Russia has stepped up attacks on Ukrainian airfields as Kyiv is preparing to receive its first batch of long-awaited US-made F-16 fighter jets.
Last week, Russia hit three airfields and said it destroyed a total of seven aircraft, including five Soviet-made Su-27 fighter jets, one Mig-29 fighter jet, and a Mi-17 helicopter.
In each attack, Russia published videos of the strikes as the airfields were being monitored by Russian drones. The successful Russian attacks are raising concern among Ukrainian officials about securing more Western jets.
“If we keep losing aircraft in this way, no one will give us more,” said Ukrainian MP Roman Kostenko, according to AFP.
Brig. Gen. Serhiy Holubtsov, the chief of aviation in the Ukrainian Air Force, suggested last month that Ukraine could store some of its F-16s abroad to ensure they’re not destroyed by Russia. That would mean placing them at NATO bases in Europe, making them potential targets for the Russian military.
Ukraine is expected to receive its first F-16s from European NATO countries this month. The Netherlands has promised 24 F-16s for Ukraine and said on Saturday they would be delivered “without delay.”
The provision of F-16s to Ukraine will mark a significant escalation of NATO’s involvement in the proxy war as it will mark the first time the alliance has sent Western-made jets. The US and several European countries have been training Ukrainian pilots on the F-16 since last year.
FJB and the puppet master POS obama!
They have brought us to the brink of World War III and the extinction of life on earth!
As American senator Lindsey Graham said, U.S. can't afford to lose $12 trillion worth of Ukrainian assets. Most of those assets are in East Ukraine, and most of them are already bought at a huge discount by American corporations. It is one of the main reasons why American oligarchs are so stubborn in pursuing this war.
How about the Urals where the "reporter" was wandering around, the one being held?
FYI, yesterday in my Facebook feed I received an ad to fundraise for a "bionic arm" (exact quote) for a member of Ukraine's 3rd Assault Brigade. That unit sounded familiar, I looked it up on Wikipedia and sure enough it's a Nazicentric group that branched off of thee original Azov Battalion.
I did the equal of retweeting the ad on Facebook, added the Wikipedia link in comments, to my friend group and noted that apparently it's a "community standard" to fundraise for Nazi bionic arms on Facebook. I asked if the arm automatically Sieg Heils at superhuman speed.
A minute later, I received a message that my post was removed for being contrary to "community standards" and my account was in danger of suspension. I then posted a text-only message to my page describing that series of events.
About 10 minutes later my decade-old account was permanently suspended, and I've lost contact with a number of people. It's incredible how the Rachael Maddow 2016 "Putin is in your underwear drawer" madness has extended to severe online censorship of the plain fact that the US taxpayer is arming open Nazis in the push to WWIII.
WE are funding and arming the groups. Wonderful, isn't it?
The carnage came to an end March, 2022. Then Boris came to the rescue, told the Ukraine negotiators to not sign anything, just keep fighting. Confirmed by the negotiator representing Kiev, also confirming what Putin said.
Irrelevant to anything. Any F-16 that comes near the front line will be detected and destroyed. Russia has long-range radar detection, has the equivalent of AWACs, and Russian fighters have longer-range air-to-air missiles than any F-16 does. Ukrainian air fields are unsuited for F-16 use, and as stated in the article, Russia is destroying them.
All the "F-16s can carry nukes" guff is irrelevant. Any use of a nuke would immediately involve the US (and NATO as France and England also have nukes) in WWIII. The Pentagon knows that. Russia knows that. So "that ain't gonna happen." Russia bringing it up is merely a warning.
More importantly is this notion of flying them in to an airfield in Ukraine from Poland and Romania, then flying the mission from the Ukrainian airfield to claim that "NATO is not involved" because the actual mission comes from inside Ukraine. This is the sort of "fig leaf" the West likes to use to mislead everyone. Except Russia is not misled. Russia will also not be deterred from attacking those external airfields by the alleged "threat" of NATO getting directly involved, since 1) NATO is already "involved", and 2) Russia not afraid of NATO.
The only remaining question then is: what does NATO do when Russia bombs those Polish and Romanian airfields? Answer: Nothing. Most likely the current disintegration of NATO will accelerate.
Personally I suspect Russia will not find it necessary to hit those airfields. A handful of F-16s isn't going to change the battlefield significantly. Therefore Russia will not see any need to extend its targeting. Ukraine airfields are closer than Polish and Romania ones. If you hit the same planes in Ukraine as exist in Poland and Romania, why bother hitting them in those countries? Te only conceivable purpose would be as a warning to NATO to not further escalate – except of course Russia hitting inside a NATO country would already be an escalation. So why bother, especially if you already know NATO will continue to escalate anyway regardless of what you do?
