Come for the politics, stay for the snark.

Do not shrug your shoulders and accept the normalization of untruths.

If a good thing happens for a bad reason, it’s still a good thing.

When we show up, we win.

Don’t expect peaches from an apple tree.

It is possible to do the right thing without the promise of a cookie.

There is one struggling party in US right now, and it’s not the Democrats.

Insiders who complain to politico: please report to the white house office of shut the fuck up.

So it was an October Surprise A Day, like an Advent calendar but for crime.

A snarling mass of vitriolic jackals

I conferred with the team and they all agree – still not tired of winning!

Pessimism assures that nothing of any importance will change.

This blog will pay for itself.

If you voted for Trump, you don’t get to speak about ethics, morals, or rule of law.

Republican obstruction dressed up as bipartisanship. Again.

Republicans: “Abortion is murder but you can take a bus to get one.” Easy peasy.

Bark louder, little dog.

“The defense has a certain level of trust in defendant that the government does not.”

Too often we hand the biggest microphones to the cynics and the critics who delight in declaring failure.

No offense, but this thread hasn’t been about you for quite a while.

I’m starting to think Jesus may have made a mistake saving people with no questions asked.

Peak wingnut was a lie.

The Supreme Court cannot be allowed to become the ultimate, unaccountable arbiter of everything.

Some judge needs to shut this circus down soon.

Speaking of republicans, is there a way for a political party to declare intellectual bankruptcy?

You are here: Home / Foreign Affairs / War for Ukraine Day 333: Deripaska

War for Ukraine Day 333: Deripaska

by | 118 Comments

This post is in: , , , , , , ,

So the big Russia and Ukraine adjacent news in the US today was the arrest of the former Supervisory Special Agent in Charge (SSAC) for Counterintelligence in the New York Field Office Charles McGonigal. As Talking Points Memo has reported, McGonigal was dirty for years before he officially got in bed with Deripaska. And he’s not the only member of the FBI’s NY Field Office to be busted colluding with Russian/post-Soviet oligarchs, who are also organized crime leaders, as well as catspaws and trusted agents for Putin. I’ve said two things over and over and over again here since 2015:

  1. The New York Field Office of the FBI thinks that it is running the Russian and post-Soviet mob when, in reality, the Russian and post-Soviet mob is running the New York Field Office of the FBI.
  2. We are penetrated at all levels by those under Russian influence and/or control. And not just the Russians, a whole host of adversaries, competitors, and even partner and client states assets as well.

Item 1 above was what happened to the Boston Field Office in regard to the Irish mob, which is how the whole mess with Whitey Bulger happened.

I fully expect we’ll find out that SSAC McGonigal was playing footsie with Deripaska, or Derispaska’s trusted agents, well before he officially went to work for him.

Here is President Zelenskyy’s address from earlier today. Video below, English transcript after the jump:

Good health to you, fellow Ukrainians!

A brief report of the day.

The first is military issues. Today we had several detailed conversations with our commanders about the situation in the operational directions.

Sometimes it seems that some people in the rear cities have completely forgotten about the war and started to ignore reality, using the protection of our heroes.

Ignoring the war is a luxury that no one can afford.

Fierce fighting continues in the main operational directions, particularly in Donbas.

Enemy shelling and offensives around the clock. However, the battle for Donbas continues. The battle for the south continues. We see what forces Russia is amassing and know how to respond.

We will certainly respond to the enemy’s regular terrorist attacks on our border areas – Sumy and Kharkiv regions.

Ukraine will not show weakness. The state will not show weakness.

I’ve signed several decrees today. There is a principled decision of the NSDC on officials traveling abroad. It applies to all officials of the central government and various other levels of local government. It applies to law enforcers, people’s deputies, prosecutors and all those who are supposed to work for the state and in the state. If they want to rest now, they will rest outside the civil service. Officials will no longer be able to travel abroad for vacation or for any other non-governmental purpose.

Within five days, the Cabinet of Ministers is to develop a border-crossing procedure for officials so that only a real working trip can be the reason for border crossing.

Another NSDC decision today concerns our spiritual independence, which we are strengthening and will continue to strengthen. Sanctions have been imposed against 22 Russian citizens who, under the guise of spirituality, support terror and genocidal policy.

Also, we have already made personnel decisions – some today, some tomorrow – regarding officials of various levels in ministries and other central government bodies, in the regions, and in the law enforcement system.

I’ve held several meetings on our international activities. One was related to the results of Ramstein and what we managed to get for Ukraine. The second meeting was about the new stage of our diplomatic marathon, which was launched after my visit to Washington. I’ve had more than 30 negotiations of various levels with the leaders of our partner states – those we can talk about openly.

This marathon yielded the results we needed, a real strengthening of our defense. We are now working to fill February with even more substantive contacts with leaders.

Today, I addressed the participants of the winter meeting of American business leaders who are members of the National Association of State Chambers. These are more than 100,000 entrepreneurs who employ about half of the American workforce.

It is important for Americans at all levels to know and feel how important and historically necessary our cooperation is – cooperation of Ukraine and the United States.

And one more thing.

Tomorrow marks exactly 11 months of the full-scale war. It will be the 335th day. A day we will pass in the same way as the 334th, uniting all our forces for one thing – victory. For the sake of Ukraine’s victory.

Not of someone against someone among us. But for the sake of the whole of Ukraine. For the sake of the victory of our entire country in the war for freedom and independence for all Ukrainians.

It will happen. And all the steps necessary for this will be taken.

I thank all our warriors at the front! Today I would like to celebrate our anti-aircraft gunners of the Air Forces – you gave us a good day. Russian aircraft, helicopter and missiles were shot down.

I would also like to thank the warriors of the 35th separate marine brigade and the 79th separate air assault brigade for their bravery and the results Ukraine needs in the Donetsk direction. Thank you, guys!

I thank everyone who steadfastly defends the positions of our country!

Glory to Ukraine!

