Futanari Damacy posted:

repayment

Futanari Damacy posted:

Also at what point does military "aid" become conditional on the repayment of at least some of what's been fronted already? I cannot envision a future scenario that does not involve a Ukrainian default, because they are essentially engineering the necessity of one by taking on so much debt that is simply not repayable. The worst part is it's not even for anything that will benefit the country in the long run, just materiel to be wastefully expended in the field with no thought as to the human or financial costs.

Truga posted:

gradenko_2000 posted:

Sources say Ukraine's accession to NATO will be approved as soon as Barkley 2 is released

Truga posted:

Truga posted:

Gravid Topiary posted:

SplitSoul posted:

Stoltenberg says Ukraine is closer to NATO ascension than ever before.

Bot 02 posted:

Zeno's NATO membership

gradenko_2000 posted:

Zeno-lenskyy

Truga posted:

it's really is hosed up how a bunch of countries never at any threat from russia got fast tracked into nato, but ukraine kept getting strung along with empty promises until they actually got invaded over said promises

Truga posted:

it's really is hosed up how a bunch of countries never at any threat from russia got fast tracked into nato, but ukraine kept getting strung along with empty promises until they actually got invaded over said promises

PhilippAchtel posted:

As predicted very explicitly by everyone left of... *checks notes* Bernie Sanders (lol).

I'm sure the pro-war left-liberals will apologize and adjust their assessment of leftist geopolitics accordingly (lmao)

Frosted Flake posted:

Mark Ames will pathologically apologize at the start of every episode of RWN that touches on the war.

Truga posted:

quote:

The British defence secretary, Ben Wallace, has suggested Ukraine needs to put more emphasis on thanking the west for its assistance after Volodymyr Zelenskiy’s complaints on Tuesday that his country had not been issued a firm timetable or set of conditions for joining Nato.

“Whether we like it or not, people want to see a bit of gratitude,” Wallace said at a briefing in the margins of the Nato summit in the Lithuanian capital, Vilnius, when asked about the Ukrainian president’s comments that it was “absurd” for Kyiv to be told it would be welcome in the alliance but not given a date or exact conditions.

“Sometimes you are asking countries to give up their own stocks [of weapons],” Wallace said. “Sometimes you have to persuade lawmakers on the [Capitol] Hill in America.”

The US national security adviser, Jake Sullivan, told a public forum at the summit he believed “the American people do deserve a degree of gratitude from the United States government for their willingness to step up and from the rest of the world as well”.

[...]

Wallace revealed at the briefing that he had travelled to Ukraine last year to be presented with a shopping list of weapons. “You know, we’re not Amazon,” he said. “I told them that last year, when I drove 11 hours to be given a list.”

Cookie Cutter posted:

I still think they can't be faulted for making that analysis, it *was* a dumb idea to invade with the force concentration that Putin had at the time, Putin not being known for making gambles, and that was what they were working off. There's just such a "gotcha" culture in public life that they got dogpiled for it.

Cookie Cutter posted:

I still think they can't be faulted for making that analysis, it *was* a dumb idea to invade with the force concentration that Putin had at the time, Putin not being known for making gambles, and that was what they were working off. There's just such a "gotcha" culture in public life that they got dogpiled for it.

Cookie Cutter posted:

I still think they can't be faulted for making that analysis, it *was* a dumb idea to invade with the force concentration that Putin had at the time, Putin not being known for making gambles, and that was what they were working off. There's just such a "gotcha" culture in public life that they got dogpiled for it.

Nix Panicus posted:

The Al-Saqr turns

Ardennes posted:

I do wonder if Putin had really been so isolated/cooped up by COVID (for real) that enough bad advice from the political inner circle was enough for him to fully buy on coupled with untrustworthy sources in Ukraine itself. It seemed like something went very wrong. The whole Pirgozhin thing may have been a way to flush out the rest of the inner apparatus (since Putin and him were meeting, I have a hard time believing Pirgozhin wasn't in the loop).

One thing that was fundamentally clear was that the military itself didn't seem to be in on in the slightest, and except for a week or two before it happened, much of the brass probably still thought it was a power move.

I think it was a possibility still, but it was just also very unclear what was going on until Putin's speech tipped the scales that maybe something was going to happen. As I said at the time, something cooked off, it would be in the Donbass first (which it did).

speng31b posted:

did they actually follow through on anything that would support the theory that the prigozhin thing was some kind of plan or whatever

speng31b posted:

did they actually follow through on anything that would support the theory that the prigozhin thing was some kind of plan or whatever

Ardennes posted:

Prigozhin's force were split up with minimal fuss but still armed with a force still camped out in Belarus (possible to counter a Polish brigade), while Prigozhin himself is not only a free man but has met with Putin. Surovikin hasn't been seen, this may or may not be anything. It is unclear if there were other internally shake-ups as well.

Ardennes posted:

I do think Putin thought he could just bring Zelensky to the table with force and that a fairly minimal force was all that was necessary but I don't think it was a well-informed decision, and there was something that went wrong internally.

Comrade Koba posted:

wasn't the peace negotiations in april 2022 a sign that something like this might actually have worked if boris johnson hadn't paradropped in and blown the whole thing up?

Cheatum the Evil Midget posted:

speng31b posted:

so basically no

Comrade Koba posted:

wasn't the peace negotiations in april 2022 a sign that something like this might actually have worked if boris johnson hadn't paradropped in and blown the whole thing up?

Comrade Koba posted:

wasn't the peace negotiations in april 2022 a sign that something like this might actually have worked if boris johnson hadn't paradropped in and blown the whole thing up?

SplitSoul posted:

https://www.theguardian.com/world/2023/jul/12/uk-defence-secretary-ben-wallace-suggests-ukraine-could-say-thank-you

genericnick posted:

In the sense that armies prepare for the last war it makes a lot of sense. After all, they didn't have to fight a battle of Tbilisi, they just had to park a few tanks a couple miles out. Of course it doesn't speak for the quality of the Russian leadership that it took them most of a year to figure out a workable plan B. The non working plan B was to make the offer worse by formally annexing a bunch of oblasts and pull Kiev back to the negotiation table before the offer gets worse.

Ardennes posted:

I don't think it took a year to figure it out, it took just that long to get the wheels in motion. Russia simply wasn't prepared for a large-scale conventional war, and it took months to get everything together behind the scenes. It was lucky for them that most of the MIC was still intact but dormant, but it still took months to actually get it in gear.