Would it stop Ukraine from joining? That seems to be the big question about this to me.
Russian invasion of Ukraine | Fewer tweets, more discussion
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Frozen conflict would be fitting, Russia is a lot like North Korea already, except with plenty natural resources.
I can perfectly imagine Russia in 20 years still rambling on about "unification of our people" and all that.
I can perfectly imagine Russia in 20 years still rambling on about "unification of our people" and all that.
Yes, which is why the article is BS. The author interviewed a few people off the record who gave them their opinion, one of which said “We are planning for the long term, whether it looks frozen or thawed,” which resulted in the misleading headline and its subsequent retweeting.
Hard to believe the Ukrainians and Moldovans haven't teamed up to boot the Russians out of Transnistria as well.
It wouldn't help imo, since Ukraine joining NATO with Russian troops on internationally recognized NATO land would immediately cause an article 5 problem.
At least for the EU there already exists a similar issue: Northern Cyprus, which is occupied by a Turkish-supported regime, quite similar to the "Donetsk/Luhansk People's Republics". So joining the EU while being in a frozen war might at least be possible. NATO might be more difficult.
As with everything Biden admin has been absolutely useless in estimating how long would it take for Ukrainians to get accustomed to the western kit and delaying it needlessly.
You didn't read the article and the report right? Especially the part where it's mentionned that it would require 12 months to train 12-14 pilots?
It’s deliberate. They make a song and dance about giving them elite weapons to seem reluctant and placate certain sections of both the domestic and international audiences. They’re now sending Abrams this year, having claimed it’ll be 2024 due to logistics and training. They’ll also send long range missiles at some point too - the US definitely coordinated the delivery of storm shadow, as they purposefully sent those decoy missiles to work alongside them back in December.
If they’re even having a conversation about certain weapon systems I just assume it’s a done deal and will definitely be delivered at some point. Everything in between is to buy time to sort the actual logistics out (notice how when something is finally announced Ukraine has it delivered next day like it’s been bought with Amazon Prime) and smooth over any political ramifications.
The weapons that are officially delivered to Ukraine are delivered long before they’re made public
CNN reporting US won’t block the transfer of F16s to Ukraine.
I agree that things could have been done faster and the training should have started earlier but it's good to keep in mind that training the pilots is just one piece of the puzzle and getting F-16's to Ukraine is big fecking puzzle. There are still many other pieces that needs to be put in place before we'll see F-16's over Ukraine.
Not to mention there's no guarantee that any weapon will be a game changer. It will be a collective effort of all weapons and a desire to win that will move the needle on the battlefield.
There should be a law allowing such people to be deported to Russia. They like Russia so much, go and live there. This law alone would probably suffice to stop this behaviour, because they don't want to actually live there of course. They just love being controversial and to annoy people.
I agree. There are some people who clearly deserve to be forced into exile if they love a geopolitical enemy this much.
4th missile night in a row now?
In those four nights the Russians fired in total as many missiles as they used to do in one attack.
Which is weird, because launching more at once increases the chance of overwhelming air defense systems.
So why are they doing it this way? It just makes no sense, except if they had a lack of launch platforms at the moment (and that would be this huge as news that we would surely hear more about it).
So I am quite puzzled about what's going on.
Isn’t it because all of them got through when there were no air defences so they went for shock and awe?
There always were air defences in Ukraine, we are now just seeing a slow replacement of S-300 running out of ammunition by western made systems (Patriot, IRIS, SAMP/T, NASAMS etc)
And even at the time the S-300 were quite good at shooting down cruise missiles.
How?
Sounds like someone overpriced estimates on purpose when they sent them for approval from Congress.
Which would absolutely make sense for PR reason. In the beginning, make it sound like you send a lot of help, once you run into budget limits, make sure that as much as possible fits into the budget.How?
Sounds like someone overpriced estimates on purpose when they sent them for approval from Congress.
I wonder how many SF operators we have in country doing the same thing. Too much valuable Intel to not have a presence there.
It has been evident all throughout that US policy is not for Ukraine to win currently, this would have been long over had it been the case. They’re not sending the right signals to Kremlin.
A mate who works for a company selling non-lethal military equipment said last year November that there was a full regiment of SAS on the ground. That was pretty much confirmed in an article not long ago.
In fact he said that the British military command have a direct line to the front and are the ones ultimately putting tenders out to industry - currently a COVID/PPE situation for people wanting to sell everything from night vision to ruck sacks to Ukraine by the sound of things. Usual export licences not required.
The British definitely taking a big role in strategy and helping the Ukrainians a lot. Partly why I think there’s a discrepancy between how much aid we’ve sent and how favourable the Ukrainian government views us. Feel like the UK is considered the top ally - even over the US - and that must be down to committing actual lives in the conflict. We definitely haven’t sent the most weaponry (although we have sent a lot).
It's a WSJ opinion piece. "Close to the front lines" probably means Poland or Germany.
The strategy is clearly not about not letting Ukraine win. They’re concerned with what would happen if Ukraine won quickly.
This is not going to be won on the battlefield, Russia needs to want change from within, I think the US tactic is to ensure that Ukraine do not lose and in the mean time life gets worse and worse in Russia which makes Putin’s position less and less solid.
Somehow I doubt that. I think its literally very close to the actual lines if not behind them from time to time.
Whether Ukraine wins slowly or quickly, both would result in a weakened Putin and Russia, which benefits not just the US, but all of NATO (spare Hungary).
Only thing clear is that sanctions (apart from energy) don’t really work as everything finds its way into (and out of) Russia, hence their economic has dropped only a few basis points, it won’t be enough to bring about the end to the regime. Russians have been living for centuries under much worse conditions. The only way the change from within can happen is for their propaganda filled bubble to blow up in front of their people’s eyes, and this can only happen in swift military defeat.
Yes but what is the alternative? Ukraine invading and submitting russia? A defeat for the russians in Ukeaine will create a frozen conflict, it's the best case scenario. Russia has a comprehensive defeat only if they attack NATO and the country gets reset, denazzified if you will. They have a lot of nukes and it is what it is. If they didn't have that, the NATO flag would be in putin's ass already.
I think the point is that a win for Ukraine will create a tense situation over a long period of time, but this time with NATO and Ukraine having so much power that another real war would not happen.