Incident came as IAF fighters departed area after alleged strike last week and they were not in danger; move could signal a significant shift in Moscow’s ties with Israel.
Times of Israel, MAY 17, 2022
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Russian S-300 air defense missile systems drive during the Victory Day military parade marking 71 years after the victory in WWII in Red Square in Moscow, Russia, on May 9, 2016. (AP Photo/Alexander Zemlianichenko, File)
Russian forces opened fire on Israeli jets with advanced S-300 anti-aircraft missiles as they allegedly attacked targets in northwestern Syria last week, Channel 13 news reported Monday, in what could signal a significant shift in Moscow’s attitude to Israel.
According to the unsourced report, the incident occurred on Friday as the Israeli air force bombed several targets near the city of Masyaf in northwestern Syria.
On Friday night at least five people were killed and seven others were hurt in the alleged airstrike, Syria’s state news agency said. Other media in the country said six were killed, all crew members of a Pantsir air defense system who attempted to take down the Israeli missiles.
The report said the Syrian military fired off dozens of anti-aircraft missiles which have been largely ineffective at halting the hundreds of Israeli strikes on Syria in recent years.
However, this time the S-300 batteries also opened fire as the jets were departing the area and ultimately did not present a real threat to the IAF fighters, the report said, noting that Syria’s S-300 batteries are operated by the Russian military and cannot fire without their approval.
The report also said that the S-300 radar did not manage to lock onto the Israeli jets.
If confirmed, this would mark the first time such an incident has taken place and a concerning development for Israel which has carried out hundreds of airstrikes inside Syria in the course of the country’s civil war, targeting what it says are arms shipments bound for Lebanon’s Iran-backed Hezbollah terror group.
Israel rarely acknowledges or discusses such operations and there was no confirmation of the raid or the S-300 launch from the IDF.
The Masyaf area is thought to be used as a base for Iranian forces and pro-Iranian militias and has been repeatedly targeted in recent years in attacks attributed to Israel. Sattelite imagery taken after the strike showed that an underground facility had been completely destroyed.
The report comes amid a deterioration in ties between Israel and Russia over the invasion of Ukraine. Israel has tried to walk a fine line between Moscow and Kyiv but has recently become more critical of Russia as evidence emerged of Russian atrocities and growing antisemitic rhetoric from Russian leaders.
Russia, a close ally of Syria’s Bashar Assad, has forces based and operating in Syria.
Beyond providing Syria with its air defenses, Moscow also maintains state-of-the-art S-400 air defense systems to protect its own assets in Syria, but has never turned them on Israeli planes.
Without specifically mentioning the incident, Defense Minister Benny Gantz on Monday said Israel would not be deterred and vowed to prevent Iran from transferring “advanced capabilities” to other entities in Syria.
“The State of Israel will continue to act against any enemy that threatens it, and prevent the transfer of advanced capabilities from Iran that endanger the citizens of Israel and harm the stability of the entire region,” Gantz said during a visit to the military’s Northern Command.
Israel has long accused Iran of transferring advanced munitions to the Lebanese Hezbollah terror group, via Syria.
In recent years Israel and Russia established a so-called deconfliction hotline to keep the sides from getting tangled up and accidentally clashing over Syria.
While meeting in Sochi last year, Prime Minister Naftali Bennett and Russian President Vladimir Putin agreed that the two nations would continue to implement the mechanism.
Bennett said at the time that Israel’s relationship with Russia is “strategic” in nature and noted the importance of the “intimate discourse” with the Russian military.
Former prime minister Benjamin Netanyahu met Putin on multiple occasions to discuss the issue and claimed that their personal relationship was the main factor in keeping the mechanism in place.
The Channel 13 report said it was not immediately clear if the S-300 missile fire was a one-time event or if it was a Russian signal to Israel that they were changing their policy.
In 2018, Russia provided the advanced S-300 air defense system to Syria’s military free of charge, transferring three battalions with eight launchers each to the Assad regime despite strenuous objections from Israel and the US.
Russia’s delivery of the S-300 system to Syria follows the downing of a Russian spy aircraft by Syrian forces that were responding to an Israeli strike over Syrian airspace. Russia has blamed Israel for the incident, which killed 15 Russian crew members.
Israel and its allies for years have lobbied Russia not to give Syria and other regional players the S-300 system, arguing that it would limit Israel’s ability to neutralize threats, including by Hezbollah.
@Reader
Yes, if they don’t violate international law, such as, oh, I don’t know, invading a neutral nation as Russia did to Poland.
There is but one standard. Nations at peace, exercising no sign of belligerence can not be invaded under international law. The exception to this is the Carolinian claim of pre-emptive self defense against a belligerent nation, which Poland was not. Russia’s invasion of Poland was an unprosecuted war crime.
The relevance here is etherial. Russia broke international law, they commited a war crime by invading Poland. Britain and America’s love or hate of Russia is not a war crime, and I am not sure the relevance of Truman in our discussion of WW2 in any event, as he was president after the war ended in Europe, and basically had no role in the govt prior to that point.
This is well off topic. Are we talking about the double standard of Russia invading Poland compared to the immigration restrictions? I think this is something of a mixed metaphore cooked in a blender, unless you can clarify the relevance between these issues which are not even tangentially associable.
