Alleged “Foreign Tanks” in Ukrainian Service

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Thanks to Vvothan for this one.

Hello everyone,

an interesting post appeared on one pro-Russian blog regarding Ukraine. The blog itself is the usual Russian crap about “junta”, “fascists” and all that, but what is interesting is the part, where it claims that the Ukrainian armed forces started seizing and using tanks, meant, paid for and built for export to foreing customers.

Please note that commandeering tanks meant for export is not something shocking or new. During the 1938 crisis and mobilization connected with the nazi terror in Czech borderlands, Czechoslovak army commandeered numerous tanks meant for export (they were released after the crisis was over).

But is the article really correct?

One of these tanks is allegedly the T64-B1M, a modernized T-64 tank with improved armor, designed to fight in city areas. Since late July, these tanks were transferred to the National Guard of Ukraine. It is not known, whether it’s actually an export tank at all, but it was presented as the tank for the guard. The blog claims it was intended for export, but I haven’t found any mention of anything like that or where it was supposed to be sold (such things are usually not secret anyway).

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Another such vehicle is supposed to be the T-72B, upgraded with “Kontakt-1″ dynamic armor. It was presented to Ukrainian president Poroshenko at the end of July as a part of a demonstration of new arms for the Ukrainian guard. The blog claims that this too was a part of some export contract, but no proof was given.

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Overall, it seems odd to me that such a thing as seizing export arms when your country is in danger is presented as something really odd – it’s logical and relatively normal behavior. As no proof of the claims was offered, I guess we have to chalk it up to propaganda. The tanks look nice though.

92 thoughts on “Alleged “Foreign Tanks” in Ukrainian Service”

    • Shhhh, can You hear it? It’s the sound of the storm, one brewing into collective a-hole of putinjugend;)

    • Comrade Ferdinand I, the state, the party, the bureau and the PEPOL IZ dissapoint, you need watch more RT and warship the STRONKEREREST CCCP and GLOURIOUSEST leader ever exizting, POO-TIN! Or the glouriouses red army will come to your town but you will all be fooled because it is gonna be so cleverly disguised, nobody even the filthy CIA will know it is US HAHA because we remove ZE FLAG AND LICENCSE PLATES, soviet man stronkererest cleverest sneakeasest! nobody know its us!!!

    • Well, if you look at it, apparently Putin hadn’t anything to Eastern Ukraine. Putin hadn’t moved any troops in the region because the west said so, so Putin is putting more troops on the border. Also Putin had been giving the Russian rebels humanitarian aid, unlike the EU and NATO’s “aid” which is basically weapons and arms. So, if you ask me, leave Putin to do his magic, the EU and NATO has no interest trying to deal with a country that unstable, you know if they want to have war.

      • Well if the West was the only reason for Putin to not move in his army, thats bad enough by itself, really. Also, where did you get the info that Ukraine is supplied with foreign arms?

        • Some of the Kiev protesters probably bought baseball bats and ski helmets in Poland. Surely beats a stream of free weapons and military vehicles coming in from the forest savages.

        • I would guess he got it from Russian TV. It’s a constant stream of nonsense like this (heh, I in fact have a friend who’s an Ukrainian living overseas who’s bemoaning the fact that the West is NOT sending any arms to help – I’m sure he’d love to hear from some credible source that this isn’t true). Take for example what happened with that Malaysian plane. “It was filled with dead bodies on takeoff” conspiracy theory got serious play in their media, whereas the possibility of “yeah it was triggerhappy rebels with equipment smuggled from Russia” got downplayed if it was mentioned at all.

      • Yes quite indeed they are supplying them!
        I mean, Ukraine is so important for them that they would give weapons and that for free! Just like Israel and USA!

        Gee, it’s so free, that Ukraine actually started cutting down social funds like welfare, and had to make most of the money go to the army so they can fight the completely indepedent Rus-COUGH “Ukrainian” rebels, where AA weapons and AK’s just appear out of thin air! :^)

  2. Yeah, if you’re under attack and you have weapons sitting there idle, waiting on transport, you give the owner a call and say the shipment will be delayed due to unforeseen circumstances. Fairly normal really, unless you really need that money instead.

