Makes one wonder about the condition of the rest of our combat hrdwr. Equipment for Ukraine drawn from Kuwait wasn’t combat-ready, IG says
You can’t have vehicles “in storage” and also be ready. Vehicles have to be run. Leave your car parked in a garage for 2 years and see what happens. The issue with the Humvees sounds relatively minor. Presumably they were brought up to speed. The issue with the Howitzers sounds much more rediculous, that they could “explode” and kill the crew. But again, we can presume these issues are getting resolved given just how much equipment Ukraine has gotten from the west (and that it was failures of Russian equipment that led to their initial invasion failing). I don’t think the balance of war could have tipped as it did if this were representative of the equipment being actually sent. The inspector general is pointing out these particular items weren’t supposed to need any “fixes”. Basically, the question is did some contractor cut corners or did we just have more equipment sitting there on bases than soldiers that could actually keep all that in running “combat ready” shape? Might not be anything nefarious, just typical big guv waste. The commander in charge of that Kuwaiti base will probably have some questions to answer as obviously somebody dropped the ball on the combat readiness aspect.
Satellite Images Reveal Russian Defenses for Ukraine Counteroffensive Hmmm. While this may seem like normal preparation for a ground assault upon first glance, it makes me think that it’s possible Russia is using these fortifications as a decoy and will attack Ukraine again from the north once Ukraine deploys its counteroffensive. They tried to do this at the beginning of the invasion and after all, kill the head (Kyiv) and the body will die. I get the feeling the Russians have something up their sleeves. Not that it will necessarily be successful, but it feels like they’re being too cavalier about a counteroffensive that hasn’t been deployed yet. It could be a feint.
Russian Commanders Facing 'Acute Dilemma' As Border Regions Attacked: U.K. (msn.com) Russian commanders have faced an "acute dilemma" as its border regions came under attack for the second time in 10 days, the British Ministry of Defence (MoD) said on Friday. The MoD's intelligence update came a day after anti-Vladimir Putin militias said they crossed into Russia's Belgorod region. Ilya Ponomarev, an exiled Russian politician—who says he is the political representative for the Freedom of Russia Legion—told Newsweek on Thursday that the group, alongside the Russian Volunteer Corps (RVC), had crossed into the border town of Shebekino. .......................... The ministry noted that according to a press release published by Russia's Ministry of Defense, it has resorted to deploying the full range of military firepower on its own territory, including attack helicopters and the TOS-1A heavy thermobaric rocket launcher. "Russian commanders now face an acute dilemma of whether to strength defenses in Russia's border regions or reinforce their lines in occupied Ukraine," the MoD's intelligence assessment concluded.
surprised that Uk hasn't used some long range weapons to takeout the bridge already Crimean bridge is falling down – cracks appear on its pillars, photos (msn.com)
sounds like the contractor needs to be held accountable if they were not properly maintaining the equipment
I do wish they would focus just on military targets and infrastructure though. Don't want to cede the moral high ground
The line that brings in international intervention. It’s there. Opinions differ on where the line is. But it’s very, very important for Russia to understand that it exists.
seems the only event that would trigger that short of an attack on NATO would be nuclear attack or endangering the nuclear power plants
On the first condition, we certainly agree. There is no circumstance in which we should tolerate the use of a nuclear weapon, and the only possible way to ensure that a first use is not followed by more would be to enter the war, dangerous as that sounds. On the second, if that were the line, I would say Russia crossed it long ago. So I don’t think endangering nuclear power plants would do it. But maybe you mean more than just endangering. Maybe you mean deliberately causing meltdowns as they are forced to retreat east.
They might but that to me is an indication that they rushed the job and/or used low quality materials. Bridges in the US have stringent requirements including concrete that requires exceedingly long cure times. I assume Russia doesn’t have anything of the sort and any flaws like this are systemic requiring much more than a rectifying a single pier.
Trump was at least talking about cutting U.S. funding for NATO to try to get European countries to pay for their own defense. They found it offensive the way he went public with his accusations. He also basically called NATO useless because it did little to defend the U.S. Again, Europe was offended by this.
He also repeatedly refused to agree that article 5 is something we would support. Which is about the biggest thing in all of NATO and the premise it is based on. Biden had a lot of fence mending to do.
