Is Ukraine about to have a war?
"Mildly" Eccentric Stardriver
Interesting contrast in your link at #12196. Note the speed she's talking, basically panic. On the wall a picture of Olena Zelenska, a picture of calm.
Lonewolf 50, i am afraid to say i disagree with you entirely.
It is not critical to keep India on-side for the mid 2 long term, nor any other country, which is openly accepting aid from the western world whilst trading (at preferable terms) with what is now becoming accepted as a terrorist/rogue state.
Stop the aid money, evaluate contracts and apply financial sanctions.
The government knows exactly what its doing..
It is not critical to keep India on-side for the mid 2 long term, nor any other country, which is openly accepting aid from the western world whilst trading (at preferable terms) with what is now becoming accepted as a terrorist/rogue state.
Stop the aid money, evaluate contracts and apply financial sanctions.
The government knows exactly what its doing..
Lonewolf 50, i am afraid to say i disagree with you entirely.
It is not critical to keep India on-side for the mid 2 long term, nor any other country, which is openly accepting aid from the western world whilst trading (at preferable terms) with what is now becoming accepted as a terrorist/rogue state.
Stop the aid money, evaluate contracts and apply financial sanctions.
The government knows exactly what its doing..
It is not critical to keep India on-side for the mid 2 long term, nor any other country, which is openly accepting aid from the western world whilst trading (at preferable terms) with what is now becoming accepted as a terrorist/rogue state.
Stop the aid money, evaluate contracts and apply financial sanctions.
The government knows exactly what its doing..
Lonewolf 50, i am afraid to say i disagree with you entirely.
It is not critical to keep India on-side for the mid 2 long term, nor any other country, which is openly accepting aid from the western world whilst trading (at preferable terms) with what is now becoming accepted as a terrorist/rogue state.
Stop the aid money, evaluate contracts and apply financial sanctions.
The government knows exactly what its doing..
It is not critical to keep India on-side for the mid 2 long term, nor any other country, which is openly accepting aid from the western world whilst trading (at preferable terms) with what is now becoming accepted as a terrorist/rogue state.
Stop the aid money, evaluate contracts and apply financial sanctions.
The government knows exactly what its doing..
She is now playing the we could be tried over this, we are now all responsible, let's worry the population that the west intends to terminate them or try them as well, spread it thin and hope the populace will sign up for the slaughter to protect the likes of her.
Interesting they are mentioning the defeat word! I did wonder if it is dawning on them they will now be prisoners in their own Country, unable to travel the world like free people for fear of arrest and trial.. Reminds me of Hitler saying the population does not deserve to live for failing him.
https://twitter.com/Tendar/status/15...C8_cHf068sAAAA
Interesting they are mentioning the defeat word! I did wonder if it is dawning on them they will now be prisoners in their own Country, unable to travel the world like free people for fear of arrest and trial.. Reminds me of Hitler saying the population does not deserve to live for failing him.
https://twitter.com/Tendar/status/15...C8_cHf068sAAAA
The “Federal Security Service (FSB) order, which enters into force Dec. 1, lists information that is not classified as a state secret, but which ‘can be used by foreign states, organizations, and citizens against Russia’s security.’”
Both the structure and size of the Russian Armed Forces are topics of discussion now legally forbidden, according to the Moscow Times. Other punishable topics of conversation are weapons, troop deployments and training, troop morale, and crimes committed by military personnel.
Both the structure and size of the Russian Armed Forces are topics of discussion now legally forbidden, according to the Moscow Times. Other punishable topics of conversation are weapons, troop deployments and training, troop morale, and crimes committed by military personnel.
When you have to shut up your own propaganda machine from talking about your war crimes, it would appear that some comprehension on the merits of the glorious leaders brilliant strategy would be starting to have foreseeable consequences in the wash-up of this "Special Whatever this is". That should stop every second comment of Margie Simonyan, and will lead more incoherent ramblings by Vlad Solovyov. Vlad Solovyov's "diatribes of anti-Western and anti-Ukraine disinformation, hatred, and vitriol on a daily basis" will now presumably not include any item related to war crimes by Russia, so that takes away 97% of all strikes on Ukraine by Russia based on the last 9 months of actual targeting constituting war crimes, they won't be talking about Wagner/Vagner (whoever) which meets all 7 elements of a war crime by their mercenary acts. So, they can probably talk about the weather in Vladivostok, but beyond that, not much else they can talk about without going to a well earned rest in a gulag. As they can't talk about stuff ups of the Russian military, that takes out every item related to their program content, so perhaps they will become an MTV channel. They would not be permitted to even mention a further mobilisation by Vlad the emperor. So how do they get the word out on gathering more mobiks I wonder. Never mind.
