I really don't understand what is the problem with the fact that the HAWK system uses old electronic solutions, if the Russians have achieved excellent results using the electronic parts of used washing machines, then the Ukrainians know how to do it too ! :) If you get stuck, ask Ms. von d er Leyen, as she is said to be an expert in technology ! After all, she achieved world-famous successes when she supervised the Bundeswehr, or didn't she ? :)
If true, all this raises the question of what Russia is waiting for?
One of Russia's overall failings in this war has been a general lack of killer instinct, constantly giving her enemies plenty of opportunity to rearm and regroup, rather than kick them when they are down and keep on kicking.
Russia will continue to grind down Ukraine's military, industrial capacity, power generation, and military aged men until nothing is left, and it will then impose the conditions of Ukraine's dissolution. If this takes one month or 5 years does not matter, in the grand view of history.
Consider a unified Russian Federation in 2030. It has absorbed Odessa, Kharkov, Transnistria in addition to the Donbass (and probably Belarus). It has absorbed some of the best farmland on earth, Ukraine's gas fields, the Black Sea is a Russian lake, Crimea is secure, and the West was humiliated.
Does a Russian in 2030 care if it took 2 years or 5 years to build this? Will the Western terrorism, provocations, price tag attacks and other escalations be of sufficient consequence that the entire project is not worth it? No. The point at that time would be that it was done. We must take a long term, historical perspective on these things.
To put it another way, how much blood and treasure would have been acceptable to trade for Southern California? How many dead bodies before the US said "the cost is too high" or "it took too long"?
Don't forget the vast mineral wealth underground in the eastern oblasts which propelled the coal and iron industries which were the heart of Soviet industrial production of engines/machines...all rocket engines were manufactured in Ukraine. The Antanov factory was in Ukraine. The eastern oblasts produce 60% of the tax revenues and got NADA back from Kiev... no small part of the "beef" they had with the "Jumpers on Maidan" coup government of 2014.
Ukraine is thought to have the largest supply of recoverable rare earth resources in Europe, although much of it is undeveloped. The country has deposits of 21 rare earth elements from the EU’s list of 30 critical raw materials for the production of devices to develop green energy, in particular, batteries. Rare earth minerals (cerium, yttrium, lanthanum and neodymium) and alloys are used in many devices people use every day, such as computer memory, rechargeable batteries, cellphones and much more. Estimates of the value of these deposits range from $3 trillion-$11.5 trillion.
The West has nothing to deliver though. Aside from Taurus that could bring the war back home through Russian retaliation, there is nothing the West can deliver anymore.
And now we are entering a phase where you could deliver all the equipment and there isn't evefn enough Ukrainian soldier to train.
Yes, you can train there for 2 weeks, but that doesn't make an army.
That's the entire problem here. Most Militaries. know it's game over for Kiev and the bloodshed needs to be stopped...
We've heard that one several times in the past as well. The troop shortage appears to be real this time, which is why the West is talking about direct and open intervention.
Direct western intervention is just that. Talk. The Governments doing the yakking are extremely unpopular and cannot command a political consensus for reckless intervention. In any case they don't have the armies, they don't have the weapons, and they don't have the ammo to engage in any kind of warfare with anyone, at least of all the Russian military behemoth.
The first units of the French Foreign Legion were transferred to Slavyansk.
According to the Military Chronicle, representatives of the 3rd Infantry Regiment of the French Foreign Legion arrived the day before at the location of the 54th Separate Mechanized Brigade of the Ukrainian Armed Forces in Slavyansk.
According to preliminary information, the first group of 100 people are specialists in artillery reconnaissance, as well as an engineering group whose specialization is fortification and construction of field fortifications.
Apparently, the French, who move around the city only accompanied by the Ukrainian Armed Forces, will help the Ukrainian army defend Slavyansk when the front line shifts towards this city.
Not sure what happened to your reply questioning why I think you rely of MSM info... it seems obvious you are not exposed to much of the RUSSIAN language news coverage of the SMO...including telegram channels (despite your stated fluency in the language?)
We know. I lived many years in Ukraine. When I lived there (2004-2012), nationalists were seen as freaks and losers.
So what changed? Ukrainians have been promised that if they fight Russia on behalf of the West, the West will let Ukraine join The Club, the Golden Billion, The Magical Land Where Institutions Basically Work.
That's what changed. And that is why Ukraine does not extend the same treatment to Russians.
And of course, the West (and Kiev) see this as contemptible weakness, not as reasonableness or humanitarianism on the part of Russia.
When I lived in Ukraine, the "Canadian nationalist" (a diaspora grandson who grew up in Canada and learned everything he knew about Ukraine from Ukrainian school and tales from his grandfather about fighting in the SS or serving as a concentration camp guard) was a figure of stock jokes.
I would say that Ukrainians were more bribed than fooled.
Regardless, Russia will have to make up its mind. Do they want to be nice, or do they want to win? Chechnya should allow us to draw some conclusions here. Russia was not nice, and Chechnya as a result was pacified and is loyal.
Yes, Russia will have to make this choice in order to win. But I do not agree that Ukrainians were bribed. To bribe, you need to give something, and what did the West give to Ukraine? Only empty promises and war.
The other irony is that Russia also doesn't want war with the West. They want to join the West and are genuinely hurt by the hate, derision and contempt the West has for them. If the West were a little less high-handed, all would be forgiven.
Still, no matter how many symphonies they write, no matter how hard they try, they will never be allowed to join The Club.
I hope you are right. But even now, a degree from any western university opens doors, people assume automatically that western = honest and competent, institutions crave plaudits from the West, etc..
"What happened"? Lots of US NGO/CIA social engineering (propaganda), fundiong and training of neo-nazis formations, nazification of key government posts (particularly Education where school kids are taught to hate "Moskals", national programs of veneration of Bandera et al, and bought politicians...on the short list! CIA/Canadian support for the nazis goes back to post WWII; anyone with hatred of Russians was our ally...you don't have to speak Russian to find the documentation.
