The Ukrainian and Iranian Revolutionary Warfare against Fascism and the Nazi-Mexican Soldier’s Reconciliation (Rapidity)

The author is a former CNN producer and correspondent named Frida Ghitis. She is a weekly opinion contributor to CNN, a contributing columnist to The Washington Post and a columnist for World Politics Review. Her views are her own in this commentary. View more opinion on CNN.

On Sunday, almost by accident, two groups of demonstrators came together in London. One was waving Ukrainian flags; the other Iranian flags. When they met, they both cheered and said “All together we will win”.

The struggle of the Ukrainian and Iranian people has inspired support around the globe because they hold the moral high ground. Their anthem against fascist has become a hit on social media, as has their brutality against their foes.

These battles show bravery that is almostincomprehensible to the rest of us and it is inspiring equally brave support in places like Afghanistan.

The spark that killed Mahsa Amini: how the Russian Revolution in Syria can lead Iran to war crimes, and how they can use them for ill-gotten gains

In Iran, the spark was the death of 22-year-old Mahsa Amini last month. Known as “Zhina,” she died in the custody of morality police who detained her for breaking the relentlessly, violently enforced rules requiring women to dress modestly.

Iranian women are dancing around fires in the night, and throwing their headscarf into the flames, in scenes of exhilarated defiance.

Women are climbing on cars, waving their hijab in the air and gathering supporters in city streets, and universities because of the security forces opening fire to try and silence them.

After all, it was less than a decade ago that Russian President Vladimir Putin’s military entered Syria’s long civil war, helping to save the dictator Bashar al-Assad (as Iran had).

As Washington warned that Zelensky was a prime target for Russian aggression, the Ukrainian president sent a message to his country and the world that he would stay.

“It’s a challenge all the time to keep developing and always being one step ahead [of] the capabilities that the other side is developing,” he said. We are watching the situation in Ukraine very closely.

A little over seven months later, Russia’s trajectory looks like a trail of war crimes, with hundreds of bombed hospitals, schools, civilian convoys, and mass graves filled with Ukrainians.

The repressive regimes in Moscow and Tehran are now isolated, pariahs among the rest of the world, and even supported by some autocrats.

The war in Ukraine will provide Iran with a chance to observe how its drones are used in the battlefield, so it can see how to improve them, said Aniseh Bassiri Tabrizi, a senior research fellow at the Royal United Services Institute. She said it is possible that the events in Ukraine will lead to more Iranian purchases of arms and drones.

These are two regimes that, while very different in their ideologies, have much in common in their tactics of repression and their willingness to project power abroad.

Multiple Putin critics have suffered mysterious deaths. Many people have fallen from windows. Freedom House, along with other democratic advocacy groups, claim that both Iran and Russia are killers of critics on foreign soil.

There is more interest in the Iranian regime falling than the low probability that it will happen. It would be transformative for their countries and their lives, heavily influenced by Tehran. After all, Iran’s constitution calls for spreading its Islamist revolution.

It is a time of uncertainty and expectation for the rest of the world. Seven months ago, some thought Putin was a genius. It has turned out to be a myth. The man who was involved in wars, entered uprisings and tried to manipulate elections is now facing criminal charges.

The failure of the Russian missile arsenal in Luhansk, Ukraine: An example of “energy terrorism” from the beginning of the war

Both their supply links and possible withdrawal routes were cut off by the Ukrainians’ attack on the units.

The commander, who uses a code name, said all the personal care, helmets and other items were dropped. I believe it was a special unit that was panicked. It was raining very hard, the road was bad and they drop everything and move.”

Ukrainian soldiers celebrated recently over smashing Russian lines in the northeast and their recapturing of territory seized by Russian troops earlier in the year. The whole of the province, as well as territory in the other four regions that Putin claimed to have annexed, was almost wrested back from them.

The failure of the Russian command and tactics is shown in the debacle by the name of the Vuheldar. Failings like these on the military front in Luhansk could undermine the Kremlin’s plans to seize more territory.

The math is simple for Moscow; a percentage of projectiles are bound to get through the missile defenses of Ukraine.

The great unknown is just how far such a blitz is depleting Russian inventories – and whether increasingly they will resort to stocks of older, less accurate but equally powerful missiles.

The estimate of Russian missile inventories is not easy to make. In May, the President of Russia said that Russia had launched over two thousand missiles and used up most of its precision-missile arsenal. That looks like a bit of a leap of faith.

The Russians have been changing the S-300 into an offensive weapon. They are very fast and can be difficult to intercept, like in Zaporizhzhia and Mykolaiv. They are not accurate.

Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy accused Russia of “energy terrorism,” as attacks on Ukraine’s infrastructure left more than 4 million Ukrainians without electricity.

He told CNN’s Richard Quest that this was the “first time from the beginning of the war” that Russia has “dramatically targeted” energy infrastructure.

Ukraine’s losses are a national secret. But pilots and air crew in the Sikorsky Brigade have all lost close friends to Russian SAMs (Surface to Air Missiles). Man-Portable Missiles can send a helicopter into a ball of flame in less than a second.

