All Things Russia & Ukraine

[NattyBohChamps04]

You mean

The one with the video evidence of the US state dept telling the senate they are desperately hoping Russia doesn’t capture their numerous bio weapon research facilities in Ukraine?

That one?

Yeah, the one where she called them "biological research facilities". I'm sure that you just "whoops", added the word "weapon" into her testimony by mistake.

You know that a lab that works on cancer research is "a biological research facility", right?

You know, if you want to live under Putin, and buy his disinformation campaign as you are doing here....I can arrange that for you and your family.

He also originally claimed they were US biological weapons labs. And that it makes Ukraine the guilty one in this invasion.

[Peter Brown]

On another thread our pal RRR posted about someone's ideal dream boat hunks. Well, it turns out there may be something behind all that:


Russian Orthodox Church Leader Blames Invasion on Ukraine's 'Gay Pride'

https://www.newsweek.com/russian-orthod ... de-1685636

A major religious leader in Russia has come out in support of the invasion of Ukraine and laid the blame on the support of gay rights.

Patriarch Kirill, the head of the Russian Orthodox Church, during a Sunday sermon called Russia's "military operation" in Ukraine a conflict over "which side of God humanity will be on" between Russia and Western countries that embrace more progressive values. In particular, he called attention to Ukraine's support of gay rights and the presence of gay pride parades, The Moscow Times reported.

"Pride parades are designed to demonstrate that sin is one variation of human behavior," Kirill said during the sermon. "That's why in order to join the club of those countries, you have to have a gay pride parade."

The church leader characterized pride parades as "loyalty tests," and said that countries looking to ally with Western powers must embrace them or be shunned. Further, he claimed that the breakaway regions of Ukraine at the heart of the current conflict, collectively known as Donbas, have "fundamentally rejected" such values.

... this is why the Trupnista base loves them some Putin and Russia.

I think you meant to say “Putin and the Russian military”, not ‘Russia’. Russians are equally as good and bad as any other culture including our own. They can’t be blamed for the madness of Putin. I think it’s important to not denigrate the entire society while attacking Putin. Fair?

Also, I voted for Trump but don’t like Putin, so,…

Meanwhile, Joe keeps screwing up getting the Polish Migs to Ukraine, costing lives by the second. We really need adults in charge in DC…this guy is out of it, and his staff are left wing kooks, messing up every possible domestic and foreign issue known. What a train wreck of an administration.

Stop fouling up the delivery of the Migs to Ukraine, stop effing around. I can think of a hundred ways to do this without being seen as the “provider” of the planes.

Really...name one that doesn't implicate US/NATO and doesn't leave Poland on an island.

I do agree that we need to negotiate this through to an answer, but what this looks like to me is cold feet based on IC assessments that Putin's finger is on the trigger and that slow walking is better, while working the clandestine operations on the ground hard, with lots of anti-aircraft and anti-tank weaponry flowing. Salty's been making this case...I don't see it as an either/or, so am hoping that they get it done in the next few days....but what I'd much prefer is a drone program support. I think that'd be much more effective at this point.

I agree about UCAV’s over jets, but only insofar as I don’t really know the situation on the ground (how long does it take to train someone etc).

On the issue of transfers of Migs, we need to skip past the important part where Biden and team have really, incomprehensibly screwed the pooch on this situation; this has been Trump level incompetence. In no universe should this issue have been debated publicly, and Biden’s stop/start indecisiveness since has been downright clownish.

That said, what Poland should do today is sell the Migs to a third party, such as Blackwater. There are hundreds of recreational Mig enthusiasts in the states. They are flown all the time at air shows like Oshkosh. You’d have zero problem contacting out 50 private pilots to take delivery in Poland and deliver in Ukraine. The concurrent sale of F-16’s (of which the US has a ridiculously high number simply sitting on airfields around the country and world doing absolutely nothing) is business as usual for NATO sales and technically needs to have no relevance to the Migs.

