100% agree it’s too early too know anything. Imagine as a civvie, trying to figure out the d-day situation on July 9th. Fog of war is real and our information is infinitely better than in the 1940’s. There will be ugly pictures shown. They in themselves mean only heartbreak but say nothing about the actual fight.
The letter he mentioned talked about NATO corruption. I don’t know he agreed. I think our services have done all they are allowed to do by politicians. Those decisions will cost lives but politics has to weigh war as it is vs. escalation. I don’t know the right balance. But for me it would be hard to look a Ukrainian soldier in the eye and say we did all we could.
NATO does nothing to promote negotiations though so we all will continue to second guess and wait and see.
Imagine if the Omaha beach photos were in the papers on June 8th? Would have been awful.
The pro russian narrative also seems verry similar to the kherson counter oeffensive to me, with them claiming the new one’s already a failure. On russian propaganda, be aware of those claiming to be neutral when they’re pro russian , history legend is a good example of that, he’s one of those who claimed the kherson offensive would be a failure 3 days after it started and he like to maintain his “neutrality” by sugar coating his videos with some pro ukrainian views.
It is inevitable that tanks, APCs, IFVs and other vehicles will be hit and damaged or destroyed. War has a habit of doing that. Where the difference comes in is the training and how the crews handle it.
By now most if not all have seen the Leopard tank that was damaged along with the Bradley’s in the artillery attack. What isn’t known by most is that almost all the crews survived with minor injuries and as far as I understand no deaths in that attack. There is footage of another Bradley saving another crew that had been hit in the same attack by an anti tank missile and it shows the crew of the damaged Bradley exiting the vehicle and hiding behind it while the undamaged Bradley provided covering fire and then rescuing the men and retreating in good order. That comes with proper training and not panicking
So far apparently 4 Leopards were hit and 3 were recovered and repaired as they had only run over mines the 4th had been hit by an artillery shell and apparently the crew survived the hit but the tank was a write off, also it sounds as if 2 Bradley’s that had been hit were repaired as well after recovery. If true that says something for the Ukrainian repair crews and western supply chain and survivability of equipment.
There are many ways to run a counteroffensive. It appears, from what little as been released, that Ukraine has adopted a “Big Push” model. That is, widespread, probing offensives, enough to keep the Russian Army offguard until a suitable weakness is spotted, then you you pounce with the reserves.
I define “success” as reaching the Sea of Azov and cutting off Crimea, a Big Push could do that at any point from Donbas to Kherson and wouldn’t telegraph the exact target until the last minute.
Zelensky announced 6 days ago there would be no elections while martial law was in place and until they had peace.
Any thoughts on this? Over here we say democracy in Ukraine is important to democracy here. Obvious bs propaganda. Is this the kind of country nato would want as a member?
How would they go about to make sure the elections are safe and fair with campaign and election locations and timetables beeing public?
It would make it easy for Russia to take out the Ukrainian leadership.
Also I think the kind of leadership you want and need during war are not the same as the leaders you want during a time of peace.
As long as they are at war there will be no joining of nato.
After the war they will have to show that they follow the requirements to join nato , a functioning and stable democratic political system , fair treatment of minorities , ability to make a militairy contribution to nato.
And then all nato counties will have to approve the membership.
With the attention span of people being 30 seconds by the time they will be ready to join most will have forgotten what happened and why they should join.
At this time there are also several nato members that do not meet the requirements that new members have to uphold.
It is not Selensky, but the Ukraininian constitution that is postponing elections until martial law is taken back.
And : “Beyond timing, there are currently 6.5 million internally displaced people in Ukraine and 7.8 million refugees abroad. It will require substantial effort to ensure their equal right to vote and access polling stations.”
There may be nato members who don’t meet their expectations but I believe there is no treaty method to sanction them.
Can’t have safe fair elections? 1944 US 1945 Britain, where Churchill lost, by the way. Iraq had elections after the 2003 war. They have a parliament now and I hope it’s working, not sure.
