Maciej Zwolinski

Is it not the new rule, that the relocated immigrants will be sent to the countries which have not fulfilled their immigrant quota without regard for where they want to go? Otherwise the whole quota system would not make sense.

No, as long as the current govt is in charge I don't think the words "European Commission", "Poland" and "strongly oppose" will ever again be seen in the same sentence. They agreed to the draft legislation already. As this is an unpopular measure domestically, Tusk appeared on TV and tweeted, heavily implying that through his excellent connections and general snake charming skills the legislation will theoretically be in force but will never be used against Poland as long as he is in power (so vote for me, nudge nudge, wink wink). That is just pure hot air, of course.

Are they really? I thought that in order to be a legally recognised refugee one has to apply for the refugee status in the first safe country on the way, and there is no way to travel directly from the Ukraine to Germany I do not work in international law, but this rule has been discussed ad nauseam in Poland, as it made it slightly easier for us to deal with the waives of illegals deposited on the border by Lukashenko (I am switching to different immigrants now just to illustrate the legal point; not Ukrainians, but mostly Albanians, Kurds etc. masquerading as Syrians). Vast majority did not even try to claim asylum in Poland in order not to be recorded as "Polish" refugees, but preferred to be dumped at the border to try their luck again at sneaking through to Germany and starting asylum proceedings there.

To avoid this mental trap it suffices to remember that the Russians will react, somehow. Their reaction will be better or worse, but they will not allow the line on the graph showing the number of remaining IFVs or artillery or ammunition to merrily continue on its current way and hit zero. They will do something to change the trajectory t e.g. by switching more to meat waves, or reducing tempo of operations, etc. The thing is, they will incur extra costs or lose opportunities by switching from their preferred action to the less preferred action. So when thinking about what will happen next in a war one should not extrapolate the present into the future ad infinitum but try to anticipate the opponent's reaction and be prepared to explore the inefficiencies forced upon him- the sum of which is eventually going to lose him the war. At least that's the plan. PS. This is basic stuff for any war or any opposed action, really. The mistakes like the Werhmacht General Staff thinking should not really happen. But they do happen, in particular to armies fighting the Russians. I think that Russian peacetime armies when they transition to war habitually look so incredibly and obstinately stupid, that their opponents start to believe they are permanently unable to adapt. But they do, just very slowly at the beginning. But after 2-3 years of war they hit their stride.

One reason could be if they were unable to provide support which cannot be substituted. Examples: 155 mm artillery ammunition and Patriot SAM missiles. Apparently Europe can manufacture more artillery shells than the USA but somehow it was sending to Ukraine much smaller numbers - which is evident because the absence of US support in the past 6 months soon caused a shell hunger. The Europeans could not close the gap. Assuming that the US withdraws support in January 2025 again, will European countries be able to deliver their own shells in the Americans' place in sufficient numbers? I have no idea. The Czech deal is 152 mm ammunition scrounged from some secret place, Shangri-La or whatever. But re. delivering shells from actual domestic European production of 155 mm shells, something has been holding them up.Will that problem be overcome in the next 6 months? Again, no idea. Re. Patriots. There does not seem to be anything comparable, S-300s ammunition is running out or has ran out, German and French systems have shorter range and will not provide equivalent coverage. F-16s or no F-16s, the Ukrainians will not gain air superiority so they need their S-300 replacement. Can European countries get Patriots for the Ukraine somehow? In the case of unsolvable shell hunger problem and Russians gaining the ability to bomb the entire Ukraine with reasonable impunity I can well see the European nations deciding the war is lost and good money should not be thrown after the bad. Other than the arty shells and SAMs - which, as I described above, I think could be decisive factors - I am also wondering about the access to the US reconaissance and intelligence assets, in particular to satellites and signals intelligence. If the new president orders the heads of the CIA and the NSA to stop data sharing and all cooperation with the UKR immediately, can e.g. the UK take the same data via their NATO arrangements and subsequently re-transfer it to the Ukraine? If not and the Ukraine actually loses access to the information it used to receive this could potentially be decisive.

