Well they have been repeatedly threatened by Russia lately. But are NATO backed.
interesting to see lithuania is starting to limit products to kallingrad and locals there starting to stockpile things ratcheting up north too
Defer to your personal knowledge, but from following the news we get here, I do get impression Scholz (and I presume others of the current top German politicians) know rebuilding their military is vital now. Is my perception incorrect?
If it does happen (a serious remilitarisation), it is not going to happen quickly enough to make much of a difference to the situation now (unless this war drags on for years - really hope not!). I suppose a big ramp-up of German defence industry in future (as part of that rearmament?) & shipment of some new goods from it off to the Ukraine war may have an impact in the near term.
I suppose in ignorance of what's needed to rebuild, my thought would be it took many years (or even a few decades if counting from the fall of the Berlin wall) for the German military to decay to the poor state it is in, the conscription to be removed, and for the general public opinion in Germany that there was no (or not much) need for a military and keeping a big, strong one about the place just provides temptations of warmongering & foreign adventures (ala USA + UK in Iraq etc.) to fully blossom.
I don't think anyone in the West or NATO is expecting Putin's death any time soon. They have clearly factored in he will probably still be alive in a couple of year's time. But one wonders what the implication of a long, drawn out war will be for him. It's hard to imagine it will work to his advantage given that he seemed to be banking on a war in Ukraine lasting a few days.
Don't get your hopes up on that. The rot is deep in Germany, particularly within the SPD, the Social Democratic Party, of which chancellor Olaf Scholz is currently the head.
But even leaving aside the political inertia, the fact remains that the Bundeswehr, that's the German Armed Forces, whilst no longer as woefully desolate as they were in the mid 201s, is by no means ready for anything but the bare minimum in operations. The army in particular needs massive investments. Remember the MARS MLRS that Germany promised Ukraine? There are 40 launchers in the Bundeswehr inventory, but only 20 are operational according to media reports. As of 2019, 101 out of Germany's 245 Leopard 2 MBTs were operational, as were 76 out of a total of 284 Puma IFVs and 12 out of a total of 53 Tiger attack helicopters. Granted, that was three years ago and there was apparently some improvement in recent years, but those are horrible numbers. And mind you, those are all state of the art weapons systems, some less than ten years in service! I can understand why a forty year old weapons system like Tornado has low availability, but for the others, that's pretty bad. What's worse, the situation is similar for infantry units. Currently, hundreds of millions of Euros are being spent on replacing the perfectly workable and still pretty new G36 service rifle with the HK416 for spurious reasons. I've mentioned before in this thread that German paratroop units haven't practice jumps in years due to a lack of funding and even workable parachutes!
That's not to say that Germany can't put up a fight, or indeed support a sizeable advance force based out of Eastern Europe, but that is putting a significant strain on the logistics and supply chain capabilities of the Bundeswehr.
So yeah, even with the improvements started under former minister of defence Annegret Kramp-Karrenbauer, it'll take a long time until the German Armed Forces are in any way, shape or form a serious fighting force again.
It's a great staging post if they can fully secure it and the area around it. How doable that is now I don't know. They looked to have done some decent construction til last week so maybe Ukraine are happy to let them build up so they can smash it all again.
Some seems to be there now
FFS I'm not even a soldier and I could have explained to them why they should keep off that island. What did they expect?
btw, any more news on the UA generals/officers that Russia said they killed?
There is absolutely no way NATO has supplied 450 tanks to Ukraine or anywhere close to it. All the numbers for NATO supplied equipment seem severely exaggerated.
That is quite an escalation by Lithuania.
Wonder does it remind the creeps in the Kremlin of the Berlin Air Lift?
Found this embedded in an article I was reading although I couldn't find the credited source. Obviously pro-Ukrainian given the language but interesting to see it laid out like this.
I'll believe it when I see it. Germany can talk all they like but actions are what matter. Have they started recruiting? Have they replaced their broomhandles yet? Nah. The big money they're going to spend will be spread over a decade or more and it's not as if it's only the Russians who don't always get "value" for money when it comes to military spending and they're starting from a very low base. The German government has had to be pressure and shamed into even paying lip service and then they continue dragging their heels. Couple of years down the line when they've finally come up with concrete plans and policies the war will be over and they can decide actually, let's not.
Snake Island has been hit.It may be the long awaited HIMARS."The exact number of dead occupiers is unknown, the losses of the Russians are estimated as large"..https://lviv.media/zsu-vdaryly-raketamy-po-ostrovu-zmiinyy/
Russia warns NATO-member Lithuania over Kaliningrad transit | Reuters
Lithuania stepping up, overland transit to Kaliningrad is now banned under direction of the EU
I think the one unforeseen aspect to this war will be the reinvigoration of the German military and finally putting to bed their guilt over causing WW2 , Russia is now the new nazi Germany.
I was in dusseldorf a few weeks ago and all the young Germans were partying hard singing and dancing on tables, never seen Germans party like this before.
However one thing really struck me if this Germany entered the Ukraine war at this stage they would annihilate Russia. I think ultimately Germany will take advantage of this situation with a severely weakened Russia in the future. Putin started this war with an extreme nationalistic and imperialist Russian viewpoint. However Russia could become the victim of a revitalised and newly nationalist Germany
Russia will keep fighting until they win , ad long as they have people the fight will continue no matter the consequences, there is no way back for Russia , if USA and Europe get fatigued, we’re in trouble
When that happens you need to wait until you want to post a new message. Delete the old message and attachments and rewrite new message and post it. Old message should disappear
Keep hitting Oligarchs wherever they go. That will get him out of power eventually.
I'm not predicting a Ceausescu moment at all where the Russian public decide to topple him via revolution. But an increasingly unpopular war still carries many risks and could be the thing that hastens his exit from office.
And what will the Russian people do about it?? Sweet F.A ....
Why would the Ukrainian politicians be at blame for anything? This is all on Russia, and their people who consistently give their blessing to Putin.
You'd have to think a long drawn out war is 'very' risky for Putin. The longer it goes on, the less support there will be among the domestic population. When Putin was going off on his angry rants on TV about Ukraine in mid February, nobody in Russia could have guessed it would result in a full scale war lasting potentially years and with never ending sanctions etc.
Many of the weapons already announced are only now making their way into Ukraine. It doesn't happen overnight.
Great one. Thanks...
Have to agree that it seems both sides are stalling somewhat now, I dont seem to be seeing much about many weapons being sent to Ukraine anymore, well at least not as much as before anyway. I wonder is it that less is being announced, or is less being sent?
What ever about Russian supplies drying up, if weapons being sent from western countries start drying up Ukraine will be in a very bad position. I think we can see this with Zelensky making constant calls for more weapons to be sent.
You can delete drafts from: My Drafts — boards.ie - Now Ye're Talkin'
Sorry, old quote i dont seem to be able to delete this tweet from my drafts?
Christ, they've been bombing New York off an on for over a month now I make it. It's a town of 10k people like.
To add to my previous post... something of a foregoing conclusion I suppose. Russia is a creature of habit, it keeps repeating itself. Chechnya even Syria they do the same thing. Bomb every building standing and introduce chaos on a grand scale.
Russia must absolutely be defeated or it will soon be at our back door.
Ukraine's stock of equipment is increasing and Russia's is decreasing. It is taking time to get the donated equipment into and then across Ukraine. I don't think the MLRS systems they have gotten have made their way to the east yet for example. While stepping it up a gear would help, if it maintains consistently then it will be the kind of replenishment of supply Russia can only dream of.
Also, keeping an army out in the field gets progressively harder and when their morale is low it becomes close to impossible eventually.
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