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This isn’t Democrats spending madly. This is government catching up.

If you can’t control your emotions, someone else will.

Everything is totally normal and fine!!!

Peak wingnut was a lie.

When I was faster i was always behind.

An almost top 10,000 blog!

The republican speaker is a slippery little devil.

Not rolling over. fuck you, make me.

I have other things to bitch about but those will have to wait.

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

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A tremendous foreign policy asset… to all of our adversaries.

Petty moves from a petty man.

You don’t get to peddle hatred on saturday and offer condolences on sunday.

The revolution will be supervised.

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

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You’re just a puppy masquerading as an old coot.

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Sitting here in limbo waiting for the dice to roll

Too often we confuse noise with substance. too often we confuse setbacks with defeat.

You are here: Home / Foreign Affairs / War for Ukraine Day 879: A Brief Sunday Night Update

War for Ukraine Day 879: A Brief Sunday Night Update

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A couple of quick housekeeping notes. First, Rosie is doing fine. Her next treatment is tomorrow, so I’ll have more to update then. Thank you all for the good thoughts, well wishes, prayers, and donations.

Second, I’m going to keep tonight’s update on the short side. I expect the American readers and commenters focus is on other things right now. If you want to know my thoughts, you can read them in this threat at Bluesky and in this follow up at Bluesky. Here’s some thoughts from Ukraine:

Ukraine is grateful to President Biden for his unwavering support for Ukraine’s fight for freedom, which, along with strong bipartisan support in the United States, has been and continues to be critical.

Many strong decisions have been made in recent years and they will be remembered as bold steps taken by President Biden in response to challenging times. And we respect today’s tough but strong decision.

We will always be thankful for President Biden’s leadership. He supported our country during the most dramatic moment in history, assisted us in preventing Putin from occupying our country, and has continued to support us throughout this terrible war.

The current situation in Ukraine and all of Europe is no less challenging, and we sincerely hope that America’s continued strong leadership will prevent Russian evil from succeeding or making its aggression pay off.

I must say that what Joe Biden has done is truly outstanding, regardless of one’s opinion on him.

Stepping aside and putting his country over himself, refraining from holding power (the most additive drug in all of history) with his stone cold fingers, making a decision to leave when he formally never had to.

That’s impressive.

Frankly, I didn’t believe the old man would find the strength to do it.

But it appears that Joe has enough honor and respect to his own legacy to do what is right, and this deserves great respect, truly.

Only the ones who are able to cede power voluntarily truly deserve having it.

Third, dirt_first, I had gone offline by the time you replied to my comment last night. My answer is that you are most welcome.

Fourth, my sincerest condolences to Steeplejack’s family and friends. May his memory be a blessing.

Explosions have been reported in Kharkiv within the past hour:

Kharkiv, along with Donetsk Oblast, are currently under air raid alert.

For you social media users, here’s the current campaign to get more air defense for Kharkiv:


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

We Can Now Say: Our Air Defense Has Been Bolstered, We Will Be Able to Do More in the Skies – Address by the President of Ukraine

21 July 2024 – 21:05

I wish you health, fellow Ukrainians!

There have been several important reports today.

First of all, there was a substantial report from Commander-in-Chief Syrskyi on the frontline situation. The Commander-in-Chief himself visited some of the brigades. The key issue is the provision for our military. What exactly is lacking – with regard to each direction and all our main positions. Distribution of ammunition and a sufficient number of drones, above all.

It is very important to ensure that in all key directions, we have the means to inflict maximum losses on the enemy.

Next, there was a report from the Air Force Commander. Regarding the work of our firing groups in shooting down “Shaheds” and countering Russian missiles. We can already say that our air defense has been bolstered. The German “Patriot” system has arrived in Ukraine, and I would like to thank Germany and the United States for this step. We will be able to do more in the skies. Of course, there is still much work ahead, and this is far from guaranteed protection, but nevertheless, it means more strength for Ukraine.

