Ukraine

I think there's a lot more activity than mainstream media tells us. We'll probably never get to know how accurate such reports are for certain, but I think there's something in it.

There's a lady at work who is Polish, and still has lots of family in Poland who she is in regular contact with. At the beginning of the war, she was telling me that her family had been saying the sky was full of western military aircraft. She described it as a constant stream of aircraft arriving in Poland. I think even mainstream media reported that some NATO assets were moved to Poland as a reassurance, but the way my Polish friend described it, it didn't sound like a few extra planes, but more like a full scale reinforcement. Of course this is hearsay that I can't verify, but it sounds plausible to me, and would be the exact opposite of what Putin wanted, in that he was upset about NATO build up close to Russia.

 

This is the situation as reported by Putin - the real situation will be far worse:

Russia’s dominant lender Sberbank reported a nearly 80% plunge in 2022 net profit Thursday in what the bank’s CEO called “the most difficult year.”

It's not going to get any easier in 2023, 2024, 2025.....

 

I don't think it's a case of 'unless'. The Chinese have already publicly made it clear which side their bread is buttered.

They must be thoroughly loving the Russia/Ukraine war. It's win win all round for China. They get to buy cheap oil, gas and coal from Russia, they get to sell more weapons to Russia (as far as I'm aware, they haven't done so yet, but they've made it clear they will), they get to study how the west responds to the invasion of a third party, they get to see everyone depleting their ammo and equipment reserves, and on top of all those benefits, they know that while all eyes or on Russia and Ukraine, few people are interested in what China is doing, with its rapid ramping up of its military capability and increasing imperialist actions in the region.

 

Some admission from Russia that they're running out of ammo.

Russia-Ukraine war live: Wagner head says Russian forces facing ammunition shortages | Ukraine | The Guardian

That's probably good news, and it supports the UK MoD analysis that Russia is probably running low. But I can't help but worry that once they run out of more basic tools, they might be tempted to field some of their even more nasty stuff.

They've already used 6 of their hypersonic kinzal missiles recently, and worryingly, even Ukraine admits that it failed to intercept any of them. That will serve as a good field test for Putin to justify moving to mass manufacture of them.

We should also not get too excited because a huge ammo factory in the USA that was earmarked to be mothballed before the Ukraine war is now apparently running at it's max rate, trying to replenish depleted NATO stocks as we've apparently collectively given a very significant chunk of ours away. Rightly so under the circumstances but still slightly concerning about NATO readiness should things escalate.

 

Interesting factoid:

As a proportion of GDP - the biggest supporter of Ukraine is Estonia.

 

They kind of have to be. They know it's just a matter of time before Russia takes them on, and Estonia stands no chance. They're tiny, and the Russians already have a well established foothold there.

 

I'm probably out of order but being of a certain age I still think of the likes of Ukraine Estonia Latvia and and a few other places as being Russianlike, is that a word.

But surely they have more traditions etc. in keeping with Russia than the west.

 

I don't think being 'Russianlike' (that is a word now, because at least two people have used it in writing) has to mean the same as ruled by Russia and populated by people living in fear of the state.

You do make a solid point though that is not currently widely discussed in the mainstream media. That is the question of how many people in such countries still see themselves as aligned to Russia. About 10 years ago in Ukraine, there was a public uprising and the people forced their elected leader, who was closely aligned with Russia, to flee in fear for his life. It could be said that this demonstrated that the people wanted to reject Russia, but equally the people elected him, and when the uprising happened, there were plenty of people that resisted

 

Will it ever truly happen though?

It's been about 30 years since Yugoslavia ripped itself apart. Yet today I'm hearing news of tension between Serbia and Kosovo. In Estonia there's the region of Transnistria, which is defacto Russian controlled, and about 20 years ago Russia invaded Georgia. Today Georgia is supposedly not Russian, but one of Wagner's top commanders hails from there.

I hate to say it, but I think political instability is likely to be the norm for as long as any of us are still about.

It's all a massive shame really. At the end of the day, regardless of culture, language, religion, skin tone or any other measure people often get categorised by, we're all just people, and most just want the same things, to live a half decent life and ensure the same for our kids. All this fighting is just stupid.

 

The International Criminal Court has issued an arrest warrant for Putin, for alleged war crimes in Ukraine. I won't hold my breath.

 

I read in the news today that the war in Ukraine has alarmed the US in an unexpected way.

It seems the US way of thinking is that in war, they'll always provide air support to the front line. They know from experience this works in the kind of conflicts they've had in the middle east over the last few decades, so they got comfortable with this strategy. However what they're observing in Ukraine is that both Ukraine and Russia are able to mount such credible air defence that neither side can achieve air superiority. So while the US still have a very credible air force for long range fighting, they see a capability gap for close air support at low level. I guess now they've identified the issue, they'll fix it, in about ten years or so.

Meanwhile, on the subject of air support, Poland has agreed to hand over some mig29 fighters to Ukraine, with the first four to arrive as early as next week. The mig29 is an old aircraft, but is built exactly for the conditions in the region, compared to the newer NATO options that typically need better infrastructure and would require the retraining of both pilots and ground crews. Russia has already promised to destroy any new aircraft, and maybe they will, but they have to say that don't they.

 

I think, and its only what I've read over the years, that close air support or any air activity these days comes with radar jamming planes to at least reduce the effect of ground defences.

I do know that the US have special squadrons designated to just that task, going back a few years one of those groups were called the wild weasels, planes loaded with electronics and they go in and just, somehow, jam most enemy guidance systems.

The Ukraine war is still an old fashioned war in many ways, and I doubt the Americans, or even the other western countries would want to try training Ukrainian air force personnel in that type of electronic warfare, let alone risk any sensitive electronics falling into Russian hands.