Russia - threadbanned users in OP

All modern countries are tyrannies. Some are just more subtle than others. But Russia is particularly brutal and has been for centuries. Only tonight I was reading about this (be warned, this is difficult reading and not for the faint-hearted) -

Cosmin Dzsurdzsa 🇷🇴 on Twitter: "You think you know the full horrors of communism? Let me introduce you to the Romanian People's Republic re-education experiments at Piteșt prison (1949-1951.) The program has been called among the worst acts of inhumanity by Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn. (THREAD) https://t.co/IGxj4lisJ1" / Twitter

It depends on how you define tyranny. We are all lied to.

Kinda true. But in the West we can b1tch about our liars without getting a black bag over our heads and dragged away. We can also choose which liars to elect. Freely and fairly. We can also take the absolute piss out of these people in satire on radio, TV and internet. Ireland can be many things, tyranny is not one of them.

More fire in Russia, Moscow-

It's hardly surprising that Ukraine is struggling. They admit themselves that Russia are out-gunning them in Donbas by a factor of 10 to 1. When you are vastly out-matched, a half dozen CESAR's here, or a dozen M777's there just isn't going to be enough to turn the situation around for Ukraine.

The situation for Ukraine looks very grim to me.

Undoubtedly there will be referendums, where 101% of the people support joining Russia. Doesn't make any of it legitimate, unless you're Russia or Syria. I know it can be exciting to see Russia advance, but the war isn't over just yet.

Prudence Goodwyfe, died 1641...she voted to join Russia...so did Buddy Holly, Richie Valens and the Big Bopper......

Yes and no. Yes, the situation in Donbas is pretty grim at the moment. But that's because Russia is throwing everything it has available in there, by the looks of it. Meanwhile, in Kherson Oblast, an area that has been under a media blackout for quite some time now, it looks as if Ukrainian forces are moving closer to the city of Kherson every single day. Also, whilst Lysychansk may have fallen, it looks as if Ukrainian forces were actually able to withdraw in good order, rather than being encircled and crushed as the Russians had probably hoped. That means they'll still have their equipment and, more importantly, experienced soldiers that can be circled back to the rear and used to train up replacements.

Also, what's going on with the Russian Air Farce? Can anyone explain that to me? If things everywhere were as grim as the are in Donbas, we should be seeing Russian fighters and ground attack aircraft striking everywhere between Severodonetsk and Lviv. Yet the only Russian aircraft that seem to operate deep behind enemy lines are anti ship missiles. Even with the ongoing corruption and materiel issues, there should be enough aircraft available to blanket Ukraine, but that's not happening. Makes you wonder just what state the Ukrainian Air Force is actually in...

They risk killing many of their own innocent Ukrainian country men and women by doing that.

Not good optics for anyone.

I don't think the complexity as such would be an issue, a MiG-29 isn't really any older than the F-16, and is hardly an easy to fly aircraft in its own right. Ukrainian pilots would probably be able to fly the F-16 pretty quickly, and they're well versed in air combat tactics, so they won't need to be trained on that. However, the F-16 is designed to function in a much more interconnected battle space than the MiG-29, which is at its heart still an interceptor. Even early models of the F-16 were equipped with data link functionality and could coordinate their weapons fire without the pilots ever saying a word. Attacking multiple targets at once has also been baked in to the F-16's design for quite some time at this point. You don't so much fight in that aircraft as manage it.

This computer-centric design, combined with the language barrier I think will be the bigger issue. When operating a HIMARS, you can still quickly check Google Translate if you get an error message. That's not really an option when you're pulling 7G trying to shake that Flanker off your tail whilst trying to lock onto his wingman in front of you.

That's were training comes in. The pilots know the basics of flight, they just need training on a new air frame. There's plenty of NATO countries who transitioned from Soviet era aircraft to NATO, so I'm sure they maybe the best to train Ukrainian pilots.

Another key difference would be ground maintenance.

If as NATO has said, that Ukraine are transitioning to NATO equipment, then the Ukrainian air force will need to be trained in NATO aircraft, there's no getting around that. Nobody know's how this war will end but at some stage in the future, Ukraine will have a western equipped airforce, more than likely post war.... but no harm in their pilots getting a leg up!

So looks like 9 months training coming from being a pilot of fighter aircraft to be trained in an F16. obviously the Ukrainian pilots would be well trained in a fighter jet. nearly 5 months into this war, they could have already been training.

The west didn't want to supply heavy weapons until they did, they didn't want to supply HIMARS until they did. I think the west need to look as Ukraine as an ally in need and pull out all the stops. Making the war end on Ukraine's terms benefits bother Ukraine and the west.