MrSilverMaC

Without arguing for or against U.S military intercession or the likelihood of ww3, I can’t believe that any country that fields russian pattern weapon systems watching Ukrainian civilians shred the russian army with NATO weapons would be eager to face an actual trained Western military. All of which would be better trained/equipped. Even accounting for the heart and bravery of the Ukrainians, the number of russian equipment and troop loses are jaw dropping. I imagine china is absorbing every morsel of intel they can from Ukraine about russia’s tactical, logistical, and mechanical failures. They are also wondering just how badly they’d eviscerate their military trying to take Taiwan with all of their knock-off russian tech.

It at least needs to be funny…

As soon as saw the pic last night I was praying for that chop.

Every one of you d.c people disappoint me. how could none of you post this in reply: you people are slipping…

Azerbaijan is either an excuse to start pulling troops out or putin is even dumber than hitler and wants to open a second front while already getting his ass handed to him in Ukraine.

I want to put a couple of things out there. I think the volunteers from NATO countries are helping Ukraine put together a successful strategy to combat russia and are helping to push the orcs back. I think the syrian soldiers, whenever they show up will get mauled. and I think when that dip**** lavrov talks about friends all over the world, he’s talking about the American right. Those are just my 2 cents on the current situation, for whatever they’re worth.

Please, sweet Jesus in heaven, let me win the lottery so I can buy one.

Both Obama and the orange dip**** asked NATO members to increase their military budgets. What would the landscape look like if each NATO country had boosted their spending as was requested? Obama asked for that increase almost 10 years ago. The sad part is it was probably something vladimir puto put in cheeto-hitler’s ear to drive NATO apart by making the request knowing no one would see it as a reasonable expense after they ignored Obama. Every country likes to stand on the sidelines. You’re in Europe, I’m sure you know the history leading up to ww2 better than almost anyone else in the world. Both Europe and the U.S seem to be intent on approaching this the same way. But why is it only the U.S can institute a no-fly zone? France has enough fire power to make a huge impact on what’s happening, they have nukes, and a history of not really caring what the U.S says. They don’t seem to be sending Rafales to close the sky over Ukraine. The same with Germany who could send 30 typhoons right now to clear the sky over Ukraine especially since they basically undermined every attempt we’ve made to sanction bad actors for the last 20 years. Hell, given Ukraine’s own success against the russian Air Force I’d say most NATO countries are capable of helping to close the sky over Ukraine. Are Europeans demanding their own governments start shooting down russian jets? The world likes to **** on the U.S for sticking their noses where it doesn’t belong til someone near them starts bullying them. Don’t take this as a shot at you cause I understand your frustration and even partially agree with it, but it gets old having the world act like only the U.S can step in to help in a situation like this.

That’s interesting info. It still looks pretty grim for humankind and China would probably still be in range of fallout, but maybe I just still got that 80’s kid fear rattling around in my head painting a worse picture than it would be.

I wanted to add my two cents in regarding China and ww3, for whatever it’s worth. I don’t fear China. While they are definitely working to expand their reach, any war with China would be fought in China or the countries/waters surrounding them. They lack the ability to reliably project their force anywhere near the U.S. and most of their military hardware is either of russian origin or a reverse-engineered knock-off of russian hardware. They do have some homegrown platforms like the chengdu j-20 which is supposed to be a good airframe with most of the characteristics that denote a 5th gen fighter (mostly stolen from us). But Chinese jets suffer from the same issues a lot of russian jets suffer from, namely underpowered engines. And there is some question of their stealth ability due to the exhaust port shape. They made the same choice russia did with the su57 thrust vectoring vs improved stealth, choosing maneuverability. These are not to be taken lightly but would likely fare poorly against an f-35 or an f-22 especially with U.S pilots flying them. China would also fare poorly in a naval battle anywhere other than close to their coasts due to their reportedly very good anti-ship missiles and shallow water defense. One of our battle groups is likely enough to overwhelm their entire deep water navy, and two would certainly be too much. We have 11, including one continuously parked in Japan. Their main advantage is that of course any war near their borders or inside their country would have to contend with their numbers. 1.2 billion people is a daunting number. But China’s situation is even worse than russia’s with regards to viable experience in that it hasn’t fought in any war of note since Korea. It’s closing in on 100 years since they’ve fought another military worth speaking of. Beating up on Uighurs and Tibetans is quite different than going head to head with even a moderately equipped and trained military, never mind the most advanced/trained/experienced military in the world. And while someone could point out it’s been 30 years since the U.S has fought a sizable military (gulf war 1 against Iraq) they don’t even have the our recent experience with insurgent/guerilla militaries. We’ve historically enjoyed about a 10-1 kill ratio in the wars we’ve fought (not counting the war on terror as those numbers are harder to quantify but would skew it even further our way) but is less than ideal when going against a country 4x our size on their home turf. None of this, of course, takes into account any other country in the region and how they would react/respond. China doesn’t have many friends in their neighborhood. The scenario of a war between the U.S and China aside, a nuclear war started by vladimir puto is even less appealing to them. Assuming that the U.S government still adheres to the MAD philosophy, if russia lets their nukes fly at the U.S and NATO we return the favor. China and N.K are likely on our list of places getting a delivery. Even assuming they aren’t launched against, no one survives the fallout from a NATO/russia nuclear war. It’s game over for everyone. China loses by default in a war they aren’t even actively fighting in. While I’m sure they’d love to see us bleed ourselves in a conventional war with russia, I can’t imagine the consequences of a nuclear war are a result they are willing to accept. It makes me wonder what they’re willing to do to avoid it which is what I imagine is driving the meeting in Rome. I think puto weakened his position by even threatening nukes. It changes the whole calculus of how everyone approaches the situation and basically makes it so any country with something to lose would ultimately be against them.

