20 minutes ago, I tried to post the same video of Zelensky's jet smile but AFP YouTube videos blocked me from embedding. I should have followed your ripping route.
For some reason politicians are really sold on the idea that the PATRIOT missile system is effective. To the best of my knowledge the PATRIOT is only confirmed to have shot down a UK piloted Tornado and an American flown F-18, both in March, 2003.
The Ukrainian air defense force spokesman, Colonel Yuri Ihmat has admitted the NATO ADA can't take down the KH-22 or the KH-32. No way the ADA can take down the Kalibr, Iskander or KH-47. The most humorous part of the plot is Ukraine uses the $ 5 million missile version instead of the $ 3 million version. If you are going to waste as much cash as possible as quickly as possible go large.
I think EMDYN is full of BS. NATO's Military Dependency of Ukraine is claiming at least 13 KH-47s have been shot down. So far, the only evidence found was Klitschko posing with a glide bomb. After 4 months at least the debris of a downed KH 47 should have been found.
The day after a PATRIOT shoots down a Kalibr, Iskander or Khinzal Raytheon will throw a party with cake, balloons, clowns and pony rides for the kids.
For some reason over the last week or so, videos embedded on this site do not play on my S21 the video loads apparently, with the play button displayed, but when clicked, nothing happens. I cleared my cache, to no effect. Amy ideas please?
What about a decent search engine? Does one exist? Literally every engine I have tried is just a copy of Google. You literally cannot find out information anymore. I was so frustrated today. I put in a search "Democrats criminalize questioning election results" but could not a get single return on topic.
Brave is a good browser for AD blocking but a garbage search engine. It just returns the same woke neo-liberal garbage that all the others do. I try Yandex. It is marginally better.
I find Yandex to be the best, gave up on Firefox, as well as Brave. A shame too Brave once was great as a search engine, now it might as well be google.
Regarding the New York Times article, of which all MSM have versions (as if ordered to), I quote:
"American officials say they fear that UKRAINE HAS BECOME CASUALTY AVERSE, one reason it has been cautious about pressing ahead with the counteroffensive."
Sure, Ukraine has less casualties because they're avoiding them! Millions of people read this shit, and are dumber for it.
When WW1 broke out, the military commands had ideas of how the war would be fought - but nobody predicted 3 years of trench warfare on the western front
In WW2, the mighty battleship was not expected to turn into target practice for carrier borne aircraft, among other things
This WW3-lite has taught us a lot, mostly that the modern battlefield is one where you don't see much, you don't have many people around you, and you are continuously watched, day and night, from above. I honestly don't know how the soldiers on the ground handle it.
I believe human stupidity has reached close to the limit where it becomes self-annihilating. The war in Ukraine will go down as another Poland-provoked world war where a few fled to their bunkers with their gold and other reserverves, including the finest wines, while the rest of the world suffered the consequences of a critical-mass breakdown of humans controlling govenrments.
I wonder how many lethal subs could have been built out of the materials and manpower it cost to build the Bismarck. Beautiful sleek fast and powerful the pride of the Kriegsmarine , she had no equal upon the sea. Her guns sank the Hood, the mighty Hood the biggest baddest battleship in the Royal Navy on her second salvo, the Hood went down so fast that only three sailors survived.
To think that the Bismarcks undoing came about by a fish striking her rudder after being dropped into the water by a tarp wood and glue modified WW1 small single engine aircraft capable of only 180 MPH top speed, sent aloft from a carrier.
The Bismark never destroyed a single one of these tiny planes attempting to torpedo her even though a blanket layer of projectiles where whistling through the air.
Hmm, there is a thought for those fighting the evil Empire ehhh.
The F-16s now promised, for what that's worth, are not top line fighters, and can't engage top line fighters without being shot down....but can carry nuclear missiles..Unfortunately for the Ukrainians, F-16s need very clean 1st world runways because of their unprotected low air scoops, and will thus have to be based in Poland, where they would be attacked, as the Russians have said...A real bag of worms...In fact, I will bet that not one F-16 is ever actually deployed by the Ukraine during this war...
As I understand it, Netherlands has a more modern F-16 MLU (mid life update) version, though I'm not yet certain exactly which one as there are several MLU variants. But if it's the later one then the F-16 they will reportedly give Ukraine may be pretty advanced with one of the latest Block 52 radars that's considered nearly an equal to the F-35/F-22 ones -- AN/APG-83.
With that said, Ukrainian F-16s would mostly be operating in isolation as NATO E-3s, RC-135s, Rq-4s, etc., are out of range of most areas of Ukraine other than perhaps Kherson and lower Zaporozhye (for ELINT craft operating out of Romania). The only help they would really be able go give Ukrainian F-16s is perhaps designating Russian cruise missiles flying to central/western Ukraine via Link-16 to help the F-16s shoot them down (NATO's AD doctrine has always relied on, in great part, aviation shooting down incoming missiles). But for offensive purposes they won't be able to help AFU much at that range.
Russian fighters going up against the F-16s on the other hand will be assisted by a variety of powerful networked systems from ground based radars (of s300/400) to airborne A-50U AWACs, etc. So it will be a very uneven contest in spite of the potentially powerful radars on the modernized F-16s.
I'd expect the F16s to be shot down by R-37s. Good luck staying up long enough to shoot down incoming missiles. Of course there was the earlier statements about what deployment of F16s means and how Russia would respond. So far all the PR hasn't worked as planned.
Can these F-16s carry Storm Shadow missiles or Taurus? If yes it could be a problem for RUS. Why? Because 42 F-16s would enable UKR to keep maybe 1/2 of them operational and launch into the air 4 or even 8 planes at the same time. For this UKR pilots do not need too much training and RUS AA defenses would be quite busy.
42 F-16s? Didn't they just say that was their entire fleet of aircraft? Who would be so stupid as to give the Ukrainians everything they've got?.... On second thought... that's already happened.
Danes will miss a mature repairable serviceable platform like F16, when they use the POS high-cost high-maintenance slow-turnaround F35. Assuming parts, crews, test sets, FULL Documentation are available. I hope no freindly troops need CAS, because there are not enough A-10's. F16 and F35 do CAS as an afterthought, so don't bother calling when Danger Close.
They are AM/BM Block 20 MLU, which practically means F-16A Block 20 with F-16C Block 50/52 avionics. With the original F100-PW-220 (not 220E, but not 200) engine.
Thanks! If the Ukraine can last that long, and the pilots are well enough trained, I guess modernized F-16s could be of some value....I doubt Ukraine has that much time left....
With all Russian military might, I doubt that F-16 will be of any operational value. Seems to me that it will be same story as with HIMARS - great fanfare in the beginning, some successes, then reality kicks in and counting of F16 losses afterwards
the newer radar is knocked (scalable) off the larger equipment in the bigger nosed f-22 and f-35.
sort of like the new raythoen radar for aegis ships a small set of modules is on the ford aircrft carrier (? planned)
it gives the f-16 a better look down shoot down role, and so is first put on f-16's in Andrews AFB defending the capitol!
it can do ground synthetic aperture imaging if the f-16 can survive.
f-16 patrols dealing with cruise missile will soon break enough aircraft as to have most of the f-16 in awaiting parts status dragging parts from other f-16's around nato!
after a few week how many ukies f-16's will have holes where broke engines were removed and no spare was on hand?
i read somewhere that f-35 needs a new radar, which requires a technology upgrade in the data management system to handle the greater bandwidth of data....
The question I have is if the Russian Military is prepared to target the F16s when they take off and land from Romanian and Polish Air Fields. The Romanian ones are ideal for bombing Crimea.
