One of Ms Lambrecht’s least impressive predecessors, Ursula von der Leyen, ordered troops to use broomsticks instead of rifles in exercises. She was later promoted by Angela Merkel to become President of the EU Commission.
One of Ms Lambrecht’s least impressive predecessors, Ursula von der Leyen, ordered troops to use broomsticks instead of rifles in exercises. She was later promoted by Angela Merkel to become President of the EU Commission.
I’m sorry but I find the idea of Ursula von der Leyen ordering troops to do anything highly improbable. I would imagine that there were such things as soldiers & rifles would have come as a surprise to her. She was occupying the Defence desk as part of her career path & had far, far too many important things to concentrate on to be bothered with trivialities like that. Like becoming President of the EU Commission.
In the long term paying danegeld (or russgeld) is paying tribute to overwhelming force. It is only a worthwhile tactic if you use the period to build up your defences to end it. Germany (and also the EU) are dab hands at paying for problems to go away – and then not putting any effort into resolving the fundamental issues.
one nation has already suffered a catastrophic loss of prestige: Germany. The political and business leaders of Europe’s biggest economy have not only failed to give Ukrainians the help they so desperately need, but in their dealings with Russia they have been exposed as at best naive – and at worst complicit.
Sure, they should never have outsourced their energy base to Russia. Trump tried to warn them, but they knew better.
Otoh, Germany isn’t Ukraine’s Dad. They’ve already sent them a ton of free aid. What else are they supposed to do?
Well, this:
This week the German leadership crisis deepened when Olaf Scholz, the Chancellor, claimed to be delivering on his promise to send arms to Ukraine — but was revealed by the tabloid Bild to have secretly refused every item of heavy equipment requested by Kyiv. After Scholz had crossed tanks and artillery off the list, an aid package said to be worth €1 billion (£836 million) had been reduced by more than two thirds.
Fighting to the last Ukrainian by raining weapons – Zardoz style – on the regime doesn’t seem like a winning idea to me, so I dunno why Europeans would want to do that. There’s already more than 5 million Ukie refugees in Europe – how many more do they need?
Meanwhile Berlin has been stonewalling on sanctions, claiming that its industry and consumers cannot bear the pain of cutting off energy supplies from Russia.
Well, they can’t. It’d mean an immediate economic crisis the like of which Germany hasn’t seen since the Weimar Republic. It’s nice of British commentators to encourage Fritz to jump off that ledge tho.
If that cash flow were cut off by sanctions, the Kremlin would have no choice but to end the war.
Putin is Hitler, but apparently he’s a Reasonable Hitler for the purposes of this article. As we all know, WW2 soon stopped after the Krauts and Japs were sanctioned.
I’ll get over you I know I will
I’ll pretend my ship’s not sinking
And I’ll tell myself I’m over you
‘Cause I’m the king of wishful thinking
Isn’t the point that you get promoted to a position where you can no longer do any damage? Ursula has been promoted to a position where she can do an awful lot of damage.
I assume that the German “tanks” were exDDR T55s or other obsoletes that are used for target practice on Luneberg Heide or armoured transports. I hardly think that they’ll send any nice shine Leopards.
One way to reduce the number of Ukrainian refugees to Europe is for Ukraine to win.
So on that basis Poland and Germany should back Ukraine to the hilt.
But Germany apparently would rather be warm. In the short term anyway.
BiS,
She was being groomed for even higher office, Merkel’s replacement, but not even Germany could hide her incompetence so it was off to that well known sinecure for incompetent politicians who fail at the national level.
“ I assume that the German “tanks” were exDDR T55s or other obsoletes that are used for target practice on Luneberg Heide or armoured transports. I hardly think that they’ll send any nice shine Leopards.”
Apparently Poland and the Czech Republic have had very poor security at the storage sites for their old Soviet era tanks and a lot have been stolen. The idea is that Germany sends their modern era tanks to those countries to backfill and allow them to maintain their NATO readiness.
Hungary hasn’t had the same security problems.
But she does air-brush up remarkably well for her age in the never-ending torrent of media photos.
BiFR: Isn’t the point that you get promoted to a position where you can no longer do any damage? Ursula has been promoted to a position where she can do an awful lot of damage.
I think the Principle has it that you get promoted until you reach your level of incompetence. In the case of UvdL this level was reached at some point in the past and before she became Defense Minister where her incompetence reached new heights. I think she was promoted from that job because of swirling rumours that she was implicated in corruption and as President of the Commission she was beyond the reach of German prosecutors.
Your second point is interesting. The EU is increasingly sclerotic and stasis and decline have set in so you might argue that she cannot do much harm because her room for manoevre is so circumscribed. She even let Charles Michel nick her seat in Ankara!
Otto – they don’t have the time to train Ukies up on Western tanks, but I assume they’ll be sent anyway, in preparation for the next war. Looks like the plan is:
* Dump crazy amounts of weapons and money on the Ukraine in the hopes of killing as many Russians and their tanks, planes and vehicles as possible (unfortunately this option also maximises the number of dead Ukrainians, but omelette, eggs)
* Israelify the rump state of Western Ukraine into a kind of EU-friendly Outremer against the Muscovite horde
* Do it all again in 5/10 years but this time with feeling
Chester – that would make sense if victory was possible for Ukraine, which it’s not. At least, not as currently defined by Zelensky or Putin. Ukraine isn’t getting Donbass or Crimea back and it’s looking very unlikely Pooty-poot will achieve regime change in Kiev.
