Live Conflict Ukraine-Russia War

Relic

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Excellent news about Russia mass refurbishing old tanks, which will make up the majority of the "new" tanks that they introduce into their inventories. That tells us two key things...

1. They have deeply taxed their current arsenal of operational tanks and the Oryx list is relatively accurate when it makes the photo backed claim that Russia has lost 2475 MBTs in the war.

2. The West is getting what it wants out of this conflict. The great Soviet stockpile left to the Russian Army is being depleted, never to be replaced by Russia's diminutive economy (in comparison to the Soviet Union's).

As Ukraine ramps up the production and procurement of drones specifically designed to destroy Russian armor, in combination with their already accurate artillery and anti-tank weapons such as Javelin, Russian tanks will continue to be hammered across the front. Every cheap drone, artillery shell or Javelin used to destroy a Russian tank is a win for the West and a loss for Russia.

With Finland already admitted to NATO and Sweden on the verge of being accepted as well, this conflict has not only smashed the myth of the Russian Army's might, but it has now created an impossibly long border for Russia with NATO. That border will only get longer as Ukraine eventually accepted into the defensive alliance as well.

I cannot believe how fiscally cheap this war has been for the West. It's been extremely hard on Ukrainian manpower and infrastructure, however, we'll never get better better value in seeing the elimination of the leftover Soviet weapons stockpile.

Meanwhile, interest rates have reached 15%. They're funding this war by taxing the hell out of a citizen base that was already deeply impoverished by comparison to their 1st world peers. This war will, ultimately, set Russia further back, which is an undeniable win for the West.
 

Ecderha

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Before thinking about Kyiv again, they need to take Avdiivka first. The question is, can they do it without depleting all the ground offensive capabilities? So far, the losses on the Avdiivka offensive have been huge, with very little to show for.
ruzzian media keep lying ruzzians, but free world see what is going with putins rapists in Ukraine
 

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Footage of the impact of Ukrainian Storm Shadow missiles, Anglo-French production, on the Russian small missile ship Askold of Project 22800 has been published. The ship was located at the Zaliv shipyard in Kerch. Some of the missiles were launched by Ukrainian Su-24M aircraft from the Dnepropetrovsk and Zaporozhye regions; there were supposedly up to 16 of them in total. The missiles approached the target from different directions, maneuvering, changing routes and altitudes. Officially, the Russian Ministry of Defense reported that air defense shot down 13 out of 15 missiles over Kerch, which can be assessed as a good result for air defense. It is known that six missiles were shot down 50 km north of the Crimean Bridge and over Kerch. One missile was shot down over the Zaliv plant. Apparently the missiles also targeted the Crimean Bridge. According to the video, three missiles hit a pier next to the ship, causing significant damage to the ship.

 

Soldier30

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Footage of the use in Ukraine of the Russian missile and bomb complex "Grom" has been published. The complex is produced by the Tactical Missiles Corporation; we previously showed this military plant. At the moment, there is not a single video with real missiles and bombs of the "Grom" complex. It is known that the missile system is guided by GPS, it is based on the Kh-38 multi-purpose missile and can hit targets at a distance of up to 120 km. The complex is used from Su-34 and Mig-35 aircraft, as well as from the S-70 Okhotnik UAV. The mass of the missile warhead is from 315 to 480 kilograms. The video shows a missile from the Grom complex hitting a temporary residence of Ukrainian military personnel.

