The 12/28/21 dispatch.
Discover more from The View from the Front. By Stan R. Mitchell.
Happy Tuesday! Hope everyone had a Merry Christmas!
On the Ukraine/Russia front, not a lot has changed. No one still truly knows what Putin is doing and whether he intends to invade.
Before I cover a couple of things there, take a look at this great graphic below, which shows what the Soviet Union once was; and what it is now.
Here’s a clip of it zoomed in a bit if the link above doesn’t work.
If a new sizeable invasion were to occur, here’s like what it’d look like, from a recent Russian live-fire exercise. This exercise includes breaches by engineers through simulated minefields.
One thing to point out from it, as shown below, are the screens above the tanks. These are to help stop missiles and drone attacks.
The debate about what created this most recent increase in tensions continues to rage online. The view I hold to is as described below: Russia (and its aggression and violence the past decade, especially) is causing countries that once allied themselves to it (or were even a part of it) to want protection from NATO. (Either through joining it or coming in under its umbrella.)
While the debate continues online, our military and civilian intelligence agencies are working to try to map out any clues that might foretell if Putin will invade.
Here’s the tweet of the flights not showing up above:
One good sign is that Turkey, who’s been a bit hard to predict in recent years, is even trying to urge Russia to not take rash actions. See below. (Recall that Turkey had begun pivoting toward Russia during the Trump administration, even making large — and controversial — arms purchases.)
One downside already happening for Putin is that the recent Russian tension is bolstering the arming up of countries in the region.
Putin will continue trying to blame everyone but himself, but I’m glad the West is standing up to him. He is a bully, who is causing the vast majority of his own problems.
It’s a shame he won’t look in the mirror and see what’s actually happening.
Moving along, on the military news front, there were several items of note. I’ll share them below without comment for the sake of brevity.
Finally, let’s share some motivation and wisdom!
That’s it for this edition. And as a reminder, please be kind and endeavor to love and support your fellow Americans. The vast majority of Americans are decent, loving, great people.
Please don’t name-call the other side. They are mothers and fathers and folks not much different than you.
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Semper Fidelis,
Stan R. Mitchell
P.S. Don’t forget to check out my books. I write fast-paced military and mystery thrillers. You can find all ten books here: amazon.com.