Very true. Note that it is not as if The Netherlands will send Ukraine all it’s Jets at once (it can look like that from some reports, but those are misleading). It is in batches like with Denmark and it’s those in storage that will be shipped first while one waits for F-35 (pretty sure about this).
But yes, the amount of pollution, money, destruction and blood this war costs is not seen in Europe since the Second World War.
Seen a lot of footage of UA soldiers jumping out of vehicles and immediately wasting 5000 rounds of ammunition aimed at what exactly they just firing their weapons hoping to hit well something …
https://twitter.com/Tatarigami_UA/status/1693659276621889999
This is a longer post you must open.
Posting this just in case someone missed the succesful UA drone attack, although it is some what old news to me
Note the location…More than 650 km from the Ukrainian border.
What’s the training period for those? I’ve heard the RAF talk about 2 years, or is that for a raw recruit?
Got to google a bit then, because I don’t know from the top of my head. But a couple of years sounds about right from what I know.
https://twitter.com/DefMon3/status/1693886211880898651
https://twitter.com/DefMon3/status/1693885707205443760
In fact they do it so that the russians in trenches stay in cover while they get into positions.
Yes, it is. When you dismount you generally want to unleash several hundred rounds at enemy positions (if they are well manned, and these are) to avoid getting snipped and faced with aimed fire.
And when you assault, you also generally pummel enemy positions like shown on this Russian attack on UA positions at the edge of Klisckhiivka some days ago. Some wonder why the Ukrainians are not firing back here. If they did, they would die of course. Better to go to ground and pray or try to crawl out. This is a hellish Mechanised assalt I am just using as an example of high ammunition expenditure.
https://twitter.com/DefMon3/status/1690789376316342272
I understand what Alex and you are saying but autum is coming it seems to me that the UA are going true ammunition and material in a record pass and for what, gaining some trenches and unimportant villages who are already destroyed.
This shite could going on for 10 years and Russia are sill not gone
Well, without air support and over-mined fields they are left with WW1 tactics. These UA infantry assaulting the trenches have massive balls.
Every km gained helps to fragilise the russian defense. At one point, a link in the chain will snap and I guess this is when the rest of the army will pour in.
Or
They are just poking russians while waiting for F16s and get real counter offensive options
I remember reading before the summer that people shouldn’t expect there to be just one definitive counter-offensive. They were already making the point then that there would most likely be another in the Autumn , when the Ukrainians might have the benefit of air support.
Not from us, bin reading an article that most of the Dutch F16 will be handed over at the end of 2024 when we have all our F35 aircraft.
A curious story in several versions:
Ukrainian versions
https://twitter.com/Tendar/status/1694320580152164794
https://twitter.com/NOELreports/status/1694319510604456141
https://twitter.com/NOELreports/status/1694324063735292287
https://twitter.com/TyskNIP/status/1694335414755033450
Russian version:
https://twitter.com/wartranslated/status/1694282630244544768
I don’t disagree that it can take a couple of years more and is maybe even likely to do so, but i think you are perhaps underestimating the cost of a War of Choice for Russia. This isn’t Nazi Germany invading, seeking to obliterating their statehood and culture, basically enslaving much of their population for War industry and making the rest serfs for the Herrenvolk. That was a desperate war fought with desperate measures, much akin to how it is for Ukraine (they will lose their culture and political freedom if they lose).
The Soviet campaign in Afganistan lasted for 10 years, a far cheaper campaign, it still made a lasting impact on the USSR society and is viewed by many as one of the main conditions for it’s downfall. it was very costly. But only 35 thousand, from all over the giant USSR, actually died. In Ukraine, numbers are at the very, very minimum double that already with tripple that of Afghan wounded at minimum. This is another kind of war, far more costly.
I think that the chance of Kreml grinding this war on for an entire decade is extremely slim. If the war lasts a couple more years, political stability in Russia is likely to wane. They expect victory with some hardship, not a war where they lose more men than the short Winter War against Finland. Rememeber, this isn’t a war for survival for Russia. They will continue to be Russia, continue to have their sovereignty if they withdraw from Ukraine even in a humiliating worst case scenario defeat. Putin may be in problems though, but that is another matter.
The main question is; I think, how powerful is Putin truly ? Is he as powerful as Hitler, will his people march with him to an End. I don’t think so. I think Russia is a Mafia State and that there would be a coup by another Mafia grouping if the war grind on for several years without a solution in sight, because all the money in Russia is in the hands of a select tiny elite. And Russian Nationalism, while a powerful force, does not have the religious power (well it has, but not in that many Russians) that National Socialism did. Nazism was a far mightier ideology and mind set than RU Nationalism and something far more people would be willing to sacrifice for, to the End (because there could be no world without nazism and so on). Russia is too corrupt to have such a powerful ideology imo.
But of course, I can be wrong.
I guess this is sort of a Liberation photo, such as they may come in such ruins.
https://twitter.com/Archer83Able/status/1694385932747620499
Accidents will happen…
Wagner boss, Yevgeny Prigozhin, has been killed in a plane crash. Nine other people on board a private jet.
Acquaintances of Putin do appear to have an unfortunate relationship with gravity.
It was only a matter of time before he had an ‘unfortunate accident’.