Current Affairs Ukraine

[davids]

Did we move the borders? There's a difference between regime change and forcibly redrawing the lines on the map.

Now, if you want to argue that policies of regime change by force don't work, I would agree that the track record isn't great. For every Guatemala we successfully knock over with relative ease, there's an Afghanistan where the intervention doesn't work out so well. Even in the case of Guatemala, the results were civil war, atrocities by US-backed government and general hatred of the US all across Latin America.

Doubt borders matter much to the Iraqis Afghanis and Libyan civilians who died?

 

[Martin Alvito]

Doubt borders matter much to the Iraqis Afghanis and Libyan civilians who died?

Can you explain how this matters to the original point with respect to normalizing wars of territorial aggression?

It doesn't. It's just whataboutery, and a poor job considering that Putin has been up to his eyeballs in the events in Syria.

 

[bluestevon]

Did we move the borders? There's a difference between regime change and forcibly redrawing the lines on the map.

Now, if you want to argue that policies of regime change by force don't work, I would agree that the track record isn't great. For every Guatemala we successfully knock over with relative ease, there's an Afghanistan where the intervention doesn't work out so well. Even in the case of Guatemala, the results were civil war, atrocities by US-backed government and general hatred of the US all across Latin America.

Bringing it back onto topic, a policy of regime change in 2014 started this whole cascade of events

 

[Martin Alvito]

Bringing it back onto topic, a policy of regime change in 2014 started this whole cascade of events

That wasn't forcible. Now, I have a lot of nasty things to say about Hillary Clinton and her policy of regime change by other means. I said them at the time, and nothing since has altered my opinion on the matter. It speaks volumes about Ukraine's perceived importance that McCain and presumably Kerry were on board with the whole thing.

 

[Tennessee Blue Mike]

Bringing it back onto topic, a policy of regime change in 2014 started this whole cascade of events

You are talking about the "Putin Puppet" perhaps.

Yanukovych Said To Be Putin Puppet - Guardian Liberty Voice

According to CNN, Viktor Yanukovych is said to be a puppet of Moscow President Vladimir Putin. An opinion piece written by Jill Dougherty, a former Moscow

guardianlv.com

 

[Martin Alvito]

You are talking about the "Putin Puppet" perhaps.

Yanukovych Said To Be Putin Puppet - Guardian Liberty Voice

According to CNN, Viktor Yanukovych is said to be a puppet of Moscow President Vladimir Putin. An opinion piece written by Jill Dougherty, a former Moscow

guardianlv.com

That would be the guy. The charge is that he was elected fair-and-square in a passably free election, as countries without deep institutional democracies go, and then was removed contrary to constitutional provisions. This is a legitimate charge.

It doesn't follow that a subsequent invasion and violation of Ukraine's constitution via a self-determination referendum not provided for in the constitution is the solution, in 2014 or in 2022.

 

[PhilM]

Sorry for my confusion but I’m still not clear why Russia don’t have anything close to air superiority throughout this campaign - any articles that you can recall that explain the backstory on what happened or is it the same story of corruption/overestimation of capability/ lack of training/maintenance ?

I'm far from an expert on that (air force) side of the military, but my limited understanding is it's a toxic combination of all the above.

The Russians have certainly underestimated the Ukrainian capabilities (MANPADS and SAMS), as I suspect they believed they'd win superiority very quickly.

They didn't concentrate enough forces at the outset of combat to neutralising Ukrainian air defences, but the reasons behind this isn't overly clear.

Did they use enough precision guided munitions to attack radar, command and control and air defences? Or is the issue that they didn't have enough PGMs?

Combined with an overestimation of their capabilities, they've been given more than a bloody nose by being forced to fly risky CAS missions using dumb bombs.

They're not trained for this, their aircraft don't appear to be of the quality some expected, and available aircraft isn't great, so here is where we are.

I think they've realised that they'd have to commit a lot of aircraft that they can't afford to lose, so it's been scaled back. Counter-measures will play a part too.

I did read a good article about it a few weeks ago which will explain it far more suitably than I may, so I'll try and root it out.

 

[LinekersLegs]

I'm far from an expert on that (air force) side of the military, but my limited understanding is it's a toxic combination of all the above.

The Russians have certainly underestimated the Ukrainian capabilities (MANPADS and SAMS), as I suspect they believed they'd win superiority very quickly.

