Posts by rabidrabit

  • WW3-Ukraine, Iran, China is asshoe thread.

    New Drone Tactics Sealed Russian Victory In Kursk


    "This revolution was achieved due to the transition from quantity to quality of our drones, and all other supporting forces and means," wrote Russian Engineer. "It can be said that the Russian army has mastered a tactical technique of 'isolating the battlefield' by modern means in modern conditions. With the help of drones, the supply of the Ukrainian Forces was cut off, and they had no options but to retreat."

    Specifically, he describes how Russian forces in Kursk concentrated their most capable drone operators equipped with piloting fiber-optic drones and used them not to strike front line units but to destroy Ukraine's logistics support. By attacking vehicles bringing food, fuel and ammunition to the front line, and preventing troop rotation and the evacuation of the injured, they isolated frontline forces.

    This claim is supported by large numbers of Russian drone attack videos, including the use of ambush drones which land beside roads until activated when vehicles are approaching. Fiber drones need relatively little power to communicate so they can perch in this way for long periods.

    When they were eventually forces to abandon their positions, the retreating Ukrainians came under heavy drone attack.

    "It was possible to greatly thin out their battle formations during their escape, almost completely destroy their armored vehicles and transport," says Russian Engineer.


    https://www.forbes.com/sites/d…russian-victory-in-kursk/

  • WW3-Ukraine, Iran, China is asshoe thread.

    This fuck stick..


    BREAKING: Reports indicate 3 US carriers are now streaming towards Iran.

    Douglas Macgregor (@DougAMacgregor) March 17, 2025


    Many rumors circulating about U.S. aircraft carriers.

    Here’s an update on all 11 \uD83C\uDDFA\uD83C\uDDF8

    • 3x deployed: Truman in Red Sea, Vinson in WESTPAC, Washington forward in Japan

    • 4x active/available: Ford completing COMPTUEX in the Atlantic, Lincoln & Roosevelt in San Diego, Nimitz in… pic.twitter.com/7gwrzgPDI7

    Ian Ellis (@ianellisjones) March 18, 2025

  • WW3-Ukraine, Iran, China is asshoe thread.

    The U.S. Navy has entered sustained combat operations in the 5th Fleet Area of Operations after U.S. President Donald Trump promised “overwhelming lethal force” against Iranian-backed forces threatening U.S. forces in the region. The campaign will involve multiple rounds of proactive strikes on various targets, not limited to the retaliatory strikes seen in past strikes on Houthi positions, according to U.S. officials familiar with the matter.

    https://www.navalnews.com/nava…ns-against-houthi-forces/


    United States Defence confirms that three aircraft carriers are en route to the Middle East.

    — InsideNK/GeoPolitics (@inside_nk) March 17, 2025


  • WW3-Ukraine, Iran, China is asshoe thread.

    5 things people get wrong about Trump and Ukraine

    I’ve spent hours talking with the president about the war. Here’s what you need to know.

    Updated March 13, 2025

    It is obvious from his disastrous Oval Office meeting that Volodymyr Zelensky does not understand President Donald Trump or what drives him when it comes to ending the war in Ukraine. The Ukrainian president is not alone. Critics are convinced that Trump loves Vladimir Putin and leans toward Russia, while many on the anti-Ukraine right believe he shares their animus toward Kyiv. Both are wrong, and tend to cherry-pick his statements to support their preconceptions, while overlooking the many things he has said that undermine their narrative.

    The truth is more complex. I have spent many hours talking to and interviewing Trump about Ukraine and examining all he has said on the subject since Russia’s full-scale invasion three years ago. Unless Ukraine’s leaders understand Trump’s true goals and objectives, they will continue to find themselves at loggerheads with the man who holds the fate of their country in his hands.

