Again, the originally announed plan was to byu the so far elased tnaks and then give them to Ukraine. That plan was not possible when Germany did not allow deliveries of Leopard-2s. It would be possible now.



Its,liem tiwht Poland, which ahd annocuned a big delivery of Leopard-2 and upgraded T-72s, over 60 tanks. They currently do not want to get rmeinde dof it, want to send only the Russiantanks., not the Leopards. Thats why Pistorius is so pissed.


The German government gets shunned almpost everywherer on its demands to stick to former words about delivering Leopards.



What it gets instead for the most is now demands for sending jet fighters.



So wird das nix, Leute. So wird das gar nix.

lying to the House of Representatives by the Dutch prime minister and Dutch Defense Minister will be a big offense and mean that the Dutch government must step down.

Contrary to popular perception, Germany has delivered significant amounts of arms and equipment to Ukraine to aid the country in its fight against the Russian military. In fact, the volume of arms deliveries by Berlin exceeds that of every other country safe for the United States and the United Kingdom. Nonetheless, Germany has faced severe criticism and even mockery for its perceived lack of support to Ukraine and its ill-fated attempts to keep its relationship with Moscow intact. While ultimately positioning itself as a reliable partner of Ukraine, it can be argued that Berlin's communication to affirm its Ukraine stance and explain foreign policy goals has been nothing short of an unmitigated disaster. https://www.oryxspioenkop.com/2022/0...ry-aid-to.html

It was Cold War time, and Carter, a Democrat, wanted to persuade Europe's allies to increase their Defense budgets by 3 per cent annually. Quite a step for Den Uyl, the most left-wing prime minister in Dutch national history: his party, the PvdA, doubted the survival of NATO at the time. Yet afterward, the prime minister was very appreciative of his meeting with the US president.

That evening at home in Den Bosch, the phone rang with Bram Stemerdink, the PvdA defense minister. "Joop said: that Carter is such a nice man that I had to agree to that 3 per cent," Stemerdink (86) now recounts. That very evening, he rearranged spending to the Prime Minister's liking, he says, so that Defense spending that year came to 3 per cent of gross domestic product (GDP). The following day, according to the Leidse Courant, Den Uyl said at the NATO summit, "I want to assure all my colleagues here that my country wants to fulfil its NATO commitments."

The year 2022 revealed the danger the Netherlands was exposing itself to because it had been cutting back on its armed forces for 30 years. NATO spending standards were systematically ignored, even when it reached 2 per cent of GDP this century. In the first months of 2022, Rutte IV, in two steps, freed up an extra 5 billion euros a year for the armed forces. Almost a doubling of the Defense budget. Four days after the Russian invasion of Ukraine, the House of Representatives spoke out in such a way that, all of a sudden, it will still meet the NATO norm of 2 per cent of GDP - from 2024 onwards

You are not the only with bad governments :03:

Leopard 1 And M1 Abrams Tanks Are Not Game Changing Weapons, Too little and Too Late

https://rumble.com/v28tiys-scott-rit...g-weapons.html
https://www.hostpic.org/images/2302150255370321.png

Scott Ritter: Ukraine Has Burned Between 14-20 Brigades Worth Of Troop

https://rumble.com/v28tib6--scott-ri...-of-troop.html
https://www.hostpic.org/images/2302150303380326.png

Ukraine does not need them Russians stupid enough to lose twice the 155th Marine Brigade. Russia has lost strategically, operationally and tactically

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=O5Zt_uneH4E

You are trying too hard, it’s sad

NORTHERN DONBASS FRONT LINES MOVING, RUSSIAN ADVANCE CONTINUOUS

https://rumble.com/v28pvoe--southfro...es-moving.html


https://www.hostpic.org/images/2302150315410327.png

The battle line in real terms has barely shifted in meaningful terms since the Ukrainian victory at Kherson and Kharkiv. These advances the Russian have made are miniscule, the ground taken of no importance, and the Russians are taking very high losses.

