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Litouwen ontkent opmerkelijke claim uit Belarus: geen drone-aanval uitgevoerd
https://nos.nl/artikel/25(...)ne-aanval-uitgevoerd

Belarus claimt een aanval met drones uit buurland Litouwen te hebben afgeslagen. Dat meldt het Russische persbureau TASS op basis van de KGB, de veiligheidsdienst van Belarus. NAVO-lid Litouwen ontkent dat er een aanval heeft plaatsgevonden.

Veel details geeft Belarus niet, volgens het hoofd van de KGB om de veiligheid van zijn land niet in gevaar te brengen. Hij zegt alleen dat er gevechtsdrones vanaf Litouws grondgebied op Minsk en omgeving zijn afgestuurd. Wie daarvoor verantwoordelijk zou zijn, wordt in het TASS-bericht niet gemeld. Bewijs voor de aanval wordt daar evenmin genoemd.

Een woordvoeder van het Litouwse leger bezweert dat zijn land geen aanval heeft uitgevoerd of dat van plan is. Een aanval vanaf NAVO-grondgebied zou een flinke escalati

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Op donderdag 25 april 2024 07:04 schreef Delenlill het volgende:

Update from Ukraine | USA sends everything! ATACMS delivered. Putin scared for Kerch bridge

24 Apr: Good News. Ukrainians RETAKE THE INITIATIVE AND GAIN GROUND | War in Ukraine Explained

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Op donderdag 25 april 2024 17:28 schreef michaelmoore het volgende:

[..]
het is tijd dat die brug eraan gaat

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Op donderdag 25 april 2024 17:30 schreef oheng het volgende:

[..]
Kweenie hoor, maar volgens mij is ATACMS niet geschikt voor het opblazen van bruggen?

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Op donderdag 25 april 2024 18:01 schreef Ulx het volgende:

[..]
Raak een langzaam rijdende trein

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Op donderdag 25 april 2024 18:13 schreef Ulx het volgende:
[ x ]

Niets te zien....

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Op donderdag 25 april 2024 19:31 schreef AFA2022 het volgende:
Heeft het Westen uberhaupt raketten die de Kerch Bridge kunnen mollen en zoja waarom zijn die nog niet geleverd? Is toch bizar dat die brug nog overeind staat....

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Op donderdag 25 april 2024 20:04 schreef Cilantro het volgende:
[ x ]
👀

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Op donderdag 25 april 2024 20:04 schreef Cilantro het volgende:
[ x ]
👀

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Op donderdag 25 april 2024 20:13 schreef Ulx het volgende:
[ x ]

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Op donderdag 25 april 2024 20:03 schreef Ulx het volgende:

[..]
Ja hoor. Er werd vorig jaar nog een schip opgeblazen dat pal naast die brug lag. In een haven bewaakt door een S400 batterij. Als Oekra�ne echt wil is dat bouwwerk zo weer een flinke tijd afgesloten. En met een beetje geluk definitief. Maar ze gaven zelf al aan dat de prioriteit niet meer zo hoog is. Er gaan sinds vorige zomer alleen maar een paar passagierstreinen en ��n goederentrein per dag over die brug. Munitie gaat nu via een andere route. Het is een leuke PR coup. En ik denk dat ze wachten tot er wat meer luchtafweer staat. Want reken maar dat Rusland heel erg veel raketten gaat afschieten als die brug in puin ligt.

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Op donderdag 25 april 2024 20:48 schreef oheng het volgende:

[..]
Ik denk dat Oekraine het wel prima vindt dat rusland gedwongen is zoveel AA bij die brug neer te zetten.

Als Oekraine de Kerch brug vernietigd, komt al die AA ook weer vrij.

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Op donderdag 25 april 2024 20:49 schreef Ulx het volgende:
Ik lees net dat er honderden tot duizend atacms in het nieuwe pakket zouden zitten. Boven de al geleverde 100 dus.

Het kan psyops zijn. Want mogen ze ineens wel ingezet worden op doelen in dat land omdat Rusland met hun raketten en zware bommen te ver gaat....

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China hid a ship that was delivering weapons to Russia

It has become known that China is hiding a Russian ship that is under sanctions because of the transportation of weapons from North Korea to Russia.

This was evidenced by satellite photos, Reuters reported.

Analysts of the British center, the Royal United Services Institute (RUSI) managed to establish this. We are talking about the Russian ship Angara.

This cargo ship has transported thousands of containers of ammunition from the DPRK to Russia since late summer 2023.

There have been at least 11 weapons shipments between the port of Rajin and the Russian ports.

RUSI analysts constantly track its movements while monitoring North Korea’s evasion of sanctions.

The Angara has been at a Chinese shipyard in Zhejiang province since February.

“The ship’s presence in a Chinese port underscores the challenges faced by the United States and its allies as they try to cut off Russian military and economic support,” the publication wrote.

Earlier, the US publicly accused China of providing critical military components to Russia.

U.S. Secretary of State Anthony Blinken said that China shares dual-use goods that have helped Russia rebuild its defense industry.

Russia also receives from the Chinese side technology for cruise missiles and microelectronics, which are used in Russia to produce fuel for weapons.

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Russia says Polish discussion on hosting US nuclear weapons is dangerous
Russia said on Thursday that Poland was playing a "very dangerous game" by considering the possibility of hosting U.S. nuclear weapons.

Polish President Andrzej Duda said on Thursday he had invited Prime Minister Donald Tusk for talks on May 1 about the possibility of nuclear weapons from NATO states being deployed in Poland.

Duda has reiterated his position that Poland would be ready for such a possibility, prompting Tusk to say he would like a clarification from the president.

Russian state news agency RIA quoted Deputy Foreign Minister Sergei Ryabkov as saying that such discussions were provocative.

"If they follow the path of further escalation - and this is how the discussions can be assessed, these so far verbal games with nuclear weapons - then a further round of tension will occur. And in general, this game is very dangerous, its consequences may be hard to predict," he said.

The war in Ukraine has plunged relations between Russia and the West to their most dangerous point since the Cuban Missile Crisis of 1962, when the United States and the Soviet Union came close to a nuclear confrontation.

Russia last year said it was deploying tactical nuclear weapons to Belarus, which borders Poland, as a signal of deterrence to the West. Belarusian leader Alexander Lukashenko said on Thursday that dozens were now in place.

Russian Foreign Ministry spokeswoman Maria Zakharova said any U.S. nuclear missiles in Poland could become targets in the event of a Russia-NATO war.

"It is not difficult to assume that if American nuclear weapons appear on Polish territory, the corresponding objects will immediately join the list of legitimate targets for destruction in the case of direct military conflict with NATO," she told reporters at her weekly briefing.

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Ukraine Jails Couple for Helping Russia Strike Hospital
Prosecutors have opened thousands of cases into alleged collaboration with Moscow's forces since Russia invaded the country in February 2022.

Ukraine said Thursday it had sentenced a husband and wife to 15 years in prison for providing information to Russia that allowed its forces to launch a rocket strike at a hospital.

Prosecutors have opened thousands of cases into alleged collaboration with Moscow's forces since Russia invaded the country in February 2022.

The Security Services of Ukraine (SBU) also said Thursday it had detained a former soldier whom it accused of helping Russia plot strikes in the northeastern Kharkiv region.

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The husband and wife -- sentenced on treason charges -- were accused of providing information on Ukrainian army positions, including "places of inpatient treatment for wounded Ukrainian soldiers," the SBU said in a statement.

"It was at their direction that the occupiers shelled a local hospital," in the southern city of Kherson, it said.

They were allegedly recruited by Russia's FSB security service after responding to an advert in a Russian Telegram channel offering payments in exchange for intelligence on Ukrainian positions.

Russian forces shelled a number of medical facilities in Kherson after Ukraine retook control of the southern city in November 2022.

The SBU also said Thursday it had detained a former serviceman accused of helping Russian forces "coordinate" attacks on the northeastern Kharkiv region.

It said the suspect, who faces up to eight years in prison, had tried to flee to Russian-held territory.

"He was encouraged to take these steps by his parents, who live in occupied territory," a statement read.

Ukrainian forces also said they had repelled a Russian sabotage group in the northeastern Sumy region.

The Russian forces were pushed back with artillery and mortar fire, it added.

Moscow's troops entered the Sumy region after the Kremlin launched the invasion of Ukraine in February 2022, but were pushed back by Ukrainian forces.

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Russia and Ukraine announce exchange of displaced children in conflicting accounts
Russia and Ukraine both announced the exchange of children displaced by the war following talks in Doha on Wednesday but gave different versions of events, statements by officials in both countries reveal.

Russia’s Children’s Rights Commissioner Maria Lvova-Belova said that 29 Ukrainian children in Russia would return to their families in Ukraine and 11 Russian children would return from Ukraine to Russia following the first in-person talks between the two countries on displaced children since the start of the war.

Lvova-Belova added that she had requested the assistance of Qatar’s Minister for International Cooperation Lolwah Al-Khater in returning eight children currently in the European Union to their families in Russia on what she hailed as a “momentous day”. She did not give any explanation as to how any of the children had been separated from their families.

Ukraine’s Human Rights Ombudsman Dmytro Lubinets, however, denied Lvova-Belova’s claims that Russia and Ukraine had held direct talks, saying that negotiations between the two countries were being conducted “through the mediation of Qatar and Qatari diplomats”.

Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky also contradicted Lvova-Belova’s claims, saying that a group of 16 Ukrainian children who had been “forcibly deported to Russia” would be reunited with their families in Ukraine following a meeting between Lubinets and Al-Khater.

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^{Ukrainian and Qatari officials with Ukrainian children in Doha, Qatar, 24 April 2024. Photo: Ombudsman of Ukraine}

Russia has been repeatedly accused of forcibly transferring children from Ukraine to its territory and “Russifying” them in practices the Council of Europe said were tantamount to “genocide”.

In March 2023, the International Criminal Court issued an arrest warrant for Lvova-Belova and Russian President Vladimir Putin for their role in the “war crime of unlawful deportation of children” from occupied areas of Ukraine to Russia.

Kyiv estimates that almost 20,000 Ukrainian children have been deported to Russia since the start of the full-scale war, with fewer than 400 having returned.

Following Wednesday’s talks, Lvova-Belova said that “talk of thousands of ‘deported’ children” was “nothing more than a myth”. In 2023, she had claimed that Russia had “accommodated” over 700,000 Ukrainian children since the start of its invasion in 2022.

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Russia is lying about "Polish plans to annex part of Ukraine" – Polish foreign minister
Polish Foreign Minister Radosław Sikorski says Russian propaganda leaders are trying to trigger a conflict between Poles and Ukrainians, including by making claims about "Poland's plans to annex Ukrainian territories".

Source: Sikorski speaking in the Polish Sejm (lower house of the parliament) on Poland's foreign policy priorities, as reported by European Pravda, citing Polish radio station RMF FM

Details: Maintaining the European Union's comprehensive support for Ukraine's independence, including its efforts to join the EU, will be a priority of the Polish government's European policy, Sikorski said.

"Russia is lying about Poland's alleged plans to annex part of Ukraine. Donbas is Ukraine; Crimea is Ukraine. Lviv, Volyn, and the former Eastern Halychyna are also Ukraine. So I’m repeating this so that the Kremlin can hear it: Lviv is Ukraine," the foreign minister said, pronouncing the name Lviv in the Ukrainian rather than the Polish way.

Sikorski stressed that Russian leaders and propagandists want to push Poles into a conflict with Ukrainians.

He noted that Poland has joined the G7 declaration on mutual long-term commitments to Ukraine to increase the effectiveness of its actions. He emphasised that as a neighbouring country and a military, humanitarian and energy hub, Poland wants to shape these commitments together rather than watch from the sidelines while others do so.

The minister said Polish companies should play an important role in rebuilding Ukraine's economy and infrastructure. He noted that the position of commissioner for Ukraine’s recovery has been created to support their efforts.

Background:
• Earlier, Radosław Sikorski said that after two years of Russia's unprovoked war against Ukraine, both sides are exhausted.
• Opinion polls show that over 70% of Poles would not want Polish troops or troops from other NATO countries' to be involved in the Russo-Ukrainian war.

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Ukrainian Forces Foil Russian Garage-Styled Tank

A Russian tank with a giant anti-drone superstructure tried to storm the positions near Krasnohorivka.

Footage of an unusual combat vehicle was released by Serhii Sternenko.

A colossal sheet metal structure was installed on the Russian tank, supplemented by an electronic warfare system to protect against attack drones. Mine trawls were also attached to the tank to clear the track.

Following a style previously observed in Russian operations in Syria, this tank led a column of several IFVs as they advanced to break through Ukrainian positions.

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Підбитий російський танк під Красногорівкою [25 квітня 2024]

“It makes you laugh, not forgetting that it’s still effective,” says the blogger.

However, the Ukrainian military was still able to stop this tank. Judging by the lack of an anti-mine roller, it encountered minefields during its advance.

The Russians had already made several such attacks with Syrian-style updated vehicles. Similar vehicle was observed recently in Krasnohorivka (Donetsk region) on April 16, 2024.

The Russian military is also beginning to modernize wheeled equipment, such as the Z-STS “Akhmat”. The armored vehicle was hung with metal nets covering it all around. The structure has only one entrance in the form of a door, which is located in the rear part. So the only way to get in and out of the barbecue is to go through the door or crawl under the structure.

З-СТС «Ахмат»

Recall that at the beginning of the month, the Ukrainian military neutralized a tank equipped with a powerful EW system that prevented the operation of drones using strike drones with a “machine vision” system.

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Russian teenager sentenced to 3.5 years in prison for anti-war posts
A military court in the city of Chita in Russia’s Far East has sentenced a teenager to 3.5 years in prison for operating anti-war Telegram channels, the Net Freedoms Project said Thursday.

Lyubov Lizunova, 17, was found guilty on two separate charges of calling for extremism and terrorism for posting news about “direct anti-war action”.

A second defendant in the case, 19-year-old Alexander Snezhkov, was sentenced to five years in prison. A third — 23-year-old Vladislav Vishnevsky — was given one and a half years of community service.

Lizunova, Snezhkov and Vishnevsky were first detained in October 2022 on suspicion of painting “Death to the regime!” on a garage wall in Chita and operating two Telegram channels that published information on anti-war guerrilla activities and animal rights.

The trio were initially released from custody and had their movements strictly limited. However, local news website Chita.Ru wrote in March 2023 that Snezhkov and Lizunova had been apprehended while attempting to leave the country. Snezhkov was placed in pretrial detention and Lizunova under house arrest. All three were registered as terrorists and extremists.

Lizunova was placed in pretrial detention earlier this month. Lawyer Yevgeny Smirnov told reporters at the time that a minor can only be transferred from house arrest to pretrial detention when there has been a change in circumstances, such as the violation of previously imposed restrictions or new criminal charges.

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Ukraine Rolls Out CRAB Wheeled Combat Unmanned Platform

Ukraine has developed the CRAB combat wheeled unmanned platform, available in combat and medevac variants, according to Militarnyi.

Tested in March 2024, the platform obtained certification for compliance with State Standards of Ukraine.

It was codified according to NATO standards through the BRAVE1 cluster for military technology development.

The wheel platform is presented in CRAB-M (Military) and CRAB-LS (Life Saver) variants.

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A Military variant is designed for reconnaissance and strike operations. A combat module with the ability to install a PKT machine gun with 650 rounds of ammunition and RPG-7 or RPV-16 grenade launchers is attached to it. In addition, the platform can do remote mining and demining.

The platform has a combat radius of 1.5 kilometers, a range of 25 kilometers, and can operate continuously for 4 hours.

The CRAB length is 1480 mm, the width is 1080 mm, the height of the upper base is 580 mm (1250 mm with a module), and the clearance is 300 mm. The load capacity of the platform reaches 150 kilograms.

The set-up/tear-down time of the platform is 5 and 7 minutes, respectively, and its full weight of 330 kilograms makes it possible to transport it in pickups, trailers, and small trucks.

Life Saver is a modification that is designed for logistics and medical tasks. According to its technical characteristics, it almost does not differ from the combat brother: the developers have increased the dimensions and load capacity.

� оботизована платформа CRAB

The total weight of the medical and logistic version is 440 kilograms, it can take on board a payload weighing up to 270 kilograms.

On board, it can accommodate two seated or three lying people. It is 2000 mm long, 1080 mm wide, 780 mm upper base height, and 300 mm clearance.

Platforms in both versions are controlled by a remote control or a special connected remote control. The operator can control the platform using FPV glasses.

Ground drones in the Defense Forces of Ukraine
Recently, Militarnyi reported that the soldiers of the 63rd separate mechanized brigade showed the combat use of a kamikaze ground drone.

A Ukrainian drone under the control of the operator attacked the positions of the Russian occupiers. The movement and combat use of a ground drone were observed by the Defense Forces military helicopter. The video showed the Russians moving in the trenches between the dugouts.

At this time, the Ukrainian wheeled drone arrives at Russian positions, stops over the shelter for infantry, and explodes.

Earlier, the same brigade showed the combat use of a ground drone for remote mining.

Then the drone drove up to the Russian positions, unloaded two anti-tank mines, and quietly turned back, after which a blow-up occurred.

The Ukrainian ground kamikaze drone Ratel S blew up a bridge in the village of Ivanovskoye in the Donetsk region to complicate the logistics of the invaders in the Bakhmut direction. The video shows the explosives-laden remote-controlled platform reaching the target and exploding, hitting the bridge’s structures.

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Russia’s War on Ukraine Has Inflicted Catastrophic Damage on the Environment, Here Are the Numbers

Ukraine’s forests lie ravaged, its land riddled with landmines, and a flooded territory three times the size of Washington D.C.

Russia’s war leaves Ukraine with a catastrophic environmental bill.

A new report by the General Staff of the Ukrainian Armed Forces paints a grim picture of the environmental catastrophe unfolding due to Russia’s war in Ukraine. The large-scale invasion has inflicted immense damage on the country’s natural resources and ecosystems.

Here are the numbers.

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174,000 square kilometers of Ukrainian territory have been contaminated with explosive objects, which is equal to the combined area of Austria and Hungary.

This widespread contamination poses a serious threat to civilians and hinders reconstruction efforts.

Ukraine’s vast forests have also borne the brunt of the war.

3 million hectares, roughly the size of Moldova, have been damaged by fighting.

Fires, artillery bombardments, and military maneuvers have all contributed to the destruction of these vital ecological zones.

The attack on the Kakhovka Hydroelectric Power Plant by Russian forces in June 2023 has resulted in a major environmental disaster.

The dam breach flooded a massive 620 square kilometers of land — an area equivalent to three Washingtons, D.C.

The flooding has displaced wildlife, disrupted freshwater supplies, and caused widespread damage to agricultural land.

The war’s impact extends beyond the immediate destruction.

It’s estimated to have caused the release of 150 million tons of greenhouse gases, equivalent to Bulgaria’s annual emissions for three years.

These ecologically sensitive zones face an uncertain future under occupation, with potential for further damage to wildlife habitats and biodiversity:

Adding to the environmental toll, Russian forces have occupied over 500 Ukrainian protected areas, including 10 national parks, 8 nature reserves, and 2 biosphere reserves.

This staggering figure underscores the severe economic consequences that will linger long after the war ends.

The total environmental damage inflicted by the war is estimated to exceed $63 billion USD, surpassing the GDP of countries like Estonia.

The immense economic repercussions, with environmental damages exceeding the GDP of entire nations, should serve as a sobering reminder of the urgent need for global intervention to mitigate and address the environmental fallout of war.

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The European Parliament demands that the AfD reveal ties with the Kremlin
The resolution, adopted by the European Parliament on April 25, condemns the Kremlin's attempts to interfere in and disrupt democratic processes, and calls for those involved in such destructive actions to be brought to justice. Source: European Parliament website

In this resolution, supported by 429 votes in favor, the European Parliament expresses indignation that some deputies received compensation for spreading Russian propaganda and collaborated with the pro-Russian media outlet Voice of Europe.

The Parliament calls on EU leaders to more actively counteract pro-Russian influence not only in EU institutions, but also in their own countries, especially given the approaching elections to the European Parliament on June 6-9, 2024.

Separately, members of the European Parliament are expressing alarm over suspicions of receiving financial support from Kremlin agents from the leading MEP from the Alternative for Germany Maximilian Kra, as well as the arrest of his assistant in Germany on suspicion of spying for China.

“Parliament insists that Alternative for Germany immediately publicly disclose its financial relationships, especially with the Kremlin, and also disclose the purpose and exact amount of all payments coming from sources associated with the Kremlin,” the resolution said.

In addition, the European Parliament proposes to take measures to counter foreign interference from other countries, not just Russia, and to include pro-Kremlin media in the future 14th package of sanctions against Russia.

Recall that on Monday, federal prosecutors arrested two men and one woman suspected of having ties to Chinese intelligence and spying for China. These two cases are not related to each other.

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429 votes in favour, 27 against with 48 abstentions.

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GOP critics vow no more US aid for Ukraine
Conservative skeptics of funding the war in Ukraine predict the bill signed into law this week will be the last major U.S. aid package for Kyiv that passes.

The GOP critics of the package acknowledge that Senate Republican Leader Mitch McConnell (Ky.) won this round of the debate by pushing $61 billion for Ukraine through Congress.

But they argue that if President Biden comes back with another request, he’ll go away empty-handed.

“If Ukraine thinks that it’s getting another $60 billion supplemental out of the United States Congress, there’s no way,” said Sen. JD Vance (R-Ohio), who led the opposition among Senate Republicans to pouring tens of billions of more dollars into the war effort.

National security adviser Jake Sullivan said Wednesday the new military aid package for Ukraine will last through the end of the year, raising the prospect that a new infusion of weapons and funding may be needed quickly in 2025.

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That could make Ukraine’s war with Russia, and U.S. support for Kyiv, a major issue in the presidential race between Biden and former President Trump and in the battles for the House and Senate.

The presidential and House races are both considered toss-ups, while Republicans are widely seen as favorites to win the Senate majority, given a highly favorable map.

“So much of what happens next depends on the outcome of the November election,” said Sen. Chris Van Hollen (D-Md.).

Sullivan said Wednesday there’s a “deep reservoir” of support for Ukraine in both parties.

But he acknowledged Ukrainian setbacks in the war because of dwindling supplies, telling reporters Ukraine has had to ration ammunition and is under “severe pressure on the battlefield.”

“It’s going to take some time for us to dig out of the hole that was created by six months of delay before Congress passed the supplemental,” he said.

There is support for Ukraine in both chambers of Congress, but House GOP support has been declining. While Speaker Mike Johnson (R-La.) brought legislation to the floor, he did so at risk to his political future. A majority of House Republicans voted against more aid to Ukraine, and some conservatives are threatening to oust Johnson as Speaker.

A majority of GOP senators did back aid to Ukraine, and McConnell won nine more Republican votes than on a package earlier this year.

Still, Vance noted Republican support for underwriting an open-ended war against Russia has dipped significantly over the past two years.

“I think it’s going to be really hard to get a package out of Congress,” said Vance, who argued in a recent New York Times op-ed that the military aid package approved this week won’t turn the tide of the war.

“Fundamentally, we lack the capacity to manufacture the amount of weapons Ukraine needs us to supply to win the war,” Vance wrote in an essay that made waves on Capitol Hill.

McConnell, however, told reporters Tuesday that Republicans who support sending more military aid to Ukraine are winning the argument with colleagues he called “isolationists.”

“I think we’ve turned the corner on the isolationist movement,” he argued to reporters. “I think we’ve made some progress.”

Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer (D-N.Y.) praised the bill that passed Tuesday as “a very full package” but declined to say how long it will keep Ukrainian forces supplied on the battlefield.

Sen. Lindsey Graham (R-S.C.), who voted for the $95 billion emergency foreign aid bill, which Biden quickly signed into law, says more future aid will need to be structured as a loan.

“The loan component’s going to be bigger, not smaller. If you want more for Ukraine in the future, it’ll be more of a loan,” he said.

To attract more Republican support for the package that passed this week, House leaders structured $9.5 billion worth of economic assistance as forgivable loans to help Ukraine’s energy sector and infrastructure needs, as well as help other countries impacted by the war.

To supporters of Ukraine aid, the question is not a matter of if, but rather when Ukraine will need another tranche of assistance.

Senators in both parties expect the $61 billion Congress approved this week will cover Kyiv through November and potentially the end of the year. This tees up a fight in the lame-duck session after the November election over whether to continue U.S. support for the war at its current level.

“There’s no question we’re going to have to have another one. Whether or not we can even get through this year is a question. There could easily be something in the lame duck. We’ve got to be there as long as [Russian President Vladimir Putin] is,” said Sen. Thom Tillis (R-N.C.).

Lawmakers have little idea of what to expect if former President Trump wins another term, given his constantly evolving stance on the war.

Trump urged Republican senators to defeat the first version of the $95 billion foreign package they passed in February, but in recent weeks, he has softened his position against sending billions of dollars more to Ukraine after Johnson insisted on structuring the economic assistance as a forgivable loan.

Trump allies said the former president also played an influential role in convincing lawmakers to add the REPO Act to the package, which authorizes the seizure of Russian assets to pay for the reconstruction of Ukraine.

But the possibility of Trump returning to the White House is fueling anxiety among Democrats over Ukraine’s future, given his past statements.

A Republican congressional aide said Department of Defense officials and European allies will begin putting together a new funding request for Ukraine in September and for it to come to Congress in the lame-duck session.

“I would expect it in the lame duck,” said the source. “If Biden loses, does he submit a supplemental before Trump is in office? The incoming administration would have to be consulted significantly.”

Lawmakers who support funding for Ukraine do feel encouraged by the strong bipartisan votes that propelled the emergency spending package through the Senate and House.

Thirty-one Senate Republicans joined with almost every Democrat to push the package across the finish line — an uptick of nine GOP members from the February vote. Advocates for Ukraine believe this gives them the wind in their sails when they inevitably push for another package.

“This is a pretty overwhelming vote,” Sen. John Cornyn (R-Texas) said of the 31 Senate Republicans who joined a large majority of the Senate Democratic caucus in approving Ukraine funding this week. “I don’t think anybody should question our commitment.”

Cornyn is vying with Senate Republican Whip John Thune (S.D.) to replace McConnell — the biggest champion of supporting the war in the Senate GOP conference — as party leader.

Republicans say they are encouraged Trump decided not to tank the Ukraine funding bill after meeting with the Speaker at his Mar-a-Lago resort in Florida.

GOP senators say the former president can be persuaded to change his mind on some issues and believe they can convince him to support more aid for Ukraine if he wins in November.

“I think it is [possible],” Tillis said. “I think [Trump], when he is fully briefed and his administration is overseeing the execution of it, yeah, I think he’ll support it. I don’t know that it would be one of his top priorities, but I do think he’ll support it.”

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Live overzicht van deze zitting:
https://edition.cnn.com/p(...)-04-25-24/index.html

https://edition.cnn.com/2(...)eme-court/index.html

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Takeaways from the Supreme Court arguments on Trump’s absolute immunity claims
The Supreme Court appeared ready to reject former President Donald Trump’s claims of sweeping immunity and the broad protections he has sought to shut down his federal election subversion case, but also reluctant to give special counsel Jack Smith carte blanche to pursue those charges.

After nearly three hours of oral arguments, several of the justices seemed willing to embrace a result that could jeopardize the ability to hold a trial before the November election.

The court’s conservatives aggressively questioned the lawyer representing the special counsel, seemingly embracing a central theme that had been raised by Trump that without at least some form of immunity future presidents would over time be subjected to politically motivated prosecutions.

Much of the hearing focused on whether there should be a distinction between official acts by Trump pursuant to his presidential duties and his private conduct.

How the court decides the dispute could determine Trump’s legal fate and will likely set the rules of criminal exposure for future presidents.

Here are the key takeaways:

Supreme Court seems unlikely to fully resolve the immunity question
As the justices wrestled with the nuances of the case and a series of complicated hypotheticals, it seemed increasingly unlikely the court would offer a clear answer on whether Trump may be prosecuted for his effort to overturn the 2020 election.

The upshot is that the Supreme Court appeared likely to leave much of that work to lower courts, proceedings that could take months and further delay a trial that had originally been set for March 4.

That outcome would play into Trump’s strategy of delay and jeopardize a trial before the election.

Chief Justice John Roberts at one point criticized the unanimous and scathing ruling against Trump from the US Court of Appeals for the DC Circuit that would have allowed his case to quickly move to a trial. Roberts suggested the appeals court didn’t lay out an adequate reason for why virtually all of Trump’s actions were subject to prosecution.

“As I read it, it says simply a former president can be prosecuted because he’s being prosecuted,” Roberts said skeptically. “Why shouldn’t we either send it back to the court of appeals or issue an opinion making clear that that’s not the law?”

Trump attorney concedes some acts may be ‘private’ and not official
In a notable series of concessions, Trump’s attorney John Sauer acknowledged that some of the alleged conduct supporting the criminal charges against the former president were private.

The admission shows how much ground Sauer gave up during the hearing, after Trump had made more sweeping claims in his legal briefs earlier this year, asserting that the entire prosecution should be thrown out.

Trump himself has continued to lobby for absolute immunity, including before his appearance at a New York court where he’s on trial for business fraud.

Justice Amy Coney Barrett was the first to pin Sauer down on the distinction between official and personal acts alleged in the charges. He tentatively agreed with how, in court filings, the special counsel had labeled particular acts as private – acts that alleged that Trump plotted with his private attorneys and campaign advisers to spread bogus election fraud claims, to file false court filings and to put forward fraudulent sets of electors. As part of the exchange, he conceded those private acts would not be covered by presidential immunity.

In a later back and forth with Justice Elena Kagan, Sauer muddied the waters.

He said that Trump’s phone call with Georgia Secretary of State Brad Raffensperger , in which he requested Raffensperger “find” enough votes to flip the results, was not an official act. But Sauer claimed Trump was acting in an official capacity in his conversation with the Republican National Committee about assembling slates of so-called “fake electors” and his call for the Arizona lawmakers to hold a hearing on election fraud.

Sauer’s willingness to commit to the idea that some allegations in the indictment weren’t protected by immunity was an extraordinary walk back of what had been the former president’s position up to that point.

But the Trump lawyer may be hoping that the move will encourage the justices to order more proceedings on deciding what’s private and what’s public in the indictment, a move that could seriously delay the case’s march to trial.

Justice Barrett brings up issue of ruling scope and timing
Several members of the court’s conservative majority – including Barrett – appeared concerned about the scope of Trump’s claim that he is entitled to “absolute” immunity.

Trump’s attorney, Sauer, faced a series of hostile questions in the early moments of the hearing about that position.

What will likely prove critical – and what was not clear from the arguments – is how the Supreme Court sends the case back to lower courts for more review.

Barrett at one point sketched out how the case could move to trial quickly: Smith could simply focus on Trump’s actions that were private and not official.

“The special counsel has expressed some concern for speed,” Barrett said. She asked DOJ attorney Michael Dreeben if the trial court can sort out what’s official or private acts of the presidency or whether there “another option for the special counsel just to proceed on the private conduct?”

Prosecutors could, hypothetically, draft a slimmed-down superseding indictment that strips out the potentially official acts.

Dreeben told Barrett that the indictment against Trump is substantially about private conduct, meaning that a trial could proceed even if the Supreme Court finds some immunity for Trump’s official actions.

Liberal justices weren’t impressed with Trump’s absolute immunity claims
It was pretty clear where the court’s three liberals will be when the opinion lands.

Justices Sonia Sotomayor, Elena Kagan and Ketanji Brown Jackson spent much of the argument quizzing the attorneys on the potential implications of Trump’s absolute immunity position.

In one of the many hypotheticals the liberals tossed at Trump’s attorney, Kagan asked what would happen if a president ordered the military to stage a coup. Could that be prosecuted under Trump’s theory?

Sauer responded that a president would first have to be impeached and convicted before he could be charged criminally. Kagan fired back by asking what would happen if the order came on the final days of a presidency and there was not time to impeach or convict.

“You’re saying that’s an official act? That’s immune?” Kagan asked.

Sauer had to acknowledge that, under Trump’s theory, “it could well be.”

“That sure sounds bad, doesn’t it?” Kagan responded.

Echoing a more fundamental argument the special counsel raised earlier in the case, Jackson said she was concerned Trump’s argument would put presidents above the law.

“If there’s no threat of criminal prosecution, what prevents the president from just doing whatever he wants?” Jackson said. “I’m trying to understand what the disincentive is from turning the Oval Office into the seat of criminal activity in this country.”

