Russia already dropped as many bombs a day as it could on Ukraine BEFORE Biden's permission - ATACMS help STOP this - and Ukraine is not using them to harm Russian civilians - nothing to retaliate to
You can get a first idea of this post by reading the introduction, section titles and looking at the graphics.
Hover mouse over left margin for a contents list.
I thought I’d share a bit of the perspective of Ukrainians on this conflict. And draw out the analogy with the “Dunkirk spirit” of the British in WW2.
This is life in Kyiv right now
.TEXT ON GRAPHIC:
Ukrainians will NOT surrender to Putin.
A normal winter evening in Kyiv in 2024
Putin KEEPS destroying their electricity grid wth bombs - a war crime. But this winter they have portable generators everywhere eto keep the lights on.
British call this the “Dunkirk spirit” affter a rescue operation in WW2
NOT retaliation. This is what ATACMS helps defend THEM FROM
You can watch the video here:
. Thread by @strategywoman on Thread Reader App
There I added an analogy that scared people in Britain may recognize, the “Dunkirk spirit”. It is about keeping hope up in the most desperate situations and snatching victory from the jaws of defeat.
This goes back to early in WW2 when Germany invaded France getting through their supposedly impenetrable Maginot line by sneaking through woods in Luxembourg and Belgium. They quickly took over all of France and the British Expeditionary force of over 300,000 soldiers got cornered in Dunkirk.
Churchill was told he could only save 20,000 to 30,000 soldiers. But with the help of large numbers of small ships that could land on the gently sloping beaches when their warships couldn’t, they managed to save over 300,000. Only 90,000 were left to be captured.
This was almost the whole of Britain’s armed forces at the time, and if they hadn’t been rescued then Hitler might well have taken over Britian too.
QUOTE
6. The evacuation boosted morale
The Dunkirk evacuation was an important event for the Allies. If the BEF had been captured, it would have meant the loss of Britain's only trained troops and the collapse of the Allied cause. The successful evacuation was a great boost to civilian morale, and created the 'Dunkirk spirit' which helped Britain to fight on in the summer of 1940.
British people use the word “Dunkirk spirit” to mean you keep fighting for what you believe in even when the situation seems hopeless.
Well Ukrianians definitely have the Dunkirk spirit and that’s why they are never going to just meekly surrender to Putin.
In their case it’s the history of the Cossacks. It’s in their national anthem.
That is what they are singing when they sing their National Anthem.
Ukraine has not yet died nor her glory nor her freedom.
Upon us, fellow Ukrainians, fate shall smile once more.
Our enemies shall vanish, like the dew in the sun.
And we too shall rule, brothers, in a free land of our own.
Souls and bodies we'll lay down, all for our freedom,
And we'll show that we, brothers, are of the Cossack nation.
What Putin does is NOT RETALIATION and NEVER IS. Because to retaliate, Ukraine would have needed to do some harm to Russia that it needs to respond to.
Russia has been the aggressor throughout the war. Putin knows that if he gave up on his plan to add Ukraine to the far larger Russian Federation, the war would be over immediately.
Russia is ALREADY dropping as many bombs as it can on cities and the electricity grid and power stations throughout Ukraine
Ukraine has never had any wish to attack Russian civilians. It only crossed into Russia’s Kursk oblast to defend itself from an incursion back into Sumy oblast and the glide bombs..
Throughout this war, Ukraine is just defending itself against attacks.
The ATACMS will make it a little harder for Russia to attack Ukraine. That's all.
This map shows some of the missiles launched on the evening of November 16 - 17, the night BEFORE Biden gave his permission to use ATACMS against targets in Russia.
TEXT ON GRAPHIC: Missiles launched by Russia at Ukraine in one day.
Night BEFORE Biden’s ATACMS permission: 16th Nov.
ATACMS and Stormshadow STOP SOME OF THIS
120 missiles
90 drones
Approximate paths of some of them.
That graphic was shared in a tweet of Nov. 17 by Ukraine’s Deputy Minister of Foreign Affairs Anton Geraschenko
That was the same night that Biden gave his permission to Ukraien to use ATACMS.
This is just Russia continuing what it's been doing all year indeed since the war started. But after a red line is crossed they call what they were going to do anyway "retaliation" as a form of intimidation.
the word "retaliate" itself is an odd one to use.
Because Ukraine is only trying to stop Russia attacking them.
The word "retaliate" has the hidden assumption that Ukraine is attacking Russian civilians which is not true.
You can't really retaliate against someone for defending themselves.
The Ukrainians are an indomitable people and whatever Trump does, most of Europe supports them. They won't meekly surrender to Putin.
The war will end - but only if Putin is either defeated or Ukraine gets enough support to be in a very strong position to negotiate with Putin. NOT with nukes. Zelensky does NOT want that. With its conventional forces.
Zelensky actually thinks the war can end faster with Trump. However, he is not legally permitted to negotiate properly with Trump until after inauguration day by a 1799 law in the USA. After that he will report back to the Ukrainian people.
Russia is not escalating either - it’s attacking as much as it can with its current funding of a little over 6% of the Russian GDP
it's not escalation either because Russia isn't holding anything back except its nukes which are impossible for it to use for political reasons (it would become a rogue state).
Russia is already in all-out war conditions hitting Ukraine with all the bombs it can make as fast as it can make them and get them in the air on their way to Ukraine..
Russia is limited only by the supply of components to make the bombs and the missile systems and fighter jets etc to deliver them to Ukraine.
About 6.3% of Russia's GDP will be devoted to making weapons and missiles, soldier's wages etc in 2025
In 2025, more than a quarter or about 26.3% of Ukraine's GDP is for defence and internal security.
Russia is only limited by the amount it can spend on bombs, fuel etc and the sanctions and how fast it can make them.
It is not retaliating, just doing all out war whatever Ukriane does.
So it is not a cycle. It is just Russia ramping up ALL THE TIME whatever Ukraine does. It's been all-out war since it invaded Ukraine in 2022, it's not held anything back.
