Oorlog in Oekraīne #920 Still no sign of Gerasimov.

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With Deal Close on Border and Ukraine, Republican Rifts Threaten to Kill Both
A divided G.O.P. coalesced behind a bit of legislative extortion: No Ukraine aid without a border crackdown. Now they are split over how large a price to demand, imperiling both initiatives.

Senator James Lankford, the Oklahoma Republican and staunch conservative, this week trumpeted the immigration compromise he has been negotiating with Senate Democrats and White House officials as one shaping up to be “by far, the most conservative border security bill in four decades.”

Speaker Mike Johnson, in contrast, sent out a fund-raising message on Friday denouncing the forthcoming deal as a Democratic con. “My answer is NO. Absolutely NOT,” his message said, adding, “This is the hill I’ll die on.”

The Republican disconnect explains why, with an elusive bipartisan bargain on immigration seemingly as close as it has been in years on Capitol Hill, the prospects for enactment are grim. It is also why hopes for breaking the logjam over sending more U.S. aid to Ukraine are likely to be dashed by hard-line House Republicans.

The situation encapsulates the divide cleaving the Republican Party. On one side are the right-wing MAGA allies of former President Donald J. Trump, an America First isolationist who instituted draconian immigration policies while in office. On the other is a dwindling group of more mainstream traditionalists who believe the United States should play an assertive role defending democracy on the world stage.

The two wings coalesced last fall around a bit of legislative extortion: They would only agree to President Biden’s request to send about $60 billion more to Ukraine for its fight against Russian aggression if he agreed to their demands to clamp down on migration at the United States border with Mexico. But now, they are at odds about how large of a price to demand.

Hard-right House Republicans, who are far more dug in against aid to Ukraine, have argued that the bipartisan border compromise brokered by their counterparts in the Senate is unacceptable. And they bluntly say they do not want to give Mr. Biden the opportunity in an election year to claim credit for cracking down on unauthorized immigration.

Instead, with Mr. Trump agitating against the deal from the campaign trail, they are demanding a return to more severe immigration policies that he imposed, which stand no chance of passing the Democrat-controlled Senate. Those include a revival of the Remain in Mexico policy, under which migrants seeking to enter the United States were blocked and made to stay elsewhere while they waited to appear in immigration court to plead their cases.

While Senate G.O.P. leaders have touted the emerging agreement as a once-in-a-generation opportunity for a breakthrough on the border, hard-right House members have dismissed it as the work of establishment Republicans out of touch with the G.O.P. base.

“Let’s talk about Mitch McConnell — he has a 6 percent approval rating,” Representative Marjorie Taylor Greene, Republican of Georgia, said of the Senate minority leader. “He wouldn’t be the one to be listening to, making deals on the border.”

She said that after Mr. Trump’s decisive win in the Iowa caucuses, “It’s time for all Republicans, Senate and the House, to get behind his policies.”

As for the proposed aid to Ukraine, Ms. Greene is threatening to oust Mr. Johnson from the speakership if he brings it to the floor.

“My red line is Ukraine,” she said, expressing confidence that the speaker would heed her threat. “I’m making it very clear to him. We will not see it on the House floor — that is my expectation.”

The situation is particularly fraught for Mr. Johnson, the novice House speaker whose own sympathies lie with the far right but who is facing immense institutional pressures — from Mr. Biden, Democrats in Congress and his fellow Republicans in the Senate — to embrace a deal pairing border policy changes with aid to Ukraine.

Mr. Johnson has positioned himself as a Trump loyalist, quickly endorsing the former president after winning the gavel, and said that he has spoken regularly to the former president about the Senate immigration deal and everything else. After infuriating hard-right Republicans on Thursday by pushing through a short-term government funding bill to avert a shutdown, the speaker has little incentive to enrage them again and defy the wishes of Mr. Trump, who has disparaged the Senate compromise.

“I do not think we should do a Border Deal, at all, unless we get EVERYTHING needed to shut down the INVASION,” Mr. Trump wrote on social media this week.

Democrats already have agreed to substantial concessions in the talks, including making it more difficult for migrants to claim asylum; expanding detention and expulsion authorities; and shutting down the intake of migrants when attempted crossings reach a level that would overwhelm detention facilities — around 5,000 migrants a day.

But far-right Republicans have dismissed the compromise out of hand, saying the changes would still allow many immigrants to enter the country each year without authorization.

Election-year politics is playing a big role. Representative Bob Good, Republican of Virginia and the chairman of the hard-right House Freedom Caucus, said passing the Senate bill would give “political cover” to Mr. Biden for his failures at the border.

“Democrats want to look like they care about the border, then run out the clock so Biden wins re-election,” Mr. Good said. “It would be terrible for the country to give political cover to the facilitators of the border invasion.”

