Here we go again-Ukraine once again pt2

[Jimbuna]

Ukraine war: 'Artificial shortage' of weapons helps Putin, says Zelensky

Ukraine's President Volodymyr Zelensky has made an urgent appeal for more weapons to avoid a "catastrophic" situation in Europe.

An "artificial deficit of weapons" will only help Russia, Mr Zelensky told an international conference in Germany.

Ukrainian troops have been running out of ammunition as vital US support has been held up by supporters of former President Donald Trump in Congress.

Mr Zelensky said he was prepared to tour the front lines with Mr Trump.

"If Mr Trump will come, I am ready to go with him to the front line. What does it mean, the real war, not Instagram, the real war," the Ukrainian president said.

President Joe Biden assured Mr Zelensky during a phone call on Saturday that the US was committed to supporting Ukraine's fight against "Russia's brutal invasion", the White House said in a statement.

Mr Biden also said that earlier in the day "Ukraine's military was forced to withdraw from Avdiivka after Ukrainian soldiers had to ration ammunition due to dwindling supplies as a result of congressional inaction, resulting in Russia's first notable gains in months".

Avdiivka - a gateway to the Russian-seized Donetsk regional capital in the east - had for months witnessed some of the fiercest fighting before the Ukrainian pull-out announced by the country's top military commander.

For his part, President Zelensky said in a post on X, formerly Twitter, that the two leaders discussed the current situation on the front line.

He said he was "grateful to have President Biden's full support", adding that he hoped Congress would make a "wise decision" on approving a stalled aid package for Ukraine.

US Vice-President Kamala Harris had earlier repeated assurances of support to Kyiv.

The US "can't play political games" over the military aid, she said at a joint news conference with Mr Zelensky at the Munich Security Conference.

The gathering of world leaders and senior defence officials comes one week before the two-year anniversary of Russia's full-scale invasion of Ukraine.

The president told delegates Ukrainian efforts were "limited only by the sufficiency and length of range of our strength".

"Keeping Ukraine in the artificial deficits of weapons, particularly in deficit of artillery and long-range capabilities allows Putin to adapt to the current intensity of the war," he said.

"Ukrainians have proven that we can force Russia to retreat," he said. "We can get our land back."

He went on to warn that the Russian leader would make the next few years "catastrophic" for many more countries if the Western world did not stand up to him.

"Do not ask Ukraine when the war will end. Ask yourself, why is Putin still able to continue it?" Mr Zelensky told the conference.

Ukraine is critically dependent on weapons supplies from the US and other Western allies to keep fighting Russia - a much bigger military force with an abundance of artillery ammunition.

UK Foreign Secretary David Cameron said help for Ukraine from the UK, the EU and the US would make a "real difference" to the fight against Russia.

But earlier this week, the US Senate approved a $95bn (£75bn) foreign aid package - including $60bn for Ukraine - after months of political wrangling, but it faces an uphill battle in the House of Representatives, where members of the Republican Party who are loyal to Mr Trump seem unwilling to pass the measure.

Outgoing Dutch Prime Minister Mark Rutte told the Munich conference Europe should help Ukraine more because it was in its interests, and stop "all that whining and moaning about Trump".

Nato Secretary General Jens Stoltenberg said a Putin victory in Ukraine was "not only a tragedy for the Ukrainians but it sends not only a message to Putin but also to [Chinese President] Xi [Jinping], that when they use military force, they get what they want. So what happens in Ukraine today and can happen in Taiwan tomorrow. And therefore I strongly believe that it's a good deal for the United States to support Ukraine. It's not charity, it's an investment into their own security."
https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-europe-68325022

[Dargo]

A list of Russian brigades and formations that were thrown at Avdiivka. It took tens of thousands of top fighters and four months to create numerical superiority and break through the Ukrainian defence, which lacked ammunition. Many of these Russian brigades lost 60%+ of personnel.

