Russia - threadbanned users in OP

I don't think Putin has that much control over Russian minds that he can spin a victory out of what of Ukraine Russia currently holds. If he did, he could nearly tell them that Russia already won the war and leave it at that. There are obviously motivations for him to truly realise the territorial ambitions he had on 24/2/2022 and he has invested so much into it, that I very much doubt he can call it a day now. And even if he could spin it all rosy on the domestic front, the external realities remain the same - Ukraine still stands, Russia remains under sanction, Russia looks weak and inept. Putin may be able to live with the sanctions - wear them as a badge of honour, even - if the other things were not so, but they are, and he knows it.

It's not so much being in Ukraine which is the goal, then. Sounds more like it is simply to stay in power. Considering he was essentially being made leader for life before the invasion proper began and considering that Russia were already in Ukraine before the official invasion began, it sounds to me like what Putin is attempting to do here is a bit redundant.

If Mussolini were alive today, one thing he could tell us is that war is not the ultimate tool for a fascistic leader to remain in power. Thankfully he's not around today - mainly because no one lives to the age of 140, but also because his people strung him up a long time ago.

Putin's power is already getting publicly challenged by the likes of Prigozhin. I think there's at least much risk of creating rebellions via a failing war effort as there is of keeping them under control with a winning one.

Ukraine is protected by a tiny handful of air defence systems. The Orcs have massive air superiority which they have held back. They also have been waging a large and ceaseless espionage effort to locate those very few air defences. If the Orcs were to overwhelm and/or sabotage them, then they could take out Ukraine's western supply routes, their remaining and outmatched aircraft, and then the could level all their cities from high altitude and with the large number of inaccurate missiles they still have.

This is why I am so concerned by the abject stupidity of Biden and his advisers in not providing modern western fighters, as they are the one and only thing, barring direct western involvement, that might prevent such a scenario. Ukrainian pilots should have been in the west training on F-18s, 8 months ago.

And why have the Orcs held back their air forces?

Because they are gone. Shot down, blown up, failed and broken down.

If they had them, we'd have seen them by now, because true air superiority would end the War in a week.

Lot of talk of what Russia has in regards air power and absolute crickets as to why they're not using it (or cannot use it) to any extent which turns the tide of war.

Any answers about that?

Russia has 1046 attack aircraft in their airforce not including bombers and helicopters,

Ukraine had a total of 97 attack aircraft.

The Ukrainan airforce should have been wiped out in the first ten minutes of the invasion they are pretty much outnumbered 10-1 in every aspect,

Ukraine could never have air superiority against Russia no matter how good their propaganda is ,but no one can explain how and why Russia hasn't gotten air superiority especially early on , when there wasn't an abundant supply of air defense systems and manpads available to Ukraine, they still have the ability to overwhelm the Ukrainan air defenses between cruise missiles, ballistic missiles and attack aircraft,

The lack of any large scale air assaults can't be explained away , earlier on we seen a few low level dog fights which went ukraines way but by the looks of things at the time Russian aircraft didn't fly with air 2 air missles , which left them at distinct disadvantage, along with pilots having to use off the shelf gps units along with pen and paper maps to find ground targets at low level and low speeds ,once your flying in those situations the moment an aircraft has his missles or guns on your tail your dead , you've no weapons to fight with and your flying at low level and speed, there's not a lot of manuvering you can get away with,

As I said earlier during the two Iraq wars the US and coalition had hundreds of aircraft flying for several nights taking out command and control centers,air defenses ,air bases , aircraft, vehicles

We've seen next to nothing from the Russian airforce, even this week two aircraft over the black sea firing missles towards Odessa,it makes zero sense to what and why they are doing it,

Horse manure. That isn't remotely the issue. If you think the Orcs having 3,562 aircraft vs Ukraine's 271 isn't air suiperiority, well nothing I say can sway you.

They aren't gone. I believe the commander of the Orc air force has a singular and unique ability to keep his boys out of it, for the most part, probably by arguing greater exigencies related to border protection, China, US, upity regions...

Just today:

Ukraine can do nothing about these planes, as their youngest, prior to the Polish and Slovakian ones that just arrived, was built in 1991. They simply can not intercept or challenge the Orcs more modern planes as they have relatively archaic radar and missiles, commparatively, and attrociously short range and fuel capacity. I saw a claim within the past week that Ukraine has lost around 60 aircraft in the past year. A former USAF Mig-29 pilot who flew them for 2.5 years says they are commpletely outclassed in BVR engagements, but can hold their own in a dogfight briefly, as they have terrible fuel and range issues - 150 mi combat radius for air intercept - pffft!

I am not in the least bit excited by the Polish and Slovakian Mig-29 donations, and neither are the Ukrainians. A handful more of the same inferior and outclassed planes they already have changes nothing.

They need an air-power cpability upgrade in the same way HIMARS gave them an artillery upgrade.

If the Orcs ever decide to risk a lot of planes to overwhelm and take out Ukraines scant few air defences, they could reverse the current tide of the war.

A brief list of just a few of the idiots like me who think Ukraine should receive modern Western fighters:

General Ben Hodges ret.

General David Petraeus ret., former Director of the CIA

Admiral James G. Stavridis, former commander-in-chief of NATO forces in Europe.

General Christopher G. Cavoli, Supreme commander of NATO in Europe.

So how would Ukraine intercept Russian planes (within Russia) with western jets?

It's pretty obvious if Ukraine were to receive western jets, they wouldn't be flying sorties within Russia.

Western jets won't prevent Russia from lobbing bombs or missiles from Russia into Ukraine.

But still 1056 attack aircraft vs 97 and they are still flying,

It's not down to an apparent lack of pilots,. even if they only had 500 of those aircraft with pilots they still have 5-1 advantage,

Ukraine by right in any other war would have a airforce of zero by now ,

Western aircraft carry more modern air2air missles that can kill other aircraft beyond visual range (BVR) at over 100 Miles they in theory could track and engage and shoot down Russian aircraft over the black sea while staying inside of Ukraine air defense systems,

The Americans are already looking at air2air missles with a 200km + range thats like have aircraft over Dublin shooting down other aircraft in Galway east to west coast before the other aircraft could pick up the aircraft in Dublin on radar