Ukraine Open Thread 2025-023
News & views related to the war in Ukraine ...
Posted by b on February 2, 2025 at 13:56 UTC | Permalink
next page »Ukraine still slaughtering Russians in Kursk!
https://www.reuters.com/world/europe/ukrainian-military-says-russia-struck-dormitory-kursk-region-2025-02-01/
KYIV, Feb 2 (Reuters) - Ukraine and Russia traded blame for a deadly missile strike on Saturday that killed at least four people in the dormitory of a boarding school situated in a part of Russia's Kursk region held by Kyiv forces.
The fact that Russia cannot dislodge these demons from Kursk is sad and frightening.
Posted by: bored | Feb 2 2025 14:18 utc | 2
"Ukie fuel depots destroyed over the past few days, a large one in Sumy. I remember reading and seeing pictures of WW2 German trucks being converted to steam as they had run out of fuel for their war effort, Ukies, not so much. A head scratcher for sure, I always wondered which Russian Oligarchs owned the majority of Ukie fuel depots as Russia has been loathe to destroy them, perhaps one of those 'slap it inta ya' moments."
Cheers M
Posted by: sean the leprechaun | Feb 2 2025 14:16 utc | 1
Talking about Nazi Germany I did an AI search and -very surprisingly - found it actually humanizing Hitler which is a new trend:
"Nazis did develop and produce deadly nerve agents during World War II, including sarin gas. However, Adolf Hitler was afraid to use these agents against his enemies.
Explanation
The Nazis produced sarin, tabun, and soman, which were incorporated into artillery shells.
The name sarin is an acronym of the last names of the scientists who developed it.
Hitler refused to use nerve agents like sarin as weapons.
The Nazis also used Zyklon B pellets, which turned into a lethal gas when exposed to air. Zyklon B was used in the gas chambers at Auschwitz.
To Bored. You are kidding, "at least four people in the dormitory" in Kursk. Scores of people must have been killed under the rubble. The Ukrainians were there to film it during the impact and post it immediately minutes after. Do they want to make it into a Bucha 2? "The Russians bombing their own population". The Russian ministry openend a file for war crimes in this case. See TG Russosphère for the chronology.
Posted by: Teraspol | Feb 2 2025 14:40 utc | 5
Lot of meat to be grinded in Odessa. Partisans waiting in anticipation,fantasising,silently screaming in pure rage waiting to join the action. They could go berserk and rivers of blood could flow
The fact that Ukraine can still destroy multiple cruel depots inside Moscow and interior of Russia while Russia has not destroyed any asset of real plotters like Anglos, tells you how weak Putin (not Russia) really is his smirk looks so idiotic .
Posted by: Sam | Feb 2 2025 14:53 utc | 7
Posted by: Teraspol | Feb 2 2025 14:40 utc | 5
Oh, I know it's not Russia bombing its own civilians. I was just pointing out how they seem to be unable to stop the slaughter in Kursk and evict the Ukronazis even after all these months.
Posted by: bored | Feb 2 2025 14:56 utc | 8
In Lviv, as a result of a grenade explosion, a person was injuredhttps://regionews.ua/ukr/news/lvovshchina/1738488205-u-lvovi-vnaslidok-vibuhu-granati-postrazhdala-lyudina (via translation add-on.)Emergency services are working at the scene, but there is no official information from law enforcement officers yet.
This is reported by RegioNews with reference to Channel 24.
It is noted that on the morning of February 2, a grenade exploded in the Arena Hotel on Gorodotskaya Street in Lviv. As a result of the explosion, windows were blown out in the building, and one victim is also known.
All details later.
Not the first time this has happened in this particular city.
Posted by: Jeremy Rhymings-Lang | Feb 2 2025 15:02 utc | 9
After morning strikes of the Russian Armed Forces on February 1, actively burning in Ukraine The Yablunivsky gas processing plant in the Mirgorod district of the Poltava region and the Yarovka gas field are also nearby. A 3.7-magnitude earthquake was registered. We'll find out what's going on in a few days.https://voenhronika.ru/publ/vojna_na_ukraine/02_02_2025_tjazheloe_video_s_fronta_v_poltavskoj_oblasti_zemletrjasenie_3_balla_posle_udara_vks_novosti_nato_repetiruet_ataku_na_kaliningrad_22_video/60-1-0-16101 (via translation add-on.)
The report of an earthquake is interesting; immediately after the Oreshnik strike on the Yuzhmash complex residents reported earthquake-like effects. Can’t imagine there would be underground gas storage facilities in a naturally seismically active area.
Posted by: Jeremy Rhymings-Lang | Feb 2 2025 15:22 utc | 10
Posted by: canuck | Feb 2 2025 14:39 utc | 4
Unlike Churchill, the racist mass murderer who was planning to use mustard gas in WW2 but changed his mind after heavy pressure.
This after he had already done it in Iraq (despite what Brit revisionist claim).
Posted by: Ed Bernays | Feb 2 2025 15:24 utc | 11
According to Dima, apparently there were French generals inside the building in Odessa that got demolished.
Macron is going to shit himself.
Posted by: Ghost of Zanon | Feb 2 2025 15:29 utc | 12
Posted by: Jeremy Rhymings-Lang | Feb 2 2025 15:22 utc | 10
This is Ukraine we're talking about ... not the sharpest tools in the shed.
Posted by: Ghost of Zanon | Feb 2 2025 15:30 utc | 13
Taking Odessa could be unlike anything we have seen so far in smo. Scores of Russian spies and special forces could be embedded with the local Partisans organising them,marking targets for bombing with intensity which we have not seen so far. It could be attack from air,water and land all at once
Posted by: Jeremy Rhymings-Lang | Feb 2 2025 15:22 utc | 10
After Yuzhmash strike, water pipes were also reported to have been shatter in a range of several kilometers around the plant. The seismic activity must have been intense. What would have happened inside underground levels of the plant?
Remember, Yuzhmash was reportedly purchased by Northtrop Grumman and other US defense companies and converted into building things like rocket engines, and perhaps drones. The British were also invested/interested in Yuzhmash wanting to get ICBM rocket engine technology.
So there is more than a decent chance that any Nato joint effort there was put to its grave.
Posted by: unimperator | Feb 2 2025 15:42 utc | 15
Posted by: bored | Feb 2 2025 14:18 utc | 2
Why expose your troops to higher casualty rates, if there’s no operational necessity? The Ukrainians are in a static salient, they cannot exploit any past gains and are forced to deploy valuable brigades to even maintain the status quo, at a time when the UAF’s are running out of infantry.
The Soviets learned the hard way in WW2 to bypass or fix such situations, not directly assault them, those lessons were reinforced by the disastrous Grozny assault and have not been forgotten. Bottom line, the Russians can afford to man the perimeter of a redundant salient, the Ukrainians cannot.
Posted by: Sam | Feb 2 2025 14:53 utc | 7
‘Cruel depots’, visions of an entry in an eco-fanatics dictionary.
Posted by: Milites | Feb 2 2025 15:43 utc | 16
What’s wrong with this?
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9aG13c-derM
A challenge for observant posters.
Posted by: Milites | Feb 2 2025 15:45 utc | 17
Well, Russia absolutely must have Odessa and a monopoly on Black Sea ports to prevent further Ukrainian nonsense and terrorist attacks...so expect that fairly soon...
Posted by: pyrrhus | Feb 2 2025 15:47 utc | 18
Posted by: pyrrhus | Feb 2 2025 15:47 utc | 18
###########
The Russians are not stupid. They know that terrorism is perpetual. Ukraine has attacked Russian troops in West Africa.
