(Image by NEIVANMADE)
Quick housekeeping note: Rosie is doing great. Thank you for all the good thoughts, well wishes, prayers, and donations.
Last night in comments, way2blue asked:
If I’m following accurately—the U.S. announces with great fanfare all the weapon packages we’re sending to Ukraine, but slow-walks the actual delivery. Yes?
Here’s President Zelenskyy providing the answer:
“Ukraine has received only 10% of the aid package approved by the U.S. Congress in 2024. This isn’t funny. The issue isn’t money, it’s bureaucracy and logistics,” Zelensky 1/
— Tymofiy Mylovanov (@Mylovanov) October 30, 2024
👏👏👏 This reporter, Alex Raufoglu (@ralakbar), is the only guy in DC who ALWAYS asks the US Government 🇺🇸 about Ukraine 🇺🇦.
Thank you for your tenacity!!
👉 Follow Alex to show your support for him asking DC 🇺🇸 the hard questions!! https://t.co/P0s1QXNwOB
— Jason Jay Smart (@officejjsmart) October 30, 2024
As someone who has held a GS15 appointment at the Office of the Secretary of Defense for Security Dialogue (for Middle East Peace) assigned to US Army Europe (2014), please allow me to translate this from the official spokesperson weaselspeak:
We’ve been very publicly busy making it look like we’re doing a lot, but I’m going to throw my counterpart at the DOD under the bus to cover my exceedingly exposed tuchas.
Here’s the butcher’s bill from the glide bombs Russia launched against civilian targets in Kharkiv overnight. The glide bombs were launched from Belgorod, which is outside the range of Ukraine’s own weapons and within the range of the US made weapons, or the British and French weapons made with US components, which Ukraine is forbidden to launch into Russia.
Kharkiv hit again. How long, O Lord, how long? Read my report from the besieged city, Homage to Kharkiv: https://t.co/lVGx11f6cq
(h/t & thanks to @maria_avdv https://t.co/AYwdMFcjDI— Timothy Garton Ash (@fromTGA) October 31, 2024
Here lies a memory, shattered and scattered: a building where lives quietly unfurled, now fractured beneath the indifferent eye of the world. In Kharkiv, russia’s air strike took two lives – one, a twelve-year-old boy. 34 others suffered both physical and mental traumas, with… pic.twitter.com/7EoXThcEvS
— Iryna Voichuk (@IrynaVoichuk) October 31, 2024
Here lies a memory, shattered and scattered: a building where lives quietly unfurled, now fractured beneath the indifferent eye of the world. In Kharkiv, russia’s air strike took two lives – one, a twelve-year-old boy. 34 others suffered both physical and mental traumas, with doctors still fighting for some of those lives. Several people, including a child, remain trapped beneath the rubble. And here we are again, staring at yet another ruin, a fresh wound layered over hundreds of others, each one desperate to hold its own corner of our grief.
How deftly the world blinks, looks away, waiting for the shock to settle, for this scene to slip from sharp pain to dull ache, just as it has for all the others. But can we afford to let this one fade? This suffering – this cruelty, painted over and over upon the same scarred canvas – demands more than our passing horror. Each strike is not mere destruction but the desecration of life itself.
Hold this image, then – don’t let it fall to shadow. We cannot allow this sorrow to be buried under the next. Stand with Ukraine, in relentless remembrance, for as long as it takes for dawn to return.
📹place_kharkiv
Yesterday night, when people were at home, russia launched an attack on an apartment building in Kharkiv.
They murdered two kids and a man.
Injured 36 more.
Just like that.
Search and rescue efforts are concluded. pic.twitter.com/AFhUVChbFh
— Kate from Kharkiv (@BohuslavskaKate) October 31, 2024
President Zelenskyy sat for an interview with South Korean TV channel KSB. Here’s the video:
🇺🇦🇰🇷 President Zelensky announced during an interview with South Korean TV channel KBS that Ukraine will soon formally request military aid from South Korea. The request will include air defense systems, artillery, and other weapons essential for defense. pic.twitter.com/lBFoRVQQAp
— NOELREPORTS 🇪🇺 🇺🇦 (@NOELreports) October 31, 2024
As I mentioned last night, given the South Korean laws covering foreign military sales and transfers, it is unlikely that the ROK will be able to actually provide the aid directly. Indirectly is another matter. We’ll have to wait and see how it plays out.
He also met with the heads of the communities of Zakarpattia Oblast today. Here’s the video of that event.
