You were clearly born after the cold war so you do not comprehend what mutually assured destruction "MAD" means. Russia is not using nukes for a first strike. What is a mall-ninja is Russia? This statue is outside my home, its a good analogy for your mind, a boy trying to catch a bird while other birds he just caught are falling out of his bag.
Just wanted to put this here as a further comment: “You can always count on the Germans to do the right thing, after they have exhausted all the other possibilities.” Winston Churchill
The following basically explains that what equipment Russians currently have is what they're gonna be able to use. There will be no significant new weapons manufactured. Not missiles, not rockets, not communication systems, not air-defense systems, not tanks, not other vehicles. The tank factory is closed, the vehicle factories are closed, the tractor factory is closed, etc etc. "The 9M727 cruise missile – fired from the Iskander-K – is an example of one of Russia’s most advanced weapons systems, able to manoeuvre at low altitude to a target and strike with considerable precision. In order to achieve this the missile must carry a computer able to ingest data from various inertial and active sensors and command links and translate these into instructions to manipulate the missile’s control surfaces. The authors physically inspected one of these computers recovered from a crashed 9M727 during fieldwork in April. This computer is roughly the size of an A4 sheet of paper and sits inside a heat shield able to withstand the pressure as the missile accelerates and the heat that engulfs the system. The computer must be remarkably robust, its components able to continue to function even as the structure around it is warped by temperature changes. This requires highly specialised materials and components. Of the seven socket attachment points allowing data to be moved through the heat shield, one is of Soviet-era design and manufactured in Russia. The remaining six are all products of US companies. The rails connecting the circuit boards to the computer housing, which must maintain the alignment of the components under immense forces, are similarly of US manufacture. The circuit boards themselves are sourced from the US." "The 9M727 is not unique in its dependence upon foreign manufactured components. Technical inspection of Russian weapons and vehicles, conducted by the Central Scientific Research Institute for Armaments of the Armed Forces of Ukraine, reveals that there is a consistent pattern across all major Russian weapons systems recovered from the battlefield. The 9M949 guided 300-mm rocket that forms the backbone of Russian precision artillery as a munition for the Tornado-S multiple launch rocket system uses a US-made fibre-optic gyroscope for its inertial navigation. The Russian TOR-M2 air-defence system – one of the most potent short-ranged air-defence systems in the world – relies on a British-designed oscillator in the computer controlling the platform’s radar. This pattern is true in the Iskander-M, the Kalibr cruise missile, the Kh-101 air-launched cruise missile, and many more besides. It is also true of much tactical battlefield equipment. An examination by the technical labs of the Ukrainian intelligence community of the Aqueduct family of Russian military radios (R-168-5UN-2, R-168-5UN-1 and R-168-5UT-2), which form the backbone of the Russian military’s tactical communications, for instance, reveals critical electronic components manufactured in the US, Germany, the Netherlands, South Korea and Japan. The pattern is universal. Almost all of Russia’s modern military hardware is dependent upon complex electronics imported from the US, the UK, Germany, the Netherlands, Japan, Israel, China and further afield"
Biden wants $33B more to help Ukraine battle Russia https://news.yahoo.com/biden-seeks-powers-oligarchs-assets-120004000.html WASHINGTON (AP) — President Joe Biden asked Congress on Thursday for an additional $33 billion to help Ukraine fend off Russia's invasion, a signal that the U.S. is prepared to mount a robust, long-term campaign to bolster Kyiv and weaken Moscow as the bloody war enters its third month with no sign of abating. Biden’s latest proposal — which the White House said was expected to support Ukraine's needs for five months — has more than $20 billion in military assistance for Kyiv and for shoring up defenses in nearby countries. There is also $8.5 billion in economic aid to help keep Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy’s government functioning and $3 billion for food and humanitarian programs to help civilians, including the more than five million refugees created by the war. The assistance package, which now heads to Congress for consideration, would be more than twice as large as an initial $13.6 billion of defense and economic aid for Ukraine and Western allies that Congress enacted last month and is now almost exhausted. It was meant to signify that the U.S. is not tiring of helping to stave off Russian President Vladimir Putin's attempt to expand his nation's control of its neighbor, and perhaps beyond. “The cost of this fight is not cheap, but caving to aggression is going to be more costly," Biden said. “It’s critical this funding gets approved and as quickly as possible.” The request comes with the fighting, now in its ninth week, sharpening in eastern and southern parts of the country and international tensions growing as Russia cuts off gas supplies to two NATO allies, Poland and Bulgaria. Biden promised that the U.S. would work to support its allies' energy needs, saying, “We will not let Russia intimidate or blackmail their way out of the sanctions.” Biden said the new package “begins the transition to longer-term security assistance” for Ukraine. There is wide, bipartisan support in Congress for giving Ukraine all the help it needs to fight the Russians, and its eventual approval of assistance seems certain. But Biden and congressional Democrats also want lawmakers to approve billions more to battle the pandemic, and that along with a Republican push to entangle the measure with an extension of some Trump-era immigration restrictions leaves the proposal's pathway to enactment