“the information weapon, of course, is used in critical moments, and war is always a critical moment. And it’s war. It’s a weapon like any other.”
https://www.thedrive.com/the-war-zon...tary-reporting
https://www.state.gov/disarming-disi...rita-simonyan/
https://www.state.gov/disarming-disi...imir-solovyov/
This clip gives an insight into the humour of Alex Navalny, why Putin is so fearful of him and hates him so much. If anyone can normalise Russia without it descending into civil war and the breakup of the federation, it is Navalny. The video of the truck driver and the pax crossing the Bridge of the Crimea is priceless, for everything else, there is Mastercard.
and... while Alexi remains in the gulag, his organisation is still active, making social commentary in spite of the brutality of the Tsar with no clothes...
Navalny's channel, worth watching to see what can be done to object to a dictatorship.
https://www.youtube.com/@NavalnyRu
Last edited by fdr; 3rd Dec 2022 at 04:04. Reason: PS: Navalnys take on propaganda by Marge & Co
There was an agreement for Turkey to buy f-35, however it was cancelled because Turkey bought the the Russian s400 missile system which mightily displeased the USA
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Then mightly displeased the Turks when they saw how crap it was in Ukraine.
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Heartbreaking to watch, one hopes they see him again.
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From the FT
At stake is not only the west’s ability to continue supplying Ukrainewith the weapons it needs but also allies’ capacity to show adversaries such as China that they have an industrial base that can produce sufficient weaponry to mount a credible defence against possible attack.
“Ukraine has focused us . . . on what really matters,” William LaPlante, the Pentagon’s chief weapons buyer, told a recent conference(opens a new window) at George Mason University. “What matters is production. Production really matters.”
After sending more than $40bn of military support to Ukraine, mostly from existing stocks, Nato members’ defence ministries are discovering that dormant weapons production lines cannot be switched on overnight. Increasing capacity requires investment which, in turn, depends on securing long-term production contracts.
The US has sent about a third of its stock of Javelin anti-tank missiles to Ukraine and a third of its stockpile of anti-aircraft Stinger missiles. But it has little prospect of being able to replace these quickly. “There’s no question that . . . [supplying Ukraine] has put pressure on our defence industrial base,” Colin Kahl, US under-secretary of defence for policy, said last month.
The UK has turned to a third party, which it has declined to identify, to restock its depleted stores of NLAW anti-tank missiles. “There are some really hard realities that we have been forced to learn,” James Heappey, armed forces minister, said in October.
Weapons stocks in many European countries are even skimpier. When France sent six Caesar self-propelled howitzers to Ukraine in October, it could only do so by diverting a Danish order for the high-tech artillery.
There are two main reasons western nations are struggling to source fresh military supplies, said defence officials and corporate executives.
The first is structural. Since the end of the cold war, these countries have reaped a peace dividend by slashing military spending, downsizing defence industries and moving to lean, “just-in-time” production and low inventories of equipment such as munitions. That is because combating insurgents and terrorists did not require the same kind of heavy weaponry needed in high-intensity land conflicts.
Ukraine has changed that assumption. During intense fighting in the eastern Donbas region this summer, Russia used more ammunition in two days than the British military has in stock. Under Ukrainian rates of artillery consumption, British stockpiles might last a week and the UK’s European allies are in no better position, according to a report(opens a new window) by the Royal United Services Institute think-tank in London.
“The west has a problem with constrained defence industrial capacity,” said Mick Ryan, a former major general in the Australian army. “A major industrial expansion programme will be required if the nations of the west are to rebuild the capacity to design, produce and stockpile . . . large quantities of munitions.”
The second factor is bureaucracy. Governments say they are committed to bigger defence budgets. Yet, amid so much economic uncertainty, they have been slow to write the multiyear procurement contracts that defence groups need to accelerate production.
“It’s a corporate finance problem,” said a senior European defence official. “No company wants to invest in a second factory line to boost production without long-term, contractual certainty. Will Russia still be a threat in five years and, if it’s not, will governments still be buying arms from the companies then?”
This lack of certainty holds on both sides of the Atlantic, say corporate executives. Saab, the Swedish defence and aerospace company which makes NLAWs and Gripen fighter jets, says it has been in talks with several governments about new orders but progress on signing contracts has been slow.