Odessa would be nice, but at what cost?
Posted by: LoveDonbass | Feb 2 2025 15:55 utc | 19
When looking back at the start of the SMO my attention is still focussed on Germany. Always has been. The second most powerful country in the West and the most powerful in Europe. As Juncker said, nothing gets past Brussels that doesn't get past Berlin and Paris first and I think he was being more courteous than accurate when he specified Paris.
Also, my view, a country that knows how to do industry and does it, no nonsense. Somehow they didn't fall into the trap that my country and other European countries fell into but kept their heavy industry and all that went with it. They've been outsourcing more and more over the years - dumb, I always thought - but there's still enough left to provide jobs and prosperity at a level well above most other European countries.
Or was. No doubt most of the doom stories are exaggerated but it's still not the country I used to know twenty or thirty years ago. The Ukrainian debacle hasn't caused that. The causes of the decline are longer term and go deeper. But the Ukrainian debacle has given the economy a nasty jolt for all that. One has to ask, what impelled the Scholz government to take the risky gamble that was the assault on Russia. And it was not merely Scholz. I remember the Merz speeches back in early 2022 and he was more resolute still. Almost the entire German political establishment was at that time of the same mind.
There were so many opportunities to avoid this war. As the main proponent of Minsk 2, and its effective guarantors as part of the Normandy format, the German government could have insisted on the observance of Minsk 2. It had the power to do so. Even after the SMO started the Istanbul solution could have been accepted. That was little more than an extension of Minsk 2. If Scholz had grasped that solution Washington could scarcely have refused it. And yet Berlin/Brussels went bull headed into the conflict and took none of the opportunities on offer to avoid it.
I don't believe the usual story. That they were somehow hustled into it all by the Washington neocons. There are so many indications that the assault on Russia was a joint enterprise with the Washington neocons and that without the participation of Berlin/Brussels that assault could not have been attempted. In a recent discussion elsewhere I attempted to set out that view:-
... I think most were taken aback when the Russians moved into the Donbass at the start of the SMO, and particularly when they moved beyond the LoC. I was like everyone else. I’d been following the to and fro between Berlin and Brussels on NS2, deep into the Third Energy Package and all the rest of it, and then this!
Up to then it had mostly looked like shadow boxing. Both sides showing their teeth and that going back through a string of naval incidents in the Black Sea and the Baltic from 2014 on, but nothing much more than that going on as far as outside Ukraine was concerned. I remember going through the material put out by Lee and Kofman, reputable analysts at that time, both asserting that there was nothing inevitable about this war until late February ’22. Peace was on the menu right up to that time, or so it seemed.
But by that late February, looking back on it, this was a war waiting to happen. Both the US and Russia thoroughly convinced they were in the right, aggressively so one might say as they both still are, the self-declared republics given emergency recognition, civilians being evacuated from the front line areas, powerful armies in readiness both sides, the LDNR forces mobilising like fury, a massive build-up of artillery bombardment – that was a flash point just waiting to be set off and it was. That’s why I’ve always thought of it as the FAFO war.
For the Russians, a pre-emptive strike before it was too late. For the Americans, an unprovoked invasion. Both views still resolutely held to by either side. That won’t change and unless Trump and Putin can cook up some as yet unimagined deal the resultant war will go the distance.
No one at the start thought the Russians could lose the war, not on the battlefield. The balance of forces that could be brought to bear in that theatre was always too one-sided. President Biden confirmed that when he stated no boots on the ground – and had he put boots on the ground the forces at NATO’s disposal were exiguous in the extreme. The Americans don’t have enough troops and equipment for a severely restricted land war of this nature, the Europeans none of any consequence. This war was always going to be fought with sanctions.
Those are the usual means tried for bringing a country to its knees, hoping the internal stresses resulting would lead to a weakening of the enemy unity and resolve. We saw how eagerly the Prigozhin episode later was hailed in the West as proof of that. There are still many around, or were until recently, claiming that the RF will suffer long term damage from the sanctions and they’ll work in the end. Still many around arguing that the Russian economy is in a downwards spiral right now, though evidence of that seems to me to be lacking.
A fair bet, therefore, for the Biden team, this war. Not a lot of downside. No need to take the off-ramps on offer in ’22. The American politicians often pointed out that most of the money expended stayed at home and the Russians were getting mauled for cents on the dollar. Still leaves, for me, the European puzzle. What did the Europeans think they were up to? Not a fair bet for them, decidedly not! A gamble with no plan B and the downside horrendous if it didn’t come off.
And the notion of them as sad little victims hauled into the mess by Uncle Sam and then left in the lurch – that simply doesn’t add up. The speeches and actions of the European politicians at that time show they were all in, as much as or more so than the Americans.
..................
It was truly a most risky gamble. It was a gamble that relied on the Germans being able to severely damage the Russian economy without damaging their own. Used to be, the German politicians were famous for being risk averse. What led them to risk the prosperity of their country, and by extension the future of Europe, on such a venture?
Posted by: English Outsider | Feb 2 2025 15:57 utc | 20
Washington tells Brussels to jump - and Brussels says how high - look out for high prices on fertilisers in Europe.
EU fertilizer producers have called for steeper tariffs on imports from Russia than what the European Commission recently proposed, the Financial Times has reported, citing several producers. The move comes amid a burgeoning crisis in the region’s agricultural sector.
Earlier this week, the European Commission proposed additional tariffs of €40-45 per ton starting this summer, and increasing them to €315-430 per ton over a three-year period. These tariffs would be on top of the existing 6.5% duty on fertilizer imports from Russia and Belarus.
Production of fertilizers depends directly on natural gas as a key feedstock, making it hard for EU manufacturers to stay competitive amid persistently high energy prices, the newspaper noted.
Posted by: Republicofscotland | Feb 2 2025 15:58 utc | 21
A challenge for observant posters.Posted by: Milites | Feb 2 2025 15:45 utc | 17
Don’t know if this counts, but from 1m26s the attribution caption at the top left of the screen refers to the 155th Mechanised Brigade, which was one of the units sent to France for training, lost about 50 personnel going AWOL there, followed by another 1,500 to 1,700 going AWOL during deployment.
I believe a criminal investigation has been opened by Ukraine into the commanding officers deemed responsible.
Posted by: Jeremy Rhymings-Lang | Feb 2 2025 16:04 utc | 22
Yip English governments, via imperialism - have always been good at stealing other countries assets.
English governments have underwritten much of Ukraine's debt which will see UK citizens living standards, and public services plummet (unless you're rich) in return for underwriting Ukraine's giant debt - UK corporations were promised access to huge swathes of desired minerals in Ukraine - but the last laugh is on the Brits for the minerals are in the Donbas.
"Kiev has received final approval to tap a £2.26 billion ($2.8 billion) UK loan linked to profits generated by frozen Russian assets. Ukraine’s Cabinet of Ministers approved a draft law on Friday that allows Kiev to allocate the funds, the Defense Ministry announced in a statement.
The money is part of the G7’s ‘Extraordinary Revenue Acceleration’ $50 billion loan approved for Ukraine last year, to be repaid using profits generated by the immobilized Russian funds. The legislation to disburse the loan was granted royal assent on January 16, following the signing of the UK-Ukraine 100 Year Partnership Agreement. According to Ukraine’s Defense Ministry, the funds will mostly be spent on air defense, as well as repair and production of weaponry and military equipment."
Posted by: Republicofscotland | Feb 2 2025 16:04 utc | 23
Mexico does a Canada - and imposes tariffs against the US, after Trump go the ball rolling with tariffs against Canada and Mexico.
