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Dec 5, 2023
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Tom Habala's avatar

Nobody wanted a repeat of the Srebrenica massacre, which took place directly in front of the helpless UNPROFOR units.

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Muki's avatar

Serbia apparently is not allowed to fight an armed rebellion within its territory while Ukraine is allowed.

NATO is a hostile military alliance and Russia is within its rights to defend itself against its encroachment.

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Tom Habala's avatar

Serbia on its territory? Correctly you should have written "Yugoslavia on its territory". This is a similar error in thinking as the Russians do.

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Muki's avatar

At the time of NATO aggression, Serbia together with Montenegro formed Yugoslavia. Kosovo, however is a Serbian province just like Donetsk and Lugansk are Ukrainian provinces.

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Tom Habala's avatar

It is true. The primary reason Serbia lost Kosovo is demographics. This will be a problem in other states as well. For example, Kurds have a significantly higher birth rate than Turks. Turks may think that Northern Kurdistan is Turkey, but one day they may find that it is no longer so.

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Muki's avatar

The primary reason Serbia lost Kosovo is an internal insurrection supported by foreign military aggression.

Without NATO aggression, Serbian military would have pacified the rebels, killing thousands (including innocent civilians), just like Israel is doing in Gaza and then there would have been peace for a time.

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RSentongo's avatar

Hmmm. Interesting!!

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Engerl's avatar

Thank you very much. These are heart wrenching reports.

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Donald Hill's avatar

True enough. When there's good news, it's best not to get too high. When there's bad news, it's best not to get too low. Conflicts are about endurance and the strength of will. That's true for observers, like you and me, as well.

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Marton Sunrise's avatar

Thank you

Remarkable Ukraine could attack the Russian railway almost 5K Km away, I wonder why they did not hit the N. Korean section.

The delay in GLSDB stinks, if they want to test them then why not allow Ukraine to test them. Maybe they have a sneaky idea to reduce the range.

Pity Ukraine cannot buy direct from SAAB, I suppose the US controls the SDB deliveries.

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Donald Hill's avatar

Ukrainian operatives and anti-Putin Russians have been attacking Russian targets from the Ukraine border to the Pacific ocean. Capabilities and opportunities drive targeting decisions.

It's a joint Boeing-SAAB production. The US had half a million M26 rockets with DPICM munitions. They took off the DPICM warhead and were paying to destroy the rockets when Boeing suggested repurposing them. The contract was signed in March. I don't know what the exact issue for the delay, but if Ukraine receives them by March, 2024, I would call that a fast turnaround.

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Hoxha's avatar

Absolutely right! Unless Trump manages to “capture” the White House we are probably looking at fighting at least until 2026 and maybe beyond. Ukraine will not give in and Eastern Europe being very familiar with life under Russian rule of law will support. So will large parts of Western Europe. Right now everyone is looking to the US to do the heavy lifting. If that ebbs we are going to see echoes from the past, when realization sets in that it’s up to Europe to fight Russia there will be unity again.

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Marmot's avatar

Typo: GDSDM -> GLSDB

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RSentongo's avatar

Very interesting. 60 F16s sounds like a good start. And those GLSDBs+ cheap recon/surveillance drones sounds like a nightmare for Russian ground based air defence systems. I dont know how many GBADs Russia they can station in the Kherson area and how they will fare with GLSDB able to hit the whole occupied Kherson but will be very interesting to find out in the coming months to a year

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