Will Russia invade the Ukraine?

[Yambo]

I personally think the whole Leopards thing is a smoke screen.
Ukraine are giving the Russians something to think about - where would they deploy these tanks and how will we counter it when in reality Ukraine is going to do something different and unexpected. Without Leopard tanks.

[Ant]

I think we should drag some Tornados out of museums and give them to the 'krainians, load them up with some lovely kit from MBDA and get our gas and 'lectricity prices back down.

[irie]

Screenshot_20230122_170918_Chrome~2.jpg (287.58 KiB) Viewed 563 times

[irie]

I personally think the whole Leopards thing is a smoke screen.
Ukraine are giving the Russians something to think about - where would they deploy these tanks and how will we counter it when in reality Ukraine is going to do something different and unexpected. Without Leopard tanks.

As I see it handheld weapons are required when defending positions against armoured vehicles such as tanks and troop carriers, whereas armoured vehicles such as tanks and troop carriers are required when carrying out offensive operations.

[Hoonercat]

I personally think the whole Leopards thing is a smoke screen.
Ukraine are giving the Russians something to think about - where would they deploy these tanks and how will we counter it when in reality Ukraine is going to do something different and unexpected. Without Leopard tanks.

Seems more like political grandstanding by the Polish PM with one eye on this year's election vote. This much vaunted 'Leopard coalition' appears to be a figment of his imagination.

German Foreign Minister Annalena Baerbock told French TV channel LCI that Poland has not formally asked for Berlin's approval to share some of its German-made Leopards but added “if we were asked, we would not stand in the way.”
German officials “know how important these tanks are" and “this is why we are discussing this now with our partners,” Baerbock said in interview clips posted by LCI.

According to UK defence secretary Ben Wallace, an unnamed country put in that request on Frday, though there has been no official statement from Germany or the unnamed country. Meanwhile Germany appears to be suggesting that there's currently little appetite among its allies to send Leopards.

Edit: as of today, Polish PM states that Poland will make an official request to Germany, but no mention of when. Weeks of finger pointing and blaming Germany, yet they hadn't even requested permission to re-export

[Mussels]

Boris is over there again meeting Zelenski, looks like he has a new unofficial job.

[MrLongbeard]

Boris is over there again meeting Zelenski, looks like he has a new unofficial job.

Cannon fodder?

[Hoonercat]

Personally I think the west's reluctance to send main battle tanks is well thought out. The Russian military in Ukraine is being restructured into more infantry-based, mobile units in what appears to be an attempt to mimic Ukraine's success last year. As Russia discovered, tanks do not do well against mobile units who can flank them, leaving their sides and rear exposed, and the earlier variants of the Leopard 2 aren't particularly well armoured (hence their lighter weight). I think this is why we're seeing a preference from the US, Germany and France for lighter IFV's rather than battle tanks - the Bradley for example, was specifically designed as a counter to the Russian BMP IFV. The west has justifed its military aid packages as defensive measures, and though IFV's are primarily offensive they are also invaluable in moving troops around the frontline as a counter to enemy mobile offensives, meaning they can also be justified as a defensive measure.
I think we may eventually see Leopards in Ukraine, but western nations would rather see how the Russian spring offensive plays out before making any major commitment. The mindset is one of firstly ensuring Ukraine can stop Russian incursions, secondly retaking territory. If Russia makes major gains I'd expect the mood to change and for Leopards to be supplied as a defensive/counter offensive measure. But my gut feeling is that providing Ukraine with large numbers of Leopard 2's that could potentially see western tanks pushing into Crimea isn't something western nations want to see, for fear of putting Russia on a full war footing.
I honestly think the Polish PM is being a bit of a twat, playing up to the media for his own political interests while creating division amongst the western allies.

[irie]

Putting it on the line:

https://www.reuters.com/world/europe/po ... 023-01-23/

"We will ask for such permission, but this is an issue of secondary importance. Even if we did not get this approval ... we would still transfer our tanks together with others to Ukraine"

[irie]

Seems that a deal was done.

WASHINGTON—The Biden administration is leaning toward sending a significant number of Abrams M1 tanks to Ukraine and an announcement of the deliveries could come this week, U.S. officials said.
The announcement would be part of a broader diplomatic understanding with Germany in which Berlin would agree to send a smaller number of its own Leopard 2 tanks and would also approve the delivery of more of the German-made tanks by Poland and other nations. It would settle a trans-Atlantic disagreement over the tanks that had threatened to open fissures as the war drags into the end of its first year.

The White House declined to comment.
The deal would address a rift between the U.S. and the Germans and other Europeans over providing tanks for Ukraine during a pivotal phase of the war. Kyiv is preparing a counteroffensive to try to take back Ukrainian territory and Russia is mobilizing troops for its own operations.

