Working Out Some Issues in Ukraine

[Mongrel]

Not to invoke the horrible Other War that's going on now, but Bellingcat has had to put out a statement regarding a faked BBC video describing a false Bellingcat investigative report that western weapons sent to Ukraine were found in the hands of Hamas members, emphasizing that it is a 100% bullshit fabrication.

Meanwhile, the main reason the UN Security Council couldn't put out a unified statement about the Hamas attack was because Russia refused to endorse any of the suggestions.

[Mongrel]

In one of those little "No one would ever believe this" moments...

Yesterday, the Ukrianians blew up a Russian landing ship full of ammunition. Big boom.

As most Russian ships have actually fled Sevastopol, this one was moored at Feodosia, a small port town on the south coast of Crimea.

One-hundred and twenty-three years ago, Ivan Aivazovsky, a Ukrainian artist of the Romantic school who was from Feodosia and living there at the time, painted this locally-set work, titled "Ship Explosion":



Just... one of those funny ol things.

[Mongrel]

So, lately there's been a whole lot of angry talk about about Biden not "just sending" aid, hotheaded Editorials in major papers around the world, chyrons spitting fire, the whole bit. People talk about US weapons which are being decommissioned, scrapped, sitting idle, whatever. The assumption is that Biden & the Dems have the power to send these things to Ukraine but chooses not to. Shadowy conspiracy theories involving lobbyists on Putin's payroll or this being some callous political gambit are running wild. People know the Republicans are blocking aid in Congress, but they're still blaming Biden for not running over them - surely there must be an exception? Surely there must be something Biden can do? What about Presidential drawdown? What about Lend-Lease? etc. etc.

Up until about a week ago, I was just as angry and confused. Why not send all this stuff? Why did Israel get artillery ammunition, and at a rush at that? Why was Morocco of all places sent 300 Bradley IFV's when Ukraine is using the 100 or so they got impressively well (seriously - yesterday two chonky boi Bradleys working together destroyed a Russian T90M, the most advanced tank in the Russian arsenal, and they didn't even have Bradley TOW missiles)? The Ukrainians are making The Pentagon Wars look worse every day.

Now y'all are educated, so maybe some of you know where I'm going. But maybe you don't. I'm not American and I didn't know about this, and I certainly don't blame Ukrainians or Europeans for not knowing this, but it seems a whole lot of Americans don't know this either.

The problem is the The Impoundment Control Act of 1974, one of those post-Nixon laws to constrain Executive power and privilege. This goofishly-named law is the current legal basis for near-total Congressional control of Executive appropriations; It is the reason why Biden cannot send anything, in cash or in kind, without approval from Congress, which is currently full of traitors.

The Impoundment Control Act isn't some nebulous thing either. Previously, the Act was used to pass spending restriction bills known as the Boland Amendments which eventually led to a little kerfuffle. Does Iran-Contra ring a bell? That's right! The Impoundment Control Act (and Boland Amendments) were the reason Reagan went looking for dirty slush money he could send to the Contras. Sadly ol Olllie North saved Reagan with his shredder.

(Incidentally, if you want a laugh, go see how massaged the Iran-Contra wiki article is on how responsible Reagan may or may not have been, lol.)

You know who was a senator at the time? Biden. "Remember Ollie North? President Biden Remembers."

Biden knows exactly what would happen if he were to try to circumvent the Impoundment Control Act as Reagan did. The Republicans would crucify him - it would be the perfect gift for them.

So no, Biden is not Dictator-for-Life. There is no magic wand. There is no Shirley Exception.

Israel and Morocco? They BOUGHT the weapons; Biden doesn't need congressional authority to approve a SALE. Lend-Lease? Zelenskyy and Biden were holding off on it because it's a LOAN, something to use only as a last resort to avoid burdening Ukraine with intractable debt. Could they have thrown something together last fall? Maybe. But they made the mistake of thinking the Republicans would pass an aid bill, which they haven't since 2022. And then Republicans cancelled Lend-Lease in October.

