Poland, Romania and Bulgaria are in NATO and they should have some Soviet weapons. There is a NATO summit in Wales next week and maybe something will be worked out where Ukrainians will get weapons they are familiar with from these countries and Poland, Romania and Bulgaria will get some modern weapons.
But what’s the point? If we wanted to annex Northern Mexico, and sent our best troops and hardware in, there is nothing that China or Russia could do to stop us.
No different in Ukraine. The outcome rests TOTALLY in the hands of Putin, if he wants Eastern Ukraine, he gets it...and all indications point to that. If we arm the opposition, then he likely loses more troops on the way, and Ukraine has the pleasure of another Soviet-style bloodbath...but the end product is the same - Putin gets what he wants. So what’s the point?
Now we could try hitting him where he’ll actually feel it, and that being doubling our military spending and increasing SDI funding 5-fold (it’s practically nothing now). That was how Carter/Reagan did it 35 years ago, and they certainly did squeal. But NO ONE, literally NO ONE, will go there. So we look like TOTAL IDIOTS and the only net result of this policy, for us, is watching a bloodbath take place as Ukraine is carved up...rather than watching Ukraine get carved up without a bloodbath.
Those countries have been sending their Soviet stuff to the Ukraine for months. No amount of weapons will make the Ukies better fighters...
Also, the total number of downed aircraft is larger than Ukrainian AF.
One may ask - where huge stock of Soviet era weapons Ukraine inherited from USSR?
Much of it was sold all over the world to different conflict zones, often in violation of UN sanctions. That's how oligarchs got rich, not by selling chocolate bars for sure.