The line attracted enormous attention, but the words preceding the threat did not.

The official State Department transcript shows that she preceded her threat by saying that with regard to the pipeline: “We continue to have very strong and clear conversations with our German allies.”

Asked by a reporter how she could say with certainty that the Germans would go along “because what the Germans have said publicly doesn’t match what you’re saying,” Nuland responded with an astonishing bit of doubletalk: “I would say go back and read the document that we signed in July [of 2021] that made very clear about the consequences for the pipeline if there is further aggression on Ukraine by Russia.”

But that agreement, which was briefed to journalists, did not specify threats or consequences, according to reports in the Times, the Washington Post, and Reuters.

At the time of the agreement, on July 21, 2021, Biden told the press corps that since the pipeline was 99 percent finished, “the idea that anything was going to be said or done was going to stop it was not possible.” At the time, Republicans, led by Senator Ted Cruz of Texas, depicted Biden’s decision to permit the Russian gas to flow as a “generational geopolitical win” for Putin and “a catastrophe” for the United States and its allies.

But two weeks after Nuland’s statement, on February 7, 2022, at a joint White House press conference with the visiting Scholz, Biden signaled that he had changed his mind and was joining Nuland and other equally hawkish foreign policy aides in talking about stopping the pipeline.

As to the Black Sea Fleet HQ, Russia says the building was empty while Ukraine claims the usual: hundreds were killed including major generals.

There is no evidence of this. In fact Russia appeared to have some direct warning of the strike, so an evacuation—if the building was even used at all—would have made sense.

The reason we know this is because prior to the strike, odd smoke screens were detected in the area, whose purpose I’m still not 100% aware of myself:

This startling fact represents perhaps the first time ever in history that a conflict is witnessed to include two opposing sides capable of striking each other with advanced cruise missiles.

What other conflict have you ever seen where both sides actively and successfully launch long-ranged stand off cruise missiles at each other?

Certainly nothing NATO has ever seen.

This encapsulates the fact that this war is the most high-tech peer-level conflict in history.

On top of that, Ukraine has complained that Russia’s recent strikes are becoming increasingly complex (well, so are the Ukrainian ones for that matter).

Companies that make the weapons being used in Ukraine have won orders and resurrected production lines. The deployment of billions of dollars worth of equipment in a major land war has also given manufacturers and militaries a unique opportunity to analyze the battlefield performance of weapons, and learn how best to use them.

For all the Panzerhaubitze’s technical prowess, the war has shown the importance of being able to fix weapons on the battlefield. A simpler howitzer, the M777, has proven more reliable, but also more vulnerable to attack.

Debate around the performance of the two howitzers, and many other weapons, could help shape military procurement for years to come. At a major arms fair in London this month, exhibitors said they were frequently asked about the performance of their weapons in Ukraine.

The U.S. and European nations have sent billions of dollars worth of equipment to Ukraine from existing military stockpiles, and countries are now starting to replace some of that inventory amid a broader rise in military spending.

Global military spending rose for the eighth consecutive year in 2022 to a record high of $2.24 trillion, according to the Stockholm International Peace Research Institute, a think tank.

Artillery guns and the shells they fire, drones, missile-defense systems and multiple-rocket launchers are all heavily used in Ukraine.

Some of this equipment—made by the likes of BAE Systems, Rheinmetall, Lockheed Martin and RTX, formerly known as Raytheon Technologies—is now receiving orders or interest from potential buyers, arms makers say.

“People are looking at Ukraine and seeing what’s working,” said Tom Arseneault, the chief executive of the U.S. operations of BAE Systems.

The British defense giant says it is in talks with Kyiv about making its L199 artillery gun in Ukraine after it has proved useful and that orders for the shells used in the country have ramped up. The company also says it has received increased inquiries for its CV90 combat vehicle and the M777 based on their performance in the war.

While some countries are beginning to replace equipment sent to Ukraine, companies say that military procurement is typically slow, meaning many orders won’t materialize immediately.

The war is already affecting procurement decisions for the U.K., according to Gen. Patrick Sanders, the head of the British army. Other recent conflicts, including Syria, also influence procurement orders by the U.K., which has Europe’s largest military budget.

