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Cont: The Russian Invasion of Ukraine part 8

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It is likely that Ukrainian a Su-24M fired the Stormshadow missiles. The massive secondary explosions directly implies that the Russian ship was filled with ammunition and explosives, it's been suggested it was transporting attack drones or artillery stores.

Repeated attacks like this show that the Russian army lacks the capability to counter Ukrainian air attacks. Either they lack effective hardware, command and control or the technical personnel to put any of it in to effective use.

They have lost a lot of the radar infrastructure in the area and it's likely the trained AA crews have been stripped out to join the meat grinder.
 
In a separate news, the Ukrainian military said it had shot down five Russian fighter jets in three days, which, if confirmed, would mark one of the biggest weekly losses for the Russian air force since the war began.


Anders Puck Nielsen suggests that the Ukrainians may already be flying F-16s, which would explain the Russians' recent heavy aircraft losses.

 
It is likely that Ukrainian a Su-24M fired the Stormshadow missiles. The massive secondary explosions directly implies that the Russian ship was filled with ammunition and explosives, it's been suggested it was transporting attack drones or artillery stores.

Repeated attacks like this show that the Russian army lacks the capability to counter Ukrainian air attacks. Either they lack effective hardware, command and control or the technical personnel to put any of it in to effective use.

They have lost a lot of the radar infrastructure in the area and it's likely the trained AA crews have been stripped out to join the meat grinder.

Anders Puck Nielsen suggests that the Ukrainians may already be flying F-16s, which would explain the Russians' recent heavy aircraft losses.


Either that, or the Russians switched off their air defense radars to give their air force space to work, and the Ukrainians exploited that to ambush the Russian planes with planes of their own.

Either that, or they brought a Patriot system forward. Apparently there's been a few quiet deliveries from Germany recently.

Either that, or...
 
Either that, or the Russians switched off their air defense radars to give their air force space to work, and the Ukrainians exploited that to ambush the Russian planes with planes of their own.

Either that, or they brought a Patriot system forward. Apparently there's been a few quiet deliveries from Germany recently.

Either that, or...

Add to all of that, the lack of daylight favors western military hardware over the old Russian stuff.
 
Looks like the Russians have taken (Russian accounts) or nearly taken (Ukrainian accounts) what's left of Marinka though. Meat grinder keeps grinding.

GOP are ******* the civilised world over...
 
Looks like the Russians have taken (Russian accounts) or nearly taken (Ukrainian accounts) what's left of Marinka though. Meat grinder keeps grinding.

GOP are ******* the civilised world over...

Would somebody please summarise for a non-US person why Biden doesn't just give the GOP the border measures they want in return for passing the Ukrainian aid measures?

I know it could go off topic very quickly, so I'm only after the briefest explanation and my left-wing sources never seem to give it. What is it that the GOP wants at the US border which is so intolerable that Biden would rather see Ukraine lose the war?
 
[disclosure]Former Republican who left the party because of Trump.[/disclosure]

The Democrats tend to favor something resembling open borders, partly for ideological reasons, and partly because they believe that the great majority of immigrants and their descendants will eventually become reliable Democratic voters. Republicans tend to oppose high levels of immigration for the same reasons. Additionally, certain elements of the historical Democratic coalition, notably organized labor, tend to oppose high levels of immigration, because they see immigrants as competitors for jobs.

There's also the question of exactly what House Republicans will accept. Speaker Johnson has stated that they will not compromise, and will only pass the aid bill if it contains everything they want on immigration. I believe he's just posturing, but whether or not that's the case remains to be seen.

Until October 7 of this year, I was confident that a Ukraine aid bill would pass the House even if the Speaker refused to schedule a vote on it. As I've discussed in the past, a House bill can be brought to the floor by means of a discharge petition, if it is signed by a majority of House members. If all Democrats signed such a petition, only a very few Republicans would need to buck the Speaker and sign. However, because the bill will also contain a large amount of aid for Israel, I expect that a significant number of Democrats will oppose it, and I'm far from certain that enough Republicans would sign a petition to compensate.

