With so much happening in #Ukraine, I decided to take on three shorter topics in a blog post, namely the deep #helicopter strike on #Belgorod, whether #Russia can replace their losses, and what to do with the Ukrainian requests for more advanced weaponry. corporalfrisk.com/2022/04/03/a-u…
I could also shortly comment on the mass killings in #Bucha. This should not be a surprise for anyone by now, it isn't an accident, but it is how the Russian Army and the Soviet before that has operated consistently.
https://twitter.com/Jack_Watling/status/1510391429482393609?t=0BOYA-nC0WWuaTZnCJ_vpQ&s=19
Finland has first-hand experience of it as well, even if we got away easier than many other Eastern European countries. blog.vantagepointnorth.net/2019/12/forgot…
This has also throughout my adult life been one of the reasons I have been involved in voluntary defense activities, because the knowledge that the ultimate cost of failing to deter war and then losing might be a similar fate for my family.
We also know what is required for armies and societies to move away from this way of operating. Neither the German nor the Japanese have been involved in atrocities following WWII, but it took a deep process of transformation and reckoning with their past.
Russia has never been interested in such a process. They aren't doomed by predetermination to keep committing war crimes - see other ex-Soviet states such as Georgia - but until the Russian society sit down and face the truth and go through that transformation, they won't change.
That is something we have to include in our decision making. Do anyone seriously think #Mariupol will look better than #Bucha if it falls?
And while the risk of escalating to a nuclear exchange still is very real if NATO takes drastic steps, we also need to acknowledge that proven large-scale war crimes does factor into the calculations differently than the mere assumption that occupation will look ugly.
Tyler has done a great write-up on a detailed proposal for systems that can/should be delivered to #Ukraine. While I would add a longer-legged anti-ship system as mentioned in the post, and there are some details I question, this is just excellent overall.
https://twitter.com/Aviation_Intel/status/1510667528325849093?s=20&t=FXvhVUwOHTHvCILqCI4qDQ
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