Ukrainian Defense Minister Oleksii Reznikov said last week that Ukraine is “shedding blood” for a “NATO mission” in candid remarks about the relationship between Kyiv and the Western military alliance.
“At the NATO Summit in Madrid (in June 2022), it was clearly delineated that over the coming decade, the main threat to the alliance would be the Russian Federation. Today, Ukraine is eliminating this threat,” Reznikov said in an interview on Ukrainian TV last week.
“We are carrying out NATO’s mission today. They aren’t shedding their blood. We’re shedding ours. That’s why they’re required to supply us with weapons,” he added.
Reznikov’s comments reflect Russia’s view that they are not just fighting against Ukrainian forces in the war but also against the US and NATO. Reznikov insisted that Ukraine would eventually become a NATO member and said it was already a “de facto” part of the alliance since Kyiv is already armed with so much advanced NATO military equipment.
While Ukraine was promised eventual NATO membership in 2008, it has been repeatedly denied official NATO membership in recent years. But Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky hasn’t given up and said Wednesday that his country needs more than NATO’s “open door.”
“For today, just support for Ukraine from colleagues in NATO and support in the form of rhetoric about open doors is not enough for Ukraine. Namely, not enough to motivate our state … our soldiers,” Zelensky said.
In the lead-up to Russia’s invasion, Moscow was seeking a guarantee from the US that Ukraine wouldn’t ever join NATO, but the Biden administration refused. Shortly after the invasion, Zelensky said he was told privately that Ukraine won’t be joining NATO.
“I requested them personally to say directly that we are going to accept you into NATO in a year or two or five, just say it directly and clearly, or just say no,” Zelensky said in March. “And the response was very clear, you’re not going to be a NATO member, but publicly, the doors will remain open.”
NATO sucks.
Russia sucks too.
Much less so. Russia sucks in the manner of great powers generally. Bullies in their corner of the world. Same with China. NATO sucks in that it tries to bully the whole world.
Short and right to the point Donna!
Yup!
“Ukraine Is Shedding Blood for ‘NATO Mission’: Ukrainian Defense Minister Zelensky says Ukraine wants more than NATO’s ‘open door'”
Ukraine is shedding blood to enrich kleptocrats in Washington and their puppet Zelensky.
Will he be cancelled by US media and banned from entering Canada or Poland?
I’d rather he be cancelled and banned than endorsed. Regrettably, I’m not sure which way Biden will go with this.
Biden must be worried that even the dumbest sheep in the flock could figure this out.
Great reporting by Aaron Maté for those who don’t have their heads stuck somewhere.
At least now we know. NATO enemy is Russia. Ukraine has tackled that problem. Thus, Ukrsine is de facto NATO and all NATO countries are required to help Ukraine defend itself in a war it provoked. Thank heaven for honesty — the story of defending democracy was getting stale.
“the story of defending democracy was getting stale” – once Stalin said: “I thought that the democracy means the rule of the people, but MR Roosevelt explained to me that the democracy means the rule of American people”. The point is that the rule of American people, particular what does concern the foreign politics, means the rule of American oligarchy. So, if we accept this definition of democracy, NATO is defending it very much consistently.
Sweden and Finland presumably bought the sales pitch that joining NATO would make them safer. But the quest to bring them in was really, in my opinion, driven by the desire to make NATO safer.
Have they been asked to purchase a bill of goods? If the situation arose, would the US truly be willing to spill blood to protect them? How would the American people feel about that? Would Turkey be willing to defend Sweden? Would Sweden be willing to defend Turkey? One might suppose that intelligent leaders have considered these questions. But I’m not at all sure they have.
Isn’t the term ‘intelligent leader” an oxymoron? Or does that just occur in the US?
Ukrainians are shedding their blood for NATO mission. NATO mission is the projection of American military power into Eurasian continent. First of all, it is necessary for keeping the people of western and central Europe under control of American financial elite.
The confrontation between NATO and Russia is absolutely necessary for keeping the subordinated to Washington European governments in line. It is very much important particularly now when the economic situation is deteriorating so quick.
On 10 January 2023, in the late afternoon, official media sources of the Russian Wagner PMC stated that the city of Soledar had been liberated by Russian units. Soledar was one of the key points of defense of the AFU in the East of Ukraine.
According to several reports, the NATO Ukronazi 46th airmobile brigade, one of the most elite NATO Ukronazi units has been wiped out. These reports also indicate that 17 Battalions have been wiped out, approx. 20,000 to 25,000 troops. It was a meat grinder.
