Ukraine pleads for more weapons as defiant Russia warns West

The Ukes should also focus on sniper training. Highly skilled snipers are cheap yet can be enormously demoralizing to the other side.

President Vladimir Putin said continued use of sanctions against Russia risked causing "catastrophic" energy price rises.

Vlad is ignoring the reality that the sanctions came about because he decided to invade Ukraine and start a war with them. Or is he so delusional he thinks he can start wars and no one will try to resist his supposed vaunted armies, or that because he is pals with Xi Jinping and Modi, fellow autocrats, that he can do whatever he wants. And I thought his loyal followers claimed that the sanctions are making Putin and his fellow upper caste Russians richer, that Putin's warmongering was profitable for Putin, Inc. and the parts of the fossil economy he controls.

So once again Putin is stating what he wanted from the beginning:

"On Thursday, Putin had indicated that current prospects of finding a solution to the conflict were dim, saying Russia's campaign in Ukraine had barely started."

He wants to conquer all of Ukraine, erase the name Ukraine and everything connected to it!

This was no "limited special 2 day operation" from the beginning. He "b.s.ed" the world or at least tried to.

Provide Ukraine with even more hardware, give them the possibility to regain lost territories. Only this might bring Putin to the negotiating table.

I think Zelenskiy will be remembered as one of the most influential politicians of our time, he has been steadfast and stellar.

I’m not sure if Russians and their supporters know how ignorant they sound when they open their mouths or they know and don’t care. Either way there is no humanly way to justify the brutal Russian attack on Ukraine never mind the idiocy of subsequently trying to lay blame for the worlds repercussions on the defending Ukrainians and the west.

More weapons to sell on the black market? No. Zelensky made his bed. He should lay in it.

And I thought his loyal followers claimed that the sanctions are making Putin and his fellow upper caste Russians richer, that Putin's warmongering was profitable for Putin, Inc. and the parts of the fossil economy he controls.

First Afghanistan and now Ukraine and still this administration continues to screw things up and they’re giving the world the false belief that gas will be a thing of the past within 5 years, it’s just never going to happen.

The mothers, wives and GFs of Ukrainian POWs are demanding the Russians....... don't release them until the war is over. I think that says it all.

Zelensky is going to pay for this tyranny he didn't start but has championed.

The Ukes should also focus on sniper training. Highly skilled snipers are cheap yet can be enormously demoralizing to the other side.

The Russian army is far from the Taliban, or the Iraqi or Syrian army or the Yugoslavia army or the Libyan army. The Russia army is highly mechanized. Snipers are useless against tanks and APCs. If artillery hasn't destroyed them long before they see a tank or APC. Far right Ukrainian paramilitaries are complaining the locals hate them and are giving away their positions to the Russians. The most snipers could be significantly useful for is partisan attacks in any western areas the Russians don't have the support of the majority of the population.

@funk gas will be a thing of the past within 5 years,

Curious when anyone in the Biden administration might have said that, or was it something reported by Tucker/Alex Jones or another wack right disinformation spreader, that is just being re-parroted by one of their fellow disinformation spreaders? Fossil fuels will be burned for a long time, but the sooner the world slows its burning of huge amounts, the better. Unless those favoring predatory capitalism want despots like Putin, MbS and MbZ to continue to have even greater control over the global fossil economy

Give Zelensky everything he wants - he and the Ukrainians have shown tremendous courage and resilience in the face of horrendous war crimes by Putin and his criminal cabal.

Schools, hospitals, shopping malls....time to send a few long range HIMARS and ATACM missiles into Putin's oil refineries and military bases...

The faux bombast and "crazy talk" out of the Kremlin has been amped up - a clear sign that Putin knows he's losing...

Western sanctions have backfired - dependent upon Russian energy, the EU threatened Putin by holding a gun to their own heads - and the tactics employed by Ukraine, although brave, haven't been the best. They should have targeted Putin and the Russian government in Moscow from day 1. To not do so is weak and foolish. The alternative to that is to cede Eastern territories full of pro-Russian groups and create a defendable DMZ. There is no point in spinning things out trying to defend cities from the Russian 'scorched earth' policy. Too many civilians and Ukrainian troops will die. Target Russian supply lines, anything coming in by air, fuel, command and control if you want to land some punches. Ukraine cannot outshoot the Russians but they can wage a smarter campaign.

