The Ukraine war thread
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Looks like Ukraine received some aircraft and spare parts although the Pentagon is not saying from whom or what type:
This weekend I read that Romania had offered Ukraine their hot rodded MiG 21 Lancers. Would make sense as the pilots and ground crews would have some familiarity with the aircraft.
Besides, it would make a good platform from which the Ukrainians could fire those Brimstone air to ground attack missiles they are about to receive from Britain.
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Read the thread on the Russian army's ability to conduct maneuvers in eastern Ukraine:
tl;dr: the Russian army has neither the experience nor readily available capability of conducting such a mega-offensive as we seen unfolding right now.
They may still pull it off, but this and other issues will translate into blunders and higher casualties.
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Answering The Call: Heavy Weaponry Supplied To Ukraine
The following list attempts to keep track of heavy military equipment delivered or pledged to Ukraine during the 2022 Russian of invasion of Ukraine. The entries below are sorted by armament category (with a flag denoting the country of delivery), and due to the confidential nature of some arms deliveries they can serve only as a lower bound to the total volume of weaponry shipped to Ukraine. MANPADS, ATGMs and commercial UAVs are not included in this list. This list will be updated as further military support is declared or uncovered.
(Click on the vehicle or equipment type to get a picture in Ukraine or abroad. When a picture showing the vehicle in Ukrainian service isn't available, or if the exact type of equipment pledged has yet to be uncovered, a link is given to the source)
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Also interesting:
Operation Z The Death Throes of an Imperial Delusion
One of the most curious aspects of the Russian ‘special operation’ in Ukraine was how little effort the Kremlin had put into preparing its own population for what was about to be undertaken. The justification for the operation was made suddenly, over the course of about 10 days. In this it resembled the annexation of Crimea, despite being a much greater endeavour, suggesting that the Russian government wished to present it to the Russian public as a fait accompli. The lack of preparation of the information environment seemed encouraging for the Ukrainians. Protests began in Moscow, St Petersburg and further afield.35 In the first two weeks of the conflict, as the Russian war effort began to unravel, the Ukrainian government maintained hundreds of thousands of connections into Russian social media, distributing information about the war to swathes of the Russian population.
This window of opportunity was short lived. The Russian government moved rapidly to shut down independent media,37 threaten a 15-year prison sentence on anyone sharing non-official narratives on the conflict,38 and closed access to non-Russian social media.39 The results were highly effective. Although people in Russia can access external information sources through the use of VPNs, the measures meant that only those who actively searched for information would find it. This radically cut the number of people who were accessing non-Russian controlled media and also reduced the number of people who needed to be monitored by the FSB. Given close monitoring and the threat of imprisonment, these measures also reduced the internal circulation of information to circles of trust between likeminded individuals. Ukrainians reported that their families in Russia would deny that any military operation was taking place; probably as much a reflection of the threat of arrest as of the impact of propaganda. Ukrainian officials noticed that the breadth of their access to Russian audiences was cut ten-fold,41 and that once in the Russian information sphere their messages often remained with the recipient rather than being distributed more widely.
The initial euphoria at Ukraine’s withstanding the onslaught of the Russian Army has in some parts of Europe brought about a belief that Ukraine’s victory is now assured, or that an exhausted Russia may soon come to the negotiating table. Ukrainian victory is possible, but will demand hard fighting for some time to come. Having first done little to set a narrative about the war, the Russian government had an opportunity to lay the groundwork for de-escalation in mid-March. It made a deliberate decision to escalate its rhetoric and ideologically mobilise its society. By banning dissent, and by holding local officials accountable for the organisation of patriotic mobilisation, the Russian government is in the process of radicalising its public. Even as the cost of living in Russia rises, therefore, the intent in Moscow is to prolong the fighting. In the short term, this means a major offensive in Donbas. In the medium term, there is an intention to bring about a summer offensive to finish Ukraine off. Given that the Russian government has not yet curtailed its wider ambitions – as demonstrated by its designs on Moldova – it is critical that NATO remains firmly determined to not just support Ukraine to hold Donbas but to prepare for a renewed offensive after.
