I remember Poland before they joined the EU, and now several years after membership, the place is transformed. After Brexit many Poles had to leave the UK (in their thousands) none or very few returned. Plenty of employment in Poland now. They're building up their military in preparation for a war with Russia, which they see as inevitable, and soon they will have the strongest military in the EU. Now that should be a bigger worry for Putin, but he believed after Crimea (and Georgia, Chechnya etd) without any major backlash from the world, Ukraine would be easy pickings. There's a post here on boards a while back, in which Putin is claiming the parts of Ukraine he presently occupies as " The Conquered Lands" (or words to that effect) Which was what he was planning all along as part of his empire building fantasy. NATO, Nazis, Evil West etc. were never any threat to him, but he used the words very effectively, especially in Russia. Even now, with a decimated army and a collapsing economy, he still seems to think that he can still achieve his fantazy. And while that's very doubtful, he has (unfortunately) the capability to kill many thousands more, and still cause massive destruction. He's one right evil bastard! 👺
edit: I don't think he's "hedging bets" any more (!), the phone calls are over for now + have been for a while.
They are still one of the larger EU budget contributors. EU contributions are often omitted discussing European countries aid to Ukraine, and comparing it to non EU members.
So if Hungary continues to block future Ukraine aid through current EU mechanisms and other member states decide to go around them (rather than facing them down e.g. trying to remove their Council veto), France will be an important source of funding for that.
The Americans and Germans and Swedish have been working on them for years too ,
Just like Chechnya and Georgia, I suppose? And currently Bashkortostan? Oh my!!! Big bad evil U S of A...... again!!! Biggest existential threat to the Russian Federation is Putin and his friends. And not only to the RF, but to the World, all of it. And make no mistake, he would play the same game with China, except that China would not take it from him, as the west has done for far too long,,,China is not fooled by his nuclear threats. Matter of fact, China has actually reverted to re-naming places in Russia that formerly belonged to China, with their original Chinese names.....and guess what? What did Mr Putin and Friends do or say? Nothing!!! Absolutely nothing. While Ukrainians doing the same thing in Ukraine, replacing Russian names with Ukrainian ones, brings howls of outrage on Russian TV. even the usual Nuclear threats from Mr. Nuclear Man himself, Medvedev.
Off topic (or maybe not)
...
There was an item on Sky News this morning about the Brits. testing a new laser AA weapon. Costs only £10 to take down a plane. Israelis have something similar.
I wonder are we aware of all the significant fire outbreaks in Russia and how many outbreaks are there per one million of population ? Outside of the fire-bombing of potential refugee centres I guess Ireland have experienced about one equivalent major outbreak every three years. So at 5m of a population that would mean circa .07 major outbreaks per year per one million of pop.
And so if Russia has 20 major outbreaks per year and with a pop of 150m, that would make it .133 outbreaks per 1 m of pop .
That would mean that there are circa twice (1.9) as many outbreaks in Russia than there are in Ireland. The only overall difference the high % of the outbreaks in Russia that are military related
The presence of Nazis in Ukraine has been greatly over exaggerated by Russia as one paper thin pretext for invasion. Nazism doesn't bother Russia at all. If it did, their top mercenary group probably wouldn't have been called Wagner, nor would its late Co-founder have had tattoos of SS insignia.
As for influence on Ukraine being a red line, has Putin ever considered that Russia could have better held on to it by not being such a shttty, corrupt country who offers little hope of economic growth to its vassals? You'll notice that every former Eastern bloc country now in the EU/NATO has little to no interest in leaving and joining EEU/CSTO (lol) instead. They know where their bread is buttered. Russia should tend to its garden. It'll catch many more butterflies that way than trying to machine gun them down.
Ahh Comrade sure we would have been fine so. Given Donegal is the most northerly country in Ireland we could have all just popped over there.
A bit like if IE had welcomed in the Nazis. Churchill woulda wiped Southern IE off the face of the earth.
Russia views a US-run UKR as a existential threat, rightly or wrongly. It is a clear red line for them, and has been flagged as such for the last 25 years.
Ukraine means outskirts in Russian. I mean the west of the Ukraine, where pro-EU/US sentiment is stronger.
And more lies to Muscovites'....
