[guest post by Dana]

A few of Putin’s immediate goals in Ukraine are receiving applause and support:

Soon Ukraine will turn into the Syria of 2015. No water, no electricity, the whole country is in ruins

and

It’s now their main front of war – to make Ukraine freeze to death in winter if they can’t defeat it on battlefield.

This is in light of Russia wreaking havoc by having destroyed one-third of Ukraine’s power stations this past week. Keeping the chaos going as winter approaches is just another strategy employed by Putin. And about those strikes:

Ukraine accuses Russia of using Iran-made Shahed-136 ‘kamikaze drones’, which fly to their target and detonate. Iran denies supplying them and on Tuesday the Kremlin also denied using them.

However, two senior Iranian officials and two Iranian diplomats told Reuters that Tehran had promised to provide Russia with more drones as well as surface-to-surface missiles, a move sure to infuriate the United States and its allies.

Meanwhile, as Ukraine awaits a granting of their latest weapons wishlist from the U.S. and European nations, it’s simply not happening quickly enough:

NATO nations will eventually provide Ukraine with the most potent conventional weapons to help push back Russian troops, according to Kyiv’s ambassador to the alliance.

Natalia Galibarenko told Newsweek that discussions about longer-range weapons, fighter jets, and main battle tanks are ongoing with NATO members.

NATO nations not sending jets or main battle tanks—out of fear of provoking Russia—has been a particular frustration for Kyiv. But Galibarenko is optimistic.

“We are not there yet, unfortunately,” Galibarenko said on fighters and tanks. “The allies know that we are very interested in getting aircraft and tanks, but there was no definite decision.”

The fear of provoking Putin is a vexing one, given that it is Putin who instigated the brutal war of aggression in Ukraine. Kasparov sounds the warning of such thinking:

I recently completed a barnstorming trip across Europe, with professional and political engagements from Helsinki and Stockholm to Berlin and London. My visits in Germany were most critical, as the European giant is still loath to rise to the challenge despite strong popular support for Ukraine. Chancellor Olaf Scholz still dreams of a return to the pre-Feb. 24 world, with cheap Russian natural gas and an amoral separation of business and politics.

The sooner Scholz and the rest wake up from these fantasies, the better. The only way to achieve a lasting peace in Europe is for Ukraine to win in a comprehensive defeat of Russian imperialism and Putin’s gangster mafia. That was my message to German politicians, that there is no time to lose and no reason to delay.

Meanwhile, House Minority Leader Kevin McCarthy has signaled that aid to Ukraine from the U.S. may prove more difficult if Republicans take the House majority. This would be a significant change of action, given that there has been bipartisan support for the authorization of assistance to Ukraine since the war began:

“I think people are gonna be sitting in a recession and they’re not going to write a blank check to Ukraine. They just won’t do it. … It’s not a free blank check. And then there’s the things [the Biden administration] is not doing domestically. Not doing the border and people begin to weigh that. Ukraine is important, but at the same time it can’t be the only thing they do and it can’t be a blank check.”

What a far cry from the early-day hawkishness of Republicans. Kevin McCarthy was on record, saying:

“There is a bipartisan movement right here … Provide them the planes. Provide them the armament to fight a war that they did not create,” McCarthy said after the address, noting that the planes, Soviet-era MiG jets, would give the Ukrainians the resources they need to create a no fly zone.

The only way for Ukraine to live as a free Ukraine is to drive out Russian troops and reclaim its territories, including annexed ones. For a solid defeat of Putin, Ukraine will need our continued assistance, as well as that from European nations. I’m reminded of this:

In order to bring the prevailing cycle of Russian imperial aggression to an end, Putin’s invasion of Ukraine must result in unambiguous defeat. A Ukrainian victory would send shock waves through Russian society and force Russians to engage in a long overdue exploration of the country’s imperial identity. If defeat is painful enough, it could spark fundamental changes within Russia and lead to the kind of breakthrough that the false dawn of 1991 failed to achieve. Anything less will merely serve as a temporary pause before the next Russian invasion.

Also, a painful and humiliating defeat of Putin would send a signal to other brutes and dictators and their oppressed citizenry that they are not invincible. Not by a long shot.

–Dana

[guest post by Dana]

Eh, given the number of border crossings these days, I don’t think migrants or smugglers care one way or another about what Republicans are saying, at least not while there is a Democrat sitting in the Oval Office:

Homeland Security Secretary Alejandro Mayorkas shrugged off calls Friday for his impeachment by Sen. Ted Cruz and others, accusing critics of encouraging the illegal migration they say they condemn every time they say the border is open.

Cruz and others says Mayorkas should be impeached for failing to control the border, resulting in record levels of illegal immigration and spikes in smuggling of fentanyl and other contraband.“I’ve got a lot of work to do, and I intend to continue to do it. That’s my response,” he said, during a meeting with The Dallas Morning News editorial board.

He added that “the political cry that the border is open” — a common refrain from GOP critics — “is music to the smugglers’ ears, because they take that political rhetoric and they market it” to desperate migrants from Venezuela and other countries.

–Dana