I would argue that promises of Schengen visas and integration into the EU were the carrots offered up by the Obama regime that hijacked the Jumpers on Maidan (FJB was in charge of the project and Nuland was his spear point..you saw it all while you were there right?). Corruption and oligarch power destroyed the "crown jewel" of the Soviet legacy, particularly in the industrialized eastern oblasts where the majority of the country's wealth was derived. They paid the taxes for decades and got "nyeto" in return except bombs, terror, and bloodshed when your "boys" took over in 2014.
I left Ukraine in 2012. I did see the so-called "Orange Revolution" in 2004.
And yes, the reason that those college students came out in the first wave of protests in 2014 was because they were hoping that "european integration" meant that they would get the chance to emigrate. (EU membership was not at that time on offer, but good luck telling them otherwise, and the EU leadership certainly were not about to disabuse those poor dumb scrotes of that notion, either.)
My first time there was in 2004...arrived Valentine's Day and met my spouse to be. Was back and forth...last time in 2014 to help get her brother out of the country. He and fam wound up in Omsk or Tula (I forgot which...far east and nut-sack-shriveling temps) for a year getting citizenship and then moved to Crimea to be with his wife's fam! Small. world eh?
I think you like many others (especially quoted by MSM) are under the misconception that Russia declared war when in fact it launched a Special Military Operation. They are codified by law; war calls for full scale hostilities (shock and awe); SMO is more like a surgical procedure. The overarching Russian objective was security along its western border (1400miles with Ukraine including the Black Sea) and it demanded (the latest was 12/21) that Ukraine remain neutral politically, de-militarize, and de-nazify its socio-political environment). US gave her the middle finger repeatedly. When neo-nazi battalions and UAF forces built up an attack force, rolled across the Minsk Agreements, and started a massive bombardment of Donesk city with heavy weapons, the Russians had to respond to protect the 3 to 4 million Russians living in the eastern oblasts, and Crimeans in particular (remember that May 2021 Zelenski ... who was elected on a peace with Russia platform but did a 180 when his life was threatened publicly by the neo-nazis... pushed through a constitutional amendment to retake Crimea by any means (including military) necessary).
The Russians and half of Ukraine are of the same ethnicity...Russia wanted to spare as many of their own and hence the "light touch" on the battlefield. They threatened Kiev with a lightning maneuver but never had the intention to capture it with the meager forces sent there; the strike was intended to encourage a peaceful resolution which almost happened in Istanbul until US/BoJo hijacked the peace talks. That they rolled through much of Ukraine (destroying the first Ukrainian armed forces) with minimal resistance using a force roughly equal to the UAF is a testament to impressive results; rule of thumb is minimum 3:1 balance of forces for a successful invasion campaign. The US/NATO started pumping in massive quantities of Soviet era weapons from the former republics and began standing up the second Ukrainian army. The long frontline created stretched the Russian forces to the point they needed to step back to shorten it and shore up its defense. This also resulted in the withdrawal from Kharkov.
The Russian military doctrine calls for above all preservation of forces vs holding land; one cannot bring the dead back to life but land can be re-conquered. A strategy of sttriting the enemy forces was implemented; artillery bags were created and the NATO consultants kept feeding the grinder with poor Ukrainian soldiers on a horrifying scale which persists in categorizing the conflict to the present day (battles for Bakhmut, Adyeevka, Robotina).
The second Ukrainian armed forces were defeated and the West pushed the country into standing up yet a third armed forces (albeit with unenthusiastic "recruits" who were press-ganged into service, and sub-par hodge-podge of weapons). This was the force which was decimated with the infamous counteroffensive of last summer which culminated in roughly a half million casualties (cumulatively) on the Ukrainian side. The Russians built the impressive Sirovkin Line which dashed the hopes of any breakthrough to the Black Sea and claimed well over 100,000 Ukrainian KIA's by conservative estimates.
Ukraine resorted to terrorist attacks on civilian targets in order to gain some PR success, and some inconsequential strikes on Russian military assets in the Black Sea and in the Russian heartland using US/NATO intel, targeting, and weapons....but the US/NATO are NOT "fighting" Russia!). WIth the terrorist attack on Crokus concert, a Rubicon may have been crossed; Russian intel is putting together the puzzle to find out who was responsible for planning it. They already identified Burisma (Joe Biden's gas company that paid his crackhead son millions to sit on it's board while pops was the VP). The Russians are known to be slow into the saddle but ride fast and hard when mounted; a declaration of war may be forthcoming and then may the God help the Ukrainians; the Russians have held forces/weapons in reserve and raised new armies to deal with NATO should they decide foolishly to enter the fray. US command has already declared the Russian armed forces to have regained full pre-SMO combat capability; they don't mention that now it is battle-hardened and likely the most capable armed forces on the planet.
(One could argue that Ukraine is another FJB genocide project...of slavic peoples.)
You have no apparent awareness in your writing of Russian mainstream news, news publications, or Telegram channels. You also demonstrate lack of awareness of western Ukrainian sentiments during WWII and thereafter (rabid anti-russians), or the influence their neo-nazi decendants had on Maidan. !Have you ever read any English language blogs that address the conflict and source thereof such as (frm Russian Navy Officer) Andrei Martyanov's or (frm CIA analyst) Larry Johnson's? I DO believe you lack slavic blood in your veins... I encourage you to have a look around the info neighborhood:
Col. Jaques Baud' latest book on the conflict and The Russian Art of War: How the West Led Ukraine to Defeat ? It's written by a Swiss intel officer who also served as NATO liaison in Ukraine at the time you claim you were there. Pretty much as straight a shooter as they come no? It's a great read...about 30 bucks on Amazon. Here's a free-bie for ya!
You guess wrong on all counts. Just that I don't simply take Russian or non-MSM news sources as gospel, or accept wishful thinking as proven fact. I'd love to believe, I'd love to be wrong. I've also been hearing predictions of imminent victory for over two years now.
