The Sunday Ops Desk Report

Were we actually at war with Russia?

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Apr 13, 2025

We live in an age where the news comes hard and fast – stories that should be major news sometimes slip past us. We may have just seen among the worst examples of just such a story.

In a stunning recent article, New York Times reporter Adam Entous detailed the United States’ involvement in the war in Ukraine in remarkable detail. The reason behind his level of access is murky, but his sourcing appears impeccable. The shocking article was met with a yawn by most of the media, with the notable exception of Matt Taibbi’s Racket News coverage. Even The New York Times did little to promote it; try searching for the article on their digital page. You’ll be scrolling for hours.

Before we dissect our government’s actions and decry their behavior, it is important to keep in mind who started the war in Ukraine. It was Vladimir Putin and the Russian military. All debate as to the reasons aside, the Russian military invaded a sovereign nation—again.

However, what Entous relates is nothing short of terrifying. It appears that we were doing quite a bit more than providing weapons and financing to Ukraine. The United States was a very active participant in the war and apparently had the world teetering on the edge of a nuclear war.

You read that right.

The American people were, naturally, left in the dark about the disturbing level of our involvement. It is unknown if even Congress was aware of our government’s actions. There was certainly no request for an Authorization for the Use of Military Force.

It seems that the Biden Administration was muddying the definition of “use of force” to a dangerous – perhaps unprecedented – level.

An Undeclared War

What Entous reported is that the United States was a full partner with Ukraine in the war – to the point that we had our own command center in Poland staffed by American and Ukrainian soldiers.

This command center gathered specific data on Russian troop movements and war plans and passed them on to Ukrainian soldiers, who were using American targeting technology and American weapons to fire American ordnance at Russian bases and soldiers.

The Americans were essentially just asking Ukrainian soldiers to pull the trigger, while doing all the legwork themselves. That seems like a skirting of The War Powers Act of 1973, which requires that the President notify both Houses of Congress within 48 hours when the armed forces are placed “into hostilities or into situations where imminent involvement in hostilities is clearly indicated by the circumstances” (my emphasis). Recall that in the bill authorizing funding of the Ukrainian military, there is no mention of a secret operations center, targeting operation, or war planning section.

What Entous relates is an escalation in our “assistance” and a Russian threat to use nuclear weapons in direct response to our actions. As the American-directed Ukrainian offensive drove towards Crimea, U.S. intelligence sources estimated that the likelihood of a Russian nuclear strike was 50/50. And we persisted! Certainly sounds like the “imminent involvement” that Congress is supposed to know about.

A closer look at our actions shows the classic mission creep and internal obfuscation that led us into disasters in Vietnam and other hot-spots around the world.

When the United States’ military assistance started, we began to identify targets for the Ukrainians to shoot our weapons at. Some brain surgeon in the military-industrial complex felt like “targets” was too strong a term for a Russian soldier or tank, so they chose to use the term “points of interest” instead of “targets.” The reason? “If you ever get asked the question, ‘Did you pass a target to the Ukrainians?’ you can legitimately not be lying when you say, ‘No, I did not,’” one U.S. official explained.

*(A “point of interest” in the Russian countryside)*

We at The Ops Desk have heard that type of language-coding before. It was on Title III wiretaps when morons involved in criminal activity made comical attempts to cover up their misdeeds.

The same is true here. This sounds like a ham-handed attempt to cover up a violation of the War Powers Act.

Who exactly authorized this policy? And is it possible that this clear attempt at obfuscation is why the Biden administration felt General Mark Milley needed a presidential pardon? After he testified to Congress about Ukraine at least three times?

A Portrait of Mission Creep

So how bad was it? When it comes to mission creep, Ukraine seems a textbook example. U.S. “advisors” started with suggestions. Eventually, if the American-created war plan wasn’t followed by our Ukrainian allies, threats were made, and intel was withheld.

We started by supplying Ukrainian forces with defensive weapons such as anti-tank and anti-aircraft ordnance. After demands by the Ukrainian military, we began providing offensive weapons such as 155mm shells and M777 artillery batteries. They have an effective range of about 15 miles. As it turns out, the Russians quickly figured this out and moved their supply bases and command posts back 16 miles.

We escalated, providing HIMARS missile systems that had an effective range of 50 miles. In a shocking piece of unanticipated military genius, the Russians moved back 51 miles. Again, we upped the ante—this time with ATACMS missile systems with a range of 190 miles. The United States also authorized missile strikes into Russia itself and provided CIA assistance in that venture.

That much of the rest of the world would dispute Russia’s sovereignty there is beside the point. In sum, U.S. ordnance, directed by a U.S. command, was raining down on a hostile military with nuclear capability — all without Congressional approval.

*(A U.S. ATACMS missile, looking pretty imminently involved)*

It all sounds a lot like the morass of Vietnam: send more troops, more planes, lie about their effectiveness, keep the war going. Vietnam was the very reason for the War Powers Act of 1973. And here we seem to be making the same mistakes—this time in seeming violation of the spirit of the War Powers Act, if not an actual violation.

