What's their Boards.ie username? Timmysomething?
France going into Mali was akin to the UK sending troops to NI. After the coup in 2021 and a conglomerate of civilian incidents, they were never going to sway the Mali's back to democracy. Like a lot of ex-colonies in Africa, Wagner were waiting in the wings for their opportunity to set up a "partnership".
Dictators want to hold onto power, and for their (un)fair share, Wagner will help support this cause.
It takes years for this cycle to undo itself, when people cop on that having a self righteous dictator, may not be the best thing for them. We're seeing this currently unfold in Sudan.
Also worth a note, Ireland had numerous troops in Mali as part of the UN mission, just in case anyone wants to try divert down the "er mah gherd... west badddd" argument.
This is some gap in munitions / shell production from West to Ukraine. Whats equally as worrying is the Wests way lower production vs Russian production IF ( some say when ) the day comes Russia invades further west into Europe
Russia appears on track to produce nearly three times more artillery munitions than the US and Europe, a key advantage ahead of what is expected to be another Russian offensive in Ukraine later this year.
But most Russian artillery is dumb and ends up in an empty field.
Maybe .. but still a threat and alot of it still works. Shear volume in some cases can count and backed by an putins war time economy which is competely focused on war and where Putin & Co dont give a crap about the state or its people. these are all "advantages" vs the west for the long term .. Of Course, IF they can keep this up. We also see this shear volume mentality where fodder to the meat grinder is concerned. That matters also .. if you throw enough at a thing then it will have successes?
I am all for arming Ukraine to the hilt and also have no issues what so ever with Ukraine attacking where it wants inside Russia including the Kremlin. The sooner the better as far as Im concerned, bring the war to the heart of Russia. And i think Ukraine should be resourced accordingly with weapons and support to do that job. I really dont care what Putin thinks, THAT has been the problem with the wests attitude to Putin for too long now. Gloves should be well off now
Big fire in Moscow
Artillery is an issue here due to lack of air support, in any NATO-led scenario, the artillery would be wiped out in days and the massive amounts of ordinance worthless.
What is shows is that russia is planning future operations against non-NATO countries, the air-superiority gap to NATO is too large.
And that brings me to another Q - WHY WHY WHY is it taking so long to furnish Ukraine with the F16s FFS. I dont believe one minute that its "TRAINING". Is this more appeasement of sorts? Definitely swinging the lead too long now in this regard
Meanwhile in the land of HYBRID Warfare:
I wonder re that recent Linkedin outage & FB, Insta etc before that last week I mentioned over at the Social media platform thread here??
Microsoft said Friday it’s still trying to evict the elite Russian government hackers who broke into the email accounts of senior company executives in November and who it said have been trying to breach customer networks with stolen access data.
.. Microsoft said Friday that the hackers stole “secrets” from email communications between the company and unspecified customers — cryptographic secrets such as passwords, certificates and authentication keys —and that it was reaching out to them “to assist in taking mitigating measures.”
Cloud-computing company Hewlett Packard Enterprise disclosed on Jan. 24 that it, too, was an SVR hacking victim and that it had been informed of the breach — by whom it would not say — two weeks earlier, coinciding with Microsoft’s discovery it had been hacked.
“The threat actor’s ongoing attack is characterized by a sustained, significant commitment of the threat actor’s resources, coordination, and focus,”
“This has tremendous national security implications,” said Tom Kellermann of the cybersecurity firm Contrast Security.
A direct admission that Russia is behind these hacks on MS and HP and others
And about this - "significant commitment of the threat actor’s resources, coordination, and focus" - that really does point at state deep pockets to finance such things on on going basis
Russia has halved its arms exports. Ukraine leads importers
The war in Ukraine has had a significant impact on the global arms trade. The United States traditionally ranks first in arms exports, according to a report by the Stockholm International Peace Research Institute (SIPRI). France is in second place. The increase in French arms exports is mainly due to the delivery of combat aircraft to India, Qatar and Egypt. Russia has moved into third place.
https://twitter.com/nexta_tv/status/1767108268541796628
Think part of it is to do with the nations supplying them. The various countries were expecting to be in the second or third tranche of deliveries.
Problem is that someone has to go first. Would be embarrassing in some ways if the French came up with "alternative" supplies first.
Getting Vladimir Putin in is easy, the problem will be when after sampling his peace methods, they want him to leave...but by then it will be too late.
I don't know but it is a US plane, the US was probably expected to be the one heavily supporting it in terms of maintenance, parts and weapons.
