Russia-Ukraine war and related tensions Megathread

[Virginiá]

This is so unbelievably idiotic. The US military has tons of spare, and besides they have no plausible reason to be fighting a war in the next decade. The Pentagon should be scraping the bottom of its reserves to send to Ukraine right now and it's shameful that they keep dithering over bullsh*t reasons like this.

Yeah, the gist of their excuse is that this is only spending authority, but they don't actually have money to replace what they send, like they've been doing.

I honestly don't get it for a lot of things Ukraine needs. They were not going to replace the cluster artillery shells with newer versions, and they were already going to decommission them, so why couldn't they send more of those? They didn't already have money to replace them anyway, so what difference does it make?

The US and other countries have done a lot for Ukraine, but you can tell through actions like this that there is limit to how "uncomfortable" they will make their own military in service of their allies. Sometimes that limit is laughable.

[Hindsight was 2020]

Russia is still far away from taking the whole of Donbas let alone in just a year, Ukraine still hold fortifications like Toretsk, Sloviansk, Kramatorsk, Chasiv Yar, Karlivka, Kostiantinivka, Pokrovsk, and Kurakhove

[Hindsight was 2020]

This is so unbelievably idiotic. The US military has tons of spare, and besides they have no plausible reason to be fighting a war in the next decade. The Pentagon should be scraping the bottom of its reserves to send to Ukraine right now and it's shameful that they keep dithering over bullsh*t reasons like this.

Yeah, the gist of their excuse is that this is only spending authority, but they don't actually have money to replace what they send, like they've been doing.

I honestly don't get it for a lot of things Ukraine needs. They were not going to replace the cluster artillery shells with newer versions, and they were already going to decommission them, so why couldn't they send more of those? They didn't already have money to replace them anyway, so what difference does it make?

The US and other countries have done a lot for Ukraine, but you can tell through actions like this that there is limit to how "uncomfortable" they will make their own military in service of their allies. Sometimes that limit is laughable.

I don’t get why congress didn’t just renew lend lease last year

[President Punxsutawney Phil]

This is so unbelievably idiotic. The US military has tons of spare, and besides they have no plausible reason to be fighting a war in the next decade. The Pentagon should be scraping the bottom of its reserves to send to Ukraine right now and it's shameful that they keep dithering over bullsh*t reasons like this.

Yeah, the gist of their excuse is that this is only spending authority, but they don't actually have money to replace what they send, like they've been doing.

I honestly don't get it for a lot of things Ukraine needs. They were not going to replace the cluster artillery shells with newer versions, and they were already going to decommission them, so why couldn't they send more of those? They didn't already have money to replace them anyway, so what difference does it make?

The US and other countries have done a lot for Ukraine, but you can tell through actions like this that there is limit to how "uncomfortable" they will make their own military in service of their allies. Sometimes that limit is laughable.

Agreed completely.

[jaichind]

https://www.politico.eu/article/olaf-scholz-and-emmanuel-macron-feud-over-ukraine-aid/

"Scholz and Macron feud over arms for Ukraine"

[Open Source Intelligence]

I disagree with the ISW analysis of the terrain.  The thin line of very tiny communities near the stream and lakes doesn't provide for much cover from aerial assaults, which have become terrifyingly more frequent in recent weeks.  There aren't many roads to move supplies or manpower, and nothing but low terrain farmland behind this position.  The ISW is kind of downplaying the speed of the Russian advance into this area, suggesting that Ukraine has time to prepare defensive positions.  The Russians have already entered Berdychi, Orlivka and Tonenke, and are continuously rotating men between the battlefront and the men resting in recently captured towns in the rear position. In contrast, many UAF troops are getting gassed from these tireless Russian attacks. 

I think a better analysis of the situation would be that Ukraine is holding this line of town to slow the Russian advance, so Ukraine can build a second defensive line from Novoselivka to Novaprokrovske, and prevent Russians from getting around their best defensive positions.

ISW has a natural Ukrainian bias in their reporting, which is fine. Combine that with what jaichind is linking to, yhe truth is probably somewhere in the middle.

