10:57 – Johan No.1
The Morozovsk airbase is located +100km beyond the UA land border and is thus off-limits for Western weapons.
If the entire airport is on fire, it has been a major operation.
The billion-dollar question is naturally what with which we do not need to answer because we take seagulls seriously, especially now when you smell food when you never get rid of that sunscreen factor 50.
But there are probably only two options –
The USA has become humane
UA now has a long-range weapon that has the same effect as the area-covering ATACMS would have had.
Both are equally good.
11:30 – MatsExtrude
Would like to hear how those in the Alliance, who were in power then, reasoned.
13:39 – Johan No.1
To all former pilots in the thread, the International Legion has a couple of vacancies for F-16 pilots and ground personnel
https://x.com/igorsushko/status/1819443484967030839?s=46&t=Vah3JXV31B9lXwZOK5gF7w
Russian influence operations – they were directly out in Southport, we have already raised that, and now they have been caught being behind “the boxer who is a man” which no one has missed and suddenly it becomes on-topic. What we are discussing now is Russian psyops but we need to sort out the details.
https://x.com/yevyevhenii/status/1819348817428222442?s=46&t=Vah3JXV31B9lXwZOK5gF7w
We have Alexander Karelin, Mike Tyson, and Phelps who dominated in their sports. In male sports, the boundary is illegal substances and now there is some basis to suspect that China has succeeded better than the East German swimmers with that but it is a very clear boundary set and attempts are made to control it even though some countries like Russia have made cheating more of a system than training and it was the FSB that was tasked with running that operation.
https://x.com/nick_dece/status/1819098971740291383?s=46&t=Vah3JXV31B9lXwZOK5gF7w
My thought regarding female sports is that there should be the same sharp distinction to avoid subjectivity and XY chromosome should reasonably be that?
Then if the person in question is a woman and completely superior – congratulations on the gold to the female version of Karelin, Tyson, or Phelps, or vice versa of course.
https://x.com/asfyxi/status/1819419510060806605?s=46&t=Vah3JXV31B9lXwZOK5gF7w
Now I have first seen a left of center person advocating for the Algerian boxer and then a right of center person attacking a Russian psyops – politicians and well-known debaters from both sides and no one seems to google.
No camp cares about facts, everything is subjective and they hammer the opposition with a high tone.
This is how easy it is for Russia to mess things up in the West so guess what they have done and are doing with everything else – in the case of the boxer it was so easy to see how the debate was muddied but with social injustices, tax the rich, racial conflicts, groups that feel overlooked, etc., it is much harder to see what is Russian influence because there are also people who feel overlooked.
Russia is at war with us and they actively drive conflicts throughout society.
I am increasingly leaning towards the idea that the leaders in the EU fear not an invasion but RU subversive activities and then they have really lost their way. But yes, this is probably not easy because RU pushes left, right, and Islamists which is quite a difficult mess to handle. And on top of that opposition parties that can use the conflicts created by Russia to drive political division, Lex Brexit.
Then if we now get a small recession on top of it all so everyone gets worse off – there will be a lot of turmoil.
By the way, I believe we will see US troops in I..el or the surrounding area and US air support helping with defense as well as the US Navy acting as air defense cover.
The sharp one remembers that we were not allowed to do any of that in Ukraine because it would lead to escalation, equal treatment is conspicuously absent as usual.
I currently have a similar feeling as when we thought there were no Bradleys and then Morocco got both Bradleys and Abrams.
We will probably soon be able to confirm in action that the US “we want to avoid escalation at all costs” only applies to Russia. Then we have reason to move on from “the US is afraid of escalation” (which I think is an excuse) to why they treat Russia differently. We have to wait until MENA lights up within a few days.
My thought is China and that Ukraine is a pawn in a bigger game which is not so nice and then we return to the fact that the US is not doing what is best for the EU so we should start doing it ourselves but we have to calm down for a few days.
Since we have not been able to get past “the US wants to avoid escalation” yet, maybe we will make progress in the discussion.
We are coming to the point where the most weapons win. In earlier wars it was a bit more direct – an advancing army starved to death or succumbed to diseases and if they misjudged the weather they died, Lex Armfeldt, who managed to survive because he could afford winter clothes.
In modern times we have WW1 and WW2 where it went on until Germany ran out of gas both at home and militarily and that is what we now hope for – war of attrition where Ukraine comes out winning.
Then we have countless examples of how better motivated crush worse motivated who often have the numbers on their side.
The information we get is that the Russians suffer from cholera, acute dehydration, have about a month’s training and attack in waves where losses are 8:1 against UA on the worse front sections.
Then we have gone through the Russian material reserves and feel that Russia is seriously declining, 700 tanks left in storage.
We also know that Russia has 590,000 in Ukraine and that Ukraine has a defense force of 1,250,000.
But damn it all, Ukraine is retreating everywhere right now and they are not advancing anywhere.
When Vuhledar and Bakhmut were defended it was by a number of brigades and then the rest of the maneuver brigades were resting and equipped from autumn 2022 – summer 2023 for the spring offensive.
