Mediaboss Marketing

Senate Foreign Relations Chair Bob Menendez (D-N.J.) and his GOP counterpart atop the panel, Sen. Jim Risch of Idaho, have spent the last two weeks in high gear hammering out a a legislative package that attempts to reconcile their parties diverging pitches for how best to deter a Russian invasion of its neighbor and send a unified message to Russian President Vladimir Putin.

Democrats and the White House have proposed a series of crushing economic sanctions that would take effect only after an invasion, as a way to lay out to Putin the cost of an incursion. But Republicans have argued for imposing some sanctions on the front end of a possible invasion, and ramping them up if necessary.

Negotiators have settled on a plan that punishes Russia for the destabilizing actions it has already taken, including cyberattacks targeting Ukraine as well as false-flag operations to create a pretext for an invasion. A final agreement remains up in the air, however, amid some debate over the sanctions scope and the amount of flexibility to give Biden.

Lawmakers are also trying to bridge disagreements over the Nord Stream 2 pipeline, which became a contentious topic in Washington after the Biden administration declined to impose sanctions on the Russia-to-Germany natural gas pipeline.

Sen. Lindsey Graham (R-S.C.) said that after meeting with Menendez on Wednesday night, Im pretty confident were going to get there. He told POLITICO that the emerging agreement would include waiver authorities for the president effectively allowing Biden to decide whether to impose the sanctions.

What you need is the president to have the flexibility to target different individuals, different institutions, Armed Services Chair Jack Reed (D-R.I.) said.

That might not be enough for some Republicans who have advocated for mandatory sanctions. Its also unclear whether the White House will ultimately back the bipartisan proposal, though Menendez, the lead Democratic negotiators, said the Biden administration has given him encouragement on the effort.

This is one of those issues in which you dont have the luxury of time. You want to make an impact, the sooner the better, he said after Thursdays session with Bidens national-security deputies. Collectively, what I heard only makes the case that this is more pressing, more timely, and that time in this regard if we want to be preventative is of the essence.

When asked about the White Houses support, Menendez responded: I dont think what were adding is in any way pejorative. He added that it would not be far afield from his initial proposal, which 40 Senate Democrats and the White House backed.

Risch, for his part, said on Thursday that he and Menendez made significant progress yesterday and overnight, and other important parties have been brought into the discussions.

Other provisions in the compromise package such as additional lethal aid for Ukraine and the creation of a World War II-style lend-lease program have broad bipartisan support and are expected to be included in the final package. The latter would allow the U.S. to send weapons and supplies to Ukraine with the promise of repayment at a later date.

Thursdays briefing for all senators came one day after Biden deployed around 3,000 U.S. troops to Eastern Europe as a way to shore up NATOs defenses. And it came just hours after the White House disclosed a Kremlin-orchestrated false-flag operation involving a graphic video depicting a fabricated attack on Russians.

The briefers included Secretary of State Antony Blinken, Defense Secretary Lloyd Austin, Joint Chiefs Chair Gen. Mark Milley and Director of National Intelligence Avril Haines, among others.

For now, some lawmakers remain optimistic that the closed-door session will spur a final agreement on legislation.

Its encouraging at these moments to see Republicans and Democrats behind closed doors set aside their differences, work together to learn as much as they can. And you see people moving closer together with some of their approaches, Sen. Todd Young (R-Ind.) said. To the extent there are disagreements, you start to see those narrow during those sessions.

See original here:
Senators worry Russia will invade Ukraine before they finalize sanctions bill - POLITICO

ANKARA, Turkey NATO member Turkey and its Black Sea ally Ukraine have agreed to coproduce an increasingly popular Turkish-made drone at a production site in Ukraine.

A top Ukrainian official said Feb. 3 that the two countries would sign a coproduction agreement which would be ratified by parliaments in Turkey and Ukraine.

Ukrainian Defence Minister Olesii Reznikov told reporters in Kyiv that the coproduction compound would also include a training center where Ukrainian pilots would be trained.

In 2019, Baykar Makina, a privately owned Turkish drone maker, won a contract to sell six Bayraktar TB2 UAVs to Ukraine. The $69 million contract also involved the sale of ammunition for the armed version of the aircraft.

