for Olena.
Kristina Koshka shows a photo of her father in a Russian courtroom. (Ed Ram for The Washington Post)
The ‘nephew’ from Armenia
In June, she saw an opportunity. Top Ukrainian officials were hosting a peace summit in Switzerland, and plans to secure the release of prisoners of war were on the table. She joined a group of other POW relatives and rode a bus through Europe to meet with attendees and plead her husband’s case.
But after Olena returned home to Dnipro in July, Kristina received a call from her father’s Russian lawyer. Ishchenko was dead. Kristina collapsed.
The family contacted the POW center in Kyiv to ask what to do. They said officials told them they had not yet heard of the death, but if it was true, they would still have to wait for an official exchange.
The bureaucracy infuriated Olena, who knew her husband’s dying wish was to return home to Ukraine. “We were afraid if he’d be buried in Russia, we’d never find him,” she said.
The family contacted a private funeral service in Kyiv, which — for roughly $4,000 — hatched a complicated plan to bring Ishchenko home by sending a man to Rostov to pose as his nephew. He told Russian officials he would take him to Armenia, and they released the body. Ishchenko was then driven by refrigerated truck to a hospital in Dnipro.
His family later buried him in the military section of the city’s cemetery — his grave one more in the endless rows of soldiers killed in the war.
This article has been updated with new toll for the number of Ukrainian POWs authorities have reported killed in Russian custody, rising from 60 to 177 according to statements published Friday.
Olena Ishchenko at his grave in Dnipro. (Ed Ram for The Washington Post
https://www.washingtonpost.com/world/2024/10/04/pow-ukraine-dead-body/
Western intelligence believes Russia receives half of its shells from North Korea
FRIDAY, 4 OCTOBER 2024, 23:04
Half of the approximately three million artillery shells per year used by Russia come from North Korea.
Source: The Times citing Western intelligence data; European Pravda report
Details: The Times’ source, who cited intelligence, said that Russia became dependent on supplies from the DPRK after Kremlin leader Vladimir Putin’s visit to Pyongyang earlier this year.
Western intelligence estimates that many of the North Korean missiles may be defective, but it is their sheer numbers that have allowed Russia to achieve consistent success on the battlefield.
Despite this, the source added, Russia is suffering high casualties in Ukraine – 1,200 soldiers a day, 480 of them in the battle for the city of Pokrovsk in Donetsk Oblast alone.
Also, they said, Russia is currently unable to simultaneously capture Pokrovsk and drive Ukrainian forces out of Kursk Oblast without mass mobilisation, but the Russian authorities are not taking this step.
The source stated that they saw no signs that Putin was backing down from his main goal of subjugating Ukraine’s sovereignty and added that they did not see any prospect of negotiations in the near future.
According to South Korean estimates, as of the summer of 2024, Russia could have received five million artillery shells from the DPRK.
Evidence of new deliveries of North Korean ballistic missiles to Moscow has also recently emerged.
2 Likes
Necessity is the mother of creation.
Ukraine unveils new “Bohdana-BG” artillery system
Oct 4, 2024
Ukraine has introduced a prototype of its latest towed artillery system, the “Bohdana-BG,” to international partners.
According to reports from Militarny, this new artillery system is a hybrid of the Ukrainian-made Bohdana and the Soviet-era 152mm 2A36 Giatsint-B artillery system, modified to incorporate modern features.
The Bohdana system has been mounted on the carriage of the Giatsint-B, aiming to create a cost-effective and easily producible artillery solution for Ukraine’s military. The development of towed artillery systems comes at a crucial time for Ukraine as it seeks to rapidly expand its artillery capabilities in the face of ongoing conflict with Russia.
Towed artillery offers several advantages over self-propelled systems, particularly in terms of production and operational simplicity. “Their production is much cheaper, simpler, and therefore faster compared to self-propelled units, which is a key factor for Ukraine today,” Militarny reported. This allows for quicker manufacturing and deployment on the battlefield, making it a practical solution in current conditions.
Additionally, towed systems like the Bohdana-BG are more reliable and easier to maintain. They lack many of the complex components found in self-propelled artillery, making them less prone to technical failures. In the event of vehicle breakdowns, the towed artillery can simply be attached to a replacement truck and returned to service.
Towed howitzers also tend to have higher survivability rates in combat. “When damaged by shrapnel or drone strikes, towed howitzers are often sent for repair, replacing some components and quickly returning to the front,” notes the report. In contrast, self-propelled artillery units are more likely to suffer irreversible damage when hit.
However, the primary drawback of towed artillery remains its reduced mobility compared to self-propelled systems. On modern battlefields, mobility is critical. During counter-battery operations, self-propelled artillery can rapidly withdraw from firing positions, while towed systems require more time to pack up and relocate, leaving them exposed for longer periods.
3 Likes
North Korean soldiers getting “War Experience”.
4 Likes