The whole story is a nothing-burger.
F-16s are nothing special. They've been around for 50 years. And have all sorts of negative features. They are no more "a signficant escalation" than were the grossly overrated US and German tanks, which have dissappeared without a trace. And it is doubtful that the hastily trained Ukrainian pilots can even get the best out of the F 16s, which aren't all that great to begin with.
As for where the Kiev Entity and its Western Overlords plan to base these wonder weapons du jour, that is a more interesting question. If they are merely "stored" across the border in a NATO country, that's one thing, and the Russians will probably not try to hit those air bases. But if the F-16s fly "sorties" (ie combat missions) over the Ukraine directly from those "storage" points, then those air bases become legitimate targets. There is no such thing as taking off from an air base in, say, Poland, with Ukrainian pilots, flying combat missions over the Ukraine, and then flying back to their "storage" places in Poland, where they are "safe," in their "home base," from Russian attacks. If that is what is planned, not only would the F 16s on the ground, at the NATO air bases, be targetted, but so would the entire air base. Indeed, it might not be possible to cabin things off even to that extent. Because if the air base is a legitmate target, well then, so are the supplies heading to the base, and the transportation and other infrastructure that supports the base. That sounds pretty close to direct war between NATO and Russia.
I doubt this is what NATO has in mind, regardless of what the Kiev Entity's "chief aviation officer" has to say.
It's not what the F-16's can or cannot do. It's what they can carry.
The Russians would be crazy to regard them as just more aircraft. I suspect their appearance will jack up the level of lethality of Russian airstrikes.
A jet fighter can carry a nuke. Practices are made whereby a jet fighter can basically sling the nuke, to a reverse and be gone before detonation.
At this rate, they’ll be using cornfields to fly them out.
I’m reading that Russia bombed a children’s hospital in Kiev. If true, they are damaging their perceived higher moral ground.
Arestovich, an advisor to Zelensky, was forced to resign after publicly stating that most of the damage to Ukrainian civilian structures was caused by Ukraine's own air defense weapons falling to earth (what goes up must come down). He spoke the truth. Blaming the Russians for killing the civilians your own people kill is great propaganda. Did the Russians target a children's hospital? Such an action serves no military purpose and gives Ukraine beaucoup propaganda points as well as damaging Russia's own reputation. are the Russians that stupid? Cui bono?
“If true”.
And what did they target?
I'm not privy to the Russian operations plan.
You seem to be “ privy” to what they didn’t do.
What would be the reason for the Russians to target a children's hospital? In your estimation.
I’m hoping that they didn’t. So far they haven’t targeted large numbers of civilians. Ukraine, on the other hand, specifically targeted civilians on a beach.
Hope is not a reason. Why would the Russians target a children’s hospital if that was what it actually was? Can you provide a reason?
People do shitty things in anger.
War crimes are part of war. I don’t claim to know what happened with the hospital, but Russia has undoubtedly committed crimes just because it’s a war.
I don’t claim to know anything. I just want the US out.
Yeah. It’s clear from my comments that I am not Russia-phobic, but anything is possible in war, and there are a variety of actors on every side.
The fog of war is irksome. Few know of crimes and virtuous acts.
Might be military assets near there.
"Ukraine, on the other hand, specifically targeted civilians on a beach."
The Russian Ministry of Defense says that the ATACM "deviated from its flight path" after others were successfully intercepted, and exploded over the beach. Which suggests that the one which "deviated from its flight path" did so because of a failed interception attempt that knocked it off course, not because the civilians on the beach were "specifically targeted."
Similarly, the impact on the hospital was probably due to air defense interference.
That stuff happens during wars. It's not justifiable, but it happens.
There was a quote from some Ukrainian military @hole who said that he warned ahead of time that he would be targeting the beach. I think it was in an article here.
The Ukrainian missiles were aimed fur downtown where many more civilians would have been killed than in the beach.
Face it, Americans are cowardly, blood thirsty terrorists whi aim at civilians minding their own business thousands of miles from the US.
Slithering Americans kill civilians all over the world fir profit because they are too stupid to compete in normal enterprise.
Ray McGovern on Judging Freedom said he "smells a rat", implying a false flag, just before the NATO get together in a couple of days. NATO is preparing for all out war with Russia.https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vmdL2eYJR2c