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Ukraine and the Russian invasion, 2022-24

It's absolutely in the interests of the US (and Europe) to see Russia totally fucked on the killing fields of Ukraine. So the support will continue. (Of course, it's necessary to keep up appearances and speak in favour of 'negotiations', but as Russia doesn't even publicly recognise this is a war and now pretends that its international border have magically changed to incorporate large parts of Ukraine, there isn't really anything to 'negotiate' about is there?)
yeh. this is a really daft post because it ignores that in e.g. ireland in the 1920s or ireland in the 1970s, 1980s, and 1990s there were negotiations. maybe you should read e.g. 'peace by ordeal' or 'good friday: the death of irish republicanism'. you don't need war to be declared to have negotiations, as i'm sure mick lynch would tell you
 
It's absolutely in the interests of the US (and Europe) to see Russia totally fucked on the killing fields of Ukraine.
To unpack this a little, the US and Europe could be seen as having reasons to give Russia an off ramp and all that. But Europe is not a homogenous blob of French voters, but a very heterogeneous entity. And for the 3 Baltic republics, this is bordering on an existential issue. Sweden and Finland have faced what they see as significant hybrid warfare over the past few years with Sweden calling for Patriots to try to deter Russian airspace incursions last year. And Poland is just in a frenzy over the prospect of a Russian take over for Ukraine. So "Europe" may have many divergent views on the issue, it has one crystal clear interest and that is it has to support the Baltics and the Baltics are crystal clear that Ukraine needs everything that can be mustered.
For the US having Europe remain closely allied means being deeply involved in the current issues in NW Europe but the opportunity you mentioned speaks to their other geopolitical need. They are re-equiping their navy and will have about an 8 year period of dropping hull numbers as they retire Cold War era vessels and bring new one online so they would love to see Russia as quiet as possible to reduce the risks of a landwar in that 8 year period they need to rebuild their navy.
In theory this is not in the hand of Ukraine. In practice the Baltics, Scandinavians and Poland pretty much dictate it will be.
Moreover Poland has been going on a mad buying spree, just put in an order for 500 HIMARS. Even if the EU and US walked away, its likely NW Europe would be able to scrape the kit together to keep Ukraine fighting. (Finland has the 3rd largest artillery force on the content).
 
500 HIMARS
I've seen this claim a lot, and I'm sure it must be a misunderstanding or mistranslation.

There have only been 540 HIMARS produced, ever. The USA only has 363.

And they can't produce them fast enough for the already ordered units.

And that would cost $1.75B, which is 15% of Poland's entire defense budget.

It's possible that the 500 figure is correct, but it seems unlikely to me.
 
I've seen this claim a lot, and I'm sure it must be a misunderstanding or mistranslation.

There have only been 540 HIMARS produced, ever. The USA only has 363.

And they can't produce them fast enough for the already ordered units.

And that would cost $1.75B, which is 15% of Poland's entire defense budget.

It's possible that the 500 figure is correct, but it seems unlikely to me.
they're hoping to get a substantial discount for cash and bulk buying
 
Interestingly, Poland has ammended it's order.

It originally decided it wanted 500 HIMARS, the 6 tube, truck mounted GMLRS system - however, production simply cannot match the appetite within NATO for GMLRS, and so Poland has reduced it's order to 200, and instead gone for an additional 290(?) South Korean K289 12 tube, truck mounted systems.

Now, currently, the K289 uses a different rocket to the GMLRS - same size, pretty similar, but not the same. Poland would like, and given the size of it's orders for HIMARS, GMLRS rockets, and K289, should get, the GMLRS system integrated into the K289. Poland wants security of supply, as well as rapidity of supply.

Estonia has just bought HIMARS as well, as has Romania...

When enough states are looking to build up their GMLRS stocks, there's going to be a good argument for setting up a European production line - that's what Poland also wants.
 
Interestingly, Poland has ammended it's order.

It originally decided it wanted 500 HIMARS, the 6 tube, truck mounted GMLRS system - however, production simply cannot match the appetite within NATO for GMLRS, and so Poland has reduced it's order to 200, and instead gone for an additional 290(?) South Korean K289 12 tube, truck mounted systems.

