bluemason3 said:Some people are arguing this won't actually change much on the ground. Their logic? Even the gear they already have isn't being used to its full potential because they just don't have enough air superiority. So, they see this as more of a PR stunt than a tactical win.
Purely a PR move. 🤔
All this talk about those Mig aircraft... honestly, it feels more like a distraction technique to pull focus away from things, or maybe just a way to mess with Russia's head, rather than anything that would actually give Ukraine a decisive edge right now.
If you look at it logically:
1. It's essentially a signal to Russia that there's a faction within NATO willing to send whatever weaponry is requested.
Maybe that way, Russia might eventually find it easier to tolerate these massive shipments of lighter weaponry. At the highest political levels, I suppose they don't quite grasp that such gear can be much more lethal against their invasion forces than a single squadron of MiG-29s.
Russia will likely view the fact that these jets haven't been delivered to Ukraine (at least not openly or in bulk) as a sort of victory for their diplomacy and threats. They'll probably feel like they've succeeded, while also realizing that all this light weapon stuff doesn't actually stop them much.
2. Showing that NATO is ready to step up by sending this kind of hardware might convince Russian leadership to scale back airstrikes and cruise missile attacks on western Ukraine, specifically in areas closer to the borders of NATO member states.
It’s simple logic, I guess—if the border countries feel less threatened, they might push less for the heavier, more sophisticated weapon systems to be sent to Ukraine.
3. Those planes might actually just complicate air defense, especially since units are being mass-distributed Stingers, Arrows, Wasps, and eventually Starstreaks...
Ukraine still has some operational S-300 batteries, and when you factor in their likely real-time connection with AWACS, it makes flying at higher altitudes pretty dangerous for the Russian Air Force. That system could potentially be coordinated with the Ukrainian MiG-29.
But then again, it would be incredibly difficult to prevent someone armed with a Stinger from accidentally targeting their own planes, since they're trained to see only the enemy in the sky.
So, in my opinion, it would probably make more sense to send extra missiles for the S-300s, maybe some mobile short-to-medium range systems... and try to get those captured Pantsirs and Tunguskas back in working order...
