Ukraine Watch...

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Re: Ukraine Watch...

Post by clv101 »

adam2 wrote: 13 Apr 2024, 13:48 The situation looks very serious, hopefully the free world will send more ammunition and other military supplies, I donk think that Ukraine can resist and repel rusian aggression without help.
This has been crystal clear from *day one*. What's changed in the last six months or so, is that the help has faded away - as many/most thought it would, not least Russia.
adam2 wrote: 13 Apr 2024, 13:48 Some reports suggest that France are considering sending troops to help the Ukrainian forces.
IMO the only thing that turns this around is many thousands of external boots on the ground, initially not on the active front line, but in logistic roles, looking after air defence systems, reliving Ukrainian troops from other areas and duties. But this hasn't happened yet and the ground is rapidly drying to Russia's advantage. OR NATO establishing air superiority and carrying out ~1000 sorties in a week - which isn't going to happen as we aren't politically able to accept losing a dozen aircraft such an assault could lead to.
adam2 wrote: 13 Apr 2024, 13:48 If russia wins, whom will be the next nation to be liberated ? Poland ? A full scale land invasion of Poland seems unlikely, even if putin wins in Ukraine, it has been much slower and at a greater cost than was expected.
NATO's boarder is dramatically better defended than any part of Ukraine ever was - if a Russian tank sets foot in NATO it can be expected to be destroyed within hours. Ground based air defence is solid and air superiority is unmatched. Russia has *zero* chance of making inroads into NATO, especially as in event of a victory in Ukraine, the boarder would be dramatically hardened.
adam2 wrote: 13 Apr 2024, 13:48More likely IMHO would a well organised programme of "workers uprisings" that call for closer ties with russia. Similar to events in Ukraine before the invasion.
This is more interesting. 'Worker uprisings' and the overthrow of existing European governments are possible with or without Russia influence. Possible in fairly insignificant historically pro-Russia places - but not the Baltic states, not Poland, Romania, Finland etc. Also, remember, that if the popular will IS to overthrow their government, or for a region to secede that's probably not a bad thing! See Yugoslavia, Czechoslovakia etc. In hindsight, might it have been better for the East of Ukraine to secede Kyiv? Was that the popular will of that region?
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Re: Ukraine Watch...

Post by Ralphw2 »

Whatever the popular will was in the east of Ukraine 10 years ago, is largely academic. The area has been largely depopulated of its Ukrainian occupants, apart from the old and the very poor. The pro Ukrainians went west, the pro Russians went east, and many Russian settlers have moved in. Large scale relocation of populations has happened in eastern Europe for at least a couple of centuries, and it makes the concept of a geographically based nation state a bit of a tenuous concept relative to us here in the UK which has been largely stable (apart from Eireland ) for 300 years.

Russia is doing significant damage to Ukrainian infrastructure at the moment, but Ukraine has also done significant damage to Russian refining capacity, which is beginning to hurt them a bit economically.

Russia has expended the better half of its massive army reserves of hardware, tanks, artilery and APCs in the last 2 years, and now neither side has the mobility for rapid teritorial gain. Russia has even been resorting to sending infantry into frontal assaults in unarmoured trucks. The glacial pace of Russian advances are due to the fact that the poor bloody infantry have to walk across no mans land, WWI style.

The other big loser is the Russian Black Sea fleet. Navys across the world will be in a world of pain wondering where the next drone swarm will come from in their next war.
..
I think this is the last major mechanised war the world will ever see. In future wars will be fought in trenches and house to house, anything larger than a shoulder launched missile will be easy pickings for the swarms of AI controlled drones that each side will send over the top. Later, industry will be unable to build tanks and hardware fast enough to replace the losses, and the factories will be targeted by long range drones and missiles.
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Re: Ukraine Watch...

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Ralphw2 wrote: 13 Apr 2024, 21:27 Holy cope
That's an extremely one-sided interpretation of the current situación - you must be trying really hard to ignore most of what is happening. Well Fair enough, i Guess there's reasons, but No point in really engaging with. I'll just leave a few links to recent illustrative stories.

https://www.google.com/amp/s/www.busine ... 24-4%3famp

The head of Ukraine's military has warned the battlefield situation in the east of the country has "significantly worsened" in recent days.
https://www.bbc.com/news/world-europe-68806207

Edit: And of course you omitted the fact that Ukraine's Air defence is basically finished, and doesn't operate over vast Swathes of the country.

https://www.economist.com/europe/2024/0 ... unliveable
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Re: Ukraine Watch...

Post by Ralphw2 »

I have repeatedly acknowledged that the US withdrawal of support is hurting Ukraine. My comments are about the strategic damage Russia has suffered in this war, and its implication for any major war in the future. Russia is making avdances on the ground, but they are glacially slow, measured in a few square kilometres per day, across the entire front of several hundred kilometres. At this rate it would take decades to overrun the country.
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Re: Ukraine Watch...

Post by invalid »

As for your quip about armour, only recently a Ukrainian mechanised brigade was downgraded to infantry.

https://militaryland.net/news/153rd-mec ... echanized/
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Re: Ukraine Watch...