That would be my first option. It’s easy to ‘disappear’ jets like this, at night, under radar tracking. Paint them in the morning at some western Ukrainian hangar and you’re good to go.

[jhu72]

Russian secure communications in Ukraine have collapsed.

[jhu72]

Every Trump - Putin republiCON's favorite pistol packing redheaded propagandist speaks. "Zelensky is definitely a Nazi".

[MDlaxfan76]

Every Trump - Putin republiCON's favorite pistol packing redheaded propagandist speaks. "Zelensky is definitely a Nazi".

yeah, we swear she's not a Russian agent.

[MDlaxfan76]

On another thread our pal RRR posted about someone's ideal dream boat hunks. Well, it turns out there may be something behind all that:


Russian Orthodox Church Leader Blames Invasion on Ukraine's 'Gay Pride'

https://www.newsweek.com/russian-orthod ... de-1685636

A major religious leader in Russia has come out in support of the invasion of Ukraine and laid the blame on the support of gay rights.

Patriarch Kirill, the head of the Russian Orthodox Church, during a Sunday sermon called Russia's "military operation" in Ukraine a conflict over "which side of God humanity will be on" between Russia and Western countries that embrace more progressive values. In particular, he called attention to Ukraine's support of gay rights and the presence of gay pride parades, The Moscow Times reported.

"Pride parades are designed to demonstrate that sin is one variation of human behavior," Kirill said during the sermon. "That's why in order to join the club of those countries, you have to have a gay pride parade."

The church leader characterized pride parades as "loyalty tests," and said that countries looking to ally with Western powers must embrace them or be shunned. Further, he claimed that the breakaway regions of Ukraine at the heart of the current conflict, collectively known as Donbas, have "fundamentally rejected" such values.

... this is why the Trupnista base loves them some Putin and Russia.

I think you meant to say “Putin and the Russian military”, not ‘Russia’. Russians are equally as good and bad as any other culture including our own. They can’t be blamed for the madness of Putin. I think it’s important to not denigrate the entire society while attacking Putin. Fair?

Also, I voted for Trump but don’t like Putin, so,…

Meanwhile, Joe keeps screwing up getting the Polish Migs to Ukraine, costing lives by the second. We really need adults in charge in DC…this guy is out of it, and his staff are left wing kooks, messing up every possible domestic and foreign issue known. What a train wreck of an administration.

Stop fouling up the delivery of the Migs to Ukraine, stop effing around. I can think of a hundred ways to do this without being seen as the “provider” of the planes.

Really...name one that doesn't implicate US/NATO and doesn't leave Poland on an island.

I do agree that we need to negotiate this through to an answer, but what this looks like to me is cold feet based on IC assessments that Putin's finger is on the trigger and that slow walking is better, while working the clandestine operations on the ground hard, with lots of anti-aircraft and anti-tank weaponry flowing. Salty's been making this case...I don't see it as an either/or, so am hoping that they get it done in the next few days....but what I'd much prefer is a drone program support. I think that'd be much more effective at this point.

I agree about UCAV’s over jets, but only insofar as I don’t really know the situation on the ground (how long does it take to train someone etc).

On the issue of transfers of Migs, we need to skip past the important part where Biden and team have really, incomprehensibly screwed the pooch on this situation; this has been Trump level incompetence. In no universe should this issue have been debated publicly, and Biden’s stop/start indecisiveness since has been downright clownish.

That said, what Poland should do today is sell the Migs to a third party, such as Blackwater. There are hundreds of recreational Mig enthusiasts in the states. They are flown all the time at air shows like Oshkosh. You’d have zero problem contacting out 50 private pilots to take delivery in Poland and deliver in Ukraine. The concurrent sale of F-16’s (of which the US has a ridiculously high number simply sitting on airfields around the country and world doing absolutely nothing) is business as usual for NATO sales and technically needs to have no relevance to the Migs.

