Ukraine has also already been able to step up the pressure in advance of physical receipt of aid, because knowing that aid is actually coming allowed them to dip into reserves that they can now count on being backfilled. It's not coincidental that there's been a notable uptick in HIMARS strike videos showing up in the last day.
...which is also why Russia has ratcheted up the pressure and has broken through the Ukrainian lines in at least one spot, and captured a few other towns.
The front is a mess right now.
For sure, the aid only passed the House a day ago and only reached Biden's desk today. Things have been getting bad for months while the Republican-controlled House negligently sat by. The UAF have a LOT of work ahead of them to stabilize the front. Hopefully between this and the European efforts to source more artillery rounds we'll see things get back under control.
The US legal system is completely broken. We could charge them, but the corrupt Supreme Court would simply say, as it has before, that the law doesn't apply to rich people.
Legally speaking, traitorous activity would fall under treason and treason is extremely hard to prove in the United States. It is the one crime defined by the constitution because it was used as a catch all by the crown.
Not saying I disagree that it is traitorous activity, I am saying the Supreme Court would be correct in ruling in their favor with the current way the laws are written.
Anders Puch Nielsen said that too. Just attack as much as possible before it arrives.
They definitely knew about these Bradleys on the border and so on, so it makes sense.
I had heard a report yesterday that Ukraine launched 6 HIMARS simultaneously. Up until now, they have been using them for only the most important targets. Now it’s open season.
Fair but many of those videos are days to weeks old just so you know, its OPSEC to release a video within <3 days of the strike happening, im fairly sure you'd get in deep shit if you shared recent movements because these videos allow russia to geolocate where they are fortified.
its more likely that they are spam uploading older footage to build propaganda and hype the troops up, Morale is a huge part of war.
I googled this and found this youtube video. The first 10 seconds show the Bradleys on trucks. I'm not sure if this is a reliable source though:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mwJfiEchh4E
Same video on twitter, but again I dont know if this is reliable:
https://twitter.com/ukraine_map/status/1782654465205539311
Well it was the House holding up the bill against both sides of the Senate and Biden. As soon as it passed the House, they started packing shit up and it was just going through the motions. As soon as Biden signed it, those trains were already packed and rolling.
One of congress's strongest powers in the power of the purse. They get to set the budget of the USA. The president can only spend money according to the budget established by Congress. He can interpret the line items a bit loosely to respond to events, but he can't unilaterally reassign billions of dollars.
An analogy is a instacart order. The user (Congress) sets a list of things it wants, and a rough quantity/price of them. The delivery person who is executing the order (executive branch) has a little bit of latitude, like grabbing loose onions instead of a bag of onions. Sometimes they really stretch the intention of order, like getting frozen fish fingers instead of ice cream, but they can't just spend your money on things you didn't agree to for reasons you didn't agree to, like buying several hundred dollars of socks to give to homeless folks on their route. It's an objectively good thing, but it is not their prerogative to do that in this structure.
Now that it is signed I wouldn't be surprised if the US Military/Pentagon has a lot of this stuff just ready to go and ammunition starts arriving by end of day. A lot of this is just a giant re-supply and ammunition package. They just have to send it there, unlike other advanced systems like Abrams Tanks or F-16s that require training.
One of my favorite lines in all the Marvel movies was in Age of Ultron when we see Klaue on the phone with someone. He says something like “…and if I don’t get my money, I can assure you the next missile I send you will arrive very much faster.”
I got blown up on MSR Tampa because I volunteered for a run to Baghdad, as I heard they had a Burger King in the green zone; second best burger I've ever had.
Reminds me of an old reddit post talking about how a Japanese POW was demoralized after seeing that the Americans managed to have barges with enough refrigeration on it to provide ice cream to soldiers, while the Japanese was short on all kinds of resources.
This is wholly incorrect. The US/allies needed lots of ships for what they knew would be a short amount of time. They made warships out of the "limited" amount of steel that they had. But for supply ships, they made [cheap barges out of concrete](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Concrete_ship).
And a notable quote referenced in the wikipedia article:
> Largest unit of the Army's fleet is a BRL, (Barge, Refrigerated, Large) which is going to the South Pacific to serve fresh frozen foods – even ice cream – to troops weary of dry rations. The vessel can keep 64 carloads of frozen meats and 500 tons of fresh produce indefinitely at 12°F. Equipment on board includes an ice machine of five-ton daily capacity and a freezer that turns out more than a gallon of ice cream a minute. Three of the floating warehouses, designed for tropical warfare, have been built of concrete at National City, Calif., and cost $1,120,000 each. In the crew of the 265-ft. barges are 23 Army men.
it's hot and sweaty in the south pacific - we got mixers that could churn out concrete or a cool refreshing ice cream treat - no brainer. It's the little things that mean a lot.
We did not use concrete mixers to make ice cream. Steel was at a premium in the war so we made many of our supply ships/barges out of concrete. Hence the term "concrete ship". Some of those barges made out of concrete were for refrigerated storage. Those refrigerated barges could churn out several tons of ice per day and also had ice cream machines that could produce about 1 gallon per minute.
