There are at least a few of them. One that sits in a bunker and has meetings over facetime and others that meet up with folk in Maryupol. He is even afraid to fly in case he gets shot down.
Ukraine Invasion - Please do not post videos showing attacks/similar
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If china invade Taiwan that would stretch the US, and EU states would need to ramp up thier production to both satisfy their own requirements but support the US. (Idealistically)
Reality is that that russia was a useful pawn in the china-US strategy. Only thing is how bad putin messed that up in the short medium term. However I don’t think china really allowed themselves to be dependant on russia (why would a suitor to the #1 spot be dependent on an untrusted state?).
I suspect if the growing opposition to putin (within his own party) then I suspect that the same feeling will empower the opposition partner dictatorships essentially forcing china to seek to stabilise the fledgeling alliances. - counter distraction.
So putin has really pooched the plans.. it must only be a matter of time.
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I have to wonder sometimes if China didn't stitch Russia up - either agreed to move on Taiwan shortly after so as to split the West's response as a litmus to gauge how the West would respond with no intention of following through any time soon or having seen the response and the West not being as weak as they'd thought decided to abort.
I have a strong feeling both Russia and China have been seeing the West as lacking the appetite to do anything other than strong words.
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I agree i think the plans and strategies have had a considerable about of analysis - there’s not just one linear out come but a multi faceted result - china win on a captive energy/materials supplier, on defocusing the border defence, distracting US etc from Taiwan (reducing stocks), uncovering strategies/tech, driving political confidence in partner dictatorships, weakening russia to enable chinese investment to takeover ports and industries within russia, reduce competition for african influence, distract vs the south china sea resource grab and for middle east influence.. the list goes on. So I agree china get a lot out of this step whilst russia end up with the war they always wanted.
Longerterm, I think the aging western population plays into russia’s hands as the war as culled a large number of sedate middle age men so the population now has space for idologistically educated and military over the next 20 years.
Europe aren’t looking to address that aging population.
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China invading Taiwan would mostly involve the US Navy and Marine Corps, backed by the USAF. A war with Russia would involve the US Army and USAF, far less naval assets would be needed. Essentially it would be different elements of the US military engaged in both conflicts. China barks a bit but they've seen what just happened to Russia in Ukraine, China hasn't fought a war since 1979, do they really want to take on the US Navy in the Pacific with all the assets they have in that region? They'll give it a hard pass.
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It would be so funny if that was true.
I think it's fair to say China definitely had advanced knowledge of the invasion, in fact there's even an extremely strong argument that Xi convinced Putin to delay the invasion so it didn't clash with the 2022 Chinese Winter Olympics (as Russia were ready to go over a week before they did but paused allowing Ukraine and the west to better prepare).
I have to question what backing the USAF could give. Vietnam is never going to let the USAF operate from there, the Philippine's wouldn't want to royally **** off China by playing host, so that leaves South Korea and Japan as the only friendly airbases they could stage from.
That's a 1600+ mile round trip. The F-16 cannot do it, the F-35 would be returning on fumes, the F-15 might be able to but would need to enter the combat zone and fight with it's external tanks still attached as they would be required to make it back to base (this would also limit the weaponry it could carry), the F-22 would be in a similar situation but the tanks would 86 it's stealth capabilities. It would be a very bad engagement for the USAF any way you slice it.
Obviously much could be mitigated by using aerial refuelling tankers to resupply them before the enter the combat area and on their way back. But the issue with that is if China are invading Taiwan and fighting the US Navy they aren't going to care about shooting down some aerial tankers in international airspace and if they did that with USAF jets in the air they may not make it home.
So I doubt the USAF would really be tied up much with China if they went full idiot too, as there's not much they would really be needed for, and so could focus fully on Russia.
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Soldato
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Normally I'd be very hesitant to draw any conclusions from a sample size of one ... but this is Russia where normal rules don't seem to apply.
I would guess multiple crews rotated through the same equipment so none of them take any pride in maintaining "their" tank.
Soldato
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This new channel on youtube is worth a follow. I'm sure I saw some of his clips on Reddit but he's started uploading content to youtube as well.
You’re forgetting the Japanese islands like Okinawa. About 500km away. Philippines have quite a few US airbases, as does Thailand. Then you would likely get longer range missions from Alaska, Australia, New Zealand, Diego Garcia (a British island in the Indian Ocean) etc. It won’t end well for China. Crossing water into an island vastly more equipped than Ukraine are.
They take pride in taking it apart and selling the spares
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The Europhiles must be pretty chuffed with the EU currently being the largest importers of Russian oil products due to them using the loophole left in their so called embargo.
It's easy to say the EU is stoically suffering in support of Ukraine when in reality it's just buying oil from intermediaries. The "loophole" shows zero signs of being addressed any time soon, either. What a surprise ...
It's easy to say the EU is stoically suffering in support of Ukraine when in reality it's just buying oil from intermediaries. The "loophole" shows zero signs of being addressed any time soon, either. What a surprise ...
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I think it would mostly be strategic bombers firing stand off cruise missiles, they'd also have maritime patrol planes searching for submarines in support of the US Navy, AWACS and sniffer planes for intelligence, they'd possibly be flying in troops via strategic lift. To do that they'd have fighters operating with tanker support using F-35's and F-22's, since they're against China. They'd be supporting the US Navy in keeping the skies clear so they could provide close air support. It would be challenging and not an ideal scenario to operate in but that's war.
You make it seem like we aren't also buying those spliced together products in the middle of international waters.
I'm happy with it. The anti-Ukraine crowd claimed that Russia could simply freeze the EU into submission, but it turns out Putin needs our money so he can't do that and we get oil after all.
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Don't say "we" I don't have a problem buying anything from Russia, but those that do are kidding themselves the EU are really sanctioning Russia. They are providing Ukraine with modern arms with one hand and giving billions to Russia via intermediaries with the other. But that's how the EU works behind the scenes.
And the energy purchased from Russia is at a big discount thanks to the price cap, and the savings pays for ukraine weapons. Win win for everyone except Russia who sells its energy at a loss
That's what we call 5D chess while Putin fanboys play checkers with the $20 billion per month budget deficit and endless stream of shutdown military projects, healthcare services and school budgets
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Yet more things that arnt true at all from Chris Wilson:
Oil price developments and Russian oil flows since the EU embargo and G7 price cap
The European Central Bank (ECB) is the central bank of the European Union countries which have adopted the euro. Our main task is to maintain price stability in the euro area and so preserve the purchasing power of the single currency.
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