11:59 – Johan No.1
Gripen’s “introduction training” is completed and then Pålsson announced yesterday that discussions are ongoing.
It is the SU34 and SU35 that can carry the FAB bombs if I understand this correctly, and there are about 70 of them left from one air force.
If UA shoots down dozens of aircraft in a week, they will remove them completely and then it is the end of the FAB bombs which they have used as a substitute for anorexic artillery and they have no alternative to bring forward.
11:59 – Johan No.1
Then both the USA and France have delivered large quantities of JDAMS to Ukraine.
06:53 – Johan No.1
Now it is confirmed –
The USA wants UA to stop attacking the refineries.
UA is planning an offensive this year.
https://x.com/revishvilig/status/1773817530664022298?s=46&t=Vah3JXV31B9lXwZOK5gF7w
07:35 – MatsExtrude
Good thing they produce their own drones etc. so they can ignore what the USA says.
11:09 – Johan No.1
On the first of April, there will be a monthly closing and RU losses will be at record levels, already now special and soft vehicles are at ATH and barbarians and artillery are close.
Good Friday in West Africa is celebrated with Chinese buffet and Star beer.
Yesterday we sorted out the USA and their non-support for Ukraine.
The last attack on a refinery was March 23 and around that time the rumor started spreading that the USA asked Ukraine to stop with the winning concept?
As we know, we should look at what happens, not what is said, but right now it doesn’t look very positive.
And there is more Ukraine can do than the refineries, Yamal Cross for example.
They can also put a Grom 2 in the Kremlin, Frunzenskaja or one of Putin’s residences.
Russia has just maximized here – UA higher functions and then the persistent rumor that they have tried to go after Western personnel in Ukraine. As with everything else that has proven true, I believe it is true because not long after they went after SBU and GUR.
Last night RU attacked UA’s electrical infrastructure again with a large number of missiles.
Ukraine responded to the earlier attack with a carpet bombing over Crimea but then it stopped – it is not a proportional retaliation at all and anything less than proportional retaliation gives Putin more life energy.
I don’t like this kind of thing, especially not when Western experts and decision-makers mix up all the data and make immediately wrong decisions that will have consequences for me and my children.
That the USA is starting to get upset that Ukraine “escalates” is absolutely catastrophic strategic communication and that they then go out and ask France to sit down and keep quiet is if possible even worse.
The USA now wants to persuade UA to negotiate so the USA shows weakness to Putin, even worse strategic communication than the above and above all they totally undermine Zelensky who has refused negotiations.
https://x.com/kasparov63/status/1773413015481659634?s=46&t=Vah3JXV31B9lXwZOK5gF7w
At the same time, the USA has approved a sale of nearly 1000 cruise missiles to Poland. Why can’t Ukraine get these, I get really Easter-angry 🤬
https://x.com/visegrad24/status/1773393214331859373?s=46&t=Vah3JXV31B9lXwZOK5gF7w
Enough has now come out for us to be able to establish how the USA has acted and that it is they who have persuaded Ukraine not to fight to its full potential for two years and now in the third year they are trying to persuade Ukraine to respect the same red lines again BECAUSE IT WENT TOO WELL, it is an incomprehensibly bad strategy for everyone except the American arms industry and their LNG and oil industry – some suspicions may well be justified…
The only ones who will have to pay the full price if Russia wins are Europe, no one else, and we will get at least one new long cold war where Russian subversive activity is magnitudes more effective than today.
And already today high-ranking military or politicians are bought and caught red-handed almost every month.
Do we really want Cold War 2.0?
We know that at least the Germans are also pressing Ukraine to negotiate, or we have good reason to assume they are, so the rest of the EU should follow the thread’s suggestion to call Zelensky every day and encourage him.
Scholz has now started hinting at negotiations again, that the USA and Germany are in direct contact is quite obvious and has also been confirmed earlier.
https://x.com/dagnytaggart963/status/1773271875788972423?s=46&t=Vah3JXV31B9lXwZOK5gF7w
The defector has also clarified around Taurus – when all other arguments turned out to be dishonest lies he has claimed that if they send Taurus it will be war with NATO. That is of course completely wrong since Storm Shadow and F-16 did not lead to war with NATO. It is very clear that the overall goal is not to send Taurus and I now understand that the defector has strong support in SPD.
https://x.com/lupu_flavius/status/1773559605118820763?s=46&t=Vah3JXV31B9lXwZOK5gF7w
I am quite sure this is a consequence of Russia having gotten their loyal ones into the administration in the West at the unification and that they are now exploiting them fully – it is no secret that they have this problem. It becomes a closed echo chamber that goes completely wrong as in the case of Taurus.
