News Related To The Ukraine / Russian War

Diary of a Dead North Korean Soldier Reveals Grisly Battlefield Tactics​

By Dasl Yoon / in Seoul and Jane Lytvynenko in Kyiv, Ukraine / Updated Jan. 11, 2025 7:38 am ET
The troops are exposed, green, loyal—and dying by the thousands in front-line combat against Ukraine.
The crude stick-figure diagram, sketched in blue ink, details how North Korean soldiers deployed to support Russia in the Ukraine war should respond to the approach of a Ukrainian drone. One soldier—referred to as “bait” in the drawing—should stand still to lure the drone so that a pair of comrades can attempt to shoot it down.

The grisly tactics were divulged in a diary taken off a slain North Korean soldier on Dec. 21, with passages containing mundane details of life at the front, descriptions of combat tactics and expressions of love for North Korean leader Kim Jong Un, according to excerpts recently made public by Ukraine’s special-operations forces. Independent experts say the diary entries appear genuine, with penmanship, word choice and expressions of ideological fervor all common in North Korea.

There's little sense to be made of it by the rational mind.
Here's an excerpt of Eric Bogel's reflection:

... So they gave me a tin hat and they gave me a gun
And they sent me away to the war.​

And the band played Waltzing Matilda
As we sailed away from the quay
And amidst all the tears and the shouts and the cheers
We sailed off to Galipoli.

How well I remember that terrible day
How the blood stained the sand and the water
And how in that town that they called Sulva bay
We were butchered like lambs at the slaughter

Johnny Turk he was ready he primed himself well​
He chased us with bullets he rained us with shells
And in five minutes flat he'd blown us all to hell
Nearly blew us right back to Australia.

But the band played Waltzing Matilda
As we stopped to bury our slain
We buried ours and the Turks buried theirs
Then we started all over again. ...

And the band played Waltzing Matilda
And the old men answer to the call
But year after year their numbers get fewer
Someday no one will march there at all.

Waltzing Matilda
Waltzing Matilda
Who'll come a waltzing Matilda with me
And their ghosts may be heard as you pass the Billabong
Who'll come a waltzing Matilda with me.
"... and expressions of love for North Korean leader Kim Jong Un, according to excerpts recently made public ..."
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North Korea is a totalitarian dictatorship.
I don't doubt some North Korean troops have attended to the detail of declaring in writing their commitment to their "dear leader", a term used in North Korean television broadcasts. Stockholm Syndrome?
Perhaps it reflects their sincere attitude, based on lies they've accepted as true. OR
perhaps it's a precaution, in case of battlefield injury, they may feel less likely to be neglected in hospital, or left to die.
Bottom line, even if North Korean troops behave as loyal troops are expected to, that addresses behavior, not motivation. Is it out of love? Or out of fear, for themselves, or their family remaining in North Korea?
 
Wait a minute - why is this still going on? Trump promised to end it even before he took office - just a simple phone call. [/end sarcasm]
 
Shiftless2 said:
#62
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Russia's war dead tops 70,000 as volunteers face 'meat grinder' - BBC​

Sep 19, 2024 ... More than 70,000 people fighting in Russia's military have now died in Ukraine, according to data analysed by the BBC.
https://www.bbc.com/news/articles/cjr3255gpjgo

Shiftless2 said:
" [/end sarcasm] " S2 #62
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End life, for 70K Russians, as of September. And how many Ukrainians, North Koreans, & others? Putin has already downed one airliner. What / who's next?
 
The Atlantic

A Wider War Has Already Started in Europe​

Phillips Payson O’Brien / Mon, January 13, 2025 at 10:45 AM EST
Last month, the undersea power cable Estlink 2, which connects Estonia with fellow European Union and NATO member Finland, was suddenly cut. ...
Undersea cables have been vital to the sovereignty of Estonia, a former Soviet republic that borders Russia and desperately needs to maintain power and communications channels that are free from Moscow’s control. Soon after Estlink 2 was sabotaged, Finnish authorities seized the oil tanker Eagle S, which was en route from St. Petersburg, Russia, to Egypt. Registered in the Cook Islands in the Pacific Ocean, the ship is likely part of Russia’s so-called shadow fleet—a collection of foreign-flagged tankers that Putin’s regime uses to sell Russian oil and skirt international economic sanctions imposed after his invasion of Ukraine.
The Eagle S, however, apparently had a covert military purpose as well: Investigators discovered that the vessel was crammed full of advanced surveillance equipment, which used so much power that the ship suffered from periodic blackouts. Finnish authorities concluded that the Eagle S had dragged its anchor across the Baltic Sea bed for “dozens of kilometers” in an attempt to break the Estlink 2 line.

