Come for the politics, stay for the snark.

When do we start airlifting the women and children out of Texas?

How can republicans represent us when they don’t trust women?

Glad to see john eastman going through some things.

I am pretty sure Katy Tur wasn’t always such a bootlicking sycophant.

Days Since JD Vance Insulted Women Across America: Zero

Meanwhile over at truth Social, the former president is busy confessing to crimes.

Dead end MAGA boomers crying about Talyor Swift being a Dem is my kind of music. Turn it up.

It’s pointless to bring up problems that can only be solved with a time machine.

Joe Biden can go out like FDR, not by dying in office, but by crushing the fascists.

Polls are now a reliable indicator of what corporate Republicans want us to think.

Republicans in disarray!

Republicans would impeach Biden if he bit into a whole Kit Kat rather than breaking the sections apart.

“Jesus paying for the sins of everyone is an insult to those who paid for their own sins.”

Let there be snark.

Dear media: perhaps we ought to let Donald Trump speak for himself!

The republican caucus is covering themselves with something, and it’s not glory.

Bark louder, little dog.

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

Republicans are radicals, not conservatives.

Motto for the House: Flip 5 and lose none.

If senate republicans had any shame, they’d die of it.

Just because you believe it, that doesn’t make it true.

Come for the politics, stay for the snark.

He wakes up lying, and he lies all day.

You are here: Home / Foreign Affairs / War for Ukraine Day 660: A Brief Friday Night Update

War for Ukraine Day 660: A Brief Friday Night Update

by | 19 Comments

This post is in: , , , , , , ,

Art by NEIVANMADE of a Ukrainian painted black and outlined in blood red kneeling in grief with hands covering the face surrounded by the bodies of Ukrainians killed by Russians on a grey background. "Russia Is Committing Genocide Right Now" is across the top center of the image.

(Image by NEIVANMADE)

Two quick housekeeping items. First, it’s been a very long day, so just a brief(er) post today.

Second, just a reminder that the National Defense Authorization Act (NDAA) is not the defense appropriations bill. The former establishes the DOD’s budget, as well as some budgetary matters for other agencies and departments. It also delineates what will be funded within that budget and establishes priorities. No actual money was appropriated with the FY 2024 NDAA’s passage yesterday. It is wonderful that back pay for uniformed personnel whose lives were upended by Tubberville’s idiot hold was included. As well as the large budget for Ukraine. However, there isn’t actually any money appropriated for either of these things, as well as anything else in the NDAA, yet. That’s a separate bill. It is unclear when, or perhaps if, the GOP majority House will actually finish drafting, let alone vote on, the FY 2024 defense appropriations bill. All we do know is it won’t be until sometime in January as the House went home for the holidays yesterday.

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

Taking care of our warriors, of all our people is a must at all levels of government – address by the President of Ukraine

15 December 2023 – 17:04

I wish you health, fellow Ukrainians!

Today I am in Lviv. In the morning, I visited the Field of Mars at the Lychakiv Cemetery to honor our fallen warriors. Our heroes, whom Ukraine will always remember – every next generation of a free Ukraine.

Now I am at Lviv Polytechnic. I held a Congress, a meeting of the Congress of Local and Regional Authorities. Together with government officials – the Prime Minister, ministers. The Chairman of the Verkhovna Rada. The Head of the Office. Many issues were discussed – various aspects of interaction between the central government and communities. It is very important for the government to be in constant communication with local governments and for community leaders to understand the current situation, what our entire country is living through, and how important it is to be fully focused on defense and helping people. Taking care of our soldiers, taking care of all our people is a must at all levels of government. This includes local authorities as well.

Today I want to thank all the employees of the State Emergency Service of Ukraine who have been saving lives and helping people after Russian shelling throughout this week, just as they have been doing throughout all the weeks of the war. Odesa… Sergeant Artem Keiha, Sergeant Ruslan Kuruch, Captain Orest Pavlovskyi. Kherson region… Sergeant Anatoliy Skotenyants, Sergeant Volodymyr Kushniruk, Captain Vladyslav Pylypenko. Kyiv… Work at the sites where missile fragments fell. Chief Master Sergeant Serhiy Savenko, Captain Dmytro Halytskyi, Major Liubov Kirnos. I thank you and all your colleagues!

