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Op zondag 28 april 2024 20:07 schreef Ulx het volgende:

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Op maandag 29 april 2024 07:40 schreef Idisrom het volgende:

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Ik vraag mij af, of het wel echt zin heeft om dat soort eilandjes in de Dnjepr in te nemen.
Ten eerste, zaten er wel Russen?
Maar belangrijker, ik krijg er zo'n Stalingradgevoel bij. Mensen op zo'n eiland worden schietschijven. Bij de slag om Stalingrad werden elke nacht verse Sovjetmilitairen de rivier Wolga overgestoken. Ze hadden op moment van oversteken een gemiddelde levensverwachting van slechts 14 uur.

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Op maandag 29 april 2024 07:40 schreef Idisrom het volgende:

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Ik vraag mij af, of het wel echt zin heeft om dat soort eilandjes in de Dnjepr in te nemen.
Ten eerste, zaten er wel Russen?
Maar belangrijker, ik krijg er zo'n Stalingradgevoel bij. Mensen op zo'n eiland worden schietschijven. Bij de slag om Stalingrad werden elke nacht verse Sovjetmilitairen de rivier Wolga overgestoken. Ze hadden op moment van oversteken een gemiddelde levensverwachting van slechts 14 uur.

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Op maandag 29 april 2024 08:52 schreef PietjePuk2000 het volgende:
Maar is het nou allemaal echt zo shocking die Russische 'doorbraken'? Nog steeds kilometerwerk toch, ik zie niet echt in hoe de Russen ineens honderden kilometers door zouden kunnen stoten.

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Op maandag 29 april 2024 08:55 schreef ExTec het volgende:

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Dat klopt. We hebben het nog steeds over relatief kleine vlekjes die je als je de hele kaart van oekraine voor je neus hebt amper ziet.

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Op maandag 29 april 2024 08:52 schreef PietjePuk2000 het volgende:
Maar is het nou allemaal echt zo shocking die Russische 'doorbraken'? Nog steeds kilometerwerk toch, ik zie niet echt in hoe de Russen ineens honderden kilometers door zouden kunnen stoten.

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Op maandag 29 april 2024 08:52 schreef PietjePuk2000 het volgende:
Maar is het nou allemaal echt zo shocking die Russische 'doorbraken'? Nog steeds kilometerwerk toch, ik zie niet echt in hoe de Russen ineens honderden kilometers door zouden kunnen stoten.

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Op maandag 29 april 2024 08:56 schreef PietjePuk2000 het volgende:

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Ik heb niet echt zicht op Oekra�ense verdedigingslinies moet ik zeggen. Is er een 'omslagplek' in het front waarbij het echt spannend gaat worden als de Russen er doorheen prikken?

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Op maandag 29 april 2024 09:34 schreef BlaZ het volgende:

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Pokrovsk

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Op maandag 29 april 2024 08:56 schreef PietjePuk2000 het volgende:

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Ik heb niet echt zicht op Oekra�ense verdedigingslinies moet ik zeggen. Is er een 'omslagplek' in het front waarbij het echt spannend gaat worden als de Russen er doorheen prikken?

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Op maandag 29 april 2024 09:35 schreef PietjePuk2000 het volgende:

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Dat is nog een eind toch?

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Op maandag 29 april 2024 11:41 schreef Ulx het volgende:
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Dat wisten ze een jaar geleden natuurlijk ook al. Beetje slordig om dan te kiezen voor deze oplossing.

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Op maandag 29 april 2024 11:57 schreef grrrrg het volgende:
waar blijft de munitie?

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Op maandag 29 april 2024 08:52 schreef PietjePuk2000 het volgende:
Maar is het nou allemaal echt zo shocking die Russische 'doorbraken'? Nog steeds kilometerwerk toch, ik zie niet echt in hoe de Russen ineens honderden kilometers door zouden kunnen stoten.

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Op maandag 29 april 2024 12:59 schreef Nebelwerfer het volgende:

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Als dit het zou zijn niet. Maar nu verwacht men binnenkort een grootschalig offensief van de Russen. Dan kan het hard gaan. Wat dan niet helpt is dat Oekra�ne de afgelopen tijd veel aan eerste linies heeft moeten inleveren.
Natuurlijk heeft Oekra�ne nog het een en ander achter de hand voor het verdedigen tegen zo’n offensief, maar de kans is groot dat het Oekra�ne meer kost dan wat ze lief is.

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Op maandag 29 april 2024 13:00 schreef PietjePuk2000 het volgende:

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Wat kost het ze meer dan? Soldaten?

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Op maandag 29 april 2024 13:31 schreef Idisrom het volgende:

Ik kan mij voorstellen dat je liever bij de achterblijvers wil zitten,

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Op maandag 29 april 2024 13:00 schreef PietjePuk2000 het volgende:

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Wat kost het ze meer dan? Soldaten?

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Op maandag 29 april 2024 13:46 schreef Nebelwerfer het volgende:

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Van alles teveel. Soldaten, munitie, grond. Men heeft wel eens benoemd dat Oekra�ne nog allerlei westerse tanks nog helemaal niet heeft ingezet, maar dat zal bij een grote Russische doorbraak anders zijn.

Er is maar weinig wat Oekra�ne snel kan vervangen, men zal echt moeten hopen dat men de schade beperkt kan houden.

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Op maandag 29 april 2024 13:59 schreef Ulx het volgende:

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Door Duitsland zijn er m26AT2 raketten geleverd om snel een anti-tank mijnenveld aan te leggen (28 antitank mijnen per raket, ��n HIMARS kan dus in enkele minuten een veld van 168 mijnen neergooien. En daarnaast zijn er wel al zo'n 100 ATACMS waaronder die met clustermunitie geleverd door de VS. Misschien ondertussen al meer. Die combinatie alleen al kan als het moet een doorbraak aardig vertragen. Dan krijg je gewoon hetzelfde scenario als vorig jaar in het zuiden.

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Op maandag 29 april 2024 14:37 schreef Nebelwerfer het volgende:

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https://nos.nl/l/2518620

Ook bij de NOS is men niet zo negatief. Wat mij een groot voordeel nog lijkt is het feit dat de Russen wel het gros van de pantservoertuigen erdoor heeft gejast.

We wachten het af en hopen het beste.

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NAVO-chef gepikeerd over getreuzel NAVO-landen met Oekra�ne: 'Elke dag telt'

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Op maandag 29 april 2024 17:35 schreef grrrrg het volgende:
Kennelijk worden er nog steeds geen wapens geleverd, terwijl er al maanden van alles wordt beloofd.

https://www.nu.nl/spannin(...)e-elke-dag-telt.html
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Op maandag 29 april 2024 16:52 schreef Idisrom het volgende:
Vandaag zijn de Russen 7 kilometer vanaf Semenivka westwaarts getrokken en hebben de buitenkant van Novoselivka Persha bereikt. Deze plaats was vooraf al aangegeven, dat het waarschijnlijk niet verdedigd ging worden.

De weg van Umanske naar het noorden is daarmee ook afgesneden. Men kan alleen vanaf Umanske naar het zuidwesten om dan via omwegen wat voorraden op te halen, of om te vluchten.

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NAVO-chef boos over getreuzel lidstaten met Oekra�ne: 'Elke dag telt'

Het getreuzel van de NAVO-landen om wapens aan Oekra�ne te leveren heeft inmiddels "serieuze gevolgen op het slagveld", zei NAVO-chef Jens Stoltenberg maandag in Kyiv. Hij verwees daarmee naar de verliezen die Oekra�ne tegen Rusland lijdt.
Stoltenberg is normaal de rust zelve, maar hij gebruikte stevige woorden na afloop van zijn ontmoeting met de Oekra�ense president Volodymyr Zelensky. Hij maakte meerdere verwijten aan de 32 landen van het militaire bondgenootschap dat hij leidt.

"Dit is een kwestie van leven of dood", zei Stoltenberg over de Oekra�ense militaire situatie. "De aankondiging van wapenleveranties is niet genoeg. Ze moeten er ook komen.

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Op maandag 29 april 2024 17:57 schreef Ulx het volgende:

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Helemaal niets. Nada. Noppes. Niemendal. Ri�n de knots?

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Op maandag 29 april 2024 18:49 schreef la_perle_rouge het volgende:

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Op maandag 29 april 2024 18:23 schreef BlaZ het volgende:

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Dat viel wel te verwachten, maar wat is je bron hier? Wat verder richting Zuiden zijn de Russen in Netailove opgerukt en zitten nog slechts een paar honderd meter van de weg van Umanske/Yasnobrodivka naar Kalinove [deepstate].

Panic. Gen. Syrsky admits Ukraine Army's "TACTICAL RETREAT. Russia takes over another settlement.

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Coca-Cola, L’Or�al, other big brands told by MEPs to stop ads fueling Russian disinformation in Balkans
Global companies get heat for financing pro-Kremlin media in Serbia and Bulgaria with their advertising budgets.

Big brands such Lidl, Coca-Cola and L'Or�al must stop advertising on pro-Kremlin media outlets in the Balkans, European Parliament lawmakers told the companies in a letter seen by POLITICO.

The 15 brands should "rigorously review [their] advertising policies to ensure that your expenditures do not, even unintentionally, fund outlets known for disseminating harmful disinformation," said the letter sent Thursday by Bulgarian conservative MEP Andrey Kovatchev and 15 other lawmakers from the center right, liberals, socialists and the Greens.

The targeted companies are Lidl, Ahold Delhaize, Procter & Gamble, Coca-Cola, A1, Yettel, Ferrero, Heineken, Mars, Mondelēz, L'Or�al, GSK (GlaxoSmithKline), Bosch, Samsung and Amazon.

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Kovatchev told POLITICO that "anti-democratic narratives from malign forces are a severe threat to our democracy," especially "in this pivotal election year."

EU officials and disinformation experts have been warning about a growing tide of fake news online and foreign attempts to sway the vote ahead of the June parliamentary election.

"Many media organizations that promote pro-Kremlin disinformation often use advertising bought by reputable companies to strengthen their credibility," Kovatchev said, adding that these brands were not always aware they could end up "support[ing] pro-Russian propaganda channels."

The Balkan Free Media Initiative — the Brussels-based NGO behind the move — reported in 2023 that global brands, through agencies and adtech firms, were spending hundreds of millions of euros on Serbian and Bulgarian media that spread government propaganda and Kremlin-backed narratives linked to the invasion of Ukraine.

TV Pink and TV Happy — two of the most popular stations in Serbia, which rely heavily on advertising revenue from international companies — have relayed false claims that Russia had been "under aggression for a long time" itself and "was forced" into conducting a "special military operation" in Ukraine, the euphemism coined by Moscow to refer to its full-scale invasion of the country.

"Advertisers don’t place ads themselves on the internet, technology companies do it for them. Unfortunately, this is leading to information disorder," explained Claire Aitken, the CEO of Check My Ads, the U.S.-based nonprofit that helped with the report.

"Right now, advertisers should be regularly checking their ads for this problem. And, because the funding of propaganda and hate is bad for all of us, we must all demand a more transparent advertising system," she said.

It's not just about the money, the lawmakers' letter said. The reputation and power of these brands "inadvertently lends [these media] legitimacy, exacerbating the proliferation and impact of disinformation."

The MEPs are asking the companies to side with "truth and integrity by carefully reallocating advertising budgets away from platforms that compromise these core values."

A spokesperson for GSK told POLITICO the company didn't advertise in the Balkans.

A spokesperson for Lidl said it already took action “a couple of months before the letter” and has “significantly reduced” the spending on channels Pink TV and Happy TV since mid-2023 and has stopped advertising on the latter in 2024. Lidl has no contractual relationship with any “pro-Russia media in Bulgaria,” they added.

None of the other targeted companies replied to POLITICO's request for comment in time for publication.

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US buys 81 Soviet-era combat aircraft from Russia's ally costing on average less than $20,000 each, report says
• The US has purchased 81 Soviet-era combat aircraft from Kazakhstan, a report from the Kyiv Post says.
• Kazakhstan, a historic ally of Russia, is engaging more with Western nations.
• The planes could be used for spare parts or as decoys in conflict regions, the Kyiv Post reported.

The US has acquired 81 obsolete Soviet-era combat aircraft from Kazakhstan, a report from the Kyiv Post says.

Kazakhstan, which is upgrading its air fleet, auctioned off 117 Soviet-era fighter and bomber aircraft, including MiG-31 interceptors, MiG-27 fighter bombers, MiG-29 fighters, and Su-24 bombers from the 1970s and 1980s.

The Kyiv Post reported that the declared sale value was one billion Kazakhstani tenge, or $2.26 million, equalling an average value for each plane of $19,300.

The outlet cited reports from the Ukrainian Telegram channel Insider UA and the Russian news site Reporter saying the US purchased 81 of the aged, unusable warplanes.

The Kyiv Post reported that the motive behind the US purchase remained undisclosed but that the aircraft could be used in Ukraine, where similar aircraft are in service.

The Russian site Reporter said the sale was made through offshore companies.

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But Kazspetsexport, Kazakhstan's state-owned weapons importer and exporter, denied selling military airplanes to Ukraine in a statement, saying that foreign companies were not allowed to bid.

The Pentagon didn't immediately respond to a request for comment from Business Insider.

Given Ukraine's continued reliance on Soviet-era weapons, the aircraft could either serve as a source of spare parts or be strategically deployed as decoys at airfields, the Kyiv Post reported.

The Mikoyan MiG-31 is a supersonic interceptor that was designed to defend Soviet airspace, according to Airforce Technology. It played a critical role during the Cold War.

Derived from the MiG-23, the MiG-27 was a ground-attack aircraft and saw action in conflicts such as the Soviet-Afghan War. The MiG-29 excelled in air-to-air combat. It was widely exported and remains in service with some air forces.

Despite its age, the Su-24 — an all-weather tactical bomber — remains in service with several air forces, including the Russian Aerospace Forces and Ukrainian Air Force.

Kazakhstan, formerly part of the Soviet Union, has maintained close ties to Russia and historically was one of its strongest allies. But the relationship has shifted since Russia invaded Ukraine, with Kazakhstan aligning itself more with the West, drawing the fury of some in Russia.

The Kyiv Post reported that the Central Asian country's efforts to upgrade its military capabilities seemed to coincide with its increasing engagement with Western nations, signaling a shift away from historical ties with Moscow.

Antony Blinken, the US secretary of state, visited Kazakhstan in February 2023, where he said that the US strongly supported "its independence, its territorial integrity," according to Agence France-Presse.

Some of Russia's outspoken propagandists have suggested that Russia should look to Kazakhstan following its invasion of Ukraine.

One Russian TV commentator, Vladimir Solovyov, said his country "must pay attention to the fact that Kazakhstan is the next problem because the same Nazi processes can start there as in Ukraine."

Agreements on trade, education, environment, and mineral supplies reflect the deepening ties between Kazakhstan and Western nations as it navigates geopolitical challenges posed by neighboring countries such as Russia, China, Afghanistan, and Iran.

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FT: Turkey in talks with ExxonMobil to secure LNG deal, aims to reduce reliance on Russian natural gas
Turkey is in talks with U.S.-based ExxonMobil to secure a long-term liquified natural gas (LNG) deal worth billions of dollars, aiming to diversify its energy sources, Turkish Energy Minister Alparslan Bayraktar told the Financial Times on April 28. The potential agreement could provide up to 2.5 million tons of LNG annually for 10 years.

Bayraktar stressed Turkey's need to diversify and “build a new supply portfolio” ahead of expiring contracts with Russia and Iran, although Bayraktar noted that the terms of a potential agreement "were still under discussion."

Presently, Russia stands as Turkey's primary provider of natural gas, supplying over 40% of its consumption last year.

However, Turkey's Dortyol oil terminal in the Mediterranean Sea halted business with Russia as pressure caused by U.S. sanctions mounts, Reuters reported on March 5.

Data published by Turkey's Trade Ministry indicate that exports to Russia dropped by 33.7% in the first quarter of 2024 compared to a year earlier.

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Op maandag 29 april 2024 18:46 schreef Ulx het volgende:
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Fight breaks out at massive protest in Tbilisi against foreign agents law – video

Thousands of people in Tbilisi turned out on Sunday evening to protest against the law On Transparency of Foreign Influence, which jeopardises Georgia's pro-Western policy and aspirations for European integration. A fight broke out with the police.

Source: Echo of the Caucasus, a Radio Liberty project; Georgia Online

Details: The March for Europe, organised by the non-governmental sector and youth movements, was attended by representatives of the opposition, civil society activists and ordinary citizens.

A column of thousands of protesters stretched along the main street, Rustaveli Avenue.

The protest organisers called on the authorities to cancel the second reading of the draft law On Transparency of Foreign Influence in the legal committee, which is scheduled for Monday.

After speeches by the protest organisers and leaders, the protesters headed for the parliament and surrounded the building with a symbolic human chain.

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Georgia Online reported that the situation outside the parliament has become more complicated. The protesters are trying to get onto a stage that has been set up for a rally by the ruling Georgian Dream party on Monday. The stage is guarded by police. There was a minor scuffle with the police as a result. The protesters removed part of the crowd control barrier installed in front of the building.

Most of the protesters are in front of the parliament. Several hundred police officers are there to keep order. They are mainly stationed along the barriers that had been put up for Monday’s Georgian Dream rally. The police are not allowing the protesters to approach the stage. Special operations forces are also on duty in the area.

The Interior Ministry has issued a statement on its website calling for respect for the freedom of assembly and urging protesters not to break the stage set up in front of the parliament. "Any violation of the law will be immediately curbed by the police," the statement says.

Background: Protests outside the parliament in the Georgian capital have been taking place daily since 15 April, but after the first few days, they were mostly small-scale, student-led events.

The second reading of the draft law On Transparency of Foreign Influence is scheduled for 29 April.

The ruling Georgian Dream party has invited its supporters to a rally on that day.

Georgia's Western partners continue to send signals that the draft law is incompatible with the country's pro-Western agenda.

This week, the European Parliament adopted a resolution calling on the EU not to start membership talks with Georgia while the controversial law On Transparency of Foreign Influence is in force. The Georgian authorities have expressed outrage at this decision.

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Op maandag 29 april 2024 20:13 schreef Nebelwerfer het volgende:

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Die 155 granaten staan gelijk aan 1 dagje aan Russische beschietingen.

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Putin ‘likely’ didn’t order Navalny’s death in February, US agencies believe: WSJ
U.S. intelligence agencies agree Russian president probably didn’t order opposition leader’s killing “at that moment,” according to report.

U.S. intelligence agencies believe that Russian President Vladimir Putin “likely” didn’t order opposition leader Alexei Navalny to be killed at an Arctic prison in February, the Wall Street Journal reported on Saturday.

Navalny, the leading figure in Russia’s beleaguered opposition, died on Feb. 16 in a penal colony. The EU and the U.S. directly blamed Russia for Navalny’s death, moving toward imposing new sanctions on the Kremlin.

But the WSJ said Saturday that several U.S. agencies — including the Central Intelligence Agency, the Office of the Director of National Intelligence, and the U.S. State Department’s intelligence unit — agree that Putin probably didn’t order Navalny’s death “at that moment,” citing people familiar with the matter.

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According to the WSJ report, U.S. intelligence agencies have shared the assessment with some European intelligence agencies. But some European security officials “remain skeptical” that Putin didn’t play a direct hand in Navalny’s death, considering his tight grip on Russia.

The U.S. assessment is “based on a range of information, including some classified intelligence, and an analysis of public facts, including the timing of his death and how it overshadowed Putin’s re-election,” the WSJ reported.

Navalny ally Leonid Volkov told the WSJ that “the idea of Putin being not informed and not approving killing Navalny is ridiculous.”

The Office of the Director of National Intelligence, which oversees U.S. intelligence agencies, declined to comment on the issue, according to the WSJ report.

Putin has denied any involvement in Navalny’s death. Last month, the Russian president said that he had agreed to swap the opposition leader in a prisoner exchange days before Navalny died, confirming claims made by a close Navalny ally that Russia and Western officials had negotiated a prisoner exchange deal.

On Saturday, Kremlin spokesperson Dmitry Peskov said he had seen the WSJ’s report.

“I wouldn’t say it’s a high-quality material that deserves any attention,” Peskov was quoted as saying by Russian media. “Some very empty arguments. Apparently, they planted it for Saturday reading to the world audience,” he said.

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Military intelligence: 2 locomotives destroyed in Russia
Two diesel locomotives have been destroyed in Russia over the past few days, Ukraine's military intelligence (HUR) reported on April 28.

A diesel locomotive was set on fire in Orenburg, 1,100 kilometers east of the Ukrainian border, by "unknown persons" on April 28, according to HUR.

Another diesel locomotive was destroyed in a fire in the Russian city of Vladikavkaz overnight on April 26.

While Kyiv has not claimed responsibility for the locomotives' destruction, HUR commented in a Telegram post that destroying Russian locomotives reduces their logistical capabilities.

No further information was provided.

Russian authorities have yet to comment on the fires.

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Western Banks' Continued Russian Operations Generate �800 Million For Kremlin
Major Western banks backtracked on promises to exit Russia after the Ukraine invasion, contributing millions to the Kremlin’s coffers through taxes, according to a Financial Times analysis.

The report reveals that the seven largest European banks by assets in Russia — Raiffeisen Bank International, UniCredit, ING, Commerzbank, Deutsche Bank, Intesa Sanpaolo, and OTP — raked in a combined profit of over �3 billion in 2023. This figure is a staggering three times higher than their profits in 2021.

The windfall can be partly attributed to funds trapped within Russia due to sanctions, which the banks are unable to withdraw. Soaring interest rates set by the Russian central bank further inflated profits.

This financial boon translated to a significant tax windfall for the Kremlin. The European banks collectively paid �800 million in taxes to the Russian government in 2023, a fourfold increase compared to �200 million in 2021.

Raiffeisen Bank International, boasting the largest presence among these foreign lenders, shoulders over half the tax burden (�400 million+) paid by European banks in Russia. Despite facing criticism from the European Central Bank and the US Treasury for delaying its exit, Raiffeisen has yet to complete its promised downsizing and divestiture.

Western companies staying put in Russia provide a financial lifeline to the Kremlin, undermining the intended impact of Western sanctions. With the taxes paid by European banks amounting to roughly 0.4% of Russia’s projected non-energy budget revenue for 2024, the financial contribution is not insignificant.

The combined revenue, profit, and tax figures of these international banks have dipped since 2022, but they remain considerably higher than pre-war levels. This raises questions about Western banks profiting from war while significantly aiding the Russian government.

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The Armed Forces of Ukraine conducted airstrikes against the invaders in Donetsk and Zaporizhzhia region

The Ukrainian Air Forces launched airstrikes on the bases of Russian invaders in the Donetsk and in the Zaporizhzhia regions.

Precision guided bombs were used for strikes.

The video of the destruction of objects was shown by Colonel General Olexandr Syrskyi, Commander-in-Chief of the Armed Forces of Ukraine on social media.

The locations of the personnel of the Russian invasion army were hit.

“Track and beat. Today, two airstrikes were carried out on the locations of concentration of enemy personnel in the Donetsk and in the Zaporizhzhia regions. The targets have been hit,” Syrskyi said.

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Авіаудари ЗСУ по окупантах на Донеччині та Запоріжжі [весна 2024]

These airstrikes hit buildings at various locations.

The Ukrainian military did not specify what kind of bombs they targeted the invaders. However, it can be assumed that these could be American JDAM or French AASM 250 HAMMER.

OSINT analysts from footage from the video identified the likely locations of the Russian invaders, who were hit by Ukrainian aviation.

