Holien

From the cheap (and safe) seats, I would go for it.  But, and it is a big “But”, they would need to create and sustain operational pre-conditions first.  The problem with defence only, except for largely symbolic high profile strategic strikes, is that Russia gets to say when it is time to “stop”.  There is analysis out there (and posted here) that points to 2026 as Russia’s out-of-gas moment.  But that is a long way out and conditions could change a lot. So pinning the war on attritional hopes is a strategy but it definitely comes with risks.  The same goes for internal dissent eventually toppling the Russian political power structure.  It can happen but hard to build a plan off of, and we have gone on at length on the risks of another Russian Revolution.
Offensive operations make headlines, signal resolve and play into “we love a winner” in the West.  If the UA sit back and dig in there will be huge and cry on “well we sent them all that stuff and they are doing nothing!”  The real trick is to find where the risk-v-gamble line is.  We do not want a final gamble but a forward leaning risk.  But how to do it?  This remains the outstanding question.  How to do it with what they have and can support?  My money is on light, fast and distributed.  Infiltration, isolation and exploitation.  But the UA will have to do this in multiple areas to increase RA lateral friction.  All the while hitting the backfield.
Tricky, tough and absolutely no guarantees.  Of course we can’t see the hi res picture.  If we had that maybe the choice is far more obvious.

Try living next door.  The short answer is “$$$”.  US has most of it and is the safest place on the planet to put your own.  Or at least was.  I have worked in multinational and bilateral situation with the US and if they have a key fault it is “it has to be our idea”.  The US will operate at a net loss to support allies and partners…if it “is our idea”.  Everytime I have ever run into collisions with US counter parts it is when an idea other than their own gains traction.  I have seen US players take someone else’s idea and make it their own, which also works…but it has to be “our idea”.  Love them Yanks but they need to be “managed” from time to time,
What we are really seeing has a few core dimensions but they all center around where the US sees itself both internally and externally.  In some ways this is a referendum on US global primacy and leadership.  In other ways it is a referendum on US internal identity and democracy.   So essentially what is the “deal of the USA”.  This is nowhere near the first time it has happened, not even close.  This is the first time the US has gone through this while being the last super power though.

That entire theory does not track at all.  The UA already hit that damned bridge and Russia did not buckle.  The idea that if we somehow hit it that it will be the starting gun to internal dissent is the sort of wild theory the critics on the right use against support of Ukraine in this thing.  FFS the UA hit Moscow with long range drones and it did not increase internal dissent.  
Further if the Kerch Bridge is so symbolic that it can topple Russia, then why isn’t the opposite true and it drives support in Russia for this war to all time highs?  I mean if the fate of the Russian people is tied to that bridge Putin should have dropped it himself as a demonstration of just how under siege the greater Russia is by the West.

About the influence of Russia & China into German politics: both the number 1 & 2 for the upcoming vote for the EU parliament of our local fascist party AfD are under the suspicion of taking Russian money. Additionally, the head of the office of #1 has been detained for being a Chinese spy.
And people still vote for them: they get about 15-30% (depending on state). If we had only two parties, I guess the political landscape wouldn't be much different than in the US.

Hmmm he has not fallen out of a window? 
"Russian deputy defence minister detained for allegedly taking bribes"
Power struggles at the top?
https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-europe-68886406
Quite unusual for corruption charges to be laid against a top table player.
Maybe for mass consumption? 

Yeah, basically stick a little primer shell onto each mine with a cheap timer or some kind of short range remote control trigger.  

Hmmm he has not fallen out of a window? 
"Russian deputy defence minister detained for allegedly taking bribes"
Power struggles at the top?
https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-europe-68886406
Quite unusual for corruption charges to be laid against a top table player.
Maybe for mass consumption? 

