Defence Secretary Ben Wallace gave a statement to the House of Commons on Ukraine today, here it is in full.
“With permission, Mr Speaker, I would like to update the House on the situation in Ukraine and Her Majesty’s Government’s support to the Government in Kyiv.
The situation on the ground is grave. As we can recall, on 24 February, forces of the Russian army, unprovoked, crossed into Ukraine’s sovereign territory. Along three main axes, Russian armour has attempted to occupy Ukraine. Its plan was to reach and encircle Kyiv, encircle Ukrainian forces near the border and invade from the south to link up with its forces via Mariupol.
Russian high command committed 65% of its entire land forces, which are indisputably in possession of overwhelming firepower and armour. It is estimated that at the start of the invasion they had between 110 and 120 battalion tactical groups dedicated to the task, compared with approximately 65 in Ukraine. Their missile stocks gave them even greater strength to reach Ukraine at distance. However, what they did not and still do not possess is the moral component so often needed for victory.
The illegal and unprovoked invasion of Ukraine is continuing.
The map below is the latest Defence Intelligence update on the situation in Ukraine – 09 March 2022
Find out more about the UK government's response: https://t.co/zcQSvPZZtb
🇺🇦 #StandWithUkraine 🇺🇦 pic.twitter.com/qO5xkAcmKX— Ministry of Defence 🇬🇧 (@DefenceHQ) March 9, 2022
After 14 days of the war, according to the Ukrainian general staff, at 6 March, Russian casualties were assessed to include 285 tanks, 985 armoured fighting vehicles, 109 artillery systems, 50 multiple launch rocket systems, 44 aircraft, 48 helicopters and 11,000 soldiers, who have lost their lives needlessly. There are numerous reports of surrenders and desertions by the ever-growingly disillusioned Russian army. To be clear, those are Ukrainian figures; I have to caution the House that we have not verified them by defence intelligence or other means.
I can announce to the House our assessment that, of the initial Russian objectives, only one has been successfully achieved. While Russian forces are in control of Kherson, Melitopol and Berdyansk in southern Ukraine, they currently encircle the cities of Chernihiv, Sumy, Kharkiv and Mariupol but are not in control of them. In addition, their first day objective of targeting Ukrainian air defence has failed, preventing total air dominance. The Ukrainian armed forces have put up a strong defence while mobilising the whole population. President Putin’s arrogant assumption that he would be welcomed as a liberator has deservedly crumbled as fast as his troops’ morale.
For our part, the United Kingdom continues to play a leading role in supporting Ukraine. On 17 January, I announced to the House the Government’s intention to supply military aid to the Ukrainian armed forces. The aid took the form of body armour, helmets, boots, ear defenders, ration packs, rangefinders and communication equipment, and for the first time it also included weapons systems. The initial supply was to be 2,000 new light anti-tank weapons (NLAWs), small arms and ammunition.
In response to further acts of aggression by Russia, we have now increased that supply. I can update the House that, as of today, we have delivered 3,615 NLAWs and continue to deliver more. We will shortly be starting the delivery of a small consignment of anti-tank Javelin missiles as well. I want to assure the House that everything we do is bound by the decision to supply defensive systems and is calibrated not to escalate to a strategic level.
Britain was the first European country to supply lethal aid. I was pleased that not long after a military aid donor conference I held on 25 February, many more countries decided to do the same. From right across Europe, the donations came. In particular, I want to highlight the Netherlands, Sweden, Finland, Denmark, Poland, Romania, the Baltic states, Belgium and Slovenia for their leadership, and we should not ignore the significance of the German Government joining us, in a change of stance, and donating such aid.
Donations are not enough; the delivery of aid to the front line is just as important. Here, again, Britain is leading, because alongside Canada, the United States and Sweden, we have invested in building Ukrainian military capacity since 2015, and we find ourselves able to co-ordinate the delivery alongside our partners.
As the conflict intensifies, the Russians are changing their tactics, so the Ukrainians need to, too. We can all see the horrific devastation inflicted on civilian areas by Russian artillery and airstrikes, which have been indiscriminate and murderous. It is therefore vital that Ukraine maintains its ability to fly and to suppress Russian air attack.
