Here we go again-Ukraine once again

[Skybird]

Der Tagesspiegel:
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Ukrainian President Volodymyr Selenskyj sees the relationship with Germany in a "difficult phase" because of the debate on the delivery of battle tanks. "I have to force him to help Ukraine and constantly convince him that this aid is not for us, but for the Europeans," Selenskyj said in an interview with Der Spiegel and French newspaper Le Figaro (Thursday), referring to German Chancellor Olaf Scholz (SPD).

At the same time, Selenskyj thanked Germany for supplying the Iris-T air defense system. This, he said, had "saved a lot of lives." Ukraine's relationship with Germany is "undulating, it's up and down," he said.

Selenskyj also criticized European leaders, saying he had asked them "every day" for weapons and sanctions. "If everyone knew about Putin invading our country, why didn't they impose sanctions? It's absolutely ridiculous when you all publicly stand up for us and yet you're happy to circumvent sanctions or withhold weapons," he said.

On allies' support in the early days of Russia's attack on his country, Selensky said, "I'm not saying it went ideally." He said he would give an honest answer to the question of whether he was satisfied when the war was over.
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However, he conveniently forgets to mention that he did not believe in a Russian attack himself despite increasingly urgent calls by Washington to take the threat and their warnings serious. He ordered the mobilization many days too late and not until the Russian attack was almost already sitting on his nose. That the Ukraine lost over 80% of its static air defences in the first 18 hours of the war, is attributed by some voices to this failure of him.

[Skybird]

https://www.bbc.com/news/world-europe-64579267

SpaceX has limited Ukraine's ability to use its satellite internet service for military purposes - after reports that Kyiv has used it to control drones.

Early in the war, Ukraine was given thousands of SpaceX Starlink dishes - which connect to satellites and help people stay connected to the internet.

But it is also said to have used the tech to target Russian positions - breaking policies set out by SpaceX.
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At the same time, Western media report that large quantities of Western computer chips are still found in destroyed Russian equipment of recent production dates, while German companies are considered to be one of the main players in undermining the sanctions - although not the only ones. Businesses in other countries also refuse to comply with the sanctions.
There were times when this would have been considered treason and punished accordingly.

[Jimbuna]

Ukraine's President Volodymyr Zelensky has visited Brussels, after a tour of European capitals to push for more weapons to repel Russia's invasion.

Addressing the European Parliament to standing ovations, he told EU leaders that his country's fight is not just to defend Ukraine, but Europe's way of life.

Speaking to the media in Brussels Zelensky said the visit to London "achieved results" relating to the supply of long-range missiles and the training of pilots.

However the UK's defence secretary has told reporters there will be no immediate transfer of fighter jets to Ukraine.

Ben Wallace says it is “more realistic and more productive” to think about planes as a long-term aim.

Meanwhile, Dutch PM Mark Rutte has told the BBC the West has to make sure it is not risking "an Article 5 direct confrontation between Nato and Russia" over the delivery of jets.

[Skybird]

Comment by the Neue Zürcher Zeitung on the shifting tides of assessing the war's going:
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The Nervous Fever Curve of the Ukraine War - Wish and Reality Mix in the Reporting

"Can Ukraine win the war?" the media ask, permanently changing their assessment. This is due to the dynamics of the fighting. But it's also due to the journalists and experts: they shape the perception of the war, and they help shape it.

On February 24, 2022, the Russian invasion of Ukraine started, and former German Brigadier General Erich Vad ranked the situation on television. "Putin will win this war because the Russian armed forces are modern, well-equipped, because they have multiple superiority, because they have a strategic base against which it is impossible to defend," Vad told us. Militarily, he said, the issue is over. If Putin leaves western Ukraine alone, which he assumes he will, the war will last "a few days and no more."

