Yeah it’s ironic indeed. If you look at the historical circumstances, Putin did almost everything right for around the first ten years of his tenure. If he had retired at this point, he’d have fondly been remembered by almost everyone in Russia as a major personality, someone who saved Russia from a very dire situation. He was utterly popular then, and had he then opened up the political field for a democratic multiparty system before leaving, he’d have entered history as a genius.
But since he came back permanently after the Medvedev stint, he has been patiently destroying everything he did in his first period of tenure. Proof again that ruling for too long isn’t good for anybody.
I think you should read more about ammunition and hardware prodution and how much supplies are exhausted in what is an industrial war. This is not a war of this century, but an old fashioned industrial war. Industrial output is key to sustain them.
No one is afraid of a Russian attack on NATO in the coming few years, that was never the point anyone was making but the point you spent almost all of your word count writing about, completely missing the point I was trying to make with posting that discussion and what they were arguing about (the article contained nothing about being afraid that Russia could attack NATO in the short term), which is very disappointing to me. What you take as a condecending tone was me being disapointed I had to argue thiis and explain what it was really about. Not that it helped since you continue to focus on a possible short term attack by Russia on NATO, which no one is arguing is likely in the slightest, least of all these experts.
This is about the ability to sustain a high and even higher delivery rate of ammunition and hardware to Ukraine over a longer period in time. At current production rates, this is unlikely to be possible in the Long Term and that isn’t controversial since it’s sheer numbers and facts. Therefore, many countries have started to increase industrial output and hire more people, but it is currently not enough (and far from most countries in the West have ramped up production) but will help with more supplies. The point these people are making and which have been explained before, is that Russia has started war production while NATO has not. This means that supplies to Ukriane will be problematic if the war last longer than we would ideally like. The entire Russian strategy, such as it is, is outlasting effective military aid to Ukraine by the West and gradually over a long period of time, tiring Ukraine and reaching some sort of political end game which can be spun as as at least some sort of victory for Russia. At current output in the West this may seem unlikely, but not impossible. This is why increasing industrial output of arms and ammunition in the West is crucial to sustain Ukraine and also enable offensives, which requires a lot more ammunition and supplies than defence does. It’s not about Russia attacking Poland or Finland in the short term.
Sorry if you were offended, but I found your reply incredibly tiring since it missed the point of everything while arguing that what I posted was nonsense at the same time.
Also worth noting that all of those people I was posting as sources are arguing increased and not decreased supplies for Ukraine. You seemed to think the opposite, that they were cautioning against further supplies judging by your post. That was never the point they were making.
Handelsblatt
Germany preparing for Leopard shipments to Ukraine and next week will be decisive for political decisions. It’s the saga we know about, see no reason to comment mofre substantially than that on the shambles.
with the global steel shortage I wonder how this will affect the ammunition supply.
And while the western world was looking for substitutes for Ukrainian and Russian volumes, Russian suppliers found support in Asian customers.
Low prices and comparatively few problems with handling payments at banks turned Taiwan into a regular importer of semi-finished steel and HRC from Russia’s Far East in April and May.
Shipments of semi-finished steel products to Taiwan from Russia jumped to 162,699 tonnes in May, according to Taiwanese customs figures, up by 57.4% year on year from 103,363 tonnes in May 2021. Russian semi-finished steel products accounted for 59.3% of all arrivals in May, up from 35.3% a year earlier.
Russian exports to Taiwan have mostly been concluded by traders based in either China or the UAE and have taken place despite Taiwan’s strong ties with the United States, according to sources.
China — which remains a very close ally with Russia despite the war — also has imported significant volumes of Russian semi-finished steel.
China imported 239,496 tonnes of steel slab in June, up 917% year on year. Some 122,423 tonnes of that total were purchases from Russia, according to Chinese customs statistics.
Sorry @wyld.at.hrt , I just get fed up at times. I really do appreciate you a lot, just want you to know that. Didn’t mean to be personal, just some fatigue and lack of patience showing. I find it taxing to my patience when a well argued and researched point is missed and you focus on something completely different like an implausible Russian attack on NATO, which no one argued was likely anyway. I spend very many hours reading and finding good stuff to post, probably too much, and then I find a long ongoing discussion (because this is not a new debate) by experts on land warfare, highlighting the very real issue of industrial output of arms and ammunition in the West to sustain a long industrial war, is discarded as nonsesense with a long reply where you start talking about a Russian attack on NATO.
The entire discussion was and always was about this topic and industrial output versus what Ukraine use and needs to use in the future
we know this. but in order to stretch the UA forces thin along the line they’ll keep moving the battlefield focus around. RU have the numerical advantage plus their lines to the north are closer to Lysychansk for easy resupply. So they’ll start moving north to draw the Ukraine forces that way and spread them out, whilst they can accumulate a larger force at Berestove/Luhansk/Horlivka to launch at Bakhmut from multiple directions.
UA forces will have no choice but to withdraw…but RU will need to have this planned out and timed properly to maximize their advantage. their commanders need to think this one through.
I don’t think RU can do that now personally. The forces at Lyschansk focuses on defense of Kremina. All of their offensive efforts in Donbas of a large nature are arrayed at enveloping Bakhmut at current. A drive to cut of Siversk is a very, very large undertaking and requires a lot of addtional manpower they don’t currently have at the front. They can only mount so many larger offensives at the same time in the same theatre at current.
You can look at the Siverskyi Donets front here if you want. Anyway, we’ll see. I don’t think this is as dramatic as you do.
It’s nice to see the UK leading the way and reaffirming they’re all in. Johnson might have been hopeless at home but he deserves credit for committing the UK early and wholeheartedly.
Yeah, he has been great for Ukraine. Possibly partly because he was so under fire at home that he grasped the hero opportunity with both hands. Didn’t stop him from drowning of course, but he made some people, somewhere, like him and be grateful for him.
Anyway, I am glad he is gone for the sake of the UK.
I think we all knew that he had one eye on improving his image at home , and he was quite shameless about it. (Like everything else.) I wouldn’t be too quick to write his political obituary just yet though. There are already whispers from his camp about a possible return in May if Sunak gets hammered in the local elections.
Unless something I think is very important happens, I am going to stay away for a while. I am a bit tired reading of posting so much and this discussion with Wyld soured me up a bit because it was just very tiring. So I am going to take some days off.
As for my prediction of the coming week: I think Russia will gain a bit more territory around Soledar, possibly minor gains elsewhere. I think Ukraine may gains some ground around Kremina, maybe.
Other than that I think it will be mostly positional. Maybe I am wrong though.
The Ukrainian offensive, the large one, will not come in a week or two. A new large scale RU offensive is also unlikely in the coming week at least. I think they will just focus on exploiting gains around Soledar and possibly Bakhmut.
See you all in some days and take care, everyone !
