Tenses

Ok, I really have read enough of this. You are having serious problems with proper assessment of what polish society is and what is not.
First of all I don’t like farmers, just as Beleg85 said, they are not likable in overall polish society. I guess that it might be something with millions of donations from EU, retirement system where they effectively have it granted for free and a couple of other things. When farmers across EU started their protests by blocking centers of big cities with farming equipment worth in excess of 1 million euros each, it also was not very understandable by people in traffic jams worrying that they will be late to their, oh so well, paid job. But overall this is actually nothing compared to how „likable” are agro-oligarchs in Ukraine. You are now standing in their defense and I would love to see how much of the money they earn is supporting the war. They basically try to abuse unfair competition on EU markets in order to make money, but looking at the financial statements, I don’t see anything like „war tax” in defense of their country, soil that have given them free money, could you please explain me this? How does that compare to billions in direct financial and material support from western countries?
After 2014, when immigration to Poland from Ukraine has increased tenfold, the overall sentiment for Ukrainian people was not perfect in Poland during the start of the war in 2022. Especially among low paid workers, additional competition on job market with low wage expectations were seen as danger. Situation was similar to our US friends, who can elaborate more on overall sentiment toward Mexicans and South American people. Invasion started on 24th of February, my wife spent entire weekend starting 26th on the border, serving hot meals and distributing blankets to the wave of people in need. Week later we went for the local train station, looked around and took home a mother with a child, who have not even spoken a word in Polish/English. She stayed with us for half a year, when she found suitable job and shelter. My then-boss took a family of 8 and even took care of one girl, who was in the middle of chemotherapy, so she could finish it in Poland without problems. This is just a small part of what happened at that time, no one asked questions, no one was whining, because these were people in dire need. Do you think I liked to have a stranger mother with spoiled child in my home? I didn’t, but this is not the point in helping other people to like that. It is to do that effectively and provide whatever is needed despite your feelings or likening. If you will ever work with people like that, you will learn that this is no simple, nor nice task.
Now you are telling me that polish people have showed that they don’t give a **** about Ukraine because they don’t want to give billions of Euro to your corrupted oligarchs, who are most likely closely connected with Russia. Not to mention some of their perfidious actions, which are gaining better coverage in Poland, which directly hit polish stock holders(so effectively all polish people due to retirement system). You must understand that Ukraine has a long way to go before it will be normal country and I am not even saying about the war. Believe me, Poland was on the same track 35 years ago, but it serves as an example that even if things are not perfect, it is doable. At the moment Ukraine is corrupted as were all post Soviet countries, but it is not that important as long as the war goes. This WILL be important, when the war finally ends to continue normal cooperation with the western countries and their business. Hopefully Ukraine will join EU, but it has so much work to do.
And just as a reminder, borders were open to Ukrainian grain, which is not up to EU standards due to blocked export channel through the Black Sea. Now, thanks to marvelous work of Ukrainian drone fleet, this is not an issue anymore, so what exactly are we talking about? No military/humanitarian or other aid was ever blocked, save for some mistakes, nor will be. This is all about bunch of bastards, who want to profit from the blood of your countryman.