The shift in the U.S. position follows a call on Jan. 17 between President Biden and German Chancellor Olaf Scholz in which Mr. Biden agreed to look into providing the Abrams tanks against the judgment of the Pentagon. A senior German official said that the issue had been the subject of intense negotiation between Washington and Berlin for more than a week and appeared to be on the way to resolution.

Military officials have argued publicly that the Abrams tanks require a substantial amount of training and logistics support and therefore aren’t appropriate for this moment in the conflict.
In a contentious meeting last week at Ramstein Air Base in Germany, the U.S. and its allies failed to persuade Germany to allow other nations to send German-made tanks, exposing the first serious rift in the alliance that has supported Kyiv.
Previously, the Pentagon had ruled out providing the tanks to Ukraine, saying they were too complicated for the Ukrainians to maintain and operate. But White House and State Department officials were described as being more open to providing Abrams to break the diplomatic logjam holding up Leopard deliveries.

Some Democratic lawmakers close to the White House, such as Sen. Chris Coons of Delaware, have also urged that some Abrams be provided.
The provision of U.S. battle tanks has become a contentious issue within the Biden administration and was calling into question the unity of the alliance of nations supporting Ukraine.
German officials initially said that they wouldn’t be the first to send tanks to Ukraine and wouldn’t do so unless the U.S. provided its own Abrams tanks. Germany’s new defense minister, Boris Pistorius, told German television last week that German and U.S. tanks don’t need to be provided at the same time and indicated that his government was still weighing what to do.
Poland’s defense minister said Tuesday that Poland had asked Germany for permission to send some of its German-made tanks to Ukraine.
“The Germans have already received our request for consent to transfer Leopard 2 tanks to Ukraine,” Defense Minister Mariusz Błaszczak said. “I also appeal to the German side to join the coalition of countries supporting Ukraine with Leopard 2 tanks.”
Publicly, U.S. officials have praised Germany for weapons contributions it has made to Ukraine, including the IRIS-T air defense system and the promise to send a Patriot antimissile battery to supplement the ones pledged by the U.S. and the Netherlands, as well as Marder infantry-fighting vehicles.
Privately, U.S. officials were frustrated by Germany’s refusal to approve the provision of German-made tanks and have debated how to persuade Berlin to change its stance.
Pentagon officials want Leopard tanks for Ukraine, but didn’t want to send the Abrams there now, arguing that the gas-guzzling tanks with their gas turbine engines and fuel requirements make them less-than-desirable for this moment in the nearly yearlong conflict.
Some State Department and White House officials, however, have been open to meeting the German demands on the Abrams to avoid a deepening rift among Ukraine’s backers over aid to Ukraine and to expedite the delivery of more armor.
The British promised earlier this month to send 14 Challenger 2 main battle tanks to Ukraine, but that wasn’t enough to persuade the Germans to release their hold on the Leopards.

[Hoonercat]

Lots of speculation that Germany wiil send a small number of Leopard 2 A6's to Ukraine, rather than the old A4 variant which Poland and Finland have been suggesting. It could of course be complete bollox, but if true, the A6 is light years ahead of the A4 and could potentially put pressure on Poland and Finland to send its own upgraded variants (Poland only has the A5 but still a big step up from the A4). If the west is going to send Leopards, at least send them the decent upgraded variants which will give them a clear advantage.

Vladimir Solovyov, Putin's propagandist and alleged confidante, made his views on this very clear yesterday on mainstream Russian TV.

Vladimir Solovyov.png (520.88 KiB) Viewed 371 times

He also stated that Germany's new defence minister would go down in history as the cretin who turned Germany into a zone of destruction, that the German people need to "know which new Nazi leaders they've raised and brought to power" and addressed Germans as "You European Pharisees, you Nazi scumbags" and "bastards".
I think he might be a little bit deranged...

[demographic]

Story relating to the sanctions put in place and how the boss of the Russian Wagner group was allowed to circumvent them to try and silence one of the Bellingcat journalists.

Story here if anyone wants to check its validity...
https://www.opendemocracy.net/en/prigoz ... s-libel/

"Labour calls for probe into Treasury’s role in case against journalist
Rishi Sunak’s old department gave go-ahead for Yevgeny Prigozhin to circumvent sanctions and bring case in London

Labour has called on the chancellor to investigate how a Russian oligarch and warlord was given permission to circumvent sanctions with a targeted legal attack on a British journalist in London’s courts.

Yesterday openDemocracy revealed how the UK Treasury had granted Yevgeny Prigozhin, head of the notorious Wagner mercenary army, special permission in 2021 to sue journalist Eliot Higgins of investigations website Bellingcat. Prigozhin was at the time under sanctions for major crimes by his group in support of Putin’s war efforts across the world.