 

blackjack

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1699399599103.png

Zelensky was begging, "please give us money, and if you cannot give us financial assistance then please give us credit, and we will pay you back after the war" And what struck me, was that the western media places him in a light which it never did before. He really looks alone, but the striking part was that the west has no intention of giving him any more assistance. And here basically it means Russia is free to decide what the terms of the war will be - I think Shoigu said 2025 as the end of the SMO because it is a realistic timeline
Without Donbass, Ukraine will not have a defensive strategy, the JFO showed they staked defense of the nation on this battlefield
This is why if you look at any order of battle map in Ukraine, 90+% of all of their units are stationed in the donbass with other units behind them for rotation purposes.This is where the war is happening, being fought, and will be won and from where conditions will be imposed on Kiev and we do see that these NAFO accounts are disappearing en masse. We see politicians being ruined or flipped by the conflict
We see all western media declaring Ukraine is out of manpower and must hold peace talks, before they lose more territory, which was usually a trope of pro russian media, and now has become a headline on western MSM. And we see how the battles between Arestovich, Zelensky, Zaluzhny and other figures are starting to erupt. It's really up to Russia how long they will keep this tragic comedy going.

With the muddy season in place we should already be seeing new Ukrainian units being formed but again it looks like 90% of their forces are in the frontlines, while Russians are forming new units in their own country. Zaluzhnyi talks of man shortage should not be ignored.

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Russians are absolutely not going to agree to a ceasefire.
 

Relic

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U.S. Secretary of State Antony Blinken will travel to South Korea on Wednesday for two days of conferences with South Korea's President, National Security Advisor and Foreign Minister.

The parties will discuss, among other things, North Korea's supply of weapons to Russia. South Korea's constitution generally does not allow them to send weapons to war zones, however, if North Korea is indeed supplying Russia with weapons, certain provisions could allow South Korea to reply in kind.

This is an important development to watch. South Korea has a huge arms industry and significant stockpiles of weapons. If they start shipping large categories of artillery shells to Ukraine to counter balance those sent by North Korea, it would be a huge boost to thr Ukrainian war effort.

 

Gary

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Another Fico and Orban on their way to power?


Anti-Ukraine party gathers strength in Romania

Voter support for illiberal AUR is growing ahead of elections next year
ftcms%3A72805c44-5178-4886-941d-046d848fe778


George Simion, leader of the far-right Alliance for Unity in Romanians party, which has capitalised on anti-Ukraine sentiment © EPA-EFE



A few days into the Israel-Hamas war, a social media post went viral in Romania, claiming that the government in Bucharest had funded the evacuation of 3,000 Ukrainians from Israel, while doing nothing for Romanians trapped in the conflict. None of it was true. The post was written by George Simion, chair of the far-right Alliance for the Union of Romanians (AUR), which has emerged as the country’s main opposition force.

Its rise has sparked concern in European capitals about the risk that Romania could become another EU and Nato country reluctant to support Kyiv in its defensive war against Russian aggression. AUR, which translates as “gold” in Romanian, has capitalised on simmering anti-Ukrainian sentiment, promoting disinformation and lies to double its support among voters since the 2019 elections to about 20 per cent — just behind the ruling Social Democrats.


Simion himself is ranking third in voters’ preferences for the presidential elections, at abut 18 per cent, behind Nato deputy secretary-general Mircea Geoană and Prime Minister Marcel Ciolacu. “For a state that stands with Romanians: AUR,” Simion wrote on Facebook, showing that his party is already in campaign mode ahead of parliamentary, presidential and European elections next year.

He has since also confronted Ciolacu about the government’s alleged failure to extract Romanians from the Middle East. Romanian authorities have disputed Simion’s claims, adding that only a few hundred Ukrainians were extracted and they, not Bucharest, paid for their transport. Simion’s performance is part of a growing trend of disruptive far-right parties stoking fear and xenophobia in Europe, and questioning their countries’ continued support for Kyiv in its defence against Russian aggression. Once a fringe irredentist party that vilified the ethnic Hungarian minority and peddled anti-vaccine theories during the Covid-19 pandemic, AUR has shifted gears and focused on Ukraine, declaring that the war is “not ours” and urging the government to stop aiding Kyiv and rethink its relationships with Washington and Brussels. Like Poland’s Confederation party, which has lambasted the government in Warsaw for allowing cheap Ukrainian grain imports, AUR is opposing the transit through Romania of agricultural products from Ukraine.