BTW, Zelenskii isn't the only nationalist Ukrainian who speaks Russian in private. For that matter, in 2005, I attended a talk by a the head of the Ukrainian Office for Protection of Intellectual Property. As was standard under Yushchenko, the speech was in Ukrainian, full of flowery crap. However, the speaker was unable to answer questions in Ukrainian but only in Russian.
For that matter, i closed a PPP with a Kiev-based businessman and a member of the Yushchenko government. As per Ukrainian law, the agreement at issue was written in Ukrainian. I had to explain (in Russian) the meanings of common Ukrainian words to the two signatories. I spoke more Ukrainian than either of these two Ukrainians.
Which just goes to show that you don't know what you are talking about with respect to me.
Just playback of what u wrote yourself..."I speak a passable version of Ukrainian".No I don't know much about you other than you seem to recite a one-sided "concerned" (troll) narrative that focuses on Ukrainian disinformation also parroted by the FJB regime. For example...who is telling you "victory is imminent"? Who assumed the Russians would take Kiev in 3 days? (Not the Russians). That they were running out of missiles and al sorts of issues (dumb, drunk, trodylites who were sure to be beaten back cuz they had to cannibalize washing machines and air conditionser for microchips) only to turn around a year later and claim they were a threat to all of the EU? Only you say Zelensky is a nationalist! He was elected on a populist platform of reconciliation with Russia and making peace with Donbass oblasts. That he was publicly threatened with death by your neo-"nationalists" and did a 180 (incorporating the re-capture of Crimea "by force if necessary) into the constitution? (May2021). Probably went under your radar or is "Russian disinformation"? My wife is from Lugansk...born in 75...BTW... Been there a few times myself too. Helped her brother and fam escape the early mobilizations that resulted in the slaughter of UAF by the LPR/DPR militia post-Maidan...remember those days of the Odessa Trade Union "BBQ" a la Azov? When the Ukraine air force bombed its own cities? When punisher battalions shelled towns and cities indiscriminantly resulting in the deaths of some 10,000 over the 8 years leading up to 2022? Yeh...most don't !
May have to do with two things (and what I don’t know about military tactics would fill a library): slower pace = lower casualties and less destruction. Less destruction = less to rebuild and having a mangled and depleted and depopulated rump state on their borders is less than ideal.
That One IHAWK Missile, with semi-active radar and god knows what more, is probably much more expensive than the Potential Target(Drone)...let alone the whole Battery that will be destroyed by "Izdelye 305", or simple artilery guided shot. Military Industrial Complex will happily bail it out though...
Sounds like the good ole US of A doesn’t have much in the off air protection either. I expect there is really nothing to worry about in the event of a serious mass attack on the continental US as the vast majority of us will be wiped out early on.
Israel is in the process of picking a fight with Iran, and the theory of how that conflict is to be won will be to hide behind US bases liberally scattered throughout the region (ie draw the US into the conflict by whatever means possible). So the air defense items Ukraine's getting for the foreseeable future is going to be the dregs.
Old chips can be replaced with FPGAs. Entire circuit boards can be emulated in a single, inexpensive modern chip. The main challenge is locating the original technical specifications.
Replacing and recertifying electronics would take years. It is not that you can't, but as soon as you pull out circuit boards and insert redesigned ones, the process to get them approved and tested is a big barrier. I had explored this for some of our strategic systems with the help of Intel co-founder Bob Noyce, and it was impractical because of the problems (and in that case we had original circuit designs and parameters for software). Someone else asked what is the problem with vacuum tubes --they support analog computers which work, but not so well, and have a very high level of MTBF (mean time between failures).
If I was smart and wanted to conquer an enemy with brilliant weapons this is what I would do. Start a proxy war with a smaller country and use conscripts and old ass tanks to suck up all of the weapons, then get the real Tank Guards Army to hit the frontier at 50 mph and be dipping my toes in the English Channel in a week. Can’t shoot javelins and NLAWs that have already been shot?
According to CNN, recent upgrades have extended the range of fab-1500.
"The bomb is the FAB-1500, essentially a 1.5-tonne weapon of which nearly half comprises high explosives. It is delivered from above by fighter jets from a distance of some 60-70 kilometers".
The jets are ready, and the flight instructors are waiting, at a new training center in Romania that was created to teach Ukraine’s pilots to fly the F-16 warplane. But there’s a catch..." No shit, there's always a catch.
Just speaking as a non-expert, this ("By their own admission, Ukraine desperately needs air defenses. Most of the high end systems previously delivered from the US and Europe have either been destroyed or run out of interceptor missiles. NATO is searching for replacement missiles and parts for the Patriot air defense system.") seems a perfect summation of what I have seen going on. Russia is the bigger country and has its own resources. Ukraine has to get resources from others. Russia went into this knowing they are the bigger, richer power. Ukraine appears to be completely insane to give in to the belief that they and they alone can outlast or outfight Russia. James K. Galbraith has explained that the sanctions have zero effect on a country as big as Russia with as many resources and an industrial base built up under their former system, which specifically glorified the "proletariat," i.e. factory workers, i.e. those persons able to work in munitions and vehicle factories or factories that manufacture airplanes for example. Ukraine keeps looking for missiles while Russia just orders their factories to build them. Russia should not hope to govern Ukraine. Plenty of Ukrainians do not want to join with Russia. Col MacGregor on U-Tube says Russia wants for Ukraine to be a 'rump state."
The truth is we don't know what Russia's real demands are. My best guess is they would want (a) no NATO in Russia; (2) a friendly Ukrainian government and (3) some territorial agreements favoring Russia and the Russia-speaking population in Ukraine. Beyond that a lot depends on how long this war goes on and how mad the Russians get. Ukraine needs to change its approach if it hopes to survive.
Not quite accurate. The US is very good at killing civilians. We called it precision bombing in WWll but the bombs were never accurate and the Norton bomb site was garbage. Same in the Mideast this century.
