WiscyTiger

Baked cod with cream sauce and pasta:

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Russia can continue this war for another year or so, but then the money literally runs out and there's a financial collapse.

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Wow, thank you for posting this. This is how we (those of us on team USA and team NATO and team Ukraine) win this. Russia does not have endless bodies and endless resources and endless political will to wear Ukraine down like Putin is trying to project.

Did rice pilaf for my Thanksgiving dish:

Chicken and mushrooms tonight.

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Yeah really no need to overthink this. There is going to be a crossing of the Dnipro, this will slow it down but its going to happen.

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Russia did it to slow down the counteroffensive. The timing of this is when we were expecting a break-through any day. Russia probably saw ukr units move up to the river with bridge crossing equipment. Russia saw the “shaping” attacks along the southern front, and knew the big push could come any time now.

Ukraine said ru already mined the dam before and was just waiting for the right time. The timing points away from the dam just breaking on its own.

Russia can now shorten the front it has to defend, and move units east to where the main attack may come from (Zaporizhzhia area).

Russia doesn’t care about human life or its own troops. They don’t care if it floods their positions or ukr civilians. Ukraine does care about its own people and I don’t think they would have done that.

Time will tell and more evidence may come out, but this points to obviously being Russia blowing the dam with underwater charges that they had already laid to slow down a river crossing and free up units to move east.

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n what ways will it [F-16s] change the current state of things? What will it allow them to do that they are incapable of doing atm

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As was said above air defense and AIM-120 missiles, and “fire and forget” capability.

Also with the current stalemate they can help stop Russian fighters/bombers from coming close to the frontlines and lobbing glide-bombs, missiles, etc. A few days ago there was speculation that the Polish gifted Mig-29s had been upgraded to be able to fire NATO AIM-120 air-to-air missiles. Now we think it may have been a Patriot battery that shot down the Russian Su-34, Su-35 fighters and the Mi-8 choppers in the Bryansk region of Russia? Longer range air-to-air missiles and longer range radar systems are exactly what the F-16 will bring.

Ukraine’s MiG-29s and Su-24s and 27s are old and outmatched by Russia’s newer fighters. Russia is flying patrols in each sector and Ukr pilots are getting shot down because they can’t see (radar) or shoot as far as the newer Russian fighters. With F-16s they will be able to see farther, shoot farther, and then fire-and-forget, to get the hell out of there before ground defense or air-to-air missiles get them.

The Mig-29 and other other Soviet planes can’t “talk” to NATO missiles with the datalink. That means that they can’t fire them or help guide with their radar (what we were hoping Polish upgrades may have helped with). F-16s change that.

F-16s would flip the advantage right now. The F-16s could shoot Russian fighters down before they can see them or shoot back (depending on how much better our tech is than theirs and on upgrades/newer F-16s vs what we’re up against).

The Ukrainians also want F-16 air defense and ground support when they do their big counteroffensive. Russia has a huge Air Force and could use it to wipe out a ground offensive (blowing up all Ukraine’s new Leopard 2s, etc.). The Russians may be willing to risk getting some planes shot down to stop a big counteroffensive, but if Ukraine has a fleet of 40 F-16s loaded with AIM-120s, they may not risk a huge air attack.

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I just can't understand why a 21-year old would have access to this level of classified document.

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He had to have gotten it from somebody else? A family member maybe? Or from another poster in his e-group? He will probably admit what happened when he gets interrogated.

Smoked up some deer burgers, brats, chicken, beans, and taters for the fam.:

:cheers:

Deer camp in NW arky.
18F this morning.
Cold, sunny later.
Got an 8pt: