Sky News team shot at.

In civvy vehicle, unsure whether it has distinguishing marks or not.

Not if it is undetected...that is my point. Can the B-2 blow up the convoy outside Kyiv, while remaining undetected by the Russians? I have been out of the USAF quite a while, and do not know the capabilities of the B-2, for flying and dropping their bombs, while remaining undetected by the adversary.

What?

You mean the Russians might think it is somebody else's B-2?

Fot goodness sake...

Forbes reporting Bayraktar drones targeting fuel trucks and that the Russians are trying to disguise them: Forbes

Hopefully they have enough to target Russian artillery shelling their cities, likely from across the border.
​​​​​

Notable on the Forbes article is also the amount of anti tank weaponry. 20000 units on top of Ukraines existing equipment. If those do find their way to the cities and to convoys out of fuel and food, it'll really start to become a nightmare for the Russians. Death toll will increase amongst the Russians.

Here is an interesting article from yesterday about the continued lack of impact of the Russian AF

https://rusi.org/explore-our-researc...air-operations

Exactly that, and yes, I know NATO isn’t going to get involved or invade, blah, blah, blah, BUT Russia is involved in a war and only a fool would ignore the build up of troops on their flank, especially from Countries that are expressly supporting and arming your “enemy” and you are not dealing with a rational fool.

Go back to the Cold War and look at the size of the Warsaw Pact forces that were built up and stationed across the other side of the Wall, they were there as a deterrent against the west moving east, just as we were there to prevent the east moving west.

Film of the Sky team getting shot at and wounded.

https://news.sky.com/story/sky-news-...-week-12557585

He will be very wary of staff officers carrying briefcases!

Obviously nobody know what is in Putin mind.

But consider this as a possible scenario.

Russia pressures Sweden (And Finland) about not joining NATO. Sweden refuses point blank.
Russian threats escalate but Sweden does not budge.
Do it or you will regret it say Russia.
Then Putin throws a small tactical nuclear weapon – maybe somewhere almost uninhabited in northern Sweden - a small military installation say.

Putin has shown he will use nuclear weapons to back his promises – without fear of getting anything back in return.
What can Sweden do? Nothing
What will Nato do? Nothing!

Then he threatens NATO and the Baltic states.

The Baltic states are mine – give them to me or I will use nukes.
He then says NATO countries that DON’T defend the Baltic States WON’T get Nuked.
Would everyone stick together?
Would Belgium, Netherlands, Germany stand tall?
Does NATO resolve crack? Are the Baltic States given over to avert WW3?

Possible?

Just random thoughts while I was mowing the lawn!

Another Farm trophy, I do like the comment.


https://cimg9.ibsrv.net/gimg/pprune....cd6990802.jpeg

Except just yesterday Ben Wallace stated that the UK quarantees assisting Sweden by all means available in case Russia attacks the swedes.
There you go, a nuclear state giving quarantees to sweden.

https://sverigesradio.se/artikel/sto...erige-militart

Google translate say that the UK would "help"! - Like we are with Ukraine?
Doesn't sound like a guarantee - “ Here come shelter under our Nuclear Umbrella”

"Sweden can count on UK's help in case Sweden encounters Russian aggression, promises Ben Wallace."

"Wallace says that UK will stand by Sweden and do everything it can, both militarily and by other means."

Translated without google by someone who speaks swedish.

I think you would be naive to read too much into that -if you asked he'd say that UK is standing by the Ukraine and doing everything it can, both militarily and by other means!!

You can easily change Sweden with Finland in my scenario - so try this :

Obviously nobody know what is in Putin mind.

But consider this as a possible scenario.

Russia pressures Finland about not joining NATO. Finland refuses point blank.
Russian threats escalate but Finland does not budge.
Do it or you will regret it say Russia.
Then Putin throws a small tactical nuclear weapon – maybe somewhere almost uninhabited in northern Finland - a small military installation say.

Putin has shown he will use nuclear weapons to back his promises – without fear of getting anything back in return.
What can Finland do? Nothing
What will Nato do? Nothing!