Ok, I really have read enough of this. You are having serious problems with proper assessment of what polish society is and what is not.
First of all I don’t like farmers, just as Beleg85 said, they are not likable in overall polish society. I guess that it might be something with millions of donations from EU, retirement system where they effectively have it granted for free and a couple of other things. When farmers across EU started their protests by blocking centers of big cities with farming equipment worth in excess of 1 million euros each, it also was not very understandable by people in traffic jams worrying that they will be late to their, oh so well, paid job. But overall this is actually nothing compared to how „likable” are agro-oligarchs in Ukraine. You are now standing in their defense and I would love to see how much of the money they earn is supporting the war. They basically try to abuse unfair competition on EU markets in order to make money, but looking at the financial statements, I don’t see anything like „war tax” in defense of their country, soil that have given them free money, could you please explain me this? How does that compare to billions in direct financial and material support from western countries?
After 2014, when immigration to Poland from Ukraine has increased tenfold, the overall sentiment for Ukrainian people was not perfect in Poland during the start of the war in 2022. Especially among low paid workers, additional competition on job market with low wage expectations were seen as danger. Situation was similar to our US friends, who can elaborate more on overall sentiment toward Mexicans and South American people. Invasion started on 24th of February, my wife spent entire weekend starting 26th on the border, serving hot meals and distributing blankets to the wave of people in need. Week later we went for the local train station, looked around and took home a mother with a child, who have not even spoken a word in Polish/English. She stayed with us for half a year, when she found suitable job and shelter. My then-boss took a family of 8 and even took care of one girl, who was in the middle of chemotherapy, so she could finish it in Poland without problems. This is just a small part of what happened at that time, no one asked questions, no one was whining, because these were people in dire need. Do you think I liked to have a stranger mother with spoiled child in my home? I didn’t, but this is not the point in helping other people to like that. It is to do that effectively and provide whatever is needed despite your feelings or likening. If you will ever work with people like that, you will learn that this is no simple, nor nice task.
Now you are telling me that polish people have showed that they don’t give a **** about Ukraine because they don’t want to give billions of Euro to your corrupted oligarchs, who are most likely closely connected with Russia. Not to mention some of their perfidious actions, which are gaining better coverage in Poland, which directly hit polish stock holders(so effectively all polish people due to retirement system). You must understand that Ukraine has a long way to go before it will be normal country and I am not even saying about the war. Believe me, Poland was on the same track 35 years ago, but it serves as an example that even if things are not perfect, it is doable. At the moment Ukraine is corrupted as were all post Soviet countries, but it is not that important as long as the war goes. This WILL be important, when the war finally ends to continue normal cooperation with the western countries and their business. Hopefully Ukraine will join EU, but it has so much work to do.
And just as a reminder, borders were open to Ukrainian grain, which is not up to EU standards due to blocked export channel through the Black Sea. Now, thanks to marvelous work of Ukrainian drone fleet, this is not an issue anymore, so what exactly are we talking about? No military/humanitarian or other aid was ever blocked, save for some mistakes, nor will be. This is all about bunch of bastards, who want to profit from the blood of your countryman.

You also need to count in the shells, which are detonated before firing. Ukraine is very helpful with that to their Russian comrades. Saves a lot of effort with bringing shells to the frontline, when you can blow them en masse while stockpiled. 

Just to cheer you up, USA are not alone. In Europe every single country has pretty much the same problem on a different scale. Above film about mathematics basics is just a presentation of the tip of the iceberg.
This is a big, flashing red alarm to start treating weaponization of information seriously. Really, freedom of speech is NOT freedom of lies and manipulation. Either we act and demand scientific process of proving "facts" or we will drown in b*******.

Just to cheer you up, USA are not alone. In Europe every single country has pretty much the same problem on a different scale. Above film about mathematics basics is just a presentation of the tip of the iceberg.
This is a big, flashing red alarm to start treating weaponization of information seriously. Really, freedom of speech is NOT freedom of lies and manipulation. Either we act and demand scientific process of proving "facts" or we will drown in b*******.

Just to cheer you up, USA are not alone. In Europe every single country has pretty much the same problem on a different scale. Above film about mathematics basics is just a presentation of the tip of the iceberg.
This is a big, flashing red alarm to start treating weaponization of information seriously. Really, freedom of speech is NOT freedom of lies and manipulation. Either we act and demand scientific process of proving "facts" or we will drown in b*******.

Just to cheer you up, USA are not alone. In Europe every single country has pretty much the same problem on a different scale. Above film about mathematics basics is just a presentation of the tip of the iceberg.
This is a big, flashing red alarm to start treating weaponization of information seriously. Really, freedom of speech is NOT freedom of lies and manipulation. Either we act and demand scientific process of proving "facts" or we will drown in b*******.

Just to cheer you up, USA are not alone. In Europe every single country has pretty much the same problem on a different scale. Above film about mathematics basics is just a presentation of the tip of the iceberg.
This is a big, flashing red alarm to start treating weaponization of information seriously. Really, freedom of speech is NOT freedom of lies and manipulation. Either we act and demand scientific process of proving "facts" or we will drown in b*******.

I don't think that restraining yourself from using some of the tech and depending on solo drone swarm, be it bomber or fighter types is a wise thing. Lasers will still be revolutionary due to some of it's capabilities. It is always easier to track the target than actually hit it and with lasers this is actually the same thing. If the laser won't be able to track the drone, then I don't see how it can be hit by your "fighter drone", without major technological superiority. Of course it seems not feasible to deploy laser wall along the entire front and do it artillery/bomb/drone proof but still these systems(fighter drones and lasers) are not competing with each other, they are supporting and providing overall much better and robust solution.
Also in terms of costs be mindful that every successful employment of laser defense, when it shoots down multiple targets is bringing the cost per target down pretty fast. Deployment might be expensive but usage is dirty cheap. 

