I saw an interview with Digital transformation minister. He said the digital infrastructure of Ukraine is doing well despite the constant attacks. In the Western part of the country, you can still pay taxes,good to see the government what is important, :-).
They also have an offensive department and have recruited 120,000 hacker from around the world to go after Russia, he claims credit for shutting down the Russian stock market, and many ATMs.
weeee just catching up.
Re: nukes in Japan, it is a BFD, it is like someone who has PTSD with guns because the person was shot once, decide to get a gun for protection.
BUT, the nukes are to keep NORTH KOREANS at bay, not China. Yes those crazy mofos who tested missile while all this is going on, and nuclear armed too and hate Japan. They are the most unpredictable party in Asia. That also keeps China at bay is just icing on the cake.
Japan doesn’t need nukes to protect itself. JSDF (Japanese Self Defence Force) is the best armed and trained military in Asia. China has quantity but Japan has quality (no surprise there), but China is catching up in the last 10 years (no surprise there too). And Japan is directly supplied by US so JSDF gets the best toys. AND there is a security treaty between US and Japan so US will definitely aid Japan if it comes under attack.
Asian countries LIKE the US treaty, even China, because Japanese would have no excuse to build up military even more and act aggressively. Japanese imperialism in Asia was brutal and lasted for years, especially for Korea and Northern China, Japanese occupied for great many years before WW2.
So again, nuke in Japan is a BFD. It will alarm everybody in Asia.
I wish someone could fuck that convoy up before it gets to Kyiv. I keep picturing some US planes coming in and blowing it into shit even though I know that isn’t going to happen.
I think it’s been declared a tangent, and rightly so. Abe is just using the situation. It belongs in the China thread.
Also Tom is gonna paddle your butt, he said so himself.
It was said a while back, but China’s strategy is about gaining “ownership” of the South China Sea and enveloping Taiwan rather than any direct action. They swing such a massive stick economically they can afford to be cautious and nonmilitary.
Send a few Tomahawks at it from Poland but say, OMG those were apparently stolen by “bandits” and somehow directed at your convoy! Gee how awful!
Actually, serious question, are cruise missiles not effective for something like that and if they are, are they not among the materiel NATO is providing? Are they something that would require too long a training regimen?
The red part of the map keeps getting bigger. A good realist assessment from that page:
So what would happen if the Ukraine signed a treaty today with poland agreeing that, until the matter is resolved at a later date*, Ukraine would recognize poland’s pre-world war 2 border?
It’s a nice thought I’d love to see but that convoy is 17 miles long now! I can’t even begin to imagine how you destroy something so big. It’s like a moving city. It’s a campaign.
You don’t destroy something that massive with some air flybys. It would take literally months and thousands of sorties. I bet there are 50,000+ men in that scrum.
Also, in case we forget every 30th tank/iFV is an AA system. They would light up anything getting near that iron snake. No A-10s (or…Frogfoots? Or whatever is UKR ground attack now) would be able to hurt that column past the first couple of passes, Russian AA is one of their greatest strenghs since they have so much armor.
Haven’t the drones been hitting convoys?
NIce Political analysis by Fionna Hill
It’s very important, that you bring this point up because people are saying Ukraine is the largest military operation in Europe since World War II. The first largest military action in Europe since World War II was actually in Chechnya, because Chechnya is part of Russia. This was a devastating conflict that dragged on for years, with two rounds of war after a brief truce, and tens of thousands of military and civilian casualties. The regional capital of Grozny was leveled. The casualties were predominantly ethnic Russians and Russian speakers. The Chechens fought back, and this became a military debacle on Russia’s own soil. Analysts called it “the nadir of the Russian army
Now, the siege of Grozny never had the attention that the siege of Kyiv will. But with the attention span of the West measure in seconds, and the US milliseconds, I fear we will soon be distracted by the next shiny thing.
Yep, but sadly with something that big it’s like popping 50 balloons in a balloon bunch of 5000. It won’t make much difference.
See balloon popping analogy I just made. Sure, maybe you take out a tank with a cruise missile and maybe a couple of trucks/IFVs around it due to shrapnel/explosive force. You just don’t have enough for a 17 mile long convoy.
I think ‘17 mile convoy’ is actually quite vague, especially since it was a ‘3 mile convoy’ yesterday. I’d like to know how many vehicles are in that convoy, of what types. I’m sure someone somewhere is counting them in satellite photos, but nobody seems to be reporting it. They’re just reporting ‘17 miles’ because that sounds like a lot.
Edit: to be clear, this is me saying ‘has anyone seen reporting on what’s in that column?’
Shouldn’t that be in kilometers?
Alexander Vindman makes some of the same points I do, in calling for the west to do more.
There is already a historic precedent for this kind of support and assistance. During the Cold War, it was a well-known fact among both Soviet and Western leadership that if one side engaged in an overseas conflict, the other side would funnel materiel aid to oppose their adversary. Proxy wars were the norm, and direct confrontation even occurred occasionally.
Soviet and American fighter pilots engaged in dogfights over the skies of Korea in the 1950s. The U.S.S.R. supported the North Vietnamese during the Vietnam War, and the United States, in turn, aided the mujahideen during the Soviet-Afghan War. This awareness of the other side’s activities did not, however, lead to wider bilateral conflict or a nuclear war. And in moments of acute danger, such as the Cuban missile crisis, a willingness to defend critical U.S. interests and values prevented events from spiraling out of control as well as reducing the likelihood of future war.
The doctrine of mutually assured destruction has not disappeared overnight, and as recently as January, the United States and Russia reaffirmed their view that a nuclear war cannot be won and must never be fought. The United States and its allies still maintain a significant deterrent that Putin will not choose to challenge on a whim; he is not a madman. Shrinking from the moment would only grant a free hand to countries with nuclear weapons to freely escalate at a conventional level without fear of anything beyond sanctions. The proper response to this war is to boost our support for Ukraine militarily and economically.
Destroy the lead elements of the line and the rearmost elements. Then fire for effect. :)
Vindman looks worse with each day of tweeting, IMO.
Not if you are Ukrainian, trying to resist the Russian Army.
I mean he’s retweeting a lot of fake stuff.