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Admiral Beez said:
I wonder the CAF scoured its personnel records for every soldier who speaks Ukrainian. Assuming they have transferrable skills, they'd be ideal to send to the UK for the training mission.
Click to expand...

We have standing requirements to identify all languages we know and levels of fluency. And they routinely canvas when missions come up.
 
I leave this here, for others to comment on:


For those who are click-averse, or lack previews:

1661637160022.png
 
Ukraine has launched a major counter-offensive by the looks of things.........

This is the limited-info, mainstream story from Reuters:

Ukraine says it has begun counter-offensive to retake Russian-held south

Ukraine announced on Monday the start of a long-awaited counter-offensive to retake territory in the south seized by Russian forces since their invasion six months ago, a move reflecting Kyiv's growing confidence as Western military aid flows in.
www.reuters.com

While, from Twitter, we have this:

1661787011738.png


Rather than copy out the various images, which are translations from a Ukrainian source, I'll link to the thread here:

 
I wonder how much longer the Russians will be able to hold Kherson. The Ukrainians have been softening the area up for weeks to ripen it for an assault.
 
Towered said:
I wonder how much longer the Russians will be able to hold Kherson. The Ukrainians have been softening the area up for weeks to ripen it for an assault.
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Ukraine started in daylight and apparently advanced 10km on three axes today. That is spectacular for a start. It's getting dark now and I expect they will do better at night.

Also, nobody yet knows if this is a feint or the main effort or if it's the only effort. We might see other offensives start.

This is going to be a long slog. But even with the fog of war, today's news so far is pretty impressive.
 
So it is a counteroffensive. And it is spectacular. Every military guy I know is watching this in awe. Ukraine pulled off a division sized combined arms assault with brigade level manoeuvres, with supporting fires from artillery, rockets and ground attack aircraft.

Most NATO militaries would struggle to do this with a year of workups. Russia has demonstrated they can't do this at all. We exercise this annually to biannually and have plenty of hiccups. Ukraine pulled this off in combat after 6 months of war with a lot of equipment they were unfamiliar with 2 months ago. I can say objectively that Ukraine should be worth more to NATO at this point than members like Canada. Their ability to learn, to adapt, to shift tactics (which requires a ton of intellectual flexibility) is off the charts.
 
Richard White said:
Wishful thinking but at this point, Russia may be forced to capitulate in the near future.
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Not as long as Putin holds support in Moscow and Petersburg. If he's sending minorities and prisoners to die at the front, nobody that matters will care ...
 
Richard White said:
Wishful thinking but at this point, Russia may be forced to capitulate in the near future.
Click to expand...

Russia is not going to capitulate. However, there is now a real risk of collapse of some Russian forces. There's 20 000 Russians in Kherson cut off from supplies and reinforcements, facing an unprecedented Ukrainian assault, the likes of the which the Russians haven't actually faced since WWII. The question now is what happens as they start seeing real losses and large scale failures.
 
DirectionNorth said:
Not as long as Putin holds support in Moscow and Petersburg. If he's sending minorities and prisoners to die at the front, nobody that matters will care ...
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We should separate the Russian society and political class from the army in Ukraine. It's entirely possible for Putin et al to endure in Russia, while the Russian army collapses in Ukraine.

Also, while Putin may not face a revolt in Moscow and St. Petersburg, he may have a problem if lots of ethnic minorities are returned to their republics without limbs or life. They are going to come home angry and possibly even armed.
 
1661867671977.png


 
The current fight should put to bed all the nonsense about how giving Ukraine weapons would prolong the war. The pacifists were inviting tyranny and willing to surrender people and land that was not theirs.

We can now see that the quickest path to peace is to enable Ukraine to deliver such a crushing defeat to Russia that they will not be tempted to attempt this again.
 
Richard White said:
Wishful thinking but at this point, Russia may be forced to capitulate in the near future.
Click to expand...
I think your wishful thinking is just that and not based on anything relevant to Russia (or most totalitarian regimes). As noted many times here, public opinion is both controlled and really does not matter and Putin knows that if Russia 'capitulates' he will be gone!
 
DSC said:
I think your wishful thinking is just that and not based on anything relevant to Russia (or most totalitarian regimes). As noted many times here, public opinion is both controlled and really does not matter and Putin knows that if Russia 'capitulates' he will be gone!
Click to expand...

This is true. The Soviets gave up the fight in Afghanistan.. looked what happened there.
 
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