Since Melania and Donald formally met with the Pope I suspect her transgressions may also have been forgiven.
June 15th, 2022
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,…
Fascistic - or fantastic? Extreme right wing "leaders" from all over the world will meet this weekend at the CPAC…
Promising numbers! How Hungarian "Jungle Drums" convert to votes, will be interesting.
We just had a young relative of my wife from the USA as visitor – his father is Hungarian but he feels American though he’s been in Hungary several times as a visitor, in his family’s hometown in Eastern Hungary, Budapest and other large cities and now here to see the Esztergom Basilika (though he’s no Christian …)
He’s also been to other European countries and says he feels really devastated how much Hungary is behind the times – not 50 years as usually say but more like 100 years (he knows about Horthy times).
We talked about his observations, the way people behave, the unhealthy lifestyle (junk food everywhere), obesity and so on. There Hungary could compete with the “fat” USA he says.
Hi Wolfi and Istvan (Chicago), at this point, I check this site-mainly- to read your comments and those of still others such as Michael D.
Useful information from all of you.Many thanks. I will be in Hungary this summer, first time in almost 2 1/2 years.
The US business newspaper the Wall Street Journal ran an article which is behind a paywall titled “European Leaders Arrive in Ukraine as Kyiv Renews Calls for More Military Support.” For what ever reason this article provided some information that clearly contradicted information coming from the US Department of Defense writing: “On Wednesday the U.S. announced it was sending $1 billion in new military assistance to help Ukraine repulse Russia’s invasion, but the package of artillery, ammunition and coastal defense systems amount to a fraction of what Kyiv has requested. Ukrainian Foreign Minister Dmytro Kuleba thanked the U.S. for the new round of assistance but stressed that “we urgently need more heavy weapons delivered more regularly.”
France has supplied Ukraine with heavy artillery such as howitzers to help it wage what is essentially becoming an artillery war in the eastern Donbas area, but Kyiv says the supplies aren’t enough. Various Western countries have pledged assistance to Ukraine in recent weeks, promising deliveries of heavy weapons and financial aid for the purposes of reconstruction. But analysts say much of the equipment promised hasn’t arrived.
The U.S. has delivered less than half of the military aid committed to Ukraine, according to a report by the Kiel Institute for the World Economy, a German think tank. Germany, whose reluctance to send weapons has been strongly criticized by Ukraine, hasn’t yet sent heavy weapons and only a third of its promised military support has actually been shipped to Ukraine, the think tank said in a report published Thursday.”
General Mark A. Milley chairman of the US joint chiefs of staff this morning gave an interview to National Public Radio which in the USA can be heard here https://www.npr.org/programs/morning-edition/ if you are in the USA or using a USA based server as I did while in Hungary. Gen Milley admitted the Russians are slowly advancing and have a huge numerical advantage and also revealed it is taking around one month to train Ukrainian crews to operate more advanced weapons systems that have arrived.
Gen Milley claimed the Ukrainian forces had the advantage in terms of combat “troop morale,” but he provided no metrics for that claim. In general terms, military researchers understood that men subjected to severe combat conditions for prolonged periods would have to be relieved at regular intervals. Men unable to continue in combat were either deemed cowards or thought to be victims of a debilitating physical condition, “shell shock.” I am seeing stories coming from Ukrainian doctors that severely wounded Ukrainian soldiers cannot in many cases be moved from the trenches for seven or eight hours due to sustained artillery fire and many effectively bleed out in front of their comrades.
I personally believe General Milley is creating a bullshit narrative. General Milley and I both went through the same leadership training as officers where we learned courage had measurable limits and could not be expended as easily as water can be poured from a beaker. Officers had to determine how much bravery soldiers possessed and not allow them to exceed those limits without replenishment.. What I saw at the battle of An Loc in 1972 where trapped South Vietnamese soldiers literally fighting for survival and communist soldiers facing execution in the field by political officers being sent to their deaths by the hundreds. The discipline the communist forces faced was extremely strict and the penalties for disciplinary lapses were savage and immediate. Nonetheless, this does not mean that these soldiers were motivated solely by fear of his or her leaders. To accept the viewpoint that the NVA Regular was a completely unwilling military slave is not consistent with his battlefield performance. Communist soldiers showed initiative, tenacity, courage and stamina were maintained for years in the face of appallingly heavy casualties. Milley I am sure knows all of this and actually has a much more balanced perspective on the morale when talking with non-civilians.
What I don’t really understand is how come the Ukrainian side could not set up facilities to produce ammunition and some usable weapons. It seems like they rely on the outside world entirely. Wasn’t there an indigenous Ukrainian weapons industry? Or are they working just could not achieve material results in 3-4 months?
At the same time it is only a question of time when the Russians will be able to ramp up their production (at least they have the industrial base and machinery, even if corrupt and mismanaged).
An interesting article – sorry, only in German.
On a totally different level – the parallels between Trump and the US right wingers (T Carlson is mentioned as an example) and Hungary’s Illiberal Democracy”
But of course for the people here that’s nothing new …
https://www.faz.net/aktuell/feuilleton/medien/unter-amerikas-konservativen-waechst-der-hang-zur-autokratie-18103036.html?
The Forint has really gone crazy – jumping up and down in 24 hours between 395 and more than 402 per €:
https://www.xe.com/currencycharts/?from=EUR&to=HUF&view=1W
Prices are going up at an unimaginable speed …
And on the other hand:
For teachers eg the monthly wage has not risen even 1% if you consider its € value. Of course this means that most of them stay in Hungary for holidays – if they are financially able to travel at all …
Because the US Federal Reserve is forcing interests rates up to attempt to contain inflation the US stock market is in a tail spin, the DJIA was most opened trading 707 points, or 2.3%, lower today. Bitcoins are in total crisis going down around 10% a day. The US Dollar Index, also known as DXY has been moving up with sharp declines periodically too.
I have almost no assets at risk in these markets at this point of my life, but I have friends who are in their 70s who do, some of them are retired military officers too. In the last two years they made a lot of money and now big chunks of that are gone. I expect that eventually my property based wealth will decline and that is to be expected. Of course for most people in the USA they have no savings of significance at all they are losing nothing because the medium net worth 65-74 year old household in the USA is only around 266,000 USD mostly composed of the estimated value of their homes. But American households with savings accounts have only a median balance of $5,300, and 35% of all Americans have under $1,000 in savings.
My wife and I are really in the highest quartile of net worth in the USA and are very lucky. Wealth distribution in America is often broken into equal sections, or percentiles, in order to understand better how wealth is accumulated, it’s down in . But the quartiles of course hide the amazingly rich, so the quartile my wife and I are in starts at about $403,800 but the top decile (90-100 in quartile chart), or top 10% of high net worth U.S. families, own 76% of the wealth, according to analysis done by the Federal Reserve Bank of St. Louis.
But the 12.9 million families are in this top decile, have a net worth of $1.22 million which is the threshold and my wife and I are in that club too. But when you go up from there we are not even near being in those clubs. On the other hand there are in the USA 13.4 million households having a negative net worth. Those households are in very deep crisis now just like in Hungary.
Teachers could go on strike to ask for a pay raise, or maybe not…
The Hun government is showing again how crazy they are:
(In)Famous right wing “Querdenker” Jordan B Peterson gave a lecture at the office of president Novak, so …
From the Insight Hungary newsletter:
President of Hungary Katalin Novak awarded Jordan B. Peterson with the Order of Merit.“In recognition of his distinguished scientific work in the field of clinical psychology and his exceptional commitment to protecting the freedom of creativity and education of young people”.
Orban’s peacock dance continues.
Tibor Navracsiocs says – and Telex shows this is a major news item – that “We are ready to make concessions to the EU”.
But of course Orban will not, because he doesn’t need the money right away, only by Feb-March 2023 when the revenues can still be accounted for 2022 and this good cop and bad cope division is a time-honored tactics of Orban. Navracsics ha sno power on his own, his Orban’s good cop but the decision is Orban’s alone and he won’t change. He works like he did with the 6th sanctions package.
But this always works and will work this time again, Orban will get the money and will improve the numbers for 2022 when he gets the monies eventually. (even the EU wants to pay it).
