Come for the politics, stay for the snark.

Within six months Twitter will be fully self-driving.

It’s always darkest before the other shoe drops.

“Loving your country does not mean lying about its history.”

Putin must be throwing ketchup at the walls.

Hey hey, RFK, how many kids did you kill today?

Hot air and ill-informed banter

I did not have this on my fuck 2025 bingo card.

This fight is for everything.

This year has been the longest three days of putin’s life.

This must be what justice looks like, not vengeful, just peaceful exuberance.

Technically true, but collectively nonsense

Fear or fury? The choice is ours.

The fundamental promise of conservatism all over the world is a return to an idealized past that never existed.

It is possible to do the right thing without the promise of a cookie.

These days, even the boring Republicans are nuts.

Second rate reporter says what?

Good lord, these people are nuts.

When you’re a Republican, they let you do it.

Rupert, come get your orange boy, you petrified old dinosaur turd.

Text STOP to opt out of updates on war plans.

It’s easy to sit in safety and prescribe what other people should be doing.

Jesus watching the most hateful people claiming to be his followers

The republican speaker is a slippery little devil.

Proof that we need a blogger ethics panel.

You are here: Home / Foreign Affairs / War for Ukraine Day 681: Air Raid Alerts Shortly After Dawn

War for Ukraine Day 681: Air Raid Alerts Shortly After Dawn

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Screen shot of painting by NEIVANMADE. It has a grey border. On the left is a Ukrainian apartment block in the background. In the left foreground is an armored forearm and fist blocking incoming Russian rockets and missiles. The Russian rockets and missiles are red and have the "Z" symbol on them. The backgound is black. Above the armored arm and fist, written in white, is "Every Single Day in Ukraine."

(Image by NEIVANMADE)

Air raid alerts were once again activated of large portions of Ukraine this morning.

⚡️Air raid alert reported in Kyiv Oblast.

Air raid alerts were activated in Kyiv Oblast at around 7 a.m. on Jan. 5, the Kyiv Oblast Military Administration reported.

Ukraine’s Air Force has also warned of the threat of Russian drone attacks in Kherson, Kirovohrad, Dnipropetrovsk, Odesa, Cherkasy, Vinnytsia, Chernivtsi, and Khmelnytskyi oblasts.

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

Enduring this year means enduring the entire war – address by the President of Ukraine

5 January 2024 – 20:16

I wish good health to the Ukrainian men and women!

I just had a phone talk with President of Türkiye Erdoğan. It was a very substantive discussion. As always, we are using every day of this week to intensify our international efforts so that this year starts yielding results from the first weeks.

I expressed gratitude to President Erdoğan for the achieved level of cooperation in various areas, including defense. We have joint projects that are already successful, and this year, we must do even more to strengthen our states and our nations.

Much depends on Ukrainian-Turkish cooperation, especially security in our region, the Black Sea, and worldwide – including food security. I am thankful to President Erdoğan personally and to all of Türkiye for supporting our work on the maritime export corridor from Ukraine. As of today, over 14 million tonnes of cargo have been transported through the corridor since its inception – nearly five hundred vessels. It is a big gain – both economically and in terms of security and geopolitics. We demonstrate that we can restore security to our region despite all existing threats. We see how the strength of our partnership adds strength to our entire region.

Today, I discussed our work on the Peace Formula with President Erdoğan. I informed him about the preparation for a new advisors’ meeting scheduled to take place in Davos in January and extended an invitation to a representative from Türkiye. Türkiye confirmed its participation.

Each country’s involvement in this collaborative effort, now with the work of advisors and later involving leaders, will demonstrate the importance of international law functioning at its full capacity, starting from the UN Charter and all other norms that guarantee respect for nations and the territorial integrity of states.

