President Zelensky to visit UK today

[Blackcat1]

Maybe he can pay for them seeing as he's coining it in since leaving office . . .

My thoughts exactly! He should keep his big nose out of it

I still can't believe the RAF took him up in a typhoon! I wonder who paid for that????

He probably paid for it himself fair play!

[Blackcat1]

Making the UK a bigger target is also a concern right?

No. There is no concept of bigger/smaller target. Putin knows that an attack on the UK (or any other NATO country) automatically brings the whole of NATO into the war on (basically) Ukraines side.

Do you honestly trust or believe he wouldn't do that , considering he's not of sound mind with his threats?

Well I do hope for all of our sakes you're right.....

[Malcolm]

Making the UK a bigger target is also a concern right?

No. There is no concept of bigger/smaller target. Putin knows that an attack on the UK (or any other NATO country) automatically brings the whole of NATO into the war on (basically) Ukraines side.

Do you honestly trust or believe he wouldn't do that , considering he's not of sound mind with his threats?

Well I do hope for all of our sakes you're right.....

The whole point of NATO and deterrence is to deter a third party country (in this case Russia) from attacking you. So providing the UK don't launch attacks on Russia or Russian forces using UK operated assets, then we are keeping to our side of the cold-war "rules". We can't control how the Russian leadership 'think', and we can't allow them to start believing that supplying weapons to Ukraine means that the UK/NATO are attacking Mother Russia. That bluff must be called.

I see nothing wrong with helping to train or arm other "friendly" non-NATO nations, whether that be Australia, New Zealand, Gulf States or Ukraine. Giving them short range fighter aircraft (F-16, F-18, Mirage etc) allows them to defend their boarders, but doesn't give a significant external threat capability. Supplying current front line aircraft (F-35, F-15, Typhoon, Rafale) is much more problematic because it risks current leading edge western tech ending up in non freindly hands.

[davedubya]

Seems the Eurofighter partners are fine with flogging refurbed Tranche 1 Typhoons. So that might be the way to go.

Issues with them being a bit of a maintenance hog and also Russian air defence capability will need to be tackled as well.

I expect the US would suddenly undercut any deal with F-16s though.

[TYPHOON3]

He's after our Tranche 1 Typhoons. He knows of an eventual out of service date. Also any other country that's willing to donate theirs. Austria maybe ?

[Malcolm]

Seems the Eurofighter partners are fine with flogging refurbed Tranche 1 Typhoons. So that might be the way to go.

It's not only the European partner nations need to give approval. Typhoon contains tech covered by ITAR and other similar restrictions from many (many!) other nations. When the UK sale to Saudi was announced, one of these other nations revoked the export license for their kit, and that part then had to be designed out. This caused a 6+ month delay in production deliveries to ALL nations.

We have recently been declined export approval for a piece of commercial kit we wanted to buy from a German company, because it was to be used in the Eurofighter project.

[Pat Murphy]

Making the UK a bigger target is also a concern right?

Sadly, yes it is. Let's face it. If anyone jumps with offensive Air Capability, we're all going to be a target. Since when did Putin discriminate in his target selection? If We, France, The US deliver aircraft, he's going to see us a target by association anyway There are no easy answers, only grades of difficulty.

[Blackcat1]

I shall say no more .

Alpha Mike Foxtrot ......

[POL]

You lot sound like great fun at parties.

Anyway, back in the real world...

[Blackcat1]

You lot sound like great fun at parties.

Anyway, back in the real world...

Chin Chin , Putin who?

[Pat Murphy]

Of course. as bad as the news currently is regarding escalation of war, there is a simple way all this ends tomorrow. The aggressor, Russia/Putin, leaves Ukraine and war is no more.

[Gus0898uk]

Are there any assets tucked away at Shawbury that would be of use to Ukraine?
Davis Monthan with F-16, F-15 and A-10's would be more use of course. Joe!!!!

[steamy]

Fence sitting favours Russia, and is what they're banking on with nuclear threats...

[CHINOOKER]

Watched an interview on CNN late last night, where the reporter was interviewing a “Defence Analyst” talking about Zelensky’s visits to both UK yesterday and France/Brussels today. It was his opinion that European NATO countries do not have enough “spare” fighters to supply Ukraine with and current types such as F35/Typhoon etc are not on the menu! The analyst went on to say that Ukraine is initially seeking 40-50 airframes with an eventual final total somewhere in the region of 100-120. To this end the analyst believes that what Zelensky is really seeking, is for a coalition of nations and NATO to fund these aircraft! The obvious choice in his opinion, for both Ukraine/Zelensky is the F-16, which he stated, are “readily available” in the short term from both USA and European nations!….he also made mention of the ease of aircrew/maintenance training for the Ukrainian military as current operators are close to hand. One interesting thing that he closed with, is that he is convinced that there are currently Ukrainian pilots currently being trained on the F-16….both in Poland and the USA!

Time will tell if any of the above comes to fruition!!

[steamy]

Watched an interview on CNN late last night, where the reporter was interviewing a “Defence Analyst” talking about Zelensky’s visits to both UK yesterday and France/Brussels today. It was his opinion that European NATO countries do not have enough “spare” fighters to supply Ukraine with and current types such as F35/Typhoon etc are not on the menu! The analyst went on to say that Ukraine is initially seeking 40-50 airframes with an eventual final total somewhere in the region of 100-120. To this end the analyst believes that what Zelensky is really seeking, is for a coalition of nations and NATO to fund these aircraft! The obvious choice in his opinion, for both Ukraine/Zelensky is the F-16, which he stated, are “readily available” in the short term from both USA and European nations!….he also made mention of the ease of aircrew/maintenance training for the Ukrainian military as current operators are close to hand. One interesting thing that he closed with, is that he is convinced that there are currently Ukrainian pilots currently being trained on the F-16….both in Poland and the USA!

Time will tell if any of the above comes to fruition!!

it would explain why the formal request to NL hasn't gone in yet... Poland were very complimentary of the Romanian conversion training programme also, saying it would be a good programme for the Ukranians to follow...

[Gus0898uk]

I feel that there are many suitable aircraft at The Boneyard in Tucson which will not take too much time to get back in the air, I am thinking of aircraft that have recently arrived at DM for mothballing.

[benno]

Private contractors have "NATO standard" Alphajets. Politicians have only talked about "fast jet training" and in the "UK", I didn't hear "RAF" or "fighters" out of the senior politicians mouths yet (The hysterical media are doing the ususal). Did we keep any retired Alphajets or give them away? I can only guess the Ukrainian L-159's are limited in numbers and their instuctors are required elsewhere. The term "NATO standard fast jet" could mean anything in operation by any NATO member.
More interesting and previous to Mr. Zelensky coming here, The Prime Minister and Defence Minister have mentioned the supply of Storm Shadow and Brimstone missiles.....Any chance of these being launched from current Ukrainian types???

[RubyRoo]

Obviously the logistics of using/sending them are now impossible, but what happened to all the Tornado aircraft after 2019? Were they immediately scrapped or placed into storage?

[Agent K]

Obviously the logistics of using/sending them are now impossible, but what happened to all the Tornado aircraft after 2019? Were they immediately scrapped or placed into storage?

There were I suspect less than 30 left when they were retired. The rest had been put through RTP to sustain the remaining fleet, scrapped etc. Pointless putting them into storage when there would be nobody to fly or operate or maintain them.

[Col Nago]

One interesting thing that he closed with, is that he is convinced that there are currently Ukrainian pilots currently being trained on the F-16….both in Poland and the USA!

Don't post this in the Ukraine thread in General Chat. I did and got told it was nonsense by a certain member (and CNN is all lies).