WW3? Ukraine/US vs. Donbass/Russia

[Ravenlocke]

https://twitter.com/RWApodcast/statu...11736109027333

https://twitter.com/RWApodcast/statu...12654128914435

https://twitter.com/RWApodcast/statu...15437322158082

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https://twitter.com/EspiritV1/status...18169803755527

[Ravenlocke]

https://twitter.com/mdfzeh/status/1564290023842877441

[Ravenlocke]

https://www.rt.com/russia/561758-ukr...fensive-fails/

Ukraine’s attempt at counter-offensive has failed – Russia

Ukraine’s much-heralded “counter-offensive” in Kherson has “failed miserably,” the Russian Defense Ministry said on Monday, listing the losses suffered by Kiev at the end of the day. Ukrainian forces attempted to attack in three directions on orders of President Vladimir Zelensky but made no gains, Moscow said.

Russian troops caused “great losses” to the Ukrainian attackers during the day’s battles, including 26 tanks, 23 armored fighting vehicles, nine more armored vehicles, two SU-25 ground-attack jets and more than 560 troops, the Russian Defense Ministry said in a statement on Monday evening.

The enemy's another attempt at offensive actions has failed miserably.

Earlier in the day, the Ukrainian outlet Suspilne quoted Southern Command spokesperson Natalia Humeniuk as saying that “offensive actions in various directions” had begun, “including in the Kherson region.” She offered no details, however, saying only that “any military operation needs silence.”

By Monday evening, however, the General Staff of the Armed Forces of Ukraine mentioned only a Russian attack near the village of Potemkino.

Zelensky made many mistakes – Ukrainian mayor READ MORE: Zelensky made many mistakes – Ukrainian mayor
Kiev has been talking about a “Kherson counteroffensive” all summer, while soliciting more weapons and ammunition from its Western backers. In a video address to the people on Sunday, Zelensky vowed that “Ukraine will return” to Donbass – as well as Kharkov, Zaporozhye, Kherson and “definitely to Crimea.”

Russia sent troops into Ukraine on February 24, citing Kiev’s failure to implement the Minsk agreements, designed to give the regions of Donetsk and Lugansk special status within the Ukrainian state. The protocols, brokered by Germany and France, were first signed in 2014. Former Ukrainian President Pyotr Poroshenko has since admitted that Kiev’s main goal was to use the ceasefire to buy time and “create powerful armed forces.”

In February 2022, the Kremlin recognized the Donbass republics as independent states and demanded that Ukraine officially declare itself a neutral country that will never join any Western military bloc. Kiev insists the Russian offensive was completely unprovoked.

[Ravenlocke]

https://www.rt.com/russia/561735-iae...plant-ukraine/

Exact dates for IAEA mission to 'targeted' nuclear site named – WSJ

Experts from the UN’s International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) will examine the Zaporozhye nuclear power plant between August 31 and September 3, in an effort to assess the situation at the site amid fighting between Russian and Ukrainian forces, the Wall Street Journal reported on Monday.

“The inspection will begin on Wednesday and last until Saturday,” the WSJ reported, citing an internal Ukrainian government document.

According to Morgan Libby, a former IAEA official, the agency’s mission may end up being the most important since the 1986 Chernobyl incident. “Everything else pales in comparison,” he told the paper.

On Monday, Rafael Grossi, the watchdog’s chief, announced that the agency had formed an expert group to visit the NPP, which has been under Russian control since March but is largely still operated by Ukrainian personnel.

“The day has come, IAEA’s Support and Assistance Mission to Zaporozhye (ISAMZ) is now on its way. We must protect the safety and security of Ukraine’s and Europe’s biggest nuclear facility,” he wrote on Twitter.

Kiev shelling damages roof of nuclear reactor fuel storage – official
Kiev shelling damages roof of nuclear reactor fuel storage – official
Grossi said the delegation would assess the damage sustained, check safety and security systems and speak to both Russian and Ukrainian staff on the ground. A New York Times report released on Saturday said that the IAEA’s team consists of 14 experts from “mostly neutral countries.” Neither the US nor Britain will reportedly have any representatives in the group given that Russia had dismissed those countries as “unfairly biased” over their support for the government in Kiev.