OK, my answer to the question "what is Putin actually up to?" (which should be read with a massive dose of skepticism, as it involves making a theory of mind of man having massively more information and usually thinking in massively different way than I; i.e., a wild guess) 1. Putin thinks the war will end through Donald Trump becoming the President of the US and successfully implementing his plan to pressure Ukraine politically into armistice on the basis of status quo in early 2025. 2. Therefore, the war has a probable end date in early 2025 which is based on external political considerations and not dependent on any actions of Ukraine or Russia. All territorial gains must occur in 2024 and on the other hand, the risk of all losses is also limited in time to 2024. Timeline after early 2025 does not matter much - Russia is not worried about NATO or the Ukraine rekindling the conflict at any reasonable time after 2024, and even if its army is generally wrecked, it thinks it will always be beenough to defend the armistice line (even provided that NATO and the UKR muster political will sufficient to even think of restarting the war). 3. Therefore Russian army is going all in to maximise territorial gains in 2024, particularly in the Donbass area which Russia claims to be its own, but has not conquered it yet. If they are successful in Donbas or if they statemate in Donbass, they may try to do the same thing in the Zaporozhie area. They do not care about the losses, they do not care about the war materiel stocks (they know they won't be attacked) and they do not care that much about their economy either, which they think will somehow limp through the rest of 2024 anyway, and Russians will start rebuilding it in from 2025.

And on the Russian side, some (barely) mobile barns accompanied by bikers. Proper Mad Max style.

Lifting of these restrictions, while in themselves eggregious examples of political stupidity and well deserving to be scrapped ASAP, is not going to help much. The Ukraine is now waging a very conventional war (possibly paradigm-shattering drones excepted, but we are not there yet) with a very big country capable of sustaining a big army. It will not create a strategic bombing campaign via drones and ATACMS able to destroy Russian warmaking capability. This is an expensive way to wage war, and UKR will not get the funding for this. What they need is very simple, but they need a lot of it with guaranteed delivery without limitation in time. Artillery munitions (they cannot manufacture locally); SAM munitions; funding for drone production, better still outsourcing the production itself to the sanctuary countries (PL, Romania; in the future maybe Slovakia again); SPGs; HIMARS or equivalents; long- and mid-range SAM's; ECM/ECCM land-based equipment; ATACMS; some tanks, in numbers to replace losses; IFVs, in higher numbers than tanks; APCs more than tanks and IFVs; some ATGMs; small arms munitions; trucks and logistic vehicles; finally (and I have been convinced of this by the recent Russian successes with glide bombs) some fighter aircraft, with the understanding that they will all be shot down at some point. Also, the UKR need to have their stuff in order and find a way of mobilising soldiers for war, Zelenski's chances for reelection be damned. The only theory of victory in this war that I can see is exactly the same as could be formulated in every conventional war with a very big country capable of sustaining a big army, provided that the war has not been resolved via a France 1940 type offensive or a Nomonhan 1939 type counteroffensive in the first months: invest all resources you can and try to hang on in the war longer than the other guy, while always keeping an eye out for a potential technical paradigm shattering solution (Project Manhattan) or a potential opportunity to asymmetrically hamstring his economy (ref. bombing of ball bearing and synthetic fuel factories 1944). Or, as the Duke of Wellington put it: "Hard pounding this, gentlemen. Let's see who pounds the longest"

You basically described 1917-1918 Russia and its impact on the WW I eastern front. Please note before the demise of the first set of thugs and the ascendancy of the second, there ought to be a period of confusion counted in at least months when the front would be very vulnerable and it could be heavily reshaped by the Ukrainians. Taking opportunity of this, the Germans got themselves the Brest-Litovsk for their trouble, which translated into modern terms, would mean that the Ukr goes back to its internationally recognised legal border, except for Krimea. That would not be bad at all. PS. If anyone read about Hitler's plans for Lebensraum in the Belarus, the Ukraine and Western Russia (Muscovy) and thought the man should have used less of lead-based paints for his pictures, actually he had a recent living example of his desired arrangement in the form of post-Brest Litovsk German-occuppied lands from the Baltics to the Ukraine in the south. It arose of pretty unique set of circumstances and was very short lived, of course, but was not physically impossible.