I don't know, if anyone is interested but 10-year treasury yields are skyrocketing in US. This is already a serious crisis, nothing good will come from indebted country having so high price to borrow more money. Markets(global) are also in a World of hurt, if this trend continues or even stabilises on this level(4.84% at the moment).
I would say that geopolitics are starting to show up on the bill. True battle for $ hegemony is about to start. 

I don't know, if anyone is interested but 10-year treasury yields are skyrocketing in US. This is already a serious crisis, nothing good will come from indebted country having so high price to borrow more money. Markets(global) are also in a World of hurt, if this trend continues or even stabilises on this level(4.84% at the moment).
I would say that geopolitics are starting to show up on the bill. True battle for $ hegemony is about to start. 

Ok, I will add another few cents to the "Tank wars" as this seems pretty hot.
First the problem with "Infantry is cheap and easy to replace" problem. This is extreme oversimplification. From military perspective you can say that this is just a few weeks of training and basic gear but there is a problem with that. Young soldiers in their 20s will be having on average about 40 more years to provide value to the society(untill retired). This is a LOT of value in all western democracies. Nations, which don't care about their people like Russia might have a different bill for that, when they send prisoners or alkoholics to the front but for normal countries, price of a young man is much higher. I would not be suprised, if person with higher education on average provided enough value to build an MBT in their lifetime. One can keep things running and generally provide absolute minimum but the other might wirite a few lines of code for Google or whatever, which will bring hundreds of millions. This is economical perspective of course as generally I think this is clear for everyone that life is just priceless. Period. No one should risk anybodys life, if this is not absolutely necessary and there are no other options. Infantry will always be there but with technology it is having less and less on their shoulders, which is a good thing.
Next thing is that tank is going to be obsolete like battleships or heavy cavalry. What needs to be understood is that battleships were replaced by carriers because they provided the same capabilities - long range sea based firepower. Carriers won because they do that a lot better, having much longer range, precision and a lot more firepower than even the mightiest of battleships. The only thing they lacked was the armour but it was actually obsolete with new longer range weapons(CAG). And heavy cavalry example is a bit funny as tanks actually replaced it. They did that because they provided the same capability in a better way. During history armour or defense in general was overmached repeatidly many times until a new solution appeared. We are in this situation right now and this is actually second time for tanks in their history, when this happens(I am looking at you Leo 1). This doesn't mean that we will leave our tanks, AFVs and all the stuff and go on foot because that is "cheap" and "logistics friendly". We will upgrade, turn to UGV, APS, Battlemechs, lasers, plasma cannons. Freaking force fields, I don't know. But certainly no infantry or drone swarms will provide the same capability as tank or whatever it might be called in the future. Drones are actually precision guided munitions and the only vehicles, which might feel threatend by it to be replaced is classical artillery, because(suprise) they provide the same capability.
We can see by the newly announced plans for M1E3, what will be next direction. Lighter vehicle, with all new tech integrated by default like APS and remote controlled weapons. Might be optionally manned but this was not actually stated. This confirms that we are not seeing the end of tank, we are seeing that currently passive armour is overmatched by different threaths and we are building new Leo 1 for new battlefield. Will this be immune to drone swarms and PGMs? Of course not. Will this be more survivable and in effect, provide direct fire support as an apex predator in 2km range? Yes it will.

I think that this is a little too fast to judge(tank death). We have seen very fast progress of anti-tank weaponry such as FPVs in this war(just think of what were the capabilities and usage cases of drones at the beginning of this war and what are 1.5 year later), but not much was done in regard to defense. In my personal view, after this war no country from the "first world" would go to war unprepared for such threat.
There are multiple responses to FPVs, PGMs and ATGMs alike as all of them base on two main characteristics to be effective:
- they fly faster/slower and have more/less degree of manuveribility.
- they carry exposives as a means to kill things
These two properties make these weapons vulnerable and easy to kill by anything that CAN hit them, so the only problem is to deploy defensive weaponry, which actually can. My personal bet here are readily available ultra-short range AA by strapping together machine gun and visual/radar targeting. You can make it en masse and at least the usage is cheap enough to rip through any number of attacking drones. At least from economical perspective. Also personal rifles will HAVE to be able to shoot down small drone up to 500m or more without major issues. Rifles will slowly drift from offensive weapon to something like last resort defense. Ballistic computers should also be already able to provide something like that. For tanks and other vehicles we will se just evolution of APS + ultra-short AA as above. Dedicated AA vehicles will also provide some area cover just like normal air defense today.
What I would NOT invest in is electronical warfare. We already see some attempts to make these weapons autonomus and this will be standard, if this war will take another 2 years or so, making electronic warfare against drones/PGMs pretty much useless. Welcome to Skynet World.
 