Moscow has repeatedly accused Ukrainian forces of attacking the nuclear plant, while warning that the shelling could trigger a disaster that would eclipse the Chernobyl incident. However, Kiev insists that it is Russian forces who are shelling the site while stationing military hardware there.

On Sunday, Kiev shelled Energodar, the city where the plant is located, injuring nine people and hitting three residential houses with artillery fire, local authorities said, claiming that “the provocation” was aimed at “derailing the visit of the IAEA chief to the Zaporozhye NPP.”

In early August, Kremlin press secretary Dmitry Peskov noted that “targeting of the territory of the nuclear power plant by the Ukrainian armed forces is potentially extremely dangerous activity,” which may lead to catastrophic consequences.

[Ravenlocke]

https://twitter.com/coope125/status/1564240543508570112

[Ravenlocke]

https://twitter.com/AZmilitary1/stat...33030755504128

https://twitter.com/AZmilitary1/stat...33036522586113

https://twitter.com/AZmilitary1/stat...33041635495936

[9ideon]

Extra Update on the counteroffensive by Ukraine.

Source: https://youtube.com/watch?v=6r2Rgv3Xk8I

[Bill Ryan]

A fabulous piece by M.K. Bhadrakumar on Indian Punchline, published on 27 August.

He stresses how increasingly few nations in the world are supporting the west's belligerent stance on Russia, the support for Ukraine among European citizens is waning (as they themselves begin to suffer), and how Zelensky himself is becoming isolated and (maybe justifiably) paranoid.

For those with no time to read the whole article, here's a delicious paragraph:

Zelensky’s teflon coating is peeling off. His drug addiction is out in public view. The regime is shaky, as the wave of purges in the Ukrainian security establishment shows. According to Turkish President Recep Erdogan who met Zelensky in Lvov recently, the latter sounded insecure and unsure whether he is being fully kept informed of the ground situation.

• https://indianpunchline.com/ground-b...et-is-shifting

Ground beneath Zelensky’s feet is shifting

Reading and rereading the US President Joe Biden’s statement last Monday on Ukraine Independence Day, one is reminded of English poet John Keats’ immortal line, ‘Heard melodies are sweet but those unheard are sweeter.’ Three things are striking.

Biden repeatedly invoked the abiding nature of the US’ relationship with the Ukrainian people. But in the entire statement, he never once mentioned the Ukrainian government or the leadership of President Volodymyr Zelensky. A careless omission?

Second, Biden underplayed to the point of ignoring the intense US-Ukraine partnership at state-to-state level. The regime in Kiev is unthinkable without robust US support. Third, most important, Biden was silent on the war as such, which is at a decisive stage at present.

As recently as on August 18, twenty prominent American national security professionals urged the Biden administration to “to produce a satisfactory strategic narrative which enables governments to maintain public support for the NATO engagement over the long term… (and) move more quickly and strategically, in meeting Ukrainian requests for weapons systems.”

But Biden neatly sidestepped all that. Even when he spoke of the latest tranche of arms for Ukraine worth $2.98 billion, Biden expressed the hope that the weapon systems may ensure that Ukraine “can continue to defend itself over the long term.” (Emphasis added.)

American analysts estimate that the $2.98 billion weapons package is radically different in its dispensation mechanism. Thus, while military aid hitherto was drawn from pre-existing stockpiles of US weaponry and equipment, this time around, the aid package will be purchased or ordered from defence contractors.

John Kirby, the spokesman for the National Security Council, admitted to reporters that some of the aid in the latest package could be dispensed more slowly than other parts of the package depending on defence contractors’ current stocks. He vaguely said, “It’s going to depend, quite frankly, on the item that we’re talking about. Some stuff probably will still need some production time to develop.”

