Russia-Ukraine war and related tensions Megathread

[CanadianDemocrat]

https://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-12264611/Britain-just-40-tanks-dozen-frigates-destroyers-ready-war.html

"Fight Russia? Britain has just 40 tanks and around a dozen frigates and destroyers ready to go war - the lowest figures in modern times"

The current conflict has de-militarized the UK.

I'm not really sure what the current conflict has to do with the number of destroyers and frigates the RN has. And the UK has decommissioned far more tanks than have been given to Ukraine.

The winding down of the UK armed forces long predates the war.

I was thinking of  British Challenger 2 tanks

Yeah but they are being cut down anyway. Only 148 will be kept and upgraded to Challenger 3, the rest are being retired.

The UK should send every Challenger 2 being retired to Ukraine, those tanks would be a huge help for Ukraine. The UK would have to pay money to retire the Challenger 2 tanks.

[CanadianDemocrat]

The Russians are barbaric orcs raping, pillaging and murdering Ukrainian civilians like a Mongol horde. Russian barbarism runs deep in the country's veins, since the Mongols invaded Russia.

I support Ukraine and oppose Russia, but is this a serious post? There's no need to demonize Russians to this extent.

And the Mongols too. In the time of Genghis Khan, ethical norms in the world did not fit well with modern ones, and modern Mongols suffered enough from the Chinese and the same Russians.

I was comparing the Russian army in Ukraine being similar to Genghis Khan, not Mongolia. The mass war crimes against Ukrainian civilians is similar to Genghis Khan. Mongolia is a peace loving country. 

[CanadianDemocrat]

Obviously Mariupol is still a significant distance away, but it's clear Ukraine's goal is to reach the sea:

https://twitter.com/MaxRTucker/status/1684489832779632641?s=20

People most talk about liberating Melitopol, but liberating Mariupol would be huge as well. Mariupol is also on the land bridge to Crimea, like Melitopol. Ukraine liberated Mariupol in 2014 during the Donbas War, so they can do it again.

[CanadianDemocrat]

https://twitter.com/ukraine_map/status/1688590363613708294?s=20
As much as I’d love for them to be deeper into the Russian lines the ability to keep this good attrition rate during this counterattack will be helpful for UA throughout the year and beyond. Especially when the area they got hit the hardest (Bradley) already are being replaced and thankfully kept almost all the crews alive

Ukraine is on the counteroffensive and should be suffering a higher vehicle attrition rate in favor of Russia. Ukraine has the attrition factor to its advantage, Ukraine is losing 1 vehicle for every 2-3 Russian vehicles.

When the war started Russia had 3400 tanks, now they have 1400 tanks. Ukraine has more tanks on the battlefield, Ukraine has 1500 tanks.

[CanadianDemocrat]

I wish I could be more happy about this development, but it has unfortunately followed the same trend as all other aid: Eventually Ukraine's allies agree, but only after hesitating for many months, and finally agreeing only after the most opportune window of time has already passed.

https://twitter.com/NOELreports/status/1689676350053896192

Ukraine has liberated a huge amount much territory from the Russians in 2022, without a single Western tank or IFV. If they had the Western tanks and IFVs in September 2022, the Ukrainian Kharkiv blitzkrieg could also have liberated the whole Luhansk oblast as well.

[CanadianDemocrat]

https://twitter.com/DefenceU/status/1693246782799585366?s=20
https://twitter.com/JimmySecUK/status/1693249764010197299?s=20
Denmark and Netherlands alone may be pledging 72 f16s!

Australia has already retired their F/A-18s, they are debating whether to send them Ukraine. It would cost money to retire the jets, so they have nothing to lose by sending them to Ukraine.

[CanadianDemocrat]

Why is this forum so quiet right now?

It's going poorly for Russia, so our blue avatar friends are waiting for a new status quo to be stabilized before they return to their usual trolling.

I have all the MAGA Vatnik trolls on ignore, so I don't notice a difference in lower thread activity. I love seeing the coping and seething Vatnik tears, but the spam they post is too annoying to deal with.

[CanadianDemocrat]

I'll wait and see on this one.

Too many times were we told that the US is on the verge of sending ATACMS

https://twitter.com/visegrad24/status/1700273302168834195
https://twitter.com/bayraktar_1love/status/1700271181541130440

If the US sends ATACMS, then Germany will likely send their long range Taurus missiles as well. The UK and France were the first Western countries to send long range missiles.

The UK was the also the first country to send Western tanks to Ukraine. Germany refused to send their tanks until the US sent their tanks as well. The US and Germany move in tandem most of the time.

[CanadianDemocrat]

...perhaps it's because Israel has more in common with Russia than the United States and other Western democracies.

https://twitter.com/KyivIndependent/status/1701732985631109468

Netanyahu is a far right authoritarian similar to Jair Bolsonaro, Rodrigo Duterte or Vladimir Putin. Israel is not a Western liberal democracy under Netanyahu.

[CanadianDemocrat]

Russian government: "We ArE vErY cOnCeRnEd AbOuT nEo-NaZiS iN tHe UkRaInIaN gOvErNmEnT."

Meanwhile people defending Russia's invasion of Ukraine:

In terms of WWII history, I am fairly revisionist, and while I still lean toward being more pro-Allies than pro-Axis. I am fairly empathetic to the Axis point of view.

More Ukrainians died in Stalin's genocide of Ukraine, which killed 3.9 million Ukrainians in the Holodomor, then Nazi Germany. The Soviet Union was just as evil as Nazi Germany. Stalin is the same evil dictator as Hitler.

Stalin and Hitler were genocidal monsters who wanted to wipe Ukraine off the map.

