“Ukie fuel depots destroyed over the past few days, a large one in Sumy. I remember reading and seeing pictures of WW2 German trucks being converted to steam as they had run out of fuel for their war effort, Ukies, not so much. A head scratcher for sure, I always wondered which Russian Oligarchs owned the majority of Ukie fuel depots as Russia has been loathe to destroy them, perhaps one of those ‘slap it inta ya’ moments.”
Cheers M
Posted by: sean the leprechaun | Feb 2 2025 14:16 utc | 1
Talking about Nazi Germany I did an AI search and -very surprisingly – found it actually humanizing Hitler which is a new trend:
“Nazis did develop and produce deadly nerve agents during World War II, including sarin gas. However, Adolf Hitler was afraid to use these agents against his enemies.
Explanation
The Nazis produced sarin, tabun, and soman, which were incorporated into artillery shells.
The name sarin is an acronym of the last names of the scientists who developed it.
Hitler refused to use nerve agents like sarin as weapons.
The Nazis also used Zyklon B pellets, which turned into a lethal gas when exposed to air. Zyklon B was used in the gas chambers at Auschwitz.

Posted by: canuck | Feb 2 2025 14:39 utc | 4

Lot of meat to be grinded in Odessa. Partisans waiting in anticipation,fantasising,silently screaming in pure rage waiting to join the action. They could go berserk and rivers of blood could flow

Posted by: Michael J | Feb 2 2025 14:46 utc | 6

Posted by: Teraspol | Feb 2 2025 14:40 utc | 5
Oh, I know it’s not Russia bombing its own civilians. I was just pointing out how they seem to be unable to stop the slaughter in Kursk and evict the Ukronazis even after all these months.

Posted by: bored | Feb 2 2025 14:56 utc | 8

After morning strikes of the Russian Armed Forces on February 1, actively burning in Ukraine The Yablunivsky gas processing plant in the Mirgorod district of the Poltava region and the Yarovka gas field are also nearby. A 3.7-magnitude earthquake was registered. We’ll find out what’s going on in a few days.

https://voenhronika.ru/publ/vojna_na_ukraine/02_02_2025_tjazheloe_video_s_fronta_v_poltavskoj_oblasti_zemletrjasenie_3_balla_posle_udara_vks_novosti_nato_repetiruet_ataku_na_kaliningrad_22_video/60-1-0-16101 (via translation add-on.)
The report of an earthquake is interesting; immediately after the Oreshnik strike on the Yuzhmash complex residents reported earthquake-like effects. Can’t imagine there would be underground gas storage facilities in a naturally seismically active area.

Posted by: Jeremy Rhymings-Lang | Feb 2 2025 15:22 utc | 10

According to Dima, apparently there were French generals inside the building in Odessa that got demolished.
Macron is going to shit himself.

Posted by: Ghost of Zanon | Feb 2 2025 15:29 utc | 12

Taking Odessa could be unlike anything we have seen so far in smo. Scores of Russian spies and special forces could be embedded with the local Partisans organising them,marking targets for bombing with intensity which we have not seen so far. It could be attack from air,water and land all at once

Posted by: Michael J | Feb 2 2025 15:32 utc | 14

Posted by: bored | Feb 2 2025 14:18 utc | 2
Why expose your troops to higher casualty rates, if there’s no operational necessity? The Ukrainians are in a static salient, they cannot exploit any past gains and are forced to deploy valuable brigades to even maintain the status quo, at a time when the UAF’s are running out of infantry.
The Soviets learned the hard way in WW2 to bypass or fix such situations, not directly assault them, those lessons were reinforced by the disastrous Grozny assault and have not been forgotten. Bottom line, the Russians can afford to man the perimeter of a redundant salient, the Ukrainians cannot.
Posted by: Sam | Feb 2 2025 14:53 utc | 7
‘Cruel depots’, visions of an entry in an eco-fanatics dictionary.

