Museum tanks and trench systems enhance Ukraine training, EU commander says
... Old Soviet tanks have been borrowed from museums to help train Ukrainian troops on what a commander of the EU training mission for Kyiv says are booby-trap tactics used by Russian soldiers on the battlefield.
Instructors from 17 nations have trained some 18,000 Ukrainian troops in Germany to operate high-spec tanks or precision air defence systems and passed on their skills to snipers, engineers, paramedics and for drone warfare.
But with the Russian and Ukrainian armies blasting thousands of shells at each other every day in grinding combat that echoes the trench warfare of World War One, Ukraine has also sought training in circumstances more representative of the battlefield reality as well as on some older equipment.
So the German military has dug trench systems according to Russian standards and borrowed museum piece Soviet tanks to enhance the on-the-ground experience at some of its training sites.
"These (museum) systems are in use on the Russian side, and they sometimes plant booby traps in abandoned gear," Lieutenant-General Andreas Marlow, head of the EU's Special Training Command near Berlin, told Reuters.
"Providing such vehicles in the training makes it easier to demonstrate where to be cautious to make sure that you don't trigger an explosion if you find them on the battlefield and open the door."
The training command declined to say where the tanks were borrowed from, or how many were in use.
The command is part of a European Union military mission set up in 2022 to train Ukrainian troops to combat Russia's invasion.
On Friday, the mission was extended by another two years as Ukrainian troops face Russian forces advancing at the fastest pace since the early days of the war.
Part of the training in Germany now also involves studying Russian trench systems, which Marlow said were typically built to a fixed scheme.
"It is about the shape of the trenches, where to expect shelters and weapons positions," he said.
Instructors are not only looking into the past for inspiration.
Modern simulators have been brought in to train Ukrainian units in combat shooting as well as high-tech dummies that present combat medics with more complex cases.
At the same time, drones are playing a much bigger role in training now, teaching surveillance techniques as well and raising awareness of the constant danger posed by enemy drones hovering in the sky, Marlow said.
Moscow and Kyiv have both sought to buy and develop new drones, deploy them in innovative ways, and find new ways to destroy them.
...
Цитата:
Finland dismisses 'Finlandisation' model for Ukraine
... Forcing neutrality onto Ukraine will not bring about a peaceful solution to the crisis with Russia, Finland's foreign minister said on Monday, adding that Moscow could not be trusted to adhere to any agreement it signs.
Ruled by tsarist Russia for more than a century, Finland gained independence in 1917. It then desperately fended off a Soviet invasion in 1939 and for a time sided with Nazi Germany in a bid to win back lost territory.
As the war ended with Allied victory, Finland found itself compelled to spend decades maintaining friendly and accommodating relations with its eastern neighbour and treading a sometimes precarious path of neutrality to preserve independence - a tactic known as "Finlandisation".
With the prospect of U.S. president elect Donald Trump seeking to end the conflict as quickly possible and concerns from some allies that the terms could be imposed in Kyiv, one scenario could be to force a neutral status on Ukraine.
Russia has repeatedly demanded Ukraine remain neutral for there to be peace, which would de facto kill its aspirations for NATO membership.
RUSSIA TRUST ISSUES
Speaking in an interview with Reuters, Finland's Foreign Minister Elina Valtonen poured cold water on using the "Finlandisation" model, pointing out that firstly Helsinki had fended off Russia in World War 2 and that despite the ensuing peace had always continued to arm itself fearing a new conflict.
"I'm against it (Finlandisation), yes. Let's face it, Ukraine was neutral before they were attacked by Russia," Valtonen, whose country has a 1,300-km (810-mile) border with Russia, said on the sidelines of the Paris Peace Forum.
"It's definitely not something I would be imposing on Ukraine. Definitely not as a first alternative," adding that it would not make the problems go away.
The Ukraine invasion led both Finland and Sweden to abandon decades of military non-alignment and seek safety in the NATO camp.
Valtonen questioned whether Russia could be trusted even if it agreed a deal and said forcing Ukraine's hand to accept terms against its will would tear down the international system.
"I really want to avoid a situation where any European country, or the United States for that matter, starts negotiating over the heads of Ukraine," she said.
"A larger power can not just grab territory, but also essentially weaken the sovereignty of another nation," she said.
Вероятно понимая, что Помпео высокооплачиваемый лоббист Украины, Трамп отказал ему в месте в своей администрации (а Помпео планировал стать министром обороны!).
Цитата:
Trump rules out Haley and Pompeo in White House administration
Помпео, для вида, отметился статьей:
Цитата:
Former Secretary of State Mike Pompeo says Trump won’t let Putin ‘roll through Ukraine’
Former Secretary of State Mike Pompeo said his view of President-elect Donald Trump's foreign policy in Ukraine would focus on ensuring the West emerged victorious from the war.
...
President-elect Donald Trump will adopt a significantly more hawkish view toward the war in Ukraine once he takes office than the one he outlined on the campaign trail, according to former Secretary of State Mike Pompeo.
Throughout the presidential campaign, Trump regularly kept the Ukraine issue at arms length. He often questioned the necessity of sending military aid to Ukraine, citing the high costs associated with it. At Fortune’s Global Forum in New York, however, Pompeo — who served in the Trump administration from 2017 to 2021 — believed the President-elect would adopt a more hardline position on the Russian invasion of Ukraine now that he is set to reenter the White House.
“President Trump is not going to allow Vladimir Putin to roll through Ukraine,” Pompeo said during a joint interview with former CIA Director and Secretary of Defense Leon Panetta. “Withdrawing funding from the Ukranians would result in that and he will be told that by his entire team. It’s not his M.O. to allow that to happen.”
On Saturday, Trump posted on Truth Social, the upstart social media platform owned by his media company the Trump Media & Technology Group, that Pompeo and former United Nations ambassador Nikki Haley wouldn’t be rejoining his new administration. Both Haley and Pompeo have been Ukraine hawks since the start of the war. At the conference, Pompeo acknowledged that his support of U.S. aid to Ukraine differed from those of other Republican officials.
In a show of bipartisan camaraderie Panetta said he’d hoped Pompeo would have been appointed to a role in the second Trump administration. “They need his view of the world, and I really think the Trump administration in the first term benefited from having people like Mike Pompeo there,” Panetta said.
One of Trump’s primary dissatisfactions with the U.S.’s military aid to Ukraine was the cost. As of October, the U.S. had sent $64 billion in military assistance to Ukraine since Russia’s full-scale invasion in February 2022, according to the State Department.
Pompeo sought to cast the significance of the war in Ukraine as an example of a larger, global struggle between liberal democracies—represented by the U.S. and its allies in NATO—and autocracies, such as China, Iran, and North Korea. He said Chinese President Xi Jinping and the Ayatollah of Iran Ali Khamenei would be waiting to see if the West wins, or concedes to Putin. Pompeo’s counterpart on stage, Panetta, echoed those sentiments.
“In many ways Ukraine is also fighting for other democracies because the message that is sent to Putin is a very important message that has to be sent to Xi, it has to be sent the Supreme Leader [of Iran], it has to be sent to Kim Jong Un — that they cannot just have their way with sovereign democracies,” Panetta said.
Pompeo said he believes Trump would come around to that point of view. “It’s absolutely critically important that the perception is the West stood up to this thug and this horrible guy [Putin] and didn’t allow evil to triumph and that’s imperative,” Pompeo said. “I’m very hopeful President Trump will see that imperative.”
On the campaign trail Trump took a more isolationist stance on foreign policy than the traditional, hawkish Republican position. During the debate with his opponent, Vice President Kamala Harris, Trump twice dodged a question about whether he wanted Ukraine to win the war. In his answer he highlighted the cost of the military aid and claimed reports of the death toll from the war were “fake numbers.”
Now, as a president-elect, Trump is immersing himself more fully in the Ukraine question. Last week he spoke to Russian President Vladimir Putin following his reelection. On the call, he reportedly told Putin not to further escalate the war in Ukraine. (Trump spoke to Putin at least seven times since he left office, according to a source cited in a book by journalist Bob Woodward).
In the days following the election Trump also spoke to Ukrainian premier Volodymyr Zelensky in a call that was joined by the world’s richest man, Elon Musk. In September, Trump met with Zelensky when he made a visit to the U.S. Trump has not always seen eye-to-eye with Zelensky. During a podcast interview just a few weeks after their meeting Trump called Zelensky “the greatest salesman on Earth” for having received U.S. military aid. Trump also blamed Zelensky for starting the war.
“He should never have let that war start,” Trump said on the PBD podcast. “The war’s a loser.”
Trump has pushed for a speedy resolution to the war. He regularly touted his record as a dealmaker when he was a real estate developer in the private sector as making him uniquely suited to reaching a peace deal between Ukraine and Russia. During the debate Trump said if won the election an agreement would be made before he was even inaugurated. In July, Trump said he would be able to pull it off in just “24 hours.”
When asked about that timeline, Pompeo said he saw the process taking longer.
“I’ll take the over,” Pompeo said
(выделено а.п.).
… и украинцы заныли:
Цитата:
Цитата:
Ukraine battles to shape 'starting positions' for any war talks after Trump return
...
"This winter is a critical point ... I hope the war is drawing to an end. Right now we will define the positions for both sides on negotiations, the starting positions," the official told Reuters, requesting anonymity to discuss sensitive security issues.
Officials are waiting to see who Trump picks for his top security and defence jobs for clues on how he will shape Ukraine policy. He has ruled out ex-secretary of state Mike Pompeo, seen in Kyiv as pro-Ukrainian.
...
"If it's just fast, it means losses for Ukraine. I just don't yet understand how this could be in any other way. Maybe we do not know something, do not see," Zelenskiy said.
He also criticised talk of a ceasefire without Ukraine first receiving robust security guarantees that would prevent Russia launching an even bigger offensive later on.
"It's a very scary challenge for our citizens: first a ceasefire, then we'll see. Who are you? Are your children dying?" Zelenskiy said in comments apparently aimed at Hungarian Prime Minister Viktor Orban, who had proposed a ceasefire.
BLEAK MOOD
The Kyiv official said it felt "less likely" after Trump's victory that there would be a NATO invitation for Ukraine and acknowledged there was a risk Trump would scale back aid.
"I hope the Biden administration will try to avoid this risk by accelerating the speed of (its) help," the official said.
The Kremlin said on Friday that President Vladimir Putin was ready to discuss Ukraine with Trump, but that this did not mean Moscow's war demands had changed.
Putin set out his terms for an end to the war in June: Ukraine would have to drop its NATO ambitions and withdraw its troops from all of the territory of four regions claimed by Russia, something Kyiv sees as akin to capitulation.
Ukraine's public is sceptical Russia is interested in talks, but its central demand if they happen is for Ukraine to receive proper security guarantees, said Anton Grushetskyi, executive director of the KIIS pollster.
Ukrainians leaned towards wanting Democrat Kamala Harris to win the election, but frustration at the reluctance of outgoing President Joe Biden's administration to increase support meant they were increasingly open to a gamble on Trump, he said.
"People are very disappointed that behind the very strong words of the Biden administration the real steps were much weaker, especially over the last year," he said.
Trying to strengthen his hand in September, Zelenskiy outlined a "victory plan" to Biden, reiterating his request for permission to strike military targets deeper in Russia, receive a NATO invitation and obtain more potent weapons.
