🇺🇦🇩🇪🇬🇧 “Is it even worth it for Ukraine? If they're only going to get 17 Leopard 2s, plus 13 Challenger 2s, that's an awful lot of training and logistics requirements for 30 tanks. It might actually make them *worse* off. Maybe another sign the West is running dry.”

- Andrew Collingwood

🇯🇵💵 Rising inflation, depreciating yen, record trade deficit, high energy prices - the Japanese economy is in a bad place right now.

🇪🇺🇷🇺 FT: A year of war has left Europe’s armories dry

Russia’s war against Ukraine is almost a year old. Tens of thousands have been killed. Western governments have provided more than $110bn worth of support to Kyiv, according to the Kiel Institute, with $38bn in the form of weapons.

But in many capitals, defence ministers are being informed by their generals that there is precious little left to give. Warehouses and dumps are bare. Denmark has given Ukraine every single one of its Caesar howitzers. Estonia has provided so many 155mm artillery guns it has none left.

As such, the conversations between western defence ministers who met at Nato’s headquarters this week and who will congregate at the Munich Security Conference this weekend are littered with furrowed brows and anxious looks: how long can we sustain this level of support, and with what?

Looming over them is Russia’s spring offensive, which Stoltenberg said had already begun. It is expected to involve a mass wave of newly mobilised troops, a level of air power not yet deployed by Moscow and the daily firing of as many artillery shells as Europe manufacturers in a month.

“It is worrying what is coming,” admitted Kajsa Ollongren, the Netherlands’ defence minister.

⚡️🇪🇺🇺🇸 Bloomberg: The World’s War Machine runs dry

On an average day in Ukraine, the opposing armies lob as many as 30,000 shells at one another. That’s more than 200,000 a week, almost 1 million a month—without including the bullets, land mines, hand grenades and other munitions being deployed as Vladimir Putin’s invasion enters its second year.

While Russian troops typically fire about twice as many rounds as Ukrainian forces do, stockpiles on both sides are shrinking. Ukraine’s ammunition use is “many times higher” than the current rate of production of its allies, NATO Secretary General Jens Stoltenberg told reporters in Brussels on Feb. 13.

While Russia’s stockpiles are also under pressure, its capacity is multiple times that of Europe’s, with its industry in a position to annually manufacture 1.7 million 152mm artillery shells before the war, according to Estonia’s Minister of Defense. Government officials meet regularly with representatives of the industry to coordinate plans, and state television says armaments factories continued to work full tilt through the New Year holidays even as much of the rest of Russia took 10 days off. Defense Minister Sergei Shoigu has said that the military roughly doubled ammunition purchases in 2022 and that spending on weapons systems will increase 50% this year. “We have no funding restrictions,” Putin told Ministry of Defense staff in December. “The country, the government will provide whatever the army asks for. Anything.”

🇨🇳🇺🇸 Nikkei Asia: China's stealth fighter inventory set to eclipse America's F-22s

China is outpacing the U.S. in the production of stealth fighters, with the inventory of its most advanced J-20A overtaking that of the U.S. Air Force's F-22 Raptor as soon as this year, the head of the London-based International Institute for Strategic Studies said Wednesday.

Chipman said that The Military Balance database now shows over 150 J-20A fighters. Though the U.S. is also increasing the number of its fifth-generation F-35As, and these now total around 360, "The pace of China's defense industrial output means it is catching up," he said.

"Indeed, if deliveries continue at the same speed, in 2023 the number of J-20As will eclipse the inventory of the U.S. Air Force's other fifth-generation combat aircraft, the F-22," Chipman said.

🇺🇸🇺🇦 It’s no wonder we had an average of 1,704 train derailments per year from 1990 to 2021, especially with tracks like these in Ohio.

But ya, let’s keep sending more money to Ukraine. 🤡

What our politicians are doing to our country is traitorous!

- Aleks Djuricic

🇨🇳🇯🇵🇺🇸 Global Times: China's rising strength to sway Japan's strategic choice

The US has taken a substantial step in encouraging Japan to rearm itself. Japanese Minister of Defense Yasukazu Hamada said on Tuesday that Japan plans to order Tomahawk cruise missiles in one go from the US within the 2023 fiscal year, rather than the initial plan that will take several years.

The Japanese media, citing government sources, said that the Japanese government is considering buying as many as 500 Tomahawk cruise missiles. The munitions, which have a strike range of about 1,600 kilometers and would cover China's coastal areas, will be used to develop counterstrike capabilities until Japan deploys home-developed ones.

