Ukraine war mega thread

[Norton]

And you said this a week in:


So...

So things have changed in 2 years. They tend to do that ya know.

[helge]

As I have said from near day 1, this means boots on the ground. Lot's and lot's of boots.

So things have changed in 2 years. They tend to do that ya know.

If you change predictions every 7 days or so, you can actually cover quite a bit of ground.

[helge]

Ukraine Tells West To 'Give Us the Damn Patriots'

Story by Ellie Cook

Ukraine has doubled down on demands for U.S.-made Patriot air defense systems, pressing for vital, sophisticated assets to shield its cities at a moment of deepening concern over the future of military aid destined for Ukraine.

"Give us the damn Patriots," Kyiv's foreign minister, Dmytro Kuleba, told Politico in an interview published on Monday.

Ukraine is thought to have a handful of Patriot batteries, considered the gold-standard of air defenses.
The exact number and locations are not known, but Ukraine is believed to have batteries stationed around major cities, like Kyiv, as well as close to the front lines.

According to Ukraine's military, Kyiv has used its Patriots to take out a slew of Russian aircraft, and the systems were credited with intercepting a number of Russia's supposedly unstoppable Kinzhal missiles, which the Kremlin has describes as hypersonic weapons.

The Raytheon-designed Patriot is a surface-to-air system designed to shoot down ballistic and cruise missiles, as well as aircraft and drones, from long distances.

It is considered one of the U.S. military's most advanced air defense systems and Patriots are also stationed on NATO's eastern flank, close to the conflict

The Kremlin claimed last week that it had destroyed five Patriot launchers since the start of 2024. Each Patriot battery has several launchers that contain and fire missiles.

Reports had suggested earlier in March that a Russian missile strike took out two Patriot launchers traveling with a Ukrainian convoy.

Ukraine has been unwavering in its calls for more air defense systems to fend off frequent, hammering Russian missile strikes.

In the early hours of Friday, Russia launched 151 strikes—using ballistic and cruise missiles, as well as strike drones— across Ukraine, according to Kyiv's air force.

With Moscow bombarding Ukraine with renewed missile barrages, these demands have been growing as the future of military aid from Ukraine's single-largest backer, the U.S., hangs in the balance.
On March 12, the Pentagon unveiled $300 million in military aid to prop up Kyiv's "immediate air defense, artillery, and anti-tank requirements," but called the package a "short-term stop gap" in lieu of fresh funding from Congress.

"Patriots and other systems are now needed in Ukraine, for our cities and communities," Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky, reiterated last week. "The partners have the air defense systems that are needed for this, and they can help. It is worth doing so."

"If we had enough air defense systems, namely Patriots, we would be able to protect not only the lives of our people, but also our economy from destruction," Kuleba said.

Ukraine's desperate need for more air defense systems, and the interceptor missiles they use, is unlikely to abate. On Monday, Ukrainian media reported Russia had fired two Zircon, or Tsirkon, hypersonic missiles at the country.

The Zircon, like the Kinzhal, is one of Russia's "next generation" weapons unveiled by Russian President Vladimir Putin in 2018. Ukraine said in February that it had registered the first use of Zircon missiles against Ukrainian targets.

At the start of 2024, NATO announced a $5.5 billion deal to buy 1,000 Patriot missiles for the alliance.

"Russian missile and drone attacks on Ukrainian civilians, cities and towns show how important modern air defenses are," NATO Secretary-General, Jens Stoltenberg, said at the time.



----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
a $5.5 billion deal to buy 1,000 Patriot missiles



What a bargain

[Norton]

What a bargain

Pretty good. I sold bunches to Japan back in the day.

[bsnub]

a $5.5 billion deal to buy 1,000 Patriot missiles



What a bargain

God, you are an idiot. Why is it that vatniks have to be some of the dumbest people on the fucking planet?

[helge]

God, you are an idiot. Why is it that vatniks have to be some of the dumbest people on the fucking planet?

So...why don't you use your posting rights to ...put me right regarding that post ?

Pleasen go slow, cause I'm a dumb vatnik idiot.

