Live Conflict Ukraine-Russia War

Gary

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Wait, if Orban decided not to veto Ukraine from entering the EU, doesn't that mean the path for EU membership for Ukraine is laid open?

Doesn't that mean danger because while Ukraine is at war, and Ukraine enters the EU, then the rest of the EU would be obliged to join the war as part of the EU mutual defense clause ?
 

Gary

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I was led to believe that only Putin protected its elite capital city citizens while sending Buryats.

GOP holds up Ukraine aid, asking painful questions​


I was led to believe that only Putin protected its elite capital city citizens while sending Buryats.
US shadow commander heads to Ukraine with staff, reviving memories of the fateful dispatch of Vietnam ‘advisers’
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By STEPHEN BRYENDECEMBER 14, 2023
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Without the money Ukraine will lose the war, Zelensky says. Photo: New Voice of Ukraine

Republicans are complaining that neither US President Joe Biden’s administration nor Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky could tell them how Ukraine might win the war with Russia or what plan the administration had for Ukraine going forward.

Nor were the Republicans happy that no progress was made with the administration on their demand for strong Mexican border security. So far the result is that the measure in question is stalled in both houses of Congress. Legislation won’t be taken up again until after the Christmas and New Year’s break, if then.




Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky with Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell (left) and Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer on December 12, 2023. Photo: Saudi Gazette / Euronews

The Biden administration’s Ukraine problem, however, goes deeper than just funding. Legislators now understand that the war cannot be won and are wondering whether the administration hasn’t gotten itself in a trap by supporting Zelensky.

In a nutshell, supporting Zelensky in a no-win scenario seems a bad idea to many.

No serious military leader has advanced the thesis that Ukraine can win against Russia, despite assurances given for months by Kiev and the administration that it could. Lawmakers who listened to these arguments for the past two years now realize that the administration duped them.

The defining moment happened over this past summer when the Ukrainian offensive, heavily supported with US arms and US and NATO training not to mention massive intelligence support, yielded huge losses and only a few tiny, reversible victories.

Zelensky was still running around in the US claiming that Ukraine had won many victories in the offensive and had broken through the Surovikin defense line put up by the Russians. These days that argument is no longer credible, if it ever was.

There is big turbulence ahead. The Pentagon has dispatched Lieutenant-General Antonio Aguto Jr to Ukraine. His job will be shadow commander of Ukraine’s army, basically replacing the current commander. That will put Aguto over land army commander Oleksandr Syrskyi.

His instructions are contradictory. On the one hand, he is supposed to direct the Ukrainians on a “hold and build” strategy. On the other he is to tell Zelensky to freeze the conflict, at the latest by this coming spring.


Lieutenant-General Antonio Aguto. Photo: US Army

“Hold” means not to try to advance but to hold on to territories under Ukraine’s control. This idea is already undermined by the fact that the Russians are advancing across most of the line of contact.


They have already entered Marinka, a small city in Donetsk that was under Ukrainian control. The Russians are also progressing around Avdiivka, and control parts of the city, with more to follow.

Around Bakhmut, the Russians are in the process of taking back some villages that the Ukrainians grabbed during the big battles over Bakhmut. It looks as if they will soon get them back and threaten Chasiv Yar, a key Ukrainian logistics hub.

Similarly in the Zaphorize front the Russians are now pressuring Robotyne, a small village in the so-called Bradley Square area that the Ukrainians actually took in their offensive when they tried to push toward the actual Surovikin defenses. Whether Russia will be successful here depends on how many lives the Ukrainians want to spend holding on to a small village of no strategic significance.

The idea of “hold” therefore is not really a coherent strategy. Ukrainian General Valery Zaluzhny, the current commander of Ukraine’s armed forces and a key competitor to Zelensky, proposed pulling back Ukraine’s army and forming a real defensive line.

But where would that line be? And how would it stop a Russian advance? Zelensky himself seems to endorse the idea while insisting on keeping up the battles around Bakhmut and Avdiivka.

“Build” is a US idea to rebuild Ukraine’s army, which has been very badly mauled by the ongoing fighting. Build means bringing in new manpower, on the one hand, while emphasizing rearmament and training.

Ukraine has a severe manpower problem, and to find recruits it has to use clumsy and draconian tactics. Some of the untapped manpower is in the bigger cities, the sons and daughters of what in Russia is called the nomenklatura, mostly protected so far by the regime in Kiev.

Just because communism is gone does not mean that there isn’t a highly pampered elite in Ukraine, any more than there isn’t in Russia. When you put pressure on this class of people you cause serious internal political problems.