Obviously, cutting a power line is a less overt form of aggression than the full-scale invasion that Putin launched in Ukraine. The common thread, though, is that Russia is using force to undermine a recognized country’s independence and its ability to fight back.
... in this and other cases across the continent, European officials seem terrified of admitting what is happening. Authorities in multiple countries are investigating parcels that spontaneously caught fire or exploded in the custody of cargo airlines, perhaps in preparation for a broader operation that would threaten many large aircraft. Saboteurs have targeted a number of other strategically significant assets in Europe—munitions factories, crucial rail lines—along with civilian infrastructure such as warehouses and malls.

Investigators believe that Russia is behind the attacks.

The inability to describe acts of war as acts of war is part of a culture of distortion and denial regarding the subject of state-sponsored violence. Over generations, policy makers have created many subclasses of conflict: cold wars, police actions, hybrid wars, cyber wars. Different euphemisms serve different purposes. Putin prefers special military operation because he doesn’t want to publicly admit that he is waging a brutal war on Ukrainians. Many in Europe avoid describing Russia’s sabotage campaign outside Ukraine as war because they’d rather not have to do anything in response.

news.yahoo.com

A Wider War Has Already Started in Europe

Putin’s not-so-quiet sabotage campaign against European democracies
news.yahoo.com news.yahoo.com

They have not learned this vital lesson of history.
Ignoring an aggressive madman like Putin, like Hitler does not make them go away.
Ignoring these acts of War does not safeguard victim nation sovereignty.

No NATO member nation need face Putin alone.
But the longer consequence severe enough to discourage further Russian aggression is withheld, the more deadly and expensive such discouragement is likely to be.
 
sear said:
The Atlantic

A Wider War Has Already Started in Europe #64​

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- and -

dpa international

German major general warns of Russian military build-up​

Sat, January 18, 2025 at 3:56 AM EST
The head of Germany's military task force on assistance for Ukraine, Major General Christian Freuding, has warned that Russia is building up its forces beyond the requirements of the current conflict.
"We see that the Russian armed forces are not just able to compensate for their enormous personnel and material losses on their own and with the support of their partners, but that they are successfully rearming,” he told the Sunday edition of the Welt newspaper.
It is by no means certain that Russia will launch an attack on NATO states in the coming years, "but Moscow is clearly creating the conditions for it," he warned.
news.yahoo.com

German major general warns of Russian military build-up

The head of Germany's military task force on assistance for Ukraine, Major General Christian Freuding, has warned that Russia is building up its forces beyond the requirements of the current conflict. "We see that the Russian armed forces are not just able to compensate for their enormous...
news.yahoo.com news.yahoo.com
Some observed Russian troops massing on Ukraine's border, and asserted Russia would not invade.
Putin wouldn't be preparing to invade Western Europe if he wasn't planning to.

Will Trump Respond to Putin in a way our fellow NATO signatories welcome?
Commenting on NATO President Trump said: "I said it was obsolete. It's no longer obsolete." April, 2017
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Trump threatens Russia, others with tariffs if Ukraine deal not reached​

By David Lawder and Daphne Psaledakis / January 22, 2025
The U.S. President Donald Trump looks on after signing executive orders inside the Capital One Arena on the inauguration day of his second presidential term, in Washington, U.S. January 20, 2025
  • Trump threatens tariffs on Russia over Ukraine conflict
  • Russia's deputy UN ambassador says will have to see what "deal" means
  • Trump previously declared he would have a deal on first day in office
  • US imports from Russia have fallen sharply since 2014
WASHINGTON, Jan 22 (Reuters) - U.S. President Donald Trump said on Wednesday he would add new tariffs to his sanctions threat against Russia if the country does not make a deal to end its war in Ukraine, and added that these could also be applied to "other participating countries."

Putin don't scare easy.
Putin doesn't understand fundamental economics.

When Mitt Romney ran the Winter Olympics in Salt Lake City Romney reportedly turned a $profit.

When Vlad Putin ran the Winter Olympics in Sochi, it cost Russia $55 $Billion, according to: https://www.birmingham.ac.uk/news-a...-olympics-cost-billions-more-than-estimated-1

Peace loving, justice loving Peoples the world around can hope President Trump is successful in this attempt.
But Trump is out of his league confronting Putin on this issue. Putin's in too deep, sent too many Russians to their graves to quit and go home without a fuss.
 

Exclusive: Ukraine sees marked improvement in accuracy of Russia's North Korean missiles​

By Tom Balmforth
February 6, 202512:07 AM GMT-5Updated
KYIV, Feb 6 (Reuters) - North Korean ballistic missiles fired at Ukraine by Russian forces since late December have been far more precise than salvos of the weapons launched over the past year, two senior Ukrainian sources told Reuters.
 
