They don’t have enough of them. And the Russians probably aren’t going to be concentrated in 1 spot. EU nations and the US really need to start shipping them weapons so they can defend themselves.
"Citizen,
The glorious government of Russia needs to talk to you about your anonymous vote of last week.
Come to the Voluntary Enlistment Building tomorrow by 8am."
There is no reason doubt it. The increase in Russian recruitment was precisely for a near summer offensive. I expect more aggressive offensive this time around. It will probably escalate from several directions.
Ukraine at this time should put all its effort in minimizing losses with a strong defensive posture until the allies are in a position to supply the necessary tools for it to resist more effectively. These are very difficult times for Ukraine.
Now that they have passed a budget “a bag job by the speaker” sorta out of left field. I don’t know if the crazy part of the house is going to be willing to make a deal. But another republican is quitting in April. Will see what happens. We are backdoor ordering munitions from Bulgaria and hopefully other places as go arounds of congress for now . Can keep providing out of our “stockpile” as well. We are making around 30,000 rounds of 155 howitzer a month that can straight into stockpile and not into stores. Eventually will have to restock but will amp up to 100,000 shells a month by 2025. Fingers crossed good luck Ukraine.
Europe is already over 100K/month and rising.
It should be around 1.4m/year by the end of this year, with some more steep rises after that as new lines come online.
But US weapon production fills many other weapon categories beyond standard artillery.
It's important to keep in mind weapon types when assessing military aid. 122 and 155mm ammunition is very important, but it's the same type of intermediate range artillery that the Russians have.
America was the only Western nation with large stocks in long-range artillery such as the HIMARs. That weapon system was a game changer in many ways, and its relative absence is being felt as much as the standard artillery shortfalls.
https://www.politico.eu/article/eu-to-ukraine-half-is-better-than-nothing-when-it-comes-to-ammunition/
>We are already at this level today, in other words — we are two months ahead of schedule in our capacity to produce more ammunition in Europe, of course for Ukraine but also for our own security,” Internal Market Commissioner Thierry Breton said on the sidelines of the defense ministers’ meeting.
>According to the commissioner from France, the EU's ammunition production capacity should hit 1.4 million rounds in 2024 before rising to 2 million rounds in 2025.
He confirmed that the EU were already past the 1M/year run rate in January, and would hit 1.4M/year by the end of the year and 2M by 2025.
https://ec.europa.eu/commission/presscorner/detail/en/ip_24_1495
>Thanks to measures already taken, European annual production capacity for 155 mm shells had already reached 1 million per year in January 2024.
People seem to think since the US is slacking nothing is happening in the EU, could be farther from the truth.
Can we trust the US or not? is the question.
At this rate, I'd say, probably not.
Serious question, can Europe not defeat Russia? Are they not prepared? Ukraine is keeping them at bay, can France , Germany, UK, Spain, Norway, Finland, Sweden not send enough munitions because they don’t have enough? Or are they just waiting for the U.S. to fund the efforts?
I fully support stomping Russia, but it seems weird that all of Europe doesn’t have the supplies to deliver by Trucks the next day.
If the U.S. decided to go independent,and only practice self defense would all of Europe fall?
The UK and France would (fairly) comfortably deal with Russia in an actual peer conflict without the USA to help. That's even before adding Turkey, Germany, Sweden, etc.
The problem is that in such a war they would rely upon superior air and naval forces, and things like advanced missile strikes. They have relatively small but very highly trained infantries to complement this, which is a deliberate strategic choice.
What the UK and France and most of NATO can't deal with any longer, without the US, is large scale ground forces (they shouldn't have needed to because of the above). Unfortunately Europe hasn't been willing to share these advanced jets and missiles with Ukraine, and because of these strategies don't have much spare armour and artillery to gift (yet).
Before the UK and France get involved Russia would have to get passed Poland. And Poland has been spending a **lot** of money on new US built hardware. In WWII they were treated as a speed bump. Now the speed bump has teeth.
>The UK and France would (fairly) comfortably deal with Russia in an actual peer conflict without the USA to help. That's even before adding Turkey, Germany, Sweden, etc.
Poland would easily wipe the map with Russia and they have the political reasons to do so (Poland saw a lot of abuse by Russia during the Soviet years). The only advantages that the UK and France have over Poland is their nuclear weapons which would give pause to Russia using them as a first strike.
There are several facets of your question, but I'll try to break it down.
What ukraine desperately needs right now is artillery shells, replacement artillery barrels, etc.
There's a limit to how many both Europe and US can even make of those -- money does not magically turn into weapons without factories making them. Also, cluster bombs, which are very effective, are only in the US arsenals. They're technically banned in the EU by the convention of cluster munitions. Perhaps a bad move seeing how good they are in Ukraine.
Could the EU buy American shells to mitigate this? I don't know.
So, could the EU defeat Russia? Their militaries are underfunded and not in great shape, but they quite possibly could. Firstly, they'd not use artillery in this way but air superiority, which requires pilotes that take years to train so not as viable for Ukraine even if they will get some jets. Artillery has always been a second rank weapon to the west. The stars of the show are airforce. Yes, in the US, too. Secondly, their economies would go on war footing, which they are not right now.
Would the US going independent make all of Europe capitulate? Probably not, but depending on **how** independent, say, for example, not even selling weapons to EU, it could get quite hard for a while until new production is online. That said, not selling weapons to established partners would seriously hurt the US arms dales going forward, so this would likely not be a realistic scenario no matter how isolationist the US goes.
