Is Ukraine about to have a war?

[NutLoose]

UK MOD Twitter and YouTube accounts have been breached, though is that a fake message or a real one, as after all its been hacked

Twitter

[meleagertoo]

Meanwhile China is watching this with mountng glee.
NATO is raidly expending its weapons stocks in Ukraine, in some cases towards a hazardous level and the war is nowhere near yet done. If Putain makes his next logical move up the Suwalki gap that'll empty NATO stocks altogether. Even if not NATO's stocks will take half a decade or more to replenish.
And there will be nothing left in the box to prevent China from just walking into Taiwan.
Except...

[Big Pistons Forever]

Originally Posted by FUMR

We simply cannot allow Putin to bully us anymore. What will be next? It's time for us to make whatever sacrifices it takes to stop him once and for all, or forever regret it!

Absolutely. I very much hope when the dust settles it will be like Berlin in November 1989 not like Munich in September 1938

[Herod]

Originally Posted by FUMR

We simply cannot allow Putin to bully us anymore. What will be next? It's time for us to make whatever sacrifices it takes to stop him once and for all, or forever regret it!

Agree. We will just have to buckle down and get through it. Think of what our parents and grandparents went through against a similar aggressor.

[Big Pistons Forever]

One thing is certain. The West can force an end to Putin’s aggression in Ukraine by imposing an unacceptable cost for him to maintain his war, or get ready to fight Putin’s next invasion.

I truly hope for the first, but sadly expect the alternative….

[peter we]

Originally Posted by Big Pistons Forever

Ukraine is totally depended on EU and US arms shipments and is receiving Billions every month to keep their economy going. All the EU has to do is throttle arms and aid and Ukraine will be forced to the "negotiating" table

Unless they have an army, nobody can tell Ukraine what to do.
Ukraine will be supported by economies bigger that Russia.

[etudiant]

Originally Posted by meleagertoo

Meanwhile China is watching this with mountng glee.
NATO is raidly expending its weapons stocks in Ukraine, in some cases towards a hazardous level and the war is nowhere near yet done. If Putain makes his next logical move up the Suwalki gap that'll empty NATO stocks altogether. Even if not NATO's stocks will take half a decade or more to replenish.
And there will be nothing left in the box to prevent China from just walking into Taiwan.
Except...

Suspect the glee is muted, given the gap in Russian military performance vs expectations.
Presumably the Chinese are doing a serious reappraisal of what it might take to 'just walk into Taiwan', as you so cheerfully put it.
More broadly, apart from his braggadocio at the start of this war, Putin has been very careful to stick to bite sized pieces, for instance not even attempting to support Syria against Israeli air raids.
So the idea of trying to attack the Suwalki gap seems very far fetched, directly attack NATO members for what? The rail connection through Lithuania is largely unimpeded and there are daily ferries to the rest of Russia..

[FlightDetent]

Originally Posted by meleagertoo

And there will be nothing left in the box to prevent China from just walking into Taiwan.

Not sure how much of it is street knowledge, however from the from the viewpoint that matters, Taiwan IS China.

The fear of military escalation is shared, albeit perceived risk is US+ landing and trying to take away TW from them.

Connecting the dots here does not make for a nice picture.

The smart card well explained by the Kazach president and the Kenyan gentleman is not being played. Even if One China is a US-launched policy.

​​​​​​

[Rockie_Rapier]

Originally Posted by Lonewolf_50

I'll take that video clip with a small grain of salt.
Not sure if that wasn't a speech prepared by someone else; his delivery seemed a little stilted.
Don't disagree with the assessment of the artillery war. That clip is three weeks old. How well has it aged? Russia was still contesting Snake Island as that video was released.
.

Indeed, he's certainly promoting the lines that we typically get from trolls and other useful idiots - NATO BAD, EU BAD. He even threw in a bit of scepticism re the effecacity of renewable energy. Again, straight out off the Kremlin wish list. (Putin has stated that Climate change would be no bad thing for Russia and of course their economy is largely dependent of fossil fuel sales.)

[ORAC]

https://www.politico.eu/article/czec...ace-september/

Czech Republic to protect Slovakia’s airspace from September

The Czech Republic will send fighter jets to protect Slovakia’s airspace starting in September, Czech Prime Minister Petr Fiala said on Sunday.

"We will help Slovakia until it has new planes at its disposal," Fiala said during a Czech television debate with Slovak Prime Minister Eduard Heger. "The government will certainly approve it."

Slovakia previously asked NATO allies for help to patrol its skies after it decided to ground its fleet of Soviet-designed MiG-29 aircraft and started talks to send them to Ukraine. Bratislava is expecting a delayed delivery of American F-16 aircraft in 2024.

Fiala said it was essential Ukraine had the weapons needed to fight for both its independence and for the West’s security and freedom. "They are fighting for us," he added.….

[kamanya]

With this latest little victory for Putin's forces on another forum this question was asked...

Will Putin stop when he has the Donbas, or will he carry on de-nazifying Ukraine?

