Russia & Ukraine

kashirin said:
Are you an idiot?
Russia launches drone to uncover air defence
They don't launch drones for anything else
20 destroyed drones 20 uncovered air defences which will be tracked and destroyed
More...
Yeah we figured that out 3 decades ago.
Have you guys not discovered the wheel and axle concept yet?
Meet the Patriot:

300px-Airday-Nordholz_2013_by-RaBoe_106.jpg

:rolleyes:
Our boys like to have the tires Armour-All'd... that's why we have your sister.
 
vanzandt said:
Yeah we figured that out 3 decades ago.
Have you guys not discovered the wheel and axle concept yet?
Meet the Patriot:

300px-Airday-Nordholz_2013_by-RaBoe_106.jpg

:rolleyes:
Our boys like to have the tires Armour-All'd... that's why we have your sister.
More...
Next time, make sure she knows that the Indeed website on the dark-net is a fake, and the job solicitation for an experienced rim polisher wasn't a ticket to a blue-card and a new life at a full-service car wash in Tulsa, no matter how bad she wants out of that (currently) S.H. country you abide in. Better let your mom know too.
 
gwb-trading said:
Putin Tells Russian Women To Make More Babies For Cannon Fodder, He Means Patriotism. That Sounds Familiar?
Hang on, 'Kinder, Küche, Kirche' isn't even Russian!
https://www.wonkette.com/p/putin-tells-russian-women-to-make

To help Make Russia Great Again, President Vladimir Putin is telling Russian women to stop getting educated, stay out of the paid workforce, reject the dangerous Western poison of feminism, and have as many babies as they can for the Motherland, because he’ll be needing the boys just as soon as they’re old enough to carry a Kalashnikov, OK? In a depressing longread published yesterday, the Washington Post (gift link) examines just how far Russia is going to force women back into “traditional” roles for the supposed good of the nation.

Oh sure, there’s a little bit of a cost to women in terms of having to give up their freedom, a few human rights they didn’t need anyway, and whatever steps toward equality they’ve taken since Czarist times, but it’s all for the best, say Putin and his cronies, who are in charge, which means they must be right. And if feminists and human rights advocates complain, that means Putin was right to declare them agents of foreign influence who must be suppressed.

“Many of our grandmothers and great-grandmothers had seven or eight children, and maybe even more,” Putin declared to an audience of ultraconservative religious and political figures who had convened in the State Kremlin Palace in November. “We should preserve and revive these wonderful traditions.”

He said all that in Russian so nobody would mistakenly think they were listening to a Trump rally.

Russian officials have taken up the cause, the Post reports, and are urging women to have great big families, and to do so as soon as they’re 18. “Women are being told to forgo education and careers to prioritize child-rearing, even as the war in Ukraine drains men from the workforce, creating critical labor shortages.” Well look, you want factory goods, you just need to birth more babbies and in a couple decades there’ll be no more labor shortage, unless of course Vlad or his successors are still having some excellent wars.

Putin wants to defeat the corrupt West with more babies, more militarism, and more Orthodox Christianity that enforces Puritanical rules about gender roles, all of which suggests to us that American rightwingers are going to love him even more than they already do — our own culture-war weirdos want much the same:

In pursuing these sweeping changes, Putin has cast Russia as the global leader in a fight against what he considers Western debauchery, and has branded democracy advocates and other liberals as purveyors of “destructive ideology” who must be suppressed. Feminists, LGBTQ+ activists, independent journalists and political opposition figures have been designated as foreign agents, extremists or terrorists and arrested, jailed or forced to flee the country.

Women who embody the traditional image, which is constantly reinforced on state television, are being promoted to high-level positions — such as national children’s ombudswoman Maria Lvova-Belova, who has 10 children, five of them adopted. Lvova-Belova, along with Putin, was accused of war crimes by the International Criminal Court over the forced relocation of Ukrainian children.

Sounds great,America’s rightwing weirdos are no doubt salivating, demanding to know where they can sign up, too.