The cost:
russia attacked the cemetery in the Sumy region with the aerial bomb, killing the 73yo woman who was taking care of her son’s grave, @Novynarnia reports. What the hell is wrong with this world which tolerates this barbarism. pic.twitter.com/USO8AxWHtU
— Olena Halushka (@OlenaHalushka) October 31, 2024
From Novynarnia:
Sumshchyna: The Russian Federation struck a cemetery. A woman who was cleaning her son’s grave died
He was killed and wounded in an air strike on the civilian infrastructure of the Hotin community in Sumshchyna.
About it reports regional prosecutor’s office on Wednesday, October 30.
According to the investigation, at about 10:00 the occupiers struck an air strike, according to preliminary data, driven by an air bomb on the civilian infrastructure of the Hotin community in the Sumy district.
“The victim was placed in the local cemetery. A 73-year-old woman was killed and a 42-year-old man was injured ”, – the report said.
Head of the community Mykola Toryanyky told “Public ” that the woman was cleaning her son’s grave at the time of the blow.
Lithuania:
Thank you, our Lithuanian friends, for your unwavering support in the fight for freedom and a just peace. Together, we are stronger!
🇺🇦🤝🇱🇹 https://t.co/M3srF0i2xA— Defense of Ukraine (@DefenceU) October 31, 2024
Norway:
Norway will increase support for Ukraine’s air force with an additional contribution of NOK 1.3 billion, which will fund the procurement of weapons and spare parts for F-16 aircraft.
This was announced by the Minister of Defense @Bjornarildgram during his visit to Odesa and… pic.twitter.com/5SuA8BfORa
— Defense of Ukraine (@DefenceU) October 31, 2024
Norway will increase support for Ukraine’s air force with an additional contribution of NOK 1.3 billion, which will fund the procurement of weapons and spare parts for F-16 aircraft.
This was announced by the Minister of Defense @Bjornarildgram during his visit to Odesa and meeting with Ukrainian Defense Minister @rustem_umerov.
Norway also increases maritime support and donates 130 inflatable boats.
We are grateful to our Norwegian friends for their staunch support. It’s another step toward our shared victory.
🇺🇦🤝🇳🇴
@Forsvarsdep
The US:
“the Biden administration is so scared of escalation that it refuses to allow beleaguered Ukraine to use donated deep-strike weapons inside Russian territory. As a result, Ukraine’s front is crumbling under the daily onslaught…” https://t.co/3W4vT8AIWU
— John Sipher (@john_sipher) October 30, 2024
From CEPA:
Regardless of who wins the US presidential election on November 5th, Pax Americana’s obituaries are now being drafted. They should be long ones. The Atlantic alliance was one of the most distinctive and seemingly durable features of post-war Europe. It brought security and freedom to tens of millions of people for decades, first by preventing Communism’s spread, then by winning the Cold War, and thereafter doubling NATO membership from 16 in 1989 to 32 now.
A successful attack by Vladimir Putin on a NATO country may deal the decisive final blow, but the deadly rot started earlier. For decades US administrations urged fortitude on Europe. Now the Biden administration is so scared of escalation that it refuses to allow beleaguered Ukraine to use donated deep-strike weapons inside Russian territory. As a result, Ukraine’s front is crumbling under the daily onslaught of guide bombs and other munitions launched from airfields that defenders are not allowed to target. The US also prevents its NATO allies from responding promptly and decisively to Russian “sub-threshold” attacks: intrusions and other dirty tricks.
Accelerating protectionism adds another dose of trust-killing poison: a decade ago, the US and Europe (and Pacific allies, too) could have built a giant common economic governance zone with not just free trade but common rule-setting. Instead, these countries chose selfish, short-sighted grandstanding. They are all poorer and weaker as a result.
As US influence ebbs on the continent, European countries are falling like dominos. Russia’s web of dirty tricks, economic ties, propaganda, and spycraft has snared Hungary, Slovakia, and Austria already, with Georgia and Bulgaria next – and more looming.
Yet seen from Washington, European allies are mostly barely worthy of the name. Militarily, they are too small or backward to operate alongside high-tech American forces. The more advanced ones, such as Britain, lack the stockpiles to join any operation for long. Nor do they have much to offer on other fronts: diplomatic, economic, or cultural. Why pick up the tab?
