Come for the politics, stay for the snark.

So it was an October Surprise A Day, like an Advent calendar but for crime.

If you’re pissed about Biden’s speech, he was talking about you.

Narcissists are always shocked to discover other people have agency.

There are more Russians standing up to Putin than Republicans.

Nikki Haley, who can’t acknowledge ‘slavery’, is a pathetic shill.

“They not like us!” (that’s for sure!)

Republicans are radicals, not conservatives.

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

Be a traveling stable for those who can’t find room at the inn.

If marriage is the equivalent of selling yourself into slavery, women with self respect should reject the offer.

Sitting here in limbo waiting for the dice to roll

Putting aside our relentless self-interest because the moral imperative is crystal clear.

The Supreme Court cannot be allowed to become the ultimate, unaccountable arbiter of everything.

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

The words do not have to be perfect.

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

Sadly, there is no cure for stupid.

Jack Smith: “Why did you start campaigning in the middle of my investigation?!”

Every reporter and pundit should have to declare if they ever vacationed with a billionaire.

This blog will pay for itself.

Ah, the different things are different argument.

In short, I come down firmly on all sides of the issue.

Come on, man.

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

You are here: Home / Foreign Affairs / War for Ukraine Day 738: President Zelenskyy’s Patience Begins To Wane as the Butcher’s Bill in Odesa Comes Due

War for Ukraine Day 738: President Zelenskyy’s Patience Begins To Wane as the Butcher’s Bill in Odesa Comes Due

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Painting by NEIVANMADE. It has a black border. There are grey buildings with black windows along the left side. The center is a yellowy-grey, perhaps Ukrainian wheat fields. There is a black shadow figure striding through it. The figure's legs and feet are all that is visible of it. On the right side are red Zs, which symbolize Putin's/Russia's "Z" war/special military operation in Ukraine. The sky above the buildings is light grey. "GENOCIDE IS GOING BUT WHO EVEN CARES?" is painted in black in the upper left hand corner.

(Image by NEIVANMADE)

The Russians opened up on Odesa again over night.

The butcher’s bill includes a mother and her three month old.

WARNING!! WARNING!! GRAPHIC IMAGERY!! WARNING!! WARNING!!

There is a Patriot battery in Odesa. You’ll recall that it was being used to excellent effect back in November, December, and January to protect the city and the region around it from Russian bombardment. As I wrote about back in January, it now appears to be either out of ammunition or there is so little that it is being rationed to try to make it last. Which, of course, makes the battery functionally useless.

President Zelenskyy’s patience with the US’s and its EU and NATO allies and partners inability to keep their promises and resupply the Ukrainians is beginning to wear thin. Here is his address from earlier today. Video below, English transcript after the jump.

Delay in supplying weapons to Ukraine and anti-aircraft defense systems to protect our people leads to loss of lives – address by President Volodymyr Zelenskyy

2 March 2024 – 19:05

Dear Ukrainians,

A rescue operation lasted all day in Odesa at the site of the Russian strike by a Shahed drone. Currently, the State Emergency Service, police, and other services continue to work – there is information about people under the rubble. It was an ordinary residential building – one of many destroyed by the inhuman Russians.

As of now, seven deaths are known, including two children. One infant – four months old, named Tymofiy. And the boy – Mark, who hadn’t turned three yet. I pass my condolences to all their families and loved ones.

Eight people were injured – including another child, a three-year-old girl. Necessary assistance is provided to all who have been injured. I thank everyone who participates in the rescue operation, and who supports people. And it is very important to be together, to help each other.

Such attacks by Shahed drones have no military sense and cannot have any. This is terrorism aimed solely at destroying lives, solely at intimidating people.

The world knows what can be opposed to terrorism. The world has enough missile defense systems, systems to protect against Shahed drones and missiles. And delaying the supply of weapons to Ukraine, missile defense systems to protect our people leads, unfortunately, to such losses, to the fact that the list of children whose lives Russia takes away constantly grows. Ukraine asked for nothing more than necessary to protect lives. When lives are lost, and partners are simply playing internal political games or disputes that limit our defense, it’s impossible to understand. It’s unacceptable. And it will be impossible to forget – the world will remember this.

