I don't expect you to do anything. Defense ministers or generals, esp. in times of war, have a tendency to be flexible with the truth.
"Victory is just around the corner! Last throes! "
"The result of a consistent and total substitution of lies for factual truth is not that the lie will now be accepted as truth and truth be defamed as a lie, but that the sense by which we take our bearings in the real worldâand the category of truth versus falsehood is among the mental means to this endâis being destroyed."
—Hannah Arandt
âThe point of modern propaganda isn't only to misinform or push an agenda. It is to exhaust your critical thinking, to annihilate truth.â
â Garry Kasparov
Not my point at all. Read the bolded statement; it is, as you acknowledge, a lieâand an obvious one. Yet you posted it and expect us to take anything else he says seriously.
I don't expect you to do anything. Defense ministers or generals, esp. in times of war, have a tendency to be flexible with the truth.
"Victory is just around the corner! Last throes! "
Sure. Already established some posts ago. Both sides have used and will use them more.
Not my point at all. Read the bolded statement; it is, as you acknowledge, a lie—and an obvious one. Yet you posted it and expect us to take anything else he says seriously.
The supply of cluster munitions by the Americans to Kiev will prolong the conflict in Ukraine, Russian Defense Minister Sergey Shoigu told reporters on Tuesday.
"The whole world has already seen that they (the United States) have confirmed the transfer of cluster munitions. They justify this in different ways. They say that given the fact that conventional 155-caliber ammunition has actually run out, so now, until their production starts, they decided to cover it with these cluster munitions. This, of course, will affect the prolongation of the conflict," the minister said.
"Neither we, nor the Americans, nor Kiev have joined the Convention on Cluster Munitions. However, realizing the threat that such ammunition poses to the civilian population, Russia has refrained from using them in the special operation," Shoigu said.
"If the United States supplies cluster munitions to Ukraine, the Russian armed forces will be forced to use similar weapons against the Ukrainian armed forces as a response. It should be noted that Russia has cluster munitions in service, so to speak, for all occasions. At the same time, they much more effective than the American ones, their range is wider and more diverse," he stressed.
According to the minister, at present, the command of the Joint Group of Forces in the area of the special military operation is taking additional organizational and technical measures to protect personnel and equipment from striking elements of cluster munitions.
Hmm. R_P posts a couple of links to anti-Ukraine stories ... on TASS.com.
Seems obvious to me that particular 'news' source is going to be biased in RU's favour.
"The Russian News Agency TASS, abbreviated TASS, is a Russian state-owned news agency founded in 1904. It is the largest Russian news agency and one of the largest news agencies worldwide. TASS is registered as a Federal State Unitary Enterprise, owned by the Government of Russia"
Founder: Ministry of Finance of the Russian Empire
Headquarters: Moscow, Russia
The supply of cluster munitions by the Americans to Kiev will prolong the conflict in Ukraine, Russian Defense Minister Sergey Shoigu told reporters on Tuesday.
"The whole world has already seen that they (the United States) have confirmed the transfer of cluster munitions. They justify this in different ways. They say that given the fact that conventional 155-caliber ammunition has actually run out, so now, until their production starts, they decided to cover it with these cluster munitions. This, of course, will affect the prolongation of the conflict," the minister said.
"Neither we, nor the Americans, nor Kiev have joined the Convention on Cluster Munitions. However, realizing the threat that such ammunition poses to the civilian population, Russia has refrained from using them in the special operation," Shoigu said.
"If the United States supplies cluster munitions to Ukraine, the Russian armed forces will be forced to use similar weapons against the Ukrainian armed forces as a response. It should be noted that Russia has cluster munitions in service, so to speak, for all occasions. At the same time, they much more effective than the American ones, their range is wider and more diverse," he stressed.
According to the minister, at present, the command of the Joint Group of Forces in the area of the special military operation is taking additional organizational and technical measures to protect personnel and equipment from striking elements of cluster munitions.
