Russia - threadbanned users in OP

Well they're hardly keeping you in the loop with daily emails are they? It's not something that will be talked about now, it's a subject that will definitely be discussed in years to come though. Ukraine will pull the israeli reason for the need for nukes and I honestly don't see too much opposition coming their way (apart from Russia, Belarus and possibly Hungary).

You're the one suggesting the neanderthal (Russian) approach to battering each other with sticks and rocks until either there are no rocks left or no heads left to bash them against. I'm saying that Ukraine are going to win the attritional battle by not throwing their own people into the pointless destruction of their own land, and instead are being innovative in how they use what resources they have to do maximum strategic damage to Russia.

There is absolutely no point in Ukraine sending 10000 Ukrainans to die in an attempt to re-take Bahkmut (for example) when they can destroy a whole battleship (and crew) or a best-they've-got AWACS aircraft (and crew) with a few well-targetted missiles. "Attrition" does not mean that one life lost here has the same value as one lost there; nor does one Bradley lost in Avdiivka equate to the shooting down of one IL-22 over the Azov Sea.

It's significant (to me, at least) that Zelenskyy recently said of the on-going mobilisation debate that they need people to return to Ukraine to work, not to fight. That suggests to me that Ukraine already has an idea of how they're going to undermine Russia's aggression in the short to medium term, and have the country ready to leap forward when the Kremlin is finally forced to concede defeat.

The cynical side of me thinks that "the West" is happy enough to continue as is, as long as Russia is taking heavy losses (or being "degraded" in military terms). A war of attrition, with Ukraine also capable to eliminate some high-value targets with HIMARs, Storm Shadow missiles and the likes.

The reason everyone jumped to support Ukraine was the fear that if Putin takes Ukraine, where would it stop. We could be next.

If Russia now tried to annex, say, a Balkan state they would need a hell of a lot of men to do so. Which seems implausible as they are already running out of men in Ukraine, including top Generals. And a NATO country would not have to go begging for sufficient ammunition like Ukraine has to. Not to mention the decreasing popularity of the war within Russia, and the grinding effect of sanctions and just the sheer death toll. The alleged 350,000 dead Russians all have families back home.

Basically, job done.

Absolutely I said that early on this thread it will have to be the way forward, the EU can't rely on the US anymore we need an EU army but the usual suspects will bog any plans down trying to decide who gets command of any EU army and where the HQ would be built looking at the french and Germans here and we will still have the issue of countries not Willing to meet an financial spending as we have seen with NATO heading to year three of this war and still countries meeting the NATO spending requirements,but yet still have a say and expect to defended, it we are going forward with an EU army everyone has to commit to increased defence spending and assisting those like us who have seen our defence completely abandoned in the hope everyone else will fight and defend us in a future conflict

Friends of Russia can't see that happening either,I could see alot of EU states suddenly saying we're not interested in funding Ukraine if they are going to try acquire nukes

@threeball

Russia has a population of around 140,000,000 (-350,000?). NATO countries have a combined population of almost one billion. Even assuming that NATO falls apart, the EU has common defence policies in place, and the population of the EU is 448 million.

The point is that Russia ain't that big if it wants to start trying to throw its weight around some more. Sure, it's big geographically, but most of Russia is wilderness and arctic wasteland. When you're talking about the livable parts, it's much, much smaller.

In order for Russia to launch any other attacks on countries, they would first have to totally rebuild their military and then wait for a point that the alliances protecting their intended targets fall apart, which is not a guarantee.

Frankly, I'm surprised that Russia bothered with any military action at all. Their undermining of Western solidarity with online trolling was going pretty well for them, and it was, ironically, Russia trying to land a real physical blow that didn't bring the edifice down, but instead galvanised it. Putin could have brought the whole thing down without ever raising a finger if he'd been patient, but I suppose he wanted to sit in the shade of the tree he planted.

Maybe/maybe not

I dont think Ukraine will care too much one way or another, I think they will do whatever they feel is necessary to ensure they're never attacked like this again.

Why does 200k shells cost 1BN? Seems a bit pricey no or are these the higher quality shells?

If Russia had any sense they wouldn't have invaded Ukraine but its obvious that they don't. Hoping they don't go a step further after a victory in Ukraine is wishful thinking at best. Regardless of population, I doubt any western nation savours the idea of even one missile landing in their city or town. They may be a shambles but they have the capacity to inflict serious damage where its absolutely unnecessary to absorb any just by giving Ukraine enough to get the job done.

"after a victory in Ukraine"

There are thousands of dead moskovytes and thousands of pieces of military equipment lost by putin in invading Ukraine that would mean even holding the territory they still occupy or ceasing some more could not be viewed by anyone of reasonable sanity as a victory. putin's forces could not even hold large areas of Ukraine that they initially tried to occupy as their attack was the very definition of the phrase biting off too much to chew. I can see a future where the term Pyrrhic victory will be replaced by the term putin victory as any imagined gains he will have achieved for himself in attacking Ukraine will be so massively outweighed by the losses the russian federation have and will continue to suffer because of his empire building ambitions.

I would like to see more shipment of arms to Ukraine from the countries that have pledged to support them in their fight against putin's terrorist state but unlike many here on this thread I wont pretend to be well informed about the actual quantity or quality of weapons being sent there. It is in Ukraine's interest to always say they need more and it is in no one's interest to give putin an accurate picture of what his forces are going to face in their fight to occupy parts of Ukraine. From the sources I would give credibility to there is agreement that weapons production is increasing in those countries that support Ukraine and more importantly for Ukraine their own weapons production abilities are rapidly increasing and in a much better state now than they were before putin attacked.