Special attention was given to the point of the Peace Formula concerning the return of all prisoners of war and deportees. I discussed this today with President Erdoğan, emphasizing the return of Ukrainian children abducted by Russians, as well as the return of prisoners of war and those facing repression in the occupied territories, particularly in Crimea. Türkiye’s mediation is crucial for the release of Crimean Tatars and all others – adults and children, military and civilians, held in Russian captivity.

We are working with all partners to ensure that Ukraine receives an adequate volume of security packages this month. We already have another defensive step from Germany for Ukraine, including missiles for air defense, 155mm artillery, and other essential items. Thank you! It’s a very timely package. We are expecting similar steps from our other partners, including the United States, to ensure that Russian terror cannot prevail this winter, just as it couldn’t last year.

Of course, I am always in touch with the military and our commanders. Every day, every night of this year has seen new intense battles. The most intense fighting is in Avdiivka, near Maryinka, Bahmut, Lyman, Kupiansk, the southern part of our country. The work of our soldiers is absolutely heroic – all the forces of defense and security, every brigade on the front lines, every unit, everyone working in defense, and everyone providing assistance.

Our state’s top priority remains unchanged – to ensure everything necessary for Ukraine’s defense and our active operations. Ammunition, drones, equipment, personnel. Enduring this year means enduring this entire war. It’s a crucial and decisive time. Grateful to everyone who realizes this, who helps the state become stronger and who gives our soldiers the ability to defeat the enemy.

Thank you, guys, for your precision! Thank you for your resilience! Thanks to everyone who adds strength to Ukraine!

Glory to our people!

Glory to Ukraine!

The cost:

Last December, Mriya Foundation fulfilled the dreams of children of war prisoners. Among a busload of gifts, one stood out—a mobile phone. The boy took it, turned away, tears streaming down his face. In stunned silence, volunteers discovered the child’s dream: his dad, in a Russian prison, would call him on that very phone.

Since then, the boy has always kept the phone close.

Two days ago, the boy’s father finally called.

Kyiv:

The Donetsk front:

Kherson Oblast:

Zaporizhzhia front:

And we all know what time it must be!

Saki, Russian occupied Crimea:

Kremlyovskaya Tabakerka is a fake channel run by someone with a decent sense of humour but zero credibility nonetheless. For instance, they recently claimed that enraged Putin wants to send Kirkorov to Avdiivka to assault Ukrainian positions as infantry after the latter took part in the infamous naked party.

 

For you drone enthusiasts:

And for you counter-drone enthusiasts:

Misinformation Warfare:

This is just amazing. Visegrad takes rumours from Telegram/NAFO jokers and posts as “unconfirmed reports”. Huge channels on Telegram take this info from Visegrad to report the same. We are our own biggest enemies.

There is zero intelligence that Gerasimov suffered in the Crimea attack, or that he was in Crimea at all.

The Wall Street Journal‘s Yarislav Trofimov has a deep dive excerpt from his forthcoming book on what actually happened at the Istanbul peace talks in 2022: (emphasis mine)

The lead Ukrainian negotiator, David Arakhamia, pointed to a bottle of sanitizing gel on the table, covered by a crisp white cloth, as Russian and Ukrainian peace delegations gathered in Istanbul’s Dolmabahçe Palace.

“That’s an antiseptic,” Arakhamia told his Russian counterpart, President Vladimir Putin’s adviser Vladimir Medinsky.

“Ah, I thought it’s vodka,” Medinsky joked.

There was plenty of tension behind the jovial appearances during that pivotal meeting on March 29, 2022. Dmytro Kuleba, the Ukrainian foreign minister, had just publicly advised Ukrainian negotiators not to accept any beverages from the Russians and not to touch any surfaces, lest they be poisoned. After all, Russian forces were still at the gates of Kyiv, trying to overthrow President Volodymyr Zelensky and his government.

What actually happened on that momentous Tuesday and in the immediate aftermath has since turned into a matter of fundamental disagreement among Ukraine, Western nations and Russia. The Istanbul meeting has also emerged as a key point of discord in America’s own debate about the war, as indispensable U.S. aid to Ukraine remains stalled in Congress because of Republican opposition. Some argue that Ukraine blew a chance at the time to end the war. The real story paints a different, and far more complicated, picture.