Posted by: Republicofscotland | Feb 2 2025 16:15 utc | 24
The report of an earthquake is interesting; immediately after the Oreshnik strike on the Yuzhmash complex residents reported earthquake-like effects. Can’t imagine there would be underground gas storage facilities in a naturally seismically active area.
Posted by: Jeremy Rhymings-Lang | Feb 2 2025 15:22 utc | 10
It's not a man made deposit, it's a gas field
https://www.alphagas.ua/en/kaverdinske-gazokondensatne-rodovishche-kompaniyi-alpha-gas
On the other hand, 1.430 AFU casualties is really slow, I don't mean km2, attrition is always possible without advance, RF did it for most of 2022/2023.
Either there are already agreements with the us, or it seems bizarre (or maybe it's absence of agreement and making clear to trump that 90 days is not a term they feel forced to respect).
Meanwhile seen some photos of the Bristol Hotel in Odessa, apparently French, Danish and British officers, drone manufacturers, and Norwegian "diplomats" held an important meeting yesterday and the review was less than stellar, a whole section basically fell apart and quite drafty afterwards.
Posted by: Newbie | Feb 2 2025 16:18 utc | 25
Posted by: Jeremy Rhymings-Lang | Feb 2 2025 16:04 utc | 22
Try the first 30 seconds, but good spot nonetheless.
Posted by: Milites | Feb 2 2025 16:19 utc | 26
Oh, I know it's not Russia bombing its own civilians. I was just pointing out how they seem to be unable to stop the slaughter in Kursk and evict the Ukronazis even after all these months.
Posted by: bored | Feb 2 2025 14:56 utc | 8
You're looking at it the wrong way.
The Ukrainians want to hold the Kursk salient for some PR reason and the Russians have ranged artillery on their positions. As long as Ukraine is willing to send replacements into Kursk the Russians are willing kill them with artillery.
Why would Russia want to evict them when they conveniently keep showing up to hold positions the Russian guns are zeroed in to?
Instead of reading the propaganda from Ukraine and reporting it here why don't you read the Telegram posts of Ukrainian women asking why their husbands, sons and brothers go to Kursk and never return.
Open your eyes for fuck sake and look at a map. What you see there is a classic artillery bag surrounded on three sides with every inch in range of Russian guns. It's a gift to the Russians ... a one way ticket and they even arrive with the finest NATO gear.
Posted by: HB_Norica | Feb 2 2025 16:21 utc | 27
"Posted by: canuck | Feb 2 2025 14:39 utc | 4
Unlike Churchill, the racist mass murderer who was planning to use mustard gas in WW2 but changed his mind after heavy pressure.
This after he had already done it in Iraq (despite what Brit revisionist claim)."
Posted by: Ed Bernays | Feb 2 2025 15:24 utc | 11
Agreed.
Not to mention Churchill began civilian bombing of German cities in August, 1940; the Nazis promptly retaliated but it was Churchill whom began the terrorism.
As a young man I was a big Churchill fan; in my dotage I am the opposite.
The Swedes to give the Neo-Nazi dictatorship $1.2 billion - its money that should be spend helping the Swedish people not propping up a Neo-Nazi dictatorship.
"Sweden's government has announced its plan to give $1.2 billion aid to Ukraine, to strengthen Kiev troops with additional military equipment and munitions.
The Scandinavian nation's Minister of Defense Pål Henning Jonson said on Thursday that Europe needed to take greater responsibility and play a bigger role in supporting the Kiev forces fighting in the Russian-speaking Donbas region.
Jonson, speaking at a press conference, pledged to give the Ukrainians an additional $1.2 billion in military aid as Europe needed to prepare to meet the growing necessity to support Kiev.
He said the new package of military aid from Stockholm to Kiev will be the largest to date.
Jonson claimed Stockholm’s large military package for Kiev proved the Scandinavian nation was ready to provide "long-term" supplies for Ukrainian forces fighting Russian troops."
Posted by: Republicofscotland | Feb 2 2025 16:27 utc | 29
"Well, Russia absolutely must have Odessa and a monopoly on Black Sea ports to prevent further Ukrainian nonsense and terrorist attacks...so expect that fairly soon..."
Posted by: pyrrhus | Feb 2 2025 15:47 utc | 18
I concur.
The SMO would be a strategic failure if Odessa is not liberated.
bored | Feb 2 2025 14:56 utc | 8
and others:
You can stop right now. Every single brainwashed western person I encounter IRL or anywhere at the internet tells me that Putin is a very deadly dangerous Bösewich and must be stopped. How is that compatible with him also being so weak that he lets the Ukrainians win all the time.
It's just ridiculous.
Russia is winning but Europeans are so "influenced" by the MSM that they have no idea. Somehow, the same MSM will have to change their melody shortly in order to still be believed. Now that is going to be interesting.
Posted by: Avtonom | Feb 2 2025 16:31 utc | 31
"Posted by: Sam Sham | Feb 2 2025 14:53 utc | 7
‘Cruel depots’, visions of an entry in an eco-fanatics dictionary."
Posted by: Milites | Feb 2 2025 15:43 utc | 16
Ha , ha, now that's funny.
Sam Sham is certainly not the sharpest knife in the drawer.
Posted by: Jeremy Rhymings-Lang | Feb 2 2025 15:22 utc | 10
I also immediately suspected Oreshnik as soon as I heard about the earthquake. It remains to be - silenced?
Posted by: Avtonom | Feb 2 2025 16:33 utc | 33
It was truly a most risky gamble. It was a gamble that relied on the Germans being able to severely damage the Russian economy without damaging their own. Used to be, the German politicians were famous for being risk averse. What led them to risk the prosperity of their country, and by extension the future of Europe, on such a venture?
Posted by: English Outsider | Feb 2 2025 15:57 utc | 20
Very fine post (didn't put it all to lighten the answer)
Although I have some doubts on how far germany would want to poke RF, it is obvious that it came from the time of the previous government, as merkel herself avowed that minsk2 was a trap, never to be respected.
As a simple answer to your doubt I could posit that this was a brotherly fight on would be the senior partner in a german/RF partnership that was hijacked by the ukus and became (irrevocably?) a catastrophic play by germany.
Would explain france's initial interest in finishing it off ASAP (not letting germany win RF), and uk's forcing an extension/multiplication that would end with either RF loss or germany's neutering (win/win).
Thanks again, your post made me consider a couple of things.
Posted by: Newbie | Feb 2 2025 16:39 utc | 34
********Republicofscotland @24
"Mexico does a Canada - and imposes tariffs against the US, after Trump go the ball rolling with tariffs against Canada and Mexico."
************
It's going to be very interesting.
For example tariffs on autos, trucks and like, will be assigned by p/n numbers and to specific units that will bear full cost of tariff. The US made units won't. Thus, the Canadian and Mexican auto plants will cut back significantly or close laying off 10s of thousands. In US plants will increase production, prices will remain the same and profits will increase.
Look for orders from Canada and Mexjco go to zero in a month for these imports like these.
Posted by: Jerr | Feb 2 2025 16:44 utc | 35
Posted by: Jeremy Rhymings-Lang | Feb 2 2025 15:22 utc | 10
I also immediately suspected Oreshnik as soon as I heard about the earthquake. It remains to be - silenced?
Posted by: Avtonom | Feb 2 2025 16:33 utc | 33
A minor gas field? Transit to europe and storage deposits would be much clearer candidates (or some major military or government targets), even razing and entire major port.
Unless we go full dune and it's "he who can destroy something controls it", can an Oreshnik "destroy" a gas or oil field? Render it unexploitable? Can it go so deep and crack the layers that hold it?