The invaders’ bases were destroyed in the village of Ocheretyne in the Donetsk region and the village of Stepove in the Zaporizhzhia region.

As previously reported, earlier, the Ukrainian Air Forces eliminated the commander of the 59th Brigade of the Russian Armed Forces.

У Луганську крилаті ракети уразили об'єкт окупантів

Colonel Pavel Kropotov was eliminated as a result of a missile strike by the Ukrainian Air Forces on April 13 on the Luhansk Machine-Building Plant 100, which the invaders used for military purposes.

The death of the invader became known from the media of the aggressor state, who wrote about his funeral. Propaganda media explicitly stated that Kropotov died from the strike of “British missiles.”

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Polish Protestors Lift Blockade on All Ukrainian Checkpoints
Polish farmers have lifted blockades on all checkpoints with Ukraine after months of intermittent protests that brought on unprecedented tension between the two nations.

Truck traffic resumed at the Rava-Ruska-Hrebenne border crossing on Monday morning – the last one still blockaded by Polish farmers – potentially marking the end of the months-long protests that had brought unprecedented tension between the two nations.

According to an official announcement by the State Border Service of Ukraine (DPSU), truck registration and movement have resumed in either direction after 10:00 a.m.; a DPSU representative also told Ukrainska Pravda that all border checkpoints with Poland are currently unblocked.

However, “according to available information,” grain trucks can enter Poland only for transit from now on.

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The protest started in February this year over what the Polish farmers called excessive competition from Ukrainian grain exports, caused by eased EU regulations to assist Ukraine’s economy following Russia’s invasion.

However, the dispute started simmering earlier – sometime in 2023, as detailed in a February Kyiv Post Op-ed.

A Kyiv Post investigation discovered a massive spike in Ukrainian imports in 2022 and 2023, though the numbers did return to pre-war levels following Warsaw’s unilateral ban, which started in April 2023, prior to the protest. However, Kyiv Post was unable to take into account the amount of grain supposedly in transit and subsequently returned to Poland.

The protest restricted truck traffic on numerous border crossings between the two nations, which affected rail and passenger traffic at times and led to sporadic confrontations between Poles and Ukrainians, where grain was spilled on roads and railway tracks.

In recent months, Polish and Ukrainian officials have tried to de-escalate the crisis through dialogues, with the EU finally relenting and agreeing to impose tougher, high-level restrictions on Ukrainian grain imports in its bid to maintain solidarity with Kyiv while appeasing demands from the agricultural sector at home.

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Military intelligence: Over 18,000 Russian troops of Southern Military District have deserted
Soldiers of Russia's Southern Military District, whose units are deployed in Ukraine, are deserting their posts in increasing numbers, Ukraine's military intelligence agency (HUR) said on April 29.

According to many observers, low morale has been a recurring problem for the Russian Armed Forces fighting in Ukraine.

Over 18,000 soldiers of the Southern Military District have allegedly deserted, with around 12,000 of them belonging to the 8th Combined Arms Army – a unit often deployed in hostilities in eastern Ukraine.

Of this number, around 10,000 are mobilized conscripts and 2,000 contract soldiers, the military intelligence agency said.

The U.K. Defense Ministry said earlier in April that Russian troops in Ukraine are mainly staffed with contract soldiers and reservists mobilized in late 2022, but conscripts are often pressured to sign contracts.

In the Russian 58th Combined Arms Army, the desertion rate is at around 2,500 troops, according to the agency's statement.

Kyiv has been actively encouraging troops of the Russian invading army to desert or even defect to the Ukrainian side. The Ukrainian military intelligence service launched a hotline in September 2022 to help Russian soldiers willing to surrender.

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Russia is building new airfield in the Belgorod region

^{Construction of a runway in the Belgorod region of the Russian Federation as of April 2024. Photo credits: twitter.com/RedIntelPanda}

Russians are building a new airfield near the border in the Belgorod region.

OSINT researcher RedIntelPanda reported about this on X (formerly Twitter).

The airport is being built near the village of Alexeyevka, about 70 km from the border with Ukraine.

The researcher published the relevant satellite images showing the stages of construction.

The facility itself is located about 9 km west of the village of Alexeyevka, where a logistics center is located to supply military units of the Russian military grouping “West”.

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^{The construction site of a new runway in the Belgorod region of the Russian Federation. 2024}

Satellite images show that preparatory work for construction began last year.

^{Construction of a runway in the Belgorod region of the Russian Federation as of July 2023. Photo credits: twitter.com/RedIntelPanda}

In July 2023, a road was laid to the future construction site. Over the following months, by the beginning of winter, the planning of the future runway was actually completed.

Following the winter thaw, work resumed around the beginning of April. As of April 27, 2024, a base layer or concrete pavement is being laid on the runway.

Using the Sentinel Hub, the researcher determined that the length of the strip was approximately 1800 meters.

^{Construction of a runway in the Belgorod region of the Russian Federation as of April 2024. Photo credits: twitter.com/RedIntelPanda}

This length is enough to accommodate various types of aircraft, including military transport An-26 or Su-25 attack aircraft, as well as helicopters.

The researcher found out that Alexeyevka lies in the zone where civilian flights over the territory of the Russian Federation are prohibited, which was introduced because of the invasion of Ukraine.

Therefore, RedIntelPanda assumes that the Russians are building this new airfield for military purposes. There were also no reports in the Russian media about the construction of a new civilian airport in the Belgorod region.

quote:

Op maandag 29 april 2024 17:32 schreef Ulx het volgende:
[ x ]

Een aantal soldaten vragen of ze door willen vechten of dat ze liever Poetin uit het raam flikkeren is misschien een optie voor Shoigu om langer te blijven leven.

quote:

Two people killed, eight injured in missile attack on Odesa
Oleh Kiper reports damage to buildings and infrastructure
On the evening of April 29, an explosion was heard in Odesa during an air raid alert, a LIGA.net correspondent reported.

At 18:28, the Air Force of the Armed Forces of Ukraine warned of the threat of the use of ballistic weapons for the southern oblasts. At 18:29, a LIGA.net correspondent reported that an explosion was heard in Odesa.

The head of the regional military administration, Oleh Kiper, called on the residents of Odesa and the Odesa district to stay in safe places until the all-clear is given.

UPDATED AT 19:04. Later, Kiper reported that the enemy had launched a missile attack on Odesa. As a result of the Russian attack, eight people were injured. There is damage to residential buildings and civilian infrastructure.

UPDATED AT 19:25. As a result of the strike, two people and a dog were killed. Another eight people were injured to varying degrees, including a 12-year-old boy, the head of the Odesa Regional Military Administration reported.

quote:

Russians hit Odesa with rocket, four people killed, 28 injured – photos
Oleh Kiper reported that two of the injured are in serious condition

On the evening of April 29, Russia carried out a missile strike on Odesa, and as a result of the attack, there are casualties and injuries, the head of the Odesa Regional Military Administration, Oleh Kiper, reported.

Odesa Mayor Gennadiy Trukhanov showed photos of the aftermath of the Russian missile strike on the city.

UPDATED AT 20:25. Trukhanov reported that there are already 20 people injured as a result of the enemy attack.

UPDATED AT 20:36. Trukhanov reported that a woman born in 1983 died in the hospital. This brings the total number of people killed in the attack to three.

UPDATED AT 21:10. The number of dead has risen to four. It is known about three dead women and one man, said the mayor of Odesa.

UPDATED AT 21:18. The head of the Odesa Regional Military Administration reported that, according to updated information, 28 people were injured, including two children (16 and five years old) and one pregnant woman. Four of the injured are in serious condition.

quote:

Op maandag 29 april 2024 20:13 schreef Nebelwerfer het volgende:

[..]
Die 155 granaten staan gelijk aan 1 dagje aan Russische beschietingen.

quote:

Op maandag 29 april 2024 23:53 schreef Ulx het volgende:

[..]
Dezelfde fabrieken leveren ook via het EU programma.

quote:

German ex-army officer admits spying for Russia, blames fear of nuclear war
A former German army captain has admitted spying for Russia, saying he was motivated over fears of a global nuclear escalation amid Russia's war in Ukraine.

Identified only as Thomas H., the 54-year-old went on trial in Dusseldorf on April 29 charged with conducting espionage on behalf of Moscow and leaking state secrets.

"It was wrong. I stand by that," he said on the opening day of the trial, adding the accusations against him are "broadly accurate."

He was a serving officer when he was arrested in August of last year. The charges against him were made public on March 19.

The accused said he had become concerned about his family's safety after viewing pro-Russian content that played up the risk of the war in Ukraine escalating into a nuclear conflict.

Disturbed by what he saw, he claims he decided to contact Russian authorities in order to find out "when it was going to go off."

SPOILER

quote:

He is alleged to have approached, both Russia's consulate in Bonn and its embassy in Berlin in May 2023 with offers to cooperate as well as providing sensitive information.

Thomas H. worked at a German army facility in Koblenz responsible for equipping Berlin's Armed Forces and testing new military technology.

Prosecutors say he photographed military documents and dropped them into the letterbox of the Russian consulate in Bonn. He was not paid for the information, they added.

"He passed on information he had obtained in the course of his professional activities for it to be passed on to a Russian intelligence service," prosecutors said.

Around the same time he also successfully applied to join the far-right party Alternative for Germany (AfD).

The case is one of several security and intelligence scandals Berlin has found itself grappling with since the start of Russia's full-scale invasion of Ukraine.

Earlier this month, German authorities arrested two German-Russian nationals suspected of planning a military sabotage plot on behalf of Russian intelligence, Germany's Federal Prosecutor's Office said on April 18.

And in March, Russian-state media obtained a recording of senior German military officials discussing weapons for Ukraine and other sensitive information in an incident that caused a significant international diplomatic incident.

quote:

Westen treuzelt nog steeds met wapenleveranties, terwijl Europa wordt aangevallen

quote:

Op dinsdag 30 april 2024 09:43 schreef grrrrg het volgende:
https://www.volkskrant.nl(...)angevallen~b3fa6881/
[..]

quote:

Op dinsdag 30 april 2024 11:21 schreef ExTec het volgende:
Ik zeg: doen.

[ afbeelding ]

quote:

Op dinsdag 30 april 2024 11:22 schreef xpompompomx het volgende:

[..]
Misschien kan Japan voor de grap ook weer eens aanspraak gaan maken op Mantsjoerije, laatste keer is ook alweer bijna 100 jaar geleden.

quote:

Op dinsdag 30 april 2024 11:22 schreef xpompompomx het volgende:

[..]
Misschien kan Japan voor de grap ook weer eens aanspraak gaan maken op Mantsjoerije, laatste keer is ook alweer bijna 100 jaar geleden.

quote:

Op dinsdag 30 april 2024 11:40 schreef Idisrom het volgende:

[..]
Toen deed het Westen ook niets. tegen de Japanse agressie

quote:

Op dinsdag 30 april 2024 11:40 schreef Idisrom het volgende:

[..]
Toen deed het Westen ook niets. tegen de Japanse agressie

quote:

Op dinsdag 30 april 2024 11:51 schreef Ulx het volgende:

[..]
Behalve een olieboycot van de twee grootste producenten.

quote:

Op dinsdag 30 april 2024 09:59 schreef LethalNinja het volgende:

[..]
Fijn zo’n artikel achter betaalde muur.

quote:

Op dinsdag 30 april 2024 11:37 schreef Ulx het volgende:
[ x ]

quote:

Op dinsdag 30 april 2024 09:41 schreef phpmystyle het volgende:
Buitgemaakte Westerse wapens worden tentoongesteld in Moskou: https://www.nu.nl/308075/(...)rieel-in-moskou.html

SPOILER

ff wachten op duimpje van AchJa

quote:

Op dinsdag 30 april 2024 13:09 schreef polderturk het volgende:
Klusterbommen op een woonwijk.

Normaal gedrag van het Russische leger.

https://twitter.com/wartr(...)4AFWsyO2FrsaAVw&s=19

quote:

Op dinsdag 30 april 2024 13:34 schreef Cilantro het volgende:
[ x ]

quote:

Op dinsdag 30 april 2024 14:03 schreef phpmystyle het volgende:

[..]
Wat is de reden? Weer dat zogenaamd de piloten moeite hebben met de taalbarriere ofzo?
Niet eerlijk, wel beloven maar niet leveren

quote:

Op dinsdag 30 april 2024 11:21 schreef ExTec het volgende:
Ik zeg: doen.

[ afbeelding ]

quote:

No residence permit and over the eastern border - this is how Estonia treats pro-Russian activists
In a couple of years, a dozen or so Russians living in Estonia have lost their residence permits due to the spread of Kremlin propaganda.

TALLINN The Estonian protection police kapo has clearly tightened his attitude towards pro-Russian activism.

Since the start of the war of aggression against Russia, eleven Russians who lived in Estonia have lost their residence permits. Some of them have been deported across the eastern border, some managed to leave the country before the official deportation.

The Estonian Protection Police considers the deportees a security threat related to Russia's hybrid measures against Estonia.

- The unifying factor has been very active participation in influencing Russia. For example, spreading hostile historical narratives or supporting Russia's aggressive foreign policy, says Harrys Puusepp , head of department at kapo.

According to Kapo, those who remained without a residence permit and were deported have been organizing various pro-Russian events and have attracted others to become organizers as well.

- When we see similar activities in our own country that preceded Russia's attack on Ukraine, it is clear that it is our duty to intervene, Puusepp says.

SPOILER

quote:

^{Ramil Usmanov, who lived in Tartu for a long time, was one of the first persons classified as a pro-Russian activist by the protection police, who was deported during the war of aggression against Russia. In the photo, he is being guided from Estonia to Russia in June 2022. Photo: Material of the Estonian Protection Police}

The yearbooks of the Estonian Security Police have warned for a long time that Russia is trying to cause tension and disunity in Estonian society. After the Soviet era, more than 300,000 Russian speakers live in the country. About 80,000 of them are Russian citizens and 60,000 are without citizenship of any country.

Celebrating Russian Victory Day in Soviet-era uniforms or waving Soviet and Russian flags on the streets of Estonian cities before Russia's invasion of Ukraine might have attracted the attention of the security police, but not deportation.

^{Aleksei Esakov and Sergei Čaulin, who received the deportation decision, hold the flags used by the Soviet Union and Soviet power in Estonia at the monument to those who fell in the Second World War in Tallinn. Photo: Material of the Estonian Protection Police}

After the start of the war of aggression, the line changed. Among other things, symbols supporting the war of aggression, i.e. Russian flags, black and orange Georgian ribbons and the letters Z used by supporters of the war of aggression were banned.

The police's strict line has been seen in recent years also at public events. Expressions of opinion in favor of Russia or war of aggression are not allowed.

- Previously, we tried to contain the situation with less drastic measures. As the threat assessment changed, we also became more determined, says Harrys Puusepp.

The Estonian Protection Police has also informed about the deportations in an impressive way, for example on their social media. Among the deportees are both Russian citizens and stateless Russians.

The criticized meppi started to defend the expelled
Harrys Puusepp admits that the expulsions have mostly been evaluation decisions. Those who lost their residence permit have therefore not been found guilty of an actual crime and have not been convicted in court.

- Our task is to anticipate and prevent. For these persons, we have assessed that such a step is necessary and the courts have agreed with us, says Puusepp.

In a rule of law, decisions can be appealed, but so far all appeals that have been processed to the end have been rejected.

^{Aleksei Esakov received his departure passport from Estonia on May 4, 2022. Photo: Material of the Estonian Protection Police}

However, the legal proceedings of the case that received the most attention are still ongoing. This is 64-year-old Zoja Paljamar, whose residence permit was revoked by the Estonian Police and Border Agency based on the assessment of the protection police in June 2023.

The stateless Paljamar himself was in Russia at the time, so the revocation of his residence permit prevented his return to Estonia. In addition, he was banned from entering the Schengen area for ten years.

Jana Toom, an Estonian player with a Russian background, also stood up to fight for Paljamar . According to Toomi, the deportation of a stateless person is illegal , and according to him, Paljamar is a chronically ill woman .

Last summer, Toom visited Russia and met Zoja Paljamari. In addition, he has paid her court costs.

Jana Toomi's actions have attracted criticism among Estonian politicians. Among the critics has been the Minister of the Interior Lauri L��nemets , among others .

quote:

Op dinsdag 30 april 2024 09:41 schreef phpmystyle het volgende:
Buitgemaakte Westerse wapens worden tentoongesteld in Moskou: https://www.nu.nl/308075/(...)rieel-in-moskou.html

quote:

Blinken to China: You can’t seek better relations with the EU while fueling the war against Ukraine
U.S. Secretary of State Anthony Blinken said the Chinese cannot “have it both ways” by seeking better relations with Europe while supplying goods that pose what he called “the greatest challenge to European security since the end of the Cold War.”

He said this at the World Economic Forum in Saudi Arabia, The Guardian reports.

SPOILER

quote:

The US Secretary of State admitted that China does not directly supply Russia with weapons, missiles, or ammunition, as Iran or North Korea do.

What China is doing, is providing invaluable support to Russia’s defence industrial base that’s helping Russia deal with the massive pressure that’s been exerted through sanctions, through export controls and other measures.
- U.S. Secretary of State Anthony Blinken

According to him, over the past year, Russia has been producing ammunition and equipment at a faster pace than at any time in its modern history, including during the Cold War.

It (Russia – ed.) is getting massive inputs of machine tools, micro electronics, optics, mostly coming from China. Now these are dual-use items, but we know very clearly where so many of them are going. And this poses two problems. It is enabling Russia to continue the aggression against Ukraine. So it’s perpetuating a war that China says it would like to see come to an end.
- U.S. Secretary of State Anthony Blinken

He noted that it also allows Russia to rebuild its defense industrial base, which European countries are deeply concerned will be turned against them if Russia succeeds in Ukraine.

And so at the very time that China is seeking better relations with countries in Europe, it is also fueling the greatest challenge to European security since the end of the cold war.
- U.S. Secretary of State Anthony Blinken

Earlier, Blinken also said that the United States has seen evidence of China’s attempts to “influence and possibly interfere” in the upcoming US elections.

As reported, during his visit to China, Blinken confirmed the White House’s readiness for new sanctions against Beijing if it continues to support Russia in its full-scale war against Ukraine.

Read more in our article China is accused by the US of helping Russia’s war in Ukraine.

quote:

Op dinsdag 30 april 2024 17:30 schreef oheng het volgende:

[..]
Zoals alles in rusland, is deze parade ook nep.

[ x ]


RIA: rusland waarschuwt voor niet-geexplodeerde munitie van de glorieus neergeschoten ATACMS.

quote:

Op dinsdag 30 april 2024 17:30 schreef oheng het volgende:

[..]
Zoals alles in rusland, is deze parade ook nep.

[ x ]

RIA: rusland waarschuwt voor niet-geexplodeerde munitie van de glorieus neergeschoten ATACMS.

quote:

Op dinsdag 30 april 2024 17:32 schreef Delenlill het volgende:
https://insightnews.media(...)war-against-ukraine/
[..]

SPOILER

[..]

quote:

“Discrediting the Russian army” because of hair color

It became known that a protocol was drawn up against a resident of Moscow for “discrediting the army of the Russian Federation”.

All this happened because of yellow-blue-green hair, the color of which resembles the flag of Ukraine.

It is known that on April 27, Muscovite Stanislav Netesov was attacked at the metro station in the center of Moscow.

Unknown robbers stole his phone and knocked out his tooth.

The injured guy went to the police to report the beating and theft, but ran into new problems.

The police felt that the color of his hair “refers to the flag of Ukraine” and “discredits the Russian army.”

In addition, the victim was served with a summons and threatened that he would “kiss his native land in the trenches”.

Video taken in the Moscow subway before the guy was attacked.

quote:

Op dinsdag 30 april 2024 17:43 schreef -XOR- het volgende:

[..]
Hier gaat Blinken helemaal niet over.

quote:

Op dinsdag 30 april 2024 17:46 schreef Delenlill het volgende:

[..]
Hij heeft anders wel groot gelijk. Dat China moet stoppen met het van twee walletjes proberen te eten. Want dat zal inderdaad niet in het voordeel zijn van hun relatie met Europe.

En op dat front zijn wij en Amerika aardig gelijkgestemd.

quote:

Op dinsdag 30 april 2024 17:47 schreef -XOR- het volgende:

[..]
Blinken moet zijn muil houden over Europa, dit versterkt ook alleen maar het idee dat Europa aan de leiband van de VS loopt en dat omdat Rusland dat niet doet, zij de grote vijand zijn.

quote:

Op dinsdag 30 april 2024 17:50 schreef Delenlill het volgende:

[..]
Op dit ogenblik is Rusland de grote vijand van het westen. Niet alleen door hun aanvalsoorlog op Europees grondgebied maar ook door hun retoriek over het westen. En Blinken kan hierover prima zijn mening verkondigen.

Als de oorlog nog lang doorgaat zal China op den duur gewoon een keus moeten maken. Of een goede relatie met het westen, of een goede relatie met Rusland. En niet alleen China.

quote:

Ukraine's gas storage facilities all fit despite Russia targeting them since March – Naftogaz head
Oleksiy Chernyshov called on the European Union to help Ukraine with the protection of underground gas storage facilities

Russian missile strikes on gas storage facilities in western Ukraine could not stop their work, Oleksiy Chernyshov, the head of the board of Naftogaz of Ukraine, said In an interview with the Financial Times, noting that "technologically, we're all fit."

"We have managed to repair the [damaged surface] equipment and we fulfil our obligations [to our customers]" after the attacks," Chernyshov said.

The reservoirs where Ukraine stores gas are located at a depth of three kilometers, but Russia is attacking the equipment with which the gas is pumped and lifted.

Chernyshov said that the European Union could help Ukraine protect these facilities, given that it is in its own interests. Ukrainian storage played an important role in the EU's energy security last year, enabling European countries to use less gas from their storage and rely more on Ukraine.

SPOILER

quote:

Naftogaz expects that this year European companies will pump even more gas into Ukrainian underground storage facilities – up to 4 billion cubic meters (2.5 billion cubic meters last year).

During the interview, Chernyshov once again confirmed that Naftogaz is not going to extend the transit contract with Gazprom, which expires at the end of 2024. He is confident that the European Union will survive the loss of those 15 billion cubic meters, which are currently being transported through Ukraine.

"Can a supply of 3 per cent of all [EU] market consumption change the market? I don’t think it can change the market at all, neither in terms of pricing, nor in terms of volume. It’s not a big deal," he said.

Since March 2024, Russia has carried out four massive strikes on Ukraine's energy system, knocking out up to 7 GW of electricity generation capacity.

The last of them happened on April 27, when the Russians launched 34 missiles over Ukraine. The Air Force destroyed 21 of them.

quote:

Op dinsdag 30 april 2024 17:51 schreef -XOR- het volgende:

[..]
Blinken kan en moet niet voor de EU spreken. Nogmaals, daar gaat hij niet over en het is ook voor het beeld heel slecht.

quote:

And so at the very time that China is seeking better relations with countries in Europe, it is also fueling the greatest challenge to European security since the end of the cold war.
U.S. Secretary of State Anthony Blinken

quote:

US secretary of state Antony Blinken has criticised China for supplying Russia’s defence industry, saying the Chinese can’t “have it both ways” in seeking an end to the conflict and better relations between China and Europe, while also providing goods that are building what Blinken termed “the greatest challenge to European security since the end of the cold war”.

Speaking at a World Economic Forum gathering in Saudi Arabia, Blinken said

We have engaged with China from the start of the Russian aggression against Ukraine, and urged them not to provide Russia with arms, with weapons that would fuel the aggression.

And I think it’s fair to say that China has not directly supplied Russia with weapons, with missiles, with munitions. Iran is doing it. North Korea is doing it.

