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Ukrainian forces are unlikely to be able to recapture Crimea from Russian troops in the near future, four senior Defense Department officials told House Armed Services Committee lawmakers in a classified briefing. The assessment is sure to frustrate leaders in Kyiv who consider taking the peninsula back one of their signature goals. It’s unclear what led the briefers to that assessment. But the clear indication, as relayed by three people with direct knowledge of Thursday’s briefing’s contents, was that the Pentagon doesn’t believe Ukraine has — or soon will have — the ability to force Russian troops out of the...

President Volodymyr Zelensky vowed Friday that Ukrainians will fight “for as long as we can” to hold the key eastern city of Bakhmut, as Moscow ramps up pressure in the eastern region of Ukraine. “Nobody will give away Bakhmut,” Zelensky said during a meeting with European Union leaders. “We will fight for as long as we can. We consider Bakhmut our fortress.” “If weapon (supplies) are accelerated, specifically long-range weapons, not only will we not abandon Bakhmut but we will also begin to remove the occupiers from the Donbas, which was occupied since 2014,” he president added. Moscow says its...

Days ago marked 50 years since the signing of the Paris Peace Accords which effectively ended American participation in the Vietnam war. One of the consequences, according to Georgetown University international affairs scholar Charles Kupchan, was that an “isolationist impulse” made a “significant comeback in response to the Vietnam War, which severely strained the liberal internationalist consensus.” As the Cold War historian John Lamberton Harper points out, President Jimmy Carter’s hawkish Polish-born national security adviser, Zbigniew Brzezinski, scorned his intra-administration rival, the cautious, gentlemanly secretary of state Cyrus Vance as “a nice man but burned by Vietnam.” Indeed, Vance and...

Ukraine and Russia are fighting a "First World War-like" battle for the city of Bakhmut as casualties pile up on both sides, western officials have said. But Britain said on Tuesday it was "not practical" to supply fighter jets despite the assessment of western analysts that the war is entering a stalemate. Ukraine is pushing Nato members to supply their jets after US President Joe Biden ruled out sending F-16s. Kyiv and Moscow are believed to be planning spring offensives as the war's anniversary approaches. The eastern city of Bakhmut has been the site of heavy fighting as Ukraine awaits...

Russia is flouting its obligations under a major arms control treaty with the United States, according to State Department officials. “Russia is not complying with its obligation under the New START Treaty to facilitate inspection activities on its territory,” a State Department spokesman said Tuesday. "Russia’s refusal to facilitate inspection activities prevents the United States from exercising important rights under the treaty and threatens the viability of U.S.-Russian nuclear arms control.” Secretary of State Antony Blinken’s team outlined that breakdown in a notification to key congressional leaders on Tuesday. The assessment points to the degeneration of the last major arms...

A Russian company today said it will offer five million roubles (£58,000) in cash to the first soldiers who destroy or capture Western tanks in Ukraine after the Kremlin vowed that any allied armoured vehicles shipped to Kyiv would 'burn'. The United States, Germany and more Western allies are lining up to join Britain in sending dozens of heavy tanks to Ukraine over the next few months to help boost the country's military capacity as the war approaches the 12-month mark. The decision by the NATO allies has been criticised by the Kremlin as a dangerous esclation, with Moscow warning...

As a follow up to our previous item asking questions about our grand strategy toward Russia, Iran, and the Ukranian war (such as whether the Biden Administration has a grand strategy at all), this item from today’s Wall Street Journal jumps out:Yet the largest ground war in Europe since World War II isn’t translating into boom times for U.S. defense contractors. Hobbled by supply chain disruptions, a tight labor market and a Pentagon procurement process that can take years, arms makers have been struggling to respond to the soaring demand. . .When the Pentagon ordered new Stinger antiaircraft missiles—widely used...

WASHINGTON, Jan 31 (Reuters) - The United States is readying more than $2 billion worth of military aid for Ukraine that is expected to include longer-range rockets for the first time as well as other munitions and weapons, two U.S. officials briefed on the matter told Reuters on Tuesday.The weapons aid is expected to be announced as soon as this week, the officials said. It is also expected to include support equipment for Patriot air defense systems, precision guided munitions and Javelin anti-tank weapons, they added.One of the officials said a portion of the package, expected to be $1.725 billion,...

Germany and the United States have recently made headlines by deciding to send tanks to Ukraine. However, the unsung hero behind this landmark decision was actually Poland. Polish leaders were instrumental in efforts to persuade Berlin in particular of the need to provide Ukraine with modern tanks. This was the latest example of Polish leadership over the past year as Europe has found itself confronted by the continent’s largest armed conflict since World War II. Poland’s leading role in the European response to Putin’s invasion reflects the country’s extensive experience of Russian imperialism in both its Czarist and Soviet forms....

Just so people understand what a ground war means in this part of the world. Russia is not the Soviet Union. Can they repeat their tenacity now Is it worth finding out? Why was The Battle of Stalingrad so Deadly?

