“Ukraine – Russia”

In scenes recalling the First World War, Ukraine’s troops are calf-deep in the mud, digging yet more defences and repelling the Kremlin conscripts sent into no man’s land

The Ukrainian fighters stood calf-deep in the mud, peering over the lip of a 6ft trench they had hacked into the forest three miles from the Russian border. It was around 11am and the temperature had already hit five degrees, which, they all agreed, was far too warm.

They were hoping for a cold snap that would freeze the ground hard.

For now, the mud was everywhere: in their boots, on their hands, on the floors in the dugouts. Sticky and thick, sucking around their boots. Without noticing, during the three months they’d been dug in there, the soldiers had perfected a duck-footed amble that kept them upright even when the mud rose to their knees.

Germany’s marked reluctance to supply Leopard 2 tanks to help Ukraine repel the brutal Russian invasion has very little to do with the feeble evasions and excuses offered by Berlin, and everything to do with the long shadows cast by German history.

January 30 sees the 90th anniversary of Adolf Hitler becoming Germany’s Chancellor, yet the 12 brief years of Nazi rule inflicted such deep wounds on the country and the wider world that they have dictated German policy ever since.

Does Olaf Scholz expect America to clear up Europe’s mess?

It’s been nearly a year since the Chancellor of Germany stood before the Bundestag and gravely proclaimed a Zeitenwende, a tectonic shift in the nation’s defence policy. There would be a special fund of €100 billion to beef up the hopelessly under-equipped Bundeswehr, or armed forces. Olaf Scholz also promised to ramp up defence spending to 2% of GDP, in line with NATO rules (and, awkwardly, Donald Trump’s demands). Zeitenwende crucially, moreover, implied stepping up for Ukraine. But not much of that has happened since.

Ukraine says it has exposed a network of informers who guided missile attacks on the city of Dnipro, including a devastating strike on an apartment block that killed at least 46 people.

The Security Service of Ukraine (SBU), the national intelligence service, said it had detained seven suspects who were allegedly recruited by a former resident of Dnipro who fled to Russia and began working for its GRU military intelligence service.

After breaking away from decades of cosy relationships with Moscow, Germany is reluctant to unilaterally escalate for the war in Ukraine

There is one question everyone wants answering on the war in Ukraine: will Germany ‘release the Leopards’?

The answer, at this stage, appears to be a resounding no.

Olaf Scholz, the German Chancellor, is the politician tasked with making or breaking the dreams of Ukrainians on the front lines.

Only he can approve the export of Leopard II held by Germany and its allies to Kyiv.

It seems a strange allegiance… Majority Of Western Companies Doing Business As Usual In Russia Are German, Study Finds

CIA Director William J. Burns traveled in secret to Ukraine’s capital at the end of last week to brief President Volodymyr Zelensky on his expectations for what Russia is planning militarily in the coming weeks and months, said a U.S. official and other people familiar with the visit.

Burns’s travel comes at a critical juncture in the 11-month war. Russian forces are mounting a massive assault near the eastern city of Bakhmut that is causing many casualties on both sides and forcing Ukraine to weigh its resources there as it prepares a major counteroffensive elsewhere in the country.

Promotional film inadvertently shows new apartments replacing bomb-damaged properties have leaks and dropped ceilings

Russian propagandists sent to promote newly-built apartment blocks in the occupied Ukrainian city of Mariupol have inadvertently revealed that the buildings are marred by problems.

Eight months after the once thriving port city in south-eastern Ukraine fell under Moscow’s control last May, its remaining residents have complained of flooded apartments and shoddy workmanship.

Only about 8 percent of EU firms have divested from Russia, with the majority of Western firms still active in the country being German.

A vast number of firms headquartered in the European Union and G7 countries continue to operate and invest in Russia, according to a new study on equity investments made by Western companies.

Less than 9 percent of about 1,400 EU and G7 companies that had subsidiaries in Russia before Moscow invaded Ukraine had divested at least one subsidiary in the country by November 2022, according to data obtained by professor Simon Evenett, from the University of St. Gallen, and and professor Niccolò Pisani, from the International Institute for Management Development. This is despite the harshest ever Western sanctions against Moscow and the media reports of multiple companies’ exits from the country since the start of the Ukraine war.

What kind of war is this? What kind of allies are these?

Tanks, no tanks: Scholz holds key to Leopards for Ukraine, but waits for Biden

BERLIN/DAVOS — International efforts to ship Ukraine modern tanks may hinge on Germany — but it’s waiting for the U.S. to move first, which isn’t happening.

Ahead of a meeting of Western defense ministers this Friday at the U.S. Ramstein air base in Germany, Chancellor Olaf Scholz is being goaded to help Ukraine get Germany’s best-in-class Leopard 2 tanks in anticipation of a possible spring offensive. The reason: In addition to overseeing his own fleet of Leopard tanks — and Europe’s largest economy — Scholz must approve other countries’ donations of the German-made tanks.