Here’s some actual details of what President Zelenskyy was referring to in regard to the crossing-border policy and personnel decisions reported by The Financial Times Christopher Miller via tweet thread

:

Here’s the details on the procurement scandals:The first scandal is an arrest of a deputy minister of the ministry of the regional development. He is accused of planning to accept a major bribe for facilitating a procurement contract. While the accusation is bad news, the way the govt handles it is good. First, the arrest.2/
Second, I have heard informally from insiders that the sting was initiatives by the colleagues of the official and middle ranked law enforcement officers. When I served as the minister two years ago, it was easy to initiate an investigation, but they never resulted in arrests.3/
Now, it is different. That’s good. Also, in the past, it was rare if not impossible for middle rank law enforcement to initiate an investigation, let alone arrest. They might be considered snitches etc. The old school / old guys network type of culture. So, there is a culture 4/
shift. Third, the government immediately fired this official. Not suspended. Not ignored. But fired right away. There is also an internal investigation of his colleagues, if I understand correctly. So, this is case 1. The second case is somewhat different. It is initiated 5/
by a journalist. He has a leaked procurement contract for food supplies for MoD. Some of the prices are alleged to be inflated, and they indeed appear to be so. There is a public outcry. And the MoD and the parliament have immediately initiated parliamentary hearing. The govt 6/
however pushes back against the allegations of the journalist and imply that this info is untruthful. I have looked at the contract myself and, assuming what I saw in the press is genuine, some prices appear to be way above the market, others way below. So, hard to tell 7/
What is new and important about these scandals is that 1. the govt is proactive and very fast in responding, 2. the level of attention by the society is unprecedented, 3. the situation develops very fast as the Soviet demands answers and the govt takes some action, 4. Both 8/
scandals are treated through formal institutional frameworks: law enforcement agencies and firing in case 1 and parliamentary oversight in case 2 (for now, likely to be more institutions involved). I am curious to see how things will end and who is right. I will monitor it. 9/9

As we wait for further reporting, as well as further development, on these issues and accusations, I want to make a point here that I’m sure is going to get missed by the “they can’t keep track of the price of eggs, how do we know they haven’t wasted all the money and sold all the weapons we sent them on the black market” crowd. That President Zelesnkyy is taking this stuff seriously and moving on it expeditiously and not trying to claim or assert that nothing could or should be done right now because Ukraine is in the middle of a war is a very, very good sign. You don’t need a doctorate in political science to know that every government everywhere has some amount of corruption. But since I do have a doctorate in political science, I would like you to know that every government everywhere has some amount of corruption. What every government does not necessarily have is leadership that will take it seriously and do something about it. Please keep in mind that I’m writing this from the within the nation-state that brought the world looking forward, not backward and managed to send one family owned small community banker to jail as a result of the 2008 implosion of the banking and financial sector but not a single senior executive from any of the big investment banks that brought us the Great Recession. Ukraine isn’t perfect. Nor is President Zelenskyy. But for the leadership of an emerging and transitioning liberal democracy to take corruption accusations seriously in the middle of a war is actually a good thing. It is also the actual headline.

 

Here is former NAVDEVGRU Squadron Leader Chuck Pfarrer’s most recent assessment of the situations in Kremenna and Bakhmut:

Now quit bitching about not getting topographic maps of the battlespace!

Bakhmut:

Russia:

Police buses seem ubiquitous in Moscow since Russia’s invasion of Ukraine last February, watching over much of the city center, including a statue of one of Ukraine’s most famous poets that has become a popular spot for a silent but emotional outpouring of antiwar sentiment.

Since a Russian missile struck a residential building in the Ukrainian city of Dnipro nine days ago, killing 46 and injuring 80 others, Muscovites have been coming to lay flowers — along with plush toys and photographs of the destroyed building — at the feet of the statue of Lesya Ukrainka, a Ukrainian poet and playwright who lived during the last decades of the Russian Empire.

The ritual, after one of the biggest death tolls from one strike since the war began, has become an expression of sorrow, shame and opposition to the war. But at regular intervals, the authorities have been removing the flowers.

“In contemporary Russia, under these conditions, it is a battle — a silent battle,” said Tatyana Krupina, a 28-year-old chemist who went with a small group of friends to lay flowers last week.

This is what passes for protest in Russia in January 2023, 11 months after the invasion. Russians have also begun laying flowers in other cities, spurred by social media.

The flower tussle is one of the first public protests taking place on a large scale since the days after President Vladimir V. Putin’s announcement last September that hundreds of thousands of men would be called up to fight.

Russia has imposed harsh penalties for criticizing the war, or even calling it one, so for many Russians, laying flowers seems like a rare opportunity to show dissent without being arrested.

For antigovernment Russians remaining in Russia, the flowers remind them that they are not alone in their opposition to the war, even as the propaganda becomes increasingly vitriolic and the letters Z and V, which have become pro-war symbols, are etched on public buildings.

And for Russians who fled because of persecution, potential conscription or a refusal to pay taxes that will fuel the war machine, the flower memorial is a sign that there are still people left in the country who are brave enough to protest.

Much more at the link!

Germany:

Make up your minds already!

Poland:

Ukrainska Pravda has further details:

  • Polish Prime Minister Mateusz Morawiecki previously hinted that Warsaw could transfer a company of German-made tanks to Ukraine without Berlin’s consent if it waits too long for approval.
  • German Defence Minister Boris Pistorius said that western allies have not yet reached an agreement to provide Ukraine with Leopard 2 main battle tanks at the Ramstein format meeting, but he instructed his ministry to prepare for “the day that may come”.
  • Meanwhile, the German government assured that the question of supply of Leopard tanks to Ukraine has never been linked to the supply of Abrams tanks by the United States of America.

As does European Pravda: (emphasis mine)

Poland will officially ask Germany for permission to send its Leopard 2 tanks to Ukraine but it will transfer the tanks as part of the “small coalition” even without Germany’s approval.

Mateusz Morawiecki, the Prime Minister of Poland, said that the formal request for consent, which will be sent to Berlin, is a “secondary theme,” as TVN24 reports. He added that the “glimmer of hope” for Germany’s agreement in this matter was the recent statement of the German Minister of Foreign Affairs.

“Pressure makes sense, because this weekend, the foreign minister of Germany sent a slightly different message that gives a glimmer of hope that not only Germany will not block but will finally hand over heavy equipment, modern equipment to help Ukraine,” he said.

“They have more than 350 active Leopards and about 200 in storage. They can really help Ukraine, which is struggling today. This struggle also means the struggle for security, for peace in Europe,” he added.

When asked whether Poland has already requested Germany’s permission, he replied: “We will ask for such permission, but this is an issue of secondary importance.”

“We will ask for such permission, but this is an issue of secondary importance. Even if we did not get this approval … we would still transfer our tanks together with others to Ukraine. The condition for us at the moment is to build at least a small coalition of countries,” he said.

