Russia - threadbanned users in OP

All this is well & good Wibbs but any successful army must also have a civil society behind it. It's not enough for NATO & allies to just supply Ukrainian military with weapons and munitions. NATO & allies have also got to figure out how to stop the ongoing attacks on civil infrastructure in Ukraine. This was anticipated and why Ukraine were calling for a no fly zone over Ukraine early in the war. Russia's tactics are plain to be seen, what will NATO & allies do to stymie these attacks before it's too late.

100% agreement.

I don't work with any russian speakers, but used to work with a load of them in a call centre a good few years back. They were collectively known as "the russians" but in reality, very few, if any of them were from russia; they were mostly from the Baltics, Belarus, Ukraine, Uzbekistan and Kazakhstan. I got on well with them but was never friendly enough to remain in contact. But by god, I'd love to pick their brains right now.

I don't use FB much but am friends with some of them, and curiosity got the better of me. Didn't see a thing posted from any of them. A few of them seemed to be spending most of the summer on holidays going by the sheer amount of beach-with-drinks selfies, but that's it. Going by their social media output, there isn't any war going on.

Russia have been using their S300 in a ground attack role for quite sometime. So a Russian s300 missile hitting a Ukrainian apartment building is not evidence of a misfire or accident etc... It's actually evidence of a war crime.

So you believe that Ukrainian civil society should just suck it up and be collateral damage? Even if that affects their military capacity to drive the Russians out?

How would you propose to have them defend themselves? Or maybe you don't and would be happy to see the military effort undermined?

I approve of this.

"one of the first things that would happen is putin would send a few sacrificial lambs in aircraft to be shot down by NATO."

And what would happen then Wibbs? Assuming NATO & allies apply a defensive no fly zone, would Putin keep sending in sacrificial planes? Obviously NATO would have to destroy any ground based Russian military units seeking to down the NATO planes. But assuming they could limit this to occupied Ukrainian territories, there would be no direct attack on Russian territory. The point is that Russia would like to avoid confrontation with NATO etc, why not put the ball in their court and let them decide whether to take the gamble. It's a logical next step and one that needs to be taken quickly.

Maybe you should ask the Brits who were caught up in the Blitz. What would they have preferred, to sit there and let the Luftwaffe attack without much restraint. Or have an air force to help defend the airspace??

Hmm... not convinced by your bona fides. But each to their own.

Yes, and this is well understood by military planners in the west, EU, UK US etc. And the only way to prevent this is to stop Putin here and now. They badly need to ramp up weaponry and other military equipment, enough to finish this ASAP, while Putin is on the back foot, and not give him the chance to regroup.