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Perhaps referring to Russia's historical changes in name of their NKVD->KGB->FSB. Same right hand instrument of Russia's 21st and 20th century dictators, but with fewer executions and gulags out in the open these days?

Elon here says: "Whether Russia ultimately takes Odesa/Odessa is the only remaining question, in my opinion. Russia for sure will not rest until all oblasts incorporated into the Russian constitution (Donetsk, Kherson, Luhansk and Zaporizhzhia) are taken. That is their stated policy." Stated...

Hard to see this as Turkey abandoning transactionalism and embracing a multinational strategic ethical compass, but good to hear none-the-less:

Further evidence that the Russian economy is continuing to get squeezed, Putin is preparing to increase their personal income tax with adding progressive taxation on all but the poorest and increasing the corporate tax. This will be particularly noticeable in the few big cities like Moscow...

You mean Hamas killed those large numbers of civilians using them as human shields.

Totally. Guy A (Israel) who shoplifted and guy B (Hamas et al) the serial killer are both untrustworthy criminals. They're all just criminals. Makes sense.:rolleyes:

At least a couple orders of magnitude as this current Ukrainian strike pace awaits Russia by next year as 2 can play this dark game:

The West has been avoiding letting Ukraine use weapons on Russian territory to avoid Russia using that as a pretext for them then engaging upon Western targets. Would likely need to do some shell game business as Russia already has since the beginning of the full scale conflict. Perhaps Ukraine...

Not sure it will get a whole lot easier for Ukraine any time soon. Russia is ramping up their production and appears costs for missile/drone attacks are substantially less than defending against them. The silver lining is that although Ukraine started from a much lower baseline, they are...

Reasonable to investigate, but should be noted that Israeli army spokesman Major Nadav Shoshani reported "Misinformation is circulating regarding a mass grave that was discovered at Nasser Hospital in Khan Yunis. The grave in question was dug — by Gazans — a few months ago." As the Hamas led...

Done:

Back at it, celebrating house/senate package passage, perhaps:

Good catch. Should have double checked on my end. Looks like they jumped the gun.

Off to Biden’s desk:

Interesting 👍. To be more accurate, CNN says “will likely send Ukraine long-range ATACMS, or Army Tactical Missile Systems, for the first time as part of the new aid package, three of the sources said.” Was on Ukraine’s wish list:

Even the world's best tanks with ace crew are highly vulnerable when they do not have the cover of combined arms, especially including EW defenses and air superiority above. It is the fault of the West that they don't have those (yet).

Russia has already said they would retaliate on one of their propaganda Kremlin mouthpiece media sites, RT: Moscow will not leave the potential US decision to hand over its frozen assets to Ukraine unanswered, Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov told journalists on Saturday. His words came after...

There was a great Odd Lots podcast specifically on this April 15 titled "How Electric Utilities Will Handle Booming AI Datacenter Demand" TLDL: It's entirely manageable and doesn't necessarily require us to give up on greening the grid. The aforementioned Yahoo article scenario posted here is...

Final formalities - the Senate is anticipated to pass the bill as early as Tuesday, then Biden will likely sign immediately.

Finally!

I was arguing the other way around. My inspiration for the post was actually the 3.2% IMF forecast for Russian growth this year that your article referenced. That 3.2% is based on several factors including undisrupted Russian oil production, refining, and export as well as no additional...

This is the way. With dictator Putin at the helm, Russia’s war economy can run as is for many years. ~1000 Russian casualties daily average will not deter Vlad. But increasing the number, range, and sophistication of deep strikes by Ukraine on Russian military and petroleum infrastructure...

Visual confirmation from the Ukrainian strike destroying several Russian air defense units a few days ago:

Ukraine continuing to increase their response; petroleum assets and power plants hit in this latest counterattack:

U.S. Pentagon ready to deliver as soon as the aid package passes:

Excellent short clip - Historian/Professor Timothy Snyder corrects political propaganda related to Nazism/Fascism:

Hard to condone Netanyahu. Sadly, Iran has been and remains a far more serious problem and has gotten a relatively free pass. Should turn the heat up on both, but Iran has been relatively untouched so far.

