- Ukraine is able to fire just 2,000 shells a day, its defense minister said.
- That’s about a third of what Russia is firing, Rustem Umerov added.
- In a letter seen by Bloomberg, Umerov urged his EU counterparts to fulfill their ammo commitments.
Am well aware war is stupidly expensive, but I really can’t shake the feeling someone or somemany are skimming quite a bit of these helps and donations. Every now and then we see huge amounts of money given to Ukraine, to a level that is approaching GDP of some countries, and yet there’s never enough of anything.
You can’t shoot money as artillery munition, first off you’d need a driver load and then it’ll get all messed up. There’s not enough shells because the west doesn’t have much production capacity and doesn’t deliver much, it’s as simple as that.
The stuff the US sends is overwhelmingly surplus hardware, kind of hard to make disappear, especially the large stuff. Reporting a rifle as lost to the enemy even though you grabbed it for yourself? Quite easy, but won’t work often before people get suspicious. A whole crate? Command will have your ass. Stealing an Abrams? Forget it.
It’s the EU who is sending the most of the money and practically bankrolling the Ukrainian state – their economy isn’t exactly in a good place right now, tax revenue is low, and all the tax revenue they have they spend on the war. Thus, the EU is picking up bills for wages of civil servants, pensions, such stuff, to avoid Ukraine having to pay people in flour, onions, sunflower oil and eggs confiscated from farmers. Not good for morale, that kind of war economy.
As to corruption in that area: EPPO has a working agreement with their Ukrainian counterpart, and seem to be very content with it. EPPO is the EU’s prosecutor office, investigating and prosecuting crimes against the EU budget, headed by the gal who cleaned up Romania.
Ukraine no doubt has an issue with corruption – but also a people long fed up with the consequences of it, a government fed up with it, and a war that noone wants to see lost because of it, and a national identity that would like to very much distance itself from terminally corrupt Russia.
headed by the gal who cleaned up Romania.
While Kövesi did a bunch of good stuff and got some convictions, Romania is far, far from clean as far as corruption goes.
Yeah, I guess that’s the case. And I have nothing on that except how it feels, which is a pointless thing to rely on.
Is English not your first language?
Why would it be? This is the internet.
You got a problem with that?
No, what makes you think that?
There’s 8 billion people on the planet and 400 mil native English speakers. You do the math. If you can.
That doesn’t answer my question though.
Let me spell it out for you then. The answer is most likely no. It’s also irrelevant
It doesn’t seem that the Russian people are happy with this war either. I really feel there is an opportunity here to get the Russian people to stab Putin in the back. While I don’t understand why Putin has any backers but it’s clear so many Russians are suffering as well.
Especially considering how close Ukrainians, Belorussians, and European Russians are to each other in language and culture; you would think they could find some common ground. I know Ukrainians and Russians, losing their families for Putin’s cause would be stupid.
The rich are isolated from the war. It doesn’t affect them so supporting Putin is easy. Like the US war in Iraq.
Solution: accept defeat. Draw new borders. Stop the bloodshed.
At this rate, if Ukraine depletes its ammunition, Russia will be able to roll over them. Best to draw up a treaty before the tables turn
Do you think Russia would honor that treaty?
I think Ukraine should set up the defenses they should have from the beginning to prevent an invasion.
They “trusted” Russia before, it didn’t work out for them.
They “trusted” the international community before, it didn’t work out for them.
Now they have to trust themselves and mine the shit out of any border with Russia, regardless of if it looks like “escalation.”
Absolutely. That means they win and they get the land they sought after. One of their biggest goals was to regain control over the dnipro River so they could reopen the fresh water supply to Crimea that was cut off back in 2012
You want ten thousand Buchas? Because that’s how you get ten thousand Buchas.
Killings won’t go any higher after a peace treaty than they would without one. Either the war goes on and Russians keep killing civilians in occupied territory, or Russians keep killing civilians in conquered territory. I’d even water that killings of civilians would decrease if the war ended.
Option 1: keep fighting a war your losing, thus losing more soldiers, weapons, supplies, and civilians. Option 2: accept your losses and live to fight again another day.
Option 3: Grind Russia down to a halt, then throw them out of the country.
If you think that this war can’t be won you haven’t talked to Ukrainians. Also, do have a look at the loss statistics Russia vs. Ukraine. Even Russia can’t keep up this level of attrition, least of all in an offensive war.
That might be possible if they could maintain their momentum, but they clearly haven’t and cannot. This is not a war of power or superiority or willpower, it’s simply a matter of resources. Even though Russia has lost much more, they also have much more to lose.
First off, even if the west stopped supporting Ukraine tomorrow they’d fight on: With Molotov cocktails, as they did in the beginning. (Also it’d be practically impossible to stop the Poles from putting boots on the ground in that situation, different topic).
Secondly, resources is exactly why we’re supporting Ukraine. “They’d lose if we stop therefore we have to stop” is not really a good argument if you ask me.
And Russia doesn’t have that much more to lose while Ukraine is starting to strike deep into Russia breaking their backbone. Can’t circumvent oil sanctions if you have no ports to fill up ships with. The Russians can buy North Korean artillery with missile tech blueprints but China’s “friendship” only goes so far as Russia’s chequebook: No money, no silicon. Ukraine’s support backbone, meanwhile, is located deep within NATO territory.
And WTF is “maintain their momentum” supposed to mean. This isn’t a 400m race, or a game of CSGO. There’s ebbs and floods in every war as the sides manoeuvre and adapt.
It must be really cool to see the world as an action movie. Unfortunately, here in the real world, things don’t always play out where the good guys win through hard work and perseverance.
This is a very simple concept: big army with lots of troops and supplies needs to hold ground behind big ass river. Smaller army with less supplies needs to advance across big ass river. Not exactly a good scenario. Momentum is important in this situation because without it, the enemy builds defenses like trenches along the river. That momentum has already been lost.
As for the Ukrainians fighting on forever, Poland getting involved, and China abandoning Russia; this is entirely speculation based on your personal vibes. None of the factual ground evidence supports any of it.
This is a very simple concept: big army with lots of troops and supplies needs to hold ground behind big ass river
No. To fulfil their war goals Russia needs to move to the oblast borders, also over that river, just to gain control over territory they already claim to be legally part of the Russian Federation. They’re not doing that. They have, in your words, no momentum. What they do have is getting attritted.
As for the Ukrainians fighting on forever, Poland getting involved, and China abandoning Russia; this is entirely speculation based on your personal vibes. None of the factual ground evidence supports any of it.
Read the polls.
This is the hard truth that people on these forums don’t want to accept.
