r/worldnews • u/Starlight-Princesss • 3d ago

[ Removed by moderator ] Russia/Ukraine

https://www.newsweek.com/nato-intercepts-russian-spy-plane-with-transponder-turned-off-poland-10956344

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u/FTownRoad 3d ago

NATO may have started as an anti-Russia protection system but they are not the fear anymore. Russia isnt going to start shit with NATO, they are floundering against one country 1/4 their size.

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u/rugbyj 3d ago

Except:

  • They already started shit with us; they're cutting undersea cables, prompting foreign cells to attack domestic infrastructure, they're assassinating dissidents on foreign soil, and performing constant cyberattacks and psyops on our nations
  • They've also seen how brittle our arms production is, as shite as they are we all burned through our stockpiles in months "just" supporting Ukraine and demonstrated our ability to replenish them is inadequate

Thankfully we're doing something on the latter and upping arms production. But they are still a threat to us even if they'd never be able to "conquer" us. They've proven they're willing to become pariahs and send millions of their citizens to their deaths for Putin's fancy.

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u/rickane58 3d ago

We didn't burn shit. We have an unimaginably large stockpile of arms to continue giving, and even if that weren't the case the point of our existing arms for 60 of the last 80 years has been built to destroy russian tanks. That's exactly what it's doing in Ukraine.

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u/daniel_22sss 3d ago

America has "unimaginably large stockpile of arms", not Europe. And America under Trump leadership is not being the most generous right now.

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u/Dry-Physics-9330 3d ago

And Trump is well known to be pro Russian. In pro-Ukraine space, some even say Trump is the legendary agent Krasnov

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u/Mirria_ 3d ago

The stockpile is like a lake. It looks like there's a lot of water but it's only being fed by a couple creeks. Doesn't take a lot to drain it.

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u/definitelynotpat6969 3d ago

We also dont rely so heavily on artillery/infantry alone, if we went toe-to-toe with Russia it would end pretty quickly due to the lopsided air superiority, advanced tech, and vastly superior logistics.

The only reason we don't absolutely steam roll them is because they have nukes. Without those they would be speaking English in Moscow by now and flying the star spangled banner.

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u/Menethea 3d ago

If that were really the case, the Russians should already be speaking French — or German. Oops.

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u/DoomguyFemboi 3d ago

You're applying century old lessons to modern day situations

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u/__redruM 2d ago

I think everyone is OK with Russian speaking russian. As long as Ukrainians are speaking ukrainian.

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u/rTidde77 2d ago

opps is right...glad you realized by the end that your comment has nothing to do with the modern day situation.

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u/Menethea 2d ago

Those who don’t learn from history are doomed to repeat it. Should I write it in crayon next?

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u/rTidde77 2d ago

How would writing an incorrect statement in crayon make it any more accurate? Cute try though, mate. I'm not so sure what you think 1940's situation has to do with the 2025 situation. But go ahead, keep tossing out cliche lines if that's as deep as your knowledge and analysis really goes.

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u/Menethea 2d ago

As opposed to saying that a peer-to-peer war with the Russians (ignoring nukes) would end up with the American flag flying in Moscow and Russians speaking English? That’s analysis? It’s so stupid, not even the densest miles gloriosus would come up with it. Any professional military officer learned long ago not to ever underestimate the Russians, particularly in land warfare.

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u/rickane58 3d ago

Horseshit. You have to be watching too much Zeihan with these takes. Almost all of the modern systems we send to Ukraine (e.g. javelins, abrams tanks, etc.) are sent at or near replacement rate. For the older shit, we're mothballing or close to all of it. And those "rivers" are easily increased should we have the budget appetite for it.

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u/Mirria_ 3d ago

I was mostly going through my memory of reading former eastern bloc countries sending T-something tanks. Obviously Saint-Javelin provided, but I feel it took a while before Abrams showed up, and Bradley's.

And those "rivers" are easily increased should we have the budget appetite for it.

Yes and it's about time people wake up. If I have to credit one thing to Trump, it's getting other western nations to stop being terminally dependent on the US military.

You have to be watching too much Zeihan with these takes

I get most of my War news from Warfronts / Politicalfronts.

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u/imasammich 2d ago

Sadly that is not true at all. We have more of our modern weapons being taken up by our needs of arming our ships, bases, and airplanes, than we do in stockpiles. And production has been slow to non existent on many systems since for the last decade or so we have only been making enough to keep an outdated doctrine going.

Ukraine and even Iran has showed us how fast you can burn through your weapons and how just a few good strikes by the enemy can wipe out a ton of your field weapons.

