Come for the politics, stay for the snark.

The cruelty is the point; the law be damned.

I was promised a recession.

There are some who say that there are too many strawmen arguments on this blog.

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

We’re not going back!

There are consequences to being an arrogant, sullen prick.

GOP baffled that ‘we don’t care if you die’ is not a winning slogan.

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

Speaker Mike Johnson is a vile traitor to the House and the Constitution.

You can’t attract Republican voters. You can only out organize them.

Pelosi: “He either is stupid, or he thinks the rest of us are.” Why not both?

I know this must be bad for Joe Biden, I just don’t know how.

An unpunished coup is a training exercise.

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

When we show up, we win.

I see no possible difficulties whatsoever with this fool-proof plan.

Republicans do not pay their debts.

Never entrust democracy to any process that requires republicans to act in good faith.

“The defense has a certain level of trust in defendant that the government does not.”

After dobbs, women are no longer free.

Republicans are the party of chaos and catastrophe.

Even though I know this is a bad idea, I’m off to do it anyway!

… gradually, and then suddenly.

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

You are here: Home / Foreign Affairs / War for Ukraine Day 769: Ukraine Strikes Deep Into Russia!

War for Ukraine Day 769: Ukraine Strikes Deep Into Russia!

by | 64 Comments

This post is in: , , , , , , ,

A picture of a white cessna flying with a sunset sky behind it. The The caption is in yellow. Above the plane it reads; "CESSNA". Below the plane: "PENETRATING RUSSIAN AIR SPACE SINCE 1987".

Before we get started, just a couple of housekeeping items. First, than you all for the well wishes. However, I just want to make clear that I put the full disclosure in last night so that you all could decide whether my exposure and resulting issues colors my analysis. Also, just a quick note: Defense Base Act (DBA) is not actually workman’s comp for contractors deployed forward even if it is commonly referred to that way. While the person deployed is the person being insured, the actual beneficiary is the company. And the company decides if, should a DBA payout be made, they pocket it or they pass it along to their injured or wounded employee. Don’t even get me started on DBA fraud.

Second, I know a lot of you are trying to make sense of the Israeli strikes – there were three  covering around 2km of distance between the lead and rear vehicles – that hit the World Central Kitchen convoy last night. I highly recommend this republication of this Haaretz English article, which explains the gap between Israel’s official rules of engagement (ROE) and what is actually being done by Israeli forces. I recommend the repub because Haaretz is paywalled. I also recommend these two detailed Thread Reader App unrolls of long detailed threads. The first is by Dmitri Reader, the founder of +972 Magazine that includes extensive quotes from the two Haaretz articles about the strikes. The second is by Jeremy Konyndyk, the former head of disaster relief at USAID. I also recommend this detailed thread on Bibi and his extremist coalition’s attempt to convert Israel into a Hungarian style managed illiberal democracy and how they’re working to ram through a new law that will break the protests so they can use the state of emergency caused by the war to finish the job in the next several weeks. There’s an update post here. I apologize in advance, but there’s no Thread Reader App unroll for this thread. As a result I posted the links to one of the last surviving and working Nitter instances. Finally, as I write this, the humanitarian assistance missions in Gaza are grinding to a halt. The UAE, which was the primary financier of the humanitarian assistance coming by sea from Cyprus has temporarily suspended its support. 240 tons of food aid for the Gazans that was already making steam for the Gazan coast turned back to Cyprus this afternoon. World Central Kitch, as well as a large US based NGO doing humanitarian assistance have suspended their operations. All of this not because of the threat from Hamas or PIJ, but because they’re scared their people will get wounded or killed by the Israelis!

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

The air defense systems available in the world cannot just gather dust somewhere in depots when they can save thousands of lives from Russian terror – address by the President

2 April 2024 – 19:55

Dear Ukrainians!

Rescue operation is underway in Dnipro following a Russian missile strike. The buildings of a college and a kindergarten were damaged. All services are on the scene. I am grateful to everyone who is responding, who is arriving at the sites of the attacks to help people as soon as possible. This is the most important thing. It is equally important that Russian terrorists are getting responses to their strikes. Each time, they are getting more and more far-reaching responses. I am grateful to each of our warriors, to all Ukrainians who ensure this. The Russian war system, everyone involved in this aggression – all of them must truly feel that they will not get away with this aggression. Evil must lose. And it will lose. I emphasize this again: For Ukraine, air defense is about protecting lives, it is something that has to be in use. The air defense systems available in the world cannot just gather dust somewhere in depots when they can save thousands of lives from Russian terror.

The second point for today.

A conference on justice for Ukraine, that is, on holding all Russian murderers and terrorists accountable, is underway in The Hague, in the Netherlands. Justice will be inevitably ensured. I thank everyone who helps. I thank the Netherlands for their leadership. I thank the entire team of the International Criminal Court. I thank all the countries working with us under the relevant clause of the Ukrainian Peace Formula. And, of course, I want to thank all Ukrainian police officers, all investigators, all detectives, all prosecutors, all experts, everyone involved in the investigation of Russian war crimes and bringing the perpetrators to justice. I thank everyone who records evidence and helps the victims. This is a tremendous job. As of today, investigators of the National Police of Ukraine alone have registered more than 114,000 crimes related to Russia’s aggression. Justice must be established in each case. People need to feel it, and Russia must be held legally accountable. We are also actively working with our partners on the assets of the terrorist state and its associates. All frozen Russian assets – in different jurisdictions – must be used for defense against Russian aggression and restoration of normal life in our country after the Russian terror. This is an absolute must. And this year, real progress is needed on the relevant, completely fair decisions, primarily in American and European jurisdictions.

And a few other things that are important to note. I held a meeting with the Security Service of Ukraine, the Ministry of Digital Transformation, the State Special Communications Service, and the Secretary of the National Security and Defense Council on the situation with online casinos. The reports were informative. We are preparing appropriate steps that will provide the necessary control over the industry and help protect the interests of society properly. Today, I continued the tradition of our state’s respect for Ukrainian diversity. Ukraine’s strength is that we have many different communities among our people, and we value and honor each of them. This is the way it should be. I met with representatives of Protestant churches and the Catholic Church – these are millions of our people who celebrated Easter this Sunday. I greeted them. I thanked them for supporting Ukrainians, for being here in our country, in different parts of Ukraine, including the frontline areas. It is also important for our Christian communities and churches to develop the institute of military chaplaincy. This is a real support on the frontline: there must be those who help the human spirit find the necessary support. And, of course, we appreciate the efforts of churches in communicating with Christians around the world so that people everywhere know the truth about the war here, about Russian evil, about the crimes committed by the occupiers. This dialogue between churches and communities – the dialogue of truth – is effective. When light exposes evil, the war will sooner be ended fairly for Ukraine.

