Lammy urges ‘guts’ in ongoing US talks over Ukraine using missiles in Russia
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The UK foreign secretary, David Lammy, has indicated that delicate negotiations with the White House to allow Ukraine to use Storm Shadow missiles inside Russia are ongoing, arguing it was a time for “nerve and guts”.
The apparent encouragement to Joe Biden comes just over a week after Lammy and Keir Starmer visited the US president in the White House but failed to resolve the sticking point between two countries.
Speaking at a fringe event at the Labour party conference in Liverpool, Lammy said the hardship and challenges of the war in Ukraine would get “deeper and harsher”, particularly heading into “the back end of 2025 into 2026” and beyond.
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“So this is a critical time for nerve and guts and patience and for fortitude on behalf of allies who stand with Ukraine,” he said in comments that appeared directed at a hesitant White House, concerned about the risks of allowing Storm Shadow missiles to be used to attack Russia.
Lammy emphasised that Ukraine and its western allies were discussing “what more might be necessary” to help Kyiv on the battlefield beyond trying to hold the frontline, which is under acute pressure in the east.
“I am not going to as foreign secretary, of course, comment on operational details, because that can only aid Putin,” Lammy said, in an apparent reference to Storm Shadow missiles. “But there is a very real-time discussion across allies about how we can support Ukraine as we head into winter.”
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Ukraine’s ambassador to the UK and the country’s former top military commander, Valerii Zaluzhnyi, was also present at the Labour conference fringe event, which was organised by the Tony Blair Institute. Zaluzhnyi said Ukraine was “still serious about winning this war” and listed a series of requests to help it do so.
“First of all we need to have enough modern weapons,” he said. “Long-range air and ground facilities are critically important. Lifting restrictions of using the weapons military targets in Russia is critical. These would help protect civilians from Russian missiles and glide bombs.”
The ambassador also called for further tightening of sanctions against Russia, future Nato membership for Kyiv, and notably “a political decision” to allow western allies “to shoot down drones and missiles above western Ukraine” with their own fighter jets and air-defence systems.
The US, UK and other countries in the Middle East came to Israel’s aid in April when Iran launched a major missile and drone attack against it. That prompted Zelenskyy to ask why such support could not be provided to Kyiv, which would free up some of the country’s military to fight on the frontlines in the south and east.
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Call of Duty: Defence secretary John Healy wants online gamers to join up for real to become drone pilots as he plans to ease entry requirements for 'console warriors'
John Healey has urged keyboard warriors to sign up for real and help the Armed Forces manpower crisis - by piloting drones.
The Defence Secretary wants geeks and gamers to join Britain's cyber forces to utilise skills they have gained playing games like the Call of Duty franchise.
And he is preparing to water down the fitness requirements for joining up to make it easier for them to get in, scrapping rules that block people who suffer from hayfever, eczema and acne.
The Defence Secretary wants geeks and gamers to join Britain's cyber forces to utilise skills they have gained playing games like the Call of Duty franchise (below)
Speaking to the Sun on Sunday Mr Healey said: 'We are short of drone pilots'
The Sun on Sunday revealed that suspected Russian actors have been caught trying to hack into Britain's core defence structure 90,000 times over the past two years.
Mr Healey, who will set out details of his plans in a speech at Labour's conference in Liverpool on Monday, also eased 'outdated' recruitment requirements for the wider armed forces.
Over 100 recruitment policies have been scrapped or updated since Labour entered Government, including measures blocking some sufferers of hay fever, eczema and acne, and some injuries that have fully healed.
Mr Healey also promised a new ambition to make a conditional offer to would-be recruits within 10 days and confirmation of a training start date within 30 days.
The Defence Secretary said: 'Labour is a party with historic roots in Britain's armed forces. We are deeply proud of those who serve our country and we are determined to tackle the crisis in recruitment and retention caused by years of Conservative hollowing-out.
'Our armed forces rightly set the highest standards and with Labour that will continue. At the same time, we will unblock the bottlenecks, the needless red tape and delays which are turning great talent away from our forces.
'As the world changes, and threats evolve, we also need to ensure our recruitment is right for the 21st century.
'That's why we will remove unnecessary barriers and fast-track bright candidates into cyber defence to help face down Putin's online aggression.
'Alongside the largest pay rise in 20 years for existing troops, Labour is getting on with fixing the foundations of our armed forces and supporting the brave men and women who keep Britain safe.'
Brit fast food fans baffled after American woman shows off KFC family meal... and it is VERY different
British fast food fans are stunned after an American woman shared a video of her very different KFC meal.
Taking to TikTok, Kitty, who shares videos under the handle @watchkittyshrink, showed off her KFC meal from a branch in the United States - with the items shocking viewers from the UK.
Some Brits were surprised by the difference while they were also taken aback by the disparity in the size between the two meals.
Kitty remarked: 'My parents love it and they got some KFC takeout so I thought I'd show you all what it's like over here.
'For one thing, I know you all don't have biscuits and I don't think you have pot pie.'
British fast food fans have been left shocked by the site of an American KFC family meal after one woman shared pictures of her purchase (File image)
Taking to TikTok, Kitty, who shares videos under the handle @watchkittyshrink, showed off her KFC meal from a branch in the United States
She presented her haul, which contained a half gallon drink that comes in a plastic bag
She was referring to biscuits and gravy - a dish popular in southern regions of the US - which consists of soft dough biscuits covered in white gravy which is made from drippings.
A pot pie resembles a meaty quiche, containing a top pie crust that is made from flaky pastry.
She then presented her haul, which contained a half gallon drink that comes in a plastic bag, an enormous bucket of fried chicken, along with a packet of biscuits - without the gravy - and a huge pot pie.
'Now this is a pot pie, I wonder if any of you have it. It's a really flaky pastry with chicken, gravy and veggie inside.'
Biscuits also come included in all the US meals, which are equivalent to a UK scone., and an item that Kitty said is the 'most important part of the meal in America'.
Reaction from viewers was positive, with one stating how the American version of KFC looked more appetising than its British counterpart.
Users wrote: 'That looks so much better than ours.'
KFC meals in the US are often served with mashed potatoes and the American version of a biscuit
'UK KFC is just like wings, boneless chicken, popcorn chicken...the gravy is rank though.'
'KFC used to be decent in the UK but in recent years it’s ''really'' gone downhill. Our chicken is half the size, no extra crispy option either. '
'You’ll be very disappointed to see our KFC compared to what you’ve just shown us'.
'Our kfc is NOTHING Like this'.
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Has McDonald's 'accidentally' leaked return of a much-loved item back to menus? Fans hail error message as 'genius marketing move'
McDonald's has captured the imagination of fans after 'accidentally' leaking the return of a popular menu item - and called it a 'genius marketing strategy'.
Eagled-eyed smartphone users spotted a message this morning sent "in error" to those with the McDonald's app installed.
Diners across the UK can use the Rewards app to order or collect food, as well as clocking up loyalty points to exchange for free mains, sides, drinks and desserts.
At 9am this morning, smartphone users with notifications enabled received a cryptic alert from McDonald's that suggests a beloved burger is making a comeback.
The message read: "McRib_Test.notification_16.10.24 [TEST]." However, when users attempted to open the alert, it lead to a web page with a 404 error screen.
At 9am this morning, smartphone users with notifications enabled received a cryptic alert from McDonald's that suggests a beloved burger is making a comeback
The McRib was first introduced to UK McDonald's menus in 1981, but was axed just four years later
Even more mysteriously, another message posted by the fast food giant below the error screen read: 'There is definitely currently no reason for this page to not exist. Probably.'
The notification has since sparked a frenzy among fans, with some deciphering it as the McRib making a return to UK restaurants on October 16.
However, other diners have suggested the 'accidental' leak is solely a 'clever marketing scheme.'
The McRib was first introduced to UK McDonald's menus in 1981, but was axed just four years later.
The burger, which features a boneless pork patty dipped in barbeque sauce and topped with onions and pickles, has made sporadic returns for a limited time since.
Taking to X, one person wrote: 'H*** f*** did McDonald's accidentally announce they're bringing the McRib back???'
Another said: 'That exciting moment when McDonald's sends a test McRib notification accidentally.'
A third hailed the move as an 'absolutely genius marketing strategy,' while another said, 'Very clever marketing. A "test" notification that leads to a fake 404 page to make everyone think you messed up and released it early.'
The notification has since sparked a frenzy among fans, with some deciphering it as the McRib making a return to UK restaurants on October 16
Meanwhile, others claimed to see straight through the 'tactic,' with one person writing: '"Accidentally".... It's a hype tactic and it works!!'
