Russia and Ukraine

[Thumpalumpacus]

... and:

Ukrainian troops successfully ambushed and destroyed a Russian armored column advancing in the Kursk region, according to the Militarnyi report.

The column, which was attempting to break through on the left flank of Ukrainian forces, was halted after coming under tank fire.

The ambush resulted in the destruction of several Russian vehicles, including a “VPK-Ural” armored personnel carrier, a BTR-80, a UAZ-452, and a tank equipped with a mine plow. The location of the ambush was geolocated on the Rylsk-Korenovo-Sudya highway, approximately 5 kilometers south of Olgivka.

The Russian convoy was reportedly heading toward the villages of Zelenyi Shlyakh and Novoivanivka, continuing its effort to breach Ukrainian defensive lines. This advance was part of a larger push by Russian forces in the area, with Ukrainian military analysts noting a significant concentration of enemy troops and equipment.

[HappySkeptic]

Germany will no longer provide heavy combat vehicles to Ukraine, according to reports from the German newspaper Bild, which cites an internal document from the German Ministry of Defense.

The transfer of such equipment, which included Leopard 2 tanks, Marder infantry fighting vehicles (IFVs), and Panzerhaubitze 2000 (PzH 2000) howitzers, has reportedly been completed.

According to Bild, the German Ministry of Defense does not believe Ukraine will be able to conduct a successful counteroffensive in the near future, despite Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy’s efforts to continue pushing against Russian forces. This perspective comes at a critical time, as Ukraine’s counteroffensive, which began in the summer of 2023, has faced significant challenges, with progress slower than initially hoped.

https://defence-blog.com/germany-halts-s...o-ukraine/

Well, the rise of the right-wing means support for authoritarianism worldwide.  Color me surprised.  It is basically a tenet of faith now for the right that Ukraine must surrender, and Putin is a hero of Christianity and the fight against rights.

[Thumpalumpacus]

WARSAW, Poland (AP) — The prominent American journalist and historian Anne Applebaum urged continued support for Ukraine as she accepted a prestigious German prize on Sunday, arguing that pacifism in the face of aggression is often nothing more than appeasement.

Applebaum made her appeal to an audience in Frankfurt, where she was awarded the Peace Prize of the German Book Trade. She was joined by her husband, Polish Foreign Minister Radek Sikorski, who like his wife is a strong voice on the international stage for supporting Ukraine as it defends itself against Russia’s brutal invasion.

“If there is even a small chance that military defeat could help end this horrific cult of violence in Russia, just as military defeat once brought an end to the cult of violence in Germany, we should take it,” Applebaum said.

Many Germans have embraced an ethos of pacifism as a result of their nation’s aggression under Adolf Hitler during World War II. And many have misgivings now about supplying weapons to Kyiv, fearing Russia and worried that it could cause the war to spread beyond Ukraine’s borders to the rest of Europe.

“Some even call for peace by referring solemnly to the ‘lessons of German history,” Applebaum noted, according to a transcript of her speech published by the prize organization.

“As I am here today accepting a peace prize, this seems the right moment to point out that ‘I want peace’ is not always a moral argument,” Applebaum said. “This is also the right moment to say that the lesson of German history is not that Germans should be pacifists.”


“On the contrary, we have known for nearly a century that a demand for pacifism in the face of an aggressive, advancing dictatorship can simply represent the appeasement and acceptance of that dictatorship.”

She argued that the “real lesson” from German history should be that Germans “have a special responsibility to stand up for freedom and to take risks in doing so.”

https://apnews.com/article/germany-peace...d975a15247

[Ivan Denisovich]

WARSAW, Poland (AP) — The prominent American journalist and historian Anne Applebaum urged continued support for Ukraine as she accepted a prestigious German prize on Sunday, arguing that pacifism in the face of aggression is often nothing more than appeasement.

Applebaum made her appeal to an audience in Frankfurt, where she was awarded the Peace Prize of the German Book Trade. She was joined by her husband, Polish Foreign Minister Radek Sikorski, who like his wife is a strong voice on the international stage for supporting Ukraine as it defends itself against Russia’s brutal invasion.

“If there is even a small chance that military defeat could help end this horrific cult of violence in Russia, just as military defeat once brought an end to the cult of violence in Germany, we should take it,” Applebaum said.

Many Germans have embraced an ethos of pacifism as a result of their nation’s aggression under Adolf Hitler during World War II. And many have misgivings now about supplying weapons to Kyiv, fearing Russia and worried that it could cause the war to spread beyond Ukraine’s borders to the rest of Europe.

“Some even call for peace by referring solemnly to the ‘lessons of German history,” Applebaum noted, according to a transcript of her speech published by the prize organization.

“As I am here today accepting a peace prize, this seems the right moment to point out that ‘I want peace’ is not always a moral argument,” Applebaum said. “This is also the right moment to say that the lesson of German history is not that Germans should be pacifists.”


