Ukrainian Pilots Arrive In Poland To Pick Up Donated Fighter Jets

[sanman]

…Russia already supplies weapons to states hostile to the West.

There are plenty of things they don't supply. I don't think they should be pushed in that direction.

 

[sanman]

They retaliated first.

Doublespeak in action. Orwell much?

"All animals are equal, but some animals are more equal than others"

 

[Rexedgar]

First stop the crawling convoy north of Kyiv.

 

[vanceen]

The United States attacked a sovereign state called Serbia during this "peace on the continent for almost eighty years" -- somehow that doesn't get counted as an interruption of peace in your view.
The United States then carved territory out of that country Serbia and declared it to be a new independent country Kosovo. When the United States did this along with NATO, they literally scrapped the part of NATO's founding charter which declared NATO to be a purely defensive organization that will only fight on the soil of its own member states to defend them. At that point, NATO ceased to be a defensive organization and became a militarily expansionist organization. They then said, "don't worry, this is just temporary, Kosovo won't actually become a NATO member." Right now, Kosovo is using the Ukraine crisis to demand being made a NATO member. Kosovo isn't even located near Ukraine. Their argument is that Russia is an Orthodox Christian country and so is Serbia, and therefore NATO needs to protect against Orthodox Christian conquest/oppression. So is NATO now supposed to become a de facto ethnic/sectarian organization? Because that's what this really seems to be about. You don't like people of a certain ethnicity and you want NATO to beat them up for you.
....

So, in your view, was this a bad thing that the US did?

If so, what's your point?

 

[Questerr]

There are plenty of things they don't supply. I don't think they should be pushed in that direction.

Other than WMDs, Russia already supplies those states with anything they are willing to pay for.

 

[Ahlevah]

The United States then carved territory out of that country Serbia and declared it to be a new independent country Kosovo. When the United States did this along with NATO, they literally scrapped the part of NATO's founding charter which declared NATO to be a purely defensive organization that will only fight on the soil of its own member states to defend them. At that point, NATO ceased to be a defensive organization and became a militarily expansionist organization. They then said, "don't worry, this is just temporary, Kosovo won't actually become a NATO member." Right now, Kosovo is using the Ukraine crisis to demand being made a NATO member. Kosovo isn't even located near Ukraine. Their argument is that Russia is an Orthodox Christian country and so is Serbia, and therefore NATO needs to protect against Orthodox Christian conquest/oppression. So is NATO now supposed to become a de facto ethnic/sectarian organization? Because that's what this really seems to be about. You don't like people of a certain ethnicity and you want NATO to beat them up for you.

That's quite a fairy tale, especially the part about me not liking people of a certain ethnicity and wanting NATO to beat them up for me. Why not just try acknowledging facts instead? Why be disingenuous with your fantasies and omissions? Let's start with the fact that NATO is not the United States. It's a military alliance of 30 sovereign, independent states. But the real story begins with Slobodan Milošević, the former president of Yugoslavia, who at the time of his death was in a UN detention facility awaiting trial for having committed crimes against humanity and war crimes. Serbia was central to the beginning of WWI when Bosnian-Serb nationalists assassinated the Archduke of the Austrian-Hungarian Empire, Franz Ferdinand. Yes, it's true that the NATO charter declares that an attack against one member is the same as an attack against all. But NATO's principal purpose is to ensure European order, stability, and security, and Serbia's genocidal campaign against ethnic Albanians in Kosovo was a threat to that order, stability, and security. A NATO-led peacekeeping force is there to this day, such is the perceived threat. You sure as shit wouldn't have seen the UN stopping it, since Yugoslavia was basically a Russian vassal and Russia, as a permanent member of the UN Security Council, would have vetoed any action to stop the slaughter.

Now, you're attempting to draw a parallel between that action and Putin's attempt at empire rebuilding, but it's plain for all but the most dense among us that there is no comparison between a mission to end a genocide by a Russian-backed war criminal and another Russian war criminal's current invasion of a peaceful European, sovereign state.

 

[Roadvirus]

This is only going to lead to retaliation from Russia. Is it really a good idea to do this?

We'll drop some soothing ointment into Moscow to soothe Putzin's butthurt.

