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Ukraine – Iovi Snubs Bovi – Huffy Bovi Moos Back
From hero to zero:
DAVOS, Switzerland — Ukrainian leaders made no secret of wanting to meet with Chinese officials in Switzerland this week but President Volodymyr Zelenskyy has headed home without the desired encounter in a blow to Kyiv.
China’s delegation in Switzerland had ample opportunity to sit across from their Ukrainian counterparts, whether in Bern or at the World Economic Forum in Davos. Any meeting would have satisfied a long-standing hope in Kyiv to hold frank, in-person discussions with senior officials from Beijing. Just before a multi-nation peace summit in the Swiss Alps, Ukraine’s presidential chief of staff Andriy Yermak said it was imperative for China to join peace talks and hinted that Zelenskyy would have an opportunity to chat with Chinese Premier Li Qiang.
In the end, Ukraine made no headway on getting China to commit to negotiations, and Zelenskyy and Li failed to speak.
Ukrainian President Vladimir Zelensky claimed on Wednesday that he had not actually sought to meet Chinese Premier Li Qiang at the World Economic Forum (WEF) gathering in Davos this week. The remarks come amid media reports that China’s top official shot down Zelensky’s request for a meeting at the event.
The Premier is not the person calling the shots in China, Zelensky asserted, suggesting Li was not a high enough official to be worth meeting altogether.
“There is a Chinese Premier – then our prime minister will meet with him. I would love to meet with the leader of China. As far as I know, [in China] Xi Jinping makes decisions, and in Ukraine, I make decisions. I don’t need just any dialogues; I need important decisions from the leaders who make these decisions,” Zelensky stated.
The snub from Zelensky comes amid media reports suggesting the Ukrainian president actually wanted to meet Li at the forum, but the request was shot down by the Chinese side. Thus far, Beijing has not commented on the prospect of any high-profile meetings with the Ukrainian leadership or responded to Zelensky’s remarks.
The shameful (for Zelenski) episode is only a part of the bigger picture:
As perceptions of the war have evolved, so has the image of Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky. Until recently, it was almost impossible to imagine any article criticizing Zelensky, whose face graced the front covers of the world’s biggest magazines and newspapers.
…
As the Ukrainian war increasingly becomes seen as a small, peripheral war, however, the world’s view of Zelensky has also changed. He’s still a hero, just a distant one: someone else’s hero.
The power of the Zelensky effect has also weakened. When the leader of a country under attack leaves to give a speech to a foreign parliament—still wearing military fatigues—he gets a standing ovation and promises of support. The second, third, and fourth time he does it, the effect is not the same.
In addition, political heroism has another, more dangerous dimension. From being a hero and savior, Zelensky risks becoming the man who ordered others to their deaths. The mobilization that helped Ukraine to survive in 2022, and even allowed it to retake territory, is now seen by some as the reason they lost their loved ones.
Now the reduction in the intensity of hostilities in Ukraine is weakening the arguments of those calling for a big push to achieve peace. Instead, the aggression seems to be ending of its own accord.
Russia MOD report from https://t.me/s/ZandVchannel
🇷🇺 Russian Defence Ministry report on the progress of the special military operation
(18 January 2024)
Part I
The Armed Forces of the Russian Federation continue the special military operation.
▫️ In Kupyansk direction, units of the Zapad Group of Forces supported by aviation and artillery repelled six attacks launched by assault groups of AFU 32nd, 60th mechanised, 95th airborne brigades near Sinkovka (Kharkov region) and Terni (Donetsk People’s Republic).
The enemy lost up to 155 Ukrainian troops, two tanks, three armoured fighting vehicles, two motor vehicles, and one Gvozdika self-propelled artillery system.
▫️ In Krasny Liman direction, units of the Tsentr Group of Forces supported by aviation and artillery repelled three attacks launched by AFU 63rd mechanised, 25th airborne, and 5th National Guard brigades close to Chervonaya Dibrova (Lugansk People’s Republic), Yampolovka and Grigorovka (Donetsk People’s Republic).
The enemy losses amounted to more than 220 Ukrainian troops, six armoured fighting vehicles, including one Bradley infantry fighting vehicle, four motor vehicles, one U.S.-made M777 howitzer, one Gvozdika self-propelled artillery system, one U.S.-made M119 howitzer, and one electronic warfare station.
▫️ In Donetsk direction, units of the Yug Group of Forces liberated Veseloye (Donetsk People’s Republic). Air strikes, artillery, and heavy flamethrower systems fire defeated manpower and hardware of AFU 22nd, 42nd, 93rd mechanised brigades close to Kleshcheyevka and Andreyevka (Donetsk People’s Republic).
Up to 260 Ukrainian troops, one tank, two infantry fighting vehicles, and 17 motor vehicles have been neutralised. In the course of counter-battery warfare, three U.S.-made M777 artillery systems, U.S.-made Paladin self-propelled artillery systems, Gvozdika self-propelled artillery systems, as well as one D-30 howitzer were destroyed.
▫️ In South Donetsk direction, units of the Vostok Group of Forces supported by aviation and artillery repelled one attack launched of the AFU 79th Air Assault Brigade’s assault groups near Novomikhailovka (Donetsk People’s Republic).