At the same time, a protracted conflict poses dangers for the West. As Europe enters summer, high energy costs will harm businesses, but there will be a delay between this and job losses. By autumn, there is a risk that recession will coincide with cooling temperatures while citizens will struggle to heat their homes. In this context, support for Ukraine may wither, engagement with Russian disinformation may rise, and Russia’s diplomatic efforts to evade sanctions may gain traction through Western disunity. Limiting Russia’s ability to protract fighting beyond the summer could be effectively enabled by reducing its access to modern armaments. To achieve this, Western countries must conduct a thorough assessment of where their companies are knowingly or inadvertently supplying Russia and cut off these channels. The severing of these channels will not alter the volume of munitions physically stockpiled by Russia for operations in the summer. But the expectations of future manufacture will both shape how much of the stockpile can be expended in Ukraine and the Kremlin’s confidence in the long-term security implications of continuing the war. Reducing dependence on Russian gas must also be a medium-term objective of European policy, even if it will not have an immediate effect. At the same time, NATO must be more engaged in the information struggle beyond its borders; Western efforts to manage their own energy crisis risk being perceived as imposing costs on the very states whose cooperation will be critical in bringing about Russia’s military and political isolation.
Although Russia has clearly been weakened by its battlefield setbacks in Ukraine, the combination of its imperial ambitions and significant coercive power risks destabilisation further afield. Moldova is the most prominent example, but as the conflict protracts, Russian operations could pose threats in Serbia and beyond. Coordinated efforts to curtail Russian malign influence in these states – and further afield – will be critical if the crisis in Ukraine is to be contained. Further crises, risking further economic disruption, will prove politically difficult to bear.
Finally, the Russian decision to double down is a high-stakes gamble. If Russia mobilises and eventually overcomes Ukrainian resistance then NATO will face an aggressive, isolated and militarised state. If Russia loses then President Putin has now begun radicalising the population in the pursuit of policies that he will struggle to deliver. Failure to defeat the Ukrainian state after relentlessly comparing it to the Nazi regime may have serious consequences for Putin and those around him. To frame a conflict as existential and to lose must necessarily call the suitability of a leader into question among Russia’s political elites. NATO states therefore need to consider how to manage escalation pathways that follow if Russia is not only defeated in Donbas but finds its newly mobilised and poorly trained troops, with few remaining stocks of precision munitions, unable to deliver a victory in the summer. The death of Putin’s political project is plausible, but it has already inflicted immense damage internationally and risks doing considerably more.
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Interesting piece on Russia's economic strategies.
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Interesting piece on Russia's economic strategies.
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@George-K said in The Ukraine war thread:
@Mik and you can bet that table-gripper will use that as an excuse.
Here's my question: his country is so (1) resource-fucked, and (2) so obviously and profoundly inept militarily. How in the fuck does he expect to win a war against the rest of the world when this is the best he can do with Ukraine? There's no way they don't know this.
Maybe all this bullshit is just for show and really it's about nickel and dime power grabs.
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@George-K said in The Ukraine war thread:
@Mik and you can bet that table-gripper will use that as an excuse.
Here's my question: his country is so (1) resource-fucked, and (2) so obviously and profoundly inept militarily. How in the fuck does he expect to win a war against the rest of the world when this is the best he can do with Ukraine? There's no way they don't know this.
Maybe all this bullshit is just for show and really it's about nickel and dime power grabs.
@Aqua-Letifer said in The Ukraine war thread:
There's no way they don't know this.
Maybe all this bullshit is just for show and really it's about nickel and dime power grabs.
If you look at what @Renauda has said, propaganda in Russia is strong, and a significant percentage of the population believe this bullshit.
Hence the "psy-ops" from Ukraine, viz. Ukrainians sending photos of dead Russian soldiers to their mothers in Russia.
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@Aqua-Letifer said in The Ukraine war thread:
There's no way they don't know this.
Maybe all this bullshit is just for show and really it's about nickel and dime power grabs.
If you look at what @Renauda has said, propaganda in Russia is strong, and a significant percentage of the population believe this bullshit.
Hence the "psy-ops" from Ukraine, viz. Ukrainians sending photos of dead Russian soldiers to their mothers in Russia.
@George-K said in The Ukraine war thread:
@Aqua-Letifer said in The Ukraine war thread:
There's no way they don't know this.
Maybe all this bullshit is just for show and really it's about nickel and dime power grabs.
If you look at what @Renauda has said, propaganda in Russia is strong, and a significant percentage of the population believe this bullshit.
Hence the "psy-ops" from Ukraine, viz. Ukrainians sending photos of dead Russian soldiers to their mothers in Russia.
Right, and they can believe it all they want, but I doubt the Kremlin believes it can win a war against the world. And if they attack NATO, they know that's what they're getting.
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Long read but worth the time and effort:
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Excellent read. In a nutshell:
"These measures suggest an indifference to international public opinion that may become even more pronounced in the weeks and months to come."
I found the dive into non-military options interesting: cyber, financial, etc.
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And meanwhile, the folks over in Poland are arming up, best they can.
It's not like they haven't been invaded a time or two...