However, what China is doing, is providing invaluable support to Russia’s defence industrial base that’s helping Russia deal with the massive pressure that’s been exerted through sanctions, through export controls and other measures.

If you look at what Russia has done over the last year, in terms of its production of munitions, missiles, tanks and armoured vehicles, it has produced them at a faster pace than at any time in its modern history, including during the cold war as the Soviet Union.

How has it been able to do that? Because it is getting massive inputs of machine tools, micro electronics, optics, mostly coming from China. Now these are dual-use items, but we know very clearly where so many of them are going. And this poses two problems.

It is enabling Russia to continue the aggression against Ukraine. So it’s perpetuating a war that China says it would like to see come to an end. As all of us would.

But second, it’s also enabling Russia to rebuild a defence industrial base that countries throughout Europe are deeply concerned will be turned against them after Ukraine is done.

And so at the very time that China is seeking better relations with countries in Europe, it is also fueling the greatest challenge to European security since the end of the cold war. And as I shared with my Chinese colleagues, you can’t have it both ways.”

quote:

Situation is difficult on Kherson Oblast's left bank, but defenders still holding a bridgehead
On the morning of April 30, the enemy military twice tried to storm the island of Nestryha, but retreated with losses, Speaker Dmytro Pletenchuk said

Russia attacked the bridgehead held by the Ukrainian military on the east bank of Kherson Oblast three times during the day, but without success, Dmytro Pletenchuk, head of the Strategic Communications Center of the Southern Defense Forces, said on the telethon on the morning of April 30.

Currently the situation on the east bank is difficult primarily because "in fact, the marines are holding on autonomously, because the Dnipro River is between us and, of course, logistics there are very difficult."

"As well as rotation, as well as evacuation, and other issues. However, they continue to hold their positions, despite the strength of the enemy, which is superior in number. Having established themselves on this bridgehead, the guys are holding on," said Pletenchuk.

Also, on the morning of April 30, the Russian military twice tried to storm the island of Nestryha, but retreated with losses.

"This is the last island from Veletenske. This is the area of the settlements of Veletenske and Kizomys. Not far from them. And in fact, this is the last island before the mouth of the river, the last island on the west bank. Therefore, of course, it is important for us to close this area from possible saboteurs, or from possible enemy exits," said Pletenchuk.

On April 30, the Ukrainian military established control over the island of Nestryha near Kherson.

quote:

Finnair suspends flights to Tartu for 1 month to seek GPS jamming solution
Finnish airline Finnair on Monday said it will suspend its daily flights to Tartu from April 29-May 31 to try and find a solution that does not require a GPS signal to land at the airport.

Last week, two Finnair flights had to divert back to Helsinki after GPS interference prevented them from landing at the airport in south Estonia. The approach methods currently used at Tartu Airport are based on a GPS signal.

Finnair said it will suspend its flights to Tartu for one month, during which time the aim is to build approach methods at Tartu Airport that enable a safe and smooth operation of flights without a GPS signal.

Finnair is the only airline operating international flights to Tartu. The route reopened at the end of March for the first time since the coronavirus pandemic.

The company said passengers with bookings will be notified.

SPOILER

quote:

"We apologize for the inconvenience the suspension causes to our customers. Flight safety is always our top priority, and as the approach to Tartu currently requires a GPS signal, we cannot fly there in the event of GPS interference," says Jari Paajanen, Finnair's Director of Operations.

"The systems on Finnair's aircraft detect GPS interference, our pilots are well aware of the issue, and the aircraft have other navigation systems that can be used when the GPS system is unserviceable," Paajanen says. "Most airports use alternative approach methods, but some airports, such as Tartu, only use methods that require a GPS signal to support them. The GPS interference in Tartu forces us to suspend flights until alternative solutions have been established."

GPS interference has increased since 2022, and Finnair pilots have reported interference, especially near Kaliningrad, the Black Sea, the Caspian Sea and the Eastern Mediterranean, the company said.

In the Baltic Sea Region, the interference has been blamed on Russia. Minister of Foreign Affairs Margus Tsahkna (Eesti 200) described this incident as a "hybrid attack" on Estonia by Russia.

On Monday evening, Tsahkna (Eesti 200) said he discussed the issue with his counterparts from Latvia, Lithuania, Finland, and Sweden. "We'll address the issue with NATO allies & EU partners," he wrote on social media.

Typically, GPS interference does not affect flight routes or flight safety, as pilots are well aware of it and aircraft have alternative systems in place that are used when the GPS signal is interfered with.

quote:

Russian organised crime leader and convicted murderer leaves prison to serve in Ukraine
A notorious Russian organised crime leader has left a penal colony where he was serving a 24-year sentence for murder to fight in Ukraine, Russian news outlet Chita.ru reported Tuesday.

Dmitry Vedernikov, who began his sentence in 2011, is known to be the leader of an organised crime group that was active in the Zabaykalsky region in Russia’s Far East from the early 1990s until 2010. According to the court, the group specialised in stealing foreign cars and demanding a ransom. Vedernikov was found guilty of 52 criminal charges, including murder.

Vedernikov had asked to sign a contract with the Russian military once before, in October, but was turned down because of his age. He was 52.

He appealed to the Zabaykalsky region governor Alexander Osipov, writing:

“Nobody knows the price of freedom like a convict. They’ll only take me prisoner if I’m unconscious, because even if I run out of bullets, I’ll continue fighting with my teeth.”

He also argued that he should be allowed to go to Ukraine to fight because he had already experienced war-like conditions, having previously been shot at.

In March, Russian President Vladimir Putin signed into law legislation granting combatants immunity for the majority of crimes, including murder, theft and rape.

quote:

Op dinsdag 30 april 2024 17:30 schreef oheng het volgende:

[..]
Zoals alles in rusland, is deze parade ook nep.

[ x ]

RIA: rusland waarschuwt voor niet-geexplodeerde munitie van de glorieus neergeschoten ATACMS.

quote:

UN confirms Russia’s use of missiles from the DPRK
The UN confirms that Russia struck Kharkiv with a North Korean-made missile.

United Nations sanctions monitors confirmed this, Reuters reports.

The wreckage of the missile that was found after the attack on the Ukrainian city on January 2 this year was from a North Korean Hwasong-11 series ballistic missile.

Russia’s use of these weapons is a direct violation of Security Council sanctions that impose an arms embargo on North Korea.

Three sanctions monitors traveled to Ukraine earlier this month to inspect the debris and found no evidence that the missile was made by Russia.

SPOILER

quote:

^{Tail section of a North Korean KN-23/KN-24 missile that Russia fired at the Ukrainian city of Kharkiv on January 2, 2024. Ukraine. Photo credits: Conflict Armament Research (CAR)}

According to a 32-page report presented to one of the Security Council’s committees, experts confirmed that “the missile debris discovered in Kharkiv on January 2, 2024, came from a DPRK Hwasong-11 missile” and indicates a violation of the arms embargo on the supply of weapons to and from the DPRK.

Sanctions monitors noted that they “cannot independently determine where the missile was launched from and by whom.” However, the information provided by the Ukrainian side “indicates that it was launched within the territory of the Russian Federation.”

Russia’s use of ballistic missiles made in the DPRK against Kharkiv was also confirmed by the Conflict Armament Research (CAR) international organization, which monitors arms supplies.

^{Wreckage of the North Korean KN-23/KN-24 missile that Russia fired at the Ukrainian city of Kharkiv on January 2, 2024. Ukraine. Photo credits: Conflict Armament Research (CAR)}

The North Korean Hwasong-11 (KN-23) is actually a copy of the Russian 9M723 ballistic missile of the Iskander system, but it has a number of technical and visual differences. The obvious ones include the structural differences in the tail part.

^{North Korean KN-23. Photo from open sources}

Since 2006, North Korea has been under UN Security Council sanctions, which include a ban on the import and export of military technology due to nuclear and ballistic missile tests.

North Korean arms supplies to Russia
Militarnyi has repeatedly reported on the use of weapons manufactured in the DPRK by the Russian invasion forces.

In particular, there were reports of the poor quality of North Korean products. For example, the propaganda media talked about the shortcomings of the 152-mm artillery shells’ propellant charges.

quote:

Ukraine's Special Operations Forces hit two Russian Buk anti-aircraft missile systems on Sumy front – video
The Special Operations Forces of the Armed Forces of Ukraine have reported the destruction of two Russian Buk anti-aircraft missile systems during reconnaissance on the Sumy front.

Source: press service of the Special Operations Forces

Quote: "Operators of one of the Special Operations Forces' units discovered a Buk anti-aircraft missile system on the Sumy front during reconnaissance operations. The enemy target was hit by attack drones.

Another Buk system arrived to evacuate the struck one, and our operators struck again. As a result, two Russian anti-aircraft missile systems were destroyed."

⚡ССО У� АЗИЛИ два російських З� К «Бук» на Сумському напрямку

quote:

Norway Accelerating Ukraine Aid
Norway's Prime Minister said Tuesday his country would accelerate its military and civilian aid for Ukraine for this year by seven billion kroner to a total of 22 billion kroner (�2 billion).

The additional funds will be brought forward from a 75 billion kroner package the Scandinavian country has pledged to Ukraine covering 2023 to 2027 for military and civilian aid, which remains unchanged.

"It's a matter of life and death for the people of Ukraine", Prime Minister Jonas Gahr Store told a press conference.

"It is also a question of security and stability in Europe, and therefore also for Norway", he said following a meeting with opposition leaders to secure a broad consensus on the aid.

Of the seven billion brought forward, six will go military aid, primarily anti-air defence and ammunition -- which are desperately needed by Ukraine as it faces a Russian offensive in the east.

Norway will contribute to the financing of German and Czech initiatives in these two areas, Store said, while stressing that Russia was deliberately bombing "hospitals, residential areas and power stations".

Of the 75 billion package dedicated to Ukraine, Norway will have used some 39.5 billion kroner by the end of 2024.

Norway -- a major oil and gas producer that has benefited greatly from surging prices following Russia's invasion of Ukraine -- is one of the main contributors to Ukraine, according to a ranking by the Kiel Institute.

quote:

Novosibirsk residents complain about curbs painted in Ukraine flag colours

Residents of Novosibirsk, a city in western Siberia, have complained after pavement curbs in the city were recently painted in yellow and blue, the colours of the Ukrainian flag.

Head of the property management company, Vladimir Simonov, assured residents in a statement that the paint was already being covered up and that the curb would now be red and blue, Russian news outlet Podyom reported Monday.

According to Simonov, the unpatriotic display was merely accidental as the worker tasked with painting the curb “just so happened” to pick yellow and blue.

Regardless, the company apologised for the incident, with Simonov remarking that he was “personally against” the yellow and blue curbs.

This follows a string of cases in which Russian citizens have been reported and charged for displaying colours closely associated with Ukraine. A Moscow resident was fined for “discrediting the Russian army” and handed a military summons on Sunday for dyeing his hair yellow and blue.

A resident of the northwestern Russian city of Vologda was reported to the police in April for posting an “enemy symbol” in a picture which showed her in a yellow jacket against a blue sky background.

quote:

Moscow Court Charges 5 Russians With ‘Terrorism’ Over Helicopter Torching

Five Russians accused of setting fire to a helicopter on behalf of Ukraine appeared before a Moscow court on Tuesday and were charged with “terrorism.”

The Ukrainian Defense Ministry’s intelligence agency HUR published a video late last week of what it claimed was a Ka-32 transportation helicopter being set ablaze at a Moscow airport.

“The aggressor state used the destroyed unit of aviation equipment […] to support the operations of the Russian occupying army,” the HUR said in a statement at the time.

SPOILER

quote:

Russian Defense Ministry broadcaster Zvezda later reported that the incident took place at Moscow’s Ostafyevo International Business Airport, describing the Ka-32 as a “firefighting” helicopter.

Russian media reported Monday that Federal Security Service (FSB) officers detained four men between the ages of 21 and 22, as well as one 19-year-old woman, who are believed to have set fire to the aircraft.

Moscow’s Dorogomilovsky District Court ruled Tuesday to place all five of the suspected arsonists in pre-trial detention until June 27. The court identified Stanislav Khamidulin as the group’s leader and claimed he was promised money by Ukrainian intelligence services in exchange for destroying the helicopter.

“In order to commit the terrorist act, the group members … set fire to the aircraft, as a result of which the helicopter was destroyed,” the Moscow court system’s press service said in a statement.

The Telegram news channel Baza, which is believed to have connections to Russian law enforcement, first reported on the arrests Monday and said Khamidulin and a second suspect, Nikita Bulgakov, are originally from the city of Novosibirsk.

Two others, Daniil Yamskov and Anastasia Mochalina, are originally from the Arctic city of Norilsk, according to Baza. A fifth defendant, Roman Yakovets, is said to be from the southern Rostov region.

The Moscow Times could not independently verify Baza’s report.

quote:

Poll: 74% of Ukrainians feel negatively towards Russians
More than two-thirds of Ukrainians feel negatively toward Russians, while around one-third feel negatively towards Belarusians, according to a survey by the Kyiv Mohyla Academy's School for Policy Analysis, published by Ukrinform on April 30.

Research indicates that the vast majority of Ukrainians have close relatives or friends who have been wounded or killed during the full-scale invasion. President Volodymyr Zelensky said in February 2024 that 31,000 Ukrainian soldiers have been killed in Russia's war.

SPOILER

quote:

A poll published in November 2023 demonstrated similar figures, with over 70% of those surveyed having a negative attitude toward Russians.

According to the latest poll, 20% of Ukrainians said they feel neutral toward Russians, and just 4% feel positively or very positively toward Russians.

While 74% of Ukrainians have a "negative or very negative attitude towards citizens of Russia," this figure rose to 82% among respondents in Kyiv.

In the east of Ukraine, 65% of respondents said they felt negative toward Russians, with 24% responding they felt neutral.

The poll showed, however, that 53% of Ukrainians said they have a positive attitude toward Russians who actively oppose the invasion.

The poll also showed that 60% of Ukrainians have a positive attitude towards Belarusians who are against the war.

The survey was conducted via telephone interviews with 2,005 respondents living across Ukraine, except in areas under Russian occupation. The survey was conducted between March 11 and March 16.

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Op dinsdag 30 april 2024 13:34 schreef Cilantro het volgende:
[ x ]

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Op dinsdag 30 april 2024 18:51 schreef phpmystyle het volgende:
In jouw bron staat niet dat dit nep is? het lijkt mij ook sterk dat dit een papiermarche ontwerp is. En ik neem aan dat nu.nl scherp is op nepnieuws.

@:AchJa Wat denk u?

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Op dinsdag 30 april 2024 13:38 schreef BEFEM het volgende:
Isa

SPOILER

ff wachten op duimpje van AchJa

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Op dinsdag 30 april 2024 19:30 schreef ExTec het volgende:
Is hier wat meer over te vinden dan dit?

Niks op den twitter, niks via google.

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Op dinsdag 30 april 2024 19:22 schreef Delenlill het volgende:
https://www.themoscowtime(...)pter-torching-a84997
[..]

SPOILER

[..]

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Op dinsdag 30 april 2024 19:37 schreef AchJa het volgende:

[..]
Ik vraag me ook af wat er nep aan zou moeten zijn. Ik zie bv. gewoon een Leo-2A6.

@:Oheng ?

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Op dinsdag 30 april 2024 19:30 schreef ExTec het volgende:

[..]
Is hier wat meer over te vinden dan dit?

Niks op den twitter, niks via google.

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European-trained Ukrainian F-16 pilots will not be ready until late 2024
Aged between 21 and 23, with very little experience, the 10 soldiers in training will have to spend several more months training before they acquire the knowledge and experience required for combat aviation.

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Op dinsdag 30 april 2024 19:53 schreef ExTec het volgende:
Ik denk dat je het neppe meer moet zijn a'la: rus vind hem er niet aftands genoeg uitzien, vandaar dat ze de loop even slopen.

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Op dinsdag 30 april 2024 17:50 schreef Delenlill het volgende:

Als de oorlog nog lang doorgaat zal China op den duur gewoon een keus moeten maken. Of een goede relatie met het westen, of een goede relatie met Rusland. En niet alleen China.

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Op dinsdag 30 april 2024 20:32 schreef BlaZ het volgende:

[..]
Dat is niet de werkelijke keuze, de keuze is eerder voor het westen: geven we Taiwan op of erkennen we China als vijand?

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Op dinsdag 30 april 2024 20:32 schreef Perrin het volgende:

[..]
Als we Taiwan 'opgeven' dan wordt China niet minder vijandig.

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Op dinsdag 30 april 2024 20:37 schreef BlaZ het volgende:

[..]
Waarop baseer je dat?

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Op dinsdag 30 april 2024 20:41 schreef Jaroon het volgende:

[..]
Omdat China het als grondgebied zied.

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Op dinsdag 30 april 2024 20:49 schreef BlaZ het volgende:

[..]
Ja, het idee is Taiwan opgeven voor steun tegen Rusland bijvoorbeeld. Koehandel lijkt me hier het beste middel als je wat voor elkaar wil krijgen.

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Op dinsdag 30 april 2024 20:37 schreef BlaZ het volgende:

[..]
Waarop baseer je dat?

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Op dinsdag 30 april 2024 20:37 schreef BlaZ het volgende:

[..]
Waarop baseer je dat?

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Op dinsdag 30 april 2024 20:52 schreef Perrin het volgende:

[..]
Omdat China heel wat breder bezig is met hegemonie over de regio. Taiwan is maar ��n van de vele puzzelstukjes.

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Op dinsdag 30 april 2024 21:02 schreef ExTec het volgende:

[..]
Je krijgt weinig mee van dat china elke dag de filipijnse marine aan het pesten is?

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Op dinsdag 30 april 2024 20:23 schreef polderturk het volgende:
HEEL VEEL dode Russen


Waarschuwing


https://twitter.com/DefMo(...)o5Tdk1cn-RVwhAw&s=19


Dit kan niet met alleen een HIMARS raket. Hier hebben ze heel veel raketten op afgevuurd.

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Op dinsdag 30 april 2024 21:07 schreef BlaZ het volgende:

[..]
Tuurlijk, het is de natuurlijke hegemoon. Dat kunnen we met alle macht proberen tegen te werken of simpelweg accepteren.

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Op dinsdag 30 april 2024 20:29 schreef AchJa het volgende:

[..]
Schietbuis...

Als de schietbuis in de laadstand staat ziet het er ook niet uit. Tanks schieten vlakbaan dus de schietbuis moet wel een beetje horizontaal staan.

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Op dinsdag 30 april 2024 21:14 schreef Perrin het volgende:

[..]
Niet iedereen is zo happig om terug te gaan naar de tijd van regionale keizerrijken.

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Op dinsdag 30 april 2024 21:14 schreef Perrin het volgende:

[..]
Niet iedereen is zo happig om terug te gaan naar de tijd van regionale keizerrijken.

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Op dinsdag 30 april 2024 21:25 schreef BlaZ het volgende:
We vertegenwoordigen nog slechts 10-11% van de wereldbevolking, dat is onvoldoende om op langere termijn dit soort beleid te kunnen voeren.

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Op dinsdag 30 april 2024 21:30 schreef ExTec het volgende:

[..]
Zoek even op hoeveel % van het globale GDP we zijn.

Of geld might makes right dan ineens weer niet ofzo?

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Op dinsdag 30 april 2024 21:35 schreef BlaZ het volgende:

[..]
Dat is toch precies het probleem op de langere termijn:

https://www.researchgate.(...)etary_fig1_311567915

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Op dinsdag 30 april 2024 21:43 schreef ExTec het volgende:

[..]
Ok, het gaat dus toch niet om de mensen,

Nogal bizar om daar mee te schermen, want putin en xi vegen hun reet af aan de mening van de gewone man,

Maar het gaat om hun aandeel in globaal GDP! - volgens heftig gedateerde stats uit 2016 , want ondertussen is de rus economie een zwart gat, en zit de chinese economie in zwaar weer.

Goed verhaal.

quote:

Op dinsdag 30 april 2024 21:43 schreef ExTec het volgende:

[..]
Ok, het gaat dus toch niet om de mensen,

Nogal bizar om daar mee te schermen, want putin en xi vegen hun reet af aan de mening van de gewone man,

Maar het gaat om hun aandeel in globaal GDP! - volgens heftig gedateerde stats uit 2016 , want ondertussen is de rus economie een zwart gat, en zit de chinese economie in zwaar weer.

Goed verhaal.

quote:

Op dinsdag 30 april 2024 21:58 schreef BlaZ het volgende:

[..]
Ach ik probeer nog met data te komen, in plaats van data uit 2016 naar de prullenbak te verwijzen lijkt het me beter dat je met eigen data komt.
Verder gaat dit niet om China en Rusland maar over langetermijn statistiek. Rusland is niet bepaald relevant in dergelijke statistiek aangezien het 2,23% van de globale economie vormt.

De relatie tussen demografie en economie is nogal relevant op langere termijn.

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Op dinsdag 30 april 2024 21:58 schreef BlaZ het volgende:

[..]
Ach ik probeer nog met data te komen, in plaats van data uit 2016 naar de prullenbak te verwijzen lijkt het me beter dat je met eigen data komt.

quote:

Verder gaat dit niet om China en Rusland maar over langetermijn statistiek. Rusland is niet bepaald relevant in dergelijke statistiek aangezien het 2,23% van de globale economie vormt.

De relatie tussen demografie en economie is nogal relevant op langere termijn.

quote:

Op dinsdag 30 april 2024 22:04 schreef ExTec het volgende:

[..]
Jij stelt, jij bewijst. Nee, ik ga niet voor jou bewijs zoeken voor je eigen stellingen. Moet niet veel gekker worden

quote:

Ja, dat weet ik, maar als de grootste kanshebber om economisch in de buurt te komen van het westen, heftig water aan het maken is, zie ik geen 'magische partij' die het westen wel even naar de kroon gaat steken.

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Op dinsdag 30 april 2024 22:07 schreef BlaZ het volgende:

[..]
Ik onderbouw een stelling en jij komt niet met betere informatie om die stelling te verwerpen.

quote:

Er is ook geen magische partij en dat is ook niet wat mij bron stelt. Het gaat om een algemene afname van economisch en demografisch belang van het westen in de wereld.

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Op dinsdag 30 april 2024 22:11 schreef ExTec het volgende:

[..]
Jahoor, dat heb ik gedaan: kijk maar naar hoe de resp. economien van rus & china er anno nu voorstaan.

quote:

Maar als het westen niet de grootste economien van de wereld heeft, wie dan wel? In die theoretische toekomst welteverstaan.

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Op dinsdag 30 april 2024 22:21 schreef BlaZ het volgende:

[..]
Dat bewijst enkel dat je het punt an sich niet snapt, dit gaat ook niet over China en Rusland. Dat China zijn groeidoelen niet haalt, betekent niet dat de economie niet groeit overigens.
De groei over 2023 was 5,6% en men gaat uit van 4,6% voor 2024.
Ondertussen gaat het zeer goed met India natuurlijk met groei tussen de 7 en 8%

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Op dinsdag 30 april 2024 22:21 schreef BlaZ het volgende:

[..]
Dat bewijst enkel dat je het punt an sich niet snapt, dit gaat ook niet over China en Rusland. Dat China zijn groeidoelen niet haalt, betekent niet dat de economie niet groeit overigens.
De groei over 2023 was 5,6% en men gaat uit van 4,6% voor 2024.
Ondertussen gaat het zeer goed met India natuurlijk met groei tussen de 7 en 8%

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Op dinsdag 30 april 2024 22:24 schreef Tocadisco het volgende:

[..]
China en India hebben een grotere hekel aan elkaar als aan het Westen, dus hoe gaan die ooit samenspannen tegen ons?