I don't believe if these F16' s are ever delivered that they will operate out of Ukraine. Nor will they be flown by Ukrainian Pilots. Romania has taken a decade to train on the F16 and they are still not complete. We are seriously supposed to believe that Ukraine can do it in a couple of months?
My guess is that pilots have already been trained and no doubt there will be foreign volunteers as well. You could well be correct in that the F16 won't ever be deployed but I'd say there is an equal chance that they will be deployed much sooner than 2024.
It is far faster, easier and cheaper to give an existing US/EU pilot a Ukrainian identity and fake passport than it is to train Ukrainian pilots from scratch. Likely from someone already deceased.
There is not much doubt this is the route they will go if/when they decide to engage F-16s
A $10M life policy may not be enough. Combat pay is not enough to get killed for, when the mission is to fly over Russian AA. This is a job for drone operators at Nellis.
Exactly. Let's just remember the introduction of the SS (Storm Shadow) cruise missile into the Ukrainian arsenal. One day the delivery was announced by Great Britain. Around that time I read an article on RT (if memory seves), that in case of Storm Shadow's handover it would take months to adopt a soviet era plane to deliver it or build some sort of lounch pad etc.
The night after the British announcement the first SS were used for a strike, accompanied by at least one US made decoy missile, able to project false targets onto AD radar facilities.
Astounding how everyone and their mother in law is telling us over and over again how it would take eternities to enable Ukraine to obtain and put to use F16s.
It might very well be true, but let's take it from Porgy and Bess: "it ain't neccessarily so". In the same way I'm puzzled that the enemy's propaganda is taken for truth as soon as we like the way it sounds. NATO must be running out of ammunition, because several notorious liars have said so, like some certain guy name of Biden. Huh?
Finally, never underestimate the stupidity of the guys you are rooting for. Who sends a column of armoured vehicles into (obviously) uncharted territory, full well knowing that NATO gathers IRS using a variety of sources, and feeding it real time to Ukrainian units using Starlink? You can always say that this is an isolated event, something we don't really know either. It can have a huge effect on the perception and morale of the public on all sides as well as on the fighters'.
In other words, all the poetry about Russia having the upper hand will only turn into a tangible reality if we see some more verifiable manifestations of that superiority.
If for instance Ukraine's airdefense is as weak and running out of missiles as advertised months ago and if Russia's production of rockets and missiles has been boosted we should see MUCH more actions against infrastructure of military importance. Specifically, we just should much more often witness not only damage to, but ANNIHILATION of said targets. I'm truly sick and tired of the argument that this could trigger NATO to do sometging drastic. Like WHAT? The nuclear deterrence is real, so what NATO might do are the same things they are doing ANYHOW. And by the way, NATO is running out of ammunition, right?
Russia and NATO have limitations. Russia can use all of it's missile production today for an attack tomorrow, or hold some back to build an inventory in case it needs to attack inside NATO or perhaps a particularly strategic target of opportunity in Ukraine later. NATO will never run out of artillery shells, but even a tripling of todays production numbers tomorrow will not be enough to maintain the Bandera army current use much less rebuild the spent inventory.
All Western artillery shell production combined is less than desired daily expenditure by UKR military. If we send it, they use it and ask for more.
The Russians are using 3X the number of shells while adding to stocks, and will not run out before the West is rationing or dry.
Sue for peace NOW. The Russians don't want to own Kiev, but they will not accept a hostile NATO Ukraine with missiles minutes. From Moscow. Until the last Ukrainian is not just a slogan from Vicky Neuland. Crimea is not negotiable, but giving chunks of formerUKR to Poland, Hungary, Romania to administer in Neutrality is going to be acceptable to the Rusians. Losers don't dictate terms.
You are aware of the fact that Russia shot thousands of missiles into Ukraine right? So what more do you want? Hundreds of thousands missiles? Nobody has that much on planet earth right now.
Are you implying that clobber list (of shit blown/troops killed) up by Russia compared to what Ukraine achieved is fantasy? If so, why should I waste time proving anything to you? Let's get back to it after everything over and I would read what you write with great interest.
I've read posts like that when Georgia happened (well, that went quick), Syria (took a while, but resounding, crushing success). Now Ukraine. Keep doubting, it WILL happen, since Russia is cruising, it's not even close.
Russia is not US. It's doesn't lie about this shit, they just do what's needed to be done. And it works. Every time
It puzzles me that many, many people repeat this "runway" trope. As if asphalt is some high tech out of reach of Ukrainian state. It's not Mozambique (no offense to them) ffs. Ukraine most likely has enough public road maintenance crews and rollers/ trucks/ earth diggers to erect 10 new and clean runways every night.
Ukraine is a flat step land. You can build it anywhere. Plus two quick montage shelters for a pair of fighters, several containers for crew and pilot accommodation, and there is your "air base"
These are war conditions. It doesn't need to be perfect. TI CAN be improvised. It doesn't need to fit a full squadron. Planes don't have to be 100% fit in order to contribute to Ukraine's war effort.
If RuAF cannot suppress "Flying Tennis Courts" of Su-24s in timely manner, it will be much more difficult to suppress/ detect fast, small and nimble F-16 employed for same purpose.
I do not think anyone expects F-16 to engage in air to air combat. But in air to ground role, or to shoot and scoot at Ka-52s, they will likely be problematic.
I've been in the roadbuilding/paving side of things for 30 years. It might not be "high tech" but it has its limitations. To build 1 airstrip maybe so but 10 or more all at once... No way that will happen. RC oils have to still be refined to certain specs, for maximum durability, same with aggregate. Then comes supply of materials. manufacturing. delivery laydown etc. It's not a simple process, and all that has to be done with the Russians watching every move. Best scenario. have the jets stationed in Poland.
I have no doubt that this is difficult. But for such a vast country with tens of millions of people and resources of combined west at hand...
Again - these are WARTIME conditions. Nothing needs to be perfect. It is enough to last for dozen of sorties before VSS locates it and destroys it.
I once watched a documentary how night crews on Frankfurt airport manage to fix dozens of airstrip segments in 4 hours the airport is closed. I imagine something similar enough can be recreated in limited capacity.
In any case, this is how I would attempt to do it at least.
Another thing people fail to realize is how huge Ukraine actually is. No way it's possible to monitor every square kilometer at all times. And again, we have proof of that with the current airforce that still operates.
Frankfurt.. Those are specalized concrete pavers. probably a Gomaco xxx multi million dollar machines with a dedicated experience crew. Not many out there as they're specialized equipment, and like operating a f-16 you don't learn to operate overnight.
"Electric eye" pretty sure there is enough tech up there watching every move.
When it comes to Poland, Ukrainian, Russian I may know a "little" but I do know enough, as that's where my blood comes from. Third generation Slav living in Canada.
How I see it... Slav brother killing Slav brother so the "bankers" can have their little "fun."
Yeah, specialized crews, like the specialized crews in F16s, Tanks, Radars, etc. The Western leaders are really incompetent, they can't fathom, that it needs months to years to master special knowledge. They think their slaves with their stupid jobs are just morons who can learn to fly a 40-50 million dollar fighter jet in a couple of weeks.
What about the aircraft maintenance crews and their equipment? What about missile loading crews and their equipment? The logistics are impossible to move these many different teams and their equipment to disparate locations.
My initial comment was in connection to citing runways as a main issue for F-16's deployment. It is by far the easiest component (still not easy, but the easiest among many) to solve in this very complex technical equation.
My belief is that Ukraine / NATO will make it work, and that the F-16 will start flying before the end of this year. It will not work particularly well, but it will work.
