And that's a freedom they didn't have under the Soviet Union's boot.

The EU was stupid to have unanimous voting for some stuff. Single countries can be such an annoyance just because a majority voting or at least something like a 90% voting isn't enough...with 27 members it should be enough to have like 24 countries in favour of something...

This is why they're trying to get voting changed to a qualified majority (2/3 of the countries and 75% of the population they hold). But since some countries have a very big sway without this change, in some areas they're blocking the switch...

A priority now is signing joint ventures with European and American defence companies. This summer, Ukraine's state-owned conglomerate Ukroboronprom inked an agreement with German arms manufacturer Rheinmetall to repair damaged Leopard tanks and other armour alongside producing new vehicles.

That was one of "about 20" agreements signed with different companies and partners for joint co-operation and production, Shmyhal said, without giving any details. Some western governments are wary of signing off on such deals, fearing that their citizens might be killed in a Russian strike on a facility.

FT: Ukraine Repurposes US-Supplied AIM-9s Missiles For Air Defense

Rheinmetall and Ukraine's state-owned Ukrainian Defense Industry JSC (@ukroboronprom ) have set up a joint venture company in Kyiv, with Rheinmetall holding 51% and UDI 49%. Denys Shmyhal, Ukraine's Prime Minister, made the announcement on the occasion of the German-Ukrainian Business Forum in Berlin, which was also attended by the German Chancellor Olaf Scholz. Rheinmetall Ukrainian Defense Industry LLC has already been operating since 18 October 2023."

Looks like Ukraine is itensifying the raids and trying to get some bridgehead established for future attacks.

This sounds like a smart idea if the terrain allows it by now; an attack there may very well force Russia to dispatch troops from the other fronts (and from the attack on Avdiivka) to halt the Ukrainian troops if they'd manage some kind of breakthrough in the region. Push the Russian troops far enough from the bridges for them to become out of range for conventional artillery, and an offensive over the Dniepr could start in earnest. But this is pure speculation and I want to see what the future developments are.

For now, it seems like Ukraine holds a small strip of land on the left bank and don't seem to fully retreat over the river anymore, defending and reinforcing this strip. This is probably also to probe the Russian response to an actual invasion from there, so if there's no meaningful response/counterattack, I'm sure Ukraine will try to recover more land as they can.

On another note, this also makes it impossible for Russia to rotate troops to that region to "rest" them, as the front wouldn't be quiet either.

Really confusing what is happening aside from Russians panicking.

Apparently there's Ukrainians rolling around with a mortar on the left bank 💀

The Russians are making it sound like some Ukrainians are just casually wondering around, Lol.

Nobody seems to know what the fuck is going on, Lol.

Until Ukraine establishes a bridgehead though and gets heavy equipment over, I will remain cautious.

Remaining cautions sounds like a good approach to me... It's been pretty much a stalemate for months now, aside from some Black Sea developments. At this point I'm cautiously expecting the next major developments to be the results of developments outside the battlefield, most notably F-16s (which apparently we shouldn't expect to be causing miracles) and elections.

There is a lot that the West could still do but we either do it in limited amounts, afraid to take hits to our military capability or we take too long. Take the ATACMS cluster munitions for example, a brilliant hit on Russia's air force, months after the counter-offensive started...Imagine what they could have done with it if they had it at the start, if they had the warhead version of ATACMS at the start instead of the much shorter range cluster version. If they have the longer-range version now but no we still have cluster only.

What Ukraine could do with the longer range Storm Shadow, it could reach Kerch Bridge, look at what it did to the Black Sea fleet which was amazing and a big blow to Russia's naval force, but no they still have the shorter range version. Blowing the Kerch Bridge could cause a huge logistical bottleneck to Russia but nobody is willing to give that capability to Ukraine out of fear. ATACMS isn't strong enough so it has to be either Storm Shadow, Taurus or something else. Taurus is specifically designed for blowing bridges.

Feels like the West has accepted this will be a years long fight rather than trying to speed the conclusion up, only feels like a few countries in Europe understand the threat of Russia and are willing to take actual hits to their military in relation to their size versus other countries, and some of them are countries closer to Russia. The West at large still doesn't seem to get that Ukraine is fighting on behalf of Europe so continues to send them limited quantity, older models, stripped back technology, etc. Instead of sending the most sophisticated equipment.

It's clear that Russia isn't just trying to cause a distraction at Avdiivka, they're trying to take it, it's looking like another Bakhmut, massive losses on Russia's side but they'll keep throwing the hordes until they take it and unfortunately colours on a map are persuasive to regular folk and not the finer details of what things cost. Ukraine needs us in the West to be pumping equipment and ammo into them to keep defending these hordes and if the West doesn't do that then Ukraine will lose more land.

The West is still trying to balance this between Ukraine winning but also not winning too quickly because they're scared of what that would do to Russia. Do they not also realise though that the longer this goes on, the less public support they'll be for Ukraine? And if God forbid Russia wins, then America and Europe will be dealing with far more wars in the future, even more migrants (a sore subject for Europeans), more economic uncertainty and Taiwan better start preparing for China's invasion if Russia wins because China will see that all it takes is waiting for the West to grow frustrated.

There's not a silver bullet, but a combination of things, in both quality and quantity.