Meanwhile. On the Ukrainian border.

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Felonious Crud

Felonious Crud

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UlstermanAbroad said:
View attachment 95781

The darker areas of the map are areas with a greater number of the population who claim Russian as their native /
first language.

Putin is known to want a land corridor to solidify his hold on Crimea. The deep brown land mass farthest south.
Which is also headquarters of the Russian Black Sea Fleet.

So, his pretext to invade is to protect the 'minority' Russian speaking people in the south east of the country.

Allegedly Biden misspoke yesterday when he said publicly what had been agreed in private, between Russia and
the US. That a limited campaign to achieve the above would be accepted by the U.S. I doubt that he did misspeak.
Given his lifetime as a politician. I believe he was sending up 'a balloon' to prepare the US people (and others)
for what is to come.

Putin is very conscious of his diminishing popularity at home. A short war would increase his popularity.

I suspect that the US and Russians have done a deal. Russia gets its land corridor in the Ukraine.
At an unspecified later date. The Ukraine will formally apply and be accepted into NATO.
Biden will pressure the Ukrainians into accepting the US / Russia deal as a fait accompli. Possibly in return
for EU and NATO membership at a later date.

Risks. The Ukrainians go 'off the reservation' and dig in for a protracted guerrilla campaign. However, the
topography of the eastern part of the country precludes this. Its similar to the Fulda Gap in Germany, where
the West always assumed that Russian armour and mechanised infantry divisions would attack, cutting the country
in half and be impossible to stop without using tactical nuclear weapons.

Allegedly the Ukrainians returned all the nuclear weapons that were left on their soil, after the collapse of the
Soviet Union. I believe this to be true. However it is a 'wild card'. Though one which I'm guessing that the
Americans have neutralised.

Bottom line. This is still NATO acquiescing to a land grab, by force by Russia. Of territory within a country friendly
to the West. If not actually a member of the EU or NATO as yet.
As others have said. Real politik is at play. And we have a lot to be thankful for. That we aren't Ukrainians living in
what will shortly be part of Russia. However, will this satisfy Putin's desire to 'straighten his front'?
Only time will tell.
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Very interesting analysis, I enjoyed that. Thanks Mr Abroad.

There is no love lost between my Russian and Ukrainian friends and colleagues, and insofar as any of them can remember, it has always been so.
 
UlstermanAbroad

UlstermanAbroad

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Felonious Crud said:
Very interesting analysis, I enjoyed that. Thanks Mr Abroad.

There is no love lost between my Russian and Ukrainian friends and colleagues, and insofar as any of them can remember, it has always been so.
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Thanks. (and it's Mike) However, I neglected any cultural references. As you said, there is antipathy rising to outright hostility in Ukraine, between Ukrainians and Russians. This dates back to the famine that Stalin engineered in 1933, when 3.5 million Ukrainians starved to death. Look at it as the Irish Famine of about 100 years previously. Which led to the Rising of 1916 and the subsequent War of Independence.
Stalin used a collapse in the grain harvest to starve the population and prevent the growing movement for Ukrainian separation from the Russian state. Following the famine, Stalin flooded the country with ethnic Russians from other parts of the empire, which in part has created the population imbalances we see today in the map I posted last night.
The antipathy towards Russia stretches from the Baltic States all the way to the Black Sea and includes almost all of the ex member countries of the USSR. I saw this in person, when I toured some of these states just before the collapse of the USSR in the late eighties and early 1990's.
To understand Vladimir Putin, you have to look at the world though his eyes as he saw it as a KGB intelligence officer in the 1980's. Tasked with exploiting any weaknesses they could find in critical areas of the West's infrastructure at home and abroad. While at the same time, advancing every interest that the Soviet Union had globally. Russia (driven by Putin) has played an excellent strategic game of dividing the West based on the supply of gas, which at the same time provides Russia with hugely needed foreign currency. Energy supply has replaced the influence the Soviet Union possessed through it's satellite states following WWII.
Russia is still traumatised by the German invasion of 1942, which came very close to capturing all of the Soviet Union west of the Ural Mountains. That's a whole other story. But since WWII, a lot of what has driven the Russians is a preoccupation with preventing invasion, from the West and from the East. (by China)
Putin is a product of that mindset and set of strategic objectives. This is what drives him to this day. To secure Russian territory and project global influence the way it did during the Cold War.
We, or more accurately the Germans are bankrolling what Putin does, by buying Russian gas. German dependence
on Russian energy effectively checkmates NATO. The Russians always suspected that, although NATO doctrine was never one of first strike, it might strike first if events forced it's hand.
We ought to know within days, what the outcome in Ukraine will be.
 
