Russia invades Ukraine {2022-02-24} (Part 2)

[Chronos]

@Magiver

Versus the 2 nations that just joined NATO because of it?

I’m sure that that’s quite unpalatable to Putin, too, but unlike a potential Ukraine peace deal, nobody gave him any input on Sweden and Finland.

[DrDeth]

@Chronos

Regardless, a still-mostly-intact Ukraine with NATO troops guarding the border would still be a quite unpalatable option to Putin.

You can skip over that

@Chronos

with NATO troops guarding the border

part, and still Putin wont like it. He wants all Ukraine. And Poland, and Latvia, and Lithuania, and Estonia, and …

He might be willing to sign a peace deal that will give him a good part of Ukraine, because he is just planning on coming back later.

[DesertDog]

He’ll do the same thing he did after grabbing Crimea.

[FlikTheBlue]

@DrDeth

He might be willing to sign a peace deal that will give him a good part of Ukraine, because he is just planning on coming back later.

That would be a lot more difficult if he had to go through British and French troops in addition to Ukrainian. Although if I was Ukraine I’d feel better with peacekeepers from countries that had more direct skin in the game, like Polish or Finnish troops.

[Folacin]

@DrDeth

He thought his “great, unbeatable” Russian army would roll over them in a matter of days, then on to the next victim.

Just read a 2018 book where part of the plot is Russia planning to take their unbeatable army into Ukraine, Iran, and the Baltics more-or-less simultaneously. Time has moved on from that plot line.

[DrDeth]

@FlikTheBlue

That would be a lot more difficult if he had to go through British and French troops in addition to Ukrainian.

Why? And how long will they be stationed there?

@Folacin

Time has moved on from that plot line.

Has Putin? That is still his dream.

[FlikTheBlue]

@DrDeth

Why? And how long will they be stationed there?

Because presumably the British and French public wouldn’t take kindly to their countrymen being killed by the Russian military, and would take steps such as sending in reinforcements to prevent that if Russia starts acting aggressively. Those reinforcements would, in addition to defending their fellow countrymen, would also be defending Ukraine simultaneously. Of course there’s also the possibility that the British and French public will respond by saying “bring the troops home”, which is why I mentioned Polish and Finnish troops being a better option. My assumption is that the Polish and Finnish public are less likely than the British and French public to respond by saying “let’s just bring the troops home and not bother with fighting against Russia”.

[DrDeth]

@FlikTheBlue

Because presumably the British and French public wouldn’t take kindly to their countrymen being killed by the Russian military, and would take steps such as sending in reinforcements to prevent that if Russia starts acting aggressively. Those reinforcements would, in addition to defending their fellow countrymen, would also be defending Ukraine simultaneously. Of course there’s also the possibility that the British and French public will respond by saying “bring the troops home”,

Yeah, while i admit it would be a really nice gesture, and it would work if Putin was sane…

Also the UK army isnt very big.

@FlikTheBlue

My assumption is that the Polish and Finnish public are less likely than the British and French public to respond by saying “let’s just bring the troops home and not bother with fighting against Russia”.

Good point.

[Northern_Piper]

@FlikTheBlue

My assumption is that the Polish and Finnish public are less likely than the British and French public to respond by saying “let’s just bring the troops home and not bother with fighting against Russia”.

On the other hand, the Polish and Finnish people may have a strong feeling that they can’t afford to send their troops out of their country in the first place.

France and the UK have a cordon sanitaire between them and Russia: the Nordics and Central Europe.

[Chronos]

Poland and Finland are already fully committed to helping Ukraine. Putting British and French troops there would make a real difference.

[PatrickLondon]

The UK had troops in Iraq for 8 years (and Afghanistan for 20). There wasn’t any significant campaigning against the deployment, but of course a large part of that time was in various sorts of support and training local forces, rather than overtly to deter an aggressive neighbour state.

[PatrickLondon]

In case anyone needs reminding of the depths to which the “new KGB” regime has taken Russia:

‘I made the biggest mistake’: the young Yemeni men lured into the Russian...

[aceplace57]

Ukraine has officially received 44 of the 87 F-16s that European nations have promised to donate to Kyiv. Its first crews for the American-made aircraft were trained in Romania.

First hand experience of an Ukrainian F16 pilot. I think there doing much better than many people expected.

Their survival depends on avoiding getting drawn into traps and getting wiped out.

Link Ukraine's F-16 Pilot Said He 'Encountered Reality' After NATO Training - Business Insider

The pilot said he flew Kyiv’s Soviet-made combat aircraft in the initial days of Russia’s full-scale invasion, before being sent abroad to train to fly the F-16s donated by the West.

Once he returned to the war, he and his fellow pilots “encountered reality,” he said.

“The tactics that we were taught abroad do not entirely fit the war we have here, because those tactics are also based on wars in which the partners previously took part,” the pilot said. “And this war is fundamentally different from those wars.”

Ukrainian pilots had to devise their own tactics, he said.