Putin's War Part 2.

The head of the European Commission on Friday told Zelensky that a decision on admitting Ukraine to the EU would come in weeks, not years.

A country wishing to join the EU submits a membership application to the Council, which asks the Commission to assess the applicant’s ability to meet the Copenhagen criteria. If the Commission’s opinion is positive, the Council must then agree upon a negotiating mandate. Negotiations are then formally opened on a subject-by-subject basis.

Due to the huge volume of EU rules and regulations each candidate country must adopt as national law, the negotiations take time to complete. The candidates are supported financially, administratively and technically during this pre-accession period.

I simply said it seemed like a very positive step toward getting Putin out of the Ukraine, and I asked the simple ******* question did others think it was significant.

Top EU diplomat Josep Borrell said that he had met with the chief prosecutor of the International Criminal Court earlier on Monday to discuss how to keep "Russia accountable for gross violations of international law." The EU will be providing financial assistance and also coordinate with the EU Advisory Mission, which was in Ukraine before the war, to help with the investigation and evidence gathering on the ground.

In the comments made after the meeting of EU foreign ministers in Luxembourg, Borrell also accused Russian forces of "causing scarcity" by bombing Ukraine, a country known for its massive agricultural sector.

"They are bombing Ukrainian cities and provoking hunger in the world," he said after a meeting on further steps against Russia.

The war in Ukraine has prompted concerns of a wide-reaching food crisis. Many fear that a failed harvest in Ukraine would be especially tough on Africa, where the European country serves a major supplier of wheat and sunflower oil.

According to Borrell, the EU would continue discussions on sanctioning Russia's oil and gas exports, although "no decision has been made today" on those issues.

snood wrote:

I simply said it seemed like a very positive step toward getting Putin out of the Ukraine, and I asked the simple ******* question did others think it was significant.

I don't think Putin or Russia care whether Ukraine becomes a member "soon". (This would have to happen in a fast-track procedure, but such a thing has never happened before. [Fastest was the former GDR, usually it's more than ten years.])

Do you think Von der Leyen’s gesture was an insignificant photo op?

How great are Russia's tanks losses?

Ukraine's armed forces say Russia has lost more than 680 tanks.

Meanwhile, Oryx - a military and intelligence blog which counts Russia's military losses in Ukraine on the basis of photographs sent from the warzone - says Russia has lost more than 460 tanks and over 2,000 other armoured vehicles.

How effective have anti-tank weapons been?

The US supplied Ukraine with 2,000 Javelin anti-tank missiles at the start of the conflict and has since sent at least 2,000 more.

Javelins can be fired so that the missile explodes on the top of a tank, where the armour is weakest, according to their maker, Lockheed Martin.

A lot of Russian tanks are fitted with reactive armour which absorbs the impact of missiles.

However, Javelins are fitted with two warheads. One blows away the reactive armour, and the second pierces the chassis underneath.

The UK has also sent at least 3,600 NLAW missiles.

These are also designed to explode as they pass over the relatively exposed turret top of tanks.

How much are Russian tactics to blame?

Nowadays, the Russian army operates through Battalion Tactical Groups (BTGs), which are self-contained combat units made up of tanks, infantry and artillery.

The precise composition of these units may vary, but generally they comprise a large number of armoured vehicles but relatively few infantry troops.

"Russia has relatively few troops to call on," says Phillips O'Brien, a professor of strategic studies at St Andrews University, "so BTGs are a way of creating a fighting unit with lots of punch.

"They're designed to attack quickly with lots of firepower. However, they have very little protection in terms of infantry personnel to escort them and to retaliate if the armoured column comes under attack," he says.

"That makes the Russian army like a boxer who has a great right hook and a glass jaw."

How much is down to Russian incompetence?

According to Oryx's figures, half of the tanks Russia have lost have not been destroyed or damaged by the enemy but have been captured or abandoned.

Experts put this down to logistical failures, and incompetence by Russian troops.

"You've seen pictures of Russian tanks being dragged off by Ukrainian farmers' tractors," says Prof O'Brien.

"Some of those tanks were abandoned because they ran out of fuel. That's a logistical failure. Some got stuck in the spring-time mud, because the high command invaded at the wrong time of year."

"Russia's ground forces are made up of a lot of conscripts and recruits. That makes them, in world terms, a low- to medium-quality fighting force," says RUSI's Nick Reynolds.

"Many tanks have been abandoned because of bad driving. Some have been driven off bridges. Others have been driven into ditches so that the tracks have come off. The ability of the troops to use their equipment has been lacking.

"But often, soldiers have simply abandoned their vehicles and fled. So the will to fight has also been lacking."

The Ukrainian government has even issued instructions on how citizens should turn in abandoned military vehicles.

Authorities also confirmed that anyone who found such "combat trophies" did not need to declare them for tax purposes.

The United Nations offered devastating details of the global impact of the war in Ukraine, a “three-dimensional crisis” upending the flow of food, energy and money around the world.

“We are now facing a perfect storm that threatens to devastate the economies of many developing countries,” said Antonio Guterres, the secretary general of the U.N.

In its first official report on the war’s impact, the U.N. said the war in Ukraine was having “alarming cascading effects” on a global economy already “battered” by the Covid-19 crisis and climate change.

The report said that up to 1.7 billion people — a third of whom are already living in poverty — now face food, energy and finance disruptions. With energy prices rising by as much as 50 percent for natural gas in recent months, inflation growing and development stalled, many countries risk defaulting on their debts, according to the report.

“These are countries where people struggle to afford healthy diets, where imports are essential to satisfy the food and energy needs of their populations, where debt burdens and tightening resources limit government’s ability to cope with the vagaries of global financial conditions,” the report said.

It said that 107 countries have severe exposure to at least one the three dimensions of the crisis, and that of those nations, 69 have severe exposure to all three dimensions.

Ukraine and Russia provide about 30 percent of the world’s wheat and barley, according to the report.

The war has sent commodity prices to record highs — with food prices 34 percent higher than this time last year, according to the United Nations Food and Agriculture Organization and crude oil prices up by around 60 percent.

“Vulnerable populations in developing countries are particularly exposed to these price swings,” the report said, adding that “the rise in food prices threatens knock-on effects of social unrest.”

But the report said that swift action, coupled with political will and existing resources, could soften the blow — recommending that countries not hoard foodh supplies, offer help to small farmers, keep freight costs stable and lift restrictions on exports, among other things.

The report called on governments to make strategic fuel reserves available to the global market and reduce the use of wheat for fuel.