Russia and Ukraine

[Leonardo17]

1) The F-16’s won’t arrive for a few months. They need to train the pilots.

Have any F-16s been promised at this point? All I've heard is speculation. 

This is from two days ago:

“There will be no fighter jet deliveries to Ukraine. This was made clear very early, including from the U.S. President,” Germany Chancelor Olaf Scholz said in remarks to his country’s parliament after the tanks decision. “This position has not changed at all and will not change.”

They said this about the tanks, though, earlier, so it may change. 

From what I read there are currently no runways in Ukraine capable of handling an F-16, so that will take time also.  (Since Russia has complete air superiority at present they can bomb the runways.) If they fly out of nearby countries that would be a major escalation.

2) The German Tanks will arrive within weeks (the training time is shorter and it uses diesel, not jet fuel + I think the leopard is still the better tank in this war. The Total number of modern Tanks that will be sent to Ukraine in the coming months is 327. That’s the number Zelensky needed. French Tanks are coming too. (https://www.yahoo.com/news/ukraine-recei...00258.html)

We'll see. It certainly looks as if Germany has been reluctant, but is being pushed by the US. Lots of things happen between the promise and the execution.

We also have to keep in mind that while the tanks are probably better than the hundreds and hundreds Ukraine had a year ago, they are hardly invincible. We've heard several times about super-duper weapons that will definitely be game-changers, but the game hasn't changed yet. 

Partisan media always exaggerates. 

 3) Now they need air defences, Migs and F-16’s. I don’t know about A-10’s. Why not just send them and see if it works (it’s an old type of airplane anyway) . I came to know that F-35 is the beast US fighter jet second only to F-22 Raptors which are very expensive but are described as the Ferrari’s of fighter jets. But Just like Eurofighter’s and Mirage airplanes these have very complex technologies and require a lot of training. The war will probably be over before Ukrainian pilots are trained on these systems. Besides Russia has about 20 next generation airplanes which cannot leave Russian airspace because they don’t want them to be shut down. So F-35’s would only be necessary if Ukraine wanted to invade Russia at some point (to bypass their air-defense system [S-300’s]) but this is not going to happen. So F-16’s should do so there can be more men (Both Russian and Ukrainian) who will be able to be with their families next year.
 
4) First paragraph. You know Greece is a rival country for Turkey since many years (I mean in geopolitical terms and influence in the Aegean Sea). Greece has about 20 F-35’s, 20 Mirage airplanes + a fleet of modernized F-16’s. Because he took the S-300’s from Putin, The One with Neo-Ottoman Ambitions was even denied equipment to modernize our fleet of F-16 airplanes. We are a country of 80 million inhabitants. The population of Greece is about 10 million. So (thank God) nothing is going to happens in the near future with Greece. But if something was to happen it wouldn’t look so nice for us if you know what I mean .
 

The F-35s are purchased by America's vassal states. It's a cash transfer. Notice that Ukraine isn't begging for those -- they need things that work. 

It's always the same -- Russia is out of ammunition, it's out of soldiers, it gained ground but it was a Pyrrhic victory, etc. etc. But Ukraine is still begging for weapons. Zelensky says that if the tanks don't arrive by August it will be too late -- which is a statement incompatible with the propaganda that Ukraine is winning. 

It will be interesting to watch. The Democrats demonize Russia and use it to justify the military budget. If the next President is Republican, however, he might want to wrap up the Ukraine thing to concentrate on China. Republicans tend to prefer to make China their enemy (though it's bipartisan, really), and are busy working up a totally unnecessary and stupid war with them. One thing we can be sure of -- when any new war starts the obedient warmongers will be happy to defend it. 

1) https://www.politico.com/news/2023/01/28...e-00080045
 
Mig’s have already been given as far as I know. And Ukraine has an operating air-force. (I don’t think they would be able to stop Russians with some basic weapons)
 
2) German Tanks will arrive later (these are the newest tanks (like US tanks) they won’t send old tanks from warehouses. Poland has already started to train Ukrainian crews (no will Germany in the coming days). There are many European countries who have Leopard tanks. They were unable to send them without German approval. Now Sholz said “he was not opposed” to start training crews on these tanks. French tanks (like challengers) have also been approved. And the total number is around 321.
https://www.reuters.com/world/total-321-...tion%20BFM.
 
3) We could have a problem of terminology here. We are allies with the US. We are smaller than the US. That makes the US “the biggest guy on the block” as Obama described it. That’s how I see it. And this is very important. Smaller countries need a “nuclear umbrella” of some sort. So there were some complex systems of alliances that emerged in the world in the after WWII period. In the European security force project for instance, France is going to be the Nuclear umbrella of this unified military alliance (since the departure of the UK from the EU). So this nuclear deterrence is important. Now there are no more “blocks” as in the cold war period. But we still need those alliances as it is also seen in the case of Taiwan for instance. Without those alliances, anyone can do anything. Think of Libya for instance. So as civilized nations, we need these systems without which anyone can do anything and this is no longer an option. This is not the 8th century in which you can just raid other people when you don’t have enough in your own land. The world has evolved and it has become this.
 
3b) Russia is what is left from the former Soviet Union (which was a super power). Resisting it means a great amount of loss of human lives. No one in our time can afford that. That’s why NATO countries are sending their newest equipment among their older obsolete weapons because otherwise there will be a long war. More Russians will die and Russia will become an even more unstable country. And we don’t want that. Which is why I also believe their nuclear weapons must be taken from them. The world cannot afford Russia to have weapons of mass destruction. Pakistan / India = Yes. Maybe. Russia = no more, Iran = definitely not. That’s how I see it.
3c) The republicans are just a more big corporations / greater liberalism loving political movement in America (correct me if I wrong). But they are not insane. Trump was insane and trump seems to be losing his grip on the Republican Party and I hope he doesn’t ever regain that power because the result would be some sort of imbalance in a two party model democracy. That’s my point of view.
 
China and Russia are close allies. + if you let Russia take Ukraine not only Putin will keep advancing into place like Poland (by backing populist parties across Europe and even destabilizing places like Italy), but China will feel free to take Taiwan by force and extending its influence into countries as far as Myanmar and West Africa.
 
But China is still a serious player in this. It’s still a serious state with serious alliances (like Gulf States + Saudi Arabia) which has no megalomaniac fantasies (for now) and seems to want to be a cooperative economic power more than a world-dominating super-monster.
 
So as I told you before: there is no “western” media. There is a lot of independent Russian speaking media outlets too. So don’t try to be “the smartest” try to be well informed about issues. That’s how I would do it