Here we go again-Ukraine once again

[Skybird]

Originally Posted by Dargo

Sure, china is not pleased with Putin can they be pursued to drop Russia they got a lot of anti US sentiment

Wishful thinking. We currently see the forming of the strongest anti-Western block ever. BRICS and 60% if not more of the global population. Plenty of emerging markets, economic prime power, ressources control, authoritarianism.

Public support for Ukraine is waning over here. The energy crisis now is an existential threat for the social and communal structure of Germany's society. The economy and industry, also haunted by the long term consequences of Covid that now make themselves felt, havew gone into a dive that only can be described as a rceession and the loans-price spiral is touring up, opening the way for stagflation. The prices for gas on average have gone up by 400% nation-wide, and püromise to explode even steeper int he forseeable future. Many private household cannot cope with such cost explosions, they simply cannot. Housing and tenants associations alike warn of ADDITIONAL gas costs of up tpo 5000 Euros. Mind you - in the West, Germany is the champion when it comes to the shares of low wage worker on the labour market.

The sanctions are worse than a boomerang. They seem to do more damage to Europe's economy than they do to Russia's. The Euro weakens, the Rouble gets stronger. Inflation gallops in the West, in Russia it is shrinking. The losses in sales to the west Russia was able to compensate by selling to thankful customers in China, India, the third world. India sells cheap Russian oil for high costs to Europe. Russia now makes more profit from its lesser sales than it did before with higher sales - that great our sanctions work!

That and the fear for crisis in winter is what lets support for Ukraine wane. Goobally, the majority of humans and nations do not line up with the West, and accuse the West, not Russia, for food crisis. Stomach goes before morals. Can we really point finger at them? No.

All this is running not good neither for the Ukraine, nor for the West. OPur eocnomy is seriously in troubles, and I think we will not get off that train that is out of control.

The moralisation of politics as Baerbock tries, does not work. Moral without strength is meaningless.

Nothing is to be expected from Bubble-Olaf. He once said "Who demands leadership form mme will get served leadership". Revcently he soudned very different, and said that he cannot make politics and leadership against what the people want. What this means, is clear: he weill not prioivde leadership, but he wants to get led. Populisim, they call it: check what people demand so that the ylove you, and that is what yoz do then to get loved. Merkel did this for 16 years, with the now known results. Bubble-Olaf is like her: mercilessly opportunistic, and populistic. He has no plan. He has only an unlimited supply of smoke grenades.

For the Ukraine, all this is no good news. Russian-made destruction burns itself into the ukraine and its industry like rust into a metal plate. High Russian losses can be compensated by Russia: Ukrainian military's losses count much more precious. Something tells me the few heavy weapons sent to Ukriane will not really make a decisive difference for the final outcome of the war - the Russians will simply press on, no matter what. Even old cannons and guns and old ammunition kills and destroys. I think the Western assessments of how the war is going show plenty of wishful thinking. The Ukraine bleeds out, slowly bleeds to death - I think that is the simple truth here.


All this what I said, describes a dilemma. The dilemma we are in is home-made, we ctreated it ourselves. And there is no solution. None I could imagine, at least. It seems we are doomed to let the inflammation run on until it dies out by itself - or brings them and us down.

[Skybird]

Constantly updated tracker on support for the ukraine.

Especially the US, the EU alltogether, the UK and Germany show huge discrepancies between the promises they made, and aid indeed paid (committed vs. disbursed). Different to that, the baltic and eastern european states and others put their deeds where their mouths were, and fulfilled their promises.

https://www.ifw-kiel.de/topics/war-a...pport-tracker/

Language switch EN/DE in the top right corner.

[mapuc]

Had an interesting discussion with some friends yesterday on FB.

I was the only one who is supporting Ukraine in their fight for survival.

- They can not win this war-Russia is way, way stronger.

Here I answered- Yes when it comes to men they are-but they lack modern weapons or does not have that many.

We are bombarded with misinformation about the war.

- No doubt we are, but I have decided to stand up for Ukraine and thereby believe some of what they tell theirs and/or ours journalist/reporters.

Ukraine commit war crime.

