Russian Ukraine shenanigans

[HU&W]

Significant discussion on twitter and Reddit about the Ghost of Kyiv.  Ukrainian pilot with potentially 6 kills today.  

[Sua Sponte]

[Smokin]

For what it's worth, Russia has actually been invaded comparatively few times compared to most European countries in the last 400 years.  While understanding their thought process is important, it is equally important to not to develop Stockholm syndrome and excuse their attack today because Napoleon invaded them back in the 1800s.

[Prozac]

3 hours ago, Tank said:

You do realize you’re spreading your adversary’s propaganda for him here, don’t you? You don’t have to elevate a despot in order to voice your political displeasure. 

[hockeydork]

20 minutes ago, Clark Griswold said:

Post was updated An-225 not destroyed

Legit question, why would they not have flown it out of there? They really just thought this was all a bluff I guess? It's just a hunk of metal, but hope she makes it unscathed. 

[ClearedHot]

17 minutes ago, Prozac said:

You do realize you’re spreading your adversary’s propaganda for him here, don’t you? You don’t have to elevate a despot in order to voice your political displeasure. 

Posting a cartoon by Gary Varvel, an American cartoonist at the Indianapolis Star cartoonist for 24 years who was inducted into the Indiana Journalism Hall of Fame and won the Robert F. Kennedy Journalism Award is posting propaganda?  UFB.

Time to invoke martial law, suspend the first amendment and post nothing but support for our dear leader. 

[Mighty]

10 hours ago, hockeydork said:

How many Americans wake up everyday and say man, I'd really like to go kill some Russians and take their shit/land right now?

 

 

[Prozac]

4 minutes ago, ClearedHot said:

Posting a cartoon by Gary Varvel, an American cartoonist at the Indianapolis Star cartoonist for 24 years who was inducted into the Indiana Journalism Hall of Fame and won the Robert F. Kennedy Journalism Award is posting propaganda?  UFB.

Time to invoke martial law, suspend the first amendment and post nothing but support for our dear leader. 

Doesn’t have to come from Russia to act as effective propaganda. I find it to be in extremely poor taste at best, and borderline treasonous at worst. You’re free to criticize our president all you want. Some of those criticisms are probably valid. Making Putin out to be some sort of genius is something I expect to see on RT, not BODN. 

[hockeydork]

9 minutes ago, FormerPilotCandidate said:

 

Well after the past two days, yea lol. 

[ClearedHot]

2 minutes ago, Prozac said:

Doesn’t have to come from Russia to act as effective propaganda. I find it to be in extremely poor taste at best, and borderline treasonous at worst. You’re free to criticize our president all you want. Some of those criticisms are probably valid. Making Putin out to be some sort of genius is something I expect to see on RT, not BODN. 

Treasonous to make fun of Biden...the lunacy knows no boundaries.  You'd like Moscow right now as they arrest all those treasonous folks protesting the war.

That cartoon doesn't say Putin is a genius, it says Biden is a dope...Putin is playing chess in a chess match, Biden is playing checkers. 

[Clark Griswold]

Legit question, why would they not have flown it out of there? They really just thought this was all a bluff I guess? It's just a hunk of metal, but hope she makes it unscathed. 

I don’t know and when I saw it i wondered the same thing, maybe crew was getting ready for their own personal plans when the shit hit the fan or ordered to duty, might be truly unairworthy, fuel directed to fighters, etc…


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[Sim]

So it's a day two of Soviet Russian campaign and it seems way too quite.  No air strikes. No TBMs.  Day one seemed like a very weak sauce too.  What is going on?

[hockeydork]

Something just got blown out of the sky: 

 

see below link previously given.

https://twitter.com/ELINTNews

Edited February 25, 2022 by hockeydork
hoping it was russian

[Prozac]

19 minutes ago, Sim said:

So it's a day two of Soviet Russian campaign and it seems way too quite.  No air strikes. No TBMs.  Day one seemed like a very weak sauce too.  What is going on?

Russians thought they were going to waltz in unopposed. 

[DVT]

14 hours ago, FLEA said:

Here are some interesting things I've picked up working heavily in NATO/Europe. Really opened my aperture for how I see the world. 

1.) Europeans do not see the US as the winners of WW2. They believe WW2 was largely won by the time the US entered and US entry just accelerated the end. They view the war through the cost paid to attain victory and the majority of those costs were paid by the UK and the Soviet Union, especially the Soviet Union. They do recognize that the US was in a prime position to delineate peace outcomes though; see our earlier conversation about world leadership. 

2.) Russia and many FSUs don't believe Russia lost the Cold War. They believe the Cold War ended mutually after Gorbachev initiated a series of actions to approach Bush about de-escalation because Gorbachev realized the Cold War was upsetting the global order. They literally cast their own leader as the hero, and see the entire affair as a draw. The US and NATO betrayed these outcomes when they began rapidly expanding NATO eastward despite promises they would not. 

