A very short report from Helsingin Sanomat’s live coverage. No paywall.
According to Zelenskyy, Meloni assured him that Italy would continue its support for Ukraine and consider providing air defense systems to Ukraine. According to the news agency Reuters, Italian Defense Minister Guido Crosetto stated earlier this month that Ukraine had requested air defense equipment from Italy, such as SAMP/T systems.
Zelenskyy shared his thoughts on the coming year. No paywall.
“This week will be politically important for Ukraine. As we head into next year, we must remember our common understanding of our national goals. Of course, the liberation of our country from the enemy, the reconstruction of Ukraine, the return of our people home, increasing convergence with our key allies, opening up new opportunities for Ukraine in the world - these are all tasks for the near future.”
I don’t know if this has been shared here yet, but here is an excerpt from Mark Galeotti’s interview in Ilta-Sanomat.
Excerpt:
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Professor and Russia expert Mark Galeotti says in an interview with Deutsche Welle that in Russia, it has been learned that “unpleasant news is not brought to the Tsar’s table.”
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– This has reached a point where even the Russian intelligence service tells Putin what he wants to hear, not what he should hear, Galeotti summarizes.
The situation doesn’t seem to have changed:
There are still surprisingly many open windows, as well as poor-quality drinks:
The threshold for reporting that things on the front are not going as they should is probably high.
In a joint op-ed originally published in HBL yesterday, Atte Harjanne and Anders Adlercreutz call for a joint European Leopard effort.
The story has been somewhat overinterpreted among war reporters on Twitter this morning, but the idea is presented correctly.
This certainly divides opinions in Finland as well, but in my opinion, mobilizing all of Europe in this matter would be sensible. Ukraine still lacks the strength to drive the enemy out of its country.
From Finland’s perspective, the situation has remained the same throughout. To put it bluntly: weapons donated to Ukraine are used for the purpose they were acquired for, and every one of them improves Finland’s security in the coming years.
Finland has a total of about two hundred Leopard 2 main battle tanks. Geography limits Finland’s possibilities to hand over a large amount of key equipment currently in use, but Finland’s participation with even a small number of tanks would be valuable if a European tank collective can be initiated. It is needed now.
Let’s take a completely hypothetical assumption that all EU countries using Leopard 2 tanks, or a large part of them, would donate a small part of their equipment to Ukraine. A few dozen tanks could easily be gathered. Let’s assume Finland’s share would be 5 units.
The problem is the German permission, which it won’t even grant for the Leopard 1.
Hesari published a Finnish translation of the Harari essay in question a few days ago. Worth a read, though it is unfortunately behind a paywall:
British intelligence considers it likely that Russia has reinforced its frontline at Kreminna. There is no paywall on the article.
According to the ministry, Ukraine has succeeded in creating continuous pressure on Russian troops in the area. Kreminna has become relatively vulnerable to Ukrainian counterattacks after Ukraine liberated the city of Lyman to its west in October.
If Finland “accidentally” loses, say, 20 Leopards during transport, what is Germany going to say about it? And if they refuse to sell us any more scrap metal after that, you can get quality gear from the Yanks at a fair price.
Finland’s weaponry is specifically intended for destroying orcs, so it doesn’t really matter if they are at our border or Ukraine’s border, as the end result is the same. Russia isn’t in any condition to attack Finland for at least 5-10 years.
Although I voted “yes”, I would hope that these decisions are not made based on public outcries, but rather that NATO and other experts discuss the associated risks and opportunities. The administration should then make the necessary decisions based on these discussions. The limited information that has trickled out regarding Finland’s donations so far gives me confidence in the administration’s ability to make the right decisions.
Based on what I’ve read, I could well imagine that Finland has the capacity to donate an even larger number of those L2A4 tanks (including some of those that have been modified for new roles). Of course, that would mean that something else must eventually be acquired to replace them, which unfortunately involves spending money. However, looking at it from a different perspective, the cost would be very affordable for us right now, and the potential benefit significant.
In the international arms trade, there is one unbreakable rule: You do not sell/hand over/lose the weapons you’ve bought without the seller’s permission. The seller always wants to be sure of where the weapons they sell end up, and especially that they do not end up with a party that would use them against the seller at some point.
A weapons buyer can break this rule exactly once. After that, none of the world’s arms sellers will sell even a cap gun to the “loser” in question. Why? Because sellers do not want their weapons to end up in the hands of their own enemies for analysis via the “loser.” If Finland were to “lose” even a single Leopard that was then “found” in Ukraine (or anywhere else except the bottom of Lake Keitele), in the future, no one would sell weapons to Finland except perhaps North Korea and drug cartels. No one would be able to trust that weapons going to Finland wouldn’t end up somewhere else.
Weapon technology and its precise capabilities are extremely closely guarded secrets, and the seller must be able to trust completely that the sold weapons are used only for the buyer’s own defense or, with the seller’s permission, for someone else’s defense. For this reason, Germany is able to block the movement of the weapons it sells.
