Elon Musk opposes aid to Ukraine, says Putin can’t lose – Bloomberg
Ukrainska Pravda – February 13, 2024
Elon Musk. Photo: Getty Images
Elon Musk believes that Russian President Vladimir Putin cannot lose in the war. He has also opposed the approval of assistance to Ukraine.
Source: Elon Musk to US Republican senators during a discussion on X Spaces; Bloomberg
The discussion was joined by opponents of the draft law on further assistance to Ukraine to combat the full-scale Russian invasion.
Elon Musk said that “there is no way in hell” Vladimir Putin could lose the war in Ukraine. He said this in response to the words of one of the speakers, who said that people who expect victory in Ukraine are “living in a fantasy world”.
Commenting on the assistance to Ukraine from the United States, the billionaire said that it is ineffective.
“This spending does not help Ukraine. Prolonging the war does not help Ukraine,” Elon Musk said about the bill which provides further assistance to Ukraine.
Elon Musk also drew attention to the fact that he is often accused of defending the Russian president. However, in his opinion, this accusation is “absurd”. In this context, the billionaire added that his companies “have probably done more to undermine Russia than anything”. This, of course, is not true because, in addition to activating the Starlink satellite and transferring a limited number of terminals at the beginning of the full-scale invasion, the contribution of Musk’s companies to the “undermining” of Russia is minimal. After all, neither Tesla, with its electric vehicles, nor SpaceX, did not cause problems for the Russian raw material economy.
The billionaire also believes that Vladimir Putin is being pressured to bring the war to an end because “if he were to back off, he would be assassinated”.
The businessman noted that his interest is to stop the death of people on both sides. However, he expressed doubt that seeking to remove Vladimir Putin is a wise decision.
“For those who want regime change in Russia, they should think about who is the person that could take out Putin, and is that person likely to be a peacenik? Probably not,” Elon Musk said.
In his opinion, such a person will likely be “even more hardcore than Putin”.
Background: Last year, a scandal broke out due to Elon Musk’s unilateral decision to not activate Starlink near Crimea. The incident occurred in 2022 and became known from an excerpt out of a biographical book about the billionaire.
‘Dropping dead like flies’ – harsh realities for Russia’s conscripted soldiers unveiled in intercepted phone calls
The New Voice of Ukraine – February 13, 2024
Destroyed Russian equipment near Avdiivka
Intercepted conversations, published on Ukrainian Intelligence You-tube channel on Feb. 12, have disclosed significant casualties among Russian forces mobilized for the conflict in Ukraine. These revelations paint a grim picture of the conditions faced by Russian soldiers, many of whom reportedly die before even reaching the Ukrainian border.
Russian mobilized soldiers die before they even reach Ukraine. “People are dropping flies before even reaching Ukraine,” the girlfriend of one of the Russian soldiers said in one intercepted call.
The woman recounted a particularly disturbing incident where a soldier died during training, highlighting the dangers faced by recruits. “The main thing is not Ukraine,” she said. “They brought us [to our settlement] a dead man. He did not even reach Ukraine. He was killed during the training.”
The discussion further unveiled shocking instances of violence and abuse within the ranks, including hangings and assault. “There is a f…load of such cases,” she added. “Someone was hanged, a man was raped.” Similar incidents underscore the desperate measures the Russian military has resorted to, including the conscription of prisoners to bolster their numbers.
The Ukrainian Armed Forces are effectively neutralizing Russian troops at a rate comparable to Russia’s recruitment efforts, the Institute for the Study of War (ISW) reported on Dec. 8, 2023.
The Russian offensive has resulted in over 54,000 soldier fatalities within approximately two months, with the Kremlin sacrificing about 400 soldiers for every square kilometer gained in Ukraine, Ukraine’s Defense Minister, Rustem Umerov, said on Jan. 23.
British intelligence has assessed that, given the substantial losses suffered, it could take Russia five to ten years to reconstitute its military units to their former levels of training and experience. This ongoing attrition highlights the severe impact of the conflict on Russian military capabilities and raises questions about the sustainability of their offensive efforts in Ukraine.
