Here we go again-Ukraine once again

[mapuc]

Originally Posted by Rockstar

Ukraine has a lot to offer. They are a people tired of Soviet/Russian oppression & imperialism. They have access to the Black Sea, they have grain, they have 1.09 trillion cubic meters of UNTAPPED natural gas, uranium reserves are also the largest in Europe, coal, largest reserves of manganese ores in Europe and the second largest in the world. 3.7 billion tons of shale oil, 138 million tons of oil reserves, the largest reserves of titanium in Europe. 45.6 thousand tons of Uranium reserves, the largest in Europe.

Believe me, they can afford to rebuild and pay back their debts.

From an episode of World War 2 in colour

(Taken from my memory)

In the beginning of the Germany invasion of Soviet-Ukraine send some representative to negotiate with the German where they offer to join the Germans in hope they could gain independent that way...the German refuse this. They didn't see any difference between the Ukrainian and the Russian.
(Can have missed some words)

Markus

[Skybird]

For modern Germanies and Sovjet Unions/Russias, Ukraine has never existed as a self-determined, sovereign actor with its own identity and its own ethnically based right to exist. For Russia, this is still true today, due Ukraine is simply booty to be snatched up; for Germany, it is still an underlying attitude, expressed in how naturally one expects Ukraine to accept territorial losses in order to make "negotiations" possible, in spite of all the pressure. A majority of Germans, many polls say, do not want to send tanks to Ukraine, and demand that Ukraine start negotiations even at Russian terms (of accepting losses of territory as demanded by Russia).

"Don't trust the Germans." (tm)

The FDP in the coalition in Berlin demanded that training of Ukrainian crews on Leopards gets started immediately, just in case, so that no further 3 months must be lost once the decision to send Leopards (and may it be that of others) is being made. Bubble-Olaf's office immediately said "No".

[Rockstar]

Hat tip: david D.@secretsqrl123 former ADA 16/ 14 R/ intel guy 96B with a P

david D.’s analysis

release the leopards...
im all for it..
but in reality.. what leopards?
there are 100 leo 1s in storage in germany. they have been there for 30 years. they would take months to get battle ready to go and many of the spare parts are gone.. and again we are talking about 100 max!

leo 2s. here is the issues, after the cold war they really stopped making them. they build kits and modify them now. not new hulls. many have been stored outside unused and unloved for decades

no one is going to give a leo2 to ukr that is part of its national defense plan (ger, pol, turk, greek, dutch, can, etc..). they are not going to strip the tanks from there own units..

so who is left that has leo2s in storage and COULD donate them
swiss have said no
aust has said no
so the only ones in storage are in
finland.. here is the issue. the Israelis modified them... so Israel COULD block the transfer or demand the sights and other things be removed

the simple fact is that after the cold war europe did a GREAT job of going for the peace dividend by cutting the European military. im not bashing, its a fact.

too many small countries building there own tanks, and spreading out surviving tanks to many countries does not leave a real reserve for something like this.

i hope that the EU/NATO "finds" more tanks.. but as far as the leopard they are looking at MAYBE 250 tanks of all kinds and makes for donation IF everyone is on board. and they have 1-2 years to activate them. some are in BAD condition

[Skybird]

Fact is the German industry already in March or April 2022 had told the German govenrment they - not active Bundeswehr reserves! - could have dozens of Leopard-2s ready in late summer or so, and the Marders even earlier. The government ignored them, for weeks and weeks did not even comment on it, and in the second half of the year on several occasions actively said No. The industry neverthless had started already last spring then to refurbish the Leopard-2 in their backyard and at their own cost, to have them ready once the permission would come. They asked again and again to be given permission to deliver these older Leopards-2, refurbished, I assume they are 2A4s in the main, maybe some 2A5s, but I dont know for sure. Most are 2A4, I strongly assume.

Says the industry. Not just some observer, commentator or reporter. These tanks have been phased out, they are not part of the tank pool of the BW anymore. According to the industry, first Leopards-2 could have been delivered already in late spring, early summer - if there would have been the political will.

