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Comment by cglace | Hacker News Reader

The US has provided more funding to Ukraine than the world combined by a large margin, and the lesson you take away is that the US is somehow at fault. The one bill that was blocked by Congress would be more support than Europe as a whole has provided to Ukraine to date.

While I agree that European countries should start to take their defense seriously I don't see how you fault US support of Ukraine.

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Not sure about the US providing more funding (especially not by a large margin):

This chart shows EU outspending the US.

https://www.statista.com/chart/28489/ukrainian-military-huma....

We’re talking about the military portion on that page.

That was certainly not clear, but it is still does not fit this chart [1]

Looking at Military add only:

The US has provided: ~$42.2B Germany + United Kingdom + Denmark + Norway + Netherlands + Poland + EU inst.: ~$51B

[1] https://www.ifw-kiel.de/topics/war-against-ukraine/ukraine-s...

Oh man, the EU plus the rest of the world are eking it out before the US passes another spending bill. . .

This also includes long-term commitments that have not yet been delivered. EU promising to provide 1 million artillery shells two years from now doesn't help Ukraine at this time.

The US not passing a spending bill and getting constantly deadlocked by the GOP to even table it in Congress also do not help Ukraine at this time.

Also, it's not even close to a certainty that the spending bill will pass, and the chance of that happening diminishes every single day while this stupid presidential election doesn't happen.

The quote from OP was "The US has provided more funding to Ukraine than the world combined by a large margin". Which is just completely false. Now you're just moving goalposts.

But does it change the more significant point of the US being Ukraine's most important partner in terms of military support? I was countering the narrative that the US is not a good partner. As internet forums do, everyone globbed onto the specific number, not the point being made.

And the EU is spending more on military aid then the US.

As World = EU + X and X>0 => The world is spending more on military aid then the US.

Total aid, yes.

Military spending no.

In fact this war has highlighted that NO ONE was ready for the fight that came about.

Skip the money for a moment. Ukraine right now is marginally fucked for one reason: 155mm artillery shells.

There isnt enough global production to have a war. The US is far and away the largest producer. EU can not keep up and did not bring on anywhere near enough capacity to defend itself in a future conflict.

I would also like to point out that without that humanitarian aid flowing INTO Ukraine those folks flee TO the EU. Sending money there avoids bringing the problems to Poland and Germany and having to spend it there. After taking in so many refugees in recent history the EU is gunshy about another migration.

Looking at Military aid only [1]:

The US has provided: ~$42.2B

Germany + United Kingdom + Denmark + Norway + Netherlands + Poland + EU inst.: ~$51B

[1] https://www.ifw-kiel.de/topics/war-against-ukraine/ukraine-s...

France is up there with UK, but they are not on the chart because they do not disclose all the transfers they do.

Source?

Em... That's the point, we know that France transferred a lot of equipment(Cesar self propelled artillery is Franch). We don't know how much they transferred, there may be unofficial guestimated numbers - but there can be no source for "we don't know".

>Sending money there avoids bringing the problems to Poland and Germany

I‘d argue that refugees, 50% of whom intend to stay, are the reason why EU is the only party to win something from this war. I actively support Ukrainian refugees by giving them some work and talk to people: those who will stay, want to integrate and they offer some relief to the job markets.

"some relief to the job markets."

I agree and have done the same with Syrian refugees.

Oh, yes, Syrians. Danke, Merkel, I found some good IT admins from there.

In Sweden two of my favourite doctors are Syrian refugees, they gave me more humane and personal care than many Swedish doctors I've been to.

My landlord (and by far the best landlord I've had in Sweden) is another refugee doctor, a very laid back Iraqian pulmonologist, to the point I even invite him over to have some beers during summers.

NATO already won; it has expanded and defence commitments are up, and that is besides the renewed raison d’être Russia has leased it.

The US defence industry has seen a minor win, too. It will reap the long-term win of new NATO accessions.

The EU got a wakeup call (not so much a win, but hey) to seek energy independence from belligerent petrostates, so that could be seen as a future win.

I‘m not sure about NATO, at least while Trumpism exists in America. If U.S. voters will think that Europe has to be sacrificed in favor of bilateral Russian-American deal, NATO is effectively as dead as it was pre-war.

U.S.defense industry will also depend on that. If Trump wins and commits to do everything he promised, they will be in a weaker position, loosing foreign markets one by one.

There is a lot of money riding on NATOs continued existence and I think if Trump decides to pull the USA out of NATO he will be in for a rude surprise. Playing with the climate accords was dumb enough and didn't have any immediate impact, if the USA visibly isolates itself from NATO after other countries supporting the USA in various efforts over the last couple of decades then the world as you know it will grind to a very rapid halt and the United States will be the big loser from that unless Trump is reigned in. I would expect him to receive a couple of very pointed reminders of what the consequences of such a move would be. Fortunately even an unhinged TV personality can not single-handedly destroy a country and what it has stood for for the last 70+ years.

Not to nitpick, but trump could singlehandedly destroy the United states in an afternoon. The presidency has absolute control over the use of the nuclear arsenal. One strike on China, in a conflict over Taiwan and the country will be blown to pieces. I don't think that's likely - but one cannot deny it is possible.

Any scenario where anyone throws a nuke means the __world__ will be blown to pieces. That's a different scale of issue.

This is not a serious argument. By the same token, putin or comrade xi can do the same if they feel suicidal.

There are controls in place (or at least on the paper) that prevent a crazy president from running amok with the nukes.

I'd hope that if he would give that order that someone would remove the source of the problem. Not everybody enjoys seeing the world destroyed.

>even an unhinged TV personality can not single-handedly destroy a country and what it has stood for for the last 70+ years.

A war-mongering, propaganda-spewing, dystopian corporate empire beheld entirely to the military-industrial complex and megacorps?

You're right, I don't think he can turn the ship around.

He absolutely can and will destroy the country and what it has stood for. He's already completely corrupted one of the only two viable political parties. They no longer believe in democracy. If Trump or one his sycophants gains office again, America won't be a shining city on the hill, it'll be a toxic waste dump.

Trumpism is an ideology that overgrown its founder: there are members of Congress, governors and other politicians who share his mindset. It is the Republican Party of 2020s, not just an insane businessman, who will throw global security under the bus. All those pointed reminders will mean nothing until it is too late.

Americans being in favor of making a deal with Russia would be proof that psyops works

How do you do that? I've hosted refugees for free, as opposed to locals who've had to pay for hotel stays, but I'm not discriminating against locals when hiring.

How do you "actively support refugees by giving them some work" in a way that's legal, without hiring bias?

E.g. I use cleaning services from a company that employs refugees.

Besides, using only specific recruiting channels to select candidates from certain demographics is not a discrimination. If locals would apply this way, I would consider them, but honestly… In Germany, esp. in Berlin hiring locals? The market is so tight, that by just removing the German language requirement you will find some immigrant faster.

>If locals would apply this way, I would consider them

What way do you mean, how exactly should they apply?

Why are you asking? I have no idea, neither I care about it. If I want to hit a diversity target, I just go to a specific channel, be it some refugee job board, a women in tech community or anything else. If someone unintended sneaks through it, fine, as long as they don’t lie to me.

Was just curios, and wanted to understand what you meant.

Artillery shells are but one tool though, which for some reason has become the main tool (? citation needed) in the Ukraine war; I would expect more air force being put in play if the conflict escalated into the rest of europe.

Even though Russia has got the bigger air force on paper (https://rlist.io/l/european-countries-with-the-largest-air-f...).

> [artillery shells] which for some reason has become the main tool

Because Soviet (and ex-Soviet) armies were heavily built around massive numbers of lower-trained conscripts.

It's difficult to conduct maneuver warfare without highly trained troops.

It's a lot easier to throw a lot of artillery at the problem.

> Conscript reporting. Da!

> Artillery shells are but one tool though, which for some reason has become the main tool (? citation needed) in the Ukraine war

The reason is that neither side has air supremacy. Ukrainian AA defense is good enough to keep the Russians at bay, but Russian AA defense is also good enough to prevent Ukrainians from taking out their frontline defenses.

So with classic air forces being all but taken out, the only way either side can make progress is by using tanks and artillery.

Can’t we give Ukraine HARMs?

The USA seems unable to give any more support due to political deadlock.

It definitely could provide much more to Ukraine if both parties were aligned to the common cause of sustaining America's hegemony by being a reliable ally, right now there's one party which the whole ideology centers on going against whatever the other party does and/or supports. Even if that means allowing Putin's Russia to gain more power and influence.

I don't think the vast majority of Americans understand the long-term consequences of allowing the USA to become unreliable to its closest partners (the West in general). You will be feeling this over the next few decades, America's soft power is waning.

> It definitely could provide much more to Ukraine if both parties were aligned to the common cause of sustaining America's hegemony by being a reliable ally, right now there's one party which the whole ideology centers on going against whatever the other party does and/or supports. Even if that means allowing Putin's Russia to gain more power and influence.

It's even worse. The 45th is actively calling for Russia to take what they want.

You have already done that. [0] They don't seem to work too well. [1]

[0] https://aviationweek.com/defense-space/missile-defense-weapo...

[1] https://www.eurasiantimes.com/hamrless-missiles-us-supplied-...

We gave them nerfed HARMs that can't properly integrate with their soviet planes, and they have zero SEAD training. HARMs aren't magic, without the strategy and training required for good SEAD, they won't do much. Things may improve when the F-16s start flying since those are properly integrated and capable SEAD platforms.

