To be fair, despite the heroic acts of Ukrainians fighting for their own country, Ukraine as a country would not exist right now if not for an intense, ongoing infusion of primarily US weapons throughout the past 8 months. Even with extensive foreign support, the Russians still managed to get to the outskirts of Kyiv in March. Had they managed another 20km, the Capital and government would've fallen and the Russians would've ostensibly taken over all of Ukraine.
Russian invasion of Ukraine | Fewer tweets, more discussion
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To be fair, despite the heroic acts of Ukrainians fighting for their own country, Ukraine as a country would not exist right now if not for an intense, ongoing infusion of primarily US weapons throughout the past 8 months. Even with extensive foreign support, the Russians still managed to get to the outskirts of Kyiv in March. Had they managed another 20km, the Capital and government would've fallen and the Russians would've ostensibly taken over all of Ukraine.
I think winter favors Ukrainian advances. Russian troops in Ukraine are already bogged down with a lack of weapons, morale, and logistics. Throwing snowy weather into the mix will only expedite their demise. The Ukrainians in the meantime, will continue to have the luxury of endless weapons and materiel from outside sources and are already experts at the terrain given that its their country.
1. NATO is openly supporting Ukraine and provides intelligence, money, material and everything else Ukraine needs to win this war. The NATO countries have repeatedly said so in public, it is not a secret. Russia is the aggressor, we (NATO) are helping the victim (Ukraine), and the goal is to liberate all Ukraine from Russian occupation.
2. NATO is not directly taking part in this war. For example, there are no NATO planes with NATO pilots bombing the Russians, USAF is not using F-35s to bomb the Russians. That's a different thing. Ukrainians are doing the actual fighting (and a few volunteers from all over the world).
I don't know why it is so hard to understand this, it is not complicated. These are two separate things. NATO is not neutral, but is not directly taking part in this war.
Of course, the propagandists in Russian TV keep saying that Russia is fighting NATO. But everyone knows that if the USAF used its force the fighting would be over long time ago. The Russians can barely match the Ukrainians, they'd easily lose to a NATO air force with modern F-16s, F-35s, etc.
(And yes, USA has implied that if the Russians use WMDs against Ukraine, then NATO will directly fight the Russians. This is also an option. )
I don’t know what I wrote that necessitated this response. I’m a little confused.
NATO Rivet Joints and AWACS usually based in their respective country and US Global Hawks based in Syracuse Italy have been visible flying reconnaissance missions over the Black Sea since the invasion started.
Some of the time NATO aerial refueling planes providing them with fuel are also visible circling over eastern Romania.
I don't think UK have any reconnaissance aircrafts based in Romania. These planes are very high value targets and I don't think they would risk having them that close to a potential enemy while on the ground.
Why do you believe this? A lend lease is literally lending in the form of a loan. The Lend Lease the US gave to Britain was only paid off a couple of years ago. The Lend Lease Britain had was prior to when big money got out of hand in US Politics. I imagine Ukraine will have a similar arrangement where the loan is paid back over 80 or more years, perhaps with some payment holidays for 5 years or so in order for them to rebuild.
From Ukraine's perspective it will happily agree to pay such loans with favourable payment arrangements back on a manageable basis in order to survive as an independent nation.
US politics is primarily about protecting big business interests. The military industrial complex is a huge sector of the economy and a massive part of the US budget. This war allows them to spend even more into the military industrial complex, who in turn are big donors to all of the politicians. But any fiscally responsible US government isn't going to want to give away it's taxpayers money away for free. They will get their money back, even if it's financed over a century.
Perhaps there are also other deals on the table that offset the borrowing. Such as Ukraine bringing in US oil and gas companies to help extract it's very valuable resources.
Nothing "necessitated" the response. But you said something that I see mentioned from time to time, both here and in other media. And this triggered my response.
You said: "because of course they’re neutral".
But clearly, NATO is not neutral. And NATO is not directly participating in this war, either. It is not just you, many commentators seem to want to confuse these two things and imply that since we are not neutral, we are direct participants. No, we are not direct participants, these two are two different things.
I think you missed my humor. I tried to make it obvious with the “sarcastic wink” mention.
They don't have any money and won't anytime soon. Any funds they do accrue will be needed to rebuild the country. We're talking hundreds of billions here. The US has zero interest in charging the Ukrainians for aid it gives away for free to other countries every year. This is viewed as a geopolitical emergency where western involvement isn't optional in terms of stopping Putin.
Biden has already requested 33billion of aid to Ukraine. That is free money, support, and weapons the Ukrainians are getting (all of which is separate from the bill we are discussing, which is mainly a way to expedite agreements with countries to support Ukraine).
This is beneath you.
I think you missed my humor. I tried to make it obvious with the “sarcastic wink” mention.
Yes, I missed your humor. I did see the "sarcastic wink" but I don't see why it is funny. Who says we are neutral?
Yes, you are right, Britain was paying till 2006. But the real question is, how much was it paying? In 2006, Britain paid 43 million, which is a miniscule amount for both Britain and for USA. Yes, Britain was "repaying the loan for 60 years", but actually it was a gift from USA to Britain.
https://www.nytimes.com/2006/12/28/business/worldbusiness/28iht-nazi.4042453.html
"The loan, the equivalent of £119 billion in today's money, was double the size of the British economy at the time. Today it's a tiny fraction of Britain's £550 billion debt burden"
Your gonna struggle to get your weapons used without willing Ukrainians at the trigger end.
The cynic in me says they're waiting til they're out to destroy.
So Ukraine is having scheduled blackouts now, severe damage to energy infrastructure done by the barrage of missiles and drones in the last week or so (I would guess more damage than we know) and I think it will get much much worse as winter approaches. Those Iranian drones are very cheap, shooting them down costs a lot more and Russia can just keep sending them in for quite some time. Is there even any cost effective way to defend against it? Surely using Iris or NASAMS is a complete waste?
Sabotage the factory that makes them?
That could work, at least temporarily.
Time for Ukraine to start bombing Russian cities. This time will come in my opinion, it's just a question of when.
Considering its historical value since the days of the Tsars, Sevastopol is the big juicy target to strike first if Ukraine wants to send a strong message.
Just no.
Why is the official Ukraine governmental account tweeting memes about British politics? This is so dumb.
They are big fans of him over there, the same way Israelis are fans of Trump.
They love Boris. One of the few things he did right was not dilly dally around the Russian issue and be very outspoken in his support. In reality I think it just shows we still have a world class intelligence service and he was just aware of what was coming versus the Macron’s of the world.
Wasn't the intelligence mainly from US sources ?
Boris represented a Tory Party massively compromised by the Russian state, and I wonder whether he would have been bothered if he wasn't under pressure at home. I don't blame Ukraine for doing anything possible to survive this Russian genocide. It just grates. There is political unity in the UK - even if Labour got in I don't see the level of assistance changing. In fact I would bet Labour would do more to avoid being seen as soft on defence.
It was generally referred to as both by the media. Not sure there’s too much difference when it comes to intelligence on Russia specially as undoubtedly there’ll be huge amounts of information sharing.
I don't know about that. Raoul is posting from a nation who elected Donald Trump, so this seems pretty on brand.
That's not fair. He's also from the nation who might elect Donald Trump again.
Please don't do that to him
I didn't feel offended by him posting that, there is no reason to make fun of him that way