How Hot is Ukraine Gonna Get?

[Aragorn2002]

Beneath article is very off topic and yet it isn't. Personally I can hardly believe it, but after some  googling I found several sources that confirmed it. Another chapter of  the glorious Soviet past.

"In 1949, before the celebration of the 70th anniversary of the Great Stalin, veterans, invalids of the Second World War, were shot dead in the USSR. Some shot, some taken to the distant islands in the North and remote corners of Siberia for further disposal. Valaam is a concentration camp for invalids of the Second World War was located on the island of Valaam (Lake Ladoga), where in 1950-1984 the maimed disabled veterans were taken to.

Over one night, the authorities conducted a round up, gathered homeless disabled people, centrally transported them to the station, loaded them into wagons of the ZK type and sent them by echelons to the Solovki.

No guilt or judgement admitted: the maimed must have not embarrassed citizens with their unpleasant appearance of their front-line stumps and spoiled the idyllic picture of the overall socialist prosperity of Soviet cities. The homeless veteran, tens of thousands in number after the war, first of all aroused anger and disgust among those who did spend the war at the headquarters. Rumours had it that Zhukov personally organized this action. The disabled were taken out from all major cities of the USSR, especially from the capital cities of the Soviet republics.

The whole country was "cleaned up" over one night. It was a special operation of the unprecedented scale. Yes, the disabled tried to resist, threw themselves onto the rails, but they were picked up and taken anyway. Even the so-called "samovars" (100 000 men) were "taken out" - people without arms and legs. On the Solovki, they were sometimes taken out for a breath of fresh air and hung on the ropes of trees. Sometimes they were totally forgotten and froze to death.

These were usually 20-year-old guys, crippled by the war and written off by the Motherland as the worked-out human material no longer benefiting the Motherland. Many of them were crippled during the storming of Berlin in March-April 1945, when Marshal Zhukov, in order to save tanks, sent infantry soldiers to attack minefields - thus stepping on mines and blowing themselves up - the soldiers cleared minefields with their bodies, creating a corridor for troops, thereby bringing the Great Victory closer.

Comrade Zhukov proudly boasted of this to Eisenhower, which was recorded in the personal diary of an American military leader, who simply fell into a stupor from such revelations of his Soviet colleague.

Disabled people who lived in families however were not touched. The "cleansing of the disabled" was repeated several times with the disabled also sent to boarding schools, resembling prisons, being under the full control of the cruel NKVD forces. Since then, there have been no disabled people in the veterans' parades and very few in the streets. They were simply removed as an unpleasant painful memory. Thus, the Soviet people could continue to carelessly enjoy the Soviet prosperous reality without the need to witness the unpleasant horrifying spectacle of thousands of the begging and drunken invalids with disabled stumps. Even their names have gone into oblivion.

Much later, the happy go lucky survivors began to receive benefits from the state. Yet those poor legless and armless boys were simply buried alive on the Solovki islands, and today no one can hardly recall their names and their extreme suffering - this is how the final solution of the disability issue in the USSR was made."

[billbindc]

9 hours ago, Battlefront.com said:

The reason why this war hasn't worked for Putin this time is because he violated the two most important principles of Soviet/Russian strategic planning... always have multiple paths to achieving the desired goal AND be prepared to accept less than what was wished for.

To the latter point, perhaps what happened here is that after the initial failure Putin realized that accepting less than what he wished for was potentially a fatal personal or regime outcome.

[Zeleban]

5 minutes ago, Aragorn2002 said:

Beneath article is very off topic and yet it isn't. Personally I can hardly believe it, but after some  googling I found several sources that confirmed it. Another chapter of  the glorious Soviet past.

"In 1949, before the celebration of the 70th anniversary of the Great Stalin, veterans, invalids of the Second World War, were shot dead in the USSR. Some shot, some taken to the distant islands in the North and remote corners of Siberia for further disposal. Valaam is a concentration camp for invalids of the Second World War was located on the island of Valaam (Lake Ladoga), where in 1950-1984 the maimed disabled veterans were taken to.

