(Image by NEIVANMADE)
Before we start, just a brief housekeeping note/request: There’s a lot of stuff I see but don’t include in the updates. I try to avoid posting things from anonymous/pseudonymous accounts where I cannot either validate that the account is legit or that the information is. That’s not to mean that either accounts using their own names and validated anonymous/pseudonymous don’t occasionally make mistakes. For instance, someone I consider to be generally reliable posted still imagery in the past 48 hours from OCT 2022 of traffic jams on the surviving portions of the route between Crimea and Russia and asserted it was from the day after the strike on the fuel depot in Sevastopol. I have no problem with you all bringing attention to stuff I haven’t included in the comments, including linking to it. But if a Tweet or Facebook post or what have you starts with “Unconfirmed,” that’s probably a good sign to not post it. Thanks!
Overnight Russia resumed its bombardment of Ukrainian civilians and civilian infrastructure. Olga Honcharenko was monitoring it live:
Russian strategic aviation 5620 and 8029 CW
Morse frequencies been comms checked with V tuning. Also for now 3 Tu-95Ms Bear-H took off from Olenya airbase. Possibly another combat mission with cruise missiles launching tonight.— Olga Honcharenko (@olga_pp98) April 30, 2023
All civil aircrafts being bypassing Astrakhan area, this is the first warning of the incoming cruise missiles launch https://t.co/8iLgZLpoUS pic.twitter.com/MVVZVh36vH
— Olga Honcharenko (@olga_pp98) April 30, 2023
From Olenya 10. Other airfields and possible take offs from there I don't know so no info about it from me
— Olga Honcharenko (@olga_pp98) April 30, 2023
Cruise missiles launching started:
978 123 230
971 440 230
975 123 230
A/C to SHPORA ground control op https://t.co/IhdItczkBX— Olga Honcharenko (@olga_pp98) April 30, 2023
New aircraft passed a radiogram YQ3G aircraft and W4H1 ground control op. to be clear. All radiograms are encoded and only sender and receiver knows the meaning but it's report of cruise missiles launch:
YQ3G DE W4H1 QRV K
W4H1 BT 981 844 230 K— Olga Honcharenko (@olga_pp98) May 1, 2023
We’ll get to the butcher’s bill after the jump.
Here is President Zelenskyy’s address from earlier today. Video below, English transcript after the jump:
Russian invaders will receive our response to every attack – address by the President of Ukraine
1 May 2023 – 21:56
Good health to you, fellow Ukrainians!
I started this Monday and the new week with an hour-long meeting with all levels of government and defense. The head of government, ministers, the Office. The Commander-in-Chief, the heads of the Main Intelligence Directorate and the Foreign Intelligence Service, the head of the Security Service, and the NSDC Secretary delivered reports.
The first issue is the consequences of Russian strikes, including missile attacks. Last night alone, from midnight to seven in the morning, we managed to shoot down 15 Russian missiles. But, unfortunately, not all of them. Not all of them yet. We are working with our partners as actively as possible to make the protection of our skies even more reliable.
At the morning meeting, we discussed the enemy’s likely actions in the near future and coordinated our defensive steps.
Separately we discussed the issue of weapons and ammunition for our warriors. Also, the situation on the still occupied territory and counteraction to Russia. No chance for the occupier on our land! Only destruction for the enemy.
Here is just one example today. Chernihiv region, the village of Lyzunivka, in the north of the region, near the state border. There, a Russian air bomb destroyed another Ukrainian school… Unfortunately, this strike took the life of a teenager – a boy born in 2009… 14 years old! He was just near the school. My condolences to the family and friends!
Pavlohrad, Dnipropetrovsk region. Terrorists’ missiles claimed the lives of two people, young guys… My condolences to the families! Forty more people – women, children and men – received medical aid after injuries and traumas.
For every such attack, the Russian invaders will receive our response. And I thank all our warriors who ensure this every day and every night. They defend our positions, repel Russian assaults, help their brothers-in-arms who are nearby in the positions, and destroy the occupier to the maximum. The more Ukrainians are accurate, the more Ukrainians support each other, the faster the Russian evil will be destroyed.
I am grateful to all our partners who see the common task of Ukraine and the world in this way: the obvious defeat of the terrorist state and a just peace for Ukraine and the whole of Europe.
Today, I held several meetings on our diplomatic work in May, which brings us closer to such a peace – a just peace, such an outcome of this war – the defeat of the occupier.
I also had several phone calls today. I thanked Canada and Prime Minister Trudeau personally for the continued support of our country. We are preparing a program of long-term defense cooperation between Ukraine and Canada. This is very important: Canada has already started confiscating Russian assets. This is a significant example for everyone else in the world. We discussed sanctions pressure and our political cooperation.
Today I also spoke with Prime Minister Hipkins of New Zealand. I thanked him for the principled stance in defense of international law – New Zealand is often among the leaders in sanctions restrictions. I also thanked for New Zealand’s participation in training our soldiers. We agreed to work on greater consolidation of the Pacific region countries to protect international rules.
And one more thing.
Today marks the tenth anniversary of the foundation of one of Ukraine’s most glorious military units, the 140th separate special operations center. These are very skilled warriors – determined, strong and extremely experienced. They took part in the defense and liberation of the Kyiv region – Bucha, Hostomel, Borodyanka and other towns and villages, as well as the liberation of Izyum and Chuhuiv in the Kharkiv region. They carried out strategically important missions in the southern areas and fought hard against the occupiers in Donbas. Thank you, warriors!
