beautifulthailand99

Momentum Shifts Toward Russia in Ukraine War, US Spies Warn - BLOOMBERG

I think Ukraine is making a grave mistake relying on the "West" for long-term support. By the very definition of democracy, the country does what the majority of its people want.

And after 2 years of fighting to an eroding stalemate, the majority of people in some countries might start to think it would be maybe better to build a new hospital, instead of providing another Patriot system to Ukraine. Government changes, and whatever promises were made before are forgotten.

On the other hand, if you make a deal with N. Korea, Iran or China, you can be damn sure they will deliver unless there is some kind of major revolution. This is the sad reality Ukraine has to fight with on top of everything else.

And then there's the Trump threat - not a penny more lurking in the wings. The Pope wasn't wrong that the best option Ukraine has is to negotiate as soon as possible. Over time, they only get weaker, their future is further crippled, their leverage worsens. The longer this drags on , the worse it will be for them. It is a choice between lose softer now and lose much harder later.

An authoritarian parallel economic universe is being born, one that is immune to sanctions and benefits the players at the expense of the US dollar hegemon. For better or worse, the American century is coming to an end and it's naive to think that the old orthodoxies still hold true.

https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2024-03-11/momentum-shifting-toward-russia-in-ukraine-war-us-spies-warn?leadSource=reddit_wall

Moscow has made continual, incremental battlefield gains since late 2023 and benefits from uncertainties about the future of military assistance from the US and allies, the top intelligence officials told members of the Senate Intelligence Committee in their annual presentation on the biggest “worldwide threats” facing the US.

“This deadlock plays to Russia’s strategic military advantages and is increasingly shifting the momentum in Moscow’s favor,” they said.

Central Intelligence Agency Director William Burns testified that “the Ukrainians are not running out of courage and tenacity. They’re running out of ammunition, and we’re running out of time to help them.”

FULL REPORT

https://www.intelligence.senate.gov/sites/default/files/hearings/unclassified_2024_ata_report_0.pdf

https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2024-03-11/momentum-shifting-toward-russia-in-ukraine-war-us-spies-warn?leadSource=reddit_wall

Hamas’s Persistence

Their joint report warned of the risk of regional escalation in the Israel-Hamas war. It said armed resistance to Israel by Hamas is likely to continue for years and “it is likely that the Gaza conflict will have a generational impact on terrorism,” they said. It was an implicit rejection of Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s pledge that Israel’s current offensive will wipe out the group that’s considered a terrorist organization by the US and European Union.

The report said US spy agencies assess that “Iranian leaders did not orchestrate nor had foreknowledge of the Hamas attack against Israel” on Oct. 7 that sparked months of fighting.

9 hours ago, rabas said:

 

Withdrawing to legally agreed on borders would be the right thing, wouldn't it?

 

Note, any reasonable Russian head of state, other than Putin's mafia, would have spent the last 20 years building Russia's economy and better relations with neighbors. Then Crimea wouldn't be an issue. Russia and Ukraine could use Crimea for mutual defense and benefit. Russia could even become a normal country mutually benefiting the world and its own citizens.

That ship like the Russian navy has long since been sunk. There won't be amity between Ukraine and Russia probably in my lifetime, but there could be a messy peace and secure redefined borders and a frozen conflict. The battlefield is deciding that not diplomacy and sadly for Ukraine they are losing that. Russia's never coming back to the West now it's thrown in its lot with China in a "partnership without limits" and this and other nefarious partners and the global south/BRICS will determine the arc of that trajectory, not what we would like or wish for.

Winston Churchill in 1939: “I cannot forecast to you the action of Russia. It is a riddle wrapped in a mystery inside an enigma; but perhaps there is a key. That key is Russian national interest.” (Source: Churchill Society)
"Russia is never as strong as she looks; Russia is never as weak as she looks." (Attributed to multiple individuals, including Winston Churchill.)

13 hours ago, rabas said:

 

"Well it's true continuing this war is just condemning 100s or thousands of young men on both sides to their slaughter. "

 

Got that right. Putin can end it any day of the week he wants. End of story.

 

Meanwhile back at the Black Sea, Russia continues losing its mighty navy to a country without one along with many embarrassing defeats as Putin's undefeatable weapons goes down to superior western technology. 

