Banderajugend, anyone?

Five children were injured in a UAV attack by the NATO backed Armed Forces of Ukraine in Shebekino, Belgorod region, the governor reported.

An explosive device was dropped from a drone into the yard of an apartment building. Five children, who were on the playground at the time of the attack, sustained various injuries. Two of them are in serious condition.

In total, today in the Belgorod region 1 civilian was killed and at least 28 wounded due to attacks by the Ukrainian Armed Forces.

Ukrainian soldiers are using drones against civilians very day. Just some cases: Yesterday, they dropped an explosive on a man and a kid in Staromikhailovka. Earlier, attacked a house with a drone, killing 5 civilians, two of them were kids. Video (18+)

18+ Ukrainian drones attacked workers and a civilian truck with groceries, killing people and preventing others from helping wounded

cross-posted from: https://lemmy.ml/post/17918157

KILL THEM ALL

There's been a lot of hopium from many for months, a year or more now about how the west entirely exported its MOP and because of greed of the arms manufacturers who are privately held cannot hope to increase production because they demand guarantees of profits into the future and HERE WE ARE. They are being given those guarantees or the first steps of them.

(Archive link)

Western defense spending will remain high for years to come to counter Russia and China, a US official has told weapons makers

The US and its allies are planning to continue ramping up defense spending, which will ensure long-term demand for weapons, US Deputy Defense Secretary Kathleen Hicks told a gathering of arms manufacturers during a NATO event on Tuesday.

Speaking at the NATO Summit Defense Industry Forum, the official praised NATO members for boosting their military budgets since the initial flare-up of the Ukraine conflict in 2014, and particularly after the open hostilities between Ukraine and Russia erupted in 2022. Over the past decade, the average annual increase in spending was 72%, adjusted for inflation, she said.

That reversed a period when “defense industries across the Atlantic were affected by decades of inconsistent funding and blinkered demand signals,” she said. She said the current thinking is: “Production matters. Production is deterrence.”

Western arms manufacturers have the ability “not just to compete, but to out-compete and prevail” over Russia and other nations that the US considers its rivals, including China, North Korea and Iran.

“That includes ensuring we are prepared for the possibility of protracted war, which every ally must be prepared for – and not just in Europe, either,” Hicks warned.

Developing the manufacturing base on both sides of the Atlantic in a way that combines “information-age ingenuity and industrial-era capacity” will benefit US allies in the Pacific, such as Australia, Japan and South Korea, the official said.

She claimed that Western political systems are inherently beneficial for building “arsenals of democracy,” since they foster innovation and transnational cooperation. On the other hand, “autocracies,” according to her reasoning, can’t move beyond “just landing at each other’s airfields, or sailing ships alongside each other for a few days at a time.”

The Pentagon is looking for ways “to be a better customer,” Hicks said, by streamlining its internal processes, delivering targeted investments in the defense sector, and providing security services to weapons businesses.

I think it's important to point out common misconceptions that many in the anti-imperialist left cling to, hope is nice, but the reality is better even if it's not very inspiring and even depressing.

They have no other choice, no way out, war-mongering, domination-demanding Euro-American world empire has been a product in the works for centuries and they're not about to let it go because of a few set-backs or give up in their deranged beliefs that they should dictate to the world how things should work or that they are in fact benevolent for imposing these things on the world.

So they are going to double down and much as we might hope for it I think they'll be able to inflict some real pain on China in a few years when they go to war with it. A complete defeat on Chinese soil is not needed, merely to bruise them, humiliate them on the west's preset terms of what that means and be able to throw up a deep ocean island chain blockade on China and thump their chests. I think the actual results will be rather limited but they just need the appearance of a win in their media. I just worry about that limited conditions not being met and things spiraling into nuclear war. I definitely think they'd rather blow up the planet than accept loss of hegemony, certainly the arms manufacturers, the industrial bourgeoisie who remain in the west have that kind of mindset.

Yes there are still headwinds against the west in many places, corrupt practices, bad airplanes but they had the high ground to begin with, a better starting position so can afford some of that with their built-in advantages.

“Ukraine refused me entry. I am horrified and angry,” Pellmann said in a post on X (formerly Twitter) on Tuesday evening, after he was deported. “The reasons for this are anyone’s guess, but it is probably my commitment to an immediate ceasefire, a peaceful solution and a halt to arms exports.

