A Russian Navy cruiser, the Moskva, is sailing back to Sevastapol reportedly still on fire from a Ukrainian Neptune missile. It's not clear if the ship is sailing on its own, or is being towed. The crew had earlier abandoned ship.
According to Russian media. The Moskva has sunk. They say it simply caught fire, which seems a little unlikely to me.
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A Russian warship that was damaged by an explosion on Wednesday has sunk, Russia's defence ministry has said.
Moskva, the flagship of Russia's Black Sea Fleet, was being towed to port when "stormy seas" caused it to sink, according to a ministry message.
The 510-crew missile cruiser was a symbol of Russia's military power, leading its naval assault on Ukraine.
Kyiv says its missiles hit the warship. Moscow has not reported any attack. It says the vessel sank after a fire.
The blaze caused the explosion of the warship's ammunition, Russia says, adding that the entire crew were later evacuated to nearby Russian vessels in the Black Sea. It provided no further details....
Sweet! That is some good news for the defenders. No doubt the invaders will want to do everything possible to not allow the Ukrainian to make this into a win for them, or to cause the Russian military or public to really know how bad things are going. Morale is a lot like momentum. Once it starts going in one direction it is very difficult to change.
"Government at its best is a necessary evil, and at it�s worst, an intolerable one." Thomas Paine (from "Common Sense" 1776)
Russians have probably captured the Port of Mariupol, though isolated groups of Ukraine soldiers remain active. Most of the organized Ukraine resistance is apparently in the Azovstal factory, which Russian forces are trying to crush with overwhelming firepower rather than costly clearing operations.
See the complete assessment from the Institute for the Study of War (ISW) at the link.
I can't imagine the Russians are going to let the Moskva sink without some serious payback. The issued a pretty strong statement about it over the weekend.
"The time for war has not yet come, but it will come and that soon, and when it does come, my advice is to draw the sword and throw away the scabbard." Gen. T.J. Jackson, March 1861
I can't either. But the Russians themselves pretty effectively defended Stalingrad using factories a lot like this one. They're formidable defensive positions to begin with, and after they're damaged or rubbleized, even more so. Taking that factory is going to be no easy task.
Last I had heard the Kremlin was still sticking to the “accidental ammo fire” storyline to not give Ukrainians the propaganda win, or have to fess up to the Russian prof their loss. Have they finally acknowledged that it was in fact sunk by Ukrainian anti-ship missiles?
"Government at its best is a necessary evil, and at it�s worst, an intolerable one." Thomas Paine (from "Common Sense" 1776)
"The time for war has not yet come, but it will come and that soon, and when it does come, my advice is to draw the sword and throw away the scabbard." Gen. T.J. Jackson, March 1861
The Ukrainian Air Force just got bigger. Someone just send Ukraine some for Mig-29's, or at least the spare parts for them. We don't know who, but good guesses would be Bulgaria, Poland, or Slovakia.
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Amazingly considering the odds against them, Ukraine’s airmen have more flyable fighters today than they did in early April, according to U.S. Defense Department spokesman John Kirby.
Kyiv’s air force has “more operable fighter aircraft than they had two weeks ago,” Kirby told reporters Tuesday.
Donations of airplane parts made it possible. “I would just say, without getting into what other nations are providing, that they have received additional platforms and parts to be able to increase their fleet size,” Kirby said.
The Ukrainian air force later clarified Kirby’s claim, tweeting Wednesday morning that it “officially” had received only spare parts, not whole flyable airframes. The Pentagon Wednesday afternoon confirmed that, yes, the Ukrainians strictly have gotten spares.
In any event, the extra parts helped the Ukrainian air force to put an extra 20 fighters into the air, a U.S. defense official told reporters.
It’s not hard to guess where fighter components might have come from. The governments of Bulgaria, Poland and Slovakia weeks ago all signaled some degree of willingness to transfer to Ukraine old MiG-29s or spares for the same.
Despite some diplomatic doublespeak, likely meant to insulate the countries from Russian retaliation, it seems some or all of the three possible donors have handed over some of their stockpiles of MiG parts....
Secretary of State Antony Blinken and Secretary of Defense Lloyd Austin are going to meet with Zelensky in Kiev tomorrow. Given this administration's propensity to ruin things, I'm more than a little worried.
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US Secretary of State Antony Blinken and Secretary of Defense Lloyd Austin will travel to Kyiv Sunday, Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky said, for his first face-to-face meeting with members of President Biden’s cabinet since the Russian invasion began.
“Tomorrow, the American officials are coming to visit us,” Zelensky said in a Saturday press conference.
“We will be expecting, when the security will allow, the President of the United States to come and to talk to us,” Zelensky added.
“We will talk about the list of weapons that we need and the pace of its supply,” he told reporters gathered in a Kyiv subway station. “In recent weeks, the pace, the number has all improved. I’m grateful for that.”
The White House declined to comment on Zelensky’s surprise revelation, which came one day after Blinken met with Ukrainian Prime Minister Denys Shmyhal in Washington, DC on Friday.
That meeting was “further evidence that an independent, sovereign Ukraine is going to be around a lot longer than Vladimir Putin,” Blinken said at the time.
Zelensky also called on the Russian president to meet with him in person to negotiate an end to his bloody invasion, on the verge of entering its second month.
“I think that whoever started this war will be able to end it,” he said — adding, “I don’t have a right to be afraid” after seeing his people’s courage in the face of the Russian assault....