Russia refits old tanks after losing 3,000 in Ukraine – research centre
Mark Trevelyan and Greg Torode – February 13, 2024
Ukrainian servicemen walk near destroyed Russian tanks in the town of Izium
LONDON (Reuters) -Russia has lost more than 3,000 tanks in Ukraine – the equivalent of its entire pre-war active inventory – but has enough lower-quality armoured vehicles in storage for years of replacements, a leading research centre said on Tuesday.
Ukraine has also suffered heavy loses since Russia invaded in February 2022, but Western military replenishments have allowed it to maintain inventories while upgrading quality, the International Institute for Strategic Studies said.
Even after the loss of so many tanks – including an estimated 1,120 in the past year – Russia still has about twice as many available for combat as Ukraine, according to the IISS’s annual Military Balance, a key research tool for defence analysts.
Henry Boyd, the institute’s senior fellow for military capability, said Russia had been roughly “breaking even” in terms of replacements. He estimated that it had put around 1,000 to 1,500 more tanks into service in the past year.
But of these, he said, 200 at most were newly built, and the large majority were refurbished older models.
“Moscow has been able to trade quality for quantity… by pulling thousands of older tanks out of storage at a rate that may, at times, have reached 90 tanks per month,” said the report.
Russia’s stored inventories meant Moscow “could potentially sustain around three more years of heavy losses and replenish tanks from stocks, even if at lower-technical standard, irrespective of its ability to produce new equipment”.
Russia’s defence ministry declined to comment.
TOUGH CHOICES FOR UKRAINE AND WEST
Nearly two years into the conflict, Ukraine and its Western partners face very difficult choices, the report said.
IISS senior land warfare analyst Ben Barry said Ukraine had tried to shield some of its younger troops – the average age of its infantry soldiers is reported to be in the early 40s – but may struggle to continue to do so.
“They have deliberately protected their youth, but the extent to which they can do that in future is doubtful if they are going to sustain their frontline strength,” he said.
Ukraine, which failed to make progress in a counter-offensive last year and has just replaced its popular commander Valeriy Zaluzhnyi, is also in urgent need of new artillery supplies and air defence systems, while awaiting a major new U.S. aid package that has been held up by Republican opposition.
“Western governments find themselves once again in a position where they must decide whether to furnish Kyiv with enough weapons to deliver a decisive blow, rather than merely enough not to lose,” IISS Director-General Bastian Giegerich said.
Russia, for its part, has placed its economy on a war footing and moved defence factories to round-the-clock production in three shifts.
“It’s an astounding figure,” said Singapore-based defence analyst Alexander Neill, referring to the estimate of 3,000 tanks lost.
“Some of those could have been older tanks, so one of the big questions is how many of its most advanced tanks does it have left for any major future offensives,” added Neill, an adjunct fellow at Hawaii’s Pacific Forum think-tank.
Given the losses sustained by both sides and the attritional character of the trench warfare, IISS experts said the current stalemate was likely to persist.
“Neither side can do a large-scale attack without incurring very heavy casualties, and that’s likely to continue for the foreseeable future,” IIIS land warfare analyst Barry said.
(Reporting by Mark Trevelyan in London and Greg Torode in Hong Kong Editing by Gareth Jones)
Russia can keep bleeding tanks and other equipment like it has been in Ukraine for at least another 2 to 3 more years, war analysts say
Ella Sherman – February 13, 2024
Russia can sustain its current equipment loss rates with what it is making and has in storage for at least 2 to 3 more years, a new analysis says.
Some of what Russia has in storage is outdated and not necessarily of the same quality as the systems lost in battle.
Ukraine has kept up its arsenal, but it’s struggling to field new units with sufficient equipment.
Russia is making enough new tanks, fighting vehicles, and other equipment and has enough in storage to sustain its losses in Ukraine, which have been horrendous, for 2 to 3 more years, maybe even longer, according to a new analysis.
