Can Ukraine destroy Russian air-defences with F16s? | WION GAME PLAN
It is always a challenge to appear on feature programs of WION, India’s premier English-language global broadcaster.
The display of newly arrived F-16s on Ukrainian territory was the subject of the day in my 12-minute chat on WION yesterday.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7aCME88J-a4
Considering that the half dozen or more WION newscasts yesterday about the American jets ran no longer than 2 minutes each, I was especially appreciative of the opportunity to delve into the broader context of these planes finally coming into Ukrainian hands.
I opened my discussion with WION’s presenter Shivan Chanana by making reference to Swiss military expert Jacques Baud’s overarching view of the objectives of the U.S. and NATO in assisting Ukraine in their fight with Russia: namely to use Ukraine as a battering ram against Russia to inflict a humiliating defeat on the Kremlin that might precipitate regime change and the eventual break-up of the Russian Federation. At a minimum, their objective is to get Russia bogged down in Ukraine so that it cannot respond to other global challenges and so give the U.S. a free hand to perpetuate its global hegemony. To achieve this, the war in Ukraine must be drawn out as long as possible. This is why NATO ‘s deliveries of military hardware to Kiev have repeatedly and consistently been ’too little, too late.’ Such is the situation with respect to the F-16s.
Recovering Ukrainian land and sovereignty is a secondary or tertiary consideration of the Western powers. The massive losses that Ukraine is experiencing in men and materiel count for nothing. Hence, U.S. indifference to what is becoming a genocide in Ukraine as ever younger ‘recruits’ to its military forces deplete the country’s reproductive stock.
For those of you unfamiliar with Baud, I heartily recommend that you look him up in Amazon and acquire his latest of several books about the conflict. In my estimation he is the most authoritative of all the Western commentators about the war from the standpoint of military science. In that connection, I eagerly look forward to joining Baud in a three-man Round Table discussion of the BRICS Summit, and of the Ukraine war as well, that will take place in Greater Brussels on 26 October. For anyone interested in attending a live as opposed to virtual discussion of these key issues in geopolitics, please feel free to contact me directly for details.
I will not set out here the course of my discussion with Shivan Chanana. In due course, a full transcript will be appended to this report when I receive it from a loyal volunteer.
I close this note by mentioning the latest evaluation of Ukraine’s chances of maintaining its fight into the late autumn coming from panelists on the widely viewed and very well informed Russian state television talk show The Great Game per last night’s edition: https://rutube.ru/video/2cedd7b3f68ed9ebdbc4a730ff8fd686/
In short, thanks to enormous exertions of its recruitment officials patrolling the street of all cities and towns, the Ukrainian army is scooping up about 30,000 new recruits per month, giving them one week (!) of training and sending them to the front. This number roughly corresponds to the number of Ukrainian soldiers and officers killed or seriously injured and withdrawn from combat in the same time period. Given that training for a live war normally takes 60 days, those who are being sent to the front today cannot make a serious contribution on the field of battle and are just cannon fodder.
Meanwhile, there is widespread discussion in the Ukrainian media about the numbers of conscript age men (18 – 59) who are actively evading the recruiters by going into hiding or fleeing abroad. These range from several hundred thousand to 800,000. That tells you a lot about the enthusiasm level of the broad Ukrainian population for continuing the fight against Moscow. Polls also indicate that over the past year there has been a dramatic increase in the percent of the population wanting to end the war now while accepting the permanent loss of the territory that Russia has captured.