According to most reports on the ground, there have been casualties on both sides and Russian troops are not advancing as quickly as some had feared.
We have also heard reports of Ukrainian fighter planes attacking Russian troops and heavy resistance within Kyiv. The estimates of casualties on both sides is now said to be in the thousands. There has been back and forth about a possible ceasefire, but nothing substantial.
To be clear, nobody could have really anticipated how this sort of invasion would go or how long it might take for Russian forces to seize control of major Ukrainian cities. Even when we invaded Iraq during desert storm, it took six weeks of bombing and several days of troop advances to actually take over Baghdad. So the suggestion that Putin anticipated taking the Ukrainian capital city in less than two days might be wishful thinking.
Ultimately Putin doesn't think like normal people and I doubt he is concerned with things going slower than some would have anticipated or suffering causalities, as long as he is making advances and as long as he is pressuring the Ukrainians. He is one of those military strategists who would likely be willing to shoot arrows into the battle, indiscriminately killing both sides, if he had the reserves to clean up the mess (think Braveheart).
So if you really want to read between the lines here, even the Ukrainian President himself is conceding that they cannot likely hold these cities indefinitely unless someone steps up and offers some real help. The longer it takes, perhaps the better chance Ukraine has of soliciting some help. One can only hope.
262 comments:
1 – 200 of 262 Newer› Newest»My, my. A little humanity is exhibited here even from Ch.
Well Reverend... not sure I follow you. But then again, I rarely do.
You seem to be very very confused by the fact that someone can both criticize our outrageously stupid response to this and not "also" be cheering for a tyrant.
Just because Putin is smarter than Biden and I admit this, doesn't make me a traitor. It just makes me honest.
You sure do suffer from a couple of grossly misplaced admirations:
Trump and Putin.
Or is "adorations" a better word?
Meanhile, on the streets of Santa Monica, one former Ukrainian has found happiness and acceptance in a land she loves.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UYIfQjEk2Uc
Even though you didn't give the President any credit, but your analysis is parallel to what I have been saying.
Putin underestimate the resistance or the impact on the desire to be free.
'Madge is officially a Nazi!': Marjorie Taylor Greene blasted for speaking at white nationalist event
Georgia Republican Congressman Marjorie Taylor Greene sparked outrage on Friday night when she appeared as a "surprise guest" at a white nationalist event being held in conjunction with the Conservative Political Action Conference in Orlando.
"Greene, a QAnon conspiracist and rabidly anti-trans Republican, was the surprise speaker at the third annual America First Political Action Conference in Orlando, organized by white nationalist figurehead Nick Fuentes, leader of the 'groyper' movement," the Huffington Post reports. "Fuentes, an antisemite and racist who attended the deadly 2017 white supremacist rally in Charlottesville, Virginia, and who was recently subpoenaed for his involvement in the Jan. 6, 2021, attack on the U.S. Capitol, excitedly introduced Greene as the featured speaker from behind a lectern inside the Marriott Orlando World Center, according to a livestream of the event."
Ben Lorber, an analyst for the social justice think tank Political Research Associates, noted on Twitter that in embracing Fuentes, Greene joined Arizona Republican Congressman Paul Gosar, who spoke at the conference last year.
"Fuentes claims alt-right troll Milo Yiannopoulos made it happen," Lorber wrote of Greene's appearance. "Shortly before bringing up MTG, the camera showed a sizeable and raucous crowd. Fuentes praised 'our secret sauce...young white men.' Fuentes then solicited a round of applause for Russia in its invasion of Ukraine, and the groyper crowd chanted 'Putin, Putin.'"
Conservative Meghan McCain, the daughter of the late Arizona Sen. John McCain, reacted on Twitter to Greene's appearance by noting that she is "more welcomed by Republican leadership than" Wyoming Republican Congressman Liz Cheney.
According to a report from the Daily Beast earlier this week, the AFPAC conference is "meant to showcase (the white nationalist) movement’s numbers and its successes courting Republican Party influence in the post-Capitol riot landscape."
"CPAC regularly attracts and courts large groups of young conservatives from around the country, offering them networking and job-hunting opportunities," the Daily Beast reported. "Fuentes’ evident strategy is to siphon away an amount of those young faces to his burgeoning hate movement in hopes of strong-arming the conservative movement more broadly toward an unapologetic far-right bent."
You will not condemn her because she is a Republican.
On Friday, former Tea Party Congressman Joe Walsh (R-IL), a vocal conservative critic of the Trump-era Republican Party, remarked that he was relieved former President Donald Trump was no longer in charge at the moment Russia is launching a violent, full-scale invasion of Ukraine.
"If Trump were President, the United States would be doing NOTHING to stop Putin," he wrote on Twitter. "Thank God Trump isn't President."
This remark did not sit well with Fox News contributor Liz Peek, who responded, calling him "delusional" and seeming to blame "delusional" President Joe Biden for the crisis.
On Friday, former Tea Party Congressman Joe Walsh (R-IL), a vocal conservative critic of the Trump-era Republican Party, remarked that he was relieved former President Donald Trump was no longer in charge at the moment Russia is launching a violent, full-scale invasion of Ukraine.
"If Trump were President, the United States would be doing NOTHING to stop Putin," he wrote on Twitter. "Thank God Trump isn't President."
This remark did not sit well with Fox News contributor Liz Peek, who responded, calling him "delusional" and seeming to blame "delusional" President Joe Biden for the crisis.
A tea party Republican said that you are a fool
Putin didn't anticipate this
The men of Ukraine, ages 18 to 60, are forbidden to leave. They have been drafted immediately into going to war against the Russians. So at this very moment, mothers are saying goodbye to their 18 year old sons, young fathers are saying goodbye to their small children. Grandfathers are saying goodbye to their grandchildren. Some have no experience with firearms, most have no military training, and many will not surviveđź’” This really puts things into perspective.
NATO isn't folding up,
https://www.politico.com/news/2022/02/25/nato-deploy-troops-eastern-flank-ukraine-00011902
NATO Secretary General Jens Stoltenberg speaks during a media conference at NATO headquarters in Brussels on Friday. | Olivier Matthys/AP Photo
By MYAH WARD
02/25/2022 02:10 PM EST
Updated: 02/25/2022 03:49 PM EST
NATO has deployed parts of its response force to its eastern flank, as Russia’s invasion of Ukraine extends Moscow’s military power to the borders of several of the alliance’s member states.
It is the first time the treaty’s response force has been used for collective security, NATO Secretary General Jens Stoltenberg told reporters on Friday.
“We are deploying elements of the NATO Response Force on land, at sea and in the air to further strengthen our posture and to respond quickly to any contingency,” Stoltenberg said, adding that countries bordering the conflict in Ukraine are “extremely concerned.”
“This goes far beyond Ukraine,” Stoltenberg said. “This is about how Russia is actually challenging, contesting core values for our security.”
President Joe Biden was among the NATO heads of state who met Friday morning to coordinate the treaty organization’s next moves as Russian President Vladimir Putin pushes forward with his full assault on his western neighbor. Russian forces encircled and entered Kyiv on Friday, prompting Ukrainian citizens to take up arms and braced for an intense battle. The NATO deployment along its eastern flank also comes as the U.S. warned that Moscow’s ultimate goal is “decapitating the government” in Kyiv and establishing a Russian-backed government in Ukraine’s capital.
“President Putin has failed in his goal of dividing the West. NATO is as united and resolute as it’s ever been, and NATO will maintain its Open Door to those European states who share our values and who one day may seek to join our Alliance. As we navigate this crisis, we pledged to work even more closely together in our defense of freedom and the democratic values that imbue our Alliance with purpose and power,” the White House said in a statement.
NATO said it will continue to deploy troops as necessary to “ensure strong and credible deterrence and defence across the Alliance, now and in the future.”
”Our measures are and remain preventive, proportionate and non-escalatory,” the statement said.
Stoltenberg didn’t specify the number of troops who would be deployed in this first round but said he’s talking about “thousands of troops.” NATO’s response force, comprised of 40,000 troops, has tripled in size since 2014, the year Putin first invaded Ukraine and annexed Crimea
OMG
ht Friday, firing U.S.-made missiles at aircraft and tanks as the Kremlin’s rockets, artillery and missiles rained down on population centers from Kharkiv to Mariupol to the capital of Kyiv.
As Moscow’s vastly superior air, naval and ground forces dug deeper into the country, Russian President Vladimir Putin appeared bent on regime change, calling on Ukraine’s armed forces to “take power” from Ukraine’s democratically elected leaders, whom he called “drug addicts and neo-Nazis.”
Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky vowed to defend the capital alongside his country’s soldiers and citizens, who have armed themselves with pistols, rifles and homemade molotov cocktails. “This was a hard, but brave day,” Zelensky said in a video address late Friday. “This night they will begin to storm. … We have to withstand. The fate of Ukraine is being decided right now.”
Our President isn't giving up either.
WASHINGTON — More than 75 years ago, faced with a Soviet Union that clearly wanted to take over states beyond its borders, the United States adopted a Cold War approach that came to be known as “containment,” a simplistic-sounding term that evolved into a complex Cold War strategy.
On Thursday, having awakened to a violent, unprovoked attack on Ukraine, exactly the kind of nightmare imagined eight decades before, President Biden made clear that he was moving toward Containment 2.0. And although it sounds a lot like its predecessor, it will have to be revised for a modern era that is in many ways more complex.
The nation that just moved “to wipe an entire country off the world map,” in the words of Chancellor Olaf Scholz of Germany, also remains a key supplier of natural gas to keep Germans and many other Europeans warm. That explains why Mr. Biden has been constrained from cutting off the valuable export.
And the Russia of today has a panoply of cyberweapons that it can use to strike at the United States or its allies without risking nuclear Armageddon — an option to retaliate against American sanctions that was never available to President Vladimir V. Putin’s predecessors.
Those are only two examples of why containment will not be easy. But Mr. Biden has been clear that is where he is headed.
Updated Feb. 26, 2022, 1:06 AM PST
By Alexander Smith and Daniel Arkin
After a night of attacks on cities, including Kyiv, the capital remained under Ukrainian control as the sun rose Saturday morning.
The city was braced for battle heading into the weekends as Russian troops continued to advance and President Volodymyr Zelenskyy had issued a desperate plea for help.
“The fate of Ukraine is being decided now,” Zelenskyy said in an address on social media. “Special attention is on Kyiv — we should not lose the capital. The enemy will use all the possible forces they have to break our resistance. They will be mean and hard. Tonight they will begin a full scale storm.”
Russian troops bore down on the city as the global backlash mounted against the unprovoked attack on a European democracy.
Explosions, air raid sirens and the sound of gunfire filled the air over Kyiv on Friday. Officials in Kyiv urged citizens to take shelter and street fighting was occurring. Explosions were heard overnight, and video showed fighting near the Kyiv Zoo.
In the morning, Zelenskyy posted a video standing in front of what appeared to be a building next to the presidential office in Kyiv. “I’m here,” he said.
Zelenskyy denied what he said were false claims of an evacuation. “We won’t put down [our] weapon, we’ll protect our country,” he said in the video, according to an NBC News translation.
Kyiv Mayor Vitali Klitschko said Saturday said that Russian troops trying to enter the city have been beaten back, but other sabotage and reconnaissance groups were inside.
“The night was difficult, but there are no Russian troops in the capital,” Klitschko said in a Telegram message Saturday morning, according to an NBC News translation. “The enemy is trying to break into the city.”
As of 6 a.m. 35 people had been injured, including two children, he said.
Russian Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov said Friday that “no strikes are being made on civilian infrastructure,” The Washington Post reported. And the Russian Ministry of Defence said Friday that it was doing all it could to avoid civilian casualties.
Dmytro Kuleba, Ukraine’s foreign minister, said on Twitter on Saturday morning that Kyiv "survived another night under attacks by Russian ground forces, missiles," and one hit a residential apartment. NBC News has not independently verified that allegation.
Photos of the building showed heavy damage to several floors with walls and windows blown out and a fire burning inside. The fire was extinguished and the building was being evacuated, according to the State Emergency Service of Ukraine.
Information on injuries was not immediately available early Saturday.
The Ukrainian military said in a Facebook post that Russian troops attacked an army base in Kyiv around midnight on Saturday but were repelled. The military also said there were "heavy battles" in Vasylkiv, a city near the capital. NBC News was not able to independently verify the Ukrainian military's accounts.
The mayor of Vasylkiv said Russian paratroopers landed but were repulsed. NBC News has not independently verified that claim.
There is fighting on the outskirts of the capital of Kyiv and in the coastal city of Mariupol, but presidential adviser Mykhailo Podoliak said the situation was under control.
“We knew that tonight was going to be a difficult night,” Podoliak said, adding that Russian attempts to harm Ukrainian cities “didn’t work.”
On Friday, the United States and European Union took the rare step of imposing sanctions on a head of state by targeting Russian President Vladimir Putin. The Biden administration also slapped sanctions on Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov and other members of Russia’s Security Council.
Zelenskyy spoke by phone with President Joe Biden for roughly 40 minutes on Friday, the White House said. Ukraine’s leader tweeted that the two discussed “strengthening sanctions, concrete defense assistance and an anti-war coalition.”
At the United Nations, a U.N. Security Council resolution condemning Russia's military aggression was vetoed — by Russia. The council voted 11-1 Friday in favor of the resolution, and Russia was the lone vote against it. Three countries abstained.
Putin suggested he might be willing to enter negotiations with Ukraine even as his forces continued their advance across the country. But hours later, the Russian leader urged Ukrainian soldiers to overthrow their government, which he described a "gang of drug addicts and neo-Nazis" — repeating propaganda Russia uses to justify its actions.
On Friday, the United States and European Union took the rare step of imposing sanctions on a head of state by targeting Russian President Vladimir Putin. The Biden administration also slapped sanctions on Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov and other members of Russia’s Security Council.
Zelenskyy spoke by phone with President Joe Biden for roughly 40 minutes on Friday, the White House said. Ukraine’s leader tweeted that the two discussed “strengthening sanctions, concrete defense assistance and an anti-war coalition.”