So, if you were at all confused about why Biden doesn't send some of the US's enormous arsenal to Ukraine, that's why. Yes Virginia, it's still the Republicans.

[beatbandito]

Pretty sure it's because Israel genociding brown people is higher on Amiercan priorities.

[Mongrel]

You're being snarky, but you're correct in ways you might not realize!

The obvious bit is yes, Ukraine coverage took a huge nosedive after Oct 7, and that directly allowed the GOP to fuck around as everyone got distracted.

The thing was, that wasn't a coincidence or a "happy accident" for Russia. Iran hasn't been sending all those drones to Russia for free - at this point I'd go so far as to call them de facto military allies - and besides money and various bits of hardware, Russia also launched a spy satellite for Iran AND, more importantly, diverted their own Russian satellites to do closer surveys of the mideast a little bit prior to Oct 7th.

Point being, Russia directly aided Hamas' Oct 7 attack by providing critical intel to Iran to provide to their proxy, Hamas. Russia possibly also provided military or technical support which gave Iran room or material to supply Hamas with extra weapons, but that's a bit more of a conjecture. But there's a whole north-south trade corridor between Iran and Russia now; that's not a wild conspiracy, that's an established and public fact.

As for Americans being racist or antisemitic, well, there's a fair bit of that in the US, and the Dems sure aren't perfect, but I will say that if Biden had the ability to send weapons to both Israel and Ukraine, he would. That's the point. Biden isn't ignoring Ukraine because he wants to or doesn't care. That's on the Republicans, who should absolutely not be let off the hook.

TBH, I'm not even sure if the US as a whole would be all-in on support for Israel there's so many news stories from just yesterday going back to November claiming pro-Gaza or pro-Israel views are the majority among the American public, and they always have a poll showing something like 50% for their side and 45% for the other, which taken together can be interpreted as the US being just plain divided on the issue.

BUT that's getting too far into talking about the mideast for this thread. If someone wants to talk about it in the mideast thread, by all means, but my guess is that we're all pretty much on the same side of that one.

EDIT: Whoops, typo. The American public.

[Büge]

[Mongrel]

Putin retroactively declares sale of Alaska to US "illegal"

[Crick]

Damn, that'll teach us

[Friday]

No no that was Hawaii

[Mongrel]

"If I put a lol emoji on it, it means I'm not serious" goes to a whole new level when it's a senior admin official of a major power threatening nuclear war.



I mean, it's Medvedev, so he's drunk as usual (Medvedev is a horrific drunk even by Russian standards), and his main activity is posting angry rants on social media, including nuclear threats every couple days, because they absolutely don't let him do anything else - in fact that's why he's had the plum jobs he's had, because every now and then a fascist ruler just needs a human doorstop.

But, y'know, even so.

[Upthorn]

For me, what's notable about the above tweet is how directly it's calling out Putin's declaration as ridiculous (which it was, of course, but still seems like a thing that a Russian official might want to avoid commenting on...?)

[Mongrel]

Coherence or reflection are not Medvedev's best talents.



Not that it's surprising he's blotto every waking hour - he's reportedly so depressed about being a useless puppet that (cw: suicide attempt) He tried to shoot himself back in '22 until his security detail walked in on him and talked him out of his pistol. He was only still alive because he couldn't decide which of the six angry suicides notes he'd written to different people, including one for Putin, to send.
Phones are probably the most dangerous thing they let him play with.

===========

Anyway, in more relevant news, Ukraine managed to blow one of Russia's only two Baltic oil terminals sky high with an impressive long-range drone strike (sorry, I mean there was another careless smoking accident), so they've moved a bunch of air defences around to cover St. Petersburg and the other terminal, because if the other one goes up, Russia's going to lose 40% of its income. The entire Russian economy riding on two oil depots is quite the weakspot. I actually didn't know they can't ship oil out of Vladivostok in any quantity and that they don't have any pipelines with China (biggest buyer right now) to fill that need either.

Why weren't the air defences in place previously? Because the St. Peterburg district air defences were previously mostly dedicated to HEAVILY covering a certain lavish country palace slash regicidal mob-proof fortress.