Last month, the US deputy undersecretary of defense for policy, Sasha Baker, said the US had seen “some evidence already” that the Iranian drones “have already experienced numerous failures.”

The Patriot system – advanced long-range air defense that’s highly effective at intercepting missiles – offers an immensely expensive means of defending a very limited number of high value targets. But it is neither a total solution to Ukraine’s air defense problem, nor a swift one, with one earliest possible in-service date in Ukraine estimated at February 2023.

The Ukrainian wish-list included missiles, a Transition to Western-origin Layered air defense system, as well as Early warning capabilities.

He said that a system would not be able to control all the airspace over Ukraine, but it would be able to control priority targets. What you’re looking at really is short-range low-altitude systems and then medium-range medium altitude and then long-range and high altitude systems, and it’s a mix of all of these.”

Western systems are beginning to trickle in. Ukrainian Defense Minister Oleksii Reznikov said Tuesday that a “new era of air defense has begun” with the arrival of the first IRIS-T from Germany, and two units of the US National Advanced Surface-to-Air Missile System (NASAM) expected soon.

These are not off-the-shelf items. The IRIS-T had to be manufactured for Ukraine. Western governments have limited inventories of such systems. Ukrainian is under missile attack from three directions.

Ukraine attacks in Kyiv on Dec. 5. The Dec. 5 attack, and a Russian drone operated in the Zaporizhhia district, northeast of Kharkiv

General Valerii Zaluzhnyi of the Ukrainian military thanked Poland for helping to train the air defense battalion that destroyed nine Shaheeds.

He said Poland had given Ukraine “systems” to help destroy the drones. There were reports a month ago that the Polish government had bought advanced Israeli equipment and was about to sell it to Ukraine.

The Dec. 5 attacks were carried out using a Soviet-era, jet-powered surveillance drone, modified to function as an offensive weapon, according to Russian and Ukrainian officials, shortly after a state-owned Ukrainian contractor said it had developed an attack drone with a range of over 600 miles — more than enough to reach Moscow.

The name “kamikaze” refers to the fact the drones are disposable. They are designed to hit behind enemy lines and are destroyed in the attack — unlike the more traditional, larger and faster military drones that return home after dropping missiles.

In Kyiv, blasts were heard as early as 6:45 a.m. local time, including one in the city’s Shevchenkivskyi district. As of 9 a.m., Kyiv had been hit four times, authorities said. One of the strikes hit close to Kyiv’s main train station, Anton Gerashchenko, an adviser to Ukraine’s minister of internal affairs. Authorities have asked people to stay indoors.

It’s unclear how many casualties there have been, but one person was found dead under the rubble of a destroyed building in Kyiv, Mayor Vitali Klitschko said. He said that another person is trapped.

On Friday Russian President Vladimir Putin said there was no need for more strikes. There were at least 11 Russian attacks on civilians over the weekend, eight of them in the eastern region of Donetsk, two in the Zaporizhzhia and one in the northeastern region of Kharkiv.

Shahed Drones and U.S.-Mexican Defense Systems: The Russia-Ukraine War Revisited

The Shahed drones have limitations like their speed, said Mark Cancian who is a senior adviser at the Center for Strategic and International Studies.

“The problem with them is that they’re slow,” Cancian said. “They’re propeller-driven and you know, like all propeller-driven drones, they’re just not very fast so they’re susceptible to being shot down by either missiles or by aircraft guns.”

The Biden Administration is currently investigating how American-made technology is ending up in the weapons, after it was revealed that drones being deployed in Ukraine have a significant amount of US and Western components.

Russian have not been able to replenish their own stocks of missiles due to the fact that they obtained or purchased weapons from Iran. “So [they have] resorted to much cheaper Iranian options.”

Iran has always claimed that it is siding with no one in the Russia-Ukraine war. Iran has not given arms to either warring side,” Iran’s Foreign Ministry said on Twitter.

The decision to target cities by Russia is similar to the German bombing campaign of London during World War II.

“It seems like the Russians are using these the way they use their cruise missiles – that is to strike at the major cities likely with the intention of intimidating the Ukrainian population … but I think from a military point of view that is a mistake,” Cancian said. “The Ukrainians are very unlikely to break. The morale is very unlikely to break.”

Cancian said the military might have time to recover from the war if they focused on the cities.

At the same time, the U.S. has said it is speeding up its delivery of NASAMS, the same ground-based air defense systems that are used to protect the White House in Washington, D.C., and the systems are expected to be in Ukraine in a few weeks.

U.S. drone sales in the Middle East: Israel’s armed forces in the midst of the Russia-Brazil war

The story was first published in the Meanwhile in the Middle East newsletter, which is a three-times-a-week look at the region’s biggest stories. Sign up here.

The two countries have been working on political and economic issues in the wake of Russia being slapped with sanctions.

Major General Yahya Safavi, a top military aide to Iran’s supreme leader, on Tuesday boasted that 22 countries are now in the market for Iranian drones.

Iran has made more than 80% of its military equipment, he was cited as saying by the Fars news agency.

