"The 1980's are calling to ask for their foreign policy back."

https://twitter.com/euan_macdonald/status/1660652425307385864

Video evidence that the Belgorod Liberation Army has somehow managed to acquire Humvees.

https://twitter.com/seasouthern/status/1660667672198287366

Good analysis from TBBS - Russia COULD stop this happening again, but they'd need to redeploy forces from elsewhere.

WOW! POLICE

Russians who invaded Russia, to liberate it from Putin, have taken a police station where THEY STOLE POLICE UNIFORMS AND SQUAD CARS.

officials ask locals to, without warning, open fire on uniformed police.​

officials state that there are no longer police in Belgorod. Anyone dressed as a cop is really a Ukrainian saboteur and can be shot.

… I can’t imagine how this doesn’t turn into a complete disaster!​

https://twitter.com/officejjsmart/status/1660664585773363201

Guessing this is not actually true but masterful Disinfo Ops.

Another critic of Putin has died under mysterious circumstances.

https://www.thedailybeast.com/russi...es-after-slamming-fascist-invasion-of-ukraine

The UK has more military personnel on the ground in Ukraine than France and the US combined. The Brits have a grand total of 50.

https://twitter.com/prune602/status/1661200794425622528?s=46&t=iYW3foyqIA6Tn8VWwn3nwQ

I think Pootie-Poot is getting nervous that he might lose this war.

”Mercenary Prigozhin warns Russia could face revolution unless elite gets serious about war"

Isn't this mighty convenient.

https://www.axios.com/2023/05/19/pentagon-ukraine-military-aid-3-billion-accounting-error
The Pentagon can't pass an audit, but I'm sure the usual suspects think there's nothing to see here. Of course Jon Stewart already called them out on their problems with audits.

Well shit, Sarah Palin was right.

I realize that I'm talking to the guy who once breathlessly said that we were spending more on Ukraine than we'd spent on Vietnam and Afghanistan*, so I doubt if I'll be able to get through to you. But, WTF, I'll try.

Last year's defense budget was nearly $800 billion. Mind you, that doesn't include the other spending we do for defense, but for bullshit reasons (though not always) aren't lumped into the defense budget. I know that some years the money we spent on Iraq and Afghanistan was not included in the defense budget, but elsewhere in the general budget. Why? Because it enables them to hide things like the true cost of the war, and what we're spending on all kinds of things.

I also need to point out that a whole lotta us grew up in an era when the Pentagon was famous for spending $500 on a bolt, and $1000 on a hammer. (And yes, they did buy a shitload of them at that price.) Them losing $3 billion (when, as AOC likes to point out, they can't account for over a trillion) is akin to Bill Gates freaking out because someone stole a quarter out of the cupholder in his car.

So, the Pentagon "thought" that it sent $3 billion more stuff to Ukraine than it did. This is out of a total of almost $100 billion. So, what? 97% of the money got to where it was supposed to go? Sounds pretty good. My employer would love it if we had a scrap rate as low as 3% But, hey, it is taxpayer money, so we should know what happened to it, shouldn't we? After all, we don't know if there was a paperwork screwup and something got listed as being shipped, when it hadn't. Or, perhaps we're dealing with a situation like when Ollie North was running his little operation out of the Pentagon. You know, Iran-Contra. It is entirely possible that what's happening is that someone is diverting the aid from Ukraine to somewhere else. The question is: Who? And why?

Now, I don't know of any high-ranking US military officials (you know, general staff, joint chiefs-of-staff, type folks) who have massive yachts that they've got parked in the south of France, or wherever. It's possible, but I think we might have heard something about it. And while I don't know for certain, I haven't heard of any US defense contractor presidents having massive fucking yachts, either. Some might, I don't know. But I do know that if they were scamming us, even if they were skimming at the rate the Russians were their defense spending, it still hasn't impacted our ability to fuck shit up to a significant degree. Investigate them, and guillotine them, I say, if they can be proved to steal money.

Of course, though, the real issue is if somebody diverted that $3 billion in gear. Where did it go? Who got it? And why? Because I'll be honest, if it wound up in the hands of the folks fighting the junta in Myanmar, I'm pretty cool with that. If, OTOH, it ended up somewhere else, I really want to know. Not a fan of white supremacists, or a whole lotta other people getting $3 billion worth of US military gear, unless it's something like MREs, medicine, or other humanitarian items.