To date, the international community has donated more than 900 man-portable air defence missiles and thousands of anti-tank guided weapons of varying types, as well as various small arms. However, the capability needs strengthening, so in response to Ukrainian requests the Government have taken the decision to explore the donation of Starstreak high-velocity, man-portable anti-air missiles. We believe that this system will remain within the definition of defensive weapons, but will allow the Ukrainian forces to better defend their skies. We shall also be increasing supplies of rations, medical equipment, and other non-lethal military aid.
As with any war, the civilian population is suffering horrendous hardships. According to the Ukrainian Minister of Education, 211 schools have been damaged or destroyed, and media footage shows Russian strikes hitting kindergartens. The Chernihiv regional administration reported that the Russian air force was employing FAB-500 unguided bombs against targets in the city, and according to Human Rights Watch, civilians in Mariupol have now been without water and power for almost a week. President Zelenskyy talked of children dying of thirst. Today the estimated number of Ukrainian civilians killed or injured stands at more than 1,000, but the true figure is expected to be much higher, and I am afraid that worse is likely to come. It is for that reason that the UK will increase its funding for Ukraine to £220 million, which includes £120 million of humanitarian aid. That will make the United Kingdom the single biggest bilateral humanitarian donor to Ukraine. We are also supporting humanitarian work with the Polish and Romanian Governments on the borders.
As I said in my last statement, we still believe that it is worth trying to build diplomatic pressure on Russia. This week, my good friend the Prime Minister met the Prime Ministers of Canada, the Netherlands and Poland. He also spoke to the leaders of France, Germany and the United States, and the Prime Ministers of Hungary, Slovakia and the Czech Republic. The Foreign Secretary is in Washington at the G7, and also attended the NATO Foreign Ministers meeting earlier this month. I myself met the Ukrainian Ambassador just this morning. President Putin should be and can be in no doubt that the international community is united against his actions. It remains strong, and will not back down.
As well as giving direct military support to Ukraine, we continue to bolster our contribution towards NATO’s collective security. NATO Defence Ministers will gather next week in Brussels to discuss the next steps. The UK is doing its bit in giving military support and reassurance to its allies. We are currently supplying significant air power to NATO, including increased air patrols, with both Typhoons and F-35s for NATO air policing. We have also deployed four additional Typhoons to Cyprus to patrol NATO’s eastern border, and have sent an additional 800 troops to Estonia. Over the last week, Apache and Chinook helicopters were involved in exercises in Estonia. Meanwhile, HMS Diamond has sailed to the eastern Mediterranean, HMS Northumberland is taking part in a northern deployment, and HMS Grimsby is in the Norwegian sea supporting NATO mine countermeasures.
On Monday HMS Prince of Wales, RFA Tidesurge and HMS Defender joined HMS Albion and RFA Mounts Bay for Exercise Cold Response, a multinational exercise off the coast of Norway, and HMS Richmond will be exercising with the Joint Expeditionary Force. We have put over 1,000 more British troops on readiness to support humanitarian responses in the bordering countries. Britain’s contribution to NATO is significant and enduring. It is important at this time that, in order to maximise our reassurance and resilience effect, we co-ordinate through NATO and the Supreme Allied Commander Europe.
Few of us will not have been moved by President Zelenskyy’s speech yesterday. His people are fighting for their very survival. His country is united against this aggression, and it is indeed his country’s darkest hour. Yesterday I saw footage of a Russian armoured train, bristling with guns, heading towards Mariupol. A single brave Ukrainian woman ran to the train and shouted “Slava Ukraini”—unmoved, unintimidated by the guns. That woman’s bravery should inspire us all.
I know that many of our constituents, and our colleagues, are fearful of what will happen next. President Putin and the Kremlin continue to threaten countries that offer help to Ukraine. Their military campaign will, I am afraid, become more brutal and more indiscriminate, but it is my firm belief that our strength to stand up to such bullying comes from our alliances. As long as we stand united, both as a House and as the international community, the Kremlin’s threats cannot hurt us. We should take strength from the peoples right across Europe who are standing shoulder to shoulder to protect our values—our freedom, our tolerance, our democracy and our free press. That is our shield.”
