Former NATO Supreme Allied Commander Gen. Wesley Clark (ret.) discusses the latest developments in Ukraine following strikes by Russia targeting Kyiv and the American Patriot missile system. #CNN #News
Retired general on why Bakhmut could be a symbolic defeat for Russia
We have thousands of Patriot batteries. Ukraine has 8. 1 hypersonic may be a fluke but 6 out of 6 proves the theory perhaps. What was their target? The Russians have now committed their reserves at Slov’yansk & Bakhmut. Still stuck at Volhodar.
We do not have “thousands”, or even “hundreds”, of Patriot batteries… Embarrassing.
If the Russians can’t take over the tiny city of Bakhmut after a year of fighting, then how do you expect them to take over the entire country?!😅
They don’t want the entire country.
They did, though. That’s why they went for Kyiv at the onset of the invasion. They just failed to get it.
@Dale CrockerVladimir did want the whole country
Slow hyper miss is the key word 😂
”We have no food.
We have no shelter.
We have no heat.
We have no power.
We have no internet.
We have no more Russians in Vuhledar Ukraine,
and for this we are happy.”
Ukraine Citizen of Vuhledar Ukraine
They have no young men left either….Zelensky is ordering them all to their deaths…
Gimme money allies
And we’ll have to expect alot more iranian drones too, anti-air, jets, missiles, and maybe some soft armor for shrapnel sound like a top priority.
to put it in more simple terms: just because a car is traveling 100 miles an hour through an intersection, doesn’t mean you can’t use math to intercept, crash into it, with a car going 60 across it. math rules.
Go refresh your physics for 3D vectors.
Obviously too many ignoramus watching CNN😂
@baron eleve nice sock account.
What are you saying? Yes, you can especialy since dosent realy deviate from its trajectory. You only need to be on its path
General is shell shock
So Patriot was developed in the 1970s and upgraded several times. The latest one is probably the 4th generation, but we don’t know which generation Ukraine has received.
I’m not sure it’s the latest generation – because so far the US has not sent the very latest (high-tech) equipment to Ukraine.
Just take the M1 Abrams tank as an example. Even though the US has a stockpile of over a thousand that are not in use, new tanks must be produced for Ukraine, because the armour the US itself uses must not be made known to Russia. And that is why Ukraine will not get American tanks until the autumn.
Secondly, a missile cannot destroy an entire air defence battery – maybe a nuclear bomb, but not otherwise.
This is because there is always redundancy in military organisations. Any battery – regardless of artillery or anti-aircraft, has dual organisation with two firing centres, two radars, multiple launching platforms, multiple generators, etc.
It would be all too easy to shoot a generator truck or a firing centre and then that anti-aircraft battery could not fire anymore. That’s what all armies have done since WWII … the one with dual organisation – including Russia.
Or something as simple as a puncture in a radar truck … then the battery doesn’t work!
Secondly, you don’t set up a complete anti-aircraft battery next to each other in a car park – it is set up decentrally in a diameter of 25-30 km so that firing centres, launchers, radar are all spread out. In this way, one semi-battery provides close protection for the other semi-battery and extends the coverage area.
Since all these things are nowadays networked, the gunnery officer has an overview of incoming threats.
My guess – and it is only a guess – is that Russia has had a target lock on one half battery and then the other half battery has filled the role of “bodyguard” and shot down the attacking Kinzhal missile.
But it was a close call and instead of a bomb hit, the first half battery was hit by impact as a kind of shotgun of downed missile parts.
That impact (travelling at least 5,000 km per hour) destroyed something.
In this way, Russia may well have had a genuine perception that the missile hit the semi-battery because on the radar the missile coincided with the target.
And in that way, Ukraine can also say confidently that everything was shot down.
And both are right.
I think Russia wanted to publicise its military industry, which has suffered some bad blows to its reputation during the war with Ukraine.
To be brutal, the US may have spent 4-5% of its annual defence budget on helping Ukraine, but Russia has taken a beating on the battlefield.
In reality, Russia’s army is probably down to less than 50% in combat capability compared to before the invasion – it is – from an American point of view – a pretty good investment because no American lives have been lost.