The bombs are only limited by
how much of its GDP Russia is prepared to spend on the war + the sanctions.
To escalate their attacks significantly beyond what they are doing already they need to
spend more on the war which they don't want to do.
find a way to get hold of components that are blocked by sanctions
These two things limit Russia’s ability to escalate. But they do gradually increase their capability to make bombs, how many they can make a year, and new ways of delivering them.
Meanwhile Ukraine with its long distance drones and its ATACMS now and Stormshadow are destroying some of the giant metaphorical “war machine” with its stockpiles of bombs, fuel depots, oil refineries etc.
So what about the Oleshnik?
It may just be politics but it may be a new capability if they really do add conventional bombs to it instead of dummy warheads.
If so, Russia was surely going to do it anyway, and by firing a test missile at Ukraine they have given Ukraine valuable information about their missile which will help it to protect against it.
Putin made a huge fuss of US giving Ukraine permission to use missiles with a range of 300 km against Russia but since early in the war Putin has been using
Iskanders with a range of 500 km
And more recently:
Shahed drone with a range of 2,500 km
Zircon with a range of over 1000 km.
He has used them to hit targets in Ukraine as far away as Lviv and sometime straying over into Poland and Romania.
Nowadays bombs fall on all of Ukraine most days.
Why Ukraine wants to defend itself and liberate occupied Ukraine - it is to prevent ethnic cleansing by Russia - erasing Ukrainian culture and replacing it by Russian culture
I think people outside of Ukraine need to understand why Ukraine is fighting and why it cares so much about whether part of Ukraien is controlled by Ukraine or Russia.
It’s not like say Scottish independence or Calexit. It’s about something far more fundamental. Whether their people can continue to have a Ukrainian identity and have human rights.
Here is what Ukraine’s Deputy Minister of Foreign Affairs Anton Geraschenko said about the attack:
TWEET of Nov. 17 by
The goal of the Russian criminals is to terrorize civilians.
They target energy infrastructure to ensure that our children and elderly freeze in the winter.
They kill women, the elderly, children, and entire families with their missiles and bombs.
Failing to provide Ukraine with more weapons, greater support, real security guarantees is equal to denying Ukraine the ability to protect its people and allowing the Russian army to turn Ukrainian cities into another Bucha.
There he is talking about Bucha - which the world may have forgotten but not the Ukrainians - when they uncovered the incredibly brutal torture of civilians by a small number of Russian officers that shocked the nation in spring 2022.
If this happens, truth will vanish from social networks and the media. Instead, you’ll see reports about a “restored Mariupol” and people “thanking Putin for liberation.”
There he is talking about Mariupol which Russia claims to have restored - but satellite images show new mass graves outside the city with AP counting 10,300 graves from a population of a few hundred thousands at the time of the invasion.
More than 10,000 new graves now scar Mariupol, the AP found, and the death toll might run three times higher than an early estimate of at least 25,000. The former Ukrainian city has also hollowed out, with Russian plans to demolish well over 50,000 homes, the AP calculated.
. Russia scrubs Mariupol’s Ukraine identity, builds on death
So that is what Ukrainians believe would happen to the rest of Ukraine if they let Russia.
But behind those narratives would lie hundreds of thousands of Ukrainians dead, millions forced to flee, and tens of thousands raped, tortured, tormented and silenced forever.
I firmly believe we won’t let this happen.
: approximate movement of Russian drones and missiles over Ukraine last night.
I so often get people say to me - why can’t Ukraine just agree to a ceasefire and a peace treaty with Putin. They can’t because they are not the aggressor. Putin is. He is demanding that they give up large areas of Ukraine to him without a fight just for Zelensky to talk to him.
Ukraine knows that the only way that Putin is going to stop attacking is if they can win back and that is why Zelensky proposed a victory plan as the only way to peace.
This is possible with the help of just equipment and expertise from their allies because of the vastly superior equipment NATO countries have.
See my:
Also:
Ukraine is responding to a big increase in bombing by Russia in the last few weeks and the new ATACMS permission can help STOP the bombs
For those who don't follow the war, what most don't realize is that Putin has been increasing his attacks on Ukraine more and more. NOTHING TO DO WITH BIDEN'S PERMISSION.
There are air raid sirens nearly every day now. For instance this was 3.27 am last night in Kyiv.
So you'd be trying to sleep and be woken up by the air raid sirens. Then you decide whether to stay in your house or to move to some shelter.
It is like in the Blitz in WW2 in London. When Ukrainians hear that sound they know that bombs are on their way. Usually small Shahed drones but sometimes big hypersonic missiles. Patriot shoots down nearly all the hypersonic missiles. They hit before you hear them.
The people to be concerned about are the civilians in Ukraine. NOT NATO members.
This is what Zelensky says:
You can watch that video here:
. Thread by @ZelenskyyUa on Thread Reader App with photos and videos of some of the strikes in the previous week in Ukraine.
QUOTE STARTS
Over the past week, Russia has launched over 800 KAB-guided aerial bombs, nearly 460 attack drones, and more than 20 missiles, President Volodymyr Zelensky said on Nov. 24.
“The air raid siren has sounded almost daily across Ukraine this week. Only last night, our air defense forces managed to shoot down about 50 attack drones,” Zelensky wrote on Telegram, sharing a video showing Russian attacks across the country.
On the morning of Nov. 21, Russia unveiled a new intermediate-range ballistic missile (IRBM), dubbed "Oreshnik," in an attack targeting the city of Dnipro in eastern Ukraine.
“Ukraine is not a testing ground for weapons. Ukraine is a sovereign, independent state. Yet Russia persists in its attempts to destroy our people, spread fear and panic, and weaken us,” Zelensky said.
⚡️ Russia attacked Ukraine with over 800 KAB bombs, 460 drones, 20 missiles this week, Zelensky says.
“The air raid siren has sounded almost daily across Ukraine this week,” President Volodymyr Zelensky said on Nov. 24.
