Ukrainian forces hit S-400 Triumf missile system in Russian-occupied Crimea, Ukraine’s General Staff reports

Back in 2022, everyone (well, many people) painted themselves here in the US in blue-n-yellow stripes, paying homage to Ukraine. It only lasted for 6 months. After that flags on the sides of the road and bumper stickers disappeared and the Ukraine left the primary news coverage. I think it was all for virtue signaling, not really for support itself.

It’s been going on for years now and the war with Iran affects the entire planet so it’s no surprise..

With how Ukraine has performed, and the lengthy duration of this war, and the sponsors and enemy's motives considered, I think an abundance of support for furthering the war is wasteful. My impressions: Russia described their operations as securing a few specific regions and ending a far too long running Ukrainian aggression towards said regions (some years ago). Determined to remain in the regions and assume government control. Major international attention brought to the matter, conspiracies, cooperative participation, strong motivation on both sides, Ukraine supported massively to enable their continued existence as a nation, Russia shocked at the resolve. Years long battle for borders ongoing, the battlefield has evolved worldwide in light of the successes of modernization. The stalemate lies mostly in conspiracy, I dont think Russia has committed to anything but the regions they first announced, but there is so much more on the table than that, and the frontlines will likely remain until Nato is off Russia's doorstep or Russia is off theirs...

I'll explain. Russia inherited TONS of weapons from the old Soviet Union, including the old s-400 prototypes which were essentially s-300 evolution from the 1980s, way before it officially came out. When a system is degraded (radar, etc.) they just pull an old one from the warehouse, clean it up and put it into the service. Sometimes they bastardize and pull components from S-300 (both internal and export variants that they have plenty in the storage), and you will find S-400 launcher attached to the S-300 radar.

You gotta keep in mind that one "system" can have up to 72 launchers. So when a headline says "Ukraine destroys s-400 system" they might only have taken out a small chunk of it.

I imagine them bringing a steady flow of air defence into Crimea. It's just pouring resources in to be blown up. They are quite accessible for Ukraine and Ukraine is only getting better at this game.

"This was a triumph!"

It's not ending because the Ukrainians are fighting for their very existence and Vladimir Putin is fighting because if he doesn't win, he'll be escorted straight into a wooden coffin. As for the current state of the war, I like the way Zelensky puts it. "We're not losing and they're not winning."

Military doctrine says you need 5 to 1 odds when facing a dug in enemy. Really you want 10 to 1. When you've got 5 to 1 odds. You've got to be willing to lose half of those. Ukraine & Russia doesn't have the troops to do that. During the summertime. Russia will mass up troops in a small region and push and steal some territory. Ukraine will give them heavy losses and stop them and slowly take it back months later. Then it repeats. This is extremely unpopular to say. Russia should have never been stopped during the initial invasion against kyiv. All russia needed to do was push the vehicles out of the road that were hit and keep moving toward kyiv. Ukraine had almost nobody. Ukraine would hit the lead vehicle and it was 5 guys in the woods who stopped 100+ vehicles. Russia soldiers just parked after getting hit and the Ukrainians were just shooting and scooting. It was beyond stupid on the russian side. Those Ukrainians should have been behind the lines with no supplies and surrendered real quick. That didn't happen though. The Ukrainians & the rest of the world were surprised when the Russians drove back across the border. All Russia had to do was push the lead vehicle out of the road and keep driving and they would have captured kyiv. During the US civil war. Everyone loves to talk about how great of a general lee was(most civil war history is written by southerners. Go to a national park and talk to the rangers. Their great grandparents all fought for the south. Its sorta hilarious slanted history that they all agree on.). Lee won early in the war because he was in a defensive position(on top of a hill) with advantage and let the union people attack him. The union always lost because they should have never attacked Lee when he was setup where he was. Eventually Lee got an ego and the union setup in Gettysburg in a position that Lee would normally set up on. Lee was stupid enough to attack that position. Lee wasn't a great general. If he was, he wouldn't have attacked there. The war eventually ended because Lee kept doing the opposite of what gave him wins early in the war. But hey, everyone disagrees with me because the southerns rewrote the history of the civil war after the fact and the northerns don't really give a c*** about it because at the end of the day. They won.