Ukraine

Is it. Note that the USA is running short of shells to send to Ukraine, another indication of the very large number of munitions of all sorts have been both supplied and expended in this proxy war. What will happen eventually is unclear. It would be unwise to say the Russian military is "bluff and propaganda"; indeed, there are various weapons that have not (yet?) been used.

Hopefully this conflict will end before many more people (Ukrainian and Russian) have been killed. Too many have died already in a conflict that should never have been started.

 

Russia has not been using some of its modern stuff modern stuff. We have not sent some of our modern stuff. The whole way of warfare has changed. Some of what we hear from our press and in day to day commentary has roots in '50s thinking. "Great numbers of tanks sweeping across the plain, engaging each other". That has not happened. Tanks seem to be obsolescent. "Dogfights, one-on-one". Not the way it's happened. Neither side dares operate their aircraft anywhere near the "front". They'd be shot down by missiles. In a reasonably evenly matched armed conflict, like this one, the first since the second world war, there have been huge changes.

 

Tanks and non-stealth aircraft are going the way of the battleship.

 

I think this is further evidence of complacency and narrow thinking in the west. The USA used to be, and possibly still is, often touted as the most powerful military in the world. Yet China has managed to catch everybody with their pants down, and Russia has surprised everybody by demonstrating that we can still get major land wars when everyone in the west thought such things would never happen again, despite the fact that they regularly do, although perhaps less regularly on this scale.

Conventional war gets all the media attention, because that's what the masses think of when war is mentioned. But Russia has been a major player in the cyber space for years. Many major hacks that have made the headlines in recent years have been traced back to Russia. Meanwhile, in the world leading USA and UK, it's recently come to light that the Russians have been inside top security military networks for the past 25 years. The UK has only fairly recently started to invest in cyber warfare research, and the traditional US approach to cyber security is to extradite and prosecute anyone that tries to highlight any vulnerabilities. I'm referring to the autistic hacker in the UK who a few years ago hacked the pentagon, gained access, then immediately told US officials how he did it so they could secure it against malicious attacks. Instead of thanking him and immediately putting their best techs to work on securing it, they instead chose to use him as an example of what happens to people who are honest and benevolent enough to highlight where work was needed.

Outside of both conventional and cyber, another front that gets ignored is space. Quite a few years ago both Russia and China each demonstrated their ability to shoot down a satellite in orbit. They each shot down one of their own decommissioned satellites so there was clearly no act of war. But it was clearly a demonstration for the west. It was in effect a statement that said clearly, we can destroy your surveillance, navigation and communications any time we feel like it. Britain and America still don't have that ability.

 

Hopefully people will stop using these things, even though as with space travel, developments can lead to useful things. Were research into "useful things" to be properly funded, rather than just happen off the back of war, it would I think be better. It would be nice to have a more peaceful world.

 

The USA has in fact shot down a satellite ('63, '85), as has China and Russia (also India). I hope they won't be doing that again. I also doubt that they will do it again. The consequences would, as they know, be likely to render (especially) low earth orbit space unusable by anything including facilities such as the International Space Station) for a very long time.

My guess is that someone will try "satellite disablement" in future, or somehow pushing them out of orbit, rather than blowing them up.

 

Looks like Sweden will soon be in NATO.

Turkey's Erdogan to back Sweden joining Nato - Stoltenberg

 

Say what you like about modern warfare, it still comes down to a bloke in a muddy trench and trying to gain ground.
Have we really moved on that far from WW1.

 

Unfortunately not.

Lest we forget.

We forgot.

 

I'm seeing in the news that Ben Wallace has made a not so subtle dig at Zelensky, for repeatedly asking for more weapons and apparently not showing gratitude.

I'm not sure how I feel about this. On one hand, the UK and others are ploughing lots of money and kit into Ukraine, and Ukraine would have been defeated by now if not for all the help they've received.

But on the other hand, and perhaps more importantly, Zelensky is in a desperate situation. I'm not sure he's ever publicly been disrespectful. And in any case, he's a human being, and he's watching his country being destroyed and his people being displaced or killed. Manners are of course important, but I'm not sure I'd always remember to smile and see please and thank you all the time if I was in his boots.

I've just watched him at a press conference, answering to claims he's not shown gratitude. The person that asked him made clear veiled suggestions that Britain might not continue to support Ukraine if they're ungrateful. And this man, who represents a country that is being systematically destroyed and his people dying or being displaced had to smile and grovel for the world.

I bet Putin was watching and loving every second of it

For me personally, this has gone on long enough. Ukraine has certainly proved itself. I don't know what resources in terms of money, kit and knowledge the UK has left to spare, but if we can, I'd say it's time to step up support rather than hint at retracting it.

And as for Ben Wallace's dig, I think he'd do well to remember that if Russia is allowed to win, it would certainly not be a good thing for us or most of the rest of the world.

 

If you're interested in details, this is a reputable organisation:

Ukraine Support Tracker - A Database of Military, Financial and Humanitarian Aid to Ukraine

Thge "type of aid" dropdowns on the charts are worth looking at.

 

As far as I can see, Volodymyr is doing what any leader would so in such circumstances - keeping up the pressure on allies. All we see in the West is military hardware being drained - but this is easily replaced - unlike the Ukraine losses. It is nothing more than spin put on poorly selected words or more likely a poor translation. Everyone apart from Putin is human or should I say humane?

 

The UK's public debt could soar as the population ages and tax receipts fall, the government's independent forecaster has warned.

This is happening right now in Putin land - workers fleeing and an aged population - which is why Putin has been kidnapping Ukrainian children.

I still say Putin will run out of money at the close of this year.

 

It is interesting that Russia's population, post-war, increased from C. 100m to C. 150m.

See: Russia Population 1950-2023

 

That is the strategy of the US and the west in general. It's basically how they won the so called space race, which was really nothing to do with space exploration for the shared benefit of scientific advance, but a competition to see who could skint the other first.

I'm not even speculating. Governments have been quite open about sanctions with the specific goal of achieving two things, to skint the Russian state, and to influence Russian oligarchs to turn against Putin. I don't think sanctions are working very well, so the other way to achieve the same result is to give Ukraine just enough support to maintain a stalemate until Russia starts to run out of money, and until the Russian people get sick of war.