Not really. When there are literally hundreds of telegram posts of Russia army personal begging for replacements for Starlink. It isn’t a stretch to imagine that they are critically short of communication equipment because corruption stole it all again.
Besides there are already reports that Ukraine has recaptured more than 250 square kilometers of territory in the last couple of days due to Russian communication problems as well as other Russian issues.
There are unverified reports that a Flying Tigers bunch of foreign non-Ukrainian pilots are flying F-16s in Ukraine.
To clarify slightly, the alleged non-Ukrainians are supposedly working as mercenaries. They are said to not be current regular members of other NATO air forces.
Interesting if true. And makes for some murky legalities. Especially if one of the mercs gets shot down over Russian-held territory.
You misunderstand me. I was suggesting that the Russians are quite possibly already using cheap consumer-grade 2-way radios, from which cellphones running Signal or Telegram would be a step up.
The problem is those are not very helpful solutions. Using a radio to tell someone where to attack a newly discovered enemy position is hard. Sending a picture or video with an arrow is so much more effective.
So how do military coms work in (modern, competently-led, well-equipped) militaries? Do they actually have secure cell/satellite phones, with Signal-like apps installed on them?
Link 16 - Wikipedia would be a good page to start. Also Blue force tracking - Wikipedia.
Long article. It’s well researched and written.
Zelenskyy didn’t take the intelligence warnings aeriously until it was too late.
For the record, I don’t think anyone took the warnings seriously, because the past Putin efforts of posture, demand, threaten, possible concessions and then repeat were so typical at the time. Based on past evidence, it seemed far more likely and, in hindsight, if he had just fully recognized the breakaway provinces pushed his military to them, and just dared the west to do anything it would have worked IMHO.
He thought he could instead get the whole ball of wax, got closer to succeeding that anyone wants to think about, and it’s almost entirely due to pre-intervention Ukraine grit and willingness to fight hard that he still didn’t succeed. Granted, western grants of funding and equipment have been huge in keeping that going, but while I feel that no matter how well written, it’s 20/20 hindsight to say “this time it’s going to be different”.
Or, to be more critical, Zelenskyy was in a terrible situation if British and American intelligence proved correct with very few options to improve the situation (not none, granted), and may well have engaged in some hopeful/wishful thinking.
Be that as it may, Putin’s buildup of forces along the Ukrainian border in January 2022 was, IIRC, much bigger and more substantial than anything he’d ever done previously in terms of buildup or threats. It also included things with a short shelf life, like blood for wounded troops. There was good reason to believe this was a serious threat in a way that no prior bluffs were.
Except that it wasn’t too late. Zelenskyy did, in fact, stop the Russian advance.
Pretty much everything in that article is correct. I think we can recognize that no leader is perfect and everybody makes mistakes. Just because Zelenskyy made mistakes before the invasion doesn’t lessen how great of a war time leader he has been. I don’t think Ukraine survives without his courageous stand in the capital and the whole, “Mr. President, I need ammunition not a ride”.
One key piece of information that the article missed was the role of military hospitals in the build up. It wasn’t just the size of the April 2021 exercises and military buildup that alarmed Washington and London. It was the fact that they included military hospitals. (Doctors are in very short supply in Russia so they a normally not included in exercises.)
As I understand it one of the things that convinced the CIA that the February 2022 invasion wasn’t a feint was not only were there many more military hospitals than the April exercises but that huge amounts of whole blood and been included during this exercise.
Really, this whole war has basically been a screw-up by all 4 parties involved. It’s just that the Ukrainians screwed up the least.
Russia = massive overconfidence, hubris, lack of preparation, cluster-fucked up early in the war
Ukraine = failed to take warnings seriously, but then recovered very ably and capably once the invasion started.
USA = gave decent support during Biden years (although still not enough,) then went full vatnik-Trump once Trump was reelected, and not only gives no support now but even is outright pro-Putin
Europe = despite a GDP vastly larger than Russia’s, and given 4 years to get its act together, still gives insufficient aid to Ukraine, and still bickers among itself.
In 2025 the US gave Ukraine a $20B loan.
also some military aid- altho admittedly not enough.
You might want to read the article instead of just reading the headline. The article notes that the 20B loan against russian assets was provided by Biden in December of 2024 not Trump. Some of that was delivered during Trump’s time in office but it seems pretty perverse to give Trump credit for Something Biden did.
Trump hasn’t provided any new aid for Ukraine in 2025. The only thing he has done is allowed Europe to purchase American weapons and then donate them to Ukraine and allowed Biden era initiatives to finish delivering after Biden left office.
The article might be correct, but @aceplace57 's statement that it was “too late” is not.
I meant too late to take any steps to stop the invasion or be better prepared to fight.
Zelenskyy has done well as a war time leader.
Russia is very close to not being able to produce any more T-80 tanks. Arguably they have already reached that point as the very few T-80 tanks left in storage are in such a bad condition that the vast majority of vehicles produced are support vehicles using the T-80 hull. They already have exhausted their supply of some types of mobile artillery.
My hot take is we will see Ukraine go on several limited offensives this year as the Russia state can’t continue to prosecute the war at it’s current level.
Covert Cobal has a video on this.
The tank stage of this conflict is drawing to a close. Largely because Russia has lost most of theirs that were either part of their initial forces or that have been recovered/repaired from storage. Russia can produce at most maybe a couple hundred new tanks per year. Not enough to play a critical role in the war going forward. We’re finding tanks are not particularly cost effective as weapons platforms since the advent of drone warfare. $300 drones are just too good at knocking out $60k tanks.