The main issue in WW2 was over low level bombing and high altitude, night bombing preferred by the USAAF to keep aircraft losses manageable (but just barely). At high altitude iron bombs flutter in the atmospheric wind and rarely are accurate. For that reason the US went to firebombing and attacks on the infrastructure, as destroying defense factories with pinpoint bombing became difficult as the Germans moved them to the hinterland and put them underground, using slave labor to help build their rockets, tanks and other weapons. What the Nazis didn't move they surrounded with search lights, ack ack guns, and used their air force to go after our bombers.
We lost 10,000 air crew early in the war. We lied about the capability of the Norton bomb site. We have been carpet bombing civilians for 80 years. The Germans did bomb London briefly. Seems the US would rather kill everything to reduce our casualties. Yet I see Russians being carful to an oil civilian losses because it’s bad PR.I believe nothing any official of the government says. It saddens me to say that we haven’t been the good guys for awhile.
Well low altitude fire bombing wasn't very selective. So more japanese civilians were killed in a day fire bombing of Tokyo.
The comment about torpedo planes downing carriers is false they were all destroyed one crewman was rescued later. The carriers were sunk with dive bombers.
The bid breakout of Normandy was preceded by a high altitude bomber attack close to the front line. Hundreds of Allied troops were killed. Eisenhower prohibited them after this fiasco.
Dive bombing was accurate enough in WW2 for Navy fliers to hit 4 Japanese carriers in one day at Midway. An error of 100 feet would have missed.
After the Big Week air offensive of Feb 1944, the US was able to carry out daylight bombing raids over Berlin without any German fighters coming out to oppose, as noted in Hermann Goering diary. But German planes continued to attack on the Eastern Front to the end of the war.
"actually there were both dive bombers and torpedo carrying bombers used at Midway"
True, but I believe none of the American torpedo bombers at Midway scored a hit. All the carriers were destroyed by dive bombers although the attack by torpedo bombers, slightly earlier, diverted most of the Japanese fighters so they would not be in place to defend against the dive bombers.
NATO claims that Russia wants to attack Europe. At the same time, Europe is disposing of its weapons in Ukraine. After Russia's victory over Ukraine, how will an unarmed Europe fend off Russia? Or are Russia's accusations of aggression just lies?
The Europeans are either crazy or irresponsible. The latest projections is that Europe could fight (at most) for 10 days (and some of us think far less)
Using the word Irresponsible is too kind. How about, They have absolutely lost their minds?
And if they had a single bit of dignity left they would call for a ceasefire and try to negotiate an agreement with Russia.
Everyone knows Ukraine has lost, so what are the Ukrainians still dying for? And how many more need to die? How convinient that there are no casualty numbers from Ukraine either.
My aunt lives in Ukraine and their local cemetery had to be expanded multiple times and more than doubled in size during the last 2 years.
Sadly cemetary expansion is not just confined to Ukraine....both Poland and Ukraine are establishing Arlington Natl Cem- sized necropolises...more of course in Ukraine. The Polish project accomodates 20,000 from my recall. Thousands of Ukranians are left to rot on the battlefield. 300,000 unaccounted for "officially"...of course many of those may have just been paper soldiers whose pay enriched their commanders. I read that hundreds of UAF corpses were found in abandoned Polish mine sans organs...and harvesting teamsare never far from the battlefield. It is a full-blown horror!
fighting against the allied west, they made some tactical mistakes. Now they are careful and taking their time. after all, they don't want to conquer the whole ukraine, just send it to the stone age. They are probably waiting for the mud to dry, and for the Ukrainians to run out of personnel, munitions and infrastructure. until then they "soften" the opponent.
Abovw all else...only the Stavka knows and they don't advertise their intentions. Re-read Putin's ultimatum from Dec 2024 for the Russian objective; we all will have to wait to see how they attain it...and then study and learn a most painful lesson. This catastrophy is the outcome of beleiving ones own hubris. I wonder what the IC input was....highly politicized assessments or actual failure.
I really don't understand what is the problem with the fact that the HAWK system uses old electronic solutions, if the Russians have achieved excellent results using the electronic parts of used washing machines, then the Ukrainians know how to do it too ! :) If you get stuck, ask Ms. von d er Leyen, as she is said to be an expert in technology ! After all, she achieved world-famous successes when she supervised the Bundeswehr, or didn't she ? :)
If true, all this raises the question of what Russia is waiting for?
One of Russia's overall failings in this war has been a general lack of killer instinct, constantly giving her enemies plenty of opportunity to rearm and regroup, rather than kick them when they are down and keep on kicking.
Does Russia want to win or be nice?
Russia will continue to grind down Ukraine's military, industrial capacity, power generation, and military aged men until nothing is left, and it will then impose the conditions of Ukraine's dissolution. If this takes one month or 5 years does not matter, in the grand view of history.
We've been hearing that for two years now, but it is ever always only the West that escalates.
Consider a unified Russian Federation in 2030. It has absorbed Odessa, Kharkov, Transnistria in addition to the Donbass (and probably Belarus). It has absorbed some of the best farmland on earth, Ukraine's gas fields, the Black Sea is a Russian lake, Crimea is secure, and the West was humiliated.
Does a Russian in 2030 care if it took 2 years or 5 years to build this? Will the Western terrorism, provocations, price tag attacks and other escalations be of sufficient consequence that the entire project is not worth it? No. The point at that time would be that it was done. We must take a long term, historical perspective on these things.
To put it another way, how much blood and treasure would have been acceptable to trade for Southern California? How many dead bodies before the US said "the cost is too high" or "it took too long"?
Don't forget the vast mineral wealth underground in the eastern oblasts which propelled the coal and iron industries which were the heart of Soviet industrial production of engines/machines...all rocket engines were manufactured in Ukraine. The Antanov factory was in Ukraine. The eastern oblasts produce 60% of the tax revenues and got NADA back from Kiev... no small part of the "beef" they had with the "Jumpers on Maidan" coup government of 2014.
