re: Latest Updates: Russia-Ukraine Conflict

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The intent to prepare one for the short periods of time it is real.

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I wasnt even mad (but I had to google larper).

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It was a Latin American TV report

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Who reported that the cartel had javelins and then showed the video of the AT4

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Who reported that the cartel had javelins and then showed the video of the AT4

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They messed up the type of system. . .k

Could have been an over-eager PA said the wrong thing to the prompter guy. That alone proves little one way or the other.

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It was a Latin American TV report, but hey. . .stuff that strawman with whatever you dream up.

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Tell Maduro hello from your politard pals

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Bilhorod thread! The Russian Volunteer Corps and the Freedom Legion have entered the region again. Heavy battles are reported near Shebekino. Updates will be posted in this thread


IMO these are probably more likely to be Ukrainian commando/SF units than anti-Putin Russians

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I believe Ukraine when they say that all these fighters are Russian citizens. But keep in mind that there are lots of people who have dual citizenship. So, both can be true.

Foreign Policy:

Taiwan Faces No Trade-Offs With Ukraine

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Giving weapons to Ukraine is not an either-or proposition for Taiwan.

And don’t take our word for it. That’s coming from Hsiao Bi-khim, Taiwan’s representative to the United States—what you call an ambassador when the United States doesn’t officially recognize your country—who talked to a gaggle of reporters in Washington this week.

“The United States is not taking the weapons being produced on the production line intended for Taiwan, not taking them and giving them to Ukraine or anyone else,” Hsiao said. “It’s not a subtract from Taiwan and giving them to someone else situation.”

It’s a surprising remark coming from Taipei, especially when you consider that the United States has stretched the production of many of the weapons that Taiwan wants, such as shoulder-fired Javelin anti-tank missiles and man-portable Stinger air defenses, to send to Ukraine.

Hsiao, speaking at a breakfast organized by the Christian Science Monitor newspaper, described most of the weapons being produced for Taiwan as being on an “independent” production track. The lesson of Russia’s full-scale invasion of Ukraine, she said, was to fortify Taiwan’s defenses as quickly as possible and warn China of the resilience of the international system in the face of an attack.

But just because Taiwanese officials don’t see a trade-off, it doesn’t mean that they’re happy with the status quo, either. Taiwan is facing a $19 billion backlog in arms sales from the United States, and the island nation’s defense minister recently revealed that the purchase of 66 F-16 fighter jets will be further delayed due to supply chain issues.

“This started way before the Ukraine crisis,” Hsiao said. “The challenges that the United States is experiencing in the defense supply chain have certainly had an impact on Taiwan.”

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Depends on how well the Jordanians stored the Gepards. The dry desert climate is actually a positive as long as the Gepards just weren’t left outside uncovered somewhere. The radar would be the crucial component to the entire system. If they stuck them in a warehouse somewhere then that should be able to get them ready to roll pretty quickly but if they just say out in the sun and sand storms then you e got a much larger problem. No doubt the Gepards are crucial to Ukraine though. Screw the Swiss they are complete hypocrites not wanting to lose the Russian oligarch money they get by declining the export of Gepard ammo. The ammo will get made other places. The Swiss just like to sit on the knife edge so they can play both sides. In WWII they were just as brutal if not more to downed allied pilots than the Germans were.

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We’d be fools to think that some of our donated weapons aren’t already on the black market. And when this war is over…huuuu boy, off to the races.

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That's part of why we are spending tens of millions of dollars tracking them, to ensure that this does not happen.

Could rifles get stolen and sold on the black market? Sure. Mines? Yeah. Javelins? I doubt it, because there's a chain of custody. I mean, Ukraine has every reason to actually use the detailed tracking them that they've created and are using, because they very much do not want weapons to walk off -- they very much want and need them to kill Russians.

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The cartel didn’t go to Ukraine to get a damn thing. If those are Ukrainian AT4s then some enterprising Ukrainian individual went to the hassle of moving them across the world to sell to the cartels. We’d be fools to think that some of our donated weapons aren’t already on the black market. And when this war is over…huuuu boy, off to the races.

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It doesn't even have to be a Ukrainian. There are already robust crime networks in Eastern Europe and the Eastern Mediterranean that already have some connections to South America. I believe in 2017 there was some report about Hezbollah trying to make in-roads in Venezuela and I do recall one hilarious video of what appeared to be Cholos fighting in Syria. That some weapons might end up on the black market is a reality, given what we saw after the Yugoslav Wars. Some of the fundamental issues during the Yugoslav, like refugees and the resulting criminal networks, were never actually resolved.