Quote Originally Posted by carl View Post
This is an example of something I think perhaps is being overlooked, the effect of simple Ukrainian and (maybe especially) Polish cussedness in the face of Russian aggression. Sometimes we seem to think that if Mr. Obama and the Krauts don't go all in all is lost. Perhaps, but perhaps not. History does nothing if not reveal that the Poles and Ukrainians can fight and this simple ability may lead to the killing of lots of Russians which could throw a wrench in Mr. Putin's pudding. If they could just get lots and lots of decent anti-tank missiles...

But my main point is we shouldn't be so quick to discount the fighting ability of the targeted peoples when figuring all this.
carl--you bring up an interesting point---it was the rag tag independent BNs that took the fight to the separatists using a few UA/NG armored units and actually were driving them back with heavy loses for the separatists--then Russian heavy tanks rolled in and heavy artillery as well.

What is interesting is the UA abilities to pull out of encirclements and they still have a bulk of their armored forces available

There appears to be 18 MI8s coming from Croatia and if NATO allows their members to send individual equipment then in the long haul things will in fact head towards a bloody stalemate that costs Russia in terms of blood and treasure which is already impacting the Russian internal opinion polls similar to AFG.

Germany just released 20K body armor sets and large amounts of field medical equipment for their wounded---things are slowly moving their way.