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Op dinsdag 30 april 2024 22:25 schreef ExTec het volgende:

[..]
Hey, als je een voetbal wedstrijd hebt, heb je een winnaar en verliezer, en nummer 1 en 2, zo u wilt.

Wel grappig dat je hier lekker aan het pontificeren bent dat het westen "ech wel" straks geen nummer 1 meer is, maar je hebt heel veel moeite met benoemen wie dan nummer 1 is.

En hintje: india alleen gaat nooit het gecombineerde westen van de troon stoten. En die pipedream BRICS, ja, verstandig dat je daar niet over begint.

quote:

Het gaat hier denk ik niet om wat we willen, maar eerder om wat mogelijk is. Het Westen in de zin van Europa en de VS zijn langzaam macht aan het verliezen en kunnen simpelweg niet langer de internationale agenda domineren.

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Op dinsdag 30 april 2024 22:32 schreef BlaZ het volgende:

[..]
Dat is het punt dan ook niet, je legt me hier wederom woorden in de mond die ik niet geuit heb.
[..]
Dit is het punt, en ik stel daarbij nadrukkelijk niet dat een andere partij die macht gaat overnemen.

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Op dinsdag 30 april 2024 22:32 schreef BlaZ het volgende:
Het sluit aan bij het idee van multipolariteit vs unipolariteit.

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Op dinsdag 30 april 2024 22:36 schreef ExTec het volgende:

[..]
Ow, laat me raden, dat is die multi-polariteit waar ze het op RT altijd over hebben?

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Op dinsdag 30 april 2024 22:38 schreef ExTec het volgende:

[..]
Helemaal goed.

Maar hebt niet door dat multi-polariteit gewoon een soundbite is om autocratische regimes salon fahig te maken, h�?

quote:

Op dinsdag 30 april 2024 22:39 schreef BlaZ het volgende:

[..]
Daar heeft Rob de Wijk het bijvoorbeeld vaak over, het is ook niet netjes om op de persoon te spelen.

Zie: https://www.universiteitl(...)lkaar%20zou%20vallen.

quote:

Op dinsdag 30 april 2024 22:45 schreef ExTec het volgende:

[..]
Ja, ik ben me ervan bewust dat het een talkingpoint is. Dit is al de 2de keer dat je iets "uitlegd" waarvan ik net al eerder heb aangegeven dat ik er bekend mee ben. Leuk trucje.

Maar ik kan er weinig mee, omdat het overwegend democratische westerse blok dominant is, is het beter voor de wereld als die geflankeerd worden door een kleiner blok van ongeveer even machtige autocratien? Uh, wut? Hoe werkt dat? Waarom?

Want die autocratien, wiens belangen bedienen die dan precies? Die van de autocraten, voor de rest van helemaal niemand.

quote:

Op dinsdag 30 april 2024 22:49 schreef BlaZ het volgende:
Wat beter is zullen we nooit weten aangezien we slechts een tijdspad kunnen bewandelen.

quote:

Op dinsdag 30 april 2024 22:51 schreef ExTec het volgende:

[..]
Er zijn genoeg autocratien geweest in de menselijke geschiedenis. We weten waar dat op uitdraaide.

quote:

Op dinsdag 30 april 2024 22:24 schreef Tocadisco het volgende:

[..]
China en India hebben een grotere hekel aan elkaar als aan het Westen, dus hoe gaan die ooit samenspannen tegen ons?

quote:

Op dinsdag 30 april 2024 22:37 schreef Discombobulate het volgende:
Gaat rap met het terrein dat Oekra�ne aan het verliezen is.

quote:

Op dinsdag 30 april 2024 22:50 schreef phpmystyle het volgende:
Je hoort dagelijks ik de media dat er circa 250 aRussen worden uitgeschakeld. Klinkt mij hoog. Hoe denken jullie daarover?

quote:

Op dinsdag 30 april 2024 19:37 schreef AchJa het volgende:

[..]
Ik vraag me ook af wat er nep aan zou moeten zijn. Ik zie bv. gewoon een Leo-2A6.

@:Oheng ?

quote:

Op dinsdag 30 april 2024 22:50 schreef phpmystyle het volgende:
Je hoort dagelijks ik de media dat er circa 250 aRussen worden uitgeschakeld. Klinkt mij hoog. Hoe denken jullie daarover?

quote:

How US special operators are training Ukrainians—and what they’re learning in return
The Ukrainian troops bring battlefield experience that is helping to reshape the U.S. Army’s own special operations.

U.S. Army Col. Lucas VanAntwerp was sitting with Ukrainian special-forces soldiers one night when bad news arrived: troops they knew back in Ukraine had died in a helicopter crash.

It wasn’t the day’s first news of casualties. Earlier, they had learned that a tank had ambushed and wiped out a special forces vehicle. Russian forces controlled the area, preventing even the recovery of the bodies.

“They kind of took their moments to mourn that loss,” said VanAntwerp, who led the 10th Special Forces Group until last July. “And then they were like, ‘All right, let's go out to eat’.”

VanAntwerp recalled being amazed by their composure. Such a loss would have colored his next few months, played out in personal recollections and speaking with the dead soldiers’ loved ones.

“This happens every day,” the Ukrainians told him. "That's the difference between your wars and ours. We’re losing thousands of people.” There was little to do but move on. Ukraine had lost tens of thousands of soldiers by August 2023.

SPOILER

quote:

Since the start of Russia’s full-scale invasion more than two years ago, VanAntwerp and other Army special-forces soldiers have trained thousands of Ukrainian commandos in Poland and elsewhere. And U.S. troops have learned as well—not just about the Ukrainians’ special brand of resilience, but lessons from European battlefields that are now shaping Army special operations and modernization efforts.

In July 2021, VanAntwerp took command of the Army’s 10th Special Forces Group, which had been helping Ukraine remold its special operators into Western-style forces ever since Russia’s initial invasion in 2014.

VanAntwerp’s work in Ukraine began in the least auspicious way possible: destroying sensitive communications equipment as U.S. forces withdrew from Kyiv in January 2022. It was a case of geopolitical d�ja vu. VanAntwerp’s battalion was also the last to leave Afghanistan.

“I am experienced in leaving partners. It’s not something I ever want to do again,” he said.

Having withdrawn to Poland, his soldiers set up training operations for Ukrainian special operations forces. At first they received only a trickle amid the hectic first months of Russia’s full-scale invasion. Then it became a flood. Ukraine had about 2,000 special operators as the war heated up, but wanted about twice as many.

10th Group now trains hundreds of Ukrainians a month, VanAntwerp said. Some receive highly specialized training: learning to operate drones, to shoot them down, or to use other equipment. Other groups learn to attack targets selected by Ukrainian special forces.

“I've gone at two in the morning on boats, hitting fake targets, up rivers in different countries with 20 Ukrainians,” said VanAntwerp. “Three weeks later, they're doing real missions on rivers.”

Some of the Ukrainians they train are seasoned special operators, but many are freshly enlisted. One battalion commander had received his post after two predecessors were killed. Other than a few trusted officers, most of the soldiers in his unit were new.

“More often than not, it was more basic training, and it was more people that were just coming off the street,” VanAntwerp said.

Training results could vary based on the commanders’ skills, VanAntwerp said. The more-disciplined units did better, while those with less-qualified commanders had trouble. One unit was out every morning doing physical training on their own — and did well. Another unit that was put together at the last minute didn’t proceed as far.

“It really relied on the leader,” he said.

Training in many cases was collaborative, VanAntwerp said, with Ukrainian and U.S. soldiers learning from each other. Ukrainian soldiers frequently told his troops which American tactics wouldn’t work on the battlefields of Ukraine.

“It was 50/50: you teach us, we teach you,” he said.

VanAntwerp said sometimes the best thing the Americans were doing for their Ukrainian counterparts was simply giving them a safe area to practice certain types of operations, such as assaulting trenches.

“A lot of times, you're sitting there watching as they teach their guys,” he said.

Because the U.S. has no forces inside Ukraine, VanAntwerp said, 10th Group trainers often find themselves playing a frustrating game of telephone as they try to gauge the needs, numbers, and equipment of the Ukrainian units headed their way. Some arrive short of troops; some bring extra. One unit arrived with more mortars than expected, forcing the trainers to scramble to get enough rounds for practice.

“You almost always ended up with some of that confusion at the beginning of every course,” he said.

The calls don’t stop when the Ukrainians return home to fight, VanAntwerp said. The trained-up units get a phone-a-friend line back to 10th Group, allowing them to reach back for advice when, say, facing a tough objective.

They would ask “what would you do if you were us?” he said.

VanAntwerp, who returned to the United States in July, now directs the Force Modernization Center of Army Special Operations Command. Established in 2019, the center leads USASOC’s concept development, future warfare analysis and studies, science and technology, concepts and experimentation, requirements determination, and capabilities integration.

Among VanAntwerp’s top priorities are drones and counter-drone equipment, both key features of the war in Ukraine. He also cited more niche but increasingly discussed topics, such as battlefield deception: for example, simulating army formations to draw an enemy’s attention away from real units.

“We [have] to figure out how to do that at scale and coordinated,” he said.

VanAntwerp cautioned against taking Ukraine as a perfect model for future wars. He noted that Russia had not succeeded in shutting off the pipeline of Western weapons that flows to Ukraine. The U.S. might not be so lucky in a confrontation with China over Taiwan.

Among the chief lessons he’s taken from Ukraine, though, is the speed at which innovation must occur. Weapons used in Ukraine must make a big impact on the first day they’re used, he said. By day two, Russia will be working on a counter-measure.

U.S. defense officials have frequently said that Russia is able to find counter-measures to U.S. weapons, including precision-guided munitions.

“The thought of us having an asymmetric advantage because of the new piece of kit for like six months — it just won't happen,” he said.

VanAntwerp said he took two more lessons from Ukraine’s resilience in the face of heavy losses. First, that the U.S. public must understand that a future war could mean tens of thousands of American casualties. Second, military leaders must learn to handle the emotional fallout.

“That's one of those lessons learned: how do you move on, as a leader, from just losing a ton of people every day?” he said.

quote:

Soaring US munitions demand strains support for Israel, Ukraine, Taiwan
The U.S. has transferred tens of thousands of its bombs and shells to Israel since Hamas’ Oct. 7 attack.

But it hasn’t given Israel everything it wants. That’s because the U.S. military lacks the capacity to provide some of the weapons Israel requested, according to Gen. CQ Brown, chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff.

“We do make recommendations based on what their ask is and how that impacts our readiness if it’s going to come from our stocks,” Brown told reporters during a Defense Writers Group event in March.

Put simply, the U.S. assesses the health of its own inventories before sending weapons abroad. At times, those stocks don’t have any margin — and in some cases, the U.S. is even dipping below minimum inventory requirements, according to congressional staffers and former Pentagon officials.

In addition to Israel, the Biden administration has sent an enormous quantity of materiel to Ukraine since Russia’s 2022 invasion. Meanwhile, the U.S. is gearing up to rush an influx of arms to Taiwan in hopes of deterring a possible Chinese attack on the island, which Beijing considers a rogue province.

The U.S. Defense Department already struggled to maintain robust munitions levels in the decades before the recent wars in the Middle East and Europe. But the shipment of arms to Israel, Ukraine and Taiwan has placed intense pressure on the Pentagon’s inventory, forcing it to make challenging risk management assessments as it tries to move the defense industry from peacetime production to a wartime footing.

SPOILER

quote:

“The [Defense Department] is likely drawing down close to that minimum number that they would need for multiple ground scenarios that could happen simultaneously,” Bryan Clark, a senior fellow at the Hudson Institute think tank, told Defense News.

“And depending on how the leadership has decided to manage risk, they may have gone below that two-scenario number already, but they would certainly not go below the number needed for one scenario.”

Total munitions requirement
At a March conference in downtown Washington, the Pentagon’s top weapons buyer opened with a message for America’s adversaries.

“You do not want to go to war with the United States,” said Bill LaPlante, the undersecretary for acquisition and sustainment. “Our stocks are not depleted.”

Perhaps more important was his reason why.

“Every time that we make a decision, we’re looking at our stocks and saying: ‘Can we do this and take the risk?’ ” he said. “If we do, it means we’re OK.”

In short, the Pentagon has a system, and the public should trust it, the argument goes. That system, known as the annual munitions requirements process, has three phases: choosing what to target, how to target it and what to buy.

The first part starts with the Defense Intelligence Agency, which considers the targets America would need to hit if it went to war against another country. The agency sends its list to the relevant combatant commands, which handle U.S. military operations around the globe.

The commands then develop their plans around these targets, and then assign each target to the military services, who study how to best hit each one.

“The services say: ‘What’s my best way to deal with this target?’ ” said Chris Michienzi, a former Pentagon official who spent years working on this process. “ ‘Do I use this airplane with this missile?’ ”

Pentagon officials then use a classified formula to calculate how much of each different munition they need per year, which is known as the total munitions requirement.

Analysts, former defense officials and congressional aides said it’s been difficult to produce enough weapons to execute the Pentagon’s National Defense Strategy around the globe.

“Pre-Ukraine, we had munitions requirements that were in almost every important case — particularly for the Indo-Pacific — not even close to being met,” a Republican congressional staffer told Defense News, speaking on the condition of anonymity due to the sensitivity of the topic. “For the most important [Indo-Pacific] munitions, we haven’t hit the total munitions requirement.”

The shortages are in part symptoms of a chronic issue, said a senior defense official, granted anonymity to discuss the closely held process. The Pentagon has long used munitions as a “bill payer,” neglecting their purchase in favor of platforms like ships or planes in the annual budgets, the official added.

Over time, the low orders led to some companies exiting the market, which in turn reduces the number of businesses that will build those munitions and the speed at which they come off the line.

“There are very few places where we have what you might call surplus stockpiles,” said Mark Cancian, a senior adviser at the Center for Strategic and International Studies think tank. “It’s a question of how much risk do you want to accept in our own war plans. That has been the driver in a lot of the decisions about what to give to the Ukrainians and the Taiwanese.”

For example, the U.S. could use Javelin anti-tank missiles or Tomahawk cruise missiles against at least four major competitors: China, Russia, North Korea and Iran. But the military doesn’t necessarily expect to fight all four adversaries at once and may calculate requirements based on fighting two enemies at a time.

“So you can choose a couple of scenarios and say, ‘Here’s two scenarios that are very stressing,’ and they’re going to form the basis for a number,” Clark said. “For example, the number for the Javelins is probably driven by Russia and North Korea. It depends on the weapon.”

‘Do we have enough?’
But sometimes these projections fall short. In 2016, for instance, the Air Force said it lacked enough munitions — including Hellfire missiles, Joint Direct Attack Munition kits and Small Diameter Bombs — during its campaign against the Islamic State group in Iraq and Syria.

The shortages prompted the Air Force to decline some allies’ requests to buy the in-demand munitions.

The U.S. often serves as a “backstop” for European allies, Clark noted, pointing to NATO’s heavy reliance on American munitions in its 2011 Libya campaign.

“It’s not so much, are we going to have enough weapons to sustain our own capacity for a ground war, because we probably do,” Clark said. “It’s, do we have enough to sustain our own capacity to fight and also support our European allies who may need augmentation because clearly they don’t maintain the magazines to sustain themselves.”

Others interviewed about the munitions requirements process also noted it lags behind real-world events and is closely tied to the Pentagon’s war plans, which usually project short conflicts instead of the reality of longer, protracted wars.

But the U.S. could still quickly run through certain munitions even in a short conflict with a major adversary like China.

A wargame conducted by the Center for a New American Security think tank and the House Committee on the Chinese Communist Party last year found the U.S. would run out of long-range, precision-guided munitions in less than a week in a fight with China over Taiwan. Outgoing committee Chairman Mike Gallagher, R-Wis., subsequently told Defense News that America’s inventory of long-range anti-ship missiles stood at 250 last spring, noting a conflict with China would require at least 1,000.

Since the Israel-Hamas war began in October, the U.S. has also used weapons that could be relevant to an Indo-Pacific battle, like the Standard Missile-6 and Tomahawks, to respond to Houthi attacks on Red Sea shipping lanes off Yemen’s coast.

“Is it a sustainable, long-term strategy to use million-dollar munitions to shoot down drones and loitering munitions that are $10,000, $15,000, $20,000 a piece?” Rep. Rob Wittman, R-Va., asked Gen. Michael Kurilla, the U.S. Central Command leader overseeing forces in the Middle East, during a House hearing in March.

Kurilla stressed the need for the services to create more “cost-effective” counter-drone systems based on directed-energy and laser technology to use against Houthi attacks, instead of launching costly missiles.

The Standard Missile-6 and Tomahawk weapons cost several million dollars per unit. Navy Secretary Carlos Del Toro told Congress in April the service is “approaching $1 billion in munitions” it needs to replenish as a result of its Red Sea operations.

Meanwhile, Israel and Ukraine both need U.S.-supplied air defense systems, including the Patriot, a system Taiwan also uses.

Cancian said there’s “moderate” overlap in the munitions each of the three security partners needs.

“There is some overlap and some risk that one or the other partners is going to have to live with, but there’s also many elements that are not overlapping,” he noted. “Conflict in the Western Pacific is going to be mostly air and naval, whereas what we see in Ukraine is mostly ground.”

Most of the weapons the U.S. has transferred directly to Israel are tens of thousands of air-to-ground munitions to drop on Gaza — bombs Ukraine can’t use as effectively given Russian air superiority.

Ukraine has struggled to bolster its air defenses, partly because an additional $48 billion in security aid was stalled in Congress for more than six months after President Joe Biden submitted his foreign aid request last year. Congress ultimately passed the supplemental spending package in April, which includes $14 billion for Israel and another $4 billion for Taiwan and Indo-Pacific allies, among other non-security initiatives.

Israel receives most of its U.S.-provided weapons through congressionally subsidized arms sales, which allowed the Biden administration to continue arming the nation without the supplemental spending package.

Right now, Taiwan also receives most of its U.S. weapons through arms sales. But constraints on the American industrial base — such as workforce shortages and supply chains hiccups — have contributed to delivery delays for some munitions orders from the island.

Expanding capacity
The Pentagon hopes the foreign aid legislation will allow it to continue large-scale arms transfers to friendly countries. And as the department replenishes systems to those three partners, it hopes the additional munitions demand will pump resources into lagging munitions production lines. A significant chunk of that will go toward increasing domestic munitions capacity in the U.S.

“The further we go along in this and get additional capacity, [the more] the defense-industrial base picks up its pace, then you can actually … take a little bit more risk because you’ve got a capability coming behind,” Brown, the Joint Chiefs chairman, said in March. “The conversation I’ve had with many of our NATO countries is they’re also looking at how to increase their defense-industrial base and capacity.”

But even with the foreign aid legislation, expanding industrial base capacity is no simple task.

“There is such a gap between where the collective West is and where it needs to be in terms of munitions stockpiles,” national security adviser Jake Sullivan told reporters in April. “There is a need for replenishment on all of these systems that extends out years.

“If anything, I believe that our defense industry is still underestimating, rather than overestimating, the need regardless of the precise duration or course of the war in Ukraine.”

Defense Secretary Lloyd Austin told Congress in October that some contractors have required employees to work additional shifts to keep up munitions production rates, highlighting labor shortages in the industrial base.

“What they’ve done in a lot of cases to meet urgent needs is double and triple shifts so that they can, in some cases, crank out munitions and weapons at a much greater speed,” Austin told Congress at the time.

“There are some limitations in terms of how quickly they can do certain things,” he added. “There will continue to be workforce challenges. And when you expand capacity, there’s this issue of the time it takes to build the capacity and make sure the lines are running smoothly.”

A former senior Pentagon official who now works in the defense industry, speaking on the condition of anonymity because the individual was not authorized to talk to the press, told Defense News the Pentagon is generally willing to take more risks on munitions inventory levels than in other areas, expecting that Congress will quickly fund replenishment efforts.

“The mentality in the Pentagon is if I do get in a fight, Congress is going to be real responsive to give me as much money as I need,” the former senior defense official said. “Right now, we’re having a problem replenishing artillery for a war in Europe that we’re not even in.”

“The thing that scares the living crap out of me is right now a large number of that capacity is depending on these supplementals.”

Only the most senior leaders in the Defense Department can adjust munitions inventory requirements, and they rarely do, according to the Republican congressional staffer. The staffer noted that lawmakers may try to address what they consider an excessive focus on short-term conflicts as they draft the annual defense policy bill in the weeks ahead.

The Pentagon in 2022 asked Congress for a critical munitions acquisition fund, which would allow it to buy important weapons before they are transferred and maintain a continuous order of munitions, rather than backfilling them. However, congressional appropriators were cool on the idea, viewing it as a slush fund.

Instead, Congress authorized multiyear contracts for critical munitions to ensure a steady demand signal to industry — a mechanism usually reserved for big-ticket purchases like ships and aircraft. Defense appropriators funded six of the seven multiyear munitions contracts the Pentagon sought for fiscal 2024.

The current senior defense official said the Pentagon intends to submit a revamped proposal for a critical munitions acquisition fund in the coming weeks, calling this version a munitions readiness account.

“As we’ve noticed with Ukraine when we go to stockpile these back into our own stocks, it is two to three years that it’s going to take for us to even replenish what we have provided, even if it’s an upgraded system,” the official said.

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Russia faces gasoline shortage — report
Due to repeated Ukrainian drone strikes on Russia’s oil refineries, the country is now dealing with a dwindling gasoline supply, Politico reported on April 29.

Diesel fuel prices for Russian consumers have sharply increased, rising nearly 10% just in the past week. Gasoline prices have also surged by more than 20% since the beginning of the year, according to the report.

The decreased fuel supply has forced an increasing number of Russian enterprises to halt production. Politico notes that Moscow has cut its fuel exports to near historical lows — last week, exports amounted to 712,000 tons, while in the same week in 2023, Russia exported 844,000 tons of petroleum fuel.

Igor Yushkov, an analyst at Russia's National Energy Security Fund, stated that prices are unlikely to drop anytime soon, and that Russia will probably have to start importing gasoline from neighboring Belarus.

Last year, Russia had to ban the export of gasoline and diesel fuel due to a domestic market shortfall to reassure motorists and stimulate the agricultural sector.

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The Committee of Ministers of the Council of Europe adopted a decision designed to begin the preparation of an agreement between Ukraine and the Council of Europe on the establishment of a Special Tribunal for the Crime of Aggression by the Russian Federation

The Committee of Ministers of the Council of Europe instructed the Secretary General of the Council Maria Pejchynovych-Burych to start preparing a potential draft agreement between Ukraine and the Council of Europe on the actual establishment of the Tribunal.

As Censor.NET informs, the press service of the Ministry of Foreign Affairs writes about this .

"The decision instructs the Secretary General of the Council of Europe to prepare the necessary documents to facilitate consultations in the Core Group and to prepare a potential draft agreement between Ukraine and the Council of Europe on the actual establishment of the Tribunal. The decision also provides for further work on a possible additional agreement regarding the organization of support for such a tribunal, its financing and other questions," the message says.

The Ministry of Foreign Affairs notes that this is an important practical step on the way to the establishment of the Special Tribunal. Each such step brings us closer to inevitable punishment for the crime of aggression against Ukraine.

"We continue to work to ensure that a fully functioning tribunal carries out this justice. This is critical not only for all Ukrainians who have suffered as a result of Russian aggression, but also for all peoples who seek to live in a peaceful and safe world," commented the decision of the Council of Europe Minister of Foreign Affairs of Ukraine Dmytro Kuleba .