Too much fox news

I’m curious, tell me more.

Eh, she’s no Horo.

I wonder if it’s a coincidence (probably not), but depending how you write it a “z” is half a swastika.

The Ukrainians now have enough stingers to pretty much impose their own no-fly zone. If they don’t know how to do that themselves, the U.S/NATO vets about to enter the fight for their foreign legion will absolutely know how to. So they don’t need pilots to effect that. People keep talking about no-fly zones but the russian af doesn’t seem to be doing much damage. I think what people really want/mean are air strikes against ground forces. That’s another level, and at that point we might as well go all in. One unfortunate side effect of russia showing how ineffectual their strategic planning is, is that china’s and any other bad-guys war i.q just jumped about 40 points. Our logistical ability has been a hugely under appreciated factor in why the U.S military is unmatched in the world and one I’m sure other countries will work to emulate after this debacle regardless of how it ends.

The tweets seem to be describing action on the northwest side of the city. The direction I would expect a convoy from russia to come from.

I’m not sure my good man, but after re-reading from the tweets above: ”It appears that the Ukrainian forces have cut off the Russian column also from west side and created a strong foothold in the area. Encirclement is inevitable” ”Ukrainian sources are claiming that they have recaptured the town of #Makariv west of #Kyiv and a large encirclement of russian troops is forming south of the Kyiv-Zhytomyr highway. #turpo #UkraineRussiaWar #RussiaGoHome #Motti @pmakela1 @eskelinen_antti @AnttiParonen ” I could be mis-reading, but I don’t think so. Plus I know the Ukrainians have been hitting that convoy with their jets.

So…. I read earlier there are 15k troops in that convoy… So they’re about to encircle 15k poorly equipped and fed russian troops??? a russian failure to secure air supremacy, and a ****-ton of new high quality Western AA hardware entering the country on Ukraines side. They’ll have a ridiculously hard time re-supplying them without losing more troops/aircraft. That’s almost 10% of the invading force that was sitting on their border before everything kicked off. How does that change the trajectory if Ukraine captures/kills that whole column? That’s gotta kill putin at home and at the negotiating table if it’s all true. That’s their secret weapon against us. They’ll keep putting their efforts there to cause the maga-morons to rise up. I expect to start to see unrest in that area soon.

This makes me think of the scene in Braveheart where the Irish are running towards Wallace’s force full speed, then both sides slow down and stop right in front of each other to shake hands. probably wouldn’t happen, but it would be amazing. also, we need a shocked emoji. We have that confused-wtf one but not shocked.

We’re gonna end up getting our hands on some of those which will make this an even larger blunder for russia.

I’ve been wondering for a day or so. We know putin has been working on a stash to wait out Western sanctions. But that amount isn’t huge by a countries standards. Maybe a years worth of gdp? it’s not nearly enough to rebuild his military AND prop his economy. russian jets don’t cost what an F-22, F-35, or even an F-15 does, but an su35 is still $30-40 million to build. I have no idea what a new tank costs. How is putin thinking he’s going to replace all of this hardware he losing? He’s eviscerating his military with no way to heal the wound. Did china promise to bankroll the rebuild? Did he think Scrooge mcduck had his vault in Kyiv and all he needed to do was go get it?

The Poles are too. They’ve known for a while this was coming, including russia actually downing a plane with one of their most outspoken anti-russian politicians. The Poles even offered to pay us a **** ton of money to build a base in Poland too blunt russian aggression in their direction.

Man, that’s big. I was wondering who was going to send them anything they were familiar with. Mig 29’s are very very capable fighters with helmet mounted sighting. They aren’t in the same class as a suhkoi flanker, but good enough to be very formidable especially to an Air Force that hasn’t had a ton of recent combat experience.

With regards to trump stating what people here are saying, even a broken clock is right twice a day. The obvious difference is what he says and does the rest of the time.