Russian invasion of Ukraine

[gondrin]

That's what I thought too.
But then, why make a big deal about signing a mineral deal, which involves having American boots on the ground protecting assets like mines and refineries there?
Its almost like this administration says and does two completely opposite things and has no idea how foreign policy actually works.

Trump quote from yesterday;


He will call them foolish. Take that invaders of sovereign nations.
To think they will give up because its too hard is utterly unsurprising. These deals take years. Trumps patience is as long as the drive-through window.

Because, for Trump, he isn't looking to end the war. He is looking to profit off of it. He is looking on looting the natural resources of Ukraine without giving anything in return. The boots on the ground would be there only to protect US interests, not Ukrainian.

If the war were to come to an end because of it, that would be a side effect. That is why Trump is basically giving up on it because instead of looking long term stability in the region by actively trying to prevent Russia from actively doing what they are doing now again in the future, he is looking at it from the mindset of a baron robber, nothing more.

[Timester]

The war will stay the same, Russia literally sending invalid soldiers into the front, Ukraine getting better and better homemade drone and missile tech.

Ukraine is becoming a fucking porkipine and Russia tactical thinking is still stuck in the 19th century. This with or without the US.

[alach]

Putin just called an Easter truce.
Curiouser and curiouser

[PhaelixWW]

Putin just called an Easter truce.
Curiouser and curiouser

Mud season is still mud season.

[Gabriel]

So, I don't know. This is a hard one. Will giving up Crimea end the war? Will it allow Ukraine to keep the other 4 siezed territories? I doubt Putin will just let those go considering what is has cost him to take 2/3rds of them.

Trump administration ready to recognize Russian control of Crimea in framework to end Ukraine war, source says


Also, will that change when the next admistration takes over to be more in step with the rest of the world. I have serious doubts about this, and according to rubio we will probably know one way or another by next week.

What's hard about it? It will do fuck all, as Russia is at minimum going to lay claim to Eastern Ukraine as well.

- - - Updated - - -

That's what I thought too.
But then, why make a big deal about signing a mineral deal, which involves having American boots on the ground protecting assets like mines and refineries there?
Its almost like this administration says and does two completely opposite things and has no idea how foreign policy actually works.

Trump quote from yesterday;


He will call them foolish. Take that invaders of sovereign nations.
To think they will give up because its too hard is utterly unsurprising. These deals take years. Trumps patience is as long as the drive-through window.

Please tell me you are being sarcastic and you knew this already before?

[Iphie]

Putin just called an Easter truce.
Curiouser and curiouser

Set to start in one hour and lasting for two days, in common parlance: that's a trap to be able to claim the Ukraininans violated the truce.

[alach]

What's hard about it? It will do fuck all, as Russia is at minimum going to lay claim to Eastern Ukraine as well.

- - - Updated - - -



Please tell me you are being sarcastic and you knew this already before?

Hi. Nice to meet you for the first time. I've never posted here before and what is sarcasm.

[Gorsameth]

Set to start in one hour and lasting for two days, in common parlance: that's a trap to be able to claim the Ukraininans violated the truce.

My initial thought was that it could also be Russia wanting to do a bunch of troop movement and hoping to avoid that being targeted

[Fugus]

That's what I thought too.
But then, why make a big deal about signing a mineral deal, which involves having American boots on the ground protecting assets like mines and refineries there?
Its almost like this administration says and does two completely opposite things and has no idea how foreign policy actually works.

Trump quote from yesterday;


He will call them foolish. Take that invaders of sovereign nations.
To think they will give up because its too hard is utterly unsurprising. These deals take years. Trumps patience is as long as the drive-through window.

Remember what Trump did to the Kurds? He left without notice to leave them to get abandoned. That is what his mineral deal would do with Ukraine.

The US rolls in and gets what they want while Russia regroups, then the US pulls out out any notice to anyone except Russia so they can steam roll in within hours of our leaving before anyone else could even attempt to help.

[Corvus]

It's a total trap. Pootie did the same 2 years ago, announced a temporary truce that russian troops ignored, then tried to blame Ukraine.

This time you have pootie's stooge in the whitehouse who will take his side.