Post by Ralphw2 »

The US senate to vote on a 50 billion aid package for Ukraine on Saturday.
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Re: Ukraine Watch...

Post by adam2 »

Ralphw2 wrote: 18 Apr 2024, 02:14 The US senate to vote on a 50 billion aid package for Ukraine on Saturday.
And the latest reports indicate that that the vote to supply military aid to Ukraine is likely to pass.
https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-us-canada-68848277
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Re: Ukraine Watch...

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The US congress has passed the bill authorising military aid to Ukraine, by a substantial margin. Details from any news media.
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Re: Ukraine Watch...

Post by Ralphw2 »

The majority of the Republicans voted against it. I expect the Republican speaker to be kicked out by his own party and replaced by an even more rabid Trumpite. This may be the last batch of US aid before the november election.
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Re: Ukraine Watch...

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Months of unnecessary delays have cost Ukraine dear in people and equipment they can ill afford to lose. Anyone know what specific form this $61bn will take?
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Re: Ukraine Watch...

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One specific weapon is older type shoulder launched anti-tank rockets. These weapons have been found wanting against modern tanks, but are very useful against lighter vehicles including parked aircraft, and against light fortifications.
Should be cheap as borderline obsolete.
Artillery shells also needed, Ukrainian forces have a fair bit of artillery but are very short of shells for same.
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Re: Ukraine Watch...

Post by Default0ptions »

clv101 wrote: 20 Apr 2024, 19:22 Months of unnecessary delays have cost Ukraine dear in people and equipment they can ill afford to lose. Anyone know what specific form this $61bn will take?
And will it do anything more than prolong the suffering and infinitesimally delay the inevitable outcome?
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Re: Ukraine Watch...

Post by Ralphw2 »

It gives Ukraine a fighting chance. It will further deplete Russia's soviet legacy arsenal and reduce Putin's options for further military adventures. It may not be enough to expel Russian forces any time soon, but neither will Russia be able to claim victory in the eyes of its own people.

The land that Russia has overrun will never to the Ukraine of 2014 again, it has been destroyed and depopulated and riddled with mines and environmental devastation. That is what Putin may win one day. I suspect that is all he ever wanted. To prevent Ukraine from being a successful democratic sovereign state. That was more dangerous to him than all the armies of NATO
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Re: Ukraine Watch...

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“Breaking down the Ukraine aid - of the $61 billion, $13 billion will replenish US stockpiles of weapons, and $14 billion will go towards US defense systems for Ukraine. $7 billion will go toward US military operations in the region. We assume the remainder will go directly to Ukrainian oligarchs.”

(US military operations in the region - so the US is an active participant in the war? Or what is this saying?)

https://www.zerohedge.com/political/hou ... -us-border

“In total, the foreign assistance package totals $95 billion - which only passed after Speaker Mike Johnson cut a deal with Democrats in order to force it through by a vote of 311 to 112.”

So a not inconsiderable amount of that ‘aid’ goes straight into American / NATO defence companies who are already unable to keep up:

“Russia producing three times more artillery shells than US and Europe for Ukraine”

https://edition.cnn.com/2024/03/10/poli ... index.html

The interesting question, though, is what changed Speaker Mike Johnson’s mind about insisting that the US border should be addressed before any foreign aid should be considered.

Kunstler, though provocative as ever, has a good point:

“You tell me what conceivable way Ukraine can prevail in this proxy war now without just tripping off the civilization-ending nuke exchange? America does not have enough tactical missiles and artillery shells at hand to send over there. What we did have is gone. NATO never had much to begin with. Ukraine has run out of available cannon-fodder to conscript from its dwindling population. Despite Mr. Macron’s recent bluster, NATO can’t raise a credible army, or even agree on which country would send what. Nobody is riding to the rescue. Instead, Russia is fortifying its home-grown armaments industry and its military while systematically turning off the electricity all over Ukraine by blowing up the power stations. Very soon, Ukraine will be reduced to medieval living conditions — no lights, no phones, no Internet, no shopping, no ability to conduct modern warfare. End. . . of. . . story.”

It just remains for the clock to run down on the whole ludicrous circus and America and ‘the West’ to do another Afghanistan chaotic and humiliating withdrawal and total capitulation.
Last edited by Default0ptions on 22 Apr 2024, 22:38, edited 1 time in total.
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Re: Ukraine Watch...

Post by Default0ptions »

Ralph: “To prevent Ukraine from being a successful democratic sovereign state. That was more dangerous to him than all the armies of NATO”

Tell me - do you truly believe that the very obviously cognitively challenged Joe Biden is actually running the USA when he can’t face a press conference - even when it’s blatantly stage managed - with any semblance of coherent participation?

So: who *is* running America? Did anyone get to vote on that?

And you fondly imagine the Ukraine is a functional democracy?

It’s incontrovertible that the US massively interfered and orchestrated the Maidan overthrow of the democratic government of the Ukraine in 2014.

Victoria Nuland’s leaked phone call is impossible to dismiss in this:

https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-europe-26079957

The Ukraine is a victim of America in all of this.
Last edited by Default0ptions on 22 Apr 2024, 22:49, edited 1 time in total.
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