The plan, he said, was needed to compel Russia to the negotiating table in good faith. There has been little sign of a breakthrough on any of the plan's five points.
"The mood in Ukraine is pretty bleak. You can see the increasing frustration in Zelenskiy's recent remarks," a senior Kyiv-based diplomatic source said.
The Ukrainian official voiced scepticism that Biden would supply something significant to Ukraine, such as lifting the restriction on long-range strikes.
"Who is Biden now? He lost a lot of credibility. I hope he will be brave enough to do something. But I don't have big hopes. It would be great. We are very grateful for his help. He did a lot, much more than we expected," the official said.
А.п. напоминает: социальная либеральная технология «Сhild-free» в России запрещена.
Цитата:
Russia is shrinking; the Kremlin says child-free ideology is to blame
A new bill against “child-free propaganda” criminalizes advocating for not having children. It could affect TV, movies and social media posts.
Children visit the Museum of the Great Patriotic War, also known as the Victory Museum, at Poklonnaya Hill in western Moscow. (Natalia Kolesnikova/AFP/Getty Images)
In the first episode of the new season of the Russian reality television show “Mama at 16,” about teen girls facing an unwanted pregnancy, no one thinks abortion is an option. Even though Tanya doesn’t want a child with her boyfriend, Nikita, who is irresponsible, neither she nor her mother would consider it — but by episode’s end, everything is resolved, the baby is born, and they live happily ever after.
In previous seasons, when it was called “Pregnant at 16,” some characters at least broached the topic of abortion, but such a sentiment is now not just disapproved of in Russia, but it will also soon be illegal.
A new law against “child-free propaganda” criminalizing the spread of information advocating for not having children has sailed through its first reading in parliament. The nature of the “propaganda” is not explicitly defined, so the law could bar advertisers, movie and TV producers, bloggers, and writers from presenting childless people as satisfied, or large families as miserable, according to rights groups and activists.
The law comes against the backdrop of a long-standing Russian demographic crisis, where deaths often outnumber births and the population is shrinking and aging. The solution for President Vladimir Putin is the return to what the Kremlin calls “traditional Russian values,” including encouraging women to have large families.
He has said that Russia’s demographic crisis “haunts” him and frames it as a critical national security problem as the prospect of long-term population decline risks a commensurate loss of Russian power.
Ban on complaining
The ban on child-free propaganda, which analysts see as certain to pass into law, is part of a broad campaign by Russian authorities to pressure women into giving birth to many children.
Daria Serenko, co-founder of the Feminist Anti-War Resistance movement, who has left Russia, said it was a warning to women that their bodies, minds and actions were under the control of the state.
“This is a situation where the state wants to have monopoly on your body, on your voice, on your private life, on everything,” she said. As laws around child-free propaganda and abortion multiply, women are reluctant to defend their rights because of the risk of arrest.
“There is silence,” Serenko said. “This is taboo. Women do not talk about it. They are afraid. Women do not want to go to court because they know very well what the consequences will be.”
The ban on child-free propaganda could punish women who merely post about the hardships they have experienced as mothers, according to the Russian rights group First Department. It warned that contraception companies could face advertising restrictions.
“It will be impossible to say or write anything that is aimed at creating a ‘positive image of childlessness and a conscious desire not to have children,’” the group wrote in a legal analysis of the bill. “The ban on ‘child-free propaganda’ threatens not only those who protect the rights of women and girls … but everyone. If the bill is adopted in its current form, the phrase ‘How can you give birth when there is such poverty in Russia?’ will be punishable.”
When the bill passed its first reading, one of the largest motherhood support groups on VKontakte, Russia’s version of Facebook, immediately disbanded. The group, ironically titled Happiness of Motherhood, had more than 148,000 members and was a forum for mothers to share their problems, fears and regrets about parenthood, without shame or fear of judgment.
Some complained about poverty, their small apartments and the high cost of having children, or about their lack of freedom, saddled with work, child-rearing and their husbands’ expectations that they do all the housework.
The demographic crisis
A child plays in the snow in Red Square in December 2023. (Natalia Kolesnikova/AFP/Getty Images)
Issues like these are probably part of the reason for the consistently low birth rate that has Putin so upset. Independent Russian demographer Alexander Raksha has estimated that Russian deaths would outnumber births by 608,000 this year, with an overall population decline of around 550,000 after immigration of some 60,000.
In September, Russia’s statistical agency reported that the number of births for the first half of the year plunged to 599,600, the lowest since 1999.
The population decline “is catastrophic for the future of the nation,” Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov said in July. Putin has called for the reviving of “wonderful traditions” of the past, when mothers had seven to eight children.
…
Russian authorities have taken an increasingly interventionist approach, curbing access to abortion and repressing what the Kremlin calls “destructive ideologies” that it claims are imported from the West. Russia has banned what it calls the LGBTQ+ “movement” as extremist. Some 11 regions have banned medical staff, partners and others from suggesting that women have abortions.
Russian ministers have called on women to start families at age 18, while others have condemned women who have pursued higher education before giving birth.
Several lawmakers and public figures have called for a tax on childlessness — much like the one imposed by Soviet dictator Joseph Stalin. The idea has also been touted by Sen. JD Vance (R-Ohio), now the vice president-elect, in a 2021 interview, according to ABC News.
Television and the state-controlled internet are filled with public service announcements extolling the benefits of large families and living in the country. One antiabortion ad features a young couple who receive a knock on the door at night from their future child, who introduces herself saying, “I am your happiness.” The woman lets her in despite her boyfriend objecting that “we are not planning.” She replies, “You can’t plan happiness, can you?”
In Moscow, women registered in state clinics are being emailed free fertility test referrals, which raises fears that this could lead to intrusive follow-up action or monitoring in the future.
A Russian feminist activist living in a large city who has been investigating these efforts said the tests induce anxiety. “For those who do understand what is happening in terms of politics, there’s an underlying sentiment that women should give birth regardless of circumstances, regardless of the war, regardless of everything,” she said.
She goes by the handle Aida on social media, and The Washington Post is not naming her for security reasons.
‘Duty as a woman’
Children attend a ceremony for the youth organization Young Pioneers, on Red Square in Moscow. (Alexander Nemenov/AFP/Getty Images)
Billboards advertise hotlines for people with fears or questions about pregnancy, and those lines are staffed by antiabortion advocates. Aida phoned, posing as an 18-year-old student with no apartment, hoping to have an abortion and terrified because her boyfriend was fighting as a soldier on an indefinite contract in Ukraine. She was pressed to have the baby instead.
“They just told me things like, ‘Well, if your boyfriend does die, it’s not the worst scenario, because then you’ll get money.’ So really scary stuff to be honest,” Aida said.
She also volunteered undercover for a month to work at a state-funded antiabortion group, Women for Life. The group searched keywords such as abortion and birth on social media, then joined in group chats, offering to help women to contact them personally and pressuring them not to have an abortion.
“Sometimes they manipulate, saying, ‘Your duty as a woman is to give birth.’ Sometimes they lie, providing false medical information about how the fetus is developing,” she said.
Serenko, the feminist, described the flurry of laws and proposals to boost the population as “an imitation of activity” by officials that was unlikely to succeed — especially as Russia’s massive war and security budget, projected to reach 40 percent of spending in 2025, undermined social spending, programs for women, schools and health services.
Putin in September told the Eurasian Women’s Forum in St. Petersburg, attended by women from 126 countries, that Russian women remained “guardians of the hearth and linchpins of large families with many children,” but he insisted that the government was creating the conditions for them to succeed in their jobs as well.
“We know that combining these roles is a challenge, but our women cope with it, and, despite being confronted with rigorous workloads, they manage to remain beautiful, caring and charming ladies.”
But to Aida, the government’s bans designed to increase births and to make abortions harder to obtain were signs of a regime that sees citizens as machines to be used.
“A woman is like an incubator that delivers new warriors, new people to be exploited, new people for the government,” she said. “We see that a lot in propaganda and on billboards about how you’re going to give birth to a soldier who is going to protect our land.”
Эта статья показывает, что мы все сделали правильно!
И да, как у нас обычно в ИСО>ЕСО, в предпоследний момент.
По этому, собственно, буржуи и жалуются...
_________________
С интересом и понятными пожеланиями, Dimitriy.
NATO Secretary General with the President of France 🇫🇷 Emmanuel Macron, 12 NOV 2024
Цитата:
What should Biden do with his remaining time? Get a peace deal done in Ukraine
The end to this bloody stalemate must come with negotiation, and Putin should not wait until Trump is in the White House.
...
First the good news. The US is talking to Russia. Then the bad. Vladimir Putin has been phoned not by the current US president, but by a known admirer and sceptic of the US’s support for Ukraine, the president-elect, Donald Trump. Could these two facts offer a path to peace?
Two years ago, Putin made a terrible mistake. He thought he could invade Ukraine and topple its leader, Volodymyr Zelenskyy. He failed utterly. Ukraine’s forces pushed him back to the supposedly pro-Russian territory of his 2014 invasion. At talks in Istanbul months after this failure, Putin’s representatives might have settled for a ceasefire and the acceptance of some western security guarantee for Kyiv. The talks broke down with the west encouraging Ukraine to fight on. In what amounted to a proxy war on Moscow, the west attacked Russia and its people with the severest sanctions ever seen, while donating to Ukraine huge sums of aid.
Since then the west’s strategy has lost contact with reality. The plazas of Kyiv have become theatres for western politicians to strut their machismo, demand total victory and scuttle for home. Ukraine’s cities have been devastated, while somewhere between 60,000 and 80,000 young Ukrainian service personnel have died and more than 6 million of its citizens have emigrated.
Western sanctions have failed completely to alter Russian policy. They have cemented a new alliance of autocracies. Their impact on western inflation, especially energy prices, has merely undermined western governments, helping topple those in Britain, Germany and now the US since the war began. As for the west’s use of Ukraine as a proxy in a “war of deterrence” against Russia, success in such wars is provable only with the hindsight of history.
Ending the Ukraine war is a choice that lies with the US, without whose support Ukraine collapses. But the end must come with negotiation. This has to mean going back to the failed 2014 Minsk and 2022 Istanbul agreements. There is no realistic alternative. That means a border drawn somewhere between “Russian” Ukraine and Kyiv’s Ukraine. Kyiv cannot recover Crimea. Russia must accept some external guarantee of Ukraine’s future security. Kyiv must accept that this stops short of Nato membership, while Russia must accept that Ukraine will develop some deal with the EU.
The BBC’s Moscow correspondent reported on Monday that Putin is on a high after last month’s Brics summit in Kazan, attended by 36 states not aligned with the west. In view of Trump’s call, the Russian leader might now be tempted to hold off from negotiations until his friend is in the White House.
That is a risk he should not take. Trump in office will be deluged with official and allied pressure to hang tough and stay fighting. Putin currently has Ukraine on the back foot and Nato in an uncertain mood. Joe Biden must be eager to end at least one of his wars before he goes. It might be possible to get a deal done before the chaos and uncertainty of the second Trump era begins.
The US should grab this moment and give Russia the way out it needs. Putin could dress up failure as pragmatism. Who knows, he could then welcome Trump to Moscow.
...
