• Forum restore complete (see latest announcement thread)

Live Conflict Ukraine-Russia War

Fuzuli NL

Experienced member
Germany Correspondent
Messages
3,583
Reactions
60 10,078
Nation of residence
Germany
Nation of origin
Turkey
Turkiye may supply T-155 Firtina howitzers to Ukraine. In fact, there have been rumors for a couple of weeks, but Turkish news sources had not confirmed them, but today at least news started to appear from reliable sources. Ukraine will probably buy 12 T-155 Firtina.

This issue will be discussed during Erdoğan's visit to the USA, America will probably finance it. In addition, Turkiye supplied Ukraine with a large number of military equipment, including TB2, T-122 Sakarya MLRS, Armored vehicles and 155 MM Ammunition.


As long as they pay double the price. Why not.
 

Relic

Experienced member
Canada Correspondent
Messages
2,204
Reactions
18 3,136
Nation of residence
Canada
Nation of origin
Canada
As long as they pay double the price. Why not.
Turkey 🇹🇷 should absolutely take advantage of American and European aid being passed for Ukraine and sell the West Firtina howitzers, 155mm ammunition, Leopard 1 MBTs, etc for Ukraine while there are funds out there to be used internationally.

A good start from exisiting inventories would be something like...

24 Firtina Howitzers
50 Leopard 1 MBTs
100 BMC Kirpi MRAPS
300,000 155mm artillery shells
25,000 122mm rockets

Sell that to the West for Ukraine for a couple billion usd and turn the profit around into major upgrades for elements of the Turkish military.
 

Relic

Experienced member
Canada Correspondent
Messages
2,204
Reactions
18 3,136
Nation of residence
Canada
Nation of origin
Canada
Belgium 🇧🇪 will contribute $214 million usd to the German initiative to purchase air defense systems for Ukraine, from international sellers. Furthermore, they will send RIM-7 air defense missiles from their own stockpiles, to be used in conjunction with Ukraine's "FrankenSAM" systems.

 

blackjack

Experienced member
Moderator
Russia Correspondent
Russia Moderator
Messages
1,667
Reactions
10 975
Nation of residence
United States of America
Nation of origin
Russia
Some additional aid news for Ukraine...

USA 🇺🇸 has purchased 81 Soviet era jets from Kazakhstan 🇰🇿 including SU-24s, Mig-29s and Mig-31s. These jets are not air worthy and will not fly in the Ukrainian military. Rather, they'll be used as a source of spares for Ukraine's existing aircraft fleet.


Canada 🇨🇦 will donate an additional 100 Sky Ranger drones to Ukraine, bringing the total committed to 900. Additionally, they're adding an additional $13 million usd to the Czech 🇨🇿 initiative to purchase shells for Ukraine, bringing the new total committed to $53 million usd.

https://en.topwar.ru/241468-kazahst...he-ukraine-spisannyh-sovetskih-samoletov.html

Kazakhstan has denied information about the alleged transfer of decommissioned Soviet aircraft to Ukraine

Kazspecexport emphasized that all equipment will be recycled, and contracts were awarded exclusively to Kazakh companies. At the same time, the recycling process itself excludes the restoration of equipment, and also takes place under control. "Information distributed on the Internet is not true" - the report says.

It should be noted that last fall, Astana put up for auction 117 decommissioned Soviet-made fighters and bombers.

Earlier, information appeared on the Internet that Kyiv was trying to contact Kazakh companies in order to purchase products from the Russian military-industrial complex, in particular some parts and devices for fighters and attack aircraft in service with the Armed Forces of Ukraine. We were talking about components for the PGK-10 parachute braking systems for the Su-24 and MiG-29. Kazakhstan itself rejects all accusations, stating that in 2022 the country will have a ban on the export of military products.
 

