So Russia takes blame for Ukraines corruption of aid money as well ? That’s silly. Please read about the defense minister. No Russian involvement here he was just lining his pockets
that too during a time of war which is sick
Russian invasion of Ukraine | Fewer tweets, more discussion
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So Russia takes blame for Ukraines corruption of aid money as well ? That’s silly. Please read about the defense minister. No Russian involvement here he was just lining his pockets
that too during a time of war which is sick
I lean toward agreeing its ridiculous, but to be fair, the Putin we see nowadays doesn't quite look exactly like the the Putin of old. He's clearly had some work done to his face, so I suppose those that subscribe to this theory propose that its someone who has had surgery to look like Putin, rather than Putin getting a facelift or whatever.
Many of the Ukrainian figures of the present are corrupt, which is simply a continuation of post-Soviet corruption, which has been heavily influenced by Putin's consistent attempts at thwarting Ukrainian democracy by undermining the development of Ukrainian institutions and the Rule of Law. Its simply a continuation of Soviet corruption (just as in Russia) that won't go away until the Ukrainians finally rid themselves of Russian influence. Cherry picking one individual in the news today doesn't change this fundamental reality.
I thought pretty much everyone agreed that Ukraine was corrupt as feck before the war. Don't know how innocent Zelensky is in terms of corruption, but one could hope that the war will shake out some of the bad eggs in the country.
Exactly. This is a war between an imperialistic corrupt oligarchy and a simply corrupt oligarchy. But the latter at least slowly improved during the last decade and looks like it tries to keep improving.
Ukraine definitely isn't as corrupt as Russia expected, otherwise they could have easily taken Ukraine, that should give us some hope.
It is sick. But also unsurprising. Corruption is one of the biggest problems in Ukraine, second only to russians. And despite the progress in the last 8 years, it would have been naive to think it will completely go away because of war. So the fact individuals have been named and punished is a positive development.
Minister of Defence (Reznikov) will be replaced because he wasn't able to fight corruption in his own ministry. He personally wasn't accused of anything (at least publicly), but had to go either way.
Corruption have always been and will always be around - war is one of the messiest situations one country can have and every country that have been in war have had major corruption cases. The fact that things come out so openly and they are open about it, shows how greatly their nation have grown and how they want to change and become better.
Well this is specifically aid money that was misappropriated from what I understand, not the usual sort of corruption that Ukraine has "always had".
It's American tax dollars which we as citizens pay which is misused so personally I can't be as dismissive about it as "it's always been the case"
How is Ukraine corruption relevant in a Russian invasion of Ukraine thread? AFAIK Putin is invading because of ukranians somehow being *checks notes* russian-hating NATO-loving heretic (hence the holy war) jew-commanded nazis, not for corruption issues.
PS: "The Ukraine" as I understand is derogatory.
Well, it's not only American tax dollars. And no one is dismissive, since people were punished for it. What is your solution?
Yes it is, but he wrote about "the [...] corruption", no need to criticise him for that.
For those who don't know why, usually articles are used for landscapes and not for countries. So saying "the Ukraine" does essentially translate to "the borderlands [of Russia]" and therefore implicitly support the Russian claim to it.
But it's not that strict in other languages, in German for example there are a few countries that are called similar and no one would see that as derogatory (die Schweiz/Switzerland for example), so even if someone writes it that way he might simply not be aware that this issue exists.
Its part and parcel of giving aid to any foreign country. The US does the same across all kinds of middle eastern nations where there is also plenty of corruption.
Thanks for clarifying! English isn't my first language.
Doesn't matter whose money it is, money is still money.
The corruption is quite relevant when it impacts Ukraine's ability to defend themselves, I'd think.
So sad that our resident Greek troll went silent in this thread... I would love to wind him up by reminding him that the AfD originally was founded as a reaction to the Greek financial disaster and that this is his fault...
*whistling innocently*
I always call it out there as well but I disagree it is Part and parcel this is a massive amount of aid
Well, has it? So far at least.
It would be strange if corruption within the military doesn't have an effect on the military, so I assume so, yes. Also, in general, corruption is harmful. How many pages in this thread are about Russian corruption and the devastating effect it has had? Quite a few. Ukraine is by far the European country that comes closest to Russian levels of corrupton, how could it not have an impact?
There's also been talked about Ukraine joining the European Union, so corruption levels would of course also be relevant in that context.
Its not really that relevant in the broader scheme of things, specifically who wins the war between Russia and Ukraine. At the end of the day Ukraine is a democracy with credible elections and Russia is a totalitarian dictatorship. Who wins the war will therefore inform the prospects of reforming corruption in Ukraine over the long term, far more than the act of momentarily exposing a few examples in the present.
Weather forecasts and the specific number of tanks are also probably not going to be what decides the war, yet they're frequent topics of discussion. Will Russian corruption decide who wins the war? I don't know, but it certainly doesn't help and it's a relevant and sometimes interesting topic.
By all means, discuss or don't discuss whatever you want, but questioning whether or not Ukranian corruption is even relevant for this 1068 page long thread about the war is a bit weird (I'm not saying you did that). People are talking about how hard soil is, about protests outside of both Ukraine and Russia, and about pros and cons of rocket XT782 vs AB9000 or whatever. It's a pretty wide scope!