“One less traitor”: Zelensky oversees campaign of assassination, kidnapping and torture of political opposition[/b]
Max Blumenthal and Esha Krishnaswamy·April 17, 2022
While claiming to defend democracy, Ukraine’s Volodymyr Zelensky has outlawed his opposition, ordered his rivals’ arrest, and presided over the disappearance and assassination of dissidents across the country.
Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky has framed his country’s war against Russia as a battle for democracy itself. In a carefully choreographed address to US Congress on March 16, Zelensky stated, “Right now, the destiny of our country is being decided. The destiny of our people, whether Ukrainians will be free, whether they will be able to preserve their democracy.”
US corporate media has responded by showering Zelensky with fawning press, driving a campaign for his nomination for the Nobel Peace Prize and inspiring a flamboyant musical tribute to himself and the Ukrainian military during the 2022 Grammy awards ceremony on April 3.
Western media has looked the other way, however, as Zelensky and top officials in his administration have sanctioned a campaign of kidnapping, torture, and assassination of local Ukrainian lawmakers accused of collaborating with Russia. Several mayors and other Ukrainian officials have been killed since the outbreak of war, many reportedly by Ukrainian state agents after engaging in de-escalation talks with Russia.
“There is one less traitor in Ukraine,” Internal Affairs Ministry advisor Anton Geraschenko stated in endorsement of the murder of a Ukrainian mayor accused of collaborating with Russia.
Zelensky has further exploited the atmosphere of war to outlaw an array of opposition parties and order the arrest of his leading rivals. His authoritarian decrees have triggered the disappearance, torture and even murder of an array of human rights activists, communist and leftist organizers, journalists and government officials accused of “pro-Russian” sympathies.
The Ukrainian SBU security services has served as the enforcement arm of the officially authorized campaign of repression. With training from the CIA and close coordination with Ukraine’s state-backed neo-Nazi paramilitaries, the SBU has spent the past weeks filling its vast archipelago of torture dungeons with political dissidents.
On the battlefield, meanwhile, the Ukrainian military has engaged in a series of atrocities against captured Russian troops and proudly exhibited its sadistic acts on social media. Here too, the perpetrators of human rights abuses appear to have received approval from the upper echelons of Ukrainian leadership.
While Zelensky spouts bromides about the defense of democracy before worshipful Western audiences, he is using the war as a theater for enacting a blood-drenched purge of political rivals, dissidents and critics.
“The war is being used to kidnap, imprison and even kill opposition members who express themselves critical of the government,” a left-wing activist beaten and persecuted by Ukraine’s security services commented this April. “We must all fear for our freedom and our lives.” Torture and enforced disappearances “common practices” of Ukraine’s SBU
When a US-backed government seized power in Kiev following the Euromaidan regime change operation of 2013-14, Ukraine’s government embarked on a nationwide purge of political elements deemed pro-Russian or insufficiently nationalistic. The passage of “decommunization” laws by the Ukrainian parliament further eased the persecution of leftist elements and the prosecution of activists for political speech.
The post-Maidan regime has focused its wrath on Ukrainians who have advocated a peace settlement with pro-Russian separatists in the country’s east, those who have documented human rights abuses by the Ukrainian military, and members of communist organizations. Dissident elements have faced the constant threat of ultra-nationalist violence, imprisonment, and even murder.
The Ukrainian security service known as the SBU has served as the main enforcer of the post-Maidan government’s campaign of domestic political repression. Pro-Western monitors including the United Nations Office of the High Commission (UN OHCR) and Human Rights Watch have accused the SBU of systematically torturing political opponents and Ukrainian dissidents with near-total impunity.
The UN OHCR found in 2016 that “arbitrary detention, enforced disappearances, torture and ill-treatment of such conflict-related detainees were common practice of SBU… A former Kharkiv SBU officer explained, ‘For the SBU, the law virtually does not exist as everything that is illegal can be either classified or explained by referring to state necessity.”
Yevhen Karas, the founder of the infamous neo-Nazi C14 unit, has detailed the close relationship his gang and other extreme right factions have enjoyed with the SBU. The SBU “informs not only us, but also Azov, the Right Sector, and so on,” Karas boasted in a 2017 interview. Kiev officially endorses assassinating Ukrainian mayors for negotiating with Russia
Since Russia launched its military operation inside Ukraine, the SBU has hunted down local officials that decided to accept humanitarian supplies from Russia or negotiated with Russian forces to arrange corridors for civilian evacuations.
On March 1, for example, Volodymyr Strok, the mayor of the eastern city of Kreminna in the Ukrainian-controlled side of Lugansk, was kidnapped by men in military uniform, according to his wife, and shot in the heart.
On March 3, pictures of Strok’s visibly tortured body appeared. A day before his murder, Struk had reportedly urged his Ukrainian colleagues to negotiate with pro-Russian officials.
Anton Gerashchenko, an advisor to the Ukrainian Ministry of Internal Affairs, celebrated the mayor’s murder, declaring on his Telegram page (see below): “There is one less traitor in Ukraine. The mayor of Kreminna in Luhansk region, former deputy of Luhansk parliament was found killed.”
According to Geraschenko, Strok had been judged by the “court of the people’s tribunal.”
"The time for war has not yet come, but it will come and that soon, and when it does come, my advice is to draw the sword and throw away the scabbard." Gen. T.J. Jackson, March 1861
hen the Finnish Reservists’ Assn. recently announced wartime defense courses for civilian women in the southern town of Haemeenlinna, the 400 slots filled almost immediately, with a waiting list of 500 more.
Topics will include shooting, cybersecurity and how to manage the first several days of an invasion from abroad.
“I wouldn’t call it fear,” said Sgt. Sonja Airikki, a 39-year-old reservist who will lead the training next month. “It’s more about being prepared.”
