Revelation wrote:

Seems like there are a bunch of lessons to be learned.

"The West" needs to have a bigger stockpile if they are to be a credible threat in the future.

The only good news is Russia is eating through its stockpile pretty darn fast too, and won't be able to replenish it any time soon.

It's not practical to expect allies to be able to take in new aircraft type on the fly. There needs to be months if not years of preparation for pilots, mechanics, trainers, facility engineers and logistics technicians to all come up to speed on a new aircraft type. Similar things may be true to a lesser degree for advanced air defense systems.

Makes me wonder how the West would cope with China invading Taiwan. There would be little time for heavy equipment to be flown in, Taiwan would have to cope with whatever is in place. Would the Taiwanese resist as hard as the Ukrainians have?

What if China launched a "special military operation" from its new bases in the South China Sea? They claim to own everything in the region anyway. Sound familiar?

How quick would we just have to tell allies "sorry, we have no more X left in the stockpile?".

Klaus wrote:

I suspect the available paths are basically ramping up on ground-based supplies to Ukraine including artillery and longer-range missiles (even to the point of accepting them hitting russian bases where Putin's war-criminal terror strikes against the civilian population originate from!) and only in a major escalation situation NATO actually intervening with their existing air forces.

It would be very different in many respects and mostly just the US would have the means of helping out, but western sanctions would immediately trigger a massive economic crash and likely social unrest in China, so at least as long as China is in the precarious situation it is in today I don't see them putting their dangerous rhetoric into reality. It is a major point of concern, however, and we cannot have any illusions about tyrants being ultimately constrained by economic relations. That ship has sailed, taken water and capsized already!

bikerthai wrote:

Because of logistics and terrain, I feel that a Taiwan conflict would be an infantry battle. Perhaps that would benefit Taiwan a little bit more.
bt

Vintage wrote:

bikerthai wrote:

Because of logistics and terrain, I feel that a Taiwan conflict would be an infantry battle. Perhaps that would benefit Taiwan a little bit more.
bt

It seems to me that a Taiwan conflict would be an air/naval battle. If it turns into an infantry battle of any size, Taiwan would have already lost the war.

Russia’s defence ministry on Friday accused Ukraine of executing more than 10 Russian prisoners of war in what Moscow said constituted a “war crime”, the latest allegation of abuse in the nearly nine-month-long war.

The ministry cited a video circulating on Russian social media which it said showed the execution of Russian soldiers. Reuters was unable to immediately verify either the video or the defence ministry’s claim.

Revelation wrote:

Related: ubiquitous internet access is now a military necessity. We can see what happens when you can send drone video back from anywhere, and when soldiers can use apps to call in artillery strikes. In turn, denying your enemy use of such is now even more important.

Elon may be known as the Space Karen, but lord knows what the situation would be if he turned off Starlink in Ukraine.

It would be very different in many respects and mostly just the US would have the means of helping out, but western sanctions would immediately trigger a massive economic crash and likely social unrest in China, so at least as long as China is in the precarious situation it is in today I don't see them putting their dangerous rhetoric into reality. It is a major point of concern, however, and we cannot have any illusions about tyrants being ultimately constrained by economic relations. That ship has sailed, taken water and capsized already!

I'm not sure that is a lesson we can take away from the current situation. Western sanctions have been in place for 2/3rds of the year and Russia is little impacted by them, yet. In the case of China, the West is pretty dependent on Chinese manufacturers for all kinds of stuff, so it'd hurt the West pretty darn bad as well. It's not like we have all these factories mothballed waiting to restart if trade with China ends, nor do we have a workforce willing to work in those factories.

I hope sanctions against Russia do kick in soon. I can't stand seeing stuff like this. It's just unbelievable that we still let Russia get away with targeting civilians. There's a huge cost associated with letting the frog boil.

Klaus wrote:

Which only reinforces that critical infrastructure must not be controlled privately!

China would be completely different regarding sanctions because Russia is almost exclusively selling fossil fuel commodities, not manufactured goods, while with China it's the other way around.

So sanctions would work very differently with China and they know it. Xi is effectively waiting and preparing for when China won't be as dependent on the west as they are now, and closing our eyes to that would be a mistake.

Sanctions are mostly a slowly increasing, suffocating squeeze, not a hard punch to the face. They can still gain even more of an impact than targeted attacks could, but they are cumulative, not immediate!

