We had air supremacy from day 1. We sent and spent the black paper-plane 117s on reducing Iraq’s Soviet-sourced and considerable antiair capacity to ineffectiveness.
2014, the reason Russia annexed Crimea was the people revolted and drove a Russian puppet from office. Afterwards they had a democratic government elected. Because of this pushed the Russian nationalists in the east to rise up. The playbook was the same as in Kazakhstan, Moldova, Georgia. Russia lights a blaze and comes running in to put it out. Mind you, they do not leave afterwards.
And if at any time Russia just packed up its bags and left Ukrainian soil would have Ukraine or Nato followed them to attack the teritory of Russia? No. So your premise is laughable. The reason Putin does not want a democratic government next door is because it might rub off on the Russian people and they might send Putin and his cronies packing.
It sure is Nato/US putting a gun to the Ukrainian's heads making them volunteer to fight for their country. Nato and the US has been behind the curve in terms of what Ukraine wants to fight with. And the '94 treaty to keep Ukraine free, you seem to wash it away. You seem to ignore it is all on Russia for the state of the day. You would say the wife should negotiate sex with the abusive husband in order to have a harmonious household. In Putin's case he has put it in writing, he wants to build a mini-USSR. And in building it he would swallow up as many of the countries he is allowed, and in time the threat to the West would be greater than it is today.
He had carefully cultivated this cool,shrewd,balls of steel image as a cagey adversary that he eviscerated w/this blunder,However w/all his doomsday weaponry still in hand Biden was correct in musing the end game here,How does it end if he can't be removed and all blame pinned on him so Russia as a Nation as a People can embark on the long road of remorse and reparation. If he survives a solution acceptable to Ukraine is hard to conjure.Ukraines success has them hungry for more(now the pre-2014 Ukranian borders),far fetched that Vlad relinquishes all this territory w/cock in hand and 0 to show for all this carnage and can the Ukranian people EVER find itself able to forgive.Long odds here and I just hope geiger counters are not needed at some point.
thehill.com
Agreed,Russia's air force is highly complicit in this failure,but again they had a 30+yo western blueprint,damn they could have inserted Spetznatz or other special operators to laser designate targets for their pilots thereby pockmarking Ukranian runways and taking out air def radars thus blinding the Ukrainians all of which should have been conducted prior to sending in those absurdly vulnerable bumper to bumper armored columns.
Corruption is why, no fuel to train, it was sold, no parts for planes, they sell them abroad and there is a black market for spares. The air force is the most high-tech and therefore the most corrupt with lots to sell. Much of it was for show as was a lot of the Russian military a Potemkin Village. They lacked precision munitions and could not operate at high altitude out of manpad range and flying low tactical missions with dumb bombs was suicide with thousands of stingers on the ground. They even had commercial GPS devices taped in the cockpit. Add to that they could only operate over territory they controlled or that was being contested and there was and is a steady increase in Ukrainian AA capability.
He fucked himself, know your enemy, know yourself and you will win every time, Vlad knew neither which is why he is gonna lose. Just remember he was a loser who ran Russia for 20 years with a fortune in energy revenue coming into a vast country rich in resources. They should be living like kings, but live like shit, Vlad is responsible for that too. Trump did better running his businesses for FFS, than Putin did running Russia, into the ground.
84 missiles a day and he doesn't have that many left. It makes the civilians part of the fight with their soldiers and puts them on the front line. The result will be like the Blitz, they are already singing in the subways. Europe appears to be now all in and wants Russia defeated ASAP, it's the only way out for them as far as energy goes. The changing facts on the ground are changing minds, the Russian army looks set to collapse and their eviction from Ukraine looks very possible in the near future. Winter is coming and it's gonna be Hell for the Russians, they are less prepared for it than the Germans were in 1941, the Ukrainians will push their advantage like the Russians did then. They are caught in Ukraine and fucked themselves with corruption, 1.5 million winter uniforms ended up as someone's yacht.Russia Security Council official says ‘there will be others’ after mass strikes in Ukraine
Dmitry Medvedev, the deputy chairman of Russia’s Security Council, warned that the Kremlin will launch additional attacks after it pursued mass strikes across Ukrainian cities on Monday.
“The first episode has been played. There will be others,” Medvedev wrote on Telegram.
Russia launched dozens of missiles on Monday that landed in multiple Ukrainian cities — including in Kyiv and areas far from the frontlines — in an apparent response to a bridge explosion over the weekend that stymied a key supply route to the Crimean Peninsula.
Ukraine’s state emergency service indicated at least 11 people died and more than 60 others were injured, with additional widespread reports of electricity outages and structural damage.
“The Ukrainian state in its current configuration with the Nazi political regime will pose a constant, direct and clear threat to Russia,” Medvedev wrote. “Therefore, in addition to protecting our people and protecting the borders of the country, the goal of our future actions, in my opinion, should be the complete dismantling of the political regime of Ukraine.”
Medvedev previously served as president of Russia for four years in between Putin’s terms. Medvedev later became prime minister in 2012, serving for about eight years before joining the Security Council.
Russia’s strikes came the same day as Russian President Vladimir Putin met with the group of national security advisers.
Putin at the meeting characterized Russia’s missile attacks as a response to the partial collapse of a key bridge between Russia and Crimea following a major explosion on Saturday, denouncing it as “terrorism.”
He blamed Ukrainians for the bridge’s collapse, although Kyiv has not claimed responsibility.
“In case of continuation of terrorist attacks on our territory, we will respond in a very harsh manner, and we will respond in level with the level of threats posed against Russian Federation,” Putin said. “Nobody should have any doubt about this.”
Russia Security Council official says ‘there will be others’ after mass strikes in Ukraine
Dmitry Medvedev, the deputy chairman of Russia’s Security Council, warned that the Kremlin will launch additional attacks after it pursued mass strikes across Ukrainian cities on Monday. “The first…
Bloody fucking hell…a decent night’s sleep for once - and I wake up to this
yea, i have been seriously wondering about the lack of russian air strikes...the Ukrainians have paper planes compared to them.
they're not going down any long road of remorse...the only regret they feel is that they didn't get out soon enough to avoid getting drafted...Reparations, on the other hand, that road they're going to get drug down by the ears...
