Saturday, April 06, 2024

With no way out of a worsening war, Zelensky’s options look bad or worse. . . "🇺🇦 Zelensky's chances ranked from "bad to even worse" — The Washington Post Zelensky will also have to live up to his own promise

Zelensky will also have to live up to his own promise — which he restates regularly — of returning Ukraine to its 1991 borders, including Crimea, the Ukrainian peninsula that Russia illegally invaded and claimed as its own 10 years ago. 
 
“Smart people know that’s not realistic,” the Ukrainian lawmaker said, adding: The political leadership “needed to adjust this rhetoric at some point.” 
 
 
Zlatti71 on X: "🇺🇦 Zelensky's chances ranked from "bad to even worse" —  The Washington Post Zelensky will also have to live up to his own promise —  which he restates regularly —

 

With no way out of a worsening war, Zelensky's options look bad or worse -  The Washington Post

With no way out of a worsening war, Zelensky's options look bad or worse - The Washington Post

 

Pessimism about Ukraine’s battlefield chances has increased in recent months as Russian forces have regained the initiative on the battlefield, largely because Ukrainians are short on troops and ammunition.
  • Ukraine is reliant on its Western partners for weapons, but a $60 billion security package from the United States has been stalled in Congress for six months. 
  • Meanwhile, Ukraine’s government is struggling to address its personnel shortages as measures to mobilize more soldiers have divided society.

Kyiv is now bracing for the possibility that aid from the United States could be cut off. House Speaker Mike Johnson (R-La.) said recently that the package could be put to a vote next week but it is expected to face revisions, such as perhaps providing the money as a loan, which would add to Ukraine’s already huge debt.

  • Even if the aid is approved soon, the delay has sent a clear signal that future assistance is not guaranteed, especially with the U.S. presidential election this year. 
  • Officials also worry that Europe lacks the production capacity to compensate for a U.S. shortfall, especially in artillery and air-defense ammunition — Ukraine’s biggest needs.

Zelensky has said Ukraine is prioritizing domestic production but so far makes only a small fraction of its needs. Russian forces are now firing six times as much as the Ukrainians along the front line.. .

Ukrainians have resigned themselves to a long war. Some have been fighting since 2014, when Russia first stoked conflict in eastern Ukraine.

“Ukraine does not have the power to make another offensive,”
said one Western ambassador. 
“There are two scenarios. One scenario is they get the support to maintain defensive lines. … 
The second is there is not enough support and Ukraine will defend itself anyway, desperately and with less manpower.”

If Kyiv faces Russian forces with inadequate support this year, the ambassador said, there will be increased casualties and territorial losses, putting Ukraine on the back foot.

Ukraine and its partners must prepare for 2025 as “another year of war, not peace talks,” the ambassador said. 

“If [the] West wants peace, it should not only respond to current Ukrainian needs, but use 2024 to provide Ukraine with everything that’s necessary to enter into offensive mode and make substantial gains in 2025.”

 

But Ukraine must meet some needs on its own. Field commanders have reported troop shortages along the front line, especially infantry who deploy at the forwardmost positions. Military commanders have pushed for a large-scale mobilization but Zelensky has voiced doubt even as Kyiv says Moscow is planning to conscript 300,000 more soldiers.. .

 

High Alert! NATO E-3A aircraft Emergency Takeoff ... - YouTube



 

Ukraine's Zelenskiy warns of dwindling air defence missiles

Ukraine's Zelenskiy warns of dwindling air defense missiles

U.S. Apache helicopters arrive in Latvia | Reuters

 

Russian missile strikes on the Ukrainian city of Kharkiv kill 6 and wound 11 - The Washington Post

Germany's Scholz warns of the rise of right-wing populists ahead of  upcoming EU elections - The Washington Post

Germany's Scholz warns of the rise of right-wing populists ahead of upcoming EU elections - The Washington Post

High Alert! NATO E-3A aircraft Emergency Takeoff at Full Throttle Toward...

U.S. AH-64 Apache attack Helicopters Arrives in Poland

1 SUCCESS STORY: Why a near-miss cyberattack put US officials and the tech industry on edge | Reuters

 


Near-Miss cyberattack puts US officials, tech industry on high alert |  Communications Today

Near-Miss cyberattack puts US officials, tech industry on high alert | Communications Today

Why a near-miss cyberattack put US officials and the tech industry on edge  | Reuters

Why a near-miss cyberattack put US officials and the tech industry on edge | Reuters

5 min read

WASHINGTON, April 5 (Reuters) - German software developer Andres Freund was running some detailed performance tests last month when he noticed odd behavior in a little known program. What he found when he investigated has sent shudders across the software world and drawn attention from tech executives and government officials.

Freund, who works for Microsoft out of San Francisco, discovered that the latest version of the open source software program XZ Utils had been deliberately sabotaged by one of its developers, a move that could have carved out a secret door to millions of servers across the internet.

Security experts say it’s only because Freund spotted the change before the latest version of XZ had been widely deployed that the world was spared a digital security crisis.

“We really dodged a bullet,” said Satnam Narang, a security researcher with Tenable who has been tracking the fallout from the find. “It is one of those moments where we have to wipe our brow and say, ‘We were really lucky with this one.’”

The near-miss has refocused attention on the safety of open source software – free, often volunteer-maintained programs whose transparency and flexibility mean they serve as the foundation for the internet economy.

Many such projects depend on a tiny circle of unpaid volunteers fighting to get out from under a pile of demands for fixes and upgrades.

XZ, a suite of file compression tools packaged into distributions of the Linux operating system, was long maintained by a single author, Lasse Collin.

In recent years, he appeared to be under strain.

In a message posted to a public mailing list in June 2022, Collin said he was dealing with "longterm mental health issues" and hinted that he working privately with a new developer named Jia Tan and that “perhaps he will have a bigger role in the future.”

Update logs available through the open source software site Github show that Tan’s role quickly expanded. By 2023 the logs show Tan was merging his code into XZ, a sign that he had won a trusted role in the project.

But cybersecurity experts who’ve scoured the logs say that Tan was masquerading as a helpful volunteer. Over the next few months, they say, Tan introduced a nearly invisible backdoor into XZ.

Collin didn’t return messages seeking comment and said on his website that he would not respond to reporters until he understood the situation well enough to do so.

Tan did not return messages sent to his Gmail account. Reuters has been unable to ascertain who Tan is, where he is, or who he was working for, but many of those who've examined his updates believe Tan is a pseudonym for an expert hacker or group of hackers — likely one working on behalf of a powerful intelligence service. . ."

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Malicious Code in XZ Utils for Linux Systems Enables Remote Code Execution

Malicious Code in XZ Utils for Linux Systems Enables Remote Code Execution

xz utils' Software Backdoor Uncovered in Years-Long Hacking Plot - UNICORN  RIOT

xz utils' Software Backdoor Uncovered in Years-Long Hacking Plot - UNICORN RIOT

This backdoor almost infected Linux everywhere: The XZ Utils close call |  ZDNET

This backdoor almost infected Linux everywhere: The XZ Utils close call | ZDNET


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A Go-GO: Did anyone else see Kari Lake on tv before her trip to Trump’s Mar-A-Lago? | @RodneyAssman


Did anyone else see Kari Lake on tv before her trip to Trump’s Maralago?

 

SHADY SIDE-LOOKS: You NEED to watch this video before they DELETE it

ICE Barbie and Alleged Lover Face Ax as Trump Purges Goons

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