17Comments

1. 1.

   Adam L Silverman

   January 20, 2025 at 9:54 pm

   Everyone is welcome.

   I’m going to bed.

2. 2.

   John S.

   January 20, 2025 at 9:58 pm

   Thanks for all you do putting these threads together… 1,062 posts and counting. The mind boggles.

3. 3.

   Adam L Silverman

   January 20, 2025 at 10:00 pm

   @John S.: You’re welcome.

   Thank you for the kind words.

4. 4.

   KatKapCC

   January 20, 2025 at 10:10 pm

   Thank you, Adam. The willful denial of the truth about what Musk did has been enraging. No one is less deserving of any benefit of the doubt than he is.

5. 5.

   Quinerly

   January 20, 2025 at 10:14 pm

   Thank you for your posts.

   And thank you for weighing in on Musk.

6. 6.

   AlaskaReader

   January 20, 2025 at 10:16 pm

   Thanks Adam

7. 7.

   Jay

   January 20, 2025 at 10:23 pm

   As always, Thank You, Adam.

8. 8.

   Wombat Probability Cloud

   January 20, 2025 at 11:03 pm

   Likewise, thank you Adam, and rest well.

9. 9.

   Jay

   January 20, 2025 at 11:16 pm

   Denys from Kharkiv
   @GlushkoDenys
   17h
   🇺🇦🇯🇵 Fuminori Tsuchiko’s residence permit in Ukraine will be extended. He will stay in #Kharkiv to continue his honorable work, said Mayor Terekhov @mayorterekhov after a talk with the Kharkiv Migration Service head, Oleksandr Timonov. As for his residence card, this will be decided later.

   Mayor added that Fuminori has already become a very important figure for the entire city with his help to the Saltivka residents.

   Jan 20, 2025 · 10:22 AM UTC

   nitter.poast.org/GlushkoDenys/status/1881286163912089755#m

10. 10.

    Jay

    January 20, 2025 at 11:19 pm

    Illia Ponomarenko 🇺🇦
    @IAPonomarenko
    13h
    Now that the Biden admin is leaving the stage, it’s time to say what needs to be said.

    It is 100% true that without U.S. aid, Ukraine as we know it would not have been around by now. And it would have been occupied, partitioned, annexed by Russia, subjected to “filtration actions” (yes, that involves torture chambers, incarceration camps, and mass graves), and become the scene of an indefinitely long guerrilla war.

    And we are forever thankful for that.

    But – let me suggest an all-encompassing answer on why Biden’s policy towards Russia’s war in Ukraine is sadly a major setback and a painful scar on Biden’s legacy.

    The Biden administration thought it could outsmart the laws of history.

    They thought they could go the easy way about the largest European war of aggression since WWII.

    Without a doubt, the Biden administration did everything possible to dissuade Putin from invading Ukraine through persuasion and diplomacy before February 24.

    The Kremlin blatantly disregarded these humiliating pleas and launched the war, as it was solely focused on war and the rapid subjugation of Ukraine from the very beginning.

    The massive heroism of the Ukrainian army and the sensational defeat of Russia near Kyiv in 2022 presented the entire free world and the Biden administration with an extraordinary historical opportunity to repel and contain new large-scale aggression in Europe—without a single shot fired by the U.S. or NATO troops.

    However, instead of fully arming Ukraine alongside European allies to ensure the decisive defeat of the Russian aggressor, Washington recoiled at the prospect of Putin’s defeat and his incessant nuclear threats, choosing instead the path of self-restraint and “escalation management.”

    They never wanted any conflict with Russia, and they decided that instead of helping Ukraine undermine the aggressor’s very ability to fight a large-scale war, they chose to impose myriads of unfathomable limitations of the Ukrainian acquiring and the use of U.S. aid — in a bid to very painfully slowly lift those limitations and grabble a moment to “bring Putin to reason” and make him stop ASAP and return to business as usual.

    There was never a good reason to try and please Putin’s “feelings” and “red lines” and make Ukraine beg for every single weapon type, only to eventually provide them at least a year too late when the situation in Ukraine became desperate again.

    There was never a good reason to listen to Putin’s daily nuclear threats and spend months and years vehemently denying the possibility of Ukraine getting ATACMS missiles, PATRIOT systems, armored vehicles, advanced radars, or F-16 jets (which greatly affected the European aid, too) for the sake of avoiding “major escalation,” only to see that such procrastination only encourages and emboldens the aggressor.

    There was never any rationality in trying to please Putin and bring him back to reason by holding Ukraine back from striking key military targets inside Russian territory, only to eventually see that this doesn’t work with Putin and lift limitations years too late.

    There was never a good reason to wait until the final days of Biden’s presidency to finally impose crushing sanctions on Russia’s financial system and oil trade, which have been badly needed for years.

    Appeasement and attempts to weasel an easy way out did not end well in 1938-39, and they don’t work now. You can’t reason with the unreasonable, and there is never a moment when the aggressor stops and says, “Okay, I’ve had enough; I’m leaving you alone; I now see I was being unreasonable.”

    The Biden administration’s reluctance and attempts to outsmart how history works seriously undermined the U.S. investment in helping Ukraine bring about a just peace.

    It gave Vladimir Putin over two years to recover from 2022’s failure, reshape and mobilize its military, ramp up military production, adapt to international sanctions, unfold the wartime economy, and find allies among fellow rogue regimes.

