21 Apr, 2023 19:56

West ‘falling short’ in supplying Ukraine – NYT

Kiev needs more tanks and shells for the spring offensive, the Pentagon leaks allegedly show

The US and its allies have not delivered the tanks, artillery ammunition and other supplies that Ukraine needed for the spring offensive against Russia, the New York Times reported on Friday, citing the leaked Pentagon documents.

US military planners estimated that Kiev would need 253 tanks for the coming assault, but only 200 had been mustered by late February. Of those, 140 were Soviet designs while just 60 tanks of Western manufacture would /

be delivered by April, the outlet said.

The West is struggling to fulfill its pledge to supply Ukraine with tanks, air defense systems, fighter jets and other weapons, the newspaper claimed. Three Ukrainian brigades preparing for the attack were short “at least a dozen tanks each” as of February 28.

Washington has reportedly hastened the delivery of the 31 promised M1 Abrams main battle tanks to Ukraine, but they will supposedly not be ready before sometime later this year. A dozen or so British Challenger 2 tanks have already arrived, while most of the German-made Leopard tanks are still being refurbished.

Kiev’s supply of 155-millimeter artillery shells was down to 9,800 as of March 1, but the US delivered another 30,000 over the next 12 days. At this point, the Times noted, the Ukrainian appetite for artillery ammunition is “essentially limitless” while the EU and US industry will “take years to catch up with the demand.”

According to the outlet, the US has only “offered” to supply Ukraine with Ground Launched Small Diameter Bombs (GLSDB), which have a range of around 140km, noting that “they must first be built, and production of even a small batch could take months.” Meanwhile, there have been reports of the GLSDB already being used – and intercepted by Russian air defenses.

The Pentagon has never officially confirmed the authenticity of classified briefing slides that surfaced on social media earlier this month. At an April 10 White House briefing, National Security Council spokesman John Kirby told reporters that the documents were “not intended for public consumption” and had “no business” being “on the front pages of newspapers or on television.”

Over the next several days, the Times and Washington Post teamed up with the Western-funded “open source investigations” outfit Bellingcat to track down the source of the documents. Jack Teixeira, a Massachusetts Air National Guard airman, was identified by the Times and subsequently arrested by federal agents. Following his arrest, the Times, Post, and other publications began reporting on the alleged contents of the documents trove

https://www.rt.com/news/575149-ukraine-supply-problems-nyt-leaks/

21 Apr, 2023 18:50

Louisville bank shooter did it for gun control – media

Connor Sturgeon was allegedly suicidal and also wanted to draw attention to mental health when he killed five of his former coworkers

Louisville bank employee Connor Sturgeon opened fire at his workplace because he was suicidal andwanted to prove how easy it was to get a gun in the US, the Daily Mail reported on Thursday, citing the shooter’s manifesto, which is still in the hands of police.

Sturgeon also allegedly wanted to highlight the “mental health crisis” in the US when he live-streamed the murder of five of his colleagues at Old National Bank on Instagram, according to the 13-page document. The manifesto reportedly describes how he legally purchased his AR-15 earlier this month despite being under medication treatment for depression and anxiety, less than a week before gunning down his coworkers at the bank branch.

The reported content of the document echoes Sturgeon’s cryptic Instagram posts the morning of the shooting, one of which read, “They won’t listen to words or protests. Let’s see if they hear this.

Sturgeon left his roommate Dallas Whalen a voicemail in which he claimed he felt “suicidal” and was going “to kill everyone at the bank,” police told CNN. He sent notes with similar content to his parents as well as Whalen, complaining he was about to lose his job at the bank. His mother and younger brother reportedly approached police outside the scene of the shooting to confirm Sturgeon’s identity.

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The 25-year-old entered the branch the morning of April 10 before it was open to the public, shooting at one woman before making for the conference room and killing the five executives. Sturgeon then hid in the lobby waiting for police, who arrived just three minutes after the first active shooter report and quickly neutralized him.

The killer’s family have since joined their son in advocating for gun control legislation, releasing a statement on Thursday claiming to be “aghast to learn Kentucky law mandated the assault rifle used in the horrific event last week be sold to the highest bidder at public auction.”

“We respectfully urge the Kentucky state legislature to lead the way by changing Kentucky law to remove the gun auction provision,” the statement reads, describing Connor’s rampage as “yet another indication that meaningful, common sense gun safety measures must be enacted.”

Sturgeon’s family is having his brain tested for chronic traumatic encephalopathy (CTE), a degenerative brain condition resulting from repeated head injuries that can cause aggression. Their lawyer pointed out that Sturgeon suffered multiple concussions while playing high school basketball

https://www.rt.com/news/575151-louisville-shooter-suicidal-gun-control/

21 Apr, 2023 22:15

Kremlin spokesman’s son has served in Wagner – PMC group boss

Dmitry Peskov’s scion has been a “regular artilleryman,” Yevgeny Prigozhin says

Yevgeny Prigozhin, the head of Wagner Group, has claimed that one of the sons of Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov has served in the private Russian military company. The PMC boss made the revelation in a frontline interview published on Friday.

“One person I know is [Kremlin spokesman]Dmitry Peskov, who at one time used to be considered a complete liberal,” Prigozhin said.