Ukraine will always remember your courage, and will never forget those warriors who gave their lives in the battle for the state. May our country’s victory in this war honor them!
Glory to all those who are in combat for Ukraine!
Glory to all who protect and save our people!
Glory to Ukraine!
Here’s the Ukrainian air defense summary:
The Ukrainian Air Force says 9 Russian Tu-95 strategic bombers from Murmansk Oblast and two Tu-160 strategic bombers from the Caspian Sea area launched 18 Kh-101/Kh-555 cruise missiles, 15 of which were shot down.https://t.co/gEeMSfSIGe pic.twitter.com/gEDnRsvWa2
— Rob Lee (@RALee85) May 1, 2023
Bakhmut:
The Ukrainian Ministry of Defense has posted a statement from Colonel-General Syrskyi:
Russian forces in the Battle of Bakhmut right now as per Ukraine’s military group East.
– 26,500 troops
– 65 tanks
– 450 BTRs/BMPs
– 154 tube artillery pieces
– 56 rocket artillery pieces— Illia Ponomarenko 🇺🇦 (@IAPonomarenko) May 1, 2023
20,000 Russians, including 10,000 Wagner militants, killed in the Battle of Bakhmut since January perfectly illustrates how insanely absurd and idiotic the Russian war is.
Going all out as if tomorrow never comes for the last 10 months, burning a gargantuan amount of barely…— Illia Ponomarenko 🇺🇦 (@IAPonomarenko) May 1, 2023
Full text of Pomomarenko’s tweet:
20,000 Russians, including 10,000 Wagner militants, killed in the Battle of Bakhmut since January perfectly illustrates how insanely absurd and idiotic the Russian war is.
Going all out as if tomorrow never comes for the last 10 months, burning a gargantuan amount of barely renewable resources — for the sake of just (possibly) putting a flag over (what’s left of) a hardly remarkable regional city, one of the thousands that are around in Ukraine. And ending up not inflicting critical damage to the Ukrainian military and facing Ukraine’s major counter-offensive ASAP.
If you think that’s how you win a war, I can’t help you.
There appears to be some confusion here about what National Security Council Spokesman John Kirby actually said:
John Kirby caused a lot of confusion with his remarks today. To clarify: he did not say Russia had suffered 20k killed in Bakhmut since Dec, as was originally reported. He said (👇🏽) that was figure across all fronts, but half was Wagner & most of Wagner was convicts in Bakhmut. pic.twitter.com/Dw0wVZEffs
— Shashank Joshi (@shashj) May 1, 2023
Here’s the screen grab from Shashank Joshi’s tweet so you don’t have to click through:
They don’t have a transcript up yet at WhiteHouse.gov, so I can’t just copy and paste it for you.
Video from Ukraine's Terra unit of soldiers from Ukraine's 3rd Assault Brigade assaulting a trench near the road to Bakhmut (other footage was posted last week). They use UAVs to drop VOG grenades on Wagner fighters in support of the advancing soldiers.https://t.co/WhGdnmeEVF pic.twitter.com/HSFMgWqvS1
— Rob Lee (@RALee85) April 30, 2023
Pavolhrad:
Just three days after the bloody attack on Uman, and Russia showers Ukraine with missiles in the middle of the night. 25 people injured in Pavlohrad. Among them three children. This is pure terror against civilians. pic.twitter.com/OBVSKxojKM
— Maria Avdeeva (@maria_avdv) May 1, 2023
Zaporizhzhia:
From The New York Times:
In a thicket of trees between two vast farm fields, a plywood trapdoor built into the forest floor opened to reveal stairs leading underground.
Inside was a subterranean bunker, cut into the black earth, where Ukrainian troops from a mortar unit awaited coordinates for their next target. The men squeezed past one another down a shoulder-width dirt corridor lit with LED strips, staring at tablet computers showing a live drone feed of the terrain outside. Blast waves from artillery shells and rockets shook the bunker, and a radio crackled with a warning of incoming Russian helicopters.
But the soldiers were focused on their screens, specifically on a line of Russian troops and heavy equipment dug in a short distance away and marked with red plus signs.
That would be their target.
“The guys dug all this by hand, and they want to fight, they want to shoot,” said the unit commander, a 32-year-old with a braided ponytail who uses the call sign Shuler. “We just want to kick them off our land, that’s it.”
For the soldiers of the 110th Territorial Defense Brigade, to which the mortar unit is attached, this is a critical moment in the war.
With fighting in the eastern Donbas region settling into a bloody stalemate, their patch of the Zaporizhzhia region of southeastern Ukraine could prove to be the next big theater, a focal point of a long-awaited counteroffensive. Ukraine is under pressure to show some measure of success in bolstering morale for soldiers and civilians, shoring up Western support and reclaiming stolen territory.
The fighting here is intensely personal. Most of the soldiers of the 110th Brigade come from areas now occupied by Russia. Shuler’s unit was forced to retreat in the early days of the war, which began in February 2022, and his parents remain in occupied Melitopol, roughly 80 miles from the bunker.
