*** Official Russia vs. Ukraine Discussion - Invasion has begun *** (7 Viewers)

[Chadstroma]

I don't see how the Ukrainians will have any interest in Chinese peacekeepers. It would be worse than no peacekeepers as the chances of the Chinese passing on intelligence to the Russians would be extreme and there is no way Chinese would do anything other than "ole" the Russians right past them if the Russians went on the offensive again.

 

[FarFromHome]

I don't see how the Ukrainians will have any interest in Chinese peacekeepers. It would be worse than no peacekeepers as the chances of the Chinese passing on intelligence to the Russians would be extreme and there is no way Chinese would do anything other than "ole" the Russians right past them if the Russians went on the offensive again.

Just feels kinda weird huh. In theory this idea seems solid, but in full context it seems weird. Imo. Even weirder would be European nations military personnel shoulder to shoulder with Chinese soldiers on peacekeeping missions. As someone who has been shoulder to shoulder with numerous NATO countries being next to a Russian or Chinese soldier would be a little different. I wouldn't really have a problem with it as long as they know how to play Spades. For those not aware, Spades and dominoes is 75% of a soldiers time in any deployment. Ha ha

 

[BobbyLayne]

I don't see how the Ukrainians will have any interest in Chinese peacekeepers. It would be worse than no peacekeepers as the chances of the Chinese passing on intelligence to the Russians would be extreme and there is no way Chinese would do anything other than "ole" the Russians right past them if the Russians went on the offensive again.

Just feels kinda weird huh. In theory this idea seems solid, but in full context it seems weird. Imo. Even weirder would be European nations military personnel shoulder to shoulder with Chinese soldiers on peacekeeping missions. As someone who has been shoulder to shoulder with numerous NATO countries being next to a Russian or Chinese soldier would be a little different. I wouldn't really have a problem with it as long as they know how to play Spades. For those not aware, Spades and dominoes is 75% of a soldiers time in any deployment. Ha ha

same same in the fleet



I always enjoyed NATO exercises. After they were over we would go into the nearest port and tie up side-by-side. The officers & chiefs would go from ship to ship sampling the adult beverages.

The Americans always tied up on the outside and were the last ship of the party. All the other navies gave their crew 2 pints of ale per day, and had liquor in the officers mess.

Only the USN prohibited alcohol.

 

[The Z Machine]

I don't see how the Ukrainians will have any interest in Chinese peacekeepers. It would be worse than no peacekeepers as the chances of the Chinese passing on intelligence to the Russians would be extreme and there is no way Chinese would do anything other than "ole" the Russians right past them if the Russians went on the offensive again.

Just feels kinda weird huh. In theory this idea seems solid, but in full context it seems weird. Imo. Even weirder would be European nations military personnel shoulder to shoulder with Chinese soldiers on peacekeeping missions. As someone who has been shoulder to shoulder with numerous NATO countries being next to a Russian or Chinese soldier would be a little different. I wouldn't really have a problem with it as long as they know how to play Spades. For those not aware, Spades and dominoes is 75% of a soldiers time in any deployment. Ha ha

If the US is not interested in taking part and wants to forge independent diplomatic relations, then that opens the door for China to usurp the title of leader of an internationalist coalition. It would be an interesting flip.

 

[djmich]

I don't see how the Ukrainians will have any interest in Chinese peacekeepers. It would be worse than no peacekeepers as the chances of the Chinese passing on intelligence to the Russians would be extreme and there is no way Chinese would do anything other than "ole" the Russians right past them if the Russians went on the offensive again.

Just feels kinda weird huh. In theory this idea seems solid, but in full context it seems weird. Imo. Even weirder would be European nations military personnel shoulder to shoulder with Chinese soldiers on peacekeeping missions. As someone who has been shoulder to shoulder with numerous NATO countries being next to a Russian or Chinese soldier would be a little different. I wouldn't really have a problem with it as long as they know how to play Spades. For those not aware, Spades and dominoes is 75% of a soldiers time in any deployment. Ha ha

If the US is not interested in taking part and wants to forge independent diplomatic relations, then that opens the door for China to usurp the title of leader of an internationalist coalition. It would be an interesting flip.

Maybe they could lead by sending some weapons to start.

 

[FarFromHome]

Maybe they could lead by sending some weapons to start.

Great post. Great idea. Almost like calling a bluff kinda. So you wanna help? We want you to help, but we just don't totally believe having your troops in country is completely selfless. Let's start by contributing elsewhere and build some trust.

 

[Chadstroma]

I don't see how the Ukrainians will have any interest in Chinese peacekeepers. It would be worse than no peacekeepers as the chances of the Chinese passing on intelligence to the Russians would be extreme and there is no way Chinese would do anything other than "ole" the Russians right past them if the Russians went on the offensive again.

Just feels kinda weird huh. In theory this idea seems solid, but in full context it seems weird. Imo. Even weirder would be European nations military personnel shoulder to shoulder with Chinese soldiers on peacekeeping missions. As someone who has been shoulder to shoulder with numerous NATO countries being next to a Russian or Chinese soldier would be a little different. I wouldn't really have a problem with it as long as they know how to play Spades. For those not aware, Spades and dominoes is 75% of a soldiers time in any deployment. Ha ha

If the US is not interested in taking part and wants to forge independent diplomatic relations, then that opens the door for China to usurp the title of leader of an internationalist coalition. It would be an interesting flip.

European countries are not going to follow any Chinese lead on European matters. France and the UK are the ones that will fill a void even as Germany should be the main leader based on economic power but due to it;s military impotence as well as it's WWII guilt hangover holds them back. France is being the most aggressive to try to fill the void as can be seen in it's rush to offer Rafale jets to replace F-35 orders (which other than being cheaper is a poor alternative in capability as well as in ability to receive the orders in a timely manner). France has been the most vocal about floating ideas such as having troops in Ukraine under certain conditions to free up Ukrainians to the front and the peacekeepring ideas. The reality is that NATO as a whole is almost incapable of doing any meaningful force projection without the US logistical support, let alone a coalition of the willing. In so many ways, because of the multiple decades of Europe riding the US taxpayer for their own security, NATO (in it's entirety, a collection of countries or individual countries) is reliant on the US to the point that any decision must be approved and backed by the US. Europe knows this and that is why France and the UK are working on presenting a peace deal to the US first instead of just moving ahead by themselves. For China, this is nothing more than posing for photo ops type of talk.

 

[Chadstroma]

I don't see how the Ukrainians will have any interest in Chinese peacekeepers. It would be worse than no peacekeepers as the chances of the Chinese passing on intelligence to the Russians would be extreme and there is no way Chinese would do anything other than "ole" the Russians right past them if the Russians went on the offensive again.

Just feels kinda weird huh. In theory this idea seems solid, but in full context it seems weird. Imo. Even weirder would be European nations military personnel shoulder to shoulder with Chinese soldiers on peacekeeping missions. As someone who has been shoulder to shoulder with numerous NATO countries being next to a Russian or Chinese soldier would be a little different. I wouldn't really have a problem with it as long as they know how to play Spades. For those not aware, Spades and dominoes is 75% of a soldiers time in any deployment. Ha ha

If the US is not interested in taking part and wants to forge independent diplomatic relations, then that opens the door for China to usurp the title of leader of an internationalist coalition. It would be an interesting flip.

Maybe they could lead by sending some weapons to start.

They have been supplying tons of product for the war.... to Russia.

 

[Chadstroma]

Ukrainian forces invent device to neutralize Russian KAB bomb sights​

The Ukrainian Defense Forces have identified a vulnerability in the software of Russia’s Comet-M system, which is used in its bombs.

The system combines several satellite signals and antennas, making it resistant to most standard interference.

“The Ukrainians were able to stop the Russian advance because Russia no longer has protection in the form of high-precision bombs. Now Ukraine can counterattack,” the source said.

The report notes that over the past year, Russia has regularly launched "cascades of aerial bombs" over Ukraine, but the situation is changing. The bombs are increasingly missing their targets, and some have even fallen on Russian territory.

Military expert Thomas Tyner believes this technology gives the Ukrainian army a tactical advantage.

However, experts warn that Russia may soon find ways to overcome these obstacles.

Additionally, new Russian drones controlled by fiber optics pose a growing threat, as they cannot be disrupted by electronic means.

 

[Chadstroma]

Welcoming Europe’s defense industrial renaissance​

Fearing a sustained threat from Russia and reduced military protection from the United States, several European nations led by Poland, Estonia, the United Kingdom, and Germany are boosting defense spending. The European Union is also making $163 billion in defense loans available to its 27 member states. For two reasons, the loans will not cover purchases from U.S. defense manufacturers.

First, the EU wants to boost its defense manufacturing base. Second, it fears that President Donald Trump might, in response to some future grievance, suspend defense exports crucial to maintaining American equipment in European armories. Portugal has suspended plans to buy American F-35 fighter jets partly for this reason, although its main reason was to avoid spending more on defense.

The Trump administration reacted angrily to the EU's decision to buy equipment only from its own defense contractors, with new tariffs, but that would be a mistake.

For a start, Europe's action is not the same as its protectionist assault on American technology firms. Those businesses have been repeatedly and unfairly extorted by the EU because of their market success. Trump would be right to punish the EU for this with tariffs. In contrast, America will benefit from the EU building its defense industrial base. If it happens, it will allow European nations finally to take more responsibility for their security and reduce America's outsize burden for their defense, which they have been promising since 2014.

It might seem a contradiction that new, Europe-only defense loans will benefit the U.S. in the long term. That's because a European move to take a lead in its security must be sustained if it is to deliver desired strategic results. But it is so. Investing in indigenous European defense will bolster European support for those measures because it will bring popular economic benefits. The investments would also put European defense firms on a stronger foundation to provide sustained increases in the production of warfighting equipment and munitions. If Russia attacks an EU member state (most of which are NATO members), Europe would be in a position to respond as a true, perhaps even leading, military power and partner of the U.S.

A robust European defense would also allow the U.S. to redeploy Air Force fighter, bomber, refueling, and intelligence squadrons to the Pacific. Navy destroyers and carrier strike groups would be freed up. These finite assets would be critical in a U.S.-China war. Most American military analysts believe China will try to invade Taiwan before 2030. If the U.S. intervened to defend Taiwan, the U.S. military would face a Chinese air force and navy that was far bigger and, in many areas, with comparative combat capability. In short, the U.S. needs its most potent warfighting assets for the Pacific.

European defense must not be jeopardized. Europe's new defense posture is part of that, but Russia also must understand that the U.S. remains committed to NATO. Trump recently emphasized this, saying the U.S. should redeploy more of its European forces to Poland, the nation that best exemplifies fair NATO burden-sharing.

European action is long overdue. NATO's June 2023 Air Defender 23 exercise revealed that the U.S. military was overstretched by Europe's neglect of defense spending.

That exercise simulated a surprise attack on Germany by Russia. As the Washington Examiner noted, the U.S. military "deployed 100 aircraft, including F-15, F-16, F-18, F-35 fighter aircraft, EA-18 electronic warfare aircraft, KC-46 and KC-135 refuelers, and C-17 and C-130 transports to defend its ally." Most European states sent paltry commitments. France sent just one airborne radar aircraft.

Europe's reliance on U.S. refueler aircraft was also apparent in the exercise. U.S. refuelers regularly exceeded Europe's total refueler commitment 3-to-1. It is a sorry indictment of French President Emmanuel Macron, German Chancellor Olaf Scholz, and others that it has taken them more than three years of the largest land war in Europe since 1945 to recognize the need for more defense spending. Fortunately, Scholz is leaving office, and Macron appears to have woken up to reality.

That reality is that a revived European defense industrial base will make Europe, NATO, and America stronger. NATO serves Europe and America, but American political support for NATO has declined along with European neglect. The U.S. and Europe are major trading partners, far beyond anything Russia can offer America, with shared democratic values and mutual interests in the rule of law. It is far better that Europe boost its defense and restore American confidence than the trans-Atlantic alliance crumble.

Rather than complain about U.S. defense companies losing out in Europe's defense renaissance, the Trump administration should welcome the broader strategic benefits. It should follow Europe in moving to bolster the U.S. defense industrial base.

 

[Chadstroma]

Ukraine's international fighters reject Russian propaganda 'sentences'​

In a statement released this week, the Legion said Moscow’s so-called “Investigative Committee” is engaging in psychological warfare by targeting international fighters with fabricated criminal cases, adding that such actions only highlight the effectiveness and impact of Ukraine’s international volunteer forces.

“These so-called 'sentences' are nothing more than tools of destructive information and psychological influence,” the statement said. “They represent the impotent rage of an enemy that continues to suffer defeat on the battlefield.”

According to the Legion’s command, the move is part of a broader Russian pattern of targeting Ukrainian commanders and foreign fighters alike through legal distortions and hybrid tactics. Russian authorities and affiliated paramilitary groups have long used such tactics in an effort to pressure and intimidate key military leaders within the Ukrainian Armed Forces.

But far from showing strength, the Legion says the Kremlin’s actions are a clear sign of weakness.

“The use of such measures of substitution of concepts and terror against soldiers and tactical level commanders demonstrates the incredible combat effectiveness of the International Legions of Defense of Ukraine,” the statement read.

The Legion emphasized that all of its personnel — foreign volunteers from dozens of democratic nations — serve legally as members of the Ukrainian Armed Forces and strictly adhere to the rules of warfare, international humanitarian law, and the Geneva Conventions.

“In principle, slaves cannot judge free people,” the command added bluntly, suggesting that the authoritarian Russian regime lacks any moral or legal authority to prosecute those fighting for freedom and sovereignty.

The statement went on to say that true justice will come after Ukraine’s victory, when the International Criminal Court (ICC) begins hearing the cases of Russian war criminals — including those behind the propaganda apparatus and agencies like the Investigative Committee, which have been accused of legitimizing terror and repression.

“We will all see the punishment of real war criminals, including representatives of repressive punitive bodies such as the so-called ‘Investigative Committee’ and propagandists of the Russian dictatorship,” the statement read. “That is, of course, if they survive this war long enough to stand trial.”

The Legion also reaffirmed its commitment to professionalism and integrity in combat. “Our soldiers, sergeants, and officers work every day in good faith, selflessly and with high professionalism,” the command noted, adding that Legion fighters use all available weaponry “to bring victory to humanity and democratic values over the embodiment of global evil — the Russian dictatorship and its 21st-century ambitions of domination.”

Since the early days of Russia’s full-scale invasion in 2022, Ukraine’s International Legion has drawn thousands of volunteers from around the world — from combat veterans and humanitarian workers to idealistic civilians seeking to stand up for freedom and international law. The Legion continues to be one of the most prominent symbols of international solidarity in Ukraine’s defense.

