Looks like WW III is slowly percolating, ORAC, if all of that is true. (And why wouldn't it be?). Crappy time for the Americans to remove their 2000+ from Iraq, wouldn't you say?
The ripple effects of this war in Ukraine are beginning to manifest.

That’s what you get when you drip feed a war and do not provide the equipment for the Country to drive Russia from its borders, long range missiles, gloves off on the use against Russia, destroying the Bridge and supplying hundreds of tanks and APC’s etc. top that off with the cutting off arms supplies after promising to stand by Ukraine.

I do wonder if supplies are now restored and more in the quantities needed, has Ukraine still got the manpower to complete the task, having bleed themselves dry of manpower during the early periods of the war fighting to defend the west while the west pondered arming them.

i think the world is rapidly going to collapse in on itself and The USA may end up turning on those who have blocked the aid for their own personal agenda as Americans start to die as a result.

More barking rants.

​​​​​​​

A Russian moral booster at work.

​​​​​​​

Morale, but still it sort of seems the same. Sigh, at least the US senate is on the right path. I wonder what Putin has on Trump......

Moments ago, the US Senate passed three major procedural hurdles for the $95 billion Ukraine-Israel-Taiwan aid deal, successfully invoking cloture 66-33 and setting up an imminent simple majority vote to send the bill to the House.

​​​​​​​

https://www.reuters.com/business/aer...ys-2024-02-12/

Ukraine to produce thousands of long-range drones in 2024, minister says

KYIV, Feb 12 (Reuters) - Ukraine will produce thousands of long-range drones capable of deep strikes into Russia in 2024 and already has up to 10 companies making drones that can reach Moscow and St Petersburg, Ukraine's digital minister said.

Mykhailo Fedorov spoke about the wartime drone industry he has championed in a interview in Kyiv in which he revealed new details about the sector, after a spate of Ukrainian drone attacks on Russian oil facilities in recent weeks.

"The category of long-range kamikaze drones is growing, with a range of 300, 500, 700, and 1,000 kilometres. Two years ago, this category did not exist ... at all," he told Reuters.

Fedorov, 33, has been at the heart of Ukraine's effort to nurture private military startups to innovate and build up the drone industry as the war goes into its third year and Ukraine seeks new ways to fight back against well dug-in Russian forces.

The recent series of strikes on oil facilities, he said, reflected the government's progress in rapidly deregulating the drone market and increasing funding for it, with the state acting as a venture investor.

Some $2.5 million in grants were allocated to military tech startups via the BRAVE1 initiative set up by the government last year, an amount set to be increased roughly tenfold in 2024, he said. "We will fight to increase the financing even more," he added.

In contrast with Russia where drone production is dominated by the state, the vast majority of manufacturers in Ukraine are private. Fedorov said only one of the 10 companies whose drones could fly as far as the regions around Moscow or St Petersburg was a state company…..

Ukraine's production levels and deliveries increased more than 120 times in 2023, according to Fedorov, part of a broader wartime push to develop and produce drones to narrow the gap with Russia's strike capabilities.

Fedorov said he agreed with an assessment by Ukraine's military spy chief Kyrylo Budanov that Kyiv had achieved a "certain kind of parity" with Moscow in the production of long-range drones.

"We need to act in an anti-bureaucratic way. This is the essence of a breakthrough in the war of technology. We are going to continue to put our bets on this, to work in this direction. Because technology can really save us," he said, noting the shortage of artillery rounds Ukrainian troops were facing.

Overall, more than 300,000 drones of different types were contracted last year and more than 100,000 were sent to the front, he said, adding that the figures did not cover volunteer supplies which he said made a "significant contribution".

"We removed taxes on UAV (unmanned aerial vehicle) components, simplified the contracting procedure, and the procedure for decommissioning," he said. "In other words, we took all the blockages that private sector companies were facing and addressed them in six months by passing all the necessary laws and resolutions."

President Volodymyr Zelenskiy has set a target for Ukraine this year to produce one million First Person View (FPV) drones, which are cheap to make and weaponised in huge quantities by both sides on the front.

Ukraine's drone industry relies heavily on components from foreign countries, including China, widely seen as an ally of Russia. Fedorov said there was an effort to localise production of components. "That's why I think that if we continue this trend, by the end of this year we will have a lot of companies that have already made more than 50% of their components locally."

The surge in recent production put such a strain on logistics that changes had to be rapidly made to prevent long delays in deliveries, he said. "In December alone, drone deliveries were 50 times higher than in the entire 2022. Just imagine, the system was not prepared for that, and I think the logistics did not realize that such volumes were possible."

The private sector was also held back by a state monopoly on making drone ammunition. Ukraine passed a resolution ending that state monopoly three months ago and later halted a separate one on making artillery rounds and rockets, he said. "Over the past three months, more than 20 companies have already undergone testing and can now hand over ammunition to the state," he said.