I’ve seen the reporting about Sikorski’s remarks regarding whether the Morawiecki government, of which Sikorski is not a member, had planned to partition Ukraine at the start of the re-invasion. Prime Minister Morawiecki has denied this and demanded a retraction from Sikorski. Given that I’m seeing Sikorski’s remarks amplified by a bunch of tankies referencing Russian Foreign Ministry Spokeswoman Zakharova amplifying them,  I’m not sure that Sikorski was quoted accurately. This argument that Poland and Lithuania were going to partition Ukraine is long standing Russian agitprop going back months. So either Sikorski is much dumber than I thought or there’s a wire crossed here somewhere. I’ll keep an eye out as more info comes in on this.

That’s enough for tonight.

Your daily Patron!

And we’re back to no new Patron content tonight. So here’s some more Ukrainian Army cats and dogs!

Or field mouse!

Always nice when you and your human have the same hair color!

Open thread!

Reader Interactions

118Comments

  2. 2.

    YY_Sima Qian

    House cleaning is encouraging indeed. Ukrainian corruption could easily have worsened in the chaotic war time environment, the ample opportunities for war profiteering, & while attentions are focused  elsewhere.

  3. 3.

    Poe Larity

    former Supervisory Special Agent in Charge (SSAC) for Counterintelligence in the New York Field Office Charles McGonigal

    I’ll just guess he was conveniently in the smoke filled room on Anthony Weiner’s laptop.

  5. 5.

    jackmac

    What a cesspool that NY office was.

    Leads me wonder just how compromised our whole national security / law enforcement / investigative apparatus is.

  10. 10.

    Adam L Silverman

    @Gin & Tonic: Apparently they think that the German Green Party, the Christian Democrats, and the Free Democrats being in favor of giving Ukraine whatever it needs makes them pro war.

  11. 11.

    Gin & Tonic

    That big blockquote is, I think, Mylovanov’s Tweet thread, where I had to read “the Soviet demands answers and the govt takes some action” three times before it began to dawn on me that he’s probably referring to the Verkhovna Rada demanding answers. Can’t blame translation, because he has lived and worked in the US and has first-rate English.

  13. 13.

    bbleh

    Oh my GOSH! (Trump) A high-ranking officer of the FEDERAL GOVERNMENT?! (Trump) Working covertly to advance RUSSIAN interests?!? (Trump) And perhaps worst of all, doing it merely for the MONEY?!??! (Trump)

    Unthinkable! Shocking, it is, absolutely shocking! The mind reels! How could such a thing even have been IMAGINED before this?

  14. 14.

    Amir Khalid

    It seems that the German leadership is split: one faction is fine with Poland sending its Leopard 2 tanks to Ukraine; the other faction, including Bundeskanzler Olaf Scholz, would rather not have that — maybe, I’ve seen it speculated, hoping to mend relations with Russia after the war. Or maybe because it’s squeamish about seeing German tanks fighting Russian tanks once again.

    Ukraine needs those tanks urgently to drive Russian forces off its soil, and Poland is preparing to present Germany with a fait accompli if that’s what it takes. I think Poland is doing it right.

  15. 15.

    bbleh

    @Amir Khalid: Not at all plugged into this beyond what I read in the media, but it seems to me the Germans are doing a fine job of letting it happen while maintaining some form of deniability.

  16. 16.

    Gin & Tonic

    At any rate, sincere thanks, Adam, for your cogent analysis of the anti-corruption stance taken by Zelensky, and its importance. Ukraine has changed a great deal, and when I see idiots on the US right commenting about corruption there it makes me want to stab people in the neck. They have, literally (literally) no fucking idea what’s going on.

    There was a Twitter thread I recall seeing where somebody commented that defense procurement paying above-market prices for common goods is called “corruption” when it happens in Ukraine, but is called “waste” when it happens in, say, Canada (as this non-PhD can assure you it does.)

  17. 17.

    Martin

    7 dead 1 injured in Half Moon Bay shooting.

    12 dead 9 injured in Monterey Park shooting.

    6 dead in Goshen shooting.

    California has had a very shitty week. Apparently we are helpless to do anything.

    Just to gut check this, we’ve had 2,706 gun violence deaths in the US so far *this year*. It’s been 23 days. Total civilian casualties in Ukraine the entire month of December was 188. That’s during a fucking war. Not to diminish the Ukrainians who have lost their life, but maybe the key to getting control of this problem in the US is to have a major power invade us. If Ukraines violent crime rate has been maintained during the war relative to what it was before the war, on a per capita basis, it’s almost certain to be safer to be a civilian in Ukraine during the war than in the US.

  19. 19.

    Gin & Tonic

    @bbleh: I think the Germans are doing a fine job of assuring that nobody remains interested in purchasing Leopards from them ever again.

  21. 21.

    Martin

    @Amir Khalid: There’s a theory out there that it’s an internal negotiation with Poland, who is the nation asking to send Leopoards and what Poland will commit to buying in the future – more Leopards (and how many) or start buying Abrams because they’re annoyed with how Germany is handling their export request (the US may not be any more likely to allow export, but we might be more likely to give them a straight answer, and the Abrams might be a better tank to have all else being equal).

  22. 22.

    Amir Khalid

    @bbleh:

    Given that Germany is already the third largest wartime donor to Ukraine after the US and Britain, I don’t see the point in wanting deniability.

  23. 23.

    bbleh

    @Gin & Tonic: I can see at least some German governments not wanting to be publicly selling tanks to people.  Kind of a touchy subject.

    Amir Khalid: I would say there’s a difference in appearance between money (“to support the people of Ukraine”) and tanks (to kill Russians).  But maybe I’m overinterpreting.

  24. 24.

    Martin

    @Elizabelle: I read something warning that older asians might be more likely to commit violence – something going around in social media. I don’t know what that might be though.

    The two locations today were pot farms. A few weeks ago an older asian man killed 4 people at a pot farm in Oklahoma. That’s an implausibly weird coincidence.

  25. 25.

    Mike in NC

    So rather than state that the NY FBI field office was mobbed up, it was more accurately “Trumped up” with a MAGA assist from Rudy Giuliani, who helped the Russian mafia in numerous ways.

  26. 26.

    Amir Khalid

    @bbleh:

    Germany has already been sending Ukraine other matériel* — including, I think, artillery and armoured vehicles — so why balk at sending tanks?

    *Thanks, Steeplejack

  29. 29.

    TheMightyTrowel

    I do a lot of map-making as part of my job, but producing topo maps should be quick, easy and can be free for anyone (let alone experts and public communicators): QGIS (free – literal years-worth of tutorials on youtube), Natural Earth data set for vector and raster map layers, including topo, and open streetmap layers for town layout. Might be a little fiddly for a bit if you’ve never used a mapping program before, but it’s not hard.

