Tusk is the former President of the European Council and was elected on the promise of undoing all of the anti-Democratic actions that the Law and Order Party did during their reign. He is also a strong supporter of Ukraine, has committed to repairing the relationship between Ukraine and Poland, and has already taken action to start clearing out the blockades at the Poland/Ukraine border. Poland was already a strong supporter for Ukraine in regards to military equipment, ammunition, and money, it had tailed off in the last few months as tensions between Ukraine and Poland rose over Ukrainian grain imports and trucking rules. I would expect Tusk to work to get Poland back to where they were at the start of the war.
Russia is reportedly creating “White Guard” units. This units are made up of Officers that, for whatever reason, are not fit to command troops, but, as you can imagine, what Russia deems as being unfit to command is different than a lot of countries.. Check out this thread at Thread Reader App. https://threadreaderapp.com/thread/1734634122377568302.html
This is a weird one - the Russian commander of (most of) the southern bank of the Dnepr, Colonel General Mikhail Teplinsky, has ordered the creation of an assault battalion completely made up of officers. This is a century old concept in the Russian Military - the "White Guard" - as a way to get rid of officers that clearly can't do their jobs but still have (theoretically) more esprit de corps than regular soldiers and thus could make a supposedly elite group. https://www.pravda.com.ua/eng/news/2023/12/12/7432679/ I can't imagine the state of Russian forces for this idea to take hold. There is a massive shortage of officers in the Russian ground forces, and they mostly weren't that great to begin with. Since the meat wave attacks started, assault units have taken to using America's work-from-home model of leading, with even the lowest level officer staying in the rear and guiding the troops through telepresence.
In case anyone is wondering how Zelensky's meeting with Congressional leaders went... I think it is fair to say that funding is all but dead until at least 2025 and is reliant upon the Democrats winning the Presidency, House and retaining control of the Senate. It may also require Democrats to get a super majority in the Senate. Republicans reportedly spent more time talking about the US border and what questions they had about Ukraine were more about wanting a detailed list of how the money would be spent before funding was approved. This is basically impossible as Ukraine's requests are based on conditions on the ground.... Outside of Zelensky's meetings, Congressional negotiations are, reportedly, going nowhere as Republicans are demanding Democrats accept their changes to legal immigration, in addition to the border control issues that are non-starters (Stay in Mexico, completing the border wall, etc, etc).
Looks like the North Korean deal has had an impact. Russia is now shooting 10 artillery shells for every one that Ukraine does, which is a massive spike up from the ratio months ago.
Has Russia's shelling increased that much, or has Ukrainian shelling dropped, or is it a combination of both? While N. Korea's shells have definitely helped, I wonder if the issues that Ukraine's Western allies are having with ramping up shell production is also an issue.
So the assumption is that there's a significant Democrat voting bloc that care more about immigration than a major geopolitical threat?
That's certainly an interesting analysis.. Another, more appropriate analysis is that Republicans are more interested in pushing their anti-Immigrant agenda and border security theater than addressing a major geopolitical threat. On the other hand, Democrats are willing to discuss things that actually have an impact on border security and are willing to fund those things.
Not trying troll or stir up the pot here guys. Just trying to rationalize the unfortunate reality that the western democracy is facing here. I agree that the GOP are basically Putin's stooges at this point. But if we have to do something to salvage the situation, wouldn't the priority be 1) Ukraine's funding; and 2) immigration? Or there is a very possible implication that if the democrats caved in on immigration, they might lose completely in 2024? If that's the case, then I withdraw my original question.
I suspect the answer is that if Democrats were to cave to Republican anti-immigration policy it would do more lasting harm to the US than not funding Ukraine would. Due to the US's record low unemployment we're at the point where we need more immigration, particularly of the low skill or heavy labor variety that is generally the jobs that undocumented fill, while the Republican Immigration plan completely changes the US's immigration rules to prioritize skilled labor and makes it harder for undocumented to find jobs. As an example of this, look at what happened in Florida. Initial reaction was for undocumented to flee the state, which shutdown restaurants and construction projects across the state, but ultimately, but, ultimately, a lot of the jobs were refilled with undocumented who were living even further on the black market where they were being scammed and abused at their work worse than before. https://www.wlrn.org/immigration/20...ration-florida-palm-beach-sb1718-ice-desantis
Thanks, but that sounds more like a temporary problem that can be tackled once the ruskies are completely defeated. The thought of the ruskies gaining an upperhand, forcing a stalemate and then securing the stolen territories permanently sounds pretty scary globally, since it would keep them emboldened going forward, not to mention China would be more confident in planning their future invasion too after seeing how easy it is to shake up the western alliance. Hopefully the EU could step up for at least 1 year to fill in the gap.
Congress has been trying to work on Immigration Reform for well over a decade. There is approximately zero chance Democrats would be able to circle back and roll back any concessions they made to get Ukraine’s funding through.
I'm very much in favour of suggesting to pootin to swap Ukrain for Hungary. If they don't care about the norms of the EU and the Rule of Law, join pootin.
No, it doesn’t. Russia will never hold those territories in peace, even if they are “ceded” at a stalemate for a time. I’m not downplaying how awful waning help and interest from the US will be. But let’s get this straight: Putin could end this war at any time. The GOP could pass a bill without making ridiculous demands on immigration policy at any time. I will never understand how so many people side with the hostage takers in negotiations. They are f********ers who need to F******** off.
The problem is, as you might have read in the news, Putin is evil incarnated and he will start doing mass expulsion/deportation of the Ukrainians in the regions and replace them with a bunch of ruskies from Siberia without any hesitation. Don't think it's wise to give him any time to consolidate those territories. Sure, but they absolutely will NOT. No matter how hard the democrats criticize them in public or media, they're not gonna change their mind, or their voters for that matter. Usually in a hostage situation, there's an option to just storm and take out the hostage takers. But we don't have that option here, do we? I figure if Russia is completely defeated in Ukraine, there's a chance that Putin's regime might collapse and those GOP ********ers will lose their biggest foreign ally. But now we have to wait and hope that the majority of independent voters will grow a brain and deliver all 3 branches of govt to the Democrats in 2024.
Yep. I’m not convinced the Senate will be as stupid as the House if it goes GOP, but I also wouldn’t be surprised if it did.
The place where I get theses stats from don't say. They do say that the number of bombs dropped Ukrainian aircraft has gone down a lot - that could mean they are running out of JDAMS. Or out of targets worthy of them.
PSA had good analysis of the congressional negotiations this week. the problem is that Republicans have no political incentive to reach a solution on the border issues before the election. They’d rather continue complaining about it than pass any laws. So while the senate may get to a compromise as there are a lot of allies for Ukraine there, it is unlikely anything can pass the house. basically it does not matter if Dems ‘cave’
‘We’ll Be at Each Others’ Throats’: Fiona Hill on What Happens If Putin Wins The veteran Russia watcher is deeply alarmed as Washington reaches an inflection point on the war in Ukraine. “Ukraine has become a battlefield now for America and America’s own future — whether we see it or not — for our own defensive posture and preparedness, for our reputation and our leadership,” she told me. “For Putin, Ukraine is a proxy war against the United States, to remove the United States from the world stage.” https://www.politico.com/news/magazine/2023/12/12/fiona-hill-ukraine-putin-00131285
That is precisely what David Sacks has advocated on the sewer of a platform this week and supported by Elmo himself. Just give away those territories occupied by Russia and the war will end. JD Vance, their lackey, said basically the same thing on TV on Sunday.