CPACK started in Budapest! An illustrious group of right wingers was greeted first by some priests (and rabbis ...) and…
2015 Reloaded?
Through the last weeks we have seen a remarkable willingness to help refugees from Ukraine by the Hungarian people. And Orbán has published a spot that he personally welcomes refugees from Transcarpathia, at least if they are Hungarians. I am not talking about his complete lack of empathy in this video, but about the fact that he relied on NGOs and local governments to provide the help. On the border to Romania, which he dutifully inspected recently, Orbán only let in refugees from Ukraine with a biometric Ukrainian passport, although the EU has adopted rules that allow to come those from Ukraine as well, who had lived there without being Ukrainians. Especially Moldavia, the most eastern country on Ukraine’s Southern border, has seen a huge influx of refugees, while it is a country that has not the resources to help as many as arrived. It was no coincidence that the German minister of foreign affairs has promised the Moldavian government to help in hosting refugees that arrived in Moldavia.
A German newspaper ►DE has reported about Hungarian authorities blocking those refugees coming across the Eastern border to Romania into the Schengen area. Refugees using their own cars moving Westward can’t avoid crossing through Hungary if they don’t do huge detours including leaving the EU again or going all Southward to Greece and to use a ferry to Italy. Hungary is the only EU country between Ukraine and Serbia. And not everybody has a biometric passport and here the Hungarians refuse entering the Schengen area despite other decisions of the EU, Austrian press wrote ►DE. Not every adult has one and the younger a child is the least likely this child has a biometric passport and the number of mothers with children is enormous. The share of minors is overwhelming. Men are missing for a huge part, since most are not allowed to leave Ukraine. Just in opposite to Syria, where Putin’s bombs made everybody move including the men and still the number of minors was very high in 2015. At the border check point even toilets have been closed to the refugees to make it more inconvenient.
In Budapest at the railway station there have been NGOs and the city of Budapest helping the arriving refugees. Right now they have been thrown out of the station building and the state took over and ordered busses from the Budapest transport authority. The same time a huge shelter has been created. The refugees will be sent to the BOK sports hall behind the Puskás Stadium from today. If NGOs want to continue helping the refugees they must register with the local security commission, which is chaired by the head of central governments affairs in Budapest, the infamous former FIDESZ mayor of Józsefváros, Sára Botond. The same man, who declared foreigners to be alarming to Hungarians and announced happily that the population of his district would be extremely homogeneous. Well, they voted him out in 2019.
While the civil helpers welcomed the change to a heated place with a probably better sanitary, they didn’t have an idea how things would work and whether they actually would be able to continue their work after the end of Sunday ►HU. And the most recent information: Press is not welcome at the refugee centre ►HU.
This reminds me terribly to the situation in 2015. The people were helpful to refugees and Orbán decided to make from refugees terrible bad migrants, who for a better life in Hungary would take away our jobs and our women. While voting for helping Greece and Italy with relocation of refugees in Brussels he started a fake referendum against exactly this plan. We have seen the most ugly propaganda campaign and just can be happy that the clashes Orbán wanted to provoke between refugees and Hungarians did not happen. Orbán’s popularity was going down and he thought how much the riots he initiated in 2006 were helpful for his career. However, the hate campaign was successful. The running hate campaign against gays is not so successful, even true FIDESZ believers know too many gays as just ordinary people and not as threat, so the fake referendum 2022 is expected to fail. And even worse the popularity of Unity for Hungary is growing, while FIDESZ’ popularity is shrinking. More people want change of government than those who want Orbán to remain ►HU. Could here re-appear an old campaign again? Now against refugees from Ukraine?
As I am not part of any Catholic denomination or doctrine, there is no way I can relate to whatever…
Since Melania and Donald formally met with the Pope I suspect her transgressions may also have been forgiven.
Melania Trump is a Slovenian Catholic, but it is unclear if she attends mass at any parish. It is clear…
But wait, Donald Trump’s wife Melania hosted a closed-door fundraiser at Mar-a-Lago not long ago for the Log Cabin Republicans,…
I thought this post on the refugee issue and Hungary was very good. But the rest of this post is off that topic. Sunday mornings in the USA are the time for our national TV network talk shows. US Defense Secretary Lloyd Austin on Sunday, March 20, 2022, appeared on the CBS TV program “Face the Nation.” He was asked a question about the Russian use of the Hypersonic missile in Ukraine. Here is a transcript of that part of his interview
:
MARGARET BRENNAN (CBS News): Russia is also saying that it used a hypersonic missile at least twice in Ukraine so far. So this is a missile that travels what more than a mile a minute. It’s very difficult to intercept. Is this weaponry game changer?