Conservatives worry about subjecting ex-presidents to illegitimate criminal proceedings
There was some handwringing by conservatives about the possibility that an ex-president would be subjected to criminal proceedings for conduct that might ultimately be covered by immunity or some form of presidential protection.

Alito went as far as to suggest that denying ex-presidents immunity would discourage peaceful transfers of power, because outgoing presidents who lost hotly contested elections would not want to depart peacefully if they were concerned they’d be prosecuted by their political rival.

Multiple Republican appointees on the court pushed back at the special counsel’s claim that there are ample protections in the criminal justice system to prevent abusive prosecutions.

“You know how easy it is in many cases for a prosecutor to get a grand jury to bring an indictment and reliance on the good faith of the prosecutor may not be enough in some cases,” Roberts said at one point.

Alito, a former federal prosecutor himself, invoked the famous saying that grand jury would indict a ham sandwich if a prosecutor asked them to, while pointing to historic examples of Justice Department officials acting criminally in their roles.

Alito also seized on the acknowledgement by Dreeben that some criminal statutes might need to be interpreted differently when applied to former presidents. Alito suggested that going through a trial to settle those questions would be an unfair burden to a former president.

“That may involve great expense, and it may take up a lot of time,” Alito said, “And during the trial, the former president may be unable to engage in other activities that the former president would want to engage in.”

Trump ‘absolutely’ had a right to put forward fake electors, his lawyer says
Underscoring the sweep of Trump’s claims, Sauer said that his client “absolutely” had a right to put forward Republican electors in states that he lost in 2020, commonly called “fake electors.”

He made these comments under questioning from liberal Justice Sonia Sotomayor, who asked if “it’s plausible” that a president might have the right to help create a “fraudulent slate” of electors, which would mean that it would be an official government act that might be covered by immunity.

In response, Sauer said there was historical precedent for presidents to get involved with these matters, pointing to the contested presidential election of 1876, where there were well-founded claims of fraud, and multiple slates of electors in several key states. (Sauer used the term “so-called fraudulent electors.”)

These comments were a remarkable embrace of a plot that many see as a corrupt scheme to overturn the will of the voters. And it’s clear that federal and state prosecutors clearly disagree with Sauer – they consider the Trump campaign’s seven-state ploy to be a criminal scheme.

The Justice Department charged Trump with federal crimes in connection with the fake electors scheme. (He pleaded not guilty.)  Smith’s indictment says Trump “organized fraudulent slates of electors” to “obstruct the certification of the presidential election.”

And state prosecutors in Michigan, Georgia, Nevada and Arizona have also charged many of the illegitimate GOP electors and some Trump campaign officials who were involved in the plot.

Arizona prosecutors announced their sweeping indictment Wednesday night, which targeted the electors themselves and members of Trump’s inner circle, including Mark Meadows and Rudy Giuliani. Michigan investigators also revealed Wednesday that Trump is an unindicted co-conspirator in their case.

With arguments over, focus shifts to timing for decision
The arguments about Trump’s immunity claim are over. Now the clock starts ticking.

Even before the justices took their seats Thursday, the high court was facing enormous pressure – particularly from the left – over its slow pace getting to this point. Every day the court doesn’t issue a decision will play into Trump’s strategy of delay, jeopardizing the likelihood that Smith can bring his case to trial before the November election.

The Supreme Court has moved quite quickly in similar high-profile matters in the past. In 1974, for instance, when a unanimous court ordered President Richard Nixon to turn over the tapes of surreptitious recordings he made in the White House, it did so after roughly two weeks after arguments. In another often-cited example, the court decided the Bush v. Gore election dispute in 2000 a day after it heard arguments.

Earlier this year, the justices heard arguments February 8 about whether Trump had disqualified himself from Colorado’s presidential ballot under the 14th Amendment “insurrectionist ban.” It took the justices just under a month to hand down a decision March 4 that concluded he had not.

In the immunity case, the court already helped Trump by denying the special counsel request last December to leapfrog the appeals court and resolve the question quickly. The court’s decision ensured that the original March 4 date for Trump’s Washington, DC, trial would never become a reality.

And yet the court has been particularly slow releasing far more mundane opinions this year. And, critics note, it took more than two weeks for the court to agree to hear the Trump dispute in the first place. While that is remarkably speedy by Supreme Court standards, it is slower than many of the court’s detractors would like.

Gisteren van de zitting in de immuniteitszaak van Trump in de supreme court. Het goede nieuws is dat de meeste rechters het er over eens lijken te zijn dat een president geen absolute immuniteit heeft. Al zijn zij het er dan niet over eens in welke mate een president het dan wel heeft. Een president zou bijvoorbeeld immuniteit hebben bij acties die hij in zijn offici�le capaciteit als president heeft gedaan. Maar bij persoonlijke acties dan weer niet. De rechters hebben de advocaat van Trump zover gekregen dat hij heeft toegegeven dat niet alles vanuit offici�le capaciteit is gebeurd waar hij nu terecht voor staat. Hier zou hij dan dus geen immuniteit voor hebben als dit de uitspraak zou zijn.

De vraag is of de supreme court hier �berhaupt wel uitspraak over gaat doen. Zij kunnen deze zaak ook weer delegeren naar lagere gerechtshoven om hun hier uitspraak over te laten doen. Natuurlijk zou dit een flinke vertraging opleveren. Iets waar Trump natuurlijk erg veel baat bij heeft. Ook is niet bekend wanneer deze rechters uitspraak zullen doen, dit kan vandaag al zijn. Maar ook over enkele weken. Er is geen tijdslimiet aan verbonden.

SPOILER

Supreme Court hears Trump presidential immunity claim | Special Report

https://edition.cnn.com/v(...)eme-court-digvid.cnn

quote:

Trump lawyer makes admission under questioning from Justice Amy Coney Barrett
Justice Amy Coney Barrett pressed Trump lawyer D. John Sauer during Supreme Court arguments on the distinction between official and personal acts alleged in the charges. University of Texas law professor Steve Vladeck shares his takeaway.

https://edition.cnn.com/v(...)eme-court-digvid.cnn

quote:

Justice Jackson warns of Oval Office 'crime center' at immunity hearing
Justice Ketanji Brown Jackson raised concerns about granting the president absolute immunity, suggesting it could foster criminal activity in the Oval Office. She questioned Trump's lawyer, D. John Sauer, on why presidents should not be required to follow the law when acting in their official capacity.

https://edition.cnn.com/2(...)ty-kagan-coup-digvid

quote:

Justice Kagan asks if a president would be immune after ordering coup
In the Supreme Court case over whether former President Donald Trump may claim immunity in the federal election subversion case, Justice Elena Kagan pushed Trump’s attorney on how far presidential immunity could go, raising the hypothetical scenario of a military coup by an ex-president.

SPOILER

Live overzicht van deze zitting:
https://edition.cnn.com/2(...)ial-day-7/index.html

https://edition.cnn.com/p(...)-04-25-24/index.html

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Takeaways from the Trump hush money trial: Ex-publisher details tabloid tactics
Former American Media Inc. chairman David Pecker took jurors in Donald Trump’s hush money case inside how he paid for Karen McDougal’s story to keep her quiet about her alleged affair with Trump – and how his decision not to pay for Stormy Daniels’ story led to Michael Cohen ultimately paying for it.

Prosecutors on Thursday wrapped up their direct testimony with Pecker, who was on the stand for three days describing in detail how he worked with Trump and Cohen to buy up damaging stories about Trump throughout the 2016 campaign. His testimony laid the foundation for the rest of the Manhattan district attorney’s case against Trump that focuses on the payment to Daniels.

The former president, who has denied affairs with both McDougal and Daniels and pleaded not guilty in this case, didn’t want to be in the downtown Manhattan courtroom on Thursday. But Judge Juan Merchan last week rejected his request to be in Washington for Supreme Court arguments on presidential immunity – so Trump instead went to a New York campaign stop Thursday morning, and he attacked the case when he left the courtroom at the end of the day, while calling the testimony “breathtaking and amazing.”

On Thursday, Merchan did not issue his ruling on whether Trump has violated the judge’s gag order. But prosecutors provided four more examples to the judge of alleged violations – including one when he commented on Pecker Thursday morning before he went to court.

Trump’s attorneys began their cross-examination of Pecker Thursday afternoon and will continue on Friday.

Here are the takeaways from Thursday in the hush money trial:

Pecker details conversations with Trump about McDougal payment
Pecker’s testimony included the nuts and bolts of how AMI paid McDougal on Trump’s behalf, Pecker’s private conversations with Trump about the catch-and-kill deal and the fallout when her story became public.

Pecker’s testimony to prosecutors spanned more than seven hours over three days. He described how he put up the money for a catch-and-kill scheme to suppress McDougal’s story – and it was Pecker’s refusal to pay for Daniels’ story that led to Michael Cohen, Trump’s then-fixer, doling out $130,000 himself.

Pecker also testified that he and his top editor initially alerted Trump and Cohen to the fact that Daniels was shopping her story, and that he refused Cohen’s efforts to get him to buy Daniels’ story, too.

After Trump was elected, Pecker testified that Trump asked him at least twice how McDougal was doing, including at what Pecker described as a “thank you dinner” at the White House in 2017.

“As we walked out, President Trump asked me, ‘How’s Karen doing, how’s Karen doing?’ So, I said, ‘She’s doing well, she’s quiet, everything’s going good.’” Pecker said.

Pecker also described how Trump was angry when the McDougal story went public. Trump called him on November 5, 2016 – three days before election day – when the Wall Street Journal published a story about the AMI agreement.

Pecker said that Trump was very upset when they spoke, saying, “How could this happen? I thought you had this under control.”

Pecker also received a call from Trump after McDougal was interviewed by CNN’s Anderson Cooper in March 2018.

Pecker told Trump on the call that he had amended McDougal’s agreement on speaking to other media. Trump was angry, Pecker testified.

“He was very upset, he couldn’t understand why I did it,” Pecker said.

No gag order decision yet
Merchan had spent Tuesday morning hearing arguments on Trump’s alleged violation of the gag order – which limits the former president from publicly discussing witnesses, the jury, the district attorney’s staff or Merchan’s family – but he did not issue a ruling on Thursday when court came back into session.

Instead, prosecutors submitted another motion to hold Trump in contempt for additional violations of the gag order over the past three days – including comments he made Thursday morning.

Prosecutor Chris Conroy cited Trump’s comments at his event in New York City where he spoke about Pecker and said that he was “nice.”

“This is a message to Pecker. Be nice. It’s a message to others,” Conroy said.

Merchan announced at the end of the day that he would hold a hearing on that motion next Wednesday – the day that court is supposed to be dark for the Trump trial.

That likely means Trump will have to spend Wednesday afternoon in a downtown Manhattan courtroom, rather than having a full day to leave New York to campaign – or to golf, as Trump did this Wednesday at his club in Bedminster, CNN’s Kristen Holmes reported.

Trump has two campaign events scheduled for next Wednesday. But it appears that Trump will be required to be in court for the 2:15 p.m. hearing unless Merchan waives his appearance.

While Merchan can only fine Trump $1,000 per violation – or jail him for up to 30 days – forcing him to appear in court on what’s supposed to be an off day could become another way for Merchan to take action against the former president’s gag order transgressions.

Trump wanted to be elsewhere Thursday, too
Trump’s attorneys had asked for his appearance Thursday to be waived so he could attend the Supreme Court arguments on presidential immunity. The judge denied that request.

In Washington on Thursday, the Supreme Court appeared ready to reject Trump’s claims of sweeping immunity and the broad protections he has sought to shut down his federal election subversion case, but the justices also seemed willing to embrace a result that could jeopardize the ability to hold a trial in that case before the November election.

Leaving the Manhattan courthouse on Thursday, Trump also commented on the Supreme Court case.

“I was forced to be here, and I’m glad I was because it was a very interesting day in a certain way,” Trump said. “But the US Supreme Court had a monumental hearing on immunity and the immunity having to do with presidential immunity. I think it was made clear, I hope it was made clear, that the president has to have immunity, or you don’t have a president, or at most you could say it would be a ceremonial president.”

Pecker agrees in cross-examination that suppressing stories was ‘standard operating procedure’
Trump’s attorney Emil Bove cross-examined Pecker for about an hour Thursday.

Quizzing Pecker with rapid-fire leading questions, Bove got the witness to confirm to the jury that Trump’s symbiotic relationship with Pecker and his tabloids was not unusual and long pre-dated Trump’s run for office.

Pecker confirmed source agreements like the ones used to suppress stories from McDougal and former Trump Tower doorman Dino Sajudin are “standard operating procedure” for AMI to give the company control of how the information might be released, if at all.

Pecker also acknowledged that Trump was understood to be a top seller for AMI publications.

Especially around the time of “The Celebrity Apprentice,” company research showed that Trump could drive the most sales for the National Enquirer.

“So, you ran articles about President Trump because it was good for business?” Bove asked.

“That’s correct,” Pecker said.

Pecker also confirmed that he had a standard practice of not publishing negative stories about Trump since the 1990s.

“Because it was not good for business?” Bove asked.

“Yes,” Pecker said.

Bove confirmed with Pecker that “many politicians work with the media to promote their image” and “including sometimes to win elections.”

Trump’s attorney asks Pecker about tactics National Enquirer used for other celebrities
Bove’s cross-examination of Pecker elicited testimony about other celebrities whom Pecker had purchased stories about so they wouldn’t be published, offering a fascinating glimpse into the celebrity tabloid world while he was chairman of the publisher of the National Enquirer.

Trump’s attorney sought to establish with Pecker that AMI used “checkbook journalism” to control narratives in the press and fostered mutually beneficial relationships with several celebrities – not just Trump.

Bove walked through Pecker’s earlier testimony with prosecutors about a catch-and-kill deal with Arnold Schwarzenegger shortly before he announced his run for California governor. Bove stated that 30 or 40 women ended up coming to AMI with stories about Schwarzenegger, and Pecker confirmed the statement.

Pecker also said that he helped agent Ari Emanuel get control over a story about the actor Mark Wahlberg, as well as suppress a negative story about allegations involving his brother, Rahm Emanuel, the former Chicago mayor and current US ambassador to Japan.

Bove also had Pecker confirm that his company purchased photos of golfer Tiger Woods “to leverage them against Woods to get him in the magazine.”

CNN has reached out for comment from Schwarzenegger, Rahm Emanuel, Ari Emanuel, Wahlberg and Woods.

De rechter heeft nog geen uitspraak gedaan over het overtreden van de gag order door Trump. Dit gaat om 10 overtredingen. Wel heeft de aanklager verzocht om 4 nieuwe overtredingen ook in overweging te nemen. Hiervoor zal er volgende week woensdag een zitting zijn in. Trump moet verplicht aanwezig zijn bij deze zitten terwijl hij voor die dag een aantal verkiezingsevenementen op de planning heeft staan. Het zou dus kunnen dat hij deze moet annuleren, of mogelijk gedeeltelijk moet missen hierdoor. Het was duidelijk dat hij liever bij de immuniteitszitting aanwezig was geweest. Wat natuurlijk ook nog eens een veel groter podium zou zijn voor zijn normale retoriek tegenover de pers.

Gisteren was het weer Pecker die verhoord werd. Het grootste gedeelte gebeurde dit door de aanklager, maar op het laatst kreeg de verdediging van Trump ook nog even de tijd. Vandaag (vrijdag) zal Trump zijn verdediging door gaan met hun verhoor. Het blijkt dat Pecker (en de tabloid waar hij voor werkte) ook dezelfde werkzaamheden voor Arnold Schwarzenegger heeft gedaan toen hij voor gouverneur ging. (catch and kill)

Terwijl ik dit typte kwam er het nieuws dat de rechter heeft besloten de gag order zitting te verplaatsen naar donderdag. Hij kan dus gewoon op woensdag zijn campagne voeren.

SPOILER

https://edition.cnn.com/2(...)upporters/index.html

quote:

Fact check: Trump falsely claims police turned away ‘thousands’ from Manhattan courthouse and that supporters ‘can’t get near’

Former President Donald Trump is a famed exaggerator of the size of his crowds. For years, he has lied about how many supporters attended his presidential inauguration and numerous campaign rallies.

Now he’s pushing a wildly inaccurate claim about how many supporters have attempted to show up at his first criminal trial – and he’s making additional false claims about security measures around the Manhattan courthouse, which he is baselessly blaming for keeping these supposed supporters away.

After The New York Times published a story that said Trump was unhappy with the meager crowd he saw when he arrived at the courthouse for opening statements on Monday, Trump posted on social media on Tuesday to deny the story, denigrate a Times reporter and make this claim: “Thousands of people were turned away from the Courthouse in Lower Manhattan by steel stanchions and police, literally blocks from the tiny side door from where I enter and leave. It is an armed camp to keep people away.”

Trump also wrote on social media on Monday that “Lower Manhattan surrounding the Courthouse, where I am heading now, is completely CLOSED DOWN.” And he told reporters inside the courthouse on Tuesday: “For blocks you can’t get near this courthouse.”

Facts First: Trump’s claims are all false. The police have not turned away “thousands of people” from the courthouse during his trial; only a handful of Trump supporters have shown up to demonstrate near the building. And while there are various security measures in place in the area, including some street closures enforced by police officers and barricades, it’s not true that “for blocks you can’t get near this courthouse.” In reality, the designated protest zone for the trial is at a park directly across the street from the courthouse – and, in addition, people are permitted to drive right up to the front of the courthouse and walk into the building, which remains open to the public. If people show up early enough in the morning, they can even get into the trial courtroom itself or the overflow room that shows near-live video of the proceedings.

CNN journalists reporting from the courthouse area have seen a smattering of visibly pro-Trump demonstrators present in the designated protest zone at Collect Pond Park across from the building, but nowhere even close to “thousands.” There were well under 100 visible Trump supporters gathered there at the outset of the trial in mid-April, and there have often been three or fewer there on subsequent days.

Trump may have been suggesting that thousands would have been present if not for repressive security measures. But that’s nonsense. Trump supporters are free to walk into not only the protest zone but also the courthouse itself, though they, like everyone else, have to observe decorum rules if they go inside.

Security isn’t as restrictive as Trump has claimed
Police have prohibited public access to some of the streets and sidewalks near the courthouse during the approximate hours that court is in session, and there are additional blockages during the brief periods of heightened security when Trump’s motorcade is arriving and departing for the day.

But aside from those coming-and-going periods, there is nothing close to a complete closure of the area. In fact, the cars of members of the public can regularly be seen traveling right in front of the courthouse in CNN’s live television coverage from the scene during court hours.

George Conway, the conservative attorney and vocal Trump critic, wrote on social media on Wednesday: “I took an Uber right to the front entrance of the courthouse yesterday morning. It’s all very peaceful and orderly, the court officers and police officers are nice, and if you walked your dog down the street the two of you would outnumber the Trump supporters there.”

Natuurlijk zou Trump Trump niet zijn als hij ook niet nog even wat leugens de wereld in zou gooien bij zijn persmomentjes. Volgens hem waren er duizenden protesters/volgers tegengehouden om dichter bij de rechtbank te kunnen komen. En was de hele buurt pot dicht gemaakt kwa beveiliging. In praktijk viel dit reuze mee daar
je met de auto gewoon voorbij de ingang kon rijden, een speciaal toegewezen protest plek vlakbij was en de rechtbank gewoon vrij toegankelijk was voor iedereen. Alleen op de eerste dag van deze rechtszaak waren ongeveer 100 man aanwezig om te protesteren. De afgelopen dagen waren dit er slechts een handvol.

SPOILER

https://edition.cnn.com/2(...)l-verdict/index.html

quote:

Federal judge upholds verdict in E. Jean Carroll case and denies Trump’s motion for a new trial
A federal judge on Thursday upheld the verdict and award in E. Jean Carroll’s defamation case against former President Donald Trump and denied Trump’s motion for a new trial.

Judge Lewis Kaplan, in a written opinion, said Trump’s legal arguments are without merit. The judge also found that the punitive damages the jury awarded to Carroll “passes constitutional muster.”

Carroll’s attorney Roberta Kaplan said in a statement that her legal team is “pleased with though not surprised by the Court’s decision.”

“As the Court explained, it was entirely reasonable for the jury to award E. Jean Carroll $83 million in damages given Donald Trump’s continued defamation of Ms. Carroll during the trial itself, as well as his conduct in the courtroom where his ‘hatred and disdain (were) on full display,’” Kaplan said.

Carroll, a former magazine columnist, alleged Trump raped her in a Bergdorf Goodman department store in the mid-1990s and then defamed her when he denied her claim. In a separate case, a jury last year found Trump liable for the sexual assault.

The second case stems from remarks Trump had made denying Carroll’s allegations in 2019. He was found liable for defamation last year, and a jury earlier this year ordered him to pay $83.3 million in punitive and compensatory damages.

Trump’s legal team had argued that the damages awarded to Carroll in the defamation case were excessive. Kaplan dismissed that argument in his opinion released Thursday.

“Mr. Trump’s malicious and unceasing attacks on Ms. Carroll were disseminated to more than 100 million people,” Kaplan wrote. “They included public threats and personal attacks, and they endangered Ms. Carroll’s health and safety.”

“The jury,” Kaplan added, “was entitled to conclude that Mr. Trump derailed the career, reputation, and emotional well-being of one of America’s most successful and prominent advice columnists and authors.”

Trump has maintained that he did not sexually assault Carroll, and in 2019, said that Carroll was not his “type.” Those denials formed the basis of the defamation lawsuit.

He sat in court for portions of the defamation trial, earning rebukes from the judge after he was heard making comments during Carroll’s testimony. As Carroll’s lawyers delivered their closing arguments, Trump abruptly and dramatically stood up and left the courtroom.

Kaplan referenced that episode in his opinion: “Mere minutes after (Carroll’s) counsel began her closing argument, Mr. Trump conspicuously stood and walked out of the courtroom for no apparent reason save to evidence his disapproval.”

Aside from the eye-popping monetary amount, the judgment brought another point into stark clarity: A jury of regular citizens – not the politicians or their appointees that Trump constantly claims mistreat him – held him accountable.

The judgment comes as Trump sits in another courtroom – this time, a criminal one – awaiting another jury of regular New Yorkers to decide his fate on charges that he falsified business records to cover up an affair ahead of the 2016 election.

Vandaag was er nog een derde zitting waarbij Trump direct bij betrokken was. Zijn verdediging had een motie ingediend om de uitspraak in de Carroll zaak ongeldig te laten verklaren en om de rechtszaak opnieuw te doen.

Trump zijn verdediging hadden ook aangegeven het oneens te zijn met de hoogte van de schadevergoeding in deze zaak. Volgens hun was dit bedrag excessief. Maar de rechter ging hier niet in mee daar de eerdere schadevergoeding blijkbaar niet genoeg was om hem te laten stoppen met zijn smaadpraktijken.

Trump zijn verdediging is nog wel bezig met een hoger beroep in deze zaak. Deze motie staat daar los van.

quote:

Op vrijdag 26 april 2024 01:11 schreef Delenlill het volgende:
https://mil.in.ua/en/news(...)-garage-styled-tank/
[..]

SPOILER

[..]

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Op vrijdag 26 april 2024 07:48 schreef NeeOfTochJA het volgende:
[ x ]

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Op vrijdag 26 april 2024 00:52 schreef Delenlill het volgende:
[ x ]

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Op vrijdag 26 april 2024 00:52 schreef Delenlill het volgende:
[ x ]

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Op vrijdag 26 april 2024 09:24 schreef BEFEM het volgende:

[..]
Werken ATACMS ook zo?

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Op vrijdag 26 april 2024 10:00 schreef BEFEM het volgende:
Die dingen waar naar gerefereerd wordt zijn ook geen vliegende bommen toch maar gewoon een variant op de raketten die een HIMARS afschiet?

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Op vrijdag 26 april 2024 10:12 schreef byah het volgende:
China gaat steeds meer kleur bekennen. We zijn hard op weg naar een veel groter conflict.

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Op vrijdag 26 april 2024 10:12 schreef byah het volgende:
China gaat steeds meer kleur bekennen. We zijn hard op weg naar een veel groter conflict.

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Op vrijdag 26 april 2024 10:12 schreef byah het volgende:
China gaat steeds meer kleur bekennen. We zijn hard op weg naar een veel groter conflict.

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Op vrijdag 26 april 2024 00:02 schreef Delenlill het volgende:
[ x ]
Niet alleen een gemakkelijker doelwit voor Finland. Maar ook voor Oekra�ne natuurlijk.

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Op vrijdag 26 april 2024 07:48 schreef NeeOfTochJA het volgende:
[ x ]

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Op vrijdag 26 april 2024 07:48 schreef NeeOfTochJA het volgende:
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Op vrijdag 26 april 2024 10:34 schreef BehoorlijkKritisch het volgende:

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Finnen zijn echt prachtig volk. Wat een geniale reactie op een openlijk dreigement.

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Op vrijdag 26 april 2024 11:38 schreef Straatcommando. het volgende:

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Ontzettend mooi land ook, maar ze spreken er niet echt Engels en als ze dat al doen is dat met zo'n moddervet accent dat het bijna niet te verstaan is.

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Op vrijdag 26 april 2024 11:43 schreef StateOfMind het volgende:
*Kimi Raikonen entered the chat

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Op vrijdag 26 april 2024 11:48 schreef Barbusse het volgende:

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Dat valt best mee. De ouderen misschien, maar mijn ervaring is dat de meeste prima engels kunnen

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Op vrijdag 26 april 2024 11:49 schreef Straatcommando. het volgende:

[..]
Viel mij best tegen, maar ik zat ook wel een bumfuck nowhere

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Op vrijdag 26 april 2024 11:38 schreef Straatcommando. het volgende:

[..]
Ontzettend mooi land ook, maar ze spreken er niet echt Engels en als ze dat al doen is dat met zo'n moddervet accent dat het bijna niet te verstaan is.

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Op vrijdag 26 april 2024 11:54 schreef xpompompomx het volgende:
Over Finnen gesproken. Als ik later groot ben ga ik met Sanna Marin trouwen.

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Op vrijdag 26 april 2024 11:54 schreef xpompompomx het volgende:
Over Finnen gesproken. Als ik later groot ben ga ik met Sanna Marin trouwen.

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Op vrijdag 26 april 2024 11:54 schreef xpompompomx het volgende:
Over Finnen gesproken. Als ik later groot ben ga ik met Sanna Marin trouwen.

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Op vrijdag 26 april 2024 12:00 schreef Barbusse het volgende:

[..]
Niet reeds een Finse vriendin hebben

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Op vrijdag 26 april 2024 12:00 schreef Straatcommando. het volgende:

[..]
Coole dame. Was zij ook niet die na de verkiezingswinst doodleuk de stad in ging om te zuipen?

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Op vrijdag 26 april 2024 12:00 schreef Barbusse het volgende:

[..]
Niet reeds een Finse vriendin hebben

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Op vrijdag 26 april 2024 12:03 schreef xpompompomx het volgende:

[..]
Geen idee. Weet wel dat de streng conservatieve kant van het Finse politieke spectrum wel eens heeft geprobeerd #Fophef te veroorzaken nadat er een filmpje boven was komen drijven waarop te zien was dat ze aan feesten en zuipen was.

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Op vrijdag 26 april 2024 12:03 schreef Straatcommando. het volgende:

[..]
Humble brag hoor.

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Op vrijdag 26 april 2024 12:04 schreef Straatcommando. het volgende:

[..]
Ja een jonge intelligente vrouwelijke premier gaat natuurlijk vol in tegen de wens van zulke figuren

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Op vrijdag 26 april 2024 16:04 schreef oheng het volgende:
Interessant punt dat Constatin aanstipt: de minister Ivanov die dreigt te worden veroordeeld tot 15 jaar cel heeft iets meer dan 10.000 eurodollar gestolen. Wat natuurlijk absoluut peanuts is in een land als rusland. Zijn theorie is dan ook dat er een oorlog gaande is in de top van rusland. Iets wat we ook hebben kunnen zien in de vele "zelfmoorden" onder olichargen e.d.

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Rheinmetall Air Defence: Skynex truck-mounted engaging drone swarm

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Op vrijdag 26 april 2024 11:29 schreef Straatcommando. het volgende:

[..]
Heb je weer iets gevonden wat in je straatje past? Oekra�ne wilde inderdaad niet bij nato. Zelfs na de annexatie van de Krim niet. Weet je wanneer ze zoiets hadden van "goh, wel een goed idee"? Na de volledige invasie.

Maar dit is je inmiddels meer dan 3 keer verteld door mij alleen al en zolang jij deze langspeelplaat blijft afdraaien doe ik dat ook. De rest van de bullshit in die tweet is ook al tot in den treure onderuit gehaald.

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Op vrijdag 26 april 2024 17:20 schreef LethalNinja het volgende:
Tja die drones, die veranderen alles. Nog even en je bent wel gek als je voor honderden miljoenen in een dure tank of boot stopt. Een drone van een paar tientjes blaast hem zo op.

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Op vrijdag 26 april 2024 16:16 schreef Ulx het volgende:

[..]
Dat lijkt me ook. Ik denk dat Poetin heeft besloten dat iemand de schuld moet krijgen van dit fiasco. En uiteraard is dat niet Poetin zelf.

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Op vrijdag 26 april 2024 17:31 schreef oheng het volgende:

[..]
Geen idee wat er precies aan de hand is. Maar we zien sinds het begin van de oorlog al een lange lijst van mysterieuze zelfmoorden en ongevallen. Dus een interne strijd is plausibel. Voorbeeld.

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Op vrijdag 26 april 2024 17:24 schreef Ulx het volgende:

[..]
Valt wel mee. Je moet alleen wel denken aan afweer tegen die dingen.

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Op vrijdag 26 april 2024 17:52 schreef Ulx het volgende:
Media: Greece preparing to give Ukraine at least 1 Patriot system, possibly 2

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Op vrijdag 26 april 2024 17:59 schreef LethalNinja het volgende:

andere manieren om drones kapot te maken staan nog steeds in de kinderschoenen (helaas).

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Op vrijdag 26 april 2024 18:10 schreef Ulx het volgende:

[..]
Kan gewoon met een kanon.

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Op vrijdag 26 april 2024 17:20 schreef NeeOfTochJA het volgende:

[..]
Dus dat bericht van Reuters klopt niet?

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Op vrijdag 26 april 2024 18:14 schreef BEFEM het volgende:

[..]
Het kan zo gewoon dat er dagelijks tientallen voertuigen door drones vernietigd worden.

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Op vrijdag 26 april 2024 18:36 schreef Ulx het volgende:

[..]
Ja, zult iets tegen die dingen in de buurt moeten hebben. Maar om een Gepard nou af te doen als techniek die in de kinderschoenen staat.....

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Op vrijdag 26 april 2024 19:21 schreef Delenlill het volgende:
[ x ]
[ x ]
[ x ]
[ x ]
[ x ]

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North Korea Sends Workers to Russia-Occupied Territory in Eastern Ukraine
Pyongyang made the decision after concluding that Russia had gained the upper hand in its war with Ukraine.

North Korea recently sent workers to the Russian-occupied Donbas region of eastern Ukraine to help with reconstruction efforts, Daily NK has learned. Russia has set up and annexed two so-called republics on Ukrainian territory in the Donbas region: the Donetsk People’s Republic and Luhansk People’s Republic. Only a a few other governments in the world recognize the DPR and LPR, including North Korea as well as Syria.

Speaking on condition of anonymity, a source in North Korea told Daily NK that about 150 new North Korean workers were sent to Donbas last January.

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A first group of workers flew from Pyongyang to Vladivostok on Air Koryo, North Korea’s state airline, and then traveled to Donbas via Moscow. The rest of the workers traveled from Vladivostok to Volgograd and then on to Donbas.

The workers were divided into three workplaces under North Korea’s External Construction Guidance Bureau and the Ministry of Social Security, the source said.

The North Korean workers are currently helping to rebuild various structures in Donbas, including houses, schools, and shopping centers. Russians are also involved in the reconstruction work, but they generally handle more technical projects, such as bridges and communication facilities, while the North Korean workers are in charge of repairing buildings.

The North Korean authorities had drawn up plans as early as 2022 to send some of the workers already in Russia to Donbas and had even selected the workers in question.

“Although we supported the independence of the Donetsk People’s Republic, that was before our leader met with the Russian leader, and [North Korean] people who were in Russia could not be sent to Donetsk for various reasons,” the source said.