    Here are five things many Americans, Ukrainians and other observers don’t get about Trump when it comes to Ukraine:

    1. Trump’s most pressing objective is to stop the fighting. The first thing Trump talks about when the subject of Ukraine comes up is that a) the war would never have started if he had been president, and b) he wants the killing to end. “I feel I have an obligation to try and do something to stop the death,” he said during his Feb. 28 meeting with Zelensky. “On both sides, we’re losing a lot of soldiers. And we want to see it stop. And we want to see the money get put to different kinds of use like rebuilding.”

    This is why he wants an immediate ceasefire, while negotiations for a long-term peace deal proceed. The real damage Zelensky did during his Oval Office meeting was not alienating Trump personally (though he certainly did that), but convincing Trump that he does not want peace. Zelensky summarily dismissed an immediate ceasefire because he said Putin had already broken ceasefires 25 times, telling Trump, “That’s why we will never accept just a ceasefire. It will not work without security guarantees.” He questioned the value of diplomacy, demanding of Vice President JD Vance, “What kind of diplomacy, JD, you are speaking about?” And as Zelensky detailed Putin’s atrocities, what Trump perceived was a man so blinded by his contempt of Putin that he did not want the war to end. “You see the hatred he’s got for Putin. It’s very tough for me to make a deal with that kind of hate,” Trump said as the meeting spiraled.

    This produced the worst possible outcome: Trump decided, as he put it on Truth Social, that Zelensky “is not ready for Peace.” Zelensky then reinforced that impression by telling reporters in London that an end to the war “is still very, very far away” but that he expected U.S. military aid to continue because “Ukraine has a strong enough partnership with the United States of America” to keep aid flowing. Wrong answer.


    That convinced Trump — who wants to end the war in months, not years — that U.S. military assistance was encouraging Zelensky’s intransigence. “This guy doesn’t want there to be Peace as long as he has America’s backing,” he declared in a social media post. So, he paused military aid and intelligence sharing to Ukraine as pressure on Zelensky to accept a ceasefire.

    Zelensky should have accepted Trump’s unconditional ceasefire from the start, which would have put the onus on Putin: If the Russian leader rejected it or violated it, he would be the object of Trump’s ire and coercion, not Zelensky. Now Zelensky seems to have finally figured this out, and all the pressure is on Putin. He must either do the same or show Trump he is the real obstacle to peace.


    2. Trump wants to help Ukraine get the best deal possible. Trump is committed to helping Ukraine survive as a sovereign and independent nation. This is why the first agreement he negotiated on returning to the White House was “a durable partnership” with Kyiv to jointly develop Ukraine’s minerals and rare earths — which, once signed, will mean America is, literally, financially invested in Ukraine’s survival.

    Trump also wants to help Ukraine regain as much of its territory as possible at the peace table. During a CNN presidential debate in June, Trump was asked whether Putin’s demands that Russia “keeps the Ukrainian territory it has already claimed” were acceptable to him. “No, they’re not acceptable,” he replied. And during an Oval Office meeting with British Prime Minister Keir Starmer last month, he revealed that he planned to help Ukraine recover lost territory. “A lot of the sea line has been taken, and we’ll be talking about that,” Trump said, “And we’re going to see if we can get it back or get a lot of it back for Ukraine.”

    Trump also understands that Ukraine needs security guarantees. He considers the minerals deal one such guarantee. “We’re going to be working over there. We’ll be on the land. And … nobody’s going to be messing around with our people when we’re there,” Trump explained. But he knows more will be needed — which is why, during his meeting with Zelensky, he publicly said he was open to the possibility of sending U.S. troops as part of a peacekeeping force. “I know other countries are going to, and they happen to be right next door. We haven’t committed, but we could conceivably,” he said.

    Trump is open other ideas for long-term security measures. But he believes security is the last thing to be negotiated, not the first. “Security is so easy. That’s about 2 percent of the problem. I’m not worried about security. I’m worried about getting the deal done,” he said last month. I’m not sure he’s right — and Zelensky surely disagrees — but if Zelensky demands security measures up front, he will be running headlong into Trump’s negotiating strategy. That’s unwise.