The party is also against Bucharest continuing its arms supplies to Kyiv and hosting Ukrainian pilots who train on F-16 fighter jets. The failings of Romania’s ruling grand coalition, which consists of the largest mainstream parties — the centre-left Social Democrats and the centre-right National Liberal party — has fostered a political climate of discontent in which AUR has thrived. “The grand coalition, as earlier in Germany or Austria, has led to growing extremism,” said Costin Ciobanu, a researcher at the University of London.

“The coalition has appeared as a political cartel . . . while the global illiberal wave has arrived in Romania.” A first indicator of voters’ actual support for AUR will come in the EU elections in June. If the far-right party were to come out on top, it would “upend calculations for the other elections as well”, Ciobanu said, with mainstream parties likely to co-ordinate more closely in the ensuing parliamentary and presidential votes. AUR’s rise mirrors the ascent of the Alternative for Germany party, which recently broke out of its eastern German stronghold and performed well in regional elections. The Romanian far right likens itself to ruling parties in Hungary and Italy and large opposition parties in Spain and France. Like his fellow European far-right leaders, Simion, 37, claims his country is being “exploited” by the west and that any dissenting voices are “automatically cast as Putinists”. Claudiu Târziu, a leading AUR member, insists that his party is not pro-Russia.

“Romanians have suffered both from Ukrainians and from Russians and we don’t actually like either of them much,” he told the Financial Times.

Simion has recently been banned from entering Ukraine and Moldova, though Târziu denied a Ukrainian newspaper report citing intelligence sources and alleging that Simion had ties to Moscow. Simion, said Târziu, was persona non grata in Chisinau and Kyiv because of his irredentism on uniting all Romanian speakers into a “Greater Romania”. When Ukrainian president Volodymyr Zelenskyy visited Bucharest last month, Simion claimed he lacked “courage” because he cancelled a speech he was due to hold in parliament. Former AUR member Diana Șoșoacă, currently an independent senator, had vowed to disrupt the Zelenskyy speech, calling him a “Nazi” — a line used by the Kremlin. Zelenskyy said he had not prepared a speech and promised to address the Romanian parliament during a future visit. As it aligns its views with Hungarian leader Viktor Orbán — the closest to an ally Putin has within the EU and Nato — AUR has also dropped some of its anti-Hungarian talking points. Instead, its politicians praise the Hungarian premier as a role model on anti-LGBTQ issues and standing up to Brussels “diktats”. Viktor Orbán, prime minister of Hungary.

The AUR has praised him as a role model on some issues © Nicolas Economou/NurPhoto/ Getty Images “We have the same opinions as Viktor Orbán, [Italian premier] Giorgia Meloni, [Spain’s hard-right Vox leader] Santiago Abascal, or other conservative leaders about family, sovereignty, faith and traditions, and freedom,” Târziu said. Despite billions in EU funding for the country, he claimed Romanians were being “robbed by the EU” and forced to adopt an “ideology” that “endangers the traditional lifestyle of Romanians” — a recurring theme for nativist parties in Europe. Romania’s ethnic Hungarian UMDR party has called for a political cordon sanitaire around the AUR that would commit other parties to refuse to go into government with the party, much as centrist parties in France have refused alliances with the far-right Rassemblement National. Recommended FT MagazineSimon Kuper How Lithuanians are preparing to stop Putin “This party was borne out of anti-Hungarian hatred, and continues to feed on it,” said UMDR spokesman Botond Csoma. “AUR repeats [illiberal] elements only to draw a veil over its extremism and chauvinism.

” AUR voters say they are attracted by its novelty. At the party headquarters in Bucharest, sandwiched between a veterinary hospital, a pastry shop and a police precinct, 30-year-old Cezar said he prefers AUR because it “represents a change”. “It’s the same people up there [in government] spinning the money for 30 years. At least AUR is something new.” Additional reporting by Roman Olearchyk in Kyiv
 

Ryder

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I remember when twitter personalities like Thomas C Theiner are boasting that Swedish-trained Ukrainian troops will sweep through the land all the way to azov sea using their Strv122 and CV9040. Noting swedish expertise and superior training.