GONZALO LIRA : What becomes of NATO after the Inevitable Loss in Ukraine ?

https://rumble.com/v288gx8--gonzalo-...-ukraine-.html

https://www.hostpic.org/images/2302150324400313.png

FOCUS writes:
-----------------------


Pistorius' tank coalition crumbles - several countries withdraw Leo pledges

Germany is increasingly on its own when it comes to supplying Leopard 2 battle tanks. Now, according to a media report, the Netherlands and Denmark also no longer want to send tanks to Ukraine. So far, only 35 of the planned 62 main battle tanks have been confirmed.

It looks "not quite so exhilarating - to put it mildly," said German Defense Minister Boris Pistorius on Tuesday. Plans for a quick delivery of dozens of European Leopard 2 tanks to Ukraine are progressing only slowly, Pistorius said on the sidelines of a meeting of the international contact group for arms deliveries to Ukraine.

At the same time, Chancellor Olaf Scholz and Pistorius had announced in a big way that Germany would take the lead in an international battle tank coalition. But the dream of unity seems to have been shattered. Now more countries are withdrawing their supply commitments, including the Netherlands - and Germany is increasingly on its own. According to "Welt" information, a crisis meeting of the allies is now to take place on Wednesday, convened by Germany, Poland and Ukraine.
Netherlands and Denmark no longer want to supply Leopard 2 tanks

In addition to the German commitment to supply 14 Leopard 2A6s, only Portugal has announced that it will provide three such tanks. Further A6s are not currently under discussion, Pistorius said. He added that there may be problems with the condition and operational capability of Leopard 2A4 tanks from Poland. Poland had promised 14 tanks, Canada three and Norway eight. Spain wanted to deliver between four and six, but Madrid still lacked an official commitment.

The Netherlands and Denmark now apparently do not want to deliver any Leopard 2 tanks at all. The Netherlands had previously held out the prospect of 18 Leopard 2s leased from Germany, which are part of the German-Dutch battalion. These would not be available for Ukraine, it is now reported from the Defense Ministry in The Hague, according to a report in " Welt ". "The decision was made in close coordination between the Netherlands and Germany," a spokesman said. Danish government sources also said that the country would not deliver any of its modern 44 Leopard 2 A7 tanks. At the same time, there are indications that Finland will also not provide any tanks as long as it is not part of NATO. The same applies to Sweden, which has not yet agreed to supply any Leopard tanks.

On January 25, the German government had issued a goal to provide Ukraine with Leopard 2 tanks for two battalions. These are usually equipped with 31 tanks each in Ukraine. Germany itself intends to hand over 14 tanks as a first step. The others are to come from partner countries. But this seems to be increasingly becoming a problem. So far, a total of only 35 main battle tanks have been pledged. Together with 178 Leopard-1 generation tanks, Germany will deliver almost 200 main battle tanks to Kiev. The U.S. is contributing 31, the U.K. 14 and France none at all.

German Chancellor Olaf Scholz had expressed optimism at the end of last week that the targets for the delivery of Leopard-2 tanks to Ukraine would be met. "My impression is, this is going ahead," the SPD politician said Friday night after the EU summit in Brussels. "But of course it will not go easily."

Asked if Pistorius had any sympathy for countries that had first put insane pressure on delivering tanks and were now having delivery problems, Pistorius said, "Since I'm moving in the diplomatic arena here, I would say little." According to Pistorius, the question of how to ensure that sufficient ammunition and spare parts are available is also still open. "That cannot be ensured by the Federal Republic of Germany, only the arms companies can do that," he said.
---------------------------------

Russia Has Already Lost in the Long Run
Even if Moscow holds onto territory, the war has wrecked its future.