"Things may improve when the F-16s start flying"

This could only end with tactical nukes starting flying and with the strategic ones if the US attacks Russia. Things won't 'improve' no matter what happens.

Putin is done for in those scenarios. He doesn't look the type to fall on his sword.

In which scenario he isn't done for if the US keeps escalating?

I think Putin can find a way to exit the Ukraine and define that as a success if he wants to. But he still thinks he has a chance to win on the battlefield, so he has no motivation to do that.

How can he exit if Zelensky's goal is to retake Crimea, Donetsk and Lugansk?

Hopefully we are about to find out.

That's wishful thinking.

He lied about why the Russian army is in Ukraine and Russians bought it.

He can lie about why the Russian army is leaving Ukraine and Russians will buy it.

He can stop this war at any moment.

Just like the US can stop this war at any moment by dropping support for Ukraine and pressuring them to negotiate. Or can't they?

Oh, moving the goal post uh ? Pretty weak game you show here.

> Just like the US can stop this war at any moment by dropping support for Ukraine and pressuring them to negotiate.

Just like So you admit Putin could stop the war at any moment ? Good. Why don't you petition for that ? (oh wait, what happened to that guy that submission is about and who wasn't completely on board with Putin's leadership ?)

What prevents him from stopping this war anyway ? Why won't he ? What terrible outcome would he or Russia face if he just declared "okay, we showed the world we ain't no pushovers, we are now confident Ukraine and NATO won't try to invade us because we showed them how strong we are" ?

Anyway, that Putin guy has made it pretty clear he wants to knock off all of Ukraine. Only Russian shills and useful idiots believe otherwise. But that's not what you are, aren't you ?

Putin can back down no more than Biden can.

Return to 2014 borders.

Done.

Putin will be done if he tries to abandon people of Crimea.

"According to Tamila Tasheva, Zelensky’s representative in Crimea, if it were liberated tomorrow, at least 200,000 residents of Crimea would face collaboration charges, and another 500,000 to 800,000 residents would face deportation. Refat Chubarov, the chairman of the Mejlis of the Crimean Tatars, says that more than 1 million people—more than half the current population—will have to leave “immediately.” "

[0] https://foreignpolicy.com/2023/12/18/ukraine-russia-war-civi...

Oh no, how terrible, all the Russian colonists who moved in after the annexation would have to leave, and collaborators would face justice.

In 2014 approximately 1.5 million Crimeans were ethnic Russians. In 2021 census there were about 200 thousand more. [0]

[0] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Demographics_of_Crimea#Ethnici...

Kremlin has said multiple times, that use of western weapons against targets on Russian soil will be escalation and they will target NATO bases.

There have been multiple strikes using western weapons on Russian soil... with zero response. One of the most recent being shooting down an Il-76 near Belgorod.

The problem, at least according to that article and to pictures and videos of shot down HARMs, isn't really the integration. The problem is that Russian AA systems can defend themselves passively using IR or optical sensors, and are highly mobile. Basically, a pure antiradiation missile would only work if the crew of the air defence system makes a mistake or runs out of missiles.

The other issue is that merely because you did get that radar to turn off, doesn't mean that the launching aircraft is safe. Russia (and Ukraine as well) has a true IADS, so it's very risky to get within position to launch the HARM in the first place, let alone stay in position long enough to actually use your sensor package and give more capability to your missile.

Besides, Ukraine had Soviet antiradiation missiles that are extremely similar to the HARMs and that are integrated into their airframes. They weren't hugely effective.

How is an F-16 going to get close enough to Russian SAMs to be able to fly a conventional SEAD mission anyways? The traditional US way of using them is to jam enemy radars while flying F-16s as a wild weasel. The F-16 itself is not a capable SEAD platform - it needs and entire package with EW aircraft and air superiority fighters to defend them.

Besides, the problem in Ukraine is that Ukraine just can't fly even close to the frontline, and can't fly high. That's not just due to air defences - Ukraine used to be able to do this until Russia started using their extremely long range air to air missiles.

Ukrainan Air Force has HARMs, but they are VERY limited in their capabilities due to them being employed from soviet-era jets. Basically area where target resides have to be pre-programmed on the ground, rocket then flies to that area and lock on any radar it finds there. But what previous commenter missed is that even if Russian air defenses are suppressed, their planes outclass Ukrainian ones. For example, air to air missiles that UAF has available need to be guided by planes radar all the way through, also that missiles have shorter range than something like R-37, which is fire and forget with VERY high range. Western air to air missiles are much better than what Ukraine has right now, but they can't be fired from Su-27 or MiG-29, they require something like F-16 or Gripen, but while a bunch of European countries agreed to transfer them, Ukrainian pilots and ground crews don't know how to operate them, and need to be trained, which happens right now. If there were trained beforehand it would've changed current situation on the front lines VERY significantly.

What happened to the F16s, Ukraine was promised?

F16s will arrive this spring, but Soviet AA was designed to contain them. None of the expert observers seems to consider F16s a gamechanger on the battlefield right now.

Soviet AA isn't even the biggest threat - As many Ukrainian pilots put it, the main threat is the R-37M. You can at least fly low and out of the way to defend against SAMs, but without a missile like the Meteor there is no answer to the combination of long range SAMs and R-37M carrying fighters.

Basically the problem is that to avoid AA you have to fly low or far from the front lines. If you fly low, you can't give enough energy to your missile to threaten even just Russian bombers.

If you fly high but far away, there is no way to deal with Russian planes carrying R-37s that will be able to fire their missiles far before you.

The only way to even the playing field would be to give Ukraine modern Gripens with the Meteor missile, as the F-16 cannot fire the Meteor.

> as the F-16 cannot fire the Meteor.

To be fair, the MiG’s Ukraine does have were not supposed to be capable of firing storm shadows either.

But that problem got resolved, and they are now firing them well outside the expected operational envelope and scoring solid hits.

Not really. The Storm Shadows are programmed externally, the plane just gives the signal to fire.

For the Meteor you would need deep integration into the fire control system, and even into the data links to be able to use it's range as the F-16 radar is not powerful enough.

If it was easy to do, MBDA would have done it and made a lot of money that way.

F-16s are not much better than the Su-27s and MiG-29s the Ukrainians had in droves. They will not be able to face combined Russian GBAD+CAP.

Their role will most likely be to fly far behind the frontlines and fire NATO weapons Ukraine's airframes can't.

Stalin called artillery the god of war. Ranged surface-to-surface weapons are the antithesis of close combat, and whoever has the systems with the highest range and military effectiveness can clear the way ahead of physical occupation until political or economic forces compel suing for a negotiated cessation of hostilities.

While Ukraine is training F-16 pilots, this will take a lot of time and money to achieve and sustain, and is vulnerable to parts supply chain issues, maintenance program sophistication gaps, and puts expensive-to-train pilots at risk of loss by being shot down. Vipers will barely move the needle on the course of the current conflict, but will enable Ukraine to defend its territory and airspace without direct NATO intervention.

The domestic Ukraine drone and missile industry is another leg of the table on which Ukraine will advance and sustain self-defense by striking strategic Russian military logistics, naval, army, and air force targets.

> Even though Russia has got the bigger air force

Russia's military is barely functional due to corruption and complacent reliance on being a nuclear superpower. The % of operational jets is barely enough to sustain territorial defense much less a sustained "special military operation". Russia's air assets total 3000 pieces of equipment but with only 7 regular air bases close enough to launch strikes and could only muster around 250 operational strike aircraft given the limitations on maintenance, storage, and the few pilots.

185 fighters

264 attack aircraft

415 multirole

119 bombers

1000+ helicopters

1000 transport

177 others (EW, a few tankers, c3)

https://youtu.be/geSvbR9io3c

Because Ukraine lacks military aircraft, but got reasonable AA. We're partially back to WW1 there.

"Military spending no."

  Country          Military 
  EU Total         49,67
  United States    42,22
  Germany          17,70
  United Kingdom   9,12
  Denmark          8,40
  Netherlands      4,44
  Norway           3,80
  Poland           3,00

And if we take % of GDP the US looks worse on military aid.

And if we take % of military budget, the US is last on the list.

I’m not sure how the calculations work in other countries, but the US was/is heavily depreciating its donations, and funding/facilitating a much of European donations.

There's also ring trades where the us donates surplus gear to European countries to get them to donate hardware to Ukraine - somewhat inflating tallies. Greece got several c-130s in expectation that they would donate 152mm ammunition.

Yes, and Germany has ring-traded a lot of military equipment, e.g. several dozens of Leopard 2 tanks.

Sure about the 152mm? Not 155mm?

> Sure about the 152mm? Not 155mm?

I'd have to double check but its quite likely. 152mm being the popular Soviet/WP large artillery caliber which Ukraine no doubt has (or had, at the beginning) a lot of legacy Soviet-era heavy artillery.

Did some searching, didn't find anything.

The only thing I could find about Greece is Germany giving 40 Marder APCs to Greece so Greece could give 40 BMP-1 to Ukraine.

https://www.defenseone.com/business/2023/11/race-make-artill...

It's more messed up than that. The ROI on US dollars vs Euros is stupefying. There has been a fairly significant spend IN the us retooling for this war. The ramp up of 155 production ISNT aid to Ukraine but is going to benefit them.

And I called out 155 for a reason, the ebb and flow of it has been at the forefront of Ukraine being successful or failing. It is the the most consistently asked for and consumed large item as it in combination with drones has proven effective beyond anyones expectations.

And this is chart is missing EU strongest military - France, they do not announce all the support they give for strategic reasons.