At the United Nations, a U.N. Security Council resolution condemning Russia’s military aggression was vetoed — by Russia. The council voted 11-1 Friday in favor of the resolution, and Russia was the lone vote against it. Three countries abstained.
Putin suggested he might be willing to enter negotiations with Ukraine even as his forces continued their advance across the country. But hours later, the Russian leader urged Ukrainian soldiers to overthrow their government, which he described a “gang of drug addicts and neo-Nazis” — repeating propaganda Russia uses to justify its actions.
Inside the embattled capital, Zelenskyy refused to leave and instead made a desperate plea for Western governments to take tougher measures against Moscow.
He has already called up any Ukrainians willing to fight and handed out thousands of guns to civilians. And on Friday, Zelenskyy urged anyone with military experience in Europe to travel to Ukraine and help defend its independence or take to their own streets in protest.
“We are defending our independence, our country,” he said in his latest video message. "It will continue like this. Glory to our defenders, glory to Ukraine.”
The fresh plea from the Ukrainian leader came as the invading Russian troops bore down on Kyiv amid a desperate defense in which hundreds of troops on either side were reportedly killed.
Zelenskyy says Russia targeting civilians, appeals to Russian protesters
Oksana Markarova, the Ukrainian ambassador to the U.S., said at a news conference Friday that Russia committed what she characterized as war crimes, targeting civilians, taking nearly 100 people hostage at Chernobyl and striking an orphanage with 50 children inside.
"The Russian propaganda machine says that civilians were not targeted. I want to tell you this is not true," Markarova told reporters.
Kyiv Mayor Vitali Klitschko described Russia's offensive in stark terms.
“The enemy wants to put the capital on its knees and destroy us," said Klitschko, a former world heavyweight boxing champion. “The city has gone into a defensive phase. Shots and explosions are ringing out in some neighborhoods. Saboteurs have already entered Kyiv.”
Russia is nonetheless meeting “greater resistance” from the Ukrainians than it might have expected, a senior U.S. defense official said Friday.
“They are fighting for their country,” the official said, referring to Ukrainian troops and freedom fighters.
Second, full-scale aggression without even a plausible pretext requires treating Putin’s government as a pariah. It deserves to be isolated politically, punished economically, and deterred militarily. Diplomatic ties should be maintained by the Western allies—with a continued effort to stem the onslaught, as noted earlier. The US and its allies should make clear that it is to Moscow’s benefit to halt sooner rather than later, a possibility with Kyiv’s implicit offer of neutrality. Otherwise, normal political relations with Russia should be restricted.
However, Washington also must work with the Europeans to develop strategies for ending confrontation and forging a long-term resolution. A lengthy Cold War II and arms race would be in no one’s interest, especially of Eastern Europeans who feel most vulnerable today. Any stable resolution will require an uncomfortable compromise, one that both frees Ukraine internally and addresses Russia’s essential security demands. Alas, this effort cannot begin until the attack on Ukraine has ended.
Economic sanctions should be imposed, with the understanding that they would penalize rather than change Moscow’s policy. The latter would be welcome but is highly unlikely. The Putin government set aside financial reserves and appears prepared to pay whatever price is exacted. The focus should be targeting state institutions, security forces, and governing elites. Sanctions with a broader impact might also be warranted to weaken Russian state power but needlessly hurting the Russian people should be avoided. Penalizing people in an attempt to push them into revolt is morally dubious and has consistently failed.
Moreover, in choosing punishments the US and its allies should avoid pushing Moscow into a corner. Ultimately, the allied objective should be to end the current confrontation and find a peaceful, stable resolution. Even more important, at some point, Putin could decide that retaliation was his only choice. Options would include striking the Baltic states, launching massive cyber-attacks, and downing American satellites, all of which would be devastating and could lead to even more dangerous escalation.
Western businesses, associations, sports federations, and others should cancel meetings, competitions, and other high-profile events. Although civil society contacts should be preserved as much as possible, Russia should be denied profitable and prestige activities. People horrified by Moscow’s attack should resist Putin hopes to aggrandize his state.
Third, countries that believe themselves to be potential Putin targets should invest in deterrence. Thankfully, America is not so threatened. The US enjoys an extraordinarily favorable geographic position and as well as military superiority. Russia has restored its great power status but has little ability, other than the use of nuclear weapons, which would result in the destruction of his nation, to hurt America. Moreover, Washington and Moscow have no essential differences over issues of vital importance—matters such as Syria are peripheral, if that—despite their difficult relationship in recent years.
However, the Biden administration announced that it will send another 7000 American soldiers to Germany, augmenting the defense of other states which long ago should have taken over their own security. In fact, Russia remains unlikely to move further. For years he has exhibited an almost monomaniacal focus on Ukraine, which indicates the latter was his major objective. And he is likely to find swallowing this current prey to be difficult enough, especially with an army that is competent but of only modest size.
Still, few are as certain of that judgment as before, given Moscow’s broad assault on Ukraine that might not stop short of total conquest. Also noted with concern is Putin’s oft-expressed angst over the breakup of the Soviet Union. However, there is a big difference between a wish list and to do list. After 22 years in power his total conquests had been paltry: the former Russian territory of Crimea. Although Moscow also gained indirect control over Donbass, South Ossetia, Abkhazia, and Transnistra, these are lands that most self-respecting dictators would disdain.
But Moscow’s reckless decision to launch a full-scale assault on Ukraine causes some to wonder if Putin’s geopolitical goals have expanded. Which leaves Georgia, another prospective NATO member, and the Baltic states, highly vulnerable geographically, especially nervous. However, the responsibility for Europe’s defense should be taken up by Europe. For far too long European states have been cheap riding on the US.
Indeed, no European members come out looking good. Only the United Kingdom and France are even vaguely serious about fielding capable militaries, mostly to police their former colonial empires. Greece leads on military spending as a percentage of GDP, but that reflects both its shrunken economy and fear of fellow NATO member Turkey.
Poland, Romania, and the Baltic States hit NATO’s official two percent level, but that seems shockingly low if they truly believe they risk submission to Moscow. Those governments should be investing heavily in a territorial defense that would make Russia pay a high price for any attack. Even worse, leading European states Germany, Italy, and Spain do distressingly little on behalf of continental security. Some suspect they would abolish their armed forces if maintaining a military wasn’t almost universally viewed as a sign of sovereignty.
The attack on Ukraine should act as the famed fire bell in the night for European governments and peoples. In a survey by the Pew Research Center, majorities of the populations in several nations opposed defending fellow alliance members while expecting the US to act. Washington should make clear that this sweet deal is over. The US won’t walk away while Europeans are taking over defense responsibilities, but Americans’ patience already is short and will only grow more so.
Fourth, the US and allies should ponder carefully before underwriting irregular warfare in Ukraine against Russia. Ukrainians have an absolute right to resist, and outside support would be justified. However, underwriting war against Moscow might result in heavy costs. Remember: American policymakers threatened to strike back in response to what turned out to be false claims of Soviet payments to Taliban fighters to kill US personnel. Actively providing weapons and training that resulted in the deaths of Russian soldiers could result in violent confrontations between Russian and NATO forces, with the constant threat of escalation.
More ominous for the US especially, Moscow could exact revenge elsewhere. With American forces still foolishly spread about the Middle East, especially Syria and Iraq, where plenty of other actors wish Washington ill and want to force Americans to depart, there would be many targets. US personnel further afield, including in Bahrain, Qatar, and Turkey, also might be vulnerable. The two great nuclear powers could find themselves in a quasi-war with escalating attacks on each other’s personnel.
The other question, of particular importance to Ukrainians, is what irregular war would do to them and their society. Advocates of allied support for an insurgency point to Afghanistan, from which the Mujahedeen drove the Soviet Union after ten years. That was an undoubted victory, but three decades on looks Pyrrhic. During that time Afghan society was traumatized and radicalized, extremist groups gained ground, and the Afghan people suffered mightily from both Soviet repression and bitter combat. Nor did the fighting end with the Red Army’s departure. Civil war among the victors erupted and ultimately other foreign powers, most notably America, entered, extending the conflict by another 20 years.
Obviously, Ukraine’s situation is different, and the attraction of fighting the occupier is obvious. However, far-right groups already are active militarily and influential politically. Experience elsewhere, most recently in Syria and Afghanistan, is that radicals gain most in such conflicts. What the country would look like after years of conflict is difficult to predict. Ukrainians rather than foreigners must decide whether an extended armed insurgency would leave them even worse off compared to the yet unknown results of defeat. They should be especially cautious relying on the allies, given their past willingness to piously back fighting Russia to the last Ukrainian.
Fifth, though Moscow is responsible for its reckless aggression, Washington and allied policies contributed to this disaster. In doing so, they left Ukraine to pay a high price for empty allied promises. For 14 years US, NATO, and allied officials ostentatiously backed Kyiv’s hopes for alliance membership, despite widespread European opposition to including Ukraine. Nationalist sentiments in Kyiv were strong and might nevertheless have prevented Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky from abandoning his country’s futile NATO quest. The refusal to even consider a compromise with Moscow on this issue during recent negotiations gave strong encouragement to the Zelensky government.
However, recognition that the alliance would not be waiting at the end of the rainbow—a reality which Zelensky now acknowledges in the midst of war—might have moved Kyiv to accept reality and keep the peace. Even a bad deal would have been far better for Ukraine than being defeated and possibly conquered militarily. Tragically, with defeat imminent, Kyiv now appears ready to concede what it refused to countenance before. Zelensky adviser Mykhailo Podolyak said: “If in Moscow they say they want to hold talks, including on neutral status, we are not afraid of this.”
Sixth, the US should learn from the disastrous consequences of its overreach at the Cold War’s conclusion. Declassified documents affirm Moscow’s complaint that the allies made multiple assurances against NATO expansion. To this was added other aggressive policies—dismantling Serbia, a historic Russian ally; promoting “color” revolutions in Georgia and Ukraine against Moscow-friendly regimes; supporting the 2014 street putsch against the elected, though corrupt, Russia-leaning government; and launching a parade of US-backed regime change operations. While clearly not justifying Putin’s actions, a point that deserves to be reiterated, this record helps explain them.
Despite claims that Putin cares little about such issues, he and other Russian officials cited NATO expansion for years. He discussed it and other issues in his famous speech at the 2007 Munich Security Forum. State Department cables report that other officials made similar points to their counterparts. It appears to be an important, though not the sole, motivation for Moscow’s actions.
This shouldn’t surprise Americans. Imagine if Moscow had sought to redirect Mexican economic activity to the Commonwealth of Independent States trade area, promoted a coup in Mexico City against the elected pro-American president, sent officials there who were outed debating who should staff the new government, and proposed that Mexico join the Russo-dominated Collective Security Treaty Organization. Hysteria would envelop Washington. All the people now denouncing Russia’s demand for a sphere of influence would insist on action against this shocking, outrageous, and unacceptable violation of the Monroe Doctrine. Some would darkly mutter about “all options being on the table” while urging decisive presidential action.
Finally, the US should use the Russian invasion to embarrass China. The People’s Republic of China determinedly fights any hint of “separatism” domestically. Yet Moscow is recognizing the independence of two Ukrainian provinces and may be intent on essentially absorbing the entire country. Given Beijing’s concern over Taiwan’s status, Xi Jinping cannot easily endorse the conduct of “his best friend and colleague,” Vladimir Putin. However, because of their increasingly close relationship and agreement recently signed in Beijing, the PRC cannot easily criticize Russia. The US and allied states should highlight this contradiction, while developing initiatives to deescalate burgeoning hostilities with China.
Putin apparently believes the invasion will make Russia safer. Alas, his actions will have the opposite effect. If anything can get Europe’s attention about security, it will be full-scale war nearby. Members of the transatlantic alliance might finally take their official commitment to increased military spending seriously. Countries that heretofore showed little interest in joining NATO might change their minds. Existing members bordering Russia are likely to gain US garrisons on a rotating or permanent basis. There will be political pressure in the US to up military outlays, deploy more soldiers to Europe, and short circuit ongoing efforts to shift resources to Asia. Putin has provided the vivid enemy so desired by America’s pernicious military-industrial-congressional-media-think tank complex.
Worst will be the impact on the Ukrainian people. However, Russia will not escape the dire consequences. Those who sow the wind, it is said, usually reap the whirlwind. Even more so, those who loose the dogs of war sometimes become prey themselves. This will be Putin’s terrible, tragic legacy.
The author worked for Ronald Reagan
Biden needs to return to the microphone, this time with the specifics that Americans — and Putin — cannot miss. And his “every inch” talk, welcome as it was, needs explaining. Does he really mean we would go to war with Russia, sink its ships, take its grid down, kill and be killed on the battlefield? Putin seemed to threaten that nuclear weapons were in play. If the West blinks at such mumbling, they will be. Again and again.
“Graduated pressure” was the term then-Defense Secretary Robert McNamara used to describe his “strategy” in the Vietnam War. But it wasn’t a strategy. It was a political tactic to satisfy a variety of domestic constituencies. Now is not the time for Biden to recall the Democrats of his youth, such as McNamara and his boss, Lyndon Baines Johnson. It’s time to take a page from Ronald Reagan if Russia crosses a NATO line: “Here’s my strategy on the Cold War: We win, they lose.”
Friday, February 25, 2022
Ukrainians not rolling over and playing dead....
UNLIKE THE SPINELESS TRUMP SLURPERS WHO SUCK ON TRUMPS ASS HERE AND THE FECKLESS GOP IN CONGRESS WHO ARE JUST A BUNCH OF CHICKENSHIT PUSSIES WITH BIG FUCKING MOUTHES!!!!!! While Lil Schitty still pushing his bullshit Rasmussen polls, real patriots are defending their country while he bitches like a baby girl!!!!!! BWAAAAAAAAAAAAAA!!!!
Russia’s Assault in Ukraine Slows
February 26, 2022 at 7:23 am EST By Taegan Goddard 51 Comments
New York Times:
“On the first day of President Vladimir Putin’s invasion of Ukraine, his generals and troops followed a textbook strategy for land invasions. They attacked the country’s military installations and air defense systems with missiles launched from the air, sea and land, seeking to take ownership of the skies, and sped forces to Kyiv, the capital, with the goal of decapitating the government of the democratically elected president, Volodymyr Zelensky.