Who authorized all this shadowy military force? Joe Biden, of course—just ask him. We’re sure his recollection of the events and the legal justification of his actions will be impeccable. He didn’t pardon himself, after all.

This military action should be thoroughly investigated by Congress. Unfortunately, it is clear to all that they no longer have the will nor the intellect to do their jobs anymore. The mandate that the United States has three co-equal branches of government fell by the wayside long ago.

Who’s also failing? Our media. Are all the aspects of Entous’s reporting accurate? Is there even more that Entous didn’t uncover? Is any of this still ongoing?

Alas, no one seems interested in the fact that under the last administration, we were essentially involved in a hot war with Russia – one that arguably put us on the brink of a nuclear exchange.

All under the aegis of a President whose mental competence was clearly deteriorating.

Feels like a story, no?

There’s A New School Disciplinarian In Town

Ah, college protests—where youthful passion collides with bolt cutters and a questionable grasp of property law. But this time, something different happened: actual consequences.

Let’s rewind. After Hamas’ Oct. 7 attack on Israel, pro-Hamas protests erupted on campuses across America. At many schools — like California’s Stanford University — those protests have never really abated. One student there recently told a protest crowd he’d be “happy if Biden was dead.” A lecturer tossed out his curriculum to justify Hamas and asked Jewish students to stand up during class—because apparently, that’s what “Civic Education” means now.

*(“But why can’t we get jobs? Must be capitalism’s fault!”)*

Things escalated in June, when a group of pro-Palestinian activists stormed Stanford’s president’s office at 5:30 a.m. on the last day of spring quarter. They barricaded doors with bike locks and furniture, disabled security cameras, and spray-painted “Our office now” on the windows. Inside: red liquid splashed on furniture and a trashed workspace.

Makes you miss the Animal House days, when kids only wasted their college years by regularly puking in the quad.

At the Stanford takeover, police ultimately arrested 13 people. Now, 12 of them are facing felony charges for conspiracy and vandalism. The DA says they planned the whole thing in advance, down to surveillance, encrypted messages, and task assignments. One document even encouraged vandalism as a way to remove a space from “the capitalist landscape.”

Sounds like we’re getting into real conspiracy territory. Who is funding/directing this? Are the feds taking a look?

Either way, here’s the real twist: This time, the university and prosecutors didn’t shrug. They pressed charges. And while the DA isn’t asking for prison—just some highway-cleanup karma—it’s possible we’re seeing a turning point. Because if it could happen at hyper-liberal Stanford….

For years, elite campuses tolerated increasingly aggressive and illegal activism. But Stanford’s response suggests the pendulum may finally be swinging back toward law, order, and maybe—just maybe—education.

Funny what happens when someone just has the stones to call bullsh*t.

It shouldn’t have taken a presidential election for us to find that someone — but thank God we did.

The Chinese looking at these kids must be saying to themselves, as the song goes: “They’ll make great pets.”

Crime and Fear

The NYPD announced historic drops in crime for the first quarter of 2025. And good for the hardworking men and women in blue. It is a remarkable achievement in today’s environment of woke district attorneys, an anti-police city and state legislature, and damaging judicial decisions.

However, on the streets the citizens are fearful. They find it hard to believe that crime is down. And with good reason. On the same day we heard the good news about crime reduction, we got this headline, “Woman stabbed in neck with broken bottle, clinging to life after heinous NYC assault.” Another mentally ill person almost killed a random passerby – at three in the afternoon – in trendy SoHo. We see a headline like this far too often in this town.

And that is the problem. This could be any of us. It’s not one drug dealer shooting another. It’s not a drunk getting rolled at the last stop on the subway. Not a gang member wandering into the wrong neighborhood. This was a 25-year-old woman walking down the street minding her own business. This is the reality of crime numbers versus the fear of random crime.

Crime could be approaching zero, but if there are maniacs running around town arbitrarily shooting people once a week, you will have a city in fear. Just look at the Son of Sam. David Berkowitz had this city frozen in terror. In one year, Berkowitz killed six New Yorkers. In 1977, 1557 New Yorkers were murdered. No one remembers that statistic. Everyone in New York remembers the Son of Sam.

Random crime and public disorder are what makes people afraid and damages quality-of-life in New York. Until the city can get a handle on that, you will have a city that lives in fear of crime.

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The Rachel Morin Murder Trial

Expert attorney Randolph Rice, representing the mother of the murdered Rachel Morin, joins the pod again for an update on the ongoing trial.

Is the evidence holding up? How is the accused, an illegal Salvadoran immigrant, reacting in court to gruesome images of the crime scene?

And how did the police manage to catch the accused, with little evidence other than some DNA at the scene?

It’s yet another tragic consequence of the Biden/Harris/Mayorkas approach to border enforcement. As in: NO enforcement.

Attorney Rice has been in the courtroom all along — no one knows the case better. Join us over at the podcast for the full inside take… or click below for a preview.