“When it comes to order intake directly connected to Ukraine . . . very little has really emerged or happened,” said Saab’s chief executive Micael Johansson. “I am sure it will come . . . but the contracting procedures are still quite slow.”
Britain’s BAE Systems also says it is “in talks” with the UK government about ramping up output of a number of munitions, while US defence companies have similar complaints about the lack of a clear “demand signal” from Washington.
“They are in a situation of ‘show me the money’,” said Mark Cancian, senior adviser at the Center for Strategic and International Studies in Washington. “What they [the defence companies] are worried about is that they will expand capacity, then the war will end and the defence department will cut the contracts.”
Kathy Warden, chief executive of Northrop Grumman, said the Pentagon’s procurement procedures — which give a “very choppy demand signal” to build up stockpiles but only after a conflict rapidly depletes them — are not a model that is “going to make sense” if the aim is sustained investment in production.
Some defence manufacturers are already producing at full capacity, with shifts running 24 hours a day.
“When we have a clear understanding of what the demand signal is going to be . . . we are willing to fund expansion of capacity,” said Frank St John, chief operating officer of Lockheed Martin, which makes Himar artillery rocket systems and Javelins.
Western officials say supplying Ukraine has not jeopardised their own countries’ military readiness, while Russian military shortages are far worse. Moscow is having to source weapons such as artillery shells and drones from North Korea and Iran.
Yet, while there is a near-consensus across Nato, especially its European members, on the need to bulk up their militaries and defence industries, companies can only proceed once they have more contractual certainty.
“Contracts matter. Money . . . matters,” said the Pentagon’s LaPlante. “Once [defence companies] see that we’re going to put money [into orders] . . . they’ll get it, that’s their job.”
Additional reporting by Felicia Schwartz in Washington
https://archive.ph/2022.12.02-191246...reType=nongift
Military briefing: Ukraine war exposes ‘hard reality’ of west’s weapons capacity
Nearly 10 months into Russia’s full-scale invasion of Ukraine, the allies that have backed Kyiv’s war effort are increasingly concerned by the struggle to increase ammunition production as the conflict chews through their stockpiles.At stake is not only the west’s ability to continue supplying Ukrainewith the weapons it needs but also allies’ capacity to show adversaries such as China that they have an industrial base that can produce sufficient weaponry to mount a credible defence against possible attack.
“Ukraine has focused us . . . on what really matters,” William LaPlante, the Pentagon’s chief weapons buyer, told a recent conference(opens a new window) at George Mason University. “What matters is production. Production really matters.”
After sending more than $40bn of military support to Ukraine, mostly from existing stocks, Nato members’ defence ministries are discovering that dormant weapons production lines cannot be switched on overnight. Increasing capacity requires investment which, in turn, depends on securing long-term production contracts.
The US has sent about a third of its stock of Javelin anti-tank missiles to Ukraine and a third of its stockpile of anti-aircraft Stinger missiles. But it has little prospect of being able to replace these quickly. “There’s no question that . . . [supplying Ukraine] has put pressure on our defence industrial base,” Colin Kahl, US under-secretary of defence for policy, said last month.
The UK has turned to a third party, which it has declined to identify, to restock its depleted stores of NLAW anti-tank missiles. “There are some really hard realities that we have been forced to learn,” James Heappey, armed forces minister, said in October.
Weapons stocks in many European countries are even skimpier. When France sent six Caesar self-propelled howitzers to Ukraine in October, it could only do so by diverting a Danish order for the high-tech artillery.
There are two main reasons western nations are struggling to source fresh military supplies, said defence officials and corporate executives.
The first is structural. Since the end of the cold war, these countries have reaped a peace dividend by slashing military spending, downsizing defence industries and moving to lean, “just-in-time” production and low inventories of equipment such as munitions. That is because combating insurgents and terrorists did not require the same kind of heavy weaponry needed in high-intensity land conflicts.
Ukraine has changed that assumption. During intense fighting in the eastern Donbas region this summer, Russia used more ammunition in two days than the British military has in stock. Under Ukrainian rates of artillery consumption, British stockpiles might last a week and the UK’s European allies are in no better position, according to a report(opens a new window) by the Royal United Services Institute think-tank in London.
“The west has a problem with constrained defence industrial capacity,” said Mick Ryan, a former major general in the Australian army. “A major industrial expansion programme will be required if the nations of the west are to rebuild the capacity to design, produce and stockpile . . . large quantities of munitions.”