While there will not be any elections in Ukraine, there is dissatisfaction. In the past week David Arakhamia, Zelensky’s party leader, has spoken of a revolt in the Verkhovna Rada, Ukraine’s parliament, which is largely a mouthpiece for Zelensky. Many of the lawmakers have signaled they want to get out of Ukraine, as soon as possible. Some of them already are gone.


David Arakhamia.

This is a sign of a sinking ship and a loss of confidence in the maximum leader, even if those who want to leave find it difficult to do so. (Ukrainians are not leaving the country now because they are not allowed to leave. Even former president Petro Poroshenko, who got a valid exit permit from the Rada, was stopped at the border and turned around because Zelensky did not want him talking to Western leaders.)


It is hard to see how Aguto can fix the manpower problem or repair the loss of confidence internally in the Ukrainian government.

If the Biden administration really wants to freeze the conflict it should explain how that can be done. Without negotiations and some sort of settlement, the war will continue if the Russians determine they want to stay in the fight.

Meanwhile the presence of Aguto, looking over the shoulder of Ukraine’s military commanders and telling them what to do, is bound to cause problems.

There is, too, another problem with Aguto sitting in Kiev. Not only is this highly embarrassing for Ukraine’s military leaders, but it also changes the war into an American war. Aguto is not by himself – he brings a team of US Army guys with him. That small team is bound to grow. It bears a resemblance to the dispatch of US “advisers” to Vietnam, which soon morphed into a war that, in the end, the US lost.

There is no evidence that the Aguto plan, if one can call it that, is convincing or will accomplish either of its objectives (hold and build). It will bring the possibility of war in Europe even closer to reality, because the Russians may decide that they can’t pretend the war can be confined only to Ukraine’s borders.


It is quite true that the Russians have their own problems, including multiple attempts by Ukraine, the UK and the United States to kill President Vladimir Putin. Biden’s decision to use Zelensky in his latest bid to get money also risks sticking Biden with a guy unwilling to negotiate until the Russians leave and Putin is replaced. That is not a recipe for bringing an end to the ongoing conflict.

Stephen Bryen, who served as staff director of the Near East Subcommittee of the
US Senate Foreign Relations Committee and as a deputy undersecretary of defense
for policy, currently is a senior fellow at the Center for Security Policy and the Yorktown Institute.
 

UkroTurk

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❗️The Russian Federation wants to seize Dnipro and Kharkiv, as well as continue the war until 2026, - BILD

The publication, citing intelligence data, writes that the Russian authorities are counting on a decrease in Western support for Ukraine, as well as an imitation of peace negotiations, in order to mislead the community about their "peaceful intentions."

According to military analyst Röpke, the Kremlin does not want a truce and is developing a further war plan:
🗣 by the end of 2024 - complete control over Donetsk and Luhansk regions, reach the Oskol River in Kharkiv region;
🗣By the end of 2026, advance further west to the Dnipro, seizing part of the Zaporizhia, Dnipropetrovsk, and Kharkiv regions (including Kharkiv, Dnipro, and Zaporizhzhia);
🗣 in the Kherson region, it is planned to maintain the defense along the Dnieper without advancing on Kherson.
 

Fuzuli NL

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View attachment 63993

❗️The Russian Federation wants to seize Dnipro and Kharkiv, as well as continue the war until 2026, - BILD

The publication, citing intelligence data, writes that the Russian authorities are counting on a decrease in Western support for Ukraine, as well as an imitation of peace negotiations, in order to mislead the community about their "peaceful intentions."

According to military analyst Röpke, the Kremlin does not want a truce and is developing a further war plan:
🗣 by the end of 2024 - complete control over Donetsk and Luhansk regions, reach the Oskol River in Kharkiv region;
🗣By the end of 2026, advance further west to the Dnipro, seizing part of the Zaporizhia, Dnipropetrovsk, and Kharkiv regions (including Kharkiv, Dnipro, and Zaporizhzhia);
🗣 in the Kherson region, it is planned to maintain the defense along the Dnieper without advancing on Kherson.
Mr Putin wants to take Odessa as well.
 

GoatsMilk

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View attachment 63993

❗️The Russian Federation wants to seize Dnipro and Kharkiv, as well as continue the war until 2026, - BILD

The publication, citing intelligence data, writes that the Russian authorities are counting on a decrease in Western support for Ukraine, as well as an imitation of peace negotiations, in order to mislead the community about their "peaceful intentions."

According to military analyst Röpke, the Kremlin does not want a truce and is developing a further war plan:
🗣 by the end of 2024 - complete control over Donetsk and Luhansk regions, reach the Oskol River in Kharkiv region;
🗣By the end of 2026, advance further west to the Dnipro, seizing part of the Zaporizhia, Dnipropetrovsk, and Kharkiv regions (including Kharkiv, Dnipro, and Zaporizhzhia);
🗣 in the Kherson region, it is planned to maintain the defense along the Dnieper without advancing on Kherson.