Another said: 'Definitely wasn't an accident when you see what the page says when you click. Genius marketing.'
A McDonald's UK spokesperson told the Liverpool Echo: 'McDonald's is always looking to innovate with new and exciting menu items, as well as bringing back the fan favourites.'
'If you're keen to be the first to receive more info from McDonald's stay tuned.'
It comes after McDonald's unveiled the incredible new cost of its popular drinks last month.
For those needing a caffeine fix on the go without wanting to break the bank, customers can now grab an Americano or white coffee from the fast-food chain in the UK for just £1.39.
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С сожалением и понятными пожеланиями, Dimitriy.
As U.N. Meets, Pressure Mounts on Biden to Loosen Up on Arms for Ukraine
... President Biden will be under increasing pressure this week to loosen restrictions on Ukraine’s use of weapons when global leaders converge on the United Nations for their annual gathering.
President Volodymyr Zelensky of Ukraine will also come with what he calls a victory plan for Mr. Biden to examine, and key European leaders are already pushing hard for Mr. Biden to allow him to use longer-range weapons supplied by NATO countries to hit farther inside Russia, to strike bases from which Russian planes and missiles attack Kyiv with relative impunity.
The push comes as Ukraine is slowly losing ground to mass Russian assaults in the eastern Donbas region and Russia continues to pound Ukraine’s civilian infrastructure, including electricity and heating plants, from a safe distance as winter is approaching.
Mr. Biden has been reluctant to give permission, careful as he has been since Russia invaded Ukraine in February 2022 not to escalate the war and risk a direct conflict between Moscow and the NATO alliance. President Vladimir V. Putin of Russia already blames NATO for the war and has made threats of retaliation, including frequent veiled references to his nuclear arsenal. But he has not retaliated militarily against the West even as NATO countries have gradually increased the quantity and quality of their arms supplies to Kyiv.
Finland’s new president, Alexander Stubb, joined the chorus for longer-range weapons in an interview with The New York Times, while Jens Stoltenberg, in his last days as NATO secretary general, has all but done the same, while noting diplomatically that each country must decide for itself.
Mr. Stubb, who will speak for all the Nordic countries at the U.N. General Assembly, was blunt.
“I call upon our allies in the global West, including the United States, to allow Ukraine to fight without one hand tied behind its back and to lift those restrictions,” he said in a wide-ranging interview on Thursday from Helsinki. “We need to continue to support Ukraine, starting with finance, starting with ammunition, starting with vehicles, and also with allowing Ukraine to use weapons as itself pleases, as long as it’s in self-defense and within the framework of international rules.”
Mr. Stoltenberg has been unusually outspoken as he prepares to leave office at the end of the month. “I fully understand the desire from Ukraine to have as few restrictions as possible,” he said in an interview with Christiane Amanpour of CNN. “There are less restrictions now than just some months ago,” he said, “and that’s the right thing to do,” because “this is a war of aggression” and “according to international law, self-defense is legal.”
Ukraine, he said, “has the right for self-defense and that includes striking legitimate military targets on the territory of the aggressor, Russia.” And NATO countries, he went on, “have the right to provide the weapons that they are using to do so without us becoming a party to the conflict.”
Both Mr. Stubb and Mr. Stoltenberg noted that various allied “red lines” had already been crossed, with the provision to Ukraine of Leopard II battle tanks, Storm Shadow and Scalp cruise missiles, longer-range artillery and even American-made F-16 fighter jets. All were subject to fierce debates over whether they would prompt Mr. Putin to escalate the fight and even use nuclear weapons.
The new prime minister of Britain, Keir Starmer, has also pushed Mr. Biden to allow the use of these longer-range weapons, like Storm Shadow and Scalp, its French version, to hit bases farther into Russia from where Mr. Putin launches attacks.
Adm. Rob Bauer, chairman of the NATO Military Committee, said last week that attacks deep inside Russia were legal, because “to weaken the enemy that attacks you, you not only fight the arrows that come your way but also attack the archer.” Still, he said, nations providing weapons can demand “certain limitations” in their use, “because they feel responsible for those weapons.”
Mr. Stubb, whose country joined NATO only in response to the war and shares a long border with Russia, has few illusions about what he considers NATO’s need to stand up to Russian aggression in Ukraine. “Russia is an imperial power that has expansion in its DNA,” he said.
“So what we need to do is to convince Putin that there’s no point for him to continue this war, and I think Putin needs to lose both the war and the peace, because the only thing that he understands is power,” Mr. Stubb said.
“The key is to allow Ukraine to fight this war without any kind of restrictions, and everything after that is secondary,” Mr. Stubb said. “The more we allow Ukraine to act, the sooner we will achieve peace negotiations.” Then the West must provide Kyiv with security guarantees leading to membership in both NATO and the European Union, he said.
Mr. Stoltenberg agreed. “By giving Ukraine more weapons, we can make Putin realize he cannot get what he wants by force and make it so costly that he will have to accept Ukraine has a sovereign, democratic right to persist as a sovereign, democratic country,” he said in a speech last week in Brussels to the German Marshall Fund. “The paradox is that the more weapons for Ukraine we are able to deliver, the more likely it is that we can reach a peace and end to the war. And the more credible our long-term military support, the sooner the war will end.”
Given raging global conflicts, including in the Middle East and Africa, the United Nations must re-engage in true peacekeeping, Mr. Stubb said. To that end, in New York, he said he would propose an expansion of the U.N. Security Council to include five new permanent members, one from Latin America, two from Asia and two from Africa, coupled with 10 rotating members and an elimination of the single-country veto, “which makes the Security Council dysfunctional,” he said. He would also propose that a member country “in blatant violation of the U.N. Charter and international law, such as Russia is right now in Ukraine,” should be suspended by a vote of the General Assembly.
Serious changes to the Security Council have proved impossible in the past, given the veto, he concedes, but he insists that the crisis demands new thinking. The veto might be replaced by weighted voting, he said, but it was crucial to include members of the so-called Global South, developing countries largely left out of post-1945 international institutions.
Those countries may see hypocrisy in the criticism of Russia and the support for Israel in Gaza, he said. “But my argument to our friends in the Global South, who are sometimes justifiably expressing doubts about Western double standards, is to say that this war in Ukraine sets the scene for how other nation-states can behave in the rest of the world,” he said. “If we now allow Russian imperialism to take place, we will see this happening elsewhere in the world, and that’s why I think this is a key struggle for all of us.”
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Ukraine Needs to Be Realistic About Its Goals, Czech President Says
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President Petr Pavel of the Czech Republic, a former senior NATO general who has been one of Ukraine’s most robust backers in its war with Russia, says he thinks it is time for Ukrainians and their supporters to face what he says is reality.
With Russia-friendly populist leaders such as Prime Minister Viktor Orban of Hungary disrupting European unity over the war and with the fatigue of 19 months of conflict “growing everywhere,” Ukraine “will have to be realistic” about its prospects of recovering territory occupied by Russia, Mr. Pavel said in an interview.
“The most probable outcome of the war,” he said, “will be that a part of Ukrainian territory will be under Russian occupation, temporarily.” But, he added, that “temporary thing,” could last years.
The Czech presidency is a largely ceremonial post but the views of Mr. Pavel, who was elected last year by a wide margin, are generally aligned with those of the country’s center-right government under Prime Minister Petr Fiala. Mr. Pavel has considerable influence on security issues as a former chief of the Czech military’s general staff and past chairman of NATO’s military committee.
Since the failure last year of Ukraine’s monthslong counteroffensive to retake territory, European officials have spoken increasingly in private about Ukraine’s slim chances of recovering much lost land. In public, they mostly recite the mantra that the shape of any future settlement with Russia is up to Kyiv to decide, not the European Union or NATO.
The question of Ukraine’s future will be a major topic at the United Nations General Assembly in New York this week, where Ukraine’s president, Volodymyr Zelensky, will be appealing for more military and political support when he makes a speech there on Wednesday. He will also present a “victory plan” to President Biden in Washington on Thursday before unveiling it publicly.
Neither Ukraine nor Russia, Mr. Pavel said, can expect to secure its maximalist goals. For Ukraine, that includes the recovery of all the territory, including Crimea, seized by Moscow in 2014. For Russia, it is a demand that Ukraine formally cede land claimed by Moscow, including four regions only partially controlled by Russian forces.
“To talk about a defeat of Ukraine or defeat of Russia, it will simply not happen,” Mr. Pavel said in his office at Prague Castle this past week, “So the end will be somewhere in between.”
Mr. Zelensky, who had ruled out direct talks with Russia, softened his stance over the summer, suggesting that direct talks could begin in November. But he has not backed down on demands that Russia leave all Ukrainian territory.