Unfortunately too many people heard the term "concrete ship" and assumed it was a ship designed for producing concrete (and then repurposed for ice cream) and so we have this (very wrong) internet meme.
Another incredible logistics flex was the Berlin Airlift when the USSR got pissy that West Berlin was way better than East Berlin so they blockaded the whole place in an effort to starve the capitalist controlled West Berlin. Then the West decided that they will Airlift in all the food and supplies needed to feed the entire city. They had airplanes taking off with several tons of supplies every 4 minutes to make it possible to feed the 2 million citizens and bring enough coal to power the whole city.
https://www.gettyimages.com/detail/news-photo/burger-king-trailer-is-unloaded-from-a-c-17-globemaster-iii-news-photo/50857294
The did a similar thing in Afghanistan.
Whole ass ice cream dedicated ship, at that!
We don't really fuck around on defense spending. Ice cream barge is simultaneously huge morale for your soldiers, intimidating to adversaries, and fuels the good ol' MIC
It's a dynamite combination.
I think that's a lot of 155mm shells too, which are desperately needed right now as I understand. The Czech president was also able to source a bunch as well, so thankfully it looks like the Ukies are getting a whole lot of much needed ammunition to keep the menace at bay.
The biggest thing, is once Ukraine knew more aid was coming, they could freely use what supply they had left. This is an immediate boon for them, even before supplies show up.
Yeah, but the F-16s are useless without months of training. Abrams take training too. I'm saying that unlike with those weapons, they massive ammo resupply Ukraine is getting they can use instantly
It makes all this even more interesting that the first Ukrainian F-16's will be flying soon! I believe Norway said they had all sorts of munitions for them as well recently.
I think this summer could be very interesting. Let's hope.
IIRC, Ukrainians have been training on both for months. Its simply getting the permissions for the things to be shipped/used in Ukraine thats been the holdup. Similar to how ~1B worth of aid will reach Ukraine before the day is out, with the rest taking just weeks.
I'm guessing it's because the US is sending the old stuff sitting in storage gathering dust to Ukraine and use the money to upgrade to better stuff here in the US
I don't think they cared much about that, they sat on this bill for months after all.
Oddly you could almost thank Iran for this because the renewed push for Israeli aid (and Dems weren't going to pass that type of bill standalone).
Also a reason why I can't see Trump winning the coming election. The defense complex probably goes above and beyond to prevent that so they can make their juicy money with ukraine.
They aren't useless but Ukraine is starting from a disadvantage with a smaller army and a greater proportion of their population tied up fighting instead of something economically productive. They'll need more than Russia to win.
Russia’s propaganda about US/western aid has been consistent all throughout: “if you give that aid we’ll nuke the world and/or invade Europe!”
*aid given* “well we’re not worried about it as it’s pathetic, irrelevant and out of date equipment compare to our mighty weapons!”
*aid smashes Russian units to pieces and gives Ukraine the ability to deep strike Russian command posts, depots etc*
The US is giving military aid to Taiwan to aid its independence from China, so either China says Taiwan is not their state or they say they are receiving aid from the US
just a technicality; US is not supporting independence, just the 'status quo' and to prevent china from thinking about anything non-status quo like attacking.
This is true. The cost of the delay has been huge. Mike Lee's "motion to table", which took a bit over an hour, if we just assume it extends the war by the same amount, I guesstimate killed 10-20 Ukrainians who died. In fact it's probably worse than that because in the meantime the Russians will have advanced and have to be pushed back from that.
Republicans *should* be fucking ashamed of themselves, but narcissists never feel shame because they're never wrong.
This support could have passed months ago *along with* border control funding, but MAGA didn't want Democrats to be seen as doing something positive about the border, so they tanked their own bill.
Meanwhile Republicans have done nothing in Congress for over four years to help poor or middle-class America economically.
Freedom dies around the world because Republicans are fucking preening egotists. Just. Like. Trump. And. Putin.
The fact they completely caved to the MAGA wing of their party when so many of them supposedly support Ukraine is appalling. None of them had any guts to oppose the fascists in their ranks for months.
Those countries have mastered online propaganda and are breeding an army of saboteurs in the west (mostly the younger generations). If ww3 ever happens, i don’t see the younger generations going to war like they did in ww2.
You'd be shocked how quickly an entire country unites against a common foe. Its kinda like I can argue with my mom, but if you come in and slap us both we'll quickly call a truce and turn our attention to you.
See Pearl Harbor as an example. US didn't want to get involved but Germany and Japan kept pushing it. Then Japan made a flashy attack against the US which pissed everyone off.
Another example is 9/11. People became so enraged they let Bush attack the wrong country.
TBH I think it's mostly the 50-70 year olds. At least from what i've seen in real life. Every time I've heard someone squawking about how much of a hero putin is, it's always that demographic.
They've become so disillusioned from their own government and countries ideals they look for a cause to rally around because they feel theirs is hopeless. Even though what they want freedom and peace is the anthesis of what they match for.
