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What happened to Russias Air Force? U.S. officials, experts stumped

reuters.com

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Re: What happened to Russias Air Force? U.S. officials, experts stumped

#731

Post by pastacacioepepe »

drran wrote: post #678
ethbr0 wrote: post #617

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Give them Crimea in exchange for an agreement that Ukraine be allowed to apply to join NATO.

Give them Sudeten in exchange for promise that they will not attack Poland. This tactic worked well for 8 years in the case of Ukraine and was heavily (really heavily) promoted by François Hollande and Angela Merkel. IMHO, it's good to stick to a tactic with proven track record. The main idea is to feed the monster with virgins. Give them Crimea, then Donbas, then Belarus, then South Ukraine, then Eastern Ukraine, th…

Nice job of comparing an entire population with more history and culture than you can ever dream of, to a "monster" that feeds itself with virgins. Flagged. This is an open display of racial hate fed by propaganda.

Re: What happened to Russias Air Force? U.S. officials, experts stumped

#732

Post by dontthrowawaytr »

selimthegrim wrote: post #336
saiya-jin wrote: post #227

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I think the reason was, we just waltz into Kyev, get greeted as saviors and liberators, maybe shoot Zelenskyy and his circle in the head by mistake, or just make them disappear, install another friendly ruler (collaborator would be more appropriate, like Kadyrov in Chechnya) and Ukraine will be part of Russia within next few years, or end up as slave without any real autonomy like Belarus. If that's the case, industr…

There was a hue and cry about Ukrainians dipping bullets into salo but seeing as the Chechens got droned by Bayraktars it seems like the Turks don't mind whatever treatment the drones are getting.

Using throwaway...

Chechens themselves had the same tragedy in Grozny. I don't believe these puppet soldiers have the sympathy of the vast majority of muslim people.

While there are many problems like treatment of african students, comments on TV channels mentioning "civilized" part of the world, and not having the public outcry for middle-eastern people(or welcoming arms for refugees), and the topic you mentioned. Anyone I talked to in Turkey supports the struggle of Ukrainian people.

Another interesting point is that Russia seems to be recruiting a lot from the Turkic people inside Russia. So Turkish drones are also hitting them. But that doesn't seem to change public opinion.

Overall, unfortunately, the Turkish people became geopolitical experts because of all the mess and tragedy around Turkey (Note to reader: Check the map if you don't know Turkey's neighbors). One visible metric is twitter conflict/OSINT account number in Turkish. Most people have a balanced view, but stopping aggression and civilian casualties comes first.

Another interesting point is that there are sanctions on some Turkish industries, based on secondary concerns and some lobbying. But, Turkey singlehandedly supported Europe's energy security/ general security(Azerbaijan, Libya, Syrian refugees), balanced Russia(Syria, Libya), supported Ukraine's defense industry long before anyone else.

I hope it stops as soon as possible.

Re: What happened to Russias Air Force? U.S. officials, experts stumped

#733

Post by pastacacioepepe »

ethbr0 wrote: post #684
drran wrote: post #678

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Give them Sudeten in exchange for promise that they will not attack Poland. This tactic worked well for 8 years in the case of Ukraine and was heavily (really heavily) promoted by François Hollande and Angela Merkel. IMHO, it's good to stick to a tactic with proven track record. The main idea is to feed the monster with virgins. Give them Crimea, then Donbas, then Belarus, then South Ukraine, then Eastern Ukraine, th…

If the remainder of Ukraine is covered by NATO after the appeasement, that's the end of Russian aggression. There is no "and then" with NATO member sovereign territory. Ukraine is only being invaded by Russia because it isn't a NATO member. Russia was willing to invade Ukraine, for some land. Russia isn't willing to invade 28 European countries + US + Canada, for some land.

> Russia was willing to invade Ukraine, for some land

Where did you even get this idea? Russia is the largest country in the entire world, encompassing 1/8th of the inhabitable land on Earth ALONE. Why would they get in a fight with the entire world to get a few more hundred squared kilometers of dirt? That doesn't make the remotest sense.

Re: What happened to Russias Air Force? U.S. officials, experts stumped

#734

Post by trashtester »

denton-scratch wrote: post #603
danenania wrote: post #352

Earlier 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…

> It's hard to fathom any rational justification for this. It can only be because they think that it's essential to strike now; they think that if they leave it, terminal decline is inevitable. This is a military operation that's been planned for years; by 'now', I mean 'this decade'. I imagine they saw the European gas crisis as an opportunity, and one that would slip away quickly if they didn't seize it. That's why…

Hmm, I think another reason for this to happen now, is that the border between Belorussia and the Ukraine is covered by the Pripet Marches, that are neary impassible by heavy equipment when not frozen. Without access that way, Russia would have to fight their way from the east, and forced to cross the Dneipr river, which forms a very significant obstacle. This could delay an invasion by a month or more.

