Are we sure the feeble old fool has this under control?
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deployed in Ukraine - we must deal with Putin with strength. It is the only way.
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boots on the ground.
“There's no discussion about putting a Patriot battery in Ukraine. In order to do that you have to put U.S. troops with it to operate it,” a senior defense official said Thursday. “It is not a system that the Ukrainians are familiar with and as we have made very clear, there will be no U.S. troops fighting in Ukraine.” - March 2022
Now we are sending Patriot batteries, but the news reports today don't seem to address this topic [boots on the ground] and what changed. I can't imagine that we are trusting a Patriot missile defense battery to Ukranians only.
And, very clearly, Patriot missile defense batteries are a nuclear deterrent as they are effective against Iskanders among other shorter range systems.
All the above is an escalation, Ned.
Who knows what the dying Putin is thinking, but this war is like watching cancer grow on your arm. At some point it will be too late to stop the inevitable results.
Link: https://www.defenseone.com/threats/2022/03/why-us-wont-give-patriot-interceptors-ukraine/363042/
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and that will be amplified if US boots are on the ground to staff Patriot batteries and if Patriots are present that can shoot down Russia's nukes.
And yes, it's stupid to announce the same.
The invasion has actually resulted in what Russia supposedly feared. They have lost Ukraine, irrevocably. Ukrainians will hate Russians for generations. Ukraine will be aligned with the EU and NATO for generations. This did not need to happen. Putin caused it. What a dope!
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A little bit of history: Solzhenitsyn was part Ukranian but even he felt Donbas and Crimea should be Russia's, and that it was dangerous for western Ukranian leadership to foment hatred towards Russia. It would help put both countries on a path to war. How right he was.
If we find ourselves supporting a war to take back Crimea (which Obama effectively ceded) and Donbas, then all bets are off.
Solzhenitsyn quote:
Maybe it will be necessary to have a referendum in each region and then ensure preferential and delicate treatment of those who would want to leave. Not the whole of Ukraine in its current formal Soviet borders is indeed Ukraine.
Some regions on the left bank [of the river Dnepr] clearly lean more towards Russia. As for Crimea, Khrushchev's decision to hand it over to Ukraine was totally arbitrary. And what about Carpathian (Red) Ruthenia? That will serve as a test too: While demanding justice for themselves, how just will the Ukrainians be to Carpathian Russians?
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upstate NY.
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