War in Ukraine

What's an AVG?

 

My guess is all-volunteer group.

 

Go Romania!!

 

American Volunteer Group--as in the Flying Tigers fighter pilots who helped China v. Japan before WW II. Flew P-40's, IIRC.

John Wayne starred in a pretty good picture about it. One of his better movies, imho.

 

I agree with that, but that’s a step ahead of restoring Ukraine’s borders. We cannot give Russia any kind of strategic victory where they control any of Ukraine at the end of this. It will results in years or decades of frozen conflict until Russia inevitably takes another bite.

 

Oh! I knew about Flying Tigers but the abbreviation threw me. Thanks

Side note, dad was buddies with some Flying Tigers guys. He bought a Christmas tree in Florida, had them pack it, gave them a case of rum, and they took the tree to my grandparents in PR. Didn't tell him. The shock on their faces was insane. Needless to say, live Douglas Firs weren't easy to get in Puerto Rico. Had the tree up til March when it became a health hazard

 

Your humble opinion is wrong and is worth nothing. Putin is trying to reestablish a Russian empire. He took Crimea when Ukraine threw out the Russian toady. He will keep taking until he is stopped. The Ukrainians are stopping him now with the rest of the civilized world's help. I wish we would declare Ukraine a know fly zone, but these type of decisions are easier to make on a message board than in the real world.

 

Your conceited opinion is clearly worth so much more than mine! LOL!

Do go on flattering yourself...

 

His opinion is wrong and worth nothing? Bet you’re a blast to have beers. As Putin has shown Putin is incapable of achieving anything of significance militarily. As I have said his army is incapable of doing much. His best (Spetnaz and paratroopers )got overrun at the airport waiting for CAS that never came.…. His conventional Forces are certainly not capable of anything outside of even eastern Ukraine without taking devastating losses and are running over their own generals. Rebuilding an empire? Hardly. Where’s he gonna go? Poland and lose 100,000 soldiers and 6000 vehicles? Putin wants nothing to do with the west and I’m not interested in Americans dying for donbas.

 

My opinion could be wrong. Yours is absolutely wrong. I am not flattering myself I am calling nonsense nonsense.

 

Interesting insight as to why Putin wants Donbas...don't see mention of NATO. Cnn live:

"A famous Soviet propaganda poster from 1921 dubbed Donbas “the heart of Russia,” depicting the region as a beating organ with vessels stretching across the Russian empire. Before then, the region was part of the concept of “Novorossiya,” or New Russia, a term given to territories towards the west of which the Russian empire had expansionist ideas.

Cities like Luhansk and Donetsk are historically “places that (Russians) could see a certain version of themselves,” Rory Finnin, associate professor of Ukrainian studies at the University of Cambridge, told CNN.

And that historical image could still persist inside Putin’s own worldview, experts suggest. Observers have often suggested that Putin’s desired endgame is to rebuild the Soviet Union in which he first rose up the ranks. Anna Makanju, former director for Russia at the US National Security Council, last month suggested that Putin “believes he is like the czars,” the imperial dynasties that ruled Russia for centuries, “potentially called by God in order to control and restore the glory of the Russian empire.”

But such a project could not be attempted without an effort to recapture Donbas, given its emotional resonance as the Russian empire’s industrial backbone. “It’s symbolically very important; the Donbas supplied the entire Soviet Union with raw materials,” Markian Dobczansky, an associate at Harvard University’s Ukrainian Research Institute, said."

 

Cnn live

"Germany will continue to provide military aid to Ukraine but through arms manufacturers, chancellor says

From Inke Kappeler in Berlin and Sugam Pokharel in Atlanta

Germany has exhausted the weapons it can provide to Ukraine from its stocks, but will work with private military equipment makers to help Kyiv with its requirements, German Chancellor Olaf Scholz said on Tuesday.

“We intend to pay for these deliveries,” Scholz told a news conference in Berlin.

