It is much more than that: #GerhardSchröder is the political chief of the #NewAbwehr, and #Putin is his #Stasi-#KGB agent & puppet wittingly & unwittingly #manipulated & #exploited to advance the #NewWorldOrder with #Germany on the top. 911 is their job. | “Schröder is the tip of the iceberg,” said Wolfgang Ischinger, a former ambassador to the United States and veteran diplomat. “But there is a whole iceberg below him.” - How the Ex-Chancellor Gerhard Schröder Became Putin’s Man in Germany The New York Times | Powerful Pegasus spyware found on Number 10 device in infection linked to UAE

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How the Ex-Chancellor Gerhard Schröder Became Putin’s Man in Germany The New York Times nytimes.com/2022/04/23/wor “Schröder is the tip of the iceberg,” said Wolfgang Ischinger, a former ambassador to the United States and veteran diplomat. “But there is a whole iceberg below him.”

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How the Ex-Chancellor Gerhard Schröder Became Putin’s Man in Germany

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But it was more than that, Mr. Schröder said. “I had been chancellor. I couldn’t go back to being a lawyer dealing with rental contracts. I needed a project,” he said. “Something I knew how to do and where I could serve German interests.”

When Mr. Putin called Mr. Schröder on his cellphone the night of Dec. 9, 2005, he accepted the offer.

Many in Germany were appalled. No chancellor before him had taken a job in a company controlled by a foreign country, let alone one that had benefited from their support in office.

But the pipeline project itself remained uncontroversial.

“The next government continued with it seamlessly,” Mr. Schröder recalled. “Nobody in the first Merkel government said a word against it. No one!”

Mr. Ischinger, who was Mr. Schröder’s ambassador to the United States and later ran the Munich Security Conference, concurred.

“You can’t blame Schröder for Nord Stream 1,” Mr. Ischinger said. “Most German politicians, whether in government or in opposition, did not critically question this. No one asked whether we were laying the foundation for getting ourselves into an unhealthy dependence.”

Ms. Merkel, through a spokesperson, declined to comment for this article.

Nord Stream 1 took six years to plan and build. In 2011, Mr. Schröder attended both opening ceremonies — one on the Russian end, in Vyborg, along with Mr. Putin, Russia’s prime minister at the time, and the other on the German end, in Lubmin, on the Baltic Sea, along with Ms. Merkel and Mr. Putin’s trusted ally, Dmitri A. Medvedev, Russia’s president at the time.

Powerful Pegasus spyware found on Number 10 device in infection linked to UAE

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Powerful spyware linked to a United Arab Emirates operator - which could have allowed 24-hour surveillance of messages, photos and calls - was found on a device connected to Number 10's network, it has been claimed.

The alarming cyber security breach is said to have occurred on 7 July 2020, almost a year into Boris Johnson's time as Prime Minister.

According to researchers, the Israeli-created spyware known as Pegasus was also suspected to have infected phones connected to the Foreign Office on at least five occasions between July 2020 and June last year.

These were linked to operators in the UAE, India, Cyprus, and Jordan.

The infection of a Number 10 device was revealed by an investigative journalist working for the New Yorker magazine.

They reported that several phones were tested at Downing Street, including the PM's, but that officials from Britain's National Cyber Security Centre were unable to locate the infected device and the nature of any data that may have been stolen was never determined.

'When we found the No10 case, my jaw dropped,' John Scott-Railton, a senior researcher at the Citizen Lab centre at the Univestity of Toronto, told the magazine.

He claimed the UK had been 'underestimating the threat from Pegasus' and had been left 'spectacularly burned'.

Bill Marczak, another senior researcher, added: 'We suspect this included the exfiltration of data.'

Powerful spyware known as Pegasus was used to infect a device connected to the network at 10 Downing Street, it has been claimed
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Powerful spyware known as Pegasus was used to infect a device connected to the network at 10 Downing Street, it has been claimed

Boris Johnson visited the UAE last month in an attempt to encourage Middle Eastern states to ramp up their production of oil - as Western nations look to wean themselves off Russian supplies
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Boris Johnson visited the UAE last month in an attempt to encourage Middle Eastern states to ramp up their production of oil - as Western nations look to wean themselves off Russian supplies

Pegasus was developed by the Israeli company NSO Group and is known to have the capability to infect billions of phones running either iOS or Android operating systems. 

Once Pegasus is on a person's device, it can copy messages that are sent or received, harvest photos, record phone calls, or even secretly film the user through the phone's camera, or record conversations by activating the microphone.

Israeli bug that secretly takes over your phone 

Pegasus spyware gives hackers a terrifying level of access to a mobile phone without the victim having the faintest idea it has been hacked.

A malicious user can extract data including passwords, contacts, browsing history and social media posts, tell where the phone is, where it has been and whether it is on the move.