The congratulatory telegram that Vladimir Putin sent to the commander of the Center Group, Colonel General Mordvichev, in connection with the capture of Avdiivka reveals the units that participated in the active phase of the operation.

• 30th separate motorized rifle brigade of the Central Military District
• 35th separate motorized rifle brigade of the Central Military District
• 55th separate motorized rifle mountain brigade of the Central Military District
• 74th separate motorized rifle brigade of the Central Military District
• 1st separate motorized rifle brigade of the 1st AC
• 9th separate motorized rifle brigade of the 1st AC
• 114th separate motorized rifle brigade of the 1st AC
• 1454th motorized rifle regiment
• 10th Tank Regiment of the 1st AK
• 6th Tank Regiment of the 90th Tank Division of the Central Military District
• 80th Tank Regiment of the 90th Tank Division of the Central Military District
• 239th Tank Regiment of the 90th Tank Division of the Central Military District

On our own behalf, we would also add that the "Veterans" brigade, which partially involved Army special units, and the Air and Space Forces, participated. Thus, more than 15 formations of the Central Military District and the 1st Army Corps of the DPR participated in the Avdeevka operation. https://twitter.com/wartranslated/st...56055319515303

Casualty wise (WIA&KIA) Bahkmut was likely higher. Deaths only wise, Avdiivka was likely 2x worse for the Russians than Bahkmut. The easiest way to explain why is Terrain, and the built up fortifications. Even in the areas at the flanks. The opening day of RUs offensive in our sector over a dozen BMPs were destroyed before they even got within 800m of Ukrainian lines. The infantry on and in that initial assault were caught out in the open and mowed down rather quickly.

One defensive operation that we were on, 16 of Chosen and 8 Ukrainians(javelin teams+snipers) destroyed 4 BMPs, damaged one that made it under a bridge with 6 others that escaped unharmed after dropping troops 300m+ away from the line in the field, 2 BTRs destroyed, 2 tanks one of which was destroyed by one of the craziest tank maneuvers by a UA tank team i ever saw and 70+ infantry killed or wounded.
The Russians successfully pushed us out of the trench to another friendly trench (there was only 10 defenders in that 1 trench with reserve force and supporting fires/overwatch being provided from nearby trench 200m away) and took control of the trench. Which was then blown with demolitions, fpv and artillery once the surviving russians (around 12) grouped up into it.

Our losses that day were 4 UA KIA, 2 Chosen KIA (Gander & Stremski) and everyone minor or moderately wounded with frag. The human cost of Russia's Avdiivka sector endeavor likely cost them 100k WIA&KIA easily. Day after day for 2 or 3 weeks they continously attempted to run armor at fortified lines. In our sector, after they ran out of BMPs&BTRs they used troop transport trucks(Kamaz type) to try and get infantry as close as possible. These vehicles more often then not were hit by fpv or drones waited for dismount and hit infantry with droppers. We made it a point to try and hit every enemy soldier still alive. If they crawled into a bunker, thermobaric. If they were crawling in an open field, grenade drop.

Mid to end Nov though, something changed. No longer were the Russians attempting 50+ men assaults. They'd move in groups of 8-12 men. If 2 or 3 made it, they'd hide amongst the rubble. The next group would move 5-15 minutes behind the first and they'd do the same. Once the survivors regrouped and had 20 or so men spread in 2 or more positions, they'd then push forward while a new rear element pushed up from behind and they'd mass creeping fires and drones while doing so. Only stopping once the RU infantry were within 25-50m of our positions.