In addition, strikes were delivered at units of AFU 72nd mechanised, 128th Territorial Defence brigades close to Vodyanoye (Donetsk People’s Republic). The enemy losses amounted to more than 130 Ukrainian troops, two motor vehicles, two UK-made FH-70 howitzers, and one Polish-made Krab self-propelled artillery system.
▫️ In Zaporozhye direction, units of the Russian Group of Forces hit manpower and hardware of AFU 33rd mechanised, 82nd air assault, 128th mountain assault brigades near Rabotino, Malaya Tokmachka, and Zherebyanka (Zaporozhye region). The enemy losses amounted to up to 30 Ukrainian troops, one tank, three motor vehicles, one D-20 and one D-30 howitzers.
◽️ In Kherson direction, up to 65 Ukrainian troops, three tanks, and five motor vehicles have been neutralised by fire. In the course of counter-battery warfare, the Russian troops hit one U.S.-made M777 artillery system, one Giatsint-B, one Msta-B, and one D-20 howitzers, as well as one Gvozdika self-propelled artillery system.
51 viewsТатьяна Н.,
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Z and V
⚡️🇷🇺 Russian Defence Ministry report on the progress of the special military operation
(18 January 2024)
Part II
▫️Missile Troops and Artillery, as well as UAVs of the Russian Group of Forces have engaged two temporary deployment areas of foreign mercenaries, four missile and ammunition depots, 117 AFU artillery units at their fire positions, manpower, and military hardware in 133 areas during the day.
▫️Russian air defence forces have intercepted two Tochka-U tactical missiles, one U.S.-made JDAM guided bomb, as well as 18 U.S.-made HIMARS and Czech-made Vampire MLRS projectiles during the day.
In addition, 91 Ukrainian unmanned aerial vehicles were shot down close to Tavolzhanka, Kupyansk, Mirnoye (Kharkov region), Belogorovka, Svatovo, Lisichansk (Lugansk People’s Republic), Verkhetoretskoye, Peski, Novaya Kakhovka, Chongar, and Chaplinka (Kherson region).
▫️ In total, 567 airplanes and 265 helicopters, 10,870 unmanned aerial vehicles, 450 air defence missile systems, 14,676 tanks and other armoured fighting vehicles, 1,202 combat vehicles equipped with MLRS, 7,779 field artillery cannons and mortars, as well as 17,593 units of special military equipment have been destroyed during the special military operation.
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Posted by: ctiger | Jan 18 2024 18:15 utc | 63
A look at the Ukraine’s prospects and expectations by Dmitri Kovalevich (the special correspondent in Ukraine for Al Mayadeen English.)
“…..Soldiers in Ukraine’s Marines service recounted to the Washington Post recently that they are being “tossed like pieces of meat to the wolves” along the front lines of the conflict. They describe the very harsh efforts ordered by their superiors in December to reclaim some slivers of territory lost in the Kherson region last year on the opposite side of the Dnieper River. “We bear many losses. We simply lose people, but there is no result”, says a 22-year-old marine named Dmytro……
“….Ukrainian Foreign Minister Dmytro Kuleba is confident that the aid will not stop because it is “an investment in defense of NATO and also in defense of the prosperity of the American people”. In other words, the 30,000 people being killed or seriously injured each month on the Ukraine side are an investment in the prosperity of the United States, not of Ukraine. Indeed, under the current circumstances, Ukraine is running the risk of further, serious depopulation. There has been no census conducted in Ukraine since 2001, a situation resembling Sudan and or Somalia, two countries which the UN has been urging for decades to conduct a census in their respective countries….
“…While the Ukrainian authorities claim almost every day in their statements to the West that they are fighting for the United States, for NATO and for Europe, those on the Russian side appeal to the Soviet legacy of fighting Nazism and big-power domination. These sentiments on the Russian side are sharply intensifying. In late 2023, Russian sociologist Maria Matskevich of the Institute of Sociology of the Russian Academy of Sciences, wrote a report in the printed magazine Polity, issue #4 in 2023. She cites stunning data, according to the Russian blogger ‘Tolkovatel’: “Thus, in 2022-2023, the desire to live in a socialist rather than capitalist society has risen sharply [in Russia]. While in 2020, sympathies for socialism and capitalism were about equal (26% and 21%, respectively), by mid-2022, 48% chose socialism and only 12% capitalism. In 2023, this ratio is already 48% vs. 5%.”
“By contrast, in Ukraine there are constant appeals by the government and its supporters to the legacy of the Nazi collaborators of the World War II era of the Organization of Ukrainian Nationalists/Ukrainian Insurgent Army….”
“…On January 1, Ukraine launched the second stage of a land reform that has been long demanded by the International Monetary Fund and other Western creditors as a condition for financial assistance to the country. Beginning in 2024, legal entities (companies) can buy agricultural land. Previously, only individuals could do so. As well, the size of a plot that can be purchased has risen to 10,000 hectares (100 square kilometers).