Whether to give up territory, Mr. Zelensky told the French newspaper Le Monde in July is a “very, very difficult” question.
Opinion polls conducted by the Kyiv International Institute of Sociology since the start of Russia’s full-scale invasion show a marked increase since last year in the share of Ukrainians ready to accept territorial concessions.
That figure rose to 32 percent in May this year, from around 8 percent to 10 percent during the first year of war. A majority of Ukrainians, however, still oppose surrendering land.
Mr. Pavel said there were “a number of examples” of territories held temporarily by Moscow. He did not specify, but experts in Eastern Europe have often pointed to the Soviet Union’s occupation of Estonia, Latvia and Lithuania as something Ukraine could face if it does not restore its preinvasion borders. The Baltic nations were occupied for half a century, but they eventually recovered their independence with the collapse of communism in 1991.
After surveying public opinion in Ukraine and in 14 other European countries, the European Council on Foreign Relations, a think tank, in July reported “a profound chasm between European and Ukrainian opinion about how the war will end.” Ukrainians, it said, “want weapons in order to win, while most Europeans send weapons hoping this will help lead to an acceptable eventual settlement.”
Speaking to Ukrainian journalists on Saturday, Mr. Zelensky said that Western partners had encouraged Ukraine to open negotiations.
“All our allies, including the closest ones who are on our side and always against Russian aggression, said that Russia should be present” at settlement talks planned in November, he said. “There can be no end to war without one of the parties.”
A poster in Luhansk, a Russia-controlled part of eastern Ukraine, in March. The message was inviting residents to vote in the Russian presidential election that month.Credit...Valery Melnikov/EPA, via Shutterstock
The Czech Republic, along with Poland and the Baltic States, has been a particularly stalwart supporter of Ukraine but has faced growing public pressure to curb its aid and to push Ukraine toward a deal with Russia.
Nearly two-thirds of Czechs, according to an opinion poll conducted this summer, would support a quick end to the war in Ukraine even at the cost of some territory remaining under Russian control.
An earlier survey found that 54 percent opposed sending weapons under their country’s flagship policy on Ukraine — a multibillion dollar program known as the Czech Ammunition Initiative. The program, managed by the Czech defense ministry and funded by Germany and other European Union countries, has provided Ukraine with hundreds of thousands of artillery shells obtained by Czech arms dealers from manufacturers in Turkey and elsewhere.
Mr. Pavel dismissed as “nonsense” insistent calls by populist leaders like Mr. Orban, a critic of military aid, that Ukraine should swiftly sue for peace and stop draining resources better spent on Europe’s domestic needs.
But, he said, Ukrainians need to be “realistic about the support that they can achieve” from governments under pressure to scale back help against Russia.
“The issue is linked to populism,” Mr. Pavel said, “It’s easy to say, ‘Let’s stop providing Ukraine with weapons and ammunition and then the peace will come on its own.’”
He added that “as someone with some experience with defense and security, and with knowledge of Russia, I know that peace will not come from a declaration by Ukraine that it will stop fighting.” Russia, he said, “will not stop its military activities.”
Mr. Orban, who has repeatedly denounced his NATO allies as warmongers, called for a halt to military aid to Ukraine and sought to rally support for an ill-defined “policy of peace,” is “probably the prototype of European populism,” Mr. Pavel said.
Dismaying fellow E.U. leaders, Mr. Orban traveled to Moscow in July to meet with President Vladimir V. Putin as part of what he called a “peace mission” that also included a visit to the Ukrainian capital Kyiv and to Beijing. It was the first time that a European leader had visited Russia for an official meeting with Mr. Putin since the first months after Russia invaded Ukraine in February 2022.
Mr. Orban’s efforts failed to budge Mr. Putin from sweeping demands that Ukraine withdraw troops from the four regions that Moscow has declared part of Russia and drop aspirations to join NATO. But Mr. Orban’s stance has been cheered by fellow Ukraine-skeptics, such as Prime Minister Robert Fico of Slovakia, and by Russia-friendly politicians on both the far left and far right across Europe.
“Constantly repeating that everybody else wants war, but I want peace — that would make me look much better than all the others,” Mr. Pavel said, “Unfortunately, most people do not realize that such a proposal is unrealistic.”
Zelensky Attacks Trump and Vance to U.S. Media, Tours Ammo Plant in PA at Taxpayers’ Expense
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Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky is bashing former President Donald Trump and his running mate, Sen. JD Vance (R-OH), attacking them in American media outlets and touring an ammunition factory in Pennsylvania Sunday — reportedly arriving there at the taxpayers’ expense on an Air Force jet.
The New Yorker has an exhaustive piece on Zelensky penned by Joshua Yaffa, stating that the Ukrainian leader “speaks with the urgency of a leader who knows that he may be facing his last best chance for substantial foreign assistance” as President Biden’s presidential term is coming to an end. The Q&A in the piece is revealing, as Zelensky openly attacks Trump, asserting that he “doesn’t really know how to stop the war even if he might think he knows how.”
“With this war, oftentimes, the deeper you look at it the less you understand. I’ve seen many leaders who were convinced they knew how to end it tomorrow, and as they waded deeper into it, they realized it’s not that simple,” he said, ripping Trump’s running mate, Vance, as “too radical.”
“Vance has come out with a more precise plan to—” the New Yorker asked as Zelensky chimed in, “to give up our territories.”
“Your words, not mine. But, yes, that’s the gist of it,” the New Yorker continued as Zelensky continued to, essentially, criticize the Trump-Vance ticket:
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His message seems to be that Ukraine must make a sacrifice. This brings us back to the question of the cost and who shoulders it. The idea that the world should end this war at Ukraine’s expense is unacceptable. But I do not consider this concept of his a plan, in any formal sense. This would be an awful idea, if a person were actually going to carry it out, to make Ukraine shoulder the costs of stopping the war by giving up its territories. But there’s certainly no way this could ever happen. This kind of scenario would have no basis in international norms, in U.N. statute, in justice. And it wouldn’t necessarily end the war, either. It’s just sloganeering.
It would be one thing if these were just interviews, but according to reports, Zelensky, who has been busying himself criticizing the Republican ticket for president, flew into the United States, touring an ammunition factory in the key swing state of Pennsylvania on Sunday. Further, it seems he arrived to the facility on an U.S. Air Force C-17. In other words, he arrived on the U.S. taxpayers’ dime:
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Donald Trump Jr. is among those who pointed to the absurdity of the entire stunt.
“So a foreign leader who has received billions of dollars in funding from American taxpayers, comes to our country and has the nerve to attack the GOP ticket for President?” he asked, noting the timing of this is particularly poor, as a man with an obsession with Ukraine attempted to murder his father just one week ago.
“And he does this right after a pro-Ukraine zealot tried to assassinate my father? Disgraceful!” Don Jr. added:
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It should be noted that in June, Vice President Kamala Harris promised another $1.5 billion to Ukraine.
During a recent interview on X Spaces, Trump said he will end the Russia-Ukraine war as president-elect:
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I want to get Russia to settle up with Ukraine and stop this — millions of people being killed, far greater than the number you read about. But I want to get that done before I even take office, I want to get that done as president-elect, because it has to be solved — too many people dying, too many cities are just in rubble right now, you look at the cultures just being destroyed. We’ve got to get that done, and I’ll get it done. There wouldn’t have been an October 7th, there wouldn’t have been Russia attacking Ukraine, there wouldn’t be inflation, all this inflation which has hurt people so badly. You wouldn’t have had that horrible type of withdrawal — we were getting out of Afghanistan, but with dignity and strength — that was the most embarrassing moment in the history of our country.
“And frankly Russia would have never gone into Ukraine if it weren’t for that,” Trump added, pointing to the weakness of the Biden-Harris administration. “They looked at that and they said, ‘This country is no longer run by Trump. This country is run by stupid people.'”
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С сожалением и понятными пожеланиями, Dimitriy.
Debate over Ukraine weapons restrictions divides allies, administration
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The discussion over weapons restrictions is ongoing in Washington, splitting the Biden administration and Capitol Hill and confounding America’s partners in Europe,
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KYIV — The United States’ lingering refusal to relax restrictions on Ukraine’s use of Western missiles for deeper strikes on Russian territory has exacerbated a growing divide between the allies — with Kyiv angry over yet another setback in slowing Russia’s assault across the country while its biggest backer considers the possibility of Moscow’s backlash.
