Post by David RancePost by Indy Jess JohnI have also sent in a message to the PM's office, with a similar
request, expressed rather differently. This is what I sent.
Having seen how Ukraine's incursion into Russian territory has
rattled Putin's Government and brought home to the Russian residents
that there is a war going on and it affects non-combatants, the
restrictions that were put on how the weaponry supplied by the UK and
others could be used look totally out of place. What Ukraine needs
now is the permission to use the weaponry to freely attack military
capability, arms and fuel stores, and any other targets that would
hamper the Russian war capability. Effectively, Ukraine needs to win
the war by all means available because otherwise Nato will become
dragged into the conflict and British forces will be involved.
Ukraine can't do so with one arm tied behind its back. UK
restrictions can and must be removed quickly, but the UK Government
also needs to persuade other NATO countries, especially the USA, to
do the same.
Tx. Hope it's more than just us 2.
While I sympathise greatly with your argument - and I think that Indy's
reply is well thought out - have you stopped to consider that we are
dealing with a David and Goliath situation? Whatever Ukraine can muster
as far as weaponry is concerned, we must remember that Russia's arsenal
is far, far greater.
All things are relative, and after all David won ...
Ukraine's population is 37m, Russia's is 145m, which supports your
argument. However, Russia is desperate to avoid another round of
conscription and also is trying to avoid sending ethnic Russians to war,
because both moves would be highly unpopular with the ethnic Russians
that are the core of governmental support. Russia's non-ethnic
population is 34m, of the same order of magnitude as Ukraine's. Of
those totals, both have a similar proportion of age suitable for
military service, about 44%
When it comes to arms, in the short term Russia's have been and are
being emasculated by corruption and by suicidal attacks, particularly at
the beginning of the war, but they still continue. For example, there
are online before and now satellite photos of Russian tanks parked at
depots, and while there are still some left now, the 'low hanging fruit'
have been well and truly picked, those remaining are likely to take some
considerable rebuilding to become serviceable, and most of them are 50s
or 60s technology which would need further revamping to make them
effective in modern combat.
In the longer term, Ukraine is being armed by the West, and the West's
GDP is 27 Trillion $ (2021 figures) excluding the US, 50 including the
US, while Russia's is only 1.78, or 20 if you include all its allies
including China.
Post by David RanceThe more that Ukraine is able to attack Russia on
its own soil the more Russia is likely to escalate.
Russia doesn't need an excuse to escalate, it has been escalating
continuously since 2014 or even before. The purpose of it is to
intimidate the west. We must not allow ourselves to be intimidated,
because that will only encourage them. Indeed a convincing argument can
be made that our passive reaction to previous Russian escalations is
precisely what has contributed to the current situation and has brought
us to where we are now.
Post by David RanceRussia fired an attack on Lviv just a few days ago which is on the
western side of Ukraine and not far from the Polish border. Another
attack like that which isn't quite so accurate could well go over the
border into Poland. And what then?
Most probably NATO will ignore it, the way it has already ignored
Russian drones crashing in Romania, and the same way that on the
opposing side Belarus will ignore the drones that it had to shoot down
the other day. Another possibility is that NATO will allow those
countries bordering Ukraine to shoot down any Russian missile that comes
within range of the air defences, but I think this is unlikely.
Post by David RanceAnd if Ukraine were allowed to fire into Russia just how much damage
could it achieve, bearing in mind the geographical spread of the Russian
Federation? It would still be an irritant to Russia which could prompt
them into more reckless attacks on Ukraine.
Have you actually been following the conflict at all? Ukraine has
already been doing this since almost the start of the war. At
conservative estimates, they have already destroyed about 10% of
Russia's refinery capacity, have destroyed a number of planes on the
ground at airfields, destroyed a number of factories making military
goods, etc.
Post by David RanceI don't know. There is no simple answer. I am old enough to remember the
summer of 1963 and Kennedy facing up to Khruschev. We were all on
tenterhooks. I can remember walking down Edgware Road in London and
looking around me, thinking that all that I could see might not exist in
a week's time - we believed we were that close to a world disaster!
Fortunately Khruschev backed down and turned the ship around which was
bound for Cuba with materials to build a nuclear missile base there.
Kennedy said that, if the ship weren't turned around by a deadline, he
would sink it! None of us expected Khruschev to back down - but he did.
Putin will not use nukes, both because Russia will come out worst from a
nuclear exchange, and because he will lose what little support he still
has left from countries like China and India.
Post by David RanceUkraine has not yet been able to put Russia in a similar position where
Putin has to back down - or even negotiate in terms at all favourable to
Ukraine. But will giving Ukraine the ability to fire into Russia lead to
anything useful? It might do. On the other hand it might not. It might
make things a lot worse.
Putin has already stated that his next target after Ukraine and Moldova
will be the NATO countries in the eastern Baltic, they discuss such
things frequently on official Russian State TV. Parts or all of
Finland, Latvia, Estonia, Poland, etc were all once part of the Russian
Empire and/or the Communist Block, and he wants them back, so, if we
don't support Ukraine to help it *WIN*, sooner or later NATO will have
to defeat him.
--
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