The Invasion of Ukraine

[IvanV]

Viktor Orban had a meeting with Trump, and came out saying that Trump will give us "Peace in our time!" for Ukraine, through the excellent and strong tactic of capitulating to all Herr Putin's demands.

Orban pointed out that Trump is an effective man of peace. There was no war in Ukraine or Palestine when Trump was president. When everyone knows how powerfully America will refuse to get involved, everyone will be able to take what is rightfully theirs without any risk of the occupants resisting.

[Woodchopper]

Speaker Mike Johnson (R-La.) said on Sunday that he expects to move a package that includes aid for Ukraine when the House returns from recess and expects the package to include “some important innovations.”

In an interview on “Sunday Night in America With Trey Gowdy,” Johnson stressed the difficult position he’s in, with a historically narrow House majority, but said that he was working throughout the current work period to come up with a package and plans to put it on the floor when the House gavels back into session.

[…]

“But when it comes to the supplemental, we’ve been working to build that consensus. We’ve been talking to all the members especially now over the district work period. When we return after this work period, we’ll be moving a product, but it’s going to, I think, have some important innovations,” Johnson said.

Johnson floated as examples the possibilities of extending a loan to Ukraine – an idea that gained some traction earlier this month, as a way to back Ukraine in a way that might assuage conservative concerns about providing more aid as Ukraine fights against Russian aggression.

Johnson also mentioned the REPO for Ukrainians Act, which would authorize the president to seize Russian sovereign assets frozen in the U.S. and give them to Ukraine to use against Russia.

“The REPO Act, you know, if we can use the seized assets of Russian oligarchs to allow the Ukrainians to fight them, that’s just pure poetry,” Johnson said. “Even President Trump has talked about the loan concept, where … we’re not just giving foreign aid. We’re setting it up in a relationship where they can provide it back to us when the time is right.”
Johnson added that, in an effort to “unleash American energy,” he wants “to have natural gas exports that will help un-fund Vladimir Putin’s war effort there, you know,” he said, adding, “There’s a lot of things that we should do that … make more sense and that I think we’ll have consensus around.”

https://thehill.com/homenews/house/4566 ... novations/

Framing some or all of the aid as a loan rather than a grant wouldn’t be a disaster. A future administration might be able to write it off and if not the EU might be able to pay it.

[bolo]

There's "innovations" and there's "innovations". In particular, there's a risk that it means "stuff the MAGA crowd wants, which will cause it to fail in the Senate". But I guess we'll have to wait and see.

[shpalman]

Well, Slovakia has taken a step backwards.

It is leaning that way, but not yet definitively taken the step. Fico's party Smer won the largest share of the vote, but that's only 24%, and they need coalition partners. Given the very grubby circumstances of how they were forced out of power in 2018, I would hope they are still seen as sufficiently politically toxic they won't get enough to form a government. The large difference between exit polls and the result suggests, in the kindest interpretation, that many people were embarrassed to admit voting for them.

"Slovak Prime Minister Robert Fico has been shot a number of times in what officials are calling an assassination attempt

"He is in a life-threatening condition, according to an update on his official social media account"

https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/live/world-europe-69016687

[Woodchopper]

Wilders’ victory in the Netherlands is potentially bad news. He has previously stated his opposition to sanctions and military aid, and seems to like Putin. The EU and NATO can cope with opposition from Orban, Fico or Erdogan. But if we keep getting more at some point the naysayers will be able to block important things.

We’ll have to see whether Wilders will be part of the government though, so not cause for despair yet.

Latest coalition agreement looks to retain the Netherlands' political, economic and military support for Ukraine.

[IvanV]

"Slovak Prime Minister Robert Fico has been shot a number of times in what officials are calling an assassination attempt

"He is in a life-threatening condition, according to an update on his official social media account"

https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/live/world-europe-69016687

They are now saying he is likely to survive, after a 5-hour operation.

There are quite a lot of people in Slovakia who would find the non-existence of Fico convenient, as he is a very divisive figure. But the person who has shot him is not from the area of politics I would have guessed.

It is being reported (Wikipedia) that the 71-yr-old security guard, Juraj Cintula, who was arrested on the scene, is a member of various pro-Russian hard right organisations. Fico, although his party Smer is notionally left wing - calling themselves democratic socialists - it is also strongly nationalist and pro-Russian. To me that's rather like a less extreme version of National Socialists, who were notionally socialist but more importantly nationalist, and thus overall seen as hard right. But maybe what Mr Cintula didn't like was that Fico was nowhere near enough extreme for him, even as much more of the country finds him too extreme. But It seems unlikely that shooting him is going to do anything to promote the hard right in Slovak politics, if anything the opposite. It's a bit like the narrative of JFK being shot by a left winger, which I always find a bit odd, or at least counter-productive. Cintula apparently founded a group called the Movement Against Violence, 2016. But maybe he is against violence like Mr Putin is.

[Woodchopper]

The first delivery of the F-16 fighter jets from NATO allies has arrived in Ukraine, in a long-awaited move that may boost war-torn nation’s ability to repel Russian attacks.
The deadline for the transfer of the US-made warplanes was the end of this month and it has been respected, according to people familiar with the matter, who spoke under condition of anonymity. The number of jets is small, they said.

It’s not clear whether Ukrainian pilots, who have trained with their western allies over the past months, will be able to immediately use the warplanes or the process will take longer, the people said.

[…]

Even if small at first, the transfer of jets should over time help Kyiv build the capacity to put a dent in Russia’s aerial superiority, which has allowed the Kremlin to decimate the country’s power infrastructure, leading to rolling blackouts.

https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles ... -long-wait

[Martin Y]

I do worry that the long-awaited F16s, like the long-awaited Western main battle tanks before them, will turn out not to be the breakthrough weapon Ukraine needed.

If the Russian bombers dropping those huge glide bombs suddenly start falling out of the sky far behind Russian lines then things will have changed. But I see no hint they're being supplied with the 100 mile range missiles which might achieve that.

[bjn]

I do worry that the long-awaited F16s, like the long-awaited Western main battle tanks before them, will turn out not to be the breakthrough weapon Ukraine needed.

If the Russian bombers dropping those huge glide bombs suddenly start falling out of the sky far behind Russian lines then things will have changed. But I see no hint they're being supplied with the 100 mile range missiles which might achieve that.

They won’t be a game changer. They are older versions of the F-16 without the latest and greatest avionics and longer range radars. How ever, the Ukrainians will continue to have an airforce as they were running low on airframes, especially ones that could deliver Stormshadow/SCALPs, as the Russians were hunting the planes converted to deliver them. The other advantage is that they can deliver the full range of NATO ordinance, unlike ex Soviet planes.

[Imrael]

Big strike on an airfield fairly deep into Russia last night. One possibility is that it was ATACMS and that therefore the US has loosened control on use of their weapons against Russian territory. Several other possibilities though.