4 months later


This kind of bs only created false hope for Ukraine. The blitzkrieg that would have ended the war was all bs even Ukrainians told the West to keep their expectations in check.

Honestly what a shame.
 

Costin1984

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Another Fico and Orban on their way to power?


Anti-Ukraine party gathers strength in Romania

Voter support for illiberal AUR is growing ahead of elections next year
ftcms%3A72805c44-5178-4886-941d-046d848fe778


George Simion, leader of the far-right Alliance for Unity in Romanians party, which has capitalised on anti-Ukraine sentiment © EPA-EFE



A few days into the Israel-Hamas war, a social media post went viral in Romania, claiming that the government in Bucharest had funded the evacuation of 3,000 Ukrainians from Israel, while doing nothing for Romanians trapped in the conflict. None of it was true. The post was written by George Simion, chair of the far-right Alliance for the Union of Romanians (AUR), which has emerged as the country’s main opposition force.

Its rise has sparked concern in European capitals about the risk that Romania could become another EU and Nato country reluctant to support Kyiv in its defensive war against Russian aggression. AUR, which translates as “gold” in Romanian, has capitalised on simmering anti-Ukrainian sentiment, promoting disinformation and lies to double its support among voters since the 2019 elections to about 20 per cent — just behind the ruling Social Democrats.


Simion himself is ranking third in voters’ preferences for the presidential elections, at abut 18 per cent, behind Nato deputy secretary-general Mircea Geoană and Prime Minister Marcel Ciolacu. “For a state that stands with Romanians: AUR,” Simion wrote on Facebook, showing that his party is already in campaign mode ahead of parliamentary, presidential and European elections next year.

He has since also confronted Ciolacu about the government’s alleged failure to extract Romanians from the Middle East. Romanian authorities have disputed Simion’s claims, adding that only a few hundred Ukrainians were extracted and they, not Bucharest, paid for their transport. Simion’s performance is part of a growing trend of disruptive far-right parties stoking fear and xenophobia in Europe, and questioning their countries’ continued support for Kyiv in its defence against Russian aggression. Once a fringe irredentist party that vilified the ethnic Hungarian minority and peddled anti-vaccine theories during the Covid-19 pandemic, AUR has shifted gears and focused on Ukraine, declaring that the war is “not ours” and urging the government to stop aiding Kyiv and rethink its relationships with Washington and Brussels. Like Poland’s Confederation party, which has lambasted the government in Warsaw for allowing cheap Ukrainian grain imports, AUR is opposing the transit through Romania of agricultural products from Ukraine.

The party is also against Bucharest continuing its arms supplies to Kyiv and hosting Ukrainian pilots who train on F-16 fighter jets. The failings of Romania’s ruling grand coalition, which consists of the largest mainstream parties — the centre-left Social Democrats and the centre-right National Liberal party — has fostered a political climate of discontent in which AUR has thrived. “The grand coalition, as earlier in Germany or Austria, has led to growing extremism,” said Costin Ciobanu, a researcher at the University of London.

“The coalition has appeared as a political cartel . . . while the global illiberal wave has arrived in Romania.” A first indicator of voters’ actual support for AUR will come in the EU elections in June. If the far-right party were to come out on top, it would “upend calculations for the other elections as well”, Ciobanu said, with mainstream parties likely to co-ordinate more closely in the ensuing parliamentary and presidential votes. AUR’s rise mirrors the ascent of the Alternative for Germany party, which recently broke out of its eastern German stronghold and performed well in regional elections. The Romanian far right likens itself to ruling parties in Hungary and Italy and large opposition parties in Spain and France. Like his fellow European far-right leaders, Simion, 37, claims his country is being “exploited” by the west and that any dissenting voices are “automatically cast as Putinists”. Claudiu Târziu, a leading AUR member, insists that his party is not pro-Russia.

