From the few Finnish that I’ve spoken to, I have the feeling like if you told them that they were free to come down and shoot at Russian military, they’d buy their own plane tickets.
Much less and they are almost all in combat support. Their maneover forces are all volunteers.
No one has it easy in making good losses in modern war. Russia, if anything has a slightly better outlook than the US here, they do have tanks and IFV in production, the US doesn’t.
But yes, if the suffer something like Grozny 94/95 (60 T-80 and 80 BTR/BMP lost in a single day) then they are in a world of hurt.
They fought in Chechneya, as well as in Syria and parts of the Ukraine since 2014.
I’ve wondered as well; it seems to water down the definition if slow stuff like drones, helos, transports count towards the definition.
The “Ghost of Kyiv” (this legendary, probably fictional, Ukrainian pilot is already a meme on KnowYourMeme right now) is being credit with shooting down six Russian fighters, though. That probably confirms that it’s fictional, sigh.
It’s a shame there isn’t a way to vote Putin off the island with a go-fund-me project.
I tried looking it up earlier. There wasn’t anything I could find on what types of planes counted, but I did see a note that strafing planes on the ground counted.
There was also an article on Chuck Yeager becoming an “Ace in a Day” during WWII, in which his first two “kills” were a pair of German fighters, where one of them flew into the other in a panic after Yeager pounced on them.
So the rules seem kind of lax, is what I’m saying.
ISTR that some militaries counted aircraft destroyed on the ground, but the WWII allies didn’t.
IANA fighter pilot. I would say that transports/cargo planes count (as cargo ships count for submarines); but I, personally, would not consider drones or aircraft destroyed on the ground toward aerial kills.
Literally within in the last few hours Western analysts have said Ukraine no longer has an air force.
I hope I’m wrong but I don’t think they’ll last two weeks. The Russians are already on the outskirts of Kiev.
Putin plans to conquer it all, I suspect. He genuinely believes Ukraine isn’t a real country.
And yet, according to the latest verifiable numbers, the Russians have taken three times as many casualties as Ukranian fighters have - 137 Ukranians killed to ~450 Russians.
It’s certainly far too early to write off a force that’s utterly determined to fight and refuses to surrender, as seen on Snake Island (yes, it’s the Post, but there’s audio and Zelensky has commented officially on it).
I strongly suspect the concept of “verifiable numbers” is a shaky one at this juncture.
But even if the above is completely accurate I doubt those are the level of casualty rates that are going to keep Putin up at night. If it gets to the tens of thousands and a worrying number of combat units rendered combat ineffective due to casualties, then he might pause. But I think he’d be more than happy to trade several thousand Russian lives or more for increased regional hegemony (and personal dominance on the home front). Early days yet, but Ukraine’s prospects aren’t exactly golden.
Yes. The British Government statement contains enough weasel words… “450 lost” to make it unreliable in assessment of actual losses.
I will remind you all that the American’s suffered several setbacks during their invasion of Iraq in 2003. Raid on Karbala and Jessica Lynch ‘s convoy come do mind.
Still took over the whole country in three weeks.
When a Superpower faces greater than expected resistance in one sector, they don’t suddenly see the error of their ways and back off, they simply bring in much more firepower.
Will be the case here as well.
Didn’t really take though, did it? Instead we spent seven years fighting a losing war against an insurgency that was far less equipped, motivated, and united than the Ukrainian people are.
The Russians seem to be nearing Kiev
https://twitter.com/warsonthebrink/status/1497099808330313730?s=21
There appears to be no cohesive Ukrainian defence, garrisons and pockets are holding out.
Lots of Western analysts are doing their best Iraqi information minister impression right now.
Not really relevant at this stage.
That’s what the Germans thought in May 1940.
Regrettably it seems more like 1921.
Hell, Simo Häyhä would probably walk down if he was still around.
All of Häyhä’s kills were accomplished in fewer than 100 days, an average of five per day at a time of year with very few daylight hours.[17][18][19] His kill count as a sniper was based on his own reporting, with the confirmation of his comrades, and only those who were killed for certain were considered. No count was taken when several snipers shot at the same target. Men killed with a submachine gun with Häyhä as a group leader were not counted.[20]
Häyhä’s division commander Antero Svensson credited him with 219 confirmed kills with a rifle and an equal number of kills by submachine gun, when he awarded him an honorary rifle on 17 February 1940.[21][7] On 21 December 1939, Häyhä achieved his highest daily count of 25 kills.[22] In his diary, military chaplain Antti Rantamaa reported 259 confirmed kills made by rifle and an equal number of kills by submachine gun from the beginning of the war until 7 March 1940, one day after Häyhä was severely wounded. Later in his book, Rantamaa credited Häyhä with a total of 542 kills.[7][5]
Poland and Latvia are absolutely furious with the mainland European countries who have yet to provide weapons to Ukraine and are blocking the suspension of SWIFT. Germany, France, Italy etc.
The Pripyat exclusion area is pretty safe at this point, even for unprotected people, as long as you don’t actually enter the Chernobyl site. But I expect they’ll don their standard-issue protective gear. Russian battle doctrine is known for being bold about bombing an area with chem/nukes, and then purposely suiting up and rolling right through it.
Chernobyl last produced power in 2000 and is halfway through the decommissioning process. There’s no value there for Russia unless they want to make significant investments to reverse that process. I don’t know the numbers so I can’t say if it makes sense to even try, but if they did, that’s years away.
But hey, Russia paid a lot of money for that, so maybe they just want it back.
Adorable. I could almost pinch their cheeks.
Why should German energy, British financial industry and French and Italian trade be held hostage to the safety and security of a bunch of Eastern European statelets whose very existence is owned to the Entente Alliance victory in WW1?
—-Discussion’s at NATO HQ in Brussels circa Feb2022.