[Closed] It may have hit the fan in Ukraine - passenger jet shot down

Stop acting smug and presenting half truths and twisted facts to justify your Putin fanboism. Its getting boring.

It's stuff like that that reduces what could be a reasonable debate into a pointless point scoring game. Shame.

I think all but the most pedantic would agree that Russian forces or people loyal to russia are the ones doing this so o think the description [ though garbled] is reasonable].

Good luck konabunny.

I was commenting on the ridiculous charade that the 'militias' aren't largely made up of Russian troops

Putin isn't trying to fight a ground war in Ukraine: Russia has had ongoing wars for 25 years. They have an extremely battle-hardened military that spent the last decade pouring oil money into weapons and making conscripts peripheral. Ukraine is trying to rustle up a national guard to prop up a rickety military. If Russia actually wanted to battle the Ukrainian army, it would crush them in a matter of hours - and then provoke an international response.

It's much better for Putin to deniably make trouble for the Kyiv regime by supplying a bunch of local gangsters and allowing a few inept numpties to run amok in Eastern Ukraine for a whole: http://www.theguardian.com/world/2014/jul/15/separatist-fighter-russia-eastern-ukraine-interview . It's cheap, too!

There are a few professionals on the ground, but when it suits Putin he can just pull the plug. The pros will slip home and the locals will get killed, convicted or do a runner.

Sky news contact one of the friends of someone who died via twitter;

Friend posts: [i]
I lost a great friend, a wonderful professional comrade & the world lost a fantastic man 🙁 RIP Glenn Thomas[/i]

10 minutes later: [i]
I am sorry to hear about the death of your friend. Would you feel up to speaking to Sky News about him?[/i]

I guess it's how they work but seems a tad insensitive to me.

It's a small world - I saw a friend on fb commenting on someone else (who they thought might have been on the flight but was actually on a later one) but that person did know someone who was on the flight.

I guess it's how they work but seems a tad insensitive to me.

Putin is just copying what the West has done in regions it wants to destabilise for years, arm the locals, send in a few deniable SF troops to lend a bit of support. Sit back wait for chaos.

Works very well

Ukraine did a pretty good job of destabilising itself, what with the 23 years of kleptocracy and crony capitalism up to this point.

@nickc - I don't think the West has been arming people with surface to air missiles. Military advisers yes, special forces yes, automatic rifles yes, explosives yes. Not missiles.

Could be a Western world plot to make Russia look bad.

As an aside I don't think anyone will be showing their left wing credentials by supporting Russia, its one of the most right wing capitalist countries there is.

I don't think the West has been arming people with surface to air missiles.

Mujahideen. Stingers (after they realised the British Blowpipe was a piece of merde).

Instantly decreased the threat of the MI-24 Hind gunship.

Russians were consequently booted out of Afghan.

@pimpmaster - sorry I should have been more accurate, yes the West has given smaller handheld weapons to attack helicopters and ground attack aircraft. Interestingly these handheld units have batteries and other components that expire after 12-18 months so the weapons have a limited lifespan without specialist maintenance.

What I was speaking of was high altitude missiles.

You can't have large swathes of a country just deciding they want to break away.

What, like Scotland? 😉

sorry I should have been more accurate, yes the West has given smaller handheld weapons to attack helicopters and ground attack aircraft.

I did guess that. There was an element of pedantry there too. 😉

Could be a Western world plot to make Russia look bad.

I don't think they need any help really. And look bad in the eyes of whom? Does the tufty-tufty shark wrestler look like he gives a **** what anyone outside Russia thinks? He's got 70%+ approval ratings at home (read that and weep Obama!). Thats the only audience he's interested in playing too

Jambalaya, I'm ready to believe/accept some of those in eastern Ukraine are probably (up until v recently) ex Ukraininan military personnel. I don't find it surprising or unlikely that there are bits of sophisticated kit in the area that were part of the Ukarian armed forces, and its not a surprise or unexpected that there are people within the separatist/militia that know who to use them.

@nick, the pro-Russian rebels posted a picture of their surface to air missiles, shot down a high flying, slow moving Ukrainian cargo plane two days ago and posted on twitter they had shot down another cargo plane yesterday before deleting the tweet. It's common knowledge the Russians have been supplying the rebels and probably fighting alongside them. I think the "captured kit" and conspiracy theories that somehow the Ukrainians have done this to draw the West in are pretty unlikely to the extent we can discount them. The rebels don't have any aircraft so the pro-Ukrainian forces have no need to shoot at planes.

I don't find it surprising or unlikely that there are bits of sophisticated kit in the area that were part of the Ukarian armed forces, and its not a surprise or unexpected that there are people within the separatist/militia that know who to use them.