I thank everyone who helps Ukraine! I thank everyone who protects life, our state, our independence! I thank our warriors! Krasnohorivka, Novomykhailivka, Pervomayske, Tonenke, Klishchiivka, Terny, Bilohorivka and all other places of fierce battles – battles for the sake of Ukraine. I thank everyone who holds their ground and destroys the occupier. We must win.

Glory to Ukraine!

Estonia:

🇪🇪Estonia has the opportunity to buy some two to three billion euros’ worth of shells and missiles for the Ukrainian army if the allies provide the funds, Estonian Defense Minister Hanno Pevkur

Considering the prices of shells, Postimees estimates that this could amount to approximately one million shells and Grad rockets.

«As for ammunition, funding is currently the bigger concern rather than the availability of munitions. When it was said that there was a lack of munitions, the Czech initiative to acquire 800,000 shells shows that munitions are actually available. Estonia also has a wide range of countries from which we could buy shells for Ukraine. I stated this yesterday at Ramstein, that if anyone is ready to financially contribute, they should contact us. We have the capability to purchase shells for Ukraine, including in large quantities and quickly.»

Full article: https://news.postimees.ee/7986347/postimees-in-ukraine-estonia-knows-where-to-purchase-two-billion-euros-worth-of-shells-for-ukraine

The cost:

Ukraine struck deep into Russia today.

The Cessna jokes are all good fun, but it appears to actually be a Ukrainian made drone.

Here’s the full text of the tweet #4 above:

/4. It’s noticeable that during this attack drones of a new model were used. Nothing is known about its characteristics besides the fact that it has a range which is at least couple hundreds kilometers more than the maximum range of the Ukrainian kamikaze “Lyutyi”, which were used to attack Russian targets within a distance of up to 1000 km.

P.S: This were not UJ-22 as Russian media claim

 

Tatarigami calls out the hypocrisy:

Here’s his full piece via the Thread Reader App:

During a press briefing, US Representative to NATO Julianne Smith said that the US is not particularly supportive of Ukraine going after targets inside Russia, sparking understandable outrage. I echo this sentiment. In this context, I think we should look at a few key points:

Source: state.gov/online-press-briefing-with-ambassador-julianne-smith-u-s-permanent-representative-to-nato-4/

Firstly, when a military adversary strategically positions hubs and vital industries, integral to its military operations, within its territory, targeting becomes necessary for achieving victory. Therefore, statements like those made by the US representative may seem either ill-informed or hypocritical, given that the US used this approach in almost every conventional war, such as WW2, Desert Storm, or the 2003 Iraq War. For instance, during the Desert Storm air campaign, 17 out of 20 generating plants were damaged or destroyed, with 11 considered total losses.

https://www.washingtonpost.com/archive/politics/1991/06/23/allied-air-war-struck-broadly-in-iraq/e469877b-b1c1-44a9-bfe7-084da4e38e41/

While Russia has attempted to reach similar objectives in Ukraine over the past years with partial success, it defies logic and reason why Ukraine should refrain from hitting targets crucial to Russian forces and its military complex.

Secondly, there’s a diplomatic aspect to consider. It’s unfair to blame the representative herself solely for the US policy stance, which likely stems from the current administration’s security approach. While the US has the right to impose restrictions on supplied weaponry, even though it’s not helpful, public dissatisfaction with Ukrainian strikes made by Ukrainian weaponry is harmful.

It may appear as mature diplomacy to certain circles in Washington DC, but it’s viewed as a weakness by the Russian side, potentially inviting further escalation. This is evident in Russia’s continued escalation of the war and deployment of North Korean ballistic missiles to target locations within Ukraine.

When we compare straightforward facts and metrics between 2024 and 2022, it’s clear that both the number of participants and the geographical dimension of the war have grown. If anything, it just underscores the glaring failure of the current administration’s approach focused on containment and de-escalation.

If you’re wondering where Russia is getting its ballistic missiles, Reuters has the answers you’re looking for.

DUBAI, Feb 21 (Reuters) – Iran has provided Russia with a large number of powerful surface-to-surface ballistic missiles, six sources told Reuters, deepening the military cooperation between the two U.S.-sanctioned countries.

Iran’s provision of around 400 missiles includes many from the Fateh-110 family of short-range ballistic weapons, such as the Zolfaghar, three Iranian sources said. This road-mobile missile is capable of striking targets at a distance of between 300 and 700 km (186 and 435 miles), experts say.

Iran’s defence ministry and the Revolutionary Guards – an elite force that oversees Iran’s ballistic missile programme – declined to comment. Russia’s defence ministry did not immediately respond to a request for comment.

The shipments began in early January after a deal was finalised in meetings late last year between Iranian and Russian military and security officials that took place in Tehran and Moscow, one of the Iranian sources said.

An Iranian military official – who, like the other sources, asked not to be identified because of the sensitivity of the information – said there had been at least four shipments of missiles and there would be more in the coming weeks. He declined to provide further details.

Another senior Iranian official said some of the missiles were sent to Russia by ship via the Caspian Sea, while others were transported by plane.

“There will be more shipments,” the second Iranian official said. “There is no reason to hide it. We are allowed to export weapons to any country that we wish to.”

U.N. Security Council restrictions on Iran’s export of some missiles, drones and other technologies expired in October. However, the United States and European Union retained sanctions on Iran’s ballistic missile programme amid concerns over exports of weapons to its proxies in the Middle East and to Russia.

A fourth source, familiar with the matter, confirmed that Russia had received a large number of missiles from Iran recently, without providing further details.

Ukraine’s top prosecutor said on Friday the ballistic missiles supplied by North Korea to Russia had proven unreliable on the battlefield, with only two of 24 hitting their targets. Moscow and Pyongyang have both denied that North Korea has provided Russia with munitions used in Ukraine.

By contrast, Jeffrey Lewis, an expert with the Middlebury Institute of International Studies at Monterey, said the Fateh-110 family of missiles and the Zolfaghar were precision weapons.

“They are used to point at things that are high value and need precise damage,” said Lewis, adding that 400 munitions could inflict considerable harm if used in Ukraine. He noted, however, that Russian bombardments were already “pretty brutal”.

A Ukrainian military source told Reuters that Kyiv had not registered any use of Iranian ballistic missiles by Russian forces in the conflict. The Ukrainian defence ministry did not immediately reply to Reuters’ request for comment.