The hacker can also see incoming or outgoing calls and, perhaps most chillingly, access the device's camera and microphone to take pictures or listen in on conversations remotely.

The creators of Pegasus – Israeli cyber intelligence company NSO Group Technologies – have long boasted that the spyware worked like a 'ghost', tracking the movements of targets without leaving a trace.

To avoid being spotted through racking up data charges on phone networks, the software transmits files only when the device is using Wifi.

When unable to do this, it collects and stores data in an encrypted software programme – but is designed to never use more than 5 per cent of space on an infected phone.

It can be installed on some Apple and Android devices and is believed to have exploited three security weaknesses in iPhones. One method involves sending a text message that provides a link to a website. If clicked on, malicious software is delivered to the phone.

NSO Group has claimed it keeps strict control over how its powerful software is used. Its staff can shut it down at any time or look at the information being collected.

But insiders told Israeli newspaper Haaretz that oversight was 'non-existent'. The newspaper also said that if an infected phone entered Israel, Iran, Russia, China or the US, Pegasus wiped its software from the device.

It could also potentially be used to pinpoint where someone is, where they've been, or who they've met.

Citizen Lab also found the suspected Foreign Office infections.

Ron Deibert, its director, wrote in an article on the lab's website that because the Foreign Office has many staff overseas, the suspected infections could have related to 'devices located abroad and using foreign SIM cards'.

He added this was 'similar to the hacking of foreign phone numbers used by US State Department employees in Uganda in 2021'.

A government spokesperson said they do not routinely comment on security matters.

In November, the US added NSO Group to a trade blacklist and accused them of selling spyware to foreign governments that used the equipment to target government officials, journalists and others

At the time, the Israeli company said it was 'dismayed' by the decision and insisted its technologies 'support US national security interests'

Following today's claim that Pegasus was used to infect a Number 10 device and phones at the Foreign Office, an NSO Group spokesperson told MailOnline: 'The information raised regarding these allegations are, yet again, false and could not be related to NSO products for technological and contractual reasons. 

'NSO continues to be targeted by a number of politically motivated advocacy organisations, like Citizens Labs and Amnesty, to produce inaccurate and unsubstantiated reports based on vague and incomplete information. 

'We have repeatedly cooperated with governmental investigations, where credible allegations merit.'

A month earlier, in October 2021, the High Court in London found that the ruler of Dubai, Sheikh Mohammed Al Maktoum, ordered the hacking of the phone of his ex-wife, Princess Haya of Jordan.

The court said that Pegasus software was used in a bid to infiltrate the phones of Princess Haya, some of her staff and two of her solicitors.

NSO Group was said to have ended its contract with the UAE following the disclosure.

The timing of the revelation about spyware on a No10 device - associated with an operator linked to the UAE - comes little more than a month after Mr Johnson visited the region.

The PM used the trip to try and encourage both the UAE and Saudi Arabia to ramp up their production of oil as Western nations look to wean themselves off Russian supplies.

Pegasus was also suspected to have infected phones connected to the Foreign Office, which at the time was run by then-Foreign Secretary Dominic Raab, on at least five occasions between July 2020 and June last year
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Pegasus was also suspected to have infected phones connected to the Foreign Office, which at the time was run by then-Foreign Secretary Dominic Raab, on at least five occasions between July 2020 and June last year 

A government source said: 'We speak regularly with partners and work closely with allies to tackle threats, improve resilience and raise any concerns where they arise.'

In April last year, the PM was at the centre of another security scare after it was revealed his personal mobile phone number had been freely available on the internet for the past 15 years.

At the time, former national security adviser Lord Peter Ricketts warned that hostile foreign states or criminal gangs could have accessed the PM's personal number. 

Earlier this year, Mr Johnson blamed getting a new phone for his failure to disclose WhatsApp messages with a Conservative peer, in which they discussed the controversial funding of his Downing Street flat refurbishment.

The PM offered a 'humble and sincere apology' for not sharing the messages - in which he described his Downing Street residence as 'a bit of a tip' - with an investigation into the flat refurbishment being headed by Lord Geidt, his independent adviser on ministers' interests.

In a letter to Lord Geidt in January, Mr Johnson said: 'You appreciate the security issues faced at the time meant that I did not have access to my previous device and did not recall the message exchange.'

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Ukraine now has more tanks than Russia

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Photo by Kevin SchmidThe U.S. Department of Defense now considers the Ukrainian military to outnumber Russian forces in armored vehicles. Due in particular to deliveries from abroad, Ukraine now has more functional tanks than Russia, a Pentagon official said.But what probably also contributes to this superiority: war equipment that falls into the hands of the Ukrainians after battles. For weeks, there have been accounts on social media of Russian tanks being captured by Ukrainian troops.