Military readiness is ingrained in the culture of this country of 5.5 million people that shares an 833-mile border and a long, complicated history with Russia.
The relationship has grown increasingly tense since Russia invaded Ukraine two months ago. For the first time, Finland is considering seeking membership in NATO, prompting threats of retaliation from Russian President Vladimir Putin.
The reservists group is primarily responsible for keeping its call-up soldiers ready for war. Its civilian classes — like those Airikki leads — have always been popular, but nothing prepared it for the nationwide enrollment spike since the attack on Ukraine.
“The change has been enormous,” said Ilpo Pohjola, a top official with the association who has been with it since its inception almost 30 years ago. “It’s something very special. I haven’t seen anything like this before.
“We have known for 100 years that there is evil on the opposite side of the border, but now I think people have woken up,” he said. “They understand that we must be prepared.”
Wariness of Russia dates back to 1809, when Russia added Finland to its empire after winning it in a war with Sweden. Finland declared independence in 1917, while Russia was distracted by revolution, but 22 years later the Soviets invaded.
The Finnish army was vastly outnumbered, but using snipers to terrorize enemy soldiers in the frozen forests and Molotov cocktails — its own invention — to attack their tanks, it fended off the Soviets in two separate wars....
Storage tanks at a major oil depot in the Russian city of Bryansk exploded early on Monday. Was Ukraine responsible?
Before you answer, consider first that this is only the latest disaster to afflict Russian critical infrastructure near the Ukrainian border. Another oil depot on Belgorod was targeted by a Ukrainian helicopter strike in early April. Prior to that, Russian railway lines near the border were sabotaged. A Russian missile research center and a chemical plant also recently suffered explosions.
These incidents all appear to fit well with Ukraine's military strategy.
Bryansk, 62 miles from the Ukrainian border, is beyond the range of most drone systems in Ukraine's possession. Unconfirmed video from the Bryansk incident indicates the sound of a missile in the terminal attack phase. Considering this noise and Bryansk's relative distance from Ukraine, short-range ballistic missiles may have been responsible. Regardless, the explosion will disrupt energy replenishment efforts for Russian military forces in Ukraine.
The explosion also dilutes Putin's credibility in claiming that his war on Ukraine is not a war, but rather a limited "special military operation." When stuff keeps blowing up in Russian cities, it's hard to convince the residents of said cities that Russia isn't at war.
That takes us to Ukraine's evolving military strategy. With Russia forced to scale back its goals in the conflict, Ukraine has escalated its offensive operations in what's known as the "deep battlespace." This involves targeting of Russian logistics and command and control units deeper behind the front lines. Employing Western-provided drones and highly mobile small units, Ukraine is degrading and demoralizing Russia's war machine.
It's not a wild leap to expect that Ukraine is now applying these same tactics over the border inside Russia. This is likely a result of British training of the Ukrainian military.
After all, while British military forces are not directly engaged in combat against Russian forces, they have been training Ukrainian forces for years. This includes training by British special forces, which prioritize deep battlespace operations. Going back to the British Army's 22nd Special Air Service Regiment in North Africa during the Second World War, British Special Forces revel in action deep behind enemy lines. Operating without support and relying on mobility and stealth, the SAS has repeatedly proven that small units can create havoc.
The compromise of an SAS unit during the Gulf War, shows that these operations are high-risk. But whether or not the Bryansk incident involved Ukrainian forces on the ground in Russia, it seems clear that other incidents behind Russian lines do involve Ukrainian ground forces.
Havoc is certainly what we're seeing in Russian border areas right now. Ukraine seems to be trying to cut off Russian forces from their logistics trains, while also bringing the war home for Russians who might otherwise be fooled by the fiction of Putin's so-called "special operation."
Will Russia invade Moldova? it seems unlikely, Russia already has their hands full in Ukraine. but they're already shelling Moldova radio stations.
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The U.S. pressed its allies Tuesday to move “heaven and earth” to keep Kyiv well-supplied with weapons as Russian forces rained fire on eastern and southern Ukraine amid growing new fears the war could spill over the country’s borders.
For the second day in a row, explosions rocked the separatist region of Trans-Dniester in neighboring Moldova, knocking out two powerful radio antennas close to the Ukrainian border. No one claimed responsibility for the attacks, but Ukraine all but blamed Russia....
Russia is losing the hacker war too. Dozens, perhaps hundreds, of Russian companies and government agencies have been hacked in retribution for the Ukraine invasion.
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Russia is known for its army of hackers, but since the start of its invasion of Ukraine, dozens of Russian organizations — including government agencies, oil and gas companies, and financial institutions — have been hacked, with terabytes of stolen data leaked onto the internet.
Distributed Denial of Secrets, the transparency collective that’s best known for its 2020 release of 270 gigabytes of U.S. law enforcement data (in the midst of racial justice protests following the murder of George Floyd), has become the de facto home of the hacked datasets from Russia. The datasets are submitted to DDoSecrets mostly by anonymous hackers, and those datasets are then made available to the public on the collective’s website and distributed using BitTorrent. (I am an adviser to DDoSecrets).
“The flood of Russian data has meant a lot of sleepless nights, and it’s truly overwhelming,” Emma Best, co-founder of DDoSecrets, told The Intercept via an encrypted messaging app. “In its first 10 years, WikiLeaks claimed to publish 10 million documents. In the less than two months since the invasion began, we’ve published over 6 million Russian documents — and it absolutely feels like it.”
After receiving a dataset, DDoSecrets organizes and compresses the data; it then starts distributing the data using BitTorrent for public consumption, publicizes it, and helps journalists at a wide range of newsrooms access and report on it. DDoSecrets has published about 30 hacked datasets from Russia since its invasion of Ukraine began in late February.