Цитата:
The Guardian view on Ukraine after Trump’s victory: bracing for what lies
The former president’s closeness to Vladimir Putin and isolationism bode ill for Kyiv. Accelerating US support is essential
...
ven Volodymyr Zelenskyy’s extraordinary communication skills were stretched as he rushed to congratulate Donald Trump on the victory that Kyiv had been dreading. The Ukrainian president wrote that Mr Trump’s commitment to “peace through strength” was exactly the principle that could bring a just peace closer. Vladimir Putin’s riposte came almost immediately, via a massive drone attack on the capital, and the Kremlin’s call on the west to stop arming Ukraine to save its people.
For Joe Biden, supporting Ukraine was about defending the post-second-world-war order. It was a relatively cost-effective way for the US to degrade the capabilities of a key adversary with no risk to its own personnel. But Mr Trump is an isolationist who has a strikingly close relationship with the Russian president – and who, according to a former aide, made it very clear that he believed Ukraine “must be part of Russia”. Mr Trump said during his campaign that he could end the war “in a day” and blamed Mr Zelenskyy for the conflict.
The last Trump administration was the first to send lethal aid to Ukraine. But it also froze military funding within hours of the notorious phone call where Mr Trump pressed Mr Zelenskyy to work with the US attorney general to investigate Mr Biden. (The funding was later unfrozen.) The pair’s history further complicates matters.
Mr Trump loves to be lauded as a dealmaker and a strongman. He will not want people to believe he was steamrollered by Mr Putin. Last year he said that he would tell the Russian president: “If you don’t make a deal, we’re going to give them a lot … More than they ever got.” And Russia is losing troops at a staggeringly rapid rate, even with a boost from North Korea.
But the fiasco of Mr Trump’s dealings with Kim Jong-un demonstrates the gap between his aspirations and abilities. He has minimal patience or interest in detail. He is said to be highly susceptible to the last person to drop a word in his ear and does not want to be managed by the military establishment again. JD Vance, his vice-president-elect, has offered a prescription for peace strikingly similar to Mr Putin’s: Russia can keep what it has occupied and Ukraine stays out of Nato. In any case, Nato membership looks a lot less reassuring when Mr Trump has suggested that he would encourage Russia to do “whatever the hell they want” to members who he felt paid too little.
US military support is similar to that from all other donors combined. Though most of the vast sums from the Biden administration have been spent in US arms factories, even sales to Ukraine are not guaranteed in future. Despite attempts to “Trump-proof” the conflict, the collapse of Germany’s government, and the emboldening of the far right by Mr Trump’s electoral triumph, will further complicate European efforts to support Kyiv. All of this is likely to exacerbate questions among exhausted Ukrainians about the feasibility of a purely military solution and increase the appetite of some for, or at least toleration of, a negotiated end to hostilities.
The Biden administration is reportedly attempting to expedite as much as $9bn worth of military aid, agreed but not yet transferred. This is far from straightforward, not least because weaponry and ammunition are still being produced and because the next president could stop agreed shipments. But it is essential.
Ukraine’s situation, already so perilous, has grown vastly more so this week. The accelerated delivery of promised aid, allowing it to maximise its position before Mr Trump takes office, is now its best hope.
Hoffnungsträger Trump: Geostratege Glenn Diesen über Putins Energie und die Genialität Amerikas
Цитата:
Виктор Орбан за одну ночь стал главным политиком Европы | Александр Песке и Руслан Сафаров
Цитата:
Цитата:
Daniel P. Welch: Trump's Victory, The EU and Ukraine in Panic, Middle East Confused
Цитата:
В украинских пабликах заметное оживление по поводу возможного назначения Марко Рубио госсекретарем. Напоминают этапы его большого антироссийского пути.
В марте 2014 года, после Крыма, Рубио призывал ввести санкции против России, включая визовые и финансовые ограничения в отношении Владимира Путина.
В январе 2022 года он представил законопроект, предусматривавший введение санкций против высшего руководства России и против российских компаний в энергетическом, финансовом, горнодобывающем и аэрокосмическом секторах . Проект также предусматривал отключение русских банков от системы SWIFT.
В марте 2022 года Рубио стал соавтором законопроекта о санкциях против всех государственных компаний России, включая «Роснефть», «Газпром», «Росатом» и «Аэрофлот».
В июле 2022 года стал соавтором законопроекта, предусматривавшего введение санкций против страховых компаний танкеров, перевозящих горючее из России в Китай.
Кстати, именно Марк Рубио был автором законопроекта о переименовании улицы в Вашингтоне, где расположено российское посольство, на «Борис Немцов Плаза».
Еще и ещё раз хочется напомнить всем российским поклонникам Трампа и фанатам республиканской парти, что никаких «наших» в Вашингтоне нет. И никогда не было. И не будет.
Цитата:
Scott Ritter | Israel on the Brink: Internal Chaos & Shocking Middle East Power Shift Unfolding!
По неизъяснимому порядку вещей, провайдер села обитания а.п., принял решение улучшить качество своей работы(что само по себе обнадёживает), для чего отвёл себе целых пять часов суточного времени – с часу ночи до шести утра, когда все нормальные люди спят, а все творческие – работают.
Соответственно, с 14 ноября сего года все публикации а.п. (в разделах «примечания и дополнения», «фанаты и жизнь», «варвар и еретик», и «дураки и дороги»), будут происходить нерегулярно, случайным, можно даже сказать, возможным образом.
_________________
С бессмысленными и беспощадными, Dimitriy.
Последний раз редактировалось: Dimitriy (15.11.2024 2:47), всего редактировалось 2 раз(а)
Ukraine’s European allies eye once-taboo ‘land-for-peace’ negotiations
European allies are increasingly bracing for negotiations on Russia’s war in Ukraine that could include territorial concessions in return for security guarantees for Kyiv.
A man rides a bike in front of a destroyed mail office in the Donetsk region of Ukraine on Thursday. (Anton Shtuka/AP)
...
BRUSSELS — Among Ukraine’s European allies, there is a quiet but growing shift toward the notion that the war with Russia will end only through negotiations between Kyiv and Moscow involving concessions of Ukrainian territory.
The conversation has taken on greater urgency with the election victory of Donald Trump, who has said he would quickly end the war, without detailing how, and has signaled he could back a deal that keeps some seized territory in Russian hands. In Europe, the closed-door discussions have also been fueled by a bleak battlefield situation, with Ukrainian forces on the defensive and fears of dwindling U.S. funding.
Interviews with 10 current and former European and NATO diplomats suggest that while declarations of enduring support persist, some of Ukraine’s allies are increasingly looking to lay the foundations for negotiations between Ukraine and Russia, even as the parameters of a deal remain elusive.
European and NATO officials acknowledge that talk of territorial concessions no longer raises as many eyebrows as it once did, and diplomats frame it not as “land-for-peace” but rather as land for Ukraine’s security.
“I think everybody has more or less reached this conclusion. It’s hard to say it publicly because it would be a way of saying we are going to reward aggression,” said Gérard Araud, a former French ambassador to Washington.
“It’s certainly not fringe anymore,” said a Western official who, like others interviewed for this article, spoke on the condition of anonymity to discuss a sensitive matter.
It’s unclear exactly what a deal might look like, as diplomats weigh blueprints of “peace plans” floated since Russia’s 2022 invasion of Ukraine. With Russian forces in control of roughly a fifth of the country — including in the eastern Donbas region and the annexed Crimean Peninsula — freezing today’s front lines or outlining a demarcation line would mean Ukraine ceding swaths of its territory.
There is now broad recognition that “negotiations might be coming earlier” than expected and that they “will entail some concessions on both sides,” said Camille Grand, a former NATO assistant secretary general and a distinguished policy fellow with the European Council on Foreign Relations.
European leaders have “a big question mark on how the Trump team will want to play it,” he said, and while they hope the next administration would push Russia to the negotiating table, they fear it may corner Ukraine into a bad deal by cutting off aid.
Boosting aid, watching Trump
NATO Secretary General Mark Rutte, left, speaks with Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky at the NATO-Ukraine Council working dinner in Brussels on Oct. 17. (Olivier Matthys/Reuters)
European policymakers say they must keep reinforcing Ukraine so that it has leverage if talks eventually begin. They also want to avoid being blindsided if the incoming Trump administration pushes for a deal. Trump briefly raised the issue of land in a phone call with Russian President Vladimir Putin in which he advised the Russian leader not to escalate the war, several people familiar with the matter said.
Backing the Ukrainian army as long as necessary “is the only path to negotiations,” French President Emmanuel Macron said Tuesday, standing alongside NATO chief Mark Rutte. “And let me be clear,” he added, “when the moment comes, nothing must be decided on Ukraine without the Ukrainians, nor on Europe without the Europeans.”
In a 25-minute phone call with Trump, Macron made clear last week that any negotiations must involve meaningful concessions from Moscow, according to people familiar with the call.
At a dinner of European leaders last week in the Hungarian capital of Budapest, many made the case for maintaining money and weapons support for Ukraine and discussed how to keep the funds flowing in case of a U.S. cutoff, officials said.
European Commission President Ursula von der Leyen attends a plenary session at a European Union meeting in Budapest on Friday. (Ludovic Marin/AFP/Getty Images)
A European Union diplomat said the prospect of a future negotiated settlement was slowly gaining traction, largely behind the scenes: “Nobody in the room was going, ‘We need to give up the Donbas.’”
As they try to persuade Trump to stay the course, European countries have boosted defense spending and funding for Ukraine to contain the fallout of a possible U.S. policy shift. They face an uphill battle to maintain aid in the long run, with struggling economies and political chaos in countries including France and Germany.
Reflecting the sense of urgency after the U.S. election, Secretary of State Antony Blinken made a lightning trip to Brussels on Wednesday, meeting senior NATO, E.U. and Ukrainian officials to strategize on the future. Since Trump’s victory, the U.S. focus has been on rushing as much military aid as possible to Kyiv before the incoming administration takes over, recognizing that it is likely to have a very different approach.
‘50 shades of gray’
For now, a resolution to the conflict remains out of reach, not least because Russia has not relented on its demands, the Trump administration’s policy on Ukraine has not been fully articulated, there is no consensus on security guarantees that could be acceptable for Ukraine and, as Grand put it, “there are 50 shades of gray” among European views on how negotiations should unfold.
Discussions have centered on the prospect of a cease-fire along a demarcation line in return for Western security assurances — a de facto, at least temporary concession of existing areas of control even without formal recognition.
Yet European policymakers are far from agreeing on what any security guarantees might be, with key allies, including the United States and Germany, so far rebuffing Ukraine’s request for an invitation to NATO — a big sticking point, as the Kremlin has long used the threat of the Western alliance to justify the war. Other ideas on the drawing board have included European boots on the ground or promises of more weapons — also seen as nonstarters for Russia.
Moscow has signaled it would accept nothing less than Ukrainian capitulation. Putin has maintained that Ukraine would have to accept total neutrality for any talks to succeed. He has said that “if Ukraine’s neutrality does not exist, it is hard to imagine any good neighborly relations with Russia.” He has also said that any cease-fire could not be a temporary arrangement that would merely allow Ukraine to stock up on munitions.
Russians view a U.S.-manufactured Bradley Fighting Vehicle during the recent opening of an exhibition featuring military equipment seized in Ukraine by Russian forces. (Anatoly Maltsev/EPA-EFE/Shutterstock)
Also, before any negotiations begin, Russia wants to retake all of its Kursk region, where Ukrainian forces seized land in a cross-border attack over the summer, to keep Russian territory off the negotiating table. Kyiv had hoped its gamble with the Kursk attack would give it leverage, but Russian forces have since retaken parts of the region and made gains in Donbas.
