Navigating the Tensions in Ukraine: A Scientific Perspective

[artis]

relax; Kremlin has much more serious difficulties than warming up problems in Latvia. I think that actually Russia will never be the same after this crisis. I think that now we can see the end of the very prolonged post-soviet period in Europe and of the very very long imperialistic period of Russian history. And the Russian population seeing all of that will also relax and begin to learn Latvian language.

By the way I was in Riga as a boy long ago. I remember only two things: the Doms Cathedral and the statue of a cat on the roof of an old building :)

Oh I am relaxed, and I too don't think our local Russian population will play a decisive role in the events to come. They too are of course not "monolithic" but rather have their own divides and some are indeed patriotic to the host country not to the historical motherland.
In fact back in 1991 and some years before that many local Russians and Ukrainians stood along fellow Baltic folks who demanded sovereign independence from the USSR.

Which year were you in Riga? Doms cathedral is indeed beautiful , probably the biggest attraction for Riga the old city center made of churches and old buildings and streets some of which date back to the year 1200. Riga itself was founded in 1201. The building with the cat on the roof I know (in google "cat house Riga", a close relative of mine worked across the street there for a decade in the Latvian ministry of finance, brings back memories.

 

[256bits]

On Michael Shermer's podcast with John Mueller, a professor of political scientist at Ohio State University, Shermer brought up a point made by a colleague who thinks western media misunderstood what Putin said.

From the show notes:

...
If he had wanted to put his “nuclear forces” on high alert, as has been stated or implied

Never understood the newsworthyness of the headline.
I would have thought that countries that have nuclear forces always have them on high alert.

Although,
A headline "Dog Bites Man" is ho-hum and will not sell newspapers, but "Man Bits Dog" will attract more attention. News outlets are in competition with one another; if one goes with the "Dog Bites Man" all the others pickup the lead and follow suit like lemers, not wanting to appear behind on the unfolding events. The one or two that really do some investigation and run the more truthful "Dog Bites Man" a day or two later would be glossed over by discussion on the original story. So they don't.
... etc, on how stories in the news actually unfold ...

 

[artis]

Nevertheless, the moment of regime change will be our largest risk for nuclear holocaust. Putin himself (or any other official in Russia with the authority to order the launch) may do that on the way out the door as revenge.

If there are safeguards in Russia to prevent launch on the authority of a single person, I don't know about them.

Shermer brought up a point made by a colleague who thinks western media misunderstood what Putin said.

If the speech they are all referring to is this in the video below, then indeed the translation in the video is correct and he is not specifically speaking about "nuclear" but simply saying "deterrence forces"
You can listen to when he says the word deterrence and write in google translate "deterrence" translate to Russian and play the audio of the word, indeed you will hear they are one and the same with what Putin said in the video.
Here is the translate link https://translate.google.lv/?sl=en&tl=ru&text=deterrence &op=translate

But as with all things Kremlin, there is a catch, one that might slip unnoticed.
Putin specifically mentions that he is "Putin" (yes pun intended) Russian deterrence forces on high alert and he says that he orders this to the "Defense minister" and "Chief of the general staff"

Now IIRC there is only one major "deterrence" force that is under the combined control of both Russian defense ministry as well as Chief of general staff and that is the Russian Rocket force (land based ICMB's) and the other 2 arms of the nuclear triad, namely SLBM and strategic bombers.
So I think even though the translation doesn't explicitly say so, he is not talking about Russian border patrol being on "high alert" with their fingers in grenade pins ready to throw them over border at moment's notice. That deterrence force that he mentions under the control of defense minister and Chief of general staff is non other than nuclear triad.

It also just happens to be that there are 3 "Chegets" aka nuclear briefcases in Russia and they belong to
1) Mr. Putin
2) Shoigu - the Defense minister
3) Chief of general staff

So now you see these are the very people Putin was putting on high alert...