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The discussion is ongoing in Washington, splitting the Biden administration and Capitol Hill, and it has confounded America’s partners in Europe, several of whom have publicly said they’re in favor of granting the permission for more cross-border strikes using their missiles. For this article, Washington Post reporters interviewed more than a dozen officials in Ukraine, NATO member countries, and both the Biden administration and Congress to gauge the temperature of the fierce debate over the management of Ukraine’s war.
So far, U.S. officials insist there is no indication that the White House will change its position on this. But the Ukrainians have heard that before. They point to a U.S. pattern of repeatedly denying their weapons requests — on modern tanks, fighter jets and longer-range missiles — before eventually giving the green light each time. And with the lengthy debates playing out in public, the Russians have always had time to prepare long before the new weapons reach the battlefield.
U.S. officials, for their part, express frustration about what they perceive as Ukraine’s lack of understanding of their occasionally cautious approach even as they provide Kyiv with significantly more security assistance than anyone else.
Russian President Vladimir Putin has framed his attack on Ukraine as part of a war against the West — the United States in particular — and Washington has often cited managing escalation with Moscow as a reason for not approving some of Ukraine’s armament requests immediately.
It is a point of view strongly held by the campaign for Republican candidate Donald Trump as well, with his son co-writing an opinion piece in the Hill warning against nuclear conflagration if such permissions are given.
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In Zelensky’s meeting with Biden this week, the Ukrainian delegation’s priority is to pitch its secretive “victory plan” as an opportunity for Biden to leave office with a legacy of having helped Ukraine win the war against Russia.
An important aspect of that plan is the ability to hit the Russians on their own territory. Russian glide bombs, converted munitions with guidance systems that are launched from aircraft, have been devastating Ukrainian front lines.
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With Kyiv’s limited air defense capabilities unable to prevent the glide bomb attacks, Ukrainian officials want to hit the planes launching these weapons while they are still on the airfields in Russia. But those runways are out of range of the Western weaponry they currently are permitted to use for cross-border strikes.
“We think the permission should be granted yesterday, not today or tomorrow,” one Ukrainian official said. “Otherwise, the phrase ‘We want to see Ukraine as strong as possible for any scenario’ looks like total BS.”
[img]https://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-apps/imrs.php?src=https://arc-anglerfish-washpost-prod-washpost.s3.amazonaws.com/public/FW6E2TD3DJKP4WHRSRRDACQEFM_size-normalized.jpg[/img]
Army Sgt. Ian Ketterling prepares a crane for loading an Army Tactical Missile System onto a High Mobility Artillery Rocket System in Queensland, Australia, in July 2023. (Sgt. 1st Class Andrew Dickson/U.S. Army/AP)
The Ukrainians also want more agency to pick their own targets, including energy infrastructure, such as oil depots, officials said. Those kinds of strikes can hurt Russia’s economy, limiting its ability to fund the war effort, explained a senior Ukrainian military official. It’s fair play, the official added, as Moscow has been pummeling Ukraine’s power grid for the past two years, causing rolling blackouts throughout the country.
But Kyiv has long been dependent on receiving target coordinates for strikes with its precision Western weaponry from U.S. military personnel on a base elsewhere in Europe. Without those, the missile is likely to miss its mark, the military official said, and the United States has sometimes declined to provide coordinates for some of Kyiv’s desired targets.
“The weapons are often used on what we would consider less important targets,” the official said.
U.S. officials argue that Ukraine has such a limited stockpile of ATACMS and similar munitions that opening up Russian territory to strikes would make only a limited impact on the battlefield and could lead to the missiles running out in a matter of weeks, or even days.
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White House and Defense Department officials say that they have not heard a convincing argument from Ukrainian leaders that the possible targets within missile range in Russia would make a significant difference in Ukraine’s path to victory.
They say that using the missiles against targets in Crimea, as Ukraine has done so far, is a more worthwhile strategy that has already forced the Kremlin to pull forces back from the peninsula.
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One U.S. official maintained that this request is different from past ones because it is not worth the risk of a Russian escalation. Because the stockpile of missiles is limited and Russia has already pulled 90 percent of the jets launching glide bombs out of ATACMS range, a changed U.S. policy would not reshape the course of the fighting.
But European military officials and diplomats emphatically disagreed that allowing the longer-range strikes into Russia would only have limited impact and condemned the policy of refusing to lift the restrictions on Western weapons.
“On the technical and strategic level, it doesn’t make sense. It’s actually stupid,” one Western military official said, adding that NATO’s own military doctrine calls for deep strikes behind enemy lines.
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While the United States’ green-lighting of deeper missile strikes into Russia would not be enough on its own for Ukraine to win the war, the official said, it would help disrupt Russian logistics, target command centers and weapon depots. In addition, the longer the wait for permission, the less effective the long-range strike capability will eventually be.
Ukrainian and European officials said they’ve already recorded the Russians using the airfields closest to Ukraine’s border less. Military aircraft now use these landing strips for just a quick stop to refuel or maintenance.
“There’s no doubt that if there is a decision on this now, to allow these weapons to be used, some of the advantage has already been squandered through this timorousness,” said Keir Giles, an analyst at the London-based Chatham House think tank.
One Ukrainian official suggested that the new American argument about the lack of effectiveness of cross-border strikes probably emerged “because the previous excuse is not working anymore.”
A European diplomat in Kyiv said they believed Ukraine launched its recent incursion into Russia’s Kursk region in part to make a statement to the West that Putin’s red lines can be crossed without fear of major retaliation, such as the use of nuclear weapons.
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But Russia still can escalate elsewhere in ways that make the Biden administration’s life more difficult on the world stage, U.S. officials said, by arming the Houthi militia group in Yemen that has been threatening maritime traffic in the Red Sea, for example, or handing nuclear know-how to Iran, or increasing its campaign of sabotage attacks in Europe.
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That discussion is ongoing, officials said, with those inside the National Security Council trying to manage the differences between the Defense Department and the State Department.
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U.S. officials say that they would have preferred that Ukraine pursue its requests in private rather than mount the public campaign that it has waged.
(выделено а.п.) But the Ukrainians counter that this public pressure campaign was born out of desperation after the private approach was rejected. The downside, of course, is that it telegraphs their plans to Russia.
One Western diplomat said that it was normal for such decisions to take time and that even if the debate is public, it doesn’t necessarily give Russia a military advantage, “but it gives them an in into who is the weakest link in the chain. It gives them leverage in terms of messaging and playing into our fears.”
Some European countries have joined Ukraine’s call for the United States to lift its restrictions, and diplomats said they wouldn’t rule out a U.S. policy shift in a war that has seen the goal posts repeatedly move. Britain and France are also providing longer-range missiles to Ukraine, and both have been vocal in supporting Ukraine using their munitions on Russian territory.
Britain’s foreign secretary, David Lammy, however, appeared to be lowering expectations that Ukraine’s allies would make a quick decision over whether to allow Ukraine to fire their long-range missiles deep into Russia. He told the BBC a week ago that the matter would be discussed with Ukraine by its allies at the U.N. General Assembly meeting in New York.
“These decisions come with a risk that is not small,” said a European official. “But in general, on the question of whether it’s an escalatory risk or is Putin bluffing, you never really know. The decisions are not made in fear of that.”
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While Ukrainian officials are quick to express their gratitude for any foreign military assistance, they also point out that they’re paying the highest price. And any delays on weapons use cost the lives of their soldiers, they say.
“It’s time to choose,” said Mykola Bielieskov, an analyst linked to Ukraine’s presidential office. “Now you can’t sit on two chairs simultaneously. You need to take one chair. The balancing act is a byproduct of crisis management instead of good strategy.”
Birnbaum reported from Washington and Francis from Brussels. David L. Stern and Serhii Korolchuk in Kyiv; William Booth in London; Robyn Dixon in Riga, Latvia; and Missy Ryan, Abigail Hauslohner and Karen DeYoung in Washington contributed to this report.
Цитата:
Negotiate with Moscow to end the Ukraine war and prevent nuclear devastation
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The New York Times reported Thursday that the Biden administration is considering allowing Ukraine to use NATO-provided long-range precision weapons against targets deep inside Russia. Such a decision would put the world at greater risk of nuclear conflagration than at any time since the Cuban missile crisis.
At a time when American leaders should be focused on finding a diplomatic off-ramp to a war that should never have been allowed to take place, the Biden-Harris administration is instead pursuing a policy that Russia says it will interpret as an act of war. In the words of Vladimir Putin, long-range strikes in Russia “will mean that NATO countries — the United States and European countries — are at war with Russia.”
Some American analysts believe Putin is bluffing, and favor calling his bluff. As the Times reported, “‘Easing the restrictions on Western weapons will not cause Moscow to escalate,’17 former ambassadors and generals wrote in a letter to the administration this week. ‘We know this because Ukraine is already striking territory Russia considers its own — including Crimea and Kursk — with these weapons and Moscow’s response remains unchanged.’”
