Heh, WebEx should actually be fine, security wise. Until you dial into it on an insecure line. 
The German ambassador won’t apologize for the leaked phone call re: Ukraine and missiles.
interesting perspective on the naval-drone attacks: from the russian POV
https://www.reddit.com/r/ukraine/comments/1b7z6ho/ukrainian_magura_v5_naval_kamikaze_drones_attack/
Russia’s spies are extremely active:
Russia has aggressively relaunched its spy war with the west, and Moscow’s publication of a phone call in which senior German air force officers discussed sending cruise missiles to Ukraine is only the latest chilling example.
Almost every week, it seems, another covert operation comes to light, showing how far Russia’s intelligence agencies have penetrated Europe since Moscow launched its full-scale invasion of Ukraine two years ago.
Now would be a good time for the European countries’ intelligence operations to identify some Russian spies not yet expelled and start feeding them bogus information.
Slightly surprised to see that this hasn’t been shared here. I know it has its own thread, though.
Well, that was a bit anticlimactic.
Fascinating footage, thanks for sharing: one cannot but admire the Ruzzian SAM-technology, if Ruzzian it was. Mobile cameras are getting impressive under poor light conditions too.
Very funny the part that goes: “What’s that noise?” “It’s a train.”
Dramatic choice facing the Ukrainian government. Are they fighting Putin or fighting Russia?
Specifically, they have just had to decide whether to stand side-by-side with Russia’s anti-Putin opposition, in a potentially meaningful symbolic act.
They opted not to.
The Washington Post looks at Ukrainian thinking on this issue.
Gift link:
Is Switzerland still neutral and not in NATO?
I hate to admit how long that I thought Sweden and Switzerland were the same country. It didn’t help that both countries were neutral in the World Wars.
I’m amazed that Sweden has given up Neutrality by joining NATO. Even Hitler didn’t scare them as badly compared to Putin.
There is an interesting article in this morning’s feed from Foreign Affairs. It’s probably paywalled and they don’t do open gift links. I don’t know what sort of free sample article provisions they have, so here it is FWIW:
Russia Is Burning Up Its Future | Foreign Affairs. Here’s the final two-paragraph punchline of the several-page article:
Putin started his war to change the world order and force everyone else to live by his rules. For that, he needed to position his country and its zone of geopolitical influence against the West and the modernizing project it represents. These goals account for Putin’s readiness to embark on territorial expansion: many other countries are moving forward, transitioning to other types of energy precisely so that there will be resources left for the future. But Russia is defending a dying model of development, one that requires a totalitarian and imperial ideology—and that necessitates using up resources now, including the same old oil and gas.
For Putin, it appears to be a wager worth making: his costly project in Ukraine has laid a minefield under the country’s economic and demographic future, but it is entirely possible that these mines will explode only after he has left the scene. Call it the King Louis XV model of governance: Après moi, le déluge. (“After me, the flood.”) Putin’s war is a fight against the future.
The linked article in Foreign Affairs is not paywalled.
Yeah, it’s interesting, but it’s also not really relevant to the war in Ukraine.
The article talks about long-term problems, over decades. But saving Ukraine is a short-term problem, that must be solved this year.
The article discusses the decline of Russia, with issues such as Russia’s low birth rates, (even though this is also a problem for almost every country in the developed world), Russia’s economic dependence on selling old-fashioned energy (oil/gas), and the general unpreparedness of Russia for facing the modern world and new technologies. And the final sentence sums it all up–comparing Putin to Louis XV, using the famous statement “apres moi, le deluge”.
I agree with the article, but I would like to emphasize the words apres moi (“after I am gone”).–which define the biggest problem for Ukraine.
The era of “after Putin” won’t happen anytime soon. He should live another decade or more. And I doubt that Ukraine can survive another decade of war.
Russia can continue to fight for years, creating scorched earth over more and more of Ukraine. And even if Russia does weaken offensively, it may not weaken defensively. So if it makes fewer advances into Ukraine over the next several years, it will still be able to dig in deeply and keep the parts of Ukraine which it has already conquered.
Ukraine now admits to having a serious problem with the morale of its citizens.
America and the West need to provide vastly more aide to Ukraine, immediately.
I agree. Russia’s future will be bleak. but only 20 or 30 years from now. Ukraine can’t wait that long.
This is hypothesis, not fact. We shall see (or maybe not).
well, yeah…anytime we’re talking about the future, we’re dealing with hypotheses, not facts. And so, we shall wait and see.
But I wish we didn’t have to wait. With better motivation, western countries could have already given enough supplies to Ukraine to end the war.
Europe is waking up and realizing the need to support Ukraine. America is falling asleep. Without a huge increase in both European and American supplies, Ukraine will lose.
And, if Trump wins, Ukraine loses … bigly.
It’s sickening to see Ukraine lose soldiers in trench warfare. The lack of basic ammo like shells and bullets is giving Russia the edge.
The F-16’s are coming towards the end of this year?
Will there be enough armaments for them to make a difference?
The A-10 Warthog seems more suited for clearing personnel from Russian trenches. It would wipe out the human wave attacks that Russia uses. Would the President need 
approval to lend or transfer our mothballed A-10’s?
The A-10 would be ridiculously vulnerable to AA in this conflict. It’s a terrifying ground support platform when the sky is owned by friendly forces, but by its nature it needs to get in close to its targets. The Russians have no shortage of excellent short-range air defense platforms like the Pantsir, and have effective MANPADS as well. Trying to use the A-10 without a full air supremacy campaign would be near-suicidal.
And anyways, dropping ordinance on trenches can be done much more safely and at higher volume using 155mm artillery, assuming you have sufficient ammunition. What Ukraine needs from aircraft is stand-off air-to-air capability, so that they can discourage the Russians from their extensive use of glide bombs and send the Ka-52 attack helicopters into hiding. Full compatibility with western missile systems like the HARM anti-radar missile or the Storm Shadow/SCALP air launch cruise missiles will also be useful, though the Ukrainians have jury-rigged their Migs and Sukhois to launch those.
The Sukhoi Su-25 ‘Frogfoot’ is better suited to the environment, and they already have them.
Whelp my idea got shot down. 
It seems like there’s one dead end after another in this war.
Ukraine has to get more firepower before their supply of troops gets too low.
I would say Ukraine’s needs in terms of materiel, in order of necessity, would go something like this:
- Adequate artillery ammunition (and sufficient artillery platforms to use the ammunition, but I don’t think that’s actually an issue at the moment)
- Longer range munitions to hit Russian airbases/logistics hubs/etc. Large quantities of ATACMS with cluster munition warheads would potentially decimate Russian forward-staged combat air assets, for example, and large unitary warheads with adequate range could bring down the Kerch bridge to greatly complicate Russian logistics
- Stand-off anti-air capacity, most likely in the form of F-16s with the longest-ranged versions of the AIM-120 AMRAAM the west is willing to give them.
- Armoured vehicles up to and including main battle tanks, mine-clearing equipment, etc.
The first three should be enough to grind Russian offensives to a halt. The 4th becomes necessary for Ukraine to actually go on the offensive. Unless Russian logistics are sufficiently crippled that their southern lines just fold, but that’s probably overly optimistic.
Denmark is changing up their military conscription. Maybe just hyping up a “Look out, we’re getting ready to fight” change that they were going to do anyway (and should have done anyway but that’s another discussion).