Telex also published a gigantic interview witj Katalin Novak, as if Novak was anything more than a Fidesz fanatic operator acting for a certain constituency and with a certain kind of cheerfulness. She is absolutely lightweight and Orban’s instrument.I long ago stopped donating to Telex, which I find strangely chummy with the Fidesz machine.
The photo below is from 1956 taken at the Mortuary of the Kerepes Cemetery on Rijeka Road in Budapest of revolutionaries killed by the Russians. A number of photographs of the ’56 revolution emerged from a shed in Scotland. The black-and-white pictures were taken by Peter Isaac, a photographer sent to Hungary by The Manchester Guardian (now just the Guardian) in the first days of November 1956, in Budapest and on the Austro-Hungarian border, but they were probably never published. More to the photos can be seen as part of this article https://24.hu/belfold/2022/06/18/szenzacios-56-os-fotok-kerultek-elo-egy-skociai-feszerbol/ .
Orban of course could care in the least about the bodies of contemporary Ukrainians piling up again killed by yet another Russian invasion.
An interesting argument has developed between Ryanair and the Hungarian government, which also affects me, as I bought tickets for me and my girls a few months ago…
In short, the government imposed an “extra profit tax” on airlines (and on other sectors dominated by non-Hungarian companies) to cope with the economic situation caused by Covid/ the war in Ukraine/ the government’s own incompetence (delete as appropriate!). Ryanair passed this tax onto customers – including me – retrospectively, given that the tax was also imposed retrospectively, leading to a battle of words between the two parties:
https://telex.hu/english/2022/06/15/minister-for-economic-development-responds-to-ryanair-ceo
The Hungarian version of telex has an update, reporting that Magyar Nemzet claimed 60% of passengers had cancelled their flights because of Ryanair passing the cost directly onto them, but Ryanair said this figure was just 3%… The Minister for Economic Development (Nagy Márton) has now called on Ryanair to apologise to Hungarian families for the way they have treated them:
https://telex.hu/belfold/2022/06/18/bocsanatkeres-kovetelesevel-folytatodik-a-ryanair-es-nagy-marton-heja-nasza
Michael O’Leary’s reaction might have been quite vocal but Ryanair is not the only airline to pass the extra tax onto their customers, EasyJet and Wizzair will do the same. I am curious to see how it will affect the tourism industry in HU though. In any case you don’t need to be an expert to know that air travel suffered a great deal more than other sectors during the Covid pandemic.
The good side would be less greenhouse gases … the bad more money for Orban’s expansionism.
There is also a paper from Magyar hang in which it is explained that the price caps for rotten pork, chicken pieces (waste) “available on the world market for less than 1 € per kilo frozen” were introduced before the Ukraine war and not as the Hungarian government claims because of the Ukraine war. Orban and his ass-kissers with the “unorthodox economic policy” have done this because they are incompetent.
To come back now – not to surcharge for foreign companies or tourists, but to serve „his“ people. We must not forget that we are sitting in front of the curtain of the Hungarian State Theater.
We just looked on the internet at the prices for next week at Lidl and my wife was really angry because many foods cost 50% or even 100% more than a year ago. Of course this is not the fault of Lidl – our local bakery also had to raise the price of their (quite good …) bread.
Still she says that bread can’t compare with what my wife’s father baked – but he learned his job and became a master in Vienna before WW2.
Our neighbours say the same so I’m really wondering who those people are who still call O1G their wonderful great leader.
With us the roads are bad, but we get now tarred roads in the vineyard (an “important” sells wine) which no one needs (Fidesz election gift), because the country road can be driven here with 60 km/h with good conscience. 😀
The problem of rising prices is universal. The different strategies against that development are national. Many different stratgies play out and the market reacts, by going up and down, or down and up. The end result is that the consuners pay.
Michael, a rise of five or 10 or even 20% is “normal” and can be compensated by most people – eating less meat and sweets eg, using margarine instead of butter …
But 50% or 100% for essential stuff like cooking oil are a totally different dimension.
Some of our neighbours are preparing to heat with wood again next winter or actually anything that burns …
I agree with you about compensating through regulating the consuming- patterns.
Of course the weakest and poorest will be hit the hardest, and there is also a real danger that national price-fixing and paying out compensations will drive up the inflation, even more.
The export/import of slaughterhouse garbage is older and bigger than any Hungarian media can afford to fathom. The basis of the “animal proteine” industry, is dead animals. Add to that, a substantual supply of genetically “unidentifiable” animal tissue in many consumer products,after the “horse/donkey/goat/dog/cat/rat meat scandal” increased, currently estimated at 10%, in the global food industry. We look at at a carnivouruos culture without real standards.
today’s latest: if you go onto Ryanair’s website in Hungary, you get this message refuting Magyar Nemzet’s claims: “False Claims Published in Magyar Nemzet – Less than 3% of Ryanair passengers due to travel after 1 JUL have opted to cancel”
If you click for further information you get this announcement: https://www.ryanair.com/hu/hu/lp/travel-updates/articles/hungarian-tax
After yesterday’s call for Ryanair to apologise, the company is now calling for an apology from Minister for Economic Development Nagy Márton: https://telex.hu/gazdasag/2022/06/20/ryanair-kozlemeny-valasz-nagy-martonnak-kulonado-temaban
So the Russians today actually published a relatively long article about the demoralization of Ukrainian troops in Donbas due to combat deaths, combat injuries, and lack of logistical support on the front lines (I am not linking the RT story at the request of our host). Most of the sources in that article were from the Western media, but they were packaged together in a way to make the Ukrainian Army appear on the edge of collapse. Meanwhile the Kyiv Independent ran a story that reads: “According to the U.K Defense Ministry, Russian morale highly likely remains “especially troubled,” with cases of whole units refusing orders. The intelligence also said that morale is low due to poor leadership, limited opportunity for rotation of units out of combat, and heavy casualties. Russian authorities likely struggle to pressure military dissenters, according to the update.”
What is the truth the Russian version or the Ukrainian version? I would say both versions are true. As wars drag on combat fatigue and logistical problems are inevitable as are desertions. What this points to is the Western media’s pro-Ukraine bias and the obvious Russian propaganda efforts. Really this war has become a high tech version of WWI that will be protracted.
Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskiy visited forces in the southern Mykolaiv region, about 550 km (340 miles) south of Kyiv yesterday. He filmed one of his addresses to the Ukrainian people apparently on his way back to Kyiv. In which he stated “Their (Ukrainian Army) mood is assured: they all do not doubt our victory. We will not give the south to anyone, and all that is ours we will take back.” But when will that be?
Germany’s Bild am Sonntag newspaper yesterday quoted NATO Secretary-General Jens Stoltenberg as stating: We must prepare for the fact that it (the war) could take years. We must not let up in supporting Ukraine, Even if the costs are high, not only for military support, also because of rising energy and food prices.” What is strange about Stoltenberg is he knows very well that a protracted war favors Russia and NATO analysts are agreed on that, but the extent Russia can sustain a protracted war in Ukraine is far from clear at this point in time. The other horror not being discussed by NATO or Zelenskiy is the reality that almost five million Ukrainians have left for neighboring countries since the start of the war and many may never return. Russia has lost some people too, but really nothing in comparison to Ukraine. Since Chicago has a historic Ukrainian community we have seen a big increase in that community even here. Chicago’s St. Nicholas Cathedral School has since the start of the war seen an increase of 227 students — a 46% increase — and more continue to arrive on a near daily basis. Like with the 1956 Hungarian refugees most of these Ukrainians now here in the USA will not go home. But what will happen is that many of these families will eventually move to the suburbs and Americanize. The prospect of a war lasting years is pretty difficult for Ukraine to sustain even with massive aide from the west unless many more cracks appear in Russia.
I read several articles about the brain drain Russia as been suffering for years now but with a noticeable acceleration since the beginning of the Russian invasion of Ukraine: young educated Russians, when not making sure not to be drafted in a near future, are seeking a better life abroad because they see no evolution in Russia, whether politically, economically or socially. At least, Ukrainians can hope for a better future in their country as Ukraine will become an EU member at some (distant) stage in the future.
Thanks Istvan for taking time to think about and research military and civilian topics regarding war in Ukraine. Your earlier comments about importance of Russian artillery were prescient.
