Nobody interested in the Russia-Ukraine conflict?

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Russian propaganda is spreading a fake story about Ukraine allegedly transferring weapons it received from Western partners to the Hamas terrorist group.
That’s according to the Military Media Center, a platform coordinated by the Ministry of Defense of Ukraine, Ukrinform reports.
Propagandists are circulating videos where Hamas militants allegedly show off "Ukrainian weapons." The video with comments in Arabic claims that it was Ukraine that sold Western weapons to the terrorists.
"The video lasts only 12 seconds and raises many doubts. It should be noted that, in fact, the Ukrainians could not have done this because our Western partners closely monitor the weapons and military equipment they send us to fight against Russian aggressors," the report notes.

It is suggested that the video in question was likely shot y one of the Russian psyop teams in order to distance Russia from Hamas and create the illusion that its officials have nothing to do with the terrorist group.
The Military Media Center recalled Russia's long-standing cooperation with Hamas, including several meetings Russian high-ranking officials held with the leaders and members of the terrorist organization.
Read also: War in Israel plays into Russia’s hands - Poland’s president
On October 7, Palestine’s Hamas group launched an attack on Israel. Its militants have penetrated across the border amid the massive rocket attack.

Over 600 Israelis have already been killed amid the ongoing assault. Two Ukrainian citizens have been killed, according to Ukraine’s officials.

Israel has officially declared the state of war, for the first time since the Judgment Day War in 1973.

The EU, as well as the U.S., Ukraine, and a number of other countries have condemned the attacks on Israel.

Haven't been any posts in this thread in a while. Popped over to cnn.com (I almost never go to news websites)

There are a couple of sections of headlines about Gaza, but I didn't see a single one about Ukraine. I guess the lame stream media figures they've milked every penny they can out of Ukraine war headlines and have moved on to Gaza ?

I bet things are still just as bad or worse over in Ukraine right now, that the war rages on. Was kind of hoping to see some headlines about Something - some sort of update. Would be nice to know they're holding russia back, or making progress farther into Russian territory destroying their supplies etc. Would be even nicer if they were able to take out some sort of central command communications/buildings etc within russia.. perhaps even in moscow.

But I guess they're just going about their daily defending their country w/o much media coverage of anything being shared anymore and we won't hear much about it until there's some major news ??

Never know, maybe news has been dialled back in North America just to keep it off low IQ peoples' minds that the USA/Canada/NATO is funding Ukraine's resistance just so that Americans don't freak out about the expense and do something stupid like pressure their politicians to stop funding Ukraine/say they're going to vote for the orange clown again to "save," tax dollars.. which would then put them, and the world, in a position of spending a whole lot more tax dollars to defend a whole lot more countries beyond Ukraine as russia steamrolls into other countries. Maybe it's best that the world just silently does it's work to stop Russia's aggression w/o giving everyone a play by play since there are enough stupid people with loud mouths to cause big problems if they were made more aware of what work is being done and who's paying for it.

Haven't been any posts in this thread in a while. Popped over to cnn.com (I almost never go to news websites)

There are a couple of sections of headlines about Gaza, but I didn't see a single one about Ukraine. I guess the lame stream media figures they've milked every penny they can out of Ukraine war headlines and have moved on to Gaza ?

I bet things are still just as bad or worse over in Ukraine right now, that the war rages on. Was kind of hoping to see some headlines about Something - some sort of update. Would be nice to know they're holding russia back, or making progress farther into Russian territory destroying their supplies etc. Would be even nicer if they were able to take out some sort of central command communications/buildings etc within russia.. perhaps even in moscow.

But I guess they're just going about their daily defending their country w/o much media coverage of anything being shared anymore and we won't hear much about it until there's some major news ??

Never know, maybe news has been dialled back in North America just to keep it off low IQ peoples' minds that the USA/Canada/NATO is funding Ukraine's resistance just so that Americans don't freak out about the expense and do something stupid like pressure their politicians to stop funding Ukraine/say they're going to vote for the orange clown again to "save," tax dollars.. which would then put them, and the world, in a position of spending a whole lot more tax dollars to defend a whole lot more countries beyond Ukraine as russia steamrolls into other countries. Maybe it's best that the world just silently does it's work to stop Russia's aggression w/o giving everyone a play by play since there are enough stupid people with loud mouths to cause big problems if they were made more aware of what work is being done and who's paying for it.

But Oleksiy Danilov, who co-ordinates the country's war cabinet, insisted: "That doesn't mean that victory won't be on our side."

Kyiv is currently trying to unlock new packages of Western aid, notably in the US.
Mr Danilov believes that at least some military funding will "surely come through".
The secretary of the National Security and Defence Council has been speaking exclusively to the BBC.