@Reader
Respectfully, I disagree. The game of what if is a silly challenge for which every stated outcome is based on belief and merely an opinion of a likely outcome, but easily not beyond belief.
This is an interesting, though terrifying, situation to contemplate, and I would suggest that the answer for this is something for a champion 6th or 7th dimentional chessplayer to competently reply, but I will give you some variables and then simply offer my opinion, such as it is.
The administration of all of Russia would be a vast undertaking for Germany, as I have noted. It could not be left uncontrolled and patrolled due to the potential of a new armed force rising. With the Germans having conquered Russia, there was also the potential conflict of Germany and Japan as their would likely been some issue as to who would take control of Eastern Russia. Recall that the Japanese were just adjacent to Russia in Manchuria while the Germans were all located in Western Russia some 5-6000 miles away when Russia collapsed, presumably. This alone would require something of a Wigi board to sort out, and once sorted, beyond the occupation and administration of Russia, the Germans would need to maintain a force at the new German-Japanese border. In any event, it could well be that the Russian occupation in addition to the force needed at the Eastern German-Japanese border could have resulted in Germany needing more troops in the east than while they were fighting the Russians. Perhaps…
Another consequence comes to mind with the uneasy contact between Germany and Japan which presents a tantalizing possibility. Would Hitler, having double crossed and beaten their Russian ally, next double cross another ally, Japan, or might Japan be tempted to press Germany, stretched thin with the Normandy breakout developing. It is an interesting dynamic as the US and company would be knocking at both their doors. Perhaps some altercation could have played out between these two ‘allies’ as occurred in ’41. It would be ill advised, but so too was the successful Russian invasion in the current scenario. Just a thought.
What You have stated about the US in France is a humiliating reality. I would also note that with regards to the American performance in ’44, the Russians took their time and losses in learning how best to oppose and defeat the Germans, and they had a home defense advantage and a short supply line, that became shorter as they retreated and still failed to successfully defeat the Germans, til Stalingrad 2yrs later, if we are not ‘what if-ing’ that they lost this battle. So the Americans might have come to change things in the command or simply grind on as the Germans were streeeettttttttttccccccccchhhhhhhheeeeeedddddddd all across Russia.
In addition to this, if the timeline of the war was lengthened, the Germans had their super weapon programs and the jet airplanes were just beginning to be produced. Yet, the US had their nuclear bomb by mid ’45, albeit they only had the two, but no one knew this to be the case. Both of these issues would not be lost on the opposing sides.
Also, Hitler would likely not have killed himself since the Russians would not have been knocking on his door, so perhaps he would have focused his meddling thumbs into the Western campaign to the same disadvantage that he produced in the East, perhaps.
Hence if Russia been removed from the war, there were many moving variables still at play and they might well have rearranged the board towards better focusing or chance permitting a successful outcome without the Russians to single-handedly win the war. I have, in fact, only mentioned a few of the more obvious variables and there are many others, not the least of which was that the assets deployed in the Pacific might simply have been rearranged – there is another variable. Though the advantages were not all on one side nor on the other, the US was not at the end of their tether in ’45, and I do not believe either England nor the US would have dropped the war as easily as you suggest following the perchance occurrence of the collapsed Russian front. Of course, it is just an opinion, and yours is as interesting as my own, but what ifs are, as I have noted, just a silly challenge largely based on belief, and some salted facts, most of which could have wildly been altered by the change introduced by the ‘what if’ in question.
@Sebastien Zorn
The first 3 of your questions make no sense.
The rest of your questions – obviously you know the answers – please, enlighten us with the references.
If you are trying to say that Russia was no better than the West at saving Jews – it is not working (they saved a lot of Jews although not on purpose).
@Reader Did the Soviets evacuate Jews from territories not under their control? Did they make any effort to help Jews get to Palestine? Did their planes bomb the death camps or the tracks leading up to them? Didn’t the Soviets “repatriate” German Jewish Communists to Germany during the period of the “Non-Aggression Treaty?” Didn’t Communists in the West denounce anti-fascists as war mongers during this period? Didn’t the Soviet Union persecute Israel and Jews after the war?
@Reader
@Edfar G.
You are right, except that the Czechoslovakia Debacle happened in 1938 and Poland and Germany signed their pact in 1934 which could be the reason that Poland wouldn’t agree to let the Soviet military onto the Polish territory under any circumstances several years later when it was needed for the pact between the USSR and England (and France?).
Poland was actually hoping to join Germany in its attack on the Soviet Union but Germany had other plans, in fact, the German (Nazi) government kept telling the Germans how Poland wishes to destroy them, etc.
Still, Poland got a lot out of the war, if you know what I mean.
The Poles used to say “Let it be bad for us as long as it is worse for the Jews.”
READER-
Briatain, France and most of Europe allowed the Nazis to start the war when they turned a blind eye to Germany walking into the Sudetenland, and the Chamberlain, Czechoslovakia Debacle.
Recall, that for most of the 1930s the British Govt was Labour, ans when the Conservatives took over, they had Chamberlain, a piece of wet blotting paper on International Affairs management.
THAT began the War….which was really only a continuation of WW1, as the Germans, under crippling reparations with an Army still intact, although stalled, NEVER accepted defeat at the highest levels.