Following the publication of this story, a spokesperson for Ukraine’s Air Force told national television that it had no official information on Russia obtaining such missiles. He said that ballistic missiles would pose a serious threat to Ukraine.

Former Ukrainian defence minister Andriy Zagorodnyuk said that Russia wanted to supplement its missile arsenal at a time when delays in approving a major package of U.S. military aid in Congress has left Ukraine short of ammunition and other material.

“The lack of U.S. support means shortages of ground-based air defence in Ukraine. So they want to accumulate a mass of rockets and break through Ukrainian air defence,” said Zagorodnyuk, who chairs the Kyiv-based Centre for Defence Strategies, a security think tank, and advises the government.
Kyiv has repeatedly asked Tehran to stop supplying Shahed drones to Russia, which have become a staple of Moscow’s long-range assaults on Ukrainian cities and infrastructure, alongside an array of missiles.

 

The Zaporizhzhia front:

The Bakhmut front:

Novomykhailivka:

The Avdiivka front:

The Insider has published another part of their joint investigation with Der Speigel and CBS News regarding Havana Syndrome.

Here are some excerpts:

Vitalii Kovalev worked for years as the executive chef of some of the American East Coast’s most prestigious Russian-themed haute cuisine restaurants. After his arrest following a car chase in Florida in June 2020, evidence emerged that Kovalev, throughout his culinary career, had also been serving as an undercover technical officer for the GRU, Russia’s military intelligence service. One of the FBI agents who interviewed the Russian spy after his arrest later suffered symptoms of Havana Syndrome, a phenomenon that, according to a new report by The Insider, 60 Minutes, and Der Spiegel,may have been caused by a directed energy weapon wielded by the GRU itself.

It starts with a classic American car chase. And like an episode of Cops, it was all caught on the dash and body cams of Monroe County Sheriff’s deputies in Florida.

Just after 11:00am on June 16, 2020 the dispatcher issues a BOLO alert over the radio: be on the lookout for a white convertible Mustang. The car is traveling at speeds of 110 miles an hour, weaving in and out of traffic on Route 1 heading north out of Key West, Florida. The driver can be seen talking on his cellphone as he veers into head-on traffic. The pursuit carries on for 15 miles, until deputies throw spike strips across the blacktop that blow out his tires and force the Mustang off the side of the road.

Bodycam footage obtained by 60 Minutes shows guns drawn and deputies ripping the driver out of the car as he grabs for his bag on the passenger seat. As the kicked-up dust clears, we see a white male with hands cuffed behind his back and the contents of his beach bag all around him.

There are some odd things in that bag: a soot-covered bowl used to burn paper, pieces of a hotel notepad with bank account information scribbled on them. One officer says, “This is weird though. Look at this, it’s all like…Citibank…Discover Savings – $75,000. It’s all, like, different bank accounts and stuff.” There’s a laptop and a spider’s web of cables and what looks to be a commercially available device, shaped like a walkie-talkie, that can plug into a car and read the information on the onboard computer. It can also erase information such as the onboard GPS data. And also in the bag is a Russian passport.

The name on the passport is Vitalii Kovalev, born in St. Petersburg in 1985. He has a green card and a New York State driver’s license. Answering his arresting officers, Kovalev speaks in near-perfect English, saying “yes” when a deputy reads him his Miranda rights and asks if he understands he doesn’t have to say anything to the police. But he talks anyway — for nearly 45 minutes in a combination of conversational Russian and English. What’s truly bizarre is that he’s talking to no one in the vicinity; his chatter is all captured on an onboard camera in the back of the cop car where Kovalev is sitting, handcuffed, while the police officers are scouring through his bags’ belongings outside the car. But Kovalev’s pauses and responses make it seem as if he’s conversing with someone.

“Yes, because this one, he drove here, too,” Kovalev says. “Because it’s necessary to… needs twenty…Mistakes are unknown, sixteen is fucking a lot ….Yes, five. He could hold five. If weaker, four, four.”

He has no known devices on him after the arrest — no earpiece connected to a cell phone. He is wearing casual clothes and a pair of eyeglasses that are slowly descending down the bridge of his nose. “An agreement is an agreement,” Kovalev continues. “An agreement is an agreement. An agreement is an agreement. An agreement is an agreement…I didn’t kill anyone. I never. I never killed. I never… No, here I’ll be very sad… then I’ll go to Russia.” At this point his glasses fall to the floor, and coincidentally or not, his chatter ends.

Kovalev would plead guilty to charges including resisting an officer and evading police, along with an assault charge for spitting on a nurse giving him a Covid test while in custody (he tested positive). A Florida judge issued a $40,000 bond, meaning he could have paid to get out of jail (he clearly had the money), but for some reason he chose not to.

Kovalev spent 26 months in jail in Florida, from June 2020 to August 2022. 60 Minutes learned that during that time, Kovalev drew the attention of the FBI. During the 6 months after his arrest, FBI agents spent about 80 hours interviewing him.

The reason the story of Vitalii Kovalev is relevant to the joint investigation 60 Minutes, The Insider and Der Spiegel have conducted into Anomalous Health Incidents, more commonly known as Havana Syndrome, is because of what happened to one of the case agents who interviewed him for those many hours.

Carrie is an active FBI agent and we are not revealing her full name. She was authorized by the FBI to speak with 60 Minutes about her personal experience but was not allowed to discuss her case work. Several other sources described Carrie as experienced in counter intelligence work and made a name for herself in the Bureau for work against Russian and other intelligence operations in Florida.

While Kovalev’s statements to the FBI are classified, sources have told 60 Minutes that after the rounds of interviews were completed, he was offered the chance to sign a document confessing to working as an illegal Russian agent, but he declined and went back to jail. A few months later, Carrie was hit with symptoms consistent with Havana Syndrome while she was home in Key West.

“All of a sudden, it was like somebody flipped a switch, and bam, inside my right ear, it was like a dentist drilling on steroids,” Carrie told Scott Pelley on 60 Minutes. “It was like a high pitched, metallic drilling noise, and it knocked me forward at, like, a 45-degree angle this way. Immediately [I] felt pressure, and pressure and pain started coursing from inside my right ear, down my jaw, down my neck, and into my chest, while that sound was concentrated inside my right ear.”

Carrie says she was hit a second time about a year later at her new posting in California. She is still suffering debilitating symptoms that she says left her “not the same as I used to be.”

