A little OT, but on the periphery is the election in Turkey today (May 14th). The pro-west opposition leader had a slight lead in the last polls, but still too close to call. Doubtful there would be a peaceful transition of power even if he did win.
The opposition leader considers Putin a war criminal and wants to build stronger ties with the EU, bring back the parliament, and liberalize society. There is some controversy around him though as he wants to deport all refugees as he blames them for causing high unemployment for Turkish citizens, which has caused a lot of young people to leave Turkey as economic migrants.
It will be interesting to see how it plays out though. The opposition leader is not a friend of Russia and Putin will likely lose a lot of the pull he has on Turkey.
The other thing is that a lot of people speculate that Erdogan has been blocking Sweden into NATO to look strong for his hardline supporters, but that he was going to soften his stance once the campaigning and election were over, so either way, we might see Sweden get into NATO sooner rather than later.
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Germany's Defense Ministry has announced a new 2.7B Euro military aid package for Ukraine, which will include 20 additional Marder infantry fighting vehicles, 30 Leopard 1 tanks and four IRIS-T-SLM air defense systems. Olaf Scholz also says the pre-requisite for any peace talks would be Russia withdrawing its troops from Ukrainian territory
Apparently Prigozhin offered to reveal Russian troop positions to Ukrainian Intelligence. Ukrainians did not accept because they do not trust him. Sounds like he should stay away from windows.
Apparently Prigozhin offered to reveal Russian troop positions to Ukrainian Intelligence. Ukrainians did not accept because they do not trust him. Sounds like he should stay away from windows.
Apparently Prigozhin offered to reveal Russian troop positions to Ukrainian Intelligence. Ukrainians did not accept because they do not trust him. Sounds like he should stay away from windows.
At Chequers, Sunak confirmed 'the further UK provision of hundreds of air defence missiles and further unmanned aerial systems including hundreds of new long-range attack drones with a range of over 200 kilometres' (125 miles).
It's good to see this weapons support now, but it would have been much better a year ago...
There's no way any NATO nation was going to send Ukraine weapons when there was still a very real possibility of the country falling and everything falling into the hands of the Russians
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It's good to see this weapons support now, but it would have been much better a year ago...
I can understand the need for caution coming off the of the disaster that was the Afghan withdrawal and the previous 2014 Russian invasion of Crimea. Both times in those conflicts the Western supported militaries folded.
The Ukrainians might have needed all of these then, but the reluctance from those events, the West being unsure if Ukrainians could get up to speed on all the systems, and initial EU political disorganization/some pro-Russia positions needed to be overcome first.
I am not a conspiracy theorist or anything but with Belarus's Alexander Lukashenko having been sidelined with health issues, who know's the cause ? The timing could be perfect for Putin to have a preferred candidate installed as President and than having the Belarusian armed forces at their disposal.
I wouldn't put it past Putin to poison and try and kill at friendly leader to achieve his own desired outcome. Than again maybe Alexander Lukashenko is just plain sick.
That's not even a little bit reliable source on the topic though.
It's totally reasonable based on his history. And he almost certainly wouldn't have been honest about the locations of the troops anyways, so it's all moot
I am not a conspiracy theorist or anything but with Belarus's Alexander Lukashenko having been sidelined with health issues, who know's the cause ? The timing could be perfect for Putin to have a preferred candidate installed as President and than having the Belarusian armed forces at their disposal.
I wouldn't put it past Putin to poison and try and kill at friendly leader to achieve his own desired outcome. Than again maybe Alexander Lukashenko is just plain sick.
Lukashenko presented himself today, so he may not be that sick after all. He said that 4 Russian aircrafts were shot down on the Russian side of the border and put their airforce on high alert.
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Last edited by FlamesAddiction; 05-15-2023 at 08:48 PM.
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More details have emerged of the kind of fighter pilot training being provided to Ukraine by the United Kingdom, which we now know is specifically geared toward helping those aviators convert onto the F-16. This should help fulfill Kyiv’s longstanding ambition of obtaining the fourth-generation Western-made fighter jets, while the leaders of Ukraine and the United Kingdom have also discussed a possible “coalition of jets” for the Ukrainian Air Force, as a means of making that more achievable.
What's kind of interesting is that the UK does not operate F-16s, but is working to build this coalition of jets to supply Ukraine with the 4th generation fighter.
France is ready to train pilots immediately with the coordination of other European states and the US, French President Emmanuel Macron announced on Monday evening, noting it could be the precursor to the delivery of planes.
Additionaly, here is the clearest visual I've seen showing the recent Ukranian gains around Bakhmut:
It's totally reasonable based on his history. And he almost certainly wouldn't have been honest about the locations of the troops anyways, so it's all moot
Yeah it's plausible, but that doesn't mean it's true.
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So a few days ago, Ukraine destroyed one of Putin's precious 'unstoppable' Kinzhal hypersonic missiles by the US's 30 year old patriot system. These are missiles which Russian SAM system that Ukraine used prior could not target. It was made even funnier when it turned out the Patriot system acted autonomously.
Well Putin, being the self proclaimed mastermind he is, decided to attack Ukraine with a volley of hypersonic missiles simultaneously to overwhelm the batteries, in order to boast the claim of having destroyed a US Patriot battery with his hypersonic missiles.
The system destroyed every single one of them. This volley included 6 Kinzhal missiles.
Apparently the Patriots were operating in automatic mode when shooting down the Kinzhals. Didn't even need Ukrainians to do anything. Intercepting a hypersonic missile is apparently not that difficult for the Patriot system from what experts have said in interviews, just the intercept range and reaction time is reduced due to the speeds involved.
