Putin calls for a ceasefire to mark Orthodox Christmas.

Here's an idea, perhaps just cease firing! If Russia did that, and left, I'm sure Ukraine would have no reason to keep firing back!

Sanctions on Russia affecting Kazakhstan.

 

McDonald's has closed its restaurants in Kazakhstan due to supply shortages.

 

The fast food company has not elaborated on what has caused the scarcity, but it is thought to be due to supply issues linked to Russia's invasion of Ukraine.

 

McDonald's is thought to have banned its local franchisee from procuring burgers from Russian suppliers.

 

The chain's Kazakh operator, Food Solutions KZ, said it would reopen its branches under a new brand.

 

In the capital, Alamaty, workers were seen removing the large white lettering from the front of one of the branches.

 

Neighbouring Russia is Kazakhstan's main trading partner but after Moscow invaded Ukraine on 24 February, it was hit with a raft of international sanctions. Kazakhstan agreed to comply with these.

 

As a result, many Kazakh businesses have faced supply problems.

 

Some German „Marder“ AFVs and another Patriot System to become ready for shipment to UKR - along with the Bradley AFVs from the US and AFVs from France. 😉

Pretty Sick.

Russia spends €8 M to select “quality material” for adoption among Ukrainian children: report
https://euromaidanpress.com/2023/01/06/russia-spends-e8-mn-to-select-quality-material-for-adoption-among-ukrainian-children-report/?swcfpc=1

"
Russian authorities continue the forced deportation of Ukrainian children to Russia. Orphans from the occupied territories are often forcibly adopted by Russians, which is a large-scale scheme involving all branches of power in Russia. Some children are later sent back to their orphanages due to health issues so Russia has even allocated funds to filter out unhealthy children from the forced adoption program. This is according to the analytical report on the forced deportations of Ukrainian children to Russia presented by human rights defenders in Odesa last December.
"
Earlier Ukrainian Ombudsman said that the exact number of deported children is unknown, but it may be on the order of “hundreds of thousands.”
"

On the other end Kadyrov wanted troublesome children he could discipline into soldiers and MMA fighters. 
He has been a big supporter of MMA scene where his son fights.

Ukraine war: Sergei Surovikin removed as commander of Ukraine invasion force - BBC News

I wonder if this General will fall from a window into a floor full of bullets pointing up with Polonium tips.

 

President Vladimir Putin has removed Russia's top commander in Ukraine, just three months after he was installed.

 

Chief of the General Staff Valery Gerasimov will now lead what Mr Putin terms a "special military operation".

 

Gen Gerasimov replaces Sergei Surovikin who has overseen recent brutal attacks on Ukraine's energy infrastructure.

 

The reshuffle comes as Russians claim they are making progress in eastern Ukraine after suffering a series of military defeats in recent months.

 

Russia launched its invasion into Ukraine on 24 February.

 

Gen Gerasimov, who has been in post since 2012, is the longest-serving Russian chief of general staff of the post-Soviet era.

 

Gen Surovikin - now his deputy - has been dubbed "General Armageddon" for his brutal tactics in previous wars, including Russia's operations in Syria and the heavy bombardment of the city of Aleppo in particular.

 

Shortly after he was appointed to lead the operation in October, Russia began its campaign to destroy Ukraine's energy infrastructure, leaving millions of Ukrainian civilians without power or running water for extended periods in the depths of winter. He also oversaw Russia's withdrawal from the southern city of Kherson - a major success for the Ukrainians.

 

Summer soon, well almost soon. This has no recent ending, end of the day Russia need to be locked down, like PRNK. EU is managing energy as best it can, Summer soon. Fuel prices for the rest of use are easing.

1. Russia needs to be cut off

2. Should Russia remove Putin, then pay up.

Thats the only endgame here.  