[bsnub]

Oh my you must have an alarm to alert you that there is a post in this thread. It took you all of 5 minutes to post a response.

cause I'm a dumb vatnik idiot.

That is a fact.

[cyrille]

Time stamp waffle and a doctored quote.

Alls fair in love and war.

[helge]

So...why don't you use your posting rights to ...put me right regarding that post ?

Guess not then

[Norton]

$5.5 billion deal to buy 1,000 Patriot missiles

I was selling them for just under $4mil a pop. Inflation I reckon got them up a bit. Me stock is down a tad so buy, buy, buy. Do keep in mind you get what you pay for so if you want the best it will cost ya.

[helge]

I was selling them for just under $4mil a pop.

Let's hope that the Ukranians don't blow them all on 20000 USD iranian drones.

NATO has announced a plan to purchase some 1000 Patriot missiles. A $5.5 billion contract has been awarded to Raytheon and MBDA to establish a new production facility in Germany.^[179]

I see

Seems that the japanese produce them too

[bsnub]

Guess not then

Propaganda horse shit is not worthy of a response, clownboy. Come up with your own opinions and stop parroting.

[OhOh]

Excellent whodunit. Hint MI6.

Asymmetric Response and the Perp Walk to World War III.

Date: March 29, 2024Author: Tom Luongo.

"Have you ever tried to break out of the orbit of a narcissist? It’s damn difficult. Their pattern of emotional abuse is designed to make you feel like the abuser, demoralizing you, sapping you of your vitality and agency.

They weaponize your humanity and feed off your guilt. When you finally summon the courage to divorce yourself from them that’s when the fangs really come out. That’s when their true face is revealed. And it’s nothing but scorn, derision and unfettered hatred.

Narcissists don’t love you. They love themselves.

I’m opening this article with that quick reminder of human psychology to set the stage for this week’s discussion of all things geopolitical. There ain’t no art in this piece folks, I’m too damn exhausted to craft the language.

Why am I exhausted? Running behind narcissists as they perp walk us towards World War III saps the energy of even the most resilient personality. The truly malignant narcissists that think they operate the levers of power over the world have realized that we are walking away from them.

And they are fucking angry. The feeling is very, very mutual.

Since the firing of VicToria “Cookies” Nuland from the State Department on March 5th (and make zero mistake she was fired) events surrounding Russia are accelerating. Last weekend’s attack on the Crocus Concert Hall in Moscow was supposed to originally happen on March 9th, apparently. It was to be timed with Joah BIi-Den’s! State of the Union address and meant as a severe warning to Russians to ‘make the right decision’ and vote against Vladimir Putin a week later.

That day the State Department issued a warning to all Americans to stay away from meetings, concert halls, etc. I think this was us finally acting like a grown up, because it begs a major question that doesn’t comport with unlimited US aggression towards Russia.

Why would we issue this warning knowing full well the Russians would respond to it and stop the attack?

It literally makes no sense. When Nuland is fired from the State Department, our first reaction was to see it as a shift in US foreign policy away from Russia and towards China. Toria lost a power play. See you at the auto show.

That sounds neat and compact… but is it the whole story?

Because then the attack actually happens two weeks later. A bunch of Tajiks go in, like the professional soldiers they are, shoot the place up and make their escape. Acting not at all in character for the ISIS head-choppers who were immediately blamed for this.

Pepe Escobar’s recent article on this is excellent and is worth the read. He goes through the timelines and traces a lot of important connections. But, as I was reading it I noticed that he ‘buried the lede,’ as i saw it.

Ace Russian war correspondent Marat Khairullin has added another juicy morsel to this funky salad: he convincingly unveils the MI6 angle in the Crocus City Hall terror attack (in English here, in two parts, posted by “S”).

The FSB is right in the middle of the painstaking process of cracking most, if not all ISIS-K-CIA/MI6 connections. Once it’s all established, there will be hell to pay.

But that won’t be the end of the story. Countless terror networks are not controlled by Western intel – although they will work with Western intel via middlemen, usually Salafist “preachers” who deal with Saudi/Gulf intel agencies.

