Here we go again-Ukraine once again

[Commander Wallace]

Originally Posted by Andreas86

Without top cover by friendly fighters, a sqadron or 3 of A-10s would be a turkey shoot for russian fighter jets. The A-10 is also very slow and would probably struggle if the russians has any decent anti air capability in its convoys. The US was able to utilize the A-10 successfully in Desert Storm against armor, because not only was most of Iraqi IADS and general AA capability completely devastated by endless sorties by F-117s, F-15E Strike Eagles, F-16s, F-18s (to name a few,), the Iraqi air force had fled (what was left), and the skies were completely saturated with F-15Cs, F-16s, F-14s, F-4Gs, and so on, flying top cover. Not counting the rest of the coalitions air power.

Total air superiority. Would it have fared as well against the Soviet Union in the 80s, we will never know. But as you all conclude, we will hardly find out now either.

Hardly.

Originally Posted by Commander Wallace

However, I believe that if an attack like that were made, delivery of fragmentation and cluster munitions would be used on the advancing formations long before A-10's arrived to " soften " them up. The planners would certainly understand the Russians would also field anti aircraft batteries and shoulder fired weapons and try to take the necessary precautions for the strike aircraft.

Those fragmentation and cluster munitions are incredibly deadly against " soft targets " and would also have a demoralizing effect on the Russian formations only to have A-10's swoop in and finish the job. It's all in how you use your assets. I'm not an expert but i believe this would have been one possible scenario.

Munitions like those can be delivered through cruise missiles and it's variants. The A-10's would have supporting aircraft including attack helicoptors armed with Aim-9 sidewinders and supporting anti aircraft batteries along with other fighters. The Russians would have their own aircraft as well. Who knows but it would be entertaining.



#1599of this thread.

[mapuc]

Am I afraid for what may come ? Well even though I fear that Putin may drop one or two tactical nukes in Ukraine I'm not exactly afraid for what may happen thereafter...maybe it could be because I personally are convinced NATO will not response with same type of weapon.

Even if they should and it develop into a world wide nuclear holocaust I'm still not really afraid.

It may come the day I'm getting the news or I find out in the morning.

I also hope it happens after my birthday.

Markus

[Skybird]

Focus writes about the Ukrainian leader:


Selensky has long since become a hero, but will he survive this war?

This war can also be read as a battle between two men, and the question is how they will get out of it. Both of them - because the question of survival does not only arise for Volodymyr Selenskyj.

The question whether Volodymyr Selenskyj will survive Vladimir Putin's hunt for him can be answered simply: Yes, he can survive. If he wants to. He can call Joe Biden, he can call Emmanuel Macron, he can call Boris Johnson - and maybe he could even call Olaf Scholz.

If he wants to get out of this hell, he can get out of there. But he doesn't want to. The reason is obvious: Selenskyj is no longer the citizen, the popular ex-satirist who went into politics to be elected president in free elections.

The citizen Selenskyj has become the hero Selenskyj, who every day wears a green T-shirt and stands before his people and the world as fearlessly as he is vulnerable, to give courage, to campaign for help, to ask for weapons and to fight for accession to the European Union. In short, history has placed Selenskyj in a place that leaves him only one choice - to make history now.

It is, by the way, may I be forgiven for this know-it-allism, once again the refutation of all materialistic theory, according to which the "conditions", "make" history. According to which the "having" determines the "being".

Not much remains of this whole leftist, essentially Marxist narrative. What remains is the nearly 150-year-old phrase of the Prussian historian Heinrich von Treitschke: "Men make history." That it can also be women is, of course, clear to everyone today. In the current situation, however, it applies either way to Selenskyj's adversary.

The fact that a Marxist system of all things produced a macho man like Putin may be understood as a special punch line. But it was the same with Stalin - to whom Putin refers - and against Lenin, because he gave too much freedom to the "Russian" republics, first and foremost to Ukraine.

Putin can be imagined as a strong man. At least, that's the image he projects to the world. With a naked upper body on a horse, or apparently death-defyingly descending into an icy lake. These images unleashed a tremendous power, not only at home, but also in the West.

Putin still draws on this power today. But the secret service man, like all good secret service men, is an illusionist. The picture he has painted of himself over the years shows not himself, but how he wants to be seen by the world:

As a revenant of Ivan the Terrible or one of the other Russian imperialists who have been walking over corpses for centuries. (The one exception, Mikhail Gorbachev, portrays Putin as a traitor to the people).

