Rokossovski

Caught the BMP by surprise.
No one expects the Spanish Instalaza.

Caught the BMP by surprise.
No one expects the Spanish Instalaza.

Caught the BMP by surprise.
No one expects the Spanish Instalaza.

Caught the BMP by surprise.
No one expects the Spanish Instalaza.

Caught the BMP by surprise.
No one expects the Spanish Instalaza.

Caught the BMP by surprise.
No one expects the Spanish Instalaza.

Caught the BMP by surprise.
No one expects the Spanish Instalaza.

Caught the BMP by surprise.
No one expects the Spanish Instalaza.

The first rule of White Club is don't talk about White Club.

oh, forgot link that discussed the NYT editorial.  There's a great UA soldier music video near the end, by the way. 
NOTE:  LIBERAL SITE, ENTER AT YOUR OWN PERIL
https://www.dailykos.com/stories/2022/5/22/2099655/-Ukraine-Update-Ukraine-is-not-interested-in-compromise-or-concessions-nor-should-it
 
 

You are/were an artillery officer, I'm not, don't take this as not respecting your experience., I do, beyond immensely.
But in this case you are bordering on counter-acting your own point. 3 RQ-7s gives you one instance of the scenario I described above. Against a more competent opponent than the current version of the Russians that gets you to ten AM on opening day. The Ukrainians ares shooting down ~5 Orlans a day with shoulder fired SAMs, Soviet era radars and maybe a few modern jammers. The Russians have shown the intellectual flexibility of a Brontosaurus, so in this war both sides are keeping stuff in the air, and inflicting major losses with drone directed fire. And yes I realize it is not nearly as simple as the videos make it look, but one army that no one gave any credit three months ago, and one army that turns out not to deserve any credit to speak of seem to be capable of making it work. 
It is quite possible that the other side in the next war might be minimally competent, and not utterly crippled by rampant corruption. They are going to think REALLY hard about how to shoot down drones, and how to bring enough of them to deal with losses. A certain large Asian country is known for it competence at mass production, they are going to show up with every intention of just drowning us in eighteen wheeler loads of something like switch blades, launch things like Orlans in flights of thirty or forty, and Baryaktar equivalents  in flights of ten and twenty. The only job of the first wave is to spot most of what killed it, because they will have another wave, and another one after that. Drone warfare is going to become as attritional as the current artillery slugging match in Donbas. We have to learn to think of them like ammunition. The side that shows up with most, wins. And again, no disrespect intended. 
 

None taken mate! and no, I'm not wobbly I was just reacting to the 'ah, don't worry, the Ivans are sure to eff this up as well' statements.
While meanwhile @Haiduk is reporting some very real consternation from the ground there.
So I popped some red smoke, people responded and I think we are all now looking at this more soberly. Cheers!

Where does the blockade sit in the scale of escalations? Given that there's been no declared war, what "right" do the Russians have to interdict shipping in Ukrainian waters? Beyond the fact that "they can", I mean. ISTR some reports of shipping (Bulgarian) suffering mishaps in the Black Sea in the early part of the war, but don't remember seeing those incidents clarified. What would be the consequences of the Russians sinking a Panama-flagged bulk carrier in- or out-bound for/from Odessa?

https://www.politico.com/news/2022/05/19/nato-finland-sweden-republicans-russia-00033749
Republicans are on side for Swede-Fin expansion, and the $40 billion for Ukraine just passed. U.S. support looking rock solid for the foreseeable future.
 

Second part of this important account from a Russian soldier is up:
 

I agree.
Only a monster would shoot in portrait.

It is obvious theres no discussion to be had with purpheat23.
Now may I ask everyone not to spam another 3 pages with this, it is hard enough to keep up to date.

First off, anyone who says they "hate all politicians they are all the same", is being intellectually dishonest or willfully ignorant.  If you can't tell the difference between fascist politicians that are working to overthrow our democracy and the democratic ones trying to save it, then.... I don't know what to say other than what I just said.  
Second, on Rand Paul.  What Steve said.  Again, intellectual dishonesty or willful ignorance.  Your pick.  We know exactly why Rand does what he does.  
He's a disgrace and an embarrassment.  
I'm done.  I just had to say it.

