dan/california

Thank you for posting about your experience! The people who need to hear your account may not be listening, and probably never will,  but the rest of us are listening and watching and the facts will prevail.

Man, I don't even know what to say.  Sorry you had to go through that.  I expect not too dissimilar to what the allied troops experienced when coming upon the first concentration camps.  Thank you for sharing though.  It frequently helps to put the whole conversation in perspective and beyond the realm of just a theoretical discussion.
and if it helps to talk about it here I don't think you'll find a single exception.

Some of the conversation over the few pages have referenced the former Yugoslavia.  Which brings back... well, not so good memories.
I was a Canadian peacekeeper in Bosnia in latter half of '93.   During the Croatian offensive in the Medak in Sept of '93, I was with the 2 PPCLI when we went into the sh*tstorm to try to stop the ethnic cleansing going on.  The Croatian army attacked our unit during that operation, a thing that the Croatian government denies to this very day.  Despite us photographing the Croatian dead after the battle and collecting their ID, etc.    We had god damn evidence and to this day, the Croatian government position is that they never attacked us.
Part of our job, beside trying to keep the warring factions apart, was to document evidence of ethnic cleansing and I was in charge (I was an officer) of a evidence collection team.  So, literally thousands of photos, videos.  Transcripts of interviews with witnesses and victims.  Six months exposed to that living hell, day after f*n day....
So I had the evidence, because sometimes our official recording devices ran out film or tape and we used our personal recording devices to finish up at a site.
After I got out the military, I found myself sometimes on various military forms about games, such as this one.  Arma forums, military wargame forums... that sort of thing.  And as it happened, I ran into forum members from Croatia and Bosnia Serbs and we would get into it.
Universally, every Croatian or Bosnian Serb forum poster denied what happened there.  And I was called a liar on many occasions for telling them them the truth of that war as I was there and they weren't.  And I have evidence to back up my claims.  No one believed me and if I offered visual proof, they didn't want to see it or they disclaimed it as fake.
I remember a particular Bosnian Serb who was not in the war but we got deep into the weeds discussing what happened during that war.  Deny, deny, deny.  It never happened.  Until videos that the Bosnian Serbs took of them killing civilians and dumping them in mass graves what was recorded by the very soldiers who committed the atrocities surfaced and made it onto their local media and they couldn't deny it any longer.  Those videos were part of the process besides sanctions that resulted in some notable Bosnia Serb / Serbian leaders being turned over to the ICC for prosecution for war crimes, crimes against humanity and genocide.  After the revelation came out, this individual on that forum who I had spent hours engaging with about the culpability of Serbs in the atrocities simply ignored me from that point onwards.  I will never know why.... was it that he discovered that I was right all a long and he was wrong and he was ashamed (as he would have been) or he simply wanted to hang onto his delusion of what narrative he wanted to believe was true and he knew that I would keep chipping away.   
Denial is a powerful thing.   I don't understand why it has such power but it does.  People can dismiss an outright objective reality because to accept the truth is to undermine what they think reality is or should be.   I don't get it and is beyond madding to see the denials in the face of objective reality happen over and over.
Sigh.   I don't know why the hell I rambled on with this.  Maybe it was a story I need to tell to remain sane in light of the same brutality I witnessed back in Bosnia happening in Ukraine now.  Or maybe I still am the greater fool for believing my experiences in Bosnia can be an object lesson to others about holding onto a narrative that is personally comfortable but runs counter to all the real evidence to the contrary.   DMS, I am looking at you....
The truth will come out after all this is over.  At least, I hope it does.  The truth of this war needs to be told and codified so generations that follow can know what really happend.
Now at the end of this and reviewing it, I feel that I should have deleted this or apologize for it.  
I am hitting post. It is my truth.  Let people accept it and learn something from it or ignore it.  I needed to say this for a long time.   
 
 

I read that somewhere else, but there is nothing specific there, so I didn't post it. It's really hard to speculate what could that be, the most impactful we could provide could maybe be F-16 training ?

The Ukrainians are convincing them, one 155 airburst at a time. Quite literally everyone who has ever been ruled by Russia, and managed to get out from under them would literally rather die than go back under Russian control. It really is that simple. And the Putin seems determined to demonstrate they were right to feel that way.