[CanadianDemocrat]

https://twitter.com/Faytuks/status/1709577845209485327?s=20
Well this is thinking outside the box lol

I would love to see a Ukrainian soldier shooting down a Iranian Shahed drone with a captured Iranian machine gun.

[CanadianDemocrat]

https://twitter.com/squiredigital/status/1713343688561054069
Lol. No more talking about Avdiivka vatniks

The Vatniks have been desperately trying and failing to get Donetsk city out of Ukrainian artillery range since 2014 in the Donbas war.

[CanadianDemocrat]

they'd be a lot further along if we had given them more advanced weapons sooner.  Why were there not 100 Ukrainian pilots in a western F16 flight school within the first week of the invasion with maybe a dozen or so advancing to learning how to train future pilots on the platform?  Why were they not given more, better and sooner anti-missile systems?  Why are we still counting their number of modern armor in the hundreds?  Who argues against these things?  Blame those cowards (or traitors) for Ukraine's lack of offensive successes.

Life I've said before, every dollar (Euro,Pound,etc) spent killing Russians in Ukraine is a dollar well spent.

The US has only sent 31 M1 Abrams tanks to Ukraine, despite having 2500 in active service and 3700 tanks in long term storage. That is a low number for a military superpower like the US to send less then 1% of their M1 Abrams tanks to Ukraine, who desperately need advanced Western tanks.

The US has the most tanks in NATO, they should 300-400 M1 Abrams tanks to Ukraine.

[CanadianDemocrat]

The EU has come up with a workaround Hungary’s veto of aid so a 53 billion dollar aid package is coming through soon
https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2023-11-09/eu-mulls-alternative-ukraine-funding-plan-to-bypass-hungary-veto?embedded-checkout=true#xj4y7vzkg

NATO should also remove the unanimity requirement to join NATO,  similar to what the EU is now doing. NATO admission should require a supermajority instead of unanimity. It is wrong to have 1 country out of 31 NATO members blocking a new member joining.

[CanadianDemocrat]

https://twitter.com/deaidua/status/1723363175062536319?s=46&t=ZHeS7rMUpmBPth...
Nice to see Germany stepping up 😁

Good news. Germans lose every war.

Oh hey it’s the guy who tried to deny the amount of civilians Russia killed and ran away from the thread when the evidence was produced

Lol, i don't buy sh.. of your "evidence".

Germans still lose every war.

“I’m a war crimes denier not a coward” ain’t the flex you think it is, also Russia has an worse track record then Germany when it comes it winning wars so…

Not if you count those really important ones, like world wars. Maybe rings a bell to you. And Germany winning wars isn't really a flex you think it is, it has like worst track record than Serbia.

FWIW, I'm not a war crimes denier, maybe you're explaining it on a wrong topic, Israel is pretty active right now. I just don't buy your sources, methods and anything really that comes out of you. Actually, for war of this magnitude civilian casualty rate isn't out of proportion though it's regrettable of course.

Also, latest big casualties among Ukrainians were caused by Ukrainians like in Konstantinovka which was proven by western media.

Russia’s track record is so bad they lost WW1 despite their side eventually winning in the end lol. My source was a UN report I know for vatniks like you anything that makes Russia look bad is fake but normally a pretty legit if not conservative source lol

Russo also lost the Russo-Japanese War, they also lost the Polish–Soviet War and lost the First Chechen War. Russia lost to a tiny country like Chechnya and a smaller country like Poland.

[CanadianDemocrat]

https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2023-11-21/germany-blocks-current-budget-in-response-to-court-ruling

"German Budget Crisis Deepens With Freeze on New Spending"

Does not sound like much money will be headed to Ukraine from Germany anytime soon.

Actually it doesn’t seem that the budget crisis will impact aid as apparently there are multiple ways it can be passed without the current budget issues impacting it and there is no push in the German government to cut it. Plus the German Minister of Defence just visited Kyiv to let them know that aid is continuing

https://twitter.com/deaidua/status/1727340925049807100
Called it

If Trump wins the 2024 election, then the rest of the West should double their Ukraine aid like Germany to make up the difference. The EU, Canada, the UK, Australia, South Korea and Japan have a high GDP much larger than Russia.

[CanadianDemocrat]

We might be at a point where a ceasefire might be useful to both parties - Putin to shore up internal support and present himself as a reasonable leader, and Ukraine because it needs more Western support and hopefully this will allow enough time for the US and EU to finalize their aid packages.

Of course, we should all be clear that it won't be the end of the war. As long as we use the time we have intelligently, and not as an excuse to scale down support, this could be an opportunity to put Ukraine on a better footing for the next phase.

I hope Ukraine can be fast tracked into NATO, if there is a cease fire. Ukraine's strongest allies such as Poland and the UK should move their armies into Ukraine to prevent another Russian invasion during the NATO accession process.  

[CanadianDemocrat]

The unregenerate campist onanism that now makes up the lion's share of this thread for some reason aside, PSOL is probably right that if NATO is serious about cultivating Ukraine as a partner then we probably need to either step up aid again or let them increase the frequency of strikes within Russia.

I do know Ukrainians on the ground who share that sentiment and are frustrated that they feel they have to fight with one hand tied behind their back when it comes to this issue

And many people in NATO countries (including politicians, powerful ones in some cases) complain about Ukraine’s lack of progress and want to use that as justification to stop supporting the country.

The most charitable explanation is that they’re simply uninformed, but that cannot possibly true of those in government espousing this view.

Western timidity and cowardliness is causing Ukraine to not be able to launch a strategically successful counteroffensive, due not enough weaponry sent to Ukraine.  The West should be sending more heavy offensive weapons to help Ukraine win in the long term, instead of encouraging peace talks with a terrorist genocidal regime.

Handing over 17% of Ukrainian territory for a cease fire would be a disaster for the millions of Ukrainian people trapped living under Russian occupation.