As for other issues you mentioned, everything seems solvable. If you remember, same issues were brought up for Leopards as well. Yet we see them operate. As for service, Ukraine had a dozen of civilian airports before the war, and they all had some technicians, in addition with already present MiG/SU army technicians. These people know their stuff, and don't need a lot to learn simple maintenance procedures. F-16 will not survive enough to need in depth maintenance. And in the end of the day, they can fly with some systems not working.
What is the average life expectancy for Leopard? Le's be generous and say 3 engagements. Most of them are actually destroyed in their first deployment. Let's again be generous and give F-16 20 sorties (being flown by western veterans at first). They will not survive long enough to be needing any serious maintenance.
When you have bigger picture in mind, it all makes sense. Purpose of F16 transfer to Ukraine is not to win the war but extend it by forcing Russia to move more carefully, while in the same time force shoving more uber-expensive F-35s down the western European's throats to fill the empty squadrons ASAP.
I came to believe that Elensky's recent trip to Sweden was not to ask for Gripens, but for knowledge transfer on how to maintain complex modern fighter in austere conditions. Swedes are good at this, and it's part of their doctrine. True, Gripens are not F16s, but comparable enough. It's war, you take what you get.
But wait. Ukrainians are not exactly stupid. The primary role of these F-16 is not going to be sneaking around the frontline, but the same as Su-24s had. Launching stand-off weapons from safe distances. And optionally replace MiG-29s as HARM launchers.
I fully agree. They will be used for lobbing JASSMs most of the time. As well as chasing and shooting down Kalibrs and Geran drones deep in the interior.
However, imagine a scenario of Russian breakthrough with nothing to stop it but F-16s armed with Mavericks...
The issue that Ukraine has for the moment is lack of air cover for their assaults. They are bound to be employed in that role too.
Both employments will influence their lifespan negatively.
Necessities of war change employment tactics. Look at the famed 82nd brigade, and how it is wrongly employed at the moment for the equipment it has.
Seymour Hersh states that the CIA convinced Blinken that Ukraine was finished, never mind DIA or any other sources. Blinken's response, reportedly, was to adopt a Kissinger stance to achieve the equivalent of a Vietnam War peace agreement. WaPo obliging. NYT to provide the DoS and its War Department response when the time comes.
In true Washington parlance, first a victim needs to be found for 'losing' Ukraine. No candidates yet
How to end the war if Putin keeps fighting? Hopium. Putin will grind away until NATO quits and throws down arms. The West cannot be trusted to abide by a single agreement.
The Ukies will run out of people before they run out of supplies, even if the latter are not reaching the front. The Russians, here and there, are demonstrating textbook examples of how to conduct land warfare and they are still improving. They have also improved interdiction of the Ukie supply chain and will likely affect F-16 deliveries when and if they still come.
Lunar landing efforts on the dark side of the moon are iffy for everyone. The Russkies want to demonstrate that they are players. Best wishes to them. It is demonstrating to the non Russophobes nations that they are serious. The US has demonstrated, a while back, that the AK-47 design approach, simple and robust, will work.
oh, I see the guys who are going to be pinned with the crime -- Biden (makes his removal an important task!), Nuland (she's nuts), Sullivan (he's arrogant, pushy and shallow). Maybe they will advance the versatile Mr. Burns from his stint as spook central booster to replace one of them. Alas, I think Burns may be the slipperiest of them all. He seems to have no North Star to guide his judgment these days, but working at the House of Mirrors and Smoke can indeed confuse someone.
expendables: austin and milley, and the useucom 4 stars...
blame the pentagon run simulations, with troublesome assumptions and faulty ground rules that 'cleared' the ukies for a slow rolling version of the charge of the light brigade......
My biggest tinfoil hat conspiracy is that every russian casualty number reported by Ukraine is actually the real Ukrainian losses. Doing this serves 2 goals. 1) allows intelligence agencies to quickly disseminate information and 2) as the saying goes "always accuse your enemy of what you're doing". IE when Russia reports estimated Ukrainian losses the media can just accuse them of lying about their own losses.
the figures are pure propaganda. ignore them. watch the blogs posted by WeebUnion and Military Information Channel and so many others where they gather all the most reliable (and least reliable) information, try to put it together, and share their analysis. Good stuff.
Every day, my MSN feed has an article from Ukranski Pravda announcing the death of 500 “invaders” in the prior day’s fighting. By coincidence, it is always exactly 500. Also, apparently, Ukraine has yet to experience any casualties whatsoever, as their own figures are never mentioned.
MSN? I guess some read just to know what the zombies are repeating that day, but I could write their boringly predictable scripts for them. Life is too short for MSN!
Don't ever ever get an expeditionary air-naval power involved in a European or Asian land war.
They are already there with all of their stuff . We are over here with at least 10's of thousands of Red Special Forces saboteurs pretending to be "migants". Let's get back to business.
As always Simplicius, your analysis is spot on (or the best in the business supposing I have no feelers on the ground). If only I could avoid the fucking nazi loving pussies replying to this and similar comments on other threads crying about how they're triggered about nazis getting their asses beat.
I find the point about the poor quality of entrenchments today to be a small but significant bit, it points to a deeper and more disturbing reality. Now that we have our mobile digital devices and apps we think we are so much smarter and better than our great grandfathers, in many ways that's just not true. There is a very real difference between a society full of laborers, farmers, coal miners carpenters and so on and a society dominated by keyboard commandos and database miners.
I'm not sure if it's the Russian or Ukrainian native population who suffer from this phenomenon the worse, but as Kiev is now dominated by a professional class of western deep state apparatchiks who think there's no problem that can't be solved with the correct focus group and marketing strategy, it seems likely that the Ukrainians are going to have to eat the worst of it.
There's a vast amount of useful information and powerful techniques that have been lost to us just buried in the past and not even very deeply buried in the distant past. I discovered Ernst Jünger just after February 2022, here's what he had to say on this topic,
"The Pionierkompanie was a very special unit, composed of miners and other skilled workers. They were constantly engaged in digging tunnels under the enemy lines, laying mines, and blowing them up at the right moment. They also built concrete shelters, bunkers, and dugouts for us, and repaired the wire entanglements and trenches after every bombardment. They were brave and cheerful fellows, who did their dangerous work with a sense of humor and a disregard for death."
Yeah, and where are all those 10's of thousands o Russian drones being made? Of course we don't see all the hits they make, but there's no sense of how many are actually being employed from the large handful of videos. Could RFs be saving them up for a bigger offensive? You'd think a thousand or so flying over Kiev (or Kharkov) would throw a chill into the spines of the Ukes.
Brings to mind the excellent stonework done during the Great Depression throughout the US under Roosevelt's job programs. You can still find stone cabins scattered throughout the National Parks, humble abodes displaying fantastic workmanship. I wonder if we could assemble such stonemason teams today, seriously doubt it.
The only way Nato gets out of this war without eventually promising all their best equipment and first sons to Zelensky, is to get rid of the cleptocrats he's currently blackmailing to keep the weapons coming. Otherwise they will continue to passive aggressively give hints they want out until they're forced to apologize the next day. I really don't think any of them have any kind of exit strategy or grand master plan . Just harsh words and a bad case of buyers remorse. Might not even be Zelensky doing the blackmailing. Probably the same shadowy figures who did the blackmailing during covid.
My Potato-in-Chief didn't need to have his arm twisted or blackmailed to get the party started. Remember, Zelenski was willing to agree to Putin's demands in March, 2022, which were quite reasonable at the time, until the emissary demon BoJo appeared to him and whispered promises into Zelenski's ear.
Now, Zelenski is stuck. He has to carry on the war until the US sez stop and take advice from his neo-NAZI friends or be replaced by someone who will follow US orders.
