ake sure to understand the cruelty done to Ukraine by denying it proper artillery support for far too long even when Ukraine made it clear it needed more. Allies like the US let the situation build up in Ukraine where russia could exploit the “steal a french fry at a time” strategy of small unit dispersed infiltration and before that armored maneuver with obsolete, inadequately armored vehicles… to put it another way this is what artillery has always been for when employed defensively, to channelize the attacking enemy forces into concentrated and vulnerable pushes that can be dismantled by applying overwhelming pressure at just a few points.

Think of artillery at present in Ukraine this way, drones have replaced the first ~15 shells of any given skirmish/battle, which is a lot and they do it with maximum precision but artillery provides the next ~250 shells. After the first ~15 shells the role of drones becomes more and more as the eyes for more traditional artillery rather than being the sledgehammer itself, it just makes basic sense.

The problem for russia is Ukraine got so good at counterbattery operations that russia has been forced to pull back their artillery and can’t place it into threatening positions to provide general artillery pressure along the front which is necessary to maintain a coherent offensive or defense… Russia has spectacularly found a temporary solution in glide bombs and you can absolutely look at the numbers there on that huge shift, but Ukraine is able to reach out and hit the fighterbombers necessary to deploy them at their home airbases so… russia is forced to keep relying on drones to always be the eyes and the sledeghammer at the flashpoints where it really matters.

If you're looking for a defense of the western salami-slice incremental aid approach, you're not going to get it here. In the coldest calculus possible, there's a way to make an argument for it, but it by definition means you don't really care how many Ukrainians have to die for it to be successful.

I'm from the camp that would have imposed a no-fly zone early and sunk the Baltic fleet in an hour to tell the Russians that this war will be too painful for them to pursue. The petromafia ghouls in leadership are a bunch of black hearted thieves. They want money to live tasteless lives of luxuries with dachas, yachts, caviar and mistresses. You can't steal from a smouldering crater, after all. Russia was never going to nuke the world, nor were they going to nuke Ukraine. Why do you nuke your next door neighbors in a war where you claim their yard belongs to you anyways.

You sound like an artillery man.