Gurgeh

I like all the players we've picked so far. They aren't necessarily the set of players I would have picked, but I can see the sense behind all of them. I'd have liked to draft OL earlier, but it seems so did they, the trade up just didn't work out. I wish we had found someone other than the Eagles to trade down with, but we got two good players out of it.

We are also learning from what's happening. The effectiveness of sea drones. The weakness of our artillery ammunition supply. How drone surveillance makes it very difficult to mass troops and armor for an attack without the other side knowing. The ability to restock minefields faster than they can be cleared. What actually works in battlefield conditions and what doesn't (the Ukrainians have given up on some of the equipment and systems they've been supplied with because experience has shown they are simply ineffective against a near-equivalent foe). IMO the biggest and most dangerous thing China will take from all this is that the US isn't really interested in defending democracies anymore. However expensive it is fighting in Ukraine, it'll be economic peanuts compared to what will happen if war breaks out in Taiwan.

They have a long history of attacking Russia Islamic State’s deadly Moscow attack highlights its fixation with Russia | Moscow concert hall attack | The Guardian A claim has surfaced that the attack was carried out by Islamic State Khorasan Province (ISKP) a regional affiliate of the IS terrorist organisation. IS has been implicated in some of Russia’s largest recent terror attacks, including the 2017 bombing in the St Petersburg metro that killed 15 and injured 45. The group, which is a branch of IS mainly based in Afghanistan, has increasingly focused its attention on Russia since the United States left Afghanistan in 2021. The group was formed in 2015 by members of militant groups, including those from Pakistan and Uzbekistan, and is active in central Asia and Russia. It carried out twin bombings in January in Iran that killed nearly 100 people. ... Putin changed the course of the Syrian civil war by intervening in 2015, supporting President Bashar al-Assad against the opposition and Islamic State. “Isis-K has been fixated on Russia for the past two years, frequently criticising Putin in its propaganda,” said Colin Clarke of the Soufan Center, according to Reuters.

If the US pulls out of NATO then any route is on the table, eventually. However, Putin won't invade anywhere until he's swallowed up Ukraine and rebuilt his army. Moldova would be the easiest target (and no tangling with whatever remained of NATO), then a Baltic state. Finland has a very large army, if lacking in equipment. Poland is already arming itself to the teeth and might have the most capable army in Western Europe in a few years. Given how badly things went against Ukraine which was hardly a modern fighting force, taking on either Poland or Finland on it's own would be a considerable challenge for Russia. And that doesn't allow for the intervention of the rest of Western Europe, which is very unlikely to sit by and watch another large country go the way of Ukraine. The obvious and easy thing for Putin to do would be to not repeat the mistake of Ukraine, and just stick to destabilising democracies. It's not like there's a shortage of politicians who'd rather take his money than defend democracy.

Each one of those planes costs over $300 million, and before the war the Russians had a total of six that were operational. The Ukrainians have now shot down two in the last month. Clearly they've found a way to target them, so you'd have to think the Russians won't be flying them anywhere near Ukraine until they figure out how the Ukrainians are doing it.

Russia arrests US dual national over alleged $51 Ukrainian charity donation | Russia | The Guardian The White House has said it is seeking information after Russia announced it had arrested a dual US-Russian citizen on treason charges, accusing her of collecting funds for Ukrainian organisations and openly opposing the Russian war in Ukraine. A Russian legal NGO said the woman, named by Russian media as Ksenia Khavana, may stand accused of transferring $51 (£40) to a Ukrainian charity in February 2022, on the day Vladimir Putin launched his invasion of the country. She faces up to 20 years in prison.

Technically we agreed to protect their 1994 borders (amongst other things), which would of course include Crimea, in exchange for them handing over all the nukes they had. The lesson everyone will take from this is never hand over your nukes, and that's going to make the world a much more dangerous place for all of us. Budapest Memorandum - Wikipedia "According to the three memoranda, Russia, the US and the UK confirmed their recognition of Belarus, Kazakhstan and Ukraine becoming parties to the Treaty on the Non-Proliferation of Nuclear Weapons and effectively removing all Soviet nuclear weapons from their soil, and that they agreed to the following: 1. Respect the signatory's independence and sovereignty in the existing borders (in accordance with the principles of the CSCE Final Act). 2. Refrain from the threat or use of force against the territorial integrity or political independence of the signatories to the memorandum, and undertake that none of their weapons will ever be used against these countries, except in cases of self-defense or otherwise in accordance with the Charter of the United Nations. (etc.)"

The consequences of all these months of blocking support for Ukraine. Never thought I'd see the day when a major US political party effectively backed an avowed foe of the United States in his invasion of a democracy we'd pledged to protect. Ukrainian forces withdraw from Avdiivka to avoid encirclement, army chief says | Ukraine | The Guardian Ukraine’s First Tank Brigade said during a visit on Thursday that their ability to strike the Russians had been cut dramatically since November. “Back then, we could fire every half hour, to stop them from relaxing and disrupt their movements, now we have to be very selective, and only fire for defence,” said their commander, who gave his call-sign, Titushko, in accordance with Ukrainian army regulations. “We cannot target only one vehicle, we only aim when we see a concentration of hardware,” he added. With the frontlines largely static in recent months, the capture of Avdiivka would mark Russia’s first major gain since taking Bakhmut last May.

