The Ukraine Situation

[Rugbyref]

Membership of NATO is a defensive action. They have proved their actions to be correct. Putin is clearly deranged, so Estonia would have been invaded long ago without their membership.

[Condor68]

Jumped up little power crazy b*****d! Another Hitler I fear!

I thought you were talking about Nicola Sturgeon there for a minute

Dont think Auntie Nick would have time for this.Too busy driving us back to the dark ages and poverty.i

[fishphone]

Just watching BA10 from Bangkok to London over Tajikstan, I sincerely hope they know about the Russian airspace ban. Remeber MH17

[Col Nago]

Do we think once the Russians take Ukraine it'll back to the days of Western supplied guerrillas taking down Hinds with MPADS? I reckon so myself. It's a sure fire way of demoralising the underpaid Russian soldiers. The Ukrainian / Polish / Romanian /Hungarian border is huge. There's no way it can be secured from outside meddling.

[steamy]

The question to be asked surly is
will Mr Putin really want to sacrifice hundreds of Russian lives on a war he cant win ,
The coalition forces in Desert Storm used in excess of 250000 troops to take a country that is very much smaller than Ukraine is , and against a poor (to say the least) conscript invading army

I dont think for all UK/USA/EU bluster etc that Russia will invade Ukraine, they are achieving what they want without shots being fired in that the west is spending millions of pound/dollars/euros moving troops ......

A week is a long time

Today's world has become so unpredictable with all the discord and disharmony between countries and within nation states. Megalomaniacs like Putin can feed off this to expand empires under the flag of unification. Where will he stop - next try to destabilise Romania - not today but in years to come?

PS I am gobsmaked that Biden was right!

I'm curious why people are so shocked that Biden was right?

Anything he says seems to be wrapped up in dis-information campaigns, which people tend to have a binary yay or nay if asked do they believe him.
Or you get the hardcore nays which start going down the Iraq route and it's just America warmongering...

It played out exactly how Georgia, and Ukraine 2014 played out, but on a ridiculously bigger scale...

Also, given the type of forum we're on, do you not think there are cheaper ways to start a war, rather than throwing millions (billions?) of ISR assets at a region, unless you were suspecting something was happening?

[Condor68]

One bullet seemed to be the trigger point to bring evrything to a head and start WW1.Thats pretty cheap given what followed.Admittedly getting into bulletproof/bombproof premises and getting away could push the cost up somewhat.

[T_J]

Romania intercepts Ukrainian Air Force Su-27. Su-27 escorted into Baza 95 Aeriana, Bacau by Romanian Air Force F-16s.

https://www.scramble.nl/military-news/r ... nian-su-27

Picture of the fully armed Su-27 at following link.

https://theaviationgeekclub.com/heres-t ... hter-jets/

[slogen51]

Russia's Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov says Ukrainian people must now have the chance to choose there own future!

With Russian tanks on the streets of Kyiv !!

[Col Nago]

Anyone watching those four Ukrainian aircraft on the tracker at the moment? All bunched together and visible pretty much after the crossed into Polish airspace. 2 x AN26 and 2 x AN32. One line at approx. 16000ft. Making a break for it?

[baz1]

AN26 01Blue 04 blue
AN32 32blck 33 blck
Tango 057 in a race track pattern around them

[Blackcat1]

Kyiv residents have been given guns if they want to defend the capital. And now the Gremlin in the Kremlin is asking Ukrainian soldiers to turn on their government!!

God help them

[Fizz]

Kyiv residents have been given guns if they want to defend the capital. And now the Gremlin in the Kremlin is asking Ukrainian soldiers to turn on their government!!

God help them

Also apparently being taught how to make petrol bombs...

[XWP29]

Evening all, I'm sorry that I was right on Putin's intentions for Ukraine and perhaps his plan for the new iron curtain! Basically Putin is a bully and no amount of talk or taking his sweets of him will work. I have learnd at great cost, that bullies can only be sorted by giving them a red nose again and again till they stop getting up ! Sanctions may take as long as ten years it was said on question time tonight. We cannot afford to wait that long. As far as I know ? We waited till late 1944 before trying to assassinate Hitler with a carpet bombing raid on his Bearsden retreat by Lancasters. I can only hope that MI6 are planning something with Mr Bond or perhaps today's version of Harry Palmer, as they realy need to show their worth now and pay back the investments in such security organisations ! Having to stop this Putin madness with a European all out war will be horrible especially with our reductions in defence by politically correct and pacifist politicians.
Please God, that right will prevail over might !