Iskander

Contributor
Think Tank Analyst
Messages
1,111
Reactions
21 2,877
Age
65
Nation of residence
Azerbaijan
Nation of origin
Azerbaijan
If indeed part of the talks are for the USA to buy weapons from Turkiye to give to Ukraine, then i rather he went. Its more important for us that Ukraine succeeds then the USA. The USA sit pretty in easy geopraphy, we are in some of the most hostile and dangerous geography on earth.
You are, of course, right.
I am a long-time supporter of arms transfers to Ukraine.
But, unfortunately, I have no other weapon than words in the form of support for our Ukrainian friends :(
True, in some cases I switch to more lethal types of media weapons, such as humor, irony and other types of weapons of mass destruction (WMD):)
All this is out of desperation, of course:(
 

NEKO

Experienced member
Indonesia Correspondent
Messages
3,543
Reactions
5 3,220
Nation of residence
Indonesia
Nation of origin
Indonesia
You know i also thought this of this for a long time. In a similar manner to how the Pakistani's told the americans when arming the taliban against the soviets to do it in small incremental steps, basically to take the boiling frog approach. But to me when things like when 30 tanks go while they got 8k in storage, it just looks like their taking the piss.

Its like you got 30 of the most developed nations on earth, who could all give 2% of their equipment and this war would be over. But Ukrainians got to keep begging for shells when they could of had much better stuff by now.
So... sacrificing Ukraine to weaken Russia?
 

Iskander

Contributor
Think Tank Analyst
Messages
1,111
Reactions
21 2,877
Age
65
Nation of residence
Azerbaijan
Nation of origin
Azerbaijan
China officially announced sanctions against Russia

China, which has long maintained neutrality on the issue of sanctions against the Russian Federation, has declared its commitment to sanctions restrictions. This was stated by Advisor to the Chinese Foreign Ministry Wang Wenbin.
The official said that the export of products critical for the military-industrial complex of the Russian Federation had been stopped.

 
Last edited:

GoatsMilk

Experienced member
Messages
4,251
Reactions
33 11,290
Nation of residence
United Kingdom
So... sacrificing Ukraine to weaken Russia?

that is their modus operandi.

Americans played a similar game on Turkiye in both Iraq and Syria. In Syria they did everything to create pressure on Turkiye to go against Assad, once erdogan took the bait they made sure to do everything to make sure we could do nothing about it. 10 plus years later, probably over 6/7 million refugees from syria, a pkkistan formed in the north protected by both the USA/Russia against us. Not to mention the number of terrorist attacks we incurred because of it.

from the american/russian/isreali/eu perspective syria has been a near total success story. Only thing they don't like is Turkeys presence in the country, because our presence there counters their balkanisation games.

Imagine over Syria, where Turkey has bore the brunt of the civil war we had both the US and Russia threatened war against us, while we had the US/Russia and EU all on the same page opposing our operations. Which kind of makes it funny when i read comments on here where people say why would Turkiye need nuclear weapons. Lets also add France has threatened us, while Isreal and iran are enemies. Isreal has nukes and its speculated that iran wants them or may already have them.

Not to mention they ran our entire race/nation into the ground with propaganda. The moment we downed a Russian jet, they started their propaganda that Turkiye supports Isis. Can you imagine one of the most evil regimes on earth who gave the world the godless marxist communist terror empire, that if successful would destroy human liberty in its totality, turned us into the bad guy. Then in the west we had a similar game, but they also pushed the relentless false narrative that Turks were geocoding Kurds, while turning marxist pkk terrorists into heroes. What a failure. The europeans helped stir more sectarian trouble in our nation, reminding us of the dying Ottoman decades, where they instigated every minority against the Ottoman state.

But when you have really dumb leadership, you end up doing really stupid things. Leadership where he can keep saying "i was decieved" as if its some get out of jail card and people accept that failure, well you end up digging your own grave. Erdogan is lucky that despite all his undermining's of the Turkish military, when called into action it succeeded. Had the Turkish military failed, balkanisation of Turkiye would be a very real possibility.

As far as Turks are concerned the military is both our beginning and our end.

But Ukraine really had no choice, while Turkiye could have made decisions to limit her exposure to danger, Ukraine was in a bad or worse situation.
 
