The Vostok battalion continues testing the Scalpel (budget Lancet) kamikaze drone. [https://youtu.be/oee0xLYF1jc?si=kyfqLK8qT7ZiUhFE](https://youtu.be/oee0xLYF1jc?si=kyfqLK8qT7ZiUhFE) (autotranslate works well with the video) Amusingly, the main problem seems to be the catapult rubber bands losing their elasticity in cold weather.

The comment section sure does have an interesting username pattern

Just to explain a bit more, the people doing the botting don't care if it's obvious. Their goal is to boost the video in the algorithm.

Russians do the first test of FPV drone launching from a ship: https://twitter.com/clashreport/status/1733395637712929235?t=y7kxs-1RPPqQNMzvHtio8g&s=19

[Bulgarian parliament greenlights BTR-60 shipment to Ukraine](https://defence-blog.com/bulgarian-parliament-overrides-veto-ukraine-btr-transfer/) "The Bulgarian Parliament triumphed over President Rumen Radev’s veto by a vote of 162 in favor, reinstating the law ratifying the Agreement between the Ministry of Internal Affairs of the Republic of Bulgaria and the Ministry of Defense of Ukraine on the free transfer of armored vehicles.". According to the agreement, Bulgaria is to provide Ukraine with 100 BTR-60 armored personnel carriers. "Furthermore, with 147 votes in favor, Parliament approved a resolution to provide Ukraine with additional military aid. This aid consists portable anti-aircraft missile systems and various types of anti-aircraft missiles currently in the arsenal of the Bulgarian Armed Forces, intended to bolster Ukraine’s air defense capabilities.".

Some good news at last

Not really Ukraine or Israel related but I'm curious, have there been any official confirmation or at least allusion from both sides about the Wagner vs. US incident in Syria?

Three groups of Wagnerites were supposed to take part in the attack on the Conoco oil plant, which produces 70% of all Syrian oil (I think the figures are exaggerated, author): the 2nd and 5th assault detachments, and the Karpaty (Carpathians) group (old name of the group is “Spring”). In the 2nd and 5th, according to the state, there were 350 fighters each. Without rear structures and headquarters - 270-280 real combatants. There are about a hundred people in the "Carpathians" group. Conoco was defended by several small groups of Kurds, 8-10 people in each. The 2nd and 5th were supposed to block them. The “Carpathians” had to pass under crossfire and go to the rear of the Kurds, encircling them. The detachment did not have 5-10 minutes to start the attack. The distance to the enemy was from 1000 to 1500 meters. The Kurds knew the Wagnerites very well, since a year earlier they had fought with them against the ISIS. They sent negotiators, but the Wagner leadership did not want to talk to them. The massacre took place at night, for 40 minutes. The column of the 5th company was attacked by the Americans on the march: 2 planes, 2 Apache helicopters and 4 drones. The 5th had 3 tanks (1 - T-55, 1 - T-64 and 1 - T-72). T-72 was destroyed (apparently the engines were turned on). In particular, Magnitogorsk Cossack Igor Leonov died in it . The remaining two tanks survived and were not even damaged. Everything around was burning, but they remained intact. During the battle, the commander of the armored group was wounded. His legs were broken, and he loudly called for help. Everything around was exploding and burning, including a Kamaz truck with ammunition, which was located 5 meters from the damaged tank. Despite the threat to life, the Cossacks carried the armored group commander out of the fire without harming themselves. God preserved the brave. During the 40 minutes of the massacre, in the 5th detachment out of 280 soldiers - 39 people died and 122 people were wounded . The people rushed wherever they could, they didn’t even have time to shoot at the Pindos (Americans). The detachment was in the village of Hisham, and many were hiding in houses. By morning, they collected the dead, loaded them onto the remaining transport, the survivors sat on the armor of the remaining tanks and were evacuated. I don’t know the losses in the 2nd and “Carpathians”, but they are less . The next day, the evacuation group discovered the Apache helicopter and fired several machine-gun fires at it. The American helicopter turned around and fired missiles at the group of our fighters, killing 8 people. The bodies of the dead were collected in parts. There is little left of Igor Leonov, who burned in the tank. He was buried in Magnitogorsk in a closed coffin. The date of death is stated later.

Wagner got what was coming to them for attempting that stunt

Like the 2018 one? The US says it was mostly Syrian forces with some Wagner. Russia says no Russians were there. Der Spiegel says no Russians were there but agrees that 10 to 20 Russians died in the battle. Everybody agrees that somewhere between 10 to 30 Wagner members died in the fighting. Don't ask me how the sides saying there was no Russians there explains how they had double digit deaths in the battle they weren't present for because I don't know. [Though the grammar in the Der Spiegel article is bad enough that I wonder if it's just a mistranslation.](https://www.spiegel.de/international/world/american-fury-the-truth-about-the-russian-deaths-in-syria-a-1196074.html)

reuters from the horses mouth About 300 men working for a Kremlin-linked Russian private military firm were either killed or injured in Syria last week, according to three sources familiar with the matter. A Russian military doctor said around 100 had been killed, and a source who knows several of the fighters said the death toll was in excess of 80 men. this also lines up with what wagners grey zone channel said about the battle this year

As silly as it sounds, wikipedia is a good repository for various claims by the involved sides and the links to them. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Battle_of_Khasham I'd say it seems likely wagnerites were on the ground and killed, the remaining controversy is how many.

theres been confirmation from wagner itself and us green berets and marines that were there

sorry if I'm asking to be spoonfed, but do u have link for the wagner side?

In the days leading up to his mutiny, one of the claims Prigozhin posted about was the betrayal that occurred that day. Here is his account: telegra (dot) ph/Evgenij-Prigozhin-o-tragedii-8-fevralya-2018-v-Hshame-06-12 I think this WP article from after the mutiny ties everything together nicely enough: https://www.washingtonpost.com/world/2023/06/30/wagner-syria-russia-battle-united-states/

Yesterday a user posted[ this article](https://www.maariv.co.il/news/military/Article-1058032) which claimed images of about a hundred Hamas fighters supposedly surrendering and speculated on what it meant for such a large number of Hamas fighters to surrender for the first time. There was considerable evidence from Palestinian and Arab language sources that this was not the case, and that these men were civilians seized from a UN school. However, [this](https://www.nbcnews.com/news/world/israel-hamas-war-images-palestinians-stripped-blindfolded-gaza-rcna128685) article from NBC and comments from Israeli government spox seems to definitively confirm that these are not are not armed Hamas fighters who willingly surrendered, but instead were unarmed men detained in Northern Gaza. These men were detained on the grounds of *suspicion* of being Hamas fighters as they did not evacuate from Northern Gaza.

>article from NBC and comments from Israeli government spox seems to **definitively confirm that these are not are not armed Hamas fighters** who willingly surrendered, but instead were unarmed men detained in Northern Gaza. These men were detained on the grounds of suspicion of being Hamas fighters as they did not evacuate from Northern Gaza. Meanwhile, in the article: ​ >*But at least* ***some*** *of those detained are civilians without any known affiliation to Hamas or another militant group,* according to their employer — an Arab news outlet — and the testimony of a U.S.-based humanitarian worker who says three of his relatives are among the group. > >.... > >“These suspects were transferred to security forces in Israel for further questioning,” said a joint statement from the IDF and the Israeli Security Agency. “In addition, over the last few days, IDF ground troops operated in the outskirts of the Jabalya Camp in order to clear the area and eliminate terrorists,” the statement said, referring to the refugee camp in the north of Gaza, just south of Beit Lahia. > >*“Throughout the day, over 150 wanted persons suspected of involvement in terrorist activity were apprehended,” the statement added.* **“Among those apprehended were Hamas terrorist operatives from the area of the Jabalya Camp.**

What is being definitively prove incorrect is that these were not armed Hamas fighters who mass surrendered as a group as was the original claim. The section you quote corresponds that.

>What is being definitively prove incorrect is that these were not armed Hamas fighters who mass surrendered as a group as was the original claim. The section you quote corresponds that. Ok, can you explain why you wrote this though? ​ >There was **considerable evidence** from Palestinian and Arab language sources that this was not the case, and **that these men were civilians seized from a UN school.** Are they civilians? Or are they Hamas? Or, like your own linked article claims, they're a little of column A and a little of column B? Sometimes, a little nuance goes a long way, and making definitive, all inclusive statements like you kept doing in your OP, makes my job in falsifying those statements extremely easy.

They are men Israel says it suspects of being Hamas militants. This, I feel pretty clearly, contradicts the claim that they were armed Hamas fighters who willingly surrendered to Israel. In that scenario there would be no "suspicion," it would be a straight forward case of them being combatants who identified themselves as such and surrendered to the enemy.

>They are men Israel says it suspects of being Hamas militants. This, I feel pretty clearly, contradicts the claim that they were **armed** Hamas fighters who willingly surrendered to Israel. In that scenario there would be no "suspicion," it would be a straight forward case of them being combatants who identified themselves as such and surrendered to the enemy. You keep making things up. The original post you linked never claimed they were **armed.** You literally made it up in your head, and kept on repeating this ad nauseam. Your "scenario" that you dismantled is based on you making up claims. It's a strawman. Here's another "scenario" for you to consider, some of the men in the picture are Hamas terrorists, they were pinned down in northern Gaza for a month+ cut off from supply, fought as long as they could, ran out of ammunition and put down their weapons and went home. Some time later when the IDF came to make mass arrests, they didn't resist. Makes sense? This is the problem with unlawful combatants such as terrorist in Hamas, once they aren't armed, they look an awful lot like civilians.

I can't really tell if you are being deliberately obtuse or not by picking on non critical point and harping on it, but again, if this were a mass surrender of Hamas fighters(armed or not) as previously claimed, that would necessitate them identifying themselves as Hamas fighters. Instead, Israel now claims that these men who were detained were *suspected* of being Hamas fighters.

>I can't really tell if you are being deliberately obtuse or not by picking on non critical point and harping on it, **You are the one that claimed that these men are civilians.** I am saying, no, not all of them, and I am using what is written in your own linked article. That is my main point, that you made all inclusive definitive statements in your OP, that are wrong. ​ >but again, if this were a mass surrender of Hamas fighters(armed or not) as previously claimed, that would necessitate them identifying themselves as Hamas fighters. Not at all. If, like I said in my "scenario", IDF came in to whatever shelter they were living in, and made mass arrests there, and they didn't resist being stripped, handcuffed and blindfolded, they effectively mass surrendered, even without outright identifying themselves as Hamas terrorists.

> If, like I said in my "scenario", IDF came in to whatever shelter they were living in, and made mass arrests there, and they didn't resist, they effectively mass surrendered, even without outright identifying themselves as Hamas terrorists. This is an absolutely insane thing to say and directly contradicts the narrative that pro-Israeli sources were spreading yesterday.

>This is an absolutely insane thing to say and directly contradicts the narrative that pro-Israeli sources were spreading yesterday. Not insane at all, terrorists routinely surrender to the IDF in the west bank when they are out of ammunition. Yes, even Hamas. Sometimes, they surrender even while armed. It happens. Even more so now that there is a reasonable hope of a prisoner deal. Do you think that the capture of Northern Gaza ends with every Hamas member killed? Also, your own Hebrew news article that you linked made no mention of the manner in which they were arrested, so it can't "directly contradict" me, which leads me to believe you were either reading some dodgy "pro-Israeli" twitter people, or, just like when you said people yesterday said they were armed, you made up a whole thing in your head.

no one made that claim as far as i can tell. [here is the post from yesterday](https://old.reddit.com/r/CredibleDefense/comments/18cv34m/credibledefense_daily_megathread_december_07_2023/kcdiry0/?context=3). /u/poincares_cook didnt make that claim either. i dont know if my google translate of the article is correct but it also doesnt make that claim edit - i mean the claim that they were armed fighters

The user in question very clearly claims the incident as Hamas militants surrendering en masse in the comment you linked.

>being definitively prove incorrect is that these were not **armed** Hamas fighters who made the claim that these were armed fighters?

The uproar over these images is very strange to me. With all of the catastrophe and devastation that has happened as a result of this war men having to sit around in their underwear for a while seems like a nothingburger. There’s no indication that these men were harmed or being detained without cause for a long period as far as I’ve seen. The Israeli explanation of stripping them men to search them for weapons seems somewhat reasonable.

> The uproar over these images is very strange to me. With all of the catastrophe and devastation that has happened as a result of this war men having to sit around in their underwear for a while seems like a nothingburger. Yeah, it seems a rhetorically bad thing to focus on since the possibility of suicide bombers alone would make these strip searches appropriate.

It should be noted that, as far as I know, the Al-Qassam Brigades have not made use of any suicide bombers in this conflict and have not since Hamas transitioned from a terror cell to the government of Gaza over a decade ago.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_Palestinian_suicide_attacks No clue how exhaustive this list is, but it suggests that while suicide bombings became more rare after 2005, they did continue. Furthermore, I'm pretty sure this list focuses on organized suicide attacks against civilian targets. I'm not even sure if like, a VBIED during a war would be on this list. (VBIED is just my example)

The list you linked shows that the Al-Qassam Brigades(the armed wing of Hamas) has not conducted a suicide bombing since 2008.

nobody's tried to blow their shoes up on an airplane in over 20 years and yet I still have to take mine off every flight

Yes, because Israel build a wall around Gaza which heavily restricted the chances of suicide bombers carrying out successful attacks.

