Russia-Ukraine War

In fairness the suspension-wrecking pothole has been a staple of Russian dashcam vids for many years now. Along with vodka-sodden drivers, wheel-losing trucks, mafia-driven-G-wagons and general couldnt-give-a-sh1t-about-human-life driving.

Still don’t understand why they tried attacking from north west across river with no bridges with Ukrainians on three sides, not north or east in Kursk

why is his scalp completely different to his forehead

Could be AI generated putin for all we know

BlyatGPT running on old Soviet vacuum tubes underperforming again

Lead engineers have joined hypersonic missile scientists on a paid vacation to upskill at a window making factory in Siberia where they can gather inspiration

plastic surgery, botox, hair of a kitten, head of a toad or whatever those witches drew up at Halloween, Russians are into all that stuff!😁apparently. It would not surprise me if they had a cloning unit somewhere doing all kinds of stuff these last 60 years.

Fine. We can just rename them 'Special Range Missiles'

Soviet snitch culture revived in Putin's Russia, choose your enemies carefully:

I almost forgot how concerned people were when Putin said western tanks rolling through Ukraine, especially German would mean direct war. And then it became western missiles. And then it became western fighter jets. And now it's western missiles in Russia. I've probably missed out on a whole lot too.

At this point the west knows. So what's the real reason Germany won't send Taurus? Not even to strike within just Ukraine at this point is baffling.

Scholz has been strange from the beginning, partly due to Germany's weird relationship with Russia over the last 80 years, partly for reasons probably only he understands. But his basic tendency is: see what Biden does, then follow his example. So if US, UK and France give the green light, it greatly increases chance Germany will do the same.

The German Greens have been much more consistently pro Ukraine but unfortunately they aren't in the driving seat of the coalition

Just on the Taurus, Germany has 600 missiles in its inventory, most of which are in long-term storage. Only around 150 are available for operational use, and likely included in the Bundeswehr's plans for homeland defense or Article 5 use. The other missiles would need to be made operational, which would take time and effort. They're also a finite resource, without any prospect of short-term production, the Taurus production line was shut down years ago when the Bundeswehr's original order was fulfilled. This will also reduce the number of spare parts available, potentially reducing the numbers of available missiles even further. The maximum number of missiles that could have been provided to Ukraine was discussed to be around 50-60 in total, according to that leaked Bundeswehr conference call from last year.

A bigger issue is the programing and mission planning, which would be reliant on data directly provided by Germany. A lot of the details are classified, but from what I've been able to gather, the Taurus mission planning system is reliant on Germany's constellation of SAR Lupe reconnaissance satellites as well as other similar classified sources. Taurus export customers Spain and South Korea have their own satellite systems to plug in to this. Ukraine does not. As such, targeting would still have to be provided by Germany, prepared by Bundeswehr staff, which would turn Germany into a direct participant. From what I've been able to gather, SCALP and Storm Shadow are less discriminate about their targeting data, allowing Ukraine to do that work completely in-house.

Finally, it's worth noting where the biggest opposition to providing Taurus to Ukraine is coming from. It's not Scholz, or even the SPD as a whole. It's the German military that is strictly opposed to handing over these weapons. It's because of the legal concerns about actually becoming an active party in the war, it's because of security concerns of losing a missile intact over Russian territory, and it's because of their concern about a loss of capability of the Bundeswehr in general, where Taurus is considered the country's premier, and really only, long range strike weapon. And just to add, that's the same military leadership that has had no qualms about having its arsenals raided of Leopard 2, Pzh-2000, Patriot, Stinger, a whole zoo of APCs, etc., which goes to show how serious this is for them.

My source for this is a German blog called U.M., short for Ungesunder Menschenverstand, or Uncommon Sense. The guy behind that blog is a veteran of several decades in the Bundeswehr who was involved amongst other things in military intelligence, satellite/aerial reconnaissance analysis and maritime patrol and surveillance. I consider the source to be highly reliable myself.

Do you think that the US and Britain will cross this latest Red Line. If they don't how will they explain their failure to do after all the recent suggestions that they would. Surely, they can't back off now, just because Putin threatened retaliation! That would leave the western alliance looking extremely weak imo.

It be crossed just like every other red line he scribbled because at end of day Putin started this war and only Putin can end it by going home or expand it by declaring war on others (or attacking other states which would be same thing)

The last thing Putin can afford is war with anyone else, they are stuck 30 mile’s inside poorest country in Europe three years into their three day war

Russian central bank has raised interest rates to 19%

The US wants to allow Ukraine use storm shadows in Russia but they use US parts, and so far the US haven't allowed it.

But all signs point to the UK and US allowing Ukraine use them and ATACMS. It doesn't seem like the usual unamed sources speculating.

It's high time they got off the fence and just allow Ukraine do what it needs to win this war. I've said it before, even if Ukraine took back all their land, Russia can still lob artillery, drones and missiles across it's border into Ukraine with impunity if Ukraine's hands are tied.

Treat Ukraine like any other ally and stop dictating what weapons they are allowed and how they are allowed use them.