As Russia ramps up its second offensive, a debate has erupted over whether Moscow or Kyiv will have the upper hand in 2023. While important, such discourse also misses a larger point related to the conflict’s longer-term consequences. In the long run, the true loser of the war is already clear; Russian President Vladimir Putin’s invasion of Ukraine will be remembered as a historic folly that left Russia economically, demographically, and geopolitically worse off. Start with the lynchpin of Russia’s economy: energy. In contrast to Europe’s (very real) dependence on Russia for fossil fuels, Russia’s economic dependence on Europe has largely gone unremarked upon. As late as 2021, for example, Russia exported 32 percent of its coal, 49 percent of its oil, and a staggering 74 percent of its gas to OECD Europe alone. Add in Japan, South Korea, and non-OECD European countries that have joined Western sanctions against Russia, and the figure is even higher. A trickle of Russian energy continues to flow into Europe, but as the European Union makes good on its commitment to phase out Russian oil and gas, Moscow may soon find itself shut out of its most lucrative export market.

In a petrostate like Russia that derives 45 percent of its federal budget from fossil fuels, the impact of this market isolation is hard to overstate. Oil and coal exports are fungible, and Moscow has indeed been able to redirect them to countries such as India and China (albeit at discounted rates, higher costs, and lower profits). Gas, however, is much harder to reroute because of the infrastructure needed to transport it. With its $400 billion gas pipeline to China, Russia has managed some progress on this front, but it will take years to match current capacity to the EU. In any case, China’s leverage as a single buyer makes it a poor substitute for Europe, where Russia can bid countries against one another.

This market isolation, however, would be survivable were it not for the gravest unintended consequence of Russia’s war—an accelerated transition toward decarbonization. It took a gross violation of international law, but Putin managed to convince Western leaders to finally treat independence from fossil fuels as a national security issue and not just an environmental one.

This is best seen in Europe’s turbocharged transition toward renewable energy, where permitting processes that used to take years are being pushed up. A few months after the invasion, for example, Germany jump-started construction on what will soon be Europe’s largest solar plant. Around the same time, Britain accelerated progress on Hornsea 3, slated to become the world’s largest offshore wind farm upon completion. The results already speak for themselves; for the first time ever last year, wind and solar combined for a higher share of electrical generation in Europe than oil and gas. And this says nothing of other decarbonization efforts such as subsidies for heat pumps in the EU, incentives for clean energy in the United States, and higher electric vehicle uptake everywhere.

The cumulative effect for Russia could not be worse. Sooner or later, lower demand for fossil fuels will dramatically and permanently lower the price for oil and gas—an existential threat to Russia’s economy. When increased U.S. shale production depressed oil prices in 2014, for example, Russia experienced a financial crisis. Lower global demand for fossil fuels will play out over a longer timeline, but the result for Russia will be much graver. With its invasion, Russia hastened the arrival of an energy transition that promises to unravel its economy.

Beyond a smaller and less efficient economy, Putin’s war in Ukraine will also leave Russia with a smaller and less dynamic population. Russia’s demographic problems are well-documented, and Putin had intended to start reversing the country’s long-running population decline in 2022. In a morbid twist, the year is likelier to mark the start of its irrevocable fall. The confluence of COVID and an inverted demographic pyramid already made Russia’s demographic outlook dire. The addition of war has made it catastrophic.

To understand why, it’s important to understand the demographic scar left by the 1990s. In the chaos that followed the Soviet Union’s dissolution, Russia’s birthrate plunged to 1.2 children per woman, far below the 2.1 needed for a population to remain stable. The effects can still be seen today; while there are 12 million Russians aged 30-34 (born just before the breakup of the Soviet Union), there are just 7 million aged 20-24 (born during the chaos that followed it). That deficit meant Russia’s population was already poised to fall, simply because a smaller number of people would be able to have children in the first place. Russia’s invasion has made this bad demographic hand cataclysmic. At least 120,000 Russian soldiers have died so far—many in their 20s and from the same small generation Russia can scarcely afford to lose. Many more have emigrated, if they can, or simply fled to other countries to try to wait out the war; exact numbers are hard to calculate, but the 32,000 Russians who have immigrated to Israel alone suggest the total number approaches a million.

