Briefly Noted: Ukraine Developments
Also, Stefan Halper Update
It’s interesting to see the way we’re likely flushing money down the toilet:
Officials Reveal Haphazard, Chaotic Way Western Arms Are Being Distributed In Ukraine
In April the EU's top law enforcement agency Europol warned that smuggling of weapons from the Ukrainian battlefield to the black market outside the warzone had likely already begun. For five months the West, especially the US and UK, has been pumping more and more weapons into the conflict. There's also the concern that "criminal gangs" will continue using them long after the war ends.
US defense officials months ago also admitted they had "almost zero" ability to track weapons they hand out to Ukrainian forces. The Pentagon inspector General also recently admitted this reality on the ground. Most recently, according to fresh reporting in the Financial Times this week, multiple NATO countries are in talks with Ukraine's government to establish a monitoring mechanism to better oversee weapons shipments and their locations once in the hands of local forces.
The report cites unnamed Western officials who are talking about the need for "detailed inventory lists" of all military gear sent into the country. This begs the question: why don't such lists complete with serial numbers exist to begin with?
Underscoring the haphazard and chaotic nature of how arms and gear are delivered across the border, the FT details based on a source:
"All these weapons land in southern Poland, get shipped to the border and then are just divided up into vehicles to cross: trucks, vans, sometimes private cars," said one of the western officials. "And from that moment we go blank on their location and we have no idea where they go, where they are used or even if they stay in the country.”
I’ve even seen plausible reporting that some of these weapons are ending up in Russia.
BTW, that reference to “multiple NATO countries” in talks with Ukraine about weapons accountability? That may connect to some speculation by Alex Mercouris.
Mercouris’ speculation is based on a source who told him that the US is helping Ukraine with long range targeting, and that the recent missile strike against a Russian target near Kherson may have been a test run for a strike against a key dam in that region. However, that strike was followed a few days later by a Russian missile strike on a hotel in Vinnytsia—that’s in a more or less quiet and out of way part of central to western Ukraine. The Ukrainians claim it was a deliberate targeting of a civilian target. However, the Russians say that they were targeting a meeting of Ukrainian officials and arms suppliers. In other words, NATO officials were the target. Mercouris suggests that this may have been retaliation as well as a warning about long range missile strikes.
Mercouris also reports, as others have, that the Russian advance is moving much more quickly and may soon reach Slovyansk and Kramatorsk. The significance of this is that Slovyansk and Kramatorsk anchor what is essentially the last strongly prepared defensive line before the Dnieper River. There are other defensive lines, but not as well established. In the meantime, Ukrainian losses are said to be rising:
Also, very briefly—a Russia Hoax development that holds promise. Svetlana Lokhova’s case against Stefan Halper, the FBI’s key informant in the attempts to frame Michael Flynn, Carter Page, and George Papadopoulos, will go forward into discovery. TGP reports on this development, briefly, here: JUST IN: Svetlana Lokhova’s Suit Against Stefan Halper, the Drug Addict Informant Behind the Russia Collusion Coup, Moves Forward.
This has been a complex case so far. If you want the details of what came before this ruling, Margot Cleveland has it for you:
If Judge Brinkema allows Lokhova’s case to proceed, Halper will finally be subjected to public questioning about his role in SpyGate.
Stefan Halper didn't kill himself.
What will be the blowback if some people from the religion of peace used some thing that “fell off a truck”stronger than an assault weapon, perhaps a javelin or a stinger missile in a Western Country?
Part of the route missing items are going is through Albania.