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Ukraine: Are ya winning yet.


Varysblackfyre321

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The real question now is when will we finally send battle tanks? Infantry fighting vehicles and battle tanks don't make much sense on their own on the battlefield. They need to be deployed together to cover each other's vulnerabilities. As for fighter aircraft, apparently those requires extensive pilot training, so we won't see Western planes in the Ukrainian sky any soon. Of course if we had started training them in spring last year ...

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FYI the AMX-10 thing is far from being as hot as it sounds and, like pretty much everything the Macron government does, is more about blowing air to score political points.

- The AMX-10s will be sent to Ukraine as they are being phased out (for Jaguars), yeah. Emphasis on "being" here. There's no clear schedule for that, and the French military is notoriously terrible with logistics these days (for many structural reasons, including chronic underfunding of key areas). It could happen in 2 months or 20, who the fuck knows.
- Speaking about logistics the AMX-10 requires French ammo (it's not NATO-standardized) so a chain of supply needs to be established. That's enough to get anyone who knows about present-day French military logistics a good laugh. But maybe NATO can help, ha ha.
- Only about 10 vehicles will be sent in the end. Given they are not particularly well-suited to the terrain of operations they're rather unlikely to be a game-changer.

It's not exactly nothing, but there's a real chance the war will be over by the time French AMX-10s are operational in Ukraine. This was a pretty cheap declaration from Macron's crowd to pretend to be doing something. The attention it got is a bit overblown imho, but I'm sure Macron's team made sure that would happen - the one thing they're good at is media stuff.
 

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21 hours ago, Wade1865 said:

Kalnestk Oblast -- nah; Bradleys can be "part of an armored group." For example, within a Combined Arms Battalion (CAB), which is the primary maneuver element of an Armored Brigade Combat Team (ABCT). More, by way of task-organizing, commanders can establish temporary (including Company) units comprising armor and mechanized infantry (et al.) tailored to a specific mission and for as long as needed.

  • Background"The most noteworthy features of the CAB are the M1A1/M1A2 Abrams main battle tanks and M2A3 Bradley infantry fighting vehicles, composing the US Army's main armored force. As such, Armored BCTs are more oriented towards high-intensity, conventional warfare, although they did operate in Iraq in a counter-insurgency capacity following the initial invasion."

I think that's basically saying what I was saying too - that the Battalion level has combined, but the actual quote talks about having 1 armored and two mechinf company or 2 armored/1mech. 

Quote

Following, CABs either consist of 1 Armor Company and 2 Mechanized Rifle Companies or 2 Armor Companies and 1 Mechanized Rifle Company. There are typically 1 of the former and 2 of the latter type per ABCT. 

In the US military they're still divided by that at the company level. You don't typically see companies that have both tanks and IFVs in them. 

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36 minutes ago, Kalnestk Oblast said:

 

In the US military they're still divided by that at the company level. You don't typically see companies that have both tanks and IFVs in them. 

Only Headquarters would pull some dumb shit like that. Some kinda O-Too-High motherfucker thinking he's Patton. 

Tank hasn't actually been an infantry support vehicle since before Titanic came out. It's a mobile defense platform- also, it's about as useful as snakes on a stain 

So much monE lit on fire for systems that aren't worth the time it takes their disposable operators to learn how to die in them. 

Oh well, in 10 or 15 years we will have learned better 

Eta: i meant HCC, not Headquarters. 

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It's so sad as well as frightening that even if/when P is kicked off power  and/or the mortal coil, that nothing in people's thinking in Russia will change, and threats to the rest of the globe will remain as imminent as ever.

Z Generation: Into the Heart of Russia’s Fascist Youth by Ian Garner; pubs. May, 2023

Quote

 

Description
How did Vladimir Putin win Russians’ support for his genocidal war in Ukraine and why are so many of them willing to embrace fascism? This vivid, bottom-up narrative reveals the dark realities of youth fascism in Russia—and the darker future awaiting the country if that hold cannot be broken.