“His son lived part of his life in America, if I’m not mistaken, or in England …

[Peskov] came to me and said, ‘Take him as a regular artilleryman’. By the way, he worked out fine, as a regular gunner, knee-deep in mud, sh*t, on an Uragan,” he added, referring to Russian BM-27 Uragan self-propelled 220-mm multiple rocket launcher system.

Prigozhin did not provide any further details, neither specifying which conflict Peskov’s son took part in or even naming him explicitly. So far, Dmitry

Peskov has made no public remarks on Prigozhin’s revelations.

However, the eldest son of the Kremlin official, Nikolay, appears to match the description provided by the PMC boss.

Early into the ongoing conflict between Russia and Ukraine, Nikolay Peskov was slammed with personal sanctions by the US, with multiple allies of Washington following suit later on.

https://www.rt.com/russia/575160-kremlin-spokesman-son-wagner/

21 Apr, 2023 22:16

G-7 is ‘tool’ for maintaining US hegemony – North Korea

Pyongyang has pushed back against criticism of its nuclear program, saying it’s a “stark reality” that isn’t going away

North Korea’s top diplomat has responded to the G-7’s condemnation of a recent missile test by dismissing the group as a political instrument of US world dominance and vowing that Pyongyang won’t give up its nuclear weapons program.

“G-7, a closed group of a handful of egoistic countries, does not represent the just international community but serves as a political tool for ensuring the US hegemony,” Foreign Minister Choe Son-hui said in a statement carried by North Korean state media on Friday.

Choe made her comments three days after the Group of Seven wealthy democracies issued a communique condemning North Korea’s latest missile launches and calling for the “complete, verifiable and irreversible abandonment” of its nuclear weapons and ballistic missiles. She accused the G-7 of “viciously slandering” North Korea’s “legitimate exercise of sovereignty.”

Pyongyang test-launched its newly developed Hwasong-18 intercontinental ballistic missile (ICBM) last week, triggering air raid warnings in neighboring Japan. North Korean leader Kim Jong-un claimed that the new missile would greatly enhance the country’s “nuclear counterattack posture” and strike “extreme uneasiness and horror” in the country’s enemies.

North Korea has conductedat least nine missile tests this yearamid escalating tensions with Seoul. South Korea’s joint military exercises with the US have pushed the peninsula to the “brink of a nuclear war,” Kim’s government warned earlier this month. On Wednesday, Kim ordered the launch of North Korea’s first spy satellite, prompting a US warning that the project could be used to advance the country’s ballistic missile program.

Choe insisted that North Korea’s strategic weapons are needed to deter threats and cope with a security environment made unstable by “the reckless and provocative military actions of the United States and its allied forces.”

She called it “preposterous and illegal interference” in the country’s internal affairs for the G-7 to declare that North Korea can’t be a nuclear-armed state.

https://www.rt.com/news/575158-north-korea-blasts-g7-defends-nuclear-program/

21 Apr, 2023 22:27

US Homeland Security chief launches AI task force

Alejandro Mayorkas wants to use AI to “secure the homeland” and “defend against the malicious use” of itself

The US Department of Homeland Security plans to launch an Artificial Intelligence Task Force to explore how the rapidly-advancing technology can be deployed to “drastically alter the threat landscape,” DHS Secretary Alejandro Mayorkas announced during his State of Homeland Security address at the Council on Foreign Relations on Friday.

“Our department will lead in the responsible use of AI to secure the

homeland and in defending against the malicious use of this transformational technology,” Mayorkas declared, insisting that any AI used by DHS will be “rigorously tested to avoid bias and disparate impact.”

Specifically, he said, the department will integrate AI into supply chains and cargo screening, predicting the technology will be able to accurately detect products made with slave labor, zero in on fentanyl and precursor chemical shipments, and even “target for disruption key nodes in the criminal networks” powering both. It can also protect electric grids, water supplies, and other critical infrastructure, he added.

Mayorkas acknowledged on Thursday his task force would also investigate the nefarious purposes AI could serve - the better to defend against them, of course.

Any regulations targeting AI would have to find a “sweet spot” between innovation and safety, he said, and any decision would have to be made quickly.

The rapid pace of technological change - the pivotal moment we are now in - requires that we also act today.

While the DHS secretary stressed that AI was still in a “nascent stage,” he marveled at its perceived potential, declaring, “The power is extraordinary.”

Thousands of AI experts recently signed an open letter urging a six-month moratorium on “giant AI experiments” so that governments, corporations, and other stakeholders can hammer out a regulatory framework with effective safeguards capable of stopping any potentially civilization-destroying developments from wiping out the human race. These include Elon Musk, co-founder of ChatGPT creator OpenAI, who has called the technology “dangerous.”

Even OpenAI CEO Sam Altman has admitted humans will eventually have to “slow down this technology,” as the company’s rapidly-advancing AI chatbots will “eliminate a lot of current jobs.” While he has sought to reassure doubters that the company is working on adding “safety limits,” the Center for Artificial Intelligence and Digital Policy last month asked the Federal Trade Commission to prohibit OpenAI from issuing new commercial releases of GPT-4, the engine powering ChatGPT, calling the software “biased, deceptive, and a risk to privacy and public safety.”

(This is how Mayorkas is going to get back at Senate and Congress…that’s why he is so smug.)

https://www.rt.com/news/575159-mayorkas-dhs-ai-task-force/