In the closing lines of its statement, the Legion extended an open call for others in the free world to join their ranks.

“We are honored to invite citizens of the free world, both Ukrainians and foreigners, to join us,” the command said, “to use our shared strength, weapons, and courage to consign dictatorship, repression, and bloodthirsty terror to the past — where it belongs.”

The Command also expressed gratitude to its current legionnaires for their bravery, discipline, and continued effectiveness in battle.

“For the sake of our present, and the future of our children,” the statement concluded. “For our freedom and yours.”

 

[Don't Toews Me]

https://x.com/RALee85/status/1903736523746419174

Updated map from the past few days showing Russian advances near Terny, north of Kupyansk by the border, and on the Kurakhove and Velyka Novosilka fronts.

https://x.com/RALee85/status/1903737323474341918

Changes to @Deepstate_UA's map showing Russian advances in Kursk oblast from three days ago.

Russian forces launched 147 drones overnight across Ukraine and the country’s air defence shot down 97 drones, Ukraine’s air force has reported. The previous day, the air defence shot down 100 drones launched by Moscow, and 114 drones the day before that.

Source

Russia continues to attack Ukraine, at least 3 dead and 10 wounded in Kyiv, authorities say

In parallel with diplomatic talks, Russia continues to attack its Ukrainian neighbour, with Kiev's army trying to strike Russian territory in response to disrupt the logistics of Moscow's forces.

The night of Saturday to Sunday was again marked by a Russian drone attack on Kiev described as "massive" by Mayor Vitali Klitschko. A Russian drone attack on Kyiv has killed at least three people, including a 5-year-old child, causing fires in apartment buildings and throughout the capital, Ukrainian officials said Sunday morning. Ten other people were injured.

Two people were killed in two separate locations in Kyiv, according to rescue services.

Ukraine drone attacks kill one in Rostov, Russian authorities say

Russian air defence units destroyed 59 Ukrainian drones that targeted Russia's southwestern regions and killed one person in Rostov, Russian authorities said on Sunday.

https://x.com/Osinttechnical/status/1903701003725074811

Russia’s Naftatrans fuel processing facility in Krasnodar somehow managed to explode again tonight, days after a Ukrainian drone attack hit the facility.

A multi-hundred-foot tower of flames could be seen rising from the burning Russian facility.

Oil products spill spreads fire at Russian oil depot

An oil products spill occurred at the oil depot that caught fire in southern Russia's Krasnodar region after a drone attack last week, regional officials said on Sunday.
The area of the fire at the depot near the village of Kavkazskaya increased to 2,000 square metres from the 1,250 square metres previously reported, said state news agency TASS.

Ukraine state railway reports large technical failure

Online services of Ukraine's state-owned railway Ukrzaliznytsia are not working due to a technical failure, the company said on Sunday, providing no additional details.
"Ticket sales via the app and website, online ordering services and reference services are temporarily not working," the company said on Telegram messenger.

The railway company did not specify what caused the technical failure. Ukrainian state authorities have often blamed Russian hackers for outages of state and private online services since the beginning of the war.

Ukraine and Russia delegations due in Riyadh on Monday for separate US talks

Moscow announced on Thursday that Sergei Beseda, the former head of the spy agency’s fifth directorate – who oversaw intelligence operations in Ukraine and orchestrated the recruitment of collaborators before the full-scale invasion – would travel to Riyadh for Monday’s talks with the US.

President Pavel: Czechia should be part of potential peacekeeping force in Ukraine

Czech President Petr Pavel is convinced that Czech troops should be part of the peacekeeping force in Ukraine after a peace agreement is concluded. The Czech head of state, who paid a two-day visit to Ukraine this week, said this in an interview for Jevropejska Pravda website published on Sunday. He said the Czech Republic is already part of the "coalition of the willing", a group of countries that are discussing a possible peacekeeping force and further ways to help Ukraine, and noted that if and when a common will to deploy such a force is found, the Czech Republic should be part of it. He added that in this way it would also be working for its own security.

How many peacekeepers can Europe send to Ukraine?

On Thursday, senior military personnel convened at the Ministry of Defence’s Permanent Joint Headquarters at Northwood to develop more detailed operational plans for a ‘reassurance force’. Although UK sources deny it, some in attendance felt that the prime minister’s focus was shifting away from deploying substantial ground forces towards the potential role of air and sea power in policing a peace settlement.
Realistically, what can the UK offer? As part of a total deployment of 30,000 or even 10,000, the British Army will be extremely hard-pressed to find even a brigade-sized force of around 5,000. There is an inexorable logic: six-month rotations means a total commitment of 15,000, which is a fifth of the army’s entire strength. The government has ruled out ‘pulling back from our commitments to other countries’. There is very little slack.

Of the other coalition members, Downing Street has claimed that ‘a significant number of countries’ would contribute ground forces. France would almost certainly do so, and Turkey, Australia, New Zealand, Canada, Denmark and Sweden might follow suit. Italy has ruled it out as has Finland, while Poland, Estonia, Latvia and Lithuania, which all border Russia, are more likely to prioritise securing their own frontiers. Polish Prime Minister Donald Tusk last month said: ‘We do not plan to send Polish soldiers to the territory of Ukraine.’ Assembling a strength of 30,000 looks daunting.

The UK does not have much flexibility in the air or at sea either. There has been a suggestion that the RAF could deploy Typhoon fighter aircraft to keep the peace from above. It has 137 Typhoons in total, of which 26 of the oldest are due to retire this month. The others are committed to national air defence, British Forces Cyprus, Qatar and Nato’s Air Policing mission in Poland.

 

[Don't Toews Me]

Russian Offensive Campaign Assessment, March 22, 2025

Russian Mobilization and Force Generation Efforts (Russian objective: Expand combat power without conducting general mobilization)

The Kremlin continues to innovate new ways to leverage conscripts to increase the pool of servicemembers eligible for military service in the future. The Russian State Duma passed a bill in its first reading on March 21 that grants military registration and enlistment offices the right to take conscripts into military service up to one year after the conclusion of a conscription period.[79] The proposed bill also allows Russian federal subjects (regions) to create a unified recruitment point analogous to the one that currently exists in Moscow Oblast. The proposed bill will only impact compulsory military service and not the mobilization reserve.[80] The bill would expand the types of decisions military registration and enlistment offices can make about conscripts and allow these offices to expedite the dispatch of conscripts to military service without having to undergo the standard psychological and medical evaluations. The bill would expand the purview of military registration offices to send personnel to military service, thus increasing the size of the Russian armed forces. ISW has observed other indicators that Russia is unwilling and unprepared to demobilize its military, even in the event of a potential ceasefire in Ukraine.[81]

Russian Technological Adaptations (Russian objective: Introduce technological innovations to optimize systems for use in Ukraine)

The Russian defense industrial base (DIB) continues efforts to expand Russia's air defense capabilities. The Kalashnikov Concern, a subsidiary of Russian state-owned defense conglomerate Rostec, announced on March 19 that it presented a fully functional model of the "Krona" short-range air defense missile system.[82] The Kalashnikov Concern first presented a "Krona" model in early February 2025 and noted that this system is designed to protect strategic government and infrastructure facilities in the Russian rear from medium-range drone strikes.[83] The Kalashnikov Concern confirmed that the "Krona" is equipped with 9M340 and 9M333 guided anti-aircraft missiles.[84]

Why Russia’s Engels air base became Ukraine’s No 1 target

On the morning of the March 20 strike, Ukrainian accounts say there were three Tu-95 and two Tu-160 strategic bombers at Engels.
But the aircraft was not the target.
Andrii Kovalenko, the head of Ukraine’s Center for Countering Disinformation, said that the strike caused a significant loss of missiles, including the Kh-101, estimated to cost $13 million (£ 10 million) a piece.
Mr Kovalenko said: “The exact number will be determined later. This airbase stores the largest stockpile of missiles used by Russia’s strategic aviation for strikes against Ukraine.”
The footage of the strike also supports his report.
The size of the explosion, the mushroom cloud it produced, and the subsequent fires it triggered, are in line with the theory that a weapons storage area was hit — and well.
Open-source analysts reported that an Il-76 Candid airlifter had recently arrived, supposedly carrying additional missiles for the bombers.

 

[Chadstroma]

Putin changed his plans? Why Russia stalled near Pokrovsk and what’s happening in Kursk

Read more

newsukraine.rbc.ua

 

[Don't Toews Me]

Russian Offensive Campaign Assessment, March 23, 2025

Unconfirmed reports suggest that there is tension between Russian Central Bank Chairperson Elvira Nabiullina and the Kremlin over Russia's high interest rate and wartime monetary policies. A Russian insider source claimed on March 23 that the Russian Federation Council Accounts Chamber (the Russian Federation’s highest audit body) recently initiated an audit of the Russian Central Bank to investigate its monetary policy from 2022 to 2024 and the impact of the interest rate on inflation, budget expenditures, and investment. The source claimed that the investigation is "effectively" an attack on Nabiullina. The insider source claimed that a group of lobbyists from large Russian businesses seek interest rate reductions. ISW cannot independently verify this insider source's claim and has not observed other reporting about the alleged audit.

Russian inflation has been rising due to Russia's full-scale invasion of Ukraine, and the Russian Central Bank decided in December 2024 to maintain the key interest rate at 21 percent – the highest Russian interest rate since 2003 – as part of efforts to curb growing inflation rates. The Russian Central Bank‘s interest rate through 2025 has remained relatively conservative despite significant and growing inflationary pressures. The Kremlin has claimed in recent months that the inflation rate is about nine to 10 percent, but these figures are likely far below the actual inflation rate, which is likely closer to 20 to 25 percent. Russia's current interest rate should likely be higher, and the Kremlin likely pressured the Central Bank to keep the rate at 21 percent when the Central Bank should have increased it to curb inflation.

Russian President Vladimir Putin has also attempted to shift blame for the rising inflation rate on the Central Bank, and on Nabiullina in particular. This was likely in an effort to draw the ire of the Russian business community away from the Kremlin and onto her, although Nabiullina likely has not been able to exercise fully independent monetary policy. The audit on the Central Bank may be part of the Kremlin's ongoing efforts to apply political pressure on the bank to prevent further interest rate hikes beyond the current rate of 21 percent, manage the expectations and frustrations of the Russian business community, and further the Kremlin's narrative about Russia's economic stability. The Kremlin’s continued manipulation of the Central Bank's decisions is likely hampering the Russian government's ability to enact sound wartime monetary policies.

Russian forces conducted offensive operations to push Ukrainian forces out of their remaining positions in Kursk Oblast on March 23 but did not make any confirmed advances.

Unconfirmed claims: A Russian milblogger claimed that Russian forces are advancing toward Oleshnya (southwest of Sudzha along the international border).

A Russian milblogger claimed that it would take Russian forces at least one month to push Ukrainian forces out of their remaining positions in Kursk Oblast.

Ukrainian forces continued limited attacks in Belgorod Oblast on March 23.

Russian milbloggers claimed that Ukrainian forces attacked with engineering equipment near Grafovka and Demidovka (both northwest of Belgorod City). One milblogger claimed that Ukrainian forces advanced into southern Demidovka after Russian forces had problems with communications among units but that Russian forces then pushed Ukrainian forces out of the settlement.

The Ukrainian General Staff reported on March 23 that the Ukrainian Air Force struck a Russian command and control post in Glotovo, Belgorod Oblast (west of Belgorod City near the international border) on March 21, destroying communications devices and technical equipment.

https://x.com/Archer83Able/status/1903920783941939636

A road bridge located in the settlement of Grafovka, Belgorod Oblast of Russia was seriously damaged as a result of Ukrainian strikes.

That effectively cuts one of the roads leading to the settlement of Demidovka in the Belgorod region, where the Ukrainian military incursion is reportedly underway.

50.912630,35.429257

China does not plan to participate in a peacekeeping mission in Ukraine

Contrary to claims by the newspaper Die Welt, the Chinese Foreign Ministry denied allegations that China is considering participating in a possible European-led peacekeeping mission in Ukraine in the Chinese state newspaper Global Times.

https://x.com/RALee85/status/1903905956003717379

From an interview with commanders from the Ukrainian Unmanned Systems Forces' @14reg_army, "'Overall, I believe that the 14th Regiment is involved in 30-40% of deep strikes. But these are no longer operations by a single service. They are complex special operations involving all the defence forces...

Our drones are better than their Western counterparts. When it comes to deep strikes, that's 100% true. Because our manufacturers are in direct contact with the battlefield! Of course they don’t go on all the missions, but they get fast, high-quality feedback. That’s the only thing that works...

About 80-90% of the drones our regiment uses are domestically produced now, and the other 10% come from abroad. At the start it was the other way round. Foreign models are like Toyotas now, while Ukrainian ones are Mercedes. Ours are just leagues ahead.'"

https://x.com/RALee85/status/1904105371607699725

According to Ukraine’s Unmanned Systems Forces, 85% of Russian equipment and personnel losses caused by the 59th Assault Brigade is with unmanned systems.

https://x.com/RALee85/status/1904067814371000578

Ukrainian SSO in an operation with GUR say that they destroyed two Russian Ka-52 and two Mi-8 helicopters with HIMARS strikes in Belgorod oblast.

Ukraine railway says its online systems targeted in large-scale cyberattack

The online systems of Ukraine's state-owned railway company Ukrzaliznytsia have been targeted by a large-scale cyberattack, the railway said on Monday.
Train traffic has been stable and running without delays, it said on Telegram. Work to restore the online systems has been going on for the past day.

At least four dead under shelling in Ukraine

At least four people were killed and 13 others wounded in Russian attacks across Ukraine, according to regional Ukrainian officials.

In the Donetsk region, two residents were killed, one in Pokrovsk and the other in the village of Donetske. Two others were wounded, Governor Vadym Filashkin said. In the Sumy region, Russian attacks killed two civilians and wounded another. They destroyed a house and damaged an educational facility, the regional military administration reported.

A pregnant woman and a man, both 25, were injured by the explosion of a Russian drone in the Kharkiv region. Both were hospitalized, Governor Oleh Syniehubov said. A 55-year-old man was also injured by a drone strike in the area and was hospitalized with an injury from the blast.

In the Kherson region, four people were injured after an attack on a building and 25 houses.

Kremlin raises financial incentives to over $23,000 amid military recruitment shortages

Russia is increasing financial incentives for military recruits due to a severe shortage of new volunteers, Ukraine’s Military Intelligence (HUR) reported on March 23.

The Kremlin has raised payments for signing the first contract to over 2 million rubles ($23,800) in several regions, with recruits in the Samara region being offered nearly 4 million rubles ($47,600), according to HUR.