As of now the US is off the board (as regards funding new military supplies) so I am wondering if the block on the US aid package is having (or could have) any impact on the timeframe?
Maybe should have gone with a European plane as the mainstay for them in hindsight, even if there's far fewer available and less capacity to supply weapons for them (and it might also denude European air forces for a time?) there is less reliance on what is going on in US politics.
Yip I really hope this time around we heed the wakeup call in Europe to cut our dependence on the USA and build our own defenses and arms production etc. It is essential now. We had a warning call when last trump was president, that shouls have been enough to cut dependence but instead Europe sat back again when biden got in and said Phew, rather than learning a lesson. Now we are where we are with a very very possible President Trump in January 25.
I would even be happy if NATO dumped USA at this stage before being dumped. We just cannot depend on the USA any more. Even now I think TRUMP is the real president and running the US vs Biden such is the way the US system is.
We are really dancing around this. Putin with his threats that if Western boots land on Ukraine soil it will signal to him to go nuclear. There are already western boots on the ground in Ukraine FFS, inc Irish de-miners as far as I know?
How dare Putin make these threats about who Ukraine has on its own soverign territory. Its about time the west grew a pair and have European troops in Ukraine to act as support behind the front lines and police borders with Belarus etc.
ha ..
I think the Irish are conducting the training in Poland.
Yes, the west is too fainthearted and needs to get real. Boots on the ground. Big guns. Jets. The whole works, come what may. Ukraine was promised security and the west needs to provide it.
They have a seal on the box, lol.
Orban told Hungarian tv last night that that Trump told him he won’t give a penny to Ukraine if reelected and that the war would be over soon then. Trump is currently bookies favourite to win. Bleak.
On first paragraph, yes I think Trump (1st term) was seen as a random fluke, rather than a harbinger or a symptom of something and reaction to it has been too slow.
On second paragraph would not agree there, but basically the European/EU countries cannot consider NATO and the alliance with the US in the way that they used to (and have since WW2). Hope for the best, but prepare for the worst.
Even in Cold war (when Western Europeans had very large militaries and spent lot more, many had conscription etc.) it was expected the US would be the glue, provider of certain capabilities, and the main organiser + ultimate backstop, coming to the rescue but this doesn't seem to be certain any longer and has become at least partly subject to back and forth of US domestic politics.
They have to start to consider deterring & fighting border threats like Putin's Russia without any help provided at all from the US (they cannot do that fully/well enough at present I think).
When you start to consider implications, it is a big deal (for Europeans), and we could be in for some serious changes.
This, yes bleak
Yeah, but neither is well known for their fact-based public speaking. Who knows what will happen.
"It is obvious that Ukraine cannot stand on its own feet," Mr Orban told Hungary's M1 TV channel late on Sunday.
"If the Americans don't give money and weapons, along with the Europeans, then the war is over. And if the Americans don't give money, the Europeans alone are unable to finance this war. And then the war is over."
Orbán is a truly despicable man, and his ancestors would be appalled to know their fight against the USSR has led to this corrupt toady trying to cosy up to the KGB autocrat as he invades Eastern Europe all over again.
Really should have been tackled more forcefully by the EU/other members at this stage, using all tools available to them.
Leaving him alone pretty much, working around him with sticks and carrots when something requiring unanimity needs to be shepherded through the EU machinery (current policy) is not cost-free.
There is a price paid for it (stuff like this).
True. Although Trump’s base is very anti giving aid to Ukraine so he probably won’t, he’s unhinged and doesn’t care. I think it’ll be a **** show if he gets in.
Forgive my naivety but is there anyone on the ballot apart from Putin? I know there were at least 1 or 2 willing candidates who were told they were ineligible because their paperwork wasn't in order or some nonsense like that. Is there anyone left to even create a pretence of choice?
People close to Trump's inner circle have said the plan is basically the following: stop Ukraine getting American weapons between now and the election to weaken their position and force them into giving up land for security guarantees. Then, once Trump is in power, tell Putin that if he doesn't just take the east and agree to end the war then the US will resume weapon supplies to Ukraine, delivering more pain to the Russians. Sounds plausible though I'm not sure I believe Trump really thinks that strategically and also no guarantee either Ukraine or Putin will play along.
The only thing certain is that Trump has zero concern about Ukraine from a human rights or democracy perspective. Any actions will serve only him and his weird vision for America
Can Trump singlehandedly stop aid or can congress prevent him?
There was one guy that got 20% of the votes in a poll so the Gremlin disqualified him. Democracy Russian style.
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