The vast majority of sources who provided the hacked Russian data appear to be anonymous individuals, many self-identifying as part of the Anonymous hacktivist movement. Some sources provide email addresses or other contact information as part of the dumped data, and some, like Network Battalion 65, have their own social media presence....
...The German news outlet Welt reported that Germany has approved the delivery of 50 refurbished "Gepard" (cheetah) anti-aircraft tanks from the arms manufacturer KMW. The tanks were phased out from the Bundeswehr, the German armed forces, in 2010, according to the Financial Times.
Lambrecht announced the deliveries of the Gepard tanks during a meeting at the US Ramstein Air Base in Rhineland-Palatinate, Germany. The meeting was attended by her US counterpart Lloyd Austin, NATO Secretary-General Jens Stoltenberg, and representatives from 40 countries, per DW.
According to the manufacturer's site, the Gepard is an all-weather tank that can be deployed against both ground and air targets. It also has a search radar with a range of up to 15 kilometers and can hit targets at a distance of 6,000 meters. It has an engine power of 830 horsepower with a fuel range of 550 kilometers, making it well-suited for ground combat.
The tank is also effective as an anti-aircraft system, engaging targets with two 35 mm guns. It can be used to defend against fighter planes, helicopters, remotely guided missiles, rockets, and also modern drones, KMW said.
According to KMW, "the ballistic projectiles cannot be interfered with by electronic defenses, and their fragmentation clouds reliably destroy the target."
The tank has a short reaction time against air attacks, KMW added, citing its high mobility, reliable target detection and tracking, and quickly rotating turret....
More at the link.
Onward and upward, airforce
Re: Developing Eastern European Crises
[Re: Navarro]
#178048 04/30/202201:26 AM04/30/202201:26 AM
"The time for war has not yet come, but it will come and that soon, and when it does come, my advice is to draw the sword and throw away the scabbard." Gen. T.J. Jackson, March 1861
A Ukrainian soldier said that Elon Musk's Starlink satellites "changed the war in Ukraine's favor" because they were helping troops stay online amid Russian strikes on Ukrainian infrastructure.
The soldier's comments were reported by the British freelance journalist David Patrikarakos, who was reporting from the Ukrainian city of Dnipro.
"I want to say one thing: Elon Musk's Starlink is what changed the war in Ukraine's favor," said Dima, who said he had been fighting alongside Ukrainian forces since March, according to Patrikarakos.
"Russia went out of its way to blow up all our comms. Now they can't. Starlink works under Katyusha fire, under artillery fire. It even works in Mariupol," Dima said, per Patrikarakos.
Starlink is the satellite-based internet division of SpaceX, Musk's space-exploration firm.
On February 27 — three days after Russia invaded Ukraine — Musk announced that Starlink was activated in Ukraine and that terminals were on their way to the country.
His announcement came after Ukrainian Vice Prime Minister Mykhailo Fedorov asked the billionaire on Twitter to send the terminals. At the time, internet flows across the country were deteriorating due to Russian attacks.
As of last month, more than 5,000 Starlink internet terminals have been active in the country, The Washington Post reported. Fedorov told The Post that Starlink has proved "very effective" for Ukraine amid the invasion.
The satellites have directly assisted Ukrainian forces in combat.
The Times of London reported last month that an elite Ukrainian drone unit is using Starlink to destroy dozens of Russian targets in the night time.
"If we use a drone with thermal vision at night, the drone must connect through Starlink to the artillery guy and create target acquisition," the leader of the unit told The Times.
I like Elon Musk if he restores the right of freedom of speech on Twitter but now I'll bet Putin takes down those satellites or nukes the Ukrainians. Unelected Joe Biden (Obama's sock puppet) who is so senile that he belongs in a nursing is going to cause an economic collapse and World War 3 supporting Ukraine.
www.TexasMilitia.Info Seek out and join a lawful Militia or form one in your area. If you wish to remain Free you will have to fight for it...because the traitors will give us no choice in the matter--William Cooper
Re: Developing Eastern European Crises
[Re: Navarro]
#178058 05/02/202211:33 AM05/02/202211:33 AM
Don't read too much into this. Russian officers have been shooting Russian draftees for a long time, in both winning and losing wars.
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A RUSSIAN army officer admitted he has been forced to shoot at his troops to try and force them to fight, as morale among frontline troops appears to be on the brink of collapse.
The soldier also said fellow officers were is state of "panic" and just wanted the war "to end". Russian forces have been fighting for over two months in Ukraine, as Vladimir Putin's ill-judged military campaign drags on with no end in sight. Putin's army has encountered fierce resistance from their Ukrainian opponents, who have inflicted heavy losses on the invaders.
Recent estimates suggest the Russian army may have lost over 20,000 soldiers since hostilities began towards the end of February.
Exhausted soldiers are now being pressed into a new Kremlin offensive in Ukraine's eastern territories, as Putin eyes capturing the entire Donbas region.
However, troop morale appears to have hit rock bottom with soldiers increasingly refusing to fight.
A recently intercepted telephone conversation between a Russian officer and his wife revealed the desperation of Putin's frontline commanders as they try to motivate their soldiers.
The officer said: "My soldiers don’t want to fight. I even shoot them - but it's no use."
The commander reserved his sharpest criticism for the new recruits being sent by the Kremlin to the trenches.
Noting that around 60 had arrived, he continued: "F*g loads of them are cowards, alarmists. The problems are with them."
Putin and his generals have been desperately trying to bolster troop numbers to compensate for the number of dead and injured.
