We are one day from the year mark of the Russian invasion of the Ukraine….
President Biden is doing his homework to keep NATO together in supporting the Ukraine and undoing the damage four years of Donald Trump caused ….He has emphasised that a attack on one is a attack on all of the Organiztion, something East Europen’s memebers of NATO hope Biden means (Afghanistan?)…
The Russian suspension of the nuclear arms treaty is NOT seen as significant by the White House and Pentagon officals…(A Russian balistic missile test just done was reportedly a failure)
The Russian’s and Chinese leaders meet in Moscow….
But China seems to NOT want to anger an America it does a HUGE amount of trade with and is arming up Taiwan….
Biden flies back to America aboard the B-747 Air Force One after two 10 hour train rides in the Ukraine…..
A Group of Us House Republicans make the train ride to the Ukraine to assure that country that despite the noise from the crazies?
Republicans in Congress have their back’s (For Now )
A Washington Post nice graphic piece*on the 600 mile Ukraine/Russian ‘front’…
Poland arms up looking over trhe fence at the the Ukraine which will become a strong military power after the conflict also….
(American has been tight with Poland for a LONG time)
My days count will be corrected Friday to the 365th day of the conflict…..
In Moscow, China’s top diplomat, Wang Yi, met with Putin, as the first anniversary of the start of Russia’s war in Ukraine approaches. Wang hailed relations between the two countries on Wednesday, saying they remained strong and would “not be overpowered” by “coercion or pressure” from other parties. China has said it is neutral in the Russia-Ukraine war but has also regularly given diplomatic support to Russia. U.S. and NATO officials have expressed concern that China could start providing other support, including weapons, for Russia’s war in Ukraine.
Here’s the latest on the war and its impact around the globe.
- Biden met with leaders of the Bucharest Nine, countries on NATO’s eastern flank. The group comprises Bulgaria, the Czech Republic, Estonia, Hungary, Latvia, Lithuania, Poland, Romania and Slovakia. “You know better than anyone what’s at stake in this conflict, not just for Ukraine but for the freedom of democracies,” Biden told the assembled leaders, adding that the United States considered Article 5 of NATO’s founding treaty — which says an attack on any NATO member would be considered an attack on all — to be a “sacred commitment.”
- NATO Secretary General Jens Stoltenberg warned B9 leaders that Putin is “not preparing for peace” a year after Russia’s full-scale invasion of Ukraine. “… So we must sustain and step up our support for Ukraine. We must give Ukraine what they need to prevail,” he said. “We must break the cycle of Russian aggression.”
- China-Russia relations had stood the test of an unstable international situation and remained “as stable as Mount Tai” — a Chinese idiom for rock-solid — Wang said Wednesday during his meeting with Putin. Chinese leader Xi Jinping is expected to visit Russia this year.
- Later Wednesday, Putin briefly addressed cheering, flag-waving Russians at a mass rally at Moscow’s Luzhniki Stadium, extolling Russia’s military in an event designed to unite the nation around a long war against Ukraine. In the rare public appearance, Putin, wearing a bulky jacket and flanked by members of Russia’s armed forces, led the audience chanting, “Russia! Russia!”
- Russia’s State Duma passed a law Wednesday suspending the country’s participation in the Strategic Arms Reduction Treaty. Putin announced a day earlier that Russia would be suspending its participation in New START, the only remaining arms control agreement between Russia and the United States.
- Former Russian president Dmitry Medvedev said Russia would disappear if it lost its war in Ukraine. “If Russia stops the special military operation without winning, there will be no Russia; it will be torn apart,” he wrote on Telegram on Wednesday, using the Kremlin-approved term for Russia’s invasion of Ukraine and the ensuing war. “If the U.S. stops supplying weapons to the Kyiv regime, the war is over.”
