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Escalation: Backed by U.S. And EU, Poland and Slovakia Sending Jets to Ukraine

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Russia has vowed to destroy all fighter jets donated to Ukraine by European nations after Poland and Slovakia, backed by new equipment and finance from the U.S. and the European Union, became the first countries to send warplanes to Kyiv.

Fighter jets have been a long-term demand for the Ukrainian government of Volodymyr Zelensky since the renewed Russian invasion at the start of 2022, but NATO leaders have shied away from what they considered a major escalation of their involvement in the conflict until now. Enabled by cash and replacement warbirds from the United States and the European Union, two European nations are sending fighter jets to Ukraine in the coming days.

The first to announce it was sending jets was Poland, whose airforce operates many former-Soviet fighters. Warsaw announced Thursday it would be sending the first tranche of Mikoyan MIG-29 ‘Fulcrum’ fighter jets, a 1980s-era type roughly originally built as a parallel to the U.S. F-16. While that delivery will run to four jets, Poland has dozens and is reportedly preparing others for delivery. . .

As has been the case with other major escalations in levels of support to Ukraine — the provision of main battle tanks, for instance, where months of refusals from NATO nations ended with a rush of donations after the United Kingdom opened the floodgates by being the first to supply — Poland making the jets announcement has been closely followed. Slovakia has now said it will send its entire airforce’s stock of MIG-29s as well in an announcement on Friday just hours after Poland’s. . .

Slovakia is also receiving considerable support from Western powers to make the donation possible. The European Union is making a contribution of $200 million to the Slovakian government in “compensation” for them losing their jets, and the United States has agreed to supply $700 million of new military equipment — likely American-made fighters like the F-35 — to replace them. (Read more from “Escalation: Backed by U.S. And EU, Poland and Slovakia Sending Jets to Ukraine” HERE)

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Poland Plans to Grant Ukraine’s Request for Fighter Jets

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Poland’s president said Thursday that his country plans to give Ukraine around a dozen MiG-29 fighter jets, which would make it the first NATO member to fulfill the Ukrainian government’s increasingly urgent requests for warplanes.

President Andrzej Duda said Poland would hand over four of the Soviet-made warplanes “within the next few days” and that the rest needed servicing and would be supplied later. The Polish word he used to describe their number can mean between 11 and 19.

“They are in the last years of their functioning but they are in good working condition,” Duda said of the aircraft. (Read more from “Poland Plans to Grant Ukraine’s Request for Fighter Jets” HERE)

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The U.S. Is Supporting a Policy of Brutal Attrition in Ukraine Based on Incomplete and Skewed Western Coverage

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“Ukraine will win.” Some variation of this has become the unofficial mantra of U.S. policy toward the Ukraine war, asserted in countless columns, interviews and speeches, ones often pledging open-ended U.S. commitment to the Ukrainian war effort and chiding policymakers for not sending greater quantities and more escalatory types of weapons.

It was partly on this basis, in fact — that with enough support, Ukraine could militarily defeat a Russia weaker than many thought — that then-UK Prime Minister Boris Johnson [stupidly] urged against peace talks early in the war. . .

Yet this central claim of an almost certain Ukrainian military victory over chastened Russian forces is asserted in the absence of one key measure of the military situation: verifiable battlefield losses. From the beginning of the war until now, Ukraine has, like Russia, treated its casualties as a state secret, one so closely guarded that not even U.S. intelligence and officials, who advise the country’s leadership on military strategy and assist in war planning, know exactly how many Ukrainians have been killed and wounded over the past year. This is even though, as one Ukrainian officer told the Wall Street Journal in a recent piece about the grinding battle for the city of Bakhmut, “the war is won not by the party that gains territory, but by the party that destroys the armed forces of the adversary” . . .

The lack of public awareness of Ukrainian casualty levels raises a number of thorny questions: Are frequent predictions of certain Ukrainian military victory more fanciful than grounded in reality? Is the American public being misled into backing an escalating military commitment on false pretenses? Has Ukrainian leadership itself, as a result, been incentivized to set unrealistic military objectives that have helped to prolong the death and destruction ordinary Ukrainians have suffered? And has it helped create a political climate in the United States opposed to diplomatic solutions?

We may soon find out. According to the Washington Post, even Ukrainian officials are now questioning their forces’ ability to launch a successful counteroffensive after the losses they’ve taken, with many of the most experienced fighters taken permanently off the battlefield. (Read more from “The U.S. Is Supporting a Policy of Brutal Attrition in Ukraine Based on Incomplete and Skewed Western Coverage” HERE)

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Hillary Clinton Hangs Out With Zelensky’s Wife, Says Climate Change Killing Women in Ukraine

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Former Secretary of State Hillary Clinton said Wednesday that women and children are the “primary victims of conflict and climate change” and that the war in Ukraine “shows us that.” . . .

Clinton, sitting alongside MSNBC’s “Morning Joe” co-host Mika Brzezinski, First Lady of Ukraine Olena Zelenska, former Tennis star Billie Jean King and Gloria Steinem, added that “there are a lot of other conflicts, a lot of other challenges that we have to take into account.” . . .