Atesh partisans sabotage railway line in Russia's Smolensk Oblast, group claims

The Atesh partisan group sabotaged a railway line in Russia's Smolensk Oblast, disrupting the transport of military cargo toward Bryansk and the Kursk Oblast, the group claimed via Telegram on March 23.

 

[Don't Toews Me]

War in Ukraine: Kiev fears a Russian spring offensive

For a long time, the axes of thrust have focused on the Donbass region and on the reconquest of the Russian region of Kursk, part of which had fallen under Ukrainian control after the lightning offensive last August. But as spring approaches, Kiev fears an increase in offensives aimed at overwhelming Ukrainian capabilities, including on the peripheral areas of the front: in the north, towards the Sumy region – bordering the Kursk Oblast – and the Kharkiv region; as well as in the south, towards the city of Zaporizhzhia, which has been relatively spared in recent months.

In the south, enemy movements intensified. Several units have been redeployed in this region, between the city of Zaporizhzhia and the left bank of the Dnieper, and localized strikes and attacks are increasing. "The situation is worsening in the Zaporizhzhia, Hulyaipole and Orikhiv directions," Vladislav Voloshin, a spokesman for the Ukrainian army's Southern Command, recently warned. "The mud is gone. There is more vegetation and visibility is reduced. The enemy is therefore trying to improve its tactical position," he continued, pointing to more than 130 clashes in the direction of Orikhiv, on the axis leading to the city of Zaporizhzhia.

In the north, Russian troops are trying to maintain the momentum of their counteroffensive in Kursk, to threaten the Sumy region. A force estimated at between 22,000 and 27,000 troops threatens the border and several infiltrations have been reported by the military authorities. On both sides of the line, the Ukrainians are redoubling their efforts to fortify their positions. For Serhii Kuzan, director of the Ukrainian Center for Security and Cooperation, a Kyiv-based think-tank, Russian troops are not in a position to pose a lasting threat to Ukraine's northern territories. "The Russian units are exhausted, they have lost the momentum," he said. "In addition, Ukrainian units occupy the heights overlooking the Russian border, positions that are very favourable to defence," he added. On the other side of the border, as everywhere else, on the front, the Ukrainians are redoubling their efforts to fortify their positions and undermine the approaches to the front line.

Russian Offensive Campaign Assessment, March 24, 2025

Ukrainian forces recently advanced in Demidovka along the international border in northwestern Belgorod Oblast amid ongoing Ukrainian attacks in the area. Geolocated footage published on March 24 indicates that Ukrainian forces recently advanced in central Demidovka (northwest of Belgorod City). Russian milbloggers acknowledged that Ukrainian forces advanced into southern Demidovka but denied that Ukrainian forces seized the settlement. Ukrainian forces began limited attacks into northwestern Belgorod Oblast on March 18 and have made marginal advances towards Grafovka (southeast of Demidovka) and Prilesye (south of Demidovka) over the last six days. Russian milbloggers claimed on March 24 that Ukrainian forces also began attacking towards Popovka (west of Demidovka). Russian milbloggers claimed that Ukrainian forces are operating all-terrain vehicles (ATVs) and some armored vehicles and attacking in small infantry groups. Russian sources claimed that Russia redeployed border guards, Chechen Akhmat forces, elements of the Russian Northern Grouping of Forces, and elements of the 155th Naval Infantry Brigade (Pacific Fleet) to respond to the Ukrainian attacks in northwestern Belgorod Oblast. ISW will not offer an assessment of Ukraine's intent behind these attacks at this time.
Ukrainian forces appear to be leveraging long-range strikes to complicate Russian logistics and command and control (C2) in the area. Ukrainian forces recently conducted two strikes on Russian command posts in western Belgorod Oblast, destroying communications equipment. Ukraine's Special Operations Forces (SSO) reported on March 24 that Ukrainian forces downed four Russian helicopters over Belgorod Oblast. Russian milbloggers claimed that Ukrainian forces recently struck a bridge near Grafovka and another bridge near Nadezhevka (east of Grafovka), likely to complicate Russian logistics in the area. Russian milbloggers claimed that Ukrainian drone strikes, shelling, and HIMARS strikes are also complicating Russian forces' ability to hold some positions in the area.

Britain backs force for Ukraine but security community has doubts

But within the security community, concern is growing about whether a European force could sustain such a mission long term — particularly if there’s no meaningful backing from the United States.

The British Army, like many worldwide, faces major challenges in recruitment and retention. In 2010, it numbered more than 100,000 full-time personnel; by 2024, it had fallen to 72,000.

Reversing the “hollowing out” of British forces in recent years would require spending “something on the far side of 3 percent” of GDP, according to Ben Barry, a senior fellow at the International Institute for Strategic Studies. Starmer pledged recently to increase defense spending to 2.5 percent by 2027.
Britain and others “could probably provide 30,000 troops in Ukraine,” Barry said, but would “struggle to sustain them for the long term.”

Recruitment challenges here long predate the war in Ukraine.
“It’s fiendishly difficult,” said Eyal, the analyst. “One of the problems that nobody likes to discuss when we talk about boosting defense expenditure is that you can buy a lot of military equipment if you throw money at it, but you can’t manpower overnight. That takes time.”

https://x.com/ChristopherJM/status/1904257002806948184

Russia attacked the northeastern Ukrainian city of Sumy with missiles. Authorities now say 90+ people wounded, including 17 children. Among the buildings hit was a school. President Zelensky said the students were in the shelter at the time, otherwise casualties would be much higher.

Three Russian journalists killed in Ukrainian shelling

Three Russian state media employees were killed in the occupied Luhansk oblast while covering the conflict, reports the Kyiv Independent. Among them was a reporter from one of Russia's largest newspapers, Izvestia. He died while reporting on the front. The other two victims are two employees of Zvezda TV, a channel linked to the Russian Ministry of Defence. A military expert denounced a premeditated act on the Soloviev Live programme, saying that the journalists had been monitored by drones before being targeted by a Himars fire.

https://x.com/ChrisO_wiki/status/1904462995716989045

1/ Russian vehicle logistics have virtually collapsed in frontline areas due to the constant threat of drones, forcing soldiers to walk tens of kilometers to obtain fuel, food, water and medical supplies. A first-hand account gives an insight into the extreme danger they face.
2/ As previously reported, transporting supplies and evacuating the wounded is now largely done on foot (or, famously, by donkeys) in an area about 20 km deep behind the front lines in Ukraine. Anything that moves is attacked by drones.
3/ Men have to walk across open fields with no concealment or ability to evade drone attacks, leaving them very vulnerable. The Russians constantly take casualties just to keep their front lines supplied.
4/ As warblogger Anatoly Radov puts it: "The guys tell me, we have two 200s [dead] and five 300s [wounded], and this is in one area. Considering that this is daily, everyone marching to Lviv, personal ****. I don't know how it will all end..."
5/ A frontline Russian soldier who runs the 'Groundhog Day' Telegram channel describes a resupply trip that he undertook on 22 March:

"Today it was my turn to go after all sorts of things.

We left, the three of us, at eleven in the morning."
6/ "Running, with a plate of body armor hitting our chins painfully, with a rag "hump" dangling behind us... A knee-deep trench – and that was done. A sprint of a hundred meters according to the map – and into a hole. We waited, listened... Jumped on.
7/ "A hundred there, a hundred here, phantom drones buzzing in our ears – and almost at the finish line, the drone turned out to be no phantom at all. I rolled under some burnt equipment, my partner pretended to be a bush – he got into the very heart of the thorns, the *******.
8/ "We sit, waiting for a guide – nobody knows where to go next. About fifteen minutes later we joined a second group and sat down in cover. A very exciting activity - filling a backpack to the hum of a rotary-winged beast! We had fun for about two hours.
9/ "Running again. Again in the first pair and again, a damned waiting drone, damn him. Using morale and willpower, I reach the trench, dive into it and hide in the shelter to the disgusting screech of a kamikaze drone taking off about fifty meters away.
10/ "And so it goes for the whole day. We return back when it is already twilight. Sweaty, lathered, eyes bulging... They shared what they had brought without us. Of course, no one was left empty-handed – all of us." /end

 

[Chadstroma]

Europe’s half-baked rearmament boom is already turning into a fiasco​

Never underestimate Europe’s capacity to disappoint. Rearmament euphoria and the explosive catch-up rally in European industrial stocks over the last month have run ahead of hard fiscal facts.

Italy and Spain do not have credible plans to ramp up defence spending, and nor does France when you drill into the details

The Club Med bloc and Belgium are already in an incipient compound interest trap of rising real borrowing costs (as is the UK).

“It is simply not possible for us to find another €20bn [€17bn] or €30bn euros for weapons when we are already making tremendous efforts to cut our debt burden, and we’re fundamentally constrained in what we can do for the Italian people,” said Italy’s finance minister, Giancarlo Giorgetti.

The military Keynesian boom is chiefly a German story. The €900bn coalition plan for extra defence and infrastructure spending over 10 years is large. It amounts to €90bn annually or 2pc of German GDP.

But keep it in perspective. The Draghi Report says the EU as a whole must raise investment by €800bn every year to pull the bloc out of technological decline, coupled with deregulation shock therapy. The more we see of Europe’s patchy and fractious rearmament, the less it looks like Chamberlain’s blitz in 1938 or Roosevelt’s in 1941.

Sven Jari Stehn from Goldman Sachs has added up the aggregate stimulus for the eurozone and concluded that it barely moves the needle over the mid-2020s. The net “fiscal impulse” will still be negative this year, and neutral next year.

Growth will be just 0.9pc in 2025. He has cut his forecast to 1.3pc in 2026, and 1.5pc in 2027. There is a further catch: the spike in German Bund yields has forced up yields for others, further poisoning Club Med debt dynamics. This effect “more than offsets the small tailwinds to growth,” he said.

I can see why investors are spurning Wall Street and rotating out of “American exceptionalism”, and not just because the US economy is stalling, or because Donald Trump’s tariffs will bring 1970s stagflation, or because he has destroyed so much American credibility in just eight short weeks.

It is above all because Trump is weakening the struts of US capitalism by playing fast and loose with the legal system, shaking down companies and threatening judges.

Sarah Bianchi, from Evercore ISI, says the market exodus will accelerate if he meddles with “the judiciary’s ability to enforce contracts” – in my view he already is – or defies the Supreme Court.

Bank of America data show that foreign funds cut their $16 trillion (£12.4 trillion) holding of US equities very fast in March.

It is less obvious why traders are betting on a secular euro-boom instead. Europe is just as likely to deliver another of its habitual damp squibs. Are they assuming that Trump will not impose draconian tariffs on the EU, and will not escalate further when Brussels retaliates?

Surplus countries suffer most in a trade war. Europe has made itself asymmetrically vulnerable by relying for so long on Anglo-Saxon demand to drive its economy.

France’s Emmanuel Macron talks grandly of EU rearmament but lacks both the political capital and the fiscal firepower to put his economy on a war footing. France has a structural budget deficit of 5pc of GDP.

The International Monetary Fund says public debt hit 112pc last year and is heading for 124pc by 2029 even before any rise in military spending.

He faces a parliament in thrall to the pacifist Front Populaire on the Left and Marine Le Pen’s Trumpian Rassemblement on the Right.

Macron aims to boost defence by around 0.8pc of GDP by 2030, but how will he pay for it on top of all his other nosebleed pledges – AI dominance, a fleet of nuclear reactors, etc. – while also pledging to ringfence the French social model?

The European Commission’s €800bn ReArm Europe Plan slips through your fingers like fine sand – “virtual” money in the lapidary words of Italy’s Giorgia Meloni, who said it was “mad” to try to go it alone without the US.

Most of the €800bn is a theoretical figure to come from member states. The hard core is a €150bn EU lending facility to beef up Europe’s arms industry but this has already run into trouble, starting with Hungary’s veto.


The Spanish want to use the money for climate change, turning the mechanism into a slush fund like the Covid Recovery Fund, which ended up being used for every pet scheme except for Covid.

As always, Brussels, Paris and others have an ulterior motive in pushing for joint debt issuance. They seize on every chance to try to smuggle through fiscal union – or to get their hands on the credit card of “the frugals”, to be more prosaic.

The Dutch refuse any use of ReArm Europe for joint lending; the Germans are unlikely to be more sympathetic once Friedrich Merz takes charge. He must bend over backwards to show that last week’s changes to the constitutional debt-brake do not open the floodgates to fiscal ruin.

“Having ditched one taboo, the German centre-Right is even more reluctant to breach another,” said Berenberg Bank. Eurobonds are stone dead.


The rearmament saga is exposing deep lines of cleavage within the EU, above all between those states still trying to keep the US on board, and Europeanists who see it as a chance – a blessing from Mars, to borrow from German historian Fritz Fischer – to break free and turn Europe into a muscular great power.

Germany’s excellent Sparta plan calls for drastic spending on the “sharp end” of defence to block Vladimir Putin before he is tempted to attack again (next time Narva or the Suwalki Gap).

It wants a drone wall, along with weapons that can be delivered within months, or five years at the limit. Europe should work with what it has got and not waste time arguing about new instruments, or let the mission be hijacked by Brussels.

But the worst is now happening. The talks are degenerating into a procurement carve-up, with each country hoping to use EU money to push its own weapons systems as a form of industrial and jobs policy.


An unpleasant mix of euro ideology and hard-nosed protectionism means that the UK is being excluded even though it is an integral part of Europe’s military ecosystem, and is defending the EU’s frontline against Russia with troops and is rock solid behind Ukraine.

We have the surreal situation where South Korea and Japan can bid for contracts, up to a point, but British firms cannot because the UK does not have a formal defence pact with the EU, and such a pact is not possible unless London submits to other Commission demands, starting with fish.

It is doubly surreal because Berlin is angling for British nuclear protection, and talks are under way behind the scenes for a joint Anglo-French nuclear deterrent.

The likely result of ReArm Europe is to weaken the emotional solidarity that binds the cross-Channel alliance, and to cure a generation of Labour leaders of their reflexive europhilia.


Please forgive my burst of optimism a few weeks ago. I now fear that the EU’s incorrigible pathologies will reassert themselves, and that Europe’s half-baked rearmament will degenerate into a fiasco.

I fear too that Europe will abandon brave Ukraine to the wolves (plural).

 

[ghostguy123]

So I take the cease fire thing went nowhere?

 

[Dezbelief]

Russia and Ukraine agree Black Sea ceasefire, but Zelensky says Russia is lying about terms

The two countries agree to ensure safe navigation of ships and eliminate the use of force in the Black Sea, the US says after talks in Riyadh.

www.bbc.com

 

[Don't Toews Me]

Trump Says It’s Possible Putin Is Dragging His Feet on Ceasefire

The US intelligence community believes that Russia and Ukraine might see a greater incentive to prolong the three-year conflict if an ultimate settlement was dissatisfying, despite significant military and economic risks, according to an assessment presented at a Senate hearing earlier Tuesday.