Kovalev told the authorities he was an unemployed chef from New York who was only in Key West to visit the Ernest Hemingway Home and Museum. A source with knowledge of the investigation told 60 Minutes he had traveled down the East Coast, booking rooms at the Trump Hotel in Washington, D.C. and then at another hotel in Miami. But he never checked out of them. Behaving like a spy, he kept his reservations active, likely to hide his actual location. When police asked him why he ran from them he said simply, “I don’t know.” And we don’t know for sure what he was doing in Key West. There were no pictures of Ernest Hemingway’s house in his phone. A source told us there were pictures of one of the tallest buildings in the town and the lock to the front gate.

Key West is a known target of foreign intelligence – especially Russian foreign intelligence – because of the several U.S. government and military facilities in the area.

Scanning social media and open-source records, 60 Minutes, The Insider, and Der Spiegel found Kovalev had worked as the executive chef at three popular Russian haute cuisine restaurants, two Mari Vannas — one in New York, the other in D.C. — and Ariana Soho (shuttered in 2015). The restaurants were popular in the late 2010s in both cities. Russian hockey players, international pop stars, and U.S. government officials regularly ate there, often within feet of one another. And Kovalev was the top chef of record in both 2012 and 2013. We found a petition for a non-immigrant visa for Kovalev, sponsored by the D.C.-based Mari Vanna. His talents in the kitchen earned him write-ups from local food critics and spots on morning TV cooking segments. But there was much more to Kovalev’s talents than his modern take on borscht.

As part of his U.S. visa application we found the equivalent of Kovalev’s university transcript. He was a 2009 graduate of the St. Petersburg State Marine Technical University, Russia’s leading naval engineering institute. Kovalev studied in its military engineering department, and his transcript shows he earned credit hours in classes like “protection of state and commercial secrets,” “electroacoustic transducers,” and “digital signal processing techniques.” His graduate thesis was titled, “Efficiency of Helicopter Noise Detection Channels.” While studying at this institute, Kovalev was employed as an engineer at the Elektroavtomatika engineering and R&D lab, a wholly owned subsidiary of MIG, the Ministry of Defense’s military aircraft manufacturer. The company boasts on its now defunct website that it is the leader in development of advanced onboard navigation systems for the military industry.

And yet, after two months of a cooking certificate program and some time in the kitchens of a few restaurants in Saint Petersburg, he was off to New York and D.C. on a special talents visa to run high-profile kitchens.

The Insider’s investigative team dug into records on the Russian side that paint a much different picture of the man who cooked for celebrities — and who had a young wife, Maria, living in Brooklyn.

The team found that Kovalev had a military secrets clearance at level X3, an inevitable perk given he had worked as an electronics engineer in a military engineering facility. That is not the highest level of clearance in Russia, but it does indicate that, due to the secrets he knew, in 2012 Kovalev could not have left Russia to work as a chef without special clearance from the Federal Security Service, or FSB, one of the successor agencies of the Soviet-era KGB.

Kovalev got out of prison in Florida in August of 2022. We are told he had been warned about going back to Russia, that spending 80 hours with the FBI might not sit well with authorities there. But in September 2022 he flew home via Belgrade and posted a picture of himself having drinks with friends on Instagram. “You won’t believe it. Right now in St. Petersburg :),” Kovalev posted.

But he didn’t stay long, according to travel records obtained by The Insider. In October he told friends he was leaving on a “business trip” and to contact him through the mail. Records show that in December he took a train from St. Petersburg to Rostov-on-Don, near the Ukraine border. On New Year’s Eve 2022, he crossed into the Luhansk region of Ukraine via the Russian border crossing at Novoshakhtinsk.

From there, Kovalev’s digital trace goes cold as, evidently, he himself did. A death certificate for him was issued on February 8, 2023. Typically in wartime, the Russian authorities conduct investigations into how their soldiers are killed on the battlefield. In this case, no such investigation was carried out. Kovalev’s death certificate states that he died from traumatic hemothorax and multiple fractures of the ribs, wounds caused by unclarified military actions during a period of active service. According to military records, Kovalev was not mobilized — not officially, at least. He was a reserve officer and was never supposed to leave Russia without express permission.

Was he sent to the front explicitly to die, either at the hands of Ukrainian forces or at those of his own side? What was he doing in the United States, under what seems to have been the elaborate cover of a four-star chef?

Kovalev’s family announced his death to friends on social media on March 1, 2023. He was buried at Kazan cemetery in St. Petersburg the next day.

“I assess that I was targeted — because I pissed off the wrong people for doing what I was doing,” Carrie, the FBI agent who interviewed Kovalev, told 60 Minutes. “And all I was doing was my job and trying to protect my country.”

After production was complete on the 60 Minutes story and a television promo was released showing clips of the car chase and arrest of Vitalii Kovalev, 60 Minutes and The Insider were approached by a former senior U.S. government official who worked in counterintelligence. That source said he recognized Kovalev from his appearance in the promo and remembered his case. Kovalev, the source said, was known by the U.S. government to be a technical officer for the GRU, Russia’s military intelligence service, as well as a member of the FSB cyber unit called the 16th Directorate. Other members of the 16th Directorate, or Center 16, have been indicted for a widespread hack of controls at energy infrastructure objects — like power plants — in the U.S. and elsewhere.

As our joint yearlong investigation has shown, there is compelling evidence linking Havana Syndrome to a directed energy weapon wielded by operatives of GRU Unit 29155.

This much coincidence takes a lot of planning!

That’s enough for tonight.

Your daily Patron!

There are no new Patron tweets or videos today, so here’s some adjacent material.

“We, Our Pets, and War”

A moving documentary by
@ptuxerman
about victims of Russia’s war that we rarely really talk about – our beloved doggos and cats.

They suffer, too, and lose their loved ones, too, and they seek warmth and comfort amid this war, too.

Make sure to see it if you’re in Ukraine now.

This will apparently be streaming in May.

Open thread!

Reader Interactions

64Comments

  1. 1.

    hrprogressive

    Do you have any inclinations yet on whether the Israeli strike against WCK folks was…

    A horrendous miscalculation/intelligence failure or…

    There can’t be any way that was intentional right?

    And if it was ever determined to be intentional…would that matter vis-a-vis getting Israel, especially Netanyahu, to lose further support for what they are doing? Does that even matter to those folks any longer? I’m sure it doesn’t, but.

    Yeah. That just seems incredibly awful in ways I’m not sure I know how to describe.

    Thanks as always.

  2. 2.

    hrprogressive

    Apologies for a double comment, but I read that MSN article, and, I mean. To sort of answer my own question, it definitely seems plausible that the IDF is just making shit up as they go along, and has no qualms about annihilating anyone that isn’t explicitly in the IDF, the identity of the people and/or actual threat to the IDF or Israel be damned.