The Russian liberation of Soledar does threaten the NATO positions in the city of Bakhmut/Artemovsk. Another meat grinder. the cities of Soledar and Artemovsk are locating smack in the middle of the NATO Ukronazi defense lines.
Here is whats really going on…….NATO is fighting Russia down the the last Ukrainian while Russia is not fighting NATO down to the last Russian.
Do you know what the open pit mines and very large factory are in Soledar?
Yes, well known. But those mines are not tge readon the Bakhmut area is contested.
In our media a while ago, the importance of Bakhmut was extolled. Now, the tune has changed to “.. why are Russians bothering,” etc.
whatever the case, even by halving the “reinforcements” that Ukraine sent into the Bakhmut-Soledat-Bakhmutovka thester, the losses of people are bad.
It looks, next couple of months will be very difficult for Kiev regime. Some experts believe, in 3 or 4 months a huge military help from NATO will arrive. Hardly it can influence the outcome of the war, but certainly, it can slowdown the progress of Russian army.
Europe needed war and sanctions against Russia like giant drafty holes in the head. Their brains done leaked out. Ukraine politicians expect to be thanked and paid for sacrificing their country for US/NATO. Europe should have united from the beginning and said, thanks but no thanks.
Smedley D. Butler: “War is a racket. It always has been. It is possibly the oldest, easily the most profitable, surely the most vicious. It is the only one international in scope. It is the only one in which the profits are reckoned in dollars and the losses in lives. A racket is best described, I believe, as something that is not what it seems to the majority of the people. Only a small ‘inside’ group knows what it is about. It is conducted for the benefit of the very few, at the expense of the very many. Out of war a few people make huge fortunes.“
Speaking ‘clearly’ isn’t our strongest gift…
Meh. Actions, of the lack thereof, speak plenty loud enough. NATO doesn’t want the Kiev Neo Nazi regime as a member. Neither does the EU. That should be clear by now!
Some American politicians wanted Ukraine to join NATO even after 2014. Actually, it was Ukrainian president Yushchenko who first announced that Ukraine is going to join NATO (Yushchenko became the president in 2004 as result of an organized by Americans coup d’etat).
“We are carrying out NATO’s mission today. They aren’t shedding their blood. We’re shedding ours.”
And by “ours” he meant the poor saps shedding actual blood. That wouldn’t be him.
Isn’t that the way it is with all of our wars, wars? When was the last war we fought that was actually defensive? Maybe the War of 1812? All the others have been wars of aggression fought on and over someone else’s soil.
In war of 1812 it was US that declared the war on Britain, expecting easy victory as Napoleon was marching over Europe, subjugating Austro-Hungary and Prussia — both required to give about 30K soldiers each. Russia was the only one standing. To US it lioked like a no brainer. — get British Maritime Provinces in Canada.
Turned out US miscalculated. British ships came in practically unopposed to Washington, burned government buildings, presidenr went into hiding.
Then of course Britain made mistakes, primarily because captains were on their own and looked for prize by capturing ships and towns, not whether it was strategic or not. This is why inexplicably, they left Washington in order to plunder Alexandria, then went on more misadventure at Ft. McHenry. Botyom line, it was a pat at tge end. No territory change. The only price paid were Native Americans.
All of that is very true. The War of 1812 was just a brief interlude in the ongoing conquest of North America, from sea to shining sea.
How scummy of the american government (and NATO leaders at large). To lead Ukraine on like that, with no intention of ever seriously letting them in.
Yes, but, come on! The track record of countries “led on” by the USA and NATO is not great. USA/NATO suck for doing the leading on, but the Ukie neo Nazis are either terminally stupid or completely indifferent to the suffering of their countrymen for letting themselves be “led on.” It takes two to tango!
I repeat this over and over again, but the Ukraine is not a treaty ally of the USA, and never has been. The Ukraine was never allowed to join NATO, and the waiting period has gone on for decades now. Treaties matter. Formal obligations matter. As do the lack thereof. The Ukie/Nazis went to war with Russia on the basis of….what? A pinkie swear with Biden?
The European NATO elite is in bed with the American elite, they are making profits while the people pay for it in blood and money.
Look what they will do to the Europeans, they will be used the same way. The same kind of corrupt governments make it possible. They kill each other while the American elite is raking in the profits.
Americans are specialists in cheating.
It really has nothing to do with “americans” and everything to do with “the american government”. Which is also true of all the other major european countries. The British don’t particularly love bloodshed, though their prime minister strong armed zelenskyy into refusing negotiations. The Germans aren’t a war like people. And yet their government?