[jaichind]

https://tass.com/economy/1753173

"Russia's annual GDP growth reached 4.6% in January after 4.4% in December — ministry"

Russia's Jan 2024 economic momentum continues.  These numbers look more in line with the IMF's 2.6% growth estimate for Russia in 2024.   If true then in 2024 Russia's GDP growth will exeed all G7 economies in 2024 just like in 2023.

[jaichind]

https://www3.nhk.or.jp/nhkworld/en/news/20240224_02/

"Survey suggests 70% of Ukrainians want to keep fighting Russia"

NHK and Rating Group did a poll before the fall of Avdivka.  Those that want to stop and start peace negotiations with Russia rise from 12% a year ago to 23%

[President Punxsutawney Phil]

https://tass.com/economy/1753173

"Russia's annual GDP growth reached 4.6% in January after 4.4% in December — ministry"

Russia's Jan 2024 economic momentum continues.  These numbers look more in line with the IMF's 2.6% growth estimate for Russia in 2024.   If true then in 2024 Russia's GDP growth will exeed all G7 economies in 2024 just like in 2023.

When this war is over it'll be wise to examine the effectiveness (or lack thereof) of sanctions to see if they really worked against Russia.
These numbers are probably something of a political failure for the Western sanctions regime.

[jaichind]

https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2024-02-29/ukraine-russia-war-kyiv-sees-risk-of-russian-breakthrough-by-summer

"Ukraine Sees Risk of Russia Breaking Through Defenses by Summer"

Ukrainian officials are concerned that Russian advances could gain significant momentum by the summer unless their allies can increase the supply of ammunition, according to a person familiar with their analysis. 

[Open Source Intelligence]

https://tass.com/economy/1753173

"Russia's annual GDP growth reached 4.6% in January after 4.4% in December — ministry"

Russia's Jan 2024 economic momentum continues.  These numbers look more in line with the IMF's 2.6% growth estimate for Russia in 2024.   If true then in 2024 Russia's GDP growth will exeed all G7 economies in 2024 just like in 2023.

When this war is over it'll be wise to examine the effectiveness (or lack thereof) of sanctions to see if they really worked against Russia.
These numbers are probably something of a political failure for the Western sanctions regime.

I said when this all started that sanctions being meaningless was proved out how 7 years' worth of sanctions post-Crimea resulted in nothing. Not to say examples from other conflicts.

The U.S. then took steps to completely freeze Russia out of the international financial system, which at the time I thought was a ballsy and strong move. However, with the benefit of hindsight all it did was made everywhere not West in the world seek to increase distance between their economic system and the U.S. so they could remove the potential of this threat in the future. So the U.S. actions here the end result was it darkened a line between the West and the Global South. I'm not talking Russia and China, I'm talking more benign countries geopolitically like Malaysia.

Soft power is good, but has real limits and gets beat by hard power almost all of the time. The problem with the post-Iraq War West is they think soft power can fix everything, and if your only tool is soft power you're more a paper tiger than anything. Syria should've been a giant glaring example to the West of you can't do everything with soft power as we see now that Assad is still in power and Obama said that he must leave, but did nothing to actually make that happen.

[oldtimer]

https://tass.com/economy/1753173

"Russia's annual GDP growth reached 4.6% in January after 4.4% in December — ministry"

Russia's Jan 2024 economic momentum continues.  These numbers look more in line with the IMF's 2.6% growth estimate for Russia in 2024.   If true then in 2024 Russia's GDP growth will exeed all G7 economies in 2024 just like in 2023.

When this war is over it'll be wise to examine the effectiveness (or lack thereof) of sanctions to see if they really worked against Russia.
These numbers are probably something of a political failure for the Western sanctions regime.

I said when this all started that sanctions being meaningless was proved out how 7 years' worth of sanctions post-Crimea resulted in nothing. Not to say examples from other conflicts.

The U.S. then took steps to completely freeze Russia out of the international financial system, which at the time I thought was a ballsy and strong move. However, with the benefit of hindsight all it did was made everywhere not West in the world seek to increase distance between their economic system and the U.S. so they could remove the potential of this threat in the future. So the U.S. actions here the end result was it darkened a line between the West and the Global South. I'm not talking Russia and China, I'm talking more benign countries geopolitically like Malaysia.