I have a small suspicion that the total stop of support during the autumn was an attempt to force Ukraine to the negotiating table but have nothing to back it up with but do you know what supports it?
That RU refrained from bombing UA’s electrical infrastructure during the cold months when they could. I guess they got a promise from the West that Zelensky would be forced to negotiate but he refused.
That is also the reason why the USA and Germany are starting to get upset with Ukraine. We will see when history is eventually written 😀
IF there is another half-successful offensive this year and Ukraine backs away from Belgorod and refrains from liberation deeds then the risk is imminent that Putin gets his cheat-win.
He can then over time pull Ukraine back into the Russian sphere and go after the next country, and then the next and the next.
And how is it going for the USA initiative in the Red Sea that they lead?
Cargo ships have been sunk and the Houthis cut a bunch of internet cables there and continue shooting missiles and drones at the Western fleet in the area and hope for a hit every day.
Now the USA has stalled so long that Russia has sent its Pacific fleet into the area – now the USA becomes reactive again.
Remember that China has promised to join the war if NATO joins the war against Russia so sinking the Pacific fleet is a declaration of war. A serious temperature rise right now and the USA has completely messed it up.
https://x.com/justajanej/status/1773486895495852183?s=46&t=Vah3JXV31B9lXwZOK5gF7w
Now I am extrapolating extremely far on a single piece of information but PS1 writes as if it were obvious that the Belgorod raids are over and he is a credible source and Russian channels have been a bit lightly triumphant the past week.
https://x.com/pstyle0ne1/status/1773341567920533930?s=46&t=Vah3JXV31B9lXwZOK5gF7w
Has UA also been persuaded to back away from Belgorod?
When we read about it in the media it is the last step in communication that has been going on for quite some time.
I have not heard anything about Belgorod but it looks like they are at least not actively pushing the invasion of Russia right now?
2024 started very well and one has begun to sense an increasingly stressed Putin and the ONLY thing the West should do was not to let themselves be talked down by Putin – have they been talked down now?
The whole war it has sounded like “you can do whatever you want in Russia but not with Western weapons”, and then when Ukraine builds its own weapons and invades Russia with its own weapons and only Russian citizens then comes “we don’t want you to do anything in Russia at all”.
It is almost preschool level unfairness and the decision-makers and experts have read the room completely wrong unfortunately.
Just as Ukraine has proven to be quite street-smart in the war, they are also very street-smart in negotiations and will without hesitation let the EU be left holding the whole mess. It would probably suit UA better, purely pragmatically, if RU stopped at the territories they intend to occupy and then shifted focus to the Baltics and the Balkans, leaving Ukraine alone.
The other option is that it was intended for election interference and that they plan to run a second round in time for the spring offensive.
As said, we should watch what happens and not what is said, and right now attacks on refineries are conspicuously absent and we hear nothing about the 10,000 soldiers near the northern border after the US made it clear that they consider operations against Russian territory off-limits.
Here Zelensky announces RU’s summer offensive. Yes, if RU is allowed to have a low-intensity war, they will train a strategic reserve at all the bases that are protected just on the Russian side of the border with Ukraine, and then once or twice a year they choose a place to try to storm at huge losses but they take something. Putin can keep this up for quite a while, right?
Recruitment from Africa is handled by the African corps and there will always be enough volunteers, and the prisons are not yet emptied even though some have been completely emptied.
Ukraine must of course deny Putin this low-intensity war, and the year started well with the refineries and the invasion of Russia.
https://x.com/noelreports/status/1773364721686589818?s=46&t=Vah3JXV31B9lXwZOK5gF7w
Ukraine has not run out of drones and all the volunteer units up at the northern front are starting to get bored, so if nothing happens it is again due to the West and its timidity.
If the West decides to give Putin something in exchange for a peace agreement, which will probably be the territory he has taken to date, then Putin can continue on the path he has taken and it is no secret what his steps two, three, and four are.