Of course they are and they have to stand trial after the war, as the Russians shall. but I think that Ukraine is aiming at the Russian military while Russia on purpose aim for civilian targets.

Markus

[Skybird]

For every artillery round the Ukrainians fire, they have to swallow ten in return.



All of Ukraine is battleground, gets bombared. Of Russian territories with supply networks, only a fraction, near the border, and rarely.


Do the math. If you have inflict double your losses on the enemy, he may loose twice as many, but if he is numerically superior by severla factors, you nevertheless lose in the end.



The Russians have adapted and learned from their early failings. They now focus, and amass, and advance lsowly and stay comitted to their objectives instead of hopping around like aircav rodeo riders. Unfortunate, but thats how it is. Technological advantages can compensate numerical inferiority only to a certain degree - and not beyond.



I think the US only is focussed on doing as much damage to the Russians as possible, they are not realyl that much c omitted to the Ukiraine. And why w/should they be. The enemy of the US is China, and the US wants a settled and stable situation in its back when it turns westward to China. Means: a Russia not capable to launch a second war front against Europe while China and America battle it out. The priority is China, not Russia.



Germany still delivers items of militzary relevanbce to Chinese navy, army and air force. So do many other Europeans. Very clever. Its so good to see that one is quick to learn the lessons from the Russian debacle.

[mapuc]

Skybird wrote

"For every artillery round the Ukrainians fire, they have to swallow ten in return."

How many of these ten are fired on purpose against civilian targets and how many is fired upon the Ukrainian forces ?

Of course none of us know-I seem to recall someone wrote here in my thread that Russia warfare was to bomb civilians as main target and then the Ukrainian army.

Could have remembered wrong though

Markus

[mapuc]

The West’s Ukraine strategy is in danger of failing

There’s a famous saying that no military plan survives its first contact with the enemy. The greatest theorist on war, Carl von Clausewitz, often explained that strategy must be dynamic, constantly changing and rejuvenating itself.

https://www.washingtonpost.com/opini...ategy-failing/

Markus

[Dargo]

Originally Posted by mapuc

The West’s Ukraine strategy is in danger of failing



https://www.washingtonpost.com/opini...ategy-failing/

Markus

There are many theorists on war, the Washington Post picks one and thinks the west or Ukraine uses him for their strategy only and throws a Game of Thrones "winter is coming" to make their doom credible. Ppfff The Art of War is no holy write!

[Dargo]

Originally Posted by Skybird

Wishful thinking. We currently see the forming of the strongest anti-Western block ever. BRICS and 60% if not more of the global population. Plenty of emerging markets, economic prime power, ressources control, authoritarianism.

Public support for Ukraine is waning over here. The energy crisis now is an existential threat for the social and communal structure of Germany's society. The economy and industry, also haunted by the long term consequences of Covid that now make themselves felt, havew gone into a dive that only can be described as a rceession and the loans-price spiral is touring up, opening the way for stagflation. The prices for gas on average have gone up by 400% nation-wide, and püromise to explode even steeper int he forseeable future. Many private household cannot cope with such cost explosions, they simply cannot. Housing and tenants associations alike warn of ADDITIONAL gas costs of up tpo 5000 Euros. Mind you - in the West, Germany is the champion when it comes to the shares of low wage worker on the labour market.

The sanctions are worse than a boomerang. They seem to do more damage to Europe's economy than they do to Russia's. The Euro weakens, the Rouble gets stronger. Inflation gallops in the West, in Russia it is shrinking. The losses in sales to the west Russia was able to compensate by selling to thankful customers in China, India, the third world. India sells cheap Russian oil for high costs to Europe. Russia now makes more profit from its lesser sales than it did before with higher sales - that great our sanctions work!

That and the fear for crisis in winter is what lets support for Ukraine wane. Goobally, the majority of humans and nations do not line up with the West, and accuse the West, not Russia, for food crisis. Stomach goes before morals. Can we really point finger at them? No.

All this is running not good neither for the Ukraine, nor for the West. OPur eocnomy is seriously in troubles, and I think we will not get off that train that is out of control.

The moralisation of politics as Baerbock tries, does not work. Moral without strength is meaningless.