Posted by: Milites | Feb 2 2025 15:43 utc | 16

Well, Russia absolutely must have Odessa and a monopoly on Black Sea ports to prevent further Ukrainian nonsense and terrorist attacks…so expect that fairly soon…

Posted by: pyrrhus | Feb 2 2025 15:47 utc | 18

When looking back at the start of the SMO my attention is still focussed on Germany. Always has been. The second most powerful country in the West and the most powerful in Europe. As Juncker said, nothing gets past Brussels that doesn’t get past Berlin and Paris first and I think he was being more courteous than accurate when he specified Paris.
Also, my view, a country that knows how to do industry and does it, no nonsense. Somehow they didn’t fall into the trap that my country and other European countries fell into but kept their heavy industry and all that went with it. They’ve been outsourcing more and more over the years – dumb, I always thought – but there’s still enough left to provide jobs and prosperity at a level well above most other European countries.
Or was. No doubt most of the doom stories are exaggerated but it’s still not the country I used to know twenty or thirty years ago. The Ukrainian debacle hasn’t caused that. The causes of the decline are longer term and go deeper. But the Ukrainian debacle has given the economy a nasty jolt for all that. One has to ask, what impelled the Scholz government to take the risky gamble that was the assault on Russia. And it was not merely Scholz. I remember the Merz speeches back in early 2022 and he was more resolute still. Almost the entire German political establishment was at that time of the same mind.
There were so many opportunities to avoid this war. As the main proponent of Minsk 2, and its effective guarantors as part of the Normandy format, the German government could have insisted on the observance of Minsk 2. It had the power to do so. Even after the SMO started the Istanbul solution could have been accepted. That was little more than an extension of Minsk 2. If Scholz had grasped that solution Washington could scarcely have refused it. And yet Berlin/Brussels went bull headed into the conflict and took none of the opportunities on offer to avoid it.
I don’t believe the usual story. That they were somehow hustled into it all by the Washington neocons. There are so many indications that the assault on Russia was a joint enterprise with the Washington neocons and that without the participation of Berlin/Brussels that assault could not have been attempted. In a recent discussion elsewhere I attempted to set out that view:-
… I think most were taken aback when the Russians moved into the Donbass at the start of the SMO, and particularly when they moved beyond the LoC. I was like everyone else. I’d been following the to and fro between Berlin and Brussels on NS2, deep into the Third Energy Package and all the rest of it, and then this!
Up to then it had mostly looked like shadow boxing. Both sides showing their teeth and that going back through a string of naval incidents in the Black Sea and the Baltic from 2014 on, but nothing much more than that going on as far as outside Ukraine was concerned. I remember going through the material put out by Lee and Kofman, reputable analysts at that time, both asserting that there was nothing inevitable about this war until late February ’22. Peace was on the menu right up to that time, or so it seemed.
But by that late February, looking back on it, this was a war waiting to happen. Both the US and Russia thoroughly convinced they were in the right, aggressively so one might say as they both still are, the self-declared republics given emergency recognition, civilians being evacuated from the front line areas, powerful armies in readiness both sides, the LDNR forces mobilising like fury, a massive build-up of artillery bombardment – that was a flash point just waiting to be set off and it was. That’s why I’ve always thought of it as the FAFO war.
For the Russians, a pre-emptive strike before it was too late. For the Americans, an unprovoked invasion. Both views still resolutely held to by either side. That won’t change and unless Trump and Putin can cook up some as yet unimagined deal the resultant war will go the distance.
No one at the start thought the Russians could lose the war, not on the battlefield. The balance of forces that could be brought to bear in that theatre was always too one-sided. President Biden confirmed that when he stated no boots on the ground – and had he put boots on the ground the forces at NATO’s disposal were exiguous in the extreme. The Americans don’t have enough troops and equipment for a severely restricted land war of this nature, the Europeans none of any consequence. This war was always going to be fought with sanctions.
Those are the usual means tried for bringing a country to its knees, hoping the internal stresses resulting would lead to a weakening of the enemy unity and resolve. We saw how eagerly the Prigozhin episode later was hailed in the West as proof of that. There are still many around, or were until recently, claiming that the RF will suffer long term damage from the sanctions and they’ll work in the end. Still many around arguing that the Russian economy is in a downwards spiral right now, though evidence of that seems to me to be lacking.
A fair bet, therefore, for the Biden team, this war. Not a lot of downside. No need to take the off-ramps on offer in ’22. The American politicians often pointed out that most of the money expended stayed at home and the Russians were getting mauled for cents on the dollar. Still leaves, for me, the European puzzle. What did the Europeans think they were up to? Not a fair bet for them, decidedly not! A gamble with no plan B and the downside horrendous if it didn’t come off.
And the notion of them as sad little victims hauled into the mess by Uncle Sam and then left in the lurch – that simply doesn’t add up. The speeches and actions of the European politicians at that time show they were all in, as much as or more so than the Americans.
………………
It was truly a most risky gamble. It was a gamble that relied on the Germans being able to severely damage the Russian economy without damaging their own. Used to be, the German politicians were famous for being risk averse. What led them to risk the prosperity of their country, and by extension the future of Europe, on such a venture?

