A place for aggregated discussions of a possible conflict, it’s implications and effects, news updates and personal accounts if any. If the expected conflict kicks off, I will change the title but the function will stay the same.
Canada accidentally got itself wrapped up in the confusing, complicated history of Ukraine in WWII.
Also, well done on a ton more agitprop for Putin to churn.
Mr Rota has faced calls from fellow parliamentarians to resign, while others criticised Mr Trudeau for not being involved in the decision to invite Mr Hunka.
"It is shocking that members of parliament rose to give him an ovation," Peter Julian, a member of parliament for the New Democratic Party, said in the House of Commons on Monday.
"Members did so because we took the Speaker's word that this individual should indeed be granted this honour in good faith."
Russia has criticised Canada's invitation to Mr Hunka. On Monday, Kremlin spokesperson Dmitry Peskov called it "outrageous".
"Many Western countries, including Canada, have raised a young generation that does not know who fought whom or what happened during the Second World War. And they know nothing about the threat of fascism," Mr Peskov said.
President Vladimir Putin of Russia has sought to justify his invasion of Ukraine by falsely claiming Russia wants to "denazify" the country.
During World War Two, Mr Hunka served in the 14th Waffen-SS Grenadier Division, also known as the Galicia Division - a voluntary unit made up mostly of ethnic Ukrainians under Nazi command.
Division members are accused of killing Polish and Jewish civilians, although the unit has not been found guilty of any war crimes by a tribunal.
The unit was renamed the First Ukrainian Division before surrendering to the Western Allies in 1945.
Dominique Arel, chair of Ukrainian studies at the University of Ottawa, told CBC News that the division Mr Hunka was part of had attracted thousands of Ukrainian volunteers, many joining with hopes they could achieve Ukrainian independence.
They really should go deeper into why so many Ukrainians wanted to acheive independence. It makes it pretty clear that most of them joined the German units not to fight for the Nazis, but because it allowed them to fight against the Soviet Union. They had just come off the Holodomor genocide, a manufactured famine by the Soviet Union that caused the death of around 3-4 million ethnic Ukrainians. There are a great many parallels between what Stalin did then and what Putin's doing now.
It is worth mentioning that a lot of Indians joined with the Nazis because of atrocities committed by Churchill
Canada accidentally got itself wrapped up in the confusing, complicated history of Ukraine in WWII.
The Speaker of Canada's House of Commons has resigned after unwittingly praising a Ukrainian man who fought for a Nazi unit and inviting him to parliament.
After first resisting calls to step down, Anthony Rota quit on Tuesday after meeting party leaders in Ottawa.
"I must step down as your Speaker," he said in parliament. "I reiterate my profound regret."
The incident last Friday drew global condemnation.
Yaroslav Hunka, 98, got a standing ovation after Mr Rota called him a "hero" during a Friday visit by Ukraine's president.
Mr Rota has said he did not know of Mr Hunka's Nazi ties and made a mistake in inviting him to attend the event.
Canada's Prime Minister Justin Trudeau said on Monday it was "extremely upsetting that this happened".
"This is something that is deeply embarrassing to the parliament of Canada and by extension to all Canadians," he told reporters.
During World War Two, Mr Hunka served in the 14th Waffen-SS Grenadier Division, a voluntary unit made up mostly of ethnic Ukrainians under Nazi command. Division members are accused of killing Polish and Jewish civilians, although the unit has not been found guilty of any war crimes by a tribunal.
Earlier on Tuesday, Poland's Education Minister Przemysław Czarnek said he had "taken steps" towards extraditing Mr Hunka.
Members of Mr Trudeau's cabinet had joined cross-party calls for Mr Rota to step down.
Huh! Well, it's a PBS Newshour report on the grind at the front.
The software being used is Digital Combat Simulator: World (DCS) running the F-16C module. These are similar to the DCS-based systems used at home by many enthusiasts as well as by U.S. Air Force's A-10 Warthog pilots at the 355th Training Squadron at Davis-Monthan Air Force Base in Arizona. It's part of a low-coast way to augment aerial training. Last year, a Ukrainian infantryman managed to crowdfund development of a secret A-10 Warthog simulation training center similar to the one at Davis-Monthan.
Fun fact: Eagle Dynamics, the publisher of DCS World and the developer of the F-16C module, was founded in Moscow and still has development studios in Russia.
I'd be worried about sabotage then 
Be more worried about the FSB raiding their offices and arresting their staff.
Looks like the Ukrainians used ATACMS to absolutely mallet Russian troops and helicopters in Lugansk and Berdyansk.
Is St. Javelin going to have to change their name?
"Release the ATACMS" shirt please.
That was just the "short range" rocket, but each one carried 940 or so bomblets. Seems like they took out about half of the 18 to 20 helos that were present across the two airbases, plus a Pantsir, an ammunition building, and a bunch of personnel. Oh and some stored ground-based radar units for AD use, apparently.
That was just the "short range" rocket, but each one carried 940 or so bomblets. Seems like they took out about half of the 18 to 20 helos that were present across the two airbases, plus a Pantsir, an ammunition building, and a bunch of personnel. Oh and some stored ground-based radar units for AD use, apparently.
Yup.
I have no doubt that the Russians will react to this with measures to try to limit similar exposure, but all of them have tactical, strategic, and logistical implications. The ones most frequently being discussed are moving aviation assets further out of range and further dispersing ammunition, personnel, and command and control assets. Moving the aviation out of ATACMS range will drastically increase platform wear, fuel and parts consumption, pilot fatigue, maintenance requirements, necessary reaction time, and, critically, lead time of detection. All of that will reduce both sortie time and sortie rate as well as have a nontrivial impact on both combat and non combat casualty rate. Even if only a dozen helicopters were destroyed, the impact of this strike will be to drastically reduce the efficacy of the remaining airframes.