3 day war is going to be turned into a 20 year war by the americans. Russians since day one have been celebrating victory after victory, 2 years on and its been near total failure, hanging by a thread depending on what america decides to give or not give.

americans are playing the ukrainians, they will give and restrict to keep the war boiling. Just like the game they played in syria, always moved in a way to make sure it lasted for as long as possible.
 

Spitfire9

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Russians since day one have been celebrating victory after victory
Yea? The maps I looked at mid-2022 showed far more territory under Russian control than the maps I look at today. Is an army losing ground your idea of a victorious army?
 

GoatsMilk

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Yea? The maps I looked at mid-2022 showed far more territory under Russian control than the maps I look at today. Is an army losing ground your idea of a victorious army?

Read my comment again, i think you misconstrued it. I was simply pointing out that a big theme of Putin's 3 day war, a war in which after one day he said he was ready to accept Kievs surrender is that not a day passes without the Russian side claiming a victory. Its nothing more then cheap soviet style propaganda that is employing psychological trickery.

As far as Ukraine is concerned, as Turks we already knew before the war even started that games were being played against Ukraine by the Americans/Europeans. We were literally threatened by both the USA and Germany not to sell Ukraine weapons. They didn't want us to improve Ukraines defensive capacity.

So a long story short, almost 2 years into this war i never brought the idea that a trillion dollar military, a nation that has endless stockpiles of weapons they don't even need couldn't supply Ukraine what she needed completely in the early stages. This war is being manged by the anglo-american world to drag on and to bleed both Russia and Ukraine, to screw the Orthodox power centre completely. They are killing two birds with one stone, weaken Russia, ruin the last remaining orthodox power centre.

We seen american tricks in Syria, i still remember the days when Obama was claiming they can't strike Assad because of his russian air defence systems. Systems that Turks circumvented with absolute ease using cheap drones and some electronic warfare systems in syria, libya and against armenia. So we know the americans will use all sorts of lies to maintain their agenda.
 

Relic

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I wish Luftwaffe would donate all Tornados and aviation bombs/missiles to Ukraine. Even some of EF T1s could be transferred.

There are 68 multirole Tornado IDS and 20 SEAD EW variants in service ...


They have 200 Wiesel Ozelot Light Air Defence System which is lethal against Shahids.

Do Germans need land forces currently? They also could donate all Leo2 s and ammunitions as Germany is under protection of NATO.
No country is going to sacrifice its own defense capabilities for that of Ukraine. They're willing to send their surplus, but not their core assets.

Germany 🇩🇪 could definitely afford to send a squadron of its Tornado ground attack aircraft to Ukraine, but the problem is training Ukrainian pilots to fly them and technicians to maintain them. The first batch of Ukrainian pilots that are being trained to fly the F-16 (50'ish in total) are mostly comprised of experienced Mig-29 and SU-27 pilots that are being retrained to fly the American made fighter. Ukraine has to balance keeping their existing aircraft flying with a skeleton staff of pilots, while sending many of their best surviving pilots to learn how to fly their new frontline fighter. As a result, Ukraine would have to scrape up a mix of remaining SU-25 pilots and brand new pilots to send to Germany to learn how to fly the Tornados. I suspect that the earliest this could be accomplished by is late late 2024 / early 2025, so it wouldn't be a short term solution.

As for Leopard mbts, there are really three ways to get Ukraine additional units in the short term, without impacting the remaining inventories of allied nations.

1. Germany 🇩🇪 is purchasing 25 Leopard 2A4 mbts from Switzerland, which cannot be transferred to Ukraine for the agreement with the Swiss. Instead, however, those 25 Leopards can be upgraded and inserted into the German army, freeing up 25 of Germany's existing units for transfer to Ukraine.

2. Poland 🇵🇱 has over 200 Leopard 2's that they are phasing out in favour of the K2 Black Panther and M1A2 Abrams, both of which they've purchased recently. America could agree to send 200 additional Abrams to Poland from storage, in exchange for them sending their Leopard 2's to Ukraine. Alternatively, a 3rd party country could purchase 200 Abrams from USA's stocks and transfer them to Poalnd under the same agreement. Note this could not happen all at once. Poland would jump at the opportunity, but it take them time to retrain crews on the news Abrams tanks, before they'd be comfortable parting with their Leopard 2s en masse. For this reason you could probably get the Poles to agree to provided 10 additional Leopard 2s to Ukraine each month, for 20 months, keeping them flowing into Ukraine, while receiving the same number of Abrams from USA each month to replace them.

