Russia Invades Ukraine. Again by captaincrunch

REAL WORLD EVENT DISCUSSIONS

Russia Invades Ukraine. Again

POSTED BY: CAPTAINCRUNCH
UPDATED: Monday, May 5, 2025 05:20
SHORT URL:
VIEWED: 222310
PAGE 166 of 166

Sunday, May 4, 2025 4:39 AM

The Joss Whedon script for Serenity, where Wash lives, is Serenity-190pages.pdf at https://www.mediafire.com/two

Russian troops ordered to attack everywhere — Dykyi on what to expect

Author: Alex Stezhensky | May 2, 2025, 09:36 AM

https://english.nv.ua/nation/russia-orders-advances-on-all-fronts-in-p
ush-to-shape-talks-expert-warns-50511019.html

Yevhen Dykyi, a veteran of the Russian-Ukrainian war, former company commander in the Aidar Battalion, and director of Ukraine’s National Antarctic Scientific Center, said during a Radio NV interview that Russian forces have received orders to advance on all fronts. He also offered a skeptical forecast about whether Moscow has the strength to pull it off.

“Since the story with the Riyadh negotiations began, [Russia] has issued an order to strain its last reserves and put on a show of force — one they haven’t truly had for months now,” Dykyi said.

“In reality, they’ve largely lost the initiative. Their peak power, their moment of momentum — that was last fall and winter. Back then, they were charging ahead full force from all directions. That hasn’t been the case for a while now.”

He pointed to Pokrovsk as the clearest example. “They crawled up to it and got stuck. And now they see clearly: they’re never going to take it.”

But Dykyi warned that with peace talks looming, Moscow needs to simulate a renewed offensive — a show of regained initiative — in order to pressure Ukraine into capitulation.

“They need to create the illusion that they’re once again calling the shots — when, where, and how the war is fought. That’s why they’re probing the Zaporizhzhya direction right now. That’s also why they’re attempting — not serious ones yet — but reconnaissance landings even on the right bank of Kherson Oblast.”

“All of this is part of the same play,” he said. “It’s a large-scale pressure campaign designed to convince our allies — and, if it works, even us — that signing these Trump-brokered agreements, which are essentially Kremlin-drafted deals, is our only option.”

“They’re building a narrative tailored to what [U.S. President Donald] Trump said. Remember, when asked what Russia’s concessions were in the proposed deal, Trump said: ‘What do you mean? Russia made a huge concession — it’s not going to take over the entire territory of Ukraine.’”

“It wasn’t the Ukrainian Armed Forces that created a situation in which seizing all of Ukraine is off the table — no,” Dykyi said. “Apparently, it was Putin who did Trump a favor and, out of the goodness of his heart, agreed not to conquer the entire country. Otherwise, Ukraine is supposedly just lying there, waiting to be taken.”

“So yes, right now the Russians have orders to attack anywhere they can and ignore the losses,” he said. “Dnipropetrovsk Oblast fits perfectly into that narrative.”

“Even if all they get is a single linear meter of Dnipropetrovsk Oblast — and honestly, they’re unlikely to get more — they’ll turn that one meter into a press release and declare another oblast under control,” Dykyi said. “And they’ll wave that around during the talks.”

The Joss Whedon script for Serenity, where Wash lives, is Serenity-190pages.pdf at https://www.mediafire.com/two

NOTIFY: Y | REPLY | REPLY WITH QUOTE | TOP | HOME

Sunday, May 4, 2025 5:39 AM

SECOND

The Joss Whedon script for Serenity, where Wash lives, is Serenity-190pages.pdf at https://www.mediafire.com/two

Ex-CIA chief: We gave Ukraine enough weapons to bleed, not to win

Ralph Goff, a former chief of operations at the agency, says Biden’s White House did not give Kyiv the weapons to drive out Russia for fear of nuclear war

By Larisa Brown | Friday May 02 2025, 6.15pm BST, The Times

https://www.thetimes.com/us/news-today/article/ex-cia-chief-we-gave-uk
raine-enough-weapons-to-bleed-not-to-win-r3q0r2fcg?t=1746252583203

After Vladimir Putin’s masked commandos captured Crimea in the winter of 2014, the CIA’s chief of operations for Europe and Eurasia, based at Langley, tried to warn his superiors of what was coming next.