I wonder how many of these drones you could make for the cost of one aircraft carrier?

Equipment losses in Russia’s war on Ukraine mount (iiss.org) The IISS will publish its assessment of Russian equipment losses on 13 February with the release of The Military Balance 2024. The losses are estimated to include more than 3,000 armoured fighting vehicles in the past year alone and close to 8,800 since February 2022. ...Overall, we estimate that two years after the full-scale invasion, the number of MBTs in service in the Ukrainian armed forces remains near pre-war levels, while the number of APCs and IFVs has increased thanks to Western support. However, Ukrainian efforts to field additional combat elements have outpaced equipment supply, leaving some units lacking equipment to be even close to full strength. ...Despite losing hundreds of armoured vehicles and artillery pieces per month on average, Russia has been able to keep its active inventory numbers stable. For 2023, we estimate that Russia was able to reactivate at least 1,180 to 1,280 MBTs and around 2,470 IFVs and APCs from storage. On top of that, Moscow was able to manufacture new tanks and other armoured vehicles, though precise numbers are difficult to glean even from satellite images. It is our assessment, therefore, that Russia will be able to sustain its assault on Ukraine at current attrition rates for another 2–3 years, and maybe even longer. (in terms of quality, the Ukrainians have much improved their equipment, while the Russians are often fielding refurbished vehicles from decades ago. But as the document notes, they have no shortage of old tanks and vehicles, and an old tank is better than no tank)

Maybe Zelenskiy's first real misstep since the invasion Volodymyr Zelenskiy fires top Ukraine army commander | Ukraine | The Guardian Volodymyr Zelenskiy has fired his top army commander, Valerii Zaluzhnyi, in Ukraine’s biggest military shake-up since Russia’s full-scale invasion nearly two years ago... In an eight-minute video explaining the decision, Zelenskiy denied any political motivation, and said the difficult situation that Ukrainian troops are facing at the front required a new approach... Tension between Zelenskiy and his top commander has been increasing for months, according to insiders. Zaluzhnyi rarely made public statements or gave interviews, but when he did it often irritated the president’s office. Zaluzhnyi was highly regarded among troops on the frontline, with a reputation for bravery, modesty and good humour, and also became a cult figure in Ukrainian society more broadly.

Lets look to thee future and hire ChatGPT

After going off at 4:30 and 5:30, the batteries on our alarm finally wore out

Donald Trump understands two things: 1. For a sizeable part of the population, facts are whatever he says they are 2. Always take it to court, because it doesn't matter if you lose, you just claim you won (see 1 above) These are lessons he learned long ago from Roy Cohn https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2016/apr/20/roy-cohn-donald-trump-joseph-mccarthy-rosenberg-trial "His [Roy Cohn] careful manipulation of negative attention is something that Trump noticed immediately when the two met in 1973. Trump and his father had just been sued for allegedly discriminating against black people in Trump’s built-and-managed houses in Brooklyn, and sought out Cohn’s counsel. Among other things, Cohn advised that Trump should “tell them to go to hell”. Cohn was hired, and one of his first acts as Trump’s new lawyer was to file a $100m countersuit that was quickly dismissed by the court. But it made the papers. ... Today, Cohn might be most remembered as a character in a TV series: Al Pacino played him in HBO’s version of Tony Kushner’s Angels In America... As played by Pacino, his bombast is already pathetic, self-deluding. “You want to be nice or you want to be effective?!” he shouts at an idealistic acolyte. “You want to make the law, or be subject to it? Choose!” That last line of dialog is particularly apt for Trump. He wants to make the law, not be subject to it.

I think 2023 will bee looked at as a huge missed opportunity to end this war. If the Ukrainians had been given the tanks and planes they asked for, when they asked for them, at the start of the year, then the Russians wouldn't have had the time to construct thousands of miles of minefields and trenches and would have faced Western armor and airpower in a largely open battlefield. But instead the US and the Germans fretted about who should give tanks, and whether the Ukrainians should get F-16s, and by the time they gave about a third of what the Ukrainians said they needed it had all became moot, because no matter how many tanks we give them now, they can't drive through double-stacked mines laid 6 feet apart for 20 miles while being bombarded by artillery and drones. The only way I see Ukraine winning now is airpower, if they can knock out the Russian artillery. It's a real stretch to see that happening, but if there's one thing NATO has in abundance it's armaments for air warfare.