3. Germany 🇩🇪 is still working on a deal with Greece to send 96 of their Leopard 1GR mbts to Ukraine, in exchange for 96 Swiss owned Leopard 1s that are being stored in Italy. Under terms of the deal the Swiss Leopard 1s would be sent to Germany for upgrades. They would them be sent as upgraded versions to Greece, to replace the 96 older model Leopard 1GRs that were passed onto Ukraine.

In total, I suspect that there are roughly 225 Leopard 2A4 and 300 Leopard 1A5 mbts that could be sent to Ukraine in the short term, without impacting the European stocks that are in active military use. That number includes the 200 Leopard 1A5 mbts that Germany and Denmark have already agreed to send Ukraine throughout 2024. Roughly 525 Leopard 1/2 mbts in total, as outlined above. In order for it to happen, however, the political will to get it done has to be in place and Europe / America would have to work together.
 

mehmed beg

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28% of arable Ukrainian land in US agro companies hand and God knows what debt Ukraine run up. A lot of old weapons from US sent to Ukraine. Plenty little towns in Ukraine, taken over by the Jew are flourishing. No recruitment there. US gas and oil companies are making the killing in Europe. The old European weapons are being replaced by mostly, overpriced American and Israeli weapons. Germany is threatening Hezbollah with one week of ammo. Denmark, Holland and Belgium are sending the weapons to Ukraine and want to keep the embargo on Turkey, at the same time, between them , they have the tanks in museums. And yes, Ukraine is the prime candidate for for EU, I guess they will be giving a vote , 5 million jobs in Europe and 100bn.
Funny thing is in all this mess , someone can wonder, if China is the main enemy then why be the enemy of Russia?
How any sovereign country can allow this is beyond me or how any country outside of this problem can have set diplomatic position with such people?
The funniest thing is that the Europeans pseudo right wing thinks that the Russian soldiers are dying to save their out of wedlock kid from the drag Queens.
I don't think though that the human rights etc story would stop though.
There are plenty minions to drum up that stories.
 

Relic

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Denmark 🇩🇰, Sweden 🇸🇪 and Ukraine 🇺🇦 have come to an agreement on the purchase and delivery of additional CV90 infantry fighting vehicles to Ukraine. Denmark is funding the purchase, Sweden will build the units in Sweden and deliver them to Ukraine, to add to the 50'ish exisiting units Ukraine already has. The value of the deal has been released, but the number of CV90's has not. However, if we look at deals recently signed by other European countries for the CV90, it appears that Denmark plans to purchase 30-35 additional units for Ukraine. Deliveries are expected to start later this year.

 
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UkroTurk

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Relic

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View attachment 64041





A couple things here need to be parsed through so that we have all the information required.

1. While there is an artillery shell shortage in all calibers and types, Ukraine is especially short 152mm and 122mm shells for their Soviet Artillery. The United States does not possess those shells, so even if additional American aid passed today, it would do nothing to alleviate that problem. Those shells have to be produced by Ukraine domestically, or sourced from countries such as Poland, Bulgaria and the Czech Republic. USA was able to buy quantities of those types of shells from third parties, early in the conflict but they've likely exhausted the supplies that 3rd party countries are willing to sell.

2. There is confusion (largely because it's political) about how much money USA still has in Presidential Drawdown Authority to supply Ukraine. The real number is approximate $4.4 Billion USD. Enough to send Ukraine $1 Billion worth of weapons each month from now until April. The number that keeps getting parotted (because it makes it seem more dire) is the amount of money USA has (roughly $1 Billion usd) to replenish items they've sent to Ukraine. Here is the catch. Not 1% of the money that Congress authorized USA to send to Ukraine in the form of weapons, is vital to USA's national defense, meaning they don't NEED to be replaced right away. USA will never send Ukraine items that are part of their war arsenal. They send items that are in storage, and are surplus above what they need if a war broke out tomorrow. That strategic stockpile will not be touched under any circumstance that does not involve USA being directly involved in the war. Therefore, the actual number that matters is $4.4 Billion usd. That's how much worth of material USA can still send Ukraine. They would simply have to wait to replace $3.4 Billion worth when additional funding is passed. There is nothing stopping them from sending those supplies to Ukraine right now, or in the coming months, however. The Democrats simply want to create the idea that there is an imminent funding crisis so that the Republicans hurry up and pass a bill for more funding.
 

Relic

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Germany 🇩🇪 signed a deal with an undisclosed French firm, to provide Ukraine tens of thousands of 155mm artillery shells in 2024. These shells will be in addition to the shells that Germany ordered from Rheinmetall / Expal for Ukraine. In total, Germany will send nearly 300,000 shells to Ukraine in 2024. That's a good start, but they need about 1.3-1.5 million each year to keep their rate of fire up.
 

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