I agree, my attention was focused on the American leadership and to make the distinction it is not the people.
Ukraine is not eliminating the threat of Russia. It is spinning up that threat, through mobilization and wartime experience. It is giving new prominence to the most warlike among Russian leaders.
This has made everything worse for NATO with Russia.
Of course, it has also destroyed Ukraine beyond fixing. Many member of NATO and potential members will look at Ukraine and see they don’t want that sort of “help.”
“Ukraine is not eliminating the threat of Russia” – the only threat from Russia to Anglos-Saxon oligarchy is the deep economic cooperation between continental Europe and Russia. It makes both continental Europe and Russia geopolitically stronger and Anglo-Saxon oligarchy – geopolitically weaker. From this view point, the military conflict in Ukraine eliminated the threat of Russia for a long time.
“The only threat from Russia to Anglos-Saxon oligarchy is the deep economic cooperation between continental Europe and Russia.”
You nailed it. That’s why the ultimate goal of the real “powers that be” is a catastrophic war with Russia that will totally reshuffle the financial deck. Yes, it may very well be the end of the USA, Russia, and most of humanity, but they always profit from empires coming and going, and always will.
Bleak but true.
Certainly, the forces of the darkness would like to have a catastrophic war, but hardly any government, even the most evil one, can consider such a thing as a desirable. It may happen only exclusively by some miscalculation. Or else it could be catastrophic but not for everyone.
The “forces of darkness” have used false-flag attacks before to push the USA into self-destructive conflicts. Think of the Gulf of Tonkin event, and of course 9/11.
I thought, by catastrophic we mean a real catastrophe for the humankind. Or, at least, for a big part of it. Vietnam war was bad, but still one may call it a normal war. Vietnam lost many lives but at least, as result of this war, Vietnam was united. In US some people benefitted a lot. Otherwise that war would never happen.
In the US/NATO democracies only the elite, big corporations, gain.
The US economy is really bankrupt, a war is needed to bail out the corporations, similar to the great depression in 1937. WWII was very profitable for the USA. But this time it may not work out.
They are very close to it now, there is no one in sight except maybe Russia to stop it.
They are insane enough to make it possible.
There may be nothing left worth to profit from.
The economic cooperation between continental Europe, mainly Germany, and Russia was the reason for the two WW. It made the USA #1 and the UK #2. Now the USA is were the UK was. China could become #1 and Russia #2 while the wars are eating up the wealth of the USA. The least expected could become possible in war.
Yes, “Ukraine is not eliminating the threat of Russia.” It is “shedding blood for NATO”. That’s the meaning of “last stands”, to wit Soledar, and Mariupol earlier; not battlefield, but inspirational, victory, martyrs, “the heroes of Soledar & Bakmut”, the Alamo, to allow Washington the set-up drama to go all in. Still, it’s doubtful these poor suckers knew what they were in for; and, dramatically illustrates the deep deep evil of pomo war, … although practiced before by Washington (Pearl, 9/11, …) to its own.
That is something the Ukrainians knew from the start. It is old news.
“Project for the New American Century (PNAC)” is still with us.
It never left the stage, the Kagan clan is in charge in the state department, the brothers and their wives Victoria and Kimberly and their good friend Blinken and a solid neocon Joe Biden.
They are the people pulling the strings behind the curtain.
Well said Renate, well said.
Until Zelensky gets his open door to become an official NATO member he will throw the Ukrainians in the meatgrinder and turn Ukraine to dust. He must really love his country and people.
That little clown will go on killing his people as long as the money comes in. What a POS he is.
He would not dream to fight for his country, would he? As far as it goes he wears some green T-shirts, pretending he cares for all the young men he kills. He is one of the top war criminals, he is without morals, without a conscience like all the neocon monsters are.
Renate he’s clearly a narcissist and egomaniac who cares only for himself and his ability to ingratiate himself to the (ignorant) Amerikkkan public.
Not to mention fatten his wallet.
“Zelensky said in March. “And the response was very clear, you’re not going to be a NATO member, but publicly, the doors will remain open.”’. THAT MEANS, SUCK IT UP AND die FOR A SINILE OLD MAN’S BLOOD THIRST.
There is nothing surprising here. Ukraine is fighting for its independence, US/NATO are backing Ukraine to weaken Russia and Russia is fighting Putin’s revanchist war to reset the European strategic balance to what it was before the USSR and the Warsaw Pact collapsed. I have no sympathy for either US/NATO or Russia. But I support Ukraine’s right to self determination, even if I don’t blindly support its government.