    It stripped the Biden admin of what could have been one of the greatest foreign policy wins since the end of the Cold War.

    Moreover, this brought us to a place where various grifters, demagogues, and Kremlin-paid loudmouths raise their voices, spitting on Ukraine, spreading hateful disinformation, and openly propagating the elimination of Ukraine as a nation.

    Going the easy way never works out well.

    One can hope that the next U.S. administration will learn from those mistakes and stop trying to outsmart history at its own peril, but that’s poor naive me.

    Support my work on PayPal: [email protected]
    Jan 20, 2025 · 3:09 PM UTC

    nitter.poast.org/IAPonomarenko/status/1881358463441191024#m

11. 11.

    Jay

    January 20, 2025 at 11:22 pm

    Anton Gerashchenko
    @Gerashchenko_en
    17h
    “Leader” of the unrecognized Transnistria, Vadim Krasnoselsky: Transnistria agrees to receive gas delivered by Moldovan state company Moldovagaz and is ready to pay for it.

    Recently, Krasnoselsky flew to Moscow to negotiate the gas deal, after which he said that gas supplies would soon resume as part of “humanitarian aid.”

    Afterward, Moldovan Prime Minister Dorin Recean said that he had spoken with Krasnoselsky. He emphasized that Moscow had not offered a solution to the natural gas issue and had misled the Transnistrian administration.

    For weeks, Transnistria refused to accept the offer of Moldovagaz. Now, it seems, after Moscow let them down, they have no other options. The question remains who will pay for the gas supplies.

    nitter.poast.org/Gerashchenko_en/status/1881289183983292792#m

12. 12.

    Quinerly

    January 20, 2025 at 11:31 pm

    @Jay:

    Thanks for posting this.

13. 13.

    Sally

    January 21, 2025 at 1:14 am

    I think what scares me about the western response to the Russian invasion of Ukraine is the parallels with the beginning of WWII. There is considerable discussion here and elsewhere about the similarities of theses years with the build up of the nazis in the ’30’s. But the parallels with the German invasion of Sudetenland, and then Poland, are terrifying. The talk of the French and British allies of Poland saying “don’t mobilise, that will provoke Germany”. And “well, Sudetenland is primarily German anyway, so maybe they have a point”. Like “eastern Ukraine is so “Russian” (not), so maybe they have a point”. What, none of these people had/have any right to self determination? The Ukranians, in eastern Ukraine and Crimea, have spoken in numerous elections and have clearly indicated that they want to be Ukraine, not Russia.

    When the French finally marched into Germany potentially giving the war a second front, they stopped because they thought Germany was invincible. The Poles were begging the RAF to flatten the German airfields, they refused because it might provoke the germans to retaliate by bombing Britain. It’s the same war, even the words are the same – if those allies had stormed Germany in 1939, the war would probably have been far shorter and less lethal. The Germans were apparently terrified of a second, western, front. The French were quite strong at that point. Everyone was so scared of what might happen, that it did.

    The appalling devastation of Poland, the genocide of the Polish people, not only jewish Poles, is the same as the attitude of Russians invading Ukraine. Hitler was telling his people for years, the Poles are not fully human, they do not deserve to live. The land has to be disinfected and repopulated by Germans. Even in the first days and weeks of the war, when little resistance had been felt by German soldiers, and certainly no atrocities committed against them,  the sadism  was astonishing. Bucha everywhere.

    There were Germans who were shocked, and worked against this regime. Even German senior officers. They were incredibly brave, and usually “disappeared”. Just as there are Russian citizens who are prepared to risk their lives to protest this war. Incredibly brave.

    I am so scared of this moment.

    We aren’t even asleep (Chris Clark’s The Sleepwalkers). We are awake to what is happening. We have seen this, merely 90 years ago.

    I am so scared.

14. 14.

    Sister Inspired Revolver of Freedom

    January 21, 2025 at 1:41 am

    @Jay: Gods be thanked!😁 TBH, I’m surprised that he hasn’t been given citizenship by now, if only honorary. The man sold his house to go to Ukraine to help.

15. 15.

    Sister Inspired Revolver of Freedom

    January 21, 2025 at 1:48 am

    @Jay: I wish Ukraine &Moldova had, between them, the forces to force Transnistria to cease to exist. Yes, I realise that’s simplistic, that it will probably create other problems. I still wish it could happen.

16. 16.

    Gloria DryGarden

    January 21, 2025 at 6:33 am

    @Sister Inspired Revolver of Freedom: How would that help? Does that article mean they want to buy gas from Moldova, and pass it on to Russ, to help them?

    Forgive me if this is a stupid question. The complexities get rather convoluted for me. And I thought Transnistria didn’t have independent nation status, though I don’t know what limits that causes.

17. 17.

    Jay

    January 21, 2025 at 1:12 pm

    @Gloria DryGarden:

    Transnistria “bought” gas from ruZZia that was shipped via Ukrainian pipelines. The transhipment treaty expired at the end of 2024 and Ukraine shut the pipelines down.

    Moldova offered to replace the ruZZian gas, Transnistria refused a deal, as they were sure that ruZZia would save them. RuZZia did not save them, even after they went to Moscow and begged.

    Then, after a month of blackouts and frozen homes, they accepted the deal from Moldova.