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NATO-trained units will serve as tip of spear in Ukraine’s counteroffensive
The Washington Post ^ | June 4, 2023 | Isabelle Khurshudyan and Kamila Hrabchuk

Posted on 06/04/2023 3:56:22 AM PDT by Timber Rattler

When Ukraine’s long-awaited counteroffensive finally begins, the fight will be led by brigades armed not only with Western weapons but also Western know-how, gleaned from months of training aimed at transforming Ukraine’s military into a modern force skilled in NATO’s most advanced warfare tactics.

As other Ukrainian units were fighting to expel the Russian occupiers from the country’s east and south, the brand-new 47th Separate Mechanized Brigade was preparing for the next phase of war from a classroom at a NATO base in Germany.

The brigade’s leadership trained with computers that simulated situations they might face in real life. Deputy commander Maj. Ivan Shalamaha and others planned their assaults and then let the program show them the results — how their Russian enemies might respond, where they could make a breakthrough and where they would suffer losses.

“You understand the overall picture, how it works,” Shalamaha said. “You understand where and what your shortcomings were. And we pay attention to what we failed to do during this simulation.”

Now the war games are over. The 47th brigade and other assault units have been armed with Western weapons, including Bradley infantry fighting vehicles, and relocated to a secret location closer to the front line. During a recent visit by Washington Post journalists, the soldiers were waiting for the order to charge ahead to retake a large swath of Ukrainian territory and tip the war back in Kyiv’s favor.

The counteroffensive will be the biggest test yet of the U.S.-led strategy of giving the Ukrainians weapons and training to fight like an American army might — but on their own.

(Excerpt) Read more at washingtonpost.com ...


TOPICS: Foreign Affairs; News/Current Events; Russia; Ukraine
KEYWORDS: bidenlover; bidenswar; ciapropaganda; dailypropaganda; europe; nato; nazis; neocons4war; neoconsvotedbiden; offensive; smellslikebullshit; spamspamspam; tuneintomorrow; ukraine; ukrainewar; war; worldwariii; ww3; zeeperhorseshit; zelenskyworshippers
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To: rbmillerjr

You’re stepping into dangerous territory. This is like lend lease and blocking japan oil just before WW2. You and your type neocons are dangerous


61 posted on 06/04/2023 5:48:02 AM PDT by Vaquero (Don't pick a fight with an old guy. If he is too old to fight, he'll just kill you. )
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Comment #62 Removed by Moderator

To: Vaquero

You appeasers are all the same, just a different time period. Let’s deliver the Sudetenland to Hitler.....

Peace in our time. You feckless bustuds is what gets us into war. Learn from Reagan and Peace through Strength.


63 posted on 06/04/2023 5:50:31 AM PDT by rbmillerjr
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To: Erik Latranyi

The Russians are not even winning against Ukranian leadership and training. They are not winning anywhere. They for certain will not begin to measure up to assaulting Nato trained brigades

What’s more, any thing that moves is observed and if desired, killed. The commander less Russian troops in the trenches can’t go take a crap and not fear death from a grenade precisely dropped from a drone.

They are not sitting ducks. They are hapless sitting Russians


64 posted on 06/04/2023 5:51:29 AM PDT by bert ( (KWE. NP. N.C. +12) Juneteenth is inequality day )
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To: popdonnelly
Blow it out your ass, thug.

It looks like pops got up on the wrong side of the floor this morning.

65 posted on 06/04/2023 5:51:38 AM PDT by BlackbirdSST (Trump or Bust! Long live the Republic.)
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To: buwaya
The sun rises in the East and so Japan is now good but Russia is really bad. It's not just selective facts, those which actually are facts, but the illogic that chains these together.

We are rebuilding the victorious Ukrainian army to launch a counteroffensive against the Russians that have been thoroughly trounced and defeated while failing to take a strategically insignificant village by the name of Bakhmut, is a pemican of lies and illogic. And yet I am supposed to sustain myself on that drivel while supporting another $4T to prop up the American global empire.

How about we defend our own border first?

66 posted on 06/04/2023 5:51:54 AM PDT by AndyJackson
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To: mouse1

In what way was Nato a bully in Feb 2022?

All its armies were a tiny fraction of what they were thirty years before and completely unprepared for war. Almost all of its swords had been beaten into plowshares.

What threat did Nato pose towards Russia, with all the Euro militaries (save Poland), in a moribund state?

The Russian narrative here is pure propaganda. The Russian concern was that Ukraine would be able to resist Russian pressure to become a puppet like Belorussia.