Well said.
Why were we not worried about self determination in 2014 when we helped to overthrow their duly elected democratic government?
Speak for yourself. I supported self determination for 60 years. I opposed the Maidan Coup. But the evil deeds of the US/NATO do not justify Putin’s war. The consequences of Putin’s war are worse than the cost of his grievances.
“We” =USA, NATO, UK, “the West.”
No one knows or cares what little Lukey Skywalker “supported” or didn’t support. Nor should they.
NATO and Wash. started this war and you know it. If Wash. and NATO minded their own business it wouldn’t have happened. The American people are not the world’s police and cash cows for those who profit from endless conflicts around the world.
Putin started the war. The war is a catastrophe for Ukraine, a tragedy for Russia, a crisis for Africa and a hardship for the West . The world would have been better off if Putin had accepted that Russia cannot aspire to regaining the power of the Soviet Union or the glory of the Czars. instead he started a war the Russia has already lost based on any rational cost/benefit analysis.
Why do you think the world would have been better if Putin allowed American military biolabs to function freely in Ukraine?
Or, maybe, you would prefer to pretend you know nothing about those biolabs?
I know enough about the biolabs to know that shutting them down doesn’t justify a war that has killed tens of thousands of people and is already escalating. This war is not about biolabs. Or Russians in Donbas. This war
is about Putin’s revanchist obsession with resetting the European geo-strategic balance that shifted in favor of NATO after the USSR collapsed.
Always ready to declare defeat for the enemy. Like MacNamara in Vietnam. If only the enemy had access to our super-duper, “scientific,” cost-benefit spreadsheets, they would know that they have lost already!
It’s actually the Russians who have lost. Putin doesn’t understand Ukraine and eventually Russia will get a leadership that will understand the only way to end the war is to leave.
Asymmetric wars of national resistance are won by hearts and minds, not force of arms. The Ukrainian army has been performing superbly. Beyond anyone’s expectations. But even if the Russians drive the Ukrainian army underground, it is the resistance that will prevent Russia from pacifying any part of Ukraine outside of Crimea. It may take a long time, but the Russians will eventually have to leave.
“It’s actually the Russians who have lost.”
Actually, I understood quite well who you meant.
“Putin doesn’t….blah, blah, blah…..”
Right, like I said, the enemy has already lost, because someone on “our” side, in Vietman MacNamara and in this case you, says so. Victory by Prediction/Pronunciamundo.
“Victory by Prediction/Pronunciamundo.”
Yep. Pretty much the equivalent of “Ukraine can’t win, because I say so.”
Funny an illogical that you should fixate on Robert McNamara. He nevere understood asymmetric warfare. So since you don’t understand, I will spell it out. Asymmetric wars of national resistance are determined by hearts and minds, not force of arms or dollars and cents. In an asymmetric ware the invader needs to conquer and dominate the conquered territory to prevail. The indigenous defender needs to survive and continue to resist in order to prevail. There is a tipping point in the war where the invader either quickly prevails or the national will to resistance coalesces and the invader becomes caught in a negative feedback look. The invader escalates and the escalation strengthens the will of the indigenous people to resist. Eventually the war becomes a test of will between indigenous people who can’t retreat and invaders whose will to dominate is not as strong as the indigenous will to resist.
I sympathized with the Ukrainians’ right to self determination. But I suspended my judgement about who would win the war for several weeks to see if the Ukrainians sympathized with or acquiesced to the Russian invaders. For example, when India invaded East Pakistan during the Bengali genocide in 1971, the Indians met little resistance from the indigenous people who were being persecuted by the Pakistani government. Within a few weeks it was obvious that the Ukrainians overwhelmingly opposed the Russian invasion. The September offensive demonstrated that Russia lost the war because Russia will not be able to pacify the occupied territory without resorting to holocaust level genocide. Even if the Russians ultimately overwhelm the Ukrainian military, that would only strengthen the Ukrainian resistance and engender a guerrilla movement that would prevail in the long run.
I am frankly surprised by the success of the Ukrainian army. I expected the Ukrainian resistance to be driven underground by the end of March. The war has revitalized and expanded NATO, foreclosed any possibility of rapprochement between Ukraine and Russia, united Ukrainians into anti-Russian resistance and exposed the weakness of the Russian military which has been pathetically unable to dominate a much smaller country fighting with inferior weapons but indomitable will. The Russians no longer have an army that anyone believes could reach Berlin in a couple of weeks.