The third for today is the report from the Head of the Security Service of Ukraine. There are good results in countering collaborators. There are also some things that we cannot publicly disclose at the moment. It’s just not worth it. The occupier must feel it.

Fourth, a report from the Minister of Internal Affairs on the investigation into the murder of Iryna Farion. It is a difficult process, but all necessary forces are engaged, and more information is emerging about the perpetrator of this crime.

Fifth, reports from government officials, primarily regarding energy. Prime Minister Denys Shmyhal, the Minister of Energy. I would like to highlight the work of all our repair crews, workers at our nuclear power plants, and everyone involved in stabilizing the supply. Everything necessary is being done to provide more electricity.

We understand that we are dealing with terrorists and the Russian strikes do not stop. But still, Ukrainian power engineers are trying to reduce the deficit.

I would like to thank everyone who helps us! Glory to our people!

Glory to Ukraine!

President Zelenskyy sat for an interview with the BBC a few days ago. Here’s the video:

The cost:

Here’s more on the loss of Ukrainian Soldier and powerlifting champion Andriy Mazanovych:

The powerlifting champion of Ukraine and Europe Andriy Mazanovych died defending Ukraine from russians. He will not be able to participate in 2024 Paris Olympics because russians killed him.

1/n
Image
Image

2/ Yet, the International Olympic Committee has admitted 15 russian athletes to the Paris Olympics. While Ukrainian athletes are killed by russians, russian athletes are rewarded by the IOC. 
3/ Don’t even try telling me that these are different russians and that they are not accountable for the actions of their government. No, they are accountable for their silence, complacency and inaction. Most actually support their government and genocide against Ukrainians. 
4/ Sport and government are inseparable in russia. Sport is financed by the state. Olympic medalists are paid by the russian authorities. 
5/ Russian athletes are members of the russian military. Despite the “neutral” flag at the 2022 Beijing Winter Olympics, russian military athletes won 14 out of 32 medals. The same military servicemen who kill Ukrainians at this very moment. 
6/ Most russian athletes support the war and the russian regime. These athletes can be found standing side by side with Putin at every major event, giving patriotic speeches, and proudly wearing the “Z” sign. 
7/ Russia uses sport to spread its propaganda. Even if the russian athlete wins the Olympics under a white flag, the russian state will use it as a propaganda for its imperialistic purposes. 
8/ Ukrainian athletes must be protected. Hundreds of them were killed by russians, dozens lost their limbs and will never be able to compete in the Olympics. 
9/ And those athletes that have survived and can compete in the Olympics are severely handicapped because hundred of sports facilities in Ukraine have been destroyed by the russian military. 

I’ve never been a fan of the Olympics. Neither the summer or winter ones do anything for me. The only things I ever watch are the Rugby 7s and the soccer. And even then if I miss them I don’t care. I expect I won’t even watch those this year.

The German Patriot system has arrived in Ukraine:

France:

Aux Armes, Citoyens!

The Supreme Allied Commander Europe:

Here’s the details from the DOD: (emphasis mine)

Cavoli spoke at the Aspen Security Forum today and said the NATO alliance is in the midst of a major change in focus and readiness. “There is a lot of work to be done, and there are big challenges looming — some of them are right in our face, right now,” the general said.

That looming threat, of course, is Russia, but Cavoli cannot ignore challenges on the horizon, and that includes China.

The general gave an explanation of the situation in Europe since he became NATO’s combatant commander just after the Madrid Summit in 2022. At that summit, NATO leaders immediately implemented a strategy to deter Russia and to defend the alliance’s territory. “This was an enormous sea change,” Cavoli said. “That was the business we were in during the Cold War, but after the Cold War, it was no longer necessary, and we turned our attention to out-of-area operations.”

Those operations in the Balkans, Kosovo and Afghanistan allowed NATO nations to field smaller forces who would deploy for specific times. “[The deployments] happened on a very predictable basis, which allowed for a cyclical force-generating process that allowed us to take many, many economies everyplace else, except for the unit that was deployed,” he said. “All the nations and NATO happily took the peace dividend and built a force that was optimized for that sort of operation.”