“Despite losing hundreds of armoured vehicles and artillery pieces per month on average, Russia has been able to keep its active inventory numbers stable,” the International Institute for Strategic Studies concluded in a Monday report.
Using aerial imagery, the London-based think tank determined that Russia has at least 12 artillery storage bases, 10 central tank reserve bases, and at least 37 mixed equipment and armaments storage bases. The exact number of weapons stored that require restoration and activation for use is unclear though.
The new report said that Russia is capable of efficiently replacing its losses through production and its storage and reserve capacity. “Equipment replenishments were roughly keeping pace with battlefield attrition,” IISS said, pointing to conclusions that it arrived at in an assessment last year.
The UK Ministry of Defense reported that Russia was capable of producing 100 new tanks a month, but experts recently told Business Insider that the new tanks being manufactured were likely older models.
Russia has lost thousands of armored vehicles since last February, and it suffered immense losses on the front lines around Avdiivka in fall 2023. The country has been replenishing equipment losses, as well as manpower losses, but in this war, it has at times resorted to using older armored vehicles, such as T-62s and even T-55s.
The situation for Ukraine is a bit murky, IISS acknowledged, but the country’s arsenal of main battle tanks is believed to be around pre-war levels while Western provisions have increased the availability of some other armored vehicles.
Additionally, the country has been able to use a many of the Russian tanks it has captured.
But Ukraine’s efforts to put additional combat elements in the field have been hindered by insufficient supplies, IISS reported, noting that these problems have been “leaving some units lacking equipment to be even close to full strength.”
US aid for Ukraine has been stalled in Congress for weeks, and if the support continues to be withheld, greater strain could end up being placed on the Ukrainian military.
Chinese and Indian companies are about to be hit by sanctions because of their ties to Russia, reports say
George Glover – February 13, 2024
The European Union wants to sanction three Chinese companies for supporting Russia, according to reports.
It’s also sizing up firms based in Hong Kong, India, Serbia, and Turkey, per Bloomberg and the FT.
This would mark the first time the bloc has sanctioned Chinese and Indian businesses since the invasion of Ukraine.
The European Union wants to sanction three Chinese companies due to their ties to Russia, according to reports by Bloomberg and the Financial Times.
It’s also sizing up a business based in India and firms from Hong Kong, Kazakhstan, Serbia, Sri Lanka, Turkey, and Thailand, the outlets said, citing a draft proposal that hasn’t been made public yet.
The EU reportedly wants to ban companies from doing business with the listed parties, which it believes could be aiding the Kremlin in its war in Ukraine.
Member states voting through the plan would mark the first time that the trading bloc has imposed restrictions on Chinese and Indian businesses since Russia invaded its neighbor in February 2022.
In the aftermath of that attack, the EU, the US, and other Western countries rushed to sanction Moscow, by cutting Russia’s banks out of the SWIFT payments system and capping oil prices. The EU alone has imposed 12 sanctions packages over the past two years.
Meanwhile, China and India are yet to roll out similar restrictions and have instead stepped up their purchases of Russian crude.
In April 2023, European Commission president Ursula von der Leyen traveled to Beijing to warn China’s leader Xi Jinping not to support Russia’s war efforts.
“This visit is taking place in a challenging and increasingly volatile context, in particular because of Russia’s war of aggression against Ukraine,” she said in a press conference. “China’s position on this is crucial for the European Union.”
“We also count on China not to provide any military equipment, directly or indirectly, to Russia. Because we all know, arming the aggressor would be against international law. And it would significantly harm our relationship,” von der Leyen added.
Former RNC Chair Comes Up With Damning New Way To Describe Trump Supporters
Lee Moran – February 12, 2024
Michael Steele, a former chair of the Republican National Committee, on Sunday, ripped Donald Trump supporters as “MAGA zombies” as he expressed his frustration with those who don’t appear to believe the former president will likely attempt to deliver on his increasingly wild threats if he wins back the White House.
