I am not sure… you would need to achieve continued air supremacy, which would be hard with Russia just over the hill and being able to “do a Vietnam” and just keep feeding stuff in. They have loads of planes, so you would get air-to-air battles until their stock of planes got exhausted.
Then they have loads of cruise missiles so they can keep smashing up the place, like this (look up on the map where that is) and there is no defence against those except near to where defensive systems are located (and even then defensive systems work only sometimes) which can’t be done for the vast majority of civilian population. Russia can just keep wrecking Ukraine, until there is just rubble, or they have run out of cruise missiles, whichever occurs first.
Ukraine is achieving successes though – example – and not just managing to hold the invaders.
I don’t know. Most of Russia’s air force is MIG29s and Su27s which have zero counter to F22s and F35s they can’t see firing AMRAAMs they can’t evade.
Then a big chunk of their aircraft are never air worthy anyway. Their pilots are lucky to get 100 hours a year (except for a small elite cadre who get all the budget) so they would run out of half decent pilots pretty quickly.
The cruise missiles are a problem, a massive problem.
For an example see the south Atlantic in 1982. On one side you had great national pride in righting a perceived historic wrong and enormous enthusiasm for the endeavour. But on the other side you had better kit and very well-trained professionals. The result was about as one-sided as its possible to get.
Well the Brits certainly did not lack national pride in 82 and I am sure it helped a lot. I was in the UK when the fleet came home, Canberra in particular I remember and heavens was it an experience. But even before. That war showed what the Brits are capable of, or were then. It also made an excellent point about national integrity.
Clearly it was only possible due to the high professional capability as much as the iron will to do it. Black Buck anyone? But national.pride also had a huge factor in it.
LFHNflightstudent wrote:
2) Baltic states and Eastern European countries eager and lining up to join the EU (not that it will be easy for any of them to actually join) and NATO.
I thought the Baltics (Estonia, Latvia and Lithuania) were already both in NATO and in the EU.
Graham wrote:
For an example see the south Atlantic in 1982
The Falkland Islands? What’s the population there, 2000 ? About the same as Svalbard. Ukraine has a population of 40+ millions.
IMO Ukraine is much better than Russia is bad.
Well the Brits certainly did not lack national pride in 82 and I am sure it helped a lot.
Britain had Maggie, who had balls. Well not physically, being female, although nowadays this assertion will get you removed from almost any job 
And, practically, Argentina could not hold the islands in the long term because British submarines would have sunk their navy on day 1.
However, it was close. Reportedly, after the task force sailed down there, the shelves at the UK mil bases were stripped empty.
David Owen the Minister of Defence under Callaghan sent HMS Conqueror and a frigate in 1978 which quickly scared the Argentinean navy back to Bahía Blanca, and in the meantime saved several hundred lives with minimum expense. If ‘la Thatcher’ had not been so colour blind on the nature of the murderous dictatorships in the Southern Cone, or had wilfully not run down the Navy (they were lucky the carrier the UK had sold to India could be diverted), or played footsie under the table with the Argentinean Junta over a lease deal a la HK, many lives would have been saved.
Apparently the main defence scenario enacted by the Callaghan government couldn’t be implemented due to budget cuts, and then it was too late. Admiral Lord West after the war of the South Atlantic sat as a Labour peer (until Corbyn).
Lord Carrington recognised the supreme incompetence of how HMG dealt with the fascist regime in Argentina and resigned. The investment banker John Nott tried to resign from Defence but was not allowed to.
Only one major peace dividend: no military government in Argentina since 1982!
The politics behind it were interesting (the UK gov wanted rid without upsetting the electorate) but the main point I was making was that a small well-paid and well-trained professional army with good kit always wipes the floor with conscripts, regardless of how much ‘motivation’ there is.
I don’t know much about the supply situation, but the UK sent a naval task force and ground troops which were not a large proportion of their total strength. There is a popular narrative that it was ‘close’ but that really related to a weather window which would have made the thing much more challenging once the southern hemisphere winter set in.
The Royal Navy exercised restraint and only sank one ship, but their Sea Harriers quickly established air superiority. The RAF did something extraordinary just because they wanted to be involved. Once the British Army landed troops on the islands it was totally one-sided and the islands were recaptured just about as quickly as were possible.
Indeed, Thatcher’s balls were key. She sailed the task force down there and continued diplomatic efforts while they were en route, but said all along that as soon as they arrived they’d get stuck in. And they did, despite much international pressure to hang back and keep negotiating. Excellent film about it called The Falklands Play.
Anyway, point is that a seriously good professional army makes the difference. Ukraine are indeed better than expected, but Russia are much worse that expected and US/UK troops would thrash them.
Once the Belgrano sank the Junta abandoned the conscripts on the Islands, some hadn’t even been through the minimal training which they might have got as conscripts.
Well as regards the conscripts, possibly much the same with the Russian army. The likes of the Argentine Junta and Putin’s regime regard them as completely expendable. Maybe one could support them a bit more and they might hold out a bit longer, but a bit more support won’t enable them to beat professionals.
Russia has lost three Major Generals killed in action. I can only assume this is because Russian units won’t do as they’re told and move forward without a senior leader’s boot up their backside. Back in the day they just shot them if they didn’t advance fast enough….