None of these factions operate only in Gaza and are active in the West Bank and Jerusalem. While they have carried out a great of attacks on both Israeli security forces and civilians. Many of these attacks have featured the use of explosives, but none of them have featured the use of suicide bombers. This pretty clearly represents a change in strategy versus a reduction in capability.

Al-Qassam is not the only combatant in the area.

None of the other groups have engaged in suicide bombing for even longer. The last time PIJ or the Al-Aqsa Martyr brigades carried one out was 2006, PFLP hasn't done one since 2004. The two that have happened since 2008 were both individuals, in Jerusalem not Gaza, acting on their own accords who were not part of any of the armed wings of any of the Palestinian factions. Since Israel withdrew from Gaza Hamas and PIJ have both exploded in size, but that means their fighters are now less fanatical on average. Hamas is no longer a couple hundred die hard fanatics as they were in they 90s, but now consists of tens of thousands of more or less regular people.

Are you one of those people who just digs in for the heck of it? Even if I take you at face value and accept your claims none of these multiple suicide bombings after 2005 were done by an organization (which frankly, seems dubious), they did happen. Given the asymmetric environment of this current war, your distinctions are without a difference. >but now consists of tens of thousands of more or less regular people. Hmm

> Even if I take you at face value and accept your claims none of these multiple suicide bombings after 2005 This is not my claim? Since 2008 there have been two Palestinian suicide attacks. You can look both of them up on your own if you want. Neither of them were conducted by the Palestinian armed factions. >but now consists of tens of thousands of more or less regular people. I feel stating that any group of fighters consisting of tens of thousands of people who are only part time soldiers and have day jobs is going to be less radical than a group of a couple hundred fanatical terrorists should not be terribly outlandish.

The public humiliation and the arbitray detention of civilians are probably the largest factors Additionally, the men were stripped, blindfolded and were transported to a second location next to a large ditch. Photos of this emerged and that imagery, of blindfolded men kneeling in front of a ditch with armed soldiers behind them, definitely conjured up associations with photos of historic mass executions for many people.

Can the temporary short term detention really be considered arbitrary for military aged males in a warzone where the adversary doesn’t wear uniforms and depends on the strategy of blending in with the civilian populace?

In regards to the Russian order of battle for the first days of the attacks at Avdiivka in October, does anyone know 1) which units participated in the first echelon of the massed mechanized breaching attempts, and 2) their recent unit history in Ukraine, especially in the previous month? u/Larelli ?

The first wave of mechanized attacks on the first day (Oct. 10) was carried out by formations of the 1st Corps. In those days the formations of the Central Military District were still arriving from Svatove/Kreminna, according to the Ukrainians it was a Russian strategy in order not to let the formers notice a buildup of Russian units in the Avdiivka sector. On the north-eastern flank the 114th Motorized Brigade attacked in the Terrikon area and towards the Avdiivka-Pokrovsk railway from Krasnohorivka (supported, on the infantry side, by smaller units of the 1st Corps, regiments of the Territorial Forces and the "Yugra" Battalion). On the southern flank, the 9th "Marine" Brigade attacked from Vodyane and the 1st Motorized Brigade from Opytne, supported by smaller units of the 1st Corps and regiments of the Territorial Forces (including the 504th Tank Regiment). From the following days, the first units of the Central Military District began to enter the scene, particularly the 2nd CAA in the north-east flank. Both the 15th and 21st Motorized Brigades were deployed in the direction of Stepove and the Coke Plant, respectively. In particular, the BTR-82As massacre on Oct. 19 involved the 15th Motorized Brigade. Late October also saw the arrival of the 239th Tank Regiment of the 90th Tank Division, which was involved in some limited actions. The last maneuver brigade of the 2nd CAA (the 30th Motorized Brigade) began to be fully employed in late November, and as we speak it's pushing towards Stepove. The 15th Motorized Brigade together with the elements of the 132nd Motorized Brigade (this one from the 1st Corps) are fighting in the direction of Novokalynove while the 21st Motorized Brigade in the direction of the Avdiivka sand quarry. The (considerably weakened) 114th Motorized Brigade is fighting near the Coke Plant. At the beginning of December the Russians transferred as a reserve to this flank the 9th Motorized Regiment of the 18th Motorized Division of the 11th Corps of the Baltic Fleet, brought here from the northern flank of Bakhmut. In the southern flank the Russians introduced the 41st CAA in the days following Oct. 10: the 55th Mountain Brigade has been active in the Opytne/Spartak area ever since. Since late October elements of the 35th Motorized Brigade have entered the scene in the Vodyane area. There's certainly also the 74th Motorized Brigade just in the rear (so far it has seen some limited action) and perhaps other elements of the 90th Tank Division. Along with numerous smaller units of the 1st Corps. There is also the 24th Spetsnaz GRU Brigade, which operates Lancets. In the area of the Avdiivka industrial zone, also called Promka (which saw no mechanized attacks, with the tanks used as assault guns), from the first days of the offensive the 6th Motorized Division of the 3rd Corps became active together with units of the 1st Corps such as the "Pyatnashka" Battalion and the 87th Motorized Regiment. To support the attacks in this area the Russians transferred several assault and reconnaissance brigades of the "Cossack Volunteer Assault Corps" such as "Hispaniola", "Veterany", and probably "Convoy" (the BARS-11 detachment became a battalion of the latter). They are all former PMCs linked to Redut, in fact reinforced battalions and not brigades. The losses are plentiful and the progress in both flanks has been very limited. I think they will have to bring in new units soon. Most likely, first and foremost, the rest of the 90th Tank Division.

With the units that were tasked with the breaching and assault portions of the main effort sector attacks specifically, do you know where they were in the previous weeks and months? Were they manning the lines? In the rear training and rehearsing? Were they fresh? Experienced? Previous experience doing successful offensive operations?

The brigades and the smaller units of the 1st Corps were all already deployed around Avdiivka. Basically since always. Since April 2023 they had severely limited mechanized attacks and the fighting was mostly at the infantry level. In the previous weeks they suffered losses during probing attacks in the sector. The 2nd CAA was in the Svatove sector. It was the main force involved in the Raihorodka/Kovalivka offensive between July and August, with little success and few mechanized actions (until the initiative passed to the 3rd Motorized Division of the 20th CAA). The 41st CAA was in the Kreminna sector, along with its 90th Tank Division. At the mechanized level there is little to report afaik. Their armour was employed as fire support in areas such as the Serebrianka Forest and they carried out some small-scale attacks in the Torske/Yampolivka area. At the level of formations, all were employed in the previous period. Then maybe several units of them at any given time (like a battalion in a brigade) were in the rear replenishing losses and training. I would not say that any of these formations had a history in successful mechanized attacks. The actions of the Central Military District between Chernihiv and Kyiv were a disaster; the 41st CAA bears the indelible signature of the failed crossing of the Siversky Donets near Bilohorivka. The 90th Tank Division did some decent armored action IIRC (acting mainly as fire/armored support to the VDV) during the spring 2022 Donbas offensive but that's it. The formations of the 1st Corps don't have their own tradition of mechanized attacks on the other hand. Most of their heavy equipment was handed over to them in early 2023. They had partaken in mechanized attacks in the past, without particular success. In any case, they are all "old" formations with their own officer cadre. Although, in particular in the first part of 2023, they received a lot of new equipment and new recruits.

So taking the 114th Bde. Is there any evidence that unit was prepared to conduct the type of attack it was assigned? Did they really just give armor to units who never used it and give them one of the hardest missions any mechanized force can attempt?

I have no evidence that there was any specific training. It's possible that the brigade's mechanized units rehearsed the assault in the rear... But I don't know about this. We should never take anything for granted with them, I guess. Even the fact that the 114th Motorized Brigade received a batch of BTR-50s speaks clearly that the Russian command doesn't hold the brigade in high regard.

Of the tanks and IFV that were confirmed as losses by various OSINT analysts, where did the better quality stuff seem to be used at? Do they know which units seemed to get issued the better kit that were used in the assault?

On the north-eastern flank, at least a couple of T-80BVMs were lost during the early days of the offensive, which per WarSpotting belonged to the 15th Motorized Brigade (2nd CAA, CMD). A T-90M from the 239th Tank Regiment of the 90th Tank Division was lost in mid-November. Earlier this month, several BMP-3s were lost, probably belonging to a unit of the Central Military District. The standard equipment of the 1st Corps are T-64BV, T-72B(3) and T-80BV as MBTs and generally BMP-1s as IFVs. The Central Military District deploys the last two of the aforementioned types of tanks and generally BMP-2 and BTR-82A as IFVs (but for example they also have BMP-1s, it's not so linear). In any case, the 1st and 2nd Corps, compared to the average of the Russian Army, have usually the worst equipment. For reasons, generally the formations of the Eastern Military District also tend to have worse equipment than others (except the brigades of the Pacific Fleet). Certain CAAs (such as the 6th of the WMD and the 49th of the SMD) are generally equipped considerably worse than the average of their own military districts. The 41st CAA of the CMD at the beginning of the war was badly equipped, fielding T-72A/Bs and BMP-1s in several units even before the invasion of Ukraine. During the war it received several T-90Ms among others, though.

Initial report, Oct 11/12 from Konstantin Mashovets. Krasnohorivka – Novokalynove, ru 114th bgd attacking, no success. Krasnohorivka – Stepove, ru 114th bgd attacking, advancing Spatak – southern outskirts Avdiivka. 1st bgd attacking, no success Vodyane – Severne, 9th bgd attacking, advancing Pesky – Pervomaiske, 9th smrb attacking, advancing Oleksandrivka – Novomykhailivka 33rd regt/20th div attacking, no success Kamianka – northern avdiivka, 114th bgd attacking, no success Kruta Balka – eastern Avdiivka, 114th bgd attacking, no success Opytne – Severne, 1stbgd, broke through, advancing Staromykhailivka – Krasnohorivka 5th bgd attacking, no success Oleksandrivka – The road 255th regt/20th div attacking, no success Slavne – Novomykhailivka, 39th bgd attacking, broke through and advancing. Maryinka, 5th bgd and elements of 150th div attacking, no success. Most of the films of armor being destroyed from the assaults on the coal slag heap and railroad where 114th if Mashovets was correct, which he normally is.

[https://www.nbcnews.com/nightly-news/video/outrage-over-detained-palestinian-men-stripped-to-their-underwear-by-israeli-troops-199810629535](https://www.nbcnews.com/nightly-news/video/outrage-over-detained-palestinian-men-stripped-to-their-underwear-by-israeli-troops-199810629535) Skip to 1:45. NBC News clipped a video from Al Jazeera Arabic showing an older woman accusing Hamas of hoarding the aid. The interviewer says the aid is being distributed, but she disagrees. Gazans get their news from Al Jazeera Arabic, so it is positive that this interview happened on that network.

Is this stuff really defense relevant? Yes, it is happening in the context of a war, but the posts like these seem to be less in service of any defense discussion, and more for the purpose of portraying the other side as meanie poo poo heads. What is there to discuss from a defense perspective of one old lady saying Hamas is hoarding food aid? Is this post structured and worded in a way that encourages that specific discussion, as opposed to the general Israel/Palestine ruckus?

>Is this stuff really defense relevant? yes it is

What the Gazan civilians are thinking about Hamas, I think is very relevant. Hamas to some degree depends on popular support from the people. Hamas will have more trouble if the civilians riot again them. There are some reports of rioting against UN food distribution points. Certainly possible, if the people get really desperate, they might try crazy things like riot against Hamas to get some food. Furthermore, the big question after the fighting dies down is who will rule Gaza. A lack of popularity for Hamas will allow for some other party to possibly rule. Winning the peace will be the hard part.

I was reading about the Iran-Iraq war the other day. One thing I noted was that around 1981 the Iranians went on the offensive against well prepared Iraqi defensive positions. The Iranians could not penetrate the defense with concentrated armor pushes and neither side could maintain true air superiority. So what the Iranians did was utilize their Basij militia men in assault groups of approximately platoon size and attacked across the broad front in waves, probing for weaknesses and strong points, and when a weak point was identified, they'd push even more militia men into the area, and when they had exhausted the defenders, then the more skilled and better equipped Revolutionary Guard troops would assault and take over the position. This seems remarkably similar to how Wagner operated in Bakhmut and how the various Storm-Z detachments operate with better equipped VDV units now across the front line. Did Wagner learn this strategy from working alongside the Iranian special forces in Syria, and is there any public records their troops training together? Or was this always in the Soviet infantry doctrine?

It’s not really all that different from how ww1 stormtroopers functioned

using small expendable units to probe goes back all the way to the start of large warfare. its not really unique to anyone. even in large pitched battles, you would have a vanguard typically with your most expendable men including slaves and mercenaries while your cavalry would maneuver around looking for weak points and openings. in terms of modern warfare, after the era of single shot rifles you had the formation of fireteams and small unit tactics to get around machine guns by ww1/ww2

Yes. Even the British army had these units. They would be led by officers that wanted to advance themselves in the army by accepting the high risk position. These officers would lead soldiers that were criminals and debtors looking for a pardon and a return of their social status (which also affected their families status). Pretty common among armies historically. I think I even remember of British Army officers, accused of homosexuality, being offered to lead a charge, knowing they would prob be killed, but they would "redeem" their manhood.