The deterrence debate
After a failed 2014-2015 cease-fire deal dubbed the Minsk agreements, Ukrainians say they fear that a land-for-peace deal would just give Russia time to regroup for another attack.
Ukrainian presidential adviser Mykhailo Podolyak said Wednesday that pushing Ukraine to negotiate on unfavorable terms was akin to forcing “Ukraine to give up its resistance.” He wrote on X that it was absurd to discuss “peace at the expense of the victim only,” saying it encouraged further attacks and neglected “real scenarios of forcing Russia (the aggressor) to stop aggression.”
Kyiv’s official position, and what it would consider a victory, remains that Russian forces must leave all Ukrainian territory.
Public opinion polls show a majority of Ukrainians support this, though the percentage of those who could accept some loss of land in a peace deal appears to be gradually rising as the war grinds on. A survey conducted by the Kyiv International Institute of Sociology and released Tuesday indicated that 58 percent of Ukrainians thought that “under no circumstances” should Kyiv sacrifice land, while 32 percent were open to giving up “some of [Ukraine’s] territories” to reach a deal to end the conflict — three times the percentage at the start of the invasion.
People take shelter inside a metro station during a Russian attack on Kyiv on Wednesday. (Alina Smutko/Reuters)
Like Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky, European leaders would also have to navigate public messaging on negotiations after more than two years of warning of an existential threat to Europe that requires sending Kyiv billions in aid.
Zelensky told reporters last week that there could be no cease-fire without guarantees that Ukraine can deter any future Russian attacks.
Earlier this year, Macron sparked backlash from some European allies for saying he would not rule out that some troops could be deployed to Ukraine as a possible deterrent.
Some countries, including Britain and Eastern European and Nordic nations, are now eyeing the idea of boots on the ground as a possible security guarantee in the event of a deal, analysts said.
“We’re not against negotiating,” a Western diplomat said, “but the moment matters, and the leverage Ukraine has and what they get in return.”
Public suggestions of land-for-peace are confined to the proposals of Moscow-friendly Hungarian leader Viktor Orban. Baltic nations and Ukrainian neighbors such as Poland are gripped by fears of Russia pushing at NATO’s borders, and they chafe at mentions of territorial concessions, especially without a clear deterrent.
Those who made land-for-peace suggestions were “practically burned at the stake” in the past, but now the idea prompts less outrage, a senior NATO official said. Ukraine’s ability to defend big cities including Kharkiv and Odessa played to its favor, he said, but “we all realize it will be difficult in the short term for Ukraine to regain sovereignty over 100 percent of their territory.”
People gather outside a school damaged by a Russian strike in Odessa on Friday. (Oleksandr Gimanov/AFP/Getty Images)
European officials maintain that any agreement should not allow Putin to declare victory in reshaping borders through war, though that’s a tall order if Russia keeps control of chunks of its neighbor.
“That is one important thing about any arrangement we make,” the official said. “It can never be seen as a victory for Russia.”
Цитата:
Blinken helms last-minute rush of support to Ukraine before Trump takes office
Trump has vowed to put a quick end to Russia’s war in Ukraine, which Kyiv and some European capitals believe could force Ukraine to make painful concessions to the Kremlin.
...
BRUSSELS — The Biden administration will rush as much military assistance as possible to Ukraine while it remains in office, Secretary of State Antony Blinken said Wednesday as he met a slew of European security officials in Brussels to prepare a strategy of support for Kyiv before President-elect Donald Trump enters the Oval Office.
Trump has vowed to put a quick end to Russia’s war in Ukraine, which Kyiv and some European capitals believe could force Ukraine to make painful concessions to the Kremlin. His victory has set off a scramble among the security establishment in Europe to try to bolster support for Ukraine — and added to a weary recognition that negotiations with Russia could be on the horizon, and not on terms favorable to Kyiv.
Blinken’s day-long trip to Brussels included meetings with top NATO, European Union and Ukrainian officials, and was intended mostly as a joint effort to develop a post-election strategy rather than a moment to present a fully developed vision to the public, officials said. The current U.S. administration faces the challenge of finding strategies on Ukraine that aren’t easily reversible by Trump once he is in power, and there are few easy answers.
The Biden administration wants “to focus our efforts on ensuring that Ukraine has the money, the munitions and the mobilized forces to fight effectively in 2025 or to be able to negotiate a peace from a position of strength,” Blinken told reporters at NATO’s glassy headquarters in Brussels after meeting with NATO Secretary General Mark Rutte and alliance ambassadors.
Blinken talks to the media after a North Atlantic Council meeting at NATO headquarters in Brussels on Wednesday. (Nicolas Tucat/Pool/AFP/Getty Images/EPA-EFE/Shutterstock)
Since the election, the Pentagon has been rushing to send Ukraine the full range of military aid that Congress approved in a $61 billion package in April, so that it is physically located inside Ukraine before Inauguration Day, Jan. 20. The Biden administration has also been the lead coordinator for non-U.S. military aid to Ukraine, but it is working to transfer some of those responsibilities to NATO and to European countries, an effort that began even before the election.
And U.S. officials are pushing Europeans and others to increase their aid for Ukraine amid doubts about how much Washington will do in the future.
“The president has determined that we push every dollar out the door that we have at our disposal,” Blinken said, referring to the rush of military aid to Ukraine.
Blinken said he was convinced that “support will continue, and not only continue, I expect it to increase, and that our partners will continue to more than pick up their share of the burden.”
Despite Blinken’s effort to focus on the positive regarding continued Western support for Ukraine, many European officials believe that the conflict is rapidly entering a new phase. Nearly three years after the fighting began, Russia is making steady advances on the battlefield as Ukraine struggles to find the troops to maintain its defense. North Korean forces have also joined the conflict on Russia’s side, further increasing pressure on Kyiv.
Fueled in part by the Trump victory, some of Kyiv’s European backers increasingly think that some form of territorial concessions may be necessary in negotiations to halt the war — a view that would have been heretical a year ago — and officials say they must boost aid to Ukraine to ensure the country is in a strong position in any future talks. Their focus is increasingly turning toward the Western security guarantees for Ukraine that would help keep Russia at bay and prevent the restarting of the war.
Ukrainian leaders, while publicly welcoming Trump’s victory and declaring their bipartisan ties to Washington, have also said that strength against Russia is the best way to maintain security in Europe and around the world.
Ukrainian Foreign Minister Andrii Sybiha meets with Blinken in Brussels on Wednesday. (Nicolas Tucat/Pool/AFP/Getty Images/EPA-EFE/Shutterstock)
“Appeasement will not work. Strength will work,” Ukrainian Foreign Minister Andrii Sybiha said Wednesday ahead of a meeting with Blinken.
The increasing Western openness to territorial concessions has spooked the NATO nations that border Russia, which have the most at stake if Russia is emboldened to keep pushing against its western frontiers.
“The ‘peace agreements’ being floated would condemn millions of people to misery, occupation and fates worse than death,” Lithuanian Foreign Minister Gabrielius Landsbergis wrote last week on X. “Talk of ‘recovery’ is hollow if Ukraine is left vulnerable, waiting for the next attack. Investments will not flow, refugees will not return.”
On the campaign trail, Trump stoked fears about NATO when he declared he would encourage Russia to “do whatever the hell they want” to allies that don’t spend enough on their militaries.
European policymakers worry his bashing of NATO could undermine the Western military alliance, even if few believe he would formally withdraw the United States. Diplomats said European allies were putting a brave face on the situation and trying to make contingency plans to support Ukraine while also hoping to win Trump over.
“During President Trump’s first term, America’s military presence in Europe actually increased,” a European diplomat said, speaking on the condition of anonymity to share internal deliberations. “If he stays in NATO but he pulls troops from Europe, or if there’s a wider war and he sits on the sidelines, does it matter if the U.S. is still formally at NATO?”
At NATO headquarters, Blinken also issued a broader defense of U.S. support for the alliance, in an implicit message to Trump.
“The best way to defend our countries, to prevent wars, to have security, is through the investments we’re making in NATO and in our other alliances and partnerships,” Blinken said. NATO’s mutual defense guarantee “is the strongest possible deterrent to war. It’s the best way to prevent war in the first place.”
Blinken’s visit to Brussels is the first stop in a multi-continental tour of the post-election world. Later Wednesday he planned to fly to Peru to meet with Asian and Latin American leaders, and then he plans to travel to Brazil alongside President Joe Biden to meet leaders of Group of 20 world economies.
...
Top Russian official Shoigu visits Zhuhai air show on final trade day
...
SINGAPORE/ZHUHAI, China, Nov 14 (Reuters) - The trade portion of China’s largest air show in Zhuhai wrapped up on a rainy Thursday, with the secretary of Russia’s Security Council visiting days after the Russian-made Su-57 stealth jet flew in its first appearance away from home.
Military gear was on display in the exhibition hall where it was viewed by Sergei Shoigu, reported state media outlet the Global Times. The former defence minister is in the country for annual strategic security consultations.
China demonstrated its pull on the world stage by welcoming a delegation from Saudi Arabia with its first pavilion at the event, as well as its close ties with Russia even as that country is isolated from Western nations and their allies due to its invasion of Ukraine.
The air show’s commercial aviation side was much smaller than in previous years, putting military technology in the spotlight. Hardware as varied as air-defence systems, radars, missiles and aircraft packed the grounds indoors and out.
The show included the public debut of China’s [USN:L4N3MF0B5 TEXT:“J-35A stealth fighter”] while a two-seat mockup of its J-20 stealth fighter, [USN:L4N3MJ05W TEXT:“advanced helicopters”], [USN:L4N3MK0CL TEXT:“stealthy drones and missile defence systems”] also caught the spotlight.
“Clearly these developments suggest a continued broad modernisation of PLA capabilities to defeat U.S. and allied intervention capability as part of a counter-intervention strategy,” said senior analyst Malcolm Davis at the Australian Strategic Policy Institute, referring to the People’s Liberation Army. “They all come together to make Chinese A2AD more lethal and extend its reach.”
(выделено а.п.)
A2AD is shorthand for Anti-Access/Area Denial, a military strategy to avoid a head-on fight by making it difficult for the enemy to even enter the battlefield.
China is the world’s fourth-largest global arms exporter, showed data released in March by the Stockholm International Peace Research Institute, but its sales have been decreasing over the last decade amid changing geopolitical dynamics.
COMMERCIAL AVIATION
On the [USN:L4N3MJ0SU TEXT:“civilian side of the show”], state planemaker COMAC (CMAFC.UL) announced Air China (601111.SS), opens new tab as the first customer for its C929 widebody jet. It also re-branded its regional jet, previously the ARJ21, as the C909 for better branding uniformity.
COMAC did not disclose the number of C929s that flag carrier Air China would purchase or planned delivery dates. It did say Hainan Airlines (600221.SS), opens new tab had placed a firm order for 60 C919 narrowbody jets and 40 C909s.
Colorful Guizhou Airlines has also signed a purchase agreement for 30 C909 planes, 20 of which were firm and the remainder provisional, it said.
