Time to Get Real About Ukraine

US speeds up Abrams tank delivery to Ukraine war zone

LOLITA C. BALDOR
March 21, 2023, 8:04 AM·3 min read


WASHINGTON (AP) — The Pentagon is speeding up its delivery of Abrams tanks to Ukraine, opting to send a refurbished older model that can be ready faster, with the aim of getting the 70-ton battle powerhouses to the war zone in eight to 10 months, U.S. officials told The Associated Press.

The original plan was to send Ukraine 31 of the newer M1A2 Abrams, which could have taken a year or two to build and ship. But officials said the decision was made to send the older M1A1 version, which can be taken from Army stocks and could be there before the end of the year. Officials said the M1A1 also will be easier for Ukrainian forces to learn to use and maintain as they fight Russia's invasion.

The officials spoke on Tuesday on the condition of anonymity because the plan has not yet been publicly announced. Pentagon officials are expected to make the announcement Tuesday.

... https://news.yahoo.com/us-speeds-abrams-tank-delivery-130425455.html

 

Entire article is too long. Here's an excerpt.


More than a year after President Vladimir Putin unleashed his invasion, Russia’s war in Ukraine is also being fought on Russian soil, and Moscow is scrambling to protect its borders. The war Putin expected to win quickly now encroaches daily on the lives of Russian citizens, with frequent reports of fires, drone attacks and shelling.


Events from Feb. 24, 2022, to March 10, 2023


Source: Armed Conflict Location & Event Data Project. Each event may include multiple individual strikes.

Some events may not be included due to data availability. Data as of March 10.

Ukraine and its citizens, of course, are bearing the overwhelming brunt of suffering in the war. More than 8,000 civilians have been killed, according to the United Nations. Millions are displaced; whole cities have been reduced to rubble.

But the longer the onslaught drags on, the more real it becomes for Russians, especially those living in border regions. Putin had hoped to shield his citizens — even from the word “war,” by calling it a “special military operation.” Now, he has ordered a tightening of border security — not in the four Ukrainian regions he claims, illegally, to have annexed — but along the internationally recognized border with Russia itself. Air defense systems are being deployed in Moscow and other locations.

An explosion ripped across the Crimean Bridge on Oct. 8, threatening a vital supply route for Russian forces in southern Ukraine. (Video: Reuters)
Ukraine says its military is operating only in its own territory. Privately, however, officials have acknowledged a Ukrainian role in some dramatic strikes, including an explosion on the Crimean Bridge in October. In the case of the FSB fire in Rostov, an adviser to President Volodymyr Zelensky tweeted, “Ukraine doesn’t interfere, but watches with pleasure.”

 

Technology
The New Voice of Ukraine
Australian cardboard drones already performing battlefield missions in Ukraine

 

Who would have thought that paper airplanes could be a military asset?

 

Hardly surprising given China's ancient and continued fondness for slave labor, whether it be the countless victims who worked and perished in the Laogai or the Uyghurs who are currently undergoing "vocational training" in ChiCom concentration camps:

 

Did you just not say China is interested in peace? Now that is either cynical or naive. Are you for real with the OH MY's or just having fun propping China and Russia and pissing on the US? Its funny I give you that. Its like reading old Tass or Pravda articles.

 

Nonsense. You clearly do not understand what went on in China during the "several thousand years" you refer to.

https://journals.openedition.org/extremeorient/370

https://www.worldhistory.org/Chinese_Warfare/

 

Mao was a monster and Xi has the potential to be far worse.

“Death was a part of our daily lives. There was no point in being afraid,” says Zhu Zhaonan, one of the cadres who helped run Jiabiangou, and Dead Souls is, among many other things, a portrait of man’s capacity for dehumanizing—and annihilating—his fellow man, all in service of nationalist insanity. That China’s internment-camp practice continues today, in secret, only further underscores the timelessness of Bing’s film, whose closing trek through the Mingshui killing grounds—where femurs, humeri and skulls decorate the soil—makes clear that the past is never truly past.”
THE DAILY BEAST, Cannibalism, Torture and Death: Inside China’s Genocidal Re-Education Camps, THE HORROR, Filmmaker Wang Bing’s 8-hour documentary opus ‘Dead Souls’ tells the stories of those who survived Mao’s deadly labor camps—a practice that continues to this day. By Nick Schager, Entertainment Critic, Dec. 15, 2018.
https://www.thedailybeast.com/canni...th-inside-chinas-genocidal-re-education-camps

 

I don't believe ALL countries are corrupt. I do Oh My's to people who use the all-ness fallacy or make all inclusive statements. The world is watching as the US fuels the fire in Ukraine while China is negotiating for peace.