An army where soldiers paint their positions with cell phones bespeaks a demoralized force of unmotivated soldiers who don’t want to die for Putin’s hubris and nostalgia. Shuffling commanders for the third (or fourth?) time will not change the fact that the Russians can’t win this war. Indeed they have already lost but Putin can’t admit it.
That’s nice. So far, though, the Ukraine is not engaging in asymetric warfare. Rather, it is slowly losing a conventional war. Your BS “treatise” to the contrary notwithstanding.
Ukrainian soldiers are not painting their positions with cell phones. Hearts and minds = motivation.
And Zelenskyy is not firing his top generals every few months.
Trivia.
Meanwhile, high Ukie official describes Ukie losses as “huge and indigestible.”
https://www.newsweek.com/putins-war-plan-reaching-critical-momentukraine-ambassador-1771840
“We’ve been in the war for almost a year now,” Prystaiko said. “We’re losing people left and right. We’re not advertising how many of those lost are military or civilians, but you can imagine that numbers are huge, indigestible. And the cities, some of them are totally destroyed.”
I would also mention that defending fixed, “meat grinder” positions in cities to the death is pretty much the polar opposite of assymetric warfare.
You are completely clueless. Far more so than even MacNamara.
Kinda weak when a wannabe superpower can’t make headway against a small country using mostly obsolete NATO surplus arms. Does Putin fire his generals every few months because the Russians are winning? I am as surprised as Putin at the resiliency of the Ukrainian army. I expected the Russians would drive the resistance underground by the end of march. Without nukes Russia is a second or third rate conventional power that probably couldn’t beat Turkey in a conventional war. I am sure the Ukrainians are taking heavier casualties than they report. So are the Russians. But in asymmetric war the defender often takes 20 to 1 or even 60 to 1 casualties. But in the end , if there is popular support for the national resistance, the invader’s will breaks first. As we are seeing in Ukraine. Keep tuned. you might learn something that I learned 55 years ago about the role of hearts and minds in asymmetric wars of national resistance.
“Huge and indigestible” losses. For the country with the far smaller population to begin with. Assymetrical war (which, again, the Ukies are not even attempting) works best against expeditionary, colonial opponents. Opponents who grow weary of shipping men, material, weapons, ammo, fuel, etc across the ocean or over mountains to suppress guerilla movements in colonial backwaters that are not really worth the effort. EG US/Vietnam, France/Vietnam, France/Algeria, USSR/Afghanistan, USA/Afghanistan. NOT against adjacent, continental superpowers with excellent road and rail connnections, fighting on territory that they, the superpower, considers vital. Also, “national liberation” is actually a goal of the Donbass and other Russian speaking nominal Ukrainians, NOT the Kiev regime and its irredentist, maximalist, racist neo Nazi supporters.
And that’s just for starters. Your analogy has more holes in it than Swiss cheese. You have absolutely no idea what you are talking about, and that makes your condescending posturing just all the more comical!
You are repeating yourself again. Give it a rest. Let’s see if Putin fires his generals again in a few months.
It’s cute that you think that Russia reshuffling its command structure is more important than the Ukies admitting to catastrophic losses.
There is no doubt Ukraine is sufferring catastrophic losses. But there is no doubt Ukraine is winning the war. Ukrainians are outperforming and outfighting the Russian invaders despite inferior weaponry.
The Ukraine is losing far more men (of whom it has far fewer to lose to begin with), and slowly but surely losing ground on the central front. You can recast those losses in any romantic way that make you happy, but it is still losing.
And I find it funny that you drape your ill-founded opinions and predictions in cock-sure phrases like “…there is no doubt…”
There are dynamics in wars of national resistance that are counter intuitive to leaders like Putin or Nixon or Brezhnev or to military leaders schooled in the theory that force of arms prevails. The same scenario has been unfolding time and again ever since decolonization after WWII. The strongmen never understand that they have lost and they escalate for years until the invaders have to leave. The only question in Ukraine was whether the Ukrainians would unite to resist the Russian invasion. The September offensive showed they have. Like the Tet offensive in Vietnam, it ended any doubt about the outcome of the war. But after Tet it took several years for the US to realize that escalation was counter productive. In Vietnam the US took 58,000 casualties. The VC and PAVN took a million casualties with the US and ARVN killing another million civilians. But like Vietnam or Afghanistan or Algeria or Mozambique or Angola or Guinea-Bisseau, the Ukrainian conflict is an asymmetric war of national resistance and the outcome is no longer in doubt.