In effect, the military-industrial complex may have more to celebrate in Biden’s announcement than Zelensky. The Biden administration is moving away from depleting US current stockpiles, as European allies are also doing.

According to Mark Cancian, Senior Adviser, International Security Program at the CSIS, Biden’s latest $2.98 billion package “will sustain the Ukrainian military over the long term but take months or even years to implement fully… Thus, this (package) will sustain the Ukrainian military over the long term, likely postwar, rather than increase its capabilities in the near or medium term…

“This means that the U.S. ability to provide equipment rapidly may be diminishing… The administration may need to ask Congress for more money soon. Although the bipartisan consensus for supporting Ukraine remains strong, there may be a fight with the progressive left and isolationist right about the wisdom of sending money abroad when there are pressing needs at home.”

This is almost the same dilemmas that the US’ European allies are facing. The prestigious German think tank, Kiel Institute for the World Economy reported last week: “The flow of new international support for Ukraine has dried up in July. No large EU country like Germany, France, or Italy, has made significant new pledges.”

It said the EU commission is pushing for larger and more regular aid packages to Ukraine, but the enthusiasm is lacking at the member country level — “Major EU countries such as France, Spain, or Italy have so far provided very little support or remain very opaque about their aid.”

Waning domestic support is the main factor. Even in Poland, there is “refugee fatigue”. The inflation is the all-consuming concern in the public opinion. The German magazine Spiegel has reported that Chancellor Olaf Scholz is facing dissent within his own party ranks from those who want Berlin to stop providing Kiev with weapons and instead want the chancellor to engage in dialogue with Russia.

On Thursday, Chancellor Scholz made a significant remark at a public event in Magdeburg that Berlin will not provide Kiev with arms that could be used to attack Russia. Scholz explained that Berlin’s goal in sending weapons is to “support Ukraine” and “prevent an escalation of the war into something that would be very different.” He said he was echoing Biden’s thinking.

Indeed, while on the one hand, the United States continues to exert military pressure on Russia, hoping to break the resistance of its long-term strategic adversary, on the other hand, over the past two months, Washington has repeatedly signalled that it is not seeking victory, but a final solution to the Ukraine problem through peaceful negotiations.

As in Germany, there is a huge amount of anti-war pressure in the US too, especially among Democratic Party and the academic elite, as well as retired high-ranking officials and business executives, calling on the administration to stop heating up the situation around Ukraine. if the Democrats lose the midterm elections, or if the Republicans come to power in 2024, then the war could take a fundamentally different turn. Over time, similar changes are highly likely to occur in Europe too.

Already, the steady decline in the intensity of the impact of European and US sanctions against Russia speaks for itself. The Economist, which is a virulent critic of the Kremlin, admitted this week that the expected knockout blow from anti-Russia restrictions “has not materialised.” The magazine wrote: “Energy sales will generate a current-account surplus of $265 billion this year (for Russia), the world’s second-largest after China. After a crunch, Russia’s financial system has stabilised and the country is finding new suppliers for some imports, including China.”

On a sombre note, the Economist wrote, “The unipolar moment of the 1990s, when America’s supremacy was uncontested, is long gone, and the West’s appetite to use military force has waned since the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan.”

Again, internationally, the support for Ukraine outside of the western bloc has dropped dramatically in the recent months. Kiev’s proposal on Wednesday to condemn Russia attracted the backing of just 58 out of 193 UN member states, whereas, at the March 2 UN GA session, 141 member countries had voted for a non-binding resolution to condemn Moscow.

Equally, Zelensky’s teflon coating is peeling off. His drug addiction is out in public view. The regime is shaky, as the wave of purges in the Ukrainian security establishment shows. According to Turkish President Recep Erdogan who met Zelensky in Lvov recently, the latter sounded insecure and unsure whether he is being fully kept informed of the ground situation.

Zelensky’s erratic behaviour is not exactly endearing him, either. Pope Francis is the latest figure to be chastised by Kiev — because the Pontiff remarked that Darya Dugina was “innocent.” The Vatican ambassador was summoned to the foreign ministry to receive Kiev’s protest.