Russian terror must be defeated. It’s fundamental. There is nothing they recognize in Moscow except strength. Therefore, there must be more of our strength. And unity. Unity of the world. Unity here, in Ukraine.

If anyone still lacks motivation, Shahed drones every night – that’s motivation. Russian missiles, Russian evil. Every loss of ours. Every soldier of ours who gave his life for the independence of Ukraine. A clear understanding of the enemy and real, not feigned respect for our heroes – all this is motivation to fight. To destroy the occupiers. And work for our state and people. For the strengthening of Ukraine.

Everyone who works for the state must be in the state, for the state, care for the state. For common interests, not personal ones. Personal interests – after the war. Now, everyone must support defense, care for people, preserve lives. Every day, everyone must add something to Ukraine – to our common strength.

Every day, I communicate with partners so that we can get exactly what is needed. Every day – military reports. Every day, the Commander-in-Chief and commanders are on the front lines, right where they are needed. The Commander-in-Chief has carte blanche for personnel changes in the army, in the headquarters – any changes.

All Ukrainian commanders must know the front, feel the front – the real needs. They must be with the soldiers, sergeants, in reality. They must be what is needed to achieve Ukrainian goals.

At the beginning of next week after General Colonel Syrskyi’s return from the front, I expect him with a detailed report and specific proposals for further changes and actions.

We are preparing for further work with partners – our meetings, our negotiations – for the sake of weapons for Ukraine, for the sake of the continuity of support.

Strength is needed, from everyone. We need to win this battle. The battle against evil and also against despair, on which Putin is counting heavily. We need to protect Ukraine and lives. And we can do it.

I thank everyone who is currently in battle, on the front lines, on combat missions!

Thank you to all the soldiers of mobile fire groups, and everyone who defends our sky!

Thank you to everyone who works in the defense sector and increases our own production of weapons every day. It’s extremely important.

And now, I also want to acknowledge the team of the State Emergency Service of Ukraine – all rescuers, especially those who are currently working in Odesa. Denys Panteleyev, Vitaliy Churylin, Oleksandr Kovzolovych, Oleksandr Doha, Dmytro Holovchenko, Oleksiy Harmash, Fedir Kaysyn, Oleksandr Popov, Mykhailo Tegza, Andriy Bakhmetyev, Hennadiy Karageorgi. Thank you, guys! Thank you to all of you, thank you to your colleagues!

Glory to everyone in Ukraine, for Ukraine, and with Ukraine!

Glory to Ukraine!

The Ukrainians also shot down another SU-34 today.

The Netherlands:

 

The Netherlands will contribute €250 Million to the Czech initiative to deliver artillery shells for Ukraine.

The military aid package also include 14 rigid-hulled inflatable boats (RHIBs), 8 militarized river patrol boats and CB90 combat boats.

We are grateful to our Dutch partners for their unwavering support. The power of unity brings Victory day closer.

If Czech President Pavel can pull this off, those 800,000 155mm shells will be put to good use. But they’re not a solution to the Ukrainians problem. Those 800,000 rounds will last about three months or so. What is necessary is that the US and its allies in Europe and NATO need to put their defense sectors, if not their entire economies, on a war footing. Full on militarized Keynesianism. Which will have the beneficial effect of driving economic growth overall. Otherwise Russia is going to throw bodies and military material at the Ukrainians. And, unfortunately, Russia has both bodies and military material to burn while Ukraine does not.

My piece for @TIME, a cry for getting back to the spirit of “Their Finest Hour” that we had in the Battle of Kyiv 2022.

“We survive as a nation thanks to that moral choice of doing what is right…. We hope that America does the right thing. It is not too late yet.”

https://time.com/6836750/ukraine-biden-us-congress/

Illia Pomomarenko writing at Time:

A little over two years ago, in the dead of a quiet night in late February 2022, pretty much every journalist in Ukraine was wide awake.

