A perfect match for the greatest refugee border crossing since WW-II,
What is the metric?
Russia does have a significant amount of SAM technology. In fact it is possible no one in the world over the decades has invested as much into SAM systems as Russia. Remember almost all of the Ukrainian systems are Russian. Russia has more and at least somewhat more sophisticated systems than Ukraine has (like the S-400, and tiny numbers of the S-500, likely not deployed). Latest news coverage on quick check seems to indicate that Russia now has SAM coverage across almost all of Ukraine (assuming accuracy of course and it is never a good idea to assume).
I don’t think we can get a real idea of how effective any of these systems are at this point. I absolutely don’t trust either Russian or Ukrainian reports on lost anything, including aircraft. But I don’t doubt the Russians might be having issues, including not wanting to hit their own planes by mistake.
Absolutely right. That would be the party that when Trump was in power was sucking up to Putin.
Are we supposed to forget that the Republicans not so very many years (months) ago were the Party of Putin?
https://www.politico.com/magazine/story/2017/07/18/how-the-gop-became-the-party-of-putin-215387/
There’s a joke going around on Reddit about how McDonald’s has implemented a no-fry zone against Russia.
One President opposed the Nord Stream pipeline and one President waived the pipeline sanctions.
One President promoted oil and gas production in the US and one President shut down a pipeline and presided over the highest levels of Imported Russian oil in this century.
They’re paying their employees for not working. You have to respect that.
Republicans were/are the Party of Putin.
Sorry you don’t like this. It is what it is.
It’s not as if you can hide a bunch of MiG-29s landing in Rammstein and then flying back out after being repainted in Ukrainian livery.
Please explain to me how shutting down a pipeline that doesn’t exist yet and was never designed or intended to add a single barrel of oil to US stocks has anything to do with the price of tea in China.
Except in the real world where Trump was against the Nord Stream pipeline and Biden removed the sanctions. You can’t pretend this didn’t happen.
Europe gets 40% of it’s natural gas from Russia and a great deal of that passes through Ukraine. by conquering it Russia has leverage to force Germany into activating the Nord Stream pipe.
This is why Trump pressed Germany to build LNG terminals as an alternative so Russia would not have the leverage they displayed in the past.
And now the great epiphany. Germany Speeds Plan for First LNG Terminal to Replace Russian Gas
What’s Putin going to think when Biden approves his pipeline and then flees Afghanistan without properly informing NATO allies. It made NATO look like a weak disjointed mess.
By “fleeing without informing NATO” you mean “withdrawing in accordance with the timetable Trump established in 2020”, right?
No, by fleeing without informing NATO I mean exactly that. Biden’s own advisers advised against the clusterfuck that took place.
So youre saying that Biden’s advisors told him Trump’s plan was bad, and that Biden is bad for doing what Trump wanted to do.
Got it.
I’m saying Biden’s advisors said the frantic withdrawal was not advised. It was clearly poorly planned. If it was linked to Trump’s timeline then why didn’t they plan it out?
You’re getting off topic.
It’s well established it was poorly executed. It’s highly likely Putin saw this along with a removal of pipeline sanctions as a green light to invade Ukraine. It wasn’t a member of NATO and we couldn’t be bothered to coordinate our withdrawal from Afghanistan with NATO. It was low hanging fruit after taking Crimea in 2014.
While I’ll grant that Trump did say this at that time, in that place, it was so regular to see Trump saying one thing, doing another, being all for one thing, talking to someone, pulling a 180, talking to another person, doing another 180, sending one person to do one thing, sending another to do the exact opposite, etc. I can’t really imagine giving any definitive announcement about what Trump himself was for when it came to real, nitty-gritty policy minus video footage of him during entry conversation on the topic through his whole term of office to prove some amount of consistency.
Since I’m sure that doesn’t exist, it’s far more accurate to say that the Senate-approved appointees of the Trump administration advised “such and such” policy.
And I’m quite willing to give an exhaustive set of examples for anyone has any doubt on this matter.
It was planned out 16 months in advance. The only people who claim otherwise are those who want to look for an excuse to blame everything bad that happens on one particular thing they don’t like. You may as well tell us Putin decided to invade because of non-binary pronouns or critical race theory.
I’m not the one trying to rehash year-old QOP talking points.
“Doing another” would be to approve the pipeline. Which he didn’t. He was always against the pipeline and it wasn’t mildly convoluted. Russia had already shut down the pipeline once in price disputes and had already taken Crimea.
BIDEN got rid of the pipeline sanctions.
Whicb is why that pipeline is active and pumping gas right now, right?
Oh, wait…
Move along folks, nothing to see here.
They planned on sneaking out in the middle of the night without telling our allies? I’m going with no on that. It was a clusterfuck that made NATO look stupid and weak.