Yet you do!!! Time again you do!
What has it to do with Ukraine?
🙄

Yet you do!!! Time again you do!
What has it to do with Ukraine?
🙄

If I did this right, I gifted the article and it gave me a gift link (I think), for those who want to read it. If it doesn't work for you PM me and I'll try to get it right.
https://wapo.st/3vZhk1f
Dave

your attempt to play the both-siderism game is pathetic and shows an incredible amount of ignorance, both in historic and in current events.  What Gingerich did was completely unprecedented.  What McConnell did was completely unprecedented.  And Trump is off the charts for breaking both norms and laws.  ANd where on the left are the insane ones that are wielding power?   Where's the dem Matt Gaetz?  MTGreene?  American democracy is on the brink and it is due to one side and one side only.  Guess what --  Biden won't attempt to throw the country into a civil war to unlawfully try to cling to power.  Trump's been doing that for last 4 years, including a full on mob-coup attempt that left people dead.  So just WTF are you even talking about?  Clearly you've been watching Hannity or some other bull**** monger and now you are parroting their bulls--t.
So stop watching Fox & newsmax.  It makes you look like a damn fool.
Oh, and please respond by telling me how it's the dems fault the GOP held up UKR aid for 3 months.  Dems aint the ones on Putin's payroll.  
 

The dose makes the poison.
Looking from the outside, there is absolutely zero equivalence between the two parties. None at all.
There are ... odd individuals in both, but at the party level only one is utterly dysfunctional.
Theres also this inconvenient reality:
https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_American_federal_politicians_convicted_of_crimes

Fundamentally this is a thread about the Russo-Ukraine war that is (unsurprisingly) pro-Ukrainian. So the U.S. political party that refused to bring aid to a vote is going to catch the most flak here. And like yea AOC might be destructive to some process but she isn't destructive to getting Ukraine the materials the country needs to fight the Russian invasion. The House vote tally was overwhelming for aid so why wasn't there a vote on the aid 6 months ago?

Like I don't want to talk about gun rights, or schools, or abortion, or any number of other U.S. hot button topics. But I've been sitting here for ~6 months watching as one particular party refused to allow Ukraine what it needs. And frankly I'm not an unbiased observer about this and its one of the reasons I stepped away from the thread for a while. Its hard to come in here to hear and see bad news about the war and then be non-partisan about the partisan politics that are getting Ukrainians killed. Like if you trawl this thread you will see video evidence on nearly every page of real soldiers and civilians who died needlessly for some partisan BS.

 
 

Russian attacks activity on different directions for a week.
Kupiansk after Free-Russia units remains calm (6 attacks).
Lyman-Terny is activating again (64 attacks)
Bakhmut, Avdiivka, Vuhledar directions consistently high activity

Bohdana, alas too far from Caesar level yet. So, now Bohdanas go to artillery units of mech.brigades, when Caesars, PzH2000, Archers - to artillery brigades.

US design for maintainability is generally pretty excellent. It makes for expensive procurement and high maintenance budgets (ie, swap the entire Abrams power pack rather than fix the fault lòcally) but it does that in order to increase availability rates at the pointy end.
Given that general approach, I'd be surprised if the Patriot was an exception. Given *that* I'd assume there is more internal damage that both can't be seen in a photo and can't be fixed in Ukraine.
Or, alternately, the priority to date has been on pushing end-user equipment into Ukraine, and not on the support systems that keep them operational and in users hands. Edit: So what would be a simple field repair for a US unit has to go back to the States when its operated by Ukraine.
But weighing against that second conclusion is the existence of USAREUR; if it was conceivably fixable forward at Grafenwohr or Kaiserlauten (or by any of the European operators of Patriot) then they would. That it wasn't suggests significant but non-obvious damage.
I think.

Several days ago Russians in counter to new UKR landings in Krynky decided to land on the islands oppose to Kozachi Lahery village. Their operation failed, few nubmer of those who managed to reach the island were eliminated. This is not about any large landing. More likely 1-2 squad size operation maximum
TG screen is a story of mother or wife of Russian soldier about this operation. She says many soldiers drowned, one boat could rushed in. Then one more rubber boat sailed to the island to take back survived soldiers, but it was damaged and after 1 km of way at last was bombed and had been sunken by "Baba Yaga" drone. Only one of her famiiliar soldiers survived from four - they jumpen on the bank, bur were killed
  
 