Posted by: English Outsider | Feb 2 2025 15:57 utc | 20

A challenge for observant posters.

Posted by: Milites | Feb 2 2025 15:45 utc | 17
Don’t know if this counts, but from 1m26s the attribution caption at the top left of the screen refers to the 155th Mechanised Brigade, which was one of the units sent to France for training, lost about 50 personnel going AWOL there, followed by another 1,500 to 1,700 going AWOL during deployment.
I believe a criminal investigation has been opened by Ukraine into the commanding officers deemed responsible.

Posted by: Jeremy Rhymings-Lang | Feb 2 2025 16:04 utc | 22

Mexico does a Canada – and imposes tariffs against the US, after Trump go the ball rolling with tariffs against Canada and Mexico.

Posted by: Republicofscotland | Feb 2 2025 16:15 utc | 24

Posted by: Jeremy Rhymings-Lang | Feb 2 2025 16:04 utc | 22
Try the first 30 seconds, but good spot nonetheless.

Posted by: Milites | Feb 2 2025 16:19 utc | 26

“Posted by: canuck | Feb 2 2025 14:39 utc | 4
Unlike Churchill, the racist mass murderer who was planning to use mustard gas in WW2 but changed his mind after heavy pressure.
This after he had already done it in Iraq (despite what Brit revisionist claim).”
Posted by: Ed Bernays | Feb 2 2025 15:24 utc | 11
Agreed.
Not to mention Churchill began civilian bombing of German cities in August, 1940; the Nazis promptly retaliated but it was Churchill whom began the terrorism.
As a young man I was a big Churchill fan; in my dotage I am the opposite.

Posted by: canuck | Feb 2 2025 16:25 utc | 28

“Well, Russia absolutely must have Odessa and a monopoly on Black Sea ports to prevent further Ukrainian nonsense and terrorist attacks…so expect that fairly soon…”
Posted by: pyrrhus | Feb 2 2025 15:47 utc | 18
I concur.
The SMO would be a strategic failure if Odessa is not liberated.

Posted by: canuck | Feb 2 2025 16:28 utc | 30

“Posted by: Sam Sham | Feb 2 2025 14:53 utc | 7
‘Cruel depots’, visions of an entry in an eco-fanatics dictionary.”
Posted by: Milites | Feb 2 2025 15:43 utc | 16
Ha , ha, now that’s funny.
Sam Sham is certainly not the sharpest knife in the drawer.