For example, a user who, according to his own account, is a Canadian mercenary on assignment for Ukraine near Kherson, reports on Twitter about the capture of a Russian tank. He sarcastically comments on the accompanying video: "We got more working tanks from Putin than from Olaf Scholz."How many Russian tanks are now being used by Ukrainians cannot be said with certainty. Circumstantial evidence of the extent of the capture of war equipment is compiled by the military blog Oryx.

According to it, by Thursday evening, Russian troops had lost at least 481 tanks, with 269 said to have been destroyed and 212 captured by Ukrainian units. On the Ukrainian side, 52 tanks were reportedly destroyed and 73 passed into Russian control.

Oryx bases its count on verified and geolocated photos and videos on social media. The numbers are not independently verifiable and are likely lower than actual numbers on both sides.Just like many of the Russian tanks, the equipment that Western countries are supplying to Ukraine is of Soviet development. For example, the Pentagon representative explicitly mentioned the Czech Republic as one of the arms exporting countries in his statement. According to reports, the Czech Republic has delivered dozens of Soviet-made T-72 tanks and BMP-1 infantry fighting vehicles to Ukraine or is currently preparing such exports.

Officially, the country does not comment on the nature of its arms deliveries. "The Czech Republic is ready to send more military equipment to Ukraine," Czech Defense Minister Jana Cernochova said Thursday, however, during a meeting with her U.S. counterpart Lloyd Austin in Washington.

On Thursday, it became known that Germany also wants to indirectly participate in tank deliveries to Ukraine. According to Defense Minister Christine Lambrecht (SPD), the German government is preparing a ring exchange of heavy weapons.According to reports, NATO partner Slovenia is to hand over a larger number of its T-72 battle tanks to Ukraine in exchange for Germany's Marder infantry fighting vehicle and Fuchs wheeled tank. The German government has so far been accused of hesitancy and lack of clarity on the issue of arms deliveries to Ukraine.

Meanwhile, U.S. President Joe Biden also announced a new massive package of arms deliveries to Ukraine. According to the statement, the U.S. plans to supply additional weapons and ammunition worth up to $800 million (about 736 million euros), including artillery and drones. This means the U.S. has pledged or delivered more than $3.3 billion worth of weapons to Ukraine since the Russian war of aggression began.

According to the Pentagon representative, Russia has continued to increase its forces as part of its eastern offensive. According to the statement, three more tactical battalion groups (BTGs) have been added since Wednesday. Before the war, these units comprised about 600 to 1,000 soldiers each; nothing is known about the current size of the BTGs.This brought the total number of these Russian units in Ukraine back up to 85, twelve of which were reportedly deployed in the fight for the eastern Ukrainian port city of Mariupol. According to reports, Russia had amassed 120 battalions at the beginning of its invasion of Ukraine.


Photo by Kevin Schmid

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Milley: Ukraine war likely to last for years, only US troops could have stopped invasion

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The top US military officer told lawmakers Tuesday that Russia’s invasion of Ukraine likely could not have been prevented except by the presence of US forces and warned that the conflict in Europe is likely to drag on for years to come.

Gen. Mark Milley, chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, said the conquest of Ukraine had been a “long-standing objective” of Russian President Vladimir Putin.

“Candidly, short of the commitment of US forces into Ukraine proper, I am not sure he was deterrable,” Milley told the House Armed Services Committee while testifying alongside Defense Secretary Lloyd Austin. “This has been a long-term objective of his that goes back years. I think the idea of deterring Putin from invading Ukraine — deterring him by the United States — would have required the use of US military forces and would have risked armed conflict with Russia, which I wouldn’t advise.”

Milley’s admission contradicted rhetoric from the Biden administration about the hoped-for effect of sanctions against Russia prior to the Feb. 24 invasion.

As late as Feb. 22, White House press secretary Jen Psaki told reporters, “Sanctions are not an end to themselves. They serve a higher purpose. And that purpose is to deter and prevent. They’re meant to prevent and deter a large-scale invasion of Ukraine that could involve the seizure of major cities, including Kyiv.”

When asked by Rep. Bill Keating (D-Mass.) how long he thought the war could last, Milley responded that it was “hard to tell.”

“It’s a bit early, still. Even though we’re a month-plus into the war, there is much of the ground war left in Ukraine,” he added. “But I do think this is a very protracted conflict, and I think it’s at least measured in years. I don’t know about a decade, but at least years for sure.

“This is a very extended conflict that Russia has initiated,” Milley went on, “and I think that NATO, the United States, Ukraine and all of the allies and partners that are supporting Ukraine are going to be involved in this for quite some time.”

In his prepared testimony, Milley said Russia’s invasion had “created a dangerous, historical turning point.”

