dan/california

100% agree, the single best thing the EU can do for Ukraine, in addition to paying for a vast amount roads and bridges and train stations is to provide a REALLY good investment guarantee, in particular against further conflict. Ukraine was already getting a fair number of German auto part plants, I think they can get those back, and ad great deal more if the EU just insures companies against another Russian invasion. If Ukraine comes through this in fixable condition Zelensky is going to be the second coming of George Washington, with nearly bottomless access to EU money, and legal/technical expertise. I think he can get the governance and rule of law issues right. The Ukrainian "brand" is going to be sort of unimaginably positive.

Even 200 tanks, and the logistics to keep them running would make a HUGE difference.

They were building them for export to Arabic speaking countries, a large number were diverted to the Ukrainian army at the beginning of the war. I have not seen a firm number. There are several videos though of the control units displaying Arabic writing.

Does the chance of a rebellion in Belarus go up as all the Russian forces deploy elsewhere? i realize I am a broken record on this, but bringing down Lukshenko, and essentially flipping Belarus to the Ukrainian side is the single cheapest and most effective way to end this war. And it would be absolutely unspinnable for Putin.

The next point of possible epic failure for the Russians is if some of these units flat out mutiny/refuse to redeploy. These guys have seen that fighting is no fun at all, and when you aren't fighting you get to freeze and/or starve. At least when they were trying to take Kyiv there was a theoretical possibility of getting to loot a major wealthy city, nobody thinks there is anything worth having in the Donbas in terms of portable loot .Given the abandoned Russian stuff all over Ukraine I can see some of these units getting to the Donbas logistical hubs and realizing that half their personnel have gotten "lost" on the way down. Lost as in hitchhiking home kind of lost.

As an aside, what are the odds we nuclear exchange because of an April fools joke gone wrong?

The entirety of military planning need to be reorientated to deal with what happens when you launch switch blade drones by the eighteen wheeler load, literally. If you don't have a plan to deal with that, you don't have a plan.

I should have been clearer, I meant maximum support in the current proxy war, indirect involvement, environment. To put it another way the people running the war for Ukraine, and the NATO members supplying the Ukrainian army need to get on the same page as far as means and ends. If the goal is to create a stalemate on the current line of confrontation in the Donbas, then be sure the Ukrainians know that so they can do it coherently and with the lowest possible casualties. If the goal is to kill so many Russian troops so quickly that Russia abandons everything but Crimea we need to give the Ukrainians support to do that. That should specifically include higher level western AA/anti missile systems, even if that means some NATO troops have to do the false flag thing to operate them. NATO personnel from Eastern Europe could be used, it isn't like you can tell a Pole from a Ukrainian just by looking. Just don't let the BBC interview them, heck don't admit the Ukrainians have the systems, let the downed Russian aircraft speak for themselves. You won't even have to shoot down that many, they will just stop flying where it is dangerous. On the larger issue of Ukrainian strikes in Russia you have to distinguish between logical extensions of the Ukrainian campaign against Russian military logistics in the area of operations, and "communication of our actual negotiating position". The fuel depot strike was probably more to do with communication, although Russian logistics have so idiotic it may have a real impact there as well. As communication goes it is a would I would call it a level one attack, the noise made is large, but the body counts is pretty low, and it is still local to the current theater of operations. so now we see how the Russians respond, And then we will see if the Ukrainians can do something larger if they don't like the Russian response. A really large scale covert attack on the Russian railway system, or something purely symbolic much deeper into Russia come to mind.

Everyone is hung up about small gradations in what will or won't trigger Putin. I think this is totally wrong unless NATO cuts Ukrainian support to the point they have to take a bad deal immediately. As long as Ukraine is winning Putin is getting more desperate. He has staked his regimes prestige, and probably its survival on winning this war. If he loses it he IS going to be desperate. All the hemming and hawing about giving the Ukrainians this system but not that one just moves the moment WHEN Putin gets desperate back and forth. What I have not seen is any reason to think that Putin desperate later is going to be any different from Putin desperate sooner. Later just lets him wreck even more of Ukraine and create even more refugees, thus I am for absolutely maximal support for the Ukrainians.

Putin might want to quit before the Ukrainians are forced to reveal any bigger surprises. Also does anybody else have an idea of just how badly this bleeps Russian logistics?

Ukrainians have solid brass $%^$ the size of cannon balls. Also can't adequately describe how bad the Russians are at this war thing. Do we think they pulled the IFF transponder off of a downed Russian heli? Or just figured on the Russian radar operators paying more attention to a vodka bottle. The real history of this thing is going to be amazing. I wonder if they will visit an airbase on the way home?

I was typing at the same time Steve was.

The lower video seems pretty clear it wasn't an accident.

Russian supply points in Belgorod are suddenly very accident prone.

I am running out of words to describe how brave these people are, and how competent. A month straight of high intensity mechanized warfare, and some of them are still alive!!!!!!

That would also prove the Ukrainians opsec is airtight when they want it to be.

Every single Ukrainian soldier In Mariupol has proven themselves to be suicidally brave, bleep me they had proven it two weeks ago. If a member of the command group was too badly wounded to be useful in a last stand, though, I could see the extraction attempt. We also don't know how many flights they have gotten in and out. It. could be they been getting a trickle of supplies in and wounded out all the way thru. that might explain how they have held out so long.

What I like is the UKR is making them run scared, missiles and IEDs all the way to the Belarus border.

Well, the Russians SHOOT honest reporters, or worse than that. The fact this guy is still alive is all you need to know.

Oddly, that will be all of them.

You also learn a lot about the importance of good commanders/ plans playing CMBS, you can turn a guaranteed victory into smoking wreckage in two bad turns. I used to think I was world class at this, but after seeing the Russians level of expertise.....

Ukraine thus far has shown extraordinary discipline in playing prevent defense. They have simply let the Russians exhaust themselves in in attacks that achieve little at great price. We have seen in the last four days around Sumy and Kharkiv what happens when the exhaustion becomes complete. The Russian positions just roll up like a bad rug. If this mornings report about the Russians abandoning Hostomel airport are true the same thing is happening now around more of Kyiv. I don't think the Ukrainians are going to change strategies until this one stops working.

quote failed, will try again

This is a reach, but hear me out. There is a small but real possibility that this war recreates the the Grand Duchy of Lithuania, By which i mean a combination of The Baltics, Poland, Ukraine, Slovenia, and ?????. All of these countries are scared bleepless of Russia, all of them are quite irritated at being bossed around by the French and Germans, and this war has made their populations almost totally simpatico with each other. I mean Poland has absorbed 5% of Ukraines population, and people in Lithuania are donating their SUVs to equip territorial defense units in Ukraine, both of those are pretty big asks. Zelensky is of course the first President by acclimation but is limited to one six year term because all the other politicians want a chance someday. Zelensky could move on to VERY high position in Brussels. It would give the people involved enough sheer mass to defend their fairly similar interest, and back door Ukraine into Nato, and the EU. Tell me why i'm crazy.

The very unhappy people all over the Russian periphery are going to notice that bases are just empty, and not just in their town/district/oblast.