11:AM/ET
NPR reports Secretary Hegseth has declared restoring Ukraine's pre Russian invasion borders unrealistic.
 
sear said:
11:AM/ET
NPR reports Secretary Hegseth has declared restoring Ukraine's pre Russian invasion borders unrealistic.
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Sounds like Putin's puppet has told his sycophants that the thing to do is give Putin everything he wants. Wonder if that was the plan he had for ending the war all along??
 
Shiftless2 said:
"Wonder if that was the plan he had for ending the war all along??" S2 #69
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I would be astounded if it is otherwise.
Seems to me what's important to Trump is not the outcome of his decisions, but that he be the one to decide.

Sadly, it's now the Republican standard.
President GWB wanted to teach pappy (President GHWB) a lesson, that in GHWB / schwarzkopf Gulf War, the coalition should not have stopped a little beyond the Kuwait border, but driven Saddam's rout straight to Baghdad.
So President GWB simply lied U.S. into War. A spectacular, needless Middle East destabilizing disaster.
"There is no doubt that Saddam Hussein now has weapons of mass destruction.There is no doubt that he is amassing them to use against our friends, against our allies, and against us." V.P. Cheney"8/26/02" C-SPAN2

"Intelligence gathered by this and other governments leaves no doubt, that the Iraq regime continues to possess and conceal some of the most lethal weapons ever devised." U.S.President Bush (the younger) televised address to the U.S. March17th, 2003
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So if a Republican president can't get what they want legitimately, LIE !

Trump has perfected such lies. "Practice makes perfect."
 
Shiftless2 said:
The Long, Strange Surrender: How Trump Handed Ukraine to Putin on a Silver Platter (and Smiled While Doing It)
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The melodramatic style obscures the message. I suppose one might adjust to it. It hasn't entirely displaced substance:
"Vladimir Putin didn’t have to do a damn thing. He just sat back and waited while America elected the one guy who would do the job for him." https://substack.com/home/post/p-157140078
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Rewarding bad behavior is a spectacularly bad idea. If the result of this "negotiation" leaves Russia / Putin with any fragment of Ukraine / Crimea, such reward will serve as powerful incentive for future global headaches.

Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth has already made a major amateur mistake by breaching the standards of diplomatic-speak, stating major points of his position, before negotiation begins.

While it's far from a panacea, what such final result may require to settle the region would be to (too rapidly for Russia to respond) expand NATO to surround, contain Russia.
In retrospect humanity might have been better off if Ukraine joined NATO soon after Crimea fell to Russia.
parabellum can cepic .... : to insure peace, prepare for war
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As Sun Tzu observed, the best way to win a battle or a war is to avoid it.
 

Shocked Europeans play catch-up after Trump moves on Ukraine​

By Andrew Gray, John Irish and Lili Bayer / February 16, 20258:31 AM GMT-5
  • Security conference dominated by US-Europe ties, Ukraine
  • Europeans fear being cut out of Ukraine peace deal
  • US insists any deal will be durable, Ukrainians at the table
  • Europe under pressure on defence spending, security guarantees for Ukraine
MUNICH, Feb 16 (Reuters) - They should not have been surprised. Yet European officials have been left shocked and flat-footed by the Trump administration’s moves on Ukraine, Russia and European defence in recent days.
At a major security conference in Munich at the weekend, there was a sense of dismay and disbelief - and a whiff of panic - among European delegates even as some tried to put a brave face on a dizzying few days of declarations and diplomacy.

Chief among their fears: that they can no longer be sure of U.S. military protection and that U.S. President Donald Trump will do a Ukraine peace deal with Russian President Vladimir Putin that undermines Kyiv and broader European security.
...
European leaders declared they would have to take more responsibility for their own defence, ramping up military spending and arms production.



The U.S. electorate has unleashed a monster.
Trump excuses his Putin-friendly outlook on ending the war, stopping the killing.
Trump doesn't even seem to acknowledge the monumental sacrifices Ukraine has already made to preserve its own sovereignty.

BUT!
"European leaders declared they would have to take more responsibility for their own defence, ramping up military spending and arms production."
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Isn't that a long-standing Trump objective?
Is this Trump's way of coercing Western Europe to "step up"?

Trump, "crazy like a fox"?
 