We know how Germany prepared under a variety of guises for the continuation of the War, and the first REAL open blow was Sudetenland.-aided by the local inhabitants I seem to recall.
NOT Poland. I recall “Alvar Lidell” very well……and William Joyce……!!!!
@FelixQuigley
I think that maybe you are overemphasizing the alleged split between Russia and Israel.
The late Soviet Union was extremely anti-Zionist, anti-Israel, and pro-Arab, and grass-roots antisemitism has always persisted there (like everywhere else).
The Russian Federation is better in this regard but it doesn’t have that many Jews left there.
Israel is walking a tightrope between the two great powers while fighting terrorism at home, and I think everyone understands that.
@peloni
Absolutely.
Doesn’t EVERY country have the right to do what you stated above?
Why the double standards?
The Great Britain unleashed the Nazi Germany on the USSR and the US loved it – see what Truman said about it.
Both the US and Great Britain locked the Jews in Europe and refused to save even the Jewish children – of course, those were just CHOICES – they weren’t murdering the Jews themselves, they were just aiding and abetting the Nazis while saying all the right things in public.
@peloni
Well, beliefs have nothing to do with this.
Tell me your version of what would happen if the USSR collapsed after the loss in Stalingrad.
The Germans had a plan of displacement and/or genocide for the “Untermenschen” and the Jews but they didn’t think the Westerners were Untermenschen – quite the opposite.
I saw a testimony by a former German pilot who participated in the bombing of England and he was saying how the German pilots’ hearts bled for the British “because they were just like us” and how they (the pilots) had a sense of relief when the bombing campaign finally ended.
Don’t tell me that the US would be fighting the Germans then alone to the bitter end, it took them a year to get though France in 1944.
@Felix
You asked me to respond to two very unfocused statements. There was a lot of ground covered in your posts and you suggest I changed your meaning by quoting you without detailing how I changed your meaning when I quoted you, so please take the effort to do so. It is true that I did not address every detail in your comments such as Glick and Sadat [I frankly have no idea how Sadat is related to flying against Isis, so please do explain this] , but please accept that I did not accept your request to read your two comments as some form of a graded book report assignment.
As per your requests I did read both your comments, which you have only recited one, and I made what I believe are fair statements of some of the details you raised adding what I believed were gross mis-statements of fact with explanation. I do see you again have not responded to my comments here but have only restated your own claiming I am some form of an imperialist, your cultural inability to keep the conversation on the message at work again.
Regarding Glicks commentary, she has a lot of videos, and she is fairly anti-Russian in her outlook. I saw no reason to state this, being unfamiliar with the specific video and therefore her specific comment, which you did not specifically cite and such details would be helpful to the purpose you seem to be demanding here. Honestly, Putin does not need me for his public relations center, and if he does, he can jolly well send me a check for my efforts LOL.
I have nothing to add to your statements on the OUN-B, or Auschwitz or
The CIA has been involved in many bad things and Isis is just one of these. They also worked towards unseating a US president in the not too distant past.
I addressed the unbalanced hatred of Russians in a post to Reader so look it up and have a read.
I did address the failings of the Israeli leadership and have written at length on the topic previously, and did not stray from your statement but thought I agreed with you… I think your condescending outlook towards me is really affecting reading here.
It does seem you are not content to only write your own comments but to request me to comment on your comments and then comment that my comments on your comments were not very accurate without detailing how my comment inaccurately commented on your comments, and for my efforts I am characterized as some kind of imperialist. It isn’t true. I am a staunch democrat, small ‘d’, and I have no interest in dominating any foreign lands, particularly not the distant lands of Russia or Ukraine or any other lands you care to raise. You are fixated on low borne conversations which bear only toxic characterizations and unpleasant accusations as you seem to believe is some form of cultural birthright – I should see a doctor about this as it isn’t usually natural. This is why I have chosen to give you a bit of a wide birth – just a bit – unless I find something in your statements terribly striking. I only made my previous statements due to your own request for me to do so, and I see that this might have been a mistake as you seem not to have read them and certainly didn’t respond to them. I really have no more time to spend on this wearisome conversation. If you actually care to have a conversation instead of tossing personal aspersion at me, I look forward to the opportunity of breaking down the cultural divide that seems to prevent you from directly addressing what I state rather than my personal character, for which you are no honest judge and aim well wide of the mark. Chow for now.
I am deeply concerned that no one has mentioned Trotsky or the treaty of Utrecht.
This post is a little long but still is a tiny percentage of the verbiage of Peloni on this site.
I’ve taken my original post and to show how Peloni sets about confusing readers of what I said and mainly by omission or abnoxious and biased choice of quote.
Not only is the ideology of Peloni filled with American Imperialist hatreds and prejudices towards Russia but his method of arguing not unexpectedly is the same noxious.
Basically this guy has proceeded to distort my post starting with it is normal. What I wrote is not what he claims I wrote.
So I will go back to what I wrote and see what he did with it
Quoting my post
It is normal that since Russia has to deal with vicious hatred on so wide a scale that it will treasure and not forget true friends. They must now be massively disappointed in Jewish leaders.