All that said, I think the Democrats should give the Republicans at least a large chunk of what they want on immigration, partly because Ukraine aid is that important, and partly because taking action would be a net political win for Biden. The great majority of Americans think that the situation at the border is a disaster and would like to see the US government attempt to fix the problem. There would be an outcry from the immigration supporters among the Democrats, of course, but the fact is that very few of those people would vote Republican or stay home and risk another Trump presidency.

Hope this helps.
 
Two years to capture a village?

Good going Russia!

Oh I don't disagree and haven't gone complete 'Don' yet (sorry The Don ;)) but whilst the West definitely can out spend Russia and ensure this invasion eventually collapses we are dangerously close to choosing not to - whilst Putin will push to the limit, there's a significant risk that some in the West won't push beyond the point of mild inconvenience whilst the GOP in particular are indulging their own brand of Russian helping craziness.

Also wondering at what point we tell Turkey to get with the programme or **** off out of the EU / NATO...
 
Also wondering at what point we tell Turkey to get with the programme or **** off out of the EU / NATO...


Turkey isn't in the EU. Also, as I mentioned in the NATO thread, Turkey's parliament just moved the Sweden accession bill out of committee, so it will likely be approved within the next several weeks.

The problem now is Hungary, which is in both the EU and NATO, and continues to block both Sweden's NATO accession and EU aid to Ukraine. :mad:
 
[disclosure]Former Republican who left the party because of Trump.[/disclosure]

The Democrats tend to favor something resembling open borders, partly for ideological reasons, and partly because they believe that the great majority of immigrants and their descendants will eventually become reliable Democratic voters. Republicans tend to oppose high levels of immigration for the same reasons. Additionally, certain elements of the historical Democratic coalition, notably organized labor, tend to oppose high levels of immigration, because they see immigrants as competitors for jobs.

There's also the question of exactly what House Republicans will accept. Speaker Johnson has stated that they will not compromise, and will only pass the aid bill if it contains everything they want on immigration. I believe he's just posturing, but whether or not that's the case remains to be seen.

Until October 7 of this year, I was confident that a Ukraine aid bill would pass the House even if the Speaker refused to schedule a vote on it. As I've discussed in the past, a House bill can be brought to the floor by means of a discharge petition, if it is signed by a majority of House members. If all Democrats signed such a petition, only a very few Republicans would need to buck the Speaker and sign. However, because the bill will also contain a large amount of aid for Israel, I expect that a significant number of Democrats will oppose it, and I'm far from certain that enough Republicans would sign a petition to compensate.

All that said, I think the Democrats should give the Republicans at least a large chunk of what they want on immigration, partly because Ukraine aid is that important, and partly because taking action would be a net political win for Biden. The great majority of Americans think that the situation at the border is a disaster and would like to see the US government attempt to fix the problem. There would be an outcry from the immigration supporters among the Democrats, of course, but the fact is that very few of those people would vote Republican or stay home and risk another Trump presidency.
Hope this helps.

Or vote for RFKJr. Or Mrs Vatnik herself, Jill Stein.
 
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All that said, I think the Democrats should give the Republicans at least a large chunk of what they want on immigration, partly because Ukraine aid is that important, and partly because taking action would be a net political win for Biden. The great majority of Americans think that the situation at the border is a disaster and would like to see the US government attempt to fix the problem. There would be an outcry from the immigration supporters among the Democrats, of course, but the fact is that very few of those people would vote Republican or stay home and risk another Trump presidency.

Thanks, this paragraph was what I was starting to feel, since I tend to read left-leaning press and they won’t explain why not beyond ‘GOP demands bad’.
 
Thanks, this paragraph was what I was starting to feel, since I tend to read left-leaning press and they won’t explain why not beyond ‘GOP demands bad’.

