There are two different scenarios: face-to-face interactions with population, where troops do not tend to kill indiscriminately, and air strikes, where central command tries to make as much progress as possible, if necessary risking hitting civilian areas. It’s important to see things in those 2 angles and recognise that Russia has been willing to risk civilian casualties from day 1 in their “liberation campaign”.
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What would you do in their place if an ally was asking you as a smaller party to enter the fight?
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Where go all of that ?
Some militia/military refuse to let people help civilian stuck in some cities without food or electricity and almost prisoners in underground bunker 
Roads are blocked and they can’t take their car for escape.
One people go with clothes and is stopped at the border not need them when Russia other side distribute clothes food and health care. Only people who seem successfully give food clothes and support civilian seem Russia mainly from Crimea. So you send all to Crimea for help civilians who can escape without be killed by militia/army who keep them prisoners in some towns and have refused multiple cease fire for let them escape ?
Some countries around seem to refuse new refugees now so may be not need more goods
In short time if EU/US not change his stupid position food will be needed here and north Africa due to wheat shortage and energy price increase.
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I accidentally liked this post and can’t undo it, I actually disagree with it ( but don’t want to take the thread off topic)
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Selling military equipment isn’t the same as “entering” a fight or war.
That said, unless Poland is - or wants to be - just some protectorate of the US or NATO, I can’t quite see why one should call out the US like that.
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I don’t follow your logic. How does calling out the US make Poland its puppet state?
Poland has fighter jets. That it plans to replace with newer jets anyway.
They’re a sovereign nation, so they can scrap their old fighters, sell, even gift them to anyone they like (well… within the boundaries imposted by military treaties, alliances and sanctions etc.), or just abandon them.
If they want to give them to (neighbouring) Ukraine, there’s no practical reason at all to go through the US Air Force in Ramstein or elsewhere. There’s a very reasonable political reason: transfer of “political” risk to the US and/or NATO. I find it hard to blame the US for not wanting to accept the risk - of a move that’s purely designed not for practical reasons but to shift risk to them.
Not a good wording, I admit.
Should have rather called it a protectorate (I’m also going to edit it above).
My point is that the U.S. was fine with Poland assuming that risk, even encouraging it, or not?
ukraine could just “steal” the planes… no? Or the ol classic “dropped from a transport”…
It’s effectively what Putin did in Eastern Ukraine and the west did not stop him (those are not Russian troops or weapons…)
On the other hand if NATO do it he might well attack - he seems to think Russia has nothing to lose (?)
US gov is against transferring fighter jets (but is getting pressure from congress).
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Elon Musk just challenged Vladimir Putin to a fight 
Sorry, but Elon has no chance against a judo black belt unless he’s allowed to use his Flamethrower 
Crazy times indeed!
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Putin is like 1.69m tall and 69years old… according to this Elon was doing martial arts as well Elon Musk VS Vladimir Putin: Height, weight, and stats revealed
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So, what do you think guys?
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Is Ukraine going to regain the territories lost after Feb 24 (or the entire Donbas and Crimea for that matter)? What will be the outcome of this war? Will Russia survive the sanctions and military costs (both in people and money) without the regime change? Will Ukraine survive this war and eventually join NATO & EU?
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Will we have an economic disaster in Fall/Winter due to high fuel, energy & food prices? Will Europe stab Ukraine in its back due to these economic issues? Will we see the rise of the populist/protectionists pro-Putin right-wing parties (like Front National or Fidesz) and eventually the dissolution of the EU?
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Will we have the US-China war over Taiwan and South China Sea? And if that happens, will we have a NATO-Russia war over Baltic states? What about other potential conflicts - Israel vs Iran? Or Turkey vs Greece? Will we see WW3 and nuclear warfare this decade?
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Do all these geopolitical risks influence your portfolio planning?
I read an interesting article that, I think, accurately presents the war from the Western European perspective.
The West is not at war with Russia, it only tries to curb its appetites and does not want victory but peace. Russia, on the other hand, is at war with the West and is eager to win. This little difference makes a huge difference.
I know of many people in the West, who are scared of Russian nukes and they just want peace, they don’t care about Ukraine. And I think people like Macron & Scholz play for this goal.
I also saw a poll, asking people if we should end the war, even if it will mean territorial losses for Ukraine. People in Germany and Italy were mostly for, people in Poland mostly against.
I think this mindset that we should not anger Russia and just give her what she wants, is going to end badly. Russia does not want Donetsk, it wants the entire Ukraine and Belarus. And it wants Poland to be the buffer zone between East and West, not a part of the NATO. He will not stop until he reaches these goals. Europe is not taking these threats seriously and so I think Russia will not stop until Putin’s plans are fulfilled.
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I don’t agree with this. It won’t attack NATO members given the existing geopolitical situation but this can easily change. If the US will pull its forces from Europe (as some US generals and politicians would like to do) to protect American interests in the Pacific (Taiwan, Japan, South Korea, etc), then there will be literally nobody to show up to protect the Baltics or Poland from Russia because the basic fact is that Europeans have neither the political will nor the armies capable to fight back. Of course, Russia is not in the best shape now but I think it is already preparing to switch to a war economy to focus on improving its military in the coming years.
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EU doesn’t have nukes - only one member state has: France. It is also the most pro-Russian society in the EU, so I hardly can imagine how they gonna be prepared to destroy Russian cities and endanger the survival of their own cities. Among NATO members UK & US have nukes too. But the point is that it’s unlikely that anyone will use them to protect Baltics & Poland, especially when US will change their focus from Europe to Pacific (which is already happening for years) or if it falls into trumpist isolationism. I think Europe has no political will (aka balls) and no military capabilities (aka army) to confront Russia long-term. So everything will be in US hands. Finland & Sweden understand this and that’s why they are joining NATO, changing their 200 years old geopolitical strategy and basically abandoning the French project of Europe’s “strategic autonomy” and EU common defense (which de facto means the brain death of the idea of Federal Europe).
I agree with that but it’s unlikely US & EU will allow Switzerland to build their nuclear weapons. Besides Switzerland signed the The Treaty on the Non-Proliferation of Nuclear Weapons.
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"Currently, the 27 member states of the E.U. can field an impressive 1.3 million active-duty military personnel, roughly on par with the size of the U.S. armed forces (approximately 1.4 million) and significantly bigger than Russia’s military (850,000). "
The problem with this argument is that (1) we don’t know how well prepared is these 1.3 million active-duty military personnel for a real war, and (2) we don’t know how united Europe would be in response to the Russian invasion of Eastern EU. I see a lot of appeasers among member states - including the two most important countries: Germany & France.
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No, no, I definitely don’t mean that the Russian military is better than Europe’s military. I rather think that Russians have the capability (and in fact an old tradition) of reforming their military at great cost to society after defeats. Whereas I don’t think Europe has such potential - I seriously doubt that Western Europe will actually mobilize and achieve (formally NATO-required) 2% GDP on defense. Europe is too lazy and too pacificist and too scared of its own shadow.
My concerns are highly speculative and I might be wrong of course. In fact, I hope I’m wrong and Europe will eventually grow a proper pair of balls.
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Dude, just look at WW2. France alone had bigger military than Germany. But Germany was determined to fight, has been preparing for years and was mobilized.
Russia may be a mess, but its leaders still live with the mindset that human lives are cannon fodder. If hundreds of thousands need to die, so be it. Is Europe prepared to be that fierce? I seriously doubt. The lack of support that the West is showing towards Ukraine will be repeated when Poland is under fire. I’d like to be wrong, of course.
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