Russia has ‘seized the upper hand’ in Ukraine war, intel community warns

U.S. intelligence agencies sounded the alarm on Ukraine’s dwindling battlefield prospects against Russia in an annual report released Tuesday.

The 2025 Annual Threat Assessment of the U.S. Intelligence Community — released by the Office of the Director of National Intelligence in conjunction with top officials’ testimony at a Senate Intelligence Committee hearing — warns that Moscow has “seized the upper hand” in the war over the past year and “is on a path to accrue greater leverage” to force favorable terms in its negotiations with Ukraine and the West.
Intelligence agencies see continued Russian military resilience despite heavy battlefield losses — replenishing personnel and ratcheting up its industrial capacity.

“Even though Russian President [Vladimir] Putin will be unable to achieve the total victory he envisioned when initiating the large-scale invasion in February 2022, Russia retains momentum as a grinding war of attrition plays to Russia’s military advantages,” the report states. “This grinding war of attrition will lead to a gradual but steady erosion of Kyiv’s position on the battlefield, regardless of any U.S. or allied attempts to impose new and greater costs on Moscow.”

Russia maintains high missile production levels, Ukraine's intelligence says

Russia currently maintains a high level of missile production, particularly for Kh-101, Kalibr and Iskander missiles.

Source: Major General Vadym Skibitskyi, Deputy Head of Defence Intelligence of Ukraine, in a comment to Ukrinform

Details: When asked which types of missiles Russia is currently producing the most, Skibitskyi stated: "They are essentially... maintaining a high level of missile production. Which ones? Kh-101..., Kalibr – they are now replenishing their arsenals and stocks that were depleted during missile strikes."

Skibitskyi said that Russia is currently paying great attention to the production of Iskander missiles, primarily to achieve greater accuracy and destructive power.

Quote: "And no one has cancelled hypersonic missiles. Kinzhal, Zirkon – these are now their priority in production, as they consider them high-precision weapons."

Zaporizhzhia nuclear plant to stay in Russian control, Moscow says

Russia's Foreign Ministry said on Tuesday the Zaporizhzhia nuclear plant was a Russian facility and transferring control of it to Ukraine or any other country was impossible.
The ministry also said that jointly operating the plant was not admissible as it would be impossible to properly ensure the physical and nuclear safety of the station.

Mykolaiv port targeted by drone attacks, Ukrainian authorities say

The mayor of Mykolaiv, Ukraine's southern port, said there were emergency power outages early Wednesday in the city, following Russian drone attacks. According to a report by the regional governor, seven drones were destroyed overnight over the area.

Emergency power cuts in Ukrainian port city - as Russia launches 'biggest drone attack yet' on Zelenskyy's hometown

The mayor of the port city of Mykolaiv said there were emergency power outages early this morning after reports seven drones were downed over the region.

It's not clear if those power cuts were precautionary or a result of the overnight attack.

Meanwhile, Russia launched its biggest drone attack yet on Volodymyr Zelenskyy's hometown of Kryvyi Rih, according to the city's military administration chief.

https://x.com/RALee85/status/1904659002627416098

"Russian forces have resumed their attacks in the Pokrovsk sector in Donetsk Oblast, Mykola Koval, the spokesperson of Ukraine's National Guard's Chervona Kalyna brigade, said on March 25...

'Recently, they (Russian soldiers) have become more active. We have successfully repelled the assaults, we are holding the line, but the enemy is trying to break through our defense line and reach our positions and gain a foothold in some positions daily,' Koval told Kyiv24 Channel.

According to the spokesperson, the Russian military attacks Ukrainian positions 'as at the beginning of the active phase' in the Pokrovsk sector, involving more first-person-view (FPV) drones and artillery, as well as infantry.

'And it's very difficult to deter the enemy with such an influx,' he added."

https://x.com/Rhaescuporis/status/1904565690964836713

According to Journal of War Medicine, 75% of WIA sustained injuries caused by UAV (both kamikaze and bombers). Another 20% were hit with artillery fire, 4%-firearms. KIA ratio could be slightly different though. Thanks to @verstka_media for highlighting the publication

https://x.com/kromark/status/1904792807031660600

1/2 Aftermath of Ukraine's drone strike on 'Kavkazskaya' oil hub in Krasnodar Krai, Russia, seen in a March 25 Sentinel image: all five reservoirs are damaged or destroyed, as revealed after the fire was extinguished. This facility, part of the export chain, stored 60 m3 of oil.

Russia has struck Ukraine's energy sites 8 times since Putin's claimed pause on March 18, Zelensky's advisor says

Ukraine has recorded eight confirmed hits against its energy facilities by Russian forces since March 18, when the Kremlin claimed to have ordered a pause on such attacks, presidential advisor Dmytro Lytvyn said on March 25.

The official did not specify which facilities were hit or when. The Kyiv Independent could not verify the claims.

DTEK, Ukraine's largest energy company, told the Kyiv Independent that their facilities recorded no hits between March 18 and 25, despite being regularly targeted before that.

 

[rockaction]

Have there been any detailed, non-paywalled articles or even a consensus one can point to that talks about how the war has changed since Zelensky's infamous meeting in the White House? I'd be curious to know. And keep this on the up-and-up and no op-ed opinion posts. I'm just curious if there's been serious work on it.

 

[Chadstroma]

'A lot of problems for Russia' — How Ukraine's new 3,000km drone could boost Kyiv's war effort

Ukraine last week announced the latest advance in the ongoing drone race with Russia, saying its new variant had the longest range of any in its arsenal and had successfully completed testing. "Our drone with a 3,000-kilometer range has passed testing," President Volodymyr Zelensky said during...

kyivindependent.com

 

[beer 30]

Europe’s half-baked rearmament boom is already turning into a fiasco​

Never underestimate Europe’s capacity to disappoint. Rearmament euphoria and the explosive catch-up rally in European industrial stocks over the last month have run ahead of hard fiscal facts.

Italy and Spain do not have credible plans to ramp up defence spending, and nor does France when you drill into the details

The Club Med bloc and Belgium are already in an incipient compound interest trap of rising real borrowing costs (as is the UK).

“It is simply not possible for us to find another €20bn [€17bn] or €30bn euros for weapons when we are already making tremendous efforts to cut our debt burden, and we’re fundamentally constrained in what we can do for the Italian people,” said Italy’s finance minister, Giancarlo Giorgetti.

The military Keynesian boom is chiefly a German story. The €900bn coalition plan for extra defence and infrastructure spending over 10 years is large. It amounts to €90bn annually or 2pc of German GDP.

But keep it in perspective. The Draghi Report says the EU as a whole must raise investment by €800bn every year to pull the bloc out of technological decline, coupled with deregulation shock therapy. The more we see of Europe’s patchy and fractious rearmament, the less it looks like Chamberlain’s blitz in 1938 or Roosevelt’s in 1941.

Sven Jari Stehn from Goldman Sachs has added up the aggregate stimulus for the eurozone and concluded that it barely moves the needle over the mid-2020s. The net “fiscal impulse” will still be negative this year, and neutral next year.

Growth will be just 0.9pc in 2025. He has cut his forecast to 1.3pc in 2026, and 1.5pc in 2027. There is a further catch: the spike in German Bund yields has forced up yields for others, further poisoning Club Med debt dynamics. This effect “more than offsets the small tailwinds to growth,” he said.

I can see why investors are spurning Wall Street and rotating out of “American exceptionalism”, and not just because the US economy is stalling, or because Donald Trump’s tariffs will bring 1970s stagflation, or because he has destroyed so much American credibility in just eight short weeks.

It is above all because Trump is weakening the struts of US capitalism by playing fast and loose with the legal system, shaking down companies and threatening judges.

Sarah Bianchi, from Evercore ISI, says the market exodus will accelerate if he meddles with “the judiciary’s ability to enforce contracts” – in my view he already is – or defies the Supreme Court.

Bank of America data show that foreign funds cut their $16 trillion (£12.4 trillion) holding of US equities very fast in March.

It is less obvious why traders are betting on a secular euro-boom instead. Europe is just as likely to deliver another of its habitual damp squibs. Are they assuming that Trump will not impose draconian tariffs on the EU, and will not escalate further when Brussels retaliates?

Surplus countries suffer most in a trade war. Europe has made itself asymmetrically vulnerable by relying for so long on Anglo-Saxon demand to drive its economy.

France’s Emmanuel Macron talks grandly of EU rearmament but lacks both the political capital and the fiscal firepower to put his economy on a war footing. France has a structural budget deficit of 5pc of GDP.

The International Monetary Fund says public debt hit 112pc last year and is heading for 124pc by 2029 even before any rise in military spending.

He faces a parliament in thrall to the pacifist Front Populaire on the Left and Marine Le Pen’s Trumpian Rassemblement on the Right.

Macron aims to boost defence by around 0.8pc of GDP by 2030, but how will he pay for it on top of all his other nosebleed pledges – AI dominance, a fleet of nuclear reactors, etc. – while also pledging to ringfence the French social model?

The European Commission’s €800bn ReArm Europe Plan slips through your fingers like fine sand – “virtual” money in the lapidary words of Italy’s Giorgia Meloni, who said it was “mad” to try to go it alone without the US.

Most of the €800bn is a theoretical figure to come from member states. The hard core is a €150bn EU lending facility to beef up Europe’s arms industry but this has already run into trouble, starting with Hungary’s veto.


The Spanish want to use the money for climate change, turning the mechanism into a slush fund like the Covid Recovery Fund, which ended up being used for every pet scheme except for Covid.

As always, Brussels, Paris and others have an ulterior motive in pushing for joint debt issuance. They seize on every chance to try to smuggle through fiscal union – or to get their hands on the credit card of “the frugals”, to be more prosaic.

The Dutch refuse any use of ReArm Europe for joint lending; the Germans are unlikely to be more sympathetic once Friedrich Merz takes charge. He must bend over backwards to show that last week’s changes to the constitutional debt-brake do not open the floodgates to fiscal ruin.

“Having ditched one taboo, the German centre-Right is even more reluctant to breach another,” said Berenberg Bank. Eurobonds are stone dead.


The rearmament saga is exposing deep lines of cleavage within the EU, above all between those states still trying to keep the US on board, and Europeanists who see it as a chance – a blessing from Mars, to borrow from German historian Fritz Fischer – to break free and turn Europe into a muscular great power.

Germany’s excellent Sparta plan calls for drastic spending on the “sharp end” of defence to block Vladimir Putin before he is tempted to attack again (next time Narva or the Suwalki Gap).

It wants a drone wall, along with weapons that can be delivered within months, or five years at the limit. Europe should work with what it has got and not waste time arguing about new instruments, or let the mission be hijacked by Brussels.

But the worst is now happening. The talks are degenerating into a procurement carve-up, with each country hoping to use EU money to push its own weapons systems as a form of industrial and jobs policy.


An unpleasant mix of euro ideology and hard-nosed protectionism means that the UK is being excluded even though it is an integral part of Europe’s military ecosystem, and is defending the EU’s frontline against Russia with troops and is rock solid behind Ukraine.

We have the surreal situation where South Korea and Japan can bid for contracts, up to a point, but British firms cannot because the UK does not have a formal defence pact with the EU, and such a pact is not possible unless London submits to other Commission demands, starting with fish.

It is doubly surreal because Berlin is angling for British nuclear protection, and talks are under way behind the scenes for a joint Anglo-French nuclear deterrent.

The likely result of ReArm Europe is to weaken the emotional solidarity that binds the cross-Channel alliance, and to cure a generation of Labour leaders of their reflexive europhilia.


Please forgive my burst of optimism a few weeks ago. I now fear that the EU’s incorrigible pathologies will reassert themselves, and that Europe’s half-baked rearmament will degenerate into a fiasco.

I fear too that Europe will abandon brave Ukraine to the wolves (plural).

I mentioned this either in this thread (can't find it) or in another economy thread but this is my fear for Europe, they haven't had to focus on a lot of this for a long time. Gearing back up is 1. going to take a while and 2. force a lot of countries to work together to make something useful for all. No shock it will turn into a **** show, their respective economies aren't prepared for this.

 

[Chadstroma]

More Fighting Falcons Land in Ukraine​

Even as ceasefire talks continue, Ukraine could be in a slightly better bargaining position, as it received an additional batch of U.S.-made F-16 Fighting Falcons. ​

Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky confirmed the jets' arrival on Wednesday while dismissing claims that many of the previously provided aircraft had been shot down.

“Additional F-16s have arrived in Ukraine,” Zelensky said in his latest Zoom briefing. “The Russians are lying when they say they shot something down, they shot nothing down, and the good news is that several F-16 fighter jets have arrived in Ukraine.”

The Ukrainian leader didn't confirm the number of jets delivered this month or from which country they came, but Kyiv is believed to have around three dozen F-16s now in service. Denmark, Belgium, the Netherlands, and Norway have pledged around ninty multirole fighters to aid the war effort.

The Fighting Falcon was among the Western military platforms Kyiv repeatedly said would be necessary to counter the Kremlin's forces.

Russian Disinformation on the Fighting Falcon

Since the first F-16s arrived in Ukraine last August, Russia has claimed on numerous occasions to have shot down the aircraft. One was lost just weeks after the Fighting Falcons entered service in Ukraine, but pilot error, likely due to a lack of training, is believed to have been the leading factor.

In December 2024, the first American-made F-16 Fighting Falcon was downed over southeastern Ukraine. It was the first loss of a Western-supplied fixed-wing aircraft in the now more than three-year-long conflict.

This week, the Ukrainian Air Force dismissed new claims by Russian media that another F-16 had been downed over the Sumy region of the northeast region earlier this week. Russian military bloggers have claimed on the Telegram social messaging app that Russian forces had succeeded in shooting down the fighter.

While the pro-Kremlin propagandists have been critical of the handling of the war, without criticizing Russian President Vladimir Putin directly, and have acknowledged Russia's losses, they have increasingly spread misinformation/disinformation related to Kyiv's losses.

In addition, “Russian propagandists continue to spread disinformation about alleged crimes committed by Ukrainian forces in Russia's Kursk region,” Ukrinform reported.

Is the Fighting Falcon Training Being Rushed?​

Even as the additional Fighting Falcons are now in Ukraine, the question is whether there are enough skilled pilots to fly the warbirds. As previously reported, Kyiv has been exploring how to truncate the training time for the F-16s.

“The basic training program needs to be optimized. This will enable us to train more pilots to defend our country,” Deputy Defence Minister Serhiy Melnkyk stated in a briefing at the end of last year.