 

I doubt defeating Russia is the goal, just Putin. Russian generals must be very weary watching their heavy strategic losses and their reputation sink with their ships. 

 

It was reported that Russian Military Headquarters recently discovered a spy camera, which they turned over to police to investigate. The police gave it to Putin's FSB who said it was theirs. Such is the love between Putin and his military. The military is proud of their history defending the homeland and want nothing to do with Putin's  bloody war of conquest.

If Putin goes there won't be an effortless road to democratic liberalism, far from it  -what the last 2 years has shown us is the Putin is in total control and the siloviki will no doubt uphold legitimacy of that of his successor should there ever be one, who the current Kremlin watching consensus seems to favour Nikolai Patrushev, who is believed to be even more authoritarian than Putin. They all know that should they collectively falter and lose their grip rather like Prizoghin they lose their lives in short order. The Russian people are not a factor in this calculation - they will keep their heads down and their views in check.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nikolai_Patrushev

https://theweek.com/feature/briefing/1024619/putins-potential-successors

The 71-year-old has known Putin since they worked together in the KGB, and was a major strategist in both the 2014 and 2022 invasions of Ukraine. Last year Tatiana Stanovaya told The Washington Post that "His ideas form the foundations of decisions taken by Putin. He is one of the few figures Putin listens to." In a March 2023 interview with Rossiskaya Gazetta, Petrushev said that "Washington and London are again conniving with Nazism and fascism. They have no qualms about using Ukraine to set Europe or the entire world ablaze in a belief that they can get away with anything." Over the past year, Petrushev has traveled widely seeking to shore up Russia's diplomatic position, and has played a critical role in managing the alliance with China. Petrushev's 45-year-old son Dmitry, currently the agriculture minister, has also been a rumored Putin successor.

https://www.opendemocracy.net/en/odr/russia-security-services-siloviki-putin-regime/

Who supports this system, who protects it? The so-called security forces, known in Russia as siloviki, are the core and backbone of Vladimir Putin’s regime. Today, there are as many as five million people in the siloviki, including employees of the country’s state security, the police, the investigative committee (which is supposedly akin to the FBI in the US) and numerous other agencies, such as the National Guard, which employs more than 300,000 people and is only really tasked with dispersing protests.

Russia’s siloviki have long lived by their own rules. Very often, these rules are inaccessible and incomprehensible for both people outside the country and residents of Russia.

There are lots of fatal accidents between people who know each other with guns in Thailand, sadly. RIP

3 hours ago, transam said:

The OP, RR, is an anti-British Scot. Doesn't like the Monarchy or being governed from London, hence the thread.

He can't stop smouldering....

 

And you've left the country but still want to opine from afar about how we have gone to the dogs - hence the bitterness !

They have forced her out to be papped. Assuming this photo is true of course.

https://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-13183233/Kate-leaving-Windsor-Castle-Prince-William-Westminster-Abbey.html

Rumours are William is off with his significant other and wants out and there is an epic battle going on behind the scenes, but the heir is being protected so she is being thrown to the wolves. The best take I have read on it is this from the Buzz Feed royal reporter of 11 years standing now freelance who makes sense of the drama.

NiemanLab is an elite finishing school for talented journalists at Harvard. Nieman Fellows have collectively won 101 Pulitzer Prizes.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nieman_Foundation_for_Journalism

“This is just weird”: BuzzFeed News’ former royals reporter on Kate Middleton, Palace PR, and distrust in the media

https://www.niemanlab.org/2024/03/this-is-just-weird-buzzfeed-news-former-royals-reporter-on-kate-middleton-palace-press-and-distrust-in-the-media/

About 20 years ago I was walking outside the Siam Centre when I saw a homeless man lying on a bench with his todger out knocking one off watching the office girls going by. People clocked him but pretended to studiously ignored him. But that was before camera phones and social media and the resultant outcry.

Just now, Jeff the Chef said:

 

Having watched this, I must say it on first look, it was very fair to both sides.

It is indeed but hard hitting nevertheless with a lot of interviews with senior Israeli politicians that feel a lot of this is on Netanyahu - including his divide and rile and pay Hamas strategy. He is destroying Israel in the same way Trump will destroy the US.