FQPeloni does refer to this but he distorts what I say in the above and distorts badly. Israel has not proven to be a true friend or any friend to Russia and Russia will not forget or forgive. On this to this moment Peloni has not defended Russia from Glick in video posted here by Ted.
The Hitler Stalin Pact was awful and they know it. But from Barbarossa on they lost 30 million, they eliminated four fifths of the Wehrmacht and they won the war. They also defeated this wretched OUN of Lviv Pogrom infamy. And liberated Auschwitz. So I do understand them.
FQ
Peloni just hated what I wrote in this piece. Here Peloni takes out 2 things and ignored the rest Typical Peloni the man who is so much for debate is a false and dangerous person to have around in debate of great issues. Russia did win the war in the context I used that is the Nazis were defeated BECAUSE OF THE RUSSIAN STRUGGLE. Peloni distorts the context of the point one more time of now hundreds of times on Israpundit. So noxious! Without the Russian struggle the Nazis would have won the war. As Reader affirms Russia won the war for humanity.
And worse I have seen the barbs to Russia from Caroline Glick in video on this site and no change from anywhere.
FQ I have already noted this. I’m the only person who picked up on Glick attacking Russia and siding with the Fascists. Peloni ignored the conduct of Glick and then my remark above. Maybe it did not suit to deal with but that’s how Peloni operstes. I think it’s fundamental
And also we know that the American CIA which Israel backed CREATED ISIS. And Sadat had to fight alone for years AGAINST REBELS AND ISIS before Russia helped in the air.
FQ In the above I move very briefly onto this issue. It is of great importance. It was discussed long ago on Israpundit and I still feel Israeli leaders betrayed. Peloni simply ignored. What’s new!
Under these leaders I fear for Jews. What they the leaders have done cannot now be repaired.
FQ And finally I end with a very weighty statement. Peloni of course ignored this. Peloni has reduced my post to a couple of MINOR things which he anyway distorted the meaning of.
And that is the method of PELONI. I can take any other situation and it is the same. The ideology which is American Imperialist is poison and the way of proceeding in argument matches.
@Reader
For a nation to acknowledge their lack of means or interests in thwarting the will of a bordering nation, and subsequently signing diplomatic arrangements with them is not a crime, it is in fact a survival tactic. Indeed, similarly to Poland, this is what motivated Russia into signing their agreement with Germany, but by forming an agreement to simultaneously invade the nation of Poland, Russia had a full share in starting the war, and in the process, they violated international law by doing so. Hence the crime was not that Russia sought to avoid war with Germany, it is that they facilitated Germany’s war on Poland by they themselves having planned and executed this same crime against a neutral nation. There was no stretch of the imagination that could defend this decision based on the inernational definition of Carolinian self-defense by invading a neutral nation, not even today after the definition has been bizarrely reinterpreted. All the fears and claims made against Russia in the years preceding the war were solidified and validated by that single savage act, and it was once again reinforced at the end of the war when Russia’s liberation of Eastern Europe led to their capture for some 40yrs.
The actions of Britain and Poland were not war crimes. Nations make choices, or they should, based on self interest to the level that their ability allows them to pursue those interests. This is to be distinguished by the fact that crimes violate laws, and there was no law stating that Britain and Poland should aid Russia, or provide treaty alliances with them or allow Russian troops into a foreign nation – this would require some level of deep trust between two nations which had enormous trust issues based on their shared history going back some time. As I have described above, Russia did violate international law, despite their attempts to seek remedies that would have been lawful.
Under this same level of criminal activity as you subscribe to England and Germany, you could try to suggest the isolationism of the US was a similar crime to the German-Russian plot to divide Poland. Such tangential choices rewritten as criminal activity to defend Mother Russia would be equally specious as the ones you have already made. They are not crimes, they are choices, choices that were in line with the interests of their nations as they had every right to judge them for themselves. Russia had no right to invade Poland. This seems pretty simple, I think.
@Reader
I am sorry, but you are wrong. Felix made the assertion just below but used the figure of 4/5 of the Wehrmacht, which was the basis of my comment to which you responded. His exact words:
I honestly do not believe this is true. The administrative needs from Germany of controlling and destroying Russia would have been enormous, so the victory dividend would not have been as strong as you might suspect. But it is an opinion, so hold to it as you like. The what if scenarios are tantilizing and terrifying, but the history is still what it is, and the war was fought and won with the combined forces of all the Allies and to suggest otherwise is just propaganda. Enormous contributions and sacrifices were made by all involved, sadly.
@peloni
The 1st country to sign a pact with Germany was Poland in 1934.
It was the Great Britain who helped start the war by giving the Nazi Germany a free hand in the East, conducting “the strange war” when Poland was attacked, refusing to sign a pact with the USSR against Germany, and it was Poland who said that if such a pact is signed it wouldn’t let the Soviet military into the Polish territory.
What about THEIR war crimes?
WWII was the war of the West against Russia, same as today.
@peloni
Absolutely not.
No one said that the Soviets destroyed 3/4 of the Wermacht but most of the dead and missing German soldiers (~3.5 million) fell or went missing on the Eastern front, and American companies worked for Germany – in Germany – throughout the war, the whole Europe was Hitler’s factory.
If the Soviets had lost in Stalingrad, the US and Britain would have signed a separate peace with Germany and would have divided the “Eurasia” among themselves.
