Hypothetical case,,,,Putins 3 day war had worked, and shortly after, he is on the border of East Germany...... and Scholz calls the military and tells them I want those Leopard's on the border, and I want then now!!! Only to be told, Herr Scholz, sorry to report, but ze Leopards are all in ze Workshops...maybe next month?
Tbh JM I'd not be surprised one little bit if that was actually something that could happen. Since the Cold War a lot of kit was mothballed, and more, attitudes shifted from readiness to ah sure what's going to happen.
Putting faces to the massacre in Dnipro:
A Russian missile killed two young mothers in Dnipro who were best friends
"I can't believe it... Pain and tears. Dnipro. Volunteer, highly professional dentist Olga Usova, who was my doctor after our rotation, is already in heaven... The little son and dad remained an orphan, as well as her friend Irina Solomatenko, who also died... Olya is a very kind woman, intelligent, sincere, who helped the Armed Forces so much and everyone she could... And she died from a Rashist rocket... Olya left behind a bright memory, and Russia is forever Mordor, which must be erased from the face of the earth, "said Andrei Belyak
, a friend of the deceased Olga
I hope that promised revenge is served very cold indeed.
Lost her son in Dnipro
Rhemmeintal are a private company,
They aren't the German military,
It's like asking the US to send F35s to patrol Ukrainian skies and Lockheed Martin saying sure it could take 3 years for us to send a few aircraft, when there is over 800 F35s operational now
Reserve tanks can't be sent til 2024, operational stock from the army could be sent immediately or Ukrainians trained up in them.
We all know why Germany is not sending them, it's the same reason that they have prevented others sending them, prevented others sending other equipment at various stages.
There will be great ingenuity in finding ways to avoid sending them for as long as possible.
Which I wrote in my comment "or if Putin will convince Belarus to enter the war separately"
Again we don't know if Belarus will enter the war or not. I've never come across any info that Putin has two weeks to live, there are some rumours he's had medical issues, there are videos of him not looking well at all, however these are rumours and speculation.
We don't know.
Large scale production of Napalm should be a walk in the park for Ireland.
There is definitely some criticism justified. But it's about balanced criticism, as the other poster said, rather than seeing everything in binary categories
It's not like they were not told in advance. Ukr. has been asking for them for months. Hint for the political elite: When you are involved in a war, THINK AHEAD.
I know I certainly am in favour of us ending our military neutrality.
Yeah, but this Rheinmetall inventory stock is a lot older than 15 years - 88 Leopard 1's and 22 Leopard 2's (which I assume are older A4's). It's the same problem with Spanish A4's, they were mothballed and are pretty much just scrap metal at the moment.
I think the question to ask is why Germany is planning to send reserve tanks instead of something that can be operational a lot faster.
Russians talk about the war What young Russians in Saint Petersburg think about Putin? - YouTube
The Irish farmers have shown a precedent here. If Irish people are not actually going out to fight the Russian scumbags and governments are being kowtowed by Putin (whatever dirt he has on politicians) then it's up to ordinary people to do the justice.
Items asked for and delivered by farmers who happen to be residing in an acquiesce high politic country to the Ukrainian military.
Irish farmers can be rightly proud of this gesture. And similar can also be done by other professions in Ireland. But the farmers will own this small gesture and rightly so. It's theirs to own. This from land workers in one of the richest countries on the planet.
An aside. A man by the name of William Albrecht noted that a large majority of volunteers for the United States military in WW1 came from the mid west fertile deep soil. He put this down to the balance of minerals of the soil and how the people grew and how it formed them.
His pioneering looking at soil (and people) contributed to a new soil testing system that is still being understood today.
Go farmers. Shaming the rest of us.
Russia invaded Ukraine through Belarus. We don't know if they will do that again, or if Putin will convince Belarus to enter the war separately, all options are possible, which is why Ukraine has to station valuable troops and equipment there to counter a possible attack.
...