Calm before the storm? God forbid.
Keeping a tough disciplinary hand on all NATO members is going to be increasingly difficult, as more and more acts of genocide are exposed. The bombing of the maternity hospital may bring about a greater desire for direct action? It could be only a short period of time before the UK Government begin to prepare the British people for military action over the country. Whatever the civil defence measures are these days, we all may be getting leaflets in our mail on how best to protect and survive. That said, it may not be a nuclear exchange but missile strikes… Read more »
Maurice there is precious little evidence to suggest that Russia have any appetite to get into a WMD conflict with NATO. Their focus seems to be bullying Ukraine into submission despite failing miserably in a conventional conflict. There is a lot more death and destruction to come yet that will whip the media and public into a frenzy but to be fair the military advice seems to be measured and there is no panic nor is there likely to be one.
You cannot seriously think that Russia will launch missiles on British cities? Why?
A very unlikely scenario but we are talking about Putin and not Russia. We know Hitler used what he could when the picture turned very bleak for his war. There is, however, a possibility that Putin wants to retain power in the wording of the Ukraine project, ‘Special Operations.’ This indicates to me, in the unlikely event of failure, he did not lead his nation into war? When Barbarossa failed, Germany rarely saw their old bombastic leader, and this same melancholia may befall Putin? The evidence so far indicates the actions of an autocrat, who tells his military team what… Read more »
Seems to me that with the Russian’s claiming (absurdly) that the Ukrainians were developing chemical weapons and with their forces stalled they are preparing the ground for using chemical weapons themselves. If they do so we will have no other recourse than to implement a no fly zone with all the well known dangers that involves. I just hope the Russian generals do the right thing and topple Putin the monster. Once escalation happens then either NATO win conventionally or we all lose with WMDs.
wallace trotting out all these ships we’re sending everywhere hasn’t anybody told him that we don’t have any ships?
Well unless he has made up the named ships they obviously exist and are being deployed!
Unless it was old footage to fool the Russians, POW sailed Weds & was alongside in Portsmouth up til then. They didn’t sail Monday as he claimed.
Check Navy Lookout feed. LOW sailed Monday. QE saild Weds
What, not one? I thought we had the second biggest fleet in NATO.
how many trident boats are available for operations at a given time? i now, one is always at sea, one is in refit/maintainance, the other in training can he one in training be called into operational status and give us two ballistic boats available for striking?
You are correct, Vanguard is in refit at Devonport, one is at sea – CASD, one will be in maintenance having got back off patrol and the last will be preparing to relieve the boat at sea.
At any given time you could reasonably guess that the West has 4/5 SSBNs at sea (UK, FR and 2/3 x US), compared to probably 2/3 from Russia.
That in itself is more than enough missile/warheads to give the world a bad day.
From the crop modelling around the affects of black soot, it would give the world a bad decade and then a nice long rest from the human race as most of us would have starved to death.
Definitely a grim outlook! However, it must be said that up to now, MAD has effectively worked, do we suddenly believe that it won’t? I can’t see that mad Vlad is the first to threaten to use nucs! Granted calling his bluff is v high stakes and is a difficult call for whomever. I suppose one question as articulated recently by one of our retired generals is – not if but when NATO will need to fight Russia! Very sobering statement I thought, given that said general had previously been in favour of not having a no fly zone over… Read more »
I know, when you think MAD kept the world stable for 45 years with two completely apposition hegemonic powers. But MAD only works when everyone understands and plays by the rules. Both the west and Soviet Union knew if the other side pushed past a specific point where it would end. But they also knew what they could do below that. Both sides also had massive conventional forces that’s could fight each other to a standstill and give time for negations. Now we have a NATO that seems to have a red line policy of “anything but war“ with apposing… Read more »
To be fair we have no way to know if MAD actually worked or not. It’s the most likely reason for no major wars, but there are a number of other possibilities. A major one being that the centre of power moved from European countries (which started all the wars) to the US. Internationalisation around corporate and trade increasing, improvements in mass media, the forming of the EU (formed as a peace pack) and NATO having massive conventional weapons in Europe. Either war let’s hope Putin doesn’t decide it’s an option on the table to win the war. Especially as… Read more »
Hasn’t it worked? Difficult to say really, but we are all still here, so perhaps it has!