The US didn’t open the 2nd front until they realized that the Soviet Army was going to drive the Germans back into Germany.
@Reader
@Felix
Very True!
@FelixQuigley
I don’t mix COVID and Ukraine, I am saying that the “free” people rushed to condemn and sanction anyhing Russian the same way they rushed to get vaccinated during COVID.
The behavior is the same.
Ukraine has nothing to do with COVID.
@Felix
There is no confusion here, or not by me, at least. You cited the Hitler-Stalin Pact in the comment to which you asked me to respond. You further asserted the Russians won the war and I noted that they helped start the war. It is not an unrelated issue, in fact it was a war crime for which they were never charged, victor’s rights and all. Where’s the confusion??
@Reader
What?? This is completely untrue. The Americans fought in Europe, North Africa, and Italy, as well as in the Pacific til the end of the war…
I also didn’t mention the Free Polish nor the Free French, nor the Egyptians, nor the Australians…. It wasn’t my intent to disparage any of these people nor the British, who played a vital role in not surrendering to the Germans, similar to Russia and unlike France. It was just outside the context of refuting the statement Russia “eliminated four fifths of the Wehrmacht” and that they “won the war”. In fact, the British were responsible for holding the Germans off in Egypt while they also landed troops in Casablanca disguised as Americans. The Brits also fought in Sicily alongside the US, in Greece, …Well, I think all of this is very interesting, of course, but quite tangential to my previous comment.
Regarding Lend Lease, the US financed the war and did so well before they entered it. They did so before entering it and supplied much needed weapons and munitions. Whereas the details and amounts are interesting, I am again not sure what point you are making here…
As I noted before, the Russians suffered terribly in the war, but they played a role in supporting Germany’s aggression, committing war crimes in doing so. They did not win the war, nor did they eliminate 4/5 of the German state. It was a cooperative operation by all parties involved, that means everyone, and should not be portrayed as being exclusively associated with the actions or sacrifices of any one nation.
Reader
Thanks for remembering that discussion. Those who bring up the Stalin Hitler pact in the PRESENT CONTEXT always but always seek to confuse.
Most often to DELIBERATELY confuse.
Well I do think that at the very least they are on the side of Fascists. And then it is ipso facto very arguable they are Fascists.
I do not attack personally but politically told you that before!!!
Reposting from 05-06-22 about everyone’s contribution in WWII:
https://www.israpundit.org/moscow-under-fire-for-hitler-comments-says-israel-backing-neo-nazis-in-ukraine/comment-page-1/#comment-63356000249276
Reader
May 6, 2022 at 3:56 am
@Sebastien Zorn
“Both the Soviet Union and the West appeased Hitler in the 30s”
Not quite.
The West (mainly the British) was appeasing Hitler in order to give him “a free hand in the East” so he could later attack the Soviet Union (I read a whole lecture on the subject by a historian online years ago, and there is also a book online about it with documents on every page).
The first country to sign a pact with Hitler’s Germany was Poland (in 1934), and Poland in 1938 chopped off a piece of Czechoslovakia after Munich.
The USSR tried to make a defense pact with France and Britain but the negotiations failed because Poland refused to let the Soviet military enter its territory under any circumstances.
The Soviets knew they were going to be attacked, and they also knew that they wouldn’t have time to prepare, so their best strategy was to push their borders as far to the West as possible and do a replay of the 1812 Napoleonic war (they also knew it would result in huge casualties for them in the beginning).
This strategy resulted in the signing of the non-aggression pact with Hitler’s Germany in 1939 and dividing Poland, taking the Western Ukraine and Belorussia, etc.
This also resulted in having to present Germany for 2 years to the Soviet public as an ally which messed things up in the minds of the public when the USSR was attacked by Germany in 1941.
I am not arguing that Jews owe anyone human anything
But [emphasis mine]:
“The President of Russia recalled that of the six million Jews tortured in ghettoes and death camps and killed by the Nazis during punitive operations, 40 percent were Soviet citizens,” the Kremlin press service noted. “In turn, Naftali Bennett highlighted the Red Army’s decisive contribution to Victory over Nazism.”
https://www.rt.com/news/555039-putin-lavrov-israel-apology/
Lend-Lease:
I already mentioned the amounts of the Lend-Lease help supplied by the US to different countries, and that the USSR received 1/5 of the total (slightly more than 1/3 of the amount received by the United Kingdom).
This was helpful but not decisive – if the Soviets hadn’t transferred their manufacturing and workforce to the East and reestablished the factories there when the war started, they couldn’t have continued the war based on the Lend-Lease amount alone.
“And Germany was fighting a three front war, the US in France and Italy,”
It took the Allies a year to get from the French coast to Germany, and, in parallel, a year to conquer the south of Italy, this is considering the fact that the Germans much preferred surrendering to the Americans than to the Russians.
Reposting the Lend-Lease info from 05-06-22:
Most of the Lend-Lease went to the British:
A total of $50.1 billion (equivalent to $690 billion in 2020) worth of supplies was shipped, or 17% of the total war expenditures of the U.S.[2] In all, $31.4 billion went to the United Kingdom, $11.3 billion to the Soviet Union, $3.2 billion to France, $1.6 billion to China, and the remaining $2.6 billion to the other Allies.
