Please use this thread to continue discussing the war in Ukraine.
All mod instructions from the previous thread remain in force here
Original thread:
How many locals did Russia kill?
Flying over the most active war zone in the world.
These things happen unfortunately.
That‘s probably the worst part, given that there‘s already a shortage of pilots. According to the Economist, there are ten F-16s in Ukraine as of the beginning of August, with ten more expected by the end of the year, which would be enough to form a squadron with some spares. It‘s really the training pipeline that‘s the bottleneck now, and don‘t see how that can be resolved.
https://www.economist.com/europe/2024/08/04/how-much-of-a-difference-will-ukraines-new-f-16s-make
Like I said before. Those of us here needed to be prepared for this news. These things are the furthest from invincible and the first real news apart from their appearance in Ukraine was almost certainly gonna be the first one destroyed. It's a real shame the pilot was lost though.
Seems to be a toss up between a pilot error and possibly one being shot down by mistake during the recent wave of cruise missile and drone attacks. Both seem pretty likely.
My guess is user error. Takes s long time go get sufficiently trained in how to operate one of those.
Still, very sad to hear
Bad about the plane, worse news that the pilot was lost. Another devastated family
I'd rather the Ukrainian secret service managed to do to his kids what they did to Dugin's daughter, might pain him even more.
It still surprises me that Ukraine don't carry out more operations like that within Russia to create fear. Or bomb that TV studio that runs the nightly warmongering programme. Legitimate targets
These look cool
Nobody will ever know.
A Ukrainian MP is saying the F-16 was shot down by a Patriot missile due to "lack of co-operation" between units.
Russo nazis
Impressive, the US is aggressively ramping up artillery shells per month.
Good to see.
The target rate of production will keep Ukraine holding the line for a few days a month, presuming the entire supply goes to them, which it won't.
How far backwards the west has gone in many ways in terms of fighting abilities is nothing short of incredible.
The modern tech is incredible but somethings are volume driven, when they took Mosul back from islamic state they put an artillery round in to pretty much every house in the city.
It could be hopium on my part believing this but time will tell. What we do know is Russia hasn't done a general mobilisation yet they've been taking heavy losses attacking for almost a year now.
And the comment under this post
It happens all the time. The US president has the executive right to donate or sell for a token price any equipment that is to be scrapped.
No congress etc.
That alone is enough to transform a country's army in and if they will was there would have seen Ukraine differently set.
They didn't want that for their own reasons. Probably out of fear of Putin escalating and of a Russian defeat leading to a chaotic collapse of that country.
I have heard 3 accounts of how it was lost-
There must be plenty of ex F16 pilots around the world who could volunteer to fly for Ukraine, restrict them to flying over Ukrainian territory to prevent them being captured by the Russians, it wouldn't surprise me if there's a few "Volunteer"s flying around out there.
Military vehicles and equipment, no matter how advanced, are going to go down in a warzone. It's sad to see, but it's going to happen unfortunately.
Plenty of reports of poisoning at communal group facilities this past year in Russia. Reporters are saying it's because of lack of hygiene or substitution with cheaper lower grade food.
They can even tell what kind of drone it is.
They're capturing a lot of Donbass towns and villages intact these days. Ukraine might not be able to put up a bakhmut type defence anymore. We'll see I'm still hoping they're pulling back to use that as the main defence rather than a collapse.
I see both F16 pilot's died. Sad that the first real operation they conducted they lost one. Russia obviously had a plan for them and succeeded during that massive missile barrage. Ukraine will have to figure out what went wrong or they won't have F16’s for long.
twitter is a reliable source? Pull another.
Anything better let me know.
actual articles from actual reporting
Govt press releases
govt data
Appropriations bills
The US has hardly yet exhausted the fund that Congress approved for Ukraine, the administration won’t blow the wad all at once, given there is no telling when the next time will be that Republicans acquiesce to approving more
Eg 125 M
https://apnews.com/article/russia-ukraine-war-military-aid-us-kursk-4ca7ba2bb2da155d8038c0376da80ab1 eg 200 M
https://www.defense.gov/News/Releases/Release/Article/3852671/biden-administration-announces-additional-security-assistance-for-ukraine/ eg. 2.3 Bn
https://amp.cnn.com/cnn/2024/07/03/politics/us-ukraine-military-aid It will keep coming. Biden got $61Bn earmarked for Ukraine through Congress. This brings total US support for Ukraine in the war to about $175 Bn
https://www.csis.org/analysis/what-ukraine-aid-package-and-what-does-it-mean-future-war
Premature and ill informed to act like “Biden has abandoned Ukraine.” Utter drivel. If the U.S. abandons Ukraine it will be from Republicans blocking future appropriations, not a Democratic WH. It should be hoped that the Democrats retake/hold both chambers of Congress in January, via the November election.
Ukraine has destroyed a lot of valuable Russian military equipment, it's inevitable that Russia will also destroy valuable Ukrainian equipment. It's sad, but bound to happen.
Given the speed at which territory has been lost in recent weeks, it's clear both sides are stretched very thin and lack sufficient equipment and manpower to protect territory, the question now is which side can exploit that more
It makes perfect sense in the specific context of Russian oil and gas. Trade works well for both parties - Russia gets rid of the materials it has too much of and gets money instead to buy imports. The EU gets materials that it can't produce on its own and gives over the money that they have more than enough of. The EU want to curtail Russia's ability to buy imports, but an outright embargo means that the EU doesn't get cheap oil and gas which is bad for Europe.
The solution - price caps. We will buy Russian oil and gas provided that it is at a level close to its cost price. If a barrel of oil costs $40 to extract and another $15 to ship, then buying it for no more than $60 per barrel means minimal profits for Russia. They do get to continue to extract oil which feeds into the economy more generally, but it's ability to fund imports to prosecute the war is greatly reduced.
I'm not sure about the figures for LNG, the EU gas price cap on oil seems to be higher than it should be to me, but the principle is still the same. The EU achieves the aim of cutting the revenue stream to the Russian government while still getting cheap gas.
This oil and gas is used to fuel EU industries. The same industries which are scaling up to provide greater military support to Ukraine.
Bad news for Ukraine and very sad about the pilot.
I think it is important to remember though, whenever we are invited to consider that both Russia and Ukraine are lying about their losses, that Ukraine have been consistently open and honest about the losses of Western equipment.
Russian propaganda will have a field day about this. They will say "In addition to the 100 other F16s we have shot down, here is proof that we shot down the 101st etc". Utterly lacking in credibility, but that's how they operate. Meanwhile, as Ukraine tells us that they sunk yet another Russian ship, we can rely on that much more, because, while there is always the possibility of inaccuracy or misinformation, the Ukrainians have a demonstrated history of honesty and openness about losses etc.
In the grand scheme of things, we can put faith in what Ukraine is telling us, and they are telling us that they lost one plane, but only after several weeks of downing Russia's "finest".
Just seen an interview with I think the Lithuanian president who says the West is protecting Russias skies more than they are protecting Ukrainian skies. Russian planes are better protected than the Ukrainian ones by Western guarantees.
No delivery of equipment since June and a lot of what’s being delivered is in bad condition.
Feels all a bit negative at the moment.
The US wants a slow draw/stalemate where the Ukraine hand over territory. The blame goes to Biden, though Trump would have been far far worse.
That's true but the news from the Donbass gets worse by the hour with even the Russians surprised by their gains. I'd like to think it's part of some grand master plan but I really dont know.
