FYI: the budget for Patriots, that's the 2022 budged, money spent already. So EU council can work without any obstruction even it they will be looking to Patriot batteries next 10, 100, 1000 ... years. Just clown theater. See https://twitter.com/POLITICOEurope/status/1778469072092446999
Silly Ukrainians. They gave away their nukes for nothing. They even believed Russia's promises. What were they thinking? That the word "guarantee" meant something??
Ukrainians are stupid. And the Europeans are so smart that they have disarmed to small contract armies. The question then becomes who could we have been at war with then - Russia in the 90's. We are all smart when it's past.
And yes, we thought the Budapest Memorandum was worth something, and in fact none of those who signed the treaty honored it. And what can you call those who guaranteed the security of the country. I would call them simply, but a lot of people would take offense.
And by the way, I think Ukraine can develop nuclear weapons, like tactical weapons. But after it appears, the Europeans led by the USA will start a war with Ukraine so that it does not have such weapons.
Are you Ukrainian Yuriy (I mean a proper Ukrainian, not a Russian colonial pretending to be Ukrainian in order to say bad things about Ukraine)?
Who is more stupid - the Ukrainians, for trying to escape from Putin and believing the west would help them, or the Russians for believing everything Putain tells them?
I think you missed out the word that described the west for signing a Memorandum it had no intention of honouring. Go ahead. As a westerner I won't take offense.
Yes, we hope that the West will help at least with arms, we do not ask for more. We are not asking that the idiot Macron send his soldiers, probably 10 of them, somewhere. Our economy is ruined, how can we protect our cities from ballistic missiles, we do not have these air defense systems and it is not easy to create them. And yes our government is stupid and dumb and has never converted the economy to a war economy. And it's really infuriating.
Я не вірю іноземному генералу про пілотів. Півтора роки розповідали, що вони тренуються, а тепер їх немає. Куди зникли? І ще - Україна не могла відправити на навчання людей без освіти. Поїхали вчитися вже професійні винищувачі. Англійську вони знають, у нас неможна вступити в училище для льотчиків без знання англійської мови.
One should keep in mind that there is no air force on this planet with something like 'surplus stocks' of pilots capable of flying jets like F-16. Training of just one costs nearly US$12 million (for comparison, AFAIK, the budget of the entire PSU for 2021 was some US$48 million).
This means that, just for the start, we're talking about very small groups of available pilots.
Now add to this that the 12-14 months, the PSU lost at least 4 of pilots originally slanted to be members of the first group to convert to F-16s.
Thus, it's actually 'no surprise' the PSU had to sent 'replacements' and these are not as well-qualified and/or not fluent in English as those pilots that were meanwhile lost (whether in combat or in training accidents).
Finally, 'knowing English' and/or 'flying in flight school in Ukraine' and 'flying F-16s in English', and that in combat: are, really, two different worlds.
What's especially fucking stupid about this whole situation is that *I* could have trained a cohort of Ukrainian pilots by now. There's an airport offering basic flight lessons two kilometers from here.
Maybe leaders in Kyiv dropped the ball on stuff, but they're adapting under fire. Any competent policy wonk in all of NATO should have been able to see that unless Ukraine was totally conquered that whatever remnant was left would need to be properly equipped to NATO standards - unless NATO accession promises and article 5 are cruel scams, which they very well might be.
Yet here we are, with a shortage of Ukrainian pilots who speak English. With millions of Ukrainians living abroad, learning or already competent in English, why aren't thousands being pulled into basic training?
" unless NATO accession promises and article 5 are cruel scams, which they very well might be."
This was always my impression. That Western leaders commitment to integrate Ukraine to NATO and EU institution is inversely proportional to the amount of meetings, summits, statements and undisclosed bilateral treaties they are willing to offer (or more like, concede).
As such I thought it this winter row of secret bilateral agreements with UK, France and Germany was a bad news.
Its how Western countries operated during the past decade whether for Ukraine in the 2014-2022 period, Syria or some other places.
The US and other NATO countries have serious pilot recruitment and training shortfalls, so not only would training and equipping an entire air force for Ukraine from scratch have been an enormous - and fairly low-impact - investment on the order of EVERYTHING fiscally-committed to Ukraine aid to date, it would have seriously damaged their own military institutions. Far beyond, say, sending every last article in the ground stockpiles, which by the way are much more useful in this kind of war.
