Russia/Ukraine conflict

[petit_bateau]

Wow! That really is a big deal. Hungary traditionally has not been ready to alienate anybody with money, since Constantinople. Urban most be very, very worried. Did the earthquake disaster actually weaken him?

My personal opinion is that Orban's position in Hungary is 'brittle'. So to an extent strong, but could snap without warning. The anti-Orban forces both inside and outside of Hungary are not going away. And he is reading the tea leaves of the coming year just as much as 21-year US game playing gun-toting types that are his useful fools.

So .... since money talks, he is trying to stay alive.

 

[petit_bateau]

Drone wars, bottomless magazines, this is getting close to deployable

Army short-range air defense laser prototypes take down drones at Yuma

The Army's Rapid Capabilities and Critical Technologies Office chief said its Short-Range Air Defense 50-kilowatt laser weapon is performing well.

www.defensenews.com

 

[petit_bateau]

8 Leopards, thank you Canada

https://twitter.com/x/status/1646888145852538881

bad China

China agreed to secretly arm Russia, leaked Pentagon documents reveal

Intercept of Russian intelligence shows Beijing wanted to disguise lethal aid as civilian items, says report

www.theguardian.com

Well Done France (cred Guardian)

Ukraine will receive 19 French-made Caesar howitzer artillery systems within the coming weeks, the Danish defence ministry said in a statement on Friday, Reuters reports.

Denmark’s government in January announced it would donate the artillery weapons after Kyiv had asked Copenhagen to supply them.

 

[Tiger]

I wouldn't be surprised if Putin came up suddenly, announced withdrawal from Ukraine, mission accomplished, and said it was all along planned together with Ukraine to get rid of all private militaries ("denazification") in both Russia and Ukraine ... /s

https://twitter.com/x/status/1646702706072117251

https://twitter.com/x/status/1646930228034379777

 

[navguy12]

Maybe he did have top secret clearance. But you'd think someone with that clearance would be well aware of both the consequences and likelihood of getting caught for that criminal act. I guess he could have been living in his own fantasy land.

I had TS clearance when I was a mere 20 years old, flying on the CP-140, the Canadian version of the (IIRC) P3-C “update 2”.

In those days, the handling of crypto and any mission related (acoustic) data was with kid gloves and very seriously.

 

[Alset Srotom]

I wouldn't be surprised if Putin came up suddenly, announced withdrawal from Ukraine, mission accomplished, and said it was all along planned together with Ukraine to get rid of all private militaries ("denazification") in both Russia and Ukraine ... /s

https://twitter.com/x/status/1646702706072117251

https://twitter.com/x/status/1646930228034379777

Why can I not find this anywhere other than a random Twitter account?

 

[DayTrippin]

Why can I not find this anywhere other than a random Twitter account?

Will this suffice?

Wagner Group leader calls on Putin to declare âspecial military operationâ over

Yevgeny Prigozhin, leader of the Wagner Group, is advising the Russian authorities to declare the so-called âspecial military operationâ over and concentrate on consolidating its hold on the occupied territories of Ukraine.

www.pravda.com.ua

 

[Don.Church]

I had TS clearance when I was a mere 20 years old, flying on the CP-140, the Canadian version of the (IIRC) P3-C “update 2”.

In those days, the handling of crypto and any mission related (acoustic) data was with kid gloves and very seriously.

Thank you for serving

 

[wdolson]

MJ Greene sides with the traitor

Marjorie Taylor Greene defends National Guardsman suspected of leaking classified docs

The Georgia lawmaker's comments were at odds with those of fellow Republicans and drew backlash from Democrats.

www.nbcnews.com

Why oh why is this nut job on a national security committee ?

And members of Congress don't have to go through background checks. Any nutter who can get elected and get assigned to the intelligence committees can see all the classified information available to Congress.

Drone wars, bottomless magazines, this is getting close to deployable

Army short-range air defense laser prototypes take down drones at Yuma

The Army's Rapid Capabilities and Critical Technologies Office chief said its Short-Range Air Defense 50-kilowatt laser weapon is performing well.

www.defensenews.com

Counters for all new weapons systems are developed eventually. Drones will be part of warfare for the foreseeable future, but cheap commercial drones are going to have very limited life spans. Even hardened military drones are going to be vulnerable.