In September, the Ukrainian government announced that it was planning to buy 24 more Turkish unmanned combat aerial vehicles in the coming months.

Use of the TB2 by Ukrainian forces against Russian-backed separatists in eastern Ukraine has irked Moscow. As U.S. officials claimed to have intelligence of Russian officials working on a staged video of Ukrainian forces attacking Russians as a pretext for war, the Washington Post cited an unnamed U.S. government official on Friday saying a TB2 drone could be pictured in such a film to implicate NATO.

The Bayraktar TB2 is a medium-altitude, long-range tactical UAV system. It was developed by Kale-Baykar, a joint venture of Baykar Makina and the Kale Group. The UAV operates as a platform for conducting reconnaissance and intelligence missions.

Reznikov said that the aircraft to be coproduced would be dubbed the Turkish-Ukrainian Bayraktar.

He said the drone would be powered by a Ukrainian engine. In earlier talks Turkish sources said that the engine would be supplied by the Ukrainian producer Motor Sich.

Bayraktar TB2 features a monocoque design and integrates an inverse V-tail structure. The fuselage is made of carbon fiber, Kevlar and hybrid composites, whereas the joint segments constitute precision computer numerical control (CNC) machined aluminum parts.

Each Bayraktar TB2 system consists of six aerial vehicles, two ground control stations, three ground data terminals, two remote video terminals and ground-support equipment.

The Bayraktar TB2s maximum payload exceeds 55 kilograms. The standard payload configuration includes an electro-optical camera module, an infrared camera module, a laser designator, a laser range finder and a laser pointer.

Ukraine was the first export market for the TB2, with the sale of six systems in a $69 million contract in 2019. Baykar has also won contracts to sell batches of the TB2 to Qatar, Azerbaijan and Poland.

Burak Ege Bekdil is a Turkey correspondent for Defense News. He has written for Hurriyet Daily News, and worked as Ankara bureau chief for Dow Jones Newswires and CNBC-e television. He is also a fellow at the Middle East Forum and regularly writes for the Middle East Quarterly and Gatestone Institute.

Here is the original post:
Turkey and Ukraine to coproduce TB2 drones - DefenseNews.com

There are more than 14,000 people in NSW with Ukrainian ancestry, according to Multicultural NSW.

The school holds classes at St Andrews Ukrainian Catholic Church where Oleg Sapishchuk and his family participated in a prayer service.

St Andrews Ukrainian School principal Odarka Brecko said she felt extremely sad and disappointed about the prospect of war.Credit:Steven Siewert

Mr Sapishchuk arrived in Australia eight months ago with his wife Orysia Melnyk and four-year-old son Danylo after living in Japan.

He expressed concern that the massing of Russian troops along Ukraines border was an escalation of a drawn-out conflict.

Me and my wife we dont sleep very well in the past few days, he said. My wife, one of the nights this week, woke up at 4.30 because she had a bad dream and started checking her phone.

Mr Sapishchuk said daily life had become more difficult in recent months for his family and friends, who live in western Ukraine, as groceries prices spiked.

Loading

Ukraine is a vast, multicultural country whose people have a variety of attitudes towards Russia, Mr Sapishchuk said. Myself, my family, we are more pro-European. We have a bad neighbour on the eastern side, but we want to be more with Europe.

We actually want to decide ourselves what we want to do, and not actually Russia telling us what we have to do, he said.

Hanna Mykytenko also pointed to the ongoing nature of the conflict with Russia, including the annexation of Crimea in 2014 following the Maidan revolution in Ukraines capital Kyiv.

This aggression from 2014 has never stopped, she said. Our people have been dying from that date.

Ms Mykytenko said it really hurts to not be able to visit the land of her parents and their graves. I cannot visit this part of Ukraine because it is not safe.

Fighting in eastern Ukraine has impacted the daily lives of Stephen Dumas relatives, with some prepared to take up arms while others seek refuge from conflict zones.

Theyre worried and scared because a war has sort of been happening in Ukraine for eight years now, he said.

Mr Duma, a director of the Ukrainian Council of NSW, said the problem is not the Russian people but rather Putin and his colleagues in Moscow.