    • The money part is problematic anyway. Poorer countries (and I won’t give specific names not to offend anyone) buy these things on loans, they often default and it leads to various delays and such. Seizing the fighting vehicles instead makes more senses.

    • Its worth noting that Ukraine is one the few countries with its own indigenous tank producing industry and prior to this spat with Russia, supplied both tanks and spares to the Russian Military. Its hardly surprising they have export model tanks sitting about.

      • Lol, they were not producing tanks for ages :) the last and more-or-less only production, not refurbishment contract was for Thai — those ~10 upgraded T-64s, was is Oplot or Bulat I don’t remember. Otherwise, ukrainian tank industry is living off Soviet supplies, selling refurbished T-72s and even recently trying to sell that Morozov’s masterpiece, the ‘super-weapon’ T-64s, now massively burning in Donbass steppes.
        The only true part is about spares — the engines, mostly, but for helicopters though.

        • Those weren’t T-64s, the Oplot M is an advanced variant of the T-84, which is a variant of the T-80, which was developed from the T-64…you get what I mean.

          • Yep, you are right. Just had a look — 5 Oplots for Thai and 10 for home use, since early 2000. Mmmmmmasssive mmmmass production! :)

  3. I think I’ll have to apply for an tank demonstration round my house and see if they give me a free tank ;-)

  4. If they are its pretty standard Procedure> the UK did this at start of both world wars. aircraft and warships marked for export were comenederd for the duration of hostilities

  5. OMG, Ukraine has tanks which it is using against Pro-Russian Terrorists.

    /Sarcasm

    Well I bet they’d beat a few rusty IS-3′s and T-34′s…Though I’m not sure about the Russian supplied guff they are getting.

    • OMG, Ukrainian has tanks which are uses by Pro-Western terrorists against Pro-Russian terrorists.

    • Interestingly, Putin/Russia is ready to default any agreement he does not like at that moment and is always pointing finger to any possible agreement breach if it is done from other side.

      • About Thai and Kongo contracts, really. Alleged exports of Hungarian T-72s and Croatian Mi-8s only made it to the news last week, I think.

  7. “The blog itself is the usual Russian crap about “junta”, “fascists” and all that”.

    The degree this blog’s “crappiness” is just the same as any blog’s that mentions “terrorists”, “GRU officers posing as rebels”, “Russian tanks in Ukraine”, etc.

    I don’t know what kind of isolated self-sufficient world you live in, SilentStalker, but connotating the words such as “usual”, “Russian” and “crap” won’t be unnoticed. This is the usual rudeness that archetype-thinking people commit due to highly closed Western media field and propaganda.

    Thinking that most of the EU/US ordinary people got even slightly adequate concept of what’s going on in the Ukraine is just as naïve as thinking that Russians and Russian speaking people don’t read your blog. Most of the people from outside ex-USSR region will hardly even find Crimea, Donetsk and Lugansk (they often can’t even find their fellow NATO friends or a city from their own country) on the world political map, but they still consider themselves capable of judging the situation.

    Ukraine became a “country in danger” not after the rebels, but even before that, when coup d’état had occurred, the riot police were shot and burned by molotovs, and legitimate president was replaced by clique of West-backed oligarchs and nazis like Right Sector, that is now killing Eastern Ukraine citizens (I hope that I can spare the explanation about what the word ‘right” means in this case).

    I’d like to strongly advise you to refrain from posts like this, SS. If you’re not much into politics, at least have some respect to people you’re taking content and info from – most of them are Russians.

    • Well, at least in our highly closed Western media field the misinformation isn’t state mandated like in Russia. Which is kinda crappy to be honest. :(

    • What happens on Ukraine is Ukrainian internal matter, that should be dealt within Ukraine, not by shelling with GRADs across the borders.

      As for the “crap” part, I was recently in Russia and the level of propaganda on Russian news is ridiculous. Plus, considering this server is housed in Ukraine and Edrard is Ukrainian, I think I do have at least some idea of what’s going on there, especially considering how many of people do get news from western media only (or, even worse, Russian media).