Over the past year, they have slowly turned the tide, halting the Russian advance and building a network of defensive positions that the Russian military, for all its superiority in weaponry and numbers, has been unable to crack.
“We really know this location — every bush,” said Col. Oleksandr Ihnatiev, a veteran of Ukraine’s special operations forces who took command of the brigade in April last year. “From the beginning of the war, we in our strip have not lost one position or post.”
After 14 months of nonstop fighting, Ukrainian soldiers are exhausted.
Shuler’s hands now shake uncontrollably, the result of a concussion suffered when a tank round exploded near him at the beginning of the war.
A history teacher before the invasion, Shuler views the looming fight within a broader context. He wears a patch with a Star of David on his arm, a reminder of his great-grandparents who died in the Holocaust. His Jewish grandfather had to change his name to sound more Russian when the Soviets took control of his native western Ukraine at the end of World War II.
Now, Shuler must hide his face, refusing to be photographed for fear that his parents could suffer reprisals from the occupiers.
“Imagine the situation, you’re alive, but your life has been taken away,” he said. “We’ll have nowhere to return to if we don’t stop this, if we don’t end it, if we don’t win.”
Much, much more at the link!
Sevastopol:
A smoke is visible over the bay in Sevastopol. Previously its "governor" reported a drone attack. pic.twitter.com/GTKDrUIpJ8
— Anton Gerashchenko (@Gerashchenko_en) May 1, 2023
Bryansk, Russia:
/2. The entire train consists of 60 wagons loaded with oil products and building materials. 7-8 cars and the locomotive itself lie on their side and burn. pic.twitter.com/758PREbleu
— Special Kherson Cat 🐈🇺🇦 (@bayraktar_1love) May 1, 2023
Nas gadol haya sham!
McCarthy says Russia is killing children in Ukraine and that Russian forces should pull out of the country. “We will continue to support [Ukraine], because the rest of the world sees it just as it is.”
These comments come shortly after the House speaker’s call with Zelensky. https://t.co/CMzeOjKqRr
— Christopher Miller (@ChristopherJM) May 1, 2023
That’s enough for tonight.
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Open thread!
Alison Rose
It’s a good example of how social media can prove both a blessing and a curse when it comes to complex, rapidly shifting situations. Information can be given out quickly and to a lot of people…but that information isn’t always accurate, sometimes inaccurate in very dangerous ways, and if corrections follow they rarely have the same reach as the initial posts. I appreciate your caution when it comes to what you share here.
Your words before the McCarthy tweet made me chuckle, because when I saw it on NYT earlier, I said “Well that’s a damn miracle” to the cat. (She didn’t care.) I wonder if he’ll actually stick to his guns on it. I hope so.
May I ask whomever what the proper pronunciation of Sevastopol is? I’ve heard it said (by non-russian speakers) a few different ways. There’s a neighboring city to mine called Sebastopol and we put the emphasis on the second syllable.
Thank you as always, Adam.
Ivan X
Adam, I hate to ask such a pessimistic question, but: is this war still winnable by Ukraine? You’ve repeatedly made the point that time favors Russia, and, in contrast to the early David vs Goliath stories, the grinding stalemate of the current front appears to show that Ukraine is fighting better, but Russia simply has enough resources (if by “resources” we mean “lives”) to keep the war going indefinitely, while meanwhile Ukrainian soldiers and civilians are terrorized and dying every day. I don’t for a second think that capitulation to Russia is an acceptable outcome, but, is there any basis for hope that Ukraine will break through, with or without more weaponry? It just feels like it’s been an awfully long time since we’ve had anything resembling good news, and so I’m finding myself bracing for bad news, whenever it may come.
Old School
@Alison Rose:
They puzzled me. For anyone else in my shoes, Google translates it as “a great miracle happened there.”
zhena gogolia
@Alison Rose: In Russian, the stress is on the next-to-last syllable. I don’t know about Ukrainian.
zhena gogolia
@Old School: A miracle that Kevin McCarthy said the exact right thing for once?
Adam L Silverman
@Ivan X: While hope is not a strategy, I think the Ukrainians have the will to win. You are correct that I think that a great deal of Putin’s strategy is to play for time. And that I’m very concerned that far too much of the strategic understanding of the Biden administration is providing Putin with the ways and means to achieve his ends that he would not ordinarily have. Specifically, that if the US and our allies and partners don’t do more and faster to ensure that Ukraine is properly resourced for success then this enables Putin. Moreover, we need to stop pre-capitulating to Putin’s red lines or statements about what is and is not escalatory. Rather, we need to do what needs to be done as expeditiously as possible to ensure Ukraine’s victory and Russia’s defeat.
Not doing so does not necessarily mean Ukraine will lose, but it does mean Russia’s genocidal war against Ukraine will drag on far, far longer than it needs to with far, far more damage to Ukraine.
There’s an additional consideration here beyond just Ukraine, even if that should be our primary concern. Everyone who is not a strong ally and partner of the US is watching. Spend some time reading, listening, and/or watching what leaders in Africa or Southeast Asia or other parts of the global south say about whether the US is reliable as a partner and/or patron. Whether it is a properly accurate view of the US or not doesn’t matter. The belief they have regarding our reliability isn’t pretty. The longer we drag our feet the more we reinforce this impression. It should be in our self interest to help the Ukrainians win as quickly and efficiently as possible.
japa21
@Adam L Silverman: At times I wonder how or if our actions, including future ones, differ from the words we say. Maybe wishful thinking, but I think Biden, at least, is not cowed by fear of what Putin may or may not do.