They adapted their tactics to run as a mass of smaller human waves with less armor and more foot infantry to knock out a few meters of the killing fields or Grey area at a time. They didn't try to dig in. They just hid wherever they could. One position we consistently fought over ended up with dead soldiers stacked around it (obj kyiv). There was well over 100 Russians strewn about infront and inside of it. Our fallen(KIA) Ukrainians around 10 or so that were taken in the 3 weeks of holding it, we had organized to the rear area of the fighting line, in hopes of getting their remains out, some we were able to, others we werent. We did take dozens upon dozens of wounded trying to hold obj k and took a lot of wounded and killed trying to retrieve remains of fallen and wounded soldiers from positions(I'd say 20-35% of all our wounded in the sector was trying to get remains or wounded out). You'd spend more time trying to organize where to throw the dead or move the dead out of firing lines than attempting to rebuild the positions daily.

The Ukrainian units fought and are still fighting extremely hard in the sector that Chosen was in. We are in the middle of a unit transfer, so Chosen is no longer there.

One main factor that you could see become a detriment was time off the front. The 59th and other units in the sector have never had a rotation off the front. Which physically and mentally does effect the fighting capacity. By the end of 2023 Chosen members were all injured atleast once and most of us were doing operations at 80% ability. We had men(Hound I love you brother) going out with gaping fragmentation wounds bandaged from a injury a week earlier. None of this was forced on us however. We would check ourselves out of the hospital to continue the fight. And the Ukrainians were much the same. Hell, our commander Kozak consistently put off medical so he could stay on the front and coordinate and fight. We had a drone pilot get 6 or 7 contusions including from TOS1s twice in one day who basically was in a permanent shuttle of hospital, checking himself out, fly drones, back to hospital.

The fighting spirit of the men in our sector is nothing short of heroic, but it is not a long term benefit to fighting capabilities doing what Chosen and the Ukrainians were doing. Sheer will and determination only goes so far. https://twitter.com/ihatetrenches/st...25982922825728

Originally Posted by The Ukrainian General Staff

Estimated total losses of the Russians during the offensive on Avdiivka 47186 military personnel (likely death and wounded), 364 tanks, 748 armoured vehicles, 248 artillery systems and 5 planes. In just over 4 months time.

[Jimbuna]

Kremlin threatens to unleash Armageddon on West if it loses in Ukraine

The Kremlin today threatened to fire nuclear missiles on London, Washington, Berlin and Kyiv if Russia is forced to give up the Ukrainian territory it has invaded. Dmitry Medvedev - a close Putin ally who served as president from 2008 to 2012 - said if a military defeat led to a return to the 1991 frontiers, when the Soviet Union collapsed, Moscow would unleash Armageddon.

'Attempts to return Russia to the borders of 1991 will lead to only one thing,' he said. 'Towards a global war with Western countries using the entire strategic arsenal of our state. In Kyiv, Berlin, London, Washington.' Hypersonic nuclear missiles would also strike 'all other beautiful historical places that have long been included in the flight targets of our nuclear triad'.

He added: 'Will we have the courage to do this if the disappearance of a thousand-year-old country, our great Motherland, is at stake, and the sacrifices made by the people of Russia over the centuries will be in vain? The answer is obvious.' He suggested Kyiv and the West should allow Putin to have the bits of Ukraine he thinks of as Russia.

'It's better to return everything [to us] before it's too late. Or we will return it ourselves with maximum losses for the enemy. Like in Avdiivka. Our warriors are heroes!' Medvedev, deputy head of the Russian security council which controls the war, hit out at 'snotty Anglo-American fosterlings' who oppose Putin.

The British and German Defense Ministers Grant Shapps and Boris Pistorius were '[expletive]' who believe the world cannot afford a Russian victory in the war, he said on his Telegram channel. If they got their way, there would be a 'direct and irreversible collapse of present-day Russia' including its newly-invaded territories.

There could be 'violent civil war with the final disappearance of our country from the world map, tens of millions of victims, the death of our future.' He asked: 'Do these idiots really believe that the people of Russia will swallow such a division of their country?

'That we will all think something like this: "Well, alas, this happened. They won. Today's Russia has disappeared.

"It's a pity, of course, but we must continue to live in a collapsing, dying country, since a nuclear war is much more terrible for us than the death of our loved ones, our children, our Russia…"?