“For the Iranians, it is about getting market share, it is about prestige, it is about solidifying alliances,” said Eric Lob, a non-resident scholar at the Middle East Institute’s Iran program, adding that these are incentives for a country that is as isolated as Iran.

Avivi is a retired senior general in the Israeli Defence Forces, and founder and CEO of the Israel Defense and Security Forum.

“It’s a threat and it’s an opportunity,” he told CNN. “It’s an opportunity for us to really see [Iranian] capabilities on the grounds, learn about what’s going on. On the other hand, one of the things that worries us is that [weapons]… might arrive to Hezbollah, for example, [or] to Hamas.”

Robert Malley, US Special Envoy for Iran told CNN on Monday that the Biden administration does not have a policy on regime change in Iran.

Our policy is to defend the fundamental rights of Iranians just as we support the fundamental rights of citizens across the globe. The form of Iran’s government will be up to the Iranians.

“We’ll continue to impose sanctions on the morality police and on those involved in the repression.”U.S. The Biden administration is supporting the Iranian protesters, according to the Envoy to Iran. This is a pic.

Over a month after the death of a 22-year- old woman, calls for regime change have been ringing around the streets.

Source: https://www.cnn.com/2022/10/19/middleeast/iran-weapons-in-ukraine-war-mime-intl/index.html

“Weapons in ukraine war Mime intl”: Iran’s Foreign Minister Josep Borrell says the world will invade “the garden”

In an interview with Iranian state-run IRNA upon her arrival in Tehran, a professional Iranian rock climber, named Elnaz Rekabi, stated that she accidentally competed without a hijab during the Asian Championships in South Korea this week.

The European Union on Monday sanctioned 11 people and four entities for their role in the death of Mahsa Amini and the subsequent crackdown on protesters. The move was described by Iran’s Foreign Minister, Iran’s Revolutionary Guard Corps commander, Amir Hossein-Abdollahian.

At least 215 people have been killed since Iran’s nationwide protests started in September, Norway-based Iran-focused rights group, Iran HR, said on Monday. .

The United Arab Emirates on Monday summoned the acting head of the EU mission in the country, asking for an explanation of what it said were racist comments made by EU foreign policy chief Josep Borrell last week. The UAE foreign ministry said the remarks were “inappropriate and discriminatory” and “contribute to a worsening climate of intolerance and discrimination worldwide,” state news agency WAM reported.

Background: In his remarks at the new European Diplomatic Academy in Bruges, Belgium last week, Borrell called Europe “a garden” and most of the world a “jungle” that “could invade the garden.” The gardeners are required to go to the jungle. Europeans have to be much more engaged with the rest of the world. He said that the rest of the world would invade us. At the press conference, Borrell denied that his message was racist or colonialist.

Why it matters: The comments have created a stir on social media in the Middle East, with critics denouncing the speech as promoting a colonial narrative. The Middle East was under European control until the 20th century.

Source: https://www.cnn.com/2022/10/19/middleeast/iran-weapons-in-ukraine-war-mime-intl/index.html

The importance of Jerusalem as the capital of the future state for Israel and the Arab-Semi-Arab world – Saudi Arabia, Egypt and the United Arab States

Israel summoned Australia’s ambassador to protest the government’s reversal of their previous decision to recognize West Jerusalem as the capital of Israel, according to the Israeli Prime Minister.

On Tuesday, the foreign minister of Australia said that the sovereignty of the holy city is a final status issue that needs to be resolved during any peace negotiations between Israel and the Palestinians.

Why it matters: Israel considers all of Jerusalem its “undivided capital.” It annexed the eastern sector of the city in a move that was not appreciated by most of the international community. Palestinians want the eastern sector of the city to be the capital of a future state.

Background: The US State Department confirmed earlier Tuesday that 72-year-old Saad Ibrahim Almadi has been imprisoned in Saudi Arabia after being given a 16-year sentence for tweets critical of the Saudi government. State Deputy Spokesperson He said the State Department is still going through the process to determine whether Almadi will be designated as “wrongfully detained.”

Why it matters: Saudi Arabia has very strict social media rules and has sentenced people in the past over their Twitter activity. In August, Saudi women’s rights campaigner Salma al-Shehab was sentenced to 34 years in prison for her activity on Twitter, according to court documents viewed by CNN. Another woman, Nourah bint Saeed al-Qahtani, was sentenced to 45 years in prison for tweets, according to US-based advocacy group DAWN.

The new speaker has not taken a different tone from controversy. In Gulf states, publicly criticizing neighboring countries is taboo but in 2012, after Saudi Arabia proposed joining Gulf nations into a union, Saadoun, as the-then speaker of parliament, said he supported Gulf integration with conditions.

Sadoun, who has over 400,000 followers on the social networking site, was a topic on Egypt, Kuwait and the United Arab East. Kuwait is a country of 4.3 million people, just under 2 million of whom are citizens.

He told the Al Arabiya news channel that his own country has freedom of expression and representation and that it is not possible to have a union with countries with different political systems.