Despite Russia’s economy being rocked by Western sanctions, Milley warned that Moscow “retains a large and varied nuclear capability to threaten the United States and our allies and partners, and we have heard very provocative rhetoric concerning Russia’s nuclear force alert levels from Russian senior leaders.”

Days after giving the invasion the green light, Putin ordered his country’s nuclear weapons to be placed on high alert due to what he called the West’s “aggressive statements” in defense of Ukraine.

“Western countries aren’t only taking unfriendly actions against our country in the economic sphere, but top officials from leading NATO members made aggressive statements regarding our country,” Putin said in remarks carried on state television on Feb. 27.

Russia sits on the world’s largest stockpile of nuclear weapons — nearly 6,000 warheads — which includes missiles capable of striking the US mainland, according to the Bulletin of Atomic Scientists

With Russia’s assault on Ukraine, Milley said, the US is “facing two global powers, China and Russia, each [with] significant military capabilities, both who intend to fundamentally change the rules-based current global order.”

Austin echoed Milley’s comments, describing China and Russia as the two “greatest challenges to US security,” in that order.

“The People’s Republic of China [PRC] is the department’s pacing challenge due to its coercive and increasingly aggressive efforts to refashion the Indo-Pacific region and the international system to suit its interests and preferences,” Austin told the House panel.

The secretary went on to say that Beijing has modernized all aspects of the People’s Liberation Army, including its nuclear capabilities, with the aim to counter US military advantages.

“The PRC seeks to fragment US alliances and security partnerships in the Indo-Pacific region, and the PRC’s leaders hope to leverage their economic influence and the PLA’s growing military strength to coerce China’s neighbors and threaten their vital national interests,” Austin said.

Milley, in his prepared opening remarks, pointed out that China is “actively watching” the events in Ukraine with the intent to “exploit efforts in order to weaken the US and our allies supporting Ukraine.”

However, he insisted that war with China “is not inevitable.”

”The PRC is clearly a strategic competitor, and it continues to improve its technology and modernization of its armed forces,” Milley said. “It is imperative that we keep our relationship with the PRC a competition and not allow it to become a conflict.”  

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'Russian spies for Vladimir Putin have infiltrated US intelligence' | Metro News

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Spies actively working for Russian President Vladimir Putin have most likely infiltrated US intelligence, former CIA and FBI officers have reportedly said.

Former intelligence officials apparently gave their read on the situation in interviews with ex-federal prosecutor and New York Time bestselling author Lis Wiehl, 60.

The report comes at a time when the US needs to anticipate Putin’s next moves more than ever, given Russia’s ongoing war on Ukraine, said Wiehl. She spoke in light of her forthcoming boook, A Spy in Plain Sight: The Inside Story of the FBI and Robert Hanssen – America’s Most Damaging Russian Spy.

Wiehl’s book is a deep dive on the life of Robert Hanssen, who was an FBI double agent feeding information to Russian and Soviet agencies from 1979 until he was discovered in 2001.

‘We have to be very aware that this could happen again,’ Wiehl told The Sun in a report published on Wednesday.

‘It was shocking to me when I did my interviews and asked the FBI agents and CIA officers.

‘Every interview I ended with, “Could there be another Hanssen today?” and, to a person, a hundred percent, the response was yes.

‘And the follow up with many of them was that there probably already is.’

Wiehl said that the US at this moment in time needs ‘to know what the Russians are doing and planning’.

‘What we don’t realize is where we get our real intelligence to stay ahead, to find out what they’re doing. The way you get that is by getting people in that country to spy for you. That’s just a way of doing business, it always has been,’ Wiehl said.

‘If we lose those people because of a counter spy here in this country, then we’ve lost a hell of a lot of information at a time like this where we need to be anticipating what Russia’s next move is going to be.’

Wiehl is a third generation federal prosecutor and her father was an FBI agent.

Ex-FBI Special Agent Jack Thompson in an interview with Wiehl said that after three decades in the agency, he has ‘no reason to believe there isn’t a recruitment in place right now in the FBI, the CIA, and the DOE’.

‘I can say almost with certainty that people in the DOE have been recruited by foreign intelligence services,’ Thompson said.

Get in touch with our news team by emailing us at webnews@metro.co.uk.

For more stories like this, check our news page.

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The U.S. Races to Arm Ukraine With Heavier, More Advanced Weaponry

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BRUSSELS — The race is on.

As columns of Russian troops began pouring into Ukraine nearly two months ago, the United States and its allies started supplying Kyiv with weapons and equipment for what many expected to be a short war: sniper rifles, helmets, medical kits, encrypted communications, lots of bullets and the portable, shoulder-held Stinger and Javelin missiles that quickly became icons of the conflict.