I mention this because Ukraine has the opportunity now to do something really funny.

Of course if I'm being honest I doubt Putin's *heavily* fortified palace burns as well as an oil depot does, not with just a couple drones, as righteous as such a humiliation would be. But it would still be funny (and effective) if all they do is end up making the St. Petersburg air defence guys drive back and forth constantly.

[Büge]

[Mongrel]

From everything I've ever seen on the subject, not only are virtually all the insane stories about Yeltsin's drinking true, but often understated the severity or ridiculousness of what happened.

I think my favourite is that there's a transcript of Yeltsin talking to Clinton on the phone, insisting the US give Russia Europe. All of it.

[Destynova]

I suspect that he will accidentally stumble out a window after one too many martinis.

[Mongrel]

Nah, he's on the "Utterly incompetent but thoroughly loyal" list. That's also why Gerasimov and Shoigu can drink their tea in peace in spite of bungling a '3-day' invasion so badly that the end result may be Russia's permanent destruction as a major power.

[Mongrel]

So, it's been over a month since Ukraine struck the main command post at a major airfield in Crimea and since that date Gerasimov has been completely and totally absent from all public view.

All the Ukrainian and foreign commentators are quite sensibly saying, hey, don't read too much into this, could be a lot of things going on.

But at the same time they are still asking "Soooo... just where is Poochy Gerasimov anyway?" and even if he's not dead then it still means Russia's top general has vanished of the face of the earth for a month, which is something in and of itself.

Bears repeating that's he's way too dull to get the tea or window - his lack of brains and imagination are why he has the job in the first place, and even if Putin decides a particular general is an incompetent failure, he's generally assigned those clowns to some embarrassing non-army position which leaves him the option to throw them back in the mix later (which has happened quite a few times with lesser Russian generals this war).

[Mongrel]

So apparently in the Carlson interview, Putin talked some shit about the Mongolian Empire as compared to the historical Imperial Russia, so Mongolian politicians (like, presidents, not just the small fry), current and past, have been having a field day trolling or dunking on Russian official accounts by citing things like "Today in history the Mongolians completely burned Russian city X to the ground", posting map size comparisons, etc.

Obviously it's not a huge thing, but I'm always up for someone thumping fascist lies with really funny truths.

It's also really funny to me that Putin had to insist that Imperial Russia was the all-time largest empire. His brain's so rotted out that he couldn't even concede they were second place to an empire from six centuries ago which lasted barely a generation (well, maybe longer depending on how you treat the immediately post-Ghengis Khanates, but still). Like, who the fuck is so insecure that they try to claim they're bigger than the Mongol Empire? Wild.

I mean, sure, not at all surprising after Bush's dog story, but still wild!

[Mongrel]

Sadly, Gerasimov has turned up alive after 7 weeks of unexplained absence. Feel free to speculate as to what he was doing or where he was during that time! (I can guarantee that whatever it was wasn't consequential, lol)

[Mongrel]

Ukraine shot down a second Russian A-50 command-and-control aircraft (akin to the American Boeing E-3 Sentry, albeit of Soviet vintage) in as many months, after an already brutal week for the Russian Air Force. Russia only had 6 or 7 of these things left going into the war, and that's out of the two dozen or so they had originally built in the 80's - which is to say these planes are basically irreplaceable strategic-level assets.

Anyway, this isn't so much about that as it is the increasingly bizarre Russian method of dealing bad news about aircraft being shot down, where they refuse to admit Ukrainian forces can shoot down Russian planes and instead credit the kills to friendly fire. I mean, you can do this once or twice, but this is like, Russia's air defence being presented as shooting down multiple Russian planes per week, which, uh, I'm not sure that has the effect you're looking for, guys.

Reminds me of the (probably apocryphal) story of a German grandmother in 1945 observing that she knew the Americans were coming in spite of German radio only broadcasted propaganda claiming victory after victory. When Allied soldiers asked her how she knew, she said it wasn't the bad conditions or anything like that, it was simply the fact that "the victories were getting closer and closer to Berlin".