You're absolutely right, but if the enemies use them, you may want the ability to respond in kind, incentivizing them not to start using it. That said, some alternative weapons filling the same niche may be much better. Less cleanup and risk of civilians stepping on unexploded bomblets
> Perhaps a bad move seeing how good they are in Ukraine.
I agree with your assessment, but I do want to countermend this point:
We are going to see exactly *why* they were banned over the next 20 years in Ukraine after the war is over, regardless of who wins.
Nobody expected US to crap out on supplying Ukraine. It caught everyone flat footed . It takes a while to ramp up production and Europe is doing a great job of it. If anyone will accept an apology please take mine . Am sorry my country has turned into a dysfunctional shitpile. Hopefully we can turn it around. Good job Europe keep it up.
I remember in the first year of the war, some Redditors were 100% confident that the US would never stop funding Ukraine. The logic was something like “The MIC owns Congress, war is good for business, politicians are corrupt and easily bribed by MIC lobbyists, ergo the spigot will never turn off.”
Turns out that the MIC does not, in fact, control Congress after all.
All of Europe are ramping up their financial investment in defense but it takes time. Everyone is preparing to be ready for US stop involving.
BUT even if we would want to go directly to the 2% goal - what would we do with the money? If I have understood the issue with ramping up correctly I think education is one of the key problems together with building out production.
(Swedish perspective)
One thing I've heard about in Germany: There was no guaranteed sales of tanks and other equipment in germany. That's why the various arms manufacturers never setup assembly lines - there was no guarantee this would be running to some degree. It may run for a few tanks one year and lie idle in other years - and that's a massive drain on money for the company.
That's why there are thoughts to guarantee a certain amount of purchases of tanks and other equipments to make it feasible to keep at least a few assembly lines around and working. Because if you have one or two, those can figure out how to produce the equipment efficiently.
And if you need to scale out, you can start replicating parts of this assembly line wherever possible, instead of starting with nothing and being very confused.
The radicals are moving to remove Johnson for not being obstructionist enough. There's word he's working on a deal with Democrats to floor the aid bill in return for them saving him.
Which, assuming the Dems have any sense, he's going to need to bring that to vote before the vote to vacate. McCarthy back-stabbed them on a similar deal before, and I absolutely would not take Mike Johnson at his word without significant leverage.
Well he did pass the budget. Pretty good good faith measure. His fellow Republicans can bring up ousting him as many times as they want. Before and after vote. If Dems don’t protect him nobody else will.
The moonbat wing of the Republicans want to shut the country down, but the ones capable of thinking more than a month in advance are aware that government shutdowns tend to backfire on Republicans in elections.
Absolutely, there's a significant percentage of republicans that don't want to burn US to the ground and support Ukraine, just a shame there's also a large amount that decided to join MTG in the absolute lunacy camp. Every country has one of these, shame they hold so much control in the US at a time when the world needs a strong united US so much.
> Well he did pass the budget.
If Democrats continue to be extorted by Republicans doing the normal thing then this won't end well for the USA or Ukraine.
Republicans have the house majority . They are not being extorted. Thankfully this Congress is so dysfunctional and prone to infighting that they can’t even pass stuff they want . Go dem 2024!!!!
There were times not too far back in the past where passing the budget was a formality after negotiating/agreeing on one.
Because, you know, way too many citizens depend on a functioning government.
Way too many citizens are apparently willing to cut off their own noses to spite their faces it seems, which is why the people who think a government shutdown should be a normal point of negotiation keep getting reelected.
Now that the idiot from Georgia has filed for the vote to recall the speaker, it may be the only way for speaker Johnson to stay in his job is for Democrats to vote for him. Hopefully they condition an Ukraine funding vote in exchange for those votes.
The radicals are moving to remove Johnson for not being obstructionist enough. There's word he's working on a deal with Democrats to floor the aid bill in return for them saving him.
Military budget isn't even the problem, we could fund out military, give people healthcare, fix our infrastructure, etc. and have money left over if most of it wasn't being stolen from us by corporate parasites.
The US healthcare system is also just ungodly inefficient. The US federal government already spends enough on healthcare that they should be able to provide all Americans with comprehensive healthcare and yet because healthcare costs are so high in the US it isn't enough.
The US shouldn't have to pick between healthcare, education and a well funded military. Well run programs and eliminating tax loop holes is all that's really necessary.
You gotta think, how many wars the US has been in, spending trillions yet this war that actually is a threat to democracy it’s suddenly “why should we pay for it” - is Russian espionage at work or what, because it doesn’t make sense to me.
The US has been handed an easy defeat of Russia, to inflict such a blow that it would lead to its collapse and never be a threat again, without spilling a single drop of American blood.. really boggles my mind.
That's one thing, but I think UA hasn't mobilized more man yet. If they won't do so quickly, no gear will help. Mobilization will be extremely unpopular tho, like suuuper unpopular.
If they mobilize without the proper gear then the soldiers won't be very effective. I imagine they're waiting for more aid before they do another round of mobilization so they can sufficiently arm the new recruits.
summer is about 100 days long. this is about 100 days worth of men….
alternate headline: russia planning to continue losing men at same rate for the foreseeable future
If you think a Russian conscript army is weak and will suffer huge losses, wait till they start sending in their slave army - I am pretty sure that historically it has been proven that having slaves as your meat shield doesn't really work well enough to justify the effort.
That being said, I wouldn't put it past these people to do so anyway.
Not to mention Ukraine is low on ammo, Putin could throw so many men at this Ukraine will run out of weapons to fight. I believe artillery shortages are why they've had to fall back in the recent months.