. Russia attacked Ukraine with over 800 KAB bombs, 460 drones, 20 missiles this week, Zelensky says
Those KAB bombs are the glide bombs. So that's over 100 glide bombs a DAY near the front lines. And it is 50 shahed drones a day. And nearly 3 missiles a day on average.
At the start of the year it was one drone and missile attack every week or less and occasional glide bombs. But those numbers keep increasing.
Over the summer he destroyed ALL of Ukraine's fossil fuel power stations. They can't rebuild them because as soon as they try he will demolish them again with bombs.
They get their electricity now from the connection to Europe, and from their nuclear and hydro plants.
But Putin is not satisfied with destroying all the fossil fuel plants. He tries to disconnect the nuclear and hydro plants from the grid and to bomb the substations so they can't distribute the power.
He is also stepping up the frequency of attacks. Continuously manufacturing glide bombs and Shahed drones and dropping them now every day.
This is the real escalation. Not anything Biden did
The ATACMS are
NOT to destroy the Russian power grid.
NOT to attack Russian civilians in their homes..
The ATACMS are
to protect Ukraine by blowing up the bombs before the Russians can drop them on Ukraine
Which Ukraine is already doing with its drones but can do much more effectively with ATACMS
They are also for other ways to defend Ukraine..
This makes Ukraine safer.
Ukrainians are the ones the bombs are falling on.
And now that Ukraine can hit these piles of bombs in Russia, they will
blow up lots of them in Russia that would otherwise explode in Ukraine.
Eventually force Russia to move them more than 300 km from Ukraine which will make it far harder for them to drop them on Ukraine because their planes have to fly further each time.
So it is DE-ESCALATORY.
Meanwhile
Any of us living outside Ukraine are at no risk from those glide bombs and Shahed drones that Russia keeps dropping on Ukraine.
We have NO RISK in NATO countries. Putin CANT attack NATO.
But he CAN attack Ukraine
Zelensky and Ukrainians DO NOT WANT WAR - they want peace for the same reasons anyone would in their situation - an end to the deaths and falling bombs
Zelensky and Ukrainians do NOT want NATO soldiers for the same reasons you do not want it. They are not mad. They are just defending themsleves against an invasion by Russia. Both on the front line and also bombs falling every day now on civlians throughout Ukraine.
It is Russia escalating not Ukraine. The civilians are living in a time similar to the Blitz in London right now. Air raid sirens nearly every night.
They want to END the war as much as ANYONE. But they can't because Russia is the attacker and they can't stop Russia attacking them except by fighting back.|
Josep Borrell had a good way to put it:
TEXT ON GRAPHIC:
"In my opinion Ukraine should have the capability to target the source of these attacks— to strike the archers, not just the arrows."
- Josep Borrell, High Representative of the European Union for Foreign Affairs and Security Policy / Vice-President of the European CommissionPhotograph: . File:Josep Borrell (49468484246).jpg - Wikimedia Commons
That is an excellent short summary of both the international law of armed conduct, the UN charter, and the ethics. of it.
For details see his:
. Ukraine/Middle East wars: International law is a must—not a maybe
This is done DEFENSIVELY. So you only hit the archer after they have started firing arrows at you.
This is now NATO’s policy too.
General Bauer put it like this:
TEXT ON GRAPHIC:
Attacks on Ukraine don’t attack NATO
To prevent Russia attacking NATO:
New NATO policy - still take first blow - then take out attacking weapons system.
TRANSCRIPT:
The idea was we are a defensive Alliance so we will only sit and wait until we're attacked and then when we're attacked we will be able to shoot down the arrows that come to us.
But it is smarter not only to do that but also to attack the Archer that is in Russia if Russia attacks us.
So, you need to have a combination of deep Precision strike with which you can take out the weapon systems that are used to attack us.
Of course be because we're a defensive Alliance we will have to take the first blow. So Russia will start the conflict because we are not going to attack Russia out of nothing.
So we will need more air defense, that's one of the lessons from Ukraine, and at the same time we are going to invest in the Deep Precision strike
- General Bauer
END TRANSCRIPT
As a defensive alliance, NATO will NEVER do a pre-emptive strike. But they have changed their policy
if Russia attacks them with conventional missiles
they don't just shoot down the missiles but also strike back at the system attacking them.
So, just as for Ukraine, targets would include fighter jets taking off to drop glide bombs on a NATO country, the airbase they take off from, or warships firing hypersonic missiles at a NATO country and so on until Russia stops the attack.
Any such incident would be over quickly.
It's a deterrent - by clarifying this policy they deter Russia from trying to do such a thing.
The western media is VERY MISLEADING. They present it as if it was a tit for tat retaliation. Ukraine is NOT RETALIATING. Ukraine is NOT targeting civilians in Russia
The western media is VERY MISLEADING. They present it as if it was a tit for tat retaliation. Ukraine is NOT RETALIATING. Ukraine is NOT targeting civilians in Russia
Ukraine is NOT asking Russia to surrender - it is asking it to stop attacking and invading
Also Ukraine IS NOT ASKING RUSSIA TO SURRENDER. That would be absurd.
I explained that in the cover graphic for this blog post.
Russia invaded Ukraine to try to add Ukraine to the already vast Russian Federation.
Ukraine is defending itself because it doesn't want to be part of Russia.
The war ends when Russia gives up its attempt to add Ukraine to Russia. Putin can end it by giving up on the invasion.
So Russia's choices are
Continue to attempt to add Ukraine to the Russian Federation or
Give up on the attempt.
Ukraine's choices are
Surrender and agree to be part of the Russian Federation or
Fight back until they can force Russia to give up on the attempt by making it too costly or impossible for them to continue or by forcing them out of Ukraine by military force.
Russia is trying to coerce Ukraine into surrender through terror - which naturally lead to even the many pro-Russia Ukrainians joining the fight against Russia
And Russia is trying to persuade or rather coerce Ukraine to become part of Russia by
Abducting very young children of Ukrainians in occupied Ukraine and bringing them up as Russians in Russian families
Slowly advancing through Donbas demolishing Ukrainian cities street by street with shelling, in the process destroying all the local businesses and also historical buildings and churches.