Zelenski and wife probably need to plan a meet and greet in a neutral nation and not return. Sooner than later. Live to enjoy their plundered wealth. The Bandera territories are going to burn no matter who is the token leader.
Some Ukrainian will for sure end him, I think he is to stupid to understand that. It doesn't matter where he is, he couldn't even hide behind the moon. The only possibility would be a total face transplant for himself and his wife. But all his houses and estates are more of a problem then, if some dude who looks at least a little like him shows up, everybody knows then.
I don't think the party started as blackmail. It started because they all seen what they thought was a great idea to weaken Russia while enriching themselves. Most of them were probably bribed in the beginning, and now that they want out before their citizens lynch them, they are being blackmailed to continue. Politicians that are easily bribed are much more easily blackmailed. I don't even think it's Zelensky, it's most likely the WEF trolls and globalist banker type goons. They are set to aquire quite a bit of resource rich Ukrainian real-estate once the war is over. Problem is that Russia currently controls the prime stuff they need to recoup their losses. The potato-in-chief is just an empty skull in an empty suit, he does whatever his handlers tell him to. If he resists they just tell him it was his idea.
I wonder, is he blackmailing them or just laundering cash for them. They seem to make an inordinate number of visits to him, say hello, smile then fly back out. And always in their diplomatic planes immune from any search and seizure. I think he may be saving the blackmail for when he retires, assuming he lives.
Thank you again, for a very informative article. Can you please comment on the "quality" of some of the information? Specifically, it seems the letter from Kherson has been whited-out (or tippexed) and the text message concering Donbass seems to be cobbled-together. It gives me the sense of being "manufactured" and not real.
Regarding the F-16s the number circulating are about 42 planes from the Netherlands and another 19 from Denmark.
Yet, Ukraine only seems to have 8 fighter pilots in active training for at least a year since that was the number of people they could find who were fluent enough in English. Another 20 pilots are currently learning English in Great Britain: https://www.nytimes.com/2023/08/17/world/europe/ukraine-f16-jets-nato.html
"However, American officials have said that Ukraine has identified only eight combat pilots — less than a single squadron — who speak English well enough to start a period of training expected to last at least a year. About 20 others are being sent to Britain this month to learn English."
Based on this information, it seems that Ukraine will only be able to create a squadron sometime during the summer/fall of '24, unless they actually use foreign fighter pilots.
Regarding artillery shells, there are articles stating that the US has already provided 2 mn rounds of munition. Their production capacity increased from 14K to 24K per month and the goal is to increase it to 80K/month.
Even with 80K/month, it will take 2 YEARS to replace the 2mn of artillery shells stock, let alone supply Ukraine with new ones. Even if all 80K were provided to Ukraine, it would translate to 2.5K shells available to fire each day.
Firstly, there were many 404 pilots who knew English. They usually don't have any problems with English when roaming around European Air Shows and conferences.
But also... Speaking English is not their real problem.
There are enough F-16 pilot-instructors in the West who speak Russian. Just run down a list of astronauts (they all speak Russian at more than good enough level) and many of them are experienced F-16 pilots (and test pilots, there are even people who served as instructors flying F-16s).
But... The problem is that they speak Russian, and that's a no-go.
Yes, practicing on F-16s is good. On a Russian offensive, IMO, ISR becomes poor once forces get beyond and behind the FEBA in depth, and Ukraine lacks mobility and an air force aside from drones, plus its artillery is thin and getting thinner. Flanking the FEBA from North to South while closely guarding Russia's Western flank opposite Kiev would allow for decent advances of 10-20km/day, perhaps more. The question for me is what sort of defensive lines has Ukraine constructed behind the current FEBA? Ukie forces along the FEBA would face frontal, flanking and rear assaults and would be forced to react to them, but they lack mobility, artillery and ammo along with no air assets aside from drones.
As usual, time will tell us what Russia does. However, I do think Russia has a political objective for the August-October 2024 time period.
A dear friend of mine long since gone fought in the hedgerows of Normandy, after getting across Omaha Beach. His stories about the hedgerows were brutal. He received the DSC for saving a platoon stuck in them. Anyway, some of the videos I have watched remind me of his hedgerow stories. The one video of the UKE being buried alive was an experience my friend had, kinda weird watching what his story via words were like in comparison of seeing that video. God rest his soul.
I get the arm band thing, but isn't it an oxymoron to wear camouflage fluflu's on your helmet and then slap blue tape on top of your head?
It's either that or be shot by your own guys. BOTH sides use the same camo, you're more likely to be in range of your own guys, and everyone has itchy trigger fingers.
Ugh, they don't use same camo. UA uses pixel or multicam and Russia uses ratnik. There is multicam variant in newer Russian camo (which caused much controversy about potential FF) but it's rare. And Russians don't tape helmets like Ukraine does. It's mostly says you a story about how much more degraded communications for one of the sides
20 minutes ago, I tried to post the same video of Zelensky's jet smile but AFP YouTube videos blocked me from embedding. I should have followed your ripping route.
Another irritation is that I cannot get into TASS via Mozilla (tried Bing too) e.g. https://tass.com/politics/1634155
I can't remember if I shared this joke here, but since Zelensky's smile is going to haunt me for the rest of the day, here it is - https://mikehampton.substack.com/p/zelensky-darya-dugin-faina-savenkova
Friend, I have a question. Can you remember that Klitschko stood beside the so called Kinzhal debris? Did they really intercept a Kinzhal??
That was a glide bomb.
For some reason politicians are really sold on the idea that the PATRIOT missile system is effective. To the best of my knowledge the PATRIOT is only confirmed to have shot down a UK piloted Tornado and an American flown F-18, both in March, 2003.
The Ukrainian air defense force spokesman, Colonel Yuri Ihmat has admitted the NATO ADA can't take down the KH-22 or the KH-32. No way the ADA can take down the Kalibr, Iskander or KH-47. The most humorous part of the plot is Ukraine uses the $ 5 million missile version instead of the $ 3 million version. If you are going to waste as much cash as possible as quickly as possible go large.
Thank you Ken.
You are very welcome, Pahan.
What do you think about this?
https://euro-sd.com/2023/05/news/31497/dagger-fallen-assessing-ukraines-downing-of-the-kinzhal-missile/
I think EMDYN is full of BS. NATO's Military Dependency of Ukraine is claiming at least 13 KH-47s have been shot down. So far, the only evidence found was Klitschko posing with a glide bomb. After 4 months at least the debris of a downed KH 47 should have been found.
The day after a PATRIOT shoots down a Kalibr, Iskander or Khinzal Raytheon will throw a party with cake, balloons, clowns and pony rides for the kids.
Yes. I agree with you.
That 13 Kinzhal shot downs is a total nonsense. If they even shot one down, it would be a huge victory to throw a party on.
They should simply show us evidence.
https://tass.com/politics/1616183
Thank you Mike.
try an anonymous proxy server - plenty of free ones on the internet
I use VPN.
For some reason over the last week or so, videos embedded on this site do not play on my S21 the video loads apparently, with the play button displayed, but when clicked, nothing happens. I cleared my cache, to no effect. Amy ideas please?
Yes, they (Samsung) ruined the HW decoder driver in their last software update. Simply wait for the new update.
I have to switch browsers which is a pain. Sometimes I just go to https://www.bitchute.com/channel/nnwlaOOuDM1W/ and find them.
Try another browser (not Mozilla, Edge or Chrome - go for a smaller, more obscure one...)
I recommend Brave browser, just disable their annoying rewards and cards popups and its good to go.
Specifically enjoyable is their built-in ad blocking options, no need anymore for endless tweaking of different adblocker extensions.
I'm partial to the wonderfully named Mega Privacy Browser - that won't even identify its document (if opened) to a Windows platform!