The Ukrainians are convincing them, one 155 airburst at a time. Quite literally everyone who has ever been ruled by Russia, and managed to get out from under them would literally rather die than go back under Russian control. It really is that simple. And the Putin seems determined to demonstrate they were right to feel that way.

This one is just odd.  So NATO only bombed Belgrade during the Kosovo War of '99.  The justification was, wait for it...war crimes!  See a trend here?  After Rawanda, we in the west kinda got sick and tired of 20th century genocides in the 90's (arguably we went back to not really caring a couple decades later: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rohingya_genocide) so when the Serbs began "doing that ethnic cleansing" thing again, it was a pretty short "nope" from the UN and NATO.
I am not sure why Russia would take that as an attack on them, they were on the UNSC that drafted resolution 1199 which kicked the whole thing off.  I am at loss at what either Chechen War had to do with us, but hey why not?
Look this whole NATO expansion thing was arguably a bad idea but the Russian's seem to think it was a deliberate plan.  Seriously, we should let you guys come work in NATO for a day and you would quickly see that "deliberate" and "NATO" are not mutually supporting concepts.  NATO is fine at blowing stuff up, but detailed strategic campaigning is not a virtue I think anyone could accuse NATO of being adept at conducting.  Finally, all those former satellite states came to NATO for a good reason...what is happening in Ukraine right now.  Trust me, it is not them or us, it is you.
Russia is acting like a drunken wife beater, pissed off because Ukraine "made you hit them" and blaming city council for all these damned "assault charges"; an entire nation in need of anger management counselling and couples therapy.
I got to believe Russians are better than this. 

Germany benefits a lot from the trade imbalance and EU.
https://www.politico.eu/article/eurozone-problem-country-germany-coronavirus/
Of course the above article does not apply to Ukraine, but the boatloads of Russian gas and oil that help feed Germany do, and fed Russian delusions about European inaction do.
End of the day tho, investing in Ukraine, and assisting the European south, aside from being the right thing to do, will ultimately ensure the economic growth and prosperity that the EU is associated with remains true.

There was an important British Study in WW1 that concluded, from memory, that ~50 days in the trenches is as long as a unit can remain combat effective. The stress just literally becomes unbearable after that. These guys have been pushed to that limit, The good news is that the Ukr had the resources to rotate them out, finally. 

Yeah and with Ukraine switching to NATO equipment and knowing our ****ty politicians, this has the sour taste of indirect German economy aid only, so KMW could sell some more after the war has ended and save jobs in Germany... 

If I were serious about it, I would send some more and instantly order new ones. So much for the proclaimed Zeitenwende.
Hope for you Ukrainians that they will find some more somewhere.

Not true. DMS knows full well that NATO is a defensive alliance. And he knows full well how things really are because he has an access to the internet. He is here of all places. On a forum where people scrutinize claims and try to prove things.
And even in USSR people knew full well that every russian war was a war of aggression. Word of mouth isn't something you can stop if somebody wants to listen to it. "Protesting in the kitchen" aka whining about state evils at the family table, but silently - was a soviet meme.
What DMS does is a russian version of taqiya - lying to infidels to drive his own agenda. Remember - if DMS was just "fooled" by propaganda (which is, again, impossible in an age of information) - he'd still think that killing Ukrainians and stealing our land would be a bad thing. But what he does is excuses the crime. He is in full support of the war.

To lighten the mood a bit (not for DMS I'm afraid), Zelensky gave a hint about the expected future of Ukrainia Air Force:
 

too harsh and pointless, deleted

Intolerable that nothing can be done for these fine soldiers. 

The Syrians were nicer, might among the most DA@$$%%ing of a very great many true and DA$&&@@ing things said about the Russians in the last however many pages. It also implies most of them took their chances on sneaking into the EU and either claiming asylum, or working off the books at some distant relatives restaurant.

