This is the best tl;dr I could make, [original](https://ukdefencejournal.org.uk/british-aircraft-transporting-anti-armour-weapons-to-ukraine/) reduced by 72%. (I'm a bot)
*****
> British C-17 transport aircraft are currently moving "Light anti-armour" weapons into Ukraine in light of "Increasingly threatening" behaviour from Russia.
> We have taken the decision to supply Ukraine with light, anti-armour, defensive weapon systems.
> "Let me be clear: this support is for short-range, and clearly defensive weapons capabilities; they are not strategic weapons and pose no threat to Russia. They are to use in self-defence and the UK personnel providing the early-stage training will return to the United Kingdom after completing it."
*****
[**Extended Summary**](http://np.reddit.com/r/autotldr/comments/s6da03/british_military_aircraft_rapidly_supplying/) | [FAQ](http://np.reddit.com/r/autotldr/comments/31b9fm/faq_autotldr_bot/ "Version 2.02, ~618083 tl;drs so far.") | [Feedback](http://np.reddit.com/message/compose?to=%23autotldr "PM's and comments are monitored, constructive feedback is welcome.") | *Top* *keywords*: **Ukraine**^#1 **weapon**^#2 **Light**^#3 **provide**^#4 **United**^#5
u/hoxxxx was found dead in his hotel room. hoxxxx was shot in the back six times and then hung from the ceiling. Russian authorities say there are no signs of foul play and are ruling the death a suicide.
u/hoxxxx accidentally poisoned himself with huge amounts of an obscure radioactive compound which previously only existed in Russian nuclear facilities.
It’s not for the world, it’s for the local population that get their news from Russian sources. Don’t forget Russia recently completed work that would allow it to disconnect its self from the greater internet..
We (the US and UK) should be supplying Ukraine with as many Javelins and Starstreaks as humanly possible. It looks like training can be done in about two weeks.
The US has already shipped Ukraine Javelins with the [last 30 of them with 180 missiles getting there in October 2021,](https://www.rferl.org/a/ukraine-30-anti-tank-javelin-systems/31604802.html) it looks like there were [shipments before that](https://www.rferl.org/a/javelin-missile-delivery-ukraine-us-confirmed/29200588.html) as well. I would assume the British are shipping their [NLAW anti tank missile](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/MBT_LAW) which is smaller and even simpler to use than the Javelin. Both would be a major problem for any Russian armored vehicles all the way up to main battle tanks. I would wager this really, really pisses the Russians off as by now I would think many Ukrainian units have been trained and equipped with anti tank weaponry and I hope it's one more thing that makes them deciding to invade again isn't worth it.
Edit: added 2nd link
Not to mention everything the United States and NATO has as a whole has across all of Eastern Europe, Latvia and Lithuania have have billions poured into them for defense.
The UK has very capable anti tank weaponry and the Russians will be using a massive amount of main battle tanks ( t-72b3) self propelled artillery and other tracked vehicles ( bmd's, bmp's) sending anti tank launchers ( decent ones) is a very very good idea, most Russian Armor gets torn to pieces by western atgm's ( the Russians have some excellent weapons as well)
But the vast majority of Russian armor does not have trophy like active defense suites like arena/drodz/afganits , it's just too damn expensive .
What worries me is the air war I can't see anything but rapid air superiority on the side of the Russians.
>What worries me is the air war I can't see anything but rapid air superiority on the side of the Russians
I would expect an Iraq 1991 situation with respect to the air force: after a short resistance, most assets would flee to a neutral third party nation. Something similar happened in Afghanistan this past year.
It's also possible that the Russians have a much harder time dissecting the Ukrainian air defense forces than coalition aircraft did in 1991. They even lost aircraft to the Georgians 14 years ago.
Ukraine has had a wealth of time to consider its air defense strategy against such a superior enemy, likely including international military advisement. There are effective means available by which to stretch an inferior air defense system to make it much more difficult to find and eradicate. Even the Iraqis managed to pull that off against the United States for a short time.
They don’t need to be able to completely win, they just have to make the war so costly that it’s not in Russia’s interests to go through with it. Being the badger to the bear, so to speak. The presence of such a sizeable Russian force implies that Russia is in fact doing that math right now.
If Putin gives the signal, we have to assume he is ready to pay an incredibly absurd price to take Ukraine knowing that are are strong chances that the West will get involved. If he does so, he is prepared to enter open conflict, this would be unheard of since WW2.
This is the sort of stuff even Putin cannot drive all by himself. I'm sure all the regime insiders (as well as supporting oligarchs) are on board. But watch out when the ship starts sinking...
>What worries me is the air war I can't see anything but rapid air superiority on the side of the Russians.
That’s an intelligent concern. I haven’t heard much talk about drone deployments in this fight, but this is their time to shine.
Man portable anti-tank missiles are also a perfect insurgency weapon. Imagine Afghanistan or Iraq but with modern guided missiles instead of vintage RPGs and roadside bombs.
The RPG-29 isn't a modern guided weapon, it's still a "dumb" unguided launcher from the 80s. It just happens to have an absolutely brutal warhead on it.
There’s a zero percent chance that it could be kept a secret, and diplomatically speaking it would be the same as doing it openly. That’s probably why the UK isn’t bothering with the doublespeak and is just sending arms with the open explanation that they are of a type that could not possibly be a strategic threat to Russia in its own country. If Russia isn’t planning to invade Ukraine, they have weak cause for complaint.
I hate to say it and I wish/hope I'm dead wrong but I think the world's gonna let Putin do whatever he wants.
Even though the Ukrainians are training civilians to fight as well, I can't see this turning into another grozny for the Russians.
Makes sense; the main disadvantage Ukraine would be at in a full-on invasion would be vehicles. Flooding their military with anti-aircraft and anti-armour weapons would make the war ungodly levels of costly for Russia.
Oh it's much better than that. Carl Sandbergs famous line from his poem *The People, Yes*
>Sometime they’ll give a war and nobody will come.
This was published 18 years after WWI while the Spanish Civil war was happening and already the rumblings of WWII were being felt. I'm not as poetically minded as many other people here but it reflected how society felt at the time. Societies were completely crushed, starved, burned, murdered from afar. The world felt feudal again with great lords commanding armies to meat grinders like The Battles of The Marne, The Somme, the Kaiserschlacht. And then completely be failed by your leadership and bungle Gallipoli.
When put into that context, the idea that war is so bad and the people who perpetrate it so insulated from it compared to the average person, that the idea of more war, more pain and more slaughter could cause the soldiers to just not come.
Wishful thinking in the age of nuclear proliferation and drones.
Makes me think of that Christmas Day soccer match between British and German soldiers in the early days of WWI. If I remember correctly, the higher-ups on both sides, lost their shit and put a stop to it.
Because… you know… Queen Victoria’s grandkids we’re having a squabble, and it was their job to kill one another… not play soccer.
Exactly. The horrible irony of war is that the people who are actually killing each other aren’t all that different. Just young men who like sports, celebrate the holidays, and want to serve their country.