“I wanted to see the situation in the country for myself. This has now been prevented."

“Apparently there is a list of public figures who have taken a critical stance and are no longer allowed to enter Ukraine,”

The German embassy in Kiev had tried to intercede on his behalf, but apparently to no effect.

“I don’t think there will be any invitation as a result of this year’s summit, but everything else will speak of such a future,” he said.

NATO also intends to give Kiev at least €40 billion ($43.3 billion) over the next year, set up a mechanism to coordinate deliveries of military aid and training of Ukrainian troops, and support Ukraine on its path to “full Euro-Atlantic integration.”

Kiev was furious at the lack of a formal invitation, with Vladimir Zelensky firing off a series of angry social media posts accusing NATO of weakness and cowardice.

The US announced on Wednesday that it will deploy missiles to Germany that would have been banned under the Intermediate-Range Nuclear Forces (INF) Treaty, which the US withdrew from in 2019.

“The United States will begin episodic deployments of the long-range fires capabilities of its Multi-Domain Task Force in Germany in 2026, as part of planning for enduring stationing of these capabilities in the future,” the US and Germany said in a joint statement released amid the ongoing NATO summit in Washington.

the Trump administration tore up the [INF] treaty. It was clear the US exited the treaty so it could deploy intermediate-range missiles near China, leading Russia to propose a moratorium on the deployment of INF missiles in Europe. But the US never accepted the offer.

In an address to the UN Security Council on Tuesday, Dr. Vladimir Zhovnir, the director of Kiev’s Okhmatdyt children’s hospital, accused Russia of deliberately striking the facility on Monday. Two people died and scores were injured in the blast, Zhovnir claimed, calling the incident “not just a war crime, [but] far beyond the limit of humanity.”

“Does Mr. Zhovnir understand that if it was a Russian missile, there would be nothing left of the building?” Nebenzia responded. “Children and adults would have died rather than been injured.”

In an official statement on Monday, the ministry said that “photos and video footage from Kiev clearly confirm” that the building was hit by a falling “Ukrainian air defense missile launched from an anti-aircraft missile system within the city.”

Pro-Kiev media outlets have claimed that the weapon that struck the hospital was a Russian air-launched Kh-101 cruise missile. However, others have argued that the projectile, which can apparently be seen in a video filmed from a distance by a witness, was more likely an AIM120 fired by a NASAM missile system or a PAC-3 interceptor fired by the MIM-104 Patriot missile system. Western donors have provided Ukraine with both of these weapons systems.

Ukraine’s air defense missiles have malfunctioned on numerous occasions throughout the conflict with Russia. In November 2022, a Ukrainian S-300 anti-air missile veered off course and landed on Polish soil, killing two farmers. Despite a Polish investigation confirming that the missile was fired by Ukrainian forces, Ukrainian leader Vladimir Zelensky and his officials insisted for several weeks that it was launched by the Russian military.

This is a short summary of events from the 2014 coup to Feb. 2022.

https://archive.ph/dgFka

If the $43 billion is funded based on how much each member contributes to NATO, most of the burden would be on the US since it pays for about two-thirds of the alliance’s budget.

NATO is also expected to station a civilian official in Kyiv and establish a new command in Germany that will oversee military aid and training for Ukraine

While planning to provide tens of billions in new military aid, NATO will also tell Ukraine that it’s too corrupt to join the alliance

Biden has frequently cited Ukraine’s corruption as a reason why the country couldn’t join NATO. But that hasn’t stopped him from providing over $100 billion in aid to Ukraine, which includes tens of billions in the form of direct budgetary aid that funds the government.

“In my view, a ceasefire that involves Ukraine’s capitulation is one that we as Germany must never support,” Scholz replied

The German chancellor argued that Russian President Vladimir Putin’s truce terms amounted to Ukraine’s surrender, calling Moscow “cynical” and not interested in ending the conflict.

“Putin only talks about peace negotiations in order to continue the war. We will not allow this,” Scholz said.

Orban stated that he hoped to explain to Zelensky that “time is running out and it is important to establish peace, as hundreds of soldiers are dying on the front every day and we do not see how a solution can be found on the battlefield.”

Ukrainian leader “had some doubts” about the ceasefire proposal and “didn’t like it very much.” He explained that Zelensky “had a bad experience in the past with ceasefires, which, in his opinion, did not benefit Ukraine”