One thing I’ve missed in the discussion of sending F-16s is the role they’ll play.
From what I’ve seen, Russia still has significant air defense capabilities, and they launch air fired weapons from deep in their own territory. So, if the F-16s can’t get too far upfield, due to defenses, and there isn’t much they can do in air-to-air combat, what advantage do they have over longer range artillery?
“Western fighters with stand-off weapons would offer Ukraine an improved capability to destroy fixed Russian targets near the frontlines from a safer distance,” he tweeted, but “they would be adding to existing strike options like Himars [rocket artillery] and drawing from limited stockpiles”.
https://www.theguardian.com/world/2023/feb/01/how-would-f-16-fighter-jets-aid-ukraine-against-russia
Thanks.That’s kinda what I thought, but assumed I was missing something with the amount of attention the transfer of this one weapon platform has received. I guess it’s also symbolic of the level of commitment by NATO, since it’s not just a few planes, but also ammo plus training plus support framework.
I’m glad we’re not just throwing ammo at the situation and wishing Ukraine the best of luck, though I do wish we were doing more.
Such great news and if the numbers are correct, a decent number of jets.
It’s a great start though from checking Wikipedia earlier it looks like Ukraine will still be heavily outnumbered so hopefully more keep coming. At a minimum it’s going to significantly contribute to leveling the playing field.
Air superiority would be fantastic and I hope it’s what they get in the medium term.
Is there a consensus on why this war is happening?
I know it’s important to be vigilant against that form of uncritical-thinking-masquerading-as-unbiased-thinking, but please also consider that it’s hard to tell it apart from genuine interest and seeking to understand, especially in an online context. I don’t know the solution per se, because we have such limited views into each others’ worlds through text / social media. But I do know that if people can’t ask questions in one place, they will go elsewhere to find their answers.
But I do know that if people can’t ask questions in one place, they will go elsewhere to find their answers.
And if they truly wanted an unbiased, fact based summary of the reasons they really should go elsewhere like say a reputable neutral news agency. Around here the ‘reasons’ russia invaded Ukraine are unimportant. What are important are things like ‘how many innocent civilians were unjustly killed by at best careless russian attacks yesterday?’, ‘how is the fight to repel the unjustified invaders progressing’ and so on.
Wanting fresh water access and a naval base are no excuse for war crimes and disrespecting other nation’s sovereignty and it is disingenuous to come here and start talking like it is.
People killed people, then people killed more people, but then people promised to kill more people in the future. So war.
Russia invaded Ukraine in 2014, then escalated this into a full scale war in 2022.
I feel like I’m trapped inside a propaganda machine where the answers to all questions are “Putin is evil and the dumbest person on earth”
Like most things the true reason is far more complicated than what those simplified narratives often say. Unfortunately they make good headlines.
Nobody who can to speak publicly knows for sure whether or not Putin alone chose to start the war and exactly what the reasons where. But if you look more broadly than just 24th February 2022 the reasons go beyond just Putin. Even without Putin, Russia (the country not the people) had reasons (horrible as they are) to escalate tensions with Ukraine prior to 2022, it had reasons to start the war, and even today it has reasons to keep the war going. In the West, and in Russia, Putin is the personification of the choices Russia makes. But Russia itself would have reasons even without him.
Those reasons are many, and I wouldn’t do them justice to talk about the various theories. But one in particular that I feel isn’t talked about enough is the Sevastopol Naval base. Crimea, and it’s naval base was the centre of Soviet and now Russian control over the Black Sea. Prior to 2014 Russia was leasing the base from Ukraine, so it has essentially been under control of Moscow continuously since the Soviet era. The 2014 revolution in Ukraine posed a threat to that continuing. Russia’s rather extreme solution to that was to anex Crimea. If you look at from Russia’s perspective they were put in quite a tough situation and they tried to make the best they could from the hand they were delt. Most people would probably disagree with the use of “best” in that sentence, but from Russia’s perspective it was the right choice.
Since 2014, Crimea has been problematic to Russia for various reasons, in particular due to needing an outside source of fresh water, and needing the very expensive new Kerch bridge to connect it to Russia. One of the apparent benefits of the full scale invasion in 2023 was to supply Crimea with water from the Nova Khakovka dam via a canal, and connect Crimea to Russia via land from the North. The reality of the war so far hasn’t actually been a net win for either of those things. And recently Russia has been forced to move a lot of their fleet out of the Sevastopol Naval base due to Ukrainian attacks. But presumably Russia is looking long term and continues to hope for a good outcome eventually.
Looking to the future, both sides think they can outlast the other’s will to continue and hope to eventually force the other side to back down. Russia’s end game now seems to be some form of negotiation or ceasefire where they are able to retain as much of what they have grabbed onto as possible. Ukraine’s endgame that they have stated publicly is to remove Russia entirely from their land. But there is also the hope of being truly free from Russian influence for the first time in centuries. Ukraine hopes to come out of this war with a strong military to deter any further Russian aggression indefinitely. And possibly also NATO membership.
Russia hopes that eventually the political will for Ukraine to continue fighting for that aim, and the West’s will to support it will dry up. They also hope that if they keep the conflict going indefinitely at a small scale, or if they hang onto some territory, then Ukraine will never be able to join NATO.
Ukraine knows that if things continue as they have for the last year they will eventually win. The open question is how long is eventually, and will it be too long.
Unfortunately this means enormous loss of life on both sides for the foreseeable future. Likely 1-2 more years minimum and hundreds of thousands more dead.
Can you show me in the above post where either of those statements were made?
any estimates on when the crews and infrastructure will be combat ready?
A Danish military expert mentioned that an estimated timeline would look like 6-8 months depending on conditions. Weather in Denmark isn’t known to be favorable, especially during autumn and winter, which might add to the timeline with lost flying days and Ukrainian pilots might arrive with more know-how than estimated making it possible skip some flying lessons.
Best not get too hung up on timetables, or think about it in terms of the current battlefield situation or the counteroffensive. This is a long term project to transform Ukraine’s Air Force into the future, where they’re using Western equipment.
We may see the first F-16s next year, but this transformation will take many years.
Good. They should receive everything they need.
Wars are just not fought that way, and to think that somehow ukraine has the ability to create a safe maintenance infrastructure in mid war is ridiculous. They can’t even do that with leopard tanks. They have to haul this stuff back to germany/poland for repair.
Didn’t say that. I think it’s reasonable to assume that the military with the most experience in these weapons systems know what they’re doing. They don’t even have capable runways for F16s yet