Over one night, the authorities conducted a round up, gathered homeless disabled people, centrally transported them to the station, loaded them into wagons of the ZK type and sent them by echelons to the Solovki.

No guilt or judgement admitted: the maimed must have not embarrassed citizens with their unpleasant appearance of their front-line stumps and spoiled the idyllic picture of the overall socialist prosperity of Soviet cities. The homeless veteran, tens of thousands in number after the war, first of all aroused anger and disgust among those who did spend the war at the headquarters. Rumours had it that Zhukov personally organized this action. The disabled were taken out from all major cities of the USSR, especially from the capital cities of the Soviet republics.

The whole country was "cleaned up" over one night. It was a special operation of the unprecedented scale. Yes, the disabled tried to resist, threw themselves onto the rails, but they were picked up and taken anyway. Even the so-called "samovars" (100 000 men) were "taken out" - people without arms and legs. On the Solovki, they were sometimes taken out for a breath of fresh air and hung on the ropes of trees. Sometimes they were totally forgotten and froze to death.

These were usually 20-year-old guys, crippled by the war and written off by the Motherland as the worked-out human material no longer benefiting the Motherland. Many of them were crippled during the storming of Berlin in March-April 1945, when Marshal Zhukov, in order to save tanks, sent infantry soldiers to attack minefields - thus stepping on mines and blowing themselves up - the soldiers cleared minefields with their bodies, creating a corridor for troops, thereby bringing the Great Victory closer.

Comrade Zhukov proudly boasted of this to Eisenhower, which was recorded in the personal diary of an American military leader, who simply fell into a stupor from such revelations of his Soviet colleague.

Disabled people who lived in families however were not touched. The "cleansing of the disabled" was repeated several times with the disabled also sent to boarding schools, resembling prisons, being under the full control of the cruel NKVD forces. Since then, there have been no disabled people in the veterans' parades and very few in the streets. They were simply removed as an unpleasant painful memory. Thus, the Soviet people could continue to carelessly enjoy the Soviet prosperous reality without the need to witness the unpleasant horrifying spectacle of thousands of the begging and drunken invalids with disabled stumps. Even their names have gone into oblivion.

Much later, the happy go lucky survivors began to receive benefits from the state. Yet those poor legless and armless boys were simply buried alive on the Solovki islands, and today no one can hardly recall their names and their extreme suffering - this is how the final solution of the disability issue in the USSR was made."

 

It is very similar to modern Russia. She wipes her *** with those who died with her name on their lips

[Beleg85]

Btw. for people (rightly) complaining at UA clips with stupid musical bacground, here somethng better:

Famous artilleryman's song...

[The_Capt]

6 hours ago, Battlefront.com said:

Yup, and that is exactly what Russia views as a strategy.  It worked very well for it in 2014, it worked well for it against Georgia, it even worked well against Chechnya the second time.  It's worked well for 20+ years in co-opting and undermining the West, it's even worked in Syria.  For a long time it worked keeping NATO from expanding, basing forces eastward, keeping forces out of Ukraine, etc.

Well I am not buying into a "mystery way of the East" in strategic thinking and planning.  I think we risk seeing patterns when they really are not there.

Russia employed very recognizable subversive-deterrence strategies in all those examples you note.  In 2014 they positioned subversive elements in Crimea and Donbas for years.  The basic game plan was Infiltrate-Divide/Exacerbate-Subvert-Proxy-Legitimate, they had end states/outcome aligned with method and means.  They understood thresholds and deterrence and employed them very well.  It took long games and careful planning and prepositioning.  They were working with poor assumptions but they had alternate plans and were deliberate.  A lot of this as a result of the first disaster in Chechnya.

