Russian helicopters targeted in Kyiv region - liveuamap.com

Rooskie helicopter shot down over the Dnieper river.

'we don't have to be able to protect our own lands to be independent.'

Not sniping back at you but just that phrase, think about it.

We can't defend our lands or air. Are we independent? Well we are more so dependent on the Raf and would be dependent on others if our land was attacked. Are we really fully independent so?🤔

We’re one of the smallest countries, in population and size. Outside the top 100 in both. Im not at all surprised we’re 95th. Would be pretty incredible if we were in top 40 or whatever.

It's this bad.Be the only response we could muster if Putin told his Bear bombers to buzz the control tower in Shannon.

They were reportedly the old Russian STRELA SAM.Which kind of stopped being effective against anything post the Yom Kippur war in the early 1970s. Say they'd be rusty junk by now if there any left. Like any electronic military hardware,it goes off and "stale" if it is not pulled and serviced at certain intervals. Being stuck in the Libyan desert for X years and then for 30 years in a leaky bunker in Ireland someplace won't have done them much good.

No not really, what about countries such as Iceland or Panama that don't have any standing army, are they independent? Countries like Iraq may have hundreds of thousands of men in their army but they're little more than a US puppet state, ergo an army isn't necessary for independence nor does it grant independence.

Hold on Grizz, you said that we have the RAF protect our airspace, which is distinctly different from leaving it uncontrolled. You haven't really addressed my point, so I'll have to ask you again, how can we be militarily non aligned if we're reliant on other nations for our air and naval defences?

Regarding the nuke targets, that's something I've though about with the Russian dead man switch on their nukes, but please tell me where you came up with the five nuke targets in the Republic. I seriously doubt the Rooskies want to blow Waterford City off the face of the earth.

Maybe Griz is referring to something else. But at least one of the "5 targets" thing comes from UK government suspicions. But comes with a lot of caveats;

These are all targets in the north of Ireland, in and around Belfast. Reason being, they are targets in a USSR attack against the UK. They are not confirmed, but what the UK goverment suspect, on the bases of there being maybe 50-100 targets across the whole UK. I said USSR which was intentional, as the info comes from a report in the 1980s, since declassified. Hardly current. Maybe they stand, maybe they have another 5 in the Republic. But when you have 5000s nukes, you'll really get into low priority targets.

You mean like the 3000 STRELA SAM's that Germany has just donated?

Iceland has a paramilitary police force that doubles as both defence and police and navy FIK. They accept that since WW2 that probably either NATO,[or if they had had the drop on them Warsaw Pact] would be in the country if things were going South in the opening moves of WW3. Seeing that population Vs landmass is so out of kilter, with two major cities, they probably accept the fact that NATO could happily operate away from their population centres.It is an independent country but makes no pretence of being neutral.

Panama,don't know enough about it to give you an answer on that one.

Iraq a US puppet state???...Want to fact check that one again. Be telling us next that Germany is still a US puppet state because the US has a presence there.😄

As to the RAF and our airspace... Simply no one is going to leave an airspace or body of water undefended.If we can't do it, someone else WILL do it esp if it is right next door to them. I doubt that you will find an official treaty between Ireland and the UK setting out the exact terms and conditions of when the RAF can enter Irish airspace,or that the RN can engage hostiles in our exclusion zone. Not that we could do anything about it anyway.As we don't have anything capable of dealing with either RAF if they were in our airspace,or any hostiles either. It's the usual Dail fudge on an issue we are neutral and militarily non-alinged,but we'll let someone else do the protection and fighting if it does ever happen...Be grand!

The five +/- targets.It's kind of logical to assume in the cold war era that Shannon and Knock would be on the menu.Cork as a deep water port with at the time, Verolme dockyard,and Haulbowline naval base, Dublin as an administrative centre, Belfast logical enough and Lisburn with the UK military command bunker NI. Targeted by either side back then as targets of denial to the other.That doesn't mean that they would all have been hit or not at all, depending on how things went on mainland Europe at the time.

It's claimed that it is a rumour,but it was mentioned even back in the 1980s book by journalist Patrick Comerford "Do you want to die for NATO?" that such a map had been seen up in the Lisburn bunker,and that there were leaked/stolen maps from Russia that showed targets in Ireland. It seems that even as far back as 1957 the RAF in "operation Dutch threat" were taking Dublin,Shannon and Belfast as Sov targets.

From the IT an Irishmans diary April4th 1997

Attack Ireland?

The UN's adoption of the Nuclear Non Proliferation Treaty in 1968 was realised partly as a result of Ireland's yearly submission to the General Assembly. And so, during the Cold War, we liked to soothe ourselves with the notion that progressive neutrality accorded us some kind of special exalted position. Attack nice, neutral, inoffensive Ireland? Who would believe the Yanks or Ruskies would do such a thing? When the four minute warning went up, our nasty warlike confederates in Britain and in the Continent might get vaporised; but when the wind blew, Ireland would live on in a brave new post holocaust world.