D Walker

D Walker

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UlstermanAbroad said:
Not so much these days. Once upon a time, it was my job. Now, I just read a bit, here and there. Not a lot changes.
The Army makes the Civil Service look like the most fleet of foot, cutting edge tech company. We all know that in reality, change in the Civil Service is glacial.
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Mine too. Although I’m totally out of touch. Warrior was a great piece of kit. I’ve read the “Swedish” replacement is a total bag of nails.
civil servants involved in procurement for MOD always had been a cluster.
 
UlstermanAbroad

UlstermanAbroad

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D Walker said:
Mine too. Although I’m totally out of touch. Warrior was a great piece of kit. I’ve read the “Swedish” replacement is a total bag of nails.
civil servants involved in procurement for MOD always had been a cluster.
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CV90? Yeh. Designed for snow and soft terrain in the early 90's and not mine resistant. Flips over like a turtle, if the blast is big enough. You wouldn't think that the Rhodesians were running around reasonably secure in mine resistant vehicles in the 70's and the South Africans since about the same time, right up until now.
To be fair. The Army is to blame too. Moving Majors and Lt Colonels around every couple of years, means when they have a Whitehall posting, they just get proficient on a system and then are moved on, usually with no handover.
The Navy and RAF have started to change this, because of their massive procurement cock-ups.
To this day, images of Snatches in Iraq and Afghan make me see red. If I was fitter and had Bliar in a room with no consequences. I would kick the living sht out of the b*tard. I'm not joking.
If anyone wants to be in the House of Commons or Lords, they should first do a year or two in a teeth arm as a crow. Regs, not TA. Then they would better understand the consequences of sending our service people to war.
If wannabe pols started coming home in boxes. You'd see how quickly Whitehall would improve.
I try not to think about this. Only when November rolls around each year.
 
D Walker

D Walker

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UlstermanAbroad said:
CV90? Yeh. Designed for snow and soft terrain in the early 90's and not mine resistant. Flips over like a turtle, if the blast is big enough. You wouldn't think that the Rhodesians were running around reasonably secure in mine resistant vehicles in the 70's and the South Africans since about the same time, right up until now.
To be fair. The Army is to blame too. Moving Majors and Lt Colonels around every couple of years, means when they have a Whitehall posting, they just get proficient on a system and then are moved on, usually with no handover.
The Navy and RAF have started to change this, because of their massive procurement cock-ups.
To this day, images of Snatches in Iraq and Afghan make me see red. If I was fitter and had Bliar in a room with no consequences. I would kick the living sht out of the b*tard. I'm not joking.
If anyone wants to be in the House of Commons or Lords, they should first do a year or two in a teeth arm as a crow. Regs, not TA. Then they would better understand the consequences of sending our service people to war.
If wannabe pols started coming home in boxes. You'd see how quickly Whitehall would improve.
I try not to think about this. Only when November rolls around each year.
Click to expand...
If I remember correctly the SA personnel carrier which was mine “resistant” was
Called a Rattler. Had a big V on the bottom full of water.
I would fight you to get to Blair. As a person I’m not really prone to violence but I’d make an exception for him. There is no doubt a long queue.
 
Alan Surrey

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D Walker said:
If I remember correctly the SA personnel carrier which was mine “resistant” was
Called a Rattler. Had a big V on the bottom full of water.
I would fight you to get to Blair. As a person I’m not really prone to violence but I’d make an exception for him. There is no doubt a long queue.
Click to expand...
Also Cameron. Blair and Cameron.
 
UlstermanAbroad

UlstermanAbroad

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D Walker said:
If I remember correctly the SA personnel carrier which was mine “resistant” was
Called a Rattler. Had a big V on the bottom full of water.
I would fight you to get to Blair. As a person I’m not really prone to violence but I’d make an exception for him. There is no doubt a long queue.
Click to expand...
I would respectfully decline your kind invitation and suggest that we take turns with Bliar and Cameron.
Given my poor state of health currently, I would choose to waterboard the b**tards. After a mini kicking, for my own
satisfaction ;)
I didn't ever get to see a Rattler up close, so never knew about the water. Very smart indeed.

Alan Surrey said:
Thanks, Ulstrman, for your well reasond posts. I'm hoping your sources are correspondingly impeccible.
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My own limited first hand experiences. Not enough reading of modern history written from a variety of perspectives. Something I must correct soonest.
RUSI, Arrse (serving or recently retired), selected broadsheets & correspondents, Westminster Committee hearings, Congressional hearings. Auto/biographies are often very revealing. Frequently more so, than the subject might intend in hindsight.
After that. Its a matter (for me) of stewing on an issue, until the lightbulb goes off, or if it doesn't. Making one's best guess.
If the Russians plan in decades. The Chinese do so in centuries. Between the two, Europe is getting badly caught out, in every way that matters.
 
BennyD

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No there isn't, the world will melt before I get one. Tbh, I can't see any point when the Jaaag is at least as good for half the price.
 
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