The German daily Handelsblatt wrote today that the “internal cohesion” of the Ukrainian government “is in danger. There are serious allegations against the president… At home, the Ukrainian president, who is celebrated abroad as a war hero, is under pressure… The comedian has become a warlord… The 44-year-old has so far been able to switch and act freely with his team, which is partly made up of colleagues from his television production company. But the grace period now seems to have expired.” The daily forecast an approaching political upheaval by winter.

Biden carefully distanced himself from the Kiev regime and focused on the people-to-people relations. Even if the Americans know the Byzantine corridors of power in Kiev, they cannot afford to be explicit like the former Russian president Dmitry Medvedev who predicted last week that the Ukrainian military may stage a coup and enter into peace talks with Russia.

[Mike Gorman]

Posted by Ravenlocke (here)
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https://twitter.com/EspiritV1/status...18169803755527

Sometimes I think the Russians place way too much trust in western governments, even when they know it is foolish, perhaps they hope there are some good people among them, they don't understand how much they are feared and loathed, it is beyond their understanding because they are good people-that is how it strikes me anyway.

[Bill Ryan]

And here's an interesting statistic. (I know many Avalon readers are well aware how important this topic is, and will continue to be for a while. But everyday citizens, dependent on the mainstream media, are becoming increasingly more anxious about matters closer to home, including their very personal economic survival when their own governments are openly betraying them.)

[Mashika]

This is interesting, from here i can speculate a bit, but this seems to confirm some stuff i heard before in the form of "The ukros are using the howitzers so much that they break them constantly"

Maybe it wasn't that they overused it, maybe it was something else with the guns?

If this is true, then we could assume at least one of

1. The west is sending faulty armament to Ukraine, very expensive faulty armament
2. The Ukros are misusing the armament, possibly because of bad, insufficient training?
3. Western armament is crap, and it has been exposed badly now, once used on a real war. There could be a conspiracy here, that the 'partners' who have bought those guns knew the limitations/faults and pretended not to, because they assumed no one would ever figure out (there will never be a real war in our lifetime), and there was money to be made in buying/selling that crap, this would be a multinational conspiracy to buy guns with tax payers money at very high prices, guns that don't work...


I get the feeling that it is option 1. Those guns sold to Ukraine are faulty, and the scheme works like this:

1. Get all the arms that did not pass the field tests and are defective, but were kept for training/parts
2. Give them a quick 'paint job', exchange any non working parts so that the guns work for a while without any issues
3. Pretend these are fully working, field and war ready guns
4. Sell them at a good price to Ukraine and pretend surprise when the guns break after a few weeks (because of course they will break, the 'paint job' also used 'cheap paint')
.
.
Profit???

Looks like Ukraine has been badly scammed by the western 'partners', they unloaded all their faulty equipment into Ukraine and are now planning to buy actual functional equipment with the money they earned/will earn in the coming years, from this war

https://t.me/DonbassDevushka/21878

[Bill Ryan]

Posted by Mashika (here)
This is interesting, from here i can speculate a bit, but this seems to confirm some stuff i heard before in the form of "The ukros are using the howitzers so much that they break them constantly"

From what I've heard, one major problem with the M777s howitzers is simply that they aren't designed for continuous heavy use, like the Russian artillery systems.

They're not that strong, and are made to quite some extent of titanium. That's so they're as light as possible (therefore can easily be moved around by heli) and are really intended for "sniper"-type artillery use, i.e. precision shooting at specific targets on a "shoot-and-scoot" basis. (Meaning, fire a few rounds, then move to another location, then fire a few more rounds, rinse and repeat, etc.)

That's a whole bunch of words! But what it really adds up to is that when they're very heavily over-used, they just tend to break.

Russian equipment (of any kind!) tends to be strong, simple and sturdy. American equipment (of any kind!) tends to be over-engineered, complex, very dependent on spare parts and good maintenance, and the operators usually have to be very well-trained. There are a ton of examples of both... ranging from Lada cars to the F-35 fighter jet.

