"Sweden? That land is going to either Finland Latvia or Estonia."

Karelia, which is just north of St. Pete is a historically Finnish territory, as in "the hand" in the far north.

One of the people I occasionally work with is a Finnish fighter pilot. He told me his son suggested that Finland take back the hand while the Soviets were pre-occupied further south.

The problem is that all the Finns fled those areas when the Soviets took over. I don't know that they want to be responsible for the care and feeding of a bunch of Orcs.

"After a year of a obviously failed war in Ukraine the general Russian populace needs to take notice of how many of their men are dying there and how many resources are being wasted there and that it's all on a Putin vanity project."

I'll try and find the link, but there is a Russian blogger on YouTube. This kid goes out and asks Russians how they feel about the war. Almost universally, their answer is that they are not political or are too busy for politics. Which means they don't want to get involved.

Those who do offer support are often old and out of shape babushkas or equally old and out of shape men. They know they'll never be sent to the front line.

"My comment is still valid. Ukraine can't do anything without the West's intervention."

Of course, they could.

The Taliban outlasted pretty much the entire western world...and that's after they outlasted the Soviets.

Had the Soviets been successful in deploying forces across Ukraine, they would have been met with an insurgency where the appointed leaders would have been confined to highly protected areas, and control would have been limited to larger urban areas.

As always happens, guerillas would have controlled the countryside, probably under the control of a shadow government still loyal to whatever remained of Kyiv.

"Last week they were begging for tanks and this week it's F-16 fighter jets."

They don't understand what they are asking for. An F-16 isn't going to be anymore survivable against an SA-21 or SA-23 than a MiG-29 is.

"Show me. Because they haven't."

Sure they did.

Western intelligence agencies believed that all of Ukraine would fall in a matter of weeks. Any thought of giving aid to them was put aside. Why give them equipment when it would just wind up destroyed or in the hands of Russians.

Instead, Ukrainian citizens armed up and fought back the Russians...without western aid.

It wasn't until many months later that anything other than small arms began flowing in.

"Not as universal as you make it out to be."

Really?

I'm buried pretty deep in that community. There were two likely scenarios that most of us agreed to.

One was that Putin would not invade at all. The decision calculus didn't play out. This was a majority opinion within my organization.

The second was that Putin would invade, and that Ukraine would fall in a matter of weeks.

What were you hearing differently?

"But after Crimea that wasn't a bad starting assumption."

The other thing that many of us tend to agree on is that had Putin tried to invade and capture all of Ukraine in 2014, he very likely would have succeeded under the conditions he expected in 2022.

Instead, he gave Ukrainians eight years to build up a seething hatred of Russians.

"You're making my point for me. As Russia steps up their efforts. It's clear Ukraine can't compete without outside assistance."

It depends on what you mean when you say 'compete,' They absolutely can and have successfully engaged and defeated Russian ground and air forces in Central and Western Ukraine, with little to no assistance. If by compete you mean retake the Donbass, I don't think they could. That said, I didn't think they would have any chance against the multitude of forces that Russia threw at them. They've been full of surprises from the start.

Additionally, I don't think the Russians have the military capacity to push back across the river. Western equipment helped push Russians out of some areas, but at present it's really resulted in parity between the two countries militarily.

"Especially since Luhansk, Donbas, and Crimea are now Russia."

Until they are Ukraine again.

"Would drives be used for offensive air operations while manned aircraft be used for defensive? Patrolling airspace over controlled territory hunting helicopters, providing close air support ect?".

The Russians have very long-range surface to air missile systems that keep UKR jets from operating freely near the front lines. There are mitigation techniques you can use, but it's very dangerous.

And the types of missiles being employed by the Ukrainians are not suitable against cruise missiles. Fortunately, the UKR SAM operators are pretty good. Good enough to keep the Soviets at bay.

"It's clear Ukraine can't compete without outside assistance."

In 1942, it was the Soviets who couldn't compete against their adversary.

We helped them then too.

"We just don't have these tanks available in excess in our US stocks, which is why it is going to take months to transfer these M1A2 Abrams to Ukraine," Singh told the Post."

We actually do.

The US has ~4000 tanks in storage.