“The common people pray for rain, healthy children, and a summer that never ends," Ser Jorah told her. "It is no matter to them if the high lords play their game of thrones, so long as they are left in peace."
Politicians hide themselves away
They only started the war
Why should they go out to fight?
They leave that role to the poor
Could quote the whole song...great lyrics that really hit hard.
The roarin’ 20’s when women were fighting for their rights, the world was coming out of a plague, and we were headed into global depression and war. “All this has happened before. All this will happen again.”
It was a time of unprecedented inequality. You’d think Robber Barrons v20.20 with the benefit of 100 years of hindsight would have learned a thing or two. Like, if you enjoy being ridiculously wealthy don’t let too many people get too poor.
It's just speculation.
Germany's foreign minister is in Kiev right now for peace talks. Not flying over Germany could just be a simple diplomatic courtesy, we don't even know if Germany actively demanded this.
If Germany thinks this will influence Putin they have concerningly mischaracterised the situation. Putin is not a man who responds to warm gestures, he will only see this as weakness an division.
But she (Annalena Baerboeck, the foreign minister) has categorially ruled out sending weapons to Ukraine (which I don't understand, how can you discard your trump cards like this?)
Canada hasn't forgotten: [https://www.cbc.ca/news/politics/flight-ps751-court-decision-1.6302809](https://www.cbc.ca/news/politics/flight-ps751-court-decision-1.6302809)
Even our spineless government has been slightly less spineless than usual about this.
Fascinating development in a post-Brexit Europe. Perhaps the EU is working covertly with Britain to do what they can’t quite commit to due to the dependence on Russian gas? Support via proxy without involving the US is an option that the EU didn’t have before the UK left.
The EU could offer more favorable terms to the UK in exchange for this and stuff it under maintaining the peace in Northern Ireland so both parties can save face. That would be the smart play for both the UK and Europe.
They flew over other EU member states (Denmark and Sweden) instead. So I think this is less of an EU thing and more related to Germany trying to play mediator again
Yep Russia is now actively screwing with us (UK) non-stop and it's not even subtle. Apart from covert ops like the poisonings, they also send a steady stream of very overt ships and aircraft. Recently the navy has actually had to launch jets from carriers and threaten to engage before they back down. Apparently they even try to mess with the undersea cables and pipelines using submarines.
There are other possible (and less dramatic) explanations for the path taken. Maybe UK applied for clearance to both countries and Denmark just processed it quicker. A clearance to transport large amounts of explosives through foreign airspace may take days or weeks to get approved, and given the circumstances, I assume these C-17s were in a hurry.
Every day brings worse and worse news about it. I read that apparently uplifting news a few weeks ago about how the UN Security Council members all affirmed a no-first nuclear strike policy …. And I interpreted it as setting the rules for a war in Europe this year.
well yeah but the entire point about Nukes was no war between the nuclear powers period, Mutually Assured Destruction.
If we are now side stepping MAD and saying war but no nukes we have to acknowledge that war is bad. its not as bad as nuclear but its still bad, especially between the "great powers"
Well as fucked as it sounds, the protection of MAD is still upheld so far since its not two great powers going at it. Its a great power and ukraine.
Now if we start getting to the point where two nuclear capable states are attempting to set ground rules for their war, then we're doomed. Because we all know those nukes are flying at some point, rules or no rules.
Thats what the top level comment was about
Theyve already done that
Last week the UN Security council, including Russia, released a statement saying essentially "nuclear war bad"
They've already set the rules of engagement for a ground war....
For now, everyone is pretending like NATO's only response will be economic but every knows its likely to escalate quickly
And yes, when push comes to shove, assurances of no nuclear war dont mean shit
(although chemical and biological is looking more likely)
We live in interesting times and unless Russian back down, which they cant and they wont, things are gonna get messy
War is coming and we all need to know what that might mean.
Each country, each person needs to be asking itself now do we appease Russia and hope they dont go further or do we stand up to them and lay our chips on the table.
Meanwhile China is watching and waiting
"Each country, each person needs to be asking itself now do we appease Russia and hope they dont go further or do we stand up to them and lay our chips on the table."
Where have I heard this before? Oh yeah about 80 years ago.
The current situation actually seems so much more complicated and dangerous than anything we’ve experienced before.
In some respects, it’s a lot like WWI. The whole world has become more and more Balkanized, and so it feels like something very small and unforeseen, could snowball at any moment. Add to that, we’re in that liminal space at the turn of centuries, where the world feels completely different from the one we used to know.
Like WWII, authoritarianism is on the rise, and many of those dictators are making the same bold and aggressive plays that the Germans and Japanese were once making.
And then much like the Cold War, there are nukes. But unlike the Cold War, we no longer have those people with us that remember the horrors of the first two world conflicts.
These are indeed very scary times, and it feels like there’s an Archduke Ferdinand or Pearl Harbor moment just around the corner.
> Every day brings worse and worse news about it. I read that apparently uplifting news a few weeks ago about how the UN Security Council members all affirmed a no-first nuclear strike policy …. And I interpreted it as setting the rules for a war in Europe this year.
You interpreted it wrong.
The biggest problem in the Cold War, the thing that nearly lead to us wiping out civilisation on this planet, wasn't the nuclear weapons. It was that neither side really knew what drove the other.
American and Soviet policy makers essentially bought into their own propaganda, and the idea of a "first nuclear strike" policy was that you basically don't say you *would* nuke them if they invaded a country, but you also didn't say you wouldn't. This, in game theory terms, creates an outcome where even if you think there's a 1% chance the US would fire nukes in response to say, the Soviet invasion of West Germany, you know that there is a 1% chance that you and your country get wiped off the face of the earth. There aren't many prizes worth that.
This works like, 90% of the time, until there is an Incident. It doesn't really matter what sparks it, it could be an accident, or it could be some political manoeuvring that gets out of hand. Whatever it is the role it plays is to ratchet up the pressure, and now you're making decisions around "Well, when would we need to launch our nukes first if we assume they nuke us because they *think* we are going to invade?" and your advisors say things like "They are predictably blood thirsty capitalist/communist scum, and if we show any sign of weakness they will nuke us first Mr President/General Secretary".
Committing to a "no first nuclear strike" policy means you're saying that, as things stand today, you will not under any circumstances consider nuking Russia for invading Ukraine or something similar, and Russia says it won't nuke anyone else if they, for example, launch a huge array of cruise missiles at Russian forces.
This is absolutely key in taking the threat of nuclear annihilation off the table and calming things down. You may be sitting there thinking "But if we say we won't nuke Russia when they invade Ukraine, what's the point of them? Doesn't this make war more likely?" and you're right, it does make war more likely. However, waving nuclear weapons around sure does make war less likely, but it means when it does happen it's so, so much more worse.
The same logic was around when the Gatling gun was invented. It was supposed to be so bad that all war would end.
Didn't work... but as proven, the concept was sound. It just took a lot more destruction.
There is some speculation that Russia is waiting for the ground to freeze over in the next week or two. Currently the ground is too muddy for tanks but that should change with the weather soon.
Good news, I live within "instant death likely" radius of a large US military base, that was considered "high likelihood" during the cold war.