A terror campaign of using bombs to destroy all the Ukrainian fossil fuel power stations and continually destroy substations so that Ukrainians will have a cold winter without heating (since most Ukrainians use electricity for heat)
A terror campaign of dropping bombs on Ukrainian civilians.
Destroying Ukrainiain museums and artefacts and looting the museums and removing them to Russia.
Permitting their soldiers to torture Ukrainians in all the places Ukraine has liberated.
These methods of trying to coerce Ukriane to become part of Russia naturally lead to Ukrainians being more and more determined NOT to be part of Russia - as you can well imagine.
Russia was able to take over Crimea quickly because they didn’t use these methods.
There was and is a lot of pro Russian sentiment in Ukraine.
When Russia took over Crimea they did it in a subtle way, quickly and with almost no violence.
But the way they are trying to take over Ukraine is NOT winning them friends even amongst very pro Russian former supporters in Ukraine.
So this is why Ukraine fights back.
This is also why most people in Ukraine now including the ones that are still very pro Russia do NOT want to be part of Russia when coerced in this way.
Ukrainians do NOT want to retaliate - they have many relatives and friends in Russia and want to protect Russian civilians
Ukraine is
NOT fighting as warmongers.
NOT opposed to Russian culture or ideas
NOT because they like fighting or being bombed
JUST To defend their way of life, culture, their own lives and the lives of those they care for.
The LAST thing they would want is to inflict similar suffering on Russians. It is awful for them and they do NOT want this for the Russians - many of them have close connections and relatives in Russia.
They just want to destroy Russia's capabilities to attack Ukraine. With the minimum risk of harm to Russian civilians.
Ukraine is NOT targeting civilians in Russia, unlike Russia which IS targeting civilians in Ukraine. It only wants these missiles to hit MILITARY targets, the archers in Russia that are attacking Ukraine. Plus their arrows and bows too.
The numerous FALSE media stories of Ukraine targeting civilians are either
Russian air defences shooting down a missile or drone from Ukraine and the debris falls in a civilian area of a city or settlement.
Russian glide bombs dropped on Russian cities by mistake - early on especially they often malfunctioned with the wings not opening so they fell down and landed in Russian cities near the border like Belgorod.
Russia blames all these incidents on Ukraine to cover up their own incompetence. But we can be certain they are Russian because of the size of the explosions (far bigger than anything Ukraine could do at that distance at that time) and because the bombs hit the buildings from the Russian rather than the Ukrainian side.
See my:
In 2024, Ukraine hit many oil refineries first - then fuel depots - now stockpiles of bombs - at distance of hundreds of kilometers from their front line
Ukraine has been firing missiles at Russia since day 2 of the war on 25th February 2022, rarely in early 2022 but towards the end of 2022 often hit Russian radar systems with HARM anti-radar which is US supplied and homes in on radars to destroy them.
On Jan 2024 Ukraine had it's first spectacular attack on a gas terminal in St Petersberg, the second largest city in Russia. St Petersberg is also where Putin was born.
. Ukraine drones hit St Petersburg gas terminal in Russia
Then it started attacking oil refineries throughout Eastern and Central Russia.
This is the map as of April of this year
. Ukraine’s strikes against Russian oil refineries
Since then it's also hit the oil refinery in Moscow shown here as a potential target.
Russia can no longer refine oil anywhere within 1000 km of the Ukrainian front line. This means it has to export more crude oil and less of its refined oil which impacts on the finance of the war as the Russian government is largely funded by the oil revenue. It also makes it harder to refine oil internally for the war.
After that it started blowing up fuel depots. The biggest fuel depot fire burnt for 16 days.
The huge fuel tanks kept exploding one after another. You can't put out an oil or gasoline fire with water. On the first day they tried to put it out with water but it just made it worse.
Russia just had to watch and put out any secondary fires and wait for it to burn out.
~They were finally able to put it out after 16 days with most of the fuel gone
. Oil depot fire in Russia's Rostov Oblast extinguished after more than 2 weeks, authorities say
Then after that it started blowing up Russia's stockpiles of bombs.
This is the Toropets explosion in the cover image:
At 1:14 in you hear the local Russian officials telling us that everything is under control while you hear the explosions in the background
TEXT ON GRAPHIC (at 44 seconds in)
You hear the sound of explosions going off as they speak.
“The air defence system of the Ministry of Defence did its job.
Most of 30 kilotons of explosives blew up
How Russia responds to setbacks in the war - tells everyone that nothing is happening.
Ukraine now blows up those bombs regularly. These are all bombs that it plans to drop on Ukraine. Ukraine
Ukraine is now regularly using ATACMS against targets in Russia too to blow up bombs amongst other things.
So in short it's nothing. All Putin will do is to hide or downplay or excuse away any of these explosions or fires or yet more of his generals being killed. Just won't run the stories in Russian media.
Oleshnik is nothing new - just an IRBM that flies 1,500 km into the atmosphere to hit a target only 800 km away.
The only new thing about the Oleshik is it flies very high above the atmosphere probably at a guess over 1000 km maybe even several 1000 km, which is what is so strange about using such a weapon to hit a target only 800 km away. It probably flies much higher into the sky than it travels horizontally
The first test dropped 36 lumps of metal on Dnipro city from a height of 1,500 km. They had no explosives inside but Russia may later add explosives to them.
It can be stopped by interceptors such as Israel's Arrow 3 and the U.S. SM-3 Block 2A.
There is no reason to suppose it really is a response to the ATACMS permission.
I expect he had been working on it at least some time before Biden gave the permission.
It looks like it was a test for such a missile and they decided to fire the test missile against Dnipro instead of the more usual testing grounds in Russia.
Which is militarily stupid because it gives Ukraine time to study it and work out countermeasures. But likely done for psychological reasons.