“So I think the bottom line is we have a lot of work to do. And we can’t take any of the progress that has been made for granted, because as you said, Mika, with the Dobbs decision and other kinds of organized institutional pushback, we’re seeing a lot of what we did take for granted in terms of rights and opportunities at risk,” Clinton said.

Towards the end of the conversation, Clinton encouraged women to accept the fact that they have to be better “prepared” than anybody and to “practice communicating.” . . .

“That’s what Olena is doing, traveling around the world,” Clinton added in reference to the Ukrainian first lady. “She is standing up on behalf of her country and the people who are the most vulnerable and marginalized, you don’t have to be in the middle of a horrible war that is breaking every law there is and committing crimes against humanity to stand up and speak out and know that you’re doing it not just for yourself. Somehow that might make it easier.” (Read more from “Hillary Clinton Hangs Out With Zelensky’s Wife, Says Climate Change Killing Women in Ukraine” HERE)

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Trump, Desantis, and Others Answer Ukraine Questionnaire From Tucker Carlson — Here’s What They Said (VIDEO)

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By The Blaze. As the 2024 presidential election cycle gets underway, several Republican figures have responded to a questionnaire from Tucker Carlson on the issue of Ukraine. . .

Trump asserted that Russia would not have attacked Ukraine if he were still president.

“Start by telling Europe that they must pay at least equal to what the U.S. is paying to help Ukraine. They must also pay us, retroactively, the difference,” Trump said. “Next, tell Ukraine that there will be little more money coming from us, UNLESS RUSSIA CONTINUES TO PROSECUTE THE WAR. The President must meet with each side, then both sides together, and quickly work out a deal.” . . .

“While the U.S. has many vital national interests — securing our borders, addressing the crisis of readiness within our military, achieving energy security and independence, and checking the economic, cultural, and military power of the Chinese Communist Party — becoming further entangled in a territorial dispute between Ukraine and Russia is not one of them,” DeSantis said.

“The Biden administration’s virtual ‘blank check’ funding of this conflict for ‘as long as it takes,’ without any defined objectives or accountability, distracts from our country’s most pressing challenges,” the governor declared. “The U.S. should not provide assistance that could require the deployment of American troops or enable Ukraine to engage in offensive operations beyond its borders. F-16s and long-range missiles should therefore be off the table. These moves would risk explicitly drawing the United States into the conflict and drawing us closer to a hot war between the world’s two largest nuclear powers. That risk is unacceptable.” (Read more from “Trump, DeSantis, and Others Answer Ukraine Questionnaire From Tucker Carlson — Here’s What They Said” HERE)

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Ron DeSantis Says Protecting Ukraine Is Not a Key U.S. Interest

By The New York Times. Gov. Ron DeSantis of Florida has sharply broken with Republicans who are determined to defend Ukraine against Russia’s invasion, saying in a statement made public on Monday night that protecting the European nation’s borders is not a vital U.S. interest and that policymakers should instead focus attention at home.

The statement from Mr. DeSantis, who is seen as an all but declared presidential candidate for the 2024 campaign, puts him in line with the front-runner for the G.O.P. nomination, former President Donald J. Trump. . .

On Mr. Carlson’s show, Mr. DeSantis separated himself from Republicans who say the problem with Mr. Biden’s Ukraine policy is that he’s not doing enough. Mr. DeSantis made clear he thinks Mr. Biden is doing too much, without a clearly defined objective, and taking actions that risk provoking war between the U.S. and Russia.

Mr. Carlson is one of the most ardent opponents of U.S. involvement in Ukraine. He has called President Volodymyr Zelensky of Ukraine a corrupt “antihero” and mocked him for dressing “like the manager of a strip club.” (Read more form “Ron DeSantis Says Protecting Ukraine Is Not a Key U.S. Interest” HERE)

Photo credit: Gage Skidmore via Flickr

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American Drone Taken Down by Russian Fighter Jet Over Black Sea

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The United States European Command said on Tuesday afternoon that a Russian jet had collided with an unmanned U.S. Air Force drone in international airspace over the Black Sea west of Crimea, a new twist in Russia’s bloody war against Ukraine that has seen significant aid from the United States but no direct contact between American and Russian forces.

According to EUCOM, “two Russian Su-27 aircraft conducted an unsafe and unprofessional intercept with a U.S. Air Force Intelligence, Surveillance, and Reconnaissance unmanned MQ-9 aircraft that was operating within international airspace over the Black Sea” on Tuesday, causing “complete loss of the MQ-9.”

During the intercept, “one of the Russian Su-27 aircraft struck the propeller of the MQ-9, causing U.S. forces to have to bring the MQ-9 down in international waters,” EUCOM described. “Several times before the collision, the Su-27s dumped fuel on and flew in front of the MQ-9 in a reckless, environmentally unsound and unprofessional manner. This incident demonstrates a lack of competence in addition to being unsafe and unprofessional,” the military added.

(Read more from “American Drone Taken Down by Russian Fighter Jet Over Black Sea” HERE)

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Russia Launches ‘Massive’ Barrage Across Ukraine

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Dozens of Russian missiles rained down over several Ukrainian cities early Thursday in a massive attack.