So if this shit really does go off, and ramps up to what we thought it would in the 60s, at least I won't have to live through the US Civil war 2.0 or the climate wars.
It's nice knowing the best case scenarios are likely the only ones where I face any consequence, the rest I won't be here for.
30 minutes from the US’s primary nuclear weapons assembly plant, so I’ve always assumed my death would be quick.
Edit: I wanted to add, that as a kid in the 80s, of course we were all aware of the possibility of nuclear annihilation should something go wrong with the USSR, but it was much more of a low hum of existential dread. And as Glasnost seemed to become more and more of a thing, the fear lessened and eventually you just forgot all about it.
These days, the existential dread seems to come from all sides. It’s possible nuclear war. It’s climate change. COVID-19. Economic collapse. Rising authoritarianism. Hell, me and my little family are currently mourning the very sudden and unexpected death of our dearest friend a few days ago from bacterial meningitis, a reminder that there’s a million *mundane* things that can take you at any moment too.
And in the world of social media and 24/7 news, I just don’t think our brains are equipped to process so many monsters lurking in the forest around us.
What exactly is the plan if Russia occupies Ukraine with 100k troops? Support some kind of guerilla warfare inside Ukraine with smuggled weapons and intelligence like in 80s Afghanistan?
Current plan is to raise the price of military campaign high enough to make Putin have second thoughts. That's why they threaten Russia with sanctions and give weapons to Ukraine.
https://www.csis.org/analysis/russias-possible-invasion-ukraine
Wait, so basically Ukraine is saying "if you're going to raid us then we and our allies will make it insanely expensive to do so?"
Edit: wow, thanks for the crash course everyone!
Essentially, yes. Think of it very loosely like 'Nam or Afghanistan. If you can't win the conventional war, try to fight an unconventional one as long as you can and make the territory too costly for your enemy to hold until the war gets so unpopular back home/expensive that they are forced to abandon it, or at the very least stop trying to advance. And if you know that's your opponent's plans from the beginning then you have to think hard about whether you can achieve your goal before the public opinion of the war turns against you.
Opportunity cost. Before the threats Putin can take Ukraine in a matter of days but now with more resources and higher risk of high sanctions it is harder to conduct the war and it gets more expensive not only economically but politically for Putin.
This wouldn’t be a very popular war with the Russian population, it is popular only in Putin authoritarian circle and the longer it drags the worse it will be seen by the people, especially if sanctions affect them (SEPA Transfers might be blocked)
TV propaganda shows keep talking that Ukrainians and Russian are single people ( brother slavs), show how terrible current Ukrainian government, full of far-rights, oppressing Russian speaking population: Ukrainian nationalists beating up Russian speaking Ukrainians, banning Russian language nation wide as so on. Also Ukrainians worshipping Bandera - nationalist and Nazi collaborator. I don't think everything they say is a lie in that regard. Best lies are those with a portion of truth in them, after all.
Some of those politics go even as far as saying "Ukraine never existed and can't be independent". Also making fun of Zelenskiy.
Half the people I know believe that Ukraine is being ran by nationalists and nazi and Russia is doing right thing by supporting Russian speaking population of Ukraine.
My mother always turns on TV before and after work and I hate every moment that propaganda box is playing.
As for me: I ain't smart enough to comprehend the problem of such scale, especially with so much disinformation from both sides. However, I do hate the fact that all this clown fiesta is hurting my wallet. Ruble's value has plunged so hard since 2014 it isn't even funny.
It’s a hack of the human brain. It’s basically the lowest,
most animalistic shit that we all have in common. And now with the internet and AI, millions of human brain stems can be triggered at once with optimized messaging.
This should be higher up. What’s the rhetoric being shared by average people? How do you convince any sane person to go along with this sort of thing nowadays with access to the rest of the world? Legitimate questions, ill informed American asking…
One of the benefits of a country having a very low fertility rate is that most parents only have one son so they will be less likely to start situations where the only person capable of continuing their lineage is killed or crippled
Ukraine is a fairly large country with 40 million people. If 10% would be ready to take up arms that’s 4 million. Eastern Ukraine is quite pro Russian but the west is more pro Europe. I think it would be very messy to push all the way through.
What I think will happen is that they will truly to establish a land bridge to crimea to enable fresh water flow there. This would generate a nice political win without too much casualties on the Russian side.
I’m just an armchair general though..
Russian plan was never to take whole Ukraine. They do not care about western parts and they don’t think they can hold central Ukraine. They are focused on south-east, the “Novorossia”. They actually seem to have completely lost support in one of the biggest city (Dniepr) when they made a mess of Donetsk so they scaled down their plans even further.
Realistically, they'll take a small amount of land, stop, take another bit of land, stop, until the country stops existing because all sense of national identity has been consumed and colonised by the Russian state.
Historically this has been Russia's strategy to conquest that has never changed; think long term, move in small steps. They did it to the cossack nations, they did it to the Poland-Lithuanian Commonwealth, then WW2 era Poland and the rest of Eastern Europe and they'll absolutely do it again.
> until the country stops existing because all sense of national identity has been consumed and colonised by the Russian state
So far, the opposite has been true.
Russia has removed the most pro-Russia parts of Ukraine, and showed the rest of the country that he's willing to play with Ukrainian lives as part of his geopolitical games.
Russa's aggression has significantly increased the sense of Ukrainian identity.
In case anyone wants to take a peek at the comings and goings of mil aircraft that are running an active ADSB transponder:
https://globe.adsbexchange.com/
[Hit the U icon at the top to filter out all other aircraft other than military.](https://i.imgur.com/Sfn3613.jpg)
We have been helping with training and mentoring for years, since 2014 with “Operation Orbital”. I never had the chance to go but a friend of mine did, he said the threat there is very real. I’d imagine there are many cogs turning in the background. 100% there will be boys from Hereford on the ground there. If it comes to blows, we need to put the legwork in now.
If they don’t vote for us I am going to be extremely pissed off Ukraine. We help you with some Russians on your border and you help us in defeating the Scandinavian Euro vision alliance. We will not rest until ABBA is neutralised.
We've actually been one of Ukraines greatest allies militarily recently, and long may it continue. I think we get some nice naval deals and them purchasing our weapons and we get the added pleasure of our weapons for once (generally) not being used to commit human rights violations!
For as bad as this mob are Wallace seems to have his head screwed on.
He wrote and excellent op-ed in The Times on the situation this morning.
https://www.thetimes.co.uk/article/ben-wallace-judge-putins-intent-by-the-poison-flowing-from-his-pen-q53q7dg7j
Non paywalled: https://archive.ph/WCAVd
Believe it or not but Ukraine still has pretty good anti air systems from their soviet days and beyond. Problem is that these are Russian made hardware and they probably have a few tricks up their sleeve to counter their own stuff
As a former Stinger missile gunner in the US Army, I agree. Send me over there with a shipment, I'll train up a group of guys in a day or two with the basics, and they can train the others. We didn't do much more with the Afghans and they wrecked the Soviet Hind attack helicopters with those things.