      • What happens on Ukraine is Ukrainian internal matter indeed, so Ukraine shouldn’t be visited by such persons as the Director of the Central Intelligence Agency of the United States and the Vice president of the United Stated just, by coincidence, before another major stages of “anti-terrorist operation”.

        And the coup d’état in Ukraine is not just their internal matter, as any guarantees and agreements with Russia were given on conditions that Ukraine is governed by a legitimate president, cabinet and other authority branches, but not by some people who got their chairs after the bloodbath in the middle of Kiev.

        As for “shelling with GRADs across the borders” this event never occurred as OSCE confirms. If this only had occurred it would have been an act of war with every possible consequences.

        • I know for a fact that the Ukraine shouldn’t be “visited” by Russian mercenaries and Russian army in the first place. The Ukraine can invite whoever they want and Russia, Putin and none of you, Moscow clickers, have any right to dictate them otherwise.
          Just f*ck off and stop justyfiying Russian agression on a sovereign country just because they didn’t like the new government. It’s also is Ukrainian internal matter so you can eat a bag of d*cks while singing USSR anthem.

          Greetings from an ex-WP country.

          • Technically, Russia (somewhat legitimately) thinks the previous president is the one in charge. He could invite Russia no problem, but even they weren’t willing to actually go there.
            The argument “sovereign country” is completely bullshit. Syria. Libya. Egypt. Oh look it’s the west meddling with sovereign countries business. And their allies at that. So yeah. What Russia does is completely justified on the table of international politics.
            BTW look what happened when the west supported rebels in Syria? Well played now you have an extremist state slaughtering people.
            It is nice that we don’t like Russia for intervening. But why do we allow USA & NATO to do it then? Double standard much?

            • Yes, those are double standards, I agree.

              But Syria, Libya and Egypt were basically dictatorships, which makes foreign involvement in my opinion a little more valid than in a democratic country in which the people in power were elected by a majority and don’t rule through oppression alone.

              That aside, two wrongs don’t make a right and there are also many people in the West who are against meddling with internal affairs of foreign countries. The difference is that those people aren’t beaten and put in jail when they voice their opinions … ;)

              • Please tell me again how is the Kiev government “democratically chosen” after overthrowing previous president during an armed uprising.

                The very similar uprising is now happening in eastern Ukraine, and happened in Crimea.

                I am Polish and I consider Russia to be the greatest danger to Polish sovereignity, but I have to agree with pro-russian folks here.

                Huge majority of Crimea are Russians, and it’s not surprising that after the new government deleted the law about minorities, those people got mad. Of course, there is and was russian involvement in eastern Ukrainie/Crimea, but honestly, is it surprising? Those are Russians living in Ukraine, it’s obvious russian state will support them and help them.

                And btw, if Putin wanted to enter eastern Ukraine with his tanks and army, he had an awesome moment a couple months ago, when the separatists were in full control of Donetsk and Luhansk regions, and UA government had no forces around and was helplessly trying to gather any army. He didn’t do it, and I guess he doesn’t want it now neither.

                Recently the rebels announced that they got 1200 soldiers trained in Russia, together with russian armed vehicles. This might be true, however I’m pretty sure the rebels announced this just to force Putin into this conflict, since they are now in a very bad spot and desperately need support.

                • Thank you, sir, for a rare and balanced opinion. This is just so much better than shouting ‘propaganda’, ‘junta’, ‘commies’ and ‘fascists’. You have my respect.

                • You’re welcome. I have some strong (negative :P) feelings towards Russian state and Communism (Russian people on the other hand I consider as mostly really good and honest) and I’m very interested in geopolitics and military, however I always analise current situation objectively and from different points of view. It helps a lot while trying to get an impression about certain actions. After all, you need to get in mind of a person to fully understand why is he/she acting that way not the other.

                • Well, you could say that this uprising was supported by a majority of Ukranian citizens, which makes it kinda democratic – but the situation too unclear for me to pick sides.

                  Honestly, I am also too uninformed and can’t be bothered to read up all the facts now.

                  It is just a feeling in my gut that Putin is fuelling this fire and is using this issue to raise nationalist sentiments in his own country to strengthen his position at the cost of international relationships.