The second factor is bureaucracy. Governments say they are committed to bigger defence budgets. Yet, amid so much economic uncertainty, they have been slow to write the multiyear procurement contracts that defence groups need to accelerate production.
“It’s a corporate finance problem,” said a senior European defence official. “No company wants to invest in a second factory line to boost production without long-term, contractual certainty. Will Russia still be a threat in five years and, if it’s not, will governments still be buying arms from the companies then?”
This lack of certainty holds on both sides of the Atlantic, say corporate executives. Saab, the Swedish defence and aerospace company which makes NLAWs and Gripen fighter jets, says it has been in talks with several governments about new orders but progress on signing contracts has been slow.
“When it comes to order intake directly connected to Ukraine . . . very little has really emerged or happened,” said Saab’s chief executive Micael Johansson. “I am sure it will come . . . but the contracting procedures are still quite slow.”
Britain’s BAE Systems also says it is “in talks” with the UK government about ramping up output of a number of munitions, while US defence companies have similar complaints about the lack of a clear “demand signal” from Washington.
“They are in a situation of ‘show me the money’,” said Mark Cancian, senior adviser at the Center for Strategic and International Studies in Washington. “What they [the defence companies] are worried about is that they will expand capacity, then the war will end and the defence department will cut the contracts.”
Kathy Warden, chief executive of Northrop Grumman, said the Pentagon’s procurement procedures — which give a “very choppy demand signal” to build up stockpiles but only after a conflict rapidly depletes them — are not a model that is “going to make sense” if the aim is sustained investment in production.
Some defence manufacturers are already producing at full capacity, with shifts running 24 hours a day.
“When we have a clear understanding of what the demand signal is going to be . . . we are willing to fund expansion of capacity,” said Frank St John, chief operating officer of Lockheed Martin, which makes Himar artillery rocket systems and Javelins.
Western officials say supplying Ukraine has not jeopardised their own countries’ military readiness, while Russian military shortages are far worse. Moscow is having to source weapons such as artillery shells and drones from North Korea and Iran.
Yet, while there is a near-consensus across Nato, especially its European members, on the need to bulk up their militaries and defence industries, companies can only proceed once they have more contractual certainty.
“Contracts matter. Money . . . matters,” said the Pentagon’s LaPlante. “Once [defence companies] see that we’re going to put money [into orders] . . . they’ll get it, that’s their job.”
Additional reporting by Felicia Schwartz in Washington
If you are talking about its lack of success in combating Himars, then I am uncertain to what extent it is supposed to be able to intercept shells/low-flying short-range missiles. Given its very high unit cost, obviously one system cannot be deployed to every munitions dump
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Well they have lost two, the Ukrainian airforce are still flying, they haven’t been able to detect HIMARS and they cannot detect the F35, so it’s not exactly a future sales pitch is it.
https://theaviationgeekclub.com/russian-s-300-and-s-400-air-defense-systems-are-unable-to-detect-israeli-f-35s-flying-over-syria/
https://defence24.com/technology/s-400-helpless-against-himars
https://theaviationgeekclub.com/russian-s-300-and-s-400-air-defense-systems-are-unable-to-detect-israeli-f-35s-flying-over-syria/
https://defence24.com/technology/s-400-helpless-against-himars
We won't know for sure. You can only look at the result. And the result of a theoretically completely overwhelming Russian Air Defence against an Air Force that was already tiny by all standards at the beginning of the war is not exactly flattering. And the effectiveness to protect against precision Artillery Rockets appears dismal.That may have various reasons, but at the end what matters is in the field, not high gloss brochures and impressive paper capabilities. And there are pretty exactly zero indications that it is really effective.
The absence of Russia's Air Force has been a bit of a mystery. Generally speaking, I think they will have a higher level of intellect - perhaps they are passively resisting the utterly ridiculous propoganda that "the Nazis are coming for us" and..."please launch your cruise missile at Ukranian cities to kill all the Nazis" b*******". Anybody with half a brain would realise they're being asked to committ unjustifiable war crimes and will be held to account.
The absence of Russia's Air Force has been a bit of a mystery. Generally speaking, I think they will have a higher level of intellect - perhaps they are passively resisting the utterly ridiculous propoganda that "the Nazis are coming for us" and..."please launch your cruise missile at Ukranian cities to kill all the Nazis" b*******". Anybody with half a brain would realise they're being asked to commit unjustifiable war crimes and will be held to account.
https://www.newsweek.com/russia-ukra...vilian-1687191
As UKR anti-aircraft capability has ramped up, the RuAF has conspicuously been saying out of range.