Again, it would make a hell of a lot more sense to just declare war on Russia and apply those NATO air forces directly, than to spend years and hundreds of billions and one's own precious inventory to outfit a crappy, uncompetitive air force, and at the expense of one's own relatively-excellent air forces at that.
Finite la comedia. Several more strikes like this and and ukraine is doomed.
It seems peace negotiations are around the corner judging by this devastating strikes on energy grid and news from Turkey, Russia and USA. Ukrainian energy experts are very pessimistic about UA ability to fix at least part of generation by winter.
Beside power plants, Russia is targeting huge underground gas storage in western Ukraine (where even EU companies have some gas). If they succeed, electricity and gas prices will hike in EU, another batch of million of refugees would come in winter again. So, the total price of EU would pay would be much higher than sending proper military support ASAP.
Its not a problem. There is no serious damage they can do to gas storage. Only to some equipment on top. But it can be easily and quickly fixed. Ukraininan gas transportation system is using around 1/3 of its capacity.
There has not been any serious damage, yet. Apparently, Russians think they can destroy something important otherwise they would not send expensive missiles there.
Have you even seen a live gas distribution station for gas? You think it can be rebuilt in a month. Even to restore an electrical substation, for example, 110 kV, you need 2-3 months. I am telling you this as a project engineer with 25 years of experience. And yes, by the way, why is the European Union not outraged by the strikes on gas storages and does not ask Russia to stop it:))
No i did not see. All my information comes from some youtube 'experts' (like popenko and zakrevskiy)
The main point is that they cant destroy underearth storage, and on top infrustructure is used on 1/3 of its capacity. So it will take ru quite a while to demolish all of it. Regarding EU - I have no idea. Why does it even matter?
Peace negotiations are as dangerous because of the West as they are because of Russia; once a reprieve is granted, human nature would suggest that Ukraine will fall off the radar of we freedom-loving nations in the West, allowing Russia to continue squeezing. More and more, I only see an end to this when the stability of the Kremlin regime is better served by withdrawing than by continuing to bear the cost of invading. Ergo strikes on the petrochem infrastructure play their part.
What can be more dangerous for ukrainians then mobilization we do not want or freezing out during next winter? or staying without electricity during 30+ degree in summer?
Man, when you are talking "we" please don't mean all Ukrainians. It's only your personal opinion. Without mobilisation, Ukraine doesn't exist. If you want to give up, ok! Please, don't interrupt other people to fight.
What a funny russian shit-bot. If ukrainians won't be mobilised into Ukrainian army they will be mobilised to the ruzzian one - ask men from Donetsk, those that are still alive.
At least, one positive in all this is that since the Ukrainians have started running out of AD missile, the number of Russian attacks on kindergartens and schools has gone way down.
For your next fundraiser I would humbly suggest getting money to buy the Palestinians some stingers so they can fight back against the indiscriminate bombing of civilians performed by the IDF and enabled by the freedom loving US.
Sorry for the sarcasm, it is contagious.
Can you comment on the information spread by the pro Russian sources that the Azov brigade refused the order to deploy and fight in Chasov Yar ?
What is even the realistic way out of this now, barring the West magically pull its head out of the sand or a hithero unseen Russian internal event that could lead to a sudden end or collapse. European contributions means some equipment and shells will continue to get into Ukraine, but how much is that enough for beyond some delaying defense with slow retreat. Thats assuming Ukraine has enough soldiers...
It's infuriating that even with a time machine I couldn't do anything to help because of incompetent our leaders are.
Break the Russian war machine: Strike oil refineries, air bases, factories, logistical & command hubs. Increase sanctions and embargos. Fight attritional battles in defense, to increase Russia's cost of waging war. Build diplomatic ties with Ukraine and isolate Russia. And do it sneakily enough so that people in power who think that Russia ought not to lose will be taken by surprise.
US military officers have deliberately learned absolutely nothing from Iraq or Afghanistan. Within a year or two of every colossal fuckup sponsored scholars pump out the next approved memory-hole project designed to rewrite failure as victory.
To wit, the entire Petraeus myth and legend of the Surge. It is now official history that the War in Iraq was won by throwing more bodies at the problem - every American general's favorite solution. Tried and failed in Afghanistan, but no matter. Just like after Vietnam, senior officers responsible for the mess were determined to pretend that if the politicians hadn't bound their hands victory was assured.