These analysts are mistaking restraint for weakness. In essence, they are advocating a strategy of brinksmanship. Each escalation — from HIMARS to cluster munitions to Abrams tanks to F-16s to ATACMS — draws the world closer to the brink of Armageddon. Their logic seems to be that if you goad a bear five times and it doesn’t respond, it is safe to goad him even harder a sixth time.
Such a strategy might be reasonable if the bear had no teeth. The hawks in the Biden administration seem to have forgotten that Russia is a nuclear power. They have forgotten the wisdom of John F. Kennedy, who said in 1963, “Nuclear powers must avert those confrontations which bring an adversary to a choice of either a humiliating retreat or a nuclear war.”
We should take this advice seriously. Putin has signaled numerous times that Russia would use nuclear weapons in extreme circumstances. In September 2022, Putin said, “If the territorial integrity of our country is threatened, we will without doubt use all available means to protect Russia and our people — this is not a bluff.” In March 2023, he struck a deal with Belarus to station tactical nuclear weapons there. Earlier this month, Deputy Foreign Minister Sergei Ryabkov announced that Russia would be amending its nuclear doctrine in response to Western involvement in the Ukraine war.
Imagine if Russia were providing another country with missiles, training and targeting information to strike deep into American territory. The U.S. would never tolerate it. We shouldn’t expect Russia to tolerate it either.
This game of nuclear “chicken” has gone far enough. There is no remaining step between firing U.S. missiles deep into Russian territory and a nuclear exchange. We cannot get any closer to the brink than this.
And for what? To “weaken Russia”? To control Ukraine’s minerals? No vital American interest is at stake. To risk nuclear conflict for the sake of the neoconservative fantasy of global “full-spectrum dominance” is madness.
The war fever in the U.S. foreign policy establishment is at such a pitch that it is hard to tell whether they believe their own rhetoric. In last Tuesday’s debate, Vice President Kamala Harris conjured up images of Russian forces rolling across Europe. Surely she must know how absurd that is. For one thing, Russia can barely wrest a few provinces from Ukraine, which is by no means one of Europe’s great powers.
Secondly, Russia made its war aims very clear at the outset — most notably Ukrainian neutrality and a halt to NATO’s eastward expansion. Hundreds of thousands of lost lives, and hundreds of billions of dollars later, no one is better off — not Europe, not America and certainly not Ukraine.
It is past time to de-escalate this conflict. This is more important than any of the political issues our nation argues about. Nuclear war would mean the end of civilization as we know it, maybe even the end of the human species.
Former President Donald Trump has vowed to end this war, but by the time he takes office, it might be too late. We need to demand, right now, that Harris and President Biden reverse their insane war agenda and open direct negotiations with Moscow.
Robert F. Kennedy Jr. is an environmental lawyer and public health advocate. Donald Trump Jr. is executive vice president of the Trump Organization.
Yes, ‘Superman’ Starmer made a slip of the tongue – but it didn’t take away from a banger of a speech
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The “return of the sausages” was not in Labour’s manifesto, but somehow in the excitement of his first conference speech as prime minister, Keir Starmer made it an extra policy commitment.
Did he really just say that? Yes, he somehow managed to garble the word “hostages” during a heavy passage about the Middle East. But it simply didn’t matter because this was “Superman” Starmer’s day – the day his cantankerous and impossible party finally conceded that, yes, all things considered, it loved its leader.
The thing about Labour is you can never take the hall for granted. And despite a summer of winter fuel discontent, briefing wars and now a scandal over his £16,200 clothing freebies (how does a man whose suits look identical run up such a high bill?), the cheers of 5 July echoed again.
A clue that things were likely to go well came an hour before the doors opened, when the queue for seats was already stretching through the exhibition centre. Ministers walked sheepishly past the ordinary members to take their rows in the hall.
As the seats filled up, they played over giant screens a Star Wars-style rolling list of seats won by Labour at the general election. A bit like that scene where Luke Skywalker’s craft skims over the Death Star; it rammed home the eye-popping scale of Starmer’s July landslide.
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Despite the density of his text, Starmer spoke even more fluidly than usual. He breezed through the verbal error of the returning sausages without missing a beat and dealt with an inevitable Gaza heckler with practiced ease. “This guy’s obviously got a pass from the 2019 conference,” he said dismissively as the interrupter was frogmarched out.
Another ferocious passage laid into the right wing for exploiting tensions over immigration.
“To those who say the only way to love your country is to hate your neighbour, because they look different, I say not only do we reject you, we know that you will never win.” Britain was “a country with fairness in the water”.
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Whatever future divisions were seeded in this speech, Starmer had his post-victory party cheering him to the rafters. Which means, in all likelihood, conferences will be tougher from now on.
Russian Soyuz brings 3 space station fliers home after record-setting mission
After 374 days in space - a new record for a stay aboard the International Space Station - Soyuz commander Oleg Kononenko was all smiles after being helped out of the spacecraft's cramped descent module. Crewmate Nikolai Chub joined him for the marathon mission.NASA/ROSCOSMOS
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Cosmonaut Oleg Kononenko, now the world's most experienced spaceman, first-time flier Nikolai Chub and NASA veteran Tracy Dyson undocked from the International Space Station and returned to Earth on Monday, closing out a record-setting mission with a picture-perfect landing in Kazakhstan.
With the Soyuz crew back home, NASA and SpaceX are gearing up to launch astronaut Nick Hague and cosmonaut Alexander Gorbunov to the station aboard a Crew Dragon capsule on Thursday, weather permitting. Liftoff from pad 40 at the Cape Canaveral Space Force Station is targeted for 2:05 p.m. EDT.
Hague and Gorbunov plan to join Starliner astronauts Barry "Butch" Wilmore and Sunita Williams aboard the lab, along with newly-arrived cosmonauts Alexsey Ovchinin, Ivan Vagner and NASA's Donald Pettit.
Four other station crew members — Crew 8 commander Matthew Dominick, Mike Barratt, Jeanette Epps and cosmonaut Alexander Grebenkin — are nearing the end of their own six-month tour of duty and plan to return to Earth aboard another Crew Dragon spacecraft in early October.
But first, the Russians needed to bring Kononenko, Chub and Dyson back to Earth after a marathon mission.
The Soyuz MS-25/71S spacecraft undocked from the station at 4:36 a.m. EDT Monday. Plunging back into the discernible atmosphere along a southwest-to-northeast trajectory, the spacecraft descended through a cloudless blue sky under a large red-and-white parachute, touching down on the steppe of Kazakhstan at 7:59 a.m. EDT (4:59 p.m. local time).
Russian recovery crews and flight surgeons, including NASA support personnel, were on the scene within minutes to help the returning station fliers out of the cramped Soyuz descent module for initial medical checks and satellite phone calls home to family and friends.
With landing in Kazakhstan, Dyson logged 184 days in orbit since launch last March 23. Kononenko and Chub, launched aboard a different Soyuz last Sept. 15, put in more than a full year in space — 374 days — the longest stay yet aboard the International Space Station.
Including four earlier trips to the lab, Kononenko's cumulative time in space now totals 1,111 days, 233 days more than the 878-day mark set by the previous record holder, cosmonaut Gennady Padalka.
Oleg Novitskiy, commander of the Soyuz that carried NASA astronaut Tracy Dyson to orbit last March, welcomed his former crewmate back to Earth with a bouquet of flowers, much to her obvious surprise and delight.NASA/ROSCOSMOS
All station fliers exercise extensively, on a daily basis, to maintain muscle mass and bone density in the weightless environment of space. But returning long-duration fliers typically need several weeks to fully re-adapt to the effects of gravity.
Even so, all three Soyuz crew members appeared healthy, flashing broad smiles after being pulled from the descent module and carried to nearby recliners. Dyson, who flew to the station with a different crew last March, was presented with a bouquet of flowers by her former commander, Oleg Novitskiy, much to her obvious surprise and delight.
During a change-of-command ceremony Sunday, Kononenko, the outgoing station commander, turned the outpost over to Williams, who arrived at the lab June 6 aboard Boeing's Starliner spacecraft. She served as commander of the ISS the last time she was aboard the lab in 2012.
Williams and Wilmore are spending an unexpected eight-and-a-half months aboard the station because of helium leaks and thruster issues that prompted NASA to bring the Boeing spacecraft back to Earth on Sept. 7 without its crew.