Defying the odds, Ukraine held on to its capital and pushed Russia from the north. Now, as the Kremlin switches gears and begins a concerted effort to capture eastern Ukraine, Washington and its allies are pivoting as well, scrambling to supply Ukraine with bigger and more advanced weapons to defend itself in a grinding war.

The West is focused on sending longer-range weapons like howitzers, antiaircraft systems, anti-ship missiles, armed drones, armored trucks, personnel carriers and even tanks — the type of arms that President Biden said were tailored to stop “the wider assault we expect Russia to launch in eastern Ukraine.”

“The steady supply of weapons” has helped “ensure that Putin failed in his initial war aims to conquer and control Ukraine,” Mr. Biden said last week. “We cannot rest now.”

Then, after a video call with allies on Tuesday, Mr. Biden told reporters that the United States would send more artillery to Ukraine. He is expected to announce a new military aid package for Ukraine in the coming days, according to a person briefed on his plans. The aid amount will be on par with the $800 million package of weapons and artillery that was announced last week, the person said.

But the strategy comes with a notable risk: antagonizing Russia so much that it ignites a wider, international conflict.

Russia recently sent a formal warning to the United States, saying that Western deliveries of the “most sensitive” weapons systems to Ukraine could bring “unpredictable consequences.”

American officials say the warning shows that the weapons being sent are making a big difference on the battlefield. So, for Washington at least, concerns about supplying arms that Russia might consider “escalatory” have ebbed — as has the initial worry that Ukraine will use longer-range weapons, like jet fighters, to attack Moscow itself and set off a bigger war.

Officials in Washington are now grappling with how much intelligence to give the Ukrainians about bases inside Russia, given that the Ukrainians have already made small helicopter raids on Russian fuel depots. The White House has also held back on supplying some weapons that could strike Russian forces across the border, like rocket artillery, ground attack planes and medium range drones.

Some argue the Americans are being too cautious.

“Seven weeks ago, they were arguing over whether to give Stinger missiles — how silly does that seem now?” said retired Lt. Gen. Frederick B. Hodges, the former top U.S. Army commander in Europe. “We have been deterred out of an exaggerated fear of what possibly could happen.”

Anxiety about provoking a wider war persists among some NATO allies, most visibly in Germany, which worries that supplying Marder infantry-fighting vehicles, considered one of the world’s best armored vehicles, could be perceived by Russia as making Berlin and NATO parties to the war.

Robert Habeck, an influential minister in Germany’s new government, has said that supplying tanks would be an escalation and should be a matter of consensus within NATO and the European Union. “Heavy weapons are synonymous with tanks, and all NATO countries have so far ruled this out to not become targets themselves,” he said.

But these are sovereign — not alliance — decisions, and Washington and numerous allies are shipping such weapons anyway, concentrating on supplying Soviet-era weapons that the Ukrainians know how to use, along with Western arms the Ukrainians can absorb fairly easily.

Russia is striking Ukraine with abandon, complicating the flow of these newer weapons from Ukraine’s western borders with Poland, Romania and Slovakia to the battle in the east. That presents another risk: that Russian attacks could also stray across the Ukrainian border and hit NATO countries, “every inch” of which Mr. Biden has vowed to defend militarily.

How this logistical race goes could well shape the outcome of the war.

Russian forces, having suffered an embarrassing retreat from northern Ukraine and the suburbs of the capital, Kyiv, are repositioning for what the Kremlin and Ukrainian officials call a pivotal offensive to take eastern Ukraine.

Unlike many of the earlier battles, this one is expected to feature more tank battles on open ground, more long-range artillery and more weaponized drones.

The Western effort is both sprawling and expensive, with as many as 30 countries, not all of them members of NATO. The push now is to get countries with Soviet-era tanks, artillery and perhaps even fighter planes to provide them to Ukraine, with the promise that the United States will replenish them with more modern, Western-made arms in return. There is an especially acute need for Soviet-bloc standard 152-millimeter howitzer shells, since NATO uses a different, 155-millimeter shell.

The United States has also agreed to provide some 155-millimeter howitzers, along with 40,000 matching rounds, while trying to buy Soviet-standard ammunition from countries that use it, including nations outside of Europe, like Afghanistan and even India, a longstanding buyer of Russian arms.

But that is not enough, General Hodges argued. “We are still not thinking big,” he said. “We are still not thinking in terms of Ukraine winning.”

Unlike the early part of the war, when many countries seemed to compete to announce what they were providing Ukraine, the current race is being run largely in secret.

Much of the coordination, including how to get matériel into Ukraine, is being handled through the United States European Command, or Eucom, based in Stuttgart, Germany, and through a blandly named International Donors Coordination Center set up with the British.

The command said that it established a “control center” to coordinate weapons and humanitarian assistance “from around the world” for Ukraine in early March. But it declined to discuss the details.

