How Hot is Ukraine Gonna Get?

[The_Capt]

12 hours ago, Carolus said:

 

I would assume that guy knows kind of what he is talking about, considering he has got the stripes and all and some staff behind him, but his point runs counter to what the thread generally indicates, which is that Russia is in troubled water and actually gets weaker as time goes on.

Another case of "expert blindess" like from the beginning of the invasion, or does he mean "stronger in relation to NATO experiences" or what could be the interpretation? Is he seeing something not yet seen in this thread?

With all due respect to the General, NATO official views on Russia after this war are political. NATO as a military alliance is highly invested in Russia remaining a credible threat. There is significant funding being allocated to that threat from all nations, and no small drive from the US to pressure alliance members into more spending. For all that to make sense, Russia has to remain a major threat.

Keep in mind no small amount of Defence industry comes from a few key national players of which the US is the largest arms supplier on the planet by far. So there are national interests at play as well in this military funding drive:

https://www.statista.com/chart/18417/global-weapons-exports/

So what? Well when it comes to intent, clearly Russia will remain a threat. Even if we get a Putin switch out, the next regime is likely to remain disruptive and pushing back. Further the Russia that comes out of this war may very well become a Chinese satellite state, effectively becoming the western front in a bipolar global power struggle. As to capability, this is where things get a bit more complicated. Strategically, Russia still has a powerful Air Force and Navy (even with the neutering of the Black Sea Fleet) and let’s not forget its nuclear arsenal - even with this sh#tshow, Russia remains a Great Power.

Russia’s land forces are by far the most depleted and eroded by this war. Here the General is kinda playing along the line. The RA is gaining experience and adapting, but it is also hemorrhaging. We just saw a few posts where the casually rates were extremely high. One needs only to go over to Oryx to see the scrapyard the RA has become. Further, sanctions and economic pressures are making rebuilding of a viable land force harder (kinda the point). My best guess is the RA is a ten year problem for Russia to fix at this point, at least. And this is assuming they can muster the funds. So by the end of this war the Russian Army will not be “stronger”. It may very well be larger as more and more conscripts and recruits are pulled in, but its equipment losses are outstripping production and even refurbishment. The losses in experienced people is brutal (we have seen more than one report of drone specialist being fed into assaults) and will take time to replace.

So qualitatively the RA has been broken and will likely remain so for a decade. Quantitatively, it might grow “stronger” but that is kinda reaching. Is Russia going to remain a major threat for NATO - well that is kinda a foregone conclusion really because NATO really needs it to remain a major threat.

[poesel]

Shahed hunter drone:
https://www.telegraph.co.uk/us/news/2024/10/20/anti-drone-ukraine-iranian-kamikazes-russia/

And some vids:

 

The Shaheds are the first obvious first choice because they are large, relatively slow and Russia produces about 6000 of them per year.
But I don't see a reason those hunters won't be used against Zaras, Orlans etc... in the future.
The experience gained will be used to develop something against even smaller quads.

Live arms race.

[hcrof]

46 minutes ago, The_Capt said:

With all due respect to the General, NATO official views on Russia after this war are political. NATO as a military alliance is highly invested in Russia remaining a credible threat. There is significant funding being allocated to that threat from all nations, and no small drive from the US to pressure alliance members into more spending. For all that to make sense, Russia has to remain a major threat.

Keep in mind no small amount of Defence industry comes from a few key national players of which the US is the largest arms supplier on the planet by far. So there are national interests at play as well in this military funding drive:

https://www.statista.com/chart/18417/global-weapons-exports/

So what? Well when it comes to intent, clearly Russia will remain a threat. Even if we get a Putin switch out, the next regime is likely to remain disruptive and pushing back. Further the Russia that comes out of this war may very well become a Chinese satellite state, effectively becoming the western front in a bipolar global power struggle. As to capability, this is where things get a bit more complicated. Strategically, Russia still has a powerful Air Force and Navy (even with the neutering of the Black Sea Fleet) and let’s not forget its nuclear arsenal - even with this sh#tshow, Russia remains a Great Power.

