NATO - The Ukraine

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Putin ‘has boosted capability’ of NATO says former chief

Putin’s efforts to halt NATO expansion have been “a disaster” as his actions have added a “massive chunk of real estate and two very capable armed forces” to the alliance says Sir James Everard.


Sir James Everard KCB CBE, former NATO Deputy Supreme Allied Commander Europe, was giving evidence to the Defence Committee when he was asked the following by Sarah Atherton, MP for Wrexham.

“On NATO expansion, specifically Finland and Sweden, ratification is going to take between six and 13 months. We have to expect that Putin will try to hinder that process. Finland, in its own right, has its own F-35 programme and Sweden is described as a net contributor, but Finland doubles the length of NATO’s border with Russia. What are the implications of Sweden and Finland being members of NATO?”

Sir James Everard responded:

“For President Putin, it is a disaster. His whole purpose has been to halt NATO expansion and in a fell swoop he has doubled it with a massive chunk of real estate and two very capable armed forces.

I was in Sweden yesterday. They are now hugely pro the idea of joining NATO. Of course, they are enhanced opportunity partners. There are modalities for strength and interaction—that is the term, MSIs—that would underpin our relationship in crisis and conflict. It is not unusual to find a Swede or a Finn in a NATO headquarters. We exercise with them regularly. They were the biggest contributors to Trident Juncture.

We are pretty close already. In terms of defence co-operation, I know they are non-aligned, but they have an absolute network. I cannot list them all. They are part of the JEF; they are part of this; they are part of that. They are definitely going to bring added value to the alliance. I do not see them necessarily wanting anybody to turn up. They might look for someone to command them better, but we will see.

We have a lot to learn from them. There is a lot of attraction in their total defence concept. They are teaching children in primary school about the effects of disinformation and how to spot it. You cannot win a war today unless you take a whole-of-society approach. That is something that in the UK, probably because of the channel, we have never been very comfortable doing.”

Atherton then asked:

“In your wisdom and given your years of experience, what do you think Putin’s response will be?”

Sir James Everard replied:

“Putin often tells you what his response will be. He has said, “You should not do it.” Then we had the “energy off, energy on” thing. Now he has said, “Okay, fine, you can do it, but I do not want to see any NATO forces being positioned on your territory.” That will be up to Sweden, Finland and NATO commanders to decide.

The whole Russian campaign, from a professional point of view, has been abject. It is abject for a number of reasons, but primarily because it was not planned by the Russian general staff. The people who should have planned this operation did not plan it. As you see them getting a grip of what is going on, we should not be surprised if they start to make pretty significant gains pretty quickly. You can all track the battle. It is a concern.

Putin did not make a big speech the other day at his parade, because his generals are telling him that he is still going to win.”

Source UKDJ

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Mi-17s for UKRAINE


More of the formerly Afghan destined Mi-17s being shipped to Ukraine. These were bought for Afghanistan when the former government still existed. Once the current conflict began, it made sense to give them to Ukraine given the later is familiar with the helos. These are much newer peacock nosed which gives them weather radar and a long life ahead.

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What has Britain sent to Ukraine?


The UK has sent thousands of missiles and other explosives, over one hundred armoured vehicles and over 200,000 pieces of medical equipment and other items.
James Heappey, Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State for Defence, recently said in a statement:

See - https://ukdefencejournal.org.uk/what-ha ... o5VOu-Vbho

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LATEST MOD INTEL. REPORT

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Ten American fighter jets heading to a Glasgow airport


10 American F/A-18 Hornet jets belonging to the U.S. Marine Corps will be landing at Glasgow Prestwick Airport in Scotland this evening (Wednesday, 8th of May 2022).
The U.S. Marine Corps jets (and their supporting Hercules aircraft) are normally stationed in California and are heading on to eastern Europe to take part in various exercises.

The aircraft are estimated to arrive between 7pm and 8pm tonight.

*Last month, USNI reported that a previous deployment saw a group of 10 Marine Corps F-18 Hornets, stationed in Marine Corps Air Station Beaufort, S.C., and an unspecified number of Marine Corps C-130s also deployed.

The U.S. Department of Defense recently announced that it would send six U.S. Navy EA-18G Growler electronic attack aircraft, part of the ‘Garudas’ of VAQ-134 that is stationed at Naval Air Station Whidbey Island, Wash., to Spangdahlem Air Base in Germany.

The previous deployment of aircraft will take part in continued deterrence efforts and help bolster NATO relationships, the U.S. military said in a statement.

“They are not being deployed to be used against Russian forces in Ukraine,” according to Kirby’s statement.

“They are being deployed completely in keeping with our efforts to bolster NATO’s deterrence and defence capabilities along that eastern front. The deployment is not in response to a perceived threat or incident.”

It is understood that this deployment is part of those efforts.

Source UKDJ

*See - https://news.usni.org/2022/03/29/u-s-se ... deterrence

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Ukraine conflict: Turkey to donate Lithuanian-funded Bayraktar UCAV to Kyiv

See - https://www.janes.com/defence-news/air- ... 8984881608

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TWEETS FROM MOD

The British Army have taken part in one of the largest deployments since the Cold War, Exercise Unified Stance.
Unified Stance is a series of planned exercises across Europe.
Here's everything you need to know about the exercises:
https://medium.com/voices-of-the-armed- ... 661805e02d

Also - The British Military Advisory and Training Team in the Czech Republic has trained over 12,000 personnel from 45 countries, including 1,000 from Ukraine.

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Amazon helps Ukraine move 10 petabytes of data to cloud after Russian attack


Amazon Web Services helped Ukrainian ministries and private companies transfer more than 10 petabytes of data to the cloud following Russia's large-scale invasion.
“AWS continues to add to over 10 petabytes (10 million gigabytes) of essential data already migrated from 27 Ukrainian ministries, 18 Ukrainian universities, the largest remote learning K–12 school (serving hundreds of thousands of displaced children), and dozens of other private sector companies. Right now there are 61 [Ukraine’s] government data migrations to AWS, with more expected to come,” Amazon informs.

It is noted that Ukrainian law required certain government data and select private sector data to be stored in servers physically located in Ukraine before the Russian invasion.

However, a week before the Russian military invaded the country, Ukraine’s parliament passed legislation to allow government and private sector data to be moved to the cloud. To accomplish that, Ukrainian leadership put out a public call for help. Amazon Web Services (AWS) was among the first organizations to respond.

Three days after the beginning of Russia’s aggression, AWS specialists began to transfer the data to AWS Snowball devices, ruggedized compute and storage hardware.

“AWS is honored to be working alongside the Ukrainian government and other private and public organizations to support the people of Ukraine. We will continue to aid the relief efforts and to bring our technical expertise and services to those who need them,” Amazon underscored.

Continues, including other items about the war, at:
https://www.ukrinform.net/rubric-societ ... ttack.html

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MOD INTEL. UPDATE

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TODAY'S MOD UPDATE