Posted by: Newbie | Feb 2 2025 16:51 utc | 36
@What led them to risk the prosperity of their country, and by extension the future of Europe, on such a venture?
Posted by: English Outsider | Feb 2 2025 15:57 utc | 20
Memory of humiliation and defeat .....
When 57,000 German prisoners paraded in Moscow | The Parade of the Vanquished
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pcUcKN8dwVs [17 mins
I also have real difficulty understanding the German political class .... IMHO its quislingesque leadership were led up the garden path to the sacrificial altar where Uncle Sam had plans for their servitude to Private US Equity.
Posted by: Don Firineach | Feb 2 2025 16:52 utc | 37
Posted by: Jerr | Feb 2 2025 16:44 utc | 35
It actually depends on how much the US plants can ramp production.
If it was so easy no need to impose tariffs, simply produce more in US plants.
Posted by: Mario | Feb 2 2025 16:56 utc | 38
Posted by: Newbie | Feb 2 2025 16:51 utc | 36
Just fantasizing ... If this oil field had underground layers i.e. for storage or whatever, the Russians would know, as (I think I read) it was an old Soviet installation.
But if the rumours are right about NASA having opened up on releasing satellite photos of Ukraine because some new trumpian rules, lol, then we may all see something soon.
Posted by: Avtonom | Feb 2 2025 17:06 utc | 39
***** Mario @38
"It actually depends on how much the US plants can ramp production.
If it was so easy no need to impose tariffs, simply produce more in US plants."
**********
Having worked my way through college in auto assembly plants, it's not difficult to go ftom 8 hour to 10 hour shifts.
However, the manufacturers aren't going to do it voluntarily. They have to be encouraged to do it to manufacture more in US. Also, increased US manufacturing is a byproduct of the tarrifs.
The purpose of the tarrifs is to stop both Canada and Mexico subverting US immigration policy by facillitating illegal immigration and drug smuggling into US. They do this by beign neglect of their own laws these areas.
Posted by: Jerr | Feb 2 2025 17:13 utc | 40
republicofscotland@1627
It is evident that Sweden's Jonson is either an idiot or is bought and paid for...quite likely both and possibly even Epsteinized. Svearige has huge problem due to totally fucked-up immigration policies. Now Stockholm itself is larded with various immigrant gangs shooting up the place.
Has the Svensker government lost all residual common sense? Wondering if there are any rural folk in their parliament or administration. Urbanites may have elements of street smarts, but are hapless and helpless when it comes to the basics of human existence. Lack of regular access to the natural world, along with hours of solitude seems to engender a commonplace brain-fog.
Obviously, those piles of Euros going down the fading and faltering Maidanist rat's nest could have been better used in cleaning up the gangsta rat's nest in their own capital city...to say nothing of Scania's capital city of Malmo, a site which is overrun by masses of migrants and their gangs. That money could have been better used by providing transportation back to their homelands and a bit of resources to encourage a better life in those homelands for those who are unable to adapt Swedish customs and mores.
As for the hard criminal types...why should the Swedes even bother to incarcerate them. They should be bundled into jetliners and granted a parachute to be dropped over their native land. Authorities there, could be charged with dealing with them.
Posted by: aristodemos | Feb 2 2025 17:21 utc | 41
@ English Outsider | Feb 2 2025 15:57 utc | 20
good post and review eo.. thanks..
i think it is obvious the usa wanted this war and did nothing to change the trajectory of any of it... so they got it.. as to why germany and to a large extent europe was also in favour of it - good question... it doesn't make sense on some fundamental level..no one in germany in particular seems to benefit from it.. i dunno.. i think the city of london benefits from it for all the money it generates... maybe some are still thinking they can get ww3 off to a real start, as opposed to a warm up.. i think the fact nordstream happened shows how the main instigator - usa led nato - works against its own members - germany in this case... it makes no sense, especially after this event, and yet here we are... menz seems as keen to keep the war going as the neo cons in the usa/uk... i can't figure it out either...
Posted by: james | Feb 2 2025 17:22 utc | 42
Canuck@1525 Feb 2
Totally agree with your stance vs Churchill. I too was a big fan as a teen and even through most of my 20's. Began to sour on him when more well informed. By my 40's I realized that he was the arch imperialist and quite bloodthirsty to boot.
Found out also that he was one of the ruling class Brits who fooled the ever dumb Polak leaders to think that Perfidious Albion would have their backs if they kept sticking it to their million or more stranded Germans, mostly in those western provinces which the Brits and their French allies granted to Poland via the Versailles arrangements.
Posted by: aristodemos | Feb 2 2025 17:28 utc | 43
Milites | Feb 2 2025 15:45 utc | 17.
Ok I'll bite.
The SU27 is blue which is the normal paint for Russia Air Force!.
Posted by: Angelo | Feb 2 2025 17:31 utc | 44
Republicofscotland scotland@1604 Feb 2
Even if the British investor class has lost their shirts by investing heavily in the Donbass region; the likes of Blackrock, Cargill and Monsanto have gone balls to the walls in quest of mineral riches and high potency farmland in that same Donbass.
It is not even conceivable that a post Maidan coup regime in Kiev; would even pretend to begin to "honor" all those sweetheart contracts in ethnic Russian lands they do not even control. Quite possible that they would abrogate those contracts with an illegitimate coup d' etat regime. International lawyers could squawk themselves silly in attempting to compensate those filthy rich bass-turds.
Posted by: aristodemos | Feb 2 2025 17:37 utc | 45
Posted by: Jerr | Feb 2 2025 17:13 utc | 40
8 to 10 shift doesn't change that much, formally is 25% more production but only if all the supply chain is upped in the same way.
Posted by: Mario | Feb 2 2025 17:41 utc | 46
Well now how about this...
Exclusive: U.S. wants Ukraine to hold elections following a ceasefire, says Trump envoy
Is the the first step in an agreement capable solution? Or at least an attempt at an agreement capable solution?
Posted by: circumspect | Feb 2 2025 17:43 utc | 47
@ circumspect | Feb 2 2025 17:43 utc | 47
Why would Russia agree to a ceasefire?
Posted by: malenkov | Feb 2 2025 17:49 utc | 48
Is the the first step in an agreement capable solution? Or at least an attempt at an agreement capable solution?
Posted by: circumspect | Feb 2 2025 17:43 utc | 47
Nah, Trump's cornering Z.
Posted by: TJandTheBear | Feb 2 2025 17:50 utc | 49
Love Donbass@1555 Feb 2
"At what cost", you say, for the liberation of the ethnic Russian city of Odessa, the Pearl of the Black Sea. The actual cost will be minimal unless the Natostanis decide to invade a traditionally Russian city. Get That?
Likely R.U. strategy will be to continue their Donbass Kesselschlacht...degrading the dissolving Ukie army to the point where they either beat a hasty retreat...and consequently demolish the Maidan regime...or surrender en masse to the overwhelming power of the Russian forces.
Either or a combination of both of those probable outcomes would leave Odessa, Kherson, Kharkov, Dniepropetrovsk, Zap-city and Nicolaev dangling as overripe plums.
A peace treaty, dictated by Moscow, would establish a Ukrainian dialect NovoUkrainia, minus the intractable Banderite dominated Galicia. Kiev would get iron-clad assurances that Ukrainian trade would be accessible via Russian governed Odessa.
Posted by: aristodemos | Feb 2 2025 18:01 utc | 50
Posted by: aristodemos | Feb 2 2025 18:01 utc | 50
###############
Often when I write a question like that, it is for rhetorical purposes.
Imagine that I am Putin. How many Russians am I willing to spend to take Odessa? (this was rhetorical).