Ukrainian forces had hoped to take back swathes of territory gained by Russia in its February 2022 invasion, as well as cutting off Russian supply lines to Crimea.
But lacking air superiority and faced with formidable Russian defences, their efforts appear to have stalled as winter sets in.

Mr Danilov acknowledged they had been over-optimistic.

"People sometimes make mistakes. You cannot be an A-grader all your life," he said.
He described the current situation on the frontline as "very difficult" and said that old "textbooks" for war - including Nato ones - "should be sent back to the archives".

A blame game has crept into public discourse about the degree to which external allies and advisers - or Ukraine's owned armed forces - are at fault for what happened in recent months.

Without vital US military support there is a real danger Ukraine could end up losing this war - not immediately but in the longer term.

President Volodymyr Zelensky is in Washington to spell that out, hoping that he can persuade Congress to pass a $60bn aid package that has stalled amid a row over US border security.
On Sunday, Ukraine's first lady, Olena Zelenska, warned Ukraine is in mortal danger without continuing American support.

Western officials have told the BBC they remain confident the US administration will find a way out of the current impasse. But even if President Biden succeeds, the worries about where the US stands won't go away. A presidential election year will only bring more uncertainty.

It's America, not Europe, which has provided the lion's share of military support to Ukraine

Europe is now on track to overtake the US in terms of economic support to Ukraine. But the US is well ahead in terms of military support.

The US has not just been critical to supporting Ukraine's war effort, it's also been largely responsible for coordinating that support.

Jack Watling, of defence think tank the Royal United Services Institute, puts it simply: "Europe can't backfill what the US was providing."

Europe has, he says, "squandered" an opportunity to use the past two years to ramp up production of equipment and especially munitions.

"There is currently not the manufacturing capacity because European countries have been too incompetent to properly invest," he says.

Contrast Europe's response with Russia's actions.

Russia has already shifted its economy to a war footing. Western officials estimate that nearly 40% of Russia's government spending next year will be on defence and security - more than its health and education budget combined.

War fatigue
The optimism in the West of a year ago, following the initial successes of an initial Ukrainian counter offensive, has mostly evaporated.

Mr Watling says the expectation now is that this is going to be a long war "which drives tiredness and changes people's calculation or risk".

According to the Kiel Institute, pledges of new aid to Ukraine between August and October this year dropped to their lowest level since January 2022.

But some nations are struggling to match the scale of earlier military donations - with their own stockpiles already depleted.

Slovakia, under a new government, has pulled its support completely.

It's still unclear how much support Ukraine will receive from the Netherlands in the future, following the electoral success of Geert Wilders' right wing party. The Dutch have, until now, been a key part of the coalition promising to provide Ukraine with F-16 jets.

The impact on future operations
None of these questions about future supplies of aid are likely to have an immediate impact on the battlefield.

One western official says there's little prospect of any kind of major breakthrough by either side over the next few months. Both Russia and Ukraine are deeply entrenched in defensive positions - and it's offensive operations which consume the greatest resources.

But with Ukraine likely to have to ration ammunition in the coming months there is the possibility that the strength of its forces will be further eroded.

One area where that could be felt is in compromising Ukraine's air defence capabilities, Jake Sullivan, the White House national security adviser, told the New York Times. He said the US would no longer be able to send Ukraine air defence systems like Patriot batteries and missiles.
That warning comes as Russia is expected to step up its targeting of key infrastructure in Ukraine in the coming weeks.

The lack of clarity over US military support could have another consequence. Mr Watling, who has just returned from Ukraine, says the uncertainty over aid is already having a serious impact on Ukraine's ability to plan.

THIS MONTH HAS SEEN A TANGIBLE VIBE SHIFT on the war in Ukraine. Between Republicans in the House and Senate blocking a $110 billion package that includes military aid to Ukraine as well as Israel and Taiwan by tying it to border-security measures, dire warnings that U.S. aid may have to stop without new funding by the end of the year, and media reports detailing the purported failure of the Ukrainian counteroffensive this fall, the narrative that the wheels are falling off the U.S.-backed Ukrainian war effort is spreading.

And, predictably, it is being met with downright glee in some quarters.

On Sunday, one of the leaders in the anti-Ukraine bloc in Congress, Sen. J.D. Vance of Ohio, told CNN’s Jake Tapper that nobody had ever seriously believed that “Ukraine was going to throw Russia back to the 1991 borders” and that it was imperative to have negotiations in which “Ukraine is going to have to cede some territory to the Russians” and bring the war to a close. Vance also shed some crocodile tears over the “great human tragedy” of “hundreds of thousands of Eastern Europeans, innocent . . . killed in this conflict.”

But how accurate is this assessment of the current situation? And are “land for peace” negotiations an inevitable, feasible, or desirable outcome?