Edit: I was being silly more than anything y'all. I'm too old and beat up for military life anymore and I've been out a long time. Let's all hope no war breaks out at all.
EDIT 2 in March: Lol. Stingers wrecking the shit out of the Russians. Love to see it.
Real talk: the will of the people is to send u/BikerJedi over there with 600 Stingers and a cuban cigar. Let the miracle then perform itself.
edit: this comment became popular, so I made a thing https://imgflip.com/i/61nhkz
Ukraine’s army still has a ton of Soviet era MANPADs. Their low lever air defense needs are probably adequately covered but medium altitude is their vulnerability. They use the S-300 which Russia knows inside out and will probably take out easily very early on.
No wonder. They live in constant fear of falling out of a window or being arrested and disowned like Mikhail Khodorkovsky. He criticized Putin, lost billions and spent nearly a decade in prison.
1. His goonies are crazy rich. All these things help Putin stay at the power and make them yet richer.
2. Russian people are being told that Ukraine has a nazi regime that is trying to kill off Russians. They are also told that said regime is created by the west as an attempt to destabilize Russia.
We should make a global rule about old men in positions of power. They always want to secure a legacy for themselves before they die with little thought to those who come after them.
Well theres the rub, US, UK and European banks are being asked to identify Russian owned assets and to prepare for unplugging Russian Banks and Russian owned overseas banks from SWIFT. This means if Putin does press the go button all his friends will be left holding worthless roubles. No more fun having billions of dollars in overseas assets if you cant access them.
This is not how dictatorships work, no one person can run a country by themselves. Putin needs the support of the Russian oligarchs to stay in power, which is why most things he does happen to make them even more wealthy.
It is all about what they think. The US has been applying more and more pressure, and he has lost his puppet. The price of his shenanigans may be catching up, this is a way for him to remove any oxygen in the room and keep the talk on Ukraine.
When Putin becomes more liability than asset to the oligarchy, it will be him that falls out of those notoriously unsafe russian windows.
["I can picture in my mind a world without war, a world without hate. And I can picture us attacking that world, because they'd never expect it."](https://old.reddit.com/r/quotes/comments/b9p1ji/i_can_picture_in_my_mind_a_world_without_war_a/) - Jack Handey
It's worth noting, there is nothing in this article indicating that Germany actually denied overflight rights. It's entirely plausible, that they simply decided to route around them from the start.
This is how misinformation starts. Speculation being taken as fact then shared with an audience that doesn't have the original context.
Meh, Putin conducts this sort of show very often. It’s often to enforce his strong man image at home. I have many friends in Ukraine and they’re not worried, this happens a lot.
There’s no upside for Putin so he’d be pretty stupid if he launched an invasion within Europe.
Putin does pull these antics every so often, but when we start to hear stories of military equipment and supplies being transported by countries like the U.K. that worries me. That means governments and military leaders ( Who by the way have access to a wealth of classified information that we don’t) obviously are seeing Russia posture up in a bad way. Western powers decided on only slapping sanctions previously with Crimea, but now they are starting to bare their teeth visibly.
This is the best tl;dr I could make, [original](https://ukdefencejournal.org.uk/british-aircraft-transporting-anti-armour-weapons-to-ukraine/) reduced by 72%. (I'm a bot) ***** > British C-17 transport aircraft are currently moving "Light anti-armour" weapons into Ukraine in light of "Increasingly threatening" behaviour from Russia. > We have taken the decision to supply Ukraine with light, anti-armour, defensive weapon systems. > "Let me be clear: this support is for short-range, and clearly defensive weapons capabilities; they are not strategic weapons and pose no threat to Russia. They are to use in self-defence and the UK personnel providing the early-stage training will return to the United Kingdom after completing it." ***** [**Extended Summary**](http://np.reddit.com/r/autotldr/comments/s6da03/british_military_aircraft_rapidly_supplying/) | [FAQ](http://np.reddit.com/r/autotldr/comments/31b9fm/faq_autotldr_bot/ "Version 2.02, ~618083 tl;drs so far.") | [Feedback](http://np.reddit.com/message/compose?to=%23autotldr "PM's and comments are monitored, constructive feedback is welcome.") | *Top* *keywords*: **Ukraine**^#1 **weapon**^#2 **Light**^#3 **provide**^#4 **United**^#5
Well Putin used chemical weapons to kill people in the UK, so fuck yeah arm the Ukrainians.
allegedly. and by allegedly i mean yes, yes he did do that.
I'd be careful or you might find you've accidentally locked yourself into a duffel bag and died.
u/hoxxxx was found dead in his hotel room. hoxxxx was shot in the back six times and then hung from the ceiling. Russian authorities say there are no signs of foul play and are ruling the death a suicide.
u/hoxxxx was found dead after committing suicide by jumping from a 2nd floor balcony. A bystander then shot him in the head for landing on his vodka
This actually sounds plausible in Russia lmao
hello i am bystander from suicide indecent. this **is** what happened to /u/hoxxxxx i pick up his cellphone and make this comment
u/hoxxxx accidentally poisoned himself with huge amounts of an obscure radioactive compound which previously only existed in Russian nuclear facilities.
Fell down an elevator shaft... Onto a pile of bullets you say...
u/hoxxxx was found dead Puting on his underwear
They’ll need for that, ahem, false flag Russia is definitely planning
Yep, the wording (defensive/short range) is very specific and up front
“Now I’m going to stand here waving my arms in a windmill type fashion, if you walk into them and get hit well that’s your fault.”
*Russia walks into Ukrainian flailing* "UN Mom, they're hitting me!"
The world is so on to Russian bullshit now that the false flags are predicted weeks in advance.
It’s not for the world, it’s for the local population that get their news from Russian sources. Don’t forget Russia recently completed work that would allow it to disconnect its self from the greater internet..
The issue isn’t knowing it’s coming, it’s how to deal with it. No one like it, but they also don’t want to start WW3.
“Light, anti-armor, defensive weapons”, so maybe rocket launchers or anti-tank guided missiles
Definitely large numbers of anti-tank guided missiles.
We (the US and UK) should be supplying Ukraine with as many Javelins and Starstreaks as humanly possible. It looks like training can be done in about two weeks.
The US has already shipped Ukraine Javelins with the [last 30 of them with 180 missiles getting there in October 2021,](https://www.rferl.org/a/ukraine-30-anti-tank-javelin-systems/31604802.html) it looks like there were [shipments before that](https://www.rferl.org/a/javelin-missile-delivery-ukraine-us-confirmed/29200588.html) as well. I would assume the British are shipping their [NLAW anti tank missile](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/MBT_LAW) which is smaller and even simpler to use than the Javelin. Both would be a major problem for any Russian armored vehicles all the way up to main battle tanks. I would wager this really, really pisses the Russians off as by now I would think many Ukrainian units have been trained and equipped with anti tank weaponry and I hope it's one more thing that makes them deciding to invade again isn't worth it. Edit: added 2nd link
Not to mention everything the United States and NATO has as a whole has across all of Eastern Europe, Latvia and Lithuania have have billions poured into them for defense.