Soft power is good, but has real limits and gets beat by hard power almost all of the time. The problem with the post-Iraq War West is they think soft power can fix everything, and if your only tool is soft power you're more a paper tiger than anything. Syria should've been a giant glaring example to the West of you can't do everything with soft power as we see now that Assad is still in power and Obama said that he must leave, but did nothing to actually make that happen.

The closest analogy is the Dutch in the 16th-18th centuries.

Despite being under siege by the Spanish-Austrians-French-English most of the time, they still did very well financially.

[All Along The Watchtower]

https://www.cnn.com/2024/02/28/politics/pentagon-considering-tapping-last-source-ukraine-funding/index.html

The Pentagon is weighing whether to tap into the last remaining source of funding it has for military aid to support Ukraine’s war effort against Russia even without guarantees that those funds will be replenished by Congress, multiple defense officials told CNN.

The Defense Department still has around $4 billion in presidential drawdown authority funds available for Ukraine, which allows the Pentagon to draw from its own stockpiles to send military equipment to Kyiv.

But the Pentagon had previously been reluctant to spend any of that remaining money without assurances it would be reimbursed by Congress through the administration’s $60 billion supplemental funding request, because taking from DoD stockpiles with no plan to replenish that equipment could impact US military readiness.

“At issue here again is the question of impacting our own readiness, as a nation, and the responsibilities that we have,” he said last month when asked about the money. “And so, yes, while we do have that $4.2 billion in authority, we don’t have the funds available to us to replenish those stocks should we expend that. And with no timeline in sight, we have to make those hard decisions.”

This is so unbelievably idiotic. The US military has tons of spare, and besides they have no plausible reason to be fighting a war in the next decade. The Pentagon should be scraping the bottom of its reserves to send to Ukraine right now and it's shameful that they keep dithering over bullsh*t reasons like this.

Between this and the MIA In A Hospital scandal, I think Austin should probably resign.

It's a bad idea to put retired generals in the SecDef job anyway.

[Dan the Roman]

https://tass.com/economy/1753173

"Russia's annual GDP growth reached 4.6% in January after 4.4% in December — ministry"

Russia's Jan 2024 economic momentum continues.  These numbers look more in line with the IMF's 2.6% growth estimate for Russia in 2024.   If true then in 2024 Russia's GDP growth will exeed all G7 economies in 2024 just like in 2023.

When this war is over it'll be wise to examine the effectiveness (or lack thereof) of sanctions to see if they really worked against Russia.
These numbers are probably something of a political failure for the Western sanctions regime.

I said when this all started that sanctions being meaningless was proved out how 7 years' worth of sanctions post-Crimea resulted in nothing. Not to say examples from other conflicts.

The U.S. then took steps to completely freeze Russia out of the international financial system, which at the time I thought was a ballsy and strong move. However, with the benefit of hindsight all it did was made everywhere not West in the world seek to increase distance between their economic system and the U.S. so they could remove the potential of this threat in the future. So the U.S. actions here the end result was it darkened a line between the West and the Global South. I'm not talking Russia and China, I'm talking more benign countries geopolitically like Malaysia.

Soft power is good, but has real limits and gets beat by hard power almost all of the time. The problem with the post-Iraq War West is they think soft power can fix everything, and if your only tool is soft power you're more a paper tiger than anything. Syria should've been a giant glaring example to the West of you can't do everything with soft power as we see now that Assad is still in power and Obama said that he must leave, but did nothing to actually make that happen.

Sanctions are very effective at inconveniencing individuals, and the post-Crimea sanctions regime provided a basis to go after any Russian national or their investments whenever a government or competitor wanted to. The criteria for what we were sanctioning Russia for had expanded to the point any Russian could be added for almost any reason. Which may well have contributed to the political climate of frustration with an endless Minsk process which did not resolve the key demand of the entire Russian political class

1. Ending the sanctions regime
2. Recognizing Crimea as Russian

Better-targeted sanctions might well have introduced divisions within the regime, or undermined it capabilities, but these did the opposite. It united every viable Russian political force behind those two points and set Moscow on a course for either dropping #2 or war. As dropping #2 could only be carried out by Putin personally, and perhaps not even then, that left war.