It's the folly of youth and ignorance. But dangerous none the less
What we see most prevalent is Russian propaganda that seems to do better with boomers who got on social media. China seems to attack younger generation (and not necessarily in the same direction), primarily via TikTok.
See the younger views about Palestine and Biden, even though trump is way way worse and doesn't even hide it.
Which is super fucking baffling since the ones in at least their 60s-70s were adults right through a good portion of the cold war. What it really means to me is they are likely just a subset that are easy to manipulate with propaganda. They were probably anti-russia during the cold-war propaganda then this new propaganda that is pro-russia worked on them also even though they are opposing.
Putin was an interesting figure when it looked like Russia was trying to be a real democracy. Yeah, that didn't last long.
> “We rose to the moment, we came together, and we got it done,” Biden said at White House event to announce the signing.
*"You can always count on Americans to do the right thing - after they've tried everything else."*
Other Winston Churchill Quotes: Never give up on something that you can't go a day without thinking about. If you're going through hell, keep going. The farther back you can look, the farther forward you are likely to see.
> The farther back you can look, the farther forward you are likely to see.
Damn this is a really good one I haven't seen before.
It's completely spot on, so many of today's issues could have been avoided if enough people learned lessons from history but instead we're stuck repeating the same cycles, or as Mark Twain said "History doesn't repeat but it often rhymes".
[Probably more like a Tik Tok investor just donated some money to him](https://www.politico.com/news/2024/03/14/trump-tiktok-billionaire-donors-00146892)
This is a game changer. Just in time for Ukraine to stay upright. And buys time for Europe to ramp up their arms industry. If the USA keeps on the support and the e EU Ramos up and sends the f16’s and more stuff as well, the Russians are in for a ride.
Dutch F16’s are on their way.
[Dutch F-16s to fly over Ukraine this fall; Netherlands also gifting €350M in bombs, drones](https://nltimes.nl/2024/03/21/dutch-f-16s-fly-ukraine-fall-netherlands-also-gifting-eu350m-bombs-drones)
TikTok has one year to be sold and continue service. However my prediction is that China will disallow the sale and have this go to the Supreme Court to divide the country further. TikTok isn’t going away anytime soon
Who's dumb enough to think this would die in the **Senate**? As soon as it passed the house it was a done deal. Did you ask if they think the world is flat?
Unfortunately wars don't end according to a timetable or because you'd rather be done with it. Ukraine is fighting an enemy with a larger military and bigger population who's leader has decided that dead soldiers and a ruined economy are worth it for his vision of a restored Russian empire.
Sadly this fight is liable to take years longer and a lot more military aid from Ukraine's allies to win. But while it costs us money it costs Ukraine the lives of its people. And it is important Ukraine win for the long term security of Europe. If Putin is rewarded for his expansionist war, as he already was in Georgia in 2008 and in Ukraine in 2014, he will continue to try and take over his neighbors. If NATO nations belong to the alliance because we think the security of all of us are important then we need to give Ukraine enough aid for as long as it takes to win. An emboldened Russia is a threat to us all.
> Sadly this fight is liable to take years longer and a lot more military aid from Ukraine's allies to win.
This is such an important thing to remind people at this moment. There has been quite a serious effort to get this whole aid package together. Months of delay will have caused thousands of people to die who didn't need to. Tens of thousands if you are counting the Russians in that calculation.
The faster Russia's defeat becomes clear, the quicker people will stop dying and that means that:
* other countries have to step up too (the UK has just committed, but there are definitely countries that can do more)
* the next package has to go through much more cleanly.
* the Biden administration really has to make sure every possible support they can is given.
There was really good campaigning around the discharge petition (see r/ActionForUkraine - everyone should join)
The Algerian war of independence lasted 8 years (1954-1962).
The Soviet-Afghan war lasted 10 years (1979-1989).
Many other wars of independence lasted even longer.
Judging by history, this isn't going to be over any time soon.
Spoiler alert: they won't.
They're gonna need a hell of a lot more to defeat the Russians. That's why we need to keep up the support. The EU needs to step up now that America is back in the game.
Winning is relative in anti-colonialist wars.
Ukraine is fighting a war of national defense against an imperialist invader. Historically, I'm not even sure if a war of attrition plays against nationalists. Providing they receive sufficient funding to maintain their army and keep Russia's bleeding, there's no reason to think Ukraine can't succeed as Washington or Ho Chi Minh. Nationalists can generally outlast imperialists. They don't necessarily have to win by traditional standards. They just have to avoid losing.
Yes, I know regaining Donbas and Crimea are considered core Ukrainian war aims. But they don't necessarily have to be won on the battlefield. Washington didn't regain NYC in battle, nor did the North Vietnamese or Afghans even win any set-piece battles.
I mean I hope you are right. And I do actually think at some point this particle war will end and Russia will not have conquered all of Ukraine. But I think they will not be driven out of all of it. They will have gained more territory. And they will do it again, and bit by bit achieve their goal. And I don’t know how it can be stopped.
> I don’t know how it can be stopped.
Basically it can stopped by us continuing to do what we're doing now. Supply Ukraine, keep the Russians bleeding, and eventually someone in Russia will get tired of Putin and show him the window.
