1 Dec, 2023 12:10

Zelensky accepts counter-offensve has failed

The Ukrainian President now believes the fact his troops are not retreating is a a positive

Ukrainian President Vladimir Zelensky considers the fact that Kiev’s troops are currently not retreating as a good result in itself, according to an interview published by AP on Friday. He and his allies had previously criticized the country's military leadership for describing the situation a “stalemate.”

The new comments stand in stark contrast to bellicose predictions from Kiev ahead of its much hyped summer counter offensive, which included pledges to quickly retake Crimea.

Valery Zaluzhny, Ukraine’s top general, used the term in early November, triggering a barrage of criticism from senior civilian officials and a rebuke from the president, who urged generals not to involve themselves in politics.

“Look, we are not backing down, I am satisfied,” he was quoted as saying, when asked about the outcome of the counteroffensive, which Kiev launched in early June. AP described the operation as being “powered by tens of billions of dollars in Western military aid, including heavy weaponry,” yet not forging “the expected breakthroughs.”

Russian Defense Minister Sergey Shoigu on Friday estimatedUkrainian losses in the last six months as surpassing 125,000 people and 16,000 pieces of heavy weaponry. Kiev’s forces have failed to change the battlefield situation, despite total mobilization, deployment of strategic reserves, and supplies of Western arms, he claimed.

The Ukrainian president blamed the shortage of Western aid for the lackluster result, but acknowledged that Kiev also has problems with manpower.

“There is not enough power to achieve the desired results faster. But this does not mean that we should give up,” he told the news agency. Discussing whether the static front line put pressure on him to negotiate a peace deal with Russia, Zelensky said: “I don’t feel it yet.”

There is a legal prohibition in Ukraine against talks with Russia as long as President Vladimir Putin remains in office. Kiev and its Western backers have been pushing the so-called “Zelensky peace formula” as the only possible basis for a negotiated resolution. Moscow dismissed the proposal right after it was unveiled last year, calling it detached from reality.

Some security policy experts, including ex-NATO Secretary General Anders Fogh Rasmussen and ex-Supreme Allied Commander Europe James Stavridis, have suggested that the conflict should be frozen. Ukraine would then be granted a limited membership in the US-led military bloc, with mutual defense clauses applying only to territories under Kiev’s control, the idea goes.

However, Ukrainian Foreign Minister Dmitry Kuleba rejected such a proposal when asked about it on the sidelines of the NATO-Ukraine Council meeting in Brussels on Wednesday. He also denied that there was a “stalemate” on the battlefield.

Zelensky appeared to justify his reassessment of the situation by the official arrival of winter on Friday,declaring a “new phase” in the fighting. (WTF?)

https://www.rt.com/russia/588336-zelensky-ukraine-not-retreating/

1 Dec, 2023 12:02

Zelensky asks West for weapons cash on credit

Kiev has lost over 16,000 heavy weapons in six months, according to the Russian Defense Ministry

The US and other Western nations should fund Ukraine’s plan to create a self-sufficient military,if necessary on credit, President Vladimir Zelensky has suggested.

Speaking to the Associated Press in an interview published on Friday, the Ukrainian leader proposed that foreign countries could offer favorable loans and contracts that would help Kiev achieve its goal of bolstering domestic arms production.

Also on Friday, Russian Defense Minister Sergey Shoigu estimated that in the past six months Kiev had lost over 125,000 troops and 16,000 pieces of heavy equipment. Total military mobilization in Ukraine and the flood of donated Western arms “did not change the battlefield situation” and simply increased the cost of the conflict for Ukraine, he claimed.

Zelensky said he made an appeal for funding to US officials when he visited Washington in September. He sees his proposal as “the way out” of the conflict, according to AP, and claimed that nothing terrifies Russia more than a militarily self-sufficient Ukraine.

Ukraine’s government spending is heavily dependent on Western aid and loans from Western-controlled financial institutions, such as the International Monetary Fund and the World Bank. The latterapproved a $1.2 billion loan for Ukrainethis week,guaranteed by Japan.

Zelensky stressed his nation’s dire financial state in an interview with NBC in early November. He pleaded: “If you can’t support us financially, please give us a loan and we’ll pay you back.”

Kiev has been pushing for Western assistance in developing its domestic arms production amid a shortfall of direct weapons supplies. Foreign Minister Dmitry Kuleba told journalists on Wednesday, that out of 1 million artillery shells pledged to his country by the EU this year, only some 300,000 had arrived so far.

Some Western defense contractors, such as Germany’s Rheinmetall, have announced plans to open workshops in Ukraine. Moscow has warned that all arms plants hosted by its neighbor are legitimate targets for Russian forces.

Speaking to AP, Zelensky expressed concern that additional support would be more difficult to secure next year, as election campaigning in the US and the Israel-Hamas war in the Middle East drain Western attention and resources.

“You see, attention equals help. No attention will mean no help. We fight for every bit of attention,” he said.

https://www.rt.com/russia/588332-zelensky-western-loans-defense/

1 Dec, 2023 15:44

Trump can be sued for Capitol riot, court rules

Presidential immunity will not protect the former leader from lawsuits over the January 6, 2021 riot

Former US President Donald Trump is not immune from being sued over his alleged role in instigating the January 6, 2021 riot on Capitol Hill, anappeals court in Washington DC ruled on Friday. Democrats and Capitol Police officers took legal action against Trump in the wake of the violent protest.