In any case, this painted picture prevents a different perception of Putin: what if those biographers are right who paint Putin not as a daredevil, but as a cautious person? From which the existential question arises:

How dangerous is a scaredy-cat on nuclear weapons?

Or as historian Valery Slovoley, for years employed at a Moscow cadre school and dismissed a year and a half ago, put it in the "taz": "He is incredibly afraid of ending up like Gaddafi in Libya or in the dock."

In extreme situations, people need heroic symbols of identification. In England, this was Winston Churchill, perhaps not Hitler's strongest rival, but his fiercest. What Churchill was for Hitler, Selenskyj is now for Putin: a ridiculous figure, an actor. That is how Putin perceives him.

Which also just shows what a bad historian Putin is. The last ex-actor who then made it to statesman is partly responsible for the end of the Soviet empire: US President Ronald Reagan.

Selensky grew into a role that he did not choose: That of the intrepid fighter for good against evil. This may be too black and white for the finicky, but what other conclusion can be drawn from the current situation?

Evil is the unscrupulous, the nefarious, the devious. Putin, the liar. In one sentence: Nothing is good about Putin.

There was nothing good about Stalin either, who subjugated Russia for a quarter of a century, had people murdered in camps, and is responsible for millions of deaths from starvation. And to this day is revered by far too many Russians, Putin leading the way.

In the Eastern West, Russian leaders have long been perceived as Putin is today - from bitter experience. Russian leaders put down the uprising in East Germany (1953), Hungary (1956), and Czechoslovakia (1968).

That is why these countries fled from Russia's threatening grip to the free West the first moment they could. They were united by the lesson that they had better not trust Russian potentates.

This is now Selensky's drive. Western leaders are now learning this lesson, long internalized by the Ukrainian, within days, after years of illusion about what Eastern European historian Karl Schlögel brutally debunkingly calls "Russian kitsch."

Life now holds the following options for Selenskyj: He becomes the hero who stops the Russians. This is the only positive option. Which is opposed by two negative options:

The Russians kill him, which Selenskyj says he expects. Or they force him to sign the surrender. In the first case, at least, Selensky would become a martyr for his people.

The fourth variant: Selenskyj goes into hiding at the last moment and wages a guerrilla war against the Russian occupiers. The history of the struggle of democrats against autocrats also has an example of this.

France's General Charles de Gaulle led the resistance against Hitler and after his downfall became first the president of the French transitional government and then the founder of the Fifth Republic - France as we know it today.

In any case, Selenskyj has already achieved one thing, beyond his personal success, which has since been recognized internationally: In the West, Ukraine is no longer perceived as an appendage of Russia. Instead, it is seen as a country in its own right, with its own history and a brave population.

Selensky has won the war of images. But more than that, as an individual he has managed to positively change the world's perception of his entire country.

A national hero.

Translated with www.DeepL.com/Translator (free version)

[mapuc]

Former Russian Foreign Minister Andrei Kozyrev, who knows Putin, have said to a Danish politician, (which I'm friend with)

"Macron must stop calling Putin. It makes no difference and is perceived as appeasement. You get nothing from Putin at the negotiating table. Putin only understands the language of power. And Macron makes fun of himself. ”
I very much agree. Macron's egoism is the West's weakest link.

My opinion
Macron is trying to win at home-There's an election in France soon.

Markus

[fithah4]

https://www.cnn.com/europe/live-news...15ee470d36ed4f

“Two days ago, Russian forces said they controlled the territory around the town of Enerhodar, but on Wednesday a large crowd of workers from the power plant and civilians blocked access to the town, building makeshift barricades of trucks and tires. ”

Just reported at 7:50 EST
Fire reported at Nuclear Power Plant at the town of Enerhodar on CCTV from close shelling of the area.

Scorched earth policy unfolding

[Armistead]

News says radiation is leaking from the on fire nuclear plant. Let's hope the wind blows south into Crimea. Got to be terrible for Ukraine in the dead of winter when so much power will be lost.

[Gorpet]

Originally Posted by Skybird

Yes, but at a level below the Russian'S military reaction treshhold. The A-10s would be somethign they would not just let happen, their damage potential would be way too high as if they would ignore it.

And btw, you do not learn the A-10 just during a weekend course. It wa snot even certain that their Mig pilots knowoing th ekurioanian Migs and Sukhpios would be able to fly the Polish and Slovenian Sukhois and migs that were thight aboiut to deloiver them, since there always are some technical changes and different syetms mounted.

What Selenski really wants, desperately, is that NATO intervenes on Ukraine's behalf and declares war on Russia. But that would mean a world war.

