It seems that Ukraine will probably also receive F-16s and maybe F-18s. I wonder how long they will survive on the battlefield with such a high saturation of Russian anti-aircraft defenses and VKS? They will probably be supported by AWACS.
Where could they possibly operate from... where would they arrive from... AWACS operating with them become genuine targets... Russia has lots of very long range AAMs and SAMs designed specifically to bring down AWACS aircraft... how many are HATO countries going to give them?
I heard one of the Russian fighters in the Donbass being interviewed who dropped claim that Kiev will be retaken. It does not seem
like an official position, but I think that Russia should leverage NATzO's escalation to go for the best option. So the west
bank of the Dnepr from the north to the south extending to a boundary running north from Moldova should be the goal.
Russia can't just stop at its current legal boundaries because the Orcs will shell them forever like the last 8 years, so take the longest range artillery they have and add that to the Russian boundaries and that is the territory they will be taking... of course once taken the locals might choose to join the RF which means they need to extend the boundary even further to prevent their new Russian citizens from being shelled by the Orcs.... they will eventually get to a point where they reach hostile territory where they wont want to join the RF and can be denazified and disarmed and become a neutral territory... but then they would also need security guarantees from Russia which means expanding their borders to the Orcs can't shell them either... do you see the pattern?
Forces from Poland or Hungary entering Ukrainian territory would be perceived as supporting Ukrainian troops and will be shelled and bombed till they leave.
Fifth article does not apply to unilateral invasions and land grabbing.
And the whole south to Transnistria. For this, an additional million troops are needed. It is doubtful that Putin would want to mobilize so much.
As they move forward I would think the Ukrainian military is on the brink of collapse and local troops could be used to "take" territory too. If either the Orcs collapse or just break into a rout and retreat to the west of the country I don't think a lot of soldiers will be needed to push them backwards without armour or ammo or support.
It is getting to the point where anti Kiev formations might be possible amongst the POWs... rather than go back and be sent to the front line again at gun point.
And the whole south to Transnistria. For this, an additional million troops are needed. It is doubtful that Putin would want to mobilize so much.
Putin didn't want war in the first place... yet again the west gave Russia no choice.... same with South Ossetia and same with Syria...
Having half of ukraine full of hungarian/polish related people in Russia is a bad thing on the long term. They will always object to everything and play US game.
They want to be Polish and Hungarian then deport them... but the infrastructure and rebuilding the Russians likely intend to make Ukraine productive again but as part of Russia might give them second thoughts. Perhaps people from EU countries might consider migration across the border to Russia as energy and food become problems in Europe.
It would be good to have the lands but the population will be too hostil and useless.
Well Kievs tactic, which the west approved was to ban their language and religion and when they objected claim a Polish and Hungarian invasion and shell them day and night for the best part of a decade and see if that solves the problem...
The city of Kiev hardly has a population that would want to live under the Russian flag. The question is how all this would pass in Odessa or Nikolaev now. The only solution is to displace a good part of the population and get half-empty cities. As for Kharkov, I have no doubt that it is gravitating towards Moscow. It is enough that Ukroshitstan is under the Russian boot, the territory is irrelevant.
They learned to hate Russians and love nazis... they can learn to hate the west and love Russians.
In any case, Japan is a compliant little bitch for America. So there are precedents for it
Was going to add Germany, but really you could say the entire western world are their little bitch...
The area in which Russia needs some form of mobilization are the civilian administrations and even the state-owned corporations. They have to
take over the local administrations and parts of the economy. You can´t just keep all of the civil servants in place. At least until their innocence
is proven.
A good way to start would be to check all politicians and civil servants with US passports...
No matter how much some here defend that antichrist Lenin, his ideology killed millions of Russians and gave away part of the territory of the Russian Empire, today's Ukrishitstan - for nothing. And what now, you expect everyone to say "from tomorrow we are Russians" ?
The people on the ground will get the vote as to what their future will be... they will get to pick whether they want to join the Russian Federation, or if they want to be an independent neutral state with security guarantees from Russia. They won't get an option to join the EU or HATO, but they don't have to join the RF if they don't want to but their future is a future with no armed forces and no military.
No it didn't. Modern Russia doesn't have nearly as a wide reach as SU did. Objectively, I am not sure if that is even possible. If it is, it will not happen in near future.
Currently Russia has better reach than the Soviets did... Russia has trade allies that include unlikely countries like Turkey and Pakistan and Iran and South Korea and even Saudi Arabia... no ideology to push and better relations with countries in Africa including South Africa where Russia is offering more than tanks and planes and missiles and small arms. It used to be that the Soviets exported war, but these days the Russians can export so much more than just weapons... ironically it is the west that exports wars...
What does "superpower" mean, first of all?
Enough nuclear and conventional weapons that no one will take you on directly and will only attack you via proxy to try to weaken you.
