I’m not so sure. Then the war becomes an existential threat and all of Russia is mobilized and tac nukes are on the table. There’s no way Putin will lose a war to Ukraine. And since he’s currently losing it he has to escalate. Probably chemical weapons. Which just sucks. A Russian ex-MP said she (I think it was a she) had intel that Russia was planning a false flag attack on a chemical manufacturing plant in Russia. That would provide the casus belli for chemical weapons. We could be in for a total nightmare. Well, a bigger nightmare. I hope all this is wrong. My sources are twitter so…
Another military oddity. Berdyansk is supposedly under Russian control with the front quite some ways away. Yet somehow the Ukrainians seem to have managed to strike the landing ship and sink it. They also seemed to have set fire to one of the other warships. I wonder if perhaps the areas under Russian control are not as firm as is being reported.
Also, that has got to be expensive. Especially for an economy that is in the process of being obliterated.
Apparently, it was hit by the Ukrainian Navy and not from the ground. So nevermind. Still pretty cool (assuming you’re not Tucker Carlson and support Ukraine).
EDIT: Now I’ve been reading it was an attack from land by a Tochka missile. Fog of war abounds.
The good news is, the war may in fact be over by then just not in the way desired by Russia.
I have no idea of course if this is true or Ukrainian propaganda. It seems plausible given the importance of May 9th as Victory Day for Russia.
So, to stay on schedule, Putin needs to commit suicide in his bunker on April 30th, right?
I am fully supportive of a Ukrainian-victory-over-Russia timetable by May 9. It sounds like a good time to wrap things up. Thanks Putin!
Anyhow, getting back to the thread topic:
Let’s say the US/NATO did decide to intervene directly in Ukraine, the consideration of nuclear war completely disregarded and kicked to the curb: What exactly would such intervention involve?
It’s doubtful the US would want to commit ground forces, but maybe Poland would be willing to send some armor and whatnot. B-2s flying from Diego Garcia and Whiteman AFB in Missouri? They’d need lots of refueling support. There are relatively few American fighters stationed in central/east Europe right now, they’d have a hard time getting full air superiority over Ukraine. Submarines lobbing many dozens of Tomahawks?
Air Supremacy. It might take a couple of weeks to get organised, but there are plenty of NATO air bases in eastern Europe. Air units there have already been reinforced, and I’d expect that there are plans in place to quickly move further aircraft and personnel to those bases. Initial priority would be to eliminate Russian aircraft, air-defence artillery, and command and control centres. After that, any long range missile vehicles the air units can find, and supply convoys.
I don’t think any NATO conventional forces intervention would be half-hearted. There’s already a lot of logistics and intelligence support of Ukraine from NATO. There are probably also some “boots on the ground” in terms of observers and advisors, but they’d be clandestine. However, if NATO overtly commits combat forces, then I don’t see why they’d limit themselves to air units. They might try to avoid urban infantry battles, but Ukraine could definitely use the help of several heavy brigades. Tied in with the air effort, the Russian forces would have the poor options of retreating, surrendering, or dying in place.
Or, you know, results in my loved ones being consumed in nuclear firestorms.