Yeah, beautiful work!
Also Ukraine reckon they timed the strike to coincide with a a meeting of senior naval staff. So Russia’s claims of only 1 death are seeming more unlikely!
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2 noteworthy developments overnight;
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The Pro-Moscow party in Slovakia is on course to win the general election. They have pledged to end every last piece of support for Ukraine.
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The new US budget was agreed last night, averting a government shutdown. However, the Republicans were successful in removing any funding for Ukraine within the new budget.
Whilst the latter is certainly more ominous than the former, things might be about to get tougher for Ukraine - especially with winter approaching.
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A very vocal minority once again pushing their agenda purely to make them look better in the eyes of the extreme right of the votor base.
I really can’t understand why they are so against the funding. Fundamentaly, most of that funding acutually ends up in the pockets of US workers. If the US says its going to spend $100m on artillery shells to give to Ukraine, what that means is companies in the US get a sweet 100 mil to make said shells, and then Ukraine gets the shells. It’s win-win!
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Because Trump is anti-zelenski and they don’t know which way the wind will blow on 2024.
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And the average American will see the munitions as “tax payer funded”.
Regardless of where the money goes, they will see the expenditure of going out of their pockets to another country.
And with Canada’s recent faux pas of applauding a literal nazi from Ukraine in their parliament, it’s probably not exactly winning a lot of votes.
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It’s odd to me considering the historical anti Russia sentiment that is still typically held by many.
Is this linked to the Joe/Hunter Biden malarkey?
Maybe?
It’s strange seeing the political discourse from the states.
The simple fact that other side supports X and therefore you must support Y seems to be the way it goes.
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It goes all the way back to the Cold War, when wars were fought by proxies of the superpowers, when it got a bit lopsided one side or the other leaned on their proxy.
Something we’re beginning to see more frequently in UK politics, although thankfully not yet as strongly as we do in the US.
I think Ukraine has lost…
The offensive didn’t work because everything - the training, the MBT’s, the IFV’s was provided too late - they simply haven’t had enough time to learn Combined Arms Manouvre warfare, while Russia has had enough time to dig lots of trenches, plant hundreds of thousands of mines, and organise enough troops to sit in trenches and call in artillery on advancing Ukr forces.
The republican party has managed to block aid, Europe has run out of Artillery shells to send to Ukr, and the offensive has bogged down into a fairly static line.
If Ukr is lucky, the Russians have lost too much to actually advance, bit I don’t see the Ukrainians capturing any more significant areas of territory.
Trump will win the next US Presidential election,and that will be it - I think he’ll de facto, if he can’t de jure take the US out of NATO, , and Ukraine will be completely on its own - Russia might be down to T-55’s by then, but if you’ve only got Ak’s left, and tyr other guy has a tank, you’re going to lose.
Too little, too late. It’s over. And we lost.
So is anyone else thinking that this latest action by Hamas is probably linked to Russia, or am I just being a conspiracy theorist?
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Iran is behind it as they want to destroy the upcoming accord between Israel and Saudi Arabia. MBS is far too cleaver to allow that to happen, and he will have the Gulf States onboard with him, but the only fly in that ointment is Qatar who are very close to Iran and Taliban controlled Afghanistan. I suspect a large dose of pragmatism from him and the old saying, my enemies enemy is my friend.
Israel are not going to stop with this one until Hamas is destroyed, hostages released or just found and some in Iran had better have increased their security and life insurance somewhat. I do wonder if the Iranian nuclear, then oil infrastructure will disappear early one morning as Israel have the air force and navy, and the capability to undertake a comprehensive strike using both aircraft and submarine based cruise missiles.
Hezbollah in Lebanon have now to make a choice either act or sit back and watch.
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I can see complete Israeli occupation of Gaza coming out of this certainly in the short term.
Totally agree this is Iran trying to sink the Israeli/Saudi deal. Interestingly up until now one of the conditions for US support of that deal was an independent Palestine.
The two state solution which the terrorises have rejected and go by their mantra ‘from the river to the sea’ in other words the total destruction of the state of Israel and that will never happen.
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Apologies for the silly question, my knowledge of the Israel-Palestine conflict is minimal.
Is Hammas a para military group separate from the Palestine government or is it the actual Palestinian government?
It’s the terror group that the Palestinians elected, its certainly the de facto government of Gaza and it also holds the majority of seats in the Palestinian National Assembly/Government.
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Like all things in the Middle East, the answer is slightly complicated.
The Palestinian National Authority (PNA) de jure controls the Palestinian Territories, which includes the Gaza Strip and the West Bank. Hamas are a political party and a paramilitary organisation operating within the Palestinian Territories - kind of like the old Sinn Fein/IRA in Northern Ireland.
Hamas is also the largest party in the PNA, but it doesn’t control the Palestinian presidency, which is currently filled by Mahmoud Abbas of Fatah. It’s important to note that there haven’t been any elections for the PNA since 2006, 17 years ago, due to what was essentially a civil war in the Gaza Strip between Hamas and Fatah.
The UN recognises the Fatah-led Palestine Liberation Organisation (PLO) as the legitimate representatives of the Palestinian people; an organisation which doesn’t include Hamas. Hamas is meanwhile seen as a terrorist organisation by most Western governments.
With the PNA being all but suspended since 2007, due to the aforementioned civil war, it’s anyone’s call as to whether Hamas legitimately represents the Palestinians as a de facto or de jure government or not.
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They are separate entities, hate each others’ guts, and whilst either or both exist there will never be a peaceful solution. Funded by Iran same as Hezboullah in Lebanon. Imagine how good Gaza could be with that money being used for peaceful purposes, but a corrupt ideology doesn’t care about the people.
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Worth noting the long standing policies of the Qatari government, and the RAF thinking it would be a clever wheeze to have a joint training pipeline with the Qatari Air Force.
Like us having a joint training regiment with the Taliban because we both use 5.56…
What is it with our defence/foreign policy establishment thinking that relationships with deeply dodgy regimes will work out well?
It all seems to be a modern expansion of The Great Game.