Russia kinda flipped to a Soviet State, while superficially not looking like a Soviet State.
Even NZ First and Winson Peters were fooled :-) 

Some of the stuff on 1420 is pretty bent.
True honesty is dangerous, but there are ways to wink wink.

Suppose its just easy to flip back to the old Soviet thinking.
Certainly you can see it in the propagandists TV debates, rollling out the old Soviet plays.

I'm supprised the 1420 interviewers make it out of some places unharmed.

In one rural area after the young son said he had been to Ukraine 3 or 4 times to fight since 2014.
A long diatribe about how people should not be frightend to go fight there all will be well.
On exiting house guy kinda gets suspicious of them, you are not LGBT or BLM are you?
Creapy. 

China's new vassal state, all of Russia, a bigger North Korea.

Do rural Russians enjoy poverty?
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=15hIGxUMKjQ

Do you want Russia to be as free as China or North Korea?
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=43YoxgJF3Rk

ezbee:

Some of the stuff on 1420 is pretty bent.

In today's NYT:

 

Western officials increasingly fear that Ukraine has only a narrow window to prepare to repel an anticipated Russian springtime offensive, and are moving fast to give the Ukrainians sophisticated weapons they had earlier refused to send for fear of provoking Moscow.

 

Over the last few weeks, one barrier after another has fallen, starting with an agreement by the United States in late December to send a Patriot air-defense system. That was followed by a German commitment last week to provide a Patriot missile battery, and in the span of hours, France, Germany and the United States each promised to send armored fighting vehicles to Ukraine’s battlefields for the first time.

 

Now it looks likely that modern Western tanks will be added to the growing list of powerful weapons being sent Ukraine’s way, as the United States and its allies take on more risk to defend Ukraine — especially as its military has made unexpected advances and held out against withering assaults.

 

While Ukraine has been requesting sophisticated tanks since the start of the war, the push to satisfy those pleas gained speed this week as the British and Polish governments publicly urged a change in the Western alliance’s stance. The British signaled that they were close to agreeing to send a small number of tanks, and the Polish government said it would happily send some of its German-made tanks, though Berlin would need to allow it.

 

 

 

Ukraine hopes that the increased pressure will persuade Germany’s Chancellor Olaf Scholz to authorize the export to Ukraine of German-made tanks in the arsenals of other NATO allies. The tanks, called the Leopard 2’s, are among the most coveted by Kyiv, and experts say that in significant numbers, they would substantially increase Ukraine’s ability to drive back Russian forces.

 

 

 

A German defense ministry spokesman said no decision had been made by the government of Mr. Scholz, a Social Democrat. But his coalition partners, the Greens and Free Democrats, support sending the tanks, and on Thursday, a senior minister amped up the pressure.

 

“There is a difference between making a decision for yourself and preventing others from making a decision,” Germany’s economics minister and vice chancellor, Robert Habeck of the Greens, said in Berlin.

 

Tanks, designed more than a century ago to break through trench warfare, are a combination of firepower, mobility and shock effect. Armed with large cannons, moving on metal treads and built with stronger protective armor than any other weapon on a battlefield, tanks can go over rough, muddy or sandy terrain where wheeled fighting vehicles might struggle.

 

In Ukraine, officials say armored vehicles will play a key role in battles for control of the fiercely contested towns and cities in the eastern provinces that border Russia. Ukraine’s most senior military commander, General Valery Zaluzhny, has said it needs some 300 Western tanks and about 600 Western armored fighting vehicles to make a difference.

 

NATO allies that were once part of the Soviet sphere have given their Soviet-era tanks to Ukraine. But much of Kyiv’s fleet has been destroyed or worn down by months of battle, and it is running low on ammunition, which is incompatible with Western munitions.

 

Since the war began nearly a year ago, the West has resisted giving some of its most potent weapons to Ukraine, fearing that would bring NATO into direct conflict with Russia. But seeing Ukraine’s determination to resist, little prospect of peace talks anytime soon, and a stalemate on the battlefield, NATO allies are relenting.