Russia’s land forces are by far the most depleted and eroded by this war. Here the General is kinda playing along the line. The RA is gaining experience and adapting, but it is also hemorrhaging. We just saw a few posts where the casually rates were extremely high. One needs only to go over to Oryx to see the scrapyard the RA has become. Further, sanctions and economic pressures are making rebuilding of a viable land force harder (kinda the point). My best guess is the RA is a ten year problem for Russia to fix at this point, at least. And this is assuming they can muster the funds. So by the end of this war the Russian Army will not be “stronger”. It may very well be larger as more and more conscripts and recruits are pulled in, but its equipment losses are outstripping production and even refurbishment. The losses in experienced people is brutal (we have seen more than one report of drone specialist being fed into assaults) and will take time to replace.

So qualitatively the RA has been broken and will likely remain so for a decade. Quantitatively, it might grow “stronger” but that is kinda reaching. Is Russia going to remain a major threat for NATO - well that is kinda a foregone conclusion really because NATO really needs it to remain a major threat.

If Russia becomes a Chinese puppet/proxy presumably they can rebuild using Chinese kit - that would solve a lot of issues for them (in the short term). 

[hcrof]

Potential south Korea - NATO intelligence sharing on the cards. 

 

[The_Capt]

4 minutes ago, hcrof said:

If Russia becomes a Chinese puppet/proxy presumably they can rebuild using Chinese kit - that would solve a lot of issues for them (in the short term). 

China might be interested in going that way but they are not going to do it for charity. And they also have their own military power to think of. So I am not sold that Chia is suddenly going to ramp up tank production to try and replace the nearly 3500 Russia has lost - assuming tanks are even going to be replaced. Russia will remain a pain in the @ss but I would not worry too much about an invasion of Poland too soon.

[Carolus]

https://euromaidanpress.com/2024/10/20/france-converts-e-300-million-of-frozen-russian-assets-into-caesar-howitzers-for-ukraine/

 

France will use interest from frozen Russian assets to finance 12 Caesar Howitzers for Ukraine along with other military equipment.

[hcrof]

52 minutes ago, The_Capt said:

China might be interested in going that way but they are not going to do it for charity. And they also have their own military power to think of. So I am not sold that Chia is suddenly going to ramp up tank production to try and replace the nearly 3500 Russia has lost - assuming tanks are even going to be replaced. Russia will remain a pain in the @ss but I would not worry too much about an invasion of Poland too soon.

So Russia may never get to that level, but china could certainly support a rearming with heaps of drones, ugvs and lighter vehicles, which we identified as being key for military power going forward. Russia could then focus all efforts on artillery production to fill in the gaps and they could then rearm rather quickly - no need for lots of tanks, but it's not like Russia has completely run out. After that they might not invade Poland but NATO would still need to be able to counter the threat. 

Not saying it's going to happen but I wasn't predicting north Korean ground troops in Ukraine either...

[The_Capt]

1 minute ago, hcrof said:

So Russia may never get to that level, but china could certainly support a rearming with heaps of drones, ugvs and lighter vehicles, which we identified as being key for military power going forward. Russia could then focus all efforts on artillery production to fill in the gaps and they could then rearm rather quickly - no need for lots of tanks, but it's not like Russia has completely run out. After that they might not invade Poland but NATO would still need to be able to counter the threat. 

Not saying it's going to happen but I wasn't predicting north Korean ground troops in Ukraine either...

One of the best quotes I ever heard was “there is teeth and tails…but in between there are a whole lot of important organs.”

So, yes it is possible Russia could pull together a rapid new light force construct based on light infantry, fires and drones (shame on us if we let them get ahead of us on that one). If they could operationalize that into an offensive weapon, they might be back in business quicker. But there is a whole lotta guts blown out all over southeast Ukraine right now. C2, ISR, EW and logistics. All the stuff needed to make the teeth bite. That and human expertise, which they would do better at if they stopped getting them slaughtered over the next 100ms. 