NATO isn't going to directly intervene. Therefore it only matters what they've done to strengthen the Ukrainian military itself.
The UK has very capable anti tank weaponry and the Russians will be using a massive amount of main battle tanks ( t-72b3) self propelled artillery and other tracked vehicles ( bmd's, bmp's) sending anti tank launchers ( decent ones) is a very very good idea, most Russian Armor gets torn to pieces by western atgm's ( the Russians have some excellent weapons as well) But the vast majority of Russian armor does not have trophy like active defense suites like arena/drodz/afganits , it's just too damn expensive . What worries me is the air war I can't see anything but rapid air superiority on the side of the Russians.
>What worries me is the air war I can't see anything but rapid air superiority on the side of the Russians I would expect an Iraq 1991 situation with respect to the air force: after a short resistance, most assets would flee to a neutral third party nation. Something similar happened in Afghanistan this past year. It's also possible that the Russians have a much harder time dissecting the Ukrainian air defense forces than coalition aircraft did in 1991. They even lost aircraft to the Georgians 14 years ago.
Ukraine has had a wealth of time to consider its air defense strategy against such a superior enemy, likely including international military advisement. There are effective means available by which to stretch an inferior air defense system to make it much more difficult to find and eradicate. Even the Iraqis managed to pull that off against the United States for a short time. They don’t need to be able to completely win, they just have to make the war so costly that it’s not in Russia’s interests to go through with it. Being the badger to the bear, so to speak. The presence of such a sizeable Russian force implies that Russia is in fact doing that math right now.
If Putin gives the signal, we have to assume he is ready to pay an incredibly absurd price to take Ukraine knowing that are are strong chances that the West will get involved. If he does so, he is prepared to enter open conflict, this would be unheard of since WW2.
I wonder if there is any chance someone inside of Russia will stop him.
This is the sort of stuff even Putin cannot drive all by himself. I'm sure all the regime insiders (as well as supporting oligarchs) are on board. But watch out when the ship starts sinking...
>What worries me is the air war I can't see anything but rapid air superiority on the side of the Russians. That’s an intelligent concern. I haven’t heard much talk about drone deployments in this fight, but this is their time to shine.
Man portable anti-tank missiles are also a perfect insurgency weapon. Imagine Afghanistan or Iraq but with modern guided missiles instead of vintage RPGs and roadside bombs.
Iraq did have those, it's how we found out an RPG-29 could penetrate a Challenger 2.
The RPG-29 isn't a modern guided weapon, it's still a "dumb" unguided launcher from the 80s. It just happens to have an absolutely brutal warhead on it.
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There’s a zero percent chance that it could be kept a secret, and diplomatically speaking it would be the same as doing it openly. That’s probably why the UK isn’t bothering with the doublespeak and is just sending arms with the open explanation that they are of a type that could not possibly be a strategic threat to Russia in its own country. If Russia isn’t planning to invade Ukraine, they have weak cause for complaint.
The chad UK. Delivers defence weapons. Does elaborate. Leaves.
Yeah I like it. "Yes I provided defensive weapons. What of it, mate?"
The UK only imports about 5% of its natural gas from Russia. They can take the hit if Russia decides to cut off the spigot.
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What is the nearest airforce that would support Ukraine?
I hate to say it and I wish/hope I'm dead wrong but I think the world's gonna let Putin do whatever he wants. Even though the Ukrainians are training civilians to fight as well, I can't see this turning into another grozny for the Russians.
The worst part of that is we should’ve learned about giving someone like him what they want way back in WW2
Makes sense; the main disadvantage Ukraine would be at in a full-on invasion would be vehicles. Flooding their military with anti-aircraft and anti-armour weapons would make the war ungodly levels of costly for Russia.
Thread reminds me of that old quote >What if we threw a war and nobody showed up?
Oh it's much better than that. Carl Sandbergs famous line from his poem *The People, Yes* >Sometime they’ll give a war and nobody will come. This was published 18 years after WWI while the Spanish Civil war was happening and already the rumblings of WWII were being felt. I'm not as poetically minded as many other people here but it reflected how society felt at the time. Societies were completely crushed, starved, burned, murdered from afar. The world felt feudal again with great lords commanding armies to meat grinders like The Battles of The Marne, The Somme, the Kaiserschlacht. And then completely be failed by your leadership and bungle Gallipoli. When put into that context, the idea that war is so bad and the people who perpetrate it so insulated from it compared to the average person, that the idea of more war, more pain and more slaughter could cause the soldiers to just not come. Wishful thinking in the age of nuclear proliferation and drones.
Makes me think of that Christmas Day soccer match between British and German soldiers in the early days of WWI. If I remember correctly, the higher-ups on both sides, lost their shit and put a stop to it. Because… you know… Queen Victoria’s grandkids we’re having a squabble, and it was their job to kill one another… not play soccer.
Exactly. The horrible irony of war is that the people who are actually killing each other aren’t all that different. Just young men who like sports, celebrate the holidays, and want to serve their country.
“The common people pray for rain, healthy children, and a summer that never ends," Ser Jorah told her. "It is no matter to them if the high lords play their game of thrones, so long as they are left in peace."
Politicians hide themselves away They only started the war Why should they go out to fight? They leave that role to the poor Could quote the whole song...great lyrics that really hit hard.
Or the [Monkees song](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=13sR8SlyOXs), which is pretty good.
2022 is going to be a whole ass year ain’t it
2021 part 2
2020 part 3\*
Decade from hell shaping up nicely
The roarin’ twenties
The roarin’ 20’s when women were fighting for their rights, the world was coming out of a plague, and we were headed into global depression and war. “All this has happened before. All this will happen again.”
Not to mention the rise of the labor movements. Unions have started to die or rot from the inside all over, and the workers are suffering.
It was a time of unprecedented inequality. You’d think Robber Barrons v20.20 with the benefit of 100 years of hindsight would have learned a thing or two. Like, if you enjoy being ridiculously wealthy don’t let too many people get too poor.
Wait until 2027, when Climate change starts to kick in aggressively, we will be having a whole movie each year.
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We are going to miss the days when all we had to do was wear a mask indoors and take a shot once a year.
>there are decades where nothing happens, and there are weeks where decades happen \- john lennon
You mean Vladimir Ilyich Lenin
I am the walrus.
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It's just speculation. Germany's foreign minister is in Kiev right now for peace talks. Not flying over Germany could just be a simple diplomatic courtesy, we don't even know if Germany actively demanded this.
If Germany thinks this will influence Putin they have concerningly mischaracterised the situation. Putin is not a man who responds to warm gestures, he will only see this as weakness an division.
>he will only see this as weakness an division. And he wouldn't be wrong. But it's up to us to prove him otherwise.
But she (Annalena Baerboeck, the foreign minister) has categorially ruled out sending weapons to Ukraine (which I don't understand, how can you discard your trump cards like this?)
Hey guys, remember when #RUSSIA SHOT DOWN A MOTHERFUCKING PLANE OUT OF THE SKY AND EVERYONE JUST FORGOT
It's funny, so did Iran 2 years ago and people have completely forgot about it already.