If the FPV AT drones work, then the ATGM videos are going to be replaced mostly by FPV attack videos, basically for 2 reasons. First, FPV drone is a non-LOS weapon and can engage significantly earlier than ATGMs, which in the ZSU are of the LOS only variety. Before the vinea tanks (d)evolved, many videos were precisely about mechanised attacks being defeated during the approach march and Russians running away before they tanks could even engage. In all those cases there was neither need or opportunity for the Ukrainians to shoot ATGMs. Second, all FPV attacks are coupled with a video feed ready to be saved and posted on Youtube if the operator wants to. In the case of ATGMs a separate camera (usually from a drone) needs to be used, not guaranteed. BTW the comment under "First" shows in what way the vinea tanks are in my view useful and what they limitations are. They do seem to be good to the extent they are able to prevent/limit the loss of tanks from FPV drones on the approach march. Thus they are able to cross that zone, in which the normal tanks were extremely vulnerable while not being able to engage themselves. However, when they actually attain the LOS to the enemy, they should be able to start firing, suppress the ATGM defense in the LOS fight and then start suppressing the antipersonnel weapons, whereupon the assault could start- and there is where the vinea construction becomes a huge liability. With their angle of fire worse than an Mk I Male of 1917, they are not likely to suppress AT defence and shoot the infantry in. So while this contraption allows the tanks to reach the battlefield in a safer way, it makes them almost useless once they get there - at the end of the day it does not help Russians in any meaningful way. That's my view of this.

That itself is an understatement. To be fair though, it is hard to overstate the directness of the message expressed in the English football chants such as "Adam Johnson's paedophile", "Does she take it up the arse" or "Your just a fat granny shagger".

That is a huge proportion, during the Indochina War the French Foreign Legion made up just a bit over 10% of the frontline strength of the French expeditionary corps. And that was a formation specifically created for that kind of occasion.

I agree -obviously- with the part about Russian slow tempo of advance. However, there are some other elements, which make the recent Russians offensive actions more dangerous than the earlier ones, regardless of the low tempo. 1. The mere possibility of breakthrough. I won't quibble whether it would be an operational breakthrough or a smaller one, but people report that there could have been a breakthrough and transition to exploitation by Russians. That is significant. The last time it happened for Russian was after Severodonetsk 2 years ago. In the meantime they could not, and now they can again. 2. The sheer repeatability of the RUS set piece attack method,. They have been redoing the same approach again and again in Avdieyevka, Bachmut/Chasiv Yar, Ocheretovate and elsewhere. Each time it works in the same way, the Russians finally drive the UKR away. Obviously, time and casualties are hugely important variables in this equation. But the outcome is not really in doubt. If the UKR receive ammunition for artillery, they will be able to fire defensive barrages and counterbatery fires, possibly suppress Russian artillery and hopefully screw up their method that way. But even then they will have nothing against the gliding bombs. I doubt that the UKR have even a shadow of an idea, how to counter them. If I were Shoigu, I would order conversion of 3/4 of the fighter force to gliding bomb tossers and have them fly multiple delivery missions, as much as the airframes can stand. 3. The UKR losses. It is too early to have a reliable loss estimations for either party, but previously in similar of actions comprising mostly static defence under RUS arty fire the losses were very high for the Ukraine and well over the acceptable exchange rate. I know the Russians are losing tons of vehicles, but for the UKR personnel is the vulnerable asset, and they do not come off well in this exchange.

