Yet

so why does the West media count the war by square km territory (initiated by Zelensky, EU and Washington). i didnt hear press conferences about 'Ru already faced strategic defeat by all metrics'. Because pariah, Nato expansion, losses, real powers exposed, ... and 'the only last metric to make Ru understand is square km'. It is in Western/Ukr favour to keep portraying Ru to the masses as scary, big and winning. And there is one metric that serves that and that RU wont quickly run out of. 'square km taken from Ukr'. The only problem with this is that we want to be with 'winners'. Therefore part of the civilians is uninterested and start to not care or (worse) put all other issues closer to home first. Now it is up to the politicians and spindoctors to 'sell' the war by or making the enemy scarier, or by showing succes. Problem is that the Western (free, shock-based, commercial, critical) media has to catch it up and frame it for the crowds. It takes quite a shock or willpower and creativity to get it to land in John (and Jane) Doe's algorithms.

US leaving Nato is MEGFTFT, not MAGA (MEGFTFT = make europe great for the first time)

1 million drones /year 2700 / day 1 operator can make... say 5 flights/day? that would come down to 540 operators. over 500km front (not counting Africa) does it still sound so impossible? Maybe identifying enough targets might be the bottleneck.

I agree with @Tux, in addition: the Western leaders or nationalist that in the past spoke positive of Putin dont 'like him' or 'his Russia'. they envy !parts! of his leadership style or policy. They like his strong leadership or his nationalism, or his mediaouting barechest on a horse, or his 'fck the rest i do as i want- mentality'. That doesnt mean they love or support him, RU, or the war. Also the ones that ever said positives about Putins RU, often now sing a different tone. Ps. This goes for quite a few Euroos (Meloni, deWinter, Wilders, LePen), I am not so much into Trump, but as much as i see/read I assume this also goes for him.

https://www.rtlnieuws.nl/nieuws/buitenland/artikel/5427435/oekraine-rusland-poetin-zelensky-oorlog-nederland Dutch chieff of defence and former chieff of arms declare that Ukr should get also long distance rockets to hit RU on RU territory. 'Ukr cant stay in the boxing ring with 1 hand tied on its back'.

I never spoke of Leopards, nor of the average German citizen. We might (wanna) think that politicians do everything for the perception of its inhabitants... but that is wildly untrue. Its a game of politicians and lobbyists, where politicians want to hear a good story and want to feel good and strong. Where they (often wrongly) assume looking good might reap future benefits and where the most powerful people are reduced to weak humans of flesh, blood with all their flaws exploited, while it makes them feel like the Terminator. They dont always act for the people... they mostly act out of their gut feeling which is highly influencable, covered by a mild fear for negative media (or action group) outings which is a main weapon. There are different types of politicians on how they best can be influenced. But with your silverware on the table the poker games gets a lot more interesting, and it gets a lot harder to fold when youre not losing.

Very true from a military punt of view. on the other hand... (from a lobbyist point of view). Western nations got dedicated to the UA war by sending their own stuff. France, Germany, Netherlands, Denmark, all got dedicated into this war by sending their high end stuff. if they would have sent only money or some cartboard for drones, these nations would never feel so attached to the war. Ofc if summer offensive would have been very succesfull.. think about what stories would be up to pull all these nations head deep inside.

aaaand there go our 'proven concepts' out of the window.

RU bought 92 (civilian) airplanes. these Airbus and Boing planes were confiscated by RU government and are now legally bought. (in Dutch) https://www.upinthesky.nl/2023/12/25/rusland-koopt-bijna-honderd-westerse-vliegtuigen/

soooo. Wrapping up the last 50 pages: about anti-mine brainstorm -no bad ideas- except that all ideas are bad Breaking the minefield doesnt solve the main problem. The first one that denies ISR (lower airspace) to the opponent can start to think breaching and offense. And without enemy drones in the sky all mine-breaching ideas are good again. Back to improved jammers, swarms, and anti-drone. and... strength too all the chaps at the front & Merry christmas

the number of lost drones strikes me. Id expect it to be surely in the double numbers compared to the rest. Are they not being used? not being targeted? or not being downed?

raw elite meat? isnt that just Steak Tartare?

not needed to pop up. see Hill60 (WW1)

if heat and sound are no issue, might as well add hoovercrofts in the equation with jetpacks.

Nieuwsuur (NL), Monitor(DE) and RUSI traced a German company WWsemicon that sends chips despite the sanctions to RU. -German customs took action. Good start you'd say, however: one of the main sources was RU customs(!). They were so nice to write down what is imported. If billions of cocaïne etc. is imported to the EU, we cannot expect the sanctions to be watertight. But if this is the game, I dont see much reason to expect that the flow of western parts will ever cease or even diminish.

... for us not, when fighting a non-existential war on foreign soil. But for Russia?

How long until we find Somali pirates in the trenches?

Read your article: "70 additional soldiers" which means there was already crew that could use it properly.

https://www.reuters.com/world/europe/ukrainian-drone-struck-russian-nuclear-waste-facility-ministry-says-2023-10-28/ false flag to scout the possibility to use tacticals in the near future?

If i am asking here: how to destroy a bomber? i can get a swarm of good answers. If im asking how to destroy a small bomber with rotors we get all -lasers, -spacey, -swarm, -must-kill-everything, -must be 1 solution. If i am asking how to destroy satellites and awacs? everyone sais 'dont get scifi'. But surveillance drones must at all cost be taken out! for everything offensive there are multiple specializations on different platforms to destroy or at least deny its mission success. it seems logical to me that a combination of systems is needed. And on different platforms and locations. think about every step that is needed to take ou det an enemy bomber. detect-identify-chose platform availability-hunt-destroy(or deny). why would a series of optimised radar systems, jammers, frequency scanners, pigeon-shooters, defence-drones, ERA with wings (would make a nice Ukr meme), hunter drones, bugs-in-a-shell and concealments in a network be out of the question? (and booze the solution;))

one-and-done as in.. this is the last you get, good luck. or as in this is all you would ever need to surely achieve all goals? What would such a package have to consist?

nah. its logical. Schulz heard that Taurus is installed with a beertap and bratwust-cooker and there are real Germans inside. totally undestandable that Germany wont send them

i Share this question. imo its: - grain export (morale, money, looks politically good) - morale (ukr can hit Crimea & biggest pride left of former 2nd world army-the fleet-) - less rockets on powergrid & random 'targets' - successes for international media consumption - limiting logistic/transport options to Crimea.. for future plans - making it longer for RU to military recover after the war. ..... making RU to make choices? not so much I think, every choice will go to reinforcing the line with trenches, mines. mobiks, guns, drones, artillery. If i forgot something or anyone can make a direct link to the ground war; id be happy to hear it. All of these things help of course -in the long run-. and it seems or could be more of a marathon than the sprint some people thought it would.. so not at all a bad strategy! However, the direct short term effect on the land war is small i think - taking out radars & airforce (and ofc troops, trenches, arty, etc) does have a bigger impact.