Stephen Kotkin: Russia’s Murky Future | Foreign Affairs Interview
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zaJ9VZorgjM
Tag: international relations
Ukraine was in trouble already — now it openly admits it’s on track to lose
“Ukraine’s chances of victory in its two-year battle to repel Russia’s brutal invasion appear to be fading.
Volodymyr Zelenskyy, Ukraine’s president, is warning with increasing urgency that his country could lose the war if it doesn’t get $60 billion in US aid that Republicans in Congress are refusing to release.
“Can we hold our ground? No,” Zelenskyy recently told PBS of Ukraine’s prospects should it not get the funding.
Ukraine’s foreign minister, Dmytro Kuleba, was just as blunt in a recent interview.
“Give us the damn Patriots,” he told Politico in March, referring to the US-made air defense systems used to defend Russian missiles, which are pummelling Ukrainian cities and infrastructure.
On the front line in east and south Ukraine, reports say the situation is increasingly desperate, with Russia outfiring Ukraine at a rate of three to one. Parts of the front line are also dangerously close to collapse.
Senior Ukrainian military officials, talking to Politico, said that Russia could break through wherever it focuses its anticipated summer offensive.
Russia will likely be able to “penetrate the front line and to crash it in some parts,” they told the outlet.
“I would say the conditions now are probably more favorable for a Russian breakthrough than at any time since the opening stages of the war,” Bryden Spurling, an analyst with the RAND Corporation, told Business Insider.
The aid block is also making it increasingly difficult for Ukraine to defend its cities and critical infrastructure, such as power stations, from waves of Russian missile and drone attacks.”
https://www.yahoo.com/news/ukraine-trouble-already-mdash-now-151430041.html
Johnson Needs Democrats on Ukraine, Handing Them Power to Shape Aid Plan
“For more than two decades, the “rule,” a bit of congressional arcana that few who work outside of Capitol Hill ever pay attention to, was treated as a foregone conclusion and a straight party-line vote. Even if lawmakers planned to break with the party on a bill, they would stay in line on the rule to bring it up, voting “yes” if they were in the majority and “no” for the minority.
But that quaint tradition has fallen by the wayside during this Congress, as rebellious House Republicans have routinely tanked rule votes to exert their leverage and win concessions in a slim majority where they hold outsize power.
“It’s the only tool they have in the toolbox,” said Rep. Tim Burchett, R-Tenn. “It’s legal; it’s in the rules.”
When the procedural resistance of the hard right has threatened to scuttle legislation that Democrats consider existential — a bill to defuse the threat of catastrophic debt default, for one, or one to arm a democratic ally facing an invading dictator — they, too, have shown a willingness to break with convention on the rule.
Last year, 52 Democrats voted in favor of the rule to bring up the debt ceiling bill negotiated by the speaker at the time, Kevin McCarthy, and President Joe Biden, helping the hamstrung GOP leader push through the measure. In the end, 29 Republicans voted against the rule.
Far-right Republicans have been enraged by the results. After McCarthy struck the debt deal, Rep. Matt Gaetz, R-Fla., said, “We’re going to force him into a monogamous relationship with one or the other,” referring to his cohort of right-wing Republicans or Democrats. “What we’re not going to do is hang out with him for five months and then watch him go jump in the back seat with Hakeem Jeffries and sell the nation out.”
Ultimately, McCarthy ended up in a relationship with no one; Democrats did not vote to save him when Gaetz called a snap vote to oust him and was joined by seven Republicans in voting for him to go.
Johnson is also walking a delicate line. He has to tend to the politics of his own fractured conference without alienating the Democrats whom he will need to pass the security package — and, potentially, to save his job.”
https://www.yahoo.com/news/johnson-needs-democrats-ukraine-handing-120026789.html
Russian advances could give it a shot at Ukraine’s eastern ‘fortress belt,’ war analysts warn
Russian advances could give it a shot at Ukraine’s eastern ‘fortress belt,’ war analysts warn
https://www.yahoo.com/news/russian-advances-could-shot-ukraines-204934571.html
Benjamin Wittes — Israel, Gaza and Implications for U.S. Foreign and Domestic Policy
Benjamin Wittes — Israel, Gaza and Implications for U.S. Foreign and Domestic Policy
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TfBkqP7OTVA
New American Military Aid for Ukraine – What’s in the package and what impact will it have?
New American Military Aid for Ukraine – What’s in the package and what impact will it have?
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Qc436PwqeqM
How China Will Take Over Asia REVEALED
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2vF-kQDXvfc
Russian weapons and trainers arrive in Niger weeks after US military agreement ends
“Since seizing power in a coup last year, Niger’s junta has been strengthening military ties with Russia while turning away from the US and France.
Last month, the junta said it was ending an accord with the US that allowed military personnel and civilian staff from the US Department of Defense to operate in Niger.
France, Niger’s former colonial ruler, withdrew its troops from the African nation at the end of 2023.
Niger’s junta-controlled neighbors Mali and Burkina Faso have also turned to Russia for military support, deepening Western concerns about Russia’s expanding influence in Africa’s troubled Sahel region that has battled a spate of coups and Islamist insurgents for years.”
https://www.yahoo.com/news/russian-weapons-trainers-arrive-niger-114626858.html
The Peril of Slowness: American Mistakes during Russia’s War of Aggression in Ukraine
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JVs2y-YeiFM
Iran’s stealth drones have become the new blueprint for international warfare
In January, an Iranian exploding drone hit a US military base in Jordan, killing three US service members. The Washington Post cited a defense source who said the weapon was a small attack Shahed-101.
The drone was able to sneak past American defenses by shadowing a US drone also landing at the base — a trick believed to have been picked up from Russia, Bloomberg reported.
“Russia and Iran are learning from each other. That is almost as important as the technology-sharing itself,” Matthew McInnis, a Pentagon intelligence officer who was a State Department representative for Iran, told the outlet.
But Iran’s influence goes beyond Russia. Iranian-backed Houthis have curtailed trade in the Red Sea in recent months by perpetrating drone attacks on cargo ships.
Bloomberg reported that Ethiopia had used Iranian drones to squash rebellions in the country, while Tajikistan, Algeria, and Venezuela were also partnering with Iran.
https://www.yahoo.com/news/irans-stealth-drones-become-blueprint-013422260.html