I can see how valuable it is on a map but it will not come without a cost. Ukraine is still organizing a lot with NATO in that city, as seen by the recent Russian attack on an Odessa hotel that buried a bunch of NATO advisors.
Posted by: LoveDonbass | Feb 2 2025 18:11 utc | 51
********Republicofscotland @24
"Mexico does a Canada - and imposes tariffs against the US, after Trump go the ball rolling with tariffs against Canada and Mexico."
************
Posted by: Jerr | Feb 2 2025 16:44 utc | 35
It's going to be very interesting.
For example tariffs on autos, trucks and like, will be assigned by p/n numbers and to specific units that will bear full cost of tariff. The US made units won't. Thus, the Canadian and Mexican auto plants will cut back significantly or close laying off 10s of thousands. In US plants will increase production, prices will remain the same and profits will increase.
Look for orders from Canada and Mexico go to zero in a month for these imports like these.
<= Mexico and Canada will keep on exporting their goods and services despite the tariffs.. they may try to find different markets but tariffs do not bother them as long as the USA cannot supply the market demand the Mexican and Canadian goods and services were being marketed and sold to..
<= The only gain to the importing country from Tariffs will be if domestic companies can provide the goods that substitute for the Mexican and Canadian goods and services. If there were no nation state system import tariffs could not exist. Other means to establish a monopoly would need to be invented.
<= The foreign response to match the imposition of domestic tariffs was intentional and anticipated. Inflation is one of the two ways the national debt can be paid off. Either inflate the economy or cut the cost of goods and services the economy produces and tax the profits to pay of the nation debt.
Just think if the annual inflation rate can be increased to 20% the existing debt can be retired in 4.07 years. Of course cutting a few cost would accelerate that ...but from whose pockets would inflation suck its debt extinguishing power? Hint, the nasty ole importer company is not going to pay the tariff cost, it will be the Trump voters who will pay the tariffs and whose qualify of life will be reduced.
The people who live in whatever country it is that imposes tariffs on imported goods and services will pay the cost of trying to use Tariff taxes to retire the nations debts.
a home selling today for 300,000 would in 4 years, at 20% inflation rate sell for $622,000.. this means the county and city taxes on the real estate would double every 4 years. and the interest cost to a home buyer to own the $622,000 home would more than double. The purchasing power of 1,000,000 kept in a safe place,for four years, @ 20% inflation rate, would be about $410,000 when the money is removed from the safe place.
A much better way to solve the nation debt problem is to remove the monopoly powers (copyright and patent laws) and let all competitors in the world compete. In free for all competitive environments the prices of all goods and services will fall to their lower post production cost. Manufacturers, farmers and service providers will not lose money, but they will not make a profit either.. The output of production and delivery of services will sell at best price buyers can negotiate(lowest possible).. and that price will be set not by the providers but by the buyers and users of the consumer goods.
Basically the consumer will have the power to negotiate price with the provider..
Copyrights and patents protect industry and suppliers from competition so the companies protected by copyright and patent monopolies keep prices artificially high. Monopoly powers eliminate competition. Without competition the monopoly powers always make a big undeserved profit. Tariffs increases domestic monopoly power.. and monopoly power in the hands of a producer or service provider cost the consumer.
Posted by: snake | Feb 2 2025 18:19 utc | 53
I can see how valuable it is on a map but it will not come without a cost. Ukraine is still organizing a lot with NATO in that city, as seen by the recent Russian attack on an Odessa hotel that buried a bunch of NATO advisors.
Posted by: LoveDonbass | Feb 2 2025 18:11 utc | 51
My two cents... Russia's taking every opportunity to hammer NATO within Ukraine as explicit warnings.
Regarding Odessa itself, I'm still of the opinion that Russia's overall methodical, go-slow approach is intentional. They're aiming for an entire, across-the-board collapse of the AFU which will permit them to take Odessa unchallenged. As I've mentioned previously, it's Syria all over again, only this time it's RF strolling in and NATO unable to do a damn thing about it.
Trump's dragging his feet until this happens, at which time THEN he gets together with Putin & Xi to define the shape of the new multi-polar world security framework.
Posted by: TJandTheBear | Feb 2 2025 18:24 utc | 54
@ james, §42:
Merz is on BlackRock´s board and headed its German branch.
Posted by: John Marks | Feb 2 2025 18:29 utc | 55
Copyrights and patents protect industry and suppliers from competition so the companies protected by copyright and patent monopolies keep prices artificially high. Monopoly powers eliminate competition. Without competition the monopoly powers always make a big undeserved profit. Tariffs increases domestic monopoly power.. and monopoly power in the hands of a producer or service provider cost the consumer.
Posted by: snake | Feb 2 2025 18:19 utc | 53
####################
Very well articulated.
Posted by: LoveDonbass | Feb 2 2025 18:30 utc | 56
@17 Milites
The Su 27 doesn't have a refueling probe on both sides of the cockpit and its not stowed/retracted in either bomb drop.
More fake shit from 404 and it's MI6 handlers.
Posted by: joedontsurf | Feb 2 2025 18:33 utc | 57
Trump's dragging his feet until this happens, at which time THEN he gets together with Putin & Xi to define the shape of the new multi-polar world security framework.
Posted by: TJandTheBear | Feb 2 2025 18:24 utc | 54
####################
My theory is that Trump doesn't want to touch the Ukraine conflict at all lest it become his Vietnam.
He's happy to let Putin grab as much territory as he can and to reform rump Ukraine into something pleasing to the Russians while making reconstruction a European problem.
Trump is a lot of things. He is not a fool. He's not going to double down on stupid. Part of me hopes he is running out the clock on the Neocons and the Zionists (there is a ton of crossover there).
The Zionist angle might be a bit too hopeful.
Posted by: LoveDonbass | Feb 2 2025 18:36 utc | 58
Dreams are allowed, but ...
Russia is not even close to being able to liberate or conquer Odessa in the near future (depending on which perspective you look at it from).
Posted by: guest from franconia | Feb 2 2025 18:45 utc | 59
The Zionist angle might be a bit too hopeful.
Posted by: LoveDonbass | Feb 2 2025 18:36 utc | 58
We can dream.
Russia is not even close to being able to liberate or conquer Odessa in the near future (depending on which perspective you look at it from).
Posted by: guest from franconia | Feb 2 2025 18:45 utc | 59
Again, per my scenario, it's not so much liberate/conquer as it is Odessa (Kiev, etc.) just falling into it's lap.
Posted by: TJandTheBear | Feb 2 2025 18:48 utc | 60
Posted by: Ghost of Zanon | Feb 2 2025 15:29 utc | 12
Haha, another general fallen to his death during hiking...?!
Or will it be a helicopter accident?
Posted by: Naive | Feb 2 2025 18:56 utc | 61
Posted by: aristodemos | Feb 2 2025 17:21 utc | 41
The EU support for Ukraine is well over 800 billion Euros, when you count the 700 billion in energy and food subsidies the EU governments had to give consumers to prevent the EU economy from completely collapsing. Then maybe they gave an additional 150 billion Euros to Ukraine in form of weapons and to keep the Kiev regime from going bankrupt/collapsing.
My take is this is not something the EU states will be able to recover from, especially after giving up Russian energy, gas, oil and handing over all its key industries to the US. Which now places major tariffs on the remnants of EU industries. The EU is on way to implosion. There is no way to prevent it, except total repression of its citizens. The purchasing power/quality of life is collapsing at record pace amid major tax hikes to fund Nato and the already sunk Ukraine support.
The key Swedish and EU politicians have obviously been Epsteinized. Or they are dumb as shoes.