 

[sanman]

That's quite a fairy tale, especially the part about me not liking people of a certain ethnicity and wanting NATO to beat them up for me. Why not just try acknowledging facts instead? Why be disingenuous with your fantasies and omissions? Let's start with the fact that NATO is not the United States. It's a military alliance of 30 sovereign, independent states. But the story really begins with Slobodan Milošević, the former president of Yugoslavia, who at the time of his death was in a UN detention facility awaiting trial for having committed crimes against humanity and war crimes. Serbia was central to the beginning of WWI when Bosnian-Serb nationalists assassinated the Archduke of the Austrian-Hungarian Empire, Franz Ferdinand. Yes, it's true that the NATO charter declares that an attack against one member is the same as an attack against all. But NATO's principle purpose is to ensure European order, stability, and security, and Serbia's genocidal campaign against ethnic Albanians in Kosovo was a threat to that order, stability, and security. A NATO-led peacekeeping force is there to this day, such is the perceived threat. You sure as shit wouldn't have seen the UN stopping it, since Yugoslavia was basically a Russian vassal and Russia, as a permanent member of the UN Security Council, would have vetoed any action to stop the slaughter.

Now, you're attempting to draw a parallel between that action and Putin's attempt at empire rebuilding, but it's plain for all but the most dense among us that there is no comparison between a mission to end a genocide by a Russian-backed war criminal and another Russian war criminal's current invasion of a peaceful European, sovereign state.

Your reply was a word salad of name-dropping and fact-dropping, bearing no relevance to the points I made.

The reality is that atrocities were committed against all sides in the Yugoslavia war, and not just by one side. The United States chose to gloss over that, because it came in on one side. There is no precedent under international law for America carving out territory like that. So the USA set a precedent which is having consequences.

"Russian-backed war criminal and another Russian war criminal" - so you're exposing the fact that this is an ethnically-rooted war and you're then taking sides based on ethnicity. That's not going to end the war.

 

[CaughtInThe]

This is only going to lead to retaliation from Russia. Is it really a good idea to do this?

...said George Washington about Britain as they fought against a country that no one thought they could defeat.

 

[EMNofSeattle]

This is a very interesting development.

It will help the Ukrainians in their fight with putin.

I hope they get those planes in time to bomb that 17 mile convoy of russian troops headed to Ukraine.

European plan to donate fighter jets to Ukraine collapses

Ukrainian pilots are headed to Poland after other countries pledged to donate used planes.

news.yahoo.com

You can’t just jump in an unfamiliar plane and effectively pilot it. You can do basic things like fly straight, climb, land, etc

Maybe. So unless the Ukranian pilots were already qualified to fly whichever aircraft are being donated, this will be awhile before they’re flying sorties.

Ok edit, I read the article, I didn’t know these countries had old Soviet aircraft to hand over, so if Poland is handing over Mig-29, SU 27 and SU-25 then That doesn’t matter

 

[Lloyd Christmas]

This is a very interesting development.

It will help the Ukrainians in their fight with putin.

I hope they get those planes in time to bomb that 17 mile convoy of russian troops headed to Ukraine.

European plan to donate fighter jets to Ukraine collapses

Ukrainian pilots are headed to Poland after other countries pledged to donate used planes.

news.yahoo.com

That's all I was thinking about when I saw it. a few missiles and that entire caravan is wiped.

 

[BirdinHand]

Yes. Putin attacked a sovereign European state. In one stroke he violated an international order that’s maintained peace on the continent for almost eighty years. This can not be permitted to stand. Appeasement led the world to disaster in 1939. It should not take the same path again. Russia HAS to be defeated, and it won’t be by throwing blankets at it.

No one is "appeasing" Russia.

 

[Tbird19482]

70 jets! I hope Ukraine has the infrastructure to keep them supplied and they can be immediately useful.

I wonder did anybody think about putting bombs , rockets, and bullets on these jets so they can fight the Russians?
I hope so.
and what about jet fuel ? do they have any where they are going?
Have a nice day

 

[Ahlevah]

The reality is that atrocities were committed against all sides in the Yugoslavia war, and not just by one side. The United States chose to gloss over that, because it came in on one side. There is no precedent under international law for America carving out territory like that. So the USA set a precedent which is having consequences.

You're doing it again. You're taking a tactic straight out of the Soviet disinformation political smear book, which was to try to divide European interests and concerns from those of the United States. NATO is not America, and neither are the more than one hundred countries that recognize Kosovo as an independent state. As I said, NATO is a military alliance of thirty nations, whose current general secretary is a former Prime Minister of Norway and UN Special Envoy. And if you really want to talk about precedents and redrawing borders, why not talk about the Soviet Union carving out people's socialist democratic republics all over the planet, like it did in Poland, East Germany and North Korea ? It only took half a century to kick them out of Eastern Europe, and we're still living with the consequences of their temporary occupation that turned into a permanent division of the Korean Peninsula and decades of misery for North Koreans. And people like you wonder why there's a NATO?

