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Ukraine Invasion Day 649: US willingness to support Ukraine ‘for as long as it takes’ limited by GOP [1]
['This Content Is Not Subject To Review Daily Kos Staff Prior To Publication.']
Date: 2023-12-03
Lindsey Graham does not represent the US position when he says: “I’m not helping Ukraine until we help ourselves.”
The Republican party will be responsible if Ukraine runs out of ammunition. Directly responsible.
https://t.co/yxk59zisDZ
"A president who tried to use force and fraud to stay in power after losing an election should not be allowed wield the power of office ever again. And we need not and should not rely on the democratic process alone to combat such dangers." @IlyaSomin :
https://t.co/SxOWbDydq3
“Look, we are not backing down, I am satisfied. We are fighting with the second [best] army in the world, I am satisfied. We are losing people, I’m not satisfied. We didn’t get all the weapons we wanted, I can’t be satisfied, but I also can’t complain too much,” explained Zelenskyy.
The long-awaited counteroffensive, powered by Western military aid, failed to achieve anticipated breakthroughs. Simultaneously, dwindling ammunition supplies pose a risk of halting Ukrainian battlefield operations. As winter approaches, bringing freezing temperatures and exposed soldiers, military leaders face renewed challenges, including the threat of Russian aerial assaults targeting energy infrastructure and civilians in cities.
euromaidanpress.com/...
October Gallup poll represents a willingness to support Ukraine ‘for as long as it takes’ split out by political party affiliation.
The Ukrainian army had just four tank brigades before the 5th Tank finally mobilized. While most of the Ukrainian armed forces’ hundred or so ground-combat brigades have at least a few tanks—normally a company or battalion, respectively with a dozen or 30 tanks—only the tank brigades concentrate a lot of tanks under a single command.
The concentration of mobile, protected firepower makes the tank brigades some of the most effective brigades for intensive close combat. In particular, offensive combat.
When Russian field armies rolled toward Kyiv in the early weeks of the wider war, the Ukrainian 1st Tank Brigade circled its wagons—so to speak—in Chernihiv, 60 miles north of the capital. There, it fought off a much larger Russian force. The brigade’s T-64BV tanks proved particularly lethal in close fights with Russian tanks.
But Ukrainian tank doctrine has evolved as the wider war has slowed to a mostly positional conflict, with both sides struggling to achieve major breakthroughs across heavily-mined defensive lines buzzing with explosives-laden drones.
More and more, tanks fight at range—staging a mile or two from the front line and firing their main guns at high angles, like howitzers do. “The value of this technique is that it allows tanks to concentrate fire over a wide area while they can maneuver without the protection and screening needed by artillery pieces,” the Royal United Services Institute noted in a 2022 study.
As it happens, Ukraine’s large fleet of donated Leopard 1s are suited to this indirect-fire role, owing to their accurate and fast fire-controls and effective 105-millimeter main guns. More to the point, the Leopard 1s are thinly-protected, with barely half the armor that T-72s have. The Leopard 1s should fight at range because they lack the protection for close fights.
www.msn.com/...
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