Russia is still slowly taking some smaller cities in the southeast of Ukraine but the Kyiv offensive is bogged down. What we have clearly learned is that Russia’s military and its equipment remain second rate. Russia has taken significant chunks of Eastern Ukraine but that seems to be the limit of their capability. Russia would …
Many people have a mistaken notion that Russia has a superpower class military that is a match for the United States. Russia has not fixed problems that were revealed nearly thirty years ago in Chechnya and seen again 14 years ago in Georgia. Russia has not created a fully modern air capability and has not …
The USA is reported to be working to assist Poland in sending fighter planes to Ukraine. Poland has Mig 29 planes which are ones used in the Ukrainian Air Force. The USA would resupply Poland with F16 planes. US Secretary of State Blinken says NATO countries have the greenlight to send fighter planes to Ukraine. …
Russia’s military in Ukraine has shown that they still have major military logistics problems. “Infantry wins battles, logistics wins wars.” quote from Army General John J. Pershing, commander of the American Expeditionary Forces on the Western Front during WWI. Russia moves military forces and supplies around primarily with rail inside of Russia and Belarus. Ukraine’s …
Ukraine is getting a total of 70 fighter jets from Bulgaria, Poland and Slovakia. Russia already had failed to establish air superiority. Germany is sending antiaircraft missiles. This is significant military hardware. The economic sanctions triggered a bank run in Russia and have given Russia about a 30% hit to its economy. Inflation in Russia …
German Chancellor Olaf Scholz announced to parliament on Sunday Germany will raise its defense and military spending above 2% of its total GDP. They will spend €100 billion ($112.7 billion) of the 2022 budget for the armed forces. Germany spent €47 billion in 2021. Germany will be third place in defense spending after the USA …
Dr. Kimberly Kagan founded ISW (Institute for Study of War in May 2007 to properly cover the war in Iraq. Frustrated with the prevailing lack of accurate information documenting developments on the ground in Iraq and the detrimental effect of biased reporting on policymakers, Dr. Kagan established ISW to provide real-time, independent, and open-source analysis …
Ukraine President Zelensky says that Ukraine will go back to having nuclear weapons like they did before 1994 unless the US lives to the guarantees of protection made in the Budapest Memo. Ukraine had 1000 soviet nuclear weapons. What did Ukraine keep that would short cut a return to being a nuclear power. Even with …
If Russia wants to have a puppet or obedient government in Ukraine then Russia must hold the port and maritime facilities at Odessa. Possession of Odessa, however, would provide Russia with effective control over Ukraine’s maritime trade – given that the port handles 70% of the country’s shipping and few viable alternative ports exist – …
Russia’s military is not that well trained and most of the Soviet-era gear is nearly useless and in rusting in storage. Russia has ground combat troops of amost 500,000. Russia has 600-1000 good and modern planes. Russia is about 25% one year conscripts versus US soldiers with an average of 4-8 years of service. About …
Russia’s President Putin has started the war in Ukraine. Nextbigfuture had previously reported that Ukraine has virtually no air force. Russia’s defense ministry says it has attacked military infrastructure at Ukrainian airbases and degraded Ukraine’s air defenses. Several Ukrainian cities were under attack on Thursday morning. * Ukraine’s airports and airfields are being or already …