Then in this war they threw out the playbook, tossed some dice that rolled a natural 1, and now are scrambling in a strategic vacuum. They are now at the back end of a Fernando Vidal strategy:  "War with Ukraine is like a game of chess..." 

 

[Billy Ringo]

I've said this since the first week of this war, and it's still true:

Kill Putin's ego, end the war.

There is virtually no other valid reason to continue this war, except Putin's ego and self-serving desires.

[Harmon Rabb]

Russia must face tribunal for ‘crime of aggression’ in Ukraine, say UK cross-party leaders (The Guardian)

[Kinophile]

4 hours ago, Bulletpoint said:

By that same logic, I could wish every single American soldier to suffer and die because of historical US war crimes, atrocities and support for repressive regimes, but that would be absurd - even though the average American combat soldier is a volunteer and has way more political say in the running of his/her country than the average Russian.

 

Do they really have all this information? Where is that coming from? They live in a propaganda bubble and the ones getting mobilised are not the guys with education and wealth. They are mainly poorer guys from the countryside. The ones escaping to the West are the relatively privileged and informed, like the "fortunate sons" who could dodge the draft for Vietnam.

About motivations for going to war, I'm sure some of the Russians want to go plunder, but so do some of the international volunteers going to 'fight for Ukraine'. As we recently saw in the interview with the British volunteer.

In any army, there will be good people and bad people. There are literally hundreds of thousands of individual people with their own motivations and background. Wishing suffering and death on all of them is the wrong way to go, in my opinion. Let's instead wish that the people responsible for this war, and the soldiers who commit war crimes, get what they deserve.

 

If they are even real at all, these intercepted phone calls are cherry picked exactly for the reason to make us feel the Russian army is made up of subhuman brutes bent on rape and plunder.

How many intercepted calls have there been, and how many calls have Russian troops made in total? The Russian army is very large, yet we point to a handful of calls and say "Look, this proves that they are all orks".

Well, I'm 100 pct sure some of them ARE orks and deserve a bad fate. But I'm also sure not all of them are. I'm not going to sit here and look at videos of people getting blown to bits and cheer because I make myself believe I can judge them and their character from a drone view.

I know this is an unpopular and uncomfortable position to take on a military forum in the middle of a horrible war. I don't blame Ukrainians for being in mental survival mode. But when it comes to people like myself and others on this forum, who live safely away from the fighting, I think we should try to keep a sense of perspective and not forget our humanity in this, even though we see so many things done that are inhumane.

Sure the calls are subject to editorializing,  absolutely. 

But what of all those videos, of large groups of men, whining a put not having the tight tools to kill more Ukrainians?  Pure self defense? 

And like I said, not a single, not one video released by any unit notes at any point that they are against the war in and of itself. They don't want to be cold, unfed or shelled by their own side, sure.

But if the mobilization had happened in Feb and they were fighting in nice warm August with enough weapons then the videos wouldn't be about those issues,  it would be the usual Rar Rar Victoria, and I guarantee still not an iota of regret or doubt about being in someone else's country, killing their women,  destroying their cities and entombing children inside their own homes. They'd be in their "Happy Time",  a la 1941 Wehrmacht.

Any halfway decent person in occupied Ukraine can see it all and more. 

And yet, not a single damn video of We Should Not Be Here Killing Ukrainians. 

The lack of any thought in this strain is a very simple moral filter. 

Edited January 9, 2023 by Kinophile

[Kinophile]

16 minutes ago, Billy Ringo said:

I've said this since the first week of this war, and it's still true:

Kill Putin's ego, end the war.

There is virtually no other valid reason to continue this war, except Putin's ego and self-serving desires.

Im not convinced it would. Prigozhin has positioned himself as Putin 2.0, and he's too politically and socially invested in the war. He views it as his own 2nd Chechnya, a nice Rally Around The Flag for his supporters. He wont stop the war, he'll triple down. He's type of ****er who'll set up full fledged extermination camps in occupied territories,  who'll depopulate whole cities to make way for Russian colonists,  whole create a whole slave class of Khohols. 