They didn't concentrate enough forces at the outset of combat to neutralising Ukrainian air defences, but the reasons behind this isn't overly clear.

Did they use enough precision guided munitions to attack radar, command and control and air defences? Or is the issue that they didn't have enough PGMs?

Combined with an overestimation of their capabilities, they've been given more than a bloody nose by being forced to fly risky CAS missions using dumb bombs.

They're not trained for this, their aircraft don't appear to be of the quality some expected, and available aircraft isn't great, so here is where we are.

I think they've realised that they'd have to commit a lot of aircraft that they can't afford to lose, so it's been scaled back. Counter-measures will play a part too.

I did read a good article about it a few weeks ago which will explain it far more suitably than I may, so I'll try and root it out.

Thanks!

 

[Mutzo Nutzo]

I'm far from an expert on that (air force) side of the military, but my limited understanding is it's a toxic combination of all the above.

The Russians have certainly underestimated the Ukrainian capabilities (MANPADS and SAMS), as I suspect they believed they'd win superiority very quickly.

They didn't concentrate enough forces at the outset of combat to neutralising Ukrainian air defences, but the reasons behind this isn't overly clear.

Did they use enough precision guided munitions to attack radar, command and control and air defences? Or is the issue that they didn't have enough PGMs?

Combined with an overestimation of their capabilities, they've been given more than a bloody nose by being forced to fly risky CAS missions using dumb bombs.

They're not trained for this, their aircraft don't appear to be of the quality some expected, and available aircraft isn't great, so here is where we are.

I think they've realised that they'd have to commit a lot of aircraft that they can't afford to lose, so it's been scaled back. Counter-measures will play a part too.

I did read a good article about it a few weeks ago which will explain it far more suitably than I may, so I'll try and root it out.

Fully agree with this. Just like to add EW into the mix. There is a massive amount of jamming in use by both sides (comms and GPS). This also has a big part to play in Russias inability to obtain air superiority, let alone air supremacy

 

[PhilM]

 

[bluestevon]

You are talking about the "Putin Puppet" perhaps.

Yanukovych Said To Be Putin Puppet - Guardian Liberty Voice

According to CNN, Viktor Yanukovych is said to be a puppet of Moscow President Vladimir Putin. An opinion piece written by Jill Dougherty, a former Moscow

guardianlv.com

Every independent election watchdog verified the election he won was legitimate mate.

The problem came when he was close to agreeing a deal with the EU and last minute Russia offered a far better deal and he accepted, after that basically he was a dead man walking as the US wanted him gone.

 

[bluestevon]

That would be the guy. The charge is that he was elected fair-and-square in a passably free election, as countries without deep institutional democracies go, and then was removed contrary to constitutional provisions. This is a legitimate charge.

It doesn't follow that a subsequent invasion and violation of Ukraine's constitution via a self-determination referendum not provided for in the constitution is the solution, in 2014 or in 2022.

That's the thing though mate, when you remove someone against the constitution, then a reaction which breaches the constitution can hardly be cried about by the same people who've just violated it. Not sure how known it is the divide in Ukraine in 2014 between voting - and how a coup would cause that massive divisionbto boil over.

 

[Tennessee Blue Mike]

Every independent election watchdog verified the election he won was legitimate mate.

The problem came when he was close to agreeing a deal with the EU and last minute Russia offered a far better deal and he accepted, after that basically he was a dead man walking as the US wanted him gone.

I didn't realize the US had that much power. Rocket boy must be quaking in his boots in North Korea then?

 

[Martin Alvito]

That's the thing though mate, when you remove someone against the constitution, then a reaction which breaches the constitution can hardly be cried about by the same people who've just violated it. Not sure how known it is the divide in Ukraine in 2014 between voting - and how a coup would cause that massive divisionbto boil over.

I would be careful with the "coup" word considering that Yanukovich was removed by the elected parliament during a period of significant civil disorder. What they didn't do was follow procedure, which would have taken time no one felt they had under the circumstances. It's clear enough that they would have had the votes for removal.

That said, I would also say that the whole thing had Hillary's thumbprints all over it dating back to years prior. If you ask me, the Arab Spring was a low-stakes dry run for what she wanted to do to Putin's foremost allies under the banner of democracy promotion.

 

[Spadge Vernacular]