Americans fought the Japanese until the D-Day in June of 1944.
The British were in the ME or around there somewhere?
The Soviet Army in June-August 1944:
https://www.historynet.com/operation-bagration-soviet-offensive-of-1944/
@peloni
The VAST majority of the dead, missing, and wounded German soldiers were on the Eastern front.
I already posted the information about the Lend-Lease and I am going to repost it on this thread in case you didn’t see it.
In brief, the USSR defeated the Nazi Germany almost singlehandedly while the US won the war.
Looking at the current events I think that in WWII the USSR was the only country (and also Serbia and Greece who had strong partisan movements) who fought against Nazi Germany.
The easily obtainable reports state that from 13,6 Million to 17 million German soldiers served in WW2. That in Russia there were approximately 3.2 million, in killed, taken prisoner and missing..
The subject is still very controversial amongst record seekers and historians.
@Reader
Sadly, your description of events is all too lucidly accurate. The open theft of property, denial of medical treatments, canceling of Olympic participation, the list is long, and it stretches from the marginally silly to the seriously horrific. The lack of a serious approach by international leaders to handle international affairs has become seriously disturbing in the extreme. I lived thru much of the Cold War, and the reason we all survived the perilous potential of everyone being baked alive at any given moment was due to the serious and considerate manner which the leaders on either side approached this stark reality. At the end of this terrible age, which I really had accepted would not end in my lifetime, the world has to accept the reality that the Soviets cured themselves of the Soviet doctrine, and by doing so, they ended the Cold War and saved the world the need to pass the unpleasantness of the senseless Duck and Cover training to future generations. The lessons of the wise stewardship of that age should be easily recalled by many of the world leaders today, as too many of them were from the late Cold War age. Sadly, it is as if they were born a century from now and never gained the sense of how to act in public, much less on the world stage. There reckless abandonment of rationality truly does appear as a second childhood, and for some at least, a strong argument is made to this point, by these second children themselves. Whereas the West succeeded in surviving the Cold War, their continued Cold War theme has completely dispensed with the deliberative diplomatic manner that actually was the very reason they succeeded in avoiding a nuclear war with Soviet Russia.
@Felix
This is easily not true. The war was not won by Russia, nor by England. They each fought a war to save their nations from a truly evil onslaught that was forced upon them by an aggressor nation. Furthermore, Russia facilitated Germany’s war by supporting the obliteration of Poland, it was not an act of defense that they swallowed whole half of Poland in cooperation with the Nazi’s they later faced. It was a strategic move to remedy the fact that Russia could not gain any alliance against Germany, and Stalin so recently purged off his better generals, in typical Stalinist motif. So they made a gentleman’s agreement with the devil and the agreement advantaged each while facilitating the murder of an inocent nation.
Meanwhile, it is a defensible statement that America won the war, like it or not. It was US dollars, tanks and manufacturing that aided both England and Russia in their fight, long before the US entered the war. It was America involvement in North Africa with the second front that led, after a bit of a stumble, to pushing Rommel out of North Africa. It was America’s involvement in Italy and France that led to the second and third fronts in Europe. It was the US who alone, basically, fought the Japanese empire til the last month of the war.
Still, whereas I say the statement that the US won the war was defensible, I would really dispute this as well, though it is quite defensible. The truth is that such half truths defy reality and only serve political purposes, while they defame the dead of their well earned valor that came at a terrible cost to all who paid it. It was a cooperative arrangement between the allied nations and the partisans in occupied Europe and North Africa and the Pacific that brought defeat to Germany and Japan. I must confess that I was quite moved by Putin’s deference to the Americans who fought and died in his recent speech. It was a classy moment for him to have done so, and I very much appreciated his statement, having family who bled for their role in defeating the Nazi’s. His words spoke to the greater truth that we owe all the dead a greater honesty than singing to our own choir when referencing who owns the victory in the terrible tragedy of WW2. Russia suffered terribly in that war, and they also committed war crimes when they invaded Poland. Their role in the victory was significant, but they alone did not win the war, just as they did not fight the Nazi’s for any reason beyond one of self defense. They also later succeeded in doing what the Nazi’s first attempted, to seize and occupy eastern Europe against their will.
It is also true that much of the territory occupied was seized, not liberated, by Russia, but not 4/5. In typical fashion Russia likes to ignore the fact that all of North Africa was liberated without their aid, as well as Sicily and Italy and Western Europe. So the number is something less than 4/5, not to be petty, but it isn’t a fair statement.
@Felix
I quite agree and have said something similar many times. The Israeli position on Ukraine does not serve any purpose, it is an all risk, no benefit position, and only mires Israel in an issue for which they have no interest in addressing at all.
@Felix
It is not the act of an aggressor to have 180 bases. It is similar to charging someone is aggressive because they own 100 guns, it isn’t true. It might make the neighbors uncomfortable and perhaps cause the neighbor to buy 101 guns to satisfy their own defenses, but this fact of bases alone does not support the aggressor charge against NATO. The actions of the NATO in Yugoslavia and Libya support your charge against NATO, but not the bases. The bases support a Cold War mentality, but strong fences make good neighbors, and the bases, alone, are quite defensible given the fact the West never left its Cold War mentality, unfortunately.