“Ukrainian combat aviation must eventually gain air superiority, as this paves the way for the success of our actions on the front line.”

Currently, Ukrainian aviators are trained on the F-16 in the UK and Romania, where Lockheed Martin set up a training facility last year to aid NATO efforts.

Fighting Falcon and Other Western Fighters Set to Arrive​

In addition to the F-16s, NATO member France has pledged to send an undisclosed number of Mirage 2000s to aid Kyiv, and the first of those multirole fighters arrived last month.

“These modern combat aircraft have already arrived in Ukraine and will soon begin carrying out combat missions, strengthening our defense and enhancing our ability to counter Russian aggression effectively,” Ukrainian Minister of Defense Rustem Umerov told reporters soon after the first batch of French aircraft arrived.

 

[Chadstroma]

Europe’s half-baked rearmament boom is already turning into a fiasco​

Never underestimate Europe’s capacity to disappoint. Rearmament euphoria and the explosive catch-up rally in European industrial stocks over the last month have run ahead of hard fiscal facts.

Italy and Spain do not have credible plans to ramp up defence spending, and nor does France when you drill into the details

The Club Med bloc and Belgium are already in an incipient compound interest trap of rising real borrowing costs (as is the UK).

“It is simply not possible for us to find another €20bn [€17bn] or €30bn euros for weapons when we are already making tremendous efforts to cut our debt burden, and we’re fundamentally constrained in what we can do for the Italian people,” said Italy’s finance minister, Giancarlo Giorgetti.

The military Keynesian boom is chiefly a German story. The €900bn coalition plan for extra defence and infrastructure spending over 10 years is large. It amounts to €90bn annually or 2pc of German GDP.

But keep it in perspective. The Draghi Report says the EU as a whole must raise investment by €800bn every year to pull the bloc out of technological decline, coupled with deregulation shock therapy. The more we see of Europe’s patchy and fractious rearmament, the less it looks like Chamberlain’s blitz in 1938 or Roosevelt’s in 1941.

Sven Jari Stehn from Goldman Sachs has added up the aggregate stimulus for the eurozone and concluded that it barely moves the needle over the mid-2020s. The net “fiscal impulse” will still be negative this year, and neutral next year.

Growth will be just 0.9pc in 2025. He has cut his forecast to 1.3pc in 2026, and 1.5pc in 2027. There is a further catch: the spike in German Bund yields has forced up yields for others, further poisoning Club Med debt dynamics. This effect “more than offsets the small tailwinds to growth,” he said.

I can see why investors are spurning Wall Street and rotating out of “American exceptionalism”, and not just because the US economy is stalling, or because Donald Trump’s tariffs will bring 1970s stagflation, or because he has destroyed so much American credibility in just eight short weeks.

It is above all because Trump is weakening the struts of US capitalism by playing fast and loose with the legal system, shaking down companies and threatening judges.

Sarah Bianchi, from Evercore ISI, says the market exodus will accelerate if he meddles with “the judiciary’s ability to enforce contracts” – in my view he already is – or defies the Supreme Court.

Bank of America data show that foreign funds cut their $16 trillion (£12.4 trillion) holding of US equities very fast in March.

It is less obvious why traders are betting on a secular euro-boom instead. Europe is just as likely to deliver another of its habitual damp squibs. Are they assuming that Trump will not impose draconian tariffs on the EU, and will not escalate further when Brussels retaliates?

Surplus countries suffer most in a trade war. Europe has made itself asymmetrically vulnerable by relying for so long on Anglo-Saxon demand to drive its economy.

France’s Emmanuel Macron talks grandly of EU rearmament but lacks both the political capital and the fiscal firepower to put his economy on a war footing. France has a structural budget deficit of 5pc of GDP.

The International Monetary Fund says public debt hit 112pc last year and is heading for 124pc by 2029 even before any rise in military spending.

He faces a parliament in thrall to the pacifist Front Populaire on the Left and Marine Le Pen’s Trumpian Rassemblement on the Right.

Macron aims to boost defence by around 0.8pc of GDP by 2030, but how will he pay for it on top of all his other nosebleed pledges – AI dominance, a fleet of nuclear reactors, etc. – while also pledging to ringfence the French social model?

The European Commission’s €800bn ReArm Europe Plan slips through your fingers like fine sand – “virtual” money in the lapidary words of Italy’s Giorgia Meloni, who said it was “mad” to try to go it alone without the US.

Most of the €800bn is a theoretical figure to come from member states. The hard core is a €150bn EU lending facility to beef up Europe’s arms industry but this has already run into trouble, starting with Hungary’s veto.


The Spanish want to use the money for climate change, turning the mechanism into a slush fund like the Covid Recovery Fund, which ended up being used for every pet scheme except for Covid.

As always, Brussels, Paris and others have an ulterior motive in pushing for joint debt issuance. They seize on every chance to try to smuggle through fiscal union – or to get their hands on the credit card of “the frugals”, to be more prosaic.

The Dutch refuse any use of ReArm Europe for joint lending; the Germans are unlikely to be more sympathetic once Friedrich Merz takes charge. He must bend over backwards to show that last week’s changes to the constitutional debt-brake do not open the floodgates to fiscal ruin.

“Having ditched one taboo, the German centre-Right is even more reluctant to breach another,” said Berenberg Bank. Eurobonds are stone dead.


The rearmament saga is exposing deep lines of cleavage within the EU, above all between those states still trying to keep the US on board, and Europeanists who see it as a chance – a blessing from Mars, to borrow from German historian Fritz Fischer – to break free and turn Europe into a muscular great power.

Germany’s excellent Sparta plan calls for drastic spending on the “sharp end” of defence to block Vladimir Putin before he is tempted to attack again (next time Narva or the Suwalki Gap).

It wants a drone wall, along with weapons that can be delivered within months, or five years at the limit. Europe should work with what it has got and not waste time arguing about new instruments, or let the mission be hijacked by Brussels.

But the worst is now happening. The talks are degenerating into a procurement carve-up, with each country hoping to use EU money to push its own weapons systems as a form of industrial and jobs policy.


An unpleasant mix of euro ideology and hard-nosed protectionism means that the UK is being excluded even though it is an integral part of Europe’s military ecosystem, and is defending the EU’s frontline against Russia with troops and is rock solid behind Ukraine.

We have the surreal situation where South Korea and Japan can bid for contracts, up to a point, but British firms cannot because the UK does not have a formal defence pact with the EU, and such a pact is not possible unless London submits to other Commission demands, starting with fish.

It is doubly surreal because Berlin is angling for British nuclear protection, and talks are under way behind the scenes for a joint Anglo-French nuclear deterrent.

The likely result of ReArm Europe is to weaken the emotional solidarity that binds the cross-Channel alliance, and to cure a generation of Labour leaders of their reflexive europhilia.


Please forgive my burst of optimism a few weeks ago. I now fear that the EU’s incorrigible pathologies will reassert themselves, and that Europe’s half-baked rearmament will degenerate into a fiasco.

I fear too that Europe will abandon brave Ukraine to the wolves (plural).

I mentioned this either in this thread (can't find it) or in another economy thread but this is my fear for Europe, they haven't had to focus on a lot of this for a long time. Gearing back up is 1. going to take a while and 2. force a lot of countries to work together to make something useful for all. No shock it will turn into a **** show, their respective economies aren't prepared for this.

For lower tech/manufacturing required equipment... they can ramp up decently well enough. Think artillery shell production, lower scale drones, even tanks (Germany, France and the UK all are developing next generation tanks and you can include Turkey in that as well being quasi European). But there are a lot of areas that there are no European alternatives or they are much less capable and most often unable to produce near the quantities that American manufacturers can.

Excluding UK from those recently allowed dollars while still allowing Japanese and Korean acquisitions just shows how much politics are involved that screw up "European cooperation" just as much as any tensions with the US.

When it comes down to it, Europe is pissed that they are being confronted with the fact that they will no longer take a free ride on their security on the back of the US taxpayers. They are no where near prepared for it either economically or with the ability to produce.

Europe has no real full alternative to US options either in quality or quantity. As they ramp up purchasing power they may be able to ween off of that reliance in some areas but not fully for a very long time. The US will continue to be the gold standard on what you can buy for your military for the foreseeable future.

 

[rockaction]

When it comes down to it, Europe is pissed that they are being confronted with the fact that they will no longer take a free ride on their security on the back of the US taxpayers.

That free riding was the carrot for the stick of being told or pressured to be unarmed so that peace might happen in Europe, which besides the former Yugoslav republics, has been pretty darn peaceful since WWII.

Now, the U.S. has been saying for quite a long time to stop free riding, but there was an unspoken and seriously adhered to agreement about remaining unarmed and peaceful so long as the U.S. was there to defend Europe from Russia. That is no longer the case, and adjustments have to be made by Europe, but the problem might be that it's too late and Russia might have its eye on the Baltics, which then puts NATO into play, which puts the U.S. front and center. I don't like where it is headed.

Four American servicemen (military members) were killed in Lithuania. They were found sunk in their vehicle. Apparently it was during training. This is still currently breaking news.

NATO clarifies comments that four missing US soldiers had died during training in Lithuania

NATO is clarifying comments that Secretary-General Mark Rutte made when he suggested that four U.S. soldiers who went missing while training in Lithuania had died, even though the U.S.

apnews.com

 

[Don't Toews Me]

Interesting interview here: Interview with a Ukrainian F-16 Pilot on Combat against Russia, English Translation

N. Korea presumed to send at least 3,000 more troops to Russia: JCS

North Korea appears to have additionally dispatched at least 3,000 soldiers to Russia in January and February in support of Moscow's war against Ukraine, South Korea's military said Thursday.

The assessment came amid concerns that North Korea and Russia's deepening military alignment could lead to Moscow transferring advanced arms technologies to Pyongyang in return for the troop deployment.

"Of the some 11,000 North Korean soldiers dispatched to Russia, 4,000 casualties have occurred, and it appears that some 3,000 or more have been additionally dispatched in January and February," the South's Joint Chiefs of Staff (JCS) said.

In addition to the troop deployment, the JCS said the North continues to supply missiles, ammunition and artillery equipment to Russia, including "a considerable amount of short-range ballistic missiles and around 220 pieces of 170 millimeter self-propelled howitzers and 240 mm rocket launchers."

Some comments on the potential EU force here:

Macron stressed that European forces would not be in Ukraine to fight. "It is a pacificist approach," he said. But the French president also outlined how the situation on the ground could look after a ceasefire, with a dividing line. The question will be "what the mechanism" will be to monitor the peace, he said. A European force could be "a card in the hand of the Ukrainians" that would "dissuade the Russians" from launching another attack, he explained. But such a force would not be on the front line, he added.

Macron warns European peacemakers could 'respond' if Russia attacks

Speaking after a meeting with Volodymyr Zelenskyy yesterday, Emmanuel Macron talked about potential peacekeeping plans in Ukraine.

"If there was again a generalised aggression against Ukrainian soil, these armies would be under attack and then it's our usual framework of engagement," he said.

"Our soldiers, when they are engaged and deployed, are there to react and respond to the decisions of the commander in chief and, if they are in a conflict situation, to respond to it."

https://x.com/JohnH105/status/1905036567812374663

Ukrainian expert Serhii Flash reported that Russia has recently conducted a small number of FPV drone strikes 25-35 km behind the front line, likely using a mothership UAV to extend their range. This is a concept both sides have experimented with.

Ukraine's Engels drone strike destroyed 96 Russian cruise missiles, General Staff claims

Ukraine's strike on Russia's Engels-2 military airfield on March 20 destroyed 96 air-launched cruise missiles, Ukraine's General Staff said on March 26.

The missiles were reportedly intended for three planned strikes in March and April.

The attack destroyed multiple Kh-101 cruise missiles, among other munitions, Andrii Kovalenko, an official at Ukraine's National Security and Defense Council, said on March 20.

Russian drones cause fires in Kharkiv region

Russian forces launched a massive drone attack on the Ukrainian region of Kharkiv overnight on Thursday, injuring 21 people and damaging residential buildings and warehouses, emergency services and Ukrainian authorities said on Thursday.

Emergency services said on the Telegram app that the attacks had sparked four fires in Ukraine's second-largest city and posted photos of firefighters fighting the flames amid piles of rubble. The Ukrainian Air Force said it had shot down 42 of the 86 drones launched by Russia in the attack. Twenty-six other drones failed to reach their targets, likely due to electronic countermeasures.

Nearly 2,400 km2 of Ukraine have been cleared of mines

Since the beginning of the Russian invasion, sappers from the Ukrainian State Emergency Service (SES) and the National Police have cleared more than 2,400 km² of Ukrainian territory out of the country's 603,628 km2, according to Deputy Interior Minister Bohdan Drapiatyi on Facebook. "To give you an idea, this area corresponds roughly to the size of Luxembourg," he added. "Ukrainian sappers have tested almost all modern technologies and developed effective methods for the use of mechanized demining machines and drones," he added.

He also indicated that the Ministry of the Interior currently has 106 mechanized demining machines.

EU's dependence on Russian gas rises further

The European Union's reliance on Russian gas increased by 18% in 2024 despite the ongoing war in Ukraine, according to a report by think tank Ember.

The imports included both pipeline and liquefied natural gas (LNG).

After Russia invaded Ukraine in February 2022, the EU sanctioned Russian energy sources, including coal and oil.

While the bloc aims to phase out Russian gas by 2027, the plan remains non-binding.

The imports came at a time when gas prices surged by nearly 60% in 2024 in the EU.

Italy, France, and the Czech Republic were among the nations that boosted Russian gas imports last year, the Ember report said.

 

[Chadstroma]

NATO chief appeals for unity as Europe builds its armies and the US eyes security threats elsewhere

NATO Secretary-General Mark Rutte has appealed for unity within the military alliance as European nations scale up their armed forces and defense industries after the Trump administration warned that Europe must take care of its own security in future.

apnews.com

 

[Chadstroma]

EU says 'unconditional withdrawal' of Russia from Ukraine is a precondition to amend sanctions

https://www.reuters.com/world/europe/eu-says-unconditional-withdrawal-russia-ukraine-is-precondition-amend-sanctions-2025-03-26/

 

[beer 30]

EU says 'unconditional withdrawal' of Russia from Ukraine is a precondition to amend sanctions

https://www.reuters.com/world/europe/eu-says-unconditional-withdrawal-russia-ukraine-is-precondition-amend-sanctions-2025-03-26/

EU will fight to the last Ukrainian

 

[Chadstroma]

Ukrainian F-16 pilot says Russia's battlefield actions show its troops think NATO jets are higher quality and fear them​

• Russia's troops tend to retreat when encountering NATO fighters, a Ukrainian F-16 pilot said.
• He said Ukraine was deploying its F-16s and Mirages for cover missions or in precise strikes.
• His comments were part of the first video interview Ukraine has published with an F-16 pilot.