Ukraine WILL be able to stop the Oreshnik but it needs new intereceptors for Patriot or a new THAAD system - unless Europe decides to shoot it down with Aegis Ashore in Romania (unlikely)
Europe's Aegis Ashore could stop it as this shows its coverage:
. Can Aegis Ashore in Poland Protect Ukraine from Long-Range Ballistic Missiles?
The second Aegis Ashore in Romania already covers all of Ukraine. But it's like Poland offering to stop drones over Ukraine. NATO countries are not likely to permit Romania or Poland to shoot down incoming Oleshniks’ on their way to hit Ukraine.
So they have to send one of their very rare THAAD mobile systems or enhance Patriot with an interceptor able to hit it. That would likely mean the
. RIM-161 Standard Missile 3 - Wikipedia
Ukraine targets the archers, their shields, their bows and arrows and the bow and arrow stockpiles and manufacturers in Josep Borell’s analogy
Ukraine used the ATACMS in its first strike on Russia to blow up some of the bombs in the 67th Grau ammunition site in Bryansk oblast. So they were blowing up bombs that Russia was stockpiling to drop on Ukraine.
That's like targeting a stockpile of arrows.
You could hardly have a more DEFENSIVE target. Every explosion in the munition depot is an explosion that would otherwise have happened in Ukraine.
. Ukraine strikes Russian ammunition depot in Bryansk Oblast, military says
Also Ukraine itself had hit the same munitions site with their own slow drones over a month earlier on 1st Oct.
https://x.com/Tendar/status/1843879823019782425
About the 67th Arsenal of GRAU
QUOTE One of the closest is the 67th GRAU arsenal, situated near Karachev in the Bryansk region, just 114 km from Ukraine. This facility, right next to a town of 20,000 people, spans 3.5 square kilometers. Satellite imagery from 2021 shows some ammunition was stored in the open air.
. Assessment of Other Key GRAU Arsenals As Big as in Toropets Within Ukraine's Reach | Defense Express
Ukraine has just now used ATACMS to destroy an S-400 radar system, a relatively modern Russian air defence system (the most modern is the S-500 which it has also often destroyed)
QUOTE STARTS
The strike was carried out using three ATACMS ballistic missiles. The air defense system was in a non-combat state, undergoing repairs.
As a result of the strike, the 92N6E radar station and two launchers were destroyed. Five officers from the division were killed (including the commander and the chief of staff), and three employees of AO "Almaz-Antey" received fatal injuries.
. WarTranslated (Dmitri) (@wartranslated) on X
Then the same night, a military airfield in Kursk oblast
. WarTranslated (Dmitri) (@wartranslated) on X
Ukraine used its first stormshadow on Nov 20th in Russia to hit a command post at a time when Russian and North Korean command staff were gathering together - this is a legitimate target so long as they were actually involved in directing the war which they presumably were.
The stormshadow is optimized for penetrating bunkers.
QUOTE STARTS
As Defense Express previously speculated, the nature of the target and the deployment of multiple cruise missiles strongly suggested the objective was a gathering of senior russian and North Korean command staff.
The casualties reportedly included numerous russian officers from the Southern and Eastern Military Districts. Among them was Lieutenant General Valery Solodchuk, First Deputy Commander of the Leningrad Military District and former commander of the 1st Army Corps of the so-called DPR in 2014.
It is a clear military target and there is no question at all about the legitimacy.
UKRAINE did this. The UK is NOT involved.
The Scalp EG / Stormshadow are exported to places like India and UAE and the ATACMS to places alike Singapore and UAE. Just as Singpaore OF COURSE fires its own ATACMS and OF COURSE is permited to fire them at targets outside tiny Singapore if it was ever attacked - it shoudl be the same for Ukraine.
If its suppleirs set rules for when and where it can use their missiles that makes them MORE involved than if they just say as the UK and France did "Here you are use them as you see fit".
Biden and Macron and Starmer dropping their restrictions are making their countries LESS INVOLVED from the perspective of international law and the UN Charter, as just suppliers supplying a counry for its legitimate right to self defence and not in any way participating in the conflict.
The news is all BACK TO FRONT here.
And there is NO WAY that Russia attacks the UK which is way way out of its league as part of NATO.
Putin will just respond as he did when Ukraine blew up 30 kilotons of Russian explosives in the Toropets bomb store. Just hide the news from the Russian people and pretend nothing is happening.
All Ukraine is doing is to attack military sites in Russia that are directly used to bomb its cities and kill its civilians and its soldiers. This is just the sovereign right of an invaded country to defend itself under the UN charter.
Ukraine is NOT attacking civilians in Russia. It is ONLY attacking things like:
fighter jets and bombers that attack Ukraine every day with missiles with a range of thousands of kilometers.
storage depots for Shahed drones.
storage depots for glide bombs
munitions dumps with millions of shells and thousands of missiles that Russia uses to attack Ukraine
fuel depots
oil refineries which make the fuel for tanks fighter jets etc and which also are the main source of revenue for the Russian military
concentrations of Russian soldiers that are fighting ukraine or on their way to fight in Ukraine.
airfields that Russia has just across the border in Russia which its bombers and fighter jets take off from every day to drop one to three ton glide bombs on Ukrainian soldiers and civilian buildings in cities.
bridges that are used to supply shells, soldiers, tanks, fuel etc to the front line
roads and railway lines that are also used to supply the front line
command posts that are used to organize the fight and issue commands to the front line.
industrial buildings directly used to make or store the bombs that are dropped on Ukraine or the tanks, infantry fighting vehicles etc.
air defence systems that protect all these military targets from attack
artillery firing at Ukraine across the border
warships in the Black Sea that fire missiles at Ukraine from a great distance.
tanks, infantry fighting vehicles and other ground vehicles that soldiers use to attack Ukraine.
fighter jets, helicopters, military supply aircraft and bombers that are used every day to attack Ukraine when they are in the air over Russia before they reach Ukraine.