In reality, the US was almost defeated by the insurgency, and finally saw the plain sense in a recommendation made by a USMC captain (who was later KIA). You split the psycho wing of the insurgents that always forms from the sane people mad at their country being occupied. Give the latter autonomy and resources and let them do the police work only locals can do anyway. Don't fucking launch an air strike or kick down doors in some neighborhood every time someone takes a potshot at you.
That's the lesson to draw from russia's even stupider attempt to dominate another country. But will the Pentagon? No, because they want a forever war with China that imitates how they imagine WW2 going. They want to be able to play war of attrition with ordinary soldiers acting like robots from Command and Conquer. Most aren't much better at their jobs than orc officers.
/end rant
Written by someone who ordinary drill sergeants fresh from the sandbox were already training soldiers in basic counterinsurgency tactics while Petraeus was still pretending he had single-handedly secured Mosul.
The guy sounds so pessimistic and his comments about NATO Russia relationships are a red flag. Then he goes to talk about how Boris Johnson got the Ukrainians to continue fighting instead of accepting a stalemate. Guy is an idyat tbh. I pray no Ukrainian pilots get in contact with him.
Yeah I mean, it's a conspiracy theorist's website (not that there's anything wrong with that) and he's definitely got his fair share of issues and now is largely a video game YouTuber apparently.
Still I thought his skepticism about the "Wunderwaffen F-16 hypothesis" were kinda interesting.
Thanks Tom. While we know about the lack of AD systems, do you have any comment on how much of a problem lack (or rationing) of AD missiles is currently?
The lack of PAC and IRIS-T missiles is the biggest problem, right now. The stocks are down to 'dozens'.
....which actually means: even if the EU finds and ships 7 PAC batteries to Ukraine, it's not going to help, because - just like all the artillery sent to Ukraine - there will be no ammo for them...
And that's why you cannot win a war with anti-missile and anti-aircraft systems alone.
The cost of equipping enough PAC-2 and PAC-3 launchers to face off the hundreds of ballistic missiles being launched every month is non-sustainable.
Ukraine ought to have hundreds of ballistic missiles for a serious deterrence (starting from 300 km range ATACMS and cruise missiles etc), with large precision munitions (both unitary and cluster) and able to hit within the Russian and Belarusian lands.
Playing only defense is a fool's errand. Ukraine has to be able to strike back at their enemy lands.
I wish I did. I think that with all the F-16/F-18 pilots in all the air forces in the world that have retired, there should be a good number to recruit.
Eric Prince proposed this around March 2022 since we had about 150 F16s and F15s in storage, great condition and several former pilots. They would have been ready in 2022 but Biden admin completely refused this.
Yes, a few have (actually, few days ago was chatting with somebody who attempted this).
Essentially, all he could find were few 'slightly over-aged gentlemen': mind that pilots know better than to rush to Ukraine, like so many Westerners did in 2022, only to find out they can't count with artillery support, and air support, and orbital support to which they're used when serving with US/NATO forces. What a surprise the mass has meanwhile left...
....and then, there's also the corruption within ranks of ZSU logistics system. This is so massive, that even the mass of foreign arms traders gave up all the hope: they stopped dealing with Kyiv and are selling arms and ammo 'to Ukraine' but via EU-members.
Concerning the budget of the European Council the European Parliament refused to confirm Ukrainian media got wise that it is only the confirmation of the budget of 2022. It is next to nothing. So the whole mess is in fact no more then a PR-action for the imbeciles.
I don’t understand why Ukraine aren’t ‘recruiting’ previous F-16 pilots from the west to incorporate under a partisan Air Wing. There must be 100s of recently retired F-16 pilots who would consider joining under some such body. A bit like the ground units but in the air.
Today we see the US moving ‘additional air defence units’ to the Middle East. They can find them to protect assets there no problems yet are happy for Ukraine to suffer
Lastly - there is an interview I saw today from an Ex-US forces sniper. You’ve probably seen it. I think you could share this and ask it is spread far and wide across the American supporters to help them realise the magnitude of the situation.
Because Biden prohibited that (and, to make sure: Dumpf would've done the same).
....and even if: actually, few days ago was chatting with somebody who attempted this.
Essentially, all he could find were few 'slightly over-aged gentlemen': mind that pilots know better than to rush to Ukraine, like so many Westerners did in 2022, only to find out they can't count with artillery support, and air support, and orbital support to which they're used when serving with US/NATO forces. What a surprise the mass has meanwhile left...
....and then, there's also the corruption within ranks of ZSU logistics system. This is so massive, that even the mass of foreign arms traders gave up all the hope: they stopped dealing with Kyiv and are selling arms and ammo 'to Ukraine' but via EU-members (which, of course, is making all the resulting trade deals even more expensive and taking even more time....)