These flaws did not need to be fatal. Europe could easily be a more effective and capable ally and the US a more resolute and far-sighted one. But both sides enjoyed carping on about the alliance more than they cared to invest money and political capital in preserving it. When it is gone, they will miss it. European governments, having refused to pay the relatively modest costs of sustaining Ukraine and maintaining adequate defenses within NATO, will now face the colossal bill for running their own security. Americans, facing intensifying geopolitical competition, may miss their old allies—especially if some of them flip into the Chinese camp.
More at the link.
We are able bomb and murder civilians for one reason only.
You permit it. pic.twitter.com/313zcytdI5
— Darth Putin (@DarthPutinKGB) October 31, 2024
This appeared for the first time before WWII in the Ukrainian Magazine Tryzub (Trident).
The Western powers are watching “with (very) deep concern” the slaughter of the Ukrainians, but aren’t taking measures to save Ukrainian lifes.
Then and now.
Source: https://t.co/rdQ6BPEUtK pic.twitter.com/7R9USs8lok— Nicolas Tenzer (@NTenzer) October 31, 2024
Kharkiv:
Medics fought to save the life of an 11-year-old boy who was pulled from the rubble, for half an hour, but tragically, he didn’t make it.
Russia murdered him tonight.
So far, 30 other people got injured.
Video of search and rescue operation shared by state emergency service https://t.co/fSkiltoQMJ pic.twitter.com/NeY8ppULaf— Kate from Kharkiv (@BohuslavskaKate) October 30, 2024
In Kharkiv, rescuers recover the body of 15-year-old from under the rubble following the russian airstrike on residential building.
Death toll rises to 3, with 36 injured. Rescue efforts ongoing. pic.twitter.com/l5mv1eigjg
— Kate from Kharkiv (@BohuslavskaKate) October 31, 2024
This woman’s nephew is dead
Russia killed him asleep in Kharkiv while Ukraine received 10% of the aid allocated to it in April 2024 pic.twitter.com/o2xFBbIUtP
— Euromaidan Press (@EuromaidanPress) October 31, 2024
Here are details on the victims from Serhii Bolvinov, the Chief of Investigations of the Ukrainian National Police in Kharkiv Oblast:
UA/ENG
Життя двох дітей – авіабомбою по Салтівці росіяни вбили хлопчика, другого шукаємо під завалами.
Це була ФАБ-500 з УМПК, з-під бетонних плит дістали 12-річного хлопця, але його не встигли навіть довезти до лікарні, дитина померла в швидкій.
Ще одна дитина,… pic.twitter.com/o8uxYrb5w3
— Сергій Болвінов (@serhii_bolvinov) October 31, 2024
UA/ENG
Життя двох дітей – авіабомбою по Салтівці росіяни вбили хлопчика, другого шукаємо під завалами.
Це була ФАБ-500 з УМПК, з-під бетонних плит дістали 12-річного хлопця, але його не встигли навіть довезти до лікарні, дитина померла в швидкій.
Ще одна дитина, пʼятнадцятирічний школяр, гостював у бабусі та дідуся. Його родина мешкає на Північній Салтівці і батьки вирішили відвезти його туди, де вважали, буде безпечніше, ближче до метро. Під час удару хлопець був в квартирі на першому поверсі, саме з того боку, куди поцілили росіяни. Дорослі відпочивали в іншій кімнаті та вижили. Доля дитини поки невідома.
Тридцять п’ять людей постраждали від цього удару. Ми продовжуємо працювати на місці, триває пошукова операція.
The lives of two children – the Russians killed a boy with a bomb in Saltivka, and we are looking for the other one under the rubble.
It was the FAB 500 kg with UMPC, and a 12-year-old boy was pulled out from under the concrete slabs, but they didn’t even have time to take him to the hospital, he died in an ambulance.
Another child, a fifteen-year-old schoolboy, was visiting his grandparents. His family lives in Northern Saltovka, and his parents decided to take him to a place where they thought it would be safer, closer to the metro. At the time of the strike, the boy was in an apartment on the first floor, on the side where the Russians hit. The adults were resting in another room and survived. The child’s fate is still unknown.
Thirty-five people were injured in this strike. We continue to work at the site, the search operation is underway.
As we know, from the reporting I posted up top, the search and rescue operations have now been suspended.
The Serebryansky Forest:
Combat operation of the Burevii Brigade in the Serebryansky forest.
