EPTRusso-Ukrainian War Thread - Page 359
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{CC}StealthBlue
United States41117 Posts
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Sent.
Poland9299 Posts
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mahrgell
Germany3943 Posts
This was the question of whether Germany would allow the export request. Now the question remains why Poland isn't asking for it, but instead prefers to explain daily how they are just going to send the Leos without German permission. But that is probably easier for the Polish posters here to answer. | ||
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Sent.
Poland9299 Posts
We have a similar problem with the European post-covid recovery fund. Poland still didn't officialy apply for that money because our government knows the European Commission would reject the application due to the unresolved rule of law dispute. The plan is to apply once the Commission gives our government a signal that it deems the promised judical reforms sufficient. | ||
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Sermokala
United States14127 Posts
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Neneu
Norway492 Posts
So if leopards are sent they will be replaced with abrums. And then overnight Germany loses the European tank market, another blow to the German manufacturing sector. Germany likely have already lost the European tank market, by showing that they can and are willing to dictate what other countries in Europe can offer of assistance in a situation like today. That will have an impact on any future purchases intended for the military. Countries usually prefer to be able to decide their own foreign policy. | ||
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{CC}StealthBlue
United States41117 Posts
WASHINGTON (AP) — CIA Director William Burns visited Kyiv last week to meet with Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy, a U.S. official said Thursday, in the latest example of high-level contacts between the U.S. and Ukraine. The official, who spoke on condition of anonymity to discuss the director’s classified schedule, said Burns emphasized Washington’s “continued support for Ukraine” in the war. Burns also met with Ukrainian intelligence officials. The CIA director has briefed Zelenskyy repeatedly before and since Russia launched its invasion of Ukraine last February, passing on U.S. intelligence findings about Moscow’s war plans and intentions. The war launched by Russian President Vladimir Putin is soon to enter its second year having resulted in tens of thousands of deaths and with no clear resolution on the horizon. Washington is about to send another $2.5 billion in aid to Ukraine, including for the first time Stryker armored vehicles. Burns’ meeting with Zelenskyy was first reported by The Washington Post. The CIA director told PBS NewsHour last month that agency analysts predicted “a reduced tempo and fighting between the two militaries as winter sets in.” “I don’t underestimate for a moment the burdens, the challenges, that this war poses for Ukrainians first and foremost, but for all of us who support Ukraine,” said Burns, a former U.S. ambassador to Moscow. “But strategically, I think, in many ways, you know, Putin’s war has thus far been a failure for Russia.” Source | ||
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pmp10
3396 Posts
On January 23 2023 08:38 mahrgell wrote: Now the question remains why Poland isn't asking for it, but instead prefers to explain daily how they are just going to send the Leos without German permission. But that is probably easier for the Polish posters here to answer. Poland has asked for it. Likely last minute but still. As to why - it's pretty obvious that the intent was to stall or kill any official request with bureaucratic procesing. That Lambrecht deliberately forbit taking stock of German Leopards shows you the degree to which they were willing to go to sabotage the process. | ||
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Nezgar
Germany535 Posts
On January 23 2023 10:12 Neneu wrote: Germany likely have already lost the European tank market, by showing that they can and are willing to dictate what other countries in Europe can offer of assistance in a situation like today. That will have an impact on any future purchases intended for the military. Countries usually prefer to be able to decide their own foreign policy. Are we just ignoring the fact that the German Foreign Minister has, on the record, stated that Germany will not obstruct shipments of German tanks to Ukraine, and that there simply hasn't been an official request for it yet? All the finger pointing and all the speculations what the deals behind closed doors are is somewhat pointless in that context. Neither Finland nor Poland have requested to be able to send their tanks to Ukraine. And as far as I am aware, German-made PzH2000 from the Netherlands have made their way into Ukraine already, so there is already precedent for the German government to greenlight the transfer of arms if done through the right channels. Until we have an official request from another European nation to deliver their German tanks or other military hardware to Ukraine that has been officially denied, people should calm the fuck down. If you want to point fingers at someone that has thousands of tanks just standing around and collecting dust, that have apparently been easy enough to ship and supply and train on that the Iraqi army has hundreds of them, it's the USA. There are almost 2500 Abrams operated by African and Middle-Eastern countries, and somehow they can't make their way into Ukraine? This isn't about logistics or training or even the consumption of the gas turbines. This is politics, pure and simple. And to single out Germany for their lack of MBT deliveries is just ridiculous. | ||
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Magic Powers
Austria4478 Posts
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Nezgar
Germany535 Posts
If other nations wanted to send Leopards, they could just hand in the request officially instead of clamoring about it. It's some silly political dance and apparently everyone is in on it and no one wants to do anything official about it. But as long as no one is making that request officially, singling out a single nation as the scapegoat is beyond stupid to me. And it doesn't go anywhere except to stir up trouble among partners that should work together instead of being at each other's throats. | ||