Putin is a classic case, like Nixon, of arrogance overcoming intelligence.
Again, your analogies are simply inapplicable. In every way.
Like Munich, Vietnam is not is the template for every conflict.
I also think it would be amusing, were it not so shameful and disgusting, that you conflate a bought and paid for, gold-plated, comprador, oppressive, dictatorial, racist, literally neo Nazi, ethno fascist, NATO-installed puppet regime, with the anti colonial, national resistance movements of the 20th Century!
Do you think I support the Taliban? A legitimate national resistance movement depends on hearts and minds of the indigenous people, not political correctness or moral superiority.
If the Ukrainian regime was half as bad as Putin’s supporters claim the war would have been over months ago. Most Ukrainians hate Nazis. They would have welcomed the Russian soldiers as liberators or met them with indifference. But the Ukrainian nation is almost entirely united in opposition to the invaders. That was apparent well before the September offensive. However Putin emotionally can’t grasp the fact that the Russians have been defeated. Like Nixon, Putin’s career has been built on doubling down in the face of adversity. I have seen this pattern repeated ad infinitum by double alpha male leader types caught on the wrong side of an asymmetric war of national resistance.
Unfortunately, Putin’s Russia lacks the checks and balances that restrained Nixon and ultimately prevented him from unleashing an even worse holocaust in Vietnam. So it may take a long time before Russia gets a leadership that can pull back from Putin’s mistake.
Gufaw! The Taliban is an even more absurd comparison!
And that has nothing to do with whether you “support” the Taliban, or not. (As an aside, in general, and I know this comes as a suprise to you, but no one cares about who or what you “support”).
The Taliban fought a guerilla, asymetrical war against a US-installed, puppet regime. The Kiev government is ITSELF a US-installed puppet regime. AND the Kiev government is taking on RUSSIA, not the pathetic Kabul government. AND the war the Kiev regime is fighing against Russia is not a guerilla or asymetrical war, but a conventional war of position and massed forces. And I can’t even be arsed to detail all the of the other numerous and major flaws in your analysis.
You literally couldn’t be less on point if you tried. Your sense of historical analogy is remarkably wrong headed. And your notions of military history are amazingly jejune and childish.
Asymmetrical war principles when a stronger invader attacks a weaker country. Anyway, Russia won’t win in the Ukraine. They have lost but Putin can’t grasp that. Under Putin the Russian army will lurch from one disaster to another and Putin will keep seeking the magic bullet until Russia gets a leadership that understands the need to withdraw. Like Putin you don’t understand. Maybe you and Darth Vlad would benefit from a retreat with the Bene Gesserit sisterhood. Mother Moniam might teach Darth Vlad about the gom jabbar test. US prodded the bear. But the bear reacted like an animal, not a human. Putin leaped into the trap as US/NATO planned and now he can’t get out. Stupid!
“Russia won’t win in the Ukraine. They have lost but Putin can’t grasp that.”
It may not be so much that he “can’t grasp that” as that he’s not in a good position to just call the whole thing off, at least if he wants to remain alive and in power.
This certainly is an existential war for Putin. But not for Russia.
Eventually Russia will get a leadership that recognizes that Russia has to get out of Ukraine.
You have no clue about asymmetrical war, or about this, or any other, military conflict. At all. And so you are now reduced to sci fi references! Yeah, maybe the Betsy Jesuits will save the Ukraine!
Please stop lying. You don’t support Ukraine. You support the terrorist puppet regime that is killing Ukrainian people.
I support the right of the Ukrainian people to determine who rules them. I don’t have any loyalty to the current government. But the Ukrainian government is leading a resistance that is obviously supported by the vast majority of the Ukrainian people. It is not for you or Russia to determine who should lead the Ukrainian nation.
Who told you majority of Ukrainians support the terrorist Anglo-American puppet regime in Kiev?
Americans are doing what they always do, what they did in the two WW. They make lend-lease loans, funding the slaughter and watching from the sidelines while American merchants of death make huge profits. The American economy is really in the ditch and needs a lift to get out of the ditch. So a long war is in the best interest of the USA. They are not interested to negotiate and end the most profitable business for them. We focus too much on the military aspect and leave the most important part, the economic aspect out.
The militaries of the world would do the world a favor if they did the RIGHT thing and arrested the people that promulgate these pointless and wasteful wars! Arrested the people who push a kill shot that is meant to depopulate the world. Arrested the vote thieves that rendered democracy in the USA and elsewhere impossible! Are there any REAL brave men out there willing to take a step on the RIGHT side of history? “Land of the brave” huh?