Know Mega but not the browser.
Tried it but went back to Mozilla.
What about a decent search engine? Does one exist? Literally every engine I have tried is just a copy of Google. You literally cannot find out information anymore. I was so frustrated today. I put in a search "Democrats criminalize questioning election results" but could not a get single return on topic.
Brave is a good browser for AD blocking but a garbage search engine. It just returns the same woke neo-liberal garbage that all the others do. I try Yandex. It is marginally better.
I can high light the quotes right click and search in duckduckgo and get this.
https://jonathanturley.org/2022/01/08/democratic-governor-calls-for-criminalizing-lying-about-election-results/
What was it you were hoping to see?
I find Yandex to be the best, gave up on Firefox, as well as Brave. A shame too Brave once was great as a search engine, now it might as well be google.
Yeah, gave up Brave too.
I got in on Mozilla.
Thanks. Must be VPN.
Regarding the New York Times article, of which all MSM have versions (as if ordered to), I quote:
"American officials say they fear that UKRAINE HAS BECOME CASUALTY AVERSE, one reason it has been cautious about pressing ahead with the counteroffensive."
Sure, Ukraine has less casualties because they're avoiding them! Millions of people read this shit, and are dumber for it.
When it rains, it pours, and it appears the first drips of truth are crossing the West's information border.
With the deteriorating situation in Africa we at least won't have a shortage of news, sad as it is to say.
When WW1 broke out, the military commands had ideas of how the war would be fought - but nobody predicted 3 years of trench warfare on the western front
In WW2, the mighty battleship was not expected to turn into target practice for carrier borne aircraft, among other things
This WW3-lite has taught us a lot, mostly that the modern battlefield is one where you don't see much, you don't have many people around you, and you are continuously watched, day and night, from above. I honestly don't know how the soldiers on the ground handle it.
And what kills you is fired from 25-40km away.
I believe human stupidity has reached close to the limit where it becomes self-annihilating. The war in Ukraine will go down as another Poland-provoked world war where a few fled to their bunkers with their gold and other reserverves, including the finest wines, while the rest of the world suffered the consequences of a critical-mass breakdown of humans controlling govenrments.
This was perfectly predictable. The Armenia-Azerbaijan conflict showed us how important drones had become.
Bash
I wonder how many lethal subs could have been built out of the materials and manpower it cost to build the Bismarck. Beautiful sleek fast and powerful the pride of the Kriegsmarine , she had no equal upon the sea. Her guns sank the Hood, the mighty Hood the biggest baddest battleship in the Royal Navy on her second salvo, the Hood went down so fast that only three sailors survived.
To think that the Bismarcks undoing came about by a fish striking her rudder after being dropped into the water by a tarp wood and glue modified WW1 small single engine aircraft capable of only 180 MPH top speed, sent aloft from a carrier.
The Bismark never destroyed a single one of these tiny planes attempting to torpedo her even though a blanket layer of projectiles where whistling through the air.
Hmm, there is a thought for those fighting the evil Empire ehhh.
WbJ
The F-16s now promised, for what that's worth, are not top line fighters, and can't engage top line fighters without being shot down....but can carry nuclear missiles..Unfortunately for the Ukrainians, F-16s need very clean 1st world runways because of their unprotected low air scoops, and will thus have to be based in Poland, where they would be attacked, as the Russians have said...A real bag of worms...In fact, I will bet that not one F-16 is ever actually deployed by the Ukraine during this war...
As I understand it, Netherlands has a more modern F-16 MLU (mid life update) version, though I'm not yet certain exactly which one as there are several MLU variants. But if it's the later one then the F-16 they will reportedly give Ukraine may be pretty advanced with one of the latest Block 52 radars that's considered nearly an equal to the F-35/F-22 ones -- AN/APG-83.
With that said, Ukrainian F-16s would mostly be operating in isolation as NATO E-3s, RC-135s, Rq-4s, etc., are out of range of most areas of Ukraine other than perhaps Kherson and lower Zaporozhye (for ELINT craft operating out of Romania). The only help they would really be able go give Ukrainian F-16s is perhaps designating Russian cruise missiles flying to central/western Ukraine via Link-16 to help the F-16s shoot them down (NATO's AD doctrine has always relied on, in great part, aviation shooting down incoming missiles). But for offensive purposes they won't be able to help AFU much at that range.
Russian fighters going up against the F-16s on the other hand will be assisted by a variety of powerful networked systems from ground based radars (of s300/400) to airborne A-50U AWACs, etc. So it will be a very uneven contest in spite of the potentially powerful radars on the modernized F-16s.
I'd expect the F16s to be shot down by R-37s. Good luck staying up long enough to shoot down incoming missiles. Of course there was the earlier statements about what deployment of F16s means and how Russia would respond. So far all the PR hasn't worked as planned.
Can these F-16s carry Storm Shadow missiles or Taurus? If yes it could be a problem for RUS. Why? Because 42 F-16s would enable UKR to keep maybe 1/2 of them operational and launch into the air 4 or even 8 planes at the same time. For this UKR pilots do not need too much training and RUS AA defenses would be quite busy.
42 F-16s? Didn't they just say that was their entire fleet of aircraft? Who would be so stupid as to give the Ukrainians everything they've got?.... On second thought... that's already happened.
Denmark has already given away all their Artillery pieces to Ukraine so giving them all their Air Force is not a big stretch.
If I was a Dane, I would be asking myself why we spend any money on defence at all, if it is only to be given all away. What a waste.
The article claims that F16 are replaced with F35 so instead decommissioned they are to be sent to Ukraine to be destroyed.
Danes will miss a mature repairable serviceable platform like F16, when they use the POS high-cost high-maintenance slow-turnaround F35. Assuming parts, crews, test sets, FULL Documentation are available. I hope no freindly troops need CAS, because there are not enough A-10's. F16 and F35 do CAS as an afterthought, so don't bother calling when Danger Close.
They are AM/BM Block 20 MLU, which practically means F-16A Block 20 with F-16C Block 50/52 avionics. With the original F100-PW-220 (not 220E, but not 200) engine.
Thanks! If the Ukraine can last that long, and the pilots are well enough trained, I guess modernized F-16s could be of some value....I doubt Ukraine has that much time left....
With all Russian military might, I doubt that F-16 will be of any operational value. Seems to me that it will be same story as with HIMARS - great fanfare in the beginning, some successes, then reality kicks in and counting of F16 losses afterwards
Russians planes are better and her pilots have 500+ (each) combat sorties under their belt. It would be slaughter
the newer radar is knocked (scalable) off the larger equipment in the bigger nosed f-22 and f-35.
sort of like the new raythoen radar for aegis ships a small set of modules is on the ford aircrft carrier (? planned)
it gives the f-16 a better look down shoot down role, and so is first put on f-16's in Andrews AFB defending the capitol!
it can do ground synthetic aperture imaging if the f-16 can survive.
f-16 patrols dealing with cruise missile will soon break enough aircraft as to have most of the f-16 in awaiting parts status dragging parts from other f-16's around nato!
after a few week how many ukies f-16's will have holes where broke engines were removed and no spare was on hand?
i read somewhere that f-35 needs a new radar, which requires a technology upgrade in the data management system to handle the greater bandwidth of data....
The question I have is if the Russian Military is prepared to target the F16s when they take off and land from Romanian and Polish Air Fields. The Romanian ones are ideal for bombing Crimea.
I don't believe if these F16' s are ever delivered that they will operate out of Ukraine. Nor will they be flown by Ukrainian Pilots. Romania has taken a decade to train on the F16 and they are still not complete. We are seriously supposed to believe that Ukraine can do it in a couple of months?
