I am fairly certain I mentioned here before, and this is the reason Zelensky is asking either for NATO membership or guarantees from the United States, but NATO without the United States is not nearly as serious of an Alliance. The same reason the Balts want presence of the American troops on their soil (just like anyone else paranoid/serious about their security) and not just the membership. And the higher the tensions, the more troops they want present (in spite of the fact that a couple of thousand additional personnel doesn’t change the board in any meaningful way). Like Kofman said in the podcast I cited a couple of/few days ago, European forces are more of a sidekick to the United States’ and are built to operate along side the American forces, not independently. Especially against something like Russia. There is no guarantee like US troops on the ground. Everybody knows it and why this is the case.
At the same time, everyone also knows that this point is probably moot because nuclear weapons will be used right after making sure that everyone understands the nuclear weapons
will be used if the shit hits the fan (there is also a good chance that the latter will not happen before the former and everyone understands that too). My bigger concern is that this scenario of a much more capable Russia is going to be exactly the case after this conflict is “over”. They will rearm (and they will, without a doubt), it will probably take long years, but they will rearm with the lessons learned, and so on. Which is why this whole thing was completely contradictory to the idea of contributing “to security in the Euro-Atlantic area” in the first place; and the “security in the Euro -Atlantic area” has been deteriorating since 2008 (before that, really). We all here lived to winess it and are observing it today. But this has been discussed more than once previously.
Russia doesn’t take Europe seriously (relatively speaking); their main concern is the USA and Europe is seen as more of a pawn that is “tradable”. If anyone read what I posted in the other thread about the Russian nuclear doctrine, even the nuttiest of the Russian hawks don’t talk about the nuclear exchange with the United States or striking the American soil: they all start with Europe, then, maybe, moving on to the American assets elsewhere in the world, but not the North America itself. This is revealing. In fact, they think that they can work with most European nations, with few exceptions, if the “American influence” is removed (in real terms reduced) from the equation. The most notable exception is, of course, the UK, the “Anglo-Saxons”. And they are not wrong in their calculations either, in my opinion, as they have enough leverage over Europe, starting with cheap energy; not only cheap, but also reliable, which it has been for decades until it is no more, at least for now.
Anyway, this is beyond the scope of this thread, but in short, Russia doesn’t see Europe as an actual threat that they cannot deal with, but the United States they surely do, and there is no other in the vicinity of the magnitude.
Reportedly, this is how the Ukrainian General Staff counts the losses:
- first, everyone counts, regardless of the extent of the wound or even perceived wound (touched an arm or hit the helmet, for instance);
- all units report this way and all units report regardless of the other units in the area - that is, if several different units fight in the same area and observe the same thing, they file individual reports that are counted as such, the fact that they all observed the same thing and the same people notwithstanding;
- this is, allegedly, true for personnel and equipment;
- for equipment, as an example, if two drone operators hit the same tank, it is counted as two separate events; if the tank rides away, quickly repaired (or not) and comes back to the battlefield hours or days later and is hit again, it is counted as another piece of equipment and if hit by two or more drone operators again…;
- as a result, we have over 800,000 killed and wounded Russian troops and over 50,000 destroyed Russian tanks, AVFs, and artillery units, among other things that make no sense.
I would have to dig out that report, but if they are actually keeping any count at all instead of simply making up numbers as they see fit, that is likely an accurate enough description of the procedure.
I believe we’ve gone a full circle one more time on this subject, haha.
Archival footage of the Russian fortifications in the Kursk Region. Quite a striking difference to what we are used to seeing from Ukrainian efforts in this department. I think I posted something similar a few months ago. Note that they have a command post, sleeping quarters, “washroom”, gym, etc. Filmed by the Ukrainians after capturing the “trench”, which is also an indicator of the importance of quantity and quality of troops who take a temporary house underground.
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Incidentally, today, Janovsky posted their methodology for counting the losses in Oryx:
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Story of the day time. A Ukrainian soldier who has been fighting in this war from the very beginning, and I mean that literally (referring to the 2022 as the beginning), talks about what he sees with his own eyes in North Korean troops, their discipline, tactics, etc. He also expressed his opinion, saying that the West should be cautious, etc. He is then being laughed (a lot) at by the couch warriors and “pro-Ukrainian” cheerleaders, some actually saying that his post is complete rubbish because they have never observed that on the videos they saw posted online, others saying he is just a “vatnik” posting Russian propaganda, a few citations of Ukrainian propaganda outlets with the same video that doesn’t mean anything, etc. Whether his opinion is valid or not is another question, but what he is witnessing is probably something that people should pay attention to, I would think. His post:
@brokenpixelua: North Koreans have proven to be serious warriors,and this is bad news for all of you,as the countries of the Western "alliance" will still have to face them. In my opinion it's just a matter...…
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Another post by the guy a couple of hours later:
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