Russia launched its second invasion of its Ukrainian neighbor, and that force-generating process was instantly outdated. NATO had to focus — once again — on collective territorial defense. “We need standing forces, and at standing levels of readiness, geographically focused on specific areas,” Cavoli said. “So, we wrote … operational plans to do this.”

These plans are for northwest Europe, the center of Europe and in southeast Europe, and they are “classical plans that describe how to defend a certain piece of geography, with what forces and what methods,” the general said. “This has led to a huge raft of advances that we’re working on in NATO right now.”

Among the biggest is the need for many more NATO troops ready to fight when needed. This requires money and Cavoli is encouraged by alliance progress in meeting the 2% of gross domestic product that now 23 nations have met.

Since Madrid, the nations also now “have a shopping list for military requirements,” Cavoli said. “That shopping list had been put into place. It has been embraced by nations, who are spending the money to do something about it.”

On the military side, the alliance has also changed command and control, the exercise program the force posture across Europe.

“All of these things are really going to lead us to a healthier alliance that’s focused on the core task of collective territorial defense,” he said.

Supporting Ukraine is vital for U.S. and European security, Cavoli said. But people need to consider what’s next. “We can’t be under any illusions: At the end of a conflict in Ukraine — however, it concludes — we are going to have a very big Russia problem,” the general said. “We are going to have a situation where Russia is reconstituting its force, is located on the borders of NATO, is led by largely the same people as it is right now, is convinced that we’re the adversary, and is very, very angry.”

NATO must continue to support Ukraine now and must prepare for the inevitable end of the war in that country. Americans need to understand that Europeans see Russia’s invasion of Ukraine as an existential threat. “I think it is underappreciated in … the United States, just how much our European allies have awakened to the fact that the house is on fire,” Cavoli said. “This is not a show, and this is not just rhetoric. This is true concern about the stability of their continent, and the survival of their states.”

Kherson Oblast:

Police explosive experts continue to clear Kherson region of explosive devices under constant Russian fire.

Recently, Russians remotely mined large areas of one of the settlements where people continue to live with PFM anti-personnel landmines.

A fire recently broke out in the area, it caused some mines to detonate, and the remaining mines posed an even greater danger.

The police waited for a “window” in the work of enemy drones, quickly inspected the area and defused the enemy mines.

📹: National Police of Ukraine

Zaporizhzhia Oblast:

Chasiv Yar:

Southern Ukraine:

The Mariinka front:

Given where Maria Avdeeva lives, I’m guessing this is somewhere in Kharkiv Oblast:

That’s enough for tonight.

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Open thread!

Reader Interactions

46Comments

  3. 3.

    karen marie

    As always, I appreciate your work, Adam, but as others have pointed out, Bluesky requires sign-in, and I’m not going to create an account there.  A shame, because I’m interested in your take!

    Who is the French dweeb who can’t figure out no one wants to touch him?

  4. 4.

    Yarrow

    As always, thank you, Adam.

    I thought this was funny and would be appreciated by readers of this post. You do have to click through to see the picture. You should be able to see it without being logged in to BlueSky.

    I got to practice my aim today in a Ukrainian restaurant wash room in Vancouver. I did not miss.

    [image or embed]
    — SmokeDaddy (@smokedaddy.bsky.social) Jul 21, 2024 at 4:13 PM

  5. 5.

    Mike in NC

    Good help both this country and Ukraine if a vile pair of imbeciles like Trump and Vance come to power. The Ukrainians will be stabbed in the back on Day One and Putin will be thrilled to have a couple of his stooges in Washington.

  8. 8.

    One of the Many Jens

    @Old School: BlueSky itself doesn’t require accounts to read (or at least you can read a lot of posts before one is required), so I’m guessing that’s an option Adam selected for his account.

  12. 12.