There have already been a few instances of things showing up in Ukraine either earlier than anticipated or unexpectedly. I doubt if those in the know want to broadcast any punches. And whether he meant to or not, McCarthy gave Biden support today to do even more.
Eolirin
@Adam L Silverman: We’re in agreement that there’s a massive moral failing not helping Ukriane win a quickly as possible, but is playing for time guaranteed to work in Putin’s favor? The assumption is that the Western allies will start pulling back support if things continue to go on long enough, right?
I’m not so sure that’s actually going to happen. If we do well this cycle, we can have full control of the legislature again, and there’s some good signs on that front. And the west is rebuilding it’s defense manufacturing in a way that won’t come online for a year or two, but will have some pretty significant benefits to Ukriane and I can’t see Russia’s industrial base managing to keep up once it does, especially since significant parts of it keep catching fire and exploding.
This is probably all Russia can do, but I don’t see it being a particularly great strategy to have to rely on.
Roger Moore
@japa21:
I think it’s clear that there is some stuff we’re unwilling to do because we think it might provoke Russia. In particular, we have resisted sending Ukraine anything with a long-range strike capability, with the justification that Ukraine attacking deep into Russia proper would be an escalation. That’s preventing Ukraine from being able to strike back against Russian terror strikes, which are typically launched from airfields deep enough in Russia that we won’t provide weapons that can hit them. If we gave Ukraine the ability to strike Russian air bases, it would have a big effect.
Roger Moore
@Eolirin:
I think there are also a lot of assumptions about the effect of repeated Russian strikes on Ukrainian civilian targets on Ukrainian morale and ability to keep fighting. I think that’s just as much a load of BS as it was when we assumed mass bombing campaigns would hurt German and Japanese morale in WWII. Unless the Russian attacks can actually hinder Ukrainian ability to fight, it’s just going to boost their resolve.
Sparkedcat
The West or rather the Eastern European portion of the West will not abandon Ukraine. I believe that time is on the side of Ukraine. The simple fact that Russia does not control the skies is huge sign of weakness. There will be a successful summer offensive by the UFA. Donetsk will be liberated. Logistics and training will be the key factors. Slava Ukraini!
Adam L Silverman
@Eolirin: Three words for you: debt ceiling default.
One of the reasons that the useful idiots like Gaetz, Greene, Gosar, and Boebert are so hell bent on crashing through the debt ceiling to default is it would immediately end the US’s ability to help Ukraine. The economic shock waves would most likely also have the same effect for the EU members states and our NATO allies.
I try to stick to these updates and out of the American politics discussions and debates, but they’re not necessarily separate on certain issues. One of the things people need to get their heads around is that the Biden administration may be the interregnum not a move towards a new normal that reaffirms Americans’ domestic commitment to small “l” small “d” democracy. The just more than half of the states that are under GOP control have moved farther away from this and faster than most were willing to admit. And what they’re doing is their plan for the entire country. They came very, very, very close to achieving this in JAN 2021. The people who organized it, funded it, and led it have not been held accountable. I’ll believe it when I see it if they’re held accountable. A failed coup, insurrection, or rebellion where the leadership goes unpunished is practice. And if given the chance they will not make the same mistakes they made last time.
A major promoter and backer of these ideas and activities is Putin and Russia. If you want to set the conditions to ensure that we’re not living through a short term interregnum before the US continues to slide back into the illiberal populist* democracy that existed prior to the Civil Rights Era and then moves past it into a full on herrenvolk managed democracy, then you do everything you can to defeat Putin and Russia. As quickly and completely as possible.
We are in a world war. We have been in one since at least late 2011. Our adversary, Putin and Russia, have made this clear. This world war is not primarily and predominantly kinetic and the kinetic portions are not evenly distributed. They are limited to Ukraine, Syria, the Sahel and Libya. The rest of the war is non-kinetic and it is being contested through the weaponization of all the elements of national power that are not military power. Right now we are losing that war both domestically and internationally.
If we do actually lose we will have no one to blame but ourselves for failing to actually recognize what is going on and responding accordingly. As Sifu Sun taught, one cannot win unless one is willing to risk. But one can also not win if one does not know themselves or their adversary. And right now we are failing, and as a result losing, in regard to all three of those classic strategic truths.
Adam L Silverman
Thank you for coming to my Ted Talk of woe! And frustration! And despair!
S cerevisiae
My rage towards Russia and their enablers knows no bounds. Damn them all to hell. I’m not Ukrainian but the American Indian side of me seethes at seeing a smaller, formerly subjugated people being threatened to be put back under the yoke. As my Lakota brothers say: Hoka Hey!
Alison Rose
@Old School: Once in a while, there are perks to being a Jew. :P
Dan B
@Adam L Silverman: It seems as though a large percentage of Americans will do anything to avoid self awareness. And corporate and social media will do everything to deceive and distract.
Alison Rose
@zhena gogolia: Ah, okay. Would the first syllable be said like “see” or more like “say”?
Matt McIrvin
@Roger Moore:
Well, yes, such as full entry into the war by the United States, which Biden has explicitly described as “World War III”.