“I was trying to ring the alarm bell that the seeds of World War Three are being sown in the Donbas right now and we need to do something about it,” said Ralph Goff, a six-time former station chief who spent three decades in America’s foreign intelligence agency. “But there were other priorities.”

In March this year, Goff, now in his sixties, had been preparing to take over as the CIA’s chief of clandestine operations, in an effort to reform the agency and make it less risk-averse.

That was until President Trump’s administration got wind of the plan and put a stop to it. “I think people close to the president thought, ‘Who is this guy, who does he think he is?’, and went and looked and saw I wasn’t one of their people and they said, ‘No, we don’t approve’, ” he told The Times in an interview from Paris.

“Politics definitely played a role there but, what are you going to do. They can pick who they want,” he said, adding that the decision may have been because of his views on Ukraine.

When Goff got the call to say his appointment had been blocked, Trump had already appointed the political loyalists Kash Patel and Dan Bongino to run the FBI and Tulsi Gabbard, who has defended President Putin in the past, as director of national intelligence.

Goff, meanwhile, was a vocal supporter of Ukraine. Since retiring from the agency in October 2023, he has travelled there several times.

Looking back, Goff, who speaks five languages including Russian, believes the big war that started in February 2022 might have been stopped early on if the US and its allies had given Ukraine the weapons it needed from the beginning.

What transpired instead, he believes, was a deliberate strategy to give Ukraine the arms it needed to fight — but not enough to defeat Putin’s army, because of fears the Russian leader would use nuclear weapons if he got close to losing.

“Had we equipped the Ukrainians at that time with proper weaponry, they might have been able to drive the Russians all the way out of the country. It didn’t happen. It set the stage for this longer, protracted, drawn out, meat grinder war that we are witnessing today,” Goff said.

He said President Biden and his allies allowed Putin to dictate the terms of the conflict and were nervous about sending Ukraine the equipment it needed at the right time because of fears “he will go nuclear”.

Goff added: “[They] allowed themselves to be bamboozled by Vladimir Putin and his nuclear-sabre rattling. So they gave the Ukrainians this weaponry but they never gave them enough to win. They only gave them enough to bleed.”

It is a view shared by some in the heart of the UK government, but no one dares air it publicly.

Goff pointed out that Putin had a “real deadly fear of Covid” during the pandemic and “in my mind, people who are that concerned with their health are not about to play high stakes nuclear poker”.

Now, with a new administration, he thinks Trump’s strategy may be to smooth talk and possibly flatter Putin to draw him away from China. Putin, meanwhile, thinks that as a former intelligence officer he can manipulate Trump, although Goff predicts he will end up “sorely mistaken”.

“Putin will eventually overplay his hand with the administration and show them where the problem lies and the problem is in Moscow not in Kyiv,” he explained.

If a deal is not reached soon, Goff said one Ukrainian official had told him that by the end of the summer the entire front line will essentially be a 20-50km “death zone”, “where you can’t move because there are so many drones in the air and robots on the ground and sensors and mines”. He warned: “It will be an incredibly lethal environment.”

In the late 1970s and early 1980s, Goff, a Russian linguist, was a signals intelligence officer in the US army, based on the East German border before the fall of the Berlin Wall, eavesdropping on Soviet forces.

What followed for him was a life in the shadows with the CIA, where Goff carried out missions across the globe using different aliases and fake passports. He operated in war zones such as Iraq and Afghanistan where he came under artillery fire, rocket fire, machine-gun fire and faced the threat of suicide bombs and improvised explosives.

“You face all these different threats and your task is to not panic and get through them. More often than not you get back to the office and you’re like, holy crap, that was a close one,” he added, casually.

In the aftermath of 9/11, during the global war on terror, he said the agency “became almost like paramilitary organisations”, with an obsession with ensuring spies could defend themselves, rather than making sure they could speak languages and communicate with the local communities they were operating in.

He said: “I had case officers who could hit a moving target with an M4 rifle at 300 yards and treat a sucking chest wound with first aid and could call in an airstrike. They could do all of this stuff but none of them spoke Pashto or Dari or Arabic and so what good were they? I needed officers who could meet with the locals and collect intelligence.”