    So maybe it wasn’t that the IDF said “Aha, do-gooders from the WCK, let’s take ’em out”! but rather that some nebulous “zone of death” existed and those people went into it, so the IDF killed them because, well, you shoulda stayed out of the kill zone?

    I find it might get harder and harder for allied nations to continue to give much more support to Israel if this kind of indiscriminate bloodshed continues but I’m not an expert so I’m probably wrong.

  3. 3.

    Ishiyama

    Never trust fundamentalists of the Abrahamic faiths; genocide is written as God’s will in their holy texts. (This is true of some other long-established faiths, but that’s out of context in the present conflict in Palestine.)

  4. 4.

    Adam L Silverman

    @hrprogressive: Lack of adult supervision. From Dimi Reider, who I referenced in the post, via the Thread Reader App:

    And here we go – several new military source speaks to Haaretz: The commanders (plural) and units (plural) acted IN CONTRAVENTION of both overall instructions *and orders*.
    Says one IDF intelligence source: “The General Staff know exactly why WCK were bombed – 
    – because in the Strip, everyone does whatever they like.”
    It’s unclear whether the commanders asked for more senior officers’ permission to target the convoy, as they were meant to be doing per standing orders.
    The same sources dismissed the line taken by the Chief of Staff 
    Hertzi Halevy and Defense Minister Yoav Galant, who suggested the bombing was the result of coordination issues. “This has nothing to do with coordination – they can set up another 20 coordination hubs – but if someone doesn’t put an end to how some forces 
    …in the Strip have been operating, we’ll see this happen time and time again.” End quote.
    So yeah, multiple units in the IDF have gone completely out of control, per IDF sources. 

  5. 5.

    Another Scott

    I read Amb. Smith’s comments today a little differently. State.gov transcript:

    QUESTION: Yes, yeah. Thank you so much. Ambassador, thank you so much for your time. I have two quick questions. On Ukraine, as you know, Russia keeps increasing the targeting of Ukraine’s energy infrastructure, and there were reports recently that the U.S. was against Ukraine hitting back inside Russia on Russian energy infrastructure. I was wondering – just wanted to ask you directly that are there any constraints placed upon Ukraine in how Ukraine fights back or takes the fight back into Russia? I’m asking because there’s a growing sentiment that Ukraine is given enough to survive, but not enough to win.

    And my second question – as you know, the Secretary General just returned back from the South Caucasus. Just wondering if there is anything going to be discussed in upcoming ministerial about South Caucasus. Thank you so much.

    AMBASSADOR SMITH: Thank you. On the question about U.S. views on how – the way in which Ukraine conducts this war or how it’s defending its territory – I mean, first and foremost, let me just re-emphasize that we believe Ukraine has every right to defend its territory against this unprovoked Russian aggression. And we, the United States, we have already provided upwards of $44 billion U.S. of security assistance to ensure that they can do so effectively. And as I noted, we’re continuing to encourage our friends in Congress to get the supplemental done so that more support can flow into the hands of Ukrainian military commanders.

    In terms of actually going after targets inside Russia, that is something that the United States is not particularly supportive of. We are focused on Ukrainians’ right to defend its territory and to push Russians out of its territory, where the Ukrainians have had considerable success. And again, our objective is to help them continue to see those victories on the battlefield.

    […]

    QUESTION: Sorry, I’m asking a question from Portugal, from Expresso newspaper. I’ve seen other people also asking about this. There’s been a lot of talk about a mandatory military service being floated again in Portugal, in Spain, and beyond. And I guess the talk of impending war is making its way a bit. A few leaders have been raising these questions, not only in Poland and the Baltics, but also Emmanuel Macron, as we know. He has talked about leaving no options off the table.

    So my two questions are: How serious do you think that the Russian war soon will actually happen? And will boots on the ground be discussed at all in this next summit, or is this something that is completely off the table? Thank you.

    AMBASSADOR SMITH: Well, thank you very much. The U.S. does not support sending troops to fight in Ukraine. We’ve been very clear about that on day one: We are not interested in becoming party to this conflict, but we do want to support Ukraine as it defends itself against Russian aggression.

    And as for the security of NATO territory, again, we’ve taken countless steps to enhance deterrence and defense all up and down the eastern flank. We have increased our troop presence across Eastern Europe. We just finished an exercise that included 90,000 NATO troops participating in it. So there is a lot underway to enhance our defense and deterrence, but we are not signaling to anyone that war is imminent.

    In fact, as we noted in the run-up to Russia’s war in Ukraine, we look for indicators and warning. As was the case with Ukraine, we had clear evidence in the months leading up to February of 2022 that Russia was preparing for war. And we monitor the situation regularly, as you might imagine, to look for other indicators and warnings that Russia is preparing to do something above and beyond what it’s doing in Ukraine. Right now we see Russia all in and engaged with this unprovoked war of aggression inside Ukraine, but we do not have indicators and warnings right now that a Russian war is imminent on NATO territory, and I really want to be clear about that.

    (Emphasis added.)

    I think “we’re not particularly supportive” is actually very careful diplomatic language, and I think the more important statement is “we’re not interested in becoming a party to this conflict”. They’re trying to make clear that we’re not running the show. Ukraine is fighting its war of self-defense its own way, the US isn’t egging them on. We don’t want VVP or anyone else thinking – or even arguing – that the USA or NATO is directing Ukraine’s conduct of the fight inside russia. US diplomats aren’t going to say “go get ’em, tear ’em up inside russia!!”.

    Much of the rest of her comments sound to me like a successful student of Prof. Silverman’s classes. ;-)

    My $0.02. YMMV.

    Cheers,
    Scott.

  6. 6.

    brantl

    I don’t understand how anyone who calls themselves a human being can excuse what Israel is doing any longer. It’s just horseshit to pretend that they give a shit about Gazan civilians anymore.

  7. 7.

    Nukular Biskits

    During a press briefing, US Representative to NATO Julianne Smith said that the US is not particularly supportive of Ukraine going after targets inside Russia …

    Whiskey Tango Foxtrot, Over?

    Seriously? I hope Smith is going solo and this doesn’t represent official US policy.

  9. 9.

    Paul in KY

    I love that they used a Cessna or a Piper Cub and foiled their air defenses. Putin must be livid.

  12. 12.