We know now that this was patent nonsense - and not just because the Chernobyl accident of 1986 demonstrated that the effects of nuclear radiation are far more devastating then previously believed. (Chernobyl produced barely a fraction of the radiation from the kind of nuclear detonation of which we could have expected several hundred in a conflict of any scale.) Ireland was regarded as a prime target as far back as 1957, when an RAF map used in the NATO operation "Dutch Threat" showed that the Western Allies expected at least three one megaton strikes (each worth about 80 Hiroshimas) against Dublin, Belfast and Shannon. Nuclear strategists feared that Ireland could prove to be the Achilles Heal of Europe, that Soviet Tupolev "Backfire" bombers, flying 4,500 miles from their bases on the Kola peninsula, could creep through the UK Iceland gap to a point off the west coast of this country, and hit British targets while avoiding detection by the RAE radar station at Bishopscourt, Co Down.

Soviet targets

Moreover, in March 1981, when the Sunday Tribune reported details of a joint US, NATO plan for Western Europe, it clearly showed that Cork, Bantry, Dublin, Shannon and Belfast would be Soviet targets - Shannon and Dublin airports being vital if NATO air bases on the Continent had been destroyed. The plan assumed that the Soviets believed that, in a war, NATO would take over the country with or without the government's consent.

In December 1983, two members of Northern Ireland CND, Peter Emerson and Paddy McBride, entered the nuclear bunker at Mount Eden in south Belfast. They photographed a map of Ireland showing a number of sites regarded then by the British Ministry of Defence as possible targets in a European nuclear exchange. In Northern Ireland these were Bishopscourt; the radar base at Torr Head, Co Antrim; and the base at Ballykelly, Co Derry. In the Republic there were six sites: Wicklow, Waterford, Cork, Cobb, and two points in Donegal including a seastrike at Inistrahull.

It is grim to consider how in the 1980s under Reagan, the US contemplated the use of "counterforce" - i.e. the fighting of war limited to Europe with "battlefield" weapons to avoid an all-out strike against America. And, as a team of scientists led by America's premier astronomer, the late Dr Carl Sagan, demonstrated, it would require but a few dozen megatons of hydrogen bomb to touch off a "nuclear winter", even if the Soviets (or Americans) had left us unscathed. So Ireland would have been uninhabitable within days of World War III. Looking back on this, one can only give thanks for Mikhail Gorbachev.

30 years later the scenario and borders have moved 400 miles further East, but the potential for those still to be targets still exist, IF this goes from a slow boil to superheated in Ukraine.

With the greatest respect, that's a bucket load of horse shite.

We are Military-Non Aligned; there is a huge difference between both.

Why?, did WW2 not happen, did we NOT imprison German Air Crews and returned British Air Crews?

This is favouring one side over another, basically a concession.

SLIGHT Concessions you say.

Consession slight or otherwise which favours one side over another means you are taking sides, it means your are NOT neutral.

IF,or IF it ever comes to the point that this slow-boiling preamble to WW4 goes hot.I very much doubt that either the Russians or NATO will be too overly bothered about our protestations of being neutral and us becoming enemies if they need or want our facilities here or want to deny the other side their use.

Being neutral doesn't grauntee you won't be invaded either. Ask Belgium ,Denmark, Holland and Luxembourg about that in both world wars,and Switzerland who had a viable army, national defence plan, and an airforce that took on both German and Allied aircraft in its neutral airspace, and even got bombed once "by mistake" by the USAF , who ended up paying the Swiss govt recompense as did the 3rd Reich for a similar incident in Ireland, and interred both Axis and Allied aircrews until wars end, and was considered by Adolf as too much of a tough nut to crack in time and materials"

Even Francos "Neutral" Spain remember sent three "Blue" divisions to fight with the Nazis on the Eastern front against Communism. As even we had a bunch of Blueshirts under Eoin O Duffy to fight in the Spanish civil war. So neutrality can be a very flexible concept depending on who is saying such and it doesn't ensure anything in safety or security either.

Whatever the outcome of the current situation, from here on things will change big time.

Since the invasion happened – Germany has upped their defence budget to 2% that’s from €47bil in 2021 to €100bil for 2022. Watch this space, other countries will follow, they will basically have no choice.

Putin was complaining about Nato at its door, the Nordic countries of Denmark, Finland, Iceland, Norway, and Sweden are totally neutral and not Nato members. What’s the betting one or more of them will shortly seek Nato membership.

I err, damn new-fangled keyboard’s, ……….😣

You’s know what I mean, things can only get worse for Putin from here forward.