He said the war on terror was a “very lethal event” and “obviously people were looking at reducing risk”. He said: “What we lost in that, you know, was some of the collection.”

“You think back to the glory days of British intelligence, with people out in the great game, out in central Asia, where these guys dressed like natives and learned the language and they were out so long on camel back that they looked like the natives and they were out there amongst the people. There is a part of me that wishes I had been able to experience those days,” he added.

Now, he said espionage was a “whole different ball game” and travelling under an alias was a “huge deal” with the advent of internet and facial recognition cameras. “It’s a thousand times harder to operate out on the streets now than when I was a case officer.”

For the most part, Goff said the life of a spy was “not like the Hollywood movies” and a lot of the work was “sheer drudgery” such as filling out reports and accounting. “Remember the old show 24 with Jack Bauer? I love that show but you know it’s not real at all. If it were real, the first six episodes would be him arguing with some bureaucrat over his travel tickets.”

Goff, who describes himself as a “committed Atlanticist”, retired in October 2023 before being asked if he would be willing to come back to the CIA to take on the role of deputy director of operations.

If he had done, he would have run human espionage and covert action programmes.

His plan was to reform the agency.

He said there had been a “damaging” approach to the agency under John Brennan, who served as director until 2017, whereby analysts who reached senior positions were expected to be just as good at operations.

“There’s a reason why fighter pilots fly fighter jets and bomber pilots fly bombers. You don’t want to change that. And so with us, with operations officers, I think we lost some of our prestige and as a result the risk tolerance at the agency dropped as well,” he explained.

Risk avoidance was not risk management, he said, and so “people like me who are going out on the streets doing crazy things, we have a different view of risk management”.

He said: “We try to minimise risk but we recognise it is there. If you are going to conduct intelligence operations there is always the risk of failure.”

Since leaving the agency, Goff has travelled regularly to Ukraine, meeting with government and intelligence officials in the country.

He tries to persuade American companies to invest in Ukraine and introduces Ukrainian technology to the Americans.

“I think one of the reasons why I go to Ukraine now is perhaps I feel some guilt over not having been able to get the message to my leadership to avert this,” he said.

The Joss Whedon script for Serenity, where Wash lives, is Serenity-190pages.pdf at https://www.mediafire.com/two

NOTIFY: Y | REPLY | REPLY WITH QUOTE | TOP | HOME

Sunday, May 4, 2025 10:41 AM

SECOND

The Joss Whedon script for Serenity, where Wash lives, is Serenity-190pages.pdf at https://www.mediafire.com/two

Putin says he hopes there will be no need to use nuclear weapons in Ukraine

In comments aired Sunday in a film by Russian state television about his quarter of a century in power, Putin said Russia has the strength and the means to bring the conflict in Ukraine to a “logical conclusion.”

Responding to a question about Ukrainian strikes on Russian territory, Putin said: “There has been no need to use those (nuclear) weapons ... and I hope they will not be required.”

“We have enough strength and means to bring what was started in 2022 to a logical conclusion with the outcome Russia requires,” he said.

Putin signed a revamped version of Russia’s nuclear doctrine in November 2024, spelling out the circumstances that allow him to use Moscow’s atomic arsenal, the world’s largest. That version lowered the bar, giving him that option in response to even a conventional attack backed by a nuclear power.

In the film, Putin also said Russia did not launch a full-scale invasion of Ukraine — what he called a “special military operation” — in 2014, when it illegally annexed Crimea, because it was “practically unrealistic.”

“The country was not ready for such a frontal confrontation with the entire collective West,” he said. He claimed also that Russia “sincerely sought to solve the problem of Donbas by peaceful means.”

Putin said that reconciliation with Ukraine was “inevitable.”

https://apnews.com/article/russia-ukraine-war-nuclear-putin-ceasefire-
868bda4fc666ec3b05a1e512eca91b3c

The Joss Whedon script for Serenity, where Wash lives, is Serenity-190pages.pdf at https://www.mediafire.com/two

NOTIFY: Y | REPLY | REPLY WITH QUOTE | TOP | HOME

Sunday, May 4, 2025 10:52 AM

SECOND

The Joss Whedon script for Serenity, where Wash lives, is Serenity-190pages.pdf at https://www.mediafire.com/two

Points for kills: How Ukraine is using video game incentives to slay more Russians

Ukraine has created a macabre points scheme based on video games to boost the effectiveness of its soldiers.