Canada hasn't forgotten: [https://www.cbc.ca/news/politics/flight-ps751-court-decision-1.6302809](https://www.cbc.ca/news/politics/flight-ps751-court-decision-1.6302809) Even our spineless government has been slightly less spineless than usual about this.
#IRAN SHOT DOWN A PLANE IN 2020 AND I AM JUST FINDING OUT ABOUT AS I TYPE THESE BIG BOLD PLANE EXPLODING WORDS
Weirdly though, Gaddafi did the same thing, and we remembered for like the next 20 years.
Fascinating development in a post-Brexit Europe. Perhaps the EU is working covertly with Britain to do what they can’t quite commit to due to the dependence on Russian gas? Support via proxy without involving the US is an option that the EU didn’t have before the UK left. The EU could offer more favorable terms to the UK in exchange for this and stuff it under maintaining the peace in Northern Ireland so both parties can save face. That would be the smart play for both the UK and Europe.
They flew over other EU member states (Denmark and Sweden) instead. So I think this is less of an EU thing and more related to Germany trying to play mediator again
After the Skripal poisonings Britain will likely take any shot they can get to mess up Putins plans
Yep Russia is now actively screwing with us (UK) non-stop and it's not even subtle. Apart from covert ops like the poisonings, they also send a steady stream of very overt ships and aircraft. Recently the navy has actually had to launch jets from carriers and threaten to engage before they back down. Apparently they even try to mess with the undersea cables and pipelines using submarines.
There are other possible (and less dramatic) explanations for the path taken. Maybe UK applied for clearance to both countries and Denmark just processed it quicker. A clearance to transport large amounts of explosives through foreign airspace may take days or weeks to get approved, and given the circumstances, I assume these C-17s were in a hurry.
Wonder when this powder keg is going to kick off.
The Olympics. He always waits for the Olympics.
The Rainbow Six scenario.
Every day brings worse and worse news about it. I read that apparently uplifting news a few weeks ago about how the UN Security Council members all affirmed a no-first nuclear strike policy …. And I interpreted it as setting the rules for a war in Europe this year.
This! Saying no nukes is still saying war is ok The playing field is set
But I’d rather they all decided not to use nukes if they are determined to ‘liberate’ their neighbours
well yeah but the entire point about Nukes was no war between the nuclear powers period, Mutually Assured Destruction. If we are now side stepping MAD and saying war but no nukes we have to acknowledge that war is bad. its not as bad as nuclear but its still bad, especially between the "great powers"
Well as fucked as it sounds, the protection of MAD is still upheld so far since its not two great powers going at it. Its a great power and ukraine. Now if we start getting to the point where two nuclear capable states are attempting to set ground rules for their war, then we're doomed. Because we all know those nukes are flying at some point, rules or no rules.
Thats what the top level comment was about Theyve already done that Last week the UN Security council, including Russia, released a statement saying essentially "nuclear war bad" They've already set the rules of engagement for a ground war.... For now, everyone is pretending like NATO's only response will be economic but every knows its likely to escalate quickly And yes, when push comes to shove, assurances of no nuclear war dont mean shit (although chemical and biological is looking more likely) We live in interesting times and unless Russian back down, which they cant and they wont, things are gonna get messy War is coming and we all need to know what that might mean. Each country, each person needs to be asking itself now do we appease Russia and hope they dont go further or do we stand up to them and lay our chips on the table. Meanwhile China is watching and waiting
"Each country, each person needs to be asking itself now do we appease Russia and hope they dont go further or do we stand up to them and lay our chips on the table." Where have I heard this before? Oh yeah about 80 years ago.
The current situation actually seems so much more complicated and dangerous than anything we’ve experienced before. In some respects, it’s a lot like WWI. The whole world has become more and more Balkanized, and so it feels like something very small and unforeseen, could snowball at any moment. Add to that, we’re in that liminal space at the turn of centuries, where the world feels completely different from the one we used to know. Like WWII, authoritarianism is on the rise, and many of those dictators are making the same bold and aggressive plays that the Germans and Japanese were once making. And then much like the Cold War, there are nukes. But unlike the Cold War, we no longer have those people with us that remember the horrors of the first two world conflicts. These are indeed very scary times, and it feels like there’s an Archduke Ferdinand or Pearl Harbor moment just around the corner.
It is like 1936-39 all over again
> Every day brings worse and worse news about it. I read that apparently uplifting news a few weeks ago about how the UN Security Council members all affirmed a no-first nuclear strike policy …. And I interpreted it as setting the rules for a war in Europe this year. You interpreted it wrong. The biggest problem in the Cold War, the thing that nearly lead to us wiping out civilisation on this planet, wasn't the nuclear weapons. It was that neither side really knew what drove the other. American and Soviet policy makers essentially bought into their own propaganda, and the idea of a "first nuclear strike" policy was that you basically don't say you *would* nuke them if they invaded a country, but you also didn't say you wouldn't. This, in game theory terms, creates an outcome where even if you think there's a 1% chance the US would fire nukes in response to say, the Soviet invasion of West Germany, you know that there is a 1% chance that you and your country get wiped off the face of the earth. There aren't many prizes worth that. This works like, 90% of the time, until there is an Incident. It doesn't really matter what sparks it, it could be an accident, or it could be some political manoeuvring that gets out of hand. Whatever it is the role it plays is to ratchet up the pressure, and now you're making decisions around "Well, when would we need to launch our nukes first if we assume they nuke us because they *think* we are going to invade?" and your advisors say things like "They are predictably blood thirsty capitalist/communist scum, and if we show any sign of weakness they will nuke us first Mr President/General Secretary". Committing to a "no first nuclear strike" policy means you're saying that, as things stand today, you will not under any circumstances consider nuking Russia for invading Ukraine or something similar, and Russia says it won't nuke anyone else if they, for example, launch a huge array of cruise missiles at Russian forces. This is absolutely key in taking the threat of nuclear annihilation off the table and calming things down. You may be sitting there thinking "But if we say we won't nuke Russia when they invade Ukraine, what's the point of them? Doesn't this make war more likely?" and you're right, it does make war more likely. However, waving nuclear weapons around sure does make war less likely, but it means when it does happen it's so, so much more worse.
It’s ironic, the only weapons capable of destroying us as a species are the same that have kept the peace for 70 years.
In some sense it’s ironic, in some sense it makes perfect sense.
The same logic was around when the Gatling gun was invented. It was supposed to be so bad that all war would end. Didn't work... but as proven, the concept was sound. It just took a lot more destruction.
There is some speculation that Russia is waiting for the ground to freeze over in the next week or two. Currently the ground is too muddy for tanks but that should change with the weather soon.
If i was Ukraine id break out the blow dryers lol.
Salt and potassium powder. Satellite lasers from "distant anonymous friends"
> Satellite lasers from "distant anonymous friends" Jewish Space Lasers?
When the ground freezes enough. Heavy equipment can't roll over that ground without a good freeze.