Kuwaiti politics are followed closely in the region. Despite the years-long standoff between the government and parliament, which has delayed crucial reform, the country is widely viewed as the most democratic of the six Gulf states, with a vibrant press scene and a relatively open political discourse.

Source: https://www.cnn.com/2022/10/19/middleeast/iran-weapons-in-ukraine-war-mime-intl/index.html

The first day of school in Yemen: Drones, soldiers, and civilians in the battle of Hodeida: a memorial to Zaragoza

The first day of school in Yemen’s wartorn western province of Hodeida washout on Monday, with children going outside to class.

The war in Ukraine is the first large-scale conflict to see widespread use of drones on both sides. That has made it a crucible of innovation, as both invader and defender experiment and refine their technologies and tactics. Experts now caution that the increased use of drones by militaries is driving them toward greater control of artificial intelligence and the development of systems that will operate on the battlefield without the need for humans.

The Pentagon announced in March that it plans to send 100, called Switchblades. Next month the administration said it would give another 300. The Defense Department said it would be sending 120 Phoenix Ghost drones to Ukraine. In July, the United States provided funds for Ukraine to buy 580 more of them.

In August, the Pentagon said it would send Puma drones — small aircraft that soldiers toss into the air to launch and then control by remote control from up to nine miles away. Pumas can stay at altitudes of about 500 feet.

In his nightly address on Saturday, Mr. Zelensky said Ukraine had shot down 10 of the 15 drones that Russian forces used. It was not immediately possible to verify his tally.

A younger flier named Yuri, with a co-pilot who is more experienced, has had more than 100 combat missions this year. He says that they don’t have any skillful pilots who fly old helicopters. “If we had new machines, we would be able to fulfill tasks much better. We would support the infantry better during combat, and of course there would be fewer casualties. Western models of helicopters have better protection than the ones in India.

After colliding with the airborne debris, he said, Karaya steered his MiG away from Vinnytsia and ejected. Nobody was hurt when the jets crashed into houses in an outlying area. Karaya went to the site to apologize.

The first day of the war with Russia: Anatoliy Nikitin and Stas Volovyk lived in a neighborhood of Mykolaiv

He said on Instagram that he apologized to the residents and thanked them for their steel nerves. He joked that it was a violation of military protocol. “Lost them while leaving the office,” he wrote.

MYKOLAIV, Ukraine — On the second day of the war with Russia, Anatoliy Nikitin and Stas Volovyk, two Ukrainian army reservists, were ordered to deliver NLAW anti-tank missiles to fellow soldiers in the suburbs north of Kyiv. New orders were received as they stood exposed on the highway, says Concrete, the battle nickname.

“A guy on the radio said, ‘There are two Russian tanks coming at you. Try to hit one and livestream it!,” recalls Nikitin, sitting on a park bench in the southern city of Mykolaiv, as artillery rumbles in the distance.

There was one problem: neither soldier had ever fired an NLAW. They hid amongst the trees and looked up a video to learn how to do it, as the tanks approached. They took their positions, prepared the missiles.

“Then the commander says, ‘Oh, it’s ours! It’s ours! ‘” recalls Volovyk, who goes by the nickname Raptor. “So, we did not fire. It was a really close call.”

They train as a mix of adventure and black comedy, after fighting in both environments. The first days of the war were filled with confusion according to the two men.

“It was chaotic,” says the leader of a construction company who wears a salt-and-pepper beard. “It’s lucky for us that the Russians were more chaotic than us.”

Volovyk learned English by playing video games. He says Russian tactics and decision-making have improved during the war, but he found some of their early actions perplexing. The Russians had riot police that headed toward Kyiv but they were wiped out in the process.

Volovyk wore a camouflage cap with the message “Don’t worry, Be Ready” while they were looking at how they were fighting.

In March, the Russians began to move away from the suburbs. After this, the two men followed orders and headed south to fight a very different kind of war. Outside the capital, they left behind the protection of suburban buildings and forests for sweeping farm fields. They started at the bottom: working the trenches.

Volovyk says it sucks. You dig. You are digging. That’s the only thing you can do, because this is an artillery war and unless you dig, you’re pretty much dead.”

After a few weeks, they were offered new jobs. It’s dangerous work that involves getting close to enemy lines in order to avoid detection. The men jumped at the chance to get out of the trenches.

Their team is called the “Fireflies.” It has its own account and channel on social media. The videos show them launching a Drones from a field in an old farmhouse. Then they help guide a shell that just misses a Russian armored personnel carrier, enveloping it in a cloud of smoke. It’s a reminder that, even with all the advanced technology, it’s still hard to hit a moving target.

The soldiers have had some heart-stopping moments. A Russian soldier in a field was spotted by a team of engineers.

“He looks at me, I look at him and he just jumps into the bushes,” recalls Nikitin. He then told the engineers to go shoot the Russian and any of his fellow soldiers.

Nikitin and Volovyk joined the army reserve six years ago, after the Russians invaded Crimea. He said that they knew Russia would try to take the rest of Ukraine. They are hoping to liberate Kherson, the regional capital.

