10:09
After this war one wonders if they need security guarantees?
Our entire eastern border against the criminal clan, however, needs economic help to rebuild and be able to have a strong defense, enough standing units and a functioning conscription as well as new equipment to be able to take the next hit.
The only thing that will keep the Russians from a round 2 etc. is strength, I think everyone understands that by now.
At least Poland has understood that and has ordered a couple of hundred HIMARS 🙂
10:41
Ukraine will eventually get EU membership and even if they don’t become a NATO country they will practically be counted as one AFTER this war, one would think?
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On the subject – Ukraine has incredible potential, agriculture, heavy industry and a hardworking population. A real powerhouse in the EU that also sits on many natural resources. If they can throw off the yoke they will probably make a Poland-like journey over time, one might guess?
10:44
A bit lately I have started feeling that the absolutely most important thing is to be able to defend yourself. Finland has always followed that line, keep quiet and prepare for the worst.
NATO has really never been tested hard (well) whether it would fully stand up to defend a member, or if the member (e.g. the Baltic states) fell in three days and then NATO would have to invade to retake the country?
Would it then be defense or would it be an invasion, does the country still exist etc. a couple of rounds until the opportunity is lost, kind of.
10:57
Buchy was in the first weeks of the war so the picture that the Russians started as friendly liberators and turned to terror and murder when things started going badly falls apart a bit.
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What is worst here is that we don’t know the situation in the occupied areas, some information comes out from Kherson, filtration camps and prisoners come back with crushed knees and mutilations so one can guess.
But when history is written here there will be hundreds of thousands tortured and murdered under the absolute worst conditions imaginable, this will be on par with Congo or Syria and ISIS ravages.
Early on it was the five-year-old who was raped, tortured and murdered in front of his mother who was then released so one knew quite early where this was going…
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I think a lot about Donbass and their reintegration into Ukraine, I don’t think many Donbass Russians still support Russia and those who do can move to Russia if they want or stay and keep quiet?
Unfortunately, some cleanup will be needed of those of Ukrainian nationality who have committed atrocities and some who only have Russian sympathies but have done nothing will always get caught up, but the world is unfortunately not fair. I hope Ukraine proceeds calmly.
11:10
Ben Dover,
Just out of curiosity, are you negative towards NATO membership?
Before the Ukraine war I always thought a Finnish-Swedish defense alliance was best but have started to understand that it always leads to disarmament instead of rearmament for some strange reason.
NATO I think will take care of that with its 2% goal.
But, the country Sweden needs to be able to defend itself, I have always had that opinion and was very upset about the big regiment death but that was before LW started and Twitter existed so I sat and sulked at the kitchen table 🙂
13:19
I am quite troubled by the Amnesty report, the more it is examined the more comes up.
I am even more troubled that we +5 months into the war get articles in our newspapers that support the Amnesty report and do not fully unreservedly take Ukraine’s side.
After all, it is the same newspapers that have taught us over the last 15 years that you must never blame the victim (which is right) but when it comes to the king of communist states apparently this no longer applies.
As a grumpy (positively grumpy, mostly positive with a grumpy undertone) private person I don’t know what more one can do than write in the comment sections as soon as such articles appear, what do you others do?
08:58
Last in the thread on this ball but surely the US has already approved ATACMS?
It was either the House of Representatives or the Senate that approved it about 2-3 weeks ago and then it would have to pass two more levels, which it may have done without us knowing?
Then we said roughly – “they are probably in a warehouse at Poland’s eastern border waiting to be unlocked diplomatically”.
The platforms are already assigned to units so it was about loading onto a truck and meeting at a coordinate and then a hit in the main depot with the resulting moon crater.
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First of all, the distance hints at something new and secondly the target is extremely well chosen, if you look at the Russian airbases you see that those behind the southern front have been sprinkled with glowing tungsten balls for a while so they have probably moved aircraft and air ammunition down to the bases on Crimea. According to Erik14 there were a number of planes and helicopters at this base together with ammunition and maybe the usual Russian thing of stockpiling a lot of supplies at airbases?
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Someone wrote Kalibr missiles and huge reinforced depots, if you try to look at the place, the port and other airbases it is not a natural place to fly in and store Kalibr, or maybe it is because it is in an illogical place? (there are airbases closer to the port and closer to the port but further from Ukraine) What is clear though is that it was a somewhat historic moon crater blast from the whole thing, the mushroom cloud was very beautiful.
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The only thing that really surprises me is that not more airbases on Crimea exploded during the night but surely there were 1-2 more targets at the new black target distance 🙂
Anyway, now the Russians have with great effort moved their depots out of HIMARS range and developed new hubs for their maintenance. We know they drive trucks over huge distances. In the coming weeks/month we will get a repeat of daily reports of destroyed depots and big mushroom clouds when this group of depots is also taken out.
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What will they do after that?
777 fights Russians in a hole and Russians in UFA, HIMARS now fights depots LV, Russians in UFA and what else and then the long-range shooters against the rear depots and hubs – there is not an army in the world that can withstand this.
What has played out the last month, or it really started 4-5 May, is various local Iraq War 2.0/Kuwait highway where entire bases have been taken out by tungsten rain or where guided ammunition or air barrages have been lobbed onto troop concentrations. After Izyum and the famous forest came the three river crossings at Bilohorivka. I am absolutely convinced that the Russians are taking huge losses on the road and in UFA at the Kherson front because there is nowhere to hide and the US sees everything.
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Now I’m drifting into my usual preaching about Kherson but it’s too early for that but it’s impossible to resist this for any longer, Kherson is at the very end of the front line and in the darkest Donbass they have the best supply and in the southern front some kind of middle position. They delivered 5000 guided shells for 155mm a few weeks ago, right?
That is 5000 hits straight on a target that preferably wants to live. Just that delivery is enough to take out all armored vehicles the Russians have in Ukraine, MBT and IFV (now it won’t be like that but as a comparison).
08:59
How fun with an early post, saves both the index finger and F5 from wear.
Now FIRMS is starting to get going again slowly, maybe it was clouds and then a break over the weekend and I do think the unit maps have been shuffled around a bit again and now you have to start scrutinizing DefMon as well.
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Yesterday’s Gregg had an interesting point – near Kherson Ukraine has strong units with Western equipment.
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It is in light of the blog post above that one should view the Amnesty report, the UN and Red Cross passivity and now the latest that AB is going to champion the Amnesty report. They all think they are doing right – objectivity, everything must be illuminated etc. but it ends up a bit like the woman who was raped bit off the perpetrator’s ear and that is what the whole debate is about.
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One is slowly beginning to wonder what will be written when the Ukrainian steamroller really gets going, it wouldn’t surprise anyone if some media start calling Ukraine an occupying power when they eventually retake Donbass and Crimea.