Many like to portray Vlad as a madman, but I don’t think he is, I think he’s a thug/bully, call it what you will. There comes a time when you need to stand up to the likes of these types. Just wonder if we are approaching that moment very soon given what he is doing in the UKR now?
Its a Yin and Yang thing …
Nuclear Winter…
Reduction in Global Warming…
So which one is Greta and her ilk going to approve of…
I’m pretty sure there will be some of the more radical environmentalists who would think a massive loss of population is just the thing.
From a pure who quickly the planet would retire to a point we could grow resonance amounts of food the nuclear winter is actually the lesser of two evils as black soot will clear within a decade. Warming will trigger al number of environmental feedback loops that will keep it going almost indefinitely from a human timeframe.
Time to convert some of our older nuke subs into cruise missile arsenal subs if they still have a bit life in them?
Discussed on older threads, that seems impossible.
Unfortunately that’s a non starter, you will be lucky to get enough power to light 2 light bulbs out of them. Their cores are spent, so the tank is empty so to speak.
Okay. I didn’t realise they were that “switched off”.
Russian lies while they bombard nuclear reactors & threaten nuke strikes. They casually acuse others of what they’re doing themselves. Surely reasoning is out of the question until we deliver a military defeat.
I do not see a way out for putin apart from nuclear weapons if a shooting match began with NATO, this war in Ukraine has shattered any illusion that the Russian army had as an effective fighting force against peer opponents. Any army put in the field by NATO would systematically destroy any Russian force it came up against. Nuclear is his only option at this point.
I’m afraid to say, you may well be right.
The Russian Bear is actually a paper tiger.
Nukes? I would be surprised if that isn’t the the one place he put his money. Ultimate guarantee.
His nuclear weapons may be in the same condition as his APC tyres.
Quite possibly.
A safe haven for corruption.
Never be used so let’s just trouser all the money Igor?
Trouble is it only takes one to work…..
its troops are disillusioned there is no support at home, half of the military equipment has either broken down or been destroyed on the ground, the air force still haven’t gained air superiority we, in the west should ignore the hype around the big,bad, bear in the east.we’d stuff them
His ground forces without a doubt, but those nuclear warheads are another matter, just a handful and most of Europe and the UK is gone from the face of the earth, so would Russia so it would be a case of king of the Ash heap but I would rather go on living than end up an irradiated mess on the floor
Not sure where you get the
no support at homefrom. Despite the protests we see, most ordinary Russians are buying into the official Kremlin line at they areliberators. There`s a 15 year jail term for anyone in the Russian media reporting any alternative to the official crap so most Russians only have Putins view on this. I believe the Russian UN ambassadour this morning has already called the hospital attack in Mariupol ” fake news “.From all this bollox about bioweapons labs and bioweapons going missing and being given to right wing extremists, it would not surprise me one bit if we don’t see an anthrax outbreak in some Ukrainian cites. Otherwise why the bit about the bioweapons going missing from these so called Ukrainian US biolabs. I would normally say that’s just crazy and no one would do that, but this is the man that deployed an (admittedly limited) chemical weapons attack on a British city. Most people forget that, Putin used a weapon of mass destruction on a U.K. city and killed and… Read more »
You don’t need to tell me that, I was born and lived around Salisbury
love the place myself, good shopping and and nice stamp shop. It’s a city I’ve spent most of my adult life commuting through ( probably spent months of my life siting at Salisbury station waiting for the Exeter train or the connection to Southampton ). I still cannot believe he did what he did and got away with it. In reality is should have been article five level infraction, it still makes me almost incandescent he used a weapon of mass destruction in a British city and killed and harmed British citizens on home soil and left an entire British… Read more »
…or chemical, or biological, or dirty bombs, or large thermobaric.
