Ukraine war mega thread

[bsnub]

If America leaves NATO (please do), and you lose all your European partner basses...., and Ukraine join NATO immediately then the world would be a better place. Please go...

Let's face it once again the Drumpf administration is finding itself on the wrong side of history firstly by cutting off Ukraine and secondly by even insinuating that they would leave NATO. The overwhelming majority of Americans support Ukraine, and they support arming Ukraine as well. Most Americans also support staying in NATO.

now your Empire is dead

Damaged yes but not dead. After the coming midterm elections the Democrats will certainly take back the house and possibly the Senate. Things will start to change, and we will have less than two years of this horridly incompetent moronic administration.

Inregard to FaRT he is an idiot who is just regurgitating talking points supplied by has fat orange god, he has no idea what he is talking about.

[Bettyboo]

^ My worry is that this is the new American norm and the Dems will act in a similar way - people don't give up power. Why wouldn't a democrat get elected then just work for 4 years to enrich themselves in the same way; add 3 new members to the Supreme Court, so they win every ruling? (You'd think the Dems would impeach such a person, but you'd think the Republicans would - they all despise Trump, the speaker has been caught on the mic saying so - but they just love the $$$ too much) (like all countries).

But I hope you're correct and America does come back.

I fear that Trump will do some awful things that we cannot imagine in the midterms then end up claiming victory across the board - the Supreme Court will likely support him. I would be surprised if dozens or scores of American citizens were killed by Trump supporters and ICE during the midterms then all given pardons. Or, Trump just takes all the ballots from every county/state and says he won them all. It all sounds absurd, but list the things he has done already - there is no end to his insanity (like Bibi who is suggesting he'll stay another term which means bringing more ultra right nutters in, probably killing everyone in Gazza, displacing every Muslim from the West Bank, and taking over Lebanon 100%.

These two sociopaths will do anything to stay out of prison - killing means nothing to them; a few, tens, hundreds, thousands, tens of thousands - they don't care. The only person in the world who exists (in their minds) is them.

[bsnub]

My worry is that this is the new American norm and the Dems will act in a similar way - people don't give up power.

That will never happen. Dems still are sane and they remember American history. From the very outset of the republic our leaders gave up power...

Having now finished the work assigned me, I retire from the great theatre of Action; and bidding an Affectionate farewell to this August body under whose orders I have so long acted, I here offer my Commission, and take my leave of all the employments of public life.— George Washington

George Washington's resignation as commander-in-chief - Wikipedia

[Bettyboo]

^ That was a while ago Chuck and Nancy don't seem build of the same fine stuff, imho...

I wonder what lies Trump will say today to stop a big drop in the markets - there's real potential for drops...

[bsnub]

That was a while ago Chuck and Nancy don't seem build of the same fine stuff, imho...

You are wrong there mate.

I wonder what lies Trump will say today to stop a big drop in the markets - there's real potential for drops...

Who cares he slit his own throat with the Iran war. Gas prices through the roof and everything is more expensive at this point. Frankly I would be shocked if the Dems do not clean sweep the House and Senate. But enough about shit American politics. This is a thread about Ukraine kicking the shit out of the ruzzian scum.

[cyrille]

I fear that Trump will do some awful things that we cannot imagine in the midterms then end up claiming victory across the board - the Supreme Court will likely support him. I would be surprised if dozens or scores of American citizens were killed by Trump supporters and ICE during the midterms then all given pardons. Or, Trump just takes all the ballots from every county/state and says he won them all. It all sounds absurd

It sounds entirely possible.

One has to believe Trump was robbed of an election win.

Which surely the likes of Rubio and Hegseth must have agreed to.

What a bunch of pathetic brown nosers.

[cyrille]

But as snubby pointed out...wrong thread.

[bsnub]

Tuesday marked the third anniversary of Yevgeny Prigozhin’s mutiny against Russian President Vladimir Putin. Prigozhin failed and paid with his life. But Russia as a whole, and Russian-occupied Crimea in particular, might have been better off had the man once known as “Putin’s chef” succeeded in overthrowing the regime in Moscow.

Prigozhin understood something Putin could not: The Kremlin is incapable of defeating Ukraine on a conventional military basis.

Putin still appears unable to grasp this. On the day of Prigozhin’s uprising, Russian dead and wounded numbered just over 223,000. Three years later, Russian losses in Ukraine have swelled more than sixfold, nearing 1.4 million.

Putin’s end in Ukraine is coming. Russia cannot continue to sustain these levels of military losses. On Tuesday, NATO Secretary General Mark Rutte noted that Putin is losing as many as 35,000 Russian soldiers each month. He also said that Moscow is spending 50 percent of its government budget on its military. For reference, the U.S. spends only about 15 percent of its federal budget (and no more than 9 percent of its overall combined state and national government budgets) on defense.