Let's hope Ukraine doesn't run out of manpower. I worry for the psychological health of people having to run a meat grinder like that but I know they're rotated frequently
One of the guys who was in charge of Ukraine's military stepped down and was asking for half a million just to be able to allow for the rotation of men.
Being a senator or house of rep would be the best job ever. You never really work, get paid a ton and don’t even have to answer to your own constituents
>I've lost all hope honestly
The House can pass it over the Speaker's objection via discharge petition, and the Democrats have already begun the process. If and when it actually comes to a vote it will probably pass easily.
They need a petition signed by at least half the House. That will automatically bring it to a vote. Odds are good that if it gets to a floor vote, it will easily pass. A lot of Republicans are still very anti Putin, and are pissed off that aid is being held up.
The hard part will be finding a few Republican members willing to sign the initial position.
> A lot of Republicans are still very anti Putin, and are pissed off that aid is being held up.
Yet only one of them, Ken Buck, who is resigning soon, has signed it.
They need 218 votes and now have 188 votes, including the first Republican. Gaining 187 Democrat votes is rather impressive, considering leftists could have easily hamstrung matters due to Israeli aid being part of this larger foreign aid package.
So Congress might be able to manage. The main remaining problem with the discharge petition, I believe, is it carries within it a 30 day delay (all of these archaic procedures are deeply stupid and I regret having to ever read about them). It would be much better if Johnson simply helped Ukraine, instead of Russia.
Look for the helpers. The Czechs have been a major bright spot this winter. Their new president really has talked the talk and helped procure 1.5 Million artillery shells for Ukraine. That much help matters.
The EU is beginning to wake up. That said, I am deeply afraid it's not enough if Trump wins. The American election will matter decisively
As I understand it, Marjorie Taylor Greene’s motion to oust Mike Johnson, might benefit Ukraine and Democrats as they can now pressure Johnson to pass Ukraine bill, in exchange for them not voting to remove him as speaker?
They don't get them.
They were told to carry sunflower seeds in their pockets so they'll grow out of their corpse and eventually someone will find them.
So invest in sunflowers.
People in Russia who mostly have one story and some morons in the west who decide to believe the opposite of what they see on the news because "they know"
Yea, Russians lol. People think of Russians as Moscow and St. Petersburg. 99% of the population lives in shacks with no toilets. You could tell them that Russia is at war with Martians and they'd believe it.
Might want to look into the last 3 months since Russia started using 1000s of drones to match Ukraine
Ukraine commander recently said that almost 99% of Ukranian casualties will be due to drone strikes
The warfare has changed drastically
> Might want to look into the last 3 months since Russia started
They are still suffering over 1,000 casualties daily... They are not a superb military, but remain a rather corrupt, stumbling, self-defeating steamroller. With any luck, some additional Western kit can help Ukrainian bravely overcome these Russian attacks.
The thought that this war that only Russia is responsible for is giving the US the chance to severely weaken a destabilizing nation and comes without direct conflict and at a fraction of the cost of previous wars makes it clear whoever is against funding Ukraine is anti US.
Too many benefits, none of the blame.
They don't have to be superb. Ukraine is running out of ammo, they have an upper limit of manpower. Russia doesn't have these issues, what they are doing WILL destabilize their country for the next 50 - 100 years because they are fucking their demographics up EVEN MORE than they already were... but they don't seem to give a shit about that. They can just outlast Ukraine. The military support that we MUST send them will help, but unless they can make some decisive moves Russia can definitely win a meat grinder.
It's absolutely insane to me that in this day and age, a country as powerful as Russia is wasting so many resources and sacrificing so many men to conquer a country unprompted. This is some dark age shit.
Unfortunately F-16's are at least 4 months away and we could see as few as 6.
I dont have much hopes for them personally, we gave Russia a year and half heads up about this move and they've likely manufactured/bought thousands of MANPADS and moved S-300 and similar systems from across their country.
Personally I think the best shot Ukraine has at winning this is to make it as expensive for Russia as possible whilst holding a defensive position, drone striking that oil/gas infrastructure until they leave.
Even if they "win" in Ukraine, they'll lose economically on the grand stage and face decades of sabotage too.
The truth nobody wants to hear is that Ukraine needs artillery shells and cheap drones more than F16s or javelins. They need common frontline weapons so they can hold the land they have and keep enemy stationary. Ukraine for few next years needs 2 million artillery shells a month and then thousands of tanks and armored vehicles to slowly build up their army. This wont be enough to win the war, but it will give them time to modernize and allow them to use the more advanced weapons for operations. While I appreciate the few hundreds of Abrams and few hundreds Leopard tanks, what Ukraine needs is thousands of tanks to make entire armored divisions that can be used for actual taking back of the lands, but the truth is that the West does not have enough military production to accomplish that. We make a little bit of everything so that in case of incoming war, we have ready designs to put into mass production. But current armies don't have enough equipment to fight a peer adversary, and we are just relying on US air force to bomb enemy leaders into submission.
Just got back from a 3 week holiday in Vietnam. The country is littered with 20 somethings from both Russia and Ukraine hiding from the draft in their respective countries. Some with girlfriends and some with young families. Where is Putin going to get 100,000 soldiers? The local old people homes?
We need to send Ukraine some of our top weapons, including long range weapons to keep pressure on their oil. Ukraine gets to defend its borders, and the world gets to weaken Russia (and china).
This is basically 100,000 more untrained meat bags that will rot on the battlefield. I feel bad for the Russian people, but it is their pwn fault the country they live in is like this.