What jambalaya said basically. Retreating military forces might, if they really were in a hurry, leave a few tanks or whatever, like in Iraq. I very much doubt they'd leave, in a fully functioning condition, surface to air missile batteries, with the massively sophisticated radar equipment to operate it, so you could take out an airliner at 32,000 ft, or your own aircraft flying considerably lower

Any military force worthy of the name would do the same thing. If they couldn't take it with them, they'd blow the thing to ****ing pieces to put it out of action. You don't just happen upon that type of hardware. So the whole idea it was captured, or found, is absolutely ridiculous, really. Theres only one place that kind of kit has come from.

I doubt if Israel[ russia] had a vote on occupied land or took it by force you would be asking that palesitine[ ukraine] respects this and does not try to "retake" the land that is theirs but instead it looks for another solution instead.

+1

Your posts in this thread have served to strengthen my opinion about your views on Israel Ernie.

binners - Member

You don't just happen upon that type of hardware. So the whole idea it was captured, or found, is absolutely ridiculous, really. Theres only one place that kind of kit has come from.

eBay, of course!!

There was one on the classifieds on here last week. Wrong sized wheels though apparently, so no takers 😉

Perhaps some people should delve into the history of Ukraine with maybe some focus in different experiences between east and west. Perhaps even why it's called Ukraine.

Yeah all these dirty Ukrainians wanting to break away and form their own state with the help of a large international player. I bet it's a Zionist Jew conspiracy.

Any military force worthy of the name would do the same thing.

http://www.kyivpost.com/content/ukraine/insurgents-in-kramatorsk-in-armored-personnel-carriers-fly-russian-flag-live-update-343745.html

Big chunks of the Ukrainian military didn't retreat, they defected or just abandoned base.

Will I have time to get this in if Russia hits the nuclear button/everything escalates?

[img] [/img]

Since April the Ukrainian military seem to have gotten it together though Konabunny.

Like I said: big difference between losing a few military vehicles (as you've described), and millions of quids worth of surface to air missiles, and associated radar systems, that would then go on to have a huge impact on the balance of power.

Plus,we'd then be expected to believe that having found/captured it, you'd simply point it at an airliner (at 32,000ft?!!!) and press fire? Like a Playstation game? Not a chance. If you came across that kind of sophisticated weaponry , you wouldn't have a clue what to do with it. It'd be similar to 'finding' a helicopter gunship. Unlikely, to say the least, and not much use to you, without a serious degree of know how

So I don't believe for a minute the whole found/captured thing. Its a total red herring to detract from the bleeding obvious. That Russia has been supplying the kit, and the personal/training to operate it.

Tom_W1987 - Member

Perhaps some people should delve into the history of Ukraine with maybe some focus in different experiences between east and west. Perhaps even why it's called Ukraine.

Yeah all these dirty Ukrainians wanting to break away and form their own state with the help of a large international player. I bet it's a Zionist Jew conspiracy.

You do realise that makes no sense at all don't you ?

I suspect it wasn't meant to, eh ?

Plus, you'd be expecting us to believe that having found/captured it, you'd simply point it at an airliner and press fire? Like a Playstation game? Not a chance. If you came across that kind of sophisticated weaponry , you wouldn't have a clue what to do with it

Agree. Ever seen a Jihadist trying to fire hand-held sams etc? A much simplier device yet with slapstick consequences..

Since April the Ukrainian military seem to have gotten it together

http://www.theguardian.com/world/2014/jun/04/ukraine-troops-flee-luhansk-pro-russia-forces

In fact:

Ukraine's military remains severely underfunded for the protracted and increasingly bloody struggle with well-armed insurgents in the east.

Serhiy Zhurets, director of the Center for Army, Conversion and Disarmament Studies, a research center in Kyiv, says the Ukrainian army's budget has been persistently gutted over the 20 years since the country's independence.

He says that by European standards a 200,000 strong military such as Ukraine's would normally need some $20 billion in annual funding to maintain readiness. But Ukraine's defense budget over the past two decades never exceeded $1.3 billion.

That low funding was justified by the official position that there was no military threat to the country to justify more spending.

"The last four years under Yanukovych brought the army to full degradation," Zhurets says. "The money allocated was enough only to keep the army in the barracks, nothing was done to raise its military capability and no modern equipment was purchased."

He notes that the 40,000 Ukrainian troops deployed on the Russian border had just one bullet-proof vest per 100 soldiers when Kyiv started its ongoing counter-offensive against separatists.

Similarly, only 2,700 troops in the east had lightweight Kevlar helmets, while the rest had Soviet-era metal ones. Only a very limited number of units had thermal vision sniper scopes.

Yeah, but that's probably just Russian propaganda...

http://www.rferl.org/content/ukraine-army-equipment-donations/25413169.html ...oh.