Rebuilding a credible modern army is not something anyone is going to do quickly. But you do bring up one good point, as far as modern environment there are two nations who have the most experience right now, Ukraine and Russia. 

We will have to see. Yes, NATO has to be ready to counter whatever BS Russia decided to pursue but it is not likely to be a conventional armed force as we know it. Hence why we get into all the “tank is dead…no it is not” arguments. If NATO is spending trillions to counter the RA of 2021, we are definitely going in the wrong direction. Either way, my bet is we are looking at a ten year problem. That is what this war has bought the West, a major strategic mistake by Russia has purchased us about ten years to sort ourselves out. This is why the stakes in that re-sort are do high.

[Kraft]

Leopard 2A4 shooting several vehicles in a russian armored column, low quality unfortunately.

t.me/mechanized33/459

[ArmouredTopHat]

https://www.reddit.com/r/CombatFootage/comments/1g8oa6q/archival_footage_ukrainian_military_combined_arms/

Archival footage from last year, but a good watch nonetheless of a combined arms attack. 

Edited Monday at 12:26 PM by ArmouredTopHat

[ArmouredTopHat]

1 hour ago, Kraft said:

Leopard 2A4 shooting several vehicles in a russian armored column, low quality unfortunately.

t.me/mechanized33/459

You can immediately see how useful that superior reverse speed is in a combat environment, probably some very happy Ukrainian tankers who previously had to put up with previous soviet era tanks that have to turn to move at any decent speed in that tank. 

Nice to see Leopards doing what they were designed for too. 

Edited Monday at 01:27 PM by ArmouredTopHat

[alison]

10 hours ago, ASL Veteran said:

 

Just want to add my usual reminder here that you have to be careful when consuming media about China that is published by people with suspiciously vague biographies. I can't say for certain in this case, but the tone and presentation of this video feels a bit Falun Gong-ish to me. It seems I am not the only one who has noticed it:

- https://old.reddit.com/r/China/comments/zyq3ky/leis_real_talk_on_youtube_is_tagged_as_falun_gong/

- https://old.reddit.com/r/China/comments/17drg5x/are_those_channels_legit_or_not/

Now bear in mind that /r/China is also notorious for being full of anti-CCP hawks and ex-expats whose experiences in the country can sometimes be terribly out-of-date, but then most of them don't purport to be much more than forum commenters with throwaway hot takes. This person is presenting as a commentator with a unique viewpoint or special insight due to her childhood in China 40+ years ago, but aside from that point the rest is opaque. Perhaps you could give her the benefit of the doubt, but consider that this page on her site does not come across in a way that an unbiased observer would report on the Falun Gong:

- http://leisrealtalk.com/6-reasons-why-ccp-fears-falun-gong-the-most/

(Compare with wiki: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Falun_Gong)

There is of course every possibility that this is an ordinary migrant who arrived in the US as child, grew up and had a successful career, saved up enough money to retire early, then decided to start up a YouTube channel just for fun, get into streaming and chatting about social and political issues related to the country of her ancestry, and it organically grew into a channel with 200k followers. But it's also possible that it's part of the far-right/conspiracy-pushing Falun Gong media network, or coming from a similar place as GTV (the Guo Wengui/Steve Bannon team-up) and other propaganda aimed at the diaspora and right-leaning Americans who might not be as familiar with the webs of influence and many layers of disinformation that surround reporting on China.

Not to say that there is nothing interesting you can glean from these kinds of videos, just be aware. Remember that there are also plenty of legitimate journalists, academics and other writers who have an established history doing fact-based reporting on China.

Forgive me if I am a bit sensitive on this front, but I lived through a bunch of this first-hand when I was in China during Hong Kong's anti-extradition bill protests in 2019 and then for the first ~8 months of COVID in 2020 and it became depressingly clear how many media outlets and YouTube influencers were completely in the pocket of either the CCP (in China/HK) or far-right conspiracy merchants (in the west). It was very tough to find credible reporting, especially after the CCP started kicking foreign journalists out of Beijing and arresting local journalists in Hong Kong.