The first meeting between Ukrainian and Russian negotiators happened on Feb. 28, 2022, in the Belarusian city of Gomel, four days after Russian tanks crossed the Ukrainian border. At that encounter, Medinsky recited a long list of the Kremlin’s demands. It included the replacement of Zelensky’s administration with a puppet regime, Ukrainian troops handing over all their tanks and artillery, the arrest and trial of “Nazis”—a Russian euphemism for any Ukrainian opposed to Moscow’s rule—and the restoration of Russian as Ukraine’s official language. Medinsky even demanded that city streets named after Ukrainian national heroes be returned to their old Soviet names.

“We listened to them, and we realized that these are not people sent for talks but for our capitulation,” recalled one of the Ukrainian negotiators, Zelensky’s adviser Mykhailo Podolyak. Yet to gain time the Ukrainians agreed to keep talking.

On March 10, Kuleba flew to the Turkish resort town of Antalya to meet his Russian counterpart, Sergei Lavrov, in their first encounter since the war began. “I asked Lavrov a simple question behind closed doors in Antalya: Minister, what do you want? That is all I wanted to know,” Kuleba recalled. Lavrov didn’t reply, launching instead into the usual Russian litany of allegations that Ukraine had turned into a neo-Nazi den hellbent on undermining Russia.

In the 19 days between the meeting in Antalya and the Istanbul talks, the battlefield situation shifted dramatically in Ukraine’s favor. All around Kyiv, nimble Ukrainian forces inflicted defeat after defeat on over-extended Russian units.

Throughout the talks, the issue of Ukrainian membership in NATO was a critical part of the agenda. In the first weeks of the war, Zelensky indicated that Ukraine could forgo its dream of joining NATO in exchange for binding security guarantees from the West and Russia alike. Ukrainian negotiators also showed flexibility on Russian demands to reduce the size of Ukraine’s military and freeze the issue of who controls Crimea, a peninsula occupied by Moscow since 2014, for the foreseeable future. None of this, of course, was enough to stop the Russian onslaught on the ground and the Russian bombs and missiles that kept raining down on Ukrainian cities.

As Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan opened the Istanbul talks on March 29, the mandate of the Ukrainian team was to push for a Russian withdrawal to pre-invasion lines while showing openness on many key issues, with actual decisions deferred to a planned meeting between Zelensky and Putin.

Russia’s major demand, in addition to keeping Ukraine out of NATO, was to limit its ability to defend itself in the future. According to draft documents later revealed publicly by Putin, Moscow wanted Ukraine’s armed forces capped at 85,000 troops, 342 tanks and 519 artillery pieces. Ukrainian negotiators in Istanbul countered with a proposal for an army of 250,000 troops, roughly its prewar level, with 800 tanks and 1,900 artillery pieces.

Just as the conference started, Russia’s defense minister, Sergei Shoigu, made a striking announcement from Moscow. The main goals of Russia’s “special military operation” had been generally fulfilled, he said. Hours later, Medinsky appeared at a press conference in Istanbul with even more astonishing news. The talks held that day had achieved significant progress, he announced, and Moscow had decided to take steps to de-escalate the conflict. Battered Russian troops started to withdraw from the Kyiv region and other parts of northern Ukraine.

According to Putin’s version of events, Ukrainian negotiators in Istanbul had accepted most of Russia’s demands. “The agreements were practically reached,” he lamented months later. “Our troops left the center of Ukraine, Kyiv, to create conditions” for further talks to finalize that accord, he said.

Ukraine has vehemently disputed that account. Neither side made binding commitments in Istanbul, according to Kuleba. “There was no deal,” he said. “To engage in a conversation and to commit yourself to something are completely different things.” As for the Russian pullback, Ukrainian and American officials say Putin had no choice but to withdraw by late March because of Ukrainian military successes on the ground.

