The Pentagon has authorized another huge shipment of weapons to Ukraine, worth $775 million. Politico. Included in the weapons package is 15 ScanEagle surveillance drones. Another new weapon is the mine resistant MaxxPro MRAPs which would help dealing with Russian minefields. Other weapons include TOW missiles, 16 howitzers and rounds for both the howitzers and handheld Carl Gustav launchers. The weapons are supposed to be used for a supposed Ukrainian offensive in the south.
My Comment:
Western media coverage of the Ukraine war is garbage, plain and simple. Outside of the list of weapons actually sent to Ukraine, the Politico report was useless propaganda that has little relation to reality. A big clue for that is the fact that they are talking about a supposed offensive that is to take place in the southern part of Ukraine.
That offensive is not likely to happen any time soon, if at all. Why? Because the Ukrainian military has been spent. They have taken thousands of casualties and much of their equipment has been destroyed. They simply don't have the troops to launch a major offensive and even if they did morale is so low that troops would probably refuse to attack.
What gets me is that no western source seems to understand or care what the Russians are doing here. This isn't a western style conflict where the only thing that matters to the Russians is taking territory. If that had been the case they would have never abandoned their offensive near Kiev. Instead they are doing everything they can to utterly destroy the Ukrainian military through massed artillery and I have seen no indication that it isn't working.
But the western media isn't covering it and if you buy their line of thought you would be forgiven in thinking that Russia was losing the war. But if you actually understand Russian objectives that is clearly not the case. Though the war has been far from perfect for the Russians they are fighting it the way that they want to and it's very clear that the Ukrainians can do little other than try and keep ahold of what they have.
Will these new weapons do much to help Ukraine? Probably not. We are long past the stage of massive maneuver warfare with massed tank offensives, instead the war has settled into a World War I style artillery duel, a duel that the Ukrainians are totally outclassed in. Carl Gustav rounds and TOW missiles can do very little against artillery. Drones can do a little but not when the Russians have a huge advantage in artillery. If you use drones to spot a Russian artillery position and manage to take it out is it really worth it if counter battery fire destroys one of your howitzers and/or your gun crew? Russia can absorb those kinds of losses, Ukraine cannot.
As far as I am concerned this would be throwing good money after bad but I'm also on record on saying that our involvement with the Ukraine war was a huge mistake. We have nothing to gain there and a whole hell of a lot to lose. Forget about the seemingly unlimited amount of weapons and aid we are sending there, we are going to see huge repercussions from sanctions. Already Europe is having to cut industrial production and that problem is only going to get worse as time goes by.
I don't think anything could save Ukraine now other than some kind of miracle collapse of the Russian military, a coup against Putin or direct intervention of NATO forces. The first two simply aren't going to happen and the third would be such a major mistake that I can't believe that even Joe Biden would make it. After all, that would be World War III and it would be incredibly easy for that situation to spiral into a nuclear war.
What gets me is that there isn't any pushback against these endless amounts of money being spent. You would think there would be bipartisan outrage about spending billions of dollars on Ukraine when there are so many other things that this money could be spent on. I am sure everyone reading this can think of plenty of things, but the folks in Washington don't seem to be able to. It's all just such a waste.
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