Russia-Ukraine War (continuing)

True - but you have to be able to make them in secret, -or you'll likely be invaded then , miniaturise it , and come up with a decent delivery system ,

And if you're too good at the development in secrecy ,- your enemy is likely to think you're bluffing when you announce you have bomb + delivery system ..

Or have powerful allies , to shield you as you develop one -

Apparently the swiss did this in complete secrecy over decades, just never assembled it , and then canceled the project ..

The south africans did too ,

The israelis will neither confirm nor deny it ..

But even then , at what point would you actually use a nuclear weapon, especially against another nuclear power ? When they first threaten invasion? , when they first cross your border - when they capture a province or 2 ?, when they threaten your capital ,? when defeat is inevitable or imminent?

And your opponent is likely to respond by nuking your cities and your people..

Good questions but neither Switzerland, South Africa or Israel and Pakistan have been invaded. I guess you need to develop it in secret but once you have the capability do a test to show your enemies. Then you have the threat in being. I am sure some European and other medium power nations are developing them now. Poland, Germany and even Ukraine?

"I think we've got it down to one issue and we have discussed iterations of that issue, and that means it's solvable," Witkoff said ahead of his trip to Moscow for talks with Russia's Vladimir Putin.

https://www.bbc.com/news/articles/c4g44r22j5jo

It always about one issue.

Land.

But its a BIG fkn issue…..

Strong and tough speech at Davos from Zelensky. Livestream.

Accuses some companies of selling weapons components to Russia. This is true.

Last year representatives of Texas Instruments and Analogue Devices were questioned by the Congressional Committees. They claimed they abide by the sanctions. But 20,000 parts made by these companies have been found in spent Russian drones and missiles in Ukraine.

It depends on who wins the war. The Russians committed countless war crimes during WW2 but because they were on the winning side, suffered no consequences.

Most war crimes go unpunished.

I see that signing on to fight for Putin is going to pay less. Bonuses are to be cut as the money is running out.

I'm not interested in arguing semantics around nationality or the requirements for citizenship. The points made were quite clear. He's an Irish passport holder. It's being talked about for that reason only. There have been plenty of stories over the past few years of people being similarly detained in Russia on the flimsiest of excuses. Pretty much like is happening in the US too now ironically.

But yes, hopefully more and more people, Russian ex-pats included, accept the regime there for what it is and see that the best thing they can do for themselves and their families is to support anyone working to bring it down.

There's no semantics to be argued. When you hold dual/multiple citizenship, all the "others" lose all their relevance when you're the home territory of the one granted by that territory. When he's in Ireland, the Russian's have no say in what the Irish authorities do to him; when he's in Russia, the Russians can do what they like and his Irish passport has absolutely no value whatsoever.

It's only when travelling in third countries that you can exploit one citizenship over another. If the guy's been living in Ireland for 20 years, there's little excuse for him not to know that his mother country is desperate for meat for the grinder, and he's a prime cut. Sounds like both he and his wife are/were very naïve. Unfortunately for them, that's not something the Irish government can do much about.

Witkoff and Kushner in Moscow.

Back to waking in the morning to Trump blaming Zelensky.

Zzzzzzzzzz.

That was a minimum number, they announced the intention to significantly increase production by Dec. I would say a far smaller number could do that job, but that is unlikely a priority target, given the possible escalation in response.

If they do have these sorts of numbers, I hope they use them soon, because Kyiv is in a very bad way.

A military court in Moscow has sentenced a Ukrainian commander to life imprisonment in absentia for sinking the flagship of the Russian Black Sea Fleet, the missile-carrying cruiser Moscow.
In an official press release, which was later deleted, the court admitted that the ship had been destroyed by a missile attack by Ukraine. The Slovak news agency TASR reported on this by picking up a news item from the Russian portal Mediazona.

The Military Court for Moscow's Western 2nd District announced on Thursday (January 22) that 20 sailors were killed and 24 others suffered various injuries in a Ukrainian missile attack that took place on April 14, 2022 in the Black Sea, Mediazona reported.

The court found the commander of the 406th Artillery Brigade of the Ukrainian Navy, Andriy Shubin, guilty in the absence of international terrorism related to the sinking of the cruiser Moscow and attacking the frigate Admiral Essen.

At the same time, he decided to impose a financial penalty on the convicted Ukrainian officer in the amount of 2.2 billion rubles. According to the court, "the ships carried out humanitarian missions in the neutral waters of the Black Sea," Mediazona reported.

This is a significant departure from the Kremlin's long-standing official version. The Russian Defense Ministry has so far claimed that the cruiser Moscow sank in choppy waves while heading to the port for repairs after a fire caused by the explosion of an onboard ammunition. Ukraine, on the other hand, claimed to have used two Neptune anti-ship missiles to destroy the cruiser.

This made me laugh and smile. The truth will out.