Just my musings on the question...

1. If he got the Donbas in some worst case frozen war stalemate way, or stops the war once he's got to the borders and retains it though peace negotiation, he has some major issues;

• Rightly or wrongly, there will be people who still want to be Ukrainian, or at the very least independent. That will start a little civil strife that will have to be repressed. Repression though incentive hasn't been a tactic that is in the Russian playbook. It's going to fester badly.
• Ukrainians themselves are going to bear a huge grudge about the loss. It isn't going to make for good neighbourliness.
• The west are going to see it as a loss and despite relief at the ending of a hot war, there's not going to be much goodwill towards this. Roll back of sanctions and return of foreign investment will be, at most, sluggish.
• The peoples of the place will not have much joy. Russia's own economy won't be able to make it a focus to repair for years and more importantly, international investment won't touch it. No business is going to throw money into a place that has an exceptional chance of being a war zone again. Even the Chinese, who are nothing if not pragmatically unsentimental, won't go in there. The images of destroyed factories and malls is too strong.
• If we take Putin at his word, winning the Donbas doesn't solve his major gripes - NATO threat and westernisation of Ukraine. You can bet that Ukraine will make every effort to court the west in everyway possible to secure themselves after this.

In a way, getting the Donbas, given what has now happened doesn't solve anything for Putin other than a moral victory. In huge ways, it's made his original position far worse.​
​
He wanted to Russify Ukraine but pushed Ukraine irretrievably more European.​
He wanted to split the European Union but united it.​
He wanted to destroy the transatlantic partnership but gave it new life.​
He wanted to put NATO in the history books, but it has found a new sense of purpose.​
He wanted to to keep countries like Finland and Sweden out of NATO, they've now booked and confirmed their tickets to join.​
He's become a pariah to many.​
​
With "peace", sanctions will remain mostly in place, oil will instantly half, maybe more, in price. He will have highly antagonistic neighbours where even the slightest aggression will be instantly met with economic and military reactions.​

2. If he carries on; The further west he goes he loses literally swimming pools of Russian and Ukrainian blood for every meter made. He's already destroyed a third of his total mechanised arsenal, every day he continues with this war, he's eating into that stockpile. Ukraine has at the moment, a relatively untapped supply of arms and if Putin isn't careful, bodies too.​
​
Never mind that, he physically won't be able to keep the territory he wins. The insurrection and guerrilla war that will come with it would need more than his entire army to suppress. The global reaction will intensify. There is zero chance that he's going to win that war. Ukraine long ago became undigestible to the Russian appetite.​
His finest option that is fast receding, is to stop the war and bargain his way out of his economical dilemma trading Ukraine land he holds for a rollback of all the sanctions.

The Donbas would be a moral victory for him to hold, but strategically its just a serious liability given the above. If he truly wants what's best for their peoples he will trade it back to the Ukrainian fold in return for recognition that Crimea is his, plus lifting of sanctions and Ukrainian neutrality. Doing this, he could still survive.

(Donbas being independent is not great for Donbas. Being in the Ukrainian fold given the enormous goodwill that will flow to them once there would be prudent. Wait for 10 years until rebuilt, economically viable and self sustaining and then look for independence if need be.)

The thorny issue of the land bridge bit to the Crimea, he'll have to give back too.

He's an authoritarian who's lived way too long in an information bubble of Kremlin yes men who haven't, and now can't, advise anything other than to his whims at the threat of their livelihood. He's blown his illusion to the west that he's the leader of a superpower, he's just the leader of a regional power with nukes who has a flaky, badly led, corrupt army with very vulnerable tanks. He has a virulent state propaganda machine pumping out zero "make nice" noises. He's not yet made one strategic or tactically right decision that's not brutally blundered him from one pyrrhic victory to the next. On latest form, there's low hopes for him doing something sensible or statesman like.

If he acted like the regional power that he is and negotiated his way through his world, he and his peoples would be far better off. If he carries this on, he will lose everything he's won in Ukraine including Crimea, at great cost to everyone and maybe even his own seat in the Kremlin.

[sheikhthecamel]

Originally Posted by PeterX60

Sheikthecamel:
Short sighted but arguably true. However, Europe and the rest of the world is a far worse loser if Russia is not stopped, a hostage to Putin's control of the world food supply and with a billion starving refugees pounding at their borders. Lose small temporarily economically, or lose big in the long view. Putin's Russia will go the way of the dinosaurs, I hope it takes less time.

Wholly agree, but average Joe/Mario/Claude/Fritz Public isn't used to taking the long view, particularly when it hits him in the pocket. The bigger issue IMO is how those extra costs are going to affect EU economic competitivity vs. US and China. Those trends are very hard to reverse, and must be giving policy makers heartburn right now.