The Russian president signed a decree ordering 134,500 new conscripts into the army as part of Russia's annual spring draft in March.
Security analysts also suspect the Russian despot may use the forthcoming Victory Day celebrations on May 9 to issue a general mobilisation throughout the country.
The Russian soldier told his wife that disillusionment among the rank and file had spread to the officers as well.
He told her: "Officers are in panic, they want it all to end. It's been going on every day for one-and-a-half months.
"Everyone's just sick of it all. I want to go home, hug my wife and children."
Last week, US President Joe Biden urged Congress to pass a $33 billion bill of further military aid for Ukraine.
The funding request includes over $20 billion for weapons, ammunition and other military assistance, as well as $8.5 billion in direct economic assistance to the Ukrainian government and $3 billion in humanitarian aid.
It is intended to cover the war effort's needs through September, the end of the fiscal year.
The West's determination to ramp up its deliveries of weapons to Kyiv has enraged the Russian despot and his acolytes.
The Kremlin has repeatedly warned NATO member states to not cross its red lines in Ukraine, threatening swift and terrible consequences if it does.
However, Nancy Pelosi said the US would not be deterred by Putin's threats from its mission to help Ukraine defend its sovereignty.
The US politician told a press conference in Poland after visiting Kyiv: "Let me speak for myself, do not be bullied by bullies.
"If they are making threats, you cannot back down."
"There’s no way of stopping this underwater drone. The warhead on it has a yield of up to 100 megatons. The explosion of this thermonuclear torpedo by Britain’s coastline will cause a giant tsunami wave up to 500 meters high," says presenter."
A Russian state news anchor warned that Great Britain could be “plunged into the sea” by an underwater nuclear strike if it continues supplying weapons to Ukraine.
News anchor Dmitry Kiselyov, known as “Putin’s mouthpiece”, explained over the weekend the chilling hypothetical scenario of tidal-wave producing underwater nuclear attack should the UK continue “playing games” with Russia over the Ukraine conflict.
“There’s no way of stopping this underwater drone. The warhead on it has a yield of up to 100 megatons. The explosion of this thermonuclear torpedo by Britain’s coastline will cause a giant tsunami wave up to 500 meters high. Such a barrage alone also carries extreme doses of radiation,” Kiselyov said.
“This tidal wave is also a carrier of extremely high doses of radiation. Surging over Britain, it will turn whatever is left of them into radioactive desert, unusable for anything. How do you like this prospect?”
Kiselyov is likely referring to Russia’s Poseidon warhead, a state-of-the-art nuclear torpedo launched from an unmanned submarine.
He then suggested that Russia’s intercontinental ballistic missile Sarmat aka the “Satan II” alone could render the UK into a “radioactive desert, unfit for anything for a long time.”
“Why do they threaten vast Russia with nuclear weapons while they are only a small island? The island is so small that one Sarmat missile is enough to drown it once and for all,” Kiselyov said.
“Russian missile Sarmat, the world most powerful is capable of destroying an area the size of Texas or England.”
“A single launch, Boris, and there is no England anymore. Once and for all. Why do they play games?” he added, taunting UK Prime Minister Boris Johnson.
Since the UK is a member of the NATO alliance, such an attack by Russia would be reciprocated by the West in kind, plunging the world into a full-blown nuclear war.
This comes as the far-left New Yorker magazine acknowledged on Sunday that the U.S. is now locked in a “full proxy war with Russia” by sending billions of dollars in heavy weapons and equipment to Ukraine.
www.TexasMilitia.Info Seek out and join a lawful Militia or form one in your area. If you wish to remain Free you will have to fight for it...because the traitors will give us no choice in the matter--William Cooper
Re: Developing Eastern European Crises
[Re: Navarro]
#178064 05/03/202212:37 AM05/03/202212:37 AM
"The time for war has not yet come, but it will come and that soon, and when it does come, my advice is to draw the sword and throw away the scabbard." Gen. T.J. Jackson, March 1861
Earlier this week, Rep. Adam Kinzinger (R–Ill.) proposed a new military authorization that would allow the president to introduce U.S. forces to the conflict in Ukraine if Russia uses certain weapons in its ongoing invasion. If adopted, it would be the latest installment in a decadeslong trend of Congress abdicating its constitutional role in the war-making process.
The Authorization for Use of Military Force (AUMF) to Defend America's Allies Resolution of 2022, according to Kinzinger, represents "a clear redline" that would act as "a deterrent to Vladimir Putin." Kinzinger has previously called for a U.S.-enforced no-fly zone over Ukraine, and on Sunday he said it isn't too soon for U.S. politicians to discuss the potential use of military force in Ukraine.
Like military authorizations of years past, Kinzinger's AUMF is quite open-ended and would give the president a concerning level of power to enter the war in Ukraine. Though Kinzinger claims the AUMF would give Biden "leverage" and "flexibility" in the fight against Putin, that would come at the expense of the constitutionally mandated role of Congress in American war making.
According to the AUMF text, once the president determines whether Russia has used chemical, biological, or nuclear weapons in Ukraine, he may then deploy U.S. forces as he "determines to be necessary and appropriate" in order to "protect the national security interests of the United States with respect to Ukraine" and "assist in defending and restoring the territorial integrity of Ukraine." The president wouldn't have to receive congressional approval prior to a troop deployment; rather, he would only have to determine that "diplomatic or other peaceful means alone" wouldn't protect U.S. security interests or Ukrainian territorial integrity. The AUMF text also contains a murky sunset provision: The president's authority to use the U.S. Armed Forces to defend Ukraine will "terminate the date on which the President certifies to Congress that the territorial integrity of Ukraine has been restored."