YES. Not only target aircraft, but destroy airfields they launch from. Looks like WWIII if you want it.
My guess is that pilots have already been trained and no doubt there will be foreign volunteers as well. You could well be correct in that the F16 won't ever be deployed but I'd say there is an equal chance that they will be deployed much sooner than 2024.
It is far faster, easier and cheaper to give an existing US/EU pilot a Ukrainian identity and fake passport than it is to train Ukrainian pilots from scratch. Likely from someone already deceased.
There is not much doubt this is the route they will go if/when they decide to engage F-16s
Probably not going to bother with fake ID.
Needs suicidal Ukrainian or deluded NATO kamikazes. Most fighter pilots are smarter than foreign merc grunts.
Pay enough and the pilots will sign up.
A $10M life policy may not be enough. Combat pay is not enough to get killed for, when the mission is to fly over Russian AA. This is a job for drone operators at Nellis.
You offer 10 grand a month and men will do it for the adventure snd the chicks. Young men are immortal, anyway. It's the other guy that's gonna die.
Exactly. Let's just remember the introduction of the SS (Storm Shadow) cruise missile into the Ukrainian arsenal. One day the delivery was announced by Great Britain. Around that time I read an article on RT (if memory seves), that in case of Storm Shadow's handover it would take months to adopt a soviet era plane to deliver it or build some sort of lounch pad etc.
The night after the British announcement the first SS were used for a strike, accompanied by at least one US made decoy missile, able to project false targets onto AD radar facilities.
Astounding how everyone and their mother in law is telling us over and over again how it would take eternities to enable Ukraine to obtain and put to use F16s.
It might very well be true, but let's take it from Porgy and Bess: "it ain't neccessarily so". In the same way I'm puzzled that the enemy's propaganda is taken for truth as soon as we like the way it sounds. NATO must be running out of ammunition, because several notorious liars have said so, like some certain guy name of Biden. Huh?
Finally, never underestimate the stupidity of the guys you are rooting for. Who sends a column of armoured vehicles into (obviously) uncharted territory, full well knowing that NATO gathers IRS using a variety of sources, and feeding it real time to Ukrainian units using Starlink? You can always say that this is an isolated event, something we don't really know either. It can have a huge effect on the perception and morale of the public on all sides as well as on the fighters'.
In other words, all the poetry about Russia having the upper hand will only turn into a tangible reality if we see some more verifiable manifestations of that superiority.
If for instance Ukraine's airdefense is as weak and running out of missiles as advertised months ago and if Russia's production of rockets and missiles has been boosted we should see MUCH more actions against infrastructure of military importance. Specifically, we just should much more often witness not only damage to, but ANNIHILATION of said targets. I'm truly sick and tired of the argument that this could trigger NATO to do sometging drastic. Like WHAT? The nuclear deterrence is real, so what NATO might do are the same things they are doing ANYHOW. And by the way, NATO is running out of ammunition, right?
Russia and NATO have limitations. Russia can use all of it's missile production today for an attack tomorrow, or hold some back to build an inventory in case it needs to attack inside NATO or perhaps a particularly strategic target of opportunity in Ukraine later. NATO will never run out of artillery shells, but even a tripling of todays production numbers tomorrow will not be enough to maintain the Bandera army current use much less rebuild the spent inventory.
All Western artillery shell production combined is less than desired daily expenditure by UKR military. If we send it, they use it and ask for more.
The Russians are using 3X the number of shells while adding to stocks, and will not run out before the West is rationing or dry.
Sue for peace NOW. The Russians don't want to own Kiev, but they will not accept a hostile NATO Ukraine with missiles minutes. From Moscow. Until the last Ukrainian is not just a slogan from Vicky Neuland. Crimea is not negotiable, but giving chunks of formerUKR to Poland, Hungary, Romania to administer in Neutrality is going to be acceptable to the Rusians. Losers don't dictate terms.
You are aware of the fact that Russia shot thousands of missiles into Ukraine right? So what more do you want? Hundreds of thousands missiles? Nobody has that much on planet earth right now.
Taking a photo or video of a Russian missile strike gets you 10 years in prison in Ukraine.
90% of the time we do not see the results and the 10% of the time we do it is often poor or fragmented quality.
Are you implying that clobber list (of shit blown/troops killed) up by Russia compared to what Ukraine achieved is fantasy? If so, why should I waste time proving anything to you? Let's get back to it after everything over and I would read what you write with great interest.
I've read posts like that when Georgia happened (well, that went quick), Syria (took a while, but resounding, crushing success). Now Ukraine. Keep doubting, it WILL happen, since Russia is cruising, it's not even close.
Russia is not US. It's doesn't lie about this shit, they just do what's needed to be done. And it works. Every time
It puzzles me that many, many people repeat this "runway" trope. As if asphalt is some high tech out of reach of Ukrainian state. It's not Mozambique (no offense to them) ffs. Ukraine most likely has enough public road maintenance crews and rollers/ trucks/ earth diggers to erect 10 new and clean runways every night.
Ukraine is a flat step land. You can build it anywhere. Plus two quick montage shelters for a pair of fighters, several containers for crew and pilot accommodation, and there is your "air base"
These are war conditions. It doesn't need to be perfect. TI CAN be improvised. It doesn't need to fit a full squadron. Planes don't have to be 100% fit in order to contribute to Ukraine's war effort.
If RuAF cannot suppress "Flying Tennis Courts" of Su-24s in timely manner, it will be much more difficult to suppress/ detect fast, small and nimble F-16 employed for same purpose.
I do not think anyone expects F-16 to engage in air to air combat. But in air to ground role, or to shoot and scoot at Ka-52s, they will likely be problematic.
I've been in the roadbuilding/paving side of things for 30 years. It might not be "high tech" but it has its limitations. To build 1 airstrip maybe so but 10 or more all at once... No way that will happen. RC oils have to still be refined to certain specs, for maximum durability, same with aggregate. Then comes supply of materials. manufacturing. delivery laydown etc. It's not a simple process, and all that has to be done with the Russians watching every move. Best scenario. have the jets stationed in Poland.
I have no doubt that this is difficult. But for such a vast country with tens of millions of people and resources of combined west at hand...
Again - these are WARTIME conditions. Nothing needs to be perfect. It is enough to last for dozen of sorties before VSS locates it and destroys it.
I once watched a documentary how night crews on Frankfurt airport manage to fix dozens of airstrip segments in 4 hours the airport is closed. I imagine something similar enough can be recreated in limited capacity.
In any case, this is how I would attempt to do it at least.
Another thing people fail to realize is how huge Ukraine actually is. No way it's possible to monitor every square kilometer at all times. And again, we have proof of that with the current airforce that still operates.
I agree Yes it could be done...
Frankfurt.. Those are specalized concrete pavers. probably a Gomaco xxx multi million dollar machines with a dedicated experience crew. Not many out there as they're specialized equipment, and like operating a f-16 you don't learn to operate overnight.
"Electric eye" pretty sure there is enough tech up there watching every move.
When it comes to Poland, Ukrainian, Russian I may know a "little" but I do know enough, as that's where my blood comes from. Third generation Slav living in Canada.
How I see it... Slav brother killing Slav brother so the "bankers" can have their little "fun."
Best to you my friend.
Banksters and other oligarchs are going to have to be dealt with if the EU garden and AUKUS expect to survive as autonomous nations.
My feeling is most of the population of the EU and half of Canada and the US don't desire autonomy. Self-determination is becoming a radical concept.
Burn Agenda 2030!