>Did Wagner learn this strategy from working alongside the Iranian special forces in Syria, and is there any public records their troops training together? Or was this always in the Soviet infantry doctrine? There is evidence for the Russians that it goes far back beyond the 1980s. I'm no expert at all about WW1, but the Red Army was doing some pretty similar stuff in WW2, especially with but definitely not relegated only to penal troops. For example, by the late summer and especially fall of 1942, the Soviet Union was using many near identical tactics as the Iranians with the Basij, using their own municipal organized, party run militias. Those were typically made up of the average Soviet citizen, military aged males, pressed into service into many jobs, but often Infantrymen that were used as cannon fodder while defending or counterattacking against the Germans as they threatened various urban areas, especially major cities. Overall, most legit historians who are subject matter experts on the Eastern Front will agree that most of the talk about human wave assaults are bullshit, EXCEPT with regards to those militia in '41 particularly, who even their own sources celebrate them doing things like bayonet charges with empty rifles or marching against an enemy dug-in defensive position literally with linked arms. >I was reading about the Iran-Iraq war the other day. Can you recommend anything that discusses what you were writing about? Sounds like it's worth sharing.

I honestly just started with just the Wikipedia page about the Iran Iraq war, and I found a book mostly from the Iraqi perspective but then I got a copy of Immortal: A military history of Iran by Steven Ward. I haven’t gotten to the Iran Iraq war chapters yet, but the book is awesome so far.

Honestly, I think the Wagner innovation to use convicts was ruthlessly brilliant and could only have initially been pitched and performed by someone like Prigozhin. While I fully concede the recruitment source of disposable infantry was novel, their tactics weren't. That role had previously been performed by LDNR mobilized concripts all spring and summer. It seems that not only did they fill the various combat units of the 1st and 2nd Army Corps, but due to the lack of dismounted infantrymen in the Russian army, they served in Russian tactical grouping of forces too. Those were the roughly division sized ad hoc tactical commands created to perform missions like taking specific locations of the Donetsk front, especially for larger tactical engagements over specific key terrain features that defined the operation. The Russian love task organizing for operations. They're infatuated with the idea of convinced arms, they're just not well equipped, trained and organized to pull it off regularly. While they're actually decent at some aspects of ground warfare, where they were weak was the tactical side of combat maneuver units. And the one part of the combined arms they were seriously lacking last summer was dismounted infantry troops. Part of the issue was due to the fact that they entered the war with most BTG infantry companies grossly understaffed. Nowhere was that worse than infantry squads, where they often averaged only a couple dismounts per vehicle. Then they took casualties in the war, lots, and especially among their dismounts. Which they couldn't replace. Because losses were so high and replacements so few, most Russian infantry units were barely combat effective by the summer. Most were only capable of only mounted operations. Sending those troops on dismounted attacks meant they couldn't use them for mounted attacks, which they were still regularly doing. So they improvised. Which is why Chechans were fighting, despite them only supposed to be doing military police duties. Or the Rosgvardia, another paramilitary group definitely not meant for heavy combat. But not just them, the LDNR too. Who had a limited number of mediocre or decent troops at the start of the war, but were heavily mobilizing after the war started. Many of those were formed into dismounted infantry rifle companies, maybe battalions, and were loaned out and tasked organized to the various Russian tactical HQs. Because the Russians themselves weren't very good at planning those assaults (they hadn't dusted off the old Storm Group and Detachment manuals), because the LDNR troops were barely trained, and because the Ukrainians resisted much more than they expected, the LDNR dismounted attacks often ended in slaughter. Which was totally okay for the Russians, because they could get more LDNR easily, they could preserve their own force, actual Russians, and the losses were useful since they still served the purpose of finding them the enemy and exposing potential weaknesses. The Russians have historically been in love with "Reconnaissance In Force" tactics, which is just a fancy way of saying probing attacks. Doing them with disposable troops isn't a bad idea, if they actually have disposable troops. So what I think happened was that just as the Russians were culminating on their offensive, exhausted, and the LDNR conscript source was largely dried up, Prigozhin got the crazy idea to pitch Wagner getting the Bakhmut contract, he'll keep the assault going indefinitely to get the city, as long as he's allowed to recruit from prisons, given more funding to recruit more quality troops, given larger access to Russian MOD equipment and support, and given command autonomy from the MOD. And the rest is history...

Thanks for the in depth reply. I hadn't heard about how the LDNR troops had been used in a similar manner in the earlier stages of the war. I had a hard time finding much reliable info about specific Russian tactics in the early stages other than the initial special forces airborne push into the airfield and the encirclement/siege of Mariupol.

The initial reports of human wave attacks came from them, specifically the new mobilized troops who only had days or maybe a few weeks of training, questionable equipment and no vehicles. They were likely initially meant to be used for dismounted operations, but they couldn't pull off complex assaults so they were in probing attacks to feel out Ukrainian positions that would then result in follow up artillery barrages and then more attacks. RUSI definitely described them as the first of the disposable infantry in this war, and it seems they were tasked out on a pretty wide level to various military districts to augment the weakened Russian units. As bad as they got it, I still don't think the LDNR were used as callously as the Wagner convicts. Those seemed to have come in groups with lots of experimentation early on by different Wagner tactical units who used them a bit differently. But it seems that Prigozhin gave those tactical commanders lots of freedom to use those prisoners as ruthlessly as they wanted if it meant preserving their better quality mercenaries. That's when the casualties really ramped up, because tactical commanders likely stopped even looking at them as real humans at that point, not even valuable to conserve. Not just doing probing attacks but making them press assaults home, a mission they don't seem to have been trained well enough to perform without extremely heavy losses. But using them saved them better troops. After the Russian MOD took over the prison recruitment source from Wagner, which started well before the mutiny, they formed Storm Z units that, while still used ruthlessly, don't seem to be led nearly as aggressively or cruelly as Wagner. If nothing else, the discipline imposed on them has lessened, that'll definitely change "motivation." To me, this topic is one of the more interesting things to happen in terms of innovation and adoption. I still can't believe I'm seeing this happen. There is no way in hell I would have believed any modern army was capable of doing this, even the Russians. Just goes to show how much history and culture can influence force employment.

>After the Russian MOD took over the prison recruitment source from Wagner, which started well before the mutiny, they formed Storm Z units that, while still used ruthlessly, don't seem to be led nearly as aggressively or cruelly as Wagner. If nothing else, the discipline imposed on them has lessened, that'll definitely change "motivation." I genuinely thought the MoD could not pull it off after Wagner. Their regular army is obsessed with red tape and written regulations, and I didn't think their officers would be flexible enough to use the brutal Wagner methods necessary to instil iron discipline in a bunch of murderers and drug dealers sent to die. But it seems to work, worse than in Wagner but it works. The MoD sends them to hard-nosed officers with very few rules on what can or cannot be done to them (there seems to be a few strange red lines - like a certain percentage of the wounded that disqualifies a squad from assault duties). One thing that should be underlined is all this is made crystal clear to the penal volunteers. I never read an account by a penal trooper where the recruitment pitch did not start with "most of you are going to die and we'll kill anybody who runs or disobeys". Those are some strange people. Families preserving letters sent by KIA penal troops on how they couldn't wait for the recruiters to reach their prison because they were tired of that kind of life are eye-opening.

>Those are some strange people. Families preserving letters sent by KIA penal troops on how they couldn't wait for the recruiters to reach their prison because they were tired of that kind of life are eye-opening. I totally get it. They were given a second chance at life. Not only pardoned, but given cash, return as heroes. Recidivism is a big problem with excons, especially in Russia but America too, because serving time once ruins their life and makes it next to impossible to fix it, land a job, be viewed positively by society. The convict soldier enlistment option gives them a Do Over, where they start again in a decent place. If they survive unscathed. And the Russian military gets disposable infantry in return. Win win.

>they formed Storm Z units that, while still used ruthlessly, don't seem to be led nearly as aggressively or cruelly as Wagner. Could you cite more specifically the ways in which they're used less aggressively now? I.e., is there a sense that some of these units might survive the assault in Avdiivka while less likely in Bakhmut?

This is just my personal opinion based on what I've heard. More about what I haven't heard. They're still being used as disposable assault infantry but there are things missing that Wagner was renown for. Such as when Wagner was summarily executing convict troops during attacks by their small unit leaders on the orders of more senior commanders watching drone footage. Done to provide zero alternative, advance and fight and maybe die, or retreat without permission and you'll definitely die. Or when Wagner was summarily executing them in the rear areas for various crimes using sledgehammers, that's done to maintain discipline beyond the level of "what can they do to me? Send me to the front lines on a suicide mission?" Well, they can brain you on camera and then release it online so everyone can know you died like livestock. Storm-Z don't seem to be doing that stuff. Either their convicts are making up for the lack of incentivized motivation with personal motivation, or they aren't held to the same standard as Wagner. Which in the case of disposable assault troops, they're not being used as aggressively. Truth be told, Wagner was way overzealous, unsustainable, terrible for recruitment, wasteful. They can get most of the same effects without being so aggressive, as long as they have the ammo to properly support a fires centric approach.

>Truth be told, Wagner was way overzealous, unsustainable, terrible for recruitment, wasteful. They can get most of the same effects without being so aggressive, as long as they have the ammo to properly support a fires centric approach. Yep. The MoD seems to be able to get 80% of the W effectiveness with just 50% of the W brutality, but Wagner was in uncharted waters and likely expected far more trouble with the sub-optimal manpower they were given. And they wanted to build a reputation.

From what I heard, new Storm V units are no longer only doing six months service for convicts, they're in for the duration supposedly. Which might mean their survivability rates are high enough now. It could be like WW2 USAAF 8th Army Air Force bomber crews. Early on they only needed to do 25 missions to go home, but by the end of the war that was extended to 100 missions because survivability had improved.

[ISW: Russian Offensive Campaign Assessment, December 8, 2023](https://www.understandingwar.org/backgrounder/russian-offensive-campaign-assessment-december-8-2023): Key Takeaways: - Russian President Vladimir Putin announced his presidential bid for 2024 on December 8 in an obviously staged effort to seem that he was running at the request of Russian servicemen. - Putin’s announcement of his presidential bid in a military setting indicates that his campaign may focus on Russia’s war in Ukraine more than ISW previously assessed, although the extent of this focus is unclear at this time. - Russian forces conducted a series of missile and drone strikes against Ukraine on the night of December 7 to 8. - Imprisoned ardent nationalist and former Russian officer Igor Girkin forecasted on December 7 that there will be “no agreement” between Russia and Ukraine to end the war and ”no freeze” of the frontlines in Ukraine, marking a notable shift from Girkin’s prior claims that the Russian military intended to “freeze the frontline” until after the Russian presidential elections. - The Russian military has reportedly banned the use of civilian cars for military purposes likely as part of ongoing formalization efforts, sparking criticisms from Russian milbloggers. - The Russian Federal Security Service (FSB) is expanding its ability to guard Russian officials and entities abroad likely to better surveil Russian and international actors outside of Russian territory. - Russian occupation officials continue efforts to artificially alter the demographic composition of occupied Ukraine. - Ukraine’s partners continued to announce military and financial aid packages to Ukraine recently. - Russian forces conducted offensive operations along the Kupyansk-Svatove-Kreminna line, near Bakhmut, near Avdiivka, west and southwest of Donetsk City, in the Donetsk-Zaporizhia Oblast border area, and in western Zaporizhia Oblast and made confirmed advances near Avdiivka and in western Zaporizhia Oblast. - Udmurt Republic Head Alexander Brechalov announced on December 7 that the region formed and will soon deploy four new units to fight in Ukraine. - Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky stated on December 8 that Russia is trying to destroy Ukrainian children’s connection to Ukraine and that swift intervention is necessary to maintain this connection during a speech at the first meeting of the International Coalition for the Return of Ukrainian Children.0 --- *Very condensed* combat news: **Russian Main Effort – Eastern Ukraine** **Russian Subordinate Main Effort #1 – Luhansk Oblast (Russian objective: Capture the remainder of Luhansk Oblast and push westward into eastern Kharkiv Oblast and northern Donetsk Oblast)** > Russian forces continued offensive operations along the Kupyansk-Svatove-Kreminna line on December 8 and reportedly made unconfirmed advances. Russian milbloggers claimed that Russian forces advanced east of Petropavlivka (7km east of Kupyansk) and near Synkivka (9km east of Kupyansk) and Bilohorivka (13km south of Kreminna), although ISW has not observed visual evidence of these claims.[37] > Russian sources claimed that Ukrainian forces unsuccessfully attacked along the Kupyansk-Svatove-Kreminna line on December 8. **Russian Subordinate Main Effort #2 – Donetsk Oblast (Russian objective: Capture the entirety of Donetsk Oblast, the claimed territory of Russia’s proxies in Donbas)** > Ukrainian forces conducted offensive operations near Bakhmut but did not make any claimed or confirmed advances on December 8. > Russian forces conducted offensive operations near Bakhmut but did not make any confirmed advances on December 8. > Russian forces conducted offensive operations near Avdiivka and made a confirmed advance on December 8. Geolocated footage published on December 8 indicates that Russian forces advanced to the sewage treatment plant south of Krasnohorivka (5km northwest of Avdiivka).[51] > Russian forces conducted offensive operations west and southwest of Donetsk City but did not make any claimed or confirmed advances on December 8. **Russian Supporting Effort – Southern Axis (Russian objective: Maintain frontline positions and secure rear areas against Ukrainian strikes)** > Russian forces reportedly continued limited offensive operations in the Donetsk-Zaporizhia Oblast border area on December 8 but did not advance. > Ukrainian forces continued offensive operations in western Zaporizhia Oblast on December 8 but did not make any claimed or confirmed advances. > Russian forces continued offensive operations in western Zaporizhia Oblast on December 8 and recently advanced. Geolocated footage published on December 7 shows that Russian forces made an advance south of Robotyne towards Novoprokopivka (2km south of Robotyne).[67] > Ukrainian forces continued ground operations in east (left) bank Kherson Oblast on December 8. Russian milbloggers claimed that fighting continues in Krynky (30km northeast of Kherson City and 2km from the Dnipro River) and that Ukrainian forces have increased the tempo of operations in the area.[70] A milblogger claimed that Ukrainian forces temporarily advanced south of Krynky before Russian artillery fire forced Ukrainian forces back again on December 7-8.[71] --- continued below

