Prediction Thread: When Will Ukraine Conquer Russia

[PLATO]

'bout time

[BeBMan]

Tanks for Ukraine: Germany to send Leopard 2s and allow others to export - reports

https://www.bbc.com/news/world-europe-64391272

[PLATO]

Poland: "Germany is standing in the way of sending Leopards! We may send them anyway!"
Germany: "We will not stand in the way of other countries sending Leopards, but we haven't been asked!"
Poland: "Fine! Can we send them?"
Germany: "Give us a couple days to think about it."

WTF?

[dannubis]

European politicians who are so afraid of loosing elections that they don't do politics anymore and then loose elections...

[Geronimo]

The German government is saying nobody has requested consent per contractual agreement to send leopards to Ukraine and yet everybody else claims they are awaiting required permission to do so and Poland even claims that if permission is not granted soon it will export the leopards to Ukraine prior to obtaining the contractually required consent. Who is telling the truth? Is everybody bending the truth? Is the whole thing misdirection for the 'benefit' of the Russians? Something is fishy...

[BeBMan]

There are differences in the gov regarding the question of German tank deliveries. As far as I'm aware the issue of permitting others to send stuff pops up sometimes, but does not play nearly the same big role though.

[Geronimo]

Is there obvious political pressure in Germany against letting other countries give leopards to Ukraine?

[BeBMan]

So it appears no Leopards for Ukraine...for now at least. From what I have been reading, the Germans wanted the Americans to commit to providing Abrams before they would commit to allowing Leopards to be released. The US is claiming that Ukraine could not logistically support the Abrams due to its use of Jet fuel instead of Diesel and the stringent maintenance requirements. I can't understand why the M60 hasn't entered the discussion from the American side. They performed extremely well against Iraqi T72s in the first Gulf war. We have hundreds if not thousands in storage. Something is odd about this whole tank thing.....

Pretty annoying, slow-moving Scholz is back. What is even more absurd is that in the end, like in other cases, he may come around to supply them. So why waste time and political capital (and not for the first time)

[Geronimo]

Send mothballed M-60s without training. Wartime introduction of untested untrained tank designs has a history as long and successful as the tank itself.

[Broken_Erika]

The T-60's have been in storage since 1991, National Guard ones since 1997. And they probably don't have anyone left who can train them on it.

[PLATO]

So it appears no Leopards for Ukraine...for now at least. From what I have been reading, the Germans wanted the Americans to commit to providing Abrams before they would commit to allowing Leopards to be released. The US is claiming that Ukraine could not logistically support the Abrams due to its use of Jet fuel instead of Diesel and the stringent maintenance requirements. I can't understand why the M60 hasn't entered the discussion from the American side. They performed extremely well against Iraqi T72s in the first Gulf war. We have hundreds if not thousands in storage. Something is odd about this whole tank thing.....

[PLATO]

So Russia looses 20,000 troops to take a town that had a prewar population of 10,500 and has no strategic importance. SOD Austin's comments on degrading Russia have relevance here I believe. Meanwhile, Ukraine may have a foothold in Kreminna, which actually does have strategic importance. Russia is a perfect example of how buffoons conduct a war.

Meanwhile, Britain should be a little more than halfway through training the second batch of 10,000 Ukrainian troops (10,000 every 120 days announced in June 2022). I imagine that intensive 6 week tank training is beginning on Leopards and Challenger2s. Patriot training is underway in Oklahoma. Looks like the Spring offensive is right on track.

Only wildcard here appears to be if Belarus can be forced into the war by Russia but it is doubtful that whatever of the 50,000 troops they have that can be committed will fair any better than the Russians have. They would likely face the same type obstacles that the original northern invasion did.

Although 2023 is shaping up to be a bloody year in the war, it my very well see peace talks by the end of summer. Hard to imagine that Russia can continue to sustain these type losses beyond that without a hugely unpopular full mobilization.

It is now clear that Ukraine is getting stronger by the day and Russia is getting weaker. Time for Global Firepower to bump China up to number 2 as clearly the Russians don't deserve that ranking at all.

[BeBMan]

We had 17C on Dec 31

In other news the German defence minister has been replaced. Was high time.

[pchang]

It looks like even God is against Russia. This winter has been relatively mild.

[Geronimo]

BS!
NATO was formed to attack Russia, years before the Warsaw pact was formed.

LOL!...because plans got drawn up for various offensives against the USSR and stuffed into file cabinets to collect dust right?

Dude, NATO never lifted a finger to execute those plans. You want to know what it looks like before an offensive? Don't look at the dusty file cabinets. Look at what Russia did with the disposition of Russian forces late 2021 to February 2022.

Has NATO ever done that?