                  As a German (with our own strong anti US tendencies) I truly regarded Russia as a partner on the international scene to counter-balance US interests, but recently the Russian government is acting so irrationally and against so many values that I stand for, that it becomes very hard to be sympathetic towards them.

                  It also seems that many Russians lap up this machismo rethoric of “Russia Strong”, which worries me a lot, because this pride is grown from hate and intolerance towards other ways of living and thinking, and hate can only lead to suffering.

                  I witnessed the fall of the Berlin Wall as a 6 year old child and for me this resurgence of “block thinking” is horrible. Can’t we all get along? Seriously?
                  I thought we were way past that … :(

                • Almost unbelievable that more than one, more or less objective person exists on this blog from the “west”.

                  Like others have said, respect to you for staying as objective as possible. Greetings from USA.

                • @genosse, anti-US tendencies and Russia as counter-balance to USA? Could you please tell me more about it, preferably with a private message at google account Haren94? I’d really like to learn a bit more about this topic. I know that German government has been having good relationship with Moscow, but hearing about the ordinary German person attitude towards the whole situation would be very pleasureful.

                  And the two uprisings are just the same valid-wise. Maidan square was supported by a big amount of society, mostly from western parts of the country, while on the east there was a huge movement against it. The Crimea/Donetsk/Luhansk (Crimea is a bit different, since the armed men there were just Russian soldiers in disguise…) uprisings are supported by a huge majority of population of eastern parts of Ukraine. One has to remember that cca 70%+ of those regions are russian-speaking or simply Russian people. Ukraine itself is a very young country, with a history not longer than 400 (?) years. Sure, there were cossacks there before, but the cossack and ukrainian culture are fairly different and I wouldn’t consider Ukrainians to be direct descendants of cossacks. Therefore it is unsurprising that the western (formerly Polish, Hungarian, Slovakian and Romanian territory, as well as Austro-Hungarian occupation) and eastern (Russian territory) parts are populated by people of different beliefs and attitudes.

                  As much as it is obvious Putin was backing Crimean and eastern UA uprisings from the start, I suppose he now doesn’t want to make things in eastern Ukraine even worse. As I wrote above, there was a perfect moment for russian army to enter Ukraine and noone would be able to stop them. It didn’t happen and I doubt it will soon. Putin is actually under a heavy internal pressure from his own society to stand up and help the separatists. You see, most Russians have good feelings towards USSR and Stalin himself, and they consider Stalin as good leader cause he made Russia a strong country. It is something about the minds of Russians, they just need to feel that Russia is powerful and feared across the world, even if it backfires at them at everyday life.

            • No one cares about a guy that flees his country to his Moscow supervisors after calling shootings on his own people. Even more so inviting foreign army to invade his own country. Just diplomatic bullshit no one would buy.
              I was equally disgusted with US politics in Libya and Syria. It still doesn’t justify Russians invading whoever they want though.
              Also, what’s the difference – on the West people can be loud about their anti-war opinions. In Russia you get put to jail, gulag or asylum which is later burned down. Not to mention Russian “media” which is “free” almost like in North Korea.

        • Ukraine can invite whoever it wants as an advisors. It’s an independent country.

          On the other hand Russia CANNOT send whoever it wants to another country whenever it deems appropriate.

          Get back to us when you finally squeeze into your head that UKRAINE IS AN INDEPENDENT COUNTRY. It does have a legitimate, democratically elected president and a temporary Parliament with full support of that (again: legitimate) president.

          Now: GTFO Russians from Crimea and Eastern Ukraine unless Ukraine gives you permission to get in on the Ukrainian terms, not Russian.

      • “What happens on Ukraine is Ukrainian internal matter”

        Well, there was that little matter of the Budapest memorandum from 1994. Russia has already shown what it thinks of it by stealing Crimea (with “yeah, uh, it doesn’t apply to us if we feel like saying it doesn’t” as a response to the memorandum), but the US and the UK were also signatories. It was never revoked though and compells them and their allies to at least make diplomatic noise.

    • Lived TWO nations, and one day, bigger one decided that it can STEAL anything from smaller one.