The case of the CIA flying “black” helicopters to extract jihadists from Syria and drop them in Afghanistan is more like an exception – in terms of direct contact – than the norm. So the FSB and the Kremlin will be very careful when it comes to directly accusing the CIA and MI6 of managing these networks.

Because the GGnG community sniffed out this angle almost immediately, linking in Khairullin’s post for us to ruminate on. This isn’t meant as a slight to Escobar. He was working a lot of angles in this story, parsing through everything to lead to a conclusion. That takes time and I’m glad he took it.

But for me, the MI6 angle is the first one to be considered in this attack, not the last one.

And the keys lie in that very timeline. Because, as opposed to assuming that the US is the catalytic agent for events here — easy to think because Nuland is involved — reframing this as a distinctly British operation (with help from rogue elements in the State Dept. and CIA, of course) yields a far more coherent narrative.

Remember, we’re dealing ultimately with narcissists here. Then let’s remember cui bono.

Because without assessing who benefits from this attack, we aren’t doing the analysis right. Moreover, I’m not trying to blame shift here away from the US. We are definitely a player here. But it’s defining who ‘we’ in the US is where the nuance lies.

What if Nuland was fired because knowledge of this attack finally reached the right people at State and the DoD? And they realized, rightly so, that an attack like this would make it nearly impossible for Putin to ignore and force his hand politically to escalate the war in Ukraine to a level that would justify to the people of the West that it was finally time for us to get involved over there.

You can hear the growing chat of “Putin must go” emanating from the think tanks on K Street and the halls of GCHQ.

Who wants that outcome? Who has been begging for that outcome for over two years? Who has staged provocation (Kerch, Nordstream, Bucha, hitting Russian ships in the Black Sea, ZNPP, etc.) after provocation to get Putin “on tilt?” Outside of Victoria Nuland’s office and Lindsay Graham, no one in the US has been fully committed to this the entire time.

Nikki Haley was finally forced out of the presidential race.

If anything, the longer this war goes on the less support Ukraine has gotten from the US, even from Bii-Den!. The shift in the US attitude towards Ukraine has been happening for over a year.

No, the people who have made the most noise are the gods-damned British, who Nuland certainly works hand-in-glove with. The French and German Greens have been just as full-throated, so continental Europe isn’t being spared here either.

So, now here’s what I think the real story is surrounding Crocus. Nuland, MI6, and likely the Turks put this thing together using ISIS-K Tajik mercenaries to kill a bunch of Russians. The operational goal was to keep the US from turning its back on the malignant narcissistic colonialist assholes in Europe who need this war but cannot fight it. That’s the Yanks’ job.

US leadership, already deep in plans to extricate themselves from Europe and pivot to China, warn the Russians on March 7th which scrubs the March 9th operation after sending the major signal that things in Ukraine will calm down by firing Nuland on March 5th.

This is what real statecraft looks like.

After that, the operation is still going forward but under someone else’s guidance (or just on auto-pilot). Nuland’s fingerprints are all over it. The US looks guilty as hell. What does evil do? It doesn’t sleep, it waits. And then we get the actual attack last weekend, after Putin wins a massive re-election. It still serves it’s primary purpose, force Putin’s hand.

Now, the kicker. Who issues notes of condolences to Russia for the attack? Shockingly, the US and NATO. In the past three years there hasn’t been one conciliatory utterance from Sec. of State Antony Blinken’s pie hole when it comes to Russia. He’s been the epitome of the anti-diplomat.

And yet, here he is issuing condolences to Russia. Then the US abstains from the UNSC council vote against Israel, another British project going completely haywire.

None of this tracks with the US and Russia are implacable enemies narrative folks. Not. One. Single. Bit. Of. It.

Now, guess who refused to even acknowledge the Russian loss of life?

Yup … the UK.........

Continues, further here:

Asymmetric Response and the Perp Walk to World War III - Gold Goats 'n Guns

[pickel]

^
Has Russia offered any condolences to the thousands of innocent Ukrainians their terrorists have murdered?

[OhOh]

Russian FPV Drones Will Protect Black Sea Fleet From Unmanned Ukrainian Boats

7 hours ago

MOSCOW (Sputnik) -

"Russian first-person view (FPV) drones will be able to protect the Black Sea Fleet from unmanned Ukrainian boats, with the training of drone operators for the Russian navy already underway, Center for Integrated Unmanned Solutions CEO Dmitry Kuzyakin told Sputnik.