Four-times-indicted Trump on Saturday said he’d urge Russia to “do whatever the hell they want” to member countries of the NATO military alliance if said country hadn’t paid its way. It’s amid fears Trump will be unleashed in a second administration stocked with acolytes rather than serious policy appointees.
“Why don’t they see that he’s trying to build a sycophantic army of, I’m calling them zombies, MAGA zombies, to do as he’s instructing them to do?” Steele, while guest hosting on MSNBC, asked former Trump White House national security adviser John Bolton.
“What is the disconnect that people don’t seem to get?” Steele added.
“I think people really don’t believe it could be as bad as it might be,” Bolton, now a fierce critic of his former boss, Trump, replied.
“I think a Trump victory risks continuing constitutional crisis,” he continued. “I think we’ll survive it. I don’t think democracy is threatened, but I think we could suffer a lot of damage, and many others have tried in different ways to convince, especially Republicans, that this is serious. But as you say, we have not been successful so far.”
‘What A Jackass!’: Joe Scarborough Stunned By Donald Trump’s Latest Lie
Lee Moran – February 12, 2024
MSNBC’s Joe Scarborough on Monday morning went to town on Donald Trump’s latest story involving an unnamed “sir,” a verbal habit of the former president that commentators have previously noted pretty much means he’s about to lie.
“It’s not even a good lie for Donald Trump,” said the anchor.
Over the weekend, Trump railed against the NATO military alliance at a campaign rally and claimed, “One of the presidents of a big country stood up and said, ‘Well sir, if we don’t pay and we’re attacked by Russia, will you protect us?’ I said, ‘You didn’t pay? You’re delinquent?’ He said, ‘Yes, let’s say that happened.’ No, I would not protect you. In fact, I would encourage them to do whatever the hell they want. You gotta pay. You gotta pay your bills.”
Watch Trump’s speech in the video here:
Trump: One of the presidents of a big country stood up and said, Well, sir, if we don't pay and were attacked by Russia, will you protect us? I said.. No I would not protect you. In fact, I would encourage them to do whatever the hell they want. pic.twitter.com/2RPVDFZIXy
Scarborough highly doubted Trump’s version of the events.
“Nobody is saying that. What a jackass!” he said. “How stupid would you have to be in that audience to go, ‘Oh, well, did they really say that? That’s amazing. I can’t believe a big country president would say that.’ It’s just stupid.”
The “Morning Joe” cohost suggested Trump was “now so desperate to support [Russian President] Vladimir Putin and undercut America’s allies in Europe, he’s making up a ‘sir’ story?”
“It’s not even a good lie for Donald Trump. Like, this is you can tell he’s losing it,” he said, later adding it was the kind of story that even a third-grader would question.
Trump’s ‘outrageous’ NATO comments make allies ‘wonder whether they can rely on America’, warns Romney
Eric Garcia and Gustaf Kilander – February 12, 2024
Mitt Romney has told The Independent that former President Donald Trump’s comments about how he would urge Russia to attack NATO countries who don’t spend enough on defense makes US allies wonder if they can “rely on America”.
Mr Romney’s comments come after Mr Trump’s rally in Conway, South Carolina on Sunday, where he said: “If we don’t pay and we’re attacked by Russia, will you protect us?” Mr Trump said, claiming to remember a Nato member state leader asking him during his presidency. He then claimed to have responded: “No, I would not protect you. In fact, I would encourage them to do whatever the hell they want.”
Mr Romney, now a Utah Senator after being the 2012 Republican presidential nominee and serving as the governor of Massachusetts, told The Independent on Monday: “He says outrageous things to get people riled up. It works at the rallies. Unfortunately, it also has an impact around the world where our friends wonder whether they can rely on America.”
This comes after reports regarding Mr Trump telling top European Union officials that the US would never help Europe if it was attacked.
Thierry Breton, a French EU commissioner, said during a roundtable discussion in Brussels early last month that Mr Trump made the comments in January 2020 when speaking to the president of the commission, Ursula Von Der Leyen, a former German defence minister.