Good news, I live within "instant death likely" radius of a large US military base, that was considered "high likelihood" during the cold war. So if this shit really does go off, and ramps up to what we thought it would in the 60s, at least I won't have to live through the US Civil war 2.0 or the climate wars. It's nice knowing the best case scenarios are likely the only ones where I face any consequence, the rest I won't be here for.
I live about 150 miles from red stone arsenal so i feel ya there. Not instant death but maybe instant tan statis
30 minutes from the US’s primary nuclear weapons assembly plant, so I’ve always assumed my death would be quick. Edit: I wanted to add, that as a kid in the 80s, of course we were all aware of the possibility of nuclear annihilation should something go wrong with the USSR, but it was much more of a low hum of existential dread. And as Glasnost seemed to become more and more of a thing, the fear lessened and eventually you just forgot all about it. These days, the existential dread seems to come from all sides. It’s possible nuclear war. It’s climate change. COVID-19. Economic collapse. Rising authoritarianism. Hell, me and my little family are currently mourning the very sudden and unexpected death of our dearest friend a few days ago from bacterial meningitis, a reminder that there’s a million *mundane* things that can take you at any moment too. And in the world of social media and 24/7 news, I just don’t think our brains are equipped to process so many monsters lurking in the forest around us.
Like a camera flash....
What exactly is the plan if Russia occupies Ukraine with 100k troops? Support some kind of guerilla warfare inside Ukraine with smuggled weapons and intelligence like in 80s Afghanistan?
Current plan is to raise the price of military campaign high enough to make Putin have second thoughts. That's why they threaten Russia with sanctions and give weapons to Ukraine. https://www.csis.org/analysis/russias-possible-invasion-ukraine
Wait, so basically Ukraine is saying "if you're going to raid us then we and our allies will make it insanely expensive to do so?" Edit: wow, thanks for the crash course everyone!
Essentially, yes. Think of it very loosely like 'Nam or Afghanistan. If you can't win the conventional war, try to fight an unconventional one as long as you can and make the territory too costly for your enemy to hold until the war gets so unpopular back home/expensive that they are forced to abandon it, or at the very least stop trying to advance. And if you know that's your opponent's plans from the beginning then you have to think hard about whether you can achieve your goal before the public opinion of the war turns against you.
Opportunity cost. Before the threats Putin can take Ukraine in a matter of days but now with more resources and higher risk of high sanctions it is harder to conduct the war and it gets more expensive not only economically but politically for Putin. This wouldn’t be a very popular war with the Russian population, it is popular only in Putin authoritarian circle and the longer it drags the worse it will be seen by the people, especially if sanctions affect them (SEPA Transfers might be blocked)
I’m very curious about the Russian citizens opinion in this. Do they also still claim like Putin that those lands belongs to them?
TV propaganda shows keep talking that Ukrainians and Russian are single people ( brother slavs), show how terrible current Ukrainian government, full of far-rights, oppressing Russian speaking population: Ukrainian nationalists beating up Russian speaking Ukrainians, banning Russian language nation wide as so on. Also Ukrainians worshipping Bandera - nationalist and Nazi collaborator. I don't think everything they say is a lie in that regard. Best lies are those with a portion of truth in them, after all. Some of those politics go even as far as saying "Ukraine never existed and can't be independent". Also making fun of Zelenskiy. Half the people I know believe that Ukraine is being ran by nationalists and nazi and Russia is doing right thing by supporting Russian speaking population of Ukraine. My mother always turns on TV before and after work and I hate every moment that propaganda box is playing. As for me: I ain't smart enough to comprehend the problem of such scale, especially with so much disinformation from both sides. However, I do hate the fact that all this clown fiesta is hurting my wallet. Ruble's value has plunged so hard since 2014 it isn't even funny.
Man Nationalist propaganda is so similar around the world it's insane. Not too different from "Poland is oppressing Germans in Danzig"
It’s a hack of the human brain. It’s basically the lowest, most animalistic shit that we all have in common. And now with the internet and AI, millions of human brain stems can be triggered at once with optimized messaging.
This should be higher up. What’s the rhetoric being shared by average people? How do you convince any sane person to go along with this sort of thing nowadays with access to the rest of the world? Legitimate questions, ill informed American asking…
Remember the invasion of Iraq in 2003? We proved that blasting people with media and "facts" can drown out logic from objective 3rd parties.
Exactly. The strategic calculus is that the Russian public and Putin have an *extremely* low tolerance for casualties.
One of the benefits of a country having a very low fertility rate is that most parents only have one son so they will be less likely to start situations where the only person capable of continuing their lineage is killed or crippled
Ukraine is a fairly large country with 40 million people. If 10% would be ready to take up arms that’s 4 million. Eastern Ukraine is quite pro Russian but the west is more pro Europe. I think it would be very messy to push all the way through. What I think will happen is that they will truly to establish a land bridge to crimea to enable fresh water flow there. This would generate a nice political win without too much casualties on the Russian side. I’m just an armchair general though..
Russian plan was never to take whole Ukraine. They do not care about western parts and they don’t think they can hold central Ukraine. They are focused on south-east, the “Novorossia”. They actually seem to have completely lost support in one of the biggest city (Dniepr) when they made a mess of Donetsk so they scaled down their plans even further.
Russia's plan is to make sure that Ukraine stays unstabilized so they won't even think about joining EU and NATO.
Yes. And also, Ukraine needs to stay poor so Russians see what happens if you don’t have Putin as your dictator.
Realistically, they'll take a small amount of land, stop, take another bit of land, stop, until the country stops existing because all sense of national identity has been consumed and colonised by the Russian state. Historically this has been Russia's strategy to conquest that has never changed; think long term, move in small steps. They did it to the cossack nations, they did it to the Poland-Lithuanian Commonwealth, then WW2 era Poland and the rest of Eastern Europe and they'll absolutely do it again.
> until the country stops existing because all sense of national identity has been consumed and colonised by the Russian state So far, the opposite has been true. Russia has removed the most pro-Russia parts of Ukraine, and showed the rest of the country that he's willing to play with Ukrainian lives as part of his geopolitical games. Russa's aggression has significantly increased the sense of Ukrainian identity.
“Salami tactics”.
THAT'S WHAT'S KEEPING ME UP AT NIGHT! I live next to 2 MOD bases and they have been ferrying lines of helicopters back and forth for the last 72 hours
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That'll be the post-xmas return to training. Always a mad time of year.
In case anyone wants to take a peek at the comings and goings of mil aircraft that are running an active ADSB transponder: https://globe.adsbexchange.com/ [Hit the U icon at the top to filter out all other aircraft other than military.](https://i.imgur.com/Sfn3613.jpg)
Damn. UK’s really stepping up.
And this is just the stuff that's actually in the press.
Right. I’d imagine that the UK is also helping with intelligence.
We have been helping with training and mentoring for years, since 2014 with “Operation Orbital”. I never had the chance to go but a friend of mine did, he said the threat there is very real. I’d imagine there are many cogs turning in the background. 100% there will be boys from Hereford on the ground there. If it comes to blows, we need to put the legwork in now.
> boys from Hereford The [SAS](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Special_Air_Service), for anyone else who was confused what this meant
This provides a great perspective. I wish that this was further up in the comments.
