Tag: ukraine

Elon Musk says X was knocked offline by ‘massive cyberattack’ that originated in ‘Ukraine area’

Billionaire entrepreneur and DOGE chief Elon Musk claimed Monday that X went dark as the result of a “massive cyberattack” that originated in the “Ukraine area.”

“We’re not sure exactly what happened,” Musk told Fox Business Network host Larry Kudlow about the apparent operation targeting his social media platform.

“But there was a massive cyberattack to try to bring down the X system, with IP addresses originating in the Ukraine area,” the world’s richest man added.

Musk, 53, did not immediately provide additional evidence of who may have been responsible.

Cybercriminals have been known to create false IP addresses to impersonate computer systems from different parts of the world, a practice known as “spoofing.”

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Zelensky Must Prepare Elections, Cede Territory To End The War: Trump Admin

The Trump White House wants Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky to begin planning elections or else consider stepping down as a condition for the resumption of US military aid and intelligence sharing, a fresh NBC report reveals. Secretary of State Marco Rubio has also said Monday that Ukraine must cede territory.

Ukraine “would have to make concessions over land that Russia had taken since 2014 as part of any agreement to end the war,” The NY Times reports. “The most important thing that we have to leave here with is a strong sense that Ukraine is prepared to do difficult things, like the Russians are going to have to do difficult things, to end this conflict or at least pause it in some way, shape or form,” Rubio told reporters as he flew from the US to Jeddah – as quoted in multiple outlets.

American and Ukrainian officials are meeting in Saudi Arabia. The question of elections in Ukraine, which have been canceled indefinitely under martial law, has moved to the forefront also as pressure is still on for Kiev to sign the minerals deal.

“As President Trump demonstrated by reading President Zelenskyy’s message at the joint session, the Ukrainians have made positive movement. With meetings in Saudi this coming week, we look forward to hearing more positive movement that will hopefully ultimately end this brutal war and bloodshed,” White House National Security Council spokesman Brian Hughes said this weekend when asked about Trump’s requirements.

Rubio in Riyadh has further explained, “The important point in this meeting is to establish clearly their intentions, their desire, as they’ve said publicly now numerous times, to reach a point where peace is possible,” Rubio said of Tuesday’s delegation meeting with the Ukrainians. “And then we’ll have to determine how far they are from the Russian position, which we don’t know yet either. And then once you understand where both sides truly are, it gives you a sense of how big the divide is and how hard it’s going to be.”

There’s widespread acknowledgement in Washington that Ukrainian forces will never be able to pry the four annexed territories in the east back from Russia.

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Here Are the Exposed Truths after the DC Dust-Up Settles

Our language provides a number of terms describing a conflict that arises because of misdirection or ill-guided feelings. Such is a brouhaha; dust-up; donnybrook; fracas; or row, among many other terms. All describe a heated conflict that prevents a rational understanding. But eventually the “dust-up” clears, the dust settles and the rational exposes the asininities that provoked the furor.

The “dust-up” of President Trump’s meeting with Vladimir Zelensky illustrate truths that the Democrats/RINOS/Deep State Bureaucrats are attempting to forever erase. They seek to make President Trump and his current Administration look like the baddest of the bad guys. The behavior of the “opposition” to President Trump is a lengthy list of dunderheaded lies, poisoned history, and delusional pipe dreams.

The dust has settled and truths are now clarified

FIRST, the Russo/Ukrainian disaster is owned by the Democrats!

This point has been buried. The D’s are incensed because of Russia’s actions. They willingly fail to admit that BHO was the cause of this conflict. Repeatedly stated, but ignored, is the truth that had President Trump been President of the USA, Russia would have never invaded Ukraine in 2014. How conveniently the open mike of BHO conversation been erased from the current discussion.

The D’s/RINOS delete this event prior to Russia’s invasion into Ukraine and the USA sitting complicitly. “This is my last election, and after my election I’ll have more flexibility,” Obama said to Medvedev after their bilateral meeting, according to audio picked up by television cameras that apparently was not intended to be heard by reporters. “I understand,” Medvedev replied. “I will transmit this information to Vladimir (Putin).”

