Satellite internet functionality via Starshield — the military version of the SpaceX service — was being at least partially restored Thursday morning, according to a source in the Ukrainian Defense Ministry.
Ukraine has resumed strikes on Russian oil refineries after President Volodymyr Zelenskyy angrily accused the United States of betraying Kyiv with a “dangerous” withdrawal of support critical to its defense against Russia.
Ukraine held off on attacks for three days after Donald Trump’s unilateral “energy ceasefire” announcement, but accused Russia of repeatedly attacking its power grid. Zelenskyy voiced mounting frustration over the Kremlin’s failure to abide by the truce, and what he sees as U.S. attempts to pressure Kyiv after gaps in intelligence sharing on Russian attacks and restrictions on the Starlink internet service.
Satellite internet functionality via Starshield — the military version of the SpaceX service — was being at least partially restored Thursday, according to a source in the Ukrainian Defense Ministry, who spoke on the condition of anonymity due to the sensitivity of the topic.
In an interview with the Financial Times, published Thursday, Zelenskyy indicated his patience had already been exhausted.
Yes… But there was a notable exception with Japan. And I’m not saying obliteration is strategically better than targeted strikes achieving the same in terms of military targets.
Both Hiroshima and Nagasaki were important strategic targets. Hiroshima was a heavily industrialized factory city as well as a major logistics and supply hub. Nagasaki was…an industrialized city producing war materials with a major port and was a major shipping hub.
Both bombs served specific strategic purposes in destroying the Japanese war effort. It wasn’t just “let go blow up some japs lol”.
True, but it was something of a balancing act between multiple motivations. The USA talked up the strategic importance of the targets, but they also wanted to create a psychological impact.
IIRC Japan had already internally agreed to surrender, the nuclear strikes were as much for USSR’s benefit (ie to scare them) as they were for finalising the war.
I’ll have to go back and check but my recollection is the Japanese positions shifted from
(position for months when the tide turned and the allies approached) “defend the home islands to the last child you can strap a bomb to” (literally, the plan included unwilling suicide bombers not just kamikaze) - kill as many million Allied troops as can be done by any means possible (including civilians attacking).
(A couple of days before the nukes) “Oh hell the USSR is going to get here first and that is worse than the western allies quick overturn the govt and supply surrender terms that aren’t terrible to the americans” (I’m fuzzy on exactly who possibly the rest of cabinet)
Americans ignore surrender offer in order to cowe USSR as well as Japan, forcing an unconditional surrender rather than the managed surrender that Japan offered, and prove the nukes really worked. (The first bomb is somewhat ethically defensible, the second quite honestly isnt from my perspective)
If anyone is a historical guru feel free to correct, it’s been years since I read it.
Key differences to the “general” story in the west is that Japan offered surrender before the nukes were dropped, and the allied command who ordered the bombing DID know. Attempts have been made to justify it as “they didn’t know that japan was willing to surrender - it was a comms gap”. The desire to intimidate the USSR was also not released until decades later
Edit to add “western” in front of allies in point 2 - USSR were indeed our allies at that point, although there was a plan, and serious consideration to do so, to keep rolling East from Berlin after Germany surrendered