State-controlled aerospace company AVIC (SASADY.UL) unveiled a model of one the more unusual offerings: a [USN:L4N3MJ07I TEXT:“spaceplane to carry cargo”] to China’s space station.
…
Цитата:
Nowe czołgi Wojska Polskiego trafiły nad granicę z Rosją
Do Polski sukcesywnie dociera sprzęt wojskowy, zamówiony w Korei Południowej. To czołgi K2 oraz armatohaubice samobieżne K9. Do Braniewa, gdzie stacjonuje IX Brygada Kawalerii Pancernej im. Stefana Batorego, dojechały właśnie pierwsze czołgi K2 Black Panther. To bardzo symboliczna dostawa, bo miasto jest siedzibą garnizonu, położonego zaledwie 6 kilometrów od granicy z rosyjskim obwodem królewieckim. To także raptem 60 kilometrów od samego Królewca.
...
Koreańskie czołgi K2 na pograniczu z Rosją w Braniewie stanowią początek przezbrojenia tamtejszej jednostki z leciwych PT-91 "Twardy" na maszyny nowej generacji
• Polska armia używa w tej chwili pięciu rodzajów czołgów. W planie jest szybkie ujednolicenie wyposażenia
• K2 dostarczane do Polski będą obsługiwane przez polski serwis. Tylko najbardziej skomplikowane naprawy wykonają specjaliści z Korei[/b]
Czołgi K2 będą już w przyszłym roku podstawowym wyposażeniem w IX Brygadzie Kawalerii Pancernej im. Stefana Batorego, zastępując wysłużone PT-91 "Twardy".
To następstwo podpisanej 25 lipca 2022 roku umowy ramowej z południowokoreańskim koncernem zbrojeniowym Hyundai Rotem na dostawę 1000 czołgów K2 do Polski. W ślad za nią w następnym miesiącu poszła pierwsza umowa wykonawcza na dostawę 180 takich czołgów.
…
Kolejne transporty przyjadą jeszcze w grudniu
Do końca grudnia tego roku do Braniewa ma przyjechać jeszcze kilkanaście czołgów. W przyszłym roku przezbrojenie na czołgi K2 ma się zakończyć.
Do obsługi nowego sprzętu przeszkolono już kilkanaście załóg. Czołgiści z Braniewa uczestniczyli w poligonowych strzelaniach bojowych na K2.
Odnotowano podczas tych ćwiczeń celny strzał z odległości 5 kilometrów.
Pułkownik Roman Brudło - dowódca 9 Braniewskiej Brygady Kawalerii Pancernej - przypomniał, że w tej chwili w polskiej armii jest pięć rodzajów czołgów. Abramsy, Leopardy, PT-91, T-72 oraz właśnie K2. Wedle zaleceń sztabowych, w najbliższych latach trwał będzie proces ujednolicania wyposażenia. Celem jest dojście do sytuacji, że każda dywizja posiada jeden typ uzbrojenia.
XVI dywizja, której częścią jest braniewska Brygada, miałaby czołgi K2, 18 dywizja używałaby Abramsów, a 11 dywizja kawalerii pancernej jeździłaby na Leopardach. PT-91 oraz T-72 jeszcze przez jakiś czas miałyby być żelazną rezerwą.
Czołgi K2 otrzymują także inne jednostki stacjonujące nieopodal granicy z Rosją w Bartoszycach i Morągu. Już w przyszłym roku zaś, z Łotwy (gdzie rotacyjnie służyli braniewscy pancerniacy) będą ściągane PT-91. Na ich miejsce pojadą Leopardy.
…
K2 i nie tylko: Nowoczesne czołgi w całej polskiej armii
Jak stwierdził płk Roman Brudło, różnice pomiędzy nowymi typami czołgów nie w każdym obszarze są znaczące. Najbardziej zasadnicza dotyczy wielkości załogi. PT-91 oraz K2 są wyposażone w automatyczne systemy ładowania amunicji, więc wystarczy tu tylko trzy osobowa załoga. Leopardy i Abramsy są obsługiwane przez cztery osoby. Tam bowiem ładowanie armaty jest ręczne.
PT-91 waży około 45 ton, K2 55 ton, Leopard 60 ton, a Abrams nawet 65 ton.
Systemy kierowania ogniem czy same armaty są porównywalne i ujednolicone. Bazują na rozwiązaniach niemieckiej armaty 120 mm, gładkolufowej. Różni je co najwyżej długość lufy.
W K2, dzięki wydłużonej konstrukcji lufy, wystrzeliwane pociski mają większą precyzję i siłę przebicia Wszystkie te czołgi mają również silniki potrafiące "konsumować" każdy rodzaj paliwa.
Według zapewnień dowódcy brygady załoga w czołgu K2 ma komfortowe warunki pracy. Do tego bardzo proste jest sterowanie czołgiem. Pułkownik Brudło stwierdził, że jest ono porównywalne z prowadzeniem samochodu.
Wyposażone w nowoczesny system kierowania ogniem czołgi mogą wystrzeliwać do 10 pocisków na minutę, posiadają klimatyzację i elastyczny układ zawieszenia.
Wymiana wyposażenia polskich pancerniaków jest spowodowana rosyjską agresją na Ukrainę. Polskie władze zdecydowały się na wysłanie Ukraińcom używanych czołgów T-72 oraz PT-91. Maszyny dotarły na front w pierwszych miesiącach wojny. Prezydent Andrzej Duda poinformował ostatnio, że przekazaliśmy Ukraińcom prawie 400 czołgów.
(выделено а.п.)
Koreańskie czołgi maja dwuletnią gwarancję. Większość napraw ma być realizowana w Polsce
Pilotujący ostatnią dostawę czołgów do Braniewa przedstawiciel firmy Hyundai Rotem Sanghyun Park, podkreślił, że pojazdy dostarczane do Polski mają dwuletnią gwarancję. Ponadto Koreańczycy zapewniają kompleksowy serwis wraz z dużymi zapasami części zamiennych. Aktualnie koreańscy technicy szkolą polskich specjalistów do obsługi K2. Wedle założeń producenta 80 proc. jakichkolwiek późniejszych remontów będzie wykonywana przez mechaników z Polski. Tylko bardziej skomplikowane naprawy elektroniki będą wymagały dłuższego szkolenia i nadzoru specjalistów z Korei Południowej.
Warto też pamiętać, że Polska chce produkować czołgi K2 w rodzimym wariancie. Ustalenia w tej sprawie cały czas trwają, w tym momencie nie wiemy więc, co dokładnie zmieni się w polskim wydaniu Czarnej Pantery.
…
Uroczystość przekazania nowych czołgów zakończył efektowny pokaz płynnego zjazdu stalowych kolosów z platform transportowych, a potem nastąpiło ich parkowanie, w przygotowanych specjalnie na tę okazję, garażach.
Lufami w kierunku pobliskiej granicy
. Tak symbolicznie.
(выделено а.п.)
Будущий МО США имел в виду не то, на что обиделось «CNN», но статья хороша…
Цитата:
Trump’s defense secretary pick said women shouldn’t be in combat roles. These female veterans fear what comes next
Elizabeth Dempsey Beggs from Richmond, Virginia, is a US Army veteran.
Courtesy Elizabeth Dempsey Beggs
...
When Elisa Smithers was deployed to Iraq in 2005, there was a ban on women serving in ground combat operations.
Smithers was a “female searcher” with the National Guard and was attached to an infantry unit to help with searching detained Iraqi women, among other tasks. But she returned home to find she wasn’t offered the same support by the US Department of Veterans Affairs that male combat veterans were offered, Smithers said.
Now, the 48-year-old veteran fears the progress made for women in combat since then will be reversed after President-elect Donald Trump announced Pete Hegseth this week as his pick for secretary of defense – a Fox News host and Army veteran who has criticized efforts to allow women into combat roles.
The ban on women serving in ground combat units was lifted in 2013 and, in 2016, all US military combat positions were opened to them, allowing women to fill about 220,000 jobs that were previously limited to men – including infantry, armor, reconnaissance and some special operations units. Women account for roughly 17.5% of the Defense Department’s active-duty force, according to 2022 data from the agency.
Hegseth, who has a long record serving in the military in Afghanistan and Iraq, has not announced any plans to reinstate the ban if he’s confirmed, but has previously accused the military of lowering standards to allow women into combat jobs.
Speaking about his book, “The War on Warriors,” published this year, Hegseth said in a recent podcast he was surprised “there hasn’t been more blowback” on the book, “because I’m straight up just saying, we should not have women in combat roles.”
“It hasn’t made us more effective, hasn’t made us more lethal, has made fighting more complicated. … We’ve all served with women, and they’re great,” Hegseth said last week on “The Shawn Ryan Show.” “But our institutions don’t have to incentivize that in places where, traditionally — not traditionally, over human history — men in those positions are more capable.”
Even if a combat exclusion policy is reinstated, Smithers said women will still be pushed into such roles in an unofficial capacity like she was, just with less recognition and access to benefits like before.
“They will still need these women in these roles,” Smithers told CNN. “So, we’ll go back to this, like, pseudo attaching them to the unit. And then this perception by the men that, you know, the women are not in combat roles.”
US Army veteran Elizabeth Beggs said women in military service have already proven they’re capable.
“Let’s not get it twisted. Women have been in combat since the beginning of history,” Beggs said.
But she does agree with Hegseth on one thing: “Not all women are capable – just like not all men are capable,” Beggs said.
Elisa Smithers recently retired after 21 years in the Army National Guard.
Courtesy Elisa Smithers
Vets say Hegseth is diminishing women’s accomplishments
More than 2 million female veterans live in the US – and the number is expected to continue to grow, according to the Department of Veterans Affairs.
The combat exclusion policy was lifted shortly before 27-year-old Beggs joined the US Army. She went on to hold several roles during her four years of service, including armor officer, tank commander and platoon leader.
“I believe it’s incredibly divisive to water down and diminish the accomplishments that I and other women have made serving in these roles, not just to women, but to men who’ve gone through the same courses and hit the same standards, especially in a time where we should be unifying,” Beggs said.
Lory Manning, a 25-year Navy veteran, takes issue with Hegseth accusing the military of lowering standards to allow women into jobs with the Navy SEALs, Army Rangers, Army Special Forces, Marine Special Operations, and jobs such as those in infantry, armor and artillery units.
Hegseth has specifically criticized having women in roles where strength “is the differentiator,” he said on the podcast last week.
“I’m not talking about pilots… I’m talking about physical, labor-intensive type jobs,” Hegseth said. “Seals, Rangers, Green Berets, MARSOC, infantry battalions, armor, artillery.”
Manning, also the former director for the Service Women’s Action Network, said Hegseth’s assertion the military lowered their standards to accommodate women is a false, yet repeated one.
“Sometimes, it’s said to protect women who don’t need protecting,” Manning said.
In a 2013 op-ed for the American Civil Liberties Union, Manning refuted the claim that “tough combat training standards will be lowered by making them ‘equal’ for both genders.”
“Women have already been integrated into air and sea combat duties with no lowering of standards,” Manning wrote.
While the ban on women participating in ground combat operations wasn’t lifted until 2013, women have been flying in combat operations and serving aboard US combatant ships since the early ’90s.
Like Manning, veteran Smithers believes a woman should be allowed to serve if they qualify for the “physical, labor-intensive type jobs” that Hegseth has a problem with them taking on.