Earlier, Prosecutor General Andriy Kostin said that Ukraine cooperates with representatives of more than 40 countries in creating a tribunal to bring the Russian leadership to justice for war crimes.

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Shmyhal opposed the ban on telephone communication for captured Russians, because it facilitates surrender
Prime Minister Denys Shmyhal did not support a petition in which Ukrainians demanded that Russian prisoners be denied the right to telephone. The head of the Cabinet argued that such telephone conversations are important so that Russians are not afraid of surrendering.

This is stated in the response to the petition on the website of the Cabinet of Ministers, Censor.NET informs .

Lawyer Inna Turova registered a petition with the demand to prohibit captured Russians from calling home. According to her, Ukrainians captured in Russia are deprived of the opportunity to call their relatives, as a result of which their families do not receive any information. The lawyer demanded appropriate conditions for captured Russian invaders.

Shmygal's answer states that the telephone conversations of the occupiers with their relatives "perform an important informative function, which provides objective information to the Russians that they should not be afraid to surrender, as Ukraine complies with all the provisions of the Convention and provides proper conditions for keeping prisoners of war." .

SPOILER

quote:

According to the Prime Minister, this will contribute to the fact that Russians will be more willing to surrender. Accordingly, this will enable Ukraine to release more of its defenders who are in Russian captivity.

Shmyhal also noted that telephone conversations are provided to captured Russians in accordance with the daily schedule, in time free from work, investigative activities or participation in court hearings. The camp administration can limit the duration of one conversation to 15 minutes.

In addition, the head of the Cabinet of Ministers referred to the points of the Geneva Convention, which Ukraine adheres to. They provide that prisoners of war have the right to correspondence. Shmygal also mentioned a commentary by the International Committee of the Red Cross, which states that the detaining power should also consider using more modern means of communication, such as telephone calls, video calls, recorded messages and e-mail.

Earlier it was reported that the petition with the demand to deprive the prisoners of war of the Russian Federation of the right to telephone communication received 25,000 votes .

SPOILER

https://kyivindependent.c(...)-as-black-and-white/

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Polish FM: Trump's stance on Ukraine is 'not as black and white'
Presumptive Republican presidential nominee Donald Trump's attitude towards Ukraine is "not as black and white as some people think," Polish Foreign Minister Radoslaw Sikorski said in an interview with Axel Springer media company, published in Politico on April 28.

Trump has said he would not commit to providing Ukraine with defense assistance if he won the 2024 election. Trump's sway over the party has contributed to the six-month deadlock of the $61 billion in U.S. aid for Ukraine.

Trump also described Russian President Vladimir Putin's move to launch the full-scale invasion of Ukraine as "genius" and "savvy" in 2022.

Sikorski, in turn, reminded that Trump sent Ukraine anti-tank missiles before the full-scale invasion "when others were not doing it," referring to the Javelin anti-tank missiles, first supplied in 2018.

"Donald Trump was right in urging us all in Europe to spend more on defense," the minister said.

The Polish Foreign Minister also said he "did not hear any protests from Trump" over the $61 billion package for Ukraine.

"So, I hope that candidate Trump has seen that this opposition to helping Ukraine is not actually popular in the United States, that it is harming his chances (to be re-elected)," he added.

Trump met with Polish President Andrzej Duda in New York on April 17.

The parties discussed Russia's war against Ukraine, among other issues. After the meeting, the former U.S. president said both Ukraine's "survival and strength" was important for the U.S. and that he was "behind Poland all the way."

Op zich is het heel zwart/wit natuurlijk. Trump is er voor Trump. Hij kiest voor waar hij zelf het meest voordeel uit kan halen. Als hij inziet dat dit niet het geval is zal hij zijn route bijstellen. En het liefst eet hij van meerdere walletjes en laat hij alle partijen geloven dat hij aan hun kant staat. Daar zijn al verschillende voorbeelden van voorbij gekomen in de afgelopen jaren.

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

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Trump doesn’t rule out political violence if he loses, and other takeaways from his Time interview
Former President Donald Trump wouldn’t dismiss the potential for political violence from his supporters if he isn’t elected in November, suggesting it would depend on the outcome of the presidential race.

“I don’t think we’re going to have that,” the presumptive GOP nominee told Time magazine. “I think we’re going to win. And if we don’t win, you know, it depends. It always depends on the fairness of an election.”

The remarks came in a wide-ranging interview with the magazine that published Tuesday. The conversation, which took place over two sessions earlier this month, also touched on abortion and Israel Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s contentious leadership, among other topics.

Here are four takeaways from the interview:

Trump’s baseless election conspiracies fuel his refusal to dismiss future violence and promise of January 6 pardons
Speaking to Time at his Mar-a-Lago club in Florida, Trump at first downplayed the likelihood of political violence similar to the January 6, 2021, attack on the US Capitol.

“I think we’re gonna have a big victory. And I think there will be no violence,” said Trump, who, after his 2020 defeat, assembled his supporters in Washington ahead of the attack, and then at first refused to call for them to leave the US Capitol grounds.

But pressed by the magazine in a later phone interview, Trump was less definitive about the future. Instead, he continued to push false 2020 election conspiracies, which he suggested provoked the violent mob.

“I don’t believe they’ll be able to do the things that they did the last time,” Trump said.

Throughout his political career, Trump has regularly refused to accept the results of an election or commit to a conceding defeat. After finishing second in the Iowa caucuses in 2016, Trump accused Texas Sen. Ted Cruz of fraud and called for a new contest. Later, while facing Democrat Hillary Clinton, Trump baselessly claimed the election he eventually won was “rigged” and repeatedly refused to say whether he would abide by the outcome. He again avoided a commitment heading into the 2024 election.

These repeated denials provoked Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis during the Republican primary to predict that Trump wouldn’t accept the results of the 2024 Iowa caucuses if he lost. (Trump ultimately won Iowa by a resounding margin.)

In his interview, Trump also doubled down on his promise to pardon the hundreds of people sentenced for crimes committed stemming from January 6. Trump has called these individuals “hostages,” though many have pleaded guilty to violent crimes or have been convicted by juries.

During an exchange on the issue, Time asked: “Will you consider pardoning every one of them?”

Trump replied, “I would consider that, yes.”

Time: “You would?”

Trump: “Yes, absolutely.”

The pitfalls of Trump’s latest abortion position are laid bare
Trump’s remarks in the interview on abortion were illustrative of the limitations – and potential political pitfalls – of his stated desire to punt the future of access to state legislatures and voters.

He refused to say whether he would veto a federal abortion ban, insisting such a measure was unlikely to happen, despite previously saying he wouldn’t sign a federal abortion ban if he were reelected and one came to his desk. And asked by Time whether he was “comfortable” if states punish women who undergo abortions where it’s banned, Trump didn’t object.

“I don’t have to be comfortable or uncomfortable,” Trump said. “The states are going to make that decision. The states are going to have to be comfortable or uncomfortable, not me.”

Earlier this month, Trump similarly said he would let states decide if doctors who perform illegal abortions should be punished.

As a candidate in 2016, Trump said there “has to be some form of punishment” for women getting an illegal abortion – a position his campaign walked back almost immediately.

President Joe Biden’s campaign immediately seized on Trump’s latest remarks.

“Donald Trump’s latest comments leave little doubt: if elected he’ll sign a national abortion ban, allow women who have an abortion to be prosecuted and punished, allow the government to invade women’s privacy to monitor their pregnancies, and put IVF and contraception in jeopardy nationwide,” Biden campaign manager Julie Chavez Rodriguez said Tuesday. “The horrific and devastating stories in states like Florida, Texas and Arizona with extreme abortion bans unleashed by Trump overturning Roe are just the beginning if he wins.”

Trump also ducked behind states when asked whether governments should monitor pregnancies to track whether a woman has an abortion.

“I think they might do that,” Trump said. “Again, you’ll have to speak to the individual states.”

Yet, Trump’s preference for the states to decide didn’t stop him from criticizing Florida’s new six-week ban as “too severe.” The law will take effect Wednesday, though voters in the Sunshine State – including Trump – will have an opportunity in November to decide whether to approve new protections that would guarantee abortion access until viability.

Trump, though, declined to share how he would vote.

“I don’t tell you what I’m gonna vote for,” he said.

Trump rekindles criticism of Netanyahu
In the aftermath of the October 7 attack on Israel by Hamas, Trump lashed out at Netanyahu and blamed the embattled Israeli prime minister for perceived security lapses that failed to stop the deadly incursion. The remarks drew widespread rebukes from Trump’s Republican primary rivals and even some supporters on Capitol Hill and advisers who bristled at the timing of the recriminations of an ally.

Though he remained noticeably uncommitted to supporting Israel’s military response, Trump withheld more public attacks of Netanyahu. But six months into the war between Israel and Hamas – and amid intensifying outrage at home and abroad over Israel’s treatment of Palestinians – Trump stepped up his criticism of the prime minister once again.

Trump told Time that Netanyahu “rightfully has been criticized for what took place on October 7” and declined to stand by him when asked whether he should be replaced as prime minister.

Instead, Trump – still aggrieved that Netanyahu allegedly “dropped out” of the US-backed military operation that led to the killing of Iranian general Qasem Soleimani – noted the Hamas attack “happened on his watch.”

Trump also said a future two-state solution between Israel and the Palestinians is “going to be very, very tough,” though he didn’t articulate his idea for a path forward.

“You had a lot of people that liked the idea four years ago,” Trump said. “Today, you have far fewer people that like that idea.”

Tepid calls for Wall Street Journal reporter’s release
It took some prodding, but Trump for the first time said that Wall Street Journal reporter Evan Gershkovich “should be released” after a year of detainment in Russia.

Asked why he hadn’t previously called for Gershkovich’s release, Trump said: “I guess because I have so many other things I’m working on.”

The tepid support for Gershkovich, an American journalist detained on an espionage charge that The Journal and US authorities have said is baseless, is reminiscent of Trump’s past refusal to forcefully condemn a foreign leader for their treatment of a perceived political enemy.

Earlier this year, Trump remained silent for days after Russian opposition leader Alexey Navalny died in Russian prison even as other world leaders swiftly and forcefully condemned the Kremlin. When Trump finally did publicly weigh in, he still did not condemn Russia or President Vladimir Putin, instead baselessly suggesting that he was being politically persecuted in the same way Navalny was. Trump later called Navalny “very brave” and said it was a “very sad situation.”

When journalist Jamal Khashoggi was murdered in 2018, Trump declined to condemn Saudi Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman, despite the CIA concluding the ruler authorized the brutal murder. Trump said he was “extremely angry and very unhappy” about Khashoggi’s murder, but said “nobody has directly pointed a finger” at the crown prince. In addition to the CIA’s conclusion, a United Nations report later also implicated bin Salman.

Hij sluit geen geweld uit als hij de verkiezingen niet wint maar het hangt van de eerlijkheid van de verkiezingen af lol. In andere woorden als hij verliest zal het weer gaan om gemanipuleerde verkiezingen en zijn de rapen weer gaar.

SPOILER

https://edition.cnn.com/2(...)-day-nine/index.html

quote:

Takeaways from Day 9 of the Trump hush money trial
Judge Juan Merchan handed down his first punishment to Donald Trump for violating the judge’s gag order in the New York hush money trial Tuesday, fining Trump $9,000 for nine violations.

The judge also warned the former president in his written order that continued violations could also lead to imprisonment – a striking reminder of the historic and surreal nature of this trial.

Once the trial itself began Tuesday, jurors heard from the attorney who negotiated both the Stormy Daniels and Karen McDougal hush money agreements, Keith Davidson, who detailed his tribulations with Trump’s then-fixer Michael Cohen in the final days of the 2016 campaign to get the money promised to Daniels for her to stay quiet.

Davidson testified that a tabloid editor believed Daniels’ story would be the “final nail in the coffin” for Trump’s presidential aspirations in October 2016 after the Access Hollywood tape came out. Instead, Davidson negotiated a $130,000 hush money deal with Cohen on Daniels’ behalf, and she did not speak out publicly before the 2016 election.

Here are the takeaways from day nine of the Trump hush money trial:

Trump is fined – and faces more later this week
Before the jury was called in Tuesday morning, Merchan levied a $9,000 fine against the former president for multiple violations of the judge’s gag order barring public discussion of witnesses in the case or the jury.

Merchan fined Trump for nine violations – $1,000 each, the maximum allowed by law – after prosecutors had filed a motion to hold the former president in contempt over his social media posts and public comments about Cohen, Daniels and the makeup of the jury pool.

This won’t be Trump’s last run-in with Merchan’s gag order, either. Last week, the district attorney’s office cited another four comments from Trump that allegedly violated the order. Merchan has scheduled a hearing on those violations for Thursday.

The comments cited by prosecutors pointed to Trump’s continued commentary about witnesses, including that he thought AMI chief David Pecker was “nice.” Prosecutors argued that the remark was a message to other witnesses to “be nice” on the stand.

In his order, the judge warned Trump that he could be imprisoned if he continues to willfully violate the gag order. Merchan could jail Trump for 30 days for finding him in contempt.

“The Court will not tolerate continued willful violations of its lawful orders and that if necessary and appropriate under the circumstances, it will impose an incarceratory punishment,” Merchan wrote.

Stormy’s lawyer takes the stand
Davidson, an LA-based attorney, represented both McDougal and Daniels when they were shopping stories about their romantic relations with Trump in 2016.

He described in detail his conversations with American Media Inc.’s then-chief content officer Dylan Howard – aided by text exchanges between the two rich in detail to help freshen up Davidson’s memory – as he cut a $150,000 deal with AMI for McDougal’s story and then struck a $130,000 deal directly with Cohen for Daniels after AMI backed out.

Davidson said Daniels’ manager, Gina Rodriguez, approached him and asked him to close the deal. “It’s going to be the easiest deal you’ve ever done in your entire life,” Davidson said, before pausing and letting out a little laugh.

Rodriguez told him it had already been negotiated. “All you have to do is talk to that a**hole Cohen,” Davidson recalled.

Davidson walked jurors through the contracts he drew up with Cohen and the excuses he got when Cohen initially didn’t pay.

“I thought he was trying to kick the can down the road until after the election,” Davidson testified about Cohen’s excuses for not coming up with the funding, which prompted him to tell Cohen at one point that the deal was off.

Davidson’s testimony also provided some lighter moments. In the contract, he used pseudonyms: Peggy Peterson for Daniels because she was the plaintiff and David Dennison for Trump because he was the defendant.

Assistant district attorney Joshua Steinglass asked if Dennison was a real person. “Yes, he was on my high school hockey team,” Davidson said.

“How does he feel about you now?” Steinglass asked.

“He’s very upset,” Davidson said, holding back a laugh.

Daniels’ attorney also had some choice words for Cohen. Asked to describe Cohen’s demeanor while negotiating the payment with him, Davidson said, “He was highly excitable, sort of a pants on fire kind of guy.”

Cohen, Davidson added, was like the cartoon dog who yells “squirrel!”

Jurors hear about the Stormy Daniels payment paper trail
Cohen’s former banker Gary Farro returned Tuesday morning to walk the jury through Cohen’s bank activity around the payment to Daniels.

Records show it took Cohen less than 24 hours to open an account for a shell company and use it to wire the money to Daniels’ attorney.

On October 27, 2016, Cohen pushed his bank to expedite a $131,000 advance on the home equity line of credit tied to his personal property he shared with his wife. That was approved and the money was transferred to the new Essential Consultant LLC account Cohen opened, telling his banker at the time it was for a rushed real estate deal.

The next morning Cohen wired $130,000 to an account facilitated by Daniels’ lawyer.

Farro testified that when he dealt with Cohen, 90% of the time it was an “urgent matter.”

The banker also said First Republic Bank closed all of Cohen’s accounts, leaving only his existing mortgages with the institution, after news of the Daniels hush money payment became public.

Trump videos played for the jury in court
Prosecutors used records custodians to enter several video clips into evidence Tuesday morning.

Three C-SPAN clips of Trump speaking at public events were played for the jury in open court. Two clips from October 2016 campaign events showed then-candidate Trump vehemently denying allegations from women who publicly accused him of sexual assault after the “Access Hollywood” tape was released earlier that month.

“As you have seen, right now I’m being viciously attacked with lies and smears. It’s a phony deal. I have no idea who these women are,” Trump says in one clip.

In a clip from January 11, 2017, President-elect Trump said, “Michael Cohen is a very talented lawyer. He’s a good lawyer in my firm.”

Snippets from Trump’s October 2022 deposition taken for his E. Jean Carroll defamation lawsuits were also admitted into evidence and played in court.

Prosecutors also played a clip from the deposition where Trump described that Truth Social was a platform he opened as an alternative to Twitter. In another clip Trump responds to questions confirming that he is married to Melania Trump, since 2005.

Jurors also saw Trump identify himself as the speaker in the “Access Hollywood” tape during that deposition – although no video clip was played in relation to the question about the “Access Hollywood” tape, nor the tape itself. (The judge previously ruled only a transcript of the audio could be admitted into evidence – not the video footage.)

Tuesday is a family affair
Trump had several visitors in the gallery behind him in court on Tuesday, beyond the typical accompaniment of aides there each day.

His son, Eric Trump, attended the trial – the first family member of the former president to appear during the trial. Susie Wiles, Trump’s senior campaign adviser, was sitting beside the former president’s son.

Ken Paxton, the Texas attorney general, and David McIntosh, who has cofounded conservative political groups including the Club for Growth, stopped into the courtroom for some of Tuesday’s session, too.

Tuesday’s appearances could be the beginning of a new kind of pilgrimage for Trump’s allies: instead of visiting him at Mar-a-Lago, they come to see the presumptive GOP nominee stand trial in New York.

Former Trump 2016 campaign adviser Carter Page – who was wiretapped by the FBI and later sued the Justice Department over it – was also inside the Manhattan courtroom, CNN’s Kaitlan Collins reported.

Though Trump brought a slew of aides and allies with him to court, Page was not sitting near them and instead entered through security with reporters and members of the public. Page declined to comment to CNN on why he was present, but his presence speaks to the circus-like atmosphere that has enveloped Trump’s trial.

Page was a key name during Robert Mueller’s Russia investigation, and his presence emphasizes the throwback nature of this trial — where many figures from Trump’s past and several whom he no longer speaks with have taken center stage.

Trump on Tuesday also got another dose of family friendly news: Before the trial began his attorneys had asked for May 17 off so that Trump could attend his son Barron’s graduation. The judge had said he didn’t know yet if that was possible – but on Tuesday, Merchan said things were moving quickly enough that he was comfortable having no court that day so Trump could attend graduation.

Trump had previously attacked the judge for preventing him from attending Barron’s graduation, even though the judge had only previously said he was withholding a decision on the request.

De rechter heeft eindelijk uitspraak gedaan over de eerste 10 overtredingen van Trump zijn gag order. Hij is veroordeeld tot het betalen van 9000 dollar. 9 van de 10 overtredingen zijn dus toegewezen. Ook heeft de rechter hem gemeld dat als hij zo door gaat er mogelijk een gevangenisstraf zal volgen als deze past bij de zwaarte van de overtreding. Dit kan maximaal 30 dagen per overtreding zijn. Ook moest hij de berichten waar dit over gaat voor 2.15pm verwijderen, wat hij braaf gedaan heeft. Natuurlijk heeft hij wel flink lopen klagen over de gag order tijdens zijn pers momentjes.

Donderdag zal er een zitting plaats vinden over nog eens 4 overtredingen van de gag order.

Ook is de rechter ermee akkoord gegaan dat Trump aanwezig mag zijn bij de diploma uitreiking van zijn zoon.

SPOILER

https://edition.cnn.com/2(...)oney-case/index.html

quote:

Donald Trump fined $9,000 for violating gag order in hush money case

New York Judge Juan Merchan has fined former President Donald Trump for repeatedly violating the gag order in the hush money trial.

Merchan ruled Trump violated the gag order nine times for criticizing expected trial witnesses in posts on social media and his campaign page. Trump must pay the $9,000 fine by the end of the week.

Merchan also threatened incarceration if Trump willfully violates the gag order again, writing in his ruling, “THEREFORE, Defendant is hereby warned that the Court will not tolerate continued willful violations of its lawful orders and that if necessary and appropriate under the circumstances, it will impose an incarceratory punishment.”

Trump did not visibly react as the judge was reading his decision in court.

Trump on Tuesday afternoon removed the seven “offending posts” from Truth Social and the two “offending posts” from his campaign website, as Merchan ordered.

Reposts are endorsements, judge says
In last week’s hearing on gag order violations, Trump’s defense argued that reposts of other people’s words do not violate the gag order and that the posts represent protected political speech in response to attacks.

Merchan rejected both arguments in his contempt ruling Tuesday.

First, he found that reposts are, in this case, endorsements.

“There can be no doubt whatsoever, that Defendant’s intent and purpose when reposting, is to communicate to his audience that he endorses and adopts the posted statement as his own,” Merchan wrote.

Second, Merchan acknowledged that the gag order does allow Trump to respond to political attacks, but said criticisms of key witnesses were not allowed.

“To allow such attacks upon protected witnesses with blanket assertions that they are all responses to ‘political attacks’ would be an exception that swallowed the rule. The Expanded Order does not contain such an exception,” he wrote.

Prosecutors had asked Merchan to hold Trump in contempt for violating the gag order, citing 10 social media posts from before and during the trial where the district attorney’s office accused Trump of violating the judge’s restrictions barring Trump from commenting on witnesses and jurors. They also want the posts taken down.

Prosecutors cited Trump’s comments about Michael Cohen, Stormy Daniels and the makeup of the jury pool.

The judge made the ruling after a hearing last week that, at times, got heated between him and Trump’s defense attorney Todd Blanche.

Prosecutors have subsequently flagged an additional four comments that Trump has made since last week’s hearing, including about Cohen and former AMI chief David Pecker, who testified last week. Merchan has scheduled another hearing on Thursday to address those comments.

$1,000 per violation is the maximum allowed by New York State law.

This is the first sanction against Trump for violating the gag order in this case.

quote:

Op woensdag 1 mei 2024 06:56 schreef Delenlill het volgende:
[ x ]

quote:

Op woensdag 1 mei 2024 08:12 schreef Dubbelzuurrr het volgende:

[..]
Facinerend toch altijd, dat sausje van een redelijke toonzetting over pseudo-intellectuele waarheidsvinding binnen een gesimplificeerde en extreem selectieve weergave van de werkelijkheid. Dat Dugin een cherrypicked propagandistisch verhaal houdt mag geen wonder heten, maar zo'n Tucker 'Toe, ga mee naar Snorkelland' Carlson die nog steeds een groeiend podium heeft met zijn schijnjournalistiek is toch wel een van de duidelijkste symptomen van de schrikbarende achteruitgang in kritisch denken in de Westerse wereld. Maar goed, ook weer niet heel verrassend dat dit soort figuren de door onszelf ingebouwde exploits maximaal proberen te benutten voor een eigen agenda.

quote:

Op woensdag 1 mei 2024 09:01 schreef phpmystyle het volgende:
Pff. Wat een kut verhaal weer

https://www.telegraaf.nl/(...)russen-te-ontsnappen

quote:

Op woensdag 1 mei 2024 09:01 schreef phpmystyle het volgende:
Pff. Wat een kut verhaal weer

https://www.telegraaf.nl/(...)russen-te-ontsnappen

quote:

Op woensdag 1 mei 2024 09:01 schreef Simmertje het volgende:

[..]
Het ironische is dat de mensen die deze man volgen juist het idee hebben dat ze "kritisch denken".

quote:

Op woensdag 1 mei 2024 09:01 schreef Simmertje het volgende:

[..]
Het ironische is dat de mensen die deze man volgen juist het idee hebben dat ze "kritisch denken".

quote:

Op woensdag 1 mei 2024 09:01 schreef Simmertje het volgende:

[..]
Het ironische is dat de mensen die deze man volgen juist het idee hebben dat ze "kritisch denken".

quote:

Op woensdag 1 mei 2024 10:26 schreef VEM2012 het volgende:

[..]
Ik vind sommige interviews van hem wel interessant. Sommige niet. Als je puur eenzijdig naar hem kijkt, ok. Maar juist door meerdere kanten te bekijken zie je ook meer.

