wae said:Not all the people would believe that, of course, but you don't need to fool all the people all the time, just enough of them to keep from getting assassinated or overthrown and then assassinated. Or, you know, abdicating power and then getting assassinated anyway which seems to be how the Russians like to roll, historically.
I had to repeat that just for a good laugh. 
Both Ukraine and Russia are saying that progress is being made in the peace talks with more talks possible tomorrow.
As many may know by now, the Russians are having little success taking control of cities and seems to have made no new progress around Kyiv. The basic tactic seems to be bombarding the cities in what might be described as: terrorizing the Ukrainians until they agree to some sort of agreement. Personally, I would find it highly unfortunate if they gave them anything. If they do, just violate the agreement eventually. It's not like everyone else hasn't done it to them!
- There has been a couple of recent cases of journalists being shot or killed. How purposeful is this on the part of the Russians?
- Video of Ukrainian fighters near Kyiv shows them heavily equipped with anti-tank weapons. As in like half the fighter had some sort of anti-thank weapon (of various designs). Clearly the supplies are getting through there.
- Russia has been targeting western airfields in what appears to be an attempt to slow the flow of weapons.
- Russia has asked China for military assistance(!) This is both an indication of how bad things are going and a potential escalation.
As I am sure most have also heard, the Mig29 transfer from Poland is dead. They were willing to transfer them to the US, but not directly to the Ukrainians. The US was unwilling to transfer them to Ukraine either, because...Putin would consider it an escalation. So apparently we are taking orders from Putin, and somehow fighter jets (which might have a somewhat limited use) are more of an escalation then massive amounts ATMs and MANPADs.
But... there is likely something else going on. Is the US concerned about Put Put dropping a nuke, or something else? Well, as many may not realize, the US is currently in negotiation with Iran to suspend its nuclear weapons program. Want to guess who is leading this negotiations?.... Russia! Sound too ridiculous to be true? Well it is. Currently it sounds like the negotiations have become difficult because Russia is inserting the removal of sanctions against Russians as part of the conditions. What this has to do with Iran, I have no idea. I do hope they realize they can trust Iran with any sort of agreement about as much as they could trust Russia, but I suspect they don't.
I also heard an interview with Garry Kasparov (Russian chess champion). His perspective on "how we got here" essentially dismissed the "NATO created this" notion and pointed to the lack of spine of the West to respond to Put Put's previous adventures, which emboldened him. The fact that the West seems to think they can negotiate there way out of everything seems to be a huge weakness. With all bark and no bite, you soon learn you can ignore the bark.
Pete. (l33t FS) said:In reply to Captdownshift (Forum Supporter) :
People joke about France in WWII but their reality was they basically lost a whole generation because the men who would have fathered them died in Belgian mud. They do not have that problem today.
Thanks for saying that. Bravery has rarely been France's military Achilles heel. Lousy leadership has. WWI was obscene with high brass literally sitting in chateaus drinking and living well whilst their soldiers endured hell on earth.
aircooled said:They were willing to transfer them to the US, but not directly to the Ukrainians. The US was unwilling to transfer them to Ukraine either, because...Putin would consider it an escalation.
I wouldn't want to be the person who had to make the decision on whether the US should have brokered the transfer. While Ukraine desperately needs the help, what if it would cause Russia to declare war against us?
aircooled said:The basic tactic seems to be bombarding the cities in what might be described as: terrorizing the Ukrainians until they agree to some sort of agreement. Personally, I would find it highly unfortunate if they gave them anything.
I feel the same way but it's not my home that is getting bombed, not my family that is in danger, and not my ass on the front line if this keeps going.
The issue with the MIGs seems to be they have to take off from a NATO field and land in Ukraine. It's hard not to see that as NATO getting involved and the upside seems smaller than originally thought.
In reply to John Welsh :
There are a lot more than that. That is just the big names. I've been having to deal with that decision for our company.
In reply to stuart in mn :
He won't and can't attack us, his armed forces are in shambles and he is too worried about, "getting assassinated or overthrown and then assassinated. Or, you know, abdicating power and then getting assassinated anyway".
We have had too much time to reinforce our eastern flank and his hyper missiles can't hit anything, An insurgency with anti tank and anti aircraft hand held armament is plenty to create a no fly zone. Remember when we gave Stingers to the Mujahideen (Taliban) in Afghanistan in the 80's? (see Timothy Dalton as James Bond in The Living Daylights (1987)). They ran off the entire Soviet AirForce. Our stuff is a lot better now than what it was 40 years ago.
It's also kind of funny that half of the Russian navy is stuck in the Black Sea, the rest stuck in the Baltic sea and that one (probably frozen-in) way out east. It is probably time for some airliner to get shot out of the sky to show how tuff they are.