    3. Trump is saying nice things about Putin as a negotiating tactic. How does Trump really feel about the Russian invasion of Ukraine? “The Russian attack on Ukraine is appalling,” he told the Conservative Political Action Conference in 2022. “It’s an outrage, and an atrocity that should never have been allowed to occur.”
    But now that the president is leading peace negotiations, he sees no utility in calling out Putin’s atrocities. “You want me to say really terrible things about Putin and then say, ‘Hi, Vladimir, how are we doing on the deal?’ That doesn’t work that way,” he explained during Zelensky’s ill-fated visit.

    Trump believes he has to be seen as a neutral arbiter to get a deal. “Well, if I didn’t align myself with both of them, you’d never have a deal,” he said in the Oval Office. “I’m not aligned with Putin. I’m not aligned with anybody. I’m aligned with the United States of America, and for the good of the world.” In public, Trump is neutral. But in truth, he is trying to help Kyiv survive.

    And while his critics suggest he is really on Putin’s side, Trump does not feel he needs to prove his tough-on-Russia bona fides. “Nobody has been tougher on Russia than I have,” he told me in 2020, before laying out the litany of actions he took against Russia during his first term, from sanctions to cyberattacks. There’s no reason to think he wouldn’t do it again if he decides that Putin is the intransigent party.

    Putin has told Trump that he wants peace, so Trump is accepting his “yes” — for now. But at some point soon, the Russian leader will have to prove it with actions, not words. If Putin ends up stringing Trump along, he’ll find out how quickly Trump will turn on him. Indeed, after Putin escalated missile strikes against Ukrainian cities last week, Trump reportedly grew increasingly outraged and warned he was preparing to impose “large scale Banking Sanctions, Sanctions, and Tariffs on Russia until a Cease Fire and FINAL SETTLEMENT AGREEMENT ON PEACE IS REACHED.”

    Putin might not realize it, but he is on a short leash. Zelensky’s best strategy is to be as cooperative with Trump as possible, and put Putin in a position where he is tugging on that leash, trying to avoid going where Trump wants to lead him.

    4. Trump wants to protect American taxpayers. Trump has criticized how much the United States has spent on aid to Ukraine, but that is because he believes the war should never have happened and would never have happened on his watch. He tacitly supported the aid package Congress passed last year, giving Speaker Mike Johnson (R-Louisiana) the green light to pass it during a meeting at Mar-a-Lago. Trump wanted it to be in the form of loans, not aid. Today, a year later, many Ukraine supporters in Congress now agree that the way to arm Ukraine going forward is through interest-bearing Foreign Military Financing loans backed by Ukrainian minerals as collateral.

    Trump says the United States has spent $350 billion aiding Ukraine. He has not explained how he gets to that figure, but I suspect he’s counting everything we have spent since Russia’s full-scale invasion — including bolstering NATO’s defenses in Europe, and the deployment of additional troops and weapons to Poland and the Baltic states — as a cost of the war to U.S. taxpayers.

    By contrast, Zelensky has unwisely downplayed U.S. financial contributions, declaring “in total, the U.S. separately gave us about $67 billion in weapons, and we received $31.5 billion in budget support.” That is a grave mistake; every member of Congress knows that they voted for $183 billion in aid to Ukraine across five bills, many under fire from the anti-Ukraine right for doing so. Undercounting that support undercuts Ukraine’s allies and comes across as ungrateful.

    Trump believes he can help Ukraine survive and rebuild while making American taxpayers whole, and the minerals deal is the way to do so. Zelensky would be wise to stop discounting the level of U.S. support and sign the deal as soon as possible.


    5. Trump does not share the hostility of the anti-Ukraine right. If anything, he considers himself the best friend Ukraine has. He liked Zelensky (at least before his White House meeting), and credits the Ukrainian leader with saving him during his first impeachment. “He was like a piece of steel,” Trump said, standing next to Zelensky at Trump Tower last summer. “He said, ‘President Trump did absolutely nothing wrong.’ He said it loud and clear. And the impeachment hoax died right there. … And I appreciated that.”