Per Article I, Section 8 of the Constitution, Congress has the sole authority to declare war. Only after a congressional declaration of war may the president direct the U.S. Armed Forces in a conflict. Unfortunately, that process has completely fallen apart—Congress last declared war in 1942. The U.S. has been involved in conflicts every decade since then thanks to presidential overreach and an increasingly deferential Congress.
That deference has come partially in the form of AUMFs similar to the one Kinzinger has proposed. Some AUMFs have either never been used or were invoked only in the short term. But the 2001 AUMF has been used by presidents to justify dozens of military operations in at least 19 countries, all allegedly to combat the organizations and individuals behind the September 11 attacks. The 2002 AUMF saw similar mission creep; despite explicitly authorizing conflict against Saddam Hussein's Iraq, the Trump administration invoked it to justify its fight against the Islamic State. AUMFs have often served as a carte blanche for presidents as they engage in conflicts, and Kinzinger's proposed authorization could very well be stretched to permit prolonged action.
Putting war declarations in the hands of Congress is supposed to ensure that American involvement in armed conflicts is properly debated, with costs and benefits discussed in public view by elected representatives. AUMFs put that power in the president's hands, allowing for less transparency in conflicts and more unilateral decision making. And strangely, Kinzinger is proposing an AUMF as many of his colleagues are working to repeal the authorizations that help enable endless wars.
The AUMF resolution is premature and comes at a time when deescalation in Ukraine is imperative. Rather than compelling lawmakers to prioritize diplomacy over conflict, it would further hobble the body that has already drastically weakened its own role in America's military engagements.
Damn that Republican in name only Adam Kinzinger. As soon as the US Troops arrive in Ukraine to help the Ukraine Nazis the Russian Commie Rats will nuke us. Everyone needs to contact their Congress Critters demanding The Authorization for Use of Military Force (AUMF) to Defend America's Allies Resolution of 2022 never be passed. That diaper wearing fugitive from a nursing home child molesting Biden need to be impeached for senility and removed from the presidency.
www.TexasMilitia.Info Seek out and join a lawful Militia or form one in your area. If you wish to remain Free you will have to fight for it...because the traitors will give us no choice in the matter--William Cooper
The constitutionalist in me is nostalgic about the days when the President would call a joint session of congress to request a vote on the declaration of war… yes… the good old days.
"Government at its best is a necessary evil, and at it�s worst, an intolerable one." Thomas Paine (from "Common Sense" 1776)
Russia’s ambassador to the US said on Thursday that NATO leaders are not taking the threat of nuclear war seriously enough.
“The current generation of NATO politicians clearly does not take the nuclear threat seriously,” ambassador Anatoly Antonov told Newsweek. While it’s widely believed that a direct war between NATO and Russia would quickly turn nuclear, the danger doesn’t appear to be factored into the Western approach to the war in Ukraine.
Since Russia invaded Ukraine on February 24, the US and its NATO allies have been pouring weapons into the country and are openly sharing intelligence with the Ukrainians that is being used to kill Russian troops. On top of the strong support for Ukraine, the US and many other NATO countries have abandoned diplomacy with Moscow.
The Western campaign clearly risks sparking a direct war with Moscow, prompting Russian officials to warn of the danger of nuclear war. But the US has denounced the Russian warning as saber-rattling and continues to escalate its support for Kyiv. Antonov criticized what he called “a flurry of blatant misrepresentation of Russian officials’ statements on our country’s nuclear policy.”
Antonov reiterated Russia’s stance on the potential scenarios where it would use nuclear weapons. He said they “can be used in response to the use of WMD against Russia and its allies, or in the event of aggression against our country when the very existence of the state is jeopardized.”
The US and Russia possess about 90% of the world’s nuclear weapons, but today, there is only one major arms control treaty between the two nations, the New START, which limits the number of missiles, bombers, and nuclear warheads each power can have deployed. Early on in Biden’s presidency, he and Russian President Vladimir Putin agreed to extend New START for five years, but progress on arms control has stalled since.
At a summit in Geneva last June, Biden and Putin agreed that the US and Russia would hold arms control talks, but Antonov said the dialogue has been “frozen” by Washington. “Regrettably, Washington has unilaterally ‘frozen’ the bilateral strategic stability dialogue that was launched at the Geneva summit, thus jeopardizing the prospects of keeping the foundation of arms control in place,” he said. “Russia is ready to resume the consultations as soon as the United States is ready.”
"The time for war has not yet come, but it will come and that soon, and when it does come, my advice is to draw the sword and throw away the scabbard." Gen. T.J. Jackson, March 1861
Re: Developing Eastern European Crises
[Re: Navarro]
#178091 05/06/202211:08 AM05/06/202211:08 AM
The Kremlin has denied that it has any information about a reported Ukrainian strike on a Russian warship in the Black Sea.
Speculation has been growing over the fate of the Admiral Makarov, which Ukrainian MP Oleksiy Goncharenko said on his Telegram account had been hit in a missile strike and burst into flames.
He said that the ship had been "badly damaged" after being hit by Ukrainian attacks but remained afloat for now. "Yes, yes, you understood everything correctly! The God of the seas takes revenge on the offenders of Ukraine," he wrote.
Other unconfirmed reports on social media and Ukrainian news outlets said the warship had been hit by missiles near Snake Island in the Black Sea south of Odesa.
Russian forces sent helicopters to rescue the crew of the ship, according to Ukrainian news site Dumskaya, which said that the vessel had been hit by a Neptune missile.