Could the strategic reason be to avoid explaining why they give so little?

Unlikely. The Caesar artillery systems are large, expensive and well publicized.

They need USAs 155mm production the most. the fact that we cut off our specialty is ridiculous.

France published a list of equipment they sent to Ukraine, about an hour ago [1]

[1] https://www.lemonde.fr/international/live/2024/02/16/en-dire...

Quoting and translating the best I can (any translation error is mine):

Ground - Air

    SAMP-T : 1 system and ASTER 30 missiles
    CROTALE NG : 2 systems and some missiles
    MISTRAL : 5 systems and hundreds of missiles
    RADAR : 1 GM 200

Air - Ground

    SCALP : about a hundred missiles
    A2SM : several hundred bombs starting in February 2024

Artillery

    CAESAR : 30 canons and tens of thousands of munitions
    TRF1 : 6 canons and tens of thousands of munitions
    LRU : 4 systems and hundreds rockets

Armoured and liaison vehicules

    AMX 10 RC: 38 AMX 10 RC and tens of thousands of 105mm shells
    VAB: 250 (including VAB SAN)
    VLTT P4: 120 vehicles
    MILAN: 17 launch positions and hundreds of missiles

Engineering and small arms

    Anti-tank rockets: several thousand
    Anti-tank mines: several thousand
    Assault rifles: several thousand
    12.7mm machine guns: several hundred
    Other ammunition: several million

Aerial domain

    Drones: several hundred reconnaissance drones and small tactical drones
    Jet fuel: tens of thousands of cubic meters

No idea how important / relevant it is. Just posting

"SCALP : about a hundred missiles"

Wish Germany would send long range Taurus.

I do wonder what the shelf life of those things are? Germany could hand over 200 - 300 of those things and just order new one to replace the oldest one in their stockpile.

In general, Germany is not especially keen to enter into conflicts with Russia. They are a long time economic and energy partner. It is why Germany has a history of thwarting EU energy security and solidarity, and why it dragged its feet w.r.t. early in this conflict.

Energy security like from the US? Germany spending billions to switch to US LNG as fast as possible just to be gut punched. Russia delivered gas without problems for 50+ years, the US is not able to deliver LNG reliably for 1 year:

"The U.S. has become the biggest exporter of LNG to Europe [..] U.S. President Joe Biden last week paused approvals for applications to export from new LNG projects to review the climate change and economic impact of such projects." [0]

The only energy the EU can really control is solar, but probably has not enough room for panels to replace LNG with green hydrogen.

[0] https://www.reuters.com/business/energy/us-lng-export-pause-...

Parts of the German government party SPD are long term friends of Putin and need to be dragged by their feet for every inch of the way. At least the chancellor changed course - luckily otherwise there would be no support at all. But he is still fighting a fraction in his party of Putin friends - there is a "governor" of the government party SPD in power who took money from Putin.

> France published a list of equipment they sent to Ukraine, about an hour ago [1]

Which is something new, until yesterday I was in with OP.

> No idea how important / relevant it is. Just posting

Here's some background: https://www.politico.eu/article/france-germany-macron-scholz...

All the help is great, but these numbers are tiny compared to what Russia is fielding. Thousands of shells sounds nice until you realize Russia fires tens of thousands per day, and is able to manufacture hundreds of thousands per month. 30 cannons is nice until you realize Russia has thousands. The West can not solve this problem by dusting off whatever is left in the forgotten corner in the storage and sending it out and forgetting about it. In fact, they can't even solve it with fully mobilizing their capacity - which is still not happening - because while Russia (and USSR for decades before that) has been maniacally arming and stockpiling, the West has been reducing their capacities and relaxing under the impression that the Cold War is over, wars are thing of the past, and whoever thinks Russia is a threat is to be laughed at and needs their head checked. Now some are waking up, but from waking up to gaining back all the lost capacity and getting even to parity is a long way, and one that will be very expensive - which I am not convinced the West is willing to do, especially when it's for benefit of some ex-Soviet country that's not even in the EU. Maybe Putin will take it and then just stop, because this is always how it worked with aggressive fascist dictators in the past.

That's not exactly true, as there's plenty of M198 built, they're just in storage. Ammunition is what's the main issue.

There's also plenty of M1 tanks in US.

The question arrises, when people start to realize that the storage of those wasn't up to the required standards.

The worst part was that multiple countries dragged their feet on providing arms and realizing that 2022 was the start of a new arms race. And multiple countries are still reluctant to commit to refill the arms stockpiles.(hence the inability to even start mass production 2 years after it's clear what's going on)

> whoever thinks Russia is a threat is to be laughed at and needs their head checked

As a Lithuanian - I know this all too well. My mother tongue is Russian and Russian political class had been dominated by anti-western, revanchist and militaristic rhetoric for at least the last 17 years. No one in the west bothered to listen.

Um, so the UK has rejoined the EU?

I'm mean it's a nitpick, but you're kinda nitpicking.

Not sure where I wrote that the UK is part of the EU.

  EU Total         49,67
  United States    42,22

Then there is a list of countries, like the US, some EU countries and the UK. The entry "EU Total" is not the sum of these countries.

With the argument, the list implies the UK being part of the EU b/c it is listed below, would be the same as the "United States" are part of the EU, because it is listed below.

You’re counting UK but not Canada in the EU?

I wonder if there is such a clear cut between aid and military spending. Most of the aid of Europe is send to Ukraine government such that the government can spend that money. I understand that about 90% of the USA military spending stays in the USA and is actually stimulating the economy.

This war is also a display of weapons produced by defense industries in the USA and increase the spending of foreign countries in the USA. So, the netto effect might be actually turn out to be possitive, if it were not chilled by the current position of the USA in not providing weapons. This is definitely not making European countries happy and might actually result in the EU on putting substantial effort in developing it own weapon systems in the coming decades and reduce the spending the USA.

It is quite hard to think about things knowing that countries can hold multiple contradicting ideas simultaneously. Nothing is entirely correct or incorrect.

for example, true or false: The US started a war against Europe and Russia by blowing up the pipeline. If we look at it like that it is a great success?

Why would that perspective be entirely wrong?

I think South Korea does pump out more 155mm shells than most other countries, including US ?

And Europe doesn't order there due to french veto.

If you can not deliver personal, delivery is fine as long as no cannon go hungry.

Congratulations for picking with 155mm shells one of the few items that Europe has far outproduced the US with an estimated capacity of 650k shells/year pre war and a ramped up actual production to 1 mill/year in the next few months.

US also right now possesses the largest stash of 155 munition. Small fraction of that trove would've save Avdiivka.

Yep. And the so-called "aid to Ukraine", 80% of it would be spent within the US on current stockpiles and new equipment. It's curious that the US military-industrial complex isn't falling all over itself attempting to send Ukraine lots of expensive gear and supplies it didn't even ask for. I guess there are too many Putin sympathizers in US political circles able to buy, engineer, and install influence.

> It's curious that the US military-industrial complex isn't falling all over itself attempting to send Ukraine lots of expensive gear and supplies it didn't even ask for. I guess there are too many Putin sympathizers in US political circles able to buy, engineer, and install influence

That's an absurd premise. That gets endlessly repeated on Reddit and elsewhere with absolutely zero proof. If so much of the US Government (the world's richest nation and the only superpower) is purchased by a weak and poor enemy nation (Russia), where's the proof of that? Not supporting a war isn't proof. So a US politician against the Israeli war is bought and paid for by Hamas or Iran? It's laughable and quite obviously so. Nobody would dare float that premise, but somehow for Ukraine it's the go to propaganda.

Why isn't the Biden DOJ + FBI + CIA + FBI + NSA running a large sting operation against all these bought and paid for US politicians that Russia owns? Because it doesn't exist. It'd be a huge win for the Biden Admin to bring those people down and get them arrested. And yet, crickets.

All you really have are US politicians that are opposite of Biden looking to jab him any way they can, because it's a partisan battle and they're looking to score points. It's no more complicated than that. They're taking up position opposite of Biden.

And with the military industrial complex, the issue is nobody is paying for that gear. Ukraine is a hyper poor nation, they are barely surviving. Anything advanced has to get Biden Admin and or Congressional approval. Ukraine isn't getting the very best US weapons (eg F35s) and should not.

North Korea was ready...

Good thing Bulgaria is able to supply Ukraine with plenty of 152mm shells for their old soviet artillery.

Ukraine is fucked in the long term by demographics and economics, not by the lack of any particular weapon or munition. Now that the war has settled into an attritional phase, it's a question of who will run out of fighting men and war materiel first. The answer is unfortunately clear.

People down-voting this, care to explain how this is wrong?? I've thought about this a lot and as far as I can tell, this is the only reasonable expectation I can come up with as well... it seems quite possible to me that the reason Europe and the USA are turning up the "Russia will soon attack us" rhetoric is to justify higher military spending in the short term, and sending boots to Ukraine in the medium term, given that if you look at the reality of the situation, the Russian military has been stopped by a weak (compared to NATO) Ukrainian military, hence you would have to conclude that the possibility of Russia actually even thinking of attacking NATO in the next few decades should be very much zero under any circumstances. It's like thinking in the 60's that if we don't stop North Vietnam, they will come for the rest of Asia :D it just doesn't add up to any reasonable, rather than passion/hate-filled analysis (which is what we mostly see in the media, unfortunately).

