The Russians don’t have nearly enough troops to take Kiev: it’s a huge city, and those tanks are sitting ducks once they get in an urban environment. They could try to put the city under siege, but even that would be very hard.
Um, sorry to tell you this but the Russians and their allies have already been in Kiev for years waiting for the order to go.
If it is war, from our side, then our first move is to take out Lukashenko in Belarus.
I’m not suggesting doing it just yet. But if Putin is truly at the point where he’s no longer interested in negotiating, we may have to start considering these options. Trump sure would.
Ukrainian’s are fleeing. That’s part of the valve release with the EU. If there is a problem, just flee to another country. Same for all of Latin/South America.
I have yet to see or hear one field gun in the videos. Without a squad of 2A65 with fire missions on either side it is really isnt a conflict of anything more than armored personnel carriers and light tank divisions causing problems for each other, like some low end african conflict. It is sad to see that russia is now responsible for chernobyl, I would make a point to leave that with them. The ukrainain air force will be flying missions from poland within the week, and their english or german will be perfect. All the bullshit the soviets pulled through the cold war is the ROI now. Vald here is the soviet era.
I have seen one video with plenty of mortar fire, but a lot of light tanks are easy targets for pilots and shoulder launched anti tank on either side after dark.
One would expect the Ukrainian army to form up and move out in the next few days against whatever push is the most strung out and disorganized. They do know the ground, certainly have centralized purpose and counter attack should be better than the first 40 hours.
I would expect a ton of Global Hawk and armed drone peering over the polish boarder tonight giving the russians the first workload of their time in the radar division. Sitting in Syria how many times did their scope light up...3 times a tour. Make it 30 times a night over poland.
Let the russian troops in Ukraine think NATO may be willing to play. Let the polish loan ukraine some armillary pieces and play the game the ukraine separatists have been playing for a decade. It was not polish troops who dumped 10 tons of ordnance on a Russia town, its russian separatist in poland....who knew.
With the advent of tank APS, that is far less true than it used to be, and the Russian BMPT types included in the mix mean that sitting on a roof firing down on a Russian formation can be a very bad idea.
If the Ukrainians can withstand the early onslaught, they can resist through urban and guerrilla warfare. The Russians will once again find themselves bogged down in a protracted fight.
People in Russia are demonstrating in solidarity with Ukraine. Demonstrators arrested in 47 Russian cities. Watch this grow like our Vietnam protests! I wonder how many antitank guns the Ukraine military has?
https://www.washingtonpost.com/world/2022/02/24/russia-ukraine-protests-putin/