Ukraine bill passes in the House in Congress by 310 to 112 - there was never any risk of a world war or Putin taking over Ukraine- hopefully this spin stops soon now
A
Ukraine bill has just passed in the House at 310 for, 112 against
Republicans roughly equally divided 100 for 112 against and all the voting democrats voted for it at 210 for.
https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/live/world-us-canada-68861011
For background see my:
BLOG: No there was never any risk of a world war or Putin taking over Ukraine
- hopefully this spin stops soon now that Congress is set to pass the Ukraine bill with near certainty
No Russia wouldn't win if the Ukraine bill fails in Congress - this is just more hyperbole and spin in the last few days before the vote
Even if the bill never passed Russia couldn't win. Remember how very slowly it advanced so far this year? There is no noticeable change, no way Russia can do more in the next week than capture a few more square kilometers of Donetsk region. You won't see any change in this map. If the Ukraine bill never passed there would still be no noticeable change at this scale this year, just as there was no change last year. It hasn't changed noticeably since the fall of 2022 after the three major Ukrainian counteroffensives in the fall.
Text on animation: Animation starting January 31. Russia is NOT about to take Karkhiv or any big city in Ukraine - it is just spin
Ukraine didn't do any counteroffensive last year because of Russia's one act of strategic brilliance in the war, the ultra-wide mine field it built in winter 2022-3. It took Ukraine all summer of 2023 to get through it
But the US Ukraine bill got held up in the fall at the very moment Ukraine would likely have launched its counteroffensive through the mine field. It's possible Ukraine planned an earlier counteroffensive, the Russians certainly thought so, when the Russians released the Nova Kakhova flood which they would only have done if they thought Ukraine was about to cross the Dnipo river. It certainly complicated any such counteroffensive until the flooding was over though by washing away the mine fields it did it by opening up a new vulnerability all along the Dnipro river. So by those two methods Russia likely stopped two possible Ukrainian counteroffensives in 2023. These weren't failed counteroffensives. Russia didn't destroy large numbers of Ukrainian soldiers and tanks. They are just postponed counteroffensives and the equipment for them is still waiting there ready for use - the tanks, river crossing pontoon bridges, mine breaching equipment, and large numbers of modern tanks which have been tested on the battle field now but never used in large numbers by Ukraine.
Russia could have made it almost impossible for Ukraine to win with its current level of technology if it had learnt from that success and expanded that mine field this year, built it along the Dnipro river too and built extra layers behind the gap at verbove. But Putin doesn't think strategically, never has, he thinks in terms of internal Kremlin politics and what his moves look like to the Russian population and whether they are useful for propaganda. He also doesn't like successful generals and he sacked the general that built that mine field and instead he uses generals that give him political symbolic successes in Donestk
So, Ukraine still retains toe-holds across that mine field at Verbove and across the Dnipro river which is no longer protected by a mine field after the Nova Kakhova flood at Krynky and across the Antonovsky bridge. Zelensky said earlier he plans counteroffensives this year anyway but without giving details, saying he doesn't want to share them, presumably so as to surprise the Russians - that's been the main way that Ukraine has won by its innovative and surprising large-scale strategies that catch the Russians by surprise.
Europe is stepping up hugely. They recently found extra Patriot air defence systems in storage, the main reason Ukraine is retreating right now is because of the glide bombs and the lack of Patriot which defended against them. That will be solved very quickly with the US air interceptors and Patriot systems but Europe is on the path to solving it a bit more slowly. The shell are less important to the Ukrainians than to the Russians because they use small numbers very precisely and don't rely on bombing their way through cities street by street. But those also are well on their way to solution by the Czechia initiative. This solves the shells issue by June and Russia can't advance far in the next two months.
However the Ukraine bill will mean Ukraine can solve both those issues far faster with the first equipment from the US in Ukraine less than a week after Biden signs the bill.
So Ukraine's situation is very good.
Mike Johnson brought the bill to the House in Congress because he believes the exaggeration had hyperbole. He believes that if he doesn't bring the bill to the floor that American soldiers will have to fight in places like Poland and the Baltic states south of Ukraine after a rapid advance by Russia taking over all of Ukraine later this year. Thsi is military and strategic nonsense. However many in the public believe it and the politicians have been backed up by strategic analysists like the Institute for Study of War which is widely respected. They used their position of respect to join in with some articles with a huge amount of spin that present a picture of Russia taking over all of Ukraine this year. Even though their detailed analysis fo strategy says that Russia can't cross the Oskill river which is the main barrier between Luhanks and Karkhiv oblast and can only make minor gains in Donetsk, with no suggestion either that they could even attempt to cross the Dnipro river. They are boxed in and the most they could do is to take a little more of Donetsk. So that's the picture you get if you read their daily updates but then you read their articles with vast amounts of spin that claim that Ukraine will be lost in its entirety this year.
Putin doesn't think strategically as I said. From his point of view this is all good propaganda so he amplifies it to the max. So we partly have Putin to thank for the House passing this bill which it seems certain to do. Then we have Ukraine who will know perfectly well that they have Russia boxed in and it can't advance far. However, they also see that the only way this bill is going to even reach the floor in the House is if they also join in and say that Russia will win and that this will lead to them losing all of Ukraine and world war 3.