SEC. AUSTIN: I would not see it as a game changer. I think again, the reason that he’s resorting to using these types of weapons is because he’s trying to reestablish some momentum. And we’ve see-, again, we’ve seen him attack towns and cities and civilians outright. We expect to see that continue. But I don’t think that this in and of itself will be a game changer. You kind of question why he would- would do this. Is he running low on precision- precision guided munitions? Does he have like complete confidence in his ability to- the ability of his troops to reestablish momentum? But- but I don’t see this in and of itself a game changer. I cannot confirm or dispute whether or not he’s used those weapons.
Now here is the US Sec of Defense who has access to all the top secret information collected by the US National Security agency monitoring systems, including in orbit over Ukraine, AWACs (Airborne Warning and Control System) flying along the Polish Ukraine border from Kraków Poland (that also have US F-16s from the 480th Fighter Squadron support 24/7), and on and on. He will not answer the question as to whether on not Russia used that missile or even question the Russian report on its use.
But Telex today in this article https://telex.hu/kulfold/2022/03/21/oroszorszag-kindzsal-hiperszonikus-raketa-video-kerdesek-orosz-ukran-haboru does indeed dispute if the Russians used the weapon. The article was written by Gergely Koroknai who does tech articles for Telex including about F1 racing. Today’s article title translates “Something is very wrong about the deployment of the Russian hypersonic missile.” The something that is very wrong in the analysis of Koroknai is a drone video that the Russians released of what it says is the warhead of the hypersonic missile hitting its target which was an underground ammunition storage area near the Polish border and about 250 kilometers from the Hungarian border.
Only two days before Koroknai wrote an article about the hypersonic missile attack https://telex.hu/kulfold/2022/03/19/oroszorszag-haboru-ukrajna-kindzsal-hiperszonikus-raketa-fegyver . It this article all Koroknai would write about if this happened was to say: “For the time being, the Russian side’s communication has not been independently confirmed by any Western intelligence or news agency source.”
Now CNN has reported that it received off the record information that the US tracked at least one, possibly more, Russian hypersonic missile in flight. In Koroknai’s article today he questions that CNN statement, I guess he assumes it was created or what I do not know.
What is clear to any US military officer is that US Defense Secretary Lloyd Austin’s answer to the question from CBS news was what we were taught to do when answering a media question that could reveal something that was needed not to be revealed. That something is the extent of NSA surveillance of everything Russia is doing in Ukraine which is actually providing a treasure trove of technical information about Russian weapons systems.
As to General Austin’s answer about the hypersonic missile being a game changer, meaning ultimately that NATO anti-missile defense systems are incapable of bringing this missile down as Putin has publicly claimed was interesting. I think his answer was simply its not a game changer.
Now that is a very interesting answer because the Ukrainians are using largely Russian made air defense weapons that are far less capable that the most current version of the Patriot anti-air craft and anti missile systems. Much of the technology used in the Patriot is also used in the Israeli system called the iron dome, both are made by Raytheon essentially with the iron dome being produced in Israel by Rafael Advanced Defense Systems. I am a Raytheon investor and get their PR emails constantly see https://www.raytheonmissilesanddefense.com/what-we-do/missile-defense/air-and-missile-defense-systems/irondome .
So General Austin did not want to reveal that apparently the USA can track a Russian hypersonic missile pretty close to when it is launched. That means multiple interceptor missiles could be launched to destroy a hypersonic missile based on calculations of its potential multiple paths even with the speed of that Russian missile, Ukraine does not and will not have such a capability but the USA, Israel, and eventually some NATO nations may. But why discuss that? Based on Ukraine’s President Zelensky’s request to Israel to be provided with the iron dome system it appears he may not understand its a joint US/Israel system so really the guy he needs to talk to is Biden. If the USA is not providing the Patriot system to Ukraine its pretty unlikely the iron dome will be released. Moreover, the iron dome is designed to be a less mobile system and would without question immediately face an all out attack by the Russians if somehow the system was covertly gotten into Ukraine.
I would also add that what hypersonic missiles do change is the ability to hold back on triggering the launch of anti-air craft missiles. This increases the possibility of taking down a plane or even a drone that is civilian. This article published just before the war in Ukraine started discussed the possibility of taking down a hypersonic missile https://nationalinterest.org/blog/reboot/america-may-have-found-secret-killing-hypersonic-missiles-177824 .
I have been reading the Kyiv Independent frequently since Russia invaded Ukraine. They posted a interesting article a few days ago titled “Is Putin going to launch a nuclear war?” Which can be read in full at https://kyivindependent.com/national/analysis-is-putin-going-to-launch-a-nuclear-war/. It’s an interesting article which I am not in full agreement with, and its author is actually a Russian journalist who left Russia out of fear of being arrested himself. His name is Oleg Sukhov and he has a master’s degree in history from the Moscow State University. Sukhov does respond to emails still, amazingly given the situation in Ukraine by the way.