67 posted on 06/04/2023 5:53:57 AM PDT by buwaya (Strategic imperatives )
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To: bert
The Russians are not even winning against Ukranian leadership and training. They are not winning anywhere. They for certain will not begin to measure up to assaulting Nato trained brigades

They just destroyed Bakhmut against NATO trained brigades. NATO has been training and supplying brigades in Ukraine for well over a decade. What got destroyed in Bakhmut was the cream of the NATO trained brigades.

68 posted on 06/04/2023 5:54:25 AM PDT by AndyJackson
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To: AndyJackson

Ha, Ha, Ha......... now that is a real joke. They have been assaulting Bakhmut for about a year now.

They were finally allowed to take it and then immediately withdrew from the rubble that was once a city.

The fact you make that claim is a clear indication of your general ignorance


69 posted on 06/04/2023 5:58:30 AM PDT by bert ( (KWE. NP. N.C. +12) Juneteenth is inequality day )
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To: bert

I presume you get your information on this from the mainstream media. Maybe you have some reliable backchannel sources for this drivel. Or are you a trusted confidential informant for the trusted FBI looking for domestic terrorsts.


70 posted on 06/04/2023 6:01:03 AM PDT by AndyJackson
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To: AndyJackson

LOL. Yes, the 1933 logistics of Russia is certainly a thing to admire. The crack Russian version of Blitzkrieg, where there are 17 mile lines of tanks, trucks, BMPs...all waiting on food and ammo and gas.

This Russians are in a quagmire and they are losing. Do you think they will stay there for 10 years? They should leave now before they lose land in the East and Crimea.


71 posted on 06/04/2023 6:02:36 AM PDT by rbmillerjr
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To: AndyJackson

None of the above.


72 posted on 06/04/2023 6:02:50 AM PDT by bert ( (KWE. NP. N.C. +12) Juneteenth is inequality day )
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To: JonPreston

What are the going to do? Mount their unicornic steeds and wave the rainbow flags at the Russkis as they prance by? That should go over well. I don’t think the Russkis do “pride” parades and Drag Queen Fairy Tails Events for toddlers held in bars.


73 posted on 06/04/2023 6:10:23 AM PDT by FlingWingFlyer (JaySix - The attack that shook the foundations of Commie Liberal "democrazy". -The Far Left "media".)
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To: AndyJackson

Mearshimer ignores military factors beyond numbers of guns and shells. If that was a dispositive factor France would have won in 1940. He has a track record of motivated reasoning lately.

Note that he once also advocated for Ukraine retaining its own nuclear deterrent.

And it seems that the Russian guns and shells aren’t what they used to be, anymore. They have been replacing 152mm long range guns with 120mm mortars, without the capability of counterbattery fire. That is because they haven’t got the materiel or logistics to support them, especially since they can’t mass munitions, transport, or guns in the “Himars zone”.


74 posted on 06/04/2023 6:10:54 AM PDT by buwaya (Strategic imperatives )
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To: buwaya

—”This assumes the Russians actually have the brute force.”

‘No arsenal, or no weapon in the arsenals of the world, is as formidable as the will and moral courage of free men and women.’

- Ronald Reagan


75 posted on 06/04/2023 6:11:32 AM PDT by DUMBGRUNT ( "The enemy has overrun us. We are blowing up everything. Vive la France!"Dien Bien Phu last messa)
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To: buwaya

Or and, the barrels of the big guns are so badly worn out they are inaccurate and dangerous


76 posted on 06/04/2023 6:12:36 AM PDT by bert ( (KWE. NP. N.C. +12) Juneteenth is inequality day )
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To: csvset

That isn’t a source, that is opinion.

This is a source -

https://www.iiss.org/publications/the-military-balance/


77 posted on 06/04/2023 6:13:31 AM PDT by buwaya (Strategic imperatives )
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To: tlozo

Well , funding the Taliban, how did that work out ?


78 posted on 06/04/2023 6:16:33 AM PDT by csvset (tolerance becomes a crime when attached to evil)
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To: csvset
Well , funding the Taliban, how did that work out ?

Well, it did cause the end of the Soviet Union.

79 posted on 06/04/2023 6:20:04 AM PDT by tlozo ( Better to Die on Your Feet than Live on Your Knees )
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To: DUMBGRUNT

‘No arsenal, or no weapon in the arsenals of the world, is as formidable as the will and moral courage of free men and women.’

- Ronald Reagan....

and the money of the good old USA!


80 posted on 06/04/2023 6:20:49 AM PDT by mouse1
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