The other thing is, many of the large donors on the right do not want to fix the problem. Roughly 8% of the United States' current workforce is working illegally. This keeps labor costs down, and means we don't give them social security benefits, medicare etc.

OTOH the small donors are becoming more important to the GoP than the large, and they pretty much all want illegal immigrants and asylum seekers rounded up and deported.

The GoP has not even come up with a suitable bill to pass... because I don't think they want to. They want this as an excuse not to send aid to Ukraine because they think Trump will be the next POTUS.
 
The Democrats tend to favor something resembling open borders,

More accurately, restricted borders with the restrictions based on what will objectively benefit the country most while upholding human rights in the process. "Open borders" is a misleading term, to say the least, not least because of the GOP's misuse. It's also worth noting that the GOP efforts to over-restrict border passage have played a significant role in encouraging crime, which they've then used to justify restricting things more, which encourages ever more crime, which...

Yeah, moving on.

The other thing is, many of the large donors on the right do not want to fix the problem. Roughly 8% of the United States' current workforce is working illegally. This keeps labor costs down, and means we don't give them social security benefits, medicare etc.

OTOH the small donors are becoming more important to the GoP than the large, and they pretty much all want illegal immigrants and asylum seekers rounded up and deported.

The GoP has not even come up with a suitable bill to pass... because I don't think they want to. They want this as an excuse not to send aid to Ukraine because they think Trump will be the next POTUS.

This is fairly certainly closer to the truth - and likely understates the issue at hand, no less. To risk delving into these matters because of their relevance to the Republican excuses to block Ukraine aid...

It's not just the large donors. A large majority of illegal immigrants are employed by Republicans - for example, it's estimated that about 40% of farm laborers in the US are working illegally now. The actual issue in political play was not actually about immigration or legality. Rather, it was more about Democrats being willing to leverage the government so that farm workers are treated as people. People who are essential workers, no less, to the foundation and success of our county. This would normally involve paying them a living wage, for example. Republicans, especially the Republican politicians from more agricultural-based states, have consistently sabotaged efforts to treat these people as people, so that they can be better exploited by Republican business owners (with similar effects in play, albeit less pronounced, among the rest of the employers of those who lack legal status). For more general reference, the slave trade would likely still be alive and well if not for current cultural norms suppressing it. The factors that drove it still exist and there are plenty of people who would welcome its return if they thought that they would benefit from such.

Further, the whole border crisis scaremongering is largely an artificial crisis that has its roots in the efforts to prevent farm laborers from being treated as people. It's become a political tool largely created by and then immensely exaggerated for political purposes by Republicans. If you want a really short version why "GOP demands bad," it's because they seem to almost inevitably be aimed at making the actual problems at hand worse in the bigger picture and to further GOP efforts to sabotage the nation and then leverage that for political gain.

If you want some specifics, H.R. 2 would seem to provide some.

Besides the more direct sabotage things, to poke at an example of a wonderfully kind GOP demand that they've packed in -

For example, if the child is a victim of a severe form of human trafficking or has a credible fear of persecution, the child must be placed in formal removal proceedings and have a hearing before an immigration judge within 14 days of screening.

Ahh, the GOP's rallying cries to save the kids. Ahh, their totally honest claims to want to save the victims of human trafficking. Oh, why won't we think of the children!

Now, with a bit more context to work with, Biden HAS stated that there's willingness to compromise for the sake of Ukraine aid. That Ukraine aid is being tied to an extremist demand to give saboteurs everything they want, including stuff like that, is little more than a demonstration of bad faith, though. For the Republicans, of course, it's likely a win-win, though, given that even if it's a lose-lose for the US, they can pretend to be actually trying to do something about the problems that we face, nevermind that it's likely to generally make things worse.

