The Ukraine pilots are trained on the air assets that the former eastern bloc countries have. So they can use them. I suspect Ukraine still has air facilities available to it. The Russian air forces have not necessarily covered themselves in glory so far and Ukraine is a big country. After all, they are taking off and landing the Turkish drones that they have somewhere.
?? You say that as if it hasn't been known for generations. That's the reason authoritarian regimes want 'nukes. They make you a player on the world stage - and literally someone who can get away with murder.
Like Donald Trump.
Of course.
Non sequitur. One does not follow from the other.
So far. Tru dat.
Mmm - that's a big difference. Huge in fact. Turkey makes VTOL combat drones requiring almost no takeoff and landing roll. A tennis court will do. Fighter jets require an improved runway - say roughly a 600m straight paved road minimum. Hangers to hide, fuel depots, etc. Probably plenty still there now, and long enough, but it's hard to say how long they will last if Russia begins to face anything they think is competition in the air.
European countries better unite to stop Putin now or he’ll pick them off one at a time.
If Putin gets away with this because he has nukes it will validate that thinking and encourage the spread of nukes
How so?
That thinking has already been long validated by more than 3 generations of tensions between nuclear powers that have never faced each other across a conventional battlefield. Korea, Iran and others don't need any encouragement to know exactly what it would take to make them effectively "invasion proof". The ability to obliterate a single American city in response would be more than enough.
As long as no Americans are involved fine with me
Putin wants NATO to get involved so he has cover in his own nation. Right now, he can't really justify putting the citizens of Russia through financial hardship with the invasion of Ukraine. But if NATO establishes a no fly zone and a NATO jet fires at a Russian one, he can convince his people NATO is out to get Russia.
They are MIG-29's. If they can't fly MIG-29's they can't fly anything. They ARE trained on MIG-29's. In fact the MIG29 and SU27's are the base fighter planes that the Ukraine Air Force flies now.
Take off distance is 250 meters for the 29 with afterburners, 700 meters without with a 750 meter landing distance. Not nothing but not excruciatingly long either. About average for you modern day runway. There are apparently something like 20 military airfields in Ukraine and some number of commercial strips. The Ukrainians know that its the MIG-29 that they are likely going to be offered and they appear to believe they can do something with them.
Putin can "justify" anything. His invasion of Ukraine is evidence of that.
Not really. Russians are protesting. NATO gets involved and that will likely stop.
"encourage the spread of nukes"?
Our greater duty is to ensure we don't start WWIII unless there is no other option. The Ukrainian conflict is garnering the feels because it is benefitting from broad global media coverage. It has been dubbed the Tik Tok war because of the live updates taking place on that and other social media apps. Elsewhere there is plenty of genocide going on in the world for far longer than the war in Ukraine and for which more people have died and are dying and for which we all have a moral responsibility to lend assistance and for which we are doing as much as we can yet it amounts to little. Remember the Uyghurs, Kazakhs, Kyrgyz, and other Turkic Muslims in China; Rohingya in Myanmar; Nuer and other ethic groups in South Sudan; Yazidis in Iraq and Syria; Darfuris in Sudan; more in Ethiopia and the Central African Republic.
Over your head I guess. This is geopolitical think not Christmas shopping.
The world protested when Hitler invaded Poland. Sometimes protest is not enough.
Well then, do you want to go to war with all the countries engaging in wholesale genocide as well as Russia?
Yeah. That's the problem.
I want to learn from history not repeat it.
Good luck with that. Humanity's habit is to use history as examples repeat using better technology. We are shining examples of the definition of insanity -- doing the same things over and over and expecting different results.