Tanks were yesterday.

"German Chancellor Olaf Scholz is warning against a race to arm Ukraine with high-powered weapons as Ukraine ramps up its calls for fighter jets and long-range missiles."

I see. On the other hand his message is going down well with a lot of people who just want the war over and Scholz is a politician after all.

Imho only Ukraine can decide but I have little hope seeing that Putin in his imperialistic arrogance has never asked to negotiate directly with Ukraine. He's only talking to "Ukraine's bosses" as per his declarations. This is how his world functions.
So yeah, I have not much hope that peace negotiations will start any time soon.

There was an English Prime Minister once named Harold Wilson who was challenged in Parliament for saying something completely different than he said the previous week.
He replied, "A week is a long time in politics".

I agree Putin needs to talk directly with Ukraine but I don't see that happening any time soon, or even ever.

Sure, for unknown reasons they feel so superior.....yet Ukraine will probably kick their ass...with the help of Germany or without. For the West this is a game they can't lose...and rightly so.
Edit:
France considers sending Leclerc tanks
https://www.lemonde.fr/en/france/art...6013061_7.html
Poland considers providing F16 fighter jets to Ukraine
https://thehill.com/homenews/3836456...-fighter-jets/
...

Thing is! It's Putin's dream to make Russia a super power again. And that is simply not possible without the UA. However, now! It may be his desire to simply survive. Very dangerous!

He can survive within their own borders. Not even Kazakhstan wants to be part of the "USSR" again. They tried to bully Ukraine and it's simply too large a country to take all that shit. They can only be successful with the likes of Moldova, Georgia etc.
It's really a situation like that big fat arse 13 y.o. bully in a schoolyard beating up 5 y.o. skinny kids.

PooTin and his band of kleptocrats are now suffering from the "sunken loss fallacy" - ie the weight of what they have already invested is heavy on their decision making, not rationality.

This war has cost them so much financially, politically, not to mention the human toll, they can no longer make a rational decision to cut their losses. And they will not stop until they see they can walk away with a net gain of territory.

But they already have a net gain of territory - Crimea.

Only territory? Or was there also an expectation of getting Ukraine's oligarchs under control? After all, the oligarchs in Russia arose when the industry of the USSR was sold to "friends".

Ukraine's denazification could have been about getting Ukraine's businesses and industry under his control. The destruction of Mariupol steel plant is not far from a mob boss telling "pay for protection or else".

Maybe this explains the deaths of rich Russians (pure speculation). They are fighting to be new friend of Putin who will get a steel plant, oil refinery or port after Ukraine is conquered. They might have invested their own money in the war, and war is far from over. This is interesting, if Putin offered a big loot to handout among partners, and the loot is not there....how long people/investors will wait for the loot to materialize?

I meant a net gain post 2014 (ie in addition to Crimea).

That might have worked initially, with a successful Blitzkrieg, but after it's been shelled to the ground (Russia's adjusted approach, apparently) any former factory is no longer worth fighting over.

A couple of months ago a letter was widely published by the Pacific Fleet 155th Guards Naval Infantry Brigade marines, it was written that the unit suffered big losses during the Pavlivka offensive.

Today it is claimed the same unit is in the same area and is again suffering heavy losses during the localized offensive to capture Vuhledar. Ukraine army is occupying high ground in Vuhledar and the Russians have to cross a couple of Km of flat, open ground so are subject to artillery barrages that, so far, have effectively stopped them.
The Russians apparently do not care how many people they lose but that does not explain why they do not use other offensive tactics that have a better chance of success.
Of course, such offensives pin down a lot of Ukrainian troops to defend the area but whether Russia has the resources to take advantage of this in other areas is a good question, we can only wait and see.

No mention of Hunter Biden, how is that possible.

GLSDB HIMARS munitions with a 94-mile range would put almost all of Ukraine's occupied territory within range of the HIMARS with an accuracy of within 3 meters; except for most of Crimea.
There have been multiple claims that the US will send these but no luck so far.

Now Reuters and the Wall St. Journal are claiming they will be sent, hopefully, true this time.

The good news is that they are relatively cheap and the US has very many available.

Photos published today of Bradley infantry fighting vehicles underway by sea.

CNN published an interview today with a Ukraine soldier who claimed to fight Wagner is like a zombie film, no matter how many they kill even more appear even climbing over their dead comrades.

Like what?

What makes you think they didn't already have control over that?

What we see it's definitely a fight for succession to Putin's throne but I think it is more to this than a simple fight over resources and economy.
I think their greatest enemy is the idea of a democratic and relatively prosperous Ukraine. If Russian and Belorussian people see it's possible there they might want that too and then what will happen to all those kleptocrats....?

The Russian army is a banjo with one string - artillery - and although the call units "Combined Arms Army", the different forces cannot work together and deliver less than the sum of their parts.

Defensively though, the fortification along the outer lines of occupied territories continues. There was some footage of this the other day and one wonders how the Ukrainians are going to overcome those if they manage to launch an offensive.

From this twitter thread there is a narrative about that idea, Ukraine economy would be divided between supporting Russian oligarchs:
1/ If Russia's full-scale invasion of Ukraine had succeeded in 2022, Ukraine's industries would have been seized and taken over by Russian oligarchs. A leaked document shows that oligarch Konstantin Malofeev intended to create a 'DMZ Concern' from Ukraine's largest plants.

I suppose this is not surprising, since among adults no one believes that Putin is waging his imperialist war for the "good of an old Donbass couple living in a mud hut and dreaming of a Soviet pension". The Russian regime is all about getting the spoils and paying its share to the overlord.

Ukraine does not do these frontal assaults on heavily fortified positions with their heavy personnel losses, they find ways around, attack supply routes and attack from different directions.

Speaking of which Ukraine has recovered Blahodatne, there was a story that Ukraine retired from Blahodatne so they could relocate to the surrounding hills and then pound any Russian forces who entered the village.

I expect you saw Tom Cooper repeating the social media rumour that Russia had 20,000 casualties in the last week around Vuhledar (dead, wounded, missing), I am sure they had many losses but such a huge number does not seem feasible.

As forecast, the US announced today they will supply Ukraine with Ground Launched Small Diameter Bomb (GLSDB) missiles. I believe they will be more useful than the Western tanks as they have a range of 150 Km so will be within the range of all Russian support routes including the railway in the South parallel to the Black Sea, only the southern part of Crimea will be out of range.

I hope the US will deliver these from stock as they are believed to have many in stock and not wait for new manufacture.
These can be fired from the M270 rocket launchers as well as the HIMARS and Ukraine is believed to have 15 M270s so potentially doubling the HIMARS effect seen so far.

The GLSDB is basically a rocket with a smart glide bomb sitting on top, after launch, they separate so making the bomb a harder target for air defense as it does not have a hot engine and is less than 2m long. The manufacturers claim that at the full 150 Km range, it will hit a 3m wide target.

Germany announced today it has given permission to export 50 Leopard 1 tanks to Ukraine, so far as I know they are similar to older Soviet tanks so not a technical improvement but anyway the more tanks the better.
As it is Friday I have to mention there is a scrap metal dealer in Belgium with over 100 Leopard 1s who is hoping to get a big Ukraine order.