Test your knowledge of Ukrainian and our defense procurement agency katzenjammer (caterwauling) by listening to the pow wow below, at 1.5 playback speed.
Next read Constant’s zillion-word article about the mess, then ponder advice offered by G7 ambassadors12.
G7Ambs recommend that the situation in the DPA be resolved expeditiously and focus on keeping defense procurement going. Consistency with good governance principles and NATO recommendations is important to maintain the trust of the public and international partners.
Tetiana provides some details3.
David explores the “14 new brigades” bullshit we touched on last August when Z started mumbling about them disingenuously45. The article quotes Tatarigami, who wrote a long article about civilian-military mismanagment fiascos a couple of months ago6.
And another David, one from The New York Timеs, teams up with Anton to write a zillion-word analysis of talks about talks between Donald and Vova7.
“Warfare” or “genocide” and/or both? The former aims at defeating an opponent through organized conflict, whereas genocide seeks the systematic extermination of a specific group based on identity, in this case Ukrainian.
Vova has been engaged in the latter. It’s a bloodbath, with tens of thousands of handcuffed Russian convicts sent across the border to slit our throats.
The 5th Separate Assault Brigade and Madyar post video reports of battlefield drone activities.
Warren at The Guardian sez:
Donald’s Trump’s freeze on US foreign aid has left numerous Ukraine-based humanitarian projects without funding, several sources said on Monday. “Most of the projects have received an order to stop,” a source at the US Agency for International Development’s (USAid) mission in Ukraine told AFP. Organisations in Ukraine that support veterans, local media and healthcare are among those to have had their funding curtailed by Washington, with many small local press outlets and aid groups announcing on social networks that they would have to close as a result. Olga Kucher of Veteran Hub told AFP the Ukrainian NGO on Monday had to pause the work of its branch in the central city of Vinnytsia. A number of other Ukrainian and international NGOs said they were affected by the freeze. Trump’s secretary of state, Marco Rubio, on Friday ordered a halt to virtually all US foreign aid except for Israel and Egypt, and the Trump administration has put employees on administrative leave accusing them of failing to comply with the order.
Standoff at Ukrainian Procurement Agency Threatens to Disrupt Weapons Supply. Ukraine’s defense minister fired the head of a state agency that procured over $7 billion in armaments last year, citing “unsatisfactory” results. She says the move is illegal and vows to stay in her post (The New York Times, January 27, 2025)
G7 ambassadors (X, January 27, 2025)
Another Ukrainian Brigade Is Disintegrating As It Deploys To Pokrovsk. The 157th Mechanized Brigade ‘did not undergo the necessary combat training’ (Forbes, January 27, 2025)
As Trump and Putin Circle Each Other, an Agenda Beyond Ukraine Emerges. President Trump jabs at the Russian leader with threats; Vladimir Putin responds with flattery. But there are notable signals in their jousting, including a revived discussion about nuclear arms control (The New York Times, January 27, 2025)