Russia claims they have reclaimed Kursk. The answer here is taking the collective hopes and dreams of Europe and funneling that into another salient like a fairy godmother. The munitions and personnel will surely follow.
Great job Russia reclaiming Russian territory in year 4 of their 3 day war of conquest of Ukraine Ukraine should just surrender now it's the humane thing to do according to our resident RTS humanitarian geniuses here.
Where are the real time updates buddy? Are the cheerleading corps being right sized? That has pipeline debacle last month wasn't picked up here. Might have to drop the rage posting and eating. Ukraine needs u. Thoughts n prayers on your behalf.
Folks like @Invisible Fan act as if we have a gun to the head of Zelensky and forcing them to fight. They demand we force Ukraine to capitulate in the name of peace. Its disgusting and they think the world revolves around America. If Putin was serious about peace he wouldn't be bombing Ukrainian civilian targets while preaching "peace." Peace takes both sides to coms to the table
Putin isn't about peace. Trump is probably the only side that is talking peace. You blowhards can ignore our supply chain issues and how Russia is outproducing the west and Ukraine combined in artillery shells and ammo all day from the safety of your bed and support animals. That's your dumb right to be useful idiots to losing situation. We're walking into this much like how we exited Afghanistan and every day our leverage for immediate peace whittles away. That's the lede you fools are trying to bury with Ukraine losing kursk.
What have you been reading online lately, @Invisible Fan? It can’t be what you are reading in D&D. Whatever and wherever you’ve been sinking your brain into has you posting like a different person altogether, in my opinion. It’s bizarre. You post, “Putin isn't about peace. Trump is probably the only side that is talking peace.” trump isn’t “about peace.” He’s been doing what he can to hand Ukraine over to the Russian dictator, Vladimir Putin, since he’s been in office. You seriously believe he’s interested in peace? trump is as interested in peace as Putin is. Not at all.
I don’t know what Trump you’ve been listening to but the Trump that has been speaking to reporters in the Oval Office isn’t talking about peace. He’s talking about subjugation. If you bow down and lay down your arms well let you keep SOME of your sovereign country AND not allow you the ability to ensure security by allying with Europe militarily. That’s the deal Trump had openly been telling the media he wants. That’s not peace. That’s a recipe for more war. You are smart enough to know that Russia won’t stop taking territory and won’t stop using violence to subjugate the factions of Ukraine who inevitably do not accept being Russian subjects with no self determination. You know it’ll likely lead to a civil war at some point, and you know that Poland, Finland, etc will be gearing up for war even more than they are now…. Which if you know anyone working at Lockheed or Raytheon you can ask them what Poland is gearing up for right now. If you think Trump represents peace, just go look at how many missiles were ordered as soon as Trump was elected. … To your supply chain argument, yes Russia is on war footing and turned their economy into military manufacturing galore. That is true, but if the world really wanted to pump all of its western produced arms into Ukraine it would absolutely out product Russia and have much higher quality products. That being said as I mentioned before, most of the west isn’t funding arms production for Ukraine. It’s funding it for Europe because all of Europe is gearing up for war regardless if it comes or not. In the supply chain, what is happening is Europe and previously the US was giving Ukraine our outdated stockpiles and then ordering newer more advanced arms to resupply our shelves and the shelves of European countries. Putin isn’t winning this war in terms of an arms race by any stretch. Is he winning the war politically…. Maybe here in the US there is evidence that could be the case when previously sane people like you start touting Putin propaganda intentionally or unintentionally. But it’s clear he has not had success on the battlefield by any stretch. Losing that many soldiers, spending that much money, over so long while torpedoing your international relations with every country expect for with fascist “strongmen” like Trump and Kim Jung… isn’t what I would call success. Taking uninhabited areas of Eastern Ukraine isn’t that hard for for a military superpower. Call me when they take Odessa and then Kyiv and then Lviv.
That quote will trigger people for good reason. If Putin was hurting as much we thought, then he'd want to have serious talks at minimum. It's fair to claim Trump damaged Ukraine'ss leverage. He did. It's also true the showy attention grabbing efforts Ukraine gambled with last year damaged their leverage and situation on the ground further. What does the current on the ground situation look like with your sources? To me, Putin is pushing deeper while sandbagging talks because he knows drawing lines later is better than drawing lines now. Okay that's his thing. What is NATO doing (or not doing) to push our lines deeper? That's what the pro Ukraine camp has to vocalize and address. Much more persuasive than questioning people like me who are disgusted with how unfit NATO has become fighting a mini Great Power conflict... My views changed once this became a direct proxy war for China where their alliance takes Ukraine as a matter of survival rather than a land grab. This means zelinskys position of complete return of their seized territories are a nonstarter, if that ever was realistic. China flipped the switch in 23 and Russia switched to a different gear in 24. This csis paper has the numbers. https://csis-website-prod.s3.amazon...df?VersionId=rwHuy82sf7y5TEoD8sRJLGF3lYmeGAnL It looked like Russia was hurting badly in late 2023, then what happened last year that caused the dramatic reversal despite sanctions and their own bunglings? Was it all because of the Congressional pause for aid? EU Shell-Production Capacity, Supplies To Ukraine Fall Far Short Of Promises July 08, 2024 Former NATO official Grand believes the EU and member states failed to swiftly and fully deliver on their promises of ammunition supplies to Ukraine because they thought it would be an easier job than it was. "There was a bit of an idea that all you had to do was give money, and you'd get shells. This betrayed a sort of ignorance of the complexity of today's arms market, which is a high-tech market even for relatively simple things like 155s," said Grand. "We were really on a flawed logic. There is no stock and there is not even necessarily a stock of spare parts or even raw materials," he said. Western weapons-supply disruptions quickly undermine Ukraine's capabilities on the battlefield. One example is the summer counteroffensive in 2023, which fell far short of its objectives. "Partly because we dragged our feet in delivering the tanks and all that, the counteroffensive was probably more limited than it could have been. So we have some responsibility.