ABC News ran some short clips of Zelensky.
He looked totally exhausted. The war has taken a lot out of him.
He’s stuck for now. It would be hard holding an election that wouldn’t get manipulated by Putin.
Remember this fresh faced guy from 2020?
Poland is indeed a very different story. The Baltic states, on the other hand, are ripe for the taking. If Russia takes all three, they put themselves out of NATO artillery range except in Finland and Ukraine. Only a single road and rail link connects the European mainland to Scandinavia. They also extend the reach of their air defenses. It very much complicates things for NATO militarily and gives Russia quite the leverage in peace negotiations.
I just cannot imagine their military actually being capable of it.
And Poland itself, whose front would actually be widened by the addition of some Lithuanian frontage to the pre-existing Kaliningrad frontage. I agree that the geography per se would shorten and simplify their defense, though (if you don’t count possible political impacts.)
I imagine if Russia took the Baltics, it would be a fait accompli (them being far weaker than Ukraine) and then Russia would promptly declare them to be sovereign Russian soil itself, and declare that any NATO attempt to re-take them would be tantamount to an invasion of Russia proper and risk nuclear retaliation. Then it becomes a matter of whether NATO is willing to take the risk to re-take them or will just say “Oh well, Russia gets to have those 3 small NATO states but we won’t let them take a bigger NATO state like Poland.” It’s questionable whether the alliance could even survive at all as a defense agreement any longer if it caved in and chose not to re-take the Baltics.
If NATO put up even a smidgen of defense, I doubt Russia could even take the Baltics. AIUI, they’ve been stripping pretty much all units of men and equipment to fight in Ukraine, so they don’t have enough full strength units to do the job.
Exactly. Invading the Baltics means coming out of their trenches and foxholes, and the moment Russians forces come out in the open they’ll be shredded by NATO air power.
If NATO chooses to fight, of course.
When? 24 hrs., 2 weeks, 50 days?
Some good news
Also good news: Moldova’s pro-Western Party has won the election today, gaining at least 49% of the high vote.
On the other hand, tensions in Estonia:
Putin wanted to defang Ukraine and weaken the West. Instead Ukraine is now helping NATO to become stronger.
Ukraine’s burgeoning reputation as a key player in the field of drone warfare reflects the dramatic shifts currently taking place in Europe’s security architecture. Until quite recently, Ukraine was treated as a military minnow struggling to adopt NATO standards. Strikingly, it is now NATO that is seeking to adopt Ukrainian standards.
The emergence of Ukraine as a drone superpower is only one aspect of the country’s remarkable recent transformation into a major military force. The Ukrainian army is also at the cutting edge of innovation in defense tech sectors including electronic warfare, robotic systems, and cyber security. It came as no surprise that the recent Defense Tech Valley industry showcase event in western Ukraine attracted at least 5000 participants from over 50 countries, with Western companies pledging more than $100 million in investments.
The technological progress made by the Ukrainian Armed Forces since 2022 is certainly eye-catching, but the country’s human capital remains its greatest asset. Today’s Ukraine boasts Europe’s second-largest army, with almost one million men and women currently in uniform and a large reserve of battle-hardened combat veterans. This dwarfs anything else on the continent, even before Ukraine’s unrivaled experience of modern warfare is taken into account. With the United States seeking to reduce its role in European security, the Ukrainian military is now the biggest single barrier between an expansionist Russia and an unprepared Europe.
And the United States had better follow Ukraine’s footsteps rapidly. As websites like TheWarZone have constantly pointed out, the USA is lagging alarmingly behind in both 1) the production of small drones and 2) defense against small drones. It feels like the U.S. won’t make the changes until one day it gets a really unpleasant surprise on the battlefield.
But first we need an administration that wants the US to survive, not become a Russian vassal.
If Ukraine is now “Europe’s second-largest army”, who’s the largest? And how do they “dwarf anything else on the continent”, given whoever the largest is?
I assume that they’re counting Russia as part of Europe.
WTF Germany???
The attack on the gas line was an act of war. The pipeline could have funneled billions into Russia’s war machine.
Poland needs to refuse any extradition requests from Germany or at least let this man return to Ukraine.
Angela Merkle was a supporter of NORD Stream II. Merkle’s Russian policies and the Minsk agreements have often been criticized.
Link
Another very interesting analysis by Anders Puck Nielson.
He says Ukraine is making 50 of its new Flamingo missiles per month so should have a stockpile of around 200, with production expected to be ramped up to 200 per month in January. So why haven’t they been using them?
Answer: he believes the Ukrainians are moving into a confident position of deterrence. Zelensky has already said that if Russia targets domestic infrastructure Ukraine willstrike back in kind, and it happens the following day where Russia struck a power plant so Ukraine for the first time struck a a Russian power plant in Belgorod. He says this signals that Ukraine is moving itself into a new era of the war though he doesn’t think Ukraine has enough missiles this winter to deter Putin from aiming for these sorts of targets. But he does say that if Ukraine does start causing energy blackouts and other problems in Russian cities, their population may not be as ready to accept it as the Ukrainians.
The main thing that worries me about the Flamingos is that it would be very easy for Russia to disrupt the supply chain needed to manufacture the missiles. This makes the possible transfer of American Tomahawks to Ukraine all the more vital, since Russia can’t stop Tomahawk production.
On r/ukraine they think it’s also that the Flamingo is way more vulnerable than the average new missile, so they will probably wait until they can launch a massive simultaneous attach to overwhelm defenses. The Wikipedia page and r/ukraine both also say that that would consist of “combined strikes by multiple weapons types” , i.e. also send in the drones at the same time to add to the strike, but I would think that just sending lots of Flamingos at once would probably do decently as well.
A bunch of cheap drones to saturate Russian air defense in advance of the Flamingos would make a good deal of sense. The Flamingos have a much larger warhead, and so if you can get a few extra through at the expense of some flying lawnmowers being shot down it’s well worth the effort.
I got that reference!