Yet you do!!! Time again you do!
What has it to do with Ukraine?
🙄

Soviet Union/Russia always had strong artilery school, so they hadn't enough problems with new young officers graduatins and new personnel trainig. Implementing of differnt UAVs and PDAs (though Russians to this time coldn't create something similar by functionality like UKR Kropyva or Delta info systems) in more wide scale than in 2022 allows Russian artillery in theory to increase own capabilities. In real Russians still to take by advantage of barrels. Russians complained on terrible quality of N.Korea ammunition for guns and mortars - their charges have weights, which may significantly differ each of other, so rang of fire can variate and you don't know where along the range this shell will impact. Russian gunners now forced manally unpack charges and equalize powder weight in delivered batch of shells. But even after this due to bad quality of producing these shells often hit out of estimated disperse ellips. 
The same issues, but in much less scale are about Russian-made ammunition. Iranian in somne cases even better that Russian. 
The range of Russian systems didn't change, though there were spotted some modern Chineese 122 mm shells with incresed on 2 km range. So, most of their counter battrey activity are Lancets, Tornado-S/Smerch or even Iskander-M in case of HIMARS/CAESAR/Archer.

Yet you do!!! Time again you do!
What has it to do with Ukraine?
🙄

Yet you do!!! Time again you do!
What has it to do with Ukraine?
🙄

Removed. Pointless responding to MAGA brainworm infections.

Russians gradually have been learing of Ukrainian experience of artillery fire control. If in 2022  - mid 23 we have seen typical Soviet style of whole batteries and even battalions of side-by-side standing guns simultainous work, that now Russians are more and more shifting to dispersing of artillery and work by single guns of a battery with individaual targeting for each.
Here is google-translated post about changes since 2022. "The work was carried out in areas with a low coeeficient of UAV use" - means "ineffective area fire with low UAV usage", though for summer 2022 it's not always could be true, or soldiers then reported about dozen Orlans and Zala, ajusting fire. Probably ajusting was inefefctive or come on too long command chain, which made it ineffective.

 
And addition to this post by other Russian artillerist with my translation:
I'l throw my 5 cents:
Regimental artillery tied on artillery chief (of regiment). He, sitting on command post (let's call it in such way) together with chief of recon, watch streams from UAVs (and intercepted streams of the enemy). Spotting the target chief of artillery transmits it to battery commander or senior battery officer  [he is commander of 1st artillery platoon also] and they transmit this data to the gun. 2-7 minutes for targeting of the gun, the bird [drone] in the sky. First shoot - the fire ajustment from artilelry chief directly to the gun. Or artillery chief opens the map, come into communication with gun commandr through the radio and gives the targeting (angle, azimuth, lines). The gun crew lives on position 2-5 days, further a rotation is coming. Nobody drink on position, it's taboo, else they go to "zakrep" [probably those who have to hold the ground after assault] - and this is more scary than to stormers. 
We don't work with mortars since new year. This is no longer relevant becaus of crews life preservation purposes. Drones already fly on 10 km in the rear, so they clicks them at once  

And here Russian feedback about CAESERs

Ukraine hit one of Sevastopol bays with "Neptun" missile. Local authorities claim "the missile was intercepted, but debrises caused small fire, which was quickly extinguished". 
Though after some of locals issued a video with a fire on the some ship, thre were information appeared Russian submarine salvage vessel "Komunna" was hit.
"Komunna", belonging to 1st group of 145th resque vessels detachment is unique and oldest vessel in military service in the world. It was laid down as far as in 1912 (!!!) and was comissioned in 1915 as a vessel for submarines resque and sunken ships and other ojects lifting. As prototype was used German vessel "Vulcan". Initially it named "Volkhov" and served on Baltic, passing WWI, Winter War and WWII. In 1967 the vessel was moved to Black Sea. Since 2016 "Komunna" was equiped with more modern AS-28 deep-submergence resque vessel, having opportunity to reach 1000 m of depth. Though, in 1967 "Komunna" had more capable deep vessel AS-6, wich could reach 2000 m, but was decomissioned in the mid of 80th. Othe one interesting fact aboyt this vessel - it hull made of unique ductille mallable ship steel - the hull of the vessel even now, since 102 years in very good condition, but the technology of such steel producing was lost after Russian Civil War
Here is "Komunna"