[The_MonkeyKing]

https://news.sky.com/story/uk-considering-supplying-ukraine-with-challenger-2-tanks-to-fight-russian-forces-12783107

Level of emotional support GER is needing in this desision is amazing

[FancyCat]

No rhetorical climb down, I cannot emphasize enough that if Putin and co want to deescalate, they need to prime public opinion to accept it, and we are seeing none of that.

Sky News is reporting that maybe 10 Challenger 2 tanks may be on the table for Ukraine. Token contribution but if it gets the Leopards free, so be it.

If it does pan out that Ukraine was correct in the 2nd mobilization, it should definitely be remembered as a sign of Ukrainian ability to hear the Russian state.

 

Edited January 9, 2023 by FancyCat

[Shady_Side]

Thanks for the welcome guys. I have been very interested in reading this forum since the beginning. It is a great place to get some opinions of people who have spent a lifetime doing professionally things that for lack of a better word have only been a hobby for me. No matter how many books I have read, documentaries I watched or hours I spent playing combat mission, war is something I dont really know anything about. 

From what I see though we in the west have given enough to ensure a stalemate. Maybe a stalemate where Ukraine has a bit of an upperhand, but not enough to push Russia completely out of their country. At least has long has the Russians are willing to throw enough draftees to bog down and stop an offensive just because of the time it takes to kill them all. Big dumb mass as the capt calls it. I dont believe Russia can win with it, if you call winning pushing into Kiev installing a puppet getting "legal" control of the territory they want and heading to the victory parade in Moscow. But they can drag Ukraine back into the trenches and hold them there a very long time with it.

Thing is I don't see Ukraine winning either with what they have if you call winning shoving the Russians into the black sea in the south and back over the borders in the east. Not with what they have and not with what we are even willing to discuss giving them anytime in the near future. Sure Russia will likely come up with another big offensive that will take some ground before it falls apart. Just like Ukraine will have another big push somewhere but it will probably start drowning in Russian blood and have to stop even if they have a shiny new battalion of Bradleys and Marders. A division or two would make the difference but that is not coming anytime soon.  So they will end up back in the trenches again. Rinse and repeat with neither side being able to really gather enough strength to finish the other off

So far the only ideal for a complete Ukrainian victory is waiting on Russia to collapse from within. I am afraid that will be a very long haul. Once a society or a structure is in place and standing it usually takes a helluva long time to fall not matter how flawed the original design or how many signs of rot we clearly see from the outside. See North Korea as an example.

 

 

[The_MonkeyKing]

Leopard 2 version "tree":

source:

There is going to have to be a wide deal with internal swapping between countries I am sure. To get only 1-2 types to UKR

[billbindc]

16 minutes ago, Kinophile said:

Im not convinced it would. Prigozhin has positioned himself as Putin 2.0, and he's too politically and socially invested in the war. He views it as his own 2nd Chechnya, a nice Rally Around The Flag for his supporters. He wont stop the war, he'll triple down. He's type of ****er who'll set up full fledged extermination camps in occupied territories,  who'll depopulate whole cities to make way for Russian colonists,  whole create a whole slave class of Khohols. 

A useful primer on what's coming up in Russian politics. I'm somewhat less inclined than most to see a future dominated by Prigozhin and his ilk. 

https://carnegieendowment.org/politika/88753

[billbindc]

Per the strategy/no-strategy discussion, I would suggest a third option:

There was a formal strategy in the first few weeks before it became obvious it was a disaster. That disaster provoked reactions domestically that convinced Putin that cutting his losses after a certain point was likely fatal to him and the regime. Since then, the strategy, such as it is, is pure spaghetti at the fridge in order to buy time to figure out a solution to the potential for a power struggle in Moscow.

Everything else is subordinate to that issue.