    • I won’t call Westernized media great, but when you look at the media from countries like Russia or China, you tend to see a lot of hoax and propagandist lure. While not all, most of the news From the West on the Ukraine matter is at least somewhat accurate (I don’t know about US media) to the truth. They use no blatant insults unlike Russian media that tends to believe anyone against their beliefs are nazis and fascists.

    • Russia Today is stronk with this one.
      Sorry for not buying your “highly legitimate Russian government info” and finding sufficient various media from around the world.

      tl;dr Go back to your gulag.

    • Dear Mr Putin-lover (I honestly should have stopped at “blondie-ahead”), please know that although mainstream news agencies in our (imperialist and capitalistic) western countries (ran by pigs and gays) are indeed biased at times, our said countries do not threaten, condemn, shut down and/or imprison people who are willing to say something else. That’s called “democracy” and “freedom of thought”, you might learn about it someday it you manage to get the stronk soviet propaganda out of your ass. If you don’t, well, please stick to watching RT and stop polluting this fine blog with your crap. In advance, thanks, Monsieur Putin-Lover.

    • dear russian faget:
      soak yourself in gasoline
      lit a cigarette
      …..
      profit?

      Sincerely,
      The Free World

      • Sorry brah but the pootin internet trolls are poor and not paid enough to buy gasoline and cigaretes. Standing on rail tracks is more economic but can get lenghty considering how schedule has no meaning for the swamp savages.

  8. 1. Have a look at andrei-bt livejournal, utterly the same conclusions about the foreign contract tanks as the ‘russian crap propaganda’ site that you’ve mentioned, but coming from a ukrainian with no strings attached in terms of political affiliation. One of the tanks — ‘the hardy’ T-64 — was refurbished for Kongo. Andrei also mentions APCs BTR3E from a Thai contract being pressed into service with ukrainian ‘national guard’. As for the T-72 — since ukrainian army didn’t have (up until recently) T-72s in service, the only reason _prior_ to the start of the conflict to refurbish some of the old Soviet heritage is to try selling them to some poor banana republic. Oddly enough, now ukraine seems to be in a position of such banana republic in its own right, buying outdated T-72s from Hungary (see pics above).
    2. On the seizure of arms — it would be perfectly o.k. if the country would actually be in a state of war. Right now, it seems that ukrainian media are blaming the russians all the time, yet, somehow, the russian side forgot to show up for the war, offering asylum to refugees and treating wounded ukrainian army soldiers instead. Well, maybe along with some voyentorg actions alongside. There is no war, at least not officially, only ‘antiterrorist operation’, so any analogy with WWII/Czech republic /UK is totally missing the point. In turn, this means that any such seizure would simply destroy ukrainian reputation as a reliable supplier of arms. Well, anything that was left of such reputation after the failed Iraqi contract, anyway.

    • Yep, armed chechens in Eastern Ukraine are stranded tourists…

      By the way, let’s look at history, who is invading neighboring countries: to Finland in 1930s(Winter war); to Poland 1920s,1940s; to Baltic states in 1940s;now to Ukraine. For some reason invader is same… biggest/richest country in world.

      • Aaaaand off to Siberia you go!

        Also IIRC before an all-out war broke out with Finland, there was a civil war where the commies were supported with arms and “volunteers” from russia, these unwashed animals that shit on any kind of agreement and international law just never change. Good the opposing “white” Finns slaughtered them properly.

        • yep, I bet my country man were happy tourists visiting Siberia brought by livestock wagons.

        • Every superpower shits on agreements. It’s just how politics work. We can just see into the Russian one from the outside. The western states just have to do it a bit more subtly.

      • ..richest country in resources who exports dis-order to other counties instead of making order at own playground.

        • Check for the amounts of young russians living in western countries. If russia is so great why dont they stay there and build it? Nope, its a corrupted shithole ruled by and admirer and ex-member of an instituion serving to the bloodiest and most backwards regime in humanitys history who is crooked beyond imagination, people in remote villages probably live like in a freaking medieval ages but he just has to go and take a part of Ukraine. Until they get rid of him and the soviet legacy/curse they will never be received warmly by civilized world.