That would be my first option. It’s easy to ‘disappear’ jets like this, at night, under radar tracking. Paint them in the morning at some western Ukrainian hangar and you’re good to go.

A CIA style operation might have been done, but you clearly overestimate any POTUS' capability to herd all the cats of NATO into perfect formation and coordination, all the time. We're in an extremely fast moving geopolitical environment in which what would not have been considered remotely feasible two weeks ago, now becomes publicly demanded and indeed seriously considered...no way all of that was ever going to be out of the public eye with something as obvious as MiG's (though there may well have been things done more surreptitiously we don't know about at present). Heck, this could have all been a smokescreen to divert attention from other things we're doing.

I see drones as doable because it's right in the CIA's wheel house. The primary complication being the need for Ukrainian operators to actually do the 'flying'. But that can be nearly any Ukrainian sitting next to an American operative training them in real time. And we may well actually be doing this, just don't know about it yet.

There does seem to be a lot of damage to Russian supply lines being done...is it all from the ground?

[MDlaxfan76]

Russian secure communications in Ukraine have collapsed.

Would be great if accurate.

[runrussellrun]

Every Trump - Putin republiCON's favorite pistol packing redheaded propagandist speaks. "Zelensky is definitely a Nazi".

BBC...as in British Broadcasting ...

and no evidence, via a broadcast, or any sorts, in your link.

and you want the keys to the "misinformation" shed.....for shame. for shame

[Essexfenwick]

Nuland said that the US is concerned that the labs would fall into the hands of the Russians and that the US is working with the Ukrainians to properly dispose of the biological samples before Ivan gets there. yeah, just like the ones all the universities have. lol

[Essexfenwick]

U.S. Biological Weapons in Ukraine—Separating the Facts From the Fiction

"As part of its latest attempts to justify its invasion of Ukraine, Russian officials are once again pushing a false narrative that the Eastern European country is developing biological weapons with the assistance of the U.S."

Looks like QAnon is already on the case. Obviously this is mostly for propaganda inside Russia, but it's certainly gaining a foothold among certain US groups, including here.

Although it does make the hair on my neck stand-up as a pretext to Russia using bio or chemical weapons if they keep getting punched in the mouth.

... gee, you mean that TimesNow article posted earlier in the thread was pure bullsh*t?? Who would have guessed?

You mean

The one with the video evidence of the US state dept telling the senate they are desperately hoping Russia doesn’t capture their numerous bio weapon research facilities in Ukraine?

That one?

Yeah, the one where she called them "biological research facilities". I'm sure that you just "whoops", added the word "weapon" into her testimony by mistake.

You know that a lab that works on cancer research is "a biological research facility", right?

You know, if you want to live under Putin, and buy his disinformation campaign as you are doing here....I can arrange that for you and your family.

Nuland said that the US is concerned that the labs would fall into the hands of the Russians and that the US is working with the Ukrainians to properly dispose of the biological samples before Ivan gets there. yeah, just like the ones all the universities have. lol

[Essexfenwick]

I hope all you liberal fools are signing your kids up to fight Russia under a dementia ridden commander in chief.

I’ll bet the military that didn’t take the jab are thanking their lucky stars right now. Man did that ever work out.

[a fan]

Nuland said that the US is concerned that the labs would fall into the hands of the Russians and that the US is working with the Ukrainians to properly dispose of the biological samples before Ivan gets there. yeah, just like the ones all the universities have. lol

You think that your local State Universities and other labs in America aren't working with biohazards that are bad for humans if exposed?

Neat.

How, for example, do you suppose Pfizer and Moderna found a vaccine for Coronavirus, my man? Throwing darts at a board?

And yes, unless you're a blithering idiot, you don't want missiles, bombs, or careless Russian Troops to hit these facilities in the US, let along Ukraine.

You know, sorta like the Ukrainian nuclear plant that was attacked. Bullets and bombs are bad around these things.


But sure, Ukrainians, just like Saddam, have been producing Weapons of Mass Destruction in their spare time. You know: to give them something cool to do on a Friday night. Putin was right to invade them.....isn't that your point here?