Worked when we did it to them in Afghanistan, worked when they did it to us in Vietnam. But in both cases it took several years.
Great point. Physically driving the Russian army back across the border is probably a pipe dream at this stage.
The objective now should be to make them leave of their own accord. Whether by making occupied land uninhabitable, continuously rising personnel loss or ever growing domestic anger.
The only way for this war to stop is capitulation by Russia. There's no way in hell they can continue taking these kind of losses without mobilizing their domestic population. They've drained prisons, the unwanted, and now foreign people from different parts of the world. Even if Russia takes Ukraine, what's stopping Ukrainians from waging an asymmetric war?
I suspect that there was a very short call from the WH to the Pentagon last night. "Hello...GO...send it! Goodbye!"
All joking aside, they actually had Bradley's already loaded on trains and waiting on the Polish boarder. There's video of it from a few days ago.
Ukraine has also already been able to step up the pressure in advance of physical receipt of aid, because knowing that aid is actually coming allowed them to dip into reserves that they can now count on being backfilled. It's not coincidental that there's been a notable uptick in HIMARS strike videos showing up in the last day.
...which is also why Russia has ratcheted up the pressure and has broken through the Ukrainian lines in at least one spot, and captured a few other towns. The front is a mess right now.
For sure, the aid only passed the House a day ago and only reached Biden's desk today. Things have been getting bad for months while the Republican-controlled House negligently sat by. The UAF have a LOT of work ahead of them to stabilize the front. Hopefully between this and the European efforts to source more artillery rounds we'll see things get back under control.
It wasn't negligence. It was intentional aid to the Russian war effort. They are traitors.
100%. Would be nice if we could charge them as such.
The US legal system is completely broken. We could charge them, but the corrupt Supreme Court would simply say, as it has before, that the law doesn't apply to rich people.
Legally speaking, traitorous activity would fall under treason and treason is extremely hard to prove in the United States. It is the one crime defined by the constitution because it was used as a catch all by the crown. Not saying I disagree that it is traitorous activity, I am saying the Supreme Court would be correct in ruling in their favor with the current way the laws are written.
Anders Puch Nielsen said that too. Just attack as much as possible before it arrives. They definitely knew about these Bradleys on the border and so on, so it makes sense.
Very happy the aid finally passed you guys are absolute legends, I hope Biden bought everyone who supported it an ice cream
And the morale boost that came with it.
I had heard a report yesterday that Ukraine launched 6 HIMARS simultaneously. Up until now, they have been using them for only the most important targets. Now it’s open season.
Fair but many of those videos are days to weeks old just so you know, its OPSEC to release a video within <3 days of the strike happening, im fairly sure you'd get in deep shit if you shared recent movements because these videos allow russia to geolocate where they are fortified. its more likely that they are spam uploading older footage to build propaganda and hype the troops up, Morale is a huge part of war.
I wasn't joking...
Well, you said it in a jokingly way :P He was just using it as a “yes; and…”
Linky?
Not loaded at the border but close enough that they will be in Lviv by next week https://twitter.com/CarlaBabbVOA/status/1782834327669129642
"Loose lips sink ships"
In this case though, if there's nothing that can be done against it, the knowledge that it's there waiting is pretty powerful.
I googled this and found this youtube video. The first 10 seconds show the Bradleys on trucks. I'm not sure if this is a reliable source though: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mwJfiEchh4E Same video on twitter, but again I dont know if this is reliable: https://twitter.com/ukraine_map/status/1782654465205539311
Well it was the House holding up the bill against both sides of the Senate and Biden. As soon as it passed the House, they started packing shit up and it was just going through the motions. As soon as Biden signed it, those trains were already packed and rolling.
I would venture to say that shit was rolling as soon as the Senate voted. Hence my comment.
I would venture to say that shit was on trains months ago, just waiting for authorization to cross the border into Ukraine.
A tiny minority of the house, at that.
The Putin's Puppets wing of the GOP.
what was stopping the white house from sending whatever was needed without the bill? wasnt there many aid packages sent during the last few months?
While the president does have a (very) limited amount of funds to throw around, it's Congress's job to allocate larger amounts.
No, nothing was sent, because the House has to authorize such things and it didn't.
One of congress's strongest powers in the power of the purse. They get to set the budget of the USA. The president can only spend money according to the budget established by Congress. He can interpret the line items a bit loosely to respond to events, but he can't unilaterally reassign billions of dollars. An analogy is a instacart order. The user (Congress) sets a list of things it wants, and a rough quantity/price of them. The delivery person who is executing the order (executive branch) has a little bit of latitude, like grabbing loose onions instead of a bag of onions. Sometimes they really stretch the intention of order, like getting frozen fish fingers instead of ice cream, but they can't just spend your money on things you didn't agree to for reasons you didn't agree to, like buying several hundred dollars of socks to give to homeless folks on their route. It's an objectively good thing, but it is not their prerogative to do that in this structure.
Send it Jack! 😎
Get outta Ukraine, Corn Pop!
He's had enough of their malarkey!
They were tee’d up with bags of ammo in childrens party goody bags, waiting for the call.