“You need to understand that if Europe is under attack, we will never come to help you and to support you,” Mr Trump said, according to Mr Breton. “By the way, NATO is dead, and we will leave, we will quit NATO.”
“And by the way, you owe me $400bn, because you didn’t pay, you Germans, what you had to pay for defence,” Mr Trump added at the time, Mr Breton said.
“Out of principle the President NEVER discloses what her interlocutors have told her during closed-door meetings. So we are not going to comment either way,” a spokesperson for Ms von der Leyen told Reuters.
“The idea that he would abandon our allies if he doesn’t get his way underscores what we already know to be true about Donald Trump: The only person he cares about is himself,” the Biden campaign told the news agency.
Senator Roger Marshall of Kansas dismissed critiques of Mr Trump’s rhetoric.
“What I know is he’ll secure the border, he’s going to make this country safer, he’s going to hold Nato accountable,” he told The Independent. “And I think that people need to realize that like, you should take everything that he says seriously, but not literally.”
Senator Josh Hawley of Missouri, a staunch supporter of Mr Trump who led the charge to object to the 2020 presidential election results, said Mr Trump was correct in saying that Nato countries did not pay their fair share, but added that the United States would live up to its commitments.
“Seriously, they need to do more, but obviously we don’t want Russia to invade,” he told The Independent. “If they invaded a Nato country, we’d have to defend them, so we don’t want that.”
UK intelligence says higher education in Russia becomes increasingly militarized
Ukrainska Pravda – February 12, 2024
Cadets of the Admiral Makarov State University of sea and river fleet. Stock photo: Getty Images
UK Defence Intelligence has analysed the creation of a new military institute in Russia, which means the increasing militarisation of higher education in the country.
Source: UK Defence Intelligence review dated 12 February on Twitter, as reported by European Pravda
Details: The UK MoD noted that the Institute of World Military and Economic Strategy was established at the Russian Higher School of Economics (HSE) in February. It was founded by Russian hard-line political scientist Sergei Karaganov.
Sergei Avakyants, former Commander of Russia’s Pacific Fleet, will head the institute, having previously stated that Russia is in a state of long-term confrontation with the West.
UK Defence Intelligence explained that the institute will deal with politics and economics but will focus on foreign nations’ defence industries and studying strategic deterrence and the role of nuclear weapons.
It was suggested that the institute’s staff would be drawn mainly from various HSE faculties. It would also invite researchers from various military academies, such as the Russian General Staff Academy.
“This will highly likely lead to closer interaction between Russian academia and the defence sector, boosting the militarisation of higher education,” the UK MoD stated.
Background:
A previous UK intelligence review highlighted the shortage of medical personnel in Russia due to the war against Ukraine.
On 10 February, it was reported that the latest Ukrainian strike on the Belbek airfield in Russian-occupied Crimea had further derailed the potential of Russian aircraft.
I’m a Neuroscientist. We’re Thinking About Biden’s Memory and Age in the Wrong Way.
By Charan Ranganath – February 12, 2024
Dr. Ranganath is a professor of psychology and neuroscience and director of the Dynamic Memory Lab at the University of California, Davis, and the author of the forthcoming book “Why We Remember: Unlocking Memory’s Power to Hold On to What Matters.”
Credit…Doug Mills/The New York Times
Dr. Ranganath is a professor of psychology and neuroscience and director of the Dynamic Memory Lab at the University of California, Davis, and the author of the forthcoming book “Why We Remember: Unlocking Memory’s Power to Hold On to What Matters.”Sign up for the Opinion Today newsletter Get expert analysis of the news and a guide to the big ideas shaping the world every weekday morning. Get it sent to your inbox.
Special Counsel Robert K. Hur’s report, in which he declined to prosecute President Biden for his handling of classified documents, also included a much-debated assessment of Mr. Biden’s cognitive abilities.
“Mr. Biden would likely present himself to a jury, as he did during our interview with him, as a sympathetic, well-meaning, elderly man with a poor memory.”
