perestroika

One absolutely doesn't prepare such a large operation at such a short notice.

For an intelligence analyst, signs of an invasion are typically detectable 3 months ahead. If one performs a maritime invasion at a notice of weeks, failure is likely. (For reference, the D-Day needed years of planning and months of moving resources to work.)

Also, I trust that Taiwan has infiltrated China just as deeply as China has infiltrated Taiwan - they likely cannot keep massive secrets from each other.

This would be a major setback. And thus, describes the intent of the Trump administration - to extort a peace on their terms, as if they were the enemy - quite vividly.

For sea drones, there could be a work-around (some other satcom system) but for ordinary units on ground, a work around must be cheap - for them, engineers would be drilling posts into ground and running temporary fiber to temporary base stations like there's no tomorrow. One hop of fiber can be quite long, 80 km is no problem with really cheap COTS hardware (professional hardware can probably talk over hundreds of kilometers). It's making changes that is problematic.

Of course, units would also fall back to using civilian cell phone networks, some with directional antennas (e.g. you know that 10 km to your rear is an intact base station at (X,Y), you point a 20 decibel parabolic dish towards that direction and get online without the enemy having a good idea about your whereabouts. A big hassle, but not an insurmountable one.

Long range strike drones 99% likely aren't using Starlink. They fly by inertial navigation and machine vision, and pick up clues from Russian mobile networks.

Following through on this threat would likely result in another Arab-Israeli war.

Maybe he does.

Maybe Putin's colleagues found out something interesting about Trump back in the days, and made him an offer he could not refuse - "go and become King of America, we'll even help you a little, but you'll serve us".

Wild speculation, of course. But he definitely doesn't have national interest burdening his mind in any way or manner.

P.S. If I worked in the Secret Service, I would use my telescope to watch birds fly and tree leaves wobble. Even if there was a remote weapons station turning towards my client, or a wire guided object coming in - I would hardly notice until impact.

To go a bit deeper on the role of armor - on the background of drone warfare - I would explain like this: armor reduces casualties when moving people and supplies forward.

In these days, armor no longer controls the battlefield, it more likely delivers people and ammo.

If one moves soldiers and equipment forward with armor, it can move under machine gun fire, protect its occupants from one antitank mine, and somewhat protect them against one FPV hit.

If one moves them forward in a 4 wheel drive minivan or lorry, there will be ugly casualties when a mine is found, FPV arrives or a machine gunner opens fire. These vehicles also tend to get stuck easier. So, lack of armor tends to result in higher personnel losses and lower arrival rates of supplies.

No amount of aid is going to turn one Ukrainian into four.

A mine field can cancel out numerical advantage. A robotic weapons station can turn one machine gunner into four (or more). Likewise, a swarming algorithm can allow one pilot to direct a flight of several drones.

So, to put it shortly - on the battlefield, technology can cancel out numerical advantages of 3.5 to 4 quite realistically.

Economically - Ukraine alone would not sustain production against Russia, but Ukraine happens to have EU in its back yard. The Russian economy is actually quite small compared to EU's economy. So the economic unbalance can also be canceled out.

But yes, you are correct to note that village by village, the map is turning red - Ukraine is running a thinly manned front and when pushed hard, yields territory to Russia gradually. During the past year, I would not be surprised if Russia had taken 1 additional percentage point of Ukraine, moving from 20% to 21% for example.

As for attrition on Russia - if you observe the footage and news, you will notice that they are low on cars, low on armor (and using a large percent of antiquated armor), and low on artillery barrels. Out of the USSR stockpile of ~13 000 tanks, estimated losses were recently standing at 9859 machines [1].

At a rate of 10 tanks per day, Russia will have to rely on freshly produced tanks after 300 days. Given how logistics behaves, they are using up all their production already currently, and supplementing it with renovation of increasingly old hardware.

Sadly, they are not anywhere near low on air-dropped bombs. Which I would characterize at their foremost advantage currently. As long as Ukraine cannot deter the bombing runs. (It can stretch and slow them by regularly visiting forward air bases with flights of drones.)