Ukraine war will be over by end of spring, country's deputy defence minister predicts

The retired major general says his nation will never stop fighting until victory and even a Russian nuclear strike would not end the struggle to drive out invading Kremlin forces.

art wrote:

I hope he is not just saying that with a view to boosting morale.

Putin’s revolting behaviour is highly visible. Every time he loses a region or city – Kherson last week – which he had previously captured, lootings, kidnappings, rape victims, torture chambers, unburied bodies and unmarked graves are discovered. Some attack him for “indiscriminate” bombing, but that is the wrong word (though his bombs often miss). He does discriminate – against civilians and the installations which give them the electric power, or heat or water they need. He wants to break them.

These are all reported with horror, yet I am not sure Putin’s evil individual deeds are sufficiently linked by Western media or leaders with what 19th-century writers would have called his “fell purposes”.

Putin is not doing this just for fun, although one gets the horrible sense that he and his followers are sadists who positively enjoy their work. He is trying to show that the Western civilisation which he hates is too weak to confront him.

To do this, he tries to enlist its enemies. Iran is providing his drones, and now there is talk of it supplying him with ballistic missiles against which Nato’s defence industries have little to offer. If he were proved right about our feebleness, the world balance of power would alter in favour of this Slavic Sauron and of those – notably China, as well as Iran – who wish us ill. Not for nothing do the Ukrainians refer to the Russian soldiers they resist as “Orcs”.

Western news bulletins often manage to combine shocking reports of Russian atrocities with hopeful accounts of “peace moves”, without seeing how the former undermine the latter. Even stranger is the fact that whenever the Ukrainians win a resounding victory – the Russians’ early retreat from the road to Kyiv, their defeat in Kharkiv, now their flight from Kherson – the cry among some Western political or military leaders goes up for Ukraine to come to the table.

General Mark Milley, the chairman of the US joint chiefs, recently told a Pentagon briefing that Ukraine could not expect to regain the whole of its occupied country: now would be a good time “to negotiate from a position of strength”, because Russia is “on its back”. In a speech the week before in New York, he saw the coming winter as a “window of opportunity” for a negotiated settlement.

On the Continent, President Macron of France still touts his services as peacemaker in the diplomatic marketplace. Here in Britain, retired generals such as Lord Richards, former chief of the defence staff, warn of “General Winter” and say it is “not in anyone’s interest” for the war to continue.

Such views take little account of the Ukrainians. In February, their government could have been decapitated within days by a Russian coup. Instead, President Zelensky famously refused a ride. Backed by American, British and Polish training and kit, his armed forces drove the Russians back. Since then, although the cost in lives and money has been agonising, the Ukrainians have won at every turn, exposing Russian corruption, barbarity and military incompetence.

There seems little reason to defer to the old cliché that the Russians always win in the snow. They have done so when invaded, not as the aggressors they now are. Besides, Ukraine has among its allies some of the greatest winter-war experts: Finland, Sweden, Poland. Judging by the Russian conscripts’ ragged uniforms and downtrodden look, it is they who are literally exposed to the freeze.

In contrast, the Ukrainians have appeared well-trained, well-disciplined, well-informed and with sky-high morale throughout. While the Russians have tried to terrify us by boasting of generals who were “the butcher of Syria” or “General Armageddon”, the Ukrainian military have not paraded vainglorious or brutal hero-leaders. They have professionally, almost anonymously, got on with the job.

After achieving so much, against expectation, Zelensky and his men could not give up now, even if they wanted to. Putin was 100 per cent wrong to invade, and the people whose country he invaded will justifiably insist on his being 100 per cent out of it.

They probably could not achieve this without continued large-scale Western aid. But that is precisely why suggestions about peace “feelers” help Putin. Although his military record has been terrible, he remains resourceful at playing on Western nerves.

At first, many, including General Milley, thought that his mighty show of force would win in a couple of days. Then Putin frightened us badly (and still, to some extent, does) over oil, gas and grain. Then – and simultaneously – he talked darkly of nuclear options. Other threats include cyber-war, an “unshakeable bond” with China, and imported Middle-Eastern killers. The more he sees us looking for a way out because of his threats, the more he will feel emboldened to fight on.

We in the West still have not fully acknowledged how close we came – and might still come – to a geopolitical defeat. If it had not been for Zelensky and his people, we would have continued a process which we first permitted in 2014: the changing of European borders by force. A great European country which, 30 years ago, we helped to liberate, would have been subjugated by the invader’s violence. We would have signalled our impotence to the wider world, with dire global consequences.