I would really like to think that there’s a way of restoring some of the power plant and protecting it better so that the next attack isn’t so devastating. Can we in Europe make this our moment to do something effective. Ukraine can’t take this for ever.
I was indeed hoping for a strongly negative response to my question but I’d like a bit more indication of these devastating blows can be parried
Distributed electric generation using diesels like the Caterpillar C-175 (2.5-3 MW each) and connecting these to the 25 kV AC system would be a possible short-term response. Or decommissioned diesel generators from Greek islands which have been connected (at last!) to the mainland electricity distribution system maybe... (yes, most Greek islands, even Crete, were dependent on diesel generators for many years)
Trypilla TPP was attacked by 2 shaheds and 7 cruise missiles after 20 minutes after shaheds without any single shot of AD, even machinguns were silent which is extremely strange. All 7 hits were rhythmic according to tu-95 firing tempo (but it has only 6 in one salvo). 3th and 4th explosion were significantly weaker than rest(like regular cruise missiles), all the rest were much louder, I assume it was Kh-101 with doubled warhead
Maybe they were testing some new EW or tools that didn't work. Otherwise the reasons for not reacting for 20 minutes could be very bad. What is the chance for betrayal?
I assume 2 of them were Kh-69 but the rest were 101 with doubled warheads: perfect interval for salvo and explosion sounds. Officials reported that only 6 cruise missiles and one shahed hit the target but only for trypilla TPP it already isn't true. And there were other places where missiles also hit targets.
Btw the only reason why AD was silent because Kh-69 ca be manually corrected. Kh-101s are baits for SAMs and 69 aimed manually to a launch sites. Everything else sounds like conspiracy theories.
That all of Ukraine’s TPPs will be gone should be already the base scenario. After that Russia will aim at the substations of the nuclear plants. Mobile or small engine-based ( not turbines) generators can provide relief to most industrial plants and small towns/villages. Ukraine has enough natural gas production to sustain thousands of natural gas-based engines. This is expensive and combined with diesel generators much dirtier. Yet, the collective West is more obsessed with spending trillions on green follies, rather than help Ukraine - which will have the immediate effect of stopping all the co2 emissions from the war effort. Currently Russian refineries are getting a better treatment from Western officials than US shale oil producers or European coal plants.
If you hit nuclear power plant substations, there is a chance that you will not be able to stop the reactor and then you will get Chernobyl-2.0. Keep in mind that the equipment at Ukrainian nuclear power plants is not fully modernized and it is possible that the automation will not work, although there are 3 levels of safety. For example, at South-Ukrainian NPP we designed emergency diesel generators in case the NPP's own needs are lost, taking into account the experience of Fukushima. At Zaporizhzhya NPP it was also done after the occupation of the NPP, it saved the plant in case of loss of external power supply, they emergency connected just diesel generators.
FYI: the budget for Patriots, that's the 2022 budged, money spent already. So EU council can work without any obstruction even it they will be looking to Patriot batteries next 10, 100, 1000 ... years. Just clown theater. See https://twitter.com/POLITICOEurope/status/1778469072092446999
Of course. Was just trying to explain this to my Ukrainian readers: they're always so hopeful, and I always have to explain them the bad news.
It always amases me with Ukrainians: they expected Budapest memorandum to be almost like 5th article of NATO,
They believed EU "will never let big war"
They trust "we will support you as long as it takes"
They are completelly sure EU and NATO will take them "Olaf said he supports us"
If you tell them "I support you" they immediatelly think "he will fight for us. You see, Ru, you are done. Entire world is with us" .
So they always "betrayed" because they expected bigger support.
Silly Ukrainians. They gave away their nukes for nothing. They even believed Russia's promises. What were they thinking? That the word "guarantee" meant something??
Ukrainians are stupid. And the Europeans are so smart that they have disarmed to small contract armies. The question then becomes who could we have been at war with then - Russia in the 90's. We are all smart when it's past.
And yes, we thought the Budapest Memorandum was worth something, and in fact none of those who signed the treaty honored it. And what can you call those who guaranteed the security of the country. I would call them simply, but a lot of people would take offense.
And by the way, I think Ukraine can develop nuclear weapons, like tactical weapons. But after it appears, the Europeans led by the USA will start a war with Ukraine so that it does not have such weapons.