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Magic Powers
Austria4478 Posts
There's something rotten in Scholz's approach to this war and this needs to be pointed out. Other German high-ranking figures have taken the complete opposite stance and Scholz is standing in their way. Yes, this is politics. It's his politics of being as obstructive as possible. This is intentional, he's not confused. | ||
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warding
Portugal2395 Posts
I mean you really wouldn't have Wolfgang Munchau who has been at the FT for decades covering European politics saying this today: ...If it was all just a big misunderstanding because Scholz doesn't know how to put words together good. EDIT: This whole thing is even more unnerving at this point in time, when we are arriving at the end of January and all the doomsday scenarios for the European economy and the downfall of a gasless German economy did not materialize. LNG pipelines are up and running, Gas prices are coming back down and Germany is expected to grow in 2023 last time I checked. The economic risk is gone, voters aren't going to be upset about the economy. It's time to send as much as possible to Ukraine and do everything possible to increase military production in all NATO countries, and it seems that only Eastern Europe + UK + USA really get it. | ||
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Artesimo
Germany573 Posts
While there can be some arguments made about the optics of german tanks fighting russia, I doubt that a couple of leopard2s would be the nail in the coffin here, looking at all the support that has already happened... Not to mention that this line of argument also does not line up with the 'russia needs europe/germany as a trading partner', which does not leave them much of a choice. Or consider the option that the US forces the hand of germany by supplying a couple of abrahams. That sure will help to mend relations with russia after the war, in that case germany would not block tanks AND would have forced the US to send tanks as well. I don't find this very convincing, or consistent with everything else that has been going on... In terms of total support, germany is not looking too bad. In terms of % of GDP support its neither great nor terrible. This tank thing is increasingly overblown in terms of significance for german-russian relations, past optics imo. I believe its because people falsely think its gonna be a immediate game changer and bring a quick end to the war, so they cling to it. Its a topic you can get emotional about without having to do much digging. It has unjustifiably been in the news for a long time now (and only really started to have a point now that the UK supplies a (insignificant amount of) western tanks and that some other countries claimed they would be willing to supply them), so tempers are also already primed as you can see here in the thread. | ||
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Magic Powers
Austria4478 Posts
https://europeanconservative.com/articles/news/poll-large-majority-of-germans-want-negotiations-between-ukraine-and-russia-now/ Regarding support in % of GDP Estonia (very similar to Latvia), when compared to Germany, spends a whopping 17 times more in % of its GDP on military support to Ukraine, while spending 87 times less (total) on its own military. (Edit: please ignore the 87 figure, that seems irrelevant. The key number is the % of GDP sent to Ukraine). How is that even possible? These countries shouldn't even be able to compete in that regard. When you say "neither great nor terrible", I'd say that's an understatement. And terrible? That would be France for example. They have the means to militarily support Ukraine a lot more and just aren't doing it. They're a lot worse than even Germany. I would criticize them if they weren't so obviously disengaged for everyone to see. https://www.ifw-kiel.de/topics/war-against-ukraine/ukraine-support-tracker/?cookieLevel=not-set Nothing adds up. We have to criticize Scholz, just as we have to criticize everyone else who's dragging their feet like Macron and such. Why not also criticize the US and the UK, sure lets do that. They could do a whole lot more. But at least they're safe from a Russian invasion anyway on their huge far away islands, so I can understand if they're not so motivated. Scholz is making himself a very good target because of his handling of the situation, but the lack of support from other leaders does not shield him from criticism. | ||
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Artesimo
Germany573 Posts
On January 23 2023 22:23 Magic Powers wrote: Regarding support in % of GDP Estonia (very similar to Latvia), when compared to Germany, spends a whopping 17 times more in % of its GDP on military support to Ukraine, while spending 87 times less (total) on its own military. (Edit: please ignore the 87 figure, that seems irrelevant. The key number is the % of GDP sent to Ukraine). How is that even possible? These countries shouldn't even be able to compete in that regard. When you say "neither great nor terrible", I'd say that's an understatement. And terrible? That would be France for example. They have the means to militarily support Ukraine a lot more and just aren't doing it. They're a lot worse than even Germany. I would criticize them if they weren't so obviously disengaged for everyone to see. https://www.ifw-kiel.de/topics/war-against-ukraine/ukraine-support-tracker/?cookieLevel=not-set We are better than france, so not terrible. And worse then estonia so not great. Seems like you fully agree with my assessment, thanks for sorting that out. Weirdly it sounded like you would disagree, but that must have been lost in translation again. Sure germany could do more, but my entire point was that it does more than enough to make accusations of trying to appease russia look silly. There could be more said here about % GDP, but that would be just straying away from my point: Do you think that germany being the third biggest contributor in total amount when it comes to military contributions appeases russia? (That dataset is outdated by now btw, but since we heard the same crap back then its still applies). That together with being 4th in financial commitments in total (reminder that these are of similar importance to military aid as the west is