Anticipation is mounting for a possible battle for Kherson, a Russian-occupied city in southern Ukraine. Kremlin-installed officials are working to evacuate civilians in the event of a Ukrainian counteroffensive.

And Ukraine will be watching America’s midterm election results this week, especially after some Republicans warned that the party could limit funding for Ukraine if it wins control of the House of Representatives, as forecast.

State of Ukraine: Update on the Status of the United Nations General Assembly, Russia’s Interaction with the Black Sea and its Implications for NATO

Turkey’s President will host the Prime Minister of Sweden on Tuesday. Erdogan insists Sweden must meet certain conditions before it can join NATO.

The United Nations General Assembly on Wednesday is scheduled to discuss an International Atomic Energy Agency report, in which Ukraine is expected to be on the agenda.

Russia rejoined a UN brokered agreement to export grain and other agricultural goods from Ukraine. Moscow had suspended its part in the deal a few days prior after saying Ukraine had launched a drone attack on its Black Sea ships.

The Pentagon announced $400 million in additional security aid to Ukraine, on Nov. 4, to include 45 refurbished T-72 tanks, 1,100 Phoenix Ghost drones and other vehicles, technology and training.

You can read past recaps here. For context and more in-depth stories, you can find more of NPR’s coverage here. Also, listen and subscribe to NPR’s State of Ukraine podcast for updates throughout the day.

According to a congressional official, there are technical alterations and neuterings that can be done to make it possible in the future. “But those things take time and are fairly complex.”

The US Navy is interested in the MQ-1C and what it can do to help Ukraine on the battlefield, but not in escalating the conflict with Russia

A US official confirmed that the Army is leading the efforts to study what changes are possible to the drone, which is made by General Atomics and referred to in the Army as the MQ-1C.

“When you’re talking drones, this is about as good as you can get,” says Seth Jones, the director of the International Security Program at the Center for Strategic and International Studies. “These are really sophisticated drones.”

In the case of the Gray Eagle, a US official argued, the concern is less about escalation than technological security: the potential for the pricey drones to go down in Ukraine and be recovered by the Russians.

“There’s still real interest in providing this particular system, provided we can make the necessary modifications and they are still useful to Ukraine on the battlefield,” the US official said.

Colonel Cabiness would not comment on the Gray Eagle specifically, but he did say that the Department of Defense was in touch with Ukraine.

The US has recently been getting a situation that it does not like. After Iranian drones were shot down in Ukraine, the US was able to examine the wreckage, the Washington Post reported.

The US official declined to elaborate on what technology on the Gray Eagle is the most sensitive but said they wouldn’t be considered escalatory since similar capabilities are being provided.

The technology in question likely centers on the imaging and intelligence-gathering capabilities and sensors, Jones from CSIS said, adding that he believes US fears are really rooted more in escalating the conflict with Russia.’

“You’re really going to fly those pretty far back from the frontlines,” he said. The intelligence that they can collect is from a distance, so you wouldn’t need them up close.

This wouldn’t be the first time modifications have been made to US systems to get them to Ukraine. The Wall Street Journal reported in March that some components were removed from their missiles by taking out screws. That was enough for the US to be able to ship them out.

Since Russia invaded Ukraine in late March, the Biden administration has supported Ukraine with increasingly advanced weapons. Russia would see the line as overly escalatory if they pushed it while trying not to.

Biden showed that the US had given the mobile rocket systems to Ukraine, but they had not received the longer-range bombs that go with those systems.

Fighter jets were never sent toUkraine by any NATO country; perhaps the most debated part of the discussion about what weapons to give to Ukranian.

Three people with knowledge of the discussions say they are still being considered. Whether that means US warplanes or Soviet-origin fighters like the Mig-29 is a key part of the conversation. The US could ask a country like Poland to give Ukraine Mig-29s and backfill Poland with American jets.

“Are we pouring escalatory measures that might be tolerated by Putin into a bucket that at some point overflows?” another person familiar with the discussions asked. “What level is in that bucket right now? And how much volume are you proposing adding to it? Those are things US intelligence and defense officials are trying constantly to figure out.”

The Ukrainian officials feel that they could have hit Russian territory with the advanced US system, but haven’t.

President Volodymyr Zelensky of Ukraine said that Russian drone strikes on the southern port city of Odesa left more than 1.5 million people in that region without power Saturday night, the latest attacks in an ongoing series of assaults on Ukrainian energy infrastructure by the Kremlin.

Ukrainians rely on the heat and light from the plants and equipment that have been continually attacked, a situation that has drawn condemnation from world leaders who have now thrust Ukraine into a grim cycle in which crews hurry to restore power but have it knocked out again.

In his remarks Saturday night, Mr. Zelensky said that blackouts have persisted throughout various parts of Ukraine including in the capital, Kyiv. He categorized these as emergency emergencies because they were caused by attacks. He called them disruptions, which are planned power cuts on a schedule.

He implored the people to reduce their power use, saying the power system is very far from a normal state.

