Fox talking head sat down with Russian President Putin on camera…..
Putin worked Carlson talking past him to get the idea that Ukraine should cut a deal and let Russia keep what it has taken so far from Ukraine….
Ukraine President Zelensky, well aware of what Putin wants has changed commander’s of countries military….In echo’s of American President Lincoln …He is placing a General that has done more with less in charge of Ukraine’s military efforts…
Zelensky knows that time IS running out for his country in the fight….
He IS attempting to show gains on the battle field and beyond to prove to others that Ukraine CAN recapture more before having to sit-down and work a settlement with Russia….
The America Congress will try again to pass an aid package for Ukraine which is actually getting more aid from it’s European neighbours that America…
The Carlson-Putin sit-down Q & A….
President Vladimir V. Putin of Russia has worked for decades to win allies in the West, using his spy agencies to interfere in elections and deploying diplomats to build links with Kremlin-friendly politicians.
On Thursday, the world witnessed a new, verbose chapter in those efforts: Mr. Putin’s two-hour interview, taped in a gilded hall at the Kremlin, with one of America’s most prominent and most divisive conservative commentators.
Speaking to Tucker Carlson, the former Fox News host, Mr. Putin called on the United States to “make an agreement” to cede Ukrainian territory to Russia in order to end the war. He sought to appeal directly to American conservatives just as Republican lawmakers are holding up aid to Ukraine on Capitol Hill, echoing the talking points of politicians like former President Donald J. Trump who say that the United States has more pressing priorities than a war thousands of miles away.
“Don’t you have anything better to do?” Mr. Putin said in response to Mr. Carlson’s question about the possibility of American soldiers fighting in Ukraine. “You have issues on the border, issues with migration, issues with the national debt.”…
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Ukraine President Zelensky changes military leaders….
Gen. Oleksandr Syrsky, who was appointed commander of the Ukrainian military on Thursday, led two successful counteroffensives in the war against Russia before his troops became bogged down in one of the most contentious and costly battles of the conflict.
It was a strung-out, vicious spell of urban combat in the eastern city of Bakhmut last winter, and even as Ukraine was clearly losing ground in the fight, General Syrsky, then commander of the ground forces, had argued that the decision to defend was sound since Russia was losing more soldiers than Ukraine.
Ukraine maintained what military parlance calls a favorable attrition ratio in the Bakhmut street fighting, but it did little to win backers for the general’s strategy among rank-and-file soldiers. Bakhmut ultimately fell, after Ukraine had lost thousands of troops in the grinding fight.
The nickname “the Butcher” for General Syrsky is now widespread in Ukraine’s Army.
In the two earlier successful battles — in the defense of the capital, Kyiv, and in the northern Kharkiv region — General Syrsky’s soldiers had turned to small-unit tactics and rapid maneuvers to defeat the larger, better armed Russian forces. But it was his willingness to engage in attritional warfare over Bakhmut, however much the ratio of losses favored Ukraine, that drew criticism from the United States and that has hung over the general’s reputation in the Ukrainian Army.
General Syrsky is assuming command of the military after the front line has hardened, as rapid advances by Ukraine’s troops seem a distant prospect, amid deep uncertainty over the future of military aid from the country’s most important ally, the United States, and as a plan to mobilize more soldiers in Ukraine has stalled, complicating military planning…..
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In the current full-scale war, General Syrsky has shown he can fight despite lack of equipment and forces. In Kyiv, he commanded lightly armed troops fighting on the city’s outskirts, supported mostly by Ukraine’s Soviet-legacy artillery systems.
General Syrsky was selected for the top military position over a man considered his main competitor for the job: the commander of the military intelligence agency, Gen. Kyrylo Budanov, who had overseen a campaign of sabotage and drone strikes behind enemy lines and inside Russia.
These operations are asymmetrical, seeking to harm Russia using innovative tactics and technology such as drones that outweigh Moscow’s superior quantities of men and weapons.
“Zelensky has no choice but take any possible steps which will allow Ukraine to win,” Mr. Samus, the military analyst, said. “To base your military decisions on the people’s love is a mistake.”
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Feb 8, 2024 – ISW Press
US aid to Ukraine does not lack oversight nor has corruption in Ukraine diverted it.
America’s NATO and Asian allies and other European states have committed more money to support Ukraine than the United States.
Ukraine is not a “forever war” for the United States because Americans are not fighting this war.
Sending military aid to Ukraine increases America’s military readiness and reduces the risk that the United States will have to fight Russia itself.
The United States is not sending Ukraine a “blank check.”