"Expedition 71 has taught all of us a lot about flexibility," Williams told her crewmates, referring to the Starliner and its impact on station operations. "You adopted Butch and I even though that was not quite the plan. But here we are as part of the family. ... We appreciate it."
To Kononenko, she said "Oleg, we'll miss your hundreds of stories around the dinner table. But I guess that's what you get for having over 1,000 days in space, you get those stories, right?"
The Soyuz MS-25/71S spacecraft carrying commander Oleg Kononenko, Nikolai Chub and NASA astronaut Tracy Dyson undocked from the International Space Station early Monday as the two spacecraft were passing 260 miles above eastern Mongolia.NASA
She told Chub the station crew will "miss your precision, your professionalism, but I guess that's what you get when you sign up for your rookie flight (for) over a year in space. And Tracy, we're going to miss your ... organization, and your ability to make order out of chaos. So we thank you, all three of you, for that."
The addition of the Starliner's crew to the space station roster threw a wrench into a carefully orchestrated sequence of planned Soyuz and SpaceX Crew Dragon flights to and from the station intended to replace the lab's seven full-time crew members.
NASA originally intended to start the latest crew rotation by launching the next Crew Dragon flight in August, sending Crew 9 commander Zena Cardman, Stephanie Wilson, Hague and Gorbunov to the lab to replace Dominick and his crewmates.
But the Crew 9 flight was held up, and the Crew 8 mission extended, while NASA managers debated whether Boeing's Starliner capsule, launched June 5 on the ship's first piloted test flight, could safely bring Wilmore and Williams home.
Playing it safe, agency managers decided on Aug. 24 to keep the Starliner astronauts on board the station for an extended stay and to bring the Boeing spacecraft back to Earth by remote control. That left the Crew Dragon as the only ship available to take Wilmore and Williams back to Earth.
To free up two seats for the Starliner crew, NASA bumped Cardman and Wilson from the Crew 9 roster. In the meantime, four days after the Starliner's unpiloted return to Earth on Sept. 7, the Russians launched Ovchinin, Vagner and Pettit to replace Kononenko, Chub and Dyson.
Hague and Gorbunov are now scheduled for launch Thursday afternoon from the Cape Canaveral Space Force Station. The four Crew 8 fliers — Dominick, Barratt, Epps and Grebenkin — plan to return to Earth around Oct. 4.
Hague, Gorbunov, Wilmore and Williams are now expected to come home around Feb. 22 aboard the Crew 9 Dragon.
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С сожалением и понятными пожеланиями, Dimitriy.
Exclusive: Iran brokering talks to send advanced Russian missiles to Yemen's Houthis, sources say
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Iran has brokered ongoing secret talks between Russia and Yemen's Houthi rebels to transfer anti-ship missiles to the militant group, three Western and regional sources said, a development that highlights Tehran's deepening ties to Moscow.
Seven sources said that Russia has yet to decide to transfer the Yakhont missiles – also known as P-800 Oniks - which experts said would allow the militant group to more accurately strike commercial vessels in the Red Sea and increase the threat to the U.S. and European warships defending them.
The Wall Street Journal reported in July that Russia was considering sending the missiles. Iran's role as an intermediary has not been previously reported.
The Houthis have launched repeated drone and missile strikes on ships in the crucial Red Sea shipping channels since November to show support for Palestinians in the Gaza war with Israel.
They have sunk at least two vessels and seized another, disrupting global maritime trade by forcing shipping firms to divert cargos and, according to industry sources, driven up insurance costs for ships plying the Red Sea.
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Цитата:
Europe struggles to break Russia's titanium grip: Andy Home
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Fans of Apple's (AAPL.O), opens new tab titanium-cased iPhones can breathe easy.
Russian president Vladimir Putin's suggestion that Moscow should cap exports of titanium in retaliation for Western sanctions won't force Apple to revert to stainless steel casing as its main supplier is China.
European policymakers, however, should be worried.
The bloc's aerospace sector is still dependent on imports of Russian titanium produced by VSMPO-AVISMA, the world's largest integrated producer.
Europe has banned or restricted imports of other Russian metals but not titanium.
When Canada imposed sanctions on VSMPO-AVISMA in February, French President Emmanuel Macron intervened personally to persuade Canadian Prime Minister Justin Trudeau to grant Airbus (AIR.PA), opens new tab and other aerospace firms waivers. He did.
Europe's problem is that even if it can extricate itself from the arms of its Russian supplier, it risks swapping one dependency for another.
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Príslušníci Úradu na ochranu ústavných činiteľov a diplomatických misií podľa spravodajského portálu odhalili náboj počas rannej kontroly pošty určenej priamo premiérovi.
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Bratislava 25. septembra (TASR) - Na Úrad vlády (ÚV) SR prišla v stredu obálka s nábojom adresovaná predsedovi vlády SR Robertovi Ficovi (Smer-SD). Pre TASR to potvrdil tlačový a informačný odbor ÚV. Upozornil na to portál Plus 7 dní.
Príslušníci Úradu na ochranu ústavných činiteľov a diplomatických misií podľa spravodajského portálu odhalili náboj počas rannej kontroly pošty určenej priamo premiérovi. List mal prísť od neznámeho odosielateľa.
Podľa Generálneho prokurátora SR Maroša Žilinku je doručenie obálky s nábojom predsedovi vlády, ktorý len nedávno čelil "vražednému útoku", nielen kriminálnym činom, ale aj prejavom bezohľadnosti a bezcitnosti. "Dôrazne vyzývam celú spoločnosť na elementárnu slušnosť a ľudskosť! Cynizmus a nenávisť, ktorými je prerastená naša spoločnosť, sa musí zastaviť," vyzval Žilinka na sociálnej sieti.
Exclusive: Russia has secret war drones project in China, intel sources say
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Sept 25 (Reuters) - Russia has established a weapons programme in China to develop and produce long-range attack drones for use in the war against Ukraine, according to two sources from a European intelligence agency and documents reviewed by Reuters.
IEMZ Kupol, a subsidiary of Russian state-owned weapons company Almaz-Antey, has developed and flight-tested a new drone model called Garpiya-3 (G3) in China with the help of local specialists, according to one of the documents, a report that Kupol sent to the Russian defence ministry earlier this year outlining its work.
Kupol told the defence ministry in a subsequent update that it was able to produce drones including the G3 at scale at a factory in China so the weapons can be deployed in the "special military operation" in Ukraine, the term Moscow uses for the war.
Kupol, Almaz-Antey and the Russian defence ministry didn't respond to requests for comment for this article. China's foreign ministry told Reuters it was not aware of such a project, adding that the country had strict control measures on the export of drones, or unmanned aerial vehicles (UAVs).
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Taiwan and U.S. Work to Counter China’s Drone Dominance
Officials hope that Taiwan can become a bigger player in the supply chain for drones, a move that would also help blunt any threats posed to the island by China.
A drone developed in Taiwan, on display in 2022. Taiwan plans to expand its military drone arsenal. Credit...Walid Berrazeg/Associated Press
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Spurred by worries about China’s strength in mass-producing drones, American and Taiwanese companies and government officials are working to join forces in making the air and sea vehicles that could be crucial to defending Taiwan.
Several days of discussions in Taiwan, set to finish on Wednesday and held largely away from public view, brought more than two dozen American companies that make drones and anti-drone technologies together with Taiwanese firms looking for American knowledge and customers.
The trade mission, organized by the U.S. International Trade Administration, was the latest indication of how Washington and Taipei have been jolted by China’s position as the world’s biggest maker of commercial drones. Military drones hold the potential to erode Taiwan’s defenses against possible incursions or an attack by China, which claims the island as its territory. Taiwan plans to expand its military drone numbers to blunt that risk.
Taiwanese officials hope that their island can become a bigger player in the supply chain for drones for the United States and allied countries, echoing Taiwan’s success in producing advanced semiconductors. U.S. officials hope to reduce American reliance on Chinese-made drones and components by tapping Taiwan’s manufacturing strengths. Both sides are drawing on lessons from the battlefields of Ukraine and other war zones, where drones have become important for mounting attacks and monitoring enemy forces.
“They have certain capabilities, and they’re coming to find out about our capabilities,” Taiwan’s minister of defense, Wellington Koo, told reporters in Taipei last week, referring to the U.S. drone delegation. “We can become part of the international supply chain.”
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The U.S. delegation included representatives from Northrop Grumman, a big military equipment supplier, as well as companies offering undersea drones, drone detection equipment and other innovations in unmanned aerial vehicles, or U.A.V.s. U.S. defense officials accompanied the delegation, according to Taiwanese news reports.
“Industrial cooperation between the United States and Taiwan is critical to developing supply chain security for a whole range of technologies,” the press office of the American Institute in Taiwan — Washington’s de facto embassy in Taipei — said in a statement.