Sure: he's flat out wrong. This has been played out again and again - "winning a war" is meaningless if you can't retain the territory. Unless the world is going to stand by and allow Russia to commit genocide of the entirety of the Ukranian population, this will move from a traditional war to a guerilla war. Ukrainians can fight guerilla warfare longer than Putin is going to be alive and able to maintain support of the Russian population. They couldn't conquer Afghanistan drawing from more than double the population.

https://www.macrotrends.net/countries/AFG/afghanistan/popula...

https://www.statista.com/statistics/1072400/population-us-us...

https://www.macrotrends.net/countries/UKR/ukraine/population

https://www.macrotrends.net/countries/RUS/russia/population

In the short term, as in right now these days they suffer lack of ammunition.

And if they loose the war, they won't exist at all. Despite Russia having demographic and economic issues too.

Wars aren't decided by pure manpower/materiel, or the US would have won the Vietnam war. It's all about win conditions.

For instance, if Russia loses e.g. 20% of their population then the economy will utterly tank, and if the economy tanks then Putin will lose support for the war and risk falling out of a window.

Ukraine doesn't actually need to win here, they just need to stall the war out for longer than Russia is willing to stay. Russia doesn't need to wipe out Ukraine, they just need to kill Western support of Ukraine and dry up the flow of military aid.

So if Ukraine just needs to stall then why did they go on a counterattack? Because it brings in more military aid now while Russia still has a materiel shortage. If Ukraine has a harsh materiel advantage over Russia then they can push Russian casualty rates far harder and force Putin into political strife much sooner.

Putin crippled the Russian economy by refusing to sell gas to the EU and by extension hurt Russian materiel production, but the tactic makes sense when you consider his win conditions: break Ukraine's western support, so that Russia has a materiel advantage.

>"Russia will soon attack us" rhetoric

I think that's actually Russian propaganda - Russia wants the West afraid to give Ukraine aid, so they play up the nuclear threat every time new milestones in aid are suggested (e.g. when the first F35 is given to Ukraine), then fold the moment the milestone is reached. Russia does this because slowing western aid to Ukraine is vital for their theory of victory.

> I think that's actually Russian propaganda

Not at all. Are you joking? Multiple governments in Europe issued warnings to the population that they should prepare for war. Sweden is even re-opening Cold War era bunkers for the population to hide in case of attacks, and old military bases are re-opening.

But what does "win" mean here? Ukraine clearly is not going to displace Russia, but they can presumably make Russia's occupation expensive and net-negative for several more years at a fraction of their current attrition rate, unless they're forced to the table.

And this seems like a functional loss for Russia. The Eastern provinces Russia holds aren't that valuable in any objective sense. Crimea provides an extremely valuable Black Sea port, but only if Russia can safely keep warships there -- which Russia currently is not able to do. Russia has certainly proven that if they rebuild their entire economy around the goal of holding these assets they can, indeed defend them indefinitely. But they haven't demonstrated that this is worthwhile or sustainable without a very generous peace deal from Ukraine.

Ukraine's primary artillery for 155mm shells are the French CAESAR and US M777.

There is no need to fire tens of thousands of shells with this equipment, and no one would ever do that. These shells cost thousands of dollars each.

The upside is that they are incredibly accurate, with an error radius of something like 100m at 25km, using the standard dumb shells. (Things like Excalibur are markedly more accurate, but cost $100k each).

Add in counterbattery radar, and there's just no reason Ukraine would ever need to fire 25,000 shells a day like Russia does.

Clearly Ukraine needs more 155mm ammunition, but there's no reason to directly compare the numbers of shells launched by Russia and Ukraine.

Also Archer, Pzh2000 and FH155/FH70.

The US and the EU are mostly at parity when it comes to total spending (that includes military spending), with the difference being of about 5-10% last time I checked (which was sometimes in September of 2023). By how things have progressed since then it is fair to say that the EU has taken the upper hand on that.

And this is all without counting the "externalities" of the war in Ukraine which Europe had to absorb all by itself, such as higher energy prices, selling assets in Russia at very discounted prices (for comparison, the US and the UK didn't have that much stuff to sell there anyway) and the material help and assistance provided to the millions of Ukrainian refugees.

does anyone know how much Russia has spent so far in the war?

perchance, ledger, tallying, coffers, ponders, arsenal, remnants, tally, scales, colossal, amidst, perplexing, enigma, benefactor, patron, coffers, benefactor, defies, coffers, denouement

Do you always write like this? It reads like something from the 19th century.

I've read somewhere today that it's around ~$210b+ so far

That is Europe vs the US. Europe has almost 800million people, US less than 350million. On a per capital basis the average American has outspent the average European by a significant margin.

More like 450 million.

EU != Europe. EU has a population of just under 450 million. To get even close to an 800 million number you have to include all of both Russian and all the former Soviet states, which in this scenario would be rather misleading, given the geopolitics of the events under discussion.

That chart is a bit pointless

USA can claim that one Bradley is 2mln, but what is a real value? Polish T-72 can be worth 1mln, but it's much more valuable than Bradley. UA army knows how to fix it and operate.

I would say that Bradley is actually more valuable, since it can serve wider range of missions, while having higher crew survival rate and being more maneuverable.

Without crew trained on that particular vehicle the value drops steeply.

I guess that's why they were trained on that particular vehicle…

Just like the Ukranian crews were trained on leopard, Abrams, etc

Huh? A Bradley is more survivable than a modern T-72? It's a light IFV, it's only advantage is to be more versatile and maneuverable. It is not going to be more survivable.

If you're talking about the autoloader - the kind of munition that would detonate the munitions on a modern T-72 would completely eviscerate any IFV.

If it really was more survivable than a modern tank, why would anyone even bother making tanks, when IFVs have about as much firepower when using ATGMs?

How is a T-72 a "modern tank"? There are dozens of stories of both American (during various other wars) and Ukranian Bradley crews engaging T-72s and winning.

Polish T-72s are modern tanks with tons of upgrades. They are not comparable to base model T-72s in Iraq. They have much improved armor, firepower, sensors, and mobility. It's a lot like how modern Abrams are barely comparable to the original model, which is only 6 years more recent than the T-72. In fact, the Russian T-90 and Chinese ZTZ99 are also heavily upgraded T-72s.

In the era of ATGMs IFVs can engage tanks and win, no matter the tank. In fact, an infantry soldier with an ATGM can engage basically any tank and win. That doesn't mean a soldier is more survivable or more capable than a tank.

A Bradley would be disabled or destroyed by many weapons any modern tank would shrug off, and it cannot provide sustained heavy fire as it has a very limited number of ATGMs.

No. Apples vs. oranges. While UA lacks IFVs, they first need main battle tanks. IFVs without MBTs doesn't comprise a survivable mixed combat element. Main battle tanks with troops with AGTMs is a starting point, IFVs would enhance their mobility but cannot replace the priority of having MBTs before IFVs.

All US military spending is not properly accounted for in these comparisons.

The US provides a huge military shield in Europe and it costs a lot and none of it gets counted toward helping Ukraine. That shield enables European nations to shift resources relatively safely into helping Ukraine. If you remove that shield, those nations can no longer safely give to such a great extent, they'd have to think with far greater scrutiny of their own defense.

US spending on European defense makes it possible for smaller European nations to give military funds and weapons to Ukraine.

Our massive air force protection enables European nations to provide their F16s to Ukraine, as one example.

Go ahead and staple $100 billion more to that military figure for the past two years.

> The US has provided more funding to Ukraine than the world combined by a large margin

This is not true for some time now.

First google result (but there are more charts, numbers and sources): https://www.ifw-kiel.de/topics/war-against-ukraine/ukraine-s...

Yet whoever provided more aid is irrelevant, since it's not enough anyway. We, as a world, are observing (and doing nothing, for the most part) fourth reich coming into action.

It looks like your charts include things like refugee aid costs, which make up a large percentage of European aid. If you remove these costs and go strictly by military support, which is what we are talking about, then my point stands.

No it does not; You said:"The US has provided more funding to Ukraine than the world combined by a large margin"...

Pick "Military" only in the chart, add up the numbers of, Germany, UK, Denmark, Norway, and Netherlands, and you'll get a higher number than the US.

Sorry, I'll rephrase: the US has delivered roughly equivalent military aid to Ukraine as the rest of the world combined.

Does that diminish my point?

I guess that means the US cannot be trusted.

Seems kinda unfair. USA has the biggest military complex, bigger than the rest of world combined IIRC. Naturally, can they deliver military aid faster and better than the rest of the world.

Part of the annoyance, as a US citizen, is that we spend ~3.5% of GDP on military. And that's off a large GDP, so hiding scaling efficiencies that would allow it to run lower while maintaining capability. And much more during the Cold War era!

That "bigger" is bought, and has been every year. We could spend that money on other things: social welfare, health care, etc.

So, excusing Europe's inability to deliver mass military aid, when they've willingly underinvested in their defense industry and equipment for decades, rings a bit hollow.

Yeah, especially when Europeans have mocked the US for decades for spending too much on its military while relying on security guarantees for their protection.

The US does get a lot from that in exchange, it's not like the US is being altruistic and providing security out of the goodness in your hearts, the US never does anything altruistically (as most nation-states do not), the dissonance that even well-educated Americans have as if they were footing a bill without getting nothing in return is frankly baffling.

It's infuriating how many Americans don't seem to realize that we would spend the exact same amount on our military even if Russia, China, and NATO all evaporated tomorrow.

We police the world because being the world police is fabulously profitable. You want to maintain the largest economy in the world? Well then you want to keep up the status quo of "you can do business between most countries, and can ship anything across the world for pennies per pound with near zero risk".