… The lack of ammunition played a part," Grand told The Investigative Desk. Not only are the direct Chinese inflows to Russia, their export controls are exposing supply chain vulnerabilities and causing delays. Nitrocellulose https://www.scmp.com/opinion/article/3266533/chinas-ban-military-use-exports-good-start Drone parts https://www.csis.org/analysis/why-c...estrictions-weaken-ukraines-negotiating-power Tungsten https://discoveryalert.com.au/news/tungsten-critical-metal-export-controls-2025/?t These arent even the rare Earth's China started banning last December and ramped up with Trump. https://www.csis.org/analysis/consequences-chinas-new-rare-earths-export-restrictions Each of those minerals takes decades to survey, permit, extract. The raw ores are mostly sent to China to refine at world beating cost and purities. Rebuilding each RE refineries to a friendly nation, that overcomes our nat security clearances, are much harder than propping up an oil refinery. Would that take another 5-10 years of CHIPS Act like dumptruck funding? I'd be okay with that vision even if China dominates 60-90% of the supply contracts on their resource ban lists. Those companies arent centi-billion or trillion dollar stocks who were offered a free lunch and still need China's market and supplies to justify their stock price. I ranted about this in earlier pages if you're genuinely curious. https://bbs.clutchfans.net/threads/ukraine.294682/page-932#post-15696109 I'm still not happy about the situation. Giving Trump a little inch of credit for looking towards an exit strategy because of elevated risk of late stage Afghanistan collapse doesn't mean I'm confident he'll improve the situation. He'll be our president for another 3-4 years handling a problem that took decades brewing. Elections have consequences, but in this case it didn't matter in the first place. Time for a rethink.
What happened to you dude? It's just flat out wrong to suggest no one but Trump has been talking peace. Shells, you just keep posting the same link? You think the US and European countries are only trying to ramp up shell production and not more advanced munitions? You keep repeating that and supply chain issues? Supply chains only work if you can keep F35s and Tomahawk missiles from blowing up factories and infrastructure to transport.
It's a pretty well known issue at this point that the US and Europe lack the war time production capabilities but it's not like the US isn't sitting on a stockpile of weapons, components, and raw materials. It's not like if a peer based conflict between the US and China erupted, the US wouldn't just cease red tape and environmental concerns to expediate the current plans of expanding production. All the while this happening, we have the capabilities to choke off China's global supply chain routes while targeting their means of production. Europe isn't a slouch military, it just isn't coordinated without a US led NATO with it's individually power militaries. Russia is having trouble with Ukraine and can't even maintain air superiority. Russia is no doubt holding back assets but it still highlights Russia's current state of power. The US's biggest strength is still geography and our capability to project a lot of power.
It's Russian propaganda being put out via DW (whatever that is), whether or not it is truly a German source or bought and paid for by Putin's regime. Just an FYI for those who might believe that little video? The girl so young that she can barely load a magazine (which the producer makes sure to show) and the narrator then says that "This 14 year old plans to join the fight when she turns 18" The minimum age to join the military of Ukraine is 25. The video is pure propaganda.
This problem has been known since the beginning of the war. Covid exposed it for all the mid-iq idiots. If we got in a real war, no we would not be able to scale up. There is simply not enough Americans who know manufacturing. You would literally have employees asking to take tools and materials home so they could work from home. Main stream America is too lazy to focus 8 hours on a task. Europe has this same problem with their endless demands to shorten the work days.
In the case of a long-term war, do you really believe that Ukraine could maintain enough soldiers over the age of 25? US urges Ukraine to lower fighting age to 18 to bolster ranks against Russia | Reuters Ukraine reforming recruitment system to attract 18-25-year-olds, senior official says
So in a real war, you think the US's current manufacturing sector which has ~350K machinists would just continue to their same jobs? We have several million working in the US manufacturing sector and it's not like machinist and welders who work in O&G can't transition over. We actually do make electronics and other advanced manufacturing. Would we need to play catch up and modernize? Of course. But we would still have a very powerful military that has its own advantages.
The US military is still dependent on hundreds of Chinese suppliers in “critical technologies”. The Air Force's dependence is even increasing. Do you really believe that US mechanists are capable of replacing these suppliers in just a few months? US Army, Navy reduce dependence on China for ‘critical technology’ - Defense One Foreign suppliers of "critical technologies" components by service in 2023
Deutsche Welle is public broadcasting for Germans much like PBS is for us to a greater extent. You're mistaken about the min age. The age of conscription is 25 though https://www.nbcnews.com/politics/po...0-people-killed-hundreds-n1289845#ncrd1289880 Age restriction removed for joining Ukrainian military Ukraine has removed age restrictions and further simplified procedures for its citizens to join the military, Brigadier General Yuri Galushkin said in a statement on Friday. Previously, only those aged between 18 and 60 could join. Oleksii Reznikov, minister of defense, said on Facebook: “I decided, in agreement with the Commander of the territorial defense of the Armed Forces of Ukraine, Brigadier General Yuri Galushkin, to involve in the territorial defense the Patriots over 60 years old, who are morally and physically ready to resist and defeat the enemy.” Ukrainians have been advised to simply carry their identification to join the armed forces. “So, if you 'get lost', good luck,” he added.