By Veronika Melkozerova | April 29, 2025 4:50 pm CET

https://www.politico.eu/article/ukraines-army-have-video-game-like-dig
ital-weapons-store-deadly-realistic/

KYIV — Ukraine's military is turning to incentive schemes used in video games to spur its soldiers to kill more Russian troops and destroy their equipment.

The program — called Army of Drones bonus — rewards soldiers with points if they upload videos proving their drones have hit Russian targets. It will soon be integrated with a new online marketplace called Brave 1 Market, which will allow troops to convert those points into new equipment for their units.

“Brave 1 Market will be like Amazon for the military, it will allow military units to directly purchase technologies they need on the war front,” said Mykhailo Fedorov, Ukraine’s deputy prime minister and minister for digital transformation, speaking at a weekend military tech conference in Kyiv.

The program assigns points for each type of kill: 20 points for damaging and 40 for destroying a tank; up to 50 points for destroying a mobile rocket system, depending on the caliber; and six points for killing an enemy soldier.

Soldiers have to download the video footage taken by their drones confirming the kill to the military's Delta communication and situational awareness system.

Units will soon be able to use the special digital points they’ve been getting since last year by trading them in for new weapons. A Vampire drone, for example, costs 43 points. The drone, nicknamed Baba Yaga, or witch, is a large multi-rotor drone able to carry a 15-kilogram warhead. The Ukrainian government will pay for the drones that are ordered and will deliver them to the front-line unit within a week.

“In short, you destroy, you get the points, you buy a drone using the points,” Fedorov said.

He pointed to the accomplishments of Magyar's Birds, one of Ukraine's elite drone warfare units. It has run up a score of over 16,298 points, enough to buy 500 first-person view drones used in daytime operations, 500 drones for night operations, 100 Vampire drones and 40 reconnaissance drones, Fedorov said.

The scheme is aimed at directing more equipment to the most effective units.

It will also help to bypass bureaucratic procurement procedures and buy weapons directly from manufacturers. As of today there are more than a thousand articles on the Brave 1 marketplace, ranging from drones to robotic systems, electronic warfare systems, parts, AI systems and other weapons.

Soldiers will be able to leave reviews on the site to guide future purchases.

The ability to get points for killing enemy troops is also spurring competition among units; so far about 90 percent of the army's drone units have scored points. In fact, they are logging so many hits that the government has had to revamp the logistics of drone deliveries to get more of them to points-heavy units.

“They started killing so quickly that Ukraine does not have time to deliver new drones,” Fedorov said.

It also helps improve the military's verified data on the destruction of Russian targets in real time — boosting battlefield awareness.

The Ukrainian government is continually tweaking the system to make it deadlier.

“For example, we have increased the number of points for infantry elimination from two to six, and that has doubled the number of destroyed enemies in one month,” Fedorov said. “This is not just a system of motivation, this is a mechanism that changes the rules of war.”

The Joss Whedon script for Serenity, where Wash lives, is Serenity-190pages.pdf at https://www.mediafire.com/two

NOTIFY: Y | REPLY | REPLY WITH QUOTE | TOP | HOME

Sunday, May 4, 2025 2:42 PM

SIGNYM

I believe in solving problems, not sharing them.

Quote:
Originally posted by second:
Russian troops ordered to attack everywhere — Dykyi on what to expect

Author: Alex Stezhensky | May 2, 2025, 09:36 AM

https://english.nv.ua/nation/russia-orders-advances-on-all-fronts-in-p
ush-to-shape-talks-expert-warns-50511019.html

Yevhen Dykyi, a veteran of the Russian-Ukrainian war, former company commander in the Aidar [NEO NAZI] Battalion...

How the fuck would he know about ... anything? Strategic orders? Troop strength?

Are we supposed to think that Russian General Staff tells him anything?

