My view, that this is NATO allowing Ukraine to degrade the Russian military as its proxy, is reinforced every week.
Iām not posting the updates about the equipment side because I donāt know how valid it all is. But I keep seeing tweets about trainloads of tanks and ammunition being funnelled into Russia. somewhere was a tweet about 100boxcars of ammo being sent to the front lines by Belarus. I imagine the Chinese have been working overtime as well producing as much as they can and feeding them from the east.
Russia has had 8 years+ to prepare for this, and they are out-gunning the Ukrainians 10:1 on artillery volume. I cannot imagine Russia has any concerns about running out if theyāre going through 5000 rounds a day as estimated.
This is literally Rocky trying to do a rope-a-dope against Dolph Lundgren. But as Russia keeps pounding Ukraine daily, if the tide turns is Ukraine going to be able to displace the entrenched Russians when they go on the offensive and try to reclaim their lands?
Ukraine is a meat grinder for Russian assets.
If they continue sustaining the losses they have so far for another 4 months, the size of their land-based military assets will have been halved.
There is a lot of evidence suggesting that the Russians are headed toward a crisis on this - those shells from Belarus are all ancient, dating to before the collapse of the Soviet Union. Their artillery is not well-supported (modern guns need barrel replacements frequently) and it is wearing down all the faster with frequent failures from using āreserveā ammunition.
The question is whether or not that happens soon enough.
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I question the validity of said āevidenceā as nobody really knows the size of Putinās stockpileā¦
https://twitter.com/fromTGA/status/1541108135376592896?s=20&t=kN6bfyl9KvuPTQUUcLuPYA
https://twitter.com/TpyxaNews/status/1541376533297766405?s=20&t=kN6bfyl9KvuPTQUUcLuPYA
https://twitter.com/RALee85/status/1540227912825245697?s=20&t=kN6bfyl9KvuPTQUUcLuPYA
https://twitter.com/Andy_Scollick/status/1540583289211289601?s=20&t=kN6bfyl9KvuPTQUUcLuPYA
https://twitter.com/lamenta23/status/1538911709519400961?s=20&t=kN6bfyl9KvuPTQUUcLuPYA
https://twitter.com/PierreDBorrelli/status/1538379475985080320?s=20&t=kN6bfyl9KvuPTQUUcLuPYA
https://twitter.com/MotolkoHelp/status/1540354447163146240?s=20&t=kN6bfyl9KvuPTQUUcLuPYA
No, but you donāt go using 30+ year old ammunition unless you need to. In the West, all of those munitions would have been used for training or simply retired at least a decade ago. Why else would they be getting ammunition from Belarus?
Their burn rate seems to be significantly faster than their rate of replenishment, which is pretty standard until economies go to a war time footing. The US started investing in more artillery ammunition in 2019 by a factor of 10x for precisely this sort of reason - the realization that their existing stockpile could be measured in at best weeks.
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as I said, Russia has been entrenched in Crimea since 2014 and this has clearly been in the organizing for some time. Iād be shocked if they are actually running out, with 8 years to prepare for this. Could be just more wargames.
If they were that well-prepared, March would have played out very, very differently. It took Russia over two months simply to move to a way of fighting that did not absolutely embarrass them, which is a long way away from being well-prepared. They expected Ukraine to roll over and the West to just let it happen the way it did in 2014. Ukrainian resistance has created a platform for NATO and the EU to suck and blow at the same time, grinding attrition on Russia while not escalating and becoming involved themselves.
Russia is aware that they cannot sustain this fight much past this summer, they just donāt think the Ukraine can either. The Ukrainian military is gradually being prepared for full transition to NATO weapon systems, though I suspect that is going to be staged with the crown jewels held in reserve. The Pentagon has ordered more M177 shells in the past eight weeks than the previous decade, even with the tenfold jump in 2019 (2019 was 175k, 2018 was 16k, order in April was for 400k with an additional 800k option).
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question is, can they deliver the order?
On channel 4 the now, Ukraine : life under attack.
Documentary on the battle of Kharkiv, as seen through the eyes of the emergency services,
Harrowimg stuff
Production capacity is now sized at about that 200k/year mark. It will have to scale up to meet the doubling from 2019, but I have no idea what the timeline is - that could be as simple as an extra shift, I just donāt know.
Note that that order is for the US Army (Marines too? Not sure) - Ukraine is getting shipment from stockpiles.
Thread about air defense:
British Army report
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Frontline Action:
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So what are they getting in return?
Itās in the article:
Foreign ministers from the three countries signed a joint security pact that addressed Turkeyās concerns.
Nato chief Jens Stoltenberg said Sweden agreed to step up its work on Turkish extradition requests of suspected militants.
The two Nordic nations will also lift their restrictions on selling weapons to Turkey, he said.
Finlandās President Niinisto said the three countries signed the joint memorandum āto extend their full support against threats to each otherās securityā.
Swedenās Prime Minister Magdalena Andersson said it was āa very important step for Natoā.
Turkey President Recep Tayyip Erdoganās office said it āgot what it wantedā from Sweden and Finland.
If you follow the link above, youāll find the full agreement between the three countries.
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Iām backā¦ couple of updatesā¦
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Frontline Action
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Good to see you back.
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