Russia and Ukraine

[The Architect Of Fate]

[citation needed]

https://www.theglobaleconomy.com/compare-countries/



I threw in Hungary as the nearest EU country....nearest in culture.
Still... no reason for invasion.

By all measures, Ukraine economic performance had been calamitous, even if we were to ignore the natural resources and soviet bequeathed infrastructure.

And why was it like that?

Indeed if a bad economy is a justification for invading nations. Then I guess the G7 nations have the right to invade the whole third and developing worlds.

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Let's sum it up 

1. Ukraine has the right to join any organization it wants without fear of military retaliation and if Russia is threatened by this its job is to increase defenses within its own borders. Invading other countries is not a valid response 


2. The presence of fascists within a nation is not a justification for invading other countries and endangering the lives of people who have nothing to do with said fascists


3. Being the same ethnic group is not a justification for invading other countries. It wasn't when Hitler did it and isn't now.


4. Formerly owning a place doesn't give you rights to it. otherwise, every former colonial power could claim any place they use to own.


5. Ukraine's abuses of ethnic Russians are a matter of international law and are not a justification for invading other countries.


6. American wars of aggression do not justify Russian ones

[Anomalocaris]

By all accounts they didn't have the airforce to do the job.  They have no planes specialised for SEAD or DEAD which are essential to controlling the skies early on.  And far more importantly, they don't train their pilots in the necessary tactics to carry out SEAD or DEAD, and generally not enough (Russian pilots typically get 60 flight hours per year as opposed to 200 for Western pilots, who also get specialised training in the roles they're deployed for).  This can be seen in what type of missions being flown in Ukraine, they're almost all two plane missions, and not full wing missions or similar which are what's actually needed to take out the oppositional air force and ground air defence capabilities.

A number of people who comment generally on military aviation generally have said that it looks like Russian pilots were trained in demonstration tricks to hawk their goodies to foreign buyers, and not trained as combat effective pilots.

Furthermore, the Russian arms manufacturers are incapable of mass building modern planes, and quite a few of what they do build are for foreign buyers, so what we're finding (as with their ground units) once the first few modern planes get hit, what Russia has left is old stuff from the USSR days.

PS Welcome back Thumpalumpacus, the site's much better with you around.

You're too kind, thanks.

I get your point about SEAD, though I think that would be very difficult anyway given that most Ukrainian AD is in the form of MANPADs. For this reason, I was thinking more along the lines of attacking Ukrainian airfields harboring combat planes or repair facilities with stand-off missiles in the opening minutes of the war.

They may well be husbanding their more advanced aircraft in order to address any potential NATO intervention, too.

Russia held back her air force for the obvious reason,  to hold it at highest possible state of readiness in case of NATO intervention.    The moment it is committed on any significant scale for other goals, its reserves of fuel, ammunition, spare parts, reliable sortie capacity before maintenance and overhaul, and unfatigued flight and ground crew will begin to drain away, and it’s state of readiness will decline.  

If the Russian airforce already has a couple of weeks of intense operation behind it, and NATO enter the fray fresh, Russia will be at a great disadvantage starting from the moment of contact and there is no way to make it up.

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https://www.theglobaleconomy.com/compare-countries/



I threw in Hungary as the nearest EU country....nearest in culture.
Still... no reason for invasion.


And why was it like that?

Indeed if a bad economy is a justification for invading nations. Then I guess the G7 nations have the right to invade the whole third and developing worlds.

---

Let's sum it up 

1. Ukraine has the right to join any organization it wants without fear of military retaliation and if Russia is threatened by this its job is to increase defenses within its own borders. Invading other countries is not a valid response 


2. The presence of fascists within a nation is not a justification for invading other countries and endangering the lives of people who have nothing to do with said fascists


3. Being the same ethnic group is not a justification for invading other countries. It wasn't when Hitler did it and isn't now.


4. Formerly owning a place doesn't give you rights to it. otherwise, every former colonial power could claim any place they use to own.


5. Ukraine's abuses of ethnic Russians are a matter of international law and are not a justification for invading other countries.


6. American wars of aggression do not justify Russian ones

All those are interest for the kindergarten and not at all how the world does work or how it can work.

[The Grand Nudger]

There's no point to alliances and treaties or politics at all if we're satisfied with how things do work. Obviously, this -is- a world where... on the most laughable of pretenses.... nations can invade each other. I'm not sure you're having the same conversation as anyone else if this is the sole takeaway.

[Anomalocaris]

No, we have treaties and alliances not to make things work differently, but to position ourself to the best advantage in the context of how things do really work.

[The Grand Nudger]

Probably just a semantic difference. I don't think that people are expressing their disbelief -that- there is a context of how things do really work. Rather, a rejection of some or all of it as not positioning themselves or anyone else to the best advantage.