Then he threatens NATO and the Baltic states.

The Baltic states are mine – give them to me or I will use nukes.
He then says NATO countries that DON’T defend the Baltic States WON’T get Nuked.
Would everyone stick together?
Would Belgium, Netherlands, Germany stand tall?
Does NATO resolve crack? Are the Baltic States given over to avert WW3?

Possible?

Just random thoughts while I was mowing the lawn!

I did consider that version as well, just wanted to point out that there is JEF (to which Wallace to my understanding referred to). And Finland is within the JEF too.

This is a can of worms Russia really does not want to contemplate.

At the first sign of anyone throwing buckets of sunshine, battlefield or otherwise, on any nation, Pandora's box will be opened.

IG

Sorry to dampen your expectations, but absolutely, if Putin gives a command to pop off a bucket of sunshine that shortly thereafter the locals will need SPF 1,000,000,000 and really good earplugs. There was a single known situation where a Lt Col Stanislav Petrov on 26 Sep 83 elected to follow his logic and not follow the Russian response to an erroneous indication of a mass of inbound missiles heading for Russia. He stood down the response, twice. His bosses praised him and then he was sacked. There is not much upside to saving the world apparently.

Putin's behavior has been emboldened by his learning that the rest of the world is not prepared to stand up to the bully kicking sand in faces. Chechnya round II, may be argued as an internal affair it was still genocide. Georgia, who came to Georgia's assistance against Putin? Syria? Putin targets US troops, and the west snooze through it all.

He has learned that he will not be held to account for his actions and that the Russian public is somewhere between enamored and fearful of him.

Assume he drops a nuke on Kiev, who is going to make a meaningful response? Once he does that, and no response arises, then why wouldn't he assume that he can support the dear leader of Belarus to invade Lithuania? At what point is the attack so egregious that the west do what they should have done with Georgia and Syria.

If sanctions are to be effective they need to be total, an unreserved severing of communications and logistics of all forms, irrespective of the pain that causes to us.

Personally, I think the the Turkish drones gives a nice suggestion that the USA do a lend-lease of old reapers and early model predators to the Ukranians, and take officers of the Ukraine to sit in the cabs in Creech to go plinking T-72's and T-90s. There's no shortage of targets there. Throw me in that briar patch.

Putin's justification of the war took a bit of a hit with his troops trying to smoke a nuclear power plant that is upwind of Crimea, Donetsk, Donbas, Luhansk... Volgograd, the whole of Kazakhstan, west China etc. He shows an odd way of helping the newly republic of Putin's, by trying to smoke a nuke upwind of these grateful recipients of Putinesque largesse.

Is this the start of Round III? Russia and China both have eyes on territory, and a world still recovering from the consequences of 4 years of Trumpist diplomacy. I think the only way it doesn't is by a concerted UN intervention to enforce a removal of Putin from Ukraine. I would think that the number of civil claims on all of the assets of Russia that have been seized will get an airing, and the cost to Russia will be catastrophic, they have already done more damage to Ukraine than multiples of the Russian GDP, so that should be fun for every Russian citizen to pay off over then next 2 decades.

If the world doesn't stop the action in Ukraine, it will surely extend further, and then the bell for Round III will probably be rung.

I'd say the Budapest agreement is (or should have been for Ukraine) much stronger than Wallace's comments about Sweden

and the JEF has no guarantees – just some wishy washey work together statements - no?

If Russia did say Nuke Finland or Sweden – they would be on their own!

Assurances from the UK (and US) aren't exactly reliable. Ukraine gave up it's nuclear weapons as a result of such guarantees...

https://m.dw.com/en/ukraines-forgott...dum/a-18111097

Why should Sweden take such a guarantee seriously if, as when Ukraine called upon such a guarantee, it was presented with a stuttering buffoon called Johnson and a wandering care home resident called Biden pulling out their "...but, but, but NATO..." excuse?

The Budapest Memorandum has nothing to do with NATO and as such the UK and US, if we have any sense of honour to a commitment, should have deployed forces to uphold the guarantee by now.