Are you Ukrainian Yuriy (I mean a proper Ukrainian, not a Russian colonial pretending to be Ukrainian in order to say bad things about Ukraine)?
Who is more stupid - the Ukrainians, for trying to escape from Putin and believing the west would help them, or the Russians for believing everything Putain tells them?
I think you missed out the word that described the west for signing a Memorandum it had no intention of honouring. Go ahead. As a westerner I won't take offense.
Yes, we hope that the West will help at least with arms, we do not ask for more. We are not asking that the idiot Macron send his soldiers, probably 10 of them, somewhere. Our economy is ruined, how can we protect our cities from ballistic missiles, we do not have these air defense systems and it is not easy to create them. And yes our government is stupid and dumb and has never converted the economy to a war economy. And it's really infuriating.
It should have even be more than a Nato article 5. How many NATO members gave up nuclear weapons for security guarantees??
Still. Politics is about symbols. This is not something the Commission likes. But yes, they can probably go on.
Я не вірю іноземному генералу про пілотів. Півтора роки розповідали, що вони тренуються, а тепер їх немає. Куди зникли? І ще - Україна не могла відправити на навчання людей без освіти. Поїхали вчитися вже професійні винищувачі. Англійську вони знають, у нас неможна вступити в училище для льотчиків без знання англійської мови.
One should keep in mind that there is no air force on this planet with something like 'surplus stocks' of pilots capable of flying jets like F-16. Training of just one costs nearly US$12 million (for comparison, AFAIK, the budget of the entire PSU for 2021 was some US$48 million).
This means that, just for the start, we're talking about very small groups of available pilots.
Now add to this that the 12-14 months, the PSU lost at least 4 of pilots originally slanted to be members of the first group to convert to F-16s.
Thus, it's actually 'no surprise' the PSU had to sent 'replacements' and these are not as well-qualified and/or not fluent in English as those pilots that were meanwhile lost (whether in combat or in training accidents).
Finally, 'knowing English' and/or 'flying in flight school in Ukraine' and 'flying F-16s in English', and that in combat: are, really, two different worlds.
What's especially fucking stupid about this whole situation is that *I* could have trained a cohort of Ukrainian pilots by now. There's an airport offering basic flight lessons two kilometers from here.
Maybe leaders in Kyiv dropped the ball on stuff, but they're adapting under fire. Any competent policy wonk in all of NATO should have been able to see that unless Ukraine was totally conquered that whatever remnant was left would need to be properly equipped to NATO standards - unless NATO accession promises and article 5 are cruel scams, which they very well might be.
Yet here we are, with a shortage of Ukrainian pilots who speak English. With millions of Ukrainians living abroad, learning or already competent in English, why aren't thousands being pulled into basic training?
We all know the answer.
News today is that usa approved transmission of norways 22 f-16 to Ukraine.
2 of them have been used for training Ukraine pilots for months.
https://fagbladet.no/nyheter/usa-har-gitt-klarsignal-for-overforing-av-norske-f16-til-ukrain-6.91.1041411.be0243b3e6
Link 😊
" unless NATO accession promises and article 5 are cruel scams, which they very well might be."
This was always my impression. That Western leaders commitment to integrate Ukraine to NATO and EU institution is inversely proportional to the amount of meetings, summits, statements and undisclosed bilateral treaties they are willing to offer (or more like, concede).
As such I thought it this winter row of secret bilateral agreements with UK, France and Germany was a bad news.
Its how Western countries operated during the past decade whether for Ukraine in the 2014-2022 period, Syria or some other places.
No, this is silly.
The US and other NATO countries have serious pilot recruitment and training shortfalls, so not only would training and equipping an entire air force for Ukraine from scratch have been an enormous - and fairly low-impact - investment on the order of EVERYTHING fiscally-committed to Ukraine aid to date, it would have seriously damaged their own military institutions. Far beyond, say, sending every last article in the ground stockpiles, which by the way are much more useful in this kind of war.
Again, it would make a hell of a lot more sense to just declare war on Russia and apply those NATO air forces directly, than to spend years and hundreds of billions and one's own precious inventory to outfit a crappy, uncompetitive air force, and at the expense of one's own relatively-excellent air forces at that.
You're observation makes more sense than what our US General said. Biden admin hasnt been a fan of sending the F16s anyway
Thanks Tom!
Finite la comedia. Several more strikes like this and and ukraine is doomed.
It seems peace negotiations are around the corner judging by this devastating strikes on energy grid and news from Turkey, Russia and USA. Ukrainian energy experts are very pessimistic about UA ability to fix at least part of generation by winter.
