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India has always had a rather freewheeling foreign policy, they don't really do long term alliances.
Right now it suits them to throw some scraps to Russia in return for very cheap oil but we shouldn't confuse this with any kind of serious strategic partnership.
Much as it sticks in the craw.
Modi sucking up to Putin shouldn’t be too much of a surprise, seeing as how both are far-Right, Nationalistic autocrats, very keen on what is effectively ethnic cleansing of groups seen as a threat to their political power, Modi’s is Muslims and anyone else who isn’t Hindu, Putin’s is the entire Ukrainian people, he wants the whole of Ukraine occupied by ethnic Russians so he can plunder the country’s resources.
There’s a lot of interesting information in this article, gets a bit technical in places;
https://www.kyivpost.com/analysis/35666
Basically the implication is that the Russians deliberately targeted the hospital, and it’s hard not to argue with that analysis.
Putin has been on a charm offensive with the “Global Soutb” pointing out western hypocrisy with regard to Ukraine and Gaza. And he’s not wrong.
Right now it suits them to throw some scraps to Russia in return for very cheap oil but we shouldn’t confuse this with any kind of serious strategic partnership.
Be that as it may, what we shouldn’t be doing in the West is buying laundered Russian oil from India.
Basically the implication is that the Russians deliberately targeted the hospital, and it’s hard not to argue with that analysis.
The analysis of the Ukrainian national newspaper ?
Deliberately hitting a kids hospital would be about the worst PR Russia could get. It's more likely to have been due to just hitting the wrong thing.
Not sure that PR is high up the Kremlin's agenda. Well outside of Russia, internally they control it anyway so doesn't really matter. I reckon they just want to **** up national infrastructure and don't care if it's utilities, hospital or whatever.
Deliberately hitting a kids hospital would be about the worst PR Russia could get
Depends what they are trying to achieve. It sends a very strong 'we don't care what anyone thinks and we can hit whatever we want' message to the wider world. They could be using it as a warning shot, if you'll excuse the phrase, to other countries about escalating.
Although in my mind it's a good reason for escalation, we, the West, should have stepped up in 2014, and we are still being far too slow at sending them the kit they need.
This is what people said about that airliner.
And releasing a nerve agent in a crowded UK city.
And bombing a maternity hospital
And raping and slaughtering civilians in Bucha and elsewhere
And stealing hundreds of children then shipping them back into Russia.
etc
In PR terms, I think we've established that they don't give a shit, really.
martinhutch +1
You also forgot the order to behead any Ukrainian soldiers captured alive , plus starve and beat any prisoners they do take.
Exactly.
Russians, particularly thier leaders, give absolutely no care to anything beyond being seen to be powerful at home.
That includes human rights, international courts or any sense of being 'bad'.
Retired Lt. Col. Dan "Two Dogs" Hampton, a top US F16 pilot has reportedly stuck by his 2023 promise https://www.businessinsider.com/celebrated-former-us-air-force-pilot-to-fight-in-ukraine-2023-3
At 58 he's two years younger than the oldest serving fighter pilot in the US and two years younger than Tom Cruise when he led Dagger flight into action against a nuclear plant
Seriously, he'll be a massive boon to "fighting" the F16 in Ukraine
An update of the drone war that is constantly evolving in Ukraine and likely to be a model copied in any future conflict.
https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/articles/cne4vl9gy2wo
You also forgot the order to behead any Ukrainian soldiers captured alive , plus starve and beat any prisoners they do take.
You can add "using POWs as a source of organ transplants" to that list too.
https://united24media.com/latest-news/russia-is-returning-ukrainian-pows-bodies-without-internal-organs-1382
Swiss De-mining team office hit by a russian missile. Maybe it will help with their neutrality conflict.
https://www.swissinfo.ch/eng/foreign-affairs/swiss-ngo-premises-hit-by-russian-strike-in-kharkiv/84836866?utm_campaign=news_en&utm_medium=email&utm_source=newsletter&utm_content=o&utm_term=automatic
Swiss trams donated to Ukraine also and 2023 Swiss electronics found in Russian missiles....
Finally, did anyone else see Hell Jumper on BBC 2 last night?
That's a six year old news report. What's it got to do with anything current?
Fair comment. I saw "1 month ago". Yes, its old, apologies.
But the same airbase as this from yesterday.
https://www.thedefensepost.com/2024/07/24/ukrainian-fears-arrival-f16/?utm_content=cmp-true
Sad to see this thread in decline, just as in the real world news agenda.
It was predicted 18 months ago the world would become new blind to everything going on . Perhaps the world wants to see the unicorns and fluffy kittens instead of lifting its head off the ground and realising humanity is ****ed
Sad to see this thread in decline, just as in the real world news agenda.
I'm still very much following it all but., to be frank, there's no much change in the situation on the ground and I generally only stick my oar in on here if there's some developments to talk about and I've done enough research to be confident that I'm not talking nonsense.