ALL OF THESE are legitimate targets whether they are in occupied Ukraine or in Russia. A tank that is driving towards the border is as much a threat before as after it crosses the border
And Ukraine is
ALREADY attacking ALL OF THESE with its own drones and missiles, hitting targets as far away as the Arctic circle and the other side of Moscow.
Before this permission it was also attacking all of these when they are within a range of 80 km across the border or 80 km from their front line in Kursk oblast with the US supplied HiMARS launcher anbd GLMRS and when within 25 km, with the M777 Howitzzers and the 155 mm shells all supplied by the USA.
Ukraine have ALREADY killed thousands of the Russian soldiers on Russian soil with US supplied tanks infantry fighting vehicles, howitzers and GLMRS missiles in Kursk oblast.
Giving Ukriane permission to use one more missile system with a range of 300 km much smaller than their longest distance drone is NOT in any way a threat to the Russian Federation.
Though Ukraine has drones that can reach the Kremlin it's never tried to attack Putin and all this is just defence. Ukraine doesn't have the slightest interest or the capability of taking over Russia. All it is doing is defending itself. If Putin's army leaves Ukraine the war is over.
Putin and the Russians know this and they are just using empty threats to try to get Ukraine's allies to stop supplying an important and effective missile system which would slow down or even halt Russia's slow one mile per week advances in Ukraine and make it harder for Russia to conduct the war crimes of destroying Ukraine's civilian electricity grid and directly targeting civilian buildings with glide bombs.
And if Putin did use a single nuke against NATO, goodbye his Black Sea fleet on day 1 not from nukes, from conventional explosives.
NATO would have control over the Russian air space by the next day with their F-35s. The objective of almost the entire world, China and India included would be to make sure Russia never uses its nukes again. There is no way that China or India could endorse Russia if it used a nuke in response to Ukrainians attacking military targets in Russia with US supplied weapons.
There is just NO WAY that the risk averse Putin does such a dumb thing or that his generals obey him if he does.
There is just so much clickbait sensationalist BS in the Western media about this, and when you look at it, then the actual permission is nothing
It is nowhere near enough indeed. If Ukraine had got this permission when it first used ATACMS in the fall of 2023 it might have significantly flipped the war because back then Russia had hundreds of fighter jets in airfields near to Ukraine.
The ATACMS could have surprised Russia and destroyed hundreds of fighter jets in a few days and significantly deterred Russia and also destroyed many munition dumps and fuel dumps.
Also, if Ukraine had been given unlimited permission to use them in any way that is acceptable according to the law of armed conduct, the effect on the command posts that are running the war would have been devastating. It would have been like when they destroyed the Black Sea headquarters in Sevastopol but much more so.
But instead Ukraine is using them for the first time in Russian territory, after months of debate by the US and slowly increasing so as not to alarm the Russians and giving them time to slowly adapt, change the way it does things and continue the war in a slightly different way moving assets just out of reach of ATACMS before it can hit them.
That is why people now say it won't have much effect on the war. It is hard to say.
Ukraine thinks it can still have a big effect so we'll see. Zelensky says this is part of his Victory plan.
Zelensky says this is part of his Victory plan - and that strikes are not announced in advance
This suggests that we shouldn’t pay too much attention to the various rumours. Whatever permission Biden has given to Ukraine is something only he and Ukraine knows.
QUOTE STARTS
The plan to strengthen Ukraine is the Victory Plan which I presented to our partners. One of its key points is long-range capabilities for our army.
Today, there’s a lot of talk in the media about us receiving permission for respective[appropriate] actions. But strikes are not carried out with words. Such things are not announced. Missiles will speak for themselves. They certainly will"
. 🌊 R Saddler (@Politics_PR) on X
So - Ukraine still thinks that this permission now, much later, is still a way to win against Russia - to push it out of most or all occupied Ukraine.
Putin may well think Ukraine has a victory plan too - his command centers are especially vulnerable to Stormshadow
From Putin’s response he may well agree with Zelensky. This permission could turn the war around and lead to Ukraine winning. Which remember for Putin just means he has to give up on his plan to annex Ukraine into the far larger Russian Federation.
Putin knows that with the ATACMS and Stormshadow, Ukraine could make it impossible for him to keep stockpiles of bombs within 300 km of Ukraine or fly planes from within 300 km or even to command the war from command posts within 300 km.
There is a really big command post in Rostov on Don.
The Stormshadows were used to destroy the Black Sea Fleet headquarters in Crimea and nowadays it is impossible for Russia to set up a command post anywhere in Crimea. This shows the moment a Stormshadow missile went through the roof of the Black Sea Fleet HQ in Sevastopol. Sept 2023.
The Ukrainians claimed to have hit a gathering of Russian officials directing the Black Sea Fleet.
This was part of a series of missile strikes that eventually forced the Black Sea and its HQ to leave Crimea entirely as nowhere there was safe for either its ships or its commanders.
With the Stormshadow and ATACMS Ukraine could destroy the military HQ of the entire Ukraine war operation in Rostov-upon-Don just like it destroyed the HQ of the Black Sea Fleet in Sevastopol.
This is the building that memorably Prikorvsky took over in his short lived rebellion against Putin.
If Ukraine attacked that building at an awkward point for Russia it could seriously impede on their attempts to stop a counteroffensive.
TEXT ON GRAPHIC
ATACMS could be programmed with google maps and streetview
HQ of Rusisa’s war campaign in Ukraine is within ATACMS reach in Rostov-upon-Don
Google maps: 47°13'25.1"N 39°42'17.6"E
This is from the ISW interactive map here
It is one of many targets in Rostov on Don
Larger view:
. Interactive Map: Hundreds of Known Russian Military Objects are in Range of ATACMS
If the same happens in Rostov on Don as happened to the Black Sea Fleet HQ in Sevastopol, Putin's generals will have to direct the war from more than 300 km from the front line.
This would surely seriously impede his ability to fight the war.