Col. Igor Girkin, a retired Russian intelligence officer and the former defense minister of a Russian proxy statelet in Donbas, agreed. “If leaving the seized territory has become inevitable, it’s best to do it before your troops are routed by the adversary,” he said shortly after the Istanbul announcements. “We will still need these troops—the war will be long.” Girkin has since been imprisoned in Moscow for criticizing Russian military failures.

On the evening of March 29, as the negotiators saluted each other in Istanbul and made plans to reconvene for the next round of talks, Ukrainian troops were already entering the town of Bucha near Kyiv. What the Ukrainians discovered there rendered moot any understanding reached in Istanbul.

Like other northwestern suburbs in Kyiv’s green belt across the Irpin River, Bucha was a relaxed town of single-family homes and five-story housing blocks set amid pine trees, playgrounds, and parks. It had a handful of resorts, with swimming pools for the guests, and an equestrian club. As Ukrainian forces advanced into Bucha, they stumbled upon a horrifying sight: Dozens of bodies lay rotting under the rain on Yablunska Street and in surrounding areas. Some corpses were missing limbs, likely eaten by dogs, while others had brains spilling from cracked skulls.

As the soldiers probed further, they found several men, many of them stripped naked to their waists, executed and lying on the ground in the courtyard of 144 Yablunska Street. On sidewalks, in ditches and in improvised graves, there were other bodies with their hands tied. Some bore the signs of torture: poked-out eyes, cut-off fingers.

More than 450 civilians were killed in Bucha during the month the town was under Russian occupation. Atrocities had been occurring throughout occupied Ukraine, especially in Mariupol. But in Bucha, the Russian soldiers fled so fast that they hadn’t had the time to remove the evidence and conceal the scale of the slaughter.

As the footage from Bucha spread on social media, Zelensky—like most Ukrainians—was overwhelmed with fury. “The essence of evil has come to our land—murderers, torturers, rapists and looters who call themselves an army,” he said in an address to Ukrainians. “They have killed consciously, and with pleasure.”

Even though the Ukrainian and Russian negotiators remained in touch, fine-tuning the documents drafted in Istanbul the previous week, Zelensky signaled that the killings uncovered in Bucha had changed everything. “What has happened here is genocide,” he said, stern-faced, during his visit to the town—the first time he had left Kyiv since the invasion. “It is very hard to keep talking when you see what has happened here.”

There was no contrition in Moscow after the horrors of Bucha came to light. “It’s a clear provocation,” thundered Lavrov. Not a single Ukrainian civilian had been harmed, declared Russia’s ministry of defense. Medinsky said the Ukrainians must have staged the atrocities in Bucha because its name rhymed with the English word “butcher.”

On April 9, British Prime Minister Boris Johnson arrived in a Kyiv transformed. He was one of the first Western leaders to brave the trip since the invasion. Less than two weeks had elapsed since the Istanbul talks and, despite Zelensky’s outrage, the Russian and Ukrainian negotiating teams still pursued contacts via Zoom.

“I was a bit worried at that stage,” Johnson recalled. “I could not see for the life of me what the deal could be, and I thought that any deal with Putin was going to be pretty sordid.” Sitting down with Zelensky in Kyiv, the British prime minister delivered his pitch: “Nobody can be more Ukrainian than Ukrainians, it is not for me to tell you what your war objectives can be, but as far as I am concerned, Putin must fail and Ukraine must be entitled to retain full sovereignty and independence. …. We’re not directly fighting, you are. It’s the Ukrainians who are fighting and dying. But we would back Ukraine a thousand percent.”

Zelensky didn’t need much convincing. The conversation quickly shifted to the concrete ways in which the United Kingdom could assist the Ukrainian armed forces, such as the provision of military supplies. It was the first trickle in what would become a flood of increasingly sophisticated Western weapons. Meanwhile, online talks between Ukrainian and Russian teams fizzled away.