[caervek]

Russia has made it repeatedly clear that the barest minimum they will accept is all 4 oblasts they have claimed (which are impossible for them to take), a new government acceptable to them, no new military aid to Ukraine, no admission to NATO and the Ukrainian military largely disbanded. They have refused to budge on that as a minimum.

Wait, what about EU membership?

The whole reason Putin didn't care about Sweden and Finland joining NATO was because they were already in the EU and EU membership grants extended NATO membership, surely Putin hasn't forgotten this as that could throw a major wrench in his plans to wait a few years then continue invading.

The problem with buying Gripens or Rafales or Typhoons right now is that as good as those jets are, they are just too fucking old. Once you buy them, you are kind of locked into those things for the next 15 to 20 years. And to be honest Europe REALLY shouldn't get locked into 4 and 4.5 gen jets NOW.

While this is theoretically true, you have to factor realistically into it as well.

Realistically who are we (Europe) likely to be fighting an air war against before our 6th gen fighters arrive?

If it's the USA then we're toast, nothing is going to change that so it isn't even worth planning for.

If it's China then they've already knocked out the USA and Russia by the time they're launching an aerial invasion of Europe so again not worth planning for.

If it's Russia then we're fine, they have nothing capable of going toe to toe with the latest Gripens / Rafales / Typhoons and they don't look to have anything viable in the pipe for the next 20 years either. In the unlikely event that they actually manage to upgrade/redesign the Su-57 into a real 5th gen fighter many of us already have F-35s and by that point our GRT's will be improved too so that's neutralised. And of course there's also the massive elephant in the room that the Russian Air Force have spent three plus years proving that they are about as effective at countering anti-air as slugs are fighting salt.

So that basically just leaves us with the status quo, helping the USA blow up stuff in the desert, and usually the less threatening targets.

[Iphie]

Wait, what about EU membership?

The whole reason Putin didn't care about Sweden and Finland joining NATO was because they were already in the EU and EU membership grants extended NATO membership, surely Putin hasn't forgotten this as that could throw a major wrench in his plans to wait a few years then continue invading.

Eh? The EU has a form of a defense clause but being in the EU does not grant NATO protection. Switzerland, Andorra, San Marino, Liechtenstein and Vatican city are protected despite not being in the EU or NATO but that's because you have to go THROUGH NATO countries to get to them. Monaco is defended by France but it is reachable without going through a NATO country and Austria is an EU member but not a NATO member but enjoys the same protection as the previously mentioned countries due to location.

[Corvus]

In something of a shock, Ukraine is reporting an increase of russian artillery and drone attacks during the 'truce'. Totally unprecedented for russia to break its word.

They haven't been attacking the cities though, so they can pretend to be honouring the truce, all the while claiming Ukraine is breaking the truce for responding to russian attacks.

[Elder Millennial]

So that basically just leaves us with the status quo, helping the USA blow up stuff in the desert, and usually the less threatening targets.

You fundamentally misunderstand the point of a military.

You do not build a military to fight a war, you build one to deter a war. To make the possibility of war so bloody for your opponent that they won't consider starting one.

The thing about stealth planes in general is that they are a very meaningful deterrent, because it's so hard to deal with them once they are in the air.

The current European 4 and 4.5 gen jets are ultimately defensive in nature. If that's all you have, you are boxing yourself into defense.

Valerii Zaluzhnyi recently wrote an article on the issues around drone warfare and NATO generally not just lagging behind but not even having made it to the starting line yet.

https://www.defenseone.com/ideas/202...w-suit/404444/

But his article has greater implications on the changing nature of modern peer to peer or near peer warfare. We are basically back to 1915 style static lines and attrition warfare again. Drones have made maneuver warfare, which is NATO's whole shtick basically unviable. If attempted the attrition rates would be astronomical. So whoever attacks first is likely to gain some ground before they are halted, but the issue is that retaking lost ground has become neigh fucking impossible. It's 1914 all over again. The issue with this, is that the current NATO doctrine is that if Russia is to attack, the Baltics and huge chunks of Poland are expected to be lost, then NATO consolidates and launches a "TEXT BOOK MANEUVER WARFARE COUNTER OFFENSIVE WITH COMBINED AIR LAND WARFARE", which is now all bullshit and none of it is going to work, mostly because nothing bigger than microwave can fly anywhere near the frontlines and if you attempt to put together a single armored column the entire thing is getting busted up by a few hundred unjammable fly by wire FPV drones.

