Русский корабль - иди нахуй

[Schulz2.0 29,263]

[Zepol87 9,311]

1 hour ago, Macanudo said:

Disastrous Pullout is the name of my death metal band.   (RIP YGIFS....)

Yikes definitely been there

[Parliament 14,583]

4 hours ago, atomheartbevo said:

It doesn’t have to go there - the fact is that historically, pullouts usually don’t go very well, whether it be Vietnam (for us or the French), Afghanistan for the Russians (or Brits or us), various conflicts in Africa (US, Brits, French, the Belgians, although the French seemed to have done it the best in Africa), or some places in South America, or Susan Hofstetter in Galveston in 1994 when her husband came home from work early. Had I studied French military history in Africa, I might have affected a better withdrawal in that last incident, and not left such a lasting memory on her husband, her kids, or the Galveston County Sheriff’s Department.  

Dad!?

[atomheartbevo 90,597]

2 hours ago, Parliament said:

Dad!?

[KYHorn 17,584]

Strong analysis and reporting from Bloomberg on past decision points in this war and where's it's headed. It echoes many of the sentiments expressed on this thread over the past 3 years. 

https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2024-12-20/russia-ukraine-us-allies-say-biden-strategy-was-too-little-too-late-for-ukraine 

Too Little Too Late: US Allies Say Biden Strategy Cost Ukraine Chance of Victory

Spoiler

(Bloomberg) -- In the month Joe Biden has left in office, his administration is focused on using all the resources it has left to deliver military aid for Ukraine and more sanctions aimed at weakening Vladimir Putin’s economy.

Officials in Ukraine and several allied capitals say it’s too little too late. 

Regardless of what Biden does in his final weeks, they said, Ukraine is heading toward a bitter settlement in which President Volodymyr Zelenskiy may have to leave swathes of territory in limbo in exchange for security guarantees that fall short of the NATO membership he’s pleaded for. The officials, who spoke on condition of anonymity, said that outcome will largely be a consequence of decisions that Biden took, or failed to take, over the past two years.

Despite the US sending more than $90 billion in aid and arms, some allies are frustrated with Biden for stalling on key decisions to deliver more advanced weapons at crucial points in the conflict. 

In the fall of 2022, Ukrainian forces had Putin on the back foot and Zelenskiy was appealing to Biden for more weapons to press home his advantage. But Biden hesitated. His thinking was shaped by the possibility that an escalation might bring Russia’s nuclear arsenal into play, National Security Advisor Jake Sullivan has suggested. 

“His heart was undoubtedly in the right place — he understood the importance of standing with Ukraine against Russian aggression,” former UK Defense Secretary Grant Shapps said in an interview. “However, his approach was often too cautious and too hesitant, holding back on delivering the decisive support needed to tip the balance.”

Sullivan has refuted that view, saying on Dec. 7 that the US operation to arm Ukraine both before and during the war had been an “extraordinary feat.” Indeed, US support was critical for ensuring that Ukraine wasn’t overrun, especially at the start of the war, and rallying allies after the invasion.

Other US officials, speaking on condition of anonymity, voiced their frustration with some European governments who they said were slow to accept that Putin would invade and then reluctant to ship weapons at all, at least until they learned of the abuses the Russians had perpetrated. Europe has often bristled at tougher sanctions and even as the US position on inviting Ukraine to join NATO appeared to soften, opposition in Berlin and elsewhere remained firm, the officials noted.

The paradox, other officials said, is that the outcome for Ukraine is now similar regardless of whether Biden or Donald Trump are in charge. Trump has called for an immediate ceasefire and his national security nominees have indicated that any deal would likely see Ukraine having to accept freezing its territory along current battle lines and give up its aspiration of joining NATO any time soon.

Behind the incipient blame game lies a deeper truth that frustrates officials on both sides of the Atlantic: for all the talk of European capitals reviving their hard power, the US is still the only NATO country that can tip the balance in a major conflict involving Russia. So the outcome of the war in Ukraine will inevitably be shaped by decisions taken in the White House. 

As a Cold War veteran who joined arms control negotiations with the Soviet Union, Biden was obsessed with the danger of nuclear escalation, one of the officials said. When urged to do more US officials repeatedly said that the risks were just too great. Other allies, like Germany, had similar worries. 

The fundamental problem, according to two senior European officials, was that Biden’s strategy seemed geared to preventing Ukraine from losing, without setting out a path to victory. That, the officials said, left Ukraine locked into a drawn-out conflict costing tens of thousands of lives.

But going all-in wasn’t the only option open to Biden. 

Less than a year into the war, then Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff Mark Milley offered an alternative approach which wouldn’t have incurred the same risk of Russian escalation: push Zelenskiy into talks with Putin. 

“The Russian military is really hurting bad,” Milley said in November 2022. “You want to negotiate at a time when you’re at your strength, and your opponent is at weakness.” 

At that point in the conflict, though, such suggestions were considered beyond the pale. The mantra from western officials, in public and private, was that only Zelenskiy and the Ukrainians would decide when to negotiate.