The German ex-general Vad had gone very far out on a limb, and in retrospect his analysis turns out to be completely useless. At the time, however, it was not that unusual. A year ago, many experts assumed that Ukrainian soldiers would not stand the slightest chance against the Russian invaders. The media showed satellite images of a 64-kilometer-long Russian military convoy heading toward Kiev. The capture of the city seemed to be a matter of short time. However, the convoy never arrived. Instead, the newspapers were soon full of pictures of Russian military junk.

The army of the clueless

The Russian army, with its seemingly endless resources of men and materiel, had been overestimated, at least in the West. "Everything that is big in Russia is half stolen and half decoration. It has little to do with reality," Ukrainian author Andrei Kurkov commented on the Russian army. Military equipment proved outdated, as did command structures. The generals seemed to lead an army of the clueless. Many soldiers did not even know what they were doing in Ukraine. They were poorly instructed or not instructed at all, and combat morale was correspondingly low.

The injustice inflicted on the Ukrainians triggered collective feelings of solidarity in Europe and the heroic national defense of the Ukrainians triggered a media euphoria. Although millions of Ukrainians fled to the West, European admission policy has never since come under pressure to justify itself. Public interest remained high, which was not to be expected considering how passively the Russian annexation of Crimea in 2014 was still accepted. At that time, Ukraine seemed far away for the European public, it was a more or less unknown post-Soviet problem space - accordingly, the German government thoughtlessly deepened its energy policy ties with Moscow.

Early May: "Putin's Disaster

The roles in this war are - for the great public - clearly distributed from the very beginning: The aggressor is Russia. When the pictures of the corpses of Butscha became public, documenting a massacre of Ukrainian civilians, the public could only feel encouraged. Since then, only incorrigible Putinists - of whom there are not a few - have been ranting about how the Russians are defending their supposedly legitimate security interests against the West in this war.

At the beginning of May, "Der Spiegel" ran the headline: "Putin's disaster". His power has been overestimated, his army is much weaker than expected. Moreover, the sanctions were beginning to take effect. The American defense secretary and the NATO secretary general were convinced that Ukraine could win the war.

End of May: "Ukraine is losing

By the end of May, however, the situation seemed to darken again. The Russians captured the port city of Mariupol and brought it under their control. "Ukraine is about to lose the war," historian Herfried Münkler said in Die Welt. "It's going for Putin. From there, there is no incentive to engage in negotiations," said political scientist Carlo Masala.

In September, the situation seemed to change again. The Ukrainian advance in the Kharkiv region was judged by military experts to be "a strategic masterstroke that will keep military scholars busy for decades" (Phillips O'Brien, historian St. Andrews University) and "one of the best counteroffensives since World War II" (Ed Arnold, of the British think tank Rusi). Again, everything seemed possible for the Ukrainians.

The dream of the U.S. ex-General

Ben Hodges, a former U.S. three-star general, declared, "I am confident that before the end of the year, Ukrainian forces will push Russian forces back to their pre-war February borders." That was in October. In November, Ukraine made its last major recapture: Kherson. The American ex-general's dream proved as worthless as that of his German counterpart at the start of the war. A year after the start of the Russian invasion, the Russians occupied nearly twenty percent of Ukraine's territory. With a ruthless attrition of men, many of them former prisoners lured to the front with impunity, the Russians slowly advanced in Bachmut. In Wuhledar and Kreminna, Ukrainian troops are also coming under pressure.

"I fear that Ukraine may not be able to regain all of its territory in this war," Christoph Heusgen, head of the Munich Security Conference, tells "Stern." The "Welt" headlines: "Why it is almost impossible that Ukraine will still win".

An offensive is followed by a counteroffensive

Reporting on the war in Ukraine resembles a nervous fever curve. This is due to the nature of war, a more or less dynamic process. An offensive is followed by a counteroffensive, rearmament by counterrearmament. Allies, the home front, the weather, morale - various factors affect events; so does the willingness of the warring parties to escalate the situation.