Spain wanted to send some of its Leopards, which are more modern ones. Germany said No. I think it was Poland who wanted to do so, in limited numbers, due to their T-72 deliveries, and one or two other nations as well, was it Canada? Canada's Leopard-1s, I think. The Germans always prohibited it. But the same Germans complained about the Swiss and demanded Switzerland to change its laws when the Swiss said they do not deliver ammunition for the Gepards.

The Gepards were not delivered because it was such a brilliant idea, though it proved to be a valuable system to bring down drones. The Germans sent the Gepards so that they must not talk about Leopards anymore. Its the same with the Marders.

[Skybird]

And another thing is Russian-made ammunitions for Russian made weapons the Ukraine runs. The Ukraine runs low on these ammos, does not get enough of these anymore from the west, and obviousyl Russia will not provide them any new ammo. So they must switch to Western weapons for which such amunition is being produced and can be made available. While they are in the midst of fighting a full-scale war, and needing to micromanage the supply-chains for a plethora of different Western weapons and verhicles already, it needs to additionally manage a transition to requipping its full army over the coming months and years. Aber holla die Waldfee! Thats what I call a logistics nightmare!



And Bubble-Olaf has nothing better to do than to imply that first the US - biggest total net provider of arms anyway already - must deliver Abrams tanks with their huge thirst for gas and their totally different turbine engines and their complex maintenance needs (Abrams is said to be more complicated to maintain than Leopards and their Diesels) - before Germany would send a handful of Leopard-2s, or would allow others to do it.

[Skybird]

Bravo, Poland!



Poland announces it will send Leopard tanks to Ukraine

From CNN’s Antonia Mortensen and Yulia Kesaieva
Poland will send Leopard battle tanks to Ukraine, Polish President Andrzej Duda said during a meeting with Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky in Lviv.
“A company of Leopard tanks for Ukraine will be handed over/given as part of building an international coalition,” Duda said in a statement on his official Twitter account. “This decision has already been taken in Poland.”
Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky welcomed the decision.
“Today I can say a very important word for our defense, for our state, for our army, for the common defense of Ukraine and the whole Europe — the word ‘tanks,’” Zelensky said during a news conference in Lviv alongside his Polish and Lithuanian counterparts.
See Duda's tweet:

Today in Lviv, together with Presidents @ZelenskyyUa and @GitanasNauseda, we are talking in the Lublin Triangle format about military support for Ukraine against Russian aggression and about Ukraine's integration with the EU and NATO. ���������������� pic.twitter.com/iYSWqEdYWL
— Andrzej Duda (@AndrzejDuda) January 11, 2023

[Dargo]

Originally Posted by Rockstar

Ukraine has a lot to offer. They are a people tired of Soviet/Russian oppression & imperialism. They have access to the Black Sea, they have grain, they have 1.09 trillion cubic meters of UNTAPPED natural gas, uranium reserves are also the largest in Europe, coal, largest reserves of manganese ores in Europe and the second largest in the world. 3.7 billion tons of shale oil, 138 million tons of oil reserves, the largest reserves of titanium in Europe. 45.6 thousand tons of Uranium reserves, the largest in Europe.

Believe me, they can afford to rebuild and pay back their debts.

Correct, and they have vast areas of unused land where they can produce energy by solar they can deliver to Europe so that it can transform it (climate change).

[Dargo]

For now, Ukrainian forces appear to be holding some positions in Soledar, with soldiers saying the middle of the town is still heavily contested.

The Ukrainian tactic could be to invite wave after wave of infantry attacks, knowing they can inflict heavy casualties on the enemy, a tactic used with success in Vuhledar late last year. Ukraine’s command would then choose a moment to withdraw to Bakhmut.

Ukraine’s 46th Brigade alluded to this tactic in an online post on Tuesday, saying, “The situation is very difficult, but manageable: we only abandon what we consider inexpedient to keep.” Trying to hold Soledar – like trying to hold Lysychansk, the last holdout in the Luhansk region, last summer – becomes inexpedient when casualties rise and resupply becomes near impossible.

Girkin observed: “Even the fall of the whole Bakhmut-Soledar-Siversk fortified line will not lead to the collapse of the AFU [Ukrainian] front. In the rear they have the main fortification in the Donbas – the Sloviansk-Kramatorsk fortification. And it still needs to be reached.”