@Felix
This claim is not an honest one. You have a tendency to assassinate the messenger as a method to counter the message, and by charging me as a hypocrite, you do so once again.
In my comments I mention that
Ad hominem attacks such as stating that anyone not supporting Putin is a Fascist would fall within the category of violating civility. It addresses the character of the individual and not the arguments made. Ted affords us an open space in this forum to discuss and debate without the spoiling voices of ad hominem charges. In doing so, he has attracted the voices an inputs of many intelligent and thoughtful voices, yours included, for which bullying tactics of ad hominem alter the context and lead towards censoring open debate, for which I would suggest you re-read my previous comment on the vileness I feel for such steps towards tyranny. Such bullying charges are 1. unfair, 2. ad hominem and 3. supportive of less open debate. It is Ted’s forum and he sets the standards, and I fully support his desire of championing the marketplace of ideas. I know that the claim has been made that this is only a cultural issue, and we have been about this barn too much to carry it further. In fact, I only return to discuss this well spent conversation, once more, because you have once again moved to make an ad hominem charge bringing my character and my sense of fairness into question, suggesting I am a hypocrite when I am not. I believe that the best way to address your baseless charge, therefore, is to blunt your charge with redrawing this seemingly endless conversation where it is claimed calling someone a fascist is sanctioned by some cultural claim of defense. I will say I am not aware of any cultural basis for charging people with baseless ad hominem attacks, and it is uncivil to do so. So, no hypocrisy here at all. I just don’t support your cultural tendency to call people fascists when they don’t agree that Putin is correct in this war or that there are Nazi’s fighting for Ukraine. It is simply a spurious charge to do so. Better to show someone they are wrong than to libel them with toxic charges addressing their character. You could easily show you are correct by not talking of the motivations of the person involved but the issue they raise of Putin and the Nazi’s themselves. It’s the message, it’s not the messenger.
Reader
You mix COVID and Ukraine. Why? So what’s your position on the Pandemic?
The virus was not created in the Wuhan LB. That’s racist fascist and is also BS.
I have made a whole number of points in posts IT IS NORMAL and MICHAEL
Do then Peloni deal with those posts if you are so strong on discussion please?
Of course.
And also note that I have been attacked personally, told and threatened with censor by the editor and Peloni said not a word, so listening to you seems hypocritical.
The purpose of discourse is understanding. Could you explain what you’re on about?
You’re triggered by my word COURTESY perhaps?
Well too bad.
I think it’s a fine word. And used well too.
@peloni
Thanks for clarifying and reminding me what happened with BK and Laura.
To me the most astonishing part of the recent events was the behavior of the West (the “free and democratic”) which is actually no different from the purest Stalinism/Maoism, except that the dissidents are not being sent yet to labor/re-education camps.
The punishment and ostracism of the political enemies including the cultural figures, sportsmen, and even cats(!) is purely totalitarian and, ironically, is not even remotely perceived as such by the “free, the brave, and the democratic” citizens of the West who rush to toe the line (the same way, BTW, most of them rushed to toe the line during COVID).
@Reader
In their last posts, they each referenced their strong disgust for ‘Putin apologists’ or something to this effect. I have surmised that they found the open dialogue debating the subject of Ukraine to be too unsupportive of their ties to the Russia-bad-narrative, which seems to be the highest ranking taboo for many in the west, and which has too long been held as such, IMO. It is not that there is no basis for this motto, but everything, in my opinion, should be open to a fair discussion so long as civility and no violence is advocated. Their desire to censor the Putin pundits would be easily matched by those who would seek to censor the Azov activists. Hence, the way to find out what is true and what is false is with an open discussion, a challenging debate and a thorough vetting of what is supportably true and what is actually propagandist narrative. Consequently, a censoring of censors is the best method to slay such sacred cows which lack any logical defense. I should add that censorship is the steady tool of tyranny and open debates are an able weapon by which tyrants are defeated, as tyrants have no interest in debates or ideas, only dictated commands and enforced censors.
In any event, for my part, as I have noted before, I regret their choice to part our company, as their voices too often added a valued contribution to what I have found to be a terribly important venue of discussion that is present here on Israpundit, and is present in far too few other localities. Yet, their participation was as voluntary as was their parting, so I wish them well, and hope for them to someday return, and once again add their voices back into the well of open debate, where we all can acknowledge that steel strengthens steel, and in the marketplace of ideas, everything should be capable of withstanding a credible challenge without inviting persecution or censorship.
@Michael
Well, I honestly wasn’t boasting about the coursework. I have always found that it is easier to learn from failure than it is from success, but I am a bit of a lazy fellow, motivated to do it well enough once and was lucky enough to spread myself to that purpose. That being said, I am quite tied to the 20th Century and am quite useless in some of the more useful tech and tools that my young niece is too well trained to teach “an over the hiller” as she chides me to be. The real truth in life is that the real lessons to be learned offer no certificates and no diplomas. Still, with all that being said, I count myself quite envious of your Masters degree in a subject I was quite well disposed towards pursuing, but found myself too tempted towards another path in its place. Oh well, time ticks by and you learn what you can and apply it were it fits, and this has been the fashion of my life it seems. Content enough with the outcome of it all as long as I don’t have to do it all over again, LOL.