“You look for repeat patterns,” he said.

One lesson from Ukraine has been the importance of being able to do battlefield repairs, Sanders said.

That has proved particularly pertinent for howitzers, a class of mobile, long-barreled battlefield guns that fire shells and are the most widely used Western weapons in Ukraine.

A crew of Ukrainian artillerymen operating outside Bakhmut in eastern Ukraine praised the accuracy and rate of fire of the Panzerhaubitze. The weapon’s thick, high-grade steel offers protection in a way that other howitzers don’t, they said, citing how the weapon recently escaped a one-hour bombardment with just shrapnel marks.

The Panzerhaubitze, made by Rheinmetall and the German arm of KNDS, has secured orders from Berlin to replace units sent to Ukraine, while Kyiv has also signaled interest in buying the big gun.

The constant use of the Panzerhaubitze, though, has led to breakdowns, according to Ukrainian artillerymen. One of the machines operated by the Bakhmut crew caught fire and had to be taken back to Germany, and the electronics in the automatic loading process malfunctioned in another. It is now loaded manually.

The weapon’s makers attribute problems to a combination of being fired too much and a lack of servicing. “If they take care of the electronics, it works,” said Armin Papperger, Rheinmetall’s CEO.

Papperger said the war is showing how fast barrels wear out. Rheinmetall has now tripled its production of gun barrels for armored fighting vehicles.

On average, less than 70% of Ukraine’s foreign howitzers are operating at any one time, according to Col. Serhiy Baranov, chief of the main directorate of missile troops and artillery and unmanned systems of the Ukrainian Armed Forces.

The mainly British-made M777 is in action more than other foreign howitzers, Baranov said, at about 85% of the time, because it is easier to fix and there are more spare parts.

The U.S. recently finished training Ukrainians on “truck-size” 3-D printers that can make spare parts for equipment including troop carriers and artillery, Pentagon acquisition chief Bill LaPlante told journalists earlier this month.

Artillerymen also say they find the M777 easier to learn to operate and very accurate, and that its lightweight titanium parts make it easier to move across muddy fields.

Still, the need to be towed means the M777 is slower to move and more vulnerable to counterfire. The big gun’s lightweight parts also make it more susceptible to damage from shrapnel, operators say.

BAE Systems, the company that makes the M777, said that after increased inquiries the company has a plan to restart production, though only if interest turns into orders.

Ukraine has put some Western equipment to the test in a more intense environment than it has previously been deployed.

The CV90, for example, saw combat in Afghanistan and Liberia, but “it’s totally different to what we are seeing in Ukraine,” said Dan Lindell, director of combat vehicles at the Swedish unit of BAE Systems that makes the armored carrier.

Companies that make some of those weapons have won fresh orders and boosted production. Since the war began, the U.S. Army has awarded Lockheed Martin $630 million in contracts to manufacture Himars for itself and allies.

Meanwhile, RTX is increasing production of its Patriot missile defense system to 12 a year, and plans to deliver five more to Ukraine by the end of next year. Its software has been tweaked to enable it to destroy hypersonic missiles.

“Successful operation allows manufacturers to write ‘proven in combat,’ which helps sales,” said Nicholas Drummond, a former British army officer who runs defense-industry consulting firm AURA Consulting Ltd.

Some military analysts say another lesson is that not enough time was spent training Ukrainian operators in the haste to get them back onto the battlefield. The Ukrainian artillerymen received five weeks of training on the Panzerhaubitze. German operators typically train for four months.

Other Western howitzers have also had problems amid constant use. An operator of the Polish howitzer, the AHS Krab, said one machine was being used so intensively that its barrel tore off.

Her job got more difficult after U.S. Customs and Border Protection released data Friday showing that 304,162 people entered the country illegally in August – a new record.

Let us not be caught out by the performative sentiments offered at today’s surprise press conference just now;

Mr Andrews deserves the sharpest of words as he retreats from office only ten months after his government was re-elected.

He described Anthony Albanese as “a dear friend of mine for nearly three decades” who “knows how to build things [and] get things done”.