The rolling thunder of missiles was soon heard from all quarters of the Ukrainian capital. TV channels broadcast live video of gigantic plumes of fire over Ukrainian cities. And endless convoys of trucks and armored vehicles marked Z and V breaking through along most of the Ukrainian border. The unthinkable—the most catastrophic European war of aggression since Adolf Hitler—had begun.

I often go back to those early days of the Battle of Kyiv. Even more so this week amid a showdown in the U.S. Congress over $60 billion in military aid to my country.

Bach in February 2022, we were all alone. What little Western military materiel we possessed had been sent to us via an air bridge from the free world in the final weeks, or even just days, before the invasion. It was supposed to be our nation’s doomsday.

Yet no words can do justice to the unbelievable spiritual uprising of those days. So many men and women decided not to go down easy. The Ukrainian military came to life, ambushing and devastating gargantuan Russian columns advancing over woodland roads toward Kyiv.

Ukrainians stubbornly remained in the semi-surrounded capital to fulfill their duty. Businesses fed vulnerable elders and delivered meals from their restaurants to military units defending Kyiv. Many people volunteered to bring medicine and essentials to war-affected suburbs. Even more tied yellow tape around their sleeves, grabbed their hunting rifles, and self-organized into Territorial Defense units.

It was awe inspiring to witness regular people lining up to get Kalashnikov rifles from the police or preparing Molotovs in Kyiv’s Obolon to fight the invaders coming for their homes. Many, including me, moved their loved ones out of harm’s way and then got back to Kyiv out of a moral duty we’d never felt before.

Those we had elected to lead us recorded videos of themselves standing together in the Kyiv government quarter. Their message to the nation: “We are all here, defending our Fatherland.”

It was the final stand of the finest hour. The very same hour about which old Winston Churchill had once intoned in World War II. And as you know, against expectations, Ukraine prevailed in that battle.

What followed was the hell of a full-scale, prolonged war against one of the world’s most formidable military powers—and the dictator who could not come to terms with his shocking failure.

It’s been just over two years since the beginning of the Battle of Kyiv. Since then, Ukraine liberated half of its territory lost to Russia after 2022 and set off a whole range of hallmark events. The gargantuan Battle of Donbas. The liberation of Kherson. The stunning operation in Kharkiv Oblast. The Russian navy’s debacle in the Black Sea. The rise of drones as the next level of modern warfare.

Ukraine did not go it alone. Entire nations overcame their fears and hesitation and became our strong backers in war—Britain, and Germany, grappling all along with their own history, and so many other nations as well, united behind the crystal-clear vision of the horrifying threat of Russian aggression.

In victories and setbacks, here we are now—an independent nation in control of 80% of our sovereign territory, mourning our dead, sending our gratitude to friends, and grasping at any straw to carry on. We survive as a nation thanks to that moral choice of doing what is right.

Millions of men and women do so every day as they fight back in a terrible and uneven battle against the aggressor, or as they raise funds to buy FPV drones for the outgunned military, or as they work hard to keep Ukraine’s shattered wartime economy afloat.

But right now, we see America heartbreakingly fractured and in disarray over Ukraine aid. Hand on heart, knowing what America has always been and stood for, that was the last thing we in Ukraine expected.

As friends and willing partners, we Ukrainians ask the Republicans who are vocal opponents of aid to drop their obstructionism. Because, to quote Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer, who took a surprise trip to Ukraine last month, “history is looking down upon you, looking over your shoulder,” he said in Kyiv. “Rise to the occasion.”

We hope that America does the right thing. It is not too late yet.

The Finns get it:

Finland is the absolute contrast to this German government. Jukka Kopra, chairman of the defense committee of the Finish parliament, said that weapons from the Nordic country can be used against military targets in Russia.

And this how it is done. Russia is a bully, which talks a lot. But Russia is full of it and the only way to deal with a bully is to punch him. Every red line which Russia announced in the beginning in this war, was crossed and proved that Russian threats are hollow.