In the Kremlin, Putin was certain that Washington, rather than London, had forced Zelensky to abandon talks in the hope of exhausting Russia in a protracted war. Senior Russian officials kept angrily raising this point in meetings with their American counterparts. “Utter bulls—,” a senior Biden administration official told me. “I know for a fact the United States didn’t pull the plug on that. We were watching it carefully.”

Zelensky’s new position, which hasn’t changed since, was to demand a full withdrawal of Russian troops from all Ukrainian lands conquered since 2014, including Crimea, and the prosecution of Russian officials suspected of war crimes.

“In Istanbul, we still didn’t understand the type of war that Russia was waging, its genocidal intent,” Podolyak explained. “Once we returned from Istanbul, and the Russians left the Kyiv region, we saw the beastly crimes that they had committed there. And we understood that Russia will try to annihilate Ukraine no matter what.”

That’s enough for tonight.

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Mirror Match!

Open thread!

Reader Interactions

25Comments

  1. 1.

    Alison Rose

    We are expecting similar steps from our other partners, including the United States

    I mean…sigh.

    I saw that video of the hero calling his mother earlier (with subtitles) and thought I could make it through without crying. Three guesses as to whether that was correct or not.

    Thank you as always, Adam.

  2. 2.

    Jay

    (((tendar)))
    @Tendar
    16h
    Russia’s latest escalation in procuring and even using North Korean missiles emphasizes once again that treaties and agreements with Russia are not worth the paper on which they are written on. This case in particular shows that, brazenly. Short thread:

    UN Security Council Resolution 1718 explicitly forbids North Korea from importing and exporting of:

    – battle tanks
    – armoured combat vehicles
    – large calibre artillery systems
    – combat aircraft, attack helicopters
    – warships
    – missiles or missile systems

    I have added of the section of resolution. UNSC Resolution 1718 (October 14, 2006) has been agreed upon, unanimously. Yes, even Russia agreed upon this because they never couldn’t imagine back then to epicly fail so that they need to import weapons and ammunition from North Korea.

    UNSC Resolution 1718 has been extended and reaffirmed, twice. In UNSC Res. 2276 (March 2016) and UNSC Res. 2407 (March 2018).

    What does this tell us? First of all, that the UN and the UNSC in particular are worthless. Well, this is hardly breaking news, but it is worth pointing out. As long as Russia sits in the UNSC, this council is inherently broken and needs to be disbanded. The upcoming UNSC meeting on January 10, you can forget. But that is a topic for another day.

    More importantly is the fact that Russia repeatedly violates its own agreements whenever necessary. Nothing what is agreed with Russia can be taken for granted. Treaties and agreements are for the Kremlin sole means to keep enemies at bay, and once the time is ripe, the treaties and agreements get torn apart. It happened with the Budapest Memorandum, countless other agreements. The UNSC Res. 1718 is only the latest proof.

    In reference to Putin-Russia, we are dealing with a deeply uncivilized and imperial-thinking country which only understand the language of absolute violence. I also want to crush all hopes if anyone thinks that Putin will change his mind. He will not, he cannot. Not even when we destroy another million Russians, because he made the decision for himself that this is his last fight. For him, it is about making history in the manner of all Russian emperors and he will not settle with a half-hearted ceasefire. He cannot because this is not too “grand”. He will order to fight until his beloved Russian empire is restored or somebody puts a 9mm bullet between his eyes, whatever comes first. Until then, expect a lot of death.

    For the decision makers in reference to Ukraine the case cannot be clearer than now. Ukraine must receive every weapon necessary. I also want to be very blunt. All those weapons must have the capabilities not only hit Russian-occupied territories in Ukraine, but need to be used on Russia soil as well. Enough with the half-measures. A Russian target is a Russian target, no matter where it sits.

