I have no clue. Military tactics and strategy and hardware completely bores me. I’m too ignorant to have a meaningful opinion about specifics. But I do read the news and I have seen the crawling escalation. I don’t know of any cases where one set of allies in a conflict chooses rapid escalation.
It is difficult where a treaty authorizing and compelling military aid does not exist. You can bet that if Russia attacked Poland, then you would have seen exactly that kind of reaction. With Ukraine, the govt really was shaky, corrupt, filled with Russian proxies, etc… Ukraine is still weeding out high level corruption and Russian agents in govt. It wasn’t clear that Ukraine would rally and defend itself as well as it did. I think the initial pause was likely correct, but when it became clear that Ukraine was going to survive the first Russian onslaught, we should have ramped up manufacture of quality shells & artillery immediately.
The thing is, if you are Poland (and indeed Germany and others) you can't afford for Russia to defeat Ukraine, and then park a gigantic army on the Polish border. So it makes most sense to escalate to de-escalate The problem with that, is the enemy might not be rational
Europe is realising this. Like why keep a whole lot of munitions and kit on the sidelines when it's very purpose is to blow up Russia stuff - you might as well send it to Ukraine and blow up russian stuff today The same logic should really apply to the vast US fleet of US tanks and planes designed to fight the soviet army - what other war are you saving it for?
Another problem is that, like it or not, Russia is integral to the world economy. The West needs them right now to keep oil, gas, wheat, and especially fertilizer and especially oil cheap. Don't ask the world if they would rather have genocide or two-year-ago inflation because you might not like the answer.
The bulk cargo ship Usko Mfu took gypsum from Turkey to Sevastopol. As ships entering occupied parts of Ukraine often do, it turned off its transponder, but satellite images clearly showed it docked there. Well, that's not too uncommon. Except that this ship then decided to take a trip up the Danube to take some barley from Moldova to Greece, which involves going into Ukrainian waters. And there a Ukrainian ship stopped and seized it and it's now anchored near Reni. Yeah, no one buys that transponder trick.
Ukraine struck the Kapustin Yar test site, where Russia tests all sorts of missiles from ICBMs to SAMs. Multiple drones hit the large building there.
Keir Starmer has indicated that Storm Shadow missiles can be used on Russian targets inside Russia. In other Storm Shadow news, Russia has enough shot down examples that they are trying to reverse engineer them.
I wonder what the success rate for storm shadows/scalps are now. It seems like most of Ukraine's attacks on Crimea are now with ATACMS and I haven't heard much from SS/SCALPs in awhile.
Ukraine is in talks with the US to allow them to strike Russian airfields (and other military targets) further inside Russia. 🇺🇸🇺🇦🚀 "The United States is in talks with Ukraine regarding permission to use American long-range weapons for strikes deep into Russian territory", - US Deputy Assistant Secretary of State Christopher Smith told Voice of America pic.twitter.com/Ml1jGqauEL— MAKS 24 🇺🇦👀 (@Maks_NAFO_FELLA) July 10, 2024
https://www.navalnews.com/naval-new...base-in-abkhazi-separatist-region-of-georgia/ New Development In Black Sea, Russian Navy Using Base In Georgia A Russian Navy Ship has been observed in Ochamchire, in the Abkhazia separatist region. The Black Sea port may become an important base for the Russian Navy, acting as a safe refuge from the Ukrainian surface drones. It is officially Georgian territory however, making the move politically bold, and complicated
June events have made those talks much more urgent. sigh this timeline sucks so, so much Thank Christ my ego is too big for me to be suicidal (just kidding guys don’t swat me)
It's hard to say. There's also attacks where the Ukrainians don't say what weapon they used, but it might conceivably be drone, guided bomb, or even their native Neptune in addition to Storm Shadow / SCALP.
So this is quite significant IMO - especially in context of the massive polish buildup These are preparations for a wider conventional war in europe - obviously also to try to deter one I have long said that Russians will come to regret Putin’s violation of the 1987 INF Treaty. He opened the door to significant deployments of accurate, long-range conventional missiles in Germany and elsewhere.https://t.co/2nDf3WjGmX— Dr. Jeffrey Lewis (@ArmsControlWonk) July 11, 2024
Speaking of which… The US and Germany apparently foiled a Russian plot to assassinate the CEO of Rheinmetall. It was to be part of a coordinated campaign to assassinate CEOs of European defense companies. https://www.cnn.com/2024/07/11/politics/us-germany-foiled-russian-assassination-plot/index.html
Depends? So far the plots have been mostly unsuccessful. So as long as they continue to be unsuccessful, it’s unlikely that it would result in a declaration of war or article 5 trigger.
Well, it looks like Russia is preparing to attack dams in Ukraine. Russian Foreign Ministry spokeswoman Maria Zakharova threatens to destroy Kyiv HPP and Kanev reservoir"Kyiv is preparing the destruction of the dams of the Kyiv hydroelectric power plant and Kanev reservoir, this will be another cynical provocation against the Russian… pic.twitter.com/9kIm3EA0Ki— NEXTA (@nexta_tv) July 12, 2024
A Russian S-300 near Mariupol was attacked. Don't know the results yet. A Russian Sukhoi Superjet-100 passenger jet crashed near Moscow. It was on a test flight just after maintenance and it only had three crew on it. All dead.
Uhm, there have been successful sabotage acts against Dutch ngo vehicles of aid for Ukrain organizations. These crashed, because misteriously wheels fell off. I suppose these terrorist acts have been acted out against such organisations in other European countries too.