Now, currently, the K289 uses a different rocket to the GMLRS - same size, pretty similar, but not the same. Poland would like, and given the size of it's orders for HIMARS, GMLRS rockets, and K289, should get, the GMLRS system integrated into the K289. Poland wants security of supply, as well as rapidity of supply.

Estonia has just bought HIMARS as well, as has Romania...

When enough states are looking to build up their GMLRS stocks, there's going to be a good argument for setting up a European production line - that's what Poland also wants.
they read Fez's post :thumbs:
 
hat would cost $1.75B, which is 15% of Poland's entire defense budget.

It's possible that the 500 figure is correct,
America is very artillery light. Ukraine and Finland have more towed artillery. Its stands to reason ex Soviet trained officers would look to recreate the kind of "wrath of God" Soviet style artillery opening of a battle. Especially if the vehicles can then be repurposed to being precision strike weapons. By 2030 Id say those kind of numbers to be more usual than now.
 
The PM of Finland has stated that Europe ought to be doing more. I don't think she wants the US as involved as much as in the past.


I'd imagine she absolutely wants America as involved as before. But that Ukrainian defence shouldn't be dependent on it
 
The PM of Finland has stated that Europe ought to be doing more. I don't think she wants the US as involved as much as in the past.


Other way around - Marin, and many others, believes that the best way to keep the US involved with Europe is to not depend on them for everything. They see that that dependence is a source of enormous irritation in the US, making a Trumpian withdrawal from NATO (de jure or de facto) more likely, and more harmful.

Finland is a fiercely Atlantacist state in defence terms - look at it's recent procurement choices, look at the states that immediately offered security guarantees as well of demonstrative military exercises - Finland, as well as the Eastern states, are utterly opposed to the anti-NATO sentiment that you'll sometimes hear in Paris and Berlin.
 
Other way around - Marin, and many others, believes that the best way to keep the US involved with Europe is to not depend on them for everything. They see that that dependence is a source of enormous irritation in the US, making a Trumpian withdrawal from NATO (de jure or de facto) more likely, and more harmful.

Finland is a fiercely Atlantacist state in defence terms - look at it's recent procurement choices, look at the states that immediately offered security guarantees as well of demonstrative military exercises - Finland, as well as the Eastern states, are utterly opposed to the anti-NATO sentiment that you'll sometimes hear in Paris and Berlin.
that is a good way of putting it
 
28 years ago yesterday the Budapest Memorandum was signed, whereby Russia agreed to respect Ukraine’s territorial boundaries. Security assurances were also given by the UK and USA. Ukraine, Kazakhstan and Belarus agreed to give up nuclear weapons. Previously, Ukraine had held one of the world's largest stockpiles of nuclear weapons.
 
Some bootlicker pillock on twatter today was going on about the RMT doing Russia’s work by destroying the country.
Not sure that destroying the U.K. is part of Russia’s business plan tbh . It was only a couple of years ago that the Tories were getting them to invest in the country .
 
28 years ago yesterday the Budapest Memorandum was signed, whereby Russia agreed to respect Ukraine’s territorial boundaries. Security assurances were also given by the UK and USA. Ukraine, Kazakhstan and Belarus agreed to give up nuclear weapons. Previously, Ukraine had held one of the world's largest stockpiles of nuclear weapons.

So, basically if the UK & US had honoured that, and got involved directly from day one, this bloody war could have been over months ago.
 
Russia is happy to bed down and make Kherson uninhabitable for the time being I would suspect. They are just over the river and can get all Sarajevo on them with their lumpen artillery.Maybe they are indeed having to ration their cruise missile expenditure, at current rates, its obviously not sustainable as they were not set up for a missile based project it would seem, this is a late flurry to wipe out their power infrastructre. Its going to be a shit winter for everyone out there but Kherson will be probabaly non stop misery from afar . Its utterly criminal.
 
It will look a bit like that if you're using two pictures with different scales.

Level them and the UKR gains are obvious.

View attachment 354575

Things probably aren't going to change very quickly in the winter, for either side.
The gains are obvious but still not very substantial. Russia has control of a slightly smaller area but in essence much the same sort of thing...a contiguous strip of territory along the coast to Crimea.
 
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