Then, in September 2023, North Korean leader Kim Jong Un visited Russia for a summit with Russian President Vladimir Putin. Since then, the two countries have apparently not only discussed practical matters related to personnel exchanges, such as operating more flights and sending more workers to Russia, but have also reached an agreement on involving North Korean workers in post-war reconstruction work. Hosting North Korean workers is a violation of United Nations sanctions.

Previously, the source said, North Korea was reluctant to send its own citizens to hard-fought battlefields.

But this year, North Korean authorities agreed to send workers to help rebuild Donbas after concluding that Russia had gained the upper hand in its war with Ukraine and that the Donbas region was firmly under Russian control.

“We [North Korea] agreed to mobilize workers [in the Donbas region] after consultations with Russia because we believe that Russia is winning the war against Ukraine,” said another source in North Korea.

According to a source in Russia, North Korea’s government recently provided workers assigned to Russia with educational materials detailing how Ukraine is losing to Russia and promoting the superiority of the socialist system.

Relatedly, North Korea recently ordered that young people be given more training in anti-American and anti-imperialist class consciousness. The training sessions mention the progress of Russia’s war against Ukraine and teach young people that imperialist fantasies have fatal consequences.

The source in Russia also said that Russia has agreed to pay North Korean workers in Donbas hazard pay in addition to their regular wages.

“Workers going to Donetsk will not have to give the North Korean government as big a cut as those working elsewhere in Russia. Since the workers will receive a danger pay on top of their wages from the Russian company, they will probably have to pay the state 60,000-70,000 rubles (870,000-1,020,000 North Korean won) per month,” the source said.

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Air Koryo Flight Brings North Korean Defense Researchers, Students to Russia
North Korea sent researchers from its Missile General Bureau to receive advanced rocket engine technology from Russia, a source told Daily NK

A flight from Air Koryo, North Korea's state airline, recently brought new workers, defense researchers, and students to Russia, highlighting the expanding exchanges between North Korea and Russia as the two nations grow closer.

According to several Daily NK sources in North Korea, an Air Koryo flight that left Pyongyang for Vladivostok on March 18 carried various passengers, including defense researchers and technicians, overseas workers, students, university professors, and tourists.

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Less than 100 of the passengers were heading to Russia as laborers. There are currently thousands of new workers waiting in North Korea to head abroad after undergoing selection and training.

One of the sources told Daily NK that Pyongyang has deprioritized sending laborers to Russia as the scope of cooperation and exchanges with Moscow grows.

Although North Korea earns considerable foreign currency by sending laborers abroad, even Pyongyang is beginning to feel that it does not need to rush to send such workers abroad - in violation of United Nations Security Council sanctions - as the country's means of earning foreign currency are diversifying.

"Because they plan to continue sending workers, the North Korean authorities believe they don't need to send many laborers at once," the source added.

In its September 2023 report, the Panel of Experts on U.N. Security Council sanctions against North Korea said up to 100,000 North Korean workers were working in some 40 countries in restaurants, textiles, construction, medicine, and IT, earning about $500 million a year for the regime.

The newly-departed workers will work at construction sites across Russia, including in Vladivostok, Khabarovsk, Novosibirsk, Magadan, and Ussuriysk. But not everyone abroad the flight was a laborer.

According to one of the sources, several of the North Koreans who left for Russia on March 18 were defense science researchers and technicians involved in the development of strategic weapons such as nuclear weapons and missiles, some of whom work in the engine research laboratory under the Missile General Bureau.

The source said the Missile General Bureau researchers were sent to Russia to receive advanced rocket engine technology from that country.

In addition, some graduate students from Kim Jong Un National Defense University went to Russia for short-term research, and professors and students from other universities also left for the country. This suggests that academic exchanges between North Korea and Russia will accelerate as the two nations grow closer.

Meanwhile, an Air Koryo flight that returned from Russia to Pyongyang on March 18 brought home North Korean laborers. Fewer than 50 workers returned, and all of them had been unable to work in Russia due to health and other problems.

One of the sources said the plane also carried food, electronic goods, medical supplies, and other items in its cargo hold.

"Because it costs a lot to put a flight in the air, planes come and go full of either people or goods," the source said. "The flight carried food such as flour, snacks, and pasta. It also carried a lot of items such as printers, ink, and computers."

According to Vladivostok International Airport's website, two Air Koryo flights between Pyongyang and Vladivostok made round trips 30 minutes apart on March 18.

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Op vrijdag 26 april 2024 17:26 schreef Ulx het volgende:
[ x ]

Beetje onduidelijk of dit nu nummer drie of vier is die ze leveren.

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Pentagon says ATACMS missiles intended to enable strikes on Crimea, pushing range of weaponry – NYT
The Pentagon named the main goal of supplying Ukraine with ATACMS missiles with a range of over 300 km

Ukrainian forces will be able to use long-range ATACMS missiles received from the United States for more effective strikes against Russian troops in the temporarily occupied Crimea, unnamed high-ranking Pentagon officials told The New York Times.

After several months of requests, Ukraine received a longer-range version of the ATACMS missiles, which can cover a distance of 190 miles – that's about 305 km.

US national security officials have said that much of the long-delayed arms supply should first focus on strengthening Ukraine's defenses.

The new weapon can penetrate deeper into the Russian-occupied parts of Ukraine and target the supply nodes of the Russian military in the southeast.

According to one unnamed senior US official, the purpose of the long-range missile deliveries is to increase pressure on Crimea, the center of Russia's air and ground forces, "where, right now, Russia has had relatively safe haven."

On April 24, the Pentagon announced a package of military aid for Ukraine worth $1 billion. It was not officially reported that the package includes ATACMS, but the day before CNN wrote that these missiles would be there, and President Volodymyr Zelenskyy said that Ukraine and the United States had finally reached an agreement on long-range ATACMS missiles.

Jake Sullivan, the national security adviser to the US president, confirmed that in February, Biden ordered to provide Ukraine with a "significant number" of ATACMS missiles. They were included in the aid package approved on March 12.

According to Reuters, the missiles were first used in the morning of April 17 and launched at a Russian airfield in Crimea. Voice of America, citing an unnamed high-ranking US official, reported that Ukraine also used ATACMS in the early hours of April 24.

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Estonia hands over two patrol boats to Ukraine


Estonia delivered two patrol boats to Ukraine in cooperation with Denmark.

The Estonian Ministry of Defense reported about this on Friday, April 26 on its social media.

The boats were provided as international military aid. They will help Ukraine protect its sea lanes and inland waters.

The Defense Ministry’s post on the social network X about helping Ukraine included a photo of a patrol boat currently operated by the Estonian Navy.

However, there is currently no information on the type of boats that Ukraine received. The role of Denmark in this delivery is also unknown.

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On March 21, at a meeting with his Ukrainian counterpart Rustem Umierov, Estonian Minister of Defence Hanno Pevkur announced that Estonia would send the next package of military aid worth �20 million to Ukraine.

“The package includes recoilless anti-tank guns, explosives, various types of artillery ammunition, gas masks, sniper equipment, smaller caliber ammunition, and more. We put this package together focussing on providing the maximum benefit to Ukraine while making sure not to diminish Estonian defense readiness,” Minister of Defense Hanno Pevkur shared.

This was the second tranche of military aid from Estonia this year.

The type of recoilless guns is also not named. However, as early as 2022, Estonia transferred a certain number of Swedish-made 90-mm Pansarv�rnspj�s 1110 guns (PV-1110) from its stockpiles.

Previously, on February 3, Estonia handed over to Ukraine a new military aid package that included anti-tank missiles of the Javelin system, machine guns, small arms ammunition, ground and amphibious vehicles, as well as diving equipment.

“Also in the next four years, Estonia plans to provide military support to Ukraine in the amount of 0.25% of its GDP,” said Prime Minister Kaja Kallas in January.

It should be added that in April 2022, the Baltic Workboats shipyard in Estonia began building a patrol vessel ordered by Ukraine that will operate in the Black Sea. A year later, the new vessel was supposed to be delivered to the port of Odesa, but there were no official reports on this matter.

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Former UK defense chief presses Scholz to declare if Germany wants Ukraine victory amid Taurus talks
On April 24, German Chancellor Olaf Scholz reiterated his opposition to the provision of Taurus missiles to Kyiv
Former British Defense Secretary Ben Wallace called on Germany to send Taurus cruise missiles to Ukraine. He believes that German Chancellor Olaf Scholz should decide whether he wants Ukraine to win the war or not, Zeit reports.

Wallace understands the fears about the escalation of tensions, but they are unfounded. "The red lines of Russia are like chalk erased from a blackboard," he said.

The former defense chief stressed that rather than ruling out the supply of the Taurus, Scholz had better name the conditions that might justify the supply of the missiles.

"It's better than saying, 'no, I'm not going to supply them,' to say, 'we're constantly monitoring the situation, and if Russia continues, we'll review it,'" Wallace said.

The former official argues that Scholz does not understand that it will help Russian dictator Vladimir Putin if he appears indecisive, hesitates when making certain decisions or creates the impression that he is not on the same page with his allies.

Western supporters of Ukraine impose restrictions on themselves that are not logical and even not understandable to Russians, said Wallace, adding that Scholz was also wrong when he suggested that British and French soldiers were in Ukraine to program cruise missiles.

"There is no need for British and French soldiers to sit in Ukraine and program cruise missiles," he said.

The German chancellor, along with the majority of German lawmakers, have repeatedly refused to send the Taurus long-range weapon systems to Ukraine, arguing that it would lead to a direct conflict between Germany and Russia.

On April 24, at a press conference together with British Prime Minister Rishi Sunak, Scholz reiterated that he opposes the provision of Taurus missiles.

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Swiss parliamentary committee backs proposal to send $5.5 billion in aid to Ukraine
A Swiss parliamentary committee supported a proposal on April 25 to provide 5 billion Swiss francs ($5.5 billion) in aid to Ukraine, moving the funding closer to being fully passed by the government.

Switzerland's Federal Council announced the plans earlier in April, saying the funds would be allocated to support Ukraine's economic development and reconstruction.

While the proposal must still get through more legislative steps before becoming law, it was supported by lawmakers from both center-right and center-left parties.

The funding for Ukraine was part of a larger package to improve Switzerland's defense capabilities, and it earmarked an additional 10.1 billion Swiss francs (~$11 billion) for the military.

While refusing to supply Kyiv with military aid on account of its long-term neutrality policy, Switzerland has provided economic and humanitarian support worth over $3 billion.

Switzerland also hosted the 2022 Ukraine Recovery Conference in Lugano, which laid down principles for Ukraine's reconstruction and recovery.

Switzerland is also set to host a global peace summit on Russia's war against Ukraine, with 80-100 countries invited to attend.

The conference is scheduled to place on June 16-17 in Lucerne, unnamed sources told Bloomberg.

The country is also reportedly ramping up efforts to prevent companies and individuals from using the country to circumvent sanctions imposed against Russia.

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Russian Court Sentences Melitopol Mother and Two Others on Fabricated Terrorism Charges

The Russian court has sentenced three Ukrainians to lengthy prison terms for alleged involvement in a non-existent terrorist plot, reported by Kharkiv Human Rights Protection Group.

The three, Yanina Akulova, Dmytro Sergieiev, and Anton Zhukovsky, were all abducted from the Russia-occupied city of Melitopol last year. Their supposed “confessions” were filmed well before Russia even acknowledged holding them prisoner.

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The Southern District Military Court in Rostov convicted the trio of “involvement in a terrorist group created by Ukraine’s Security Service.” The charges stemmed solely from confessions reportedly extracted through torture. The court, known for its harsh treatment of Ukrainian political prisoners, sentenced Sergieiev and Zhukovsky to 15 years each, with the first five years in a harsh penal colony. Akulova, a mother of two young daughters, received a nine-year sentence in a prison colony.

The alleged plot involved a bomb attack at a Melitopol market, supposedly intended to “destabilize the activities of the Russian Federation authorities.” However, earlier reports accused the Ukrainians of bombing a car carrying high-ranking Russians, a claim now absent from the official charges.

Akulova’s family reports that she was held incommunicado for six weeks before being forced to sign documents under torture, with methods including electric currents passed through the body, mock executions and beatings. Sergieiev and Zhukovsky are believed to have endured similar treatment. All three are currently held in Moscow prisons, with Akulova reportedly subjected to solitary confinement.

The convictions have been met with international outrage. It’s been repeatedly reported that Russia has systematically targeted civilians throughout its invasion of Ukraine, while there is no evidence of similar attacks by Ukrainian forces. The sentencing of these three innocent Ukrainians is seen as yet another example of Russia’s disregard for international law and basic human rights.

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Forbes Russia journalist detained over Bucha massacre repost

A journalist who writes for the Russian edition of Forbes magazine has been detained for spreading “false information” about the military, the magazine reported Friday.

Sergey Mingazov is now in a holding cell in the city of Khabarovsk in Russia’s Far East over a repost on his Telegram channel about the March 2022 massacre in the Kyiv suburb of Bucha, his lawyer said.

The court in Khabarovsk will set pretrial restrictions on Mingazov on 27 April, human rights group OVD-Info said Friday. If convicted, he could face up to 10 years in prison. Staff at Forbes have not yet been able to contact Mingazov.

In addition to his work for the Russian edition of Forbes, Mingazov runs multiple Telegram channels dealing with local issues. He has also previously worked for state-owned news agency TASS, the state-affiliated newspapers Vedomosti, Kommersant and Komsomolskaya Pravda and other publications.

The Russian army entered Bucha on 27 February 2022. The Armed Forces of Ukraine liberated the town on 31 March. Over 1,400 people died in Bucha during the 33 days it endured of Russian occupation, according to Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky, among them 175 people who were found in mass graves and torture chambers.

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‘Wagner Group operative’ charged under new UK security law
Dylan Earl, a 20-year-old from Leicester, is accused of conduct that would benefit Russia

The first person to be charged under the new National Security Act is an alleged operative of the Wagner Group, the mercenaries who have fought for Russia in Ukraine, Syria and Africa.

Dylan Earl, a 20-year-old from Leicester, is accused of conduct that would benefit Russia, and of endangering life or creating a serious risk to the safety of the public. He and two other men are accused of aggravated arson at a commercial premises in Leyton, east London.

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The property is owned by the parcel delivery services Oddisey and Meest UK. Both companies are owned by a British-Ukrainian businessman who lives in London. The companies have been involved in sending aid to Ukraine since the war began more than two years ago.

Earl appeared at Westminster magistrates’ court last Saturday but his identity can now be revealed after reporting restrictions were lifted.

The charges state that he agreed to carry out target reconnaissance and attempted to recruit individuals to assist with conduct that would “materially assist a foreign intelligence service carrying out UK-related activities”.

The Wagner Group, which is proscribed as a terrorist organisation in the UK, was created in 2014 by Yevgeny Prigozhin and has fought in Ukraine, Syria and parts of Africa.

It is considered one of the world’s most battle-hardened mercenary groups and was central to President Putin’s invasion of Ukraine, especially during the bloody battle for Bakhmut.

Prigozhin died in a plane crash in western Russia in August, two months after he attempted an aborted mutiny and advanced towards Moscow with his troops.

The National Security Act became law in December, replacing the Official Secrets Act. The government has updated espionage offences in a bid to combat hostile states including Russia.

Earl is the only defendant charged with offences under the National Security Act.

He has also been charged with aggravated arson with Paul English, 60, and Nii Kojo Menash, 21. The fire caused serious damage at the Leyton commercial premises in March.

Between February 1 and April 18 this year Earl is accused of breaching section 18 of the act, intending to commit an act “endangering the life of a person or an act creating a serious risk to the health or safety of the public in the United Kingdom”.

He is also accused of “agreeing to undertake fraudulent activity, research and reconnaissance of targets, and attempting to recruit individuals to assist with such activity, intending that conduct to materially assist a foreign intelligence service carrying out UK-related activities”. That alleged offence dates between December 20, 2021, and April 18 this year.

All three defendants have been remanded in custody before a plea and trial preparation hearing at the Old Bailey on May 10.

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Russian Soldiers Accused of Drunken Killing Spree in Occupied Ukraine – Reports
Two Russian soldiers have been arrested on suspicion of going on a drunken killing spree in the Moscow-occupied part of southern Ukraine’s Kherson region this week, according to media reports.

Alexander Osipov, 34, and Alexander Kaigorodtsev, 36, were detained Wednesday after several people were found dead in the neighboring villages of Podo-Kalynivka and Abrykosivka, the independent Telegram news channel Astra reported Thursday, citing anonymous sources.

Osipov and Kaigorodtsev have confessed to the crimes and told investigators where they had hidden the bodies of additional victims, the Kommersant business daily reported.

“It is assumed they may have committed the crime in a state of alcoholic intoxication,” the publication wrote.

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On Friday, the state-run RIA Novosti news agency cited anonymous law enforcement sources as saying there were seven victims in total.

In addition to the Moscow-installed head of Abrykosivka, who refused the soldiers’ demand to settle the village, the victims reportedly include a local homeowner, three residents and two security service officers who fell victim to indiscriminate gunfire.

Kommersant and Astra initially reported there were between three to five victims in the two Russian-occupied villages, including the head of Abrykosivka.

Kommersant reported that Osipov and Kaigorodtsev may have served in the 144th Guards Motor Rifle Division of the Russian Ground Forces.

Kaigorodtsev was previously convicted of murder, drug trafficking and public intoxication, according to Kommerant.

The Kremlin claims to have annexed Ukraine’s Kherson, Donetsk, Luhansk and Zaporizhzhia regions, a move widely condemned by the international community.

Large swathes of these territories, including the regional capitals of Zaporizhzhia and Kherson, are not currently under the control of the Russian military.

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Op vrijdag 26 april 2024 19:47 schreef BEFEM het volgende:
@:achja wat is jouw visie over fpv drones etc?

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The United States to purchase $1.6 billion worth of Ukrainian-made weapons for the Ukrainian Defense Forces
Military aid from the United States includes not only the transfer of US weapons to Ukraine, but also orders from enterprises of the Ukrainian military-industrial complex.

$1.6 billion will be allocated for the purchase of Ukrainian-made weapons.

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MP, Deputy Chairman of the Committee on Foreign Policy and Interparliamentary Cooperation Arsenii Pushkarenko stated this.

The funds will be taken from the funding provided under the recently signed aid package for Ukraine in the amount of almost $61 billion.

“This is very important today, because it regards the creation of joint defense enterprises that will be located in Ukraine or in our neighboring countries, taking into account security aspects,” the MP emphasized.

Pushkarenko added that this was one of the factors behind the development of the Ukrainian economy.

“The military technologies we have had been tested in combat conditions, which makes our defense industry quite attractive to many countries around the world,” the MP said.

In April, Oleksandr Kamyshin, Minister of Strategic Industries, announced that Ukraine was launching an international fundraising campaign to raise $10 billion from abroad to purchase Ukrainian-made weapons.

The first such decision to purchase weapons for the Ukrainian Defense Forces was made on April 17 by the Danish government. The country has allocated $28.5 million for the purchase of weapons and military equipment for the Armed Forces of Ukraine from Ukrainian manufacturers.

It is expected that, in addition to Denmark, other customers of Ukrainian military products are expected to include the United Kingdom, the Netherlands, and Latvia, which finance the purchase of drones through the so-called Drone Coalition, which has already raised nearly �500 million.

As of April 2024, the Ministry of Defense of Ukraine has valid contracts for the purchase of weapons and military equipment in the amount of UAH 582.2 billion. Almost 50% of them are concluded with Ukrainian manufacturers.

According to Yurii Dzhyhyr, Deputy Minister of Defense, it regards agreements concluded in different years, which are in progress with different completion dates. Some of them are supposed to pay UAH 254 billion in 2024.

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FC Sochi players allegedly poisoned before match against Kadyrov's FC Akhmat in Chechnya
FC Sochi football players were allegedly poisoned by Chechen warlord Ramzan Kadyrov's men before their Russian Premier League match against Akhmat Grozny on April 25 to prevent the Chechen club's relegation to a lower division.

Concerns escalated as all 14 players and five staff members experienced severe illness, including nausea and diarrhea, just before kickoff.

According to FC Sochi manager Robert Moreno all 14 of his club's players and five accompanying staff fell seriously ill shortly before the match, suffering from nausea and diarrhea.

"At first, there were only two players who were unwell, but as time went on more and more of them came down, eventually 14 players and five staff members,” he said.

“Several Sochi players were not even able to move around normally. Unfortunately, we didn't even have anyone to replace them."

Despite the health issues, the Sochi players were still required to play the match, which they eventually lost 1-0.

"We were probably forced to play. That's why we came to the stadium. We had to pick some players who felt better and were less affected by the situation," Moreno said.

While fans speculate on social media, Chechen warlord Ramzan Kadyrov's camp denies involvement, sparking controversy in the Russian football scene.

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‘This animal is going around schools’ A Russian prisoner-turned-soldier, convicted of murder and accused of raping minors, teaches children about patriotism

After returning from the war in Ukraine, many Russian soldiers are invited to speak about their experiences at schools and patriotic events for children. Among them is Nikita Semyanov, a 35-year-old from Novosibirsk, who was recruited to fight in the war while serving a nine-year prison sentence for murder. Multiple women have also accused Semyanov of sexually abusing minors and of physical assault. Nevertheless, he’s continued appearing at various patriotic gatherings for children since his return from the front in February 2024. The independent outlet Holod dug into Semyanov’s past and learned why local groups organizing the events are still turning a blind eye to the allegations against him. Meduza shares an abridged version in English.

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In February 2024, Novosibirsk’s Garin-Mikhailovsky Library posted about a recent recitation competition for schoolchildren called “Dedicated to the Defenders of the Fatherland.” Among the judges evaluating the children’s performance of patriotic poems was Nikita Semyanov, a veteran of the war in Ukraine. The post refers to him as a “special military operation” participant and reconnaissance group commander.

Shortly after, Semyanov visited a local school and spoke with the children there. Heroes of Russia – Novosibirsk, the local chapter of Russia’s Association of Heroes, published photos from the meeting on social media. The next day, Semyanov’s ex-wife, Polina, wrote a post revealing that Semyanov had killed her father.

Nikita Semyanov strangled his father-in-law in April 2021, after the two got into an argument. Alexander Makarenko was listed as missing for over a month. His body was found in May, and police quickly closed in on Semyanov and arrested him. Semyanov confessed to the murder, saying that the pair had started arguing while working together in the garage. As Makarenko was leaving, Semyanov grabbed him by the neck, put a plastic bag over his head, and strangled him with a wire. He then loaded the body into a car, took it to a plot of land he owned, and buried it in a pit.

In May 2022, a court found Semyanov guilty of murder and sentenced him to nine years in a strict regime prison colony. However, a few months after the verdict, he volunteered to fight in the war. After Semyanov was wounded, he returned to Novosibirsk a free man.

‘A sexual predator’
In early March, an acquaintance of Semyanov’s named Ulyana published a thread on X (formerly Twitter) in which she called him a pedophile and a murderer. “Now this animal is going around schools and blowing up smoke up your children’s asses,” she wrote.

According to her, Semyanov used to teach guitar to teenagers, and he coerced some of his students, girls aged 12–15, into having sex with him. Semyanov’s ex-wife Polina, seven years his junior, was also a minor when the two first got involved. “I met Nikita when I was 10,” she told Holod. “He worked at my school. We slept together when I was 13, and I moved in with him at 15. I gave birth at 17, and then when I was 18, we divorced.”

Ulyana said Semyanov tried to coerce her into having sex with him when she was around 14, and then again, about a year later:

On my boyfriend’s birthday, I ended up at his place again. There were a lot of us, my friends were there and in general, everyone was having fun. When my drunk boyfriend passed out, Nikita called me outside to talk. There, he shoved me into the dog kennel and started threatening me: either I give him a blowjob, or he’d strangle me and bury me, and no one would ever find me since the house was his. I was depressed, and I told him just to kill me. He got angry and dragged Polina over, made her suck him off in front of me.


Semyanov taught guitar at a local school in the 2010s, Ulyana told Holod. According to her, he’d let underage female students come stay with him if they’d gotten into fights with their parents:

I heard him say there’s a price for this, and if you weren’t willing to pay, you could pack up your things and get out. They didn’t complain about it, or maybe he hushed them up. In general, at that time, a lot of awful things were just a normal part of reality. He himself always said that his parents would help and cover for him and that he wouldn’t suffer any consequences.

Semyanov’s ex-wife Polina told Holod that while she was living with him, he constantly humiliated her, sexually assaulted her, and beat her: once he even broke her nose. She claimed that after the divorce, he used threats to force her to relinquish her parental rights in court. “I ran away from him with almost nothing,” she said. “I left everything. I had nowhere to go. I was afraid of being judged by my parents and afraid for myself. He made it very clear that I couldn’t see my child, and that if I tried to, he’d ruin my life.”

After the divorce, Polina went to prison on drug possession charges. Friends say that her daughter currently lives with Semyanov’s parents and that he likely sees her. Semyanov later remarried, and then again divorced. A family friend, Oksana (name changed), said that he regularly drank in front of the children and brutally beat his second wife, Irina (name changed). According to Semyanov’s acquaintances, he would make violent statements about his ex-wife Polina, saying she should be “chained in the basement and left to die there.”

“He’d scold his daughter, yell at her, and hit her,” Oksana added. “He justified it by saying her looks reminded him of his ex-wife, Polina. That she was just as nasty and vile and therefore deserved to be beaten and screamed at.” Oksana also told Holod that Irina found child pornography on Semyanov’s computer, which he later claimed to have deleted.

‘An exemplary father’
Not everyone believes that Nikita Semyanov killed his father-in-law and raped underage girls. Under posts accusing him of crimes, people started leaving comments in his defense. “Who’s writing this? Information has to be verified; you can’t just write a post based on what one person said. He’s an exemplary father, raised his daughter on his own. You can see how much she loves her dad. And as for what happened, you have to know the family’s situation and all the details,” wrote a user named Vera Osipova.

Osipova told Holod that her child was in some classes with Semyanov’s daughter. She described him as a “good father” and a “positive and friendly young man.”

The Association of Heroes, which organized Semyanov’s school appearance, told Holod that it doesn’t do its own background checks on members of the Russian military:

The Defenders of the Fatherland Foundation sends us the soldiers’ contact information. […] As for the horrors and accusations, apparently there is some tragic family history that the Association of Heroes has nothing to do with. We organize meetings with lots of soldiers.

Holod was unable to get in touch with Nikita Semyanov. He told Novosibirsk journalists that he wasn’t going to comment on the situation and that he didn’t recommend publishing anything on him. He blamed his ex-wife Polina for allegedly “abandoning a five-month-old child and disappearing for 10 years.” The Association of Heroes confirmed that Semyanov refuses to talk to the press. A representative there told local journalists that he is an active volunteer in patriotic organizations and, therefore, “from a moral standpoint, everything is fine.”

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Zelensky dismisses Armed Forces' Support Forces commander appointed in March
President Volodymyr Zelensky on April 26 dismissed Oleksandr Yakovets as the commander of the Support Forces of Ukraine's Armed Forces, according to the decree published on the Presidential Office's website.

Yakovets was appointed the Support Forces commander on March 4, replacing Dmytro Hereha. Yakovets previously held an administrative position in the Support Forces.

Zelensky signed another decree on Yakovets on April 26, appointing him the head of Ukraine's Special Transport Service. The president also dismissed Bohdan Bondar, who had led the unit since March 2022.

The State Special Transport Service is a unit of the Defense Ministry. Its responsibilities include building, repairing, and protecting the national transportation system's facilities.

Yakovets started his military career in 1992, took part in Ukraine's Anti-Terrorist Operation against Russian-backed militants in the Donbas, and received several state awards.

Zelensky began to reshuffle Ukraine's military command in February, dismissing Ukraine's top military commander Valerii Zaluzhnyi.

In April, more changes in high-level military command were announced, including the new appointments in the Southern, Eastern, and Western Operational Commands.

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SCARDY VLAD Putin CANCELS Victory Day military parades across Russia over fears deadly Ukraine drones could slip through defences
Last year, plenty May 9 parades were cancelled and Moscow's centrepiece show was scaled back over 'security concerns'

VLADIMIR Putin has been forced to cancel Russia's triumphant annual Victory Day parades over fears of Ukrainian kamikaze drone attacks.

The trembling tyrant, 71, has axed most of the May 9 celebrations - the most sacred day in the Russian calendar - because he couldn't guarantee the safety of his citizens.

The patriotic military parades are held throughout Russia as a means of celebrating the country defeating Nazi Germany in World War 2.

These events are usually used by Putin to showcase the might of the Russian military machine. and garner national pride - led by a giant parade in Moscow's Red Square.

This part will go ahead under intense security - overseen by Putin - but many regional parades have been scrapped along with associated major fireworks displays.

SPOILER

quote:

Belgorod, Bryansk, Pskov, Ryazan, Kursk and Saratov regions all cancelled their events, despite not all being close to Ukraine.

Victory Day has also been scrapped in the occupied regions of Ukraine, including Zaporizhzhia and Sevastopol in Crimea over "security reasons".

Before Russia's full-scale invasion of Ukraine, the flag-waving day used to involve tanks, nuclear missiles and huge guns rumbling through the capital as warplanes soared overhead.

Across Russia hundreds of marches of the ‘Immortal Regiment’ - when people carry photos of their war veteran relatives - have been scrapped too, for security reasons.

One fear was also that these events could have been hijacked by anti-war protesters.

In some other regions, like Syktyvkar, fireworks have been cancelled and in Voronezh concerts have been aborted.

In Rostov and Voronezh, some parades are axed, while others may go ahead without spectators.

More cancellations are expected.

Last year, Victory Day was cancelled across a swathe of Russian territories with a pared-down event in Moscow with barely any heavy duty military equipment on display.

After two years of war in Ukraine, rumours were swirling that the parades were called off due to a lack of tanks to even put in the parades.

Local governors again cited "security concerns".

The May 9 cancellations come as a regional official warned Russian students that the dictator is poised to order a new round of mobilisation amid fears he could lose the war.

Konstantin Dizendorf, from Krasnoyarsk region in Siberia, stood next to an 18-year-old being sent to Putin’s war and appeared to let slip the Kremlin plan.

He said: “Basically, our society understands that it is difficult for [Russia] today.

“We are standing on the threshold of whether we win - or not.

“We all understand this. And of course, most likely, there will be another call. Not for military service, but mobilisation."

Putin is estimated to need another 300,000 troops this year but may not get them without forced mobilisation, an unpopular move he has not attempted since September 2022.

The mobilisation led to a mass exodus of up to 300,000 young men fleeing Russia to escape the draft.

US weapons heading for front
Meanwhile, a tranche of fresh US weapons could be reaching Ukraine's frontline in "just days", US officials said ahead of Russia's new offensive.

Yesterday, President Joe Biden signed a bill to provide Ukraine with a �50billion war chest.

After six months of stalling in Congress, Biden was finally able to clear the way for desperately needed artillery, missiles and air defense munitions to head for Kyiv.

The announcement brought relief along Ukraine's 600-mile front after Kyiv had to painfully ration its weapons, leaving its forces vulnerable to deadly Russian attacks.

Ukrainian president Volodymyr Zelensky hailed it as a historic decision "that keeps history on the right track" against "Russian evil".

The legislation was officially signed the same day US officials confirmed the US had been secretly been sending Ukraine long-range ballistic missiles.

The bunker-busting ATACMS can reach targets "anywhere" within Russian-occupied Ukraine - potentially turning the tides of war in Kyiv's favour, defence experts told The Sun.

Earlier this week, PM Rishi Sunak jetted off to Poland along with Nato chief Yens Stoltenberg for urgent security talks.

Sunak seized the moment to pledge to raise the UK's defence spending to 2.5 per cent of GDP by 2030 as he said Britain was on a "war footing".

It marks the biggest defence boost in a generation with a cash injection of �75billion across the next six years.

Sunak hailed it as the “biggest strengthening of national defence in a generation” to combat a growing axis of evil between Russia, Iran, China and North Korea.

A record �500million was earmarked for President Zelensky’s war effort, as the PM warned Putin will not stop at the Polish border should the despot win in Ukraine,

The power-package will include further ammunition, air defence and drones and take the UK’s support for Kyiv to �3billion this financial year.

The Sun also spoke to three senior military experts about what the UK needs to shore up its own defences and build a war chest ready to take on Russia.