    Gin & Tonic

    @Another Scott: You are far more charitable than I am. These remarks are not made in a vacuum, they are part of an ongoing pattern that is poisoning the well in Ukraine. I am roundly disappointed in Amb Brinks – she needs to convey clearly to Sullivan or Blinken or whoever is feeding the Ambassadors their talking points, what effect those remarks are having in Kyiv. Otherwise why have a career officer there in the first place?

    Dictating to Ukraine how they should fight a war for national survival *using their own weaponry* is blindly idiotic at best, and more likely actively harmful.

  13. 13.

    glc

    @Another Scott:

    We are not interested in becoming party to this conflict,

    Interesting wording – a declaration of neutrality. One would have thought that ship had sailed.

  14. 14.

    Bill Arnold

    Here’s the Ido Benbaji thread, including the update, as a threadreader rollup.
    (That nitter link doesn’t work for me (maybe VPN related) but I have a twitter account and invoked threadreader for that thread.)

  16. 16.

    Manyakitty

    Screw that nonsense. Let Ukraine use their own freaking brilliant weapons to knock every refinery and factory completely out. Then they can start on government and infrastructure targets. And so on.

  18. 18.

    Harrison Wesley

    @Jay: But Senator Graham can lecture them on how they need to recruit their whole adult population to fight that war – they just can’t use any weapons to do so.

  19. 19.

    HumboldtBlue

    O/T —

    A major earthquake with a magnitude of 7.4 struck off Taiwan’s eastern coast Wednesday, according to the US Geological Survey, prompting tsunami warnings for the island and southern Japan.
    The quake’s epicenter is located about 18 kilometers (11 miles) south of the city of Hualien.
    Taiwan’s Central Weather Administration issued a tsunami warning following the quake. An alert from CWA was sent to residents, though not all received it, warning that a tsunami was expected to impact the northern coastal area and that residents are advised to evacuate to higher ground.
    The Japan Meteorological Agency also issued a tsunami warning for Miyakojima and Okinawa islands, warning of waves up to 3 meters expected imminently.

  20. 20.

    Jay

    @Paul in KY:

    It is a modified Aeroprakt A-22 Foxbat, built as a light aircraft in Ukraine, turned into a lethal drone in Ukraine.

    And the so called “Technical Institute Dormitory” that ruZZia claims was hit, is actually a slave labour camp where so called students, (mostly impoverished Foreign students and ethic minorities) are cut off from outside communication, in theory paid a couple of rubles a day, worked up to 24hrs a day, with no brakes, 7 days a week, assembling Shahed drone kits from Iran,

    all in theory for a “free” technical education.

  22. 22.

    Adam L Silverman

    @Nukular Biskits: I covered this a couple of weeks ago. According to the reporting the Biden admin told Zelenskyy they didn’t want Ukraine doing this. Zelenskyy has confirmed the reporting.

  29. 29.

    Another Scott

    WhiteHouse.gov:

    APRIL 02, 2024
    Statement from President Joe Biden on the Death of World Central Kitchen Workers in Gaza

    I am outraged and heartbroken by the deaths of seven humanitarian workers from World Central Kitchen, including one American, in Gaza yesterday. They were providing food to hungry civilians in the middle of a war. They were brave and selfless. Their deaths are a tragedy.

    Israel has pledged to conduct a thorough investigation into why the aid workers’ vehicles were hit by airstrikes. That investigation must be swift, it must bring accountability, and its findings must be made public.

    Even more tragically, this is not a stand-alone incident. This conflict has been one of the worst in recent memory in terms of how many aid workers have been killed. This is a major reason why distributing humanitarian aid in Gaza has been so difficult – because Israel has not done enough to protect aid workers trying to deliver desperately needed help to civilians. Incidents like yesterday’s simply should not happen. Israel has also not done enough to protect civilians. The United States has repeatedly urged Israel to deconflict their military operations against Hamas with humanitarian operations, in order to avoid civilian casualties.

    The United States will continue to do all we can to deliver humanitarian assistance to Palestinian civilians in Gaza, through all available means. I will continue to press Israel to do more to facilitate that aid. And we are pushing hard for an immediate ceasefire as part of a hostage deal. I have a team in Cairo working on this right now.

    Earlier today, I spoke with my friend Chef José Andrés, the founder of World Central Kitchen, to convey my deepest condolences for the deaths of these courageous aid workers and to express my continued support for his and his team’s relentless and heroic efforts to get food to hungry people around the globe.

    May God bless the humanitarian workers killed yesterday and comfort their families and loved ones in their grief.

    ###

    Israel is continuing to walk on thin ice that’s getting thinner… (IMO)

    Cheers,
    Scott.

  30. 30.

    Jay

    @Adam L Silverman:

    yup I remembered.

    I made sure to include that paragraph because Vatniks/Useful Idiots/ Kremlin Apologists/ Tankies/5th Columnists,/The Usual Suspects are already crying about the dead 12 “students” at the “technical school”.

    And thank you for the 927 Mag link.

  32. 32.

    bookworm1398

    @ Jay. The Indian press has had some stories lately about Indian students in Russia being forced into war related stuff – maybe they’ll break up over it?

     

    On Smith’s remarks I don’t find them surprising. US may have hit Iraq power plants but they would certainly have considered an Iraqi attack on a US power plant to be unacceptable. Those are just the rules for the US government

  33. 33.

    lee

    Funny story I actually saw the plane land in Red Square. I was in the USSR on a student trip and we were in Gum when it happened.

     

    We heard the sound first and immediately knew something was up as there was no air travel over Moscow.

     

    Ran out of Gum and watched it land. Decided pretty quick that being an American at that location was probably not a good idea so we left.

  35. 35.

    Jay

    @bookworm1398:

    The Indian press has had some stories lately about Indian students in Russia being forced into war related stuff – maybe they’ll break up over it?

    We will see, ruZZia has various “bait and switch” programs, targeting people from the second and third worlds, from students, asylum seekers, temporary Foreign Workers suckering them into ruZZia, then giving them a “choice” between signing a contract to join the Army in the SMO, (where they are the lowest of the low “meatcubes”), or go to the Gulag on false charges for a couple decades.

  36. 36.

    Percysowner

     

    Haaretz an Israeli news source is reporting that the attack was intentional. Supposedly the IDF believed that an armed Hamas operative was in the convoy and ordered the attack on the convoy. The IDF had previously cleared the convoy and its route. The convoy was clearly marked as being WCK and the IDF fired on it three times. https://twitter.com/rulesbasedworld/status/1775139640724332626 The kicker is the guy they were targeting wasn’t on the convoy. He remained at the warehouse when the convoy left.