'The West should not think that in such a scenario the leadership of Russia will 'tremble in its hand' in pushing the nuclear button.'
https://www.msn.com/en-gb/news/world...ei=13#image=10

[mapuc]

^ I knew they were somehow desperate the Russians, I wouldn't expect them to be so desperate that they threaten with nukes.

Don't take it serious-The toothless dog is only barking

Yes they have nukes. But they also know they would get tenfold back.

Markus

[mapuc]

Markus

[Skybird]

Victory for Ukraine currently seems more remote than ever, and corruption has a firm grip on the state apparatus.

The Ukrainian tactical victories at sea secure the grain transports, yes, but beyond that simply are not really militarily relevant.

https://www-faz-net.translate.goog/a...de#pageIndex_4

Have they perhaps already surrendered in silence?

https://www.nzz.ch/international/mue...en&_x_tr_hl=de

Anyway, the inability of the Europeans to decide that they really want to decisively rise their defensive capability, imho fundamentally damages NATO's reputation. Yes, there are some small almost minor decisions who were made in the past months. But none of them gives the impression of being a fundamental change, a dramatic replotting of course, the manifestation of a sense of urgency. Also, there is almost no movement at all to point to the increase beyond already existing ressources, its only a reshuffling of existing ressources, mostly.

In other words, its all about creating an alibi, to deceive the public at home and to give the impression that one adresses the pressing issues - while not really adressing these issues at all. Many seem to want to simply sit out the war and then return to their old illusions.

And here we have a one-and-a-half-hour lecture by Colonel Reisner on military tactical assessments of the Ukraine war in the Audimax of the University of the Federal Armed Forces in Munich on November 15, 2023. Very, very sobering.

Anyone who is still talking about Ukraine's final victory after 2024 has still not understood a few very important things. My personal conclusion after this lecture: it's too late, the West has procrastinated too long, even if more and everything possible were to be supplied again now, the Russians have adapted to such an extent thanks to the time window the West has given them that Ukraine will not recover from this.

The Trumpian Republicans and the Scholzian Germans must accept an especially heavy share of guilt for this.



Use the translation subtitles if you must. Reisner's lectures are always worth it. Does not compare to the daily propaganda outspill of the many ukraine youtube channels with those many oh so witty blowups up daily tactical events.

[em2nought]

Ukraine could surrender right now, and it wouldn't be as big a catastrophe as Sleepy Joe leaving our southern border wide open for the last three plus years is going to be for us.

No way anything in Ukraine is Trump supporters fault, if our election wasn't a fraud and President Trump was still in office none of that mess would have even happened in the first place. Who knows how much of a kick back "the big guy" gets for every dollar we throw away in Ukraine. LOL Who knows what reward sleepy joe gets for leaving our southern border completely defenseless. Benedict Arnold is going to have some company covering the first two letters of the alphabet for traitors.

[Skybird]

What nonsense. The migration issue in the US and the war in Ukraine have nothign to do with each other.


Trump wants to deplete Biden of a potential diplomatic success by getting another aid package through, this way he wants Biden to look bad. Trump walks on the bodies of Ukrainians, that simple it is. If Biden would have a miracle solution for solving the migration crisis, he would prevent it. And if Biden would have magical help and free America of all state debt and mass shootings, then Trump would prevent that. Trump lives by one agenda only, and that agenda consists not even of the three letters U.S.A., but of just one: I (imagine that letter printed in gold). By that he will trample on your bodies as well, if you let him.


BTW, a Ukrainian defeat is projected with at least 10 million Ukrainian migrants more moving westward, thats roughly a quarter of the former population. Thank you for that. And any Russian victory will be followed by more Russian attacks in a few years.



And until then we will see (and already have seen: Armenia) a flaring up of more regional secondary conflicts when regional villains in the second row of seats start to realise the US cannot and wants not keeping the lid on it any longer, and seek the realization of their local territorial ambitions.


