Holien

Sorry I disagree, Putin wants a veneer of an election where he wins comfortably. Yes sure he can waft his bigus dickus with a raft of mafia like measures but for the election he needs to be seen as winning. He needs battlefield victory hence the current pressure on military meaningless bits of Ukrainian soil. Removing a candidate that was allowed to stand indicates further weakness. If Putin felt strong he would declare himself the ultimate ruler and dispense with the sham but for some reason he needs an election victory.

Yep, the one good thing coming out of the current T mess in America is that Europe seems to be stepping up and in the short term until Europe has internal production sorted America will gain more sales. It would be good if deals on key ammunition could be done at cost plus small % profit. Ukraine needs to keep Russia at bay and we (Europe) have to provide them with at a minimum the ammunition to do so. Even if that means spending money in America.

Nadezhdin use for us is an indication of the problems Putler is facing. He was never going to win, but he was needed to make a sham election "look" like an election. The fact he has been pulled speaks volumes about Moscows lack of control of the sham.

Or a smart opponent who has been watching SOP of the base for long enough to work out the security flaws. Or some one on the base passing information to the wrong people. I would love to blame Russia for everything but this one seems a bit of a stretch. For sure Iran, China, North Korea and Russia will be learning off one another but how quickly and what lessons are passed on is open to discussion. It would be a gold mine of intelligence if the west could spy on those WhatsApp discussions...

Hmmm any evidence on that? I know a certain Lord is being investigated and assets frozen for rather a large sum of British tax payers money. So for you to say the corruption in Ukraine is a different order of magnitude seems to indicate that you have some figures or evidence to prove that? Love to hear / see it? Humans are humans and an element will try and get rich off the backs of others, no matter what country you care to mention. What matters is how it is policed and a consistent law applied to everyone in that country.

Yes corruption exists in all societies, so likely true. In WW2 people were involved in corruption and other crimes. During the national COVID crisis there were many who ripped off the UK, hopefully some are getting justice now... To think that in Ukraine there will be no corruption is naive. It is good it is being tackled and those caught dealt with.

Fair point... Maybe not for the Russians if there ISR is still pants....

Hmmm dangerous for any side doing this as the camera leading up to the event can give away important information about the area behind the lines. The age of digital recording and desire to be a digital media superstar is making it harder to keep OpSec.

Sweet.... Thanks now I get to use AI... Ohh to be a graduate again....

I presume Russia moving Ukrainian POWs would use buses or trains to get to a land border crossing point not expensive planes? This smells of Russian BS as usual. Anyone know about the previous swaps and how they took place?

This attack on the 13th how do we know of the ones that got through did they not hit military valid targets? Not many reports of residential areas being hit? 26 missiles hit something that they were aimed at? I think the Russians are getting smarter and we won't necessarily be told (rightly so) how better they are getting. Just my 2p. I would certainly support giving Ukraine even more modern AD and especially Patriot systems and ammo but alas that seems unlikely at the moment as world tensions rise.

Hmm I am not so sure we would know as I think Ukraine is pretty good at keeping quiet about Russian success. I do think the AD is holding up but they are slipping some missiles through and we don't get reports on what they hit. So not sure this is still true?

A question for the forum… What if American Aid / support stops this year? My view is that as long as the other countries providing support that Ukraine will be able to defend and hold Russia off but they won’t be able to advance any further. We have seen other conflicts where a small flow of arms is enough to keep the conflict going. Russia has lost the best of their forces and are struggling to keep feeding meat into the attack. Russia rear areas are no longer safe and disruption to the war effort seems likely to continue even without American arms. Ukraine does have problems getting new recruits but I think there is enough to keep Russia at bay. The lack of Artillery shells might cause local setbacks but if a steady supply can be maintained I am thinking that Ukraine can hold the line. Ultimately if the rest of NATO provides funds America will gladly sell Ammo to Ukraine funded via Europe. I guess at worst it will force Ukraine to maybe entertain talking to the devil? Is the loss of American military aid the end of Ukraine? Answers on a postcard…