Yeah, specialized crews, like the specialized crews in F16s, Tanks, Radars, etc. The Western leaders are really incompetent, they can't fathom, that it needs months to years to master special knowledge. They think their slaves with their stupid jobs are just morons who can learn to fly a 40-50 million dollar fighter jet in a couple of weeks.
Bulldoze, semi-level and lay down the Marston mats. Unless the F-16s are so sissified they can't handle that bit of stress.
Won’t happen. You seen what the average road in Ukraine looks like?
Shiny new road top is the equivalent of waving a red flag in front of a herd of pissed off bulls.
It’ll be obliterated within minutes.
What about the aircraft maintenance crews and their equipment? What about missile loading crews and their equipment? The logistics are impossible to move these many different teams and their equipment to disparate locations.
My initial comment was in connection to citing runways as a main issue for F-16's deployment. It is by far the easiest component (still not easy, but the easiest among many) to solve in this very complex technical equation.
My belief is that Ukraine / NATO will make it work, and that the F-16 will start flying before the end of this year. It will not work particularly well, but it will work.
As for other issues you mentioned, everything seems solvable. If you remember, same issues were brought up for Leopards as well. Yet we see them operate. As for service, Ukraine had a dozen of civilian airports before the war, and they all had some technicians, in addition with already present MiG/SU army technicians. These people know their stuff, and don't need a lot to learn simple maintenance procedures. F-16 will not survive enough to need in depth maintenance. And in the end of the day, they can fly with some systems not working.
What is the average life expectancy for Leopard? Le's be generous and say 3 engagements. Most of them are actually destroyed in their first deployment. Let's again be generous and give F-16 20 sorties (being flown by western veterans at first). They will not survive long enough to be needing any serious maintenance.
When you have bigger picture in mind, it all makes sense. Purpose of F16 transfer to Ukraine is not to win the war but extend it by forcing Russia to move more carefully, while in the same time force shoving more uber-expensive F-35s down the western European's throats to fill the empty squadrons ASAP.
I came to believe that Elensky's recent trip to Sweden was not to ask for Gripens, but for knowledge transfer on how to maintain complex modern fighter in austere conditions. Swedes are good at this, and it's part of their doctrine. True, Gripens are not F16s, but comparable enough. It's war, you take what you get.
But wait. Ukrainians are not exactly stupid. The primary role of these F-16 is not going to be sneaking around the frontline, but the same as Su-24s had. Launching stand-off weapons from safe distances. And optionally replace MiG-29s as HARM launchers.
This can extend their useful life quite a bit.
I fully agree. They will be used for lobbing JASSMs most of the time. As well as chasing and shooting down Kalibrs and Geran drones deep in the interior.
However, imagine a scenario of Russian breakthrough with nothing to stop it but F-16s armed with Mavericks...
The issue that Ukraine has for the moment is lack of air cover for their assaults. They are bound to be employed in that role too.
Both employments will influence their lifespan negatively.
Necessities of war change employment tactics. Look at the famed 82nd brigade, and how it is wrongly employed at the moment for the equipment it has.
Don't be surprised if Russia doesn't respond after yet another red line ignored.
Too much stuff.
Seymour Hersh states that the CIA convinced Blinken that Ukraine was finished, never mind DIA or any other sources. Blinken's response, reportedly, was to adopt a Kissinger stance to achieve the equivalent of a Vietnam War peace agreement. WaPo obliging. NYT to provide the DoS and its War Department response when the time comes.
In true Washington parlance, first a victim needs to be found for 'losing' Ukraine. No candidates yet
How to end the war if Putin keeps fighting? Hopium. Putin will grind away until NATO quits and throws down arms. The West cannot be trusted to abide by a single agreement.
The Ukies will run out of people before they run out of supplies, even if the latter are not reaching the front. The Russians, here and there, are demonstrating textbook examples of how to conduct land warfare and they are still improving. They have also improved interdiction of the Ukie supply chain and will likely affect F-16 deliveries when and if they still come.
Lunar landing efforts on the dark side of the moon are iffy for everyone. The Russkies want to demonstrate that they are players. Best wishes to them. It is demonstrating to the non Russophobes nations that they are serious. The US has demonstrated, a while back, that the AK-47 design approach, simple and robust, will work.
oh, I see the guys who are going to be pinned with the crime -- Biden (makes his removal an important task!), Nuland (she's nuts), Sullivan (he's arrogant, pushy and shallow). Maybe they will advance the versatile Mr. Burns from his stint as spook central booster to replace one of them. Alas, I think Burns may be the slipperiest of them all. He seems to have no North Star to guide his judgment these days, but working at the House of Mirrors and Smoke can indeed confuse someone.
When in doubt, blame Trump :)
expendables: austin and milley, and the useucom 4 stars...
blame the pentagon run simulations, with troublesome assumptions and faulty ground rules that 'cleared' the ukies for a slow rolling version of the charge of the light brigade......
whoodadunk the russians read nato doctrine!
Those who predicted Ukraine's loss will be blamed. They eroded morale.
Now that they are floating the idea of peace talks after all their nonsense, this is how I imagine said talks going:
https://youtu.be/dZc1V67XzNw?t=86
Yep, excellent analogy. Russia will not be NATO's fool ever again.
My biggest tinfoil hat conspiracy is that every russian casualty number reported by Ukraine is actually the real Ukrainian losses. Doing this serves 2 goals. 1) allows intelligence agencies to quickly disseminate information and 2) as the saying goes "always accuse your enemy of what you're doing". IE when Russia reports estimated Ukrainian losses the media can just accuse them of lying about their own losses.
the figures are pure propaganda. ignore them. watch the blogs posted by WeebUnion and Military Information Channel and so many others where they gather all the most reliable (and least reliable) information, try to put it together, and share their analysis. Good stuff.
Every day, my MSN feed has an article from Ukranski Pravda announcing the death of 500 “invaders” in the prior day’s fighting. By coincidence, it is always exactly 500. Also, apparently, Ukraine has yet to experience any casualties whatsoever, as their own figures are never mentioned.
MSN? I guess some read just to know what the zombies are repeating that day, but I could write their boringly predictable scripts for them. Life is too short for MSN!
During the Scamdemic the MSM in many countries regularly reported the numbers of "deaths" and cohencidentally they were exactly the same numbers.
If I were going to make rules of war one would be:
Don't get into a war of attrition with someone who is much bigger than you.
Or can hide in the caves for decades.
We will be on the cave side of that conflict in North America, if they have their way.
and much smarter. Russia has united its diverse nation behind the government. Kiev has alienated its own.
Yep, or the ever popular, never bring a knife to a gun fight.
Always have friends with rifles and plenty of loaded magazines.
Don't ever ever get an expeditionary air-naval power involved in a European or Asian land war.
They are already there with all of their stuff . We are over here with at least 10's of thousands of Red Special Forces saboteurs pretending to be "migants". Let's get back to business.
As always Simplicius, your analysis is spot on (or the best in the business supposing I have no feelers on the ground). If only I could avoid the fucking nazi loving pussies replying to this and similar comments on other threads crying about how they're triggered about nazis getting their asses beat.
I find the point about the poor quality of entrenchments today to be a small but significant bit, it points to a deeper and more disturbing reality. Now that we have our mobile digital devices and apps we think we are so much smarter and better than our great grandfathers, in many ways that's just not true. There is a very real difference between a society full of laborers, farmers, coal miners carpenters and so on and a society dominated by keyboard commandos and database miners.
I'm not sure if it's the Russian or Ukrainian native population who suffer from this phenomenon the worse, but as Kiev is now dominated by a professional class of western deep state apparatchiks who think there's no problem that can't be solved with the correct focus group and marketing strategy, it seems likely that the Ukrainians are going to have to eat the worst of it.
