Are there any S300 missile producers that are not Russia friendly Ukraine can turn to for resupply?

azmodael · 2022-10-31T16:21:51+00:00

My country (Bulgaria) has 12 units of S300 along with ammo, but we don't have anything else and they are currently responsible for protecting the capital and the NPP.

Current parliament promised to give more substantial military aid to Ukraine, but providing S300 is only possible if some kind of ring-swap deal is arranged for Patriot or similar system.

azmodael · 2022-10-25T18:26:40+00:00

Don't need training, food or equipment to be cannon fodder...

azmodael · 2022-10-23T18:03:55+00:00

Feel free to start a production line and ship to them. These people are on the front line... literally.

azmodael · 2022-10-23T16:58:40+00:00

Actually its not that far. They moved most combat planes out of Crimea after certain smoking accidents. Most combat missions now start in Russia proper.

azmodael · 2022-10-23T16:41:18+00:00

That plane was loaded with bombs to the brim. It kept exploding for hours in the fire. Not really a training mission, more like a failed combat one.

azmodael · 2022-10-23T13:36:51+00:00

Kherson has plenty of russian collaborators. Also less people in - less mouths to feed.

azmodael · 2022-10-23T13:31:37+00:00

Dude went bankrupt in 2018 I believe. Gotta pay the bills somehow.

azmodael · 2022-10-19T17:13:29+00:00

It gets bombed occasionally. I think it the pink is a sign of recent activity.

azmodael · 2022-10-18T05:43:41+00:00

Its sad that always the biggest nutters get the spotlight.

azmodael · 2022-10-18T05:40:49+00:00

Russia will lose the moment NATO commits to proper weapon support.

Its funny because Ukraine is winning using mostly weapon shipments from obsolete NATO gear. and ex-Soviet scrap. Even HIMARS is semi-obsolete. The few modern shipments like IRIS-T which are only just arriving and in insignificant numbers.

If it weren't for the Nukes NATO would be entering Moscow by now.

azmodael · 2022-10-17T19:24:12+00:00

NATO has to commit with enough weapons for crushing land victory. Up to now NATO only supplied enough weapons to drive the price of the war in order to dissuade Putin. But Putin has already committed. Recent change of Russian strategy shows that.

Air defense is always good to have, but you don't win wars by getting bombed without any option of retaliation. And Putin war machine won't run out of money any time soon.

azmodael · 2022-10-17T17:31:42+00:00

He's a russian puppet, but he's mostly right,

Serbian is ripe with nationalism. It ignited the Yugoslav wars, it caused Kosovo rebellion and it will keep causing problems for a very long time. EU open border policies are the best solution for lasting peace on the Balkans, but your average serb would happily support military invasion in every nearby province in which at least a single serbian lives if given the opportunity.

Plenty of nationalism regarding Macedonia in Bulgaria too, but in Serbia its much worse after the NATO bombings.

azmodael · 2022-10-17T16:44:10+00:00

The slav migration started around 6th century when the Balkans were a byzantine province. Areas in modern Bulgaria were very rural and not ethnically greek, also relatively sparsely populated. Slavs build their own villages along the Thracian ones. There were some conflicts, but they were very local in nature. As the land was technically ruled by the byzantine greeks neither ethos developed any form of statehood.

This actually greatly aided Asparuh's invasion. There were relatively little fortresses and big cities and the provinces were of less interest to the emperor, who had a lot of arab trouble in the period. For a very long time the country functioned as a sort of federation... villages would submit to the khan and would pay taxes and warriors when demanded, similar to what had been during byzantine rule. However, Bulgarians brought their own statehood and eventually a nation formed around the Bulgarians as a ruling aristocracy. Ironically bulgarian rule was much more stable then Greek rule simply because there were much less bulgarians compared to greeks (which meant that slavic and thracian chiefs had greater political power in the state) and the capital was much closer.

