Posted on 12/23/2022 3:55:26 AM PST by Cronos
Journalist Anna Budyńska was among the grassroots army of Polish volunteers who rushed to help Ukrainian refugees as they began crossing the border in February to escape Russia’s invasion.
At first, she and her partner donated money and collected food and blankets for refugees arriving in Warsaw. But she wanted to do more to understand those whom she was helping and decided to learn Ukrainian.
“I suddenly realised that I had always loved to travel to western Europe, India or Mexico, but I had never visited Ukraine, knew nothing about Ukrainian culture and only a little bit about its history that was taught at school,”
Polish historian Maciej Franz said 2022 would be remembered as “a special year of integration” between “two nations that were isolated from each other by politics half a century ago, and even earlier by hatred and hostility, which was the result of the nationalism that raged between the mid-19th and 20th centuries”.
He said his country was helping Ukraine “because we know what it’s like to be under [Russian] occupation and how terrible it can be”.
... About 1.3mn Ukrainians lived in Poland before Russia’s full-scale invasion in February, and the number has more than doubled since then.
Their presence has given Poles a new sense of kinship with and respect for their neighbours.
...“We share a distinct fatalism and the same history of Russian imperialism, so many Polish people feel that the same kind of Russian aggression could once more await us,”
... Since February, Poland’s military and political support has been unwavering, even after Poland and Nato attributed an accidental missile strike that killed two Polish farm workers last month to the Ukrainian army. In the aftermath, Polish prime minister Mateusz Morawiecki said that “it is in our best interest to help Ukraine”.
(Excerpt) Read more at ft.com ...
Poland and the Polish people have been true friends and neighbors to Ukraine as the Ukrainians have endured the brutality of putin and his evil war against them
There is only Bakhmut defeat and no advance
Wagner salaries are reduced by 75% for Bakhmut failures
“Europe still has arms factories.”
I admit speaking in hyperbolas, of course Europe has arms factories, the probably is that they are a tiny fraction of what’s needed to take over the world, or even take on the huge inventory that Russia possess, and even are unlikely to match current Russia’s production capability.
A good indicator as to how Europe viewed their military was when that German defense minister babe said something like: “I never thought we’d have to deal with a real war”
That can change but it take years and even longer when you have your defense industries converting to electric tanks, for example, while the Russians view their defense industries different.
Poland was no puppet, it was ahead of “Europe” in all this.
Unlike the Euro consensus, Poland prepared for this eventuality.
Russia built @50 tanks in the first six months of 2022.
“The problem for Russia is they cant make (or, really, rebuild) tanks fast enough. And that Russian tanks suck.”
The problem for the West is that military supply lines now stretch to China, and China is giving VERY LONG lead times on critical items...so the West must be very patient.
For Russia, I don’t know enough about their tanks, but they have an s-load of them. The West uses Japanese-developed ‘Inventory Tools’, which had us scrap most of our older models.
People don't understand western adaptability and innovation. Not enough HIMARS? Boeing has developed the GLSDB, which is made of two abundant components in the US stockpile.
The US is considering a proposal to send Ukraine a small, cheap weapons system that would allow President Volodymyr Zelenskyy's military to strike Russian forces up to 94 miles away, according to Reuters.
The weapon, proposed by Boeing, has been called the Ground-Launched Small Diameter Bomb (GLSDB), and combines small, inexpensive precision GBU-39 bombs fitted to a M26 rocket motor, the outlet reported.
Both components are in abundant supply in the US, with the plan appearing to address growing pressure on the US' military stockpile, given the quantity of arms it has sent to Ukraine this year.
The proposal is one of around six being developed to aid military production in US, to support Ukraine and allies in Eastern Europe, Reuters reported.
https://www.businessinsider.com/pentagon-weighs-cheap-100-mile-range-weapons-for-ukraine-2022-11
“An aerial view of the Srebrenica-Potocari Genocide Memorial Center in Bosnia and Herzegovina August 26, 2020.”
You might want to read up on it, it’s not quite as the Daily Mail proclaimed at the time, now that the UN has finally gotten around to investigating what happened.
