It’s been over twice as long since Russia invaded; training should have completed long ago.
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Russia/Ukraine conflict
- Thread starter amolina
- Start date
If the mods allow, as it's weekend: a nice action and fun to watch.
If you have ever been in The Netherlands, you may have heard a barrel organ in the streets, playing all kinds of songs.
Well... police were puzzled what to do after complaints from the Russian Embassy where they went crazy....
A playful action this morning in The Hague, where artist Teun Castelein parked a barrel organ in front of the Russian embassy. There the barrel organ played the Ukrainian national anthem, for which the artist had special sheet music made. The action is a statement of support for Ukraine, exactly one year after the war broke out. According to Castelein, the organ "adds luster in an appropriate way".
A barrel organ was not the artist's first choice: "At first I wanted a bagpipe, but I found that inconvenient. Then I thought of a marching band, but you need quite a lot of people for that." Eventually he thought that a barrel organ would have the same effect: "A barrel organ can also be very annoying, especially after so many hours. Then you go completely crazy."
(sorry, no subtitles in the short video, but according to Teun Castelein the music was at 120 dB. And now you know the Dutch barrel organ
).
If you have ever been in The Netherlands, you may have heard a barrel organ in the streets, playing all kinds of songs.
Well... police were puzzled what to do after complaints from the Russian Embassy where they went crazy....
A playful action this morning in The Hague, where artist Teun Castelein parked a barrel organ in front of the Russian embassy. There the barrel organ played the Ukrainian national anthem, for which the artist had special sheet music made. The action is a statement of support for Ukraine, exactly one year after the war broke out. According to Castelein, the organ "adds luster in an appropriate way".
A barrel organ was not the artist's first choice: "At first I wanted a bagpipe, but I found that inconvenient. Then I thought of a marching band, but you need quite a lot of people for that." Eventually he thought that a barrel organ would have the same effect: "A barrel organ can also be very annoying, especially after so many hours. Then you go completely crazy."
(sorry, no subtitles in the short video, but according to Teun Castelein the music was at 120 dB. And now you know the Dutch barrel organ
).
The US should supply F-16s right away to Poland, Romania, Estonia and whichever other countries have Soviet aircraft they can/have donated to Ukraine. China & Russia may not be thrilled about that either, but I don't see that as being escalatory to nearly the same degree.
trayloader
Member
Dreadnought
Member
It takes six months in peace time with a healthy work / life balance and possibly bigger classes. The ongoing Leo 2 training in Germany will complete after only 5 weeks but I have no doubt that when the Ukrainians will return to the front line, their level of education will be no less than of those who finished the regular training course.
They are on a 6 days per week, 12 hours a day schedule with extra time allocated when needed. The article linked below mentions their high level of motivation. Well, if you know that your life immediately depends on knowing the system in and out, that's certainly the greatest motivation boost ever.
Panzer-Training von Ukrainern: "Unsere Kameraden warten"
Seit drei Wochen lernen ukrainische Soldaten im niedersächsischen Munster, wie man mit Marder- und Leopard-Panzern umgeht.
petit_bateau
Active Member
That is an over simplification of what the UK has said.
The UK is very aware that in crude terms the Typhoon is a 'heavy' twin engined high performance jet, whereas the F16 is a 'light' single engined high performance jet. Furthermore the available tranche 1 Typhoons (due for imminent returement, i.e. still relatively operable but requiring non-trivial support) are in relatively small quantities whereas the available equivalent F16 are available in much larger quantities - and the availability of operational spares & logistics reflects that numbers game. If the West (when ...) the West transfers modern jets to Ukraine it would be better to start off with the lighter jet that is available in large quantities with a big spares/etc pool to draw on.
Hence the UK ruling out transferring Typhoons for now.
However the UK very much is looking at how to get aircraft into Ukraine urgently. In that respect the UK has already transferred aircraft to Ukraine along with the relevant training/etc during the last year, namely three Sea King helicopters that went several months ago, particularly helpful for the CSAR role. So the UK is by no means shy of transferring aircraft into Ukraine if it can see a good way of doing it, in a manner that is helpful for Ukraine and not overly detrimental to the UK, and ditto for the relevant training and other stuff.