I am not arguing it is easy but a nation which sacrifices its citizens rights to protect them will not keep those rights inviolate. It is a steep,slippery slope easy to slide down very difficult to get up.
Is our help destroying Ukraine to try and save it? You make a good argument about refugees. I think that reinforces the argument that Ukraine is being destroyed. Not only land but institutions and society.
NATO doesn’t want the war to escalate so worried about what Russia will do. We give enough help to challenge Russia but not too much and Ukraine falls to pieces. Russia is ruining millions of lives and blames nato. Well I get angry thinking how, we do not take those millions of displaced people into account. Either win the war or force peace but just continuously elongating the war does no good. Just makes the misery into a generational thing.
Damm Patton was right. We left evil in the world and it grew and now I feel it is consuming even my own country. But then I’m an old man
It is not Selensky, but the Ukraininian constitution that is postponing elections until martial law is taken back.
And : “Beyond timing, there are currently 6.5 million internally displaced people in Ukraine and 7.8 million refugees abroad. It will require substantial effort to ensure their equal right to vote and access polling stations.”
The EU NATO and UN could assist this. They need a census and remote voting abilities. If they can afford M1’s they can afford this support.
Sorry, done ranting. What would I do? Go one of 2 ways either all in on weapons and all direct support or tell Ukraine no more military help unless they negotiate.
The UK example disproves your point. The UK’s last parliamentary election before 1939 was 1935. That Parliament sat for 10 years. The controlling legislation, the Septennial Act had to be amended four times to allow Parliament to continue. After VE day and the removal of the direct threat to the UK elections proceeded. The UK did the same thing in the First World War.
Canada also extended the term of parliaments to five years for the same reason.
So there is no justification to criticize Ukraine for what the UK has done.
I tried writing this several different ways because I want to give a good answer and maybe I am full of crap. One new weapon system at a time is not a formula for peace but a formula for endless war and experimentation. My government says we are defending democracy but we aren’t. We want regime change but not if it means an end to war and profiteering. If we get rid of Putin No one has any idea of what would be next.
I’m 61 and my country has been killing people actively for over 1/2 my life. I am part of the problem. We don’t defend our way of life, we impose it.
What would I do. Make war too uncomfortable for Russia by giving Ukraine the ability to hit targets in Russia the same way they are stuck. Moscow, St. Petersburg all of it. But the truth is I think Russians in charge at least feel they cannot afford to lose this war and we are ok with losing it because then we get a new one a couple years later.
the way things are going we will be here a year from now talking about the war maybe thinking how bad that nuclear accident turned out or that Ukraine will have enough mines they will still be finding them 100 years from now like WW1 France.
Anyway, sorry for bringing this up. Old people are full of regrets for mistakes made while young people are rushing to make their own mistakes. Putin wants the USSR back while the US wants to be rich and strong and the young people pay the price for our dreams.
Lol should have just said listen to War Pigs by Black Sabbath. That explains the world.
The war is already unconfortable for Russia, without repeating a V2 (Vengeance Weapon 2) waste of economic and moral capital. The Ukrainians want more range to hit tactical targets. Support from EU and NATO has chanced from storage to new production of weapons and supplies for the Ukrainian arms industry (pre war 60,000 employees). The Ukrainian have to fight a war no NATO or EU partner has prepared for, exept Finnland and Sweden. This war may not end this year, but it is not prolonged by western politics. Ukraine has become a landlocked country, all the supply of Ukraine has to go via, until the beginning of last year, not able enough rail and road connections.
In Germany we have the far right pretending to be a “peace movement”. And they are promoting any information to make the Ukrainians, the German “liberals”, NATO and the Americans the villains.