[jaichind]

I wonder if this will include Lithuania since a lot of Ukriaina goods enter Poland via Lithuania as a way to get around the Poland blockade

https://www.lrt.lt/naujienos/verslas/4/2210845/navickas-apie-lenkijos-ukininku-streika-ivyks-daline-blokada-ruosiamasi-ir-blogiausiam-scenarijui

"Navick on the Polish farmers' strike: a partial blockade will take place, preparations are also being made for the worst-case scenario"

Just as I predicted.  Partial blockade of Lithuania to begin.

[jaichind]

Yougov polls on different NATO countries on sending troops to Ukraine

https://twitter.com/YouGov/status/1763194021638234530

[Storr]

I'm still skeptical about this, except for sending maybe a few dozen technical experts. I think it's mostly a distraction to divert attention from France's paltry military contributions to Ukraine (€640 million to €1.7 billion vs. Germany's €17.7 billion). But it's still interesting that despite all the blowback from NATO allies after Macron's 'not ruling out sending troops to Ukraine' comment, government officials are still publicly talking about it:

"BREAKING:

French Prime Minister Gabriel Attal says that France may send soldiers to Ukraine for air defense systems, training of the Ukrainian army or protecting Ukraine’s border with Belarus"

https://twitter.com/visegrad24/status/1763300044432720345?s=20

[TiltsAreUnderrated]

Macron runs his mouth off, but his government is still blocking the purchase of ammunition from outside the EU despite his claim that this would no longer happen. Don’t put much stock in his word.

[Anti-Trump Truth Socialite JD Vance Enjoying Juror]

Macron runs his mouth off, but his government is still blocking the purchase of ammunition from outside the EU despite his claim that this would no longer happen. Don’t put much stock in his word.

Just watch, the Franco-Spanish-Swedish expeditionary force is going to go into Ukraine any day now. Who ever said that the Europeans don't have independent foreign policies?

[Hollywood]

https://twitter.com/Suriyakmaps/status/1763336244451217854?s=20

[SnowLabrador]

Knowing that everything happening in Ukraine is the US' fault makes me feel sick to my stomach.

[Open Source Intelligence]

I'm still skeptical about this, except for sending maybe a few dozen technical experts. I think it's mostly a distraction to divert attention from France's paltry military contributions to Ukraine (€640 million to €1.7 billion vs. Germany's €17.7 billion).

Yeah, that's my take.

[Open Source Intelligence]

Macron runs his mouth off, but his government is still blocking the purchase of ammunition from outside the EU despite his claim that this would no longer happen. Don’t put much stock in his word.

Just watch, the Franco-Spanish-Swedish expeditionary force is going to go into Ukraine any day now. Who ever said that the Europeans don't have independent foreign policies?

The French have a real military. Swedes have a decent military up to a point due to being Swiss-style neutral forever although I think theirs is more naval in character which is of very limited use for Ukraine. Spain is WTF, maybe it's influenced by anti-Catalan independence/borders are sacrosanct and should not be changed vibes.

It's just their militaries can't compare to the juggernaut of NATO, the U.S.

[jaichind]

https://www.independent.co.uk/news/world/europe/british-soldiers-in-ukraine-germany-b2504462.html

"Germany accused of ‘flagrant abuse of intelligence’ for revealing British help in Ukraine"

One of the reasons Scholz gives for not giving Taurus long-range cruise missiles to Ukraine is that doing so would require German troops to be sent there to operate them just as the UK is operating the Storm Shadow air-launched cruise missiles.

This step off an angry UK at Scholz publically admitting that NATO troops are in Ukraine operating missile systems.

[Hindsight was 2020]

Macron runs his mouth off, but his government is still blocking the purchase of ammunition from outside the EU despite his claim that this would no longer happen. Don’t put much stock in his word.

Just watch, the Franco-Spanish-Swedish expeditionary force is going to go into Ukraine any day now. Who ever said that the Europeans don't have independent foreign policies?

The French have a real military. Swedes have a decent military up to a point due to being Swiss-style neutral forever although I think theirs is more naval in character which is of very limited use for Ukraine. Spain is WTF, maybe it's influenced by anti-Catalan independence/borders are sacrosanct and should not be changed vibes.

It's just their militaries can't compare to the juggernaut of NATO, the U.S.

I disagree if anything the Swedish military strength is in the sky. Gripens are absolute beasts of fighter jets