.

2 minutes ago, Bkk Brian said:

But you are a Putin fan and self confessed flat earther

If smears and lies make you happy, then it would be churlish and uncharitable of me to disabuse you of your happiness.

1 minute ago, Bkk Brian said:

Oh the irony, look at the book they are promoting on the right of the graphic. "The Making of Hamas's Foreign Policy" A must read for the terrorists!

 

 

 

I've read Mein Kampf but that doesn't make a Nazi, just better informed.

If Israel cares about its survival and peace - they would declare a ceasefire, arrest Netanyahu and allowed unfettered humanitarian supplies into Gaza. Every Israeli politician in that vidoe from ABC says he is totally untrustworthy and can never be peace while he is PM.

No - client confidentiality !

I know from personal experience a lot of Thai overstayers are going down the refugee route at the moment. The system is so broken that the Home Office after an initial cursory case review allows them to work as well. He will no doubt have sent back vast amounts of money back to Thailand using the underground money exchange route which is prevalent in London and kept his gains away from confiscation by the authorities. With a good lawyer, he will get a minimal sentence and go back to Thailand a rich man. It is a well trodden path.

The most common excuse is they have borrowed money from gangster loan sharks in Thailand and are unable to go back at the risk of their lives.

1 minute ago, tgw said:

 

So what you mean is, because you don't know the exact exclusions, you go on to publicly defame Ukraine, despite the measure not having been decided yet and there being clear signs that not all convicts and prisoners will qualify.

I am not a propagandist for Ukraine or Russia for that matter, I found the reference on ARSS The British Army Rumour Service, a more pro-Ukraine forum you won't find.  And it was them that made the Wagner /Nazi allusion.

8 minutes ago, tgw said:

 

I think you totally overlooked purposely ignored the list of exclusions of the proposed draft bill to post your usual misrepresentation of facts with the goal of discrediting Ukraine.

 

In the very article you linked, it says:

 

In comparison, Russia took several times murders and cannibals into the army.

 

"Crimes against the state" is suitably vague. The other category is miliary personnel convicted of crimes whilst serving, and as there is no other link in English that I can find the point remains. Britain has never done that, and the US has to go back to the Confederacy for something similar.

9 hours ago, thaibeachlovers said:

If they are intending to use convict soldiers it doesn't present a convincing argument that Ukraine is doing well.

IMO only convicts that think the chance of avoiding being blown up is a better option than the prison they are incarcerated in will be willing to volunteer. I can see that in the case of Russian convicts in Siberia, but does Ukraine treat their prisoners as badly?

 

To any seasoned observer, that looks like the last roll of the dice. It is certainly nothing that any NATO army would ever contemplate. Giving arms to convicted sociopathic criminals and expecting it to go well. But it bears out what the Pope and Macron are highlighting that Ukraine is losing, and the front threatens to turn into a rout, and if they are recklessly gambling multiple Patriot batteries and getting them destroyed it points to a breakdown in competency as well.

8 minutes ago, Bkk Brian said:

Not correct, war crimes can be committed by individuals including leaders

 

Families of Israeli hostages file war crimes complaint against Hamas in The Hague

Families of Israeli hostages held by Hamas have taken a significant step in their pursuit of justice by filing a war crimes complaint against the terror organization at the International Criminal Court (ICC) in The Hague. This bold move, led by the Hostages and Missing Families Forum, marks a pivotal moment in the ongoing struggle to hold Hamas accountable for its brutal actions.

https://aseannow.com/topic/1319916-families-of-israeli-hostages-file-war-crimes-complaint-against-hamas-in-the-hague

 

The ICC can only investigate and prosecute “natural persons” who are over the age of 18. The ICC cannot investigate or prosecute governments, corporations, political parties, or rebel movements, but may investigate individuals who are members of groups.

ICC link source

 

 

Thanks for the clarification - I concede that point.

Don't bite the hand that feeds you.

 I am in blood / Stepped in so far, that, should I wade no more, / Returning were as tedious as go o'er

A brilliant documentary made at great risk to VICE inside Russia as to the truth of the situation. Well worth an hour of your time. Putin's invasion of Ukraine was a tragedy for Ukraine, for Russia and the whole world. There is no escaping that.