As an expert on memory, I can assure you that everyone forgets. In fact, most of the details of our lives — the people we meet, the things we do and the places we go — will inevitably be reduced to memories that capture only a small fraction of those experiences.
It is normal to be more forgetful as you get older. Broadly speaking, memory functions begin to decline in our 30s and continue to fade into old age. However, age in and of itself doesn’t indicate the presence of memory deficits that would affect an individual’s ability to perform in a demanding leadership role. And an apparent memory lapse may or may not be consequential depending on the reasons it occurred.
There is forgetting and there is Forgetting. If you’re over the age of 40, you’ve most likely experienced the frustration of trying to grasp hold of that slippery word hovering on the tip of your tongue. Colloquially, this might be described as ‘forgetting,’ but most memory scientists would call this “retrieval failure,” meaning that the memory is there, but we just can’t pull it up when we need it. On the other hand, Forgetting (with a capital F) is when a memory is seemingly lost or gone altogether. Inattentively conflating the names of the leaders of two countries would fall in the first category, whereas being unable to remember that you had ever met the president of Egypt would fall into the latter.
Over the course of typical aging, we see changes in the functioning of the prefrontal cortex, a brain area that plays a starring role in many of our day-to-day memory successes and failures. These changes mean that, as we get older, we tend to be more distractible and often struggle to pull up the word or name we’re looking for. Remembering events takes longer and it requires more effort, and we can’t catch errors as quickly as we used to. This translates to a lot more forgetting, and a little more Forgetting.
Many of the special counsel’s observations about Mr. Biden’s memory seem to fall in the category of forgetting, meaning that they are more indicative of a problem with finding the right information from memory than actual Forgetting. Calling up the date that an event occurred, like the last year of Mr. Biden’s vice presidency or the year of his son’s death, is a complex measure of memory. Remembering that an event took place is different than being able to put a date on when it happened, the latter of which is more challenging with increased age. The president very likely has many memories of both periods of his life, even though he could not immediately pull up the date in the stressful (and more immediately pressing) context of the Oct. 7 attack on Israel.
Other “memory” issues highlighted in the media are not so much cases of forgetting as they are of difficulties in the articulation of facts and knowledge. For instance, in July 2023, Mr. Biden mistakenly stated in a speech that “we have over 100 people dead,” when he should have said, “over one million.” He has struggled with a stutter since childhood, and research suggests that managing a stutter demands prefrontal resources that would normally enable people to find the right word or at least quickly correct errors after the fact.
Americans are understandably concerned about the advanced age of the two top contenders in the coming presidential election (Mr. Biden is 81 and Donald Trump is 77), although some of these concerns are rooted in cultural stereotypes and fears around aging. The fact is that there is a huge degree of variability in cognitive aging. Age is, on average, associated with decreased memory, but studies that follow up the same person over several years have shown that, although some older adults show precipitous declines over time, other “super-agers” remain as sharp as ever.
Mr. Biden is the same age as Harrison Ford, Paul McCartney and Martin Scorsese. He’s also a bit younger than Jane Fonda (86) and a lot younger than Berkshire Hathaway CEO Warren Buffett (93). All these individuals are considered to be at the top of their professions, and yet I would not be surprised if they are more forgetful and absent-minded than when they were younger. In other words, an individual’s age does not say anything definitive about their cognitive status or where it will head in the near future.
I can’t speak to the cognitive status of any of the presidential candidates, but I can say that, rather than focusing on candidates’ ages per se, we should consider whether they have the capabilities to do the job. Public perception of a person’s cognitive state is often determined by superficial factors, such as physical presence, confidence, and verbal fluency, but these aren’t necessarily relevant to one’s capacity to make consequential decisions about the fate of this country. Memory is surely relevant, but other characteristics, such as knowledge of the relevant facts and emotion regulation — both of which are relatively preserved and might even improve with age — are likely to be of equal or greater importance.
Ultimately, we are due for a national conversation about what we should expect in terms of the cognitive and emotional health of our leaders.
And that should be informed by science, not politics.