The article is full of stories of rightwing Russian women who simply can’t wait to make other Russian women conform, no matter how cartoonishly they might sound like they stepped right out of Orwell. There’s Yekaterina Mizulina, the daughter of a Russian senator, who heads up the Junior Anti-Sex League “Safe Internet League, a censorship organization.”

Mizulina’s denunciations have ruined the careers of risqué celebrities, and led to the closures of gay bars and the blocking of LGBTQ+ internet sites. Asked in an interview what she thought about feminism, she answered flatly: “I don’t think about it.” Russian women, she said, think men should come first.

“Many women in Russia feel fine if they’re deputy to someone. They don’t want to be in charge of something. This is our character,” Mizulina said. European countries made a mistake, she said, when they put women “in weird positions like minister of defense.”

Among other great steps toward restoring the patriarchy and moral order, we learn that Russia actually rolled back several domestic violence laws in 2017, because if parents can’t beat their children and men can’t beat their wives, how will you ever have a just and decent society?

Putin has even resurrected an old Soviet-era award for “Heroine Mothers” who have 10 or more children, because, as he said in a video conference to promote the awards:

Making sure Russians have “as many children as possible,” he declared, is “the underlying goal of our state policy.”

The parallels to American fundagelical ideology are scary at times; we half-expected to hear about Russian girls having to dance with their dads at “purity balls” where they would be given a ring to pledge they’ll stay virgins until they marry, but that’s still only an America thing, it seems. Give them time.

OK, we have room for maybe one more blockquote before we hurl, so here we go:

Senior officials have repeatedly hammered the message for large families and behavioral changes in women. Last July, Health Minister Mikhail Murashko attacked “the downright vicious practice” of women pursuing education and careers before childbirth. The deputy prime minister for social policy, Tatiana Golikova, in March said that the “correct” age for women to have children is 18 to 24.

“The earlier the first child is born, the earlier the second and third will be born,” Golikova said at a youth festival. […]

Margarita Pavlova, a senator from the Chelyabinsk region, in a television interview in November said: “We need to stop encouraging girls to get higher education … which then leads them nowhere.”

Why yes, this all sounds like it could come from Turning Point USA, perhaps with some boilerplate about gender studies programs added in.

The story also looks at the fetishization of military wives, who are of course 100 percent supportive of the husbands they’ve sent off happily to the “special military operation” in Ukraine, which is like the Great Patriotic War except if you call it a “war” you’ll go to prison.

Happily, there are women who are sick and tired of all this, although the Post has to protect their identity lest they too be arrested. One Moscow-area businesswoman whose husband has been fighting in Ukraine explained,

“They’re trying to create an image of a very obedient woman, like a slave.”

Women, she said, are being treated “like incubators,” even as men are dying in the war. […]

“We are in the middle of the war and they’re calling on women to give birth to children,” the businesswoman said. “Are they crazy? I’m not going to give birth to children in a war.” If Russia wins, she added, there will soon be another war.

“So why should I have babies who will live till the next war and then be killed in this next war,” she asked. “No! No way.”

As we always say, go read the whole thing with your gift link; these are scary times in Russia, and you just know that the American Right is looking on and hoping to import much of the same poison.
More...

better kill the sick moron at the top - along with at least 100 other ones around him and then slowly start evolving into something similar to a decent modern country.
 
GAO Report on Oversight of U.S. Support to Ukraine
The following is the July 31, 2024, Government Accountability Office report, Ukraine: Oversight of U.S. Direct Budget Support.
https://news.usni.org/2024/08/01/gao-report-on-oversight-of-u-s-support-to-ukraine

From the report

Why This Matters

Russia’s February 2022 invasion of Ukraine is causing a devastating loss of life, creating a widespread humanitarian crisis, and threatening democracy in Europe. In response, Congress has appropriated more than $174 billion across the federal government. From this funding, the U.S. Agency for International Development (USAID) has obligated about $26.8 billion for direct budget support (DBS) to the Government of Ukraine (GoU), and USAID plans to obligate an additional $3.95 billion, as of July 2024. This funding is intended to ensure the GoU can continue critical operations and deliver essential services. This funding also enables the GoU to use a larger share of its taxpayer funding to combat the invasion.

