Posted on 09/19/2025 2:09:42 AM PDT by McGruff
With little chance of NATO membership for Ukraine, the country’s Western allies have bought into an alternate strategy for helping it repel Russian aggression: invest billions in Ukraine's weapons industry so it can better defend itself.
If the strategy works, Ukraine's weapons industry will eventually be able to help equip U.S. and European armies, too, with cutting-edge drones and other military technology being developed in the midst of its war with Russia.
“The Ukrainians are the leaders in the world in terms of drone technology,” Keith Kellogg, the Trump administration's special envoy for Ukraine said last week at a conference in Kyiv. “We are working with Ukrainians now to make sure we have got this drone technology exchange, which I think is very important.”
(Excerpt) Read more at abcnews.go.com ...
Ukrainian corruption is probably much smaller than Russia’s. But it is corrupt. So a hundred dollars goes into a venture, and some smaller amount will probably actually go to that venture. The rest will go towards an extravagant lifestyle for some apparatchik connected to the procurement process.
This is another situation where there’s clearly an evil side and a slightly less bad side and we’re being asked to “invest” in the slightly less bad side. Give them guns and ammo, fine. But keep the payments and logistics in the West. And keep a good eye on what happens to the stuff you gave them. This is just being realistic. A percentage of everything we sent to Vietnam ended up in enemy hands. That’s just what happens in a war.
Ukraine is too horrible for anyone.
With the hundreds of billions poured into Ukraine, they could not develop their own defense industry?
US Congress is pretty good at investing in corruption. The American people? Not so much.
Ukraine leads in developing drones, they just need to scale up production.
Europe is poised to inject $7 billion into Ukraine's drone industry, hoping to supercharge mass production for the country's increasingly renowned low-cost weapons.
The European Commission's president, Ursula von der Leyen, said on Wednesday that the European Union would "frontload 6 billion euros," or roughly $7 billion, for Ukrainian drones.
"Ukraine has the ingenuity. What it needs now is scale," von der Leyen said in her State of the European Union address.
The announced $7 billion would be the biggest official tranche of funding to Ukraine's drone industry so far.
It's close to the $6 billion that Ukraine's defense minister, Denys Shmyhal, has said Kyiv needs to cover this year's production of first-person-view drones, interceptors, long-range drones, and missiles.
While new, Ukraine's drone industry has increasingly been in the spotlight for producing cheap but effective weapons regularly being used to destroy Russian loitering munitions, armor, artillery, and production facilities.
https://www.businessinsider.com/ukraine-war-drone-industry-billion-dollar-boost-europe-funding-2025-9
Ukraine unveils devastating new ‘Flamingo’ cruise missile that can strike deep inside Russia
"That underscores one of Ukraine's disadvantages in this war — its lack of soldiers, which has been a key driver of innovation for Ukrainian defense companies."
Yeah. One. It is the singular element and Ukraine's disadvantage. Losing enough HUMAN BEINGS will never be made up by technology.
There was an old sci-fi story when I was kid. The imprisoned head-of-state destined tor execution, after his nation lost the war, was asked 'what last request do you want?' His reply? Bring me the head of my tech advisors and let me kill him before you kill me.'
It's funny how consistent one element of all the news is these days. It is marketing for "tech." And the marketing has a consistent goal -- money. Send more money. War. AI. Pharma. But MORE MONEY.
You think Russia is just going to standby and let Ukraine build drone factories? Didn’t Russia just take one factory out recently?
Yup, and Russia was going to interdict all the western supplies going to Ukraine. How is that effort going?
It is amusing that Ursula von der Leyen is cited as some sort of authority as regards "scale."
Anyone remember her "service" as Germany's defense minister under Angela Merkel? She sent German troops into NATO exercises carrying painted brookstick to mimic weapons they did not have. Yeah, that's her.
Germany ‘Can’t Explain’ Use of Broomsticks Instead of Guns in NATO Exercise Newsweek, 19 Febriary 2015.German army paints broomsticks black to resemble machine guns in Nato exercises Independent UK, 29 February 2025
Shortages left German army using broomsticks for guns The Times, 21 February 2025
LOL, thank you Captain Obvious, for pointing out, wars are funded by money.
Salvos of RBGs. Whoosh!
[ RBG = really big graphics ]
PS Buy war bonds..... Ursula von der Leyen needs the funds.
Yes, because Angela Merkel mistakenly thought Putin would not be a threat to Europe, if Russia was a full trading partner with Europe.
Merkel's policy operated on the principle of Wandel durch Handel ("change through trade"), a long-held German foreign policy concept. The idea was that closer economic ties would encourage Russia to become a more cooperative partner.
What a stupid statement. So if suddenly Ukraine had all the modern equipment of the US military, it could not defeat Russia?
Does Ukraine have war bonds?
"So if suddenly" is neither strategic nor operational planning. It is imaginative, though.
AI:
Ukraine issues war bonds in hryvnia, U.S. dollars, and euros to fund its defense efforts against Russia, with options for both domestic and foreign investors.
"So if suddenly" is neither strategic nor operational planning. It is imaginative, though.
Good non-answer. Your original statement "Losing enough HUMAN BEINGS will never be made up by technology. is obviously wrong.
But that NordStream bombing and all has certainly worked out well for whoever it was -- hmm, who could it have been? -- that accomplished that?
When Russia invades Germany at some future time, we can discuss at greater length but you're not keeping up with the news. They aren't.
“500 million Europeans are asking 300 million Americans to defend them against 140 million Russians. [...] Europe today lacks the belief that we are truly a global force.”Painted broomsticks. Germany underfunding NATO for decades. Ursula von der Leyen's idea of floating new Eurobonds -- something akin to those war bonds you RBG'd. Lots of interesting policies then and now.Polish PM Donald Tusk, speaking before his flight to London for the European Ukraine summit: 2 March 2025
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