Wartime Russia is drowning in fascist symbols. Zealous patriots attack journalists, opposition activists, and anyone suspected of betraying the motherland. Hordes of online trolls and sleek videos of angry young men urge citizens to join the cause. State television terrifies viewers with false tales of anti-Russian conspiracies and genocidal yearnings. Child soldiers proudly parade across Red Square. This is Russia in the 2020s: a land of performative rage and nationalist untruth, where pretence and broken promises are a way of life, and an apocalyptic mindset is seizing tomorrow’s Russians.

As compelling as it is chilling, Z Generation shows how Russia has ended up here, and where its young people may be headed: a fascist generation more violent and ideological than anything the country has seen before.

Reviews
‘A chilling investigation into the widespread support for the violence and ideology of fascism among Russia’s youth — and how Putin has used this to his advantage.’ — Financial Times

Author
Ian Garner's research focuses on Soviet and Russian war propaganda. The author of Stalingrad Lives: Stories of Combat and Survival, he studied at the Universities of Bristol and Toronto, and at the St. Petersburg State Conservatory.

 

~~~~~~~~~~~~

From back on April 18, 2022:

Putin’s Generation Z: Kremlin pro-war propaganda targets young Russians

https://www.atlanticcouncil.org/blogs/ukrainealert/putins-generation-z-kremlin-pro-war-propaganda-targets-young-russians/

 

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1 hour ago, Kalnestk Oblast said:

I think that's basically saying what I was saying too - that the Battalion level has combined, but the actual quote talks about having 1 armored and two mechinf company or 2 armored/1mech. 

In the US military they're still divided by that at the company level. You don't typically see companies that have both tanks and IFVs in them. 

Kalnestk Oblast -- yes, that's right! CABs and ABCTs do comprise mixed systems where tanks and Bradleys fight together as seen in the videos I linked. More (and I know you're tracking this), Armor and mech Infantry can (and do) task organize to fight at echelons smaller than a battalion (including company teams).

Excepting the primacy of the American NCO, I believe the relevant doctrine is very effective. Given that UKR is taking on substantial USA assets and funding, I'm confident we're also training their leaders on our doctrine, which will only reinforce their success against RUS.

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23 minutes ago, Wade1865 said:

Kalnestk Oblast -- yes, that's right! CABs and ABCTs do comprise mixed systems where tanks and Bradleys fight together as seen in the videos I linked. More (and I know you're tracking this), Armor and mech Infantry can (and do) task organize to fight at echelons smaller than a battalion (including company teams).

Excepting the primacy of the American NCO, I believe the relevant doctrine is very effective. Given that UKR is taking on substantial USA assets and funding, I'm confident we're also training their leaders on our doctrine, which will only reinforce their success against RUS.

Do you believe it is an issue of guarding New doctrines that has caused us to commit our sister democracy and recent dependant to a cutesy version of the Russo-Japanese war or are they just unequipped, like as a state structure to say nothing of a military structure, to make use of what real 21st century war will look like whenever someone actually dares to bite a serious military economy for real? 

Eta: dependant is famously spelled with 2 Ds

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Or, alternatively, is it simply a matter of their debt inflating...? deflating...? someflating(!) our debt that's making us act so cheerfully callous? I mean 

DRONES

DRONES DRONES DRONES

My brother-in-law works for a car manufacturer that has, in his words, "more" than 20,000 trucks (just TRUCKS) literally overflowing all the gigantic parking facilities and fields that those kinds of plants come with. They cannot be sold for lack of various obscure computer chips controling various functions entirely superfluous to the operating of a motor vehicle. They also cannot be sold because Elon and Jeff and Bill don't need trucks and nobody else got $$$

Meanwhile his brother (so does that make Brother my brother-in-law as well? I have no idea. I never paid out dowry for my sister so as far as I'm concerned this is all a dalliance, a youthful expense) got laid-off with many others this past year 

DRONES DRONES DRONES DRONES 

Do I have to spell it out clearer? 

 

Eta: guys, the dowry thing is a joke. I am very fond of my brother in law. Even their chirens have grown on me, like some kind of jungle mold... but it's somthing

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12 minutes ago, BBB Jacelyn said:

Do you believe it is an issue of guarding New doctrines that has caused us to commit our sister democracy and recent depenant to a cutesy version of the Russo-Japanese war or are they just unequipped, like as a state structure to say nothing of a military structure, to make use of what real 21st century war will look like whenever someone actually dares to bite a serious military economy for real? 

BBB Jacelyn -- great question, and I hope I understood your line of thinking correctly. Doctrine aside, my impression is that the USG is regressing towards a previous era where engaging in proxy wars is the more reasonable course of action (as opposed to our active wars during the recent past), especially given that nuclear-armed states are challenging our global dominance in a more aggressive way (e.g., RUS vs UKR; PRC vs ROC).

That said, the war in UKR is a boon for the USG, assuming it doesn't facilitate a US financial collapse or result in nuclear war. My question is, what's the underlying endstate the US is looking to achieve in UKR? For example, how will the USG (or, more precisely, US corporations) secure adequate profits from the UKR client state. Additionally, does the USG see value in pinning RUS down in UKR, preventing adventures elsewhere until it collapses again? Although the risks are high, the US has the most to gain, imo.

42 minutes ago, BBB Jacelyn said:

DRONES DRONES DRONES DRONES

Fundamental! The warfighting in UKR is mostly mundane, excepting the evolution of drone warfare in real time. This is the face of future war, and the war in UKR is providing us lessons learned as well as tactics / techniques / procedures in spades, which will ensure we dominate this weapon system in the future.

Coupled with the requirement for supremacy over near-earth orbit and beyond, and I know you know what's up :leer:

Blood for the Blood God;

Drones for the Drone Throne!

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10 hours ago, Wade1865 said:

BBB Jacelyn -- great question, and I hope I understood your line of thinking correctly. Doctrine aside, my impression is that the USG is regressing towards a previous era where engaging in proxy wars is the more reasonable course of action (as opposed to our active wars during the recent past), especially given that nuclear-armed states are challenging our global dominance in a more aggressive way (e.g., RUS vs UKR; PRC vs ROC).

That said, the war in UKR is a boon for the USG, assuming it doesn't facilitate a US financial collapse or result in nuclear war. My question is, what's the underlying endstate the US is looking to achieve in UKR? For example, how will the USG (or, more precisely, US corporations) secure adequate profits from the UKR client state. Additionally, does the USG see value in pinning RUS down in UKR, preventing adventures elsewhere until it collapses again? Although the risks are high, the US has the most to gain, imo.

 


Yeah, so I've always been a little aggressive about like forward-use of assets around the world. I greatly admire what China has accomplished in Africa. Yes, it's for their own self-interest and ultimately a communist colonial venture but at the same time it's what we SHOULD HAVE been doing for decades, maybe in a spirit of genuine goodwill while we had it to give that could have secured us friends in the future. And I've said that for (checking the year) literally a decade. For the sake of a "Dudes, we fuckin soooorry" if nothing else! 

Snooze ya looz

Anyway, maybe since Ukraine is full of whites our government will actually commit to helping them instead of softsploiting them while mercenaries and missionaries take selfies of how much gud they're doing. (talking American relations with Africa, folks) 

It helps that banks are more likely to see Ukraine as solvent, right? Geographically speaking, of course! It, uh, it's a geography thing... you understand? Just geneography! 

10 hours ago, Wade1865 said:

 

Fundamental! The warfighting in UKR is mostly mundane, excepting the evolution of drone warfare in real time. This is the face of future war, and the war in UKR is providing us lessons learned as well as tactics / techniques / procedures in spades, which will ensure we dominate this weapon system in the future.

Coupled with the requirement for supremacy over near-earth orbit and beyond, and I know you know what's up :leer:

 

So I always start off juggling like two or three things, and then grudgingly settle on the most sci-fi of them and go all manic-manic-onemore-manic-DEPRESSIVE until it's done. 

 

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So, y'know, like to be clear it's like this:

 

You are on Earth:

[Earth] 

But you're piloting a machine orbiting Luna:

[Luna] 

So human intuition and predictive skills are awesome, but 2.6 seconds is a lot of fucking lag if you've ever tried to play a Starfighter game with someone playing out of Estonia on NetZero 

