"The first task is to wipe off or cover up the Z, says Anatoly, 44, of the call sign infamously daubed on Russian hardware involved in the war in Ukraine. “We don’t want friendly fire later on.” Then the mechanics get to work."
"Admittedly the trophies do not always turn up in tip-top condition.
Gesturing towards a T-72B3, covered in dry leaves, and bearing evidence of battle in the form of warped and battered armour, Anatoly proudly boasts that it is the most recent upgrade of the old Soviet T-72 tank.
It was brought into the facility, which lies just a few miles from the frontlines, by the 54th brigade from the eastern Donetsk region, four weeks ago. “It took a direct hit on its turret,” says Anatoly. “The firing system was damaged too.”
"In some cases the Ukrainian army has set about getting such vehicles back on the field of battle under their flag. “But the state is busy repairing Ukrainian tanks,” says Roman Sinicyn, 37, a coordinator at the Serhiy Prytula Foundation, a charity managing this operation in partnership with an engineering company whose name is being withheld to avoid identification of the plant site.
As a result, civil society has stepped in. A host of private companies have set aside their usual business to get in the game of refurbishing killing machines: the tanks, armoured vehicles, missile systems and other lethal hardware left behind.
These operations are often funded through donations. The Prytula Foundation, one of the largest organisations crowdfunding the purchase of military equipment, has invested £200,000 in this facility. “It is not a lot of money,” says Bohdan Ostapchuk, 30, who is leading on tank refurbishment for the Prytula Foundation.
It has, however, borne deadly fruit: seven tanks back into battle, a command vehicle, a Hurricane rocket system, a multiple rocket system, an infantry transport vehicle and a host of armoured vehicles, so far."
They plan to get it back on its tracks in swift time, with added armour. There is little time for sentiment. Did Russian soldiers die in it? “I don’t know, I suppose so. There were arms and legs in it. Lots of blood.”"
You're still referring to GNI, i'm referring to modified GNI or GNI*. Denmark has almost twice the economic output that Ireland has if you remove the impact of Ireland's MNC's. Denmark had twice the revenue intake of Ireland in recent years, which I've already said.
Anyway, your figures in that source are still way off. Our contribution to the EPF alone was at 77m by the end of 2022, aid was at 75m. Our support to Ukraine in 2022 was closer to 200 million, and that was reactive spending after budget day. You're not including our massive support domestically either with billions spent, and 2-3 billion budgeted for Ukraine support in 2023.
We're taking far more refugees than Denmark also, will probably be 3 times as many as we progress into this year. Ireland's overall response to the Ukrainian war is in the billions of euro and you're here saying it's pathetic when you don't even know what our response is.
Indeed, which is strange considering I read a report in the past that similar happened in Jan 2022, just prior to the war.
Anyway, have read the Swiss article, details are sparse, sounds misconstrued as mentioned
Offer putin a lump of coal and and a small cage to live out his days in.
We're spending up to 3 billion on Ukrainans refugees here ,
We barely spend an 800 million on defense let alot sending a large chunk of that to Ukraine,
Billons has been sent to Ukraine in weapons and people are still dying what's a few million going to change
I'm not sure there's political will here to provide lethal aid. But we should certainly be sending more non-lethal aid.
It wasn't January 2022, it was January 2023. Only a few weeks ago.
Who's contributing what to Ukraine, and how useful it will be to them in their fight against the Orcs doesn't matter.. must be some other thread I have been on for a year.
I am not sure if you are aware of this, but using Ireland's failings as a defence against an accusation of a failure on Ireland's part, isn't a great tactic.
Silly it isn't. €600m odd of offensive military equipment extra for Ukraine would save many Ukrainian lives.
It's plausible, just seems a bit misconstrued.
My reading of it is that Russia were threatening war on Ukraine in the lead-up and in January '22 the US sent a representative to see if talks could solve it, the Russians and Ukrainians were approached, the Russians wanted 20% of Ukraine, Zelensky said no. That's it.
Comes across like it's been twisted by some quarters to make it appear the US wanted to give away 20% of Ukraine to "appease" Putin.
The story sound like made up nonsense. One wonders if the Russians themselves are behind it - some sort of an underhanded attempt to drive a wedge between Ukraine and the West.
Disgraceful that a Swiss paper published it, the editors should have guessed there was something very dodgy about the claims being made.