“Weapons with substantial impact” have already been delivered to Ukraine, he said, adding that Germany will help work with arms manufacturers to provide Kyiv anti-tank and air defense weapons.
.....
On Friday, Scholz said his government will boost the country's military assistance spending in 2022 to $2.16 billion, of which a large share of which will go to Ukraine."

 

Cnn live

"Large-scale NATO cyber drill begins as Russian hacking threats loom

From CNN's Sean Lyngaas

NATO’s annual large-scale drill for cyberattacks began Tuesday, with participants from 32 countries practicing fending off hacks against critical infrastructure like power plants and air defense systems.

The exercise mirrors “real life attack scenarios based on cyber-attacks seen over the past 30 years,” Ian West, chief of the NATO Cyber Security Centre, told CNN in an email.

The mock hacking incident will charge participants with “maintaining and ensuring the availability of essential capabilities such as a water plant, power plant, air defence system, financial systems, etc.”

Nearly 2,000 participants from 32 countries will participate in cyber defense exercise known as Locked Shields, according to the US-based Financial Services Information Sharing and Analysis Center, a threat-sharing hub for big banks that is leading a portion of the drill."
........
Drill was prescheduled but crucial now with the possibility of cyber attacks from Russia/Belarus.

 

Putin invades Ukraine b/c he fears NATO will be his neighbor.

My opinion is that he will not attack NATO. He fears NATO. He knows it will be his and Russia's destruction, if not the world's.

Your opinion is that Putin will attack NATO after he conquers Ukraine....because...why again?

NM. Whatever.

To your contention of my opinion vs yours, I'd say more like I might be wrong, but hey, it's an opinion--yours is like 99% wrong--but you dismissed mine as worthless.

What the hell has Putin been waiting for all this time, if he was intent on attacking NATO?

For Ukraine to join, so he wouldn't have to travel so far???

(except that he didn't of course...).

 

Cnn live. Even thr countries against sending weapons can at least send this.

"Kyiv's deputy mayor asks for 200,000 gas masks to protect Ukrainians from possible chemical weapons attack

From CNN's Kylie Atwood

The Ukrainian Freedom Fund (UFF), a non-profit that has a footprint in Ukraine and is working to procure defense materials for Ukrainian troops, received a letter from Kyiv’s deputy mayor yesterday requesting 200,000 respirators — also known as gas masks — to shield Ukrainians from any potential chemical weapons attacks.

“Due to the large-scale invasion of Russian troops into the territory of Ukraine, there is a threat of chemical damage to the population of Ukraine and the citizens of Kyiv in particular,” Kyiv's Deputy Mayor Volodymyr Bondarenko wrote to UFF in a letter reviewed by CNN. “On behalf of the Mayor of Kyiv Vitali Klitschko, citizens of Kyiv municipality and Ukrainian society, we ask for humanitarian assistance, mainly in the form of personal protective equipment (respirators, according to technical requirements in the attachment), for Kyiv humanitarian aid center.”

Last week there were unconfirmed reports of the use of chemical weapons in Mariupol. US officials have also warned that they have had credible information that Russian forces may use a variety of riot control agents, like tear gas mixed with chemical agents, as part of their Mariupol assault."

 

About time!! CNN live

"Pentagon: Ukraine has gotten additional aircraft and aircraft parts to increase their fleet size

From CNN's Michael Conte

Ukraine has received additional fighter aircraft from other countries not including the US, as well as additional aircraft parts to allow them to get more planes in the air, according to a Defense Department spokesperson.

"I would just say, without getting into what other nations are providing, that they have received additional platforms and parts to be able to increase their fleet size, their aircraft fleet size. I think I’d leave it at that," said Pentagon Press Secretary John Kirby.

More context: A White House official told CNN Saturday that shipments from the Biden administration’s latest security assistance package to Ukraine “have begun arriving,”"

 

Yes!!