The warriors are using BMP to destroy russian treeline positions. pic.twitter.com/8gIX5V16pI— Defense of Ukraine (@DefenceU) October 31, 2024
Kherson:
#Kherson region #DroneAttacks
Today, by 13.00:
9 am – Woman, 77, injured
11 am – Man, 33, injured
11.20 – Woman, 42, injuredVideo: https://t.co/P40Shi7u4P pic.twitter.com/jRtBhhnOoa
— Zarina Zabrisky 🇺🇸🇺🇦 (@ZarinaZabrisky) October 31, 2024
It’s so important that the russian “human safari” in Kherson is finally getting the attention in press! Please help spread the word. https://t.co/KptwrUeeto
— Kate from Kharkiv (@BohuslavskaKate) October 31, 2024
From The BBC:
Just before noon one day Serhiy Dobrovolsky, a hardware trader, returned to his home in Kherson in southern Ukraine. He stepped into his yard, lit a cigarette and chatted with his next-door neighbour. Suddenly, they heard the sound of a drone buzzing overhead.
Angela, Serhiy’s wife of 32 years, says she saw her husband run and take cover as the drone dropped a grenade. “He died before the ambulance arrived. I was told he was very unlucky, because a piece of shrapnel pierced his heart,” she says, breaking down.
Serhiy is one of 30 civilians killed in a sudden surge in Russian drone attacks in Kherson since 1 July, the city’s military administration told the BBC. They have recorded more than 5,000 drone attacks over the same period, with more than 400 civilians injured.
Drones have changed warfare in Ukraine, with both Ukraine and Russia using them against military targets.
But the BBC has heard eyewitness testimony and seen credible evidence that suggest Russia is using drones also against civilians in the frontline city of Kherson.
“They can see who they are killing,” says Angela. “Is this how they want to fight, by just bombing people walking in the streets?”
If Russia is found to be intentionally targeting civilians, it would be a war crime.
The Russian military did not respond to the BBC’s questions about the allegations. Since its full-scale invasion in February 2022, Russia has consistently denied deliberately targeting civilians.
Evidence of apparent drone attacks on civilians can be seen in numerous videos shared on Ukrainian and Russian social media, six of which were examined by BBC Verify.
In each video, we see through the remote operator’s camera as they track the movements of a pedestrian or motorist in civilian clothing, often dropping grenades which sometimes appear to seriously injure or kill their target.
BBC Verify was also able to identify a Telegram channel which has the earliest public copies yet seen of five of the six videos analysed.
They were each posted with goading and threats to the Ukrainian public, including claims that all vehicles were legitimate targets and that people should minimise their public movement. The injured people were also insulted, called “pigs” or in one case mocked for being a woman.
The account posting some of these drone videos also posted images of boxed and unboxed drones, and other images of equipment, thanking people for their donations.
Kherson’s military administration told the BBC that Russia has changed the type of drone it is using and the city’s electronic systems can no longer intercept a majority of them.
“You feel like you’re constantly being hunted, like someone is always looking at you, and can drop explosives at any moment. It’s the worst thing,” says Kristina Synia, who works at an aid centre just 1km (0.6 mile) from the Dnipro river.
To get to the centre without being followed by drones, we drive at a high speed, take the cover of trees while parking, and then head indoors quickly.
On a shelf behind Kristina, a small device confirms the threat outside – buzzing each time it detects a drone. It buzzed every few minutes while we were there – often detecting the presence of at least four drones.
Trauma is visible on the faces of the residents we meet, who have braved stepping out of their homes only to stock up on food. Valentyna Mykolaivna wipes her eyes, “We are in a horrible situation. When we come out, we move from one tree to another, taking cover. Every day they attack public buses, every day they drop bombs on us using drones,” she says.
Much more at the link including imagery.
That’s enough for tonight.
Your daily Patron!
A new video from Patron’s official TikTok!
@patron__dsns Випуск №3 наших з @UNICEF Ukraine коміксів вже чекає вас за посиланням: ходіть на spilnoteka.org, там введіть у пошуку “Пес Патрон комікс” і все! Всім коміксовий лизь👅 #песпатрон
Here’s the machine translation of the caption:
Issue #3 of our comics with @UNICEF Ukraine is already waiting for you at the link: go to spilnoteka.org, enter “Dog Patron comic” in the search and that’s it! Have a comic book lick 👅
Open thread!
funlady75
thank you, Adam
Adam L Silverman
@funlady75: You’re welcome.
VeniceRiley
My only hope is Harris knows she is not President until she is the President. She won’t stomp on Biden people doing this stupid bullshit, unless she has a sufficient senate numbers to wax them.