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Op vrijdag 26 april 2024 22:28 schreef Usert het volgende:
Wat me niet echt duidelijk is, maken de verschillende soorten tanks hun verwachtingen waard? En welke lijkt het in praktijk nu het best z’n verwachtingen waar te maken en welk stelt stiekem teleur?
Iemand die daar iets over durft te zeggen?

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Op vrijdag 26 april 2024 22:31 schreef Discombobulate het volgende:

[..]
Niet bepaald nee. Je maakt ze ook relatief makkelijk stuk. Weet je nog "JAAAA TANKS BLABLA" voorafgaand aan het offensief? Nu hoor je er amper wat van.

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Op vrijdag 26 april 2024 22:45 schreef Ulx het volgende:

[..]
Precies, die Armata's en T-90's zijn behoorlijk tegenvallend. En dan heb ik het nog niet eens over de oudere generaties.

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Op vrijdag 26 april 2024 23:17 schreef ExTec het volgende:
Doe wat israel doet, doe APS erop, en dan ben je weer good to go.

Tanks gaan niet verdwijnen.

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Op vrijdag 26 april 2024 23:18 schreef Jaroon het volgende:

[..]
Simpel denkend.......

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Op vrijdag 26 april 2024 22:28 schreef Usert het volgende:
Wat me niet echt duidelijk is, maken de verschillende soorten tanks hun verwachtingen waard? En welke lijkt het in praktijk nu het best z’n verwachtingen waar te maken en welk stelt stiekem teleur?
Iemand die daar iets over durft te zeggen?

quote:

Op vrijdag 26 april 2024 22:28 schreef Usert het volgende:
Wat me niet echt duidelijk is, maken de verschillende soorten tanks hun verwachtingen waard? En welke lijkt het in praktijk nu het best z’n verwachtingen waar te maken en welk stelt stiekem teleur?
Iemand die daar iets over durft te zeggen?

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Britain's Challenger 2 has been praised by crews for excellent ergonomics and highly accurate gunsights and main gun. Both sides generally acknowledge it to be the single most powerful tank operating in Ukraine, probably, and likewise the vehicle most likely to win a tank-to-tank duel.

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"Ammunition, more drones, more Bradleys or CV-90s, more artillery, and just about anything else would have been money better spent. That's obvious in hindsight but wasn't that hidden from view at the time and the West should have seen it," Riedmuller said.

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Op vrijdag 26 april 2024 23:26 schreef oheng het volgende:

[..]
Het is heel simpel: iedere russische tank stelt teleur. O.a. vanwege de survivability. Zie Warspotting of Oryx.
En in het bijzonder de T-90M. Zogenaamd de "breakthrough tank". 79 tank op Oryx, op 24 februari 2022 had rusland er maar liefst 120 stuks ofzo?

Het zal me verbazen als rusland ooit nog 1 tank verkoopt

Russian "turtle tanks" could be breakthroughs in Ukraine, this is a dangerous moment - Forbes

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The Ukrainian resource DeepState reports a breakthrough by the Russian Armed Forces in Kislovka, Kharkov region. Our colleagues also reported this today (https://t.me/ukrainian_guide/10141).

Today at 10 o'clock in the morning the Russians began a massive counter-offensive in Kislovka. By the end of the day, they gained a foothold in the village. The location of the strike was chosen to be a territorial defense unit with limited forces and resources. It’s annoying for the guys to lose ground, but without heavy weapons support the situation could get significantly worse. If Ocheretino did not become a lesson for military commanders, then no amount of media publicity will force them to get off their butts and get the staff managers to do something...
The Ukrainian resource writes with annoyance. Based on the text, it becomes clear that the Russian Armed Forces gained a foothold in this locality, crushing the TrO units that were stationed there with a surprise attack.

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Op vrijdag 26 april 2024 21:21 schreef Delenlill het volgende:
https://www.reddit.com/r/(...)_bus_stop_taken_out/
Russians taking shelter in a bus stop taken out with fpvs

https://www.reddit.com/r/(...)ack_aircraft_strike/
A pair of Ukrainian Su-25 attack aircraft strike Russian positions in the centre of Novopokrovka with S-8 missiles

https://www.reddit.com/r/(...)ing_atacms_missiles/
HIMARS launching ATACMS missiles

https://www.reddit.com/r/(...)cluster_of_russians/
FPV strike on cluster of Russians

https://www.reddit.com/r/(...)ght_to_a_college_to/
A Russian official came straight to a college to recruit 18-year-old schoolchildren to go to war. He brought with him one who expressed a desire to sign a contract with the Ministry of Defense to die in Ukraine, since there is "no work in his town, nothing to do".

https://www.reddit.com/r/(...)n_russian_positions/
Ukrainian bradley firing on Russian positions

https://www.reddit.com/r/(...)re_a_small_group_of/
Ukrainian soldiers capture a small group of Russians. Probably in the area of ​​Terny, Donetsk region. April 2024

Ukrainian-made 155 howitzer Bohdana Hit Russian Weapons Depots, Infantry Positions, and Mortar Crews

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Op zaterdag 27 april 2024 05:29 schreef Jippie het volgende:
Dat laatste geldt voor iedereen met redactieskills

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Een journalist die schrijft voor de Russische editie van het Amerikaanse zakentijdschrift Forbes is door een rechtbank in Rusland onder huisarrest geplaatst. Sergej Mingazov werd vrijdag opgepakt voor het verspreiden van nepnieuws over het Russische leger.

https://nos.nl/l/2518372

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Op zaterdag 27 april 2024 04:21 schreef BlaZ het volgende:

[..]
Deze schildpadpanzers lijken het wel prima te doen.

Russian "turtle tanks" could be breakthroughs in Ukraine, this is a dangerous moment - Forbes

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Op zaterdag 27 april 2024 12:07 schreef bleiblei het volgende:

[..]
Die dingen kunnen toch alleen vooruit schieten en zijn lomp zwaar door de constructie? Dat is in deze setups kwestie van onbeschermde tanks ervoor en erachter uitschakelen. Kunnen ze niet weg en zichzelf amper verdedigen.

Hebben ze geen escort van andere voertuigen, dan zijn het ook sitting ducks. Enige punt waar ze sterk in zijn is opvangen van drones. Naja, daar verzinnen ze wel wat op. Ik vind het maar een middeleeuwse manier van beschermen. Maar hey, tzijn de enorm innovatieve Russen .

Ik geef die tanks max een maand. Daarna worden ze weer met bosjes tegelijk opgeblazen.

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Op zaterdag 27 april 2024 04:21 schreef BlaZ het volgende:

[..]
Deze schildpadpanzers lijken het wel prima te doen.

Russian "turtle tanks" could be breakthroughs in Ukraine, this is a dangerous moment - Forbes

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Op vrijdag 26 april 2024 22:28 schreef Usert het volgende:
Wat me niet echt duidelijk is, maken de verschillende soorten tanks hun verwachtingen waard? En welke lijkt het in praktijk nu het best z’n verwachtingen waar te maken en welk stelt stiekem teleur?
Iemand die daar iets over durft te zeggen?

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Op zaterdag 27 april 2024 12:36 schreef LethalNinja het volgende:

[..]
De hele rol van tanks is veranderd. Het zijn niet meer de klassieke tank gevechten. Alhoewel het vroeger ook niet alleen tank tegen tank was en de beste tank wint immers toen had je ook al gevechtsvliegtuigen en helicopters die tanks konden opblazen.

Nu heb je drones en drones hebben eigenlijk alle spelregels veranderd. Zowel voor Rusland als Oekra�ne. Waarom zou je voor honderden miljoenen aan high tech apparatuur plaatsen op een tank als die door een drone van een paar duizend euro kan worden opgeblazen? In de lange run ga je dan verliezen op basis van middelen/ resources.

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Op zaterdag 27 april 2024 12:36 schreef LethalNinja het volgende:
Waarom zou je voor honderden miljoenen aan high tech apparatuur plaatsen op een tank als die door een drone van een paar duizend euro kan worden opgeblazen?

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Op zaterdag 27 april 2024 10:06 schreef Ulx het volgende:
[ x ]

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Op zaterdag 27 april 2024 05:28 schreef Jippie het volgende:

[..]
Het is wel de bedoeling dat er hier iets van een discussie wordt gevoerd. Ik waardeer de moeite die je doet om alles op te zoeken en te posten maar het is hier geen plakboek.

Op de Frontpage ben je van harte welkom, je kunt daar van alles submitten eventueel met je eigen bericht erbij.

We kunnen nog crew gebruiken, dus je kunt ook gelijk solliciteren

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Op zaterdag 27 april 2024 12:56 schreef spicymchaggis het volgende:

[..]
Een chirurg kan over kankergezwellen schrijven, maar zo lang ze niet weggesneden worden zullen ze blijven voortwoekeren.

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Op zaterdag 27 april 2024 12:34 schreef LethalNinja het volgende:

[..]
Ja goed filmpje. Fijn om een filmpje te zien via feiten en niet gekleurd. De turtle tank ziet er een beetje raar uit maar het is zeer effectief. Niet alleen pakt het de aandacht van Oekra�ne het kan ook goed verkennen door mogelijk zeer gevaarlijk terrein. Zou mij niks verbazen als er aangepaste versies komen maar dan om troepen in te verplaatsen.

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Op vrijdag 26 april 2024 22:28 schreef Usert het volgende:
Wat me niet echt duidelijk is, maken de verschillende soorten tanks hun verwachtingen waard? En welke lijkt het in praktijk nu het best z’n verwachtingen waar te maken en welk stelt stiekem teleur?
Iemand die daar iets over durft te zeggen?

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Op zaterdag 27 april 2024 13:13 schreef bianconeri het volgende:

[..]
Serieus?
Dit is een grap toch?

Dus die Dellenlil gast mag totaal offtopic onzin hier spammen over de politiek in de VS wat totaal niets met deze oorlog te maken heeft.
En daar worden soms pagina's vol hierover volgedumpt.

En nu post hij eindelijk eens iets wat ontopic is, interessant en dus relevant en dan spreek je hem wel aan?

Wat een lachertje

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Op zaterdag 27 april 2024 13:23 schreef AgLarrr het volgende:

[..]
Ik begreep dat van de 30+ Abrahams er vijf niet meer operationeel zijn en de rest van de frontlinie is gehaald omdat ze onder de drone dreiging zo kwetsbaar zijn.

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Op zaterdag 27 april 2024 12:44 schreef Ulx het volgende:

[..]
Dat kan zonder drones ook. Een infanterist met een anti-tank wapen kan een tank ook uitschakelen. Een AT-mijn kan dat ook. Een tank uitschakelen met iets goedkoops is niet echt iets nieuws. En veel beelden van tanks die worden opgeblazen zijn van tanks die al uitgeschakeld waren. Dat geeft ook wel een vertekend beeld.

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Op zaterdag 27 april 2024 12:45 schreef ExTec het volgende:

[..]
Omdat je met drones geen grond kunt bezetten.

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Op zaterdag 27 april 2024 13:28 schreef inslagenreuring het volgende:

[..]
Nou het dumpen van links op zich is niet de bedoeling. Hij steekt er natuurlijk wel moeite in. Maar geeft zelf geen toelichting, zet niets in perspectief.

En dan die hele reeksen over Trump. .

Maar nogmaals, hij steekt er wel moeite in. Alleen de manier waarop heeft als effect dat ik er in ieder geval langs scroll.

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Op zaterdag 27 april 2024 13:30 schreef Ulx het volgende:
Ik niet veel beelden gezien van een el cheapo drone die een rijdende tank opblaast. Volgens mij zelfs geen enkele.

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Op zaterdag 27 april 2024 13:35 schreef ExTec het volgende:

[..]
Jahoor. Meerdere. Een bomber drone die een voor de rest onbeschadigde T-90 naar de maan helpt, op een bepaald geeft die tank vol gas, en gaat die drone er zelfs achteraan.

Tanks zijn nu en going forward gewoon mega-kwetsbaar zonder APS of anderssoortig mobiele AA welke ze dekt.

En de laatste incarnatie van de abrams heeft ook APS. Maar de rest van de wereld zit nog lekker te suffen. NL plaatst wel weer een order voor een lading volstrekt achterhaalde leopards.

quote:

Op zaterdag 27 april 2024 13:13 schreef bianconeri het volgende:

[..]
Serieus?
Dit is een grap toch?

Dus die Dellenlil gast mag totaal offtopic onzin hier spammen over de politiek in de VS wat totaal niets met deze oorlog te maken heeft.
En daar worden soms pagina's vol hierover volgedumpt.

En nu post hij eindelijk eens iets wat ontopic is, interessant en dus relevant en dan spreek je hem wel aan?

Wat een lachertje

quote:

Op zaterdag 27 april 2024 12:45 schreef ExTec het volgende:

[..]
Omdat je met drones geen grond kunt bezetten.

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Op zaterdag 27 april 2024 13:33 schreef LethalNinja het volgende:

[..]
Hij post veel filmpjes. Ik zou het leuk vinden als hij bij filmpjes of links ook wat toelichting zet. Volgens mij is dat sowieso ook de bedoeling anders is het dumpen van. Waarom is het filmpje gekozen? Wat is zijn mening erover? etc etc

Ik post hier ook wel eens een filmpje van HIstory legends, dan met korte toelichting waarom ik hem heb gepost, wat ik ervan vind en of wat je wel of niet uit het filmpje kan halen.

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Op zaterdag 27 april 2024 13:31 schreef LethalNinja het volgende:

[..]
Je post zo'n korte reactie met een smilie dus ik weet niet of je hier grappig probeert te zijn of niet. Een tank op de grond kan namelijk prima vervangen worden door een drone op de grond met volop camera's. Verderop kan je dan ook wat infanterie in een bunker doen en een vlaggetje hijsen.

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Op zaterdag 27 april 2024 13:45 schreef ExTec het volgende:

[..]
Nee. Als je bv een gebied gaat bezetten, houd dat oa. ook in dat je naar een gemeentehuis gaat, een ministerie, en daar de ambtenaren at gun point gaat vertellen dat ze nu gaan doen wat jij zegt. En/of je stuurt je eigen ambtenaren.

En dan heb je gewoon een of ander mannetje dat terwijl jij lekker met je drones in de weer was, muisstil in een hoekje zat, en zich niet verroerde.

Totdat je ambtenaren uit het busje komen, dan loopt die naar z'n kast, pakt die z'n geweer en leegt hij z'n magazijn op je ambtenaren. En sure, vanaf dat punt kun je wat met je drones doen, maar je ambtenaren liggen dood op straat.

Want je gaat woningen niet kunnen clearen, dus van te voren het wapen uit die kast halen, met drones alleen.

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Op zaterdag 27 april 2024 13:35 schreef ExTec het volgende:

[..]
Jahoor. Meerdere. Een bomber drone die een voor de rest onbeschadigde T-90 naar de maan helpt, op een bepaald geeft die tank vol gas, en gaat die drone er zelfs achteraan.

Tanks zijn nu en going forward gewoon mega-kwetsbaar zonder APS of anderssoortig mobiele AA welke ze dekt.

En de laatste incarnatie van de abrams heeft ook APS. Maar de rest van de wereld zit nog lekker te suffen. NL plaatst wel weer een order voor een lading volstrekt achterhaalde leopards.

quote:

Op zaterdag 27 april 2024 13:43 schreef inslagenreuring het volgende:

[..]
Nou dit dus. Zo hoort het.

Even los van het feit dat hij er wel moeite voor doet. En volgens mij wordt dat ook wel gewaardeerd.

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Op zaterdag 27 april 2024 13:33 schreef LethalNinja het volgende:

[..]
Hij post veel filmpjes. Ik zou het leuk vinden als hij bij filmpjes of links ook wat toelichting zet. Volgens mij is dat sowieso ook de bedoeling anders is het dumpen van. Waarom is het filmpje gekozen? Wat is zijn mening erover? etc etc

Ik post hier ook wel eens een filmpje van HIstory legends, dan met korte toelichting waarom ik hem heb gepost, wat ik ervan vind en of wat je wel of niet uit het filmpje kan halen.

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Op zaterdag 27 april 2024 05:28 schreef Jippie het volgende:

[..]
Het is wel de bedoeling dat er hier iets van een discussie wordt gevoerd. Ik waardeer de moeite die je doet om alles op te zoeken en te posten maar het is hier geen plakboek.

Op de Frontpage ben je van harte welkom, je kunt daar van alles submitten eventueel met je eigen bericht erbij.

We kunnen nog crew gebruiken, dus je kunt ook gelijk solliciteren

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Op zaterdag 27 april 2024 13:30 schreef Ulx het volgende:
Ik niet veel beelden gezien van een el cheapo drone die een rijdende tank opblaast. Volgens mij zelfs geen enkele.

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Op zaterdag 27 april 2024 15:15 schreef Papierversnipperaar het volgende:

[..]
Delenlill's posts zijn hier welkom. Ga maar ergens anders vrijwilligers rekruteren.

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Op zaterdag 27 april 2024 16:14 schreef Jippie het volgende:

[..]
Waar zeg ik dat zijn posts niet welkom zijn? Ben onder de indruk van de moeite die hij doet voor zijn posts, maar hij moet ook zelf een beetje mee discussi�ren op dit discussieplatform.

En de submit FP staat open voor iedereen

quote:

Op zaterdag 27 april 2024 16:50 schreef Delenlill het volgende:

[..]


Maar ik ga wel terug naar grotendeels lurken zoals ik daarvoor deed.

quote:

Op zaterdag 27 april 2024 16:50 schreef Delenlill het volgende:

[..]
Ik doe regelmatig mee met de discussies in deze reeks. En ook post ik regelmatig mijn mening onder de nieuwsberichten die ik plaats. En gisteren nog was het Straatcommando die zei dat het niet tegen de regels was en dat ik kon door gaan met posten zoals ik altijd doe. Al had ik wel aangegeven om de berichten nog wat meer de verkorten door het gebruik van spoilers. Tevens ben ik al zo aan het posten voor de afgelopen 6-10 maanden in dit topic.

Maar ik ga wel terug naar grotendeels lurken zoals ik daarvoor deed.

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Op zaterdag 27 april 2024 13:33 schreef LethalNinja het volgende:

[..]
Hij post veel filmpjes. Ik zou het leuk vinden als hij bij filmpjes of links ook wat toelichting zet. Volgens mij is dat sowieso ook de bedoeling anders is het dumpen van. Waarom is het filmpje gekozen? Wat is zijn mening erover? etc etc

Ik post hier ook wel eens een filmpje van HIstory legends, dan met korte toelichting waarom ik hem heb gepost, wat ik ervan vind en of wat je wel of niet uit het filmpje kan halen.

quote:

Op zaterdag 27 april 2024 13:40 schreef Jippie het volgende:

[..]
Blijkbaar heb ik een andere soort humor dan jou.

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Op zaterdag 27 april 2024 17:09 schreef bleiblei het volgende:

[..]
Sinds je die Trump-zooi onder spoilers post kan ik je bijdragen best waarderen .

quote:

Op zaterdag 27 april 2024 16:50 schreef Delenlill het volgende:

Ik doe regelmatig mee met de discussies in deze reeks. En ook post ik regelmatig mijn mening onder de nieuwsberichten die ik plaats. En gisteren nog was het Straatcommando die zei dat het niet tegen de regels was en dat ik kon door gaan met posten zoals ik altijd doe. Al had ik wel aangegeven om de berichten nog wat meer de verkorten door het gebruik van spoilers. Tevens ben ik al zo aan het posten voor de afgelopen 6-10 maanden in dit topic.

Maar ik ga wel terug naar grotendeels lurken zoals ik daarvoor deed.

quote:

Op zaterdag 27 april 2024 16:14 schreef Jippie het volgende:

[..]
Waar zeg ik dat zijn posts niet welkom zijn? Ben onder de indruk van de moeite die hij doet voor zijn posts, maar hij moet ook zelf een beetje mee discussi�ren op dit discussieplatform.

En de submit FP staat open voor iedereen

quote:

Op zaterdag 27 april 2024 17:15 schreef bianconeri het volgende:
Het enige wat gewoon super offtopic en tegen de regels is zijn die politieke verkiezingen die helemaal nergens op slaan hier.

quote:

Op zaterdag 27 april 2024 16:50 schreef Delenlill het volgende:

[..]
Ik doe regelmatig mee met de discussies in deze reeks. En ook post ik regelmatig mijn mening onder de nieuwsberichten die ik plaats. En gisteren nog was het Straatcommando die zei dat het niet tegen de regels was en dat ik kon door gaan met posten zoals ik altijd doe. Al had ik wel aangegeven om de berichten nog wat meer de verkorten door het gebruik van spoilers. Tevens ben ik al zo aan het posten voor de afgelopen 6-10 maanden in dit topic.

Maar ik ga wel terug naar grotendeels lurken zoals ik daarvoor deed.

quote:

Op zaterdag 27 april 2024 17:18 schreef kibo het volgende:

[..]
Ik vind zijn posts visueel informatief en niet storend.

Als jij zo nodig de belerende mod wil uithangen hier, concentreer je dan eens op die door jou zo geliefde "discussies". Al te vaak ontaarden die hier in pagina's lange moddergooierij, elkaar de maat nemen, oeverloos welles nietes en ga zo maar door.

quote:

Op zaterdag 27 april 2024 14:42 schreef ExTec het volgende:
Redneck repair, maar dan op z'n rus.

[ x ]

quote:

Op zaterdag 27 april 2024 16:50 schreef Delenlill het volgende:

[..]
Ik doe regelmatig mee met de discussies in deze reeks. En ook post ik regelmatig mijn mening onder de nieuwsberichten die ik plaats. En gisteren nog was het Straatcommando die zei dat het niet tegen de regels was en dat ik kon door gaan met posten zoals ik altijd doe. Al had ik wel aangegeven om de berichten nog wat meer de verkorten door het gebruik van spoilers. Tevens ben ik al zo aan het posten voor de afgelopen 6-10 maanden in dit topic.

Maar ik ga wel terug naar grotendeels lurken zoals ik daarvoor deed.

quote:

Op zaterdag 27 april 2024 20:49 schreef dudewhereismycar het volgende:

[..]
Nee, je bent een meerwaarde voor het topic. Laat die gasten maar lullen, er zijn heel veel lurkers die je posts graag lezen.

quote:

Op zaterdag 27 april 2024 16:50 schreef Delenlill het volgende:

[..]
Ik doe regelmatig mee met de discussies in deze reeks. En ook post ik regelmatig mijn mening onder de nieuwsberichten die ik plaats. En gisteren nog was het Straatcommando die zei dat het niet tegen de regels was en dat ik kon door gaan met posten zoals ik altijd doe. Al had ik wel aangegeven om de berichten nog wat meer de verkorten door het gebruik van spoilers. Tevens ben ik al zo aan het posten voor de afgelopen 6-10 maanden in dit topic.

Maar ik ga wel terug naar grotendeels lurken zoals ik daarvoor deed.

quote:

Op zaterdag 27 april 2024 14:48 schreef BEFEM het volgende:

[..]
Waar ik benieuwd naar ben is of delenhill slashdotter3 is of niet

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Ukraine Appears To Be Using Light Planes Converted Into Reusable Bomber Drones
The nearly intact Skyranger plane crashed with a bomb attached to its underside and clear indications that it was remotely piloted.

Images posted on a Russian Telegram channel of an inverted but intact crashed light airplane appear to indicate that Ukraine may have converted it into a remotely operated bomber. While we have previously written about Ukraine converting light aircraft into kamikaze drones, this appears to be the first time one was adapted into a reusable weapon that can have kinetic effects by dropping ordnance, not crashing into a target and detonating.

A half-dozen photos posted on the Warhistoryalconafter Telegram channel Thursday show a Skyranger light Short Takeoff and Landing (STOL) aircraft that appears to have been modified for remote control operation.

SPOILER

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Having a reusable but attritable (cheap enough to be sacrificed in combat) remotely piloted aircraft capable of dropping standard air-to-ground high-explosive ordnance would be a significant capability boost for Ukraine. Using these drones for closer-range missions into Russian-controlled territory or into border areas in Russia itself would make perfect sense. The system could potentially also be utilized for autonomous strikes in a kamikaze mode for longer-range missions against high-value targets.

It's also possible that these aircraft are intended for long-range kamikaze strikes, but the optical system points strongly to the drone being capable of being 'picked up' by controllers deep in enemy territory after flying to a specific area on autopilot. Once in communication with the aircraft, they could control it as it approaches the target area and fly it directly into its objective. The same control arrangement could be used for dropping its bomb before returning to base on autopilot for reuse. This 'handoff' control method gets around the limitations of line-of-sight control needed for dynamically piloting a drone like this remotely, which you can read all about here.

The photo below shows a gimbaled EO camera mounted under the aircraft's nose.

The following two photos show an OFAB-100-120 high-explosive bomb with shackles that indicate it was meant to be dropped.


You can see what this ordnance looks like in the photo below, courtesy of Collective Awareness To UXO, an organization working to prevent injuries from unexploded ordnance.

“Photos have appeared that 100% confirm the theory that [Ukraine] began to use light aircraft to attack Russia,” the Warhistoryalconafter Telegram channel wrote. “As you can see, this aircraft is equipped with optics and an aircraft high-explosive bomb is attached to it. The space intended for pilots has been converted and contains electronics.”

That channel does not say where or when the aircraft crashed.

The president of Skyranger’s U.S. licensee confirmed to The War Zone that the aircraft in the pictures is a Skyranger, a version of which you can see in the photo below.

After observing photos we shared with him, Tabor Coates, who operates Blue Collar Aviation, said large trim tabs on the aircraft’s control surfaces indicate the aircraft had likely been modified to be flown remotely by a pilot manipulating the aileron, elevator and rudder from afar.

“The plane is a good plane, inherently stable,” he told us. “My guess, and it is a guess, is that it was controlled like a big radio-controlled airplane.”

It is possible, he added, that the pilot was operating it via a First Person View (FPV) controller, much like the dreaded FPV kamikaze drones used by both sides in this conflict.

Coates had no insight into the range of the controller.

The U.K-based Flylight Airsports makes two versions of the Skyranger, the Swift 3 and the Nynja. Each is powered by a Rotax 912 engine in either an 80- or 100-hp variant. That engine, as we wrote about previously has been used to power Russian-operated, Iranian-made Mohajar-6 drones used to attack Ukraine. They have also been a target of thieves around the globe.

“The aircraft has a tremendous useful load for what it is,” Coates said of the Skyranger. “It will carry a lot.”

How much and how far “depends on how big the fuel tank is,” he said. Newer versions have a 16-gallon gas tank allowing it to fly for three hours at close to 100 mph, he added.

Some versions of the aircraft have payloads of nearly 730 pounds, according to Flylight Airsports, which offers kits for people to build the aircraft themselves or factory-built models.

A complete kit sells in the U.S. for about $55,000, Coates explained, adding that his company has no connection to the crashed aircraft.

We don’t know how often Ukraine has converted these aircraft to operate this way. From the images we shared, Coates surmised that it might have been a hastily made conversion of a readily available, already-built Skyranger. However, a Kyiv-based company called Aeroes does sell them in Ukraine. We reached out to both Flylight Airsport and Aeros to find additional information and will update this with anything pertinent they provide.

While this is the first time we have seen a light aircraft that Ukraine possibly converted to a remotely piloted bomber, there are a number of examples of them using these small, relatively inexpensive planes as kamikaze attack drones on Russian territory.

As we reported earlier this month, Ukraine has used converted light aircraft in the kamikaze configuration recently to attack a target in Russia.

On April 2, we reported that “a previously unseen drone that was converted from a light manned aircraft” was purportedly used to attack “the Shahed production facility in Yelabuga, in Russia’s southeastern Tatarstan region. This was confirmed by an unnamed Ukrainian intelligence source, Reuters reported, and a member of Ukraine’s military intelligence agency (GUR) told the Kyiv Independent the same. According to initial reports, officials in Kyiv believe that the attack caused significant damage to the facility, although this cannot be independently verified.”

You can see a video of that incident below.
As we surmised at the time, the drone that attacked Yelabuga is a conversion of a light manned aircraft, the Ukrainian-made Aeroprakt A-22, also known by its nickname, the Foxbat, which is classified as an ultralight and is produced as a factory-built aircraft and as a kit. Note that no bomb was mounted externally for this autonomous strike.

There may have been at least one more such attack using an A-22 Foxbat since, according to the Kyiv Independent.

"A factory in Russia's Tatarstan producing bomber aircraft for the Russian military was attacked by Ukrainian drones on the morning of April 17, Kyiv’s military intelligence (GUR) has confirmed," the publication reported. "Ukraine has not confirmed what type of drones was used in the attack but Russian media claimed that rather than a regular drone, it was a converted Ukrainian-produced Aeroprakt A-22 Foxbat light aircraft."

A military intelligence source told the Kyiv Independent that "there were no details at present on damage or casualties but claimed the facility manufactures Tu-22M and Tu-160M bombers, both of which are regularly used to target Ukrainian cities in mass missile strikes."

It is unknown how many light aircraft Ukraine has converted as long-range strike weapons. However, given their repeated attacks inside Russia with a variety of drones, these types of attacks will likely continue.

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The Alternative for Germany manifesto was prepared in the Kremlin - Spiegel
At a closed meeting in September 2022, Russian officials discussed strategy for Berlin, resulting in a “new concept” for the far-right Alternative for Germany (AfD) party. Source: Spiegel

According to the publication, after this meeting a year and a half ago, the Kremlin prepared a “manifesto” with theses on Germany’s domestic policy, which spoke about the gloomy economic and social future of the country and argued that there was a growing split in society.

The purpose of this document was to increase the popularity of the AfD party in order to achieve “a majority in elections at all levels,” Spiegel reports, adding that the corresponding order, according to its information, was issued by one of the closest confidants of Russian President Vladimir Putin.

SPOILER

quote:

According to Western intelligence, the head of the Russian Presidential Administration for the Development of Information and Communication Technologies and Communications Infrastructure, Tatyana Matveeva, received the task of developing a project for AfD directly from the Deputy Director of the Russian Presidential Administration Sergei Kiriyenko.

During the meeting in the Kremlin, the renaming of the AfD into “United Germany” or “German Unity” was also discussed. In this way, the party could present itself as a “unifying force in the country.”

Moreover, alliances between the AfD and other political groups were discussed in the Kremlin, with explicit mention of the post-communist Left party.

As Spiegel notes, at the time of the meeting in Moscow, the split on the left that last January led to the creation of the far-left populist Sarah Wagenknecht Alliance party, which is suspected of contacts with Russia, had not yet occurred in Moscow.

While it is unknown whether Alternative for Germany took this "advice" from the Kremlin into practice, Spiegel claims that the party's main candidate in the Thuringian state elections, Bjorn Hecke, gave a speech in October 2022 that "repeated almost verbatim" the ideas Kremlin "manifesto".

Read Spiegel's full story on how the Kremlin has turned the AfD into a tool for hybrid warfare against the West here .

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Spiegel: The Kremlin has made the AfD a tool for a hybrid war against the West
An alternative for Germany is important for Russia’s hybrid war against the West and, apparently, the party is ready to submit to Moscow’s demands, writes SPIEGEL

Suspected spy in EU political center
Even then, three years ago, it was clear to many in the AfD that Maximilian Kra had an unusually soft relationship with autocratic systems.

Federal prosecutors have arrested one of Kra's close associates for allegedly passing inside European Parliament information to the Chinese secret service.

A suspected spy in the political heart of the European Union - made possible by a party that likes to call itself patriotic? The AfD's damage is enormous. Moreover, the arrest is only one particularly serious episode in a long series of scandals.

SPOILER

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A few months ago, SPIEGEL revealed secret connections with the Moscow security apparatus of a man who had worked for AfD members of the Bundestag for many years. A few weeks ago, the Czech government announced that it had uncovered a Russian influence operation. Several European intelligence agencies helped in the exposure.

The Voice of Europe media portal not only helped Russia disseminate propaganda in 16 languages. It is also reported that money flowed through the company to European politicians from far-right parties. Soon the names of two German politicians appeared: Maximilian Kra and Petr Bistron, occupying first and second places on the AfD electoral list for the European Parliament.

As SPIEGEL research shows, Voice of Europe is apparently only a small part of a large-scale Russian operation in which the AfD plays a central role.

The Kremlin has carefully thought through the future of the AfD. At a strategic meeting in the Russian presidential administration a year and a half ago, scenarios were drawn up for an essentially right-wing extremist party in Germany. A so-called manifesto was written with theses on German domestic policy.

