re: Latest Updates: Russia-Ukraine Conflict.

since X says the post describing this event is "not found"

quote:

---

quote:
Without coming across as a troll, what other benefits does the US get from NATO today and next week other than basing rights?




Excellent question. Let's put aside the fact that it took two weeks for us to start asking Allies for help in our current conflict - it doesn't matter how powerful our military is, everybody needs friends, especially ones with written agreements. We've needed friends in the past and we are going to need them in the future, and it all starts with China.

Let's assume that China is the military adversary we all think they are. That's a big 'if,' I know, but it's plausible. A war with China will overwhelmingly likely come about around Taiwan, which is squarely on China's home turf. China may very well likely have 1 Billion people, which means they could take losses upwards of 50 Million men and still keep rocking, so we are going to need help in terms of manpower. Then there's the economic, political, and geographic aspects of European power, which I don't think most people truly understand - we need to make it work with them, if for no other reason than we don't need to turn them into competitors, too.

And while I do believe that Russia isn't going to be near the military threat that they were five years ago (and it's clear they weren't the threat we all thought they were) the changing drone threat means that it's not going to cost them nearly as much in terms of time, money, or anything else to become a threat again.

The bottom line is that the democracies need to stick to together and continue to work things out and act as a positive stabilizing force in the world, and in many ways it's NATO that is where that starts.

---

This assumes we will remain a Democracy.

Dudes, the Iran War Thread is gaining on this one as far as page count... step it up!!!

quote:

---

I'm old enough to remember a time when Putin denied sharing intelligence with the Iranians...

Haven't European countries taken over from us regarding leading on intelligence about Russia... with Tulsi in charge?

---

Well, I was being facetious in regards to Witkoff's assurances that Putin told him that he wasn't providing satellite intelligence and Trump repeated this.

However, it was interesting to see how many White House supporters and bloggers replicated this deception. Lying seems to be an article of faith with this Administration.

To your question, yes, the Ukrainians are getting most of their satellite intelligence from non-US sources, particularly from France and Poland. They will be able to handle their own signal intelligence but would get collaboration from other countries, particularly the Baltics and now Finland.

I have to think some intelligence is still coming from the US on a 'need to know' basis. Tulsi is now sidelined and the various US intelligence agencies are all acting independently. So Kyiv likely has their sources in Washington.

Finally, let's not forget the Russians. Lots of backstabbing among those agencies and none are above making contact with Ukraine when it benefits them.

Drones target Moscow again amid uptick in reported strikes on Russian capital

March 21, 2026 5:42 am

Nearly 30 drones were shot down over Moscow and the surrounding region on March 20-21, according to Mayor Sergey Sobyanin.

The mayor's claim comes amid an uptick in reported Ukrainian drone attacks on Moscow over the past week. Sobyanin said on March 14 that over 60 drones had been intercepted over the capital in a single day. He then reported waves of drone attacks for the next several consecutive days.

Throughout the afternoon and evening on March 20 and into the early hours of March 21, Sobyanin reported swarms of Ukrainian drones targeting Moscow and the surrounding region. Russian air defense units intercepted the aerial threats, he said.

Emergency services were dispatched to the crash sites and no casualties were reported.

Nearly 30 drones were shot down, Sobyanin claimed. The total number of drones launched by Ukraine remains unclear, as Russia only reports drones it says were intercepted.

The Kyiv Independent

quote:

---

et's be realistic about the cost sharing. The NATO agreement was never about all members sharing costs equally, not even on a percentage of GNP basis. The US Navy currently has 11 nuclear aircraft carriers and 70 nuclear submarines. Can we expect anyone in NATO to match this? Even collectively?

---

The goal was for us to not be physically in Europe at all by the 60's. That part obviously failed.

quote:

---

some podunk European country that is completely unimportant to the US outside of its proximity to Russia on a map.

---

Here's the irony of your position:

15 years ago no one cared about Ukraine. And Russia still couldn't take it. But if they had, no one would have melted. But that was Putin's big chance. And he whiffed

Now that Ukraine has turned into the most militarized country in the world (surpassing the US and Israel in terms of % of GDP spent on their military), they are a potentially invaluable ally.

They are developing warfare technology that will end up saving us more money than we spent on them. As well as allowing us to benefit from the lessons they paid for in their own blood.

Want to know why Anduril is one of the hottest companies in the world? Because they got inspired by weapons Ukraine was developing for $300k each that out performed US legacy weapons costing $3 million each.