 

The Biden administration, leading the coalition of allies supplying Ukraine with weapons, is still holding back American-made M1 Abrams tanks, which require constant upkeep and special fuel, and which officials say are too scarce to spare.

 

 

 

But American officials maintain they have never stood in the way of Germany or any other nation sending Western tanks to Ukraine. There are an estimated 2,000 German-made Leopard tanks in more than a dozen militaries across Europe. Some could be shipped quickly to Ukraine if Berlin approved, though Ukrainian crews would have to be trained in using them.

 

 

 

A senior Western military official said this week that altering the balance of forces in eastern Ukraine is needed to break the stalemate in the war, and that sending in enough modern Western battle tanks and other combat vehicles could help to tip that balance. Without tanks, a powerful component of ground warfare, it is unlikely that Ukraine will be able to win back significant amounts of territory, the official said.

 

At the Pentagon, Laura K. Cooper, a deputy assistant secretary of defense, said last week at a briefing that “we absolutely agree that Ukraine does need tanks.”

 

“This is the right time for Ukraine to take advantage of its capabilities, to change the dynamic on the battlefield,” Ms. Cooper said.

 

Ukraine is set on pushing forward with its own military offensive, either in the depth of winter or after the muddy spring season. Russia, too, is telegraphing a spring offensive, said a senior Western intelligence official, and Ukraine “doesn’t want them to catch their breath” between now and when that intensified round of combat begins.

 

 

 

Camille Grand, a defense expert at the European Council on Foreign Relations, who stepped down as NATO’s assistant secretary general for defense investment late last year, noted that Moscow appears to be mobilizing hundreds of thousands of new conscripts for its offensive. That, in part, pushed forward the debate about tanks, he said, “to enable the Ukrainian forces to achieve significant progress now.”

 

Part of the discussion, Mr. Grand said, focused on whether the tanks would give Ukrainian forces “some sort of a decisive victory that would force peace on the Russians, or at least to achieve such significant progress that any negotiated settlement would be more on their terms than on Russian terms.”

 

The issue of whether to allow Leopards to be sent to Ukraine is likely to come to a head at a Jan. 20 meeting of senior defense and military officials from dozens of nations, including NATO states, at Ramstein Air Base in Germany.

 

Part of the internal debate among British officials is political, a senior European diplomat said. Rishi Sunak, the new prime minister, wants to take some leadership in the war, and London and Warsaw appear to be acting in concert to put pressure on Berlin. In a closed-door session of his National Security Council on Tuesday, Mr. Sunak outlined a strategy to increase support for Ukraine, likely beginning with the tanks, to give Kyiv an edge ahead of any possible peace negotiations, according to another senior European official.

 

But Washington’s explicit approval would be vital to pushing Mr. Scholz to authorize the Leopards, as it was crucial to the decision to send the German-made fighting vehicles known as Marders, said Claudia Major, a defense analyst with the German Institute for International and Security Affairs in Berlin. 

 

“Pressure on the Leopards is rising from the Poles, the British and the Finns, but it’s about one particular partner, the United States, which is more equal than the others,” she said. “With the Ramstein meeting coming, I expect it to happen soon.”

 

A senior Biden administration official said Washington had not prodded Berlin to send the tanks to Ukraine, and that the German government would make its own decisions about its level of military support. Speaking on the condition of anonymity to discuss the sensitive issue more candidly, he described the discussions between Washington and Berlin as “very active” and said the Germans, “like us, have evolved their willingness to provide capabilities as the fight has changed over time.” The United States has not told allies to refrain from giving Western tanks to Ukraine, the official said.

 

The Germans regard such a stance as a cop-out, according to Ms. Major, the analyst in Berlin, reflecting Washington’s own unwillingness to send any Abrams tanks to Ukraine. She has said that just one Abrams from Washington would be enough to free Mr. Scholz to act.