Without targeting Moscow, Ukraine will simply slow the inevitable, whilst a heap of developing countries starve. And by winter, the impact on the EU will be economically and politically devastating. EU citizens will not freeze their grannies for Ukraine whilst Putin sits grinning in the Kremlin. If the EU try to buy their way out of the fuel problem, they will be stealing fuel from poorer nations and forcing up the price still further. Countries will turn back to coal and start burning their ecosystems for fuel. We have quite enough climate change already.

Either send Ukrainian snipers to Moscow, or choose a DMZ location.

To Mr. Lavrov, you are either part of the solution, or you are part of the problem.

Right now, Russia, under the leadership of Vladimir Putin, is part of the problem. The sooner you, and other Russian leaders, hobble Putin and chart a course that makes Russia a positive contributor to the world, the sooner we can address the economic problems that are facing the world right now.

Weapon business is doing well. Zelensky comedian is new world leader now, who order other leaders to send more weapon so the war can prolong. I feel sorry for ordinary people who suffer the most from this war game politics.

Now US can also sell more gas in higher prices that it wouldn't be possible without the war. All world crisis is not 100% because of this war or Russia. It's a planned agenda.

@Axel

Snipers are useless against tanks and APCs.

Soldiers in APCs can't stay in their vehicles: they need to get in and get out frequently.....unless there's a good sniper team nearby, in which case they're either dead, wounded or forced inside and hence become useless.

But there's a range of other sniper targets as well, as Wiki tells us:

"...a sniper's primary function in modern warfare is to provide detailed surveillance from a concealed position and, if necessary, to reduce the enemy's combat ability by neutralizing high-value targets (especially officers and other key personnel) and in the process pinning down and demoralizing the enemy."

"Snipers have increasingly been demonstrated as useful by US and UK forces in the recent Iraq campaign in a fire support role to cover the movement of infantry, especially in urban areas..."

While the accusations that Russia is blocking grain shipments plays well inside the Imperium, outside the Imperium they see the carveouts to the sanctions that allow the EU to continue to get Russian oil and gas, the Russian withdrawal from Snake Island, and the blockage of shipments of grains by Russia and are skeptical that those who illegally invaded and are brutally occupying Syria and Iraq, robbing Venezuelans in an attempt to overthrow their democratically elected government, and are helping the Axis of Antidemocracies use food as a weapon of war in the ME are telling the truth about who the bad guys are.

By fall this war is going to look very different. Much of the new equipment sent to Ukraine has not been employed. Their forces are still being trained up. I have read a retired Russian general's account of the recent fighting that claims the Ukrainians are deliberately bleeding the Russians white, causing as much losses as possible without allowing their own troops to be surrounded and captured. This Russian general claims the Ukrainians have deliberately held their reserves back for a soon to come offensive. He also claimed that while the Russians are having problems replacing lost equipment and manpower, the Ukrainians have been busy training up new fighters, increasing the size of their land force and have what looks to the Russians like an unlimited supply of weapons. A US advisor in a separate article was speaking about training up 40,000 soldiers, five brigades, over a six month period to NATO standards and equipping them with NATO arms including armor and integrate this with Ukraine's air force, the same air-ground combined arms tactics that NATO uses. Stay tuned because by fall this will be a very different war.

There is a high demand for Ukrainian weapons on the dark web. Send more and help Ukrainian bank accounts.

The Ukes should also focus on sniper training. Highly skilled snipers are cheap yet can be enormously demoralizing to the other side.

You do realize the Ukrainians and Russians are dueling with artillery? Their forces are not within sniper range of each other. What Ukraine needs and is coming as soon as they can train are long range artillery including a big batch of self propelled Howitzers from Netherlands and UK, towed artillery from the US and HIMARS. HIMARS could be a real game changer. It is a fearsome area clearance weapon. Two HIMARS units can clear out a grid, or a square one kilometer to a side and do so from 80-90 kilometers away.

There is nowhere for the Azov guys to hide and that's why they keep getting surrounded.

I have a feeling the Azov bogeyman will continue forever. Almost seems like an excuse to continue this illegal invasion.

Is ‘liberation’ possible? What’s the end goal here? Flatten the whole country and wait for the ticker tape parade?