There is a cost, performance, development, innovation, and accountability revolution going on in the US defense industry right now that is going to ensure we are the dominant power in the world for the rest of our lifetimes. And for way less money than our trend line budgets of the past.

None of that would be happening if Zhelensky would have taken that helicopter ride to Poland (like most of the Poli Board claimed he had).

In 20 years Ukraine will be right up there with Japan, Poland, Korea, and Israel as our most valuable partners. Assuming Vance or someone else doesn't hang them out to dry in the meantime

quote:

---

It's hard to know what's really going on over there

---

What's going on is that Ukraine has essentially brought the conflict back to stalemate status. Russia is still advancing on some fronts, but Ukraine is now advancing on others.

What's changed? Why is this happening? There are several reasons.

1) The single biggest factor, in my opinion, was the agreement between Ukraine and SpaceX to whitelist all Starlink terminals in Ukraine. Starlink had previous blocked sales to Russia and Starlink service had been eliminated in Russia, but of course, Russia had simply been buying terminals through other countries, and they were using them in Ukraine.

The agreement to disallow use of any Starlink terminal not registered through the Ukrainian government meant that all the Starlink terminals that the Russians were using suddenly became bricked.

The scale of this impact was shown in various charts that showed overall Starlink usage in Ukraine to have declined by more than half.

To understand why this was such a big deal, you need to picture a local Russian commander sitting in a forward command center. Using a Starlink terminal, he was previously looking live at feeds from multiple recon drones, and when he saw a Ukrainian position or piece of equipment, he could immediately task a FPV drone or artillery strike on that position. He could then watch the result of that strike and determine if a follow-on strike was needed.

Russia simply doesn't have another way of generating that kind of connectivity. Without Starlink, the operator of the recon drone has to "call" (often actually using unencrypted radio) in the coordinates to a command center. Once the commander orders the resulting strike, he often has to call the FPV or recon drone operator to know if it was successful.

To sum it up, the Russian "kill chain" has gone from something like 3 minutes to back over 20 minutes. That means that targets have often moved or prepared to defend themselves. And it dramatically lowers overall efficiency.

2) A related problem for Russia is now prohibitive cost of fiber-optic cable for FPV drones.

By early 2024, Ukraine had effective electronic warfare defenses against Russian FPV drones. Russia's response was to use wire-guided FPV drones, and then were really first employed in Russia's effort to retake Kursk. Not only did fiber-optic drones prove invincible to EW, the faster speed of the connection meant that they were much more responsive to Russian controllers---especially at longer distances. If a drone operator saw a target, there was no longer the lag in response time that was normal in the previous drones.

But Russia was then using a massive chunk of the world's fiber-optic cable supply, and its Chinese suppliers didn't immediately ramp up production. The result is that the kind of fiber-optic cable that Russia needs now costs something like 10 times what it did, and Russia can no longer afford to make as many fiber-optic drones as it did. With so much of the war now conducted by drone, this is a serious problem for Russia, which is why we are now starting to see more Russian mechanized assaults (and the resulting destruction of lots of Russian equipment)

3) Finally, the Ukrainian development of an overall drone command and dedicated drone units has meant that Ukrainian drone efforts are much more focused on Russian logistics. Five or six months ago, a lot more of Ukrainian drone operators were hunting for Russian troops and equipment right along the front line. That's the kind of thinking that makes sense in the short term, but the better long-term approach is what they are doing now. The consistent degradation of Russian logistics via drone strikes has affected overall Russian ability to project force forward.


TLDR: Since the beginning of 2026, Russian capabilities have declined, while Ukraine has increased its efficiency.

quote:

---

If a war with China were to kick off over Tiawan, would Europe help us? I don't know but I do know that NATO doesn't have anything to do with Tiawan.

---

Is Tiawan anywhere near Taiwan?

But no... Taiwan is not a NATO member, or a US state or territory, and NATO is a defense-only pact, so it would not automatically obligate any or every NATO member to cooperate.

But Kuwait was not a NATO member, either... and many NATO countries did support and join the US in defending it.

And some NATO countries did support and join us in the invasion of Iraq, which can't really be justified as a response to 9/11...

The thing is that diplomacy plays a huge part in all of this.... and Trump absolutely fricking sucks at diplomacy. He's a bully... everybody wants to see a bully get knocked down, so foreign leaders are taking political risks hitching themselves to him.