Jake Sherman
@JakeSherman

JOHNSON, in the closed GOP meeting, says that Ukraine needs to stand on its own.

Jake Sherman
@JakeSherman

POORLY WORDED! the Ukraine BILL. not Ukraine the country

Jake Sherman
@JakeSherman
JOHNSON, in the closed GOP meeting, says that Ukraine needs to stand on its own.

Feng Yujun says the war has strained Sino-Russian relations

THE WAR between Russia and Ukraine has been catastrophic for both countries. With neither side enjoying an overwhelming advantage and their political positions completely at odds, the fighting is unlikely to end soon. One thing is clear, though: the conflict is a post-cold-war watershed that will have a profound, lasting global impact.

Four main factors will influence the course of the war. The first is the level of resistance and national unity shown by Ukrainians, which has until now been extraordinary. The second is international support for Ukraine, which, though recently falling short of the country’s expectations, remains broad.

The third factor is the nature of modern warfare, a contest that turns on a combination of industrial might and command, control, communications and intelligence systems. One reason Russia has struggled in this war is that it is yet to recover from the dramatic deindustrialisation it suffered after the disintegration of the Soviet Union.

The final factor is information. When it comes to decision-making, Vladimir Putin is trapped in an information cocoon, thanks to his having been in power so long. The Russian president and his national-security team lack access to accurate intelligence. The system they operate lacks an efficient mechanism for correcting errors. Their Ukrainian counterparts are more flexible and effective.

https://www.economist.com/by-invitation/2024/04/11/russia-is-sure-to-lose-in-ukraine-reckons-a-chinese-expert-on-russia

European Parliament Blocks EU Council Budget Until Ukraine Gets its Patriots

Belgian MEP leads rebellion in European Parliament to block financing for the Council of the European Union in response to Ukrainian pleas for additional air defense assets.

The European Parliament met in Brussels on Thursday, April 11 with a vote on approving the EU Council’s budget on the agenda. However, after an intervention by former Belgian Prime Minister now a Member of the European Parliament (MEP), Guy Verhofstadt it was decided to block approval of the budget.

With a vote taken and 515 MEPs for and only 62 against Verhofstadt’s motion to refuse to discharge the EU Council's budget until European leaders agree to support Ukraine with additional Patriot air defense systems was adopted.
...
Verhofstadt, a well-known and vociferous advocate for Ukraine, told parliament: “What I find scandalous is that Europe, which is opening the door for Ukraine, and the European Council are not even capable in such an urgency to decide to send a number of anti-missile systems to Ukraine.”

https://www.kyivpost.com/post/30985

Guy Verhofstadt
@guyverhofstadt

BREAKING — Parliament refuses discharge of the Council budget until European Council decided to support Ukraine with additional Patriot anti-missile systems !

[Twitter video]

Paralyzed by free speech concerns, Western governments are loath to act.

A few weeks ago, a Russian autocrat addressed millions of Western citizens in a propaganda event that would have been unthinkable a generation ago—yet is so normal today as to be almost unremarkable. Tucker Carlson’s interview with Russian President Vladimir Putin has now been viewed more than 120 million times on YouTube and X, formerly known as Twitter. Despite the tedium of Putin’s two-hour-long lecture about an imaginary Russian and Ukrainian history, the streaming and promotion of the interview by Western platforms is only the latest successful foray in Russia’s information war against the West, which Moscow is showing every sign of winning. And in this war, the Kremlin is not just weaponizing social media, but relying on Westerners themselves to spread its messages far and wide.

A decade into Russia’s all-out information war, the social media companies seem to have forgotten their promises to act after the 2016 U.S. presidential election interference scandal, when Russian-sponsored posts reached 126 million Americans on Facebook alone. Policymakers not only seem oblivious to the full breadth and scope of Russia’s information war, but fears about stifling freedom of speech and contributing to political polarization have led them and the social media companies to largely refrain from any action to stop Russia’s ongoing campaign.

This inaction comes amid growing signs of Russian influence operations that have deeply penetrated Western politics and society. Dozens—if not hundreds or more—of Russian agents have been observed everywhere from English towns to Canadian universities. Many of these agents are low-level and appear to achieve little individually, but occasionally they penetrate institutions, companies, and governments. Meanwhile, a flood of money props up Moscow’s ambitions, including hundreds of millions of dollars the Kremlin is pouring into influencing elections, with some of that money covertly (and overtly) funneled to political parties and individual politicians. For many decades, Western societies have been deluged with every sort of influence imaginable.

While there have been some countermeasures since the start of Russia’s latest war—including the United States and European Union shutting off access to Russian media networks such as RT and Sputnik in early 2022—these small, ineffective steps are the equivalent of information war virtue signaling. They do not fundamentally change Western governments’ lack of any coherent approach to the many vectors of Russian disinformation and hybrid warfare. At the very moment when Kremlin narratives on social media are beginning to seriously undermine support for Ukraine, Western governments’ handle on the disinformation crisis seems to be getting weaker by the day.

https://foreignpolicy.com/2024/03/09/russia-putin-disinformation-propaganda-hybrid-war/

Renee
@PettyLupone

Wow. Seth Meyers absolutely nailed this rundown of trump’s greatest hits. 😅

[Twitter video]

“Presumptive GOP nominee for president, again, for a third time, despite the fact he is a twice-impeached, four-time criminal indictee and racist who’s been found liable for fraud and sexual abuse. Banned from doing business in the state of New York for three years. Owes over half a billion dollars in fines. Took millions from foreign governments while he was president. Tried to extort a foreign country to interfere in an election in 2020 and encouraged another to help him win in 2016,” Mr Meyers started, however, he did not stop there.