I like precision, not hyperbole.
Germany is probably the worst case in Europe of politico-bureaucratic dysfunction with respect to arms procurement. There are some good youtube videos, one by Perun, on this matter. I recommend you look for them. The rest of Europe, and especially Eastern Europe, does not suffer from this. If there is a buck in it they will do the needful, with no fuss.
An aud it on the battlefield revealed the Russian inventory Tobe mythical
Yup, all 18 of their new IFV broke down in an exercise.
Germany pauses buying Puma tanks after mass breakdown
All 18 tanks on exercises suffer problems in blow to German contribution to January Nato force
The German government has said it will pause purchases of new Puma tanks after a mass breakdown during exercises, lamenting a “harsh setback” as Berlin seeks to overhaul its military.
The armoured infantry vehicles – which were supposed to form part of Germany’s contribution to a Nato force – suffered problems that left all 18 of those in the exercises unfit for operations.
https://www.theguardian.com/world/2022/dec/19/germany-pauses-buying-puma-tanks-after-mass-breakdown
Not really. Korea, say, does not have a total Chinese bottleneck. They arent that dumb.
You make a lot of assumptions btw. You should look for specific, and current, sources.
like this - it lays out Korean exposure to Chinese semiconductor manufacturing components. Note that its not total.
https://defence.pk/pdf/threads/koreas-reliance-on-chinese-semiconductor-raw-materials-surges.751358/
http://www.businesskorea.co.kr/news/articleView.html?idxno=96007
Russia has proven to have a fake Potemkin army that is corrupt at its core.
The question remains the same as it was in February: does the west have the will to support Ukraine to victory. Biden still wants to partner with Putin to nuke up Iran. The WEF/EU still wants to partner with Putinist Russia to finance their nutjob policies. The WEF crowd all want the Ukraine hot potato gone and they don’t care if Putin turns Ukraine into a parking lot. They’ve “lead from behind” and done the minimum required the entire way.
It was only because of the leadership and support of countries like Poland and the bravery of Ukrainians that Ukraine is still Ukraine. This is a cautionary tale for conservatives who seek a national identity, too. We’d best to pay attention.
Which, again, shows your lack of research.
The US has retained nearly all Abrams hulls and turrets, and remanufactures them to current spec. as needed. Moreover these are stored in mostly usable condition.
Anyway, the US Army, according to “The Military Balance 2021” (free pdf download, get it) has 2500 Abrams in active service an another 3700 in reserve - over 6000 units. Just getting the personnel to man and operate that massive reserve is going to be a challenge.
Russia keeps its armored vehicle reserve in poor conditions - there are plenty of pictures online of vast open air tank parks where these are subject to the weather - and most have been out there for forty years. Hence the need to rebuild these things before issue. Also the vast majority are obsolete models from the 70s and 80s. Not a match for Abrams, Leopard IIs and K2s, even when upgraded. And there are tons of photos of these unupgraded ones in use in Ukraine.
Yes, I saw that. Its quite a black eye.
“Anyway, the US Army has 2500 Abrams in active service an another 3700 in reserve - over 6000 units. “
I would sure hope the US Army wasn’t scrapping their front-line battle tanks. It’s the ones before that are gone, melted down, with the steel likely sent to China.
“there are plenty of pictures online”
You see the ones that are outdoors...
Which accounts for a vast number.
There was a guy on youtube that commissioned a bunch of satellite photos and he counted them. I will see if I can find it. I posted it months ago.
The M60s are mostly scrapped. And those things really were obsolete, comparable to the T-62s. The US made huge piles of Abrams chassis though, and these were designed to be upgraded.
The US tank reserve is way more potent, potentially, than the Russian one, given what we’ve seen of Russian performance. And, as important, more available.
“When Russia completes its liberation of Donbass and starts moving west, towards the Dnieper River in Central Poland, as that will cause a panic in the West, and the masters who run Europe will figure Ukraine is spent, so time to send the Poles into the meat grinder.”
Ohh another prediction I can save! But kepp in mind you dont advance by retreating.
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