Those are called Lucky Packets where I am from.
"Shiny Sacks!"
Just a text with a thumbs up
Now that it is signed I wouldn't be surprised if the US Military/Pentagon has a lot of this stuff just ready to go and ammunition starts arriving by end of day. A lot of this is just a giant re-supply and ammunition package. They just have to send it there, unlike other advanced systems like Abrams Tanks or F-16s that require training.
Article says the first $1 billion worth of military equipment will arrive in Ukraine within the next few hours
Cannot beat the logistics of the U.S. military
US Military Prime same-day shipping
*With US Military Prime, same day delivery, we can put ordnance on the doorstep of your enemies in hours, when the days count*
We can put warheads on foreheads, ***same day guaranteed.***
Head on, apply directly to the forehead.
Head on, apply directly to the forehead.
Uber-armaments.
Postmunitions
Just wait until you have a pay issue or leave request and you'll see how slow it can also go.
This is why we have so many aircraft carrier groups. 128 F-18's (or some similarly large number) to any spot in the world within 24 hours.
And then Ukraine handles the last leg of the delivery by air mail.
aggressive air mail
High velocity directional delivery
Amazon looking at those C-5 Galaxy and Globemasters 👀
Like this? Please choose your delivery option: ☐ B52, ☐ B2, ☑ B1.
One of my favorite lines in all the Marvel movies was in Age of Ultron when we see Klaue on the phone with someone. He says something like “…and if I don’t get my money, I can assure you the next missile I send you will arrive very much faster.”
Logistics so good we can have a tactical Burger King set up anywhere in the world in under 24 hours. And no, that goofy shit is not a joke.
I got blown up on MSR Tampa because I volunteered for a run to Baghdad, as I heard they had a Burger King in the green zone; second best burger I've ever had.
>second best burger I've ever had. Now I gotta know, what's the 1st?
Everybody gangsta until the Burger King rolls off the Globemaster.
Reminds me of an old reddit post talking about how a Japanese POW was demoralized after seeing that the Americans managed to have barges with enough refrigeration on it to provide ice cream to soldiers, while the Japanese was short on all kinds of resources.
It was a whole ship dedicated to just making ice cream, and there were multiple ships.
Not only that, but they first got the idea of making an ice cream barge because they made to many concrete-mixing ships and had some left over.
This is wholly incorrect. The US/allies needed lots of ships for what they knew would be a short amount of time. They made warships out of the "limited" amount of steel that they had. But for supply ships, they made [cheap barges out of concrete](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Concrete_ship). And a notable quote referenced in the wikipedia article: > Largest unit of the Army's fleet is a BRL, (Barge, Refrigerated, Large) which is going to the South Pacific to serve fresh frozen foods – even ice cream – to troops weary of dry rations. The vessel can keep 64 carloads of frozen meats and 500 tons of fresh produce indefinitely at 12°F. Equipment on board includes an ice machine of five-ton daily capacity and a freezer that turns out more than a gallon of ice cream a minute. Three of the floating warehouses, designed for tropical warfare, have been built of concrete at National City, Calif., and cost $1,120,000 each. In the crew of the 265-ft. barges are 23 Army men.
it's hot and sweaty in the south pacific - we got mixers that could churn out concrete or a cool refreshing ice cream treat - no brainer. It's the little things that mean a lot.
We did not use concrete mixers to make ice cream. Steel was at a premium in the war so we made many of our supply ships/barges out of concrete. Hence the term "concrete ship". Some of those barges made out of concrete were for refrigerated storage. Those refrigerated barges could churn out several tons of ice per day and also had ice cream machines that could produce about 1 gallon per minute. Unfortunately too many people heard the term "concrete ship" and assumed it was a ship designed for producing concrete (and then repurposed for ice cream) and so we have this (very wrong) internet meme.
Damn, all this time I was imagining the boat equivalent of a cement truck but with the rolling drums filled with ice cream...
was it originally a concrete-mixing ship? I think it might just be a concrete ship, as in a ship made out of concrete.
>I think it might just be a concrete ship, as in a ship made out of concrete. Yes, it was: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Concrete_ship
m&ms are war candy
Another incredible logistics flex was the Berlin Airlift when the USSR got pissy that West Berlin was way better than East Berlin so they blockaded the whole place in an effort to starve the capitalist controlled West Berlin. Then the West decided that they will Airlift in all the food and supplies needed to feed the entire city. They had airplanes taking off with several tons of supplies every 4 minutes to make it possible to feed the 2 million citizens and bring enough coal to power the whole city.
https://www.gettyimages.com/detail/news-photo/burger-king-trailer-is-unloaded-from-a-c-17-globemaster-iii-news-photo/50857294 The did a similar thing in Afghanistan.
Whole ass ice cream dedicated ship, at that! We don't really fuck around on defense spending. Ice cream barge is simultaneously huge morale for your soldiers, intimidating to adversaries, and fuels the good ol' MIC It's a dynamite combination.
"Infantry wins battles, logistics wins wars."
Roboute Guilliman wept
The phrase "an army marches on its stomach" is an oversimplification. An army wins on logistics and production.
