Peacedog wrote:If the resurgence of the rouble is in fact real...then Vlad has won.
He's proven that he can destroy his neighbors at will without meaningful consequence.
I don't know if this increases the risk of nuke and run, or if it negates the need to do it.
Time will tell.
Ukrainian security officials and Western journalists who went looking for Russian atrocities northwest of Bucha in the Kiev region found no signs of human rights abuses, according to phone call records obtained by RT. Instead, locals told journalists the Russian troops gave them food and treated them well. Meanwhile, a Ukrainian official complained that his own side’s militia looted everything.
In a series of satellite phone calls, a reporter identified only as “Simon” tells his colleagues he visited Borodyanka – a town about 25 kilometers northwest of Bucha – and “there’s no bodies in the streets at all,” contrary to what he was led to expect.
The town has been “shelled to pieces,” Simon says, “but there’s no evidence of any rights abuses here at all.” In fact, he and his crew interviewed multiple residents who said the Russian troops had been very friendly and gave them food and water and other supplies. “And we got quotes on camera for that,” he adds.
It was an attention-grabbing assertion that made headlines around the world: U.S. officials said they had indications suggesting Russia might be preparing to use chemical agents in Ukraine.
President Joe Biden later said it publicly.
But three U.S. officials told NBC News this week there is no evidence Russia has brought any chemical weapons near Ukraine.
They said the U.S. released the information to deter Russia from using the banned munitions.
Powell used his reputation for credibility to help convince the world Saddam Hussein was an imminent threat, but the US intel was false.
vadaga wrote:https://www.bbc.com/news/live/world-europe-61075759
The time is coming “to again help our partner Trump to become president,” state TV host Evgeny Popov recently declared. On Thursday’s edition of the state television show The Evening With Vladimir Soloviev, Putin’s pet pundits offered an update on plans for 2024.
“We’re trying to feel our way, figuring out the first steps. What can we do in 2023, 2024?,” Russian “Americanist” Malek Dudakov, a political scientist specializing in the U.S., said. He suggested that Russia’s interference in the upcoming elections is still in its early stages, and that more will be accomplished after the war is over and frosty relations between the U.S. and Russia start to warm up. “When things thaw out and the presidential race for 2024 is firmly on the agenda, there’ll be moments we can use,” he added. “The most banal approach I can think of is to invite Trump—before he announces he’s running for President—to some future summit in liberated Mariupol.”
Providing lethal aid to Ukraine would exploit Russia’s greatest point of external vulnerability.
But any increase in U.S. military arms and advice to Ukraine would need to be carefully calibrated to increase the costs to Russia of sustaining its existing commitment without provoking a much wider conflict in which Russia, by reason of proximity, would have significant advantages.
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