# Russia invades Ukraine {2022-02-24} (Part 1)
**URL:** https://boards.straightdope.com/t/russia-invades-ukraine-2022-02-24-part-1/960037
**Category:** Miscellaneous and Personal Stuff I Must Share
**Tags:** ukraine-invasion, breaking-news
**Created:** [February 24, 2022, 8:30am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/russia-invades-ukraine-2022-02-24-part-1/960037 "2022-02-24T08:30:03Z")
**Posts on this page:** 20
**Page:** 257
### Author:  [@Velocity](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Velocity)
#### Post date: [April 28, 2022, 11:30pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/russia-invades-ukraine-2022-02-24-part-1/960037/5185 "2022-04-28T23:30:30Z")
Thanks. I wonder why it can’t just be “Gift” instead of “Lease.” The United States can’t seriously expect a postwar Ukraine with a shattered economy to repay anything. That would be like Elon Musk “loaning” $200,000 to some unemployed cancer patient to pay their medical bills. Just flat-out gift it. (Maybe not the best analogy but you know what I mean)
---
### Author:  [@What\_Exit](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/What_Exit)
#### Post date: [April 28, 2022, 11:32pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/russia-invades-ukraine-2022-02-24-part-1/960037/5186 "2022-04-28T23:32:45Z")
My take is that Lend-Lease will probably mean it is mostly a gift and will eventually be forgiven but reserves the US some leverage in the post-War rebuilding of Ukraine and some direction of its politics.
---
### Author:  [@silenus](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/silenus)
#### Post date: [April 28, 2022, 11:32pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/russia-invades-ukraine-2022-02-24-part-1/960037/5187 "2022-04-28T23:32:54Z")
Can’t. Not without a lot of specific and fiddly legislation, and that takes time. **Every** time. Lend-Lease is a proven system and is very flexible to current needs.
---
### Author:  [@What\_Exit](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/What_Exit)
#### Post date: [April 28, 2022, 11:35pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/russia-invades-ukraine-2022-02-24-part-1/960037/5188 "2022-04-28T23:35:15Z")
I saw a good quote today on Lend-Lease:
> **Bureaucracy, we all know, is an enemy in a crisis, so streamlining processes and improving speed and agility is extremely, extremely important**
Ukrainian-American Rep. Victoria Spartz, R-Ind., said on the House floor Thursday.
---
### Author:  [@The\_Stainless\_Steel\_Rat](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/The_Stainless_Steel_Rat)
#### Post date: [April 29, 2022, 12:58am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/russia-invades-ukraine-2022-02-24-part-1/960037/5189 "2022-04-29T00:58:11Z")
Just a very quick history lesson on Lend-Lease. By November 1940 Churchill had written Roosevelt that England would soon be unable to pay for new weapons bought from the United States. FDR faced a still-potent opposition (some in his own party) from Isolationists and “American Firsters” who wanted nothing to do with this “European War”. So he came up with the Lend-Lease program. As he described it (and whatever else franklin Delano Roosevelt was, he was a masterful explainer):
> [@](#):
>
> Suppose my neighbor’s home catches fire …if he can take my garden hose and connect it up with his hydrant I may help him to put out his fire. Now, what do I do? I don’t say to him before that operation, “Neighbor, my garden hose cost me $15; you have got to pay me $15 for it. I don’t want $15 - I want my garden hose back. In other words, if you lend certain munitions and the munitions come back at the end of the war, you are all right.”
It passed Congress 265-165 and the Senate 60-31, showing that there was doubt about how much to support the British.
OK, history lesson concluded. Press on.
---
### Author:  [@Euphonious\_Polemic](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Euphonious_Polemic)
#### Post date: [April 29, 2022, 2:32am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/russia-invades-ukraine-2022-02-24-part-1/960037/5190 "2022-04-29T02:32:54Z")
> [@The\_Stainless\_Steel\_Rat](#):
>
> It passed Congress 265-165 and the Senate 60-31, showing that there was doubt about how much to support the British.
I’d love to know who the 165 and 31 Anti-british Nazi supporters were.
---
### Author:  [@Velocity](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Velocity)
#### Post date: [April 29, 2022, 2:46am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/russia-invades-ukraine-2022-02-24-part-1/960037/5191 "2022-04-29T02:46:58Z")
Would like to see all A-10 Warthogs get donated to Ukraine. They were headed to the nursing home to play Bingo in a few years anyway, might as well let them go out in a career-fulfilling blaze of T-72-killing glory.