You over simplify perhaps. There's a difference between "not doing absolutely everything in their power to support Ukraine in every way possible" and those actively frustrating others who may wish to do more.
Ireland may not be doing everything in our power but we're not stopping or frustrating others in terms of help. That's quite a difference.
I understand the differences in complexity between say Transport / Trucks etc, and Military / Tanks. / Weapon systems. I was in that line of business on the civilian side so I have a fairly good idea. Even so, regardless of its complexity, it will have a maintenance schedule as per manufacturers recommendations to keep it in optimum condition. Even my wheel barrow gets it's axle greased when needed, just to keep the wheel running smoothly. And for sure when the military decide on some new equipment they want, all of these requirement's will have been factored in to the equation. The 4 x 4 5 tonners I mentioned were Mercedes Benz, and compared to the cost of a single tank, were bought for buttons, and of course easily replaceable from the production lines ( could be bought off the shelf, literally) but a multi million tank, now that's something else,,,keeping that in first class working order would ( or should ) have been on a first priority basis, even if it never fired a shot in anger. So I'm a little skeptical about major repairs needed before transfer to Ukraine. Hypothetical case,,,,Putins 3 day war had worked, and shortly after, he is on the border of East Germany...... and Scholz calls the military and tells them I want those Leopard's on the border, and I want then now!!! Only to be told, Herr Scholz, sorry to report, but ze Leopards are all in ze Workshops...maybe next month?
Sure they are carrying a certain amount of baggage from ww2, and Germanys part in it. I've worked with quite a few of them too, and some of them from a military background. But personally, the ones I worked with never gave any indication that I saw that WW2 affected their outlook on life in any way. According to them, yes, it happened, and for that and Germany's part in it, we are sorry, but that was a generation ago, something we did not have any control over.
But did the East Germans have a military that big or was it all just Russian occupation forces , sure the stasi intelligence had a large portion of the population on their books for spies.
West Germany as I said above they had a military but the Largest military force In Germany was the US military and other Nato countries stationed there ,
At one point they had developed their own stealth fighter similar to the US F177 but with an even smaller radar cross section and yet they binned and cancelled the program,their airforce has been mainly made up of American aircraft until the tornado was developed and then the euro fighter typhoon,
They are able to produce modern firearms but even that they had a less than stellar procurement system
Former President of Estonia says what he thinks of Swiss neutrality. I'd doff my hat to him if I wore one.
Countries should just send what they have now and worry about arguing with all the nyet wankers some other year. My bet is that Switzerland wouldn't dare to go to court and expose it's vile essence to the full glare of the world's media and opprobrium.
Unfortunately realistic criticism and this thread don't go hand in hand. Basically any country not doing absolutely everything in their power to support Ukraine in every way possible is considered a Putin collaborator. At least in the eyes of a handful of posters whose own great contribution to the war effort consists in posting on boards 50 times a day....
0.28% amnestied talk about a forlorn hope
I'd broadly split our neutrality into two areas, military and political. We're not politically neutral as this war demonstrates, but we can be militarily neutral. Though I would certainly massively ramp up funding for our military. Not pie in the sky woefully expensive fighter jets only any use for airshows, but anti air/tank/personnel systems and the like.
That is well thought through and makes some good points. I think it is much simpler than that - neutrality is very cheap, financially.
I know they are not all bad, but it's gotten very hard to give a shit.
On a more positive note a report that the city of Kreminna is starting to be liberated from the russian invaders.
To be quite honest, I think Ireland's self-image is a bit part of the reason for our lack of any kind of credible defence infrastructure. We still tend to see ourselves as strategically entirely irrelevant and have some notion that nobody would ever wish us any harm. We were irrelevant, certainly in the mid 20th century. Other than as a staging post to maybe enter the UK, and there's no way that would have been allowed, we seemed to be just of the view that we could keep our heads down and nobody would ever pay much attention to us.