Its not relevant any more than Russian corruption is relevant during the war. Its the daily execution of the war itself and the political and humanitarian impact that are the central issues of this thread. That's not to say corruption can't be discussed, but its not even remotely relevant to how the war is being discharged. At best, its an ancillary distraction from the monotony of daily war updates.
Easy to counter. Germany created the greek crisis, greek crisis created AfD ergo Germany created AfD. In your face, back to you
Good one
Back to topic, today it was officially confirmed that the complete industry stock of Leopard 1 tanks in Germany will be refurbished and then delivered to Ukraine. First 25 units should be delivered in the summer, in total it could be up to 178 Leopard 1 tanks (assuming that all units in storage at Rheinmetall and FFG are still usable, the last of these left active service in 2003), delivery of the last units in the summer.
Compared to the Leo 2 it obviously is older, weaker and less protected, but it's big advantage is a similar size and weight to the Soviet T-series tanks. Which means that it can easily use the same roads and bridges, while the more modern western tanks could create some logistical problems.
Generally on the topic of western tanks: I think the situation is quite sad. Two weeks ago I would never have expected that Germany is promising the biggest numbers in total, considering that a lot of people made it sound like everyone was just waiting for Germany to unleash a tsunami of Leopards for Ukraine. For me that actually redeems Scholz a bit who always insisted on not doing this alone, and I never wanted to write anything positive about him in this thread as I still think his stance towards Russia is a shameful disaster.
Sad on a number of levels, not the least of which as a reminder of how Putin is throwing bodies at a conflict he probably can't win.
Graphic
Graphic
Someone will miss those soldiers. Certainly not the politburo, but their families will.
What a tragic waste.
What a tragic waste.
Perhaps not if they are sent a bag of carrots.
Weekly update on German delivered supplies contains mostly logistics stuff, different kinds of military trucks.
But it does also contain two more Gepard SPAAG and (this is important) additional Gepard ammo supplied by the industry.
Getting Gepard 35mm ammo for Ukraine was a big problem. Germany depended on a Swiss factory and isn't allowed to send that ammo to Ukraine. Rheinmetall is currently investing billions into new ammo production facilities to ensure that all necessary ammo for German systems can and will be produced in Germany again (but they also bought a factory in Spain, it's not unlikely that the current batch was produced there as the German 35mm production hasn't started yet).
Ukraine will get three more Gepard and Germany is in talks with partners who use Gepards to buy them back and send them to Ukraine (most likely this means Qatar)
But it does also contain two more Gepard SPAAG and (this is important) additional Gepard ammo supplied by the industry.
Getting Gepard 35mm ammo for Ukraine was a big problem. Germany depended on a Swiss factory and isn't allowed to send that ammo to Ukraine. Rheinmetall is currently investing billions into new ammo production facilities to ensure that all necessary ammo for German systems can and will be produced in Germany again (but they also bought a factory in Spain, it's not unlikely that the current batch was produced there as the German 35mm production hasn't started yet).
Ukraine will get three more Gepard and Germany is in talks with partners who use Gepards to buy them back and send them to Ukraine (most likely this means Qatar)
https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/live/uk-politics-64566762
Ukrainian President visiting the UK.
The most interesting thing I read was that the UK will train Ukrainian pilots to be able to fly and operate NATO standard fighter jets.
So either this is in preparation for NATO providing Ukraine with fighter jets to operate against Russia.
Or it is in preparation for when Ukraine actually joins NATO.
Ukrainian President visiting the UK.
The most interesting thing I read was that the UK will train Ukrainian pilots to be able to fly and operate NATO standard fighter jets.
So either this is in preparation for NATO providing Ukraine with fighter jets to operate against Russia.
Or it is in preparation for when Ukraine actually joins NATO.
I’ve seen a couple of those videos. Do those frags do a lot of lateral damage? From above it looks like such a localised and contained explosion that it would only kill the person it lands on.
Yep, they spray tiny fragments in an area doing high lateral damage. But it's not a mine, it will not blow people up, they just cause severe bleeding .
This is what happens when a grenade goes off near you (see the fragments in the x-ray).
EDIT: Normally 5m around it is the "kill zone", where there's so much bleeding from different areas that it's impossible to stem and recover from. "Casualty area" is 15m, where you take injuries that will need treatment. That said, the kinetic energy on those fragments is not very high, so they will usually stick on the first obstacle they meet. So another person or object can blanket it and absorb the impact.
In the video above it's quite possible a couple of the people on the right side of the pit avoided injury due to the bodies of the soldiers on the left absorbing all the fragments.
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Yep, they spray tiny fragments in an area doing high lateral damage. But it's not a mine, it will not blow people up, they just cause severe bleeding .
This is what happens when a grenade goes off near you (see the fragments in the x-ray).
Cheers for the info. Grim.
I guess at this point it's definitely clear that Ukraine will get NATO jets in the relatively near future, otherwise they wouldn't commit their pilots for this now, it would be useless.
It's not in preparation for joining NATO, everyone knows that's far in the future.
Hopefully the latter is pretence for the former.
At this stage, a slowrolled escalation bringing more and more powerful systems to Ukraine is the only apt strategy, yet going beyond 2023 seems just unsustainable for the US and Europe, especially if China raises their ante in Taiwan? It just seems a scarily concerted move, with Russia testing the West before China strikes, all the autocrats out there watching with a wry smile… hopefully, this attrition war will freeze into sort of the good, the bad, the ugly tree-way gun pointing without actually opening more fronts, yet de-escalation is needed sooner than later.