Come for the politics, stay for the snark.

Let us savor the impending downfall of lawless scoundrels who richly deserve the trouble barreling their way.

“Squeaker” McCarthy

Ron DeSantis, the grand wizard, oops, governor of FL

I wonder if trump will be tried as an adult.

… pundit janitors mopping up after the GOP

You cannot shame the shameless.

I like you, you’re my kind of trouble.

I did not have this on my fuck 2022 bingo card.

Trump’s legal defense is going to be a dumpster fire inside a clown car on a derailing train.

Innocent people don’t delay justice.

The arc of history bends toward the same old fuckery.

Seems like a complicated subject, have you tried yelling at it?

They’re not red states to be hated; they are voter suppression states to be fixed.

The poor and middle-class pay taxes, the rich pay accountants, the wealthy pay politicians.

A consequence of cucumbers

Pessimism assures that nothing of any importance will change.

Why is it so hard for them to condemn hate?

“What are Republicans afraid of?” Everything.

Thanks to your bullshit, we are now under siege.

Authoritarian republicans are opposed to freedom for the rest of us.

When your entire life is steeped in white supremacy, equality feels like discrimination.

I conferred with the team and they all agree – still not tired of winning!

Make the republican party small enough to drown in a bathtub.

if you can’t see it, then you are useless in the fight to stop it.

You are here: Home / Foreign Affairs / War for Ukraine Day 567: Russia Attacks Odesa Again

War for Ukraine Day 567: Russia Attacks Odesa Again

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(Image by NEIVANMADE)

The Russians attacked civilian targets in Odesa again overnight.

Overnight, russian terrorists used Shahed drones to attack Odesa region once again.
Unfortunately, there is damage to the port and other civil infrastructure. Seven Reni and Izmail residents were injured.
More than 2,000 Shaheds have been launched against Ukraine since russians first used Iranian drones to attack our country on September 13, 2022.

These attacks on Ukrainian civilians and civilian infrastructure are what Musk has been an apologist for, justifying, and enabling.

Here is President Zelenskyy’s address from earlier today. Video below, English transcript after the jump.

Next year, we will add significant budget funds for the defense industry – address by the President of Ukraine

13 September 2023 – 22:04

I wish you health, dear Ukrainians!

It was an important day. The Military Cabinet – there were some details that I cannot talk about now, but that will be very effective in the war.

I held a meeting with Prime Minister Shmyhal and Minister of Finance Marchenko on next year’s budget.

I outlined the key parameters – what should be prioritized in the state budget.

The key is to protect our state and people. Defense and security are the first priority, and the funding for defense and security will be at least at the level of this year, i.e. one trillion six hundred billion hryvnias. At least!

Next year, we will add significant budget funds for the defense industry – for the production of weapons in Ukraine. And for the drones. Both for the purchase of what is needed abroad and for the Ukrainian production. In addition, almost 100 billion hryvnias will be allocated for the production of weapons, overseen by the Ministry of Strategic Industry, and for the Ukrainian drone army, which is showing very good, impressive results. I will support all of this.

A separate budget priority is to support our veterans.

We also keep social expenditures as a priority. At least 469 billion hryvnias. There will be additional funds for the healthcare system – at least 24 billion plus to this year’s expenditures. There will be a plus for the education system, primarily to support teachers and lecturers.

We are investing the necessary funds in digitalization, including our Mriia, a new tool for children, parents, and teachers that we have already presented in advance. Next year, Mriia should be fully operational and available to Ukrainians in every corner of the world!

Of course, there will be a significant indexation of pensions – we plan to do it in March, as required by law.

But, in addition to all this, we place a very important economic emphasis in the budget. We are adding incentives for the economy – production, jobs, investments. All the things needed to help Ukraine recover faster.

Government officials will present the details of such incentives. This includes the connection to the power grid for investors, the continuation of grant programs, mortgage programs, and the development of Ukrainian industrial parks.

I instructed the Prime Minister to prepare the basis for raising the minimum wage in Ukraine in the first half of next year.

Absolutely all elements of state work must be adjusted so that we can determine the timing of the end of this war here in Ukraine ourselves. With our victory. Our weapons that will reach all the goals necessary for Ukraine. Our economy that will be able to provide Ukrainians with the jobs they need. Social functions of the state that must be fulfilled. State functionality, especially digital functionality, which must become more advanced than anywhere else in Europe. All these are our tools to bring Ukraine’s victory closer.