“But then, things slowed. It is one thing to cross the border of another country with tanks and artillery, protected by warplanes above, Pentagon officials and analysts say.
It is another thing entirely to lay siege to cities and an army populated by people willing to put their lives on the line to protect what they view as their sovereign right to self-determination.
“Within a day of entering Ukraine, Russian forces lost some momentum, senior American and British officials said, as Ukrainian fighters mounted a resistance.”
Banning Russia From SWIFT Back in Play
February 25, 2022 at 11:11 pm EST By Taegan Goddard 511 Comments
“The U.S. is seriously considering whether to seek Russia’s expulsion from the SWIFT financial messaging system over the Ukraine invasion as allies in Europe warm to the idea of imposing a penalty that seemed unlikely just days ago,“ Bloomberg reports.
“Biden administration officials are now debating whether to push for a directive from the European Union needed to ban Russia from SWIFT, though a U.S. and EU decision is not imminent.”
Putin’s Historic Miscalculation
February 25, 2022 at 11:02 pm EST By Taegan Goddard 194 Comments
New Yorker:
“In the eyes of the world and almost certainly history, Vladimir Putin’s invasion of Ukraine on Thursday was an epic miscalculation, drawing comparisons to Adolf Hitler and Saddam Hussein for cold-blooded aggression that could challenge the world order and change its borders.”
Putin Loses Allies In Eastern Europe
February 25, 2022 at 11:00 pm EST By Taegan Goddard 41 Comments
“Russia’s invasion of Ukraine has shocked the former Soviet satellite states of Central and Eastern Europe, drawing strong condemnation even from the region’s most pro-Kremlin politicians,” the AP reports.
“For some of the countries that fled the Soviet bloc following a series of anti-communist revolutions more than 30 years ago, footage of tanks and troops rolling in to punish a nation trying to pursue its own independent course looks painfully familiar.”
U.S. Prepared to Help Zelensky Leave
February 25, 2022 at 10:51 pm EST By Taegan Goddard 63 Comments
“The U.S. government is prepared to help Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky leave Kyiv to avoid being captured or killed by advancing Russian forces,” the Washington Post reports.
“But so far, the president has refused to go.
“As the Russian military ratcheted up its attacks on Friday, a defiant Zelensky pledged to remain in charge of his government despite grave personal risk.”
AND MEANWHILE, WHAT DO WE HAVE IN AMERICA FROM THE REPUBLICAN SIDE?
Greene Spoke at White Nationalist Conference
February 25, 2022 at 10:47 pm EST By Taegan Goddard 37 Comments
Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene (R-GA) spoke at a white nationalist conference in Florida on Friday evening, the HuffPost reports.
DESPICABLE!
Trump Campaign Directed Fake Electors In Georgia
February 25, 2022 at 9:15 pm EST By Taegan Goddard 112 Comments
“The chairman of the Republican Party in Georgia on Friday told the House select committee investigating the January 6 riot that the Trump campaign had directed the party in 2020 to put forward an alternate slate of electors after then-President Donald Trump lost the state’s vote,” CNN reports.
DESPICABLE!
PEOPLE ARE DYING FOR DEMOCRACY AND WE HAVE A FORMER PRESIDENT TRYING TO OVERTHROW IT!
The bumbling biden could have named a scotus nominee that would pass bipartisan. Instead he stabs rep Clyburn in the back and flushes bipartisanship town the shitter by kneeling to the rabid liberal left with a nominee that is very questionably qualified.
Never underestimate Joe's ability to fuck things up.
Where the dumb goat fucking asshole gets his talking points from......misinformation put out by the GOP!!!!!!! BWAAAAAAAAAAAAAA!!!!! It is no wonder why he is unemployed, living in his own delusional world of stupid is as stupid does!!!!!!
Yahoo News
Biden's Republican critics are wrong about U.S. gas production, experts say
Ben Adler
Ben Adler·Senior Editor
Fri, February 25, 2022, 3:07 PM
Seeking a way to blame Russia’s invasion of Ukraine on President Biden, some prominent Republicans have been claiming that increasing U.S. production of fossil fuel energy would liberate Europe from its dependence on Russian gas and undermine Russia’s position in the conflict.
Experts in the economics of energy, however, say that U.S. energy production hasn’t been scaled back by Biden and that Europe’s only path to energy independence is to transition away from fossil fuels.
Drago/Bloomberg via Getty Images)
“It’s a deeply cynical ploy,” said Tyson Slocum, director of the energy program at Public Citizen, a consumer advocacy watchdog. “These are the same exact talking points they've been using for 40 years, and whatever the situation, it shows we should drill more. I’m embarrassed for them to try to exploit a tragedy.”
The attack on Biden holds that because of his effort to pause new gas and oil leasing on federal land and waters in an effort to curb greenhouse gas emissions to combat climate change, Russian President Vladimir Putin was empowered, because 42 percent of Europe’s imported natural gas comes from Russia.
Anonymous Myballs said...
The bumbling biden could have named a scotus nominee that would pass bipartisan
You need some Russian dressing for that word salad asshole... Your party of No will do its best to show abject racism by making up excuses why the pick is no fucking good.....while you embraced a fucking college drunk and a hand maiden as qualified......BWAAAAAAAAAAAAA!!!!!
A Harvard Center for American Political Studies-Harris Poll released Friday revealed that 62 percent of respondents believe Putin would not have invaded Ukraine if Trump were still president. Breaking down the numbers along party lines, the poll found that 85 percent of Republicans and 38 percent of Democrats held that belief
Biden must embrace oil and gas exploration. America was energy independent just a few years ago. The American president must do everything he can to make us independent again.
Re: 7:00 am
The woman who has been nominated for the next Supreme Court Justice is the most formidable of those who were being considered. If you watched the flawless presentation of her yesterday and think defeating her nomination is going to be easy, you have another think coming.
But of course, she is only
"a black vagina"
--rrb
Just as Obama's wife was just
"a cheap Chicago whore"
--KansasDemocrat
And these guys say these things and yet claim they are not racist!
And they say these things and yet there is never even one small peep of criticsm from Ch, the (racist?) administrator of this blog.
DESPICABLE!
Tell your wife I said that, Ch!
85% of Reppublicans held that belief.
Why are we not surprised?
Brown Jackson had a long record of having her decisions reversed by higher courts. How is that a formidable qualification?
Child's was the more formidable.
And there is nothing racist about either of these observations. Most Americans have become numb to the tired old charges that they're racist anytime they disagree with the socialist left.
Quote of the Day
February 26, 2022 at 8:15 am EST By Taegan Goddard Leave a Comment
“The fight is here; I need ammunition, not a ride.”
— Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky, refusing to be evacuated.
Biden must embrace oil and gas exploration. America was energy independent just a few years ago. The American president must do everything he can to make us independent again.
Bars In U.S. Pull Russia Vodka Off Shelves
February 26, 2022 at 7:57 am EST By Taegan Goddard 54 Comments
“Liquor stores and bars in North America are pulling Russian vodka off their shelves — and in some cases, pouring it down the drain — in protest of the country’s invasion of Ukraine,” the Miami Herald reports.
Forgive me for suggesting at 7:14 that rrb and kansasDim might just be a little on the racist side.
So the weekend before Biden's SOTU, the CDC, with no changes in the science, has loosened their masking guidance. No they're not political.
Russians Greet Putin’s War with Dismay
February 26, 2022 at 8:19 am EST By Taegan Goddard Leave a Comment
The Economist:
“The sombre, shamed mood in Moscow could hardly be more different from the euphoria that gripped it in 2014 when Mr Putin seized and annexed Crimea. Then Russian society swelled with pride. Even those who recognised that the annexation was illegal admitted that the bloodless operation had been well executed. Mr Putin’s sagging popularity rating soared.
“This time opinion polls by Levada, an independent pollster,
show that the country is divided,
with less than half of the population supporting Mr Putin’s recognition of two Potemkin republics in Ukraine–a precursor to the war.
THERE ARE NO PUBLIC DISPLAYS OF SUPPORT FOR MR. PUTIN'S INVASION.”
___________
IF YOU WANT TO FIND
SUPPORT FOR PUTIN,
GO TO FOX NEWS
AND TO THE TRUMPSTERS.
INCLUDING THE TRUMPSTERS HERE.
erica was energy independent just a few years
HOW MANY MORE TIMES DO I HAVE TO SHOVE THAT STUPID STATEMENT UP YOUR ASS???????
While the US is self-sufficient in coal and natural gas (as a result of the shale revolution), it has never ever been energy independent since the 1970s because of continued crude oil imports.
Being concerned about Biden's ability to handle the crisis is a far cry from supporting Putin. You like to present yourself as an intellectual but then make stupid comments like that.
Dopey, you couldn't shove anything up anyone's ass even If you removed your own head to do it.
Trump and Tucker Carlson on FOX NEWS are SUPPORTING Putin.
Stupid comment?
Anonymous Myballs said...
So the weekend before Biden's SOTU, the CDC, with no changes in the science, has loosened their masking guidance. No they're not political.
BWAAAAAAAAAA!!!!!! WTF is wrong with you???? Masks are proven to work, but the country is changing with infection rates decreasing and the population more resilient to the virus through vax and time!!!! Looking at the CDC methodology, the looked at all the data and are reducing their recommended all were masks.....Sorry sport you are not smart enough to see that. You certainly are another example of the shit full education system!!!!!
Tucker Carlson's pro Putin crap even appeared on Russian state controlled television.
Aiding and abetting the enemy while true Ukrainian patriots are dying.
No they are not. No one is supporting Putin on this. You're posting horse shit and it's stupid.
Bring critical of biden is not being pro Putin. But thanks for the joy behar style logic anyway.
Putin's invasion of Ukraine will be seen historically as comparable to Hitler's invasion of Poland.
That comparison is already being widely made.
Many Russians are ashamed.
Agree. And Biden runs the very real risk of being compared to Chamberlain.
Dopey, you couldn't shove anything up anyone's ass even If you removed your own head to do it.
BWAAAAAAAAAAAAAA!!!!!! As you take deep breathes out of your idol's trumps........LOLOLOLOL More brave talk from another GOP failure!!!!!
Anonymous Myballs said...
Brown Jackson had a long record of having her decisions reversed by higher courts. How is that a formidable qualification?
Who needs qualifications when you have a black vagina?
Biden told us his priority - black vagina.
And black vagina it is.
I, for one, look forward to meeting the man she raped in high school.
I'm sure he is an honorable gentleman and beyond reproach.
WANT TO WATCH SOMETHING GOOD ON FOX NEWS FOR A CHANGE?
https://www.aol.com/news/ukrainian-soldier-livestreamed-snake-island-144728019.html
In a time of war, criticizing the President and praising the leader of our opponent is unpatriotic behavior.
Compared to Chamberlain?
Chamberlain said,
"There will be peace in our time."
Biden kept saying.
"The Russians are going to attack."
You have moths in your bellfry, lol.
During World War two, not one former President, praised Hitler or the King of Japan, or Mousoulni.
You people have lost your minds.
In a time of war, criticizing the President and praising the leader of our opponent is unpatriotic behavior.
In Russia, the Kremlin is saying that those who criticize Putin run the risk of being charged with treason, BUT RUSSIANS ARE ANGRILY PROTESTING ANYWAY!
Blogger The Real Halfbaked Soars Pundit said...
In a time of war, criticizing the President and praising the leader of our opponent is unpatriotic behavior.
Yeah, fuck that alky.
For the short while we have left as citizens to be governed before becoming subjects to be ruled, I'll reserve the right to criticize the fucking moron you clowns installed in the white house.
Fuck Joe Biden.
Who needs qualifications when you have a black vagina?
Biden told us his priority - black vagina.
Rat taking another huge swallow of trumps manhood with his racism on display for all to admire.....BWAAAAAAAAAAAAA!!!! Sad taking from ball less at face value without attribution or proof...typical of low intellect idiots!!!!
Over 81 million Americans elected President Joe Biden.
rrb is a fucking joke.
Actions not words dumb shit.
Blogger The Real Halfbaked Soars Pundit said...
During World War two, not one former President, praised Hitler or the King of Japan, or Mousoulni.
You people have lost your minds.
No alky, you've lost yours. But you've retained your blatant dishonesty. No one is 'praising' Putin. Acknowledging that he's getting the better of Biden is not praise. Biden broke a foot petting a dog for fucks sake.
He shit his pants in the presence of the Holy See.
His surrender to the Taliban will go down as one of the top most embarrassing losses in US military history.
Everything Biden touches turns to shit - foreign domestic, economic.
And I suppose, your dear leader 0linsky is a traitor then too, eh?
Don't underestimate Joe's ability to FUCK THINGS UP.
- Skeets Hussein 0linsky
During W, we were in a war on two fronts. And we were reminded by Hillary seemingly every fucking day that "Dissent is Patriotic."
Well it still is.
Fuck Joe Biden.
I owe him no allegiance, no respect, no nothing.
He's a blatant racist, a pathological liar, a serial sexual predator, and an all-around fucking imbecile.
81 MILLION votes.
LMAO.
Where are those ballots today?
Available for audit?
Nope.
Disappeared.
Like they never even happened. Which is, the fucking POINT.
Despite support from Trump and Tucker Carlson, Vladimir Putin is losing support in Russia Russia Russia Russia Russia
“The sombre, shamed mood in Moscow could hardly be more different from the euphoria that gripped it in 2014 when Mr Putin seized and annexed Crimea. Then Russian society swelled with pride. Even those who recognised that the annexation was illegal admitted that the bloodless operation had been well executed. Mr Putin’s sagging popularity rating soared.”
“This time opinion polls by Levada, an independent pollster, show that the country is divided, with less than half of the population supporting Mr Putin’s recognition of two Potemkin republics in Ukraine–a precursor to the war. There are no public displays of support for Mr Putin’s invasion.”
In Russia, the Kremlin is saying that those who criticize Putin run the risk of being charged with treason, BUT RUSSIANS ARE ANGRILY PROTESTING ANYWAY!
Oooh, good for them.
Let us know when they depose Putin as their leader.