Even Vladimir Solovyov, considered one of Putin’s top propagandists, is worried. On his top-rated Russia-1 prime time show, Solovyov lashed out at Russia’s Central Bank for keeping interest rates high. He claimed it is causing construction to halt on vital dams and barriers to protect Russian bridges and military infrastructure.

Yet then Solovyov said the quiet part out loud: “We are building dams. But in the last couple of days there has been no work — there is no money. How is that possible?” Putin’s economy, like his war machine, is running on empty.

And it is likely to get worse in Crimea. Since the opening months of Russia’s full-scale invasion on February 24, 2022, the Ukraine has methodically built a multi-domain military campaign designed to degrade and isolate Russian forces based on the strategic Black Sea peninsula.

For much of 2022, Ukraine’s early efforts focused on targeting Russian naval assets and seaports used to reinforce and supply Crimea. As early as March 2022, Kyiv was using ballistic missiles to strike the port at Berdyansk on Sea of Azov. One month later, a Ukrainian Neptune anti-ship missile sank the cruiser Moskva, the flagship of the Russian Black Sea fleet.

Eventually, the Kremlin was forced to evacuate its Sevastopol naval headquarters in Crimea after it was struck by Ukrainian Storm Shadow and SCALP missiles, relocating what remained of its fleet to Novorossiysk and other Russian naval bases in the Black Sea.

By late 2022, Ukraine, using unmanned aerial vehicles, began conducting airstrikes deep inside of Russian-occupied Crimea. In addition to hitting Sevastopol, Ukrainian they struck the vital Saky airbase, destroying or badly damaging Russian aircraft and razing the airfield’s ammunition stores.

Notably, in October 2022, Ukraine conducted one of its earliest special operations when a truck laden with explosives collapsed a large section of road and railway spans of the Kerch Bridge, which connects the Crimean peninsula to the Russian mainland. Even then, Ukraine was focused on isolating Crimea.

During 2023, Ukraine intensified strikes on a multi-domain basis throughout Crimea. This included using sea drones, cruise missiles, special operations raids, and sustained aerial attacks against Russian logistics.

Key Ukrainian successes in 2023 included damaging the Rostov-on-Don submarine and Minsk landing ship in dry dock, as well as a daring beach commando raid on Cape Tarkhankut in western Ukraine. Throughout the year, the Ukrainians increased the tempo of strikes against Russian naval repair facilities and command and control nodes.

In 2024, the introduction of U.S.-made ATACMS and other improvised deep-strike weapons kept Russian forces largely pinned down on the peninsula. Throughout 2025 and 2026, it became clear that the Ukrainians were setting conditions to isolate the peninsula and make it untenable for Russian forces.

In recent weeks and months, Ukraine has increased its military strikes against Russian air defenses, oil depots, fuel facilities, energy infrastructure, and Russian bases throughout the peninsula.

Ukraine is also intensifying its military stranglehold on the Russian land bridge that connects Russia to Crimea. The key Russian logistics route is now restricted to military traffic, which faces persistent interdiction from Ukrainian drones, rendering large portions of it unusable.

Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky and his generals are methodically isolating Crimea, turning off the lights for Putin as they do so. On Wednesday, the Kyiv Independent reported that half of Crimea is now without power due to Ukrainian strikes. Russian authorities in Crimea have not only been forced to ration fuel but to halt all gasoline sales to civilians.

Putin’s end is coming in Crimea. As we and retired Lt. Gen. Ben Hodges have long argued, Crimea is the decisive terrain of this war. Ukraine does not even have to retake it — it needs only to render it untenable for Russian military use. That day is now fast approaching

The struggle for Crimea will likely culminate in Ukraine finally destroying Putin’s $4 billion Kerch Bridge. Can Putin politically survive the loss of Crimea to Ukraine? We highly doubt it.

https://thehill.com/opinion/national...ching-ukraine/

[Norton]

Putin’s reign may not survive the impending fall of Crimea

Putin is done. What the Ukraine has accomplished with less than full support from the EU, UK and USA is nothing short of military brilliance. The recent increase in support by increasing funding, defensive military equipment and long range strike weapons is a hammer blow to Putin. The final nail in his coffin will come when the west goes full out in allowing him to sell Russian oil. Hopefully coming soon!

[bsnub]

What the Ukraine has accomplished with less than full support from the EU, UK and USA is nothing short of military brilliance.

I stopped posting regular military updates in this thread some time ago. I do not think most here have any idea what has been going on of recently. Most of it never makes it to the mainstream "press".

Most of ruzzia has no gas. Just stop and think of about that for a second. No one would have thought that remotely possible even two years ago.