I still don't understand why nobody let the Ukrainian forces know that those 'antiquated old' Migs were being kept fully fueled outside at a low security, easy to access airstrip, with the 'doors unlocked and keys in the ignition'... Then give one of those less than useless 'public condemnations' (with a wink and a nod) when they 'steal' the planes, and have closed-door diplomatic meetings to 'restore' (celebrate) the relationship. The Russians can accuse it of being intentionally coordinated all they want, but all that has to be done is give the same hollow denials that western leaders continually let these dicktators get away with.
stuart in mn said:aircooled said:They were willing to transfer them to the US, but not directly to the Ukrainians. The US was unwilling to transfer them to Ukraine either, because...Putin would consider it an escalation.
I wouldn't want to be the person who had to make the decision on whether the US should have brokered the transfer. While Ukraine desperately needs the help, what if it would cause Russia to declare war against us?
..then Russia would loose most all of it's Airforce and land force rather quickly.
Kasperove would say, this is the exact sort of thinking that has gotten us (and the West) where we are now, worrying about hurting Putin's feelings.
If fighters cause him to declare war, then why not all the other equipment that has been sent?
In reply to aircooled :
I don't claim to be an expert on military or diplomatic issues, it just seems like the situation is probably more complex than most civilians know about.
stuart in mn said:In reply to aircooled :
...it just seems like the situation is probably more complex than most civilians know about.
Ya think? (Political follow-up comment redacted.)
https://www.npr.org/2022/03/13/1086371078/ukraine-russian-warship-postage-stamp
A new stamp honors the Ukrainian soldiers who profanely told off a Russian warship
VolvoHeretic said:We have had too much time to reinforce our eastern flank and his hyper missiles can't hit anything, An insurgency with anti tank and anti aircraft hand held armament is plenty to create a no fly zone. Remember when we gave Stingers to the Mujahideen (Taliban) in Afghanistan in the 80's? (see Timothy Dalton as James Bond in The Living Daylights (1987)). They ran off the entire Soviet AirForce. Our stuff is a lot better now than what it was 40 years ago.
Don't forget Rambo III (1988), aka The Rambo Movie Americans Pretended Didn't Exist After 1993 and Especially 2001.
One funny (funny "hmm", not funny "ha ha") thing I heard about that conflict was that there'd be a lone Afghan fighter with Lee Enfield rifle (probably a Khyber Pass copy) standing off in the far distance, picking off Soviets with impunity because those "smellies" had accuracy at long distance like no Soviet rifle did.
stuart in mn said:In reply to aircooled :
I don't claim to be an expert on military or diplomatic issues, it just seems like the situation is probably more complex than most civilians know about.
I absolutely agree with that.
So, just for the young kids here, to put these current world developments into perspective and how deadly serious all of this is, how many here remember duck and cover back in the 50's and 60's, or the Cuban Missile Crisis? Ever wonder how much radiation you where exposed to from the above ground nuclear testing that was occurring when you where a kid? There was once a map of the test bomb fallout drift clouds and where they went and where rainfall dropped out the radiation onto our population (Us) for every one lit off in the US in a library magazine I read once long ago, but it has been scrubbed from the internet. But here is this one. Enjoy.
Here is a high speed video of an early baby nuke test:
First Milliseconds of Nuclear Bomb Test Fireball
I can't remember, how do you link a YouBoob video to a web thread with a video screenshot?
In reply to Pete. (l33t FS) :
Wow Pete, pretty scary in video form. And people wonder why the cancer rate has exploded in the last 75 years. How did you post that video?
In reply to VolvoHeretic :
Use the Media Embed tool. It's the icon between the smiley face and the picture.
I really hope the Chinese decide, despite their participation in the disinformation campaign, that it is in their best interest not to provide aid to Putin. Worldwide economic collapse due to massive sanctions is the best outcome I'd see from that happening.
In reply to eastsideTim :
Could that be the end game?
China betting on being the only financial superpower if the economy collapses?
Driven5 said:I still don't understand why nobody let the Ukrainian forces know that those 'antiquated old' Migs were being kept fully fueled outside at a low security, easy to access airstrip, with the 'doors unlocked and keys in the ignition'... Then give one of those less than useless 'public condemnations' (with a wink and a nod) when they 'steal' the planes, and have closed-door diplomatic meetings to 'restore' (celebrate) the relationship. The Russians can accuse it of being intentionally coordinated all they want, but all that has to be done is give the same hollow denials that western leaders continually let these dicktators get away with.
This is what we need. A 21st century version of lend lease. It needs to be sneaky. If Putt Putt plays dirty, so can we. What? Those planes do look like A10s, but they look like Ukrainian flags on them, and our guys never flew them to Ukraine. We'll check our stockpile and get back to you when we finished our investigation.
QuasiMofo (John Brown) said:In reply to eastsideTim :
Could that be the end game?
China betting on being the only financial superpower if the economy collapses?
As I understand, they still need an export market to keep their economy going. They also need raw resources and food imports. I mean, they could try to just take it from other countries after an economic collapse, but that just leads to WW3.
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