If it is Mr Andrews’ perception that the Albanese Government is on track to deliver the needs of the Australian people, I would suggest he is possessed of a particularly poor judgement – unless those needs include bulldozing North Queensland’s World Heritage-listed rainforests, censoring free speech and enshrining a race-based advisory body into the Constitution.

Of course, the apple falls not so far from the tree, and the nightmarish policies of the federal Labor Party are alive and well in Australia’s second most populated state.

Mr Andrews has done more to destabilise the economic and social fabric of Victoria than many of his recent predecessors.

As he departs Spring Street, hopefully never to return in any sort of political or administrative capacity, he leaves behind – literally – a bankrupted state.

Victoria’s projected net debt by 2027 is $171.4 billion, or 25 per cent of its gross product – the highest projected net debt of any state in Australian history.

Last financial year, Victorians paid $10.6 million dollars in interest every day, billed daily for the fiscal ineptitudes of a carefree government.

The city of Melbourne, as a result of Mr Andrews’ explicit directives, holds the record as the most locked-down city in the world during the COVID-19 pandemic.

A whole generation of school children and an uncountable number of businesses and institutions were sacrificed on Mr Andrews’ altar of public safety.

For a man who claims to be transparent, Mr Andrews’ personal affairs remain shrouded in mystery.

The people of Victoria know virtually nothing of the circumstances that led to a life-threatening back injury in 2021, and scant few details surrounding his four day state-sponsored excursion to Beijing in March this year.

Equally, the circumstances that led to the cancellation of the 2026 Commonwealth Games – those being related to their price tag – are difficult to stomach, particularly in light of Mr Andrews’ irresponsible economic approach to several other matters.

In this year alone, he has been referred to Victoria’s Independent Broad-based Anti-corruption Commission (IBAC) more than once, appearing most recently in July over concerns regarding political donations from property developer John Woodman.

It is publicly unknown just how many times Mr Andrews has fronted the anti-corruption commission.

A self-proclaimed Catholic, Mr Andrews voted for same-sex marriage, supports Australia toppling its stable Crown for a partisan president, and, only a week after the fated ‘Let Women Speak’ rally, announced a funding package of $900,000 for various organisations to provide “essential” transgender services.

There has to be at least one contradiction in all of that – but, of course, an ever-modest Mr Andrews told today’s cameras: “Trying to be popular, you know, that’s not worth much.”

Most reprehensible to me, however, is that in 2018 the Andrews Government introduced the concept of medically supervised injecting rooms; that is, a clinic where drug addicts may legally inject themselves with illegal drugs.

Legislation enacted this year now makes permanent one such clinic in Richmond, the North Richmond Community Health centre, which, abhorrently, is only 65m from Richmond West Primary School.

Since 2019, it has been reported that illegal drugs may be dealt legally within close proximity to the North Richmond Community Health Centre, whereby drug dealers – yes, drug dealers – are permitted to carry up to thirty “hits” of heroin.

Police have been instructed “not to patrol the area around the facility”, so according to The Age.

This is just one of the lesser-known, more reprehensible social policies brought into effect by the Andrews Government.

That same government, reported by The Guardian in August last year, has a blanket rule in place to vote against any private members’ bills, regardless of the bill itself.

In other words, Daniel Andrews is seemingly more interested in maintaining the status quo of party politics than he is in identifying and implementing the very best legislative ideas for the people of Victoria.

In today’s press conference, Mr Andrews described himself as a man who is not “regretful”.

“Legacy is for other people to determine,” he said.

“Leadership is about subjecting yourself to the judgement, the almost continuous judgement, of others.

“I’m not a regretful person.

“I don’t look back.”

– The early end to one of the worst politicians to ever grace the shores of Australia.

Thank God he is gone, but there will be more of the same with the next marxist fool promoted to Premier.

– he leaves behind – literally – a bankrupted state.

– Broke state, massive debts.

But that’s why the left kept voting himback.

The left are very happy with Dan.

Now Albo will fulfil the same promises to the left.

On a parched field, in the rolling hills and gum tree landscape outside Orange, a gang of three TV production staff are preparing to be splattered with fake blood. The group, part of the crew and creatives behind SBS series While the Men Are Away, are wearing white plastic raincoats and chattering nervously as a machine hooked up to air-pressure tanks is test-loaded with dark red liquid before them.

