A concise list of what went to Ukraine so far from U.S. military. As of September 28. Not positive if this includes things not yet delivered.
It appears some items are not delivered. Some may be over a year to arrive or be manufactured.
Never mind that. The important question is “Who is going to find Bigfoot if he gets called up?” Priorities, Vlad, priorities.
Russian troops being there to interfere with a civil war, like a third person in a spousal row. Though I think Im getting ahead of myself. There’s no sign of any of this happening.
gooseberry: British informal - an unwanted single person in a group of couples, esp a third person with a couple (often in the phrase “play gooseberry”).
So like a third wheel?
That’s what I nearly wrote but thought it didn’t look good in the sentence.
Meanwhile Newsweek reported yesterday on what the US is considering in the case of a Russian escalation to nuclear weapons…
And includes the following paragraph:
Details about what “decisively” means have not been publicly revealed. The military sources tell Newsweek that there are subtle moves being made with regard to nuclear threats, including moving submarines and aircraft and drilling B-52 bombers. But they stress that non-nuclear military options—the use of conventional weapons and special operations, as well as cyber and space attack—are front and center, to include a decapitation strike to kill Putin in the heart of the Kremlin.
The Russian embassy in the US responded earlier today on Telegram (I have quoted it in full, including their emoticons):
We have noted a September 29 Newsweek article which quotes statements by anonymous Pentagon officials about plans to respond to the hypothetical use of nuclear weapons by our country. Among the madman options under consideration there is a so-called decapitation strike against Russia’s military-political leadership.
We would like to believe that such delusional considerations do not reflect the official position of the US military establishment. Otherwise the world has approached a truly dangerous point and a Cuban Missile Crisis 2.0 looms large on the horizon.
The Department of Defense should not doubt our determination to defend Russia’s national sovereignty, territorial integrity, and people by all weapon systems available to us. Therefore the US military planners’ risky thought experiment could end up costing the United States dearly. Any military confrontation between nuclear powers would inevitably result in catastrophic consequences.
…
Also today Ukraine has warned that the risk of Russia using a tactical nuclear weapon is “very high”.
"They will likely target places along the frontlines with lots of personnel and equipment,” Vadym Skibitsky, a deputy head of Ukraine’s military intelligence, told The Guardian.
…and Putin has announced the annexation of the four republics…
We call on the Kyiv regime to immediately cease fire, all military activities, the war it began in 2014, and return to the negotiating table. We are ready for this. But won’t discuss the choice made by [citizens of those regions]. It has been made. Russia will not betray them.
Thank you. I’d never heard/seen the word used for anything other than the actual berries.
IIRC, the USSR backed down in that one. Maybe not the example he wants to use.
There’s another version of that story that says that Khrushchev saw American nuclear missiles aimed at Moscow near his border in Turkey and, in a game of nuclear brinkmanship, used the threat of Soviet missiles in Cuba to get them removed.
Determining the correct “decisive” response could be an extremely challenging risk analysis. The US is going to have to figure out what will be harsh enough to make Putin stop vs what will mentally derail him enough to unleash some appalling response.
It’s scary that Russia has backed itself into such a tight corner. There’s no room for any negotiations or concessions.
I can only hope NATO is clearly communicating the harsh consequences of a Russian nuke incident.
Put the capital D in Deterrence.
Doesn’t matter. Bigfoot’s getting called up too.
Are we sure that isn’t Bigfoot? You just shave him and you have a whole cryptid Keyser Soze situation.
I’m having a hard time converting towns in Ukraine that I have no concept of, such as Lyman and Balakyliya, into proportion that I can understand. For analogy, are we looking at something like a mini-Gettysburg or mini-Vicksburg type of victory, using the Civil War for perspective? Trying to grasp the ramifications since those sound like small towns.
They are indeed small towns. From a strategic standpoint, they’re not terribly important (except, of course, to the folks who live there or have family there). Logistically, though, they’re pretty big, due to railroad / road access and / or isolating a large number of Russian troops.
Continuing to push east, as Ukraine has done, significantly erodes Russia’s ability to supply its troops in the Donbas region – both directly (by taking control of major roads / railroads / waterways) and indirectly (allowing artillery and HIMARS to impact staging and supply routes on the entire eastern border of Ukraine).
Perhaps a little too easy to believe, especially when one really wants to.
A site I have never heard of before, the Daily Star, has video purported to be of Russian conscripts beating up an officer who called them “meat for slaughter” – to the Star’s credit, they say the video lacks confimation and seems to be from a Ukrainian propaganda source.
I don’t understand why either side had / has such concerns. A nuke hitting Miami is just as deadly whether it was launched from Havana or some silo in the Siberian taiga. A nuke hitting Moscow is just as deadly whether it came from Kyiv or some silo in the middle of the North Dakota prairie. Having a 30 minute instead of 30 second warning doesn’t seem like it would matter at that point.
It’s over how long it takes for the missile to reach its destination.
Shorter time means less time to prepare and to retaliate.
I would characterize the strategic import of Lyman as being comparable to maybe the Battle of the Weldon Raiload, where one of the Confederacy’s main supply lines got cut.