The downside is the escalation that could result in various terrible scenarios, from a full mobilisation in Russia to all out Nuclear war.
Why would you bother taking the risk, when all you have to do is properly equip the massive motivated army that will do the job anyway.
Absolutely pointless at this stage for NATO to get involved militarily and probably massively counter productive.
Russia is being isolated further and well on their to being ran out of the country, with quite possibly the collapse of the Kremlin following, with potentially countries soon after.
Per the WaPO:
After weeks of savaging Ukrainian cities with Iranian-made drones, Moscow has quietly reached an agreement with Tehran to begin manufacturing hundreds of unmanned weaponized aircraft on Russian soil, according to new intelligence seen by U.S. and other Western security agencies.
They cant even deal with the Ukrainians. Imagine chucking in the SEAL's, Army Rangers, SAS, SBS the likes of those would mincemeat the russians.
You called NATO involvement "pointless" and you think that "removing a possible downside" makes it more pointless ????
Take the chance of the possible "downside" out of it.
They have the tools with 100% success rate as evidenced, give them more. Give them better.
It's going happen anyway like said, no point drawing it out.
Totally, many of them are "moral zombies" and only care because their excuse for a nation looks stupid on the world stage, not because of the torment being visited upon Ukraine.
The sickening part of that video is Russians going about their daily life, with glazed and undamaged apartment blocks in the background. Compare that to the havoc and destruction their government is causing to their innocent Ukrainian neighbours property and infrastructure.
I don't know what the answer is, but the world need to come together and act quickly and decisively to bring an end to the madness.
Pointless? - it could save Ukrainian lives & infrastructure
There's only one possible downside and that's probably unlikely
That's my point, give them the kit, they are more than capable.
NATO getting involved now would be utterly pointless.
Scholz-
I , for one, am not bored. My interest in the abonomination is based on morals, fairness, peace , being left alone to run one’s country , etc, etc, etc, etc.
I hope it's nothing trivial
I'm also very worried at how easy it might be to visit remote Russian infrastructure (water, power, road, rail, bulk storage facilities, reservoirs, comms, data, etc.) and create a bit of inconvenience
Report of a problem with russian gas infrastructure in Saint Petersberg.
Unfortunately that's an old video from back in March.
Would expect they would just say such a request is an insult/poor behaviour from their "hosts" and refuse to answer all that?!
Of course Ireland would need to be tracking what all of them do & what their role at the embassy is, to find the ones who just spend most of their time spying or otherwise really up to no good, but I would wonder has anyone in the Garda or Army actually done this work since the Cold war ended?
Hence suggestion that if not, there's probably others (most likely UK or US) who keep a weather eye on what the denizens of our wonderful Russian embassy get up to!
Speaking of no fly zones:
Ukrainian recently acquired Norwegian NASAM just downed an Su-35s near Bakhmut. Pilot ejected but fortunately didn't make it.
That is not clear at all.
Yes you can Military hardware is designed to run stand alone for power so generators for example. Or you would just hit a cities power station and take out all the AA...
Ukraine will need a naval harbour when all is said and done.
NATO won't introduce a no fly zone because they will have to attack Russian SAM sites within Russia and what ever way you see it, that's a serious escalation.
That's a flawed theory, Russia trying to deplete Ukraine AA. You don't use a $10mil+ cruise missile to make Ukraine use up a 400k sidewinder (of which there's over 100,000 produced)
Are you sure you didn't read that theory wrong? Maybe the west is trying to drain Russia of cruise missiles?
Russia will more focus on assets it has, primarily in the EU and German politics.
Putin probably regrets not invading when he had Merkel in office.
It still has a lot of friends and people in power.
But despite this, some missiles are clearly still getting through and the amount of damage is substantial to civilian infrastructure. As reported elsewhere, theory is that Russia is trying to drain Ukraine of anti aircraft munitions by launching these regular concentrated attacks. How quickly can they be resupplied and what will be the ongoing toll. An army also needs a civil society to function behind them.
NATO and the EU have two major problems. For both it's Hungary, and for NATO, there's Turkey. These two have to be kicked out of both organisations in order to be able to talk about anything in relation to Ukraine. Putin has sucessfully infiltrated both via these miscreants and they both need to own up to this and pull the plugon them.
Ukraine would be a far better participant and partner in both than the current Putin owned spoilers.
No need for that.
Ukrainians are more than capable, they have been shooting down cruise missiles with shoulder fired anti tank missiles. Just give them the proper kit.
It will be over by late summer.
The West need to be focusing on the aftermath of the collapse of Russia, not getting directly involved, no point at this stage.
Again, you have a massive raged filled experienced military at your disposal, just give them tools.
It's very clear what NATO & allies should do and that is to anounce a defensive no fly zone over Ukrainian territory and make it clear they will enforce it against any Russian aircraft, missiles or drones entering this space. See what the Russians do then. The ball will be in their court.
It seems their rhetoric has turned to “compromise” over night
Trouble is, you can't believe anything he says, or does. Now, a decent number of NATO or US military bases along the border at key junctions, plus the latest incarnation of Iron Dome, and Putin turned over to the Hague, maybe that's a start.
Here's an article explaining how the investment in Ukraine from the US is such good value for money for them and keeping Ukraine fighting to destroy russian military resources is money well spent.
Full reconstruction of Ukraine will cost a lot and I don't see any reason all russian assets internationally that have been frozen should not be given directly to Ukraine to help compensate them for the destruction caused by the invasion of their territory from russia. I've seen a multi billion dollar figure put on these but would expect russia should also make additional payments of compensation on top of these if it ever wants to return to trade with the rest of the world.
Russia is digging in defensive position in Ukraine as it no longer has the capacity for offensive operations and a call for any pause to the war to help them conscript more troops for their invasion and genocide operation in Ukraine is correctly recognised as a ploy to regroup by Ukraine. This article references Zelenskyy explaining this and they know to delay the destruction of the russian military machine will just prolong the terror that the russians have demonstrated is their normal means of operation. They may be justifiably calling out the damage russia is doing to their electrical grid as the war crime it is with the specific targeting of civilians but I don't think this will convince them that their efforts to free their country should stop with the evidence in so many areas that have been liberated showing the cost of allowing russia to continue to occupy their country.
Anything that's destroyed that cannot be rebuilt or fixed quickly has lost Russia any leverage.
If Russia destroyed all of Ukraine's energy infrastructure, well what would Ukraine surrendering to Russia accomplish? Their powerplants won't magically appear the following day.
Same argument goes for the high price of energy in Europe and food worldwide. Even if Russia withdrew overnight, Nordstream 1 would still be damaged, Ukraine crops would still not be sowed for next year, destroyed crops would still be destroyed etc...
Sunak extending the support from Boris.
Ukraine not giving up Crimea.
Time to go all in and give them the proper weapons and defence systems.
It's going to happen sooner or later anyway.
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