A Ukrainian F-16 pilot has said Moscow's forces appear to particularly shy away from Western aircraft because they know how deadly the jets can be.

Ukraine's air force released his comments on Wednesday as part of its first-ever video interview with an F-16 pilot. His face was obscured, and the air force said it withheld the pilot's name and call sign for security purposes.

"With the arrival of Western equipment, the situation with carrying out fighter cover missions has improved," the pilot said in Ukrainian. "We now have different weaponry, more high-quality weaponry. The Russians understand that as well."

He said Ukraine had been deploying its American F-16 Fighting Falcons and French Mirage 2000-5s in more close-range encounters.

"From their actions, we can see that they are starting to retreat. They are afraid to approach us," he added. "After all, there is a living person sitting there, too, who also does not want to die."

The pilot said Ukraine had been using its F-16s for tactical strikes such as "a scalpel," while its Soviet MiG-29s, Su-24s, and Su-27s were assigned more widely to suppress and destroy targets such as "hammers and sledgehammers."

Ukraine's Soviet aircraft are often sent to bomb Russian targets at close range, which the pilot said meant his comrades had to fly "dangerously close to the front line."

So Ukraine sends it F-16s and Mirages to provide cover for their Soviet counterparts, he said.

That style of attack has materially changed how Moscow's troops react, the pilot added.

"They know roughly the technical characteristics of our weaponry. They know where to advance, where to retreat," he said, adding that Ukraine had been trying to exploit those gaps.

The pilot also said the F-16 and Mirage offered Ukraine the ability to conduct "very, very precise" strikes.

"At the moment, we can only strike at tactical depth," he said of Ukrainian pilots assigned to NATO fighters. "But these attacks are extremely precise."

"If we want, our bomb can fly straight through someone's window," he added.

The Russian Defense Ministry didn't respond to a comment request.

The F-16's edge over Ukraine's Soviet aircraft​

The F-16 is an older design by Western standards — with more than 50 years of service — but is still valued by Ukraine for its ability to carry and launch a wide array of NATO precision-guided munitions against both air and land targets.

These include the Joint Direct Attack Munition-Extended Range, which has a reported range of 50 miles, and the AIM-120, a medium-range air-launched missile that takes out other aviation targets. Ukraine has both weapons.

This capability means the F-16 can be a versatile tool for fighting other aircraft, conducting ground strikes, or suppressing Russian air defenses.

Some of its Soviet aircraft, such as the MiG-29, are also multirole fighters, but the F-16 has better radar systems, electronic jammers, and range. In January, Ukraine said one of its pilots destroyed a record of six Russian missiles in a single sortie.


Dassault's Mirage is another combat-proven aircraft being sent to Ukraine, though it's generally limited to firing French munitions. For example, it can launch the long-range Storm Shadow cruise missile but has to stick with the shorter-range MICA air-to-air missile when dealing with aerial targets.

Kyiv has been receiving F-16s from European allies since the summer of last year and got its first tranche of Mirages from France in February.

Ukraine has been tight-lipped about the number of jets it's received. Countries including Belgium, the Netherlands, and Denmark have pledged to deliver more than 100 F-16s to Ukraine, but the entire process can take months to years.

Still, Ukraine has to be careful with its valuable Western jets. Russia's surface-to-air missile defenses, such as the S-400, are formidable, and Ukrainian pilots have been known to limit flying altitude or range to lower exposure to them.


Kyiv has already lost one F-16 when a top pilot crashed in August while fighting cruise missiles and drones near the capital.

Earlier this month, several pro-Kremlin Telegram channels said another F-16 was shot down in the Sumy region. Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy rejected the report when speaking to journalists on March 19.

"The Russians are lying that they shot down something there; they didn't shoot down anything," he said.

Zelenskyy has said Ukraine needs 128 F-16s to fight effectively against Russia.

Recently, Ukraine's F-16 program was thrown into question when President Donald Trump paused military aid to Kyiv in early March. The aid was eventually resumed when Ukraine agreed to US-brokered terms for a cease-fire.

 

[Chadstroma]

Ukraine's army chief names updated Russian losses in Kursk region​

Since the beginning of the operation of the Ukrainian Armed Forces in the Kursk region, Russia has lost more than 55,000 troops, according to Commander-in-Chief of the Armed Forces of Ukraine Oleksandr Syrskyi.

“Due to the increasing intensity of Russia's actions and Russia's attempts to displace and transfer the fighting to the territory of the Sumy region, I worked in the Sumy region in airborne troops, marines, territorial defense, mechanized and some other units,” Syrskyi wrote.

According to him, the Kursk grouping of troops, as well as the Ukrainian military, continues the defense operation to prevent the Russian troops from breaking through deep into Ukraine. For the same purpose, Ukrainian soldiers continue effective counterattacks and assault operations.

“In the course of the work, I studied in detail all the problematic issues related to the organization of combat support, and also decided to replenish ammunition, drones, and move reserves,” he added.

Russia's losses in Kursk region

As noted by Syrskyi, in the seven and a half months since the beginning of the Kursk operation, Russia's losses have exceeded more than 55,000 troops, including

・22,200 are irretrievable;

・31,800 are sanitary losses.

Also, over 940 Russian troops were taken prisoner.

Operation in Kursk region

In August 2024, the Ukrainian Defense Forces launched an operation in the Kursk region. At the same time, Ukrainian soldiers took control of about a hundred settlements, but over time, some territories were lost.

In early March, the situation in the area escalated. The Russians claimed that the Ukrainian Defense Forces were allegedly surrounded, but the General Staff of the Armed Forces and President Volodymyr Zelenskyy denied this information.

 

[Chadstroma]

Russia loses 96 cruise missiles in Ukrainian attack on Engels-2 air base​

Russia has lost 96 air-launched cruise missiles as a result of a strike by the Ukrainian defence forces on the Russian military air base Engels-2 on 20 March.

Source: General Staff of the Ukrainian Armed Forces

Quote: "Updated information indicates that the enemy lost 96 air-launched cruise missiles as a result of the strike by the Ukrainian defence forces on the Russian Aerospace Forces’ air base Engels-2 on 20 March 2025, including due to secondary detonation."

Details: According to Ukrainian military calculations, these munitions were intended for three missile strikes during March-April 2025.

In addition, strikes on aircraft fuel storage sites led to the destruction of significant reserves, negatively impacting the Russian ability to sustain combat operations.

Background:

・Engels-2 is a key base for Russia's strategic aircraft. It is home to Tu-95MS, Tu-22M3 and Tu-160 bombers as well as depots storing FAB and guided aerial bombs and cruise missiles. Aircraft that launch missile strikes on Ukraine take off from this airfield.

・Explosions at the Engels air base in Russia's Saratov Oblast on the night of 19-20 March were the result of a joint operation by Ukraine's Security Service (SSU) and the Special Operations Forces of the Armed Forces of Ukraine.

・UK intelligence considers the Ukrainian defence forces' attack on the Russian air base Engels-2 on the night of 19-20 March to be the most successful strike against Russia in 2025.

 

[Chadstroma]

Ukrainian F-16 pilot gives first-ever interview: Over 80% of missiles hit the target​

The Air Force has published the first interview with a Ukrainian pilot who mastered the F-16 fighter jet. He shares his experience of combat flights, battle tactics, and the secrets of effective crew coordination, having expertly mastered Western aviation technology.

In the interview, an unnamed F-16 pilot, whose name is not disclosed for security reasons, shared that he constantly conducts aerial reconnaissance flights on Russian military objects and forces. Nearly every day, he performs one or two flights to target the enemy behind the front line, in the territory of the Russian Federation, and in areas temporarily occupied by Russia.

According to him, F-16 pilots also provide cover for other combat comrades, such as MiG-29s, Su-27s, Su-24s, and Su-25s.

The pilot added that the effectiveness of using Western technology by the Ukrainian military, both ground and air, is very high. Nearly every missile hits its target.

"When I say 'nearly every,' I mean really nearly every one — it’s not four out of eight, it’s over 80% of the missiles we launch hit the target and destroy both Shaheds and cruise missiles — whether sea-based, air-based, or ground-based," the pilot explained.

The targets are known to the pilots in advance. According to the pilot, Ukrainian intelligence works quite effectively. Pilots receive all the necessary data.

"Our reconnaissance forces adapt very quickly. We get all this data, and it's very relevant. If we want, our bomb will hit someone’s window," the F-16 pilot emphasized.

In 2023, Ukraine and its allies formed an aviation coalition to supply Ukraine with F-16 fighter jets. According to President Volodymyr Zelenskyy, Ukraine needs a minimum of 128 F-16 fighters.

In 2024, the first F-16 fighters arrived in Ukraine from its partners. The exact number of aircraft Ukraine has received remains unclear. The first F-16s were delivered by the Netherlands and Denmark.

On March 19 of this year, President Volodymyr Zelenskyy announced that a new batch of F-16 fighters had arrived in Ukraine.

It is known that Belgium will deliver 30 fighter jets to Ukraine by the end of 2028.

Currently, Ukrainian pilots continue their training on F-16s. Training is taking place in several countries, including the United States.

 

[Chadstroma]

Sweden launches biggest rearmament since Cold War, boosts military aid to Ukraine​

Although Sweden's defense spending already exceeds NATO's 2% target, this is not enough as Europe faces an entirely new security environment.

“Our goal is to push for a higher target at NATO’s Hague Summit, and we’re doing our part,” he wrote on X.

“Today, we presented an ambitious plan aimed at raising Sweden’s defense spending to around 3.5% of GDP by 2030. The plan involves a loan-financed investment of approximately 300 billion SEK ($30 billion).”

The plan includes the purchase of $2.5 billion worth of weapons, including air defense systems, drones and rocket artillery, personal protective equipment and ammunition, to be delivered between 2026 and 2028. In addition, another $9.5 billion will be allocated to strengthen measures against hybrid threats.

Stockholm also intends to increase military assistance to Ukraine from $2.5 billion to more than $4 billion in 2025.

This follows the March 25 Bloomberg report that another Scandinavian country, Denmark, is increasing defense spending and introducing mandatory military service for women starting next year to bolster its armed forces in response to growing threats from Russia.

 

[Chadstroma]

Poland signs $1.7 billion deal for infantry fighting vehicles​

WARSAW, Poland - The Polish Ministry of National Defence has signed a deal worth some PLN 6.57 billion ($1.7 billion) to acquire 111 Borsuk (Badger) tracked infantry fighting vehicles from the country's state-run defense group PGZ.

"We are delivering on our promise to invest in the Polish defense industry," Władysław Kosiniak-Kamysz, Poland's deputy prime minister and defense minister, was quoted in a statement released by his agency.

"Security and the economy, these two things are combined within the Borsuk. Security, because we gain excellent equipment developed in Poland, and the economy, because all this money goes to Polish defense companies," according to Kosiniak-Kamysz.

Under the plan, the Borsuk will replace the Soviet-designed BWP-1 vehicle as the Polish military's tracked IFV. The March 27 contract marks the first executive deal to be signed within a 2023 framework contract for a total of 1,400 Borsuks and accompanying vehicles.

Under the deal, the 111 ordered vehicles are to be supplied to the Polish land forces in the years 2025 to 2029.

The Borsuk, which has amphibious technology, is fitted with the ZSSW-30 remote-controlled turret. The vehicle is manned by a crew of three, and it can carry six troops.

Work on developing the Borsuk was initiated in 2014 by local company Huta Stalowa Wola, currently a PGZ subsidiary, which is part of the consortium that will produce the vehicles for the Polish Army.

 

[Chadstroma]

EU says 'unconditional withdrawal' of Russia from Ukraine is a precondition to amend sanctions

https://www.reuters.com/world/europe/eu-says-unconditional-withdrawal-russia-ukraine-is-precondition-amend-sanctions-2025-03-26/

 

[Chadstroma]

Exclusive: Russia Ready To Deploy Okhotnik stealth drone with Su-57 fighter jet in new manned-unmanned strike strategy

Exclusive: Russia Ready To Deploy Okhotnik stealth drone with Su-57 fighter jet in new manned-unmanned strike strategy

armyrecognition.com

 

[Chadstroma]

Europe wants to pour billions of dollars into its own defense companies — but market watchers say it may not be able to shut American firms out

https://www.cnbc.com/2025/03/26/european-defense-spending-where-will-the-money-go.html

 

[rockaction]

I saw this upthread.

Warsaw, Poland - The Polish Ministry of National Defence has signed a deal worth some PLN 6.57 billion ($1.7 billion) to acquire 111 Borsuk (Badger) tracked infantry fighting vehicles from the country's state-run defense group PGZ.

One thing to know about Poland is it just got done (a year and a half ago) with contentious elections. The ruling party was The Law and Justice Party (abbreviated PiS). It is skeptical of European governance from Brussels and the EU and has flouted many EU dictates, requests, and orders. It had what many people call an authoritarian outlook and it was the lead party in Poland for eight years. They are a party that is generally considered a lot like the Fidesz party in control of Orban's Hungary.

To wit, on that note, the judiciary in Poland is still what some would describe as a mess from the Law and Justice Party's (PiS) attempt to infuse the judicial systems with its own or friendly judges since their coming to power in 2015. There was a state-run media channel and Poland was listed among the world's threatened democracies because of PiS's methods and tactics (but who could hate law and justice?). Here are two links spelling out some of the troubles the judiciary has seen.

Hostile Takeover: How Law and Justice Captured Poland’s Courts

Poland's Law and Justice party has instituted unprecedented changes to the country's legal system, undermining rule of law and separation of powers. The brief details the changes that took place and addresses the dilemma that the EU faces.

freedomhouse.org

The Collapse of Judicial Independence in Poland: A Cautionary Tale

While Poland’s story may be a “cautionary tale,” it can also be seen as a tale of hope as well. Advocates of an independent judiciary have refused to back down.

judicature.duke.edu

The list of authoritarian measures is a little more nebulous and tricky, so I won't post those in case we have dissenting views on that.

Anyway, the Law and Justice Party and their coalition, the United Right, were defeated in late 2023 by the more cosmopolitan, European-centric party, the Civic Platform, which was able to cobble together a coalition with groups The Third Way and The Left (as they are called in the media) to overcome PiS and the United Right by joining forces and coalescing. The Civic Platform and other coalition parties comprise fifty-four percent of the governing body of the Senate, one of the bicameral houses in Poland. In the Sejm, the other house in the bicameral legislature, the opposition to the United Right (where the Law and Justice party coalesces), a coalition called the Senate Pact 2023 (deliberately created to oppose the United Right) won a plurality of votes and a majority of seats.