“Ukrainian farmers will return from the front only to find that the country has run out of land for them,” warns the Ukrainian Telegram channel ‘Minister of retirement’. It warns that as a consequence, as occurred 100-plus years ago, farmers along the front lines may “stick their bayonets into the ground” and return home to fight for their land.
“In Ukraine, most agricultural land has been bought up by Western agricultural holdings through frontmen, as the Oakland Institute explains in its research report issued in early 2023, titled ‘War and Theft: The takeover of Ukraine’s agricultural land’. Now such land acquisition can be done openly and legally. In early January, major American billionaire Warren Buffett announced that he plans to build logistics hubs in Ukraine’s Transcarpathia region for grain transshipments. Thus we see that farmers in Europe’s poorest country, Ukraine, have no money to buy the land that until recently they managed and owned collectively or individually, as inherited from Soviet Ukraine and the USSR. Ukrainians are now dying in a war for control of land whose ownership is being bought up by large agricultural interests in the West.
“In general, the continuation of the conflict in Ukraine driven by the interests of foreign (Western) capital threatens to leave the country not only without a viable population but also without land for its people to work and with which to prosper….”
https://socialistincanada.ca/ukraine-in-2024-prospects-and-expectations/
Posted by: bevin | Jan 18 2024 22:28 utc | 82
@ Posted by: Micron | Jan 18 2024 21:53 utc | 78
You doubt Macron the little sun king and his gayest palace bum chums having been in this from the very beginning? Just as the Natzios have? It’s been the goal of every fucking European empire to take Russia often with mercenaries, in fact mostly with proxies who are just deluded underpaid canon fodder for CENTURIES.
HERE – have a bit of Victops latest posts :
‘Hello Macron. The Russian Ministry of Defense announced a high-precision strike on January 16 against the temporary deployment point of foreign fighters in Kharkov, the core of which were French mercenaries.
As a result of the strike, the building in which the mercenaries were stationed was completely destroyed. More than 60 militants were killed, over 20 were taken to medical institutions.
The French Ambassador was summoned to the Russian Foreign Ministry after the destruction of the location of foreign fighters in Kharkov, among whom were French, the official representative of the Foreign Ministry of Zakharov told RIA Novosti
https://t.me/rian_ru/228238
https://t.me/vicktop55/20379
France is carrying out military intervention on the side of Ukraine, if there were indeed French officers in the mercenary deployment destroyed in Kharkov.
Former French Air Force Colonel Regis Chamagne spoke about this on RT. He did not rule out the presence of French intelligence services on Ukrainian territory. If their presence there is confirmed, then all the pseudo-diplomatic positions of Paris will lose their force, Chamagne emphasized.
Earlier it became known that after the strike by the Russian Armed Forces, many foreigners who spoke French were admitted to Kharkov hospitals.
t.me/rt_russian/186681
https://t.me/vicktop55/20381
How Macron is at war with Russia. France in 2022 tried to convince its military with certain specialties to leave the army and go to Ukraine for a year with high salaries.
Military journalist and historian Laurent Briard spoke about this on RT, citing his source.
According to him, in addition to mercenaries, Paris sent “invisible” soldiers to Ukraine who were not present on the battlefield. Their exact number is unknown, as the information is “extremely confidential.”
“We know, for example, that during the preparation of the famous offensive in the fall of 2023, which, by the way, failed, soldiers of the French Foreign Legion most likely participated in reconnaissance operations on the Dnieper River,” he added.
The journalist is confident that it was the French instructors who taught the Ukrainian Armed Forces how to use CAESAR artillery mounts. In addition, according to him, in Ukraine there was also the 13th Parachute Dragoon Regiment of France, that is, scouts.
https://t.me/vicktop55/20387
I just wrote that NATO is still planning a full-scale war with Russia, and now Elena Panina, director of the Institute of International Strategic Studies, writes:
“An important article by political scientist Alexei Zhivov, “The Great War, the tactics of bloodshed and Krynki.” What’s going on around SMO and why?” completely fits into the logic of our two posts dated January 16.
The first talks about how NATO plans to initiate a direct military conflict with Russia by the summer of 2025, regardless of the successes or failures of the Armed Forces of Ukraine. The second emphasizes that the Global West is not going to conduct any negotiations with us and will not make any compromises. On the contrary, he is preparing an ultimatum for Moscow demanding surrender.
It is this logic that explains the seemingly absurd behavior of Kyiv, which is losing thousands of Ukrainian Armed Forces soldiers in hopeless attacks on Krynki and along the entire front. As Zhivov correctly writes, the fate of Ukraine, doomed to destruction, is not of interest to its Western masters: its entire meaning has been reduced to the maximum bleeding of manpower and equipment of the RF Armed Forces. In fact, what is happening today on the banks of the Dnieper is a preliminary stage in the West’s preparation for an attack on Russia.”
https://t.me/EvPanina/12486
https://t.me/vicktop55/20386 ‘
Plus ça change, plus c’est la même chose. As Jean-Baptiste Alphonse Karr (November 24, 1808 – September 29, 1890) was a French critic, journalist and novelist wrote nearly two centuries ago.
Convinced yet?
Posted by: DunGroanin | Jan 18 2024 23:41 utc | 87
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