Tag: ukraine

U.S. aims to arm Ukraine with advanced anti-ship missiles to fight Russian blockade

The White House is working to put advanced anti-ship missiles in the hands of Ukrainian fighters to help defeat Russia’s naval blockade, officials said, amid concerns more powerful weapons that could sink Russian warships would intensify the conflict.

Ukraine has made no secret it wants more advanced U.S. capabilities beyond its current inventory of artillery, Javelin and Stinger missiles, and other arms. Kyiv’s list, for example, includes missiles that could push the Russian navy away from its Black Sea ports, allowing the restart of shipments of grain and other agricultural products worldwide.

Current and former U.S. officials and congressional sources have cited roadblocks to sending longer range, more powerful weapons to Ukraine that include lengthy training requirements, difficulties maintaining equipment, or concerns U.S. weaponry could be captured by Russian forces, in addition to the fear of escalation. read more

But three U.S. officials and two congressional sources said two types of powerful anti-ship missiles, the Harpoon made by Boeing (BA.N) and the Naval Strike Missile made by Kongsberg (KOG.OL) and Raytheon Technologies (RTX.N) were in active consideration for either direct shipment to Ukraine, or through a transfer from a European ally that has the missiles.

In April, Ukraine’s President Volodymyr Zelenskiy appealed to Portugal to provide the Ukrainian military with Harpoons, which have a range of up to almost 300 km.

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Twitter To Ramp Up Censorship Of ‘Misinformation’ About The Ukraine War

Twitter has published what it calls a “crisis misinformation policy” announcing that it will be actively reducing the visibility of content found to be false which pertains to “situations of armed conflict, public health emergencies, and large-scale natural disasters.”

If you’ve been paying attention to the dramatic escalations in online censorship we’ve been seeing in 2022, it will not surprise you to learn that the Ukraine war is the first crisis to which this new censorship policy will be applied.

Twitter says that it “won’t amplify or recommend content” found to violate its new policy, and will also attach warning labels to individual tweets and even hide offending content behind a warning label and disable the retweet function on particularly naughty posts.

The problem here is of course the question of how to impartially establish whether something is objectively false without it turning into at best a flawed system guided by fallible human biases and perceptual filters and at worst a powerful institution shutting down unauthorized speech. Twitter says it formed its new policy with input from unnamed “global experts and human rights organizations,” and will be enforcing it with the help of “conflict monitoring groups, humanitarian organizations, open-source investigators, journalists, and more.” This will come as no comfort to anyone who’s familiar with the history of propaganda peddling that can be found in every single one of those respective categories.

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Biden admin adds $100 million in arms for Ukraine on top of $40 billion aid package

The Biden administration has announced $100 million in arms funding to Ukraine on top of the newly approved $40 billion aid package.

On Thursday, the Senate approved $40 billion in aid for Ukraine as the nation continues to fight back against Russia’s invasion.

Just hours later, Secretary of State Antony Blinken announced that the United States would be sending an additional $100 million in arms.

In a statement, Blinken explained that Ukrainian forces have “remained firmly in the fight” against Russia, but are in need of assistance, namely arms and other equipment.

“Pursuant to a delegation from the President,” Blinken said, “I am authorizing our tenth drawdown of additional arms and equipment for Ukraine’s defense from US Department of Defense inventories, valued at up to $100 million.”

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US Borrowing Money From China to Fund Ukraine: Sen. Rand Paul

The United States can’t afford to send money to Ukraine without borrowing from China and taking on more debt to finance its obligations, said Sen. Rand Paul (R-Ky.) in a May 18 interview on the Breitbart News Daily Podcast.

On May 16, a bipartisan majority of U.S. senators voted to advance a $40 billion Ukraine aid package over an earlier objection from Paul. The Senate is on track for final consideration of the bill sometime later this week and is expected to pass the legislation.

“I think it’s important to know that we don’t have any money to send. I mean, we have to borrow the money from China to send it to Ukraine,” Paul explained. “And I think most people kind of get that, and many Republicans will say that and understand it when it’s a new social program, but if it’s military aid to a country, they’re like, ‘Well, we can borrow that. That’s a justified borrowing.’”

Currently, the U.S. national debt is inching toward $30.5 trillion, with annual federal spending outpacing annual federal revenue by over $2 trillion. To continue to fund obligations appropriated by Congress, the United States has to take on debt, much of which is purchased by Chinese buyers.

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On Bush’s Freudian Confession

Oh my God. It happened. I can’t believe it really happened.

During a speech in Dallas at Southern Methodist University’s George W Bush Presidential Center on Wednesday, the man himself, George W Bush, did the best thing ever. I am pretty sure it is the single best thing that has ever happened. I do not believe I am exaggerating when I say that.

While criticizing Russia for having rigged elections and shutting out political opposition (which would already be hilarious coming from any American in general and Bush in particular), the 43rd president made the following comment:

“The result is an absence of checks and balances in Russia, and the decision of one man to launch a wholly unjustified and brutal invasion of Iraq. I mean, of Ukraine.”