The Pentagon gave a hint, saying that the State Department had authorized transfers to Ukraine of American-provided defensive equipment from more than 14 countries this year.

But nations are trying not to advertise to Moscow exactly what is being provided. France says it has supplied 100 million euros of military equipment to Ukraine, without specifying what it has sent. Some countries have no desire to goad the Russian bear.

A clear example was the confusion over reports that Poland had supplied more than 100 Soviet-era T-72 and T-55 tanks to Ukraine. Poland refuses to confirm any such shipment.

Not all nations are being coy. The Czech government says it has supplied Ukraine with T-72 tanks and BMP-1 armored vehicles, while the Slovak government has made a big show of supplying a Soviet-era S-300 antiaircraft missile system.

As for Germany, part of the problem is that its own supply of working armor is so low that it has little to spare. Beyond that, learning to operate a modern British, American or German tank can take up to six months, while Ukrainian fighters would have little difficulty operating familiar Soviet-era armor.

“We don’t really have time to get a lot of heavy American armor into Ukraine, and there isn’t time to train the Ukrainian military,” said Robert M. Gates, former U.S. defense secretary. “But there is a lot of former Soviet military equipment still in the arsenals of the East European states.”

The United States, he said, “ought to be ransacking the arsenals” of former Warsaw Pact countries for armor and antiaircraft systems, “with a promise from the U.S. to backfill over time with our equipment to our NATO allies.”

That is exactly what the United States is racing to do, Pentagon officials said, describing their own efforts to persuade the Slovaks to provide the S-300 missile system to Ukraine. On March 9, Secretary of Defense Lloyd J. Austin III began speaking with their defense minister, Jaroslav Nad, and has agreed to send in Patriot batteries to replace it.

Similar conversations are taking place with other allies that have Soviet-era weapons and ammunition, the officials said. The Americans say they are also speaking several times a day with their Ukrainian counterparts about what Ukraine wants and needs, and what Western countries think they can best provide.

Ukraine’s president, Volodymyr Zelensky, repeatedly expresses gratitude for the aid but wants more, sooner. He admitted to being fed up with listing the same set of requirements over and over again to different national interlocutors, telling The Atlantic in Kyiv: “When some leaders ask me what weapons I need, I need a moment to calm myself, because I already told them the week before. It’s Groundhog Day. I feel like Bill Murray.”

There are also supply issues with Western weapons, like the older Stinger antiaircraft missile or the Javelin anti-tank missile.

The Pentagon has urged manufacturers to ramp up production. So far, some 7,000 Javelins have been given to Ukraine, about a third of the total American inventory, which will probably take three or four years to replace, wrote Mark F. Cancian of the Center for Strategic and International Studies in Washington.

Last week, the Pentagon met with leaders of eight large military contractors, like Raytheon Company and Lockheed Martin Corporation, to discuss how to overcome any supply problems — both to replenish American weapons stocks that have been drawn down to help Ukraine and to keep Kyiv in the fight. The two companies together make the Javelin, and Raytheon makes the Stinger.

The United States alone has spent or allocated some $2.6 billion worth of such matériel since the war began on Feb. 24, and the European Union has provided 1.5 billion euros, or $1.6 billion. But there is no prospect of American or NATO troops going to the aid of Ukraine, officials say. The West is providing the weapons and intelligence — and cheerleading from behind.

The known list of what has been provided already is long, and there is little doubt that supplies from NATO countries — and the training of Ukrainian forces after Russia seized Crimea in 2014, not to mention Ukraine’s tenacity and adaptability — have surprised the Russians, badly damaged their morale and extended the war.

In the months leading up to the war and afterward, the United States and its allies have sent Ukraine 25,000 antiaircraft weapons and 60,000 anti-tank weapons, including 10,000 provided by Washington, Gen. Mark A. Milley, chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, told Congress last week.

The United States has also provided more than 50 million rounds of ammunition, 7,000 small arms, 75,000 sets of body armor and helmets, and night-vision goggles, encrypted radios, armored trucks and personnel carriers, largely drawn from pre-positioned U.S. military stockpiles, much of it in Europe, according to the latest public list from the Pentagon.

Since the invasion, the Pentagon has cranked up its vast logistical and transportation network. Within four to six days after the White House approves a transfer of weapons from American military stockpiles, the Pentagon has been able to load the matériel onto cargo planes and fly it to about half a dozen staging bases in countries near Ukraine, chiefly Poland and Romania.

From there, American officials say, the weapons and equipment are loaded onto hundreds of trucks and shipped into western Ukraine using a variety of overland routes. John F. Kirby, the Pentagon spokesman, said it takes about 24 to 48 hours for the weapons to make their way from the staging areas into the hands of Ukrainian troops.