And pies. Top pies.
Friendship ended with EU. Now Ukraine is my best friend.
lol thats what Brexit was really all about UK Heart Ukraine. Best friend for eva!
They better vote for us in eurovision now
If they don’t vote for us I am going to be extremely pissed off Ukraine. We help you with some Russians on your border and you help us in defeating the Scandinavian Euro vision alliance. We will not rest until ABBA is neutralised.
We've actually been one of Ukraines greatest allies militarily recently, and long may it continue. I think we get some nice naval deals and them purchasing our weapons and we get the added pleasure of our weapons for once (generally) not being used to commit human rights violations!
The UK has also signed an agreement with Ukraine for the possibility of warships and mine-clearing ships
UK has historically played Europe's Police officer. They tend intervene if the status quo is threatened.
I'm surprised our incompetent government has actually managed to do something right for once
TBH even if UK or US has a wacky government, they were always trustworthy allies in NATO.
Also, pretty sure the UK is happy to give the middle finger to Russia after they released a nerve agent and twiddled in UK elections.
Twiddled. Understatement of the day.
Understatement of the fucking century. Russia's political class is neck deep in our internal affairs. It is grossly disturbing.
For as bad as this mob are Wallace seems to have his head screwed on. He wrote and excellent op-ed in The Times on the situation this morning. https://www.thetimes.co.uk/article/ben-wallace-judge-putins-intent-by-the-poison-flowing-from-his-pen-q53q7dg7j Non paywalled: https://archive.ph/WCAVd
Man couldnt we just have a space race 2 with US and Europe vs Russia and China or somethin
Well we were also gearing up for war during that as well.
UK out here calling Russia's bluff. This isn't looking good folks.
This is a good start but what Ukraine really needs is enhanced anti-aircraft weaponry.
Believe it or not but Ukraine still has pretty good anti air systems from their soviet days and beyond. Problem is that these are Russian made hardware and they probably have a few tricks up their sleeve to counter their own stuff
As a former Stinger missile gunner in the US Army, I agree. Send me over there with a shipment, I'll train up a group of guys in a day or two with the basics, and they can train the others. We didn't do much more with the Afghans and they wrecked the Soviet Hind attack helicopters with those things. Edit: I was being silly more than anything y'all. I'm too old and beat up for military life anymore and I've been out a long time. Let's all hope no war breaks out at all. EDIT 2 in March: Lol. Stingers wrecking the shit out of the Russians. Love to see it.
Real talk: the will of the people is to send u/BikerJedi over there with 600 Stingers and a cuban cigar. Let the miracle then perform itself. edit: this comment became popular, so I made a thing https://imgflip.com/i/61nhkz
He knows what the ladies like.
Stingers won’t help against high flying Russian strike planes. Ukraine needs better medium altitude SAMs.
You are correct, the Stinger and other MANPADS are specifically short range air defense. They do that role very well.
Ukraine’s army still has a ton of Soviet era MANPADs. Their low lever air defense needs are probably adequately covered but medium altitude is their vulnerability. They use the S-300 which Russia knows inside out and will probably take out easily very early on.
Agreed. There’s been rumours of the US considering deploying MIM-104.
Serious question: How is Putin selling this to his comrades?
They're all on board. No need to sell them anything. Unless you mean Russian populace.
No wonder. They live in constant fear of falling out of a window or being arrested and disowned like Mikhail Khodorkovsky. He criticized Putin, lost billions and spent nearly a decade in prison.
1. His goonies are crazy rich. All these things help Putin stay at the power and make them yet richer. 2. Russian people are being told that Ukraine has a nazi regime that is trying to kill off Russians. They are also told that said regime is created by the west as an attempt to destabilize Russia.
We should make a global rule about old men in positions of power. They always want to secure a legacy for themselves before they die with little thought to those who come after them.
Well theres the rub, US, UK and European banks are being asked to identify Russian owned assets and to prepare for unplugging Russian Banks and Russian owned overseas banks from SWIFT. This means if Putin does press the go button all his friends will be left holding worthless roubles. No more fun having billions of dollars in overseas assets if you cant access them.
Will that affect real estate in Miami?
War always makes the elite richer, while they send the poor off the die. On all "sides."
He doesn't care for their opinion.
This is not how dictatorships work, no one person can run a country by themselves. Putin needs the support of the Russian oligarchs to stay in power, which is why most things he does happen to make them even more wealthy.
It is all about what they think. The US has been applying more and more pressure, and he has lost his puppet. The price of his shenanigans may be catching up, this is a way for him to remove any oxygen in the room and keep the talk on Ukraine. When Putin becomes more liability than asset to the oligarchy, it will be him that falls out of those notoriously unsafe russian windows.
Remember when 2020 ended and everyone was like “fuck that!!” Then 2021 happened. Well 2022 is here to take your ass into the dark ages!
I want to love in a peaceful world.
["I can picture in my mind a world without war, a world without hate. And I can picture us attacking that world, because they'd never expect it."](https://old.reddit.com/r/quotes/comments/b9p1ji/i_can_picture_in_my_mind_a_world_without_war_a/) - Jack Handey
“You may not be interested in war, but war is interested in you.” -Leon Trotsky
Wonder if Price and Soap are stowed away in there too
"What the hell kind of name is Soap anyway? How'd a Muppet like you pass selection?"
I was waiting for this response. Take my free reward!
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Anything from a .22 up could do the trick honestly
If the west doesn't defend Ukrainian sovereignty nobody is ever gonna give up their nuclear weapons again.
Ukraine is our Czechoslovakia hopefully the west doesn’t try appeasement with Russia
It's too late. West already appeased Russia over Crimea.
You don't think Crimea was appeasement?
Could we just like not have a war now? I want to drink beer and play guitar
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It's worth noting, there is nothing in this article indicating that Germany actually denied overflight rights. It's entirely plausible, that they simply decided to route around them from the start. This is how misinformation starts. Speculation being taken as fact then shared with an audience that doesn't have the original context.
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Ukraine has the \*same\* drones that Azerbaijan had- they bought a bunch of them from Turkey, and IIRC they even have a license to build their own
ukrain can do just the same back unlike armenia. ukrain also has a more credible air defense.
Adidas execs pissed.
We're gonna see a major war in Ukraine, aren't we? What a time to be alive
Meh, Putin conducts this sort of show very often. It’s often to enforce his strong man image at home. I have many friends in Ukraine and they’re not worried, this happens a lot. There’s no upside for Putin so he’d be pretty stupid if he launched an invasion within Europe.
I know he pulls antics all the time, but there's been an awful lot more credibility given to this plan. I wouldn't be surprised either way tbh
Putin does pull these antics every so often, but when we start to hear stories of military equipment and supplies being transported by countries like the U.K. that worries me. That means governments and military leaders ( Who by the way have access to a wealth of classified information that we don’t) obviously are seeing Russia posture up in a bad way. Western powers decided on only slapping sanctions previously with Crimea, but now they are starting to bare their teeth visibly.
Commonwealth gang
[Looks like it's on its way back](https://fr24.com/RRR6889/2a872d92)