I guess I will write up how the Russian launch sequence works if anyone is interested from the literature I have read, I might get something wrong as I only know as much as can be known from Russian sources etc but still I think there is plenty of info out there to know the basics.
Needless to say Ukraine itself has at least one intact ICBM base and silo with all electronics still on site. The guys who operated that thing also explain how they would receive launch sequences and the chain of command.

 

[256bits]

Amazing, just amazing.

We are in the West.
Anything we do is Just and Right.

As such Russia is the bogeyman ( or made out to be , take your pick ).
Anything they do is Suspect.

In certain corners of the world they are still just promoted as Soviets in disguise.
Though, a case can be made - Putin as dictator for life - politically agreed upon, with opposition marginalized.

If this is Russian imperialism gone haywire, then Putin is some 30 years too late.

[ It all kinda reminds me of the Adele song, ' We could have had it all, ..'
And sadly, Rollin the Deep for both Russia and Ukraine ]

 

[Astronuc]

But will you accept less than what's right for an end to the war?

I expect the war will not end until those conditions are met. As long as Russia occupies Ukrainian territory, they can (and probably will) fire missile from Russia into Ukraine and will continue to kill civilians at will.

Allowing Russia (Putin) to retain that which has been stolen will only prolong the conflict.

Reuters - Ukraine says Russia wants to split nation, calls for more arms
https://www.reuters.com/world/europ...en-says-putin-cannot-remain-power-2022-03-27/

Regardless whether Ukraine declares neutrality, Russia must demilitarize the border with Ukraine - up to 50 or 100 km. Russia (Putin) must be held accountable and suffer the consequences of the criminal acts.

 

[wrobel]

Which year were you in Riga?

1986

 

[artis]

They have to take orders from someone. Besides, why should we think that anyone in the West, even podcast hosts or pundits, knows the internal details of how command and control works in Russia?

Ok without trying to sound condescending which is not that easy when writing these long monologues (forgive me in advance) let me try to assess this to the best of my ability.

I think there are certainly many similarities between the Russian/Soviet chain of command and the US one as it is largely based on physics and engineering solutions that make it possible.

So the Russians call their nuclear "footballs" or briefcases - Chegets , so a single briefcase is a Cheget.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cheget
I don't know why such a name other than it is the name of a mountain in Russia and apparently they code name some of their nuclear stuff for their mountains and ICBM's for their rivers.
Here is the mountain https://ru.wikipedia.org/wiki/Чегет
The local ICBM bases I have been to are called Dvina and Dvina is the Russian name for the largest river in my country - Latvia, interesting... the R12 Dvina (NATO SS-4 Sandal) is the very missile that was deployed to Cuba in 1962 causing the Cuban missile crisis, @hutchphd and others if you ever come to Europe and want to relive your childhood fears, I suggest visit a rather ok preserved Dvina missile base with silos in my neighboring Lithuania. The base is built within a national nature reserve so you can enjoy Cold war tension while breathing pure air and hiking in beautiful forest...
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Plokštinė_missile_base

So there are 3 Chegets in use with multiple backup Chegets ready to be used in case one of the 3 Chegets in use becomes inoperable. The 3 Chegets are with
A) President of Russian federation
B) Defense minister from Ministry of defense
C) The Chief of the general staff

The last (General staff) or in it's full name "General Staff of the Armed Forces of the Russian Federation" is basically a Russian analog of the "Pentagon"
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/General_Staff_of_the_Armed_Forces_of_the_Russian_FederationThen there is the system "Kavkaz" named after a famous mountain range in Russia (Caucasian mountains), which forms the border with Georgia and Azerbaijan, in the USSR times when the system was developed both countries were part of the USSR. There is not that much known about this system other than it is the physical communications link between the individual suitcases and the central command at "General staff" and further from there to the hardened underground bunkers where the folks who actually give the final command sit.
I suspect from the sources I have read that the system incorporates radiolinks as well as satellite ones to relay the code that is typed into the suitcase.
The earlier briefcases looked more like this

There have been reports the more modern versions look like this, but I can only speculate about the authenticity of such photos one thing is clear they have upgraded them overt he years.

