Remember I wrote that “Russian collaborators” (those who couldn’t get out in time) were being subjected to repression by Ukrainian forces?
Let’s back up a bit. The “mass graves” discovered in “newly liberated” areas of east Ukraine have fizzled.
War Crimes
Tag: munitions
Biden Details New $625 Million Arms Package for Ukraine in Zelensky Call
Biden Details New $625 Million Arms Package for Ukraine in Zelensky Call
The new $625 million package is being provided through the presidential drawdown authority, which allows Biden to send arms to Ukraine directly from US military stockpiles. A stopgap funding bill President Biden signed into law last week included $3.7 billion for this authority. It also included $12.3 billion for other military and economic aid for Ukraine, bringing total US spending on the war to about $67.5 billion, a number that’s higher than Russia’s entire military budget for 2021.
New $1.1 Billion Arms Package for Ukraine Includes 18 HIMARS Launchers, as The U.S. and Europe are running out of weapons to send to Ukraine
New $1.1 Billion Arms Package for Ukraine Includes 18 HIMARS Launchers
The HIMARS that the US has been sending to Ukraine are equipped with missiles that have a range of about 50 miles. But that can change, and Kyiv is requesting Army Tactical Missile Systems, which have a range of 190 miles, but Washington has been hesitant to send the longer-range missiles. Russia has warned that providing such arms would cross a “red line.”
Related:
The U.S. and Europe are running out of weapons to send to Ukraine
In the U.S. weapons industry, the normal production level for artillery rounds for the 155 millimeter howitzer — a long-range heavy artillery weapon currently used on the battlefields of Ukraine — is about 30,000 rounds per year in peacetime.
The Ukrainian soldiers fighting invading Russian forces go through that amount in roughly two weeks.
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Is the U.S. ability to defend itself at risk?
The short answer: no.
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The U.S. has essentially run out of the 155 mm howitzers [M777?] to give to Ukraine; to send any more, it would have to dip into its own stocks reserved for U.S. military units that use them for training and readiness. But that’s a no-go for the Pentagon, military analysts say, meaning the supplies reserved for U.S. operations are highly unlikely to be affected.
Slava Slush Fund: despite economic crisis, Congress readies $12 billion more for Ukraine + More
U.S. has now allocated over $80 billion to Kiev.
Sure, financial markets and national currencies are imploding worldwide, but the military industrial regime needs to keep churning, and that means pumping more money into the Slava Slush Fund.
Slava Slush Fund: despite economic crisis, Congress readies $12 billion more for Ukraine
Related:
There’s no debating it: Biden will get billions in new Ukraine aid
“Oversight of Ukraine aid is sorely needed,” Julia Gledhill, a defense analyst for the Project on Government Oversight (POGO), tells Responsible Statecraft. “The State and Defense departments are handling billions of dollars in Ukraine funding, but neither have permanent inspectors general in place to investigate and prevent abuse of funds.”
Senate advances spending bill for Ukraine with $12 Billion
After the Senate invoked cloture for the legislative vehicle to carry out the CR, it will now be up for a full vote by the Senate. The House will next vote on it, likely on Friday.
Report: US Preparing $1.1 Billion Arms Package for Ukraine
The weapons package will likely include HIMARS rocket systems, HIMARS ammunition, counter-drone systems, radar systems, training, and technical support.
The arms package is expected to be provided to Kyiv using the Ukraine Security Assistance Initiative (USAI) as opposed to sending the arms directly from US military stockpiles. The USAI allows the Biden administration to purchase military equipment for Ukraine from the US arms industry.
US Lawmakers Say Student Loan Forgiveness Will Hurt Military Recruiting
Nineteen members of the US House of Representatives have written a letter [PDF] to President Joe Biden and Secretary of Defense Lloyd Austin cautioning that the partial cancellation of student debts can have the unintended consequence of reducing military recruitment in the United States.
US Lawmakers Say Student Loan Forgiveness Will Hurt Military Recruiting
New Fakes about Russia-DPRK Military Cooperation
New Fakes about Russia-DPRK Military Cooperation
The second option is more amusing and, alas, more realistic: the source of the sensational information could be such an anonymous and specific medium as Russian politicized Telegram channels, in which the SMO is constantly discussed. However, Telegram’s anonymity often makes it impossible to identify the channel’s real author. This means that any high-school student with a glib tongue can easily portray himself as an “expert from those very structures” involved in the “secrets of the Kremlin court”, even if the information has no real basis in fact.
