Here we go again-Ukraine once again pt2

[Skybird]

https://www-focus-de.translate.goog/...en&_x_tr_hl=de

Conclusion: Around a third of the German electorate would not only accept, but actively support Russia winning the war.


Unlike the two thirds who feel threatened by Russia, they do not see Russia as a threat, but expect a new order to emerge in Europe in which the EU and NATO are overcome and nation states in competition with each other once again determine the European state order.


Russia's offer to nationalists and revisionists in Europe is that larger states will once again dominate smaller ones, just as Russia wants to dominate the continent.


For those who, like Russia, want to reverse the "territorial losses" of recent decades, and for those who adhere to national mythological ideologies, Russia is making a political offer that is simultaneously directed against the liberal and "woke" developments in the Western states. The unease felt by many about a confusing world is being used politically here to create a completely new order.

[mapuc]

Someone wrote that Russia had 7 of these AWACS left. According to this video title they have only 5 left.



Markus

[Dargo]

^7 of these planes are left Wikipedia has it on 7 it also updated their page on Friday with latest lose for Russia. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Beriev_A-50 of those 7 we do not really know how many are operational or have the crew (15) to operate.

[Jimbuna]

Four ways the war in Ukraine could end

Business Insider explored four ways in which the Russian invasion of Ukraine could be brought to an end based on a February 14th press briefing from experts at the Center for Strategic and International Studies (CSIS). Let’s look at the possibilities.

Ukraine holding out is the scenario that most Western officials are hoping for and if the country can draw Russia into a long war that Moscow eventually loses. But such a scenario would be dependent on help.

Ukraine is currently dependent on security and financial aid from the United States and its allies across the world. However, without help, it is likely that Kyiv won’t be able to hold off Russia's coming offensives in 2024.

Max Bergmann of CSIS believes that if Ukraine continues to receive security and financial help from its partners, like the US $60 billion dollar package currently working its way through Congress, then Ukraine can hold out.

"If that funding is passed, I have no doubt that Ukraine will be able to completely absorb the Russian offensive that is going on in 2024," Bergmann said during a February 14th briefing. "In fact, I would be quite optimistic about Ukraine's potential in 2025."

A Russian victory is most likely what will happen if Ukraine's partners and allies are not willing to continue backing the country up financially and militarily. Anything is possible in a war of attrition according to Eliot A. Cohen.

"In a war of attrition, lines can break if the attrited side is depleted enough. So I think that passing the assistance is really critical," Cohen explained But he also explained how a lack of help could lead to Russia’s victory.

Cohen used World War I as an analogy to help his audience understand how quickly a state at war can collapse when fighting an attritional war. "Nobody expected the war to end in November 1918,” Cohen explained.

“In September, even into early October, people [were] planning for the campaigns of 1919. And there was not just one collapse, but a set of collapses. I think something similar might happen in this case,” Cohen added.

A peace deal is a hopeful possibility but it's one that isn’t likely to happen unless Russia or Ukraine relaxes their demands. In November 2023, Ukraine put out a 10-point peace plan that included conditions Russia would not accept.

For example, the Kyiv Post noted the peace plan's fifth point included a reversion to Ukraine's 1991 borders, a commitment Russia isn’t likely to adhere to unless it outright lost the war. Point seven also outlines war crimes tribunals to prosecute Russian war crimes.

In December 2023, Putin vowed at an end of year press conference there would be no peace until the “denazification” and demilitarization of Ukraine was secured. Kyiv would also need to be a neutral country according to The Hill’s Reporting.

The final way the conflict in Ukraine could end is nuclear war. Officials in Russia like Putin and Dmitry Medvedev have made several nuclear threats ever since the conflict began, and it is a possibility that needs to be considered.

"What would that spell for Vladimir Putin's regime? I think the US has already communicated pretty forcefully that all bets are off if Russia were to use nuclear weapons," CSIS Senior Vice President Seth Jones explained.
https://www.msn.com/en-gb/news/world...ei=12#image=16

[Jimbuna]

Russia lost more tanks than it started the war with but its replacing them quickly

Russia has lost thousands of tanks since Vladimir Putin ordered the invasion of Ukraine but understanding the country’s pre-war inventory and how it compares to what Moscow is fielding now is far more complicated than you think.

