Thread: Russia launches Ukraine invasion

Originally Posted by malmomike77

Germany must drop its opposition to sending tanks to Ukraine or Vladimir Putin’s forces could gain the upper hand in the war, Nato allies warned on Thursday.

German's have some fine tanks but it's up to Germany to decide if some will go to the Ukraine.
NATO allies should STFU and let Germany decide.

Putin's forces could gain upper hand but implying because the Ukraine lacks German tanks is the reason is nonsense.

Ex-SEAL dies in Ukraine; 6th known American killed in war

A former U.S. Navy SEAL was killed this week in Ukraine, American officials said Friday. They said he was not fighting in an official capacity.


Daniel W. Swift is a former member of the Navy SEALs who is listed in official records as having deserted since March 2019.


The Navy said Swift was killed Wednesday, adding, “We cannot speculate as to why the former Sailor was in Ukraine.”

At least five other Americans are known to have died fighting in Ukraine, according to State Department statements and reports from individual families.


Swift joined the Navy in 2005 and a SEAL unit in 2007. He would leave the service and return in 2015, rejoining the SEALs a year later.


The U.S. government has discouraged Americans from going to fight for Ukraine, citing concerns that they may be captured by Russian forces and held hostage. At least 6,000 people contacted the Ukrainian embassy in Washington during the opening weeks of the war seeking information about how to volunteer on behalf of Ukraine.


Half the potential volunteers were quickly rejected for lacking military experience, having a criminal record, or otherwise not being fit to serve, Ukraine's military attaché said last year.


An unknown number of Americans have joined units of foreign fighters supporting Kyiv. Others are volunteering with aid groups and human-rights organizations.


The State Department declined to address Swift's death specifically but said in a statement that it could confirm the recent death of a U.S. citizen in Ukraine.


“We are in touch with his family and providing all possible consular assistance,” the department said.

Ex-SEAL dies in Ukraine; 6th known American killed in war | Taiwan News | 2023-01-21 05:59:42

Originally Posted by Norton

NATO allies should STFU and let Germany decide.

You are gonna flip flop on that one !

You know why ?


Cause you are a flip flopper



BSnuff will red me for talking bad to 101

#2651 is a prime example of "it's one rule for Us, but another one for You". How many mercenaries did the US employ in Iraq & elsewhere? So they are hardly in a position to lecture Russia, or Wagner, or whatever other mercenaries the russkis might be using. You set the example, guys.

Originally Posted by sabang

#2651 is a prime example of "it's one rule for Us, but another one for You". How many mercenaries did the US employ in Iraq & elsewhere? So they are hardly in a position to lecture Russia, or Wagner, or whatever other mercenaries the russkis might be using. You set the example, guys.

Yawn... A whatabout straight out of ohohs propaganda handbook. They should be classified a terrorist organisation and if you did a bit of deeper digging in Africa you would know this. But no keep going with your R.T. like journalistic nonsense. The rest of my opinion of you on your lack of any empathy for the murdered Ukrainian citizens shall, at least as best I can, be in thought only.

Originally Posted by sabang

$419 million? Ukraine is running a budget Deficit of $5 billion a month.

To defend yourself when attacked? Cheaper than living under Russian rule and being decimated by the fuckers

Originally Posted by Hugh Cow

Yawn... A whatabout straight out of ohohs propaganda handbook

Utterly laughable comparison, too.

Originally Posted by helge

BSnuff will red me for talking bad to 101

You are just making a fool of yourself all over the forum. Clearly piss drunk on a bender.

High-level visit by Burns comes at critical juncture in war and as government in Kyiv airs concern about durability of U.S. support


CIA Director William J. Burns traveled in secret to Ukraine’s capital at the end of last week to brief President Volodymyr Zelensky on his expectations for what Russia is planning militarily in the coming weeks and months, said a U.S. official and other people familiar with the visit.


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Burns’s travel comes at a critical juncture in the 11-month war. Russian forces are mounting a massive assault near the eastern city of Bakhmut that is causing many casualties on both sides and forcing Ukraine to weigh its resources there as it prepares a major counteroffensive elsewhere in the country.