If it weren’t so sad it would be really funny …
Central Europe has the lowest corporate taxes in Europe thanks to its disciplined tax policy, but the introduction of a global minimum tax in Hungary would mean a significant tax increase and endanger “tens of thousands” of jobs, the Hungarian foreign minister said in an interview broadcast on public radio on Sunday.
Yes, Hungary has the lowest corporate taxes – but wait:
What about the Value Added Tax of 27%???
Oh, it’s only stupid poor Hungarians who have to pay that, who cares for them?
From Hungary today – the most abominable Fidesz ***expletive deleted*** …
So this story appeared in the US based weekly the Rolling Stone https://www.rollingstone.com/politics/politics-news/stephen-zabielski-russia-ukraine-conflict-1371094/ It discusses in some depth the death of a US volunteer for the Ukrainian International Legion. The volunteer was 52 years old and had once been a US infantryman, it is unclear what rank he reached while in the US Army. In my opinion it is unconscionable to put a guy that old in a forward combat position especially for prolonged combat. But according to the article there are a lot of older men serving in front line combat in Ukraine and there is also a vast amount of friendly fire incidents.
There are articles today about this story in major US newspapers that do not make direct reference to the commentary from Zabielski‘s comrades about the reality of front line combat in Ukraine. The US Army will not allow a person beyond the age of 35 to go into training for ground combat, it will allow older NCOs into combat however. There are many studies on the issue of putting older men into combat in mass as appears to be happening in Ukraine there are even studies showing cellular correlates of biological aging in combat-related PTSD, which may help explain the increased medical morbidity and mortality seen in this disease.
Wolfi I am sure can discuss what a complete slaughter it was for the German Army to keep throwing older and older men into combat particularly in the last year of WW2. The older you get the more aware of death you become particularly for middle aged men. Sigmund Freund in 1915 in his seminal essays titled: Thoughts for the Time on War and Death. Freud coined the term thanatophobia which is still used by US Army psychologists today.The picture we are seeing in Ukraine appears to reflect a level of desperation on the part of the Ukrainian Army to keep putting men into the gristmill of front line combat.
Istvan, I don’t get it either that they put “old” people in the front line. However the guy you’re describing was from Ukraine and wanted it this way – he must have known the risks.
But the Nazis were on a totally different level.
The so called Volkssturm also included young boys (16 years old). There’s a book based on real happenings and a famous movie about this: Die Brücke – The Bridge
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Die_Br%C3%BCcke_(film)
He apparently came from a Polish family from what I can tell. What is most frightening about this is even though the US Army veterans fighting over in Ukraine have some rights to veteran medical benefits, but for sure they will not have access to any veteran disability benefits for combat injuries sustained in Ukraine.
I saw an attempt to on line to recruit former US Army artillery officers to go to Ukraine that ended up sent to me. But really there was no real money involved in doing so, as I recall is was a few thousand a month and like a 10k signing bonus. I have to assume the only guys they are getting are the ones who do not have full Department of Defense pensions that required 20 years of service, and need cash. There are some veterans coming from the Central European communities in the USA that may be ideologically motivated to fight the Russians, how many I don’t know. I known as a Hungarian American Catholic fully indoctrinated anti-communists I was highly motivated to fight the Vietnamese communists. But the reality of war somewhat changed my perspective with time and the limited combat in Panama and Grenada I also saw.
Even being on an artillery crew over in Ukraine is risky business, because of counter battery fire from the Russians. Unlike in Vietnam where we had complete air superiority in most situations the Ukrainians do not have that. So the artillery pieces have to shoot and move fast to avoid getting hit by missiles both ground based and from Russian fighter bombers, and from gps guided artillery shells the Russian are using.
But then Wolfi there are what are called adrenaline junkies who are attracted to combat. They too have been studied, and they actually can share some traits the psychological profiles of some criminal psychopaths. Those guys are truly scary, and the Russians have them too. Because I went to Vietnam very late in the war I had higher ranking NCO advisers to the South Vietnamese under my command who fit that profile. Retired Lt Col Dave Grossman is the US based authority on the psychology of combat his book titled On Killing was enlightening for me. Actually Leo Tolstoy wrote about that reality too, he was very interested in the personal level of combat psychology.
News #1
Orban’s Hungary is about to reintroduce open feudalism…..
Within days, Orban and his ruling party will bring back the medieval title “főispán”.
Supremus comes (főispán) was the appointed (by the king) head or lord-lieutenant of a county as opposed to the elected vicecomes.
His income came from 2/3 of the fines he levied on people in the county.
I guess Orban will reintroduce serfdom within a year.
https://hvg.hu/itthon/20220621_Varmegyek_lesznek_a_megyekbol
News #2
Hungary has become the second poorest country (after Bulgaria) in the EU as measured by disposable income.
(It was the 6th poorest in 2011)
https://ec.europa.eu/eurostat/databrowser/view/PRC_PPP_IND__custom_2949434/default/table?lang=en
https://qubit.hu/2022/06/21/a-fogyasztas-alapjan-az-eu-s-orszagok-kozul-csak-bulgariaban-elnek-rosszabbul-az-emberek-mint-magyarorszagon
News #3
Hungary has the second highest CoViD-19 death rate in the EU (after Bulgaria), and #4 in the world.
https://www.worldometers.info/coronavirus/
Orban will take away 3 squares and a street from the opposition-led Budapest municipality without compensation and will give them to the Fidesz-led district 5 for free.
There are rumors he wants to sweep away any obstacles fromm the real estate deals of his son-in-law.
https://hvg.hu/itthon/20220621_Feszult_hangulatu_egyeztetesen_van_tul_az_V_keruleti_polgarmester_es_Karacsony_az_allamositani_kivant_kozteruletek_ugyeben
https://hvg.hu/itthon/20220621_Benyujtottak_a_torvenyt_allamositas_utan_99_evre_az_V_kerulete_tobb_budapesti_kozterulet
8. §
https://www.parlament.hu/irom42/00360/00360.pdf
Döbrögi Orbán
So we just need to find a Ludas Matyi for the opposition and Döbrögi will be beaten?
I tried to find via Google the evolution of Hungary’s position in the EU. Without much success. It still looks like Hungary is stagnating where other poorer countries saw improvements, Bulgaria being last but with an ever-increasing wealth. How long before Hungary becomes last?
If you look at the adjacent Transsylvania and Slovakia and make direct, annual comparisons by visual observations, EU-statistics look like they are a year behind present values. Only in one aspect do I see Hungary not going slower than the two neighbors: The Roma appear to be equally poor and marginalized in all three countries.
Great cartoon and accurate comments about Roma in all 3 countries.
Re Orbán and Ukraine:
The Ukrainian President wrote about the phone call with Viktor Orbán on Twitter, mentioning that the conversation was “fruitful”.
We all know what that means – they discussed their different viewpoints and found out that they have nothing in common …
And it seems most Ukrainians feel similar:
A new poll conducted by Ukrainian pollster Rating has found that after the Russian and Belarusian Presidents, Ukrainians feel most negatively about Hungarian Prime Minister Viktor Orbán, reports Mandiner.
Thanks, Steve Nelson for reporting this in your newsletter!
https://hungarianpolitics.com/
Wolfi it is not beyond the realm of the possible that Zelensky is reaching out to Orban to feel out some type of cease fire deal with Putin. Because as our commentator Tappanch predicted weeks ago the Russians would ultimately seize the entire Donbas. Tactically the Ukrainian Army has retreated avoiding full encirclement and inflicting significant losses on Russian forces.
Russian forces are successfully advancing toward Lysychansk from the south rather than making an opposed river crossing from Severodonetsk, threatening Ukrainian defenses in the area. Back in May the Russians attempted to cross the Siverskyi Donets river which ended in significant losses when their pontoon bridge was destroyed by Ukrainian artillery.
The THE INSTITUTE FOR THE STUDY OF WAR in Washington DC (ISW) previously forecasted that Russian forces would seek to attack toward Lysychansk from the south to negate the defensive advantage that the Siverskyi Donets River would grant Ukrainian defenders opposing a direct assault from Severodonetsk. Russian forces appear to be securing such an advance and will likely attack the outskirts of Lysychansk within the coming week. It had been widely reported that the river level has dropped to the point that mechanized Russian vehicles can at points cross the river without a pontoon bridge.
