Ukraine Invasion - Please do not post videos showing attacks/similar

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steve45 said:
Good, the wave of discontent and self sabotage is growing and growing fast. Hopefully this spreads like wildfire through Russia. Hopefully this sparks a fire in the belly of the ordinary moderate Russian. I doubt, but I hope nonetheless.
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No it will just get worse in the run up to May 9th. Both disgruntled Russians and Putin's FSB are probably equally opportunistic in an attempt to drum up support..
 
Quartz said:
So, Russia on the retreat?
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Not surprised, with lend lease locked in place and massive new budget just approved Ukraine is currently spending more on its military than Russia, Ukraine has overtaken Russia as the 5th largest military by spending in 2022, jumping 30 places over last year.

That's the spending power the USA has, it can at any time it wishes direct dozens or even hundreds of billions to another country to make them one of the largest militaries
 
If Russia was to launch a pre-emptive strike, I'd like to hopefully assume the West would see it straight away and fire back from all over the place...Putin couldn't attack everyone at once surely...

Does anyone have knowledge about our own missile defence system?
 
SideWinder said:
If Russia was to launch a pre-emptive strike, I'd like to hopefully assume the West would see it straight away and fire back from all over the place...Putin couldn't attack everyone at once surely...

Does anyone have knowledge about our own missile defence system?
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We'd likely know about it before they launched, due to satellite surveillance of their known assets, movement, things being fueled etc. Then there's older systems like PAVE PAWS which can detect ICBMs being launched and stuff.

There isn't really a missile defence system which can counter ICBMs effectively, as once they're in the atmosphere and they're on their ballistic trajectory towards the target - they're really small, hard to detect, have lots of countermeasures and just fall out of the sky.

The most effective missile defence, comes from the fact that in the mind of the aggressor, there are always strategic missile submarines somewhere in the arctic, which will unload enough nuclear weapons to destroy the aggressor, in retaliation if they have to. That will likely never change.
 
SideWinder said:
If Russia was to launch a pre-emptive strike, I'd like to hopefully assume the West would see it straight away and fire back from all over the place...Putin couldn't attack everyone at once surely...

Does anyone have knowledge about our own missile defence system?
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Let your irradiated and cremated remains rest assured we will have retaliated ;)
 
Roar87 said:
No, I would fight and that would be fine, it is fine for people in Ukraine to fight for their country. For the rest of the world we should limit our assistance to one which doesn't make us the military industry of Ukraine because that risks escalating to a level that simply is not worth it. Similarly I may take a loss on losing my wallet to someone with a knife to my throat rather than fight him to the death over a £20 note.
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If anything not supplying weapons could increase the chance of prolonging the conflict (and all the potential tail risk that goes with that), make things worse for the humanitarian disaster already taking place, lead to more massacres etc.

Zelensky can't just act unilaterally in any peace negotiations, he's bound by Ukraine law/the Ukrainian constitution - he's made that clear publicly too and I guess the penny is dropping for Western leaders, some of what might be on the table in any peace negotiation is going to be subject to votes in the Ukrainian parliament and potentially a referendum. Russia is clearly trying to take a chunk of the East right now but should they be successful in doing that that presents a bigger risk for prolonging the conflict as the stronger Russia's hand in any negotiation the lower the odds that Zelensky can actually achieve a peace deal that would be palatable to the Ukrainian population.

That's why it's pretty critical for the West to ramp up support now, they really need to make sure Russia doesn't cut off a huge chunk of the Ukrainian army in the East, if Ukraine can prevent the current attempt at encirclement and (hopefully, once they've got it to the front lines in a couple of weeks) smash the Russian forces with all this new artillery and armour they've been delivered then we could end up with more of what we saw north of Kyiv, Russia having to withdraw from the East, their negotiating position diminished and a much better chance at a peace deal that can be approved within Ukraine.

Zelensky ideally wants to get back the land taken pre-full invasion in the East and potentially Crimea via a future referendum on the issue, if they're in the position where instead Russia is holding or has annexed an even bigger chunk of the east + south then they're facing Russian demands not just for them to give up the land previously taken but to also agree to give up even more... even if Zelensky wanted to I doubt he'd be able to sell that domestically, that means a longer conflict dragging on.

We can't stop the Baltics or Slovakia or Poland from supplying arms, they're NATO members too, the risk is already there, it's probably better overall for the UK, even from a purely selfish position, to supply Ukraine with weapons and maximise the effectiveness of their military efforts right now as that's the quickest way this thing ends and all the possible tail risk scenarios from this thing escalating or spreading dampen down a bit.
 
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