"All of Vlad's forces and all of Vlad's men, are out to put Humpty together again." (2 Viewers)

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buffnut453 said:
I'm still perplexed at the lack of "Na-na, na-na-nah!" from Moscow that I'd fully expect if all was well with that ship. The sheer lack of any information for 2 days now is frustrating to say the least.
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The silence is deafening. The Russians may be silent for several reasons:

1) the ship is sunk but they don't want to confirm that in case the Ukrainians don't have evidence.

2) the ship is damaged but they don't want to acknowledge it will be under repair, or if it can be, or what-have-you.

3) the ship is unharmed and they don't want to disrupt any misconceptions in Western intel.

All three rely on OPSEC, but I'd imagine if it was hit we already have satellite imagery of the instance.

Why might we be quiet in that case? Perhaps we don't want the Russians to know we know. We may be wanting to cover sources and methods -- say, if there were another P-8A floating around during the strike, we might not want the Russians to know that.

You're right that it's frustrating, but the fog of war is a thing and we'll just have to keep our eyes open.

I agree that that video doesn't show any evidence of the Makarov being hit. Wait and see, that's the name of the game for now.
 

Lockheed Martin CEO Jim Taiclet said on Sunday that his company would nearly double production of their javelin missiles as the U.S. has sent hundreds of the weapons to aid Ukraine's resistance to Russia's invasion.

"Right now, our capacity is 2,100 Javelin missiles per year. We're endeavoring to take that up to 4,000 per year, and that will take a number of months, maybe even a couple of years to get there because we have to get our supply chain to also crank up," Taiclet said on CBS's "Face the Nation."

"We're starting now to ramp it up because we have an active production line right now that the president saw," he added, referencing President Biden's recent trip to a Lockheed Martin facility in Troy, Ala.

"So we can start turning up the heat now and- and ramping the production immediately because of those circumstances," he also said.

Taiclet said the war in Ukraine has "highlighted a couple of really important things for us," including the "need to have superior systems in large enough numbers" to meet demand and "control of the airspace."

The U.S. government has been looking to defense contractors to backfill the military's supply of weapons so the U.S. can continue to ensure Ukraine can defend itself against Moscow's forces.

Last week, the Pentagon moved $1.45 billion to the Army and Marine Corps to restock Javelin anti-tank and Stinger anti-aircraft missiles that the U.S. sent to Ukraine.

Lockheed Martin to ramp up javelin missile production amid Ukraine war

Lockheed Martin CEO Jim Taiclet said on Sunday that his company would nearly double production of their javelin missiles as the U.S. has sent hundreds of the weapons to aid Ukraine’s resistan…
thehill.com

 
Maybe it's time for the US (or Ukraine) to issue Ukraine war bonds to help pay for this stuff? The flood of free arms can't be limitless without stressing the US government and economy.
 
I was pleased to see Canada sending top government folks to Ukraine. We have a lot of Ukrainians and their descendants in Canada, including my wife (and our kids, though only part, as an ex-pat Brit I'm the first non-Ukie in the extended family).

Canada’s Trudeau Meets With Zelensky in Kyiv

Canadian Prime Minister Justin Trudeau was in Ukraine on Sunday, where he met with President Volodymyr Zelensky and said Canada was temporarily reopening its embassy in Kyiv. The trip was unannounced. The Canadian leader was accompanied by Finance Minister Chrystia Freeland and Foreign Minister Mél
www.wsj.com

It's interesting that we sent both the PM and Deputy PM, in addition to the minister of foreign affairs. I can't think of another country that sent both their leader and their successor on the same trip to an active war zone. Of course our Deputy PM is fluent in Ukrainian and Russian, and in 2014 was banned by Putin, so sending her is apt and a poke in Putin's eye.

KGB archives show how Chrystia Freeland drew the ire (and respect) of Soviet intelligence services

Chrystia Freeland’s ties to Ukraine are no secret, but KBG archives illuminate her role in the Ukrainian independence movement during her days as a student
www.theglobeandmail.com

Freeland is Trudeau's likely success as PM when he tires of the work, and the camera (and some might say showmanship) and hits the lucrative lecture circuit with Obama. No foul there, smoke them if you've got them.

I would like to see Canada deploy more forces to the Baltics or Poland asap. Our hundred odd Leopard II tanks are of no use in Canada, for example.
 
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Best laugh of the day, apart from the words coming out of Putin's mouth, was the excuse for the absence of the flypast during the Victory Day parade. Apparently, the flypast was cancelled due to weather conditions. Here's the BBC's report with that clown Peskov making the claim:

Ahead of Victory Day, Russia's air force was busy rehearsing over Red Square, including in Z formation - the motif of the military invasion of Ukraine.

Now we hear from Russian news agencies that the air display part of the parade has been cancelled. Dmitry Peskov, Kremlin spokesman, blamed it on the weather conditions.