And then it got even better. After correcting himself with a nervous chuckle, Bush broke the tension in the empire-loyal crowd with the words, “Iraq too. Anyway.” He then quipped that he is 75 years old, leaning harder on his “Aw shucks gee willikers I’m such a goofball” persona than he ever has in his entire life.

And Bush’s audience laughed. They thought it was great. A president who launched an illegal invasion that killed upwards of a million people (probably way upwards) openly confessing to doing what every news outlet in the western world has spent the last three months shrieking its lungs out about Putin doing was hilarious to them.

There are not enough shoes in the universe to respond to this correctly.

As comedian John Fugelsang put it, “George W. Bush didn’t do a Freudian slip. He did a Freudian Confession.”

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Reuters Uses Image of Men with Paintball Guns for Ukraine Story

Reuters made a questionable cover photo selection in an article about the conflict in Ukraine. For a recent news story on a reported Ukrainian assault in the Sumy region, the outlet went with a picture of soldiers armed with paintball guns.

The photo shows several military gear-clad men crouched in a defensive position with weapons. A close examination of the photo reveals that the men are armed with paintball guns. As would be expected, many Twitter users found the notion of insurgents fighting off a hostile foreign invasion with paintball guns to be absurd. A barrage of ridicule ensued.

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NY Times Blasted For Writing Ukrainian Fighters “Evacuated”, Didn’t Surrender At Azovstal

The “paper of record” managed to completely avoid the reality that some 300 Azov militants surrendered – instead opting to suggest that somehow Ukraine’s forces decided to wind down their “combat mission”. The headline also emphasized they were “being evacuated”.

But then awkwardly, the very first sentence of the Monday Times report indicated after they laid down their arms, the fighters were taken into Russian custody and transferred to pro-Kremlin territory (specifically to Novoazovsk – in the Donestsk People’s Republic). So again, they were “evacuated” by their Russian enemies who’ve captured them.

“Hundreds of Ukrainian fighters were taken by bus to Russian controlled territory,” the NYT report said. “Ukraine’s president said the combat mission in the city was over, capping some of the longest, fiercest resistance.”

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MSNBC ‘military analyst’ posts video game clip claiming it’s Ukraine war footage

On Monday, retired four-star general and MSNBC “military analyst” Barry R. McCaffrey posted a clip of video game footage to Twitter. Alongside it he claimed it was a display of strength from Ukraine’s air defense. It’s actually footage from a video game.

The clip in question came from YouTube’s “shorts” section, and is titled “Russian MiG-29’s Get Shot Down By Air Defense System | Arma 3 #Shorts #Airdefense #Arma3.”

ARMA 3 is an open world military tactical shooter game for PC published in September 2013.

What’s captured on video is two in-game jets being shot down by an air defense system set up on the ground. McCaffrey’s tweet was deleted at some point after Benny Johnson pointed out the glaring mistake.

“Why is Left-Wing corporate media allowed to spread “misinformation” about a war, while they advocate for Censorship of Conservatives and Fact Checking of Memes?” he added.

“Russian aircraft getting nailed by UKR missile defense. Russians are losing large numbers of attack aircraft. UKR air defense becoming formidable,” McCaffrey had originally tweeted.

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Politicians Scream ‘Save Democracy’ In Ukraine As Zelensky Enacts A Core Element Of Fascism

The bastion of “democracy” is seemingly at it again, as The Gateway Pundit reported that Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky has now officially signed into law the banning of political opposition parties in the country. Furthermore, the law signed by the Ukrainian president also secures a pathway to seize the property of those political parties outlawed.

Back on March 26th while in Poland, President Joe Biden delivered remarks that have been echoed by numerous politicians since the onset of the conflict between Russia and Ukraine, saying, “In the perennial struggle for democracy and freedom, Ukraine and its people are on the frontlines fighting to save their nation.”

But when one thinks of the concept and tenets of democracy, the notion of banning political parties that challenge one currently in power likely wouldn’t be among any of the things to crop up in one’s mind. Yet, Ukrainian President Zelensky has done exactly that and then some.

While the term “fascism” is one in recent years that has been ostensibly overused and inappropriately applied amidst modern political discourse, the move by President Zelensky quite literally resembles one of the core elements of fascism by way of the “forcible suppression of opposition.”

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EXPOSED: Pentagon conducted deadly biological weapons experiments on allied soldiers in Ukraine and Georgia

In order to “protect its allies against Russia,” the United States performed biological weapons “experiments” on Ukrainian and Georgian soldiers, newly leaked documents show.

Even though both Ukraine and Georgia are considered to be American allies, the Pentagon decided to harm these countries’ soldiers as part of a $2.5 billion Defense Threat Reduction Agency (DTRA) biological engagement program, which included research on biological agents, deadly viruses and antibiotic-resistant bacteria.

Each type of pathogen was unleashed on local populations in both countries as well, exposing potentially millions of people to deadly infections. (Related: The Pentagon’s secret operations programs in Ukraine date at least as far back as 2005.)

A five-year Pentagon operation in Georgia, code-named GG-21, involved “Arthropod-borne and zoonotic infections among military personnel in Georgia.” The project’s description explains that blood samples were collected from 1,000 military recruits at the time of their registration and physical exam at the Georgian military hospital located in Gori.

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