“Eight to 10 flights a day are coming into the region, not just from the United States, but from other nations as well,” Mr. Kirby said. “That stuff isn’t sitting around.”

Despite repeated threats to do so, the Russians have rarely tried to stop this flow of Western matériel into Ukraine. Pentagon officials say the Russians have been busy fighting in other parts of the country and fear Ukraine’s air defenses. “That flow still continues,” Mr. Kirby said.

Britain, which has been more public about its contributions in the post-Brexit period, has supplied about $588 million of matériel, including anti-tank and anti-ship missiles and long-range artillery.

Training the Ukrainians on new equipment in the middle of a war is a challenge, though. About a dozen Ukrainian soldiers were already training in the United States, and the Pentagon has taught them to use modern armed drones, like the 700 or so Switchblade drones that Washington is now providing.

Military officials call the weapon, which is carried in a backpack, the “kamikaze drone,” because it can be flown directly at a tank or a group of troops and is destroyed when it hits the target and explodes.

Bigger armed drones, like American-made Predators or Reapers, would be difficult for Ukrainians to fly and would be easily destroyed by Russian fighter planes. But Pentagon officials said the small, portable kamikaze drones could prove more cost-effective and elusive against Russian armored convoys.

After the White House announced the latest $800 million tranche of weapons for Ukraine last week, Mr. Kirby said that American soldiers would train Ukrainian forces in neighboring countries to use some of the newer, more sophisticated equipment Washington is providing, like radar systems, as well as the 155-millimeter howitzers and 11 Mi-17 helicopters.

“We’re aware of the clock, and we know time is not our friend,” he said.

Reporting was contributed by Jack Ewing from New York, John Ismay and Katie Rogers from Washington and Erika Solomon from Berlin.

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  1. How the Ex-Chancellor Gerhard Schröder Became Putin’s Man in Germany The New York Times https://www.nytimes.com/2022/04/23/world/europe/schroder-germany-russia-gas-ukraine-war-energy.html?smtyp=cur&smid=tw-nytimes 
    “Schröder is the tip of the iceberg,” said Wolfgang Ischinger, a former ambassador to the United States and veteran diplomat. “But there is a whole iceberg below him.”

    •  
  2. It is much more than that: is the political chief of the , and is his - agent & puppet wittingly & unwittingly & to advance the with on the top. 911 is their job. https://twitter.com/mikenov/status/1518178719675863040  https://twitter.com/mikenov/status/1518178719675863040

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  3.  Michael Novakhov Retweeted

    Путин, который смог зайти в церковь, помолиться и выйти живым обратно — лучшее доказательство того, что бога не существует.

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  4.  Michael Novakhov Retweeted

    Украина вновь предлагает России пасхальное перемирие для эвакуации людей из Мариуполя и с территории “Азовстали”, пишет советник главы офиса президента Украины Михаил Подоляк https://twitter.com/Podolyak_M/status/1518135232439930880

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  5. Абубакар Янгулбаев: Храбрые кадыровцы — это миф https://youtu.be/IO-yPgCp2wg  via @YouTube
    "Миф о кадыровцах не соответствует действительности. Этот образ чеченского вояки образовался после двух войн в Чечне ..."

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  6. Author Lis Wiehl, double agent Robert Hanssen, and FBI infiltration by Russians - Google Search https://www.google.com/search?q=Author+Lis+Wiehl,+FBI+double+agent+Robert+Hanssen,+and+FBI+infiltration+by+Russians&newwindow=1&rlz=1C1ONGR_enUS949US949&sxsrf=APq-WBuF_OtnCG_az3KDDlMjXAIPQtmrZw:1650794971766&source=lnms&tbm=isch&sa=X&ved=2ahUKEwiago6_uqz3AhUzg3IEHQOjDZ8Q_AUoAnoECAEQBA&biw=1536&bih=714&dpr=1.25#imgrc=XlOYzU3aNB--WM 
    4 days ago
    DailyNationToday
    Russian spies 'have infiltrated US intelligence at a time when the need to anticipate Putin's next move is greater than ever'

    View image on Twitter
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  7.  Michael Novakhov Retweeted

    Whiter teeth and fresher breath are always in style. So, take your smile to the next level with 3D White Mouthwash, from the #1 Whitening Brand in America.

    •  
  8.  Michael Novakhov Retweeted

    Want some branded items benefiting a cause? @ONENorthAmerica is donating 100% of the purchase price on all items sold to @BCRFcure 🤩🚢🌎🥇SHOP HERE: http://one.storebloxcs.com (US & CA ONLY)

    More info on ONE Pink Ribbon: http://us.one-line.com/PinkRibbon 

    View image on Twitter
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  9.  Michael Novakhov Retweeted

    Ukrainian media published it with a comment: “The Ukrainian dream”

    I couldn’t agree more!