We'll wait.
LOL.
Available for audit?
BWAAAAAAAAAAAAAA!!!!!!! What proof do you have that they don't exist!!!!! Asshole........Typical GOP brainwashed bullshit.....LOLOLOL
USA TODAY
Biden's nomination of Ketanji Brown Jackson to Supreme Court is an excellent decision
Opinion by Donna Brazile - Yesterday 11:33 AM
Recognizing that “We the People” benefit most when we use the tremendous talents of all of America’s diverse populous, President Joe Biden and Vice President Kamala Harris have nominated the extraordinarily qualified Judge Ketanji Brown Jackson to become the first Black woman to serve on the U.S. Supreme Court in its 233-year history.
President Joe Biden has nominated Ketanji Brown Jackson, a U.S. Circuit Judge on the U.S. Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia Circuit, to serve on the U.S. Supreme Court
© Jacquelyn Martin, AP
President Joe Biden has nominated Ketanji Brown Jackson, a U.S. Circuit Judge on the U.S. Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia Circuit, to serve on the U.S. Supreme Court
Jackson, a judge on the U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia, would succeed retiring Justice Stephen Breyer if she is confirmed by a majority vote in the Senate.
As the long-time slogan of the United Negro College Fund states: “A mind is a terrible thing to waste.” Yet, like much of American society, our federal judiciary has a long history of wasting, indeed ignoring, the minds and great brainpower of many of our citizens.
Until 1967, only white males sat on the Supreme Court. That year, 178 years after the Supreme Court was created as part of the Judiciary Act of 1789, President Lyndon Johnson nominated the groundbreaking civil rights attorney Thurgood Marshall to be the first Black Supreme Court justice.
The high court remained an all-male preserve until 1981, when President Ronald Reagan nominated Sandra Day O’Connor to be the first female justice.
Now, finally, Jackson has been nominated to join the 108 white men, two Black men, four white women and one Hispanic woman who have served on our Supreme Court.
There is no doubt in my mind that many highly qualified Black women could and should have served on our nation’s highest court long, long ago. Racism and sexism, however, barred them from even being considered.
And although, sadly, we cannot turn back the clock on the exclusionary practices of our nation’s past, we must move forward to replace this unjust history with the inclusion necessary to build a better and more equitable future for all Americans.
On the merits, the Senate should confirm Jackson. A Harvard Law School graduate, where she was supervising editor of the Harvard Law Review, Jackson served as a U.S. district judge in Washington for eight years before she was confirmed by the Senate to her current post in June on a 53-44 vote, picking up the support of three Senate Republicans. She earlier worked as a public defender and served on the U.S. Sentencing Commission.
Significantly, Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell, R-Ky., has already rebuked his Republican colleagues for complaining that it was “inappropriate” for Biden to announce that he was going to put a Black woman on the Supreme Court.
McConnell noted that “President Reagan promised to put a woman on the Supreme Court, Sandra Day O'Connor. President Trump promised to put a woman on the Supreme Court when Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg passed away, so I'm not complaining about that."
And McConnell said Republicans would consider the nominee fairly with “the kind of process I think you can be proud of.”
I hope McConnell follows through on these reasonable statements by encouraging his Republican colleagues to act in a similarly reasonable way toward Jackson during her confirmation process.
According to the Federal Judicial Center, only 70 Black women have been federal judges in American history. That’s less than 2% of the 3,843 judges who have served on the federal bench.
Shockingly, there wasn’t a single Black female federal judge until 1966, when President Johnson nominated Constance Baker Motley to the U.S. District Court for the Southern District of New York in Manhattan.
Jackson is among the women considered top prospects to replace retiring justice Stephen Breyer and fulfill a campaign pledge Biden made to nominate the first Black woman to the court.
To his tremendous credit, even before nominating Jackson to serve on the Supreme Court, Biden had already nominated 11 Black women to federal judgeships, raising the percentage of federal judgeships held by Black women from 4.5% when he took office to 5.7% (Black women comprise 7.3% of the U.S. population).
The long-overdue addition of more Black judges, and specifically Black female judges, to our federal courts and finally to the Supreme Court will benefit America’s justice system.
Jackson would add vital perspective
If Jackson joins the Supreme Court, she will, among many other critical contributions, help her fellow justices better understand the damage that racism and sexism have had on American society from the perspective of someone who has experienced both inequities firsthand. This will be particularly important in cases dealing with topics such as reproductive rights, voting rights, equal opportunity, health care, immigration and criminal justice reform.
As most of you (hopefully) know, February is Black History Month. This month, which is drawing to a memorable close with Biden’s historic appointment of Jackson, isn’t just about the enormous and often unrecognized contributions Black Americans have made to our country since many of our ancestors were brought here in chains as slaves but about our future contributions.
President Biden, Vice President Harris and Jackson are on the cusp of making ever more wondrous American history. Jackson has earned her nomination to serve on the Supreme Court with her stellar record of accomplishment as a lawyer and judge, her dedication to our Constitution and the rule of law, and her brilliant judicial mind and temperament.
The Senate should confirm her forthwith for the good of our nation.
Donna Brazile. Lol. Yeah ok.
Childs had bipartisan support. Biden instead bends over for the left.
The Real Halfbaked Soars Pundit said...
You know what happens when I see "The Real Halfbaked Soars Pundit?
Nothing, I just ignore him.
Putin miscalculated.Putin miscalculated.Putinmiscalculated.Putin miscalculated.Putin miscalculated. Putin miscal...etc.
This is smart -
NeverTrump Neocon Democrat Adam Kinzinger:
Our Sacred Honor Requires We Declare a No-Fly Zone Over Ukraine and, um, "Disrupt" Russian Planes If They Challenge Us
http://ace.mu.nu/archives/397990.php#397990
This dumb fuck would like to start WW III. With the most unqualified fucking imbecile to ever occupy the white house at the helm.
What you stupid cocksuckers fail to realize, or refuse to admit out of raw dishonesty, is that this is what we criticize.
Clinton royally fucked Ukraine in '94. Never trust a Clinton. Oh well. And now numbskulls like Kinzinger are calling for an act of war against Russia. Because feewings. And the drooling fucktard in the big chair is just fucking stupid enough to do it.
Childs had bipartisan support. Biden instead bends over for the left.
While you grab your ankles and asks for another from trump.....BWAAAAAAAAAAAAAA!!!
AMBlogger Honest, decent, truthful Rev. said...
According to the Federal Judicial Center, only 70 Black women have been federal judges in American history. That’s less than 2% of the 3,843 judges who have served on the federal
You have an obsession with black women.
Childs had bipartisan support. Biden instead bends over for the left.
Biden decided to sell out the center of his party for the left.
According to the Federal Judicial Center, only 70 Black women have been federal judges in American history. That’s less than 2% of the 3,843 judges who have served on the federal bench.
So?
We are to be served by identity politics first and foremost now?
That's a sure-fire way to finish off this once great nation.
Great idea leftists! Let's keep doing the touchy-feely shit until we sink ALL the way down into the depths of Idiocracy.
Consequences be damned.
Joey Sprinkles said he wants the USSC to look like America.
He had that change with Janice Rogers Brown, Miguel Estrada, and Clarence Thomas. He destroyed the first two and almost destroyed the third. So his rhetoric falls way short. And it makes him even MORE of a lying hack. As if that's even possible.
Ms. Black Vagina has been repeatedly overturned by the DC Court of Appeals. Hardly 'excellence in jurisprudence and fealty to the constitution' there.
She's a hack. A garden variety hack. That is all.
The arrival of her high school rape victim at her confirmation hearing should be met with great anticipation. I can't wait.
Oh, and beer. Do we know if she likes beer? That's a thing now. At least it was.
Putin and Trump are both mentally disabled.
Trump has a soft spot for authoritarians and strongmen who use violence.
This is, after all, the same guy who said of Saddam Hussein, 'He was a bad guy, really bad guy, but you know what he did well? He killed terrorists. He did that so good. And "Of North Korean dictator Kim Jong Un, Trump said, 'It’s incredible. He wiped out the uncle, he wiped out this one, that one. I mean this guy doesn’t play games. And we can’t play games with him.'
"Trump’s brain isn’t normal.
This is what Roger posted.
Biden must embrace oil and gas exploration. America was energy independent just a few years ago. The American president must do everything he can to make us independent again.
Volodymyr Zelensky
By Josh Marshall
There must have been many moments over recent days when President Zelensky said to himself, “How the fuck did I get here?” As most of you know, Zelensky was a comedian and an actor. His presidency was kind of a lark. My memory my fail me here but I believe his big claim to fame was a show in which he played a fictional President of Ukraine. So his whole candidacy had a meta/absurdist tinge to it and likely was only possible in a country in which much of the population regards the political class as hopelessly corrupt. And yet Zelensky now finds himself in a position in which he will either preside over the dissolution of the independent Ukrainian state or, if things go very differently, probably be regarded as something like a founding father of it.
Over the last few weeks I’ve heard a lot of public commentary and had several private conversations with region experts saying the guy is just hopelessly in over his head. I don’t know enough about the diplomacy or internal state decisions to know whether that’s true or not. But history often lives or dies in key, clutch moments. And I can’t think how much better he could have presented his country and himself in the series of speeches he gave over the last week as the country was barreling toward war. They’ve shown a level of moral courage that is very hard to second guess. Perhaps we got a prelude of it in the ways he parried President Trump’s absurd and thuggish demands over the course of 2019.
Let’s be frank: there’s something between a non-trivial and a very good likelihood Zelensky will not physically survive this conflict. And yet, there he is. He’s not running. It’s hard not to compare him — though the acts are vastly different — to Ashraf Ghani, the last President of Afghanistan, who got the hell outta do Dodge at the first hint things were going South. Very, very few of us will ever face a situation with such a combination of historic consequence and physical danger. But many of us face moments in which we must choose to face fear and live out our promises or run. Zelensky is passing that test.
The resistance we’re seeing across Ukraine involves millions or tens of millions of people. That’s about far more than just one man. Indeed, if there’s some miscalculation on Vladimir Putin’s part this is likely the heart of it: I don’t think he anticipated that the last three decades and particularly the last seven years had developed in Ukraine the degree of national identity and/or latent unity to hold up against a concerted barrage of violence and terror. But it seems almost certain that a rapid collapse of the state apparatus or evacuation of its leaders — while understandable at various levels — would have been a gut punch to the morale we’re seeing standing in defiance of the Russian armies’ onslaught across the country.
ZELENSKY, A HERO.
MyBallsinthewoodsagain.
Political Science moved The CDC.
Only the very stupidest people in our government could conceive of doing THIS:
Over three months, senior Biden administration officials held half a dozen urgent meetings with top Chinese officials in which the Americans presented intelligence showing Russia’s troop buildup around Ukraine and beseeched the Chinese to tell Russia not to invade, according to U.S. officials.
Each time, the Chinese officials, including the foreign minister and the ambassador to the United States, rebuffed the Americans, saying they did not think an invasion was in the works. After one diplomatic exchange in December, U.S. officials got intelligence showing Beijing had shared the information with Moscow, telling the Russians that the United States was trying to sow discord — and that China would not try to impede Russian plans and actions, the officials said.
...
The previously unreported talks between American and Chinese officials show how the Biden administration tried to use intelligence findings and diplomacy to persuade a superpower it views as a growing adversary to stop the invasion of Ukraine, and how that nation, led by President Xi Jinping, persistently sided with Russia even as the evidence of Moscow’s plans for a military offensive grew over the winter.
https://www.nytimes.com/2022/02/25/us/politics/us-china-russia-ukraine.html
Probably the single fucking stupidest thing that anyone could've ever IMAGINED, and Joey Sprinkles actually DID IT.
“The fight is here; I need ammunition, not a ride.”
— Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky, refusing to be evacuated.
I didn't know Josh Marshall sat on the Council of Foreign Affairs, alky.
Center For Strategic Studies too, you say?
Well I for one think we need to send him over to Ukraine with Jeff Spiccoli. You know Spicoli's over there, right?
Joe cut off US Imports of Putin Oil , Yet?
Poor rrb. He's losing in all areas.
China is right now engaged in stepping back from any defense of Putin's invasion.
The oil market is an open affair as it is a fungible commodity....Any KU grad would know that.....You buy from the market place. BTW...the US has not been energy independent in past 50 years..... Unless the entire market shuts down Putin oil, nothing will keep it from the market.....
China buys an unprecedented amount of Russia Wheat and Coal.
Financial support like that and Biden's buying Putin's Oil is supporting him.
Action always Trump words.
Denny your support of increasing oil supplies is a welcomed change.
The Keystone pipeline is on Biden's Radar again.
Alky stated:
Biden must embrace oil and gas exploration. America was energy independent just a few years ago. The American president must do everything he can to make us independent again.
Yet, Denny called Alky a liar.
Where Things Stand: A Reminder That Even Tucker Carlson’s Lawyers Don’t Think He Should Be Taken Seriously
By Nicole Lafond
|
As we’ve noted in our live coverage of Russia’s declaration of war and subsequent full-scale military attack on Ukraine in the last 24 hours, there is a schism growing in the Republican Party on whether Vladimir Putin is a mortal enemy, or a brilliant friend. The wildly divergent thinking within the GOP has been on display repeatedly in recent days and weeks.
The hawkish, more traditional wing — to the extent it has survived the MAGA onslaught — is today condemning Putin’s actions and calling for tougher sanctions on Russia. The Trump adherents are taking cues from their leader, applauding the invasion and demonizing Ukraine as some sort of failed democratic pet project of the United States. All sides have a common straw man at which they direct their ire: President Biden, with his administration’s supposed foreign policy weakness.
But few have taken the Trumpian affinity for Putin as far as Fox News host Tucker Carlson — not even Trump himself. In the days leading up to Putin’s declaration of war, Carlson downplayed Russia’s weeks-long campaign of aggression and threats toward Ukraine as a mere “border dispute,” while challenging viewers to dig deep within themselves and question why they “hate” the Russian president so much.
“It may be worth asking yourself, since it is getting pretty serious, what is this really about? Why do I hate Putin so much?” he wondered Tuesday night. “Has Putin ever called me a racist? Has he threatened to get me fired for disagreeing with him?”