Bad week for them between the blow out in Alaska, windscreen crack off Japan and and an engine fire last night,add the other issues with the 737 max , something is going wrong somewhere with QC ,
Doesn't seem to effect military aircraft but then most Boeing aircraft are flying decades with the US airforce ,vs newer civilian types
Pretty much patriot is best of the current bunch,they are not designed for long range interceptions I believe they end up being at risk of getting intercepted themselves or interference from electronic counter measures, there is systems like THAAD and Davids Sling which are designed to intercept ballistic and icmb type weapons at higher altitudes it's possible they could be repurposed but they are alot more expensive and not hundreds of them available to give away .
But Ukraine still has it own fighters capable of intercepting and downing Russian aircraft like the A50 and Il22
There was a program on TV the other night, and by God, it was a revelation!!! From the time Boeing joined with McDonnel/Douglas they seem to have gone downhill, with all the focus on making cash the primary aim and function. To put it mildly, quality control seems to have become non-existent. Be interesting to see how Boeing compares with other plane manufacturers when it comes to manufacturing defects.
The new flight path is too far for anything even in the US arsenal to reach via a land based system.
If Ukraine shot it down, Russia may keep their AWACS further away, if the Russian's shot it down, once they identify the errors and correct, then they would more than likely be flying closer again. I've yet to see any evidence the Russian shot it down by mistake or otherwise.
In the early days of the war I watched this thread quite closely and I also watched the various YT videos on Ukrainian updates daily also.
I haven’t really watched anything in a while but I did watch the latest kings and generals video on YT this evening and it seems the war doesn’t seem to be going to plan for the UAF?
It looks like a stalemate with marginal Russian gains in the last few weeks maybe?
How will this work for Ukraine with a potential change of government in the USA and a potential lack of funds for the war plus the fact Ukraine are talking about mobilisation now for 500k people to keep the fight going.
IDK it looks a bit like a miracle is needed to beat an enemy that has absolutely no regard for its own soldiers that it just throws into the meat grinder to try and overwhelm the Ukrainians.
And if you think that the winter here is bad now....
Does the patriot shoot any other missile's which could reach the new flight path? I'd love if Ukraine we're given two more better missiles to have another go. One more of these lost Russia wouldn't risk anymore close to Ukraine they'd become useless.
This wouldn't be the first time Russians shot down their own plane though. It's obvious they have issues with IFF. Rather than loosing their main asset, it's easier to tell operators (or just the one who alleged to have shot it down) to avoid the big radar target flying behind the frontline! Ukrainian fighters don't be flying that high.
If it was the Ukrainians, based on the radar track Ukraine provided, a PAC-2 missile is within range.
If it were the Russian's, it demonstrates a lack of IFF capability, system security, and huge co-ordination issues. Replacing an AA operator isn't going to fix any of that, and those issues aren't being fixed any way fast. So you take the valuable target out of the grey area.
If it were the Ukranian's, it demonstrates a previously unavailable SAM distance, or A2A capability. Naval capability is also a very tiny possibility.
So why not just replace the AA operators? I won't even ask for your source that the Russian's shot it down.
Of course they know it was shot down,
They did it themselves
It says the Russians know it was shot down and didn't randomly crash. Furthermore if the tweet is accurate and they are flying them over Russia and not near the front line, they must be confident it was shot down by Ukraine. Be easier to replace an AA operator or issue new directives than place your AWACS further from the front line.
The fact that they didn't ground the aircraft says something,
By the way who jinxed Boeing we know the Russians are bad but who thought flying on Boeing aircraft lately is turning a little Russian
Seems the replacement for the A50 as arrived but there are operational changes
Eastern Ukraine has a **** load of gas, oil, lithium, cobalt, aluminium etc. If Ukraine loses that potential it may never recover economically. A conservative estimate is something like 12 trillion euros in assets.
What's your take on not taking donesk and lughansk ,I think there's people living there who don't want the Russians there but had no choice once they arrived and installed a pro Russian leadership and militias while disappearing any discenters
This is what all the peace talking negotiators etc. fail to see, and their convictions are reinforced by Putin paid propaganda shills. Putin is not paying 1,5 billion $ per year on propaganda for nothing. Sad thing though is that it's working, as can even be seen here on Boards occasionally. Putin is a genocidal murderous bastard.
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