Last edited:

Gary

Experienced member
Messages
8,365
Reactions
1 22 12,887
Nation of residence
Indonesia
Nation of origin
Indonesia
You don’t need special economic circumstances for slogans like “I will give you the money instead of giving it to someone else” to be attractive for the uneducated masses. The same tactics work both in boom times and in economic downturns. People are greedy and they always want more money for themselves. It doesn’t matter if they are poor, middle class or even wealthy. They always want more money.

That's clearly not how it works, when the country is in an economic downturn, inequality keeps on rising, youth unemployment and inflation is the name of the game, the last thing you want (as a government) to is borrow money...to send it to other countries.

This is what the average Americans see, whether the Europeans accept it or not.


This is just an illusion of the “good old days” to think that the peak of quality of life in America was in the 50s to 60s. The peak of quality of life is now. People earn much more and work much less than they did back then. They have a much easier life now.

Of course, the current standard of living is unsustainable for the long term, as it is partially funded by increasing debt and the abuse of the US dollar as the global reserve currency, but this doesn’t change the fact that Americans today have a much higher standard of living than they had 70 years ago.

They didn’t even have computers and smartphones back than, how can you even compare?

Holy shit and I thought you couldn't be even more comical. But then again being dumbassery has always been your stock in trade for the last year or so.

In the 50s the average American can afford:

  1. A house (or two) with huge lawn, not a rented room
  2. A family usually with two kids or more
  3. A car that they actually own, and not having to worry about getting confiscated by creditors.
For the modern Americans this isn't achievable for most of them. This is why you're seeing van culture popping out and degeneracy spread as youths are no longer willing to have families (and the responsibilities that comes with it).

You mention smartphones and computers as if the Americans actually progress LOL

In the 50s, the average American family looks like this

eznfovhfpz3b1.jpg


The car ✅
The house (with a huge lawn and car park, interior bathroom, TVs and an integrated sink etc) ✅
and even the Tricycle ✅

Is something that an average Indonesian family couldn't comprehend

images


No car (what's a car ? LOL)
Bathroom ? Go to the nearest river


See the difference?

And now talking about smartphones and computers. The 21st-century Indonesian family has TV, Computers and every kid as young as 10 now has smartphones. So it's either Indonesia has advanced very rapidly (I don't think so) or the Americans have lost that wealth gap that they usually enjoy during their golden era.
 

Relic

Experienced member
Canada Correspondent
Messages
2,204
Reactions
18 3,136
Nation of residence
Canada
Nation of origin
Canada
https://en.topwar.ru/241468-kazahst...he-ukraine-spisannyh-sovetskih-samoletov.html

Kazakhstan has denied information about the alleged transfer of decommissioned Soviet aircraft to Ukraine

Kazspecexport emphasized that all equipment will be recycled, and contracts were awarded exclusively to Kazakh companies. At the same time, the recycling process itself excludes the restoration of equipment, and also takes place under control. "Information distributed on the Internet is not true" - the report says.

It should be noted that last fall, Astana put up for auction 117 decommissioned Soviet-made fighters and bombers.

Earlier, information appeared on the Internet that Kyiv was trying to contact Kazakh companies in order to purchase products from the Russian military-industrial complex, in particular some parts and devices for fighters and attack aircraft in service with the Armed Forces of Ukraine. We were talking about components for the PGK-10 parachute braking systems for the Su-24 and MiG-29. Kazakhstan itself rejects all accusations, stating that in 2022 the country will have a ban on the export of military products.
I've read numerous reports that the U.S. purchased them through shell companies and that Kazakhstan 🇰🇿 is simply operating under plausible deniability. One side isn't telling the truth here. More to follow...
 

Relic

Experienced member
Canada Correspondent
Messages
2,204
Reactions
18 3,136
Nation of residence
Canada
Nation of origin
Canada
I think Kazakhstan really wants to be invaded.


I hope if it eventually end with that, the Kazakh guy who composed this is safe though

They were purchased for an average of $19,300 usd each and will be used entirely for parts. The reports are that USA purchased the aircraft through Kazakh shell companies at a total cost of just over $2.26 million usd.

