Krim 2022.

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Krim = Crimea.

"Ukraine’s Muslim Crimea battalion yearns for lost homeland"

 From Reuters By Max Hunder.

"YASNOHORODKA, Ukraine (Reuters) - Standing amid the charred remains of a roadside hotel on a major highway near Kyiv, Isa Akayev explained what drove him to build his Muslim volunteer unit and fight for Ukraine."

[....]

"When Russia annexed his home region from Ukraine in 2014, Akayev moved to Kyiv and formed the Crimea battalion, a small unit dominated by Crimean Tatars, the Muslim Turkic group indigenous to the Black Sea peninsula."

Tatars fighting for the Ukrainian against the Russian, the Ukraine Conflict.

Tatars with a lot of animosity toward the Russian. Under Stalin the Tatars as a mass group deported to Siberia. Collaboration with the German during WW2 the paranoid Stalin as perceived. Punish the Tatar the whole lot of them. And did!

Crimea until 2014 was an integral part of the Ukraine and had been so during the Soviet era also. A popular vacationing spot for cold-weather Russians during the prolonged and harsh Russian winter. Ukrainians and Tatars get along? Of that I am not sure. Given the deportations of WW2 and the events of 2014 the Russian and Tatar hardly getting along I am more sure.

coolbert.

Platinum.

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Queen Elizabeth II the platinum jubilee. Congratulations Your Majesty and a job very well done!

Let the celebrations commence! To include much military pageantry. British military BEST in the world at such events. Without peer!

The tip from the Russian controlled [?] Internet media outlet Sputnik. Even the Russian respects the Queen it would seem.

"Queen’s Jubilee Marked With 70 Aircraft Flypast Over London"

"Celebrations marking the Queen's accession to the throne are taking place between 2 and 5 June in the UK."

"Sputnik is live from London on the first of four days of celebrations to mark the 70th anniversary of the accession of Queen Elizabeth II, as a military flypast featuring 70 aircraft fly over the UK capital."

"The warplanes will take to the air from RAF Scampton and RAF Coningsby, and then arc south and fly over the British capital in the afternoon."

I had hoped to include some You Tube video with this blog entry but see none yet to be posted!

coolbert.

Warmongers.

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The proverbial guns or butter? 

Gonna need to spend a lot more money and soon!

"NATO Countries Have Heavily Cut Troop Levels"

From Zero Hedge BY TYLER DURDEN JUN 01, 2022.

"NATO countries have significantly reduced their troops in recent decades."

"As Statista's Martin Armstrong shows in the infographic below, based on NATO data, Germany and Italy have reduced their troops the most, by 65 percent compared to 1990."

"But other countries with large troop contingents have also reduced them significantly, including France, Spain, the United Kingdom, Turkey and the United States."

END of the Cold War; END of NATO. So must have been the mentality.

Just look at that graphic. In a thirty year period since the end of the Cold War those major players the NATO alliance have cut their active-duty military manpower some of them by two-thirds! That would include all service, ground, air, sea. USA slightly manpower reduced by slightly greater than one-third. American commitments on a world-wide basis necessitating lesser of a reduction in total force strength.

"With the war in Ukraine, NATO countries are expected to increase their troops again in the coming months and years."

ALARM BELLS GOING OFF ALL OVER THE PLACE IN THE CAPITALS OF THE VARIOUS CONSTITUENT NATIONS OF NATO NOW!

"According to media reports, defense ministers from the 30 NATO countries have tasked the alliance's military leadership with developing plans to strengthen deterrence and defense against Russia."

You can foresee: # 1 Conscription. # 2 Spend more money. # 3 Atomic weapons. None of those will be palatable in the social welfare-states  nations of the European Union. Especially # 3.

"When you are talking conventional [arms] you are talking expensive!" - George Shultz.

The mental wherewithal exists to proceed? I am skeptical.

coolbert.

Imprudent.

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“It’s not going to change the whole course of the war, but it will create some significant new challenges for the Russian attack” 

YET more on HIMARS and the announced deployment of the rocket artillery system to Ukraine.

"WHAT IS HIMARS? AN ARMY ARTILLERY OFFICER BREAKS DOWN THE US ROCKET SYSTEMS HEADED TO UKRAINE"

From the Internet webzine "Coffee or Die" the article By Hannah Ray Lambert | June 01, 2022.

"The Department of Defense confirmed Wednesday, June 1, that the US would send advanced High Mobility Artillery Rocket Systems, known as HIMARS, to Ukraine as part of its latest security package. The systems, which can fire multiple long-range artillery rockets in a matter of seconds, should allow Ukrainian forces to better strike key targets on the battlefield, a senior Army officer with more than 20 years of experience commanding field artillery units told Coffee or Die Magazine."

