🧵 Outstanding points made by @RepMcCormick in a hearing 2 weeks ago.
1. The war in Ukraine is obviously winnable.
2. Ukrainian victory is in the U.S.’s strategic security and economic interests.
3. The U.S. isn’t sending what Ukraine needs to win.
1/n
McCormick would know. He spent 20 years in the military, reaching the rank of commander in the Navy. He also was a helicopter pilot in the MarinesC and served in Africa, Afghanistan and the Persian Gulf. He’s also an ER doc, which checks out 🤣
2/n
@RepMcCormick asked whether the war is winnable to @US_EUCOM Supreme Allied Commander Gen. Cavoli, “which is the coolest title ever.”
Cavoli unequivocally answers “yes, with our Ukrainian colleagues.”
@RepMcCormick McCormick agrees. But,
“What’s being supplied is ‘adequate.’ I don’t like that word, ‘adequate.’”
“The U.S. has a GDP of $25-27 trillion. Add Europe? $45 trillion. Russia’s GDP is $1.7 trillion.”
“This shouldn’t be a contest!”
4/n
@RepMcCormick “We’re slow-rolling our support… the idea that we can’t win this war is insane. We outnumber them dramatically.” 👏
“We also continue to hold up aid in Congress, which drives me crazy.”
5/n
@RepMcCormick I’d disagree Ukraine is a third world country, but this point stands:
“Ukraine, with a GDP of $200 billion, has taken out 50% of Russia’s armor and inflicted 350,000 casualties.” (And a lot of that armor is from Cold War era defense stock!)
“That’s success by my measures.”
@RepMcCormick “How do we expect them to succeed if we don’t give them surge capabilities?”
He says we needed surge ops in Iraq and Afghanistan, and we’re the strongest military in the world.
“We can’t give them adequate. We need superiority.”
No one is talking about this!”
7/n
@RepMcCormick Then he shifts to Ukraine’s strategic importance. Ukraine has:
“No one is talking about the economic impact of giving this to our enemies.”
Celeste Wallander, Undersecretary of Defense, agrees.
8/n
@RepMcCormick Third point: “we gave our word.” This is really underplayed IMO. Our word means everything. We can’t give our word and then let Ukraine flounder. Imagine what our enemies will think.
“We gave our word not once, but many times.”
@RepMcCormick “Reagan, at the 40th anniversary of D-Day, said isolationism is a failed policy.” 💯
“NATO was specifically designed for an expansionist, Marxist government.”
“The time to stand is now.”
10/n
“It’s a winnable war and strategically important for the future of the world.”
E.g., we “need to increase our food stores by 50% by 2050. And our natural resources, for us and our allies.”
Ukraine must win if we’re going to remain safe and prosperous!
👏 @RepMcCormick.
11/11.
• • •
Missing some Tweet in this thread? You can try to
force a refresh
Ukraine sent what appears to be a large number of UAVs (unconfirmed what actually was sent) to the airbase there.
An ammunition depot was hit, and local residents recorded the sounds of planes leaving the airbase.
1/
2/ This isn’t a run-of-the-mill airbase, though. This is home to the 4th State Center for Aircrew Training and Field Tests.
From 2016 to December 2022(?) Lt. Gen. Yuri Sushkov was in charge of training pilots on MiG and Su fighter bombers.
According to Kommersant, he retired.
3/ I could find very little to corroborate his retirement. Citing nothing, Russian Wikipedia reported that a Maj. Gen. Nikolai Mishkin has been the commander since August 2022.
Ukrainian sources claim Lt. Gen. Sushkov was liquidated. Take that with a large grain of salt.
1. Like many Western billionaires, he launders his reputation by donating prolifically to influential charities and organizations (Gates, Clinton, Kyiv School of Economics), and documenting Russian war crimes.
2. However, he is currently selling critical wheels for Russian railway cars to Russia. As @Prune602 so thoroughly documents, railways are the lifeblood of Russian logistics, and their trains are in disrepair.
He’s also declaring their customs value at 0.1% of the true price.
@Prune602 (This is to avoid paying taxes to the Ukrainian government.)
3. He also has significant operations in Russia, especially for gas and oil pipelines. Ukraine is actively targeting petrochemical facilities; they generate almost all of the Russian state’s revenue.
1/ AiM propaganda has Americans at each other’s throats. And the media’s failure to account for it buries one important aspect of the Russia-China axis to go underreported:
Ukraine, a fellow democracy, has trillions in mineral riches.
2/ Ukraine supplies 90% of the neon needed to make advanced semiconductors in the U.S.
90%! And it’s the 5th largest gallium producer.
Our economy runs on oil and computers.
And our future economy will run on renewable energy. That takes beryllium, uranium, and lithium.
3/ Ukraine has vast reserves of rare earth metals needed to power our future economy.
Look at the strips of rare earth elements (REE) Ukraine has. They’re everywhere. (Brighter blue).
1/ I focus on Crimea (Qırım) quite a bit. Catherine II annexed the peninsula in 1783, and created mythology around how it’s “naturally Russian.”
If the occupation of Qırım becomes untenable for Russia, the war is over. The Russian elites and population can’t accept losing it.
2/ Ukraine knows this. In the past month, I’ve seen a steady uptick in disinfo ops from both the Russian and Ukrainian sides. For example, Russia purported a radio in Kerch was hacked and played Ukrainian songs. (This is false).
2/ Ukraine knows this. In the past month, I’ve seen a steady uptick in disinfo ops from both the Russian and Ukrainian sides. For example, Russia purported a radio in Kerch was hacked and played Ukrainian songs. (This is false).
Crimean resistance group Atesh reports Cuban 🇨🇺 mercenaries killed their Russian commander due to “constant humiliation, beatings, and nonpayment of wages” in Donetsk.
Russia is the colonizer it says 🇺🇸 🇮🇱 🇬🇧 🇫🇷 🇩🇪 are.
Russia has recruited 10,000s impoverished men from India, Ghana, Cameroon, Tajikistan, Kazakhstan, Jordan, Iraq, China, Serbia, France, and other countries by promising $2,000/month.
☠️ Their survival is measured in hours, not days.
There’s an endless supply.
2/
In Cuba, Russia uses Facebook ads (@jason_kint follows Meta and its abuses closely) to lure men to the front.
The U.S. could do more by investigating @Meta for allowing mercenary recruitment.
🧵 If you have time, listen to this episode of #ShieldoftheRepublic podcast.
It is *imperative* that this Ukraine aid bill passes. I’d argue the most important aspect of the bill requires naïve bureaucrats like @JakeSullivan46 to submit a *strategy* for Ukrainian victory.
1/n
Co-host @EliotACohen just got back from Ukraine and Poland, and had a conversation with Eric Edelman. I felt seen.
“I’m deeply ashamed that we were letting these people down because of some stupid, stupid, blind, selfish, uninformed, Republican congressmen.”
2/n
@EliotACohen Edelman calls @SenVancePress’s op-ed in the New York Times “egregious” and “Marxoid.”
@EliotACohen goes further (correctly): “Sen. Vance, when he’s not being disingenuous, is guilty not of vulgar Marxism, but particularly stupid Marxism.” 👏