Now it feels different. Last week in Bali, a less assertive Xi Jinping seemed to join the US in disapproval of Putin’s nuclear threats, perhaps realising that he had let his country unshakeably bond with a gangster rather than a great power. It does look possible that, with our help, Ukraine can win. Why would we not want that? We should jettison our outdated respect for Russia as an impressively permanent feature of the international order and recognise that, under Putin, it has become a rogue state. We should help Ukraine unstintingly.

art wrote:

Food for thought...

Putin’s revolting behaviour is highly visible. Every time he loses a region or city – Kherson last week – which he had previously captured, lootings, kidnappings, rape victims, torture chambers, unburied bodies and unmarked graves are discovered. Some attack him for “indiscriminate” bombing, but that is the wrong word (though his bombs often miss). He does discriminate – against civilians and the installations which give them the electric power, or heat or water they need. He wants to break them.

These are all reported with horror, yet I am not sure Putin’s evil individual deeds are sufficiently linked by Western media or leaders with what 19th-century writers would have called his “fell purposes”.

Putin is not doing this just for fun, although one gets the horrible sense that he and his followers are sadists who positively enjoy their work. He is trying to show that the Western civilisation which he hates is too weak to confront him.

To do this, he tries to enlist its enemies. Iran is providing his drones, and now there is talk of it supplying him with ballistic missiles against which Nato’s defence industries have little to offer. If he were proved right about our feebleness, the world balance of power would alter in favour of this Slavic Sauron and of those – notably China, as well as Iran – who wish us ill. Not for nothing do the Ukrainians refer to the Russian soldiers they resist as “Orcs”.

Western news bulletins often manage to combine shocking reports of Russian atrocities with hopeful accounts of “peace moves”, without seeing how the former undermine the latter. Even stranger is the fact that whenever the Ukrainians win a resounding victory – the Russians’ early retreat from the road to Kyiv, their defeat in Kharkiv, now their flight from Kherson – the cry among some Western political or military leaders goes up for Ukraine to come to the table.

General Mark Milley, the chairman of the US joint chiefs, recently told a Pentagon briefing that Ukraine could not expect to regain the whole of its occupied country: now would be a good time “to negotiate from a position of strength”, because Russia is “on its back”. In a speech the week before in New York, he saw the coming winter as a “window of opportunity” for a negotiated settlement.

On the Continent, President Macron of France still touts his services as peacemaker in the diplomatic marketplace. Here in Britain, retired generals such as Lord Richards, former chief of the defence staff, warn of “General Winter” and say it is “not in anyone’s interest” for the war to continue.

Such views take little account of the Ukrainians. In February, their government could have been decapitated within days by a Russian coup. Instead, President Zelensky famously refused a ride. Backed by American, British and Polish training and kit, his armed forces drove the Russians back. Since then, although the cost in lives and money has been agonising, the Ukrainians have won at every turn, exposing Russian corruption, barbarity and military incompetence.

There seems little reason to defer to the old cliché that the Russians always win in the snow. They have done so when invaded, not as the aggressors they now are. Besides, Ukraine has among its allies some of the greatest winter-war experts: Finland, Sweden, Poland. Judging by the Russian conscripts’ ragged uniforms and downtrodden look, it is they who are literally exposed to the freeze.

In contrast, the Ukrainians have appeared well-trained, well-disciplined, well-informed and with sky-high morale throughout. While the Russians have tried to terrify us by boasting of generals who were “the butcher of Syria” or “General Armageddon”, the Ukrainian military have not paraded vainglorious or brutal hero-leaders. They have professionally, almost anonymously, got on with the job.

After achieving so much, against expectation, Zelensky and his men could not give up now, even if they wanted to. Putin was 100 per cent wrong to invade, and the people whose country he invaded will justifiably insist on his being 100 per cent out of it.

They probably could not achieve this without continued large-scale Western aid. But that is precisely why suggestions about peace “feelers” help Putin. Although his military record has been terrible, he remains resourceful at playing on Western nerves.

At first, many, including General Milley, thought that his mighty show of force would win in a couple of days. Then Putin frightened us badly (and still, to some extent, does) over oil, gas and grain. Then – and simultaneously – he talked darkly of nuclear options. Other threats include cyber-war, an “unshakeable bond” with China, and imported Middle-Eastern killers. The more he sees us looking for a way out because of his threats, the more he will feel emboldened to fight on.