Ukraine of course has been vulnerable to similar strikes from Russia since day 1 of the war. So they have already adapted. They no longer command the war from big buildings like that, their command posts are distributed, underground, hard to find or to hit, and hardened.
But Putin has fought this war so far with huge command posts with dozens of generals with their computers and components in ordinary buildings above the ground and easy targets.
Also the Stormshadow is very precise and can hit even deeply buried command posts.
But Russia has had the luxury so far of directing this war from big office buildings and obvious structures like the Black Sea Fleet and the Rostov Southern MIlitary HQ,
So it is not like this would stop Russia fighting. But if it happened at a critical moment for Russia it could put them in disarray at a time when they need to coordinate a response to a counteroffensive.
Or Ukraine could use the threat to do this to encourage Russia to seek a genuine way forward to peace.
So - I don’t understand why Western commentators keep saying permission to hit command posts in Russia will have no impact on the war.
And attacking NATO would NOT solve this problem of the vulnerability of his command posts, the fuel depots, munitions dumps etc to ATACMS.
Rather that is the easiest way to lose very quickly. Given that he is concerned about Ukraine with 300 km ATACMS and Stormshadow, the LAST thing he wants is for them to get the 2,500 km Tomahawk or for NATO to get involved with their near radar-invisible F-35s.
He has an easy solution to all his predicaments, to withdraw his soldiers from Ukraine and to give up on his objective to force Ukraine to join the Russian Federation by military means.
If Ukraine does indeed have a victory plan then this will happen eventually. But Putin can be expected to try everything else first.
But one thing he will CERTAINLY not do is to attack NATO. Given how vulnerable Russia is to Ukraine which is NOT supplied with the best weapons NATO has - it would have NO CHANCE if it was fighting NATO itself.
See also my longer post:
Zelensky’is victory plan whatever it is can end the war.
I do believe he has one, he is not a man to give his people false hope.
TEXT ON GRAPHIC:
President Biden: “Ukraine will win this war”
After seeing Zelensky’s detailed victory plan.
Zelensky, interviewed on Fox news:
“We took the plan with details and we gave this plan to Biden. We shared some ideas about it with Kamala and with Donald.”
So only Biden has seen the detailed p[lan.
Russia is far weaker than you’d think from the very static front line - losing large amounts of munitions, fuel, and with big problems supplying the front line.
It has several weaknesses along the front line that Ukraine might exploit in a surprise counteroffensive that it would NOT share publicly.
President Biden tweeted that Ukraine will win this war after seeing Zelensky’s victory plan and Zelensky replied:.
TWEET BY BIDEN AND REPLY BY ZELENSKY
President Biden @POTUS
Ukraine will win this war.
And the United States will continue to stand beside them every step of the way.
Volodymyr Zelenskyy / Володимир Зеленський @ZelenskyyUa Thank you, dear @POTUS Joe Biden, for your clear-eyed stance and for your historic support for Ukraine.
Ukraine will win this war with the strong backing of its allies. We are grateful to the United States, President Biden, both parties in Congress, and all Americans for taking the lead in supporting Ukraine and liberty. This vital assistance helps us to protect our people, our independence, and freedom.
We particularly appreciate President Biden's efforts to rally global solidarity with Ukraine. We are already preparing for the upcoming meeting of the Ukraine Defense Contact Group in Ramstein format.
We must win this war together, Ukraine, the United States, and the entire free world, and we will.
7:07 PM · Sep 29, 2024
. Volodymyr Zelenskyy / Володимир Зеленський (@ZelenskyyUa) on X
And I can see many ways they could win either on the battlefield or by its allies putting Ukraine in such strong position that Putin has to negotiate a solution.
We saw Ukraine achieve very major successes.
2022: won the battle of Kyiv, its first major surprise, sunk the Moskva, liberated Snake island which was like an unsinkable battleship for Russia close to Ukraine, then the battle to liberate Kharkiv oblast, encircling and taking Izyum, liberating Kherson city, sunk the Moskva. Key to this was the way that Ukraine destroyed munitions dumps and fuel dumps throughout occupied Ukraine in huge conventional explosions.
2023: got through the Russian front lines at Verbove. Crossed the Dnipro at Krynky near Oleshky sands. The experts I followed were expecting a counteroffensive in the fall but then the US Ukraine bill got stuck in Congress and Ukraine had to shift to defense for the rest of 2023.
Pushed the Russian Black Sea fleet entirely out of Crimea, sunk a quarter of the Black Sea fleet, and freed the grain corridor so that Ukraine can export as much grain as it likes without Russian interference - a remarkable moment in military history where a country without a single destroyer soundly defeats one of the largest navies in the world yet it barely hit the news.2024: incursion into Kursk oblast. Now it’s at 1/3 of the Black Sea fleet destroyed and all the rail ferries over to Crimea out of action. Destroyed 3 months supply of shells and missiles for Russia’s war in 3 days including a series of explosions of a huge stockpile of Russian munitions so big it caused a series of minor earthquakes when it exploded (the largest, possibly a conventional explosion of over 1 kiloton and estimated that 30,000 tons total of explosives destroyed with the three strikes) - and destroyed much of Russia’s air defences in Crimea and occupied Ukraine.
See also
Effects of the war on the Russian economy - ending the war sooner is better for Russian civilians
First, Ukraine will be okay. Ukraine has lost about a third of its pre-world GDP - as expected when it has a fifth of its country taken away along with all the industry in those regions - and missiles destroying its infrastructure. So Ukraine is in a big recession. Ukraine: what’s the global economic impact of Russia’s invasion? - Economics Observatory
However, it is getting a lot of economic support from the rest of Europe and will be able to recover from it because of that support.
Russia however can’t rely on any external country to prop it up. China certainly could in terms of resources but it is not that sort of an ally to Putin. It’s doing the opposite, taking advantage of the situation to sell cars at high prices and buy gas at low prices.
Russia is at risk of stagflation at present, inflation that can’t be stopped because employment is so low and there aren’t enough people to keep up with the demand of the civilians who want to buy things.