Strategic actions often make themselves felt only after a delay. For example, Putin's partial mobilization in September was still an immediately inconsequential announcement that made little impression on the media in the face of the storming Ukrainians. Now it seems to be having its first effect: While Russia started the invasion with 150,000 soldiers, according to the Ukrainian military intelligence service, more than 300,000 soldiers are now deployed and up to 200,000 are in reserve. Western military aid to Ukraine pledged in February - infantry fighting vehicles, battle tanks and long-range artillery ammunition - is again not expected to make itself felt until spring.

Experts know they know nothing

But the nervousness of the reporting is not only due to the unpredictability of the war's course, but also to the media themselves. They shape perceptions of the war, and to some extent they help shape it. Depending on their attitude toward arming Ukraine with ammunition, tanks and fighter jets, they motivate their governments to help or to be passive.

The war experts who have their say in the media are in some respects reminiscent of the virologists who accompanied us through the Corona pandemic during two years. The expertise is often there, but that does not mean that these experts deliver precise and accurate situation analyses. Some of them interpret the situation too temperamentally, like to stage themselves with steep theses, have their personal sympathies for the Russians or Ukrainians, exaggerate individual immediate events; and they are guided by wishful scenarios. The latter undoubtedly also applies to the media: they see what they want to see, and thus sometimes create caricatures of warring parties and distortions of war situations. The Ukrainians suddenly seem invincible, the Russians like an army of tin soldiers. People wish for Ukraine's victory and therefore seem to think it likely.

So is expert knowledge completely worthless? No, as long as the experts know that they know almost nothing - and certainly not in war.

At the end of January, the Germans decided to deliver 14 Leopard 2 tanks to Ukraine. "Der Spiegel" ran the headline, "Can Ukraine win now?" Ultimately, the reporting has been circling around this question for a year. The very fact that the question is constantly asked is evidence of the hopes associated with it, and also of the doubts. Otherwise, it would not have to be updated again and again.

Doubts about diplomacy

The German Otto Brenner Foundation examined media coverage of the Ukraine war in German leading media (including "Süddeutsche Zeitung," "Frankfurter Allgemeine Zeitung," and "Bild") in the period between February 24 and May 31. Unsurprisingly, it was found that Putin and Russia were almost without exception negatively evaluated in contrast to Selenski and Ukraine. The German chancellor had positive coverage immediately after his turn-of-the-century speech. However, given his reluctance to provide weapons to Ukraine and to visit Selensky in Kiev, coverage cooled again.

In 93 percent of the reports, Russia appears to be solely responsible for the war. Only in four percent of the reports is the West seen as partly responsible, in 2 percent Ukraine is held responsible. Military support for Ukraine is portrayed positively in 74 percent, and the supply of weapons is still seen as mostly worthy of support in 66 percent. Diplomatic negotiations, on the other hand, were seen as worthwhile in less than half of the contributions.

In light of the war against Ukraine, which is against international law, the results are not surprising, but they clearly show where the leading media stand and in which direction they try to push governments: priority is given to arms deliveries, diplomacy is secondary. In this way, the media not only directly affect politics, but also indirectly by shaping broader public opinion.

The war in real time

Perhaps the fluctuating assessments of the situation are also surprising because the public can follow developments in this war in real time, so to speak. The media try to depict the reality of the war with interactive maps. Satellite images, expert reports, analyses and sources on Twitter, Telegram and Youtube all flow into the evaluation. One seems to be closer than ever before. It is all the more disappointing that so much remains in the dark. For example, the exact number of victims. The Russians keep the numbers to themselves in order to conceal the desolate war campaign. The Ukrainians keep them to themselves to keep up the morale of their battered population. In total, the death toll is probably already in the hundreds of thousands.