The study shows how important the AfD is to Russia's hybrid war against the West. And to what extent the party, apparently, is ready to submit to Moscow’s demands.

Suspicious financial payments from Russia, suspected Russian and Chinese agents in parliamentary offices and strategic advice from the Kremlin: the AfD is apparently much deeper into the swamp of autocrats than previously thought.

Although part of its core brand was to accuse the hated "system parties" of betraying German interests, it now appears that the party primarily used this to describe itself. The AfD is proving to be an alternative to Germany, apparently partly controlled by two of the world's most powerful autocracies.

Friends call him "Shampus Max"
A person who remains close to both states is the leading AfD candidate in the European elections, Maximilian Kra. International security authorities suspected in advance that Kra, an employee of the Brussels parliament Jian G., a native of China, was associated with the state apparatus of the People's Republic of China. The rumor also spread among European MPs. When SPIEGEL confronted Kra with suspicions last December, he sharply rejected them.

It is impossible to say exactly when Kra himself began to sympathize with autocratic systems. However, the craving for money and reputation manifested itself in him very early.

Kra comes from a middle class background. His mother was a teacher at a special school in the GDR, his father was an engineer, and since 1990 he worked in the Ministry of the Interior of Saxony. Kra graduated from high school in Dresden, studied law and received a doctorate from the Technical University of Dresden.

Subsequent studies at London Business School and Columbia Business School in New York provided Kra's entry into the world of the rich, beautiful and supposedly important. Tuition alone was then more than $100,000, plus airfare to London and the United States. When asked, Kra said that he paid for it all from savings that were originally intended to buy the property

The topic of money was also the focus of some of the assignments Kra took on as a young lawyer. For example, he took care of a multimillion-dollar inheritance from the arch-Catholic Brotherhood of Pius. As a lawyer, he also represented their interests in court in other cases.

For the assets of the Pius brothers, he created a secret network from a foundation in Austria and companies in Switzerland and the Principality of Liechtenstein. Probably, it was about the need to pay as little taxes as possible on this money. According to his own statements, he received an hourly wage of 300 euros for his services.

Outwardly, Kra looks like a dandy. He wears MK monogram shirts and cufflinks. He knows which wines are expensive and which restaurants are good, as evidenced by his posts on social networks. Friends and foes alike call him “Shampus Max.”

He now has eight children from three wives. Friends describe him as a man who always looks out for his own benefit. This may be why he left the CDU for the AfD in 2016.

At that time, the Union did not want to nominate him as a candidate for the Bundestag, so he moved on - to a party that still gives him a lot of freedom, and not only for his ethnic theses, according to which “corruption and culture correlate with ethnic groups.” In the AfD, Kra was allowed to freely express his affection for China, and in the European Parliament he became a loyal lobbyist for the interests of the communist leadership in Beijing. Under the benevolent gaze of party leader Alice Weidel, who in 2023 traveled with a delegation to China, where she worked for several years and wrote her doctoral dissertation on the Chinese pension system.

For example, in December 2019, Kra sent a letter to party colleagues in Berlin. It looked like a promotional brochure for China and its state telecoms company Huawei. While many politicians in Germany, including the AfD, wanted to ban the use of Chinese technology in the mobile phone network due to fears that data and information could reach the Chinese government, Kra wrote that security concerns are based only on "general distrust of China." It is important for him to “address the faction’s anti-China position as soon as possible.”

Coincidence or not: Kra traveled to China a few weeks before his statements. He visited the municipalities of Zhenjiang, Taizhou and Lishui, as well as Huawei's research center in Beijing. The Chinese covered part of the costs.

Partial payment for travel is not contrary to the code of conduct in the EU Parliament. However, the trip raises the question of why Kra did not cover the costs entirely himself, especially if he then caused political trouble for his hosts.

It is still unclear who was part of the “public delegation” with which Kra allegedly traveled to China. In any case, the administration of the EU Parliament is not aware of such a trip, the spokeswoman said.

Kra was accompanied by his assistant Jian G., a man who is now in custody on suspicion of espionage.

Kra did not hesitate to return the favor of the Chinese as quickly as possible. In the Chinese newspaper People's Daily, he compared the speed of construction of Beijing Daxing Airport with the pace of construction of Berlin Airport.

“It shows me China's strength and makes me realize Germany's shortcomings,” Kra said.

In his view, his love for China fits well with the deep antipathy he now feels toward the United States. If Europe does not want to be a “vassal of the Americans,” then it should “strive for good relations with China,” Kra once said in an interview.

Even in the European Parliament, the AfD representative from Dresden did not hide which side he was on. When SPIEGEL and other media published secret documents proving that China was imprisoning hundreds of thousands of Uyghurs, Kra voted against an EU parliament resolution condemning it.

He said he did not see any "serious attacks on humanity." The Chinese government simply decided to forcefully educate those segments of the population “who, on the one hand, are Muslims, but on the other hand are uneducated.” On Platform X (then Twitter), he called reports of Uyghur detention camps “horror stories” and “anti-China propaganda.”

Helping Beijing was apparently so important to Kra that he even went against his faction during a Foreign Trade Committee vote on the Uyghur issue. When it came to cooperation between the EU and China on designation of origin, Kra was the only member of the Identity and Democracy (ID) group, which brings together nationalist, right-wing extremist and right-wing populist parties, to vote against it. His reasoning is that the “alleged exploitation and internment of Uyghurs” has nothing to do with trade issues. Even when a new EU-China strategy was discussed in June 2021, which, among other things, asked Beijing to uphold human rights and environmental standards, Kra was the only one of the four ID MPs who did not vote for it.

And while many Western politicians stayed away from the 2022 Winter Olympics in Beijing to protest the human rights record, Kra had no qualms. He liked going there.

China specifically targets members of far-right parties in Europe
Many party members have long been suspicious of Kra's apparent proximity to China. However, they again made him a leading candidate in the European elections in June.

However, the AfD MEP is not the only defender of China. In the spring of 2021, AfD member of the Bundestag Stefan Keuter asked a small question to the federal government. The talk was about previous unrest in Hong Kong and a supposed wave of violent pro-democracy activists infiltrating Germany - a move entirely in the spirit of the Communist Party, without any real background.

Secret chats revealed to SPIEGEL last year shed new light on this strange process.

There are many reasons to believe that Koiter's small investigation was part of a larger influence operation carried out by a foreign government.

The chats show that China particularly relies on and pays members of far-right parties in Europe to obtain information and plan disinformation campaigns for them.

In hundreds of messages, a Chinese state security agent named "Daniel Wu" exchanged ideas with a right-wing Belgian foreign politician whom he apparently gave orders to in exchange for money and luxury trips.

The AfD appeared in spy chats six times. At one point, a spy boasted about the long arm of Chinese state security in the German Bundestag.

“Last year we put pressure on the German government,” the agent wrote and sent a link to Keuter’s short question to the Bundestag website. Could this happen again in Belgium?

Security circles speculate that the AfD's small request was actually sent by Chinese agent Wu through an intermediary. When asked, AfD member Keuther called this “implausible.” He was simply doing his job as a foreign policy expert and did not receive any money for the request.

For Keuter's party colleague from Dresden, Maximilian Krah, China is not the only authoritarian system that seems to fascinate him. He is also very close to Russia, as is his party colleague Petr Bistron, who has been a member of the German Bundestag since 2017.

Kra and Bistron play leading roles in another party case related to the Voice of Europe platform. Behind it all is Viktor Medvedchuk, a former Ukrainian oligarch and head of a pro-Russian opposition party in the Kiev parliament, now a close confidant of the Russian president in Moscow. Vladimir Putin is the godfather of his youngest daughter.

In the fall of 2021, Kra and Bistron traveled together to Kyiv to meet with Medvedchuk, who was under house arrest on suspicion of treason at the time, months before Russia invaded Ukraine.

There is a photo of the visit, Kra posted it on Facebook and wrote: They were on a “solidarity visit from the country’s most famous political prisoner.”

Medvedchuk finally came to Russia as a result of a prisoner exchange in September 2022 and was stripped of his Ukrainian citizenship. Since then, he appears to be actively supporting his friend Putin in a hybrid war against the West.

In the Czech capital, Prague, he founded the Voice of Europe. The supposed mouthpiece of Europe primarily gave a voice to right-wing populists and right-wing extremist politicians in the EU. Kra and Bistron were also among the selected interview partners.

That in itself would be alarming. But the Russian influence operation, which the Czech government revealed in late March, apparently went much further.

Money was reported to have secretly flowed to pro-Kremlin politicians in Europe through a media company controlled by Medvedchuk, amounting to between 500,000 and one million euros.

Complaints about the denomination of cash
One of the recipients of the money is Bundestag member Bistron. The Czech intelligence service BIS intercepted conversations that lead to this conclusion. On one of the recordings, the rustling of banknotes can be heard, said one of the Czech parliamentarians, who was given the recordings to listen to at a secret meeting.

In addition, according to the SPIEGEL investigation, Bistron, who was born in Olomouc (Czech Republic), apparently complained to one of Medvedchuk's confidants about the denomination of the cash: some of the money in Germany was difficult to get rid of because he could not pay with it at any gas station or in store.

Additional evidence of the transfer of money came from secret video recordings that allegedly showed Bistron receiving small packages from this contact. The intelligence services suspect that the AfD member may have received a total of 20,000 euros.

Bistron denied the accusations and said there was a "campaign carried out by NATO." When he was questioned for a second time on Monday by the AfD's federal executive council, members said he admitted to accepting small parcels. However, there was no money in the parcels. Instead, Bistron did not say what exactly.

In a conversation with SPIEGEL, Bistron did not deny the incident. He simply says that the "campaign" should be "supported until the election through media such as SPIEGEL." He suspects that the video and audio recordings "have already become available to several people."

“They are also expected to be published.” Bistron confirms for the first time that he believes he was secretly filmed and intercepted.

The FBI questioned Kra in New York
Another colorful figure also plays a role in political history: Oleg Voloshin, who was once a member of the Ukrainian parliament from Medvedchuk’s pro-Russian party.

When the party was banned following Russia's invasion of Ukraine, Voloshin apparently fled to Belarus. The Ukrainian prosecutor's office charged him in absentia with treason.

AfD politician Kra is also familiar with him, but how could it be otherwise? Voloshin characterizes the German deputy as an “old friend.”

In the photo they are together at an opera ball at the St. Petersburg Philharmonic in the summer of 2019. Kra is dressed in a white tuxedo and holds a glass of champagne to the camera. A year and a half later, a Saxon AfD politician visited Voloshin in Kyiv for his birthday. He wrote on Instagram “Happy birthday, dear Oleg!”

The FBI is now also interested in friendship with “dear Oleg”.

Kra flew to the United States in December to attend a Republican event with presidential candidate Donald Trump. The photographs show an AfD representative in a tuxedo with a pocket square and bow tie.

The FBI took Kra's stay in New York as an opportunity to interrogate him. During the interrogation, according to SPIEGEL and ZDF, the police showed him a conversation with Voloshin that occurred several years ago.

One of the sentences in it raises suspicions that Kra secretly received money from a Ukrainian loyal to the Kremlin. They say Voloshin assured the AfD representative that the problem with “compensation” for Kra’s “technical expenses” has been resolved. From May, “everything will be the same as it was before February.”

When asked if he received the money, Kra subsequently presented several options. According to one of the sources, the "compensation" message may have been sent to him by mistake. Perhaps they were talking about a ticket to an opera ball in St. Petersburg, which Kra paid for then. Voloshin may have expressed himself incorrectly due to ignorance of the English language. In any case, he, Kra, never received any money from Voloshin, “no payments, no benefits, no other compensation.”

Voloshin, in turn, presented a completely different option. In 2020, the discussion may have been about compensating the AfD politician for travel expenses that he might have incurred as a participant in a planned meeting of European and Ukrainian parliamentarians. But this did not happen due to the pandemic.

They are all interesting variations. No one particularly matches the choice of words in the chat message.

And for Kra, things are even more acute. As he confirmed upon request, the FBI also temporarily seized his own cellphone - and scanned it for 40 minutes. American investigators now have a treasure trove of data.

Working lunch with Lavrov in a “very warm atmosphere”
These are not just the mistakes of individual politicians. Since its founding, representatives of the Alternative for Germany have sought proximity to authoritarian states, especially Russia.

In 2015, AfD board member Alexander Gauland, now the party's honorary chairman, visited right-wing extremist and pioneer of the new Great Russian Empire Alexander Dugin in St. Petersburg. In 2017, then-AfD leader Frauke Petri flew to Moscow, where she met with influential officials of the Russian State Duma and right-wing extremist politician Vladimir Zhirinovsky. In 2018, another AfD leader, J�rg Meuthen, traveled to the East and then, in the spirit of Putin, called for an end to Western sanctions and “cooperation with Russia.”

Later, the Russian government received AfD visitors almost as state guests.

In 2020, Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov hosted a German delegation led by party leader Tino Chrupalla for a working lunch in a “very warm atmosphere,” as German guests later raved. And a few months later, in March 2021, Khrupalla co-chair Alice Weidel also expressed her respect for the Moscow government and publicly called for Western economic sanctions to “finally end.” Weidel was accompanied by her party colleague, Peter Bistron, who is close to Russia.

The AfD's contacts with the Russian autocracy are varied, and together they form a cohesive network. Another AfD employee, Vladimir Sergienko, may also have played a role in this, until recently he worked for AfD member of the Bundestag Eugen Schmidt.

As SPIEGEL reported last year, Sergienko regularly traveled back and forth between Germany and Moscow even after the war broke out in Ukraine. During border checks, customs officers twice found just under �10,000 in cash that could be brought into Germany without warning. Western intelligence agencies suspected Sergienko of being an agent of Kremlin influence.

In secret conversations, he exchanged ideas with a sinister contact in Moscow about whether the supply of German tanks to Ukraine could be stopped or delayed through legal action. You can also use “financial support” for this. The goal of the campaign, as stated in the chats: “Make government work harder.”

As it turned out, Sergienko’s contact in Moscow was an employee of the Russian secret service FSB. Sergienko has not worked as a people's deputy since February. He calls the accusation that he is an “agent of influence” “baseless.”

In fact, a few months after the correspondence, the AfD parliamentary group filed a lawsuit in Karlsruhe over German arms supplies. Today the group claims that the events have nothing to do with Sergienko.

One episode in this case is still unknown. This shows how Sergienko and the AfD established close ties with pro-Russian separatists in eastern Ukraine many years ago.

During the last elections, Sergienko worked for the then AfD member of the Bundestag, Ulrich Ehme. In December 2019, they traveled to Belarus and met with representatives of the self-proclaimed “people’s republics” of Donetsk and Lugansk regions at the President Hotel in Minsk. According to the protocol, the separatists thanked Aime for his “brave step” in meeting with them and complained about the Western-backed “coup” in Ukraine in 2014. All respondents are now on international sanctions lists.

In response to a question, Aime writes that at that time it was a “factional business trip.” Thus, he fulfilled his "parliamentary duties as a member of the German Bundestag and the Council of Europe."

The AfD's far-reaching future strategy from the Kremlin
But how far does Moscow's influence extend over the AfD? A possible answer to this question comes directly from the center of power in the country—the Kremlin presidential administration. This is a multi-page document called a “manifesto.”

The probable origin of this document can be reconstructed using data from international security authorities. In early September 2022, at a meeting in the presidential administration, the head of the department, Tatyana Matveeva, was given the task of “developing a new concept for the Alternative for Germany party in order to increase its rating and gain a majority in elections at all levels,” according to a Western intelligence note.

Those present even discussed the possible renaming of the party. The AfD could call itself “United Germany” or “German Unity.”

Under the new name, the party aims to unite a country the Kremlin sees as divided, enforce a ban on discrimination against Russians and Germans and form coalitions with other extremist forces. The Left Party, from which the Sarah Wagenknecht alliance had not yet separated at that time, was directly named as a potential partner.

This is nothing less than the far-reaching future strategy of the AfD, which will be discussed at the meeting in Moscow.

Matveeva is no stranger. When the Washington Post reported in February this year on the Kremlin's massive disinformation campaign over its war of aggression against Ukraine, her name was mentioned: she is in charge of the propaganda units responsible for Europe.

According to the services, Matveeva received the instruction to develop the AfD concept directly from the deputy head of the presidential administration Sergei Kiriyenko during the meeting. Not only is he one of the most powerful men in the country and one of Putin's closest confidants, but he is also in charge of all propaganda and influence operations abroad.

A few weeks after the first meeting, Kiriyenko was presented with the “manifesto of the Party of German Unity.” It paints a bleak picture of Germany and reads as helping to develop a program for the AfD.

“Germany faces its greatest challenge since the end of World War II,” the document begins.

“Uneducated politicians, unable to calculate the consequences of their decisions, dragged Germany into conflict with Russia, a natural ally of our country and our people.”

Large companies are migrating from Germany and there is talk of deindustrialization. They also say that the German economy is dying. "The country's population is on the brink of disaster." More than 30 percent of the German population lives below the poverty line or at this level.

“The internal division in the country is intensifying,” the authors write.

Kremlin strategists consider the current government despicable. “All the efforts that the great predecessors - Willy Brandt, Helmut Schmidt, Helmut Kohl and many others - made towards real sovereignty have been completely destroyed in less than a year of government failure,” it says.

From this follows the following maxim: a German politician should not have any “values”, no “ideals” or any “obligations” that are “above the interests of Germany and obligations to the German people.”

The authors continue to write that today there are only two parties in Germany: the “Party of the Enemies of Germany” and the “Party of Friends.” Undoubtedly, Kremlin authors classify the current government as their enemies. "Together we will win. Nothing and no one can resist the united people,” is the last sentence.

Does a foreign government care deeply and thoughtfully about Germany's future and see the AfD as an ideal accomplice to these ideas? Control by a foreign power could hardly be more obvious.

Almost identical themes and theses in H�cke's speech
It is not known what happened to the newspaper, how the AfD received it, or whether the party even knew about its creation. She left questions about this unanswered. What is striking, however, is that the main content of the manifesto can be found in the speeches of key AfD officials. Bj�rn H�cke is one of them. Right-wing extremists dream of becoming the first AfD prime minister in Thuringia in the fall. His sympathies for Russia are obvious.

At the beginning of October 2022, H�cke will give a wonderful speech in Gera. It is curious that on German Unity Day he spoke to about 8,000 people not about reunification, but about foreign policy, especially relations with Russia.

H�cke says the destruction of the Nord Stream pipeline by explosion is tantamount to a “declaration of war” on Germany. It creates grim scenarios for industry and the German welfare state. Numerous companies emigrated from Germany, and there was a threat of famine and chaos.

He speaks of Germany's "ridiculous weakness." At the end, he calls for unity and says that one should not allow oneself to be influenced by “raking wedges.”

These are themes and theses that are sometimes heard almost verbatim in the Kremlin manifesto. Hoecke does not directly answer questions about whether he knows the article and why numerous statements in the article and speech are very similar. He simply writes: “It is not the same.”

“The deputy is under absolute control”
The so-called manifesto is not the only document from the Moscow government apparatus in which strategists think about the AfD. A few years ago, SPIEGEL published a document that was sent from the Duma, the Russian parliament, to the highest level of the presidential administration. He called for support for the Russia-friendly AfD politician Markus Frohnmayer. If he were to enter the Bundestag, he would be “a member of parliament under absolute control,” the newspaper writes. Frohnmayer denied this and stated that he did not know this document.

Strengthening the AfD is a worthy strategy for Russia. Everything that weakens the West helps the Kremlin. Especially now, when Russia is interested in torpedoing support for Ukraine.

But why do communist-led autocracies seek proximity to far-right parties and their politicians in Europe? For Filip Jirush this is not a contradiction.

“China is investing in players who, from their point of view, have the ability to gain political power and can influence public opinion,” says a China expert. The Chinese are concerned about the changing discourse about their country and access to information.

Politicians, especially those friendly to the Kremlin, are easy targets for Chinese lobbyists and intelligence agencies, says Yiroush.

“Like Russia, China represents a counter-model to the free West, which makes the country attractive to many extremists.”

Chinese intelligence agencies have the staying power to influence people, gain their trust, and sometimes buy them with money.

EU institutions find it difficult to deal with violations by MPs
The scandalous reports of the past few days and weeks have caused a lot of unrest in the European Parliament. Qatargate, which dealt with the desert state of Qatar's influence on EU representatives, took place not so long ago. Now new accusations are shaping reports on the parliaments of Brussels and Strasbourg.

How difficult it is for EU institutions to deal with abuses by members of parliament becomes clear in their relationship with Maximilian Kra. The European Anti-Fraud Office, which is actually responsible for serious violations in EU institutions, has still not even investigated Krah employee Jian G., although there have long been signs of irregularities. The department does not want to officially comment on the situation.

In parliament itself, such cases should be dealt with by a so-called advisory committee. In theory, Parliament Speaker Roberta Metsola could introduce sanctions such as fines. But according to the EU Parliament, there is currently insufficient evidence. In principle, national intelligence services did not transmit their information to parliament.

“If the accusations against his employee are confirmed, Krach will have to pay the salary of his assistant,” demands Green Party MEP Daniel Freund.

“It cannot be that we are also feeding Chinese spies with European taxpayers’ money.”

The Dresden prosecutor's office is also approaching the case cautiously; it is currently conducting only a preliminary investigation. If a regular investigation is launched against Kra, Kra's parliamentary immunity should be lifted in the Legal Affairs Committee.

To at least set an example, members of pro-democracy groups in the EU parliament passed a resolution on Thursday countering the influence of Russia and China. It clearly mentions Kra.

The ID group in the European Parliament is currently puzzled by the question of how to deal with the autocracies of the world.

Some parties would prefer to take a confrontational course against China; their role model is Donald Trump in the USA. Marine Le Pen's Rassemblement Nationale in France has also clearly distanced itself from the AfD on other issues.

Rumors are spreading in the EU Parliament that the right-wing camp may reorganize after the EU elections. If the National Rally remains in the ID faction, observers believe that Le Pen will give the AfD a choice: either not to join the party at all, or to do without the controversial politician Kra. The case damages the AfD's efforts to gain influence among Europe's far-right parties.

This time scandals may leave their mark
Within the party, the mood now appears to have changed regarding its leading European candidate. There is also a camp that involves a large-scale campaign by European governments, intelligence services and the media. This applies to the presumption of innocence as long as no court decision confirms the charges and defense attorneys simply postpone consideration of the issue.

However, there are growing fears that this time the scandals could leave their mark, including in polls and election results.

“Our whole campaign has been ruined by these accusations: we advertised that we were patriots and that we were fighting the Brussels swamp,” says one official. Now you yourself seem “swampy.”

Many in the AfD blame the disaster on two party leaders, Weidel and Tino Chrupalla. They supported Kra's candidacy as the leading candidate, despite warning voices.

“It was a ticking atomic bomb and everyone knew it,” says the man who is actually well disposed towards them.

People close to Weidel now say there were never any specific allegations against Kra. Therefore, she agreed with Khrupalla’s position.

Those around Chrupall emphasize that the Saxon regional association absolutely wanted to be top of the list in the European elections and therefore supported Kra.

The fight over the question of guilt has already flared up. And also because the next federal executive elections are approaching, the party conference of which will take place at the end of June. Weidel and Khrupalla want to be re-elected and therefore do not want to make any mistakes.

This is also one of the reasons why the party leadership has so far largely failed to impose sanctions on the two scandalous politicians. Bistron was called out, but he still got his way despite weak statements in the case.

According to the AfD, Kra showed little insight at the first crisis meeting after his employee was arrested at a restaurant on Tuesday evening.

He only reluctantly accepted the ban on appearing at the party's election campaign in Donaueschingen. He was only ready to refuse to display advertising.

“This is neither meat nor fish,” criticizes a senior official. “Either you fully support him or force him to back down.”

Kra gave the facts himself on Wednesday morning. He was “and will remain” the leading candidate, he gleefully told reporters.

This should be fully consistent with the views of Moscow and Beijing.

Let us remind you that a pre-investigation investigation into the case of Maximilian Kra, a European deputy from the Alternative for Germany party, began in Germany.

quote:

Op zondag 28 april 2024 01:57 schreef Delenlill het volgende:
https://www.twz.com/news-(...)usable-bomber-drones
[..]

SPOILER

[..]

We kwamen eerder al een kamikaze versie van deze vliegtuig drone tegen:
[ x ]
Maar nu hebben zij er blijkbaar ook een bommenwerper drone versie van gemaakt. Die op afstand bestuurd kan worden, de bom kan afwerpen en weer terug kan vliegen (of ergens landen om opgehaald te worden).

Hij heeft natuurlijk zijn voor en nadelen. Maar ik kan wel enkele goede toepassingen ervoor bedenken.

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Op zondag 28 april 2024 03:26 schreef Eyjafjallajoekull het volgende:

[..]
Interessant inderdaad. Weer een low-cost oplossing die toch effectief blijkt te zijn.

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Russia Strikes Ukraine’s Railways and Vows to Slow Arrival of U.S. Aid
The attacks killed at least six civilians and injured dozens of others, the Ukrainian military and local officials said.

^{Firefighters working in the rubble of a building on Friday after Russian strikes in Derhachi, Ukraine.Credit...Sergey Kozlov/EPA, via Shutterstock}

Russia attacked railway facilities in three different regions across Ukraine on Thursday night and Friday morning, as the Russian defense minister vowed to step up strikes aimed at slowing the flow of critically needed American weapons and equipment to the front.

At least six civilians were killed and 31 others wounded in the attacks, according to the Ukrainian military and local officials. Three of the dead were railway workers killed by a strike in the Donetsk region. In Balakliya, a rail hub in the Kharkiv region, 13 passengers on a regional train were injured when a missile hit the station. Russia also attacked a railway facility in the Cherkasy region, but no casualties were reported.

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Ukrainian railways, with an estimated 12,000 miles of tracks and 230,000 employees, have played a crucial role in the war, evacuating civilians from frontline areas, transporting everything from grain to humanitarian assistance around the country, and moving heavy weapons supplied by Western allies along carefully guarded and hidden supply lines.

The latest attacks on the rail network came after Russia’s defense minister, Sergei Shoigu, promised to target Western weapons as they arrived in Ukraine. “We will increase the intensity of strikes on logistics centers and storage bases of Western weapons,” he said in a speech Tuesday at the ministry.

On Friday afternoon, Kyiv City Hall announced the evacuation of two hospitals next door to each other in the capital, citing a threat to attack them. A video had circulated online showing a man, naming the address and asserting that soldiers were being treated in them, “hiding behind the backs of children.”

The City Council’s statement said that this claim was untrue. The video’s origin had not been independently verified by The New York Times.

After the evacuations were announced, some parents took their children out of the hospitals. Medical workers were moving other children from intensive care. Patients who were not mobile were being removed by ambulance.

^{Carrying a child onto an ambulance during an evacuation of two Kyiv hospitals due to a threat of a Russian strike.Credit...Mauricio Lima for The New York Times}

At a speech in Berlin welcoming recent announcements of new aid from the United States and other allies of Ukraine, the NATO secretary general, Jens Stoltenberg, stressed the need for quick action: “It is now our responsibility to turn these commitments into real deliveries of weapons and ammunition. And to do so quickly.”

Ukrainian forces are hoping to see fresh supplies of weapons arrive at the front lines as soon as possible because they are engaged in fierce clashes and are struggling to hold their defensive lines in several locations. Russian forces have taken a string of villages west of Avdiivka, in the Donetsk region, but their next big goal in that direction, the city of Pokrovsk, is still 18 miles away.

The pressure on Chasiv Yar, a small but strategically located town, is greater. In March, Russia stepped up its efforts to capture the town, perched on a hill about five miles west of Bakhmut. Its forces have reached the eastern outskirts. Capturing the town would help Russia to launch further offensive operations against larger cities, like Kostyantynivka, Kramatorsk and Sloviansk, major population centers in the Ukrainian-held part of the Donbas region.

Meanwhile, in the northeastern Kharkiv and Sumy regions, close to the Russian border, guided aerial bomb attacks on Friday morning struck two villages, killing one woman and wounding several more people, including at least three children, according to the local authorities and the news media.

Attacks between Jan. 1 and March 31 resulted in the deaths of 25 children, according to data verified by the United Nations — the youngest just 2 months old. Nine children were reportedly killed in attacks during the first three weeks of April.

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Yak-52 shot down a Russian reconnaissance drone in the sky over Odesa

In the Odesa region, a Yak-52 piston trainer aircraft shot down a Russian reconnaissance drone.

The corresponding videos were released by local Telegram channels.

The published videos show the moment of descent of an enemy reconnaissance drone on a parachute, which most likely opened due to the operation of automation, around which the Yak-52 was circling.

It can be assumed that the shooting was carried out by the second crew member with a gun or automatic weapon.

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Як-52 над Одещиною

Modernization of the Yak-52 with the installation of a heading machine gun in the wing or board is unlikely due to the need for significant and technologically complex interference with the airframe.

Як-52 над Одещиною

Targeting can be performed by third-party targeting via radio communication and a situational awareness system, followed by visual identification of the target.

It is worth noting that the Yak-52, the modification of the Yak-52B, still has the ability to suspend GUV-8700 pods with machine guns or UB-32 with unguided rockets, but such a version existed in a single copy.

Yak-52
Yak-52 is a two-seat single-engine trainer aircraft with a low-wing and three-wheel landing gear, which was mass-produced from 1979 to 1998.

It has a low stall speed of 100-140 kilometers per hour, which allows it to chase drones and, at the same time, to maneuver at relatively low speeds.

The aircraft has a maximum permissible speed of 470 kilometers per hour, a range of up to 500 kilometers and a flight duration of 2.5 hours.

The length of the Yak-52 is 7.745 meters, the wingspan is 9.3 meters, and the wing area is 15 square meters.

The mass is 1035 kilograms, and the maximum takeoff and landing weight is 1315 kilograms.

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France and Germany sign off on future battle tank system
PARIS — France and Germany have formalized an agreement to develop a future battle-tank system, with the countries’ defense ministers signing off on an industrial work-share pact here on Friday.

The countries’ defense firms – KNDS, Rheinmetall and Thales, among others – can now get to work on proposals, which are expected in the coming months, French Armed Forces Minister Sebastian Lecornu said at a briefing. Germany is leading the project and will be in charge of awarding contracts for the first demonstrator phase by the end of this year.

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Lecornu and his German counterpart Boris Pistorius in the past eight months have managed to reboot the project known as the Main Ground Combat System, which languished for years amid wrangling over which countries’ industries would get to work on what. The ministers, who have said they get along well, last month agreed on divvying up the workload equally between both nations.

The political agreement “will force the different industrials to work together,” Lecornu said, adding that cooperation can be decreed, or created by setting a concrete industrial target. “We can’t have this type of partnership without also creating a common culture between the industries.”

Lecornu said lessons were learned from discussions around the joint Future Combat Air System, where in some cases industrial agreement was reached before German, Spanish and French air forces were asked for their input. That is “out of the question” for the MGCS project, which is based on the needs of the countries’ two armies rather than industrial ideas, the French minister said.

Officials of the German Armed Forces, the Bundeswehr, have stressed the modular character of the envisioned system. Tank variants with different specializations, working in concert on the battlefield, will all share a common undercarriage, according to a statement on the Bundeswehr website. The concept has yet to be proven, and as of now there are no studies or models yet about a system demonstrator for the program as a whole, it adds.

Designing a completely new land combat weapon will entail pulling together the operational experience from tank warfare of the past years, including lessons learned from Ukraine’s defense against Russian invaders, which has seen hundreds of main battle tanks destroyed or incapacitated.

France and Germany will be designing “not so much the tank of the future, but the future of the tank,” Lecornu said. He said the U.S. hasn’t yet started considering the post-Abrams era, while Russia is experiencing “great difficulty” moving from its current generation of tanks to a successor.

Germany is counting on the future combat system to replace its Leopard tanks sometime in the 2040s, while France is looking for the MGCS to replace its Leclerc fleet.

Competition in the tank domain will become “tougher and tougher” towards 2040, with giants such as India and others “waking up” and potentially flooding the market for land-forces equipment in coming years, according to Lecornu. The focus on technological and innovative breakthroughs should position the MGCS in a different market segment that will boost its export prospects, the minister said.

Lecornu said work on the planned demonstrator will be split 50-50, as will future production capacity. Still, he said industrial distribution wasn’t at the core of the memorandum of understanding signed on Friday, but rather the two governments saying that they need the same tank in 2040.