Ukraine has defense in depth throughout the parts of Donetsk it still holds – and has forced the Russians to expend huge amounts of munitions to make marginal progress. https://edition.cnn.com/2023/01/11/e...ntl/index.html

[Dargo]

Originally Posted by Skybird

Bravo, Poland!



Poland announces it will send Leopard tanks to Ukraine

From CNN’s Antonia Mortensen and Yulia Kesaieva
Poland will send Leopard battle tanks to Ukraine, Polish President Andrzej Duda said during a meeting with Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky in Lviv.
“A company of Leopard tanks for Ukraine will be handed over/given as part of building an international coalition,” Duda said in a statement on his official Twitter account. “This decision has already been taken in Poland.”
Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky welcomed the decision.
“Today I can say a very important word for our defense, for our state, for our army, for the common defense of Ukraine and the whole Europe — the word ‘tanks,’” Zelensky said during a news conference in Lviv alongside his Polish and Lithuanian counterparts.
See Duda's tweet:

Today in Lviv, together with Presidents @ZelenskyyUa and @GitanasNauseda, we are talking in the Lublin Triangle format about military support for Ukraine against Russian aggression and about Ukraine's integration with the EU and NATO. ���������������� pic.twitter.com/iYSWqEdYWL
— Andrzej Duda (@AndrzejDuda) January 11, 2023

The UK officially confirms that it will send Challenger 2 tanks to Ukraine. A government spokesman says PM Sunak has asked the defense secretary to work with partners in the coming weeks to go “further & faster with our support for Ukraine, including the provision of tanks”

[Jimbuna]

Ukraine battle hints at rift in pro-Russian forces

By Will Vernon
BBC News, Moscow

Russia's defence ministry says its forces are taking part in the battle for Soledar, a town north of Bakhmut in east Ukraine which has been the focus of recent fighting.

It comes after the head of Russia's notoriously brutal Wagner mercenary group, Yevgeny Prigozhin, claimed his fighters were in full control there and boasted that only his troops took part.

Mr Prigozhin will most likely use any victory to bolster the reputation of Wagner as an effective fighting force in the eyes of President Putin.

But the Russian defence ministry appeared to contradict the controversial oligarch's claims.

Spokesman Igor Konashenkov said in the military's daily update that: "Soledar has been blockaded from the north and the south by units of the Russian Airborne Forces.

"The Russian Air Force is carrying out strikes on enemy strongholds. Assault troops are taking part in battles inside the town." There was no mention of Wagner forces.

Ukraine's defence ministry also said on Wednesday that heavy fighting continues, and Wagner forces have had no success in breaking through its defences.

If Soledar falls, it will be a boost to Mr Prigozhin. In a statement released on Tuesday night, he boasted that "no other units took part in the storming of Soledar apart from Wagner". Ukrainian and US officials have said that Wagner units make up a large part of forces fighting in the area.

Analysts have long spoken of tensions between the military and Wagner, and Mr Prigozhin has publicly criticised generals for allegedly being out of touch with the realities of the war in Ukraine.

While it is difficult to know for sure exactly whether infighting is going on in the corridors of power, there are some clues.

Yesterday, news agency Tass reported that Colonel-General Alexander Lapin was appointed as Chief of Staff of the Ground Forces. Russian media quoted sources who claimed that the announcement of Gen Lapin's position - he was one of those slammed by Mr Prigozhin last year - was made as a warning to the oligarch: don't mess with the military.

But many here have been quick to praise Mr Prigozhin and Wagner for their apparent progress in Soledar. Influential media boss Margarita Simonyan gushed about how "polite" he is, signing off with a thanks to Wagner fighters, who she called "my little darlings!"

Likewise, pro-Kremlin military bloggers on Telegram lavished praise on the mercenary group. One blogger thanked them for "the emotions you've given us tonight".

Another said "When Soledar and [Bakhmut] are liberated, it will be a new chapter in Russian military history. The first time that a private military company has shown such results in a highly intensive military conflict".