Gus diZerega
Biden’s performance here is pathetic. Meanwhile he supports genocide in Gaza. In many ways he has done a good job as president, but he or the apologists for war crimes he lets set our Ukraine and Israeli policy are utter failures here.
grubert
Occur to anyone the delays might not be 100% due to Biden? Are there not many others in the chain, and might not some these others be dragging their feet in “plausible deniability” ways?
Or is it all just a matter of Biden not banging the table hard enough or threatening to fire people?
Jay
Thank you, Adam.
Gin & Tonic
I hope even the Twitter-avoiders click through to that Nicolas Tenzer tweet to see the full cartoon.
Gin & Tonic
@grubert: Have you heard the phrase “the buck stops here”?
Gin & Tonic
Incidentally, another solid report about Microsoft’s Threat Analysis Center on NBC Nightly News today.
Jay
https://censor.net/en/video_news/3517750/soldaty_iz_pivnichnoyi_koreyi
Maybe, maybe not.
Lot’s of NORKs, men and women, have “taken jobs” in ruZZia, on factory ships, factories, logging, where they are basically slave labour. Some figured that their way out of that hell hole was to sign Military Contracts for the money. ruZZia clusters “ethnics” together to make management easier.
Jay
https://nitter.poast.org/OlgaNYC1211/status/1852025261757227349#m
Adam L Silverman
@grubert: It’s not Biden – as in Biden is not personally holding things up. Rather, we clearly have a very broken logistics and acquisitions process for this. So the DOD keeps announcing these huge tranches of material and resources, which never seem to get there or just sort of dribble in over time, then announce the next one as if they delivered the previous batch within a couple of weeks and now we’re resupplying because it all got used. When, in fact, it never actually showed up.
At one level, the buck stops with Biden as he’s the president. The reality is that this is a failure of many people and processes in his administration.
Adam L Silverman
@Jay: I’ve seen other references to Ukrainians taking North Korean POWs, but until the sourcing is better than Igor Sushko, I’m not going to post that stuff.
Anonymous At Work
@Adam L Silverman: What does Geneva Code say about POWs wearing the uniform of an uninvolved third-party nation? Unless, that is, the DNK has declared war on Ukraine.
Gin & Tonic
@Adam L Silverman: Good plan.
Anonymous At Work
Any comment or commentary on a Russian court’s ruling against Google? For somewhere north of the next thousand years of global GDP, no less.
https://www.independent.co.uk/tech/russia-fines-google-decillion-youtube-lawsuit-b2638752.html
Adam L Silverman
@Anonymous At Work: I don’t know. But I’m certain the Ukrainians are going to treat the DPRK POWs as legit POWs.
Geminid
@Jay: North Koreans are perhaps the most isolated people in the world when it comes to news about their soldiers fighting Ukraine, and this lone survivor’s story may not reach them. Although, his family could be punished for his capture and his complaints.
But I wonder what these North Korean generals will make of of Russia’s disregard for their troops’ lives. I don’t expect these generals to buck their leader’s decision to commit his soldiers to fight for Russia, but I wonder if this could spell trouble for Mr. Kim down the road.
@Jay:
Jay
@Adam L Silverman:
That’s why I added the caveat.
It may or may not be a NORK soldier, NORK’s working in the slave factories have joined the “Z” forces and have been taken prisoner in Ukraine in the past.
Jay
@Anonymous At Work:
ruZZia has not declared war on Ukraine.
So,………………………………………………..
Even when they were “just ” “Little Green Men”, Ukraine treated them, even the war criminal “Ruiche” multinational Nazi’s, as POW’s.
BTW, according to the HUR, they are dressed in ruZZian uniforms and carrying ruZZian ID’s, identifying them as ruZZian ethnic Asian minorities.
Adam L Silverman
@Jay: I was tracking. Just clarifying why I hadn’t posted anything on it yet.
Jay
@Anonymous At Work:
It’s just stupid.
MountainBoy
Thank you Adam for your commitment to these reports. I cannot believe your tenacity to keeping us informed of the situation in Ukraine.
I follow your reports everyday (usually the next morning).
Please be mindful of the impact of your efforts and take care of yourself.
All the best!