We know a lot about this war. But there is also a lot we do not know. And it is certain that in the case of Ukraine, too, some certainties will vanish into thin air. Who would have thought that the Taliban fighters would drive the nuclear power America out of Afghanistan and rule in Kabul ever since? In 2014, the G-7 announced, "There is no future for Asad in Syria." Was it the formulation of a wish or a condition? Bashar al-Asad remains president of Syria, propped up by Russia and Iran. The German foreign minister said in Kiev in May 2022 that Germany would reduce its dependence on Russian energy to zero - "and forever." Let's wait and see. In any case, this apodictic announcement seemed somewhat strange for the foreign minister of a country to which the community of nations has once again reached out its hand after the rupture of civilization.

At present, it seems that Western military aid is not sufficient for the Ukrainians to reclaim their territory, including Crimea, which is the Ukrainians' declared goal. Russia's wartime objective remains obscure. Pressure to begin negotiations is likely to increase this year. But this is only a snapshot. And as the evolution of the war shows, it may be meaningless in the very next moment.
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[Skybird]

There is one established correlation, I think, between the chances of the Ukraine, and the ammount of weapons the West delivers, and over what time. Hardly anyone can seriously put this link in doubt.

The Ukraine lives and fights on the drip of such deliveries. If it does not get sufficient stuff, it cannot continue the fight. If it does not get sufficiently more than just "sufficient", it cannot win the war. If it neither can win nor continue the war, it looses - the war, and then much more.

Either we do and send what is needed, or we don't. Both these two options are reliable indicators for who wins and who looses this war.

Actually, its not as complex as the auth of the NZZ opinion piece suggests. Actually its indeed quite simple. And with how we do things right now, with these ammounts of weapons only, and these endlessly delayed time tables, these many limitations to weapon's ranges, I cannot see how the Ukriane can win this war. Or even survive it. At the time of writing this, three quarters of its critical infrastructures have been bombed into oblivion already. And I commented already on the demographic dimension.

We must finally be honest about what we want and how far we are willing to go. If we claim that we are doing everything that is necessary, while we are not doing exactly that, then we are only showing that we will never do what would ensure the victory of Ukraine, because such an act and support would inevitably be seen by Putin as a provocation and as crossing the red line. If what we are doing now were decisive for war - the Russians would have gone to the extreme long time ago. The fact that they are not doing it shows that our attitude and actions are not decisive for them. We anger them, biut we do not decisovely hurt them. Same with our sanctions.

Washington talks about "boiling the frog." The USA is not so much interested in Ukraine, but in causing the greatest possible damage to the Russians, so that they will not be able to terrorize again for years and decades to come. This would be legitimate, if the costs, which arise from it, the blood toll, also would be paid by the Americans. But it will not be, it is the Ukrainians who have to bleed for America's cooking arts. Just ask yourself why in Kherson 30,000 Russian soldiers, who were encircled and had no possibility to retreat and were in chaos and were broken, did not end up in captivity or graves, but one night, after a American visited Moscow, in spite of the circumstances, more or less orderly, over three almost completely destroyed bridges, began and completed their retreat, without the Ukrainians firing on them. Think about it. The answer is obvious. Such a catastrophic defeat might have shortened the war, so continuing to boil the frog would not have been possible. So Washington stopped it. Not at the expense of American lives - but at the expense of Ukrainians. The American help is massive, but not if comparing it to the sheer scale of the confpict and disputed frontline and sioze of terriories - then it simply is by far not enough. Its never sufficient to bring about a decision. First missiles with 70 km, now soon missiles with 150 km. Why not 300 km? The Ukrtaine woudl not need a small handful of SAM batteries, but by factors more of these. The USA has three hundred of HIMARS systems, but delivers only 30 - why? Instead of the demanded 300 MBTs not even 100 will be sent in the end, I predict for this year. Instead of 600-700 IFVs only 40 Bradleys and 40 Marder. Instead of 500 artillery pieces, only a fraction of that. Why? The material is there, there are more Bradleys in Europe than there are European infantry fighting vehicles in Europe.

The war should not end this soon. The frog should not jump out of the pot yet. That's why the cooking water's heat is increased very slowly only, so that the friog does not realise it. But this is not American cooking water that is being cooked with. It's Ukrainian blood.