I think that this is a little too fast to judge(tank death). We have seen very fast progress of anti-tank weaponry such as FPVs in this war(just think of what were the capabilities and usage cases of drones at the beginning of this war and what are 1.5 year later), but not much was done in regard to defense. In my personal view, after this war no country from the "first world" would go to war unprepared for such threat.
There are multiple responses to FPVs, PGMs and ATGMs alike as all of them base on two main characteristics to be effective:
- they fly faster/slower and have more/less degree of manuveribility.
- they carry exposives as a means to kill things
These two properties make these weapons vulnerable and easy to kill by anything that CAN hit them, so the only problem is to deploy defensive weaponry, which actually can. My personal bet here are readily available ultra-short range AA by strapping together machine gun and visual/radar targeting. You can make it en masse and at least the usage is cheap enough to rip through any number of attacking drones. At least from economical perspective. Also personal rifles will HAVE to be able to shoot down small drone up to 500m or more without major issues. Rifles will slowly drift from offensive weapon to something like last resort defense. Ballistic computers should also be already able to provide something like that. For tanks and other vehicles we will se just evolution of APS + ultra-short AA as above. Dedicated AA vehicles will also provide some area cover just like normal air defense today.
What I would NOT invest in is electronical warfare. We already see some attempts to make these weapons autonomus and this will be standard, if this war will take another 2 years or so, making electronic warfare against drones/PGMs pretty much useless. Welcome to Skynet World.
 

I think that this is a little too fast to judge(tank death). We have seen very fast progress of anti-tank weaponry such as FPVs in this war(just think of what were the capabilities and usage cases of drones at the beginning of this war and what are 1.5 year later), but not much was done in regard to defense. In my personal view, after this war no country from the "first world" would go to war unprepared for such threat.
There are multiple responses to FPVs, PGMs and ATGMs alike as all of them base on two main characteristics to be effective:
- they fly faster/slower and have more/less degree of manuveribility.
- they carry exposives as a means to kill things
These two properties make these weapons vulnerable and easy to kill by anything that CAN hit them, so the only problem is to deploy defensive weaponry, which actually can. My personal bet here are readily available ultra-short range AA by strapping together machine gun and visual/radar targeting. You can make it en masse and at least the usage is cheap enough to rip through any number of attacking drones. At least from economical perspective. Also personal rifles will HAVE to be able to shoot down small drone up to 500m or more without major issues. Rifles will slowly drift from offensive weapon to something like last resort defense. Ballistic computers should also be already able to provide something like that. For tanks and other vehicles we will se just evolution of APS + ultra-short AA as above. Dedicated AA vehicles will also provide some area cover just like normal air defense today.
What I would NOT invest in is electronical warfare. We already see some attempts to make these weapons autonomus and this will be standard, if this war will take another 2 years or so, making electronic warfare against drones/PGMs pretty much useless. Welcome to Skynet World.
 

It’s Chernobyl - no one is going to deliver bad news to the boss, who just blew a plane load of opponents out of the sky, so they try to ignore it.  The human mind is fantastic at rationalization and that is what we are likely seeing here.  There was no mass panic last Fall (correct me if I am wrong), it was written off as an “operational adjustment” of the lines.  There wasn’t even a panic the previous spring when the entire Northern front collapsed.  This is not likely stolid Russian steel will, it is simply denial.
My sense is Russian forces could be dog paddling in the Azov Sea and Russian senior military and political leadership would frame it as a “reverse amphibious assault” to draw the UA into a trap.  This is not good news in reality because it is signalling that Russia is not negotiating with its own defeat.  There appears to simply be no outcome in their reality where they do not win.  This really means there will likely need to be a complete collapse of the current political power system for this war to end - of course many were saying this already.  The tricky part is quickly inserting a new political system into place to replace the old one before things unravel.  It has happened before in the 90s, although was pretty dicey at times.  

There were a number of situations, where the wording pointed to some kind of breakthrough but in fact it was just a temporary gain. For Robotyne we can read a month back that it was reached and trenches were cleared but still yesterday another photo from the norther outskirts of it, showing that as some new gain.
Generally it is increasingly hard to not only push forward but also to maintain captured positions so everything is going back and forth with artillery doing most of the work, when new enemy positions are identified during subsequent probes. There is also no indication that russians are getting weaker and I worry that this kind of grind will last up to the sea of Azov itself, which would take good part of next year to reach, if no major breakthrough will happen.
From the good side it looks like efficiency of the probes have increased and UAF can utilize smaller forces to achieve enemy detection and following destruction with artillery. Counter battery is also working like a charm for longer than a month now. Artillery clash is THE most important aspect in this war and it has clearly turned in Ukraine favor for good. Slowly starting Western arms production machine is also promising as it is very slow to start but can grow very large and dwarf anything, what ruzzians can produce/obtain.