He then went on to ask viewers whether Putin was responsible for a litany of Republican grievances — has he pushed “racial discrimination” in public schools? Tried “to snuff out Christianity” in the United States? Or eaten … dogs? (I don’t really have an origin point for this one.) All, apparently, in the hope of leading readers to the conclusion that the Russian president, who was in the process of starting the first land war in Europe in decades, was not a cause for concern. The real enemy, one might conclude, was Biden/Democrats/the radical left/probably AOC.
This evaluation of Putin shows that patience will lead to his defeat in Ukraine.
Putin’s resentment of the US and Nato came to the fore when Ukraine and Georgia applied to join the alliance in 2008. He warned Bush that Ukraine was “not even a real state”, according to a Russian account. Though Nato offered only a vague assurance the countries would eventually join the alliance, it was enough to prompt the then prime minister to launch a devastating five-day war against Georgia and send troops to occupy two breakaway border regions. But the muted western reaction, followed by a US attempt to reset ties with Russia, meant Putin’s use of force “was not addressed decisively enough”, says Kadri Liik, a senior fellow at the European Council on Foreign Relations. “And that created a situation where things got worse and worse and worse.” Fears of western encroachment and domestic uprising became intertwined in Putin’s mind. In December 2011 he accused the US of “giving the signal” for protests preceding his return to the presidency, then described the 2014 revolution in Ukraine as an “armed coup”, prompting him to seize the Crimean peninsula. This severely damaged Russia’s global standing but Putin’s approval ratings at home soared above 80 per cent. With little meaningful opposition, his appetite for adventurism grew — culminating in a 2015 military intervention that turned the tide of the Syrian civil war. “Putin’s used to being lucky. That’s very dangerous for a gambler, because he starts believing fate is on his side,” Pavlovsky says. “When you play Russian roulette, you feel that God is on your side until the shot rings out.” As Putin’s circle became more limited, the picture of the world he received became more distorted. He and his confidants would increasingly spout bizarre conspiracy theories that the west was bent on destroying Russia through everything from gay marriage to anti-corruption activist Alexei Navalny. “You eventually end up in a trap, because your inner circle tries to only tell you good news and what fits your views. Imagine Putin discussing the war in Ukraine with his generals — they’ll rapturously cry, ‘Yes, we can!’ Nobody will resist,” Tatiana Stanovaya, founder of the R.Politik analysis firm, says. Western countries found negotiating with an overconfident, isolated Putin impossible. Talks over the Donbas conflict, brokered by France and Germany, stalled.
Ukraine then elected a new president, Volodymyr Zelensky, who took a bolder stance against Putin: the former comedian demanded Nato admit Kyiv and had Putin’s closest ally there arrested. “Russia’s political regime is this mafia-type state where letting insults drop means the leader loses his authority,” says Nikolai Petrov, a fellow at Chatham House. “There’s no way you can wipe that clean.” As the peace process deteriorated, Putin’s resentments of Ukraine and Nato spilled into the open. Last summer, he published 5,000 words casting aspersion on Ukraine’s right to exist in its current form and claiming the US was using it to threaten Moscow. Then, as Russia began massing troops on the border, Putin told diplomats to maintain “a certain tension” with the west. His demands that Nato pledge never to admit Ukraine and roll back the alliance’s eastern expansion would have rewritten the post-cold war security order. The west mounted last-minute diplomatic efforts. But when France’s Emmanuel Macron and Germany’s Olaf Scholz met Putin around the huge Kremlin table, they were subjected to historical rants by a man who struck them as almost totally at odds with the outside world, according to aides. Their missions were doomed to fail. A day after agreeing to a Macron-brokered summit with the US, Putin recognised the Donbas separatists’ independence in a rambling tirade in which he threatened to hold Ukraine responsible for any “ensuing bloodshed”. It was a clear attempt to prepare Russia’s population for war against the “brotherly nation” of Ukraine — whose very existence in its current form, he claimed, was an existential threat. “At some point he didn’t think he had been driven into a corner so much as that he could get out of the corner. What did he have to be afraid of?” Stanovaya says. “He realised an aggressive, frightening Russia is an effective way to make the world start taking you seriously.” max.seddon@ft.com
He is the Sleepy Vladimir Putin
Blogger Honest, decent, truthful Rev. said...
Poor rrb. He's losing in all areas.
China is right now engaged in stepping back from any defense of Putin's invasion.
Ooh. Stepping back pederast?
Sounds serious.
Did you read this in the WaPo, NYT, or see it on MSDNC?
China doesn't have to 'defend' the invasion, dumbass. And whatever "official rhetoric" you're buying doesn't matter to begin with.
China and Russia have now formed a bloc AGAINST the US.
THAT is what matters, you fucking clown.
Worldgrain.com
"As Ukraine crisis deepens, China lifts all wheat-import restrictions on Russia
Agreement reflects deepening ties between Beijing and Moscow while addressing China’s need to enhance food securityChina could provide a lifeline to Russia’s economy after the United States and its allies imposed swift economic sanctions on Moscow.."
Follow the flow of cash to Putin.
continued
“These are fair questions, and the answer to all of them is ‘no.’ Vladimir Putin didn’t do any of that,” he said. “So, why does permanent Washington hate him so much?”
Even before last night’s invasion, some Republicans in the vestiges of the GOP establishment criticized Carlson’s trolly perspective on Putin. Sen. John Cornyn (R-TX) told Politico last month that Carlson is “obviously” not the right person to rely upon to address the matter in any serious way.
“He’s obviously not in a position of being responsible for those decisions,” Cornyn told Politico. “And we are.”
It just so happens, as Washington Post columnist Margaret Sullivan reminded us today, Carlson’s own lawyers agree.
Sullivan surfaced a crucial anecdote in her coverage of Putin’s war today, reminding readers that Carlson’s lawyers argued — and a federal judge concurred — in 2020 that Carlson is hardly an arbiter of “actual facts.” And that comments made on his high-ratings show should not be taken seriously.
U.S. District Court Judge Mary Kay Vyskocil echoed Fox’s own arguments in finding that Carlson didn’t commit slander when he accused a former Playboy model, Karen McDougal, of extortion, after the National Enquirer bought her story of an affair with Trump and then promptly shelved it on his behalf.
Why not? Because, Vyskocil decided, the whole tenor of Carlson’s show makes it clear to viewers that he is not stating “actual facts” about his topics.
“Whether the Court frames Mr. Carlson’s statements as ‘exaggeration,’ ‘non-literal commentary,’ or simply bloviating for his audience,” she wrote, “the conclusion remains the same — the statements are not actionable.”
She added: “Fox persuasively argues, that given Mr. Carlson’s reputation, any reasonable viewer ‘arrive[s] with an appropriate amount of skepticism’ about the statement he makes.”
Perhaps Tucker Carlson is not meant to be taken seriously. But, of course, he also very much is. He is a — and perhaps the — leading voice of an American ideological movement as the U.S. faces down a series of crises, of which Putin’s war is just the latest. While at least one side of the GOP’s current schism is bear hugging pro-Putinism, the leading voice in that problematic faction is not even pretending to be anything more than a shock-jock big boy, a hyperbolic entertainer.
And viewers, it would seem, are not arriving at their TV sets for primetime happy hour “with an appropriate amount of skepticism” about the statements he makes.
lol lol lol lol lol lol lol etc.
Tucker Carlson and Trump are becoming high class clown acts.
Nicole Lafond
Josh Marshall's side piece. And she went to Columbia J-School.
Impressive, eh alky?
Whee!
there is a schism growing in the Republican Party on whether Vladimir Putin is a mortal enemy, or a brilliant friend.
No there isn't. Smart honest people are not defining the situation this way. Only dutiful lying leftist hacks are. Nice job, Lafond.
You've stooped to plagiarizing children alky?
LOL.
Patricia Cohen
Feb. 26, 2022, 9:46 a.m. ET13 minutes ago
13 minutes ago
Patricia CohenReporting from London
The latest evidence that sanctions against Russia are having an effect on its financial markets is the decision by S&P to lower its credit rating to “junk.” Other rating agencies have also downgraded Russia.
Even China has sense enough to know that Putin has VASTLY miscalculated.
Something Tucker Carlson, Trump, and racist rat bastard do not have sense enough to know.
And is it finally getting through even to Ch?
https://twitter.com/rlamick/status/1497588420629065728?t=C74mFE1u2gR3CZ_-WRWbrg&s=19https://twitter.com/rlamick/status/1497588420629065728?t=C74mFE1u2gR3CZ_-WRWbrg&s=19
Moscow Tucker
hey, rrb, i know you're upset, but it is I, not "alky," who posted the Josh Marshall and Micole Lefond articles.
Right beside my picture.
Nicole
Upset, pederast? Not in the least. YOU'RE the one who appears to be upset. Slamming valid criticism, calling those who hold a different view traitor, and wishing Tucker Carlson to be executed for...
having an opinion you don't agree with. How... FASCIST of you.
If Joey 81 MILLION VOTES starts WW III... now THAT would be upsetting.
I am curious though - what's the point of plagiarizing all that leftist blather from children?
Congratulations alky. You received one whole 'like' on that Moscow Tucker tweet.
Like a BOSS, alky.
LMAO.
A real Republican criticized Trump for Biden.
Representative Adam Kinzinger on Tuesday denounced a tweet issued by his fellow House Republicans that criticized U.S. President Joe Biden's response to the Russia-Ukraine crisis, saying their message "feeds into [Russian President Vladimir] Putin's narrative."
The official Twitter account for House Republicans posted a tweet Tuesday following Biden's remarks that same day on actions taken against Russia. It read, "This is what weakness on the world stage looks like," and included a photo of Biden walking away from a podium.
The fight is here; I need ammunition, not a ride.”
— Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky, refusing to be evacuated
That will be the most memorable line of the entire war.
You didn't expect a fighter did you Reverend.
Just makes Biden's cowardly offer all that more cynical.
Must suck being on the losing team. Where the quarterback is a fuck up.
Blogger Honest, decent, truthful Rev. said...
Even China has sense enough to know that Putin has VASTLY miscalculated.
Oh, so THAT'S why they went running straight TO Putin every time the US went whining to them ABOUT Putin.
LOL.
Where do you come up with this shit, pederast?
China is aligned WITH Russia and AGAINST the US.
"Russia, China work on agreement for supplying 100 mln tonnes of coal"
Representative Adam Kinzinger on Tuesday denounced a tweet
WHOA!
Just one question -
Was he in tears over the tweet as well?
He seems to cry at the drop of a hat.
Sissy boy, lil Adam.
China has even been calling for "discussions" between Ukraine and Russia to solve the present crisis.
Biden Orders Release of Military Aid for Ukraine
February 26, 2022 at 10:17 am EST By Taegan Goddard 0 Comments
President Biden late Friday ordered the release of up to $350 million for military aid for Ukraine, The Hill reports.
Blogger KansasDemocrat said...
"Russia, China work on agreement for supplying 100 mln tonnes of coal"
Don't let the pederast see this KD.
Pedo is busy perving over 17 year old children .
Russia-Ukraine crisis
China’s Xi speaks to Putin; calls for ‘negotiation’ with Ukraine
Chinese President Xi Jinping said on the call with Russian President Vladimir Putin that it is important to 'abandon the Cold War mentality'
China’s President Xi Jinping said he supported solving the Ukraine crisis through talks in a call with Russian President Vladimir Putin after Moscow launched an invasion of its neighbour.
In a readout of the call on Friday on state broadcaster CCTV, Xi pointed out the “situation in eastern Ukraine has undergone rapid changes … [and] China supports Russia and Ukraine to resolve the issue through negotiation”.
You see, rrb?
Blogger Honest, decent, truthful Rev. said...
China has even been calling for "discussions" between Ukraine and Russia to solve the present crisis.
Well let us hope and pray to all that is holy that those "discussions" can salvage Joy Behar's Italy vacation.
"Russia, China work on agreement for supplying 100 mln tonnes of coal"
The dumb fucking KU loser keeps posting the same tripe thinking it will become true......And the ignorant rat again bites into the wanton bullshit of a goat fucker.....BWAAAAAAAAAAAAAAA!!!!!!!!!!
Don't know what Biden is thinking. Take the damn gas and oil.
You see, rrb?
See exactly what, pederast?
A news report of flowery rhetoric that only a goddamned fool would believe?
You don't know what's really being said. No one does.
There are a plethora of agreements that exist between China and Russia, and China's interest is to not have Putin's incursion into Ukraine disrupt those. Both Putin and Xi are murderous dictators and I can't see Xi giving a shit how many Ukrainians die in this conflict as long as it doesn't fuck up their longer term plans.
You're stupid enough to believe that either man has a humanitarian bone in their body.
They do not.
And that makes you a fool.
That's what I SEE, pederast.
Biden Orders Release of Military Aid for Ukraine
President Biden late Friday ordered the release of up to $350 million for military aid for Ukraine, The Hill reports.
BUT
Germany Is Still Blocking Arms to Ukraine
“Germany is still blocking EU and NATO allies from sending urgently needed weapons and ammunition to Ukraine, which is trying to defend itself from a multi-front Russian invasion,” Politico reports,
“It’s an ongoing stance that has bewildered some European officials, especially as numerous Western allies now mobilize to send Ukraine more guns, ammunition and even anti-aircraft defense systems as Russian forces bear down on major Ukrainian cities.”
AND MEANWHILE
Ukrainian Forces Fight Back
“Ukraine’s defense forces, outmanned and outgunned, waged a ferocious resistance to the Russian invasion on Saturday, battling to keep control of the capital, Kyiv, and other cities,” the New York Times reports.
“There was intense street fighting, and bursts of gunfire and explosions could be heard across Kyiv.”
BRAVE UKRANIANS! WE WHO ARE PATRIOTIC TRUE AMERICANS SUPPORT YOU IN YOUR DESIRE FOR REAL DEMOCRACY!
AND WE ARE GOING TO RESTORE IT IN OUR OWN LAND!
How are those "DEVASTATING!" sanctions coming along?
Are they doing any devastating yet?
No, rrb, the trouble with you is that you, like Ch, see only what you WANT to see.