I am not sure. Yesterday and the day before there were reports talking about RUS breakthrough in Ocheretyne and the need to abandon the hitherto defence line. Tone of the reports very similar to the post-Severodonetsk reports. Today's Tom Cooper's substack also in this line of thinking. https://xxtomcooperxx.substack.com/p/ukraine-war-26-april-2024

Come on, Obama's policy vs Russia was disastrous. It's hard not to see the harebrained "reset", setting various "red lines", e.g. use of gas in Syria which have come and passed ineffectually, the 2014 invasion and finally open warfare by Russian army as steps which inexorably followed from one another because of lack of any meaningful US response at the previous step. Talking hard and then not producing any stick whatsoever, big or otherwise, suggests that either the stick is so rotten that it will fall to pieces or the wrists are too limp to wield it.

Sure, Russians do progress through natural selection rather than intelligent innovation, yet they do progress.

If the recent Russian experiments with smoke are successful, the smoke may yet make a comeback to prominence it has not had since 1918. Many armies started WW II expecting to use lots of it, and then they did not, eventually repurposing their means of smoke delivery to fire HE.

I do not think that is doable. The last time that the Ukrainians tried to shoot down VVS aircraft lobbing KABs with a roaming Patriot battery near the front they got that battery shot up with an Iskander strike for their trouble. At the same time KABs are cheap and plentiful so shooting them down instead of the carrier aircraft will not work either (and recently they got a range extension). Unfortunately I see zero possibility to stop the gliding bomb attacks from continuing or even increasing pace. How is the Kerch bridge related to Russian air strikes? Their aircraft do not have to fly from Krimea and are not dependent on that bridge for supplies.

This makes me think, that the idea behind Johnson's obstruction was to delay the Ukraine aid for so long, that once he stops stalling, he will be allowed to present it as "Johnson's plan" and will actually take political credit for it. That would be a really devious plan. Macchiavelli could not hold a candle to him.

I have seen a fair number, but they were in black and white, motorcycles had sidecars with MG 34 and the soldiers had funny helmets. On a more serious note: this bizarre throwback to 1940 got me thinking and I realised, that in all those films of both Russian and Ukrainian defensive positions I have not seen much of barbed wire. Since so much of this war is dismounted infantry assaults, theoretically it should be very helpful. What is going on? Is it not useful anymore? Too easy to destroy with modern artillery, or what?

But my point is that not only liberal democracies should be allies against a country which uses a war of aggression as means of policy and wants to upset the political balance. First things first - let's fight the aggressor together with everyone who wants to protect the status quo and principle of peaceful resolution of international disputes, and then the EU can drag the Ukraine over the coals over fulfillment of accession criteria. They are different things.

That attitude is a huge mistake - this is what keeps the ranks of the West's enemies are always full. If the only ones who are worthy of support are those who share the - rather unique- views of the West on social issues such as homosexualism, religion, ethnic minorities etc. then it is no wonder that finding allies in places such as Africa and Asia is difficult. Kabul University tweets about graduation of the gender studies class a couple of months before the Taliban stormed Kabul come to mind. It is an unforced own goal on part of the West. If the aim is to defend the post-Cold War order against an attempt to change borders by force of arms, then every victim of aggression deserves to be supported, regardless of his social policy. Think Kuwait 1990-1991.

Targeting method must be different. Guidance based on GPS has always looked like a temporary solution - this is the universal navigation system used by literally everyone and for which millions of engineers worldwide produce all kinds of devices also in enemy countries. The knowledge how to jam it must be widespread.

Kofman in his latest podcast which is focused on drones proposed a reason, why it is significantly more difficult to use drones in support of a go forward maneouvre. He says that Russian ECM is effective and droning Russian defensive positions requires operating within the umbrella of ECM emitters emplaced in the RUS trenches, where drones will work significantly worse. He says that the drones really can shine when engaging units which are on the offensive and have left the ECM cover. Kofman in general praises Russian ECM and for example, he says that GPS guided munitions have been generally degraded. Excaliburs are left unused in some units, and Ukrainians are asking for GMLRS with DPICM warheads which may still do damage despite the missile being spoofed by ECM and going off course.

Where did you get the idea? They were very effective as tactical bombers, only vulnerable to interceptors due to low speed. Where the enemy air cover was absent or not effective, StuKas worked very well.