Western sanctions have backfired - 

Are you sure? Russia has lost access to the electronics components it needs to maintain its weapons. They have had to resort to cannibalizing diswashers and other household appliances for electrical components, but those won't be manufactured to military standards able to survive in extreme temperatures or absorb the kinds of shocks they will experience under the wing of an airplane or on a military vehicle. A great many of their vehicles use diesel engines made by Cummins and Caterpillar. There are no more service or repair parts coming in for those. Already we have seen Russian forces using civilian dump trucks to move troops because they can no longer maintain their military vehicles. Two factories building armored vehicles have had to close for lack of parts. Same thing for civilian auto plants. It is no better for their aircraft, especially their civil aircraft that use western engines and avionics. They will be able to cannibalize for a while but that won't get them far. Even in a good year Russia produced 30-40 tanks. Russia has lost over 1000 tanks. They will be 25 years replacing what they have lost so far. They cannot begin to replace them as they are lost. Their material losses are not sustainable. They will run out of resources to fight with by fall or winter. They may run out of manpower earlier, or at least quality manpower. Dragging back people who were conscripts ten or twenty years ago and have since had families and the normal maladies of aging is not going to give them a quality fighting force. Ukraine does not face the material or manpower constraints the Russians face.

Give the Ukrainians what they need, because you know who Putin the Great will have his eyes on next. Best to nip this problem in the bud.

every country sending guns to UA openly supporting prolongation of war,suffering of people at both sides involved.

The odium of war is on the Soviets, if they want peace all they have to do is stop invading. But we understand that it is preferable to you that Ukraine stops not surrendering.

does anyone from you have noticed that US guns are actually killing russian civilians and kids too?

Nobody has noticed this, not even the Soviets.

US & western supplied guns will be killing Vlad's soldiers in increasing amounts for years to come.

Hungry like the fire

I do not think anything will bring Putin to a negotiating table! He believes that he has a right to do what is being done and that Ukraine is not a real country. He will make Russian peoples life a misery with all the sanctions, but that is nothing new, Russians are used to misery! On top of that, Russians have been brainwashed in to distrusting the west for decades. The rich ones have all ready left or are in the process of immigrating. The rest, have no choice but to stay. The only way this can end is if Putin is removed one way or another... But in the end Ukraine will have to loose some territory if not the whole country and that is because western powers will not support this war for ever. Eventually ( to some degree already started ) people will start to complain that their lives are becoming harder because of this war, politicians being who they are will do what the public wants. Every politician wants to stay in power, just like Putin...

It seems like a race between the tortoise and the hare, sad to say we all know who will win.

Even in the midst of his war against Clown World, Vladimir Putin has not forgotten about the oppressed nations of the occupied West:

If the West wanted to provoke a conflict in order to move on to a new stage in the fight against Russia and a new stage in containing our country, we can say that it has succeeded to a certain extent. A war was unleashed, and the sanctions were imposed. Under normal circumstances, it would probably be difficult to accomplish this.

But here is what I would you like to make clear. They should have realised that they would lose from the very beginning of our special military operation, because this operation also means the beginning of a radical breakdown of the US-style world order. This is the beginning of the transition from liberal-globalist American egocentrism to a truly multipolar world based not on self-serving rules made up by someone for their own needs, behind which there is nothing but striving for hegemony, not on hypocritical double standards, but on international law and the genuine sovereignty of nations and civilisations, on their will to live their historical destiny, with their own values and traditions, and to align cooperation on the basis of democracy, justice and equality.

Everyone should understand that this process cannot be stopped. The course of history is inexorable, and the collective West’s attempts to impose its new world order on the rest of the world are doomed.

At the same time, I want to say and emphasise that we have many supporters, including in the United States and Europe, and even more so on other continents and in other countries. And there will be more, no doubt about that.

To reiterate, even in the countries that are still satellites of the United States, there is a growing understanding that their ruling elites’ blind obedience to their overlord, as a rule, does not necessarily coincide with their national interests, and most often simply and even radically contradicts them. Eventually, everyone will have to face this growing sentiment in society.

Today, these ruling elites are raising the degree to which they manipulate the public consciousness right before our eyes. The ruling classes of the Western countries, which are supranational and globalist in nature, realised that their policies are increasingly detached from reality, common sense and the truth, and they have started resorting to openly despotic methods.

