Tag: Verkhovna Rada

Zelensky’s wear and tear

Tina Marie (Ms. Cat)2 Comments

Zelensky’s wear and tear (original)

For more than two and a half years, war has been the raison d’être of the Ukrainian state. The budget presented by Kyiv this week allocates more than 50% of the budget to the defence sector – to which must be added the cost of veterans – something that has been repeated since 2022. Maintaining the front, avoiding its collapse and ensuring that there is still enough support to continue fighting until the objectives are achieved is the priority of the government team, which has set aside practically all other obligations of the state, which today depends entirely on foreign subsidies that make it possible to pay salaries and pensions. One of the aspects that has completely disappeared under the cover of the unity demanded by the war is precisely domestic politics. The Russian invasion gave Zelensky’s team the opportunity to create for the president the image of a war leader, the representation of the nation, a savior capable of achieving what he sets out to do, the only person capable of rescuing the country from certain ruin.

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150,000 IDPs have returned to occupied territories, 70,000 to Mariupol alone – Ukrainian MP

Tina Marie (Ms. Cat)

Maksym Tkachenko, a Ukrainian MP from Servant of the People party, states that over 150,000 internally displaced people (IDPs) have returned to the temporarily occupied territories of Ukraine, with approximately one-third of those who fled during the full-scale war returning to Mariupol.

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Details: The main reason for the return of internally displaced individuals to the occupied territories, according to Tkachenko, is that they were unable to start a new life in Ukrainian-controlled territory because they “did not receive proper assistance from the state – no housing, no social support, compensation, work, etc.”

According to him, a big percentage of IDPs “could not find work because of the sceptical attitude of employers towards them, and all those offers that are provided to IDPs are actually very low-paid.”

He asserted that these people face prejudice in the labour market. According to Tkachenko, their incomes seldom reach UAH 8,000-12,000 (US$194 to US$290), while the cost of renting housing in Ukraine’s relatively safe districts begins at UAH 10,000. At the same time, when IDPs start working, they lose their entitlement to receive state assistance to cover the expense of renting accommodation. At the same time, there are very few sites that provide “acceptable living conditions” for free.

150,000 IDPs have returned to occupied territories, 70,000 to Mariupol alone – Ukrainian MP

Related:

Videos from Mariupol

Russia’s Swift March Forward in Donbass [Pokrovsk is the prize]

Tina Marie (Ms. Cat)

Source: The Institute for the Study of War with American Enterprise Institute’s Critical Threats Project
 Note: As of Oct. 29
 By The New York Times

Russia’s Swift March Forward in Ukraine’s East

In October, Russia made its largest territorial gains since the summer of 2022, as Ukrainian lines buckled under sustained pressure.

Over the past month, Russian forces have seized more than 160 square miles of land in Ukraine’s eastern Donbas region, the main theater of the war today. That has allowed them to take control of strategic towns that anchored Ukrainian defenses in the area, beginning with Vuhledar in early October. This past week, battle has raged in Selydove, which now appears lost.

Ultimately, experts say, these gains, among the swiftest of the war, will help the Russian army secure its flanks before launching an assault on the city of Pokrovsk, a key logistics hub for Ukrainian forces in the Donbas.


Source: New York Times analysis of data from the Institute for the Study of War with American Enterprise Institute’s Critical Threats Project
 Note: As of Oct. 29
By The New York Times

H/T: Flash : [The New York Times] Russia’s Swift March Forward in Ukraine’s East [Donbass]

Previously:

Ukraine Faces a Double Threat if Russia Takes Pokrovsk

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Ukraine: Imposing the plan

Tina Marie (Ms. Cat)

After briefly presenting his Victory Plan at the seat of Ukraine’s national sovereignty, the Verkhovna Rada, Volodymyr Zelensky has continued his tour to try to win the support of the people and institutions that really matter – his foreign partners. In Brussels, the Ukrainian president sought to curry favour with one of his main suppliers, the current support of the Ukrainian state, the European Union, whose Parliament once again welcomed him as a hero. “The last time you were here,” wrote Roberta Metsola, “I promised you our unwavering support on your country’s path to EU membership. Today I am proud to welcome you to the House of European Democracy as the leader of a candidate country for EU membership.” “Ukraine is Europe,” she said, deliberately confusing the continent with the political bloc. However, with EU entry long understood as a decision that has been made and that it is simply a matter of time, Zelensky’s speech did not focus on the benefits of the Union or the enormous benefit that will be obtained by admitting Ukraine into the European family, but on the continuation of his campaign to formalize the Victory Plan as a possible way out of the war. Kiev is acting in the same way that in the last decade it has managed to institutionalize the nationalist discourse, previously only characteristic of a part of the country, as the only possible national discourse. Ukraine is working to achieve the same objective and to make its plan – in reality a wish list that its allies must help it to fulfill and not a roadmap to achieve them – appear as a path to a just peace.

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Ukraine: Victory Plan

Tina Marie (Ms. Cat)

Victory Plan (Google Translate)

“We hear the word negotiations from our partners, but the word justice is heard much less often,” Volodymyr Zelensky said yesterday in his speech to the Ukrainian Rada. “Ukraine is open to diplomacy, but honest diplomacy. That is why we have the Peace Formula. It is a guarantee of negotiating without forcing Ukraine to accept injustice. Ukrainians deserve a decent peace,” the Ukrainian president continued in his presentation of the Victory Plan to deputies and other authorities of the country’s political and security apparatus. Kiev’s intentions are clear: to achieve a position of strength in which Ukraine does not have to yield to Russian demands. Nothing indicates that there has been any change in the way of thinking of the Ukrainian leadership, which has always understood justice as something that only the part of the population under its control deserves, without those on the other side of the front and whose territories it aspires to recover having a say in the future of the country.