Open source intelligence monitor OSINTdefender tweeted that it was "seeming more and more likely" that the reports that the vessel had been hit were "true."
"Multiple rescue ships and aircraft are reportedly in the area with U.S. surveillance drones keeping eyes on it," it added.
In its daily report, Ukraine's defense ministry said another ship had been destroyed although it did not specify if it was referring to Admiral Makarov.
Newsweek has contacted the Ukrainian defense ministry for comment.
Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov rejected the reports, telling reporters "we do not have such information" about the reported strike, RIA Novosti reported.
Commissioned in 2017, Admiral Makarov is a modern frigate loaded with guided missiles.
If the strike on the vessel is confirmed, it would be another blow to Russia's Navy. Last month, the warship Moskva, the flagship of its Black Sea fleet, sank after a Ukrainian missile strike.
It follows reports this week that the U.S. had provided targeting data that helped Kyiv's forces sink the vessel, which was a major public relations coup for Ukraine and a blow for Russia's forces.
However, Pentagon spokesman John Kirby said in a statement to Newsweek that the U.S. did not provide information to target the Moskva and was "not involved in the Ukrainians decision to strike the ship."
The Moskva was the largest Russian warship to be sunk in combat since World War II. However, Moscow has denied Ukrainian missiles caused the vessel's demise, saying it sunk due to an an onboard fire caused a munitions explosion.
The Biden regime, being controlled by Obama and the Globalists who would love to kill off 90% of us is not only is not taking Russian threats of nuclear war seriously they are trying to provoke the Russian Commie Rats to turn the war nuclear to keep the democrats in power. Without a crisis the Democrats will loose in the next elections. Most of the ultra-rich moved to the Southern Hemisphere months ago to avoid the blasts and the nuclear fallout.
The leftist idiots in the controlled major news media are suppressing the relevant news to help destroy us.
The US has shut down diplomacy with the Russians and initiated an economic war with Russia defaulting on contracts and initiating economic sanctions effectively stealing billions of dollars from them.
Bible scholars can not find the USA mentioned in Bible prophecy so it is likely that we will be nuked starting with a high altitude EMP strike that will fry most power transformers and all most computer chips that now besides running passenger vehicles run off road vehicles, industrial engines, and tractors too. Without electricity to circulate the coolant our nuclear power plants will melt down.
The Russian have engines that still run without electronics, radios that are EMP resistant running with vacuum tubes, underground fallout shelters for a millions of their citizens, and underground factories.
The Russian have drone submarines right now sitting on the ocean floor off our east and west coasts ready to fire their 300 megaton nuclear torpedoes causing radio active tidal waves.
The sorry damn leftists are continuing to promote the murder of unborn babies and promoting the mutilation of children with surgery and hormones of their opposite sex. Males can never be changed into female and females can never be changed into males. All they become are mutilated sodomite freaks.
The USA is coming under severe judgment of the Lord God. Prepare to meet you maker. Your soul is eternal. Everyone will either be in Hell or in Heaven forever. Get right with the Lord Jesus Christ while you still can as you might not survive World War III.
Dig nuclear fallout shelters, plant gardens, and lean how to live without electricity. Never surrender your firearms for food and never let them put you in a FEMA camp.
https://naturalnews.com/2022-03-15-...s-game-of-global-chicken-with-putin.html “We have developed unmanned submersible vehicles that can move at great depths – I would say extreme depths – intercontinentally, at a speed multiple times higher than the speed of submarines, cutting-edge torpedoes and all kinds of surface vessels,” said Putin.
"It is reported that the main goal of the torpedo is to deliver a thermonuclear warhead to enemy shores in order to destroy important coastal infrastructure and industrial objects, as well as ensure massive damage to the enemy’s territory by subjecting vast areas to radioactive tsunamis and other devastating consequences of a nuclear explosion.
"The function of the Poseidon drone system is to unleash a dirty bomb effect onto an enemy’s coastal regions by detonating a cobalt-enriched nuclear warhead under the ocean, several miles off the coast."
"There’s no way of stopping this underwater drone. The warhead on it has a yield of up to 100 megatons. The explosion of this thermonuclear torpedo by Britain’s coastline will cause a giant tsunami wave up to 500 meters high," says presenter."
www.TexasMilitia.Info Seek out and join a lawful Militia or form one in your area. If you wish to remain Free you will have to fight for it...because the traitors will give us no choice in the matter--William Cooper
The USA is coming under severe judgment of the Lord God.
That is exactly what's happening and most refuse to see it coming.
"The time for war has not yet come, but it will come and that soon, and when it does come, my advice is to draw the sword and throw away the scabbard." Gen. T.J. Jackson, March 1861
We still have to beware of the Chi-Coms who own that child molesting crooked election stealing traitor Biden. ------------------------------------------------------ Latest intel: Biden using Ukraine theater of war to DISPOSE of America’s munitions arsenal … FEAR the “thermobaric” bomb Friday, May 06, 2022 by: Mike Adams https://www.naturalnews.com/2022-05...spose-of-americas-munitions-arsenal.html
During the recent military withdrawal from Afghanistan, the Biden regime left behind $10+ billion in US military hardware, including aircraft, helicopters, armored vehicles, missiles, munitions, firearms and more. This was, of course, a deliberate effort to arm America’s enemies while depleting America’s own military hardware stockpiles.
The Ukraine conflict is yet another scheme where Biden, under the control of communist China, is disposing of America’s munitions by feeding them into the “Russia grinder” where these weapons are destroyed on their way to the front lines in Ukraine.
The goal of this is not merely to help Ukraine win the war (which looks hopeless at this point) but rather to deplete America’s weapons stockpiles in an effort to weaken America before China’s long-planned invasion gets under way.
