Kiltrash

Personally I can't be arsed with all the "X' , formally known as Twatter...
prefer the abridged version in Sky or BBC news,.. other news feeds are available ..

However I can't see what the F-16 brings to the party for Ukraine. ...oh for a few A-10 or AV8b's

NutLoose

Weapons, that’s what and range, current Ukrainian jets are out ranged by Russian aircraft weapons and radar, F16 will give them parity at least and a chance to take them on.

NutLoose

Russia claims a guard in his underwear took on and killed some of the Ukrainian party in Crimea. So a man in flip flops with a vest and boxers at night took out a bunch of “marines” no doubt equipped with night vision.

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Tartiflette Fan

I think if you zoom in, you'll see that he is wearing All-Terrain Sandals !! A great equaliser ( I try to get simiolar for my holidays -exciting !! )

NutLoose

Considering he only had one mag on it and a standard mag is 30 rounds, to kill 15 to 20 Ukrainians is some feat in a combat situation at night, unless he was carrying another mag in the front of his shorts!

Wokkafans

Twitter

"Pentagon Plans to Begin Training Ukrainian Pilots on F-16s in U.S."

https://www.nytimes.com/2023/08/24/w...-training.html

"The decision is a shift from last week, when a U.S. official said the pilots could be trained in the United States if European training programs reached capacity.

The Pentagon plans to begin training Ukrainian pilots on F-16 fighter jets in the United States as early as September, a U.S. official said on Thursday. Defense Department officials said last week that Ukrainian pilots would be trained in the United States if a European coalition effort to train dozens of pilots, led by the Netherlands and Denmark, reached capacity. But the approach is now changing to also bring Ukrainian pilots for training in the United States as soon as Ukraine identifies them. It was unclear whether the United States would train pilots originally destined for European training programs or this would be an additional group.

The decision was expected to be announced on Thursday afternoon, timed to Ukraine’s Independence Day.

But, it will be months yet, at least, before the F-16s are sent to battle. It was only last Thursday that an American official said that the Biden administration would allow allies to send the American-designed jets to Ukraine. Ukraine’s defense minister, Oleksii Reznikov, predicted earlier this week that it would take six to seven months before F-16s were sent to Ukraine, following training for the country’s pilots and necessary support staff. That means the planes will not play a role in Ukraine’s current counteroffensive.

The pilots will first receive English language training in Texas and then begin months of flight training in Arizona, said the U.S. official who addressed the issue on Thursday, speaking on condition of anonymity to discuss future training plans. A small number of Ukrainian pilots had received training in the United States prior to a decision by President Biden in May to allow European countries with U.S.-made F-16s to train Ukrainian aviators. This past winter, the U.S. Air Force hosted two Ukrainian pilots who had flown Soviet-era jets to see how they would fare on the F-16. In an assessment dated March 22, Air Force officials concluded that at least some Ukrainian pilots could be trained to fly the F-16 in four to five months The assessment was based on a 12-day evaluation of the two Ukrainian pilots who underwent flight simulations at the Morris Air National Guard Base in Tucson, Ariz., over the winter. It found that the two pilots still needed certain technical skills, including understanding the Western cockpit’s instruments and becoming comfortable flying in American-standard formation with other aircraft.

Norway said on Thursday that it would donate F-16 fighter jets to Ukraine, in what would make it the third NATO country to do so after the Netherlands and Denmark. And Portugal said it also would train Ukrainian pilots and engineers to fly or maintain the F-16s. With the new commitment, President Volodymyr Zelensky has estimated that Ukraine would receive at least 61 F-16s — enough for as many as four squadrons."

Wokkafans

Operation "Titmouse": new photos of the Mi-8 helicopter landed in Ukraine by a Russian pilot

Wokkafans

One less in the inventory:

"Ukrainian soldiers watch a Russian SU-25 crash near Robotyne after it was hit. Smoke seen rising in the end."

https://www.reddit.com/r/UkraineRuss...eb2x&context=3

sycamore

Bit of an oxymoron `learning English in Texas`...and `becoming comfortable flying American-standard formation with other aircraft`...would have thought the UKR guys would show their formation standards against the `Agressor` guys,as they are supposed to replicate Russian tactics...?

Lonewolf_50

Not really. Given that the F-16 is an American jet, why not learn American English?

Here's a thought on the possible SAM shootdown of the Prigozhin and his associates:
what if the recent drone attacks on Moscow has gotten the Russian air defenders a bit on edge; someone made a human error and launches on that target?
(As a contemporary reference, consider the Ukrainian jet shot down accidentally in Iran a few years ago).
In short, what if it was the result of a cock up? Errors happen.

Uberteknik

BBC reporting tonight that the Americans do not believe a SAM took the plane down.

"A US official has said it seems “very unlikely” Yevgeny Prigozhin’s plane was shot down by a surface-to-air missile - a view that's consistent with what we just heard in the Pentagon briefing.The official told the BBC's American partner network CBS that an explosion on board the aircraft was the more probable cause of Wednesday's crash.

They added that the cause of that explosion was not yet known, but a bomb was one possibility."

ORAC

Interesting, if true it now has land attack modes.

EXDAC

I'm sure that combat effectiveness will depend on knowing that the plural of "y'all" is "all y'all". Some English is spoken in Arizona so don't see why the detour to Texas was thought necessary.

fdr

On the claim of "15-20" Ukrainian special forces taken out by the underwear modelling security guard.

Erwin Schrödinger's nephew Vlad had a cat, then it got dead or alive. The guard was armed with a single AK and one banana clip, but had the forethought to have his magic bullet.

Or Occurs Rasor: "Vlad lies, he lied, he will lie"

ORAC

This is a cry for help... a 80 year old tank going into battle...

yes a WWII tank is going into battle on the Russian side..

​​​​​​​T-10 tank of the Russia Army

Video Mixdown

If that is what happened (one of several possibilities), I wouldn't call it a cock up. It'd be a direct result of the fear, doubt and panic instilled by the drone attacks - i.e. a success of the tactic.

Ninthace

​​​​​​​Is that rust or dust off those tracks!?

Tartiflette Fan

You may have thought this humourous, but it struck me as both stupid and deeply ignorant. I think you really need to revise your ideas of who is fighting against which enemies.

sycamore

TF,..M.,C`est `badinage`...

The Helpful Stacker

So Kubinka wasn't a museum after all, its a strategic reserve.

Those canny Russians, hiding them in plain sight.