The UK is odd in that the MOD says it won't rule out allowing strikes in Russia whilst the PM says its official stance is to "discourage" using British cruise missiles to strike Russia. I wonder how much of that is a hard red line or just a "you can strike Russia but we can't be seen to encourage this" posturing. It is probably also only a matter of time before the USA gives Ukraine cruise missiles, but I never can really predict what the Americans do. There is also talk of Ukraine manufacturing its own domestic cruise missiles, which it would be free to use however it wished, but I think that's just talk for now, or else is being kept secret because I can't find any reliable source confirming this is underway.
Ukraine has a number of indigenous weapons systems. Before the invasion, their Сапсан ballistic missile was scheduled to go into production in early 2022. While there's been no official announcement that the system is operational, it has been floated as a possibility for some of the mysterious explosions in Russian territory. There's also rumors that they're converting their successful Neptune shipkiller (which claimed
Moskva) into something more suitable for ground attack.
It is very important to keep in mind that Ukraine's dependence on Western arms is
not because they can't make their own weapons, or because their weapons suck. Most of their domestic weapons systems are as good as any non-American system in the same class. They just can't keep up with the needs of combat because combat is a black hole that consumes arms, lives, and treasure with a gluttony unsurpassed by any other human activity.
No one is set up to replace weapons on the scale this war is using them, in large part because everybody assumed that a war like this can't happen in the modern world. Many western stockpiles are already being heavily depleted by the existing aid, and arms makers are undergoing their most rapid expansions in well over half a century as a result. The people who make NLAW, for example, are hoping (unless there's a dodgy translation in there somewhere) to make more NLAW missiles this year than were made in the previous
fifteen years since it was first adopted.
Ukraine will need more tanks and aircraft and troops.
According to Zelensky: "No Ukraine offensive without more weapons"
I don't know if it is true. But otherwise I heard that:
(1) Ukraine remained in Bakhmut is to keep Russia engaged, fearing that pulling out would lead to Russian operational stop like we seen northward.
(2) Ukraine will only have a chance for one counter attack in the near future.
The Zelensky statement is contradicted by a lot of dialogue in open sources that strongly suggest an attack is building. Zelensky could have multiple reasons for taking a "certain point of view" approach here.
1. Operational security - Any offensive will be much more successful if the Russians don't have a confident idea where it will happen, when it will happen, and what forces will be used.
2. "No offensive" statements give a strong cushion for operational delays. If everybody's expecting an all-out assault as soon as the ground hardens, failure of that to materialize can cause morale to suffer at home and confidence to weaken abroad. There are a *ton* of reasons why an assault can be delayed - bad weather that would hamper your attack,
waiting for bad weather that will hamper your opponent, supply delays, a late desire to put even more of a rock into your fist, etc.
3. Ukraine needs more shit, and anything that can reasonably be used as a prybar is worth using.
If the assault goes off, he can always point to the last-delivered aid and say "those tanks/rocket launchers/artillery rounds were the aid I was talking about" to avoid loss of face.
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Topic: Emotional Responses to War in Ukraine - Trollbait 2.0 (Read 103192 times)