However, we've become a lot more relevant as a hub of technology and a growing minor financial centre and so on, as well as being a member of the EU and the Eurozone. We still might not be very relevant, but we're as big a deal as many other smallish EU countries and I don't think we've really had our notion of our place in the world or our defence systems keep pace with that at all.
Our neutrality to me smacks of a 'holier than thou' sort of sentiment in some ways and it's very, very poorly defined. I mean, the Swiss are neutral to the point of being so neutral they'll let harm happen. The nordic countries were neutral largely to fulfil a weird Cold War strategy where they were keeping a non-aligned status quo, but were highly equipped and capable of defending themselves too. Ireland's neutrality is more about just the luxury of being located where we are.
It's a bit like concluding you live in the back of beyond, therefore door locks and security systems are totally unnecessary, until some roving crime gang turns up and you're done over.
I think in many ways that Russian missile test of the SW coast was a massive wake up call. Nowhere's really THAT far away from trouble just because of geography.
The most likely scenario of Ireland being invaded by a foreign power would be by the UK itself. Historically, the only people who ever invaded Ireland were either those who came from that territory which comprises modern day UK or had a strong foothold there. Strategically, it would be a difficult place to invade and hold without having Britain boxed off to some degree or else having the UK on your side. Failing that, it's just not important or interesting enough to get to in a big and obvious military kind of way, although as a base for espionage would be a different story. Airstrikes on targets within Ireland that could be deemed strategically-significant by enemies would be the biggest concern, i.e. Shannon, but I think that in that event, weapons would be provided to Ireland in order to defend those sites, and it wouldn't be an altruistic gesture by our friends to the east or west, but very much in the interest of protecting their own military assets within Irish territory.
Rocket attack on a residential high-rise building in Dnipro: names of 44 people from the 52nd Guards Regiment (Shaykivka) involved in the terrorist attack.
There is also data on family members. Revenge is served cold.
Glad my son didn't take part in firing that missile... Which reminds me, there was a very busy coffin trade exhibition in Moscow only a few months ago.
In Dnipro, the body of another civilian was taken out from under the rubble of a high-rise building, destroyed yesterday by Russians. In total, it is known about 30 dead, - said Natalia Babachenko, adviser to the head of the Dnipropetrovsk OVA, during the "United News" telethon
They'd massive largely totally useless militaries that were basically glorified civil defence. A slight breeze could have taken them out, never mind an actual army.
Yeah, they deserve criticism, but it needs to be realistic criticism.
There's a whole lot of short sighted NIMBYism type stuff behind many of those decisions.
In general I think Europe is full of fair weather friends. We saw that in the financial crisis and we're seeing it again now. Some of it is just lack of structures and resources, but some of it is genuinely just still an 'every one for themselves' mentality when there's a crisis.
It really annoyed me to see the initial scramble for resources when COVID-19 hit and we'd stories of countries trying to hoard supplies and so on. I don't think that bodes well for Europe tbh. It came together in the end, but the initial response from quite a few countries was domestic states of emergency and to hell with the neighbours.
In Soledar, intense fighting continues. The losses of the soldiers of the Russian army in the Bakhmut direction are actually great, they continue to attack our positions literally on the bodies of previously killed Russians, - commented during the telethon "United News" spokesman of the Eastern grouping of troops of the Armed Forces of Ukraine Colonel Serhiy Cherevatyi
According to the spokesman, the hottest part of the front is Bakhmut, Soledar, Klishchiivka, Bakhmutivka, Dispute, and other settlements.
"234 strikes were carried out there by the enemy in a day, there were 32 combat clashes, the enemy lost 119 people killed and 108 wounded only in this direction. In particular, the enemy fired at Soledar himself 70 times with various artillery systems," he said.
Looks like Soledar has not been conceded - Slava Ukraini.
![Photo of [Deleted User]](https://we.vanillicon.com/v2/e050b53be62f0ae2404c620976170938.svg)
![Photo of [Deleted User]](https://wb.vanillicon.com/v2/b1aba361f5b77a8017be035a0d4fc285.svg)