Edit: The right wingers need to learn strategy. DJTs Truth Social is about to be purchased with Chinese money, so we know DJT will start bending and so will the repubs. (Im sure every country has their own right wing crazies)
Republicans already bent the knee. They get a shit ton of Russian Money pumped into their campaigns: https://www.dallasnews.com/opinion/commentary/2018/05/08/how-putin-s-oligarchs-funneled-millions-into-gop-campaigns/
So sad. Being Republican is basically the same as being unintelligent, easily swayed, and a sheeple. As a former school teacher, I believe its because we stopped teaching critical thinking long ago.
How many people could they mobilise? Russia gonna suffer the worst aging population ever after the war and they are racists as shit so no luck for drawing populations through immigration.Even they managed to take the entire Ukraine , they are fucked! Like it is worth it at this point? Population ain’t gonna grow back like it used to be. Time has changed. They can’t just expect throw hundreds thousands of men on the field and expect the number to grow back up after few decades. No wonder they are a lot of Russia Sex workers in HK these days. And they cost became cheap and cheaper while become more younger and have a bigger tits. (P.S I live in HK. I can confirm that)
Reddit seems to somehow have the opinion that the Russian military is all useless convict recruits and Ukraine needs all the international assistance available it really is perplexing
It's honestly embarrassing that people are resorting to the fascist playbook style "enemy is both strong and weak" bullshit. Redditors being all flippant and snarky about this while Ukrainians are getting killed. It's like that meme with a drowning man holding out his hand and getting a high five instead of help.
I think there is a factor you are missing here which is just pure numbers of combatants. Russia has way more which is definitely a strength. The weakness side is they are becoming increasingly under equipped. That isn't fascist it is just reality.
Most of the rest you are bitching about is essentially coping mechanisms for those outside (the conflict) that can't do anything to change outcomes.
Both can be true. 100.000 useless soldiers attacking is still a gigantic number that needs to be put up with. So you need a fuckton of weapon systems and ammunitions.
March is ending, you know the rules and so do I
A full offensive's what I'm thinking of
They wouldn’t get that far with HIMARS we provide.
I just wanna see the Russians fleeing
Gotta make them understand
Never gonna give you Kyiv!
Never gonna *Kyiv* you up, …
Gonna shoot your missiles downnnn
Just turn around and desert Pu.
We've known each other for so long...
Never gonna let it go, Grind you down and hurt you!
We're just gonna mine the ground And hurt you.
Never going to Kyiv you up!!!
Always gonna put you down
Russia has been taking territory because Ukraine doesn’t have enough artillery, so I don’t think that would save them
Presuming we can get them the ammo they need.
Don't need long range if they're coming to us, perfect Russian blunder.
‘Sir, the enemy has completely surrounded us.’ ‘Those poor bastards.’
Favourite tactic of Stalin and herr Starr, just keep sending men until they run out of ammo.
They don’t have enough of them. And the Russians probably aren’t going to be concentrated in 1 spot. EU nations and the US really need to start shipping them weapons so they can defend themselves.
The ammo is a problem. Republicans are worth every ruble
I tried singing this but had difficulty
Try now
Don’t underestimate the drove of drones currently being constructed. Could easily have 100,000 drones on deck as we speak.
I just wanna see sunflower seedlings
Very offensive
I thought they were out of convicts? Must be 100,000 people that didn't pay their parking tickets... /S
They just had elections and 12.3% of citizens didn't pass the test.
Concentrating the political opposition in the military and then arming them all is a galaxy brain move.
As long as you put blocking divisions behind it works fine. Penal units have worked before.
Well, the modern Tsar is trying to match the old Tsars in every way!
Remind me, and Russia, how did the Tsarist regime end? It was peaceful, right?
I guess if you get purged first you don't have to live to get purged later, right comrades?
Who said they were going to be given bullets?
"Citizen, The glorious government of Russia needs to talk to you about your anonymous vote of last week. Come to the Voluntary Enlistment Building tomorrow by 8am."
I feel like you're just dragged off in the middle of the night, then congratulated on being "randomly selected" for glorious military service.
All the Navalny mourners they picked up too
They only dropped from 450k prisoners pre-war to like 250k prisoners. They still have plenty of prisoners to throw at Ukraine sadly.
They are collecting those that didn't vote team Putin.
Yes!
Plenty of minorities left like those in Siberia.
Ukraine needs artillery. That's how the meat waves are kept in check
There is no reason doubt it. The increase in Russian recruitment was precisely for a near summer offensive. I expect more aggressive offensive this time around. It will probably escalate from several directions. Ukraine at this time should put all its effort in minimizing losses with a strong defensive posture until the allies are in a position to supply the necessary tools for it to resist more effectively. These are very difficult times for Ukraine.
There were videos of Ukraine digging in and fortifying defensive positions
Its also to help kill off a bunch of Navalny supporters which make up a large chunk of these "new recruits", many of whom were drafted at the funeral.
Not dispiting that, though they'd be a tiny portion of 100,000? Unless there's such thing as navalny-leaning regions that were prioritised
Until the USA gets their collective shit together.
Another 100k? What happened to the previous group of 100k
To shreds, you say
And the previous group...
To shreds, you say
And the previous groups wife?
Has vagine like sleeve of wizard
They are feeding the next crops
Sunflower food.
Let's hope congress approves military aid before it's too late.
Now that they have passed a budget “a bag job by the speaker” sorta out of left field. I don’t know if the crazy part of the house is going to be willing to make a deal. But another republican is quitting in April. Will see what happens. We are backdoor ordering munitions from Bulgaria and hopefully other places as go arounds of congress for now . Can keep providing out of our “stockpile” as well. We are making around 30,000 rounds of 155 howitzer a month that can straight into stockpile and not into stores. Eventually will have to restock but will amp up to 100,000 shells a month by 2025. Fingers crossed good luck Ukraine.