Source (Finish): https://yle.fi/a/74-20076799

More from Odesa:

 

Visited the site of Russia’s attack in Odesa. Sadly, as of 1:30 pm, there are already 4 casualties; one of the victims is a child. This is one of the largest-scale cases of destruction caused by a drone strike. About 10 to 12 people could be under the debris. The rescue operations are ongoing.

This is a policy of genocide that is being pursued by the highest leadership of the Russian Federation. These criminal orders are being passed on to the military, who are attacking Ukrainian cities. We must stop this.

Ukraine needs more air defense systems to protect our civilians, more weapons and ammunition to stop the commission of war crimes here and in temporarily occupied territories.

Kostin is the Prosecutor General of Ukraine.

Feodisiya, Russian occupied Crimea:

The Robotyne front:

Avdiivka front:

St. Petersburg, Russia:

Which probably explains this:

AN UAV crashed into a civilian building in St. Petersburg last night. Russian sources stated the UAV was on its way to strike a nearby oil depot but missed by just a few hundred meters. No casualties among the civilian population. What is also curious is the launch location: some sources said it came from the east, that is, the Russian mainland, but this will be almost impossible to confirm.

Just a reminder that St. Petersburg is the capitol of Leningrad Oblast. While they renamed the city after the fall of the Soviet Union, they didn’t rename the oblast.

Krasnodar Krai, Russia:

Ooopsie!

That’s enough for tonight.

Your daily Patron!

I don’t want death for children on the other side of the border, even if they’re the children of enemies. I dream of a time when russia will be isolated, unable to wage wars, and bribe state leaders with gas, oil, or simply blackmail. I dream of a great wall and a solid Ukrainian army. This war is forever. The only question is, who will we be in this war? Victims or those who stopped the evil of the 21st century? We cannot do this without your support.

Open thread!

Reader Interactions

16Comments

  1. 1.

    J. Arthur Crank

    Ukraine asked for nothing more than necessary to protect lives. When lives are lost, and partners are simply playing internal political games or disputes that limit our defense, it’s impossible to understand. It’s unacceptable. And it will be impossible to forget – the world will remember this.

    That is it in a nutshell.

  2. 2.

    cain

    The Ukrainians and Russians from what I can tell here in Portland have been fairly comfortable with each other and tend to form a communal group of “russian speaking people” demographic.

    I’m wondering with all this that is happening how the Russian and Ukrainians abroad are dealing with each other?

  3. 3.

    Gin & Tonic

    @cain: Do you also refer to the Irish as “english-speaking people?” Or Algerians as “french-speaking people?”

  4. 4.

    ColoradoGuy

    The Republicans might as well make a clean breast of it and call themselves the “Fascist Party” henceforth. Any pretense to an Eisenhower GOP, which the NYT and Washington media still believe in, is long gone. It’s all fascist now.

  5. 5.

    hrprogressive

    @ColoradoGuy:

     

    There is a reason I continually refer to them as the Fascist Republican Party.

    And why I continue to be shocked that so many others refuse to acknowledge Why the GOP is blocking Ukraine aid.

    Not because of dysfunction.

    Because they want Russia and Fascism to win.

  6. 6.

    Another Scott

    PS01
    @PStyle0ne1
    Mar 1

    Ukrainian ingenuity.

    Military personnel of the Armed Forces of Ukraine began to massively drop mini-hedgehogs onto the roads using drones, thereby complicating the logistics of the Russian troops.

    Mar 1, 2024 · 12:36 PM UTC

    Interesting. (Short video of welded tetrahedrons made from sharpened pieces of rebar, and truck with shredded tire.)

    (via https://twitter.com/sambendett )

    Slava Ukraini!!

    Cheers,
    Scott.

  9. 9.

    Jay

    @cain:

    in countries that have large numbers of ruZZian 5th columnists, and pro-ruZZian and Nazi parties, Ukrainian refugees and pro-Ukrainian demonstrations have been attacked by ruZZians. Memorials have been destroyed. Poland, Slovakia, Austria, Germany, France.

