22152

Is there any recruitment going on in Western Countries to get additional volunteer boots on the ground help for Ukraine?

22153

So what do you think Putin will do?

22154

Hopefully succumbed to whether disease has a hold of him.

22155

I doubt that there is any way to get the number of people you would need to actually make a difference into the field. And, really, I doubt Ukraine wants other people to do the fighting; they seem up to now at least capable of doing it themselves as long as they get the material support they need. A few hundred volunteers wouldn’t be that useful I don’t think, not at this point.

It’d take something along the lines of the Abraham Lincoln Brigade from the Spanish Civil War, and even that was small potatoes IIRC compared to the quasi-official intervention on the side of Franco by the Kondor Legion of the Nazis.

22156

From the ISW:

Recent Russian gains in Soledar do not portend an imminent encirclement of Bakhmut, contrary to claims made by Russian sources. Even at the most generous interpretation of Russian milblogger narratives, which claim that Russian forces are fighting on the outskirts of Razdolivka (about 6km northwest of Soledar), Russian forces are still far from being within striking distance of an operational encirclement of Bakhmut.[1] In order to effectively cut Ukrainian ground lines of communication (GLOCs) into Bakhmut, Russian forces would have to establish control of the T0513 Siversk-Bakhmut highway (currently 7km west of the furthest point of confirmed Russian advances in the Soledar area) and reach the E40 Slovyansk-Bakhmut highway (13km from the furthest point of confirmed Russian advance in the Soledar area) at least. Considering that the recent rate of gains in this area has been on the order of a few hundred meters a day, at most, it is highly unlikely that Russian forces will be successful in cohering a mechanized push towards these GLOCs and move towards encircling Bakhmut.[2] Ukrainian forces in Bakhmut would still have GLOCs available even if the Russians cut the E40, moreover, making the entire discussion of an encirclement at this point bizarre.

22157

Can’t you just admit your predictions were hilariously wrong and maybe just try and find a middle ground for your pessimism?

22158

I have no idea how many are there, but I think they’re quite happy to see people with experience from NATO militaries. A capable officer or NCO definitely makes some difference, and I don’t think Ukrainian special forces would be as good as they are if they didn’t have a little help.

There are videos of western volunteer units in combat down there.

But we have more or less tried to do the opposite by discouraging active military from going. I believe the British have said they’ll eighty-six any active military who go to Ukraine.

In Denmark it’s a stern caution that the state does not look kindly on people going to Ukraine, but I know for a fact that Danish special forces (not sure whether they’re active or not) are fighting in Ukrainian units.

Of course it’s all in the name of preventing a direct confrontation. The Danish government isn’t actually doing anything to stop people as far as I know.

22159

“A little help” in specialized positions, sure, but what folks are talking about I think is actual combat-formation sized groups of volunteers. That isn’t something that’s needed or desirable IMO. I agree specialized assistance is useful. Whole brigades of foreigners probably not so much.

22160

Why not? According to the Ukrainians, the foreign legion has 20.000 people. It’s not a very good source, but I’m pretty sure they do have whole brigades.

Worth saying that some of these are Ukrainian expats, so not necessarily “foreign” fighters as such.

According to the wiki they started rejecting people without military experience back in April, so adventurists get a no.

22161

To be fair to Janster, he was originally saying 1 million additional men on the front, and now he appears to have backed off to just having recruited an additional 1 million men - so he has moderated his position somewhat.

For what it’s worth, I somewhat agree with his position that Russia is going to continue their recruitment drive. I view this as functionally equivalent to a nation saying that they want to increase the size of their armed forces by an additional million. With Russia currently having ~3M under arms across its branches (counting reserves), I don’t think it’s unrealistic for them to increase that to ~4M given a long enough runway. For a nation engaged in a significant special military operation war, it’s realistic to dramatically increase the size of your military.

Can they support that many additional men at the front or even clothe them? Color me dubious, but at this point I think they’re happy to continue to grind their citizen’s lives away until, as a nation, they’re ready to strike the theatre again in a significant manner.

22162
22163

Eh, who knows, I guess. Just seems like an unnecessary logistical nightmare. Expats, sure; if they have training they at least speak the language, etc. But integrating a whole bunch of foreigners seems like a waste of resources. Manpower doesn’t seem to be the big hurdle for Ukraine, and their money and time is probably better spent elsewhere.

Now, if a foreign power would provide a turn-key “volunteer” brigade, complete with logistics, etc., well, that’s different :).

22164

Wolf’s Dragoons have entered the chat.

image

Heh.

22165

This struck me as rather something; figured I’d share (video which alternates 8/22 and 1/23)

22166

There are combat level units of foreigners fighting. I know there is a Georgian “legion”, a Cossack “legion” and others. I also know that there are individual units of “Westerners”, though I don’t think any are nation specific.

But if you listen to the Russians, half the Ukrainian army is made up of NATO troops, including 5,000 Poles.

22167

Ah yes. They need that kind of copium when they believe Ukrainians are a lesser people and have a fraction of their military/population. How else to explain the asskicking they’re receiving?

22168

I would say that that’s disputed as long as we don’t know how many people the Ukrainians are losing.

It’s great that social media proposes a narrative where one Ukrainian manually strangles 20 Russians without ever firing a shot, but I suspect reality is a bit more nuanced. Certainly if Milleys estimate holds true.

22169

Have a watch

This British ex-forces medic was at a base with a bunch of foreign legion from all over the world. I don’t know about 20,000 but they clearly had a clear way of processing them and equipping them. The guy says there was a “no vetting” policy in those early days, basically they would take anyone so needless to say they had some right weevils sign up.

More from Joe here if you want a front line perspective on what being in a foreign legion is like

22170
22171

I know the world has changed a lot since the 1940s, but still, I have a hard time understanding how our parents and grandparent’s generation, managed to supply Russia with an order of magnitude more arms per year, entirely by sea, with German U-boats and few surface raiders sinking many ships.

Why the hell can’t we send more stuff faster?

Condi Rice and Robert Gates say the same thing?

https://wapo.st/3WaPNkB