Russia - threadbanned users in OP

It's very hard to imagine that the US, Denmark and the Netherlands would be handing over a few squadrons of extremely expensive aircraft, training the pilots, setting up runways and maintenance if they believed these things are just gonna be shot down in short order. Maybe some posters on here need to inform the Ukrainian military that they're making a huge mistake?

I'm certain some will be lost. It's a war. But there's an almost unlimited supply of them in the west. Once the pilots are there and logistics train set up, what are Russia going to do? They haven't been able to suppress Ukraines ancient airforce so far. How is that going to change?

F16s won't be going there to Dogfight Russian aircraft. Their main usefullness is to get full utilisation of the HARM anti radar missiles that Ukraine currently fire but in a vastly reduced capability mode in order to take out Russian radar. Taking out 1 Russian radar is worth taking out 5 BUK or other SAM systems or even a MIG as without the radar the rest are basically blind and open to not only getting taken out personally but also being unable to protect whatever they were set up to protect. For example, take out the right radars round Mariupol and Crimea and the Kerch bridge is basically toast. Stick up a KA52 without adequate radar support and they're toast too.

You ok? You seem a bit upset. Is it because Russia is losing and Ukraine is getting better equipment? It's ok. It'll be over soon and you can tell us how Russia actually won the war.

I have not one iota of sympathy for what ever happens to any Russians in Ukraine, any part of it. And the point I was trying to make was not to express any sympathy for them, but to point out the sheer evil propaganda that Putin's factory of lies are capable of. Making fun of the death of a little girl that they murdered. It doesn't get any sicker than that. While on the other hand ignoring the hundreds of thousands of Russians who will never need their shoes again either. Like I said, pure evil is the only way to describe it, and next time I see videos of the rotting bodies of dead Russians, or Ukrainians clearing trenches with tanks, or cluster munitions shredding them, all I will say is "Slave Ukraine", same as I have been doing all along, and will continue to do.

At this stage I've learnt to trust the Ukrainians who are doing the actual fighting.

Not too bad actually, very approximately only around 10% losses of NATO equipment (visually confirmed) in Ukraine.

I have to agree and disagree here. A fleet that is sunk is definitely a massive PR win, I agree with you on that, especially given that Ukraine has effectively no navy. However, a number of the launching platforms for cruise missiles are Kilo-class submarines, against which Ukraine only has limited countermeasures. Even the F-16s are not able to attack submerged submarines, and Russian sub skippers are generally smart enough not to remain on the surface in broad daylight unless in port. Frigates or corvettes are more vulnerable, but the Black Sea Fleet doesn't have too many of them. Now granted, the fleet can be attacked while in port. It's been done before, Port Arthur, Taranto, or Pearl Harbor are some prime examples. However, the defenses of the likes of Novorossiysk or Sevastopol are pretty extensive and the type of strike package necessary would probably be way beyond Ukraine's capabilities.

Given that, I believe Ukraine's current strategy actually makes sense. The ongoing threat of Ukrainian marine drones, combined with some high-profile attacks, is keeping the majority of Russian navy assets in the Black Sea effectively bottled up in port with comparatively low effort on the Ukrainian side. Any ship that moves beyond the protective barrier nets of the base is vulnerable to attack, which the recent highly effective attack on a Ropucha-Class LST showed. While Russia may be able to send out the occasional submarine or frigate, the current situation effectively has the Black Sea Fleet under blockade. Why risk a massive strike package to attack such a blockaded force when the odd Storm Shadow or marine drone is enough the keep their heads down?

Hopefully Greece can provide some additional equipment

It is all relative.

Russia performance has been dismal since day one given the size and equipment of their army on paper.

Obviously they have some capability. Just nowhere near the capability they should have, and the world expected to see last year when they invaded.

Early last year Ukraine was a $4bn army, Russia was a $60bn army. Also, Ukraine before 2014 had a similar budget to the Irish army with armed forces in a terrible state.

Long before western aid started arriving the war was still going disasterously bad for Russia, everyone assumed Russia would function as a modern army and steamroll over Ukraine. They didn't because of many factors, including but not limited to dreadful leadership, dreadful logistics, poor training, shocking lack of combined arms ability.

In no reality is this war anything other than a catastrophe for Russia. If their military was functioning as it should have been the main combat stage of the war would have been over in a few weeks at best, long before anyone could provide any meaningful aid to Ukraine whatsoever.

They failed to destroy Ukraine's army, they failed to disable its defence network, they failed to destroy its air force, failed to destroy it's command structure, failed to capture key points - they failed at everything and got bogged down in WW2-style ground fighting and attrition warfare.

We have seen this many times before. All the Arab countries invading Israel, Italy invading Greece, etc. Huge armies that fared badly because of all of the above problems despite having strong militaries on paper.

The world expected a high-tech war. Russia didn't deliver one and has shown itself incapable of delivering one. Even with very limited support, in the sense of very limited stocks of actual cutting edge Western weaponry, Ukraine has not just halted the invasion but actively reclaimed land and is currently on the offensive, with zero sign of Russia being able to regain any sort of initiative.

Completely unthinkable last year. It's basically turned into the Iran-Iraq war even though Russia should have had overwhelmingly superiority in every aspect possible to comical degrees.

There is no way out for Russia in the medium to long term. None.

I wonder if a Republican candidate wins the Presidental election will the military aid stop, a lot of Americans don't seem to be too happy with what Biden is doing arming the Ukrainians.

Pretty sure the US had advised all citizens to leave Belarus since April.