I know it's a bit of a cop-out, but for my money the best source for getting the scoop on geopolitical maneuvers in this part of the world is still the DC thinktanks. CSIS, CFR, Brookings, all that lot. They're well-informed, well-connected and do solid English-language reporting. In my experience outside of Bill Bishop (who's basically just a very expensive RSS feed of the day's China topics) there isn't a lot on social media that's going to get you any more of an insight than what the thinktanks will publish in their next whitepaper (or what they already published in the last one).

[Lieutenant Ash]

Lasers able to take down swarms of heat-seeking missiles have been successfully trialled on British aircraft for the first time in a boon for the Royal Air Force.

The Ministry of Defence announced yesterday that new 'air protection lasers' had destroyed 100 per cent of their targets in a live firing trial in Sweden.

https://www.msn.com/en-gb/money/technology/raf-lasers-are-used-to-fend-off-swarm-of-missiles-for-the-first-time/ar-AA1sDr6Y?ocid=socialshare&pc=NMTS&cvid=9f4385808de648149440e835ceb7e602&ei=10

Not heard of this system before.

[Lieutenant Ash]

Russian soldiers claim they face being lynched by their commanders after refusing to carry out suicidal missions that are leading to ninety per cent casualties.

https://www.msn.com/en-gb/news/world/russian-troops-reveal-chaos-and-slaughter-as-90-of-units-killed-in-human-wave-attacks/ar-AA1sDYNX?ocid=socialshare&pc=NMTS&cvid=9f4385808de648149440e835ceb7e602&ei=96

Trouble in the ranks.

[Tenses]

17 minutes ago, Lieutenant Ash said:

Lasers able to take down swarms of heat-seeking missiles have been successfully trialled on British aircraft for the first time in a boon for the Royal Air Force.

The Ministry of Defence announced yesterday that new 'air protection lasers' had destroyed 100 per cent of their targets in a live firing trial in Sweden.

https://www.msn.com/en-gb/money/technology/raf-lasers-are-used-to-fend-off-swarm-of-missiles-for-the-first-time/ar-AA1sDr6Y?ocid=socialshare&pc=NMTS&cvid=9f4385808de648149440e835ceb7e602&ei=10

Not heard of this system before.

This is developed as a survivability upgrade for 4th gen fighters and transport/tanker missile defence. But we can be sure that it will be standard for any combat aircraft in the future as it is truely a game changer. High alititude laser beam as defensive weapon can be easily employed successfully due to limited number of possible threats and very permissive atmosphere density. For low level defence this might be more problematic and partially nonsene due to threat from guns and larger amount of low cost missiles/drones.

One way or another this will soldify air force as a last consumer in the food chain. Unlike discussed extensively ground forces, the high cost of advanced fighters is and most likely will be paying off. Potential energy adventage is just physical barrier, which is not easily pierced by any low cost solutions and with defence systems like this, won't be without some extremely high speed interceptors(railgun anyone?).

 

[Battlefront.com]

4 hours ago, poesel said:

Allegedly, Russia has bought 300,000 votes in a country of 2,5 million. Participation was 50%. Let's just assume 2 million are eligible to vote. So 1 mil DID vote and of those 300k were bought by Russia.

So actually, 500k voted for the EU and 200k against it. That means the real number is more like 71% for and 29% against.

What a few millions can do for democracy...

This is fantastic news.  Yet another thing to add to the very long list of things Russia has lost since it started this war.  With a vote that close, even with Russian influence, I'm guessing it wouldn't have passed without the war.

This is going to put even more pressure on Russia's ability to use/control Transnistria.  Good.

As Darth Putin constantly reminds us... he remains the master strategist

Steve

[acrashb]

3 hours ago, The_Capt said:

So what? Well when it comes to intent, clearly Russia will remain a threat.[...]As to capability, this is where things get a bit more complicated.