My view on this from looking at all the troop movements is for Moscow currently all roads l(in the north of the Ukraine) lead to Kyiv, so sometime in the near future Moscow is going to go in all guns blazing (which I suppose will include a large air element acting as Battlefield taxis for selective strikes (parliament???) Top cover and of course QRF. So I suppose providing the Ukrainians with a weapon system which if deployed on roof tops which gives no warning to the target aircraft it has been pinged will allow the defenders to hopefully extract a… Read more »
Hi Farouk, when the Russians try to take Kyiv their casualties will be absolutely enormous, the Ukrainians have had two weeks to dig in, create killing zones and obstacles in just the right places. The city filled with hundreds of NLAW, booby traps and Stingers … Not forgetting the good old RPG. Russian air strikes will be ineffective, as Stingers will mean either high drops ( above 10,000 feet) or low and fast, either way will mean missed targets. Helicopters will be malleted, tanks and APC’s will be malleted … All that means troops on foot and house to house… Read more »
i wouldn’t fancy being a paratrooper in a rickety old transport being flown into ‘stinger alley’expecting to be shot down by a civillian armed with a missile. it will be carnage when they try it could be another stalingrad. except this time the russians will be the prey
There is nothing like urban warfare to seriously dent any force sent into any city to try and take it!
Evening mate. My worry is, what if Putin decides to surround the city and starve out the populace? Perhaps over several weeks in an attempt to force a surrender?
Cheers M@
I’m not sure he can sustain the force he has deployed (and under constant attack) for weeks ahead. He needs to get the war fighting done… He isn’t going too, it’s stalled and Putin’s gamble had failed.. He wanted to go down in Russian folklore as the leader who ‘ turned Russia around’, instead, he will go down in history as the man who sank the ship, 10 guaranteed more years of lucrative oil and gas supplies to the west will actually be just about done by the end of this year now. This will perminently shrink and perhaps ultimately… Read more »
Trouble is I think he’s going hit a point and just flatten the city. That’s probably one of the reasons he’s give a few days of safe corridors..he can tell the Russian public the only people left in the city are American back far right Neo Nazis or some such shite.
I think he will, but look at the lessons from history re artillery. People dig in, head into bunkers and come back out to fight. Artillery is only truly effective, if you catch an un-prepared enemy out in the open. The Ukrainians have a large number of deep Soviet era bunkers in the city too … The Soviets actually prepared for nuclear war and intended for the bulk of a cities population to bunker down and come back up and re- build! The game changer could be wide spread use of chemical weapons, that would be a dangerous escalation however… Read more »
What is really a worry is all the bunk he has been talking about bioweapons, the us seem to be worried he’s going to use it as an excuse to use chemical weapons. It’s scary times.
And the 🇺🇦 people are fighting for their human, moral and spiritual right to exist in their country! Good on them! Strength to them. They’re truly admirable as is their president!
They certainly are, inspirational in fact, a remarkable people….
Yes, I mentioned this a couple of days ago. In Belarus, there is now a very large amount of Russian aircraft. A lot of images have been posted on twitter of aircraft fitted with Kh 25, 28, 31, 38 and 58 surface to air missiles. These come in various flavours and can be fitted with passive radar homers. However, it is the Kh58 which is relatively long range (250km) dedicated anti-radiation missile in the same class as the US HARM. Russian Su24, 25 and 30 aircraft have been seen with these under their wings. Furthermore there has been a dramatic… Read more »
The Belarus leadership and armed forces need their arses kicked too! What an amoral lot to be siding with Russia. Hope the Ukrainian’s can do a lot of damage to both and they may in turn help liberate both countries from their oppressive governments.
Thanks for the detailed info.
dead missions? death missions more like they are being ripped up by the ukrainians using stingers
Andy wrote:
“”dead missions? “”
SEAD = Suppresion of Enemy Air Defence
DEAD = Destruction of Enemy Air Defence
Alternatively from the Ukrainian side it could be : Seek Enemy 🇷🇺 Aircraft and Destroy! Detect Enemy 🇷🇺 Aircraft and Destroy!