The way to think of this purchase is that USA bought $2.26 milkiin usd worth of spare parts from Kazakhstan.

 

Relic

Experienced member
Canada Correspondent
Messages
2,204
Reactions
18 3,136
Nation of residence
Canada
Nation of origin
Canada
Germany 🇩🇪 has announced the delivery of additional military aid to Ukraine. Per usual, Germany updates the quantities of what they've delivered only after they have arrived in Ukraine. They also announce new items that they are planning to deliver in the future.

The package delivered includes the following....

- 1 Skynex air defense system
- 10 Marder infantry fighting vehicles
- 7,500 155mm artillery shells
- 120mm Leopard 2 tank shells
- 120mm mortar shells
- 29,638 25mm rounds of Gepard ammo
- 18,000 40mm rounds of ammo
- 3000 RGW MATADOR anti-tank weapons
- IRIS-T SLM air defense missiles
- 1 TRML-4D air defense RADAR
- 8 OSHKOSH tank transporters
- 1 BEAVER bridge laying vehicle
- 1 DACHS armoured engineering vehicle
- 11 mine ploughs
- 1 AMPS protection systems for helicopters
- 60 outboard boat motors
- 600 LED lamps
- 1980 camouflage nets
- 2000 camouflage ponchos
- 100,000 First Aid kits

Items added to the list of those planned for delivery...

- 1 Patriot air defense battery

 

UkroTurk

Experienced member
Land Warfare Specialist
Professional
Messages
2,967
Reactions
61 5,301
Nation of residence
Turkey
Nation of origin
Turkey
Vladimir Putin plans a major spring offensive

Two senior Ukrainian intelligence officials told the Financial Times that they expect a new major Russian offensive to begin at the end of May. In anticipation of such an operation, according to the publication’s interlocutors, Russia is launching missile attacks on Kharkov and other strategically important cities.

An Ukrainian army source told BILD that he fears an attack on Kharkiv involving between 20,000 and 40,000 people.

According to him, in this case, Ukraine will have to decide where to defend - the north or the east. Another serviceman told reporters that he also considered it possible for the invaders to “march” on Kharkov.
 

contricusc

Contributor
Think Tank Analyst
Messages
828
Reactions
17 1,262
Nation of residence
Panama
Nation of origin
Romania
That's clearly not how it works, when the country is in an economic downturn, inequality keeps on rising, youth unemployment and inflation is the name of the game, the last thing you want (as a government) to is borrow money...to send it to other countries.

This is what the average Americans see, whether the Europeans accept it or not.

Except that the US has a very low unemployment rate, and those Trumpists that have fallen for this type of propaganda are not young at all.

They are people frustrated with their declining health due to old age and with the current culture trends, and they are venting their frustration on anything their master tells them to.

And yes, there are also some young Trumpists who just went with the trend, but Trumpism is more present in older people.

Holy shit and I thought you couldn't be even more comical. But then again being dumbassery has always been your stock in trade for the last year or so.

When resorting to insults, it is a sign that you are losing the argument, which was predictable.

In the 50s the average American can afford:

  1. A house (or two) with huge lawn, not a rented room
  2. A family usually with two kids or more
  3. A car that they actually own, and not having to worry about getting confiscated by creditors.
For the modern Americans this isn't achievable for most of them. This is why you're seeing van culture popping out and degeneracy spread as youths are no longer willing to have families (and the responsibilities that comes with it).

This is just not true. Modern Americans can easily afford nicer homes and cars than their grandparents. The problem is that a lot of people have made very bad life choices, such as doing drugs and taking on debt when young, and this is why they fail miserably in their life.

People who are hardworking and disciplined with their life can easily make it in the US. This is why people from all over the world want to emigrate there. Not because there is a lack of opportunity as you try to present it.

And now talking about smartphones and computers. The 21st-century Indonesian family has TV, Computers and every kid as young as 10 now has smartphones. So it's either Indonesia has advanced very rapidly (I don't think so) or the Americans have lost that wealth gap that they usually enjoy during their golden era.