The host said that Mr Trump “actively undermined a nation’s response to a once-in-a-lifetime pandemic and let a deadly disease spiral out of control. Is about to go on trial for breaking campaign finance laws by paying hush money to cover up an affair during the 2016 campaign. Orchestrated a months-long coup attempt that culminated in a violent insurrection to disrupt the peaceful transfer of power and install him as an unelected dictator. Stole classified documents and obstructed attempts to get them back. Has never once won the popular vote and has been routinely rejected by a majority of Americans in election after election”.

At the point you may think Meyers has covered it all, he reminds us of many other bizarre Mr Trump moments.

Mr Trump “spews deranged conspiracy theories about everything from climate change to immigration, to vaccines to windmills. Glitches on three-syllable words, two-syllable words and one-syllable words, cheats at golf, can’t spell his own name, his wife’s name or the words ‘indicted’, ‘education’, ‘unprecedented’, ‘stolen’, ‘Denmark’. ‘Kentucky’ or ‘tap’,” Meyers said.

“And is on top of everything else, the single weirdest, most off-putting human being on the face of the f****** planet,” he concluded.

https://www.independent.co.uk/news/world/americas/us-politics/seth-meyers-trump-opening-monologue-b2508730.html

And this is the same planet Ted Cruz lives on, so that's saying something.

Euan MacDonald
@Euan_MacDonald

Meanwhile, in Moscow, one of the hangars of the Sukhoi aircraft design plant is on fire. Sukhoi makes/made the “Su-” and “Be-” brands of aircraft, like the Su-34 and the Beriev (Be) A-50.

[Twitter video]

Incredibly, the Russian air force has lost another one of its rare Beriev A-50M/U Mainstay radar early-warning planes. Video that circulated online on Friday reportedly depicts the A-50’s burning wreckage in Krasnodar Krai, in Russia just east of the Sea of Azov.

The location of the crash, at least 120 miles from the front line in southern Ukraine, could indicate the four-engine, 15-person radar plane either suffered a mechanical failure—or took a hit while operating closer to the front and tried to make it back to its base in Krasnodar before exploding.

For what it’s worth, the Ukrainian air force claimed it shot down the A-50 with assistance from the intelligence directorate in Kyiv.

Either way, it’s a devastating blow for the battered Russian air force. The air arm has lost, mostly to Ukrainian long-range surface-to-air missiles—American-made Patriot PAC-2s, in particular—nine of its best planes in just a month. Including an A-50 that the Ukrainians hit over the Sea of Azov in January.

https://www.forbes.com/sites/davidaxe/2024/02/23/incredibly-the-russian-air-force-has-lost-another-one-of-its-rare-a-50-radar-planes/

Russian actors conducted a cyber operation regarding Russia’s seizure of Avdiivka, likely aimed at generating panic in the Ukrainian information space and weakening Ukrainian morale. Ukraine’s State Special Communication Service reported on February 18 that Russian actors hacked well-known Ukrainian media outlets and posted fake information on their social media channels.[1] Ukrainian outlets Ukrainska Pravda, Apostrophe, Liga.net, and Telegraf reported on February 18 that their social media accounts were hacked and that hackers posted disinformation, specifically about the alleged widespread destruction of Ukrainian forces in Avdiivka.[2] The Russian Ministry of Defense (MoD) issued new claims about the Ukrainian withdrawal from Avdiivka on February 19 aimed at sowing resentment and distrust against the Ukrainian command, and other Russian sources amplified this information operation.[3]

[1] https://t.me/dsszzi_official/6758
[2] https://news.liga.net/politics/news/sayt-liganet-byl-vzloman-neizvestnye-opublikovali-rossiyskuyu-dezinformatsiyu-ob-avdeevke ; https://www.pravda.com.ua/news/2024/02/18/7442445/
[3] https://t.me/mod_russia/35759 ; https://t.me/prigozhin_2023_tg/7971 ; https://t.me/NeoficialniyBeZsonoV/33327

https://www.understandingwar.org/backgrounder/russian-offensive-campaign-assessment-february-19-2024

Henry Staunton had only been in post since 2022. But when he was sacked he says Kemi Badenoch told him: ‘Someone’s got to take the rap’

The first Henry Staunton knew of his imminent ousting as Post Office chairman was when he received a call from Sky News on a Saturday afternoon last month. He hadn’t even met Kemi Badenoch, the business secretary, but she phoned him shortly afterwards to confirm the government was sacking him.

According to Staunton, Badenoch did not apologise for the manner in which he discovered his fate. He said she referred to the Horizon scandal, which saw more than 900 sub-postmasters and others wrongly prosecuted between 1999 and 2015 based on flaws in the Post Office’s accounting software, and said: “Well, someone’s got to take the rap for this.”
...
He was more shocked by the attitude he encountered in Whitehall. “Early on, I was told by a fairly senior person to stall on spending on compensation and on the replacement of Horizon, and to limp, in quotation marks — I did a file note on it — limp into the election,” he said. “It was not an anti-postmaster thing, it was just straight financials. I didn’t ask, because I said, ‘I’m having no part of it – I’m not here to limp into the election, it’s not the right thing to do by postmasters.’ The word ‘limp’ gives you a snapshot of where they were.”

The government said: “We utterly refute these allegations. The government has sped up compensation to victims, and consistently encouraged postmasters to come forward with their claims. To suggest any actions or conversations happened to the contrary is incorrect. In fact, upon appointment, Mr Staunton was set concrete objectives, in writing, to focus on reaching settlements with claimants – clear evidence of the government’s intent. The secretary of state asked Henry Staunton to step down as chairman of the Post Office because a change in leadership was needed.”

https://www.thetimes.co.uk/article/post-office-chairman-interview-henry-staunton-ws5k6sh9p