But seen from Russia’s future perspectives – it sucks.
Developing 5th generation fighter jets and other advanced weapons requires exports. It’s simply too expensive to make these things without exports – just look at the F-35 aircraft. The unit price would skyrocket if the rest of NATO didn’t buy it.
If you are a country that fears “getting an unannounced visit from the US Airforce” or one of the countries “helping the US” then it doesn’t seem like the S-300 or S-400 is a good buy as rocket-based artillery like HIRMARS is a deadly enemy to such systems.
So what would happen if the US launches some of the killer long-range weapons that Ukraine hasn’t got?
A salvo of 6 HIMARS ATTACKMS with a range of 300 km costs 6 million USD, but the S-400 anti-aircraft system that is destroyed may cost 120-150 million USD. It is a bad trade-off, especially when you are then slaughtered “from above by the US Air Force” without any defence.
And the Russian planes are all wrong. Russia has not managed to attack even one of the supply trains bringing Western weapons into Ukraine from Poland, even though they are numerically and technologically superior to the Ukrainian Air Force. Ukraine’s air force.
This behaviour does not sell Russian aircraft.
It is what countries like China, India, Brazil, etc. are looking at. And if Kinzhal missiles are also shot down, then US Navy aircraft carriers cannot in reality be threatened and you must therefore accept that these ships can go close to your coast – with the threat picture it thus provides.
This is not a perspective that China, for example, likes.
Russia has – before it was late – wanted to show that they can sink an aircraft carrier with Kinzhal missiles, but against Ukraine. There may also have been domestic populist interests at stake, but it has been about preserving arms exports.
That is what the attack on a Patriot battery has been about – because it was actually quite an advanced attack that they shot down.
Incidentally, the US does not deploy Patriot batteries individually – they are deployed in battalions, i.e. 4 to 6 anti-aircraft batteries together with a staff battery to coordinate the network-based defence.
In other words, a much stronger unit that covers for each other.
And just in regards to China and Naval ship defense, USN ships are being equipped with laser defense systems which “may” be able to destroy any incoming threat no matter it’s speed.
In short.
Gimme money allies
*Blown to hell by Russia within minutes of first use – LOL!*
BREAKING NEWS: Anti-ballistic missile system designed to shoot down missiles traveling faster than the speed of sound is capable of shooting down missiles traveling faster than the speed of sound. Coming up in the next hour: Electric cars run on electricity.
🤣
Breaking news: weapons relying on mathematical calculations based on predictable, stable trajectories aren’t capable of downing missiles beyond the scope of its computing
b-but Putin said hypersonic missiles were impossible to intercept and superior to decadent Western technology 😔
Could be?! I would say definitely is a strategic defeat. When was the last time they had a win? June/July of last year. Maybe earlier. You can lose a battle, but still win the war. Says battle not any major victories in over a year.
Severndonesk in mid august was their last city. But mariupol, severndonesk and bahkmut were all the same.. you lose by winning.. the losses arent worth the prize. Russia won Mariupol but so many trained units were destroyed that they could do little else in the Donbas. Mariupol took a month, severndonesk took 3 months, and bahkmut took 12 months…and those are progessively smaller cities.
I think Col. Cedric Leighton hit the spot. With money pouring out, electronics are becoming hard to come by. You can bet a $10; the Kremlin wants numbers and is skipping on the bling-functionality. 😉
The defeat in Bakhmut represents more than just a loss for Russia—it implies a profound setback for its profitable weapons trade, potentially for years to come, if not permanently. Russian military equipment and technology are now widely seen as obsolete. This perception is strongly reinforced by the events in Ukraine, which show the inefficacy of these systems. It would likely be a mistake, perhaps even a reckless one, to invest in Russian military technology and weaponry. Not only could such an investment result in financial loss, but it could also put you at a disadvantage in any potential conflict, given the substandard nature of Russian technology.
Before Russia’s incursion into Ukraine, there was a prevalent belief from the Cold War era that Russia’s arms industry was among the world’s finest. This view helped Russia maintain a steady stream of weapon sales to financially constrained nations like India and China. Sadly, this has largely been the result of the actions of a stupid politician, Putin, who has inflicted serious harm on Russia.