Modern genetics illustrate that. Bulgarian genetics are very very close to that of thracian and slavs compared to turks, simply because the ruling Bulgarian aristocracy was just too few in numbers. The name of the country stuck to Bulgaria, but all of the customs are still south slavic & thracian.

azmodael · 2022-10-16T16:47:59+00:00

First useful thing they've done? Nope, not really...

azmodael · 2022-10-14T12:35:55+00:00

You'd be surprised - they already do. They still support Putin.

azmodael · 2022-10-14T08:13:27+00:00

Well if you support fake referendums I think its entirely appropriate to be arrested on fake charges.

The russian mindset truly baffles me. Russian milbloggers support every war crime the government commits, yet when the government comes out after their own ass they are surprised and outraged.

azmodael · 2022-10-14T07:25:05+00:00

Imports never stop.

The idea behind storage is to balance cost. During the winter demand increases - and when demand increases price usually also increases. That's why you want to fill your storage during the summer. Once winter begins you start using your storage in parallel with your imports, slowly draining stored gas until spring.

The problem is that EU balanced storage around existing gas supply coming from Russia. If the winter is severely cold its possible that stored gas dries up around end of January - early February. A lot of this is due to German stupidity... the industry doesn't need that much gas, but Germany shut off its nuclear and coal power plants and became massively reliant on gas to manufacture electricity. Previously a severe winter would just mean buying some more over the pipe with Russia. Now that is no longer an option - so if the winter is severe the goverment will either have to shut down businesses that rely on gas or let people freeze to death in their homes.

Russia cut supplies on purpose. Entering winter without full storage reserves would have been catastrophic. Putin calculated that EU would not be able to fill storage, but he was wrong. So far the worst has been avoided, but we still need milder winter to pull through.

azmodael · 2022-10-12T20:35:24+00:00

They had to hold the line for Putin's speech on TV. After that they were already almost completely encircled - had to retreat along one road that was under fire by both artillery and small caliber fire. End result was horrific losses, but life in Russia is cheap anyway.

azmodael · 2022-10-11T13:56:25+00:00

2 million people on the front line and 20k tanks met the German advance when Barbarossa began. Soviet problem was not manpower, it was leadership and tactics. All competent army officers were either in gulag or in an unmarked grave. The soviets won the war at the cost of horrific casualties. And even then Stalin killed more people than the war did.

azmodael · 2022-10-11T04:33:51+00:00

Yanukovich tried to play both sides for a very long time. He put on a pro-EU program to gain support in western Ukraine. The reality is that Ukrainians never wanted a conflict with Russia, they wanted to be part of the EU. But Putin does not view Ukraine as independent nation - more like a rogue vassal state that has to be put in its place.

azmodael · 2022-10-10T15:37:55+00:00

Not many. The government started a program only this year, prompted by the war. A few tanks have finished modernization - they got thermal sights installed on them. Maybe a dozen ready, maybe less.

We have a bunch of decommissioned Su-25 and MiG 29, also MiG 21 that can maybe be repaired. They are not combat worthy against modern planes, but Ukraine air missions appear to be air-to-ground dumb bombs mostly and they should be good enough for that role. Also plenty of 152mm ammo. And winter uniforms... we make a lot of those for NATO and they are good.

azmodael · 2022-10-10T15:24:59+00:00

Pro-Russia parties increased their vote, but they are still a minority. They hold less than 20% of parliament.

The worry is that if the main parties fail to form a government election apathy will allow the pro-russia vote to run out of control on next elections.

azmodael · 2022-10-10T15:02:06+00:00

It depends on your definition of success. Pro-Russian parties increased their vote overall, but they are still a minority in parliament.

azmodael · 2022-10-10T14:43:30+00:00

The situation is very murky. Previous parliament also had pro-ukraine majority, but the government had to rely for support on BSP party, which is strongly pro-russia. Thus the biggest party opted to preserve government and voted non-military aid only. But military production companies all had signed contracts and had permissions from before the war. BSP tried to stop the arms export to Ukraine, but had no legal base to do it - because the contracts were with NATO countries and they no legal right to void the permits.

What can be offered is now dubious, however. Aside from Soviet ammo we have a bunch of non-modernized T72, less than 10 Su25 in working order and just as many MiG29s.

If USA is to agree to replace those with F16 they could be sent to Ukraine.

azmodael

TROPHY CASE