The joint French-German tank effort is “something we very much welcome,” NATO Secretary General Jens Stoltenberg said at a press conference in Germany on Thursday, before the agreement was signed in Paris. “It will make NATO stronger and it will help allies to get new and modern capabilities.” Cooperation will help overcome defense-industry fragmentation, the NATO chief said.

Multiple other countries have expressed interest in the MGCS program, including Italy as well as countries in Eastern Europe, Pistorius said at the briefing in Paris. He said making Europe stronger also means including more partners.

The project will be divided into eight pillars, including for the main platform, the turret and gun combination, new types of fires, connectivity and electronic warfare. While some of those pillars are obvious areas for French-German cooperation, for some the leadership will be “purely national,” based among other things on industrial experience, according to Lecornu.

Tanks’ vulnerability to drone attacks as well as the waning effectiveness of 120mm cannons against ever-improving armor are among the pitfalls on the German military’s radar, according to Bundeswehr.

With a decision on a next cannon still outstanding, what’s clear is that it will need bigger projectiles with higher velocity, one unnamed German acquisition official is quoted as saying. Calibers of 130mm or 140mm are being considered.

According to the Bundeswehr statement, it is “highly probable” that MGCS will use some kind of hybrid diesel-electric propulsion system. A near-silent electric drive will be harder to hear on the battlefield, a tactical advantage during certain operations, the thinking in Berlin goes.

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Second Finnair flight turns back from Tartu due to GPS interference
On Friday night, a second Finnair plane, which was on its way from Helsinki to Estonia was forced to turn back as GPS interference meant it could not land in Tartu.

"The same thing happened as the day before. Somewhere halfway along its route, the plane turned back, around 15 minutes before landing. The pilot said that approaching Tartu at night requires an accurate GPS signal, and there was not one because of interference from the eastern neighbors," a passenger, who was on board the flight, told ERR.

On Thursday night, another Finnair plane traveling from Helsinki to Tartu also had to turn around due to GPS interference.

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quote:

However, the daytime flight from Helsinki to Tartu on Friday had no problems and was able to land in Tartu before later departing for Helsinki on schedule.

"Our pilots are well aware of GPS disturbances, and the aircraft's systems detect GPS disturbances quickly. Our planes use multiple sources to calculate aircraft position, which allows hours of navigation accuracy to be maintained even when GPS is not working. Most airports have standard approach equipment that allows landing without GPS, but Tartu is one of the few airports where approach procedures require a GPS signal, which is why the landing was unsuccessful," Finnair's spokesperson told ERR on Friday.

The spokesperson said that Tallinn could not accept the plane, so it returned to Helsinki.

Lotte-Triin Narusk, communications manager of Estonian Air Navigation Services (Lennuliiklusteeninduse AS), told ERR that GPS interference has increased recently and impacts air traffic procedures.

"At Tartu Airport, aircraft can land primarily using GPS-based procedures, with visual approach capabilities also available in good weather. Tallinn is a controlled airspace where EANS provides air traffic control services," Narusk said.

GPS jamming has been taking place since the end of 2022. Russia is thought to be behind it.

However, Aet H�rmaorg, marketing communications project manager at Tallinn Airport, which also manages Tartu Airport, told ERR that the Finnair plane's GPS signal was jammed during its flight, not on landing.

In addition to GPS, Tartu Airport also has a one-way instrument landing system (ILS), H�rmaorg said.

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US Army sends heavy equipment to Norwegian Arctic port of Narvik for transfer to Finland
In a manifestation of Nordic NATO unity, more than 200 vehicles and 300 containers are sent from the USA to Narvik and further to an allied exercise in Finland.

The 227 meter long vehicle carrier Arc Integrity on the 24th of April made port call in the Narvik Harbour. On board was several hundred pieces of equipment that are to be applied in a series of NATO training operations in northern Europe.

SPOILER

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The equipment belongs to the US Army 3rd Infantry Brigade Combat Team of the 10th Mountain Division and will be applied in the allied exercise Immediate Response 2024 (IR24). The exercise includes allied training in Norway, Sweden, Finland, Denmark, Germany, Czechia and Poland in the period between 21st of April - 31st of May, the Norwegian Armed Forces informs.

More than 24,000 troops are to participate, of them 10,000 from the US Army.

In Narvik, the equipment will be put on trains for transportation to Sweden and further to Finland.

The entry into the alliance of Sweden and Finland now opens up for smooth transportation of allied goods and personell across the Nordic borders.

“As part of the IR24, Norway practices its role as transit country for allied troops that are heading to Sweden and Finland,” representatives of the Norwegian Armed Forces say.

As soon as the military transport moves across the border from Narvik to Sweden, the Swedish Armed Forces are ready to act.

“During the Immediate Response, American units will under guidance of the Swedish Armed Forces move from the border to Norway, through Norbotten and to Borden. Thereafter, the transport will proceed to Finland via Haparanda and Pello,” the Swedish Military informs.

The logistic operation is expected to last about a week.

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Update on Russia’s ‘Massive’ Overnight Electric Grid Attack
Kremlin and Kyiv trade blows to each other’s energy sectors with the AFU sending over 60 drones after Moscow’s oil and Russia lobbing 34 missiles in a “massive” assault on Ukraine's electric grid.
Russia launched a “massive” missile strike at Ukraine overnight, damaging four power plants in the latest barrage targeting the country’s energy supply, officials in Kyiv said on Saturday.

Two people were killed and at least 10 more wounded in Russian shelling.

Moscow has launched some of its largest-ever strikes on Ukraine’s energy facilities in recent months, knocking out a significant chunk of production, and triggering blackouts and energy rationing across the country.

Ukraine also fired more than 60 drones at southern Russia overnight, Moscow said, in one of its largest overnight drone attacks. Kyiv claimed to have hit two oil refineries and a military air base.

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“Russian armed forces staged another massive missile attack on Ukraine,” the Ukrainian army said in its regular morning update.

“The enemy has once again attacked the country’s energy infrastructure. In particular, facilities in Dnipropetrovsk, Ivano-Frankivsk, and Lviv regions were attacked. There is damage to equipment,” Energy Minister German Galushchenko said in a Facebook post.

The Lviv and Ivano-Frankivsk regions are in Ukraine’s west, bordering the EU and hundreds of kilometers from the frontlines.

The Ukrainian Air Force said Moscow had fired 34 missiles, of which 21 were shot down.

Kyiv said Moscow is escalating its attacks from the air and on land ahead of nationwide celebrations on May 9, when Russia marks victory in World War II, and while Ukraine awaits the arrival of crucial US weapons.

Energy rationing in Ukraine
The DTEK power operator said equipment at four thermal power plants was “severely damaged” in the overnight strikes.

State electricity operator Ukrenergo said it had disconnected its main overhead power line in the west of the country as a preventative measure.

Officials asked energy users to limit their power usage.

“We ask all consumers to consume electricity sparingly. The industry is asked to maximize electricity imports and use alternative power sources,” Ukrenergo said in a statement.

The head of the western Lviv region called on residents not to use kettles, irons, washing machines and microwaves between 7:00 p.m. and 10:00 p.m. to preserve limited energy supplies.

Separate shelling on a village close to the Russian border in the northeastern Kharkiv region killed one person on Saturday, Ukraine’s state emergency services agency said.

One person was also killed and eight wounded in shelling of the southern Kherson region, Ukraine’s national police said.

The overnight missile strikes injured two people in the central city of Kryvyi Rih, regional governor Sergiy Lysak said. Another person was wounded in the northeastern Kharkiv region, emergency services said.

Moscow claims 68 Kyiv drones downed

Ukraine also launched its own massive drone attack on Russia’s southern Krasnodar region overnight.

A Ukrainian defense source told AFP its drones had hit two oil refineries and a military airfield in the region, just east of the occupied and illegally annexed Crimean Peninsula.

“Ukrainian drones struck the atmospheric distillation columns of the Ilsky and Slovyansky refineries. These are key technological facilities,” the source said.

Russian officials in the Krasnodar region reported a fire at an oil refinery in Sloviansk-on-Kuban.

The refinery partially suspended operations as a result, Russian state media reported, citing a company representative.

Videos and photos on social media showed a large fire raging overnight at the site after a series of blasts.

Moscow earlier said that Ukraine had launched one of its largest-ever attempted overnight drone attacks on the Krasnodar region.

“Air defenses destroyed and intercepted 66 Ukrainian drones over the territory of the Krasnodar region and two over the Crimean Peninsula,” the defense ministry said in a statement.

The governor of Russia’s Belgorod border region said later on Saturday that five people were injured when a Ukrainian drone fell on a village road a few kilometers from the border.

Kyiv has hit several Russian oil refineries in the western part of the country in recent months, despite reports of concern in Washington that the strikes could be seen as escalatory and might drive up global oil prices.

Ukraine says targeting Russia’s vital energy sector is legitimate as it is a source of fuel and funds for the Russian military.

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Ukrainian forces dismiss as fake information about withdrawal of Abrams tanks from battlefield due to drones
The 47th Separate Mechanised Brigade of Ukraine's Armed Forces has dismissed as fake the report by the Associated Press that the Ukrainian Defence Forces have withdrawn US-supplied Abrams tanks from the battlefield due to the threat of Russian drone attacks.

Source: 47th Separate Mechanised Brigade on Telegram

Details: The brigade posted a screenshot of the story with a link to an Associated Press report, marking it "Fake".

Quote: "Tanks perform well on the battlefield, and we are definitely not going to hide something from the enemy that usually makes them hide themselves. Moreover, we are not going to leave our infantry without such powerful fire support.

However, we will not comment publicly on the purpose, location, and equipment of the Ukrainian Armed Forces.

We ask you to trust only verified information and to contact the press service for official comments before releasing any materials."

Background:
• On 26 April, the Associated Press reported, citing US military officials, that the Ukrainian Defence Forces had withdrawn the US-supplied Abrams tanks from the battlefield due to the threat of Russian drone attacks.
• Before that, The New York Times reported that Russian forces had taken out five M1 Abrams main battle tanks out of 31 that were sent to Ukraine from the US last autumn. The NYT said that drones can be used to take out tanks.

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UK firm bought Saddam’s Soviet artillery, dispatched them to Ukraine
Expanding their collection, Tanks-a-lot, a private British firm based in the UK, has seized the opportunity to purchase old Soviet howitzers, which once served as part of Saddam Hussein’s arsenal. This remarkable story has been revealed by the website bneIntelliNews.

Originating from Austrian and Latvian sources, the site details how Saddam’s Russian artillery made a journey across the Baltic Sea. With its camouflage suitable for desert conditions, the Soviet artillery certainly doesn’t go unnoticed. bneIntelliNews indicates there is some uncertainty surrounding the transit details – how the guns ended up in Latvia and their exact origins remain unclear. However, one thing is crystal clear, their final destination – Ukraine.

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Transporting us back to the tumultuous decade of the 1980s, bneIntelliNews recalls the prominent roles these weapons played during the Iran-Iraq War. After Saddam’s regime ended, the artillery was acquired by the US and UK coalition forces. The weapons were meant to be disarmed and destroyed, but an effective solution wasn’t realized. Instead, they found their way back to Europe. The website concludes the story, quite humorously, with, “Now, in a twisted tale of reincarnation, these Carnation and Acacia howitzers are being trucked into Ukraine to continue the fight against the weapons manufacturer itself.”

Saddam’s 122mm Gvozdika
Meet the 122mm Gvozdika howitzer, or the 2S1 Gvozdika as it’s known in some circles. This Soviet-era self-propelled howitzer made its debut in the late 20th century and has seen distribution in numerous countries worldwide. ‘Gvozdika’, a charming nod to its national origin, translates to ‘Carnation’ in English.

With its remarkable 122mm howitzer and a secondary 7.62mm PKT machine gun for close-quarter defense, the Gvozdika demonstrates significant power. Its primary artillery can reach targets approximately 15.3 kilometers away using standard ammunition, but with rocket-assisted projectiles, that radius extends to an impressive 21.9 kilometers. Let’s not overlook its versatility; it can chamber and fire a range of rounds, from high explosive and armor-piercing to smoke and chemical projectiles.

Reflecting on Iraq under Saddam Hussein’s rule, we see a time when the 122mm Gvozdika howitzers played a critical role. Estimates suggest Iraq procured several hundred of these potent combat machines during the 1980s before the Gulf War unfolded. In military engagements, first with Iran and later with coalition forces, these howitzers emerged as a significant component of Iraq’s artillery arsenal.

Saddam’s 152mm Akatsiya
If you’re interested in military hardware, you might already be acquainted with the 152mm Akatsiya howitzer. Often referred to as the 2S3 Akatsiya, this Soviet self-propelled artillery weapon debuted grandly in 1971. This is not your ordinary gun; this robust piece of art is strategically stationed on a motorized chassis, making it independent of towing vehicles. In essence, it becomes a reliable source of indirect fire support for infantry and tank units during intense battlefield moments.

Let’s switch gears and focus on the firepower. The Akatsiya howitzer, showcasing its 152mm canon, doesn’t hold back. It boasts the capacity to harbor a diversity of ammunition types. This includes high explosives, armor-piercing, and smoke rounds. If you’re curious about its range, brace yourself – it flouts a maximum firing range of an astounding 18.5 kilometers with standard ammunition, and it extends up to 24 kilometers when utilizing rocket-assisted projectiles! Furthermore, the vehicle itself is armored, providing a protective shield for the crew from small arms fire and any potentially damaging shell fragments.

Interestingly, during the 1970s and 1980s, Iraq amassed a significant collection of these 152mm Akatsiya howitzers as part of their military expansion project. In this context, “quite a haul” potentially translates to hundreds, as per some sources. Ponder over the firepower and potential of such a striking military arsenal!

Ukraine needs these weapons

We should acknowledge the situation of the Kyiv military units who are experiencing daily losses of their self-propelled howitzers. These artillery pieces range from modern models to the aged relics of the Soviet era. The procurement of such equipment on the open market is proving to be increasingly challenging. As Ukraine’s military grapples with a significant artillery shortage, their allies aim to offset the depletion of these weapons.

Russia initiated a heavy onslaught in January, targeting Ukraine’s missile stockpiles. The intensity of these attacks escalated in March upon seeing the apparent success of their strategy.

Reactions on the now-extinct platform Twitter—namely from user X— indicated public concern. One individual commented, “The situation seems dire if you’re compelled to fetch remnants from Iraq’s stockpile to postpone an impending defeat.” Another remarked: “Assuming this is accurate, it’s disheartening to see museums being emptied to highlight the toll of previous wars on soldiers… I aspire for a future post-conflict where Ukraine returns these vehicles to the open market, replenishing Western museums.”

The ammunition
While there’s no clarity on whether Iraq possesses ammunition for Saddam Hussein’s stockpiles of Soviet howitzers, this possibility cannot be entirely dismissed. Should Ukraine need such ammunition, they are likely to tap into their ally network. It’s intriguing, however, that these weapon systems boast a rich history. The bulk of the 122mm Gvozdika ammunition is held by Syria and Vietnam, but the rub is that neither of these countries has shown a willingness to supply weapons to Ukraine. The 152mm Akatsiya ammunition tells a similar story, with most units held by Russia and Ukraine, followed by Belarus.

If you’re curious, the Soviet 122mm Gvozdika and 152mm Acacia howitzers make use of an array of ammunition types. The Gvozdika, also known as the 2S1, primarily fires high-explosive fragmentation rounds, though it is also capable of launching smoke, illumination, and chemical rounds. The Akatsiya, often referred to as 2C3, has an even wider range, capable of firing high-explosive, armor-piercing, smoke, illumination, and even nuclear projectiles.—hard to believe, right?

And here’s the kicker, both howitzers can launch laser-guided projectiles. These precision weapons, known as the Krasnopol for the Akatsiya and the Kitolov-2 for the Gvozdika, can accurately strike long-distance targets.

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Ukraine is asking people to help find Zircon launchers
The 3M22 Zircon (Tsirkon) is a Russian nuclear-capable hypersonic cruise missile, capable of speeds of 11,000 km/h or possibly more. It is very fast and difficult to take down with conventional air defence systems. Russia used Zircon missiles against Ukraine and it is becoming a huge problem.

The 3M22 Zircon entered service in 2023. It was used in the attack on Ukraine on 7 February 2024 already and again on 25 March 2024. Ukraine claimed that two Zircon missiles launched against SBU buildings in Kyiv were intercepted by Patriot and SAMP/T systems, which were only able to hit them because Zircon slows down at the last stages of the flight. Russia claims that these missiles did hit their targets unintercepted.

It is believed that it was ground-based systems that launched Zircon missiles towards Ukraine’s capital. And they need to be found and destroyed. Minister of Digital Transformation of Ukraine Mikhail Fedorov announced that Ukraine is actively searching for Bastion missile systems in the occupied Crimean peninsula. Searching, of course, in order to destroy them, because these mobile missile systems are becoming a huge threat to Ukrainian cities.

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Fedorov reports that it was the Bastion that launched hypersonic missiles Zircon, which can reach any Ukrainian city in just a few minutes. According to Ukrainian intelligence, Russians are trying to penetrate air defences with Zircon missiles because they are very difficult to shoot down due to their speed.

The K-300P Bastion-P is a mobile missile launcher. It can launch Zircon missiles from different parts of Crimea, which means that it is very important to track it down and destroy it. The Bastion isn’t a big rig, it’s easy to hide, and the Zircon only takes a few moments to launch, making it very difficult to find these Russian weapons in satellite imagery. But there are people who can help.

Fedorov issued a statement: “I appeal to the residents of the temporarily occupied peninsula. We need all the information about the Bastion:
• missile launch sites;
• storage locations of these systems;
• missile storage sites;
• refuelling stations.”

He also said that Ukraine needs information about the crews of those Bastion systems: their names, military ranks, locations of service and residence. Ukraine is obviously looking for the weak points in the tactics of Russian forces so that Zircon missile launches would be impossible. Elimination of the Bastion missile launchers would achieve that, but these systems cannot work without their crews anyway.

“Information about the Bastion is badly needed. Their destruction will reduce the possibility of the Russians attacking Ukrainian cities,” Fedorov said.

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Cuban mercenaries eliminate Russian regiment commander in Donetsk region
Cuban mercenaries fighting in the Pokrovsk sector of the Donetsk region eliminated their commander of the 428th motorized rifle regiment for humiliating treatment, reports the ATESH partisan movement.

The movement's agent from the headquarters of the "Center" troop group of the Russian Armed Forces noted that the reason for the "execution" was regular humiliation, beatings and "confiscation" of wages from guest workers from Latin America.

The direct perpetrators of the "execution" have already been transferred to the Rostov region of the Russian Federation. The regiment's command appealed to the General Staff to replace the foreign mercenaries with Russian soldiers.

The partisans added that from time to time such situations arise in the enemy army, but they do not become public.

Situation in the occupied territories
According to the partisan movement, Russians are moving equipment for repair in the temporarily occupied Crimea.

In particular, in the occupied Dzhankoy, there are constant rotations of the aggressor's military. The invaders conducted one of their mobilization raids on the great Muslim holiday of Eid al-Fitr.

And in the temporarily occupied Mariupol, the occupiers are changing their locations to avoid attacks by the Armed Forces of Ukraine.

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Russia reports drone attacks in Bryansk region
In the Bryansk region of the Russian Federation, explosions were heard due to the work of air defense forces and means during the night of April 28. The reason was an attack by drones, according to the governor of the Bryansk region, Oleksandr Bogomaz.

The Russian official reported the alleged repulsion of an aerial attack and claimed that four aircraft-type drones were shot down.

These UAVs were reportedly eliminated by air defense forces over the Sevsky district of the region, according to the governor.

The responsibility for such a drone raid is traditionally attributed to Ukraine by the Russian official.

SPOILER

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"Two aircraft-type UAVs were destroyed over the Sevsky district by the air defense forces of the Russian Ministry of Defense... Another two enemy aircraft-type UAVs were destroyed by the air defense forces of the Russian Ministry of Defense over the Sevsky district," his posts at 00:14 and 00:36 local time respectively stated.

The governor of the Bryansk region also assures that there were no casualties or damage as a result of the incident.

Drone attacks in Russia
Recently, there has been an increase in various explosions, fires, and reports of drone attacks in different regions of Russia.

This situation is observed in various regions of the aggressor country, but most frequently in border areas with Ukraine, particularly in the Bryansk region. However, it is also reported in other regions.

For example, on the night of April 24, Russia reported a drone attack on facilities in the Smolensk and Lipetsk regions. Russian officials claimed fires at fuel and energy facilities. The Russian Ministry of Defense assured that it had repelled the attack and allegedly shot down eight drones in the Kursk, Belgorod, Voronezh, and Smolensk regions.

Meanwhile, sources told RBC-Ukraine that Ukrainian Security Service (SSU) drones attacked two oil depots in the Smolensk region of Russia that night, April 24. These bases stored 26,000 cubic meters of Russian fuel.

Last night, April 27, there were reports of an attack on a military airfield in Russia in the Kuban region, which may have damaged aircraft. According to RBC-Ukraine sources, Ukrainian defenders attacked a military airfield and two oil refineries in the Krasnodar region of Russia. Russian media also reported that the Sloviansk oil refinery, which was attacked by drones on April 27, was forced to shut down.

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Op zondag 28 april 2024 03:10 schreef Delenlill het volgende:
https://ghall.com.ua/2024(...)en-v-kremle-spiegel/
[..]

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[..]

https://ghall.com.ua/2024(...)vojny-protiv-zapada/
[..]

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Ondertussen worden er al een significant aantal politici/medewerkers van de AfD verdacht van het werken voor Rusland en ook voor China. Er komen steeds meer details vrij over de banden met deze landen. Hopelijk kost dit de partij een boel stemmen in de aankomende Europese verkiezingen zodat zij hun invloed verliezen. En er moet gewoon een gedegen onderzoek naar uitgevoerd worden met zware sancties indien deze positief is. Ook moet er onderzoek naar de AfD zelf komen.

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Op zondag 28 april 2024 03:10 schreef Delenlill het volgende:
https://ghall.com.ua/2024(...)en-v-kremle-spiegel/
[..]

SPOILER

[..]

https://ghall.com.ua/2024(...)vojny-protiv-zapada/
[..]

SPOILER

[..]

Ondertussen worden er al een significant aantal politici/medewerkers van de AfD verdacht van het werken voor Rusland en ook voor China. Er komen steeds meer details vrij over de banden met deze landen. Hopelijk kost dit de partij een boel stemmen in de aankomende Europese verkiezingen zodat zij hun invloed verliezen. En er moet gewoon een gedegen onderzoek naar uitgevoerd worden met zware sancties indien deze positief is. Ook moet er onderzoek naar de AfD zelf komen.

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Op zondag 28 april 2024 05:31 schreef Delenlill het volgende:
https://bulgarianmilitary(...)hed-them-to-ukraine/
[..]

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Zo te lezen zijn er een aantal museumstukken onderweg naar Oekra�ne die nog van Saddam waren. Hopelijk zijn zij nog in goede staat en dus ook goed onderhouden. En het mooiste zou zijn als er ook een berg ammunitie bij zit natuurlijk. Oekra�ne kan er vast wel een goede plek voor vinden.

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Op zondag 28 april 2024 06:59 schreef icecreamfarmer_NL het volgende:

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Ik hoop dat ze de bak in gaan voor landverraad. Belgi� moet hier bovenop zitten om het EP te beschermen.

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Op zondag 28 april 2024 07:50 schreef spicymchaggis het volgende:

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Ze horen ter dood veroordeeld te worden wegens landverraad en collaboratie met vijandige naties.

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Op zondag 28 april 2024 08:54 schreef capricia het volgende:

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Maar we zijn niet in oorlog.

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Op zondag 28 april 2024 07:50 schreef spicymchaggis het volgende:

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Ze horen ter dood veroordeeld te worden wegens landverraad en collaboratie met vijandige naties.

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Op zondag 28 april 2024 07:50 schreef spicymchaggis het volgende:

[..]
Ze horen ter dood veroordeeld te worden wegens landverraad en collaboratie met vijandige naties.

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Op zaterdag 27 april 2024 17:32 schreef MatthijsDJ het volgende:

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Euh die verkiezingen en dan vooral de uitkomst daarvan kan flinke negatieve gevolgen voor deze oorlog hebben. Naja negatief zolang je geen Thierry heet bijv,

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Op zondag 28 april 2024 09:58 schreef bianconeri het volgende:

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Maakt het alsnog niet ontopic.
De verkiezingen zelf zijn niet ontopic, alleen de gevolgen.

We hoeven hier geen verkiezingen te gaan bespreken, omdat dat gevolgen heeft op het wereld toneel.
Ja, elke verkiezing heeft gevolgen op het beleid in de wereld. Die in de VS, die in NL, die in Rusland, die in China en in elk willekeurig ander land in de wereld.

Daar heb je POL voor op FOK! om het daar te bespreken. Dit gaat over de oorlog in OEK-RUS en niet over politieke verkiezingen waar dan ook in de wereld.
En als het beleid gaat zijn dat offtopic onzin mag: Dan zou elke verkiezing in de wereld besproken moeten worden hier. Slaat simpelweg nergens op.
Als je geinteresseerd bent in politiek, dan ga je naar POL.

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Op zondag 28 april 2024 09:49 schreef Opnaarutrecht het volgende:

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Het wordt tijd dat FvD'ers worden ge�limineerd.

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Op zondag 28 april 2024 11:00 schreef MatthijsDJ het volgende:

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Dude het heeft directe gevolgen op deze oorlog, dat hebben de afgelopen weken al gezien. Het is gewoon relevant voor dit topic en daardoor dus on-topic. Wil je het niet lezen dan skip je het toch gewoon?

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Op zondag 28 april 2024 03:26 schreef Delenlill het volgende:
[ x ]
Een voltreffer, al lijkt de schade niet echt groot. Maar zo'n radar systeem is ongetwijfeld erg gevoelig dus hopelijk zal hij een tijd uit de running zijn.

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Op zondag 28 april 2024 12:05 schreef StateOfMind het volgende:
Zo thuis ook maar eens wat jam activiteiten doen 🍞

Space balls RADAR JAMMED

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Op zondag 28 april 2024 12:21 schreef AchJa het volgende:

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Space balls RADAR JAMMED

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Op zondag 28 april 2024 12:22 schreef StateOfMind het volgende:

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Space Balls

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Op zondag 28 april 2024 12:22 schreef StateOfMind het volgende:

[..]
Space Balls

Update from Ukraine | Ukraine hits Ruzzian Oil refineries and Military Airfield

Ukrainian Air Force use iPads in Soviet-era jets to control modern Western weaponry

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De Oekra�ense luchtmacht gebruikt iPads of vergelijkbare tablets in de cockpits van haar Sovjet-jets om een snelle integratie van moderne westerse lucht-grondwapens mogelijk te maken.

Dit is bevestigd door de Amerikaanse Undersecretary of Defence for Acquisition and Sustainment Dr. William LaPlante.

Hoewel er nog veel vragen zijn over het gebruik van een tablet/ iPad en hoe het precies werkt, zijn er nu beelden waarop te zien is hoe het in cockpits is ge�nstalleerd tijdens gevechtsmissies (of in ieder geval tijdens training met scherp).

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Op zondag 28 april 2024 19:15 schreef Cilantro het volgende:
[ x ]

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Russian forces unable to bypass Chasiv Yar – 26th artillery brigade press officer Kalashnikov

Oleh Kalashnikov, head of the press service for the 26th artillery brigade, has revealed that the occupying Russian army is attempting to maneuver around Chasiv Yar
He shared the information in an interview with Espreso TV.

"The Russian occupying forces typically try to encircle cities by moving around them from the sides. However, they're facing a challenge with Chasiv Yar today. Ivanivske, where fighting is ongoing, as well as Klishchiivka and Andriivka are blocking their approach from the south. Similarly, the northern flank offers limited options for them. As a result, they're unable to bypass the city from the sides and are resorting to direct assaults on Chasiv Yar," explained Kalashnikov.

The officer noted that Russian troops are launching assaults on the Ukrainian Defense Forces positions simultaneously while employing guided air bombs.

"The occupiers are attacking Chasiv Yar from multiple directions, attempting to carry out assault operations in several areas simultaneously. They initiate attacks on the Defense Forces’ positions using guided aerial bombs. In contrast to NATO tactics, where air support precedes infantry movements, the Russians are combining their efforts, deploying guided bombs and storming our positions simultaneously," he added.

• On April 27, the American Institute of War reported ongoing offensive operations by Russian forces in the Chasiv Yar area, Donetsk region. Russia might attempt to encircle the city and establish conditions for an operational siege.

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Op zondag 28 april 2024 19:15 schreef Cilantro het volgende:
[ x ]

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The Economist: Italian intelligence concerned about San Marino's ties to Russia
Emmanuel Guth has extensive experience in cooperation with Vladimir Putin's Russia. The 65-year-old Frenchman has worked for leading Russian energy companies and helped create the French-language service of Russian state television channel RT (Russia Today). In 2020, he received Russian citizenship in accordance with a special presidential decree. Source: The Economist

But for the past two years, despite a history of close relations with Putin's Russia, Gut has been the diplomatic representative of a Western European state, albeit a small one. On February 7, 2022, when Russian soldiers were massively advancing on the borders of Ukraine before the outbreak of hostilities, the Republic of San Marino appointed him ambassador-at-large.

According to the microstate's Foreign Minister Luca Beccari, Mr. Gut was appointed due to his "many years of experience in many sectors of interest to the republic."

However, his name does not appear on the list of San Marino envoys available to the public through the website. His appointment was announced only on a government portal intended for diplomats.

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On July 18, 2023, San Marino gave Ghout more specific responsibilities by appointing him Ambassador to Algeria. In written responses to questions from The Economist, Beccari said that at the time of the Frenchman's appointment, "no other nationality had been declared or identified through internal checks." The decree granting Gut additional Russian citizenship can be found on the Russian government website.

This late career as a diplomat is a manifestation of San Marino's unusual foreign policy, which has provided Russia, as well as China, with a little-known back door into Western Europe, and especially Italy.

This calls into question the European Union's plans for rapprochement with the republic. Last December, the European Union announced the successful completion of negotiations on an association agreement with San Marino. The deal has yet to be officially approved in Brussels or ratified by the European Parliament.

An independent enclave in northern Italy, San Marino has long had close ties with Russia, which it attributes to its traditional neutrality. It did not join other Western countries in imposing sanctions following the annexation of Crimea in 2014. By contrast, five years later, as Kremlin-backed separatists occupied large parts of eastern Ukraine, the microstate's former foreign minister invited his Russian counterpart Sergei Lavrov to pay an official visit to the country.

In 2021, San Marino bought Russia's Sputnik vaccine, giving Moscow a propaganda boost, and later that year the two countries signed an agreement to lift visa restrictions. However, in 2022, after the outbreak of war in Ukraine, the tiny republic nevertheless imposed sanctions against Russia, thereby abandoning centuries of formal neutrality.

That San Marino may still maintain an ambivalent policy towards Russia did not come as a surprise to Rome's intelligence sources. San Marino has long been a haven for espionage, says a former senior Italian intelligence officer.

Russian and, to a lesser extent, Chinese intelligence agencies used San Marino as a location to meet with agents and conduct financial transactions “under the radar,” the former official said. “This is a logistics base where you can calmly meet and discuss what you are up to in Italy,” he added.

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Op zondag 28 april 2024 19:36 schreef AchJa het volgende:

[..]
De wielzieltjes op oefening en daar zijn ze dan van onder de indruk...

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Op zondag 28 april 2024 19:25 schreef Delenlill het volgende:
https://global.espreso.tv(...)-officer-kalashnikov
[..]
Nog 10 dagen voor victory day. Ik zie het hun niet lukken. Ondanks de 20.000-30.000 soldaten die zij er voor hebben volgens eerdere berichten. Of die zij tenminste in die regio hebben, ze hoeven niet allemaal mee te doen aan de aanvallen natuurlijk.

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Two Ukrainians killed in Germany

It has become known that the Ukrainians killed in Germany were servicemen who were undergoing rehabilitation at a local clinic.

A Russian man is suspected of killing them. The dead Ukrainian servicemen had serious wounds to their limbs and were unable to fully defend themselves.

A double murder took place yesterday near a shopping center in Murnau. This is reported by local police.

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According to local police, two men were stabbed to death.