    • And this illustrates how a valid comment about tanks and exports of weapons gets washed down by utterly unrelated matters, like chechen tourists or young russians living abroad. The stupidity of the internets never disappoints!

      • Beg pardon? “valid comment?”. Riiight. Quoting: “There is no war, at least not officially, only ‘antiterrorist operation’, so any analogy with WWII/Czech republic /UK is totally missing the point.”
        There also was no war when the Sudeten/Czech borderlands nazi terror happened and it is a perfectly fitting analogy since what happened there was in many aspects similar to what is happening now. It was about “poor German population suffering under big bad Czech government that is not pro-german” (rings a bell?), so they radicalized because of across the border influence of nazis/Hitler (rings a bell?), they got violent and started killing Czech officials, attacking and seizing police stations and town halls (rings a bell?). Czechs had to back down because of international appeasement treaty and evacuate the borderlands without fighting and leave it to become German territory. Ukraine is not forced by any appeasement agreement and is fighting back, that is the difference.

        • Could you please show me a statement from russian or ukrainian Ministry for Foreign affairs with the declaration of war? or, maybe, martial law being declared in ukraine? No?
          Czech simply gave up to pressure and were (expectedly) betrayed in Munich. Ukrainians are fighting, i.e. conducting ‘antiterrorist operation’, but there clearly is no declared war between russia and ukraine. And ukraine formally is not in a state of war.
          Anyway, the comment was not about ukrainians, czechs , russians or smth like that at all. I mean, I understand the constant butthurt of those pesky eastern europeans each time they hear a word ‘russian’. Moreover, you probably feel some butthurt even now, when I call czechs ‘eastern’, not ‘central’ europeans, but believe me, here in Sweden and elsewhere in proper Europe people could not care less about that. The post was about tanks refurbished for Kongo and APC for Thai, as well as that T-72 for god-knows-who, that are being seized and pressed into service without proper justification. And unless ukrainian government recognizes the current conflict as ‘war’, not as an ‘antiterrorist operation’ there is little to be gained on ‘force major’ grounds apart from a loss of reputation in the eyes of foreign customers.

          • And why there needs to be war? You cant declare war on uninformed insurgents, but its a situation dire enough to take wartime precautions, just like in the Munich case where there was no war declaration but shit has gotten outta hand. And the rest of your post… GG nothing but shitty trolling,

            • Ok, so we’ve established that there is no war, and that there are insurgents. Good. If there is no war with ‘supplier’ country as a defender, I presume it would be quite hard to justify for Kongo or Thai the reason they didn’t get the AFVs they’ve already paid for, if they indeed did. Local unrest is hardly a good reason for ‘one of the biggest arms exporters’ surely.
              The point about reputation is very obvious: it is a case of extremely myopic behavior. Suppose, ukrainian side wins in all this mess in Donbass. Who would ever be mad enough to ever buy smth from them agian, given unresolved disputes with russia and already established precedents of arms seizure? Noone, simply because the situation is likely to repeat again.
              In fact, ukraine inherited so much from the USSR that it would suffice for 2 more world wars, with possibly some leftovers. I am simply surprised they’ve managed to somehow steal and sell off most of this inheritance, to a point of defaulting on foreign contracts instead of using the last bits of these rusting shades of glory. Like, for example, the russians did with ‘Ochakov’ in Crimea — pure genius.

              • In all honesty, buying arms from Ukraine before it was destabilized was enough desperate to not give a shit and buy from them again, they simply are not developed enough and economically strong enough which is not entirely their fault and for those reasons it is okay for them to grasp at whatever they have in their reach to combat russia-backed militants. Also considering prior to the coup the state was run by pro-russian government which resulted in state and army infrastructure having a lot of russian people in it either ethnic or straight-up infiltrated by russian intelligence agencies and IMO some of them are still there and the ethnic ones deserted or changed sides and took their equipment with them. I’m surprised they are able to score success with that kind of mess.

