Posted on 02/23/2024 10:49:35 AM PST by marcusmaximus
Ukraine’s military has destroyed a Russian A-50 surveillance aircraft, Air Force Commander Mykola Oleshchuk said on Friday.
“The A-50 with the call sign ‘Bayan’ has flown its last!” Oleshchuk wrote on the Telegram messaging app.
Developing
(Excerpt) Read more at english.alarabiya.net ...
“Fatherland” sounds awfully Nazi.
I guess anything could happen. I remember when Scott O’Grady’s F-16 was shot down by an SA-6 system (ancient, too). Happened over Bosnia. He flew out of Aviano AB, IIRC. Some say he was lollygagging and not paying attention to his RWRs - others said he was tagged out of Aviano on takeoff by human observers there who gave the heads up to be looking for him.
If Ukrainians lose, they die, and their country is destroyed.
————-
As much of the world has recoiled from the Western agenda, gay marriage, Trans in every sector of government, boys in girls restrooms, men in woman’s sports, XYZ’s controlling the narratives,destruction of the family, etc.…..I really don’t think their country will be worse off with Russian governance.
In fact, the Ukies present course of adopting Western “ways”, is destroying them…..and many Ukie citizens ( and Slav’s) realize this.
In the General/Chat forum, on a thread titled Ukraine military destroys Russian surveillance plane, Darksheare wrote: Anyone who red Clancy novels knows it’s “Motherland”.
Fatherland was Germany especially during the goose step days.The Ukraine has a neo-Nazi problem, so Maximus is correct to use 'Fatherland.' Another FReeper noted that essentially the Nazi's took pointers from the Ukraine's brutality when fashioning their ideology. Also, when the Nazis were entering the Ukraine, they stopped to document the carnage they found because they didn't want to be blamed for it.
The Ukraine still celebrates its famous Nazi sympathizer, Banderas in annual public celebrations. Banderite celebrations still take place despite the optics.
When the west was worried about the optics of giving money to the Ukraine to help fight the proxy war against Russia given the Ukraine's proudest military asset was Azov Nazis, the Ukraine incorporated that group into the government, to become the National Guard.
'Fatherland' fits here.
Parade uniforms! Parade uniforms! Parade uniforms! Parade uniforms! Parade uniforms! Parade uniforms! Parade uniforms! Parade uniforms! Parade uniforms! Parade uniforms! Parade uniforms! Parade uniforms! Parade uniforms! Parade uniforms! Parade uniforms! Parade uniforms! Parade uniforms! Parade uniforms! Parade uniforms! Parade uniforms! Parade uniforms! Parade uniforms! Parade uniforms! Parade uniforms! Parade uniforms! Parade uniforms! Parade uniforms! Parade uniforms!
Found a few stories on major steel plant attack now posted at Google.
Feb 24 (Reuters) - Ukrainian drones hit a major Russian steel factory overnight, causing a large fire, a Kyiv source said on Saturday, the second anniversary of Russia’s full-scale invasion of Ukraine.
The governor of Russia’s Lipetsk region identified the plant as one in the city of Lipetsk, some 400 km (250 miles) north of the Ukrainian border, that is responsible for about 18% of Russian steel output.
https://www.themoscowtimes.com/2024/02/24/ukraine-claims-drone-strike-on-major-russian-steel-plant-a84238 [shows multiple fires amid extensive upright structural parts]
https://euromaidanpress.com/2024/02/24/nighttime-blaze-engulfs-novolipetsk-metallurgical-plant-in-russia/ [another view of multiple fires and chimney stacks. Five other links offered at this site]
https://www.bnnbloomberg.ca/top-russian-steelmaker-says-part-of-lipetsk-plant-was-on-fire-1.2038775 [offers view of the actual steel produced, and information about what and where it is used including in Europe]
The video of the shootdown was missing the appropriate music...
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rY0WxgSXdEE
“Anyone who red Clancy novels knows it’s “Motherland”.
Fatherland was Germany especially during the goose step days.”
NEWSFLASH!!!
Defender of the Fatherland Day/Date
Fri, Feb 23, 2024
Newsflash I have literally never heard a single Russian use the term fatherland, only Germans.
And I’ve met plenty of both.
It’s the name of their holiday. Deal with it.
You mean like Kwanzaa?
So there are several versions of the A-50 and the most recent upgrades are said to make the plane worth $500 million.
But I'm pretty sure all these numbers are "equivalent" dollars, meaning what it would cost the US to build such a plane, not necessarily what Russians themselves spent on it.
Regardless, by any measure, they are expensive pieces of hardware.
Also, the A-50s mission is pretty easy to guess, since Russians seem to believe Ukrainian air defenses have collapsed and so Russians are eager to take advantage of opportunities to send their SU-34s and SU-35s to long-range bomb Ukrainian targets.
Turns out, Ukraine's air defenses are not quite as bad as reported, and another result has been at least six Russian jets shot down in recent days.