    YY_Sima Qian

    @Old School:

    @karen marie:

    Since Adam is off line, I will summarize & paraphrase:

    Bad faith actors among the MSM, the pundit class & R operatives will continue try to concern troll the Dem to sow dissension into the ranks, focusing on fake issues such as whether Biden should resign his Presidency immediately, when Harris might have known about Biden’s inability to campaign/govern (which will be promoted as the cause for his withdrawal), whether Harris’ nomination has process legitimacy. Adam further advises tactics to push back against such bad faith sh*t stirring, focus on Harris vs. Vance because Trump is old & senile, make the election a referendum on Vance & the Project 2025 agenda, dig into Vance’s questionable past, build a NAFO-like rapid response infrastructure to counter flood the bad faith trolling & sh*t stirring.

    Edit: Just saw that Adam is online, after all.

  15. 15.

    Adam L Silverman

    Here’s what I wrote:

    Thread 1:🧵: We need to be clear eyed about what is going to happen now. The first will be the news media, led by the NY Times as the print gatekeeper and Fox as the cable/broadcast gatekeeper, to a steady stream of “If Biden is unable to campaign, he is unable to continue as president.” 1/

    The second will be: “What did Kamala Harris know and when did she know it.” This second line will be to undermine her integrity. The rest of that line of effort will be highlighting the relationship with Willie Brown, that she was really chosen by Congressman Clyburn, etc. 2/

    At the same time, there will be a clamor about how undemocratic this all is “because who chose Harris in a primary? No one, that’s who.” 3/

    This is what is coming. Prepare for it. Figure out how to ride it out & survive it. I have no idea how this all ends &, frankly, we are off the looking glass & through the map, so I honestly have no idea what should be done other than the information environment must be flooded to push back. 4 & end

    The first skeet should read: “The first will be the news media, led by the NY Times as the print gatekeeper and Fox as the cable/broadcast gatekeeper, will shift to a steady stream of “If Biden is unable to campaign, he is unable to continue as president.” I apologize for any confusion.

    Thread 2:

    🧵: A thought or 2 on what to do in the information environment. 3 lines of effort. 1) Promote the hell out of Harris (provided they don’t find someway to ratfuck her off the ticket too). Swallow whatever concerns, misgivings, etc you may have. You’ve all seen Project 2025, this is existential. 1/

    Just hammer over & over that it’s Harris or Project 2025, given his age & obvious comorbidities, it’s really Harris V Vance, which means Harris V Thiel. And it’s Harris versus the news media. They’ve shown they cannot be trusted to not put both thumbs on the scale. 2/

    Line of effort 1, slides right into line of effort 2) This is really Harris V Vance. Trump is old. He’s in bad physical shape. He’s not an external processor, he’s incoherent. He just makes stuff up. A vote for Trump is a vote for Vance. 3/

    Highlight that Vance served in Iraq for 6 months, but never got an Iraq Campaign medal? I didn’t even know that was possible. There’s a question there, so pull the thread of why that didn’t happen. Pull the Thiel thread & the “my wife learned how to manage me” thread. All of these are red flags. 4/

    3) Organize life the NAFO/Fellas did against Russia & Russian supporters & for Ukraine. The minute some BS is posted on any social media platform, but up a Kamala alert, get everyone to bombard the post & poster. Wall it off from the rest of the information environment. 5/

    We all know what’s coming in a 2nd Trump admin. We’ve seen Project 2025. We all swing together or we all swing apart! 6 & end/

    Everybody happy now?

  16. 16.

    Gin & Tonic

    I was off-line all day with grandkids. I guess it was a pretty slow day, huh?

  17. 17.

    hrprogressive

    @Adam L Silverman: ​
     

    Hell yeah, thanks for sharing. Greatly appreciated.

    FWIW I’ve already donated to Harris, and I am seeing a lot of excitement about voting for her now.

    I hope that excitement, slash the nearly $30M she’s brought in in the last few hours will help.

    The corprofascist media was all set up to ruin this for everyone, but I think they didn’t expect a lot of, you know, actual voters, to be happy about the prospect of Harris.

    Gonna need to find ways to get the word out more, because you’re right, this is truly existential.

  18. 18.