Het is niet alsof wat je op NPO voorgeschoteld krijgt allemaal objectief is.

Ik heb wel altijd het idee dat Tucker de antwoorden op zijn vragen totaal niet begrijpt.

quote:

Op woensdag 1 mei 2024 10:26 schreef VEM2012 het volgende:

[..]
Ik vind sommige interviews van hem wel interessant. Sommige niet. Als je puur eenzijdig naar hem kijkt, ok. Maar juist door meerdere kanten te bekijken zie je ook meer.

Het is niet alsof wat je op NPO voorgeschoteld krijgt allemaal objectief is.

Ik heb wel altijd het idee dat Tucker de antwoorden op zijn vragen totaal niet begrijpt.

quote:

Op woensdag 1 mei 2024 10:26 schreef VEM2012 het volgende:
Maar juist door meerdere kanten te bekijken zie je ook meer.

quote:

Op woensdag 1 mei 2024 07:51 schreef Akathisia het volgende:

[..]
Hoe reageert Rusland in de regel op pijn?

Geeft het antwoord hierop het idee van een "goede strategie" voor Oekra�ne?

quote:

Op woensdag 1 mei 2024 10:05 schreef Straatcommando. het volgende:

En de meeste van dat soort figuren zijn gewoon boos op hun leven/overheid/land om wat voor reden dan ook en zijn dus eor definitie recalcitrant. Als ze tendens A is zullen zij onherroepelijk B roepen.

quote:

Op woensdag 1 mei 2024 11:49 schreef Knipoogje het volgende:

[..]
Meestal reageert Rusland met terugtrekken. Ze trokken zich terug uit de rest van Oekraine toen ze daar te veel pijn kregen (die hele colonne richting Kiev staat me bij) en in het verleden trokken ze zich terug uit Oost-Europa en uit Afghanistan toen ze daar teveel pijn kregen in economische schade en/of militair verlies.
Wat dacht jij dan hoe ze reageren? Rusland heeft eigenlijk nog nooit gereageerd met totale escalatie. Altijd met het verlies nemen op de lange termijn.

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Op woensdag 1 mei 2024 12:01 schreef BEFEM het volgende:

[..]
Dit is natuurlijk onzin, hoe denk je dat Rusland zo groot is geworden?

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Op woensdag 1 mei 2024 12:04 schreef Knipoogje het volgende:

[..]
Omdat ze zich nooit hoefden terug te trekken vanwege te veel pijn. Meestal is de trigger dat het volk het niet meer pikt.

quote:

Op woensdag 1 mei 2024 12:04 schreef Knipoogje het volgende:

[..]
Omdat ze zich nooit hoefden terug te trekken vanwege te veel pijn. Meestal is de trigger dat het volk het niet meer pikt. Daar zal nu wat meer voor nodig zijn omdat ze inmiddels al generaties aan propaganda hebben gelepeld, maar ik zou vrolijk doorgaan met het leven in Rusland duurder te maken. Dus die olieraffinaderijen moeten stuk.

Russen zijn kei- en keihard. De enige taal die ze snappen is geweld en hun leven kut maken. Anders lopen ze over je heen. (bron: afgelopen 1000 jaar)

quote:

Op woensdag 1 mei 2024 12:55 schreef Ulx het volgende:
Daarom is het heel verstandig dat Oekraine de raffinaderijen opblaast. Laat de brandstofprijs in Rusland maar omhoog gaan.

quote:

Op woensdag 1 mei 2024 14:29 schreef Ulx het volgende:
Zouden Russen blij zijn met duurdere brandstof? Nederlanders jengelen na dertig jaar nog steeds over het kwartje van Kok.

quote:

Op woensdag 1 mei 2024 14:29 schreef Ulx het volgende:
Zouden Russen blij zijn met duurdere brandstof? Nederlanders jengelen na dertig jaar nog steeds over het kwartje van Kok.

quote:

Op woensdag 1 mei 2024 14:37 schreef Ulx het volgende:
Nice! Helemaal als het inderdaad een trainingslocatie was. Niet alleen een berg recruten aan gort, maar waarschijnlijk ook de instructeurs.

[ x ]

[ x ]

quote:

Op woensdag 1 mei 2024 14:40 schreef luxerobots het volgende:

[..]
De rantsoenering is gestopt en Oekra�ne kan ook weer de aanval zoeken?

quote:

Op woensdag 1 mei 2024 14:29 schreef Ulx het volgende:
Zouden Russen blij zijn met duurdere brandstof? Nederlanders jengelen na dertig jaar nog steeds over het kwartje van Kok.

quote:

Op woensdag 1 mei 2024 10:26 schreef VEM2012 het volgende:

[..]
Ik vind sommige interviews van hem wel interessant. Sommige niet. Als je puur eenzijdig naar hem kijkt, ok. Maar juist door meerdere kanten te bekijken zie je ook meer.

Het is niet alsof wat je op NPO voorgeschoteld krijgt allemaal objectief is.

Ik heb wel altijd het idee dat Tucker de antwoorden op zijn vragen totaal niet begrijpt.

quote:

Op woensdag 1 mei 2024 14:57 schreef Anton91 het volgende:
[ x ]

quote:

Op woensdag 1 mei 2024 08:06 schreef Nyamuk het volgende:

[..]
Makkelijk praten als jij de rekening niet hoeft te betalen. Maar zo kennen we het pro Oekra�nekamp weer.

Het maakt niet uit hoeveel geld er naar Oekra�ne gaat. Er zijn niet genoeg handjes om de wapens vast te houden. En van die huurlingen is ineens geen spoor meer te bekennen.

quote:

Op woensdag 1 mei 2024 15:17 schreef BEFEM het volgende:

[..]
Ben wel benieuwd naar de werking hiervan. In theorie, volgens de filmpjes iig, is dit goed tegen veel drones?

Zijn er al berichten over waar deze wordt ingezet en of het goed werkt?

SPOILER

Rheinmetall Air Defence: Skynex truck-mounted engaging drone swarm

quote:

Op woensdag 1 mei 2024 15:33 schreef Anton91 het volgende:

[..]
Weet niet of die er al zijn, maar volgens het promo filmpje van Rheinmetall werkt het erg goed.

SPOILER

Rheinmetall Air Defence: Skynex truck-mounted engaging drone swarm

quote:

Op woensdag 1 mei 2024 10:29 schreef Simmertje het volgende:

[..]
Als hij dan ook kritische vragen durft te stellen richting "die andere kant" zou het misschien nog interessant zijn. Deze man is overduidelijk bezig met een eigen (politiek) gestuurde agenda. Niets objectief aan dus, de vergelijking met de NPO raakt dus kant noch wal.

quote:

Op woensdag 1 mei 2024 10:44 schreef Straatcommando. het volgende:

[..]
Hij weet wel interessante mensen te strikken, maar hij is een waardeloos interviewer. Zoals je zelf al zegt : hij snapt de antwoorden vaak niet eens. Hell, ik denk dat hij soms niet eens helemaal begrijpt wat hij vraagt.

quote:

Op woensdag 1 mei 2024 14:29 schreef Ulx het volgende:
Zouden Russen blij zijn met duurdere brandstof? Nederlanders jengelen na dertig jaar nog steeds over het kwartje van Kok.

quote:

Op woensdag 1 mei 2024 16:53 schreef VEM2012 het volgende:

[..]
Momenteel betalen ze een schijntje van wat jij en ik hier betalen voor brandstof.

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Op woensdag 1 mei 2024 16:55 schreef Ulx het volgende:

[..]
Ze verdienen ook een schijntje. Dus dat heft elkaar weer op.

quote:

Op woensdag 1 mei 2024 17:00 schreef VEM2012 het volgende:

[..]
Dat hangt een beetje af van wat je doet en waar je zit. Maar zelfs uitgaande van gemiddelden is het daar nog steeds relatief goedkoop. Niet voor niets stoken ze daar zonder met de ogen te knipperen naar 25 graden, waar ik in Nederland de kachel vaak op 19 of zelfs 18 graden zie staan.

quote:

Op woensdag 1 mei 2024 17:07 schreef Ulx het volgende:
Mooi. Het is nog geen winter.

quote:

Op woensdag 1 mei 2024 17:08 schreef Hatseflats22 het volgende:

[..]
Hoe weet jij eigenlijk op welke temperatuur de thermostaat zo'n beetje staat, bij de Russen?

quote:

Op woensdag 1 mei 2024 17:08 schreef Hatseflats22 het volgende:

[..]
Hoe weet jij eigenlijk op welke temperatuur de thermostaat zo'n beetje staat, bij de Russen?

quote:

Op woensdag 1 mei 2024 17:10 schreef VEM2012 het volgende:

[..]
Dat krijg je als je een beetje van de wereld ziet. Dat je merkt dat in de meeste landen men gewoon de hut wel warm stookt.

quote:

Op woensdag 1 mei 2024 17:10 schreef VEM2012 het volgende:

[..]
Dat krijg je als je een beetje van de wereld ziet. Dat je merkt dat in de meeste landen men gewoon de hut wel warm stookt.

quote:

Op woensdag 1 mei 2024 17:11 schreef Hatseflats22 het volgende:

[..]
Ik ben ook wel eens uit mijn dorp geweest, maar toevallig nooit in Rusland. Maar jij komt veel in Rusland dus?

quote:

Op woensdag 1 mei 2024 17:12 schreef VEM2012 het volgende:

[..]
Veel? Nee.

quote:

Op woensdag 1 mei 2024 15:37 schreef BEFEM het volgende:

Soms lees je verhalen over de werking, over Patriots bijvoorbeeld, maar over Skynex ben ik niks tegengekomen.

quote:

Op woensdag 1 mei 2024 18:10 schreef Delenlill het volgende:
Dat zijn weer mooie cijfers. Jammer dat na 9 mei deze waarschijnlijk weer flink omlaag zullen gaan.
[ x ]
Het zou grappig zijn als juist door corruptie het hele kaartenhuis in elkaar zou vallen. Corruptie dat door Putin in stand is gehouden.
[ x ]
[ x ]

quote:

Op woensdag 1 mei 2024 18:17 schreef Nyamuk het volgende:
[ x ]

quote:

Op woensdag 1 mei 2024 18:21 schreef Ulx het volgende:

[..]
Denk je?

[ x ]

quote:

Op woensdag 1 mei 2024 18:27 schreef Ulx het volgende:

[..]
Ze hebben nog andere voertuigen neergezet ook hoor.

[ x ]

quote:

Ukraine will start operating F-16s after Orthodox Easter on May 5, Kyiv has said, as the country contends with devastating Russian bombardment and the long wait for the Western-made fighter jets.

quote:

Op woensdag 1 mei 2024 18:38 schreef Hyperdude het volgende:

[..]
https://www.msn.com/en-us(...)-ukraine/ar-AA1nYDLB

quote:

Op woensdag 1 mei 2024 18:42 schreef Delenlill het volgende:

[..]
Dat zou natuurlijk geweldig zijn als zij vanaf 6 mei met F-16s kunnen vliegen. Maar beetje raar om dat gewoon de wereld in te gooien. Het zou mooier zijn geweest als het pas uit zou komen als zij er al een tijdje mee aan het rondvliegen waren.

Al wil na 5 mei natuurlijk ook niet zeggen dat het de volgende dag al is.

quote:

Op woensdag 1 mei 2024 18:10 schreef Delenlill het volgende:
Dat zijn weer mooie cijfers. Jammer dat na 9 mei deze waarschijnlijk weer flink omlaag zullen gaan.
[ x ]
Het zou grappig zijn als juist door corruptie het hele kaartenhuis in elkaar zou vallen. Corruptie dat door Putin in stand is gehouden.
[ x ]
[ x ]

quote:

Op woensdag 1 mei 2024 18:52 schreef Ulx het volgende:
En wanneer is het nou Poetin's feestje? Ook binnenkort, toch?

quote:

Belarusian dictator's grand Sochi residence revealed in new investigation
A sprawling new residence, complete with high-end amenities such as a hotel and restaurant complex, is currently under construction in the mountains near Sochi for Belarusian leader Alexander Lukashenko, according to a report by The Insider on April 30.

Located in the village of Krasnaya Polyana, Russia, the luxurious estate is set to include features such as solid reinforced concrete walls, gilded door handles, multiple pools, kitchens, and heavily guarded security, investigative reports by Belsat and Belpol reveal.

SPOILER

quote:

This extensive property, surrounded by the historic Celtic dolmens from the III-II centuries BCE, covers a staggering 97,248 square meters. It includes 12 structures with the main building alone taking up a third of the total area.

The construction plan entails 12 structures covering a total area of 7,374 square meters on a plot spanning over 97,248 square meters. The main building alone will occupy one-third of this area.

The main structure will house a variety of facilities including a cloakroom, banquet hall, two types of kitchens, a dining room, lounge, cinema, security quarters, and a personal study. Additionally, its basement will offer luxury amenities like a swimming pool, Russian and Turkish baths, massage rooms, a gym, and even a ski room.

A lounge area covering 62 square meters, a 20-meter sauna, two smaller bedrooms at 36 square meters each, and the main bedroom spanning 55 meters will be on the upper floor.

Three VIP cottages, each measuring 730 square meters, are planned near the main building. One of them will be adapted for people with reduced mobility and will include pools, a dining area, and three bedrooms, among other amenities.

There will be a small four-room hotel measuring 348 square meters. Accommodations for staff will be situated below ground level. The first floor will feature a foyer, toilets, reception area, and a 74-square-meter dining room for 24 people. The second floor will house four 48-square-meter rooms.

The territory will also include a restaurant complex larger than the hotel, sports facilities, a checkpoint, garage, and a security building with six beds in the relaxation area and a weapons room.

Belpol suggests that the new complex is being constructed for Lukashenko, given the involvement of his closest associates and "wallets" in the purchase and construction scheme.

Belsat suggests that Lukashenko may use this estate after leaving the presidential office, whether voluntarily or involuntarily. The decision to build the residence outside of Belarus was apparently made after the 2020 elections and subsequent protests.

Investigators claim that the residence is being built quietly, through a front company, with concerns that information about its purpose might reach the media.

quote:

Russia hit Odesa with three Iskander-M missiles – Air Force
Late in the evening on April 30, Russia launched a missile attack on Odesa: three people were killed, three more were injured

Russian troops attacked densely populated areas of Odesa overnight with three Iskander-M ballistic missiles, said the speaker of the Air Force of the Armed Forces of Ukraine, Illya Yevlash, during the national telethon.

According to Yevlash, now the enemy has chosen Odesa as its key target. Before that, Russian troops struck and continue to strike Kharkiv.

"Now it (the enemy –ed.) attacked densely populated areas of Odesa with three Iskander-M ballistic missiles. As a result, people were killed and injured," the Air Force spokesman said.

Late in the evening on April 30, Russia launched a missile attack on Odesa: three people were killed and three others were injured.

On April 29, around 6:30 p.m., the Russian troops launched a missile attack on Odesa.
Subsequently, regional governor Oleh Kiper stated that the Russians hit the city with a ballistic missile, tentatively a cluster munition.

On the morning of April 30, Kiper reported that the number of dead as a result of the attack had increased to five after a man born in 1960 died in the hospital.

quote:

France Orders Firms to Prioritise Anti-Air Missile Orders
A major supplier affected by the order was Aubert et Duval, which produces specialist steel for items including submarines and the barrels for Caesar truck-mounted cannons supplied to Ukraine.

France has ordered firms involved in production of Aster air defence missiles to prioritise those contracts, Defence Minister Sebastien Lecornu said Monday.

It was "the first time" he had used special powers to compel queue-jumping for defence orders, meaning "civilian orders must from now on have lower priority," Lecornu said in Calvi, Corsica, where he was meeting his Italian counterpart Guido Crosetto.

"Players in the defence industry must understand that they have to work faster, and that the country's future depends on this work," Crosetto said.

SPOILER

quote:

Aster 15 and 30 missiles are produced by pan-European manufacturer MBDA, and Italy and France have supplied an unspecified number to Ukraine as it defends against Russian invaders.

Kyiv has asked for more of the missiles, which have also been used to defend against drones launched by Yemen's Huthi rebels against ships in the Red Sea.

A source familiar with the matter said a major supplier affected by the order was Aubert et Duval, which produces specialist steel for items including submarines and the barrels for Caesar truck-mounted cannons supplied to Ukraine.

MBDA says it will reduce production times for Aster missiles to "less than 18 months by 2026" -- from 42 months in 2022.

Output of Asters should increase by 50 percent over the same timeframe, CEO Eric Beranger has said.

One brake on production is the fact that missile components "cross the Alps several times" during the manufacturing process.

Lecornu said it was "urgent to simplify the bureaucracy" around shipping the weapons between France and Italy.

Final assembly of Aster missiles currently takes place in France, but Lecornu said he looked "favourably" on Rome's request to set up a second production line in Italy.

quote:

Norway to allocate over $600 million for Ukrainian air defense, ammunition
Oslo will increase aid to Ukraine by 7 billion Norwegian kroner (about $630 million), the bulk of which will support Kyiv's anti-aircraft and artillery ammunition supplies, Norwegian Prime Minister Jonas Gahr Stoere told the E24 news outlet on April 30.

Stoere previously said on April 21 that Norway would direct "significant sums" to Ukraine's air defense but did not specify the exact amount.

The new funds will primarily support military aid to Ukraine, with a smaller portion allocated to civilian financial aid, Stoere said.

Norway will partner with Germany, the United States, and other allies to find anti-aircraft ammunition to better protect Ukraine's skies. According to Stoere, air defense systems have already been produced and are ready to deliver to Kyiv in the near future.

"Now it's about delivering fairly immediately on this with air defense," Stoere said.

"We get daily news that Ukrainians are waking up to apartment buildings, hospitals and power plants being hit by Russian missiles. They must be able to defend themselves against this."

The funds will also support the Czech initiative to purchase artillery shells for Ukraine's front-line troops.

Norway has recently ramped up efforts to increase defense production, both for domestic needs and for aid to Ukraine. Oslo allocated 2 billion Norwegian kroner ($190 million) in January for Ukrainian aid.

quote:

Op woensdag 1 mei 2024 18:17 schreef Nyamuk het volgende:
[ x ]

quote:

"Alcohol is good": Mariupol partisans poisoned occupants to death

Resistance forces poisoned the Russian military with pre-prepared alcohol.

In occupied Mariupol, nine Russian military officers have been poisoned to death by alcohol as a result of an operation of the Mariupol resistance. This was reported by the Mariupol city council on 1 May.

According to preliminary information, nine Russian military officers were poisoned with alcohol. In the Russian social networks confirmed the fact of successful operation of the Mariupol resistance against the occupants of the Russian Federation.

Mariupol resistance reported that with their participation a batch of tainted alcohol was transferred to the occupants. They published a photo fixation of the transfer and promised that "this is not the end yet".

SPOILER

quote:

Batya. I'm trying. Alcohol. - good. From our hands - 9-fold goodness this time. Photo of the transfer - attached. Happiness to the dead. Russians - thank you for factchecking. Further - will be, - stated in the message of the partisans.

In the city Council recalled that in Mariupol systematically die military RF under mysterious circumstances. In these cases, the occupiers suspect local residents and conduct raids in search of saboteurs.

Earlier, six organisers of the Russian presidential election were poisoned to death in Mariupol. Among them were identified two local activists of the United Russia party and four guests from Moscow, including employees of the CEC of the Russian Federation.

All of the dead were poisoned by food and beer that had been delivered to them from a restaurant in Mariupol. Deadly doses of arsenic had been added to the food and drinks.

The restaurant, from where the food was delivered, was checked, no traces of poison were found. But the courier disappeared without a trace.

quote:

Op woensdag 1 mei 2024 18:57 schreef Delenlill het volgende:
https://english.nv.ua/nat(...)-photo-50414712.html
[..]

SPOILER

[..]

quote:

Redeeming futures
How Kadyrov’s potential successor has been using the war in Ukraine as a path to redemption

Apti Alaudinov, one of the most likely heirs to the Chechen throne in the light of leader Ramzan Kadyrov’s illness, has used the war in Ukraine to earn the Kremlin’s trust and help win back Kadyrov’s favour.

Alaudinov has managed to survive in Chechnya despite initially being on the opposing side to the Kadyrov clan, and even being banished from Chechnya five years ago. As war broke out in Ukraine, Alaudinov finally got a chance to atone for his sins and help Kadyrov save his private army from ruin.

SPOILER

quote:

Reformed federalist
Alaudinov joined Ramzan Kadyrov’s team in 2006, at a time when the republic was embroiled in a bitter power struggle.

Despite being born into a military family, Alaudinov played no part in the First Chechen War, but his father and brother, who both died in 1994, were supported and armed by Moscow from the very beginning — unlike the Kadyrov family, who initially fought for Chechnya’s independence.

Kadyrov’s father, Akhmad, who was named mufti of an independent Chechnya during the First Chechen War, even declared jihad, or holy war, on Russia. The young Ramzan was an ardent admirer of guerrilla leader Shamil Basaev, but didn’t fight, as his father kept both of his sons out of the war.

Alaudinov didn’t change the family tradition in the Second Chechen War, continuing to support the federal troops. Kadyrov Sr. switched sides at the outbreak of the second campaign, offering his services to the Russian government before his death in 2004.

By 2006, a clear conflict had arisen between different factions in Chechnya — one represented by incumbent president Alu Alkhanov, supported by the Chechen security forces, who fought on Russia’s side in the two Chechen wars, and the other by young deputy prime minister, Ramzan Kadyrov, whose power base relied on amnestied Chechen militants.

The conflict finally reached its climax that same year, with Kadyrov effectively seizing power and threatening to kill Alkhanov if he set foot in Chechnya, while Moscow remained silent.

This was when Alaudinov understood it was time to switch to the winning team — and the best way to do that was to present the head of another sworn enemy of Kadyrov on a platter.

Alaudinov, who worked at the Chechen Interior Ministry’s organised crime unit at the time, opened an investigation into one of Kadyrov’s deadliest rivals, special forces commander Movladi Baisarov. Like Alaudinov himself, Baisarov had been a Chechen federalist and headed a unit under the direct supervision of the Russian Federal Security Service (FSB).

Baisarov didn’t live long enough to stand trial — he was gunned down in Moscow in November 2006. The investigation showed the shooters to be employees of the Chechen Interior Ministry. The operation was led by Kadyrov’s right-hand man Adam Delimkhanov, while eyewitnesses claim Alaudinov himself was present.

Nobody was charged with murder, as the Interior Ministry officers testified they had come to detain Baisarov, who allegedly resisted arrest and was shot dead in the ensuing melee.

It was the first of many hits on Kadyrov’s political rivals, which culminated in his wielding absolute power in Chechnya.

When he became head of the republic in 2007, he thanked Alaudinov more than generously. Within four years, Alaudinov had risen to the post of Deputy Minister of the Chechen Interior Ministry and was the youngest police general in Russia.

A source in Chechen law enforcement told Novaya Gazeta Europe that Alaudinov’s real job consisted of “punishment missions” set out by Kadyrov. Alaudinov’s sphere of influence covered the eastern part of Chechnya, while another Kadyrov ally, parliament speaker Magomed Daudov, dealt with matters in western Chechnya.