I will not tell you that "Russia is losing". I will only say that just like Ukraine cannot sustain the current situation, Russia cannot sustain the current intensity of attacking. Even a small technical development (e.g. arrival of a modern long-range air defense missile comparable to quite ancient Soviet S-200 missiles, or arrival of a fighter that can fire Meteor instead of AIM-120) could drive Russian aircraft beyond bombing range of the front, and halt the advance.

Some notes:

• this is not confirmed, but seems credible enough to speculate about

• regardless of veracity, European defense readiness needs a big boost, and people are working on the instruments that would allow giving that boost

• another source says that Trump is planning cuts in the US armed forces, to the tune of 8% per year [sources that add "for multiple years" remain hearsay for me]

• around January 20, I saw a table circulating on social media, describing Trump's intended cuts, and that table did drop about 21 brigades and paused the development of various capabilities (edit: found it)

• so apparently, the Trump administration intends to lower its defense readiness no matter what, believing it has too much

On this background, not much point negotiating with him. He is framing as an ultimatum what he intends to do anyway. No point getting delayed either.

Just get the framework agreed upon, and quickly start supplying Ukraine with fresh stuff. Ukrainians aren't newbies, for now they have accumulated some small reserves (they knew what to expect under Trump, and Biden's administration pushed the last remains of its assistance out like there was no tomorrow)... but arrival of European assistance must start rapidly increasing within a window of 2..3 months.

Yes, an Estonian anarchist named "perestroika". You can read my blog at: http://perestroika.pw/ to see if I'm a nazi russophobe.

Can I do a background check in return? :)

Oh, you only registered 3 days ago, likely because you got your previous account banned by pushing Kremlin talking points.

Yes, let's clear that up - it was a law, not the constitution.

Constitution, article 83(4) - extends the Parliament's powers until martial law is over. Also allows for the possibility of martial law, says that under martial law, some rights may be restricted.

Ordinary law, "On the Legal Regime of Martial Law" - forbids elections during martial law.

So, holding elections in Ukraine during war is merely illegal. And I repeat - with 20% of the country occupied, and millions in emigration, very hard. If you hold a public meeting with your voters and a ballistic missile arrives, then what?

But since you consider them "banderite coup defenders", you clearly take your clues from Moscow-based sources - why concern yourself with technicalities in law? The Kremlin does not concern itself with law, international, Ukraininan or Russian for that matter - it does what it wants. And you're verbally supporting that.

Oh yes, only the Rada was mentioned in the constitution. The president was mentioned in an ordinary law. As the blog you linked explains:

As discussed elsewhere, the prohibition of wartime elections is established in Ukraine’s statutory law. Ukraine’s Constitution does not explicitly address the issue of wartime elections, except for Article 83(4) that provides for the extension of the Parliament’s powers until the day of the first meeting of the first session of the Verkhovna Rada of Ukraine (the Ukrainian Parliament), elected after the termination of martial law or state of emergency. Nothing similar is made with respect to the president. According to one of the drafters of the Constitution, this special treatment of Parliament was originally aimed to enhance Parliament’s standing in the constellation of powers and prevent possible abuses during wartime or national emergency.

Law of Ukraine “On the Legal Regime of Martial Law” (2015) prohibits the holding of elections during martial law and the Electoral Code of Ukraine (2019) ordains suspension of all elections during such period.

No, Trump is not an authoritarian.

That's clearly false. He is actively attempting to expand presidential authority at the cost of the Congress, courts and federal agencies. He's also replacing staff very agressively, installing loyalists whom he expects to do what he says. He has already gradually purged internal opposition within the Republican party, and continues work towards that end.

The essence of authoritarianism is grabbing more power (accompanied by claims of needing it for legitimate purposes) - with dictatorship at the far end.

Increasingly surreal stuff just seems to happen.

But I note that some high-profile Republicans have a spine - despite Elon Musk's promise to beat anyone who diobeys Trump with his wallet (in primaries).

Subsequently, Trump was requested to be more truthful by: Mike Pence, Don Bacon, Lindsey Graham, Mike Rounds, John Kennedy, Thom Tillis, John Thune - and probably others who I haven't even heard of, who didn't make the news.