[Mashika]

Posted by Bill Ryan (here)

Posted by Mashika (here)
This is interesting, from here i can speculate a bit, but this seems to confirm some stuff i heard before in the form of "The ukros are using the howitzers so much that they break them constantly"

From what I've heard, one major problem with the M777s howitzers is simply that they aren't designed for continuous heavy use, like the Russian artillery systems.

They're not that strong, and are made to quite some extent of titanium. That's so they're as light as possible (therefore can easily be moved around by heli) and are really intended for "sniper"-type artillery use, i.e. precision shooting at specific targets on a "shoot-and-scoot" basis. (Meaning, fire a few rounds, then move to another location, then fire a few more rounds, rinse and repeat, etc.)

That's a whole bunch of words! But what it really adds up to is that when they're very heavily over-used, they just tend to break.

Russian equipment (of any kind!) tends to be strong, simple and sturdy. American equipment (of any kind!) tends to be over-engineered, complex, very dependent on spare parts and good maintenance, and the operators usually have to be very well-trained. There are a ton of examples of both... ranging from Lada cars to the F-35 fighter jet.

Maybe the American one is built like that, but there are several others also failing constantly. It also reminds me now of something else, the Javelin and other systems delivered to the Ukrainians most times do not work, or have batteries that only last for 5/10 minutes, so the Ukros started to ditch them as soon as they had to leave a position, because they said "it's heavy to carry around and it doesn't work, the batteries die in 10 minutes before we can use them"

And then there was a picture i could not find, of a rocket that was fielded in 1984 and the last maintenance recorded on the log was also at some point in 1984, the US sent a rocket batch they bought in 1984 and that had never been tested or gone through maintenance since then? How is that even possible?

[9ideon]

Mashika

3. Western armament is crap, and it has been exposed badly now, once used on a real war. There could be a conspiracy here, that the 'partners' who have bought those guns knew the limitations/faults and pretended not to, because they assumed no one would ever figure out (there will never be a real war in our lifetime), and there was money to be made in buying/selling that

That seems to be the main thought indeed. Like the West has not really been tested against a real fighting force, like Russia or China, hell... even Iran for that matter. Therefore the equipment we use is b-rate because of that same fact, being, there is not really that much stress on the hardware when used against smaller and lesser equipped forces, plus, do not forget that Nato likes to attack from the air first.

Been saying it for a while, out gear is not as good as we think it is, it's not built to last.

On a side note, the Dutch did not have any bullets for the army about 2 years ago, I bet you that money went to build roads and crap (sarcasm).

[Bill Ryan]

Posted by Mashika (here)
And then there was a picture i could not find, of a rocket that was fielded in 1984 and the last maintenance recorded on the log was also at some point in 1984, the US sent a rocket batch they bought in 1984 and that had never been tested or gone through maintenance since then? How is that even possible?

Yes, it makes little sense! It's almost as if at least some of the weapons shipments were really political gestures rather than serious, practical attempts to assist Ukraine on the battlefield.

Adding to your speculation, maybe there are factions within the Pentagon that are deliberately and knowingly doing this, which the non-technical US State Department in Washington wouldn't know anything about.

Maybe not all those reading this thread are aware of this: one example of the craziness is that the Javelin battery packs are often ancient. All batteries run down to zero when unused and in storage for years. (Think of your own car battery which you use to start your car every day. It's exactly the same.) And the shipped Javelin missiles usually never arrived in Ukraine with any spare, new, fully-charged batteries. (Or even a user's manual! Truly. )

One reason might simply be to get rid of all the old inventory so that new (and modern!) weapons can be contracted... but yes, it's an excellent question that seems to have to point to either malice or incompetence.

[Orph]

Posted by Bill Ryan (here)

One reason might simply be to get rid of all the old inventory so that new (and modern!) weapons can be contracted.....