Daniel Katz, a police spokesman, said that the crime occurred around 17:15 in front of a grocery store.

The perpetrator initially fled, but the 57-year-old suspect was quickly tracked down at a home address near the crime scene.

The 36-year-old man died at the scene, and the 23-year-old victim died at a nearby hospital the same evening.

The cause of the conflict is not being stated at this time. The suspect is expected to be arraigned today.

The video was published by BR24 channel. The victims – two men – were found in front of the shopping center with stab wounds.

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Op zondag 28 april 2024 19:48 schreef dudewhereismycar het volgende:

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Volgens mij wordt victory day dit jaar niet gevierd. Iets met angst voor drones uit Oekra�ne

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Op zondag 28 april 2024 19:57 schreef capricia het volgende:
Is de Kerch bridge er nog?

En zo ja, hoe lang nog?

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Ukrainian 'Grandpa' leads over-60s unit fighting Russian forces free of charge

^{Members of the company tactical group "Steppe Wolves" of the Voluntary Formation of the Zaporizhzhia Territorial Community disassemble a shell for a BM-21 Grad multiple launch rocket system in Zaporizhzhia region, Ukraine, April 26, 2024.}

ZAPORIZHZHIA REGION — Oleksandr Taran's mobile artillery unit isn't officially part of Ukraine's military, but that hasn't stopped his men from destroying Russian targets on their own dime.

"We ... get by thanks to the pension fund," the 68-year-old commander - whose call sign is "Grandpa" - said with a chuckle.

Taran's all-volunteer unit, the Steppe Wolves, is comprised of dozens of Ukrainian men mostly over 60 years old who are considered too old to be drafted but still want to fight.

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Roving behind the front line with truck-mounted rocket launchers, they take orders from field commanders and work with other troops, contributing to the war effort despite lacking official support from the military.

The unit is funded by donations and stocked with faulty rounds they repair themselves as well as weapons captured from the enemy. Both are delivered to them by front-line troops.

When Reuters recently visited their base in the southeastern Zaporizhzhia region, they were preparing 122 mm Grad rocket rounds that were later fired by troops from another unit.

"The commanders that provide us with targets are happy," said a 63-year-old fighter with the call sign "Zorro."

"They give us more targets [and] help us with ammunition however they can."

Taran, the commander, said his unit has been attempting to officially join Ukraine's armed forces to directly receive ammunition - and salaries - but has been unsuccessful.

The unit also includes younger men who have been ruled unfit to fight.

Willing and able
More than two years into Russia's full-scale invasion, Ukraine's mobilization effort is struggling amid flagging enthusiasm.

Russian troops have been advancing in the east, and analysts say Ukraine's shortage of manpower needs to be addressed.

Some prominent Ukrainian and foreign supporters of the war effort have urged Ukrainian President Volodomyr Zelenskyy to significantly reduce the mobilization age.

Earlier this month, Zelenskyy approved new measures allowing the military to call up more troops and tighten punishment for evasion. He also reduced the mobilization age from 27 to 25.

Taran, who has been fighting since Moscow launched its war in 2014, said coercion would be unlikely to replace genuine enthusiasm from a potential recruit.

"Beat him with a stick if you want, but he won't fight," he said. "If a person wants to, he can go on for 100 years to fulfill his tasks and destroy the enemy."

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This year, Russians will start receiving electronic conscription notices
Russia will start sending electronic conscription notices to Russian citizens on November 1, 2024.

Russian media reported on this.

Electronic conscription notices will be sent within the framework of the launched Unified Register of Military Registration.

According to the plan, it is scheduled to start working on October 31, 2024, and the next day, the relevant categories of recruits will start receiving electronic summonses.

SPOILER

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Persons liable for military service will be notified of all new entries in the register through the Gosuslugi (State Service – ed.) service.

In particular, this will include notifications regarding the removal or acceptance of a citizen for military registration and temporary restrictive measures in connection with the sending of a summons.

As part of the new ruling, the conscription notice will be considered served seven days after it is placed on the register. Once the notice is sent to the conscript, he will automatically be denied the opportunity to leave the territory of the Russian Federation.

If a conscript fails to report to the military enlistment office within 20 days, he will be prohibited from obtaining a foreign passport, registering a business, or engaging in self-employment.

It should be noted that the register will collect the most important information, namely information on the state of health, place of residence, place of work, and education.

According to Russian media, conscription into the Russian army in the fall of 2024 will be fully conducted using electronic draft notices.

Militarnyi previously reported that Russian private military companies were recruiting Ukrainian citizens in the temporarily occupied territories to deploy them to Africa.

It is reported that the so-called Wagner PMC has launched a large-scale recruitment campaign for men aged 22 to 50.

quote:

Vampire drone operators of the “Pomsta” Brigade destroyed an enemy ammunition depot

The strike drone operators of the ‘Pomsta’ Brigade of the State Border Guard Service destroyed an enemy depot in the Bakhmut sector.

This is stated in the message of the State Border Guard Service of Ukraine’s press service.

The enemy ammunition depot, which was located in one of the half-destroyed buildings, was destroyed by a precision munitions drop.

It is reported that the ammunition was discharged from a Vampire strike drone.

SPOILER

quote:

Знищення складу

Combat missions of the State Border Guard Service
On April 18, Militarnyi reported that a drone of the State Border Guard Service of Ukraine hit an enemy boat in the southern direction.

The boat was destroyed by dropping ammunition. No enemy personnel were on board.

Earlier, on April 14, it was reported that border guards of the Phoenix unit of the Revenge Brigade destroyed two enemy BTR-82A.

It is reported that enemy armored personnel carriers were destroyed by a Vampire strike drone near the village of Andriyivka, Bakhmut sector.

As a result of the attack, one enemy infantryman died, and another was injured.

Vampire
Vampire copters can carry up to 15 kilograms of payload in the form of various types of ammunition for discharge.

The Ukrainian military uses these drones to destroy both armored vehicles and enemy fortifications.

Each drone is equipped with a thermal imager, therefore, Vampire can effectively work at night.

The large-impact hexacopter Vampire is produced by the Ukrainian company SkyFall. The drone lifts the payload weighing up to 15 kilograms to an altitude of 400 meters.

This allows the use of domestic UAVs to drop various types of ammunition on the enemy, including thermobaric, HEAT, and high-explosive fragmentation.

The operator controls the drone from the remote control. Control is provided by radio frequencies and GPS.

The developers claim that in the event of the signal jamming, the drone will continue flying until the signal is restored. Some elements of the drone are made using 3D printers.

Vampire specifications:
• range – 10 km;
• communication range – 6 km;
• flight altitude – 400 m;
• speed – up to 40 – 80 km/h depending on the load;
• duration – 37 minutes without cargo and 20 minutes with 10 kg of weight.

quote:

Op zondag 28 april 2024 20:06 schreef Seeburg54 het volgende:
Is er al een lading kadootjes aangekomen in Rzesz�w vanuit USA?
Wordt wel tijd.

quote:

Partisans conduct reconnaissance at one of most guarded Russian oil facilities in Crimea
Partisans have been conducting reconnaissance at the oil depot in Dzhankoi, used by the Russians, for several months. This is one of the largest oil depots carefully guarded by the occupiers, according to the partisan movement Atesh.

"For many months, starting from the end of last year, our agents have been conducting reconnaissance and surveillance of the oil depot in Dzhankoi," the statement reads.

The partisans were able to identify the logistics routes and equipment used by the Russians to transport oil products. According to the partisans, the territory of the oil depot is fenced off, constantly patrolled, and dozens of cameras are positioned around the perimeter.

"They (the cameras) are installed both in prominent places and in spots for covert video recording, demonstrating how much the occupiers value this facility," the partisan movement notes.

All the information has already been passed on to the Ukrainian Defense Forces.

SPOILER

quote:

Situation in Crimea
It is worth noting that the Russians are turning Crimea into their military base, and the peninsula serves as a logistical hub supporting the occupiers in southern Ukraine.

However, Ukrainian defenders have carried out a series of successful operations in Crimea. As a result of the attacks, enemy ships, oil depots, command posts, and so on have been destroyed.

For example, in April, Ukrainian soldiers struck at a military airfield in Dzhankoi. According to the Main Intelligence Directorate of the Ministry of Defense, enemy air defense assets were destroyed, and an occupier's command post was also hit.

quote:

Op zondag 28 april 2024 20:02 schreef Cilantro het volgende:
[ x ]

quote:

Thousands of former Wagner fighters are now answering to Moscow

In Africa and beyond, Russia is using the same fighters who once turned on Moscow to undermine U.S. efforts to promote democracy and fight terrorism.

Seven months after the fiery death of Yevgeny Prigozhin, the audacious oligarch whose private army known as the Wagner Group led an insurrection against Russian President Vladimir Putin, the Russian state is establishing control of the private mercenaries and putting them to work pursuing the Kremlin’s agenda.

The thousands of the former Wagner forces have splintered into at least four groups, according to two U.S. officials granted anonymity to discuss sensitive intelligence matters.

By mixing the fighters with other mercenaries loyal to Putin, the Russian government hopes to prevent a repeat of the events of last year, when a unified Wagner turned on Putin and his defense ministry.

SPOILER

quote:

“Part of the objective of the restructuring is to make sure there is more control over the operations overall,” one of the U.S. officials said.

The new private armies are already being deployed across the world on special missions, including to Ukraine and Africa, where they are expected to play a similarly destabilizing role on the global stage as when under the command of Prigozhin, the officials said. The reconstituted paramilitary groups have already forced the Biden administration to withdraw troops from Niger and Chad — in major setbacks for counterterrorism — while challenging U.S. policies in the Central African Republic, Mali, Burkina Faso, Libya and other African nations.

One of the four groups is aligned with Russia’s National Guard. It has already transferred to Ukraine and lost a significant number of fighters. Two other groups are operating under the control of the defense ministry and Moscow’s intelligence services. The fourth group — known as the Africa Corps and aligned with an existing group known as Redut — is still working to assume control of former Wagner forces in some African capitals, the officials said.

Little else is known about the breakdown of the new factions, including how many members come from Prigozhin’s Wagner versus other existing paramilitary organizations. It’s also unclear to what extent Prigozhin’s son, who initially took control of thousands of Wagner mercenaries after his father’s death, is still involved in leading a smaller group of fighters still loyal to his father’s memory. The younger Prigozhin is likely in charge of some forces in the Central African Republic and Mali, the officials said.

Prigozhin died last August when his plane exploded in midair. The crash was widely viewed as a state-sponsored assassination, ordered by Putin.

It marked the end of the most serious challenge to Putin’s leadership in his 25 years in power. Prigozhin had risen to wealth as Putin’s personal chef and the Kremlin’s official caterer before creating the Wagner Group in 2017. Allowing a close Kremlin ally to build an unofficial private army was useful to Russia in undertaking secret missions around the world.

As the Wagner Group expanded its global reach, however, it became increasingly independent of Russian control. Putin tolerated those changes as Wagner fighters assumed an important role in his war with Ukraine. In June of last year, however, Prigozhin and his mercenaries turned on Putin over his defense ministry’s inept conduct of the war.

That led to a series of skirmishes with Russian forces as Prigozhin’s men marched toward Moscow in an apparent coup attempt. Prigozhin ultimately stood down in an agreement negotiated by Russia’s allies in Belarus. But within two months, Prigozhin was dead, along with nine others, when his plane disintegrated and plunged to the earth while flying from St. Petersburg to Moscow.

Prigozhin’s death left the fate of his empire in limbo. At that time, the Wagner Group was in the process of establishing close ties to the leaders of rogue African states, providing security to dictators while engaging in lucrative mining operations.

In the Central African Republic, for instance, Wagner had taken control of a gold mine. In the wake of Prigozhin’s death, his former subordinates have significantly expanded the mine, U.S. officials said, but have not yet found a way to efficiently market and ship the minerals. They would reap hundreds of millions of dollars in profit on the global market.

Prigozhin also oversaw a sweeping disinformation operation that organized protests in Africa, helped place falsified news stories in media outlets around the world and ran massive troll farms to destabilize elections in Western Europe, the United States and other democracies.

The disinformation arms are now likely under the control of Russia’s foreign intelligence service, the U.S. officials said. And Prigozhin’s economic employees may have been placed under other intelligence offices, including the military’s intelligence directorate.

Moscow’s newly asserted command of these private mercenaries has vast implications for geopolitics. In Africa, especially, it could undermine the Biden administration’s efforts to fight terrorism, promote democracy and forge diplomatic ties to newly formed regimes.

“The timing element is key here. Russia can give these countries what the U.S. cannot and immediately,” one of the U.S. officials said, referring to Moscow’s ability to use private fighters to provide under-the-table weapons and ammunition to newly formed military governments in Africa. “And a lot of the leaders of those countries are sick of the U.S. lecturing them about democracy.”

By law, the United States cannot provide aid to governments seizing power through military coups, which effectively puts it one step behind Russia in such situations.

Moscow’s direct control of paramilitary groups could also convince some African countries that had previously shied away from the Wagner Group — which was under global sanctions as a criminal organization — to reconsider their resistance, said the officials.

Moscow’s use of the paramilitary fighters to spread its influence in Africa is already visible in Niger, one of the most important outposts in the war against terrorism.

Nigerien military leaders took control from the country’s elected president, Mohamed Bazoum, last July. The coup prompted Washington to suspend its economic and military aid to the country while the Biden administration pushed the military leaders to transition back to a civilian-led democracy.

Earlier this month, however, hundreds of Russian mercenaries arrived in the capital city of Niamey, claiming they were there to help train Niger’s military and to enter into a formal partnership with the ruling junta.

Their arrival came just days before the Biden administration announced that the U.S. would withdraw its 1,000 troops from the country after nearly 10 years, creating the appearance of Russian forces supplanting those of the U.S. in a country where terrorist groups have organized and plotted global attacks.

Meanwhile, in Chad, another country with a significant presence of former Wagner fighters, the Biden administration announced this week that it was withdrawing about 75 special operations forces who had been performing counterterrorism roles, at the request of the local government.

The move was widely seen as another instance of Russia supplanting U.S. influence.

Former Wagner fighters also remain active in Mali, Libya and Sudan, where they have contracts to provide security to unstable regimes. The U.S. has tried to counter Wagner’s presence in those nations and the Central African Republic, urging officials to distance themselves from Russia.

In another country, Burkina Faso, as in Niger and Chad, former Wagner forces are now under firm control of the Africa Corps.

But the two U.S. officials caution that there are risks to Russia’s strategy — especially pertaining to ongoing questions about the loyalty of former Wagner fighters and their willingness to take orders from the country’s oft-maligned defense ministry.

Even before his insurrection, Prigozhin would often publicly condemn the ministry of defense, blaming its leaders for setbacks on the battlefield in Ukraine. And his final break with Putin occurred when he attempted to force the ouster of Sergei Shoigu, minister of defense, and Valery Gerasimov, the military’s chief of staff.

Prigozhin blamed the duo for the poor performance of Russian troops. He also claimed that they had exaggerated the largely illusory threat posed by Ukraine to push Putin into an unwise war.

Many of Wagner’s fighters have remained loyal to Prigozhin’s memory and similarly disliked the defense minister. Now, some of them are being led by that very official — Shoigu — in a highly selective group known as Patriot. It is supervised and financed by the ministry of defense, officials say.

“It’s unclear if Moscow will be able to pull off what Wagner has done for years,” a third U.S. official said. “These fighters are being put into an existing, bureaucratic system that might slow things down and make them less dangerous.”

quote:

Op zondag 28 april 2024 20:25 schreef Ulx het volgende:
[ x ]

Mooi, vliegtuigje minder.

quote:

Op zondag 28 april 2024 20:35 schreef AchJa het volgende:

[..]
Die is volledig verdampt ofzo?

quote:

Op zondag 28 april 2024 20:06 schreef Seeburg54 het volgende:
Is er al een lading kadootjes aangekomen in Rzesz�w vanuit USA?
Wordt wel tijd.

quote:

Op zondag 28 april 2024 20:38 schreef Ulx het volgende:
Er heeft duidelijk iets goed in brand gestaan op die plek. Het hoeft inderdaad geen vliegtuig te zijn geweest, misschien hadden ze er een springkasteel neergezet voor de "neem je kinderen mee naar het werk" dag, maar ik doe de aanname dat er wel een vliegtuig heeft gestaan.

quote:

Op zondag 28 april 2024 20:42 schreef AchJa het volgende:

[..]
[..]
Kijk ze even naast/onder elkaar, dan begrijp je wat ik bedoel:

[ afbeelding ]
[ afbeelding ]

quote:

Op zondag 28 april 2024 20:46 schreef Ulx het volgende:
Nu je het zegt! Het vliegtuig dat op 19 maart op de tweede plek van links stond was op 28 april niet meer te zien.

Vreemd.

quote:

Op zondag 28 april 2024 20:38 schreef Ulx het volgende:

[..]
maar ik doe de aanname dat er wel een vliegtuig heeft gestaan.

quote:

Op zondag 28 april 2024 20:50 schreef PluggieOD het volgende:

[..]
a) Is dat dezelfde aanname dat er laatst 2 landingsschepen (Yamal en Azov) vernietigd waren?
b) Is dat dezelfde aanname dat er 14 Su-34s waren neergeschoten?
c) Is dat dezelfde aanname dat de Kommuna gezonken was?

We zitten inmiddels op het slechts geinformeerde forum van Nederland met dat ge copy paste van onzin.

quote:

Op zondag 28 april 2024 20:54 schreef Ulx het volgende:

[..]
a) Zie je een militair vliegveld?
b) Zie je sporen dat daar iets in brand heeft gestaan?

quote:

Op zondag 28 april 2024 20:55 schreef PluggieOD het volgende:

[..]
Jij verzint dat er een "Su-35" daar in de brand heeft gestaan. Jij copy paste die onzin.

quote:

Op zondag 28 april 2024 20:57 schreef Ulx het volgende:

[..]
Ik heb geen type aanduiding gegeven.

quote:

Op zondag 28 april 2024 20:58 schreef PluggieOD het volgende:

[..]
Misschien gewoon eens kappen met al die onzin aannames.

quote:

Op zondag 28 april 2024 21:05 schreef PluggieOD het volgende:

[..]
Gewoon kappen met je onzin aannames.

quote:

Op zondag 28 april 2024 21:10 schreef Ulx het volgende:
Wat zie jij op die foto's?

quote:

Op zondag 28 april 2024 20:38 schreef AchJa het volgende:

[..]
Ben benieuwd hoe lang Mostiska II nog met rust gelaten wordt...

quote:

Op zondag 28 april 2024 21:14 schreef BEFEM het volgende:
Zo'n zwarte plek kan toch vanalles zijn

SPOILER

https://edition.cnn.com/2(...)n-matchup/index.html

quote:

CNN Poll: Trump maintains lead over Biden in 2024 matchup as views on their presidencies diverge
Donald Trump continues to hold an advantage over President Joe Biden as the campaign – and the former president’s criminal trial – move forward, according to a new CNN poll conducted by SSRS. And in the coming rematch, opinions about the first term of each man vying for a second four years in the White House now appear to work in Trump’s favor, with most Americans saying that, looking back, Trump’s term as president was a success, while a broad majority says Biden’s has so far been a failure.

Trump’s support in the poll among registered voters holds steady at 49% in a head-to-head matchup against Biden, the same as in CNN’s last national poll on the race in January, while Biden’s stands at 43%, not significantly different from January’s 45%.

Looking back, 55% of all Americans now say they see Trump’s presidency as a success, while 44% see it as a failure. In a January 2021 poll taken just before Trump left office and days after the January 6 attack on the US Capitol, 55% considered his time as president a failure.

Assessing Biden’s time in office so far, 61% say his presidency thus far has been a failure, while 39% say it’s been a success. That’s narrowly worse than the 57% who called the first year of his administration a failure in January 2022, with 41% calling it a success.

Republicans now are more unified around the idea that Trump’s presidency was a success than Democrats are that Biden’s has been one. Overall, 92% of Republicans call Trump’s time in office a success, while just 73% of Democrats say Biden’s has been a success so far. Among independents, 51% say Trump’s presidency was successful, while only 37% see Biden’s as a success.

There is some overlap in views of the two most recent presidents’ achievements, with 14% of Americans saying they consider both are failures, while 8% say both are successes. About half of registered voters, 47%, consider Biden’s presidency thus far to be a failure while saying Trump’s was a success, while only 30% say Biden’s has been successful and that Trump’s was not. Public opinion of former presidents generally rises in retrospect, although no other modern president has attempted a similar return to power after an electoral loss.

Negative views of Biden’s work in office have held for much of his presidency. In the new poll, 60% disapprove of his handling of the job and 40% approve, about the same as it’s been in CNN polling for more than a year. Even Biden’s strongest issue approval ratings in the poll are also in negative territory, with 45% approving of his handling of health care policy and 44% approving his handling of student loan debt. And his worst issue approval rating – for his handling of the war between Israel and Hamas in Gaza – yields 28% approval to 71% disapproval, including an 81% disapproval mark among those younger than 35 and majority disapproval among Democrats (53%).

The economy
Biden’s approval ratings for the economy (34%) and inflation (29%) remain starkly negative, as voters say economic concerns are more important to them when choosing a candidate than they were in each of the past two presidential contests. In the new poll, 65% of registered voters call the economy extremely important to their vote for president, compared with 40% who felt that way in early 2020 and 46% who said the same at roughly this point in 2016. Those voters who say the economy is deeply important break heavily for Trump in a matchup against Biden, 62% to 30%.

A broad majority of all Americans, 70%, say economic conditions in the US are poor, with many, particularly Republicans, who feel that way saying their views would be more affected by a political shift than a change in the economy itself. About 4 in 10 in that group (41%) say that a change in political leadership in Washington would do more to change their impressions of the economy than a lower rate of inflation, a change in their personal financial situation or a sustained rise in the stock market. About 6 in 10 Republicans (61%) who say the economy is in bad shape say a change in leadership would shift their views, compared with 13% of Democrats who feel that way.

After politics, a decline in the rate of inflation could change the minds of a sizable share of those who feel the economy is in bad shape – 37% feel that way, with far fewer citing a positive change in their personal finances (14%) or a rise in the stock market (3%) as having that same effect.

Americans’ perceptions of their own finances also remain negative, with 53% saying they are dissatisfied with their personal financial situation while 47% are satisfied.Dissatisfaction is starkly prevalent among those with lower incomes (67% dissatisfied in households with annual incomes lower than $50,000), people of color (64% say they are dissatisfied) and younger Americans (61% of those younger than 45 say they are dissatisfied).

Other issues
Considering other issue priorities for the upcoming election, 58% of voters call protecting democracy an extremely important issue, the only other issue tested that a majority considers central to their choice. Nearly half call immigration, crime and gun policy deeply important (48% each), with health care (43%), abortion (42%) and nominations to the US Supreme Court (39%) each deeply important to about 4 in 10 voters. At the lower end of the scale, just 33% consider foreign policy that important, 27% climate change, 26% the war between Israel and Hamas, and 24% student loans.

There remain sharp partisan differences in which issues are most critical to choosing a president. Among Democratic-aligned voters, protecting democracy (67%), abortion (54%), the economy (52%), gun policy (51%) and health care (49%) all rank as key for about half or more, while on the GOP-aligned side, it’s the economy (79%), immigration (71%), crime (65%) and then democracy (54%).

Impressions of candidates
Beyond issues, impressions of both candidates remain mostly negative (58% of voters have an unfavorable view of Biden, 55% of Trump), and a narrow majority of voters, 53%, say they are dissatisfied with the candidates they have to choose from in this year’s presidential contest.

A sizable 17% of registered voters say they have unfavorable views of both Biden and Trump, and in choosing between the two, they break for Trump, 43% to 31%, with 25% of that group saying they would vote for someone else, skip the contest entirely or just aren’t sure who they would support.

Among all voters, when independent candidates Robert F. Kennedy Jr. and Cornel West and Green Party candidate Jill Stein are included in the matchup, Trump holds 42% to Biden’s 33%, with Kennedy at 16%, West at 4% and Stein at 3%. Kennedy draws 13% each from supporters of Biden and Trump in the initial two-way matchup.

In the Biden vs. Trump matchup, the poll finds Biden faring worse than in previous CNN polls among the youngest voters, trailing Trump by a 51%-to-40% margin among voters younger than 35. Biden’s deficit with voters in that group is driven largely by those who did not vote in 2020. With that group excluded, voters between the ages of 18 and 34 in this poll divide 46% for Biden to 47% for Trump. Although not all polls release crosstabs or use the same age breaks when reporting results, other recent polling has shown a wide range of results for younger voters in testing a matchup between Trump and Biden, ranging from an 18-point Trump advantage among those younger than 30 in the Fox News poll in mid-March up to a 21-point Biden advantage among those younger than 30 in the Pew Research survey earlier this month.

Among all voters, Biden remains at a bit of a disadvantage relative to Trump in terms of the share of voters who have ruled out voting for him: 52% say there’s no chance they would support him, while 47% say there’s no chance they would back Trump, both numbers are similar to the level found in a fall CNN survey. A small share of registered voters – 5% for Biden, 3% for Trump – say that although they are not currently backing that candidate they would consider them.

But the poll finds that Biden voters and Trump voters largely just don’t understand each other. Among those who do not currently support Biden, 66% say they don’t understand why anyone would support him, and 63% of those not backing Trump say they can’t understand why anyone would support him.

The CNN poll was conducted by SSRS from April 18-23 among a random national sample of 1,212 adults drawn from a probability-based panel, including 967 registered voters. Surveys were either conducted online or by telephone with a live interviewer. Results among the full sample have a margin of sampling error of plus or minus 3.4 percentage points. For results among registered voters, it is plus or minus 3.8 points.

Trump een betere president dan Biden lol. Lezen die mensen het nieuws niet ofzo. De economie draait beter onder Biden, er zijn meer banen en de werkloosheid is omlaag. Zelfs heb ik gelezen dat de grens beter beveiligd is onder Biden en dat er minder illegale immigranten zijn toegelaten. (al kan ik dat verkeerd hebben, is een tijdje geleden).

Biden heeft gewoon de pech dat de halve wereld oorlog is gaan voeren onder zijn presidentschap. Al ben ik het wel mee eens dat hij de oorlog tussen Israel en Hamas beter had aan kunnen pakken.

Jammer dat beide partijen geen betere kandidaten hebben kunnen vinden. Laten we hopen dat tegen de verkiezingen aan het uitzicht beter is. En dat hopelijk Trump in de gevangenis zit of zo.

SPOILER

https://edition.cnn.com/2(...)term-invs/index.html

quote:

What Trump’s war on the ‘Deep State’ could mean: ‘An army of suck-ups’
At one campaign rally after another, former President Donald Trump whips his supporters into raucous cheers with a promise of what’s to come if he’s given another term in office: “We will demolish the deep state.”

In essence, it’s a declaration of war on the federal government—a vow to transform its size and scope and make it more beholden to Trump’s whims and worldview.

The former president’s statements, policy blueprints laid out by top officials in his first administration and interviews with allies show that Trump is poised to double down in a second term on executive orders that faltered, or those he was blocked from carrying out the first time around.

Trump seeks to sweep away civil service protections that have been in place for more than 140 years. He has said he’d make “every executive branch employee fireable by the president of the United States” at will. Even though more than 85 percent of federal employees already work outside the DC area, Trump says he would “drain the swamp” and move as many as 100,000 positions out of Washington. His plans would eliminate or dismantle entire departments.

A close look at his prior, fitful efforts shows how, in another term, Trump’s initiatives could debilitate large swaths of the federal government.

While Trump’s plans are embraced by his supporters, policy experts warn that they would hollow out and politicize the federal workforce, force out many of the most experienced and knowledgeable employees, and open the door to corruption and a spoils system of political patronage.

Take Trump’s statement on his campaign website: “I will immediately reissue my 2020 executive order restoring the president’s authority to remove rogue bureaucrats. And I will wield that power very aggressively.”

That executive order reclassified many civil service workers, whose jobs are nonpartisan and protected, as political appointees who could be fired at will. At the time, more than four dozen officials from ten Republican and Democratic presidential administrations, including some who served under Trump, condemned the order. In a joint letter, they warned it would “cause long-term damage to one of the key institutions of our government.”

In the end, Trump’s order had little impact because he issued it in the final months of his term, and President Joe Biden rescinded it as soon as he took office.

But if, as promised, Trump were to change thousands of civil service jobs into politically appointed positions at the start of a second term, huge numbers of federal workers could face being fired unless they put loyalty to Trump ahead of serving the public interest, warn policy experts.

‘An army of suck-ups’
“It’s a real threat to democracy,” Donald Moynihan, a professor of public policy at Georgetown University, told CNN. “This is something every citizen should be deeply aware of and worried about because it threatens their fundamental rights.”

Moynihan said making vast numbers of jobs subject to appointment based on political affiliation would amount to “absolutely the biggest change in the American public sector” since a merit-based civil service was created in 1883.

One of the architects of that plan for a Trump second term said as much in a video last year for the Heritage Foundation. “It’s going to be groundbreaking,” said Russell Vought, who served as the director of the Office of Management and Budget under Trump. He declined interview requests from CNN. But in the video, he spoke at length about the plan to crush what he called “the woke and the weaponized bureaucracy.” Vought discussed dismantling or remaking the Department of Justice, the FBI and the Environmental Protection Agency, among others.

Vought focused on a plan he drafted to reissue Trump’s 2020 executive order, known as Schedule F. It would reclassify as political appointees any federal workers deemed to have influence on policy. Reissuing Schedule F is part of a roadmap, known as Project 2025, drafted for a second Trump term by scores of conservative groups and published by the Heritage Foundation.

Vought argues the civil service change is necessary because the federal government “makes every decision on the basis of climate change extremism and on the basis of woke militancy where you’re effectively trying to divide the country into oppressors and the oppressed.”

A Trump campaign spokesperson pointed CNN to a pair of campaign statements from late last year in part responding to reporters’ questions about the 900-plus-page Project 2025 document. The campaign said, “None of these groups or individuals speak for President Trump or his campaign… Policy recommendations from external allies are just that – recommendations.” However, the Project 2025 recommendations largely follow what Trump has outlined in broad strokes in his campaign speeches – for example, his plans to reissue his 2020 executive order “on Day One.”

Ostensibly, a reissued Schedule F would affect only policy-making positions. But documents obtained by the National Treasury Employees Union and shared with CNN show that when Vought ran OMB under Trump, his list of positions to be reclassified under Schedule F included administrative assistants, office managers, IT workers and many other less senior positions.

NTEU President Doreen Greenwald told reporters at the union’s annual legislative conference that it estimated more than 50,000 workers would have been affected across all federal agencies. She said the OMB documents “stretched the definition of confidential or policy positions to the point of absurdity.”

Trump’s comments about wanting to be able to fire at will all executive-branch employees suggest the numbers in a second term would be far greater.

Moynihan, at Georgetown, said US policies already grant the president “many more political appointees than most other rich countries” allow – about 4,000 positions.

“Almost all Western democracies have a professional civil service that does not answer to whatever political party happens to be in power, but is immune from those sorts of partisan wranglings,” said Kenneth Baer, who served as a senior OMB official under President Barack Obama. “They bring… a technical expertise, a sense of long history and perspective to the work that the government needs to do.” Making thousands of additional positions subject to political change risks losing that expertise, while bringing in “people who are getting jobs just because they did some favor to the party, or the president was elected. And so, there’s a risk of corruption.”

Such concerns cross the political aisle. Robert Shea, a senior OMB official under George W. Bush, called himself a hugely conservative, loyal Republican. But hiring people based on personal political loyalties would produce “an army of suck-ups,” he said.

“It would change the nature of the federal bureaucracy,” to remove protections from senior civil servants, he said. “This would mean that if you told your boss that what he or she was proposing was illegal, impractical, [or] unwise that they could brand you disloyal and terminate you.”

Biden has moved to block such a move. On April 4, the Office of Personnel Management, which in effect is the human resources department for the federal government, adopted new rules meant to bar career civil service workers from being reclassified as political appointees or other types of at-will workers.

The new rules would not fully block reclassifying workers in a second Trump term. But they would create “speed bumps,” said Baer. “To repeal the regulation, there would have to be a lengthy period of proposed rulemaking, 90 days of comment,” and other steps that would have to be followed. “And then probably the litigation, after that.”

“Places filled with patriots”
While assailing “faceless bureaucrats,” Trump also has said he would move federal agencies from “the Washington Swamp… to places filled with patriots who love America.”