"America first." It was so with Obama, it was so with Trump, and it is so with Biden. It's about time that Europe finally learns that. Biden never was as harmless as Republican critics or European hopefuls depict him. We have seen this toughness already in his no-matter-what cutting of Afghanistan.


States have no friends. States have interests. - deGaulle


The state is the coldest of all cold monsters. - Nietzsche

[mapuc]

If Russia would be lucky and take the entire country Ukraine-The Ukrainian army will change strategic and start guerilla warfare against the occupier.

As someone said on a YT clip-Today we fight them at the front, behind the front and on their soil.

This is if we stop sending weapons and other military stuff or our effort to support Ukraine isn't sufficient enough.

As someone said here-The time is on the Russian side.

Markus

[Jimbuna]

Ukraine is Europe, and your future is in EU, - President of European Parliament Metsola

The future of the Ukrainian people lies in the European Union.

This was stated by the President of the European Parliament, Roberta Metsola, Censor.NET reports.

"I am proud to say that this house of European democracy, its members, our European Union, has always stood with you. We understand that you fight not only for your values, but also for ours, for those ideas that make us all Europeans. Therefore that Ukraine is Europe, and the future of your people is in the European Union," she emphasized. Source: https://censor.net/en/n3398752

Italian Prime Minister Meloni called Zelensky’s invitation to France "inappropriate"

Italian Prime Minister Giorgia Meloni called President Volodymyr Zelensky’s invitation to Paris "inappropriate."

This is reported by Censor.NET with reference to The Telegraph."I think our strength is community and unity ... but there are times when the bias of internal public opinion risks harming the cause, and I think this is one of those cases," she said.

Earlier, the head of the Italian Foreign Ministry announced that Meloni will meet with Zelensky in Brussels on the sidelines of the meeting of the leaders of the European Union.

It will be recalled that on February 8, after a visit to Great Britain, President Volodymyr Zelensky arrived in Paris, where he met with French leader Emmanuel Macron and German Chancellor Olaf Scholz. Source: https://censor.net/en/n3398767

[mapuc]

A friend and former politician in the Danish Parliament wrote following on his wall.

President Zelensky of Ukraine in London - not Brussels!
Zelensky's first visit was to the US. On his second trip abroad since the war began, he is visiting Britain.
My sources in the country (think-tank kolleager) tell me that the EU bureaucrats in Brussels have boasted that the Ukrainian president would of course choose the EU or an EU country after his visit to the US.
Instead, President Zelensky chose Britain, Rishi Sunak and King Charles III.
The British must be proud. With good reason. As President Zelensky said when he landed: "Britain was one of the first countries to come to Ukraine's aid. And today I am in London to personally thank the British people for their support and Prime Minister Rishi Sunak for his leadership."
President Zelensky's visit proves that Britain may have left the EU, but they remain the most important country in Europe.
Germany is to no avail. And France is selfish.

Translated with www.DeepL.com/Translator (free version)

Markus

[Jimbuna]

[Jimbuna]

Currently, more than 300 thousand Russian invaders are fighting on territory of Ukraine, - intelligence


The Russian army deployed on the territory of Ukraine consists of more than 300,000 occupiers. The mobilized Russians are a danger, despite their poor training.

Andriy Yusov, a representative of the Defense Intelligence of the Ministry of Defense, announced this on the air of the national telethon, Censor.NET reports with reference to Liga.

According to him, mobilization continues in Russia, contrary to the statement of the Kremlin's propaganda about its termination, since the decree on conscription has not been canceled.

Yusov noted that more than 300,000 invaders are currently on the territory of Ukraine, some of them are undergoing training and education, and there are more.

According to intelligence, the best-prepared units of the Russian army have already been destroyed by the Armed Forces of Ukraine, but even poorly prepared troops of the occupiers pose a serious danger.