And our cooperation with our partners – with everyone in the world who is interested in peace with us.

Today I held a meeting on Ukraine’s integration with the European Union and NATO. Another meeting, a long meeting, was about preparing negotiations with partners, different ones: from the G7, from the Global South. All this will happen.

One more thing. As always, I want to thank our warriors. Today, I am especially grateful to our pilots. Well done, guys! We are all proud of you.

I thank everyone who fights and works for Ukraine! Everyone who is now in combat, at combat posts, on combat missions. I thank everyone who trains our troops, who produces weapons for Ukraine, who finds in the world everything that Ukraine needs. I thank you all!

Glory to Ukraine!

The cost:

A Ukrainian soldier. In March 2014, the russians seized his home in Luhansk. In March 2022, russian artillery destroyed his new home in Chernihiv. Look deep into his resolute eyes, and you’ll see his unwavering resolve to defend his homeland for as long as necessary; he is not going to leave his land or his fellow citizens in the hands of the occupiers.

📷 @Liberov

 

Like tens of thousands of Ukrainian children, the heroine of this video, 8-year-old Valya Zhurbenko, was kidnapped by russian invaders. Those Ukrainian children were separated from their families, forcibly taken to russia and Belarus, given up for adoption, deprived of the right to speak their native language and brought up in the ideology of ruscism – which equates to hatred of everything Ukrainian. Valya, like all these children, can only dream of reuniting with her parents, and returning to Ukraine. She can see her escape and her return to Ukraine only in her dreams. The entire world must join forces to make these children’s dreams come true. We will locate each and every kidnapped child. We will return all of them.

🎶 @Kler_lera

Russian occupied Sevastopol:

Russian occupied Nova Khakovka:

Russian occupied Mariupol:

In other exciting news, the former Austrian minister who is a Putin aficionado relocated from Austria to Russia over the past month or so.

The BBC has details:

Austria’s pro-Russian former foreign minister Karin Kneissl is moving to St Petersburg, along with her two ponies.

Karin Kneissl had been living in Lebanon. She left government amidst a scandal that engulfed the far-right Austrian party that appointed her.

The ponies were flown to St Petersburg on a Russian military transport plane from Syria, she said.

Ms Kneissl said she had decided to move to Russia to run a think tank at St Petersburg University.

“I co-founded the Gorki centre and manage it,” Russia’s state-owned Tass news agency quoted Ms Kneissl as saying. “Since there is a lot of work there and it requires a lot of attention, I cannot do this in passing. I decided to move to St Petersburg for this work.”

Asked by the BBC about her move to Russia’s second city, she declined to comment. But she said on social media that living in Lebanon had been a temporary solution “to survive” and while she was commuting to Russia to teach.

Ms Kneissl is a noted animal lover. She said on social media that, because of sanctions against Syria and the security situation there, using a military transport plane was her only option to bring her ponies and other belongings to Russia.

More at the link if you can stomach it.

That’s enough for tonight.

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    59Comments

    1. 1.

      dmsilev

      The Russians have, as I understand it, mainly been using their submarines as missile launchers, shooting off a round of Kalibrs at some completely non-military target and then heading back to base to reload. So, catching and disabling one in drydock will, hopefully, give at least a little bit of abatement on that particular terror campaign.

      Reply
    3. 3.

      oldster

      When Ukraine destroys big military targets, the ruzzians will turn around and attack civilian targets. We know this. It is who they are.

      After I got done this morning whooping and hollering about the destruction of a large landing craft and a missile launching sub, I had to face the fact that there would be attacks on civilians.

      But only by destroying the ruzzian’s power to attack can the Ukrainians keep their civilians safe. No more children will be killed by missiles fired from the Kilo-class sub ‘Rostov-on-Don’.

      Reply
    5. 5.

      Alison Rose

      Not surprised her name is Karin.

      What russia is doing to these Ukrainian children is so horrendous. Even if the children are rescued and returned home, the trauma will be etched into their souls. I really hope that part of the plans to help Ukraine rebuild after their victory includes funding for mental health care to try to help them all through the PTSD that will surely be present in most, if not all, Ukrainians.

      And apparently the orcs don’t spare animals, either. Don’t know if this info about the zoo was known before, but if so, I either didn’t see it or blocked it out. JFC.