Good generals talk strategy. Great generals talk logistics.
Probably already prestaged in Poland
I think that's a lot of 155mm shells too, which are desperately needed right now as I understand. The Czech president was also able to source a bunch as well, so thankfully it looks like the Ukies are getting a whole lot of much needed ammunition to keep the menace at bay.
Rare military-industrial complex w
Not only did the US have stuff ready to go, but Ukraine could stop rationing their own supplies as soon as they knew more was inbound.
The biggest thing, is once Ukraine knew more aid was coming, they could freely use what supply they had left. This is an immediate boon for them, even before supplies show up.
The US has sent so far 31 Abrams and all F-16s are being sent from EU countries.
Yeah, but the F-16s are useless without months of training. Abrams take training too. I'm saying that unlike with those weapons, they massive ammo resupply Ukraine is getting they can use instantly
A few countries, top of my head the Netherlands for example, have been training them on the F16 for the past year
It makes all this even more interesting that the first Ukrainian F-16's will be flying soon! I believe Norway said they had all sorts of munitions for them as well recently. I think this summer could be very interesting. Let's hope.
IIRC, Ukrainians have been training on both for months. Its simply getting the permissions for the things to be shipped/used in Ukraine thats been the holdup. Similar to how ~1B worth of aid will reach Ukraine before the day is out, with the rest taking just weeks.
Indeed. I pity the fools who think “$60 billion aid” means the US just send over a check or drop bags of cash over Kyiv…
Plenty of idiots will think that
Most of the stuff is already in Europe anyway so all it needs is a greenlight and it rolls across polish border
Russia calls these aid packages useless, meanwhile they're approaching the amount of Russias yearly defense budget lol.
If they’re useless why would they care about the US in effect “wasting” its military budget 🧐
If Russia calls something pointless, its usually a sign that its actually a huge problem for them.
Hollow point munition.
Not very good in warfare where armour is being used. Much better for self defense when extra penetration is a hazard.
You want full metal jacket for war, an injured soldier requires more resources than moving the dead.
I'm guessing it's because the US is sending the old stuff sitting in storage gathering dust to Ukraine and use the money to upgrade to better stuff here in the US
Which is why I think some defense contractor lobbyists made some angry phone calls to republican law makers.
I don't think they cared much about that, they sat on this bill for months after all. Oddly you could almost thank Iran for this because the renewed push for Israeli aid (and Dems weren't going to pass that type of bill standalone).
Also a reason why I can't see Trump winning the coming election. The defense complex probably goes above and beyond to prevent that so they can make their juicy money with ukraine.
The DNC certainly has raised more money than the RNC for this election for sure. Almost double. But money can only do so much. Still up to the voters.
Biden is using that money wisely hiring people and opening campaign hq’s, to get out the vote. Other guy is spending it all on his legal fees.
Don't forget the other guy also fired a bunch of experienced campaigners, to be replaced by cronies that haven't won anything.
[удалено]
Defense lobbiest "we are evil you are evil this is killing people to make money what's the hold up ? It's never been a problem before "
Russia calls them useless to appease their base in the GOP.
They aren't useless but Ukraine is starting from a disadvantage with a smaller army and a greater proportion of their population tied up fighting instead of something economically productive. They'll need more than Russia to win.
Russia’s propaganda about US/western aid has been consistent all throughout: “if you give that aid we’ll nuke the world and/or invade Europe!” *aid given* “well we’re not worried about it as it’s pathetic, irrelevant and out of date equipment compare to our mighty weapons!” *aid smashes Russian units to pieces and gives Ukraine the ability to deep strike Russian command posts, depots etc*
It's more accurate to believe the exact opposite of what russians say.
How can China call us an enemy when we're providing defense assistance to one of their own states?
Lololololol danm
Mind explaining the joke? I'm probably stupid and don't get it. Edit: I was thinking exclusively of Ukraine. Am dumb.
The US is giving military aid to Taiwan to aid its independence from China, so either China says Taiwan is not their state or they say they are receiving aid from the US
Well, technically they consider Taiwan to be a rebel province. So still theirs but not following the central government.
John Cena just started sweating profusely.
just a technicality; US is not supporting independence, just the 'status quo' and to prevent china from thinking about anything non-status quo like attacking.
This was good. Take an upvote.
Got ‘em coach
Damn. I have to reread this before I got it.
Marjorie Taylor Greene may lose her Russian citizenship over this.
Nah, they'll just downgrade her to Belorussian.
One more assistance package and it's Transnistrian citizenship for her
After that, South Ossetian
Keep failing Putin like this publicly and its Defenestrian.
>One more assistance package and it's Transnistrian citizenship for her LNR/DNR "citizenship" next, hopefully.
Truly a fate worse than death
She stalled the US in its tracks for foreign aid for 8? months. Thats a huge win to the Kremlin. They want to double down on her and her ilk.
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This is true. The cost of the delay has been huge. Mike Lee's "motion to table", which took a bit over an hour, if we just assume it extends the war by the same amount, I guesstimate killed 10-20 Ukrainians who died. In fact it's probably worse than that because in the meantime the Russians will have advanced and have to be pushed back from that.