I wouldn't be surprised if Putin came up suddenly, announced withdrawal from Ukraine, mission accomplished, and said it was all along planned together with Ukraine to get rid of all private militaries ("denazification") in both Russia and Ukraine ... /s

https://twitter.com/x/status/1646702706072117251

https://twitter.com/x/status/1646930228034379777

Putin knows that the Russian people tend to rebel when they lose a war and just declaring victory when they clearly lost is only going to convince the most gullible. There will be over 100K men coming back from the war who will know differently and some percentage of those will want to fight Moscow. With the army in tatters, it will be hard to stop a rebellion once it gets going.

Putin can't afford to stop the war. It's too risky to him. He's stuck in a situation with no way out that isn't rife with peril for him and his cronies.

 

[Alset Srotom]

Will this suffice?

Wagner Group leader calls on Putin to declare âspecial military operationâ over

Yevgeny Prigozhin, leader of the Wagner Group, is advising the Russian authorities to declare the so-called âspecial military operationâ over and concentrate on consolidating its hold on the occupied territories of Ukraine.

www.pravda.com.ua

Not at all what the Twitter post made it out to be. He says to take a pause and strengthen the occupied and annexed areas. No one is "begging" for anything.

 

[SageBrush]

Will this suffice?

Prigozhin knows that he will have better responses to his sign-up drives if the job is to terrorize the civilian populace

 

[BitJam]

Seriously? You want to blame a 17 year-old gamer for this debacle? Moreover, the third party, what obligation do they have to keep this material secret, unless they are US citizens or residents themselves?

The blame for this sits squarely with the US government, who are giving access to highly secret information to all and sundry. It's really of secondary importance which government agency will carry most of the blame after they are done with the finger-pointing.

No. I said Teixeira was stupid. I didn't say he was blameworthy. He betrayed his country and ruined his life in order to show off to a small group of people on the internet. Likewise I said his friend Lucca was stupid for sharing classified information in order to show off on the internet. Sharing classified information is a crime even if you don't have a security clearance. But even if it wasn't a crime it was a stupid thing to do if for no other reason than it got his friend Teixeira into a heap of trouble.

Of course, the Russians (I presume) who caused this leak to come to light were incredibly stupid because it would have been much better for Russia to keep the leak quiet.

I did actual cast blame in my post. I blamed authority figures who scoff the law and who fed Teixeira and Lucca a bunch of BS about fascism being good and democracy and the rule of law being bad. Some of the Jan. 6th insurrectionists were similarly inspired and now greatly regret heeding that line of BS. The insurrectionists are clear evidence that hundreds or thousands of Americans have recently been inspired to break the law and betray their country. Yes, they acted like idiots and should be punished but I mostly blame the people who inspired them and urged them on.

[To veer back on track for just a moment: Fiona Hill, one of our top experts on Russia and Putin, said it was the Jan. 6th insurrection that led Putin to think the US was too weak and too filled with internal strife to bother much about his invasion of Ukraine.]

As has been explained here many times already, it is commonplace for our system to entrust young people with classified information. This has worked fine for many decades. The one thing that changed is some young folks like Teixeira and Lucca got their heads filled with BS that led them to think fascism, Nazism, and racism were good while breaking the law and betraying their country were no big deals.

Such deep betrayals of our country were entirely predictable based on the disrespectful actions and rhetoric of a few of our leaders. Some folks have been warning about this for over six years. Fascism, Nazism, and racism can be a heady brew for impressionable young people especially when promoted by the leaders of our land. Teixeira will likely be punished, and rightly so, but the blame clearly lies at the feet of the leaders who filled his head with anti-democratic nonsense, and maybe at the feet of those who voted them into power.

As @SageBrush recently reported, Marjorie T. Greene defended the leak and implied our Command in Chief was the real enemy thus removing almost any doubt over what group inspired this stupid betrayal. I don't know why you try to cast blame everywhere except where it clearly belongs. Perhaps the Reader doth protest too much.

It's funny. Greene says the leak was good because Joe Biden is bad while you said the leak is bad and Joe Biden was responsible. One thing is clear, you two really really really dislike the current President of the United States.

 

[adiggs]

No. I said Teixeira was stupid. I didn't say he was blameworthy. He betrayed his country and ruined his life in order to show off to a small group of people on the internet. Likewise I said his friend Lucca was stupid for sharing classified information in order to show off on the internet. Sharing classified information is a crime even if you don't have a security clearance. But even if it wasn't a crime it was a stupid thing to do if for no other reason than it got his friend Teixeira into a heap of trouble.