Loading

Mr Duma said ongoing public support by Australia was greatly appreciated by the Ukrainian community. He said military aid, humanitarian assistance, co-operation with cyber defence, and increasing sanctions were ways for Australia to support Ukraine.

Ukrainians have lived through enough tragedy and war, and want to be able to live a normal life in a free, democratic country, as we in Australia and the west do, Mr Duma said.

They want their children to grow up in a free country without the constant threat of war from a neighbouring country.

Read the rest here:
The Sydney schoolchildren preoccupied with the threat of war in Ukraine - Sydney Morning Herald

Real Madrid lost to Atheltic Bilbao in the quarter-finals of Copa Del Rey 2021/22, by a scoreline of 1-0, with Bilbaos Alex Berenguer netting the winner in the 89th minute of regulation time.

Well, the scoreline does make it look like a tight game, but it doesnt talk enough about Real Madrids underwhelming performance yesterday.

Im not exaggerating, but this game might actually be the worst game so far this season. We are used to Copa Del Rey eliminations, and sometimes those eliminations can be heartbreaking ones, like the 3-4 loss to Real Sociedad in 2019/20 or the loss to Celta Vigo in 2016/17, which was decided by an unfortunate own goal from Danilo. But this one is different. Real Madrid never looked to be in the game from the word go.

A lot of things went wrong in yesterdays game, and let us have a look at three things that can be blamed for yesterdays terrible result.

Real Madrid, Carlo Ancelotti (Photo by Juan Manuel Serrano Arce/Getty Images)

Whenever a team is outclassed by the opponents and eventually loses the game, the manager is expected to take responsibility for the loss. This game wasnt any different, and Carlo Ancelotti got a lot of calls wrong at San Mames.

Starting with the line-up, Carlo Ancelotti couldnt have tried anything different in midfield and defence, but he got it wrong in selecting his attacking line. Karim Benzema was unavailable due to an injury, and Jovic wasnt really impressive in the role of a lone striker in his last two games, so it made sense to leave the Serbian on the bench. But his decision to start Asensio as a false-9 is definitely a questionable one.

Eden Hazard was decent in his last two appearances, and he is clearly a superior false-9 to Asensio, in terms of both quality and experience. But Ancelotti chose to start an Asensio who had just returned from injury. He did rectify his mistake at half-time by asking Asensio to drift to the wings, but in turn, Rodrygo had to stay central, and that decision didnt help the team.

Another questionable call from Ancelotti was to start all three of Vini Jr, Casemiro and Rodrygo, who had just returned from Brazil, a day before the game. It is important to pick your best XI for games like these, but there are some factors like jet lag and recovery, and youve got to consider them.

Another aspect of the game that Ancelotti got terribly wrong is substitutions. Taking off Vini in the second half wasnt a wrong decision, because the Brazilian was ineffective and he wasnt even in the right condition to start the game. But the decision to keep Rodrygo and Asensio on the pitch, while both of them werent at their best, is another questionable call. He had players like Hazard, Bale and Jovic on the bench, and instead of waiting for an extra-time scenario and settling for a draw in the 90 minutes, he couldve made the substitutions. In hindsight, we can say that subbing on Isco was a good decision because the Spaniard did look decent on the pitch, but apart from that, he got a lot of things wrong in the second half.

Personally, I feel that this was Real Madrids worst performance this season, considering the importance of the occasion and the level we got to witness yesterday. Carlo Ancelotti doesnt think so, but such an underwhelming performance in a knockout game has to be the worst game for both the team and Ancelotti.

No one should judge Ancelotti on the basis of this one game, because he has done a good job this season, but it is what it is.

Excerpt from:
Three things to blame for Real Madrids Copa Del Rey exit to Athletic Bilbao - The Real Champs

India play their 1000th ODI when they take the field against West Indies on Sunday, becoming the first side to reach the landmark. ESPNcricinfo looks back at some of the iconic moments in India's ODI history, with their first match in the format having come back in 1974.

Eleven weeks ahead of the third men's ODI World Cup, India's ODI record made for bleak reading: 11 wins in 38 matches. And although six of those wins had come outside India, only one happened to be in a World Cup, when they beat East Africa in 1975.