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To conclude the conversation, it is worth noting how the propaganda image of the DPRK has changed: before the SMO, the Western media presented North Korea as a starving third-world country, but now it is a superpower providing Putin with builders, soldiers and now also ammunition. Therefore, the fake about millions of missiles is clearly not the latest fake about the “Jucheans in the Donbass”.
US Ammunition Running Low for Ukraine, No Quick Fix for Shortage
Sep 15, 2022 – The Western media based on US Army market surveys is taking notice of critical shortages of munitions among US stockpiles and what is available to send Ukraine.
The shortages undoubtedly have and will continue to manifest themselves on the battlefield in the form of Ukrainian forces being constantly outgunned.
US Ammunition Running Low for Ukraine, No Quick Fix for Shortage via The New Atlas (Odysse channel)
NATO Opens Second Front in Effort to Bleed Russia Dry
On Tuesday, the military forces of Azerbaijan shelled territory in neighboring Armenia. “The hostilities erupted minutes after midnight, with Azerbaijani forces unleashing an artillery barrage and drone attacks in many sections of Armenian territory, according to the Armenian Defense Ministry,” reports to the Associated Press. The premier corporate propaganda outfit cited serious damage to “civilian infrastructure and also wounded an unspecified number of people,” including 49 Armenian soldiers (later updated to 99 soldiers).
NATO Opens Second Front in Effort to Bleed Russia Dry
U.S. ups the ante: are we indeed headed into WWIII and what can save us?
Gilbert Doctorow, 9/9/22
The UK and Commonwealth may be mourning the passing of Queen Elizabeth II yesterday. I am in mourning as well, but for a very different reason: the gathering of the Ukraine Defense Contact Group in the Ramstein air base in Germany yesterday reshuffled the deck on Western military and financial assistance to Ukraine, raising contributions to the ongoing holy crusade against Russia from still more nations and adding new, still more advanced precision strike weapons to the mix of deliveries to Kiev. It was an open summons to the Kremlin to escalate in turn, as were the test firing the same day of a new intercontinental rocket, the Minuteman III, from Vandenberg air base in California and the unannounced visit to Kiev yesterday of not only Secretary of State Antony Blinken, who was featured in Western media accounts, but also other top officials of the Biden administration. The most notorious member of this delegation was surely Blinken’s deputy, Victoria Nuland, who had stage managed the February 2014 coup that put in power in Kiev the Russia-hating regime that Zelensky now heads.
Gilbert Doctorow: U.S. ups the ante: are we indeed headed into WWIII and what can save us?
Related:
A Former US Marine Corps Officer’s Analysis of the Ukraine War (archived, in case the original is removed)
As he arms Ukraine, Biden readies new weapon pipelines for Eastern Europe
Top U.S. officials on Thursday unveiled $2.8 billion in new military and humanitarian aid for Ukraine and Eastern European allies, marking a shift from just-in-time weapons transfers to Ukraine to a longer-term effort to equip nations all across NATO’s eastern front.
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“At some point, particularly if House Republicans win in the elections, I don’t know how we do this in December or in January, it’s going to be really, really difficult,” to get more aid packages passed, one Republican staffer admitted. The staffer spoke on condition of anonymity to discuss sensitive political matters.
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“If there were a war in the Taiwan Strait right now, [there are] very serious concerns the U.S. would have sufficient munitions for any kind of prolonged conflict,” Jones said. “The industrial base right now is being severely tested.”
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Thursday’s transfer will pull more material from those stockpiles, including artillery and armored vehicles, bringing total U.S. drawdowns to $8.6 billion, and leaving about $2.9 billion left from the overall amount that Congress authorized to be sent to Ukraine in May. The Pentagon will need to use the funds by the end of this fiscal year on Sept. 30 or else require a waiver from Congress to extend the authority.
As he arms Ukraine, Biden readies new weapon pipelines for Eastern Europe
Related:
Most-accurate US artillery shell Excalibur quietly added to Ukraine aid
Ms. Cat’s Chronicles 
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