I wish that were true.  But it's rand paul, senior senate f-ing snake.  Have you heard the garbage he's been spewing about Ukraine the last couple months?  he would have handed UKR to Putin on a silver platter.  He said that UKR was part of Russia so what's the problem.  And 44 million people and their descendants would lose their freedom, forever.  That's the stakes we're actually talking about.   RP doesn't give a flying f-k about the money.  He's one of Putin's like autocrat-wannabe waterboys.

MAGA.  Lol.  No intellectual defense of anything, just talking points, confrontational attitude and dismissiveness of anything contrary to their delusional reality.  Not worth arguing.  Seriously.

We're on same page, Steve.  And note that the costs currently (and for next few months) associated w Ukraine are actually pretty trivial compared to what we spent in Iraq and Afghanistan.  Yet in Ukraine we have a much better, by orders of magnitude, chance of making the world better via a Ukrainian victory. 
The future where despots realize that wars of conquest will bring 1000X more cost than benefit is a good one.  The future where Russia has a choice of being N Korea or making real efforts of being a responsible adult is a good one.

This is not quite right.  ~1/2 US people don't end up paying federal income taxes.  This gets promulgated into the myth that half of america is free loading.  These are children, stay at home parents, disabled, etc plus the majority which is low income folks.  But low income folks DO pay social security and medicare taxes.  Since Social Security, and Medicare make up ~1/3 of the budget and around half of mandatory spending, they are chipping in.  And they are paying all sorts of state & local taxes.  I don't want to distract just wanted to clarify a bit.
But if anyone thinks being low income worker is free loading, they should try it for a while. 

I'm sorry. Fiscally responsible? While the independence of a democratic country is at stake, war crimes are being committed on a scale not seen since WW2, and we have an opportunity to deliver a massive strategic blow to a long time adversary?
No. We should be talking about spending entire percentages of our GDP to decisively defeat Russia. Not a mere few hundred million dollars. But several hundred billion dollars. No more incrementalism. We should be looking at overmatching the entire Russian GDP in aid to Ukraine. Enough to make it obvious to them that it is economically impossible for them to win, and that their only option is to make peace. That is very doable for us. The Russian GDP is 1.6 trillion. The US GDP is 20 trillion, and the rest of NATO is another 20 trillion. Overmatching the entire Russian GDP would cost the US and her allies ~4% of their respective GDPs. That would be painful, but we can afford to tighten our belts for a year or two to make that happen, and it would be well worthwhile (in WW2 our spending was closer to 40% of GDP). When the war is over we should be looking at spending hundreds of billions more, maybe even a couple trillion, on rebuilding Ukraine with a modern Marshal plan. 

Ignoring any specific personalities in this post; I just wanted to highlight that this attitude is one of the things I love about working with most Americans. If more of us chose to view the world this way it will be a better place, doing what’s right because you can, not because it is easy. If it also happens to strengthen your allies and interests, even better. Am I optimistic? Yes, but it sure as hell beats being negative for the sake of being negative - nothing gets done with that attitude. 
Just a little positive thought from a Canadian! Back to the war… this is all I will say on this topic. 
(Also, long time thread watcher, second post. Been here since around page 150 or so. Thanks to all for the excellent insights and to the strength of our Ukrainian members here. Glory to Ukraine!) 

One of the overwhelming Russian failures throughout this entire war is a complete inability to operate with any dispersal to speak of. My interpretation of this massive and ongoing failing is that nothing happens outside of the LOS of a company grade officer. As soon as the company commander is out of sight any real work halts, and the looting and drinking start, if there is anything to loot or drink. I am open to other interpretations of this demonstrated failing. But the lessons don't get much sharper than a stiff rain of 152/155, and the Russians are still exhibiting zero learning.