@Felix
Is that why they’re having a civil war? Can anyone come? Is it open invitation? Syriously.
It is normal that since Russia has to deal with vicious hatred on so wide a scale that it will treasure and not forget true friends. They must now be massively disappointed in Jewish leaders. The Hitler Stalin Pact was awful and they know it. But from Barbarossa on they lost 30 million, they eliminated four fifths of the Wehrmacht and they won the war. They also defeated this wretched OUN of Lviv Pogrom infamy. And liberated Auschwitz. So I do understand them. And worse I have seen the barbs to Russia from Caroline Glick in video on this site and no change from anywhere. And also we know that the American CIA which Israel backed CREATED ISIS. And Sadat had to fight alone for years AGAINST REBELS AND ISIS before Russia helped in the air. Under these leaders I fear for Jews. What they the leaders have done cannot now be repaired.
Michael
I see your point
But they are not the same in that way. America is very much the aggressor entity with its 180 plus bases and NATO carrying this agression.
And how comfortable could Ukraine be if had learned to live with courtesy.
The same but more for Sweden and the treacherous Finns
@Felix. uh Uh. pass. Ha Ha.
@Sebastien Zorn
Bear Klein got angry and left the forum.
I think Laura did too.
I don’t remember whether it was because of the vaccine or Ukraine disagreements.
Sebastien now that you have poked your nose into the conversation just explain what I or Peloni said that’s Silly
Hi, Peloni. An interesting comment of yours:
I’ve failed more courses than I can remember, including English (twice), Choir, Phy. Ed, Typing, Calculus and Analytic Geometry. Still, I managed to get an MS in Chemistry in my late 50s. Some things take a while. The thing I like best about the prospect of eternity, is that there will apparently be enough time to finish things.
Felix, you also made an interesting comment:
I remember that in “Fiddler on the Roof”, the Rabbi prayed,
“God bless and keep the Czar… far away from us!”
…not hatred exactly, to be sure.
I am not rooting for any side in all these conflicts, not even the Israeli government and certainly not the US pseudo-administration. I was born an American, but lately I feel like a piece of stolen goods, being auctioned by crooks in Washington to the highest bidder. The Chinese people are in much the same situation, as are others as well. I don’t envy the citizens of any country.
I’m not awfully fond of bears, Peloni, especially the American Grizzly/ Brown Bear. The neighborhood I live in is frequented by Black Bears, along with cougars, coyotes, bobcats and rattlesnakes; and like the Czar, I pray that God bless them and keep them as far away from us as possible. I am much fonder of the deer, turkeys and other critters that seem to enjoy my company.
Israel has indeed been “poking the bear”, following the cue of its overlords in Washington and Davos. They do what they think they have to.
@ al This is a silly conversation and I can Bearly contain myself. so I’ll add to it. By the way, what ever happened to Bear Klein? Did Russophobic Bear hunters get him?
https://www.wesh.com/article/black-bear-lives-matter-signs-stir-controversy-1/4445064
@Felix
It wasn’t meant as an insult.
I never failed any course in my life, but I would surely fail a course on political correctness, as I still refer to any group of people as “men” regardless of how many might be women, and I have never met a ‘postal person’, just my postman, who is actually a young lady, or looks like one, though I am not sure what pronouns she prefers, nor what her gender might have been at birth, LOL, we live in an age of insanity. Just having a little fun here, but I meant no reproach here, neither for the Russians, nor for the bears.
I will note the phrase does rather fit Russia as they are a formidable nation with a massive army, which has demonstrated what I would describe as a massive level of restraint over the past years with the simmering war on her border and too many psyops aimed her way from that Borderland Nation which has never displayed any level of appreciable capability for governance or restraint. In short, when you challenge Russia, they may react or they may roll over, but they command quite an armed forces with a measure of sanity, judgement and deliberation. I have to note that this is quite a refreshing fact when compared to the ‘too many fingers in too many pies’ approach pursued by others. I honestly had quite a different opinion just a few months ago of this Bear nation, and I am quite better informed of them than I had been previously. That being said, I do hold to my historic perspectives on Russia. That, again, has nothing to do with my use of the adage ‘poking the bear’, the use of which I will likely never be broken.
By the way, I am quite fond of bears in general, and the American Grizzly in particular, so my fondness for them might lead some to think I was flattering the Russians with the phrase, but, again, I am stuck in my 20th Century ways and, to me, the phrase is just a phrase I use to make the point I made. Nothing more.
This expression POKING THE BEAR is used by many including by Meirsheimer. I have my own reasons for not using the term. It trivialises animals. And as there is hatred of Jews there’s also hatred of Russians. Both were in the Psyche of Hitler. It can lead into that…
And so the political divorce begins to ratchet up even further. The Israeli move away from Russia and towards Ukraine, of all political centers, is a great and obvious loss for Israel. The price-tag of such failed power brokering will be paid by the airmen, of course, rather than the politicians who will remain in place to continue enacting further failing policies of state. This was easily not unforeseen by anyone with half a functioning brain cell in place to rationalize the obvious follies of routinely Poking the Bear with Israel’s America First agenda , something that has been at the root of so many mistakes in such a short period of time with very far reaching consequences. Very regretful.