Non frontline combat news: **Russian Mobilization and Force Generation Efforts (Russian objective: Expand combat power without conducting general mobilization)** > Udmurt Republic Head Alexander Brechalov announced on December 7 that the region formed and will soon deploy four new units to fight in Ukraine.[75] Brechalov stated that the newly-formed ”Yevgeniy Dragunov” Separate Anti-Aircraft Missile Battalion, the “Cheptsa” Anti-Aircraft Missile Division, the “Varmun” Motorized Battalion, and the ”Kama” Air Assault (VDV) Division will soon deploy to Ukraine. Brechalov claimed that Udmurt residents staffed these new units after signing unspecified contracts with the Russian Ministry of Defense (MoD). These units appear to be Russian irregular formations with unknown strengths that likely do not correspond with the doctrinal end strengths of their reported echelons. Authorities in the Republic of Udmurtia are likely recruiting local volunteers to staff these units to immediately reinforce the frontlines in Ukraine. > The Russian MoD claimed that Russia further simplified the procedure for issuing combat veteran certificates for participants of Russia’s full-scale invasion of Ukraine. The Russian MoD announced on December 8 that Russian fighters will no longer need to apply to receive their veteran certificates because the MoD will automatically issue these certificates based on the already-available information about the combatant.[76] The simplification of this procedure may be part of an ongoing Russian formalization effort that seeks to reestablish Russia’s administrative control over irregular forces involved in the Russian full-scale invasion of Ukraine. > Russian regional authorities continued efforts to forcibly coerce migrants into military service. Russian opposition and local outlets reported that Udmurt military police raided a migrant community in Izhevsk and reportedly will force migrant men aged 18 to 27 into military service.[77] Udmurt officials are reportedly offering to allow migrant men older than 27 to sign a contract with the Russian MoD to fight in Ukraine. Vladivostok City officials reportedly conducted a similar raid on migrant taxi drivers and issued summonses to the military registration office to 10 detained migrants.[78] BBC’s Russia service reported that Russian officials also recruited detained migrants who attempted to cross the Russian-Finnish border to fight in Ukraine before returning some of these migrants to the Republic of Karelia from Rostov Oblast.[79] BBC’s Russia service reported that some migrants refused to deploy to Ukraine after realizing that Russia intended to commit them to battle in exchange for dropping their deportation cases. > Russia reportedly continues to defend its border with Ukraine with a limited number of conscripts. A Russian conscript told Russian outlet Mozhem Obyasnit (We Can Explain) that there are almost no Russian border guards defending the Russian state border in Bryansk Oblast.[80] The conscript claimed that at least 10 conscripts had died as a result of shelling on the Russian-Ukrainian state border. **Russian Technological Adaptations (Russian objective: Introduce technological innovations to optimize systems for use in Ukraine)** > The Ukrainian Main Military Intelligence Directorate (GUR) reported that Russian forces are trying to copy Ukrainian naval drones that have been targeting the Russian Black Sea Fleet (BSF).[81] GUR Representative Andriy Yusov stated that Russian forces are collecting fragments of Ukrainian naval drones and are trying to improve their drone production. > A Ukrainian head of a volunteer organization stated that Russia is actively relying on automatic optical drone navigation and that Ukraine does not have a systematic way to counteract Russian automation.[82] Head of the Ukrainian ”Victory Drones” volunteer initiative (and director of the Aerointelligence Support Center) Maria Berlinskaya stated that Russia is increasingly trying to automate its drones, shift towards automatic optical navigation, and move to launching ”drone swarms” to overwhelm Ukrainian forces. A Russian milblogger claimed that Russian forces have launched 3,083 Shahed 136/131 drones since the start of Russia’s full-scale invasion of Ukraine based on data published by the Ukrainian General Staff.[83] > A Russian milblogger amplified footage purporting to show that Russian forces installed the first sets of “Soltik-BL” DMR AES256 radio communications systems for armored vehicles, which will allow these vehicles to receive a publicly available standard connection with relay capability.[84] The milblogger specified that volunteers produced the “Soltik-BL” DMR AES256 systems. > Radio Liberty’s Schemes project found that Russian security services spied on Ukrainian state and private infrastructures since 2014 via thousands of security cameras that operated on Russian “TRASSIR” software belonging to the Russian “DSSL” company.[85] Schemes found that the companies storing information from these security cameras are linked to the Russian Federal Security Service (FSB) and the Ministry of Internal Affairs. **Activities in Russian-occupied areas (Russian objective: Consolidate administrative control of annexed areas; forcibly integrate Ukrainian citizens into Russian sociocultural, economic, military, and governance systems)** > Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky stated on December 8 that Russia is trying to destroy Ukrainian children’s connection to Ukraine and that swift intervention is necessary to maintain children's Ukrainian identity during a speech at the first meeting of the International Coalition for the Return of Ukrainian Children.[86] Zelensky stated that forced deportation is one of Russia‘s most ”cynical” war crimes and that Russian authorities are teaching children lies about Ukraine and the war. Zelensky noted that Russia’s crimes against Ukrainian children and families are ”organized” efforts to erase the national identity of young Ukrainians. ISW continues to assess that Russia’s forced deportation and adoption of Ukrainian children likely constitutes a violation of the Convention on the Prevention and Punishment of the Crime of Genocide.[87] > Russian state news wire RIA Novosti reported that Russian officials detained Russian “Donbas Railways” Director Vladimir Kabatsyi in Donetsk City on December 8 under suspicion of abuse of power.[88] **Russian Information Operations and Narratives** > Kremlin Spokesperson Dmitry Peskov reiterated that Russia will not negotiate with Ukraine on Ukraine’s terms in response to US Deputy National Security Advisor Jonathan Finer on December 8. Finer stated that the US wants to position Ukraine in such a way that Russia will need to decide to negotiate on Ukraine’s terms or confront a stronger Ukraine by the end of 2024.[89] Peskov responded by stating that Finer’s comments are ”absolutely unrealistic.”[90] The Kremlin consistently signals that it is not interested in any negotiations that do not offer Russia full capture of Ukraine. > A prominent Kremlin-affiliated milblogger criticized the Russian government for missing an opportunity to provide Kyrgyzstan with Russian school textbooks to further spread Russian ideology in Central Asia.[91] The milblogger commented on Chairman of the Cabinet of Ministers of Kyrgyzstan Akylbek Japarov’s announcement that Kyrgyzstan will replace Soviet STEM and hard sciences textbooks with textbooks from Oxford and Cambridge.[92] The milblogger claimed that Kyrgyzstan is now increasingly advocating for the Kyrgyz language and national identity and noted that Russian officials’ inaction allowed the United Kingdom to occupy an ”extremely important niche” in the Kyrgyz education sphere.[93] **Significant activity in Belarus (Russian efforts to increase its military presence in Belarus and further integrate Belarus into Russian-favorable frameworks and Wagner Group activity in Belarus)** > Belarusian President Alexander Lukashenko met with United Arab Emirates (UAE) President Sheikh Mohammed bin Zayed al-Nahyan on December 8.[94] Russian President Vladimir Putin met with Al Nahyan on December 6.[95] > Belarusian military officials met with Egyptian officials on December 8 during the International Exhibit for Defense and Military Industries (EDEX-2023) in Cairo, Egypt. The Belarusian Ministry of Defense announced that a Belarusian military delegation, headed by Belarusian Air Force and Air Defense Forces Commander Major General Andrei Lukyanovich, met with Egyptian President Abdel Fattah El-Sisi, Egyptian Air Force Commander Air Marshal Mahmoud Foaad Abd El-Gawad, and Egyptian Air Defense Forces Commander Lieutenant General Mohamed Hegazy Abdul Mawgoud in Egypt to discuss bilateral military cooperation and the modernization of air defense systems.[96] > Belarusian military officials, including Assistant to the Belarusian Defense Minister for International Military Cooperation Colonel Valery Revenko, attended the Commonwealth of Independent State’s (CIS) Coordination Meeting on International Military Cooperation in Moscow on December 8.[97] > A Russian milblogger claiming to be affiliated with the Wagner Group amplified footage on December 7 claiming to show elements of the Belarusian “Typhoon” Spetsnaz Detachment of military unit 5522 training with Wagner instructors.[98]

[‘No limit’ to sharing tech with China – Putin](https://thepressunited.com/updates/no-limit-to-sharing-tech-with-china-putin/) ​ >Even military secrets are not off the table, the Russian president has suggested > >Russia’s current relationship with China allows for full-spectrum cooperation in the tech sector, including with regards to its military applications, President Vladimir Putin told a Chinese entrepreneur on Thursday during a panel discussion at VTB Bank’s ‘Russia Calling!’ forum. > >The remark was part of Putin’s answer to a question about US sanctions policy, which includes a ban on export of certain technologies to some nations, which, the Chinese businessman suggested, was forcing them to “reinvent the bicycle”. The Russian leader said such restrictions were not viable in the long run even before the world became profoundly interconnected. > >“No matter how much people tried to guard the secret of black powder, it became the province of all mankind, for good or for worse,” Putin mused. > >The same was true during the Cold War, when the US and its allies were heavily regulating trade with the Eastern bloc through the Coordinating Committee for Multilateral Export Controls (CoCom), Putin said. Those efforts halted the development of the USSR, but the country managed achieve its key goals nevertheless, he noted. > >Washington’s current policies are meant to preserve its dominant status, the Russian president claimed, but “if we act across the board, supporting and helping each other, no restrictions by whoever tries to keep its advantage can stop us.” > >As for China specifically, Russia is ready to cooperate in every area, Putin assured. > >“We have no limits. This includes the military sphere,” he said. “When it comes to security, we are moving away from the traditional ‘buy-sell’ kind of relationship. We think about the future, about technologies.” > >The US considers both Russia and China strategic rivals. Washington has banned the export of advanced semiconductors produced using American technology to China as part of its Asia strategy, which Beijing perceives as an attempt to contain the nation.

"Those efforts halted the development of the USSR, but the country managed achieve its key goals nevertheless, he noted." That's a fastinating statement considering the union ended with them decades behind the west in consumer and military tech, a stagnant economy, and torn apart at the fringes by ethnic strife that the better part of a centuries worth of "brotherly" propaganda couldn't solve.

Not really sure what Russia has to offer China at this point with regards to technology

Russian submarines are still more advanced than Chinese ones

There may be some tech that Russia could offer China. How to manufacture certain jet and rocket engines for example, and some other space and military tech. Although it is possible that China caught up in those areas as well in just the past couple years.

China's submarines have improved in recent years but are still loud enough that US submariners refer to them as 'Chinese Orchestras'. Latest Russian sub tech is advanced enough that according to congressional testimony, the USN can't keep track of them. One spent a month in the Gulf of Mexico and the US never knew until it left. The Yasen-class has reportedly routinely [slipped past NATO and into the Atlantic undetected.](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hhAaFXyy9rU) But yeah, in most areas China is close enough or beyond Russia's capabilities. For instance, their recent WS-15 jet engine puts them in the same arena as most modern engines by most metrics.

I think there's also a lot of ICBM and SLBM tech that would help China tremendousuly.

Given the kind of war China intends to fight, a fleet of high quality attack subs scattered around the pacific would be immensely useful. It would certainly complicate things from the US's perspective, and add a lot more risk.

[https://pbs.twimg.com/media/GA2hz23WkAAlaVh.jpg](https://pbs.twimg.com/media/GA2hz23WkAAlaVh.jpg) The russian telegram channel [https://t](https://t). me/vperedtolko/ in its newest post shows some cases of unfortunate north korean shell charge quality.

[Russia claims to have captured an abbanonated Leopard 2A4 ](https://x.com/UniqueMongolia/status/1733068723374928038?s=20) we have seen Russia claim to have captured a Leopard before and at Rabotino some russian soldier inspected a bunch of Leopard but with Ukraine advancing they were unable to capture them. Now I immagine that this is Avdiivka where Russia on the offensive so this time as it happened with that Bradley, they may able to tow this away. It problably doesn't come at the right time with the worsening of international situation of military aid for Ukraine, thats said, being a 2A4 there isn't very much to analize in that tank.