---
### Author:  [@CaveMike](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/CaveMike)
#### Post date: [April 29, 2022, 2:47am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/russia-invades-ukraine-2022-02-24-part-1/960037/5192 "2022-04-29T02:47:19Z")
> [@Velocity](#):
>
> Wish the US would take some bolder risks, such as donating nearly every Javelin in its inventory to Ukraine instead of merely one-third.
I’m sure if it makes sense, the US will send more. It’s not like they are sending the one-third all at once anyway.
---
### Author:  [@CaveMike](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/CaveMike)
#### Post date: [April 29, 2022, 2:52am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/russia-invades-ukraine-2022-02-24-part-1/960037/5193 "2022-04-29T02:52:39Z")
> [@aceplace57](#):
>
> That would require a few hundred American crews. They would only be there training and providing defensive protection to Ukraine’s capital.
I don’t think this is wise. It won’t matter what they were there for if one of them is killed. The US will have to react and it will have fewer options available than it does now.
---
### Author:  [@scabpicker](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/scabpicker)
#### Post date: [April 29, 2022, 3:05am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/russia-invades-ukraine-2022-02-24-part-1/960037/5194 "2022-04-29T03:05:05Z")
> [@Velocity](#):
>
> Would like to see all A-10 Warthogs get donated to Ukraine. They were headed to the nursing home to play Bingo in a few years anyway, might as well let them go out in a career-fulfilling blaze of T-72-killing glory.
While I think it’s a mighty fine ground attack aircraft, and I think it still could be useful in this theater if provided with sufficient numbers of air superiority fighters to protect them: man, that’s a tall ask to even happen in a year. Training all the pilots and ground crew on the aircraft would be a lot of work. If we’re at six months into this conflict, and it’s still a stalemate in the east, that seems like a sane-ish plan. At the moment, Ukraine seems to be holding in the east, and I’d suggest we go further with more capable drones at the moment, to be honest.
And of course, if you’re going to train them on a new aircraft and we’re pretty much talking fantasy, I’d say a F-35A would be a more expensive option - but it’d signal “Yeah, they’re joining NATO” better than anything else. It’d almost surely be more effective, in the end. It can perform both roles. Plus, it’d send a much stronger signal than sending aircraft we’re phasing out.
---
### Author:  [@TokyoBayer](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/TokyoBayer)
#### Post date: [April 29, 2022, 6:28am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/russia-invades-ukraine-2022-02-24-part-1/960037/5195 "2022-04-29T06:28:04Z")
> [@Euphonious\_Polemic](#):
>
> I’d love to know who the 165 and 31 Anti-british Nazi supporters were.
There was a real fear at the time of getting involved in another war in Europe. It was not a question of supporting Nazis or not.
The US had already gone from a declared state of neutrality in which they wouldn’t sell or provide any armaments to any parties, to a “[Cash and Carry](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cash_and_carry_(World_War_II))” basis.
Roosevelt really wanted to support the British but couldn’t get too far ahead of Congress. The idea of Lend - Lease was to seem to be getting something in return rather than simply giving it as aid.
---
### Author:  [@Paul\_was\_in\_Saudi](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Paul_was_in_Saudi)
#### Post date: [April 29, 2022, 9:21am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/russia-invades-ukraine-2022-02-24-part-1/960037/5196 "2022-04-29T09:21:34Z")
1. The daily count of destroyed Russian equipment is trending upward again. This is about Day nine or so of the offensive. things may be hotting up again.
2. My school district has just enrolled its first Ukrainian refugee. He starts elementary school tomorrow. We are scrambling to find Russian and Ukrainian speakers. I am very happy about this.
---
### Author:  [@Broomstick](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Broomstick)
#### Post date: [April 29, 2022, 10:09am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/russia-invades-ukraine-2022-02-24-part-1/960037/5197 "2022-04-29T10:09:25Z")
> [@Velocity](#):
>
> Thanks. I wonder why it can’t just be “Gift” instead of “Lease.” The United States can’t seriously expect a postwar Ukraine with a shattered economy to repay anything. That would be like Elon Musk “loaning” $200,000 to some unemployed cancer patient to pay their medical bills. Just flat-out gift it. (Maybe not the best analogy but you know what I mean)
Unlike a human creditor with a human debtor, the US can afford to wait a very long time for repayment.
So far, only four nations have repaid their lend-lease debt from WWI: Finland, Greece, Liberia, and Cuba. Britain, France, and Italy still owe money from The War to End All Wars. Why the hold up? They say they intended to use the money from reparation from Germany in order to pay their WWI debt to the US, and Germany hasn’t completed reparations.