But But But …. Western Allies Back Sending Modern Tanks To Ukraine As Pressure Mounts On Germany (No sign of Canada agreeing)

… U.S. Representative Gregory Meeks (Democrat-New York), the top-ranking Democrat on the House Foreign Affairs Committee, told AFP on January 19 that Scholz told U.S. congressmen in Davos that Germany will supply heavy tanks to Ukraine if the United States also sends tanks. German government sources have told Reuters that Berlin wants the Americans to specifically send Abrams tanks to Ukraine.

“It’s basically that it’s got to be the United States and Germany. There’s no question about that,” Meeks told AFP.

But U.S. officials say the Abrams is not the right tank for Ukraine since it runs on turbine engines that use too much fuel for Kyiv’s strained logistics system to keep them supplied at the front.

The Biden administration must discern the strategy most likely to end the war at an acceptable cost and pursue it.

With Americans across the political spectrum increasingly skeptical of massive aid to Ukraine while domestic woes mount, staunch Ukraine supporters in Washington must explain more convincingly why Ukraine deserves continued financial support from America. The Ukrainians have fought with admirable courage and skill, and Ukraine’s democracy bests Russia’s autocracy in both moral and practical terms. And yet, critical questions remain. With a population more than three times the size of Ukraine’s, can Russia ultimately prevail through bloody attrition? How much aid will other countries contribute to the combatants in the next year? What plausible conditions will convince both sides to agree to peace?

Now there’s talk of taking Crimea back. That says escalation.

#Ukraine: In #Donetsk Oblast, the Ukrainian army destroyed a Russian 2S1 122mm self-propelled howitzer and damaged a 2A36 Giatsint-B 152mm towed howitzer using M982 Excalibur guided projectiles. pic.twitter.com/t6REB4qwZw

— 🇺🇦 Ukraine Weapons Tracker (@UAWeapons) January 18, 2023

Fifteen years ago, I died in a Leopard 2 tank.

Fortunately for me, it was only a simulated death. I was riding in an open turret during a mock battle at the German Army Combat Training Centre near Berlin. It was an experience that impressed upon me how terrifying these machines can be.

The 62-tonne behemoth charged across the countryside at 70 kilometres per hour, knocking trees down like matchsticks.

Justin sounds like Germany’s Scholz and likely wants the US to send tanks first.

As the conflict escalates, Zelensky’s allies face a dilemma

Over the last six months, Western joy over Ukraine’s military victories in Kharkov and Kherson has started to dissipate. Russia has since managed to stabilise its defensive lines and is once again on the front foot in the Donbas. It has been a wake-up call for Western policymakers, who are actively trying to replenish Ukrainian equipment losses, train additional forces, and even introduce new weapons systems into the arena. This marks a significant escalation in the conflict, even though few seem to have realised.

Related… Ukraine tank sergeant: ‘We’re tired of fighting Putin with rubbish kit’

The breakdown in Bakhmut was not staged, but the 24th Mechanised Brigade could hardly have put on a better show of its men’s demands for better kit.

A battered-looking Soviet-era T-62 stood parked against the wall of a block of flats behind the front lines in Bakhmut, the Ukraine war’s most heavily contested town. Behind was its back-up, a BMP-2 armoured fighting vehicle, also of Soviet vintage. The problem was that the BMP would not start.

“We are so tired of working with stuff like this,” its driver, Sergeant “Spider” Bogdan, said. “Would we like to have a Challenger instead? What do you think? It would be a gift from the heavens.”

#Ukraine: In #Donetsk Oblast, the Ukrainian army destroyed a Russian 2S1 122mm self-propelled howitzer and damaged a 2A36 Giatsint-B 152mm towed howitzer using M982 Excalibur guided projectiles. pic.twitter.com/t6REB4qwZw

— 🇺🇦 Ukraine Weapons Tracker (@UAWeapons) January 18, 2023

Freeland Tells WEF Russia’s Defeat Would ‘Boost’ Economy

“One thing where we have some real practical levers is we can help Ukraine win, clearly, definitively. And if we do that, if that happens this year, you know it as well as I do Fareed, that would be a huge boost to the global economy,” Freeland said.

Is this the reason for her belligerent declaration? Maybe Freeland is hoping to lead Army Group South into Crimea!

U.S. Warms to Helping Ukraine Target Crimea

WASHINGTON — For years, the United States has insisted that Crimea is still part of Ukraine. Yet the Biden administration has held to a hard line since Russia’s invasion of Ukraine, refusing to provide Kyiv with the weapons it needs to target the Crimean Peninsula, which Russia has been using as a base for launching devastating strikes.

Now that line is starting to soften.

After months of discussions with Ukrainian officials, the Biden administration is finally starting to concede that Kyiv may need the power to strike the Russian sanctuary, even if such a move increases the risk of escalation, according to several U.S. officials who spoke on condition of anonymity to discuss the sensitive debate. Crimea, between the Black Sea and the Sea of Azov, is home to tens of thousands of dug-in Russian troops and numerous Russian military bases.

Chrystia Freeland's opening monologue at the WEF was a disaster – here's a brief clip (but at least she was honest)

"I think people are smarter than their leaders, um certainly speaking for Canada, Canadians got this on day one" pic.twitter.com/HW6a1GbxSQ

— Canada Record 🪙 (@CanadaRecord) January 18, 2023