Declaring it a world war we better leave to the man eater in the Kremlin.

Well Skybird,America will react after your country is smoking it's in the American plan.You know your country would not get out of another war alive. You let America cover your butt. And that will depend on the politician and party.

[Gorpet]

Originally Posted by Skybird

Yes, but at a level below the Russian'S military reaction treshhold. The A-10s would be somethign they would not just let happen, their damage potential would be way too high as if they would ignore it.

And btw, you do not learn the A-10 just during a weekend course. It wa snot even certain that their Mig pilots knowoing th ekurioanian Migs and Sukhpios would be able to fly the Polish and Slovenian Sukhois and migs that were thight aboiut to deloiver them, since there always are some technical changes and different syetms mounted.

What Selenski really wants, desperately, is that NATO intervenes on Ukraine's behalf and declares war on Russia. But that would mean a world war.

Declaring it a world war we better leave to the man eater in the Kremlin.

What Selenski wants is German Nato boots to back Ukraine as you have a history.Look Joey and the Democrat's promised that country at the right time they could join NATO as long as Hunter was bringing the money back, And Hillary won, holy **** a business man won and now we have Joey and the Democrats stabbing Selenski in the back he's really killing his people, thank you for the millions and you should take our offer and leave it's over.

[Catfish]

The China-founded (located in Beijing) Investment Bank for Infrastructure (AIIB) has suspended all of its engagement in Russia and Belarus.
The management has decided, due to the background of an unfolding war "to stop all activities in Russia and Belarus, and revise them".

Meanwhile Macron calls Putin a liar, in a telephone call asked for by Putin.
(In Putin's narrative Ukraina has always been russian, he wrote some historical piece on this in 2021, which is full of (probably intended) errors and wrong theses. Faint possibility that Putin believes that, but this may just be pre-war disinformation.)

[Skybird]

According to the Times, three plots to assassinate Zelensky have been spoilt due to information provided by the FSB. The Russians have a leak. An anti war fraction in their intel. The Wagner group and Chechnyan slayers are called out as the assaulting force.

The Ukraine sinks its flagship to not let the Russian attackers get their hands on it.

[Catfish]

Originally Posted by Gorpet

What Selenski wants is German Nato boots to back Ukraine as you have a history.

After what everyone sees Putin doing everywhere on information sites the world over (sans Russia), I'd totally agree with boots in Ukraine. A shame it will not happen. Something to obliterate the convoys should still be done, from above, or sideways.

When i hear of Putin hiring his "Wagner" mercenary gang to kill Zelensky, or sends in his chechen slayers to subdue any resistance, or him saying and broadcasting that he Putin had no intention to invade Ukraine? All believe him eh?

"The Chechens are part of a Russian national guard unit and are well known for fighting insurgencies, using brutal tactics that even jolted Russia during its two brutal wars in the '90s against them. The Chechens have been employed to hunt down terrorists in Syria and used by Russia to fight elsewhere, including in Georgia. They also fought the Ukrainians in Donbas when hostilities began there in 2014.”
Must be new for some russians, i heard they were there to help lmao.
A few chechens are already dead however, including Kadyrovs "general":
https://www.timesofisrael.com/ukrain...r-kyiv-report/
https://www.wionews.com/world/ukrain...elensky-457107

After what the world saw of this invasion even the Azov battallion becomes acceptable.
An extremely prejudiced cruise missile headed in Vladolf's general direction would be a good idea.

B.t.w. with all the blunder "Joey" did a few things right, as long as you do not only believe in conspiracy theories, or Putin. Also Kazakhstan refused to send armies to help Putin against Ukraine, and Georgia even asked for a NATO membership. Georgia! Unbelievable.


re Zelensky he should leave and continue from abroad like Charles deGaulle did. No one but Putin and his hired mercenary "Wagner" state terrorist group thugs want him dead, and it is clear that most of the resistance will collapse with him.
Still his "I need ammo, not a ride" will find its way into the history books, if he leaves or not.

[tmccarthy]

The 64km Convoy: Maybe? That's what it looks like, maybe that's what it is.

