[ericmay]

Credit certainly that Russian logistics failed, but was it Ukrainian logistics that beat them back or was it Ukrainian logistics and heroism alongside American and British support, intelligence, and 24/7 airlifts of critical weapons and equipment that beat them back?

[troupo]

> and 24/7 airlifts of critical weapons and equipment that beat them back?

There were no 24/7 airlifts of criticql weapons and equipment at any point in this war.

Ukraine was expected to fall quickly, and any help it needed started arriving very reluctantly, very slowly, in small batches stretched over months and years of deliveries much much later.

[ericmay]

That’s wrong. The US and UK airlifted anti-tank and anti-aircraft missiles among other things to Ukraine while telling the world Russia was about to invade (which Europeans refused to believe).

You may be confusing European support and their lack of it (remember the famous time Germany just sent 45,000 old helmets?) with how the United States and United Kingdom helped.

For example this was published in April 2022. Some of this equipment had already been delivered to Ukraine via airlift before the war even started: https://www.war.gov/News/Releases/Release/Article/2992414/fa...

[squidbeak]

There were no airlifts into Ukraine, arms had to cross the border as they have since. The supplies were in small quantities up to the invasion. They were an important help to Ukraine, but you are overstating how crucial they were - as if stingers and NLAWs did the fighting, or as if Ukraine didn't have its Soviet legacy or homegrown systems like Stugna-P which had a much more decisive impact those early months.

Western support at any scale didn't arrive until later in the year.

[esseph]

~6 days after the invasion around 19k anti-tank weapons had been pulled from multiple bases in the region and driven in from Poland and Romania.

[troupo]

There's a difference between "airlifted 24/7 since the beginning of the invasion" and:

- the two packages promised in March were delivered by April, all pushed via conventional transport through Poland and Romania (IIRC deliveries didn't start until at least mid-March, and by that time Ukraine was already suffering heavy losses, logistics collapses etc. )

- there's a nebulous commitment to <list of weapons> which we know barely trickled in as US committed, then withdrew, then commited, then withdrew support, then claimed Ukraine was too stupid to use these weapons, or that it would lead to escalation, or...

[esseph]

> Ukraine was expected to fall quickly, and any help it needed started arriving very reluctantly, very slowly, in small batches stretched over months and years of deliveries much much later.

This is bullshit from anyone in the know.

There had been multiple YEARS of Western Special Operations inside Ukraine leading up to and during the opening phases of the war. Some were pulled back to defend Kyiv / Zelensky during the original search for him in the opening days of the war. Without UK SOF and their initial deployments of anti-armor weapons, there is a good chance Russia would have gotten much further.

Ukraine has had comprehensive intelligence, logistics, etc support for a long time, but it has been a fraction of what each country could contribute.

[troupo]

> There had been multiple YEARS of Western Special Operations inside Ukraine leading up to and during the opening phases of the war.

That is why Russia quickly reached Kiev, and Ukraine still can't win the war? Because there were inhales, screams MULTIPLE YEARS OF SPECIAL OPERATIONS?

> Without UK SOF and their initial deployments of anti-armor weapons, there is a good chance Russia would have gotten much further.

No one denies that there were Western Weapons in Ukraine. What is bullshit is that they were somehow airlifted 24/7 during initial phases of the war. They decidedly weren't. Neither before the invasion, nor during the first days. Nor, indeed during any phase of the war.

[esseph]

Read about Operation Orbital:

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

"In February 2022, amid a build-up of Russian forces on the Russo-Ukrainian border and concerns of an impending Russian invasion, the UK began supplying Ukraine with anti-tank weapons, including NLAW missiles. Teams of UK military personnel were deployed to provide training on how to use the weapons, within the framework of Operation Orbital.[10] Some 2,000 missiles were airlifted to the country by the Royal Air Force using C-17 Globemaster III transport aircraft. RAF surveillance aircraft, including Boeing RC-135, were also involved with collecting intelligence on Russian ground movements."

Read about Operation Interflex:

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

---

Also:

"But when the president approved $350 million in military aid on Feb. 26 — nearly six times larger — 70 percent of it was delivered in five days. The speed was considered essential, officials said, because the equipment — including anti-tank weapons — had to make it through western Ukraine before Russian air and ground forces started attacking the shipments. As Russia takes more territory inside the country, it is expected to become more and more difficult to distribute weapons to Ukrainian troops."

"Within 48 hours of Mr. Biden approving the transfer of weapons from U.S. military stockpiles on Feb. 26, the first shipments, largely from Germany, were arriving at airfields near Ukraine’s border, officials said."

"The military was able to push those shipments forward quickly by tapping into pre-positioned military stockpiles ready to roll onto Air Force C-17 transport planes and other cargo aircraft, and flying them to about half a dozen staging bases in neighboring countries, chiefly in Poland and Romania."

"Now it is being turned back against the Russian invasion of Ukraine, part of a vast airlift that American and European officials describe as a desperate race against time, to get tons of arms into the hands of Ukrainian forces while their supply routes are still open. Scenes like this, reminiscent of the Berlin airlift — the famed race by the Western allies to keep West Berlin supplied with essentials in 1948 and 1949 as the Soviet Union sought to choke it off — are playing out across Europe."

"In less than a week, the United States and NATO have pushed more than 17,000 antitank weapons, including Javelin missiles, over the borders of Poland and Romania, unloading them from giant military cargo planes so they can make the trip by land to Kyiv, the Ukrainian capital, and other major cities. So far, Russian forces have been so preoccupied in other parts of the country that they have not targeted the arms supply lines, but few think that can last."

https://www.nytimes.com/2022/03/06/us/politics/us-ukraine-we...

[troupo]

> unloading them from giant military cargo planes so they can make the trip by land to Kyiv,

Something tells me that "trip by land to Kiev" is not "airlifted 24/7 into Ukraine" but exactly what I said several times already

[esseph]

I'm going to quote you here and the article:

> No one denies that there were Western Weapons in Ukraine. What is bullshit is that they were somehow airlifted 24/7 during initial phases of the war. They decidedly weren't. Neither before the invasion, nor during the first days. Nor, indeed during any phase of the war.

---

Article:

> In less than a week, the United States and NATO have pushed more than 17,000 antitank weapons,

I don't see anything to discuss here tbh.

[yostrovs]

There were no critical weapons supplied to Ukraine until after the Russians retreated from Kiyv.

[esseph]

This is easily proven false. See my above comment about both the UK SOF operations and the US flights of weapons. The info is well documented and sourced.

[squidbeak]

Russian logistics failed because of Ukrainian resistance. The NLAWs and stingers were extremely useful to Ukraine, but the more important fact is that the Ukrainian army was prepared, disciplined, and didn't melt away as Russia expected.