We in the West still have not fully acknowledged how close we came – and might still come – to a geopolitical defeat. If it had not been for Zelensky and his people, we would have continued a process which we first permitted in 2014: the changing of European borders by force. A great European country which, 30 years ago, we helped to liberate, would have been subjugated by the invader’s violence. We would have signalled our impotence to the wider world, with dire global consequences.

Now it feels different. Last week in Bali, a less assertive Xi Jinping seemed to join the US in disapproval of Putin’s nuclear threats, perhaps realising that he had let his country unshakeably bond with a gangster rather than a great power. It does look possible that, with our help, Ukraine can win. Why would we not want that? We should jettison our outdated respect for Russia as an impressively permanent feature of the international order and recognise that, under Putin, it has become a rogue state. We should help Ukraine unstintingly.

https://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/2022/1 ... -ukraines/

GDB wrote:

Worth adding perhaps that not only were the Russians overestimated, the opposite was true of Ukraine, maybe due to the event of 2014?

A leading UK-based defense think tank has recommended that the West consider providing the Ukrainian Air Force with Saab JAS-39 Gripen C/D fighter jets to prevent the ongoing Ukraine war from shifting dramatically in Russia’s favor.

Experts from the Royal United Services Institute (RUSI) said in a report published on November 7 that the Swedish aircraft offers “by far the most suitable candidate” for Western-made fighter jets regarding operational requirements for Ukrainian air defense.

art wrote:

Returning to the possibility of supplying the UAF with better fighters...

the Swedish aircraft offers “by far the most suitable candidate” for Western-made fighter jets regarding operational requirements for Ukrainian air defense.[/quote

petertenthije wrote:

art wrote:

Returning to the possibility of supplying the UAF with better fighters...

the Swedish aircraft offers “by far the most suitable candidate” for Western-made fighter jets regarding operational requirements for Ukrainian air defense.[/quote

While I agree that the Gripen seems tailor made for Ukraine, I still overall would rate it the second best option.

Wars are won by logistics, and the logistics strongly favour F-16s over Gripens.

For starters, there are significantly more F-16s available. There are not many Gripen’s in storage. And except for Brazil and South Africa, all operators are near Russia. So realistically only a handful could be made available. Brazil and South Africa only have a handful, Sweden and Hungary won’t want to cut their fleets now that Russia is being Russia.

Contrast that with the F-16s: the USA alone have them stored by the hundreds.
Various nations , including NATO, have older F-16s in storage / for sale.
Here in the Netherlands we are almost done phasing out the F-16 for the JSF. Those can be made available really fast, some of they were only parked weeks ago.

Further to the availability of the planes themselves, there are a lot more spare parts available. There are a lot more mechanics, a lot more options for (pilot) training, a wider range of ordnance, probably Lockheed will be faster to integrate Ukrainian ordnance into the F-16 then SAAB can with the Gripen. There will be more spare ground equipment.

Again, the Netherlands could hand over half their F-16 fleet plus F-16 specific (ground) equipment tomorrow, and be just fine. Personally I’d be well in favour. I would not be surprised if NATO HQ were already looking into this possibility.

It’s not like the Netherlands are unwilling. Just a few days ago it was announced that 800 million euros worth of equipment has already go e to Ukraine. What’s a few worn out F-16s more or less on that.

art wrote:

60+ Gripen C (I guess) should become available in the next 5 years.

petertenthije wrote:

art wrote:

60+ Gripen C (I guess) should become available in the next 5 years.

That’s roughly 4 years and 366 days too late.

art wrote:

Food for thought...

Putin’s revolting behaviour is highly visible. Every time he loses a region or city – Kherson last week – which he had previously captured, lootings, kidnappings, rape victims, torture chambers, unburied bodies and unmarked graves are discovered. Some attack him for “indiscriminate” bombing, but that is the wrong word (though his bombs often miss). He does discriminate – against civilians and the installations which give them the electric power, or heat or water they need. He wants to break them.

These are all reported with horror, yet I am not sure Putin’s evil individual deeds are sufficiently linked by Western media or leaders with what 19th-century writers would have called his “fell purposes”.

Putin is not doing this just for fun, although one gets the horrible sense that he and his followers are sadists who positively enjoy their work. He is trying to show that the Western civilisation which he hates is too weak to confront him.

To do this, he tries to enlist its enemies. Iran is providing his drones, and now there is talk of it supplying him with ballistic missiles against which Nato’s defence industries have little to offer. If he were proved right about our feebleness, the world balance of power would alter in favour of this Slavic Sauron and of those – notably China, as well as Iran – who wish us ill. Not for nothing do the Ukrainians refer to the Russian soldiers they resist as “Orcs”.

