Yeah. Ukraine needs basically more of everything, we make jokes that NATO is using only a fraction of their total power but it's true and makes it even more frustrating. There's probably thousands of ATACMS missiles out there and they can't even give Ukraine less than a hundred? They only need them for Kerch Bridge and Sevastopol port, Storm Shadow and SCALP can pick off the closer Russian bases.

They definitely need more Patriots as well, ideally they need enough Patriots to cover every single major city.

The slow trickle out of support is fucking annoying, we took way too long to decide on long range missiles, on Western MBTs, on Jets, etc. The West wants Ukraine to win but only if they do it slowly (for some dumb reason, we can't beat Russia too quickly, that would be bad). The West does too much reacting to Russia and not enough proactive. Then Ukraine has all these stupid fucking rules on them that they can't fight this way, or that way, they can't do this, or that, bro none of these Western countries would follow these rules if they were in the same situation, the West has forgotten what a war on its own soil is like.

Can easily afford to send Ukraine a lot more stuff and take a hit in their own military readiness but only the Eastern European countries do that, they can easily afford to spin up some production factories for Ukraine and start mass producing artillery and tanks but they're slow in doing that as well. The West has two main rivals that pose any sort of threat to them, those are Russia and China, all their other "enemies" are utterly fucking irrelevant as a threat. They have a chance to remove one from the board for the next century but they instead decide to hoard the weapons to themselves in case that same country attacks them someday in the future.

And I don't buy that this shit is being saved for China when any conflict with China would be fought primarily through the air and seas, it will be a massively different type of conflict than Russia vs Ukraine because Russia literally sits on Ukraine's border and is fighting a ground warfare, artillery slog. Not to mention China is already surrounded by enemies and they sure as shit won't be marching on Europe, their main target would be Taiwan, a small island. We aren't hoarding all this shit for Taiwan/South Korea.

The other thing we could do is help Ukraine with knowledge and funding to create their own long range missiles, at least then Ukraine can hit Russian territory with long range missiles without the restriction that Ukraine can't use Western technology on Russian soil because Russia might get a bit mad and do nothing like always. Lets just teach Ukraine how to make a Storm Shadow clone but the unrestricted range version which can hit all of Crimea.

We'll make a deal, Wagner can attack NATO as long as Russia doesn't get involved! According to Putin anyway, Wagner isn't an official military force of Russia and never were (Lol) so we wouldn't be attacking Russia I'd give Wagner a week tops against NATO and not to mention if they ever tried anything, those Wagner positions in African countries would be turned to ash as well.

Senator Jim Risch, the top Republican on the Senate foreign relations committee, said the Biden administration had been too slow to send systems such as main battle tanks and cluster munitions that ultimately made their way to the battlefield.

"I'm tired of hearing about escalation. Stop talking about escalation. If you don't escalate, you're gonna lose," he said. "I want [Vladimir] Putin to wake up in the morning worried about what he's going to do that's gonna cause us to escalate instead of us wringing our hands."

Poland said on Saturday that a maintenance hub for tanks damaged in Ukraine during the conflict with Russia had begun operating in its southern city of Gliwice.

Poland says hub to fix tanks damaged in Ukraine opens | Reuters

"We have the latest air defense systems. They are now of medium range," Cherniev said. He added that testing of the anti-aircraft systems is underway and "quite successful."

According to Cherniev, the "Ukrainian-made and Ukrainian-designed" air defense systems are similar to Hawk anti-aircraft weapons, though not a replacement for longer-range Patriot missiles.

Ukraine has developed its own air defense systems, official says (kyivindependent.com)

A couple of months before Russia's full-scale invasion of Ukraine, I was lying on a hilltop watching a US mechanised battalion thundering down a valley, tasked with breaching a set of obstacles. The obstacles were less formidable than those in Ukraine, and the enemy in the exercise comprised a single company backed by limited artillery. Nevertheless, the US troops made a mess of things. Their reconnaissance troops failed to screen their vehicles, they went static in sight of the enemy and they were severely punished.

The fact that well-trained US troops struggle to conduct combined-arms obstacle breaching under more favourable circumstances underscores how difficult it is. Moreover, the US troops I was observing may have performed poorly, but they did so in training. If ever they have to do it for real, they will have had repeated opportunities to learn and improve. Ukrainian troops have not had that luxury.

There was a shift to training Ukrainian units after the decision to give Ukraine western tanks and IFVs (infantry fighting vehicles). But despite the requirement being identified in September 2022, the decision to proceed was not taken until January 2023 and has only been partially implemented. Months of delays gave Russian forces time to build their defences, significantly complicating the task for the Ukrainians.

The upshot is that Ukrainian forces had around two months to master a panoply of western systems in varying states of repair, and to take new troops and try to prepare them for some of the hardest tactical tasks that can be demanded of a force.

Another problem is that much of the training provided has been poorly designed. Individual soldiers can be trained in Ukraine. What cannot be easily done there – with Ukraine's training grounds targets for Russian strikes – is unit training above the company. For this reason, collective training has been organised on European training grounds for some Ukrainian units.

However, western forces have a mantra that you should ''train as you fight''. Ukrainian troops have been clear that they have not been able to do this on western training areas. They have not been able to fly their UAVs (unmanned aerial vehicles) because of regulatory constraints, or use their own fire control software because it is not certified by Nato.

Perhaps the biggest problem is that regulations have been rigid in requiring us to teach Ukrainians how we do business, without there being adequate time to actually deliver all the relevant modules. Instead, courses need to be adapted to best amplify existing Ukrainian strengths. But to do that requires permissions to trainers to be relaxed to adapt what is taught, and a collaborative approach with Ukrainian staff to course design.

These bureaucratic constraints highlight a serious problem for Ukraine's partners. While not actually fighting a war, the future of European security depends upon the outcome of Ukraine's struggle. And yet western capitals continue to be process-driven and slow, applying peacetime approaches to much of their activity.

West must focus on preparing Ukraine’s troops – or we will all pay the price | Ukraine | The Guardian

I wonder where your enthusiasm comes from to keep this thread so diligently updated.

This is just sad. The West's pathetic attitude has gotten to the point that a Republican shows more common sense than the decision makers. So very embarrassing.

And Greece has been disappointment as they could spare tanks, and even some ATACMS as they appear to have about 200 of them. 

After yesterday's ATACMS posts. I was reading that there was about 3700 produced so far, and about 600 got used during Iraq.

Based on how long that lasted, you would think even 10 could do a bit of damaged to 10 most key supply chain points. If supplies can't get in then the war will be lost and they will have to retreat.

Ohh Putin's new tactic. Destroy Ukraine's silos and millions of tons of food and tell Africa that Russia can give them everything they need. Because Russia is so nice and won't let Africa down like everyone else!

And as I know African leaders, they will praise him for that and tell their population how awesome Russia is

Will be busy/distracted this week so updates may come slower or stick to essential updates.

(Just in case anyone asks why I'm not posting if I'm quiet for a day or two )

Russian children to learn how to use combat drones at school | Euronews