 

[maxparrish]

This is only going to lead to retaliation from Russia. Is it really a good idea to do this?

There are too many ways the Russians can retaliate. They could supply weapons to states that are hostile to the West.

Since when does Poland get to act unilaterally as a NATO member? Are these the new NATO rules?

You don't seem to grasp geopolitics and the unwritten rules of the game of limited war.

NATO has already committed to assisting Ukraine against and unlawful attack on their country. Each country retains the right to act bi-laterally as long as they themselves to not attack Russia without NATO concurrence.

Under international law it is legal to assist any country who is a victim of a war of aggression, who did not themselves provide Russia with an act of war. Under this game of nations, any material assistance of any type is kosher. Russia knows that.

As Russia already supplies nations that have long been hostile, it's not really a threat. More importantly, Poland has no threat on its border than Russia.

And, I might add, there is nothing wrong with any NATO nation letting its citizens volunteer for foreign duty, e.g. the flying tigers.

 

[Ahlevah]

No one is "appeasing" Russia.

Up until a week ago they were. I mean, I see little difference between Putin's annexation of the Crimean Peninsula and Hitler's annexation of the Sudetenland, other than the fact that Putin is still in Crimea. It's obvious the sanctions put in place in 2014 weren't effective, since eight years later Little Hitler is still there.

 

[Gateman_Wen]

New media one moment say its 17 miles and the next says it's 3 miles. Which is it? Have seen that in the same report by the same correspondents!

Doublespeak in action. Orwell much?

"All animals are equal, but some animals are more equal than others"

Actually humor, but they started this, not us.

 

[maxparrish]

The United States attacked a sovereign state called Serbia during this "peace on the continent for almost eighty years" -- somehow that doesn't get counted as an interruption of peace in your view.
The United States then carved territory out of that country Serbia and declared it to be a new independent country Kosovo. When the United States did this along with NATO, they literally scrapped the part of NATO's founding charter which declared NATO to be a purely defensive organization that will only fight on the soil of its own member states to defend them. At that point, NATO ceased to be a defensive organization and became a militarily expansionist organization. They then said, "don't worry, this is just temporary, Kosovo won't actually become a NATO member." Right now, Kosovo is using the Ukraine crisis to demand being made a NATO member. Kosovo isn't even located near Ukraine. Their argument is ...

Your quite right that the international order has been challenged many times, as well as has been the sovereignty of many countries. Poland, Hungry, Czechoslovakia, Georgia, etc. come to mind. However, whatever the wisdom of NATO's decision to become entangled in the Balkans (which seemed very unwise to me at the time) your comparison suffers from your lack of knowledge.

Kosovo can request and reason as it likes, it has no relevancy to NATO's decision to assist a victim of naked aggression conducted by a declared enemy of its current members. Nato's actions against Serbian ethnic cleansing had nothing to do turning Serbia into an unwilling EU member or puppet state. The Balkans were already at war between various nations. refugees were spilling over international borders, ethnic cleansing underway, and Serbia was the primary cause. This wasn't remotely comparable to Putin's intentional aggression against a peaceful state, conquest and annexation of territory, and sponsorship of so-called "separatists" as a mercenary force and Russian proxy.

It's very obvious that Ukraine is not a united society, despite your desire to turn a blind eye to this. One third of the country's population identifies as ethnically Russian. Why are these important things missing from your perspective? The Yanuckovitch govt was the democratically elected govt, and was thrown out by a street mob through Capital Insurrection street coup. Those people declared themselves to be the govt and then proceeded to outlaw Russian language and culture. This triggered Russia's military response to seize Russian-majority eastern Ukraine. Crimea didn't have to be seized, since it was already in Russian hands, just like Guantanamo is in US hands. So Zelensky is not some all-Ukrainian leader -- he represented a leadership that is ethnically skewed and not a representative govt like the one it threw out. I think it's very clear that 2014 was the year democracy was overthrown in Ukraine. And when you argue with them about it, they only vaguely reply "Well, what did you expect us to do when the govt was preventing us from joining EU?" That's not a justification for overthrowing a democratically elected govt.