Western news bulletins often manage to combine shocking reports of Russian atrocities with hopeful accounts of “peace moves”, without seeing how the former undermine the latter. Even stranger is the fact that whenever the Ukrainians win a resounding victory – the Russians’ early retreat from the road to Kyiv, their defeat in Kharkiv, now their flight from Kherson – the cry among some Western political or military leaders goes up for Ukraine to come to the table.

General Mark Milley, the chairman of the US joint chiefs, recently told a Pentagon briefing that Ukraine could not expect to regain the whole of its occupied country: now would be a good time “to negotiate from a position of strength”, because Russia is “on its back”. In a speech the week before in New York, he saw the coming winter as a “window of opportunity” for a negotiated settlement.

On the Continent, President Macron of France still touts his services as peacemaker in the diplomatic marketplace. Here in Britain, retired generals such as Lord Richards, former chief of the defence staff, warn of “General Winter” and say it is “not in anyone’s interest” for the war to continue.

Such views take little account of the Ukrainians. In February, their government could have been decapitated within days by a Russian coup. Instead, President Zelensky famously refused a ride. Backed by American, British and Polish training and kit, his armed forces drove the Russians back. Since then, although the cost in lives and money has been agonising, the Ukrainians have won at every turn, exposing Russian corruption, barbarity and military incompetence.

There seems little reason to defer to the old cliché that the Russians always win in the snow. They have done so when invaded, not as the aggressors they now are. Besides, Ukraine has among its allies some of the greatest winter-war experts: Finland, Sweden, Poland. Judging by the Russian conscripts’ ragged uniforms and downtrodden look, it is they who are literally exposed to the freeze.

In contrast, the Ukrainians have appeared well-trained, well-disciplined, well-informed and with sky-high morale throughout. While the Russians have tried to terrify us by boasting of generals who were “the butcher of Syria” or “General Armageddon”, the Ukrainian military have not paraded vainglorious or brutal hero-leaders. They have professionally, almost anonymously, got on with the job.

After achieving so much, against expectation, Zelensky and his men could not give up now, even if they wanted to. Putin was 100 per cent wrong to invade, and the people whose country he invaded will justifiably insist on his being 100 per cent out of it.

They probably could not achieve this without continued large-scale Western aid. But that is precisely why suggestions about peace “feelers” help Putin. Although his military record has been terrible, he remains resourceful at playing on Western nerves.

At first, many, including General Milley, thought that his mighty show of force would win in a couple of days. Then Putin frightened us badly (and still, to some extent, does) over oil, gas and grain. Then – and simultaneously – he talked darkly of nuclear options. Other threats include cyber-war, an “unshakeable bond” with China, and imported Middle-Eastern killers. The more he sees us looking for a way out because of his threats, the more he will feel emboldened to fight on.

We in the West still have not fully acknowledged how close we came – and might still come – to a geopolitical defeat. If it had not been for Zelensky and his people, we would have continued a process which we first permitted in 2014: the changing of European borders by force. A great European country which, 30 years ago, we helped to liberate, would have been subjugated by the invader’s violence. We would have signalled our impotence to the wider world, with dire global consequences.

Now it feels different. Last week in Bali, a less assertive Xi Jinping seemed to join the US in disapproval of Putin’s nuclear threats, perhaps realising that he had let his country unshakeably bond with a gangster rather than a great power. It does look possible that, with our help, Ukraine can win. Why would we not want that? We should jettison our outdated respect for Russia as an impressively permanent feature of the international order and recognise that, under Putin, it has become a rogue state. We should help Ukraine unstintingly.

https://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/2022/1 ... -ukraines/

art wrote:

petertenthije wrote:

art wrote:

60+ Gripen C (I guess) should become available in the next 5 years.

That’s roughly 4 years and 366 days too late.

I would say 8 years too late - we (whoever 'we' are) should have initiated supplying F-16 or Gripen airframes, training, logistics, weapons in 2014 IMO. A fine mess we got ourselves into by not doing that. Or even pre-2014. Russia could not really object, having acknowledged Ukraine's sovereignty in the Budapest Protocol in 1994.

petertenthije wrote:

While I agree that the Gripen seems tailor made for Ukraine, I still overall would rate it the second best option.

Wars are won by logistics, and the logistics strongly favour F-16s over Gripens.