It must be understood. Even if there are no heavy missile strikes, this does not mean that there are no problems,” he continued. “Almost every day, in different regions, there is shelling, there are missile attacks, drone attacks. Almost every day, energy facilities are hit.

Sanctions have not deterred Russia from reestablishing its empire at the cost of peaceful neighboring states. Instead of continuing to set up more targets for Russia to knock down, the US and Ukraine’s other Western backers should change the terms of the conflict. The international community must do more than simply tolerate Russia’s naked aggression and the savagery with which it is pursuing its war of colonial reconquest. More direct intervention is long overdue.

Of course, Russia and its backers around the world will present this as a massive and dangerous escalation. That’s nonsense, but it’s highly effective nonsense.

Since well before February’s invasion, portentous but vague threats from Russia of unspecified but alarming responses have been sufficient to serve as a massive brake on Western support for Ukraine.

Russia has been allowed to behave as it pleases, without fear of interference from a global community, because of it’s UN Security Council veto and fear of nuclear propaganda.

Russia is using nuclear threats as a tool of deterrence. The use of nuclear weapons by Russia has stopped, but a decade or more of driving home the message has already begun to have a effect.

It sets a bad example for other aggressive powers all over the world. It says possession of nuclear weapons allows you to wage genocidal wars of destruction against your neighbors, because other nations won’t intervene.

If that’s not the message the US and the West want other aggressor states around the world to receive, then supply of Patriot should be followed by far more direct and assertive means of dissuading Moscow.

The Patriot Air Defense System: What Does it Really Need To Win to Win Wars Against Russian Attacks? Rev. Patrick Marks Revisited

“It increases accuracy, it increases the kill rate, so it really does exactly what you want it to do which is protection on the ground on very specific targets,” retired Maj. Gen. James “Spider” Marks previously told CNN of the system’s capabilities.

The Patriot’s radar system combines “surveillance, tracking, and engagement functions in one unit,” a description from the Center for Strategic International Studies (CSIS) says, which makes it stand out among other air defense systems. The system does not have to make a final launch decision because it is nearly autonomously engaged with incoming aerial threats.

In Ukraine, Hertling says offensive operations are more important than the system. CNN first reported last month that the US was considering a dramatic increase in the training provided to Ukrainian forces by instructing as many as 2,500 troops a month at a US base in Germany. The Pentagon said this month that they would begin combined arms training of battalion sized elements in January.

“These systems don’t pick up and move around the battlefield,” Hertling said. You put them in a place where they defend their most strategic target, like a city. If anyone thinks this is going to be a system that is spread across a 500-mile border between Ukraine and Russia, they just don’t know how the system operates.”

Not to mention the significant logistical needs; just one battery is operated by roughly 90 soldiers, and includes computers, an engagement control system, a phased array radar, power generating equipment, and “up to eight launchers,” according to the Army.

CSIS recently said in a report that the missile rounds for the Patriot come in at roughly $4 million each. Hertling says that rounds that are pricey will not be used to shoot down every missile Russia launches.

The system was sent to Poland to help them defend themselves against Russia, because other US allies had purchased it. The US military told Poland in March that the system wouldn’t support any offensive operations and that it was only for defensive purposes.

The emphasis of the system is on defensive, Hertling said. It is not possible to win wars with defensive capabilities. You win wars with offensive capabilities.

State-Dependent Investigation of a U.S. Air Warfare Attack on a Strategic Bomber Air Field in Engels

Three Russian servicemen were killed Monday after a Ukrainian drone was shot down by air defenses as it approached a military airfield in Saratov Oblast, deep inside Russian territory, according to Russian state news agencies, citing the defense ministry.

The incident happened in the western city of Engels, located on the Volga River, which is 500 miles from Moscow. The city houses the Engels-2 military airfield, a strategic bomber air base, in the second attempt this month.

Law enforcement agencies are now investigating the incident at the airfield, said Saratov Oblast Governor Roman Busargin on Monday. The comments, posted on his official Telegram channel, came after reports circulated of an explosion in the city.

There was no emergencies in the city’s residential areas, and no infrastructure had been damaged. He also extended his condolences to the families of the servicemen, saying the government would provide them with assistance.

“If the Russians thought that no one at home would be affected by the war, then they were deeply mistaken,” Colonel Ihnat said. He said that the bombing campaign was complicated by the explosions at Russian airfields, forcing Moscow to move some of its aircraft. No one is saying that the strikes have interfered with the Russian bombardment.

There could be a repetition of the situation that occurred after the Russians launched a massive missile strike on December 5. We have to remember to proceed to the shelter and take it into account in our plans.

Earlier this month, CCTV footage appeared to show an explosion lighting up the sky in Engels. Information about incidents at military facilities is being checked by law enforcement, Gov. Busargin reassured residents at the time.

The U.S. reaction to the Dec. 5 assaults was muted. Defense Secretary Lloyd J. Austin III said, “We are not working to prevent Ukraine from developing their own capability.” The United States was not encouraging attacks on Russia according to Ned Price, the State Department spokesman.