Some Ukrainian sniper north of Kiev is making a name for himself. Not world records but there is a chance the sniper was using an SVD, which would making it the longest confirmed kill with both the Russian made Dragunov and the 7.62x54mmR.

or maybe is was a US/NATO .50 Cal Barrett

That would be an ecumenical matter.

Have a look see where we sit, probably not updated today's price, but the website says they updated the countries with astrix weekly.

https://www.globalpetrolprices.com/gasoline_prices/

Was the top brass that caught my eye, two others were shot in the same area. No guarantee it was the same shooter of course.

Apparently, he turned up to the top of that convoy thats stuck in the mud, without fuel, and began shouting and blazing ordering people about. sniper 1500mm away can make out an obviously senior ranking official. Pop. I'd like to hope there was some suitable last words, ("They couldn't hit an elephant at this distan..." - General John Sedgwick).

I was thinking that they will have far more Dragunovs ,so that would make it more likely. But I suppose the longer range shots are going to be very much bias to the .50 Cal Barrett

Its been know to happen, lots of middle ranking/top brass like to be seen strutting around, issuing orders, etc... they just make a nuisance of themselves and become a target.

Armys world wide learnt this the hard way, senior ranks in conflicts do not wear insignia for this very reason.

F*ck me Grizz, this took me days to get through ;). Iceland was just an example that I heard about a while back and whether or not that I was right on that specific example doesn't really matter since there are other countries with no standing army. But you sort of admit yourself that they can't defend their borders, and even with a police force/paramilitary force they couldn't stop the allied occupation in WW2. What about Iran before the Soviet-British occupation in 1941? Surely 126,000 men and 200 tanks would be enough to preserve independence. Organization of the Iranian Army in 1921-1941 – Dr. Kaveh Farrokh. My point being, both Iceland and Iran had very different military strengths, whereas the Vatican remained independent, but the former folded unlike the unarmed latter, ergo you don't need a military to be independent.

Come on Grizz, invading a country time and time again until they bend the knee and bankroll their entire military and you say there's no influence? Come on Grizz, you really think George Jr would let all that oil go without any controlling American influence?

As to the point on the RAF, I forget the initial points that were made exactly, but I'm just going to reiterate that we can't be militarily non aligned if we rely on the Brits for air cover and also that we don't need to protect our airspace to be independent.

Just because plans were drawn up for certain scenarios, that doesn't mean these were going to go ahead, sure look at ourselves in the 80s with our own plan to invade the North. Doesn't mean we were going to invade a nuclear power. It's highly unlikely that NATO or the USSR would decide to nuke and occupy Ireland all for a couple of airfields and ports, all for valuable nukes and having to garrison a very hostile population.

I'm not sure why Waterford would be a target, the port is fairly sh*t. Not much goes in or out of it.

Apologies if I didn't address any of your points, I just got a bit lost in all the information

We all have our views on the subject and at least we don’t get locked up for it here unlike those in Russia presently. 15 years in jail for mentioning the words invasion or war.

I’ll stand by my views; favouring one side over another is just not fair. You either stand with one side and support them fully or stand with no side and give no concessions whatsoever to either side.

One thing is certain though, from here on Ireland will have to once and for all tackle its stance on neutrality, its defence capabilities, its defence funding and whether or not we join Nato.

Or maybe it wasn't 1500 metres, there are good reasons why officers don't lead from the front as many found out in Vietnam.

*The Soviets were fond of making up fictional sniper feats for propaganda purposes. If you seen Enemy at the Gates, the sniper fight between a Soviet sniper and a Nazi master sniper. The soviet was a real sniper, with certainly a career. But whole saga was made up. As was a lot of the feats of the female Lady Death sniper.

The Zaietzev[who ironically died in Keiv in 1991] Vs Maj Erwin Konig Stalingrad duel seems to be a mix of Zaitzev's memoirs in his diary and some sort of sniping event,and propaganda .There certainly was no German sniper called Konig in charge of the German sniper school,or anyone by that name in Wehrmacht sniper records with a Majors rank.He ,Zaitzev certainly shot a sniper in some ruined industrial area, and claimed to have taken the scope as a souvenir.

I think Zaitzev was simply doing what many snipers do and was a tradition started by Major Heathkith -Piskard in WW1 of personalising your opponent by giving them a name and learning their habits and mode of operation.As sniping is a very personal one on one war it is proably of some psychological benefit? So maybe for some reason Zaitzev simply named this German sniper Major Konig for some reason in his diary and report,and as the Russians had captured a German soldier who told them that the Germans were sending their best sniper to hunt Zaitzev but had no name to give his captors and the legend grew from that?

Like as we see with the "Ghost of Keiv" story and possibly the Snake Island "Russian warship...Go Fuk yourself!" incident. People need a story of hope when things are utterly grim to uplift and galvanise them to fight. The Russians certainly made propaganda hay of this event.