This is what I assumed was happening all along. Have to get rid of the old to make more money manufacturing the new. Whether they work properly or break down doesn't matter. All that matters is the money to be made.

[9ideon]

Mashika

And then there was a picture i could not find, of a rocket that was fielded in 1984 and the last maintenance recorded on the log was also at some point in 1984, the US sent a rocket batch they bought in 1984 and that had never been tested or gone through maintenance since then? How is that even possible?

I doubt that these rockets are from the US, the amount of wars they have fought would have included the M270 (Rocket Artillery 1983).

The M270 Multiple Launch Rocket System (M270 MLRS) is an American armored, self-propelled, multiple rocket launcher. The first M270s were delivered to the U.S. Army in 1983. The MLRS has since been adopted by several NATO countries.

Therefore I do no think they're from the US, let's see which countries might have these M270's.

On 7 June 2022, British defence secretary Ben Wallace announced that the UK would send three (later increased to six) MLRS to aid Ukrainian forces. On 15 June, Germany's Scholz cabinet also announced it would send three of its MARS vehicles from German Army stocks. Ukraine announced they had received the first M270s on 15 July. The German defence secretary Christine Lambrecht announced the arrival of the vehicles they contributed on 26 July 2022.

It has to be Germany, they have not really been doing a lot of that old war, they'd have older rockets still in stock, there's loads of 'm there not used over the years.

Some 1,300 M270 systems have been manufactured in the United States and in Western Europe,[vague] along with more than 700,000 rockets. Production of the M270 ended in 2003, when a last batch was delivered to the Egyptian Army.

[Mashika]

Posted by 9ideon (here)

Mashika

And then there was a picture i could not find, of a rocket that was fielded in 1984 and the last maintenance recorded on the log was also at some point in 1984, the US sent a rocket batch they bought in 1984 and that had never been tested or gone through maintenance since then? How is that even possible?

I doubt that these rockets are from the US, the amount of wars they have fought would have included the M270 (Rocket Artillery 1983).

The M270 Multiple Launch Rocket System (M270 MLRS) is an American armored, self-propelled, multiple rocket launcher. The first M270s were delivered to the U.S. Army in 1983. The MLRS has since been adopted by several NATO countries.

Therefore I do no think they're from the US, let's see which countries might have these M270's.

On 7 June 2022, British defence secretary Ben Wallace announced that the UK would send three (later increased to six) MLRS to aid Ukrainian forces. On 15 June, Germany's Scholz cabinet also announced it would send three of its MARS vehicles from German Army stocks. Ukraine announced they had received the first M270s on 15 July. The German defence secretary Christine Lambrecht announced the arrival of the vehicles they contributed on 26 July 2022.

It has to be Germany, they have not really been doing a lot of that old war, they'd have older rockets still in stock, there's loads of 'm there not used over the years.

Some 1,300 M270 systems have been manufactured in the United States and in Western Europe,[vague] along with more than 700,000 rockets. Production of the M270 ended in 2003, when a last batch was delivered to the Egyptian Army.

No, those were small rockets for TOW launchers i believe, not for larger systems like the one you mention

There is a well recorded history by now of anti-tank missile failures, and i wonder if a lot of it has to do with expired rockets and bad/outdated systems on top of the bad batteries

"US Anti-Tank Missiles Are ‘Struggling To Fire’ In Ukraine; Leaked Documents Reveal A Poor Hit-To-Miss Ratio"
https://eurasiantimes.com/us-anti-ta...raine-javelin/

[Bill Ryan]

Posted by Mashika (here)
"US Anti-Tank Missiles Are ‘Struggling To Fire’ In Ukraine; Leaked Documents Reveal A Poor Hit-To-Miss Ratio"
https://eurasiantimes.com/us-anti-ta...raine-javelin/

And —>

https://19fortyfive.com/2022/06/prob...-tank-missiles

(an astonishing article! — dated 16 June)

Problem: Ukraine Needs Tech Support for Javelin Anti-Tank Missiles

What is the number for Javelin missile tech support? One of the great downsides of our “high-tech world” is that when things go wrong, and a solution can’t readily be found, users must pick up the phone and call the dreaded “tech support” to resolve the issue. According to a 2016 survey, Americans will spend upwards of 43 days of their life on hold waiting for tech support! This problem is made worse by the fact that in recent years, tech support has stopped being available 24/7, and calls must be made during “normal business hours.”