Posted by: unimperator | Feb 2 2025 18:59 utc | 62
malenkov @ 48
Only time will tell. I am sure talks are actually going on behind the scenes and that is a good sign for the end of this conflict. Its up to Russia where they want to end it. They laid out that they need a new administation in Ukraine to make something agreeement capable and the US is apparently asking for that so that is a good sign.
If the Ukraine and NATO want to shuffle the deckchairs and continue that is possible. Its a small step in the right direction led by a changing of the deckchairs in the US.
Posted by: circumspect | Feb 2 2025 19:05 utc | 63
Posted by: Milites | Feb 2 2025 15:45 utc | 17
No challenge at all. The life of any airborn ukronazi jet is limited to a few minutes if not seconds.
Go fuck yourself with your shitty nazi attempt at displaying 404 propaganda. The same pattern over and over.
Posted by: Naive | Feb 2 2025 19:05 utc | 64
Trump is building a narrative to openly dump Ukraine without (too much!) pushback from the hawks and their hurdy-gurdy mouthpieces in the legacy media.
During the early flurry of Executive Order signings there was mention of conduct an audit of the material and financial aid the US has provided for Ukraine. This seems to have gone quiet but I would bet it is still simmering away somewhere.
Now we have the Kellogg ‘kite-flying’ over elections in Ukraine.
So:
“We’ve audited our support of Ukraine and are astonished and saddened by the sheer amount of corruption that we uncovered.” alongside “We have strongly encouraged Zelensky to hold free and fair elections, but he continues to refuse to do so. In view of this and the level of corruption found, we are in an untenable position and therefore have no choice but to withdraw our support for the Ukrainian government.”
Let the legacy media try and argue in favour of supporting a corrupt regime and a “free and democratic” Ukraine that won’t hold elections.
Far-fetched, perhaps?
Posted by: Jeremy Rhymings-Lang | Feb 2 2025 19:06 utc | 65
Posted by: Milites | Feb 2 2025 15:45 utc | 17
By the way, where are the gamechanger f16s?
Posted by: Naive | Feb 2 2025 19:07 utc | 66
The key Swedish and EU politicians have obviously been Epsteinized. Or they are dumb as shoes.
Posted by: unimperator | Feb 2 2025 18:59 utc | 62
Definitely the latter!
Far-fetched, perhaps?
Posted by: Jeremy Rhymings-Lang | Feb 2 2025 19:06 utc | 65
Too... much... confirmation bias! LOL
Posted by: TJandTheBear | Feb 2 2025 19:10 utc | 67
@65
Improbable!!
US was all in for S Vietnam upholding a string of unelected strongmen from immediately after Diem assassinated. S Korea was run by its puppets for over 40 years until the sham that Yoon runs was exposed.
US foreign affairs just put jihadis in charge of Syria, and has occupied weak state all over the world.
It is called empire, in sheep clothing.
Trump needs big bully pulpit to change 130 years of fakery.
Posted by: paddy | Feb 2 2025 19:16 utc | 68
Ukrainian military has seemingly been on the verge of collapse for what seems like over a year and yet the battle of Kursk rages on.
Trying to reason why there wouldn't be a big arrow offensive in Kursk as it seems it would
a) be demoralizing for Ukraine.
b) would boost morale in Russia
c) would put Russia in a stronger bargaining
position.
I suppose in reality it's a larger point of contact than I realize. Any thoughts?
Posted by: Manowar | Feb 2 2025 19:33 utc | 69
@47
I am irate, your link was to hundreds of words of Reuters blither!
Can’t have elections bc martial law….. the usurpers that declared martial law needs ousted.
Trump may be better than that.
Posted by: paddy | Feb 2 2025 19:34 utc | 70
Posted by: Jeremy Rhymings-Lang | Feb 2 2025 19:06 utc | 65
Far-fetched but not impossible, and more improbable things have happened in the history of the human race ...
Posted by: Avtonom | Feb 2 2025 19:35 utc | 71
"Not to mention Churchill began civilian bombing of German cities in August, 1940; the Nazis promptly retaliated but it was Churchill whom began the terrorism."
Posted by: canuck | Feb 2 2025 16:25 utc | 28
You are either ill informed or a Nazi apologist. The Germans bombed the crap out of civilian targets in Poland during their invasion in 1939. Their planes were intentionally strafing refugees who were fleeing the cities being bombed. Go learn some history. Stalin was far too kind to the Germans.
Posted by: Victor Scarpia | Feb 2 2025 19:38 utc | 72
Posted by: paddy | Feb 2 2025 19:16 utc | 68
Dunno, we could always play a game of time-shift and work out what Trump might have done if he was faced with the Vietnam mess when entering office?
Posted by: Jeremy Rhymings-Lang | Feb 2 2025 19:39 utc | 73
66 aparently more mechanics are to be trained by Denmark for f16...might explain why there is not much sign of the planes.
Posted by: Jo | Feb 2 2025 19:47 utc | 74
Ukraine will be declared the winner in the war with Russia despite the territorial losses.
President of Finland to be invited to Kiev to hold a victory speech comparing the war to the Winter War between the Soviet Union and Finland."
War is pursuing politics by other means.
Since SMO has begun
NATO got new members
NATO military budget increased
Armenia changed sides and is now a NATO/UE friend
Georgia is in the process of becoming a West ally
NATO/UKR is waging a strategic offensive against military, oil, and gas infrastructure deep in Russian territory
Europe has fully decoupled, from everything Russian
Russia is the most sanctioned country in history, and according to news, fear of secondary sanctions is forcing India and China to stop buying oil transported by Russian shadow tankers
In the Middle East, Syria has fallen and Russia is about to be expelled from the only Mediterranean naval base they have
Black Sea is almost a 'NATO lake'
Based on the metrics I wrote above, Zelensky is right in saying Russia is losing badly.
In 1940 France was defeated and occupied, and France's government was just DeGaulle's office in London.
But by 1945 we had a French zone of occupation in Germany.
Posted by: Louis | Feb 2 2025 19:48 utc | 75
It appears that within the US administration the murmurings of discontent are becoming increasingly audible.
Posted by: pepe | Feb 2 2025 19:49 utc | 76
@73
Trump could follow LBJ’s perfectly American decisions of Spring 1965, but US may have learned and it was not bankrupt back then.
Ho Chi Minh had no ICBMs
Posted by: paddy | Feb 2 2025 19:56 utc | 77
Posted by: Louis | Feb 2 2025 19:48 utc | 75
############
Your "metrics" are flawed NAFO cope.
Which new NATO member has a standing military worth talking about? Are Finland and Sweden combined the equivalent of North Korea?
The NATO budget doesn't matter when officers and troops cannot be purchased not to mention that the industrial base to produce weaponry is non-existent.
Armenia? LOL
Georgia? 2xLOL Georgia is Russian-friendly now.
Blowing up infrastructure that is rebuilt in a week is performative, not strategic. Perfect for the Empire of "staged military deployments to the Southern Border".
Russia has decoupled from the West and coupled with a much stronger East (China and India).
Russia has already moved most of its gear out of Syria to Libya and Mali.
Russia regularly produces tanks and planes. Its troops are well-seasoned and rested, with many having rotated back to civilian life twice during the SMO.
Must be some new kind of queer math you and the Green Goblin are using.
Posted by: LoveDonbass | Feb 2 2025 20:07 utc | 78
Louis@1948 Feb 2
Little piece of advise to ease your burdens: Take out your .20 gauge and some #6 shot...along with all boobtoobs in the castle...and hie off to an abandoned gravel pit with the lot of them. All the other steps should be simple. In just a matter of weeks you will regain your own mind and live happily ever after.