The Ukrainian foreign minister told The Associated Press on Monday that his government wanted a peace summit by late February but that Russia could not be invited until it faced first. It was the latest in a string of claims by each country to be open to peace talks — but only on terms that are unacceptable to the other.

The Wired World: The Future of Warfare and Conflict in the 2023 Digital Age (An Overview of Trends from the WIRED World)

In 2023, digital technologies will transform confrontation and conflict, as transparency and precision will merge with advances in robotics, autonomy, connectivity, data in secure cloud, and AI. This combination will lead to armed forces that are no longer just people operating equipment but rapidly evolving teams of inhabited, uninhabited, and autonomous capability. This is a process that starts out by augmenting how today’s armed forces organize, operate, and train, but as technology advances and experience grows, it will be as transformative as Airbnb has been to accommodation or Uber to transportation. The Digital Age will lead to profound change when it comes to confronting conflict. This will be a decades-long competition where the winners are bold enough to move rapidly and the losers have succumbed to the comforts of gentle change.

Our annual trends Briefing includes this story from the WIRED World. Download or order a copy of the magazine and read more stories from the series.

The Russian ship Moskva was sunk by Ukrainian missiles, plus the vulnerability of the whole of Ukrainians to Russia’s long-range missiles, as well as the success of both shoulder-launched and heavier anti-tank and anti-aircraft missiles. Even if it costs thousands of dollars, a missile can destroy a platform that is expensive and can put the lives of its crew in danger. This will transform how armies, navies, and air forces organize, equip, and operate. The restraining factor today is the cost and manufacturing complexity of these weapons, but as the world lives with the existential peril of a 21st century Great Power Conflict, the urgency to drive down costs and increase inventory will only grow.

Despite this transformation, the nature of war will never change: It will be about killing people and breaking their stuff faster than they can do it to you. The human condition is still a fight for wills, an aspect that is far from being eliminated for its irrationality, despair, and ferocity. Reason, emotion, and chance will continue to make up the outcome. Technology doesn’t change how we fight.

Warhead Detection in the Odesa Region: A Case Study of a U.K.-based Warhead Manufacturing Facility

Conflict Armament Research, an organization based in the United Kingdom, and the Ukrainian military examined a warhead from an Iranian Shahed-131 drone found in the Odesa region. CNN was the first to get CAR’s findings.

The warhead can shred targets such as power stations, distribution grids, transmission lines and large, high-power transformers because of the elements accumulated. They make repairs more difficult.

Russia and Iran have agreed to set up a drone manufacturing facility inside Russia, however, which Western officials believe will allow Russia to replenish its supply more quickly.

Schmidt became CEO of Google in 2001, when the search engine had a few hundred employees and was barely making money. He stepped away from Alphabet in 2017 after building a sprawling, highly profitable company with a stacked portfolio of projects, including cutting-edge artificial intelligence, self-driving cars, and quantum computers.

A thought experiment to solve the Ukrainian problem: Russians could make a better war-fighting system possible, and what could they do about it?

Schmidt offers another thought experiment to illustrate the bind he’s trying to get the US military out of. “Imagine you and I decide to solve the Ukrainian problem, and the DOD gives us $100 million, and we have a six-month contest,” he says. Someone comes up with a new device or a new tool that will allow the Ukrainians to win. Problem solved? It isn’t so fast. The procurement rules that prohibit the Pentagon from handing out money without going through careful but overly lengthy review processes are the reason for everything I said.

“Let’s imagine we’re going to build a better war-fighting system,” Schmidt says, outlining what would amount to an enormous overhaul of the most powerful military operation on earth. “We would just create a tech company.” He drew a vision of the internet of things with a deadly twist. A lot of inexpensive devices, such as drones, would have sensors or weapons, and they would be connected together.

The scenes ofRUSSIA are chaotic; Russian tanks explode, men run, some on fire and the bodies of soldiers are in tank tracks.

The attacks in the last week of January were flawed, he said. They advanced along a relatively narrow route, all the time being seen from the top of buildings in Vuhledar, and now facing an expanse of empty terrain on the eastern side of the town.

At least two dozen Russian tanks and infantry vehicles have been disabled or destroyed in a matter of days, according to videos released by the Ukrainian military. Satellite images show intensive patterns of impacts along tree lines where Russian tanks tried to advance.

The Russian Defense Ministry said the assault on Vuhledar was going according to plan. Putin said during a Sunday TV show that themarine infantry is working as it should. Right now. Fighting heroically.

Denis Pushilin, the leader of the self-declared Russian-backed DPR, acknowledged Friday that the area was very hot and that the enemy continued to transfer reserves in large quantities.

On the Ruling Out Offensive Around Vuhledar (Kuzrzetsk Fiasco Intl)

Cooper says the Russians built a formidable force around Vuhledar, “say, a total of about 20,000 troops, 90 MBTs There’s between two and four times as many battle tanks as there are IFVs and about 100 artillery pieces.

The town has become a lynchpin in the conflict in eastern Ukraine. The Russian forces were trying to take it for three months. Victory for Moscow here would make it harder for the Ukrainians to shut down a nearby railroad that links Donetsk with Russian-occupied Crimea and allow the Russians to begin a northern “hook” as part of their anticipated spring offensive.