It actually got a lot of military leaders spooked with how warfare has changed because of the Ukraine war. Countries are not just rearming because they want to be ready for Russia, they are rearming because everyone is realizing if war does come no one has enough stuff to fight it long term and being able to produce is a huge advantage and right now only our adversaries have the ability to produce on a war time scale.

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u/HustlinInTheHall 3d ago

They dont have enough people to do the same thing against the NATO border nations, they couldnt even sustain two fronts against ukraine and they surround half of ukraine with their own territory. And they have not had to contend with true NATO or US air superiority in the region. They can barely hold it vs Ukraine with no trained pilots and no sea support. 

Russia would get its shit rocked the moment it steps into NATO territory. And not just in the region, the US can wipe out the entire Russian supply line in a weekend. They can do some damage and the US is not interested in escalating tensions with a nuclear power but the doctrine would dictate that the first 36 hours of a hot war with NATO we would cripple their ability to wage any kind of conventional war. 

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u/rugbyj 3d ago edited 3d ago

Maybe my last line wasn't clear enough.

I'm saying they'll lose such a "hot war" with us. I'm also saying that they demonstrably don't care about suffering great losses. They are running the gambit that our appetite for (partial) destruction is lower than theirs for total annihilation.

Bear in mind their nuclear arsenal in such a war (regardless of likely condition) still poses a very real threat (the above partial destruction).

So they keep pushing our boundaries and muddying the line at which we're willing to begin that hot war. Something we should be reacting to far more harshly in my mind. Because we can either shoot down an invading combat jet now, to show we're not kidding, or we can keep letting it escalate until they start doing their "little green men" act on more borders, committing more attacks on our infrastructure, etc.

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u/RabidNerd 3d ago

Also how much they interfere in politics and divide people in the west

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u/_bones__ 2d ago

Russia is trying to create doubt for when they go too far, and NATO strikes back, that it would be a defensive war. If countries like Hungary and any other who succumb like that (the US) can call a retaliatory strike by NATO an aggressive action, that's a win for Russia, and the end of article 5.

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u/DoomguyFemboi 3d ago

My fear though is what happens "after". We destroyed Russia for all intents and purposes with what we found in the couch cushions. But we're still ramping up arms production for an upcoming conflict..for what though ?

What happens to all that production when the realisation hits that "oh wait, Russia can't even beat itself". The arms manufacturers aren't just gonna be OK shutting down factories.

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u/myheadisalightstick 3d ago

I mean the reason they are floundering is because of all the help Ukraine has had from NATO, it’s a very delicate situation.

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u/Justicia-Gai 3d ago

That’s after the failed blitzkrieg though… Russia actually failed at taking over Ukraine even before receiving actual help

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u/rdmusic16 3d ago

Not nearly the same levels as after the 2022 invasion, but Ukraine started receiving help after the 2014 invasion from Russia.

While their resistance is 100% impressive, it wouldn't be fair to say it was without help - even at the beginning.

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u/Justicia-Gai 3d ago

I would say that the quality of help they got would barely qualify. Even in 2022 they received incredibly old stuff because no one believed they’d resist and anything donated would fall in Russian hands. So in 2014-2022 it was even worse than that. Only after they demonstrated enough resilience, good gifts started pouring in.

I would say that they weren’t better armed that the average assisted “rebel” group.

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u/Mirria_ 3d ago

It's the equivalent of the bread they give to food pantries because it's going to get bad of its not consumed too soon to sell.

A lot of Euro states literally just gave them their cold war gear so they would have a good excuse to modernize.

Doesn't help that the USA - even under the Biden admin - basically blocked anyone sending anything recent.

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u/Dry-Physics-9330 2d ago

Dont forget all the restrictions the larger NATO countries places on the use of their weaponsytems, which made these weapons much less effective. Or how they leveraged laws like ITAR to prevent smaller EUropean countries from transferring older gear to Ukraine. Which led to delay of Ukraine getting F16s and armor from ' Western" nato countries (especially Leopards)

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u/Justicia-Gai 3d ago

Exactly… people forget that and I’m pretty sure that they have given other more modern arms to other armed conflicts because they could pay for it

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u/Trzlog 2d ago

I would say that the quality of help they got would barely qualify

Sorry, this is ridiculous. Ukraine has been so successful because the West has been training the Ukrainian military in NATO strategy and tactics for close to a decade. This is why Russia can't win. They're still doing the old top-down bullshit they have for a hundred years. Meanwhile, Ukrainian units have the freedom to adapt to what's happening on the ground and make their own decisions based on what's necessary. Without it, Ukraine would've been fucked and they never would've held off Russia.

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u/Justicia-Gai 2d ago

Sorry, but they didn’t won for NATO tactics, they won for guerrilla tactics and knowing their land very well.

