- Ukraine destroyed columns of waiting Russian soldiers with HIMARS, a Ukrainian commander said.
- He said Ukraine targeted them as soon as it got permission to use allied weapons across the border.
- Military experts say Ukraine’s ability to use Western-supplied weapons in Russia is aiding its fightback.
Good. Make Russian civilians see the horrors of the war they support personally.
“Destroyed"? Don’t you mean “killed” columns of Russian soldiers? Even if they are in the wrong, these are still lives that are lost, not some equipment.
In the military it’s common to talk about groups of soldiers the same way you talk about equipment. Because the crucial information isn’t their humanity, it’s their utility to the war effort. “Destroyed” is usually used to mean a unit is so broken it must be combined with other units and different militaries have different definitions of exactly how many casualties that takes.
I wish they didn’t have to wait for things like this. It sucks that Ukraine is at the whims of other countries while it’s trying to fight to maintain its sovereignty.
And we (the US) have so much support that we could be giving to them but we’re not. We’d rather enable genocide elsewhere.
The US has too many bases to defend simultaneously to engage with Russia directly. It would be the 18th Anglo-French Wars all over again but with the possibility of a spicy nuclear conclusion at any given moment.
Keeping the conflict contained to the Ukrainian theater means western states get to “bleed” Russia in a protracted conflict without drawing the rest of their assets into a firefight. But we’re already seeing the US/Russia conflict leak into the central African states, the Korean border, and recently the coast of Florida.
Americans don’t actually want this to become a full blown World War. That drives up our defensive costs significantly and skews the “Stupid Russians Lose Again” headlines with a bunch of “Brave NATO Soldiers Fucked By Insidious Russian Treachery” articles.
This is patently untrue, look to Syria https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Battle_of_Khasham or Africa https://www.nbcnews.com/politics/national-security/us-extra-troops-east-africa-sudan-evacuation-rcna80678 for examples of this. The US is able to project power globally in a way that Russia has tried to and simply cannot counter. https://www.usip.org/publications/2021/02/what-russias-endgame-syria or https://www.aljazeera.com/opinions/2023/5/24/how-russia-tried-to-colonise-africa-and-failed
Even Ukraine is projecting power in Sudan and Syria as a direct belligerent in opposition to Russian interest. https://www.newsweek.com/ukraine-sudan-syria-cnn-russians-1907835
The United States spends in a year, what the rest of the world spends in 1.2 years. https://www.pgpf.org/chart-archive/0053_defense-comparison There is no historical analogue to the power of the United States military. Unfortunately, this is what we spend our money on instead of Universal Healthcare or our infrastructure, or our schools etc. etc.
This is patently untrue, look to Syria https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Battle_of_Khashamor
Wikipedia does not have an article with this exact name. Please search for Battle of Khashamor in Wikipedia to check for alternative titles or spellings.
shrug
The US is able to project power globally in a way that Russia has tried to and simply cannot counter.
Who can forget their famously successful efforts to project power into Afghanistan, Iraq, and Yemen.
Even Ukraine is projecting power in Sudan and Syria
In a report on Monday, the English-language Kyiv Post said it had obtained video from Ukraine’s military intelligence directorate (GUR) filmed in March
Listen, I know we’re all “Rah Rah Ukraine! Can’t wait till they’ve got boots on the ground in Moscow!” But you can’t seriously link to a fucking press briefing by the GUR as unbiased news.
The United States spends in a year, what the rest of the world spends in 1.2 years.
Yes, yes. This is why we can’t afford health care. Ye-haw.
But we spend all this money on an endless parade of Wall Street executive compensation packages. Nobody in Russia is getting paid a Boeing CEO’s salary to make aerospace equipment that strands folks on the IIS. And while Lockhead and Raytheon have made a mint selling the Pentagon loot boxes, the physical hardware we’ve produced still doesn’t seem capable of winning the fucking war.
There is no historical analogue to the power of the United States military.
There are numerous analogs. But none of them are particularly flattering.
That’s Putin’s doing. His bluff was strong and he had a big pile of material, so the West is using a Russia technique known as the salami slice method, by slowly escalating and gauging the reaction from Putin. It means no world war 3 scenario, no allies that have to come to his defense and also not letting Putin taking whatever he wants with just bluff and threatening speeches. It is costly in lives and material though.
Can’t make salami without grinding meat I guess. As dark as that sounds. I thank every soul who’s been fighting against that thugtatorship.