The idea is then as follows (I believe this has to be very similar to US) early warning shows a threat, the people in the early warning stations see that and report it further to the chain of command to the higher up "bunkers" that are the datacenter overseeing the whole country's defense, these then rely this information up to the "General staff" and along side they activate the nuclear suitcases - Chegets, or the General staff activates them not sure which.

Recall the 1983 incident when Stanislav Petrov worked in one of the "data bunkers" near Moscow where they directly see what the systems show to them. He back then decided not to rely the shown threat up the chain of command as he suspected it was a false alarm. His decision resulted in that the nuclear suitcases never got activated because they activate only on the orders of a higher up command post and not directly from the guys in the first line after the early warning systems.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/1983_Soviet_nuclear_false_alarm_incident

He decided to wait for corroborating evidence—of which none arrived—rather than immediately relaying the warning up the chain-of-command.

So to summarize how a nuclear suitcase could be used in Russia.
1) Radar, satellite etc shows a threat
2) Threat is seen by on duty officers at the data bunkers
3)Threat is relayed up the chain of command to a possible intermediary step (because I suspect there are multiple local early warning centers that then rely info up to a main command center and only from there it is relayed to the General staff headquarters in Moscow)
4) General staff activates the nuclear suitcases (all 3 of them simultaneously) via the "Kavkaz" system.
5) Based on additional info or whatever communications would happen in the background the holders of the nuclear briefcases type down their codes to "affirm" and initiate a nuclear strike.

From what I read either 2 out of 3 or all 3 of the suitcases have to be used in order for the command to strike be effective and be relayed back to the main command bunker which then would send out individual sequences to the Russian nuclear triad to order the launch.

I cannot tell with certainty but I would think that the nuclear suitcase doesn't work as a "initiator" of a strike.
I am not even sure how the strike would be ordered in case there is no threat message coming up from the bottom and the briefcases are not activated.
I think Putin and his defense minister would literally need to reach the command post and just order a strike, because the technical "switches" to order launch sequences are in the direct hands of the command bunker. Because realistically the "end guys" in the nuclear submarines and the ones sitting in missile silos can't know in advance what is happening outside, nor they have early warning themselves, so they can only accept the information coming from "command" and execute it or fail to do so.

So in a sense Putin alone can't bring end to the world, he would need to convince quite a dozen of folks in the chain of command (the ones who actually hold the keys and radiolinks to the lower/final line in the chain of command to execute launch sequences) Per law I think he does have the authority to use nuclear weapons but realistically there is a chain of people down the line that would all need to agree to that, otherwise the launch sequences would not be sent.

A few sidenotes.
In 1995 a Norwegian weather rocket that was previously agreed upon with Moscow was launched. For some reason the Russians had forgot this info, and their early warning showed a threat, unlike in 1983 when the officer who saw the threat failed to report up the chain of command this time it got reported up, and it was the only time thus far when the "Chegets" became activated.
https://nuke.fas.org/guide/russia/c3i/

on 25 January 1995 when a Norwegian sounding rocket launch activated President Yeltsin's nuclear briefcase. During this major malfunction in their early warning system, for a few minutes the Russians mistakenly thought the scientific sounding rocket was in fact a missile launched from a US submarine headed in their direction.
Radar operators issued an alert that it was an unidentified missile, with an unknown destination. The alert went to a general on duty, who received his information from the radar operator on a special notification terminal, Krokus. The duty general decided to send the alert to the highest levels.