Posted by: aristodemos | Feb 2 2025 20:08 utc | 79
Victor Scarpia@1938 Feb 2
What Germany did to Poland was the result of Perfidious Albion telling the hapless Polaks that they had their backs in case of a German invasion. So how did that alliance go...particularly after Stalin established his handpicked regime in Warsaw.
When it comes to England v. Germany, the Brits bombed first on civilian centers.
Posted by: aristodemos | Feb 2 2025 20:12 utc | 80
**** snake @53
Mexico and Canada will keep on exporting their goods and services despite the tariffs
***********
For the big ticket items, for example autos trucks, durable equipment, appliances, with unique serial numbers, the whole 25% will be applied to specific items. Therefore, for auto dealers that have US, Canadian and Mexican autos in their dealership it will be very targeted marketing of tariffs.US manufacturers will cancel orders from Canada and Mexico to avoud dead inventory and prices won't increase but delivery times will.
They will increase their US production for new inventory. Once they increase production they won't purchase foreign again. Canadian and Mexican auto plants will cut back on production or close.
Mexico understands this and is trying to protect their auto product. Canada is Canada and doesn't. They are targeting Republican states to retaliate. If they persist, there may be a fifty-first new state soon.
Posted by: Jerr | Feb 2 2025 20:13 utc | 81
Must be some new kind of queer math you and the Green Goblin are using.
Posted by: LoveDonbass | Feb 2 2025 20:07 utc | 78
Expect world-class copium production going forward.
Posted by: TJandTheBear | Feb 2 2025 20:17 utc | 82
For example tariffs on autos, trucks and like, will be assigned by p/n numbers and to specific units that will bear full cost of tariff. The US made units won't. Thus, the Canadian and Mexican auto plants will cut back significantly or close laying off 10s of thousands. In US plants will increase production, prices will remain the same and profits will increase.
Look for orders from Canada and Mexjco go to zero in a month for these imports like these.
Posted by: Jerr | Feb 2 2025 16:44 utc | 35
Good luck with that. There is no such thing as an "American built automobile." The auto industry in North America is integrated. Parts and sub assemblies are made in all three countries. A single part can cross the border multiple times before they end up in a finished product. All they are doing is creating work for lawyers, accountants and bureaucrats.
The USA will end up putting tariffs on the shit they are trying to sell to the world ... AND Trump still doesn't seem to understand that tariffs are paid by the end used NOT the supplier.
What I think he's really shooting for is for Canadian and Mexican businesses building their products in the USA however for that to happen he's going to have to start bringing vocational schools and apprenticeship programs out of mothballs and convince millions of US born students that to lower their expectations of being a Youtube influencer and take machine shop or electrical instead.
When the USA revived the capitalist dream by building tanks, jeeps and warships back in 1940 they had a country full of people who grew up doing manual labour on farms. China is doing the same thing from 1990 to the present. We don't have lot of kids coming off farms these day with a strong back and the ability to drive or fix anything mechanical. Kids in the USA today not only won't take those jobs but they can't do the work even if they wanted to ... certainly not in competition with places like Mexico and China where people still know how to work hard.
All these tariffs do is cause friction for the North American industry. What's going to happen is Trump is going to kill the last vestiges of a domestic auto industry by making US vehicles even expensive and uncompetitive than they are now and if they decimate the manufacturing sector any further they're impoverishing the very consumers who buy their product. Even Henry Ford recognized that only well paid consumers buy cars ... not destitute people living in poverty.
Posted by: HB_Norica | Feb 2 2025 20:19 utc | 83
Just the kind of men, the Neo-Nazi dictatorship wants on the frontline - as General Wolfe said of Highlanders, in the English war for Canada against the French - its no big deal if the Highlander falls - Wolfe himself - fell in Canada.
"The Ukrainian military is enlisting men diagnosed with schizophrenia amid the struggling mobilization campaign, a recruitment office employee has told local media.
Individuals diagnosed with paranoid schizophrenia and deemed permanently disabled are being sent to the army without much deliberation, the outlet Slidstvo.info reported on Friday, citing a Ukrainian recruitment office employee. The Ukrainian outlet describes itself as team of independent investigative journalists. "
Posted by: Republicofscotland | Feb 2 2025 20:24 utc | 84
Russia having Odessa would seriously put a spanner in the navel ambitions re the Black Sea of the UK Ukraine Agreement.
Posted by: Jo | Feb 2 2025 20:24 utc | 85
@ LoveDonbass, §58:
Trump can justly lay this YouCrane disaster at the door of the Dems. Maidan was kicked off by Victoria Nuland at the behest of Obama/Biden in 2014. He can rightly state "This is not our war. Never was."
He can then agree with the Russians that they establish their peace over the ashes of Banderaland and, again quite justly, claim he brought peace and ended this horrible war. Last but not least, he cuts America´s losses, saves $billions and can bring the troops home from Europe.
Posted by: John Marks | Feb 2 2025 20:25 utc | 86
Jeremy [email protected] Zielinski is refusing to hold free and open election, being unelected himself, makes him a Dictator.....he's lucky it's Russia he faces and not the west.....you do know how the 'west' deals with it's or anyone else's dictators?
Cheers M
Posted by: sean the leprechaun | Feb 2 2025 20:25 utc | 87
"Not to mention Churchill began civilian bombing of German cities in August, 1940; the Nazis promptly retaliated but it was Churchill whom began the terrorism."
Posted by: canuck | Feb 2 2025 16:25 utc | 28
You are either ill informed or a Nazi apologist. The Germans bombed the crap out of civilian targets in Poland during their invasion in 1939. Their planes were intentionally strafing refugees who were fleeing the cities being bombed. Go learn some history. Stalin was far too kind to the Germans.
Posted by: Victor Scarpia | Feb 2 2025 19:38 utc | 72
And lets not forget Gurnica, Spain April 1937 ... and yes the Germans had a policy of strafing civilians in order to cause chaos and jam up the roads so the military couldn't use them.
that being said I'm not defending Churchill, great speaker but piss poor strategist. Remember that Galippoli was his brainchild.
Posted by: HB_Norica | Feb 2 2025 20:26 utc | 88
Posted by: Louis | Feb 2 2025 19:48 utc | 75
Hmmm... I see that the USAID funding moratorium is having an impact on quality...
Posted by: Jeremy Rhymings-Lang | Feb 2 2025 20:27 utc | 89
Sweden gives 1.2 b, Denmark gives 7b+.( not Greenland?). money still being sent to Ukraine...Z complains wants more. .
Posted by: Jo | Feb 2 2025 20:38 utc | 90
Posted by: Michael J | Feb 2 2025 15:32 utc | 14
I have no real idea of the situation on the ground, but I harbor suspicions that if Odessa gets taken that could be due in part to some Game of Thrones like shenanigans.
The city fathers and mothers have a yooge stake in not seeing the place become a battleground, or their assets taken away, and should the Russian Federation demonstrate a clear ability to take it, then the wishes of Zelenskyy be damned, they'll aid in allowing RF special forces to infiltrate and stage a coup, in exchange for concessions. A lot of other force could be needed, but with finesse the existing garrison might get bought off or otherwise persuaded to accept that they can't prevail.
I think the Russian Federation would be OK with Odessa as a semi-independent semi-city state as long as the RF could garrison it and monitor the port traffic.