unclear. Biden also asked lawmakers to include an additional $22.5 billion for vaccines, treatments, testing and aid to other countries in continuing efforts to contain COVID-19, saying “we’re running out of supply for therapeutics." But that figure, which Biden also requested last month, seems aspirational at best. In a compromise with Republicans, Senate Democrats have already agreed to pare that figure to $10 billion, and reviving the higher amount would be at best an uphill fight. Biden said he had no preference whether lawmakers combined the virus funding with the Ukraine package or split them up. “They can do it separately or together," Biden said, "but we need them both.” Biden was also asking Congress on Thursday for new powers to seize and repurpose the assets of Russian oligarchs, saying the U.S. was seizing luxury yachts and homes of “bad guys.” He wants lawmakers to make it a criminal offense for a person to “knowingly or intentionally possess proceeds directly obtained from corrupt dealings with the Russian government,” double the statute of limitations for foreign money laundering offenses to 10 years, and expand the definition of “racketeering” under U.S. law to include efforts to evade sanctions. Biden also asked Congress to allow the federal government use the proceeds from selling the seized assets of sanctioned Russian oligarchs to help the people of Ukraine. In a virtual address to International Monetary Fund and World Bank leaders last week, Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy called for the proceeds of sanctioned property and Central Bank reserves to be used to compensate Ukraine for its losses. He said that frozen Russian assets “have to be used to rebuild Ukraine after the war as well as to pay for the losses caused to other nations.’’ Treasury Secretary Janet Yellen said at the time that congressional action would be needed to authorize such actions. The war has already caused more than $60 billion in damage to buildings and infrastructure, World Bank President David Malpass said last week. And the IMF in its latest world economic outlook forecast that Ukraine’s economy will shrink by 35% this year and next. In recent weeks, the U.S. and global allies have sanctioned dozens of oligarchs and their family members, along with hundreds of Russian officials involved in or deemed to be supporting its invasion of Ukraine. The White House says the new tools will toughen the impact of the sanctions on Russia's economy and its ruling class by making sanctions more difficult to evade. The huge amount that Biden is seeking in the supplemental is more than half of the entire proposed $60.4 billion budget for the State Department and U.S. Agency for International Development for the next budget year, although it’s only a small fraction of the 2023 Pentagon spending plan. According to Brown University’s Costs of War Project, the U.S. has spent about $2.2 trillion on the wars in Afghanistan and Iraq since Sept. 11, 2001. It estimates that the costs of interest by 2050 would grow to $6.5 trillion. As a comparison, the U.S. spent $23.2 billion – including Defense, State and Homeland Security department money – in the 2001 budget year alone to cover the aftermath of 9/11 and the invasion of Afghanistan, according to the Congressional Research Service. Of the money Biden is requesting now for military purposes, $6 billion would be used to arm Ukraine directly, $5.4 billion would replace U.S. supplies sent to the area, $4.5 billion would be for other security assistance for Ukraine and U.S. allies, and $2.6 billion for the continued deployment of U.S. forces to the region, according to documents describing the request.
And variatons of that. For example, the bill proposes to subsidize and/or support EU countries taking hits from energy shortfalls as a result of bad Ruskies. Yet the NG and and oil producers in this country stand ready to supply those countries- at least with regard to their Ruskie dependency. Even if one accepted the expenditures in that bill it should be structured in a way that it supports American producers/ the country. It is crazy stuff. The EU is dependent on Russian energy because they chose to be and American lefties cheered them on as they shut down all their coal and nuclear sources. So now we are subsidizing them so that they can buy gas from Greece's new pipeline, and the like ? Some vigorous debate required right there. Also, keep all the covid shiite add-ons out of the bill. That needs to be a seperate bill.
Classy bunch as always. US has evidence that Russian troops in the Donbas are executing Ukrainians even as they surrender, official say https://www.businessinsider.com/evi...inians-trying-to-surrender-us-official-2022-4
Biden entering some dicey territory. Moreso in another month when the war fever starts getting old/er. He was slow to get on board in supporting Ukraine and shipping weapons so voters and the Ukrainians will blame him if they lose or are losing before long. On the other hand, he has started to try to redeem himself by doing what he does best, pissing away American dollars. Yeh. Now we are moving into the Build Ukraine Back Better phase. Except Americans are all thinking, "maybe he could send a little to me each month to help with all the inflation he caused. And by "he" I mean Biden, not Putin." This is more Biden's war than Putin's war. Putin would never have made this move with Trump in office, or Hillary either. But then again, if Ukraine prevails and Joe is planning to go out into the heartland of America at midterms and talk about what he has done for Ukraine while they are paying through the nose on everything, he might want to rethink that strategy a bit. Joe might eventually end out being the right man for the country. Unfortunately, it is not this country. Never popular at the polls. And if voters are all fired up over Ukraine, they do not necessarily believe they give that up by voting for a Republican. Not at all. Biden's War. His election and then the AFG proof of incompetence put the welcome mat down for Putin. Opinion If Russia starts winning, Americans won’t blame Ukraine. They’ll blame Biden. https://www.washingtonpost.com/opinions/2022/04/26/biden-ukraine-lloyd-austin-victory-aid/