The US has offered Slovakia attack helicopters and Hellfire missiles as a reward for sending Ukraine Soviet-made MiG-29 fighter jets.
Slovak Defense Minister Jaroslav Nad said the deal would be for 12 Bell AH-1Z attack choppers, 500 AGM-114 Hellfire II missiles, and training. The sale is worth about $1 billion, and under the offer, the US would provide $660 million in financing, and Slovakia would pay $340 million.
Separately, the EU will compensate Slovakia with $213 million for providing Ukraine with the MiG-29s. Nad said the offer was still being considered but added acquiring the helicopters would “significantly increase the defense capability of Slovakia.”
Without its MiG-29s, Slovakia doesn’t have an air force, and Poland and the Czech Republic are now monitoring the land-locked country’s airspace. Slovakia signed a deal in 2018 to purchase 14 US-made F-16 fighter jets, but they aren’t expected to be delivered until 2024.
The US offer means that Washington must have been involved in Slovakia’s decision to send its 13 MiG-29s to Ukraine, which came after Poland announced it would provide Kyiv with the Soviet-made jets. The move makes Poland and Slovakia the first NATO members to arm Ukraine with fighter jets.
In March 2022, the Pentagon ruled out sending Polish MiG-29s to Ukraine over concerns that it could escalate the war. NATO officials believed the provision of fighter jets could be viewed in Moscow as the alliance directly entering the war. But one year later, the escalation concerns waned.
Seems like a poor trade on the other hand planes are expensive. So now Slovakia has more money
All good and well yet how can one be truly ”anti war” when posting links to articles that confirm [and identify] the fact that ”all wars are bankers wars” are removed.
Slovakia certainly never paid anything close to $873 million for their dozen or so 35 year old Mig 29s, even adjusting for inflation. So the idea that they are “donating” anything is just nonsense; they are being paid (“Bribed”) generously, by the EU and USA, to provide their old hanger queens to Ukraine, whether they can actually fly or not (they have been sitting, unflown and unmaintained, for 8 months). A heck of a deal.
No criticism to Slovakia; countries should act in their own self interest; but portraying this as some kind of generosity, or outpouring of support, on Slovakia’s account is absurd. They are doing this because they are being paid off handsomely to do this.
“The US has offered Slovakia attack helicopters and Hellfire missiles as a reward for sending Ukraine Soviet-made MiG-29 fighter jets.”
Remember when your mom would give you a cookie for being good?
Yeah, those cookies were good.
But an attack helicopter would have been even better.
Honesty is the best policy. 😉
Here’s a reason why the Ukrainian number of Russian soldiers KIA and wounded is so high. They record many of their attacks. It shows how the mobilized soldiers don’t know how to spread out.
https://youtu.be/SpyxQYlovQ4
Failure to disperse properly (whether in movement or in place) has more than one cause.
One of the causes, as you imply, is poor training.
But there are at least two other major causes (barring terrain that makes dispersion difficult):
1) The natural human tendency, among even trained troops, to want to feel safer when they’re closer to each other; and
2) Poor command supervision — NCOs not constantly emphasizing dispersion, officers not looking over positions and telling the NCOs to get their troops more well-dispersed.
I have many memories of hearing NCOs yell (and being an NCO who yelled) “DOES THAT LOOK LIKE FIVE METERS TO YOU? ARE YOU TRYING TO GET UP THE CRACK OF HIS ASS OR SOMETHING?”
I remember: “Spread out. One round will get you all”.
But thankfully, I never had to play for real, so it didn’t have the same effect.
I guess the training took fairly well in my unit. The only time I ever had to do the fire team rush thing under fire for real, the reac team I was on maintained good dispersion, and nobody got shot.
But then another time, we were in night ambush while on a security patrol, and the dispersion didn’t feel sufficient when two AH-64 Apaches popped up over the dune to our front with their guns aimed at us, because someone hadn’t put our patrol overlay on the base security map. That was a tight sphincter moment for me and I’m surprised it wasn’t a loose sphincter moment.
Like I said, I never had to do it for real. But I will be the first to admit that the “loose sphincter moment(s)” would have been many if I had.
We appreciate your directness Wars and for creating such a visual for us all……………:-)
Blame it on Thomas. 😉
OOps. Did it twice.
Great analysis I cannot disagree with. Yep, those instructors yelling and chewing asses in the field, definitely make you learn quick and never forget.
Helicopters are better at internal control of the population than are old jets.
Just another way to squander our stolen wages and build more helicopters. It’s sooooo obvious this is all about paying the MIC back for all those campaign contributions, just like big Rx and Med. got payed off with the COVID epidemic. What’s next? probably the insurance industry. Watch for your rates to skyrocket.