Top of mind for Zelensky and his senior intelligence officials during the meeting was how long Ukraine could expect U.S. and Western assistance to continue following Republicans’ takeover of the House and a drop-off in support of Ukraine aid among parts of the U.S. electorate, said people familiar with the meeting. All spoke on the condition of anonymity to discuss the private high-level engagement.



Burns emphasized the urgency of the moment on the battlefield and acknowledged that at some point assistance would be harder to come by, the people said.

Zelensky and his aides came away from last week’s meeting with the impression that the Biden administration’s support for Kyiv remains strong and the $45 billion in emergency funding for Ukraine passed by Congress in December would last at least through July or August, those familiar with the discussion said. Kyiv is less certain about the prospects of Congress passing another multibillion-dollar supplemental assistance package as it did last spring, they said.

[Mainstream Republicans back Marjorie Taylor Greene audit of Ukraine aid]

While hawkish Republicans in Congress continue to favor arming Ukraine, other conservatives have said they want to slash U.S. spending, in particular, the billions of dollars going to the war effort.



“Director Burns traveled to Kyiv where he met with Ukrainian intelligence counterparts as well as President Zelensky and reinforced our continued support for Ukraine in its defense against Russian aggression,” a U.S. official said.

Burns is a respected figure among Zelensky’s inner circle because of his accurate warning in January 2022 that Russian forces would seek to capture Ukraine’s Antonov Airport in the opening stages of the Feb. 24 invasion. His message, delivered in person, was based on a U.S. intelligence assessment and is credited with helping Ukraine prepare to defend the airport and deny Russia a foothold needed to capture Kyiv.

Burns’s skeptical view of Russia’s willingness to negotiate also has endeared him to Zelensky’s aides, who have bristled at suggestions Ukraine should consider talking to the Russians to end the conflict.



“Most conflicts end in negotiations, but that requires a seriousness on the part of the Russians in this instance that I don’t think we see,” Burns told PBS last month. “At least, it’s not our assessment that the Russians are serious at this point about a real negotiation.”

A CIA spokesperson declined to characterize what Burns relayed to Zelensky on Russia’s military planning. Any insights he might offer would be highly valued in Kyiv.


Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky after his address to Congress on Dec. 21. (Win McNamee/Getty Images)

At the moment, Ukrainian and Russian forces are locked in an intense war of attrition in eastern Ukraine around Bakhmut. The city has relatively little strategic value but it has taken on symbolic importance for both sides, in particular, Russia, which hasn’t captured a major Ukrainian city since last summer.


Military analysts expect that an uptick in fighting this spring could determine the war’s trajectory.


The United States and Western countries are rushing armored vehicles, artillery and missiles to Ukraine in an effort to bolster its military’s firepower, hopeful the additional equipment will enable Zelensky’s army to break through Russian-controlled areas such as Zaporizhzhia in an offensive expected to begin in the coming months.

[Bloody Bakhmut siege poses risks for Ukraine]

Russia, meanwhile, is looking to launch its own offensive in the spring, stoking expectations that it will draft more troops following last September’s mobilization of 300,000 men. Russian Defense Minister Sergei Shoigu unveiled a proposal in December to increase the country’s military personnel to 1.5 million by 2026, up from 1.1 million now.


Moscow, which has recruited convicted felons in the war effort, has shown a willingness to endure heavy casualties. Last year, many of the recruits were highly inexperienced, given only two weeks of training before being sent to the front lines. But in recent months, Russia has improved its training, according to Western intelligence officials.


Burns, a former ambassador to Russia and senior State Department official, is one of the U.S. government’s foremost experts on Russia. He has thought extensively about the place Ukraine takes in the Russian psyche.

During the George W. Bush administration, when the topic of NATO membership for Ukraine was discussed, Burns underscored the depth of Russian opposition to the idea in a memo to Condoleezza Rice, then secretary of state.


“Ukrainian entry into NATO is the brightest of all redlines for the Russian elite (not just [Vladimir] Putin),” he wrote. “I have yet to find anyone who views Ukraine in NATO as anything other than a direct challenge to Russian interests.”

