Russia has invaded Ukraine

Originally Posted by Damien

NATO won't respond with military force.

If Russia invades Ukraine they're taking Ukraine. Everyone, including Putin, knows this. It's how can we make life difficult for him afterwards. The West is out of options beyond that really because in the end we're not risking war with a nuclear power, or a conventional war with a country the size of Russia.

Ukraine has a sizeable Army, 255,000 man-forced. It won’t be taken that easily, and I can’t see rest of the world just sitting back and allowing this, because China will be weighing its options on invading Taiwan if Russia takes Ukraine and the world sits back and does nothing.

Originally Posted by Mick

Ukraine has a sizeable Army, 255,000 man-forced. It won’t be taken that easily, and I can’t see rest of the world just sitting back and allowing this, because China will be weighing its options on invading Taiwan if Russia takes Ukraine and the world sits back and does nothing.

It hopefully wouldn't be easy especially if they're well supplied from the West but they'll eventually take it. Again, just makes it really costly for them to do so. Then hit them with every economic and political sanction we can.

But what else do you see the world - which in case would basically be NATO - doing about it?

Originally Posted by Damien

It hopefully wouldn't be easy especially if they're well supplied from the West but they'll eventually take it. Again, just makes it really costly for them to do so. Then hit them with every economic and political sanction we can.

But what else do you see the world - which in case would basically be NATO - doing about it?

I really don’t know. Because the obvious thing we don’t want is this to become game over with Nuclear warfare.

LATEST from NATO:

Denmark is sending a frigate to the Baltic Sea and deploying F-16 war planes to Lithuania. Spain is sending ships to join NATO’s standing maritime force and considering sending fighter jets to Bulgaria. France stands ready to send troops to Bulgaria, NATO said.

[1andrew1]

Originally Posted by Mick

Ukraine has a sizeable Army, 255,000 man-forced. It won’t be taken that easily, and I can’t see rest of the world just sitting back and allowing this, because China will be weighing its options on invading Taiwan if Russia takes Ukraine and the world sits back and does nothing.

How can the world prevent it?

BREAKING: Prime Minister Boris Johnson has warned Vladimir Putin that invading Ukraine would be a “disastrous step” and a “painful, violent and bloody business”.

Originally Posted by nomadking

Irish Sea? The bit between Ireland and GB? Nonsense.
Of course NATO and others didn't hold exercises in the Black Sea off the Russian coast did they?
Link

The exercise aims to enhance interoperability among participating units and strengthen NATO’s readiness in the Black Sea region. “The Black Sea is of strategic importance to NATO. The Alliance remains strongly committed to Black Sea security,” said NATO Deputy Spokesperson Piers Cazalet.

Don’t remember the Irish Sea being of strategic importance to the Russians.

Also, comparing 2,000 troops in that exercise with the 100,000 Russian troops along the Ukrainian border is a little fallacious.

Also, from your link

Since Russia’s illegal and illegitimate annexation of Crimea, NATO has increased its presence in the Black Sea. NATO ships routinely operate in the Black Sea, consistent with international law, usually patrolling the waters for around two-thirds of the year.

[bigsinky]

see OZ, japan and a few others are advising citizens not to travel to Ukraine

[Carth]

If Russia does go ahead, every country in Europe should retaliate by refusing to buy their gas . . . oh wait

[Pierre]

Originally Posted by Damien

If Russia invades Ukraine they're taking Ukraine.

The Ukraine does have an army and air force. Russia may well be much bigger and potentially better but I doubt the Ukraine (supported heavily by NATO) would let Russia just walk in unopposed.

The question then is how much conflict and losses Putin willing to pursue and accept?

Originally Posted by Pierre

The Ukraine does have an army and air force. Russia may well be much bigger and potentially better but I doubt the Ukraine (supported heavily by NATO) would let Russia just walk in unopposed.

The question then is how much conflict and losses Putin willing to pursue and accept?

Exactly which is why the best we can do for now is supply Ukraine to make sure that cost is high. If they can hold them off they'll find themselves with a lot of material support and intelligence support from NATO.

Some informed/informative commentary from the RUSI

https://rusi.org/explore-our-researc...s-armed-forces

The overall picture suggests that support for Ukraine is strong and forthcoming. However, these efforts are unlikely to significantly alter the ability of the Ukrainian armed forces to resist a determined assault by Russian conventional forces.

The Russian Way of War

The reason for this lies not in the Ukrainian armed forces themselves, but in Russian operational art. Michael Kofman of the Center for Naval Analyses has explained how Russian forces would seek to leverage their superiority in long-range fires to achieve decisive effects against an opponent, which could in turn achieve strategic results. This approach eschews the use of massed ground formations in direct confrontations, which are reserved for finishing an opponent’s combat strength, he states. The belief is that by inflicting enough damage to alter an opponent’s course of action, or signal that Russia’s intent is genuine, Russian strategic goals can be achieved without conflict. This level of confrontation may rely upon 'non-contact’ means of warfare. Non-contact warfare in Russian military thinking is taken to mean the use of high-precision weapons like the 3M-54 Kalibr cruise missile against critical targets. The goal is to use the minimum level of force necessary to promote Russia’s regional goals and limit the need to deploy ground forces.

This can be combined with an understanding of wider Russian strategic thinking, which holds that long-range kinetic strikes that converge with cyber and electronic warfare effects in a concerted information campaign are capable of disabling an opponent’s critical networks and command infrastructure at the political and military level, with the goal of either controlling escalation or preventing it altogether.

tl:dr

The UK and some of its partners remain fully invested in Ukraine’s sovereignty. But their current efforts – however well-meant – are still not likely to achieve this objective.

[Carth]

this ^^

They'll just lob rockets* at things until it's time to go in and mop up


*simple term for complicated stuff

I don't know a lot about weapons e.t.c.

Does anyone know if Israel's Iron Dome works against the kinds of missiles a state entity would fire or is it only for rockets e.t.c?

[jonbxx]

Originally Posted by Hugh

Don’t remember the Irish Sea being of strategic importance to the Russians.

I dunno, head north and you have Faslane where our nuclear missile subs live and it's not a million miles as the missile flies from Île Longue in Brittany where the French subs are...

Originally Posted by Damien

I don't know a lot about weapons e.t.c.

Does anyone know if Israel's Iron Dome works against the kinds of missiles a state entity would fire or is it only for rockets e.t.c?

Iron Dome is really designed to stop short range rockets and ballistic shells of the sort lobbed into Israel from Gaza. For stopping heavyweight missiles you need David’s Sling:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/David's_Sling?wprov=sfti1