China is watching carefully and calculating the rapid draw-down of America’s anti-tank weapons, drones, armored vehicles, artillery units, artillery ammunition and other key elements that would be necessary for America to defend herself against a Chinese invasion. The more of these weapons are sent to Ukraine, the weaker America’s homeland defenses become. The Biden regime is run by Obama, who has been working to weaken and dismantle the USA
Understand that Biden is run by Obama, and Obama has been working with globalists to destroy the United States from the very start of his administration in January, 2009. Some of the attacks on America that have been waged with the help of Obama include culture wars, racial division, extreme censorship, economic warfare, dumbing down of public education, mass depopulation efforts with deadly vaccines, the purging of conservatives from the US military and the carrying out of mass domestic terrorism by the FBI, which ran the Gov. Whitmer “kidnapping” false flag operation. Brighteon.TV
Despite all the attacks, America has a very strong military, so every effort is being made to wipe out USA military hardware and personnel. The shipping of hardware to Ukraine is only one small part of that effort, however.
The larger effort appears to be a deliberate attempt to provoke Putin into a retaliation against America’s military troops who are gathering in Poland in anticipation of a summertime counter attack against Russia. The most likely weapon that will be used in this escalation, according to our sources, is a Fuel Air Explosive weapon, also known as a “thermobaric” bomb.
A thermobaric bomb is devastating against personnel but unable to breach concrete bunkers or armored vehicles. However, it disintegrates the human body with horrifying efficiency, and it can cover a very wide area when deployed. Russia has possessed such weapons since the 1960s and has mastered their deployment.
Some people claim the following video records the deployment of a Russian thermobaric bomb in Ukraine, in early March. Although it appears to depict a mushroom cloud, there was no radiation from this blast, indicating it was not a nuclear weapon.
Biden is pushing Russia into escalating retaliation
Observing the fact that the Pentagon is now bragging to the NYT about taking part in the sinking of the Moskva (Russian flagship), it is apparent that Biden wants to goad Russia into an escalating retaliation against NATO and the USA.
Russia’s primary choices of weapons for that escalation are:
Hypersonic cruise missiles – impossible for NATO to stop, typically carry kinetic explosives Thermobaric bombs (Fuel Air Explosives) – highly effective anti-personnel bombs which can destroy large numbers of people, but do not release radiation EMP weapons – Plunges the target area into a 19th century existence without power, but may risk causing nuclear power plants to lose control, leading to meltdowns Nuclear weapons – Unleashes radioactivity and invites international condemnation and possible breaking of ties with India and Turkey
Thus, the most obvious retaliatory weapon of choice for Putin to attack US and NATO troops stationed in Poland is the use of a thermobaric bomb.
Obama / Biden no doubt invite this because it would destroy the ranks of the US military and leave America even more defenseless against an invasion from China.
Remember: Everything Biden does is calculated by Obama to erode the defensive power of the US military, either through attrition of active duty soldiers or the disposal of US munitions. Biden’s handlers are treasonous actors who hope to bring down America and see it conquered by communists.
Get more details in today’s Situation Update podcast:
www.TexasMilitia.Info Seek out and join a lawful Militia or form one in your area. If you wish to remain Free you will have to fight for it...because the traitors will give us no choice in the matter--William Cooper
A lot is being said about Russia's hypersonic missiles. It's true they've tested them - but testing a couple missiles is a long way from actually deploying them. That takes years, and presents a whole slough of more problems - not the least of which that most all of Russia's missiles rely on parts from Ukraine. By contrast, Raytheon and other suppliers can churn out Javelins, counterbattery fire systems, and antiaircraft systems pretty quickly.
But most importantly, the Ukraine military is simply fighting well, while Russia's is not. Russia's tactics haven't changed a whole lot since WWII, while Ukraine - with training provided by the U.S. and other NATO countries, has the ability to adapt to changes in the battlefield. In short, it's no longer a given that Russia can or will win this war.
Disclaimer: I own stock in Raytheon.
Onward and upward, airforce
Re: Developing Eastern European Crises
[Re: Navarro]
#178104 05/08/202208:06 AM05/08/202208:06 AM
"The time for war has not yet come, but it will come and that soon, and when it does come, my advice is to draw the sword and throw away the scabbard." Gen. T.J. Jackson, March 1861
Re: Developing Eastern European Crises
[Re: Navarro]
#178122 05/12/202211:12 AM05/12/202211:12 AM
Finland's leaders support joining NATO. Finland's membership would more than double NATO's borders with Russia, a nightmare for Putin. Once Finland and Sweden formally apply, their acceptance into NATO will likely be swift.
Onward and upward, airforce
Re: Developing Eastern European Crises
[Re: Navarro]
#178134 05/13/202211:54 AM05/13/202211:54 AM
...At a news conference on Monday, Mr Erdogan said Turkey opposed the Finnish and the Swedish bids to join Nato, describing Sweden as a "hatchery" for terrorist organisations.
"Neither of these countries have a clear, open attitude towards terrorist organisation. How can we trust them?" the Turkish president said.
Turkey accuses the two Nordic nations of harbouring members of the Kurdistan Workers' Party (PKK), a group it views as a terrorist organisation, and followers of Fethullah Gulen, who Ankara accuses of orchestrating a 2016 coup attempt.
All member states must agree that a new country can join Nato, therefore Sweden and Finland require Turkey's support in their bid to join the military alliance.
Mr Erdogan said Swedish and Finnish delegations should not bother going to Ankara, Turkey's capital, to convince it to approve their Nato bid....
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