On February 13th, the International Institute for Strategic Studies, a London-based think tank, released its 65th annual ‘Military Balance’ report—and in the report, the think tank revealed Moscow’s staggering tank losses in Ukraine.

"Tank losses since the full-scale invasion began now likely top 3,000," explained Bastian Giegerich, the Director General of the International Institute for Strategic Studies (IISS), while speaking with reporters according to Newsweek.

"To put that in perspective, Russia's battlefield tank losses are greater than the number it had when it launched its offensive in 2022,” Giegerich added. But how was this figure determined and what does it mean for Russian power?

The IISS noted in a blog post on its new report that figures on lost Russian tanks and its other military vehicles came from a variety of sources, which included the Pentagon and the open source intelligence trackers such as Oryx.

Oryx is a Dutch intelligence project that has been tracking both Russian and Ukrainian equipment losses based on unique image and video evidence. As of February 18th, the group estimated Russia has lost 2,742 tanks in Ukraine.

The IISS noted that not all the images its analysts have examined equal a system being destroyed and added that its estimate of Russian tank losses in Ukraine also includes all of the tanks thought to be abandoned or damaged.

As of February 18th, 1,784 tanks had been destroyed since Putin launched his invasion while 150 had been damaged, 263 had been abandoned, and 540 had been captured. However, these figures may not be as worrying as you think.

Russia has been able to replace its losses and Henry Boyd, the IISS’s Senior Fellow of Military Capability, explained to Reuters that Moscow was able to produce roughly 1,000 to 1,500 tanks over the previous year. But there was one problem.

Many of the tanks replacing those lost in Ukraine have been of lesser quality according to Boyd. "Moscow has been able to trade quality for quantity... by pulling thousands of older tanks out of storage” Boyd explained.

Russia may have been replacing its lost tanks at 90 per month in some instances and it has allowed Moscow to break even. Boyd also noted that only roughly 200 of Moscow’s replacement tanks were newly built.

Boyd told Reuters that Russia’s store inventory "could potentially sustain around three more years of heavy losses and replenish tanks from stocks, even if at lower-technical standard, irrespective of its ability to produce new equipment.”

Ukraine may be able to keep destroying Russian tanks, but Moscow’s ability to replace its losses will eventually catch up as the war continues to grind both sides. At present, the IISS estimates Russia has 1,750 operational tanks of various models.

"Western governments find themselves once again in a position where they must decide whether to furnish Kyiv with enough weapons to deliver a decisive blow, rather than merely enough not to lose," Giegerich said according to Reuters.
https://www.msn.com/en-gb/cars/news/...i=137#image=16

[mapuc]

Markus

[Skybird]

https://www-focus-de.translate.goog/...en&_x_tr_hl=de

What is so important that Scholz is prepared to pay such a high price in terms of his own reputation?

And no, I dont buy it is Russian threats to retaliate nuclear against Germany.
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The Hungarian parliament has approved the Swedish NATO membership. Sweden agreed to sell more Gripen, and to modernise the existing ones.



That was a long birth. Can we move on now, yes...?

[Dargo]

Germany secretly discusses with India the purchase of shells for the AFU

Representatives of the German Defence Ministry almost daily discuss ideas about where to find ammunition for Ukraine, Spiegel writes. According to experts, countries in Africa, Asia and the Balkan states may have stocks. India has "several hundred thousand artillery shells" in its arsenal, the publication notes. According to the sources, the Federal Republic of Germany is now holding secret talks with India on the purchase of ammunition for Ukraine's needs through intermediaries. Ukraine will receive 120,000 122-mm ammunition from Bulgaria as soon as possible. Meanwhile, Denmark, The Netherlands and Canada are working on the financing for 800,000 rounds of 155/122-mm ammunition. India but also African and Balkan countries might be an option, which still have quite large stocks of artillery ammunition stored. Most of them do not openly want to sell, but a solution through intermediaries is possible with a promise of discretion. Spiegel reports that these type of negotiations are already underway. https://www.spiegel.de/ausland/artil...0-9c4c8e147b2d