    This is unconscionable. The BEST interpretation is that the IDF has decided that it is acceptable to kill 7 innocents to kill ONE Hamas operative. Israel has been pushing the boundaries for so long and this can only bring international outrage. I do think it is time for Biden to stop supplying weapons to Israel, at least until there is a full investigation and a public report. Israel seems to have done what sometimes happens to victims. They have turned the injustices that have been visited on them back to their enemies and think they are justified. I don’t know if there can be a successful negotiation between the sides, but something has t give.

  38. 38.

    Carlo Graziani

    @Another Scott: I read this the same way: plausible deniability.

    Anyone who actually believes that a US diplomatic statement deploring Ukrainian deep strikes into Russia makes any difference to the number or power of those strikes is an idiot. I feel sure that nobody at NSC, DOD, or even State believes that any US handwringing affects anything, other than creating some distance between the war and (catastrophic) US involvement therein.

    If the US really wished to restrain those strikes, it would leverage economic sanctions analogous to the ones in place against Russia and China, and pressure allies to join the chorus. This public stuff is pure posturing. Despite the made-for-the-24-hour-news-cycle counter-posturing, I very much doubt that anyone in authority in Ukraine takes this noise seriously either.

  39. 39.

    YY_Sima Qian

    @hrprogressive: I believe the IDF does not have an explicit policy of targeting WCK aid workers because they are aid workers (UNWRA may not be so lucky), or targeting Gazan civilians solely because they are civilians. In contrast, Putin clearly has a policy of targeting Ukrainian civilians & civil infrastructure to generate terror. However, the IDF’s ROE clearly does not weight the risk of collateral damage at all, & does not hesitate from putting large numbers of civilians at risk just to go after 1 low level Hamas/PIJ operative. At this point, & has been for months, it is a distinction w/o a difference. Plus, Israel clearly has a deliberate policy of rendering Gazan uninhabitable for Gazans even after the war, as it is systematically destroying civilian infrastructure & housing even in pacified/secured areas. Israel is also a committed believer in exacting collective punishment as a form of deterrence, but that mentality has now been taken to such an extreme in the current War in Gaza that it has been divorced from any semblance of strategy or theory of victory. There have also been reporting that the IDF has indeed set up “death zones” where all non-IDF persons are presumed hostile. That is how 3 Israeli hostages that escaped their captors ended up being executed by the IDF, despite being unarmed, undressed from the waist up, waiving white flags & screaming for help in Hebrew. All of these are war crimes.

    Even w/ the IDF’s sordid history in the Occupied Territories & Southern Lebanon, I never thought I would ever be drawing equivalence w/ Russian conduct in Ukraine, but here we are.

    Out of all of the Biden Administration spokespeople, John Kirby has to be by far the worse when it comes to risible gaslighting in service of defending Israeli conduct, & snippets from his press conferences have become damning memes on social media in every part of the world. Latest example (video through the link):

    Moshe Schwartz
    @YWNReporter

    SC Spokesperson John Kirby: There is no evidence that Israel deliberately struck and killed WCK aid workers in Gaza. Kirby adds that to date, the US has found no instances where Israel has violated international humanitarian law in their war with Hamas.

  40. 40.

    YY_Sima Qian

    @Adam L Silverman:

    @Jay:

    I posted the link to the +972Mag article when it was 1st published, in the comments of one of these daily posts. However, when the victims were faceless Gazan civilians, the much of the Western world does not take notice, although the article was spread far & wide on social media in the Global South.

  42. 42.

    YY_Sima Qian

    @Another Scott: After all the months of atrocities & war crimes, the Biden Administrations has not taken a single action to hold Israel to account, or inhibit Israeli freedom of action in any way. The rhetoric expressing increasing concern, while I am sure are sincere, are mainly for public consumption to limit the domestic political and international geopolitical damage. My guess is Bibi thinks he is on solid ice, & I think he is right in the short to medium term. (Long term Israel is burning bridges w/ the younger generations across the world.)

    The Biden Administration is set to approve the sale of 50 F-15s to Israel, immediately after Israel just struck the Iranian embassy in Syria (another violation of international law), killing several Iranian commanders. It seems that Israel is spoiling for a regional war to damage any & all perceived threats to its security, a war that neither Iran nor Hezbollah appear to be eager to engage in even while they are harassing Israeli interest as well (such as shipping in the Red Sea).

    The Biden Administration has been working hard to prevent such an escalation, but its carte blanche to Israel may well give Israel the means to wage such a war on its own initiative (or at least give it such an impression), irrespective of US interests.

  43. 43.

    YY_Sima Qian

    Terrific & timely new interview in the New Yorker between Isaac Chotiner & Aaron David Miller just dropped. The pathologies revealed at so many levels is actually breathtaking:

    Biden’s Increasingly Contradictory Israel Policy
    A former State Department official explains the Administration’s sharpening public critique of Israel’s war and simultaneous refusal to “impose a single cost or consequence.”
    By Isaac Chotiner
    April 2, 2024

  44. 44.

    Sister Inspired Revolver of Freedom

    The US has to halt all, & I mean ALL, weapon shipments to Israel full stop. This is inhumane! Wild animals are eating the bodies of dead Gaza children. I can’t even address the murder, & it was murder, of the World Central Kitchen aid workers. I just don’t have the words. I try to donate to World Central Kitchen every month, & this has left me seething with rage.

    If the US can keep blithely shipping weapons to Israel , it can sure af find a way to ship them to Ukraine. As for these little lectures about how Ukraine should conduct a war for its very existence, Fuck That Noise! As long as the US continues to support the absolute carnage unfolding in Gaza, it has no moral authority to lecture anyone.

    Thank you as always Adam.

  45. 45.

    YY_Sima Qian

    @HumboldtBlue: I was on con calls this morning that included colleagues in Taiwan, they experienced several strong aftershocks during the meetings. Elevators were shut down throughout the country as a precaution, so some had to walk up dozens of floors to reach their offices. They report that everything is fine in Taipei & surrounding areas, but some older buildings have collapsed in Hualien in NE Taiwan.

    Tremors were felt as far away as Shanghai, Hangzhou & Hefei on the Mainland.

  46. 46.

    Jay

    @YY_Sima Qian:

    Canada has cancelled, ( not frozen) all arms and police sales to Israel. That’s $23 million of tech, sensors, avionics, ammo, vehicles and “police” equipment.

    In addition, after the UN Put Up Or Shut Up About edict about Israel providing proof of their claims about the UNRWA, and got crickets, refunded the agency

    Israel has long been our #2 client for arms sales, after the US.

  47. 47.