You think you can decouple America from the world's conflicts? You can't. Instead of keeping them at bay and away from your borders, they will creep onto your borders - and you then having given up your strategic base that Europe in the end is for you, sort of a warehouse, a logistics hub, a stationary giant aircraft carrier. Its the forward line of defence that allows you to keep the enemy away from your very own border's line of defence. You will not gain autonomy by isolation, but lose autonomy. What you gain is vulnerability.



Its like a chess player saying he does not want to checkmate anymore, and starts to move all his pieces back to the first two lines. The match is on. There is no bailout clause. Live with it, fight for it - or lose it. And understand that you do not only do it for the lazy Europeans - you also do it for your very own geostrategic core interest.



Burdens of an empire. Empires cannot afford to not react to being challenged. If they do not react, they fall. Always will. Always have. Non-reaction is no option.

[Skybird]

Lithuania's Foreign Minister Landsbergis put it in a nutshell when he said that the alarm clock had started ringing in the morning two years ago, but two years later we were still lying in bed and just covering our ears.
----------------------
The Russia, the India, and the Oil:
https://edition.cnn.com/2024/02/19/e...ntl/index.html

[August]

Originally Posted by Skybird

What nonsense. The migration issue in the US and the war in Ukraine have nothign to do with each other.


Trump wants to deplete Biden of a potential diplomatic success by getting another aid package through, this way he wants Biden to look bad. Trump walks on the bodies of Ukrainians, that simple it is. If Biden would have a miracle solution for solving the migration crisis, he would prevent it. And if Biden would have magical help and free America of all state debt and mass shootings, then Trump would prevent that. Trump lives by one agenda only, and that agenda consists not even of the three letters U.S.A., but of just one: I (imagine that letter printed in gold). By that he will trample on your bodies as well, if you let him.

Your opinions are nonsense as usual. Donald Trump does not run the nation nor does Congress take their marching orders from him. Those currently blocking Ukrainian aid would be doing the same thing even if Trump did not exist.

[mapuc]

Originally Posted by August

Your opinions are nonsense as usual. Donald Trump does not run the nation nor does Congress take their marching orders from him. Those currently blocking Ukrainian aid would be doing the same thing even if Trump did not exist.

Now this was an interesting pretext If I may say so-If Trump didn't exist....

As said before many times-I couldn't care less who's your President, however when it comes to help Ukraine I want a President and a house who is for massive help to Ukraine.

By the way-As some of you may know. Denmark has decided to send all their stockpile Artillery shells- 155 mm and some 152 mm(not sure if Denmark still has these)

Markus

[Jimbuna]

[August]

Originally Posted by mapuc

Now this was an interesting pretext If I may say so-If Trump didn't exist....

As said before many times-I couldn't care less who's your President, however when it comes to help Ukraine I want a President and a house who is for massive help to Ukraine.

As do I Markus, but like I said, opposition to Ukraine aid (or any other foreign aid for that matter) is neither ordered nor directed by the former president. Those that oppose foreign aid do so for a number of reasons but none of them hold those positions because Donald Trump ordered it as Skybird claims.

By the way-As some of you may know. Denmark has decided to send all their stockpile Artillery shells- 155 mm and some 152 mm(not sure if Denmark still has these)

I am glad to hear it. The Danes are setting a good example.

[Jimbuna]

[mapuc]

Originally Posted by August

As do I Markus, but like I said, opposition to Ukraine aid (or any other foreign aid for that matter) is neither ordered nor directed by the former president. Those that oppose foreign aid do so for a number of reasons but none of them hold those positions because Donald Trump ordered it as Skybird claims.


I am glad to hear it. The Danes are setting a good example.

Thank you for your answer, which generated a Presidential question:

If the House vote no to this package CAN Biden overrule this by making some special law ?(forgot what they are called these Presidential laws)

Markus