Representative Tim Burchett, Republican of Tennessee, said that while Mr. Johnson broke with the right on federal spending because he feared a government shutdown, “I think on the immigration issue, there’s more unity.”

Senator John Thune of South Dakota, the No. 2 Senate Republican, warned that the immigration compromise was a “unique opportunity” that would not be available to Republicans next year, even if they were to win majorities in both chambers of Congress and win back the White House.

“The Democrats will not give us anything close to this if we have to get 60 votes in the U.S. Senate in a Republican majority,” he said.

Many mainstream House Republicans believe that Mr. Johnson would be making a terrible mistake if he heeded the advice of the most far-right voices and refused to embrace an immigration deal. They argue that doing so would squander an opportunity to win important policy changes and the political boost that would come with showing that Republicans can govern.

“Big city mayors are talking about the same thing that Texas conservatives are talking about,” said Representative Patrick T. McHenry, Republican of North Carolina, a close ally of former Speaker Kevin McCarthy. “Take the moment, man. Take the policy win, bank it, and go back for more. That is always the goal.”

But for some Republicans, taking the policy win is less important than continuing to have a political issue to rail against in an election year.

“It’s worse than doing nothing to give political cover for a sham border security bill that does nothing to actually secure the border,” Mr. Good said.

Mr. Burchett, one of the eight Republicans who voted to oust Mr. McCarthy, rolled his eyes when asked about Mr. McHenry’s entreaties not to make the perfect the enemy of the good.

“McHenry’s leaving,” he said of the congressman, who has announced he will not run for re-election next year.

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Op zaterdag 20 januari 2024 07:11 schreef Elizium het volgende:
Gaat niet gebeuren. Hoop dat wilders dit op pakt. Heb zelf wel genoeg van het vvd. Hopen op beter

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NATO announces "major investment" in 155-mm ammo procurement
Next Tuesday, 23 January, Jens Stoltenberg, the NATO Secretary General, and Stacy Cummings, General Manager of the NATO Support and Procurement Agency (NSPA), will sign a contract for the purchase of 155-mm artillery ammunition.

Source: European Pravda

Details: NATO announced on 19 January that the planned agreement is "a major new investment in artillery ammunition".

NATO did not disclose any details of the agreement, merely announcing that statements will be made by the Secretary General and the General Manager of NSPA.

Since the start of Russia's full-scale invasion of Ukraine, Western powers, including NATO members, have been faced with a shortage of artillery ammunition, with thousands of shells being fired on the battlefield every day.

Western estimates state that Ukraine uses up to 10,000 155-mm artillery shells every day. NATO Secretary General Jens Stoltenberg warned in February of last year that Kyiv was burning through shells much faster than the West can produce them.

The Alliance is pushing member countries to overcome protectionist tendencies and agree on a single standard of artillery ammunition in order to boost production.

Given the vast amounts of 155-mm artillery shells being expended in the course of Russia's full-scale invasion of Ukraine, the US intends to boost production to 100,000 units per month by 2025.

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Heating mains break in freezing Russia's Novosibirsk, emergency declared
The administration of Russian Novosibirsk has introduced a state of emergency in the city due to a series of major municipal accidents, and heating points have been opened in the city as temperatures dropped below 20 degrees below zero.

Source: Andrei Travnikov, Governor of Novosibirsk Oblast, on Telegram; Russian service BBC News

Quote from Travnikov: "Unfortunately, events in the heating system emergency zone of the Leninskyi district are unfolding according to a negative scenario. A new pipeline defect has been discovered on Petropavlovskaya Street during the system refill.

This marks the third rupture in this city block within the last day. Consequently, the supply of the heat carrier is impeded, affecting the restoration of normal heating in buildings located in the Leninskyi district.

In response, an emergency meeting of the regional emergency commission was convened. A decision has been made to declare a state of emergency in the city of Novosibirsk. The management of the emergency response task force has been elevated to the regional level."

Details: On the night of 18-19 January, the fourth heating network accident within a week occurred in Novosibirsk's Leninskyi district. Over 100 buildings had been left without heat due to a rupture in an intra-quarter pipe on Titova Street.

In the past 8 days, the city experienced two major accidents on main heating networks, affecting virtually the entire left bank with thousands of multi-apartment buildings and a population of at least half a million people, as reported by BBC News.

Following the first accident on 11 January, nearly 2,400 buildings were reportedly affected by the emergency shutdown, according to the city administration. Initially, the Siberian Generating Company, linked to Russian billionaire Andrey Melnichenko under sanctions, reported heating disconnections for only 104 buildings.

The second accident in the Leninskyi District on 17 January resulted in the same buildings being disconnected again. The company then attributed the cause of the accident to a "defect" in a pipeline laid in 1963.