According to a senior European official, Biden had two strategic options: ramp up support to let Kyiv finish the job or push for peace negotiations. He chose neither. 

While the US did increase weapons supplies ahead of the failed counteroffensive of 2023, two former UK officials said they had tried to convince Biden that much more was needed much more quickly, but they ran into his concerns of nuclear escalation. Those concerns were overstated, one UK official said, because at every stage the Russian threats proved illusory.

US officials argue that, on the contrary, sabotage attacks in Europe and Moscow’s increasingly intensive targeting of Ukraine’s energy infrastructure show that Putin was prepared to escalate so they had to take his nuclear threats seriously. 

“The president has another responsibility that’s unique,” Secretary of State Antony Blinken said at an event in Washington this week. “Where the buck stops is at that desk, and it has been his responsibility to make sure that Ukraine has everything we can possibly provide to deal with the aggression — but also to avoid a direct conflict with with Russia. We don’t need a direct conflict between nuclear-armed powers.”

Officials in Washington said that the US ultimately sent everything it could, when stocks allowed and when in their assessment capabilities made sense on the battlefield. To that effect, the ramp-up in ammunition supplies has helped to narrow a Russian advantage which had seen them firing several times more shells than the Ukrainians earlier in the conflict.  

Us officials also argue that no single capability is a silver bullet and that Ukraine is now impeded more by a shortage of manpower than weapons.

CIA chief William Burns said earlier this year that there was “a genuine risk of a potential use of tactical nuclear weapons” in the fall of 2022, but that the US and its allies shouldn’t be intimidated by what he called Moscow’s saber-rattling. Burns met his Russian counterpart in Turkey that November to warn him against the use of nuclear weapons.

Nevertheless, as Biden agonized over whether to send more air defenses, longer range missiles, or fighter jets to Kyiv, Putin trained his missiles on Ukraine’s cities. That weakened Kyiv’s economy and the resolve of its people, degrading the war-torn country’s ability to fight back, while Moscow was granted crucial time to prepare and adapt its defenses.

“We do believe that earlier and more would have been quite decisive,” Latvian Foreign Minister Baiba Braze said in an interview. “But it is what it is.”

 

[MillerEP 30,866]

https://www.threads.net/@_nickmelnick/post/DDzdUdHIpO4?xmt=AQGzP3qDWLyBvl28fGbg0z1tI47NnjN8vItamwLxoIiVIw

🇺🇦⚡️🇰🇵A North Korean soldier accidentally shot his comrade while attempting to take down an Ukrainian FPV drone.
 

^Lol, just as incompetent as the Russians. It's eerie seeing an uncultivated field of sunflowers. I had never seen that before

 

 

https://www.threads.net/@tata_vladii/post/DDynKe1NiLz?xmt=AQGzP3qDWLyBvl28fGbg0z1tI47NnjN8vItamwLxoIiVIw

📎
Meanwhile, the Black Sea
Black Sea

 

[InkaUtexas 26,845]

We do need the capability to add two emojis.

1- FAFO.

2- RAGE.

[KYHorn 17,584]

 

Really interesting interview with the Ukrainians in this tank:

 

Russian telegram channels posted videos of fiber optic cable FPV strikes on a Ukrainian Abrams tank in Kursk oblast last week. Aside from a concussion, the crew survived without injury and made it back to friendly lines. @KofmanMichael  and I spoke to the commander of the tank from Ukraine's 47th Mechanized Brigade about what happened, and here is what he told us: (tweeted with his permission) "That's our tank. But they only posted two of the strikes. Yesterday [from last week] was the first time that the crew survived multiple hits while inside a disabled Abrams. Actually, there were 4-6 direct hits. The crew survived, and even without injuries. God bless America. Fiber-optic FPVs. Between four and six hits within like 2 minutes. I believe that at least one more got stuck in the net. Two more missed several minutes before. They apparently hit the engine. They were unable to penetrate either the turret or the hull elsewhere while we were inside. Although they tried and had a lot of time. As I said, this tank had a unique 'cope cage' (actually, 'cope netting') and a lot more ERA than an average Abrams. We – the crew – designed the arrangement of the ERA completely on our own based on an analysis of the previous hits on all the other Abrams tanks and our own knowledge of the weak spots, and that's why we still live after so many simultaneous strikes. And that's why the Abrams rocks. Would be impossible on a [Russian/Soviet] T series tank." Russian FPV crews hit the tank with several more FPVs after it was abandoned, but the tank was not destroyed and might still be salvageable. Because of recent advances, Russian forces may capture it. When I asked how they made it back to friendly lines, "On foot. It was close to the Russian positions. We finished the combat mission and drove back just 1 km from the Russians or even less. We could not evacuate because the FPVs were coming one after another. When I finally could hear no sound, we just jumped out of the tank and ran to a treeline. They were tracking us, so a mortar started working with some more drones, but we crawled away through the treeline. In the end, in a spot still under FPV control, our company commander rushed in and took us away."

 

 

Edited 22 minutes ago by KYHorn

[ABSR 5,365]

22 minutes ago, KYHorn said:

 

I've got to tell you, I have no idea what I am suppose to eat on Tuesdays now.