Tag: foreign affairs

Zelenskyy says Putin is ‘inspired’ by Capitol Hill deadlock on Ukraine

Posted on by Lone Candle

“Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy kicked off his latest visit to Washington Monday by making the case for Ukraine as the West’s only defense against an imperialist Russia, arguing that squabbling in Washington only benefits Vladimir Putin.
“Let me be frank with you friends,” Zelenskyy told a room full of military officers from across the globe at the National Defense University, “if there’s anyone inspired by unresolved issues on Capitol Hill it is just Putin and his sick clique.””

https://www.politico.com/news/2023/12/11/zelenskyy-says-putin-is-inspired-by-capitol-hill-deadlock-on-ukraine-00131145

Iran inks deal with Russia for supply of Su-35 fighters, Mi-28 attack helicopters

Posted on by Lone Candle

“Iran has finalized an agreement with Russia to buy Su-35 fighter jets, Mi-28 attack helicopters, and Yak-130 jet trainers, Iran’s Deputy Defense Minister Mahdi Farahi said on Nov. 28, the semi-official Iranian news agency Tasnim has reported.
In a conversation with the outlet, Farahi said that these three advanced military aircraft will be at Iran’s disposal, and the relevant processes are “currently underway.””

https://www.yahoo.com/news/iran-inks-deal-russia-supply-115300246.html

China is pushing the naval ‘grey zone’. Sooner or later, the shooting will start

Posted on by Lone Candle

“An Anzac-class frigate of the Royal Australian Navy stopped to conduct diving operations (to clear fishing nets that had fouled its propellors) in international waters off Japan when it was approached by a destroyer of the People’s Liberation Army Navy (PLAN).
The Australian ship, HMAS Toowoomba, then called PLAN ship Ningbo to inform them that they had divers down and asked them to keep their distance. So far so normal.

In response to this, it appears the PLAN destroyer closed the Toowoomba and turned on her bow-mounted sonar, putting enough sound energy into the water to injure the Aussie divers. A spokesperson for the Australian Defence Minister said, “medical assessments conducted after the divers exited the water identified they had sustained minor injuries likely due to being subjected to the sonar pulses from the Chinese destroyer.””

https://www.yahoo.com/news/china-pushing-naval-grey-zone-151750851.html

A Secret War, Strange New Wounds and Silence From the Pentagon

Posted on by Lone Candle

“An investigation by The New York Times found that many of the troops sent to bombard the Islamic State in 2016 and 2017 returned to the United States plagued by nightmares, panic attacks, depression and, in a few cases, hallucinations. Once-reliable Marines turned unpredictable and strange. Some are now homeless. A striking number eventually died by suicide, or tried to.
Interviews with more than 40 gun crew veterans and their families in 16 states found that the military repeatedly struggled to determine what was wrong after the troops returned from Syria and Iraq.”

…

“The United States had made a strategic decision to avoid sending large numbers of ground troops to fight the Islamic State, and instead relied on airstrikes and a handful of powerful artillery batteries to, as one retired general said at the time, “pound the bejesus out of them.” The strategy worked: Islamic State positions were all but eradicated, and hardly any U.S. troops were killed.

But it meant that a small number of troops had to fire tens of thousands of high-explosive shells — far more rounds per crew member, experts say, than any U.S. artillery battery had fired at least since the Vietnam War.”

https://www.yahoo.com/news/secret-war-strange-wounds-silence-160656913.html

Most of Israel’s weapons imports come from the US. Now Biden is rushing even more arms.

Posted on by Lone Candle

“One area where the Biden administration has set itself apart is in sending weapons to partner countries, and now we’re getting a more complete picture of what the US is sending Israel in the weeks since October 7.
Since Russia invaded Ukraine in February 2022, the US has ramped up its previously minimal military aid to the country to an unparalleled $46.7 billion. Ukraine towers over the other major recipients in bar charts of US security assistance for 2022 and ’23. The US is sending so many munitions there that it has apparently strained American factories and led to a whole-of-government effort to revive military supply chains.

The US is also accelerating arms transfers to Israel in response to Hamas’s October 7 attacks that killed 1,200 people and resulted in the kidnapping of more than 200. Last month, President Joe Biden announced from the Oval Office that he would seek “an unprecedented support package for Israel’s defense” of $14.3 billion. “We’re surging additional military assistance,” he added.

But while Ukraine has never been a traditional recipient of heavy military aid, the US’s most recent support of the Israeli military builds on a long bipartisan American practice. Israel has received about $3 billion annually, adjusted for inflation, for the last 50 years, and is the largest historical recipient of US security aid. The Obama administration in 2016 announced the biggest security assistance package to the country ever, pledging $38 billion for Israel over the next decade. US support has ensured that Israel maintains its qualitative military edge over neighboring Arab countries by having more advanced weapons systems, something Congress wrote into law in 2008.

Israel would not be able to conduct this war without the US, which over time has provided Israel with about 80 percent of the country’s weapons imports.”

https://www.vox.com/world-politics/2023/11/18/23966137/us-weapons-israel-biden-package-explained