Re: What happened to Russias Air Force? U.S. officials, experts stumped

#736

Post by trashtester »

brimble wrote: post #529
danenania wrote: post #352

Earlier 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…

> It seems like Putin went on tilt. It's hard to fathom any rational justification for this. At least destabilizing Ukraine is necessary to prevent near-term, rapid decline for the Russian Federation. Ukraine's energy production potential and proximity to Europe make them a likely serious competitor, at a time when renewables are already putting pressure on petrostates like Russia. Russia made Ukrainian resources in…

I suppose this was a huge miscalculation. As far as I can see, the effect will be as follows: - EU countries are re-arming (Germany in particular). If they go through with that, they will be able to surpass Russia in terms of conventional force strength in a few years, even without US support. - The EU will remove their dependency on Russian oil&gas, removing Russian leverage and profits at the same time. - Even if Russia is able to gain military control of the Ukrain, it will take decades of suppression for them to derive any net economic benefit. And by doing this, they will continously remind the world that they are the "bad guys", ensuring continues isolation.

Re: What happened to Russias Air Force? U.S. officials, experts stumped

#737

Post by narrator »

Nobody referenced the recent industrial scale production of hypersonic nuclear weapons that travel at mach 10 that Russia believes can win a nuclear war?

https://inews.co.uk/news/world/hypersonic-missile-what-meani...

To be alarmist, it looks like this is for all the marbles. The Russians think they can win a world war. The reason they are hardly using their Air Force is they are holding it in reserve for the rest of the campaign to reestablish the Soviet Union.

Once they take control of an stabilize the Ukraine, hopefully not like they completely pulverized Chechnya, despite brutal islamist insurgency, they are going to do the rest of Eastern Europe.

All you guys are saying the insurgency will win, but now the Russians have a whole new generation of counterinsurgency tech that they proved on the ground in Syria. It's going to be very ugly.

What's worse is the rest of the world needs Russia's food, fertilizer and energy exports. There will be severe hardship throughout the world without all of that while the war is ongoing.

Re: What happened to Russias Air Force? U.S. officials, experts stumped

#738

Post by ethbr0 »

pastacacioepepe wrote: post #733
ethbr0 wrote: post #684

Earlier quoted context omitted.

If the remainder of Ukraine is covered by NATO after the appeasement, that's the end of Russian aggression. There is no "and then" with NATO member sovereign territory. Ukraine is only being invaded by Russia because it isn't a NATO member. Russia was willing to invade Ukraine, for some land. Russia isn't willing to invade 28 European countries + US + Canada, for some land.

> Russia was willing to invade Ukraine, for some land Where did you even get this idea? Russia is the largest country in the entire world, encompassing 1/8th of the inhabitable land on Earth ALONE. Why would they get in a fight with the entire world to get a few more hundred squared kilometers of dirt? That doesn't make the remotest sense.

If you don't believe this is about strategic territory, then what do you think it's about?

Re: What happened to Russias Air Force? U.S. officials, experts stumped

#739

Post by ethbr0 »

water8 wrote: post #715
ethbr0 wrote: post #685

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Tankers don't solve transit time for Atlantic and Pacific-magnitude distances.

What transit time? The Airforce establishes air superiority starting at the carrier and extending out the aircraft combat range (500-700miles) + refueling range (500miles) + missile standoff range (300miles). It's a pretty big sphere of influence and the US has 14 of them.

And does that for every ship in the Navy? All the time?

Because if not, they're launching from Okinawa or Guam.

And they don't show up instantly hundreds of miles from there, at the ship's location.

Re: What happened to Russias Air Force? U.S. officials, experts stumped

#740

Post by denton-scratch »

AtlasBarfed wrote: post #600
gamblor956 wrote: post #151

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The "stumped" is not actually in the article. FTA: the issue is that Russia made a huge show of force at the start of the invasion but has apparently held back from actually using much of it (by air or ground). This war could have been over the day it started if Russia had used maximal force, and the conservative approach their actually using maximizes risks and casualties. And that's what has the experts confused: t…

If Russia did mass killings / carpet bombing / total war, it hands justification of the west for full counterattack and occupation of Ukraine. Putin assumed all of Ukraine would roll over like Crimea. He has underestimated the people of Ukraine. He attacked in winter assuming it would be over in two days. Now his already-low-morale forces face winter. I don't care if they are equipped and Russian and "used to war". T…

> Putin also seems to have underestimated how much Ukraine hates him personally.

I doubt it's personal. Russia has dominated Ukraine over the centuries. Stories of Ukrainian collaboration with the Nazis in WWII are true enough; but at the time, Ukraine was ruled by Russia, which only a decade previously had imposed a famine on Ukraine that killed millions. Unsurprisingly, many Ukrainians welcomed the Nazis as liberators.

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