Posted by: canuck | Feb 2 2025 16:31 utc | 32

It was truly a most risky gamble. It was a gamble that relied on the Germans being able to severely damage the Russian economy without damaging their own. Used to be, the German politicians were famous for being risk averse. What led them to risk the prosperity of their country, and by extension the future of Europe, on such a venture?
Posted by: English Outsider | Feb 2 2025 15:57 utc | 20
Very fine post (didn’t put it all to lighten the answer)
Although I have some doubts on how far germany would want to poke RF, it is obvious that it came from the time of the previous government, as merkel herself avowed that minsk2 was a trap, never to be respected.
As a simple answer to your doubt I could posit that this was a brotherly fight on would be the senior partner in a german/RF partnership that was hijacked by the ukus and became (irrevocably?) a catastrophic play by germany.
Would explain france’s initial interest in finishing it off ASAP (not letting germany win RF), and uk’s forcing an extension/multiplication that would end with either RF loss or germany’s neutering (win/win).
Thanks again, your post made me consider a couple of things.

Posted by: Newbie | Feb 2 2025 16:39 utc | 34

Posted by: Jeremy Rhymings-Lang | Feb 2 2025 15:22 utc | 10
I also immediately suspected Oreshnik as soon as I heard about the earthquake. It remains to be – silenced?
Posted by: Avtonom | Feb 2 2025 16:33 utc | 33
A minor gas field? Transit to europe and storage deposits would be much clearer candidates (or some major military or government targets), even razing and entire major port.
Unless we go full dune and it’s “he who can destroy something controls it”, can an Oreshnik “destroy” a gas or oil field? Render it unexploitable? Can it go so deep and crack the layers that hold it?

Posted by: Newbie | Feb 2 2025 16:51 utc | 36

Posted by: Jerr | Feb 2 2025 16:44 utc | 35
It actually depends on how much the US plants can ramp production.
If it was so easy no need to impose tariffs, simply produce more in US plants.

Posted by: Mario | Feb 2 2025 16:56 utc | 38

***** Mario @38
“It actually depends on how much the US plants can ramp production.
If it was so easy no need to impose tariffs, simply produce more in US plants.”
**********
Having worked my way through college in auto assembly plants, it’s not difficult to go ftom 8 hour to 10 hour shifts.
However, the manufacturers aren’t going to do it voluntarily. They have to be encouraged to do it to manufacture more in US. Also, increased US manufacturing is a byproduct of the tarrifs.
The purpose of the tarrifs is to stop both Canada and Mexico subverting US immigration policy by facillitating illegal immigration and drug smuggling into US. They do this by beign neglect of their own laws these areas.

Posted by: Jerr | Feb 2 2025 17:13 utc | 40

@ English Outsider | Feb 2 2025 15:57 utc | 20
good post and review eo.. thanks..
i think it is obvious the usa wanted this war and did nothing to change the trajectory of any of it… so they got it.. as to why germany and to a large extent europe was also in favour of it – good question… it doesn’t make sense on some fundamental level..no one in germany in particular seems to benefit from it.. i dunno.. i think the city of london benefits from it for all the money it generates… maybe some are still thinking they can get ww3 off to a real start, as opposed to a warm up.. i think the fact nordstream happened shows how the main instigator – usa led nato – works against its own members – germany in this case… it makes no sense, especially after this event, and yet here we are… menz seems as keen to keep the war going as the neo cons in the usa/uk… i can’t figure it out either…

Posted by: james | Feb 2 2025 17:22 utc | 42

Milites | Feb 2 2025 15:45 utc | 17.
Ok I’ll bite.
The SU27 is blue which is the normal paint for Russia Air Force!.

Posted by: Angelo | Feb 2 2025 17:31 utc | 44

Posted by: Jerr | Feb 2 2025 17:13 utc | 40
8 to 10 shift doesn’t change that much, formally is 25% more production but only if all the supply chain is upped in the same way.

Posted by: Mario | Feb 2 2025 17:41 utc | 46

@ circumspect | Feb 2 2025 17:43 utc | 47
Why would Russia agree to a ceasefire?