I'm not the most experienced person on the forum but, with the possible exception of the last image, all I'm seeing weather-wise is sunshine and some broken cumulus (all photos from the BBC). That's hardly grounds for cancelling a flypast in my book. If Russian pilots can't perform a flypast in these conditions, no wonder they're sucking at operational flying!











 
Admiral Beez said:
Maybe it's time for the US (or Ukraine) to issue Ukraine war bonds to help pay for this stuff?
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So far, the EU has spent, committed or allocated:

EUR1.5 billion in military aid, via the European Peace Facility
EUR1 billion in direct financial aid through the European Commission
EUR1 billion in loans through the EBRD
EUR670 million in loans through the EIB (with another EUR1.3 billion to be committed)
EUR600 million from the European emergency fund
EUR473 million in humanitarian aid and other support
EUR120 million in grant support

That's EUR3.86 billion in civilian aid (some of which will need to be paid back though) and another EUR1.5 billion in military aid.

A further EUR8.3 billion has been committed by EU states independent of the bloc. That includes:

Poland: EUR2.5 billion
Germany: EUR2.2 billion
France: EUR2 billion
Italy: EUR500 million
Estonia: EUR220 million
Other EU states: EUR890 million

Plus the UK has committed around USD2.2 billion and Canada has committed about USD2.1 billion.


Admiral Beez said:
The flood of free arms can't be limitless without stressing the US government and economy.
Click to expand...

The US has committed, as a proportion of its GDP, about 0.05% (of which some is in the form of loans and lend-lease). Estonia and Latvia meanwhile are up towards 0.8% of their GDP and Poland is above 0.4%.
 
Jabberwocky said:
Plus the UK has committed around USD2.2 billion and Canada has committed about USD2.1 billion.
Click to expand...
Good info, thanks for posting. I see that Canada is the highest non-European contributor as a % of GDP. It's good to see our little (by pop) country of <38 million folks doing our part.

Infographic: The Countries Pulling Their Weight in Ukraine Aid

This chart shows the countries with the most government support to Ukraine as a share of their own GDP as of October 3, 2022.
www.statista.com

Now, if we can just reach our 2% defence spending commitment to NATO.

Canada ‘not on course’ to hit 2% defence spending pledge: U.S. official - National | Globalnews.ca

Richard Mills, the U.S. chargé d'affaires, said while there have been positive spending steps by the Canadian government on defence, the view south of the border is that Canada will fall short in hitting its promised investment of two per cent of GDP on defence.
globalnews.ca
 
WARSPITER said:
Also funny that Russia is having the May day parade whilst conveniently missing the fact that the victory was gained by the USSR.

This included Georgia and of course, Ukraine.
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Never underestimate Putin's capacity for hypocrisy. During today's Victory Day celebrations, he placed flowers on a memorial which had named cities including Kyiv and Odesa:

Here in Ukraine, people have been left outraged after seeing Russian President Vladimir Putin place flowers on a memorial to veterans including those from the Ukrainian cities of Kyiv and Odesa.

It took place as part of today's Victory Day parade in Moscow.

Larysa Denysenko, a Ukrainian lawyer described the incident as "rotten" on Facebook.

"There was an air alarm in Kyiv at this time," she wrote.

 
Besides the economic cost of direct help (either humanitaraian or military), it is important to note that EU countries are making an extra economic effort to progressively reduce dependency on Russian coal, oil and gas. That effort may be not as visible and probably is not listed in any table, but its economic impact on EU economies may be well higher than any direct help committed so far, probably in some cases taking a direct hit of several points on the GDP
 
RogerdeLluria said:
Besides the economic cost of direct help (either humanitaraian or military), it is important to note that EU countries are making an extra economic effort to progressively reduce dependency on Russian coal, oil and gas.
Click to expand...
Oil and coal yes, but we're not seeing any significant non-seasonal slowdown in the EU's gas purchases from Russia. This is simply because due to the EU's decision to tie themselves to Russia there is no ready alternative. How will Europe heat their homes and businesses next autumn/winter and generate electricity otherwise?

Canada has the natural gas, but can’t get LNG to Europe

As demand for LNG rises, Canada has its supply, but lacks the means to share it with others
www.theglobeandmail.com

Why Biden can't help Europe rid itself of Russian gas

"Governments don’t make deals," said the director of Tufts University's Climate Policy Lab.
www.politico.com

The ideal longterm fix is to find some natural gas reserves in a non-Russian held part of Ukraine and exploit that. This would also help to pay back the Euros for all the arms and financing during the war.

The Forgotten Potential of Ukraine’s Energy Reserves

A resolute development of Ukraine’s untapped reserves in the production, export and storage of energy would be in the interest of all sides involved.
hir.harvard.edu
 
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Maybe the same storm that sink the Moskva?
 
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