      An Asiatic black bear, which endured severe trauma in a zoo in the village of Yampil, Donetsk region, which had been under Russian occupation, is set to be adopted by a zoo in Scotland. Almost all of the 200 animals at the zoo had been killed by Russians. A 12-year-old bear was one of the few left alive.

      There are photos of the bear at the link, and I don’t know that I’ve ever seen one of that breed before. Quite interesting looking. Hope the buddy has a good life in Scotland.

      Thank you as always, Adam.

      Reply
    8. 8.

      wjca

      @oldster: When Ukraine destroys big military targets, the ruzzians will turn around and attack civilian targets. We know this. It is who they are.

      Of course, when Ukraine doesn’t destroy military targets, the Russians will attack civilian targets.  Because, as you say, it is who they are.

      Reply
    9. 9.

      Jay

      Logo
      Margus Tsahkna
      @Tsahkna
      18h
      Starting from today, in 16⃣ minutes to be precise, #Estonia🇪🇪 will deny entry to all Russian registered vehicles.

      They are not welcome here to enjoy privileges freedom has to offer until #Ukraine🇺🇦 has achieved victory.

      https://nitter.net/Tsahkna/status/1701849288014250075#m

      One of the ways that RuZZian’s have been bypassing sanctions on both Consumer and Technical goods, is driving private cars into the West, stocking up and returning home.

      Reply
    11. 11.

      Adam L Silverman

      @Anoniminous: Like everything else for the past 18 months, the Ukrainians will find a way. They will create their own way out of necessity because they have no other choice.

      Reply
    13. 13.

      oldster

      @wjca:

      Good point.

      So the lesson is to destroy their military capacity, no matter what they will do. Children killed by unprovoked attacks are no more or less dead than children killed by retaliatory attacks.

      Reply
    16. 16.

      Jay

      Devana 🇺🇦
      @DevanaUkraine
      5h
      Officer Uldarov said that he “cleared” the basement of 300-400 civilians, including 40 of them children. According to him, it was about a 9-story building. The occupier adds that “he had no choice” and that he had orders to clear everyone out.
      Uldarov’s direct speech: “I executed the order with this hand, I killed the children. You understand, by order. The fact is that we… we were given the command to wipe out and destroy everyone. We were going to kill everyone – women, men, pensioners and children, including little ones – five-year-olds.” According to the Russians, a team came from Prigozhin to clean up Bakhmut. Don’t spare anyone – old people, children. “Clean them all up.” There were more in Soledar worse Savychev’s direct speech: “Peaceful residents left. And there was an order: everyone who was 15 (years old) and older – to shoot them all at once without words. 20-24 people were shot, including 10 15-year-old and 17-year-old teenagers.”

      #RussiaisATerroristState

      https://nitter.net/DevanaUkraine/status/1702057515209368039#m

      Reply
    17. 17.

      Anoniminous

      @Adam L Silverman:

      @oldster:

      Ukrainians have just demonstrated they know ASW the easy way:  kill them in harbor.  From some of the pictures it looks like the Rostov-on-Don is now the Burnt-Out-Hulk-in-Sevastopol.

      Which leaves them with one sub capable of launching Kaliber missiles.  I think.

      Reply
    18. 18.

      Yarrow

      I was behind a car on the freeway today that had a “Fuck Putin” bumper sticker, except where the “uc” was in Fuck there was a Ukrainian flag. I ended up behind them for awhile. Cheered me right up.

      Reply
    19. 19.

      patrick II

      I wrote this on an earlier post, but it is appropriate here:

      So, I just got around to watching my recording of 60 minutes tonight and their story on Ukraine and if the estimates of casualties 200,000 for Ukraine and over 300,000 for Russia, are even close to true,  those government officials who accused Ukraine of being casualty shy a couple of weeks ago should get different jobs.  Maybe for Russian cable news.

      Reply
    21. 21.

      devore

      I haven’t seen much in the way of details on the talks between North Korea and Russia.   Is Russia trying to just buy some rusty artillery shells from North Korea, or is the other extreme and is Russia looking for North Korea to send combat troops to fight for Russia in Ukraine?

      Reply
    26. 26.