Ukraine is thought to have the largest supply of recoverable rare earth resources in Europe, although much of it is undeveloped. The country has deposits of 21 rare earth elements from the EU’s list of 30 critical raw materials for the production of devices to develop green energy, in particular, batteries. Rare earth minerals (cerium, yttrium, lanthanum and neodymium) and alloys are used in many devices people use every day, such as computer memory, rechargeable batteries, cellphones and much more. Estimates of the value of these deposits range from $3 trillion-$11.5 trillion.
https://www.cbc.ca/news/politics/natural-resources-ukraine-war-1.6467039
(Note: the stats are pertinent; the "motive" behind Russian SMO is Canadian butthurt.
An excellent summary. It is quite clear why the US has been so focused on brining Ukraine into the American system. Oh well!
Let's see if it gets done before taking a victory lap.
They are using the slow horses to get the west to expend all the ammo, then the real war starts!
Assumes facts not in evidence.
Moreover, the West is only talking of doubling down, even taking steps that would have been unthinkable a few months ago.
The West has nothing to deliver though. Aside from Taurus that could bring the war back home through Russian retaliation, there is nothing the West can deliver anymore.
And now we are entering a phase where you could deliver all the equipment and there isn't evefn enough Ukrainian soldier to train.
Yes, you can train there for 2 weeks, but that doesn't make an army.
That's the entire problem here. Most Militaries. know it's game over for Kiev and the bloodshed needs to be stopped...
We've heard that one several times in the past as well. The troop shortage appears to be real this time, which is why the West is talking about direct and open intervention.
Direct western intervention is just that. Talk. The Governments doing the yakking are extremely unpopular and cannot command a political consensus for reckless intervention. In any case they don't have the armies, they don't have the weapons, and they don't have the ammo to engage in any kind of warfare with anyone, at least of all the Russian military behemoth.
We've heard that at every stage of western escalation. The West escalates anyway.
The west escalates "rhetoric"... They haven't escalated with more weapons, more ammo, or boots on the ground.
The first units of the French Foreign Legion were transferred to Slavyansk.
According to the Military Chronicle, representatives of the 3rd Infantry Regiment of the French Foreign Legion arrived the day before at the location of the 54th Separate Mechanized Brigade of the Ukrainian Armed Forces in Slavyansk.
According to preliminary information, the first group of 100 people are specialists in artillery reconnaissance, as well as an engineering group whose specialization is fortification and construction of field fortifications.
Apparently, the French, who move around the city only accompanied by the Ukrainian Armed Forces, will help the Ukrainian army defend Slavyansk when the front line shifts towards this city.
source: https://t.me/c/1595839251/3720
Macron is not a French President is the Evil Empire Ambassador to France. Hope one of those gliding toys will fly over the Legionaries soon!
A real French President as Chirac was would never speak or do things as that puppet of Macron do
Not sure what happened to your reply questioning why I think you rely of MSM info... it seems obvious you are not exposed to much of the RUSSIAN language news coverage of the SMO...including telegram channels (despite your stated fluency in the language?)
Well, you guess wrong again. I read Telegram in Russian all the time.
Hope so! Time to end the Evil Empire!
Russians consider Ukrainians to be brothers, so they fight with one hand.
We know. I lived many years in Ukraine. When I lived there (2004-2012), nationalists were seen as freaks and losers.
So what changed? Ukrainians have been promised that if they fight Russia on behalf of the West, the West will let Ukraine join The Club, the Golden Billion, The Magical Land Where Institutions Basically Work.
That's what changed. And that is why Ukraine does not extend the same treatment to Russians.
And of course, the West (and Kiev) see this as contemptible weakness, not as reasonableness or humanitarianism on the part of Russia.
I agree, Ukrainians have been fooled and they no longer consider Russians to be brothers. But the Russians remained the same as they were before.
When I lived in Ukraine, the "Canadian nationalist" (a diaspora grandson who grew up in Canada and learned everything he knew about Ukraine from Ukrainian school and tales from his grandfather about fighting in the SS or serving as a concentration camp guard) was a figure of stock jokes.
I would say that Ukrainians were more bribed than fooled.
Regardless, Russia will have to make up its mind. Do they want to be nice, or do they want to win? Chechnya should allow us to draw some conclusions here. Russia was not nice, and Chechnya as a result was pacified and is loyal.
Yes, Russia will have to make this choice in order to win. But I do not agree that Ukrainians were bribed. To bribe, you need to give something, and what did the West give to Ukraine? Only empty promises and war.
Promises, that's the bribe.
The other irony is that Russia also doesn't want war with the West. They want to join the West and are genuinely hurt by the hate, derision and contempt the West has for them. If the West were a little less high-handed, all would be forgiven.
Still, no matter how many symphonies they write, no matter how hard they try, they will never be allowed to join The Club.
This desire has already passed, Russia no longer wants to join the West.
I hope you are right. But even now, a degree from any western university opens doors, people assume automatically that western = honest and competent, institutions crave plaudits from the West, etc..
It's still there, but less and less.
"What happened"? Lots of US NGO/CIA social engineering (propaganda), fundiong and training of neo-nazis formations, nazification of key government posts (particularly Education where school kids are taught to hate "Moskals", national programs of veneration of Bandera et al, and bought politicians...on the short list! CIA/Canadian support for the nazis goes back to post WWII; anyone with hatred of Russians was our ally...you don't have to speak Russian to find the documentation.
I would argue that promises of Schengen visas and integration into the EU were the carrots offered up by the Obama regime that hijacked the Jumpers on Maidan (FJB was in charge of the project and Nuland was his spear point..you saw it all while you were there right?). Corruption and oligarch power destroyed the "crown jewel" of the Soviet legacy, particularly in the industrialized eastern oblasts where the majority of the country's wealth was derived. They paid the taxes for decades and got "nyeto" in return except bombs, terror, and bloodshed when your "boys" took over in 2014.