    YY_Sima Qian

    @zhena gogolia: If you have that little faith in the basic tactical political acumen of the Dems’ elder statespeople, people who have proven themselves shrewd in such matters, then might as well give up now.

    So far, I am not seeing anyone challenging Harris. Most of the credible potential candidates have already endorsed her.

  23. 23.

    Adam L Silverman

    A couple of other thoughts, then I’m getting cleaned up and going to bed:

    1. This is the 2024 version of the Bankers plot against FDR.
    2. The donors are the only socially liberal, fiscal conservatives out there. They’re okay with LGBTQ people, with immigrants, etc, but they want their taxes low, the interest rate at the zero lower bound, and labor knocked, weak, and unions broken.
    3. These are the people that Steve Schmidt and crew were responding to with Howard Schultz in 2020. Also, Schultz’s pollster started at Mercury Public Affairs. Mercury, you may remember from my posts in 2015 and 2016, was one of the cover operations Manafort set up and ran in the US to launder Yanukovych’s reputation. It was payed for with Yanukovych and Putin money. Schmidt, of course, was Phillips’ strategist this year and Phillip’s biggest donor was Bill Ackman, who is a top Trump donor. None of this is coincidental, it is enemy action. As I’ve been writing here for 9 years.
    4.  In 2020, the donors thought they were getting Joe Biden, moderate centrist from his Senate career. Instead they got Biden doing Bernie’s and Warren’s domestic policy agenda.
    5. And that’s not acceptable to them.
    6. If Kamala Harris wins, she will have to break them.

    That’s it, I’m getting cleaned up and racking out.

  26. 26.

    YY_Sima Qian

    @Adam L Silverman: I don’t agree with your comment at #23, and I certainly don’t want to.

    If this is a bankers’ plot, & the Dem elder statespeople (such as Obama & Pelosi) & senior leaders (such as Schumer, Jefferies & Schiff) are incapable of holding off the attempt, or worse, they are in on it, then there really is no hope for Nov.

    Besides, how does Harris win w/o the help of these donors (if they can push out Biden they can push out Harris), & if she wins w/ the help of these donors then how does she then break their power while in office? See the Obama presidency: all kinds of monied interests fled to the safety of Dem technocratic competence in ’08, & then exerted their influence on both the administration & the Dems in Congress to water down progressive legislations. Some of them then turned around & supported Romney in ’12. A lot of Silicon Valley money is now supporting Trump, even though Biden’s DOD had thrown a lot of money to techbro powerhouses (such as Palantir) & startups (such as Anduril) w/ techno-authoritarian sympathies.

  27. 27.

    Yarrow

    @YY_Sima Qian:

    Besides, how does Harris win w/o the help of these donors (if they can push out Biden they can push out Harris), & if she wins w/ the help of these donors then how does she then break their power while in office?

    Well, yeah. This is why we really needed Biden to stay strong and stay in the race. But they destroyed him to the point where it became impossible. The big money donors own the Dems now and anyone paying attention can see it. How anyone can break their power, who knows. I don’t see a way. Biden was doing it and they destroyed him for it.

  28. 28.

    Chris

    @Adam L Silverman:

    The donors are the only socially liberal, fiscal conservatives out there. They’re okay with LGBTQ people, with immigrants, etc, but they want their taxes low, the interest rate at the zero lower bound, and labor knocked, weak, and unions broken.

    This is too kind.  They’re fiscally conservative and socially indifferent.  Yes, they find it annoying to listen to conservatives go on and on about the sanctity of marriage and saving the unborn children and maybe even Great Replacement Theory, but they find it equally annoying listening to liberals go on and on about gay rights and women’s rights and immigrants’ rights.  They just want all these “culture war” issues to go away so we can all focus on the bread and butter issues that are really important.

  30. 30.

    Chris

    @YY_Sima Qian:

    If this is a bankers’ plot, & the Dem elder statespeople (such as Obama & Pelosi) & senior leaders (such as Schumer, Jefferies & Schiff) are incapable of holding off the attempt, or worse, they are in on it, then there really is no hope for Nov.