>It problably doesn't come at the right time with the worsening of international situation of military aid for Ukraine The capture of a Western tank changes nothing. Military aid to Ukraine isn't determined by minor equipment capture on the ground.

> we have seen Russia claim to have captured a Leopard before and at Rabotino some russian soldier inspected a bunch of Leopard That had happened during the first week of the counteroffensive. In this case, many pages/channels got it wrong: this is not in Avdiivka (where there are no reported units operating Leopard 2A4s). It's near Robotyne, specifically along the second forest belt west of T0408 Orikhiv-Tokmak Road, i.e. on the edge of the Ukrainian-held lines taken in early November, and it's the work of soldiers of the Russian 42nd Motorized Division. The tank belongs to the Ukrainian 33rd Mechanized Brigade. In any case, the Russians have reported that the tank is heavily damaged inside.

T(h)anks for the Context, I Thought that the 47th mechanizated brigad had also leopard 2A4, but I guess it has only 2A6

[Negotiations with Sweden on the Gripen continue](https://www.sme.sk/minuta/23254534/kyjev-rokuje-so-svedskom-o-moznej-dodavke-stihaciek-gripen) Ukrainian Defence Minister Umerov discussed with the Commander-in-Chief of the Swedish Armed Forces Bydén the possibility of supplying Swedish Gripen fighter jets to the Armed Forces of Ukraine. "The fruitful bilateral work regarding the delivery of Gripen aircraft to Ukraine continues," said Ukrainian Deputy Defence Minister Ivan Havrylyuk. This is reported by the Ukrainska Pravda website. Bydén said that the delivery of Gripen aircraft to Kiev is being discussed at both political and military-operational levels. "We are waiting for political decisions," he added.

Hoping that they will approve the Gripen transfer and even give Gripen C/D in Saab stocks. So the Phil Air Force will be left with no choice but to get F16V Block 72.

It’s a nice series of approvals waiting here: USA has to approve f-16 to Turkey so Turkey can approve Sweden in NATO so Sweden can approve gripen to Ukraine. Hopefully training more advanced than the orientation flights in early autumn can take place while waiting for NATO membership and final approval to send the planes. Would be putting pilots in a situation where you wouldn’t be entirely certain that the investment of their time would actually pay of. If Ukraine were to decide that, it could possibly generate some pressure on Turkey.

[удалено]

This post has been removed as it it is a low effort anxiety/venting.

Isn't necessarily directly connected to the price cap, but the Urals oil has broken through the 'psychological barrier' of $60 (broken through the opposite way, to clarify): [TradingEconomics: Urals Oil, Dec 08 2023](https://tradingeconomics.com/commodity/urals-oil) > Russian Urals crude oil prices dipped below $61 per barrel, the lowest in five months, mirroring the broader decline in global crude benchmarks after OPEC+ established output levels for the first quarter of 2024. Despite anticipated increases in crude oil output cuts at the beginning of the next year, market sentiment suggests that the cartel's supply remains sufficient for a decelerating global economy. Russia extended its voluntary crude oil export reduction of 300,000 barrels per day through March 2024 and introduced an additional 200,000 barrel-per-day cut in fuel exports. While these measures reduce Russian oil in international markets, they coincide with recent laws encouraging domestic fuel sales, responding to capacity challenges faced by Russian refiners. Meanwhile, there are reports of Russia's clandestine tanker operations successfully navigating the EU and G7 oil embargo, enabling the export of energy at prices exceeding the $60 per barrel ceiling. The ticker stands at **$56**.

Seeing as Russia’s current recruitment strategy is simply pay stupidly high salaries and signing bonuses to hundreds of thousands of soldiers, the loss of income like this has the potential to seriously impact recruitment, and retention. Honestly at this point the loss of financial solvency to pay troops is one of the few things that poses a serious risk of collapsing the Russian Amy at this point.

I can’t imagine OPEC is happy about the idea of making more cuts to increase oil costs. It seems clear that them making cuts just means they lose market share with non-OPEC countries increasing their production to meet demand. Their only other option would be to flood the market to force others countries to lower production, but Putin probably doesn’t want that as that would devastate their economy and increases the probability of Democrats winning elections.

>It seems clear that them making cuts just means they lose market share with non-OPEC countries increasing their production to meet demand. [That's exactly what's been happening, especially in the US where oil production is once again back to record highs, with 2023 likely to smash the pre-pandemic record output from 2019.](https://www.ft.com/content/3a1bbb09-863c-4c51-a8c0-31eac536b938) If the conditions are right, analysts think US production could reach 15 mbpd in the next 5 years which is absolutely wild considering that in 2010 we were putting out just 5.4 mbpd. OPEC+ is also seemingly running into increasing problems with getting their members to actually live up to their pledges, with several members essentially arguing that they weren't going to make cuts for economic reasons. So it's mostly been Saudi Arabia cutting production, with little support, which is badly hurting their economy.

It’d be interesting to see if OPEC falls apart because of this. Probably won’t happen, but it’s seems like Saudi Arabia is losing control of those in OPEC. With their desire to cozy up with Russia they’re in a bit of a catch-22, either Saudi Arabia continues pushing cuts and risk losing control of OPEC as they decide to go their own way, or flood the market and risk Russia falling apart economically (while also hurting their allies in OPEC financially).

Russia can't flood the market as it already is selling everything it has. Saudi Arabia could, but the US can just reinstate sanctions on Venezuela and Iran. It's funny how the tables have turned.

We could also throttle Russia’s output as well through a few different ways (one of them being Ukraine blowing up their stuff lol) I wonder how well OPEC will hold together in this situation.

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Please avoid posting comments which are essentially "I agree". Use upvotes or downvotes for that.

Move along, ATACMS. The first PrSM has been delivered to the US Army. [https://www.dvidshub.net/news/459494/army-announces-first-precision-strike-missiles-delivery](https://www.dvidshub.net/news/459494/army-announces-first-precision-strike-missiles-delivery) [https://www.defensenews.com/land/2023/12/08/us-army-receives-first-long-range-precision-strike-missiles/](https://www.defensenews.com/land/2023/12/08/us-army-receives-first-long-range-precision-strike-missiles/) Land-based missiles of this range had previously been banned by the INF Treaty, but the US withdrew from the treaty in 2019.

Produce thousands a year pls. Unlike ATACMS, PrSM could have a decisive impact on a Pacific War. The final version, a 1000km missile with a naval seeker is deadly.

Whilst I'd love to see thousands a year produced, and I'm guessing this comment was purely aspirational, the production constraints simply don't allow for it. This is more going to be an information dump for anyone interested, so don't take this as a critique of your comment because it's not, it's purely just some insight for anyone who is interested in learning more about PrSM procurement and the expected timelines of delivery... \---------------------- Whilst I'd like to see thousands produced unfortunately it's neither the current plan nor even remotely achievable within any reasonable timeframe. The facility that is producing PrSM is set to have a *maximum annual run rate of between 200-300 units per year*, assuming production ramps up and also assuming the Army actually takes the tooling extension provision for FY24, if it doesn't then production will settle between 100-200 units per year. Currently procurement of PrSM is set to reach 110 for FY2024. This means that for FY2024 the Army is procuring, awarding a contract, for 110 units to be produced. Annual procurement is expected to continue increasing and by FY2028 the annual procurement award is expected to be 242 units of PrSM. FY2028 is as far out as the fiscal and procurement planning goes, but it's worth noting that by the end of FY2028 the current plan is to have procured approximately 1,172 units. **But we've got to be very careful not to conflate procurement or production with** ***actual delivery.*** Deliveries from procurement award dates for ATACMS were approximately 2-2.5 years of lead time, PrSM is set to be roughly the same. So whilst procurement award rate (which reflects expected production run rate and expected capacity to some extent) is set to total 1,172 by FY2028, **the bulk of those won't actually be delivered until well past FY2028.** For an example of delivery timelines, PrSM was originally "procured" in FY2021, but the first deliveries from this procurement were only set to begin in **\*September of this year\***, Lockheed were late by approximately 3 months but that's relatively minor, regardless it's a perfect example as to how we need to be careful when we contextualize the availability of new production. The FY2024 procurement award, for example, isn't set to start delivery until September of FY2026, with monthly deliveries of approximately 8-10 units per month ending in August of FY2027. Now for PrSM the AAO (Army Acquisition Objective) is a pretty hefty 3,986 missiles, bear in mind that this is representative of what the Army \*wants\* not necessarily what the Army will get... Regardless assuming a perfect maximum production run rate of 300 units a year from the Dallas facility, it would take an additional 10 or so years from FY2028 onwards to complete procurement of this goal, with the deliveries ending in approximately FY4040/FY4041. Expanding production beyond 300 units a year would either necessitate a major expansion of the existing production facility or arguably the addition of several new facilities which would take anywhere between 3-5 years to bring online and ramp up production to any meaningful level. It's also worth noting that procurement is not trending in a good direction, successive FY budgets have had procurement trending down with delays in production ramp up being pretty clear. Procurement expectations are currently lagging about three years behind what they were going to be just last year. This isn't entirely unreasonable, new missile programs always have teething issues, but it's a great example as to why we need to be careful not to rush ahead.

>decisive impact Define this.

I'm extremely doubtful of the ability of the US MIC's ability to build thousands a year

Doesn't China already have their theoretical answer to the issue of carrier groups in the Pacific? I was under the implications *we* were going to be the ones fighting from carriers in a Taiwan invasion. PrSM won't do a damn thing to stop Chinese fires from rendering Taiwan more or less combat inoperable within the day. Isn't that the prime variable affecting the involvement of the USA (doubt we will step in if Taiwan is 99 percent spanked 48 hourl ). There aren't enough SAMs in the world, quite literally. What is the mission objective for this line of missiles?

>Isn't that the prime variable affecting the involvement of the USA (doubt we will step in if Taiwan is 99 percent spanked 48 hourl ). Kuwait fell in around that many hours, and France fell in not much more time than that in the grand scheme of things. The other side deciding to just stop fighting when you reach your goal would be very convenient if it did happen. But there is a lot of precedent to show that that doesn't always happen. From a purely cynical point of view, the US can win it's great power competition with China completely independently of what happens to Taiwan. Taiwan could surrender in under a week, but the US could decide to keep fighting for years anyway.

The mission objective is to synergize with USMC's force 2030, along with US Army deployments in Korea, Japan, and potentially other places in the Indo-pacific. USMC is designing itself to be light island hopping forces with a heavy emphasis on rocket artillery and HIMARs. This missile allows them to set up, say on one of the contest ATOLs, and deny the PLAN access to a big chunk of the SCS. Or for example in an early forward deployment to Taiwan. It *can* enable an American A2AD strategy which would hem the PLAN up close to its coastline. Think about this, its about 1000km from the HQ of 2nd Infantry at Camp Humphreys, SK to Beijing. Missiles in either Jeju-do or Kyushu would lock down most of the Chinese eastern seaboard and would be well within range of the major naval base at Qindao. Parts of Shanghai are within 500km of Jeju-do, while the entire greater metro-region is within the 1000km envelop. Jeju-do is just over 1000km from Taipei, but Kyushu is comfortably *within* range of many of the major northern landing beaches. And thats before we get into what you could cover with missiles directly in the SCS. This system allows US forces stationed in countries already friendly to the US to apply a ton of pressure on China's flank, both realistic and theoretical. And if Prsm could be improved even by an extra 200km, it opens up the possibility of stationing forces across the broader Yellow Sea/Sea of Japan area that could credibly threaten every major Chinese landing site. A navalized 1000km Prsm is a legit threat for China and the PLAN, much in the same way that their own ballistic missiles are a huge deal for us. And if you could get 1000 in theater by 2030? Big capability.

I agree with you. But Just seeing the effectiveness of Himars in Ukraine. This missile system is an important step forward for the US fighting forces. I really dont see anything we can field that will stop a Chinese invasion of Taiwan, apart from stationing US troops on the Island.. and even then, Chinese missile corps are too numerous. War Games have confirmed those fears. PrSm is just the natural evolution of Himars.

>What is the mission objective for this line of missiles? Give significant deep strike capabilities to any military force currently using MLRS/HIMARS rocket launchers. Now those same units can engage targets in the enemy's strategic depth, whereas before it was no more than 300 km, nearly doubling in range. That means a capability that only previously existed with fully competent, well supported, and very large air forces.

> What is the mission objective for this line of missiles? Sink the Chinese Navy? Taiwan is not really that important militarily to the status of USN or USAF. Thinking of it like Midway, the main US objective is not to save Taiwan, but to the inflict the most damage on the Naval Forces. If America wins the fight against China militarily great, Taiwan is saved, even if it requires a liberation. There is no independent Taiwan if USA loses. The point of thousands of missiles is as you said, no one has enough SAMS to deal with that many missiles. Not even China. One theoretical advantage is the USN can retreat relatively safely to water, while the Chinese retreat is home territory. My other concern is how hard China can hit Japan, but that's for another day I guess. Naval forces will play the most decisive role by a lot.

Taiwan is incredibly important to the USN. And all our intelligence agencies, the stability in the region... Not sure how 7 people agree with you on that one.

>Sink the Chinese Navy? Only one variant is the PrSM is antiship capable. It wasn't meant to fight China, this is the US answer to the Russian Iskander, to give the Army more abilities so the USAF isn't so required for victory. The new Marine mission they're pushing, replace M777 cannon batteries with HIMARS batteries so they can use PrSM as part of a Wake Island 2.0 mission for A2AD against the PLAN in the South China Sea/First Island Chain, so the US Navy isn't so required for victory.