Giving Ukraine fighter jets is “out of the question” and could lead to direct UK involvement in the Russian-Ukraine conflict, a defence expert has warned. Ukrainian President, Volodymyr Zelensky, has repeatedly called on Western allies to provide the jets to bolster the country’s air capabilities in the war against Russia. But both UK Prime Minister, Rishi Sunak, and US President, Joe Biden, have today ruled out sending jets.

Austria and Hungary agree on not sending weapons to Ukraine, Austrian Defence Minister Klaudia Tanner and her Hungarian counterpart Kristóf Szalay-Bobrovniczky said at a meeting in Budapest on Monday, stressing their close cooperation. Austria and Hungary’s position regarding the war in Ukraine is clear, as both countries are not sending weapons to the conflict area to prevent a further escalation, Tanner and Szalay-Bobrovniczky stated during a joint press conference. They would be on the side of peace, Szalay-Bobrovniczky stressed, while providing humanitarian aid to war refugees. Close cooperation would be the most important as “we live in a time of...

Austria and Hungary have agreed not to send military assistance to Ukraine, Austrian Defense Minister Klaudia Tanner and her Hungarian counterpart Kristof Szalay-Bobrovniczky said at a meeting in Budapest on Jan. 30, cited by Euractiv.According to the top officials, both countries' position regarding Russia's war against Ukraine is "clear" as they don't provide Ukraine with defense assistance "to prevent a further escalation."Szalay-Bobrovniczky added that Hungary would only supply humanitarian aid to Ukrainian refugees fleeing the war.President Volodymyr Zelensky said in a video address on Jan. 29 that it is important for Ukraine to continue receiving military support from partners at...

The former vice president added: "If the armed forces do not have the ability to conduct strategic offensive operations, then it is better not to try, especially outside your own country... People are dying senselessly, although the slogan is 'Defend Russia.' Where are they defending Russia? What are they dying for....? Who has the right to take a father away from his children? Who gave the right to take away sons from mothers and fathers? Nobody." During the same talk, Rutskoy took aim at Russian President Vladimir Putin, calling him a "laughingstock" for not carrying out certain military intentions, citing...

This isn't Russia's latest tank (that would be the T14 Armata)The T90M appears to be the latest that they can actually put out in the field in numbers, as of now. It includes many of the Armata features. But the kicker is this. About six or seven months ago HoHo MOD Ichabod Zapoopski (or whatever his name was) stated that he needed an entire new army including around 300 - 400 main battle tanks. Russian MOD Shoigu OTOH has just announced that Russian forces will shortly be receiving around 400 BRAND NEW military vehicles including some large number of these...

SARAJEVO (Reuters) - Crimea, the Black Sea peninsula annexed by Russia in 2014, will never again be part of Ukraine, Croatian President Zoran Milanovic said on Monday in remarks detailing his objection to Zagreb providing military aid to Kyiv.In December, Croatian lawmakers rejected a proposal that the country join a European Union mission in support of the Ukrainian military, reflecting deep divisions between Milanovic and Prime Minister Andrej Plenkovic.A vocal critic of Western policy in Ukraine, Milanovic has said he does not want his country, the EU's newest member state, to face what he has called potentially disastrous consequences over...

President Donald Trump confidently assured Americans this week that if he were president, he would be able to negotiate an end to the intense war between Russia and Ukraine within 24 hours – and he’s got the track record to prove that he could do it.As the 45th president of the United States, Donald Trump was the only president in decades who did not push American troops into unneeded and endless foreign wars. Unfortunately, with the Biden administration at the helm, the U.S. has forked over almost $100 billion dollars in aid to Ukraine and counting.To make matters worse, Joe...

American and NATO efforts to assist Ukraine in its conflict with Russia have escalated alarmingly since Putin launched his invasion almost one year ago. We began by doing virtually nothing to help Ukraine, except rhetorically and by way of offering Ukrainian leaders a one-way flight into exile. Since then we have imposed history-making economic and financial sanctions against Russia, and we have progressively taken on the responsibilities of funding, supplying, training, and providing intelligence for the Ukrainian security forces. It is an open question whether the average Ukrainian soldier now serves under Volodymyr Zelenskyy or Joe Biden. ...[snip]... What effect,...

The Russian military on Monday claimed it was able to make advances against Ukrainian forces in the Kherson and Kursk regions. Ukraine disputed these claims and blasted Russia for once again launching missiles at civilian targets, while the Russians accused Ukraine of hitting populated areas with their own artillery shells. Russian officials told the state-run Tass news agency on Monday that Russian artillery “wiped out two Ukrainian artillery squads in the Kherson region,” killing seven Ukrainian troops. The Russians claim to have destroyed a Ukrainian self-propelled artillery gun and a 120mm mortar with its ammunition.

Providing new tanks to Ukraine won’t change the reality on the ground of the current conflict with Russia, according to retired Army Lt. Col. Daniel L. Davis, who claimed the United States has “no plan” or strategy and warned of the real-world danger of invoking NATO’s “mutual defense” clause, which would trigger a nuclear war.