I think Sukhov underestimates the idea embedded in the Russian military that the use of tactical nuclear weapons does not necessarily lead to mutually assured destruction between the USA and Russia. I see the same thinking here in particular among some retired US Air Force officers who argue that there can be limited nuclear exchanges between the US and Russia without it leading to Armageddon. I fear a nuclear Armageddon and not just because I am a Catholic either. Rather I had the unique experience of having in my elementary school in Chicago having about 20% of my fellow students who were of Japanese descent. Their parents came to Chicago during WWII from the West coast of the USA to avoid interment in camps that were set up for Japanese residents whether US citizens or not.
Because Chicago was outside of the geographical area the US military projected for a Japanese invasion during the war, if they came here they did not have to be put into interment camps. The families of these children were my neighbors and some of their fathers had even had fought for the USA in the Europe during WWII in the US Army’s 442nd combat unit with great honor.
But one thing these families taught me about was what happened in Japan with our atomic bombing, really the horror of it. They were Buddhists and I asked them many questions about the atomic attack and they gave me very honest answers. One of the families I knew best was from Hiroshima originally and had a good part of their family killed in the US attack. The family gave me a paperback copy of the English language edition of the book Hiroshima Diary, written by Dr. Michihiko Hachiya, it is a journal that records many experiences of the Japanese in Hiroshima on the day of and the days immediately following the bombing. I still have that book to this day.
I met one member of their family who had survived the bombing and was undergoing cancer treatment in Chicago at the expense of the Japanese community here. I learned about the long term effect of the A-bomb and I will carry with me a real fear of it forever to be honest.
The book Hiroshima Diary is still sold on Amazon by the way.
I appreciate your thoughtful and informative input. I certainly don’t need to be convinced of the horrors of war. To me the fact that they happen repeatedly demonstrates not only the depravity of humanity but also the inevitable nonsense of the existence of any divinity except perhaps in its most evil form. But, I don’t mean to kick off a theology debate with its usual and predictable arguments.
I have debated the Putin phenomenon with many recently. My conclusion from these is that Putin either knows he made a big mistake or that he does not. Either way there is no reliable evidence to define the limits of his murderous intentions. In other words we have not a clue where he might stop. Is it not the time now to stop him? Maybe we should avoid needless escalation of the dispute. Unfortunately this does not deal with the point that at some point he must be stopped whilst we may have the ability to do so. That may not be so much longer.
Well there seem to be some military strategists in the USA who agree Putin must be stopped. I have seen seen more than one argument calling for a first strike with nuclear weapons against Russia since the Russian people can’t restrain Putin. They seem not to be advocating a limited attack, but a massive one if you are going to do that. I think that is insane.
Russian admission published on March 20, but deleted by March 21:
“По данным Минобороны РФ, в ходе спецоперации на Украине ВС РФ потеряли убитыми 9861 человека, ранения получили 16153 человека.”
Losses of the Russian military:
9861 dead,
16153 wounded.
This is about 1/8 of the Russian miltary in Ukraine.
https://web.archive.org/web/20220321131726/https://www.kp.ru/online/news/4672522/
The Russian army released a fake video about the Kinzhal missile attack.
“We can now say for certain that the strike depicted happened nowhere near the western part of the country and not at some major military weapons storage area. It happened at a heavily bombarded rural area in the far eastern area of Ukraine”
Roll down to the update of the article:
https://www.thedrive.com/the-war-zone/44840/we-have-questions-about-russias-claimed-kinzhal-hypersonic-missile-use-in-ukraine
President Biden came out yesterday and verified that the Russians did indeed carry out a hypersonic missile attack on a likely fortified munitions dump. He said he is expecting more use by the Russians of these missiles on targets with missile defense systems Ukraine has from Russia. See https://news.yahoo.com/russias-war-displaced-10m-ukrainians-070424245.html?fr=yhssrp_catchall I also posted above about this issue in relationship to a article in Telex.
What is most interesting about that Russian combat death admission tappanch apparently is that it simply disappeared after several hours as you wrote. We should also be clear that the Ukrainians are not transparent about their combat losses either.
There is not just the propaganda aspect based on the morale of a society at war involved in this, there is also a military formula involved in this. It is used to create what is called the force ratio between opposing armies. This is all done in modern times based of formulas and computers, and part of modern officer training includes doing computation exercises. So we are trained in all armies to compare the relative-force ratios with historical planning ratios, the command staff estimates whether it has an overwhelming force to be successful in a particular battle or an overall campaign.