Updates from the ISW assessments Institute for the Study of War (understandingwar.org) Some US officials are reported to be pressing Ukraine to limit itself to defensive operations in 2024, and prepare for another offensive in 2025. The Ukrainians are understandably sceptical about this advice, believing that it simply hands the initiative to the Russians (and obviously given the electoral situation it seems unlikely the Ukrainians will get what they need to succeed in 2025 when they didn't get it in 2023). The US believe the war will continue until at least until 2026 and probably go on until 2029, depending upon the level of aid Ukraine receive from the US. The ISW on the other hand believe that if US aid is cut, a collapse in the ability of Ukraine to resist becomes likely and the Russians will complete their stated goal of eliminating the country of Ukraine altogether. The Ukrainians for their part are anticipating a major Russian offensive this summer, with the city of Kharkiv a prime target as the Russians seek to push the Ukrainians out from all the annexed territories. So far this winter the Russians have achieved some limited advances across the board, except where the Ukrainians have a toe hold on the far bank of the Dneipr river, a region where the Russians rebuild their units that have taken heavy losses on the main front line. With US supplies on hold, the Russian artillery advantage has risen from 2:1 back to the 5:1 it was earlier in the war. On the technology front, both sides are making advances. The Russians are making their cruise missiles harder to shoot down; it's notable that many more are getting through these days although that's partly due to Ukraine having to conserve their remaining Patriot stocks now they are no longer being replenished. For their part the Ukrainians are investing in more advanced drones, which local Russian commanders view as being more effective than the more mass produced Russian drones. The Ukrainians have also managed to strike targets deep into Russia. Finally, given all the internet squabbling about who makes the better tanks, this clip of a fight between a Bradley and a T-90M hopefully shows that it's not always who has the bigger gun and better armor. The Bradley gunner apparently went for the T-90 optics, effectively blinding the tank which was later finished off by a drone strike.

https://www.theguardian.com/world/2024/jan/15/ukraine-shoots-down-two-russian-aircraft-in-disastrous-day-for-kremlin Ukraine’s military has shot down two of Russia’s command planes, in one of the most disastrous days for the Kremlin’s air power since the start of Vladimir Putin’s full-scale invasion. Valerii Zaluzhnyi, Ukraine’s commander in chief, said his air force had destroyed an A-50 long-range radar detection aircraft and an Il-22 control centre plane. Both were flying above the Sea of Azov on Sunday when they were hit at 9.10pm local time. The A-50, which detects air defences and coordinates targets for Russian jets, crashed instantly, killing its crew. The badly damaged Il-22 appears to have made an emergency landing at an airfield in Anapa, Russia. It is unclear how Ukraine managed to target and shoot down the planes. One theory is that a Patriot anti-aircraft missile battery – supplied by the US – was used. This, however, would involve moving the system close to the frontline where it could be detected. Russian officials said they have “no information” about what exactly happened. Pro-Kremlin bloggers suggested the planes were hit by friendly fire or even shot down by a team of British SAS operatives using surface-to-air missiles. ... According to the UK’s Ministry of Defence, the Kremlin has only six working A-50s in service. Each plane costs $330m to build.

Marble's a rescue kitty. She had been with the shelter for months because she hid from everyone who came to see her (not too surprising considering the horrible situation she was found in). Once we got her home she spent a little over a day hiding under the sideboard and then amazingly must have decided it was safe and came out to say hello and we've not looked back since!

The newest member of the household finding her comfort zone...

Apparently it was carrying a few hundred tons of Shahed drones and their warheads, which is why we got the big boom. Heads are apparently already rolling over this.

Our problem is the team has fallen apart. To draft one of the top 2 QBs we'd need to trade the future, and then have the problem of fixing the OL with what remains of the draft picks to ensure our rookie doesn't suffer the same fate as Sam, plus somehow fix the worst pass defense in the league so our new QB isn't under constant pressure just to keep us in the game. And even then, you have a 50% chance the guy you traded up for turns out no better than Sam, or worse. On the whole I think I'd look to trade down if we can get someone's 1st rounder next year as part of the deal. It's unlikely, but some team might want a QB that's there at #4. Then we roll with Sam and draft to fix the squad as best we can. That way, next year we'd have two firsts if things didn't work out and a better environment for a rookie.

I noticed a few weeks ago that Sam was showing the signs of a young QB who's taken too many hits and was trying too hard to make something happen, and it's a real shame for him because I think he's a better QB than we've seen these last few games. And the blame isn't on him; it looks more likely now that he isn't the answer at QB, but he was essentially hung out to dry by an OL that was assembled as an afterthought ("assembled" in the way our cat assembles the beads holding our blinds together), playcalling that seemed designed to get Sam injured, and coaching that has failed to develop the players that we have. While I hope we get an answer at QB next year, that is always going to be a roll of the dice. I don't think the odds are as good as 50-50 on first round QBs even in the top 10 picks. But what isn't in the lap of the gods is creating a good coaching staff and scouting team, so that we don't end up in this dysfunctional mess again. Who the new owner hires is going to be more important than who we draft, because with the wrong people in place we'll just destroy another prospect.

I can see this, but I could also see someone jumping to #3 to take a QB ahead of us. That might make it harder for us to trade down, but then we could also get Harrison if we want him.