Putin could stand off & thermobaric the defenders & civilians alike. He’ll certainly employ mass bombardment. If only we’d send air strikes in we could ruin all his plans & deployments. Putin is unrestricted but we won’t even give Ukraine the Migs they’ve been begging for.
Just saw a US news item online. One private American ammo company has just donated one million rounds of 7.62×39 ammo to Ukraine. It cost them $700000 to produce & send it. When ordinary Americans heard this, they started sending money to the firm, so it can send more ammo. Interesting item on a business channel. Since Feb 10, the rouble has lost 40%+ against the US Dollar & the Euro. No surprise. However it has also lost 46% against the Yuan. Shows the Chinese central bank has made no effort to prop up the Rouble against the Yuan. Perhaps… Read more »
russia will be bankrupt in the near future
I suspect China is rubbing its hands together a completely bankrupt and isolated Russia is just want they want…a nice client state full of hydrocarbons, raw materials and a huge grain basket. It really is the prize of the century….it would not surprise me if in there early March Sino-russian summit a little encouragement happened ( as they must had discussed the troop build up).
May be PRC wil wait to step in & buy Russia’s debt, reducing them to a colony.
Plus do a land grab while Putin is looking West…
Yes, China has always wanted the resources of Siberia. Russia got nervous about all the Chinese buying land/farms in Siberia.
Oil and gas is priced and paid for in US$, so PRC would still have to pay the market price of whatever that is, in US$, Russia can be paid in Yuan.
The exception would be for a contract of deliveries, usually over long term.
Off the swift system, means no payments in $ or pounds or Euros. So it leaves Yuan/Roubles/Gold.
Whoever told Putin that his actions would result in him being hailed a Liberator of the downtrodden Ukrainian people, is either MIA or KIA or it was his own alto ego in any case his action is becoming that of an addict confronted with the truth he will blame everyone, and everything rather than himself for all the things that are or about too happen to Russia’s standing on the world stage this is probably why he’s female state mouthpiece is claiming that the Ukrainians were conducting Germ and Chemical warfare experiments and that thanks too their intervention disaster will… Read more »
he should also remember that russian leaders don’t have much of a record for longevity he,ll need to keep an eye on who is behind him.
Hopefully it’s all his now downtrodden Oligarchs, Andy
So after 2 weeks they’ve lost nearly 10% of the forces. Another 2 weeks and the assault of Kyiv having started that’s going to double and so say 30% losses after 1 month. That’s a serious amount of hard ware and personal. Is it right he has deployed nearly almost all of the Russian army? Or do they still have loads in reserve? Once that column of armoured vehicles starts moving towards Kyiv the videos of burning vehicles on twitter is going to increase dramatically. There’s one on today looks like it was a javelin and it’s like a rolling… Read more »
i heard somebody say that if every ukranian can kill one or two russians per day, putin will have to open a new factory to have enough bodybags!
Putins already thought of that little problem by having Mobile crematoria jars are cheaper than BB Andy
Wallace said 2/3 of Russian ground combat forces. If the barrel isn’t empty it’s very close to it. There’s alarm in Russia of a big call up not just reservists but civies. A lot of young Russian men are heading for the nearest border.
Unfortunately Mark he has now been given Chechen and Syrian troops ( Muslim) this will get nasty as Ukrainians are mostly Christian Putin seems too have now looked at the sectarian angle and who would be drawn into it if no ceasefire is forthcoming then its going too get a lot worse
Unfortunately I think he’s just going end up levelling the cities and doing other really nasty things. After all NATO has said it will not step in so he really is free to engage in some proper old fashion totalitarian dictator style war crimes. Most of the Russian population will simply not believe it.
I am also worried what these announcements about Ukrainian bioweapons facilities is leading to, especially the comments about some of the bioweapons being missing or given to So called Neo Nazis. I think this is Plowing a field for something really nasty to happen.
Hopefully Johnathan, the world has woken up too Putins antics and his compulsive aversion too the truth
Putin went on television to reassure wives, mothers, girlfriends, that their lads are safe in “special military operation”. Promised conscripts were nowhere near the fighting. He blinked a lot when he said that. Also, Scott Manley has a youtube channel that covers space rocket launches. He noticed that many earth observation firms are supplying commercial images to Ukraine. He also noticed reports of GPS spoofing near Russian troop positions.
