Trump is, again, lying about shortages of ammunition for the war against Iran due to some imaginary supplies to Ukraine. Here are some facts:
The kinds of weapons we are using to strike Iran were NEVER sent to Ukraine: PrSM (entered service in 2024), LUCAS drones (brand new), Tomahawks (Trump talked about sending some, never did), and of course B-2 Spirit stealth bombers, F-22 Raptors, and F-35s -- obviously none were ever transferred to Ukraine.
The only weapons one might plausibly refer to would be ATACMS: the entire stock we deigned to send Ukraine was about 50 rounds (we had used 800 in the opening days of the Iraq invasion).
The US used over 20 weapons systems to hit over 1,000 targets simultaneously during the opening hours of Operation Epic Fury. An estimated 300 Tomahawks were used and the Pentagon ordered... 57 new ones in the current fiscal year. There have been no deliveries of THAAD interceptors since 2023 and no new orders were placed this year. The military will get 39 in 2027, six years after ordering them.
If we are running short on ammunition, it's because the people ordering this war did not plan adequately for contingencies and spent like drunken sailors, not because of our (really nonexistent for the past year) aid to Ukraine.
Our big problem is that right now, we are still using extremely expensive systems like Patriots ($3-4 million per missile) and NASAMS/AMRAAM interceptors ($0.8-1.2 million per missile) to combat mass-produced $20,000 Shahed drones. This asymmetric exchange ratio between offense and defense is what kept analysts at night during the Cold War and why eventually defense systems would be scrapped for being too easily overwhelmed by numbers despite being technologically superior.
Ukraine has been fighting and innovating precisely to deal with the asymmetric offense capabilities of Russia for years, and they have learned how to do it. But when they offered to help us last year, the Trump administration arrogantly brushed them aside.
Now we are squandering premier weapons designed to stop ballistic missiles on cheap drones. And we can't keep doing it no matter how wealthy we are. Missiles take months, sometimes years, to make, while drones can be mass produced in weeks.
You lose wars not when the offense peaks --- as the current bombing afficionados at the White House have you believe with their nonstop meming about raining destruction on Iran -- but when your defense capacity is stretched to its limits and cannot cope with things that keep coming at it.
Trump last night: „We are helping NATO with Ukraine, so NATO should help the US to keep the Strait of Hormuz open.“
This is a lie. Trump suspended all help to Ukraine with his inauguration. Not a single cent is going to Ukraine. European countries are buying US weapons. This is not helping, this purchasing. When I buy my goods in a store, then the store is not „helping“, it is making business.
Trump threatened allies around the globe with invasion and denigrated them at every step, including fallen soldiers in Afghanistan. Putin on the other hand got a pass, received a warm welcome in Alaska and even got sanctions lifted.
Those are the facts.
PM Tusk on Epstein: it is very likely that this was a planned operation by the Russian KGB.
More and more leads are pointing to suspicions that this unprecedented pedophilia scandal was co-organized by Russian intelligence services.
There are over a thousand documents directly concerning Vladimir Putin in the documents published so far. Nine thousand concerning Moscow. I am talking about the Russian political environment. The FBI claims that it had information that Mr. Epstein managed part of Vladimir Putin's assets.
More and more commentators and experts assume that it is very likely that this was a planned operation by the Russian KGB. The so-called honey trap, a sweet lure, a trap set for the elites of the Western world, mainly the United States.
Also, according to The Times, Epstein had been planning meetings with Putin several times.
Christopher Steele, a former head of MI6’s Russia desk:
"My understanding from my American sources is that as early as the 1970s, Epstein was effectively involved with Russian organized crime in Brighton Beach in New York and through them with the Russian mission in New York and was almost certainly recruited by them at that time,"
@ZelenskyyUa Volodymyr you probably will never read this but may God bless you and your country this Christmas and into 2026. May you be strengthened by His spirit and know the peace of God that surpasses all understanding that will guard your hearts and minds through Jesus Christ our Lord
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