[cyrille]

It would be a shot in the arm for the world if one of the current idiotic exercises in waging war were to come to an end.

Norton, could you explain how the UK's support is lacking?

[Bettyboo]

^ We talk a lot, but don't add any money... Have you seen Starmer's defence increase to 2030, it's something like 0.018% (that may or may not be accurate... ).

But, we have helped with training and having Ukranian weapons factories in the UK (maybe, we'll get some ideas...). Also, It seems that the SAS has had a permanent presence in Ukraine on and around the frontline for many years, helping the Ukrainian special forces a lot.

[misskit]

Russia preparing possible ‘provocation’ in Baltic states or Poland, sources say

Two countries on Nato’s eastern flank have warned that Russia is preparing a possible “provocation” in the Baltic states or Poland in an effort to test the cohesion of the western military alliance.


Western sources also fear there could be danger on the horizon because the Kremlin is coming under pressure from Ukraine’s campaign of long-range attacks on targets near Moscow and St Petersburg.


On Monday, Latvian intelligence said: “We see indications that Russia is preparing military provocations against the Baltic countries or Poland.” However, it would be well short of a full-scale attack.


A senior political source from a second Nato member made a similar statement last week. They said “we are picking up intelligence” that Vladimir Putin was “planning something against the Baltic states”.

They said Putin might be willing to test US support for some of Nato’s smallest member countries – Estonia, Latvia and Lithuania – in a desperate effort “to throw the dice” as Russia struggles with its invasion of Ukraine.


On Thursday night, Poland’s prime minister went on record with his own concerns.


“We also share, without exception, the [at]opinion that the situation is very ​unstable and various types of ⁠escalation can be expected ​in the ​coming ​weeks and ​months,” Donald Tusk said at a press conference after the Eastern Flank summit in Gdansk. “We will want to prepare as a group of countries directly exposed to this risk.”

Latvian intelligence said Russia was not capable of opening a second front, but was considering “hybrid attacks, such as missiles, drones or other actions designed to send a signal: stop supporting Ukraine, or you will have your own problems”.


Though the warnings appear linked, there was only limited supporting detail, unlike the detailed warnings released by the CIA and MI6 before Russia’s full-scale invasion of Ukraine in February 2022.


But they come at a time when Russia’s advance in Ukraine has stalled, raising questions about whether the Kremlin would turn to alternative strategies to break the deadlock or change the dynamics in its favour.


Keir Giles, a Russia expert with the Chatham House thinktank, said: “Moscow will be looking for ways to disrupt the current trend, through horizontal escalation [spreading the conflict to other countries] or doing something elsewhere. We should not expect Russia to passively lose.”


Russia’s relative weakness was underlined this week when drone relay stations in Belarus stopped operating after Ukraine threatened to attack them. Volodymyr Zelenskyy, Ukraine’s president, had given Belarus a one-week warning last Friday, saying the equipment enabled Russian attacks on his country.


One Telegram channel reported that the Belarusian authorities in the Brest and Gomel regions of the country had demanded the mobile operators dismantle the repeaters because they were interfering with grouse nesting sites.

Nato will hold its annual summit in Ankara, Turkey, this month amid uncertainty about US commitment to the alliance. On Wednesday, Donald Trump said he felt “let down” by European allies who did not allow the US air force to bomb Iran from airfields in their countries.


Since the start of the full-scale invasion of Ukraine there have been several waves of Russian sabotage and provocative activity, including the planting of firebombs in DHL parcels in the UK, Poland and Germany in the summer of 2024.


Last September, 19 Russian decoy drones crossed into Polish airspace, prompting Nato to scramble jets to try to shoot them down as people in three eastern provinces were told to shelter indoors.


Ukraine has gradually developed a homegrown deep strike attack capability able to hit targets 2,000km inside Russia. Last week nearly 200 drones hit several locations in Moscow and black oil rained down on parts of the Russian capital after a refinery was bombed.


A western military source said there was a concern that Russia could lash out if Putin thought he was under pressure as the war shifted to the skylines of Moscow and St Petersburg. “I cannot lie, that is a period of danger,” they said.


Worries about a possible Russian escalation also surfaced in autumn 2022, when a sudden set of reversals in Kharkiv province led to western fears that Moscow could even use a nuclear weapon to protect itself. But there was no evidence of steps to an actual deployment and the frontline stabilised by the end of the year.

Russia preparing possible ‘provocation’ in Baltic states or Poland, sources say | Russia | The Guardian

[bsnub]

Also, It seems that the SAS has had a permanent presence in Ukraine on and around the frontline for many years, helping the Ukrainian special forces a lot.

I posted about this on the last page unfortunately the video I linked does not seem to be posting on this forum.