Because withholding them for the last month prevented things from getting worse?
Have we had a nuclear war in the last month? So yeah, apparently not going to war against Russia did, in fact, prevent things from getting worse in that rather important way.
Attacking Russia with NATO bombers is likelier to result in more people dying, not fewer.
Given the Russian military’s sad state of affairs it would have been easy for NATO and guests to have stopped them close to the border. Start by taking out every road and rail bridge and then systematically shutting down Russian pipelines through the Ukraine until reason is restored.
How? With airdropped motorcycle commandos?
I guess they could thumb a ride from farmers or hike to their destination. Motorcycles were used WW-II by British Special Ops Airborne groups as well as Italian, German, and American forces. That would probably be a good way to infiltrate with hand carried anti-tank weapons.
Here is a link showing what American Special Ops Forces currently use. And considering the lightweight electric bikes available today it would make for a very fast and quiet infiltration that allows for travel where traditional military vehicles cannot.
If you’re going to take pot shots at posters maybe you should know what you’re talking about first.
How easy would it have been to stop the ICBMs?
Don’t know. But that’s a 2 way street. If we entered into the war directly then I imagine ABMs would be used. It’s probably why we have them staged on the Polish/Ukrainian border.
I assume the discrepancy is because from the UN point of view, all men ages 16 to 60 were called up to service and are thus combatants, not civilians. From the Ukrainian perspective, they are all civilians fighting in self-defense.
Was the prevention of males between 18 and 60 a conscription or was it part of the women and children first scenario?
I found this on the net but I don’t know if it’s accurate:
Zelenskyy enforced the measures amid missile strikes and acts of military aggression by Russian forces across Ukraine, and the ban on so many males leaving the country is aimed at “guaranteeing Ukraine’s defence and the organisation of timely mobilisation,”
I specifically remember hearing that they were called to fight and given guns. No idea where I heard this, but It was a video so most likely it was either Last Week Tonight, Full Frontal, or something on Reddit. That last possibility includes misinformation, of course.
US ABM capabilities would be quite incapable of preventing a strategic nuclear exchange.
Remarkable footage of a single UA T-64BV tank engaging a Russian convoy, destroying a BTR-82A from an ambush position. Though other shots miss, appears that this held up the convoy enough for UA indirect fire to strike it, taking out other armour & leading to a retreat.
Even this seems an exaggeration. Like @RickJay , all I see hit is one APC. All the following ones keep traveling in the direction they were when they started, so I don’t see any retreat. The artillery explosions (indirect fire) shown are wide and long of the convoy. The video is edited so badly I’m not even sure that the burned out vehicle tacked on the end is the same one hit in the beginning, since it doesn’t seem on a road and the house shown nearby is missing.
I guess I should have read a little closer. From Human Rights Watch:
OHCHR believes that the actual figures are considerably higher, as the receipt of information from some locations where intense hostilities have been going on has been delayed and many reports are still pending corroboration. This concerns, for example, Mariupol and Volnovakha (Donetsk region), Izium (Kharkiv region), Popasna (Luhansk region), and Borodianka (Kyiv region), where there are allegations of numerous civilian casualties. These figures are being further corroborated and are not included in the above statistics.
What is the status of the Black Sea? I thought most of it was International waters? Except for a section directly off a country’s coast?
It must be very aggravating for Russia to interfere with the use of the Black Sea. It reminds me of the attacks on Merchant Shipping in the Atlantic during WWI and WWII. Supplies to England were being cut off.
Guardian live blog
You know, once there is a cease-fire in Ukraine, I bet we can restock their military beyond their wildest dreams in about two weeks. Just by the way.
The first casualty of war is truth, and everyone seems to be taking basically ANY video of the Ukraine war and just buying the explanation or the title of the video. Almost every video I’ve seen is short and obviously heavily edited, and often in absurdly dishonest manner.
The ease with which video can be edited to fool people is just incredible. You cannot trust edited video, really.
While I am
- 100% behind Ukraine, and
- Wildly impressed with their military performance,
I also acknowledge that the Internet is full of lies, and the Ukrainians are clearly masters of PR to a degree that would make the greatest ad man on Madison Avenue pale in comparison, and are being helped by the fact that a million people (at least) have the video edited capability to turn the most pedestrian of skirmishes into a military victory on par with the Six Day War. It’s genius. I’ve lost count of the number of videos I’ve seen advertised as “Russian convoy OBLITERATED!!!1!” wherein, when you examine it scene by scene, it shows one vehicle getting hit and maybe it was destroyed and maybe not and you aren’t shown if the Ukrainians took any losses.
Based on the entirety of the evidence before me, here’s what I think is really happening;
The Russian army’s advance on Kyiv and points west failed because they just didn’t have the logistical chops to overcome a ferocious resistance that they clearly did not expect. This ground their advance and organization cohesion down to the point that the offensive simply could not continue on a divisional/corps coordinated level. On a logistical and strategic intelligence level the Russians simply were not prepared for this and their weight of advance was drained away. On a tactical and operational level, I suspect the war has been very evenly fought, and the Ukrainians have been taking losses at least as bad as the Russians and maybe worse, in light of Russia’s vast artillery superiority, and artillery is the god of war. I think it will come to light in time that Ukraine’s losses have been frightfully high and that well over ten thousand of their men and women will have died; I think this war at the front line has been a horrific grind.
Prior to this war, I thought of the Russian leadership as cunning villains. Evil, but at least smart.
Now the “smart” part is, errr, not there…
I don’t share this view. I think Ukrainian forces are significantly outperforming Russian forces on the battlefield.
And?
Is there a list of countries that Russia can take before we say nyet?
Hitler went on a scorched Earth policy because his own city was getting bombed into dust. That’s not the case here. Putin still has his billion dollar mansion and whatever toys he “doesn’t own” and Russia is not under attack. Ukraine is no skin off his nose. He liked to get into this mess and he can lie to get out of it.
And the time Russia is using to regroup just means more arms to Ukraine are pouring in. At some point the Ukrainians are going to be able to go after missile sites both on land and sea.
This has been the subject of at least one other thread as well. How far do we allow the threat of nuclear weapons to “excuse” Putin’s activities?