  11. 11.

    glc

    @Gin & Tonic: Yes.

    When they’re part of an expatriate community united by language. Which certainly happens, in the two cases mentioned. Some may be monolingual, others bilingual (or more), but that particular community is defined by the language they communicate in. I’ve been part of such communities myself.

    There was a curious Kurdish community in a suburb of Paris (Sarcelles) consisting of two populations which normally would have lived about 500 km apart. Their languages had some significant differences,  in particular two distinct pronominal systems, which generated a third, new one. A direct consequence of forming a linguistic enclave within a larger population. It happens.

  13. 13.

    Warblewarble

    This past week Sec, Def. Austin has acknowledged that 25000 women and children have been killed by Israel in Gaza (not to mention the many thousands more injured and maimed). He further disclosed that the US has supplied 21000 precision guided munitions to Israel. One has to wonder about the priorities here, is it more in America’s interest to aid in Israels campaign to remove Palestinians from their land , than to aid Ukraine to remove orcs from theirs?

  14. 14.

    bjacques

    @cain: in my office here in Amsterdam are Russians and Ukrainians. They work together and some even hang out together at lunch. My job involves calling Russians often and Ukrainians occasionally and they don’t always speak English. I ask my Russian colleagues to call Russians and Ukrainian colleagues to call Ukrainians.

  15. 15.

    YY_Sima Qian

    @bjacques: Out of curiosity, how do your Russian colleagues view the invasion of Ukraine, aside from being glad that they are not in Russia to be drafted as cannon fodder?

  16. 16.

    YY_Sima Qian

    Pretty shocking Twitter thread on the erasure of Palestinians from Google’s Gemini LLM AI chatbot:

    Raphael Mimoun
    @RaphMim

    I didn’t believe it so I checked Google’s AI (Gemini) myself.  A case study in erasure and dehumanization
    …

    I tried the prompts in Gemini myself & receive the same results. This is PRC level self-censorship right here.

    I am sure Google’s Gemini development team is driven by fear of courting controversy. Ask it about any of the Israeli-Arab wars or Israeli Palestinian conflicts & you are advised to search on Google. Ask “whether China is carrying out genocide against Uighur in Xinjiang”, one gets a concise answer that nevertheless covers the major opposing view points. Ask “should Taiwan be independent”, one also gets a a concise answer that nevertheless covers the major opposing view points. Same if one asks “is China’s Nine Dashed Lines legal”.

    Ask “are Israeli settlements in the West Bank illegal”, one still gets a concise answer that nevertheless covers the major view points. Ask “did China invade Vietnam in 1979”, one gets an answer. Ask “did Israel invade Lebanon in 1982”, Gemini asks you to search on Google.

    However, the erasure of Palestine & the Palestinians is total as of this moment on Gemini. Nothing containing “Palestine”, “Palestinians” & “Gaza” show any results.

    Aside: Ask “what happened in Tiananmen Square”, the answer only refers to the bloody crackdown in 1989. While that is certainly one of the most important events that has ever occurred in Tiananmen Square, & most likely the only one the vast majority of non-Chinese are aware of, it is not the only event of note in the location’s history. Mao held multiple “Million Red Guard” rallies there during the Great Proletarian Cultural Revolution. There were sizable protests against the Cultural Revolution held in the square in 1976, ostensibly to memorialize the passing of PRC Premier Zhou Enla. It is the main site of huge parades held every 10 years on China National Day. In 2013, 3 Uighur terrorists set off an improvised car bomb at the edge of the square, killing themselves & 2 tourists (a Chinese & the spouse of a Filipino diplomat). Gemini could have simply copied & pasted the Wikipedia article.

    In any case, most of the massacre on Jun. 4, 1989 occurred along the Chang’an Avenue leading toward the Square, there is no evidence of bloodshed in the Square itself. One would hope that a LLM trained from data comprising the whole of internet can get the details right.

Comments are closed.