The main issue at least so far is with transitioning to peace. Experts seem to think that the Russian economy can keep afloat during the war.
Russia does have high levels of food inflation but also the war is sending lots of money to many of its people. So they can keep up with the inflation.
The issue is what Russia does when the war ends. The longer it lasts then more the economy is geared to depend on the war, and the harder to transition to a peace economy.
Even though it is only 6% of the economy devoted to the war, the transition is a difficult one because of the other effects of the war on Russia.
If it is true that Ukraine is going to win, as I think it is, the sooner that Ukraine ends the war the better for the Russian economy.
Putin is not going to end it from his side unless he sees that he is going to lose. But it will be harder to transition to peace the longer the war continues. It doesn’t seem that Putin will take that into account in his decision making so he may find himself faced with a veyr difficult situation if the war continues for another year or two and then he is forced to peace or simply can’t sustain the war any more.
This is from "The Bell" which is one of the veyr few remaining independent Russian media companies. It is blocked within Russia.
QUOTE STARTS
The Russian economy is showing more and more signs that growth is slowing, and economists are beginning to talk more and more about stagflation – a combination of low growth and high inflation. As no-one can openly blame the Ukraine war, the Central Bank highlights “external factors,” while business leaders and government-connected economists blame the Central Bank for imposing record high interest rates.
...
The slowdown is not simply due to declining output in the raw material extraction industries (this has been ongoing for several months amid falling export prices), but also a stuttering manufacturing sector. The only place growth is still noticeable is in sectors linked to the military. Everywhere else in the economy growth is absent, or, at best, anemic.
...
Why the world should care
An economic slowdown is a very serious problem during a period of high inflation. And, in modern Russia, it is impossible to treat it using Reaganite methods: slashing spending and reducing regulation to attract foreign investment. Cutting funding for the war and the defense sector is politically inconceivable in Russia at the moment.
Even acknowledging that the war and sanctions triggered this cycle of overheating and decline is impossible. That means the Central Bank may well end up being held responsible.
. The Bell (newspaper) - Wikipedia
. About
Russia's central bank is warning they may be headed for stagflation because so many of their workers have been lost to the war. That risks a deep recession in the more distant future - this is about probably years in the future.
QUOTE STARTS
"The shortage of (labour) resources may lead to a situation where economic growth slows down, despite all the efforts to stimulate demand, with all that stimulus accelerating inflation," Central Bank Governor Elvira Nabiullina said over the summer.
"In essence, this is a stagflation scenario, which can only be stopped at the cost of a deep recession," she warned.
It won't stop them fighting by itself. That article goes on to explain how they can afford to keep fighting.
And the Western sanctions were designed to impact on the military not the economy so they weren't intended to undermine the Russian economy.
Russia will be able to keep fighting, this is not going to stop it, but it will cause financial problems further in the future including after the war is over, it wilil be hard to get out of this stagflation.
Once the war is over they will have the difficult task of deciding how to keep going. How do they wind down the military while boosting the civilian economy?
The sooner the war ends the easier the transition to peace is for Russia. If it continues for a fair while longer it will be able to keep going but then face major problems when the war stops.
QUOTE STARTS
Despite the outward appearance of stability, Russia’s wartime economy faces mounting challenges. Russia’s National Welfare Fund is steadily dwindling, while export revenues have gradually declined during 2024 as a result of tightening sanctions and constraints on resource extraction caused by limited access to modern technologies.
Economists are now warning that the Russian economy is in danger of overheating, largely as a result of unprecedented military spending. Meanwhile, Russia’s low unemployment rate of around 2.5 percent is more indicative of a severe labor shortage than a healthy economy. The problems caused by this lack of workforce add to the challenges created by sanctions-related restrictions on access to Western equipment, exacerbating Russia’s technological deficit.
Inflation currently poses the single greatest threat to Putin’s wartime economy, and was a key factor behind the recent decision to hike the country’s key interest rate. Russia’s Central Bank aims to reduce inflation to around four percent in 2025, but this may not be a realistic target. Indeed, official inflation data from the Kremlin may actually underestimate the rising cost of living for ordinary Russians.
Over the past year, even official Russian government bodies such as Rosstat have cautiously acknowledged negative economic trends such as rising inflation, labor shortages, and declining activity in some sectors of the economy. Taken together, these negative factors are likely to contribute to a period of slower growth, if not stagnation.
...
Many Russians have clearly benefited financially from the war. Military contracts have proved particularly lucrative for the country’s business elite, while the departure of Western companies has created vacant niches for Russian companies to fill.
Ordinary Russian citizens have been able to earn unprecedented sums of money by enlisting in the military, with the families of soldiers killed or wounded in Ukraine receiving substantial payments. Those working in factories servicing the war effort have also seen salaries increase as much as five times amid surging demand and labor scarcity. Overall, the invasion of Ukraine has enabled millions of Russians to pull themselves out of poverty.
The economic benefits enjoyed by a wide range of social groups in Russia as a result of the war have helped foster pro-war sentiment and bolster support for the Putin regime. Ending the invasion of Ukraine would therefore potentially weaken the position of the authorities and fuel instability. This creates further incentives to continue the war.
The current state of the Russian economy is far from critical but it does present Putin with a dilemma. He currently appears intent on continuing the war indefinitely while hoping to outlast the West and exhaust Ukraine. Alternatively, he could seek to move toward a settlement of some kind. However, there is a very real danger that either option could end up plunging Russia into a serious economic crisis.
If Putin opts to maintain his uncompromising push for an historic victory in Ukraine, it is not clear that Russia has the resources to wage a prolonged war on the present scale. In this scenario, current warning signs such as rising inflation and labor shortages could eventually become major problems.
If he seeks a settlement and withdraws the Keynesian crutch of today’s vastly inflated military spending, the economic repercussions could be dire. The Russian economy is not yet close to collapse, but it is increasingly dependent on wartime conditions and faces growing risks of overheating.
. Russia’s economy is overheating but Putin cannot change course
SEE ALSO
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