      Adam L Silverman

      @Jay: Here’s the the Thread from the Thread Reader app that includes the videos where this guy confesses to what he did. It’s the last one in the thread. I’d embed the Tweet, but Twitter is claimng it doesn’t exist. I’ve seen this happen several times over the past several weeks and I have a feeling that Musk had the code tweaked so that certain tweets won’t either embed in posts using the URL or there’s no embed code through Twitter’s own tools.

      Reply
    28. 28.

      Anoniminous

      @Anoniminous:

      Wrong info.

      According to Wikipedia, ” The missile launched from a submarine torpedo tube has … a conventional booster”

      In March 2023 Ukraine said the Russians had 7 subs in the Black Sea Fleet so 1 down, 6 to go.

      Reply
    33. 33.

      Anoniminous

      @devore:

      The word was the Russians wanted to buy artillery shells.  Then Vlad and Fat Boy got together in a summit.  There was some babbling about “Military Co-operation” yesterday – whatever that is supposed to mean.  And today Fat Boy:

      “North Korea’s Kim Jong Un vowed “full and unconditional support” for Russia’s Vladimir Putin on Wednesday as the two leaders isolated by the West held a summit that the U.S. warned could lead to a deal to supply ammunition for Moscow’s war in Ukraine.

      The meeting, which lasted over four hours at Russia’s spaceport in the Far East, underscores how the two countries’ interests are aligning: Putin is believed to be seeking one of the few things impoverished North Korea has in abundance -– stockpiles of aging ammunition and rockets for Soviet-era weapons.”

      Source: AP News

      I can’t imagine loading 50 year old 150mm artillery shells and 50 year old powder into 50 year old 150 mm howitzers and pulling the lanyard.  Damn thing would be as likely to blow-up the howitzer as head down range.

      Reply
    34. 34.

      wjca

      @Adam L Silverman: The DPRK won’t send troops. They will send substandard munitions and ordnance.

      A question might be, just how substandard is it?  That is, will it turn out to do more damage to Russian guns than to Ukrainians?

      Another question.  Presumably DPRK would be shipping this stuff via the TransSiberian Railroad.  How much of a single point of failure is there on that?  Might be worth trying to infiltrate a few guys to blow up a bridge or something.  Just a thought.

      Reply
    36. 36.

      devore

      @Anoniminous:

       

      thanks.  Yeah, old rockets are even worse than rusty artillery shells. Solid motor fuel can become unstable over time and under poor storage conditions.  Might be a few surprises after a nice bouncy train ride.

       

      I was wondering if the ‘cooperation’ would involve North Korean soldiers.  Seems like that would be a major escalation that NATO wouldn’t let happen

      Reply
    39. 39.

      Chetan Murthy

      @devore: https://www.kyivpost.com/post/19989

      Ukraine Using Captured North Korean Ammunition Near Bakhmut
      The commander of the Ukrainian soldiers said the rockets had been “seized” from a ship by a “friendly” country before being delivered to Ukraine. Ukraine’s defense ministry advisor and spokesperson Yuriy Sak wouldn’t give any further specific details other than to suggest the rockets were taken from Russian forces.

      [….]

      The Ukrainian artillery commander said the munitions were totally unreliable with a high failure rate either misfiring or failing to launch. Markings on the rockets show that they were manufactured in the 1980s and 1990s.

      Even with these reliability issues, the Ukrainians continue to use them, “We have no choice, we need every rocket we can get,” said the team leader. A Grad unit soldier warned visiting journalists not to get too close to the rocket launcher when it was fired as the munitions “are very unreliable and do crazy things sometimes.”

      Reply
    40. 40.

      Jay

      @Chetan Murthy:

      The commander of the Ukrainian soldiers said the rockets had been “seized” from a ship by a “friendly” country before being delivered to Ukraine

      A significant amount of the NORK’s income, comes from Black Market sales of weapons and ammo, often through 2nd and 3rd party brokers.

      And most of it is the reasonably “good” stuff.

      NORK gear has an international warlord reputation as being crap.

      Reply
    41. 41.

      Bill Arnold

      @Jay:
      Were Ukraine to somehow acquire or build proper modern torpedoes (including anti submarine torpedoes), I’m certain they could work out a few ways to deliver them.
      (They’d need to get mildly lucky to engage submarines.)

      Reply
    45. 45.

      Jay

      @Bill Arnold:

      Ukraine has modern torpedo’s.

      What they don’t have as yet is a way to use/deliver them.