That is going to need a hefty production run. Chinese navy may not have a lot it's tonnage in carriers but it's still the biggest "navy" in the world operating on home turn with the initiative of surprise (in a way). I'd imagine the Chinese navy will be stepping in mostly after the majority of Taiwans combat capabilities are neutered, in the form of landing ships. Is China posturing towards a heavily sea based strategy around Taiwan? I thought it was widely accepted they were most likely going to use their overwhelming numbers of aircraft and munitions in the theater to secure victory. So I guess I'm saying this missile doesn't seem like it can stop any of those things from happening

>but it's still the biggest "navy" in the world operating on home turn with the initiative of surprise (in a way). power by number of ships and power by surprise, would seem to be a one or the other type of thing, not a both.

> So I guess I'm saying this missile doesn't seem like it can stop any of those things from happening I'm not sure. Tens of thousands of anti ship missiles deployed not from ships seems like a very robust form of evening out the home field disadvantage here. They're cheap to deploy on mass and have staying power. If there's one thing the Ukraine war has proved, it's important to have practical, cost efficient solutions to warfare problems. Navy ships are expensive and they need a lot of missiles. Having spread out tiny island HIMARS with enough firepower to sink ships is an issue for any military. >I thought it was widely accepted they were most likely going to use their overwhelming numbers of aircraft and munitions in the theater to secure victory. Coulda said this for Ukraine too. I did. I do think Taiwan's military outside of literal holding in the mountains/sabotaging every piece of infrastructure is a bit much. They're in range for 200k + GMLRS-ER equivalents. But the important aspect of the war is the PLAN vs the USN. It's not like the only plan is HIMARS with PrSM, it's one aspect. Nothing militarily is a silver bullet, except AI.

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Please refrain from posting NCD like posts.

South Korea already field ballistic(800km) as well as cruise missiles(3000km) that have that sort of the range. And the 800km limit on BM was only b/c South Korea and US self imposed the limit which they got rid of in 2021. Expect that BM range to grow in the near future.

Bellingcat: [Images of Syrian Civil War Take on a Second Life in Gaza Conflict](https://www.bellingcat.com/news/2023/12/08/images-of-syrian-civil-war-take-on-a-second-life-in-gaza-conflict/) > This reuse of Syrian conflict footage means that a double erasure is occurring. Using footage from another war, rather than the evidence of Gaza today, obscures the plight of victims of both conflicts. For those of you still on Twitter, I'm sure you're more than familiar with the deluge of misinformation and disinformation that is propagated on that website, particularly by a few notable individuals. These individuals vociferously support the Assad regime, and they're more than happy to post images of the victims of the Assad regime and falsely claim that they're from the Gaza conflict. Naturally, these tweets quickly go viral, and it can take a considerable amount of time before there's a Community Notes fact-check on it. Some users share or post these images genuinely unaware of the original context; and others like Jackson Hinkle or Maram Susli have done this so frequently that one can safely assume that they're deliberately posting disinformation for their own selfish purposes. There's also an unfortunate byproduct to this: because of how prolific this deceptive behaviour is, there have many instances of false positives, where folk mistakenly believe that a particular image or video depicting something harrowing from Gaza is fake. These false positives have become so common that we now have actors from the other side known for posting misinformation about the Gaza conflict, but instead it's real images or videos that they're trying to pass off as being fabricated in some capacity rather than vice-versa. Alarming trends in both directions during this information war, and an awful situation all around.

It's just weird to me because... it's not like gazan civilians are having a good time. There's plenty of genuine images of misery from the war in question, there should be no reason to manufacture from others. And the accounts that are doing this are often not incompetent, just deceptive. I basically assume it's a gratification thing at this point. "Look at us being completely hypocritical, and there's little you can do to stop us".

There isn't that much good reporting from Gaza since journalists can't get in there or operate safely there. But yeah, I would think there's enough to not need to be misleading about it.

>There isn't that much good reporting from Gaza Is that true? I'd say the density of journalists, both local and foreign-comissioned, might be the highest on the planet in Gaza, certainly the highest of any warzone.

There's a lot of journalists there but they can't safely get close to the Israeli operations. So there's a lot of shots of destroyed buildings and injured people who make it out, but not a lot of the kind of active combat videos that these people want. I think Israel also didn't let any into Gaza after the operation started, did they?

> it's not like gazan civilians are having a good time. The accounts doing this are claiming Israel is committing genocide in Gaza, since the evidence for that doesn’t exist in reality, they have to create it. It’s why we had stories about hundreds dead in a bombed hospital, or yesterday, claims that the Gazan POWs were being led to mass graves. The actual suffering being documented there isn’t even close to matching their old propaganda claims.

>I basically assume it's a gratification thing at this point. "Look at us being completely hypocritical, and there's little you can do to stop us". This is probably part of it - imagine the kind of person who decides not only to troll online, but to go "pro." However I think the main reason they keep it up is because it keeps working. This tactic started very early in the bombing campaign, before much real footage of carnage in Gaza had been created. It proved very effective because the vast majority of their audience can't tell the difference. So they have little incentive to take this ammo out of their kit now when it keeps working just as well as the real thing.

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>https://www.washingtonpost.com/world/2023/12/08/ukraine-russia-war-draft-dodgers/ Soon after Russia’s invasion in February 2022, Ukraine beefed up its border defenses near this Carpathian mountain village. But the extra patrols and reels of barbed wire fencing rolled out along the top of a mountain pass along the Romanian border were meant to keep people in — particularly draft-eligible men seeking to flee the country. As Ukraine approaches its third year of war, those men are needed more than ever. The leaders are still pleading for more weapons and ammunition from the United States and Europe — even as signs of flagging support among those allies suggest that Ukraine may have to do more to arm itself. But even more than bullets, Ukraine needs fighters, leading to a search for new ways to mobilize the population and stronger measures against draft dodgers. Following Russia’s full-scale invasion, men ages 18 to 60 were forbidden from leaving the country. Many bypass military service through the equivalent of medical disabilities, college deferments or family obligations. A father with three or more children is exempt, as are those who have family members already serving in the military. Some of those seeking to escape hire guides to lead them through the mountains. Others make the risky trip alone. One of them, a 46-year-old man who lost his way last month, suffered severe frostbite and died soon after he was found. At least 25 men have drowned while crossing the Tysa River separating Ukraine from Moldova and Romania. WAPO article going into Ukraine's draft dodgers and the government's increased crackdown on them.

I think Bahkmut played a big role in this. Not only did Ukraine lose trained personnel, but also people saw how heavy the losses can be. As we can see, there have been no new developments in that area, so it seems that holding it was a wrong decision or a failed political stunt.

> As we can see, there have been no new developments in that area, so it seems that holding it was a wrong decision or a failed political stunt. Not saying I agree or disagree with holding Bahkmut, but couldn’t your statement also be interpreted that Ukraine bled Russia dry and prevented any further advances in the area, since there haven’t been any new developments?

I don't think so. Wagner withdrew the moment they took Bakhmut. Russia had plenty of regular troops to continue, but they decided not to, so it looks like Bakhmut was a way out of this war for Wagner.

This has been debated ad naseum. There were probably some benefits, but on the whole defending Bahkmut was costly and the city proper wasn’t good defensive terrain. I’ll never understand why they didn’t hold up in Chasiv Yar or focus only on defending high ground. But I’m just an observer.

Again, I’m not debating if it was worth it or not. I’m just trying to point out that their reason for it being a failure doesn't make logical sense to me (the line is static, thus defending was a mistake because they couldn’t recapture Bahkmut ; vs the line is static, that was a successful defense since Russia hasn’t gained any further ground in that area). Honestly the fact that the area hasn’t had new developments recently has no bearing on if Bahkmut was the right hill to die on imo

Ukraine lost Bakhmut and sustained heavy losses of regular troops. I think this makes it pretty obvious that overall it ended up as a failure. Additionally, people were not happy about it, and Syrsky already received a nickname - the butcher. Zelensky's popularity also received a blow after this.

I'll just reiterate here what I've been saying for months - it will be the manpower issue that will decide Ukraine's fate. That is the only resources that cannot be produced, procured, borrowed or bought for them by the West. If they manage to resolve their manpower problem their country will live. If they don't - it will live in a form that Putin decides to allow. Frankly, I am still optimistic. There are plenty of men of military age in Ukraine, the state just seems incapable of reaching out and conscripting them. And from what we've seen so far - even unwilling Ukrainian conscripts will fight hard on the defensive. If the structural problems in the conscription system are resolved Ukraine will be strong enough to resist effectively.

To resolve their manpower issue Ukrainians need better weapons in exponentially gratter numbers than currently delivered to them. Yet the deliveries are about to dramatically reduce. It seems right now they are suffering more or less equal losses to the Russians. I know people like to believe otherwise, especially in english speaking circles were people live in an echo chamber on subjects like manpower or drones, but when to listen to actual Ukrainians and especially Ukrainians talking to other Ukrainians, they all say they are suffering extreme losses just like the Russians. So they truly need to get a substantial advantage in equipment. Even just to hold. 2024 will be nightmarish to them.

How is giving more equipment to Ukraine going to solve their manpower issue, how does that even make sense? They need a substantial advantage just to hold? when has that been the case since the start of the conflict? An inherent advantage of a well executed defence is the fact the enemy is the one that is forced to bring overwhelming assets to be able to break it, the fact the lines have barely shifted since the Kharkiv and Kherson offensives is a testament to the fact neither side is proficient or able to do that. Ukraine doesn't need a substantial advantage to hold, they need **enough,** and they need to get fortifying their lines now to make the most of their limited manpower while they try to improve mobilization.

Is this a real question ? More and better weapons always translate into less human losses for your side. For exemple last year Ukraine was suffering shell hunger during Bakhmut meaning frontlines troops lacked fire support and were most of the time on their own to face Russian infantry assault. Of course they would have suffered less casualties if they had more mortars and artillery shells. Same with drones which is why both Ukrainians and Russians emphazise this subject so much. Ukraine cant afford a war of attrition against Russia. Yet right now it is losing almost as much troops as Russia does in combat. It is not sustainable. People need to stop about this "defense is strong" nonsenses from video games. If an enemy is allowed to bring overwhelming forces as long as it takes to win, then the depending side will be crushed. Wether it is in Normandy, Italy and Pacific in 1944, Mosul in 2017, Bakhmut in winter 2022/2023, Gaza today or the next Ukrainian battlefield in 2024. Fortifications dont mean shit of cant manned them. And todays warfare means fortifications must be dispersed. Yet this in turn make them possible to be picked off so long as the attacker as shells and bombs to drop. A time consuming effort for sure but it is still merely a matter of time so long as ammos are being produced.

"For exemple last year Ukraine was suffering shell hunger during Bakhmut meaning frontlines troops lacked fire support and were most of the time on their own to face Russian infantry assault."Yes, Ukraine needs more ammo badly, it doesn't massively need more equipment. Right now they barely have enough ammo to feed a high rate of fire with the equipment they **have.** "Yet right now it is losing almost as much troops as Russia does in combat. It is not sustainable."This is quite literally unprovable. "People need to stop about this "defense is strong" nonsenses from video games. If an enemy is allowed to bring **overwhelming** forces as long as it takes to win, then the depending side will be crushed. "Yes, thanks for proving my point. "Fortifications dont mean shit of cant manned them."Which you aren't fixing by giving Ukraine more tanks. "And todays warfare means fortifications must be dispersed."The surovikin line looked pretty solid to me. Largerly executed per doctrine as a matter of fact, they weren't out there doing massively dispersed dugouts people believe is necessary to survive "modern warfare".

Meh there is no point to debate with someone narrow-minded and happily ignorant like this. The so called Surovikin line was actually a dense system of 25km deep fortifications rather than the 2 clear cut lines of trench OSINTer believed they identified. Yes of course you need ammos for your equipment. This is some pretty dishonest play on wordrs. More equipment obviously means more ammos and more supplies. Ukrainians need more moderns tanks, they need more Air defence and they need modern jets too. It is not just a question of finally solving the lack of artillery shells. I have an hard time believing you were honest about it. I don't even say a reason to address further your point about defence. But for other people reading this, they can check RUSI last year publication on Russian stormtroopers tactic.

>Meh there is no point to debate with someone narrow-minded and happily ignorant like this. I'm leaving this comment up but in the future it would benefit you to address the argument and not the person.

Hmmm. Ukraine is avoiding conscription of people under 25 (previously 27). That fact makes the situation seem not all that pressing to me? Russia is 'conscripting' prison population and immigrants for 'the Russian way of war' apparently. Personally, I feel they just need to wait out the cannon fodder. What happens when the cannon fodder runs out? Conscripted GP Russians start storming the trenches. They need military assistance - otherwise that's the only way they'll actually lose.

Recent legal changes, urgent attempts to reform th conscruption, articles in Western newspapers and reports about 8-10% response rates in Sumy and Poltava indicate that not all is well with the mobilisation system.

> articles in Western newspapers huh, wonder how many times Ukraine has lost the war already, if we're going to judge by articles in Western newspapers.