There's no way to do so 'by winter' - and also: there is no end of the Russian offensive on TPPs in sight.
Beside power plants, Russia is targeting huge underground gas storage in western Ukraine (where even EU companies have some gas). If they succeed, electricity and gas prices will hike in EU, another batch of million of refugees would come in winter again. So, the total price of EU would pay would be much higher than sending proper military support ASAP.
Its not a problem. There is no serious damage they can do to gas storage. Only to some equipment on top. But it can be easily and quickly fixed. Ukraininan gas transportation system is using around 1/3 of its capacity.
There has not been any serious damage, yet. Apparently, Russians think they can destroy something important otherwise they would not send expensive missiles there.
Have you even seen a live gas distribution station for gas? You think it can be rebuilt in a month. Even to restore an electrical substation, for example, 110 kV, you need 2-3 months. I am telling you this as a project engineer with 25 years of experience. And yes, by the way, why is the European Union not outraged by the strikes on gas storages and does not ask Russia to stop it:))
No i did not see. All my information comes from some youtube 'experts' (like popenko and zakrevskiy)
The main point is that they cant destroy underearth storage, and on top infrustructure is used on 1/3 of its capacity. So it will take ru quite a while to demolish all of it. Regarding EU - I have no idea. Why does it even matter?
I am afraid that cost benefit analysis will not be acted upon. Still correct.
The trouble is that those TPPs provided heating to cities. No heating = no life in winter.
Peace negotiations are as dangerous because of the West as they are because of Russia; once a reprieve is granted, human nature would suggest that Ukraine will fall off the radar of we freedom-loving nations in the West, allowing Russia to continue squeezing. More and more, I only see an end to this when the stability of the Kremlin regime is better served by withdrawing than by continuing to bear the cost of invading. Ergo strikes on the petrochem infrastructure play their part.
Dangerous for whom?
What can be more dangerous for ukrainians then mobilization we do not want or freezing out during next winter? or staying without electricity during 30+ degree in summer?
Man, when you are talking "we" please don't mean all Ukrainians. It's only your personal opinion. Without mobilisation, Ukraine doesn't exist. If you want to give up, ok! Please, don't interrupt other people to fight.
Sure. I did not mean to talk for all. All i say comes from my personal perspective and my surrounding.
By the way I hope you are writing from the front line, otherwise your comment would have no sense.
What a funny russian shit-bot. If ukrainians won't be mobilised into Ukrainian army they will be mobilised to the ruzzian one - ask men from Donetsk, those that are still alive.
At least, one positive in all this is that since the Ukrainians have started running out of AD missile, the number of Russian attacks on kindergartens and schools has gone way down.
For your next fundraiser I would humbly suggest getting money to buy the Palestinians some stingers so they can fight back against the indiscriminate bombing of civilians performed by the IDF and enabled by the freedom loving US.
Sorry for the sarcasm, it is contagious.
Can you comment on the information spread by the pro Russian sources that the Azov brigade refused the order to deploy and fight in Chasov Yar ?
What is even the realistic way out of this now, barring the West magically pull its head out of the sand or a hithero unseen Russian internal event that could lead to a sudden end or collapse. European contributions means some equipment and shells will continue to get into Ukraine, but how much is that enough for beyond some delaying defense with slow retreat. Thats assuming Ukraine has enough soldiers...
It's infuriating that even with a time machine I couldn't do anything to help because of incompetent our leaders are.
Break the Russian war machine: Strike oil refineries, air bases, factories, logistical & command hubs. Increase sanctions and embargos. Fight attritional battles in defense, to increase Russia's cost of waging war. Build diplomatic ties with Ukraine and isolate Russia. And do it sneakily enough so that people in power who think that Russia ought not to lose will be taken by surprise.
Ty for the updates Tom. Appreciate all the work you put into every update or article
US military officers have deliberately learned absolutely nothing from Iraq or Afghanistan. Within a year or two of every colossal fuckup sponsored scholars pump out the next approved memory-hole project designed to rewrite failure as victory.
To wit, the entire Petraeus myth and legend of the Surge. It is now official history that the War in Iraq was won by throwing more bodies at the problem - every American general's favorite solution. Tried and failed in Afghanistan, but no matter. Just like after Vietnam, senior officers responsible for the mess were determined to pretend that if the politicians hadn't bound their hands victory was assured.