The Ukrainian military said Russia launched more than 80 missiles of various types overnight and into the morning as far west as Lviv, which has largely been outside the confines of the war. The strikes targeted 10 of Ukraine’s 27 regions, Ukrainian President Volydmyr Zelensky said, and many hit residential buildings.

In Lviv, reports indicated at least five people were killed, while three others died in the Kherson region, another person was killed in the Dnipropetrovsk region, and two were killed in Donetsk. Strikes were also reported in Luhansk, Mykolaiv, Odesa, Ivano-Frankivsk, Chernihiv, Sumy, Zaporizhzhya, Kirovohrad, and Vinnytsia, according to CNN. Some regions lost electricity temporarily following the strikes.

Gen. Valerii Zaluzhnyi, the commander in chief of Ukraine’s armed forces, said the attacks consisted of 28 X-101/X-555 air-launched cruise missiles, 20 Kalibr sea-launched cruise missiles, six X-22 air-launched cruise missiles, six X-47 Kinzhal air-launched cruise missiles, eight guided aircraft missiles, including two X-31P and two X-59, 13 S-300 anti-aircraft guided missiles, and eight Iranian-made Shahed 136/131 drones. Ukraine was able to destroy 42 missiles and four drones. (Read more from “Russia Launches ‘Massive’ Barrage Across Ukraine” HERE)

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Remnants of Russian Platoon Refuse to Fight After ‘Bulls–t’ Mobilization to Donbas

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A Russian officer fighting in the Donbas region of Ukraine released a defiant video saying that he and whatever was left of his decimated platoon were refusing to follow orders after being forced to attack settlements without any training.

The recording, which spread on Telegram channels this week, shed light on the purported chaos within the ranks of Vladimir Putin’s draftees mobilized in Ukraine.

In the brief video, a man in a baseball cap who introduces himself as a senior lieutenant stands in front of a group of about 10 soldiers assembled in a bare room with a single light bulb hanging overhead and reads a statement from a sheet of paper.

“We were herded to attack villages absolutely without any training,” he says, adding that conscripts in their 40s were forced to fight “without reconnaissance, without communications, without scouting, without anything.”

The Post could not independently verify the video’s authenticity, and it’s unclear when or where it was recorded. (Read more from “Remnants of Russian Platoon Refuse to Fight After ‘Bulls–t’ Mobilization to Donbas” HERE)

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Hillary Clinton: Women Are ‘Primary Victims’ of Climate Change; Ukraine Prime Example (VIDEO)

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Women are the “primary victims” of “climate change,” twice-failed presidential candidate Hillary Clinton said during a discussion Wednesday at the 30/50 Summit in Abu Dhabi, pointing to Ukraine as the prime example.

“Women and children are the primary victims of conflict and of climate change and there is no place that unfortunately, tragically, shows us that more dramatically than Ukraine today,” Clinton despaired to MSNBC’s Mika Brzezinski.

“But there are a lot of other conflicts, a lot of other challenges that we have to take into account as we look at gender apartheid and Afghanistan. The persecution and oppression of girls and women exercising their freedom of choice in Iran and so many other places,” she continued.

It remains unclear how, exactly, the conflict in Ukraine demonstrates how women are “primary victims” of climate change, as the current conflict has virtually nothing to do with the planet’s cooling or warming patterns. It also remains unclear how fluctuations in the earth’s temperature — a phenomenon that has occurred throughout the history of the world — disproportionally impacts women:

(Read more from “Hillary Clinton: Women Are ‘Primary Victims’ of Climate Change; Ukraine Prime Example (VIDEO)” HERE)

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NBC Reporter Goes to Crimea, Shockingly Tells the Truth; Ukraine Puts Him on Kill List (VIDEO)

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Mainstream media correspondents for major US networks rarely, if ever, report from inside Crimea and certainly are nowhere near Russian-held territory in eastern Ukraine. However, this week NBC News chief international correspondent Keir Simmons went to Sevastopol, surrounded by a significant Russian military presence given it is home to the Russian Navy’s Black Sea Fleet, and in a live segment admitted that it’s not at all realistic Zelensky and Ukrainian forces can ever hope to take Crimea.

This is especially as the “the people there… view themselves as Russian.” Simmons noted that “This is the closest that any US news crew has got to the Russian Black Sea Fleet in many many years.” He explained that “Vladimir Putin will be determined to defend that port – to not have it take it away from him – he may well do pretty much anything to try to achieve that.”

“It is a very, very dangerous standoff.. it’s hard to see how you reach a negotiation over that. There’s military absolutely everywhere, it is a military town,” he continued, before saying…

“When for example Victoria Nuland talks about that at the very least we [the US] want Crimea to be demilitarized, I find myself standing there and wondering, how on earth does that happen?” . . .

But it appears that the NBC correspondent, once he was on the ground in a place that few Western reporters ever venture, couldn’t deny the plain truth he was seeing all around him.

(Read more from “NBC Reporter Goes to Crimea, Shocks Viewers by Telling the Truth (VIDEO)” HERE)

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