what enables ukraine currently to pay their military and keep the country running). No matter how you try to strecht the GDP part asnd draw conclusions on the level of commitment, you can not relativise the fact that when it comes to how much impact aid has, the total amount of it is key. Not how much commitment you show, but how much you put out. So I have difficulty seeing this alleged appeasing of russia from warding's post. German aid is not what we would like, but it is still a substantial contribution that should be enough to dispel these theories. There can be no restarting of german-russian relations before the war has ended, and by now it is almost certain that ukraine can at least make it a protracted war. Nothing adds up. We have to criticize Scholz, just as we have to criticize everyone else who's dragging their feet like Macron and such. Why not also criticize the US and the UK, sure lets do that. They could do a whole lot more. But at least they're safe from a Russian invasion anyway on their huge far away islands, so I can understand if they're not so motivated. Scholz is making himself a very good target because of his handling of the situation, but the lack of support from other leaders does not shield him from criticism. I agree, at the very least, Scholz has failed to put out definitive statements and thus let speculations get control of the narrative. The german government as a whole has made it very hard to understand the reasons for their actions and thus made it hard to estimate how reasonable they were. What I don't agree with is wild conspiracy theories. This was not about 'what about [country x], but having to deal with the same whacky theories every time germany does something people don't like in this war. Also your take on being safe from russia for the US/UK: that applies to all of nato, thanks to nato. Some of the eastern european countries might be a little bit more anxious, but overall I think they have trust in nato. Bit anecdotal, but since I know quite a few of estonians, most of what they have been saying to me regarding Nato mirrors exactly that: They have trust in Nato and show strong commitment to Nato. The same has been mirrored by their politicians. Somewhere in this thread I believe is a post from me with a clip of a quick interview with kaja kallas not too long after the start of the war. They asked her something along the lines if estonia is worried to be next, and she completely shuts it down by saying something along the lines of nato having a 100% success rate at preventing russian invasions. Then they cut away because they obviously wanted something more sensational. Anyhow, germany is definitely safe as well since a) nato and b) eastern europe as a buffer. There is a reason western europe downsized their military drastically. I take theories on fearing the leopard gets displaced on the european tank market, fear of bad PR due to destroyed leopards, lack of public support (overall support is 46:43 according to some survey), some weird ww2 ptsd about german tanks rolling through russia, and 3D chess mindgames to force the US to deliver tanks over "germany is trying to appease russia while also being a major contributor to the ukrainian war effort". | ||
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Sermokala
United States14127 Posts
I just don't see how to normalize relations when you have any Ukrainian Occupation going on. If you don't have a Ukrainian occupation I don't know how Putin holds onto power. The Russian economy just doesn't have a future after this war and thats just the Crown lands part of the Russians economy just not working anymore. I don't buy the Germany trying to appease Russia for after the war reasons because they will be faced with absolutly rabid eastern europian resistance to anything and everything german as a response. | ||
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Manit0u
Poland17743 Posts
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KwarK
United States43988 Posts
On January 24 2023 00:31 Manit0u wrote: I really don't know why people are so obsessed with Leopards. I don't think UA can even use them effectively since they have no infrastructure for it (it makes it really hard to move your tanks around if your roads and bridges are not compatible with them - Poland initially had this problem with Leopards too), not even mentioning training. This is literally the war they’re for (which is why they’re all in such a sorry state, the west thought this conflict was unthinkable). For the last 50 years the primary form of conflict has been colonial and tanks haven’t been much use, the great powers have been at peace. But if our main tanks which we’ve been keeping on hand in case we have to fight the Eastern bloc/USSR can’t be used in that region that’d be a bit of an oversight. | ||
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Artesimo
Germany573 Posts
On January 24 2023 00:31 Manit0u wrote: I really don't know why people are so obsessed with Leopards. I don't think UA can even use them effectively since they have no infrastructure for it (it makes it really hard to move your tanks around if your roads and bridges are not compatible with them - Poland initially had this problem with Leopards too), not even mentioning training. I assume that leopards for ukraine would also mean using maintenance facilities around ukraine for more complicated repairs. In terms of using them, the ukrainian military has demonstrated high capability to absorb all sorts of different hardware and use it. I am confident that they would manage to make good use of them. What I am not so sure about is that they will receive enough of them to make it a preferable option, given the overall state of european militaries. I still see them as a 'whatever ukraine can get' and 'if the US refuses to cough up abrahams, these have to do' option, just due to the amount they realistically can be supplied in. In terms of the obsession, I think its a relatively iconic tank throughout europe, its an easy symbol, few of the people engaging with the subject actually look past 'whatever ukraine can get' and through its earlier actions in the war, germany has rightfully primed public opinion negatively. So the mix of it being a popular symbol, hope for a simple 'gamechanger' as well as germany being an easy target for criticism I think has enabled this debate. | ||
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