  33. 33.

    tobie

    @Gin & Tonic: @Omnes Omnibus: Is there any reason the US can’t send Abrams? Is the problem logistics (heavy machinery, getting it there on time, training soldiers to use it) or something else? German foot-dragging has been so frustrating. At this point it may be best to bypass them entirely.

     

    ETA: it’s a weird thing when the SPD thinks the best way to ensure peace is through economic ties, even with autocratic regimes like Russia’s, and the Greens think at times you have to stand up to bullies.

  34. 34.

    bbleh

    @Amir Khalid: Good point. So why indeed balk at sending Leopards (LEO-pards) as they seem to be doing?  Maybe there’s something to the (somewhat invidious) speculation that they’re just trying to wangle more business for the manufacturer.  Or maybe there’s some other distinction that gives them the heebie-jeebies.

    Still seems to me though that they’re trying to have it both ways — balking at doing it openly yet letting it happen.

  35. 35.

    Leslie

    @Gin & Tonic: Thanks, I wasn’t sure. I would certainly like the Wagner Group to run away from Ukraine with its tail between its legs (with apologies to all good doggos for the image).

  37. 37.

    StringOnAStick

    @Martin: I have wondered a bit about how this attitude of “we sold them to you, but you aren’t free to send them to anyone else” is sitting with the other countries that bought German tanks.  Perhaps there’s some re assessment about future and current defense contracts going on.  Germany is behaving in a very strange way, and who wants to source your defense equipment needs to an unreliable partner?

  39. 39.

    Leslie

    @tobie: There was a comment on one of Adam’s posts recently that Abrams are much harder to train on than Leopards, and (I believe it said) also more difficult to repair and maintain.

  40. 40.

    Chetan Murthy

    @Dan B: The ISW had a bit of reporting/analysis about this yesterday — they assess that Prigozhin’s star is falling as Gerasimov/Shoigu’s is rising.  He failed to capture Bakhmut, so the siloviki and oligarchs who were aligned with him are all on the downslope.  Apparently.  Or at least, that’s the ISW’s assessment.

  41. 41.

    Omnes Omnibus

    @tobie: I believe that the trouble with the Abrams is logistical and training.  Specifically, on the maintenance side.  Leopards would be less of a problem.

  43. 43.

    PJ

    @Omnes Omnibus: Heer is a comic book critic who, via Twitter, became some sort of authority on the US (he’s Canadian).  He’s always been consistently ill-informed and absolutely certain he’s right.

  45. 45.

    sanjeevs

    The only theory that made sense to me is that the Germans are afraid that once other EU nations send their Leopards to Ukraine they will backfill using American or Korean tanks.

    And that will effectively end Germany as a tank maker.

  47. 47.

    bbleh

    @Chetan Murthy: Gawd.  And thus are the lives of countless Ukrainians (and Russian solders) put in the balance by who’s-up-who’s-down Kremlin politics.

    There must be literature on how war-zone realities become secondary to political power-games in wartime decision-making.  Vietnam comes to mind, but perhaps also Iraq, and a century or so of British imperialism, and and and.

  48. 48.

    Sister Golden Bear

    @Martin: Officially the two shooting locations were mushroom farms nurseries (as per the San Mateo Sheriff as a of a minute ago). The dead were workers there.

    There’s speculation on the news that locations may have also been growing pot, but that’s not been confirmed or disproven as of yet.

    I’m quite familiar with the shopping/office complex where the shooter was taken into custody. It’s quite an odd feeling to see video of the shooter being taken down in front of it

    @Elizabelle: Yes, it was Asian-ancestry man, 67, Half Moon Bay resident. Reportedly he had worked (not sure when) at one or possibly both of the nurseries. Seems likely to be workplace related. But the Sheriff’s department is needing to use Chinese and Spanish translators to interview witnesses, which apparently is taking longer.

  52. 52.

    Omnes Omnibus

    @Amir Khalid: Take a look at this Spiegel International article that has been doing the rounds.  Plus, imo, Germans would rather look like assholes than be seen as incompetent.  I wouldn’t be surprised if they are madly fixing tanks and will okay the transfer once they can offer a credible number of working Leopards.

  53. 53.

    bbleh

    @sanjeevs: ok, but see comments at 39 and 41 which suggest that Leopards are easier to maintain and train on, which — along with switching all your parts and maintenance and training and everything else — ought to make it less likely that previous buyers would switch.

    But I’m no international arms dealer, so wadda I know.

  54. 54.

    Wombat Probability Cloud

    @tobie: FWIW, extensive discussion on this over at dailykos by kos himself and Mark Sumner. Very complimentary to the excellent information here.

  56. 56.

    Anoniminous

    Reports running around the Russians have taken 180,000+ casualties in Ukraine.  Given their Battalion Tactical Groups have been, for all intents and purposes, destroyed and they are returning to the classic Russian tactics of sending large numbers of soldiers into interlocking machine gun fire I find that figure very probable and maybe even a mite low.

  59. 59.

    bookworm1398

    @52. The state of the Russian equipment has made me wonder about other armies. They might not be as corrupt but how much effort are you going to spend on something you expect will never be used?

    All- Representation matters. Even in crime. Seeing someone like you do a mass shooting will encourage you

  61. 61.

    Grumpy Old Railroader

    @Martin: There’s a theory out there that it’s an internal negotiation with Poland, who is the nation asking to send Leopoards and what Poland will commit to buying in the future – more Leopards (and how many) or start buying Abrams

    I think that horse is already out of the barn. If I understand correctly, Poland made a deal with Korea for K2s and Korea will build a K2 plant in Poland. Hell Poland may end up being the European distributor for K2s

  62. 62.

    Carlo Graziani

    So, Kreminna.

    Obviously this is the UA’s offensive focus. The town is being invested and assaulted, rather than bypassed. There must be some operational reason for this, but after staring at Google Maps for a while, I’m at sea. What happens if the UA takes Kreminna? Is it some kind of St. Lo-type breakout objective, based on Russian defensive dispositions?

    I have to assume that the UA is focused on Starobilsk, and severing the Belgorod supply depot from the theatre once and for all. I just don’t see the operational logic. Does anyone else here get it?

  63. 63.