S cerevisiae
Just to clarify, I’m Ojibwe but I consider all y’all my brothers now, even Lakotas
ETA: I’m a Swindian anyway so I have nowhere to talk.
zhena gogolia
@Alison Rose: In Russian, more like “see.”
see-vah-STOH-pul
S cerevisiae
And again Adam, thank you for keeping we proles informed. I have a couple friends who have been taken in by the tankie propaganda and I despair of their enlightenment.
Goku (aka Amerikan Baka)
@Adam L Silverman:
How exactly are we “losing”? There’s a huge backlash to Dobbs that’s been happening since last year which shows no signs of stopping and I trust the Biden admin to see this debt ceiling thing through. All it will take is to peel off 5 Republicans from more purple districts to get a discharge petition
I also trust the DOJ to do it’s job. I’m sure it’s not easy putting together the kind of cases they need to get convictions
Adam L Silverman
@S cerevisiae: You’re most welcome.
Goku (aka Amerikan Baka)
@Adam L Silverman:
Also, if polling is to be believed (thanks to our Kay for beating the drum on this), the vast majority of Americans don’t like what is going on in red states, they don’t like leaders like DeSantis and his radical far right agenda, and they don’t like Trump
The Moar You Know
@Goku (aka Amerikan Baka): think Adam just answered the question but, hey, you don’t believe him you’re gonna find out good and hard about two months from now.
Alison Rose
@zhena gogolia: thanks!
Goku (aka Amerikan Baka)
@The Moar You Know:
If you’re referring to the debt ceiling, I’m sure the Dems and Biden have a strategy to deal with it. I trust them. I mentioned one above. I’m sure the GOP’s Wall Street sugar daddies will also put the pressure on the Republicans to cave
dr. luba
@Alison Rose: In Ukrainian the city is called Севастопіль (Sevastopil’), Se-vah-STO-pil, with a palatinized L at the end.
Eolirin
@Adam L Silverman: Sure, and if we don’t crash through the debt ceiling, and we win back the house and manage to narrowly hold the senate in 2024, while crushing the R presidential candidate, then the attempt to stall things out for more favorable conditions in Ukraine evaporates entirely. Even if we lose the Senate, we probably still have enough bipartisan support there to keep passing funding bills for aid. Russia can’t hold out at this pace for another 4 years.
So getting through the next few months without blowing up the world economy, and then doing really well in the upcoming elections counters that entirely. Neither seems impossible. It’s gonna be work, but it’s not a foregone conclusion that we’re going to fail here.
NYS is on track to potentially get their congressional maps tossed and maps much closer to the ones the Assembly passed put into effect for 2024 btw. That will help. A lot. Even if the Ohio and NC maps get worse. Possibility the new state supreme court in WI ends up giving us better maps there too.
dr. luba
@Alison Rose: In Ukrainian a short e, like in send.
Another Scott
@Roger Moore: VVP’s normal method of war (Chechnya, Syria, etc.) has been to try to crush dissent by flattening apartment blocks, etc. So that isn’t really new.
Someone here or elsewhere on the Intertubes made the point recently that firing missiles and flying bombs at cities forces Ukraine to use her limited SAM capabilities to protect the population centers. Thereby moving them away from the front. Which would kinda make sense as a strategy if he could then gain something approaching air superiority at the front as a result. But he can’t. So, he’s staying on the old play-book.
So, that tells me that there’s too many Stingers and similar MANPADS around the front, probably on both sides. Which would also make it dangerous for F-16s and FA-18s and the like…
Assuming all that is true, and maybe it isn’t, but bear with me here, that would argue for shipping Ukraine as many sophisticated SAM systems as possible, to protect the cities and infrastructure, and to allow them to move closer to the front. Along with that, we should be flooding the front with loitering munitions to take out anything with a “Z” on it that moves, every ammo dump, every fuel depot, etc.
tl;dr – Take advantage of the power of small, cheap weapons if big expensive ones aren’t available. Use VVP’s collected masses of stuff to make bigger booms.
Slava Ukraini!!
Cheers,
Scott.
Sebastian
People underestimate the quality of troops and the overall effect of morale all the time. I keep repeating that the proper historic example is Operation Storm in Croatia’s War of Independence. when Croatia liberated 18% of its territory in less than 72 hours.
The Serbs back then, like the Russians today, had never faced an equally or better armed and motivated opponent and were routed within hours, especially after the surprise attack by Croatia’s Police Special Forces, who climbed Mount Velebit (without water so they could carry more ammo).
The love for one’s country and people, and the opportunity to pay back for all the atrocities inflicted, is a morale boost like no other. At the same time, the Russians know that the counteroffensive will come down on them like the Wrath of God. Expect massive numbers of deserters and entire units surrendering.
Alison Rose
@dr. luba: Ah, okay. I’m probably not doing the L sound right, but thankfully no one can hear me.
Eolirin
@Another Scott: I think there’s not even enough of the cheaper stuff, which is one of the core problems. But it does look like NATO member states are working on solving that.
Jay
zhena gogolia
@Alison Rose: It’s very hard to do a soft l not followed by a vowel — you need to practice with somebody in person. Even then it’s not easy for us English speakers.
