There is no meaningful Russian air presence in western Ukraine. No good reason not to establish an NFZ there. To avoid conflict, stay west of the Dnieper. Appeasement does not work.
What happened to Russias Air Force? U.S. officials, experts stumped
481–490 of 791 posts
Re: What happened to Russias Air Force? U.S. officials, experts stumped
#482Earlier quoted context omitted.
* Russian state media even released than silently deleted a premature victory announcement for the current invasion declaring the establishment of a new union state of all the Russias (Russia [Great Russia], Ukraine [Little Russia] Do you have more information about this?
https://www.businessinsider.com/russian-state-news-published... > A Russian state-run news agency prematurely published an article that said Russia has taken back Ukraine. > "Ukraine has returned to Russia," said the article, which ran on RIA Novosti and has since been taken down. "The West sees the return of Russia to its historical borders in Europe."
The full text is even better. Talks about "solving the Ukrainian question" which sounds like a direct reference to Hitler's "Final Solution to Jew Question" or whatever that was called.
Re: What happened to Russias Air Force? U.S. officials, experts stumped
#483I guess everyone's weighing in with their view, so why not? Firstly, we should be mindful that the fog of war is now in play, and a good amount of what we think we know is unverifiable. With that caveat out of the way... It seems that the Russian soldiers are making efforts to avoid attacking civilians directly. Counterexamples exist and could be explained by rogue units, incompetence, or hot-blooded revenge on local…
In all fairness, "invade assuming the people will chant you to power" sounds a lot like GWB statregy back in 2003... We made lots of jokes back then.
Re: What happened to Russias Air Force? U.S. officials, experts stumped
#484Earlier quoted context omitted.
I agree, and it might be the case that since they lost any element of surprise due to their moves being telegraphed by Western intelligence, it greatly undermined any speed they were hoping to make use of.
> I agree, and it might be the case that since they lost any element of surprise due to their moves being telegraphed by Western intelligence, it greatly undermined any speed they were hoping to make use of. It's unclear to me how much of that time Ukraine used to prepare. If they did, they didn't telegraph it. What I read was the Russian amphibious landing in the south was done 30-40 miles away from the target city…
They were arming themselves with missiles and the Turkish drones during that time.
Re: What happened to Russias Air Force? U.S. officials, experts stumped
#485Earlier quoted context omitted.
I don't even see how (b) is going to work at this point--with the massive flow of weapons and money that is coming from the West, and NATO safe havens on the borders, Russia will be playing whack-a-mole against insurgency forever no matter how much force they use. Imagine if the Iraq or Afghanistan insurgencies had had access to an endless supply of top-of-the-line weapons, orders of magnitude more funding, and 'safe…
Russia doesn't have a big track military track record in recent years, but there's one thing that they have proven to do really well: leveling a city to the ground while slaughtering the civilians who didn't flee. Having the Ukrainian legitimate government agree to surrender to save Kiev (or “just” Khariv) from such a fate isn't completely impossible to imagine. And giving infantry weapons isn't going to be enough to…
Fallujah and Mosul were pretty bad in terms of city levelling. We just don't like to remember them, or think about depleted uranium dust causing birth defects, or what happened to the refugees, or a million other things.
Re: What happened to Russias Air Force? U.S. officials, experts stumped
#486Earlier quoted context omitted.
It was, however, nothing close to the levels of support Ukraine is getting. And those insurgencies faced a vastly superior US armed forces.
Those American forces also had vastly longer supply lines to sustain. What the Russians lack in financing and capability, the make up a lot with proximate borders, time zones, etc.
The US has established bases all over the globe and has basically created a worldwide supply chain for its military, so that isn’t really a factor. (Please note, this isn’t being said in an anti-American way.)
Re: What happened to Russias Air Force? U.S. officials, experts stumped
#487Earlier quoted context omitted.
It was, however, nothing close to the levels of support Ukraine is getting. And those insurgencies faced a vastly superior US armed forces.
Those American forces also had vastly longer supply lines to sustain. What the Russians lack in financing and capability, the make up a lot with proximate borders, time zones, etc.
Russian military morale is so low it's almost a non-force. You see them unloading into chicken farms and monuments rather than fighting. They are running out of fuel all over the place - probably because they sold it. The corruption in the Russian military is vast and intense.
Re: What happened to Russias Air Force? U.S. officials, experts stumped
#488I think that Russia may have a two-prong strategy: either make sure Ukraine is not joining NATO, or make sure that Ukraine that joins NATO is completely wrecked. In the alternative reality, where Ukraine promises tomorrow not to join NATO (ever), the Russian targets for this war may be considered achieved, and everyone could simply go home, probably throwing in a couple billions deal for Ukraine recovery. This would…
problem is - its either nato or russian puppet (e.g. russia would force ukraine to invade moldova)
Re: What happened to Russias Air Force? U.S. officials, experts stumped
#489I guess everyone's weighing in with their view, so why not? Firstly, we should be mindful that the fog of war is now in play, and a good amount of what we think we know is unverifiable. With that caveat out of the way... It seems that the Russian soldiers are making efforts to avoid attacking civilians directly. Counterexamples exist and could be explained by rogue units, incompetence, or hot-blooded revenge on local…
maybe they were avoiding in few first days, but gloves are off now because they are failing to advance. planes are bombing cities in residential areas (i have relatives in kharkiv). heavy artillery, etc. there is footage that looks like footage from WWII, of residential neighborhoods of apartment complexes in rubble and half collapsed buildings on fire.
This is destroying Putin's legitimacy in Russia too
Re: What happened to Russias Air Force? U.S. officials, experts stumped
#490I guess everyone's weighing in with their view, so why not? Firstly, we should be mindful that the fog of war is now in play, and a good amount of what we think we know is unverifiable. With that caveat out of the way... It seems that the Russian soldiers are making efforts to avoid attacking civilians directly. Counterexamples exist and could be explained by rogue units, incompetence, or hot-blooded revenge on local…
> I speculate that Russian airforce weaponry is not generally high-precision, and the order to avoid targeting civilians implies restraint on use of indiscriminate bombing. Again, we've seen counterexamples which could be explained by all of the above reasons, plus the possibility of friendly fire from failed Ukrainian air defences. That doesn't explain this, though: > Vastly outmatched by Russia's military, in terms…
Perhaps Russia knowing it's military strategy would be on full display for analysis decided to accept loss of men and/or slower gains for not giving away how its planes would perform?