So the Law and Justice Party no longer controls either house, but since it won the Presidential election of 2020, it still holds veto power and commander-in-chief powers that the legislature does not have. Today, the President is still a member of the Law and Justice Party. His name is Andrezj Duda and his political ideology clashes distinctly with that of Donald Tusk, the Prime Minister from the Polish legislature. It is akin to Donald Trump and Joe Biden having these roles, only not so quite right and not so quite left.

The trouble, as I see it, is how unified is Poland both in the populace and structurally? The courts were apparently packed, the old judges dismissed or brought to heel in some way, and the legislature passed populist reform while the Prime Minister presided and the President allowed. Now, you have a legislature controlled by a coalition that is more cosmopolitan in origin and electorate—a pro-European, pro-EU coalition that wants to get back to governing the way Poland was being run before 2015. The other coalition, the United Right, is a Euro-skeptic, anti-migrant, socially conservative populist government that succeeds in more rural areas and that wants to continue its governing style and methods. One could argue that they win even the legislative elections by plurality vote before the coalitions, so they should be respected as such.

So if you’re still reading, well that leads me to Russia, and . . . here we go. How strong is Poland after all of this internal disagreement? Putin was strenuously claiming that Poland started WWII and has claimed in many of his history papers that Poland should be part of the Russian Empire. Couldn't help but notice this the other day and just start thinking that this is all very bad news for the world.

Donald Tusk announces military training plans for all men in Poland

Poland's prime minister said his government plans to have a model ready by the end of the year.

www.bbc.com

Poland seeks access to nuclear arms and looks to build half-million-man army

Already a major spender within NATO, Warsaw has massive military plans as fears grow about the reliability of the U.S. as an ally against Russia.

www.politico.eu

Meanwhile, Donald Tusk has claimed that the Russian Secret Service has committed acts of terror in shopping centers in Vilnius and Warsaw by setting them on fire in March and Kaliningrad still sits between Lithuania and Polish territory.

 

[Don't Toews Me]

Macron says a proposed European force for Ukraine could ‘respond’ if attacked by Russia

A possible option that France has been pushing would be a deployment by coalition members of a sizable force in central Ukraine, somewhere along the Dnieper River, away from frontlines, said a French official who spoke on condition of anonymity about the closed-door discussions.

The official said other possible options being examined are deploying a support force even further away from the fronts, in Ukraine’s far west, or in a neighboring country.

Putin suggests temporary administration for Ukraine to end war

Russian President Vladimir Putin suggested Ukraine be placed under a form of temporary administration to allow for new elections and the signature of key accords to reach a settlement in the war, Russian news agencies reported early on Friday.

Putin's suggestion of a temporary administration appeared to address his long-held complaint that Ukraine's authorities are not a legitimate negotiating partner as President Volodymyr Zelenskiy has stayed in power beyond the May 2024 end of his mandate.
"In principle, of course, a temporary administration could be introduced in Ukraine under the auspices of the U.N, the United States, European countries and our partners," Putin was quoted as saying in talks with seamen at the port.
"This would be in order to hold democratic elections and bring to power a capable government enjoying the trust of the people and then to start talks with them about a peace treaty."

Putin suggests putting Ukraine under U.N.-sponsored external governance, boasts battlefield gains

Putin declared in overnight remarks that the Russian military has “gained steam” and is now pushing offensives all along the front line.

“Our troops, our guys are moving forward and liberate one territory after another,” he said. “Our troops are holding strategic initiative all along the line of contact.”
He noted that Russia is open to a peaceful settlement, but emphasized the need to “remove root causes that led to the current situation.”

Putin raises the idea of a "transitional administration" in Ukraine, under the aegis of the UN

"On the entire front line, our forces have the strategic initiative (...). There are reasons to believe that we will finish them," Putin said during a trip to Murmansk (northwest), saying that "the Ukrainian people themselves should understand what is happening".

Ukraine war briefing: Another 1.5m artillery shells for Ukraine under Czech scheme

The Czech-led ammunition initiative for Ukraine can deliver another 1.5m artillery rounds in 2025, as many as last year, the Czech prime minister, Petr Fiala, said on Thursday after the Paris summit of Ukraine’s allies. The initiative was launched last year and funded by a number of allies. Among the rounds provided in 2024 were 500,000 units of 155mm shells, the Czech defence ministry said in February this year. The 155mm rounds fit Nato artillery guns provided by western allies to Ukraine, whereas its post-Soviet arsenal uses 152mm shells. The Czech-led initiative supplies both kinds.

https://x.com/Osinttechnical/status/1905392369110753416

Sweden has announced that it will increase its military aid to Ukraine this year by over 16 billion Krona ($1.6 billion).

Sweden's over $4 billion in aid to Ukraine this year will fund various programs, including equipment procurement, "strengthening its defense capabilities."

https://x.com/RALee85/status/1905299240546426893

A post from a Ukrainian aviation channel says that Russian Buk air defense systems are shooting down JDAMs (AASM Hammer are less affected because of the lower launch altitude) and that Russian EW can significantly reduce the accuracy of Ukrainian bombs.

Russia intensifies assault in Zaporizhzhia, increasing pressure on Ukraine's southern positions, military says

Russia has intensified assault operations in the Zaporizhzhia sector, increasing pressure on Ukraine's southern positions, Ukraine's Southern Defense Forces spokesperson Vladyslav Voloshyn said on March 28 during Ukraine's state-run telethon.

Zelenskyy: Russia gears up for new offensives on three Ukrainian regions

Ukrainian intelligence reports have indicated that Russia is bracing for new offensives in Sumy, Kharkiv and Zaporizhzhia oblasts.

Ukraine's top general says Russia stepping up effort to attack Sumy region

Russian forces are stepping up attacks along Ukraine's northeastern border in a bid to break into the Sumy region, Kyiv's top general said on Thursday.
Sumy borders Russia's Kursk region, where Ukrainian forces have been all but pushed out of Russian territory they captured in a cross-border offensive last August.
Oleksandr Syrskyi, while visiting units in the Sumy region, said his troops were conducting defensive and assault operations to retain a buffer zone inside Kursk.

German defense minister signals openness to peacekeepers in Ukraine

German Defense Minister Boris Pistorius and his Estonian counterpart, Hanno Pevkur, signaled willingness to help secure peace in Ukraine with boots on the ground — at least in theory.

"I can't imagine any situation in which Germany would not be participating in whatever would be the result of negotiations of a ceasefire or even a peace,” said Pistorius at an event jointly organized by several media outlets on Thursday in Berlin.

“But it has to be decided when the time has come and it depends on so many parameters, like: How many troops will be anyway accepted in the ceasefire? What could be the mandate? Who is taking part in it? This is nothing we should discuss publicly on the market places before it's even clear whether we will have a ceasefire or not," he added.

Ukraine allies meet in Paris with new aid, security assurances in mind

Highlighting different views among Ukraine's partners, Italian Foreign Minister Antonio Tajani reiterated his country's opposition to any such force.
"Not sending troops on a mission unless they are part of the United Nations, (this) is the only condition for us to deploy military personnel" in Ukraine, Tajani said after a cabinet meeting on Wednesday evening.

 

[Don't Toews Me]

Ukraine Stages New Push Into Russia, Officials and Experts Say

As efforts now intensify to reach a peace agreement between Kyiv and Moscow, Ukraine appears to be gambling again with a small-scale incursion into Russia. In recent days, the Ukrainian Army has staged a new cross-border push into the Belgorod region, according to Ukrainian officials, analysts of open-source intelligence and Russian military bloggers.

While the extent of the Ukrainian push into Belgorod was unclear and Ukraine’s intentions are unclear, military analysts said it was possibly an effort to draw Russian forces from Kursk to alleviate pressure there. Kyiv may also hope that grabbing another patch of Russian land could provide added diplomatic leverage, analysts said.

The incursion appears to be much more limited in scope than the Kursk operation and has so far only secured a thin band of territory across the border, military analysts say, citing video of the battle they have verified. It was unclear how many troops were involved or the extent of the Russian response.

Ukraine has not publicly acknowledged a new attack on Russian soil. But three Ukrainian military and government officials confirmed that an operation was continuing in the Belgorod region of southern Russia, near territory Ukraine captured in the neighboring Kursk region last summer. The officials spoke on the condition of anonymity to discuss a confidential operation.

Pasi Paroinen, an analyst with the Finland-based Black Bird Group, said that several videos verified and geolocated by his organization showed Ukrainian forces entering the Belgorod region. Ukraine, he said, managed “to secure a proper buffer zone of defendable terrain and capture several villages along the border within the first few days of the attacks,” before Russia brought in reinforcements.

One village, Demidovka, now appears to be under Ukrainian control, he said.

Ukraine is quietly invading Russia again

As dawn broke over the western Russian region of Belgorod, a growing thrum could be heard near its heavily fortified border with Ukraine.
The sound came from a column of tanks and fighting vehicles storming across muddy fields, carving a path through minefields and lines of dragon’s teeth barricades.
It was the start of a new incursion into Russian territory.
That was two weeks ago and, despite the Kremlin’s claims that the attack was thwarted, Ukraine’s forces are moving forward and steadily capturing ground.
The battle plan has been closely guarded, and it is still unclear whether the Belgorod incursion was intended as a brief raid or a longer-term operation.
There is currently fierce fighting in the villages of Demidovka, Prilesye and Popovka, according to the Institute for the Study of War, a US think-tank.
Ukraine has also been carrying out a series of precision air strikes, targeting command posts, bridges, helicopters and depots.

The sudden rush of soldiers across the border could help protect Ukraine against a Russian offensive in Sumy by diverting those forces.
Belgorod borders Ukraine’s Sumy, Kharkiv and Luhansk regions and is regularly used by Russian forces to launch attacks on Ukraine.
Crucially, it is also next to Kursk, where the last Ukrainian troops are holding on to a sliver of high ground, trying to cling on to Kyiv’s big military gamble that it hoped would provide a bargaining chip during ceasefire negotiations.
However, unlike in Kursk, when Kyiv’s forces caught Russia by surprise and rapidly seized hundreds of miles of territory, the Ukrainian gains have been slower and staggered.

“Russia seems to have been better prepared for this operation,” said John Hardie, deputy director of the Russia programme at the Foundation for Defence of Democracies.
“And this operation is considerably smaller in scale and its objectives,” he told The Telegraph. He described the force size as “modest”, likely totalling less than a battalion of 500 soldiers.
But while the Kremlin has been defiant, there is dissent in Moscow.
“How did this happen? Russian forces completely f----d up... They just gave it up. They just left. After that, the enemy occupied it,” fumed well-known Russian war correspondent Vladimir Romano on Sunday as he reported the loss of Demidovka.
Reports suggest that some of Ukraine’s best units have been deployed to the operation as well as dozens of US-supplied Bradley fighting vehicles.
Rybar, an influential pro-Kremlin military blogger, said fierce battles were ongoing in Demidovka on Wednesday as Russian troops fought back. “The enemy has repeatedly tried to enter our strongholds across the border,” he wrote on Telegram.
“The situation remains tense,” he said, and cited Russian military reports that Ukraine was continuing to mass troops and vehicles on the border.
Two Majors, another prominent Telegram channel, reported that Ukraine was “stretching” Russian troops along the frontline by broadening attacks on the border.
“The gains have so far been modest, but Ukraine is advancing and taking high ground,” said Mr Hardie, who argued it was still “too early” to say whether it was having meaningful effects elsewhere along the front.

 

[Chadstroma]

I saw this upthread.

Warsaw, Poland - The Polish Ministry of National Defence has signed a deal worth some PLN 6.57 billion ($1.7 billion) to acquire 111 Borsuk (Badger) tracked infantry fighting vehicles from the country's state-run defense group PGZ.

One thing to know about Poland is it just got done (a year and a half ago) with contentious elections. The ruling party was The Law and Justice Party (abbreviated PiS). It is skeptical of European governance from Brussels and the EU and has flouted many EU dictates, requests, and orders. It had what many people call an authoritarian outlook and it was the lead party in Poland for eight years. They are a party that is generally considered a lot like the Fidesz party in control of Orban's Hungary.

To wit, on that note, the judiciary in Poland is still what some would describe as a mess from the Law and Justice Party's (PiS) attempt to infuse the judicial systems with its own or friendly judges since their coming to power in 2015. There was a state-run media channel and Poland was listed among the world's threatened democracies because of PiS's methods and tactics (but who could hate law and justice?). Here are two links spelling out some of the troubles the judiciary has seen.

Hostile Takeover: How Law and Justice Captured Poland’s Courts

Poland's Law and Justice party has instituted unprecedented changes to the country's legal system, undermining rule of law and separation of powers. The brief details the changes that took place and addresses the dilemma that the EU faces.

freedomhouse.org

The Collapse of Judicial Independence in Poland: A Cautionary Tale

While Poland’s story may be a “cautionary tale,” it can also be seen as a tale of hope as well. Advocates of an independent judiciary have refused to back down.

judicature.duke.edu

The list of authoritarian measures is a little more nebulous and tricky, so I won't post those in case we have dissenting views on that.

Anyway, the Law and Justice Party and their coalition, the United Right, were defeated in late 2023 by the more cosmopolitan, European-centric party, the Civic Platform, which was able to cobble together a coalition with groups The Third Way and The Left (as they are called in the media) to overcome PiS and the United Right by joining forces and coalescing. The Civic Platform and other coalition parties comprise fifty-four percent of the governing body of the Senate, one of the bicameral houses in Poland. In the Sejm, the other house in the bicameral legislature, the opposition to the United Right (where the Law and Justice party coalesces), a coalition called the Senate Pact 2023 (deliberately created to oppose the United Right) won a plurality of votes and a majority of seats.

So the Law and Justice Party no longer controls either house, but since it won the Presidential election of 2020, it still holds veto power and commander-in-chief powers that the legislature does not have. Today, the President is still a member of the Law and Justice Party. His name is Andrezj Duda and his political ideology clashes distinctly with that of Donald Tusk, the Prime Minister from the Polish legislature. It is akin to Donald Trump and Joe Biden having these roles, only not so quite right and not so quite left.

The trouble, as I see it, is how unified is Poland both in the populace and structurally? The courts were apparently packed, the old judges dismissed or brought to heel in some way, and the legislature passed populist reform while the Prime Minister presided and the President allowed. Now, you have a legislature controlled by a coalition that is more cosmopolitan in origin and electorate—a pro-European, pro-EU coalition that wants to get back to governing the way Poland was being run before 2015. The other coalition, the United Right, is a Euro-skeptic, anti-migrant, socially conservative populist government that succeeds in more rural areas and that wants to continue its governing style and methods. One could argue that they win even the legislative elections by plurality vote before the coalitions, so they should be respected as such.