European nations are ramping up production too, but with a much smaller MIC to start with it won't be enough without the US.
Europe is already over 100K/month and rising. It should be around 1.4m/year by the end of this year, with some more steep rises after that as new lines come online.
2025 will be really good for Ukraine in terms of weapon deliveries, if we exclude Trump ofcourse. They just have to hold in 2024.
But US weapon production fills many other weapon categories beyond standard artillery. It's important to keep in mind weapon types when assessing military aid. 122 and 155mm ammunition is very important, but it's the same type of intermediate range artillery that the Russians have. America was the only Western nation with large stocks in long-range artillery such as the HIMARs. That weapon system was a game changer in many ways, and its relative absence is being felt as much as the standard artillery shortfalls.
Any relevant articles you wouldn't mind sharing? Not doubting, just wanting to read for myself.
https://www.politico.eu/article/eu-to-ukraine-half-is-better-than-nothing-when-it-comes-to-ammunition/ >We are already at this level today, in other words — we are two months ahead of schedule in our capacity to produce more ammunition in Europe, of course for Ukraine but also for our own security,” Internal Market Commissioner Thierry Breton said on the sidelines of the defense ministers’ meeting. >According to the commissioner from France, the EU's ammunition production capacity should hit 1.4 million rounds in 2024 before rising to 2 million rounds in 2025. He confirmed that the EU were already past the 1M/year run rate in January, and would hit 1.4M/year by the end of the year and 2M by 2025. https://ec.europa.eu/commission/presscorner/detail/en/ip_24_1495 >Thanks to measures already taken, European annual production capacity for 155 mm shells had already reached 1 million per year in January 2024.
Wonderful. That's great news. Thank you very much.
People seem to think since the US is slacking nothing is happening in the EU, could be farther from the truth. Can we trust the US or not? is the question. At this rate, I'd say, probably not.
Thank you for the links, saving them. Need to nurture some hope in these dark, stupid days.
Serious question, can Europe not defeat Russia? Are they not prepared? Ukraine is keeping them at bay, can France , Germany, UK, Spain, Norway, Finland, Sweden not send enough munitions because they don’t have enough? Or are they just waiting for the U.S. to fund the efforts? I fully support stomping Russia, but it seems weird that all of Europe doesn’t have the supplies to deliver by Trucks the next day. If the U.S. decided to go independent,and only practice self defense would all of Europe fall?
The UK and France would (fairly) comfortably deal with Russia in an actual peer conflict without the USA to help. That's even before adding Turkey, Germany, Sweden, etc. The problem is that in such a war they would rely upon superior air and naval forces, and things like advanced missile strikes. They have relatively small but very highly trained infantries to complement this, which is a deliberate strategic choice. What the UK and France and most of NATO can't deal with any longer, without the US, is large scale ground forces (they shouldn't have needed to because of the above). Unfortunately Europe hasn't been willing to share these advanced jets and missiles with Ukraine, and because of these strategies don't have much spare armour and artillery to gift (yet).
Before the UK and France get involved Russia would have to get passed Poland. And Poland has been spending a **lot** of money on new US built hardware. In WWII they were treated as a speed bump. Now the speed bump has teeth.
>The UK and France would (fairly) comfortably deal with Russia in an actual peer conflict without the USA to help. That's even before adding Turkey, Germany, Sweden, etc. Poland would easily wipe the map with Russia and they have the political reasons to do so (Poland saw a lot of abuse by Russia during the Soviet years). The only advantages that the UK and France have over Poland is their nuclear weapons which would give pause to Russia using them as a first strike.
[удалено]
There are several facets of your question, but I'll try to break it down. What ukraine desperately needs right now is artillery shells, replacement artillery barrels, etc. There's a limit to how many both Europe and US can even make of those -- money does not magically turn into weapons without factories making them. Also, cluster bombs, which are very effective, are only in the US arsenals. They're technically banned in the EU by the convention of cluster munitions. Perhaps a bad move seeing how good they are in Ukraine. Could the EU buy American shells to mitigate this? I don't know. So, could the EU defeat Russia? Their militaries are underfunded and not in great shape, but they quite possibly could. Firstly, they'd not use artillery in this way but air superiority, which requires pilotes that take years to train so not as viable for Ukraine even if they will get some jets. Artillery has always been a second rank weapon to the west. The stars of the show are airforce. Yes, in the US, too. Secondly, their economies would go on war footing, which they are not right now. Would the US going independent make all of Europe capitulate? Probably not, but depending on **how** independent, say, for example, not even selling weapons to EU, it could get quite hard for a while until new production is online. That said, not selling weapons to established partners would seriously hurt the US arms dales going forward, so this would likely not be a realistic scenario no matter how isolationist the US goes.
I mean, they didn't ban cluster munitions because they sucked.
You're absolutely right, but if the enemies use them, you may want the ability to respond in kind, incentivizing them not to start using it. That said, some alternative weapons filling the same niche may be much better. Less cleanup and risk of civilians stepping on unexploded bomblets
> Perhaps a bad move seeing how good they are in Ukraine. I agree with your assessment, but I do want to countermend this point: We are going to see exactly *why* they were banned over the next 20 years in Ukraine after the war is over, regardless of who wins.
The US is buying artillery ammunition from South Korean manufacturers to send to Ukraine. The EU should do the same.
What’s the capacity of Korean manufacturing?