"The bodies of the mobilized will be strewn on Ukrainian land, and the defense forces will destroy them," he summarized. Source: https://censor.net/en/n3398790

Ukraine’s intelligence intercepted plans of Russian Federation to seize power in Moldova, - Zelensky

Ukrainian intelligence intercepted the Kremlin’s plans to take control of Moldova, and President Zelensky immediately passed all the information to his colleague, President Maia Sandu.

This is reported by Censor.NET with reference to the Euro Integration.

"Recently, I spoke with the President of Moldova, Mrs. Sandu, and informed her about what our intelligence managed to intercept: a detailed Russian plan to destroy the political situation in Moldova. A Russian document that shows who, when and as a result of which actions are going to break Moldova, the democratic order of this country and establish control over it," the head of state said at the EU summit in Brussels.

He noted that he did not hesitate for a single moment to warn Moldova about these threats in order to protect it.

"We don't know if Moscow was ordered to act according to this plan against Moldova. But we saw what they were going to do. We recognized in this exactly what they were already trying to do against Ukraine, against other states, in particular in Europe. Nothing new," the president said.

According to Zelensky, the Russian regime has only one desire - to destroy the freedom of Europe. Source: https://censor.net/en/n3398795

[Dargo]

A New Russian offensive in Ukraine appears to have begun: 'They are pushing on all fronts'

Fighting in eastern Ukraine is intensifying. The Institute for the Study of War (ISW), a US think tank, reported today that the long-awaited Russian offensive has begun and the Ukrainian governor of Luhansk is also talking about a full-scale attack. The offensive has secretly already begun, a week or two ago. The Russians are pushing on all fronts, but the real heavy fighting is yet to come. There are all sorts of signs that the fighting is intensifying and that the Russians are scaling up, the intensification indicating that "something is afoot".

What the Russians are doing on the northern front still looks most like an offensive. In the province of Lugansk, the Russian army has taken over the initiative; there the Ukrainians were on the attack, now the Russians. But the Ukrainians manage to prevent the Russians from making territorial gains. Probably, the Russian offensive there is not yet fully up to speed. The governor of the Luhansk region, Serhi Hajdaj is also talking about a large-scale offensive. He said on Ukrainian television today that Russian troops are trying to break through defenses near the town of Kreminna.

Russian troops are trying to make their way westward through snow and forests towards Ukrainian positions, Hajdaj said. "There is constant firing. We see attacks almost every day now. Small groups of Russians trying to advance with the support of armored fighting vehicles and tanks." According to the governor, they have so far failed to break through the Ukrainian defenses. The Russians are doing two things, they are fatiguing the Ukrainians and at the same time looking for the weak spots in the defenses.

When the Russians can force a breakthrough, it is hard to predict the chances of that happening are greatest if the town of Bakhmut falls. After a possible fall, Russian troops will be freed up and can then be deployed in other places. The Ukrainians are turning Bakhmut into a kind of Mariupol. They have also maintained that for months. It has a lot of symbolic meaning for the Russians. There are two main reasons why the Russians are stepping up the pressure now, towards a main offensive. President Putin has given a message to the commander of the Russian army that the entire Donbas must be in Russian hands by March at the latest. Furthermore, now "the frost is still in the ground" so tanks can be driven. When spring starts, they will run aground. Nevertheless, tanks are not deployed for major attacks now.

Supreme Commander Gerasimov still has a lot of work to do. Up to the administrative border of Bugansk province is only a strip. There, the Russians are furthest advanced. But of Donetsk province, a fairly large area remains to be taken. The Russians are not capable of much more than this on the southern front near Zaporizhzhia perhaps two more diversions, but no more. An attack from all directions on Ukraine, as on 24 February 2022, is no longer in the cards. The Russians' preliminary main target is now the two towns of Slovyansk and Kramatorsk, in Donetsk province. That would be a big loss for the Ukrainians, according to analysts. They assume that a Russian offensive will eventually "culminate" in a Ukrainian offensive, if the advancing Russians reach the end of their forces, "as they did in August". How long the battlefield may undulate back and forth in this way, the analysts do not dare to predict.

