Thank you for the contiuing flow of unbiased news! Readers in the US might want to consider making their donations now to Come Back Alive, RAZOM and/or United24, both to boost Ukraine in the short term and because of the possibility that these charities might be declared terrorist organizations. Not that they are, but from what we are seeing anything bad can happen.
(I donated about 10% of my gross income to the three on January 2nd. Wish I could afford to give more!)
Dr. O’Brien, I follow both you and Sarcastosaurus (Don Hill and Tom Cooper) for information on the war in Ukraine. Of late, Sarcastosaurus has been highly critical of the Ukrainian general staff, especially CIC Syrskyi. Areas of criticism are, among other things, micromanaging parts of the front, failure to fully support good commanders and relieve bad ones, and in general behaving more like the Russian general staff than a NATO military. The criticism is directed at officers above the level of brigade commander. This is not an area that you touch on, but I would be interested in hearing your perspective sometime in the future.
And today, I read that Gen. Kellogg has removed all restrictions from the use of US supplied weapons, which continue to flow. A general would make that decision as a diplomat-bureaucrat like Jake Sullivan would not. All is not lost and I think, Ukraine will win…what did the Soviets say, the correlation of forces favor Ukraine, if Ukraine does what it must to win.
Thank you both for the update! And Mykola... perhaps moving closer to the microphone could help eliminate some of the distracting echo? I only seem to be able to catch about 80% of what you're saying. And just one probably ignorant question: I am baffled by what I seem to see, which is little or no counter reaction to Putin introducing a sizable number of troops from a foreign ally into the battle at the front, especially from the Europeans. Yes, Biden decided in response to finally allow some limited use of American weapons (ATACMS, etc.) at (limited) range. But is that it? Perhaps it was/is impossible to put NATO troops into the front line battle...but why not do something like introducing NATO personnel...or at least civilian contractors... into support positions in the rear wherever they can be useful and free up Ukrainian forces - air defense, equipment repair, etc? Or if it is impossible to employ personnel of any kind associated with NATO, then why don't at least willing European nations provide...flood in!...contractors to aid Ukraine in the multiple ways they can well behind the front lines? Maybe this question is naive, but it has been bothering me quite a bit. It seems to me Putin has raised the stakes considerably with the introduction of his ally's soldiers into the battle and that the NATO allies of Ukraine have blinked.
Great episode. Happy to still be donating 30 pounds a month to Come Back Alive.
Awesome news all around. CBA needs all the help it can get these days.
Thank you for the contiuing flow of unbiased news! Readers in the US might want to consider making their donations now to Come Back Alive, RAZOM and/or United24, both to boost Ukraine in the short term and because of the possibility that these charities might be declared terrorist organizations. Not that they are, but from what we are seeing anything bad can happen.
(I donated about 10% of my gross income to the three on January 2nd. Wish I could afford to give more!)
Dr. O’Brien, I follow both you and Sarcastosaurus (Don Hill and Tom Cooper) for information on the war in Ukraine. Of late, Sarcastosaurus has been highly critical of the Ukrainian general staff, especially CIC Syrskyi. Areas of criticism are, among other things, micromanaging parts of the front, failure to fully support good commanders and relieve bad ones, and in general behaving more like the Russian general staff than a NATO military. The criticism is directed at officers above the level of brigade commander. This is not an area that you touch on, but I would be interested in hearing your perspective sometime in the future.
And today, I read that Gen. Kellogg has removed all restrictions from the use of US supplied weapons, which continue to flow. A general would make that decision as a diplomat-bureaucrat like Jake Sullivan would not. All is not lost and I think, Ukraine will win…what did the Soviets say, the correlation of forces favor Ukraine, if Ukraine does what it must to win.
Thank you both for the update! And Mykola... perhaps moving closer to the microphone could help eliminate some of the distracting echo? I only seem to be able to catch about 80% of what you're saying. And just one probably ignorant question: I am baffled by what I seem to see, which is little or no counter reaction to Putin introducing a sizable number of troops from a foreign ally into the battle at the front, especially from the Europeans. Yes, Biden decided in response to finally allow some limited use of American weapons (ATACMS, etc.) at (limited) range. But is that it? Perhaps it was/is impossible to put NATO troops into the front line battle...but why not do something like introducing NATO personnel...or at least civilian contractors... into support positions in the rear wherever they can be useful and free up Ukrainian forces - air defense, equipment repair, etc? Or if it is impossible to employ personnel of any kind associated with NATO, then why don't at least willing European nations provide...flood in!...contractors to aid Ukraine in the multiple ways they can well behind the front lines? Maybe this question is naive, but it has been bothering me quite a bit. It seems to me Putin has raised the stakes considerably with the introduction of his ally's soldiers into the battle and that the NATO allies of Ukraine have blinked.