Finally, if I understand correctly, the kicker for this whole story is, that A-50 was nowhere near Ukrainian front lines, instead, it was well east of the Azov Sea and out of range of every anti-aircraft missile Ukraine has... except one, a stone-age era Old Soviet S-200 SAM -- the kind which used to shoot down American F-4s over North Vietnam.
Only the Old Soviet S-200 has the 200+ mile range to reach out and touch that A-50, and how many old S-200's are even operational these days?
Well... maybe.
Looks to me like Russians have captured one square mile at a time, now 16 square miles total of Ukrainian territory in 2024, mostly around Avdiivka, and a cost of circa 1,000 Russian lives per square mile.
So Ukrainians still control around 200,000 square miles of their own territory... you can do the math on that, right?
When Ukrainians are fighting on the defensive, they can usually extract three Russian casualties for every one of their own -- again, do the math, that still gives Russians an advantage -- but in Russian "Meat Wave" assaults, Russians lose up to 10 for every Ukrainian casualty.
That is advantage Ukraine.
Since the beginning of 2024, Russians captured three small towns in addition to Avdiivka, with combined prewar population of around 300.
Yesterday, February 24, they took another two villages near Avdiivka, maybe another two square miles, a good day for Russia on the ground.
Ukrainians meanwhile have retreated to shorter prepared defensive lines.
We'll see how well Russians do against those...
This map is a little out of date, but not much has changed since:
delta7: "As much of the world has recoiled from the Western agenda, This is 100% insane Russian nonsense:
Seriously?? Do you not grasp how utterly insane your words are?
You're going to claim "moral equivalence" between a brutal, murderous foreign dictatorship over Ukraine with western democratic tolerance for gay marriage??
The rest of your list is just pure nonsense, both here and certainly in Ukraine.
For one thing: you're counting media headlines and click-bait as if they represent reality, they don't.
For another: the worst of it ends the day conservatives are elected to majorities in the US government, hopefully in November.
But Vlad the Invader's military conquests would enslave Ukrainians forever, just as they were under the Old Soviet and Tsarist Russian Empires.
Seriously, did you ever consider why Ukrainians love the West so much?
It's because, however bad we might be (and nobody claims we're perfect), in comparison, Russians are 100% pure evil.
No sane person wants to be ruled by Russians, it's a fate worse than death, and good people would chose death first.
1930s Holodomor -- this is what Russians do
whenever they have power over Ukrainians:
delta7: "In fact, the Ukies present course of adopting Western “ways”, is destroying them…..and many Ukie citizens ( and Slav’s) realize this."
For crying out loud, that is purely 100% insane nonsense because, for starters: one serious election reverses everything people claim to dislike about "western culture".
But once they've been conquered militarily by Vlad the Invader, Ukrainians will be Russia's slaves forever, no escape, abandon all hope ye who enter the hell of "Russkiy Mir" oppressions.
Nor will the rest of the West ever find relief from Russia's relentless empire-building expansions.
That only ends when Russians are firmly defeated and held in check.
This is what it's all about:
Although your arguments are sound, you can never really argue with an ignorant man. Free Republic is besotted with narrow minded Russophiles.
Well, first: "The Ukraine", comrade?
So, tell us, when did you first learn to speak English?
Now, unless you are going to call Ukraine's Pres. Zelenskyy a "neo-Nazi", Ukrainians have no more "neo-Nazis" in political power than any other country, including Russia itself.
Indeed, since Vlad the Invader's pretexts for invading Ukraine are indistinguishable from those used by Adolf Hitler to invade, for example, Czechoslovakia in 1939, if anybody today is a Nazi, it's Vlad the Invader himself.
What Ukrainians absolutely do have, for about 1,144 years now, is a burning desire to be their own people in their own independent country.
In that, they've had to ally with whomever might help them, most recently the European Union and other western style democracies.
So it has nothing to do with Vlad's alleged "neo-Nazis" and everything to do with Ukrainian independence from the historical "Russkiy Mir".
Thanks so much for your very kind words, much appreciated.
Forgive me, but I think of such people as you mention here as potential sparring partners -- just as every actual boxer needs sparring partners to practice on, our pro-Russians here provide us with endless opportunities to practice our art and skills at using the truth to answer their lies, nonsense and propaganda.
Of course, we never actually defeat our sparring partners, for one thing, we need them for the next day's events.
But, and this is my prayer & hope, there will be others who can watch and see and judge fairly which sides are making the better cases and arguments, given all the circumstances around Free Republic's publicly available forum.
spoken like a true Neocon.
The atmosphere among European leaders regarding Putin has escalated to absolute hysteria.
The vast majority of European citizens have no idea why.
The cause is the collapsing Ukrainian front.....#Ukraine️ #Russia #Putin #UkraineRussianWar#UkraineRussiaWar#UkraineWar pic.twitter.com/Bc7Lboo3dv— Richard (@ricwe123) February 25, 2024
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