(September 19, 2025 at 10:46 am)arewethereyet Wrote: So, according to you Ukraine doesn't have any people smart enough to use the necessary technology to fight to protect their land. 

I didn't take him as saying that. I understood it as foreign troops will be needed to train Ukrainian troops on foreign equipment. Some of this gear is tremendously complicated and needing training is no indicator of intelligence or its absence, but rather unfamiliarity.

(September 19, 2025 at 1:15 pm)Thumpalumpacus Wrote:

(September 19, 2025 at 10:46 am)arewethereyet Wrote: So, according to you Ukraine doesn't have any people smart enough to use the necessary technology to fight to protect their land. 

I didn't take him as saying that. I understood it as foreign troops will be needed to train Ukrainian troops on foreign equipment. Some of this gear is tremendously complicated and needing training is no indicator of intelligence or its absence, but rather unfamiliarity.

Which still requires other countries to help in times of conflict.  The post makes me think that Leo isn't aware that countries often work together for the greater good.  Or, at least they used to.

No Leo, there aren’t “technically nato soldiers” in Ukraine. There are a lot of volunteers from nato and non nato countries.

What Ukraine and whatever nato partners and private businesses prefer, is to take Ukrainian troops out of country to train where massing men and equipment for such a purpose isn’t a giant flashing bomb me sign for Russia.

There have been and likely still are some sf operators from western nations in country, none of them operating under the nato banner. Altogether, this is one of the many hurdles the Ukrainian military has had to overcome. Pulling men off the frontlines to send them to other countries and making sure they come back. By all accounts the Ukrainian trainees are comitted, fast learners, and very well regarded by their western trainers. You’ll find no shortage of videos of western troops at western bases bidding them farewell and good luck with honor. Meanwhile, the troops left behind to be trained by those newly minted trainers have been doing a fantastic job holding the line and extracting a horrendous cost in lives and equipment from Russia for every attempt to gain another inch of Ukrainian ground.

Russia, for its part, has some large number of drunks, pensioners, and broken men…according to putins remaining actual soldiers. Of which there are so few you could not stand up a single battalion, not that it would matter if you could….because there isn’t enough equipment left to properly arm them, nor food or water available at the front to feed them. Meanwhile, their nuclear arsenal has been crippled, and whatever remains of it becomes useless the moment they use it, as their economy crashes and burns like falling debris over pacific coast refineries.

The only place Russia is second at anything is in Ukraine. Putin remains a master strategist.

(September 19, 2025 at 1:26 pm)arewethereyet Wrote:

(September 19, 2025 at 1:15 pm)Thumpalumpacus Wrote: I didn't take him as saying that. I understood it as foreign troops will be needed to train Ukrainian troops on foreign equipment. Some of this gear is tremendously complicated and needing training is no indicator of intelligence or its absence, but rather unfamiliarity.

Which still requires other countries to help in times of conflict.  The post makes me think that Leo isn't aware that countries often work together for the greater good.  Or, at least they used to.

Training cadres/missions have been extant since before WWII, so he certainly should be aware of it and not be surprised that there are a few foreign troops in-country. Certainly nothing like the ten thousand DPRK troops deployed there (before they got whittled down), I'd guess a couple of hundred only, and in non-combat roles, defying the false equivocation.

Quote:Three Russian fighter jets flew into Estonian airspace on Friday in what would appear to be the third attempt by the Kremlin this month to test NATO’s eastern border.

The MiG-31 aircraft — heavy interceptors capable of carrying Russia’s Kinzhal hypersonic missile — entered via the Gulf of Finland. The jets circled for about 12 minutes and NATO scrambled Italian F-35s to repel them.

The incursion comes after Russia last week also sent drones into Poland and Romania, two other frontline NATO members.

"The Russians have been flying this exact airspace for decades. It's difficult to see how this wasn't intentional," a U.S. official told POLITICO.

https://www.politico.eu/article/russian-...r-tallinn/

Safer than flying over Ukraine.

Take two Patriots and call me in the morning.

(September 19, 2025 at 7:37 pm)The Grand Nudger Wrote: Safer than flying over Ukraine.

At the moment...

So Putin sent airplanes to Estonia after Trump said that the US will partially halt military assistance to the Baltic nations and NATO states bordering Russia.

Quote:Pentagon officials sat down with a group of European diplomats in late August and delivered a stern message: The U.S. planned to cut off some security assistance to Latvia, Lithuania and Estonia, all NATO members bordering Russia.

More broadly, Pentagon official David Baker told the group, according to an official with direct knowledge of the comments, Europe needed to be less dependent on the U.S. Under President Donald Trump, the U.S. military would be shifting its attention to other priorities, like defense of the homeland.

Some European diplomats fretted that the move could embolden Russian President Vladimir Putin.

On Friday, they may have been proven right.

Russian MiG-31 jets entered Estonian airspace for roughly 10 minutes, Estonia said, before being chased away by Italian F-35s. Russia denied violating Estonian airspace, saying its jets flew over neutral waters.

https://www.reuters.com/world/europe/aft...025-09-20/

(September 20, 2025 at 1:56 pm)Fake Messiah Wrote: So Putin sent airplanes to Estonia after Trump said that the US will partially halt military assistance to the Baltic nations and NATO states bordering Russia.

Quote:Pentagon officials sat down with a group of European diplomats in late August and delivered a stern message: The U.S. planned to cut off some security assistance to Latvia, Lithuania and Estonia, all NATO members bordering Russia.

More broadly, Pentagon official David Baker told the group, according to an official with direct knowledge of the comments, Europe needed to be less dependent on the U.S. Under President Donald Trump, the U.S. military would be shifting its attention to other priorities, like defense of the homeland.

Some European diplomats fretted that the move could embolden Russian President Vladimir Putin.

On Friday, they may have been proven right.

Russian MiG-31 jets entered Estonian airspace for roughly 10 minutes, Estonia said, before being chased away by Italian F-35s. Russia denied violating Estonian airspace, saying its jets flew over neutral waters.

https://www.reuters.com/world/europe/aft...025-09-20/

They need to send a message to Putin on this.

Tell Russia that the next time their aircraft violate NATO airspace they will be shot down.

And then do it.