Falling from a window somewhere in Russia soon!
This might be a little tougher than Putin thought...
- Thread starter Nole Lou
- Start date
The West fudged this up. I wonder if there has ever been a serious consideration of taking recently retired F-16 pilots and hiring them to fly them for Ukraine? Stick to NATO nations to perhaps get a more highly vetted pilot. If the plan is to keep them somewhat behind the front lines and use them to fire HARM missiles and the such, then they might find a few takers.Only six Ukrainian pilots trained to fly new F-16 fighter jets
Volodymyr Zelensky says weapons once championed as game-changers are now ‘too little, too late’ as Russia’s air defences improve
behind a pay wall for the rest of the article...in case someone can post it.
Only six Ukrainian pilots trained to fly new F-16 fighter jets
Volodymyr Zelensky says weapons once championed as game-changers are now ‘too little, too late’ as Russia’s air defences improvewww.telegraph.co.uk
When I was in Kuwait some of the pilots were “western” for their F-18’s. Met a couple Canadians and a German. A lot of their maintenance guys were American and other western contractors.
Might have a hard time rustling up similar pilots in that threat environment. I imagine they’d have to pay big $$$ to get any bites.
"According to the plan, Ukrainians will be trained abroad, serve in the Ukrainian Defense Forces, and then return to their home country.
In the Czech Republic, as in Poland, participation in training would be voluntary.
“The Ministry of Defense is collecting additional information from Poland on the formation of the so-called Ukrainian Legion. When we have it, we will consider our possibilities of involvement,” Defence Ministry spokesman David Polak to iDNES.cz said.
According to the latest data from the Ministry of Internal Affairs, more than 100,000 Ukrainian men aged 18 to 65 are living in the Czech Republic."
In other words, Europe is looking for approaches to involve Ukrainian citizens in the defense of their country.
“The Ukrainian community living in the Czech Republic is numerous. I think the Polish approach to legions is good. Many citizens have a desire to help their country but do not want to return to Ukraine, where they do not know what awaits them. If they were part of a unit here, it would make sense,” Defense Minister Jana Černochová told ČT24.
In July, Ukraine signed a security agreement with Poland, which, among other things, encouraged Ukrainians to return home to serve in the Ukrainian Defense Forces. Poland proposed the creation of a Ukrainian Legion, where Ukrainians would be trained in NATO countries and fight against Russian soldiers in Ukraine."
After Furious Battles, Ukraine Loses a Pair of Hard-Won Villages
“It was like a fight between two packs of dogs,” said an officer, describing the struggle for one of the areas, Urozhaine. But “there came a moment when it made no sense to keep people there.”For months, Ukrainian soldiers in southeastern Ukraine were able to fend off Russian assaults.
Even with shortages of artillery shells, the 58th Motorized Infantry Brigade repelled repeated attacks as they fought to defend the limited gains from their counteroffensive last year. The brigade took casualties but thwarted each Russian attack, including one by an elite marine brigade, leaving burned-out Russian armor littering the open steppe.
But at the end of March, Russian troops turned their focus on two small villages: Urozhaine and Staromaiorske. It took the Russians three months, but after occupying Staromaiorske in June they finally broke through the weary Ukrainian defenders and reclaimed Urozhaine on July 14.
An account of the fierce defense and loss of Urozhaine and Staromaiorske was pieced together through conversations with Ukrainian soldiers who served in the villages, as well as through one survivor’s post on social media. Official Russian posts on social media confirmed many of the details.
The loss of the villages was a blow for Ukraine, coming amid recent Russian gains along many parts of the 600-mile front line, and because Ukrainian marine infantry had fought so hard to capture them during the bloody counteroffensive.
For the men of the 58th brigade, who had been defending Urozhaine since October, and units of the National Guard attached to them, it was doubly hard. Up to 100 men were killed or went missing over three months of fighting in the village and commanders were bracing for recriminations from the military high command, which usually demands its soldiers hold their positions to the last.
Soldiers and officers who had been inside the two villages said there were no civilians living there and the houses were so destroyed there was nothing left to defend.
“The battles took place in ruins, from basements,” said Karay, 43, an army major who was inside Urozhaine and saw some of the earlier fighting. “There were a few trenches, but there were no defensive structures, and it was impossible to build them.” He asked that he only be identified by his call sign, Karay, according to military protocol.
Urozhaine consists of just two streets and Russian troops had already occupied half the village in June, Karay said. “For a month and a half, it was like a fight between two packs of dogs,” he said.
“So much was flying around, the wounded could only be evacuated at night,” he said. “So there came a moment when it made no sense to keep people there.”
The end, when it came, was lightning fast and forced a rapid retreat from the village.
A 40-year-old member of the National Guard, who asked only to be identified by his first name, Mark, posted a dramatic account on the X social media platform. The New York Times was able to verify his identity.
Ordered in to help defend Urozhaine on July 8, his unit “hit the jackpot,” he wrote. Sheltering in the basement of a house, they endured four days of heavy Russian bombardment.
By July 12, their house was being targeted by drones. His commander warned them that the Ukrainian unit in front had retreated and Russians had taken up positions in a house opposite. At first light the men were ordered to pull back to another position, which they did safely as another bombardment began.
Official Russian news reports described the same events. “A motorized rifle unit and tank crews of the Vostok group exhausted the enemy, creating suitable conditions for the final assault,” a journalist with Russian troops reported on First Channel. “Then, armored groups with assault units moved out from three directions.”
Mark, the Ukrainian National Guard member, described three Russian troop carriers racing past his position at 6 a.m., inserting infantry that blocked their retreat. The main assault had begun.
First Channel reported that Russian marines carried out the main assault, using dune buggies for a speedy attack on the village.