“At the end of the day, in order for us to be a dynamic and agile force and the great military that we are, we’ve got to have diversity. And that includes women in our force,” Smithers said. “Diversity always makes us better.”
Brandy Cottrill-Cox was stationed on the border of Kuwait and Iraq in 2004. Courtesy Brandy Cottrill-Cox
Concerns about culture of sexual assault
Another female veteran, who identifies as a military sexual assault survivor and asked not to share her name out of fear of retaliation, said she worries how Hegseth’s rhetoric as the leader of the military, if confirmed, would influence the culture in the armed services, which is already grappling with issues of sexual harassment and assault.
“Whenever a man does not see a woman as an equal, that’s where you’re going to see that kind of culture continuously get worse,” the 46-year-old disabled veteran told CNN. “It’s going to hurt the military force.”
Roughly 20% of women serving in the military reported experiencing military sexual trauma during their service as of 2021, compared to about 1% of men, according to the National Center for Veterans Analysis and Statistics.
The statistic, according to the Combat Female Veterans Families United, underscores the “prevalence and impact of gender-specific challenges faced by female veterans during and after their time in service.”
In August, findings from a Senate investigation into misconduct within the US Coast Guard were released, detailing “systemic sexual assault and harassment, including a culture of silencing, retaliation, and failed accountability.” And in 2023, a study by the US Army Special Operations Command showed how its women are facing significant discrimination including sexual harassment and sexism from their male counterparts, CNN reported.
Brandy Cottrill-Cox, a Purple Heart recipient who served in combat while stationed with the US National Guard on the border of Kuwait and Iraq in 2004, called Hegseth’s comments “dangerous rhetoric to target women.”
During her second tour in Iraq, Cottrill-Cox said she was given a rape whistle.
“There is a rape culture that is not being addressed,” Cottrill-Cox said. Women across the country who have served in the military are accessing resources for their trauma from experiencing sexual harassment and assaults while in service – many of which go unreported, she said.
‘That’s basically telling a woman she’s not good enough to serve’
US Sen. Tammy Duckworth speaks during a news conference at the US Capitol on February 27, 2024 in Washington, DC. Anna Moneymaker/Getty Images/File
Illinois Sen. Tammy Duckworth, an Iraq war veteran, said Hegseth is “dangerously unqualified.”
Earlier this week, Duckworth wrote about her “Alive Day” anniversary on X, commemorating the day the Black Hawk helicopter she was piloting was hit by a rocket-propelled grenade.
As a result, she lost both her legs and partial use of one of her arms, according to her biography page. She remains proud of her service.
“By choosing to put a TV personality with little experience running much of anything in charge of the Defense Department’s almost 3 million troops and civilian employees, Donald Trump is once again proving he cares more about his MAGA base than keeping our nation safe—and our troops, our military families and our national security will pay the price,” she said in a statement.
Wendy Coop is a US Navy veteran. Courtesy Wendy Coop
Wendy Coop, a 45-year-old US Navy veteran, called Hegseth’s comments on women serving in combat roles a “very disturbing and potentially dangerous take.”
Coop, who lives in St. Augustine, Florida, graduated from the US Naval Academy in 2001 before she went on active duty on a ship doing maintenance work which included painting and working with tools.
While Coop did not serve in combat while in the force, she said Hegseth shows a “lack of understanding of the military complex,” stressing the many other military jobs that support those who engage in combat – chaplains, nurses, logistics and doctors.
“His comments open the floodgates to people who just say that women don’t belong in the military at all, as though we are too weak, as though we don’t have the personality to do the job,” she said.
She also worries any course reversal on women serving in combat will have a sweeping impact on women serving in other government jobs.
“We have to look at the individual and stop saying your gender determines your ability to serve in the military,” Coop said. “And then what happens is that people say, ‘oh, well, they don’t belong in the military?’ They also don’t belong in the police force. They also don’t belong as firefighters. They don’t belong in the Secret Service.”
The veteran who did not wish to share her name said the discourse around a potential rollback of women serving in combat roles is “very disparaging.”
“It’s a slap in the face for a lot of the women who have worked so hard to get to where they’re at,” she told CNN. “We served this country with pride, dignity and respect.”
“And when you have someone say that women are not good enough to be in combat, that’s basically telling a woman that she’s not good enough to serve.”
Непутёвая историческая линейка. Много кого и много чего не хватает. Но, как говорится «не нравится - сделай лучше».
Цитата:
Цитата:
Все Правители России
…
Цитата:
Записи речей глав СССР от Ленина до Горбачёва | History Lab
Интересное решение.
…
Цитата:
EVOLUTION of Los Angeles 1542-2024 | 3D Animation
Цитата:
EVOLUTION of London 43 - 2024 | 3D Animation
Что помешало любителям Москвы «прогуляться», например, вокруг Кремля или по Садовому кольцу, подобно любителям Санкт-Петербурга, «пройтись» по Невскому проспекту?
P.S.
По неизъяснимому порядку вещей, провайдер села обитания а.п., принял решение улучшить качество своей работы(что само по себе обнадёживает), для чего отвёл себе целых пять часов суточного времени – с часу ночи до шести утра, когда все нормальные люди спят, а все творческие – работают.
Соответственно, с 14 ноября сего года все публикации а.п. (в разделах «примечания и дополнения», «фанаты и жизнь», «варвар и еретик», и «дураки и дороги»), будут происходить нерегулярно, случайным, можно даже сказать возможным образом.
_________________
С интересом и понятными пожеланиями, Dimitriy.
Последний раз редактировалось: Dimitriy (15.11.2024 2:47), всего редактировалось 1 раз
Ответы на вопросы СМИ С.Лаврова по итогам XV Форума "Сир Бани Яс", Абу-Даби, 15 ноября 2024 года
Цитата:
Шольц впервые за два года поговорил с Путиным. Зеленский назвал это «ящиком Пандоры»
...
В правительстве Германии подтвердили факт разговора Путина с Шольцем. В Берлине подчеркнули, что канцлер Германии осудил российскую агрессию в отношении Украины и призвал российского президента прекратить войну в Украине и вывести оттуда свои войска.
В разговоре с Путиным он также заявил о твердом намерении Германии продолжать поддерживать Украину в ее борьбе с российской агрессией. По его словам, Берлин будет поддерживать Украину «столько, сколько потребуется». Канцлер Германии также призвал своего собеседника к переговорам с Киевом с целью «установления справедливого и прочного мира».
Путин, как сообщили в Кремле, в разговоре с Шольцем подтвердил, что остается на прежних позициях относительно Украины и обвинил Германию в «деградации отношений» двух стран.
Согласно пресс-релизу Кремля, который цитируют российские агентства, Путин заявил, что к нынешней ситуации в Украине привела «многолетняя агрессивная политика НАТО» и что переговоры о мире следует вести «исходя из новых территориальных реалий», то есть оставив за Россией как минимум все оккупированные ею территории.
Путин при этом утверждает, что Россия никогда не отказывалась от переговоров и готова вести их и сейчас. Кроме того, как следует из заявления Кремля, российский президент подчеркнул, что Россия открыта для сотрудничества с Германией.
«Россия всегда четко выполняла свои договорные и контрактные обязательства в сфере энергетики и готова к взаимовыгодному сотрудничеству, если к этому будет проявлен интерес с германской стороны», — говорится в сообщении Кремля.
Пресс-секретарь российского президента Дмитрий Песков подчеркнул, что разговор Путина и Шольца состоялся по инициативе Германии.
По его словам, что о совпадении мнений Путина и Шольца «говорить не приходится», но «диалог важен».
…
Канцлер Германии стал первым с 2022 года лидером страны из числа союзников Украины, который напрямую, без посредников, поговорил с российским президентом.
Несмотря на то, что Олаф Шольц заявил Путину о своем несогласии с политикой Кремля, однако этот контакт западного лидера с Кремлем может быть сигналом того, что в ближайшее время Запад будет наращивать контакты с властями России, отмечает газета New York Times.
Разговор Шольца и Путина состоялся после того, как на президентских выборах в США на прошлой неделе победил Дональд Трамп.
Телефонный разговор лидеров Германии и России состоялся в критический момент для Украины — когда Киеву третью зиму придется противостоять наступлению России — в условиях полуразрушенной энергетической инфраструктуры, обращает внимание агентство Bloomberg.
Кроме того, на фоне избрания Трампа президентом США растет неопределенность относительно помощи Украине со стороны Запада. Германия является вторым из крупнейших доноров для Украины после США.
…
Олаф Шольц перед разговором с российским президентом созвонился с лидером Украины Владимиром Зеленским и сообщил о своем намерении поговорить с Путиным.
Агентство Reuters со ссылкой на источник в офисе президента Украины сообщало, что Зеленский был против звонка Шольца Путину. По мнению президента Украины, контакт западного лидера с Путиным снизит изоляцию последнего.
Комментируя состоявшийся разговор между лидерами России и Германии, Зеленский назвал звонок Шольца Путину «ящиком Пандоры». «Теперь могут быть другие разговоры, другие звонки. […] И это именно то, чего Путин хочет давно: ему надо ослабить свою изоляцию, изоляцию России», — заявил Зеленский.
Президент Украины убежден, что Путин «не хочет реального мира, он хочет передышки».
«[Он хочет просто вести] обычные переговоры, ничем не завершающиеся. Так он делал десятилетиями. Это давало возможность России ничего не менять в своей политике, ничего не делать по существу, что в итоге и привело к этой войне», — говорит Зеленский.
Шольц ранее заявлял о своем намерении поговорить с Владимиром Путиным напрямую, без посредников до проведения саммита G20 Бразилии, который пройдет 18–19 ноября. Однако он подчеркнул, что перед разговором он будет в тесном контакте с США и Европейскими союзниками.
Выступая в минувшую среду в парламенте Германии Олаф Шольц заявил о твердом намерении его администрации продолжить оказывать поддержку Украине, несмотря на произошедший на прошлой неделе развал правящей коалиции в Германии.
Шольц после развала коалиции будет возглавлять правительство меньшинства и для проведения любых решений ему будет необходима поддержка оппозиции.
Цитата:
Интервью С.Лаврова для проекта "Новый мир" с М.Ким, Москва, 14 ноября 2024 года
Цитата:
Юрий Борисов доложил Владимиру Путину о перспективах развития космической отрасли России
«Газпром» с завтрашнего дня прекратит поставки газа в Австрию по трубопроводу через Украину. В Австрии говорят, что готовы к этому.
...
Российская газовая монополия «Газпром» проинформировала своего единственного партнера в Австрии, компанию OMV, что прекратит поставки газа по трубопроводу, проходящему через территорию Украины, с 06:00 по местному времени 16 ноября, сообщила OMV.
Австрия до сих пор оставалась крупнейшим импортером российского газа по трубопроводам в Евросоюзе. Среди стран ЕС покупать российский трубопроводный газ продолжают также соседние Словакия и Венгрия. Остальные страны постепенно отказались от российского трубопроводного газа после нападения России на Украину.
Австрия и Словакия получают газ по старому трубопроводу, проходящему через территорию Украины. Киев заявлял, что не намерен продлевать транзитный контракт с российской стороной, истекающий в конце года. Венгрия теперь получает большую часть газа по трубопроводу TurkStream, проходящему через Турцию и балканские страны.