Analogous to the US Cheyenne mountain complex The Russians are thought to have their "backup" and primary reserve bunkers for the final operation of a retaliatory nuclear strike in the Ural mountains, namely
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kosvinsky_Kamen
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mount_Yamantau
But they have not confirmed that nor have any foreign delegations been allowed to see them.And finally there is the system known as "dead hand"
When a first strike has happened to the USSR/Russia and the command personnel are all dead or incapable of physically giving a "blowback" it is said to kick in.
There are contradicting opinions said about it but it seems it's not fully automatic and normally on "stand by" but gets switched on during the event of a threat. You can read it here , it's interesting

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dead_Hand

Here is a good up to date review of all things nuclear, army and Russian from "Congressional research service"
https://sgp.fas.org/crs/nuke/R45861.pdf
Page 25 for early warning

Operated by its Aerospace Forces, the system
consists of a network of early warning satellites that transmit to two command centers: one in the
East, in the Khabarovsk region, and one in the West, in the Kaluga region. The data are then
transmitted to a command center in the Moscow region

See also page 27 that has Putin's speech from long ago on why he is keen on modernizing Russian nuclear triad.
The document also has good summaries on most Russian current missiles as well as the "infamous" Burevestnik which they seem to still try to develop which was the missile that had to have the nuclear propulsion system. There was a thread here few years ago discussing the accident while recovering the missile.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/9M730_Burevestnik

 

[anorlunda]

So in a sense Putin alone can't bring end to the world

Thanks @artis . That's a whole bunch of stuff I was ignorant of.

Still, there is no unequivocal statement saying, "Putin (or anyone else) can't do it."
Especially at the moment of regime change when everyone up and down the line is uncertain over who is in charge and what rules apply.

 

[Bandersnatch]

Russia (Putin) must

You keep saying this as if you had some control over what Russia does or doesn't do.

 

[artis]

Thanks @artis . That's a whole bunch of stuff I was ignorant of.

Still, there is no unequivocal statement saying, "Putin (or anyone else) can't do it."
Especially at the moment of regime change when everyone up and down the line is uncertain over who is in charge and what rules apply.

If anything I think Putin actually has a point of weakness , you see he doesn't have the final authority over whether the ICBM's get launched or not. The same applies to US , it's not the president who can send the final "go" but rather the security forces from General staff and their command bunker personnel.
So in case they form an inner hatred for Putin's losing policies they might outright refuse his orders if they perceive them to be detrimental to country and themselves.

In fact a similar situation has already happened during the 1991 Coup in Moscow which ended the USSR.
Gorbachev was put on arrest in his Crimean residence in Foros Crimea.
Not only was be basically stripped of all his powers by the KGB, even his nuclear briefcase was kept in a separate room.

https://www.atomicheritage.org/history/nuclear-briefcases

During the attempted coup by Communist Party hardliners in August 1991, Gorbachev’s cheget disappeared while he was under house arrest in Crimea. It is suspected that KGB officials who supported the coup ordered the seizure of the briefcase. Gorbachev did not recover the cheget until four days later.

Unlike Gorbachev Putin is himself a KGB man who probably holds certain power over his former organization but that still doesn't rule out the fact that he might one day be stripped of his powers if the people who run the country behind the scenes decide they have had enough of him.

Same happened with Khrushchev back in the 60's ,
I doubt you will ever hear a "unequivocal statement" with regards to this, but that doesn't mean Putin has absolute free will

 

[vela]

A headline "Dog Bites Man" is ho-hum and will not sell newspapers, but "Man Bits Dog" will attract more attention. News outlets are in competition with one another; if one goes with the "Dog Bites Man" all the others pickup the lead and follow suit like lemers, not wanting to appear behind on the unfolding events. The one or two that really do some investigation and run the more truthful "Dog Bites Man" a day or two later would be glossed over by discussion on the original story. So they don't.

This is why I think it's plausible that some in the western media made a mistake and everybody ran with it. On one hand, I'd hope that experts on Russia in our governments would have recognized the mistake and corrected the record. On the other hand, the story does fit into the narrative to paint Putin as out of control to justify actions by the West in response, so maybe it's to the governments' benefit to not point out the error.