    Zelensky took all that goodwill and squandered it with one disastrous meeting. To go from the effusive praise and genuine affection Trump showered on him at Trump Tower to getting unceremoniously thrown out of the White House was quite a diplomatic feat.

    The fact is, Zelensky had Trump’s friendship and lost it. He needs to win it back, because — like it or not — his country’s fate depends on it. And the only way to do so is to convince Trump that, as Trump put standing next to Zelensky last summer: “We both want to see this [war] end.” If Trump doesn’t believe that, his gratitude for Zelensky’s impeachment support won’t mean much.

    Perhaps I will be proved wrong about some or all this as the negotiations unfold. If I am, I’ll be the first to admit it and call Trump out. But from what I’ve seen over the past three years, I believe those who claim that Trump is siding with Putin against Ukraine are simply incorrect. And those whispering otherwise in Zelensky’s ear are not helping. They are setting him up for confrontation and failure.


    https://www.washingtonpost.com…rump-ukraine-russia-deal/

  • WW3-Ukraine, Iran, China is asshoe thread.

    The U.S. Secretary of State Rubio persuaded Hungary via a phone call not to veto the next extension of EU sanctions against Russia.

    Source: Reuters

    Clash Report (@clashreport) March 17, 2025


    Sikorski: Hungary is blocking the start of talks on Ukraine's accession to the EU

    Foreign Minister Radosław Sikorski announced in Brussels on Monday that Hungary is blocking the opening of accession talks with Ukraine, citing bilateral issues. He asked the Polish opposition to "convince their ideological brethren" in Hungary to withdraw their veto.

    As Sikorski emphasized after the meeting of foreign ministers in Brussels, the EU accession process is for Ukrainians "an anchor of Ukrainian morale". "As the presidency, we feel particularly responsible for this.

    We would certainly like to open one, maybe even a second negotiation cluster, but I regret to say that this is yet another case in which the decision is being blocked by our old friend, once an ally - the Republic of Hungary, " he said.

    "A quite lively discussion ensued (at the ministers' meeting - PAP) about the fact that the decision to start negotiations should not be based on bilateral issues, but on meeting the criteria," Sikorski noted.

    "I must ritually appeal to the Polish opposition, which maintains close ideological contacts with the government and party of Viktor Orban, to ask them to do something good for Poland, for Europe - namely to convince their ideological brethren to unblock these issues"- he said.

    "It is all the more urgent because I hear about the Hungarian initiative with the Polish organization Ordo Iuris to advise the American administration on how to dismantle Europe as part of a think tank in Washington, the Heritage Foundation . I would like to ask the Polish opposition what they think about this initiative, whether it serves Polish interests for the European Union to be paralyzed, reduced to just a group of mutual discussions," the Minister of Foreign Affairs asked. (PAP)

    https://www.pap.pl/aktualnosci…w-o-wejsciu-ukrainy-do-ue

  • WW3-Ukraine, Iran, China is asshoe thread.

    'Everything is finished': Ukrainian troops relive retreat from Kursk

    Jonathan Beale & Anastasiia Levchenko

    BBC News
    Ukrainian soldiers fighting in Russia's Kursk region have described scenes "like a horror movie" as they retreated from the front lines.

    The BBC has received extensive accounts from Ukrainian troops, who recount a "catastrophic" withdrawal in the face of heavy fire, and columns of military equipment destroyed and constant attacks from swarms of Russian drones.

    The soldiers, who spoke over social media, were given aliases to protect their identity. Some gave accounts of a "collapse" as Ukraine lost Sudzha, the largest town it held.

    Ukrainian restrictions on travel to the front have meant it is not possible to get a full picture of the situation. But this is how five Ukrainian soldiers described to us what had happened.

    Volodymyr: 'Drones around the clock'

    On 9 March, "Volodymyr" sent a Telegram post to the BBC saying he was still in Sudzha, where there was "panic and collapse of the front".

