It's a pity, seigfreids funeral march is a top notch choon.
Yeah, it's like that short-arsed prig in a pub starting on a 6-foot, chilled out geezer who would rather not get into a bar brawl.
He confuses the lack of aggression for weakness.
To be fair, he was right about it multiple times, specifically Georgia and Crimea. This current one was a step too far and it's exposed a hollowed out country that traded its offensive capabilities for superyachts.
Aye it's the only thing some Regimes understand. Japan. Germany. They all turned around after complete defeat. Makes you do a lot of soul searching and wonder what it was all for. War as they say is more fun when you're winning.
The us marines gave up 300 of their Abrams this year,ifs not as if there's a shortage of them
I was thinking for future use like Poland
exactly,but i guess its training that needed,since Ukraine still is used to soviet era tanks.
same as US fighters like f16
I guess its all about training,like an F16 or A10,ibecause they are used to soviet era tanks
I am an Australian, Australia has a limited arms industry, and not being a neutral country, has supplied Ukraine with weapons and vehicles. My father was in the Fleet Air Arm in WW2 and flew fighters, which included multiple versions of Spitfires and Huricanes, and a few US ones like the Grumman Martlet, and was a very good shot with a .303, competing at Bisley.
My grand uncle, formerly of Dalkey, died in WW1 on the island of Lemnos in a flying training accident at the ripe old age of 19.
So forgive me for taking a slight interest.
Putin's miscalculation is perfectly understandable given his constant atrocities which were met with completely inadequate and facile responses. Polonium assassinations, Novichok killings of UK citizens, beating up Dutch diplomatic staff - what diplomatic immunity?, shooting down civilian planes, annexation of Crimea. If I were him, I'd probably have thought it was a slam dunk the west would be as pissweak in it's response as it has been for decades.
In some ways, Ukraine is a victim of the West's past failures to respond appropriately. Hundreds of thousands are dead because of pacifism and the cult of diplomacy holding far too much sway over governments.
Ireland and other countries with absolutely no need to keep a line of comms open with Russia at this time should be shutting down Russian embassies and sending them packing. Not doing so is part of this cult of diplomacy that has lead to this incredibly dangerous juncture and shows an abject failure to learn an important lesson.
The Abrams is the most classic example of US pork barrelling. They have far more than they could ever need and made far more than the military wanted. The US could probably give Ukraine 500 of them and The military would probably give a great sigh of relief. That stuff about maintaining them is a bit silly, they could just replace broken tanks with new ones and worry about fixing them all after they have won.
I think that maintainance thing was just more pork barreling, essentially. They want to keep the production line rolling as the US domestic tank market is saturated so now the export market is important, so this proper maintainance angle was likely because they didn't want the world to see a single Abrams not in top working order, so as to underpin it's invincible image and exports.
Russia finally knows what they are up against,so they have someone to blame
Feeds into the narrative NATO is a threat while being Russia strong. Except their not. I think at this stage is dawning on them their Army has been hollowed out by trousering money. I mean if Ukraine can field soviet era stuff and pound the Russians what does that say. I was never convinced when the west upped Russian capabilities. I was right need to have an enemy for the old budgets. China is next on the block. Will be fun to see a army that keeps the plebs inline leaving and then the plebs take advantage could even see the downfall of the party. I have seen all the new stuff about them having hypersonic stuff. Going that fast is not that huge an issue. Guidance controle payload all that are the issue. They have a large enough navey that never fought anyone. Were as the USA has real world experience. I wager take the Brits for example "not bigging them up" would trounce the Chinese navy. I'm seeing a lot of parallels of Russia with China. Making stuff look modern vs what underneath. You can make a ship look like a USA/UK one but is it actually.
Bad PR for all countries, everyone is a nazi.
Seems like a ‘Your country needs you!’ type Recruitment
Also, with all those people against them, surely some must be thinking… “Are we the bad guys?”
Plus, not sure how effective this tack might be at actual recruiting, join up and face NATO, ‘Soz, washing my hair’.
According to Wikipedia, Ukraine has 4 nuclear power plants and 15 reactors.
If anything, this should be a reason for supplying them with the Iron Dome system.
If not to protect the entire country, then to protect those plants from strikes.
That is exactly what I’ve been thinking over the past week or two. Their narrative has changed. Could they be softening the population for a full mobilisation?
Harrowing account of a group of innocent Sri Lankan civilians, captured and tortured by the Russian army, saved by the Ukrainians.
And to think we've had antidotal claims of racism for some when it came to Ukraine and it's foreign population
It's a wake up call for sure. I didn't know I was a nazi until I saw this.
All of the above, 100%
Putin thought Ukraine was Chechnya.
They're going to arm the civilian population? This will end well
Afair when the war began there was complaints from Indians + African students & ex pats stuck in Ukraine that they were not given priority when it came to getting them transported out of the war-zone and it was an example of racism/xenophobia.
Given how their govt.'s (well India's in particular) reacted to this invasion as a good chance to make bank + displaying a glow of schadenfreude at seeing Putin unleash some havok in Europe, my sympathy was somewhat reduced...!
Hopefully this is the case.
With the two occupied territories going for referendums and the State Duma passing laws around Mobilisation it sounds like the foundations are in place for Russia to pursue a General Mobilisation.
Iron dome is good, but what would be much better is the UK Sky Sabre, which can even intercept artillery shells, I believe. At $92m, it's a bargain.
Although the average Russian grossly over-estimates the strength of their own military, I don't believe they think it can defeat NATO. They are now being bombarded with messaging that they are in fact fighting NATO in Ukraine. If anything, that is going to de-motivate people from wanting to participate in mobilisation.
I suspect the propagandists are simply engaging in some expectations management. They realise that people all over Russia have seen what happened in Kharkiv and are wondering what's gone wrong. They were told that Ukraine would be no match for them. This is an effort to put them back in their propaganda-induced slumber.
Turned out that the Germans havent changed much either
There should be " " around the word Volunteer.
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