“Everything that can be attributed to these men was done on their master’s instructions,” the source said.

But Alaudinov’s career in Chechnya came to an abrupt end in 2019, as he and his family lost their cushy jobs, expensive properties, and business interests — all because of the decades-old conflict between amnestied militants and federalists.

Falling out of favour
In July 2019, Kadyrov sacked Ibragim Temirbaev, the mayor of Argun, Chechnya’s second city — officially for corruption — and appointed a member of the Kadyrov clan, 28-year-old Khas-Magomed Kadyrov, in his place.

Kadyrov then got hold of a wire tap of conversations between Temirbaev and regional officials. An enraged Temirbaev talked openly of Kadyrov and his out-of-control family.

Most of the people Temirbaev spoke to had one thing in common: they had all been in the federal camp in the two Chechen wars. Some of them were present at the meeting with Kadyrov’s foe Alu Alkhanov in 2006, where pro-Russian Chechen security officers discussed possible ways to get rid of the Kadyrov clan.

Temirbaev’s lack of restraint didn’t go unnoticed: anyone he spoke to in that period was detained, and Temirbaev himself was killed in a “car accident” two years later.

Alaudinov was one of the highest-ranking officials detained in the summer of 2019. That and the fact that the “purge” of the Chechen elite had become common knowledge meant getting rid of him altogether would have raised too many awkward questions. He officially remained in his post for another two years, until March 2021. Initially, he publicly repented, swore his undying love to Kadyrov and tried every which way to absolve himself of his guilt. He even wrote poems to the leader.

Kadyrov didn’t let Alaudinov back into the inner circle, but at least he didn’t kill him. Alaudinov retained his salary and seniority bonus without showing his face at the Chechen Interior Ministry after August 2019.

Alaudinov left Chechnya, settled in Moscow and until March 2022 lived the quiet life of “a respectable pensioner”.

Atoning for sins
When Russia launched its full-scale invasion of Ukraine in February 2022, Daniil Martynov, the commander of the Chechen National Guard detachments, promised Kadyrov in a phone call that he would invite him to “dance to Chechen music” on Khreshchatyk, Kyiv’s main thoroughfare.

However, it soon became apparent there would be no Chechen folk dances or parades in Kyiv. Within two weeks, Martynov was back in Grozny, telling Kadyrov the Russian army was in total disarray.

Kadyrov quickly realised that a long and drawn-out war would require manpower, and that having held so many military parades in Grozny, he could easily lose his main asset — his armed men, tied to the Interior Ministry and National Guard in name only.

But while Moscow licked its wounds at the failed blitzkrieg, Grozny got straight down to business.

The ranks of former Chechen police officers provided a rich vein of recruits, who were lured with more than just money. Chechnya came up with the system of people atoning for their sins by fighting in the “special military operation”. This way, the Chechen authorities could enlist those who had got on the wrong side of Kadyrov and those hiding out in the republic because of problems with the Russian law, of whom there had never been a shortage.

This practice was later adopted by mercenary chief Yevgeny Prigozhin and then by the Russian authorities, but Kadyrov was the pioneer.

Less than a month after the war began, in March 2022, Kadyrov published a photo of himself with the disgraced Alaudinov for the first time in years, calling him his “dear brother” and announcing that he would “lead thousands of Chechen volunteers in the special operation to denazify and demilitarise Ukraine”.

Many observers assumed that Alaudinov had gone to war to give himself a chance at getting back into Kadyrov’s inner circle. Alaudinov himself said that he, a 48-year-old retiree and sole breadwinner in a large family — he has 12 children — left a cushy life in Moscow when he first saw coffins coming back to Chechnya.

Alaudinov said he had not signed a contract and vowed to fight for free.

“It was my vow before God that I was going to a holy war and I needed nothing for it but the gratitude of the Almighty,” he said.

By July 2022, Kadyrov’s entire core of fighters was back from its “holy war”. They all received honours from Kadyrov and Putin, if not the Almighty. Alaudinov was made secretary of the Chechen Security Council and became an “honorary citizen of Chechnya”.

Two months later, he went back to Ukraine and was appointed commander of the Akhmat volunteer special forces unit. The unit was key to Kadyrov saving his own “army” — this is why he needed someone he could both rely on, but also someone he wouldn’t mind putting in danger.

Phantom soldiers
By the autumn of 2022, the Chechen authorities had come up with a unique strategy that allowed Kadyrov to maintain his reputation as a loyal Putin footsoldier while still preserving his army.

The simple but effective strategy involved recruiting volunteers of various ethnicities, though chiefly Russians, yet still recording them as Chechen volunteers when they got to Ukraine.

In early April 2022, a mobilisation centre opened at the Russian Special Forces University training ground in the Chechen town of Gudermes. It began an intensive PR campaign to recruit soldiers to the “holy war”, with no requirements and the promise of excellent pay.

The money for this so-called good cause came from the local budget, which Kadyrov, secure in the knowledge that Putin has granted him impunity, had always managed at his own discretion. That now proved decisive. While other governors looked for extra-budgetary funding and the Russian bureaucratic machine was still just setting up similar recruitment centres around the country, the system was up and running in Chechnya and sending up to 200 fighters a week to Ukraine.

But just one Akhmat special forces unit wasn’t enough to demonstrate that Kadyrov’s “foot soldiers” were actively involved in Putin’s war. Kadyrov began to create more armed units, consisting solely of locals. In a little over a year from the outbreak of hostilities, Kadyrov claimed to have formed three Defence Ministry battalions and regiments and three National Guard units.

All of these units, including that of the volunteers, had Akhmat in their name. There were eventually so many that they became virtually indistinguishable.

This was done deliberately to create the impression that a large number of armed formations on the Ukrainian front were directly associated with Kadyrov.

The soldiers fighting for Kadyrov in Ukraine also have one privilege that neither professional soldiers, nor conscripts, nor Russian prisoners have. The Chechen units are not subject to indefinite, life-long contracts, whereby the only way home from the war is due to injury or in a coffin.

The Chechen battalions have regular troop rotation, meaning the authorities can preserve their fighters and skew the figures. While on paper it may look like the Chechen authorities have sent over 40,000 fighters to Ukraine, the true number is three or even four times lower, as a volunteer can return to Chechnya and sign several short-term contracts.

Another detail is even more key.

The overwhelming majority of Akhmat forces the Chechen authorities nurture with such fanfare do not actually see combat on the front line.

Military analyst Ruslan Leviev, founder of the Conflict Intelligence Team military think-tank, says that based on the footage Chechen fighters send from Ukraine, they are mostly deep in the hinterland.

Only one unit with direct links to Kadyrov actually does see combat: the Akhmat volunteer special forces, only 15% of whom are Chechens, according to Alaudinov.

The way Chechens end up as Akhmat volunteers tells us everything we need to know about how Kadyrov really views the war in Ukraine.

Imam with a machine gun
By late 2022, news had emerged from Chechnya about Chechens who had got on the wrong side of the authorities, and relatives of Kadyrov’s critics and political rivals, being forced to go to war.

Putin’s holy war, the same war from which Kadyrov had strenuously protected his eldest son, now of age, and numerous other adult relatives and even his closest associates, had become the ultimate form of punishment in Chechnya. The Chechens sent to Ukraine as volunteers receive no military training at the Russian Special Forces University. They are sent to the slaughter with almost no chance of survival.

In late March, after a long absence from the front — having been at the Russian General Staff Academy, and worked as an election agent for Putin during the election campaign — Alaudinov returned to his duties as Akhmat commander and surveyed the front line held by his unit, shooting a video to show his soldiers at work.

Imam Valid Kuruev, who had once been deputy mufti of Chechnya but fell out of favour with Kadyrov, was abducted and sent to volunteer with the Akhmat special forces unit alongside two nephews and a son.

In the video, the imam says that neither he nor his relatives knew how to take apart or load a machine gun before the war. The video also makes it clear that the Chechens Kadyrov has punished with “holy war” are not entitled to short-term contracts. Like other Russian conscripts, they are sent to the front indefinitely.

In the video, Alaudinov appears to have taken on the role of a merciful commander, promising the disgraced imam he could finally go on leave after a year in the trenches.

“Go on leave with your nephews and son,” Alaudinov is heard to say. “You’ve fought enough.”

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Chashiv Yar. Russia throws soldiers into battle unarmed, forcing them to acquire weapons in battle
A spokesman for the Khortytsia Operational-Strategic Group said that the Russian military command instructs its soldiers to obtain weapons in combat

In the area of Chasiv Yar in the Donetsk Oblast, there have been instances of Russia sending its troops into battle without weapons, the spokesman for the Khortytsia Operational-Strategic Group, Nazar Voloshyn, told LIGA.net.

"In the area of Chasiv Yar, there are cases in which the enemy, regardless of the loss of personnel, sends people into battle without weapons. They may hold sticks or something else that imitates the presence of weapons. At the same time, they receive instructions that they must get weapons in the battle," he said.

Voloshyn added that the Defense Forces continue to inflict losses on the occupiers in manpower and equipment, exhausting the enemy along the entire battle line.

In April, the Russian army lost 24,156 personnel, 308 tanks, 671 combat vehicles, 15,945 drones, 10 anti-aircraft systems, and other military equipment in the area of responsibility of the Khortytsia Operational-Strategic Group.

quote:

Op woensdag 1 mei 2024 20:06 schreef Delenlill het volgende:
https://news.liga.net/en/(...)-shturm-bez-oruzhiya
[..]

SPOILER

quote:

Op woensdag 1 mei 2024 20:06 schreef Delenlill het volgende:
https://news.liga.net/en/(...)-shturm-bez-oruzhiya
[..]

quote:

Op woensdag 1 mei 2024 20:06 schreef Delenlill het volgende:
https://news.liga.net/en/(...)-shturm-bez-oruzhiya
[..]

Enemy at the Gates Soviet Charge Scene (High Quality)

quote:

Op woensdag 1 mei 2024 20:06 schreef Delenlill het volgende:
https://news.liga.net/en/(...)-shturm-bez-oruzhiya
[..]

quote:

Op woensdag 1 mei 2024 20:43 schreef Ulx het volgende:
[ x ]

Ik denk dat er een optie drie is die Biden heeft gekozen. Uiteraard ook omdat Rusland als permanent lid van de Veiligheidsraad gewoon het VN embargo tegen Noord-Korea en Iran schendt en waarschijnlijk ook een beetje door het gesodemieter van de GOP, namelijk: OK, als het zo moet gaan wij Oekra�ne echt helpen.

Ik denk dat het wel eens een strategische blunder kan zijn geweest van China.

quote:

Op woensdag 1 mei 2024 20:49 schreef Papierversnipperaar het volgende:

[..]
De Amerikanen zeuren nu al niet meer over het bombarderen van Russische raffinaderijen, mogen de Ukrainers nu al Amerikaanse wapens gebruiken tegen doelen op Russisch grondgebied?

quote:

Op woensdag 1 mei 2024 15:00 schreef Ulx het volgende:
Dan moet Oekraine meer drones op de olieproductie schieten.

quote:

Op woensdag 1 mei 2024 06:56 schreef Delenlill het volgende:
[ x ]

quote:

Op woensdag 1 mei 2024 18:02 schreef Glazenmaker het volgende:

[..]
Genoeg voor wat bloedroebels?

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Nepalese mercenaries desert from the Russian army en masse

Nepalese mercenaries are deserting the Russian army en masse due to ill-treatment and heavy losses.

The press service of the Defence Intelligence of Ukraine reported on this.

It is reported that the escape of mercenaries from Nepal assigned to military unit No. 29328 was caused by huge losses in ‘meat assaults’ and the brutal treatment of field commanders, including extrajudicial executions for refusing to comply with orders. In addition, mercenaries are not paid the money they were promised.

The Russians are actively searching for fugitives in the occupied Ukrainian settlements, in particular in the Luhansk region, where the personnel of the military unit No. 29328 were located, but this process usually does not yield results.

SPOILER

quote:

The command of the military unit reports on desertions in its accounts and statements, explaining that they are likely to leave for their home country because of the earthquake.

“However, getting from the occupied Luhansk region back to Nepal alone is not an easy task. In addition, Nepalese citizens may face prosecution in their country for participating in hostilities against Ukraine as part of the Russian army. As a result, the desire to earn ‘easy’ money has turned into a trap for Nepalese mercenaries, with no safe way out,” the Defence Intelligence of Ukraine said in a statement.

Mercenaries from Nepal in the Russian army
Militarnyi previously reported that the Nepalese government asked Russia to send back hundreds of Nepalese citizens who were illegally recruited by Russia to participate in the Russian-Ukrainian war.

The Nepalese government has also asked Russia to repatriate the bodies of those who died. Nepal’s Foreign Minister Narayan Prakash Saud said that the Russian army had recruited more than 200 Nepalese citizens to fight in Ukraine, and at least 14 of them were killed.

Militarnyi also reported that Police in Nepal detained ten people on suspicion of illegally recruiting the country’s residents into the Russian military.

The detainees illegally charged each person up to $9,000 and sent them to Russia on “tourist visas,” mainly through the UAE.

They were then recruited into the Russian Army. In October 2023, Ukrainian troops captured a Russian mercenary from Nepal in the Avdiyivka sector.

In the same month, the New York Times reported on dozens of Nepalese who signed contracts with the Russian army and went to war in Ukraine.

quote:

‘Putin’s Brain’ Declares Victory After Tucker Carlson Interview
Alexander Dugin thinks he has managed to get his fascist ideas across to the “American mainstream.”

A far-right Russian philosopher who’s called for Russia to expand its borders and rise up against the West says his interview with Tucker Carlson shows Americans are ready to accept his fascist ideas.

Alexander Dugin, dubbed “Putin’s brain” for supposedly influencing the Russian leader’s geopolitical crusades, took to Telegram in the wake of his interview with the former Fox News host to note that he’d made it into the “American mainstream” by sitting down with Carlson, and that the “American public is a little ready for my ideas.”

He claimed there’d been a “defamation” campaign against him hatched by “globalists” and “left-wing liberals” who portrayed him as “Dr. Evil” and “the most dangerous philosopher in the world.” Of course, Carlson himself used precisely those descriptors in trying to hype the 20-minute interview on X, falsely claiming Dugin’s ideas are “so dangerous” that “Amazon won’t sell his books.” (In fact, several of his books are currently available for purchase on Amazon in Russian.)

Dugin’s interview with Carlson—whom he describes as the “number one journalist in the world”—was the first time he was able to appeal directly to Americans on such a scale, Dugin said.

He went on to share a roundup of praise for his interview said to be from “ordinary American” YouTube commentators, including the likes of, “What a wonderful, wise person! I love Russia!” Kremlin-controlled media and Kremlin-friendly bloggers have also pushed the narrative that the interview somehow marks a win for Moscow vs. Western liberalism.

Dugin, whose ideas are believed to have influenced Moscow’s genocidal war against Ukraine, was sanctioned by the U.S. government in 2015 for his role in the conflict, which included peddling disinformation and recruiting volunteers to fight alongside pro-Russian forces in eastern Ukraine.

In his interview with Carlson released this week, Dugin blamed the “Anglo-Saxon world” for the rise of liberalism, claimed films like The Terminator and The Matrix will become a reality in the West, and declared that Vladimir Putin is the one man who can save the world from such horror.

quote:

US imposes major sanctions on Russia's defense sector and allies
Among the targeted entities is one of Russia's largest airlines, Pobeda LCC

The U.S. Treasury Department has imposed sanctions on nearly 200 individuals and entities that support Russia's military-industrial base and help it evade restrictions, according to a department press release.

The sanctions package targets Russia's military-industrial base, as well as individuals and entities in third countries that assist Russia in purchasing components for the production of weapons or defense products.

Regarding countries that have helped Russia circumvent Western sanctions, the U.S. has imposed restrictions on companies from Turkey, China, Slovakia, Belgium, and Kyrgyzstan, as they may have helped Russia evade Western sanctions.

The U.S. Department of the Treasury has imposed restrictions on two Russian companies involved in the construction of gas infrastructure in Russia: Neftegazstroy and Aktsionernoe Obshchestvo Vnipigazdobycha.

The list also includes:
→ Ural Automotive Plant;
→ Bryansk Automobile Plant;
→ Aktsionernoe Obshchestvo Zavod Proton;
→ 48th Central Scientific and Research Institute of the Ministry of Defense of the Russian Federation;
→ Tomsk Electrotechnical Plant;
→ Pobeda LCC, one of the largest airlines.

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Oil Depot in Russian Smolensk Oblast Completely Destroyed in Drone Attack

Details of the attack on the fuel and energy facility in the village of Kardymovo, Smolensk oblast of the Russian Federation, have become known.

The relevant satellite images were published by the Dnipro | OSINT channel.

The published satellite images show a large area of burning, which indicates a high degree of damage.

Only two oil tanks survived out of 16, while the rest were completely burned out during the massive fire.

In addition, the attack completely burned out nine tanks with fuel and lubricants.

SPOILER

quote:

As previously reported, the strike was carried out on April 20, 2024. The fire was supposedly caused by the Ukrainian attack drones that Russian air defense was trying to shoot down.

The governor of the Smolensk oblast stated that the attack was aimed at oil tanks in the region.

Local residents published videos that captured burning tanks with fuel and lubricants.

БПЛА уразили об’єкти паливно-енергетичного комплексу в Смоленській області [24 квітня 2024]

According to them, at least 4 to 5 explosions were heard before the fire after the drone attack.

It should be noted that this oil depot was used by the Russian Lukoil private oil company and is located at coordinates 54.88092751720498, 32.43122400272229.

Militarnyi previously reported that on the night of May 1, 2024, drones attacked oil refineries in the Ryazan and Voronezh oblasts of Russia.

According to eyewitnesses, the attack on the refinery took place around 3 a.m.

quote:

Unknown drones attacked the Afipsky oil refinery in #Krasnodar territory

quote:

here is the moment of arrival🤩😎🤟🇺🇦🇺🇦🇺🇦

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In Germany, the garden house of the head of the defense concern Rheinmetall was set on fire - media
Leftist radicals set fire to a summer house belonging to the head of the defense concern Rheinmetall, Armin Papperger, linking the attack with arms supplies to Ukraine. Source: Bild

A fire in a country house on a site in Lower Saxony was recorded by the fire service on the morning of April 30. Hours later, left-wing extremists posted on the Indymedia platform claiming responsibility for the incident.

The report claims they left a petrol bomb at Armin Papperger's summer house on the night of April 29.

The State Security Police are currently investigating. They are studying the authenticity of the message and finding out the circumstances of the incident.

Earlier, an explosion occurred at a military plant in Britain . An explosion occurred at a facility where explosives were being filled into artillery shells.

Let us remind you that German law enforcement agencies suspect the Russian special services of an attack on railways, as a result of which trains stopped in northern Germany for several hours.

Also, unknown persons in northern Germany damaged a gas pipeline under construction for an LNG terminal .

quote:

Slovak ministry offers temporary protection to alleged pro-Russian operative

The Slovak Interior Ministry has granted temporary protection to Artom Marchevsky, a Ukrainian-Israeli citizen who is accused of running a pro-Russian influence campaign and who has already been sanctioned by the Czech government, Reuters reported on Wednesday, citing the Czech newspaper Den�k N.

The Slovak Interior Ministry issued a communiqu� saying that it was looking into the Marchevsky’s case with its intelligence services and would provide further information once the investigation was completed.

Reuters reported, citing the “Den�k N” text, that when Marchevsky was sanctioned by the Czech Republic, he traveled to Slovakia, where the new cabinet of Prime Minister Robert Fico has adopted a policy of improving relations with Russia.

The Czech government put Marchevsky on the sanctions list when security services there linked him to a Russian-organized network designed to influence European Parliament elections.

Restrictions were also extended to the pro-Russian ‘Voice of Europe’ internet platform, registered in the Czech Republic. The Czech government justified the restrictions, calling the website’s activities as “promoting the foreign policy interests of the Russian Federation and political and propaganda activities directed against the territorial integrity, independence, stability and security of Ukraine.”

“Den�k N” wrote in March that money was transferred in Prague to politicians of the anti-establishment German AfD, as well as from other European countries, including France, Poland, Belgium, the Netherlands, and Hungary.

It is not clear what role Marchevsky played in these transfers.

SPOILER

https://edition.cnn.com/2(...)p-rallies/index.html

quote:

Trump returns to campaign trail for first time since hush money trial began
Former President Donald Trump returned to the campaign trail Wednesday for the first time since his New York criminal hush money trial began in earnest last month.

He spent his one allotted weekday out of the courtroom hosting rallies in Wisconsin and Michigan, two critical battleground states he won in 2016 but lost to Joe Biden in 2020.

“I’ve got to do two of these things today. You know why? Because I’m in New York all the time with the Biden trial,” he told supporters in Freeland, Michigan, falsely suggesting that the president was involved with the hush money case.

Despite Trump’s and his campaign’s insistence that the former president would take advantage of every second he wasn’t tethered to the courtroom, the presumptive Republican presidential nominee has rarely used his days off from court to host political events in the more than two weeks since the trial began.

The absence from the trail hasn’t been entirely within his control.

A recent planned campaign stop in Wilmington, North Carolina, was canceled at the 11th hour due to severe storm weather. Trump, who is required to be present in court throughout his trial every weekday, except Wednesday, has instead spent much of his free time attending closed-door fundraisers, taking meetings and hosting dinners at Trump Tower. Last Wednesday, the former president escaped the city to play golf at his Bedminster, New Jersey, club, and spent this past weekend at his Mar-a-Lago home for his wife Melania Trump’s birthday. The campaign has arranged two stops around New York City, before and after court, but the majority of Trump’s politicking has been done before the cameras set up outside the courtroom.

Some people close to Trump have acknowledged that they are surprised by the dearth of traditional campaigning on the sidelines of the trial, especially given that the general election is just months away. Early polls suggest Michigan and Wisconsin pose a challenge for Biden and an opportunity for Trump to mine for electoral votes in the upper Midwest, and Republican allies would like to see him start laying the ground work now. Trump advisers see openings with critical working class voters unhappy with inflation, and with Arab American voters who disprove of Biden’s handling of the Israel-Hamas war.

Speaking Wednesday in Michigan, Trump said the “good news” was that his New York hush money case has “driven the poll numbers higher than we’ve ever had before.”

Recent polling shows that, as of now, Trump and Biden are in a statistical tie in Michigan and Wisconsin, as well as in Pennsylvania, another state the Democrat flipped in 2020.

Building his ground game
Trump’s team has hired state directors in both Michigan and Wisconsin, as they have in each battleground state. But the campaign is still in the early stages of building out the teams, according two senior Trump campaign advisers, which they say will be a mix of paid staffers and volunteers. The campaign is also planning to rely heavily on Republican National Committee officials to further assist in their ground game efforts.

Trump’s campaign is paying especially close attention to the polling in Michigan and Wisconsin, comparing the data with where Trump was in both 2016 and 2020, the senior advisers told CNN. It has spent almost no money on paid media in either state and alleges that the millions of dollars spent by the Biden campaign in both states is proof that Trump’s rival is being forced to spend money to reinforce his Democratic base amid low poll numbers.

Trump’s team believes that his ability to turn out his base is guaranteed, and instead plans to spend money to persuade outside voters to support him in November. That approach is both strategic and out of necessity, as Trump’s advisers acknowledge that they will not catch up to Biden’s vast and ever-growing campaign war chest.

In Michigan, a pro-Trump super PAC, MAGA Inc., has spent only $145,000 on what the campaign is deeming “urban radio” advertising. The ads are specifically targeting Black voters in Michigan by focusing on crime and immigration.