The strategic significance of Soledar is disputed by military analysts. But if Russian forces do succeed in establishing full control over the town, it will certainly be a symbolic victory for the Kremlin. That is because Moscow's troops have failed to take a single significant town from Ukrainian forces since the summer of 2022.
https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-europe-64235712

[Dargo]

"Meat grinders," the battlefields of Soledar and Bakhmut are called. But how many Russian and Ukrainian soldiers are killed or wounded there remains unclear. Some estimates assume hundreds of casualties a day. "Barbaric," is what Americans are calling the relentlessly fierce fighting for the two small towns in the Donetsk region these days. Artillery attack after artillery attack Russians and Ukrainians have been carrying out around the clock for months and often with several thousand shells a day. In between, the shelling follows yet another Russian wave of military attacks to gain ground. The vast majority are mowed down or hit by Ukrainian artillery. 'The Russians first send their not very best fighters forward,' a Pentagon official said Sunday about the battle for Soledar. 'Once they have contained the Ukrainian counterattack, the better-trained troops follow behind them. If you go back in Russian history, you will see that there are plenty of examples where military personnel are used just to take bullets.'

The term "meat grinder," which has been used for months to describe the war in this piece of Ukraine, well captures the drama unfolding in Soledar and Bakhmut. Moscow is bent on victory in this area to bring closer the conquest of the entire Donbas. Just how terrible the battle is made painfully clear by an image of the battlefield last week. It was taken by a drone and was published by the Ukrainian Defense Ministry, among others. On a sandy plain near Bakhmut, numerous impacts of shells can be seen. If you look closer, however, you can see among the craters the corpses of dozens of Wagner mercenaries. They were fighting most of the battle against the Ukrainian army in Bakhmut. Some sources report that some 50 Russians had been killed in this futile attempt to advance.

'The Russian diplomatic service has never before suffered such losses,' the ministry wrote on Twitter in their familiar sarcastic tone accompanying the photo. 'This shows that the battle in this area is still a war of attrition,' the U.S. military think tank Institute for the Study of War concluded. 'A relentless, protracted war of attrition.' How many body bags must be zipped up every day in both places is pure conjecture. Both sides are silent as the grave about how many are killed and wounded on their side. About the opponent's losses, they are more forthright. A spokesman for the Ukrainian army in the eastern sector claimed in December that some fifty to a hundred Russians in and around Bakhmut are being killed daily in combat.

US intelligence officials estimated late last month that Wagner had seen as many as a thousand fighters killed in just a few weeks. The number of wounded would be substantially higher. If this is true, then Bakhmut, which has been fought over for six months, has become a graveyard for many thousands of Russian and Ukrainian soldiers. For that there are also many casualties on the Ukrainian side, Kyiv does not deny. "The enemy's losses are greater, of course, but we are suffering heavy losses," Oleksi Arestovych, adviser to Ukrainian President Volodymy Zelensky, acknowledged two weeks ago. For example, the New York Times reported that 240 wounded had to be treated at the army hospital in Bakhmut in just one day in November. In Soledar, the death toll is now so high, a Ukrainian soldier told CNN, "that no one counts the dead anymore. He assumes that the army will soon abandon the town. According to him, this should have been done much earlier. 'Everyone understands that the town must be abandoned,' said the soldier from the 46th Air Mobile Unit, who is in charge of defending Soledar. 'I want to understand what's the point of fighting house by house. Why die if we are going to leave it today or tomorrow anyway?'

[Jimbuna]

[Jimbuna]

[Catfish]

Originally Posted by Skybird

Poland announces it will send Leopard tanks to Ukraine [...]

As someone wrote "I'm not sure if I'm happier that they will obliterate Russian tanks, or how much it's going to pi$$ off Scholz."

[Dargo]

Originally Posted by Gorpet

You must be freezing.Immigrants are living better than Germans. Welcome to NATO.You know here in AMERICA it's hard. Our government and all those who make the big decisions are still eating Lobster and the lights are on, driving gas guzzling cars, **** we had Zylinski here Joe and the Demorats Hug and kissed and told him don't worry about the Germans.They will give you what you need. The Germans, In 30 more years will not even be German. What was that saying in Braveheart if you can't kill them.Breed their blood out. And it would seem the more Africans you accept the less dangerous you will be.

All fine in Germany nice warm weather that self-hatred that we try to transcend [...] by homeopathically diluting the Germanic population with all the peoples of the world, so that there will never again be a German. So that who we are can no longer take shape. The theoretical difference between race and culture would be a lot more convincing if you didn't also have a Mein Kampf on the bookshelf here take a cookie.