Now, why are they targeting Ukraine aid in particular? That's harder to say, but there are a few things that can be pointed at as clues. Trump and all the myriad and unfortunately submissive connections he has to Russia is a pretty obvious one. The Republican politicians actually driving the targeting have largely been quite pro-Russia in line with Russia's "God, Guns, and hating Gays" line of courting of the extremist Right-Wing. There's the authoritarian angle, of course, that has often exalted Russia in so many ways for justification and would really, really hate for Russia to flat out lose, on top of the constant embarrassment of Russia being exposed as overwhelmingly weaker than they wanted to pretend. There's the political contrarianism that likely arises from demonizing the Democrats to the point where agreement or compromise is largely counted as a bad thing, no matter what. On the political side, they also want to deny Democrats any "win" at all, as a general matter.

On the propaganda side, they have made fine use of the "Russia is overwhelming and cannot be resisted" mindset that they've encouraged. They've made use of the relative lack of compassion that conservatives tend to have for those they label as "the other." They've made use of the fear based short-sightedness and selfishness about money that they've long encouraged, nevermind that in both cases, the danger and losses are pretty well guaranteed to be significantly greater in the future if action is not taken now.

It's not for nothing that so many saw Republican politicians as a very real threat to Ukraine aid long before most Republicans were willing to admit such. Those like me were hoping to be wrong. Those like Russian propagandists have been trying hard to prove such right.
 
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Turkey isn't in the EU. Also, as I mentioned in the NATO thread, Turkey's parliament just moved the Sweden accession bill out of committee, so it will likely be approved within the next several weeks.

The problem now is Hungary, which is in both the EU and NATO, and continues to block both Sweden's NATO accession and EU aid to Ukraine. :mad:

Arrgh, my bad, I was thinking Viktor Orban then typed Turkey not Hungary. Thanks for picking up and correcting.
 
Would somebody please summarise for a non-US person why Biden doesn't just give the GOP the border measures they want in return for passing the Ukrainian aid measures?

I know it could go off topic very quickly, so I'm only after the briefest explanation and my left-wing sources never seem to give it. What is it that the GOP wants at the US border which is so intolerable that Biden would rather see Ukraine lose the war?

With apologies for the OT, what makes you think the Republicans actually want or would accept border concessions from Biden? It's the strongest election issue they have. They want -- they NEED the current mess to continue until Nov 2024. Biden could agree to everything they're demanding now and they'll just move the goal posts tomorrow.

Back to Ukraine, Russia has just launched the biggest series of air attacks since the start of the war. Desperation? Or are they trying to take advantage of the US stalemate to cause Ukraine to expend resources they may not be able to replace?
 
Back to Ukraine, Russia has just launched the biggest series of air attacks since the start of the war. Desperation? Or are they trying to take advantage of the US stalemate to cause Ukraine to expend resources they may not be able to replace?

I think there's a fair bit of revenge for the sinking of the ship in there

To be of note the proportion of shaheed drones was quite low compared to normal. Maybe the reports of the ship carrying drones when it blew up was true
 
Just looking at the footage that comes out daily, the Russians are taking massive casualties. I can't even believe that they have been able to keep this up.

The thing about the type of casualties is that Ukraine doesn't have to expend any casualties to inflict these ratios. Drone strikes, artillery, and by now the Ukraine soldier is trained, hardened, even in close fighting the advantage must be in Ukraine's favor.

Are we talking about 20 to 1 casualties?

I can't imagine that Russia has the ability to keep taking this beating.

Sure, Russia has taken one town. But at what cost? Did Ukraine just back away and keep pounding them while they tried to move in and claim it? Ukraine seems to have the intel, and logistics to get troops out of areas, and concentrate Drone/artillery to inflict damage at zero cost.
 
Just looking at the footage that comes out daily, the Russians are taking massive casualties. I can't even believe that they have been able to keep this up.

The thing about the type of casualties is that Ukraine doesn't have to expend any casualties to inflict these ratios. Drone strikes, artillery, and by now the Ukraine soldier is trained, hardened, even in close fighting the advantage must be in Ukraine's favor.

