Thank you for what you’re doing, @Sabotai. I would be very happy to donate to their GoFundMe page if/when you set one up.
There was a good analysis of the air war by someone from the Royal United Services Institute as a podcast. And I think it was linked up thread.
Bottom line is that once the Russians got their air defence organised, Bayraktor stopped being a viable attack platform and is now used purely as a stand-off recon platform. And yes, presumably a bunch have been lost.
Which is fine, really. The Bayraktor doesn’t have a big ordnance payload anyway, and as long as it can find the targets, HIMARS can destroy them.
Sabotai
20604
Yeah, each refugee gets 260 euros per months for food and clothing. Also if housing is not provided by the government they get 250 euro per person extra for the family hosting them. They can also apply for a quarterly . When they have a job then the monetary help stops.
Thanks for all your kind replies. 10 people in a house can be a challenge sometimes. For two of them we might have a possible government place to stay because the city converted an old office building into accommodation for 150 refugees, fingers crossed.
ShivaX
20605
We’ll see what Speaker McCarthy has to say about that, Hastert Rule and all.
Money for weapons for Ukraine can’t be funded if it never comes up for a vote.
abrandt
20606
Not sure what benefit it is to him to hold up something so popular. Some kind of show where he delays it while talking about the need to be fiscally responsible before he “negotiates” a “compromise”, sure. But he’s not going to be the guy who leaves Ukraine out to dry when even most of his side supports them.
ShivaX
20607
That support diminishes by the day and they just had an election so what the voters want is extra irrelevant. What are they gonna do vote for Democrats in two years?
I’m betting if you look at members of the House there isn’t anything close to a majority in support.
The Hastert rule is ‘the majority of the majority’, right? Is there a majority among Republican members of Congress against Ukraine funding? I guess I don’t know.
abrandt
20609
Read his comments where he “threatened” support to Ukraine. It was all signalling towards him being fiscally responsible by saying we can’t just write them a blank check.
So unless he’s done more to indicate he’s ready to just cut off funding entirely and make that his unpopular hill to die on, I just don’t see it happening. What does it get him?
And if he really does want to go that route, I’m sure there are some defense contractors that will gladly throw some money at his next campaign to help him change his mind.
ShivaX
20610
What does anything McCarthy does get him?
He’s not a very rational actor, imo.
And he can delay support for months (hell, years) if he wants to, while blaming the Democrats the whole time and everyone will nodding sagely about how the Democrats screwed Ukraine over by refusing to cut taxes on billionaires and defund Social Security to pay for it or similar nonsense.
He can definitely get something out of it. Just depends what his owners want.
McCarthy will probably go after Social Security or Medicare because he’s a dipshit, but it could be a ton of terrible things.
As far as incentives/evidence:
https://www.washingtonpost.com/politics/2022/10/18/house-republicans-ukraine-mccarthy/
abrandt
20611
Again, that’s just his “it can’t be a blank check” quote. Since it hasn’t been a blank check so far he can basically just continue supporting funding at the same levels and still declare himself as constraining those darn democrats that want to just send Ukraine the whole of US military might or whatever. His language was meant to make it sound like he’s going to be tough on out of control spending without actually committing himself to any action to do so. It’s classic politician say things without actually saying anything wording.
But you could be right and he could block those bills for either no reason or to appease the Freedom Caucus(MTG did say “not one more penny” in funding), but I just don’t think it’s all that likely. I expect domestic shenanigans/investigations being what he uses to keep them on his side.
300,000 men “used up rapidly”.
KevinC
20613
Gotta replace all the Russosicles over the winter somehow.
Asking for wives and children - do those men who get “used up” get returned, or do they end up in landfills?
Putin is sending hundreds of thousands of Russian men to their deaths, and there is absolutely no one left in Russia that can do anything about it.
They’re biodegradable, not recyclable.
abrandt
20616
Their uniforms on the other hand…
Grifman
20618
“The light is always red.” (A thread):
Grifman
20619
Sounds like they may or may not get Janster’s “million men”, just not in the way he thought they would :)
One starts to wonder if there is really a Russian goal here. There seems no conceivable way to turn this dumpster fire around and actually take more of Ukraine than they held in February, and just holding on to the areas seized in 2014 and stabilizing at something close to the status quo ante seems a paltry reward for all the sacrifices. So, do they even have a plan?
