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The BBC is absolutely rubbish (not helpful comment).

I think this has moved beyond being a Proxy war where you have 3 categories of state Them,Us and Other and you don’t really care about what happens to Other. Ukraine since 2014 has moved from being Them to Other and is now seen as Us and we have both a political and emotional desire to help them.

Can any Russian speakers confirm this arrow pointed at London is notated “Anyone who hits my holiday home is going straight to the fucking Gulag”

He is trying to take down a democracy, a system most of us have an affinity with

I was thinking more about the Ukrainians I’m not sure of the total number of SAMs we have sent or how many Ukraine already had but there are a lot out there.
Our Cold War infantry Anti Aircraft tactic was shoot at anything it’s probably hostile.

WWIII air defence over Europe was supposed to have a forward zone of attack helicopters,A10, Frogfoots etc then a missile belt then an air defence zone patrolled by F15s . Maybe the Ukrainians could establish a missile belt and inch it forward, the Russians would do the same over their troops giving a defacto no fly zone.

The areas were split up like this to stop “friendly Fire” I don’t think anyone can identify a moving aircraft at 3km.

Stinger missiles should curtail tactical air power but LGBs probably allow attacks on supply lines from higher altitude.

If you don’t have s no fly zone it will be difficult for the Ukrainians to bring up supplies their lines of communication are far longer than the Russians.

I was referring to the possibility of Poland sending its Mig29s and replacing them with F16s a type it already operates and are plentiful , Ukraine operates Mig29s

In the Western classical tradition, Prometheus became a figure who represented human striving (particularly the quest for scientific knowledge) and the risk of overreaching or unintended consequences.

According to Wikipedia

I hope the Russian Army doesn’t fall apart because they probably don’t practice retreating and the result of being chased home by a bunch of vengeful Ukrainians armed with loads of anti tank missiles probably won’t be conducive to long term peace in the area.

Momentum might not be the right description, I can’t see him increasing the pace of operations sufficiently to knock out the Ukraine opposition and dictate peace on his own terms,can you?

The Soviets did manage to knock out the Afghan government, it’s worth pointing out that was the USSR not just the Russians.
(Indeed they minimised the number of Russians in the initial attack using soldiers from the Caucus’s thinking they would be more acceptable to the Afghans.)

Russia has a similar defence budget to the UK, whilst their rifles might cost less than ours(everyone’s rifles cost less that ours) so they get more bang for their rouble it’s not the Great Bear I grew up with.

I’m surprised Poland won’t trade some in for F16s would have been difficult to get them safely over the border. I think a private US company owns some.
I suppose once you give some to Ukraine you know Russia isn’t going to give you any spare parts so you have to sell off all your fleet, which rules out India. You have to retrain your pilots which leaves you less protected for a while even if you get new planes.

It’s where Thatcher allowed General Pinochet to retire to, maybe Putin could move into his old house.

Surely this means either Putin goes or Russia becomes a North Korea.

I really can’t see him regaining the military momentum again unless he has reserves to put in and can do it faster than the Ukrainians can move up reserves and equipment. The US say he has 40,000 uncommitted troops but some of these must be his missing artillery, engineers etc. His existing armies must be getting tired and will need replacing anyway.
Can he grab some territory and call a ceasefire before getting deposed. A General is going to get a Field Marshals baton or a bullet.

It depends what reserve’s he has, if he has 200,000 troops mostly Tank Armies or Motor Rifle units advance through the existing troops and slice off areas of Ukraine trying to disrupt their lines of communication. Don’t be nice about it to get lots of Displaced Persons to clog up Ukrainian supply lines. But I don’t think Putin has or can mobilise enough troops.

If he has less troops he could slog forward using lots of artillery and using what air power he has in limited areas. The democratic world will continue to be outraged. Leaving the west of Ukraine means we can move equipment in. (Are the Poles going to hand over some Mig29s). This won’t be pretty.

If I was him I’d try to take anything, territory/towns then “give” it away in negotiations to keep the Crimea water supply and the Donbas corridor. Quickly with any troops I could muster before I was deposed.

Lightening strikes bypassing centres of resistance is very much a Russian tactic but they are supposed to field an unstoppable shock force backed up with 2nd echelon troops to mop up. The BTR-80s shown on the news should be doing the mopping up.

To give you some idea of what will happen if this does move from being a manoeuvre war to a slog through the streets the Red Army allocated 10,000 troops to clear the Reichstag area in WWII.
The prospect of fighting in a built up area is frightening as an eager youth I was in the TA we did FIBUA exercises with a kind of LazerQuest system in our rifles(SAWS). We had to abandon an exercise because the entire battalion (400 troops) was “killed” before clearing a village.

Increase the readiness of the Rocket Forces

Not sure how accurate Russian MRLS are they used have them to “shoot in” a tank attack. To suppress hidden infantry armed with anti-tank missiles whilst the tanks and IFVs advanced.

So should we just leave Ukraine to it?

Depends 1980s Staff College war games saw Birmingham nuked followed by us hitting Kyiv(ironically) then stopping ( targets were chosen to be big but not too emotional).

See the Ruskies are ignoring Sellafield,Aldermaston, Faslane, Porton Down, HQ UK Land forces the cunning devils (or it’s bollocks from The Daily Star)

Russia aren’t signatories of the Convention on Cluster Munitions but then nor are the USA.
Not sure if they are now but the US weren’t signatories of the Geneva Convention/Hague protocols.

If they are cluster munitions they aren’t trying to raze the area they are trying to deny the area to the Ukrainians. Could be a defensive measure or a Thermopylae situation where if you are outnumbered but have superior troops you limit the width of the front and try to stop the enemy mobility.

Do you think anyone takes Liz Truss seriously enough to drop a little bucket of sunshine on London?

What’s the situation for dual nationals?