Posted by: malenkov | Feb 2 2025 17:49 utc | 48

Love Donbass@1555 Feb 2
“At what cost”, you say, for the liberation of the ethnic Russian city of Odessa, the Pearl of the Black Sea. The actual cost will be minimal unless the Natostanis decide to invade a traditionally Russian city. Get That?
Likely R.U. strategy will be to continue their Donbass Kesselschlacht…degrading the dissolving Ukie army to the point where they either beat a hasty retreat…and consequently demolish the Maidan regime…or surrender en masse to the overwhelming power of the Russian forces.
Either or a combination of both of those probable outcomes would leave Odessa, Kherson, Kharkov, Dniepropetrovsk, Zap-city and Nicolaev dangling as overripe plums.
A peace treaty, dictated by Moscow, would establish a Ukrainian dialect NovoUkrainia, minus the intractable Banderite dominated Galicia. Kiev would get iron-clad assurances that Ukrainian trade would be accessible via Russian governed Odessa.

Posted by: aristodemos | Feb 2 2025 18:01 utc | 50

Posted by: aristodemos | Feb 2 2025 17:28 utc | 43
“Wisdom comes with age”
Epicurus 281 BC

Posted by: canuck | Feb 2 2025 18:15 utc | 52

I can see how valuable it is on a map but it will not come without a cost. Ukraine is still organizing a lot with NATO in that city, as seen by the recent Russian attack on an Odessa hotel that buried a bunch of NATO advisors.
Posted by: LoveDonbass | Feb 2 2025 18:11 utc | 51
My two cents… Russia’s taking every opportunity to hammer NATO within Ukraine as explicit warnings.
Regarding Odessa itself, I’m still of the opinion that Russia’s overall methodical, go-slow approach is intentional. They’re aiming for an entire, across-the-board collapse of the AFU which will permit them to take Odessa unchallenged. As I’ve mentioned previously, it’s Syria all over again, only this time it’s RF strolling in and NATO unable to do a damn thing about it.
Trump’s dragging his feet until this happens, at which time THEN he gets together with Putin & Xi to define the shape of the new multi-polar world security framework.

Posted by: TJandTheBear | Feb 2 2025 18:24 utc | 54

Copyrights and patents protect industry and suppliers from competition so the companies protected by copyright and patent monopolies keep prices artificially high. Monopoly powers eliminate competition. Without competition the monopoly powers always make a big undeserved profit. Tariffs increases domestic monopoly power.. and monopoly power in the hands of a producer or service provider cost the consumer.
Posted by: snake | Feb 2 2025 18:19 utc | 53
####################
Very well articulated.

Posted by: LoveDonbass | Feb 2 2025 18:30 utc | 56

Trump’s dragging his feet until this happens, at which time THEN he gets together with Putin & Xi to define the shape of the new multi-polar world security framework.
Posted by: TJandTheBear | Feb 2 2025 18:24 utc | 54
####################
My theory is that Trump doesn’t want to touch the Ukraine conflict at all lest it become his Vietnam.
He’s happy to let Putin grab as much territory as he can and to reform rump Ukraine into something pleasing to the Russians while making reconstruction a European problem.
Trump is a lot of things. He is not a fool. He’s not going to double down on stupid. Part of me hopes he is running out the clock on the Neocons and the Zionists (there is a ton of crossover there).
The Zionist angle might be a bit too hopeful.

Posted by: LoveDonbass | Feb 2 2025 18:36 utc | 58

The Zionist angle might be a bit too hopeful.
Posted by: LoveDonbass | Feb 2 2025 18:36 utc | 58
We can dream.
Russia is not even close to being able to liberate or conquer Odessa in the near future (depending on which perspective you look at it from).
Posted by: guest from franconia | Feb 2 2025 18:45 utc | 59
Again, per my scenario, it’s not so much liberate/conquer as it is Odessa (Kiev, etc.) just falling into it’s lap.