Sebastian
@Eolirin:
One of the biggest issues is a lack of ammunition for AA guns such as the German Gepard. The only manufacturer (until now) was Oerlikon in Switzerland, and Switzerland denied export requests due to its neutrality. Rheinmetal has now spun up assembly lines for compatible 35mm ammo.
Alison Rose
@zhena gogolia: I’ve always been poor with accents. I took French in high school for three years, and I could read it quite well and could speak it well as far as knowing the right words…but my pronunciation was always atrocious. Definitely the kind of thing where if I’d ever gone to Paris and tried to speak French to them, they would give me that contemptuous look of “Quoi?”
Hebrew/Yiddish doesn’t fare much better. I just have such a tough time making my mouth make sounds that are not present in English. I can hear someone say a word 50 times, and I can THINK I’m saying it right, but I’m totally not. Usually it doesn’t really matter, but I do feel bad when I know I’m not pronouncing someone’s name properly.
Jay
Jay
@Alison Rose:
there’s an Ukrainian Fella who has a bunch of video’s in her tweets, basically teaching grade school Ukrainian. When I run across her in my spirals deeper and deeper into NAFO, I will book mark her and save the link for you. It may help.
Adam L Silverman
@Goku (aka Amerikan Baka): Let me know when the vast majorities of Americans manage to retake Florida and Ohio, as well as the North Carolina legislature and state supreme court. Or Georgia at the state level. Or any of the other states the GOP has locked in control of.
Adam L Silverman
@Jay: Make sure to email me that link and I’ll front page it.
YY_Sima Qian
@Adam L Silverman: Adam, I under & fully agree w/ the moral/pragmatic imperative to highlight Russian war crimes, including those via missile strikes. However; in addition to summarizing the civilian toll from the Russian crimes, do we have a sense of the targets that might have more immediate impact on the war that might have been struck? The Russians were targeting power generation & transmission infrastructure through the winter to degrade Ukrainian industrial capacity & create harsher conditions for the Ukrainian civilian population. What are they targeting now?
A more “rational” target list would still include power infrastructure, transportation links, Ukrainian weapons plants, munitions depots, & especially staging areas for Ukrainian units gathering for the upcoming offensive. Sometimes I see posts about Russian missiles striking Ukrainian depots or other presumably important military targets on Chinese social media, w/ likely from Russian social media. However, they are invariably exaggerated & often fabricated. OTOH, I am not seeing many reports targets more relevant to the Ukrainian war effort on Western MSM or social media. Either Ukraine is keeping mum on the effects of the strikes much like their casualties, or the Russians really are using their increasingly precious cruise missile solely as terror weapons.
Also, 15 cruise missiles launched from 11 strategic bombers is really inefficient operations.
Carlo Graziani
@Adam L Silverman: $0.02 worth of Definitely-Not-A-Ted-Talk: There is exactly zero chance of a US default on the debt.
The most likely outcome is that 5 or more Republicans will stare into the Abyss, shit themselves, and vote with the Democrats to raise the debt limit. If it comes to that, McCarthy, whose only discernible skill is counting votes, will probably facilitate some kind of “compromise” that amounts to a surrender.
The next most likely outcome is that McCarthy somehow keeps his Clown Car from leaking any clowns, although I’d take either end of a 3:1 bet agaist that one. In which case, there is zero chance that the Biden administration will stop payment on any Treasury debt. They will either cite the Fourteenth Amendment to the Constitution, to wit:
…or they’ll mint the Trillion Dollar Coin and deposit it at the Fed. Imagining that Biden and Yellen would think of default as preferable to either of those options is absurd.
The Republicans are going to wind up with a public-relations calamity, and no political result to show for it. Best case scenario is McCarthy is forced to resign the Speakership.
Alison Rose
@Jay: I did try learning Ukrainian at the start of the full-scale war through Duolingo, which…was not very successful, because that is not a language-learning app but a phrase-memorizing app and it’s pretty lame. But I did also try watching some videos from actual people, but it’s still the same issue. I can hear how they’re saying it, and I can do what they say to do with my tongue and jaw and such, but it just doesn’t come out the same way. I do have some minor hearing damage and I wonder if that plays a role.
Sebastian
@Alison Rose:
All you learn from Duolingo is how to use “apple” in sentences.
Jinchi
I expect he’ll clear it up sometime tomorrow.
DeSantis has dabbled into saying the right thing occasionally as well, but whenever he elaborates, it’s pretty clear that he thinks the West should not be sending aid to the Ukrainians. McCarthy has followed that line, too.
Another Scott
@Adam L Silverman: It’s hard to see an actual default occurring. We’ve been here before, as you know and remember all too well.
Brookings has a decent summary of the fiscal fights of the Obama Administration:
I don’t get the same feeling this time around. Yeah, there are a few bomb throwers, but remember that Qevin just barely got his Default Act through the House when it was just a symbolic act. It’s much harder to vote to blow up the world economy when the vote actually matters.
If I had to bet, I would guess that there might be some temporary raising of the limit while “negotiations” go on, but we won’t see anything like Sequestration 2.0 this time around. There will probably be some sort of budget agreement to adjust some things that both parties can agree on, everyone will claim victory, and then the process will repeat the next time the GQP takes the House (sometime in the 2040s or so).
We’ll see!
Cheers,
Scott.