As a politician Zelensky had two choices. He could say this is all nonsense, caused a major breach with NATO and with the US and failure of the House bill or he could join in and say that yes, Ukraine is about to lose and this will lead to WW3 if the bill is not passed.
He couldn't say nothing. As a politician responsible for protecting his country he naturally chose to amplify this view.
These people think such spin is justified by the effect, that the US will pass the bills. They do it for social reasons - not a big conspiracy. Just that everyone involved sees what everyone else is doing and joins in. This can be hard for people with autistic traits / tendencies to understand. It is the difference between chimpanzee like behaviour which is the way most humans behave, very social, and orang-utan like behaviour which is how autistic people behave, with some social interaction but happy to be on their own for long periods of time and with a strong focus on wanting to know what the truth is which overrides anything to do with socializing. A tendency to say things that are true no matter what the social effect is and finding it hard to understand why anything would do anything or say anything they know to be true. Autistic people can also lie of course but they tend to be simpler and more straightforward lies. So that may be why some of our members find all this hard to understand and autistic people also find it hard to detect hyperbole and spin.
Other members panick a lot and when you are panicking it's hard to think clearly. You can take hyperbole and spin seriously. The ordinary person won't be much scared by any of this, and go with the flow and what others around them are doing and saying far more which is a kind of inconsistent behaviour of claiming there will be a world war but not worrying about it. They don't examine this closely, they just do what everyone else is doing. And would be aware there is some hyperbole and spin going on but not bother to analyse it.
But this is all hyperbole and spin and there never was any possibility of Russia taking over much more than a small area of the Donetsk region if the bill didn't go through.
All these issues would have been solved well before next year. There could have been Ukrainian counteroffensives this year but the major counteroffensives would likely have been postponed to 2025.
Text on graphic: Russia's front line has hardly changed since Nov 12, 2022.
Fall 2022, after battle of Kyiv then three more major Ukraine counteroffensives.
This is where Russia seems most vulnerable in 2024 - arrow pointing at Kherson oblast.
Crimea is very vulnerable if Kherson oblast is liberated.
Ukraine didn't do a counteroffensive in 2023, due to Russia's one act of strategic brilliance - the ultra wide minefields constructed in winter 2022-3.
The Ukraine bill will benefit not harm the US economy and $61 billion is a small amount out of a GDP of $25 trillion
There is no risk of this impacting on the US economy. That $61 billion is very small for the USA though it would be large for other countries. Its total GDP is over $25 trillion World Bank Open Data
Even its total military budget for 2024 is $883.7 billion https://www.armed-services.senate.gov/imo/media/doc/fy24_ndaa_conference_executive_summary1.pdf
The Ukraine war of course has already impacted on the European economy in many ways and because of that indirectly but significantly on the US economy.
Even just purely economically this is protecting the US economy - for instance the funding in 2023 was partly why Ukraine was able to liberate the Black Sea and force Russia even out of Crimea and as a result it is able to export its grain through the Black Sea without any interference from Russia. There was never any risk of the world being short of wheat and the US has large stocks of it, but Ukraine is the main supplier of low cost wheat and so this helps to keep wheat prices low.
Then of that $61 billion, $23.2bn is for replenishing US weapons, stocks and facilities, $9bn in repayable economic assistance
US Congress to vote on aid for Ukraine, Israel, Taiwan: What’s the deal?
Then $38.8 billion of the Ukraine bill will go to factories in the USA.
QUOTE STARTS
Of the $60.7 billion for Ukraine, $38.8 billion would go to U.S. factories that make missiles, munitions and other gear, according to figures provided to The Associated Press by the Biden administration.
“While this bill sends military equipment to Ukraine,” Biden said Tuesday, “it spends the money right here in the United States of America in places like Arizona, where the Patriot missiles are built; and Alabama, where the Javelin missiles are built; and Pennsylvania, Ohio, and Texas, where artillery shells are made.”
. Biden emphasizes that majority of Ukraine aid package would be spent in U.S.
So it is not plausible that this would have any adverse affect on the US economy and it is economically beneficial to support Europe and protect Ukraine.
This is just an argument that is used by the far right in the USA against the bill but it doesn't stand up to fact check, negative effects would be very minor and not affect the prices of things, and it would have positive effects on the US economy.
Ukraine is only short by 50,000 soldiers not 500,000 and it will fill this gap by reducing the recruting age from 27 to 25 - the Russian start recruiting age for soldiers is 18
“Some of them are unfit for service, some have left, some are (in the) reserve or have the right to deferment,” she said. https://abcnews.go.com/International/wireStory/ukraine-lowers-conscription-age-25-plug-shortfall-troop-108782522
President Volodymyr Zelensky signed a decree on March 7 ordering to transfer some conscripts of compulsory basic military service to the reserve in the spring of 2024.
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This is because there are click bait stories in the red top tabloids FALSELY shouting world war as they do many times a year and if I leave this open to comments it may get uninformed comments by people who haven’t read it and just seen the title of the post.
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