-----------
"It may be dangerous to be America's enemy, but to be America's friend is fatal."- Henry Kissinger

AMERICANS SUPPORT AMERICA

NOTIFY: Y | REPLY | REPLY WITH QUOTE | TOP | HOME

Sunday, May 4, 2025 7:45 PM

SECOND

The Joss Whedon script for Serenity, where Wash lives, is Serenity-190pages.pdf at https://www.mediafire.com/two

Quote:
Originally posted by SIGNYM:
Quote:
Originally posted by second:
Russian troops ordered to attack everywhere — Dykyi on what to expect

Author: Alex Stezhensky | May 2, 2025, 09:36 AM

https://english.nv.ua/nation/russia-orders-advances-on-all-fronts-in-p
ush-to-shape-talks-expert-warns-50511019.html

Yevhen Dykyi, a veteran of the Russian-Ukrainian war, former company commander in the Aidar [NEO NAZI] Battalion...

How the fuck would he know about ... anything? Strategic orders? Troop strength?

Are we supposed to think that Russian General Staff tells him anything?

Putin was on TV telling the world his plans. You don't have to be a mind-reader.

The Joss Whedon script for Serenity, where Wash lives, is Serenity-190pages.pdf at https://www.mediafire.com/two

NOTIFY: Y | REPLY | REPLY WITH QUOTE | TOP | HOME

Sunday, May 4, 2025 7:45 PM

SECOND

The Joss Whedon script for Serenity, where Wash lives, is Serenity-190pages.pdf at https://www.mediafire.com/two

Signym, the War won’t conclude in a year. Putin is convinced that war will go on and on and on some more.

Kremlin journalist Pavel Zarubin published a documentary on Russian state TV channel Rossiya 1 about Putin on May 4, in which Putin claimed that Russia has enough manpower and materiel to bring the war in Ukraine to its "logical conclusion with the result that Russia needs."[1]

Putin highlighted domestic support for the war and promoted the ideal of sacrifice on the frontline and the home front, likely in an effort to prepare Russian society for a longer war in Ukraine and potential future confrontations with the West. Putin told Zarubin that Russian society reacted positively to the invasion of Ukraine and that each citizen realized that "he is the state" and Russia's survival depends on each individual.[5] Putin stated that Russia is a country of "moral and ethical values" and that the basis of the Russian conscience is "the family, the state, and the future of Russia."[6] Putin is notably attempting to frame the Russian public's support for the war through shared values despite the Kremlin's reliance on financial incentives to recruit the majority of its military personnel and to maintain its war effort.[7] Putin accused the West once again of "deceiving" Russia following the 2015 Minsk agreements, likely in an effort to convince the Russian domestic audience that Russia cannot negotiate with the West and needs to continue the war.[8]

Putin's statements throughout the documentary indicate that Putin likely does not intend to slow offensive operations or transition to defensive operations in Ukraine and instead is attempting to ideologically prepare domestic Russian society for a long war. ISW has previously assessed that Russian officials are setting conditions to maintain a long war and to justify future aggression against Ukraine and NATO.[9] Russian officials have also consistently intensified efforts to militarize Russian society since the start of Russia’s full-scale invasion of Ukraine, further indicating that Russia is preparing for a protracted conflict. Russian officials are engaged in long-term efforts to consolidate control over Russia’s veteran civil society and elevate a cadre of loyal veterans to positions in Russia's regional and federal government.[10] Putin officially declared 2025 the "Year of the Defender of the Fatherland," following the launch of myriad militaristic initiatives in 2023 and 2024 to provide veterans with social and financial support and reinforce the Russian state narrative that veterans are the new "elite" class.[11] Russia is also investing heavily in military-patriotic education for Russia’s youth, demonstrating the Kremlin's interest in creating a new generation of militarized, loyal citizens in the medium to long term.[12]

https://www.understandingwar.org/backgrounder/russian-offensive-campai
gn-assessment-may-4-2025

The Joss Whedon script for Serenity, where Wash lives, is Serenity-190pages.pdf at https://www.mediafire.com/two

NOTIFY: Y | REPLY | REPLY WITH QUOTE | TOP | HOME

Sunday, May 4, 2025 8:03 PM

SECOND

The Joss Whedon script for Serenity, where Wash lives, is Serenity-190pages.pdf at https://www.mediafire.com/two

More American Air Defense Is on the Way to Help Ukraine

A Patriot air-defense system is moving from Israel to Ukraine, and Western allies are discussing the logistics of getting Germany or Greece to send another.