Are we talking about 20 to 1 casualties?

I can't imagine that Russia has the ability to keep taking this beating.

Sure, Russia has taken one town. But at what cost? Did Ukraine just back away and keep pounding them while they tried to move in and claim it? Ukraine seems to have the intel, and logistics to get troops out of areas, and concentrate Drone/artillery to inflict damage at zero cost.

Ukraine is also getting hit hard though. It doesn't show up as much on the social media that most westerners use - Russia favors Telegram.

But if you're on Reddit look at r/Ukraine/RussiaWarReport. It's not totally pro-Russia, maybe about a 70/30 pro-Russia/pro-Ukraine mix. And the pro-Russian stuff is full of annoying triumphalism and jingoism with a healthy dose of failed predictions. But they also post their own FPV drone videos and it is clear that Ukraine is also getting hit pretty hard. For example two Leo-2 tanks were lost last week, lots of cruel vids of grenade drops from Ru drones onto Ukr troops.

Ukraine may be working tactics that are giving them a kill ratio strongly in their favor, but 20:1 seems high. And Ukraine is badly outnumbered to start with, they need a 3.5:1 ratio just to maintain per capita equality.

I am strongly pro-Ukraine, but I try to look objectively at what is actually happening. It's a hard grind and it is going to stay like that unless Ukraine can get a lot more weapons and ammo. Of the two, the ammo situation might be the hardest because the western powers are moving verrrrrrrry slowing at ramping up production of artillery shells. They need a dramatic increase in production and in the current political climate that is probably years away. And the political situation will probably only get worse until at least the general election in America this coming November.
 
Ukraine may be working tactics that are giving them a kill ratio strongly in their favor, but 20:1 seems high. And Ukraine is badly outnumbered to start with, they need a 3.5:1 ratio just to maintain per capita equality.

I think the highest that I've seen in practice is claims of something like 10:1 or 12:1 in specific areas. Avdiivka, lately, in particular. Bakhmut was touted as something like 7:1, at least before the Russians finally reached the urban area, and I didn't see a ratio number after that.
 
Looks like it was actually a Russian missile in Polish airspace last night, not Ukrainian anti missile missile.

Polish Deputy Foreign Minister Władysław Teofil Bartoszewski has summoned the chargé d’affaires of the Russian Federation, Andrei Ordash, on Friday, the Polish foreign ministry said in a statement.

According to the statement, Ordash was handed a note "in which the Ministry of Foreign Affairs requests an explanation of the incident of violating Poland's airspace" by what the ministry said was a "missile."

Earlier today, the Polish military said that in the early hours of Friday, "an unidentified airborne object" entered Polish airspace from Ukrainian territory. Poland’s most senior military officer, the chief of the General Staff Gen. Wiesław Kukuła, said that "all indications" point to the airborne object being a Russian missile.


https://www.cnn.com/world/live-news/russia-ukraine-war-12-29-23/index.html
 
Last night's big air attack is a sign of Russian desperation and last gasp punching.
They have spent months building up a stock of missiles and in a fit of rage over losing another ship have spaffed them away on a pointless revenge attack.
 
"Ukrainian authorities are placing air defense systems in residential areas in violation of international law," Russia's permanent representative to the UN Vasily Nebenzya said at a meeting of the UN Security Council.

Maybe they wouldn't need to if Russia stopped attacking civilian areas.

The placing AA systems in residential areas is not inherently a breach of international law.
[Article 49(3)]

http://casebook.icrc.org/law/air-warfare
 
The placing AA systems in residential areas is not inherently a breach of international law.
[Article 49(3)]
That's one way to look at it.

Another way to look at it is that international law is only as good as whoever is willing and able to enforce it. Which is nobody, in this case. The ones who are willing aren't able, and the ones who are able aren't willing.

I prefer this view, since I think it more accurately represents how international law works in practice.
 
