Posted on 06/18/2022 3:30:33 PM PDT by Zhang Fei
But the U.S. hasn’t provided nearly enough launchers to blunt the Russian equipment advantage. Ohio Republican Rob Portman, who is co-chairman of the Senate Ukraine caucus, on the Senate floor this week offered a blunt assessment of the facts on the ground: Brutal fighting continues in Severodonetsk, where the Russians are making grinding progress, and the Luhansk region could fall within weeks if the Ukrainians can’t get longer-range artillery.
“Because the Russians have more artillery than the Ukrainians and their weapons have longer ranges,” the Senator explained, “the Russian forces concentrate massive firepower on Ukrainian positions at distances, which the Ukrainian forces cannot reach.” Then the Russians “move in. They destroy territory. They occupy it.” The “disparity in the quality and quantity of artillery” has put Ukraine at “a distinct disadvantage.”
A Ukrainian military adviser told the Guardian earlier this month: “If we get 60” systems “then the Russians will lose all ability to advance anywhere, they will be stopped dead in their tracks. If we get 40 they will advance, albeit very slowly with heavy casualties; with 20 they will continue to advance with higher casualties than now.”
And how many rocket systems has the U.S., the world’s premiere military power, offered so far? Four. And these launchers, which the Biden Administration announced on June 1, won’t reach the battlefield with trained crews until roughly the end of the month, U.S. defense officials have estimated. The Brits and Germans have offered their own rocket systems—but only three apiece.
As Sen. Portman noted, the U.S. is also withholding rockets with the longest range. The ostensible reason is that the Biden Team worries about Ukrainians striking into Russian territory. But the Ukrainians have promised only to defend their sovereign land, and withholding the weapons suggests we don’t trust them.
(Excerpt) Read more at wsj.com ...
Ukraine should 3D print them.
“We don’t, because they already announced their target #1 for long range weapons is the Crimea bridge.”
Which is in Ukraine. Well, half of it, anyway.
Ukraine ping
Ultra Sonic 007: [Burisma is a private Ukrainian company headquartered in Kiev and owned by a Ukrainian oligarch.
What does Putin have to do with it?]
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mykola_Zlochevsky
Note that Yanukovich and Zlochevsky were in a pro-Russian administration, which is to say they wanted Ukraine to be a Russian province. Even assuming Zlochevsky was acting in his own capacity rather than as a cutout for Putin, the reason he paid Biden was to assist Russia in its quest to conquer Ukraine, not help Ukraine remain independent.
This has been my suspicion, that while they keep talking about large numbers of weapons, they are slow-walking them. Like the Germans, promising weapons to be delivered in October. Maybe.
Just enough to keep them in the fight, but not enough to win.
The Poles and Baltic states are delivering. Biden just talks.
The west doesn’t want Ukraine to defeat Nazi invaders from Russia. They want cheap Russian energy to finance the loopy climate change agenda, etc. It’s similar to WW2 actually with Hitler and Stalin in confederation. Follow the money as they say and every day hundreds of millions of dollars pours into Russia from Soros HQ EU.
“Crimea river”
The US economy is almost 40x the size of the Polish economy. Poland has sent almost as much weaponry as the US:
The threat of competition from Ukraine is why Russia siezed Crimea and formented the rebellion in the east in 2014.
Why Russia is Invading Ukraine
That's a good documentary on the importance of Ukrainian oil and gas and what Russia has said historically about it.
Crimea is legally part of Ukraine. Putin may have announced that he was annexing it, but the international community hasn’t recognized the annexation. Perhaps Belarus has.
Biden doesn’t want to win this war. He just doesn’t want to be accused of doing nothing.
I want Rob Portmann to take his Judas ass to the Ukraine where a Russian rocket will promptly send him back to hell!
If he was as close with Putin as you imply, why did he reportedly seek out Cypriot citizenship or seek residence in Monacco instead of going to somewhere in Russia?
Even assuming Zlochevsky was acting in his own capacity rather than as a cutout for Putin, the reason he paid Biden was to assist Russia in its quest to conquer Ukraine, not help Ukraine remain independent.
Got any evidence to support this assertion of yours? Especially the bit about how Biden specifically worked with Burisma to help Russia conquer Ukraine (as compared to plain corruption and influence peddling)?
[The way to get cheap Russian Energy is to defeat Russia and drive them out of Ukraine, and then help Ukraine get production going from their fields in Eastern Ukraine and Crimea.
The threat of competition from Ukraine is why Russia siezed Crimea and formented the rebellion in the east in 2014.
Why Russia is Invading Ukraine
That’s a good documentary on the importance of Ukrainian oil and gas and what Russia has said historically about it.]
IMHO, many analysts are projecting their middle class material aspirations on a king who has more of everything than he needs in a thousand lifetimes. The one thing he lacks - a pedestal to match Peter the Great’s - is something money alone can’t buy. What money can help him do is finance a campaign for territorial gain at the end of which historians will put him on the pedestal he desires.
There are some who say - what of today’s hue and cry against Putin? Isn’t he ruining his good name? Peter the Great was hated in his lifetime. He killed his own *son*, for crying out loud. He turned the Russian peasantry into chattel slaves in all but name. And yet, despite all that, he is now Peter the Great. Like it or not, territorial expansion is the coin of historical greatness.
In British history, only one ruler has been granted this particular epithet. Was Alfred’s signal achievement the Domesday Book, the pathbreaking land survey of his lands that he commissioned? No - it was his welding of East Anglia, Northumbria, Wessex and Mercia into a single English kingdom, and his temporary taming of the Viking threat to his lands.
There’s a temptation to view this kind of thing as atavistic, a throwback to a more primitive era. In reality, it’s what decides national boundaries, like it or not. You can resist, or you can submit. That’s all there is to it.
Ultra Sonic 007: [Your own cited article mentions plenty of corruption and potential implications of graft from a phone call involving President Poroshenko, but very little in terms of Russia.
If he was as close with Putin as you imply, why did he reportedly seek out Cypriot citizenship or seek residence in Monacco instead of going to somewhere in Russia?
Even assuming Zlochevsky was acting in his own capacity rather than as a cutout for Putin, the reason he paid Biden was to assist Russia in its quest to conquer Ukraine, not help Ukraine remain independent.
Got any evidence to support this assertion of yours? Especially the bit about how Biden specifically worked with Burisma to help Russia conquer Ukraine (as compared to plain corruption and influence peddling)? ]
https://www.theguardian.com/news/2016/apr/03/panama-papers-money-hidden-offshore
The fact is, without the resources of an intelligence agency willing and able to conduct illegal activities, an illegal breach similar to the Panama Papers leak or an insider expose, it’s impossible to go beyond bread crumbs.
And it does not seem to know he’s ‘split’.
Putin calls us Nazis
Biden (Obama2) calls us Nazis
Do the math
“Crimea is legally part of Ukraine. Putin may have announced that he was annexing it, but the international community hasn’t recognized the annexation.”
Yes, but the bridge is about 12 miles long and has one end in Crimea (Ukraine) and the other end in Taman in Russia. So, half of it would be in Ukraine and the other half would be in Russia.
So the answer is "no," then. Thought so.
[So the answer is “no,” then. Thought so. ]
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