So you need programs running for both the operator and the machine, so on [Earth] and past [Luna] that will automatically predict certain actions that might seem logical in this second but will become untenable in literally the next second. And they need to do this at the same time. Together. From a 1/4 million miles away :) 

Add complexity for multiple pilots operating in echelon, and god forbid they're operating multiple craft between them. 

Also don't forget that Earth Air warfare isn't actually, practically, 3-dimensional. It's like 2.5 

Have fun! 

 

ETA: I mean, you can shorten that 2.6 seconds but I'm not getting on a SpaceCraft Carrier that can be designed in my fucking lifetime. Are you insane!?!

 

ETA2: It's more like a SpaceCraft Operator than a Carrier, I suppose. But regardless. I mean maybe you can have some kind of enlightened Terms of Engagement that leaves these ships more or less impotent as practical weapons themselves so there's no reason to defeat the enemy's Operator Craft after you've disabled or destroyed the rest of their weapons craft... But the point of offensives against naval assets is, uh, not the aircraft. :( 

 

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Also, sorry, but also like the way space warfare has been conceptualized (as Air dogfight in zero gee) is of course silly and practically imbecilic 

Inertial Dampeners, Mass Effect Fields, blah blah blah artificial gravity projectors as like inertia brakes (where did I read that? Surely that last one isn't one of my ideas slipping in here, like a Star Wars Interdictor Class from the old <OG!> EU, but used to self-effect gravitational maneuvers sans traditional physical masses. Yorik-et, is that you from whom I steal?)  

But you need to visualize it more like Gandalf fighting the Balrog. They are moving at a relative velocity to one another, right. Not always the same speed. Sometimes Gandalf gets knocked "back" then has to maneuver to regain position, right? But they're moving at mostly the same speed most of the time. Except of course for when one of them exerts a force on the other. Because, since gravity, they can't exert a force on themselves. Right? That's how physics works

 

So when you're fighting like, another spacecraft, you're not like doing barrel rolls and Wronski Feints or "I can still out-maneuver them". 

Ironically, Seth McFarland pointed it out rather truly. It really will be more like 

"SIR, SIR! THEY'RE DRIFTING LAZILY TO THE LEFT!!!!" 

"God help their crew, the captain must be utterly mad! Well they don't call me Captain "Madhat" Hattmadder for nothing. Make light and douse canvas, we're going after them." 

 

So it's kinda like you're playing that old pitfall game that was on the graphing calculators, but you're also playing Asteroids against another person doing the same thing at the same time. 

Multiply for formation flying. 

Don't forget the contributions of Irwin Ira Shapiro to science that we established yesterday too! :) 

 

ETA: 

And also, there's like corridors every now and then or pretty much all the time that any craft can reorient itself down for the pursuance of alternative objectives. You just gonna let 'em go? Do you have a mission? What's their mission? This is getting complicated! 

 

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On 1/7/2023 at 8:29 AM, Toth said:

I must admit, I'm very anxious about the next weeks. It feels like it can't be a coincidence that Ukraine is getting Bradleys, AMX-10s and Marders, at the same time as Russia is sending more and more equipment to Belarus, prepares another giant draft for more cannon fodder and there are troubling rumors going on about Belarus maybe possibly eventually getting pressured into joining this time around for real.

Especially from a German perspective, where I feel very frustrated with my government doing NOTHING without other NATO members pushing us forward, a big step like sending Marders (which should have been in Ukraine ages ago) after all the excuses even though the arms manufacturers offered to send them essentially from week 1 for me is a big sign that US intelligence found another Russian offensive to be an imminent threat and pressured our government to send them. I see really no other explanation. Fuck... This is whole nonsensical waste of lives is going into the next round, isn't it?

I must disagree with this assessment of the current situation.  The US and NATO are taking the approach of not sending everything all at once to avoid "escalating".  That means that every few months there is something new.  Back in February, NATO provided javelins and other handheld weapons, but not nearly as much bigger stuff.  Then in May it was 100 M155s.  In July the HIMARs came online.  Then a few months later, NASAMS.  Then the first Patriot battery.  Now Bradleys and Marders.  I'm leaving out a lot of other stuff, but there's an unmistakable trend of gradually adding in more expensive and advanced weapons.  It does not (in any way) indicate to me that Russia is on the cusp of meaningful victories.