3.) About half of senior German officers in the German armed forces were East German officers when they joined. They usually came from astute, pro party families to attain this position and as such they largely see the world through Russia's lens and not ours. They are larger dissenters in most situations than other FSUs, who's entry into NATO was under different circumstances. 

4.) There are LOTS of people in the world who DO NOT WANT to live in a democracy. This is really hard for us to grasp as it's such a central value to us we can't see how anyone wouldn't want it. But you have to imagine first, how they are educated, then second, think for a minute: when they turn on American cable news, what do they see? BLM protest burning cars, rioting, looting stores. The January 6th riots taking over the US capital. Extremely unpopular leaders like Trump and Biden winning elections. Thats how they see Democracy, and they legitimately believe Democratic states are filled with political unrest, violence and instability. They believe a strong authoritarian government is necessary to enforce rule of law. 

5.) The Cold War has been over almost as long as the Cold War lasted now yet we still continue to frame our foreign policy through it's echos. 

One thing I have difficulty explaining to civilian family and friends is the geopolitical nuance in war and how it's never clearly black or white but usually lots of grey. But people want easy answers because they want to know "who to support, who's the good guys?" Of course it's never clearly simple and in war good guys are rare. Good sides are rarer because states by nature do not have morality, just interests. That's something our US education system doesn't teach in enough depth for people to really comprehend the underlying levels of it. 

On another note, Tulsi Gabbard made a tweet today that she believes war could have possibly been avoided if the US agreed to address Russia's concerns about Ukrainian entry into NATO. This tweet was largely condemned by pundits which I think is a shame because I think she is right. Historically it's been European tyrants invading Russia. Not Russian tyrants invading Europe. And until we recognize that Russia doesn't want another Hittler or Napolean getting within 60nm of Moscow we probably are going to struggle to understand their interests and foreign policy position. 

At the beginning of your usual self-projecting far left post your forgot to add.

 

"From the viewpoint of a very left leaning US Citizen, who worked with Europeans, I internalized the following without any discussion with others."

Honestly, I could have written your post for you after reading your prior enlightening comments over the past several years.

Tip of the cap to the guys that served at Snake Island.

Edited February 25, 2022 by DVT

[Prozac]

12 minutes ago, DVT said:

At the beginning of your usual self-projecting far left post your forgot to add.

 

"From the viewpoint of a very left leaning US Citizen, who worked with Europeans, I internalized the following without any discussion with others."

Honestly, I could have written your post for you after reading your prior enlightening comments over the past several years.

Tip of the cap to the guys that served at Snake Island.

His post didn’t seem remotely left leaning to me. I’m further left than most here and I disagreed with a lot of it. People’s views are generally far more nuanced than “left” or “right” especially on a topic like the one we’re discussing here. 

[kaputt]

So is the Ukrainian dude with 6 kills legit? 
 

I really want it to be legit. 

[herkbier]

40 minutes ago, Sim said:

So it's a day two of Soviet Russian campaign and it seems way too quite.  No air strikes. No TBMs.  Day one seemed like a very weak sauce too.  What is going on?

All I’ve got to go on is open source intel; from that information I sorta agree. It makes me wonder if our intel on Russian (and probably Chinese) capes are a bit over optimistic. They might have some neat toys, but if the motivation and training isn’t there.. who knows. I really hope our intel community is able to capture all the trons from this war and do some good analysis.

[DVT]

15 minutes ago, herkbier said:

All I’ve got to go on is open source intel; from that information I sorta agree. It makes me wonder if our intel on Russian (and probably Chinese) capes are a bit over optimistic. They might have some neat toys, but if the motivation and training isn’t there.. who knows. I really hope our intel community is able to capture all the trons from this war and do some good analysis.

There should not be a second of what's going on that isn't being captured for intel purposes.  Interesting that the AF just flew an E-8 to the desert.  Meanwhile the Army is flying the wings off their Artemis jet.

[Pooter]

6 hours ago, Tank said:

If only we had trump back he'd be playing 4d chess. 
 

And by 4d chess I mean being such an egotistical, erratic lunatic that he'd likely get roped into this pissing contest and we'd have Afghanistan 2: electric boogaloo, with near peer threat systems. 

[fire4effect]

1 hour ago, kaputt said:

So is the Ukrainian dude with 6 kills legit? 
 

I really want it to be legit. 

Hired by a contractor for 300k a year for Red Flag 

[Lawman]

Hired by a contractor for 300k a year for Red Flag 

Buys no drinks at any bar full of pilots….


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[arg]

Two day old stuff but I like this guy.

 

[Bigred]

10 hours ago, ClearedHot said:

Several Russian KA-52 Alligators Shot Down

 

KA-50 or 52. Only production helos with an ejection seat. I always wondered how it'd work in real life, and the idea of flying around with explosive bolts attached to the rotor head is wild. 

[Sua Sponte]

https://www.thedrive.com/the-war-zone/44446/russian-forces-have-captured-the-worlds-biggest-cargo-jet-in-ukraine