A REUTERS SPECIAL REPORT

Russia-linked propaganda campaign pushes to undercut German support for Ukraine​

Behind a traveling photo exhibit in Germany about the suffering of children in the Russia-Ukraine war is a network connected to Moscow. It comes as officials in Berlin report an increase in Russian-sponsored interference ahead of German elections.
By Mari Saito, Tassilo Hummel, Anton Zverev, Polina Nikolskaya and Maria Tsvetkova / February 18, 20252:00 AM GMT-5
BERLIN - The photographs are stirring: images of children purportedly killed in the Russia-Ukraine war, their faces staring out from banners in city squares in Germany. The exhibit of monochrome photos is part of a broader messaging campaign called “Children of War,” a clarion call to the continent’s leaders to end the fighting.
Publicly, the exhibit’s organizers say they aren’t affiliated with any government, and are driven by a desire to end the suffering of innocent young people. The exhibit typically carries the title “Alley of Angels.”
But behind the scenes, a network of people with links to the Russian state helped organize, promote and support the campaign, Reuters found, according to people familiar with parts of the network as well as a review of social media accounts, corporate filings and government records.

The goal was to penetrate protest movements in the European Union and erode support for governments supplying weapons to Ukraine to defend itself against Russia, according to documents shared with Reuters by two sources from a European intelligence agency. The documents, they said, are intercepted progress reports from some members of the network in Germany to their handler in Moscow. The reports contain photos of the Alley of Angels exhibit at German political protests and updates on the campaign behind it.
 
- also posted @ -
"The problem is that through this bilateral channel between the United States and Russia the United States seems to be giving away major concessions before Ukraine has been made a part of the Negotiation. So we have heard from senior Trump administration officials that Ukraine will have to concede significant parts of its territory, that Ukraine will not have a place in NATO, the United States has already indicated that it won't play a role with boots on the ground in sustaining any peace in Ukraine or that any peacekeeping force would fall under a NATO umbrella. So these are major concessions that the United States is giving away in this bilateral format, and that has real implications for Ukraine. So once Ukraine gets to the negotiating table we've basically taken their knees out from under them and put them in a far weaker position.
So if we were going into these discussions with Russia it should have been the case that the United States had had some coordinated position with Kyiv and its European allies before going into that meeting."
Former Intelligence Official Andrea Kendall-Taylor: Center for a New American Security / PBS/NH 25/02/18
 
sear said:
Former Intelligence Official Andrea Kendall-Taylor: Center for a New American Security / PBS/NH 25/02/18 #75
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Thank you Andrea.
Trump had a book ghost-written for him titled The Art Of The Deal.

Trump seems to embellished his self-assessment of his own negotiating skill to Walter Mitty levels of self-delusion.
These negotiating blunders render this farce in Saudi Arabia a non-starter for Ukraine's President Volodymyr Zelenskyy.
Zelenskyy has already said so explicitly, if Ukraine is not at the table, there is no agreement.

Perhaps Putin hopes dangling the word "peace" before war-weary Ukraine will weaken Ukrainian resolve,
result in Ukraine accepting terms it otherwise might not.

That's a tawdry negotiating tactic.

What explanation for President Trump / Secretary Rubio knee-capping Ukraine this way?
- Amateurish incompetence?
- A powerful Trump bias toward Russia / Putin, willing to sell Ukraine up the river to indulge that bias.
 
President Trump has taken sides in the Russia / Ukraine War. Trump has chosen to reverse U.S. policy, and has rejected Ukraine, favoring Russia.
This includes Trump falsely blaming Ukraine for starting the war.

What's up Chuck?

Associated Press Videos

Senate Democratic leader says 'it's disgusting' that Trump blames Ukraine for Russian invasion​

Updated Wed, February 19, 2025 at 3:24 PM EST
Senate Democratic leader Chuck Schumer is appalled President Donald Trump is blaming Ukraine for the Russian invasion. “It’s disgusting to see an American president turn against one of our friends and openly side with a thug like Vladimir Putin," he said.
news.yahoo.com

Senate Democratic leader says 'it's disgusting' that Trump blames Ukraine for Russian invasion

Senate Democratic leader Chuck Schumer is appalled President Donald Trump is blaming Ukraine for the Russian invasion. “It’s disgusting to see an American president turn against one of our friends and openly side with a thug like Vladimir Putin," he said.
news.yahoo.com news.yahoo.com
 

AlJAZEERA02.JPG​

Donald Trump says Zelenskyy has ‘no cards’ to play to end war in Ukraine​



"God is dead" - Nietzsche​

"Nietzsche is dead" - God

Donald:
Despite your obvious best efforts to scuttle the sovereignty of Ukraine for the benefit of one of the most formidable U.S. / global enemies,
you have ‘no cards’ to play. However displeasing you may find it Mr. President, Ukraine remains a sovereign nation. You are the president of the United States sir.
You are neither president of Ukraine, nor king of the planet.​
 
Shiftless2 said:
Somebody should tell Trump that ....
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"You know how to make America great again? Tell Donald Trump to go to Hell." Senator L. Graham [R-SC] 15/12/08

DJ,
If you don't have GPS, I suspect Melania would be delighted to provide you directions. Surely anyone that's been married to Donald Trump is familiar with Hell.
 
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