The Rooskies could mobilise the rest of their army and take the whole Slavic enchilada, and get to lord it over the depressing ruins amidst the remaining desperate and starving armed subjects who hate them, but that’s not much of a plan.
Ukies can keep throwing their men into the Russian meatgrinder (note amidst the increasingly fantastical estimates of Russian casualties that nobody’s talking about Ukrainian casualties), while the refugee numbers go to 13 (we’re already past 11), but that’s not much of a plan either.
Best thing they could do is try for peace instead, but Zelensky is caught between fanatics at home and fanatics sponsoring his regime, he has no ability to act independently and none of the principals involved gives a fuck about the millions of plebs whose lives are now ruined. War, huh? Good God.
I think the EU is doing well on Russia. It is a tough situation. Europe must strive for peace, democracy and freedom within the European Union. We do not want to expand the war.
This is a terrible war. I pray for peace between Russia and Ukraine.
This war proves we need unity in Europe through NATO and the European Union to give European countries geopolitical unity and power.
“Europe must strive for peace, democracy and freedom within the European Union”
I think the last 2 years of covid have shown that their striving is going to start from a pretty low level of freedom and democracy. Unless your definition of freedom includes locking people in their houses and refusing them the ability to go outside or even make a living unless they take an experimental ‘vaccine’………..I didn’t see the EU complaining when the Austrians passed laws mandating vaccines for all, or the Italians restricting the lives of the unvaccinated via vaccine passes, or Macron wanting to ‘piss off’ the unvaccinated.
Stev: “note amidst the increasingly fantastical estimates of Russian casualties that nobody’s talking about Ukrainian casualties”
Fromn what I hear/read on the news all Ukrainian casualties are civilians, and always involve children somewhere.
After weeks of this, I can only conclude the russian capacity to aim a weapon is equivalent to that of a Stormtrooper.
Grikath – I can only conclude the russian capacity to aim a weapon is equivalent to that of a Stormtrooper.
A lot of them are Chechens, so…
Russian-leaning Ukrainian bloke hunkered down somewhere in the Donbass: Hang on, what’s that noise?
*Distant ALLAHU AKBARS*
Thank God, it’s the Russians!
Ukies can keep throwing their men into the Russian meatgrinder . . .
A curious description; it’s the Russians that keep feeding their forces piecemeal into well organised Ukrainian defence. After sixty days of near relentless but stupid effort they’ve made no significant advance westward from the border of the “breakaway Republics” (Russian land grabs).
Ukraine isn’t getting Donbass or Crimea back . . .
It still has a large chunk of Donbas; importantly, the bit the Russians really want – the bit with loads of oil and gas under it (‘cos this whole thing is fuck all to do with the self determination of Russian speakers).
Best thing they could do is try for peace instead . . .
Best for whom? What does this “peace” look like? Always rather vague. It seems likely to the point of certainty that the Yanks and Krauts will attempt to force Ukraine to accept some shit deal, probably at the point the Russians militarily falter. Both are Putin’s bitches at the moment.
Intersting comments folks, thanks
I’d add: a lot of the West’s (ill advised) £Billions free weapons to Ukraine are destroyed or captured by Russia before deployed
As for sanctions: they’re hitting us much more than Russia. They’re more stupid expensive virtue signalling by know nothing politicians
I’d add: a lot of the West’s (ill advised) £Billions free weapons to Ukraine are destroyed or captured by Russia before deployed
Citation needed.
1. I’m trying hard to think of a time that sanctions worked.
2. Combat casualties are usually pretty even on both sides, with two to one being unusually high. So yeah I’d say that the Ukrainians are taking some pain.
@PJF
Search and ye shall find
Some: DS, TCW, Fox, Speccie, News Max, AIER, Brownstone… and UK Defence minister today
Search and ye shall find
Typical.
There’s a difference between “some” and “a lot”.
The last war the EU fought was against a vaccine. Did they win?
@PJF
Eight as examples is not your “some”. Many more have reported too inc Guardian
Some don’t want to see, so won’t look then deny it happens
Eight as examples is not your “some”.
Lolz. It was you who described your list as “some”, and your list was merely nothings; no actual example was present, not a quote or a link. You made an extraordinary claim that “a lot” of western supplied weapons “are destroyed or captured by Russia before deployed”. You were invited to back it up, and you hide your failure to do so as criticism of someone else for declining to look. As I said, typical.
It’s not a secret that Russia has attacked weapons depots and transportation hubs, and it’s quite likely some of their claims that they hit western supplies are true. It’s also well known (YouTube videos) that the Russians have captured some western weapons on the battlefield – but those are by definition deployed.
To be worth mentioning, the definition of “a lot” needs to be a significant or substantial portion of the “£Billions” of weapons supplied; a level that will meaningfully reduce combat capability. More than you can carry or a couple of trucks’ worth doesn’t cut it. Likewise with Ukraine’s attacks of supplies over the border in Russia. Those are “spectaculars”, but mere irritations to the Russians.
Got something? Show it. Otherwise you’re like a Witness telling me I have to go search for Jehovah at their meeting hall.
Interesting little video here of the tens, hundreds of $billions sent to Ukraine
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=W6IDbxVyL64
@PJF
I said “Search and ye shall find” then gave a sample of sites to search
Think back a month to the large attack in West Ukraine “only 10 miles from Poland”, it was Russia destroying West supplied weapons. TCW had another article yesterday mentioning Russian intereptions and highlighted by by DS.
If you can’t be bothered researching, that’s your choice. However you can’t then deny what others say with any credibility