Of course, the Russians (I presume) who caused this leak to come to light were incredibly stupid because it would have been much better for Russia to keep the leak quiet.

I did actual cast blame in my post. I blamed authority figures who scoff the law and who fed Teixeira and Lucca a bunch of BS about fascism being good and democracy and the rule of law being bad. Some of the Jan. 6th insurrectionists were similarly inspired and now greatly regret heeding that line of BS. The insurrectionists are clear evidence that hundreds or thousands of Americans have recently been inspired to break the law and betray their country. Yes, they acted like idiots and should be punished but I mostly blame the people who inspired them and urged them on.

[To veer back on track for just a moment: Fiona Hill, one of our top experts on Russia and Putin, said it was the Jan. 6th insurrection that led Putin to think the US was too weak and too filled with internal strife to bother much about his invasion of Ukraine.]

As has been explained here many times already, it is commonplace for our system to entrust young people with classified information. This has worked fine for many decades. The one thing that changed is some young folks like Teixeira and Lucca got their heads filled with BS that led them to think fascism, Nazism, and racism were good while breaking the law and betraying their country were no big deals.

Such deep betrayals of our country were entirely predictable based on the disrespectful actions and rhetoric of a few of our leaders. Some folks have been warning about this for over six years. Fascism, Nazism, and racism can be a heady brew for impressionable young people especially when promoted by the leaders of our land. Teixeira will likely be punished, and rightly so, but the blame clearly lies at the feet of the leaders who filled his head with anti-democratic nonsense, and maybe at the feet of those who voted them into power.

As @SageBrush recently reported, Marjorie T. Greene defended the leak and implied our Command in Chief was the real enemy thus removing almost any doubt over what group inspired this stupid betrayal. I don't know why you try to cast blame everywhere except where it clearly belongs. Perhaps the Reader doth protest too much.

It's funny. Greene says the leak was good because Joe Biden is bad while you said the leak is bad and Joe Biden was responsible. One thing is clear, you two really really really dislike the current President of the United States.

Thank you. Probably the best thing I've read this year. Most concise articulation I've seen of an incredibly different problem to describe. Thank you.

 

[madodel]

No. I said Teixeira was stupid. I didn't say he was blameworthy. He betrayed his country and ruined his life in order to show off to a small group of people on the internet. Likewise I said his friend Lucca was stupid for sharing classified information in order to show off on the internet. Sharing classified information is a crime even if you don't have a security clearance. But even if it wasn't a crime it was a stupid thing to do if for no other reason than it got his friend Teixeira into a heap of trouble.

Of course, the Russians (I presume) who caused this leak to come to light were incredibly stupid because it would have been much better for Russia to keep the leak quiet.

I did actual cast blame in my post. I blamed authority figures who scoff the law and who fed Teixeira and Lucca a bunch of BS about fascism being good and democracy and the rule of law being bad. Some of the Jan. 6th insurrectionists were similarly inspired and now greatly regret heeding that line of BS. The insurrectionists are clear evidence that hundreds or thousands of Americans have recently been inspired to break the law and betray their country. Yes, they acted like idiots and should be punished but I mostly blame the people who inspired them and urged them on.

[To veer back on track for just a moment: Fiona Hill, one of our top experts on Russia and Putin, said it was the Jan. 6th insurrection that led Putin to think the US was too weak and too filled with internal strife to bother much about his invasion of Ukraine.]

As has been explained here many times already, it is commonplace for our system to entrust young people with classified information. This has worked fine for many decades. The one thing that changed is some young folks like Teixeira and Lucca got their heads filled with BS that led them to think fascism, Nazism, and racism were good while breaking the law and betraying their country were no big deals.

Such deep betrayals of our country were entirely predictable based on the disrespectful actions and rhetoric of a few of our leaders. Some folks have been warning about this for over six years. Fascism, Nazism, and racism can be a heady brew for impressionable young people especially when promoted by the leaders of our land. Teixeira will likely be punished, and rightly so, but the blame clearly lies at the feet of the leaders who filled his head with anti-democratic nonsense, and maybe at the feet of those who voted them into power.