So if you’re still reading, well that leads me to Russia, and . . . here we go. How strong is Poland after all of this internal disagreement? Putin was strenuously claiming that Poland started WWII and has claimed in many of his history papers that Poland should be part of the Russian Empire. Couldn't help but notice this the other day and just start thinking that this is all very bad news for the world.

Donald Tusk announces military training plans for all men in Poland

Poland's prime minister said his government plans to have a model ready by the end of the year.

www.bbc.com

Poland seeks access to nuclear arms and looks to build half-million-man army

Already a major spender within NATO, Warsaw has massive military plans as fears grow about the reliability of the U.S. as an ally against Russia.

www.politico.eu

Meanwhile, Donald Tusk has claimed that the Russian Secret Service has committed acts of terror in shopping centers in Vilnius and Warsaw by setting them on fire in March and Kaliningrad still sits between Lithuania and Polish territory.

If there is anything all Poles can agree on, it would be their distrust and hatred for the Russians. (98% view Russia unfavorable and 90% very unfavorable) As with every country on earth that isn't run by actual authoritarian regimes, there is a lot of disagreement in a lot of issues but how the Poles view Russia is not one of them and their arming against Russia is not in danger in the least. The 3.8% of GDP they are spending now will much more likely to go up with almost no danger of it going down.

It is also worth noting that unlike most of their fellow EU countries, Poland is not an absolute mess with immigration because they did exactly say "yea, that is cute and stupid" in regards to EU immigration policies.

 

[Chadstroma]

NATO allies reverse course on Ukraine troop deployment plans

European leaders are weighing the challenges of sending troops to Ukraine following any peace deal as proposed by the U.K. and France.

www.newsweek.com

 

[rockaction]

I saw this upthread.

Warsaw, Poland - The Polish Ministry of National Defence has signed a deal worth some PLN 6.57 billion ($1.7 billion) to acquire 111 Borsuk (Badger) tracked infantry fighting vehicles from the country's state-run defense group PGZ.

One thing to know about Poland is it just got done (a year and a half ago) with contentious elections. The ruling party was The Law and Justice Party (abbreviated PiS). It is skeptical of European governance from Brussels and the EU and has flouted many EU dictates, requests, and orders. It had what many people call an authoritarian outlook and it was the lead party in Poland for eight years. They are a party that is generally considered a lot like the Fidesz party in control of Orban's Hungary.

To wit, on that note, the judiciary in Poland is still what some would describe as a mess from the Law and Justice Party's (PiS) attempt to infuse the judicial systems with its own or friendly judges since their coming to power in 2015. There was a state-run media channel and Poland was listed among the world's threatened democracies because of PiS's methods and tactics (but who could hate law and justice?). Here are two links spelling out some of the troubles the judiciary has seen.

Hostile Takeover: How Law and Justice Captured Poland’s Courts

Poland's Law and Justice party has instituted unprecedented changes to the country's legal system, undermining rule of law and separation of powers. The brief details the changes that took place and addresses the dilemma that the EU faces.

freedomhouse.org

The Collapse of Judicial Independence in Poland: A Cautionary Tale

While Poland’s story may be a “cautionary tale,” it can also be seen as a tale of hope as well. Advocates of an independent judiciary have refused to back down.

judicature.duke.edu

The list of authoritarian measures is a little more nebulous and tricky, so I won't post those in case we have dissenting views on that.

Anyway, the Law and Justice Party and their coalition, the United Right, were defeated in late 2023 by the more cosmopolitan, European-centric party, the Civic Platform, which was able to cobble together a coalition with groups The Third Way and The Left (as they are called in the media) to overcome PiS and the United Right by joining forces and coalescing. The Civic Platform and other coalition parties comprise fifty-four percent of the governing body of the Senate, one of the bicameral houses in Poland. In the Sejm, the other house in the bicameral legislature, the opposition to the United Right (where the Law and Justice party coalesces), a coalition called the Senate Pact 2023 (deliberately created to oppose the United Right) won a plurality of votes and a majority of seats.

So the Law and Justice Party no longer controls either house, but since it won the Presidential election of 2020, it still holds veto power and commander-in-chief powers that the legislature does not have. Today, the President is still a member of the Law and Justice Party. His name is Andrezj Duda and his political ideology clashes distinctly with that of Donald Tusk, the Prime Minister from the Polish legislature. It is akin to Donald Trump and Joe Biden having these roles, only not so quite right and not so quite left.

The trouble, as I see it, is how unified is Poland both in the populace and structurally? The courts were apparently packed, the old judges dismissed or brought to heel in some way, and the legislature passed populist reform while the Prime Minister presided and the President allowed. Now, you have a legislature controlled by a coalition that is more cosmopolitan in origin and electorate—a pro-European, pro-EU coalition that wants to get back to governing the way Poland was being run before 2015. The other coalition, the United Right, is a Euro-skeptic, anti-migrant, socially conservative populist government that succeeds in more rural areas and that wants to continue its governing style and methods. One could argue that they win even the legislative elections by plurality vote before the coalitions, so they should be respected as such.

So if you’re still reading, well that leads me to Russia, and . . . here we go. How strong is Poland after all of this internal disagreement? Putin was strenuously claiming that Poland started WWII and has claimed in many of his history papers that Poland should be part of the Russian Empire. Couldn't help but notice this the other day and just start thinking that this is all very bad news for the world.

Donald Tusk announces military training plans for all men in Poland

Poland's prime minister said his government plans to have a model ready by the end of the year.

www.bbc.com

Poland seeks access to nuclear arms and looks to build half-million-man army

Already a major spender within NATO, Warsaw has massive military plans as fears grow about the reliability of the U.S. as an ally against Russia.

www.politico.eu

Meanwhile, Donald Tusk has claimed that the Russian Secret Service has committed acts of terror in shopping centers in Vilnius and Warsaw by setting them on fire in March and Kaliningrad still sits between Lithuania and Polish territory.

If there is anything all Poles can agree on, it would be their distrust and hatred for the Russians. (98% view Russia unfavorable and 90% very unfavorable) As with every country on earth that isn't run by actual authoritarian regimes, there is a lot of disagreement in a lot of issues but how the Poles view Russia is not one of them and their arming against Russia is not in danger in the least. The 3.8% of GDP they are spending now will much more likely to go up with almost no danger of it going down.

It is also worth noting that unlike most of their fellow EU countries, Poland is not an absolute mess with immigration because they did exactly say "yea, that is cute and stupid" in regards to EU immigration policies.

Yes, that's eminently apparent that they all hate and distrust the Russians, but there are cracks and fissures in the foundation. As far as immigration goes, I was staying away from domestic policy implications and debates, but I will say the two coalitions in Poland differ on how to deal with the EU and its immigration requirements/policies.

They both did recently tell the EU that they were not letting in or abiding by the EU's stance on migrants because of the influx of Belarusians that will obviously influence Poland in a pro-Russian way; either that or destabilize it. That's where your "both sides hate the Russians" comes into play. Both the President and Prime Minister (opposite coalitions) stated that Belarusians were being told by Lukashenko (the pro-Russian leader of Belarus) to "storm the border" in groups. Both coalitions helped pass a bill to stop the people from coming over the border. Here's an article from the BBC about it.

Poland suspends migrants' right to apply for asylum

The law will allow Polish authorities to temporarily spend asylum rights at the border with Belarus.

www.bbc.com

 

[Dezbelief]

NATO's newest ally is sending its Gripen jets made for war with Russia out to patrol alliance borders for the first time

Sweden sent its Gripen jets to a NATO air defense mission in Poland, shifting from conducting missions only over its own territory.

www.businessinsider.com

Sweden is deploying its Gripen fighter jets on a NATO air defense mission for the first time.
The jets were designed to fight Russia and are now set to be used in Polish skies.
Sweden joined NATO in response to Russian aggression, specifically the invasion of Ukraine.

 

[Sparky Polastri]

Europe seems to get it. They may not be able to impact things the way they'd like, but they get what is going on. Belarus is next after Ukraine if he's not stopped now.

 

[Dezbelief]

I think Belarus is safe as long as they stay friendly to Putin. Putin recently moved some nukes to Belarus territory. The Belarus border with Ukraine was crossed by Russian troops enmasse at the beginning of the special military operation.

 

[fatness]

Ukraine won't sign minerals deal with US if it threatens EU membership, Zelensky says

Zelensky's remarks came a day after details of a new alleged draft of a mineral agreement between Kyiv and Washington emerged. The Financial Times reported on March 27 that the latest version of the agreement proposed by the U.S. includes terms that would grant Washington unprecedented control over Ukraine's natural resources through a joint investment fund. Ukrainian online newspaper Yevropeiska Pravda reported that the deal may contradict Ukraine's EU accession due to severe restrictions that affect Ukraine's economic sovereignty. "The Constitution of Ukraine makes it clear that our course is towards the EU," Zelensky told reporters. "Nothing that could threaten Ukraine’s accession to the EU can be accepted."

 

[Chadstroma]

I saw this upthread.

Warsaw, Poland - The Polish Ministry of National Defence has signed a deal worth some PLN 6.57 billion ($1.7 billion) to acquire 111 Borsuk (Badger) tracked infantry fighting vehicles from the country's state-run defense group PGZ.

One thing to know about Poland is it just got done (a year and a half ago) with contentious elections. The ruling party was The Law and Justice Party (abbreviated PiS). It is skeptical of European governance from Brussels and the EU and has flouted many EU dictates, requests, and orders. It had what many people call an authoritarian outlook and it was the lead party in Poland for eight years. They are a party that is generally considered a lot like the Fidesz party in control of Orban's Hungary.

To wit, on that note, the judiciary in Poland is still what some would describe as a mess from the Law and Justice Party's (PiS) attempt to infuse the judicial systems with its own or friendly judges since their coming to power in 2015. There was a state-run media channel and Poland was listed among the world's threatened democracies because of PiS's methods and tactics (but who could hate law and justice?). Here are two links spelling out some of the troubles the judiciary has seen.

Hostile Takeover: How Law and Justice Captured Poland’s Courts

Poland's Law and Justice party has instituted unprecedented changes to the country's legal system, undermining rule of law and separation of powers. The brief details the changes that took place and addresses the dilemma that the EU faces.

freedomhouse.org

The Collapse of Judicial Independence in Poland: A Cautionary Tale

While Poland’s story may be a “cautionary tale,” it can also be seen as a tale of hope as well. Advocates of an independent judiciary have refused to back down.

judicature.duke.edu

The list of authoritarian measures is a little more nebulous and tricky, so I won't post those in case we have dissenting views on that.

Anyway, the Law and Justice Party and their coalition, the United Right, were defeated in late 2023 by the more cosmopolitan, European-centric party, the Civic Platform, which was able to cobble together a coalition with groups The Third Way and The Left (as they are called in the media) to overcome PiS and the United Right by joining forces and coalescing. The Civic Platform and other coalition parties comprise fifty-four percent of the governing body of the Senate, one of the bicameral houses in Poland. In the Sejm, the other house in the bicameral legislature, the opposition to the United Right (where the Law and Justice party coalesces), a coalition called the Senate Pact 2023 (deliberately created to oppose the United Right) won a plurality of votes and a majority of seats.

So the Law and Justice Party no longer controls either house, but since it won the Presidential election of 2020, it still holds veto power and commander-in-chief powers that the legislature does not have. Today, the President is still a member of the Law and Justice Party. His name is Andrezj Duda and his political ideology clashes distinctly with that of Donald Tusk, the Prime Minister from the Polish legislature. It is akin to Donald Trump and Joe Biden having these roles, only not so quite right and not so quite left.

The trouble, as I see it, is how unified is Poland both in the populace and structurally? The courts were apparently packed, the old judges dismissed or brought to heel in some way, and the legislature passed populist reform while the Prime Minister presided and the President allowed. Now, you have a legislature controlled by a coalition that is more cosmopolitan in origin and electorate—a pro-European, pro-EU coalition that wants to get back to governing the way Poland was being run before 2015. The other coalition, the United Right, is a Euro-skeptic, anti-migrant, socially conservative populist government that succeeds in more rural areas and that wants to continue its governing style and methods. One could argue that they win even the legislative elections by plurality vote before the coalitions, so they should be respected as such.

So if you’re still reading, well that leads me to Russia, and . . . here we go. How strong is Poland after all of this internal disagreement? Putin was strenuously claiming that Poland started WWII and has claimed in many of his history papers that Poland should be part of the Russian Empire. Couldn't help but notice this the other day and just start thinking that this is all very bad news for the world.

Donald Tusk announces military training plans for all men in Poland

Poland's prime minister said his government plans to have a model ready by the end of the year.

www.bbc.com

Poland seeks access to nuclear arms and looks to build half-million-man army

Already a major spender within NATO, Warsaw has massive military plans as fears grow about the reliability of the U.S. as an ally against Russia.

www.politico.eu

Meanwhile, Donald Tusk has claimed that the Russian Secret Service has committed acts of terror in shopping centers in Vilnius and Warsaw by setting them on fire in March and Kaliningrad still sits between Lithuania and Polish territory.

If there is anything all Poles can agree on, it would be their distrust and hatred for the Russians. (98% view Russia unfavorable and 90% very unfavorable) As with every country on earth that isn't run by actual authoritarian regimes, there is a lot of disagreement in a lot of issues but how the Poles view Russia is not one of them and their arming against Russia is not in danger in the least. The 3.8% of GDP they are spending now will much more likely to go up with almost no danger of it going down.

It is also worth noting that unlike most of their fellow EU countries, Poland is not an absolute mess with immigration because they did exactly say "yea, that is cute and stupid" in regards to EU immigration policies.

Yes, that's eminently apparent that they all hate and distrust the Russians, but there are cracks and fissures in the foundation. As far as immigration goes, I was staying away from domestic policy implications and debates, but I will say the two coalitions in Poland differ on how to deal with the EU and its immigration requirements/policies.

They both did recently tell the EU that they were not letting in or abiding by the EU's stance on migrants because of the influx of Belarusians that will obviously influence Poland in a pro-Russian way; either that or destabilize it. That's where your "both sides hate the Russians" comes into play. Both the President and Prime Minister (opposite coalitions) stated that Belarusians were being told by Lukashenko (the pro-Russian leader of Belarus) to "storm the border" in groups. Both coalitions helped pass a bill to stop the people from coming over the border. Here's an article from the BBC about it.

Poland suspends migrants' right to apply for asylum

The law will allow Polish authorities to temporarily spend asylum rights at the border with Belarus.

www.bbc.com

98% unfavorable view. That is not a cracked foundation at all. That is about as unified any country can have on anything. You are barking up the wrong tree.