President Trump’s administration has been tougher on Russia than either BHO or Biden. BHO allowed Russia to annex Crimea and only offered them “pillows and blankets.” President Trump stated, “I’m the one that gave Ukraine offensive weapons and tank killers. Obama didn’t. You know what he sent? He sent pillows and blankets. I’m the one — and he’s the one that gave away a part of Ukraine where Russia annexed it,” Trump said in a “60 Minutes” interview.

SECOND, the flagrant disrespect is appalling!

“House rules” is a common sense governing in behavior. Whether it is within one’s personal house, in the community mores, in personal visits outside of one’s country, or especially in the norms expected in official meetings. You will not be well-received if you come into my home and disrespect the basic boundaries. In fact, you will be shown the door with the greatest possible haste!

Disrespect has been exposed in the intention of the visit…Zelensky had already signed with the UK an agreement on January 16 regarding “nine key pillars” of cooperation for “100 years.” One key point in the announcement was the following: It also cements the UK as a preferred partner for Ukraine’s energy sector, critical minerals strategy and green steel production. As Joe Hoft notes, “Although still not to be confirmed, some believe that this entire agreement includes the fact that Ukraine gave the rights of its minerals to the UK.”

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Visualizing Washington’s Key Role In Military Aid To Ukraine

As doubts over future American support for Ukraine and the Trump administration’s commitment to NATO loom large, European leaders have rallied to assure Ukraine of its unwavering support and to become more independent of their transatlantic partner. 

On Thursday, leaders gathered for a special European Council meeting, where the future of Europe’s security and the bloc’s role in Ukraine’s defense against Russian aggression was discussed.

“This is a watershed moment for Europe. And it is also a watershed moment for Ukraine, as part of our European family,” Ursula von der Leyen, president of the European Commission, said in a statement. 

“Europe faces a clear and present danger. And therefore, Europe has to be able to protect itself, to defend itself, as we have to put Ukraine in a position to protect itself, and to push for a lasting and just peace.”

As Statista’s Felix Richter reports, to be able to negotiate a “peace through strength”, as von der Leyen put it, the EU must quickly ramp up its military aid to Ukraine after U.S. President Donald Trump paused U.S. military support earlier this week. 

According to the IfW Kiel’s Ukraine Support Tracker, the EU’s 27 member states have allocated a total of $53.8 billion in military aid to Ukraine between January 24, 2022 and December 31, 2024. 

That’s equivalent to 39 percent of total military aid supplied to Ukraine during that time and roughly $15 billion short of what the U.S. supplied. 

Adding contributions from European non-EU members Norway and the UK, Europe’s military aid to Ukraine was roughly on par with U.S. support so far, meaning it would have to double its investment if the U.S. were to withdraw its support permanently.

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Pausing Aid to Ukraine: The World Should Have Seen It Coming

At the end of June, 2024, the world got its first glimpse at what Donald Trump’s plan to end the war in Ukraine in one day might look like. Retired Lieutenant General Keith Kellogg and former CIA analyst Fred Fleitz submitted a plan to then candidate Trump. In an interview, Kellogg revealed that U.S. leverage would have two fronts. The first is you tell Putin, “He’s got to come to the table and if you don’t come to the table, then we’ll give Ukrainians everything they need to kill you in the field.” And the second is, “We tell the Ukrainians, ‘You’ve got to come to the table, and if you don’t come to the table, support from the United States will dry up.’”

Keith Kellogg now serves as Trump’s special presidential envoy for Ukraine and Russia.

The threat could not have been clearer: continued aid was conditional on Ukraine’s willingness to negotiate an end to the war, and if they were not, then U.S. aid would stop. Knowing that clear conditional, Ukraine’s President, Volodymyr Zelensky, sealed his fate with two sentences.

