WTAF did you think was going to happen?

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You will recall that in 2014 Russia annexed Crimea and Barack Obama couldn’t have cared less. You will recall that when asked how he’d react to Russia invading Ukraine Joe Biden said he wouldn’t mind a “minor incursion.”

“I think what you’re going to see is that Russia will be held accountable if it invades. And it depends on what it does. It’s one thing if it’s a minor incursion and then we end up having a fight about what to do and not do, et cetera,”

So what made Ukraine all of a sudden so damned vital to our national interest?

Biden, as he usually does, signaled weakness. Mind you, the only time Russia did not invade any Ukraine territory was during the Trump administration.

Well, sensing weakness, Russia did invade Ukraine and the conflict has become a monetary black hole for the US with no end in sight. As of late April, the US has sent $113 BILLION to Ukraine, with some dubious accounting along the way. There have been 500,000 casualties in the war, with estimates of 120,000 Russians and 70,000 Ukrainians dead.

Biden asked for $500 million for heavily armed vehicles, missiles and air defense  on June 26. He asked for $21 billion for Ukraine on August 11, tying it disaster relief with only $12 billion earmarked for FEMA. On August 29 he wants another $250 billion for Ukraine.

When does it end? What we are involved in now is another Vietnam. China backed North Vietnam against the US in that conflict. Now comes word that North Korea is negotiating with Russia to provide weapons for use in the current war.

Russia and North Korea are “actively advancing” negotiations for weapons that would be used in the war in Ukraine, U.S. Ambassador to the United Nations Linda Thomas-Greenfield said at a news conference. She called the development new and “deeply troubling,” as Washington’s tensions with Pyongyang and Moscow deepen.

You don’t say.

“Russia is negotiating potential deals for significant quantities and multiple types of munitions from the DPRK to be used against Ukraine,” Thomas-Greenfield said, using the abbreviation for North Korea’s official name, the Democratic People’s Republic of Korea. She accused Russian Defense Minister Sergei Shoigu of using his visit to North Korea last month as an opportunity to “try to convince Pyongyang to sell artillery ammunition to Russia.” She also condemned Shoigu’s attendance at the secretive state’s military parade, which featured weapons prohibited by the U.N. Security Council.

WTAF were you expecting, Thomas-Greenfield? This is war. Joe Biden was expecting to bankrupt Russia into surrender. Thanks to North Korea it’s not happening- not now and not in the foreseeable future.

Zelenskyy is boasting about his new long range missiles and their ability to strike well into Russia. Putin is also rattling the saber

MOSCOW — The head of Russia’s Roscosmos space agency said Friday that the country has deployed an advanced intercontinental ballistic missile that President Vladimir Putin once said will make Russia’s enemies “think twice.”

Agency head Yuri Borisov said Sarmat missiles have been placed on combat duty, according to Russian news agencies. Further details were not reported.

The Sarmat is one of several advanced weapons whose development Putin announced in 2018. The silo-based missile, capable of carrying multiple nuclear warheads, is intended to replace the R-36 ICBMs that are known by the NATO reporting name of Satan.

The Sarmat reportedly has a short initial launch phase, allowing little time for surveillance systems to track it.

In 2022, about two months after sending troops into Ukraine, Putin said the Sarmat would “reliably ensure the security of Russia from external threats and make those who, in the heat of aggressive rhetoric, try to threaten our country, think twice,.”

The ground war is largely at a stalemate. Ukrainian men and now paying for medical exemptions to avoid Zelenskyy’s meat grinder.

Ukraine’s president, Volodymyr Zelenskiy, has decried corrupt medical exemptions that have enabled people to avoid military service, saying the system was subject to bribes and mass departures abroad.

Zelenskiy said the National Security and Defence Council had considered data showing the extent of false exemptions, bribe-taking and flight abroad since Russia’s February 2022 invasion. The investigation of dubious medical exemptions was still being conducted, he said.

“There are examples of regions where the number of exemptions from military service due to medical commission decisions has increased tenfold since February last year,” Zelenskiy said on Wednesday in his nightly video address.

“It is absolutely clear what sort of decisions these are. Corrupt decisions.”

He said the investigation had exposed corrupt practices in different regions and by officials in different positions, involving bribes ranging from $3,000 to $15,000.

We are slipping toward a major confrontation between world powers. This war is metastasizing. How many more on both sides have to die to satiate the hunger for this war? Biden and his war machine are going get us all killed.