Time spent on parsing out some sort of thought out military campaign is wasted without thinking of the political effect back home for Putin. Also, Prigozhin's influence is likely quite over rated. He acted as a stick for Putin against the MOD in the domestic struggle but also as a sink for radicals who flocked to the banners to die...and more importantly to fail...in the Donbas. Two birds, one stone.

 

Edited January 9, 2023 by billbindc

[FancyCat]

The one quoted is head of the same organization who got the Russian paratrooper to Paris who then promptly turned his back on his rescuers.

I am inclined to believe his words as a result. The west cannot calculate Russian collapse, Russian exhaustion, the potential for Russia to wage war if we fail to understand the difference between Russia and the West.

 

[Butschi]

1 hour ago, Maciej Zwolinski said:

Let us assume that the information about Russian atrocities is part of Ukrainian propaganda. And in a sense it is, Ukrainians certainly show it in order to gain support from the West. So what?

Is it untrue? Is it exaggerated? Is it matched by equal and opposite amount of atrocities committed by the Ukrainians on Russians? 

To me, the answer to these three questions is a no, without much doubt.  Therefore, it  being propaganda is completely irrelevant. The information is factual and you may draw your own conclusions from it. Together with other facts, like:

- Russian command treating the life of its own soldiers as dirt (admitted by Russians, by some critically, by some others as a unique Russsian virtue of self-sacrifice; unlikely to be more humane to the enemy)

- Russian people in the media calling for genocide of Ukrainians (also by private Russians on social media, with fairly high frequency)

- Russian soldiers engaging in war crimes willingly or at least without protest (none have been recorded)

- Russian parliament putting up a bill to exonerate all perpetrators of war crimes "in the interest of Russsia";

- Wagner PMC being a popular institution in Russia while braining people with sledgehammers for camera;

etc.

Anyone can get his own conclusions, but to me, the evidence is sufficient to say that Russians generally are a nasty bunch and be glad that Ukrainians are killing their soldiers. 

 

I don't doubt that, as you say, the information is factual. The question is, how much factual information is left out? Lies that everyone can identify as such are a really primitive form of propaganda, cherry-picking the truth is way more effective.

Now, as I said, I don't blame the Ukrainians for using all the tools at their disposal. And - let's use the word PR campaign here - PR works by generating emotions. They need support from the West and the best way to get it is by showing us all those pictures. It has worked like that in many other wars before. Fair enough.

Three reasons why I nevertheless think it is important to note that this is a form of propaganda:

1. Last time I looked, this thread was not (only) about cheering on Ukraine but about understanding and analyzing this war. For that it is important to know that what information we get from Ukraine is not the unfiltered truth. To understand a war, it is important to know how the other side ticks. And for that it makes a difference if all Russian soldiers are just animals who rape and kill because it is their nature to do so, or if it is a fraction of the soldiers who behaves like that (and how large that fraction is) and why they are acting like they do (systemic failure, "their nature", you name it).
2. The end justifies the means is a really slippery slope.
3. Dehumanizing the enemy - while it serves a purpose now - is way easier to do than the other way round. Now, Russians are in Ukraine and in order to drive them out again, the only way seems to be paved with dead Russian soldiers. But this war will come to end, be it in a week or 10 years. And after that the Ukrainians and Russians will still be there and will still be neighbors. And yes, one day, the Ukrainians will have to forgive the Russians just like (most of) the world forgave Germany. The Russians will have to work very hard to deserve forgiveness, true, but without it forgiveness this will never end. We Germans had this "Hereditary Enemy" bull**** way too long and see where it got us.

 

[Butschi]

14 hours ago, Vet 0369 said:

A strange thought has occurred to this old Jarhead who was born not long after WWII ended. I apologize in advance for going off topic.