    View image on Twitter
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  10.  Michael Novakhov Retweeted

    ⚡️Extraordinary >> President @ZelenskyyUa held a press conference in a subway station in Kyiv🇺🇦 before a sea (a tunnel?) of journalists.

    Asked whether he's afraid Russians will kill him, Zelensky says, "I don't have any right to be afraid. Because our people aren't afraid."

    View image on TwitterView image on TwitterView image on TwitterView image on Twitter
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  11.  Michael Novakhov Retweeted

    Ukrainians captured a seemingly working Russian 2S19

    Embedded video
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  12.  Michael Novakhov Retweeted

    Valeria was a new mother, her baby daughter Kira was just three month old. Russia took away their lives today when its rocket hit a residential building in Odesa.
    Valeria’s husband and Kira’s father Yuri posted these pictures of them.

    View image on TwitterView image on Twitter
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  13.  Michael Novakhov Retweeted

    Big US government report coming this Tuesday on Assad family blood money and corruption

    View image on Twitter
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  14.  Michael Novakhov Retweeted

    I'm sure it's just an unfortunate coincidence. https://twitter.com/alexrblackwell/status/1517998727000170496

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  15.  Michael Novakhov Retweeted

    FINALLY: Alarm continues to grow amongst Kremlin insiders, while they quietly question Putin over the war in Ukraine. News Director at New Lines Magazine, @michaeldweiss, joins @AymanM to discuss Putin’s “catastrophic mistake.”

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  16.  Michael Novakhov Retweeted

    NEW: Several months ago I obtained a tranche of secret Russian military intelligence (GRU) files on psychological warfare. These documents are dated from within the decade and @4freerussia_org has translated them all. https://www.4freerussia.org/aquarium-leaks-inside-the-gru-s-psychological-warfare-program/s 

    View image on Twitter
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  17.  Michael Novakhov Retweeted

    Inside the Azovstal steel plant in , where more than 1,000 civilians (children, women, elderly) were hiding in the basement for almost two months.

    Children are playing and keeping each other company but they are saying they want to go home, go outside in the sun 💔

    Embedded video
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  18.  Michael Novakhov Retweeted

    8 plus 2 = 10

    10 dead Russian generals in 2 months. Holy shit! https://twitter.com/KremlinTrolls/status/1518002657478287360

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  19.  Michael Novakhov Retweeted

    wanted to "make great again" and we ALL know how self destructive THAT attitude is and all the lies it leads to.

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  20.  Michael Novakhov Retweeted

    And the American 's model for our future as they act like they cannot see the direction they are headed in, or who they hold up as their heroes. https://twitter.com/mikenov/status/1517897586149052416

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  21. 12:01 PM 4/23/2022 - Tweets by @mikenov: Russia as a state sponsor of terrorism: mass, including school killings, various performance crimes - accidents, cyberattacks, subversion propaganda, elections interference ... https://thenewsandtimes.blogspot.com/2022/04/1201-pm-4232022-tweets-by-mikenov.html 

    View image on Twitter
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  22.  Michael Novakhov Retweeted

    Ukrainian soldiers release video fm Azovstal bunkers where children 5-14 sheltering for 2 months. On Thurs Putin ordered troops to seal off plant “so fly can’t fly past.” Ukraine calling for corridor to let them out. “I want to see the sun” says boy at end https://youtu.be/a8wk_jMknag 

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  23.  Michael Novakhov Retweeted

    Scholz has it backwards. NOT providing heavy weapons makes the Russian use of nuclear weapons MORE likely. To prevent WWIII, help Ukraine win the war as quickly as possible

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  24.  Michael Novakhov Retweeted

    .@POTUS leading.

    Taking action. Every day. And again today, on Earth Day 2022!

    (Also — the sun is literally coming out right now.)

    View image on Twitter
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  25.  Michael Novakhov Retweeted

    Zelensky throwing serious shade tonight:
    “You know they (Russians) used to talk about their biggest dream: to see Paris and die… their dream now is to steal a toilet and die"

    Embedded video
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  26.  Michael Novakhov Retweeted

    .@POTUS signs an Earth Day Executive Order to conserve our old growth forests in Seattle, WA.

    View image on Twitter
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  27.  Michael Novakhov Retweeted

    BREAKING:

    The Moldovan Ministry of Foreign Affairs has summoned Russia’s Ambassador over statements made today by a Russian top military commander, who suggested Moldova's Russian-speaking population was being oppressed - Reuters

    View image on Twitter
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  28.  Michael Novakhov Retweeted

    I am a huge fan of Ukrainian memes :)

    So this is how the meeting between Putin and Shoigu looked like

    View image on Twitter
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