As @SageBrush recently reported, Marjorie T. Greene defended the leak and implied our Command in Chief was the real enemy thus removing almost any doubt over what group inspired this stupid betrayal. I don't know why you try to cast blame everywhere except where it clearly belongs. Perhaps the Reader doth protest too much.

It's funny. Greene says the leak was good because Joe Biden is bad while you said the leak is bad and Joe Biden was responsible. One thing is clear, you two really really really dislike the current President of the United States.

Is it just the US or are other countries deluged with a large minority of people who hate government and have no problem with attacking government in words and deeds (like this matter of fact stealing and posting of government secrets)? I understand that there are always people who blame all their problems on everyone but themselves, and many who specifically blame specific parts of society for their own failures but in the US there seems to be a large growing vocal disdain and outright hate for government over the past 40 years. Is that global? I understand hating government in a fascist state like Russia, but those folks also seem to be justifiably cowed by the threats and violent actions of the dictator. Here people like Greene have no fear of any repercussions for their actions. She'll probably be re-elected in her district no matter what she says as long as she beats the drum to hate the "others".

 

[madodel]

Western European countries are expelling Russian spies everywhere. Maybe this will be a new source of cannon fodder for the frontlines.

Norway: 15 employees of Russian embassy suspected of espionage and declared personae non gratae

As the Ministry points out in its press release, Norway is not the only country that is taking steps to curtail covert Russian intelligence activity. “Many European countries have recently reduced the number of Russian intelligence officers operating under diplomatic cover, and have tightened the rules for issuing visas to Russian intelligence officers”, it wrote.

 

[[email protected]]

Guys, more food for thought: Byron King, Capt (Ret.) formerly of the staff of the Chief of Naval Operations, with his views about the Ukraine conflict. He doesn't mention the $400 million USD that Zelensky reportedly has skimmed so far, but it is a lot more than the $160 million USD that Ghani squirreled away from Afghanistan, but he covers the likely outcomes. Enjoy: The World’s About to Change “Big-Time” - Daily Reckoning

 

[wdolson]

Is it just the US or are other countries deluged with a large minority of people who hate government and have no problem with attacking government in words and deeds (like this matter of fact stealing and posting of government secrets)? I understand that there are always people who blame all their problems on everyone but themselves, and many who specifically blame specific parts of society for their own failures but in the US there seems to be a large growing vocal disdain and outright hate for government over the past 40 years. Is that global? I understand hating government in a fascist state like Russia, but those folks also seem to be justifiably cowed by the threats and violent actions of the dictator. Here people like Greene have no fear of any repercussions for their actions. She'll probably be re-elected in her district no matter what she says as long as she beats the drum to hate the "others".

There are a number of countries with problems between the public and the government. France had riots because the government raised the retirement age to 64. Still one of the lowest in the world.

Brexit stemmed from a distrust of the EU combined with racism over people moving to the UK from other EU countries.

In the US the distrust started over the lies with the Vietnam War, then in 1980 Reagan came along telling people that essentially government was evil by nature. Up until the late 60s it was common in the US to believe that, for the most part, the government was trying to help people.

Right wing media latched onto Reagan's message and amplified it, then in recent years foreign actors who want to sow dissent in the US have fed that distrust even more until we have gotten to this point.

There were things going on in other countries to feed this, but as far as I can tell the original seeds of mistrust in other democracies were memes that started in the US. Probably exported in all the movies and TV the US distributes around the world. There were a lot of themes about secret government programs and such like the X-files that became popular around the world.

I saw some measure of impressions of internal tensions country by country and most democracies ranked fairly high with Japan being the only exception. It was a couple of years ago, I forget where I saw it unfortunately.

 

[SageBrush]

France had riots because the government raised the retirement age to 64. Still one of the lowest in the world.

Part and parcel of Gov distrust is a low information citizenry and susceptibility to propaganda. The US circulated memes about France's SS system are a good example. The Gov desire to raise the equivalent of USA FRA are reported widely in the US, but the French system is different enough from the US system to make one piece of information taken out of context into propaganda.

E.g.

• The French SS benefit is based on 42 (going up to 43) years of work, compared to 35 for the US
• The monthly contributions in France are *much* higher than the US

There are many more differences, and a reasonable treatment of the topic probably takes a book. But as your post demonstrated, people have gotten comfortable jumping to unwarranted conclusions

 

[petit_bateau]

In the US the distrust started over the lies with the Vietnam War, then in 1980 Reagan came along telling people that essentially government was evil by nature. Up until the late 60s it was common in the US to believe that, for the most part, the government was trying to help people.