Great! When? There are six additional Patriot systems in NATO countries that could be delivered to Ukraine, German Chancellor Olaf Scholz said on April 18 following a Special European Council summit in Brussels... Germany announced on April 13 that it would provide Kyiv with an additional...

Links to: Anduril No specs given, maybe because it is Australian Defense Force bound and it's "operationally relevant capability" may want to be kept limited to need to know folks. Although Australia may not be ready to donate it for such purposes, looks like could carry enough explosives to...

Doesn’t look like Russia will be able to lower their key interest rate of 16% anytime soon (raised from 14% in December).

Nice.

Wants to transfer air defenses, perhaps. But can or will they? Russia has been struggling to cover their asse(t)s.

Latest drama, seems more plausible this time but still file in “believe it when we see it”: Speaker Mike Johnson on Monday said he planned this week to advance a long-stalled national security spending package to aid Israel, Ukraine and other American allies, along with a separate bill aimed at...

Russia losing more top brass: This would be excellent if it somehow pans out:

Wonder if a couple hundred drones (many dummies would do just fine) to saturate the flight path towards Crimean bridge followed/interspersed with a few of these could take the bridge out. Should also work well with many Russian military targets including dual duty infrastructure such as further...

Sadly, Israel has plenty more just cause for retribution against Iran. Here's another: A high court in Argentina ruled on Thursday that Iran was the mastermind of the 1994 bombing of a Jewish community center in Buenos Aires that killed 85 people, potentially paving the way for relatives of...

A matter of perspective some would argue. Killing Iranian generals at an embassy is usually an international no-no, but so is when the same country most proximally facilitated the death of ~1200 Israelis and over 200 hostages taken. It is thus some who would call the embassy incident justice...

OPEC+ is the rate limiting arbiter of oil/gasoline prices, not currently Ukraine's disruption of Russian oil/refineries. OPEC+ as of this quarter has voluntarily cut oil output 2.2 million barrels per day. This is another layer of politics impacting US elections and elsewhere, and the Saudis...

It’s working, Ukraine - keep it up:

New Ukrainian manufactured drone reported to be ready for deployment with impressive 2,050 miles range and 660 lbs payload. Not noted here, but purportedly also uses AI to counter Russian EW defenses:

Ukraine’s continuing hits on Russian oil refineries and depots seem to be working. Global oil prices continue to creep up since this started. Higher oil/refined product prices do not help Russian finances as this is offset much more by their reduced sales volume availability. It’s also bad for...

...engineers at Evolve Dynamics are working on technology that could help keep Ukraine's reconnaissance drones in the sky even after Russia tries to jam them electronically. https://www.reuters.com/business/aerospace-defense/uk-firm-supports-ukrainian-armed-forces-drone-tech-race-2024-03-27/

Russia has increased gasoline imports from neighbouring Belarus in March to tackle the risk of shortages in its domestic market because of unscheduled repairs at Russian refineries after drone attacks, four industry and trade sources said on Wednesday. Usually Russia is a net exporter of fuel...

The ISIS sub-group that claimed responsibility was ISIS-K (Islamic State affiliate in Khorasan) - this is apparently an old term for the region that includes parts of Iran, Turkmenistan and Afghanistan. Apparently ISIS-K has a particular axe to grind against Putin and accuses him of atrocities...

This appears to have gotten no media coverage, but ISIS also just did this to the Taliban the other day:

Hamas months ago purposefully stepped into a delicate geostrategic balance/shift to disrupt it. Now ISIS in Russia - this one does not appear so far to break anything that was not already broken.

Apparently ISIS has claimed responsibility:

Bret Stephens makes a well reasoned argument for why the best and most workable path forward might be an "Arab Mandate for Palestine"...

Ukraine does not but NATO is in the air intensively with their AWACS planes on the eastern frontier looking into Russia, and in particular these days along their lines with Ukraine. Secretive Surveillance Flights Circle Above Russian Activity

Gasoline futures price rise appears to correlate with Ukrainian drone strikes on Russian refineries: