I dont think NATO planes shooting down Russian missiles over Ukraine would be treated nicely by Putin.Shooting down missiles wouldn't trigger anything. Shooting down planes is a totally different ballgame
I dont think NATO planes shooting down Russian missiles over Ukraine would be treated nicely by Putin.Shooting down missiles wouldn't trigger anything. Shooting down planes is a totally different ballgame
NATO getting directly involved within Ukraine would probably still mean the same outcome thoughNato jets can easily shot down any incoming missiles without striking Russia.
Since the start of the war and the first big campaign of "no fly zone" over Ukraine - the problem that rose up wasn't about that, more like what if Russia manages to shoot down NATO aircrafts, what "our" answer has to be to that - not what would Russia do, if we shoot down theirs.I dont think NATO planes shooting down Russian missiles over Ukraine would be treated nicely by Putin.
Then start training and supplying these jets ASAP so that Ukrainians can do it by themselves. Why these are not on the table still?NATO getting directly involved within Ukraine would probably still mean the same outcome though
But Russia fires these missiles from Caspian sea, and not from temporarily occupied regions anyway. I’m talking about simply shielding the skies of major cities without getting anywhere near the frontlines. Russia will run out of missiles eventually, no?This is discussion is purely academical and practically a no-go.
For NATO planes to protect the airspace of Ukraine they'd need to fly over Ukraine. You can't shoot down missiles over Ukraine while your planes are flying over Poland/Czechia/Moldova. There won't be enough time to detect and react to the incoming missiles. The area of Ukraine is littered with Russian and Ukrainian air-defences. Air-defences can tell friend from foe, but they can't tell you the nationality of the foe. Therefore NATO planes, like Ukrainian planes will become an immediate target for Russian SAMs. In order to operate freely and safely, they'll need first to neutralise Russian air-defences.
(Note: This is what closing an airspace involves. Bombing. Neutralising hostile ground targets that can pose a threat to your air dominance.)
If NATO-operated planes start bombing Russian SAM sites in Ukraine, then all bets are off. It's direct conflict between NATO and Russia then, and it cannot really be spun any other way.
Problem is, that this would be quite obvious as NATO uses different planes than Ukraine. Although in generally I love the idea of striking Russia with their own tactics (Polands statement "somehow a bunch of T-72 disappeared from our storage" was brilliant stuff and the closest I'm aware of that NATO got to the little green men tactics).Also, you can always do the little green men tactics of Crimea and don’t have Nato badges on these jets.
But Russia fires these missiles from Caspian sea, and not from temporarily occupied regions anyway.
I’m talking about simply shielding the skies of major cities without getting anywhere near the frontlines. Russia will run out of missiles eventually, no?
Or the fecker was just drunk.I think it's more likely that the driver just couldn't see anything because too many people were sitting on the vehicle.
Air to air missiles uses either infrared or radar seekers to track their targets, neither of those systems would be able to tell the difference between a cruise missile and a fighter jet so picking and choosing what to shoot down isn't really an option.Shooting down missiles wouldn't trigger anything. Shooting down planes is a totally different ballgame
So WW3 then.
Sea drones stronkAbout the cruise missile attacks today: Russia fired 50 cruise missiles, 44 were intercepted, only 6 hit their targets.
Usually both the Black Sea Fleet and the Caspian Fleet were used to launch cruise missiles, but this time only the Caspian Fleet was active. This creates questions about the state of the Black Sea Fleet after the attack on Sevastopol a few days ago.
There's been some talk in here about alleged spying in Norway, with some arrests made. Drones and the like. I don't think much is known about those cases yet, but one person arrested in Svalbard is Andrey Yakunin, son of Vladimir Yakunin who has pretty close ties to Putin (Wiki link). https://www.vg.no/nyheter/utenriks/...-er-en-del-av-putins-absolutt-naermeste-krets
What the cases involving drones mean is hard to say, because with the sanctions it's illegal no matter how benign the filming is so it can be anything. In this specific instance it's also a bit more unclear about the legalities with Svalbard having some laws about discrimination based on nationality that may or may not be relevant here. More on that: https://www.nrk.no/tromsogfinnmark/angriper-droneforbudet_-_-bryter-mot-svalbardtraktaten-1.16145691
Both articles in Norwegian, so you'll have to use a translator if you're interested in details.
Yakunin released, decision appealed. Court says drones aren't covered by the sanctions.
https://www.vg.no/nyheter/innenriks/i/q1PprE/lagmannsretten-vil-loeslate-dronesiktede-andrej-jakunin
Who are Russia's allies? They're alone, hardly a world war.So WW3 then.
Easy. Ukraine is in the process to join NATO, assisting them before that formally happens wouldn't be an issue from my point of view.Playing slight devil's advocate here (and I understand the human desire to get involved and help, especially for the neighbouring countries of Ukraine) but how do people square a desire to see NATO (as opposed to individual countries helping with supplies etc ) get directly involved, by setting up a no-fly zone for instance, with the statement that NATO is a purely defensive alliance?
It's a good point. I certainly can see no sort of Article 5 claim here. Technically the US and UK could justify some form of intervention on their part on the basis of the Budapest Memorandum. It's not clear cut but is a half-usable international law justification.Playing slight devil's advocate here (and I understand the human desire to get involved and help, especially for the neighbouring countries of Ukraine) but how do people square a desire to see NATO (as opposed to individual countries helping with supplies etc ) get directly involved, by setting up a no-fly zone for instance, with the statement that NATO is a purely defensive alliance?
And before people come frothing at the mouth. Yes Putin is a scumbag and wrong. Yes I hope Ukraine win. Yes I don't mid supporting Ukraine. No I don't think NATO is a justification for this war etc etc etc.
Playing slight devil's advocate here (and I understand the human desire to get involved and help, especially for the neighbouring countries of Ukraine) but how do people square a desire to see NATO (as opposed to individual countries helping with supplies etc ) get directly involved, by setting up a no-fly zone for instance, with the statement that NATO is a purely defensive alliance?
And before people come frothing at the mouth. Yes Putin is a scumbag and wrong. Yes I hope Ukraine win. Yes I don't mid supporting Ukraine. No I don't think NATO is a justification for this war etc etc etc.
If you mean Operation Deny Flight, that was a NATO enforcement of a United Nations imposed no fly zone. And it didn’t mean shooting down Russian air craft in air to air combat.If civilians, neutrals and/or humanitarian forces are in danger, couldn't they use a reasoning similar to the one used in Yugoslavia in the 90s?
If civilians, neutrals and/or humanitarian forces are in danger, couldn't they use a reasoning similar to the one used in Yugoslavia in the 90s?
Kofman is pretty sober on Kherson being liberated in 2022.
Playing slight devil's advocate here (and I understand the human desire to get involved and help, especially for the neighbouring countries of Ukraine) but how do people square a desire to see NATO (as opposed to individual countries helping with supplies etc ) get directly involved, by setting up a no-fly zone for instance, with the statement that NATO is a purely defensive alliance?
And before people come frothing at the mouth. Yes Putin is a scumbag and wrong. Yes I hope Ukraine win. Yes I don't mid supporting Ukraine. No I don't think NATO is a justification for this war etc etc etc.
Playing slight devil's advocate here (and I understand the human desire to get involved and help, especially for the neighbouring countries of Ukraine) but how do people square a desire to see NATO (as opposed to individual countries helping with supplies etc ) get directly involved, by setting up a no-fly zone for instance, with the statement that NATO is a purely defensive alliance?
And before people come frothing at the mouth. Yes Putin is a scumbag and wrong. Yes I hope Ukraine win. Yes I don't mid supporting Ukraine. No I don't think NATO is a justification for this war etc etc etc.
No thanks, we already have one.Playing slight devil's advocate
Yes, Putin is a scumbag and wrong. And he is a thug. If tomorrow NATO announces that he has one week to leave Ukraine, including Crimea, or the NATO air force will decimate all Russian forces inside Ukraine, then he would leave Ukraine and there will be no nukes, no WW3, no nothing. That's what thugs do, they push as far as they can, till a bigger thug appears.
Of course, this is not going to happen because the West is full of faux "leaders". And that's the reason Putin started all this, he actually thought the West would do even less, but that old guy Biden surprised him by giving a lot of money and guns to Ukraine. If it was up to the EU only, the Ukrainians would be decimated. (And Zelenskyy, the comedian, was a huge surprise, too. )
The silver lining is that Ukrainians might win alone, which will give them immense pride going forward, and hopefully they will be able to establish a stable democracy like the other countries in Europe. Unfortunately, they have paid an extremely heavy price because the West did very little, very slowly.
As I said earlier, there will be no such thing as WW3 happening here. Of course, nukes will destroy the world. But that's different than WW3 happening over this war. No one is joining the losing side, so the west (whoever they are) will just make sure of the weakening of the Russian military in this war and Putin will be fighting this alone.
The only concern here is Putin launching nukes.
Kofman is the expert that said that Russia would be exhausted in 3 weeks?
I don't think any expert can predict what will happen in any degree
To be fair to him, his following posts qualify that statement a bit and he wasn't that far wrong. Russia was an exhausted force and abandoned its entire operation in the North not long later.
edit: It was actually 3 weeks almost to the day that they withdrew from Northern Ukraine![]()
Playing slight devil's advocate here (and I understand the human desire to get involved and help, especially for the neighbouring countries of Ukraine) but how do people square a desire to see NATO (as opposed to individual countries helping with supplies etc ) get directly involved, by setting up a no-fly zone for instance, with the statement that NATO is a purely defensive alliance?
And before people come frothing at the mouth. Yes Putin is a scumbag and wrong. Yes I hope Ukraine win. Yes I don't mid supporting Ukraine. No I don't think NATO is a justification for this war etc etc etc.