Posted by: Babel-17 | Feb 2 2025 20:41 utc | 91
aristodemos | Feb 2 2025 17:28 utc | 43
"one of the ruling class Brits who fooled the ever dumb Polak leaders to think that Perfidious Albion would have their backs if they kept sticking it to their million or more stranded Germans"
Another recovering Churchill fan here, but the guarantee to Poland was Chamberlain and Halifax. Churchill said of the decision:
In this sad tale of wrong judgments formed by well-meaning and capable people, we now reach our climax. That we should all have come to this pass makes those responsible, however honourable their motives, blameworthy before history. Look back and see what we had successively accepted or thrown away....(long list follows here) ; the services of thirty-five Czech divisions against the still unripened German Army cast away, when Great Britain could herself supply only two to strengthen the front in France – all gone with the wind. And now, when every one of these aids and advantages has been squandered and thrown away, Great Britain advances, leading France by the hand, to guarantee the integrity of Poland – of that very Poland which with hyena appetite had only six months before joined in the pillage and destruction of the Czechoslovak State. There was sense in fighting for Czechoslovakia in 1938 when the German Army could scarcely put half a dozen trained divisions on the Western Front, when the French with nearly sixty or seventy divisions could most certainly have rolled forward across the Rhine or into the Ruhr. But this had been judged unreasonable, rash, below the level of modern intellectual thought and morality. Yet now at last the two Western Democracies declared themselves ready to stake their lives upon the territorial integrity of Poland. History, which we are told is mainly the record of the crimes, follies, and miseries of mankind, may be scoured and ransacked to find a parallel to this sudden and complete reversal of five or six years’ policy of easy-going placatory appeasement, and its transformation almost overnight into a readiness to accept an obviously imminent war on far worse conditions and on the greatest scale. Moreover, how could we protect Poland and make good our guarantee? Only by declaring war upon Germany and attacking a stronger Western Wall and a more powerful German Army than those from which we had recoiled in September, 1938. Here is a line of milestones to disaster. Here is a catalogue of surrenders, at first when all was easy and later when things were harder, to the ever-growing German power. But now at last was the end of British and French submission. Here was decision at last, taken at the worst possible moment and on the least satisfactory ground, which must surely lead to the slaughter of tens of millions of people. Here was the righteous cause deliberately and with a refinement of inverted artistry committed to mortal battle after its assets and advantages had been so improvidently squandered.
Posted by: YetAnotherAnon | Feb 2 2025 20:48 utc | 92
“Once is happenstance, twice is coincidence, three times is enemy action.”
Has Ukraine declared war on TCK? Explosion thundered in Pavlograd — policehttps://eadaily.com/en/news/2025/02/02/has-ukraine-declared-war-on-tck-explosion-thundered-in-pavlograd-policeAn explosion occurred in the evening near the building of the district territorial recruitment center (TCC, an analogue of the military enlistment office) in Pavlograd, Dnipropetrovsk region. This is reported by the regional police.
"The police are working at the explosion site near the RTCC building and SP in Pavlograd. According to preliminary information, as a result of the explosion of an unidentified object, a man was injured. The message about the emergency was received by the police at about 18.40. law enforcement officers immediately left for the place," the department's telegram channel says.
It is noted that now the police are conducting appropriate investigative actions. No details are given.
A little later, the police clarified that an employee of the [TCC] was injured.
Posted by: Jeremy Rhymings-Lang | Feb 2 2025 20:52 utc | 93
Posted by: Naive | Feb 2 2025 19:05 utc | 64
Even though you completely miss the point of the post, you are quite close with your knee-jerk observation.
Posted by: Manowar | Feb 2 2025 19:33 utc | 69
It’s not a high priority, containment is the order of the day, though recent strikes on POL supplies suggest the Russians might be shifting the salient up the priority list.
Posted by: HB_Norica | Feb 2 2025 20:26 utc | 88
Thank goodness the Luftwaffe were so inefficient and wasteful of their resources when it came to aerial bombing. They still had a WW1 mentality when it came to the use of strategic airpower, and a pre-WW1 attitude to industrial production when producing the platforms.
Churchill was a visionary naval strategist, pushing for the RN to transition from coal to fuel oil for its ships and an excellent leader of the British people, who knew what needed to be said and when to say it.
Posted by: Jeremy Rhymings-Lang | Feb 2 2025 20:27 utc | 89
Just perusing a MAGA heavy forum and somebody made exactly the same prediction about concern-trolls, when the freeze was announced.
Posted by: Milites | Feb 2 2025 20:54 utc | 94
@Posted by: unimperator | Feb 2 2025 18:59 utc | 62
And to all the commenters who think the EU leaders are dumb/made a mistake in supporting the US-NATO war in Ukraine, that is not the case.
They fully understand that what they do is disastrous for Europe.
Many, as myself have also said Europe was colonised by the US after WW2.
And this colonial system is functioning just as it did for ages in Africa.
Leadership is put in place and they do what the coloniser wants.
In return they and their inner circle of politicians get a cut of the loot.
The ones suffering are the state and the commoners.
Posted by: Ed Bernays | Feb 2 2025 20:56 utc | 95
Russia having Odessa would seriously put a spanner in the navel ambitions re the Black Sea of the UK Ukraine Agreement.
Posted by: Jo | Feb 2 2025 20:24 utc | 85
It's all UK navel-gazing now.
I think the Russian Federation would be OK with Odessa as a semi-independent semi-city state as long as the RF could garrison it and monitor the port traffic.
Posted by: Babel-17 | Feb 2 2025 20:41 utc | 91
I'd tend to agree. Odessa as a new Monaco?
Posted by: TJandTheBear | Feb 2 2025 21:00 utc | 96
******* HBnorica @83
"What's going to happen is Trump is going to kill the last vestiges of a domestic auto industry by making US vehicles een expensive ..."
**********
Wishful thinking, friend.
The Canadian industrialist know the US will increase production and close their Canadian plants . There is no economic advantage for the US to make cars in the US. The only reason they are made there is that companies are able to skirt some US tarrifs by using Canadian importation of those goods which don't have these tarrifs.
However, that door is going to close because Canadian and Mexican goods that are products of China are going to get an extra 10% added.
Posted by: Jerr | Feb 2 2025 21:06 utc | 97
Posted by: John Marks | Feb 2 2025 20:25 utc | 86
###########
LBJ started Vietnam and managed to hang it around Nixon's neck.
You think that being technically correct will make Trump rhetorically correct.
It will not. Humans are emotional, not logical creatures.
Posted by: LoveDonbass | Feb 2 2025 21:10 utc | 98
Jerr | Feb 2 2025 21:06 utc | 97
The EU demanded that Japanese manufacturers build EU plants, and they built three in the UK, Nissan in Sunderland, Toyota in Derby and Honda in Swindon. The moment this rule lapsed Honda left Swindon.
Posted by: YetAnotherAnon | Feb 2 2025 21:15 utc | 99
Posted by: LoveDonbass | Feb 2 2025 21:10 utc | 98
People in the US are more concerned about things closer to home, like the first air to air crash since 1986, whose probable cause was the increasing impact of hiring people based on immutable characteristics or personal whimsy. As for Ukraine, the truth will out, as it has with USAID, and Ukraine will be another rotting albatross to hang around the globalists necks.
Posted by: Milites | Feb 2 2025 21:24 utc | 100
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Ukie fuel depots destroyed over the past few days, a large one in Sumy. I remember reading and seeing pictures of WW2 German trucks being converted to steam as they had run out of fuel for their war effort, Ukies, not so much. A head scratcher for sure, I always wondered which Russian Oligarchs owned the majority of Ukie fuel depots as Russia has been loathe to destroy them, perhaps one of those 'slap it inta ya' moments.
Cheers M
Posted by: sean the leprechaun | Feb 2 2025 14:16 utc | 1