Then this will be our time’s Chamberlain moment, but it is worse than that because it projects weakness to all other rogue states including China.
Low-reactivity responses have never worked outside of the course, and the only outcome will be global escalation of the whole thing.
Now that Russia has partly tried to knock out UA’s electrical infrastructure again and started targeting previously untouched targets such as SBU and GUR, and declared that high-ranking leaders are now to be assassinated, it is incomprehensible that the West is pushing – negotiations, no Taurus missiles, and that Ukraine is not allowed to take the war to Russia. A preschool child would instinctively understand, before taking the low-reactivity course, that this is rewarding increased violence and escalation, right?
Putin gets his way in Ukraine, he corrects the mistakes he can over 5-10 years and then jumps on the next country after a murderous subversive activity that again paralyzes the West and makes NATO ineffective.
There is only one way forward and that is to allow UA to conduct the war in the way they can with the goal of restoring the 1991 borders – it may be unpleasant for the leaders in the West but the alternative is worse even if it may seem attractive in the short term.
Then there are more ethnic-Belarusian units besides the Khalinousky regiment that are lurking on the border with Belarus, but if they are not even allowed to enter Belgorod, then maybe Belarus is off limits too?
Now for some good news, Gripen seems finally to be on its way 💥
https://bsky.app/profile/johanno1.bsky.social/post/3korql2bxlj27
This source is highly uncertain and there are NATO exercises in Eastern Europe, but I post it for the archive without drawing any conclusions from it, you can always hope 😀
https://x.com/vicktop55/status/1773403379106017292?s=46&t=Vah3JXV31B9lXwZOK5gF7w
Here you have the number of tanks UA received in 2022 and 2023 and I still believe that UA has parity in tanks with RU as well as eons better targeting systems. That does not yet include the 300 tanks from Morocco and Kuwait.
https://x.com/jurgen_nauditt/status/1773041466203373761?s=46&t=Vah3JXV31B9lXwZOK5gF7w
Then it took just one terrorist attack in Russia for them to start getting really tough on minority populations, mainly Muslims. Ukraine has refrained from terrorist attacks against civilians as it should, but maybe a dozen incidents where evidence was planted against Muslims would have accelerated RU’s collapse?
Now it is good that Ukraine has not resorted to such tactics but just as a thought exercise.
https://x.com/igorsushko/status/1773017329460252790?s=46&t=Vah3JXV31B9lXwZOK5gF7w
A sharp increase in Russians on disability pension over one year suggests a large number of war casualties. I had to accept half a million total when Zelensky announced it but have not given up hope for higher losses 😀
https://x.com/doktor_klein/status/1773475876560105797?s=46&t=Vah3JXV31B9lXwZOK5gF7w
UA is getting more mine-clearers
https://x.com/tendar/status/1773339269056115011?s=46&t=Vah3JXV31B9lXwZOK5gF7w
France seems to have seriously broken from the script and has fully entered Ukraine’s half of the field. Previously, they have sent their SCALP and JDAMS as well as a significant increase in artillery. They have also promised that all exports will go to Ukraine and that Ukraine will get all equipment that is being phased out – that is many thousands of hard vehicles and we have already seen them on trains. Most recently, they are trying to influence countries they have good contacts with in MENA, for example, to send equipment including SCALP. That France is now getting criticism from the US and probably soon Germany is hugely positive because then there is a course correction.
When I summed up those 15,000 – 20,000 hard vehicles, I think it was France, Italy, and Bulgaria that had them, France has an enormous amount in store, enough to win the war.
The other positive thing is that UA is getting more equipment for mine clearance which suggests an offensive, and that F-16 and Gripen are on the way now despite active US obstruction. Hard vehicles and shells have arrived and are on their way in quantities that enable further offensive from UA and the front-line pre-battle is in full swing. All are signs that UA has the capability to carry out an offensive and this war will not end unless they do, unfortunately now that they have apparently been forced to stop taking the war to Russia (yes, I am running a bit ahead regarding refinery and Belgorod, I know).
My hope is that UA now, with its usual patience, waits for all equipment and ammunition and then throws away the yellow cards, goes straight for the soft parts again, invades Russia and Belarus, and starts a violent offensive so Crimea is cut off – you can always hope 😀