Admiral Rob Bauer, who serves as the principal advisor to NATO's secretary general, also said that nations supplying weapons to Kyiv have the right to limit their use.
Admiral Rob Bauer, who serves as the principal advisor to NATO's secretary general, also said that nations supplying weapons to Kyiv have the right to limit their use.
In fact this is basically the only way for the war to end. By capturing Russian territory Russia now has a reason to come to negotiations to just call everything off to get their land back.
By capturing Russian territory Russia now has a reason to come to negotiations to just call everything off to get their land back.
Ukraine captured land in kursk and this did not cause the Russians to come to the negotiating table, nor signal that they will weaken their demands. In fact, they simply started taking land even faster in Ukraine because Ukraine had committed resources into kursk instead of the front lines.
All it goes to show is that westerners have a complete non-understanding of this war.
Every war is weird it's own way, but that thing is probably unprecedented. How can a war-torn country fight having one hand strapped to the back with a country having 4x it's population and resources? And still managing to resist after 2,5 to 10 years of warfare? Imagine that in fiction and you'd call it unbelievable.
That analogy is faulty. It's undisputed that Ukraine can use its own arms. The question is about whether they can use the other arms given to them by NATO countries for there purposes.
Could soviets used the lendlease arms on nazi germany in ww2? There is no question, there is a bunch of appeasing countries and Ukraine which is fighting for its right to exist.
What analogy? I didn't draw any direct comparison, I think. Was there one?
Arms are given to Ukraine with every state dictating how they should not be used, with Ukraine being autonomous in their decision-making – as it sounds, they consult other countries, but decide things themselves. To my brief knowledge of past wars it was usually a 'use how you want' deal or a direct involvement and control from other party with boots on the ground, both don't fit this exact situation. And it becomes even more unique since there are not one party, but a lot of them, all citing their own conditions on exact shipments, adding even more confusion to the situation.
I want to highlight the fact it's one of the first very public case of countries donating weapons with such policies limiting their usage against enemy troops.
Technically, yes, the offensive does consume like 3x of what is needed for defense the same position, but it works right only if that's a war of equals. Ukraine was and is underpowered on it's own, and even with the stuff other countries donated. Them gaining an edge in the warzone in the last years often involved either technological trickery or great insights and tactics using their limited resources.
One other thing that breaks that rule and makes this change in the narrative significant - is that russians could deploy their bombers, fuel, supply centers near the border, thinking they can't get effecrively hit, that giving them a big boost whatever they do, and if this handicap gets denied, they'd have a harder time supplying another operation from further away.
Very unlikely. There was a possibility early on that Putin would decide to go out with a fiery bang of glory, but time passed and nothing happened. He might threaten use of nukes, but won't actually use them for fear of retaliation. The whole fucking point of nuclear weapons was deterrence until the brain-dead US decided to actually use them. One can hope the world learned their lesson.
By international law they can use weapons supplied by other nations even for long range strikes into Russia yes, to my knowledge it's just a gentleman's agreement that they follow the terms of the nation supplying them. Not really a point of contention though as it would be idiotic to violate those terms at risk of not being supplied anymore.
The only point of contention is whether supplying nations should decide to allow strikes into Russia with their equipment because Russia continues to threaten that it would see that as an act of war from the supplying nation. So legally nothing wrong with it but you have to weigh that decision with possibility of starting World War III or a nuclear apocalypse.
The Russian Army is just removing Nazi influence from the Ukraine, Russian civilians did nothing wrong. No Ukrainian civilians have been killed, it's all lies from the Nazis.
Two and a half years into a 3 day invasion and Russia wants to attack NATO countries in retaliation for Ukraine using weapons gifted to them at their full capabilities after themselves receiving additional weapons from Iran they use without restraint? It's a bold strategy, Cotton. Let's see if it pays off for them.
The idea that they planned for it to be 3 days was completely made up.
Let’s see if it pays off for them.
Quite the attitude to have when the west is losing wars on like 4 fronts (gaza, yemen, ukraine, and lebanon) simultaneously. That too while having shit military industrial capacity.
Yea, I'm sure it won't work out for them, but you never know how desperate Putin can be. People say that he's crazy but not stupid, but to wage war against the west after struggling with Ukraine? Yea, it'd be a bold strategy indeed