Since UA has been on defense since autumn 2023 they MUST have done the same, anything else is completely unreasonable.
The 2022 offensive was with M113 and T64, the 2023 spring offensive was somewhat better equipped and a number of brigades trained by the West since autumn 2022.
This MUST have continued since autumn 2023 and if it has not – why not?
Why has the West then ended the training programs and stopped sending material in the middle of an ongoing war?
Yes, Zelensky says that 14 brigades do not have material but have these 14 brigades not trained in the West?
Ukraine has confirmed that they have mobilized 200,000 troops and that they found an equal number dormant in the organization when they streamlined – these 200,000 are already soldiers and can go directly to units.
We roughly know the equipment that has arrived since the turn of the year and what the losses have been, and that they now have enough ammunition.
The spring offensive 2023 was enabled with 300,000 155mm shells from South Korea – UA now has significantly better ammunition availability.
We see on the various fronts how RU uses fewer and fewer mechanized units, their artillery superiority is disappearing, and Ukraine’s drone superiority is increasing.
The FAB bombs have been described as terribly effective and they drop 3,000 per month, so there we have a reason why RU is advancing – they simply destroy fixed positions and make defensive fighting difficult.
But in 2022, when RU had a 1:30 artillery superiority and air supremacy, Ukraine did not retreat everywhere and they recaptured 50% of lost territory.
If I were the West, I would be worried now.
Or maybe it’s just us worrying and the West knows that there will be negotiations with territorial concessions this autumn?
The more I think about this, the more likely it is that it lies within the organization rather than an individual soldier or delivered equipment, otherwise I can’t make this add up.
Or maybe it’s a big maskirovka and Ukraine will strike soon 😀
We have had several in the thread claiming that “quantity is a quality in itself” and Ukraine has the quantity on its side – so why aren’t they winning?
My suggestion is that all these restrictions, broken promises, slowing down, threats if they go too far, and constantly stopping everything have left a mark on the organization. Everyone knows how well things go after a major reorganization, and such was done in autumn 2023 and now everything is going worse – the air has simply gone out of them because they feel betrayed time and again. Ukrainian soldiers and officers are also just ordinary people, and if we in superior Sweden can experience a drop in productivity after major reorganizations, I wonder how much they enjoy these constant disappointments.
We have discussed all this ad absurdum in the thread in terms of the enormous risk the West consciously chooses to take.
I and a few others have since the beginning of this war talked about high risk and that the West must do everything in their power to help UA win, which they have not done – now summer 2024 I’m starting to get a little worried because not even last autumn or this winter when all support stopped did it go backward this fast, and then UA was completely out of ammunition, they had nothing left for the artillery.
And for the first time, Ukraine is out probing around peace.
Now I’m running a bit ahead, but I also think that we will immediately see attempts to normalize relations with RU from the EU just as a couple in the thread believe.
If UA is truly betrayed, we will have Europe’s new unstoppable mafia on our necks, that we can be sure of.
Personally, Ukraine is more important to me than all other wars because this is in our backyard and affects us directly.
This is how F-16s should be used according to David D
https://bsky.app/profile/johanno1.bsky.social/post/3kysqgcmnrk2h
Soldiers from Cuba in Venezuela now so Maduro has taken help from the Cubans and the Russians.
https://x.com/visegrad24/status/1819326553286754404
According to today’s Accentman, Ukraine now has run out of JDAMS 😐
Considering that RU drops 3,000 per month, France’s new production per month of less than 100 is not so impressive.
I also believe that UA gets too little of all kinds of ammunition and until quite recently, the weapons industry in Ukraine and the EU had overcapacity – our governments simply do not place orders up to full capacity.
Now I’m being repetitive but the longer this war goes on, the greater the risk and there are some signs of a stock market crash/recession/downturn?
I am of the opinion that then Western governments will find it even harder to release money to Ukraine because Russian-controlled opposition then has an absolute golden opportunity to drive public opinion against it.
Left, right, Islamists, and citizens will take to the streets to stop the waste and start thinking about the country first.
We have also early on discussed the turncoats in the West and in autumn 2023 we saw it – all support stopped.
I continue my preaching that it is in 2024 that the big brushstrokes are painted and we have five months left. Either Ukraine will reclaim its land and international law will be respected or we are heading towards a ceasefire and negotiations that Russia and China can then delay and that perfectly suits their future agenda.
15:13 – MatsExtrude
👍👍👍
Of course, it is so that the USA and EU can do what we suspect Trump intends to do if he wins, pressure Ukraine to accept a peace regardless of what they themselves want.
At the same time, I believe it would mean an enormous risk of chaos in Ukraine.
There are plenty of volunteer soldiers who will feel betrayed, maybe we will get a new European mafia, but it could also mean a military coup.
I really hope that Ukraine is allowed to decide for themselves.
10:54 – Johan No.1
This one was a bit interesting, found nothing on Google, from today’s blog.
Can it be elaborated a bit?
”As late as 2008, Russia was allowed by Sweden to conduct amphibious landing exercises with Ropucha ships in the port of Gothenburg …”