Russia has apparently been working on developing non-nuclear deterrence strategies. Maybe that's what Putin was referring to.

https://www.armscontrol.org/act/201...-concept-strategic-deterrence-risks-responses
https://www.chathamhouse.org/2021/07/russia-and-strategic-non-nuclear-deterrence

Or perhaps the western media got it right, as @artis has argued, and Putin's intent is to paralyze the West with fear of the unthinkable. Or maybe Putin's really nuts and does intend to use nuclear weapons, though if he actually tries to cross that line, I hope those around him will finally say enough is enough and remove him from power.

 

[artis]

Or perhaps the western media got it right, as @artis has argued, and Putin's intent is to paralyze the West with fear of the unthinkable. Or maybe Putin's really nuts and does intend to use nuclear weapons, though if he actually tries to cross that line, I hope those around him will finally say enough is enough and remove him from power.

I myself, based on what I know, think that so far Putin mainly relied on two main points.
1) Ukraine is not in NATO
2)Add the nuclear "cherry on top" to finish off the cake of fear.

+ the added resistance that he would face from his own chain of command as I said earlier.
I mean Putin himself has a couple of palaces worth who knows how many tens of billions of dollars, his chain of command although not that rich still lives a good life with all the goods money can buy.
I doubt these people would like to live the rest of their lives under the Ural mountains behind a concrete blast door, breathing filtered air.

Yes their little wish might come true, America would exist no more, but so would Moscow look like Siberian Taiga... They have families and children , call me what you want or say that I am speculating but I doubt for 99% they would be ready to face the unthinkable.
I still think that unless NATO directly attack Russian troops, especially on Russian soil all this A bomb talk is just Vlad exercising his PhD in "lying 101"

I think there is a higher chance that if Vlad ordered such a strike without any real reason that some capable people might simply lock the doors to his Kremlin cabinet for a while... just like they did to Gorbachev back in the day.
His whole idea and power is only as long as the army upper staff agrees to follow him, what does he do when the very men who enable his plans stop and say , you know what? Screw you.

Back in 1991 in August the reason why so little blood was spilled is because the army basically refused to do what the coup organizers asked them to do. Without the army backing them they simply became a bunch of rogue criminals hiding in government buildings. Some got arrested , some shot themselves, like one politician from my country who was a high ranking communist official. Once he saw their side lost he just shot himself. His wife also committed suicide. See the link below, a short wikipedia summary of him.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Boris_Pugo

 

[Astronuc]

You keep saying this as if you had some control over what Russia does or doesn't do.

I certainly don't. I'm simply making a commentary, and expressing an opinion in public, in hopes that Ukraine will get more support than it has.

 

[Klystron]

I certainly don't. I'm simply making a commentary, and expressing an opinion in public, in hopes that Ukraine will get more support than it has.

I like to read your posts. In my mind when I read your "Putin must" comments, I substitute words to the effect, "The Russian Federation should develop free and fair elections that represent all the people".

A common goal democratic countries strive to achieve despite opposition and setbacks.

 

[bob012345]

My concerns at this point is that the West will lose momentum allowing Putin to regroup and control the endgame. I can hear the diplomats being overly concerned that the Allies don't push Putin too hard basically trying to preserve the 'balance' at the moment. Already Putin is trying to establish the idea of a 'Korean' type stalemate. They can't let him do that. I talked to someone with defense connections who told me the Pentagon has hords of ammo and weapons packed and ready to ship but the White House is dragging their feet. I get the feeling that the State Dept. just doesn't like the concept of winning a war. How many ways can the Biden Administration snatch defeat from the jaws of victory?

 

[phinds]

I certainly don't. I'm simply making a commentary, and expressing an opinion in public, in hopes that Ukraine will get more support than it has.

But you state it as "must" but without giving any enforcement mechanism. There IS NO "must" without a specific enforcement mechanism. "I wish" or "I hope" this will happen is one thing (and I would agree w/ you) but "this must happen" is just silly without an enforcement mechanism and there isn't one.

 

[Office_Shredder]

. They can't let him do that. I talked to someone with defense connections who told me the Pentagon has hords of ammo and weapons packed and ready to ship but the White House is dragging their feet. I get the feeling that the State Dept. just doesn't like the concept of winning a war. How many ways can the Biden Administration snatch defeat from the jaws of victory?