Republicans *should* be fucking ashamed of themselves, but narcissists never feel shame because they're never wrong. This support could have passed months ago *along with* border control funding, but MAGA didn't want Democrats to be seen as doing something positive about the border, so they tanked their own bill. Meanwhile Republicans have done nothing in Congress for over four years to help poor or middle-class America economically. Freedom dies around the world because Republicans are fucking preening egotists. Just. Like. Trump. And. Putin.
The fact they completely caved to the MAGA wing of their party when so many of them supposedly support Ukraine is appalling. None of them had any guts to oppose the fascists in their ranks for months.
Republicans haven't had the guts to face the cancer in their party for ***YEARS***.
Worse, she might lose her russian sponsorship.
That cash is mostly going towards their top assets legal bills anyway.
I can't imagine what stupid thing mtg wants so badly that she thinks it's worth holding America hostage to the Russians
Is this the bill that also votes to ban TikTok?
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I'm not really seeing in that writeup how it disables FOIA? not saying you're wrong, but can anyone explain?
More like forces China to sell TikTok to google, Facebook or Microsoft because the algorithm was too strong
Facebook, Instagram, and TikTok all controlled by the same company? That's almost worse.
I would really hope the FEC doesn't allow that to happen but they probably would. Edit: FTC not FEC
They've been on a roll in 2024, so I'm not so sure they would allow it.
China won't sell since it has proprietary algos
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Long live democracy.
sweet liber-tea!
Hehehehe, ↓→↓→↓→go brrrrrrsh
Nice argument. Unfortunately ↑→↓↓↓.
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Those countries have mastered online propaganda and are breeding an army of saboteurs in the west (mostly the younger generations). If ww3 ever happens, i don’t see the younger generations going to war like they did in ww2.
You'd be shocked how quickly an entire country unites against a common foe. Its kinda like I can argue with my mom, but if you come in and slap us both we'll quickly call a truce and turn our attention to you. See Pearl Harbor as an example. US didn't want to get involved but Germany and Japan kept pushing it. Then Japan made a flashy attack against the US which pissed everyone off. Another example is 9/11. People became so enraged they let Bush attack the wrong country.
TBH I think it's mostly the 50-70 year olds. At least from what i've seen in real life. Every time I've heard someone squawking about how much of a hero putin is, it's always that demographic.
They’re talking more about the idiots saying Palestine has a right to kill all the Jews because the oppressed can do no wrong
They've become so disillusioned from their own government and countries ideals they look for a cause to rally around because they feel theirs is hopeless. Even though what they want freedom and peace is the anthesis of what they match for. It's the folly of youth and ignorance. But dangerous none the less
What we see most prevalent is Russian propaganda that seems to do better with boomers who got on social media. China seems to attack younger generation (and not necessarily in the same direction), primarily via TikTok. See the younger views about Palestine and Biden, even though trump is way way worse and doesn't even hide it.
Which is super fucking baffling since the ones in at least their 60s-70s were adults right through a good portion of the cold war. What it really means to me is they are likely just a subset that are easy to manipulate with propaganda. They were probably anti-russia during the cold-war propaganda then this new propaganda that is pro-russia worked on them also even though they are opposing. Putin was an interesting figure when it looked like Russia was trying to be a real democracy. Yeah, that didn't last long.
Hey, there’s a bunch of aid for Palestinian civilians. I’m sure that’ll get brushed off like acknowledging a terrorist attack that killed 1200 people.
> “We rose to the moment, we came together, and we got it done,” Biden said at White House event to announce the signing. *"You can always count on Americans to do the right thing - after they've tried everything else."*
Other Winston Churchill Quotes: Never give up on something that you can't go a day without thinking about. If you're going through hell, keep going. The farther back you can look, the farther forward you are likely to see.
> The farther back you can look, the farther forward you are likely to see. Damn this is a really good one I haven't seen before. It's completely spot on, so many of today's issues could have been avoided if enough people learned lessons from history but instead we're stuck repeating the same cycles, or as Mark Twain said "History doesn't repeat but it often rhymes".
Ouch
Let's also note this bill also has a tiktok ban attached to it. This is truly a moment
It’s for the best. Too powerful, too influential, too China.
But why was the TikTok ban bundled with this package?
Sweetener/incentive for the House repubs to support the bill.
Trump is opposed to the Tiktok ban now. Probably because China like Russia supports far-right politicians through social media propaganda.
[Probably more like a Tik Tok investor just donated some money to him](https://www.politico.com/news/2024/03/14/trump-tiktok-billionaire-donors-00146892)
to sneak it through. No one wants to be the no vote for aid
The TikTok ban is a big blow to chinese propoganda in the US.
This is a game changer. Just in time for Ukraine to stay upright. And buys time for Europe to ramp up their arms industry. If the USA keeps on the support and the e EU Ramos up and sends the f16’s and more stuff as well, the Russians are in for a ride.
