2941
2942

It’s hard to tell what is actually happening… Ukraine could be talking out their ass.

Regarding the idea of arming the Ukrainians, we just need to do it on the DL, like we did with the Afghans against Russia.

“Oh, damn, I don’t know how the Ukrainians got all those weapons. Sucks to be you guys, Russia. Eat a bag of fucking dicks.”

On some level, Putin’s escalated this all the way. Fuck it. Give Ukraine guns, and if Putin bitches about it, say, “Ya know what? Come at us, bro.”

Because Putin doesn’t want that direct conflict either. If it comes down to it, the BEST he could achieve would be making us both lose. There’s zero way for him to win that fight.

2943

China: “Hey, look at Ukraine everyone!”

2944

Arming Ukraine would be incredibly easy, considering it borders four NATO nations, all of which very dearly want to see Russia get sent packing.

2945

Exactly. Russia will know those weapons came from us, but who the fuck cares?

Russia plays that game, and lies about it. We can do that too. We’ve done it before.

2946

Ukranians not without teeth, maybe?

2947

Kasparov and Alexander Vindman @AVindman are the two folks on twitter I’m paying the most attention to. They are smart AF, and very familiar with the region.

2948

And to add, it’s weird how limited CNN’s coverage feels despite having lots of reporters in Ukraine, they just aren’t embedded in any way. That being said, their guy who keeps reporting from Kiev went to that airport earlier in the day and met the Russian airborne troops who were controlling it. Didn’t stick around too long so zero coverage of any attempts to retake it.

2949

Just take a page from the Russian manual of arming countries you don’t want to be seen as directly arming.
“Well we sent a huge convoy of military equipment and supplies to our base in Poland, but it got lost and apparently crossed the border into Ukraine, where it was ambushed by ‘bandits’ who took everything but allowed the drivers and handful of guards to return to Poland in a couple of the trucks. Oh well, what are you going to do, it happens!”

2950

I mean, it is one of the largest militaries in the region, Russia’s combined military forces are about 3 times as high as Ukraine’s but …

This is going to be a pretty bloody conflict.

2951

Hard to take the implications of this seriously. Sigh.

Probably they’re staged for Ukraine, not Poland.

2952

With such fog of war right now it’s hard to have any idea. I keep hoping Ukraine actually had plans in place for this invasion. Despite being overwhelming underdogs Russia’s approach seems to be entirely completely following the expected script based on everything I’ve seen and I’d hope that opens the door to Ukraine to have figured out some ways to cause chaos in that.

2953

I’d wager it’s for an offensive in western Ukraine to cut off access to supplies from the Polish border.

2954

Yes, that makes sense.

2955
2956

Hats off to everyone willing to put their life on the line to stand up to this whether they be Russian or Ukrainian.

2957

I was looking at Poland’s TO&E and they’ve got about 850+ MBTs, though a large number of those are older. They do have about 250 Leopard 2s.

They are set to get the first 28 of an order of 250 M1A2s this year, although if I’m the US gov, I’d send Poland 250 M1A2s out of the current arsenal now.

2958

Amen brother. That is really admirable.

2959

Yeah, the approval for those 250 Abrams just happened a few days ago. Notable to me in the article was that they’ll be the most up-to-date variant and not older versions: Poland Cleared To Buy 250 M1A2 SEPv3 Advanced Abrams Tanks

2960

One of my favorite quotes (that I’m too lazy to look up the origin of): “The first causality in war is truth”.

I won’t believe too many stories at this point unless solidly confirmed.