Posted by: TJandTheBear | Feb 2 2025 18:48 utc | 60

Posted by: aristodemos | Feb 2 2025 17:21 utc | 41
The EU support for Ukraine is well over 800 billion Euros, when you count the 700 billion in energy and food subsidies the EU governments had to give consumers to prevent the EU economy from completely collapsing. Then maybe they gave an additional 150 billion Euros to Ukraine in form of weapons and to keep the Kiev regime from going bankrupt/collapsing.
My take is this is not something the EU states will be able to recover from, especially after giving up Russian energy, gas, oil and handing over all its key industries to the US. Which now places major tariffs on the remnants of EU industries. The EU is on way to implosion. There is no way to prevent it, except total repression of its citizens. The purchasing power/quality of life is collapsing at record pace amid major tax hikes to fund Nato and the already sunk Ukraine support.
The key Swedish and EU politicians have obviously been Epsteinized. Or they are dumb as shoes.

Posted by: unimperator | Feb 2 2025 18:59 utc | 62

Posted by: Milites | Feb 2 2025 15:45 utc | 17
No challenge at all. The life of any airborn ukronazi jet is limited to a few minutes if not seconds.
Go fuck yourself with your shitty nazi attempt at displaying 404 propaganda. The same pattern over and over.

Posted by: Naive | Feb 2 2025 19:05 utc | 64

Posted by: Milites | Feb 2 2025 15:45 utc | 17
By the way, where are the gamechanger f16s?

Posted by: Naive | Feb 2 2025 19:07 utc | 66

@65
Improbable!!
US was all in for S Vietnam upholding a string of unelected strongmen from immediately after Diem assassinated. S Korea was run by its puppets for over 40 years until the sham that Yoon runs was exposed.
US foreign affairs just put jihadis in charge of Syria, and has occupied weak state all over the world.
It is called empire, in sheep clothing.
Trump needs big bully pulpit to change 130 years of fakery.

Posted by: paddy | Feb 2 2025 19:16 utc | 68

@47
I am irate, your link was to hundreds of words of Reuters blither!
Can’t have elections bc martial law….. the usurpers that declared martial law needs ousted.
Trump may be better than that.

Posted by: paddy | Feb 2 2025 19:34 utc | 70

“Not to mention Churchill began civilian bombing of German cities in August, 1940; the Nazis promptly retaliated but it was Churchill whom began the terrorism.”
Posted by: canuck | Feb 2 2025 16:25 utc | 28
You are either ill informed or a Nazi apologist. The Germans bombed the crap out of civilian targets in Poland during their invasion in 1939. Their planes were intentionally strafing refugees who were fleeing the cities being bombed. Go learn some history. Stalin was far too kind to the Germans.

Posted by: Victor Scarpia | Feb 2 2025 19:38 utc | 72

66 aparently more mechanics are to be trained by Denmark for f16…might explain why there is not much sign of the planes.

Posted by: Jo | Feb 2 2025 19:47 utc | 74

It appears that within the US administration the murmurings of discontent are becoming increasingly audible.

Posted by: pepe | Feb 2 2025 19:49 utc | 76

Posted by: Louis | Feb 2 2025 19:48 utc | 75
############
Your “metrics” are flawed NAFO cope.
Which new NATO member has a standing military worth talking about? Are Finland and Sweden combined the equivalent of North Korea?
The NATO budget doesn’t matter when officers and troops cannot be purchased not to mention that the industrial base to produce weaponry is non-existent.
Armenia? LOL
Georgia? 2xLOL Georgia is Russian-friendly now.
Blowing up infrastructure that is rebuilt in a week is performative, not strategic. Perfect for the Empire of “staged military deployments to the Southern Border”.
Russia has decoupled from the West and coupled with a much stronger East (China and India).
Russia has already moved most of its gear out of Syria to Libya and Mali.
Russia regularly produces tanks and planes. Its troops are well-seasoned and rested, with many having rotated back to civilian life twice during the SMO.
Must be some new kind of queer math you and the Green Goblin are using.