122-mm artillery shells are Soviet-era ammunition. They are used in D-30 howitzers and 2S1 Gvozdika self-propelled howitzers, which are widely used in the Ukrainian army. Bulgaria is a producer of shells of this calibre and one of the largest players on the world market in the Soviet weapons niche. The main producer of these shells in Bulgaria is the Dunarit plant in Ruse. It produces a wide range of Soviet-era artillery ammunition, including 122-mm separate loading rounds. However, due to the high demand for products caused by the Russian-Ukrainian war, Bulgaria is restoring other facilities that have been mothballed in recent decades. At the end of 2023, it was announced that after 35 years of inactivity, the Bulgarian plant in the city of Kostenets, owned by the TEREM state holding, resumes production of 122mm shells. This plant ceased production of 122mm shells in 1988. It is possible that with the new facilities, the new plant could have received a share of the German order for ammunition supplies for Ukraine.

[Jimbuna]

Zelensky says 31,000 troops killed since Russia's full-scale invasion

Volodymyr Zelensky says 31,000 Ukrainian soldiers have been killed during Russia's full-scale invasion.

The Ukrainian president said he would not give the number of wounded as that would help Russian military planning.

Typically, Ukrainian officials do not make casualty figures public, and other estimates are much higher.

It comes after the defence minister said half of all Western aid for Ukraine has been delayed, costing lives and territory.

Mr Zelensky said on Sunday that he was providing an updated death toll in response to the inflated figures that Russia has quoted.

"31,000 Ukrainian soldiers have died in this war. Not 300,000 or 150,000, or whatever Putin and his lying circle are saying. But each of these losses is a great loss for us."

Speaking about the wider losses in the war, Mr Zelensky said tens of thousands of civilians had died in the areas of Ukraine occupied by Russia but the true number was unknown.

"I don't know how many of them died, how many were killed, how many were murdered, tortured, how many were deported."

It is rare for Ukraine to provide a military death toll, and other estimates suggest a much higher number.
https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-europe-68397525

[Dargo]

Originally Posted by Skybird

The Hungarian parliament has approved the Swedish NATO membership. Sweden agreed to sell more Gripen, and to modernise the existing ones. That was a long birth. Can we move on now, yes...?

Russia has added Avdiivka, NATO has added Sweden, the latter even joined voluntarily. Both turkey and Hungary played hard to bargain, but both got what they wanted everybody wins that's OK NATO has now a strong ally and controls another sea entrance of Russia win-win. Take the Swedish island of Gotland. It is in the middle of that Baltic Sea, facing the Baltic States and Kaliningrad, the Russian exclave. The island will be a strategic base of operations for NATO forces. Together with the Danes, the Swedes control a number of crucial shipping lanes for ships coming from Russia, for example in the Baltic or Baltic Sea. This will make it easier for NATO to monitor Russian ships, as well as to set up air patrols.

Finland and Sweden were neutral and independent. As a result, they greatly expanded their armed forces in all areas. They did not want to depend on other countries, which is often the case in Western Europe. We always thought it was better to spread tasks across countries. Now that it comes down to it, it turns out that we spread those defence tasks too much. Finland and Sweden, on the other hand, have fully equipped and robust armed forces. Finland, for example, still has reservists who can be called under arms. They are also close to the Baltic States. Should Article 5 of the NATO Treaty ever go into effect, we can now provide faster assistance to Estonia, Latvia and Lithuania.

[Dargo]

How the CIA Supports Ukraine – and Vice Versa

The New York Times published an investigative report on Sunday quoting anonymous sources from among the intelligence communities in the US, Europe and Ukraine who say that the US Central Intelligence Agency (CIA) has helped Ukraine to establish 12 secret spy bases throughout the country. According to the report, the CIA and other US intelligence services track the movements of Russian troops, gather intelligence for missile strikes, and maintain spy networks with the help of these bases. For almost 10 years, the US has been helping Kyiv to train a “new generation of Ukrainian spies” who are operating globally against Russia.