      Helo’s would have to be in contested airspace, and require something like a patrol boat, (contested Sea and Air Space) Orion, (again, contested Airspace) or a SONUS system to detect the subs position.

      Reply
    48. 48.

      Chetan Murthy

      @Jay: Gotta wonder if networked sea  drones could do the job.  Use some (really cheap) drones to do echolocation; others carrying torpedoes to  attack.

      Reply
    50. 50.

      Jay

      @Chetan Murthy:

      sonar is tricky. At best, you know they are there, either way, they know you are there.

      Passive listening and magnetic detection are the best routes, along with undersea microphones, (SOSUS) and data bases of individual submarine sound signatures,

      Sonar is generally used to get a close fix.

      Reply
    52. 52.

      Carlo Graziani

      @Jay: What should be relatively straightforward to develop is drone naval minelayers. Much more effective than torpedo boats, since the approaches to Russian naval bases can’t move much. And the mission is stealthy from start to end, in contrast to attack drone missions.

      Reply
    53. 53.

      Eolirin

      @Jay: We can give them more long range munitions so they can blow up the logistics chains for the missiles themselves and hit Sevastapol and any subs that surface near the harbor.

      But yeah, other than that not much we can do.

      Reply
    54. 54.

      Jay

      @Carlo Graziani:

      yes, and no. Like landmines, traditional naval mines are more a PITA/denial weapon, than an effective sub or ship killer.

      If Ukraine had that data bank of ship sounds and sub sounds, they could make seabed mines that would only “react” to a RuZZian Warship. They could even be programmed to let X number of ships pass, before “bornova”. That makes them harder to find and allows for a greater space to be mined.

      RuZZia still controls most of the Black Sea. A submersible drone layer or semi submersible like the “Cocaine Boats”, would be the best approach.

      Reply
    55. 55.

      wjca

      It appears that the Ukrainians have found a solution, at least a partial solution, to the challenge of finding submarines: catch them in dock.  Actually, the Black Sea Fleet appears to be spending a lot of time in dock, so that works for more than just subs.

      Reply
    57. 57.

      AM in NC

      So did we have a nuclear war and I just didn’t notice it?  I mean didn’t Elon assure us (and HE heard it straight from Vlad) that if Sevastopol gets attacked then the nukes start to fly?

      Haven’t heard media asking Elon that – guess it’ll come today, right?

      As always, thank you so.very.much Adam, for keeping us informed like this.

      Reply
    59. 59.

      Bill Arnold

      @AM in NC:

      So did we have a nuclear war and I just didn’t notice it? I mean didn’t Elon assure us (and HE heard it straight from Vlad) that if Sevastopol gets attacked then the nukes start to fly?

      Sample size of one. (Also, I recall a qualifier like “might” being reported.)
      With nuclear war, what’s important are shifts in the risks. If a thermonuclear war would kill a few billion people (starvation, mainly), a 1 percent increase in risk of thermonuclear war would kill, on average, a few 10s of millions of people.
      We did not not make it through 60-70 years of risk of major-powers thermonuclear war by regularly playing chicken with the Russians/USSR, or with them regularly playing chicken with the USA. There were plenty of incidents, but not many that had the scale of the Cuban Missile Crisis. Arguably, humans were lucky (in this timeline, at least).[2]
      The recent Russian narrative about how Crimea and the other illegally annexed Ukrainian territories are Russian territory and can therefore, according Russian nuclear doctrine, be defended with nuclear weapons is just transparent propaganda BS to slow down weapons supplies to Ukraine. There might have been an increase in risk, but more like a small fraction of 1 percent. Estimates vary. :-) There are (have long been) also radical arguments that smashing the Russians would save lives long term.
      Concerns about potential Ukrainian attacks on Russian civilian or civilian infrastructure targets are maybe more significant; e.g. supplying the Ukrainians with 500 tomahawk cruise missiles and saying “do what you will with them” would involve more significant risk. Ukraine doesn’t commit war crimes like Russia does[1], to be clear. (Geofencing might be a technical option.)

      [1] A few biggies:
      Article 51 – Protection of the civilian population
      Article 52 – General protection of civilian objects
      Article 53 – Protection of cultural objects and of places of worship
      [2] Rosencrantz & Guildenstern Are Dead (1990) – Heads Scene (1/11) | Movieclips

      Reply

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