I’m beginning to wonder if the Marshall Plan that was used to re-educate and rebuild Germany and Japan after their surrenders didn’t work “too” well. I’m sure that the “short-term” goals of the plan (and yes, McArthur was responsible for Japan, but he also reported to Marshall). The short-term goal was to demilitarize both countries and to make sure they didn’t threaten “the peace” again. Rebuilding the countries was secondary to that, but the re-education policy and forcing the collective guilts for their crimes against Humanity down their throats have caused both Countries to extremely pacifist world policy stances. Based on that thought, I would venture to suggest that the German reluctance to supporting the war is probably the fault of the U.S.A. Due to our extreme re-education of the German society.

Sorry to quote myself. But I think this addresses your thought:

 

[chrisl]

17 minutes ago, Butschi said:

Sorry to quote myself. But I think this addresses your thought:

 

 

What you wrote there is consistent with my experience living there for a year as a student in the late 80s and then going back to visit again in the late 2010s.  A lot of social progress was made in that time, and Susan Neiman wrote a whole book about how the process went, including before and after the wall came down that's also consistent with your much, much shorter summary.

[Zeleban]

There are reports that the Russians have regrouped and launched a new attack on Soledar

[Beleg85]

Yup, Hanna Maliar said about assault groups made from reportedly Wagnerite "League", not only convicts now.

[Battlefront.com]

5 hours ago, Bulletpoint said:

By that same logic, I could wish every single American soldier to suffer and die because of historical US war crimes, atrocities and support for repressive regimes, but that would be absurd - even though the average American combat soldier is a volunteer and has way more political say in the running of his/her country than the average Russian.

If American soldiers were actively raping and pillaging a country that was innocently sitting around trying to mind its own business, then you might have a point.

You are false equivocating.  That is a Russian tactic you should not be using.  It undermines your point.

5 hours ago, Bulletpoint said:

Do they really have all this information? Where is that coming from? They live in a propaganda bubble and the ones getting mobilised are not the guys with education and wealth. They are mainly poorer guys from the countryside. The ones escaping to the West are the relatively privileged and informed, like the "fortunate sons" who could dodge the draft for Vietnam.

Ultimately it is their responsibility.  The Russian government can only function if its people allow it to.  This is "collective guilt" concept that was applied to Germany and Japan after their defeat in WW2.  Are you saying that principle was wrong?

5 hours ago, Bulletpoint said:

About motivations for going to war, I'm sure some of the Russians want to go plunder, but so do some of the international volunteers going to 'fight for Ukraine'. As we recently saw in the interview with the British volunteer.

False equivocation again.  Please stop doing it.

5 hours ago, Bulletpoint said:

In any army, there will be good people and bad people. There are literally hundreds of thousands of individual people with their own motivations and background. Wishing suffering and death on all of them is the wrong way to go, in my opinion.

When I see a picture of 60 dead Russian Mobiks I presume that a few of them are the type you speak of.  But the majority are not and I have no way to tell which specific body belongs to which group. So what am I supposed to do, say "great that Ukraine killed another 57 fascists.  Too bad for the other 3 that went along for the ride"?

5 hours ago, Bulletpoint said:

If they are even real at all, these intercepted phone calls are cherry picked exactly for the reason to make us feel the Russian army is made up of subhuman brutes bent on rape and plunder.

True, but I am speaking more about all the videos uploaded by the mobiks themselves directly and not through the Ukrainian filter.  Or have you missed all of those?

5 hours ago, Bulletpoint said:

Well, I'm 100 pct sure some of them ARE orks and deserve a bad fate. But I'm also sure not all of them are. I'm not going to sit here and look at videos of people getting blown to bits and cheer because I make myself believe I can judge them and their character from a drone view.

Yet you are judging them and finding them probably innocent.  The weight of evidence is not supportive of that view.

5 hours ago, Bulletpoint said:

I know this is an unpopular and uncomfortable position to take on a military forum in the middle of a horrible war. I don't blame Ukrainians for being in mental survival mode. But when it comes to people like myself and others on this forum, who live safely away from the fighting, I think we should try to keep a sense of perspective and not forget our humanity in this, even though we see so many things done that are inhumane.