The point of stuff like the F35 is that it can still to a large degree fly. And it can blow up supply dumps, air fields, command posts, enemy jets launching cruise missiles etc.

The 4th gen stuff just can't do any of that. So retaking any land that has been lost will become almost impossible. That's why Europe needs Gen 5 and 6. To make the Russians have to think about getting buttfucked 600 to 800 miles behind the frontline.

[caervek]

In today's news Putin has signed a law ratifying the comprehensive strategic partnership agreement with Iran, meaning Iran and Russia are now officially allies.

Also, the Taliban is no longer considered a terrorist organization in Russia, opening the door for Russian-Afghan cooperation and the potential of Russian bases returning to Afghanistan, not gonna lie I never thought I'd see the day, and after all the work Rambo and James Bond did to kick the Russians out of there :P

Eh? The EU has a form of a defense clause but being in the EU does not grant NATO protection.

It's been looked into and theorised a lot over the years but the general consensus from experts is that it's functionally impossible to go to war with 23 NATO members without going to war with NATO, therefore being in the EU grants extended NATO protection. There is considered to be a good chance that the USA would refuse to help under article 5 if the whole conflict began as a Russian attack on the EU, but that's considered irrelevant as NATO/EU is still more than capable of slapping the shit out of Russia without direct US assistance.

You fundamentally misunderstand the point of a military.

You do not build a military to fight a war, you build one to deter a war.

The thing about stealth planes in general is that they are a very meaningful deterrent, because it's so hard to deal with them once they are in the air.

The current European 4 and 4.5 gen jets are ultimately defensive in nature. If that's all you have, you are boxing yourself into defense.

With all due respect, you either misread or misunderstood my post.

I made it clear that we aren't just building/buying more Gen 4++ planes but we have Gen 5 and are developing Gen 6, it is a good idea to have a mixture of technologies for a variety of reasons.

And you seem to be forgetting that Gen 4++ planes ARE a deterrent to any aggressor that doesn't have superior planes, which for the foreseeable future is every potentially hostile country except China, and China aren't likely to be invading Europe any time soon.

Like I said you are getting too focused on the theory side but not the reality side. Realistically the EU is not going to war with the USA, at least not in the next 30 years. Russia might become a threat but they are never going to bridge their technology deficit so we will always be a generation ahead of them. Buying planes now that are not Gen 5 but are still better than anything Russia has and the majority of what they are expected to have in the next 20 years isn't bad business.

[Corvus]

A major russian ammunition depot outside of Moscow has blown up, reportedly storing up to 100,000 tons of artillery shells and rockets.

https://bbc.com/news/articles/crm3lmwm73vo

People up to 50km from the site are reporting hearing detonations and seeing the mushroom cloud, while shells and rockets are falling on villages a dozen km away.

Naturally russia is claiming it is an accident.

[PhaelixWW]

A major russian ammunition depot outside of Moscow has blown up, reportedly storing up to 100,000 tons of artillery shells and rockets.

https://bbc.com/news/articles/crm3lmwm73vo

People up to 50km from the site are reporting hearing detonations and seeing the mushroom cloud, while shells and rockets are falling on villages a dozen km away.

Naturally russia is claiming it is an accident.

Can't wait to see those before/after photos.

[Mayhem]

Naturally russia is claiming it is an accident.

It wasn't the enemy, we're just too stupid to store ammunition! What a great defense.

[PhaelixWW]

It wasn't the enemy, we're just too stupid to store ammunition! What a great defense.

I mean, that close to Moscow? The blast was just outside the city and has to be one of the more well-defended spots in the entire country.

At that point, it might seem more advantageous to blame local incompetence rather than admit that Ukraine hit a target that should have been better defended.

[Mayhem]

I mean, that close to Moscow? The blast was just outside the city and has to be one of the more well-defended spots in the entire country.

At that point, it might seem more advantageous to blame local incompetence rather than admit that Ukraine hit a target that should have been better defended.

As if they have to fear anything from their population.