- Four strikes targeted the city of Kharkiv on Wednesday, Mayor Ihor Terekhov said on Telegram, noting that explosions hit industrial facilities and that injuries were reported. Fighting rages in the Donetsk areas of Bakhmut, Lyman, Avdiivka and elsewhere, Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky said in a speech late Tuesday, describing “constant, intense assaults.”
- One in 10 of Ukraine’s hospitals has been damaged by wartime attacks, according to a report by Physicians for Human Rights, a U.S. nonprofit group. In Russian-held territory, many health workers also have been imprisoned, taken hostage or forced to work under Russian occupation, the report said. The World Health Organization has verified 802 attacks on health care and 101 deaths of health workers and patients, WHO chief Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus said in a Wednesday media briefing.
- Ukraine’s Education Ministry urged schools to operate remotely from Wednesday to Friday “as a preventive measure before the anniversary of the start of Russia’s full-scale war against Ukraine.” In a statement, the ministry said the shift to remote schooling would help “ensure the life and health of all participants of the educational process.” According to ministry figures, over the past year, 3,128 educational institutions have been damaged — with 441 totally destroyed….
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On the line forming to get some of that rebuilding the Ukraine money…..
And Putin putting on a show to pump up support in his country that has had soliders go and come back for burials….
The possible Belarus offence question for the Ukraine….
Latvian roofing companies and South Korean trade specialists. Fuel cell manufacturers from Denmark and timber producers from Austria. Private equity titans from New York and concrete plant operators from Germany. Thousands of businesses around the globe are positioning themselves for a possible multibillion-dollar gold rush: the reconstruction of Ukraine once the war is over.
Russia is stepping up its offensive heading into the second year of the war, but already the staggering rebuilding task is evident. Hundreds of thousands of homes, schools, hospitals and factories have been obliterated along with critical energy facilities and miles of roads, rail tracks and seaports.
The profound human tragedy is unavoidably also a huge economic opportunity that Ukraine’s president, Volodymyr Zelensky, has likened to the Marshall Plan, the U.S. program that provided aid to Western Europe after World War II. Early cost estimates of rebuilding the physical infrastructure range from $138 billion to $750 billion.
The prospect of that trove is inspiring altruistic impulses and entrepreneurial vision, savvy business strategizing and rank opportunism for what the Ukrainian chamber of commerce is trumpeting as “the world’s largest construction site!”
Mr. Zelensky and his allies want to use the rebuilding to stitch Ukraine’s infrastructure seamlessly into the rest of Europe.
Yet whether all the gold in the much-anticipated gold rush will materialize is far from certain. Ukraine, whose economy shrank 30 percent last year, desperately needs funds just to keep going and to make emergency repairs. Long-term reconstruction aid will depend not only on the outcome of the war, but on how much money the European Union, the United States and other allies put up…..
*Note….
This IS a completely CORRECT assessment in the Washington Post piece on the 600 mile Russian/Ukraine war. in my view…
‘Western governments have sent weapons to Ukraine since the beginning of the conflict, and have promised more, including battle tanks. But that supply could diminish later in this second year of fighting. Public support for sending aid and weapons to Ukraine has declined in the United States. Other Western governments have been slow to provide any sizable shipments.
“The real center of gravity for the outcome of this war is not on the Ukrainian battlefield,” said George Barros, a military researcher at the Institute for the Study of War. “The real place is actually in the decision-making space in Western capitals. Because the moment we decide that we are not going to empower Ukraine, Ukraine will lose the war.”’….
One MUST remember Viet Nam and Afghanistan….
A decision by a American President to not expend any American troops …To drop out of supporting a country fighting another, or internal forces ?
Will mean ‘defeat’…..
Ukraiane President Zelensky is sure to KNOW this….
America is thousands of mile away from this conflict….
Europe NOT so, which plays to the Ukraine’s favor….
But this conflict will NOT have the support of America and Europe past a certain point in time….
Putin’s Russia is NOT a Democracy….
His people have no vote like the Western leaders…..