Which leaves, I think, Opportunity. Given Russia's ongoing aversion to direct NATO involvement, removing opportunity would mean that a state must belong to a strong defense alliance. Furthermore, this alliance should effectively signal that no opportunity exists—not even for a slice-and-hold strategy.

[dan/california]

4 hours ago, hcrof said:

If Russia becomes a Chinese puppet/proxy presumably they can rebuild using Chinese kit - that would solve a lot of issues for them (in the short term). 

see below

4 hours ago, The_Capt said:

China might be interested in going that way but they are not going to do it for charity. And they also have their own military power to think of. So I am not sold that Chia is suddenly going to ramp up tank production to try and replace the nearly 3500 Russia has lost - assuming tanks are even going to be replaced. Russia will remain a pain in the @ss but I would not worry too much about an invasion of Poland too soon.

See below

3 hours ago, hcrof said:

So Russia may never get to that level, but china could certainly support a rearming with heaps of drones, ugvs and lighter vehicles, which we identified as being key for military power going forward. Russia could then focus all efforts on artillery production to fill in the gaps and they could then rearm rather quickly - no need for lots of tanks, but it's not like Russia has completely run out. After that they might not invade Poland but NATO would still need to be able to counter the threat. 

Not saying it's going to happen but I wasn't predicting north Korean ground troops in Ukraine either...

I would argue that the NORK troops currently being dispatched to the Ukrainian front lines are in fact evidence that Xi has decided to increase his support for the Russian war effort in Ukraine. Any hint of Chinese displeasure about this development has been notable by its utter absence. Since China has single handedly kept North Korea afloat for the last twenty or thirty years that seems significant. The possibility that China has decided that Russia losing in Ukraine is worse than what it what cost them to at least extend war cannot be dismissed.

In the longer term Xi may have made a decision that supporting Putin now will cost him less than trying to manage a defeated Russia later. And it will give him one more dial to increase and decrease pressure on Taiwan, at least indirectly. There have been a rash of Joint Russian/Chinese naval exercises in the Pacific among other things.

More support now will probably also increase China's influence over the selection of Putin's successor. Or at least they might decide that is a possibility worth investing in.

2 hours ago, alison said:

Just want to add my usual reminder here that you have to be careful when consuming media about China that is published by people with suspiciously vague biographies. I can't say for certain in this case, but the tone and presentation of this video feels a bit Falun Gong-ish to me. It seems I am not the only one who has noticed it:

- https://old.reddit.com/r/China/comments/zyq3ky/leis_real_talk_on_youtube_is_tagged_as_falun_gong/

- https://old.reddit.com/r/China/comments/17drg5x/are_those_channels_legit_or_not/

Now bear in mind that /r/China is also notorious for being full of anti-CCP hawks and ex-expats whose experiences in the country can sometimes be terribly out-of-date, but then most of them don't purport to be much more than forum commenters with throwaway hot takes. This person is presenting as a commentator with a unique viewpoint or special insight due to her childhood in China 40+ years ago, but aside from that point the rest is opaque. Perhaps you could give her the benefit of the doubt, but consider that this page on her site does not come across in a way that an unbiased observer would report on the Falun Gong:

- http://leisrealtalk.com/6-reasons-why-ccp-fears-falun-gong-the-most/

(Compare with wiki: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Falun_Gong)

There is of course every possibility that this is an ordinary migrant who arrived in the US as child, grew up and had a successful career, saved up enough money to retire early, then decided to start up a YouTube channel just for fun, get into streaming and chatting about social and political issues related to the country of her ancestry, and it organically grew into a channel with 200k followers. But it's also possible that it's part of the far-right/conspiracy-pushing Falun Gong media network, or coming from a similar place as GTV (the Guo Wengui/Steve Bannon team-up) and other propaganda aimed at the diaspora and right-leaning Americans who might not be as familiar with the webs of influence and many layers of disinformation that surround reporting on China.