On the other hand, the war in Ukraine serves as a strong endorsement of Western technology’s reliability.
In an unexpected twist, Putin has assisted America and the West in solidifying their dominant positions in the global arena.
That’s all really good except for the minor point that Russia has just captured Bakhmut? The final citadel area has been stormed by Wagner and the thousands of Ukrainian soldiers still in the city have been cut off. How exactly does this represent a Russian defeat? If you’re going to claim it only represents a pyrrhic victory try to keep in mind that Ukraine threw in its best formations in a desperate attempt to hold the city.
@Will Munny “has just captured Bakhmut?” No, Russians are walking about ruins increasingly surrounded by Ukrainians. Russia will never have any hope of threatening another Ukrainian city after their major strategic defeat there, over the last eight months taking this ruin, that used to be only Ukraine’s 56th largest city.
@Jean-Philippe Martel Word it in anyway that brings you comfort but Bakhmut has fallen. How many tens of thousands of Ukraine’s best soldiers were killed or wounded fighting for Ukraine’s 56th largest city?
@Will Munny “Bakhmut has fallen”. That was the goal, whatever the state or location of the residents and the physical plant. If achieving this goal provides Russian leadership satisfaction, it is indicative of their addiction to victory as they define it, rather than some classical strategy of war. Then let it be so, for against such an opponent, it is likely Ukraine will be improving its negotiating position in the months ahead.
1) The defense in depth of Bakhmut is a complete strategic victory for Ukraine. The collapse of the Russian salients mean the high ground around it goes back to Ukraine, allowing them to pound it.
2) Two salvos of Russian hypersonic have been intercepted in a row.
3) With protection from terrorussian strikes the ongoing demilitarization of Russia is about to seriously speed up.
4) Slava Ukraine!
The high ground is west of Bakhmut. Not much cover left in the city itself tbh.
I have seen a video and there were certainly no hypersonic missiles in it. I would imagine the patriot system is around 85% same is the Iron Dome, and can still intercept some of the hypersonics. Really depends on how many are fired at once.
Hard to say. They haven’t really produced much, but they aren’t remotely near full mobilization either. They certainly don’t have the economy to change their production.
@John Freedman Cool story bro 👍
@Jean-Philippe Martel Just thought it would be nice if somebody helped you to know what you are talking about.
I haven’t heard a garbage analysis to that level since working with the Van Doos.
@John Freedman So according to your expert analysis how much longer will it take for Ukraine to liberate Bakhmut and Crimea?
@Jean-Philippe Martel You are now asking for a prediction not an analysis. Bakhmut could be fast depending on the Ukrainian offensive start. All of their armour for the most part has been waiting west of the city, and has only moved up on big Russian advances.
The Eastern side of the city is also where most of the Russian artillery is placed as well.
At current pace the war will continue for years. Ukraine is almost entirely dependent on foreign investment, but with that is doubling Russia on military spending. Russia is nowhere near full mobilization, but isn’t producing enough equipment.
I think it will end in a ceasefire with Russia getting some of what it wants, and Ukraine maintaining it’s sovereignty. With a small chance of those eastern regions becoming an autonomous administrative division, but still remaining as part of Ukraine.
Enjoyed the Colonel`s expertise as always Feels like being on the inside track. Appreciated. Thanks.
I can’t see how the patriot would run low on munitions it’s designed to protect in WAR there must be plenty of munitions available…
It’s doing a fantastic job
Congratulations ❤
Clark is a legend!
God Bless American volunteers in Ukraine 🇺🇦🤝🇺🇸
You are Angels 😇🫶
Stay strong Ukraine!!
The Patriot can take down ballistic missiles like the Iskander-M… The Kinzhal is a Iskander-M that is air launched. It does not maneuver like a glide body. The Chinese have a much better set of Hypersonic missiles. The subsystem that was hit has been repair in theater. Sooooo, count this among the 60(20 sent) HIMARS destroyed, 210(108 sent), 5 LEO II tanks destroyed apparently in Germany, and the 4 Bradley IFV destroyed in SC, US.