You were correct as it turned out - I think a lot of people on here had opinions on this and as you say the BBC were commenting on the build up of Russian forces. But this thread started life in the FC message section so unless replies were centered around military aviation it was difficult to contribute anything interesting without repeating the decline in size of the military resulting from the cooling of the cold war! That doesn't really make sense , is that an oxymoron

In hindsight courting former Eastern bloc countries to join NATO was always going to antagonize Moscow hardliners. To me it seemed that Poland became a friendly forward base for the US almost overnight. I am obviously not a military strategist but I have heard you need to be careful not to corner your opponent unless you intend to finish it. Russia was becoming surrounded by newly recruited NATO counties , Poland , Estonia , Latvia , Lithuania I think the decommunisation of the Ukraine was a red flag to a bull.

As sovereign states these former Soviet satellite countries have the right to do as they wish but you do need to respect your neighbours feelings - it's exactly like living in a street - if you erect a whacking great raised deck for parties or a wood burner with a tall chimney then your neighbours will respond in kind.

As my colleague in Germany said yesterday. Every country has the right to determine their own destiny. and in theory he is right.
I agree on the strategic shift forward of the NATO front line and question the move while then vandalising our armed forces. I’ve reminded our MP today that his response to my 2018 point on the lunacy of the defence reviews was, it’s all cyber warfare now.

Bear in mind that the Russian forces in the Ukraine invasion number in excess of the total of all our service branches put together, the stupidity of the politicians is staggering.

[slogen51]

The UK strategy against Russia is Trident. I think though the public expected successive governments to curb defence spending as a dividend earned from the breakup of the Soviet Union and ending of the cold war.

Perhaps the cold war never did end? Certainly arms manufacturers and other vested interests lobby strongly on the side of preparedness and mistrust and I suppose they have been proved right?

Depressing really.

[Col Nago]

Military analysts on BBC News 24 saying that it’s pretty much a given that US and UK special ops have been in country for a while now. They don’t get included when politicians talk about NATO ‘boots on the ground’. One said that it’s a matter of time before Stingers start showing up, and the other chap mentioned that although Russia has modernised its military, they’ve ended up in Ukraine in an early 90’s state. Russia has failed to gain air superiority at the moment.

[XWP29]

The UK strategy against Russia is Trident. I think though the public expected successive governments to curb defence spending as a dividend earned from the breakup of the Soviet Union and ending of the cold war.

Perhaps the cold war never did end? Certainly arms manufacturers and other vested interests lobby strongly on the side of preparedness and mistrust and I suppose they have been proved right?

Depressing really.

The U.K. strategy is plain dumb. Sending tanks to Poland shows conventional forces are in reality still required.

Not on the side of arms manufacturers yet students of history tell us that weakness is exploited by evil and that is a fact. Until the world becomes pacifist in totality: Walk softly and carry a (kin) great stick is the way to do it. If it isn’t sustained so the cycle perpetuates.

[TREBAX_RAVEN]

Military analysts on BBC News 24 saying that it’s pretty much a given that US and UK special ops have been in country for a while now. They don’t get included when politicians talk about NATO ‘boots on the ground’. One said that it’s a matter of time before Stingers start showing up, and the other chap mentioned that although Russia has modernised its military, they’ve ended up in Ukraine in an early 90’s state. Russia has failed to gain air superiority at the moment.

I think it's a given that they've been there for a fairly long time by now, you'd assume they'd just be offering advice and means of communication to various intelligence services

[pg1610]

NATO has activated for deployment the rapid reaction force(at least some elements of it)
This force consists of land air and sea units and totals 40000 personnel

100 fighter aircraft are mentioned,but it's unclear if these are those already deployed or new deployment


There are also some casualty and battle damage reports tonight which show(if verified) that the Russian army are getting a very darn nose at the hands of the Ukrainian Army

[Gary]

Ukrainians are claiming they've downed an Russian IL-76, saying its revenge to the loss of a Ukrainian IL-76 in 2014

[Rob666]

I see Su downed, hope it's not a Ukraine one and how things have changed for these guys who only a couple of years ago visited RIAT.