The reality that China is facing is severe. I think first, China also needs to further accelerate its national defense development and investment. It is imperative that China's military expenditures are increased to account for 2 percent of its GDP. The goal of NATO countries is that the military expenditure of all member countries should reach more than 2 percent of GDP. Last year, the US was 3.4 percent, Russia was about 4 percent, India was about 2.6 percent, and China was 1.4 percent. 

While the US continues to incite forces neighboring China to increase their hostility toward Beijing, we must build up strategic confidence as a great power. That is, none of the neighboring forces dare to fight China one-on-one. They have their own calculation on being pawns in the US' anti-China strategy: They actually want to use Washington to achieve faster development or expand their own strategic space. 

Japan is a strategically highly snobbish country. China is accelerating development to get closer and eventually surpass the US in terms of comprehensive strength. This is the key lever that will ultimately pry Japan's strategic attitude. In the end, time is on China's side.

🇨🇳🇺🇸 FT: Pentagon’s top China official to visit Taiwan amid rising bilateral tensions

The Pentagon’s top China official is to visit Taiwan in the coming days, a rare trip to the island by a senior US defence policymaker that comes as relations between Washington and Beijing are mired in crisis over a suspected Chinese spy balloon shot down two weeks ago.

The visit comes as US-China relations have sunk to a new low after the Chinese military flew a large balloon over North America for eight days until an F-22 shot it down off the South Carolina coast.

The planned visit comes at a sensitive moment in relations between Washington and Beijing. US secretary of state Antony Blinken is trying to meet Wang Yi, the top Chinese foreign policy official, at the Munich security conference this weekend. But two people familiar with the talks said Wang had not yet agreed to such a meeting.

Tensions between Washington and Beijing also remain high over Taiwan. A top American Air Force general recently said he believed the US and China would likely go to war over Taiwan in 2025. The Pentagon moved quickly to say that his comments did not reflect the official view.

Beijing opposes visits to Taipei by US officials or lawmakers. Last August, the Chinese military held large-scale military exercises, including flying ballistic missiles over Taiwan, after Nancy Pelosi became the first Speaker of the US House of Representatives to visit the island in 25 years.

The Biden administration insists US policy towards Taiwan has not changed. But the president has on four occasions said the US military would intervene if China attacked Taiwan.

His remarks appeared to shift the longstanding US policy of “strategic ambiguity” under which Washington refuses to say if it would intervene in a conflict. It was designed to make Taiwan less likely to declare independence — which would almost certainly trigger a Chinese attack — while making Beijing think twice about any military action against the country.

🇱🇻🇺🇦 EU aid to Ukraine has lost its common sense - now the confiscated cars of Latvian residents will be given to the Armed Forces of Ukraine

The Latvian Seimas approved amendments to the law on support for the civilian population in Ukraine. The head of the Latvian Ministry of Finance, Arvils Asheradens, made a proposal to seize cars from drivers who were driving in a state of intoxication and transfer them to the needs of the Ukrainian army. Each confiscated car will be decided by the government, and will be transferred through an organization cooperating with the government of Ukraine.

⚡️🇺🇦🇷🇺 The Times: A looming offensive on Sumy

In a network of trenches from where the Russian lines are visible, Sumy’s new defenders are assessing what lies on the other side as the anniversary of the invasion approaches. The signs are ominous.

“There are 10,000 Russian troops massed on the other side of the border,” senior lieutenant Andrei Hulakov said.

“It’s the largest concentration there has ever been here. And they have built a field hospital,” he added, one of the key developments last year that helped persuade Ukraine’s security apparatus that the Russian build-up was not just an elaborate bluff.

Not only that, but the Russians have also been spotted laying gravel on the routes leading to the border along which any armoured vehicles would have to travel. Last year thick mud impeded their progress. This year the ground is as yet still hard in the sub-zero temperatures.

⚡️🇷🇺🇺🇦 Ukrainian sources report of heavy casualties among college graduates, with the “Kyiv School of Economics” reporting 7% of its alumni have died in the war to date.

“7% KIA from alumnae of a non-military college is a pretty amazing number and supports some of the higher Ukrainian casualty estimates, as well as further suggesting that the stock of ideologically-motivated volunteers has run out.”

- Anatoly Karlin, for commentary on this statistic.

🇷🇺🇺🇦 Early this morning, air defense forces shot down a drone in the area of Balaklava TPP, there is no damage to the TPP, it is operating normally - Governor of Sevastopol Razvozhaev

🇷🇺🇺🇦 Colorful footage of the destruction of a Ukrainian tank by soldiers of the 58th separate special forces battalion of the NM DPR.