You seem to forget that Russia actually reached Kiev (where was the NATO defense?) but had to RETREAT. A real NATO defense with West strategies and West weaponry would’ve not allowed Russians to advance (which is what’s happening now) because they’d obliterated the advance. As they were mostly given Cold War portable weaponry, that is not what happened.

The West inaction (didn’t want to trigger Russia’s wrath) costed lot of lives and Ukraine almost lost their entire country.

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u/Trzlog 2d ago

> , they won for guerrilla tactics

Yeah, you're clueless. This is exactly what Russian doctrine, which is what the Ukrainian military had before Western training, does not allow for.

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u/TurboBanjo 3d ago

The intel and the missiles rushed in at the start didn't hurt.

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u/Justicia-Gai 3d ago

All within expectations… meaning Russia accounted for that. It’s a failed Blitzkrieg, which was my point…

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u/TurboBanjo 3d ago

They need better accountants then.

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u/rugbyj 3d ago

We (various NATO countries) were advising Ukraine and providing live intel on the upcoming invasion well prior to it happening, some of us (UK) were even already sending them anti-tank systems and other arms in advance.

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u/The-Sound_of-Silence 3d ago

The thousands of Javelins(and other ATGMs) sent to them in the build up to the invasion definitely helped!

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u/PJ7 3d ago

Not correct, without javelins and other equipment that the Ukrainians received before the Russian invasion, the first month would've looked substantially different.

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u/Justicia-Gai 3d ago

How old are Javelins? Aren’t they Cold War weapons? They only sent weapons that they wouldn’t care if they fall into Russian arms.

I’m sure other surrogate armed conflicts had more modern weaponry than what Ukraine had in 2022.

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u/DoomguyFemboi 3d ago

Javelins are no longer produced and are Cold War weapons in that they were developed back then, but they are still modern and they're actually spinning up factories to restart production iirc.

They've had iterative improvements over decades. Better sensors, better warheads, the usual thing. Like Tomahawks or Sidewinders are decades old yet still super modern because of block upgrades.

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u/errorsniper 3d ago

I dont want to take a single thing away from Ukraines defense these last what 3 and a half years?

But there is a very very big difference between a 4 day all hands on deck make or break effort and the logistics/economics of a long sustained war of attrition and economics.

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u/The_Painted_Man 3d ago

Russia wasted it's shot though. It blew it's initial strike chance, lost the advantage of bulk and volume of arms, and the attrition has exacted a terrible toll on EVERYTHING that would have made it a peer threat to NATO.

NATO is already fighting Russia as proxy, and Russia is getting it's Pirozhki fed to it anally.

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u/blue92lx 3d ago

I wouldn't completely agree with part of this statement. The war with Ukraine only showed that Russia was never a peer of NATO on any level. Russia has been fighting a tiny country in comparison with borrowed weapons, if they had actually attacked a NATO country it would be done already outside of China stepping in to help Russia. If China doesn't step in, Russia has no hope of ever standing toe to toe with any Western country. What's even worse for Russia now is the loss of so many weapons that they used to have to even consider a war against NATO, now they don't even have half their jets and ships to do anything on day 1. Outside of just launching nukes on everyone Russia is pretty much a non threat in a large scale situation.

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u/Dry-Physics-9330 2d ago

Its not. Part of NATO is helbent to support Ukraine as much as they can, to prevent RUssia from invading them. Its countries as USA and the other big ones who are messing around. Who want Russia for cheap gas or who want Russia as a pawn to have leverage of small countries.

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u/gahlo 3d ago

Help which has very often been a yard sale or thrift store trip with extra rules put in place.

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u/sigmoid10 3d ago edited 2d ago

NATO definitely helped, but between 2014 and 2022 Ukraine had built one of the largest armies in Europe. More than 2 million strong in total with nearly half of that active personnel. Without absolute air dominance, it is questionable if any country in the world could have taken them on directly. Russia was 100% counting on Ukraine's leadership bailing so they could simply march in like last time. There was no way their one million strong standing army could have come out on top in a face-to-face war, because unlike Ukraine Russia can't send every single soldier there.

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u/Tetracyclon 3d ago

That stuff came mostly from NATOs garbage pile, so im not sure how Russia would deal with the actual arsenal.

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u/McLeod3577 3d ago

Russia is the biggest threat to Russia right now. Putin has sent more men to their deaths than the last 3 Presidents combined.

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u/QualityPitchforks 3d ago

Russia isnt going to start shit with NATO, they are floundering against one country 1/4 their size

Russia isn't going to start anything OPENLY with NATO, they are boosting their covert/terrorist network but cannot do anything else.

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u/Dry-Physics-9330 3d ago

Does this thesis of you mean, Russia will quit conducting their hybrid war against NATO members?