To be fair, in the first few months of this year the discussion on here boiled down to:
- Ukraine is going to have a tough 2024 as it waits for long promised Western assistance to finally arrive.
- Russia's chances of victory largely ride on a Trump Victory in November and the high likelihood he will cease US aid to Ukraine.
- Essentially both sides are in 'Survive til 25' mode.
And it's unfolded largely as was predicted then.
Even with a 2nd Trump presidency, Ukraine will still enter 2025 far better equipped and prepared than it did 2024 and with strategic capabilities it completely lacked in the first 2 years of the war.
I now think we are looking at 2 potential outcomes.
A: Trump Wins, US aid dries up but enough time has passed for the European assistance programs to finally spool up and they are enough to keep Ukraine in the fight, the stalemate grinds on for at least a few more years.
B: Harris wins and Ukraine, knowing mid-term supplies are not threatened, goes on the offensive in 2025. Eventually forcing Russia to the negotiating table, even if this may only leave Ukraine with some of the territory it wishes to regain.
When the situation changes in any meaningful way I'm sure this place will wake up again.
Sad to see this thread in decline, just as in the real world news agenda.
Existential threat great power war is getting less attention than another war which is in a more dynamic state.
...and focussing on the geopolitical
Russia's Wagner Group in northern Mali suffered at the hands of Mali's CSP-PSD rebel group, with more than 50 either killed, injured or captured. "The attack was claimed by a Tuareg rebels group along with the al Qaeda (AQ) affiliate in the Sahel, JNIM"
Andriy Yusov, of Ukraine's SBU, said on TV that, "the rebels received necessary information, which enabled a successful military operation against Russian war criminals." https://edition.cnn.com/2024/07/29/africa/russian-mercenaries-wagner-killed-mali-intl-latam/index.html
Ukraine has been actively linked with operations in Africa and the middle-east for some time https://www.kyivpost.com/post/36557 and https://www.kyivpost.com/post/27637
There are differences in ideology between AQ and ISIS-K, who were behind recent domestic terrorism in Russia, while Russian and Taliban officials have looked at increasing economic relations, which would counter ISIS-K https://www.understandingwar.org/backgrounder/russian-offensive-campaign-assessment-june-6-2024
I can't remember if it was mentioned on here but I was reading something about Ukrainian special forces operating in various parts of Africa, attacking Russian soldiers there. The rationale was that a small group would cause Russia to divert disproportionate resources to protect it's troops there, which made sense.
Are they supplying intelligence to AQ affiliates now though? That would be an interesting development...
I've just updated my post^^, but Syria and Sudan have been mentioned too
…and focussing on the geopolitical (2)
Venezuela has been in permanent presidential crisis for 25 years https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-latin-america-36319877
President Nicolás Maduro has been accused of election fraud again and is supported as the rightful president by Russia. Venezuela has gold and oil reserves and was the fifth largest economy in Latin America but its economy has shrunk massively leaving most of its population in extreme poverty https://edition.cnn.com/2024/07/29/americas/venezuela-election-maduro-winner-intl-hnk/index.html
Russia has sold Venezuela $$$billions in weapons and nuclear power, loaning them money as needed, and both countries co-operate in military exercises.
Ukraine has called on the Venezuelan authorities to respect the people's choice in the presidential election, which would remove a close strategic partner with Russia in South America https://ukranews.com/en/news/1023172-ukraine-appeals-to-government-of-venezuela-because-of-protests
Multiple reports that some, maybe 6, F16’s have finally arrived. Not sure what impact such a small number will have.
I suspect that they will quietly begin work soon and we will find out.
But yes, again, they're not going to hasten an end to things.
Reading around the topic, it looks like one of the reasons the F-16's have taken so long is that they're all being refitted in a standardised version so that that can all take current NATO munitions and can share the vast majority of parts etc.
Whilst the wait has been long there seems to have been a strong desire to 'get it right first time' expecially as Russia will be desperate to hunt them down once they arrive.
If Biden decides to relax the limitations on their use and let Ukriane actively go after the Russian aircraft launching those damn 600KG glide bombs from Russian airspace then it really could move the needle as those are a huge problem that Ukriane currently had almost no answer to.
surprised we havent already had claims from russia its already shot down severak of them!
i hope they make a material difference. i cant see them being kept safe though. russia will surely chuck aeverything at them to make a statement
Oh dear.
Nevermind.
https://twitter.com/Gerashchenko_en/status/1819049004753166724?t=A6EQeJYb1lGXy78YHXCXbg&s=19
https://www.independent.co.uk/news/world/europe/ukraine-russia-war-f16-fighter-jet-b2589414.html
It mentions the Netherlands, Belgium and Norway giving F-16's, so I'm not sure who the 4th supplier is, it could be inferred that it's the USA.