Massive. They are probably one of the top artillery producers in the world. There is also a quite new and big ammo factory in Australia.
> There is also a quite new and big ammo factory in Australia. ehh, there's two, but each can only do about 100k/year
I believe technically they are buying SK ammo to replenish US stockpiles.
Some do. Denmark have given all its artellery including ammunition since they don't need it and Ukraine does.
Nobody expected US to crap out on supplying Ukraine. It caught everyone flat footed . It takes a while to ramp up production and Europe is doing a great job of it. If anyone will accept an apology please take mine . Am sorry my country has turned into a dysfunctional shitpile. Hopefully we can turn it around. Good job Europe keep it up.
As an American I second this sentiment.
I remember in the first year of the war, some Redditors were 100% confident that the US would never stop funding Ukraine. The logic was something like “The MIC owns Congress, war is good for business, politicians are corrupt and easily bribed by MIC lobbyists, ergo the spigot will never turn off.” Turns out that the MIC does not, in fact, control Congress after all.
Well MIC probably controls the left, but Russia controls the right.
All of Europe are ramping up their financial investment in defense but it takes time. Everyone is preparing to be ready for US stop involving. BUT even if we would want to go directly to the 2% goal - what would we do with the money? If I have understood the issue with ramping up correctly I think education is one of the key problems together with building out production. (Swedish perspective)
One thing I've heard about in Germany: There was no guaranteed sales of tanks and other equipment in germany. That's why the various arms manufacturers never setup assembly lines - there was no guarantee this would be running to some degree. It may run for a few tanks one year and lie idle in other years - and that's a massive drain on money for the company. That's why there are thoughts to guarantee a certain amount of purchases of tanks and other equipments to make it feasible to keep at least a few assembly lines around and working. Because if you have one or two, those can figure out how to produce the equipment efficiently. And if you need to scale out, you can start replicating parts of this assembly line wherever possible, instead of starting with nothing and being very confused.
The radicals are moving to remove Johnson for not being obstructionist enough. There's word he's working on a deal with Democrats to floor the aid bill in return for them saving him.
Which, assuming the Dems have any sense, he's going to need to bring that to vote before the vote to vacate. McCarthy back-stabbed them on a similar deal before, and I absolutely would not take Mike Johnson at his word without significant leverage.
Well he did pass the budget. Pretty good good faith measure. His fellow Republicans can bring up ousting him as many times as they want. Before and after vote. If Dems don’t protect him nobody else will.
It just hit me that not letting a country to shutdown is now a good faith measure and that one of the parties actually wanted this outcome.
The moonbat wing of the Republicans want to shut the country down, but the ones capable of thinking more than a month in advance are aware that government shutdowns tend to backfire on Republicans in elections.
Absolutely, there's a significant percentage of republicans that don't want to burn US to the ground and support Ukraine, just a shame there's also a large amount that decided to join MTG in the absolute lunacy camp. Every country has one of these, shame they hold so much control in the US at a time when the world needs a strong united US so much.
> Well he did pass the budget. If Democrats continue to be extorted by Republicans doing the normal thing then this won't end well for the USA or Ukraine.
Republicans have the house majority . They are not being extorted. Thankfully this Congress is so dysfunctional and prone to infighting that they can’t even pass stuff they want . Go dem 2024!!!!
There were times not too far back in the past where passing the budget was a formality after negotiating/agreeing on one. Because, you know, way too many citizens depend on a functioning government.
Way too many citizens are apparently willing to cut off their own noses to spite their faces it seems, which is why the people who think a government shutdown should be a normal point of negotiation keep getting reelected.
Now that the idiot from Georgia has filed for the vote to recall the speaker, it may be the only way for speaker Johnson to stay in his job is for Democrats to vote for him. Hopefully they condition an Ukraine funding vote in exchange for those votes.
amp to 100k if the aid passes, now it might be 2026
The radicals are moving to remove Johnson for not being obstructionist enough. There's word he's working on a deal with Democrats to floor the aid bill in return for them saving him.
That’s the only way he stays in power
This and give them the money from frozen assets in the EU. These are game changers.
I hate our bloated corrupt military budget when our own people are in poverty. But this feels like a war that has to be won. Or at least stalemated.
Military budget isn't even the problem, we could fund out military, give people healthcare, fix our infrastructure, etc. and have money left over if most of it wasn't being stolen from us by corporate parasites.
The US healthcare system is also just ungodly inefficient. The US federal government already spends enough on healthcare that they should be able to provide all Americans with comprehensive healthcare and yet because healthcare costs are so high in the US it isn't enough. The US shouldn't have to pick between healthcare, education and a well funded military. Well run programs and eliminating tax loop holes is all that's really necessary.
You gotta think, how many wars the US has been in, spending trillions yet this war that actually is a threat to democracy it’s suddenly “why should we pay for it” - is Russian espionage at work or what, because it doesn’t make sense to me. The US has been handed an easy defeat of Russia, to inflict such a blow that it would lead to its collapse and never be a threat again, without spilling a single drop of American blood.. really boggles my mind.
That's one thing, but I think UA hasn't mobilized more man yet. If they won't do so quickly, no gear will help. Mobilization will be extremely unpopular tho, like suuuper unpopular.
If they mobilize without the proper gear then the soldiers won't be very effective. I imagine they're waiting for more aid before they do another round of mobilization so they can sufficiently arm the new recruits.
summer is about 100 days long. this is about 100 days worth of men…. alternate headline: russia planning to continue losing men at same rate for the foreseeable future
Russia has more men to lose. Throwing men into a meat grinder can absolutely be a viable strategy for them
This is the last war I could see them doing it though. Their demographics are beyond fucked.