It's certainly not been advantageous to russia, so..even in those semantics - a Bad Idea.

[The Architect Of Fate]

All those are interest for the kindergarten and not at all how the world does work or how it can work.

Lol nice non-refutation accept a base

Saying that Russia invading other countries is "how the world works is a rather bold statement with no backing and how it could work is irrelevant really.

And the only thing kindergarten like is Russia's childish response 

[Thumpalumpacus]

Russia held back her air force for the obvious reason,  to hold it at highest possible state of readiness in case of NATO intervention.    The moment it is committed on any significant scale for other goals, its reserves of fuel, ammunition, spare parts, reliable sortie capacity before maintenance and overhaul, and unfatigued flight and ground crew will begin to drain away, and it’s state of readiness will decline.  

If the Russian airforce already has a couple of weeks of intense operation behind it, and NATO enter the fray fresh, Russia will be at a great disadvantage starting from the moment of contact and there is no way to make it up.

After the drubbing the Russian Army has received in the last month, I'm not sure how useful those airplanes will be if NATO does join the fray. Nathan Bedford Forrest's "fustest with the mostest" is something that still holds true today.

Had the Russians committed that reserve airpower, might we not here be discussing instead how the Ukrainians got defeated so quickly? Those Russian planes will not have it any easier against NATO, but they might have put paid to Ukrainian resistance before NATO could mobilize enough to respond coherently.

As it stands, while those planes sit in hangars, they accomplish nothing; but NATO has moved many aircraft east to move to the threat. I have no doubt that NATO could seize control of Ukrainian airspace in mos' rickey-tick time.

[The Architect Of Fate]

No, we have treaties and alliances not to make things work differently, but to position ourself to the best advantage in the context of how things do really work.

Bullshit 

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Russia held back her air force for the obvious reason,  to hold it at highest possible state of readiness in case of NATO intervention.    The moment it is committed on any significant scale for other goals, its reserves of fuel, ammunition, spare parts, reliable sortie capacity before maintenance and overhaul, and unfatigued flight and ground crew will begin to drain away, and it’s state of readiness will decline.  

If the Russian airforce already has a couple of weeks of intense operation behind it, and NATO enter the fray fresh, Russia will be at a great disadvantage starting from the moment of contact and there is no way to make it up.

After the drubbing the Russian Army has received in the last month, I'm not sure how useful those airplanes will be if NATO does join the fray. Nathan Bedford Forrest's "fustest with the mostest" is something that still holds true today.

Had the Russians committed that reserve airpower, might we not here be discussing instead how the Ukrainians got defeated so quickly? Those Russian planes will not have it any easier against NATO, but they might have put paid to Ukrainian resistance before NATO could mobilize enough to respond coherently.

As it stands, while those planes sit in hangars, they accomplish nothing; but NATO has moved many aircraft east to move to the threat. I have no doubt that NATO could seize control of Ukrainian airspace in mosh skosh time.

He's suffering under the delusions that Russia's total failure is not a total failure 

[The Grand Nudger]

Maybe russias planes are sitting in hangars because they're hallowed out pieces of garbage? Simplest explanation and all.

-it's the no1 reason ours sit at hangars too - parsimonious

[Thumpalumpacus]

He's suffering under the delusions that Russia's total failure is not a total failure 

The display of Russian might thus far shown is very underwhelming. All of Anom's predictions from earlier in this thread have come unwound. I shared some of those preconceptions before the Russians jumped off; I thought for sure that they'd crush Ukrainian resistance.

Of course, I had assumed that they would deploy well-trained troops, with a coherent doctrine of combined operations, supplied far better than the Ukrainians. I was wrong. Indeed, I had thought there would be no invasion at all, because it struck me as the expensive way to achieve his aims, from Putin's perspective. I was, again, wrong. I also figured that is they did invade they'd move south from Belorus to cut off any aid from NATO via Poland; wrong again.

So was Putin and the leadership he has appointed. Even if worse comes to worst for the Ukrainians, they will certainly bog Russia down into an insurgency that Russia cannot afford or support:

Sanctions imposed on Russia to cripple its economy may be starting to hurt its military capabilities.

The country’s primary armored vehicle manufacturer appears to have run out of parts to make and repair tanks, according to a Facebook post by the General Staff of the Armed Forces of Ukraine.

Citing “available information,” it reported state-owned company Uralvagonzavod, which builds tanks such as the T-72B3, has had to temporarily cease production in Nizhny Tagil.

https://fortune.com/2022/03/22/russian-t...raine-war/

This is just a few weeks into sanctions. With swamps in Ukraine's north and mountains in the west, @Nomad's prediction of a deadly insurgency (earlier in this thread) could well come to pass even if the Ukrainian military is defeated on the field.

The Russians have screwed the pooch, here. They've stuck their nose into a trap and won't get out easy.