He knows he will lose and it costs a lot of money to keep a campaign running. He has made a choice to back Trump in the hope he will get something out of it "IF" Trump wins... Either way he will stay in favour of those that voted Trump for future elections... Trump will win the Republican primaries that has been known for quite a while. The Primaries see only a small fraction of those that can vote turn out and it is easy for a hardcore percentage to sway it for Trump. What we don't know is how many of every Republican will vote Trump at the election. Iowa was useful to see that nearly 50% of those that turned out did not vote Trump. In 2024 there are roughly 752k Registered Republican voters - only just over 100k of those voted in the primary. So he only got support from just over 52k of those that came out to vote. A lot can happen in the time before the vote in November. The Democrats have yet to fire up their campaign and Trump is getting a lot of free publicity at the court houses... That could turn out to be bad publicity by Nov... Anyway that's enough on American politics, back to Ukraine...

Ask not what Battlefront can do for you but what you can do for Battlefront. The stats are on the slitherine web pages...

While I get your sentiment, it does puzzle me why Putler cares about election results and hasn't done a mass mobilisation. So I think he does fear the public sentiment and the lack of Eggs and being cold don't make for happiness in Russia. So maybe the continued internal cracks will eventually change his confidence....

This just shows how it could be being tackled... It really shows the war in Gaza for what it is an excuse to remove the people from the area and give more land to be settled. As noted time and time again these actions will not make Israel safer and will not bring security to the region. If folk want safety for Israel this is absolutely the wrong approach. Russia has the excuse that their targeting systems are crap, the IDF are hitting exactly what they want and when they want to. This makes imo the IDF worse than the Russians yet they are not being held to account. Send them more ammo to murder more innocents to make Israel (and the world) less secure... Dohhh...

No it didn't. Shame on you...

Hi, just bombing the thread with YouTube links and no explanation puts you on my troll list. So care to explain your POV?

Good luck finding many journalists left alive in that area, the number of deaths have peaked and even in "safer" areas they have specifically been shot by IDF forces in the recent past. The BBC have been trying to show balance by reporting both sides of what is happening in Israel outside Gaza and have had IDF troops intimidation when interviewing Palestinian activists. Israeli citizens who have tried to raise their opposition have been falsely arrested and intimidated by the police. The courts independence are under attack by the government and before this horrific terrorist attack parts of the IDF were striking in protest against the extreme right wing government. The attack has allowed the extremists in the Israeli government to try and use it for their own ends. As has been said on other threads if you want to be the good guy you need to do the right things.

There have been videos circulating on a whole raft of very poor discipline in the IDF all related to the way they treat Arabs. People don't realise what level of anti Palestine sentiment is being stirred up and allowed to influence the forces on the ground. The Israeli media and leadership are in effect encouraging the IDF to commit war crimes. Even pop songs... There are whistle blowers trying to raise concerns but they are deemed enemies of the real Israelis. As the captain pointed out there are better ways to conduct this whole exercise. The current tragedy could have been avoided by a more careful measured approach but at the moment there is a rush to destroy Gaza before the Western world wakes up. In the UK our PM just went to Italy for a right wing get together talking about mass migration being used as a weapon to overwhelm Europe. 2 million folk in Gaza will be looking for homes.... Perhaps he should be putting pressure on getting Israel to move slowly and more accurately against Hamas rather than razing Gaza to the ground.

Are we there yet!!!

Hmmm Analysis as of the 29th Nov - Look at the pretty graphic just scroll down a bit... https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-middle-east-67565872 As of the 12th Dec estimated at nearly 20% https://www.reuters.com/world/middle-east/nearly-fifth-gazas-buildings-destroyed-or-damaged-un-estimate-2023-12-12/ Why don't you actually do some fact checking before posting... The Capt really sums it up well.... BTW - I have personal bets on If War Crimes have been committed? If anyone will be held to account? Also on how many buildings Israel rebuilds for the folk of Gaza?

Hmmm I wonder if mistakes were made after that where folk used the incident for their own political ends which then had / continue to have impacts today. Pity we don't learn from our past. BTW I predict further forced migration to Europe, the Russian playbook being used by others... Maybe some folk do learn? Anyway thanks @The_Capt for trying to explain that there is another way of doing things which would be legal and still deal with the scum of Hamas.

Well it's odd that it has left one not two and in FOG2 it doesn't do that. Also with round 1 it didn't leave any turns. So it seems to be a bug, but I can (am) just ignore it, just thought I would mention it...