Posted by: LoveDonbass | Feb 2 2025 20:07 utc | 78

Victor Scarpia@1938 Feb 2
What Germany did to Poland was the result of Perfidious Albion telling the hapless Polaks that they had their backs in case of a German invasion. So how did that alliance go…particularly after Stalin established his handpicked regime in Warsaw.
When it comes to England v. Germany, the Brits bombed first on civilian centers.

Posted by: aristodemos | Feb 2 2025 20:12 utc | 80

Must be some new kind of queer math you and the Green Goblin are using.
Posted by: LoveDonbass | Feb 2 2025 20:07 utc | 78
Expect world-class copium production going forward.

Posted by: TJandTheBear | Feb 2 2025 20:17 utc | 82

Just the kind of men, the Neo-Nazi dictatorship wants on the frontline – as General Wolfe said of Highlanders, in the English war for Canada against the French – its no big deal if the Highlander falls – Wolfe himself – fell in Canada.
“The Ukrainian military is enlisting men diagnosed with schizophrenia amid the struggling mobilization campaign, a recruitment office employee has told local media.
Individuals diagnosed with paranoid schizophrenia and deemed permanently disabled are being sent to the army without much deliberation, the outlet Slidstvo.info reported on Friday, citing a Ukrainian recruitment office employee. The Ukrainian outlet describes itself as team of independent investigative journalists. ”

Posted by: Republicofscotland | Feb 2 2025 20:24 utc | 84

@ LoveDonbass, §58:
Trump can justly lay this YouCrane disaster at the door of the Dems. Maidan was kicked off by Victoria Nuland at the behest of Obama/Biden in 2014. He can rightly state “This is not our war. Never was.”
He can then agree with the Russians that they establish their peace over the ashes of Banderaland and, again quite justly, claim he brought peace and ended this horrible war. Last but not least, he cuts America´s losses, saves $billions and can bring the troops home from Europe.

Posted by: John Marks | Feb 2 2025 20:25 utc | 86

“Not to mention Churchill began civilian bombing of German cities in August, 1940; the Nazis promptly retaliated but it was Churchill whom began the terrorism.”
Posted by: canuck | Feb 2 2025 16:25 utc | 28
You are either ill informed or a Nazi apologist. The Germans bombed the crap out of civilian targets in Poland during their invasion in 1939. Their planes were intentionally strafing refugees who were fleeing the cities being bombed. Go learn some history. Stalin was far too kind to the Germans.
Posted by: Victor Scarpia | Feb 2 2025 19:38 utc | 72
And lets not forget Gurnica, Spain April 1937 … and yes the Germans had a policy of strafing civilians in order to cause chaos and jam up the roads so the military couldn’t use them.
that being said I’m not defending Churchill, great speaker but piss poor strategist. Remember that Galippoli was his brainchild.

Posted by: HB_Norica | Feb 2 2025 20:26 utc | 88

Sweden gives 1.2 b, Denmark gives 7b+.( not Greenland?). money still being sent to Ukraine…Z complains wants more. .