Jay
Jay
@Adam L Silverman:
will do
Alison Rose
@Sebastian: Or like, twenty different ways to say “My mother and my father are in the city” or some shit. It doesn’t explain anything at all, it just makes you repeat words. Ukrainian has this thing where some plurals have different endings depending on how many things are being referred to, and it never explains the difference, it just expects you to notice it and memorize it. I got quite frustrated with it pretty quickly.
YY_Sima Qian
@Adam L Silverman: Yes, the reactionary forces are looking to tank the US economy ahead of the 2024 elections to seize power again, & they are increasingly feral & rabid in hyping a coming war with China to stay in power. It is all of a piece. That is why GOP states are looking to pass legislation that ban Chinese nationals (even permanent residents) from purchasing property, ban Chinese students from STEM majors in universities, & ban TikTok & WeChat (however unenforceable). These are the beginnings of a new Chinese Exclusion Act for the 21st century.
In these comments, I have certainly criticized the Biden Administration for leaning into the Great Power Competition/Rivalry (TM) w/ China & making the underlying political ground fertile for nativist/nationalist/populist reactionaries. The FBI under Wray in particular has been energetic in promoting a sense that Chinese spies & influencing agents are everywhere. We can see the effects in the race between the GOP & the Dems to outbid each other to securitize anything & everything when it comes to interactions w/ China.
Biden has failed to pick even the lowest hanging fruits that might have put a floor under the dysfunctional Sino-US relation that is spirally toward enmity: ending the trade war that most Dems had agreed was damaging to the US (but we don’t hear that anymore), reopening the closed consulates, ending the tit-for-tat expulsion of journalists, restart the Peace Corps & Fulbright Scholarships (or at least make the attempt), restore more direct flights. Of course, Xi & the CCP regime are at least as culpable in this dynamic.
I expect that you & most here may disagree, but I agree w/ the Left Wing critique that the Biden Administration’s foreign & domestic policies have shifted away from Neoliberalism (NSA Sullivan did so decisively at the rhetorical level in his Thursday speech at the Brookings), but have replace it w/ military Keynesianism, where the entire political economy & international goods/capital flows are increasingly subject to service of Great Power Rivalry, which will destabilize both the international & U.S. domestic economies.
Jay
@Alison Rose:
one thing that online/other language tools rarely do, and is key to learning many languages, is how to shape the mouth, tongue and where in the throat/mouth the sound is supposed to come from. My Fellah does.
Sebastian
@Alison Rose:
I assume it’s the same as in Croatian, where there is a different plural for more than five.
bookworm1398
@ Adam. I hadn’t considered the effect of default on Ukraine. It wouldn’t stop US from sending them stuff from the stockpile though would it?
@ Alison Rose. I don’t know if this is accurate but I’ve heard that by age five your brain is hardwired for the sounds that it can recognize. After that, if you are introduced to a new sound it’s impossible to learn it properly.
Jay
Thread
zhena gogolia
@Alison Rose: I guess there’s no chance of your finding a tutor? It would be really hard to learn on your own.
Jay
@bookworm1398:
it’s not true. What is true is that there are many different styles of learning, and it goes for languages as well.
Months of study of bahasa Indonesia left me with little more than a few badly pronounced phrases. 2 months on the ground in Indonesia left me basically functional. Same with music. Can’t read it, can’t write it, but I could play if from ear, muscle memory and memory.
Adam L Silverman
@Jay: I put that in the actual update a couple of days ago.
Alison Rose
@Jay: This was in last night’s post :P
Alison Rose
@zhena gogolia: Likely not, since I’m homebound and probably couldn’t afford the cost.
Chetan Murthy
@Jay: Huh, what @bookworm1398: said about “sounds” (which I interpret as “phonemes”), seems like what I’ve observed. I know that my younger sisters cannot pronounce my name correctly, b/c English lacks the phoneme for the “t” in my name. I know that Americans routinely have great trouble pronouncing “la guerre” b/c they can’t get the “r” right. French has two different “r” sounds, and American English doesn’t have one of them.
But you’re right, that (e.g.) four years of college French seems to be equivalent to three months of French on–the-ground in Paris.
NutmegAgain
@Jay: Selamat malam — saya dulu tahu sedikit sedikit bahasa. Panjang ceritanya, tapi, ya. More than 35 years ago now, so, it’s pretty dim in my memory banks. I really admire folks who learn languages, and keep them. My mother had 6, and I’ve known other people as well. But I wanted to say that I figured the US (and other folks) had military dolphins… back from a few updates ago. I am unaware of them being used in combat. (Also not a surprise.) Sampai jumpa–
Ksmiami
@YY_Sima Qian: China bullying it’s neighboring democratic states hasn’t done them any favors- neither has their tacit support of Putin’s genocidal war. I held out hope that pragmatism would rule the day, but alas.
Jay
@Chetan Murthy:
The lovely elderly woman who ran the Loftsam I first stayed at, left a fresh fried egg, (from the chickens in the compound), toast, fresh fruit salad, (quite a bit from the trees in the yard) and a thermos of coffee, on the porch every morning. When she came back for the dishes, ( she got really offended if we tried to clear them ourselves), she would engage me in conversation, stopping me quite often to pull my tongue, squeeze my cheeks or throat, and make me repeat the sound time and time again until I got it sort of right. It was the best part of waking up,…….. just seeing her smile when I was “close enough”.