The Trump campaign has closely tracked the protest votes cast in the Wisconsin and Michigan primaries, where tens of thousands of people, many of whom protested Biden’s support for Israel during the deepening humanitarian crisis in Gaza, opted not to vote for the president in the Democratic primary.

In Wisconsin, roughly 48,000 votes, or 8.2% of those cast, were for “uninstructed” in the Democratic primary, which was held after Biden had already clinched the nomination. In the Michigan primary in February, more than 100,000 Democrats voted “uncommitted,” or 13.2% of the Democratic vote.

“That’s a colossal disaster for him,” one of the senior Trump advisers said, and it is something the campaign plans to message on aggressively in the months ahead.

“In Michigan and Wisconsin, that fraction of the vote can make a real difference,” the second senior Trump adviser said. “If even a fraction of that original audience is still convinced to stay where they are, that’s a catastrophic issue for Biden that we will exploit.”

Trump also has his own weaknesses in Michigan and Wisconsin. In the Michigan primary, former South Carolina Gov. Nikki Haley, who was still in the race at the time, received 297,124 votes, or 26.6% of the GOP vote.

In Wisconsin’s April 2 primary, Haley received 76,762 votes, or 12.7%, despite having suspended her presidential campaign weeks earlier.

Taking aim at Biden
At his rally Wednesday in Waukesha, Wisconsin, Trump criticized Biden’s leadership as protests against Israel’s war in Gaza spread across US college campuses.

“The radical extremists and far-left agitators are terrorizing college campuses, as you possibly noticed, and Biden’s nowhere to be found, he hasn’t said anything,” the former president said. “But they’re his political base.”

On the same day that a controversial ban on most abortions after six weeks of pregnancy went into effect in his home state of Florida, Trump asserted that people were “absolutely thrilled” that abortion laws are being decided on a state-by-state basis.

“Some people are unhappy because it’s too liberal a policy or too conservative a policy, but we brought it back into the states, where it has to be,” he said. Biden and Vice President Kamala Harris have explicitly blamed Trump for the 2022 overturning of Roe v. Wade and for the slew of abortion bans that some states have adopted since.

Hours later, Trump headed to Freeland in Saginaw County, Michigan – a county he lost by just over 300 votes in 2020. In his remarks there, he vowed to “bring the car industry back to Michigan” and again warned of an “economic bloodbath” for the auto industry if he is not elected in November.

The dueling stops follow his recent visits to both states on April 2, when he railed against what his campaign labeled as “Biden’s border bloodbath,” attacking the president for his handling of the southern border and highlighting alleged violent crimes committed by immigrants.

Trump’s decision to return to both states just a month later underscores how imperative they are to his path to winning the White House.

The former president’s 2016 victories in the Rust Belt were largely attributed to his success among blue-collar voters, who helped him produce a seismic crack in the so-called blue wall of states Democrats had relied on in every election going back to 1992.

This election, Trump’s advisers argue they plan to replicate those wins by making inroads with the same working-class voters who helped propel him to the White House in his first presidential campaign. Trump’s senior advisers have characterized both states as “must-win” in 2024, acknowledging that the former president’s path to victory is largely impossible without carrying the Badger and Wolverine states.

Biden won Michigan in 2020 by more than 150,000 votes. The margin was much tighter in Wisconsin, where he came out ahead by about 21,000 votes – a victory of about 0.7 percentage points.

The Trump campaign plans to set up a “robust volunteer-driven” organization this cycle, his advisers say, arguing that they have learned from the mistakes made four years ago that led to the former president’s defeat. They also plan to rely heavily on the RNC’s infrastructure to not only turn out voters, but also bring in first-time voters who support Trump.

However, Republicans have been slow to invest in key battlegrounds as they scramble to catch up to Democrats’ fundraising lead. Recent campaign filings with the Federal Election Commission show Biden’s principal campaign committee entered April with $85.5 million, while Trump’s main campaign account had $45.1 million in its war chest.

Voor iemand die elk persmomentje aanneemt om zijn ongenoegen te uiten over de rechtszaak tegen hem en dat hij er van wordt weerhouden om campagne te voeren is het opmerkelijk dat dit de eerste echte dat is dat hij weer zijn campagne pad heeft vervolgd. Tot nu toe heeft hij op zijn vrije dagen liever een potje gegolft of andere niet campagne gerelateerde activiteiten gedaan. Een ook had hij een event canceled door het slechte weer.

SPOILER

https://edition.cnn.com/2(...)rban-invs/index.html

quote:

American conservatives embrace Hungary’s authoritarian leader at Budapest conference
At a conference center plastered with slogans like “Let’s drain the swamp,” Republican after Republican endorsed harsh immigration policies, crackdowns on LGBTQ rights, and a battle against “woke ideology.”

The scene could have been any recent GOP event – except it was taking place roughly 4,000 miles away from the US at the Conservative Political Action Conference’s third annual gathering in Hungary.

The visiting GOP dignitaries’ praise for Prime Minister Viktor Orb�n and his authoritarian government showed how the small central European country has become an unlikely model for a potential Trump second term – despite what international observers have described as an alarming backsliding of democratic rights.

The American right’s growing embrace of Orb�n builds upon millions of dollars that his government has spent on lobbying in the US, and new connections between Hungarian and American conservative think tanks.

In his opening speech at the CPAC conference in Budapest last week, Orb�n endorsed former President Donald Trump’s reelection bid and painted this year’s elections in the US and European Union in militaristic terms.

“Make America great again, make Europe great again!” Orb�n declared in English, before continuing in Hungarian: “Go Donald Trump! Go European sovereigntists! Let us saddle up, don our armor, take to the battlefield and let the electoral battle begin.”

Trump, who hosted the Hungarian leader at his Mar-a-Lago resort in March, sent a pre-recorded video message to the conference that echoed similar themes. The former president called Orb�n “a great man” and hailed “so many patriots in Hungary who are proudly fighting on the frontlines of the battle to rescue Western civilization.”

The bromance between the two leaders comes as some Trump allies are turning to the Orb�n playbook as they plan for his potential return to the White House. In his own video message, Trump confidant Steve Bannon described Hungary as “an inspiration to the world” and called Orb�n “one of my heroes in the world today, in addition to President Trump.”

After Trump’s loss in 2020, “American conservatives started to look for what would be a successful conservative governing agenda,” said Gladden Pappin, a conservative political theorist who moved from Dallas to Budapest and now leads the Hungarian Institute of International Affairs, a state-run research organization. “When American conservatives look to Hungary, they see a prime minister in a government that actually delivered on the slogans that they promised.”

Over his 14 years in power, Orb�n has transformed Hungary into a laboratory for conservative policies and eroded democratic rights and civil society protections, according to his critics and European Union officials.

Orb�n has centralized power by dismissing judges, changing election rules to favor his party, cracking down on NGO’s and appointing loyalists to key institutions. His government built a fence along the country’s southern border amid a migrant crisis in 2015 and passed stricter immigration policies. It tightened its grip on state media, reducing space for dissent.

The prime minister has also promoted a Christian nationalist view of Hungarian society, passing laws restricting transgender rights and adoption by same-sex couples, redefining marriage in the constitution to only cover unions between a man and a woman, and banning materials related to LGBTQ issues in schools.

Those are policies that some Trump allies would love to see him adopt if he returns to the White House next year. (Trump himself has previously called same-sex marriage settled law.)

Orb�n’s policy platform “shows you what the recipe is for maintaining your national identity in a conservative way,” Pappin said in an interview. “Conservative politicians in America had this negative mindset toward government. They need to think about how to use government,” as Orb�n has done.

The rhetoric on display at CPAC Hungary – a branch of the decades-running political confab in the US – showed that the American right is increasingly onboard with that idea. Conservatives from around the US, Europe and beyond traveled to Budapest for the two-day event, which was organized by a Hungarian government-funded think tank.

The meetings and speeches took place at a conference center inside a sprawling park on the west bank of the Danube River. The venue featured posters with English slogans that would have been right at home at a Trump rally, like “Let’s drain the swamp!” and “We win, they lose.” At least one attendee wore a shirt emblazoned with Trump and Orb�n’s faces that declared the two leaders “saviors of the world.”

Security guards told reporters to stop filming in the park and organizers denied CNN’s request to attend the conference, writing in an email that the venue was “a NO WOKE ZONE.”

“We look forward to welcoming you to future events when and if your organization becomes significantly less woke,” the email read. Several other independent news outlets received similar denials.

Three Republican members of Congress spoke at the conference, and prominent GOP figures including Bannon, Arizona Senate candidate Kari Lake, and Trump’s former White House chief of staff Mark Meadows sent video messages that were played for attendees.

The Republicans lauded Orb�n despite his authoritarian bent. Lake gushed about how her experience meeting the prime minister “changed my life.” Rep. Andy Harris of Maryland said that “Hungary has become one of the most successful models as a leader for conservative principles and governance.”

“Hungary’s immigration policy should serve as a model to the United States in terms of border, border security and immigration enforcement,” said Rep. Paul Gosar of Arizona. “I hope and pray one day that the United States might take a similar prioritization to the safety and security of its citizens.”

Hosting CPAC is just one example of how Orb�n and his allies have worked to build ties with conservatives in the US. Since Orb�n became Hungary’s prime minister in 2010, his government has paid American lobbyists at least $4.4 million, according to a CNN review of disclosures filed with the Department of Justice. The lobbyists met members of Congress, pitched Hungary’s economy and strict border policies, and coordinated appearances by Hungarian officials in right-wing US media, the filings show.

More recently, pro-Orb�n groups have also made connections that aren’t reported as foreign lobbying. According to documents obtained by the Southern Poverty Law Center, a Hungarian government-funded foundation has paid grants to American conservative writers and activists like Christopher Rufo, who inspired the right’s movement against “critical race theory” in schools.

Two American nonprofits that are actively planning policies for a second Trump term have shown an interest in Hungary and Orb�n’s model. The Heritage Foundation, which has released a 900-plus-page policy roadmap called “Project 2025,” and the America First Policy Institute, another nonprofit that is working to prepare for a second Trump term, have both partnered with think tanks that receive funding from the Hungarian government.

The collaborations include visits to Hungary by researchers from the pro-Trump groups to learn about its policies. Istv�n Kiss, the executive director of the Orb�n-linked Danube Institute, told a Hungarian publication that the partnerships showed the interest that American conservatives had in his country and suggested that Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis’ policies limiting the discussion of LGBTQ issues in schools was inspired by the Orb�n government.

“Hungary has become the beacon of what it would be like if Trumpists ruled the world,” said Princeton sociologist Kim Lane Scheppele, an expert in Hungarian politics. Orb�n, she said, “wants a friendly government that won’t demand that Hungary become a democracy again.”

In Budapest, critics of Orb�n’s regime argued in interviews with CNN that Americans should see Hungary as a warning sign – not a model to emulate.

Zsuzsanna Szel�nyi, who was once a member of Orb�n’s political party but broke with him and now works at a pro-democracy group, said that the policies the prime minister is pushing have stripped away Hungarians’ fundamental rights.

“Democracy means there is a fair competition of political forces to get into power,” Szel�nyi said. “This we do not have.”

Orb�n has pushed rhetoric about LGBTQ issues and migrants to avoid talking about “the problems with our hospitals, the problems of our social care services, the problems of the teachers, the problems of all of these essential institutions of the country, which are in a deep, deep trouble right now,” said M�rton Guly�s, a left-leaning political commentator who runs a popular YouTube channel.

But some of the American conservatives who flew into the country for CPAC seemed more focused on the optics of Budapest than on democratic rights. Right-wing influencers strode the banks of the Danube and marveled at what Joey Mannarino, a conservative political strategist who attended the conference, described in a social media video as an apparent absence of homelessness and crime.

“We need to figure out whatever this country did,” he declared, “and we need to get it back.”

Kyung Lah and Anna-Maja Rappard reported from Budapest, Casey Tolan from New York and Curt Devine from Washington.

Het is gewoon eng dat Trump en een aantal republikeinen zo opkijken tegen types zoals Orban en Putin. En veel van de hier genoemde punten van Orban zijn beleid staat gewoon in Trump en de republikeinse verkiezingsprogramma's.
- Het aanpassen van verkiezingsregels in zijn voordeel
- loyalisten op hoge posities plaatsen
- de rechtstaat en politie/opsporingsorganisaties afbreken en hervormen
- immigratie tegen gaan.
- anti lgbtq
- christelijke nationalism
Als Trump zijn zin krijgt zal hij Amerika hervormen in hun voorbeeld. En zal hij van Amerika een autocratie/dictatorschap maken. Natuurlijk werd ook een deel van de "woke" pers geweerd op dit evenement.

SPOILER

https://edition.cnn.com/2(...)t-matters/index.html

quote:

Trump explains his militaristic plan to deport 15-20 million people
It is rare to get major presidential candidates – on either side of the political aisle – outside the confines of prepared remarks, stump speeches and friendly audiences, so it’s worth paying attention when they actually take detailed questions.

Former President Donald Trump gave such a rare sit-down to Time magazine – yes, it is still a thing, although you don’t see the cover in the grocery story every week anymore – and he was asked about what a potential second Trump term would bring, including on the thorny issue of immigration.

Trump avoided specifics on most topics
He did not commit to the full “Project 2025” effort his supporters envision to gut the perceived “deep state” by reclassifying a much larger portion of the federal government as political appointees.

“We’re looking at a lot of different things. Civil service is both very good and very bad,” he said.

On other topics, he deflected
Trump insisted he would leave the issue of abortion rights up to states, even if it meant allowing them to jail women who seek abortions.

“You’ll have to speak to the individual states,” he said.

While at rallies he has referred to people jailed for storming the US Capitol as “hostages,” he did not commit to pardoning every one of them.

“If somebody was evil and bad, I would look at that differently,” he said.

He said his ‘dictator’ promise was a joke
And some of his more outlandish comments, he said, were just jokes. He said to put his repeated pledge to declare himself “dictator for a day” into this category.

“That was said sarcastically. That was meant as a joke,” he said.

The just-jokes defense may not assuage the concerns of Americans who truly fear the stress Trump puts on the American system of government. Trump seemed surprised at the idea some of his supporters have floated that the 22nd Amendment should be overturned so that he could serve more than two terms.

“I don’t know anything about it,” he said.

But on deporting millions of people, he went into detail
The topic on which Trump had the most concrete details is his plan to deport many millions of undocumented immigrants.

Trump repeated false claims that many migrants are former prisoners or have been institutionalized in their home countries. CNN has reported there is no data to support the idea that a rise in immigrants drives a rise in crime. Most measures of violent crime in the US have actually been falling.

While he didn’t use the derogatory term, Trump pointed to “Operation Wetback,” the deportation initiative taken along the border with Mexico during the Eisenhower administration, as a model.

In 1954, border officials worked with local law enforcement to, they claimed, round up more than 1 million Mexican nationals and move them to the Mexico side of the border. Historians, as CNN reported in 2016, have argued that far fewer people were actually deported, since many people were apprehended multiple times. They also note that many US citizens were caught up in the dragnet and mistakenly deported.

Trump promised mass deportation in 2016 too
While he did not employ an Eisenhower-like effort the first time he was president, Trump is bringing the pledge back. Trump told Time he would target between 15 million and 20 million people who he said are undocumented in the US. The exact number of undocumented immigrants is not clear. It is probably smaller than Trump says.

Pew Research Center estimated the number of undocumented migrants in the US was around 10.5 million in 2021. Pew’s estimate acknowledges the population may have grown as more people have tried to enter the US. As of 2021, it estimated about 3% of the US population and about 22% of the foreign-born population were undocumented.

There are clearly more people trying to enter the US. In the 2023 fiscal year, which lasts from October 2022 through September 2023, there were nearly 2.5 million “encounters” at the border. President Joe Biden has completely changed his rhetoric on immigration, in part to discourage migrants from traveling to the US and also as he seeks to work with Republicans on the issue.

Rather than work with Democrats, Trump wants to militarize the issue, but he would start by using local police forces and focusing on any migrants with a criminal record.

Trump was asked if his effort would include the military
“It would,” Trump said, adding, “when we talk military, generally speaking, I talk National Guard.”

He added that he would “have no problem using the military, per se,” although he thinks the National Guard would suffice.

He does not think that laws meant to prevent the use of the military against civilians inside the US without congressional approval would apply to his effort.

“These aren’t civilians,” Trump said of migrants. “These are people that aren’t legally in our country. This is an invasion of our country.”

He also repeated the conspiracy theory, for which there is no evidence, that “fighting age” males from China are somehow embedding themselves in the US.

“You have to do what you have to do to stop crime and to stop what’s taking place at the border,” he said.

What about massive migrant camps?
Trump tried to downplay the idea that there would be massive camps of detained migrants like those described to The New York Times by his immigration policy mastermind Stephen Miller, since, according to Trump, he would be deporting people so fast.

“We’re not leaving them in the country. We’re bringing them out,” he said. When asked under what authority he would make all of this happen, Trump suggested he would use federal money to pressure local police.

“There’s a possibility that some won’t want to participate, and they won’t partake in the riches, you know,” he said.

Any action Trump takes is sure to be challenged in court. He promised to comply with whatever federal courts say.

Trump is van plan om meer illegale immigranten te gaan deporteren dan dat er daadwerkelijk in Amerika aanwezig zijn, ook geeft hij aan niet tegen het gebruik van militairen hiervoor te zijn. Natuurlijk kust hij nog wel even de kont van de supreme court door te zeggen dat hij zich zal houden aan uitspraken van hun. Maar dat is volgens mij alleen maar omdat er nu een aantal zaken van hem bij de supreme court liggen. Als hij deze zaken verliest dan spreekt hij wel anders over hun.

Ook geeft hij aan dat zijn dictator uitspraak een grap was, dat het slechts sarcasme was. Maar het is voor de meeste mensen duidelijk dat dit natuurlijk niet zo is. Dat hij daadwerkelijk een heksenjacht zal starten en alle macht naar hem toe zal proberen te trekken wanneer hij weer president is.

SPOILER

https://edition.cnn.com/2(...)on-vacate/index.html

quote:

Greene says she will force vote over Speaker Johnson’s ouster next week
GOP Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene announced Wednesday she will force a vote over House Speaker Mike Johnson’s ouster next week – a move that comes after Democrats have said they will vote to kill the effort and ensure Johnson doesn’t lose his job.

“I think every member of Congress needs to take that vote and let the chips fall where they may and so next week, I am going to be calling this motion to vacate. Absolutely, calling it,” she said at a news conference.

Greene’s decision puts an end to weeks of speculation over whether she would move forward to trigger the consequential vote. The move escalates pressure on Johnson and sets up a major showdown on the House floor, even though the vote is expected to fail.

Johnson has defended his leadership against the threat, saying that he will not resign and warning that a vote to oust him could cause chaos in the House.

“This motion is wrong for the Republican Conference, wrong for the institution, and wrong for the country,” the speaker said in a statement after Greene’s announcement.

Many Republicans oppose the push to oust Johnson and do not want to see the House GOP Conference devolve into disarray like it did after former Speaker Kevin McCarthy was ousted in a historic and unprecedented vote last year.

Greene on Wednesday insisted she is “absolutely not” defying former President Donald Trump, even though Trump has defended Johnson, by forcing the vote.

“I’m the biggest supporter of President Trump,” she said. “I fight for his agenda every single day, and that’s why I’m fighting here against my own Republican conference.”

Greene also said she has not made a decision yet if she will force repeated votes on the issue if the vote fails next week.

“I haven’t made a decision on that yet,” she said.

Greene originally filed the motion to oust Johnson in March amid conservative anger over the Louisiana Republican’s handling of the government funding fight.

A floor vote to oust Johnson would require a majority to succeed, but it can still be preempted. A motion to table – or kill – the resolution could be offered and voted on first. That would also only require a simple majority to succeed.

House GOP leaders plan to quickly take up and kill Greene’s motion, according to GOP sources. Greene has yet to specify which day she plans to go to the floor and call for a vote. GOP sources say they could vote the same day she offers it, depending on attendance.

After Johnson moved last month to pass a major foreign aid package that included aid for Ukraine, House Democratic leadership announced that Democrats would help Johnson keep his job by voting to table if the issue arose.

“We will vote to table Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene’s Motion to Vacate the Chair. If she invokes the motion, it will not succeed,” House Democratic leaders said in a statement on Tuesday.

But on Wednesday, House Minority Leader Hakeem Jeffries would not commit to having Democrats save Johnson from multiple attempts to oust him if there are repeated attempts.

Jeffries said the Democratic caucus “will take it one step at a time.”

Greene railed against Johnson on Wednesday for roughly 10 minutes, taking issue with his support for Ukraine aid and focusing on the recent announcement that House Democrats would vote to kill her effort to oust him.

“Now we have (House Democratic leader) Hakeem Jeffries and the Democrats coming out, embracing Mike Johnson with a warm hug and a big, wet, sloppy kiss,” she said.

Greene said she didn’t trigger the motion previously because she was being “controlled” and “responsible.”

“I was being conscious and caring about my conference in our majority. It was a warning to stop serving the Democrats and support our Republican conference and support our agenda. And he didn’t do it. And we all went home and Republican voters everywhere, Americans were raging at Mike Johnson.”

During the news conference, Greene put a “Make Ukraine Great Again” hat on a photo of Johnson and Jeffries.

A wide range of House Republicans immediately pushed back on Greene’s plan.

“I disagree with that,” said Rep. Ralph Norman of South Carolina, a member of the conservative Freedom Caucus. “She had every right to do it, but it’s not the time.”

“Who’s in line to take over, who wants the job? And I really hate, you know, with all the problems we’re facing now – you see what’s going on at campuses – you know, we got an election coming up,” he continued.

However, Norman acknowledged that he is still frustrated with Johnson’s job performance so far.

“We expected more when Mike took office – and I like him personally, he’s a very devout man – but the reason he’s getting the criticism … is because they expected him to fight,” Norman said.

Rep. Marc Molinaro, a vulnerable Republican from New York, accused Greene of simply “wanting more attention.”

He continued, “Mike Johnson will sustain the speakership. The speaker acknowledges the reality that we live in, and has been focused on conservative principles, acknowledging that we have to negotiate with another branch and another house that don’t see the world, all the issues the same way we do.”

Rep. Greg Pence of Indiana was also disappointed with Greene’s announcement. “I wish she wouldn’t,” he said, calling the speaker fight “terribly painful” and “unproductive.” “We’ve got more important things to work on instead of that.”

“Let’s just move forward,” Pence added. “You know, God put our eyes in the front of our head so we would always look forward, and she’s looking back.”

Later Wednesday, Greene dismissed concerns that her effort will hurt Republicans in November and said she doesn’t give a “rat’s a**” about what other members think of her actions.

“What you guys need to know is I really don’t give a rat’s a** what anybody up here says about what I’m doing,” Greene told CNN. “I care completely about the people in this country, and I cannot wait to put the entire party on record.”

Marjorie Greene geeft aan eindelijk de motie "to vacate" aan de tafel te brengen volgende week. Zij geeft aan dat zij hiermee niet tegen de wil van Trump ingaat, wat dus zou kunnen beteken dat Trump erachter staat,al is dat nog maar de vraag, daar hij ook zijn steun voor Johnson heeft uitgesproken. Maar dit had ook kunnen zijn om gezichtsverlies te voorkomen nadat het hulppakket door de stemming was gekomen.

Niet alleen de republikeinen zijn hier over verdeeld maar ook de democraten. Een aantal zijn ervoor om hem weg te stemmen maar het grootste gedeelte wil hem graag als spreker houden.

SPOILER