I left Ukraine in 2012. I did see the so-called "Orange Revolution" in 2004.
And yes, the reason that those college students came out in the first wave of protests in 2014 was because they were hoping that "european integration" meant that they would get the chance to emigrate. (EU membership was not at that time on offer, but good luck telling them otherwise, and the EU leadership certainly were not about to disabuse those poor dumb scrotes of that notion, either.)
My first time there was in 2004...arrived Valentine's Day and met my spouse to be. Was back and forth...last time in 2014 to help get her brother out of the country. He and fam wound up in Omsk or Tula (I forgot which...far east and nut-sack-shriveling temps) for a year getting citizenship and then moved to Crimea to be with his wife's fam! Small. world eh?
My first time was 1996. Last was 2012.
I think you like many others (especially quoted by MSM) are under the misconception that Russia declared war when in fact it launched a Special Military Operation. They are codified by law; war calls for full scale hostilities (shock and awe); SMO is more like a surgical procedure. The overarching Russian objective was security along its western border (1400miles with Ukraine including the Black Sea) and it demanded (the latest was 12/21) that Ukraine remain neutral politically, de-militarize, and de-nazify its socio-political environment). US gave her the middle finger repeatedly. When neo-nazi battalions and UAF forces built up an attack force, rolled across the Minsk Agreements, and started a massive bombardment of Donesk city with heavy weapons, the Russians had to respond to protect the 3 to 4 million Russians living in the eastern oblasts, and Crimeans in particular (remember that May 2021 Zelenski ... who was elected on a peace with Russia platform but did a 180 when his life was threatened publicly by the neo-nazis... pushed through a constitutional amendment to retake Crimea by any means (including military) necessary).
The Russians and half of Ukraine are of the same ethnicity...Russia wanted to spare as many of their own and hence the "light touch" on the battlefield. They threatened Kiev with a lightning maneuver but never had the intention to capture it with the meager forces sent there; the strike was intended to encourage a peaceful resolution which almost happened in Istanbul until US/BoJo hijacked the peace talks. That they rolled through much of Ukraine (destroying the first Ukrainian armed forces) with minimal resistance using a force roughly equal to the UAF is a testament to impressive results; rule of thumb is minimum 3:1 balance of forces for a successful invasion campaign. The US/NATO started pumping in massive quantities of Soviet era weapons from the former republics and began standing up the second Ukrainian army. The long frontline created stretched the Russian forces to the point they needed to step back to shorten it and shore up its defense. This also resulted in the withdrawal from Kharkov.
The Russian military doctrine calls for above all preservation of forces vs holding land; one cannot bring the dead back to life but land can be re-conquered. A strategy of sttriting the enemy forces was implemented; artillery bags were created and the NATO consultants kept feeding the grinder with poor Ukrainian soldiers on a horrifying scale which persists in categorizing the conflict to the present day (battles for Bakhmut, Adyeevka, Robotina).
The second Ukrainian armed forces were defeated and the West pushed the country into standing up yet a third armed forces (albeit with unenthusiastic "recruits" who were press-ganged into service, and sub-par hodge-podge of weapons). This was the force which was decimated with the infamous counteroffensive of last summer which culminated in roughly a half million casualties (cumulatively) on the Ukrainian side. The Russians built the impressive Sirovkin Line which dashed the hopes of any breakthrough to the Black Sea and claimed well over 100,000 Ukrainian KIA's by conservative estimates.
Ukraine resorted to terrorist attacks on civilian targets in order to gain some PR success, and some inconsequential strikes on Russian military assets in the Black Sea and in the Russian heartland using US/NATO intel, targeting, and weapons....but the US/NATO are NOT "fighting" Russia!). WIth the terrorist attack on Crokus concert, a Rubicon may have been crossed; Russian intel is putting together the puzzle to find out who was responsible for planning it. They already identified Burisma (Joe Biden's gas company that paid his crackhead son millions to sit on it's board while pops was the VP). The Russians are known to be slow into the saddle but ride fast and hard when mounted; a declaration of war may be forthcoming and then may the God help the Ukrainians; the Russians have held forces/weapons in reserve and raised new armies to deal with NATO should they decide foolishly to enter the fray. US command has already declared the Russian armed forces to have regained full pre-SMO combat capability; they don't mention that now it is battle-hardened and likely the most capable armed forces on the planet.
(One could argue that Ukraine is another FJB genocide project...of slavic peoples.)
What on earth makes you think I get my news from the MSM?
And I lived much of my adult life in Ukraine, speak Russian and a passable version of Ukrainian, although I have not a drop of Slavic blood in me.
You have no apparent awareness in your writing of Russian mainstream news, news publications, or Telegram channels. You also demonstrate lack of awareness of western Ukrainian sentiments during WWII and thereafter (rabid anti-russians), or the influence their neo-nazi decendants had on Maidan. !Have you ever read any English language blogs that address the conflict and source thereof such as (frm Russian Navy Officer) Andrei Martyanov's or (frm CIA analyst) Larry Johnson's? I DO believe you lack slavic blood in your veins... I encourage you to have a look around the info neighborhood:
http://smoothiex12.blogspot.com/ (Andrei)
https://sonar21.com/about-larry/ (Larry)
Col. Jaques Baud' latest book on the conflict and The Russian Art of War: How the West Led Ukraine to Defeat ? It's written by a Swiss intel officer who also served as NATO liaison in Ukraine at the time you claim you were there. Pretty much as straight a shooter as they come no? It's a great read...about 30 bucks on Amazon. Here's a free-bie for ya!
https://newcoldwar.org/the-russian-art-of-war-how-the-west-led-ukraine-to-defeat/
Here's another publication from which I glean rather unprejudiced assesments of various weapons systems (the Russians are excelling in producing ever-evolving state-of-the-art gear) https://bulgarianmilitary.com/amp/2024/04/12/ruaf-receives-two-su-35s-fighter-jets-transitional-to-5th-gen/
You guess wrong on all counts. Just that I don't simply take Russian or non-MSM news sources as gospel, or accept wishful thinking as proven fact. I'd love to believe, I'd love to be wrong. I've also been hearing predictions of imminent victory for over two years now.