Well Russia is enough of a super power that the west is so afraid as to risk a nuclear war arming Kiev to try to weaken Russia... that in itself suggests Russia is a real super power... considering the west is doing everything it can to isolate Russia from the international community and totally failing and only damaging the international organisations the US controls in the process of trying to hurt Russia.
Exactly that. Not to mention that there's much more to attaining superpower status, than just naked military power projection. It has to be multidimensional (economic, diplomatic, scientific, cultural ,etc) influence.
The Soviet Union relied on its reluctant allies in the Warsaw pact and had nonexistent relations with China... I would say the Russians have much better weapons and equipment now that is in many cases better than western equipment and its loss of half allies in eastern europe has not weakened it in the slightest... such countries were always going to be the cannon fodder countries where the nuclear conflict was going to be fought... having 50,000 tanks is no advantage to anyone, yet ironically having China on side is worth 100 Warsaw Pact countries.
The west is up to its eyeballs in debt and don't even acknowledge this as being a problem, so the international economy is going to collapse at some stage... they will need a massive war to try to get out of paying their debts... what they don't realise is how atrophied everything in the western military has become...
Anyone saying that Putin should take the whole of Ukraine should ask themselves this, do you want to forcibly assimilate millions of Western/Central Ukrainians into the Russian Federation, where their votes will count towards choosing the next President of Russia?
The poles and hungarian minorities are welcome to go home if that is their wish, and the ukrainians so happy to worship Bandera and spit on Russians can learn a new history and follow new rules blindly like robots the way they were happy for Ukrainians of the east to be shelled and oppressed.
The people of western Ukraine don't need to joint the RF and they don't need to become Russians... but they will not be allowed to trade with the EU... they can use rubles, and their language could be banned for a decade or two just to show them what wonderful neighbours they have been recently.
NATO is ready for a direct confrontation with Russia, but the alliance must rearm — Head of the NATO Military Committee, Admiral Rob Bauer
Is it just me or does he look like he has just been crying?
The issue with assimilating Ukraine in its entirety is that it becomes Russian territory and your next Nato threat is literally next door; Poland. Maybe better to acquire the eastern part and somehow turn the western part in a demilitarized zone; not sure how or who should govern that.
You would need to control the neutral bit to prevent it becoming part of Poland... Poland has a history of stealing territory... you have to watch them.
This means they have plans for more military actions and one of them is to quell down rebellions in Ukraine
Offer them good pay and I am sure plenty of Ukrainians in Russia and in the east of the Ukraine who have enjoyed almost a decade of Kievs hospitality would be happy to take a rifle and manage the rest of the Ukraine...
Having a border with Poland means that any aggression has to be launched from Poland.
Whether they have a neutral state or not the HATO border will be at Poland... and HATO and the EU will try to influence any neutral state to be the same anti Russia shithole they turned Ukraine into, so the Ukraine needs to be Neutralised and denazified and have western advisors purged at every level from the military and the politics and media etc etc etc.
Anyone with dual citizenship should have their Ukrainian citizenship revoked and deported to their home country whether that is the US or Canada or UK or where ever.
Has anyone read anything about Russia using AN-2 as a slow cruise missile against Ukraine with perhaps a flight of 3 being downed by a Gepard in October?
They would be using them to bait air defence systems, so being shot down is to be expected.
They have enormous numbers but they are obsolete and being replaced and likely flew them remotely...
321 is not a small number, combined with other armed vehicles and other stuff is a force to be reckoned with.
Also hard to hide and hard to support and keep operational so would require enormous support tail.
A formation of 100 plus tanks would be an ideal target for HEAT submunition attack from SMERCH... each 300mm Smerch rocket carries 644 HEAT top attack submunitions... a salvo from 6 vehicles with 12 rockets on each vehicle would mean about 46 thousand HEAT top attack submunitions falling over an enormous area of terrain (they are not guided though and fall randomly over a fixed area).
Being able to shower a road from 150km away with tens of thousands of anti armour submunitions is devastating...
I also posted a video dated a few months ago about Russia planning to convert An-2s to unmanned drone use to scope out Ukrainian air defenses, and maybe be used as a suicide drone as well
They are available in enormous numbers... remote piloting equipment would be easy to fit and you could load several tons of HE as a payload if you wanted to... they have thousands nearing their expiry dates that are being replaced by Baikals anyway.
It's unrealistic to hand over all these tanks to the Ukrainians batch by batch and expect it to make any difference,
The talk of taking years for tanks to be ready is bullshit... it is delaying tactics... they know their horse will fail the drug test and they want people to bet lots of money on it because they know it wont win and no money will be paid out.
If they gather the tanks together and deploy them as a unified force they will be slaughtered... rocket artillery can destroy them from 150km using a mix of unguided top attack HEAT munitions or guided self forging fragment munitions... the western tanks very vulnerable with their enormous turrets with the rear portions filled with ammunition and those hot engine decks all screaming to be hit from above. Even the unguided HEAT submunition warhead uses enormous numbers of munitions to kill tanks...