Why does it suddenly Matter who sends what, Denmark doesn't have a massive housing Shortage or health services in crisis,cost of living issues and high rents ,
Silly stuff really
Difficult to tell, I think it suits Ukraine as they seem to be better organised in terms of cold winter gear, whereas the Russians seem to be getting drunk and stabbing each other in fights over sleeping bags.
I was mistaken about Ireland's total contributions, they appear to be €69m Wikipedia has the wrong figure.
However, it doesn't really alter the gist. Denmark's GNI was only 6.4% higher than Ireland's in 2021, not some huge amount you are guessing at.
Denmark has given Ukraine €641m and ranks 11th as a donor, whereas Irelands €69m places it 28th. Accounting for the difference in GNI, Ireland would have to give €603m to match Denmark's generosity.
We've not seen much Russian armor in the area ,seen a few bmp and solo tanks destroyed,it seems most of the fighting is being done on foot , which explains the high casualties rate on the Russian side,but we're seeing an increase in Ukrainan amor and heavy artillery arriving over the last few days
So another coldish spell hitting Bakhmut area soon. Around -8. Nothing major but will effect any remaining mobilised prisoners thrown at them. Would a deep freeze of -20 suit Ukraine or Russia more at this stage?
Probably Russia as they could launch an armoured attack.
88 is the number they went with haha. Russian conspiracy nuts will have a sh*t fit haha. Who said Germans can't have a sense of humour.
My bad, obviously a CIA director would never be sent instead of a state department representative. What was i thinking?
MOSCOW — William J. Burns, the C.I.A. director, met with a top adviser to President Vladimir V. Putin in Moscow on Tuesday, leading a delegation of American officials on a two-day visit to the Russian capital that served as the latest evidence of heightened engagement between two global adversaries.
Mr. Burns was traveling at President Biden’s request, the American Embassy in Moscow said in a statement. The surprise visit was something of a merger of Mr. Burns’s current role as intelligence chief and his past jobs as a senior American diplomat and state department official.
I never said the meeting didn't happen. It was all over the media at the time. There was nothing 'secret' about the CIA director going to Kyiv or Moscow. That was well reported and acknowledged afterwards.
The Swiss newspaper report of what the meeting was about has been denied by both the Whitehouse and Kremlin. The Whitehouse or Kremlin never denied a meeting took place.
I just can't dumb it down anymore.
Think the decision will be made very soon in Switzerland,hopefully Austria will reconsider as well
Sean Davett, the deputy spokesperson at White House's National Security Council, told Newsweek that the report from NZZ is "not accurate," and that the CIA would say the same.
He didn't say the meeting didn't happen, he said the report was not accurate.
I am sure there are discussions going on behind the scenes on how to end this war.
If I recall this happened in Jan prior to the invasion, I believe it was the Russians who asked for around 20% of Ukr territory, to which Zelensky said "Yeah no".
I'm reading €75 million via Irish Aid.
€55 million in non-lethal military supplies.
Also...
Ireland has provided 20 million euros ($21.6 million) in humanitarian aid to the country and Ukrainian refugees in neighboring counties
Plus of every €500 million contributed by the EU, Ireland is contributing €11 million of that, under the EPF.
You know it's bad when even the Kremlin denies it
GNI* would be preferable, GNI doesn't fully remove the impact of MNC's and for the sake of your comparison with Denmark, it would make sense to remove this factor. National income accounting to one side, Denmark's government still have a larger pot for spending than we do at the end of the day.
Again, where are you getting this €9 million in aid to Ukraine figure, are you ignoring the contributions through the EDF and the humanitarian funding through Irish Aid?
@Manic Moran on the numbers if you had 5000 men /women trained on the Bradleys,
How you you organise the numbers between crews and maintainers
You're probably right.
You could also spin it the other way... people saying yadda yadda yadda peace talks, war bad can now be put back in their box. Russia not interested. We fight on.
But yet we've set aside 3 billion to help Ukrainians here ,
So it's not just 9 million
Getting to be a bit of a habit around here
Both the Kremlin and Whitehouse dismiss what the Swiss newspaper reported.
Be interesting if Kyiv comments on it.
People get so roiled up on unverified claims lately.
Leave off. I'm happy to use GNI if you like.
Ireland just had the largest budget surplus in the EU - €5.2 billion. €9 million in direct aid is utterly pathetic by any metric - it's 0.17% of that surplus, let alone GNI.
![Photo of [Deleted User]](https://we.vanillicon.com/v2/e050b53be62f0ae2404c620976170938.svg)
![Photo of [Deleted User]](https://wc.vanillicon.com/v2/c635d680d76ce16e490d61f21d7a1353.svg)