Many observers expected NATO to close shop after the collapse of its Cold War rival. But in the decade after 1989, the organization truly came into its own. NATO acted as a ratings agency for the European Union in Eastern Europe, declaring countries secure for development and investment. The organization pushed would-be partners to adhere to a liberal, pro-market creed, according to which â as President Bill Clintonâs national security adviser put it â âthe pursuit of democratic institutions, the expansion of free marketsâ and âthe promotion of collective securityâ marched in lock step. European military professionals and reform-minded elites formed a willing constituency, their campaigns boosted by NATOâs information apparatus.
When European populations proved too stubborn, or undesirably swayed by socialist or nationalist sentiments, Atlantic integration proceeded all the same. The Czech Republic was a telling case. Faced with a likely ânoâ vote in a referendum on joining the alliance in 1997, the secretary general and top NATO officials saw to it that the government in Prague simply dispense with the exercise; the country joined two years later. The new century brought more of the same, with an appropriate shift in emphasis. Coinciding with the global war on terrorism, the âbig bangâ expansion of 2004 â in which seven countries acceded â saw counterterrorism supersede democracy and human rights in alliance rhetoric. Stress on the need for liberalization and public sector reforms remained a constant.
In the realm of defense, the alliance was not as advertised. For decades, the United States has been the chief provider of weapons, logistics, air bases and battle plans. The war in Ukraine, for all the talk of Europe stepping up, has left that asymmetry essentially untouched. Tellingly, the scale of U.S. military aid â $47 billion over the first year of the conflict â is more than double that offered by European Union countries combined. European spending pledges may also turn out to be less impressive than they appear. More than a year after the German government publicized the creation of a special $110 billion fund for its armed forces, the bulk of the credits remain unused. In the meantime, German military commanders have said that they lack sufficient munitions for more than two days of high-intensity combat.
Dammit the master plan has been revealed. America goaded the jack-hole Putin and his backward country to invade Ukraine in an effort to boost the US economy.
Well let's face it... someone has to supply the military hardware and it certainly wouldn't be Russia what with its Jiffy Pop tanks and hypersonic weapons that can be shot from the sky with pistols.
(...) The alliance, paradoxically, appears to have weakened alliesâ ability to defend themselves.
Yet the paradox is only superficial. In fact, NATO is working exactly as it was designed by postwar U.S. planners, drawing Europe into a dependency on American power that reduces its room for maneuver. Far from a costly charity program, NATO secures American influence in Europe on the cheap. U.S. contributions to NATO and other security assistance programs in Europe account for a tiny fraction of the Pentagonâs annual budget â less than 6 percent by a recent estimate. And the war has only strengthened Americaâs hand. Before Russiaâs invasion of Ukraine, roughly half of European military spending went to American manufacturers. Surging demand has exacerbated this tendency as buyers rush to acquire tanks, combat aircraft and other weapons systems, locking into costly, multiyear contracts. Europe may be remilitarizing, but America is reaping the rewards. (...)
Dammit the master plan has been revealed. America goaded the jack-hole Putin and his backward country to invade Ukraine in an effort to boost the US economy.
Well let's face it... someone has to supply the military hardware and it certainly wouldn't be Russia what with its Jiffy Pop tanks and hypersonic weapons that can be shot from the sky with pistols.
(...) The alliance, paradoxically, appears to have weakened alliesâ ability to defend themselves.
Yet the paradox is only superficial. In fact, NATO is working exactly as it was designed by postwar U.S. planners, drawing Europe into a dependency on American power that reduces its room for maneuver. Far from a costly charity program, NATO secures American influence in Europe on the cheap. U.S. contributions to NATO and other security assistance programs in Europe account for a tiny fraction of the Pentagonâs annual budget â less than 6 percent by a recent estimate. And the war has only strengthened Americaâs hand. Before Russiaâs invasion of Ukraine, roughly half of European military spending went to American manufacturers. Surging demand has exacerbated this tendency as buyers rush to acquire tanks, combat aircraft and other weapons systems, locking into costly, multiyear contracts. Europe may be remilitarizing, but America is reaping the rewards. (...)