> "you can do business between most countries, and can ship anything across the world for pennies per pound with near zero risk"

Arguably, the biggest beneficiary of the US Navy's protection of commercial shipping has been China.

Especially considering China doesn't pay for any of that protection.

And yet because of exactly that, they are hesitant to take hostile action towards the United States, because of the whole "being starved of imported food and oil" thing that would trivially happen. That's a big reason they've been trying to build so many overland routes for shipping, to offset the inability to protect maritime shipping without US help.

Yet again it's the US explicitly spending money to keep someone dependent, similar to Russia's selling cheap gas to put economic pressure on the west.

China and the US really really really don't want to go to war, because even an unsteady "peace" between us is so goddamn profitable. But the US wants everyone to be able to sail by the Chinese coast without harassment, and China wants to own the entire sea north of Australia so.....

Fair in what way? My point isn't about who is better. My point is that the US has been an extremely crucial partner to Ukraine, in terms of countries, _the_ most crucial partner. My feeling from the interactions on this forum is that Europeans do not see it that way.

Can you win a war with weapons alone? Can a nation survive with military aid alone?

USA is not the only crucial partner for Ukraine in this war, they are the crucial partner in a specific area. That's why it's unfair to undersell the crucial partners in other important areas. Everyone is doing their thing to support in the areas they can give support. But not everyone can give the same support, and not everyone should support in areas already covered by others.

Well yes, a big chunk of the world relies on the US to provide military power. How dare the US actually be good at doing the thing that the world asks the US to do.

That seems kinda unfair? You don't think it's unfair that the US invests in defense for its own strategic reasons but also happens to greatly benefit the rest of the world while the rest of the world can invest in social programs that only benefit themselves all to turn around and criticize the US as soon as that plan seems short sighted? I think that's pretty fucked up personally.

If this isn't strategics reasons, I don't know what is.

That's for the US to decide. Outside of fair share of NATO dues, the rest isn't for Europe to stick its nose in any more than the US doesn't stick its nose in how Europe spends its budget.

Sure, that is unfair. But what is happening right now is the US having dragged its European partners into a very aggressive position in the Ukraine war, suddenly decides that it no longer cares about it. So Europe has a half dead crazy Russia on its door, has to fill in for the lack of US aid and might very well have the US retreat from NATO when Trump takes office.

You are not rephrasing, you are moving the goal posts, you said:

> The US has provided more funding to Ukraine than the world combined by a large margin, and the lesson you take away is that the US is somehow at fault.

No, it has not provided more funding to Ukraine than the world combined, the EU by itself has provided more military aid than the US already.

You're just wrong. It's not hard to admit that, trying to save face just made it worse...

The EU's military commitments narrowly edge out US military commitments before a new bill is approved. This does not take away from the larger point of the US not being a bad partner to Ukraine or that the US cannot be trusted as a partner.

"we" are doing nothing because "we" are not under attack; Ukraine did not have defense pacts with other countries, and the military aid took a while to get started because of the risk of Russia seeing it as hostility towards them, further escalating the conflict.

If it escalates, it will escalate bigly. If Russia attacks a NATO country, article 5 will / should kick in and the combined military force of 31 countries (with or without the US) will combine their strengths.

But nobody wants this to escalate further, because nukes. Nothing will matter anymore if Russia decides to use them. It doesn't matter if they lose hundreds of thousands of people, material, and are completely humiliated, as long as they have nukes, "we" cannot strike back.

At this point, wishful thinking that the Ukraine conflict seizes up again, keeps the Russian army occupied, and things cool off slowly. Or that the Russian leadership is replaced, but there's no guarantees it would be replaced by someone who would stop the war.

"But nobody wants this to escalate further, because nukes."

France and the UK will not use nukes when Poland is invaded.

Russia will not use nukes when invading Poland.

Russia might not even use nukes when losing Kaliningrad (but I'm not so sure there, if Ukraine gets back Crimea we will see).

What are you going to do with Kaliningrad if you occupy it? Are you going to hand out EU Schengen passports to its residents? You may get a large line for ingress if you're going to swap Russian passpors for EU ones.

If you don't, Russia will politely ask to have its territory back and would get that eventually.

Bottom line, stop thinking about the land as if it was not full of people settled there.

Honestly if you offer residents of Kaliningrad some free EU passports on condition they need to move out of Russia I pretty certain like 90% of them will gladly accept.

Because Germany has no interest in Kaliningrad and Poland has no (or a very weak) claim, I'd say should it come to that, Kaliningrad will be demilitarized and then "given back" to Russia.

And the argument was about nukes, in the event NATO invades Kaliningrad because of missle sites, not if it should or would.

Funnily the staunchest supporters of Putin in Germany (Nazis) would also be the only ones who would like to have Königsberg back.

Lithuania might want some more beach.

>might not even use nukes when losing Kaliningrad

https://bellenews.com/2013/12/16/world/europe-news/russia-de...

Actually the USA does have a defense pact with the Ukraine. Ukraine gave up its nuclear bomb and destroyed its strategic bombers with the promise that it would be defended by the USA and Russia. Now that Russia stept out of that deal, it does not mean that the USA no longer has the moral obligation of its part of the deal.

> the promise that it would be defended by the USA and Russia

The promise[1] was to not invade it, it was not to provide defence.

1. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Budapest_Memorandum

> Actually the USA does have a defense pact with the Ukraine.

The Budapest memorandum is not a defense pact. The only obligation the US has is to e escalate to the UN security council if Ukraine gets nuked.

https://web.archive.org/web/20170312052208/http://www.cfr.or...

I stand corrected, the Budapest memorandum is not a defense pact. The Ukraine government acted in good faith that they would not be invaded. Now that it has indeed be invaded by one of the countries signing the memorandum, it does give the other parties a moral obligation to step in. The USA is now showing to be an unreliable party and I think that this weakens the position of the USA in the world.

The easiest solution to this war is sitting Zelenskyy down with Putin and striking a compromise and forming a peace treaty, if the U.S. war mongers allow it.

How long will that last?

Like the last several ones, before or after Russia invaded Crimea?

Or the one where Russia guaranteed Ukraines sovereignty if they would give up nuclear weapons? (Russia playing the long con, got what it wanted, Ukraine free of nuclear weapons, ready to be invaded).

The nukes deal wasn't about granting sovereignty. Ukraine had sovereignty since the formation of Soviet Union over 100 years ago(Ukraine even retained it's seat in UN, upon founding).

That deal was just about nuclear proliferation. It was well reasoned at the time and had no special conditions.

That being said - the idea that Ukrainians are a "fake nation" has been a prominent talking point in Russia my entire life.

No.

I didn't say "grant" I did write "guarantee".

Russia signed the Budapest Memorandum [0] ("guarantee Ukraines sovereignty") so Ukraine would sign the Lisbon Protocol [1] ("give up nuclear weapons").

Ukraine gives up nuclear weapons, Russia guarantees Ukraines sovereignty. Simple:

"The Budapest Memorandum on Security Assurances comprises three substantially identical political agreements [..] to provide security assurances by its signatories relating to the accession of [..] Ukraine to the Treaty on the Non-Proliferation of Nuclear Weapons [..] Respect the signatory's independence and sovereignty in the existing borders" [0]

[0] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Budapest_Memorandum

[1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lisbon_Protocol

"to this war"

What about the next war? Have you listened to Putin? Ukraine is an artificial nation according to him and Russia has the right to reabsorb "Little Russia". How do you compromise with that view?

I listened to him speak for two hours. Hundreds of thousands of people have been killed in the war, how many more lives should be sacrificed to avoid compromise? What about prioritizing the value of human lives over drawing lines on a map between two very broken, very corrupt countries?

I don't really get how you can even begin to trust anything that Putin promises or signs.

Russia has a long tradition of treating treaties as scraps of paper, and they have a recent history in this regard with Ukraine.

Their long-term aim is to absorb Ukraine and exploit its industrial and agricultural potential for further imperial expansion. The next will be the Baltic countries and after them Central Europe.

Whatever peace will be signed now will last precisely as long as it takes Russia to rebuild their offensive capabilities for the next round of war.

All the dead are fault of Putin and his imperial ambitions. Our only choice is whether to submit and become serfs in a neo-Russian empire, or fight back and help Ukrainians fight back.

I'm not sure how anyone begins to trust our own military or elected Establishment leaders who start and fund endless frivolous wars for decades, for greed, leaving the Middle East absolutely laid to waste.

Bush, Obama / Hillary, and Biden are no different than Putin, if not far worse. They deserve no more trust from Americans than a serial killer who took out members of your family for fun. They are reckless abusers, for greed and continued power.

If I were a Middle Easterner, I would agree. Or South American, for that purpose.

(With one huge caveat, both the Middle Easterners and the South Americans are perfectly capable of starting various shit themselves. Don't deprive them of agency by painting them as blind and obedient puppets of Washington. Especially the Middle East is a very ancient civilization with a tradition of backstabbing and betrayal going deep into the Antiquity. They don't have to learn that from some Westerners.)

But in the context of European security, the main problem of the last decades was either the USSR or Russia, not the US. It was Soviet tanks that rolled through Czechoslovak cities in 1968 to crush our attempt at political independence, not American ones.

Context matters, and for former Soviet Bloc nations, Americans are an ally against potential reestablishment of Russian rule.

But today's Russia is explicitly against the Bolsheviks and any form of the USSR altogether. Russia has moved well beyond that, so it isn't a matter of reestablishing former Russian rule under the same horrible terms as before. They are prospering now, are they not?