Thanks to this network of bases, Kyiv has become one of Washington’s most important intelligence partners. It has proved so successful that prior to the war they were producing more intelligence than US intelligence staff in Ukraine were able to process and today are intercepting more Russian communications than the CIA’s own base in Russia, the NYT notes. The network of CIA bases in Ukraine began to be established eight years ago. The news site says they were assembled “piece by piece” under US presidents Barack Obama, Donald Trump and Joe Biden... https://www.kyivpost.com/post/28664

[Jimbuna]

[mapuc]

Markus

[Jimbuna]

Ex-Army chief joins calls to prepare for UK conscription

The possibility of forcing British citizens to fight in the event of war with Russia has gained traction in the wake of controversial comments by the outgoing head of the British Army last month. Sir Patrick Sanders said the UK should train a ‘citizen army’ among other steps to put it on a ‘war footing’ in response to rising security threats. Rishi Sunak quickly poured cold water on the idea, though experts have since warned the UK may not have any choice if conflict with Putin turns into a wider European or world war.

Sir Richard, served as deputy chief of the defence staff and led Joint Forces Command before retiring in 2016, admitted conscription is ‘unpalatable’ but warned Brits not to assume war is always an ‘away game’. He added: ‘It is alien but only in our lifetimes, not in our ancestors’ lives – my father did National Service. ‘In the mobilisation of civil society, you start with volunteers. If the war is not over and you’ve run out of volunteers, then you have to conscript people… This is entirely historically normal.
‘You’re not mobilising because you’re going to invade somebody else’s country. You’re mobilising because someone is threatening yours – and your family and your livelihood'

The British Army currently counts around 76,000 soldiers and 26,000 reservists. Last month Sir Patrick said: ‘Within the next three years, it must be credible to talk of a British Army of 120,000, folding in our reserve and strategic reserve. ‘But this is not enough. Our friends in eastern and northern Europe, who feel the proximity of the Russian threat more acutely, are already acting prudently, laying the foundations for national mobilisation.’ Calls for conscription to be taken seriously have been accompanied by even louder demands for better resources for the military.

On Sunday, a leaked letter revealed Sir Patrick fears underfunding could soon kill the Army’s ability to fight overseas.Writing to former generals, he said: ‘For some time, we have asset-sweated the military, compounded by a mismatch between ambition and resource that has been robustly addressed by both National Audit Office and Defence Select Committee reporting. ‘Our strategic resilience is at risk, and we might inadvertently reduce ourselves to a smaller, static and domestically-focused land force. I am not sure that this is either the Army the nation needs, or the one that policymakers want'

The comments, which were revealed in The Sunday Telegraph, were backed by two prominent retired generals. A Ministry of Defence spokesman said: ‘Our Armed Forces are always ready to protect and defend the nation, with more than £50billion being spent on defence this year alone.

‘The Army is currently undergoing its largest transformation in 20 years, creating a more integrated, agile, and lethal force, fit to face up to current and future threats. Alongside this, £41 billion is being invested in equipment and support projects over the next 10 years to ensure the Army has the highest quality equipment for the battlefield'
https://www.msn.com/en-gb/news/world...6ff0be30&ei=28

[Dargo]

Originally Posted by mapuc

Markus

He is spot on hope Russia may send many reserves in those areas.

Originally Posted by Sun Tzu

Military tactics are like unto water; for water in its natural course runs away from high places and hastens downwards. With regard to PRECIPITOUS HEIGHTS, if you are beforehand with your adversary, you should occupy the raised and sunny spots, and there wait for him to come up.

WWI and WWII firearm relics still used in Russo-Ukrainian war

Relics from World War I and II, including Maxim machine guns and Mosin rifles, have resurfaced in the Russo-Ukrainian war. Discover the 12 antiquated firearms still in use on the Ukrainian frontlines. The ongoing Russo-Ukrainian war showcases a mix of advanced weaponry, including state-of-the-art air defense systems, hypersonic missiles, and the newest drones, alongside the enduring utility of older tactics and arms. While weapons from the 1970s-1990s are the most common, older firearms can still occasionally be spotted on the battleground of the Russo-Ukrainian War. Russian and Ukrainian forces are sometimes employing World War I and II-era firearms from vast Soviet-era arsenals, now relevant due to shortages of modern arms and ammunition for diverse arrays of military units deployed by both Ukrainians and Russians.

Originally Posted by British historian Mark Felton

Though these weapons seem antiquated, they are still perfectly serviceable and lethal in the right hands, and itÂ’s the case today of any weapon being better than no weapon at all

https://euromaidanpress.com/2024/02/...ukrainian-war/