Anoniminous
@Gus diZerega:
Biden is an old man whose grasp of foreign affairs is hopelessly outdated. His actions remind me of Chamberlain returning from Munich, immensely proud of himself, waving a piece of paper while proclaiming “Peace In Our Time.” Of course, almost exactly a year later the United Kingdom declared war on Germany for invading Poland and 239 days after that the British Expeditionary Force was running like little mad things to Dunkirk* to get the hell out of it as the Germans sliced and diced the French Army.
Hopefully things won’t get that bad, but if they do Biden won’t have done enough to stop it.
On the good side, we’ve got Biden running US military policy not Trump. If Trump was running things the Russians would be on the Polish border and invading Moldavia.
* except for ~140,000 men, or roughly a third of the BEF, of the 51st Highland Division, what was left of the 1st Armoured Division, and various odds-and-sods logistic, communication, and other rear echelon troops cut off by Sichelschnitt
Aziz, light!
I find it hard to believe that a North Korean soldier would be so outspoken, knowing the consequences if Kim Fatty the Third* didn’t like what he said about the mission. Any complaints would be expressed in much more guarded terms. It sounded more like what a Russian soldier would say.
* Chinese nickname for Jong-un.
Jay
@Aziz, light!:
As either a NORK “guest worker” or a NORK soldier, he knows he’s not going back to NORKland, but instead South Korea.
South Korean Intel note that the biggest issue with NORK defectors, is that “they always tell you what they think you want to hear”, because that is a survival technique in the North, and it takes weeks to months to get the “whole truth, and nothing but the truth” out of them.
AlaskaReader
Thanks Adam
Citizen Alan
@Aziz, light!: One of the few weird conspiracy theories I actually believe is that Kim Jong-Un was assassinated and replaced by a body double years ago. IIRC, there was this 3-week period in 2020 where he literally just disappeared. No one seemed to have a clue where he was. And then, he just showed back up just as mysteriously, and I swear to Dog that he looks like a noticeably different person. And he came back acting much crazier too.
Timill
@Citizen Alan: You’ve been reading “Double Star” again…
YY_Sima Qian
@Jay: Since the quoted NK trooper talks about expecting to build fortifications, he is either press ganged laborer, or a soldier from one of the NK engineering units reportedly have been in Donetsk for months. Unlikely to be the newly arrived special forces.
Jay
@YY_Sima Qian:
UA Intel says that 1500 are SOF, 1500 are barely trained conscripts.
OTOH, ruZZia has a whole international program of telling those who sign contracts, or are forced to sign contracts, that they will be “doing logistics or building fortifications”, where in instead they are sent to the “Zero line” or forward as meat cubes.
So,
spoot
I’m reminded of Lyndon Johnson, who started his presidency with glory, passing the Civil Rights Act and the Voting Rights Act. He then announced with great fanfare his War on Poverty.
But concurrent with his domestic agenda, was his handling of the Vietnam War. It grew like a cancer and eventually consumed his presidency, forcing him to withdraw from the presidential election.
Biden started his presidency with brilliance, handling the pandemic and the wounded economy and passing the Infastructure Act, The Chips Act and the Inflation Reduction Act.
When Russia invaded Ukraine, Biden moved fast to unite Nato and aggressively confront Russia with a muscular response of sanctions, military aid and money.
That was the actions of 2-4 years ago, but now we seemed to lost all our focus and direction and the administration speaks in formalities and double speak.
Why? What is behind this? It can’t just be fear of nuclear war, there is something else. Are we content to let Russia nibble away at Europe, with attrition warfare and election interference?
Jay
@spoot:
Yes, The West is compromised.
Aziz, light!
@Faustusnotes: Oh, good, the denazification of Ukraine argument.’
Preventing Putin from getting the USSR back together has nothing to do with Israeli actions in the Middle East, which IMO are indefensible. This is Adam’s daily Ukraine update. Your tankie bullshit about nazis negates anything I might hear you say about Palestine.
bookworm1398
@32. Presidents have a limited amount of time. If they are more focused on domestic policy, foreign affairs don’t get as much attention. And if there are multiple foreign issues, some get deprioritized
way2blue
@Gin & Tonic: Done. (And saved.)
way2blue
@Gin & Tonic:
I keep remembering adages from my mom’s era. e.g., ‘A stitch in time saves nine.’
way2blue
@Jay:
Because declaring war would imply Ukraine is a nation? Not an uppity, wayward breakaway region…
Gin & Tonic
@Aziz, light!: I have found that people who bring up Bandera in this kind of context are generally more interested in displaying their moral superiority than in dialogue.