Sign-off from the Office of Financial Sanctions Implementation, a department of the Treasury, meant Prigozhin in Russia could get full access to the finest legal representation in the UK. The office even granted permission for Prigozhin’s London lawyers to travel to St Petersburg to consult him personally, because sanctions meant he could not travel to Britain.

Now in response to openDemocracy’s revelations, shadow chief secretary to the Treasury Pat McFadden has written to chancellor Jeremy Hunt calling for answers.

UK Treasury, then under Rishi Sunak’s control, let Yevgeny Prigozhin circumvent sanctions to target Eliot Higgins
Prigozhin’s Wagner group is a private army that the US government last week announced it would designate a “transnational criminal organisation”. For years it has been accused of human rights abuses and war crimes in Ukraine and across the world in support of Putin’s regime.

Sanctions introduced in the UK and Europe in 2020 were supposed to prevent anyone from doing business with Prigozhin. He had also been sanctioned in the US in 2018.

But openDemocracy’s investigation, based on a vast cache of hacked emails, showed just how easily Prigozhin was able to work around the restrictions, thanks to the permissions granted by the Treasury, then under the leadership of Rishi Sunak.

We revealed that Prigozhin had paid his London lawyers directly via wire transfer from Russia.

Documents also revealed that Prigozhin believed the London case was a key plank of his strategy to thwart the global sanctions themselves.

The notorious libel suit, which was brought against Higgins personally, followed revelations by his website Bellingcat about Wagner’s shadowy operations. The case collapsed in March 2022, in the aftermath of Russia’s invasion of Ukraine.

In his letter to the chancellor, McFadden states that Prigozhin’s “aim was to silence Mr Higgins and his organisation” and notes that Bellingcat was instrumental in exposing Russian crimes in Ukraine and helping identify the killers who were responsible for the Skripal poisonings and the death of Dawn Sturgess.

“The critical question is: how could the Treasury have facilitated a legal action by the founder of the Kremlin-associated Wagner Group against a British journalist, and do so while that person was a sanctioned individual?” he asks.

McFadden also lists several questions for Hunt to answer, including what questions had been asked of the OFSI since openDemocracy’s story broke; whether it had given similar dispensation to other sanctioned oligarchs to sue British journalists; and what the Treasury would do to stop it happening again.

When openDemocracy previously asked the Treasury to comment on the findings of its investigation and asked if ministers were made aware of the decisions, a spokesperson said they couldn’t comment on “individual cases”.

[irie]

F-16s next? Never say never ...

[irie]

Story relating to the sanctions put in place and how the boss of the Russian Wagner group was allowed to circumvent them to try and silence one of the Bellingcat journalists.

Story here if anyone wants to check its validity...
https://www.opendemocracy.net/en/prigoz ... s-libel/

Assuming this story is true, two questions:

(1) Did the Treasury act unlawfully?

(2) Would it have been unlawful for the Treasury to act otherwise?

[demographic]

Story relating to the sanctions put in place and how the boss of the Russian Wagner group was allowed to circumvent them to try and silence one of the Bellingcat journalists.

Story here if anyone wants to check its validity...
https://www.opendemocracy.net/en/prigoz ... s-libel/

Assuming this story is true, two questions:

(1) Did the Treasury act unlawfully?

(2) Would it have been unlawful for the Treasury to act otherwise?

Was it breaking their own sanctions, or not.

[irie]

Story relating to the sanctions put in place and how the boss of the Russian Wagner group was allowed to circumvent them to try and silence one of the Bellingcat journalists.

Story here if anyone wants to check its validity...
https://www.opendemocracy.net/en/prigoz ... s-libel/

Assuming this story is true, two questions:

(1) Did the Treasury act unlawfully?

(2) Would it have been unlawful for the Treasury to act otherwise?

Was it breaking their own sanctions, or not.

Were the sanctions legally enforceable?

[Count Steer]

Would it be unreasonable to expect a government to know whether their sanctions were enforceable or, at least to announce that they weren't if they had to tear them up the first time they were tested? Maybe the government don't like Bellingcat?

[Horse]

Would it be unreasonable to expect a government to know whether their sanctions were enforceable or, at least to announce that they weren't if they had to tear them up the first time they were tested? Maybe the government don't like Bellingcat?

Government being 'careless'? No chance ...

[irie]

Would it be unreasonable to expect a government to know whether their sanctions were enforceable or, at least to announce that they weren't if they had to tear them up the first time they were tested? Maybe the government don't like Bellingcat?

I'll leave you to argue about this ^^^

The question remains: Were the sanctions legally enforceable?

[cheb]

Would it be unreasonable to expect a government to know whether their sanctions were enforceable or, at least to announce that they weren't if they had to tear them up the first time they were tested? Maybe the government don't like Bellingcat?

Government being 'careless'? No chance ...

Fact.