The impact on logistics for things like ammo, POL, food, medical, and personnel will be even more profound. Pushing stockpile areas further back into the rear area will create even greater draw on truck logistics. Trainyards will be high priority targets and shipments to them will need to be drastically reduced to prevent catastrophic logistics disruption. Accurate, numerous long range fires like ATACMS effectively turns the "last mile" of logistics into a "last 200 miles".
With a unknown number of ATACMS, Putin just saw his burn rate go up by a nontrivial percentage.
So basically, it will move them from an "occupation" logistics stance, to an "expeditionary" one. It will also make them more dependent on an intact road/bridge/railroad network. And the units will received supply in smaller bites, meaning the scheduling and delivery of shipments is more important than before, which will be hard for them because they don't have a great logistical back-end in the first place.
This could easily lead to even local offensives dying on the vine due to a lack of supply. It's a push on morale as well as administrative capacity.
So basically, it will move them from an "occupation" logistics stance, to an "expeditionary" one. It will also make them more dependent on an intact road/bridge/railroad network. And the units will received supply in smaller bites, meaning the scheduling and delivery of shipments is more important than before, which will be hard for them because they don't have a great logistical back-end in the first place.
This could easily lead to even local offensives dying on the vine due to a lack of supply. It's a push on morale as well as administrative capacity.
exactly.
It looks like the Ukrainians (with possible Western assistance) have properly recognized that the weakest link in the Russian war machine is in their dependence on push logistics. Everything the Russian military does is based on schedules, stockpiles, and LOTS of slop in the system. It is not just in time, interactive, or self correcting. If you discover an acute need for medical supplies, you need to wait for the the rabbit of expired MREs to work its way through the snake. And TRAINS are the only way this sort of thing works at all. The fact that the Russians lacked even basic expeditionary logistical capabilities really reveals them to be something quite a bit less than a "world power".
Edit: the inability, for instance, to properly supply an offensive in Avdivka (a salient that is literally a dozen miles from a major population center under Russian occupation) is really damning.
I'm impressed they're still able to project power into Ukraine. A year ago we saw the train loads of private trucks they were moving in to fortify their logistics tail, and heard they were running low on ammo. Yet they're still going nearly two years since the invasion. I'm sure it will all collapse at some point, but I'm surprised it's lasted this long.
I'm impressed they're still able to project power into Ukraine. A year ago we saw the train loads of private trucks they were moving in to fortify their logistics tail, and heard they were running low on ammo. Yet they're still going nearly two years since the invasion. I'm sure it will all collapse at some point, but I'm surprised it's lasted this long.
I think "project power" is a bit of a stretch.
The "offensive" in Avdiivka lasted all of three days before they switched the messaging to "we are conducting an active defense". Look at the map and you realize that the distance between the outskirts of Avdiivka and Donetsk City is roughly 5k. This is a distance a fairly average amateur runner could cover in about 20 minutes. On foot. Donetsk is a city that they have controlled since 2018 and, presumably, have 100% control over its infrastructure and logistics. Avdiivka is also a salient and surrounded on three sides.
This would be like being unable to take Wayzata despite controlling Minneapolis, Eden Prairie, and Maple Grove.
Thanks for translating that to Twin Cities for me. 
I'm frustrated for the Ukrainians, wishing we could do more for them. They're spilling all the blood while we are on the cusp of seeing an election-denier and Putin apologist promoted to a position two steps removed from the presidency. I know Biden will still have some ability to flex DoD funds to assist, but Putin will definitely receive a gift if Jordan takes the gavel. Time is on Russia's side.
Sobering read.
Feels like a Trump win or Putin's death might prove decisive.
About what I thought. Russia's pretty clearly been just biding its time and looking to win a war of attrition for a while now.
The course of the counter-offensive has undermined Western hopes that Ukraine could use it to demonstrate that the war is unwinnable–and thus change Vladimir Putin’s calculations, forcing the Russian president to negotiate. It has also undercut General Zaluzhny’s assumption that he could stop Russia by bleeding its troops. “That was my mistake. Russia has lost at least 150,000 dead. In any other country such casualties would have stopped the war.” But not in Russia, where life is cheap and where Mr Putin’s reference points are in the first and second world wars in which Russia lost tens of millions.
Sigh. Yup. Any Western leader would've stopped the war. Putin knows he can lose 10 times as many and remain in power.
Zelenskiy denies Ukrainian general’s claim war is at stalemate
Sounds like politics, not the truth on the ground, frankly.
It does bolster Zelenskyy's view on the war, when Ukraine destroys another Russian warship.
What comes first, Ukraine reaches Tokamak or Russia has no more ships?
Another factor for the next Ukrainian ground offensive might be the rapid depletion of Alligators. One of the smaller OSINT types tried to do back of the napkin math on the likely number of remaining KA-52s, and made a pretty compelling case that Russia might be down to just twenty or so, and with ATACMS likely pushing the helicopter bases further back, meaning even more flying time...
I've seen several reports that the KA-52s made advancing through the mine fields on the Zaporizhzhia front very challenging for Ukrainian armor. Obviously, the drone threat will remain, but next summer's offensive might not have any attack copters over the battlefield.
Cross post as it has impacts across the world and helps understand Putin's mindset. I'd really advise that you watch it. Really brought together a whole slew of information to show that Putin is paranoid about "Colour Revolutions" and stopping them. Very interesting.
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