Actually, it's very obvious you are parroting a party line, a rationalization for your antipathy for the west and sympathy for a strongman bully. Yes, about 30 percent of the country use Russian as their first language but about half those are also loyal to a Ukranian state, not Russia. And the Yan. govt was barely elected under his promise to support and sign EU membership, the conclusion of five years of hard negotiations with the EU. Days before he was to sign, he was summoned to meet Putin who then promised to tear up contracts with Eastern Ukranian manufacturers and put hundreds of thousands of Yan. supporters out of work.

Yan. broke his promise, angry voters turned out, the democratic parliament tossed him out, and that was that. The fraud was nominally democratically elected and democratically removed. Putin's blackmail backfired. That should be the end of story.

And no, the Russian language was not trying to be outlawed. The law of 2012 was trying to be repealed to return to the prior law, and then a new law made. Ukrainian would be the language used by the State (as already in their constitution) and Russian also used wherever those speakers were greater than 10 percent of the population.

And no, Crimea was not in Russia's hands, it was predominately Russian speaking in population but a part of Ukraine. The Russian naval base was "Guantanamo", Crimea as a whole was Cuba. Putin decided to invade "Cuba" because he wasn't happy with just a base.

And what do I expect people to do when an agent of a foreign power gains office by fraud? I expect the government to use its power of impeachment to toss the guy out. And, in the context of the people's rage, they did.

 

[Deuce]

They are technically defensive weapons. Fighters are offensive... technically.

There's no definition you can invent where an antitank missile is "technically" defensive while a fighter jet is "technically" offensive.

All weapons are offensive.

 

[EnigmaO01]

Since it's reportedly grown to 40 miles long I hope they came with plenty of munitions.

It's actually 4 miles. An error in translation.

 

[Common Sense 1]

It would be great if the Ukrainian airforce could find that 40 mile Russian tank jam up. They are truly sitting ducks. What damage could be done. Let's hope.

 

[EnigmaO01]

The big question I would have is the maintenance of these aircraft and how modernized they are. Flying an 80's vintage Mig-29 against Su-35's is not a great idea....

Depends on how many Mig-29's are on that Su-35. If they swarm an Su-35 enough they may be able to take it out.

And I'll bet they've been modified.

It was said our old F-4's from the Vietnam era that I worked with in the ANG in the 80's could take hits better than the newer aircraft models, and we could use them to guide Lasers for the new F-16's. At least we were going to do that in Iraq but Desert Shield ended just before we were deployed.

 

[bave]

Depends on how many Mig-29's are on that Su-35. If they swarm an Su-35 enough they may be able to take it out.

And I'll bet they've been modified.

It was said our old F-4's from the Vietnam era that I worked with in the ANG in the 80's could take hits better than the newer aircraft models, and we could use them to guide Lasers for the new F-16's. At least we were going to do that in Iraq but Desert Shield ended just before we were deployed.

If you are talking about F4's of Da Nang you might be right, but we aren't talking early days of AIM's anymore. Now the combat is going to be almost entirely BVR. Flying an early vintage Mig-29 against a semi-modern Su-35 that is backed up with an AWAC is a nightmare. He is going to get engaged from 60nmi and ripple fired. That Su is also going to have friends real quick too. Remember those Mig29's that decided to fight F15-C's in 91? How'd they manage?

 

[Somerville]

The promise to supply fighter jets to Ukraine has run into a problem.

No fighter plane transfers to Ukraine through allied airspace​

RZESZOW, Poland — NATO airspace will not be used to transfer fighter planes to the Ukrainian military, alliance leaders said Tuesday after a meeting in Poland, where top U.S. commanders were on hand for high-level security talks.

Ukraine has requested additional military hardware from the West to help stave off Russia’s full-scale invasion, which was on its sixth day when the NATO talks occurred.

But one day after a top European Union official said some countries were ready to provide fighters to Ukraine, NATO appears to have put on the brakes.

“NATO is not going to be part of the conflict,” Secretary-General Jens Stoltenberg said. “So NATO is not going to send troops into Ukraine or move planes into Ukrainian airspace.”

On Monday, the European Union’s high representative, Josep Borrell, said numerous countries were prepared to provide Ukraine with fighter jets. And Ukraine’s parliament said Monday that Poland was among the countries ready to provide Soviet-era MiG-29 fighters.

Polish President Andrzej Duda spoke ambiguously Tuesday about how or whether those planes would arrive.

 

[poweRob]

Since when does Poland get to act unilaterally as a NATO member? Are these the new NATO rules?

What makes you think they are working unilaterally?