But keeping this in the realm of the military aviation; politicians being what they are, what are the chances of the promised "enhanced" defense budgets staying the course if/when Russia is stopped, and "we" arrive at a new status-quo that the world can live with? Once the media news cycle moves on, and public outrage at Russia diminishes, won't the politicos roll-back on military spending as appeasement to taxpayer? It was just yesterday that 2/3 of NATO members were spending less than their target...

[sheikhthecamel]

Originally Posted by Big Pistons Forever

There is no consistent clear declaration of what "winning the war" looks like among the EU nations and the US.

This is a major issue; UKR apparently wants to roll-back to pre-2014 borders. EU would probably accept current borders, a Russian non-aggression agreement and cheap gas. US would be happy to see a prolonged war of attrition weakening Russia and curtailing European growth, and compounding China's economic problems. There is a very thin sliver of common ground in there somewhere, but its hard to see...

[Tartiflette Fan]

Originally Posted by sheikhthecamel

Wholly agree, but average Joe/Mario/Claude/Fritz Public isn't used to taking the long view, particularly when it hits him in the pocket. The bigger issue IMO is how those extra costs are going to affect EU economic competitivity vs. US and China. Those trends are very hard to reverse, and must be giving policy makers heartburn right now.

But keeping this in the realm of the military aviation; politicians being what they are, what are the chances of the promised "enhanced" defense budgets staying the course if/when Russia is stopped, and "we" arrive at a new status-quo that the world can live with? Once the media news cycle moves on, and public outrage at Russia diminishes, won't the politicos roll-back on military spending as appeasement to taxpayer? It was just yesterday that 2/3 of NATO members were spending less than their target...

At a minimum there will be a need for years of replenishing weapons and ammunition to pre-war levels, and likely pressure to increase those levels in view of the experience of how quickly they were used up. The E European states will be very vocal if they see the West easing back, and it will be difficult for politicians to renege on firm pledges e.g, Scholz putting extra100 Mrd into the Federal budget for defence. That kind of official commitment is very difficult to erase, and cannot be done "under the table ".

There may be some trimming but I would expect most to go through.

This is a major issue; UKR apparently wants to roll-back to pre-2014 borders.

Cannot see this happening. Even if Russian forces collapsed in the attack, UKR would not have the necessary manpower to liberate Crimea/Donbas unless those populations rose up united to say they wanted Russians out. Even if Putin were to disappear suddenly, any successor would have to - at a minimum - state that Russia would hold onto what it occupied.

[Tartiflette Fan]

Turkish customs arrest Russian freighter Zhibek Zholy , allegedly carrying stolen Ukranian wheat. The ship is at anchor off the Turkish port of Karasu.

https://www.focus.de/politik/ausland..._57275780.html

[NutLoose]

Earlier Helicopter deliveries

Twitter

[NutLoose]

Eurasiantimes is reporting that TASS are saying 4 off the SU57 are operating in stealth mode, possibly over Russia to take out the Ukrainian Air Defences. whether true or not i do not know.


https://eurasiantimes.com/4-russian-...ode-ukrainian/

[NutLoose]

The TB2 has succesfully tested a laser guided munition, I wonder if Ukraine will receive them?

https://eurasiantimes.com/game-chang...uided-missile/

[sheikhthecamel]

Originally Posted by Tartiflette Fan

Scholz putting extra100 Mrd into the Federal budget for defence. That kind of official commitment is very difficult to erase, and cannot be done "under the table ".

Hopefully they show back-bone and follow through. German friends are not so sure, and pointed out that Sholz has colloquially become a verb that does not augur well. As below, courtesy of The Bona Fide:

Scholzen/scholzed/scholzing - to put forward complicated and contradictory excuses that make no sense. Loosely translated as, to make a Scholz-like vow): To make a major promise you don't plan to fulfill.
Herumscholzen - blabbering without getting to the point and making no sense, avoiding answering the question, and making vague promises that you don’t intend to honour.

[Rockie_Rapier]

Originally Posted by kamanya

• If we take Putin at his word, winning the Donbas doesn't solve his major gripes - NATO threat and westernisation of Ukraine. You can bet that Ukraine will make every effort to court the west in everyway possible to secure themselves after this.

In a way, getting the Donbas, given what has now happened doesn't solve anything for Putin other than a moral victory. In huge ways, it's made his original position far worse.​

​

I'd agree with your last line. What I'm expecting to see is other players with established border disputes with Russia looking for an opportunity to recover old losses. Admittedly the threat of nuclear reprisals may inhibit that but it must be clear to all that as regards conventional forces goes Russia has put about all it's got into the Ukraine conflict.

Regarding ' If we take Putin at his word the NATO threat etc'
In fact Putin's announced justification was that it was that it was imperative that the Ukraine be de-nazified. But maybe this was just intended for his internal audience and it's then up the the trolls of the Saint Petersburg Internet Research Agency to propagate the notion that this is in fact all the West's fault for expanding NATO so enthusiastically. (a degree of Orwellian double-think that is rich in irony given Russian history).

Nothing ever being said about little countries such as Estonia who are right next door to the smirking czar and are entitled to feel a little more secure.