*

Russia denies fire at Ministry of Defense, says state media

Don’t worry. We’re still getting fucked over when it comes to shit like that.

Looks like a bio lab weapon has been released by the Ukrainians. It's unclear if it was deliberate or accidental. But it would explain the explosions reported deep into Russian territory.

https://twitter.com/bayraktar_1love/status/1662217665379979264

Ah, that explains it

The Pentagon revealed last week that it overestimated the value of arms sent to Kyiv from existing stocks, which potentially allows the department to add $3 billion worth to the $2.7 billion left in the weapons account. Department officials were valuing the items using their “replacement cost” rather than their “net book value,” which was lower, Defense Department officials say.

https://www.politico.com/newsletter...rand-pauls-i-told-you-so-legislation-00098975

What a dumb controversy.

I always use net book value when appraising weapons.

Jesus, THAT'S what that was about?

Well, I guess nobody ever accused Putin's American lackeys of being smart.

No Assembly Required: Swedish Arms Deliveries To Ukraine

In Gulf War 1.0, there were reports that the Iraqis had mobile SCUD launchers that they could easily drive out to the desert, rock back and forth a few times in a spot, and bury themselves so that they couldn't be seen by aircraft and be bombed, or whatever. (The company that made the trucks for the SCUDs has a fascinating history, but I won't go into it here, other than to say that Hitler stole the designs from the VW Beetle from them.)

The Russians are, apparently, trying something similar with their tanks in Ukraine. Small problem. Ukraine has lots of drones, that can loiter in an area for long periods of time. So they can just park their ass over your tank and drop as many bombs on the fucker as needed to blow it up.

Look at the economics of this: It doesn't matter how much that tank costs, the drone, and all its bombs, are way, way, cheaper. From strictly a dollars-to-death standpoint, Ukraine can afford to keep fighting longer and harder than the Russians can. It's like that Heinlein quote about stumbling into battle carrying an expensive, bulky, complicated, laser rifle while the despicable enemy opens fire with the extremely cheap and easy-to-use machine gun.

but teh lazar go pew pew!

Still developing but it looks like Russia has pushed Armenia to cave into Azerbaijan’s demands.

Armenia will recognize Nagorno-Karabakh (an Armenian majority enclave inside Azerbaijan) as Azerbaijani territory, Azerbaijan will guarantee a high level of autonomy to the territory AND guarantee trade, movement and comms access between it and Armenia.

Could possibly be a win for the two counties. They have been frozen in conflict since 1994.

Big L for Putin. A large reason the conflict was frozen were Russian ‘peacekeepers’ who jetted in after their ally Armenia took the territory and kept Azerbaijan from militarily reclaiming it.

That's an old one - UK comedian Jethro used to tell the same version but with a British soldier saying he didn't want to fight in Afghanistan.

In fields seeded with mines, Ukraine’s farmers face deadly planting season

Doesn't really matter if that's paywalled or not, you get the idea, right? There's the ol' Iron Harvest that happens every year and people have died from WWI shit as recently as 2014. Doesn't matter who wins, or who loses, the Ukrainians are going to be dealing with this shit for a long period of time.

Russia has issued an arrest warrant for Lindsey Graham.

This is one area where I'd be happy if the US gave in to Putin's demands.

what did the graham cracker do to piss off Pooti?

I’m guessing it was flying to Ukraine this weekend, meeting with Zelensky and saying after that we aren’t sending them enough and longer range weapons.

More likely this:

Said on video to Zelensky at a PR event.

https://crooksandliars.com/2023/05/lindsey-graham-calls-russians-dying-best

https://twitter.com/terror_alarm/status/1663278460750512128?s=46&t=iYW3foyqIA6Tn8VWwn3nwQ

Russian tank goes *BOOM*

https://twitter.com/DefenceU/status/1663263438003654657

Interesting that the person says, "When you have dragons on your side..." The US has/had a shoulder-fired missile called a "Dragon" and whatever took out that tank was clearly fired from the ground. I don't know if it's an effect of the imaging technology used, but the exhaust of the missile that hits the tank looks like clouds of bromine.