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Zelensky Ukraine victory speech: Listen for the quiet parts

Tina Marie (Ms. Cat)
Source

Zelensky Ukraine victory speech: Listen for the quiet parts

Zelensky is going to give his “victory” speech on October 16 to Ukraine’s parliament, the Verkhovna Rada, but much of the speech will be secret. The secret part is about giving up territory to Russia.

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The Rada has just passed new legislation that allows NATO officers to command Ukrainian units. So far, the Russians have been mostly quiet, probably because they do not believe NATO will supply field commanders for Ukraine’s military. But if it happens, and that is a big if, the Russians will see it as NATO sending combat troops and react accordingly.

Some speculate that Zelensky will hint at a desire to get some sort of ceasefire and establish a buffer zone patrolled by a kind of coalition of NATO-willing. This is being billed as a Zelensky “concession” to the reality of Russia occupying Ukrainian territory.

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There also are rumors that Ukraine may try to attack Transnistria, the breakaway area of Moldova that includes a few thousand Russian troops – some of them on an agreed peace-keeping mission and others protecting a huge ammunition dump left over from the Soviet period.

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The Russians also have been attacking dry cargo ships in the port of Odessa that are unloading weapons and military supplies from Turkey.  

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Moldova also has an important election on October 20. An attack on Transnistria could backfire and topple the current pro-NATO. pro-EU Moldovan government.

Following in the footsteps of Nikita Khrushchev? FYI, “Khrushchev Lied!”😉

Related:

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Raid at the Okean Elzy concert: Vakarchuk evaded the answer, and raids will be regular + More

Tina Marie (Ms. Cat)

Raid at the Okean Elsa concert: Vakarchuk evaded the answer, and raids will be regular

On the eve of the raids took place in several major cities of the country, including Kiev. Employees of the Shopping Center, with the support of the police, raided nightclubs, restaurants and at the concert of the Okean Elzy group, which was held at the Kiev Sports Palace.

The leader of the Okean Elzy group, Svyatoslav Vakarchuk, in a comment to TSN, evaded the question of how he feels about this event.

“It’s our birthday today, I hope you congratulate us too. We are very happy that so many people have come and come to support us, listen to our music. In general, this is a big holiday for us. These 30 years have been very important for us. We are very grateful to people for these 30 years. Including for the fact that they continue to support us now. For us it’s just a joy and a celebration. That’s all I want to say, my only comment. Period,” said Vakarchuk.

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“There is a persistent sense of acute social injustice in Ukrainian society during mobilization. It is believed, and not unreasonably, that the bulk of those who are being mobilized now are residents of small towns and villages, ordinary hard workers or poor people who do not have money to pay off. This causes tension in society. In addition, there is tension in the army — the military are outraged that they are sitting in the trenches, while healthy men in the rear are sitting in restaurants, hanging out in clubs, going to concerts. In general, they live a full-blooded peaceful life. This annoys many front-line soldiers and reinforces the feeling of social injustice. That’s why we decided to arrange a demonstration raid so that the whole country could see — “the rich are crying too.” That is, party-goers can also be mobilized. Similar events are now planned to be held regularly. This is a political decision,” the source said.

Related:

Okean Elzy marks 30th anniversary with first English-language album

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Outgunned and outnumbered, Ukraine’s military is struggling with low morale and desertion

Tina Marie (Ms. Cat)
Full video

Outgunned and outnumbered, Ukraine’s military is struggling with low morale and desertion

Serhiy Tsehotskiy, an officer with the 59th Separate Motorized Infantry Brigade, told CNN the unit tries to rotate soldiers in and out every three to four days. But drones, which have only increased in number over the course of the war, can make that too dangerous, forcing soldiers to stay put for longer. “The record is 20 days,” he said.

Related:

Ukraine’s Gamble

Ukraine’s Kursk incursion has raised flagging morale among its troops and restored its initiative along a patch of the front. 

59th Motorized Brigade (Ukraine):

“Chosen Company”, a group of volunteers from the United States, Australia, and several other countries, is attached to the 59th Brigade as an assault detachment within the brigade’s reconnaissance company. The unit, which was formerly a part of the International Legion, conducted reconnaissance and assault operations during the 2023 counteroffensive. In 2024, a New York Times article reported three incidents where members of Chosen Company killed Russian POWs, based on statements made by former members of the company.

‘Kill-Crazy’ Foreign Mercs in Ukraine Bragged About Murdering Russian PoWs – Report

Ukraine: Dysfunctional Politics

Tina Marie (Ms. Cat)

“Dysfunction Sidelines Ukraine’s Parliament as Governing Force,” is the title of an article published this week by The New York Times in one of the few political critiques that has appeared in the Western press recently. It took two years after the Russian invasion for the grace period of absence of political comments on the Ukrainian authorities to be broken, although always partially and only temporarily. It was the news that included Vitali Klitschko’s words against what he perceived as authoritarian drift that opened the door. Like the current information, that news also lacked the contextualization that politics requires, and it was left unmentioned that the criticism of the mayor of Kiev and the measures by which the protesters were part of a confrontation that went back almost to the beginnings of the presidency of Zelensky. The origin of the rivalry lies in the struggle for power and control of the resources of the State between the two protagonists. What is more, the attempt to Zelensky snatch administratively, the mayor of Kiev Klitschko, a man with powerful connections and political contacts, especially in Germany, is one of the examples that show that the authoritarian drift of Volodymyr Zelensky is not justified in the wartime situation today, but that precedes it in several years to the military intervention of Russia.

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