There's a vast amount of useful information and powerful techniques that have been lost to us just buried in the past and not even very deeply buried in the distant past. I discovered Ernst Jünger just after February 2022, here's what he had to say on this topic,
"The Pionierkompanie was a very special unit, composed of miners and other skilled workers. They were constantly engaged in digging tunnels under the enemy lines, laying mines, and blowing them up at the right moment. They also built concrete shelters, bunkers, and dugouts for us, and repaired the wire entanglements and trenches after every bombardment. They were brave and cheerful fellows, who did their dangerous work with a sense of humor and a disregard for death."
What are the Pioneer companies doing today ?
I'm not disagreeing, but keep in mind it's hard to dig trenches if drones are dropping grenades on your position
NATO and NATO's Military Dependency of Ukraine allowed Russia to build the Surovikin line unmolested.
Those cretins of the Western Mainstream media made fun of those Defensive lines dozens of times. Not so funny anymore for them I guess.
The Bandera army still hasn't got to the Surovikin line to test it. But, the copium and hopium are still running strong through the MSM.
I am calling it. The third NATO army is officially destroyed.
Yeah, and where are all those 10's of thousands o Russian drones being made? Of course we don't see all the hits they make, but there's no sense of how many are actually being employed from the large handful of videos. Could RFs be saving them up for a bigger offensive? You'd think a thousand or so flying over Kiev (or Kharkov) would throw a chill into the spines of the Ukes.
Brings to mind the excellent stonework done during the Great Depression throughout the US under Roosevelt's job programs. You can still find stone cabins scattered throughout the National Parks, humble abodes displaying fantastic workmanship. I wonder if we could assemble such stonemason teams today, seriously doubt it.
Blood mountain, GA and Cocaine Bear.
The only way Nato gets out of this war without eventually promising all their best equipment and first sons to Zelensky, is to get rid of the cleptocrats he's currently blackmailing to keep the weapons coming. Otherwise they will continue to passive aggressively give hints they want out until they're forced to apologize the next day. I really don't think any of them have any kind of exit strategy or grand master plan . Just harsh words and a bad case of buyers remorse. Might not even be Zelensky doing the blackmailing. Probably the same shadowy figures who did the blackmailing during covid.
My Potato-in-Chief didn't need to have his arm twisted or blackmailed to get the party started. Remember, Zelenski was willing to agree to Putin's demands in March, 2022, which were quite reasonable at the time, until the emissary demon BoJo appeared to him and whispered promises into Zelenski's ear.
Now, Zelenski is stuck. He has to carry on the war until the US sez stop and take advice from his neo-NAZI friends or be replaced by someone who will follow US orders.
Zelenski and wife probably need to plan a meet and greet in a neutral nation and not return. Sooner than later. Live to enjoy their plundered wealth. The Bandera territories are going to burn no matter who is the token leader.
Some Ukrainian will for sure end him, I think he is to stupid to understand that. It doesn't matter where he is, he couldn't even hide behind the moon. The only possibility would be a total face transplant for himself and his wife. But all his houses and estates are more of a problem then, if some dude who looks at least a little like him shows up, everybody knows then.
I don't think the party started as blackmail. It started because they all seen what they thought was a great idea to weaken Russia while enriching themselves. Most of them were probably bribed in the beginning, and now that they want out before their citizens lynch them, they are being blackmailed to continue. Politicians that are easily bribed are much more easily blackmailed. I don't even think it's Zelensky, it's most likely the WEF trolls and globalist banker type goons. They are set to aquire quite a bit of resource rich Ukrainian real-estate once the war is over. Problem is that Russia currently controls the prime stuff they need to recoup their losses. The potato-in-chief is just an empty skull in an empty suit, he does whatever his handlers tell him to. If he resists they just tell him it was his idea.
I wonder, is he blackmailing them or just laundering cash for them. They seem to make an inordinate number of visits to him, say hello, smile then fly back out. And always in their diplomatic planes immune from any search and seizure. I think he may be saving the blackmail for when he retires, assuming he lives.
Good morning Simplicius,
Thank you again, for a very informative article. Can you please comment on the "quality" of some of the information? Specifically, it seems the letter from Kherson has been whited-out (or tippexed) and the text message concering Donbass seems to be cobbled-together. It gives me the sense of being "manufactured" and not real.
Much appreciated!
Both of those are machine translated in to English from Russian or Ukrainian, that's why they look/sound weird.
Thanks!
Regarding the F-16s the number circulating are about 42 planes from the Netherlands and another 19 from Denmark.
Yet, Ukraine only seems to have 8 fighter pilots in active training for at least a year since that was the number of people they could find who were fluent enough in English. Another 20 pilots are currently learning English in Great Britain: https://www.nytimes.com/2023/08/17/world/europe/ukraine-f16-jets-nato.html
"However, American officials have said that Ukraine has identified only eight combat pilots — less than a single squadron — who speak English well enough to start a period of training expected to last at least a year. About 20 others are being sent to Britain this month to learn English."
Based on this information, it seems that Ukraine will only be able to create a squadron sometime during the summer/fall of '24, unless they actually use foreign fighter pilots.
Regarding artillery shells, there are articles stating that the US has already provided 2 mn rounds of munition. Their production capacity increased from 14K to 24K per month and the goal is to increase it to 80K/month.
Even with 80K/month, it will take 2 YEARS to replace the 2mn of artillery shells stock, let alone supply Ukraine with new ones. Even if all 80K were provided to Ukraine, it would translate to 2.5K shells available to fire each day.
There's a bit of a misanalysis about this.
Firstly, there were many 404 pilots who knew English. They usually don't have any problems with English when roaming around European Air Shows and conferences.
But also... Speaking English is not their real problem.
There are enough F-16 pilot-instructors in the West who speak Russian. Just run down a list of astronauts (they all speak Russian at more than good enough level) and many of them are experienced F-16 pilots (and test pilots, there are even people who served as instructors flying F-16s).
But... The problem is that they speak Russian, and that's a no-go.
Yes, practicing on F-16s is good. On a Russian offensive, IMO, ISR becomes poor once forces get beyond and behind the FEBA in depth, and Ukraine lacks mobility and an air force aside from drones, plus its artillery is thin and getting thinner. Flanking the FEBA from North to South while closely guarding Russia's Western flank opposite Kiev would allow for decent advances of 10-20km/day, perhaps more. The question for me is what sort of defensive lines has Ukraine constructed behind the current FEBA? Ukie forces along the FEBA would face frontal, flanking and rear assaults and would be forced to react to them, but they lack mobility, artillery and ammo along with no air assets aside from drones.
As usual, time will tell us what Russia does. However, I do think Russia has a political objective for the August-October 2024 time period.
A dear friend of mine long since gone fought in the hedgerows of Normandy, after getting across Omaha Beach. His stories about the hedgerows were brutal. He received the DSC for saving a platoon stuck in them. Anyway, some of the videos I have watched remind me of his hedgerow stories. The one video of the UKE being buried alive was an experience my friend had, kinda weird watching what his story via words were like in comparison of seeing that video. God rest his soul.
I get the arm band thing, but isn't it an oxymoron to wear camouflage fluflu's on your helmet and then slap blue tape on top of your head?
It's either that or be shot by your own guys. BOTH sides use the same camo, you're more likely to be in range of your own guys, and everyone has itchy trigger fingers.
Makes sense. I still get a chuckle out of it though.
Ugh, they don't use same camo. UA uses pixel or multicam and Russia uses ratnik. There is multicam variant in newer Russian camo (which caused much controversy about potential FF) but it's rare. And Russians don't tape helmets like Ukraine does. It's mostly says you a story about how much more degraded communications for one of the sides