re: Latest Updates: Russia-Ukraine Conflict

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theunknownknight

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weak-minded

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Why are we telling the Russians our plans?

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I occasionally review this thread to remind myself who is the most weak-minded and falls for the “next thing” that allows their overlords to get rich from their stupidity.

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While the current "vibes" seem pessimistic, let's see what happens.

You really think the US government can resist spending $60b that will mostly go into the pockets of defense contractors? I don't.

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According to French journalist Elsa Vidal, of course our govts deliberately starved Ukraine of the most decisive types of weapons -- this needs to be universal knowledge now -- but she goes further into the interpretation, which is interesting. She believes it's our fear of Russia collapsing following a proper defeat. She also fingers @RANDCorporation for being responsible for promoting the cynical policy goal of aiming for neither defeat nor victory in Ukraine.
Additionally, and that's also a diagnosis I made on this platform, she notes that aiming for a stalemate to begin with was necessarily going to make sustaining the political will to support Ukraine more difficult.
And, in my view, it's on that latter point that we really see the problem we have today, with the U.S. losing heart and resolve at the level of the entire country. Because the policy was not some kind of "golden middle" worked out by geniuses, but a costly and bloody and cowardly middle-of-the-road trajectory at a time in history that requires decisiveness.

Vidal concludes, like entire governments in the eastern half of Europe, like many parliamentarians across all of our nations, like hundreds of experts on the region and on military affairs, that we must aim for victory.

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There are significant developments that will speed up the exchange of prisoners, – said Andrii Yusov, representative of the Defense Intelligence of Ukraine.

Yusov assured that Ukrainian diplomacy, including closed diplomacy, in the context of the exchange process and the return of our prisoners is working effectively and in our interests.

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US will soon be unable to supply Ukraine with Patriot missiles

White House and Pentagon officials have warned about this, The New York Times has reported.

The reason for this will be the lack of funding - the cost of interceptor missiles for these systems can range from $2 million to $4 million.

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Denmark will supply F-16 fighters to Ukraine only in six months

Sources in the country's Ministry of Defense reported this to the Berlingske newspaper.

This is due to the failure to fulfill a number of conditions, including the training of Ukrainian pilots, the training of mechanics and ground personnel, the condition of airfields and the organization of supplies of ammunition and spare parts.

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“Sympathy for the Ukrainian war effort is entirely understandable, but…democracies lose when cheerleading replaces objectivity in reporting and governments prefer their own propaganda to the truth of what is happening on the battleground.”

A remarkably clear-minded piece which reflects a rather mainstream Western establishment thinking which has been silenced by war cheerleaders who monopolised the discourse by aggressively harassing the moderates and genuine experts.

Also: “It is estimated that between 20,000 and 50,000 Ukrainians are now amputees. (For context, 41,000 Britons had to have amputations in the First World War, when the procedure was often the only one available to prevent death.”

British lethal casualties in WWI: 880 thousand.

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Just to emphasize once again, Ukraine's summer offensive was made possible by a large shipment of artillery ammunition from South Korea. Ukraine's ammunition expenditure rate was always going to decrease this winter, though the lack of appropriated US funds has exacerbated this.

Obviously, it is critical that the US pass the supplemental aid package as soon as possible, but, looking at production/stockpile estimates, the relative ammunition situation for Ukraine in 2024 will not be as favorable as it was this summer.

Which is why the next strategic-level Ukrainian offensive may not be possible until 2025.

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Agree

Artillery ammo availability and having enough shells on hand to achieve a good enough relative weight of fire over time is a key requirement for enabling the next Ukrainian strategic offensive

Western production isn't increasing quick enough to achieve this before '25

To enable a new offensive, artillery ammo production and deliveries needs to be high enough to cover daily expenditure, which of course increases when the Russians are attacking, and leave a large enough surplus that can be stockpiled for an offensive

There are of course a whole host of other factors influencing the prospects of future Ukrainian strategic level offensives but artillery ammo availability is very high on the list, in order of importance.

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Wives of mobilized men picketed in Moscow demanding that their husbands be returned home

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Polish authorities persuade farmers to stop blockade of border with Ukraine

Polish Minister of Agriculture and Rural Development Czeslaw Siekierski will today provide written guarantees that three demands of protesting farmers will be met: subsidies for corn, guarantees of no increase in taxes and cheap loans.

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This is surely one of the most surreal moments of the war yet

Scott Ritter has turned up in Chechnya and spoken in broken Russian (some of which I couldn’t make out) to thousands of Kadyrov’s fighters about his efforts to strengthen the "friendship between Chechnya and America"

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America's goal has been accomplished. Our hands are relatively clean, Russia's military capability is greatly depleted -- with very little hope demographically of replacing the losses in the near future and no nukes were launched.

The proxy proxied real good.

No need to prop them up anymore, and it could actually be counterproductive to do so.

But our politicians owe favors, so we'll probably not just take the W and instead turn it into an L.

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There are reports from Western media outlets in September indicating plans within the Russian Federation to ramp up yearly artillery ammunition production to 2 million with the timeline remaining unspecified. Presently, Russia has the capability to produce between 1 and 1.5 million artillery rounds annually, or between 83-125 thousand units per month.

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