Not to say that there is nothing interesting you can glean from these kinds of videos, just be aware. Remember that there are also plenty of legitimate journalists, academics and other writers who have an established history doing fact-based reporting on China.

Forgive me if I am a bit sensitive on this front, but I lived through a bunch of this first-hand when I was in China during Hong Kong's anti-extradition bill protests in 2019 and then for the first ~8 months of COVID in 2020 and it became depressingly clear how many media outlets and YouTube influencers were completely in the pocket of either the CCP (in China/HK) or far-right conspiracy merchants (in the west). It was very tough to find credible reporting, especially after the CCP started kicking foreign journalists out of Beijing and arresting local journalists in Hong Kong.

I know it's a bit of a cop-out, but for my money the best source for getting the scoop on geopolitical maneuvers in this part of the world is still the DC thinktanks. CSIS, CFR, Brookings, all that lot. They're well-informed, well-connected and do solid English-language reporting. In my experience outside of Bill Bishop (who's basically just a very expensive RSS feed of the day's China topics) there isn't a lot on social media that's going to get you any more of an insight than what the thinktanks will publish in their next whitepaper (or what they already published in the last one).

Very much appreciate your pointing out that that the CCCP has refined disinformation to the highest of art forms. And that vey few non Chinese speakers can really even get a feel for what is happening in the Chinese language information space. The CCCP is of course doing everything it can to make this worse by separating mainland Chine fro the rest of the internet. That allows it to push one message inside China, and another one to Chinese speakers outside China, among many other things.

1 hour ago, Tenses said:

This is developed as a survivability upgrade for 4th gen fighters and transport/tanker missile defence. But we can be sure that it will be standard for any combat aircraft in the future as it is truely a game changer. High alititude laser beam as defensive weapon can be easily employed successfully due to limited number of possible threats and very permissive atmosphere density. For low level defence this might be more problematic and partially nonsene due to threat from guns and larger amount of low cost missiles/drones.

One way or another this will soldify air force as a last consumer in the food chain. Unlike discussed extensively ground forces, the high cost of advanced fighters is and most likely will be paying off. Potential energy adventage is just physical barrier, which is not easily pierced by any low cost solutions and with defence systems like this, won't be without some extremely high speed interceptors(railgun anyone?).

 

Some version of this has been around for a while, there are at least strong rumors that it is installed on all El AL airliners, and Air Force One. Given the large amount of spending on military lasers generally, it makes sense they would get better at this application. So the next question is how hard it is to engineer the heat seeking version of home on jam. Can you design a practical layer for an infrared guidance system that can recognize that it is being jammed this way and just start following the beam back to its source. Even if that is doable, defeating essentially all current tech heat seeking missiles is no small thing. Then we get into just how hard is it to put this on something smaller than an airliner.

5 hours ago, poesel said:

Shahed hunter drone:
https://www.telegraph.co.uk/us/news/2024/10/20/anti-drone-ukraine-iranian-kamikazes-russia/

And some vids:

 

The Shaheds are the first obvious first choice because they are large, relatively slow and Russia produces about 6000 of them per year.
But I don't see a reason those hunters won't be used against Zaras, Orlans etc... in the future.
The experience gained will be used to develop something against even smaller quads.

Live arms race.

This type of drone, or the next generation of them, is going to finish making manned helicopters obsolete/suicidal.

[The_Capt]

1 hour ago, Tenses said:

This is developed as a survivability upgrade for 4th gen fighters and transport/tanker missile defence. But we can be sure that it will be standard for any combat aircraft in the future as it is truely a game changer. High alititude laser beam as defensive weapon can be easily employed successfully due to limited number of possible threats and very permissive atmosphere density. For low level defence this might be more problematic and partially nonsene due to threat from guns and larger amount of low cost missiles/drones.

One way or another this will soldify air force as a last consumer in the food chain. Unlike discussed extensively ground forces, the high cost of advanced fighters is and most likely will be paying off. Potential energy adventage is just physical barrier, which is not easily pierced by any low cost solutions and with defence systems like this, won't be without some extremely high speed interceptors(railgun anyone?).