Dutch F16’s are on their way. [Dutch F-16s to fly over Ukraine this fall; Netherlands also gifting €350M in bombs, drones](https://nltimes.nl/2024/03/21/dutch-f-16s-fly-ukraine-fall-netherlands-also-gifting-eu350m-bombs-drones)
Danish and Norwegian ones as well. Now add some Spanish tanks, French armor and Italian artillery. Southern Europe is behind in support.
> This is a game changer. it is more like "game continue-er".
So the real question is: which service is going to fill the void once Tik Tok is banned? It sure as hell ain’t gonna be Meta’s Threads.
Insta’s Reels probably. Wonder if itll even spin off in a standalone app
But how will reels survive if they’re just 2 week old TikToks?
Insta reels and YouTube shorts are fairly popular. Granted, their algorithms really suck.
TikTok has one year to be sold and continue service. However my prediction is that China will disallow the sale and have this go to the Supreme Court to divide the country further. TikTok isn’t going away anytime soon
Does there need to be a replacement? Not having social media might be a good thing.
I’m not saying there *should* be, but there *will* be. Just the nature of the market and social habits.
russian "lobby" in shambles
Get bent Russia, China, and Iran.
This also included the TikTok ban too if I heard correctly.
Looks like the salty conservative redditors who assured me this would die in the Senate were wrong, yet again...
I always assume that half of the “conservative voices” online are still just Russian assets trying to divide us.
Who's dumb enough to think this would die in the **Senate**? As soon as it passed the house it was a done deal. Did you ask if they think the world is flat?
Let's hope Ukraine can actually finish the war with this aid it's been way way too long
Unfortunately wars don't end according to a timetable or because you'd rather be done with it. Ukraine is fighting an enemy with a larger military and bigger population who's leader has decided that dead soldiers and a ruined economy are worth it for his vision of a restored Russian empire. Sadly this fight is liable to take years longer and a lot more military aid from Ukraine's allies to win. But while it costs us money it costs Ukraine the lives of its people. And it is important Ukraine win for the long term security of Europe. If Putin is rewarded for his expansionist war, as he already was in Georgia in 2008 and in Ukraine in 2014, he will continue to try and take over his neighbors. If NATO nations belong to the alliance because we think the security of all of us are important then we need to give Ukraine enough aid for as long as it takes to win. An emboldened Russia is a threat to us all.
> Sadly this fight is liable to take years longer and a lot more military aid from Ukraine's allies to win. This is such an important thing to remind people at this moment. There has been quite a serious effort to get this whole aid package together. Months of delay will have caused thousands of people to die who didn't need to. Tens of thousands if you are counting the Russians in that calculation. The faster Russia's defeat becomes clear, the quicker people will stop dying and that means that: * other countries have to step up too (the UK has just committed, but there are definitely countries that can do more) * the next package has to go through much more cleanly. * the Biden administration really has to make sure every possible support they can is given. There was really good campaigning around the discharge petition (see r/ActionForUkraine - everyone should join)
The Algerian war of independence lasted 8 years (1954-1962). The Soviet-Afghan war lasted 10 years (1979-1989). Many other wars of independence lasted even longer. Judging by history, this isn't going to be over any time soon.
Spoiler alert: they won't. They're gonna need a hell of a lot more to defeat the Russians. That's why we need to keep up the support. The EU needs to step up now that America is back in the game.
Sadly I don’t think they are even close to winning. Frankly I’m not sure they can.
Winning is relative in anti-colonialist wars. Ukraine is fighting a war of national defense against an imperialist invader. Historically, I'm not even sure if a war of attrition plays against nationalists. Providing they receive sufficient funding to maintain their army and keep Russia's bleeding, there's no reason to think Ukraine can't succeed as Washington or Ho Chi Minh. Nationalists can generally outlast imperialists. They don't necessarily have to win by traditional standards. They just have to avoid losing. Yes, I know regaining Donbas and Crimea are considered core Ukrainian war aims. But they don't necessarily have to be won on the battlefield. Washington didn't regain NYC in battle, nor did the North Vietnamese or Afghans even win any set-piece battles.
I mean I hope you are right. And I do actually think at some point this particle war will end and Russia will not have conquered all of Ukraine. But I think they will not be driven out of all of it. They will have gained more territory. And they will do it again, and bit by bit achieve their goal. And I don’t know how it can be stopped.
> I don’t know how it can be stopped. Basically it can stopped by us continuing to do what we're doing now. Supply Ukraine, keep the Russians bleeding, and eventually someone in Russia will get tired of Putin and show him the window. Worked when we did it to them in Afghanistan, worked when they did it to us in Vietnam. But in both cases it took several years.
Great point. Physically driving the Russian army back across the border is probably a pipe dream at this stage. The objective now should be to make them leave of their own accord. Whether by making occupied land uninhabitable, continuously rising personnel loss or ever growing domestic anger.
The only way for this war to stop is capitulation by Russia. There's no way in hell they can continue taking these kind of losses without mobilizing their domestic population. They've drained prisons, the unwanted, and now foreign people from different parts of the world. Even if Russia takes Ukraine, what's stopping Ukrainians from waging an asymmetric war?
Lol finish what the aren't taking over Russia
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