[Catfish]

I read (though this may be wrong) Russia has now 300,000 "mobiks" fighting in
Putin's 3-days "special operation to take Kyyiv", going into the second year now. Masterminds at the helm.

But i agree that the western help is not aimed in really helping Ukaine, it is about slowly boiling the frog; no one really cares about Ukraine and the people.
There is either a strong signal needed punching Putin directly: meaning putting all in including boots on the ground, or spare this useless "fight" with Ukrainians dying and their country being destroyed for decades.

If the US do not want them to win, they should say it.
Olaf Scholz will happily chime in, while the rest of Germany and the world will go on doing business with anyone as long as there's money in it.
Disgusting.

[Skybird]

Air photography shows that the Russians are active in all their tank depots with mothballed tanks to reactivate as many vehicles there as they can, not a single mothball-depot is being spared. Quantity beats quality, these tanks are old and need refurbishing of any kind, some more, some less, but the process will produce a constant outpour of reactivated old tanks moving to Ukraine. And the number of mothballed tanks they have was counted to be some say 10500, others say close to 12 thousand. Even if only a fraction can be reactivated and the others must be cannibalised, this still means: thousands of tanks. 3 tanks for 1 active tank? That makes 2500 to 3000 new tanks.

A third mobilization wave is assumed by observers since weeks to be secretly running already.

Russia is reported ot have fired 7 million artillery shells so far. From a stockpiled reserve of 18 million such shells before the war. Newly produced ammunition for artillery is not being counted, but what is known is that they produce these ammunitions with their industrial maximum capacity possible.

Everything that happened in Brussles with Zelensky at the EU, in my book ranks in the category of cheap "Wortgedöhns". Note that the EU promised nothing substantial at all, just cheap candy-sweet words. Aplenty, sicne words are so cheap to have, everybody can afford to throw them with both hands left and right, and it will cost him nothing.

Western fighters? Makes only sense if these come embedded within the full context inside which they are operated in NATO: AWAYS, digital networking, maintenance capacity, full interconnection with supporting industry on the ground and in the Ukraine. Without these supportive factors, they are worth just half of their combat value, and sooner or later will be picked apart by Russian counter efforts (let nobody be so foolish to now underestimate Russian air defences). Waste of Western money, that means. Better send more air defences. MANY MORE air defences, and ASAP. Also, ammunition of all sorts, namely artillery and tank ammunition. AT weapons also will help, obviously. And missiles. LONG RANGE missiles.

[August]

Originally Posted by Catfish

I read (though this may be wrong) Russia has now 300,000 "mobiks" fighting in
Putin's 3-days "special operation to take Kyyiv", going into the second year now. Masterminds at the helm.

But i agree that the western help is not aimed in really helping Ukaine, it is about slowly boiling the frog; no one really cares about Ukraine and the people.
There is either a strong signal needed punching Putin directly: meaning putting all in including boots on the ground, or spare this useless "fight" with Ukrainians dying and their country being destroyed for decades.

If the US do not want them to win, they should say it.
Olaf Scholz will happily chime in, while the rest of Germany and the world will go on doing business with anyone as long as there's money in it.
Disgusting.

That's bull Catfish. They are trying to avoid turning it into a nuclear war. I'm willing to risk it by putting NATO boots on the ground in Ukraine because I think Russia is a nuclear paper tiger like the rest of their military, but I can certainly understand the administrations trepidation at triggering one.

Have you any idea what it means to "spare this useless "fight"" as you put it? It means that Ukraine will get treatment that is very similar to what your country got from the Soviets at the end of WW2. Are you really willing to sit by and watch it happen? Willing to ignore their increasingly desperate pleas for guns, ammunition, anything to defend their homes as they are overrun by that cruel wave of evil?

[nikimcbee]

Originally Posted by Jimbuna

You could donate the Buna collection?