Sure, the sheer numbers of men were probably evenly matched, but they had more of and more destructive equipment. They went in with a huge tactical advantage (initially, anyway) by attacking from three sides and having pretty much full control of the skies early on. Their rockets pummel targets everywhere in the country with little resistance each and every day. It’s hard to assess Ukraine’s anti-air capabilities, they do claim to have taken down a few helis, jets, a bunch of cheap drones, and even missiles, but the missiles keep coming. And, as far as I know, Ukraine did not fire back outside its own borders, except maybe one heli raid of a fuel depot / storage facility.
Rule of Law
- BIDEN SEEKS NEW AUTHORITY TO SEIZE OLIGARCH ASSETS, USE SEIZED CASH TO HELP UKRAINE, FURTHER CRIMINALIZE SANCTIONS EVASION - WHITE HOUSE
I guess he meant Russian Oligarchs…
This package of proposals will establish new authorities for the forfeiture of property linked to Russian kleptocracy
but surely Trump can be shoe-horned into that with some creative dossier writing from the DOJ sources.
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They went in with a huge tactical advantage (initially, anyway) by attacking from three sides and having pretty much full control of the skies early on.
They have not had “full control of the skies” at any point in the conflict.
This is a good source for photographically confirmed losses of equipment, to get a sense of the “floor” on Russian equipment losses.
But regarding “tactical advantage” – the point I was making about the troop numbers near-parity, is that military analysts identified the clear lack of adequate advantage pre-conflict as a reason why they thought there was no way the invasion would take place in the form that it did. (and they were not taking into account how poorly maintained the equipment turned out to be, or how poor the logistics chain was in practice)
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Looks like we’re getting up to $50B in aid for “democracy” abroad (defense contractor welfare), but not so much for citizens who elected him. How’s that student loan cancellation going?
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Russia is, after all, a third world country with lots of nukes.
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I don’t think I’ve seen a single post mentioning Ukrainian jets, bombers, or helicopters flying any missions. And some of the rockets / bombs dropped on Ukraine were air-launched from within Ukrainian territory. They may not have “full control”, but I believe they have air superiority.
If you mean air superiority in the layman’s term of who has the bigger active air force and can fly more sorties, then sure, Russia has the numbers. But they are taking aircraft losses daily, and continue to do so.
Ukrainian jets and helicopters have been flying missions since day one; surprised you think they have been inactive.
We are bankrupt. So that’s $33 billion on the cuff. Couple of comments:
$33 billion MORE to secure Ukraine’s border but not a nickel for our American border to staunch the current, ongoing, invasion of our country!
How much are the Europeans spending? Ukraine is, first and foremost, a European problem. They should be contributing more to the “fight Russia” effort than America. Sure we should help. But the European contribution to the Ukraine war effort should be greater than our own. So is it? Let’s look behind the curtain:
So we see once again it is the American taxpayer, and the already bankrupt USA itself, that is being hosed.
I’m gonna repeat myself: we should be contributing to this war effort. But Ukraine is in Europe. It is the Europeans who should be in the lead on this, not us.
If the day ever comes that Russia tries to take over one of the Godforsaken countries in Central or South America, the USA needs to stand tall and take the lead in opposing any such takeover in our hemisphere. Ukraine is not in our hemisphere!! And I’m sick and tired of the European cheapskates shirking their responsibilities and duties.
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I’ve looked at some “sigint” feeds. Lots of photos and videos of Bayraktar in action, but I haven’t seen anything about jets or helis.
Great! How much?
More fairly timely commentary on the war
This one in particular was interesting speculation.
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Ooh, maybe they’ll take back parts of Belarus while they’re ate it.
CNN’s take - “American killed fighting alongside Ukrainian forces in Ukraine”.
https://www.cnn.com/2022/04/28/politics/american-killed-ukraine/index.html
Sounds like some young, perhaps foolish guy doing what he thought was right. Except for this part…
The 22-year-old was working with a private military contracting company when he was killed on Monday. The company had sent him to Ukraine, and he was being paid while he was fighting there
on Friday, his uncle said the family did not know the name of the company and had not been contacted by any contractor after his death.
So really the correct headline would be
“US is sending marines to kill Russians in Ukraine under the guise of hiring them as mercenaries for a private, government-paid contractor”
Constellis is what Blackwater is calling themselves these days. And you wonder why the Russian diplomats are saying stuff like “world war 3 has already started when the US sent their own military men and hardware to attack us”. I’m sure they don’t care about whatever formalities Biden is using to avoid getting a declaration of war.
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Of course their great pilot legend was made up. So were most of the claims for how much Russian hardware was lost.
On 30 April, the Ukrainian Armed Forces General Staff said that in the war so far Russia had lost 190 planes and 155 helicopters. But independent military analysts Oryx reckon the Russian losses to be 26 planes and 39 helicopters, as well as 48 drones (UAVs).
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this could be a game changer.
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I saw posts referencing the “Ghost of Kyiv” in the first few days of the invasion, and it was obvious from the post and the comments that it was just a video game character. There were also a few stories in the news that mentioned it. Nobody really thought it was real.
Paying their debts to foreigners despite the sanctions, while our leader talks about seizing their private property
The nearly $650 million in payments were made in dollars to a London branch of Citigroup Inc. that processes payments on behalf of bondholders, Russia’s finance ministry said Friday. The payments came from bank accounts that were not subject to direct sanctions and didn’t require authorization from the U.S. Treasury
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8 years ago today, setting the stage for where we are now.
The Ukraine Nazis burned down a building, killing nearly 50 pro-Russian supporters in the aftermath of the 2014 coup in Ukraine. The police did nothing and the fire department showed up half an hour late.
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War criticism costs Russian oligarch his business, billions.
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bump