[Essexfenwick]

Nuland said that the US is concerned that the labs would fall into the hands of the Russians and that the US is working with the Ukrainians to properly dispose of the biological samples before Ivan gets there. yeah, just like the ones all the universities have. lol

You think that your local State Universities and other labs in America aren't working with biohazards that are bad for humans if exposed?

Neat.

How, for example, do you suppose Pfizer and Moderna found a vaccine for Coronavirus, my man? Throwing darts at a board?

And yes, unless you're a blithering idiot, you don't want missiles, bombs, or careless Russian Troops to hit these facilities in the US, let along Ukraine.

You know, sorta like the Ukrainian nuclear plant that was attacked. Bullets and bombs are bad around these things.


But sure, Ukrainians, just like Saddam, have been producing Weapons of Mass Destruction in their spare time. You know: to give them something cool to do on a Friday night. Putin was right to invade them.....isn't that your point here?

Uh oh… the USA is frantic Putin might get the coronavirus vaccine formula !!!

[MDlaxfan76]

Nuland said that the US is concerned that the labs would fall into the hands of the Russians and that the US is working with the Ukrainians to properly dispose of the biological samples before Ivan gets there. yeah, just like the ones all the universities have. lol

You think that your local State Universities and other labs in America aren't working with biohazards that are bad for humans if exposed?

Neat.

How, for example, do you suppose Pfizer and Moderna found a vaccine for Coronavirus, my man? Throwing darts at a board?

And yes, unless you're a blithering idiot, you don't want missiles, bombs, or careless Russian Troops to hit these facilities in the US, let along Ukraine.

You know, sorta like the Ukrainian nuclear plant that was attacked. Bullets and bombs are bad around these things.


But sure, Ukrainians, just like Saddam, have been producing Weapons of Mass Destruction in their spare time. You know: to give them something cool to do on a Friday night. Putin was right to invade them.....isn't that your point here?

Pretty sure Essex is on the Putin payroll, though he appears to be double dipping working for Trump...but is there a difference?

And yes, "blithering idiot" also applies, though I suspect more nefarious...but one or the other, surely.

[runrussellrun]

Nuland said that the US is concerned that the labs would fall into the hands of the Russians and that the US is working with the Ukrainians to properly dispose of the biological samples before Ivan gets there. yeah, just like the ones all the universities have. lol

You think that your local State Universities and other labs in America aren't working with biohazards that are bad for humans if exposed?

Neat.

How, for example, do you suppose Pfizer and Moderna found a vaccine for Coronavirus, my man? Throwing darts at a board?

And yes, unless you're a blithering idiot, you don't want missiles, bombs, or careless Russian Troops to hit these facilities in the US, let along Ukraine.

You know, sorta like the Ukrainian nuclear plant that was attacked. Bullets and bombs are bad around these things.


But sure, Ukrainians, just like Saddam, have been producing Weapons of Mass Destruction in their spare time. You know: to give them something cool to do on a Friday night. Putin was right to invade them.....isn't that your point here?

Uh oh… the USA is frantic Putin might get the coronavirus vaccine formula !!!

could you imagine if there actually are microchips?

[old salt]

Also interesting to note with all the NATO / USA victim blaming in this thread, Moscow removed the three most pro-Russia voting regions in Ukraine in 2014. There wasn't much support for joining NATO prior to that, so removing those elements really pushed Ukraine policies west-ward.

The 2014 invasion was also about a trade issue, not the near or long term issue of Ukraine joining NATO.

NATO "expansion" is more of a distraction. The real issue all along has been EU economic expansion. We've seen a much greater emphasis by Russia to break up the EU than breaking up NATO. Brexit, Hungary, Poland, etc. EU economic policies at the border would do more to destabilize Russian politics and economics than NATO at the border ever would.