TO SOME EXTENT, THE “UKRAINIAN FAILURE” NARRATIVE reflects the short-term thinking that has generally plagued Western responses to the war. (As some have said, we keep thinking of it as a television show in which storylines get satisfyingly wrapped up on schedule—but this is the real world.) It is true that the clock is ticking on a Ukraine deal, with Congress scheduled to recess at the end of this week—but last-minute dealmaking between Congress and the White House has been the standard this whole year. And even if a deal doesn’t come together this week, there are other possibilities. A deal could still be put together early next year. The White House may still use the Lend-Lease authority to loan weapons to Ukraine which it received from Congress in 2022 and which it has kept as a backup option, evidently because the continuing flow of assistance to Ukraine seemed assured thanks to bipartisan support. And there are moves to transfer to Ukraine frozen and confiscated Russian assets in the United States; so far, these initiatives have focused on directing such funds to the civilian needs of Ukraine’s reconstruction, but House Speaker Mike Johnson has suggested using them for military purposes and claimed that there was “great enthusiasm on the Republican side” for this idea. (Globally, frozen Russian assets total about $300 billion.

The notion of Ukraine’s collapsing war effort needs to be taken with a grain of salt as well. To some extent, as pro-Ukraine analysts such as Russian-American journalist and video blogger Michael Nacke have argued, the perception of failure is due to “overly optimistic” expectations—partly because of Ukraine itself overselling its counteroffensive, with some officials even claiming that Crimea would be taken by fall, and partly because of the impressive success of the previous Ukrainian counteroffensive in the fall of 2022, which resulted in the recapture of Kherson and the panicked flight of Russian troops from Kharkov.

Nonetheless, Nacke (who has at times angered others in the pro-Ukraine camp by challenging its narratives) insists that while the Ukrainian counteroffensive certainly cannot be regarded as a success, it also cannot be seen as a fiasco like the Russian assault on Vuhledar in January and February of this year, which was thwarted with massive losses in both hardware and human lives. In his view, the counteroffensive did not leave Ukraine in a worse position than before: the Armed Forces of Ukraine did take some territory and kept its losses fairly low. He also strongly disputes the idea that Russia is doing well on the frontlines, despite its claims to have seized the initiative. Nacke sees evidence of Russian floundering in generally unsuccessful, high-risk attempts to advance in various locations despite extremely unfavorable weather, and notes that even Russian voyenkory—“war correspondents,” or milbloggers—sometimes break out of the agitprop mold to acknowledge that things are not going well at all.

One way to keep the bigger picture in mind, suggests Nacke, is to consider that when Russia invaded Ukraine in February 2022, there was a widespread expectation that Ukraine would fall in a matter of days, and Ukrainian president Volodymyr Zelensky was being offered evacuation from Kyiv.

STILL, WHY THE UKRAINIAN WAR EFFORT hasn’t done better than it has is a valid question. The failure of the counteroffensive is examined in a two-parter in the Washington Post, which looks at, among other things, disagreements between Ukrainian commanders and their British and American allies. Perspectives differ but one conclusion that emerges is that Ukraine needed more aid: Part of the contention between the Ukrainians and their Western partners was that Ukrainians felt they were being asked to conduct a Western-style offensive without the powerful air support that allows such offensives to succeed. Aviation is one area in which Russia retains clear superiority, and fighter jets have been slow in coming. More generally, both Western foot-dragging on the delivery of weapons that were seen as too much of a provocation toward Russia.

The crowing among the anti-Ukraine set is, at least so far, premature. Zelensky’s visit to Washington, D.C. this week, which will include meetings not only with President Biden but with Speaker Johnson and other congressional Republicans, may yet yield results.

But the possibility that Ukraine may get thrown under the bus is real. Morality aside, such a betrayal will be not only tragic for Ukraine but self-defeating for the West.

David Sacks, the perennial Ukraine naysayer, recently invoked a short video clip by Zelensky adviser-turned-rival Oleksiy Arestovych as evidence that Ukraine made the wrong choice in siding with “globalists” over “realists.” But whatever one thinks of the mercurial Arestovych, his point in that out-of-context clip was that the “globalists” seemed to be backing away from effective support for Ukraine. And in his latest interview, Arestovych not only rips into America’s far-right GOP donors who are prepared to sacrifice Ukraine to their goal of defeating a Democratic party they literally see as serving “Satan”; he also predicts that if the West does allow Russia a victory in Ukraine, it will make it very likely that Western democracies lose in their confrontation with authoritarian forces in the East and the “global South.” If that’s what Ukraine’s most prominent Zelensky critic is telling us, the politicians meeting with Zelensky in Washington should be listening.

I can't prove that the object was a Russian Kh-47M2 Kinzhal missile. However, I can say for certain that the missile was not an 87.4 kilogram IRIS-T interceptor missile. The amount of water displaced is far too great to be an IRIS-T. The displaced water would be more in line with a larger falling object.