“It’s gotta be right across the face,” says production designer Alicia Clement. A small crowd gathers, throwing encouraging words. The machine’s button is released and, with a loud bang, the trio’s cheeks, necks and chests are showered in a viscous claret-hued fluid.

The assembled crew clap with relief.

“Bullseye,” Clement says, wiping sticky red droplets from her nose.

As the setting sun turns the clouds above pink, week six of the dramedy series’ shoot in central NSW is readying for a crucial scene. Metres away, a shiny red tractor and hay baler, the centrepiece of the proposed blood-splattering scene, waits with its engine rumbling. Beside it, actors Michela De Rossi and Bryce Youngman, playing husband and wife Francesca and Harry Whitmore, shiver in the suddenly cold dusk.

Their blood-doused scene, a flashback, will answer a defining question at the beginning of the series’ eight episodes: where has Harry gone?

Set in the 1940s in a town called Bush, with filming locations including NSW towns Orange, Millthorpe and Carcoar, along with a sliver of Sydney, While the Men Are Away is a queer reimagining of rural and urban Australia during World War II and focuses on the women and the few men left behind as the enlisted fight overseas.

The war rages far away, but five characters, variously yearning for freedom, friendship, sex and love, band together on a suffering apple farm to discover themselves while countering threats from locals, in-laws, government restrictions, the law and social mores of the time.

Leading the charge is De Rossi’s character Francesca, known as Frankie, an Italian immigrant and wife of farm-owner Harry Whitmore, who has enlisted in the war.

Haunted by her past, she is having a secret affair with Rita, a local married woman, but also shares a bigger secret with local indigenous farmhand Kathleen, played by Phoebe Grainer, who lives at an Aboriginal mission, and conscientious objector Robert, played by Matt Testro, whose father has been left traumatised by World War I.

Joining them one hot sunny day are two city recruits of the Women’s Land Army, the jolly and privileged Gwen, played by Max McKenna, and the unhappily engaged Esther, played by Jana Zvedeniuk.

The biggest threat to the world these characters begin to strive for is Frankie’s brother-in-law, Des Whitmore, played by Benedict Hardie.

A sexist spiv with a fancy car, he has plans to build a prisoner-of-war camp on the farm, which he now owns, and unwanted desires on Frankie, who needs his money to continue the farm.

“With all the men away, and being a weak, non-alpha, cowardly, foolish buffoon of a male, now is Des’s time to shine,” Hardie says. “He’s going to step up and become the new rooster in town, in his own eyes and no one else’s.

“Privilege, insensitivity and ignorance has allowed people like him to be oblivious to the fact that women might be gaining autonomy or queer people might be confident in their identity.

“He is 100 per cent a creature of the 1940s, has no reason for modern thoughts to enter his mind and is absolutely besotted with his brother’s wife, who is not interested at all. But, she is canny and smart and a survivor and she knows she needs to keep him on her side.”

The show, created by Alexandra Burke, Kim Wilson and Monica Zanetti, is a glimpse into characters not normally explored in wartime dramas, at a time when life was traditionally dictated by male figures.

Showrunner and co-writer Kim Wilson (Deadloch, Wentworth, The Lost Flowers of Alice Hart) says she was particularly interested in how rapid social changes of the time affected people.

“There really was a fizz in the air,” she says. “Women receiving their first paychecks ever. Massive. Such a huge thing. But, once you’ve experienced that new sense of autonomy, can you go back? Or do you find a different way?”

Wilson and the show’s co-creators were also keen the series should feel contemporary. “Because who they were, and what they’re going through, are things that still have resonance for today as well,” she says.

“When we talk about the war [in drama], we’re not talking about these people who worked on the farm. We talk about people at war. Now it’s time to tell other stories.”

Consequently, While the Men Are Away, which is directed by Elissa Down and Zanetti, has a modern, switched-on tone against the era’s stiff manners, flowery dresses, and doily-covered side tables. It combines whip-smart comedy, true poignancy, trailblazing messages for present-day and various nods to the recent past.