BTW, Zelenskii isn't the only nationalist Ukrainian who speaks Russian in private. For that matter, in 2005, I attended a talk by a the head of the Ukrainian Office for Protection of Intellectual Property. As was standard under Yushchenko, the speech was in Ukrainian, full of flowery crap. However, the speaker was unable to answer questions in Ukrainian but only in Russian.
For that matter, i closed a PPP with a Kiev-based businessman and a member of the Yushchenko government. As per Ukrainian law, the agreement at issue was written in Ukrainian. I had to explain (in Russian) the meanings of common Ukrainian words to the two signatories. I spoke more Ukrainian than either of these two Ukrainians.
Which just goes to show that you don't know what you are talking about with respect to me.
Just playback of what u wrote yourself..."I speak a passable version of Ukrainian".No I don't know much about you other than you seem to recite a one-sided "concerned" (troll) narrative that focuses on Ukrainian disinformation also parroted by the FJB regime. For example...who is telling you "victory is imminent"? Who assumed the Russians would take Kiev in 3 days? (Not the Russians). That they were running out of missiles and al sorts of issues (dumb, drunk, trodylites who were sure to be beaten back cuz they had to cannibalize washing machines and air conditionser for microchips) only to turn around a year later and claim they were a threat to all of the EU? Only you say Zelensky is a nationalist! He was elected on a populist platform of reconciliation with Russia and making peace with Donbass oblasts. That he was publicly threatened with death by your neo-"nationalists" and did a 180 (incorporating the re-capture of Crimea "by force if necessary) into the constitution? (May2021). Probably went under your radar or is "Russian disinformation"? My wife is from Lugansk...born in 75...BTW... Been there a few times myself too. Helped her brother and fam escape the early mobilizations that resulted in the slaughter of UAF by the LPR/DPR militia post-Maidan...remember those days of the Odessa Trade Union "BBQ" a la Azov? When the Ukraine air force bombed its own cities? When punisher battalions shelled towns and cities indiscriminantly resulting in the deaths of some 10,000 over the 8 years leading up to 2022? Yeh...most don't !
Could you try writing paragraphs?
Apologies for the format...it's challenging when using my android and not a computer!
May have to do with two things (and what I don’t know about military tactics would fill a library): slower pace = lower casualties and less destruction. Less destruction = less to rebuild and having a mangled and depleted and depopulated rump state on their borders is less than ideal.
I would say that allowing one's enemy to rearm and regroup results in more casualties, albeit over a longer period of time.
That One IHAWK Missile, with semi-active radar and god knows what more, is probably much more expensive than the Potential Target(Drone)...let alone the whole Battery that will be destroyed by "Izdelye 305", or simple artilery guided shot. Military Industrial Complex will happily bail it out though...
Sounds like the good ole US of A doesn’t have much in the off air protection either. I expect there is really nothing to worry about in the event of a serious mass attack on the continental US as the vast majority of us will be wiped out early on.
Israel is in the process of picking a fight with Iran, and the theory of how that conflict is to be won will be to hide behind US bases liberally scattered throughout the region (ie draw the US into the conflict by whatever means possible). So the air defense items Ukraine's getting for the foreseeable future is going to be the dregs.
I don't think they are in anyway related.
Old chips can be replaced with FPGAs. Entire circuit boards can be emulated in a single, inexpensive modern chip. The main challenge is locating the original technical specifications.
Replacing and recertifying electronics would take years. It is not that you can't, but as soon as you pull out circuit boards and insert redesigned ones, the process to get them approved and tested is a big barrier. I had explored this for some of our strategic systems with the help of Intel co-founder Bob Noyce, and it was impractical because of the problems (and in that case we had original circuit designs and parameters for software). Someone else asked what is the problem with vacuum tubes --they support analog computers which work, but not so well, and have a very high level of MTBF (mean time between failures).
If I was smart and wanted to conquer an enemy with brilliant weapons this is what I would do. Start a proxy war with a smaller country and use conscripts and old ass tanks to suck up all of the weapons, then get the real Tank Guards Army to hit the frontier at 50 mph and be dipping my toes in the English Channel in a week. Can’t shoot javelins and NLAWs that have already been shot?
According to CNN, recent upgrades have extended the range of fab-1500.
"The bomb is the FAB-1500, essentially a 1.5-tonne weapon of which nearly half comprises high explosives. It is delivered from above by fighter jets from a distance of some 60-70 kilometers".
I think the glide range is overstated. (Glide range depends on the altitude of the launching aircraft.)
The "total support" but the U. S. is a sham.
NY Times: " March 11, 2024
The jets are ready, and the flight instructors are waiting, at a new training center in Romania that was created to teach Ukraine’s pilots to fly the F-16 warplane. But there’s a catch..." No shit, there's always a catch.
Just speaking as a non-expert, this ("By their own admission, Ukraine desperately needs air defenses. Most of the high end systems previously delivered from the US and Europe have either been destroyed or run out of interceptor missiles. NATO is searching for replacement missiles and parts for the Patriot air defense system.") seems a perfect summation of what I have seen going on. Russia is the bigger country and has its own resources. Ukraine has to get resources from others. Russia went into this knowing they are the bigger, richer power. Ukraine appears to be completely insane to give in to the belief that they and they alone can outlast or outfight Russia. James K. Galbraith has explained that the sanctions have zero effect on a country as big as Russia with as many resources and an industrial base built up under their former system, which specifically glorified the "proletariat," i.e. factory workers, i.e. those persons able to work in munitions and vehicle factories or factories that manufacture airplanes for example. Ukraine keeps looking for missiles while Russia just orders their factories to build them. Russia should not hope to govern Ukraine. Plenty of Ukrainians do not want to join with Russia. Col MacGregor on U-Tube says Russia wants for Ukraine to be a 'rump state."
