[Goose]

Putin and Trump had a 2 hour call. Seems Putin is rejecting a ceasefire.

Thanks for the multiple updates in this post. I am still hoping Putin will overplay his hand. It may be hard to predict when or if the US will conclude trying to broker a cease-fire is not going to work. I hope Putin reads it wrong and the backlash is "massive".

I just do not think that Ukraine will agree to someone else's negotiated "peace" unless Russia is on the verge of destroying the entire country.  As of now, Russia has hardly done what Putin thought they would 3 years ago.  More of their oil and gas infrastructure keeps getting hammered. 
It appears that Ukraine's ability to take out a good number of S400's has created problems where Russia has to keep moving what they have around to defend probable targets, then only to get hit where the just left.  A perfect situation for Ukraine's reported "in house" cruise missiles.

IMO it is more of a limitation of any SAM based defense against low-flying cruise missiles. The radar horizon limits the detection range (and therefore the engagement time) to just a few seconds. Long range SAMs do you no good because you can't detect the targets until the last moment. The necessary equipment to defeat low-flying cruise missiles is 1) an AWACS that has a very long radar horizon looking down on the cruise missiles and 2) fighters that the AWACS can vector to the targets. The US/coalition  and Israel have demonstrated this truth several times That works. SAMs alone don't. Russia in theory has the assets to do it as well. They aren't. As long as they don't, Ukraine can have success.

 
I think if Ukraine had the same assets as Russia, the war would be over and Russia would not be the winner.

Definitely agree.

If Western Europe steps up and helps fill in for stuff we are no longer sending it will help a lot.

True, but in many cases they just don't have the stuff. In particular, Patriot missiles, HIMARS rockets, ATACMS, SDBs, etc. There are sometimes limited quantities of equivalent items available but the European countries are somewhat reluctant to draw down their already limited stocks. I am sure they will do their best, but they can't fill the gap. They do have things like Storm Shadow and IRIS/T that will help, but how many they have is questionable.

Even more importantly, the US provides Ukraine with updated near real time intelligence feeds. They also get updated EORBAT from us that allows them to plan long range drone missions. The Europeans can't provide that kind of support. Lots of the capability they do have involves US assets in the process. The loss of situational awareness will be very problematic for Ukraine. Even more importantly, the loss of Starlink access will definitely mess up Ukrainian C3 capability. Starlink can be replaced, but not immediately.

[Goose]

Putin and Trump had a 2 hour call. Seems Putin is rejecting a ceasefire.

Thanks for the multiple updates in this post. I am still hoping Putin will overplay his hand. It may be hard to predict when or if the US will conclude trying to broker a cease-fire is not going to work. I hope Putin reads it wrong and the backlash is "massive".

I just do not think that Ukraine will agree to someone else's negotiated "peace" unless Russia is on the verge of destroying the entire country.  As of now, Russia has hardly done what Putin thought they would 3 years ago.  More of their oil and gas infrastructure keeps getting hammered. 
It appears that Ukraine's ability to take out a good number of S400's has created problems where Russia has to keep moving what they have around to defend probable targets, then only to get hit where the just left.  A perfect situation for Ukraine's reported "in house" cruise missiles.

IMO it is more of a limitation of any SAM based defense against low-flying cruise missiles. The radar horizon limits the detection range (and therefore the engagement time) to just a few seconds. Long range SAMs do you no good because you can't detect the targets until the last moment. The necessary equipment to defeat low-flying cruise missiles is 1) an AWACS that has a very long radar horizon looking down on the cruise missiles and 2) fighters that the AWACS can vector to the targets. The US/coalition  and Israel have demonstrated this truth several times That works. SAMs alone don't. Russia in theory has the assets to do it as well. They aren't. As long as they don't, Ukraine can have success.

 
I think if Ukraine had the same assets as Russia, the war would be over and Russia would not be the winner.

Definitely agree.

If Western Europe steps up and helps fill in for stuff we are no longer sending it will help a lot.

True, but in many cases they just don't have the stuff. In particular, Patriot missiles, HIMARS rockets, ATACMS, SDBs, etc. There are sometimes limited quantities of equivalent items available but the European countries are somewhat reluctant to draw down their already limited stocks. I am sure they will do their best, but they can't fill the gap. They do have things like Storm Shadow and IRIS/T that will help, but how many they have is questionable.

Even more importantly, the US provides Ukraine with updated near real time intelligence feeds. They also get updated EORBAT from us that allows them to plan long range drone missions. The Europeans can't provide that kind of support. Lots of the capability they do have involves US assets in the process. The loss of situational awareness will be very problematic for Ukraine. Even more importantly, the loss of Starlink access will definitely mess up Ukrainian C3 capability. Starlink can be replaced, but not immediately.