So?

 

remember?

Fiona Hill: ‘Elon Musk Is Transmitting a Message for Putin

Now?

Right as the Russian offensive is starting up?

Ukraine Braces for Grisly Russian Offensive in the East

"Russia is sending more bodies. 

Ukraine doesn’t have enough. 

And the tanks won’t arrive in time."

"Amid a recent surge in fighting, many military analysts believe the long-awaited Russian offensive is already underway and is expected to accelerate as the first anniversary of the invasion approaches."

'even more conservative estimates of Russia’s presence in Ukraine are significantly higher than the invading force that Russian President Vladimir Putin used to invade the country last February."

(Kinda goes against that "full scale" invasion narrative doesn't it?)

"The Ukrainian military estimates that Russia already has 1,800 tanks, 3,950 armored vehicles, 2,700 artillery systems, 810 Soviet-era multiple-rocket-launch systems such as Grad and Smerch, 400 fighter jets, and 300 helicopters ready for the new wave of attacks, the official said."

“It’s much bigger than what took place in the first wave,” the Ukrainian military official said. “They don’t pay attention to any casualties or losses on the [battlefield].” 

(Again, if it was a "Full Scale" invasion?

Then what is it when it's bigger the second time around?

They dont care about battlefield losses because they got a ringer

(Hypersonics) and they were all in from the get go.)

"But the fear that even poorly trained Russian units could overwhelm Ukrainian lines with human wave-style attacks has led to more urgent calls for Western weapons from Kyiv, despite nearly $9 billion in U.S. military aid pledges to Ukraine since December—almost 50 percent larger than Kyiv’s entire yearly prewar defense budget."

(This is what we think is sustainable?)

"Yet some of the key weapons put forward by the United States to withstand the Russian salvo of bullets and bodies—such as Patriot missile defense systems, Bradley armored fighting vehicles, and Abrams main battle tanks—might not get into the country until March or April, at the earliest. And ground-launched small-diameter bombs might not get to Kyiv for up to nine months."

(Heres how this works:

We say were sending them weapons and everybody goes:

" great, okay good deal" and then goes back to their lives. 

Meanwhile the weapons cant get there when they need them, 

they get overrun 

and everybody gonna be like:

"wait a minute, I thought we were sending them weapons etc...)

 "many analysts believe the Russian military is seeking to advance as much as possible before the arrival of that new slate of Western military equipment."

(If you were Russia isnt that what you would be doing?)

“I don’t know how we’re going to withstand this counteroffensive. It’s going to be extremely difficult,” said Sasha Ustinova, a Ukrainian lawmaker. “We don’t have enough rounds, or I mean—anything. The tanks are going to be later. Everything is going to be later. By the time they send us Abrams, we will already have seen how the Russian counteroffensive goes.”

Now This:

Starlink Cuts Off Ukrainian Drones

A Break in the Starlink

Ukraine’s military success, such as it has been, has hung on a lot of things outside of Kyiv’s control: Western (and especially American) military support, an army of crowdfunders outside of the country, and an unpredictable software impresario who was once the world’s richest man."

"Now, Elon Musk-founded SpaceX, which sent more than 5,000 Starlink satellite internet dishes to Ukraine in the days after Russia’s full-scale invasion last February, said it plans to limit the use of the internet portal for what it deems to be “offensive” military operations. SpaceX alleges that Ukrainian troops have used the Starlink portals to control drones to attack Russian forces."

“It was never intended to be weaponized, but the Ukrainians have leveraged it in ways that were unintentional and not part of any agreement,” SpaceX President Gwynne Shotwell said at a Federal Aviation Administration conference in Washington on Wednesday. “We know the military is using them for comms, and that’s OK. But our intent was never to have them use it for offensive purposes.”

"Love-hate relationship. Nevermind the weirdness of a Silicon Valley company, let alone one run by the owner of Twitter, determining what constitutes an “offensive” military operation. The company’s decision to curb Starlink access continues a love-hate relationship between Musk and Ukraine."

'Portable internet hubs have been a game-changer for Ukraine’s military, keeping units out in the field connected amid the devastation of Ukraine’s electricity and internet infrastructure."

And meanwhile, Musk outraged top Ukrainian officials, including Ukrainian President Volodymr Zelensky, in October 2022 by tweeting out a (seemingly) self-initiated peace plan (that mirrored Moscow’s talking points) to end Russia’s full-scale invasion that would leave the Kremlin in control of the Crimean Peninsula, which it illegally annexed from Ukraine in 2014. Ukrainian officials see Shotwell’s comments as another turning point in the relationship.

(It wasnt self-initiated, go read the Fiona Hill article above:

"Hill: It’s very clear that Elon Musk is transmitting a message for Putin. There was a conference in Aspen in late September when Musk offered a version of what was in his tweet — including the recognition of Crimea as Russian because it’s been mostly Russian since the 1780s — and the suggestion that the Ukrainian regions of Kherson and Zaporizhzhia should be up for negotiation, because there should be guaranteed water supplies to Crimea. He made this suggestion before Putin’s annexation of those two territories on September 30. It was a very specific reference. Kherson and Zaporizhzhia essentially control all the water supplies to Crimea. Crimea is a dry peninsula. It has aquifers, but it doesn’t have rivers. It’s dependent on water from the Dnipro River that flows through a canal from Kherson. It’s unlikely Elon Musk knows about this himself. The reference to water is so specific that this clearly is a message from Putin."

Mykhailo Podolyak, an advisor to Zelensky, tweeted on Thursday that Musk would have to decide whether he was with Ukraine’s right to freedom or Russia’s will to try to illegally seize sovereign territory. “#SpaceX (Starlink) & Mrs. #Shotwell should choose a specific option,” he wrote.

Russian reaction. At the same time, Russian Telegram channels appeared to light up with glee over the news. Ukraine has adapted its drones over the course of the war to do everything from targeting artillery strikes to conducting long-range kamikaze attacks against Russian lines, and commentators saw Musk’s latest move as a blow to the war effort.

“If we gauge how important any given technology is to the Ukrainians based on how it’s discussed across the Russian Telegram ecosystem, then I would say it was rather important,” 

said Samuel Bendett, an advisor with the CNA think tank.

So now we have 

unaccountable Billionaires

deciding 

"what constitutes an “offensive” military operation"

and the tactics by which an army has the means to do so.

'Ill be glad when we get back to normal.",

people were saying during Covid.

Some of us knew...

It just wasn't ever gonna happen...

I've said it before.

He (Putin) has his operatives 

all over the world.

(and no 

I am not one,

find the $ 

if I am 

would be my defense.)