    Well, yes.  That’s pretty much what we’re concerned about.

  31. 31.

    YY_Sima Qian

    @Yarrow: Big donors have always been influential, but I don’t believe Obama & Pelosi would just meekly go along w/ what select donors wanted, risking rupture of the Party, unless they assessed that Biden staying in was too risky (for reasons opaque to us, be it physical stamina/mental faculty, or persistently low enthusiasm among key parts of the Dem coalition, or something else). I mean, Obama was the one who 1st achieved success through strong support among small donors.

  32. 32.

    YY_Sima Qian

    @Chris: If we want to win the rear guard action that must be won in Nov., we have better believe that the senior Dems are not in on the bankers’ plot (their roles would inevitably leak), but that they chose the least worse option based on information we are not privy to, & that Biden retained agency in coming to the same conclusion.

    Otherwise, it’s time to take care of you & yours because there is no chance to win the rear guard action. Is that what people are advocating?

  39. 39.

    bjacques

    I’m on BlueSky, and hard agree. Thanks as always, Adam.

    There’s a report out there on Democratic Presidential race fundraising up through end of June. Small donations were about 43%, against 57% large ones. Small donations matter, and donations for Kamala can’t be used for anything else, so they will also send a message that nobody else is acceptable to the base.

    And I know she will stand up for Ukraine (back on topic!).

    (I’ll use her first name among friends, because I really like her, but last name in arguments.)

  40. 40.

    Adam L Silverman

    @YY_Sima Qian: @YY_Sima Qian: This was about donation for the House and Senate as well. It’s why Heinrich let it be known that the Hollywood donor who was knuckling him to come out in favor of getting rid of Biden made the threat that if Biden didn’t step down, all the donations would be turned off from large donors. Representatives and senators are herd animals. The donors caused a panic and they all tried to stampede to safety.

  41. 41.

    YY_Sima Qian

    @Adam L Silverman: Ah, I see what you mean. Well, need to repeal Citizens United for Harris to make any headway. & stop funneling DOD expenditure to the companies owned by techno-authoritarian bros under the framework of natsec Keynesianism in service of Great Power Competition, only for them to turn around & fund the herrenvolk reactionaries.

  43. 43.

    YY_Sima Qian

    @Subsole: I am quite aware of the of the dangers of Dems changing candidates so late in the game, utter political malpractice unless under the most exigent circumstances. I am more open to the possibility that Dem leaders (& eventually Biden himself) assessed that this is indeed one of those circumstances, for reason opaque to us. I sure hope it is not the revolt of select donors.

  44. 44.

    Chris

    @YY_Sima Qian:

    They would absolutely go along with it if they calculated that there was no way to avoid rupturing the party without bending the knee to big donors and the media.  This wouldn’t exactly be the first time senior Democrats have given in to blackmail because they thought, rightly or wrongly, that the backlash from not doing so would be too major to risk: that’s the story of Obama refusing to go public on Russia’s behind-the-scenes work for Trump because Mitch McConnell told him he’d deny everything and turn the entire process into another partisan shit-show that risked benefiting Trump.

    @YY_Sima Qian:

    Otherwise, it’s time to take care of you & yours because there is no chance to win the rear guard action. Is that what people are advocating?

    As I said in a previous thread, at this point you should absolutely be considering some kind of exit strategy, yes.  You can’t assume that we’ll lose in November, but you can’t assume that we’ll win either, and if we don’t, you can’t assume that there’ll be any way of undoing that barring a Civil War level disaster in human terms.  People, even comfortable straight white men, should in fact be thinking hard about how to GTFO if it comes to that, up to and including illegal immigration.

  45. 45.

    Chris

    @Adam L Silverman:

    Yep.

    This isn’t complicated.  We had three weeks of uncertainty in which all of Biden’s appearances were normal, his poll numbers remained the same, and nobody else convincingly started polling higher than him.  Nothing happened.  Then the donors decided to start blackmailing the party.  Within days Biden has announced he’s stepping down.

    The key factor here is pretty clear.

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