"FPV drones in the future may become an effective and cheap means of defeating the enemy's unmanned boats. I do not rule out that in the future we will see a 'drone war' on the Black Sea ... Today we are working in this direction, keeping in touch with our sailors and training their specialists. Navy specialists have shown a very keen interest in this topic," Kuzyakin said.

Ukraine has repeatedly attempted to use unmanned boats to attack Russian ships, civilian vessels and ports, as well as the Crimean bridge. A separate maritime drone brigade has been reportedly established in the Ukrainian navy."

Russian FPV Drones Will Protect Black Sea Fleet From Unmanned Ukrainian Boats

[OhOh]

^^
Which Russian terrorists attacks on

innocent Ukrainians

Are you referring to?

[OhOh]

[pickel]

^^
Which Russian terrorists attacks on



Are you referring to?

All of them, of course.

Scroll back a few hundred pages and see the pictures I posted of the young Ukrainian women that were raped, murdered, and set on fire by Russian terrorists if you want the gory proof.

You fucking bellend.

[helge]

Originally Posted by OhOh
^^
Which Russian terrorists attacks on



Are you referring to?

All of them, of course.

You might want to call them 'warcriminals'.

(not that the victims would care)

Though overlapping, you could argue that the...terrorist atleast have a purpose with his terror, being it a Revolution or some Virgins.

Warcriminals rarely get punished as far as I know.

They are probably aware of that before they commit their crimes.

[pickel]

You might want to call them 'warcriminals'.

(not that the victims would care)

Though overlapping, you could argue that the...terrorist atleast have a purpose with his terror, being it a Revolution or some Virgins.

Warcriminals rarely get punished as far as I know.

They are probably aware of that before they commit their crimes.

ter·ror·ism
noun
the unlawful use of violence and intimidation, especially against civilians, in the pursuit of political aims.

I think they fit the definition.

[helge]

the unlawful use of violence and intimidation, especially against civilians, in the pursuit of political aims.

Read in yellow

If they were ordered by their commanders, then probably.

And then comes the "we followed orders" card.

A war crime is a violation of the laws of war that gives rise to individual criminal responsibility for actions by combatants in action, such as intentionally killing civilians or intentionally killing prisoners of war, torture, taking hostages, unnecessarily destroying civilian property, deception by perfidy, wartime sexual violence, pillaging, and for any individual that is part of the command structure who orders any attempt to committing mass killings including genocide or ethnic cleansing, the granting of no quarter despite surrender, the conscription of children in the military and flouting the legal distinctions of proportionality and military necessity.^[1]

Fits

But nevermind; call me Helga and you win

[Norton]

Warcriminals rarely get punished as far as I know.

[helge]

Never heard of any warcrime charges against him.

He was killed by his communist capturers, because they feared that he would be freed....again.

[pickel]

But nevermind; call me Helga and you win

I purposely left out the "Helga" because you appeared to be accepting that it actually happened. Baby steps Helge, baby steps.

[helge]

Never heard of any warcrime charges against him.

History has judged him

Documents found in British archives by the historian Effie Pedaliu^[10] and documents found in Italian archives by the Italian historian Davide Conti,^[11] pointed out that the memory of the existence of the Italian concentration camps and Italian war crimes committed during the Spanish Civil War had been repressed due to the Cold War.

The British and American governments, fearful of the post-war Italian Communist Party, effectively undermined the quest for justice by tolerating the efforts made by Italy's top authorities to prevent any of the alleged Italian war criminals from being extradited and taken to court

A number of suspects, known to be on the list of Italian war criminals that Yugoslavia, Greece and Ethiopia requested an extradition of, at the end of World War II never saw anything like the Nuremberg trial, because with the beginning of the Cold War, the British government saw in Pietro Badoglio, who was also on the list, a guarantee of an anti-communist post-war Italy.^[12]

<sup>[10][13][14]


A bit of "belittling"


All political and it stinks</sup>