This Russian advance is a clear setback for Ukrainian defenses in the Severodonetsk-Lysychansk area, but Russian forces will likely require further protracted battles with Ukrainian forces similar to the block-by-block fighting seen in Mariupol and Severodonetsk in order to capture Lysychansk.
By the way when I was a military cadet I practiced river crossings over and over again with artillery under simulated combat conditions in the US State of Missouri. This was all done timed and included having anti aircraft batteries put in place. We did this over and over again to improve our efficiency, Army combat engineers worked in total darkness, and US Army Rangers crossed the River in inflatable rafts to initially secure the opposite side of the river. We were told that the Russians practiced similar exercises.
Just because of the law of large numbers the situation might become worse for the Ukraine but I can’t imagine that they’ll ask O for help there since everybody must know that he’s a fan of Putin.
The rest of the EU on the other hand all know that you can’t expect any true agreement with Russia unless you se a lot of pressure.
I often wonder how this happened to the man who was a liberal once – or wasn’t he?
According to 444.hu the call to Orban supposedly was part of a larger effort https://444.hu/2022/06/22/orban-viktor-mellett-meg-hat-masik-europai-vezeto-politikusnak-telefonalt-kedden-az-ukran-elnok involving numerous countries.
Zelensky said last night that he thanked politicians for supporting Ukraine’s integration efforts in the EU and stressed the need to introduce a seventh package of sanctions against Russia as soon as possible.
I think Zelensky would like very much to have a breathing space in the form of a cease fire and Orban I think would love to play the role of the wise peace maker even if it was only for a pause in the combat. Putin given the fact that his forces are now across the Siverskyi Donets river would likely not want to ease up the pressure on the Ukrainian Army unless his own forces were exhausted.
The US based NY Times in this article https://www.nytimes.com/live/2022/06/22/world/russia-ukraine-war-news indicates that: “Ukrainian forces have also taken heavy casualties and are relying more frequently on undertrained units to hold parts of the eastern front line.” There is massive evidence for that statement.
It goes almost without saying that the Russians have taken heavy casualties too, but have not declared a state of full mobilization as the Ukrainians did. So the Russians do have that option. The military forces of the so called Donetsk People’s Republic (DPR) have been reduced by around 55% according the western military analysts so that force has been spent.
Basically the Russians have adopted a war of attrition using heavy artillery, ground based missiles, and air launched cruise missiles as much as possible. Zelensky is putting on a very brave show, but he must know how difficult their situation is even with additional western weapons systems being introduced into the war. The Russian advance has not been halted which is from my viewpoint depressing.
It’s depressing, I’ll give you that. The information jungle adds a lot of room for speculation.
Based on my sources in Scandinavia, I would assume that the Ukrainians underplay wins and losses depending on strategic imprortance. Their arsenal should be enough to keep the Russians in a semi-defensive mode, air supremacy included, because there are lower and slower layers to that, as well.
Russian maritime superiority is only a theory at this point, given the weapons at play, but the submarine capacity is a serious joker.
Not having ofifcially declared war is a handicap for Russia.
The Baltic situation could perhaps change that, but the odds are heavily against such a move, unless…
Is Putin prepared to demand (a second) historical answer to: “Do you want the total war?”
I loved the call, and think the invitation was the main point. A bit of trolling the Vitor who already wears bulletproof vests when visiting a kindergarten. What will he wear in Kiev?
Wolfi, this was in the Nemzet today, our CSU friends are still loving the Viktor.
https://magyarnemzet.hu/kulfold/2022/06/szijjarto-peter-kulcsfontossagu-az-egyuttmukodesunk-munchennel
This was from the Bavarian Government
https://www.bayern.de/europaministerin-huml-zu-gespraechen-in-ungarn-treffen-mit-ungarischem-aussenminister-peter-szijjarto/
Jan, I don’t know. Though the Bavarian CSU is the most right wing (not counting the AfD of course) if you read the first sentence on the topics:
Nichtsdestotrotz werde ich dort auch kritische Themen ansprechen. Demokratie, unabhängige Justiz und freie Medien sind nicht verhandelbar.
If you read further:
„Wir wollen die gut funktionierende Zusammenarbeit auf staatlicher Ebene fortführen“, so Huml.
The mentioning of critical topics was between the main course and the desert, I guess. Basically they admit that even with all the critical points a new contract is very welcome. That is what you get when a right-wing government and an extreme right-wing government are discussing.
Below is a photo of a part of the river in Missouri we practiced a combat crossing on over and over again. It looks lovely in this shot, but not nearly as nice with a Major with a stop watch timing your every move.
My photo did not download.
The Washington Post which I subscribe to on line has two stories today relating to the same issue, could Russian military forces be exhausted before the end of summer. One story was written by Amy Cheng a staff writer located in Soul South Korea presented an assessment by UK foreign intelligence that Russians will run out of artillery shells and other heavy munitions by August stalling the offensive. The issue of infantrymen running out seems unlikely since the Russians have not activated their reserves which is about 2 million in size. But those reserves have only 10 percent of who receive refresher training after completing their initial term of service. Russia lacks the administrative and financial capacity to train reservists on an ongoing basis. According to a 2019 RAND analysis, Russia only had 4,000 to 5,000 troops in what would be considered an active reserve in the Western sense, meaning soldiers attending regular monthly and annual training. Russia is well aware of this and has plans for crash mobilization based on Russian Combat Army Reserve (BARS-2021). BARS-2021 aimed to establish an active reserve by recruiting volunteer reservists for three-year contract service. BARS-2021 operates on the same principle as US and NATO reserves, where reservists actively train and are compensated. There are increasing numbers of these better trained reservists in Russia everyday and they are slowly being used to fill the gaps due to Russian combat losses.
The second article was written by another Post reporter Adela Suliman and it was based on an interview with Prime Minister Kaja Kallas of Estonia who argued exactly the opposite stating: “I’ve heard talks that, you know, there is no threat anymore because they (the Russians) have exhausted themselves. No, they haven’t,”
I to be honest am in the Kallas camp and believe that once Russians decided to embark on a war of attrition in Ukraine they developed some plan for the logistics of sustaining the campaign for a year or more. Relatively speaking artillery shells are easy and quick to produce. Moreover estimates of the tonnage of artillery munitions the Russians have warehoused is just speculation, and that has been going on back to the Cold War days. I worked in this area when in the active US Army because it was a driver of our strategic reserve of artillery shells, particularly those we still have hidden in bunkers at Camp Darby a United States Army Base located in western Italy near the metropolitan areas of Livorno and Pisa. It is home to the US Air Force’s 731st Munitions Squadron (MUNS) and the Army’s 405th Army Field Support Battalion Located in Germany also plays a role. Camp Darby is home to a 2,000 Acre ammunition storage site, consisting of 125 secure bunkers that store ammunition reserves for the United States Army and Air Force commands in Europe.
Of course we have far more than that stashed away here in the USA, including at Rock Island arsenal where I was an Army Reserve Officer for years. The Russians have comparable stocks to the USA. The area where the Russians may have problem will be with missiles that have guidance systems due to NATO’s and the EU’s blocking of microchips. I have no doubt the Chinese are excited to be providing and selling to the Russians these guidance systems because they are being tested in combat and giving back valuable feedback to them. But overall while the Russian missiles make the news, it’s the conventional high explosive artillery shells that are reducing the Ukrainian forces day and day out.
Dear Istvan (Chicago),
The best daily assessment of the military situation I found is at
https://www.osw.waw.pl
The website
translate.google.com
gives a pretty good translation of the Polish text.
June 23, the 119th day of the war
“Russia’s progress in the Luhansk Oblast shows that the local potential of Ukrainian resistance is running out.”
“The Ukrainian side is trying to balance the reports of the failures in the Donbas by suggesting effective counterattacks on the aggressor’s positions in the Kherson region.”
The Russian army reduced the Ukrainian-held Severo-Donetsk – Lysychansk salient to a 10 km wide x 30 km deep territory on June 23, in great danger of encirclement.
Thanks Istvan and tappanch for military perspective, especially comments regarding artillery.