    With Ukraine’s victory, Putin will lose his entire gamble and will offer a pathway for someone in his inner circle to move against him, quite easy, because Russians can sustain hardships except for one: Defeat.

    https://nitter.net/Tendar/status/1743191294116061362#m

  5. 5.

    Adam L Silverman

    @Jay: I didn’t include that not because it isn’t true. It is. Or because it isn’t interesting. It is. But because the reality is it just doesn’t matter. No one complies with a UN Security Council resolution if they don’t have to and/or if someone more powerful isn’t compelling them to do so.

  9. 9.

    Bill Arnold

    Good to see that Yaroslav Trofimov Wall Street Journal piece. WSJ seems to be publishing honest reporting on the (current) Russian invasion of Ukraine.
    (And thanks for the full text. WSJ paywall is annoying. Somebody posted the text to reddit as well.)

  10. 10.

    YY_Sima Qian

    @Adam L Silverman: That design flaw was intentional, to bring the great powers onside at the outset to create the UN. Then over the decades the great powers inevitably abused their privileges more & more:

  11. 11.

    YY_Sima Qian

    Sure seems that it was Moscow that missed an opportunity to end the invasion early on terms that were rather friendly to its claimed justifications & interests. Of course, even if a deal was struck at Istanbul, the discovery of the butchery at Bucha soon after would have made attempting to execute the deal untenable in Ukraine. Then again, Putin could have thrown the ethnic Mongolian troops from Buryatia & Tuva that committed the atrocities under the bus if he really wanted a deal.

  13. 13.

    tokyocali (formerly tokyo ex-pat)

    Thank you, Adam, for packing so much in. I can’t imagine trying to negotiate with people who could be  trying to poison you at the negotiating table. We owe Ukraine a great deal for holding the line.

  14. 14.

    YY_Sima Qian

    @Adam L Silverman: OT: Any comments on the proposal for Gaza’s “Day After” outlined by Yoav Gallant? It has been panned by every US expert/analyst I am following on Twitter. Sure has a whiff of Israel treating the U.S. as its client state. Not sure if the Israeli security establishment is high on its own supply, or if it is a performative act design to defect pressure from the Biden Administration, while deliberate humiliating the latter at the same time.

    & Yoav Gallant is among the supposedly  more “reasonable” actors in the Israeli elite, as opposed to the likes of Smotrich & Ben-Gvir.

  15. 15.

    YY_Sima Qian

    A Twitter thread by Jeffrey Lewis examining the ballistic missile debris found from recent strikes in Ukraine, & concluding that these are from North Korean KN-23 series & not Russian Iskanders. Useful to click through the link to see the relevant photos.

    The case for the Russian missile that struck Kharkiv on January 2 being a North Koran Hwasong-11 variant is a very, very strong. A short thread building on the work of the #OSINTatMIIS team, especially the amazing @DuitsmanMS.

    A point of clarification. North Korea manufactures several variants of the Hwasong-11 including the Hwasong-11A (US designation: KN-23) and the Hwasong-11B (KN-24). We’re still not sure which variant was used in the attack on Kharkiv. I made a chart to help you out.

    Based on the description of the graphic that the USG handed out, which mentioned both the KN-23 and KN-24, it seems the USG isn’t certain either. TBH, the variants look very similar when shiny and new. What’s left of the missile at the end of the ride is pretty well-done. https://reuters.com/world/europe/russia-hit-ukraine-with-missiles-north-korea-kyiv-2024-01-05/

    For our comparison, we have many pictures of North Korean Hwasong-11 SRBMs under production at the February 11 Machine Plant near Hamhung. We also have many pictures of Iskander debris from combat in Georgia, Azerbaijan and now Ukraine.

    There are two points to make: First, the debris in Kharkiv is very similar to North Korea’s Hwasong 11 A/B. Second, the debris is distinctly unlike Russia’s Iskander. Let’s look at two bits of the missile: the top of the solid rocket motor and the base.