“Romanians have suffered both from Ukrainians and from Russians and we don’t actually like either of them much,” he told the Financial Times.

Simion has recently been banned from entering Ukraine and Moldova, though Târziu denied a Ukrainian newspaper report citing intelligence sources and alleging that Simion had ties to Moscow. Simion, said Târziu, was persona non grata in Chisinau and Kyiv because of his irredentism on uniting all Romanian speakers into a “Greater Romania”. When Ukrainian president Volodymyr Zelenskyy visited Bucharest last month, Simion claimed he lacked “courage” because he cancelled a speech he was due to hold in parliament. Former AUR member Diana Șoșoacă, currently an independent senator, had vowed to disrupt the Zelenskyy speech, calling him a “Nazi” — a line used by the Kremlin. Zelenskyy said he had not prepared a speech and promised to address the Romanian parliament during a future visit. As it aligns its views with Hungarian leader Viktor Orbán — the closest to an ally Putin has within the EU and Nato — AUR has also dropped some of its anti-Hungarian talking points. Instead, its politicians praise the Hungarian premier as a role model on anti-LGBTQ issues and standing up to Brussels “diktats”. Viktor Orbán, prime minister of Hungary.

The AUR has praised him as a role model on some issues © Nicolas Economou/NurPhoto/ Getty Images “We have the same opinions as Viktor Orbán, [Italian premier] Giorgia Meloni, [Spain’s hard-right Vox leader] Santiago Abascal, or other conservative leaders about family, sovereignty, faith and traditions, and freedom,” Târziu said. Despite billions in EU funding for the country, he claimed Romanians were being “robbed by the EU” and forced to adopt an “ideology” that “endangers the traditional lifestyle of Romanians” — a recurring theme for nativist parties in Europe. Romania’s ethnic Hungarian UMDR party has called for a political cordon sanitaire around the AUR that would commit other parties to refuse to go into government with the party, much as centrist parties in France have refused alliances with the far-right Rassemblement National. Recommended FT MagazineSimon Kuper How Lithuanians are preparing to stop Putin “This party was borne out of anti-Hungarian hatred, and continues to feed on it,” said UMDR spokesman Botond Csoma. “AUR repeats [illiberal] elements only to draw a veil over its extremism and chauvinism.

” AUR voters say they are attracted by its novelty. At the party headquarters in Bucharest, sandwiched between a veterinary hospital, a pastry shop and a police precinct, 30-year-old Cezar said he prefers AUR because it “represents a change”. “It’s the same people up there [in government] spinning the money for 30 years. At least AUR is something new.” Additional reporting by Roman Olearchyk in Kyiv
No chance for them to get over 15% at a parliamentary election,while their Presidential candidate has 5.4% intention of vote,with number 1 in the polls is the independent Mircea Geoana,currently employed as NATO secretary. Romania,overall, is very much pro US pro NATO ,pro EU,anti Russia.
 

Gary

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Palestine has all the spotlight for the last 1 month, I completely missed this. Someone phoned the Italian PM, and pranked her to the point where she reaveld the real atmosphere in regards to continued support for Ukraine



Tiredness on all sides’ over war in Ukraine, Italian PM tells prank caller​

Giorgia Meloni ‘misled’ into phone conversation reportedly with Russian comedian posing as African political leader

Angela Giuffrida in Rome and Andrew Roth
Wed 1 Nov 2023 18.31 GMT

The Italian prime minister, Giorgia Meloni, told a prank caller posing as an African leader there was “a lot of tiredness” over the war in Ukraine and that she had some ideas up her sleeve on how to “find a way out”.
Meloni’s office confirmed that she had been “misled” into the phone call – reportedly by two Russian comedians – that took place on 18 September “by an impostor who passed himself off as the president of the African Union Commission”.