YES, from my perspective HIMARS can be a game-changer. Going to kill a lot of Russians and if used imprudently can infuriate the Russian even more so to the point where retaliation will go far-beyond the current confines of the Ukraine Conflict. I reiterate that the deployment of HIMARS to Ukraine is a bad idea.

See my previous blog entries past and most recent the HIMARS system:

https://militaryanalysis.blogspot.com/2016/09/himars-ii.html

https://militaryanalysis.blogspot.com/2016/09/himars-i.html

https://militaryanalysis.blogspot.com/2021/10/usmc-himars.html

https://militaryanalysis.blogspot.com/2022/05/mlrshimars.html

https://militaryanalysis.blogspot.com/2022/06/uaf-himars.html

coolbert.

Handpicked.

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The Russian can-do man Ukraine now gone? Gotten the axe? Vlad using the proven winner now even disappointed with the proven winner?

As others before him Dvornikov gone too?

"Russia's top commander in Ukraine hasn't been seen in two weeks: Report"

From msn.com the story by Daniel Chaitin - 

"Gen. Aleksandr Dvornikov, picked by Russian President Vladimir Putin last month to take over the invasion of Ukraine, has disappeared, according to a new report."

"The so-called Butcher of Syria has not been seen in two weeks, leading officials to speculate that he is no longer in command of the campaign, the New York Times reported Tuesday."

"Dvornikov, who was given command of Russia's Southern Military District after achieving infamy for his brutal campaigns in Syria, was tasked in early April with conquering Ukraine's eastern Donbas region after a large-scale attack on Ukraine floundered in the face of heavy resistance led by President Volodymyr Zelensky and backed by much of the West."

Dvornikov his methods successful in Ukraine. Faced a much more formidable and determined enemy in Ukraine his success far less?

See previous blog entries the topic Aleksandr:

https://militaryanalysis.blogspot.com/2016/01/dvornikov.html

https://militaryanalysis.blogspot.com/2022/04/dvornikov.html

coolbert.

Unicorn.

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And Phillip wept?

Curiosity and oddity from the Ukraine Conflict?

"Ukraine's 'unicorn' LGBTQ soldiers head for war"

"Couple leave for the frontline to serve the Territorial Defence army, in Kyiv"

LGBTQ Ukrainian Territorial Defense Forces.

From yahoo.com May 31, 2022.

"KYIV (Reuters) - As volunteer fighters Oleksandr Zhuhan and Antonina Romanova pack for a return to active duty, they contemplate the unicorn insignia that gives their uniform a rare distinction - a symbol of their status as an LGBTQ couple who are Ukrainian soldiers."

"Members of Ukraine's LGBTQ community who sign up for the war have taken to sewing the image of the mythical beast into their standard-issue epaulettes just below the national flag."

Consider within context the Sacred Band of Thebes from the time of ancient Greece.

"And if there were only some way of contriving that a state or an army should be made up of lovers and their beloved, they would be the very best governors of their own city, abstaining from all dishonour, and emulating one another in honor; and when fighting at each other's side, although a mere handful, they would overcome the world. For what lover would not choose rather to be seen by all mankind than by his beloved, either when abandoning his post or throwing away his arms? He would be ready to die a thousand deaths rather than endure this. Or who would desert his beloved or fail him in the hour of danger?" —Plato, Symposium.

And who can possibly argue with Plato?

The entire battalion of the Sacred Band having died at Chaeronea to the last man, even when facing overwhelming force in a situation already impossible. Three hundred strong, one-hundred fifty couples.

When viewing the Theban dead on the battlefield, Phillip the King of Macedon was said to have wept at the sight of his vanquished adversaries, having died and so bravely so.

coolbert.

UAF HIMARS.

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Consider this to be a surprise? HIMARS now going to Ukraine.

Advanced rocket artillery system with stupendous range and accuracy on the way!

See my previous blog entry.

"US sending advanced rocket systems to Ukraine"

Courtesy the tip from Freeper.

The Hill ^ | 05/31/22 | | BY JORDAN WILLIAMS.

"The Biden administration will send long-range rocket systems as part of a $700 million weapons package to Ukraine, senior administration officials told reporters on Tuesday night. The new package is set to include High Mobility Artillery Rocket Systems (HIMARS) and munitions to allow Ukrainians to more precisely strike targets from a greater distance inside Ukraine, the officials said. The official added that the systems would be used to repel Russian systems; they would not be used inside Russian territory"

My appreciation is that in a DESPERATE situation the Ukrainian might very well feel compelled and even JUSTIFIED to use HIMARS outside of Ukrainian territory. USE in a way to target military targets in Russia proper. No MATTER what sort of understanding has been established between DC and Kiev.

coolbert.