“On the contrary, we have known for nearly a century that a demand for pacifism in the face of an aggressive, advancing dictatorship can simply represent the appeasement and acceptance of that dictatorship.”

She argued that the “real lesson” from German history should be that Germans “have a special responsibility to stand up for freedom and to take risks in doing so.”

https://apnews.com/article/germany-peace...d975a15247

I disagree. Neither Germany nor any other country have a special responsibility to do something. Having said that I think that supporting Ukraine against fascist invader is something that's both moral and pragmatic.

[Thumpalumpacus]

https://apnews.com/article/germany-peace...d975a15247

I disagree. Neither Germany nor any other country have a special responsibility to do something. Having said that I think that supporting Ukraine against fascist invader is something that's both moral and pragmatic.

I agree that singling out any one country as having a special obligation is wrong; we all do. I agree with her that pacifism in the face of active aggression is appeasement.

And yes, supporting Ukraine is both morally and practically the right thing to do.

[Ivan Denisovich]

I disagree. Neither Germany nor any other country have a special responsibility to do something. Having said that I think that supporting Ukraine against fascist invader is something that's both moral and pragmatic.

I agree that singling out any one country as having a special obligation is wrong; we all do. I agree with her that pacifism in the face of active aggression is appeasement.

And yes, supporting Ukraine is both morally and practically the right thing to do.

I agree with pacifism=appeasement but I doubt that argument like this will sway people. No one likes to be upbraided or singled out. She could stick to arguments from pragmatism and it would have sounded better.

[The Grand Nudger]

A Russian infantry regiment formed from Strategic Missile Forces personnel is now fighting in Kursk Oblast.

-euromaiden on x

Love it...but who's gonna fire off the nukes?

and also

The Ukrainian General Staff is regularly estimating Russia's casualties at over 1,300 men a day along with three dozen artillery and twice that number of vehicles. For that, Russia has been gaining about one 13th of the distance that would be covered if you laid the men lost end to end each day. Feeding 12,000 poorly trained and inexperienced North Korean troops into the Russian system represents about a kilometer and a half. They're nine days' worth of fuel for a war machine that runs on blood. But if they get that kilometer and a half before being used up, Putin will be thrilled. And Kim won't care.

https://www.unchartedblue.com/ukraine-up...-purchase/

Short video of a bradley abrams combo giving the russians a stern talking to in a good long article.

[Thumpalumpacus]

Love it...but who's gonna fire off the nukes?

They also unassed their only remaining carrier (you know, the one that had to sail with a tug just in case) recently, and took that ship's crew to form a mechanized assault battalion.

In a surprising development, Russia has seemingly formed a mechanised battalion from the crew of its only aircraft carrier, the Admiral Kuznetsov.

This new unit is reportedly involved in ground operations in Ukraine, according to open-source intelligence researcher Moklasen on X (formerly Twitter).

Initially stationed in the Kharkiv region, the battalion has since been redeployed to the Pokrovsk sector, according to the Ukrainian military. The formation of the battalion came to light after a message was shared on Russian social media platform Vkontakte, requesting help in locating personnel from military unit 78987.

This unit recently gained attention following the disappearance of Oleg Sosedov, a sailor from the Admiral Kuznetsov, who went missing during a Russian operation in the Kharkiv region in July. Sosedov, also linked to the battalion, was last seen during an assault on the frontier village of Sotnytskii Kozachok.

https://ukdefencejournal.org.uk/russian-...n-ukraine/

No doubt a bunch of swabbies can storm a trench with aplomb.

[The Grand Nudger]

The allegedly limitless pool of russian men at work. IMHO, the koreans are going to be the best troops in the russian army until next week when they're all dead. Russia is scraping the bottom of the pog barrel at home.

[Leonardo17]

Ok, die.

How desperate for attention one must be to utter such crap?

Russians are good at generating fake news. They are also good at generating true news. They buy or convince celebrities and other powerful people not only in their “zone if Influence” Like Moldavia and Georgia, but also in Western nations etc. So I would not spend time on people like that. It’s also a form of fake news.

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Thumpalumpacus:
Australia is sending 50 Abrams Tanks. The US is sending 30 Abrams tanks. And France is sending Mirage D’assault fighter planes as soon as the first half of 2025.
 

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Happy Sceptic:
 
That’s also the issue of the BRICS summit. This is not a cold war phenomenon with two different views of the world. To me it looks like the typical resistance to change of the human Ego. Some people are lazy. So instead of making the effort to change, they prefer to resist change by investing even more effort into maintaining their outdated ways of doing things.

Ukrainian don’t seem to forget for one minute that change has a price tag attached to it:



https://www.yahoo.com/news/ukrainian-art...38933.html