In the televised February 28 meeting at the White House, U.S. Vice-President J.D. Vance repeated the Trump policy that “the path to peace” is not the path of war, but the path of “engaging in diplomacy.” Zelensky publicly attempted to refute him with the historically revisionist objection that negotiations with Russia’s president, Vladimir Putin, is impossible because Putin cannot be trusted not to break the agreements he signs in negotiations.  “What kind of diplomacy, JD, you are speaking about?” Zelensky objected. “What do you mean?”

Zelensky rejected negotiations as the path to peace. But willingness to travel that path was the condition for continued aid. “If you don’t come to the table,” the plan said, “support from the United States will dry up.’”

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A Disastrous British-Led Operation in Ukraine: ‘The Krynky Landing’

UK military operation planners became central to an investigation after a failed mission that involved Ukrainian troops attempting to establish a foothold on the left bank of the Dnipro River in Kherson Oblast. This operation dubbed “Krynky Landing” initiated in October 2023, aimed to seize and maintain control over a section of territory held by the Russians, before pushing toward Crimea, and reaching all the way to the Perekop isthmus. It ended in tragedy in July of 2024.

As a result, an estimated 788 Ukrainian soldiers who defended Krynky in Kherson Oblast are now reported to be either dead or ‘missing in action.’

Not surprisingly, both Ukrainian officials and their NATO supervisors are keen to bury this story, as well as the massive number of Ukrainian casualties incurred during this military debacle.

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‘We Can’t Stop Them’ – Thousands Of Ukraine Troops Suddenly Face Encirclement In Russia’s Kursk

The fuse has been burning slowly, but Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky’s risky August invasion of Russia’s Kursk region is about to blow up in his face in spectacular fashion — as thousands of Ukrainian soldiers are suddenly in imminent peril of being encircled, according to open source intelligence analysts. The crisis comes as Zelensky is under increasing US pressure to reach a negotiated end to the war — and a loss of captured Russian territory promises to make his already-deteriorated bargaining position even weaker. 

According to DeepStateMAP.live, an interactive map of the war run by Ukrainian military bloggers, their country’s forces in Kursk are nearly cleaved into two, with roughly three-quarters of Ukraine’s forces in Russia almost entirely surrounded on Friday. Their last connection between the two forces was a kilometer long and under 500 meters wide at its thinnest section. 

Black Bird Group military analyst Pasi Paroinen summed up the state of affairs for Reuters: 

“The situation (for Ukraine in Kursk) is very bad. Now there is not much left until Ukrainian forces will either be encircled or forced to withdraw. And withdrawal would mean running a dangerous gauntlet, where the forces would be constantly threatened by Russian drones and artillery.” 

Ukraine’s Kursk gambit, which surprised the world, was intended to stall Russia’s steady advances in eastern Ukraine, with hopes that Russia would be forced to engage in a major redeployment of forces to deal with the capture of Russian territory. Ukraine’s hold on the territory was also seen as a bargaining chip for Zelensky as the war now seems destined for a negotiated end. Not only does that chip appear to be vanishing, Putin could end up with a some new chips of its own — as Russia may soon have thousands more Ukrainian prisoners of war among its assets.  

In late February, Russia’s defense ministry said its forces had regained control of 64% of Kursk territory initially seized by Ukraine. Kiev’s cross-border offensive started in early August 2024 and has managed to control dozens of towns and villages and hundreds of square kilometers of territory. That accomplishment has reportedly been aided by thousands of North Korean soldiers, with reports that one to three thousand more were being sent in February. North Korea has denied its soldiers are fighting in the war.  

The New York Times reports that Russia is on the brink of a major victory in Kursk thanks to the coordinated work of North Korean troops and Russian drone units, advancing with the aid of intense Russian artillery and air bombardment. Ukrainian soldiers report an overwhelming concentration of new, fiber-optic drones that are controlled by an ultrathin cable rather than radio signals that are vulnerable to electronic jamming.