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Last night's big air attack is a sign of Russian desperation and last gasp punching.
They have spent months building up a stock of missiles and in a fit of rage over losing another ship have spaffed them away on a pointless revenge attack.

Unfortunately the last gasp could last for months or years.

Russia shows little or no intention of stopping their war crimes or their meat wave attacks.
 
"Ukrainian authorities are placing air defense systems in residential areas in violation of international law," Russia's permanent representative to the UN Vasily Nebenzya said at a meeting of the UN Security Council.

Maybe they wouldn't need to if Russia stopped attacking civilian areas.

The placing AA systems in residential areas is not inherently a breach of international law.
[Article 49(3)]

http://casebook.icrc.org/law/air-warfare

Wow of all the things I've seen them say I think that one takes the cake
 
"Ukrainian authorities are placing air defense systems in residential areas in violation of international law," Russia's permanent representative to the UN Vasily Nebenzya said at a meeting of the UN Security Council.

Maybe they wouldn't need to if Russia stopped attacking civilian areas.

The placing AA systems in residential areas is not inherently a breach of international law.
[Article 49(3)]

http://casebook.icrc.org/law/air-warfare
It gets even better....

Russian defence ministry now says death of civilians in Belgorod were result of air defence working over the city

https://www.reddit.com/r/UkraineWar..._rf_defence_ministry_admitted_that_people_in/
 
Ukraine may be working tactics that are giving them a kill ratio strongly in their favor, but 20:1 seems high. And Ukraine is badly outnumbered to start with, they need a 3.5:1 ratio just to maintain per capita equality.

20:1 is just about impossible thanks to support weapons and cities not caring how skilled your troops are.

To stay ahead on casualties, they do need better than 3.5:1. A number of troops are needed to watch the line even where no fighting is happening. The line between Russians and Ukrainians is over 900 km long now. Just to keep on eye on that will end up needing thousands of troops that cannot be where the main action is for both sides. Since the Russians have more people, they can afford to watch the areas where action is low much easier than Ukraine. This is also one reason Ukraine needs to retake the west so it can shorten the line of contact with the Russians.
 
Unfortunately the last gasp could last for months or years.

Russia shows little or no intention of stopping their war crimes or their meat wave attacks.

Unfortunately I think Don is looking more right as time goes on.
 
Ukraine may be working tactics that are giving them a kill ratio strongly in their favor, but 20:1 seems high. And Ukraine is badly outnumbered to start with, they need a 3.5:1 ratio just to maintain per capita equality.

I've recently returned from a month doing volunteer work in Ukraine, where I met personally with soldiers recently on the frontline. I'm in contact with numerous others as well.

In places like Avdiivka, it's at least 10:1 in favour of Ukraine. They are massacring them, and taking out dozens of pieces of equipment every day.
On the left bank opposite Kherson though, it's more in Russia's favour, though numbers are lower that Avdiivka.

Russia just keeps throwing bodies at them though, so Ukraine will almost certainly strategically withdraw as they did with Bahkmut, but keep the kill zone going as long as they can.

Right now the biggest problem is Ukraine is seriously running out ammunition, both Soviet and NATO. They've got howitzers sitting idle with no shells. A lot of Ukrainians also haven't been rotated out in a *long* time. It's worse for the Russians of course, but they're doing much more forced mobilization.

I suspect Zaluzhny is making plans for spring and summer, whenever they've (finally) got a significant fleet of F-16s in the air. We also need to realise that *a lot* of the western equipment we've heard about all year still isn't in use. I saw a report on the Swedish Archer system finally being used on the frontline. This was mid-November. Sweden made the announcement in *January*. It took 10 months! One person I spoke to claimed fully 90% of the heavy equipment promised by the west either still hasn't arrived or hasn't actually been put to use yet.