Mariupol.
Three days ago Russian troops launched next decisive assault of Azovstal. With support of aviation, naval and ground artillery they managed to breakthrough on Azovstal territory and held taken positions. Despite Arestovich told Azov repelled all attacks, today Azov commander said this is not true, Russians slowly grasp the circle, so all who fight there very angry on this stupid peacock. Sitauation is critical. Ukr fighters have a lack of ammunition, but worse of all, lack of food and medicine. Probably almost all reserves of medical stuff was destroyed when Russians hit a part of underground hospital.  Looks like Putin need a victory for 9th of May and particiapation of hundreds of Ukrainian POWs in parade in Mariupol. 
Azovstal now
Captain Sviatoslav Palamar, Deputy Commander of the Azov Regiment: “We call on the world community to evacuate civilians and I personally appeal to the Supreme Commander-in-Chief to take care of wounded soldiers who are dying in agony from improper treatment.
Civil paramedic, Crimean Tatarian, muslim, which now with Azov appealed to Erdogan to evacuation of civilians and wounded soldiers (English subs)
 
 

I don't have any deep insight into the Ukr logistics system, but I am quite sure the Ukr General Staff does. So if they are launching counter attacks round Kharkiv, and into the shoulder of the Izyum salient they believe they can supply those efforts. Given that they ARE counterattacking in the Donbass, as opposed to say trying desperately to establish a defensive line somewhere just east of Lviv, I think we have to assume they know what they are doing.

I don't think so. If Russians are defending Russia is one thing, defending Ukrainian objectives not so much, especially with all the firepower that can be brought to bear on them. Add that to the fact that the Russian officers themselves at all levels don't really now what they are doing, a complete lack of professionalism from top to bottom, trashed/incompetent logistics. Russia spent the past ten years building the wrong military to fight this war. 

So many of the failures between 2014 and 2/24/2022 were due to profound misjudgments about both the Ukrainian and Russian governments/states. Pre 2/24 the EU and Nato really did  not believe the Ukrainian government was a dependable partner, and that if they were admitted to the various Western clubs the best case scenario would have been a less functional, but more expensive Hungary. Like wise pre 2/24 everyone thought the people running Russia were sane, and had some grasp on objective reality, and what we think of as their long term national interests. Both of these delusions have been shattered utterly. The coherence of the Ukrainian state and nation has been tested and found match the very best quality super alloy made. Russia has proven itself to be profoundly dangerous and untrustworthy. Given the limitations of Nato/EU decision making processes we have done a mostly decent job of reacting to this new reality once we were slapped in the face with, at least SO FAR. There is great deal that can yet go wrong, but so far so good.

So many of the failures between 2014 and 2/24/2022 were due to profound misjudgments about both the Ukrainian and Russian governments/states. Pre 2/24 the EU and Nato really did  not believe the Ukrainian government was a dependable partner, and that if they were admitted to the various Western clubs the best case scenario would have been a less functional, but more expensive Hungary. Like wise pre 2/24 everyone thought the people running Russia were sane, and had some grasp on objective reality, and what we think of as their long term national interests. Both of these delusions have been shattered utterly. The coherence of the Ukrainian state and nation has been tested and found match the very best quality super alloy made. Russia has proven itself to be profoundly dangerous and untrustworthy. Given the limitations of Nato/EU decision making processes we have done a mostly decent job of reacting to this new reality once we were slapped in the face with, at least SO FAR. There is great deal that can yet go wrong, but so far so good.

Spare a microscopic bit of sympathy for every corporal, and and quartermaster in the Chinese army. Can you imagine the inspections and audits Xi has ordered to be sure how much of a military he ACTUALLY has.

Spare a microscopic bit of sympathy for every corporal, and and quartermaster in the Chinese army. Can you imagine the inspections and audits Xi has ordered to be sure how much of a military he ACTUALLY has.

Spare a microscopic bit of sympathy for every corporal, and and quartermaster in the Chinese army. Can you imagine the inspections and audits Xi has ordered to be sure how much of a military he ACTUALLY has.

Spare a microscopic bit of sympathy for every corporal, and and quartermaster in the Chinese army. Can you imagine the inspections and audits Xi has ordered to be sure how much of a military he ACTUALLY has.

Spare a microscopic bit of sympathy for every corporal, and and quartermaster in the Chinese army. Can you imagine the inspections and audits Xi has ordered to be sure how much of a military he ACTUALLY has.