By Kim Barker, Helene Cooper, Lara Jakes, Eric Schmitt | May 4, 2025 12:37 p.m. ET

https://www.nytimes.com/2025/05/04/world/europe/ukraine-russia-war-pat
riot-systems.html

Ukraine is getting more help in its war with Russia.

A Patriot air-defense system that was based in Israel will be sent to Ukraine after it is refurbished, four current and former U.S. officials said in recent days, and Western allies are discussing the logistics of Germany or Greece giving another one.

The officials, speaking on the condition of anonymity because of the sensitivity of the discussions, declined to describe President Trump’s view of the decision to transfer more Patriot systems to Ukraine.

The White House’s National Security Council does not provide details on the strength and placement of defense systems, said James Hewitt, a spokesman for the council. “President Trump has been clear: he wants the war in Ukraine to end and the killing to stop,” he said.

A former White House official said that the Biden administration had secured the agreement with Israel in September, before the election won by Mr. Trump. The Defense Department said in a statement that “it continues to provide equipment to Ukraine from previously authorized” packages, referring to weaponry pulled from existing inventories and new purchases.

The delivery, which has not been previously reported, comes as Russia has stepped up its attacks on Ukraine, including an April 24 missile strike on Kyiv that was the deadliest since last summer.

A year ago, allies struggled to answer a demand by President Volodymyr Zelensky of Ukraine for seven Patriot systems. Although Ukraine now has eight, only six are functioning. The other two are being refurbished, one of the U.S. officials said. With the one from Israel, and one from Germany or Greece, Ukraine would have 10 Patriot systems in total, largely to protect the capital, Kyiv.

The Joss Whedon script for Serenity, where Wash lives, is Serenity-190pages.pdf at https://www.mediafire.com/two

NOTIFY: Y | REPLY | REPLY WITH QUOTE | TOP | HOME

Sunday, May 4, 2025 8:38 PM

SIGNYM

I believe in solving problems, not sharing them.

Quote:
Originally posted by second:
Quote:
Originally posted by SIGNYM:
Quote:
Originally posted by second:
Russian troops ordered to attack everywhere — Dykyi on what to expect

Author: Alex Stezhensky | May 2, 2025, 09:36 AM

https://english.nv.ua/nation/russia-orders-advances-on-all-fronts-in-p
ush-to-shape-talks-expert-warns-50511019.html

Yevhen Dykyi, a veteran of the Russian-Ukrainian war, former company commander in the Aidar [NEO NAZI] Battalion...

How the fuck would he know about ... anything? Strategic orders? Troop strength?

Are we supposed to think that Russian General Staff tells him anything?
Putin was on TV telling the world his plans. You don't have to be a mind-reader.

Then quote Putin.

Unless he's not saying the same thing.

/smirk

-----------
"It may be dangerous to be America's enemy, but to be America's friend is fatal."- Henry Kissinger

AMERICANS SUPPORT AMERICA

NOTIFY: Y | REPLY | REPLY WITH QUOTE | TOP | HOME

Sunday, May 4, 2025 9:23 PM

6IXSTRINGJACK

haha!

Don't expect somebody who will still tell you in 2025 that Trump said there were fine people on both sides to quote you anything that Putin has actually had to say on any topic.

*And yes, stupid Ted. I know that this string of words came out of his mouth in that order, but I'm referring to you morons taking a 5-second out of context clip and still lying about the meaning and/or allowing yourself to be lied to about it all these years later.

--------------------------------------------------

"I don't find this stuff amusing anymore." ~Paul Simon

NOTIFY: Y | REPLY | REPLY WITH QUOTE | TOP | HOME

Monday, May 5, 2025 5:05 AM

SECOND

The Joss Whedon script for Serenity, where Wash lives, is Serenity-190pages.pdf at https://www.mediafire.com/two

May 4, 2025
The Kyiv Independent’s Anna Belokur dives into the top stories of this week from the intensifying Russian spring offensive to the shocking torture and murder of Ukrainian journalist Viktoriia Roschyna. Also, the long-gestating minerals deal has finally been signed, what is in it and is it a good deal for Ukraine? All this and more in this week’s episode of Ukraine This Week.