There are actually arguments over this data analysis among command staff over force ratio analysis. It includes war materials like tanks, artillery, infantry that are prepared for combat (meaning not dead, seriously wounded, or psychologically incapable of combat due to PTSD), and even food supplies. Hence most of what we see coming publicly from either the Russians or Ukrainians are less than truthful to be honest. A big part of the problem with news coverage of this war is so many of the reporters have little or no idea of the mathematics of war. In fact so many people who are war reporters have extremely high writing and or verbal skills, and relatively low math skills, what we are seeing in terms of analysis in the media is questionable.
When one reads of watches on TV the analysis of higher level retired military officers they are thinking in terms of force ratios at multiple levels and trying to discuss it simply for their audience. The math of war is ultimately the math of death, but they do not want to say that to the masses.
So the Guardian newspaper ran this story today https://www.theguardian.com/world/2022/mar/22/how-many-russian-soldiers-died-ukraine-losses it avoids completely the question of relative-force ratios with historical planning ratios. It avoids the fact that we all have to question the military losses that the Ukrainians has taken when we look at the casualty information being released by Ukraine’s military.
Similarly in this Reuter’s article that came out today https://www.usnews.com/news/world/articles/2022-03-22/russia-combat-power-declines-in-ukraine-as-war-takes-toll-u-s-official-says that discussed an estimate made by an unnamed “ senior U.S. defense official” that “Russia’s combat power in Ukraine has declined below 90 percent of its pre-invasion levels for the first time since its attack began.” That is only important relative to the decline in Ukraine’s combat power, which is never discussed.
Russia has a huge problem because as an invading force it has to have an overwhelming force relative to the defending force based on the historical ratios. In the USA it became known as part of the Powell Doctrine. But it’s not a US concept, its very old and goes back in time. The concept of overwhelming force includes strategic demolition of vital infrastructure of Ukraine and that has to be included any relative-force ratios. The reports that are coming out to the public in the US media are very unbalanced as are the reports appearing in the Russian media that the invasion is proceeding as expected and according to plan.
It is also very clear the Russians will not have sufficient forces to occupy Ukraine if they do succeed in defeating the regular Ukrainian Army and even take Kyiv. But that also depend on what if any post combat plans Russia has for Ukraine.
The Orban government opposes:
#1: no-fly zones over Ukraine
#2: “peacekeeping” ground troops in Ukraine
#3: delivery of lethal weapons through Hungary and Za-Karpatiya
#4: restrictions of Russian energy exports to Europe
(Foreign minister Szijjarto: this would be unfair to ….. Serbia)
https://hirado.hu/kulfold/cikk/2022/03/21/szijjarto-peter-rendkivuli-nyilatkozatot-tesz-brusszelbol
Right now Tappanch on point 1 and 2 the US government is also apposed. It might be good to point that out, I watched the Polish ambassador to the USA last night say the peacekeeping troops was only a “conceptual idea for discussion.” From the tone of him he seemed to be backing off the concept.
Number of eligible voters with Hungarian address.
March 21 vs March 01
outside Budapest:
6,470,629 vs 6,507,000, a 0.56% decrease in 20 days.
in Budapest:
1,295,158 vs 1,278,655, a 1.29% increase in 20 days.
BUDAPEST, 01. számú OEVK
60100/59997, up 0.17%
BUDAPEST, 02. számú OEVK
69507/67033, up 3.69% !!!
BUDAPEST, 03. számú OEVK
64880/64566, up 0.49%
BUDAPEST, 04. számú OEVK
72277/71445, up 1.16%
BUDAPEST, 05. számú OEVK
60269/59253, up 1.71%
BUDAPEST, 06. számú OEVK
71920/68637, up 4.78% !!!!
BUDAPEST, 07. számú OEVK
81167/79500, up 2.10% !!
BUDAPEST, 08. számú OEVK
76969/75023, up 2.59% !!
BUDAPEST, 09. számú OEVK
74190/72443, up 2.41% !!
BUDAPEST, 10. számú OEVK
71323/70019, up 1.68%
BUDAPEST, 11. számú OEVK
75556/74808, up 1.00%
BUDAPEST, 12. számú OEVK
72272/72217, up 0.08%
BUDAPEST, 13. számú OEVK
69443/69096, up 0.50%
BUDAPEST, 14. számú OEVK
74564/74530, up 0.46%
BUDAPEST, 15. számú OEVK
78657/78358, up 0.38%
BUDAPEST, 16. számú OEVK
69802/69789, up 0.02%
BUDAPEST, 17. számú OEVK
75210/74841, up 0.49%
BUDAPEST, 18. számú OEVK
77052/77314, down by 0.34%
BP06: main parts of districts VIII & IX; up 4.78%,
BP02: inner part of district XI; up 3.69%,
BP08: main part of district XIV; up 2.59% ,
BP09: main part of district X & NE part of district XIX; up 2.41%,