 

So naïve.

 

US to send Patriot missile systems and tanks to Ukraine faster than originally planned
By Natasha Bertrand and Haley Britzky, CNN
Updated 12:59 PM EDT, Tue March 21, 2023

Fort Sill, Oklahoma CNN — US Patriot missile defense systems and Abram tanks are set to be deployed to Ukraine faster than originally planned, US defense officials said on Tuesday.

A group of 65 Ukrainian soldiers will complete their training on the systems at Fort Sill, Oklahoma, in the coming days, the defense officials said.

The troops will then move on to Europe for additional training on the two Patriot systems – one American and one built by the Germans and Dutch – that will be deployed to Ukraine in the coming weeks, the officials told reporters at Fort Sill.

... https://www.cnn.com/2023/03/21/politics/us-patriots-ukraine/index.html​

Very nice!

 

People want peace and that is exactly what China is working at. The world will never forget the Afghanistan debacle and China is smartly using that as an opportunity to look like the good guys. We handed them a huge gift. And we're giving them another one in Ukraine. You want to talk about naive?

 

Wow. Thanks for the references and link, Ddyad. I'm going to have to check them out.

 

I do. China could put pressure on Muscovy to end this thing instead of pretending to be neutral while really favoring Muscovy at every turn. In fact, they might have prevented this altogether by not proclaiming a "partnership without limits" even when they knew this invasion was coming.

 

“These systems don’t pick up and move around the battlefield,” retired Lt. Gen. Mark Hertling, former commander of US Army Europe, told CNN in December. “You put them in place somewhere that defends your most strategic target, like a city, like Kyiv. If anyone thinks this is going to be a system that is spread across a 500-mile border between Ukraine and Russia, they just don’t know how the system operates.”

The bold part is quite telling. Speeding up the process? The older A1 Abrams instead of brand new tanks that was originally offered? Why the change in plans?

 

I wonder if those M1A1s originally came from the USMC. A couple of years ago the Marines handed their tanks over to the Army, and that inventory may be what's headed to Ukraine,

Goodbye, tanks: How the Marine Corps will change, and what it will lose, by ditching its armor
By Todd South
Mar 22, 2021
https://www.marinecorpstimes.com/ne...-and-what-it-will-lose-by-ditching-its-armor/

Better for us to keep our newer tanks and let the Ukrainians have the older ones we're replacing....

 

Just like the US wants to use Ukraine to weaken Russia in Ukraine China wants to use Russia to weaken the US. It's a win win for China. China's Navy is building ships faster than the US by a long shot. The US must take down China's Navy soon or risk losing the advantage it has now.

 

China is not negotiating for peace. China is maneuvering for advantage.

 

See my post #891 above. I'm guessing the answers to your question are "excess inventory" and "speed". The Army got handed a bunch of M1A1's from the Marine Corps a couple of years ago and don't need them since we're upgrading the Abrams.

 

So what has changed in Ukraine? Initially the US was going build new tanks, now they are sending old tanks. Why? And the Patriot system will be set up around Kyiv? Sounds like the Pentagon is putting perfume on a pig.

 

The US is certainly helping them gain the advantage. The world will see China as peace negotiators while the US continues to look like warmongers. It's all about perception.

 

There is a multi-year backlog of orders for the newest version.

 

I disagree. No one believes the Chinese are peace negotiators. They never have been.

 

I agree. War serves Beijing's interests quite nicely. In fact, I fully expect Xi to provide his client Putin with the means to drag out his exhausting quagmire in Ukraine indefinitely.

 

Oh My! There is that All-ness fallacy once again. It's not credible to you use such an analogy. What do you know about EVERYONE?!