3486

Probably wants the Kazakhstan troops to use against his own people if they cause trouble.

3487

We will, thankfully, never know what would have happened in a full-on NATO/WP clash. The possible reasons for such a war though include things like miscalculation, accident, internal Soviet politics, and of course outright land grabbing. If such a conflict had come about due to a determined attempt to seize the resources, wealth, and territory of Germany for instance, nuclear attacks would be very unlikely as an initial strategy. OTOH, yeah, everyone assumed that if things went really belly up for either side all bets would be off.

I do agree that it isn’t really feasible to have any sort of outside direct intervention without expanding the framework to include actions that would inevitably target assets and installations within Russia itself. I also think though that clandestine, or plausibly deniable, indirect help is a much more reasonable option.

3488

I just can’t imagine watching munitions flying past my window. This doesn’t even look that far away.

3489

If this was an air assault drop then there’s a good chance those planes were full of paratroopers.

3490

Or if the logistics issues have truth to them then they may simply be limited in how much they can send across the border.

3491

image

3492

The NBC news bit on Kazakhstan, first, getting a request for troops, then refusing it, and additionally announcing that they do not recognize the DPR and LPR, seems to just a short live update with no primary source linked. I can’t seem to find one yet. Not that I totally doubt the journalistic integrity of NBC or any thing I just like to see the actual statement.

Anyway, Borat jokes aside, that would be kind of huge in a geopolitical sense. Putin is causing exactly the thing he’s worried about. Losing control of what he views as his sphere of control. All we need now is an announcement in the morning that Sweden and Finland are joining NATO.

There’s also the huge implications of the notion that Putin has requested troops from a satellite nation.

3493

Finland should go all in… (/am half Finnish)

3494

I’m hoping that someone will use the hitler in the bunker meme with some updating for putin. Seems like he’s all alone with the walls closing in, internationally at least.

3495

Putin addressing a group of oligarchs. Doesn’t strike the normal confident pose in this brief video:

3496

As I’ve pointed out Lt.Col Adam Kinzinger is a pilot, and is on the foreign affairs committee for Europe. So he probably has access to classified information that neither you nor I possess. So at least one pilot disagrees with your assessment.

My biggest problem with this administration is their lack of imagination and willingness to use deception.

Is it potentially dangerous? hell ya. Did the USSR risk retaliation and possibly nuclear.war, having Russian airman fly MIGs and man SAM sites during Vietnam war, yes? Did they get away with it? Yes they did.

But there are dozens of steps between talking about a no fly zone and implementing one.

  1. Biden announce that hundreds not tens of planes will be transferred from CONUS to bases on the Ukrainian border.
  2. Leak stories about the administration considering activating all fighter Air National Guard, and US Naval Reserve squadrons
  3. More leaked stories about NATO having discussion of a no fly zones.
  4. Jen Psaki reiterates that no US Army soldier or Marines will be deployed in Ukraine. Opening up the possibility that special forces, and airplanes will be sent
  5. Lots of stories of hundreds of US and UK airplanes arriving in Poland and Rumania
  6. Several Air National Guard squadron are actived.
  7. More stories about NATO close to agreement on no-fly, No-comment from official sources.

Now imagine you are the Russian general outside Kyiv. We know from WWII to what they’ve done in Syria, that Russian doctrine for attacking a urban center is to use artillery and air strikes to pound the shit of an area before assaulting. But now you face the prospect of suddenly losing air superiority over the battlespace. Suddenly an attack tomorrow seems a lot wiser than a week worth of artillery bombard.

We need to get into Putin and his general heads. What’s the downside of talking about no-flying zone. other than pissing off Putin?

3497

Between Macron saying that wasn’t the same Putin he’s talked to before and Rubio’s tweet about his state, I wonder if Putin has had a breakdown or a terminal diagnosis.

3498

To compare here’s a video of his “security council” meeting that I googled up.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gJIowCeNPds

I want to believe, but honestly, his body language all isn’t that different. Granted that might be because he’s tired now and he was just kind bored and going through the motions then.

(In response to the video of his recent oligarch meeting)

3499

I was thinking about this same thing earlier. If Putin has gone full tonto, why not go full honcho? (rhetorical question)

3500

Not sure if mentioned here.

The former president of Ukraine Petro Poroshenko has taken up arms in the streets of Kyiv against Russian forces.

3501

I think it has, but I don’t think anyone is upset about reposts in this fast moving thread. These are the things that demonstrate to me that Ukraine won’t give up any time soon.

3502

The problem is we have a lot of people who are not at all well versed in military issues thinking this is actually a thing we should do. The US population is notoriously poorly versed on military matters, even a lot of the journalist aren’t well versed — a lot, for example, don’t seem to understand the difference between a tank and an IFV.

We don’t want a whole bunch of well meaning but poorly informed people running around pushing the Biden administration into doing something they just can’t do. That makes the Biden administration look like they are weak and unresponsive.

If you look around Twitter it is absolutely chock full of people wanting to know why Biden and NATO have not declared a no fly zone and who view this as a huge failure on our part.

Then there are a bunch of experts having to waste time and energy trying to explain why this is not going to happen. Having people think this might happen or is a good idea and then have it not happen is bad politically and not good for morale in either Ukraine or the world in general. I’ve seen a lot of people in Ukraine asking why we haven’t created a no fly zone for them. The answer is we don’t want to kick-off World War 3. It’s unfortunate but it really is that simple. We don’t want Ukraine to get their hopes up and then not deliver. And we can’t deliver without risking kicking of WW3.

People who are asking for a no fly zone need to be very clear that they are asking for the US to go to war with Russia. As it is, the US population (along with a large part of the rest of the world) thinks we can just magically setup a no fly zone without having a severe risk of our pilots being shot down by advanced anti-air systems which are situated on Russian soil and without actually having to shoot down Russian aircraft — this is just completely false. The vast majority of people asking for a no-fly zone (and again, if you poke around Twitter, there are huge numbers of people saying this is what we should do) have no idea what the costs and potential for escalation is.

Former Commanding General US Army Europe:

Former Professor US Naval War College (he recently stepped down after over 20+ years there)

John Hopkins Strategic Studies Professor

Fellow — West Point War Institute

https://twitter.com/emmamashford/status/1497219826686648331?s=21

Another Naval War College Professor

Former US Army Helicopter Pilot:

https://twitter.com/ambersmithusa/status/1497403160717004800?s=21

As previously posted: retired US Naval Aviators discuss why we can’t setup a No Fly Zone over Ukraine. Discussion on No Fly Zone starts at 11:55 in

3503

Considering we know they’ve been bombing civilians and population centers, that’s some pretty epic horseshit.

The problem with a corrupt kleptocracy is that shit that needs to get done generally doesn’t get done and instead lines someone’s pockets.

Also it’s great after literally years of the GOP and RWM saying how much better Russia’s armed forces are than ours, because they’re manly men, as they run out of fuel in the first day and are generally inept in combat.

3504

At some point we’ll find out how truly value the Intel from the planes we have in the Black Sea and over Poland were. For now, I hope the Biden admin puts as much equipment of any type could be reasonably used by Ukrainian forces as possible on the border. Poland seems like they may be Ukraine’s best friend in all of this but obviously don’t have the massive amounts of equipment that the US does.

3505

Potentially ominous.

That comms haven’t been disrupted until now probably means Russia hoped either they would really be greeted as liberators in some places at least or that images of war on social media might hurt Ukrainian morale. Now that the opposite has happened time to shut it down.