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U.S. Satellite Mapping Company Maxar Technologies Blocks Ukraine’s Access to Imagery, In a Renewed Blow to Kiev’s War Effort

The information coming from satellites, spy planes, surveillance drones and even balloons, along with SIGINT (signals Intel) and human assets hands the information to direct your artillery and drone firepower – to the point where we can say that the ‘surprise element’ has almost disappeared from modern warfare.

While thew Ukrainian forces have been putting up a gallant defense, it is only with the use of NATO top gear – and also with the US intel sharing in real time – that Ukraine has been able to avert a total catastrophe, even if they did lose over 20% of its territory, including most coastal areas.

But now, without US military aid deliveries, and with intel sharing blocked, Kiev has a big incentive to come to the negotiating table.

Today (7), it arose that another capability was withheld from Ukraine as US President Donald J. Trump turns on the screws on Volodymyr Zelensky.

Politico reported:

“U.S. satellite mapping company Maxar Technologies has blocked Ukraine’s access to its imagery, according to a report by Ukrainian defense outlet Militarnyi.”

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Putin Officials Offer an Absolutely Gruesome ‘Gift’ to Mothers of Fallen Soldiers in Ukraine

Officials belonging to Vladimir Putin’s political party have been found gifting meat grinders to the mothers of fallen soldiers in Ukraine.

According to The Moscow Times, officials from the United Russia party have visited the homes of grieving mothers and presented them with meat grinders.

The report explains:

The ruling United Russia party in Russia’s northern Murmansk region has sparked controversy after gifting meat grinders to the mothers of soldiers killed in Ukraine.

The kitchen appliance has become a grim symbol of the Russian military’s high-casualty assaults in the Ukraine war. The Wagner mercenary group had previously awarded “Bakhmut Meat Grinder” medals to its fighters.

United Russia’s local chapter in the town of Polyarnye Zori included meat grinders in gift packages to mothers whose sons died in the war, according to photos published on the party’s social media account Wednesday.

However, United Russia’s Murmansk chapter pushed back against the widespread criticism of their choice as gifts, calling the attacks “inhumane and provocative” and suggesting the mothers had requested the meat grinders as gifts.

“The meat grinder was not part of the standard gift set, but one woman asked for it, and of course [party members] could not refuse her,” said Mayor Maxim Chengayev.

The party later released a video of one of the mothers thanking officials for the gift.

“I wanted to buy it for myself, but you gifted me one just in time,” the woman said on camera. “I asked you for it, in principle.”

The reports come as President Trump pushes both Ukraine and Russia to go to the negotiating table with a view to try and bring about a long and lasting peace to the troubled region.

The term “meat grinder” has come to define the brutal, high-casualty battles of the Russia-Ukraine war, particularly in Bakhmut and Avdiivka.

The result is a slow, grinding war of attrition, with massive losses on both sides and minimal territorial gains more reminiscent of trench warfare than modern combat.

According to a recent analysis by the BBC, at least 95,000 Russians have lost their lives since the war broke out in February 2022, while hundreds of thousands have been wounded.

However, these figures are only estimates, and the actual number could be much higher.

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REPORT: Russian Encircling Ukrainian Forces At Kursk, Kyiv Denies

The Ukrainian armed forces (AFU) infamously made an incursion last year into Russia proper in the territory of Kursk. The attack was an attempt to draw Russian forces away from their mission in Donbass and stop the loss of Ukrainian territory to Russian troops.

The effort entailed many foreign mercenary troops, which were videotaped going into Kursk.

Now reports from the region declare Russian forces are about to ‘cut off’ and encircle Kyiv’s forces, forcing a withdrawal to prevent further destruction of the army.

The battlefield situation in Kursk has taken a dramatic turn as Russian forces intensify their offensive, threatening to encircle up to 10,000 Ukrainian troops.

This collapse could be Zelensky’s worst military disaster yet, as his last leverage in negotiations with Russia evaporates before his eyes. If Russian forces succeed in cutting off the final escape route, thousands of Ukrainian troops could be trapped, forcing either surrender or destruction.

Ukraine denies this is happening.

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