In 2023, a trusted, world-renowned expert — Bill Gates — stated that Ukraine is one of the single most corrupt nations in the world, and that he feels very sorry for the people there. [1] That says a lot, doesn't it?

Zelenskyy shuts down churches, imprisons political protestors and American journalists, and launders money back to the U.S. war machine after we "fund" them every month or less — to the order of $113 million per day now. How could anyone not see clearly what's happening there? It seems that people are so blinded by their hatred for Russia, that what the people are suffering in Ukraine on Ukraine's own accord isn't enough of a problem, despite how gaping it is.

1. https://x.com/RG_SargeXB/status/1758499201468768291?s=20

Russia may be explicitly against Bolsheviks (though recycling the Soviet anthem!), and Putin's Russia is indeed more akin to the former tsarist Empire than to USSR, but the tsarist Empire was fairly evil, too. Just ask the Poles or the Jews. Russian empire didn't grow to its huge size by trade and friendship, it was conquest.

Ukraine is corrupt. So what? Ukrainian corruption is a threat to no one. Not a single nation from Finland to Bulgaria considers itself vulnerable to Ukrainian military aggression, because they aren't an imperial nation and don't seek to dominate others. They were perfectly fine within their 1991 borders and never attempted to annex any extra territory by any means.

It is Russia's problem, in the words of great Václav Havel, that it does not know exactly where it ends.

All the hatred for Russia stems from their former heavy-handed rule of other nations. If they sincerely tried to make amends, it would slowly go away. They are now trying to rebuild their former imperial system. OF COURSE that nations which escaped their tyranny once are going to hate them.

It is freaking simple: we, as in Estonians, Latvians, Poles, Czechs, Rumanians, Ukrainians, Georgians etc. DON'T WANT TO BE THREATENED OR ATTACKED BY RUSSIA. That's it. We have had enough experience with Russian rule. It is primitive and brutal at the same time. Never again.

"Estonians, Latvians, Poles, Czechs, Rumanians, Ukrainians, Georgians etc. DON'T WANT TO BE THREATENED OR ATTACKED BY RUSSIA."

Exactly. Last time Russia and Germany signed a deal to cut Eastern Europe in half, then each invaded countries on their side of the line (and cut Poland in half). Sadly this is not how it is teached in Russia. Which is one of the reasons for what is happening now.

Russias goals haven't changed. Luckily Germany (currently) wants nothing of it.

> specially the Middle East is a very ancient civilization with a tradition of backstabbing and betrayal going deep into the Antiquity.

As a "Middle Easterner" (a colonialist term by the way), I didn't realize that the "Middle East" was one conglomerate culture. Thank you for teaching me about my history /s

Civilization is an umbrella term that usually covers multiple cultures.

We also speak of Western civilization, even though it doesn't equal to one conglomerate culture either.

As for 'colonialist' term ... sigh, do I care how people call Europe on Arabic or Turkish forums? Every cultural region has some lingo that reflects its history.

'Europe' itself is a Phoenician word that means "country of sunset". From their perspective, it was. Hereby I am forgiving old Phoenician colonialists (and they indeed colonized much of the Mediterranean) for naming some continent according to their local perspective. That is what people tend to do.

So your statement is a tautology. You'll find good and bad people in any group; there's nothing inherent in "middle eastern civilization" that promotes backstabbing, and in fact you'll find the opposite.

Not in the context of the comment I was reacting upon, which seems to be based in the Susan Sontag view of the West.

"The US has provided more funding to Ukraine than the world combined by a large margin, and the lesson you take away is that the US is somehow at fault."

I've said the US can't be trusted to keep support up. Don't twist my words.

> The US has provided more funding to Ukraine than the world combined by a large margin, and the lesson you take away is that the US is somehow at fault.

There is nothing in the parent post to even hint that they are saying that the US is to blame for what happened.

The US cannot be trusted to fulfill it's approved upon role in NATO if and when the push comes to shove (that damage to the US reputation is done).

I want to make it clear that the US does not sholder this responsibility alone. Every signatory to the convention is required to come to it's allies need if needed.

Europe has to get it's act together when it comes to securing its own borders, with tech and armaments produced inside said borders but in a cooperation with the US. As partners.

Ukraine is not part of NATO, so how has push come to shove?

The very politicians blocking Ukraine support are openly talking about how NATO should be abandoned. I don't know how else you can interpret that other than making Europe doubt the US would come to her aid.

I would say the rest of the Republicans have ignored or shrugged off his comments more than agree with them.

That just doesn't matter as long as they caucus in unity and vote in unity. Republicans are beholden to Trump's rhetoric so they can get the MAGA vote and keep their damn jobs. That's why they keep falling in line no matter how many times they say "no no we really shouldn't do what Trump says". They were perfectly willing to kill a bill they all agreed was good for the US because Trump said so, because not fixing the problem they've been bitching about fixing for decades will help Trump campaign on fixing the problem.

Surely they as individuals would be better off saying "look, we cowed the Biden admin into fixing the problems, look how good we are at our jobs re-elect us" but that doesn't work, because they are beholden to the MAGAs. So instead they keep giving awkward comments and going back on their own stated opinions because the only uniting strategy (which was the official Republican party policy BEFORE Trump's own progeny ran the Republican party) is to bootlick Trump.

When they vote how he says, pretty much exclusively, they are not "ignoring or shrugging off" his comments.

>>> The US cannot be trusted to fulfill it's approved upon role in NATO if and when the push comes to shove (that damage to the US reputation is done).

What role as the US failed to fulfill in Ukraine? Ukraine isn't a NATO member, the US had no obligation to come to their support, yet we did anyways.

Meanwhile Germany divested their entire domestic energy security and became subservient to Russia for energy - enabling this entire conflict b/c Russia felt Europe became addicted and depended to Russian fuels and wouldn't oppose their dealers.

Yes, like buying LNG from the US [0]

[0] https://www.reuters.com/business/energy/us-lng-export-pause-...

"Europe became addicted and depended to Russian fuels "

Yes like the US was addicted to oil from the middle east. The difference, Europe couldn't invade Russia and take the gas away.

Funding to Ukraine is even more complicated than most people realize. A massive amount of the money spent for weapons to be delivered to Ukraine is produced outside Ukraine in the US, EU etc. In cases where existing vehicles and ammunition is sent it is also an opportunity for all donors to modernize their vehicles and ammunition by replacing the donated ones with new ones.

The money is produced or the weapons?

With fiat, both :-D

That's just something they tell you during your election campaign. The truth is a bit different, USA is good at promissing and forcing other to do, but it did very little, compared to own GDP and military abilities.

Money:

- EU - 85,0 Mrd. €

- USA - 67,7 Mrd. €

- Deutschland - 22,1 Mrd. €

- Vereinigtes Königreich - 15,7 Mrd. €

- Dänemark - 8,8 Mrd. €

- EU: nur gemeinsame Hilfe

- Quelle: Institut für Weltwirtschaft / Ukraine Support Tracker

Tanks, promissed and delivered:

- Polen 324 Stück 264 Stück

- Niederlande 104 Stück 23 Stück

- Tschechien 90 Stück 90 Stück

- USA 76 Stück 23 Stück

- Deutschland 55 Stück 48 Stück

You cherry-pick tanks as your metric? Why don't we look at the totality of American deliveries, including long-range munitions and artillery, and see who comes ahead? What equivalent of game-changing ordnance, such as the GDSLB, are European countries providing?

This is why a large portion of Americans could care less about the defense of Europe. No matter what we do, it's either wrong or not enough. Meanwhile, Europe spent the last few decades enjoying cheap Russian energy and neglecting its defense spending and then turned around and told the US that we don't do enough to stop Russia.

Me: "Europe can't trust the US"

You: "How dare you ....!?"

Later You: "This is why a large portion of Americans could care less about the defense of Europe."

That was easy.

Q.E.D.

I don't see how that means you can't trust America. A large % does not equal a majority. Look at polling to see where the majority of US sentiment lies.

Similarly, if you look at surveys of Germans, you will see that a large % do not support Military aid of Ukraine, not a majority, but a large percentage. By your logic, does that mean that Ukraine cannot trust Germany?

It doesn't take a majority of voters to elect a President in the U.S. thanks to the electoral college.

Only 31% of the US believes we are providing too much support to Ukraine.

Because you are objectively not providing more than any other NATO land.

Which country is providing more than the US? The only thing that matters is the absolute numbers. Ukraine doesn't care if Moldova contributes 10% of its GDP because it amounts to nothing compared to 1% of US GDP.

Someone should tell the Speaker of the House that

Due to the fucked nature of the political system in America most people don't matter. Who cares if someone in California supports aid to Ukraine when Trumpistic and Putinistic swing-voters in Georgia does not.

> This is why a large portion of Americans could care less about the defense of Europe. No matter what we do, it's either wrong or not enough. Meanwhile, Europe spent the last few decades enjoying cheap Russian energy and neglecting its defense spending and then turned around and told the US that we don't do enough to stop Russia.

That comment comes off as surpisingly ignorant of the benefits that the US gets by having a buffer zone between it self on either side (Europe on it's eastern flank and the indo pacific on the western flank).

Your whole foreign policy revolves around keeping these areas armed and protected in cooperation with local governments in an effort of keeping conflict from reaching US shores (an evolution of the Monroe doctrine, which started back in the 19th century with keeping European conquest out of the immediate surroundings).