All the indications are that the UK is primarily focussing on how to enable further transfers of Soviet era jets out of Poland/etc, by backfilling UK aircraft (in some manner) into Poland/etc; and by either directly providing or enabling the corresponding training and support. Whether that might also or alternatively include enabling F16 transfers (or something else) as well remains to be seen, and one can see ways in which that could be assisted. One only has to look at the map to realise that the Dutch/etc F16 fleets might be free'd up early in some circumstances. Remember that if a country gives away its F16 fleet early, that country still needs to fulfill its NATO-obligations for air defence in some manner. But it need not necessarily be its own planes with its own pilots that are doing that role.
Also remember this is a team effort, and some other nations are doing proportionately just as much but perhaps more quietly.
It is astounding how few people know how powerful extreme religious fervor can be. That is a prime tool for the extreme right in US, Brasil, Israel, Iran, Turkey, Saudi, Yemen and elsewhere, notably Russia. In most cases the drift rightward is gradual and largely undetected. How can anybody be surprised when that has been with us since before The First Crusade in 1096.Or is it instead just more of the lies and maskirovka (Russian Military Deception) to try and scare us into letting the Dictator have his way?...
Someone posted speculation a while back in the thread, that the reason Medvedev is making all of his completely outlandish statements is to position him firmly 110% in the pro-Putin camp. And if he didn't say stuff like that, then he could face a very, very real risk of being the next Russian 'higer-up' that throws himself out of a window (or is 'exposed' as being 'corrupt' and thrown into jail)...
That article you posted also doesn't mention with a single word that the top hierarchy of the current Russian Ortodox Church was literally created by Stalin during WWII as a part of the KGB. And that the Russian Ortodox Church to this day is in fact just another branch of the continuation of the KGB – the FSB... So that is at least one non-trivial part that the author of that piece has either completely missed, or for some reason refrains from mentioning even though he expressly writes about the Russian Ortodox Church's head FSB Puppet...
I wrote about the Russian Ortodox Church = FSB some 51 pages back in this thread. Here:
Russia/Ukraine conflict
Still needs German approval, but I hope it happens. Less talking, more action required now. There is definitely something going on re tank provision. Ironically the Bakhmut / Soledar difficulties may be providing the extra impetus. And I do wonder if the UK's shift to send Challengers may be...teslamotorsclub.com
Putin & coexplicitly understood they could do better than Stalin if they actively promoted the Russian Orthodox Church, not least be rebuilding cathedrals to help rekindle ethnic pride.
We all should be acutely aware that the USSR had many Ukrainian and Georgian leaders so ethnic Russian nationalism was subordinate to Communist ideology and even Russian nationalism. Putin finally used the tools established by Stalin, but made them pure. This fact alone allows much greater latitude than would a purely secular rule.
bkp_duke
Well-Known Member
This is administration, politics, not the military. I guarantee you that the military has pretty much stated the following:
"You want Ukraine to win? Give them what they need, in overwhelming numbers. Stringing along support will only increase casualties on both sides, and runs the risk of preventing Ukraine from wining back their land."
No, this is politics, not the military. I've been around military, retired and active duty, all my life. If you give them clear goals (give Ukraine what it needs to win), they are going to lay out a clear plan for you. It's the politicians that muck it up.
bkp_duke
Well-Known Member
I used to employ a retired F-16 instructor as a sales guy (not just a pilot, but an Air Force instructor). For existing pilots, the F-16 is not that hard to learn (2 months). It doesn't have all the bells and whistles of Fat Amy (the F35) and it is not hard to learn for someone that has jet fighter experience.
Getting proper support in place (maintenance crews and their training) takes much longer than that, and would be the hold up. But even then, I think this is politics, and not a "practicality problem".
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JRP3
Hyperactive Member
It's also the politicians who have to take world diplomacy into account and calculate how much we can push without escalating the conflict to an unacceptable level.
bkp_duke
Well-Known Member
SageBrush
REJECT Fascism
In this article from Re:Russia, Russian economist and banker Vyugin writes about the reasons Russia confounded expectations and did not suffer economic collapse in 2022, and then adds some guesses about the future.