    Anoniminous

    Problems with sending a ~70 ton tank into Ukraine is they are effectively road bound for half of the year and subject to ‘bottoming-out’ or throwing tracks during the other half during and following thunderstorms. A 70 ton tank spread out 7.93 m by 3.66 m is 2.4 tons per square meter arithmetically; given the fact the tank is actually supported by track width of 64cm by track length of 457.5cm the effective spread is ~35 tons supported by ~3 meters of track. Historically the Nazis had a hell of a time keeping their ~70 ton Tiger IIs operational and a lot of that was simply the weight.

    There’s a reason the Russians like to keep their tanks at ~45 tons: greater consistent maneuverability.

    To make things clear: I AM NOT SAYING THE UKRAINIANS SHOULDN’T GET LEOPARD OR ABRAM TANKS

    Kai?

    What I’m saying is every weapon system has downsides and sending heavy tanks aren’t going to make everything Peachy Keen for the Ukrainians. Combined Arms y’all. Heavy tanks are only part of the team.

  64. 64.

    Chetan Murthy

    @Carlo Graziani: I’m just a dog on the Internet.  So, y’know, hunk of salt.  I read this at dKos yesterday: https://www.dailykos.com/stories/2023/1/22/2148632/-Ukraine-update-Why-tiny-little-Novoselivs-ke-is-so-important-to-both-Ukraine-and-Russia

    There is an important strategic purpose to Kreminna/Svatove/Starobilsk. Kreminna cuts supplies to Svatove from the south, and allows Ukrainian forces to threaten Svatove from that direction. Svatove is the gateway to Starobilsk. Starobilsk is the rail and truck hub of supplies from Belgorod, Russia, feeding Russia’s war machine in Ukraine.

    It’s written by Kos.

  65. 65.

    Steeplejack

    @bbleh:

    There must be literature on how war-zone realities become secondary to political power-games in wartime decision-making.

    I just happen to be watching a movie that touches on that very subject: Phillip Noyce’s Clear and Present Danger (1994), from the Tom Clancy novel. The dumb-ass U.S. president authorizes off-the-books paramilitary operations in Colombia in a dick-swinging fit of pique over the drug cartels, then pulls the plug when the political situation gets too hot, stranding the troops on the ground. All-star cast, movie holds up very well.

  66. 66.

    Carlo Graziani

    @Chetan Murthy: OK, but there’s still a mystery here. The UA doesn’t need to take Kreminna to interdict supplies to Svatove. They just need to destroy everything driving up the P66 highway, which is a much lower investment.

    Maybe the objective is attrition of Russian forces, but even that makes little sense. Defense has the advantage in attritional battles, and the UA is really driving an offensive here.

    I can’t wait to see what happens if they take Kreminna.

  68. 68.

    Chetan Murthy

    @bbleh: I’ve read that one of the reasons Eisenhower (and George Marshall) were so important, was that their main job was to keep all the Allies onside and not squabbling with each other to the detriment of the war effort.

    Maybe some of the military history buffs here might have comments about this: I just remember something-something-something about having to appease Montgomery to keep the Brits happy, and having that cost soldiers’ lives in Operation Market Garden.  But I could be *completely* mistaken about that.

  69. 69.

    Anoniminous

    @Carlo Graziani: ​Taking Kreminna cuts the P-66 highway and the railway line running north/south from Russia. This forces the Russians to redirect supply routes to run through Staroblisk. This not only complicates the Russian logistics it effectively cuts off Lysychansk and opens a lot of possibilities for Ukraine.

    “Kreminna is a gateway to the north and central Luhansk region,” a Ukrainian military advisor told The War Zone on Monday. “And it allows us to hit the flank of Bakhmut,” the embattled city in Donetsk Oblast some 30 miles to the southwest.”

    Ukraine Situation Report: Why Capturing The Small Town Of Kreminna Matters​​

  70. 70.

    Steeplejack

    @Anoniminous:

    Also, I read (probably here) that the Abrams tanks are too heavy for a significant number of bridges in Ukraine, which would limit their mobility.

  72. 72.

    sanjeevs

    @bbleh: The Leopards may be easy to maintain but it would take the Germans a long time to manufacture enough Leopards to replace those sent to Ukraine. That was the theory anyway

  73. 73.

    Carlo Graziani

    @Chetan Murthy: No, that’s pretty much on the mark. Eisenhower’s reputation as a soldier was maligned in the postwar period by British officers and commentators, who felt a need to play up Montgomery’s genius, and resented Eisenhower’s insistence on a broad-front strategy which they felt deprived Montgomery of the resources he would have required to drive a crippling northern thrust into the German heartland.

    There are many reasons that this criticism is absurd, and they need not detain us here. It is equally clear to serious historians of the war that the Allies were always in a fraught alliance, and prone to destructive disagreements on strategy and operations, at a time when anything less than unity of purpose would have exposed them to destruction by the Wermacht.

    Eisenhower made critical contributions to the war effort precisely by being a politician, as well as a soldier. SHAEF was a well-knit multinational command that functioned efficiently and harmoniously because of Ike’s management style.  Ike also handled disputes amongst his army group commanders and amongst his political superiors tactfully and with finesse, never allowing them to interfere with unity of command, but never precipitating a damaging international crisis. Given the outsized personalities involved, many of which were itching to grab the steering wheel, this was a very considerable accomplishment, and one of the critical factors enabling the success of the Allies in Northwest Europe,despite the enormous proctological afflictions supplied by Montgomery (as well as Patton).

  74. 74.

    Carlo Graziani

    @Anoniminous: But P66 is already cut. No significant supplies can get up there under observation by UA artillery. Even if a few trucks get through here and there, they represent no more than an hour’s worth of shelling at current rates of fire.

    So the question stands: why take Kreminna, rather than bypass it?

  75. 75.

    Another Scott

    @Carlo Graziani:

    They just need to destroy everything driving up the P66 highway, which is a much lower investment.

    Yeahbut.

    Parking howitzers nearby with the express purpose to blow up things moving down the highway would make those howitzers sitting ducks, wouldn’t it?

    I suspect there are strong symbolic reasons, as well as many other practical ones, for wanting to recapture those Ukrainian lands as quickly as possible. Wikipedia:

    After Russia began their invasion of Ukraine, Svatove quickly fell on March 6 during the Eastern campaign. One month later, Russia announced the Donbas Offensive on 18 April, 2022, and Kreminna was the first city in the Donbas to be captured.[14]

    […]

    On the night of 2 November, Ukrainian sources claimed to have destroyed an entire Russian battalion near the town of Makiivka, in Svatove Raion. According to a Russian survivor of the attack, out of the 570 soldiers in his unit, 29 survived, 12 were wounded, while the other 529 men had been killed.[28][29] Furthermore, some Russian sources claimed that the unit to which the battalion belonged, the 362nd Motorized Rifle Regiment, lost 2,500 men killed in just 12 days at a position near Svatove, and only had 100 men left to man the defense line, although these reports could not be independently verified at the time.[26] By early December, Ukraine had advanced to the hills west of Chervonopopivka.[25]

    We know that russia’s military doubles- or quadruples- or dectuples-down to retaliate when they’re able. They undoubtedly want revenge for their heavy losses, so will keep trying to punish Ukraine for daring to fight back so successfully.