I would highly recommend picking up 'The Grand Chessboard[0]' by Zbigniew Brzezinski, former counselor to Presidents Lyndon B Johnson and Jimmy Carter. It is an excellent light read on the landscape in the mid 90's in regards to US foreign policy and national security. It even forshadows much that has happened recently.

It will truly fill in some gaps.

> Meanwhile, Europe spent the last few decades enjoying cheap Russian energy

Let us not forget that for a long time the US was hooked on foreign imported oil from the middle east, and even in 2021 Russian energy made up a total of 4% of the domestic US energy usage (up since Venezualian sources were not available as readily).

Please don't paint the US as some white knight that does what ever it can to please others on the world stage for altruistic reasons.

At worst it is disingenuous, and at best signals a massive ignorance of the world stage, history and the actors playing on it (again, highly recommend the book[0]).

[0]: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Grand_Chessboard

edit: spelling.

My comment is ignorant because a large portion of America could care less about defending Europe? I guess I'll try and educate 100 million Americans before commenting again…

Thanks for explaining that every country has motives behind its actions. I'm familiar with realpolitik it has nothing to do with what average Americans feel about Europe.

I'm just relating the feelings a lot of people I know have towards the region. You might not like it or agree with it(I don't) but lecturing Americans on how bad they are probably isn't the best way to bring them around to your side.

> My comment is ignorant because a large portion of America could care less about defending Europe? I guess I'll try and educate 100 million Americans before commenting again…

No need to be unreasonable. Educating one self should be sufficient as a start, before moving on to the immediate surroundings.

> Thanks for explaining that every country has motives behind its actions. I'm familiar with realpolitik it has nothing to do with what average Americans feel about Europe.

Of course not. The average anyone is not guided by theory. That wasn't my point.

My point was that the comment clearly did not come off as being written in good faith as an objective statement of the sentiment of the general public in the US alone. And as such it deserved to be answered in tone.

> You might not like it or agree with it(I don't) but lecturing Americans on how bad they are probably isn't the best way to bring them around to your side.

Persuading citizens of the US to the benefits of their own government's policies is not on the priority list for me. Frankly if anything, it should be the task of those citizens with knowledge of the theory that guides the making of those policies to educate their country men of the benefits. Yes, further military spending is not popular. But boots on ground is even less so.

To be honest I do not like the way the US conducts it self on the world stage, and believe that the world would be much better for it if the playing field was more even (rather than the modern day hegemony we have).

Cooling European/US relations with the EU taking steps to become more self reliant militarily, but still with the US as an equal partner, can only be considered a good thing.

> The one bill that was blocked by Congress would be more support than Europe as a whole has provided to Ukraine to date.

Didn't EU just now agreed on future aid of the same amount the USA is still struggling to get through?

That is a lie. EU and European countries has given more than double that of the US.

If you go by military support of Ukraine, this is not true. It's only valid if you include things like humanitarian support. If the US passes its support bill, it would be on equal footing with all aid to Ukraine from Europe, including humanitarian support.

Please stop spreading misinformation.

Please stop making baseless accusations.

Let's get the facts straight

https://www.ifw-kiel.de/topics/war-against-ukraine/ukraine-s...

Military help from EU countries is higher than US, humanitarian help is multiple times higher and so is financial help.

If US passes the bill then it will somewhat catch up. IF it passes. Perhaps it decides to degrade its international standing even more instead, who knows.

>That is a lie. EU and European countries has given more than double that of the US.

Based on what number? You tell other people not to make things up, then throw out outlandish claims without citation.

And as for the "by GDP number" - you all seem to be failing to take into account overall military spending by GDP. Most of Europe spends almost nothing because they rely on the US to present a threat to their potential enemies. It's a lot easier to spend 5% of your GDP on military spending for a year or two when the rest of the last 40 years it's been less than 1% because the US has been spending 4-8% YoY for the duration on top of the direct aid.

https://www.statista.com/statistics/1303432/total-bilateral-...

https://www.bbc.com/news/world-us-canada-64656301

https://www.cfr.org/article/how-much-aid-has-us-sent-ukraine...

https://app.23degrees.io/view/5V9AdDpw1pmLxo1e-bar-stacked-h...

the usg considers russia one of its key rivals, and so this ukraine thing was a godsend for them: ukraine provides the cannon fodder to fight and die, usg provides the materiel, and russia doesn't have a casus belli to nuke new york. the usg gets all the benefits of fighting a land war with russia with almost none of the costs: no messy body bag parades on cnn, no psychologically disturbed veterans blowing up federal buildings in oklahoma, no sheets of radioactive glass that were until recently thriving metropolises, and no test of the us nuclear response capabilities

all it's cost so far, in direct terms, is a hundred billion dollars or so over a couple of years, in an economy with thirty trillion dollars a year of gdp. 0.2% of gdp, say. contrast with, for example, 2.5% for the apollo program, or 1% for the manhattan project

it sucks pretty bad for the ukrainians tho. and the russians. they're being ground into hamburger by the machinations of putin and the usg, jockeying for power. anyone with a scrap of human feeling is horrified by what is happening. but that's not what animates the cfr

Meanwhile even in this "we can't spend fifty bucks on Russia that we could be spending on tax breaks for oil barons!" political landscape, Russia would run out of hunks of metal to recommission into tanks within two years.

Can you imagine erasing your biggest rival's entire military threat with $300 billion? That's like four whole miles of Californian high speed rail!

It's less about current actions and more about how mercurial and dysfunctional the US congress currently is. No one is willing to bet their sovereignty on the outcome of a US presidential election.

The US funds their own economy, most of the money they send goes back to the US economy because they produce the weapons that Ukraine purchase.

And the stockpiles of artillery, long-range munitions, armor, ammo, guns, etc sent?

The US really can't win. If we didn't support Ukraine we would be blasted. If we do it's because we are just trying to enrich ourselves.

Because the only winning move it not to play. This is Europe's war. Not sure why the US is involved at all. It's not like Ukraine has oil or a NATO partner.

As Viscount Cunningham famously said when he risked his fleet to evacuate troops in the Battle of Crete in 1941, 'It takes three years to build a ship; it takes three centuries to build a tradition'. Which feels like how America's new insularism is undoing all the "leader of the free world" fandom that it has carefully cultivated - and profited from - in the last 80 years.

Today the US has two strategic enemies - Russia and China - and two strategic partners, Nato in Europe and everyone in pacific except China.

The US can spend peanuts - it really isn't a lot of money in US defence terms - backing Ukraine and using Ukrainian casualties to defeat it's strategic enemy, Russia, whilst making it's other strategic enemy, China, fear it.

Or it can waver and show it's no longer the leader of the democratic world and make all it's allies in Europe and Asia not believe in it.

My big fear is that it is empowering China to dare to have it's go at Taiwan in a couple of years.

Do Europeans think the US is the leader of the free world?

I'm not a leader, but behind closed doors, grudgingly, my impression is that they do (still) think that.

A few more quotes by Trump might change that though.

Realistically: either the US is, or no one is.

It certainly seems that the US is unsure whether it wants this role. The Congress is putting US credibility at huge risk right now.

Nevertheless, if the US abdicates its leadership, the free world will shrink. Even democracies have domestic enemies and all of these will be encouraged to push autocracy as an alternative to the messy parliamentary system.

When polled or asked? Absolutely not.

When viewed by how they act? Unquestionably.

Europe is probably uncomfortable/ashamed by how dependent they are on the US for maintaining the western-centric global power axis. But on the same hand are unwilling to make the sacrifices their societies would need to in order to pick up the slack. Especially now that European economies tend to be in a slump.

This presumes there's any amount US can spend to allow UKR to strategically defeat RU by proxy, and thereby have PRC fear it. UKR as proxy is as much limited by quality/quantity of it's human capita as it is by external support. What happens to US credibilty / desire to be US proxy in IndoPac to fight for US security interests when partners see UKR decimated to the last man despite full US assistance? The western wunderwaffles delivered to UKR have underdelivered, meanwhile US failing to guarantee red sea shipping against Houthis that US armed Saudis have failed to contain for over a decade. Single digit salvos of shit tier RU and Houthi missiles successfully penetrating Patriots in UKR and Flight2/3 DDGs in Red Sea has basically affirmed PRC the vulnerability of US hardware and validated their doctorine to deliver 1000x more fires. If anything the more US commits/show hand, and the more she reveals her (in)capability, the less her adversaries fear it. Sometimes better to commit half heartly and be thought incompetent (or indifferent) than go all in an remove all doubt. Nothing worse for US credibility than trying and failing.

"And the stockpiles of artillery, long-range munitions, armor, ammo, guns, etc sent?"

Quite a lot of those are older weapons that need to be either spent or securely disposed of within a decade or so.

Don't take me wrong, I am happy that the US helped Ukraine and I certainly wish that the next package passes the House, but the economic cost of your help isn't easily calculated in dollars. (Or, for that matter, our in Czech crowns.)

Stockpiles need to be either spent or renewed/replaced. Perhaps you could have used some of that older stuff in training, but not all of it. Military equipment has an expiration date, you would need to refresh your stockpiles anyway.

> The US has provided...

You write in the past tense, and in that sense you're right.

But the US is no longer providing that help.

We can barely pass a bill to continue funding OUR government. It doesn't mean it won't eventually get done.

“America bad” is the opium of the masses.