I thought it was pretty good reading, and I think underscores a basic reality: the sooner W. Europe weans itself off Russian fossils and does so with renewable eneryg , the sooner economic pressures will become effective against Russia. The replacement has to be renewable and not just fossil imports because the market is essentially fungible
I thought it was pretty good reading, and I think underscores a basic reality: the sooner W. Europe weans itself off Russian fossils and does so with renewable eneryg , the sooner economic pressures will become effective against Russia. The replacement has to be renewable and not just fossil imports because the market is essentially fungible
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Maybe, but reality may differ. Nearly all sanctions are very porous. This case more than most since China, India, Brazil and many other countries still buy Russian products and do not ascribe to sanctions. The sanctions, such as they are, allow even sales within the EU. Brazil has bought fertilizer and other products too. We already know about the several EU countries that still buy oil and gas. India buying crude, refining it and using and or selling. Then there are huge trade with China and, slightly less, Iran. Russia is rather skilled with workarounds and has numerous willing participants with which to trade.
Sanctions never really work. The sanctioning parties do stop some trade, often almost all. The others do not. Somehow naive politicians think they establish sanctions and have them work. That is not how the world works.
Iran under sanctions still managed to operate their 747's for years, and sells their oil production and even pistachios and caviar, not to mention drones and other military gear.
Russia has solved their aircraft maintenance problems for the present:
"Of course, far from all countries in the world have launched sanctions against Russia for its actions in Ukraine. While Turkish ground handlers may soon deny service to Russian aircraft, Rosaviatsia has approved Dubai-based Global Jet Technic to maintain Russian-registered Airbus and Boeing aircraft."
airbus-ceo-concerned-russia-plane-operations
As Russia learns avoidance techniques the impact reduces.
As we know Russia does have a serious problem in lack of IT, oilfield and technical skills. With Iran having solved many such problems themselves they're thrilled to help Russia. The UAE always accepts anybody with money, as they have since in the 1930's first Sharjah and later Dubai (after Sharjah's port silted) served as regional entrepôt to defeat Indian subcontinent rules. That practice dates back to Sumeria long before Dubai and Sharjah existed. Anybody so naive to imagine that the UAE would interfere with commerce with anybody handy probably also imagines that the Arab boycott of Israel actually stopped trade with Israel. IT did not!
Russia obviously has serious military problems that may be insoluble. It is foolish to think the resolution of this conflict will be easy or quick. Others among us know vastly more than do I about the military issues. Despite my views on the efficacy of the boycotts, I remain confident that most nonaligned countries will be pleased if Ukraine prevails, especially because they really do want Ukrainian industrial, mining and food exports. Most of those countries want to see trade with both Ukraine and Russia to resume.
trayloader
Member
You makin it too easy brother. Doesn’t work with a psychopath on the trigger. May have worked for Saddam.
Just in case anybody thinks I might minimize the Russian ineptness there is this:
www.lemonde.fr
Yevgeny Prigozhin, head of the Wagner Group, reveals horrendous Russian losses in Ukraine
In order to obtain arms, the entrepreneur has broken a taboo and published photos of dozens of dead fighters.
www.lemonde.fr
To me the greatest impact of the sanctions is increasing costs associated with Russian NG exports and petroleum to the EU. It's forced Europe to acknowledge that they had energy issues and that those issues enabled Putin. It's more the societal awareness of a problem and the immediate realignment of trade that has impacts vs sanctions on Russia. It's the rapid hastening of energy transition in Europe. This will hasten the decline of the petro states globally and that's the impact. Russia has helped bring about a renewable energy future...irony...sad terrible irony
Artful Dodger
"Neko no me"
The Administration is looking at what will happen AFTER Ukraine wins. Russia post WW2 was no bargain for the West. Winning the Peace is just as important.
SwedishAdvocate
Active Member
bkp_duke
Well-Known Member
Hypothetically speaking, why would we expect this (or any) administrations to do better post-war than the allies did with WW2?
As strong argument can be made that they "failed the peace" with Russia/USSR post-WW2. And I'm not seeing how they are acting in this war as any indication that they will win that peace.
Devil's advocate, but it is a valid point that needs to be considered, given how slow many western powers have been to back up their rhetoric with actual arms.