 

Question...so what happens when someone points these fancy lasers, which can target and engage multiple missiles, at aircraft themselves? I agree this could be a game changer but not likely in the way you mean it. Are our "high cost advanced fighters" laser proof somehow?

[ArmouredTopHat]

The dream combo at work with the 47th. Seems they are more confident with using their M1s now

[The_Capt]

27 minutes ago, acrashb said:

Which leaves, I think, Opportunity. Given Russia's ongoing aversion to direct NATO involvement, removing opportunity would mean that a state must belong to a strong defense alliance. Furthermore, this alliance should effectively signal that no opportunity exists—not even for a slice-and-hold strategy.

Absolutely on this one. As we saw with Sweden and Finland, Russia is the best thing to happen to NATO in decades. Which frankly baffles me as the strategic outcome of this little Ukrainian dance was a foregone conclusion in this regard.

[poesel]

12 minutes ago, The_Capt said:

Question...so what happens when someone points these fancy lasers, which can target and engage multiple missiles, at aircraft themselves? I agree this could be a game changer but not likely in the way you mean it. Are our "high cost advanced fighters" laser proof somehow?

Given the limited range of lasers, I don't think that will ever be an issue.

Those lasers are defensive weapons. You shoot them at missiles coming directly at you and with all sensors looking at you. Blinding/destroying those sensors is comparably easy in that situation/orientation.
The same laser shot at the side of an aircraft will probably not even peel the paint off.

[sburke]

11 minutes ago, dan/california said:

see below

See below

I would argue that the NORK troops currently being dispatched to the Ukrainian front lines are in fact evidence that Xi has decided to increase his support for the Russian war effort in Ukraine. Any hint of Chinese displeasure about this development has been notable by its utter absence. Since China has single handedly kept North Korea afloat for the last twenty or thirty years that seems significant. The possibility that China has decided that Russia losing in Ukraine is worse than what it what cost them to at least extend war cannot be dismissed.

N Korea is inherently a dangerous wild card.  It is a great foil for China in that in our eyes Chinese influence is one of the major brakes on N Korean craziness.  On the other hand Chinese influence only goes so far when dealing with the genetic cesspool of Kim's family.  Part of why China has kept N Korea afloat is that letting it fall apart has ramifications for China.  In a way it isn't far removed from the western boil the frog approach toward Russia.  A complete collapse introduces far too much instability.

I wouldn't be surprised if in the backrooms of China's leadership there isn't some concern about what Russia is trading to N Korea for all this ammo and bodies.  In one report the N Koreas going to Ukraine are elite NKPA special ops folks.

North Korean special forces in Russia readying for combat in Ukraine war, South Korea says

These aren't folks that Kim is going to trade for nothing.  So is N Korea getting something in return that could destabilize the situation on the Korean peninsula?  Are we looking at technology that would increase NKPA strike capability against Japan?  China is already in a tense struggle with its pacific neighbors, I doubt N Korea becoming more of a loose cannon is something they would be thrilled about.

[dan/california]

35 minutes ago, The_Capt said:

Question...so what happens when someone points these fancy lasers, which can target and engage multiple missiles, at aircraft themselves? I agree this could be a game changer but not likely in the way you mean it. Are our "high cost advanced fighters" laser proof somehow?

Worth pointing out the that fifth generation fighters are made from fancy and delicate carbon fiber, with fancy and delicate stealth coatings. The counterpoint is that lasers diffuse over distance in the atmosphere, a lot. It remains to be seen where this balance shakes out. A laser breakthrough essentially obsoleting everything in the sky may not be likely, but it isn't completely out of the realm of possibility, either.

[dan/california]

 

Quote

 

https://bsky.app/profile/wartranslated.bsky.social/post/3l6z433eqhy26

Criminals from the Rusich DShRG openly show footage of dropping a munition containing the chemical weapon chloropicrin onto Ukrainian positions from a drone.

 

And posted the video from their own drone to prove it.