    My $0.02.

    Slava Ukraini!!

    Cheers,
    Scott.

  76. 76.

    kalakal

    @Chetan Murthy:

    Eisenhower was acting more as a CEO of a massive corporation than as a military commander which was exactly what was needed. He had an incredibly tough job handling his 2 main prima donnas Patton & Montgomery, both of whom were experts at malicious compliance, as well as Bradley, who while a far less abrasive personality, was also playing the grab resources game. All 3 of them made sure Deevers and his 6th Army group were starved of resources and sidelined.  Eisenhower did a great job at holding it together

  77. 77.

    Omnes Omnibus

    @Another Scott: Parking howitzers nearby with the express purpose to blow up things moving down the highway would make those howitzers sitting ducks, wouldn’t it?

    You don’t just “park” howitzers someplace.  They fire a few volleys and then move to another location where they can quickly set up, fire a few volleys, move again.  That’s the skill set.  “Shoot, move, and communicate.”

  78. 78.

    kalakal

    @Carlo Graziani:

    Eisenhower’s reputation as a soldier was maligned in the postwar period by British officers and commentators

    It wasn’t just the British, Patton & his pals were just as adept. Eisenhower had very little combat experience, espescially compared to Monty & Patton and was very sensitive to criticism about that fact. Patton in particular used this .Ike was exactly the right choice, any of the other 3 in overall charge would have done a far, far worse job. Probably the only senior Allied Commander available who could have done the job as well as Ike was Alexander and for political reasons the top commander had to be American which ruled him out

  79. 79.

    Another Scott

    @Omnes Omnibus: Well if you want to be technically correct about it…

    But what about the larger point?  Is guarding a road a usual job for artillery?  Wouldn’t standard practice be to take the road?

    Thanks.

    Cheers,
    Scott.

  80. 80.

    Leslie

    @Dan B: No problem. I’m not sure if it depends on the phone or not, but on my iPhone, triple-tapping a url in the address bar selects it, and then a single tap gives me a pop-up menu that lets me copy it. If the url is already a hyperlink, then pressing and holding gives me a similar pop-up menu that includes Copy Link.

    @Amir Khalid: You are most welcome.

  81. 81.

    Omnes Omnibus

    @Another Scott: Shooting at called targets is the role of the artillery.  If that target happens to be “column of trucks in the open,” that affects the shell/fuse combo choice but that’s about it.

    ETA: Not everything is about taking objectives.  If you don’t need it and you can deny it to the enemy at little cost to yourself, then why not do it that way?

  82. 82.

    kalakal

    @Steeplejack: very true. The Challenger 2s the UK are supplying are even heavier, Abrams get to about 71 short tons, fully rigged out Challenger 2s are 83 short tons. The big logistic problem with the Challengers is the ammunition. They’re the only MBT with rifled barrels. They’re extremely tough but I can see them being awkward to integrate with the rest of the UKR army. The Leopards would be a much better fit

  83. 83.

    Carlo Graziani

    @Another Scott: The larger point is that logistical interdiction wins wars. Taking territory generally does not.

    If that larger objective can be accomplished by observation and artillery, rather than by infantry assault, I doubt that there’s an army in the world that would hesitate to take the option.

  85. 85.

    kalakal

    @Omnes Omnibus: yes. Challenger 2 at least uses diesel ( a lot of it ) but the ammunition is oddball. Leopard is much more ‘standard’, lots of European countries use it, there’s a lot of inventory around.

    Challenger 3 is going the std ammunition route.

  86. 86.

    eddie blake

    @Anoniminous:  thanks for getting there before i did.

    there are a couple of logistical issues with the abrams, but the biggest issue with it in particular is it’s RIDICULOUSLY heavy. i dunno how many bridges in ukraine that can handle the m1a2 sepv4 which clocks in dry at over seventy tons.

    the other thing is, the leopard 2 has some serious issues. one being the time the germans take to make them, it’s an arduously meticulous process that takes two years or so to make a single tank.

    there are also very few leopard 2a5/6/7/8’s that are combat ready. i forget where i read it, but the bundeswehr has less than a hundred in operative condition, which might make the leadership reluctant to ship it out.

    there’s another problem with the a/5/6/7’s. the design of the mantlet is completely borked. it’s weird that no one’s really noticed it. the enhanced, sloping armor they put on the turret after the a4 has an upward slope, but it also slopes DOWNWARD and creates a perfect shot trap that could easily deflect an incoming projectile into the driver’s compartment, rendering the tank a mobility kill.

    i’m hoping the german brainy-types have thought of this issue and maybe there’s a reactive-armor kit for when the leopards deploy, but if not, that might be why the germans are reluctant to send them into the fight against near-peer adversaries.

  87. 87.

    Geminid

    @Chetan Murthy: I think you have to evaluate the Market Garden operation in terms of opportunity cost. It sucked up enough resources, particularly fuel and air transport, to slow advances to a crawl elsewhere in France at a time when the front was still fluid and the Germans were on their heels. When the American 1st and 3rd Armies finally got supplied well enough to attack again, it was October and the Germans had caught their  breath and dug in.

    Montgomery ended defending a stategically useless salient and that sucked up even more resources. Army doctrine called for airborne troops to be rotated out quickly and replaced by regular infantry, but German pressure was so intense such that the 82nd and 10st Airborne Divisions spent weeks defending that stupid salient, alongside troops better deployed elsewhere.

    Meanwhile, the vital effort to clear the Scheldt Estuary and bring the port of Antwerp into operation was neglected. Americans were still bringing supplies in over Normandy beaches, and burning fuel and wearing out trucks on 250 miles trips to the front  well into November. The first allied ship did not dock at Antwerp until 9 weeks after Market Garden was launched.

    The premise of Montgomery’s wildcat scheme, that seizing the bridge at Arheim would cause a German collapse, was pure fancy. This was a Montgomery screw up for sure, but it has to be debited to Eisenhower as well. He should have put his foot down and required Montgomery to clear the Scheldt and then carry out more ambitious operations with a solid logistical base. Market Garden ended up adding months to the war, and untold casualties as well.