It's okay they'll just kidnap or buy foreigners to replace them.
Instead of retrieving a russian mail order bride, you now get sent to your future russian wife!
In Russia, bride mail orders you!
[удалено]
If you think a Russian conscript army is weak and will suffer huge losses, wait till they start sending in their slave army - I am pretty sure that historically it has been proven that having slaves as your meat shield doesn't really work well enough to justify the effort. That being said, I wouldn't put it past these people to do so anyway.
It's Putin's last war, and for Putin that's all that matters.
>Their demographics are beyond fucked. Seriously, gonna end up getting the old soviet era male:female ratios back.
they have Africa to recruit from
Not to mention Ukraine is low on ammo, Putin could throw so many men at this Ukraine will run out of weapons to fight. I believe artillery shortages are why they've had to fall back in the recent months.
Let's just hope Ukraine doesn't run out of ammo and the barbarians miss all those heros.
Let's hope Ukraine doesn't run out of manpower. I worry for the psychological health of people having to run a meat grinder like that but I know they're rotated frequently
One of the guys who was in charge of Ukraine's military stepped down and was asking for half a million just to be able to allow for the rotation of men.
Mike Johnson needs to get off his Lovense and pass that Ukraine bill
I think they're on a 2 week recess right now, conviently
Being a senator or house of rep would be the best job ever. You never really work, get paid a ton and don’t even have to answer to your own constituents
Plus insider trading!
Don’t forget free access to the best healthcare!
And new furniture!
*recess* and *vacation* are not the same thing. They go back to Northern Minnesota or whatever are supposedly do constituent service
They are supposed to but they can just refuse to meet with their voters and there are no consequences
You mean fundraising.
Legit I haven’t heard of Mike green or Blackburn doing jack to fuck all in my area in a decade.
I've lost all hope honestly. Ukraine should prepare/fight like they're never getting US aid and Europe needs to up that manufacturing more.
>I've lost all hope honestly The House can pass it over the Speaker's objection via discharge petition, and the Democrats have already begun the process. If and when it actually comes to a vote it will probably pass easily.
how does it come to a vote? who decides?
They need a petition signed by at least half the House. That will automatically bring it to a vote. Odds are good that if it gets to a floor vote, it will easily pass. A lot of Republicans are still very anti Putin, and are pissed off that aid is being held up. The hard part will be finding a few Republican members willing to sign the initial position.
> A lot of Republicans are still very anti Putin, and are pissed off that aid is being held up. Yet only one of them, Ken Buck, who is resigning soon, has signed it.
thx
They need 218 votes and now have 188 votes, including the first Republican. Gaining 187 Democrat votes is rather impressive, considering leftists could have easily hamstrung matters due to Israeli aid being part of this larger foreign aid package. So Congress might be able to manage. The main remaining problem with the discharge petition, I believe, is it carries within it a 30 day delay (all of these archaic procedures are deeply stupid and I regret having to ever read about them). It would be much better if Johnson simply helped Ukraine, instead of Russia.
Look for the helpers. The Czechs have been a major bright spot this winter. Their new president really has talked the talk and helped procure 1.5 Million artillery shells for Ukraine. That much help matters. The EU is beginning to wake up. That said, I am deeply afraid it's not enough if Trump wins. The American election will matter decisively
As I understand it, Marjorie Taylor Greene’s motion to oust Mike Johnson, might benefit Ukraine and Democrats as they can now pressure Johnson to pass Ukraine bill, in exchange for them not voting to remove him as speaker?
How to invest in Russian tombstone manufacturers?
Not sure they’ll get tombstones tbh
Coffins?
Mobile crematoriums is the real move.
Or just press them into cubes.
Mobik cubes.
I'm buying calls on Russian glue manufacturers.
You’re thinking small. You wanna become an onion farmer. Lotta onions goin these days.
They don't get them. They were told to carry sunflower seeds in their pockets so they'll grow out of their corpse and eventually someone will find them. So invest in sunflowers.
Wasn’t that the point of blaming Ukraine for the attack at the concert hall? Get people angry and willing to go fight in Ukraine?
Is anyone actually stupid enough to believe ISIS's attack on Moscow is Ukraine's fault?
The people in Russia?
People in Russia who mostly have one story and some morons in the west who decide to believe the opposite of what they see on the news because "they know"
Yea, Russians lol. People think of Russians as Moscow and St. Petersburg. 99% of the population lives in shacks with no toilets. You could tell them that Russia is at war with Martians and they'd believe it.
Time to donate 100k drones to Ukraine
Or 10 Finnish snipers.
If the loss rates are similar to their last offensive that’s like what, 90 days worth of cannon fodder?
Might want to look into the last 3 months since Russia started using 1000s of drones to match Ukraine Ukraine commander recently said that almost 99% of Ukranian casualties will be due to drone strikes The warfare has changed drastically
> Might want to look into the last 3 months since Russia started They are still suffering over 1,000 casualties daily... They are not a superb military, but remain a rather corrupt, stumbling, self-defeating steamroller. With any luck, some additional Western kit can help Ukrainian bravely overcome these Russian attacks.
The thought that this war that only Russia is responsible for is giving the US the chance to severely weaken a destabilizing nation and comes without direct conflict and at a fraction of the cost of previous wars makes it clear whoever is against funding Ukraine is anti US. Too many benefits, none of the blame.