The Joss Whedon script for Serenity, where Wash lives, is Serenity-190pages.pdf at https://www.mediafire.com/two

NOTIFY: Y | REPLY | REPLY WITH QUOTE | TOP | HOME

Monday, May 5, 2025 5:08 AM

SECOND

The Joss Whedon script for Serenity, where Wash lives, is Serenity-190pages.pdf at https://www.mediafire.com/two

Zelensky and First Lady Olena Zelenska arrived in the Czech Republic on May 4 for an official visit with Pavel. A Czech ammunition initiative will deliver up to 1.8 million artillery shells to Ukraine by the end of 2025, Pavel said at the visit.

"Russia should know that we are expecting three million artillery shells from our allies. Not only North Korea is capable of helping in the war, we have allies who are helping Ukraine," Zelensky said.

https://kyivindependent.com/ukraine-expects-3-million-shells-zelensky-
says/

The Joss Whedon script for Serenity, where Wash lives, is Serenity-190pages.pdf at https://www.mediafire.com/two

NOTIFY: Y | REPLY | REPLY WITH QUOTE | TOP | HOME

Monday, May 5, 2025 5:20 AM

SECOND

The Joss Whedon script for Serenity, where Wash lives, is Serenity-190pages.pdf at https://www.mediafire.com/two

West believes Putin cannot agree to peace due to threat of domestic political issues – Bild

By Ivan Diakonov — Monday, 5 May 2025, 06:53

https://www.pravda.com.ua/eng/news/2025/05/5/7510604/

The United States has been urging Russia to stop its aggression against Ukraine and agree to a peace deal. Meanwhile, there has been growing conviction within Western government circles that Russian leader Vladimir Putin's regime is unable to end the war without serious political consequences inside the country.

Source: German tabloid Bild https://www.bild.de/politik/ausland-und-internationales/wenn-der-krieg
-endet-hat-putin-ein-problem-blockiert-er-deshalb-den-friedensdeal-68109e7c3e4aff02aa6cc535

Details: Bild noted that Russia shows no willingness to compromise despite international pressure. According to Bild, high-ranking Western government circles believe the reason lies in deep internal factors: political, economic and social.

Quote: "This is because Russia has not yet achieved its military objectives. The defence industry has been inflated with huge investments. Hundreds of thousands of Russians are making good money from the war. All of this makes it very difficult for Putin to find a path to compromise."

Details: According to Russian economists, if the sectors dominated by the defence industry are excluded from the analysis, Russia's economy is effectively in a state of recession. A downturn is evident in many industries, such as food production, coal, building materials, metal products and machinery manufacturing.

"Production is falling! Only the defence industry is masking the decline," Bild said.

According to economist Alexandra Prokopenko from the Carnegie Russia Eurasia Center, who worked at the Central Bank of Russia until 2022, the belief that ending the war would automatically lead to the collapse of the defence industry is exaggerated.

Experts believe that an additional threat to Putin's regime comes from war veterans. Many of them, upon returning from the line of contact, may become a source of social instability, especially in regions with low living standards and limited economic prospects.

"Dealing with veterans returning after the end of the war is likely to become a challenge for Putin," said Margaret Klein, an expert on Russia at the German Institute for International and Security Affairs.

"Those who went to the line of contact as volunteers often received payments several times higher than the average salary. This concerns not only increased wages but also one-off recruitment bonuses amounting to over €40,000," Klein noted.

According to her, the risk of a wave of violence increases if the Kremlin cannot offer these people an economic future.

Quote from Klein: "The number of violent crimes has increased since Russia's full-scale invasion. There is a real danger that some of the veterans – like those who fought in Afghanistan or Chechnya – will become involved in [organised] crime."

The Joss Whedon script for Serenity, where Wash lives, is Serenity-190pages.pdf at https://www.mediafire.com/two

NOTIFY: Y | REPLY | REPLY WITH QUOTE | TOP | HOME

YOUR OPTIONS

SHARE THREAD

NEW POSTS TODAY

USER	POST DATE
second	05.05 05:05
second	05.05 05:08
second	05.05 05:20