This story is from NBC news one of USA’s big three television stations https://www.nbcnews.com/news/world/russia-ukraine-casualties-spike-frustration-rcna33268 . Zelensky’s credibility is taking a hit with the revelations about poorly equipped and trained troops. Of course the Russians are in the same situation.
I just read an article (behind a paywall) about the popularity of foreign leaders among Ukrainians. Andrzej Duda and Boris Johnson receive an 90% approval mark, Joe Biden 89%, Lithuania’s President Gitanas Nauséda 73% and Ursula von der Leyen 71%.
Putin and Lukashenko received with not too much surprise 98% and 95% negative opinions respectively; Olaf Scholz only got a 41% positive mark.
When it comes to Orbán, 53% have a negative opinion, 20% a positive one and 20% have no idea who he is. 😅
I’m not sure how true this is, but someone recently explained to me that one of the reasons Hungarians are not very sympathetic to Ukraine’s situation in this conflict is that the “Soviet” troops who suppressed the 1956 revolution were mainly from Ukraine. Does anyone know if this is true or another Hungarian legend from history?
One thing that doesn’t milden Ukrainian sentiments towards Hungary, is the occupation from ’41 to Sept. ’44, during which Hungarian troops took part in numerous atrocities, committed against the civilian population.
True and Ukrainians are also pissed about how many Hungarian speaking Ukrainian men fled across the border to avoid the draft. Given the slaughter taking place I can’t blame them to be honest. However, I would add that the Hungarian speaking Ukrainians aren’t the only younger men who avoided the draft. In my neighborhood we have two amazingly beautiful Ukrainian refugee families sponsored by a Vietnamese American charity. They look, to be honest, like Scandinavian models for a magazine and are fluent English speakers including their children. The male head of household in both of these families seem to already be working for contsturction contractors in Chicago.
I asked one of my friends who is a leader in the Vietnamese community how it was that both families had the adult male father with the family here when Ukraine was prohibiting males from crossing the border with families into NATO territory?
He said he thought they both had medical exemptions from the draft. I found that interesting, given the rampant corruption in Ukraine it is possible medical exemptions from the draft can be purchased. It is also a fact that Ukrainian women women between 18 and 60 who are “fit for military service” and work in a broad range of professions are required to register with Ukraine’s armed forces but they are not blocked from leaving the country even if they do not have dependent children.
This article https://www.washingtonpost.com/world/2022/06/24/ukraine-ammunition-russian-sabotage-artillery really destroys the idea that Russia is going to run out of conventional artillery shells and stall its advance. There is also confirmation Ukrainian forces are completely retreating from Severodonetsk, but similarly I expect a retreat also from Lysychansk eventually.
The Ukrainian high command is obviously fully aware of the implementation of an encirclement, they are also aware the Russians might not completely encircle Lysychansk but instead given some room for escape. Otherwise, the “encircled” Ukrainians could have a lift their morale and fight to the death. It is better to have them consider the possibility of a retreat. Once they retreat, they can be pursued and captured or destroyed with far less risk to the pursuing forces than a fight to the death.
Really this is an ancient tactic and is covered in the basic infantry officers training in military theory internationally. Up to now the Russians have not been able to turn Ukrainian retreats into routs by pursuit and continued pressure. In Vietnam when we saw at the end of the battle of An Loc in 1972 communist forces starting to withdraw US advisers to the South Vietnamese including my self argued for a general offensive even pursuit into Cambodia or North Vietnam itself. The South’s forces were too beat up to do it.
General Grant did this to Confederate General Lee at the conclusion of the long siege of Richmond Virginia. His pursuit of Lee was superb and Grant finished the war forcing Lee’s surrender. Lee hoped Grant was tactically incompetent and would not aggressively pursue, but Grant did pursue and Lee wisely surrendered what remained of his Army.
The US Supreme Court just a short while ago overturned the Constitutional right of women to obtain an abortion, making it legal for any State to make it a crime if they chose to do so. Even being a Catholic, like the majority of US Catholics, I supported the right of women to have an abortion legally in the USA. I am personally opposed to abortions based of religious principles, but do not want to impose my own beliefs on others. My wife who is a member of the Seneca tribe like most native Americans is opposed to native women having abortions due to demographic issues, but is also apposed to making abortions illegal in the USA. The actual decision is over 200 pages long and I am reading though it slowly. It can be downloaded at https://www.supremecourt.gov/opinions/21pdf/19-1392_6j37.pdf
It is always good to read these decisions before one reads various interpretations of them I have learned over time.
213 pages about why white men, who believe in all sorts of things, to dominate the woman’s uterus. What do they care about other people’s bodies … that’s Catholic. Where in the Bible does it say that abortion is forbidden, abortion is not treated. But certainly there are sect members who bend or interpret the “holy scripture” in this regard.
I interpret that an eighteen year old can buy a rifle but not a beer. But can go to kindergarten and shoot children while the police are outside handcuffing the parents. Now to prevent this, the doors should be closed. The right of the gun is greater than the right of the child to live unless it is still in utero. That means the woman’s right is worth even less.
I quoted the Bibe & the Talmud in Eva’s blog on October 30, 2020:
1.
Unborn < born
Killing a fetus was punishable by a fine only, but killing her/his mother incurred the death penalty.
Moses in Exodus 21:22:
“When men fight, and one of them pushes a pregnant woman and a miscarriage results,
but no other damage ensues, the one responsible shall be fined”
“But if other damage ensues, the penalty shall be life for life”
2.
Up to 40 days, abortion is definitely permitted:
R. Hisda in Yevamot 69b:10
“until 40 days from conception the fetus is merely water. It is not yet considered a living being.”
3.
A fetus is a full person if her/his head is already outside her/his mother’s body:
R. Hisda in Sanhedrin 72b:14
“If a woman was giving birth and her life was being endangered by the fetus,
the life of the fetus may be sacrificed in order to save the mother.
But once his head has emerged during the birthing process,
he may not be harmed in order to save the mother”
tappanch the writings of then philosophers and “law-abiding” who were certainly not women are ejections of the then cerebrum that was not neutrum.
#4 Mishnah Arakhin 1
unborn < almost to be born = born
“In the case of a pregnant woman who is taken by the court to be executed, the court does not wait to execute her until she gives birth. Rather, she is killed immediately.
But with regard to a woman taken to be executed who sat on the travailing chair [hamashber] in the throes of labor, the court waits to execute her until she gives birth.”
June 2022 US Supreme Court decisions:
#1 It is permitted to ban abortion.
#2 It is forbidden to ban gun-toters in the streets
Indication:
unborn life > born life
This is called “pro life.”
#5
Religiously mandated attempt of abortion:
The Lord [tetragrammaton] to Moses in
the entire Numeri 5:
If a husband suspects that his wife has become pregnant from consensual sex with another man, he should bring his wife to the priest. She has to drink a concoction prepared by the priest.
Priest:
“If no other party has lain with you, if you have not gone astray in defilement while married to your husband, be immune to harm from this water of bitterness that induces abortion.
But if you have gone astray while living in your husband’s household and have defiled yourself, if any party other than your husband has had carnal relations with you, then the Lord will cause you abortion.”
Sounds like the witch test or water test another procedure of a quasi God’s judgment bypassing a confession that allow the conviction of a witch on the basis of evidential “stigmata diabolica”. The suspected person was stripped and tied up and thrown into the water. If the water refused to accept her, i.e. if she did not sink, her guilt was proven. I do not know of any case in which the water did not accept a person.
There are African American Evangelicals who also oppose the legal right to abortion and there has been some dispute over this issue among African Americans who adhere to Islam. Because if the mother’s life is in danger abortion is generally acceptable.
ML King supported family planning but he condemned abortion as more or less genocide against his people in multiple public speeches; African-Americans have always held the lion’s share of abortions even before it was legalized by Roe v. Wade. He felt that birth control was a better solution, preventing what he called the murder of abortion by reducing its predication of conception. This is a pretty complex issue Don in the African American communities that are religious.
In the Bible, the woman is worth nothing either, no matter how devout. MLK’s argument against abortion in African-American women is eugenic in nature. The right to life on the basis of all human rights does not justify instrumentalizing abortion for political hegemony over segments of the population. It does not matter if the “right” to oppress others comes from Catholic or Protestant or any other sect.