I’d have guessed the GPS GLONASS spoofing was going on anyway.
I’d have been more surprised if it wasn’t TBH.
A time might come for the West to use the same turn of phrase “special military operation” and hit back? What BS coming out from 🇷🇺. It’s all being caught in camera for the world to see.
For the last two weeks, I have asked for a NATO guaranteed safe haven around Lviv, on old/former Polish/Slovakian lands.
its interesting to see wlace going on about how wer’e supplying all this kit when it is generally thought we idn’t have that much to give away
Yeah a lot of us were wrong about a lot of things.
New Ukrainian traffic sign needed:
T72 in road. Drive slowly to avoid turret ring and body parts.
⚠️💥 tank 💀!
This seems appro
On a lighter note.
That tractor is the first non-soviet
tractor to make it into space.
“Thunderbird 3 are GO!!”
I was really Worried these bioweapon claims were prepping the ground for something awful. The US have just come out and said they are worried about the use of chemical weapons…. what will nato do in that case. It was always meant to be a red line, but we have let Russia get away with a small attack on U.K. soil and mass attacks in Syria. So I suppose we will sit back and look horrified, do a few more sanctions and say how supportive we are of Ukraine. I must say I’m starting to feel a bit ashamed of… Read more »
I do worry that rather than real wisdom, our leaders are mainly focussed on avoiding any chance of going down as those who “started WW3/Armagedon”. Vanity rules. Hence the reluctance to do anything that would really be effective to stop Putin.
Vanity Kills ,it doesn’t pay the bills sang ABC Frank
We can but hope that the West is not just giving weapons and good intel but will be absolutely ready to step in if it really has too. After watching this conflict going on on tv from the comfort of home I kind of don’t want to go out to the cinema any more. This is all too real, too present, too human enough, the face of evil decisions made by an evil man and there might be more like him.
As I have said there are some very good and independent (reporting both sides) sources of OSINT out there. Some highlights I have found are understandably Ukrainian biased but the info from Russian sources is scare but there if you know where to look. Russia is using an Armoured train…how very 1915 of them. Russian Civilian Trucks, mini busses and vans are being moved by train to the border areas to replace truck losses. Russia Lost a Corvette off Odessa. Hit by MLRS fire in a very clever faint operation it has burnt out and sunk. Ships are massing off… Read more »
G wrote:
Russia Lost a Corvette off Odessa. Hit by MLRS fire in a very clever faint operation it has burnt out and sunk.
That’s very interesting, as MRLS rounds aren’t designed to armour pierce and I would have presumed that the armour of a Naval ship would have been enough to prevent penetration by such. But ho hum, we learn something new everyday.
Hi Farouk,
before we got rid of them, the bomblet rounds for M270 MLRS (M28 I think), 644 per rocket, were shaped charges and would penetrate 2.5″ of RHA as well as producing shrapnel. I’m pretty sure these would ruin a lightly armoured corvettes day.
cheers
Morning, just watched this vid of a Russian armoured column, bunch up on entering a town (from the looks of it to loot) and get hit by Ukrainian artillery , it’s as if basic common sense was thrown out of the window and then we ask ourselves why are the Russian losing so much armour. Note the two instances of dirty black smoke in the film clip, is (I believe) is how Russian tanks can use their engines to create an instant smoke screen by injecting fuel into the exhaust
Hi Farouk,
Injecting diesel into a hot exhaust produces copious white smoke, CR2 has this facility too. Black smoke is not a good sign for a diesel, it’s either being worked too hard (trying large steering inputs at too low revs) or is just f*cked.
cheers
Im so far impressed with Ben Wallace. Sensible calm but resolute head. Good work so far. He has a hell of a job though trying to sort out the mess that is Army procurement and enlarging RN with a return to increased lethality.
All 3 armwd forces are in a perilous state thanks to cuts cuts cuts, capability gaps, FFBNW, reduced numbers, reduced orders and piss poor project management.