I was already aware days ago that China had backed away from its earlier implied support of Putin's invasion.
Time will tell about the sanctions you dumb shit!!!! Those who want instant gratifications are usually mentally challenged losers like you!!!!! BWAAAAAAPAAAAAA!!!
Are you guys ever going to stop rootin for pootin?
Germany Is Still Blocking Arms to Ukraine
“Germany is still blocking EU and NATO allies from sending urgently needed weapons and ammunition to Ukraine, which is trying to defend itself from a multi-front Russian invasion,” Politico reports,
“It’s an ongoing stance that has bewildered some European officials
Bewildered?
Germany does not want to freeze, and they seek to protect the deal they have previously established with Putin. This ain't fucking rocket science.
Germany is siding with Russia, and has been for quite some time.
Hardly bewildering.
It’s an ongoing stance that has bewildered some European officials
Nothing to be bewildered about. Germany sold out to the Russians.
Blogger Honest, decent, truthful Rev. said...
Are you guys ever going to stop rootin for pootin?
Yeah, right after you stop lying about it pederast.
The only thing I'm rooting for is for us to stay the fuck out of it.
Our national interest in this whole debacle is ZERO. But we have an imbecile at the helm who could easily blunder the US into WW III.
Not entirely.
A news report of flowery rhetoric that only a goddamned fool would believe?
BWAAAAAAPAAAAAA!!!! Only a fucking idiot would think the images of death and destruction with thousands of people running for their lives is flowery rhetoric.....too bad you are too fucking stupid to see the human crisis taking place and the only thing you care about is your comfort......asshole
Nothing to be bewildered about. Germany sold out to the Russians.
_____
No, not entirely.
The world is lining up behind the people of Ukraine. The strength, courage, and wisdom of Volodymyr Zelensky and Joe Biden will defeat the weakness, cowardice, and lies of Vladimir Putin and Donald Trump.
Our national interest in this whole debacle is ZERO
You really are dumber than a box of rocks asshole.....The globe is a closed loop.....everything in Ukraine will bleed your pocketbook so don't think you are immune to the problem!!!! Only fucking fools can think that!!!
I was already aware days ago that China had backed away from its earlier implied support of Putin's invasion.
Oh were you, pederast?
I didn't know you had Xi on speed-dial.
You have no insight into China's strategy or their ultimate intent. You have children sleeping with Josh Marshall and writing for his rag who THINK they know something.
You strut around here thinking you have valuable insight when in reality you've got nothing. Nothing except what's coming off the WaPo op/ed page.
Clown.
Scott you are correct decisions about it
WSJ reports
KYIV, Ukraine—Ukrainian forces and thousands of freshly recruited volunteers regained control of Kyiv’s streets after Russian troops and undercover units in civilian clothes tried to enter the city in the early hours of Saturday, while Russian airstrikes, airborne landings and armored advances continued throughout the country.
On Saturday, the third day of the war that Russian President Vladimir Putin unleashed with the aim of overthrowing Ukraine’s elected government and ending its alignment with the West, Ukrainian forces fought fierce battles on all fronts, with each side asserting it had inflicted heavy losses on the other.
READ LIVE UPDATES ON RUSSIA’S INVASION OF UKRAINE
President Volodymyr Zelensky recorded a video address from the street outside the presidential headquarters in Kyiv, urging Ukrainians to keep fighting and denying Russian reports that he had called on his forces to lay down arms.
“Truth is on our side. This is our land, our country, our children, and we will keep defending them all,” he said. “Glory to Ukraine.”
A rapid Russian victory in the biggest war in Europe for decades would drastically change the geopolitical balance on the continent, giving Mr. Putin control of strategically vital swaths of the former Soviet Union’s territory and placing Russia’s armies on the doorstep of the North Atlantic Treaty Organization.
European and U.S. officials are increasingly concerned that Mr. Putin’s broader goal of revising the ending of the Cold War, restoring Moscow’s former sphere of influence in Europe’s east, won’t stop at Ukraine, a fear that could force a rethink of NATO’s military stance and Europe’s energy supplies, which depend in large part on Russia. Mr. Zelensky has constantly reinforced that message, saying that Ukrainians are fighting and dying not just for their own country but for all of Europe.
Traffic jams have choked roads in Kyiv as people try to flee Russia's pressing assault. WSJ's Brett Forrest documented his long car journey out of the Ukrainian capital while traveling to cover the war. Photo: Ethan Swope/Bloomberg NewsTHE WALL STREET JOURNAL INTERACTIVE EDITION
If fierce Ukrainian resistance leads to a long and bloody war—or forces Mr. Putin to seek to end the fighting without achieving his goals—the setback could threaten both his hold on power in Moscow and his drive to restore Russia as a global power.
Mr. Zelensky, in an address on Saturday, said that Russia has failed in its quest to quickly replace him with a puppet regime and that Ukrainian soldiers were holding the line throughout the country. He called on Ukrainians abroad and foreign volunteers to join the fight. “Everyone who can, come back to defend Ukraine,” Mr. Zelensky said. “All the friends of Ukraine who want to come join us, come here too—we will give you weapons.”
know you had Xi on speed-dial.
IT WAS ALL OVER THE REAL NEWS ASSHOLE......When all your sources are fox and ace......you tend to miss what really is going on!!!!!! BWAAAAAAAAAAAAAAA!!!!!
https://www.wsj.com/amp/articles/russias-assault-on-ukraine-presses-forward-as-street-battles-rage-in-kyiv-11645864200
If fierce Ukrainian resistance leads to a long and bloody war—or forces Mr. Putin to seek to end the fighting without achieving his goals—the setback could threaten both his hold on power in Moscow and his drive to restore Russia as a global power.
Mr. Zelensky, in an address on Saturday, said that Russia has failed in its quest to quickly replace him with a puppet regime and that Ukrainian soldiers were holding the line throughout the country. He called on Ukrainians abroad and foreign volunteers to join the fight. “Everyone who can, come back to defend Ukraine,” Mr. Zelensky said. “All the friends of Ukraine who want to come join us, come here too—we will give you weapons.”
Reverend it must suck to be losing with Joe Biden. You can't make enough excuses for Biden's failure.
Imagine that instead of gifting $85 BILLION in weapons to the Taliban, Joey Sprinkles had them to give to Ukraine.
Ch has come to his senses and this
"The invasion of Ukraine has presented Republicans with a vexing conundrum. How can they express horror and condemnation — which no doubt are sincerely felt — over Vladimir Putin’s actions while avoiding taking a position on Donald Trump’s praise of the Russian leader, let alone on Trump’s long history of kowtowing to him?"
Marist Poll: Majorities of Americans think Biden’s first year in office has been a failure (56%)
https://maristpoll.marist.edu/polls/npr-pbs-newshour-marist-national-poll-the-biden-administration-heading-into-the-state-of-the-union-address-february-2022/
FAILURE.
By every objective measure.
Russia’s Assault in Ukraine Slows After an Aggressive Start
The invading forces have faced stiff resistance, but President Vladimir V. Putin of Russia could quickly send in more troops, Pentagon officials said.
WASHINGTON — For the Russian military, the difficult part came quickly.
On the first day of President Vladimir V. Putin’s invasion of Ukraine, his generals and troops followed a textbook strategy for land invasions. They attacked the country’s military installations and air defense systems with missiles launched from the air, sea and land, seeking to take ownership of the skies, and sped forces to Kyiv, the capital, with the goal of decapitating the government of the democratically elected president, Volodymyr Zelensky.
But then, things slowed. It is one thing to cross the border of another country with tanks and artillery, protected by warplanes above, Pentagon officials and analysts say. It is another thing entirely to lay siege to cities and an army populated by people willing to put their lives on the line to protect what they view as their sovereign right to self-determination.
Within a day of entering Ukraine, Russian forces lost some momentum, senior American and British officials said, as Ukrainian fighters mounted a resistance. No population centers had been taken, a senior Defense Department official told reporters at the Pentagon on Friday. Nor had Russia yet managed to achieve air superiority over Ukraine, partly because the Ukrainians are using mobile systems and partly because Russian missiles have hit old air defense sites, which could show a flaw in Russia’s intelligence. The Ukrainian air defense and missile defense systems were degraded, he said, but the country’s air force was still flying planes and denying air access to Russia.
In addition, officials said, Russia was conducting most of its initial operations during the day, suggesting that its ability to fight at night — a hallmark of the American military — was less effective.
“Ukrainian armed forces continue to offer strong resistance,” said Lt. Gen. Jim Hockenhull, the British chief of defense intelligence.
That said, Pentagon officials warned that Russia had sent in only one-third of the 150,000 to 190,000 troops it had massed at Ukraine’s borders, so Moscow could intensify pressure at any time. Military officials said Russia was still in the initial phases of an operation that could take two to three weeks to seize most of the country.
Officials said Russia had begun an amphibious assault from the Sea of Azov, near Mariupol, in the south. Thousands of Russian naval infantry are coming ashore there, with military officials assessing that the plan is to move toward the city. The Russian military, with its decisive edge in cyberwarfare, tanks, heavy weaponry, missiles, fighter planes, warships and sheer numbers, dwarfs that of Ukraine.
"The fight is here; I need ammunition, not a ride.”
— Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky, refusing Biden's call for evacuation.
He certainly is far braver than our commander and chief.
Volodymyr Zelensky is my new favorite hero.
He could be the Washington of the Urals.
But wars are not fought on paper alone. While Russia has established attack lines into three cities — Kyiv in the north, Kharkiv in the northeast and Kherson in the south — Ukrainian troops are fighting to hold all three. Significantly, the senior U.S. defense official said, Ukrainian command and control remains intact.
Russia’s attack lines are bottlenecked, a second official said, as Ukrainian troops fiercely engage against the Russians. The resistance, the official said, is why the Russian troops massed at the border have not all crossed. But the official warned that more of those troops would flow quickly to the cities — particularly Kyiv — if the forward elements break the Ukrainian troops who have held them up.
“It’s not apparent to us that Russian forces over the past 24 hours have been able to execute their plans as they deemed they would,” John F. Kirby, the Pentagon’s chief spokesman, said later Friday. “But it’s a dynamic situation.”
As some Russian troops entered a northern district of Kyiv, missile strikes hammered the city and rockets crashed into residential buildings. If Russian intelligence has figured out where Mr. Zelensky and the rest of the Ukrainian leadership are hiding, the Russian military will probably try to take them out with rockets and airstrikes, a senior Biden administration official said in an interview. But if that does not work, Russian forces might resort to urban combat, a more difficult endeavor.
“The easy part is attacking with missiles and hitting airfields,” said retired Col. David Lapan, a 30-year veteran of the Marine Corps. “But the narrative that they’ve overrun Ukraine is very premature. We’re just a couple of days into this, and it could go on a long time.”
Senior Pentagon officials echoed that view. Russian troops are surrounding Kyiv with an aim to isolate and possibly lay siege to the capital, the senior Biden official said. He said the Russian forces had a list of Mr. Zelensky’s leadership team, and would seek to kill or capture those officials if targeted airstrikes did not accomplish Mr. Putin’s aim of eliminating the government.
But Ukrainian troops and citizens are fighting back, he said, which means that Russia, for all of its military might, may not have an easy time reaching its objectives. It would get bloody, he said.
It already has. In an exchange captured in an audio recording that has been shared and tweeted around the world, a Russian warship ordered 13 soldiers protecting tiny Snake Island in the country’s south to “surrender” or “be bombed.” A Ukrainian border guard defiantly responded: “Russian warship,” then used an expletive to reject the demand.
The warship opened fire and killed all 13 border guards. That small battlefield victory for Russia, one Pentagon official said, could inspire Ukrainians and cost Mr. Putin in the public eye at home.
“The Ukrainians are badly overmatched in technology and sheer combat power, especially in the air and at sea, but are fighting on their homeland to protect their children and families,” said retired Adm. James G. Stavridis, the former supreme allied commander for Europe. “Motivation is far higher on their side, and the intangibles can help.”
The Russian military attack continued on Friday as it started the day before: with the terrifying thud of artillery strikes on airports and military installations all over Ukraine.
The Pentagon said that the Russians, using missiles and long-range artillery, were facing particularly strong resistance near Kyiv and Kharkiv.
What is at the root of this invasion?
Russia considers Ukraine within its natural sphere of influence, and it has grown unnerved at Ukraine’s closeness with the West and the prospect that the country might join NATO or the European Union. While Ukraine is part of neither, it receives financial and military aid from the United States and Europe.
Are these tensions just starting now?
Antagonism between the two nations has been simmering since 2014, when the Russian military crossed into Ukrainian territory, after an uprising in Ukraine replaced their Russia-friendly president with a pro-Western government. Then, Russia annexed Crimea and inspired a separatist movement in the east. A cease-fire was negotiated in 2015, but fighting has continued.
How did this invasion unfold?
After amassing a military presence near the Ukrainian border for months, on Feb. 21, President Vladimir V. Putin of Russia signed decrees recognizing two pro-Russian breakaway regions in eastern Ukraine. On Feb. 23, he declared the start of a “special military operation” in Ukraine. Several attacks on cities around the country have since unfolded.
What has Mr. Putin said about the attacks?
Mr. Putin said he was acting after receiving a plea for assistance from the leaders of the Russian-backed separatist territories of Donetsk and Luhansk, citing the false accusation that Ukrainian forces had been carrying out ethnic cleansing there and arguing that the very idea of Ukrainian statehood was a fiction.
How has Ukraine responded?
On Feb. 23, Ukraine declared a 30-day state of emergency as cyberattacks knocked out government institutions. Following the beginning of the attacks, Volodymyr Zelensky, Ukraine’s president, declared martial law. The foreign minister called the attacks “a full-scale invasion” and called on the world to “stop Putin.”
How has the rest of the world reacted?
The United States, the European Union and others have condemned Russia’s aggression and begun issuing economic sanctions against Russia. Germany announced on Feb. 23 that it would halt certification of a gas pipeline linking it with Russia. China refused to call the attack an “invasion,” but did call for dialogue.
How could this affect the economy?