Ever since 1946 the world has relied on the US to be the Police and deterrent to “Communism and Authoritarian rule” for almost every conflict since 1946 to present day. The USSR was the big bad boy on the block till perestroika happened in 1991 then it was several iterations of Russia afterwards that had everybody on pins and needles due to instability until Putin basically arrived on scene and stabilized the country and de-escalated war talk.
Move forward to today communism and Authoritarian rule are dying a slow death as at one time over 40% of the world was ruled by one of those two regimes and today less than 20 countries have one or the other regime in place. Democracy even if in name only has prevailed over the past 50 years mostly due to us relying on the US to enforce democracy in one form or another.
Now back to Putin who wants to reinstate the old communist regime and bring glory back to Mother Russia but even if many of the older and middle aged people support the push for the old ways the younger generations have only seen and grown up with western technologies and don’t want to lose that so are now becoming more vocal.
As to the war in Ukraine nobody knows how long the war will last and how long NATO can continue supporting Ukraine although most experts feel that NATO can continue support for up to another 3-5 years after that is anyone’s guess. It is well known now that Russia can no longer continue fielding a large military due to lack of trained personnel, equipment and sanctions and it has been posited that at most Russia may be only capable of continuing the war for another 10-14 months. However with that being said there are massive unknowns like China, nuclear weapons use, world wide recession and political climate. All of them can throw a massive monkey wrench into the cogs.
As to sanctions in Russia. Militarily it has had a devastating effect on Russian equipment and weaponry as most rely heavily on western supplied tech and they have gone to using old outdated tech or cheap tech gotten from China through third parties(ie. other countries) and it has shown on the quality of weapons and tech Russia has increasingly been fielding and losing.
Sanctions on the civilian populace. Until recently there had been little outside signs of the sanctions affecting everyday Russians but now slowly costs have risen to the point that about a quarter of the Russian population can no longer afford to live within their means and are slipping into poverty slowly. As one Canadian economist put it the Russian population is slowly being nickel and dimed to death.
There are many questions and fewer answers to the Ukraine war and Russian problems but many experts agree it’s up to Putin to make the next move and that move may determine the end of or escalation of the war.
I just have a different idea of pain. This is like Vietnam was to us families who lose people are hurt but the country goes on much like always. My idea is like shock and awe was to Iraq in 1991.
How? We are retiring 22 Ticonderoga class cruisers. They can launch 122 tomahawks each and we are going to scrap them. 1500 km range and mobility. Crazy? Probably. Maybe peace would be less crazy.
Our Peace movement is here too but mostly it’s people tired of funding forever wars. Will it succeed? Maybe in 2025 but Current politics are pretty pro war. Am I part of it? Very possibly but if you kept looking at messages coming out of the Biden White House here you might be skeptical too.
I would only add that this laboratory is showing the continued value of those low tech weapons when fighting the slow moving war Ukraine is mostly forced to. Mines drones and cheap but accurate artillery give so much defensive advantage to static battles. NATO is using this to learn no doubt. So is China.
So many unknowns true but such a high body count. I also don’t like but realize you are right. This is Putin’s war to win lose or end and short of direct NATO assault all we can do is prolong it. A Russian victory is becoming a long shot but stalemate seems more likely.
Mark Milley our soon to be retired top General says the Ukraine offensive will be long and bloody and that war on paper is different from real war. I thank God it is not my countries war and that I pray we are never forced to fight this way again.
I thought this compared to the summer of war in Normandy 1944 but it feels more like the summer of 1918. Constant attack, massive bloodshed small but real gain but the goal of grinding down the enemy one death at a time. If that ain’t hell on earth.
I watched this and of course read the subtitles. An entirely respectful interview which of course you expect from a subordinate. I think he explains quite a lot but I get the feeling that he understates the difficulty intentionally and am not sure where his confidence of Ukraine victory would come from. You do the best you can to prepare and train. And then hope because it’s not directly in your control.
Just out of curiosity, how does everyone feel about us shipping cluster munitions to Ukraine? Almost every nato country is signed onto the treaty banning their use.