You can use EU & NATO interchangably. There's been a push to join both since the Orange Revolution in 2004.
The Euromaidan revolt & subsequent regime change was triggered by the failure to implement the EU-Ukraine Association agreement.

That's certainly one of the mistakes a lot of these analysts are making, thinking they're 100% interchangeable.

In any case, Russia painted themselves into the corner for the past decade. They could have had a second Belarus.

I did not say they are 100% interchangable. They are linked.

[CU88]

VIdeos starting to show up on Youtube showing how Ukraine resistance is going to be brutal on Putin occupation forces:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=oYiAopYInQM

RPG and shoulder fired anti-tank weapons plus the use of everyday drones for aerial surveillance are urban resistance fighters delights

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qW8kxkfUyYY

[jhu72]

Russian secure communications in Ukraine have collapsed.

Would be great if accurate.

... not exactly a well known source, at least not to me.

[Typical Lax Dad]

Also interesting to note with all the NATO / USA victim blaming in this thread, Moscow removed the three most pro-Russia voting regions in Ukraine in 2014. There wasn't much support for joining NATO prior to that, so removing those elements really pushed Ukraine policies west-ward.

The 2014 invasion was also about a trade issue, not the near or long term issue of Ukraine joining NATO.

NATO "expansion" is more of a distraction. The real issue all along has been EU economic expansion. We've seen a much greater emphasis by Russia to break up the EU than breaking up NATO. Brexit, Hungary, Poland, etc. EU economic policies at the border would do more to destabilize Russian politics and economics than NATO at the border ever would.

You can use EU & NATO interchangably. There's been a push to join both since the Orange Revolution in 2004.
The Euromaidan revolt & subsequent regime change was triggered by the failure to implement the EU-Ukraine Association agreement.

That's certainly one of the mistakes a lot of these analysts are making, thinking they're 100% interchangeable.

In any case, Russia painted themselves into the corner for the past decade. They could have had a second Belarus.

I did not say they are 100% interchangable. They are linked.

You didn’t say they weren’t.

[old salt]

...with lots of anti-aircraft and anti-tank weaponry flowing. Salty's been making this case...I don't see it as an either/or, so am hoping that they get it done in the next few days....

I wouldn't get my hopes up. This is what I was waiting to hear :

Militarily, however, the number of planes offered would make it unlikely to be a game-changer. And MiG-29s are inferior to more sophisticated Russian aircraft and could be easy prey for Russian pilots and Russian missiles.

A senior U.S. defense official has said Ukrainians are flying relatively few of their existing aircraft, for relatively little time, as it is. The defense official, who spoke on condition of anonymity to discuss the U.S. assessment, said it’s possible that Ukraine does not need more planes and would benefit most from more of the weapons it uses effectively every day, including anti-aircraft Stinger and anti-tank Javelin missiles.

The official also said that Russia currently has the capacity to reach almost the entire country of Ukraine with its surface-to-air missiles, including from within Russia and from ships in the Black Sea.

That resolves my risk v reward question. (btw -- AP found that source credible enough to quote)

imho -- "qame-changer" is the magic word. Those Migs are not throw away items. They're not just old airplanes sitting around waiting to be replaced. They are still front line interceptors & a critical part of NATO's integrated air defense at the most vulnerable part of NATO's E flank.
You'd be breaking up existing, effective front line squadrons with no assurance that the jets would ever get into the fight over Ukraine.

If we get drawn in, we do not yet have the necessary NATO & US air assets in place to effectively contest Ukraine's airspace, which would require suppressing air defense sites inside Russia. We do not currently have enough jets deployed to effectively defend NATO's E flank. We need to deploy more, asap, no matter the fate of those Migs.

Ukraine's Mig-29's & SU-27's are still effectively grounded because Russian S-400 air defense systems, just across the border in Belarus & Russia, cover all of Ukraine's airspace. US &/or NATO forces would be challenged to take them out, given the forces we have in range & the likely Russian missile counter attacks on the countries of any base from which they launched or whose airspace they transited.