Over the last 10 days, in several quarters on the left bank, heating was provided for only a few hours. Residents share photos on social media showing indoor temperatures around 5 to 10 degrees above zero.

During these days, Novosibirsk experiences nighttime temperatures not exceeding 23 degrees below zero. Meanwhile, the city administration has asked residents to "limit the use of heating devices" in buildings with "old wiring."

Following the left bank accidents, ruptures in heating networks began occurring on the right bank as well. On 18 January, in the Oktyabrsky district, 14 multi-apartment buildings were left without heat due to a rupture. On 19 January, a rupture occurred in the city centre, affecting at least 15 buildings.

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Russian A-50 appears over Sea of Azov, tempting fate – Ukrainian Air Force spokesman
A Russian Beriev A-50 long-range radar detection aircraft was detected over the waters of the Azov Sea on the morning of 19 January.

Source: Yurii Ihnat, spokesman for the Ukrainian Air Force, during the national joint 24/7 newscast

Quote: "It's not often that we have a relatively calm night in the airspace, free from aerial attack threats such as drones, especially considering how accustomed we’ve become to seeing them almost every night during the autumn and winter. This night is one of the few without reported incidents...

After three significant enemy attacks, we’re in a sort of lull, but that doesn’t mean we should become complacent in any way.

Just a moment ago, the map (the Virazh-Tablet program – ed.) was empty, and now there are 5-6 aerial targets, including the infamous A-50, testing their luck in the Azov Sea waters.

Yesterday, we discussed what would happen after the destruction of the A-50: another one would take its place. This is unsurprising, as Russia has more of these aircraft.

So there's the A-50, a fighter jet closer to Rostov, and tactical-level drones monitoring the front line [currently being detected]."

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Russia Jails Disabled Pilot 8 Years for Seeking to Join Ukraine Army
A Siberian court has sentenced a disabled and retired airline pilot to more than eight years in prison on charges of trying to join the Ukrainian army, the human rights project Perviy Otdel reported Friday.

Igor Pokusin, 61, was born in southwestern Ukraine’s port city of Odesa but today lives in Russia’s republic of Khakassia, over 3,000 kilometers east of Moscow.

He has openly expressed opposition to Moscow’s 2022 invasion of Ukraine, but he maintains that he has never sought to fight for Ukraine.

Perviy Otdel notes that authorities had illegally wiretapped Pokusin’s telephone conversations with friends and relatives in Ukraine, in which he discussed providing humanitarian assistance to Ukrainians.

Defense lawyers argue that authorities had used torture to obtain a confession from Pokusin, who has two prosthetic joints and a stent implanted in his heart.

Khakassia’s Supreme Court found the retiree guilty of vandalism and “seeking to commit treason,” handing him eight years and one month in a maximum security prison.

Pervyi Otdel, which specializes in cases under investigation by the Federal Security Service (FSB), says Pokusin is among the first to be convicted of treason with the purpose of defection.

Prosecutors had requested seven years and one month in prison for him.

Pokusin’s vandalism charges relate to a March 2022 incident in which security cameras captured him throwing paint at the pro-war symbol “Z” and writing “Glory to Ukraine” on the wall of a local museum.

Authorities detained him in July 2022 when he tried to flee Russia for neighboring Kazakhstan.

Russia’s veteran human rights organization Memorial has recognized Pokusin as a political prisoner.

“We have great doubts that he really tried to join the Ukrainian Armed Forces,” Memorial has said. “The age and illness of the former pilot don’t allow us to consider his intentions seriously.”

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Ukraine 'Blackjack' Hackers Hit Jackpot in Russia
A Ukrainian hacking group linked to the country's main spy agency has stolen construction plans for more than 500 Russian military sites, Ukraine's military intelligence agency, the GUR, said Friday.

The group, dubbed "Blackjack", which has previously been linked to the Security Service of Ukraine (SBU), hacked into a Russian state enterprise involved in construction work for President Vladimir Putin's military. Blackjack was able to obtain more than 1.2 terabytes of classified data. Newsweek has contacted Russia's Ministry of Defense for comment by email.

This data includes the maps of more than 500 Russian military bases across Russia and in regions in Ukraine that Putin has occupied. This includes military headquarters for the Russian Army, air-defense installations, and weapons arsenals.

"Critically important information about Russian military facilities that have already been completed, are at the stage of construction/reconstruction, or are planned for construction, was transferred to the Security and Defense Forces of Ukraine," the GUR said on its website.

The GUR added that, as part of Blackjack's cyber operation, all the stolen data was deleted from seven Russian servers. Ukraine's news agency Interfax said the hackers also disabled 150 computers.