But hurdles could slow, even stymie, some of Taiwan’s ambitions for a bigger role in designing and manufacturing drones with the United States and its allies. The United States produces most of its military drones, through defense contractors.
Without more government support, Taiwan’s small manufacturers may find it difficult to draw enough funding to increase production, and they must navigate stringent security checks for supplying parts for U.S. military drones, said Chen Kuan-ting, a Taiwanese lawmaker from Chiayi, an area that is building production and testing sites for airborne technology.
U.S. policymakers may be leery of depending too much on Taiwan for drone parts. Some worry about industrial secrets leaking to China. If Taiwan were to come under a Chinese blockade or attack, American drone makers could lose flows of vital components.
The State Department has given AeroVironment, an American defense contractor, the green light to sell up to 720 Switchblade drones to Taiwan.Credit...Ann Wang/Reuters
“Security and intellectual property risks are real but manageable with the right safeguards,” said Craig Singleton, a senior fellow at the Foundation for Defense of Democracies, a research institute in Washington. “Cooperation with Taiwan is crucial, but it needs to be part of a broader strategy that includes shifting some production to more secure locations. This way, the U.S. can benefit from Taiwan’s capabilities without overexposing itself to geopolitical risks.”
Still, the shared worries about China’s military technology are likely to keep driving U.S. and Taiwanese companies toward more collaboration. “Deepening defense industry cooperation between us can send the right message to the Chinese Communist Party: don’t rashly launch a war against Taiwan,” Hsu Yen-pu, a Taiwanese vice minister for defense, told a U.S.-Taiwan defense industry conference in Philadelphia on Monday, according to a transcript shared by the Taiwanese defense ministry.
China’s military drones have become an increasingly common sight in the skies near Taiwan, and they have made flights circling Taiwan’s main island, according to Taiwan’s ministry of defense. China dominates commercial drone sales in the United States and across much of the world, led by DJI, which says it holds 70 percent of the global market. Despite Taiwan’s icy political relations with China, DJI drones are similarly popular with Taiwanese consumers.
“DJI drones — I think it’s best to think about them as Huawei with wings,” Mr. Singleton said in a recent presentation, likening DJI to China’s giant telecommunications company. “Through brute-force economics, the Chinese have established a Chinese champion that controls our current market.”
China’s market dominance makes it harder for Taiwanese drone companies to grow big enough to remain robust during slack times for military orders. Access to more American orders, both commercial and defense, could help overcome that.
“We understand the importance of supporting Taiwan’s own U.A.V. industry, and we believe partnerships can be structured in a way that benefits both sides,” René Carbone Bardorf, the vice president for marketing and communications at AeroVironment, a company on the trade mission, said in a statement. In June, the State Department gave the green light for AeroVironment to sell up to 720 Switchblade drones to Taiwan.
A demonstration of Thunder Tiger drones in Chiayi, Taiwan, last year.Credit...Ann Wang/Reuters
Taiwan’s ministry of defense said last year that it will acquire 7,700 drones in coming years. But turning to Taiwan for more and more parts could raise costs.
“To all of a sudden have these manufacturers move back to producing in Taiwan, we’ll have to see if there’s the determination to remove Chinese parts suppliers from the drone industry,” said Chen Kwan-ju, the chairman of Thunder Tiger, a Taiwanese firm that took part in the talks. “I think this really all comes down to the government’s attitude.”
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Review: A Devastated Drone Pilot Opens the Met Opera’s Season
Jeanine Tesori and George Brant’s bloodless “Grounded,” about a fighter pilot turned dissociating drone operator, stars the mezzo-soprano Emily D’Angelo.
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On a fall evening in 1883, the Metropolitan Opera opened its doors for the first time with a performance of “Faust,” the classic tale of a man who sells his soul to Mephistopheles to gain power and pleasure.
On Monday, 141 years later, another Met season began with Jeanine Tesori and George Brant’s “Grounded,” a bloodless new opera on that same old theme of making an ill-advised deal with the devil.
The same old theme, but with 21st-century trappings — a plot about advanced weapons technology; a libretto loaded with words unprintable in this newspaper — that are still unusual in the tradition-bound opera world, particularly on the Met’s most important night of the year. There is an assumption that operas on charged contemporary themes must be risky and important. “Grounded,” which doesn’t risk much, politically or musically, shows this isn’t so.
Its protagonist, Jess, is a hotshot fighter pilot who falls in love with a rancher she meets while on leave in Wyoming. When she gets pregnant, she is pulled out of her beloved F-16 cockpit, and out of combat in the Middle East. With a loyal husband and daughter, she is without the sense of freedom and mastery she had soaring through — and dropping bombs from — what she calls “the blue.”
A few years later, her old boss, the U.S. military, has a proposal: Would she apply her gifts to operating a missile-bearing Reaper drone, thousands of miles away from her targets? It’s much less glamorous than her former “Top Gun” life, but she’ll be able to go home and hug her child at the end of the day.
“The threat of death,” she is told in a solemn choral hymn, “has been removed.” How can this Major Faust say no to “war with all the benefits of home”?
It won’t surprise anyone that things don’t end up being that simple — the devil always gets his due — nor that war is pitilessly traumatic for those who wage it. At her joystick in Las Vegas, Jess is far from physical harm, but she sees, through the drone’s unblinking eye, the carnage in which she is participating more clearly than when she was in the skies. She finds her work and family lives blurring together uncomfortably — and, in the end, disastrously.
When “Grounded” premiered last year at Washington National Opera, it was a two-and-a-half-hour expansion of Brant’s 80-minute, one-woman play, which had an Off Broadway run with Anne Hathaway in 2015 before the Met commissioned an adaptation. Opening up the original monologue, Tesori (the Tony Award-winning composer of “Fun Home” and “Kimberly Akimbo”) and Brant loaded it with a full cast and a chorus, and the opera sagged under all the new weight.
Over the past year, the creators cut about half an hour, and the result feels trimmer, especially in a zippier first act. And while the mezzo-soprano Emily D’Angelo — her wide eyes full of anxiety as Jess, her voice lean yet warm, her commitment palpable — remains the best thing about “Grounded,” Ben Bliss, whose melted-gold tenor and easygoing charm are new to the show, has nudged Eric, Jess’s husband, closer to being a meaningful presence.
D’Angelo with the tenor Ben Bliss, who plays Jess’s husband.Credit...Sara Krulwich/The New York Times
Closer, but no cigar. There is still a sense of sketchiness to Eric, and to all the supporting roles: the Commander, who mostly curses; the Sensor, Jess’s vapid teenage partner at the drone controls; the unseen five-man “kill chain” that approves her missions in frantic counterpoint. The piece hasn’t really shaken its origins as a solo.
As in Washington, Michael Mayer’s smoothly flowing production, with a set designed by Mimi Lien, has some realistic scenes on stage level and, just above, a more stylized space dominated by LED screens. The projections, designed by Kaitlyn Pietras and Jason H. Thompson, include blue skies and greenish viewfinders, a stage-filling drone and the imagery it sees; a fetus shown in a sonogram resembles an explosion on a grayscale screen.
Even after the revisions, what remains most sorely lacking — even more obviously now that the storytelling is a bit tighter — is musical depth and intensity. As in Tesori’s Broadway shows (and Broadway shows get no better than “Caroline, or Change,” her 2003 collaboration with Tony Kushner), her chameleonic eclecticism, a kind of stylistic agility, is her most notable quality here.
She moves from tender lyricism to pounding marches with a swift fluidity captured (if often quite loudly) by the Met’s orchestra under Yannick Nézet-Séguin, the company’s music director. The opera’s second act opens in a mall with a choral paean to Cinnabon, a touch of humor that Tesori dissolves efficiently into fractured dissonance as Jess sees security cameras and fears she is being watched as she watches the targets of her Reaper.
But Tesori’s gift for tunefulness, so charmingly evident in her musical theater work, has unfortunately been sidelined, as if it’s too lowbrow for the likes of opera. And there’s not enough that’s interesting or idiosyncratic in her score — its orchestration, structure, vocal lines — to compensate.
The result is often faceless and bland. Jess’s downward spiral has little of the vividness of a similar trajectory in Alban Berg’s “Wozzeck,” another opera about a crazed soldier. Some ferocity should have been visible and even a little intimidating in her from the start; there has to be some reason she doesn’t just go work for Delta if she loves flying so much. But despite some powerful high notes and roiling orchestral booms, Jess comes across as pretty mild throughout, her moments of crisis like the checking of plot boxes; Tesori and Brant seem not to want her to be anything but sympathetic.