Ever seen a Jihadist trying to fire hand-held sams etc? A much simplier device yet with slapstick consequences.

Who's going to be the one who breaks it to him that Four Lions wasn't a documentary?

Mistakes periodically happen and military forces accidentally target civilian airliners.

This case serves no-one's apparent interests and is simply tragic. Clearly, it makes very good sense for all civilian carriers to treat Eastern Ukraine as a no-fly zone, for the safety of passengers and aircrew.

The proliferation of sophisticated weaponry into unaccountable hands is very unfortunate, but is a very minor problem in terms of numbers of casualties compared to the proliferation of small-arms.

So I don't believe for a minute the whole found/captured thing. Its a total red herring to detract from the bleeding obvious. That Russia has been supplying the kit, and the personal/training to operate it.

Well, the maskirovska was clearly well planned, because TASS covered this story three weeks ago:

http://en.itar-tass.com/world/738262

DONETSK, June 29, /ITAR-TASS/.

[i]Self-defence forces of the Donetsk People’s Republic have taken control over a missile defence army unit equipped with Buk missile defence systems, the press service of the Donetsk People’s Republic told Itar-Tass on Sunday. So far, no details are available about the number and condition of the missile systems taken over by the self-defence forces. The press service refused to comment. The Buk missile defence system is a mobile medium-range surface-to-air missile (SAM) system designed to defend field troops and logistics installations against air threats in conditions of heavy electronic countermeasures and intense enemy fire.[/i]

Well, the maskirovska was clearly well planned, because TASS covered this story three weeks ago:

Remind me, what expansionist dictatorship with a completely compliant/cowed press might have a reason for trying to explain away the source of highly sophisticated weapons in Eastern Ukraine ?

Well they would say that, wouldn't they?

They're hardly going to issue a press release saying "Look at all these shiny new missiles Vlad sent us! Yay! We can take out some planes now!! Woohooo!!! Oh... and those new topless shots of you killing that dragon with your bare hands look great. Nice 6 pack. Have you lost weight?" 🙄

ISIS have got hold of some tasty kit including T72s that the iraqi's never got round to putting out of commission, so it's not an impossible scenario. I think it realtively unlikely that the russians would hand over this type of potentially strategic weapon given it could influence what happened in their airspace, but then I know F all about it other than what's on telly.

It's a small world - I saw a friend on fb commenting on someone else (who they thought might have been on the flight but was actually on a later one) but that person did know someone who was on the flight.

Theres a fairly major Aids Research conference in Austraila that people on that flight were travelling to so people on that flight and the ones before and after would have all known each other either personally or professionally. Aside from the direct losses on that flight you start to wonder what the future human cost could be more broadly - these are people with their sights set beyond cures and looking at eradicating aids completely. There could be setbacks that would cost millions of lives in the long run.

thestabiliser
I think it relatively unlikely that the Russians would hand over this type of potentially strategic weapon given it could influence what happened in their airspace

You are the designer of a high tech, super complex weapons system.
Having your own weapon system used against you is bad.
You design in a nice "backdoor" so that you can negate the system if it is ever required.............

This particular story is particularly sad...

MH17 flight steward Sanjid Singh - who was killed on Thursday - was only on the doomed airliner because he agreed to a last-minute rota swap, the Malaysian Insider reports. It says that in a "bizarre twist of fate" Mr Singh's wife escaped death on flight MH370 131 days ago because she too organised a shift change.

Johndoh, that sounds like the plot for a movie....

🙁

On R4 this morning, one "commentator" was suggesting that Russian Spetsnatz Special Forces could have been operating the equipment.

You are the designer of a high tech, super complex weapons system.
Having your own weapon system used against you is bad.
You design in a nice "backdoor" so that you can negate the system if it is ever required.............

Well, no ****er used it yesterday did they?

high tech, super complex weapons system

initially introduced in 1979, soviet engineered to be operated by a conscript army

Hardly cutting edge, is it?

Theres a fairly major Aids Research conference in Austraila that people on that flight were travelling to so people on that flight and the ones before and after would have all known each other either personally or professionally. Aside from the direct losses on that flight you start to wonder what the future human cost could be more broadly - these are people with their sights set beyond cures and looking at eradicating aids completely. There could be setbacks that would cost millions of lives in the long run.

100 Aids researchers killed according to some sources.

Mad. That's a pretty hefty chunk of the international research community.

BBC news are reporting that some poor Australian family lost 2 members in the missing plane and now have lost 2 in this disaster.
Thanks beyond unlucky
RIP

Well, the maskirovska was clearly well planned

Maybe you should lay off the Russian, what with your Kazakh/Cossack confusion that left you inventing conspiracy theories about pro-Russian Ukrainian Kazakhs 1,000km too far to the east.