More recently, Burns has linked the Russian president’s decision to invade Ukraine as a key step in his goal of returning Moscow to its former glory.


“He is convinced that his destiny as Russia’s leader is to restore Russia as a great power,” he told an audience at a security forum in Aspen in July. “He believes the key to doing that is to re-create a sphere of influence in Russia’s neighborhood and he does not believe you can do that without controlling Ukraine and its choices. And so that’s what produced, I think, this horrible war.”

[CIA director met Zelensky in Kyiv as Russian missiles targeted capital]

Burns also visited Ukraine in November. The trips offer the spy chief an opportunity to build trust with his intelligence counterparts and form a better understanding of the conflict, said people familiar with his travels.


Burns’s latest trip came ahead of a busy week of engagements on Ukraine.

On Tuesday, Gen. Mark A. Milley, chairman of the U.S. Joint Chiefs of Staff, met with his Ukrainian counterpart in Poland for their first face-to-face interaction since the start of the war.


On Wednesday, Zelensky urged Ukraine’s supporters to send tanks and air defense missiles, and criticized Germany for refusing to supply its modern Leopard tanks unless the United States sends the more advanced Abrams tanks.

“There are times where we shouldn’t hesitate,” Zelensky told an audience in Davos, Switzerland, via video feed.

That same day, NATO defense ministers began a two-day meeting in Brussels where the topic of Leopard tanks divided allies, with Poland threatening to send 14 tanks regardless of whether Germany approves. Technically, Germany’s approval is required because it is the manufacturer of the Leopard 2.

“Either we will obtain this consent, or we will do the right thing ourselves,” Polish Prime Minister Mateusz Morawiecki told a local broadcaster.

https://archive.vn/qKdL3

Germans remain adamantly opposed to sending any Leopard tanks to Ukraine


The US and other allies pledged light vehicles and other weapons in Ramstein today. The US share is up to $25 billion.

JANUARY 20, 2023
Written by
Anatol Lieven


The Ukrainian government will be deeply disappointed that the meeting of Western defense chiefs at Ramstein air base in Germany did not agree to give German-made Leopard 2 main battle tanks to Ukraine. The countries represented at the meeting, however, did promise to send a disparate collection of other arms. The United States has pledged an extra 59 Bradley infantry fighting vehicles and 90 Stryker light armored personnel carriers. Other countries are supplying artillery, ammunition, and anti-aircraft weapons.

Today’s announcement brings the U.S. share up to nearly $27 billion over the course of the last year.

Germany, however, continues to refuse to send the Leopard tanks or to allow other countries that have previously bought the tanks (under conditions that require German permission for re-export) to do so. The Polish government has strongly condemned Berlin’s hesitation.

The German government has said that it will not do so unless the United States sends its own Abrams tanks (though the Biden administration has denied that this is a German condition). This the Biden administration has refused to do, citing the complex nature of the Abrams, the need for intense and specialized maintenance, and the length of time it would take to train the Ukrainians in their use. The objection has also been raised that supplying Ukraine with several different kinds of tanks, in addition to its original Soviet armor, would only cause confusion and inefficiency.

Britain is sending 14 Challenger tanks to Ukraine, and France is considering whether to send its Leclerc tanks. Given the limited size of European armored forces, the numbers of these available for supply to Ukraine by each country are very limited. The point about Germany supplying Leopards and allowing other NATO states to do so is that the Leopard is used by several different NATO armies, and so, if each supplies a limited number, that would still add up to a sizeable force — even if well short of the 300 tanks that Ukraine has requested. The Polish government has threatened that it might supply Leopards to Ukraine without Berlin’s permission, but that would put at risk its own future supply of spare parts from Germany.

In the end, the U.S. and German decisions on whether or not to send the tanks is not technical, but political. The Russian government has declared that NATO’s despatch of tanks would be a drastic escalation that would trigger unspecified but “unambiguously negative” consequences. “Potentially, this is extremely dangerous,” Kremlin spokesman Dmitri Peskov warned. “It will mean bringing the conflict to a whole new level which, of course, will not bode well from the point of view of global and pan-European security.”