If they come in in dribs and drabs they have special forces with ATGMs and attack helicopters and aircraft with guided weapons to pick them off.
or for Ukrainian pilots to fly F-16s and from some dirt airstrips.
An F-16 operating from a dirt airstrip... have you seen where it air intake is located?
The F-18 is even worse because at least the F-16 has its front wheel behind the air intakes... the F-18 does not...
And both would be swatted out of the sky at enormous ranges.
Perhaps some pilots might choose to defect... wouldn't that be amusing...
But the planes one way or the other will have to fly from NATO airbases. Possibly that's been happening already, and would explain why the Ukrainian air-force is still flying (along with all the spare planes they're getting).
Their soviet aircraft are designed to operate from sections of road in dispersed locations... western planes... not so much.
An aircraft taking off from an airfield in a HATO country that is carrying weapons and attacks targets in the Ukraine is an act of war isn't it?
I doubt that NATO militaries are really full of such arrogant fools. These people are professionals and can be counted upon to assess Russian capabilities in theatre objectively and with a level head. Behaving otherwise simply won't do. For military people, estimating your own and your adversary's strength correctly is a matter of life and death, and nothing but.
But the military is not in control and if a military man said western tanks would fail miserably in the Ukraine being used by Ukrainians against Russian tanks their career would be over so of course they will be very careful about what they say.
In most military forces around the world the higher the rank the closer they get to politician in outlook and speech....
Therefore I suspect that their public statements hint at a different intent than the one they're actually considering. They're not going to send their own pilots out in those kamikaze runs the Ukrainians have been only too happy to perform. If they come in, so they'll come in in force.
They will risk their planes because the US probably promises to replace all aircraft they send with F-35s or new F-16s, but they wont risk HATO pilots because there are Orc pilots willing to die... it does not matter they are half trained if they can launch something that hits something... stormshadow missile launched by Ukrainian Ghost super ace pilot manages to shoot down an S-400 missile!!! the next S-400 missile shoots down the F-16. ...or some such rubbish.
This is all about draining the EU of old tanks and aircraft and weapons and ammo so the US can go into full production mode and produce ammo and tanks and aircraft to replace it all... the support costs will be enormous and a huge help to US industry too.
On the other hand, An-2 is a plane filling a very important niche of regional transportation in harsh conditions. Russia seriously lacks them, that is why so many modernization programs are being carried for a planes that are close to 80 y/o ...
Tens of thousands were made and lots are in storage... their airframe lives are expiring and they need to be replaced. The Baikal single wing aircraft is going to replace them along with an L-410 adaptation in the heavier roles with 19 passengers, so the An-2s are going to decline in numbers now anyway... might as well use them for something.
Alerting the air defence because it looks like a plane rather than a missile makes it valuable in getting rid of some Orc SAMs and AD vehicles which expose their positions when they engage the target.
This is a way Azeris used their stock. But they had not many other options at hand. Russkie does, so why should they waste a good plane?
They have many time expired models in storage and are in the process of replacing them in the field.
Why would they use kh-55 as decoys ? The thing is a missile just use it to blow up some targets.
Instead of sending 20 kh-55 decoys and 20 kh-101 to target 20 targets, just send 40 missiles on 40 targets. Who cares if they intercept one or 5 of them.
If you want decoys, create cheap decoys. Don't use planes or real cruise missiles.
A decoy missile has the HE payload replaced with sensors and equipment and decoys so launching 20 Kh-55 decoys it can fly a preplanned flight route near suspected enemy defensive positions and can use onboard jammers and release chaff and flares and could have dozens of SAMs fired at it while continuing to make other systems power up and scan for them to try to shoot them down.
The Kh-101 is much bigger than the Kh-55 and has a warhead payload and self defence ESM equipment likely including towed disposable jammers...
The decoys are not about getting the cruise missiles through, the decoys are to get the defences to expose their location so they can be directly attacked with drones or missiles.
The Kh-55 is the nuclear armed model with a CEP of over 100m with no terminal guidance so a HE payload would not be much use. the Kh-555 with a terminal seeker to get the CEP below 10m to make a conventional warhead effective costs more money... removing the nuke warhead and making it a decoy would be cheaper than adding terminal guidance and changing to a conventional warhead.
They have plenty of drones used to test air defence systems... some are based on obsolete SAMs, but others are customised drones for the purpose with corner reflectors to simulate different aircraft types... using up old Kh-55s is a sensible solution while new missiles can be put into storage when needed.
Their stores of old ordinance will get a boost in performance with the old stuff used up and new stuff designed to be cost effective but also very accurate is produced in enormous numbers to replace it all.
Rather expect other countries will take note of what is happening and take a second look at T-72s and T-90s and other vehicles getting the job done... like artillery and attack helicopters... and of course the Su-35 as those F-16s and F-18s start to get shot down.
The reputation of the F-35 and F-15 will be preserved at all costs of course so they can continue to make claims.