At the Congress today, the Head of the Security Service of Ukraine reported on the detention of collaborators in Odesa, Kherson region, and Dnipro. He also reported on other operations of the Service. The Minister of Internal Affairs reported on the tragedy in Zakarpattia. Doctors are providing all necessary assistance. The head of the regional administration shared details.

And one more thing.

We continue our work with partners to preserve unity in the defense of Ukraine. In Europe, with America, and with everyone else in the world who supports us, supports the state and international law. The coming weeks will also be active in our foreign policy, and we have already begun planning activities for January. We will do our best to make sure that Ukraine is strong and that next year we can all be confident – confident in defense support, macro-financial support, and political support. I am grateful to everyone who helps!

And please take care of people. Take care of Ukraine.

Glory to Ukraine!

For those of you counting Advent on your calendars this season.

15th Day of Ukrainian Advent Calendar

Today, we express our gratitude to our American (@DeptofDefense), Canadian (@NationalDefence), and Australian (@DefenceAust) partners for their unwavering support. We especially thank you for the M777 howitzers provided for #UAarmy.

The M777 became the first NATO weapon of 155mm caliber in Ukraine. The howitzer can fire at a range of up to 40 km. Long-range artillery has made a substantial contribution to the Ukrainian army’s successes on the battlefield.

Stand by for the next Weapon of Victory tomorrow.

#StandWithUkraine #UAMoDAdvent

The Lithuanians have sent more aid to Ukraine:

Some repaired Leopards are heading back to Ukraine.

The Ukrainians – from President Zelenskyy to the staffers running the Ministry of Defense’s social media feeds – are continuing to make very public thanks even as things are fraught behind the scenes.

Here are more details from The Financial Times: (emphasis mine)

Ukraine’s Volodymyr Zelenskyy began this week hopeful that his two biggest allies in the face of Russia’s invasion would finally approve financial aid packages worth a total of $115bn. He ended it with little to show for it.

Fraying support for Kyiv in Washington and Brussels coincided with Russian President Vladimir Putin vowing to attack Ukraine until his goals of “denazifying” and “demilitarising” the country were achieved.

The US Congress on Wednesday once again failed to approve a $60bn support package despite Zelenskyy travelling to Washington to lobby lawmakers in person. Two days later, a summit of EU leaders ended without agreement on their own €50bn four-year funding for Ukraine — although they did agree to start membership talks with Kyiv.

“This was the moment for the EU leaders to take the stage,” said one western diplomat. “And they missed their mark.”

While some outstanding funding has been promised by both Brussels and Washington in the next few weeks, their failure to secure Kyiv’s long-term financial stability comes at a particularly sensitive moment in the conflict. Ukraine’s counteroffensive this year has failed to free significant swaths of land from Russian occupation and Kyiv’s firepower is running low just as Moscow is renewing its aerial attacks on Ukraine’s critical infrastructure at the onset of winter.

“Ukraine has liquidity through January, but it gets a little tight after that. We need to move quickly,” said an EU official. “Ukraine is right to be nervous. It’s not a comfortable situation at all.”

Zelenskyy received plenty of plaudits from top US defence officials, some lawmakers from both parties, and US President Joe Biden, but flew back relatively empty-handed. At the White House, Biden was forced to downgrade the US’s pledge from supporting Kyiv “for as long as it takes” to supplying the country with weapons “as long as we can”. 

The Ukrainian leader did secure a new disbursement of US military aid, but it is probably one of the last ones, given that American funding will run out at the end of the year. 

“We’re rapidly coming to an end of our ability to help Ukraine respond to the urgent operational demands that it has,” said Biden. 

In Moscow, Putin gloated. “Ukraine produces almost nothing today, everything is coming from the west, but the free stuff is going to run out some day, and it seems it already is,” the Russian president told a nationally broadcast press conference on Thursday.

The EU summit marked “a bittersweet moment in EU’s relations with Ukraine,” said Michal Baranowski of the German Marshall Fund think-tank in Warsaw. “The EU’s decision to open the negotiations with Ukraine and Moldova is truly historic, even if it’s just a beginning of a long road. The bitterness comes from Hungary’s decision to veto the €50bn financial package, critical for the financial health of the Ukrainian state.”