Indonesia has advanced very rapidly for sure. The wealth gap between wealthy and emerging countries has shrunk a lot in the last 70 years.

Of course, the US is much wealthier and there are much better opportunities for average Americans to build wealth than there are for the average Indonesian, but the wealth and opportunity gap is lower than in the past.

This doesn’t mean that Americans have it worse than seventy years ago. It is just that the growth in the quality of life has been lower in developed countries than in developing ones, which is just the natural way of things.
 

Relic

Experienced member
Canada Correspondent
Messages
2,204
Reactions
18 3,136
Nation of residence
Canada
Nation of origin
Canada
The topic of ATACMS Ballistic Missiles has been a popular one on this board and around the internet. But there have been plenty of misconceptions regarding ATACMS and the reasons that they were not being sent to Ukraine.

The popular narrative was that is was more of a political decision, because the U.S. didn't want to risk Ukraine striking into Russia with the long range weapon. In reality, however, that was and always has been only a secondary consideration. The fact is that Ukraine listens when the USA definitively tells them not to use U.S. donated long range weapons in Russia proper. Ukraine doesn't dare do anything to the contrary, out of fear that they will have their access to those weapons cut off for geopolitical reasons.

The truth is that USA genuinely did not have many that they were willing to send from their strategic arsenal. Estimates were that the U.S. Army and Marine Corps had approximately 1200-1500 ATACMS units in their arsenal and that included M39 shorter range, older variants, complemented by newer M48 and M57 (unitary warhead) variants. Eventually, USA chose to send a small number (20 or fewer) of the older M39 variant, to use specifically against two Russian helicopter bases in occupied Ukraine, that housed the KA-52s that were wreaking havoc on Ukrainian armor. We saw those missiles used to devastating effect last fall, when Ukraine decimated 14 KA-52s in a single night at the aerodromes mentioned above, forcing the Russians to pull their KA-52s back into Russia and out of the fight.

Fast forward to today and the situation surrounding ATACMS has changed significantly with the arrival of the PrSM (Precision Strike Missile) into U.S. Army inventories. The PrSM is a drastic upgrade that is quickly making ATACMS obsolete in U.S. inventories, which in turn, increases the number that can be sent to Ukraine. USA received its first PrSM's in December, 2023. They are scheduled to receive many more throughout 2024 and the U.S. Army recently signed a new contract with Lockheed Martin to purchase an additional $219 million usd worth of PrSM's in a contract that will carryover into 2025. Every time a new batch of PrSMs arrives, more ATACMS can be sent to Ukraine and it appears that the M48 and M57 extended range variants are now being sent as well. A recent strike on the Dzhankoy airfield in Crimea saw ATACMS used to shred Russian S-300 air defense systems on site.

Furthermore, Lockheed Martin remains at a full rate production of 500 M57 ATACMS missiles each year, most of which are for export to American Allies such as Poland, Australia, South Korea, and recently, the Baltic countries. However, a portion of those 500 M57 variants were being purchased by the U.S. military each year and now that they are buying PrSMs instead, those missiles can now be purchased using American USAI funding and will be sent directly to Ukraine. Recently, in the $6 Billion usd USAI package , the category "Ammunition for HIMARS" was included as an item that would be procured directly from American industry. Make no mistake, that was worded in that manner to be purposely generic and avoid specifying GMLRS vs ATACMS, both of which are munitions fired by HIMARS and both of which were purchased under that title.

So that leaves the important question of just how many ATACMS (of all variants) can Ukraine expect to receive? I think that if we're going to speculate, it would serve us well to be conservative. Let's say that from PDA USA will be willing to send 1 ATACM for each 1 PrSM that they receive in 2024. From all public sources that are available, it appears USA will receive approximately 75 PrSM's, after receiving 55 in the initial December, 2023 batch. That means by the end of 2024 USA will have received roughly 130 PrSMs, which, in turn, should make 130 ATACMs available for transfer to Ukraine. If we factor in USAI procurement direct from Lockheed Martin (which previously went to USA) we can, conservatively, add another 50 missiles to that total. Therefore, in 2024 Ukraine should get approximately 180 mixed variant ATACMS to bolster their medium / long range strike capability. Certainly enough to do substantial damage to Russian bases in Crimea and in the rear of the Donbas, but not nearly enough to act as some silver bullet.