The West, which once declared such principles of democracy as freedom of speech, pluralism and respect for dissenting opinions, has now degenerated into the opposite: totalitarianism. This includes censorship, media bans, and the arbitrary treatment of journalists and public figures.

These kinds of prohibitions have been extended not only to the information space, but also to politics, culture, education, and art – to all spheres of public life in the Western countries. And, they are imposing this on the world; they are trying to impose this model, a model of totalitarian liberalism, including the notorious cancel culture of widespread bans.

However, the truth and reality is that the people in most of these countries do not want this life or this future, and really do not want the formal semblance of sovereignty, they want substantive, real sovereignty and are simply tired of kneeling, of humiliating themselves before those who consider themselves exceptional, and of serving their interests even to their own detriment.

Today we hear that they want to defeat us on the battlefield. Well, what can I say? Let them try.

Vladimir Putin’s special military operation was never about Ukraine, anymore than World War II was about Manchuria or the Sudetenland. Nor was it about his ego or his desire to resurrect the long-defunct Union of Soviet Socialist Republics. To the contrary, it has always been the opening gambit of a war of a sovereign nation against the globalist army of NATO, and if the nations of the world are very fortunate, the liberation of Luhansk will eventually be followed by the liberation of Eastern Europe, Western Europe, the United Kingdom, the United States, and Japan.

The key phrase: “Everyone should know that, by and large, we have not started anything in earnest yet.”

When China opens the second front, followed by the opening of third front in either North America or the Middle East, what I and other devotees of military history have been saying for months will become retroactively obvious to everyone.

Give Ukraine the weapons it asks for. Give them what they need to push Russia out of Ukraine territory. Then begin the process of Ukraine qualifying for NATO membership.

Modify MiG29 to fire western munitions that can target artillery at long range.

Plenty more can be done to help the Ukraine resist Russia troops and expel them back to Russia.

Ukrainians have deliberately held their reserves back

A senior Russian military leader seems to think so. Here is the article I was referencing in my comments.

https://www.aljazeera.com/news/2022/7/7/ukraine-exacts-punishing-cost-for-russias-advance

A few quotes from veteran Russian commander Igor Girkin:

"the Armed Forces of Ukraine have been continuously increasing the number of troops and military equipment in all directions – both ‘active’ and ‘sleeping’, creating a steady superiority in manpower, artillery and armoured vehicles in many of them. At the same time, the enemy continued to form strategic reserves, limiting their entry into battle even at the height of the battle for Severodonetsk-Lysychansk… Conclusion: The Armed Forces of Ukraine are completing preparations for their own active operations in one or more directions.”

From the body of the article:

"Girkin also concludes that the second stage of Putin’s “special operation” in Ukraine has not broken Ukrainian military capacity. On the contrary, Russian difficulties in raising fresh troops mean that it is Russian capacity that is at risk of being worn down completely. Girkin forecasts that Russia could find itself in retreat on the northern front near Kharkiv by the end of the summer as Ukrainian reserves are brought online."

Interesting posts. I sincerely hope that you’re right, and I’m wrong.

If you go back to my posts last February when all the knowitalls here were saying Pootie-Pooh was going to be walking down the main drag of Kiev being showered with flowers from grateful Ukrainians I was the one saying a Russian invasion will look more like Joe Stalin's ill fated 1939 invasion of Finland. Finland only had Sweden supporting them with arms back then but they did pretty well. In fact the parallels between the two wars are many. Ukraine is more like the USSR during WWII when it had an almost unlimited stream of US, Canadian and British arms flowing to it to fight the Germans. Only this time Russia is in Germany's position invading on its own while Ukraine has a fire hose of weapons coming from the west, and a lot of their good stuff too. Spain is sending some 50 front line Leopard tanks, the Brits, Dutch and possibly the Poles sending modern long range self propelled howitzers (big field gun on a tracked vehicle), and a surprise was to see the US sending NASAMS while the Germans send what is a brand new air defense weapon called IRIS-T.

ClippetyClop

Nobody has noticed this, not even the Soviets.

Soviets? Who are the Soviets? ;-)

@DT, interesting stuff, appreciated.

Isnt there a high chance though that the equipment won’t make it to the front line, or that it won’t be used effectively by trained personnel, or even that China might step in to fill the gaps in Russias dwindling equipment?

Soviets? Who are the Soviets? ;-)

I know, I was just poking the bear a bit!