Probably nothing. Haven't seen anything bad happening to the withdrawing Russian troops, which mind you, is imo proof enough that there was probably a Russia-Ukraine backroom agreement
The War in the Ukraine
- Thread starter SampanViking
- Start date
Well it would take three months to train Ukraine pilots to fly F-15s and F-16s at a basic level
The Biden administration has remained wary of allowing sensitive U.S. technology to fall into Russian hands on the battlefield and has worried about Moscow’s response should Ukrainian forces use high-end American equipment to attack Russian territory. But Kinzinger said the Ukrainians can be trusted with the equipment.
“They’ve been clear — and they’ve shown this with the weapons they have — they’re not trying to start a war with Russia inside of Russia,” said Kinzinger. “They just want to defend their homeland.”
He noted the United States is ready to start training Ukrainian pilots at Columbus Air Force Base, Mississippi and possibly in Texas as well. It would take about three months to train the pilots to fly the F-15s and F-16s at a basic level.
So getting Ukraine pilots in F-16s somewhat close to NATO counterpart standards would likely take a year. This would be a crash course in a time of war where time is of the essence unlike Romania. A year training may be good enough for a conflict with Russia. It's not like they are having air battles. Just how good are Ukrainian Mig-29 pilots in air to air? How many hours do they have?
I think it might be a modified DJI lobbing grenades.
plawolf
Lieutenant General
Firstly, the cracks are already showing in how much NATO nations are willing and able to maintain current levels of support to Ukraine when they can easily silence domestic opposition voices as Russian useful idiots and blame all their incompetence on Putin. That will be far harder to do with Russia unilaterally declaring an end of combat operations. Sure NATO will continue to support Ukraine, but what they can provide will be far less than what they can now.
Secondly, Ukraine rebuilding its airforce with NATO supplied planes isn’t going to have remotely as much of an impact as you seem to think unless they get F35s, which they won’t.
F15s, F16s, Typhoons and Rafales are basically what the VKS spent the lion share of its funds to counter. Even if the VKS is a paper tiger, Russia still has its formidable ground based AD networks. If soviet era AD can keep the modern VKS at bay, modern Russian AD will have little trouble keeping legacy western fighters at bay.
With reduced NATO support, even if Ukraine wants to keep fighting, it’s ability to do so will be far reduced and little challenge for Russia.
Also, it’s worth noting that Russia is not banking on being able to just stop all fighting. That’s why they did their partial mobilisation - so they can safely rotate their best troops back for modernisation without risk major battlefield defeats. It’s also why they are giving up Kherson, so they can consolidate behind good natural defensive barriers rather than having to try to hold a really bad position.
It looks like the Ukrainians are picking up more abandoned equipment from the Russians.
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Noteworthy mention is the speed that they withdraw at. It took them around 3 days to move 20,000-30,000 troops and 3,000-5,000 pieces of equipment (depending on source) across the river. Reuters reported that it was estimated to take at least a week or more for the Russians to fully leave.
This should highlight that Russian logistics isn’t as degraded and poor as some users here keep insisting upon.
Adding to this i just saw that Russian fertilisers are getting the go sign to be moved from Dutch harbours to be shipped to African nations. That looks like one more sign of some sort of back room agreement. Or it's just coincidental that it happened.
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You avoided the other points about the logistical operations. Aircraft are maintenance heavy and require specialized equipment, well trained specialists, and maintenance/repair centers. Unless NATO has been covertly establishing such stations, provided such equipment, and trained a lot of personal to perform repairs and maintenance for the past few months at minimum, those hypothetical F-16's are useless. You have to remember that pilots are only part of the kill chain, which is extremely long. As for the pilots themselves, according to the Romanians, it is difficult and time consuming for them to learn how to operate F-16's and incorporate them into the air force. All of that is happening during peacetime. Ukrainian pilots are most likely on the alert for any requests for sorties, interceptions, and etc. They may not be flying a lot. However, they are still on high alert. So many of them definitely can't train.
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No.
No. Initially it was only necessary to take the right bank, for the purpose of a land corridor to the Crimea and water to the Crimean canal. There was no need to go north of the horizontal line between Zaporizhzhia and Bakhmut.
But greed has killed the thief.
The corridor in its present configuration is not viable and can only exist if Ukraine agrees. It is essentially a gut just over 100 km wide and with difficult supplies on both sides.
A stable option could have been the capture of Kharkiv, Zaporizhzhia, Donetsk, Mykolaiv and Odessa oblasts, but they did not make it, and there are no more forces to solve this problem.
The destruction of infrastructure would cause additional arms shipments, the west does not need millions more refugees. Russia is incapable of suppressing the air force, there is no means.
Russia can only think of continuing to stand on the Ugra, hoping that Ukraine and the West will succumb to the blackmail in the short term. If not, Russia has no chance of holding out..
Ukranian soldier in Kherson spotted with the emblem of the Dirlewanger Brigade on his helmet. The Brigade was one the most infamous SS units even among the SS officers themselves and partly responsible for the mass murder of 100.000 poles in 1944.