We were asked to provide information about the DBS funding the U.S. provided to the GoU and the existing oversight of this funding. This report is part of a series of work GAO has underway evaluating U.S. oversight of Ukraine assistance. This report discusses the DBS the U.S. has provided, the ongoing and planned oversight mechanisms established by USAID and others, and the level of accountability for U.S. funding this oversight provides

Key Takeaways
  • The U.S. obligated approximately $22.9 billion in DBS funding to the GoU prior to 2024, obligated $3.899 billion in July 2024, and plans to provide an additional $3.95 billion by the end of 2024. USAID provided this funding to the GoU through World Bank trust funds. Most of this funding was used to reimburse the GoU for eligible expenses, such as salaries for teachers and other school employees, civil servants, and healthcare workers.
  • USAID monitors the use of U.S. DBS funding, and the World Bank supervises World Bank trust funds and operations used to provide DBS to the GoU. Both USAID and the World Bank hired contractors to support their oversight efforts. USAID hired Deloitte Consulting LLP (Deloitte) and KPMG, while the World Bank hired PwC.
  • The contractors’ reviews offer different levels of accountability based on their oversight approaches. For example, they are monitoring the GoU’s management of U.S. DBS funding to provide visibility and identify gaps in processes, and conducting financial statement audits that can promote transparency and bolster stakeholder confidence in financial reporting.
What direct budget support has the U.S. government provided to the Government of Ukraine?

Prior to 2024, the U.S. government had obligated approximately $22.9 billion for DBS to the GoU to help Ukraine pay for critical government operations from funds in the Ukraine acts.1 In April 2024, Congress appropriated an additional $7.849 billion in assistance funding that could be available for DBS to the GoU of which, as of July 2024, the U.S. government has obligated $3.899 billion.

(Report is an inline PDF in article)
 
vanzandt said:
Yeah we figured that out 3 decades ago.
Have you guys not discovered the wheel and axle concept yet?
Meet the Patriot:

300px-Airday-Nordholz_2013_by-RaBoe_106.jpg

:rolleyes:
Our boys like to have the tires Armour-All'd... that's why we have your sister.
More...

Real staff not that different in its efficiency from this one. Quite a revelation how inferior American weapons.
 
kashirin said:
Real staff not that different in its efficiency from this one. Quite a revelation how inferior American weapons.
More...

Let's take a look at how poorly things are going for Russia in Ukraine. Especially laughable are Russia's air defense systems.

Ukraine hitting deep into Russia because air defenses eroded: expert
Ukraine has been flying shockingly deep inside Russia because Russian air defenses are so degraded, military expert says
https://www.businessinsider.com/ukr...to-russia-air-defenses-degraded-expert-2024-7

Russia had to abandon its offense towards Kharkiv where they are in retreat.

Zelenskyy says Russia is giving up on Kharkiv, months after Moscow tried to blow open the war's northeastern front
https://www.businessinsider.com/zelenskyy-says-russia-giving-up-kharkiv-summer-assault-2024-8
 
gwb-trading said:
Let's take a look at how poorly things are going for Russia in Ukraine. Especially laughable are Russia's air defense systems.

Ukraine hitting deep into Russia because air defenses eroded: expert
Ukraine has been flying shockingly deep inside Russia because Russian air defenses are so degraded, military expert says
https://www.businessinsider.com/ukr...to-russia-air-defenses-degraded-expert-2024-7

Russia had to abandon its offense towards Kharkiv where they are in retreat.

Zelenskyy says Russia is giving up on Kharkiv, months after Moscow tried to blow open the war's northeastern front
https://www.businessinsider.com/zelenskyy-says-russia-giving-up-kharkiv-summer-assault-2024-8
More...

Now let's look to really reliable source and not fake paid Ukrainian shills

Military expert Mumubo Tumumbo told Russians killed 1 billion Ukrainians yesterday, destroyed 7 million tanks, and blew 4599 patriot systems
Also they captured Ukrainian bank executive so wires to paid propagandists like gwb trading suspended indefinitely
 
You must log in or register to reply here.
Back
Top