"All of Vlad's forces and all of Vlad's men, are out to put Humpty together again." (12 Viewers)

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I can't say I agree. Not to diminish the opposition, but an organized military has big advantages over an armed group of civilians, no matter how large. Additionally, given Ukraine's current needs, I'm not sure there's much more to pass around in terms of spare arms.

And 600,000 firearms in the hands of unorganized masses may not be as relevant as 80,000 active-duty and a few hundred thousand more reserve troops, police, constabulary, etc with stocks on hand, and orders and doctrine guiding them.

I do agree that Russia already has its hands full in Ukraine, and a revolt in Belarus would be much more than a distraction -- it could lead to defeat in Ukraine for them. Not sure it would inspire other minorities in the Russian orbit to take action, but that's as much my ignorance of their outlooks as anything else. In any event, it would be a major headache for the Russians.

To be sure, an active insurrection against a Putin puppet would have good terrain to work with, given the marshes etc. But we'll have to see if the Belarusians have it in them.
 
Without organization, without high explosives and without resupply by an outside power, armed civilians vs military = dead civilians. An insurrection without at least all three of those and more can not succeed and historically never has.
 
wlewisiii said:
Without organization, without high explosives and without resupply by an outside power, armed civilians vs military = dead civilians. An insurrection without at least all three of those and more can not succeed and historically never has.
Click to expand...

I think organization and resupply are the big issues. Explosives can be improvised locally or even individually, but how to coordinate the actions, and how to keep those insurgents supplied, I think that's the hard part.

On the other hand, there's probably a lot of 7.62 or 5.45 rounds laying around, as well as diesel and fertilizer for IEDs, in Belarus.
 
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Perhaps that also means the Belarussian's can also catch the Russians off balance if Lukashenka dies. Just the loss of Belarus air bases would be a major defeat for Putin
 
MiTasol said:
Perhaps that also means the Belarussian's can also catch the Russians off balance if Lukashenka dies. Just the loss of Belarus air bases would be a major defeat for Putin
Click to expand...

Agreed. If that report is true, and I haven't seen further verification yet. I'll dig it back up and post the meat of it so that readers here can decide for themselves, or pursue further research.
 
wlewisiii said:
Without organization, without high explosives and without resupply by an outside power, armed civilians vs military = dead civilians. An insurrection without at least all three of those and more can not succeed and historically never has.
Click to expand...
Also, it's a vast leap of imagination to assume the bulk -- or even the majority -- of those civilians with firearms would rise up against a tyrannical state. After all, Hilter didn't tighten up gun laws; he loosened them.
 
Thumpalumpacus said:
Agreed. If that report is true, and I haven't seen further verification yet. I'll dig it back up and post the meat of it so that readers here can decide for themselves, or pursue further research.
Click to expand...

ETA: I think I'm wrong about this, because I cannot find supporting info. Perhaps I read it wrong or remembered it wrong, but in any event what I've written previously should be disregarded unless further info comes in.
 
As mentioned earlier, most adult Belarusian men have military training from compulsory service. They could put up a fight and it would come down to the Belarusian Army to decide whether they want to fire on their own people or do they switch sides?

During the Romanian Revolution of '89, the Romanian Army did just that, they joined the protesters.

I suspect that *if* the situation in Belarus deteriorates, especially if Lukashanko becomes incapacitated or dies, the opposition party will make their move. If the Russians try to intervene, that would be pouring gasoline on a fire.
 
I do not remember if I posted anything relative to this so here it is (again maybe ):

From Wiki: "On March 7, 2023, the Kazakh government seized control of the Baiterek launch complex, one of the launch sites at Baikonur Cosmodrome, banning numerous Russian officials from leaving the country and preventing the liquidation of assets by Roscosmos. One of the reasons for the seizure was due to Russia failing to pay a $29.7 million debt to the Kazakh government. The seizure comes after Russia's relations with Kazakhstan became tense due to the ongoing war in Ukraine."

A bit more detail:

"Kazakhstan Impounds Property Of Russian Cosmodrome Operator In Baikonur"

"Kazakhstan's seizure of Russian space assets threatens the Soyuz-5 rocket"
 
wlewisiii said:
Without organization, without high explosives and without resupply by an outside power, armed civilians vs military = dead civilians. An insurrection without at least all three of those and more can not succeed and historically never has.
Click to expand...
I agree. We remember Hungary in 1956.
Unknown factor here - how many people are ready to take arms. The "soft" uprising in 2020-2021 was impressive in size but many people were jailed or left the country, while the ruling power learned the lessons and strengthened.
 

Exclusive: U.S. could train Ukrainian pilots to fly F-16s in 4 months

Yahoo News has exclusively obtained an internal U.S. Air Force assessment that concludes it would take only four months to train Ukrainian pilots to operate American-made F-16 fighter jets, a far shorter time frame than what has been repeatedly cited by Pentagon officials.
news.yahoo.com

If only the real training had started already. Or in 2022.
 
It will be postwar before the first F-16 squadrons are operational in Ukraine. Presumably they'll be available for the Third Russo-Ukraine War that begins sometime after 2030 - after Zelenskyy has been succeeded.

Ukraine's presidential elections are to take place on 31 March 2024. Ukraine's president is limited to two terms consecutively, and we can assume Zelenskyy wins his second term by a landslide, though a militarily-victorious Churchill expected to win the parliamentary (not executive) elections and remain as PM 1945. Can Ukraine effectively conduct elections during a war? Of course the US held its presidential election in 1944, with FDR winning an unprecedented fourth term - but the US wasn't under daily attack and with millions of its electorate under foreign occupation.
 
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Most of the pilots/crew members killed in the recent ambush/friendly fire, or whatever it was, where less than 30 yo with only a few a litle over 30 yo (judging by the pictures they actually look really young).
However the average age of an employed US air force pilot is 44 years old and very few (only 11%) are less that 30



It may be a coincidence, but may also indicate that Russia is running out of experienced pilots.
 
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