In the meantime, it appears that the west has basically dropped the ball massively on ammunition stocks. They didn't remotely have enough for a war like this, and have depleted their own levels to the point they're now focused on replenishing their own before giving more to Ukraine. One Swedish manufacturer though said "well, by company law we have to supply whoever ordered first! So we can't even prioritise the Swedish Armed Forces!" 🤷*♂️

Europe really should be on an industrial war footing. For a while Putin had been winding back the rhetoric and giving himself an "out" to essentially declare victory and try to freeze the lines, but since - well, the day the US Government went on holidays without approving more aid - he's been all in on a full conquest again.

So this isn't ending any time soon.
 
You don't deploy new equipment until everyone is trained on it, the support and logistics are in place and a whole formation is equipped.
Putting it in piecemeal would be a disaster.
 
You don't deploy new equipment until everyone is trained on it, the support and logistics are in place and a whole formation is equipped.
Putting it in piecemeal would be a disaster.

100% agree - though Ukraine has repeatedly proven they can adopt new equipment much faster than people think.

A potentially bigger issue I think is perception. The public, both in Ukraine and in the west, have seen all these announcements and thought "woohoo! Now things will happen!" and then saw essentially a stalemate in the summer counter-offensive (though I think the nautical gains are often neglected).

End result is people think all the Western equipment hasn't helped, so support drops, when in reality much of it isn't even there yet.
 
100% agree - though Ukraine has repeatedly proven they can adopt new equipment much faster than people think.

A potentially bigger issue I think is perception. The public, both in Ukraine and in the west, have seen all these announcements and thought "woohoo! Now things will happen!" and then saw essentially a stalemate in the summer counter-offensive (though I think the nautical gains are often neglected).

End result is people think all the Western equipment hasn't helped, so support drops, when in reality much of it isn't even there yet.

Yes, I've yet to even see one of the Abrams in action in a credibly sourced video. Ukraine is holding back much of their best equipment. This is wise, if they attacked with it, and it was largely destroyed, it would be seen as wasting support and that could lead to a major pull back of support.
 
End result is people think all the Western equipment hasn't helped, so support drops, when in reality much of it isn't even there yet.

FWIW, my perception is that a bunch of the Western equipment has helped quite a bit. The artillery, munitions, anti-air, and anti-tank weapons, especially. The more defensively useful equipment that's actually had more of an immediate role, in short. Offensively, things get much trickier, given the battlefield conditions, though, and Western equipment just hasn't been used much, probably for a number of reasons.

Also, thank you for volunteering.
 
FWIW, my perception is that a bunch of the Western equipment has helped quite a bit. The artillery, munitions, anti-air, and anti-tank weapons, especially. The more defensively useful equipment that's actually had more of an immediate role, in short. Offensively, things get much trickier, given the battlefield conditions, though, and Western equipment just hasn't been used much, probably for a number of reasons.

Also, thank you for volunteering.

Lots of videos coming out recently showing the Bradleys in action. The videos look good, the Bradleys are laying waste with the auto cannons.

But I can't tell from the vids how much harm they are actually causing to the Russian troops. As I understand it each round the Bradley fires is essentially a tracer round. So it looks really impressive. But it is hard to tell how much actual damage they cause vs. just moving more dirt piles around.

We apparently have thousands of Bradleys in storage. Hint, hint.....:)

But we really need to get shell production ramped up in a big way.
 
FWIW, my perception is that a bunch of the Western equipment has helped quite a bit. The artillery, munitions, anti-air, and anti-tank weapons, especially. The more defensively useful equipment that's actually had more of an immediate role, in short. Offensively, things get much trickier, given the battlefield conditions, though, and Western equipment just hasn't been used much, probably for a number of reasons.

Oh absolutely, air defence in particularly has been an obvious and helpful one that I personally experienced. Almost every day. :mad:

The Bradleys are also an obvious addition in use.

But I think if you asked almost any Swede, they would have assumed that Ukraine had the Archers for the summer counter-offensive.
 
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