    Ukrainian troops "are trying to leave - columns of troops and equipment. Some of them are burned by Russian drones on the road. It is impossible to leave during the day."

    Movement of men, logistics and equipment had been reliant on one major route between Sudzha and Ukraine's Sumy region.

    Volodymyr said it was possible to travel on that road relatively safely a month ago. By 9 March it was "all under the fire control of the enemy - drones around the clock. In one minute you can see two to three drones. That's a lot," he said.

    "We have all the logistics here on one Sudzha-Sumy highway. And everyone knew that the [Russians] would try to cut it. But this again came as a surprise to our command."

    At the time of writing, just before Russia retook Sudzha, Volodymyr said Ukrainian forces were being pressed from three sides.


    Maksym: Vehicle wrecks litter the roads

    By 11 March, Ukrainian forces were battling to prevent the road being cut, according to Telegram messages from "Maksym".

    "A few days ago, we received an order to leave the defence lines in an organised retreat," he said, adding that Russia had amassed a significant force to retake the town, "including large numbers of North Korean soldiers".

    Military experts estimate Russia had amassed a force of up to 70,000 troops to retake Kursk – including about 12,000 North Koreans.

    Russia had also sent its best drone units to the front and was using kamikaze and first-person-view (FPV) variants to "take fire control of the main logistics routes".

    They included drones linked to operators by fibre-optic wires - which are impossible to jam with electronic counter-measures.

    Maksym said as a result "the enemy managed to destroy dozens of units of equipment", and that wrecks had "created congestion on supply routes".

    Anton: The catastrophe of retreat

    The situation on that day, 11 March, was described as "catastrophic" by "Anton".

    The third soldier spoken to by the BBC was serving in the headquarters for the Kursk front.

    He too highlighted the damage caused by Russian FPV drones. "We used to have an advantage in drones, now we do not," he said. He added that Russia had an advantage with more accurate air strikes and a greater number of troops.

    Anton said supply routes had been cut. "Logistics no longer work – organised deliveries of weapons, ammunition, food and water are no longer possible."

    Anton said he managed to leave Sudzha by foot, at night – "We almost died several times. Drones are in the sky all the time."

    The soldier predicted Ukraine's entire foothold in Kursk would be lost but that "from a military point of view, the Kursk direction has exhausted itself. There is no point in keeping it any more".

    Western officials estimate that Ukraine's Kursk offensive involved about 12,000 troops. They were some of their best-trained soldiers, equipped with Western-supplied weapons including tanks and armoured vehicles.

    Russian bloggers published videos showing some of that equipment being destroyed or captured. On 13 March, Russia said the situation in Kursk was "fully under our control" and that Ukraine had "abandoned" much of its material.

    Dmytro: Inches from death

    In social media posts on 11-12 March, a fourth solider, "Dmytro" likened the retreat from the front to "a scene from a horror movie".
    "The roads are littered with hundreds of destroyed cars, armoured vehicles and ATVs (All Terrain Vehicles). There are a lot of wounded and dead."
    Vehicles were often hunted by multiple drones, he said.
    He described his own narrow escape when the car he was travelling in got bogged down. He and his fellow soldiers were trying to push the vehicle free when they were targeted by another FPV drone.

    It missed the vehicle, but injured one of his comrades. He said they had to hide in a forest for two hours before they were rescued.
    Dmytro said many Ukrainians retreated on foot with "guys walking 15km to 20km". The situation, he said, had turned from "difficult and critical to catastrophic".

    In a message on 14 March, Dmytro added: "Everything is finished in the Kursk region... the operation was not successful."
    He estimated that thousands of Ukrainian soldiers had died since the first crossing into Russia in August.

    Artem: 'We fought like lions'
    A fifth soldier sounded less gloomy about the situation. On 13 March, "Artem" sent a Telegram message from a military hospital, where he was being treated for shrapnel wounds suffered in a drone attack.