                • God, how the fuck is all this shit about ‘underdeveloped pro-russian government’ related to what I wrote?
                  How ‘destabilized’ should a country be for buying from 10th largest arms exporter (inb4: SIPRI, 2012)?
                  It is ‘okay to grab’ by what standards, yours?
                  What ‘score success’ are you babbling about, shelling of ukrainian cities by ukrainian military?

                  There is such a huge mess in your head that you should consider consulting a doctor. Aaanyway, I possibly could not care less, so I will not bother to answer another retarded post from you.

  10. Whenever a narrow-minded russian kid pops in here and starts parroting the usual bullshit russian propaganda, japping about nazi ukranians, juntas, blood sucking oligarchs, biased western media, blablabla:

    https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MK6TXMsvgQg

    Check your own shithole of a country first, filled to the brim with dirt poor and uneducated people under the control of oligarchs, where beating, gunning down, silencing journalists is a common practice, with a former KGB agent (epic lol) sitting at the top, building a fascist junta… yes, that is your beloved Russia.

    • Its a similar deal like with any poor undeveloped country run by thugs really. They are fed up with their shitty life, being international laughingstock and envying the civilized world. And so they are easily radicalized into religious, nationalist etc. west-hating extremists by the same thugs that run them and that are responsible for the history of incompetence and backwardness in all economic, technological and social fields which makes everything in the country obsolete and shitty, making in turn people isolated, angry and easy to manipulate. Its an endless circle where the money flows only into the thugs hands and ofcourse their army and other murderous underlings so they can reign safely. We should feel bad for the common russkies and ragheads.

  12. Realpolitik
    “Historian John Bew suggests that much of what stands for modern realpolitik today deviates from the original meaning of the term. Realpolitik emerged in mid-19th century Europe from the collision of the enlightenment with state formation and power politics. The concept, Bew argues, was an early attempt at answering the conundrum of how to achieve liberal enlightened goals in a world that does not follow liberal enlightened rules. Publicist, journalist and liberal political reformer Von Rochau coined the term in 1853 and added a second volume in 1869 that further refined his earlier arguments. Rochau, exiled in Paris until the 1848 uprising, returned during the revolution and became well-known figure in the national liberal party. As the liberal gains of the 1848 revolutions fell victim to coercive governments or were swallowed by powerful social forces such as class, religion and nationalism, Rochau – according to Bew – began to think hard about how the work that had begun with such enthusiasm ended with dishonor. The great achievement of the enlightenment had been to undermine that might equals right. The mistake liberals made was to assume that the law of the strong had suddenly evaporated just because it was unjust. Rochau wrote that “to bring down the walls of Jericho, the realpolitiker knows the simple pickaxe is more useful than the mightiest trumpet.”

    For anyone with a sense of history what is unfolding in the Ukraine presently is a repetition of France in the 19th Century. Thus in France the liberals win the revolution, are internally allied to but assailed by the more right wing, and finally fall victim to a more powerful neighbour.

    Bismarck, beats the newly democratic French in a war (1870) and grabs Alsace & Lorraine. For Bismarck read Putin, and for Alsace & Lorraince read Crimea & Eastern Ukraine.

    Human history repeats itself.

    PS. Nice Tank pictures!

  13. Some examples I can think of:

    Opening of WW2, there were some export aircraft parked at the Fokker plant in the Netherlands and IIRC a couple of these were flown in defense vs. the Luftwaffe.

    The Kidd-class may fall under this category, of sorts.

    the HMS Agincourt of WW1 also similar

  15. Has anyone mentioned the huge number of tanks Ukraine had just sitting around in storage? They didn’t need parts from Russia to keep them going. They just didn’t have the need to crew or operate them at the time. Now it’s game on. Not to mention the sales angle. They get to demonstrate the effectiveness of the upgrades they did on the export hardware in real action. Win Win.

    • Yea, sure, just read comments. Even here there are pro-russian people so blindfolded by BS their television and newspapers are pumping 24/7 that they cannot distinguish between truth and lies any more.

  17. I really don’t understand what the problem is, or I’m looking at it from the wrong angle
    Ukraine’s army using ukrainian built tanks for export is a problem!?!?

    I see it as a great showcase of a working, export aimed product, in combat – awesome publicity