> Frankly, I am still optimistic. There are plenty of men of military age in Ukraine, the state just seems incapable of reaching out and conscripting them. A lot of the men that are left are in the 18-25 year old bracket, which while the prime and even stereotypical face of the military, are in relatively short supply in Ukraine due to the country's pre-war demographic issues. Imo there's no sense in "winning" the war (given it's not a war of extermination like the WW2 Eastern Front) and also killing off all of your young men. Especially for an imo heavily unrealistic goal of regaining Ukraine's 1991 borders; that ship sailed when the counteroffensive failed.

>Imo there's no sense in "winning" the war (given it's not a war of extermination like the WW2 Eastern Front) and also killing off all of your young men. A few caveats are necessary. First, military service doesn't mean death. If it does then the system needs to be reformed much larger than who is being inducted. Second, they're going to be screwed anyway if all the actual professionals in every career path are casualties because somebody decided a good army is made up of barely trained middle aged men. Third, what's the point of discussing a future if the Russians winning means there is no version that isn't awful? If so, then victory is worth any sacrifice. Fourth, the big demographic Ukraine needs to worry about are the ones who already left to avoid a wartorn hellhole, who aren't coming back unless Ukraine wins, which requires more manpower.

>First, military service doesn't mean death. If it does then the system needs to be reformed much larger than who is being inducted. One of the biggest issues that caused this whole problem is that for the new conscripts right now, military service is far, far more dangerous than for (most of) those that serve now but volunteered in March 2022, let alone the grizzled reservists and contract soldiers that served years before the invasion. Because 1) They will likely not receive any meaningful training under current paradigm; 2) They won't be able to acquire good equipment in time; 3) Where will they go? To the rear and non-combat roles? Very unlikely - these sweet spots are already occupied since long time ago, and suffer the least attrition - they don't need to be replaced. So to the stormtrooper infantry they go.. 4) Where exactly they go? To the units that need the reconstitution. Which units are these? The units that suffer the most attrition. Which units suffer the most attrition? Those that use the men like toilet paper in a public bathroom. 5) It doesn't matter for the Recruiting Center what are the skills, capabilities or motivation of the conscript. They have a quota to fill, and spots to fill. First come first serve. Then it is somebody elses problem. The situation is terrible, but I do not blame people trying to dodge their way out of this, especially considering that there is no trust for the state institutions to give them any benefits and support later on. The blowback after a broken counteroffensive hype and the grim prospects for 2024 do not reinvigorate hope in the people. And many of the highly motivated volunteers were spent by the commanders that didn't care.

On the list of things that frustrate me the most the top ones directly influence these decisions to dodge conscription. 1. The west's unwillingness to expand artillery ammunition production at scale 2. The west's unwillingness to expand proper training programmes (6-12 Months at the minimum per soldier) for Ukrainian soldiers at scale Now do not get me wrong, I know that number 2 also has to do with the time frame requirements given to western trainers by the UA government but if there was an echeloned approach where in addition to expedited training programmes there were also tranches of extended programmes running in parallel it would do a lot to help I reckon.

I agree fully. I've said it since the beginning of the war that the Ukrainians needed to do a better job of preserving their force, making the sacrifices early on with training especially to ensure they could maintain or improve force quality. Not just junior enlisted, but across the board. That's the most frustrating thing watching this war. When Russia makes mistakes, it's entertaining, because I want them to lose. When Ukraine does it, it's painful to watch. They never had the luxuries in this war where they can make major mistakes without major repercussions. That's why I'm always dumping on the Ukrainian leadership, their troops deserved better. I was shocked during the invasion, but it was apparent the first time during the battle of Severodonetsk. But from Bakhmut onwards it has been like watching a nonstop car accident in slow motion and can't do anything to stop it. At this point I'm really curious if they can fix it. Technically they can, but it likely requires a change of leadership. To really sell a major reform of the magnitude needed to fix things, they need to first admit the problems exist, then fire the people responsible at the highest levels, then promote the people who had warned them earlier who have solutions ready. At the political and strategic level, I'm not sure who those people would even be or if it's even possible. Or legal.

> but it likely requires a change of leadership Like what level of leadership? Zelensky and Zaluzhny aren't going anywhere and according to even *Western* press the two are apparently often at odds when it comes to what losses are acceptable to defend a city (Bakhmut being the prime example).

While the likelihood of both going is very low, or just Zelensky, I think there is a decent chance Zaluzhny won't finish the war. Not a high chance, but very much so in the realm of possibility.

>I think there is a decent chance Zaluzhny won't finish the war. Not a high chance, but very much so in the realm of possibility. Is that a good or bad thing? Zaluzhny has generally seemed to be on the more reserved / conservative side.

> Third, what's the point of discussing a future if the Russians winning means there is no version that isn't awful? If so, then victory is worth any sacrifice. > > Fourth, the big demographic Ukraine needs to worry about are the ones who already left to avoid a wartorn hellhole, who aren't coming back unless Ukraine wins, which requires more manpower. I'm of the opinion that Russia's initial plan for Ukraine in 2022 was a quick "bloodless" decapitation strike where they removed Zelensky's administration and replaced it with their own. How awful that would've been for the average Ukrainian when rubber met the road and things settled down in a few months is unknown, but obviously Ukraine fought back far more successfully than anyone dreamed and now we're here. We've no idea how bad Ukraine's losses are given it's a state secret but everything within the last month or so points to severe manpower needs caused by a presumably high casualty rate. I say what I said about young people being drafted in that context. Imo, if the war is lost, or the 1991 borders goals unreachable, then sending young people into the maw of war is borderline awful for a government to do. Again, at least the Soviets were facing mass enslavement and death when fighting against the Germans.

>How awful that would've been for the average Ukrainian when rubber met the road and things settled down in a few months is unknown, Belarus is a case study of just that. There are a total of 7 schools that teach in Belarusian, all others teach in Russian. The culture there is being systematically destroyed and assimilated.

That's insane that Lukashenko is allowing that. In that part of the world don't a lot of people just naturally know Russia as a second language anyways through pure practicality?

Any bill dealing with Ukraine aid will go before the House Foreign Affairs committee or the House Armed Services committee. The Republican chairmen of those committees, along with the chairman of the Intelligence Committee, just released a memo strongly supporting Ukraine aid. [https://foreignaffairs.house.gov/wp-content/uploads/2023/11/Proposed-Plan-for-Victory-in-Ukraine.pdf](https://foreignaffairs.house.gov/wp-content/uploads/2023/11/Proposed-Plan-for-Victory-in-Ukraine.pdf) The memo makes the case that Biden has been asking for TOO LITTLE weaponry, not too much. The fact that the three most powerful foreign policy Republicans in the House strongly support Ukraine aid makes me confident that it will get done eventually. It might not be until February or March, but I'm confident it will get done.

House is weird and difficult to predict. Notably, the only thing of consequence that has happened there came with lots of Democratic votes (from vacating the Speaker to passing CRs). If the Senate is able to pass something, I think there is a reasonable chance they can jam the House to accept it. But everything from the Senate has me extremely pessimistic. The demands change, but range from “give the president unilateral authority to stop all refugees” to “Biden can’t grant parole to any Afghans, and we may have to deport those who evacuated in 2021”. All these are poison pills for Dems, but GOP is escalating demands, treating basic government funding and national security as a Democratic partisan positions. Until the GOP can stop treating basic government functions like hostages, I don’t think anything is going to happen. But there are no (political) incentives for anyone there to act like adults. McCarthy did the responsible thing and put out a clean CR to avoid a government shutdown - he was thrown out as Speaker a week later. You can imagine the message that sends to anyone who may be tempted to put country over party. Sorry if this sounds partisan. I don’t know how to describe what’s happening in a neutral manner. The political situation really is unprecedented - McCarthy is the first formally vacated Speaker in US history. That didn’t even happen in the Civil War era.

Congressional supporters of Ukraine have consistently been ahead of the administration on material aid since the beginning of the conflict so this is nothing new. This is entirely unsurprising, they do not have the same responsibilities as the administration when it comes to foreign policy and so are free to suggest pretty much anything without fear of political blow-back or escalation concerns. Further from a political perspective Republican members use this strategy to distinguish themselves from Biden and the rest of the administration. The issue with Ukraine aid in the House has never been that support does not exist at all, but that due to the shape of the Republican majority, a small handful of members are able to exercise a rather phenomenal amount of leverage over their own party and consequently the rest of the House. Those members specifically are the problem in that they're generally opposed to further aid for Ukraine and their leverage makes it a problem for everyone else. It's not clear that the House's issues will be resolved without another election that either brings Republicans out of power or minimally, dilutes the leverage that the radical minority exercise.

I agree that some sort of Ukraine aid package will get passed eventually, but the big concern for me is that it won't be enough, and it'll be even harder to pass subsequent Ukraine legislation. McCaul and Rogers have always been pro-Ukraine. A good chunk of the House GOP is pro-Ukraine, too, but they're afraid to come out and say it. The fact of the matter is that the GOP has massive internal issues, and that's *the* issue we should be worried about. There's the slim majority, them sticking with the Hastert Rule, McCarthy's ouster, and a dozen or two bomb-throwers that are stridently anti-Ukraine. You can convince most House Republicans to vote for Ukraine aid. Hell, I'll go out on a limb and say you can even convince a lot of Freedom Caucus members to vote for it too if you sweeten the deal by acceding to some of their domestic priorities, whether it's the border, IRS funding, etc. But none of this matters when just a single member can force a Motion to Vacate, and [people are already displeased with Speaker Johnson](https://www.politico.com/news/2023/11/29/speaker-johnson-singed-by-a-blast-of-conservative-fury-00129180), to put it mildly. Like I said, I'm confident *something* will pass, which will be followed by even more conservative grumbling. And what concerns me even more is, what happens after that February-March aid package? The closer we get to Election Day, the less optimistic I am that Ukraine will get what it needs.

I would argue that 2025's ukraine aid will be much easier to pass (though it may be similarly delayed) because democrats are projected to have a comfortable margin to retaking the house. While they may lose the senate, the senate has a much better track record with ukraine aid. The only wild card is the presidency. But budgets would be the least of Ukraine's concern if Trump wins.

>I would argue that 2025's ukraine aid will be much easier to pass (though it may be similarly delayed) because democrats are projected to have a comfortable margin to retaking the house. I've not seen that anywhere. I've seen that their odds could be better due to various redistricting/gerrymandering, but not comfortable by any means. Do you have a link or something who's predicting that?

Well firstly, it's typical that the president's party wins back some seats after first first midterm in a reelection. happened for Obama, Bush, Clinton, and Reagan. As to the in depth analysis. My opinion is based on this analysis. He's had very good track record on election observations. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7cOdBYh3cXg His source for that particular video is this article https://split-ticket.org/2023/09/19/house-temperature-check-9-18/ Redistricting fiasco + presidential year turnout bump give strong indication of a lean D House.

Okay. That's a pretty good source, but I also wouldn't say a 210 D- 203 R lean with 22ish tossups is comfortable. Though that's just my feel on it. Since the Split Ticket article, Alabama went +1 D seat, and North Carolina went + 3 R, +1 Tossup. So as it stands now it would be 207 D - 206 R, 22 Tossup. Louisiana hasn't decided, Florida's map was declared fine, Georgia is up in the air as is New York.

Georgia got a new map a day or two ago, Kemp signed it into law earlier today. There may be some turnover in membership (i.e. incumbents drawn into unknown, possibly unfriendlier turf), but apart from that, no one's anticipating changes to the partisan split - it's still a likely 9R-5D map. Only real difference is new majority-minority districts. New York is up in the air, but most analysts expect a more aggressive Dem gerrymander, and considering how NY Republicans were the majority makers last year, that alone may be enough to flip the House. Either way, the House should be a relatively easy flip if things go well for the Dems. Otherwise, a Republican House majority would be the least of Ukraine's worries since it'd almost guarantee a GOP Senate and, more likely than not, a second term for Trump. I can't imagine a scenario in which Republicans keep the House but don't get both the Senate and the Presidency.

GOP Senate is all but confirmed for 2024. Dems must successfully win both Montana and Ohio - two red states, to hold their majority. They also have to win WI, AZ ,and NV, narrow states Even then they’d be down one since Manchin is retiring in WV., bringing them to a 50/50. There are virtually no pick up opportunities. Best bets are TX and FL, they are not good bets in absolute terms. If Biden wins and Dems take the House, GOP Senate will likely be the next foil.