The problem presented by this decision for NATO as an alliance, and for the U.S., German and French governments in particular, is that they do not actually know what they want in Ukraine. They have pledged to help Ukraine win, but have not decided what “victory” means. The Ukrainian, Polish, and Baltic governments know. They want the complete defeat of Russia, the reconquest of all the territory lost by Ukraine since 2014, and preferably the overthrow of the Putin regime and the break-up of the Russian state.

For cooler heads in Berlin, Paris, and Washington, this is a likely path to a NATO-Russia war and the possibility of mutual nuclear annihilation. Thus, the Biden administration is now being quoted as saying that it wishes Ukraine to be able to credibly threaten to take Crimea (which most Russians and most Crimeans regard as Russian territory that must be defended at all costs). At the same time, administration officials insist that this threat is intended to divert Russian troops, bring Russia to the negotiating table and make it willing to compromise, rather than to encourage Ukraine to actually attack Crimea. This is to put it mildly a complicated position, and a very difficult and dangerous line to negotiate — depending, as it would, on being able at a given point to persuade the Ukrainian army to stop.

As to the German government, it is caught between hostility toward Russia and respect for East European views held by many of its elites, and the deep inherited dread of European war and fear of economic depression among many ordinary Germans. In addition, generations of reliance on the United States in security issues have left Germany with neither the experience nor the will to undertake independent initiatives on critical international issues. A generous critic would say that, in its hesitation to give unconditional aid to Ukraine, the German government is simply responding to the deeply divided feelings of the German electorate. An unkind critic would quote Alexander Pope: “Willing to wound, but afraid to strike.”

https://responsiblestatecraft.org/2023/01/20/western-defense-chiefs-again-defer-on-tanks-to-ukraine/

Originally Posted by sabang

The German government has said that it will not do so unless the United States sends its own Abrams tanks

Fair nuff.

Originally Posted by Norton

Fair nuff.

Yup, because it takes 'contributions' to a whole new level. Defense vs attack.

Let's get this straight. Back in the 40s when no one wanted their tanks, they were everywhere. Now, when everyone wants their tanks, they are nowhere to be seen.

^ there's a lot of mixed messaging; the defence minister says its Scholz decision, Scholz says it will only approve if the US also sends Abrams, rumour that Scholz said its nothing to do with the US and they'll make a decision in a month or so - all a bit incoherent.

Originally Posted by malmomike77

Scholz says it will only approve if the US also sends Abrams

Scholz is changing goal posts. Before he said Germany would not act alone. Now many european countries want to send Leopard 2 tanks. Germany is basically alone in blocking it. Also there are plenty of statements from the US government that they are in favor of sending Leopard, saying that Leopard is more suitable for Ukraine needs than Abrams because of maintenance requirements.

The US’s highest-ranking military officer has issued a terrifying prediction for war-ravaged Ukraine, as the conflict enters its 12th month.

The highest-ranking military officer in the US has warned it will be “very, very difficult” to eject thousands of Russian forces from war-ravaged Ukraine, as the devastating conflict enters its 12th month.

US General Mark Milley reiterated concerns that Russian President Vladimir Putin’s aggression would not end this year, on Friday telling reporters at Germany’s Ramstein Air Base it was not realistic that Ukraine would win the war.

General Milley, who is principal adviser to US President Joe Biden and the Secretary for Defence, admitted Mr Biden and many European leaders believed the conflict could only end through negotiation.

FULL- United States General Mark Milley warns it will be very difficult to get Russian forces out of Ukraine | news.com.au — Australia’s leading news site

Originally Posted by Takeovers

saying that Leopard is more suitable for Ukraine needs than Abrams because of maintenance requirements.

Yep, there is no doubt the Leopard, certainly in the short term is more suitable for a variety of reasons.