  88. 88.

    Another Scott

    @Carlo Graziani:

    Zooming in on today’s ISW map seems to show that the heart of Kreminna is just a few miles (maybe as few as 4) from the front lines (and AFAIK those front lines haven’t changed very much in months). Ukraine obviously has lots of types of artillery that could cover the roads (HIMARS M30 range is about 57 miles). (Whether they have enough to spare is something I don’t know.) They must have a good reason for wanting to take the town, and surrounding towns.

    I suspect there are several good reasons (in no particular order):

    1) to make VVP’s logistics harder
    2) to drive the invaders back
    3) to be in a stronger position before the expected spring offensive
    4) to rally the Ukrainian population
    5) to demonstrate to the world that Ukraine has the momentum and can win the war quickly with enough support

    Sitting back and picking off trucks from the highway does not achieve those goals, except for maybe #1, IMO.

    Yes, logistics are important, but so is pressing one’s advantages and hurting the enemy when possible and not letting them have the initiative.

    We’ll see!

    Thanks.

    Cheers,
    Scott.

  89. 89.

    eddie blake

    the brits were very big fans of the HESH round. iirc, they go farther and spread out their impact footprint wider than a sabot.

    it only works with the rifled barrel

    oh, disclaimer, i’m not a military guy, i just read a lot.

  93. 93.

    Kelly

    @eddie blake: I just read about the HESH round. I’m adding that to the long list of things where I can see how it’s supposed work to work and am completely amazed someone made it work.

  94. 94.

    Geminid

    @kalakal: Roosevelt and Stimson should have sent George Marshall over to command American forces invading Europe, and put Eisenhower in the Pentagon to run the rest of the Army.That was the original plan.

    Marshall wouldn’t have put up with Montgomery’s crap, and he and Bradley would have made the most of American resources and opportunities.

  95. 95.

    eddie blake

    @Kelly: they’re pretty neat. literally throwing something against a wall that will stick (and then go boom).

    they hit something metal, the round usually causes shock spalling. that’s no fun for the insides or the occupants of the armored vehicle. (talking challenger 2, should probably say “armoured”).

  97. 97.

    kalakal

    @Geminid: Yes, that would have worked better. Had it been politically acceptable Brooke would have been very effective as well.

    The sidelining of Deevers was a great missed opportunity, Monty, Patton, and Bradley could cooperate very well when they felt like it. Montgomery & Patton really were terrible people to be in charge of

  98. 98.

    Geminid

    @Omnes Omnibus: The 1st Para’s valiant struggle made for a good book, a best seller even.

    No one’s going  to write a best seller about the Canadian troops grinding down the German defenses along the Scheldt, all October. As important as it was, that operation got little attention outside Canada.

  101. 101.

    Carlo Graziani

    @Geminid: But that sort of obduracy could have crashed the alliance at its most delicate moment. It is not at all clear to me that Marshall could have tended the alliance nearly as effectively as Eisenhower did. And the point is, it is here, at the highest political levels, that defeat could have been snatched from the jaws of victory, given any inattention to political necessity.

    MARKET-GARDEN was a misbegotten failure. It was, nonetheless, utterly unavoidable. It was the operation that settled, once and for all, the debate between the “Broad Front” and “Northern Thrust” stategies—correctly—in favor of the former, and brought the Allies to finally confront the reality that the Wermacht was very far from broken. The German force generation capability, which allowed them to stamp out fully-operational divisions from the fleeing remnants of broken ones in a few short weeks, was astonishing, unprecedented, and sobering, and marked the moment the Allies finally understood, in the late fall of 1944, that despite the triumph of the liberation of France there was a hell of a lot more war ahead. That the “one weird trick” of the 40-division northern thrust that “need fear nothing” (Montgomery’s words) wiping out all remaining German resistance was a chimera. It was a necessary disenchantment, after the inebriating summer of truly mobile warfare across France.

    War sucks. Sometimes it takes the apparently pointless deaths of thousands of soldiers to prove an essential larger point. One could say the same of the ostensibly insane failed 1942 Dieppe raid that cost the loss of half the (mostly Canadian) landing force, but which first opened planner’s eyes to the real challenges of a cross-channel invasion.

  102. 102.

    eddie blake

    @Omnes Omnibus: umm, the leopard 2 series is like ten tons lighter than the abrams m1a2 line and the leclerc ten tons lighter than THAT (probably because of the autoloader).

  103. 103.

    patrick II

    @Omnes Omnibus:

    No, I don’t know the weight of various MBT’s.  It seems then that none of the tanks we are talking about giving to Ukraine are MBT’s?  Also, that Leopards are not MBT’s? And if they are not and most NATO countries seem to have them, it seems they have a mix.  Where is our mix? Our lighter, faster tank — or did we put all of our eggs in one basket that allegedly can’t move across large parts of Ukraine.

    Sorry, I know so little about battle tactics.  But it seems odd to an outsider.

  104. 104.

    Redshift

    This argument that Poland and Lithuania were going to partition Ukraine is long standing Russian agitprop going back months.

    Poland and Lithuania? That has to be some weird part of the Russian mythical alternate history, maybe referring back to most of Ukraine being ruled by Lithuania or Poland (or both) in the 14th-18th centuries, right? Because here on Earth-1 it makes even less sense than Putin’s mythical history.

  105. 105.

    Joey Maloney

    @bbleh:

    There must be literature on how war-zone realities become secondary to political power-games in wartime decision-making.

    I recommend Barbara Tuchman’s The March Of Folly.

  106. 106.

    eddie blake

    @patrick II: oy.

    ok. short version:  during WWII there were light, medium and heavy tanks fielded by most combatants.

    with a few exceptions, after the war all countries who could field tanks made main battle tanks, vehicles that combined many of the features of the earlier tanks into one machine.

    the leopard 2, the abrams and all the t-series russian tanks are mbt’s.

    there are apc’s- armored personnel carriers and ifv’s, infantry fighting vehicles which are armored and let the mechanized infantry keep up with the tanks.

    they are ALSO tracked vehicles. some have turrets, but they’re not tanks. in addition, you can get tracked artillery in the mix as well.

  107. 107.