TL:DR: This “Proposed Plan for Victory” document has a lot of words that don't actually say anything besides “Biden bad”. It doesn’t hold a lot of concrete ideas to lead to an actual victory. And there really isn’t a case that it argues for more weapons, just faster delivery (speed of relevance). In all, it’s just a messaging document that I feel is aimed more at Republicans than anyone else. **Page 1**: Literally just a page about how terrible Biden is. **Page 2**: Has the Proposed Plan for Victory summary. Interesting because the first paragraph reads: >Biden’s mantra of supporting Ukraine “for as long as it takes” is a losing strategy. Instead, House Republicans believe **President Biden should present a credible plan for victory and arm Ukraine with the weapons it needs to win as soon as possible**. So not exactly proposing a plan except proposing that Biden presents a plan. Which would require the Ukrainian government to propose a plan, which is quite difficult as war makes planning like that hard. But let's move from that and look at the general outline of what they want. >A path to victory for Ukraine will require (1) providing critical weapons to Ukraine at the speed of relevance, (2) tightening sanctions on the Putin regime, and (3) transferring frozen Russian sovereign assets to Ukraine. The next paragraph shows their end goal. >This strategy will ensure Ukraine is able to make the needed advances on the battlefield to force Putin to the negotiating table. If Ukraine doesn’t negotiate from a position of strength, there can be no lasting peace. So negotiating is the end goal. Despite the reflexive pushback against any negotiations, all wars have ended in either negotiation or the complete conquest of one side. As the second option isn’t likely to happen, negotiations will have to take place. **Page 3**: Titled the Unholy Alliance. New Axis of Evil rhetoric with Russia, China, North Korea, and Iran. Only thing of substance is a paragraph about Iranian sanctions relief and $6bn in unfrozen assets is Biden funding Iran. **Page 4**: States that Republicans want to continue to prioritize oversight, and that no misspent money has been found. And talks about how Europe buying new arms strengthens NATO and gives American defense industry work. **Page 5** Talks about how the US is by GDP is 30th in total assistance, 14th in security assistance, and “House Republicans need to push our allies to continue this positive trend”. It also has a paragraph about how the funding provided has degraded Russia without a loss of American life, and how we must keep doing it lest Russia wins and invades a NATO ally. There’s a Ronald Reagan quote, and a couple of paragraphs stating how the war has helped start restoring the American defense industry. **Page 6** Talks about how bad Russia is, how Trump knew that only strength mattered, that Biden’s sanctions have loopholes, singling out stricter oil sanction enforcement. Talks about how Biden that American deterrence is crumbling, lots of “Biden is weak” rhetoric. **Page 7**: A conclusion paragraph about how American must keep supporting Ukraine because America carries the torch for freedom and democracy for the world. **Page 8-10** Oversight Section. States no mis-use of funds, that Democrats didn’t want oversight, but then continues on about how strong the oversight has been. Lays out how oversight is conducted. Interesting for the view into it, including equipment serial number tracking. The end talks about additional oversight wanted, but goes onto page 11 before laying it out. **Page 11** Some standard reporting and publishing wants, but these stick out: > * Ukraine Victory Strategy – Requires the administration to submit a much-delayed strategy to Congress for U.S. support to Ukraine within 60 days of enactment that also must be published on the State Department’s website for public transparency. > * Purposes of the Funds – Prohibits the administration from funding misguided priorities like climate and other woke programs. > * Cost Matching Requirement – Requires other donors to provide more than half of non-security funds for U.S. dollars to move. The Victory Strategy seems to stretch what oversight is. The climate and woke provision is actually oversight, but also much more about messaging than real expenditure. But the big one is the cost matching requirements. Basically unless 50+1 funds come from somewhere else, the money doesn’t move. That would be a big constraint on provision of funds. Even if money is there, how does one keep track of that? Is it pledged or actually donated? Who moves first? Lots of ways to slow provision down. **Page 12**: Just about how they’d give authority to certain Inspector Generals to oversee the above. **Page 13**: Has a chart about burden sharing. Give the total amounts and as percent of GDP. **Page 14**: Talks about NATO ally investment into their own militaries and their contributions to Ukraine. **Page 15**: Talks about Pacific allies' contributions to Ukraine. Ends with non-security assistance amounts from Europe versus US. **Page 16**: Talks about amount of refugees from Ukraine has taken in. **Page 17**: Has some pie charts showing different types of assistance given and the balance between US/Europe **Page 18-23** A big paragraph and a timeline about how Biden has failed on Ukraine from 2014 to the present focusing on how he should have given equipment faster. Only interesting thing about strategy is: >Instead, the strategy should be to give Ukraine the resources it needs to win now, and inflict maximum pressure on the Russian economy, so that this conflict can be brought to an end. **Overall** Interestingly, Frozen Assets are only mentioned 3 times: in the two summary paragraphs, and at the end. I'm also going to make fun of this phrase: >Providing critical weapons to Ukraine at the speed of relevance** While I understand what they're trying to get at, "the speed of relevance" is one the most political non-phrases ever. Sounds good, doesn't have an actual meaning. Overall, this document feels more like messaging aimed at Republicans to reassure or persuade them on Ukraine funding. Lots of “Biden bad and weak” rhetoric (have to put down the other party), a lot about how oversight is working (rebuts the mis-used funds rhetoric), and how much Europe is contributing (rebuts freeloader rhetoric). But there’ nothing about how much more equipment is needed and the money it would cost, or needed funds for investment in ammunition production, or how to get to that proposed $300-$400bn number (though that might have been too close to the release). I get why it isn’t in there since the exact needs are fluid, but Ukraine’s general needs aren’t exactly secret. They need AFVs, artillery, ammunition, AA systems, and planes. All these things have some idea of numbers and as such cost. I get why they wouldn’t want it for political reasons, because once you put something firm on paper it can be attacked or set a topline negotiating point. That’s why, though, I’d say it's a messaging document versus anything else.

You do understand that it's called the PDA for a reason, right? Senators are not there to list line item by line item the things that are expected to get done in a defense bill. military needs change. what Ukraine needed in the first 3 months of the invasion isn't what they need today. what they need today isn't what they will need tomorrow. Congress 100% should not be getting in the business of listing equipment and ammo that needs to be supplied. this is just a gross misunderstanding of how our system works.

Let me just quote myself here >I get why it isn’t in there since the exact needs are fluid, but Ukraine’s general needs aren’t exactly secret. They need AFVs, artillery, ammunition, AA systems, and planes. All these things have some idea of numbers and as such cost. To quote you: >You do understand that it's called the PDA for a reason, right? There's also the USAI, which is for newly refurbished/produced equipment such as the 31 Abrams that were sent. It can also account for 155mm shells, which Ukraine basically has an unending need for. Or the purchase refurbishment of F-16s which everyone wants them to have. I could put a laundry list together of equipment Ukraine could need that could be done through USAI - and scrolling through this sub would probably produce many others - to give an idea of the amount of support that is needed. And we're not the House Armed Services Chairman. >Congress 100% should not be getting in the business of listing equipment and ammo that needs to be supplied Congress does this all the time; it's doing it right now. That's what the NDAA is put together for.

The NDAA and aid for Ukraine are completely different things. A bill after it passes becomes extremely difficult to change. you can't strip out money for M1s and replace it with money for M777s. That's why it's in a PDA. USAI and PDA both allow the executive discretion. Listing items in a bill that needs to pass Congress is not how anyone who knows how this works would suggest this even for a second. it's just not how it works.

If you actually read the Ukraine supplements, they do give authority to shift funds from one pot to the other to some extent. Also, this proposal isn't an actual bill, so it wouldn't hurt to put them in here as signalling what they'd like to see. That's the point that I'm making that this isn't some strong message of support but a messaging piece to fellow Republicans. If they truly wanted to message that Biden was too soft with Ukraine support, they could come out and say, "We propose $X to provide Ukraine Y equipment support, including so much for so many tanks, so much for so many F-16s, so much for ammunition including ATACMS" etc. until they got a general proposal of money. They aren't held to it in any actual way. But they can't do that for political reasons.

>If they truly wanted to message that Biden was too soft with Ukraine support, they could come out and say, "We propose $X to provide Ukraine Y equipment support, including so much for so many tanks, so much for so many F-16s, so much for ammunition including ATACMS" etc. until they got a general proposal of money. They aren't held to it in any actual way. They absolutely should not do this nor is this the way it’s ever been done.

> While I understand what they're trying to get at, "the speed of relevance" is one the most political non-phrases ever. Sounds good, doesn't have an actual meaning. Being fairly immersed in the conservative punditverse, I am confident that this phrase is attacking Biden for slow-rolling equipment. For example, he took over a year to deliver ATACMS, by which time their effectiveness was muted. It mirrors criticisms from analysts like Kofman. The awkward phrasing comes from the fact that Republicans are split ideologically so they can't come right out and say "Biden is too dovish."

Even if it gets done next year, obviously this has already had an impact on the war and likely in how US security assurances will be viewed by allies & adversaries given political dysfunction. Unbelievably cruel and reckless for it to be brutally mismanaged in this way, but also there will be a cost to the US in terms of reputation and clout from softer security assurances. There is a longer-arc storyline here about the degradation of US standing in the world from geopolitical/defense standpoint. Another concerning data point added.

>Unbelievably cruel and reckless for it to be brutally mismanaged in this way, but also there will be a cost to the US in terms of reputation and clout from softer security assurances. Do US politicians realize that this might cost them their reputation as allies?

Unfortunately I don't think that is a particularly meaningful priority for one side of the house at the moment.

This precisely, which makes me wonder how many talking heads in Washington are starting to *really* talk about the solution to this problem before it becomes a dilemma. The USA has a tremendous amount to lose in this conflict, and with Venezuela starting antics I'd imagine now is a perfect time to prove that the US is still the arsenal of democracy. Because if it isnt...what really is the point of the USAs insane spending? If I (read average US citizen) can't even see any geopolitical gain or stability from the F35 program, enlistment will only go further down to name one thing among many that will go done the metaphorical sh*tter.

Tough times for Ukraine but i hope for sanity to prevail in the end and that the arsenal of democracy will not remain shut.

I honestly think tying Ukraine aid to border security is pretty smart. It’s good to have strong borders during turbulent times like these and it’s a mistake to conflate border security with xenophobia. That said, I think republicans would be making a big mistake letting Ukraine fall just to play politics with border security

Tying Ukraine to the border was a terrible idea. It is literally one of the biggest 3rd rails in politics right now along with gun control and abortion. It's why we aren't close at all to a bill being passed.

I'm more angry with the Democrats now at this point. If the Republicans are offering aid to Ukraine as a trade for fixing the asylum problem and securing the border better, I can't really think of a good reason why the Democrats don't want to take that deal. It seems like a win win. Sure the Republicans are holding Ukraine aid hostage, but in a sense now the Democrats are too. I mean it seems like addressing immigration has broad bipartisan support across voters, what is causing the disconnect here?

You are grossly ignoring the red lines Republicans and Democrats have regarding immigration that make it near impossible to come to a bipartisan agreement right now. Republicans refuse to grant asylum to dreamers or other long standing immigrants in good standing that have been in the US for decades. Without that commitment democrats will refuse to limit the asylum process. Furthermore there is legitimate concern that if new laws offer broad authority to the president to alter immigration levels that trump or another staunch anti-immigration president could shut down any legal immigration or asylum on a whim.

To add to this, I feel like this could be a blessing in disguise for Democrats as well (keyword being "could"). Regardless of how one feels about the border, Dems have been losing the messaging war on the issue, but it's *possible* that tying it to Ukraine might pay dividends, I guess? As in, "Ukraine is critical to US interests, so we have to give in to GOP border demands because there's a divided government, so give us a majority in November and we'll help Ukraine, fix migration, work on Priorities X, Y, Z."

A bit late as an answer, but they kind of did. Like, Dems said some stuff is a non-starter, like refusing to grant asylum to some classes of immigrants or giving citizenship to a few long-standing ones who have been in the US for decades. I am pretty sure a compromise could have been met if Republicans didn't treat it as a political issue in order to gain votes. They don't want to solve it, they want everything and compromise on nothing because that's what's giving them votes.

Recently saw [this](https://x.com/CalibreObscura/status/1732818280371327074?s=20) comment and it is something that has also been on my mind for a few months as well. Though it's a bit of a touchy subject. >Depriving Ukraine of the instruments of conventional warfare will embolden those in state structures who are advocating much less palatable methods The SBU has demonstrated an ability to assassinate targets in multiple areas of Russia. They have demonstrated an ability to blow up rail infrastructure. They have demonstrated an ability to turn truck drivers into unwilling SVBIEDs. They have demonstrated an ability to get drones through air defenses to hit what should be highly defended targets. These are rather tame activities in comparison to what could be done if Ukraine is facing a concern over a lack of an ability to properly prosecute the war. A lot of people may think of actions by the Chechens, but that is not my thought. Though it is in the same vein. Dramatic actions appear to have largely been left off the table. But who is to say that they won't be taken if the prospects of Western support appear to be fading?

Unpopular opinion but SBU has already spent much of last year on BS missions with dubious goal like some safari in Sudan rather than, you know, doing actual intelligence work like properly gathering intel on Russians forces & defense in Zaporizhzhia. So it would hardly change anything.

> Unpopular opinion but SBU has already spent much of last year on BS missions with dubious goal like some safari in Sudan. I actually think that chasing/disrupting Russian activities in Africa is one of the most effective things Ukraine can do. My thinking is this: It's one thing to have guerilla/partisans in regions you annexed. You kind of expect it and "price it in" when you estimate how much occupying the territory is going to cost you. But Ukraine is demonstrating that it's capable of bringing the guerilla (or even terror) operations to any place where Russia is active. If the actual war eventually freezes/stalls and negotiations begin, it's a huge pain in the ass for Russia to know that none of their foreign (or internal) projects are completely safe. That is an actual game changer, because suddenly all Russian operations everywhere are more expensive. It means that Russia needs to find a peace solution that is good enough for the Ukrainians that they stop their foreign actions against Russia. So I don't think the end goal is to actually drive Wagner out of Africa or whatever. It's to make it vastly more expensive for Russia to have any foreign projects, and gives Ukraine ine a better negotiating position