Russia controls vast global resources — natural gas, oil, wheat, palladium and nickel in particular — so the conflict could have far-reaching consequences, prompting spikes in energy and food prices and spooking investors. Global banks are also bracing for the effects of sanctions.
He certainly is far braver than our commander and chief.
BWAAAAAAAAAAA!!!! At you cramps when you accept Mr Fucking Bone Spur avoiding US service....which I believe you missed also......brave fucking words for a chickenshit poster .....LOLOLOLOL
Best comment of the day comes from Rep. Jim Jordan. It would be nice if all that equipment we left in Afghanistan was in Ukraine instead.
Bam.
But Russian troops were also ratcheting up their cyberattacks on media sites and other communications, as well as against a major dam that supplies power across southern Ukraine, the senior Pentagon official said. He added, however, that Mr. Zelensky and his top civilian aides were still in communication with Ukrainian commanders.
Why Russia has not launched even larger cyberattacks across the country, and shut down virtually all communications, to cut off military units from their commanders in Kyiv and from each other remained a bit of a mystery on Friday.
U.S. military officials said it could be that efforts to safeguard Ukraine’s communications in anticipation of a major Russia attack were helping. Or, since it is believed that many of Ukraine’s internet and phone communications go through Russia, Moscow might be leaving some lines open to eavesdrop on Ukrainian civilian and military officials.
By Thursday night, Russian special forces and airborne troops had pushed into the outskirts of Kyiv. And on Friday, Russian airborne forces had blocked Kyiv from the west, the Defense Ministry claimed, after capturing an airfield in the area in an assault that used “more than 200 Russian helicopters.” If accurate, that could create an air bridge that allows Russia to fly in hundreds of troops to help encircle the capital.
Ukrainian forces, which officials said had shot down several Russian jets and a helicopter in the earlier hours of the conflict on Thursday, were battling all along a broad front line to maintain control over their country.
By midday Friday, Russian forces had fired more than 200 missiles, mostly short-range ballistic rockets but also cruise missiles and rockets fired from the Black Sea, at targets across Ukraine, according to the senior Pentagon official, who spoke on the condition of anonymity to discuss sensitive military assessments.
The targets were primarily military: barracks, ammunition depots and air fields, the official said, in an expected move to destroy as much of the outgunned Ukrainian military as possible, as well as to help weaken any guerrilla movement that could rise up from the ashes of a defeated Ukrainian army.
Russia insisted it was not bombing civilian targets and was trying to limit casualties in the Ukrainian military. “No strikes against civilian infrastructure are being carried out,” Foreign Minister Sergey V. Lavrov said Friday.
But the senior Pentagon official challenged that claim, saying some civilian residential areas had been struck, though the official could not say if they had been deliberately targeted.
How the battle for Kyiv ends will likely signal Mr. Putin’s larger plans for Ukraine.
“Putin’s M.O. is to install new government and have them do the dirty work,” said Representative Michael Waltz, a Florida Republican and former Army Green Beret who traveled to Ukraine in December. “It’s unclear if he is underestimating the level of Ukrainian nationalism that’s developed since 2014.”
Mr. Waltz said he met with Ukraine’s top commando on that December trip. “He was very focused on developing a resistance organization,” Mr. Waltz said, “but I’m not sure he had enough time.”
People fight well on there own dung hill. I expect the Ukrainians to fight well.
"their"
dung hill? your phrase
shit hole? Trump's phrase
Best comment of the day comes from Rep. Jim Jordan.
Another second guesser like the ball less wonder speculating out his ass!!!!!!!! Keep projecting loser.........you'd be shitting your pants if you were being attacked....
Oooo you caught me using a homophobe Reverend.
Are you dancing around a fire?
Zelensky Has Become More Than a Man
February 26, 2022 at 11:02 am EST By Taegan Goddard 40 Comments
Jonathan Last:
“He declined an offer of evacuation from the United States. Ukrainian forces held Kyiv into Saturday morning and Zelensky emerged onto the streets of the capital, walking with his countrymen. This is a level of personal bravery that we are utterly unaccustomed to seeing from heads of state.
Zelensky’s conduct over the last few weeks—which has been utterly extraordinary—has substantially buttressed Ukraine’s resolve. He has become more than a man. More than a leader. He has become a symbol.
“What we are witnessing is the emergence of a figure who will become a key part of Ukrainian history for the next century. There will be statues of him all over the country. Ukrainians will name their children after him. This is like watching another country’s Washington or Churchill emerge in real time.
“I hope we all appreciate how special this is. And how rare. Because normally when world-historical figures emerge, it’s because they’re bad guys.”
_____
Like Putin.
Blogger Honest, decent, truthful Rev. said...
Are you guys ever going to stop rootin for pootin?
We like team USA, just don't care for the incompetence quarterback running it.
Volodymyr Zelensky Is my new hero.
China Says U.S. Warship in Taiwan Strait ‘Provocative’
February 26, 2022 at 11:14 am EST By Taegan Goddard 16 Comments
A U.S. warship sailed through the sensitive Taiwan Strait on Saturday, part of what the U.S. military calls routine activity but which China described as “provocative,” Reuters reports.
Too, too bad!
Blogger Honest, decent, truthful Rev. said...
China Says U.S. Warship in Taiwan Strait ‘Provocative’
February 26, 2022 at 11:14 am EST By Taegan Goddard 16 Comments
A U.S. warship sailed through the sensitive Taiwan Strait on Saturday, part of what the U.S. military calls routine activity but which China described as “provocative,” Reuters reports
Fuck the Chinese.
U.S. May Sanction Russia’s Central Bank
February 26, 2022 at 11:27 am EST By Taegan Goddard Leave a Comment
“The U.S. Treasury Department is looking at imposing sanctions against Russia’s central bank, a move that would seek to dramatically ramp up the financial isolation of Russia,”
the Washington Post reports.
Volodymyr Zelensky Is my new hero.
Who has the unified backing of NATO thanks to the new quarterback!!!!!!
Giving the world COVID-19 was provocative. So is sailing Chinese warships in the Taiwan strait, taking Hong Kong.
AM
Blogger anonymous who has the unified backing of NATO thanks to the new quarterback!!!!!! (Zelensky?)
Giving the world COVID-19 was provocative. So is sailing Chinese warships in the Taiwan strait, taking Hong Kong.
Your rewriting history is most amusing and very naive, cramps.....
If the people refused to surrender, the Russian oligarchs might get rid of Putin
No Cramps......Biden reversed the damage Trump brought to NATO with his bluster, lying and saying Nato had out lived its usefulness,.....Biden in October brought the big 5 to a meeting and gave them the intel of what Russia was doing getting the major players on board before Putin acted!!!!!! Trump would be lining up his putt......BWAAAAAAAAAAAAA!!!!
“The U.S. Treasury Department is looking at imposing sanctions against Russia’s central bank, a move that would seek to dramatically ramp up the financial isolation of Russia,”
That's the problem with Biden. Always looking into it. Never executing it. That is his feckless way.
Well let us hope and pray to all that is holy that those "discussions" can salvage Joy Behar's Italy vacation."RRB
She has been waiting for years, IF people would just stop dying.
I want Biden to starve Putin of US Dollars.
Cut off all oil Shipments into the US.
Rash Putin Razes Ukraine https://nyti.ms/3HtthMe
Poland has taken in over 120k refugees from Ukraine and sent military equipment. Other eastern block world leaders are publicly opposing the russian invasion. Germany lead in halting the pipeline and biden then fell in line.
The world is leading while the bumbling biden hides in Delaware.
5 days ago Joe said he felt the pain at the pump.
Then he said Americans are going to have to bend over forward and feel the Russian Bear Fucking US.
He has already approved of sanctions on Putin himself
Cramps......Biden reversed the damage Trump brought to NATO with his bluster
No damage was done over and above Germany's sell out.
He is not hiding. He has meetings all the time
Poland is taking in refugees from Ukraine and without any money or paperwork or even passports..
This is why NATO exists
Fuck the Russians as Canada puts the screws to Putin
Alicja Siekierska
Alicja Siekierska
Thu, February 24, 2022, 3:09 PM
A Bombardier Global 7500 business jet is seen at the Asian Business Aviation Conference and Exhibition (ABACE) in Shanghai, China April 16, 2019. China Daily via REUTERS ATTENTION EDITORS - THIS IMAGE WAS PROVIDED BY A THIRD PARTY. CHINA OUT.
Bombardier, which manufacturers private jets, may be one of the companies affected by the export cancellations. (China Daily via REUTERS)
Canada is cancelling all export permits to Russia in response to the country's invasion of Ukraine, a decision that Canada's foreign affairs minister says will impact companies in the aerospace, technology and minerals sectors.
The cancellation of existing export permits and additional sanctions were announced at a press conference on Thursday with Prime Minister Justin Trudeau, Deputy Prime Minister Chrystia Freeland, Foreign Affairs Minister Melanie Joly and Defence Minister Anita Anand. Joly said that hundreds of export permits are being cancelled, worth more than $700 million. Applications for new permits to export goods to Russia will be rejected.
No damage was done over and above Germany's sell out.
BWAAAAAAAAAA!!!! At you cramps.....!!!!!! Wonder how many refugees they will get????? Sell out my fucking ass!!!
Trump would have been cheering for this
Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky remained resolute on Saturday amid tense fighting in and around Kyiv. "I'm here. We are not putting down any arms. We will protect our country, because our weapons are our truth," he said in a video posted to Twitter Saturday.
The latest: Russia's defense ministry said that all units were ordered to resume their offensive from all directions after a "pause" on Friday for possible negotiations with Ukraine, according to state media.
A senior U.S. defense official told reporters Saturday that Russian President Vladimir Putin has "more than 50% of his total assembled power now committed inside Ukraine," and that "tens of thousands" of troops have entered in the country in the last 24 hours.The official added that there are indications Russia did not anticipate this level of Ukrainian resistance and has had to commit more logistics and supplies, such as fuel, than initially planned. Russia has yet to achieve air superiority over Ukraine.
What's happening: Ukrainian troops continue to resist Russia's advance into Kyiv Saturday, with intense street fighting and loud explosions reported in the capital.
The U.K.'s Ministry of Defense said Saturday morning that "the bulk" of Russia's forces were now less than 20 miles from the center of Kyiv, but that Russia "has yet to gain control of the airspace over Ukraine."Zelensky, meanwhile, turned down an American offer to evacuate, saying the "fight is here," Ukraine's embassy in Britain tweeted. "I need ammunition, not a ride.”Kyiv's mayor ordered a curfew from 5 p.m. Saturday until Monday.Ukraine's health ministry reported Saturday that at least 198 Ukrainians, including three children, have been killed since Russia launched its unprovoked invasion of Ukraine.
Blogger The Real Halfbaked Soars Pundit said...
If the people refused to surrender, the Russian oligarchs might get rid of Putin
You have it ass-backwards. The oligarchs will get rid of Putin when he stops making money for them.
We have already stopped them from making money in Europe and America and beyond
The sanctions against Russia are supported by both sides PBR PBR drunk
CNN is moving to the center.
Under new chief Chris Licht, CNN will dial down the prime-time partisanship and double down on the network's news-gathering muscle, top sources tell me.
Why it matters: Ratings are secondary to credibility, in the view of Warner Bros. Discovery CEO David Zaslav, who's taking over CNN.
Jeff Zucker's successor at the CNN helm will be Licht — showrunner of "The Late Show with Stephen Colbert" and a popular, pioneering producer who knows his way around America's top control rooms.
The selection of Licht, a regular at Zaslav summer parties in the Hamptons, was reported first by Puck News' Dylan Byers. Licht will be named next week.Licht — CBS' EVP of Special Programming — succeeded with three very different programs: Colbert rose on his watch to become the most-watched network late-night show, with live shows for big news ... "CBS This Morning" got a ratings jolt when he was E.P. ... and he was co-creator and original E.P. of MSNBC’s “Morning Joe."
What's happening: Zaslav, at the urging of mentor John Malone, is likely to push CNN back to hard news, and away from red-hot liberal opining.
Taking on a second hallmark of the Zucker regime, the incoming Discovery team has expressed skepticism about the roster size for CNN+, the streaming service Zucker had been stocking with expensive talent.
Between the lines: Axios is told that Licht and Zaslav share a view that CNN was chasing prime-time ratings at the expense of the brand.
Zaslav wants to move CNN back to the middle.CNN at all hours will emphasize the type of indispensable coverage we've been seeing from Ukraine — a deployment built on Zucker's flood-the-zone, own-the story playbook, and hires including Clarissa Ward.CNN's footprint includes 11 U.S. bureaus and 28 internationally. Zucker invested heavily in CNN Digital, which boasts 200 million unique visitors globally each month.
The intrigue: Zucker ran an empire of 4,500 (not counting Turner Sports, which he also headed). But Licht's domain may be smaller:
Staff is bracing for CNN+ to shrink before it even launches this spring.Executives have discussed moving HLN, formerly Headline News, under the purview of a current Discovery executive, Kathleen Finch.A separate executive will head sports.
China is buying oil , and stock piling as much as can be shipped to them.
They have billions of dollars flowing into Putin.
Why is it that Pres. Biden refuses to cut off Putin's Oil into the US?
Surely the Three Socialist Stooges of CHT have the answer.
(* hint, I know)
Roger, when did you realize you had lost the ability to converse?
Roger, did you see Dennis called you a fucking asshole shithead retard ?
Here are the Russian oligarchs targeted in Biden's sanctions
PUBLISHED FRI, FEB 25 2022 10:13 PM EST
UPDATED FRI, FEB 25 2022 10:16 PM EST
NBC NEWS
Alicia Victoria Lozano
WATCH LIVE
GP: Vladimir Putin Russia 220226 Asia
Rosneft Board Chairman Igor Sechin and Russia's President Vladimir Putin visit the Konevsky Monastery on Konevets Island on Lake Ladoga.
Alexei Nikolsky | Russian Presidential Press and Information Office | Tass | Getty Images
A former KGB leader, a diamond mine executive and a deputy prime minister — these are just some of the roles held by Russian oligarchs targeted by the Biden administration in a round of "unprecedented" sanctions against members of President Vladimir Putin's inner circle.