The latest operation of the military high command is being described as ashameful debacle by critics.

A lot of good T-72B3/T-80BVM tanks and the best paratroopers and marines were destroyed.

In another post, he stated that only morons attacked in the same place and were very inconvenient for the attackers for many months in a row.

The Russian military has hundreds of thousands of subscribers to their Telegram channels. They were very critical of previous episodes.

The setbacks around Vuhledar don’t bode well for a broader Russian offensive. ISW assesses that they “have likely further weakened the Russian ultranationalist community’s belief that Russian forces are able to launch a decisive offensive operation.”

Source: https://www.cnn.com/2023/02/13/europe/russia-ukraine-vuhledar-donetsk-fiasco-intl/index.html

Uhledar Donetsk Fiasco Inc. I. The Russian 155th Naval Infantry Brigade and the Russian Defense Ministry

Armored personnel carriers, tanks, and infantry are supposed to fight with no columns. And then how to coordinate any actions if there is no communication and situational awareness?” He wrote something.

Several Russian commentators have called for the dismissal of Lieutenant General Rustam Muradov, the commander of the Eastern Grouping of Forces. Muradov was in charge in November when men of the 155th protested that his tactics had caused disastrous losses.

A Russian site with over half a million people commented on the team that killed a lot of personnel and equipment. [in November] and did not bear any responsibility. They began to storm Ugledar after which they continued to do the same things. The text is [Vuhledar]. Politicianship always creates permissiveness.

Poor leadership is only one part of the problem, according to the Institute for the Study of War. The 155th Naval Infantry brigade is made up of poorly trained personnel and they are indicative of the problem.

Ukrainian military officials say there is a random mix of Russian forces in the Vuhledar area, including professional units, the recently mobilized, militia of the DPR and infantry of a private military company called Patriot, which is said to be close to the Russian defense ministry.

Source: https://www.cnn.com/2023/02/13/europe/russia-ukraine-vuhledar-donetsk-fiasco-intl/index.html

Sergey-Reny, the Ukrainian Pilots of the Sikorsky Brigade, in the Intl-Cmd, on Saturday

The commander of the Ukrainian forces claimed on Saturday that effective fire damage is the key to success on the battlefield.

The horizon disappears while the helicopter’s nose is in the air. There is a faint thump as the rockets follow the smoke. The aircraft leans on its side as if it were being hit by a car.

“We’re always surprised that we’re here. The deputy commander of the Sikorsky brigade said his name and location were military secrets and that he was never going to stop.

Serhiy and rendy are both middle-aged pilots and have been for more than two decades. They were involved in many United Nations missions in Africa in the early 2000s.

The experience, they say, had been invaluable. It gave them experience flying in bad situations like the ongoing civil war in theDRC, and kept their hours up.

The Mi-8s are mounted with rockets, but they were originally conceived as transport helicopters. They don’t have armor to protect the pilots, unlike modern or Soviet-era attack helicopters.

He was very close to the front line and he could not stay on the ground because of his injuries. He was able to exchange equipment with three others from a different helicopter at the rear location.

Source: https://www.cnn.com/2023/02/17/europe/ukraine-pilots-helicopter-russia-intl-cmd/index.html

Zelensky’s response to the invasion of the Soviet Union by the Russians and their drones: helicopter russia intl CMD

NATO and other allies have been begged for jets and other aircraft, by President Volodymyr Zelensky. The response so far has been close to nil.

The United Kingdom has offered to help bolster the helicopter fleet inUkraine with some old Sea King aircraft. The defense minister of Portugal said that Ukrainians would have to fix itself after receiving six Russian-made анн svets.

Serhiy wants the equipment to arrive soon so he can fly. We do need newer helicopters because we have aircraft from the Soviet era, he told CNN. We are trying to squeeze everything possible out of them.

His team has set up temporary locations near the front line where they hide fuel and ammunition. Support crews tuck themselves out of sight. Perimeter security exists but it’s invisible.

He had to wait 24 hours to find out that Ukrainian drone operators had called him to give him the news. Because by the time his rockets hit the ground, he was racing away below tree height.

The Russians can find us from over 30 km away. He explains that sometimes they can shoot at us and land behind hills, thanks to the radar that can track them.

Source: https://www.cnn.com/2023/02/17/europe/ukraine-pilots-helicopter-russia-intl-cmd/index.html

Sergiy Sotnyenko’s typical routine for the drones in the era of World War II: A tribute to Serhiy

The grief of the death of a family is still raw. There was a close friend of Serhiy who died in December. “A lot of people I knew, friends have already died, unfortunately. I am very upset and I can’t move on.

When the war began in March of 2022, Sergiy Sotnyenko found himself performing a daily routine for the drones overhead. He put on an orange hoodie in order to prove that he wasn’t a combatant, but it didn’t seem like he was wearing military fatigues. He tried to show the drones he was carrying out innocent activities, like planting onions. He would wave at people.