Russia and Ukraine

[Thumpalumpacus]

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.

[arewethereyet]

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.

[The Grand Nudger]

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.