Posted by: Jo | Feb 2 2025 20:38 utc | 90

aristodemos | Feb 2 2025 17:28 utc | 43
“one of the ruling class Brits who fooled the ever dumb Polak leaders to think that Perfidious Albion would have their backs if they kept sticking it to their million or more stranded Germans”
Another recovering Churchill fan here, but the guarantee to Poland was Chamberlain and Halifax. Churchill said of the decision:
In this sad tale of wrong judgments formed by well-meaning and capable people, we now reach our climax. That we should all have come to this pass makes those responsible, however honourable their motives, blameworthy before history. Look back and see what we had successively accepted or thrown away….(long list follows here) ; the services of thirty-five Czech divisions against the still unripened German Army cast away, when Great Britain could herself supply only two to strengthen the front in France – all gone with the wind. And now, when every one of these aids and advantages has been squandered and thrown away, Great Britain advances, leading France by the hand, to guarantee the integrity of Poland – of that very Poland which with hyena appetite had only six months before joined in the pillage and destruction of the Czechoslovak State. There was sense in fighting for Czechoslovakia in 1938 when the German Army could scarcely put half a dozen trained divisions on the Western Front, when the French with nearly sixty or seventy divisions could most certainly have rolled forward across the Rhine or into the Ruhr. But this had been judged unreasonable, rash, below the level of modern intellectual thought and morality. Yet now at last the two Western Democracies declared themselves ready to stake their lives upon the territorial integrity of Poland. History, which we are told is mainly the record of the crimes, follies, and miseries of mankind, may be scoured and ransacked to find a parallel to this sudden and complete reversal of five or six years’ policy of easy-going placatory appeasement, and its transformation almost overnight into a readiness to accept an obviously imminent war on far worse conditions and on the greatest scale. Moreover, how could we protect Poland and make good our guarantee? Only by declaring war upon Germany and attacking a stronger Western Wall and a more powerful German Army than those from which we had recoiled in September, 1938. Here is a line of milestones to disaster. Here is a catalogue of surrenders, at first when all was easy and later when things were harder, to the ever-growing German power. But now at last was the end of British and French submission. Here was decision at last, taken at the worst possible moment and on the least satisfactory ground, which must surely lead to the slaughter of tens of millions of people. Here was the righteous cause deliberately and with a refinement of inverted artistry committed to mortal battle after its assets and advantages had been so improvidently squandered.

Posted by: YetAnotherAnon | Feb 2 2025 20:48 utc | 92

Posted by: Naive | Feb 2 2025 19:05 utc | 64
Even though you completely miss the point of the post, you are quite close with your knee-jerk observation.
Posted by: Manowar | Feb 2 2025 19:33 utc | 69
It’s not a high priority, containment is the order of the day, though recent strikes on POL supplies suggest the Russians might be shifting the salient up the priority list.
Posted by: HB_Norica | Feb 2 2025 20:26 utc | 88
Thank goodness the Luftwaffe were so inefficient and wasteful of their resources when it came to aerial bombing. They still had a WW1 mentality when it came to the use of strategic airpower, and a pre-WW1 attitude to industrial production when producing the platforms.
Churchill was a visionary naval strategist, pushing for the RN to transition from coal to fuel oil for its ships and an excellent leader of the British people, who knew what needed to be said and when to say it.
Posted by: Jeremy Rhymings-Lang | Feb 2 2025 20:27 utc | 89
Just perusing a MAGA heavy forum and somebody made exactly the same prediction about concern-trolls, when the freeze was announced.

Posted by: Milites | Feb 2 2025 20:54 utc | 94

Russia having Odessa would seriously put a spanner in the navel ambitions re the Black Sea of the UK Ukraine Agreement.
Posted by: Jo | Feb 2 2025 20:24 utc | 85
It’s all UK navel-gazing now.
I think the Russian Federation would be OK with Odessa as a semi-independent semi-city state as long as the RF could garrison it and monitor the port traffic.
Posted by: Babel-17 | Feb 2 2025 20:41 utc | 91
I’d tend to agree. Odessa as a new Monaco?

Posted by: TJandTheBear | Feb 2 2025 21:00 utc | 96

Posted by: John Marks | Feb 2 2025 20:25 utc | 86
###########
LBJ started Vietnam and managed to hang it around Nixon’s neck.
You think that being technically correct will make Trump rhetorically correct.
It will not. Humans are emotional, not logical creatures.

Posted by: LoveDonbass | Feb 2 2025 21:10 utc | 98

Posted by: LoveDonbass | Feb 2 2025 21:10 utc | 98
People in the US are more concerned about things closer to home, like the first air to air crash since 1986, whose probable cause was the increasing impact of hiring people based on immutable characteristics or personal whimsy. As for Ukraine, the truth will out, as it has with USAID, and Ukraine will be another rotting albatross to hang around the globalists necks.

Posted by: Milites | Feb 2 2025 21:24 utc | 100