In a unanimous verdict, the court rejected Trump’s argument that “presidential immunity” forbids him from being held liable for the events of that day, which took place while he was still in power. In a speech to his supporters before the riot, Trump told them to “fight like hell” against his election loss, but to do so “peacefully and patriotically.”

In the ruling, Chief Judge Sri Srinivasan wrote that the president “does not spend every minute of every day exercising official responsibilities,” and “when he acts in an unofficial, private capacity, he is subject to civil suits like any private citizen.”(That is so convoluted interpretation of Presidential Duties, it’s ridiculous and will get overturned, but they intended this.)

A trio of lawsuits brought by Democratic lawmakers and US Capitol Police officers allege that Trump’s ‘fight like hell’ speech encouraged the mob to storm the Capitol, and should pay damages. Two officers injured during the riot are seeking a minimum of $75,000 from the former president.

Four people died during the protest, all of them Trump supporters. One woman, an Air Force veteran named Ashli Babbitt, was shot dead by a Capitol Police officer during a scuffle near the entrance to the House chamber.

The court’s decision paves the way for these lawsuits to go ahead, and could also influence the outcome of a criminal case brought against the former president by Special Counsel Jack Smith. In August, Smith charged Trump with conspiracy to defraud the US, conspiracy to obstruct an official proceeding, and conspiracy against rights, making the same argument that Trump’s speech provoked the storming of the Capitol.

Trump’s lawyers have argued thatspeeches on “election integrity” are “at the heart of his official responsibilities as president,” and are therefore protected from legal consequences. Trump himself has dismissed Smith’s case as a “pathetic attempt by the Biden Crime Family and their weaponized Department of Justice to interfere with the 2024 Presidential Election.”

Trump is currently the frontrunner to take the Republican Party’s nomination for next year’s election. However, the former president faces multiple legal obstacles. Smith is overseeing two criminal cases against Trump, the second concerning his alleged mishandling of classified documents.

In addition to the three civil suits concerning the Capitol riot, Trump is being sued by New York Attorney General Letitia James for allegedly inflating the worth of his business empire, and faces charges in Georgia for allegedly trying to overturn President Joe Biden’s 2020 victory in the state. Finally, Trump is being tried in New York for his alleged misreporting of “hush-money” payments to porn star Stormy Daniels.

Trump insists that all of the cases against him are part of the same overarching, Democrat-led plot to sideline Biden’s leading opponent ahead of the 2024 election.

https://www.rt.com/news/588352-trump-court-presidential-immunity/

(this decision is going to backfire on them so bad, it will be funny.)

1 Dec, 2023 17:44

US politician expelled from Congress

Representative George Santos has lost his House seat after being accused of deceiving supporters and misusing campaign funds

Disgraced US lawmaker George Santos has been expelled from Congress in a vote by his House of Representatives colleagues, marking the first such ouster in decades and the only time a member was removed from office without being convicted of a crime or committing treason.

Santos, a New York Republican who took office last January after winning a seat that Democrats had controlled for the past decade, was expelled on Friday in a 311-114-2 vote by the House. More than 100 Republicans joined Democrats in voting for expulsion, which required a two-thirds majority. Two previous bids to remove Santos failed.

The push to oust Santos gained bipartisan momentum after the House Ethics Committee issued a report last month finding “substantial evidence” that the lawmaker misused campaign donations – suspect purchases included Botox treatments and an OnlyFans subscription – and told a “constant series of lies” to donors and voters. He also faces a federal criminal indictment on 23 counts of wire fraud, money laundering and other alleged violations.

The expulsion vote came one day after another New York Republican, Representative Marc Molinaro, argued that Santos was “divorced from reality.”

Speaking on the House floor, Molinaro said, “He has manufactured his entire life to defraud the voters of his district and on his choice, for a member of Congress. He has lied to donors and colleagues, taking advantage of election law, using campaign funds to personally benefit himself. And he has defamed not only his office, but the institution itself.”

Santos becomes just the third House member to be expelled since the Civil War and the first since 2002. The other two were convicted of federal crimes before being removed from Congress. During the Civil War, three lawmakers were ousted for disloyalty after they decided to fight for the Confederacy.

Santos said after the release of last month’s damning ethics report that he would not seek re-election in 2024. However, he has steadfastly refused to resign, andhe warned on Thursday that booting him from office before he goes to trial would set a dangerous political precedent.

“I will be No. 6 in history, the first Republican, and the only one without a conviction or without having committed treason,” Santos told reporters. “If the House wants to start different precedents and expel me, that is going to be the undoing of a lot of members of this body because this will haunt them in the future when mere allegations are sufficient to have members removed from office when duly elected by the people in their respective states and districts.”

The expulsion will leave Santos’ seat in the House vacant until a special election is held for voters to choose his replacement. If a Democrat wins that race, the GOP’s eight-seat majority will be narrowed.

(Republicans are so stupid, they always fight against their own, why didn’t they expel Nancy or any of the other crime ridden creatures that have been there for years and years.

https://www.rt.com/news/588356-santos-expelled-from-us-congress/

https://www.rt.com/news/588356-santos-expelled-from-us-congress/