    The top of the motor has a metal plate covering the access port for the igniter. The North Koreans bolt that plate on the Hwasong-11 A/B with 20 evenly spaced bolts. The Russians use 18 bolts in six groups of three for Iskander. The debris has 20 evenly spaced bolts.

    Another coincidence — a variant of the Hwasong-11 has an irregular pattern of fastening points around the edge of the casing at the top of the motor. The pattern on the debris matches perfectly. We’re not sure which variant (A or B) has that pattern, but we know one does.

    The bottom of the missile has four jet vanes for steering the missile. The mechanism that moves the vanes is housed in a little box. The housing on the Hwasong-11 A and B is blocky and trapezoidal. The housing on the Iskander is rounded. The housing in the debris is trapezoid.

    The Ukrainians actually unbolted at least one of the housings and took a picture of it. It looks identical to what we see on the Hwasong-11 A and B.

    Last but not least, the base of the Russia’s Iskander has circular ports to house penetration aids (countermeasures to fool missile defenses.) North Korea’s Hwasong-11 A and B have no PENAIDS in the base, which is smooth as a baby’s bottom. The base in the wreckage is smooth.

    This is a damning set of similarities. The missile is certainly not an Iskander. The case for this being a Hwasong-11 variant is very, very strong. In fact, I can’t imagine a stronger case short of a worker leaving a signed note from Kim Jong Un inside the guidance compartment.

    If Russian is acquiring NK ballistic missiles (& possibly Iranian ones in the future), then we absolutely have to reevaluate the sizes of the attacks Russia will be able to manage through the winter. Guesstimating Russian production rates will no longer be sufficient.

  17. 17.

    Adam L Silverman

    @YY_Sima Qian: It isn’t going anywhere, its DOA.

    How many times have I written here that Israel is the client that thinks its the patron?

    Gallant is a retired general. Just like Gantz and Eisenkot. They are all actually much more hawkish than Bibi. Their actually constituency is the military and intel/security services. None of them are interested in a 2 state solution or slowing down/stopping the settlements in the WB. They’re not just publicly obnoxious assholes like Bibi, Smotrich, ben Gvir, etc.

  19. 19.

    YY_Sima Qian

    @Adam L Silverman: Do you think this was a “serious” (in its own mind) attempt by the Israeli government at “day after” planning, or is it more of a cynical attempt to both deflect US pressure & humiliate Biden at the same time.

    If Israel is willing to cede overall security in Gaza responsibility to the multinational force, & allow such a force (plus the Gazan civilian police force that will have to be stood up) to be 1st responders to the inevitable militancy & terrorism that initially remain in Gaza, then it might be less DOA.

  20. 20.

    YY_Sima Qian

    @Adam L Silverman: Well, between Japan offering dozens of its older Patriot batteries to Ukraine via the UK, & NK selling some of its SRBMs to Russia, at least countries in NE Asia do not appear to expect imminent war in the region.

    A positive sign in this ever more turbulent world? /s

  21. 21.

    Adam L Silverman

    @YY_Sima Qian: I’m not sure you could tell the difference between sincere or kayfabe from these people.

    The problem is you’ll never get a multinational force. None of the Arab states are going to send personnel. Of the non-Arab Muslim states, none of them will either. There won’t be any US troops regardless of who might also be suggested as being part of this.

  25. 25.

    NotoriousJRT

    @Gin & Tonic: I’m so sorry about this and so much else in this horrible war that is a crime. It occurs to me over and over again that Russia’s aggression in Ukraine impels Ukraine to lose even as it may overcome or hold its own.  All the damage inflicted by weapons of both armies is inflicted on Ukraine. It is nauseating to consider that Ukrainians are blasting their own homeland as they fight to save it – to say nothing of all the criminal destruction and death perpetrated by Russian criminals.  I feel such anger (and at times despair) from this distance, I cannot fathom what must be in the hearts of the Ukrainians themselves.

Comments are closed.