Posted on 05/07/2015 2:45:10 AM PDT by UMCRevMom@aol.com
Russia is waging a hybrid war for which the West is not prepared.
All warning lights are red. All cross-checked information, all sources show that Russian Federation forces have massed troops on each foreseen penetration axis from Kursk to Kharkiv, Rostov to southeast Ukraine and from Crimea to the coastal area.
The estimation ranges from 65,000 to 95,000 soldiers.
The Russian supplied armor in the Donbas alone is estimated to 700 main battle tanks (with an increasing number of T-72 V3 only used by Russia) and 1,100 infantry fighting vehicles, BTR and BMP (with an increasing number of BTR 82). Photos brought back by drones sent by volunteers groups over the border with Russia show kilometers of Grad rockets crates prepositioned for feeding a huge number of rocket launchers during a high intensity artillery shelling of the positions of defenders inside Ukraine.
Russia is now sending the latest of the available military hardware to its proxies along with 40 identified regular units belonging to its forces as amply demonstrated by the open sources information collcted on social networks like VK, Russia’s Facebook where Russians show themselves shelling Ukrainians, bragging about it and geolocalisation indicate their position when posting.
Many Russian military identification cards and passports have been recovered on corpses.
The Russian Mothers Association has collected the names of thousands of Russian soldiers killed in Ukraine.
Parts of Grad rockets, anti-tank rockets and unexploded missiles, mortar rounds or artillery shells are recovered and show markings clearly pointing to Russia with lot numbers as recent as 2009. During combat, crates of small arms ammunition have been captured as well as anti-tank missiles in their crates with the slip indicating their latest storage location in Russian Federation units.
It is time for Western powers to abandon the politically correct stance and face the threat. Every day without action will make the conflict more costly for the whole of Europe.
Standing up against Vladimir Putin is the only way the war stops before the whole of Europe is set ablaze.
Ukraine is not a beggar. Ukraine fights!
From only 6,000 men with combat readiness one year ago that were not able to oppose the invaders without being quickly annihilated in case of major conflict, the armed forces of Ukraine have grown to a combat ready force that repulsed the so-called separatists in Donbas during June and July 2014, obliging Moscow to engage openly its best forces in August.
Every day that President Petro Poroshenko did not declare a state of war, volunteers and donors forged a battle-ready instrument that resisted the Russian invaders to the point that even Russian officers admit that they underestimated the capacity of Ukraine to defend itself.
Many small companies have produced what the fighters needed in various fields. volunteers have repaired vehicles, companies have offered gasoline, donors from the whole world sent money or equipment. But Ukraine has fallen victim twice of some ideology that without arms, the world will become peaceful.
It was deprived of the world’s third largest nuclear arsenal in exchange for a security guaranteed by those who signed the 1994 Budapest Memorandum, one of them being the aggressor and the others standing on the sideline because they are not willing to stand up to Russia and its imperialistic aggressive stance. Russia did not respect the Minsk agreement it signed and will never do. Arm Ukraine, now! Before it is too late !na_Kiev-550-550x330 This Op-ed was published by Kyiv Post on April, 29, 2015
Engineer by trade, with a career as executive export sales and armament expert often invited by French and Swiss medias, Edmond Huet helped identify units and armaments used by the government against Maidaners and later the invading Russians in Crimea. He lives in Kyiv.
Useful references [linked at bottom of article]
(1) Russian hybrid warfare: what are effects-based network operations and how to counteract them
(2) Partnership for victory. Ukraine is on fire.
(3) Lend lease plan 2015 for Ukraine at no cost!
(4) Ukraine low on ammo!
(5) Kwasniewski: EU leaders offered billions to Yanukovych. What did not know Polish ex-President and EU leaders.
(6) Russia has been preparing global war which starts in Ukraine: science fiction, alternative history, futurology and reality
(7) Aid for Ukraine and sanctions, not appeasement, the right answers to Russian aggression
(8) Ukraine under Invasion – Looting East and Dithering West
(9) United States and EU continue co-operation with Russia in space and missile industries. What implications does this have for Ukraine?
(10) Saving Ukraine’s Defense Industry
(11) A key to understanding Putin’s motives
Article quote...”Ukraine is not a beggar”....
Yes it is...it can be nothing else now.
‘The Russian Mothers Association has collected the names of thousands of Russian soldiers killed in Ukraine.’
Why not millions? It surely sounds more impressive.