That is bad enough when the cable box isn’t working or the computer is locked in an endless reboot cycle, and rarely is life on the line. However, for some Ukrainian warfighters, the lack of tech support for their FGM-148 Javelin portable anti-tank missile systems is a deadly serious problem.

As first reported by The Washington Post this week, though the Pentagon had rushed to send more than 5,000 Javelins to Ukraine, many are inoperable. The weapons arrived, but the training modules, spare batteries, and other basics that the U.S. military relies on to use the Javelins failed to make it.

The paper of record quoted Mark Hayward, a U.S. Army veteran and volunteer trainer, who explained, “We’re sending equipment. But have we decided not to do tech support?”

Hayward said that Ukrainians have had to cannibalize electrical components from a video game controller after an expensive component was found to be defective. In another case, a Javelin was thought to be broken until it was in fact discovered that the user instructions were “gummed up” via Google Translate.

Lack of Tech Support

The Ukrainians couldn’t call tech support – and yes, in the 21st century defense contractors do offer such remote help for many systems. However, the missile launcher’s instruction cards that included the support hotline’s phone numbers were not included in the shipments. According to the Post, Hayward opened several units and found that the cards were missing.

It has been reported that the call center that provides tech support remains an important asset for U.S. troops, who may be unable to solve problems on their own in the field. However, it appears that the Biden administration hasn’t actually extended that level of tech support to Ukraine.

The United States Department of Defense (DoD) hasn’t addressed whether support-line cards were actually removed before the transfer of the weapons. For now, we can simply assume Ukraine wasn’t offered a “Gold Plan” with their Javelins!

Basic Training

The FGM-148 Javelin has been a highly effective weapon, one that has been credited with destroying scores of Russian tanks in Ukraine. However, it is also a complex system that is far more complicated to operate successfully than other shoulder-fired weapons. In fact, it is shipped to units with a 258-page user manual – in English of course. It also requires special batteries and an argon coolant to operate.

Early in May, U.S. lawmakers even expressed concerns that Ukrainian fighters weren’t getting the necessary training to operate the Javelin.

“Obviously the Javelins have the ability to significantly help Ukrainian forces,” Sen. Lisa Murkowski (R-Alaska) had told Defense Secretary Lloyd Austin during a Senate Appropriations Committee hearing last month. “But what we’re hearing is that the new Ukrainian troops are not provided adequate training to operate these $200,000 weapons systems.”

The issue was so great that the Ukrainian Ministry of Defense requested that the United States also provide Javelin training kits. Ukrainian Brig. Gen. Kyrylo Budanov, the head of Ukraine’s Defense Intelligence, confirmed the need for the Javelin training kits to The War Zone last month.

Each Javelin missile reportedly costs roughly $200,000, while the entire shoulder-fired system (one missile and a reusable targeting system) totals around $440,000, based on 2023 budget documents. It would be an extreme waste of U.S. taxpayer dollars if those weapons are supplied and Ukrainians can’t actually use them – especially if it was because of the lack of a training manual or a tech support number to call.

Of course, for a soldier on the ground in Ukraine, it may not just cost money – it could cost that fighter his life.

[Ravenlocke]

Yes I agree with both Mashika and Bill re old equipment, etc.
I remember our local US news said from the start of the war the US approved package was to include military equipment the US no longer wanted to maintain or use. Also remember seeing news here and there that nato countries were passing old equipment to Ukraine. I remember even Czechoslovakia sent some old Russian tanks and here’s a tweet from April, about that.

https://twitter.com/WSJ/status/1511320271168360452