WWII lend-lease is even more of a mess. Some nations have repaid little or nothing, including the USSR (which no longer even exists), Iran (I expect they will continue to not pay), Indonesia, and China.
Finland was the first to pay off their WWII lend-lease debt (they viewed settling that debt to be necessary for their neutral stance and used the fact they owed nothing to the US as a argument with the Soviets that they were truly neutral). Britain has also repayed its debt as of 2006. I believe some of Britain’s debt was settled not with actual money but with exporting of certain new technologies and assistance with the Manhattan project so, presumably, terms of repayment are somewhat negotiable. But other than Finland and Britain no one has repayed the US but hey, they _might_ do so in the future. In some cases - such as the USSR - it wasn’t really expected we’d get our money back but having the Soviets fight on the eastern front was useful to the Allied war effort.
So no, no one is expecting a shattered Ukraine in the immediate aftermath of this war to repay a debt. But nations exist longer than a human generation and repayment can wait for Ukraine to rebuild. Lend-lease in the two world wars did not hurt the US, helped US allies, and at least some of it has been repaid so overall it’s probably of more benefit than harm.
---
### Author:  [@Ulfreida](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Ulfreida)
#### Post date: [April 29, 2022, 12:06pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/russia-invades-ukraine-2022-02-24-part-1/960037/5198 "2022-04-29T12:06:55Z")
[Story in the Guardian today](https://www.theguardian.com/world/2022/apr/29/russian-forces-reportedly-came-close-to-capturing-zelenskiy-during-first-hours-of-invasion) about how Zelensky and his family barely escaped capture or assassination in the first days of the invasion. Russian paratroopers stormed the presidential compound and nearly got through.
That would have been a far different war.
---
### Author:  [@Love\_Rhombus](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Love_Rhombus)
#### Post date: [April 29, 2022, 1:56pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/russia-invades-ukraine-2022-02-24-part-1/960037/5199 "2022-04-29T13:56:12Z")
> [@What\_Exit](#):
>
> Ukrainian-American Rep. Victoria Spartz, R-Ind
I wonder how she feels about Putin? Is there an internal conflict?
---
### Author:  [@What\_Exit](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/What_Exit)
#### Post date: [April 29, 2022, 2:01pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/russia-invades-ukraine-2022-02-24-part-1/960037/5200 "2022-04-29T14:01:59Z")
That would be for another thread. Too political for a breaking news thread.
I think it would be a new thread.
---
### Author:  [@Love\_Rhombus](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Love_Rhombus)
#### Post date: [April 29, 2022, 2:02pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/russia-invades-ukraine-2022-02-24-part-1/960037/5201 "2022-04-29T14:02:46Z")
You’re quite right. I did it again. Sorry!
---
### Author:  [@aceplace57](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/aceplace57)
#### Post date: [April 29, 2022, 2:16pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/russia-invades-ukraine-2022-02-24-part-1/960037/5202 "2022-04-29T14:16:30Z")
> [@Ulfreida](#):
>
> That would have been a far different war.
I’ve read Zelinsky’s wife initially opposed his entry into politics. They had a very comfortable life from his acting. He could have been working or vacationing in Europe when the war started.
---
### Author:  [@DesertDog](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/DesertDog)
#### Post date: [April 29, 2022, 3:28pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/russia-invades-ukraine-2022-02-24-part-1/960037/5203 "2022-04-29T15:28:07Z")
> [@Broomstick](#):
>
> Finland was the first to pay off their WWII lend-lease debt
I remember when it happened some humor columnist “quoted” the Finnish ambassador explaining it didn’t cost _that_ much and gave them bragging rights. “Finland is the only country in the world to pay its WWII debt.”
Edit: Howcome the title got edited? Are we expecting a _second_ invasion, as opposed to an escalation of the first one?
---
### Author:  [@Johnny\_L.A](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Johnny_L.A)
#### Post date: [April 29, 2022, 3:30pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/russia-invades-ukraine-2022-02-24-part-1/960037/5204 "2022-04-29T15:30:00Z")
We had a Finnish foreign exchange student in high school who made a point of noting Finland’s payment of its debt. (My Finnish stepfather – he and mom got married when I was in my 20s – never mentioned it.)
[Previous page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/russia-invades-ukraine-2022-02-24-part-1/960037.md?page=256)
[Next page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/russia-invades-ukraine-2022-02-24-part-1/960037.md?page=258)