As far as I can tell, there is no evidence that Ukraine's current problem is a lack of weapons and ammunition for their infantry, and plenty of video evidence that they are very well equipped. The larger weapon systems are mostly non transferable - you can't give them an Abrams tank because no one there knows how to use once.

The stuff about transferring fighter planes from Poland earlier was unfortunate, but also they probably aren't as effective as the drones they have been receiving since the drones more easily evade anti aircraft measures.

The amount of weaponry the us and other countries are delivering is enormous. It wouldn't surprise me if the us had 6 months of weapon shipments packed up and ready to go, but that doesn't mean you want to, or even are capable of, delivering it in one shot

 

[morrobay]

But you state it as "must" but without giving any enforcement mechanism. There IS NO "must" without a specific enforcement mechanism. "I wish" or "I hope" this will happen is one thing (and I would agree w/ you) but "this must happen" is just silly without an enforcement mechanism and there isn't one.

The .50 cal sniper rifle is effective at one mile away.

 

[phinds]

The .50 cal sniper rifle is effective at one mile away.

? So what?

 

[bob012345]

I was told by someone from Ukraine that since the war in the separatist regions started ~900,000 men have cycled through the Donbas region fighting who now have military training and are in the fight if they have guns.

 

[phinds]

I was told by someone from Ukraine that since the war in the separatist regions started ~900,000 men have cycled through the Donbas region fighting who now have military training and are in the fight if they have guns.

Huh? What does that even mean? Are you saying that 900,000 Ukrainian nationals (on the side of Ukraine) have gone through Russian held territory to get military training? You see how that makes no sense?

 

[BWV]

Huh? What does that even mean? Are you saying that 900,000 Ukrainian nationals (on the side of Ukraine) have gone through Russian held territory to get military training? You see how that makes no sense?

Dont know if its is true, but how is 900K Ukrainians out of a population of ~40M having combat experience during a conflict that has been going on since 2014 unbelievable?

 

[berkeman]

I was told by someone

Huh? What does that even mean?

Oh, c'mon. "Someone" is always a valid source to quote here...

 

[phinds]

Dont know if its is true, but how is 900K Ukrainians out of a population of ~40M having combat experience during a conflict that has been going on since 2014 unbelievable?

I thought you were talking about in the last month, not since 2014

 

[bob012345]

Huh? What does that even mean? Are you saying that 900,000 Ukrainian nationals (on the side of Ukraine) have gone through Russian held territory to get military training? You see how that makes no sense?

I was told by a Ukrainian fellow that over the last several years that many men have been to fight in the Donbas region for Ukraine against the Russian backed separatists. Obviously they were trained by the Ukraine military in their own territory.

 

[phinds]

I was told by a Ukrainian fellow that over the last several years that many men have been to fight in the Donbas region for Ukraine against the Russian backed separatists. Obviously they were trained by the Ukraine military in their own territory.

As I said, I misunderstood your original statement to mean during the last month. This is much more believable although if you are still contending it's 900,000 it still seems a very high number. "Many" is easily believable. So would be "quite a few" and "a lot" and so forth

 

[bob012345]

Oh, c'mon. "Someone" is always a valid source to quote here...

Sorry but I am just relating a personal experience which you can accept or reject. In the group I associate with one man is from Ukraine and has been in constant contact with relatives there every day and another man is from Belarus (but supports Ukraine).

 

[bob012345]

As I said, I misunderstood your original statement to mean during the last month. This is much more believable although if you are still contending it's 900,000 it still seems a very high number. "Many" is easily believable. So would be "quite a few" and "a lot" and so forth

Well, one can find almost anything on Wikipedia ...

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Combatants_of_the_war_in_Donbas#:~:text=At least 50 pro-Ukrainian,and Oleh Lyashko's militia.