"It's this particular win that helps convince many of us that we may well be able to pull our weight together as a team," Kapil would write in his autobiography Straight From The Heart.

And against Zimbabwe, the pressure told: the wheels had come off less than an hour into the match. After deciding to bat, India's top five were all gone with the total at 17, as Peter Rawson and Kevin Curran did the early damage. And it was after this that Kapil cracked 175* off 138 balls, single-handedly taking India all the way to 266.

Quite possibly, it was the most important innings in Indian cricket history, arguably one of the finest ever in limited-overs cricket and certainly the greatest knock for which there is no footage available anywhere.

Zimbabwe had been defeated, Australia were brushed aside in a virtual quarter-final and England were eliminated in the semi-finals. Yet, no one gave India a chance in the final, as they stepped onto Lord's to take on West Indies for the third time in the tournament.

Less than two years after the 1983 World Cup triumph, another ODI crown was up for grabs - this time the World Championship of Cricket in Australia. The reigning world champions lived up to their billing with an unblemished group-stage display, earning comfortable wins over Pakistan, England and Australia, before overcoming New Zealand in their semi-final to set up a title clash with Pakistan.

Less than two weeks later, the arch-rivals were locking horns in another multi-team tournament, all the way across from Melbourne to Sharjah. Pakistan seemed headed for instant redemption when Imran Khan's stunning 6 for 14 saw India dismissed for just 125.

But Kapil - clearly the man for rainy days - wasn't giving up so easily, and with spinners Sivaramakrishnan and Shastri providing admirable company, India bowled Pakistan out for just 87. No lower total had been successfully defended in men's ODIs at the time; only once has the mark been bettered since.

Before this match, India had only ever posted 300-plus twice in ODIs, and only once in the history of ODIs had a target of 300-plus been successfully chased down.

With 65 required from the last ten overs - the match had been reduced to 48 overs each - a mini-collapse ensued, and it boiled down to three to win off the last two balls. That is when, in the fading Dhaka light, Hrishikesh Kanitkar swatted Saqlain Mushtaq for four and made himself a pop-quiz favourite for the ages.

And this one also had Kanitkar applying the final touch with a boundary.

The trophy cabinet had started to run dry post the 1998 high - after winning five out of six multi-team tournament finals in 1998 alone, India had lost nine successive finals from 1999 to 2001. There was a loss in the ICC Champions Trophy final in 2000, there were maulings to sub-continent rivals, there were tough defeats to higher-ranked teams, there were unexpected losses to lower-ranked teams it was becoming an unwanted specialty.

With this backdrop, cut to the halfway stage of the second innings at Lord's: chasing 326, India were 146 for 5 after 24 overs, Tendulkar had just walked back to the pavilion, and at the crease were two youngsters with less than 60 matches between them.

Twenty-three years on from their World Championship of Cricket triumph, India hadn't won another final in Australia. In three attempts, they had failed to take any of the best-of-three finals to even a third game. This time, they were up against an Australian outfit that might have been on their final legs, but were still three-time defending ODI world champions. India, starting their own transition, faced an early test in their three-year plan towards world domination with a new captain at the helm.

A little over three years later, and almost exactly eight years on from the day Australia demolished their World Cup dream in Johannesburg, India ended the longest reign in the history of the competition.

While they didn't quite have the same aura as earlier, this was still an Australia that hadn't lost a World Cup knockout game since 1996, and Ricky Ponting wasn't done: the Australia captain's century took his team to 260.

The vision from 2008 came to fruition in 2011. No team had won a world title on home soil until then, and the ride had been far from smooth for India: they lost to South Africa and tied with England after scoring 338 in the group stages before the aforementioned quarter-final win against Australia, and then defended 260 against Pakistan in the semi-finals.

Mahela Jayawardene's majestic 103* led a late onslaught that took Sri Lanka to 274; no team had ever chased more than 250 to win a World Cup final. And when Tendulkar exited the World Cup stage with India 31 for 2, the nerves were beginning to fray.

Read this article:
India's greatest wins - From 1983 to 2011, and everything in between - ESPNcricinfo