I do not think there is a clear understanding of the complexity of African American Christianity as a historic form of Black slave resistance to the institution of slavery prior to emancipation or of the African American Christianity’s role in the civil rights movement post slavery in the USA in your post Don.
It is an incredibly complex situation here in the USA for that community because modern forms of feminism challenge some of African American Christian beliefs about women. In fact there are raging fights over those issues with the Black community.
The African American historian Henry Louis Gates, Jr. sort of gave an overview of this complexity in a 4 hour TV series on the US public broadcasting network called the Black Church: This is our Story, this is our song. It can be watched with subtitles in Europe on a pay per view basis if I recall correctly it was via Amazon. I actually when in Esztergom recently watched the subtitled version with a member of my family who is a Catholic lay theology professor and he admitted he learned a lot about how complex the situation of the Black Church in America was.
I don’t see any connection of MLK’s legitimate concern about non-whites being in the minority, I’m just missing the abortion ban because he never mentioned it that way. If you had a source for that please.
But it is up to anyone to fancifully but falsely suggest that MLK would agree to today’s abortion laws in Republican states that were decided by lying white evangelical or Catholic judges from Trumpregiem.
Oh what I wanted to say if even the Pope lies then he can also be Dr. Professor.
A discussion based on ancient premises vs present conditions, will not resolve anything.
It is about white believers who want to determine the uterus of others and argue that with their faith. Who then claim freedom fighters would say the same! Seen in this way, it is not about a discussion but about untenable claims.
To your point – an education system that does not deserve its name leads in the long run to poverty and not only to mental poverty. But of course naming is not the solution. But without this naming there is no solution then it remains propaganda.
Don as you may be aware Gandhi was a significant influence on ML King and Gandhi was opposed morally to both abortion and contraception. Rev King and Gandhi parted ways on the issue of contraception, King was an advocate and supporter of contraception in particular because it was a practical way of avoiding abortion. On its website the King Center which actually controls MLK’s archives issued a statement in response to the Supreme Court decision and did not oppose it, but rather was ambiguous about it (see https://thekingcenter.org/). But the statement does recognize the authority of the Court to make this decision.
What Martin Luther King, Jr. thought about abortion was maybe best revealed in his advice column in Ebony (an African American publication) in June 1958. Here is that column:
“Question: About two years ago, I was going with a young lady who became pregnant. I refused to marry her. As a result, I was directly responsible for a crime. It was not until a month later that I realized the awful thing I had done. I begged her to forgive me, to come back, but she has not answered my letters. The thing stays on my mind. What can I do? I have prayed for forgiveness.
Answer: You have made a mistake. This you admit. Your admitting this fact is very wholesome, for it is the first step in the process of repentance and personality integration. One can never rectify a mistake until he admits that a mistake has been made.
Now that you have prayed for forgiveness and acknowledged your mistake, you must turn your vision to the future….Now that you have repented, don’t concentrate on what you failed to do in the past, but what you are determined to do in the future.”
Martin Luther King JR. advice column Ebony, June 1958, p. 118
King did in fact make references to abortion being a form of “genocide” in several speeches the notes for them are controlled by the King Center because they are copyrighted. There are many things in those archives they decline to make public but there are people who heard those references to genocide and noted it.
Dr. King like many Christians seems to have understood abortion to be a sin, because it violated the Christian understanding of the sanctity of life. I like the vast majority of Catholics also accept that position, but at least here in the USA the majority of us support the right of women to make that moral decision for themselves without civil law intervening in that process based on polling data of US Catholics.
Istvan (Chicago) neither Ghandi nor Martin Luther King claimed abortion as a kind of “genocide.”
From All Men Are Brothers: Autobiographical Reflections (New York: Continuum, 1980) 150
In particular ML King’s close associate Ralph Abernathy cited King as having called abortion genocide in his book published in 1989, Abernathy wrote And the Walls Came Tumbling Down, a controversial autobiography about his and King’s involvement in the civil rights movement.
I doubt ML King would agree with the criminalization of abortion. I do not believe also that Rev Abernathy did not agree with King’s strong position in favor of birth control either. He was very hostile publicly to abortion.
The bottom line in all of this is this Back in May CNN poll conducted immediately after the leak of the US Supreme Court’s draft opinion on the case, Americans said, 66% to 34%, that they did not want the Supreme Court to completely overturn the landmark 1973 decision. In CNN’s polling dating back to 1989, the share of the public in favor of completely overturning Roe has never risen above 36%.
There is no clear Black White divide in those polling results, but there are indeed African Americans who oppose abortion.See https://news.gallup.com/opinion/polling-matters/318932/black-americans-abortion.aspx for a more detailed analysis of that issue.
Istvan, unfortunately, you present here more assertions than evidence. Your argumentation is wishful thinking, don’t worry in kat…m wishful thinking is completely normal.
Rather OT?
Last year more than 300 000Germans left the catholic church – no more church tax from them.
To be honest Don, I do not care what Mister so or so says. Unwanted pregnancy does not affect Men, but Women. And these important religious Misters should not be able to decide about the bodies of grown-up individual Women.
Arguing with the opinion of Male religious persons about abortion is an unwinnable discussion. They always have some
Man, even from another religion to defend their undefendable opinion.
“In the early Roman Catholic church, abortion was permitted for male fetuses in the first 40 days of pregnancy and for female fetuses in the first 80-90 days.
Not until 1588 did Pope Sixtus V declare all abortion murder, with excommunication as the punishment. Only 3 years later a new pope found the absolute sanction unworkable and again allowed early abortions.
300 years would pass before the Catholic church under Pius IX again declared all abortion murder. This standard, declared in 1869, remains the official position of the church, reaffirmed by the current pope.”
https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/12340403/
Of course Tappanch Catholic doctrine allowed priests to marry once upon a time. Historical doctrine and the evolution on the issue of abortion is well known in the Church. Decisions of the Holy See are considered to be divinely inspired, so we Catholics generally accept the changes made by the Pope.
The idea that abortion is considered murder by the Church really is secondary to the idea that it’s a sin. Because formally the taking of any human life is a sin, but it is also forgiven in the context of war or in self defense by the act of confession.
A good example of moderate and thoughtful comments on abortion.
When was the last time you aborted misi bacsi 😀
The basic reason for my rejection of any religious or other arguements against pre 9-week abortion, are the big commercial interests involved in the organ/tissue trade. To ignore this is idiocy.
You may be correct, but could you explain more precisely commercial interests at issue.
Political and religious extremists make sound discussion of the subject very difficult, if not impossible.
There is a discrete market for fetal organs and tissue from late abortions.
N.Y. Times wrote about it back in ’15 (behind paywall, unfortunately):
Fetal Tissue From Abortions for Research Is Traded in a Gray Zone – The New York Times (nytimes.com)
„By Denise Grady and Nicholas St. Fleur
Videos released by an anti-abortion group during the last two weeks have drawn attention to a little-known practice: the buying, selling and research use of fetal tissue acquired from abortion clinics.
The group behind the tapes accuses Planned Parenthood of selling fetal tissue for profit — which is illegal and which Planned Parenthood denies doing. House Republicans plan to investigate. This may be just one more battle in the nation’s long war over abortion, but the dispute has raised questions about who the buyers and sellers are, what fetal tissue is used for and what the law allows. …“
This is how the article begins and describes how valuable stem cells are for research. If you follow the links in the article you will learn that “The group behind the tapes” is supported by Senator Rand Paul of Kentucky! Basically, the article is about hyped up arguments that have nothing to do with abortion. Too bad that the article is behind a paywall.
With Avast Browser you can partially bypass paywall. For this article it works.
Thanks. Yes, now I remember this story.
I am in favor of a woman’s right to choose, in this case abortion. Nevertheless, I see no benefit in rejecting some one else’s point of view because we do not agree on each and every detail.
So, let´s paint it black. You are a woman; you get pregnant unwanted. You want an abortion for good reasons. What do you think, is there a benefit for her to listen to some religious freak who wants to talk her out of it? If yes, please name it.
Jan-I -again- emphasize that I support a woman’s right to have an abortion. Given that half or more of the states forbid and/or will soon forbid abortion, we have to convince others. We can not hide behind our own viewpoints and just complain. Of course, a woman planning on getting an abortion must do what is safe for her i.e.it would not be helpful for her to argue with others.