I can understand some of the German reticence, its the first time its had to make a truly offensive decision post WWII and overturning 80 years of pacifist mindset is not easy. The reality is it sells its arms worldwide and in so doing is always party to the outcome of their use - in this instance they seem to be at odds with the NATO stance and i wonder how they would feel if the boot was on the other foot with NATO prevaricating on a crucial decision.

Originally Posted by Takeovers

Scholz is changing goal posts. Before he said Germany would not act alone. Now many european countries want to send Leopard 2 tanks.

I am not sure that he's moving the goalposts. Sending MBTs is a sign of aggression rather than defence and sending only the Leopard 2 in numbers could cause an escalation and Germany as the primary target of that escalation.

Yes, the UK are sending Challenger 2 tanks, but only 14 of them, not enough to make a big difference. There are many European countries with Leopard 2 and if each makes a contribution then maybe 100 could be supplied, which, although still not enough, could make a difference.

IMO the US are making excuses for not providing Ukraine with Abrams MBTs and putting the pressure on Germany to be the first aggressor.

Originally Posted by Takeovers

Patently false!

It's sabang, what do you expect.

Originally Posted by Troy

IMO the US are making excuses for not providing Ukraine with Abrams MBTs and putting the pressure on Germany to be the first aggressor.

Absolutely

Originally Posted by Troy

Sending MBTs is a sign of aggression rather than defence

It's obvious

Originally Posted by panama hat

Yup, because it takes 'contributions' to a whole new level. Defense vs attack.

Germany is rapidly becoming an also ran in this conflict and is far from the european leader it should be. Macron has shown he is not up to the task. The Uk has led Europe on every level in supplying weapons. I wont be surprised if one of the countries says to hell with a german vetoe and send leopards anyway. the Poles seem to be increasingly frustrated with German prevarication. It is the front line states that have shown Putin the middle finger while Shultz procrastinates.
Tanks may not win the war but they will be essential in any offensive mounted by Ukraine.This will seriously dent German credibility and damage its european leadership even more than it already has. It certainly has lost its leadership credentials in NATO.
Once again the world looks on and wonders where European leadership would be without the USA again in the vangard on what is essentially a european problem.
From Putins perspective, It looks like if he can de couple the Americans from this conflict the rest will crumble and It certainly looks that way whether fact or not.

Originally Posted by Troy

I am not sure that he's moving the goalposts.

He has moved the goalposts. First he said one thing then another when the first condition was met, that is called shifting the goalposts.

Originally Posted by Troy

sending only the Leopard 2 in numbers could cause an escalation and Germany as the primary target of that escalation.

That makes absolutely no difference at all. Germany is a NATO state, and Russia will do nothing about it at all.

Originally Posted by Troy

Yes, the UK are sending Challenger 2 tanks, but only 14 of them, not enough to make a big difference. There are many European countries with Leopard 2 and if each makes a contribution then maybe 100 could be supplied, which, although still not enough, could make a difference.

14 tanks of that caliber are enough to make a difference when combined with Marders, Bradley's and CV-90s that are already on their way to Ukraine. Add another 100–150 Leopards and that is 100% enough to wage a full of thunder run in Zaporizhia to take Melitopol.

That combined arms force coupled with HIMARS, and the fast moving mobile artillery would be capable of smashing entire Russian armored brigades. T-72s are not a match against all that kit.

Ukraine can not win this war militarily, and it comes to a point where sending more, and more provocative, weapons just involves sending more (mainly) young men needlessly to their death. Meanwhile, Ukraine is being decimated- economically, infrastructurally and demographically.

Time to start listening to the Pentagon leadership, and be looking for diplomatic solutions. These wunderwaffen are just a diversion.

Originally Posted by bsnub

That makes absolutely no difference at all. Germany is a NATO state, and Russia will do nothing about it at all.

That's your opinion but it is not the opinion of the German government or the EU in general.

Originally Posted by bsnub

That combined arms force coupled with HIMARS, and the fast moving mobile artillery would be capable of smashing entire Russian armored brigades.

Indeed and the EU/German worry is that such such aggression may be sufficient for Russia to escalate the war to nuclear.

You may be willing to take the risk of sacrificing European lives, they are not.