YY_Sima Qian
@Ksmiami: No, but the response need not be a new Cold War. China has been agnostic in terms of democracies & autocracies as to countries that it will bully, partner w/ & trade w/.
The point here is not what response China or the CCP regime “deserves”, but what kind of dynamics are set in motion that might be beneficial or detrimental to liberal democracy w/in the US, as well as stability & prosperity of the world.
Jay
@NutmegAgain:
I kept almost nothing, it was nice to see the words again, run them through my brain, and see old foggy memories.
Working at Orange, also kick started old memories, to the point of being able to differentiate between different languages and correctly figure out what was their first language.
Carlo Graziani
Wow. The Kupyansk weather forecast is drying out and sunning up fast. 3 days with rain in May, down from 5 a few days ago, solid mid-60s temperatures.
randal m sexton
This seems like a big deal : https://www.kyivpost.com/post/16484. — First time I have seen this though I guess it happened 3 days ago.
Jay
Jay
Double post,
Carlo Graziani
@randal m sexton: Wh-what? Holy shit!
From the preamble:
China, India, and Brazil all voted in favor. Medvedev must have had an aneurism.
Something important is changing.
Lyrebird
Hi YY, I find your comments very interesting. Not sure why you want to pull in the US official left-wingers, though maybe I am not thinking of the ones you mean. I have a lot more respect for someone saying, okay I’m in China, here’s my perspective than I do for people in the US hwo were fine with Hillary hating because yeah man Trump will make the revolution happen faster, then they turn around to pick at the Biden administration every which way. I can certainly believe that “well Biden is way better than Trump” might not satisfy on some issues. Maybe on policy with China, it’s more like “eating cardboard is way better than eating tire rims” .
featheredsprite
@S cerevisiae: Welcome, brother.
YY_Sima Qian
@Lyrebird: We are not likely talking about the same left wingers. I would strongly recommend Van Jackson’s critique of Sullivan’s speech, & the Biden team’s conception of foreign policy & the political economy & how they interact.
https://www.un-diplomatic.com/p/geopolitical-economy-is-brutalist
https://www.un-diplomatic.com/p/geopolitical-economy-is-brutalist-253
His is very much a Left Wing perspective.
Lyrebird
@YY_Sima Qian:
Thanks for the educational links! I’ll look forward to reading them after I get through a big crunch at work.
YY_Sima Qian
@randal m sexton:
@Carlo Graziani:
As much as I wish it was true, I think we are missing something here. The vote had no coverage on Chinese media or social media, nor Western MSM or social media. No commentary from any of the experts (whether on Russia, Ukraine, China, or U.S. foreign policy) I follow.
YY_Sima Qian
@Lyrebird: Despite all of my deep misgivings about Biden’s China policy & trade policy, I would crawl over broken glass to vote for him over any GOP challenger. The GOP in power would quickly result in rapid economic decoupling (& attendant global economic turmoil), scapegoating of Chinese Americans & Chinese nations in the U.S., quick march toward illiberal democracy, & high risk of a shooting war between China & the U.S. I may be dismayed that the Biden team seems to be blind as to how their policies may facilitate such an outcome, especially when the GOP inevitably takes power at some point, at least they are not actively seeking such an outcome.
randal m sexton
@YY_Sima Qian: I certainly cannot tell if this UN document is important or just talk-talk-talk. Here is a link to the UN doc https://digitallibrary.un.org/record/4009494?ln=en
Might have to download a PDF to read the quoted paragraph. Zelensky’s phone call meeting with Xi happened about then too.
randal m sexton
@randal m sexton: Ok so maybe China abstained on the bit wrt Ukraine — Here is a thread discussing. https://twitter.com/PhillipsPOBrien/status/1653050544108257282
YY_Sima Qian
@randal m sexton: Thanks for the link! I skimmed through the document, & definitely see the unequivocal language describing Russian aggression against Ukraine. I wonder if the U.S. & European partners managed to sneak the language into a late draft, w/o China/India/Brazil noticing. Otherwise, it does not make sense that South Africa abstains while the other “Straddlers” vote “yes”. Especially in light of the South African president advising Putin to joint the BRICS meeting via video link, so that SA (a signatory to the Rome Statute) would not be obliged to apprehend him & send him to the ICC if he shows up in person. There were suggestions in SA that it would withdraw from the Rome Statute so that it could host Putin. So, if anything, it is SA that has shifted its stance slightly.
Anyway, a stinging embarrassment to Russia, but I am not sure the positions of any of the “Straddling” powers or the Global South in general have in fact shifted.
YY_Sima Qian
@randal m sexton: Just saw your latest comment, yes, that vote specifically on the Preamble Paragraph 9 makes more sense, unfortunately. The UNGA resolution is 99.99% an anodyne call for greater cooperation between the UN & the Council of Europe (not exactly a high profile or impactful org.). This way, many in the GA do not have to been seen as voting against or abstaining from an otherwise harmless document.
Origuy
There are reports that Russian troops digging trenches in the Zaporizhzhia area uncovered corpses of cattle who died of anthrax and several of them have contracted the disease.
Chetan Murthy
@Origuy: The good news is, anthrax isn’t very contagious between humans.
Bill Arnold
@Jay:
Thank you for that list.