Disastrously, the planning horizons of Russian families have been upended; it is projected that fewer than 1.2 million Russian babies may be born next year, , which would leave Russia with its lowest birthrate since 2000. A spike in violent crime, a rise in alcohol consumption, and other factors that collude against a family’s decision to have children may depress the birthrate further still. Ironically, over the last decade Putin managed to slow (if not reverse) Russia’s population decline through lavish payoffs for new mothers. Increased military spending and the debt needed to finance it will make such generous natalist policies harder.

The invasion has left Russia even worse off geopolitically. Unlike hard numbers and demographic data, such lost influence is hard to measure. But it can be seen everywhere, from public opinion polls across the West to United Nations votes that the Kremlin has lost by margins as high as 141 to 5. It can also be seen in Russia’s own backyard; while an emboldened NATO could soon include Sweden and Finland, Russia’s own Collective Security Treaty Organization is tearing at the seams as traditional allies such as Kazakhstan and Armenia realize the Kremlin’s impotence and look to China for security.

Perhaps most important of all, Russia has reinvigorated the cause of liberal democracy. In the year after its invasion, French President Emmanuel Macron won a rare second term in France, the far-right AfD lost ground in three successive elections in Germany, and “Make America Great Again” Republicans paid an electoral penalty in the U.S. midterms. (The far right did sweep into power in both Sweden and Italy, but such wins have so far failed to dent Western unity and appear more motivated by immigration.) And this says nothing of the wave of democratic consolidation playing out across Eastern Europe, where voters have thrown out illiberal populists in Slovenia and Czechia in the last year alone. It is impossible to attribute any of these outcomes to just one factor (U.S. Democrats also got a boost from the overturn of Roe v. Wade and election denialism, for example), but Russia’s invasion—and the clear choice between liberalism and autocracy it presented—no doubt helped.

Nowhere, however, has Russia’s invasion backfired more than in Ukraine. Contrary to Putin’s historical revisionism, Ukraine has long had a national identity distinct from Russia’s. But it’s also long been fractured along linguistic lines, with many of its elites intent on maintaining close relations with the Kremlin and even the public unsure about greater alignment with the West.

No longer. Ninety-one percent of Ukrainians now favor joining NATO, a figure unthinkable just a decade ago. Eighty-five percent of Ukrainians consider themselves Ukrainian above all else, a marker of civic identity that has grown by double digits since Russia’s invasion. Far from protecting the Russian language in Ukraine, Putin appears to have hastened its demise as native Russian speakers (Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky included) switch to Ukrainian en masse. Putin launched his invasion to bring Ukraine back into Moscow’s orbit. He has instead anchored its future in the West.

Of course, one can argue that, however much the war has cost Russia, it has cost Ukraine exponentially more. This is true. Ukraine’s economy shrank by more than 30 percent last year, while Russia’s economy contracted by just about 3 percent. And this says nothing of the human toll Ukraine has suffered. But, like Brexit, Western sanctions on Russia will play out as a slow burn, not an immediate collapse. And while Russia enters a protracted period of economic and demographic decline, once peace comes, Ukraine will have the combined industrial capacity of the EU, United States, and United Kingdom to support it as the West’s newest institutional member—precisely the outcome Putin hoped to avoid. Russia may yet make new territorial gains in the Donbas. But in the long run, such gains are immaterial—Russia has already lost.

https://foreignpolicy.com/2023/02/13...aine-disaster/

According to a leaked MOSSAD report UKRAINE’S losses make it no longer a functioning state

Mossad Leaks The REAL Ukraine- Russia Casualty Numbers. It's Grim For Ukraine

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=g0IJXDJ8_20
https://www.hostpic.org/images/2302150342230315.png

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aWHv8VrHi00