For starters, there are significantly more F-16s available.

GDB wrote:

Ward Carroll, former F-14 Crew, meets in person Justin Bronk of the RUSI, to discuss the air war, air defence, what we have learned about early on, challenges now and ahead;
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YYDnspMWdaM

art wrote:

Returning to the possibility of supplying the UAF with better fighters...

A leading UK-based defense think tank has recommended that the West consider providing the Ukrainian Air Force with Saab JAS-39 Gripen C/D fighter jets to prevent the ongoing Ukraine war from shifting dramatically in Russia’s favor.

Experts from the Royal United Services Institute (RUSI) said in a report published on November 7 that the Swedish aircraft offers “by far the most suitable candidate” for Western-made fighter jets regarding operational requirements for Ukrainian air defense.

https://eurasiantimes.com/jas-39-fighte ... a-british/

Someone raised the problem of availability. In an earlier post I suggested sources could be Swedish air force or South African air force and that there might be a few white tails. It turns out that there should be 14 Gripen C and D white tails with SAAB. These, combined with a few from Swedish air force, would be enough to get Ukraine going with a couple of small squadrons. More could be added later (ex-South Africa perhaps, Swedish air force as Gripen E starts entering service or new builds).

https://www.facebook.com/14523752216945 ... 551867728/

I think Europe (EU and UK) should step up to the mark and take a decision to fund and supply Gripen C. At some point this war will stop, after which Ukraine will need to rebuild its air force. Why not start in that direction now?

Revelation wrote:

IMO we are not going to see a Western fighter introduced into Ukraine. IMO the West has talked itself into not doing so.

Revelation wrote:

"man on the street" interviews from inside the Russian Federation:

Revelation wrote:

IMO we are not going to see a Western fighter introduced into Ukraine. IMO the West has talked itself into not doing so.

Klaus wrote:

Revelation wrote:

IMO we are not going to see a Western fighter introduced into Ukraine. IMO the West has talked itself into not doing so.

That is not how it works. This is a very difficult decision but Ukraine will get western aircraft if that becomes an inescapable necessity.

Whether that is already the case and whether this is already in motion I do not know, but I expect that this will happen in some way or another even before Ukraine ultimately gains NATO and EU memberships several years down the road.

If at all possible they will likely receive surplus russian fighter planes at first, but those will be used up eventually and then it's western ones all the way.

cpd wrote:

No fighter planes will be delivered because Russia will consider it an escalation and launch nuclear war.

Note that only Russia is allowed to escalate. <

Klaus wrote:

Revelation wrote:

IMO we are not going to see a Western fighter introduced into Ukraine. IMO the West has talked itself into not doing so.

That is not how it works. This is a very difficult decision but Ukraine will get western aircraft if that becomes an inescapable necessity.

art wrote:

Who decides when the need for western fighters becomes inescapable?

GDB wrote:

At the other end of the air defence scale, MAPADDING on the front line;
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=EvCWN80D35w

Looks like a grisly attempt to hide casualties, as if eventually 'MIA' never actually is heard of again, not as a POW or anything, will make the families stop thinking the obvious;
https://www.theguardian.com/world/2022/ ... n-landfill

The head of Ukraine’s national power grid operator, Ukrenergo, has described the damage dealt to Ukrainian power-generating facilities by Russian missile attacks as “colossal”.

Moscow and Tehran have reportedly inked a deal that would allow Russia to produce Iranian-designed drones to be used on the battlefield in Ukraine.

art wrote:

The head of Ukraine’s national power grid operator, Ukrenergo, has described the damage dealt to Ukrainian power-generating facilities by Russian missile attacks as “colossal”.

https://www.theguardian.com/world/live/ ... vider-says

At some point living in parts of Ukraine will become unviable, given the lack of electricity. Moving the population further away from Russian-controlled zones may protect them from artillery strikes etc but it won't stop drones and missiles making the areas to which evacuees are moved barely habitable in winter. I imagine that a lot of Ukrainians will opt to become refugees in other countries.

Addressing the drone problem is a matter of great urgency but there is no short term solution in sight, is there? Electricity supply looks like Ukraine's Achille's heel to me. It looks likely to me that drone attacks on Ukraine's power infrastructure can continue more or less indefinitely.

Moscow and Tehran have reportedly inked a deal that would allow Russia to produce Iranian-designed drones to be used on the battlefield in Ukraine.

https://www.rferl.org/a/russia-iran-dro ... 39217.html