According to reports in the Italian press, the callers were two Russian comedians, Vladimir Kuznetsov and Alexei Stolyarov, jointly known as Vovan and Lexus, one of whom presented himself to Meloni as “an African politician”.
Vovan and Lexus, who are strongly pro-Russia, have been accused of having links to Russian intelligence services, although there is no evidence to substantiate the allegation.
A recording of the call was published on the Canadian video-sharing platform Rumble before being picked up by the Russian state-owned news agency Ria Novosti.
“There is a lot of tiredness on all sides,” Meloni is heard saying regarding Russia’s war in Ukraine. “The moment is approaching when everyone will understand that we need a way out.
“Ukraine’s counteroffensive is not going as expected … It has not changed the fate of the conflict, and everyone understands that [the conflict] could last many years if we don’t find a solution. The Ukrainians are doing what they have to do and we are trying to help them.”
The problem, Meloni said, was “finding a way out that is acceptable for both sides without destroying international law”.
She added: “I have some ideas on how to manage this situation, but I’m waiting for the right moment to put them on the table.”
Publicly, Meloni has always been staunch in her support of Ukraine, a position that was reiterated by sources cited in the Italian press on Wednesday.
Vovan and Lexus are known to be adept at social engineering political leaders into taking their calls. Meloni’s office said she was targeted during an “intense” period when she was working to “strengthen relations” with African leaders whom she had arranged to meet on the sidelines of the UN general assembly in New York between 19 and 21 September.

Meloni has also been seeking the help of African leaders to stop migrant vessels crossing to Italy’s coast, a topic she raised during the call.

She said: “Europe has for a long time thought that it could solve the problem by limiting it to Italy. What they don’t understand is that it’s impossible. The dimension of this phenomenon is such that it involves not only the EU, but in my opinion also the UN. The problem is that others don’t care, and everyone agrees that Italy must solve this problem alone.”
 

contricusc

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The failings of Romania’s ruling grand coalition, which consists of the largest mainstream parties — the centre-left Social Democrats and the centre-right National Liberal party — has fostered a political climate of discontent in which AUR has thrived. “The grand coalition, as earlier in Germany or Austria, has led to growing extremism,” said Costin Ciobanu, a researcher at the University of London.

The only reason why Aur is up in the polls is because of the grand coalition of the two mainstream parties, which creates the impression of being no opposition to them. Simion is trying to capitalize on this, but his obvious pro-Russian stance will be his undoing.

Many people who would be open to voting for him will not do it because his positions are seen as representing the interests of Russia. There is no way he will win the election, because the pro-Russian electorate is very limited.

If Mircea Geoana (Deputy Secretary General of NATO) is a candidate, he will easily beat Simion, and Geoana is extremely pro US (and pro West in general).
 

Relic

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European Union 🇪🇺 will use "workaround" legislation to ensure that Hungary CANNOT block he EU's planned 50 Billion Euro aid package for Ukraine. They will also continue to freeze 22 Billion Euros worth of EU money that would be destined for Hungary.


Meanwhile, US 🇺🇲 Congress has supported a bill that will enable the transfer of frozen Russian assets to Ukraine for "Security and Rebuilding" purposes. USA, Canada, Australia, Japan and the EU have frozen approximately $330 Billion usd worth of Russian assets. The USA has roughly $58 Billion usd worth of assets that can be transferred to Ukraine as a result of this bill, through the US Secretary of State.


 

Relic

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German 🇩🇪 arms dealer Rheinmetall will provide Ukraine with 100,000, 120mm mortar rounds, paid for by the German government. Deliveries will begin prior to the end of 2023 and will extend through 2024 and early 2025.


France 🇫🇷 has approved an additional 200 million Euros worth of funding for Ukrainian arms purchases. It's yet to be announced what Ukraine will purchase with the money.

 
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