re: Latest Updates: Russia-Ukraine Conflict

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So by you're "likely higher than 10:1" nonsense you threw out earlier would mean that Russia has suffered only 25k casualties at most?

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Fun fact: Mediazona, with the help of the BBC, counts obituaries in Russian newspapers and is at 24,470. For any estimate, that's the absolute, bare floor where you start adding all the poor people who nobody cared about enough to put an obit in the paper, all the convicts who didn't get recorded, and the tens of thousands of "missing."

LINK

And that's also with some regional governments telling newspapers to stop publishing obituaries of soldiers to prevent them from being counted.

EDIT: Oh, and it also doesn't include DNR/LPR deaths.

I'm not sure what this new partnership (just declared at today's Ramstein meeting) will mean in practice.

LINK

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The Denmark, the Netherlands, and the UK defence ministries and the United States Department of Defense today announced that they are partnering together to deliver high priority air defence equipment to Ukraine, addressing its most urgent air defence requirements as Russia continues its brazen missile and drone attacks against Ukrainian cities.

The initiative will deliver hundreds of short and medium range air defence missiles and associated systems required to protect Ukraine’s critical national infrastructure and further ensure the success of counter-offensive operations in coming months. Delivery of the equipment has already begun and should be complete within several weeks.

The initiative was announced ahead of the June 15, 2023 meeting of the U.S.-led Ukraine Defense Contact Group (UDCG) in Brussels, Belgium. The UDCG brings together some 50 nations providing a variety of military support to Ukraine.

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LINK

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"Biden really is completely controlled by Ukrainians," propagandist Solovyov said on his TV show, believing that Ukraine bribed the US president.

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It's so hard to keep up. One day, evil Biden and the globalists are using their pawn Zelensky to start a war with Russia, and the next day, it's Zelensky and the globalists who are controlling Biden.

More Ramstein news:

LINK

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Ukraine is to receive more Leopard 2 main battle tanks from its Western partners. Denmark and the Netherlands have financed the purchase of 14 tanks, which will be supplied by Rheinmetall, as the Handelsblatt learned on Thursday from NATO circles. The company did not comment.

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These particular tanks need refurbishment, which will take some time.

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The first main battle tanks are to be delivered to the Ukrainian armed forces in January next year. By the end of 2024, all 14 vehicles should have been transferred, according to a person familiar with the operations.

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Financial Times:

US senators to launch bill to seize and transfer Russian assets to Ukraine

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The top Republican on the US Senate foreign relations committee will introduce legislation authorising president Joe Biden to seize and transfer Russian sovereign assets to Kyiv for the long-term reconstruction of Ukraine.

The move comes as both parties in Congress are increasing pressure on the Biden administration and its allies to find ways for Russian money to fund the billions of dollars that will be needed to rebuild Ukraine, rather than western taxpayers.

The bipartisan bill is being filed on Thursday by Jim Risch, the Idaho Republican senator and the party’s top member of the foreign relations committee, along with Sheldon Whitehouse, a Rhode Island Democrat on the Senate judiciary committee.

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The bill has attracted some bipartisan support in the House of Representatives, which would have to approve the measure for it to become law. Michael McCaul, the Republican chair of the House foreign affairs committee, and Marcy Kaptur, an Ohio Democrat who co-chairs the House Ukraine caucus, are backing the legislation in the lower chamber.

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Since Russia launched its full-blown invasion of Ukraine in February 2022, western countries have seized about $300bn of Russian assets.

On Capitol Hill there is a growing push for the US and its allies to use that money as talks intensify about the funding mechanisms for Ukraine’s long-term reconstruction, including at a conference to be hosted by the UK later this month on rebuilding the war-torn country.

Having Russian money fund a big chunk of Ukraine’s reconstruction would limit the price tag for western allies at a time when there are growing fears of waning political appetite for huge additional economic aid to the country. The legislation would also clarify the US president’s legal authority to take such action, making it harder to challenge in court.

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Concerns over the act of confiscating and transferring Russian sovereign assets include that it could be destabilising for financial markets; set a precedent for such actions to be deployed as a foreign policy tool around the world; and encourage tit-for-tat responses from Moscow.

Some western diplomats may also be concerned that by directing these funds to the rebuilding of Ukraine, it could take the return of Russia’s sovereign assets off the table as a bargaining chip in a future negotiation over the settlement of the conflict.

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The initiative will deliver hundreds of short and medium range air defence missiles and associated systems

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I know the Patriot is considered medium to long range. And I'm pretty sure Ukraine has gotten some HAWK systems that are considered medium range.

But what are the options for the short range defense systems? The Army has the two SHORAD platforms. One is mounted on the Avenger platform with a couple Stinger missiles and a 50 cal. The other is the Stryker based platform with Stingers and Hellfire missiles with a 30mm chain gun and 7.62 machine gun. I doubt they will be getting any of the Stryker based platforms as the US Army only started receiving them in 2021 and are still using some to test the Directed Energy Weapons (lasers).

So do you think we would be comfortable giving them some THAAD systems? That's the only other short range air defense system capable of shooting down ballistic missiles that I can think of off the top of my head. Or would the US just keep sending ammo for the Patriot batteries and maybe a few more HAWK systems (maybe the shoulder fired Stingers should we have some extras laying around) and let the Euro nations worry about the short range stuff?

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More than 6000 Ukrainians are being trained right now. At 40 different training locations, in 65 courses, in 33 nations on 3 continents - Gen. Mark Milley.

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LINK

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The guy is an obvious Russian troll farm bot. He just opened his account in May. And the only posts he has are about supporting and donating money to Trump, and spreading Kremlin talking points on the Ukraine war thread.

Obvious is obvious. Just ignore him.

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I don't know. Social media has exposed to me how many truly stupid people there are in the USA.

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Years of experience riding a short bus.

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I bet they make him sit in the front row where the driver can keep an eye on him.

So basically each training base is teaching g around a company of troops. I just wonder at what point are there too many cooks in the kitchen. Hopefully all these coalition nations agreed to some sort of uniform training course between them. Of course you might have some being trained on armored tactics and others infantry, etc but the key is making them all be able to work together seamlessly which is something the Russians just never have been able to figure out. They can sit in a trench line and put up a hellish defense though because if they retreat they get shot by their own people so Ukraine will need to be in sync to break those defense lines. I know they would take losses but I still would like to see Ukraine have a proper attack helicopter like the Super Cobra to hunt enemy tanks and artillery. I’m not sure why fighter jets are on the table but recently retired attack helos aren't.