“We cleared it so quickly, the guys did not even realize it, in hour and a half, maybe two hours,” a Russian soldier, who gave his call sign, Hors, told the reporter.
Mark’s unit were ordered to withdraw through the fields because the road was under Russian control. That began in orderly fashion but within a few hours, it became a desperate scramble under shellfire with wounded and dead left behind.
“Enemy drones were constantly hovering over the retreating groups, adjusting enemy artillery,” Mark wrote. An hour later he was caught in an explosion and wounded in both legs. “I could not go on,” he wrote. “There was another wounded man with me.”
He applied a tourniquet to his leg and saw groups of retreating soldiers passing by. A National Guard soldier who used the call sign Ruberoid, stopped to help.
Led by Ruberoid, Mark said he crawled through the undergrowth and a minefield to the designated collection point for the wounded. The second wounded man tried to follow but was too weak and told them to leave him.
“The only thing I really feared was that I wouldn’t be able to see my family again,” Mark wrote. “That was my main motivation as I had to crawl across the hot earth and stubble of the Donetsk steppe under the scorching sun and not give up.”
It took him more than 12 hours to reach a medical station.
Members of his company all got out alive, but other companies suffered dead and wounded, he wrote.
The Russians raised their flag over the village that evening, but the most difficult thing was to hold the village as Ukrainian drones began attacking them, the Russian soldier, Hors, said. “They shot from everything they had,” he said of the Ukrainians. “The sky was black from their drones.”
In conversations after the fall of the village, soldiers on the nearby front said they were feeling the strain of three large-scale Russian assaults in October, November and February, and then three months of intense fighting in Urozhaine. They described the Russian assault troops as a determined and motivated force.
Members of the 58th brigade spent a recent day hunkered down in mud trenches on the frontline near Urozhaine, listening for incoming shells and drones, and fending off explosive drones with hand-held electronic jammers. They have rigged up metal fencing and draped carpets over many openings to block the small but lethal exploding aircraft.
There was little sound of Ukrainian artillery fire.
The most dangerous moment for the men is when units swap in and out after several days on the front line and frequently come under shell fire.
On a recent night a squad was hit by mortar fire as it was heading back from the front. Three men — fresh recruits who had recently joined the brigade — were wounded and a fourth was killed, members of the brigade said.
The 58th brigade’s sniper unit has retrained to double as a drone team and has been deployed at Staromaiorske since June.
“We will restrain them as much as we can,” said a 28-year-old sniper using the call sign Sten and now working as a drone pilot.
He showed videos on his phone of his successful drone strikes on Russian vehicles, on a lone motorbike rider and on an ammunition store in the village.
Maybe trying to supply fuel or other flammables? In the second one, the controller isn't as accurate but still blood left behind.
Why does South Korea have a T-80?
South Korea was given 33 T-80U and 2 T-80UK tanks to pay Russian debts incurred during the days of the Soviet Union. The tanks came in three batches; the first consisted of six T-80Us in 1996, followed by 27 T-80Us in 1997, and finally two T-80UKs in 2005.
Tanks of South Korea - Wikipedia
Wikipedia
Still amazed when these Russian vehicles get hit directly that we see orcs running away after the explosions.
The fact that they've survived the original hit.
The fact that they've survived the original hit.
Austria is east of every single one of those countries. It doesn’t even touch any of them.
How do you reckon you find the ‘geographic center’ by going east of all the members?
Check a map, Copernicus. Italy literally borders Austria and extends east of it.
Otranto. /threadWhich Italian city would you leave heading west to reach Austria?
I suppose Russia just loads up its troops in buses and brings them back home. The last train out of Crimea shuts off the lights.
Did you nationalize the northern vector?You're planning a long trip, Magellan.
Austria is the geographic center of Europe, but you stated that Finland and Austria were "Literally in the geographic center" of the original 12 NATO members.
That's just demonstrably false.
Were you Trump's original press secretary?
"A musical of the 14th separate regiment.Starring: Russian invaders are hiding in holes. Ukrainian drones fly into holes"
Last edited:
OK, I'm done with your pedantic twatstorm. You suggested that Stalin could have just taken the two green countries had he desired. I suggested that he could not because (1) his hands were full with other countries he was bullying and destroying; and (2) that the territory was in the middle of the original NATO landmass. I'll let the people decide.
"We do not do business with Russia, unlike Prime Minister Orban, who is on the margins of international society, in the EU and NATO," Bartoszewski said, adding that the U.S. ambassador to Budapest commented very negatively on Orban's speech.
Bartoszewski described Orban's speech as "an attack on Poland, the U.S., the EU, and NATO."
"I do not understand why Hungary wants to remain a member of organizations that they dislike so much and that supposedly mistreat them. Why does he (Orban) not form a union with (Vladimir) Putin and with some authoritarian states of this type?" Bartoszewski said.
"It is the principle that if you do not want to be a member of some club, you can always withdraw. Certainly, this is an anti-EU, anti-Ukrainian, anti-Polish policy at the moment."
The deputy minister also brought up that Budapest is currently blocking 2 billion zlotys ($509 million) owed to Poland from the EU for reimbursement for the military equipment Poland has given to Ukraine.
Budapest is often seen a key ally of Russia in the EU. Orban has repeatedly blocked aid to Ukraine, pushed for negotiations, and frequently spouted Kremlin talking points."
Polish Foreign Ministry suggests Hungary leave EU, NATO after Orban's controversial statements
"I do not understand why Hungary wants to remain a member of organizations that they dislike so much and that supposedly mistreat them," Polish Deputy Foreign Minister Wladyslaw Teofil Bartoszewski said.
You see the green countries "in the middle of the" red countries?
I guess this is why it's hard for people to agree on facts.
