Ukraine plinking a Russian GPS-jammer with a GPS-guided bomb. Ukrainian drones blowing up Russian drone-jammers. Ukraine’s cruise missiles striking Russian air-defense sites whose missions include, you guessed it, shooting down cruise missiles.
Russia’s 23-month wider war on Ukraine has seen a lot of ironic, darkly-hilarious clashes. The latest was also one of the quickest between setup and punchline.
On Tuesday morning, Russian media announced the deployment, to Ukraine, of Russian forces’ latest high-tech counterbattery radar. A few hours later in southern Ukraine, the Ukrainians blew it up … with artillery rockets.
The irony deepens. In theory, a Russian Yastreb-AV radar would help to protect Russian troops from Ukraine’s American-made High-Mobility Artillery Rocket Systems launchers—its HIMARS. Now guess what the Ukrainians used to destroy that first Yastreb-AV.
That’s right: HIMARS.
Right now, Ukraine is doing all the heavy lifting for the West. Every bit of the cash spent in that direction is very wisely invested, and a fraction of the cost to everyone else if (god forbid) Ukraine fails.
If we (the West) don’t spend now to help Ukraine, what will we eventually spend to help Poland, Finland, Estonia, Latvia, Lithuania, Moldova, and all the other lands Putin longs to annex and rob?
Right now, Ukraine is pretty much all that’s standing in the way of Putin’s visions of Russkiy Mir, and deserves everything the rest of us can dedicate to the cause: in the face of an expansionist dictator, the cause of Ukraine IS the cause of the world.