Edit: The F-35 fighter jets sold by the United States mean that Finland is trusted unreservedly.
Violating such agreements can have far-reaching and unpredictable consequences for trade with other nations as well. As far as I understand, no state has chosen to test the consequences in this or previous wars.
Germany is a major arms manufacturer; it remains to be seen whether the policy chosen by Germany will affect sales in the future.
I would certainly be cautious about donating too much equipment from Finland’s stockpiles at this stage. Not because Ukraine’s cause isn’t important, but since that Turkish baboon hasn’t let us into NATO yet and we are also on the front line regarding Russia, those same Leopards might, in a worst-case scenario, be put to work here in the future.
It’s impossible to say what will happen next in that war in Ukraine. Maybe there will be some kind of peace, or at least a temporary truce, but it’s also possible that Russia goes all in, drags 20 million soldiers into the ranks from somewhere, and conquers Ukraine using WWI tactics and massive casualties. Nothing is certain with the neighbor to the east, and we don’t yet have the nuclear umbrella of an alliance.
This would be a fitting addition:
“Leopard 2 MBT - January 2023”
Germany’s attitude has changed somewhat over the last few months, and there are already several politicians openly speaking in favor of, for example, exporting the Leopard.
A surprisingly large proportion of Germans still oppose the delivery of heavy weapons to Ukraine. It has been approved by slightly less or slightly more than half of Germans at various times.
Yesterday it was reported that during this year, Germany has exported weapons worth 2.24 billion euros to Ukraine. This also includes heavy weaponry.
https://twitter.com/ukraine_map/status/1608050275385761792
Germany has delivered, among other things, self-propelled howitzers to Ukraine. It even seems that the continuation of the entire war might depend more on artillery than on main battle tanks like the Leopard. On the Russian side, there have been rumors about difficulties with ammunition supplies for some time now.
What would Germany do if Finland sent Leos without permission? They’d send a letter and say that now they’re upset. Oh dear.
They could certainly choose not to sell them next time. And perhaps complain to the U.S. that this kind of “going solo” is not something we want to see from a NATO member.
I don’t know if the world would end over it.
It would be better if we could jointly put together a larger package where many countries each contribute a few tanks and tell Germany to talk to the hand.
A small news item regarding Finland’s bus donation to Ukraine.
Finland has sent school buses to Ukraine in December as part of the EU’s solidarity campaign. Finland was scheduled to send at least 20 buses in total by the end of the year.
There were air raid warnings across the country in Ukraine for a couple of hours today.
A brief piece on the strategically important Kreminna.
Kreminna is a gateway to two larger cities, Sievierodonetsk and Lysychansk, which are important industrial centers in the Luhansk region. Russia has controlled the cities since the summer.
Haidai said in a Telegram message on Tuesday that the Russians understand that if they lose Kreminna, their entire defensive line will collapse.
Sauron has once again distributed rings of power to those he wants to turn into new will-less vassals. Unlike in the legend, this time the recipients have certain doubts about the gift giver.
The rings apparently did not gain much popularity among the leaders, as according to Meduza, only the President of Belarus Alexander Lukashenko immediately put the ring on his finger.
Social media, of course, reacted immediately…
https://twitter.com/GoncharenkoUa/status/1607689949997932544?ref_src=twsrc^tfw|twcamp^tweetembed|twterm^1607689949997932544|twgr^75ac39dd72acde64db27de844e34dba784c4775b|twcon^s1_&ref_url=https%3A%2F%2Fembed.sanoma-sndp.fi%2Fext%2Fembed%2F%3Furl%3Dhttps3A2F2Ftwitter.com2FGoncharenkoUa2Fstatus2F1607689949997932544
https://twitter.com/demokrationeo/status/1607691280208859139?s=20&t=1r3hRRYBXrSnbtxiAR8QtA
https://twitter.com/DALEK2402/status/1607766733791678471?s=20&t=1r3hRRYBXrSnbtxiAR8QtA
In previous centuries, when people’s worldview was based more on beliefs than on rational thinking, these magic rings were more common.
Among others, Topelius recounts that to support Gustavus Adolphus’s conquest of Europe in the 1630s, he wore a worthless copper ring on his finger with “RRR” written in magical circles. Latin, the fashionable and dominant language of the time, provided words for it, and the most important thing was, of course, that the opponent knew the wearer of the ring could not be harmed by iron, fire, water, or whatever else. It didn’t work. He died there on the battlefield.
Such superstition might still work in Russia and other similar cultural spheres. In the previous case, by the way, a ring forged by a Finnish witch protected a Lutheran from Catholic weapons. One wonders what the religious mission of these newer rings in Russia might be. Make of that what you will, remembering that the Russian Orthodox are publicly Putinists, at least in the opinion of their leader.
I thought this might already be here for some reason, but I didn’t find it.
This tweet thread discusses unmanned aerial vehicles, which have been used quite a bit in this war. 