D’Angelo and Kyle Miller on Mimi Lien’s set with projections by Kaitlyn Pietras and Jason H. Thompson.Credit...Sara Krulwich/The New York Times
They have given her a soprano double named, yes, Also Jess (the lucid-toned Ellie Dehn) to make her mental dissociation crushingly obvious. But Dehn and D’Angelo’s duets are so dully poised that they don’t make us fear Jess, or fear for her.
And after a neat first act, the second, marked by Jess’s growing obsession with one of her targets, feels diffuse. The climax, in which she crashes her drone rather than obey orders that would kill a young girl as collateral damage, comes suddenly, not building to any real impact. The final scene, with Jess a court-martialed prisoner, peters out.
While Tesori’s previous opera, “Blue” (2019), about police violence, felt movingly reserved, “Grounded” is merely timid. It’s clear that D’Angelo would have been able to anchor a wilder piece, if Tesori and Brant had written it.
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С сожалением и понятными пожеланиями, Dimitriy.
U.N. Live Updates: As Zelensky Calls for Global Focus on Ukraine, Putin Rattles Nuclear Sabers
Hours after the Ukrainian president appealed for the West’s continued support, Russia’s authoritarian leader, Vladimir V. Putin, moved to significantly ease the circumstances under which his country might counter with nuclear weapons.
Цитата:
Putin declares changes to Russia’s nuclear doctrine.
...
President Vladimir V. Putin intensified his threats against the West on Wednesday, declaring that Russia should be able to use nuclear weapons if it was attacked by a state that was supported by a nuclear power.
Though he did not mention specific countries, his remarks suggested that Western support for a conventional attack of Russia by Ukraine should be considered a joint attack and could, under certain circumstances, merit a nuclear response.
His declaration coincides with a visit this week to the United States by President Volodymyr Zelensky of Ukraine, where he is speaking at the United Nations General Assembly and will meet with President Biden on Thursday. Mr. Zelensky has been lobbying heavily for permission to use Western weapons to strike deeper into Russian territory.
Speaking at a meeting with his top officials in the Kremlin, Mr. Putin announced proposed amendments to the Russian military doctrine, the policy document that regulates the use of nuclear weapons.
“It is proposed that aggression against Russia by any nonnuclear state, but with the participation or support of a nuclear state be considered as their joint attack on the Russian Federation,” said Mr. Putin.
The Russian leader said that the policy needed to be amended because “military-political circumstances is changing dynamically.”
“The conditions for Russia’s transition to the use of nuclear weapons are also clearly fixed,” Mr. Putin said, adding that Moscow would consider such a move if it detected the start of a massive launch of missiles, aircraft, or drones against it.
Russia views Kyiv’s offensive into its Kursk region as an operation that was done with the support of its Western allies. Mr. Putin has repeatedly said that he sees Ukraine as a proxy for its Western allies whose main goal is to defeat Russia.
Появилась форма, согласованный текст, публикуемый разными изданиями по данному поводу. Цитировать их смысла нет - они почти идентичны.
Цитата:
Putin issues nuclear warning to the West over strikes from Ukraine
...
MOSCOW, Sept 25 (Reuters) - President Vladimir Putin warned the West on Wednesday that Russia could use nuclear weapons if it was struck with conventional missiles, and that Moscow would consider any assault on it supported by a nuclear power to be a joint attack.
His decision to change Russia's official nuclear doctrine is the Kremlin's answer to deliberations in the United States and Britain about whether or not to give Ukraine permission to fire conventional Western missiles into Russia.
Putin, opening a meeting of Russia's Security Council, said that the changes were in response to a swiftly changing global landscape which had thrown up new threats and risks for Russia.
The 71-year-old Kremlin chief, the primary decision-maker on Russia's vast nuclear arsenal, said he wanted to underscore one key change in particular.
"It is proposed that aggression against Russia by any non-nuclear state, but with the participation or support of a nuclear state, be considered as their joint attack on the Russian Federation," Putin said.
...
Цитата:
Цитата:
Изменение ядерной доктрины РФ. Что это значит?
По поводу анонсированных Путиным изменений ядерной доктрины РФ, куда предлагается внести пункт, по которому война против России неядерной страны при поддержке ядерной державы станет основанием для применения российского ядерного оружия.
Если эти изменения будут внесены, то это даст основания России применить ядерное оружие в войне в Украине. Причем не только против Украины, но и против западных стран, которые ее в войне поддерживают.
(выделено а.п.)
Очевидно, что это заявление сделано на фоне обсуждения на Западе снятия запрета на удары дальнобойными ракетами по Украине. Ранее Путин говорил, что разрешение на такие удары будет означать вступление стран НАТО в войну против РФ. Анонсируя изменения в ядерную доктрину Путин как бы дает понять, что в ответ на удары ракетами по России он может применить и ядерное оружие.
Применит ли в реальности - вопрос открытый.
Но градус напряжения, накануне возможного решения Байдена относительно ударов западными ракетами по РФ, поднимается все выше.
Цитата:
Путин: «критическая угроза» суверенитету России обычным оружием будет основанием для ядерного ответа
Президент России Владимир Путин сообщил, что в ядерную доктрину страны предложено внести ряд уточнений в части определения условий применения ядерного оружия, сообщают российские информационные агентства.
7 июля этого года, выступая на Петербургском экономическом форуме, Путин не исключил изменение ядерной доктрины, оговорившись при этом, что сейчас об использовании ядерного оружия «даже думать» необходимости нет.
Сейчас Путин выступил на заседании постоянного совещания Совбеза России по ядерному сдерживанию. СМИ обнародовали его вступительное слово.
Критическая угроза суверенитету России и обычным оружием будет основанием для ядерного ответа, цитирует российского президента ТАСС.
Агрессия против России неядерного государства совместно с ядерным будет рассматриваться как нападение на Россию, заявил Путин.
(выделено а.п.)
По его словам, в проекте обновленной ядерной доктрины будет расширена категория государств и военных союзов, в отношении которых проводится ядерное сдерживания.
Достоверная информация о старте в сторону России средств воздушно-космического нападения повлечет ядерный ответ, предупредил Путин.
Россия оставляет за собой право применить ядерное оружие в случае агрессии в отношении Беларуси, заявил он.
Путин утверждает, что уточнение российской военной доктрины выверено и соразмерно угрозам. Россия всегда в высшей степени ответственно подходила к вопросам использования ядерных сил, это крайняя мера защиты суверенитета страны, передает его слова «РИА Новости».
Путин впервые публично провел заседание постоянного совещания Совбеза России по ядерному сдерживанию, отмечает ТАСС.
Заявления Путина прозвучали на фоне дискуссии о том, может ли Запад разрешить Украине наносить удары дальнобойным оружием по России. Ранее Путин уже обещал, что Москва жестко отреагирует на такое решение.
Цитата:
ЧТО СКАЗАЛ ПУТИН
О ВОЗМОЖНОСТИ НАНЕСЕНИЯ ЯДЕРНОГО УДАРА?
✔️ Россия пересмотрела принципы применения ядерного оружия. И теперь «расширена категория государств и военных союзов, в отношении которых проводится ядерное сдерживание, дополнен перечень военных угроз».
✔️ В обновленной редакции документа «агрессию против России со стороны любого неядерного государства, но с участием или при поддержке ядерного государства предлагается рассматривать как их совместное нападение на Российскую Федерацию». То есть за удар Украины американскими ракетами ответственность несут и Киев, и Вашингтон. И бить «Сатаной», соответственно, законно по обоим.
✔️ Условия перехода России к применению ядерного оружия тоже изменились. Теперь «Россия рассматривает такую возможность уже при получении достоверной информации о массированном старте средств воздушно-космического нападения и пересечении ими нашей государственной границы. Имею в виду самолеты стратегической и тактической авиации, крылатые ракеты, беспилотники, гиперзвуковые и другие летательные аппараты».
✔️ То есть удар неядерными американскими или британскими ракетами – все равно де-факто повод для ядерного удара по Киеву или Вашингтону.
✔️ То же самое и в случае удара по Белоруссии.
✔️ Путин особо почеркнул, что все это касается обычного вооружения, если им попытаются ударить по стратегическим объектам – «в том числе если противник, используя обычное оружие, создает критическую угрозу нашему суверенитету».
Цитата:
[/quote]
_________________
С удовлетворением и понятными ожиданиями, Dimitriy.
Уровень доступа: Вы не можете начинать темы, Вы не можете отвечать на сообщения, Вы не можете редактировать свои сообщения, Вы не можете удалять свои сообщения, Вы не можете голосовать в опросах
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