On the whole, I don't think anyone predicted two years ago that the war would enter into a third year. I think most believed that Zelensky and his government would catch the first thing smoking (yes, Walsh, I owe you a beer for copyright infringement) for Zurich, and the Russians would easily carve up the country. I know I did. Since then, we've learned a lot. The big takeaway is that John McCain was right. Russia is a gas station with nukes. Its military is crap, and the command structure utterly corrupt. We've seen drones become a dominant weapon, even to the extent of driving Russia's Black Sea Fleet out of Sevastopol. We've seen that Western weapons and command and control methods are essential to winning battles. We've even seen that it takes a plausible threat to motivate Western countries to up their defense spending, not bullying and bluster. //

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The German Minister of Defense, Boris Pistorius, warned, on Saturday, in a speech held at the Security Conference in Munich, that European countries and the #NATO alliance must prepare for a decades-long conflict with #Russia.
9:45 PM · Feb 17, 2024 //

The Russians are again claiming the aircraft were lost to friendly fire because Russian stupidity is a more palatable explanation than Ukrainian prowess.