Misi Bacsi I am not worried about your opinion about abortion. Why do you think what I am writing is complaining and hiding behind my viewpoint?
Given your last sentence, do you have hope you can convince the “pro-life” people that women should decide for themselves?
Acquaintances of us had problems with getting pregnant, this lasted for years. they were in a “club” where couples with the same fate took it up upon themselves to “guard” in front of a hospital in Bp. where abortions take place to inform women that they should not have the abortion and that there would be couples who would “take care” of the child. I wonder how many of the pregnant women were traumatised after this “innocent” influencing.
And by the way Roma women were not asked.
“A good example of moderate and thoughtful comments on abortion.” 😀
Oh, by the way, this is not just about a woman’s right, it’s about a person’s right, it’s about human right.
It appears that Russian forces have made a significant breakthrough and according to Reuters may have quickly encircled four Ukrainian battalions, an artillery group, and one of its International brigades. If this is correct it’s a significant and bad development for an independent Ukraine. There are additional reports out that the Russians may have captured several US howitzers that just arrived in the zone of combat.
Istvan, please excuse that I have not commented on your really interesting posts on the horrors of war – but they make me shudder and despair at humanity’s actions.
Since I heard a few bits from my father I always thought I’d try to ignore it, hoping that war would not return – at least to us in Europe. How wrong I was …
Yes much of the massive slaughter in Ukraine is being hidden to a degree by both the pro-Russian media and by the Western media.
This article: A bloody retreat as Ukrainian unit hit by Russian cluster bombs
https://www.washingtonpost.com/world/2022/06/26/ukraine-kramatorsk-cluster-bomb/ discusses how poor medical services are for the Ukrainian Army and that a paramedic working for the Washington Post had to intervene to save soldiers. It’s a pretty rare article in this war.
Really neither the Russians nor Ukrainians are using advanced medical evacuation helicopters near areas of combat. Even during the Vietnam War this became standard practice for US forces. The Western media wants to focus on war crimes and civilian killings, and refers to actual combat deaths in generalities. In fact the dead Russian kids are sometimes written about as a positive good as part of “degrading Russian aggression.” The Russians often talk of patriotic heroic deaths, not of 19 year olds dying in the arms of medics in the field desperately try to stop the bleeding.
From the WaPo article:
“But I don’t find an exit wound. The shrapnel is still in there.”
The same thing happened to my father’s head on the Eastern front in 1944. But he was really lucky, as a distinguished officer (Knight’s Cross) he was sent home to Germany to a hospital near where he had met my mother so he survived but had to take pills like Valium for the brain every day until his life ended at 85. It was a kind of wonder that he lived so long!
Oh, the horror of it all!
I have an incredibly high opinion of US Army medics and really all military and civilian para-medics internationally. I took all the course work and became an EMT certified in advance life support while still in the US Army reserves. I think EMT are Saints living among us to be honest.
I am a big supporter of the International Red Cross to be honest.
My wife and I both have MODULAR TRAUMA III BLS KITs in our cars and we have used them. One year ago on a rural highway in New Mexico she and I both worked together on an auto accident victim until an ambulance arrived. I guess it’s my own way of doing penitence for my own actions in war.
I am rather amazed reading translations from the Russian media today creating a plausible denial of the Russian missile attack on shopping mall in the city of Kremenchuk. Reuters covered the Russian denials in this article https://www.reuters.com/world/europe/russia-says-hit-weapons-depot-kremenchuk-caused-fire-shopping-center-2022-06-28/ .
I have no way of knowing if there was any Ukrainian weapons depot in Kremenchuk or repair facility that could have been the intended target. This report out of Ukraine in English https://kyivindependent.com/national/russian-missile-strike-on-kremenchuk-shopping-mall-kills-at-least-two-people-injures-20-others did not address the Russian claim at all. The article does include this: “In his evening address, Zelensky said that the Russian strike on the mall was deliberate, calling it “one of the most daring terrorist acts in European history.” “The Russian state has become the largest terrorist organization in the world,” the president said.”
I do know that the Russian cruise missiles have accuracy issues as do US missiles, the US repeatedly issued denials of civilian targets being hit in error, but months later admitted to errors. US artillery fire during the Panama invasion did kill several civilians which was denied initially, but a number of US officers including myself in after action reports indicated this had indeed happened.
A factory for production and repair of heavy machinery – owned by the Kredmash company – which according to some reports was located right on the other side of the shopping center but if it was doing military repairs is of course a state secret. Also nearby was a railway junction, often a target of Russian missile strikes. But none of this is being discussed in the Western media or in Ukraine. Civilians do die in wars and there deaths that the US military are formally called collateral damage. I do believe the Russians are promoting a terror campaign by attacking civilian areas, but what was the fire bombing of the German City of Dresden by the US and UK in WWII if not that? What was the US use of atomic bombs against Japan but a terror attack to promote surrender?
To this day both the UK and USA formally deny the attack on Dresden was a terror attack intended to demoralize the population. As I always say war is hell and so it is in Ukraine today.
Istvan, please!
The bombing of Dresden was a kind of revenge for all those Nazi attacks and supposed to weaken the German resistance.
Where and when has Ukraine attacked civil Russian targets?
I may have written about this before:
The town we lived in during WW2 and after that was an important point for distributing freight trains so of course it was bombed – and sometimes bombs fell onto houses …
PS:
Have you read “Slaughterhouse five”?
It’s one of my favourite science fiction novels – incomparable!
yes I have read Slaughterhouse five. I do not share your view that that the allies use of warfare against German civilians was not a form of terrorism. When I was in Vietnam President Nixon unleashed mass bombing of North Vietnam in December of 1972 to force the North Vietnamese to agree to a peace deal.
American B-52s and fighter-bombers dropped more than 20,000 tons of bombs on the cities of Hanoi and Haiphong. During the attacks, the U.S. Air Force lost 15 of the 129 B-52 bombers engaged in the air raids, plus 11 other aircraft. North Vietnam claimed that more than 1,600 civilians were killed. In general these air attacks used urban grids as targets in a tactic called carpet bombing which would be considered a war crime today under Article 51 of the 1977 Protocol I of the Geneva Conventions. It was code named Linebacker II. Great military powers have always used mass terror against civilian populations as a tactic.
If the current missile, and artillery attacks being carried out by Russia against Ukrainian civilian areas are war crimes to be honest so were many others in modern history.
I would add that my realization of the basic inhumanity of all of this actually did not occur while I was in Vietnam, and evolved over time with reflection. I would add while visiting Vietnam I met North Vietnamese soldiers as part of a veterans tour. Many of them seem to believe their own forces committed war crimes but will only speak of it privately as it would technically be a crime to say such things in modern Vietnam. In fact I started crying talking with a former NLF solider during our visit.
The former soldiers from South Vietnam, largely officers, who live here in Chicago are so bitter about the war they generally do not contemplate those issues. Many of them were put in reeducation camps for several years after the war.
However many of their children do, and believe the entire war was a waste since Vietnam has largely abandoned its communist economic system. They do not discuss this with their parents because of the great deference given to elders in that culture.
Every war produces lots of inhumanities but I still see a difference between an invasion and on the other side being attacked and invaded (like Hitler did and Putin too) and then using all means for defending yourself.
Putin really reminds me more of Hitler than of Stalin!
Ukraine never was a danger to Russia …
One of my Vietnamese veteran friends here in Chicago just saw his son elected to the Illinois State House of Representatives his name is Hoan Huyn. Here is a link to his video with a photo of his Dad https://youtu.be/gzKGkDqwzsg
As I understand it, the Allied air bombardment of cities and civilian targets was officially recognised (at the Casablanca Conference in Jan. ’43) as a legitimate strategic alternative, for the purpose of weakening the morale of the German population and work-force, by making as many as possible homeless.
During the one week long bombardment of Hamburg (at the end of July ’43), 6 day-raids and two night-raids caused the destruction of 50-60% of the city. 300.000 residential buildings were completely destroyed, 60.000 civilians were killed directly, and 750.000 people were made homeless (German figures). The Allied Strategic Air-Command estimated nearly 200 major factories along with appr. 4.000 smaller ones were destroyed in that single campaign. Yet, before the end of the war, Hamburg was bombed another 69 times.