Officials familiar with the talks said that Zelenskyy privately told leaders it was more important for him to get the agreement on EU membership talks than on funding. A spokesperson for the Ukrainian president declined to comment.

Mark Rutte, Dutch prime minister, said that opening EU membership talks with Ukraine “was a ‘plus’”, but that “the minus in this European Council was that we did not agree on the money now”.

Rutte denied it was a win for Putin. “He knows that we will find a way somehow to resolve the financial question.”

“The veto on the €50bn tells you less about faltering western resolve than it does about Viktor Orbán,” said Ian Bond, deputy director at the Centre for European Reform, in reference to the Hungarian premier. “Ukraine will get the [EU] money in the end. But there is a real problem in the US.”

In Washington, Democrats said they emerged from meetings with Zelenskyy convinced of the urgency of reaching a deal on funding.

“The time to act is now. We must honour our commitments and pass a security package before the year ends,” said Mark Warner, the Virginia senator and chair of the Senate intelligence committee.

Talks in the upper chamber to try to find a compromise solution on measures to curb immigration at the southern border with Mexico, which Republicans have set as a condition for any additional Ukraine aid, revved up and White House officials have gotten more involved since.

But reaching an agreement before the winter holidays seems unlikely, and some Republicans said it was simply time for Zelenskyy to negotiate a settlement with Putin.

“This is a bloody stalemate,” Ron Johnson, a Republican senator from Wisconsin, told Fox News after Zelenskyy’s visit. “This war should be brought to an end, the sooner the better.”

These words, penned by a veteran and survivor of the trenches of World War I, seem fitting:

When winter first begins to bite
and stones crack in the frosty night,
when pools are black and trees are bare,
’tis evil in the Wild to fare.

Avdiivka:

Tatarigami and his team have done a deep dive into the Russian losses in Avdiivka. First tweet from the thread, the rest from the Thread Reader App:

2/ Our initial report included over 109 vehicles between October 10th and October 20th, excluding the area west of Vodyane. This time, we expanded our coverage to include the entire area until November 28th, 2023, bringing the total number to 211.Image
3/ Losses identified in Part 1 or occurring before October 10th—the start of the assault—are marked with white squares. Ukrainian losses are excluded from this report, focusing on Russian losses, though we couldn’t identify more than 7.Image
4/ This number surpasses Russian losses in any other single battle, including Vuhledar, marking it the most devastating battle for Russian forces in terms of vehicle losses. The primary categories of losses include tanks, BMPs, BTRs, MTLB, some IMVs, a couple of trucks, and MLRSImage
5/ Notably, not all confirmed FPV drone hits led to observable destroyed vehicles in satellite imagery. Some vehicles may remain operational or get evacuated for repairs. An FPV drone hit doesn’t always indicate a vehicle loss.Image
6/ Around 50% of these losses occurred in the first three weeks of the offensive, with occasional peaks in the October-December period. This aligns with our earlier reports about a shift towards infantry assaults instead of massive mechanized troops.Image
7/ We excluded several locations recorded on videos where Russian vehicles were destroyed due to the extensive explosions. However, on the imagery, there was nothing left to identify as a vehicle, other than a scorch mark and crater.Image
8/ To enhance accuracy, we compared imagery from September and October to exclude vehicles destroyed before October 10th and those included in the previous report. Errors and misidentifications might still exist, but they are estimated to be no more than 12.75%Image
9/ The total number of losses would amount to approximately slightly over the complete annihilation of 5 battalions. This represents significant losses in both equipment and personnel, considering the achieved results.Image
10/ The complete list of losses with images can be found on the website linked in my bio. (I am not including the link in the thread as it significantly degrades the visibility of this thread and doesn’t show up in the timeline.)Image
11/ Our team is working on multiple projects, including tracking the expansion of Russian military infrastructure. Considering that we do not have stable financing, please consider the BuyMeaCoffee option linked in my bio to support us, given the very limited resources we have.Image
12/ Our teams utilized geolocated data to visually map Russian vehicle losses between October 10th and November 28th, aiding in visualizing the battle for Avdiivka and identifying locations with the highest concentration and number of vehicle losses.Image
13/ These materials were prepared by the Frontelligence Insight team, with assistance from volunteers and with OSINT geolocated materials: @naalsio26 , @Danspiun , @AndrewPerpetua , and @GeoConfirmed 

Stepove, Avdiivka front:

Russian occupied Crimea and Henichesk, Kherson Oblast:

Russian occupied Donetsk:

For you drone and shotgun enthusiasts:

And for those of you who are wondering how Russian barrels are holding up:

If you were wondering what the Russian pilots were thinking when the Russian MLRS tried to shoot them down the other day, Dmitri has you covered.

