Russia and Ukraine

[The Grand Nudger]

If NATO wasn't providing all of the weapons, I'd be fine with Ukraine fighting to the last man, if that's what they wanted to do. What I'm not fine with, is a war between NATO and Russia, which is happening now, unofficially. What I'm not fine with, is us going deep into Russia to attack their bases. We did that. NATO. And Ukrainians are freezing right now because of NATO.

NATO hasn't provided all the weapons.  The majority of the kit in ukraine on both sides is of soviet origin..in fact, russia..in it's current incarnation, has provided more equipment to ukraine than the us has by abandoning it on the field.  Meanwhile, we, as in NATO, are not going deep into russia.  Ukraine would probably like to, and the truth is they have (and have always had) the capability to do so - but they have to balance that with it's effect on NATO support - the line having been drawn against precisely that.  

Should Ukraine have accepted the peace deal? Who the hell knows. The West/United States was arming rebels in Syria knowing that those weapons were mostly falling into the hands of Al Qaeda and Isis and their affiliates, and now NATO is going deep into Russia to attack their bases. That's a hair away from WWIII. Barack Obama and Hillary Clinton brought open slave markets back to the streets of Libya, so why would the US getting involved in things ever be a bad idea? I don't know. NATO are the good guys, right, so what is there to worry about? A world war has never happened before, right, twice, so like Helios says, we should just assume that a world war is never going to happen again. Nukes are irrelevant. They may as well not exist, etc, etc. This is what I'm told by Helios.

You know who knows?  Ukraine knows.  They told them to fuck off.  All this hand wringing about ww3 is just you and anyone else so afflicted completely ignoring ukranian interests.  What are they supposed to do?  Let the russians kill them so that -you- can live?  Wars don't have good guys.  There's nothing good about war.  Perhaps you could go to russia and have a talk with putin, explain that to him, and suggest that he should let the ukranians kill him so that you can live?

And did attacking the base actually stop any bombing runs or stop anyone from freezing to death? So you attacked the base for little gain, and a whole boat load of risk. Not a bright decision. And wouldn't Ukraine have needed the help of Western intelligence to be able to pull off the strike on the base? Evading Russian detection and all of that? Is that really something they would be capable of all on their own? Sounds highly doubtful. The US and NATO has been helping with intelligence and logistics and all of that in Ukraine, so that makes it our war. There is no way around it.

Yes.  Attacking the airfields and launchpads, destroying bombers and forward control sites, effects russias ability to continue terror bombing ukranians.  To the point that they're out there hat in hand begging iran for weapons. Whatever russia can still pull off, after that, is less than what they would have done, and were doing, otherwise.  That's gotta be one of the silliest questions I've ever heard.  "Hey guys, does blowing up bombers stop some bombs...?"  

.....?

As far as what ukraine is capable of on their own, a hell of alot - and a cursory exploration of how they managed to ambush the worlds "second best army" -before- they had help might be interesting to you. It's the whole reason they got any help in the first place. The war started in february for us as western media consumers, but it's already eight years running for them. They had a track record of embarrassing the invaders with the cut rate shit and smaller force that they already had. In the process, they created reams of action review data that NATO planners will be pouring over for the next few decades, and would be even if they'd fallen. Free of the constraints that western support imposes, I think you might see them doing all sorts of amusing shit that is only off the table for now. These are people who busted one of their own dams and flooded one of their own cities to swallow up an armored column and completely halt the enemy advance. Who sent assassins "deep into russia" to kill putins spirit animal..who is now calling for putins head. People who turned twitter into an actual weapon, and have repeatedly used it against their incompetent foe. A country roughly the size of texas, with antique equipment, that stopped an alleged nuclear superpower cold.