According to a recent poll, Hungarians are reducing their consumption because of the high inflation in the country:
Only 13% of the respondents haven’t changed habits.
As you can see petrol is not on the list (: Petrol got cheaper compared to before.
The Hungarians drive their cars even more compared to pre covid times.
What wonders me, is the clothing part. I mean less spending on clothing, compared to what?
Don´t you buy new clothes because you recognized you have enough already? Then why were you buying clothes anyway?
Or will you use your last year bathing clothes again, when normally you would buy new? Will you keep using socks with a small hole?
Did you gain so much weight during the covid that you first want to have a diet before buying?
But 58% seem to buy less clothes, for me as an “only when I need buyer” this is a very high number.
And still my wife read today that Lidl is limiting the amount of toilet paper you can buy, the same goes for milk and other stuff (if they are available at all …) – crazy!
Cocerning us:
We’ve always tried to consume just what’s necessary – ok maybe some szüszpecsenye or even mangalica meat instead of cheap turkey, butter instead of margarine etc, but we prefer regular bread and I drink relatively cheap beer, not the Belgian or even American sh*t that is sometimes offered.
Funny re clothes:
More than 10 years ago when HUngary became part of the US visa waver program I got an ESTA for my wife and immediately took her to four holidays around the USA. Starting with Florida to see whether she liked it there at all, next years it was NYC and Niagara Falls (Canada!) and then the Southwest from San Francisco to Vegas and Bryce Canyon. Last not least we visited her relatives near Nashville and from there went along the Atlantic Coast from Charleston to Kennedy Space Center.
Fantastic, she enjoyed it so much!
And we were lucky that the $ was so weak (1€ = 1.5$!) that we went shopping to the outlets like crazy, not only for us but also for her and my family.
So we don’t have to buy many clothes at all …
Some of the outlet malls have closed due to the pandemic. The other big problem is some of the high end brands created their own somewhat lower quality knock off clothing just for their outlets. The flow of the lower end products from China was severely impacted by Covid lockdowns, the very high end stuff made bigger profits for the Chinese manufacturers so they keep more of those plants open.
The funny thing is that when Chicago got hit by massive looting following the killing of George Floyd the looters understood the knock offs from the higher end versions of the same brand. They looted the stores carrying the real Ralph Lauren products or Gucci products.
PM Orban has arrived in Madrid at the NATO summit and called for a rapid ceasefire and peace talks in Ukraine, this is pretty much what I had expected him to do. In my opinion a general cease fire is very much in the interest of Ukraine to have a pause in the combat because the Russian pressure is relentless. None the less the call by Orban for NATO to try and establish a cease fire was not even covered in Ukraine. It appears from several things I read out of Ukraine that Zelensky wants NATO to extend its nuclear shield to cover non-member state Ukraine in order to protect it. That will not happen and President Biden has made that clear several times.
Interestingly enough Orban is correct that the danger to Hungary from the Russian war in Ukraine is very real. The biggest danger is not the economic one that Orban and Peter Szijjártó harp on constantly, but rather a spill over of tactical nuclear warfare and or a chemical attack into Hungary. However, this is never discussed. But it was discussed extensively in this article https://foreignpolicy.com/2022/06/28/ukraine-nato-russia-weapons-mass-destruction/ and according to a report published by the European Council on Foreign Relations (ECFR) in its polling ECFR found that 61% percent of those polled in Poland, Romania, France, Germany, Italy, Portugal, Spain, Finland Sweden, and Great Britain believed the threat of nuclear war initiated by Russia is one of their biggest concerns over this war when they were asked what their top three worries about the war were. Another 46% listed the use of chemical weapons by Russia in the war as one of their three biggest concerns, and yet a similar 61% believed the increasing cost of living and high energy prices were among the top three concerns. (see https://ecfr.eu/publication/peace-versus-justice-the-coming-european-split-over-the-war-in-ukraine/?fbclid=IwAR0TQdCzCOsgCXa0jdoq8kcDOD4_SvXgSHNUld_ve_w-aXYaLVkAMs9Fl84#divided-europe-country-versus-country) So again like during the Cold War private nuclear fall out shelters are on the rise again especially in Europe for the ultra rich (see https://www.cbsnews.com/news/russia-ukraine-nuclear-war-fears-bunker/)
Hungary was not surveyed by ECFR. My guess is because how Russian nuclear threats against NATO countries have been down played by Hungarian TV which is the major news source in Hungary and largely under the control of Fidesz the fear of nuclear war spilling into Hungary is not as high in Hungary. When in Esztergom I asked several of my college educated relatives, who all voted for Orban of course, living in Esztergom if they were concerned about Russian using nuclear weapons in Ukraine leading to a potential nuclear war. They all indicated that Putin and his boys did not want that because they were all about the money, and nuclear war will destroy too much.
Oh I also heard a theory I had not heard before visiting Esztergom. Putin’s ultimate war aim is to depopulate Ukraine’s large cities and make the country basically largely an agricultural nation that produces grain and in some places some energy where it may exist. All of the grain trade will be handed over to Putin’s loyal oligarchs as part of their reward for their loyalty. From that perspective I guess Putin’s war is not seen as an act of irrationality.
“In my opinion a general cease fire is very much in the interest of Ukraine”
I disagree, dear Istvan (Chicago).
Russia has achieved the goals of plan B of the second stage in the conquest of Ukraine.
(Plan A was the quick occupation of Kiev, which failed).
It is in Russia’s interest to declare a cease-fire (for a few years)
Once there is a cease-fire in place, Biden will stop reinforcing the Ukrainian army, and Ukraine will not have the power to take back the former Tauride gubernium of Tsarist Russia.
The newly conquered part of the Donietsk basin is destroyed, depopulated. But the southern Za-Porozhie and Kherson oblastys have very rich agricultural land.
Tappanch the cease fire would be relatively short lived and allow Ukraine and Russia to redeploy forces to some extent. They are both beat up and need a breathing space.
While Biden remains in office he is unlikely to abandon Zelensky, as irritating as he is with his endless demands for new weapons systems which are also being hit by Russian artillery and missiles regularly. The US media rarely discusses any destruction of new US weapons to the Ukrainians or more importantly of loss of newly trained crews.
The Russians report counter battery fire destruction obsessively.
The great threat to US massive weapons systems and ammunition shipments would be a take over of Congress by the Republicans in the midterm elections. There are two factions among the Republicans on Ukraine one is an isolationist faction hostile to NATO and the other just simply wants to kill Russians to weaken Putin as a global player.
Currently the US media is reporting various small victories by Ukraine in the areas near Kharkiv, Snake Island, and in Kherson Oblast. The Russian media is reporting massive slaughter by Russian artillery fire of those Ukrainian troops advancing. However, the Russian media will not discuss any advances by Ukrainians at all. Both reports are likely correct.
The Russians are again isolating Ukrainian troops in a factory complex in the city of Lysychansk. The western media is calling it a “ creeping envelopment.” Another way to look at it is the Russians are leaving open a defined retreat route for the Ukrainians in order to slaughter more of them in the open with artillery and missiles.
The losses in this war are horrendous collectively. I have no doubt the Russians have greater losses than Ukraine but they have far more bodies to keep sending forward.
NATO meeting in Madrid. Article is behind a paywall but I think you can get this picture:
https://cdn.prod.www.spiegel.de/images/96cc7dc2-a48b-4609-bebb-34adc49516bd_w948_r1.778_fpx68.67_fpy45.webp
Funny!
Istvan, have you looked at that picture I linked to above?
It says a lot about Orbán imho …
I saw this picture and it made me laugh! Orbán was seated next to Luxembourg PM’s same-sex husband during a dinner held at the NATO Summit in Madrid.
A very short time ago according to Ukraine’s Armed Forces and reported by the Kyiv Independent Russian troops have stormed the Lysychansk oil refinery and took control of the northern part of the plant. The city is constantly shelled. The refinery was the last major area of the town held by the Ukrainians.
It is unclear if the surviving Ukrainian forces have a path of retreat not under direct Russian artillery fire. None of this as yet has been reported in the Western media that I have seen.