NorthwestEurope🇮🇪🇪🇺🇺🇦

News and events out of Ukraine and Syria

[Roman Sheremeta 🇺🇸🇺🇦 @rshereme]

This is truly a great man. He has invested more in Ukraine than 185 countries combined.

Meet Howard Buffett, Warren Buffett’s middle son. He is 71 years old. He dropped out of college three times. He drinks Dr Pepper and looks for a McDonald’s wherever he travels.

Since the beginning of the war, his foundation has become the largest private donor to Ukraine: $1.4 billion.

Over four years, he has personally visited Ukraine 27 times.

In April 2022, he saw burned-out agricultural machinery and called the president of John Deere:

“How many combines are available in Europe?”

“Fifteen. All of them were supposed to go to Russia.”

“I’ll take them all.”

Then came all the available New Holland equipment in Europe. Altogether, more than 100 tractors and combines were provided to Ukrainian farmers.

He even tested demining equipment himself - on his own farm in Illinois, detonating explosives beneath rollers. When a Ukrainian deputy minister expressed doubts, Buffett told him:

“Stop counting my tractors. If necessary, I’ll blow up a thousand of them.”

Andriy Stavnitser initially asked him for $1 million for Superhumans. Buffett asked how much was needed to build the entire center.

“$14 million.”

“Okay. And what do you expect in return?”

“Nothing. Build it.”

Today, his support for Superhumans has reached $77 million, and the center has treated more than 1,700 patients.

But his largest area of spending is neither agricultural machinery nor prosthetics.

It is food: 642 million meals.

And that is only part of it:
* 344,000 windows replaced after Russian attacks;
* 9 bridges, 4 power plants, 2,500 generators, and 18 DNA laboratories;
* Much of Bucha rebuilt with his funding.

“I already have more friends in Ukraine than I do at home,” he says.

He celebrates birthdays in Ukraine, comes for Christmas, and even has a Ukrainian godson.

Friends, this is truly a great man - someone who understands that he cannot take all his money with him when he leaves this world.

I simply want to thank him and wish him well.

Whatever else one may say, this is real help from a person who had no personal obligation to Ukraine.

He simply chose to help.

Source: translated from the original text by Oleh Bairak.

[MAKS 26 🇺🇦👀 @Maks_NAFO_FELLA]

🇺🇦✈️ Pilot denfix on MiG-29 shows downing of enemy air target

[🪖MilitaryNewsUA🇺🇦 @front_ukrainian]

❗️🇷🇺Russian troops decided to capture a 🇺🇦Ukrainian heavy crater-type drone as a trophy, but something went wrong.

[Special Kherson Cat 🐈🇺🇦 @bayraktar_1love]

🔥🛢️One of the most incredible sequences from today’s attack on Moscow: a Ukrainian MICH-2000 long-range strike drone pushes through a wall of Russian air-defense fire and successfully reaches the Moscow Oil Refinery grounds.

For a long time, the MICH-2000 was one of Ukraine’s most secretive long-range strike drones, kept under strict OPSEC and operated exclusively by the SSU.

[𝔗𝔥𝔢 𝕯𝔢𝔞𝔡 𝕯𝔦𝔰𝔱𝔯𝔦𝔠𝔱 🦩🇬🇪🇺🇦🇺🇲🇬🇷 @TheDeadDistrict]

New wallpapers unlocked 🔓

[MAKS 26 🇺🇦👀 @Maks_NAFO_FELLA]

Moscow 🤩🤩🤩

[𝕋𝕙𝕖 𝔸𝕣𝕔𝕙𝕚𝕧𝕚𝕤𝕥 @TheArchivistLC]

Europe’s preparations for war are reaching an alarming level. In the last 24 hours, almost all European nations have asked citizens to be ready.

🇪🇪 ESTONIA
• Declared its willingness to host NATO nuclear weapons if necessary
• Building bunkers, trenches and anti-tank barriers along its Russian border
• Participating in the new Baltic Defense Line

🇱🇻 LATVIA
• Constructing border fortifications, barriers and military positions
• Withdrew from the treaty prohibiting antipersonnel mines
• Expanding civil-defense and national-resilience preparations

🇱🇹 LITHUANIA
• Building fortified defensive positions near Russia and Belarus
• Stockpiling anti-tank barriers and mine capability
• Withdrew from the antipersonnel-mine treaty

🇵🇱 POLAND
• Offered to host NATO nuclear weapons
• Pursuing an army and reserve system totaling approximately 500,000 people
• Planning to train as many as 100,000 reservists annually
• Considering military preparation for all adult men
• Building the “Eastern Shield” of fortifications, surveillance, drone defenses and potential minefields
• Withdrew from the antipersonnel-mine treaty

🇫🇮 FINLAND (AKA Ukraine 2.0)
• Raised the military-reserve age to 65
• Building a reserve approaching one million people
• Removed the legal barrier preventing allied nuclear weapons from entering Finnish territory
• Withdrew from the treaty banning antipersonnel land mines

🇸🇪 SWEDEN
• Sent citizens an “In Case of Crisis or War” handbook
• Instructed families how to survive blackouts, air attacks, disrupted communications and possible occupation

🇩🇪 GERMANY
• Cataloguing subway stations, tunnels, garages and basements for use as bomb shelters
• Seeking shelter capacity for approximately one million people
• Registering and assessing young men for possible military service
• Preparing to move hundreds of thousands of NATO troops and vehicles east during a major war