So if Ukraine can reasonably expect to receive 180'ish ATACMs over a 12 month period, what weapons can / need to be sent to augment their medium / long range strike capability? That equation starts and likely ends, with Western cruise missiles. Ukraine has already proven that they can use British / French made Stormshadow / SCALP-EG cruise missiles highly effectively. The problem, of course, is supply and Ukraine is short when it comes to the quantity it possesses in its inventory. So how many more will they get in 2024? Earlier this year French Prime Minister Macron announced that France would send an additional 40 units of SCALP-EG in 2024. Meanwhile, Britain announced that they will be sending additional Stormshadow missiles among a package of 1600 strike / air defense missiles. But how many of those missiles are Stormshadow cruise missiles? We don't know for sure, but let's be conservative and go with the number 40, to match the French donation. Britain announced just this week that domestic manufacturer MBDA is moving into surge production of Stormshadow to restock British inventories and increase availability to Ukraine. What we've found out recently, however, is that another country has quietly pledged to donate Stormshadow as well and that country is Italy, who helped the French and British design the cruise missiles and also stocks large quantities of them. Because Italy is highly secretive of the quantities of what they send to Ukraine, we must be ultra-conservative in guessing how many units they are willing to send. Let's go with 20 units in 2024, half as many as their British and French counterparts. That brings the conservative total of Stormshadow cruise missiles from France, Britain and Italy, for Ukraine, up to roughly 100 units in 2024, all of which can be fired from Ukraine's fleet of SU-24 aircraft.

While the European contribution of cruise missiles has the capacity to be impactful this year, it's really USA that truly has the ability to send a meaningful number of cruise missiles to Ukraine in 2024. Those missiles, of course, are JASSM cruise missiles, which Ukraine will be able to launch when it receives it's initial batch of F-16s at some point this summer. JASSM has the ability to be the ultimate compliment to Stormshadow / SCALP-EG and ATACMS, as Ukraine seeks long range strike solutions. As it stands, the U.S. Air Force keeps an inventory of 1000-1500 JASSM cruise missiles on hand at any given time. Meanwhile, Lockheed Martin produces an additional 550'ish units per year for domestic consumption and foreign sales. Funding in the most recent Ukrainian aid package will provide requisite dollars to increase that number to close to 1000 units per year, which is Lockheed Martin's stated goal. USA purchases 400-450 JASSMs per year, with the remainder sold to Allies. That means any JASSMs sent to Ukraine will come directly from American Air Force inventories for the foreseeable future, using PDA. So what's a reasonable number that USA can afford to send along with the arrival of Ukraine's F-16s? Given that USA will receive another batch of close to 500 JASSMs in 2024, one could see them being willing to send Ukraine approximately 200 units from their exisiting inventories. As the JASSM-ER and JASSM-XR gain favour in U.S. Air Force inventories, the original JASSM missiles remaining are aging and becoming increasingly obsolete for American purposes. With substantial funds recently passed to surge production and replace them with more of the newer variants, 200 older model JASSMs seems like a reasonable and conservative number.

In summation, using a substantial amount of sourcing, combined with highly conservative estimates, it's my prediction that Ukraine will receive the following medium / long range strike weapons in 2024.

M39 / M48 / M57 ATACMS (USA PDA): 130 units

M57 ATACMS (USA USAI): 50 units

Stormshadow (Britain): 40 units

SCALP-EG (France): 40 units

Stormshadow (Italy): 20 units

JASSM (USA PDA): 200 units

Total: 480 medium / long range strike ballistic and cruise missiles.
 
Last edited:
Top Bottom