January 19, 2023 - 7:30am
Over the last two weeks, Western joy over Ukraine’s military victories in Kharkov and Kherson has started to dissipate. Russia has since managed to stabilise its defensive lines and is once again on the front foot in the Donbas. It has been a wake-up call for Western policymakers, who are actively trying to replenish Ukrainian equipment losses, train additional forces, and even introduce new weapons systems into the arena. This marks a significant escalation in the conflict, even though few seem to have realised.
NATO Secretary General Jens Stoltenberg recently described the current period as “a decisive phase of the war” and has encouraged supporting nations to “provide Ukraine with the weapons it needs to win — and to continue as an independent nation.” These comments followed British Prime Minister Rishi Sunak’s pledge to send 14 Challenger 2 tanks to Ukraine, making it the first country to give assets from this class of heavy warfare equipment. This is in spite of the fears of General Sir Patrick Sanders, who suggested that parting with the Challenger 2s will leave the UK “temporarily weaker”.
European leaders, for the most part, have been following Sunak’s cue. At Davos, Ursula von der Leyen, Sanna Marin, and Andrzej Duda were among those who doubled down on the necessity of a Ukrainian victory and a decisive Russian defeat. Olaf Scholz agreed with the sentiment during his own special address, but in practice the German Chancellor has been noticeably more reticent. According to Duda, Poland’s plan to send Germany’s much-coveted Leopard 2 tanks to Ukraine was a “very, very, very, very needed decision,” but so far Scholz has resisted due to fears that it would make Germany a party to war. When asked directly on Wednesday whether he would supply the tanks, Scholz was again non-committal (despite pressure from his Green party coalition partner).
Meanwhile, the United States had earlier announced the provision of an advanced Patriot defence missile system, as well as a new $3 billion aid package comprised of 50 Bradley Fighting Vehicles and a diverse range of weaponry. This brings the total security assistance since the war began to $24.2 billion.
The hope is — as chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff Army Gen. Mark Milley expressed in his first in-person meeting with Ukraine’s military chief, Valerii Zaluzhnyi — to assure Kyiv of the US’s abiding support. But it also amounts to a huge escalation in Western involvement in the conflict — and one that might encourage Putin to take more radical action.
Russian forces have been advancing across Ukraine and, in taking Soledar, have pulled off their first significant breakthrough in months. Their string of local advances are now taking place in the parts of the front spanning from Zaporizhzhia Oblast in the south to Avdiivka, Klishchiivka, up to Bakhmut and Siversk further north.
In the context of a widely anticipated Russian offensive, there is no end in sight for this conflict. The brutal war of attrition is about to escalate.
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SubscribeHang on a minute…
And the scarcely believable:
…and that’s before we even get to such banal terms as “banged up” and “screw”.
Methinks the author enjoyed writing this piece just a bit too much. Still, an interesting insight into our ‘Criminal Justice System’ and the author is clearly more than just a time-serving journo.
Human beings are a flawed species. If that was not the case, we wouldn’t need a criminal justice system. We’ll do our best to have our public servants behave appropriately, but those expecting perfection will be disappointed.
True, we all have picadilloes but this behaviour from the guard is way beyond that- it’s really taking the ****. This article lead me to looking up the film on twitter (easily found). It’s not some furtive liaison, it’s basically a porn film and the guard makes no attempt to hide her identity (nor do the two males). All three are very proud of what they are doing.
Whoever in HR vets applicants is doing a very poor job but (I’ll guess) DEI may well higher on their agenda than getting best personnel for the job.
I’d suggest readers go the the home page of this chappies’ University. “As a fellow at the University of the Arts’ Design Against Crime Research Lab “. And bring a dictionary. Such out and out nonsense.
Why do prison guards have sex with inmates?
There shouldn’t be any female staff in men’s prisons, and vice versa.
I think you just answered my question; because they can.
The mania for not discriminating results in stupid decisions on hiring. Presumably Gay male prison staff may be at risk but you don’t hear about that.
Yes and it is mind boggling that anyone in the criminal justice system would need to have this blindingly obvious thing pointed out to them. We’re ruled by permanent adolescents living in their own DEI fairytale.
Allow me to cite a stanza from Christian Morgenstern’s poem “The Impossible Fact”
And he comes to the conclusion:
His mishap was an illusion,
for, he reasons pointedly,
that which must not, can not be.
“vulnerable female prison staff”
Why do we never hear of vulnerable male prison staff?
Don’t get me wrong, I’m not suggesting that there aren’t any at all, nor that they don’t abuse their position or become corrupt.
But we do seem to have a slew of women in positions of power, prison officers, teachers, abusing their positions to pursue sex. Why is that?
And so often we are told that it is THEY who were in a vulnerable position. Why is that?
.
A SLEW of women abusing positions of authority? That’s a laugh – compared to males abusing power, the number of females doing so is infinitesimal. The reason it really stands out when women do it is because it is so rare.
because all staff and inmates are heterosexual, natch.
An overwhelming majority are, but if you really want to go there, gay staff having sex with inmates should also be sacked.
I always wondered why prison guards were called screws.
Now you know!!
I think she’s going to be pretty bored in a woman’s prison.
Not with all the tranny’s in there
Obviously prison officer is an occupation unsuited to opposite sex persons. Officers should be male in men’s prisons and female in female prisons.
“Pled”.
Seriously, pled.
Rightio, I guess “pleaded” is on the scrap heap then.
According to the OED, both are correct: ‘pled’ assumes that ‘plead’ is a strong (i.e. irregular) verb, and ‘pleaded’ treats it as a weak (regular) verb. There are other examples of parallel past tense forms in the same verb: e.g. hanged/hung, weaved/wove, lit/lighted. Sometimes they’re distinguished by the context: ‘hanged’, for instance, would generally be confined to capital punishment. In the case of ‘plead’, ‘pled’ has rather taken a back seat over the last hundred years or so, but it’s perfectly correct.
Hello fellow pedant! I enjoyed reading your post….made my Saturday morning!
The OED operates on the dubious principle that when people repeat mistakes often enough, they are no longer mistaken.
Why is it a dubious principle? A dictionary is there to record how language is being used, not just school texts.
Maybe having female guards in a male prison is a bad idea. And vice-versa. Does this need to be pointed out?
On a different plane, people in authority behaving badly is nothing new. The stories of teachers engaging in sexual activity with students in the US are legion. An outlet called Real Clear Investigations did a lengthy story on it, and there are at least as many female teachers involved, if not more.
Interesting, and deserving of more attention.
The solution is too simple. Of course, no way, in the name of equality, it will ever be used.
Clearly, there’s not enough testosterone filled men on the outside to satisfy all the women.
It’s not about sex.
People who commit crimes that justify sentences of multiple decades should receive the death penalty. Start there!
If male prison guards were committing these offences they’d be called evil predators and manipulators.
When women prison guards commit these offences they are described as vulnerable and manipulated by men.
The two tier legal system is heavily biased to go easy on the women.
Male guards have sex with female prisoners for sexual reasons female guards, on the other hand, usually have sex for emotional reasons.
Over 95% of violent sexual offences are committed by men. The reason society generally views sexual offences committed by women differently is that men and women are different. With rare exceptions, women just don’t violently force themselves on other people, for both physical and psychological reasons.
The legal system should handle things on a case by case, obviously, but you can’t have a disparity that stark and expect society not to notice it.
surely it’s not only women officers that get involved?
What an incredible article. This should be front page of every major paper but just like all difficult issues (eg the disastrous impact of mass immigration) it’s ignored because it does not conform to the left Liberal concensus which the Tories themselves subscribed to and now we are doomed to for a further 5 years