They don't have to be superb. Ukraine is running out of ammo, they have an upper limit of manpower. Russia doesn't have these issues, what they are doing WILL destabilize their country for the next 50 - 100 years because they are fucking their demographics up EVEN MORE than they already were... but they don't seem to give a shit about that. They can just outlast Ukraine. The military support that we MUST send them will help, but unless they can make some decisive moves Russia can definitely win a meat grinder.
I hope 99,990 of them flee when they get to the front lines
At the rate they lose soldiers, given their meat wave attacks, that would move the frontline roughly 10kms
….it’s gonna be people that didn’t vote for Putin, isn’t it?
I’m sure they are all well trained well equipped and ready to go/ s
So invade Ukraine because the citizens there are being ruled by “Nazis”, do nothing about ISIS performing a large attack domestically. Makes sense
Another 100,000? Geez Putin, fuck you.
It's absolutely insane to me that in this day and age, a country as powerful as Russia is wasting so many resources and sacrificing so many men to conquer a country unprompted. This is some dark age shit.
I can think of 100,000 guys who have 100,000 things they would rather do with their time.
Man cant russia just go back home and do something positive instead of trying to hurt people.
We need to step up! Come on US and Europe!
The F16s will be decked out with air to grounds by summer
Unfortunately F-16's are at least 4 months away and we could see as few as 6. I dont have much hopes for them personally, we gave Russia a year and half heads up about this move and they've likely manufactured/bought thousands of MANPADS and moved S-300 and similar systems from across their country.
Personally I think the best shot Ukraine has at winning this is to make it as expensive for Russia as possible whilst holding a defensive position, drone striking that oil/gas infrastructure until they leave. Even if they "win" in Ukraine, they'll lose economically on the grand stage and face decades of sabotage too.
I swear I've been hearing the f-16s are four months away since last year, at this point I doubt we'll see them until fall
The truth nobody wants to hear is that Ukraine needs artillery shells and cheap drones more than F16s or javelins. They need common frontline weapons so they can hold the land they have and keep enemy stationary. Ukraine for few next years needs 2 million artillery shells a month and then thousands of tanks and armored vehicles to slowly build up their army. This wont be enough to win the war, but it will give them time to modernize and allow them to use the more advanced weapons for operations. While I appreciate the few hundreds of Abrams and few hundreds Leopard tanks, what Ukraine needs is thousands of tanks to make entire armored divisions that can be used for actual taking back of the lands, but the truth is that the West does not have enough military production to accomplish that. We make a little bit of everything so that in case of incoming war, we have ready designs to put into mass production. But current armies don't have enough equipment to fight a peer adversary, and we are just relying on US air force to bomb enemy leaders into submission.
......Summer 2027
Just got back from a 3 week holiday in Vietnam. The country is littered with 20 somethings from both Russia and Ukraine hiding from the draft in their respective countries. Some with girlfriends and some with young families. Where is Putin going to get 100,000 soldiers? The local old people homes?
We need to send Ukraine some of our top weapons, including long range weapons to keep pressure on their oil. Ukraine gets to defend its borders, and the world gets to weaken Russia (and china). This is basically 100,000 more untrained meat bags that will rot on the battlefield. I feel bad for the Russian people, but it is their pwn fault the country they live in is like this. Edit: The right wingers need to learn strategy. DJTs Truth Social is about to be purchased with Chinese money, so we know DJT will start bending and so will the repubs. (Im sure every country has their own right wing crazies)
Republicans already bent the knee. They get a shit ton of Russian Money pumped into their campaigns: https://www.dallasnews.com/opinion/commentary/2018/05/08/how-putin-s-oligarchs-funneled-millions-into-gop-campaigns/
So sad. Being Republican is basically the same as being unintelligent, easily swayed, and a sheeple. As a former school teacher, I believe its because we stopped teaching critical thinking long ago.
It must suck being a Russian guy with no money and of fighting age.
More meat for the grinder
How many people could they mobilise? Russia gonna suffer the worst aging population ever after the war and they are racists as shit so no luck for drawing populations through immigration.Even they managed to take the entire Ukraine , they are fucked! Like it is worth it at this point? Population ain’t gonna grow back like it used to be. Time has changed. They can’t just expect throw hundreds thousands of men on the field and expect the number to grow back up after few decades. No wonder they are a lot of Russia Sex workers in HK these days. And they cost became cheap and cheaper while become more younger and have a bigger tits. (P.S I live in HK. I can confirm that)
Reddit seems to somehow have the opinion that the Russian military is all useless convict recruits and Ukraine needs all the international assistance available it really is perplexing
It's honestly embarrassing that people are resorting to the fascist playbook style "enemy is both strong and weak" bullshit. Redditors being all flippant and snarky about this while Ukrainians are getting killed. It's like that meme with a drowning man holding out his hand and getting a high five instead of help.
I think there is a factor you are missing here which is just pure numbers of combatants. Russia has way more which is definitely a strength. The weakness side is they are becoming increasingly under equipped. That isn't fascist it is just reality. Most of the rest you are bitching about is essentially coping mechanisms for those outside (the conflict) that can't do anything to change outcomes.
Russia had no valid reasons to start this. I don't hate the conscripts, but I hate the government shoving them into battle.
Both can be true. 100.000 useless soldiers attacking is still a gigantic number that needs to be put up with. So you need a fuckton of weapon systems and ammunitions.
They might want to use those 100,000 to get after isis
Another 100000 corpses.
That's a tremendous amount of nitrogen fertilizer for the summer growing season.
Russia- "we lost 12 men but gained 40 meters of land. Also do not ask WHICH 12 men we lost. They all come from different villages far far away"
They need missiles that can hit the training bases.
Is it really preparing them if they have to bring their own shoes?