I have a strong sense of humanity and very well grounded perspective.  I have, after all, been studying warfare for more than 30 years and find it horrible.  But Russia is fighting a genocidal war of choice and that is the perspective Russia has forced me to operate within. 

I am very sorry for the individual Russians who are caught up in this horror show, but if they are actively participating in it, willingly or not, then my sympathy for them is zero.  Without them there is no genocidal war, therefore I want them removed from the equation one way or the other as fast as possible.  If they mutiny, great, if they die on the battlefield I'm fine with that.

Steve

[danfrodo]

I gotta chime in on a few items, just to summarize for myself:

1.  Intent for any given RU soldier is irrelevant.  Whether he's actually a peacenik who hates the war or whether he's a murderous monster,  if he's part of the RU army he's an existential threat to UKR and is open to being killed w/o warning.  If he's actually a peacenik who was forced into it, then he's a victim of Putin's war, like so many of all armies.  If he's a warmonger, then he got what he deserved.  But it's all irrelevant.  If he's a threat he is open to being killed.  Intent doesn't matter.  Surrender or be killed, and sadly many of the ones that want to surrender never get the chance.

2.  Supplying better NATO weapons has become an absurdity, with everyone dancing around while UKR burns.  Send the dang things.  At this point it should be clear to everyone that the only way to end this is for UKR to win back enough territory that it can then negotiate.  And to do this it needs better weapons.  What kind of fool thinks doing an assault w M113s is the best we can provide?  Bradleys, marders, AMX10, leo2s -- the increase in firepower for a given company-sized assault would be increased 10x w those weapons -- and given that UKR will probably be facing lots of RU mobiks, it needs firepower to overcome mass.   Given the delay in training, shipping, logistics, etc, this should've been done 6 months ago.

3.  Russian 'strategy' is driven by desperation to get some kind of 'win'.  The latest incarnation of this is to try to freeze things as they are now, w the landbridge being the 'win'.  But it's all desperation, like was said by TheCapt: they are trying various things in the hopes that somehow the will of UKR & allies will fail and stalemate will become permanent.

 

 

[kraze]

1 hour ago, Billy Ringo said:

I've said this since the first week of this war, and it's still true:

Kill Putin's ego, end the war.

There is virtually no other valid reason to continue this war, except Putin's ego and self-serving desires.

putin decides literally nothing at this point. Russians would tear him apart should he try to order a full retreat. It's not "putin's war".

He allowed russians to be russian, to finally let what they suppressed for 30 years out - the barbaric nature of their culture. Russians are out for blood and trying to somehow punish only one of them has no effect at this point.

Edited January 9, 2023 by kraze

[kevinkin]

https://www.army-technology.com/features/promise-of-armour-and-combined-arms-training-to-ukraine-point-to-new-phase-in-russia-war/

Through the Ukraine Defence Contact Group, created in order to give Ukraine a forum in which to request equipment from supportive and NATO states, Kyiv has been able to acquire, at a cost that NATO states will want to be recovered, the right platforms for the particular stage the war was in. Indeed, the level of planning that has gone into the support for Ukraine indicates NATO taking a persistent strategic view of the war and the need for Russia to fail in its bid to overthrow the government of President Volodomyr Zelensky in Kyiv.

In other words, NATO is titrating the introduction of arms to met the realities on the ground as they develop. Training is not instantaneous, so there is a sizable delay between the political decisions and the battlefield use of new systems. I think this is a way of titrating the war and being done to avoid pushing Putin over the edge by slowly warming the water around the frog. Persistent means we love you, but not enough to push the monster into a corner all at once. NATO hand-me-downs (of which there are a lot) in the hands of trained UA fighter, is an order of magnitude better than what the RA can field. In the end Ukraine could have one the best ground armies in the world - if not in history.  

Edited January 9, 2023 by kevinkin