IMO, if any random country’s government whom we are not allied with through NATO publicly criticizes the USA’s response to helping them out in a war that we have no obligation to help with, I believe we should immediately cease any and all financial aid and let them feel the squeeze. When they publicly apologize and recognize that the United States is truly the only thing keeping any order in the world, then and only then do we consider resuming whatever support we deem appropriate. This should apply to any NATO-allied nation who hasn’t met their 2% defense spending as well. If your country doesn’t keep up their end of the deal, we certainly shouldn’t keep ours.

You should try to work on your maturity instead of throwing a hissy fit at the first whiff of criticism.

“Maturity” is paying your bills on time, and not biting the hand that feeds you.

It’s not a hissy fit to feel annoyed at blame on the U.S. for Ukraine losing a war that has nothing to do with us. It’s not a hissy fit for wanting European allies to take their own defense halfway as serious as we have. We’ve kept stability in Europe, in spite of Europe’s actions.

Keep working on it. You're not there yet.

This comment can be attributed to lacking knowledge in history. North Atlantic security model was decided 70 years ago. It was decided that instead of strong European military union US will be the grantor of security against common adversaries. Instead of very strong European armies, US will have overwhelming power. Do you realized why this might have felt a good idea after WW2?

It is most notable that all countries who feel threatened by Russia contribute well over 2% of their GDP into defense. Do you understand in US that this stupidity that is going on in the congress and this dangerous rhetoric is especially hurting these countries? Do you realize that for example Spain is not really feeling threatened by Russia and people in Spain (the voters who effectively decide the size of the defense budget) do not really care about US not helping them as they don't see any credible threat? This is only hurting US, what is losing its credibility globally as a serious security partner.

Political entertainment is now a huge industry in the USA. They hook people by getting them angry about stuff they know nothing about.

Interesting. There is even a word for it https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Politainment

Is is not any non-nato country. Have you heard of Budapest memorandum?

The Budapest Memorandum was negotiated at political level, but it is not entirely clear whether the instrument is devoid entirely of legal provisions. It refers to assurances, but unlike guarantees, it does not impose a legal obligation of military assistance on its parties.[2][52] According to Stephen MacFarlane, a professor of international relations, "It gives signatories justification if they take action, but it does not force anyone to act in Ukraine."[51] In the US, neither the George H. W. Bush administration nor the Clinton administration was prepared to give a military commitment to Ukraine, and they did not believe the US Senate would ratify an international treaty and so the memorandum was adopted in more limited terms.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Budapest_Memorandum

It is not about what America has or hasn't done, good or bad, but all about the possibility of Trump. The idea of the US getting a president as immature as yourself, who rather aligns himself with the gangsters of the world, whose idea of diplomacy is beg-for-mercy-who-is-your-daddy-now oneliners, that is what scares Europa into self-reliance.

Since Trump, the US might not be the US anymore in the future. It might break its promises, withdraw from NATO, from Paris and any other treaty it has made. War is coming closer to us, we cannot rely on a US that is actively flirting with authoritarianism.

Hopefully not, but it is a very real possibility. And we are not ready for it.

I didn’t like him as president, but he was entirely right about that. Any president would be, regardless of their politics. As bluntly as possible:

Keep your promises, and we will keep ours. But if you fail to keep yours, I do not believe we have any obligation to fulfill ours, even if it leads to loss of life. That’s not immaturity, that is the most basic, foundational tenets of a pact.

Europe constantly fails to meet the requirements across multiple agreements, wether that’s defense spending, carbon emissions, or whatever else, but the second that the U.S. slightly slows down on handing out free cash to anyone who asks, we are a horrible, evil “mafia” country. It would be laughable if it weren’t so depressing.

Ironically, more countries in NATO are meeting their 2% defense spending bill than ever before, because of a possible Trump presidency on the horizon. They know there’s a chance US funding gets rug-pulled, so they’re actually taking their defense spending seriously. Precisely because he is a poor, unpredictable leader, a Trump presidency is ironically what will save Europe from themselves.

The problem with Trump is the same as with your post: you don't even know what you're talking about. The 2 percent was agreed on only in 2014 as a response to Russian annexation of Crimea, and the goal was to reach it in 10 years, which we now have collectively as NATO. 18 members spend 2% or more, and the pressure is on for the rest.

Do they have some explaining to do? Of course. But this is not a reason to threaten military allies of more than 70 years by saying Russia can invade them with impunity. Its like I'm a week late on a payment and the landlord promises to send a pack of mobsters to kick me out if I don't pony up the next day. Let's not talk about the emissions that is absolutely insane coming from the worst offender by far.

Now the GOP is going to block the 'slight' spend of 60 billion in aid because it is using Ukraine as a bargaining chip for its anti-immigrant policies.

This is about Trump, but beyond him the US might become a very unreliable and chaotic partner. I'm worried this will backfire. If it does, on the long term, China will start to look a lot more interesting to some European countries as a force of stability.

I understand the impulse to not want to support other countries who don't seem grateful for the aid -- but this sounds like one of those "cutting of your nose to spite your face" situations. Even if you're annoyed that a recipient of US aid is insufficiently grateful, and even if you think NATO allies should be paying their 2% ... a key question is still, "Do we prefer the world where the current-aid-recipient is unsupported?"

If the US prefers the world where Ukraine is not annexed into Russia, then even if our support is not appreciated to your satisfaction, it may still be best _for the US_ to provide the support.

> When they publicly apologize and recognize that the United States is truly the only thing keeping any order in the world

That's the exact way to alienate people and piss away the power projection network you've spent decades to build.

This is exactly why “America is bad” is such a common opinion.

The preferred response of many of its citizens and politicians, is to prove the critics right with no thought of how that affects the world. This vindictive idea is worthy of a 4 year old child that doesn’t know any better.

And I bet you think that the US never benefited from being the world police. You think that the only super power in the world projecting influence all over the globe was all done out of the goodness of their hearts?

Despite much criticism, the US was the country most democracies looked up to or followed. It’s sad and quite worrying for the world that we’re now seeing the end of that.

US is not the signatory of Budapest Memorandum?

If anything US should take a view of self interest as they are losing the credibility as an important international power very rapidly and are instead seriously helping their most dangerous adversaries to gain momentum.

Russia was in a very bad position a year ago, Putin's power was crumbling, but US withholding of critical help let him to sustain his power. Where are we now? Russia is threatening US space assets. Authoritarian powers all over the world are becoming more and more cocky as they see that US is becoming week and impotent.

It is sickening for me to watch how US is hurting itself out of stupidity.

> and the lesson you take away is that the US is somehow at fault

Genuine question as someone who has no connection to either government of the Russia-Ukraine war: didn't the US push Ukraine into not accepting terms with Russia, under the promise that it would support Ukraine in case of war? In other words, it pushed Ukraine into the war, using it as a proxy to fight Russia.

Didn't the US push Ukraine into not accepting terms with Russia, under the promise that it would support Ukraine in case of war?

The answer is "no" on both counts. The US did not "push" them into anything.

And the US made absolutely no such promise. In fact it made explicit statements to the contrary on the eve of the invasion.

Setting aside the fact that this is false, it's a weird claim that the USA pushed Ukraine into the war..

Pushed them into the war. Wasn't Ukraine invaded, unprovoked by any real violence or imminent threat, by Russia?

Pushed them into war. That's like blaming the victim and then blaming the friend for not telling them to cover up.

The delay in US aid is going to lose this war. It's unconscionable.

"by a large margin"

Numbers? Source?

In terms of % GDP, USA is quite far down the list.

And in % of military budget, it's near the end of the list.

Well, of course, do you think the US is going to donate its aircraft carriers, F-35s, F-22s, B-2s, and nuke subs to Ukraine? The US isn't spending trillions on artillery rounds.

It’s not the US’s fault Europe spends so little on defense. You reap what you sow. If you get rolled, that’s on you and your poor planning hoping Daddy USA is going to play world police.

We remember the decades of mocking for our choice of investing in defense. Enjoy your “free” healthcare while it lasts.

"It’s not the US’s fault Europe spends so little on defense."

Exactly!

This crisis will probably bring nukes to Poland and hopefully Germany (Macron offered nukes several times, to safe costs, the German public sadly is anti-nuke) to make the EU independent of US protection. We then can close Ramstein, Landstuhl and Weilerbach and close air corridors for US military machines to no longer support US wars in the Middle East. European countries will stop buying US weapons and create jobs in Europe instead of US voting districts.

Spending a lot is not a badge of honor in an asymmetric conflict. If the US was spending more efficiently than Russia the way it did in Afghanistan, this would be sending a message to the next Putin that invading one's neighbors is a losing proposition.

The US's economy suffering more than Russia's sends the opposite message.

Honestly what's the difference whether it's POTUS or Congress blocking the bill ? The writing on the wall is here: if Russia invades Poland, NATO article 5 or not the US will not go into full blown war with Russia.

And honestly it was the European's fault to believe in this pipe dream.

"And honestly it was the European's fault to believe in this pipe dream."

Having lived through Reforger exercises, with US tanks everywhere and sonic booms every few minutes, I believe up and including Reagan it was clear the US would not let Soviet Russia invade Western Europe b/c of the resulting shift in world power.

After the EU got more powerful and expanded, dynamics changed.

It's unclear with the Bushes and clear that Clinton/Obama/Trump would not aid Europe.

Is it truly supporting Ukraine though?

All of that money is being laundered back to the U.S. war machine, yet it's somehow losing this "war"? Mitch McConnell admitted that himself just recently.

Meanwhile, Kiev is in pristine condition while Gaza is a now a wasteland. None of this makes sense.

Here is my source, for what it's worth: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZZnizA0N8wg

The downvotes won't erase the truth, so nice try I guess?

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