That’s a very long way of saying you’d like to see more coups.
It sucks being ruled by corrupt self serving politicians.
But being ruled by the military is much worse.
There are no “vote thieves” in the USA.
Well, duh! I guess someone is bound to get it sooner or later.
Until lobbying (legal bribery) is outlawed, or the ‘defense’ industry is
nationalized to take out the profits, forever wars will continue and the American people will continue to pay for them. How many trillion has been wasted since WWII ended, and what do the American people have to show for it except millions of lives lost, both American and other?
Russia will be debating now whether to nuke Ukraine now and not wait for NATO to take Ukraine into its fold.
That’s idiotic. Why would Russia attack anyone in Europe when they can nuke Washington and London and end Anglo-American occupation?
Because “Russia” doesn’t want to die?
You really believe Pentagon rats are capable of fighting Russia on their own?
They are capable of destroying “Russia” — that is, its regime — to pretty much the same extent that “Russia” is capable of destroying them.
And quite possibly of taking all of humanity down with them.
Hopefully “Russia’s” “leaders” aren’t as batshit insane as you seem to want them to be.
No, they aren’t. They don’t have the physical or spiritual capability to initiate a conflict of such magnitude. They lack military capability and they are cowards. That is their weakness that Kremlin must exploit. Nothing insane about exterminating the biggest threat to humanity quickly, efficiently and with limited civilian casualties. It is actually the only sane solution.
The Russian MOD is fighting a very successful war of attrition disarming NATO (Ukraine was disarmed in March), tank by tank, artillery by artillery, air defense by air defense. Poland has called up 200,000 reserves, Ukraine is collapsing and Poland/Romania are now being called up to die for empire. What the empire looses in the Ukraine, they loose for the final NATO war against Russia.
NATO overall has accumulated the following equipment losses;
372 Aircraft, 200 helicopters, 2873 UAV’s, 400 Anti Aircraft systems, 7486 tanks inc. APC’s, 979 multiple rocket launchers, 3813 rocket launchers and 8019 military automotive equipment.
In the past year we have seen the Rules Based Order act in a state of criminal insanity. They blew up the Nord Stream Pipeline which will cause the deindustrialisation of Europe. The shelling the Zaporizhia Nuclear Power Station in an effort to cause a nuclear accident. The planning of a false flag nuclear weapon detonation on their own soil!!! This is the actions of criminally insane psychopaths.
You forgot that according to your Russian MoD they already in fights in Ukraine destroyed 4 Bradley armored fighting vehicles – kind of amazing since they are still only on their way to Ukraine. Which illustrates just how believable these figures are.
The Bradley has been in service since 1981. While Wikipedia doesn’t list the Ukrainian regime as one that has previously used them, it wouldn’t be terribly surprising if they’ve been picking some up on surplus/secondary markets for the last year.
It would be a surprise if no one had reported on them being deployed in Ukraine – it would also be a surprise if the Ukrainians had themselves solve the problem of operating and maintaining them – but sure if you want to believe then you may, but we are moving into conspiracy theory territory.
Putting it through the Occam’s Razor sieve, the explanation that requires the fewest (and safest) assumptions is:
The Russian MOD is making sh*t up.
But a not too distant second explanation is:
The Bradley being a 40+-year-old vehicle, bazillions of which have probably worked their way from use to boneyard to surplus markets (perhaps minus weapons), the Ukrainians got a good deal on them somewhere.
Maintenance isn’t some kind of huge puzzle. Tracks are tracks, the driving isn’t rocket science, and the engine (a Cummins VTA-903T diesel) isn’t rare or complex.
Maintenance and ammunition supply is no small task it is all about spare parts and knowing how to and when parts have to be exchanged – I really strongly doubt that they would have obtained Bradley’s let alone fielded enough just now for 4 to be destroyed just as deliveries are about to arrive from the US.
If they have some Bradley’s they would have been much more likely to use these few ones to train crews on how to operate and maintain before receiving a more substantial fleet from the US.
That is the conclusion any sane viewer would arrive at – the idea that the Ukrainians would up until now have kept a fleet of Bradley’s a secret, not lost any and wasted some of the few they had in a fight just before receiving more from the US when they could be so much better used as training objects is frankly absurd.
“Maintenance and ammunition supply is no small task it is all about spare parts and knowing how to and when parts have to be exchanged”
Are you suggesting that Ukraine doesn’t have competent diesel mechanics?