I noted this part under Ukrainian combatants;

In 2016, Ukraine was struggling to recruit conscript servicemen, due to significant evasion of conscription, to replace demobilising soldiers including volunteers. This followed negative publicity about nutrition and equipment deficiencies in the conflict zone.[102] By mid-April 2016, 127,363 soldiers and volunteers had received veteran status.[103]

By February 2018, the Ukrainian Armed Forces were larger and better equipped than ever before, numbering 200,000 active-service military personnel and most of the volunteer soldiers of the territorial defence battalions have been integrated into the official Ukrainian army.[104]

So if there were ~125k in 2016 after 2 years of conflict, there could be a lot more now.

 

[phinds]

Well, one can find almost anything on Wikipedia ...

Does that include anything stating 900,000 ... ?

 

[bob012345]

Does that include anything stating 900,000 ... ?

I can't find that exact number but am getting closer. This reference claims hundreds of thousands;

 

[Astronuc]

I like to read your posts. In my mind when I read your "Putin must" comments, I substitute words to the effect, "The Russian Federation should develop free and fair elections that represent all the people".

A common goal democratic countries strive to achieve despite opposition and setbacks.

That's what I have in mind.

 

[Fervent Freyja]

I was told by a Ukrainian fellow that over the last several years that many men have been to fight in the Donbas region for Ukraine against the Russian backed separatists. Obviously they were trained by the Ukraine military in their own territory.

I personally knew that you were referring to the period from 2014 and on. It wouldn't surprise me if the number were that high, because it would make sense to send all newly recruited active and reservist military to a conflict nearby as part of basic training, if only briefly, and it appears as if there are a couple of bases nearby. Russia also used Donbas as a training ground, just as it used Syria.

 

[Fervent Freyja]

May I ask: Switzerland is not a member of NATO and it does not care that NATO is around. Why Putin does?

Even Hitler wouldn't dare try Switzerland, even though he wanted it. The Swiss aren't worried about anyone. They have plenty of old bunkers, secret air bases hidden in the Alps, and will make it impossible for anyone to invade by land if they begin to try- by blowing up all the entrances into the country. It would be the hardest country on Earth to take.

Putin is paranoid and doesn't live in reality.

 

[artis]

I agree about the weapons thing, Ukraine would benefit from more of them. Holding current positions is already hard but starting to push back will need even more firepower.

you can't give them an Abrams tank because no one there knows how to use once.

Well I think you would be amazed at how fast they learn, people tend to do that when everything is on the line for them. I think the reason they aren't getting all these nice things and did not get the Mig's on top is because NATO is trying to play the plausible deniability game. Pretty much the same tactics Russia used for 2014 invasion. They supply weapons that are hard to trace and easy to deny.

The drone thing is easier because Ukraine is buying those.
Hmm but then I wonder, what if Ukraine simply decides to buy other weapon systems? In theory they can do that and it doesn't count as NATO support.

 

[Fervent Freyja]

I think that when Putin strikes Ukraine with a low-yield tactical nuke then NATO will finally give them the air support that they've requested. Russia has lost in conventional warfare and they will attempt to "escalate to de-escalate".

NATO is struggling because many members are still stuck on appeasing Putin. Old habits die hard. There is plenty of evidence to backup reasoning for sending in more air support; such as, attacking with hypersonic missiles, thermobaric bombs in civilian areas, possibly phosphorus bombs, and the new agreement that Belarus will host Russia's nuclear weapons. How much worse can it get? The Budapest Memorandum requires the US to deliver "appropriate assistance" to Ukraine in the event that Russia invades, so as Putin escalates then the level of assistance from the US should as well. The US can cite that they are assisting by delivering air support equipment independently from NATO because they are honoring the agreement while Russia did not. Putin should not argue with that. There is no acceptable reason for why the US is not circumventing the issue of air support. Fighter jets and drones can always be paired with "volunteers" that are ex-military experts in operating whatever they send.

You don't need plausible deniability for Putin to act retarded. He blames the West for everything anyway. He does what he wants regardless of it being reasonable or not.