Lithuania’s prime minister on Thursday said the Baltic nation would be delivering Stinger anti-aircraft missiles to Ukraine in the coming days, marking a significant escalation in NATO’s arming of Ukraine.
“We are increasing the number of military instructors in the country and providing Ukraine with additional weapons and equipment … Stinger anti-aircraft missiles from Lithuania will reach Ukraine in the coming days,” Prime Minister Ingrida Simonyte said during a visit to Kyiv.
Until now, the deadliest weapons given to Ukraine by the US and its allies have been Javelin anti-tank missiles, armed patrol boats, and small arms. In January, the US State Department approved the transfer of US-made Stinger missiles from Lithuania to Ukraine.
Stingers are portable anti-aircraft missiles that the US famously gave to the Afghan Mujahideen to fight the Soviet Union in the 1980s. US media reports have said that the Biden administration is considering backing an insurgency in Ukraine, signaling that the US wants to draw Russia into a similar quagmire.
But Ukraine is much different from Afghanistan, and Russia has repeatedly denied it’s planning an invasion. If Russia decides to take the breakaway Republics in the eastern Donbas region, there would likely be no insurgency since the separatists have previously asked to join the Russian Federation.
Stingers. Another waste of time. Scenario: Ukrainian soldier sees Russian jet (or helicopter), fires Stinger. Maybe he downs it, maybe not. Meanwhile Russia AISR sees him, his buddies in that field and also where his command is. Five minutes later, they all cease to exist. Indeed, in all probability his command was already destroyed and he’s operating on his own without any command and control. As Martyanov says, “If we can see you, we can kill you – and we can see you.”
Stingers can not change the military balance of power between Ukraine and Russia. They also will not seriously affect Russian military operations against Ukraine’s main forces. The most effective use of Stingers is from vehicles designed to fire more than one as a means of covering a larger force from air attack. As I said, the minute you mass your forces and hence your AD, you become a target. Random Stingers fired from individuals are not important to the overall combat operation.
Anyone can play that game and i belive the English sent some too. Given the ukraine’s record of shooting down civilian airliners on US orders i mean (MH17 and a Russian one in 2000) but if US had the capacity to think this through it wouldn’t take a genius to figure out why Russian MANPADS suddenly starts to show up in US occupied eastern Syria and Iraq.
Not to mention the probability that they will be used to stage another MH17-like provocation.
Who knows where the arms will end up in this corrupt country?
“Ukraine is believed to have one of the largest arms trafficking markets in Europe. While it has long been a key link in the global arms trade, its role has only intensified since the beginning of the conflict in eastern Ukraine,” according to the Organized Crime Index. . .here
According to the Organized Crime and Corruption Reporting Project, “many of the arms now in the control of non-state groups in Ukraine fall into the hands of organized crime groups selling arms to the Middle East, often through Odessa.”.
Lithuania s optimistic that there will be no Russian pushback against them? Maybe not for a few decades. But unlike ADHD USA, Russia remembers.