I’m suggesting that they do not have the spare parts and more importantly not a lot of 25mm ammunition – have you tried to have a French car repaired in the east? When things are not standard it very fast gets very complicated – this is also why the west has been reluctant to deliver western equipment in general.
Tanks and all advanced mechanical gear has to come with training of mechanics and loads of spare parts – this is one of the reasons that the western powers currently are repairing a lot of equipment in Eastern EU states and not having the Ukrainians do it in Ukraine.
Why would they not have (or be able to acquire) spare parts for one of the most common engines on the planet? You can find whole Cummins VTA-903T engines on Craigslist.
As for ammunition, I specified that any Bradleys they have might be disarmed surplus units that they either set up their own weapons systems on or just used as unarmed APCs.
It is not only the engine that is going to break down so it is spare parts for the entire system – buying from craigslist may work for a private person, not for an army in a war.
A Bradley without its gun is only slightly better than a M113 – and as such much better deployed as a training for maintenance and future crews vehicle than wasted in active use.
As for our earlier exchange on the tanks you stated that the US would produce new ‘tanks’ to replace ones shipped to Ukraine – how does that square with the Bradley having ended its production (as has the Abrams)?
Look, I pointed out that the most likely explanation was that the Russian MOD made sh*t up.
I also pointed out that it’s not inconceivable that Ukraine had acquired some secondary market Bradleys.
You seem to be really hung up on how unlikely it is that a country at war would have its purchasers out grabbing anything and everything remotely plausibly useful that it could afford to buy and get ASAP.
The “entire system” of a Bradley as a usable vehicle is a common engine, common tracks, and some armor plate. Your hangup here is like saying that nobody would ever buy a running VW Beetle because, who knows, the cigarette lighter might not function.
I’m happy that you see that the likeliest answer is that it is the Russian MOD made sh*t up. My hang-up is that fielding a number of Bradley’s is far, far more complex than running VW Beetle because, who knows, the cigarette lighter might not function – the infrastructure to maintain them is orders of magnitude more complex.
This is part of the reason that the western powers initially did not want to deliver such systems – and they are systems.
But if it makes you happy then yes the Ukrainians could feasibly have purchased a few Bradley’s kept them a total secret from all and everybody, deployed them senselessly and lost them – it is not as if they would have had an interest in showing that they could sustain such equipment in the field and thus have made it harder for the western governments to claim that these systems could not be delivered as the Ukrainians could not sustain or operate them.
But sure in that alternate universe this is a viable explanation – I do not see why it is one any non conspirationist theory adherent would even want to put it out there, but then we all differ in how we see the world.
You seem to think that a Bradley minus specific weapons system is some kind of complex mystery. Mechanically, it’s the tractor part of a tractor-trailer rig, with tracks and armor.
I never said anything about Ukraine “secretly” acquiring some old surplus Bradleys. If you look at the history of underdog warfare — Israel in 1948, for example — the underdog sends a bunch of people everywhere to buy anything that’s available. And as old as the Bradley is, there were probably some out there at a decent price.
No biggie — except that the Russian MOD seems to have suddenly started destroying Bradleys right after it was announced that there would eventually be some to destroy, rather than, say, two months ago. So if I was betting money, I’d bet that they just made it up.
Not according to the US – the job requires 3 months training to undertake and is supported by a 272pages long document:
http://asktop.net/wp/download/10/STP9_91M14.pdf
https://www.goarmy.com/careers-and-jobs/career-match/mechanics-engineering/test-repair/91m-bradley-vehicle-system-maintainer.html
Only for the Russian claim to be true and us not knowing about it, it would have had to be in secret.
Happy to see that you at least yourself believe in rationality – sad to have to have this debate as it only supports the conspiracy theoritists.
Yes, most diesel mechanics are, um, trained.
And once they’re trained, a diesel engine is pretty much a diesel engine. Some guy who learned to work on diesel engines because his MOS was Bradley maintenance can likely get a job as a diesel mechanic with any tractor-trailer rig fleet operator. And anyone who’s been a diesel mechanic in some other context can likely maintain the engine on a Bradley.
Yes and the engine is the only subject in the 272 page manual.
Ukraine Is Shedding Blood for It’s U.S. Master: Ukrainian Defense Minister
So… they admit what was once considered propaganda by western media? My bet is the US is going to throw Ukraine to the wolves like they did the Afghan muhajideen. Is Ukraine perhaps beginning to regret rejecting a neutrality deal?