In reality, the US was almost defeated by the insurgency, and finally saw the plain sense in a recommendation made by a USMC captain (who was later KIA). You split the psycho wing of the insurgents that always forms from the sane people mad at their country being occupied. Give the latter autonomy and resources and let them do the police work only locals can do anyway. Don't fucking launch an air strike or kick down doors in some neighborhood every time someone takes a potshot at you.
That's the lesson to draw from russia's even stupider attempt to dominate another country. But will the Pentagon? No, because they want a forever war with China that imitates how they imagine WW2 going. They want to be able to play war of attrition with ordinary soldiers acting like robots from Command and Conquer. Most aren't much better at their jobs than orc officers.
/end rant
Written by someone who ordinary drill sergeants fresh from the sandbox were already training soldiers in basic counterinsurgency tactics while Petraeus was still pretending he had single-handedly secured Mosul.
A former RAF flight trainer has an interview out just now on the Ukrainian F-16 training.
Might be of interest.
https://www.ukcolumn.org/video/winging-it-why-is-the-uk-training-ukrainian-pilots
The guy sounds so pessimistic and his comments about NATO Russia relationships are a red flag. Then he goes to talk about how Boris Johnson got the Ukrainians to continue fighting instead of accepting a stalemate. Guy is an idyat tbh. I pray no Ukrainian pilots get in contact with him.
Mate, you never met any kind of British veterans in person?
Yeah I mean, it's a conspiracy theorist's website (not that there's anything wrong with that) and he's definitely got his fair share of issues and now is largely a video game YouTuber apparently.
Still I thought his skepticism about the "Wunderwaffen F-16 hypothesis" were kinda interesting.
Thanks Tom. While we know about the lack of AD systems, do you have any comment on how much of a problem lack (or rationing) of AD missiles is currently?
The lack of PAC and IRIS-T missiles is the biggest problem, right now. The stocks are down to 'dozens'.
....which actually means: even if the EU finds and ships 7 PAC batteries to Ukraine, it's not going to help, because - just like all the artillery sent to Ukraine - there will be no ammo for them...
And that's why you cannot win a war with anti-missile and anti-aircraft systems alone.
The cost of equipping enough PAC-2 and PAC-3 launchers to face off the hundreds of ballistic missiles being launched every month is non-sustainable.
Ukraine ought to have hundreds of ballistic missiles for a serious deterrence (starting from 300 km range ATACMS and cruise missiles etc), with large precision munitions (both unitary and cluster) and able to hit within the Russian and Belarusian lands.
Playing only defense is a fool's errand. Ukraine has to be able to strike back at their enemy lands.
I’m wondering if anyone has thought to recruit ex F-16 pilots to form a Flying Tiger type outfit.
Do you know any ex F-16 pilot willing to fight? And still able to fly combat sorties? (Not like 58 old year Dan Hampton, with all respect to him.)
I wish I did. I think that with all the F-16/F-18 pilots in all the air forces in the world that have retired, there should be a good number to recruit.
Eric Prince proposed this around March 2022 since we had about 150 F16s and F15s in storage, great condition and several former pilots. They would have been ready in 2022 but Biden admin completely refused this.
Yes, a few have (actually, few days ago was chatting with somebody who attempted this).
Essentially, all he could find were few 'slightly over-aged gentlemen': mind that pilots know better than to rush to Ukraine, like so many Westerners did in 2022, only to find out they can't count with artillery support, and air support, and orbital support to which they're used when serving with US/NATO forces. What a surprise the mass has meanwhile left...
....and then, there's also the corruption within ranks of ZSU logistics system. This is so massive, that even the mass of foreign arms traders gave up all the hope: they stopped dealing with Kyiv and are selling arms and ammo 'to Ukraine' but via EU-members.
My depression deepens. I need a fix of hope
We lived like this for 30 years. So its ok. Everything will be ok one way or another.
Thanks for bringing this issue up. For some reason a ton of UA supporters believe its heaven here and no problems within the state itself.
Concerning the budget of the European Council the European Parliament refused to confirm Ukrainian media got wise that it is only the confirmation of the budget of 2022. It is next to nothing. So the whole mess is in fact no more then a PR-action for the imbeciles.
A few observations :
I don’t understand why Ukraine aren’t ‘recruiting’ previous F-16 pilots from the west to incorporate under a partisan Air Wing. There must be 100s of recently retired F-16 pilots who would consider joining under some such body. A bit like the ground units but in the air.