One character quips they “don’t hold the hose”, echoing former prime minister Scott Morrison’s quote. Kathleen, faced with the idea of matrimony, responds, “To hell with marriage. It’s just another colonial assimilation tool”.

With the men away, a 12-year-old boy is running the bank, and Bush’s three busybodies are called Mrs Bushell, Miss Arnott and Mrs Toohey. Meanwhile, the women on the farm are discovering the vibratory qualities of the seat of the tractor, labelled the Power Bottom 3000, when its revs are high.

“We don’t undercut things with comedy when it’s important to lean into the emotion of it,” Wilson says. “We’ve basically set out to write a show about the people we would have hung out with if we had lived during that time.

“I’ve always been in a queer, Bohemian, arty kind of circle. And those kinds of circles throughout history have always fascinated me. The Bloomsbury set. The cabaret scene in Berlin in the ’20s. Those are the times when anything seems possible. We wanted to capture that feeling incorporated with modern concepts.”

While the script doesn’t feature words that weren’t used in 1940s Australia, it does allude to concepts such as the #MeToo movement. Characters question traditional man-woman marriage and parenthood, the abuse of power, the fate of nature and the planet.

The two Land Girls, Gwen and Esther, discover freedoms and strengths they never expected after arriving to work on Frankie’s farm.

Max McKenna, whose character Gwen discovers her true self after developing a deep bond with Frankie, says they were drawn to the series because of the depth of the script and characters.

“We have such a range of ridiculous comedy,” they say. “I have a lot of physical comedy in the show, but then there’s these heartbreaking, trauma drama scenes that I don’t think you get a lot of, especially in Australia.

“Shows are either solely comedy or solely drama. This series really does dramedy well. But, it also tells stories about this time that we haven’t heard yet, from five different people’s perspectives.

“When we talk about the war [in drama], we’re not talking about these people who worked on the farm. We talk about people at war. Now it’s time to tell other stories. What were the lesbians doing back then? We all want to know that. It’s really cool.”

De Rossi, who lives in Italy, says working with McKenna has opened her eyes to different perspectives in real life.

“This person [McKenna] taught me a lot of stuff,” she says. “I had never used pronouns in my life. I grew up [doing this series]. I’m a much more respectful person and I’ve learnt a lot about the queer world. We don’t talk about that [in Italy]. I’m so proud to bring this with me in my country, which is 50 years back in the past with this stuff.”

While the Men Are Away also explores racism towards immigrants such as Frankie and the government’s treatment of First Nations people.

Grainer, a Kuku Djungan, Muluridji, Wakaman, Tagalaka, Kunjen, Warrgamay and Yindinji woman from Far North Queensland, says her character, Kathleen, is a strong person dealing with life with few rights.

“She’s surviving the realities of the political and social climate she lives in,” she says. “But then she finds this little gang of misfits who see her in a real way. She allows herself to have hope. This wonderful hope that she will be free and able to be someone who is seen for herself.”

As fading shafts of sun hit the surrounding hills, the other star of the series, Ammerdown Homestead, is lit with light. Built in 1906, with vast grounds, landscaped gardens, sweeping driveways and original brick and wood barn buildings and stables, the main house is the home of Frankie.

Traditional portraits of just-married Frankie and Harry line the walls, but closer inspection reveals biscuit tins, telegrams, and advertisements in open magazines illustrated with each episode’s opening titles.

Production designer Clements, fresh-faced after her blood-flecked experience, says she is passionate about period drama, particularly a highly created world.

“It’s a unique world with its own flavour and colours,” she says. “Alex Burke, the creator, said to me in the interview process, she didn’t want any sepia, any olde-worlde tones. There’s an otherworldly, kind of magic-realism feeling all around us.

“There’s the pop of the bright, luscious hay baler, which we call the death machine. It’s in the wallpaper, the trucks and all of costume designer Nina Edwards’ incredible costumes.

“In every stage of creating this world, in every room and location, we’ve gone with the bolder choice. Even though we’re setting this against the hues of the Australian landscapes, the historic Ammerdown homestead’s paler palette, nothing is beige.”