Nothing is to be expected from Bubble-Olaf. He once said "Who demands leadership form mme will get served leadership". Revcently he soudned very different, and said that he cannot make politics and leadership against what the people want. What this means, is clear: he weill not prioivde leadership, but he wants to get led. Populisim, they call it: check what people demand so that the ylove you, and that is what yoz do then to get loved. Merkel did this for 16 years, with the now known results. Bubble-Olaf is like her: mercilessly opportunistic, and populistic. He has no plan. He has only an unlimited supply of smoke grenades.

For the Ukraine, all this is no good news. Russian-made destruction burns itself into the ukraine and its industry like rust into a metal plate. High Russian losses can be compensated by Russia: Ukrainian military's losses count much more precious. Something tells me the few heavy weapons sent to Ukriane will not really make a decisive difference for the final outcome of the war - the Russians will simply press on, no matter what. Even old cannons and guns and old ammunition kills and destroys. I think the Western assessments of how the war is going show plenty of wishful thinking. The Ukraine bleeds out, slowly bleeds to death - I think that is the simple truth here.


All this what I said, describes a dilemma. The dilemma we are in is home-made, we ctreated it ourselves. And there is no solution. None I could imagine, at least. It seems we are doomed to let the inflammation run on until it dies out by itself - or brings them and us down.

It was a question nothing more or less, do not understand we are going to hell the world faced worse periods and survived one or other way the world will survive this if not it is all ok we plunder destroy our environment maybe it is our karma to disappear.

[Rockstar]

I look at the chart differently so I might be wrong. There does seem to be a difference between what has been pledged and actually delivered. But I think it’s in the best interests of every state to regulate the disbursement of monies, and material rather than sending just one big pile of money and weapons at once. To deliver and store all the himars and other kewl things that go boom in Ukraine before personnel are trained wouldn’t be the brightest move on our part. Same with money, it’s MY money we pledged. I admire the soldiers and civilians fighting for Ukraine. But the government of Ukraine is a post Soviet era state which still has remnants of corrupt ways of conducting business and getting things done. It makes sense to me we make damn sure MY money is spent for reasons we intended.

[Rockstar]

Speaking of not wanting to flush money down the toilet. Norwegians put together a report in 2005 detailing why a nation with a 66 billion budget to modernize its army isn’t doing very well against a nation that has only a .5.5 billion budget for defense.

https://www.ffi.no/en/publications-a...ale-and-causes

Tor Bukkvoll

This report discusses the scale of and the causes for the high level of military corruption in Russia. While it for obvious reasons is difficult to find hard data for the true scale of this phenomenon, it is still possible to make calculations based on publicly available data. The sources used here are mainly figures released by the Russian Military Procuracy, and estimates made by independent Russian experts and journalists as reported in the Russian press. The causes of military corruption in Russia are discussed on three levels: the individual, the institutional and the political level. At the individual level the attention is on rational cost-benefit analysis. The main question is if Russian officers are most often faced by “low-risk, high profit” or “high risk, low-profit” calculus when they decide on whether or not to engage in corrupt activities. At the institutional level the focus is on the web of informal rules, constraints and habits that exist within the Russian officer corps with regard to corrupt activities. Finally, at the political level the relationship between the Armed Forces, the controlling and prosecuting agencies, and the political leadership is discussed.

Video version

[Jimbuna]

At least 15 people have been killed and about 20 more are feared buried under rubble after Russian rockets struck an apartment block in Chasiv Yar, a town in eastern Ukraine, officials say.

Five victims have been brought out alive. The death toll was given by a Ukrainian emergency services official.

One side of the five-storey building was ripped apart, leaving a mountain of rubble. Chasiv Yar is near the city of Kramatorsk, in Donetsk region.

Donetsk is the focus of a Russian push.

The region's governor Pavlo Kyrylenko said the destruction was caused by Russian Uragan rockets.

In the south, Ukrainian forces fired missiles on Sunday at the Russian-occupied city of Kherson. Reports from both sides are contradictory: a Ukrainian official said a Russian military base was hit, while Russian reports say a hospital was damaged and a house destroyed. https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-europe-62113185

[Jimbuna]

[Jimbuna]

[Jimbuna]

[Jimbuna]