Ukraine live updates: We are resisting, Ukraine says, as battles for key cities rage - BBC News The BBC’s real time updates. Lots of good stuff here for anyone interested.
No one can tell the future, but here’s how I think it plays out. 1. Despite the valiant resistance of the Ukrainians, whatever degree of economic warfare we implement, and whatever military aid we give, Ukraine will fall. 2. Ukraine will eventually fall into line, faster than many believe, as they have every time Russia has conquered them. All of their resources fall to the command of the Russian Empire. 3. Russia keeps quiet long enough for NATO to stand down from its alert, and U.S. forces return home. 4. When the Russians come for the Baltic, it will be far more nuanced. The Russian people who live there will cry out against the Baltic oppressors. Russia will support its people with aid (just as they did in Georgia and Ukraine). As the crisis ratchets up, Russia will offer a grand and reasonable solution: the Baltics need to return to non-alignment for the peace of Europe; NATO must eject them. Some NATO members, such as the U.S. and newer Eastern European members will be outraged, but most of Western Europe (Germany and Italy in particular) will see the wisdom of non-aligned buffer states and support it. NATO will become irretrievably fractured at that point. One way or another, the Baltics are hung out to dry. One way or another, Russia moves in relatively bloodlessly just as they did in June 1940. 5. All of the same people saying now that intervention in Ukraine is too risky now will say how it obvious it was that we should have stopped Russia back then. I would point out, for those who love history, that when Hitler marched into the Rhineland, he had a contingency plan for an emergency withdrawal if the West moved to enforce the Versailles Treaty. But the West thought it was too risky. When Hitler moved into Austria, same thing. Too risky for the West. At Munich, we now know, Hitler’s generals were prepared to overthrow him if he pressed the matter to war with Czechoslovakia, because Germany simply wasn’t ready … but to their surprise and delight, Hitler won a third bloodless victory in a row. Too risky, the West said. When Hitler invaded Poland, he sent most of his army east, leaving the west vulnerable and assuming (correctly) that the West would be too risk-averse to march into Germany. Indeed the British and French sat behind their fortifications and did nothing more to support Poland than bomb the Ruhr and kill a few cows. Too risky to do more. Hitler invaded five more neutral countries before he finally came for France and knocked them out faster than anyone could ever have imagined. We make jokes today about how the French lined their streets with trees because the Germans like marching in the shade. I often wonder how many of those French watching column after column of German soldiers marching by toward the Channel were lamenting their failure to accept risk at an earlier stage.
My understanding is that SWIFT isn’t very secure and Russia will attack it if not part of it. But that could be completely wrong.
Actually, if their thermobaric weapons are like ours, they have very little value in open areas. Metal-augmented charges are designed for creating an over-pressure situation in a closed environment such as a cave or fixed fortification. In the open, high-explosive airburst munitions are the best choice.
Those who fail to learn from history are doomed to repeat it. Let’s hope that NATO members are studying tonight.
I think I would use fuel-air explosives (advanced version of napalm) for that. That’s a different form of munition than thermobarics, but sometimes people confuse them. Maybe they meant one and said the other in the tweet at hand. Maybe USMC wants to tip in on that. If memory serves he’s a former tactical air controller just like I was.
Or. We just let him have the Baltics back. Russia we soon learn again that they have to house, feed and overall provide for the 10's of millions " new" russians. They financially can sustain it. Especially if sanctions are still being pressed. They will collapse again.
The issue with that strategy (and I am not saying that you are wrong here as he might want to do this) is that doing so would result in a far more Pro-Western Ukraine on his border. He pulls the Russian-speaking parts of Ukraine out, and Ukraine is in NATO in a matter of a few years.
Hear! Hear! I think you have also just solved the problem of how we can get rid of those annoying Alaskans next.
I'm sure they are in reserve in case the NATO countries decide to send in troops. They can either counter-attack, or back out and retreat and not lose their best troops and equipment. It also prevents the loss of any of their best technology against an opponent that can only stand up for a week or two against 1970's technology.
Do you create that graph or take that from Mother Earth? Here.is a Newsweek article Joe Biden's approval ratings are terrible, even in blue states—polls Here is a CNN article that typically cover for the politician because they are the queens of fake news A brutal poll number for Joe Biden | CNN Politics A Harvard Center for American Political Studies-Harris Poll released Friday revealed that 62 percent of respondents believe Putin would not have invaded Ukraine if Trump were still president. Breaking down the numbers along party lines, the poll found that 85 percent of Republicans and 38 percent of Democrats held that belief. I can keep going with the liberal outlets headlines. I do not have BDS. I don't even really dislike him, which is much different than many here who hate Trump. He just sucks at his job. He's a failure. He's more worried about gender neutral passports than fixing inflation and diffusing war overseas. China is watching this weakling crumble and they are next to take advantage.
Ukrainian Forces Repel Russian Attack on Kyiv, Prepare for Next Assault Ukrainian Forces Repel Russian Attack on Kyiv, Prepare for Next Assault Thousands of civilians take up arms to help defend the capital, while Russian forces face fierce resistance throughout Ukraine KYIV, Ukraine—Ukrainian forces and thousands of freshly recruited volunteers regained control of Kyiv’s streets after Russian troops and undercover units in civilian clothes tried to enter the city in the early hours of Saturday, while Russian airstrikes, airborne landings and armored advances continued throughout the country. On the third day of the war that Russian President Vladimir Putin unleashed with the aim of overthrowing Ukraine’s elected government and ending its alignment with the West, Ukrainian forces fought fiercely on all fronts, with each side asserting it had inflicted heavy losses on the other.