Ukraine has trained 20,000 drone operators since it launched a programme to provide grants for military training in private schools at the beginning of 2023, he said. There were 20 such schools, he added.

"We pay for every military person who comes to these schools. Now we have a plan to turn this into a larger state program and separately to modernize, update several training centres and make them work at a high level."

desperate times.

There is a fire at a MIG plant in Moscow.

The U.S. Senate approved a $95 billion funding package in the early morning of Feb. 13 that contained $60 billion in aid for Ukraine.

The bill, which received 70 votes in favor and 29 against, will now go to the Republican-led House, where it still faces significant obstacles.

House Speaker Mike Johnson preemptively rejected the bill on Feb. 12 before it was even passed by the Senate, saying that domestic border issues must first be addressed before any foreign aid is approved.

The news was welcomed in Ukraine as a significant step toward the aid's ultimate passage.

"I am grateful to (Senate Majority Leader Chuck) Schumer, (Senate Minority Leader Mitch) McConnell) and every U.S. senator who has supported continued assistance to Ukraine as we fight for freedom, democracy, and the values we all hold dear," said President Volodymyr Zelensky.

"American assistance brings just peace in Ukraine closer and restores global stability, resulting in increased security and prosperity for all Americans and all the free world."

The Gasprom-Neft refinery in Moscow Kapontnya ablaze as well

That's going to hit them

Popov by name and Popov by nature?

it looks like bull!!!!! does not sell.

Russia has issued an arrest warrant for the Estonian PM

More on Ukraines drone capabilities

How about you take your political whinging to Jet Blast, where it belongs?
Story from the BBC:
Ukraine is struggling to meet its demand for soldiers.
Something I mentioned in the Unpleasantries thread: somewhere around 6 to 8 million Ukrainians are displaced/refugees. This war has inflicted a massive cost, in human capital, since it began, and that's before casualties are added into the human cost.
(Germany has taken in about a million according to the UNHCR.).
From a starting population of 44 million or so in 2022, that's a substantial loss of population (a bit over a fifth).
To put that in perspective, if the UK lost a fifth of their population over the course of a year, how many people would be gone? (Between 13 and 14 million). FWIW, Syria has suffered a similar loss of population since 2011.
Some of the Ukrainian refugees are obviously not combat/military eligible, but others are/were. They are having troop/recruitment/conscription shortages/problems. Those who have fled are, it appears, beyond the reach of the recruiters and/or conscription organizations.
Doubtless some who had initially fled have returned home to fight the invasion.
How many more will do that? Unknown.

I have mentioned it here before. Even those that stayed in Ukraine may be unwilling to fight once they take a score of who's gone and who is left. From my own experiences, those that left are in wast, wast majority those who have a lot of money. Same goes for Russians. One could be mistaken for believing thas one has been teleported to Monaco when seeing car parks of these individuals.

Ukraine asked months ago for European countries to start returning military aged males.

Simply speaking the truth and consequences. The west's inability to prevent this happening in the first place and then not dealing with it when it did, has lead to the spread of unrest around the world and the results we are seeing now, and it is rapidly getting away from all western countries to deal with it.

You yourself mentioned the possibilty of pulling US troops out of a region, that would never have happened if the west had shown resolve, went in hard with material supplies and gave them the ability not to defend their country, but to retake it.

But they didn't and the arguing amongst politicians in all countries as to the next move is costing lives and showing the west as being weak and telling everyone, hold out against western power for a couple of years and they will start to fold their hand.

Personally I think this all cracked off with Russia's excursion into Georgia while the west was diverted elsewhere, and our lack of support and action to help the Georgian people, that signalled to Putin he could get away with such actions.

We pulled tens of thousands out of Europe after the wall came down. We pulled thousands out of Korea in the early 00's. There was a reason for that. All of your hand wringing is water under the bridge and the consequences - don't disagree with you on that point - of a couple of decades of failed policy. That's great stuff for JB, Uncle Fred's thread has some great discussion on that (including some of your inputs) but I don't see it as on topic for this thread.
Are you referring to 2008? That's not on topic for this thread either.

The recent news of ammo shortages in and around Bakhmut are also being fused with the changes in generals at the top levels.
That's actually normal. (Flag officers / general officers changing).

In WW II, a whole lot of generals in the US Army got relieved or reassigned after certain times and events.

Within the last two years, Mr Putin has fired -- this is on topic -- a considerable number of Russian generals based on their inability to do what he felt was needed. (And likely for other reasons). It's been in the news, and I think you've linked to a number of the news stories on that.
Objectively speaking (the RUSI critiques on the Operation Level stuff is very good) a number of them dropped the ball during the first month of this "special military operation" which is both good news and bad news.

Good news? Ukraine didn't get overrun and conquered.
Bad news? The remainder of them did just well enough that the war is still on going on Ukrainian territory, Ukraine has lost substantial amounts of land, and (for example) lost important urban centers like Mariupol (pre war population around 300,000 or so) ...and the butcher's bill keeps going up.