    Hango Kex

    German defence group offers to send tanks if needed

    German defence group Rheinmetall could deliver 139 Leopard battle tanks to Ukraine if required, a spokesperson for the company told media group RND.
    Germany is coming under intense pressure from Ukraine and some Nato allies, such as Poland, to allow Kyiv to be supplied with the German-made Leopard 2 tanks for its defence against Russia’s invasion.
    The German chancellor, Olaf Scholz, has so far held back from supplying the tanks or allowing other Nato countries to do so.
    Rheinmetall could deliver 29 Leopard 2A4 tanks by April/May and a further 22 of the same model around the end of 2023 or early 2024, the spokesperson was quoted as saying.

    (Guardian Ukraine war live feed 06.24 GMT)

  108. 108.

    lowtechcyclist

    @Martin: ​
     

    a pot farm in Oklahoma

    A what?!

    There are pot farms in the land of “we don’t smoke marijuana in Muskogee”???

    The times, they are a-changed.

  109. 109.

    Frankensteinbeck

    @Dan B:

    Wagner is down to 10,000

    I’ve been wondering about this.  The problem with the ‘throwing troops into the meat grinder to make progress’ strategy is that you run out of troops.  Even if you’re prioritizing raw conscripts in the front, you’re still wearing yourself down.  A lot of what Russia does, like their indiscriminate missile spam, makes me ask “How long can they keep this up?”  When you go all out, it works until it doesn’t.  Plus, if Russia’s best and most successful force and the front where they’ve made the most (if not much) progress collapses, what happens then?

  110. 110.

    Geminid

    @Carlo Graziani: Market Garden was entirely avoidable. Eisenhower could have put his foot down and told Montgomery to press the disorganized German in his front but still make getting Antwerp a working port his top priority.

    You know what was also avoidable? The German Ardennes offensive. Montgomery’s and Eisenhower’s September blunder gave the Germans time to reorganize and man the Siegfried Line with second rate troops who could bleed American infantry units while the 5th Panzer and 6th SS Panzer Armies were being formed and trained in Germany.

    The American 1st and 3rd Armies would have broken through the Siegfried Line by November had it not been for Market Garden, and the Germans would have been trying to hold them back instead of gathering strength for a counter offensive.

  112. 112.

    Carlo Graziani

    @Geminid: You are offering a pure military optimization analysis, which while correct, ignores the supervening alliance politics that constrained Eisenhower’s freedom of decision.

    Prior to breakout, the British were convinced that SHAEF would remain a detached UK-homed headquarters, with all operational command in the hands of Montgomery’s headquarters. Eisenhower’s decision to move SHAEF to the continent and oversee operations directly effectively demoted Montgomery, enraging him and Brooke, and, indirectly, Churchill. Brooke maneuvered to limit Eisenhower’s authority over Monty’s  21 Army Group, ultimately unavailingly due to the inevitable preponderance of US forces on the continent.

    All this manifested itself in a high-level debate over continental strategy: the “Broad Front” controversy, in which the CIGS essentially portrayed Eisenhower as a military incompetent for insisting that the invasion of Southern France from Italy should go forward, and that the two invasion forces should link up. In this view, the power of the Wermacht had been largely broken in France in August 1944, and that dispersion of effort across a broad front would necessarily waste the opportunity to end the war early by rapidly driving a huge thrust into Northern Germany. This was, of course, channelling Monty’s ambition to retain control of operations, since force disposition dictated that such a thrust could only be led by 21 Army Group.

    Not having hindsight available, it was not obvious to political seniors in September 1944 that this argument was wrong. And so the price that Eisenhower had to pay to step into operational command while keeping the alliance from turning inward and damaging itself in fits of obstructive bureaucratic recriminations was to give Montgomery a great deal of latitude. This incidentally also irritated many of the British officers within SHAEF (such as Tedder), who regarded Montgomery as a liability, and felt, correctly, that any planning document featuring his name in conjunction with the phrase “rapidly driving” was a self-evident absurdity.

    Politically, then, there was no resisting MARKET-GARDEN. It was insisted upon by Brooke, and supposed to finally settle the “Broad Front” argument over strategy. For Eisenhower to “put his foot down” would have triiggered a full-up inter-allied crisis at a time of great flux in the war. He declined, judging allied comity to be of greater value than the ability to impose SHAEF’s  military decisions. The result was an operational disaster, but also a strategic gain, in the sense that there was no gainsaying the Broad Front strategy after the costly failure.

    Which is not to say that SHAEF ran the war in Western Europe particularly well (Hurtgen, Ardennes, etc). Only that command of a multinational alliance cannot be judged by military criteria alone.

  113. 113.

    Geminid

    @Carlo Graziani: The British had maxed out their strength in Europe, while the Americans kept adding divisions throughout the fall. American material support kept the British war effort afloat.

    The British felt entitled to control American resources, and Market Garden was an attempt to dominate strategy at a critical time, a power grab. But what were they going to do if Eisenhower turned them down?

    Like it or not, they were the junior partners in that alliance by that point, stuck with a mediocre ground commander whose “brilliance” was an invention of Fleet Street. A functional port at Antwerp was the key to a successful campaign in Western Europe, and a commander with greater moral courage than Eisenhower would have made Montgomery clear the Scheldt before tying up so many resources with an ambitious and speculative operation like Market Garden.

  115. 115.

    Wombat Probability Cloud

    @Carlo Graziani: Had to sign off early last night, so didn’t see your query until this morning. The tank discussion at the GOS has been going on for months and, as here, lots of informative stuff in the comments, but here are a couple of recent, relevant diaries by Mark Sumner:

    https://www.dailykos.com/stories/2023/1/24/2148975/-Ukraine-update-Biden-reportedly-about-to-announce-shipment-of-M1A2-Abrams-to-Ukraine

    https://www.dailykos.com/stories/2022/12/27/2143517/-Ukraine-update-If-NATO-wants-to-send-Ukraine-a-modern-tank-this-is-a-good-choice

  116. 116.

    patrick II

    @Omnes Omnibus:

    A few tons among friends is allegedly the difference between giving the Ukrainians Leopards and not M1s.  So, since it seems you at least don’t buy weight as a reason to hold back the M1s, is logistics the sole reason, or something unsaid?

    Post edit: I should have read wombat’s comment first.  Evidently Biden has agreed to send some M1s.  Now we’ll see if all of the bridges really do collapse.

  117. 117.

    NutmegAgain

    @Amir Khalid:mantan suami saya dibesarkan di Jakarta. Dia lahir di Singapura. Dulu saya tahu sedikit bahasa Indonesia –sudah tidak bisa lagi

     

    eta–composed with the help of Deepl!

Comments are closed.