🇩🇰 DENMARK
• Expanded military conscription to women
• Increased military service from four months to eleven months

🇬🇧 BRITAIN
• Reviving government “War Books”
• Integrating military, civilian, industrial and utility planning
• Preparing a national home-defense exercise
• Strengthening protection of energy systems, water, communications and undersea cables
• Planning for cyberattacks, fuel shortages and supply-chain breakdowns
• Making it easier to recall former service members, potentially up to age 65
• Increasing weapons, drone and ammunition production

🇫🇷 FRANCE
• Developed public-survival guidance covering emergency supplies, radio communications and radiation precautions
• Encouraging participation in military reserves and civil-defense organizations

🇪🇺 EUROPEAN UNION
• Advising 450 million residents to maintain at least 72 hours of food, water, medicine, cash and emergency supplies
• Building strategic reserves for chemical, biological, radiological and nuclear emergencies

[𝔗𝔥𝔢 𝕯𝔢𝔞𝔡 𝕯𝔦𝔰𝔱𝔯𝔦𝔠𝔱 🦩🇬🇪🇺🇦🇺🇲🇬🇷 @TheDeadDistrict]

Moscow is slowly but steadily turning into Mordor. Their essence is already Mordorian; now they just need to turn the landscape into one too — dark, scorched, and deserted.

[Victoria @victoriaslog]

This wonderful girl from Odesa didn’t stop singing for people in the park, despite the air raid sirens and even explosions.

She decided that Russia wasn’t ruining their evening!

[WarTranslated @wartranslated]

The EU, together with Ukraine, will create a pan-European missile defense system to replace the Patriot, according to European Commission President Ursula von der Leyen.

She also promised to support Ukraine "through its toughest winter of war" by providing humanitarian aid, strengthening energy infrastructure, and bolstering air defense.

[Garry Kasparov @Kasparov63]

Damn Ukraine! 😂

[Ілля Айзін @ayzin_illya]

🤷 Інструкція: як спалити російський «Град» у лісі

Крок 1: Прикордонники підрозділу «Prime» виявляють БМ-21 «Град», який сховався серед дерев і вже починає залп.

Крок 2: У роботу заходять FPV-дрони – дістають установку прямо в лісовому масиві.

[Dario Amodei @DarioAmodei]

We Must Pace the Frontier: I’ve written a new essay on why the AI industry should slow down, with a three-part plan for doing so.

Anthropic is unilaterally committing to the first of these steps. We’ll provide third-party evaluators with permanent, employee-level access to our systems, so that they can verify adherence to our safety measures, report on incidents, and assess models’ alignment during training.

You can read the full post here: https://t.co/OGyPb7yaYt

[Keith Edwards @keithedwards]

Something clearly happened with a frontier AI model that hasn't been made public and it spooked them so much that it made Elon Musk, Dario Amodei, and Sam Altman all simultaneously agree to slow down.

[Vitaly @M0nstas]

Lyman and Repeat

Nothing has been announced, and the maps are split the way they've been split all campaign: DeepState still has it red alongside RIA, while Suriyak has the whole area cleared. It's time to ask what comes next, where, and why.

It's the fractal siege again, and the chain is easy to name. The 20th CAA is the weak link and has been since it failed to close the Borova pocket. The 25th CAA, which owns Lyman axis, has spent the campaign waiting on the 3rd CAA to make its position mean something from the south. The 1st GTA is busy at Kupiansk and may not come. Everyone leans on the neighbour; nobody solves the problem.

[Dominik @99Dominik_]

@GeoConfirmed @UAControlMap @AndrewPerpetua Horrifying footage from yesterday's attack.
https://t.co/7LAJA9zz4g

[ChrisO_wiki @ChrisO_wiki]

1/ Russia has suffered a "crushing defeat" at Lyman in eastern Ukraine, with multiple regiments routed, heavy losses, and a "collapse of the front". Crippled soldiers are reportedly being sent into battle in a last-ditch effort to prevent disaster. ⬇️
https://t.co/WEZJ6chf40

[Qalaat Al Mudiq @QalaatAlMudiq]

The Interior Ministry has announced the largest-ever batch of Assad's Pilots captured in #Latakia province: no fewer than 9.

Pictured are 3 Generals, 3 Colonels, 1 Lieutenant Colonel and 2 Captains.

All committed severe war crimes, with the indiscriminate bombardment carried out on populated areas with warplanes & helicopters (barrel bombers) - attacks that caused many civilians casualties.

[Kate from Kharkiv @BohuslavskaKate]

What is interesting is that neither the Russian nor the American side seems to realize that Ukraine is past the point where we would simply collapse without US support.

​We need Patriot missiles to save lives, without them and US intelligence sharing, many more Ukrainians will die, but neither our state nor our resistance will fall.

[UkraineWorld @ukraine_world]

1.5 million Russian casualties, marking a historical peak since 1945

🔸 Exceeds the combined personnel losses of the Soviet and Russian armies in all armed conflicts of the late 20th and early 21st centuries.
🔸 100 times higher than total Soviet losses during the 10-year war in Afghanistan.
🔸 125 times higher than officially recorded aggressor losses in the First and Second Chechen Wars.