The US püblic is the main target of Russian disinformation warfare. You are a part of the target. So You get more bad news about Ukraine (and the WEST) than about the Russians.
A sober new year from Germany (English subtitles avaiable):
Interesting take of the casualties in Ukraine and at the end compares it to other wars of the 21st century so far it’s quite eye opening.
Again this is based on estimates and the count can be either higher or lower.
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DeepL is your friend (ignore the headline):
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More Kraut from a “kraut”. Winning the peace matters:
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Ignorant, superficial, myopic.
Figure of 44mil estimate is way off. It is based on a last census of 2001 - 48mil at the time. In the meantime, country has gone through numerous downturns, coloured and other revolutions. They have also lost 2mil by separation of Crimea in 2014. So, estimate that in 20 years to 2021 population has declined by 2mil when all surrounding nations have had much more substantial loss is unrealistic. More likely estimate is about 38mil in 2022.
With the loss of Donbass, Herson and Zaporozie population is close to 30mil. With emigration of suggested 8mil Ukraine has about 22mil.
More realistic figures about Ukrainian casualties is about 500k, given that most troops are poorly trained and equipped.
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Adivka is turning out to be a big problem for Ukraine.
Ringtosh:
Not sure about him, on 25th October he posted a video that Russias economy would be dead by Winter. Douglas McGregor and Scott Ritter have predicted a zillion collapses of the Ukraine already. Seems to be a longer and longer war going on forever.
It seems to be one of those forever wars like Syria, Afghanistan and a myriad etc.
Sad and not sure what ringtosh means! Just stay away from Neo Nazi nonsense!
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Russia is an enigma defying all predictions of collapse and economic ruin. What is known is sanctions are hurting the Russian war machine but it is difficult to gauge how badly it is hurting. As a westerner I want to see Russia suffer the consequences of their actions yet they still defy the odds.
What we do know is like Ukraine the Russian military is hurting for artillery shells and artillery and shelling has slowed on multiple fronts. While they are getting shells from North Korea it is thought about up to 30% of those shells are non functional as many are older than 60 yrs and likely have not been properly maintained or stored. This is supported by reports from multiple observers that several Russian artillery pieces have had failures due to shells failing in the barrels.
All we can do is sit on the sidelines and wait
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Good update from Wily as usual. It is a grim situation but a whole lot of fog as to how it shakes out.
I saw Ringtosh’s link yesterday it covers a scheme whereby the US sends Ecuador new weapons to replace their “scrap metal”. Russian equipment. We then send the scrap to be used by Ukraine. Russia is unhappy and stopped buying Ecuadorian bananas.
Fox News does not mention Avdiivka, but has 2 articles on Russian nukes in space and 1 on Navalny. CNN has an article on the fall of Avdiivka which links to an article talking about how Ukraines concept of active defense won’t work any better than it did for the Nazi’s. It includes a nice large picture of Manstein to show it’s serious lol.American news is not focused on this and American support has slipped. We see Biden make a statement yesterday supporting Ukraine and the focus is his latest gaffe. It’s sad and amusing at the same time.
I don’t expect Russian aid to pass. Republicans have only a 4 vote edge and are very divided on the issue. If the speaker were to bring it to a vote, it would likely pass but good chance he would lose his job. Americans are far more concerned with the price of groceries than the supply of 155mm shells.
But I agree with Wily. We need to focus on our own preparedness. I don’t want to learn Mandarin.
Congress is so concerned about this they are on a two week vacation.
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Very concerning numbers. Russian wartime production is impressively up despite sanctions. Can’t even imagine how hard it would be to double F35 production.
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The F35 program is as far as I’m concerned a massive ripoff. Sure it’s got a lot of pretty toys and effective but it’s price tag is ridiculous and there is no way Lockheed Martin could ramp up production unless it went to other manufacturers to produce under license which won’t happen.
On a side note I was and am still against Canada buying the F35 to replace the aging F18 fleet. It costs almost as much to maintain as it is to fly. The helmets alone are worth $300k(USD) per pop. I was and still am a supporter of the Gripen as Canada could have built and maintained the Gripen here in Canada under license. Sure it’s a smaller aircraft and carries a smaller payload than the F35 but it’s perfect for the Canadian environment and unlike the F35 can land and take off on even gravel roads. There was concerns the Gripen wasn’t up to NATO standards but it met and exceeded those standards. However Lockheed Martin also pressured politicians on both sides of the border and threatened Canada with withdrawal from the F35 program(as a partner of the F35 program Canada gets the option of a 10% discount on aircraft and an option in priority in deliveries).
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You may be absolutely right but there are only so many fighters produced worldwide and getting more of them would be difficult. The F35 is expensive with a capital E. Is it the best? I’m not expert enough to answer that. Based on what I have recently learned the US has tons of nice missiles in development but what they fielding is pretty average.
Been a long time since the US fielded an economical fighter. More Gripens would be fine. More of anything would be fine.
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Wow, impressive move by Denmark, way to go! Not sure if they will strip Elsinore but at least she is no Hamlet Denmark sending its ‘entire artillery’ to Ukraine (youtube.com)
The F 35 A with 1000+ build is the next one by the economy of scale.
You would probably be right but with all the orders from ‘everywhere’ you would think we would be seeing some of it by now. I think the production is kept at a slow pace to stretch it out to near infinity. In a true emergency you would see the US triple the defense budget in about 5 minutes and in a few months new suppliers would start popping up all over. Like Dearth said, production gets spread around.
What needs to get cheaper is maintaining the fighter
It’s been a while I’ve posted anything on the situation at home. It’s not great, as most of you will know.
The current insufficiencies in supplies are grave and largely due to the inaptitude of the leaders of several European arms-producing countries. Indeed I have been pointing out the need to increase production 2 years ago and have been called “dumb” by a German conservative politician. There is no hope with these guys at the helm.
That said, we may have reason for courage. Ukraine began this war in 2014 with 7000 soldiers operational and manged to withstand the first invasion thanks to the incredible power of the millions of volunteers. In the end, humanity will win.
Without sufficient aid, Ukraine will do the strategically logical next step: widening the conflict to dilute the adversaries focus. Already now, the many drones crashing into facilities all over russia are an example of that. I would not be surprised, if there were plans for a couple drone-laiden boats to go all the way to the pacific and drop on ports in the far east.
Nontheless, I would like to ask the people with such interest in this topic, what you are doing in preparation for such a potential widening of the war. The EU seems largely unprepared except for the nordics and Poland. What can we do to bring victory closer?