Канцлер Австрии Карл Нехаммер заявил, что прекращение поставок из России давно ожидалось, страна к этому подготовилась, нашла альтернативные источники топлива, а ее газохранилища сейчас полны на 93%, чего хватит на всю зиму.
«Газпром» объявил о прекращении поставок в Австрию после того, как OMV на этой неделе выиграла контрактный спор с «Газпром экспортом» по правилам Международной торговой палаты на сумму в 230 млн евро плюс проценты и судебные издержки и заявила, что вычтет эту сумму из платежей за будущие поставки российского газа.
В российских судах «Газпром» добился запрета для OMV на обращения в международный арбитраж.
Цитата:
Цитата:
Зачем Шольц звонил Путину, по "уклонистам" отрывают огонь, маневры Киева перед Трампом. Итоги 15.11
Цитата:
Collapse - Grim Reality Of Attritional War | Infantry Shortage As Pockets Form | Ukraine Map Update
Цитата:
Цитата:
Helga Zepp-LaRouche: Neocon Agenda Taking Over Europe!
Цитата:
The Democrats Lied to You | Victor Davis Hanson
Цитата:
Col. Larry Wilkerson: Trump's Team Pushing America to WAR for Israel Against Iran?
Full Trump speech at Mar-a-Lago gala dinner shouts out Elon Musk, RFK Jr. and Mike Burgrum
This video has not been independently fact checked by the Palm Beach Post or the USA TODAY Network. President-elect shouted out several of the picks for cabinet positions in his White House administration at a gala dinner more than week after the 2024 Election at his home at Mar-a-lago. Among them was Elon Musk, RFK Jr. and Mike Burgrum, who Trump announced as his pick for Interior Secretary.
Estonian and British troops carried out a controlled demolition of a Soviet-era highway bridge in Estonia, 120 miles from the Russian border. The exercise was designed to simulate wartime demolition techniques. The replacement bridge will feature an enhanced load capacity, which will enable the transport of heavy Nato military equipment across Estonia.
Цитата:
Canada is leading a beefed up multinational NATO training mission in Latvia, which shares a 300-kilometre-long border with Russia, at an uncertain time for the military alliance. Canada's top soldier says the mission could last beyond 2026.
Цитата:
For the past fortnight a new Canadian-led multinational brigade has been holding off an enemy force played by elements from the British Army. In a matter of months this unit has been upgraded from a 1,500-strong battle group to 3,500 soldiers from more than a dozen allied states. It can field a thousand combat and support vehicles, as well as drones, electronic warfare systems, medium-range radar and air defence batteries. Sweden, which became the alliance’s newest member this year, is expected to send in a mechanised infantry battalion of roughly a thousand troops in January, pending parliamentary approval. Exercise Resolute Warrior is the brigade’s first serious test. Yet it is also Nato’s first large-scale war game since Donald Trump won re-election to the White House.
Заготовка по теме на всех - одна.
А статьи у всех разные.
Цитата:
Цитата:
Biden Allows Ukraine to Strike Russia With Long-Range U.S. Missiles
With two months left in office, the president for the first time authorized the Ukrainian military to use the system known as ATACMS to help defend its forces in the Kursk region of Russia.
...
President Biden has authorized the first use of U.S.-supplied long-range missiles by Ukraine for strikes inside Russia, U.S. officials said.
The weapons are likely to be initially employed against Russian and North Korean troops in defense of Ukrainian forces in the Kursk region of western Russia, the officials said.
Mr. Biden’s decision is a major change in U.S. policy. The choice has divided his advisers, and his shift comes two months before President-elect Donald J. Trump takes office, having vowed to limit further support for Ukraine.
Allowing the Ukrainians to use the long-range missiles, known as the Army Tactical Missile Systems, or ATACMS, came in response to Russia’s surprise decision to bring North Korean troops into the fight, officials said.
Mr. Biden began to ease restrictions on the use of U.S.-supplied weapons on Russian soil after Russia launched a cross-border assault in May in the direction of Kharkiv, Ukraine’s second-largest city.
To help the Ukrainians defend Kharkiv, Mr. Biden allowed them to use the High Mobility Artillery Rocket System, or HIMARS, which have a range of about 50 miles, against Russian forces directly across the border. But Mr. Biden did not allow the Ukrainians to use longer-range ATACMS, which have a range of about 190 miles, in defense of Kharkiv.
While the officials said they do not expect the shift to fundamentally alter the course of the war, one of the goals of the policy change, they said, is to send a message to the North Koreans that their forces are vulnerable and that they should not send more of them.
The officials said that while the Ukrainians were likely to use the missiles first against Russian and North Korean troops that threaten Ukrainian forces in Kursk, Mr. Biden could authorize them to use the weapons elsewhere.
Some U.S. officials said they feared that Ukraine’s use of the missiles across the border could prompt President Vladimir V. Putin of Russia to retaliate with force against the United States and its coalition partners.
But other U.S. officials said they thought those fears were overblown.
The Russian military is set to launch a major assault by an estimated 50,000 soldiers, including North Korean troops, on dug-in Ukrainian positions in Kursk with the goal of retaking all of the Russian territory that the Ukrainians seized in August.
The Ukrainians could use the ATACMS missiles to strike Russian and North Korean troop concentrations, key pieces of military equipment, logistics nodes, ammunition depots and supply lines deep inside Russia.
Doing so could help the Ukrainians blunt the effectiveness of the Russian-North Korean assault.
Whether to arm Ukraine with long-range ATACMS has been an especially sensitive subject since Russia’s full-scale invasion of Ukraine in February 2022.
Some Pentagon officials opposed giving them to the Ukrainians because they said the U.S. Army had limited supplies. Some White House officials feared that Mr. Putin would widen the war if they gave the missiles to the Ukrainians.
Supporters of a more aggressive posture toward Moscow say Mr. Biden and his advisers have been too easily intimidated by Mr. Putin’s hostile rhetoric, and they say that the administration’s incremental approach to arming the Ukrainians has disadvantaged them on the battlefield.
Proponents of Mr. Biden’s approach say that it had largely been successful at averting a violent Russian response.
Allowing long-range strikes on Russian territory using American missiles could change that equation.
In August, the Ukrainians launched their own cross-border assault into the Kursk region, where they seized a swath of Russian territory.
Since then, U.S. officials have become increasingly concerned about the state of the Ukrainian army, which has been stretched thin by simultaneous Russian assaults in the east, Kharkiv and now Kursk.
The introduction of more than 10,000 North Korean troops and Mr. Biden’s response come as Mr. Trump prepares to re-enter office with a stated goal of quickly ending the war.
Mr. Trump has said little about how he would settle the conflict. But Vice President-elect JD Vance has outlined a plan that would allow the Russians to keep the Ukrainian territory that their forces have seized.
The Ukrainians hope that they would be able to trade any Russian territory they hold in Kursk for Ukrainian territory held by Russia in any future negotiations.
If the Russian assault on Ukrainian forces in Kursk succeeds, Kyiv could end up having little to no Russian territory to offer Moscow in a trade.
President Volodymyr Zelensky of Ukraine has long sought permission from the United States and its coalition partners to use long-range missiles to strike Russian soil.
The British and French militaries have given the Ukrainians a limited number of Storm Shadow and SCALP missiles, which have a range of about 155 miles, less than the American missile system.
While British and French leaders voiced support for Mr. Zelensky’s request, they were reluctant to allow the Ukrainians to start using their missiles on Russian soil unless Mr. Biden agreed to allow the Ukrainians to do the same with ATACMS.
Mr. Biden was more risk-averse than his British and French counterparts, and his top advisers were divided on how to proceed.
Some of them seized on a recent U.S. intelligence assessment that warned that Mr. Putin could respond to the use of long-range ATACMS on Russian soil by directing the Russian military or its spy agencies to retaliate, potentially with lethal force, against the United States and its European allies.
The assessment warned of several possible Russian responses that included stepped-up acts of arson and sabotage targeting facilities in Europe, as well as potentially lethal attacks on U.S. and European military bases.
Officials said Mr. Biden was persuaded to make the change in part by the sheer audacity of Russia’s decision to throw North Korean troops at Ukrainian lines.
He was also swayed, they said, by concerns that the Russian assault force would be able to overwhelm Ukrainian troops in Kursk if they were not allowed to defend themselves with long-range weapons.
U.S. officials said they do not believe that the decision will change the course of the war.
But they said Mr. Biden determined that the potential benefits — Ukraine will be able to reach certain high-value targets that it would not otherwise be able to, and the United States will be able to send a message to North Korea that it will pay a significant price for its involvement — outweighed the escalation risks.
Mr. Biden faced a similar dilemma a year ago when U.S. intelligence agencies learned that the North Koreans would supply Russia with long-range ballistic missiles.
In that case, Mr. Biden agreed to supply several hundred long-range ATACMS to the Ukrainians for use on Ukraine’s sovereign territory, including the Russian-occupied Crimean Peninsula. Those supplemented the more limited supplies of Storm Shadow and SCALP missiles that the Ukrainians received from Britain and France.
The Ukrainians have since used many of those missiles in a concerted campaign of strikes against Russian military targets in Crimea and in the Black Sea.
As a result, it is unclear how many of the missiles the Ukrainians have left in their arsenal to use in the Kursk region.
Цитата:
Biden approves Ukraine’s use of long-range U.S. weapons inside Russia, reversing policy
The Biden administration will allow Kyiv limited use of ATACMS to strike enemy positions in Russia, according to senior U.S. officials.
U.S. soldiers conduct live-fire testing of early versions of the Army Tactical Missile System in December 2021 at White Sands Missile Range in New Mexico. (John Hamilton/U.S. Army/AP)
...
President Joe Biden has authorized Ukraine to use a powerful American long-range weapon for limited strikes inside Russia in response to North Korea’s deployment of thousands of troops to aid Moscow’s war effort, according to two senior U.S. officials.
The easing of restrictions on allowing Kyiv to use the Army Tactical Missile System, or ATACMS, to hit targets inside Russia is a significant reversal in U.S. policy and comes as some 10,000 elite North Korean troops have been sent to Kursk, a region of Russia along Ukraine’s northern border, to help Moscow’s forces retake territory gained by Ukraine.
The Biden administration fears that more North Korean special forces units could follow in support of this effort.
The move precedes by two months the return to the White House of President-elect Donald Trump, who has signaled he intends to end the war between Russia and Ukraine, though without offering details of how he will do so.
One U.S. official said the move is in part aimed at deterring Pyongyang from sending more troops. North Korean leader Kim Jong Un must understand that the initial deployment has been a “costly” mistake, said the official, who like others interviewed for this story spoke on condition of anonymity because of the matter’s sensitivity.
The initial Ukrainian effort is expected to focus on and around the Kursk region, though it could expand, according to the official and another person familiar with the matter.
The White House and Pentagon declined to comment. Ukraine’s presidential office declined to comment.
Until recently, the Biden administration was steadfastly opposed to Ukraine firing ATACMS into Russian territory, warning that the measure could lead to escalation by the Kremlin that was out of proportion to its battlefield benefits.
ATACMS — pronounced “attack-ems” — is a supersonic guided missile system that can be fitted with either cluster munitions or conventional warheads, with a maximum range of about 190 miles. Ukraine for months has sought permission to use the powerful missiles against Russian territory, arguing that the weapons would enable its strapped forces to strike deep in the country and hit targets that would degrade the Kremlin’s war machine.