The truth is we don't know what Russia's real demands are. My best guess is they would want (a) no NATO in Russia; (2) a friendly Ukrainian government and (3) some territorial agreements favoring Russia and the Russia-speaking population in Ukraine. Beyond that a lot depends on how long this war goes on and how mad the Russians get. Ukraine needs to change its approach if it hopes to survive.
I think putin spelled it out in his Dec 22, 2021 ultimatum
Total 100% agreement.
Ukraine does have one remaining air defense left: the utter mediocrity of the Russian air force, a tradition since the early days of WW2.
What a contrast with the exceptional results of the USAAC and RAF against the same enemy air force.
Not quite accurate. The US is very good at killing civilians. We called it precision bombing in WWll but the bombs were never accurate and the Norton bomb site was garbage. Same in the Mideast this century.
The main issue in WW2 was over low level bombing and high altitude, night bombing preferred by the USAAF to keep aircraft losses manageable (but just barely). At high altitude iron bombs flutter in the atmospheric wind and rarely are accurate. For that reason the US went to firebombing and attacks on the infrastructure, as destroying defense factories with pinpoint bombing became difficult as the Germans moved them to the hinterland and put them underground, using slave labor to help build their rockets, tanks and other weapons. What the Nazis didn't move they surrounded with search lights, ack ack guns, and used their air force to go after our bombers.
We lost 10,000 air crew early in the war. We lied about the capability of the Norton bomb site. We have been carpet bombing civilians for 80 years. The Germans did bomb London briefly. Seems the US would rather kill everything to reduce our casualties. Yet I see Russians being carful to an oil civilian losses because it’s bad PR.I believe nothing any official of the government says. It saddens me to say that we haven’t been the good guys for awhile.
Well low altitude fire bombing wasn't very selective. So more japanese civilians were killed in a day fire bombing of Tokyo.
The comment about torpedo planes downing carriers is false they were all destroyed one crewman was rescued later. The carriers were sunk with dive bombers.
The bid breakout of Normandy was preceded by a high altitude bomber attack close to the front line. Hundreds of Allied troops were killed. Eisenhower prohibited them after this fiasco.
The whole country is PR and bullshit.
I did not say they were successful, only that they were used. I do not like it when a comment is misquoted.
"The whole country is PR and bullshit"
Ever thought about leaving? Thank you!
I left out hubris. If I wasn’t old yes. When I was young the country wasn’t a nihilistic Empire.
Dive bombing was accurate enough in WW2 for Navy fliers to hit 4 Japanese carriers in one day at Midway. An error of 100 feet would have missed.
After the Big Week air offensive of Feb 1944, the US was able to carry out daylight bombing raids over Berlin without any German fighters coming out to oppose, as noted in Hermann Goering diary. But German planes continued to attack on the Eastern Front to the end of the war.
the majority of dive bombers missed their target and a large number were also shot down by the Japanese.
actually there were both dive bombers and torpedo carrying bombers used at Midway.
The US also lost one carrier and one destroyer and 144 aircraft and 362 men (about half, pilots or aircraft crew)
The Japanese lost four carriers, one cruiser, hundreds of aircraft, and over 3,000 sailors. There is no doubt they were caught completely by surprise.
"actually there were both dive bombers and torpedo carrying bombers used at Midway"
True, but I believe none of the American torpedo bombers at Midway scored a hit. All the carriers were destroyed by dive bombers although the attack by torpedo bombers, slightly earlier, diverted most of the Japanese fighters so they would not be in place to defend against the dive bombers.
1. I did not say that the torpedo equipped fighters were successful in attacking the carriers. I said they were part of the overall effort.
2. You correctly say that Japanese fighters went after the torpedo aircraft, weakening their defense. In that sense, they served a good purpose.
NATO claims that Russia wants to attack Europe. At the same time, Europe is disposing of its weapons in Ukraine. After Russia's victory over Ukraine, how will an unarmed Europe fend off Russia? Or are Russia's accusations of aggression just lies?
The Europeans are either crazy or irresponsible. The latest projections is that Europe could fight (at most) for 10 days (and some of us think far less)
Europe does not belong to itself, it follows Washington's commands.
Both! And schizophrenic...
Using the word Irresponsible is too kind. How about, They have absolutely lost their minds?
And if they had a single bit of dignity left they would call for a ceasefire and try to negotiate an agreement with Russia.
Everyone knows Ukraine has lost, so what are the Ukrainians still dying for? And how many more need to die? How convinient that there are no casualty numbers from Ukraine either.
My aunt lives in Ukraine and their local cemetery had to be expanded multiple times and more than doubled in size during the last 2 years.
Sadly cemetary expansion is not just confined to Ukraine....both Poland and Ukraine are establishing Arlington Natl Cem- sized necropolises...more of course in Ukraine. The Polish project accomodates 20,000 from my recall. Thousands of Ukranians are left to rot on the battlefield. 300,000 unaccounted for "officially"...of course many of those may have just been paper soldiers whose pay enriched their commanders. I read that hundreds of UAF corpses were found in abandoned Polish mine sans organs...and harvesting teamsare never far from the battlefield. It is a full-blown horror!
fighting against the allied west, they made some tactical mistakes. Now they are careful and taking their time. after all, they don't want to conquer the whole ukraine, just send it to the stone age. They are probably waiting for the mud to dry, and for the Ukrainians to run out of personnel, munitions and infrastructure. until then they "soften" the opponent.
Abovw all else...only the Stavka knows and they don't advertise their intentions. Re-read Putin's ultimatum from Dec 2024 for the Russian objective; we all will have to wait to see how they attain it...and then study and learn a most painful lesson. This catastrophy is the outcome of beleiving ones own hubris. I wonder what the IC input was....highly politicized assessments or actual failure.