I think this is general feeling about current situation that Ukraine "will not make it". The upcoming weekend peace talks are also hapenning for a reason. I have already seen some high level figures talks about Ukraine joining NATO without lost territories so this is definitly on the table.
Personally I think this would be Russia victory, which is unacceptable.

What impact ATACMS will actually make currently? It just seems way too late to fix any major problems Ukraine is facing. Recently it seems that the counter-battery work is enjoing the harvest season so problem nr 1 in artillery is now only a mere shadow from a year back when HIMARS first appeared. The next issue on the list are helicopters in my book. These are mobile enough to provide support wherever a mechanized push is ongoing and coupled with minefields it is extremely painful. ATACMS will not change anything in regard to this issue and even more so with fixed wing threat, which is also deadly although not that much as gunships.
What is now needed is mobile, long range air defense(F-15/16 anyone?). This will give enough time to slowly rip through the minefields with only major threat left being LOS based ATGMS and armor, which can be handled much better by mechanized units, even without fancy CMBS stuff. 
Apart from targeting strategic infrastructure with it, I don't see any major change with ATACMS(definitly not like HIMARS was last year).

To go through these minefields reasonably easy I belive UA would require 3 things:
- mine plow on whatever is there available
- APS on everything, which is taking part in the push
- these fancy new Strykers https://warriormaven.com/land/army-strykers-drones-laser-directed-energy-maneuver-short-range-air-defense
From these 3 above only first one was easily obtainable and the third one is not even fielded in relevant numbers in US.
With APS alone, artillery is a major problem but should be enough for these KA-52s, which are the main hurt dealers here.

I am also not a gambler but my wet dream is that Ukraine would punch through around Bakhmut, when it will be weak enough and go straight for Debaltseve.
Psychological blow alone from that move would be tremendous but this single town is a focal point of supply routes for the entire eastern front. Taking any land on the territory of Donetsk/Luhansk pseudo-republic is also a major status quo changer. After that Crimea would be looking like a small deal compared to that.
Winning in the east is much more valuable than south because it means that Crimea and all other territories comes free of charge. Single blow to cut a head of this ugly beast, worth dedicated history books.
Yeah, what a nice dream...

I am also not a gambler but my wet dream is that Ukraine would punch through around Bakhmut, when it will be weak enough and go straight for Debaltseve.
Psychological blow alone from that move would be tremendous but this single town is a focal point of supply routes for the entire eastern front. Taking any land on the territory of Donetsk/Luhansk pseudo-republic is also a major status quo changer. After that Crimea would be looking like a small deal compared to that.
Winning in the east is much more valuable than south because it means that Crimea and all other territories comes free of charge. Single blow to cut a head of this ugly beast, worth dedicated history books.
Yeah, what a nice dream...

I am also not a gambler but my wet dream is that Ukraine would punch through around Bakhmut, when it will be weak enough and go straight for Debaltseve.
Psychological blow alone from that move would be tremendous but this single town is a focal point of supply routes for the entire eastern front. Taking any land on the territory of Donetsk/Luhansk pseudo-republic is also a major status quo changer. After that Crimea would be looking like a small deal compared to that.
Winning in the east is much more valuable than south because it means that Crimea and all other territories comes free of charge. Single blow to cut a head of this ugly beast, worth dedicated history books.
Yeah, what a nice dream...

This. This is how Poland and Hungary goverments are selling bull**** to the less informed part of society. Evil EU is a reason for expensive energy from coal due to CO2 allowances. The same allowances goverment sells and can use this money as they wish, for example investing in decarbonizing industry. But this would be such a waste, wouldn't it?
 
Honestly, after more than 2000 years and hundreds of smaller and larger wars, I think we are really at the point, where doing things together is an option. Wasting it would be the most shameful thing in European history. As everything, EU has major flaws but none of them justify throwing it into the ditch instead of fixing it.

This. This is how Poland and Hungary goverments are selling bull**** to the less informed part of society. Evil EU is a reason for expensive energy from coal due to CO2 allowances. The same allowances goverment sells and can use this money as they wish, for example investing in decarbonizing industry. But this would be such a waste, wouldn't it?
 
Honestly, after more than 2000 years and hundreds of smaller and larger wars, I think we are really at the point, where doing things together is an option. Wasting it would be the most shameful thing in European history. As everything, EU has major flaws but none of them justify throwing it into the ditch instead of fixing it.