The arrival of the North Koreans in the Kursk region in October, where Ukraine launched a surprise offensive in August, was seen as a major escalation by the West and spurred an intense effort inside the Biden administration and with allies on how to respond.
The White House wants to put Ukraine in the best possible place ahead of peace talks that the new U.S. president is expected to spearhead early in his term, U.S. officials said. Even before the election, Biden had committed to surging aid to Ukraine in an effort to cement his legacy on his way out of office.
“President Biden has committed to making sure that every dollar we have at our disposal will be pushed out the door between now and January 20th,” Secretary of State Antony Blinken told reporters in Brussels on Wednesday, where he was meeting with European counterparts to discuss how to support Ukraine in the wake of the Trump win.
A second U.S. official said that Biden’s approval of ATACMS “is going to have a very specific and limited effect” on the battlefield, designed to limit concerns about escalation.
“If news of the policy shift is true,” said Michael Kofman, a Russian and Ukrainian military expert with the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace, “then it could be of operational benefit to Ukraine, enabling them to better defend and hold on to the territory they currently occupy in Kursk and help offset the benefit that Russia enjoys from employing North Korean forces in this specific part of the front.”
Previous steps framed as limited have cracked the door to wider forms of military assistance over the course of the nearly three-year war.
Russian President Vladimir Putin is “testing the West, NATO, and even South Korea, observing their response to North Korean forces joining his campaign,” Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky said on X late last month. “If the response is weak, we should expect the numbers of foreign soldiers on our soil to increase.”
Russia’s capture of eastern Ukrainian territory has accelerated, buoying spirits inside the Kremlin, whose leaders now feel they have the advantage in a war that is no longer a stalemate.
The authorization follows months of resistance by the Biden administration about allowing Ukraine to use the ATACMS to hit targets within Russia. Senior U.S. officials have repeatedly expressed private concern that Russia could retaliate by escalating inside Ukraine and around the world. In denying Kyiv’s pleas to be able to fire ATACMS inside Russia, administration officials have publicly said that the use of the weapon would have marginal utility on the battlefield.
Pentagon officials, who were by far the most skeptical voice inside the administration, have argued that the benefits of allowing strikes in Russia would be limited because the Kremlin, anticipating a potential easing of the restraint, earlier this year pulled most of its warplanes and other assets deeper into Russia and out of range.
Russian President Vladimir Putin and North Korean leader Kim Jong Un mark their new partnership in June in Pyongyang. (Kristina Kormilitsyna/Sputnik/Kremlin pool/AP
As of September, 90 percent of the Russian aircraft launching glide bombs into Ukraine were flying from airfields outside ATACMS range, Pentagon spokeswoman Sabrina Singh said at the time.
The policy move comes at a time of heightened political sensitivity as Biden seeks to alter Ukraine’s fortunes before Trump takes office, and as North Korean troops have bolstered Russia’s advantage on the battlefield.
(выделено а.п.)
Ukraine’s control of Russian territory has taken on intense significance as both sides scramble for advantage ahead of potential talks. People close to the Kremlin say that Putin is unwilling to start any negotiations while Ukrainians are on Russian soil. The Biden administration is focused on helping Kyiv preserve its bargaining leverage there as long as possible.
U.S. and Ukrainian officials believe that the presence of North Korean troops will free Russian forces to focus on gaining ground elsewhere as well as push the front lines forward in Kursk, where Ukraine captured territory in August, providing a morale boost to Ukrainians, who have been sapped by nearly three years of war. Pyongyang’s involvement has rattled Washington and its allies, who are wary of the assistance Putin might offer Kim in return.
At a summit of Asia Pacific leaders in Peru on Friday, Biden met with Japanese Prime Minister Shigeru Ishiba and South Korean President Yoon Suk Yeol. In a statement, the three leaders said they “strongly condemn” North Korea’s troop deployment to Russia to “dangerously expand Russia’s war of aggression against Ukraine.”
The trio also noted the deepening military cooperation between the two countries, calling the supply of munitions and ballistic missiles “particularly egregious” given Russia’s status as a permanent member of the U.N. Security Council.
U.S. officials have said that their concerns about Russian escalation in response to Western military aid have diminished over time as one weapons system after another has been provided to Ukraine without significant retaliation in response. Ukraine is already using U.S. equipment inside Kursk to attack Russia.
But Putin has been explicit that he considers the use of ATACMS a red line. In September, he declared that a strike by the missiles into Russian territory, which would probably involve U.S. targeting assistance, “changes the very essence, the nature of the conflict,” warning that his country would retaliate.
Later that month, he revised Russia’s nuclear doctrine in what was interpreted as a veiled threat against the use of U.S.-provided long-range weapons on Russian soil.
Administration officials who have previously been skeptical of allowing Ukraine to use U.S. long-range weapons for strikes in Russia have said that given the limited number of the advanced missiles, the blowback may not be worth the potential battlefield advantage. But with North Korea’s increasing involvement in the conflict, the U.S. calculus appears to have shifted.
Officials characterized the decision as a limited evolution rather than a new chapter in the war.
The authorization for the use of ATACMS on targets within Russian territory follows repeated requests by Ukraine. Early this year, Kyiv asked Washington to provide long-range ATACMS and in August requested that its forces be allowed to use them in Kursk.
“We have adapted and adjusted to the needs of Ukraine as the battlefield changes, as what Russia is doing changes, as new elements are introduced, for example, the North Korean forces,” Blinken said during the visit to Brussels on Wednesday.
“I can tell you that we will continue to adapt and adjust again, to make sure that Ukraine is in the strongest possible position to deal with this aggression,” Blinken said. He declined to comment on specifics about the steps the Biden administration was taking to respond to the North Korean troops.
If North Korean soldiers “do deploy to fight against Ukraine, they’re fair game. They’re fair targets,” White House spokesman John Kirby said last month, warning that anyone fighting Ukrainian forces would face retaliation from Kyiv. “The Ukrainian military will defend themselves against North Korean soldiers the same way they’re defending themselves against Russian soldiers.”
In this photo taken from a video released by Russian Defense Ministry press service on Nov. 13, 2024, a Russian rocket launcher fires towards Ukrainian positions in the border area of Kursk region, Russia. (Russian Defense Ministry Press Service via AP) (AP)
Trump is expected to be far more skeptical of U.S. aid for Ukraine than Biden has been, and he has expressed eagerness to broker a peace deal between Moscow and Kyiv. Putin and Trump spoke in a call after the election, according to five people familiar with the matter who spoke on the condition of anonymity to discuss a sensitive diplomatic exchange. In that call, several people said, Trump warned the Russian leader not to escalate in Ukraine and said he wanted to discuss the resolution of the war soon.
The Kremlin denied that the call took place.
Biden, though he has authorized tens of billions of dollars in military aid to Ukraine, has been reluctant to grant Kyiv advanced U.S. weapons. He hesitated about sending the Patriot air defense system, then relented. A similar policy evolution saw the U.S. initially refuse to give Ukraine U.S.-made Abrams tanks and F-16 fighter jets.
The White House in May reversed a broad ban on Ukraine using U.S. military assistance to strike within Russia, after the Kremlin took advantage of the restriction by concentrating its forces in border regions and attacking across the frontier with relative impunity.
When Biden finally authorized the longer-range ATACMS earlier this year, he limited their use to within Ukraine’s own territory, enabling them to strike Russian forces on the Crimean Peninsula but not to hit within Russia itself.
The White House had maintained its ban on ATACMS strikes in Russia in part because of concerns that Russia would respond with force against U.S. and allies’ interests elsewhere. That could include the use of even more devastating weapons inside Ukraine, an increase in sabotage attacks in Europe and the United States, or intensified support for Iran and for the Houthi rebels in Yemen who have snarled global shipping, two other senior administration officials said in September.
Though this policy reversal gives Kyiv a significant new tool, Biden administration officials note that Ukraine has very limited stocks of ATACMS. Russia has shown that it has a significant shoot-down capability, and the Pentagon, whose own missile supply is dwindling, says it does not have many more to give without affecting U.S. readiness.
Defenders of Biden’s approach say he has been managing risks of escalation amid periods in which U.S. intelligence assessments have offered real warnings about the possibility of Putin using a nuclear weapon against Ukraine.
But the halting provision of advanced weapons and other cautious policies have caused frustration in Kyiv, Ukrainian officials have said. When troops finally receive the weapons or are freed to use them, the military returns are often diminished because conditions on the battlefield have changed, leading to preventable casualties and setbacks, according to soldiers and commanders on the ground.
_________________
С сожалением и понятными пожеланиями, 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
За последние пару лет реклама банков изменилась. Появились новые сюжеты и герои. Реклама по-прежнему — не только инструмент продвижения услуг, но и способ формирования доверия к финансовым организациям. Главный тренд, который отмечают эксперты,— переход от сухого перечисления выгод к эмоционально окрашенным коммуникациям.
Антитрендами наружной рекламы в текущем году стали прямолинейность и чрезмерная перегруженность сообщений. Наружная реклама продолжает показывать рост: число рекламных конструкций за последний год увеличилось более чем на 2 тысячи.
В компании Sellty спрогнозировали развитие рынка электронной коммерции в сегменте СМБ на ближайший год. По оценке основателя Sellty Марии Бар-Бирюковой, число собственных интернет-магазинов среднего, малого и микробизнеса продолжит расти и увеличится минимум на 40% до конца 2025 года. Компании будут и дальше развиваться на маркетплейсах, но станут чаще комбинировать несколько каналов продаж.
10 сентября – Всемирный день психического здоровья. Специально к этой дате компания HINT опросила коллег в сфере маркетинга, рекламы и пиара, чтобы понять, как представители этих профессий могут помочь себе и другим поддержать в норме психическое здоровье.
Как не ошибиться с выбором формата обучения и предстать перед будущим работодателем успешным специалистом. Директор по маркетингу ведущего IT-холдинга Fplus Ирина Васильева рассказала, на что теперь смотрят работодатели при приеме на работу, как нестандартно можно развиваться в профессии и стоит ли действующим маркетологам обучаться на онлайн-курсах.
Чего не хватает радио, чтобы увеличить свою долю на рекламном рынке? Аудиопиратство: угроза или возможности для отрасли? Каковы первые результаты общероссийской кампании по продвижению индустриального радиоплеера? Эти и другие вопросы были рассмотрены на конференции «Радио в глобальной медиаконкуренции», спикерами и участниками которой стали эксперты ГПМ Радио.
Деловая программа 28-й международной специализированной выставки технологий и услуг для производителей и заказчиков рекламы «Реклама-2021» открылась десятым юбилейным форумом «Матрица рекламы». Его организовали КВК «Империя» и «Экспоцентр».
28 марта в Центральном доме художника состоялась 25-ая выставка маркетинговых коммуникаций «Дизайн и реклама NEXT». Одним из самых ярких её событий стал День социальной рекламы, который организовала Ассоциация директоров по коммуникациям и корпоративным медиа России (АКМР) совместно с АНО «Лаборатория социальной рекламы» и оргкомитетом LIME.
На VII Международном форуме «Матрица рекламы», прошедшем в ЦВК «Экспоцентр» в рамках международной выставки «Реклама-2018», большой интерес у профессиональной аудитории вызвала VI Конференция «Интернет-реклама».
RSS