    Artem said he had been fighting further west – near the village of Loknya, where Ukrainian forces were putting up a stiff resistance and "fighting like lions".

    He believed the operation had achieved some success.

    "It's important that so far the Armed Forces of Ukraine have created this buffer zone, thanks to which the Russians cannot enter Sumy," he said.


    What now for Ukraine's offensive?

    Ukraine's top general, Oleksandr Syrskyi, insists that Ukrainian forces have pulled back to "more favourable positions", remain in Kursk, and would do so "for as long as it is expedient and necessary".

    He said Russia had suffered more than 50,000 losses during the operation - including those killed, injured or captured.

    However, the situation now is very different to last August. Military analysts estimate two-thirds of the 1,000 sq km gained at the outset have since been lost.

    Any hopes that Ukraine would be able to trade Kursk territory for some of its own have significantly diminished.

    Last week, President Volodymyr Zelensky said he believed the Kursk operation had "accomplished its task" by forcing Russia to pull troops from the east and relieve pressure on Pokrovsk.

    But it is not yet clear at what cost.

    https://www.bbc.com/news/articles/c0q198zyppqo

  • WW3-Ukraine, Iran, China is asshoe thread.

    Quote from Gina

    It goes to show what a pile of shit Russia is. You would think that they would be concerned about the shipping lanes being shut down by terrorists, but I guess not.

    The Houthies let their ships through and Russia is suspected of providing targeting info to the Houthies. Lavrov talking out both sides of his face at the same time is a daily event. He is painting the US / west as an aggressor, Russia as peaceful and voice of reason while supporting the Houthies.

  • WW3-Ukraine, Iran, China is asshoe thread.

    You would think Elon could know what systems are in the area and know which ones were Ukes and thus which ones were Russian and disable the illegal Russian Starlinks. That's not a complicated process.



    1/ Elon Musk's Starlink is now just as crucial for Russian forces fighting in Ukraine as it is for the Ukrainian defenders. A mass deactivation of many Russian Starlink terminals last month has prompted an unusually frank assessment of much the Russians now depend on it. ?? pic.twitter.com/a7DVkaLFTB

    — ChrisO_wiki (@ChrisO_wiki) March 17, 2025



    Thread by @ChrisO_wiki on Thread Reader App
    @ChrisO_wiki: 1/ Elon Musk's Starlink is now just as crucial for Russian forces fighting in Ukraine as it is for the Ukrainian defenders. A mass deactivation…
    threadreaderapp.com

  • WW3-Ukraine, Iran, China is asshoe thread.

    Lavrov certainly knows the Houthies don't intend to stop until their sponsors or US strikes make them stop.


    Russia's FM urges US Secy of State to 'immediately' halt strikes on Houthis

    US Secretary of State Marco Rubio on Sunday (local time) informed Russian Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov about Washinton's decision to use military power against Yemen Houthis rebels. In response, Lavrov emphasised the need for all parties to "immediately" cease the use of force, according to Russia's Ministry of Foreign Affairs.

    "On March 15, Secretary Marco Rubio informed Russia's FM Sergey Lavrov of the US decision to launch a military operation against the Houthi forces. Sergey Lavrov stressed the need for all Parties to immediately cease the use of force," the Russia's Ministry of Foreign Affairs wrote in a post on X.

    https://www.business-standard.…uthis-125031700057_1.html

  • WW3-Ukraine, Iran, China is asshoe thread.

    Quote
    Turkish President Erdogan spoke with President Trump and called on him to return Turkey to the stealth program and allow it to acquire F-35 aircraft.
    Raylan Givens (@JewishWarrior13) March 16, 2025


    Quote
    Erdogan sends a fiery message to Putin, reminding him that Crimea is Ukraine

    On the 11th anniversary of the so-called “Crimean referendum,” the Turkish Foreign Ministry stated that they do not recognize the illegal annexation of the peninsula and fully support Ukraine’s… pic.twitter.com/AkiF08neHJ
    — NEXTA (@nexta_tv) March 16, 2025