Today we see the US moving ‘additional air defence units’ to the Middle East. They can find them to protect assets there no problems yet are happy for Ukraine to suffer
Lastly - there is an interview I saw today from an Ex-US forces sniper. You’ve probably seen it. I think you could share this and ask it is spread far and wide across the American supporters to help them realise the magnitude of the situation.
Biden admin blocked this!!
Because Biden prohibited that (and, to make sure: Dumpf would've done the same).
....and even if: actually, few days ago was chatting with somebody who attempted this.
Essentially, all he could find were few 'slightly over-aged gentlemen': mind that pilots know better than to rush to Ukraine, like so many Westerners did in 2022, only to find out they can't count with artillery support, and air support, and orbital support to which they're used when serving with US/NATO forces. What a surprise the mass has meanwhile left...
....and then, there's also the corruption within ranks of ZSU logistics system. This is so massive, that even the mass of foreign arms traders gave up all the hope: they stopped dealing with Kyiv and are selling arms and ammo 'to Ukraine' but via EU-members (which, of course, is making all the resulting trade deals even more expensive and taking even more time....)
So: is Ukraine finished? Was the attack on the power station Putin’s winning goal?
No
I would really like to think that there’s a way of restoring some of the power plant and protecting it better so that the next attack isn’t so devastating. Can we in Europe make this our moment to do something effective. Ukraine can’t take this for ever.
I was indeed hoping for a strongly negative response to my question but I’d like a bit more indication of these devastating blows can be parried
Distributed electric generation using diesels like the Caterpillar C-175 (2.5-3 MW each) and connecting these to the 25 kV AC system would be a possible short-term response. Or decommissioned diesel generators from Greek islands which have been connected (at last!) to the mainland electricity distribution system maybe... (yes, most Greek islands, even Crete, were dependent on diesel generators for many years)
Nope. There's no way to 'finish' Ukraine.
But, the war is now going to get even longer and cost many more Ukrainian lives.
Trypilla TPP was attacked by 2 shaheds and 7 cruise missiles after 20 minutes after shaheds without any single shot of AD, even machinguns were silent which is extremely strange. All 7 hits were rhythmic according to tu-95 firing tempo (but it has only 6 in one salvo). 3th and 4th explosion were significantly weaker than rest(like regular cruise missiles), all the rest were much louder, I assume it was Kh-101 with doubled warhead
Was the AD busy with something else?
Have no idea. During alarm they have only one loudy job IMHO
By "something else" I meant covering another area/objects.
Maybe they were testing some new EW or tools that didn't work. Otherwise the reasons for not reacting for 20 minutes could be very bad. What is the chance for betrayal?
I think it's extremely low, I rather believe in absense of AD.
One more Patriot is coming, hopefully it will get better. It will replace the one that was lost.
By Shaheds and Khs? Defence Express says Kh-69s....
I assume 2 of them were Kh-69 but the rest were 101 with doubled warheads: perfect interval for salvo and explosion sounds. Officials reported that only 6 cruise missiles and one shahed hit the target but only for trypilla TPP it already isn't true. And there were other places where missiles also hit targets.
Btw the only reason why AD was silent because Kh-69 ca be manually corrected. Kh-101s are baits for SAMs and 69 aimed manually to a launch sites. Everything else sounds like conspiracy theories.
how do you know so many details? got any link for a video?
That all of Ukraine’s TPPs will be gone should be already the base scenario. After that Russia will aim at the substations of the nuclear plants. Mobile or small engine-based ( not turbines) generators can provide relief to most industrial plants and small towns/villages. Ukraine has enough natural gas production to sustain thousands of natural gas-based engines. This is expensive and combined with diesel generators much dirtier. Yet, the collective West is more obsessed with spending trillions on green follies, rather than help Ukraine - which will have the immediate effect of stopping all the co2 emissions from the war effort. Currently Russian refineries are getting a better treatment from Western officials than US shale oil producers or European coal plants.
If you hit nuclear power plant substations, there is a chance that you will not be able to stop the reactor and then you will get Chernobyl-2.0. Keep in mind that the equipment at Ukrainian nuclear power plants is not fully modernized and it is possible that the automation will not work, although there are 3 levels of safety. For example, at South-Ukrainian NPP we designed emergency diesel generators in case the NPP's own needs are lost, taking into account the experience of Fukushima. At Zaporizhzhya NPP it was also done after the occupation of the NPP, it saved the plant in case of loss of external power supply, they emergency connected just diesel generators.