If you want to determine how the war is going, you don't need to read the tea leaves of some impending defeat, just look at the overall trend in the war.  Russia's professional army was ground down and defeated by the end of summer.  This was clear when they lacked the troops to hold Lyman and Izium.  Russia then mobilized a bunch of civilians, throwing some straight into the front to stabilize things.  Since mobilization, Russian casualties (on a per week basis) have actually increased, because barely trained troops get killed in huge numbers on the battlefield. 

Russian artillery ammo is already running low on some calibers.  That doesn't mean they are out of ammo, as Russia produces its own 155 mm shells even with sanctions, but that production is nowhere near what Russia has been using the past 10 months.  Likewise artillery barrels, body armor, drones, the list goes on and on.  Russia isn't producing or able to import nearly as much as is getting destroyed every month.  So Russia is forced to dip deeper and deeper into its defensive stockpile, and which means each new round of mobilization means the troops are using older and crappier gear.  40 year old body armor is basically worthless, because body armor does go bad and 40 years ago body armor wasn't that good to begin with. 

IMO Russia is attempting to recreate the Severodonetsk "victory" in Bakhmut.  But the balance of forces (particularly artillery) is much less one sided that it was in the summer, so they are trying to counterbalance that with greater number of infantry.  The result is huge Russian casualties for minimal advances.  Yes, if they keep pushing there, it's possible they'll eventually take Bakhmut, but Bakhmut is not a strategic objective in any sense.  The fact that it takes 3 months of maximum effort to (maybe) take a small city like Bakhmut only demonstrates the increasing impotence of the Russian army. 

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1 hour ago, Maithanet said:

I must disagree with this assessment of the current situation.  The US and NATO are taking the approach of not sending everything all at once to avoid "escalating".  That means that every few months there is something new.  Back in February, NATO provided javelins and other handheld weapons, but not nearly as much bigger stuff.  Then in May it was 100 M155s.  In July the HIMARs came online.  Then a few months later, NASAMS.  Then the first Patriot battery.  Now Bradleys and Marders.  I'm leaving out a lot of other stuff, but there's an unmistakable trend of gradually adding in more expensive and advanced weapons.  It does not (in any way) indicate to me that Russia is on the cusp of meaningful victories.

I... never said anything about defeat, I'm only wary about this release of equipment which before had been completely held back might indicate another offensive. That the Russian army is essentially beaten and they are only refusing to accept that reality to stroke Putin's fragile ego is pretty much fact, but facts don't seem to bother him anymore. I will anxiously follow those "exercises" with Belarus next week and then we will see whether they will make another push from the north even though it would be the stupidest move imaginable. I just... wouldn't put it past the Russians...

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11 minutes ago, Toth said:

I... never said anything about defeat, I'm only wary about this release of equipment which before had been completely held back might indicate another offensive. That the Russian army is essentially beaten and they are only refusing to accept that reality to stroke Putin's fragile ego is pretty much fact, but facts don't seem to bother him anymore. I will anxiously follow those "exercises" with Belarus next week and then we will see whether they will make another push from the north even though it would be the stupidest move imaginable. I just... wouldn't put it past the Russians...

The Russians may attempt another offensive.  If it comes from Belarus, Ukraine will have plenty of warning and established defenses ready and waiting for them.  Add in Russia's terrible supply lines going through Belarus and I would honestly consider a Russian offensive on the Northern axis to be good news (it would be a massive overextension and accelerate the collapse of the army and the end of the war).  If Russia instead reinforces the Donbas and Zaporozhye and dares Ukraine to attack them, it will be many months of hard slogging. 

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Yeah a lot of what caused collapses of things on both fronts in Europe in WW2 was over eager counterattacks. From El Alamein to Kursk to the Bulge and others it’s generally not a good thing when the inferior force spends a bunch of military capital on counterattacks. They rarely ever turn in to permanent gains.

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2 hours ago, Maithanet said:

I must disagree with this assessment of the current situation.  The US and NATO are taking the approach of not sending everything all at once to avoid "escalating".  That means that every few months there is something new.  Back in February, NATO provided javelins and other handheld weapons, but not nearly as much bigger stuff.  Then in May it was 100 M155s.  In July the HIMARs came online.  Then a few months later, NASAMS.  Then the first Patriot battery.  Now Bradleys and Marders.  I'm leaving out a lot of other stuff, but there's an unmistakable trend of gradually adding in more expensive and advanced weapons.  It does not (in any way) indicate to me that Russia is on the cusp of meaningful victories...

This is a key concept, and one I always overlook or forget.  I can remember that it takes time to train personnel on new systems, so you can't just shift from providing Stingers to B-2 Stealth Bombers in the course of a week.  The cycle time for learning curve is a real obstacle that the Ukrainians have to overcome.

That makes sense to me, but Maithanet's further point is also important on the strategy/politics side.  Indeed, it is probably more important to keep the war contained to conventional armaments.  Each new wave of slightly-more-advanced equipment makes it easier to make the next quarter's shipment of even-more-advanced equipment seem incremental rather than escalatory.  That sort of boil-the-frog approach incorporates the training time, and it reduces the shock of whatever new and better equipment the Ukrainians can field.

So the marginal improvement approach to supplying Ukraine is required by practical purposes of training, but more importantly, for strategic and political framing.

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The Americans have been saying for a while that their tactic is "getting the frog used to being boiled," that things the Russians would have taken as a massive escalation if done in one go, it doesn't if it's gradually built up to over months.

There was that interesting stuff last week (I think linked a few pages back) on Ukrainian general IT literacy being much higher than Russian. In Russia they have some excellent IT personnel but they are a very, very small number. In Ukraine it's much more widespread, so Ukrainians learning how to use new equipment reliant on computer fire control systems and so on pick it up much more quickly, and in fact more quickly than was expected. In pre-war NATO-and-allied training exercises, the Ukrainians were noted as being the best for getting to grips with practical applications of high-tech military equipment in the field (and also for not taking lunch breaks, eating on the job, staying longer etc), simply because they were convinced that would almost certainly need that knowledge practically in the near-future.

In general terms of the conflict, Ukraine maintains a very large and mostly-intact military force which is now well-trained, and many military units are still unengaged in the war to date, including some just back from the US and UK. They maintain a strong strategic reserve and western equipment supplies remain formidable. South Korea - which for some reason (cough) has been churning out heavy artillery and infantry equipment as if it's on a war footing for years, if not decades - is reportedly doing deals with the US to release millions of artillery shells and barrels to the US which can in turn be transported to Ukraine, potentially giving Ukraine superiority in artillery weaponry later this year (whilst not particularly damaging its own stocks for a war against the North). The US has over 2 million cluster munition shells and missiles it can release to Ukraine, although it's getting some pushback from allies who have signed the cluster munition ban treaty.

Russia's main strength at the moment is an enormous reservoir of conscripts and penal troops it can use to suck up a lot of damage to take ground, but this is massively resource-intensive, slow and also heavily flawed because it also doesn't have the professional, hardened troops and good equipment it did a year ago to actually exploit breakthroughs and hold ground. Russia can still win local victories, but it's iffy if it can achieve another major, theatre-level strategic success. The only way that might happen is if it was able to bring a huge amount of force to bear on a weak point in the Ukrainian line, or if Ukraine's will to fight on became eroded. That doesn't seem to be happening just yet.

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1 hour ago, Werthead said:

South Korea - which for some reason (cough) has been churning out heavy artillery and infantry equipment as if it's on a war footing for years, if not decades - is reportedly doing deals with the US to release millions of artillery shells and barrels to the US which can in turn be transported to Ukraine

Who would have thought North and South Korea would be fighting a proxy war in Europe?

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