Russia’s navy has zero to do with it. Looking at the air forces of the two countries, Russia has an air force of over 3000 air craft…Ukraine has an air force of 144. Russia’s air craft are both better maintained (relative to each other) and more modern, though of course both use and have a lot of Soviet era crap. Basically, the same goes for every other armed forces, including the navy, since Russia has more crappy cold war air craft carrier(no s) than the Ukraine does (they do actually have a navy btw…I believe they have a few corvettes, a frigate or two and maybe a destroyer, plus some smaller warships). I could go into all of the details (Russia’s ground forces are also larger and relatively better trained, equipped and maintained), but really the bottom line is the Ukraine’s annual budget is around $5-6 billion, while Russia’s is close to $70 billion…and they have a deeper well to pull from (i.e. they have a LOT more old Soviet era crap to draw from than the Ukraine does). Russia also has their own military industrial complex that is actually is pretty good, even if Russia doesn’t have the budget to equal the US or EU.
Lastly, if the Ukraine could align itself with NATO they certainly would. But NATO isn’t going to align itself with the Ukraine, nor are they going to go to war with Russia over the Ukraine. Hell, there seems to be some question if NATO would go to war with Russia over the Baltic states, at least to some posters on this board, and those are NATO member states. I have no doubt the US would go to war with Russia over the Baltic’s, but the US isn’t going to go to war with Russia over the Ukraine either. It’s just not going to happen. The best that the US (and probably…maybe…the Europeans) would do in the event of an actual invasion would be more intense sanctions. Which, frankly, would really hurt Russia and is probably a big reason why such an invasion is unlikely to ever happen.
Let’s think about this logically for one minute. The NATO alliance is the largest military alliance on the planet earth, with a budget of $1 trillion dollars and the best military technology on the planet and hundreds of thousands of soldiers.
The main objective of NATO since it’s foundation in the late 1940s is stopping Russian aggression. NATO might as well call itself the anti-Russia alliance because that’s basically what it is.
The US, UK, France and Germany are the main backbone of NATO with the most advanced military tech and best soldiers in the planet (even though the US holds the main burden of funding NATO and has by far the best military, the European militaries are still quite good).
People said that Poland will never become a member of NATO, because it was a former member of the Warsaw Pact and Russia would never tolerate that violation of its sphere of influence.
Guess what happened? Poland became a full member of NATO and integrated itself with the NATO militaries.
Same thing with the Baltic States, people said hell will freeze over before the Baltic States become members of NATO, because that would put NATO on Russia’s border and be a serious threat to Russian national security.
Guess what happened? The Baltic Sates became full members of NATO, just like Poland.
Now countries which were once part of the Soviet Union, have become full members of the NATO alliance, and in addition they lie on Russia’s border.
Same thing with Ukraine, if Ukraine feels threatened enough it will be allowed to join NATO, and then Russia will have to deal with fighting the full strength of the NATO alliance.
Ukraine is already aligned with NATO. It has expressed a desire to join, has codified this into law, and is passing further laws and constitutional amendments to help effect its accession. NATO formally recognizes Ukraine as an aspiring member and is now furnishing it with millions of dollars in military aid.
Did you perhaps mean to write “If Ukraine joins NATO”? That is simply not going to happen without bilateral (i.e., between Russia and Ukraine) settlements on the status of Crimea and Donbass. NATO is not going to admit any country that has an ongoing military dispute with a nuclear power because that will quite literally lead either to World War III or to the collapse of NATO. That is, Ukraine would invoke Article 5 of the NATO treaty; then the remaining members either pit their military forces against Russia’s, sparking a global conflict and/or a nuclear war, or else they offer only token non-military support, exposing the mutual defence pact as toothless.
Russia could probably defeat Ukraine militarily. It might not be a walk in the park. But I then wonder how they’d “win the peace” even if they technically conquered Ukraine.
The bad blood between them goes back centuries. Russia ruled Ukraine under the Czars. They saw Ukraine as a rebellious province, whose cultural and national identity must be contained. And Lenin/Stalin had similar views. The Ukraine famine in the early 30’s was an intentional genocide that Stalin and his henchmen engineered to bring Ukraine to its knees, and handle what the Kremlin saw as a political problem.
Putin doesn’t want WW3, as someone else in thread already said, Putin and the Russian oligarchs are very satisfied with their prostitudes and Mercedes. WW3 would mean no prostitudes and no Merdeces.
Putin is very happy at the moment being a corrupt dictator enriching himself at the expense of everyone in the country, however his latest moves towards war against Ukraine are simply attempts to make the world still think he has credibility of the international stage. People have real doubts about Putin’s control of he Russian military, and if his generals would really listen to his orders. It’s very possible that some generals might straight out disobey the dictator.
I find it kind of hilarious that people are suggesting Russia take over Ukraine in a “forced-entry invasion”.
Sorry people, it’s not 1940 anymore, you can’t blizkreig a country anymore and except to win in under six weeks.
The Nazi defeat of France in 1940 relied a one crucial element, SUPRISE. Even so, the NAZI attack on France in 1940 was still a huge gamble and could have easily turned into a WW1-type situation with stalemate on both sides. The Russians are not going to have the the huge advantage gained by the ELEMENT OF SUPRISE in a hypothetical attack on Ukraine.
(Remember, dday would not have worked without SUPRISE, if the main body of German forces was in Normandy on dday, espically German armor, the allies would have been thrown back into the water)
In this modern age of cell phones, radio, satiellites, computers, internet, instant communication, etc its very hard to maintain the element of SUPRISE. Any large massing of Russian forces can be countered by the Ukrainians, any large massing of Russian tanks can be countered by Ukrainian troops with ATGMs. Supply lines can be cut, etc, etc,
Ukraine is a country of 45 million people with modern industry and modern technology, plus they have one of the largest tank plants in the world there (Kharkiv?). Mainly made tanks for the USSR military and still does after the collapse.
And what country was it that they were they fighting for?
Yes, that plan seems to have worked out very well for them in Crimea.
Who is continuing to argue this? From what I can tell, only two or three people in this thread ever expressed this point of view, and they were all drive-by posts early on the first page. The last two pages of the thread have been mostly you posting the same arguments over and over again to no one in particular.
They were fighting for themselves, Ukrainians had no loyalitly to Stalin or Moscow especially after the famine of the 1930s (hence the low-level insurgency waged against the ussr even during the years of ww2). The Ukrainians fighting so hard against the Nazis was simply them saving themselves for an invader trying to destroy them. Even so, Ukrainian hatred has always been traditionally against Russia, not Germany.
Remember, loooooooing before the ussr ever existed, the Russian empire oppressed Ukrainians for centuries, Tsar Nicolas the 2nd was particularly bad but there were many other tsars in the 19th century who were just as cruel.
I could go into all of the details (Russia’s ground forces are also larger and relatively better trained, equipped and maintained), but really the bottom line is the Ukraine’s annual budget is around $5-6 billion, while Russia’s is close to $70 billion…and they have a deeper well to pull from (i.e. they have a LOT more old Soviet era crap to draw from than the Ukraine does). Russia also has their own military industrial complex that is actually is pretty good, even if Russia doesn’t have the budget to equal the US or EU.