However, after 8 or so days it took this story to finally compel me to revisit another possibility that should have been at the forefront from day 1...but I was gonna check this war out now that it's real and see what I can figure out.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Russia...tary_deception

"Maskirovka" - Russian military deception: a military doctrine developed from the start of the twentieth century. The doctrine covers a broad range of measures for military deception, from camouflage to denial and deception. Deceptive measures include concealment, imitation with decoys and dummies, maneuvers intended to deceive, denial, and disinformation. The 1944 Soviet Military Encyclopedia refers to "means of securing combat operations and the daily activities of forces; a complexity of measures, directed to mislead the enemy regarding the presence and disposition of forces..."[2] Later versions of the doctrine also include strategic, political, and diplomatic means including manipulation of "the facts", situation, and perceptions to affect the media and opinion around the world, so as to achieve or facilitate tactical, strategic, national and international goals

Best known for: The almost complete destruction of Army Group Centre, 500,000+ strong, in just over 2 weeks, summer 1944

[Skybird]

Originally Posted by Catfish

After what everyone sees Putin doing everywhere on information sites the world over (sans Russia), I'd totally agree with boots in Ukraine.

Strip the Russians off their nukes and then count me in, too.



The quesiton is with what would the West want to fight? America first, again? No, thjis is our European mess, and elst face it, European armies right now are in a lousy state, not adequate for sending a huge expeditionary force into the ukraine. Last but not least, its about of numbers of boots.



Our armies in past two decades got transformed into lightly equipped intervention corps to send them into some foreign villages andherding goats and paint schools and repair bridges.



We now rebuold some fo the heav equipment we so carelessly have given up. We also must buod new wepaosn for the new times and the kiond fo wars it will bring. Drones. AI. Cyber. Genetic weapons, even pandemics. Corona is a formdiable dispruptive weapon to shake the enemy's logistical supply chain, isnt it, and it destabilises his nation'S communal integrity. And the target may not even shoot back!


Somethign tells me Putin'S days are counted, however. I think they will take him out all by themsleves sooner or later. Not th epeople on the street, but the intel guys, the military, in parts the oloigarchs. He has become an uncalculatable risk to their own intersts, and that was the baddest mistake he could have made.


I hope Lavrov and some others also cut short by a head'S lentgh. We want to see them dead, not endlessly at court or laying int he sun in house arrest in their super-luxurious refugiums.



And Baerbock. Well, the war did her well, so to speak , she could not afford to continue with her stupid babbling about value-driven feminist foreign policy. Some say the unexpectedly clear vote at the UN was due to her speech alone, and her very open, frank words. Lets see what the future brings, for the moment I am willing to stop mocking her and igve it a chance to see how she continues after the war. Possible that then she will fall back into her former stupid patterns. Maybe she proves me wrong and shows that here is a woman that indeed has what it takes to indeed grow with her office and repsnsibility when confronted with reality. We will see. I declare a seize fire. But not yet a peace deal. I still cant stand her, but that does not matter, is just something personal.

[Red Devil]

Last night I watched a recording of Cherobyl - The Lost Tapes. It was 2 hours of film taken by the Soviets at the time of the disaster and the aftermath. The Lies spouted by the Soviets you could not believe. The offical death toll still being spouted by the Russians is 31. THe actual figure is over 2000. Not to mention the abnormal births on animals and humans (images seen).

Today this is so bad that Putin will be believing his own lies. The russians are incapable of speaking fact, everything has to be someone elses fault. His war mongering communist generals are looking for something to do instead of awarding themselves even more medals.

'NATO is being aggressive'. Not so - NATO is a DEFENSIVE Pact and there are totally zero plans to invade the country of lies.

A monetary expert was on GN News this morning. He said 'western leaders' are scared of Putin and that the current monetary restrictions will have ZERO effect on Russia. Like thrown dandelion seeds in the wind, there is no effect on the economy of Russia. He said western leaders are just talk, trying to make it look like they are actually doing something. Its called Bluff. Putin is doing it militarily, China sneaking money into the west, buying up properties, and now own Barbados.

[Skybird]

The Frankfurter Allgemeine Zeitung reports:



CDU Chairman Friedrich Merz no longer rules out direct NATO involvement in Russia's war of aggression against Ukraine. "The attacks and the way this war is being waged are taking on forms that force us to think," Merz told broadcaster NDR Info on Friday.

"There may be a situation in which NATO will then also have to make decisions to stop Putin," Merz continued. The CDU leader strongly condemned the attack by Russian troops on the Ukrainian nuclear power plant Zaporizhzhya. "If something like this were to happen again, if possibly even the reactor blocks were to be hit, then we are directly threatened by the effects of this war."

"That would then be a new level of escalation, in which NATO would then have to think about whether this is not an attack also on its own territory," Merz said. "But thank goodness we are not there yet." However, he said, he assumes that the European Union and NATO staffs are also thinking about this very situation.

Translated with www.DeepL.com/Translator (free version)