Right wing media latched onto Reagan's message and amplified it, then in recent years foreign actors who want to sow dissent in the US have fed that distrust even more until we have gotten to this point.

There were things going on in other countries to feed this, but as far as I can tell the original seeds of mistrust in other democracies were memes that started in the US. Probably exported in all the movies and TV the US distributes around the world.

In the USA Reagan was elected in 1980, started his term in Jan 1981. In the UK Thatcher was elected in May 1979, about 18-months before Reagan.

The point being that Thatcher's small government neoliberal agenda did not in any way depend on, or arise from, Reagan. If you go and read the background to Thatcher you will see that the origin of her agenda stemmed from Hayek et al through various think tanks in the 1960s. These think tanks were well linked in the Western world, especially (but not exclusively) in the Anglo Saxon nations.

In some political environments distrust of government is fully justified. However a large part of the distrust of government that is in especial vogue on the right can be traced back to the Hayekian school.

Margaret Thatcher - Wikipedia

en.wikipedia.org

In the particular situation in France we should note that Macron was re-elected to his second term on a manifesto that specifically committed him to the changes in the pension system that he is seeking to carry out.

 

[Just a Reader]

No. I said Teixeira was stupid. I didn't say he was blameworthy. He betrayed his country and ruined his life in order to show off to a small group of people on the internet. Likewise I said his friend Lucca was stupid for sharing classified information in order to show off on the internet. Sharing classified information is a crime even if you don't have a security clearance. But even if it wasn't a crime it was a stupid thing to do if for no other reason than it got his friend Teixeira into a heap of trouble.

Of course, the Russians (I presume) who caused this leak to come to light were incredibly stupid because it would have been much better for Russia to keep the leak quiet.

I did actual cast blame in my post. I blamed authority figures who scoff the law and who fed Teixeira and Lucca a bunch of BS about fascism being good and democracy and the rule of law being bad. Some of the Jan. 6th insurrectionists were similarly inspired and now greatly regret heeding that line of BS. The insurrectionists are clear evidence that hundreds or thousands of Americans have recently been inspired to break the law and betray their country. Yes, they acted like idiots and should be punished but I mostly blame the people who inspired them and urged them on.

[To veer back on track for just a moment: Fiona Hill, one of our top experts on Russia and Putin, said it was the Jan. 6th insurrection that led Putin to think the US was too weak and too filled with internal strife to bother much about his invasion of Ukraine.]

As has been explained here many times already, it is commonplace for our system to entrust young people with classified information. This has worked fine for many decades. The one thing that changed is some young folks like Teixeira and Lucca got their heads filled with BS that led them to think fascism, Nazism, and racism were good while breaking the law and betraying their country were no big deals.

Such deep betrayals of our country were entirely predictable based on the disrespectful actions and rhetoric of a few of our leaders. Some folks have been warning about this for over six years. Fascism, Nazism, and racism can be a heady brew for impressionable young people especially when promoted by the leaders of our land. Teixeira will likely be punished, and rightly so, but the blame clearly lies at the feet of the leaders who filled his head with anti-democratic nonsense, and maybe at the feet of those who voted them into power.

As @SageBrush recently reported, Marjorie T. Greene defended the leak and implied our Command in Chief was the real enemy thus removing almost any doubt over what group inspired this stupid betrayal. I don't know why you try to cast blame everywhere except where it clearly belongs. Perhaps the Reader doth protest too much.

It's funny. Greene says the leak was good because Joe Biden is bad while you said the leak is bad and Joe Biden was responsible. One thing is clear, you two really really really dislike the current President of the United States.

Sorry, you seem to blame all sorts of people except for the ones that made this security breach possible. A small number of people have always turned into traitors, for money, because of blackmail, ideological conviction, whatever. What did not happen in the past was that a huge number of low ranking people had access to a huge trove of top secret material. Did someone who served on a navy patrol plane have access to the briefing material for the Joint Chiefs? I don't believe so, despite his TS clearance.
This is now the second time that the US has seen the leak of a huge amount of secret material, and you can't claim that Snowden was motivated by the Republicans.