And back to the subject what do you want to arm a nation which is probably the global leader of surplus arms trade with?
Thanks for your usual bit of input, you bootlicking Putinist.
Because Ukraine government is facilitating return of bodies that Russian Federation ignores.
You buy into Russian claims that the Russian Mothers Association is actually a "foreign" front group? All those women work for the CIA and their sons aren't really dead, they just won't return home to such Imperialistic sell-outs?
The Ukrainian government, the British government and others predict that ‘Mariupol’ will be the next city that the Donetsk People’s Republic will attempt to seize from Ukrainian control....the city isn’t as important to the separatists as it is to Ukraine for they would lose its largest port on the Azov Sea.... but it certainly is significant for Russia.... a land bridge with Crimea.
‘The Russian supplied armor in the Donbas alone is estimated to 700 main battle tanks (with an increasing number of T-72 V3 only used by Russia) and 1,100 infantry fighting vehicles, BTR and BMP (with an increasing number of BTR 82). ‘
Some people here argued that Russia doesn’t have 500 operational tanks at all.
Now we have 2000 Russian armor roaming on tiny pieces of land around Donetsk and Lugansk metro.
Can you imagine a force like that? It is 21th century now and you post like there is 1943 and another Kursk battle going on as we speak (this time Russians are probably fighting each other as far as Ukrainian military as any serious factor is no more).
When you are posting your agitprop make sure it at least sounds realistic, unless you are targeting total idiots.
Thousands of tanks, thousands killed. It is some sick raving.
They are probably not a foreign group but many of them are as close to useful idiots as it gets.
20 years ago it was all Russia. It still is to most of us.
I’m more concerned about protecting Texas when it secedes from the rest of the country. I will back such a secession against the current American tyrant. But it is the same thing as Ukraine/Russia to me.
We have our own problems. I suggest those who feel the need to defend Ukraine should go there and enlist.
Mothers of dead soldiers useful idiots eh? Too stupid to figure out to shut up when their boys are killed on "training exercises" or on "vacation" nowhere near Ukraine? You're a good ol' paid Russkie troll.
Those people are ignorant. Russia has the largest tank army in Europe. In WWII, while they were still preparing to sneak-attack Germany, they had as many as 35,000 tanks all churned out rather quickly.
Hell, 20 years ago Russkies were still denying that they had killed around 7 million Ukrainians through food confiscation and resulting starvation. I don't think we should look at a former soviet bloc state as "Russian" just because the Russkies happened to have raped and pillaged it for a long period of time.
If you do not support Ukraine, if you are willing to send them your last dime in support, sacrifice your own safety, or send them your child to fight for them then you are a boot licking putinista!
You're also a dirt bag Putinista if you, in fact, lick his worthless boots. Anyone who sides with the Russians or goes gaga over Putin is an anti-American and not conservative.
2.5-7.5 million Ukrainians killed by Stalin in 1933. Very interesting ancient history
Why not the Armenians. Why not the Khmer Rouge. Why not Mao’s killing of millions during the cultural revolution. And of course the 6 million Jews, gypsies, and homosexuals killed by Hitler. If you have a fish to fry with the Russians go ahead and do your best and join the resistance. Don’t drag us into it, we have our own problem, fellow by the name of Obama
Ancient history? There are still survivors and the families of survivors. You say that about the holocaust too?
If you have a fish to fry with the Russians go ahead and do your best and join the resistance.
I was responding to your point that Ukraine was basically just "Russia" 20 years ago, and the implication in that that Ukraine rightfully belongs to Russia and we should keep our noses out.
Obviously most Ukrainians would differ with your characterization.
As for the whole "you go join the resistance." You sound like anti-war Liberals who say that if we support any war, we ought to go and fight it ourselves.
Ukraine deserves U.S. support because 1) They are a Pro-American country. 2) Russian aggression must be stopped. Georgia was the first domino, now Ukraine, and the Baltics are already being threatened by the Muscovites.
You are obviously descended from these ‘Russians’(all the same to me). Go fight the good fight and leave us out of it. We weren’t worried about Ukraine when it was soviet. Why now? You obviously have a personal axe to grind.
In addition, Mariupol is an important industrial city. It would devastate Ukraine to lose it.
And how will they pay for arms? Send their daughters over to give free lap dances?
Disclaimer: Opinions posted on Free Republic are those of the individual posters and do not necessarily represent the opinion of Free Republic or its management. All materials posted herein are protected by copyright law and the exemption for fair use of copyrighted works.