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US approves sending F-16s to Ukraine from Denmark and Netherlands
(www.reuters.com)
Fuck Putin, any little bit helps
Other than cost, I haven’t understood the hesitancy to give Ukraine all the weapons they ask for, immediately.
When war breaks out, it means diplomacy has failed. It only makes sense to no longer consider diplomacy a major factor when making wartime decisions - especially when providing support to a country that’s defending itself from an unprovoked invasion, which is a violation of international law. Half measures only prolong the war, which ultimately makes it more expensive for supporting countries. For Ukraine, civilians and soldiers are dying every day.
This war should have ended by now. I’m glad that most of the world is condemning Putin, but we’re not doing enough.
I'm not an expert or anything, but as it has been explained to me, the geo-political consequences of Ukraine having NATO weapons is enormous.. If Ukraine were to have access to F-18s, F-35s, or any NATO asset, it would implicate NATO, and further escalate the conflict towards a NATO-Russian war (World War 3), and the precipitation of nuclear assets. This is why even France's own Dassault assets and Sweden's Saabs were not offered. F-16s are old enough, and used enough by non-NATO forces that this might be okay.
A prolonged war, while incredibly tragic, might still be less costly than World War 3...
Grrr. Damn geopolitics. I appreciate the response, though!
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(5 replies)
It takes years to train pilots, maintenance staff, logistics to bring a fighter jet to be ready into active operation in a hostile environment under normal conditions.
True, but I’m not just talking about jets. I’m talking about ALL weapons, like rockets and such. There’s been resistance over a lot of things.
I haven’t understood the hesitancy to give Ukraine all the weapons they ask for, immediately.
It's clear that you're unaware of the extensive corruption in Ukraine. Political corruption, Bribes, Judicial corruption, Corruption in the public sector, Corruption in higher education, Corruption in the social security system, not like Russia is any different, but Ukraine like to pretend they are honest while they pickpocket you.
I’m not unaware, but I got too worked up and simply forgot. It amounts to the same thing, though. Whoops.
You make a good point. Corruption is a good reason to think carefully about any requests. There’s no use in a country donating billions of dollars worth of military hardware unless that hardware actually makes it to the front lines.
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How fucking long have they been saying Ukraine will get F-16? The war will end before they get them! It's likely they won't be operational in Ukraine before 2025.
it's very possible the war will go on way past that
This is the best summary I could come up with:
WASHINGTON, Aug 17 (Reuters) - The United States has approved sending F-16 fighter jets to Ukraine from Denmark and the Netherlands to defend against Russian invaders as soon as pilot training is completed, a U.S. official said on Thursday.
"We welcome Washington's decision to pave the way for sending F-16 fighter jets to Ukraine," Dutch Foreign Minister Wopke Hoekstra said on messaging platform X, formerly known as Twitter.
A coalition of 11 countries will start training Ukrainian pilots to fly the F-16 fighter jets later this month in Denmark, the Danish defence ministry said on Friday.
NATO members Denmark and the Netherlands have been leading international efforts to train pilots as well as support staff, maintain aircraft and ultimately enable Ukraine to obtain F-16s for use in its war with Russia.
"I am writing to express the United States' full support for both the transfer of F-16 fighter aircraft to Ukraine and for the training of Ukrainian pilots by qualified F-16 instructors," Blinken said in a letter to the two officials, a copy of which was seen by Reuters.
Kyiv will not be able to operate U.S.-built F-16 fighter jets this coming autumn and winter, Ukraine air force spokesperson Yuriy Ihnat told Ukrainian television late on Wednesday.
The original article contains 573 words, the summary contains 207 words. Saved 64%. I'm a bot and I'm open source!
Did they solve the issue of F16s needing pristine runways to take off and land? Russia as been able to damage Patriot AA in the heart of Kiev months ago so any airstrip in Ukraine is basically a sitting duck. A kinzal missile has an effective range 1.5-2x a F16 and all it has to hit is the runway to ground every f16 on an airbase. That said theyd still probably get more flight time than the average F35
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this post was submitted on 27 Aug 2023
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