That’s enough for tonight.

Your daily Patron!

There are no new Patron tweets or videos. Here’s some adjacent material from the Ukrainian Ministry of Defense.

Open thread!

Reader Interactions

19Comments

  1. 1.

    Alison Rose

    But reaching an agreement before the winter holidays seems unlikely, and some Republicans said it was simply time for Zelenskyy to negotiate a settlement with Putin.

    This shit makes my blood boil. Why the fuck should he??? Why should Ukraine give up part of their land just because some evil little dick decided he wanted it? If Canada had greater military might than us and Trudeau was suddenly like “You know, we’re gonna take Minnesota and Montana and Washington, hell maybe Oregon too, and Michigan looks nice” would all these GOPers say “eh we should just give it to him”? Of course they fucking wouldn’t. The ONLY reason to insist that Zelenskyy should bow down to putin is if the person saying so is also on their knees. Just because Republicans are a bunch of wimpy little babies who will do whatever daddy putin tells them doesn’t mean the Ukrainians should follow suit.

    Gah. Just because God gave you free will doesn’t mean choosing to be trash is an acceptable life plan.

    Thank you as always, Adam.

  2. 2.

    lowtechcyclist

    @Alison Rose: ​
     

    Not to mention, we know that Putin would honor any such settlement only as long as he found it convenient to do so. He’d be back to take more the moment he thought he could do so. It’s not like he hasn’t already done exactly that.

    Ukrainians know they are fighting for their survival. It’s appalling that these assholes want to just leave them to die.

  6. 6.

    Andrya

    What lowtechcyclist said.

    And, Adam, thanks for the Tolkien quote.  I’m totally buried in grading final exams, but it made my evening.

  9. 9.

    patrick II

    @Alison Rose:

    Don’t take Republican assertion of motives too seriously.  They are just want their fellow fascist Putin’s side to win and delay helps with that objective.

  10. 10.

    Jak

    Media losing focus on the Ukraine war? Israel Hamas war has taken over top spot on The Guardian web site. Fewer articles about Ukraine since October. Today only one article near the bottom on Ukraine.

  12. 12.

    Yutsano

    I just keep in mind that even if the Republicans force the US government to stop supporting Ukraine, the Ukrainians won’t give up.

  14. 14.

    Halteclere

    Watching that video with the Bradley firing on the Russian tank, there are several explosions in between the two, and in the surrounding area. I saw this also in an earlier video of a Bradley taking out three Russian transports.

    Are there things in the way like trees that some of the shells are hitting? Or are these intermediate explosions part of the shell design? Is the area explosions resulting from the vehicles firing on each other, or is there other shelling going on at the same time?

  15. 15.

    Devore

    Since being labeled pro Putin doesn’t seem to be stopping republicans from blocking any aid to Ukraine.  Would threatening to label republicans instead as pro Iran and pro North Korea be more effective in getting them to support Ukraine.  Iran and North Korea are pretty much the only major countries supporting Putin now.  So, that essentially makes republicans Iran and North Korea supporters      Why not publicly and loudly call the house republicans North Korea and Iran sympathizers.  I would think that even the nuttiest righties aren’t pro Iran or North Korea

  16. 16.

    Another Scott

    @Devore: On the top-of-the-hour NPR news brief just now, there was mention of continuing work by senators (including Chris Murphy) and Biden’s people to get a compromise done on the Supplemental. Politico has more from Wednesday.

    It’s not over until it’s over, and yes, it has to get through the House (and maybe they’ll come back, but maybe they won’t until January), but things are moving.

    Politics is slow.

    Cheers,
    Scott.

  17. 17.

    ColoradoGuy

    The Russian capture of the GOP is probably one of the greatest intelligence successes of all time. Surely this is known by the CIA and NSA, but they seem powerless to do anything about it.

Comments are closed.