But when he tried such moves before, the effect was to drain know-how, talent and experience from those agencies. That’s what happened in 2019 when Trump moved the headquarters of the Bureau of Land Management to Grand Junction, Colorado, and two agencies within the Department of Agriculture to Kansas City.

“The vast bulk of (headquarters) employees left the agencies,” said Max Stier, president and chief executive of the Partnership for Public Service, a nonpartisan group that promotes serving in government. It led to the loss of “expertise that had been built up over decades,” he said. “It destroyed the agencies.”

A 2021 investigation by the Government Accountability Office found that the BLM move pushed out hundreds of the bureau’s most experienced employees, and sharply reduced diversity, with more than half of black employees in DC opting to quit or retire rather than move to Colorado. The GAO also concluded that the USDA’s decision to move its Economic Research Service (ERS) and the National Institute of Food and Agriculture (NIFA) to Kansas City was “not fully consistent with an evidence-based approach.”

The two USDA agencies do statistical research and analysis. The ERS focuses on areas including the well-being of farms, the effects of federal farm policies, food security and safety issues, the impacts of trade policies and global competition. NIFA funds programs to help American agriculture compete globally, protect food safety and promote nutrition, among other areas.

Verna Daniels had worked for the USDA for 32 years, most of them as an information specialist at the Economic Research Service, when she and her colleagues found out their agency was being relocated in October 2019.

“I really enjoyed my job. I worked extremely hard. I never missed a deadline,” Daniels said. She said the announcement left her in shock. “Everybody was afraid, and it was happening so fast… We were given three months to relocate to wherever it was or vacate the premises.” She quit rather than uproot her whole family. “It was heart-wrenching.”

The Trump administration said moving the USDA agencies would bring researchers closer to “stakeholders”– that is, farmers. Catherine Greene, an agricultural economist with 35 years at the USDA’s Economic Research Service, called the idea ridiculous. “Every state that surrounds Washington, DC, has farming… I grew up on a hundred-year-old farm in southwestern Virginia.”

“We’ve all dedicated our lives to looking at farming in America, to looking at food systems in America,” Greene said. “I think the goal was to uproot the agency in such a way that most people would have to move on, and most people did. It was highly predictable.”

The other relocated research agency, the National Institute for Food and Agriculture, had 394 employees at the beginning of the Trump administration, said Tom Bewick, acting vice president of the union local for NIFA. Trump imposed a hiring moratorium that left positions unfilled as people moved or retired. By the time the relocation to Kansas City was announced, NIFA was down to 270 employees. “Once it was announced they would move us, we were losing 10 to 20 people a week,” Bewick explained. “We had less than 70 people make the move.” Five years on, he said, “We still are not the same agency, and we’ll never be the same agency we were.”

The USDA said the move to Kansas City would save taxpayers $300 million over 15 years. But the GAO said that analysis didn’t account for the loss of experience and institutional knowledge, the cost of training new workers, reduced productivity and the disruption caused by the move. Including such costs, the Agricultural and Applied Economics Association estimated the move actually cost taxpayers between $83 million and $182 million.

Greene, at the Economic Research Service, retired rather than move. After Biden took office, the BLM and the two USDA agencies moved their headquarters back to Washington, but also kept open their offices in Grand Junction and Kansas City, respectively. Greene said she worries for federal workers who might face the same choice in a second Trump term. “They mean business,” she said. “They spent four years practicing, and they are ready to rock and roll.”

To Stier, at the Partnership for Public Service, there is a huge gap between the perception and the reality of the role that the civil service plays across the country. “We’ve been doing polling on trust in government, and when you tag on the words, government ‘in Washington, DC,’ the trust numbers crater,” he said.

Using the government to go after enemies
On the campaign trail, Trump has regularly claimed, without evidence, that Biden and the Department of Justice are stage-managing various prosecutions of him – including state-level indictments in New York over falsifying business records and in Georgia, on charges of election subversion. Trump has used that false claim to say it would justify him using the Justice Department to target his political enemies. He’s said that in a second term he’d appoint a special prosecutor to investigate Biden. He told Univision last year he could have others indicted if they challenged him politically.

Trump tried to use the Department of Justice in this fashion during his previous term, repeatedly telling aides he wanted prosecutors to indict political foes such as Hillary Clinton or former appointees he’d fired, such as former FBI Director James Comey. He also pushed then-Attorney General Bill Barr to falsely claim the 2020 election was corrupt, which Barr refused to do.

In that term, some senior officials at the White House and the Justice Department pushed back against pursuing baseless prosecutions. Their resistance followed a tradition holding that the Justice Department should largely operate independently, with the president setting broad policies but not intervening in specific criminal prosecutions.

But in a second term, Trump could upend that tradition with the help of acolytes such as Jeffrey Clark, a former Justice official who faces disbarment in DC and criminal charges in Georgia for trying to help overturn the 2020 election results. As Trump tried to hang onto the White House in his final weeks in office, he pushed to make Clark his acting attorney general, stopping only after senior Justice Department leaders threatened to resign en masse if he did so.

Last year, Clark published an essay titled “The U.S. Justice Department Is Not Independent” for the Center for Renewing America, a conservative nonprofit founded by Russell Vought. Clark also helped draft portions of the Project 2025 blueprint for a second Trump term, including outlining the use of the Insurrection Act of 1807 to deploy the military for domestic law enforcement, as first reported by the Washington Post.

Trump also has talked about bringing to heel other parts of the federal government.

“We will clean out all of the corrupt actors in our National Security and Intelligence apparatus, and there are plenty of them,” Trump said in a video last year. “The departments and agencies that have been weaponized will be completely overhauled so that faceless bureaucrats will never again be able to target and persecute conservatives, Christians, or the left’s political enemies.”

Project 2025’s blueprint envisions dismantling the Department of Homeland Security and the FBI; disarming the Environmental Protection Agency by loosening or eliminating emissions and climate-change regulations; eliminating the Departments of Education and Commerce in their entirety; and eliminating the independence of various commissions, including the Federal Communications Commission and the Federal Trade Commission.

The project includes a personnel database for potential hires in a second Trump administration. Trump’s campaign managers have not committed the former president to following the Project 2025 plans, should he win the White House. But given the active involvement of Trump officials in the project, from Vought and Clark to former Chief of Staff Mark Meadows, senior adviser Stephen Miller, Peter Navarro and many others, critics say it offers a worrisome roadmap to a second Trump term.

“Now they really understand how to use power, and want to use it to serve, not just Republican partisans, but Donald Trump,” said Baer.

On the campaign trail, Trump leaves little doubt about what he’ll try to do.

“We will put unelected bureaucrats back in their place,” Trump told his supporters at one rally last fall. “The threat from outside forces is far less sinister, dangerous and grave than the threat from within.”

Op dag 1 van zijn nieuwe presidentschap wil hij dit plan al in werking zetten. Hij wil een groot deel van alle ambtenaren ontslaan en er ja knikkers en hielenlikkers voor in de plaats zetten. Ook wil hij onderdelen van de overheid ontmantelen zoals de FBI en de Binnenlandse Veiligheidsdienst. Wat er dan overblijft wil hij gebruiken om een heksenjacht op zijn (politieke) tegenstanders te beginnen.

Hij gaf al aan op de eerste dag een dictator te willen zijn. Maar volgens mij wil hij de Amerikaanse overheid/regering om gaan zetten in in een dictatorschap/autocratie met hem aan de top. En als hij dan ook nog presidentiele immuniteit krijgt dan zijn de rapen helemaal gaar. Dan kan en zal hij doen wat hij maar wil zonder gevolgen.

SPOILER

https://edition.cnn.com/2(...)day-day-8/index.html

quote:

Takeaways from Day 8 of the Donald Trump hush money trial
Jurors will now have a three-day weekend to think about what they heard during the first full week of testimony in the historic Donald Trump hush money trial.

David Pecker finally stepped down from the witness stand after more than 10 hours of testimony across four days, where the former American Media Inc. chief described in detail how he helped Donald Trump suppress negative stories and pummel Trump’s rivals in the National Enquirer during the 2016 campaign.

The back-and-forth over Pecker’s story set the stage for the further brawls ahead when witnesses such as adult film star Stormy Daniels and Michael Cohen, Trump’s former lawyer and fixer, take the stand.

On Friday afternoon, prosecutors called Rhona Graff, who was Trump’s assistant at the Trump Organization, where she worked for more than 30 years.

She was quickly off the stand, and a banker for Cohen came next – signaling a move in the trial toward the documents at the heart of the charges against Trump.

Here are the key takeaways from Friday:

Jury sees paper trail
The hush money case against Trump weaves a colorful narrative with a tabloid publisher suppressing torrid affairs for a businessman-turned-politician and a hush money scheme orchestrated by a now-disbarred lawyer to a porn star.

But Trump is charged with 34 counts of falsifying business records – so prosecutors have warned this will in many ways be a routine, document-heavy trial.

Friday afternoon prosecutors called a banker from First Republic Bank as their third witness.

Jurors saw the paper trail for a shell company and corresponding bank account Michael Cohen created in Delaware that was meant to be used to pay AMI for the rights to Karen McDougal’s story - a transaction that never transpired. That account was ultimately never funded, according to the banker’s testimony.

Banker Gary Farro testified to records that show Cohen changed course about two weeks later in October 2016 to instead open an account for another company – Essential Consultants – an entity ultimately used to pay Daniels in the hush money scheme to suppress her story about an alleged affair with Trump. (Trump has denied both alleged affairs.)

Court is dark on Monday. Farro is expected to continue testifying next Tuesday when the trial resumes. He’s expected to walk the jury through the paperwork tied to a home equity line of credit Cohen pulled on his personal property to front the payment to Daniels.

Trump lawyer tries to puncture Pecker’s credibility
Pecker’s four days of testimony offered two competing narratives for the jury: Prosecutors elicited testimony from the AMI chief about how Pecker’s 2015 deal with Trump was unique, helping him be the “eyes and ears” of the campaign and buying up negative stories about Trump for unusually high sums.

In Pecker’s final day on the stand, Trump’s attorneys sought to undercut his testimony with a series of alleged inconsistences, poking holes in discrepancies from prior interviews with federal and state prosecutors and disputing his testimony that AMI admitted it violated campaign finance law.

At several points during cross-examination, Trump attorney Emil Bove asked Pecker whether the testimony he had given was a “mistake.”

Each time, Bove was trying to highlight inconsistencies between what Pecker had testified to prosecutors earlier in the week and what he had told investigators in interviews years earlier about AMI’s $150,000 payment to McDougal for her story alleging an affair with Trump.

In one instance, Bove pointed to FBI notes from a 2018 interview, where agents had written that Pecker testified Trump did not thank him or AMI during a January 6, 2017, meeting at Trump Tower. Pecker had testified earlier in the week that Trump had thanked him for taking care of the McDougal and doorman stories during the campaign.

Pecker disputed the FBI notes but did acknowledge there was inconstancy between his current testimony and the FBI notes.

Prosecutors try to re-establish Pecker’s credibility
Prosecutors responded during redirect to reestablish Pecker’s credibility in his answers, showing how his story was consistent and that AMI did admit to campaign finance violations.

During redirect from assistant district attorney Joshua Steinglass, the prosecutor pointed to another FBI interview from 2018, a week after the one Bove cited. In that interview, Pecker testified that Trump had in fact thanked him during that 2017 Trump Tower meeting. Pecker said that this was consistent with his testimony.

Bove had argued that Pecker’s testimony was mistaken when he said that AMI admitted to campaign finance violations, pushing Pecker to confirm that AMI did not admit to any campaign finance violation. But Steinglass later responded by having Pecker confirm that AMI did acknowledge in the agreement that “the conduct it had admitted in connection with the Karen McDougal payment” had violated federal campaign election law.

The point was a small one in the grand scheme of Pecker’s testimony related to the case, but the fight was really about Pecker’s credibility as a witness.

That’s key to the prosecution’s case because he helps tie together the larger hush money scheme – and will be a corroborator of Cohen’s testimony.

Trump cracks a smile for his longtime assistant
Trump’s longtime assistant Rhona Graff testified for less than an hour.

Graff managed Trump’s contacts and calendar for much of her 34 years as his assistant at Trump Tower. The jury saw contact entries in the Trump Org. system for Daniels and McDougal. Graff said she input them for Trump.

Daniels’ contact was saved as “Stormy” in the Trump Org contact file – listed only with a cell phone number. A contact entry for McDougal included a phone number, email address and two addresses.

Graff also testified on direct examination that she saw Daniels at Trump Tower once. On cross examination, Trump attorney Susan Necheles clarified with Graff that Daniels might have been at Trump’s office to discuss “Celebrity Apprentice.”

“I vaguely recall hearing him say that she was one of the people that may be an interesting contestant on the show,” Graff said.

Graff’s testimony about her former boss prompted a smile from an otherwise subdued Trump on Friday.

“I never had the same day twice in all that time,” she said. “It was a very stimulating, exciting, fascinating place to be.”

Defense tries to humanize Trump
Pecker was a longtime friend with Trump dating back to the 1980s, the former AMI chief said on the stand. Pecker spoke warmly of Trump earlier in the week, describing Trump as a “mentor” and saying he had no ill will, even though it had been several years since they had spoken.

As his ending question, Bove asked Pecker if he believed Trump cares about his family. He replied, “Of course I do.”

Graff no longer works for Trump, but she spoke positively about her experience at the Trump Organization and having Trump as a boss. Asked if Trump respected her intelligence, Graff said: “I don’t think I would have been there 34 years if he didn’t.” Trump laughed and smiled at the comment.

The first two witnesses called by the prosecution served as a reminder for Trump that this case will offer a parade of witnesses from his former life before he was elected president in 2016, including former employees at the Trump Organization and former aides in the White House, such as Hope Hicks.

Some, like Graff and Pecker, still have plenty of good things to say about Trump.

Other coming witnesses, like Cohen and Daniels, will have a far more hostile view of the defendant in this case – particularly Cohen, who has been lobbing attacks on social media toward Trump in the weeks leading up to the trial and even after it began.

Vrijdag was het verhoor van de eerste getuige Pecker afgerond. Daar de aanklager hem als betrouwbare getuige wil neerzetten probeerde Trump zijn verdediging dat natuurlijk neer te halen. Maar volgens mij heeft de aanklager het goed gedaan en was dit een eerste belangrijke getuige voor hun.

Ook is de tweede getuige al aan het woord geweest. De voormalige assistent van Trump mevr. Graff. Haar getuigenis duurde slechts een uur ofzo. En stelde niet zo veel voor. De volgende getuige zal een bankier van Cohen zijn, en zijn getuigenis zal waarschijnlijk over het financi�le plaatje van de zwijggeld zaak gaan.

Maandag is er geen rechtszitting dus dinsdag gaat de rechtszaak weer verder.

SPOILER

https://edition.cnn.com/2(...)ork-trial/index.html

quote:

Fact check: Trump’s false courthouse claims about his trial

Former President Donald Trump delivered a barrage of false claims to media cameras this week as he entered and exited the Manhattan courtroom where he is on trial on charges of falsifying business records in relation to a hush money scheme during the 2016 presidential election.

Here’s a fact check of four of the claims he made about the trial. (For this particular article, we’ll leave aside the false claims he made in the courthouse about a variety of other subjects.)

Courthouse security
After The New York Times published a story that said Trump was unhappy with the meager crowd he saw when he arrived at the courthouse for opening statements on Monday, Trump told reporters inside the courthouse on Tuesday: “For blocks you can’t get near this courthouse.”

He added on social media on Tuesday: “Thousands of people were turned away from the Courthouse in Lower Manhattan by steel stanchions and police, literally blocks from the tiny side door from where I enter and leave. It is an armed camp to keep people away.” And he said in comments inside the courthouse on Thursday: “This courthouse is locked down; there’s not a person within five blocks.”

Facts First: Trump’s claims are all false. The police have not turned away “thousands of people” from the courthouse. And while there are various security measures in place in the area, including some street closures enforced by police officers and barricades, it’s not true that “this courthouse is locked down,” that “for blocks you can’t get near this courthouse” or that “there’s not a person within five blocks.” In reality, there is a designated protest zone for the trial at a park directly across the street from the courthouse – and people are permitted to drive right up to the front of the courthouse and walk into the building, which remains open to the public. If people show up early enough in the morning, they can even get into the trial courtroom itself or the overflow room that shows near-live video of the proceedings.

The reality is that few of Trump’s supporters have chosen to show up. There were well under 100 visible Trump supporters gathered in the protest zone at the outset of the trial in mid-April, and there have often been three or fewer there on subsequent days, according to CNN journalists who have been reporting from the courthouse area.

You can read more here.

Michael Cohen’s crimes and Trump
On Monday, Trump said upon leaving the courtroom that the crimes committed by his former lawyer and fixer Michael Cohen “had nothing to do with me.”

Cohen is expected to be a key witness for the prosecution. Trump said: “The things he got in trouble for were things that had nothing to do with me. He got in trouble; he went to jail. This has nothing to do with me. This had to do with the taxicab company that he owned, which is just something he owned – and medallions and borrowing money and a lot of things – but it had nothing to do with me.”

Facts First: Trump’s claim that Cohen’s prison sentence “had nothing to do with me” is false. Cohen’s three-year sentence in 2018 was for multiple crimes, some of which were directly related to Trump. Most notably, Cohen was sentenced for campaign finance offenses connected to a hush money scheme during the 2016 presidential campaign to conceal Trump’s alleged extramarital relationships – the same hush money scheme that is central to this prosecution against Trump. Cohen was also sentenced to two months in prison, to run concurrently with the three-year sentence, for lying to Congress in 2017 in relation to previous talks about the possibility of building a Trump Tower in Moscow, Russia, including about the extent of Trump’s involvement in the aborted Moscow initiative and about when in 2016 the discussions ended. (The discussions continued into June 2016, the month after Trump became the presumptive Republican nominee, and did not conclude in January 2016 before the first votes were cast, as Cohen had claimed.)

Referring to Trump as “Individual-1,” Cohen said at the time of his 2018 guilty plea for making false statements to the US Senate Select Committee on Intelligence: “I made these statements to be consistent with Individual-1’s political messaging and out of loyalty to Individual-1.” When Cohen pleaded guilty in 2018 to the campaign finance violations, he said he broke the law “in coordination and at the direction of a candidate for federal office,” Trump.

The gag order on Trump
Upon leaving the courtroom on Tuesday, Trump approached the cameras, began talking, and complained that he is “not allowed to talk.”

Trump was criticizing Judge Juan Merchan’s gag order on him. Merchan had held a hearing on Tuesday morning to consider prosecutors’ allegations that Trump violated the gag order with a series of online posts, including some in which the presumptive Republican presidential nominee shared others’ articles related to the case on social media.

Trump claimed, “Can’t even allow articles to be put in.” He claimed the articles he is referring to say “the case is a sham.” He added, “I don’t even know if you’re allowed to put them in.” He also claimed that although others are permitted to lie and speak about him, “I’m not allowed to say anything.”

“I’d love to talk to you people, I’d love to say everything that’s on my mind, but I’m restricted because I have a gag order,” Trump said.

Facts First: As he has before, Trump made Merchan’s gag order sound far broader than it is. The gag order does not prohibit Trump from declaring the case a sham or from sharing others’ claims that the case is a sham. It also does not prohibit Trump from speaking to the media about the case, from defending his conduct at issue in the case, from denouncing the judge and district attorney involved in the case, or from campaigning for the presidency with speeches, media interviews and online posts.

Rather, the gag order forbids Trump from three specific categories of speech:

1) Speaking publicly or directing others to speak publicly about known or foreseeable witnesses, specifically about their participation in the case

2) Speaking publicly or directing others to speak publicly about prosecutors (other than Manhattan District Attorney Alvin Bragg), members of the district attorney’s staff and the court staff, or family members of any of these people including Bragg, if those statements are made with the intent to interfere with the case

3) Speaking publicly or directing others to speak publicly about jurors or prospective jurors

In his comments on Tuesday, Trump made the point that an article may have a certain headline that generally denounces the case but, “somewhere deep” in the body of the text, may mention somebody’s name he is not permitted to mention because of the gag order.

It’s not clear how Merchan would view Trump having shared an article in which, say, a witness’s name was only mentioned deep in the text. To date, though, articles that prosecutors have alleged Trump violated the gag order by sharing featured headlines that made it entirely clear the articles discussed likely witness Cohen.

Biden and the case
On Tuesday, Trump said upon leaving the courtroom: “By the way, this trial is all Biden. You know, this is all Biden, just in case anybody has any question.” He added, “He’s the one that has us in all these different lawsuits.” He said upon his departure Friday: “This is all a Biden indictment.”

Facts First: There is no basis for Trump’s claims. There is no evidence that Biden has had any role in launching or running Manhattan District Attorney Alvin Bragg’s prosecution - and Bragg is a locally elected official who does not report to the federal government. The indictment in the case was approved by a grand jury of ordinary citizens.

Trump has repeatedly invoked a lawyer on Bragg’s team, Matthew Colangelo, while making such claims; Colangelo left the Justice Department in 2022 to join the district attorney’s office as senior counsel to Bragg. But there is no evidence that Biden had anything to do with Colangelo’s employment decision. Colangelo and Bragg had been colleagues before Bragg was elected Manhattan district attorney in 2021.

Before Colangelo worked at the Justice Department, he and Bragg worked at the same time in the office of New York’s state attorney general, where Colangelo investigated Trump’s charity and Trump’s financial practices and was involved in bringing various lawsuits against the Trump administration.

Zoals gewoonlijk gaat Trump gewoon verder met zijn leugens/valse beweringen. Wat ik wel tegen kwam is dat als Trump wordt veroordeeld voor het overtreden van zijn gag order dat dit een strafbaar iets is (vandaar ook de boete of gevangenis straf). In zijn andere strafzaken (immuniteit/verkiezingsinmenging en fraude) is er een voorwaarde aan zijn vrijheid verbonden. Namelijk het niet begaan van strafbare feiten. Dit is specifiek door die rechters benoemd, en ook hebben zij gevraagd of Trump dit begrepen heeft, waar hij bevestigend op geantwoord heeft.

Dus als de rechter hem een boete oplegt of zelfs gevangenis straf voor het overtreden van die gag order dan zouden die rechters hem eigenlijk in voorarrest moeten nemen. En hem dus opsluiten tot de rechtszaken beginnen. Natuurlijk bepalen die rechters dit zelf uiteindelijk. En de kans is dat dit niet gaat gebeuren. Maar het is ook zeker niet uitgesloten.

SPOILER

Putin & Trump #trump #putin #humour #funny

quote:

Op zondag 28 april 2024 21:34 schreef Delenlill het volgende:
[ x ]
Zou best kunnen dat deze te zien zal zijn tijdens de tentoonstelling van Westerse wapens rondom victory day. Begint volgens mij al op 1 mei (tentoonstelling).

quote:

Op zondag 28 april 2024 21:00 schreef PluggieOD het volgende:

[..]
Gewoon kappen met dit soort onzin.

We zitten inmiddels op het slechts geinformeerde forum van Nederland met dat ge copy paste van onzin.

quote:

Op zondag 28 april 2024 21:08 schreef Discombobulate het volgende:
Wat zijn we weer aan het kankeren.

quote:

Op zondag 28 april 2024 22:58 schreef Delenlill het volgende:
Trump nieuws, niet op klikken als je geen interesse hebt.
Verkiezingen/politiek:

SPOILER

https://edition.cnn.com/2(...)n-matchup/index.html
[..]
Trump een betere president dan Biden lol. Lezen die mensen het nieuws niet ofzo. De economie draait beter onder Biden, er zijn meer banen en de werkloosheid is omlaag. Zelfs heb ik gelezen dat de grens beter beveiligd is onder Biden en dat er minder illegale immigranten zijn toegelaten. (al kan ik dat verkeerd hebben, is een tijdje geleden).

Biden heeft gewoon de pech dat de halve wereld oorlog is gaan voeren onder zijn presidentschap. Al ben ik het wel mee eens dat hij de oorlog tussen Israel en Hamas beter had aan kunnen pakken.

Jammer dat beide partijen geen betere kandidaten hebben kunnen vinden. Laten we hopen dat tegen de verkiezingen aan het uitzicht beter is. En dat hopelijk Trump in de gevangenis zit of zo.

SPOILER

https://edition.cnn.com/2(...)term-invs/index.html
[..]
Op dag 1 van zijn nieuwe presidentschap wil hij dit plan al in werking zetten. Hij wil een groot deel van alle ambtenaren ontslaan en er ja knikkers en hielenlikkers voor in de plaats zetten. Ook wil hij onderdelen van de overheid ontmantelen zoals de FBI en de Binnenlandse Veiligheidsdienst. Wat er dan overblijft wil hij gebruiken om een heksenjacht op zijn (politieke) tegenstanders te beginnen.

Hij gaf al aan op de eerste dag een dictator te willen zijn. Maar volgens mij wil hij de Amerikaanse overheid/regering om gaan zetten in in een dictatorschap/autocratie met hem aan de top. En als hij dan ook nog presidentiele immuniteit krijgt dan zijn de rapen helemaal gaar. Dan kan en zal hij doen wat hij maar wil zonder gevolgen.

Rechtszaken:

SPOILER

https://edition.cnn.com/2(...)day-day-8/index.html
[..]
Vrijdag was het verhoor van de eerste getuige Pecker afgerond. Daar de aanklager hem als betrouwbare getuige wil neerzetten probeerde Trump zijn verdediging dat natuurlijk neer te halen. Maar volgens mij heeft de aanklager het goed gedaan en was dit een eerste belangrijke getuige voor hun.

Ook is de tweede getuige al aan het woord geweest. De voormalige assistent van Trump mevr. Graff. Haar getuigenis duurde slechts een uur ofzo. En stelde niet zo veel voor. De volgende getuige zal een bankier van Cohen zijn, en zijn getuigenis zal waarschijnlijk over het financi�le plaatje van de zwijggeld zaak gaan.

Maandag is er geen rechtszitting dus dinsdag gaat de rechtszaak weer verder.

SPOILER

https://edition.cnn.com/2(...)ork-trial/index.html
[..]
Zoals gewoonlijk gaat Trump gewoon verder met zijn leugens/valse beweringen. Wat ik wel tegen kwam is dat als Trump wordt veroordeeld voor het overtreden van zijn gag order dat dit een strafbaar iets is (vandaar ook de boete of gevangenis straf). In zijn andere strafzaken (immuniteit/verkiezingsinmenging en fraude) is er een voorwaarde aan zijn vrijheid verbonden. Namelijk het niet begaan van strafbare feiten. Dit is specifiek door die rechters benoemd, en ook hebben zij gevraagd of Trump dit begrepen heeft, waar hij bevestigend op geantwoord heeft.

Dus als de rechter hem een boete oplegt of zelfs gevangenis straf voor het overtreden van die gag order dan zouden die rechters hem eigenlijk in voorarrest moeten nemen. En hem dus opsluiten tot de rechtszaken beginnen. Natuurlijk bepalen die rechters dit zelf uiteindelijk. En de kans is dat dit niet gaat gebeuren. Maar het is ook zeker niet uitgesloten.

Overig:

SPOILER

Putin & Trump #trump #putin #humour #funny

quote:

Op zondag 28 april 2024 22:58 schreef Delenlill het volgende:
Trump nieuws, niet op klikken als je geen interesse hebt.
Verkiezingen/politiek:

SPOILER

https://edition.cnn.com/2(...)n-matchup/index.html
[..]
Trump een betere president dan Biden lol. Lezen die mensen het nieuws niet ofzo. De economie draait beter onder Biden, er zijn meer banen en de werkloosheid is omlaag. Zelfs heb ik gelezen dat de grens beter beveiligd is onder Biden en dat er minder illegale immigranten zijn toegelaten. (al kan ik dat verkeerd hebben, is een tijdje geleden).

Biden heeft gewoon de pech dat de halve wereld oorlog is gaan voeren onder zijn presidentschap. Al ben ik het wel mee eens dat hij de oorlog tussen Israel en Hamas beter had aan kunnen pakken.

Jammer dat beide partijen geen betere kandidaten hebben kunnen vinden. Laten we hopen dat tegen de verkiezingen aan het uitzicht beter is. En dat hopelijk Trump in de gevangenis zit of zo.

SPOILER

https://edition.cnn.com/2(...)term-invs/index.html
[..]
Op dag 1 van zijn nieuwe presidentschap wil hij dit plan al in werking zetten. Hij wil een groot deel van alle ambtenaren ontslaan en er ja knikkers en hielenlikkers voor in de plaats zetten. Ook wil hij onderdelen van de overheid ontmantelen zoals de FBI en de Binnenlandse Veiligheidsdienst. Wat er dan overblijft wil hij gebruiken om een heksenjacht op zijn (politieke) tegenstanders te beginnen.

Hij gaf al aan op de eerste dag een dictator te willen zijn. Maar volgens mij wil hij de Amerikaanse overheid/regering om gaan zetten in in een dictatorschap/autocratie met hem aan de top. En als hij dan ook nog presidentiele immuniteit krijgt dan zijn de rapen helemaal gaar. Dan kan en zal hij doen wat hij maar wil zonder gevolgen.

Rechtszaken:

SPOILER

https://edition.cnn.com/2(...)day-day-8/index.html
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Vrijdag was het verhoor van de eerste getuige Pecker afgerond. Daar de aanklager hem als betrouwbare getuige wil neerzetten probeerde Trump zijn verdediging dat natuurlijk neer te halen. Maar volgens mij heeft de aanklager het goed gedaan en was dit een eerste belangrijke getuige voor hun.

Ook is de tweede getuige al aan het woord geweest. De voormalige assistent van Trump mevr. Graff. Haar getuigenis duurde slechts een uur ofzo. En stelde niet zo veel voor. De volgende getuige zal een bankier van Cohen zijn, en zijn getuigenis zal waarschijnlijk over het financi�le plaatje van de zwijggeld zaak gaan.

Maandag is er geen rechtszitting dus dinsdag gaat de rechtszaak weer verder.

SPOILER

https://edition.cnn.com/2(...)ork-trial/index.html
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Zoals gewoonlijk gaat Trump gewoon verder met zijn leugens/valse beweringen. Wat ik wel tegen kwam is dat als Trump wordt veroordeeld voor het overtreden van zijn gag order dat dit een strafbaar iets is (vandaar ook de boete of gevangenis straf). In zijn andere strafzaken (immuniteit/verkiezingsinmenging en fraude) is er een voorwaarde aan zijn vrijheid verbonden. Namelijk het niet begaan van strafbare feiten. Dit is specifiek door die rechters benoemd, en ook hebben zij gevraagd of Trump dit begrepen heeft, waar hij bevestigend op geantwoord heeft.

Dus als de rechter hem een boete oplegt of zelfs gevangenis straf voor het overtreden van die gag order dan zouden die rechters hem eigenlijk in voorarrest moeten nemen. En hem dus opsluiten tot de rechtszaken beginnen. Natuurlijk bepalen die rechters dit zelf uiteindelijk. En de kans is dat dit niet gaat gebeuren. Maar het is ook zeker niet uitgesloten.

Overig:

SPOILER

Putin & Trump #trump #putin #humour #funny

quote:

Q: If I may follow, officials had expressed before concerns that Russia — that the Ukraine may try to fire ATACMS at Russia or that there weren't enough in U.S. stockpiles. Did either of those affect your decision to provide the long-range ATACMS?

SEC. AUSTIN: Well, first of all, as you know, my — I always have a concern about the United States having the capability to defend itself and to also support our operational plans. And I can tell you that we — are comfortable that we are in a good place and we will remain in a good place.

You know, over — in two years' time, things change, you know? More munitions are created and that sort of business. So we are in a good place, we'll remain in a good place, and I think the capability that Ukraine will have is a good capability.

So it up to them on how and when to use it, and our hopes are that they'll create some pretty good effects with that and other things.

WATCH LIVE: Austin and Joint Chiefs of Staff chairman Brown speak after Ukraine meeting

quote:

Op zondag 28 april 2024 20:50 schreef PluggieOD het volgende:

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a) Is dat dezelfde aanname dat er laatst 2 landingsschepen (Yamal en Azov) vernietigd waren?
b) Is dat dezelfde aanname dat er 14 Su-34s waren neergeschoten?
c) Is dat dezelfde aanname dat de Kommuna gezonken was?

We zitten inmiddels op het slechts geinformeerde forum van Nederland met dat ge copy paste van onzin.