The U.S., working closely with European allies, has been steadily waging sanctions against Moscow with the goal of deterring Putin from escalating actions in Ukraine. The efforts, which do not appear to have thwarted Putin yet, could have lasting effects on Russian business and government leaders with international dealings.
The White House said Friday it would also take the rare step of directly sanctioning Putin, a largely symbolic act given that the Russian leader has hidden his wealth and made it difficult to freeze his assets.
"Elites close to Putin continue to leverage their proximity to the Russian President to pillage the Russian state, enrich themselves, and elevate their family members into some of the highest positions of power in the country at the expense of the Russian people," the U.S. Department of the Treasury said in a statement.
"Sanctioned oligarchs and powerful Russian elites have used family members to move assets and to conceal their immense wealth."
More from NBC News:
To avoid accidental clash near Ukraine, U.S. weighs hotline with Russian military
Biden admin carefully examining legal issues around providing arms to Ukraine
Chernobyl isn't the biggest nuclear risk. Ukraine's active nuclear power plants are.
Secretary of the Treasury Janet L. Yellen said the sanctions were meant to "degrade Russia's ability to project power and threaten the peace and stability of Europe" by cutting off access to the broader international economy.
Members of the ruling class singled out by the Treasury Department comprise Russia's financial elite who benefit from the regime's "kleptocracy" and are closest to Putin, it said.
The list that was released this week goes beyond "the normal business tycoons" sanctioned in the past, said William Courtney, adjunct senior fellow at the nonpartisan Rand Corp., who served as ambassador to Kazakhstan, Georgia, and on the U.S.-Soviet Bilateral Consultative Commission to Implement the Threshold Test Ban Treaty.
"These people are KGB cronies," Courtney said. "They have more influence on policy, the kind of policy that led to invading Ukraine."
Sanctions could prove effective by constraining the ability of these players to conduct business abroad, keep assets in secure banks and open accounts in reputable Western institutions, he said.
Here are the Russian oligarchs targeted in Biden's sanctions
PUBLISHED FRI, FEB 25 2022 10:13 PM EST
UPDATED FRI, FEB 25 2022 10:16 PM EST
NBC NEWS
Alicia Victoria Lozano
WATCH LIVE
GP: Vladimir Putin Russia 220226 Asia
Rosneft Board Chairman Igor Sechin and Russia's President Vladimir Putin visit the Konevsky Monastery on Konevets Island on Lake Ladoga.
Alexei Nikolsky | Russian Presidential Press and Information Office | Tass | Getty Images
A former KGB leader, a diamond mine executive and a deputy prime minister — these are just some of the roles held by Russian oligarchs targeted by the Biden administration in a round of "unprecedented" sanctions against members of President Vladimir Putin's inner circle.
The U.S., working closely with European allies, has been steadily waging sanctions against Moscow with the goal of deterring Putin from escalating actions in Ukraine. The efforts, which do not appear to have thwarted Putin yet, could have lasting effects on Russian business and government leaders with international dealings.
The White House said Friday it would also take the rare step of directly sanctioning Putin, a largely symbolic act given that the Russian leader has hidden his wealth and made it difficult to freeze his assets.
"Elites close to Putin continue to leverage their proximity to the Russian President to pillage the Russian state, enrich themselves, and elevate their family members into some of the highest positions of power in the country at the expense of the Russian people," the U.S. Department of the Treasury said in a statement.
"Sanctioned oligarchs and powerful Russian elites have used family members to move assets and to conceal their immense wealth."
More from NBC News:
To avoid accidental clash near Ukraine, U.S. weighs hotline with Russian military
Biden admin carefully examining legal issues around providing arms to Ukraine
Chernobyl isn't the biggest nuclear risk. Ukraine's active nuclear power plants are.
Secretary of the Treasury Janet L. Yellen said the sanctions were meant to "degrade Russia's ability to project power and threaten the peace and stability of Europe" by cutting off access to the broader international economy.
Members of the ruling class singled out by the Treasury Department comprise Russia's financial elite who benefit from the regime's "kleptocracy" and are closest to Putin, it said.
The list that was released this week goes beyond "the normal business tycoons" sanctioned in the past, said William Courtney, adjunct senior fellow at the nonpartisan Rand Corp., who served as ambassador to Kazakhstan, Georgia, and on the U.S.-Soviet Bilateral Consultative Commission to Implement the Threshold Test Ban Treaty.
"These people are KGB cronies," Courtney said. "They have more influence on policy, the kind of policy that led to invading Ukraine."
Sanctions could prove effective by constraining the ability of these players to conduct business abroad, keep assets in secure banks and open accounts in reputable Western institutions, he said.
Blogger The Real Halfbaked Soars Pundit said...
We have already stopped them from making money in Europe and America and beyond
We have? Where exactly?
deputy prime minister — these are just some of the roles held by Russian oligarchs targeted by the Biden administration in a round of "unprecedented" sanctions against members of President Vladimir Putin's inner circle.
The U.S., working closely with European allies, has been steadily waging sanctions against Moscow with the goal of deterring Putin from escalating actions in Ukraine. The efforts, which do not appear to have thwarted Putin yet, could have lasting effects on Russian business and government leaders with international dealings.
The White House said Friday it would also take the rare step of directly sanctioning Putin, a largely symbolic act given that the Russian leader has hidden his wealth and made it difficult to freeze his assets.
"Elites close to Putin continue to leverage their proximity to the Russian President to pillage the Russian state, enrich themselves, and elevate their family members into some of the highest positions of power in the country at the expense of the Russian people," the U.S. Department of the Treasury said in a statement.
"Sanctioned oligarchs and powerful Russian elites have used family members to move assets and to conceal their immense wealth."
You are watching protest all over the world.
Who are they are protesting against?
NATO of course.
Talk about groupies.
Pelosi Says It's 'Important to Understand the Brilliance' of Biden's Response to Russian Invasion of Ukrai
In reverse , you fell in love with Trump
BY REBECCA BEITSCH AND MORGAN CHALFANT1TWEET SHARE MORE
A mass exodus of Ukrainians risks overwhelming resources in neighboring countries even as Europe pledges to aid refugees fleeing Russia’s invasion.
U.S. intelligence agencies have assessed that anywhere from 1 million to 5 million Ukrainians could be displaced as Russian forces enter the country from the north, south and east.
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It’s a movement that could well exceed the capacity of Ukraine’s neighbors, some of which have limited resources given a history of resistance to accepting refugees.
“It is unlikely these nations could successfully support a surge of millions of refugees without the support of the U.S. and the wider international community,” Krish O’Mara Vignarajah, president of the Lutheran Immigration and Refugee Service, which resettles refugees, told The Hill.
Romania has said it could accept up to a half million refugees, Hungary has said it is preparing for tens of thousands and Moldova has pledged to keep its borders open to Ukrainians.
While Poland, a likely destination for refugees to the West of Ukraine, has pledged to take a million refugees, the country’s own data suggests its spaces for housing refugees have fewer than 3,000 spots.
“This reality is likely a significant driver of the U.N.’s appeal for $190 million in humanitarian assistance for Ukrainians,” Vignarajah said.
Hungary, another western border crossing for Ukrainians, has been openly hostile to refugees in the past, earning rebuke from the U.N. High Commissioner for Refugees.
The UNHCR said Friday that at least 50,000 Ukrainians have already fled the country, including crossing into Poland, Romania and Moldova, while an estimated 100,000 have been internally displaced.
Roadways in Kyiv were flooded Thursday, with vehicles stretching for dozens of kilometers as they sought to flee the capital.
Ukraine has also already been dealing with the aftereffects of internal displacement after Russia's 2014 annexation of the Crimea Peninsula.
But the movements of Russian troops could push people further west and into neighboring countries.
“These are small countries bordering Ukraine, so even if they're willing to host Ukrainians, they don't necessarily have the capacity, and so we’ll need to see much more technical and financial support coming from other EU countries and I would argue also the U.S,” said Daphne Panayotatos, advocate for Europe at Refugees International.
NEW POLL: 62 percent of voters say Putin wouldn't have invaded Ukraine if Trump were president
Count me among those that say Putin wouldn't invade.
The U.S. so far has sent a 17-member disaster response team through the U.S. Agency for International Development to facilitate the Biden administration’s humanitarian response.
U.S. troops currently stationed along NATO’s eastern flank are also helping process evacuees from Ukraine as they cross into Poland and Romania at temporary safe havens in those countries.
The Biden administration is also facing calls to offer temporary protected status to Ukrainians already in the U.S. to avoid deportation and offer its own refugee program resources.
White House press secretary Jen Psaki said Thursday that the U.S. is prepared to accept Ukrainian refugees, but she said that most will want to go to countries in Europe. She said that the Biden administration is working with European countries to gauge where there is capacity.
“The [State] Department is engaging diplomatically to ensure neighboring countries keep their borders open to those seeking international protection,” a department spokesperson told The Hill.
“As with any refugee situation, we will continue to call on members of the international community to respond to the needs of those seeking protection within their borders in a way that is consistent with their respective obligations under international law.”
So far, the response from many European countries has been welcoming – a contrast with the reaction to past refugee crises, such as the one spurred by the Syrian civil war.
Just last week, the UNHCR issued a warning for the region, noting that several countries have been implicated in alarming reports of pushbacks of refugees arriving by boat.
The more welcome response from Poland comes after the country began construction of a wall along its border with Belarus to prevent refugee crossings.
“Poland’s plan to accommodate up to 1 million Ukrainians is particularly noteworthy, given that just months ago, its government utilized troops to repel asylum seekers at its border with Belarus. This disparity in the treatment of predominantly Muslim refugees speaks to the troubling rise of nationalist movements politicizing vulnerable migrant populations,” Vignarajah said.
But a largely white, Christian refugee population from Ukraine may be treated differently.
“The rhetoric that we are hearing around the very likely arrival of tens or hundreds of thousands if not around a million or more people coming from Ukraine, the rhetoric is welcoming and warm,” said Judith Sunderland, associate director for Human Rights Watch’s Europe and Central Asia.
“It is a big contrast to the rhetoric we heard just a few months ago around Afghans arriving or potentially arriving.”
Melanie Nezer, senior vice president for global public affairs with HIAS, a Jewish refugee resettlement group with a partner organization in Ukraine, said there are parallels to the shift on refugees between the Trump and Biden administrations, where the U.S. went from an all-time low goal of resettling refugees under President Trump to a much larger one set by the new administration that President Biden ultimately failed to meet.
“When the Afghan refugees came, we really had to scramble,” Nezer said, “to make sure that resources were available, the skills, that staff was in place and all of those things,” she said, adding that the U.S. had lost some “muscle memory” on the issue.
“These are countries that don't really have real established systems for accepting refugees.”
Adding to the complexity is the tremendous uncertainty surrounding the scale of the potential refugee crisis, which is largely dependent on how the invasion unfolds. Russian forces were pushing into Kyiv on Friday, sparking worries that the Ukrainian capital with a population of about 2.8 million could fall.
Ukraine has also ordered men aged 18 to 60 to remain in the country as it prepares to begin conscription of military reservists.
“It depends, obviously, what the course of the war is,” said Angela Stent, an expert on U.S. and European relations with Russia. “You could have a major refugee crisis.”
Sunderland applauded Poland’s decision to welcome Ukrainian refugees as well as foreigners legally residing in Ukraine, but she argued that the door needs to be “completely open” to include undocumented migrants in Ukraine.
Panayotatos said Western Europe can also be of greater assistance, aiding in relocation by quickly bringing refugees to other parts of the continent after initial processing to house them while awaiting next steps in their asylum case.
“If a million people go to Poland next week, Poland doesn't have the capacity to process a million applications. What would happen instead would be that 500 people go to Germany, and 500 people go to France and 300 people go to Ireland,” she said, using hypothetical figures.
“People could be relocated to another European Union country, and that country would assess their asylum claim and say, ‘Yes, we France, not Poland, but we France, think you qualify as a refugee and we will give you refugee status to stay here in France.’”
The United States has to provide places across the country.
CommonsenseFebruary 26, 2022 at 11:32 AM
NEW POLL: 62 percent of voters say Putin wouldn't have invaded Ukraine if Trump were president
Count me among those that say Putin wouldn't invade."
YEP.
Sunderland applauded Poland’s decision to welcome Ukrainian refugees as well as foreigners legally residing in Ukraine, but she argued that the door needs to be “completely open” to include undocumented migrants in Ukraine.
NATO is saving lives.
Trump would have withdrawn immediately and Putin would have invaded Kuwait immediately after.
You dumbshit people
Kuwait?
Why didn't we spend the last few months flooding Ukraine with military supplies? Firearms, ammunition, artillery, tanks, planes, vehicles.
Why are Ukrainians making Molotov cocktails in their bathrooms while Biden says "we knew this would happen"?
That's a good question Reverend.
And shit story
biden 0215 Alex Wong/Getty Images
Joe Biden has been president for a little over a year. And that year was not kind to him.
In a new NPR/PBS/Marist College poll , more than half – 56% – of Americans said that Biden’s first year in office was a “failure,” while just 39% described it as a success.
The news doesn’t get better the more you dig into the survey. Two-thirds of independents said Biden’s first year was a failure, while more than 9 in 10 Republicans (91%) agreed with that assessment.
Biden’s numbers are better among Democrats – 80% called year one a success – but 15% of members of his own party described his first year in office as a failure.
Now, asking such a binary question – either Biden’s first year was a success or a failure, with no room in the middle – does tend to strip any nuance from issue. There are incredible complexities that go into assessing how a president has done.
Oftentimes, a president is judged in one way during his time in office and in another after he leaves, once the impacts of his policies come into clearer focus.
That said, elections tend to force voters to think in this all-or-nothing way. Either you vote for a Democrat or for a Republican. Either you vote to re-elect your incumbent or you choose the challenger.
Seen through that political lens, these poll numbers are extremely problematic for Democrats on the ballot this fall. We know that, historically, the first midterm election of a president’s term is a referendum on his time in office up to that point.
The Point : If the public’s report card on Biden’s second year in office is anything like the one for his first year, Democrats can kiss their House and Senate majorities goodbye.
We actually have been doing that even before the invasion happened
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