    Kay

    Thanks for the links on the aid workers, Adam.
    Balloon Juice had a big post up when World Food Kitchen went into Gaza – it would be pretty ridiculous if the site ignored the news now that some of those aid workers have been killed, especially since it’s front page news in the US and internationally.

  49. 49.

    YY_Sima Qian

    @Jay: That’s right, northern Gaza is now rife w/ armed gangs as the result of the security vacuum left by the IDF, who is not willing to take over the responsibilities as the occupying power, as required by international law.

  50. 50.

    YY_Sima Qian

    @Jay: Glad to hear that Canada has resumed funding to the UNWRA. Hope more Western governments follow suit. They should not have been frozen just based on unsubstantiated Israeli accusations to begin w/, & I have to wonder if quick actions by so many Western governments so quickly as soon as the accusations were initially made, & on the same day as the ICJ rendered preliminary judgment on the accusation of Israeli genocide in Gaza to boot, was not the result of a major US diplomatic push.

  51. 51.

    YY_Sima Qian

    Evidence of the geopolitical price the US is paying for its stance on Gaza, & the glaring discrepancy vis-a-vis its stance on Ukraine:

    The State of Southeast Asia: 2024 Survey Report
    The State of Southeast Asia 2024 Survey conducted by the ASEAN Studies Centre at ISEAS – Yusof Ishak Institute reveals that Southeast Asia’s top preoccupations are with unemployment, climate change, and intensifying economic tensions between major powers. The Israel-Hamas conflict is the region’s top geopolitical concern, while China has edged past the US to become the prevailing choice if the region were forced to align itself in the ongoing US-China rivalry.

    Particularly striking is the shift in relative sentiments in the region toward the PRC & the US (Section IV of the report). The some of the biggest shifts from 2023 to 2024 were seen in Malaysia, Indonesia & Brunei, all predominantly Muslim countries. If anyone is wondering why the PRC has been quite willing to risk its hitherto highly pragmatic & highly productive relationship w/ Israel in order to stand in solidarity w/ the Global South on Gaza (in contrast to India’s early embrace of the Israeli perspective), this is why. Of course, the PRC position is entirely selfish & cynical, entirely rhetorical. It has done very little to provide relief for the humanitarian crisis in Gaza.

  52. 52.

    patrick II

    Ukraine must strike inside of Russia to defend their territory. If Russia is given a safe zone from which to launch missles, they will never stop and it is just a matter of time before Ukraine loses the war.
    I don’t think it is news to anyone here that Russia is at war with democracy in every way but direct military action. I hate to sound like a warmonger but democracy is something we must fight for not something we get to keep for free and without risk.

  53. 53.

    Noskilz

    As always, thanks for the daily updates, and special thanks for including a link to that repost of the Haaretz article – I’d been seeing a lot of references to it, but not being a subscriber I couldn’t read it.

    I am really curious about the mechanics of whatever coordination system the IDF has – clearly, it doesn’t work very well. At a minimum one would expect it to alert the relevant forces you can expect to see such and such vehicles in this area at in this time frame, but that doesn’t seem to have been the case. Did the information not get to where it needed to go, or did the recipients just not care?

  54. 54.

    Paul in KY

    @Jay: Thank you for that info! The Ukrainians have been great at modifying things you wouldn’t first think of into lethal weapons. So very impressed!

  56. 56.

    YY_Sima Qian

    @Noskilz: Evidence clearly point toward “not caring”, & has been the case since the Israel war of vengeance started in the wake of the pogroms on 10/7/23.

  57. 57.

    YY_Sima Qian

    Another hard hitting investigation from +972Mag & Local Call:

    ‘Lavender’: The AI machine directing Israel’s bombing spree in Gaza
    The Israeli army has marked tens of thousands of Gazans as suspects for assassination, using an AI targeting system with little human oversight and a permissive policy for casualties, +972 and Local Call reveal.
    By Yuval Abraham

    April 3, 2024

    It is a frightening read, less the callousness that the IDF has displayed toward “collateral damage” among Gazans (blindingly obvious since early on), but what it portends for warfare in the future, as other militaries race to absorb the lessons & adopt similar technologies & practices. Combine that w/ the prevalence of increasingly autonomous drones in Ukraine..

    Of course, specifically targeting suspected terrorists after they enter their residences where their extended families live is surely both violations of LOAC & malpractice at tactical/operational/strategic levels.

  58. 58.

    Bill Arnold

    @YY_Sima Qian:
    Thanks. (Deep sigh. This is genuinely Evil.)
    If we allow such a future, this will also be how right-wing death squads operate, and how totalitarian governments will perform Purges.

  59. 59.

    Bill Arnold

    Still seeing very angry red from the ‘Lavender’ 972mag link above from YY_Sima_Qian.

    On a lighter, Ukraine-related note, this is probably Adam-bait, and worth a proper embed.
    Helicopter, landed on Su-30 decoy painted on the tarmac.
    “Russian Forces Deception Efforts at Kirovskoe Airfield, Crimea.”

    Latest Defence Intelligence update on the situation in Ukraine – 02 April 2024.
    Find out more about Defence Intelligence’s use of language: https://t.co/VLI1JhTxbL#StandWithUkraine 🇺🇦 pic.twitter.com/rGi9A7DqCR

    — Ministry of Defence 🇬🇧 (@DefenceHQ) April 2, 2024

  60. 60.

    Jay

    @Noskilz:

    IDF units establish “kill zones” around their positions and don’t notify the populations. That’s how the unarmed, white flag carrying, no shirt wearing, Hebrew shouting escaped hostages were killed. Anyone who enters a kill zone, and isn’t IDF get’s killed.

    In the previous IDF invasion of Gaza, the IDF tried to use phone calls, text messages, and “roof knocking”, to get the occupants to clear out, before flattening the building, now they don’t bother. Target callers also used to use “The Rule of 5”. If more than 5 civilians “could” be killed in a strike, they would call it off. Again, now they don’t bother.

    The IDF and IAF are using Putin’s Grozny rules.

  62. 62.

    Bill Arnold

    @Jay:

    The IDF and IAF are using Putin’s Grozny rules.

    Objectively, from satellite before-and-after comparisons, the results are similar in much of Gaza and in those cities that have been reduced to rubble by the Russian Federation.

  63. 63.

    Bill Arnold

    @Jay:

    IDF units establish “kill zones” around their positions and don’t notify the populations.

    The thinking appears to be: better that 100 Palestinian Arab civilians die than that one Israeli soldier be wounded and perhaps die. (The observed ratios support this.)

Comments are closed.