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Israel Admits It Bombed A Hospital To Kill A Journalist For Doing Journalism
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this post was submitted on 16 May 2025
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Europe was very clear that they did not want Ukraine to win. They could have sent Ukraine all the weapons if needed to win the war at the very start. Yet they refused to do so, because Russia has nuclear weapons, and they "feared for an escalation". However, now that Ukraine is starting to lose, they are sending the weapons, which they said they would not send before.
If Ukraine is not allowed to win for "fear of escalation", then I do not see any other option than a stalemate or a loss for Ukraine. In this case that means the goal is throwing Ukrainians into the meatgrinder to weaken Russia.
Europe doesn't have the weapons to send: have you seen the state of European armies? For instance if we talk high level air defence, Europe has sent more Soviet era S-300P systems than their domestically produced SAMP/T systems. Europe has sent one SAMP/T battery for the entire war, over three years! And these S-300s and SAMP/T could only be sent to Ukraine because the US promised to send replacement Patriot batteries to the countries that donated their S-300 and SAMP/T, while simultaneously sending multiple Patriot batteries to Ukraine. It's the same story with every advanced system.
Europe has plenty of weapons. Most of them are high tech such as the F16's. at the start of the war these would have been plenty to destroy the Russian arsenal. It took a lot of time for Russia to scale up their production to current levels.
Even now we are seeing Europe occasionally send a few Storm Shadow missiles to finally strike deeper within Russia. Something they claimed to be a red line at the beginning. The F16's also took ages.
The 80 or so F-16s Europe are planing to send are:
not domestically produced or supported, they are built in the United States and rely on support (spare parts and maintenance) from the United States itself, hence the recent US $300 million F-16 support package and flights of spare parts and stripped out airframes from the boneyard in the US. They also rely on US weapons/munitions, targeting equipment and intelligence, electronic systems/countermeasures and technicians. Europe cannot provide this support, only the United States can. Europe sending F-16s without US support would amount to sending a bunch of soft locked aircraft that wouldn't be able to carry out the required missions. I wrote a long post about this when the USA paused intelligence sharing to Ukraine. It's US technology, not European technology. The US is required as a key player.
The F-16s Europe are sending are cold war era F-16AM block 15 models, roughly equivalent in capability to the Soviet era MiG-29s Ukraine has/had. These are not the latest F-16V block 70 aircraft, or even the 2000s era F-16C block 50 aircraft. These are the oldest F-16s in service. They lack a lot of capabilities that the newest F-16s have, from radars to targeting systems.
It is only possible for Europe to send these F-16s because the United States is prepared to supply F-35s as a replacement for those countries giving up their F-16s. Europe has no domestic equivalent to the F-35, and their latest 4.5 generation aircraft (Gripen, Rafale, Eurofighter Typhoon) while cheaper to operate than an F-35, cost more upfront and lack stealth capabilities. In theory this is a win-win situation: European countries trade in their cold war era F-16AMs to Ukraine for the latest and greatest F-35s, and the US makes a ton of money on arms sales. But again, this plan requires the US as a key player to work. It's not possible without US involvement. Europe cannot supply the replacements that the US can.
As for domestically produced fighter aircraft, France was able to promise a dozen or two Mirage 2000s, but that was it. No one else from Europe has stepped up. This seems to be all that Europe can give independently. Macron said as much.
The storm shadow/SCALP-EG missiles are fired by Soviet era Su-24 aircraft in the Ukrainian inventory using parts from the UK's Tornado GR4 aircraft. It's a frankenstein solution.
This is not to say that Europe doesn't have high tech weapons in general, they do. But the stuff that they do have they need to keep for themselves for their own domestic security, they cannot support another conflict and keep themselves at the appropriate readiness levels. There are also key shortfalls in certain areas (like air defence) where Europe does not have the domestic production capability, and relies on partners like the US and Israel for them. Hence Germany buying an Israeli Arrow 3 air defence battery (midcourse ballistic missile interception) recently.
Yes but quantity is key here. So far Ukraine has barely received any of its promised F16's. There are more modern F16's in Europe. But Ukraine is barely getting any of their promised planes to begin with. Europe is offloading their old trash that much is true.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/F-16_training_coalition
Europe has newer stuff. Even F35's. Also Eurofighters and Gripens. There is a way, but there is no will from Europe either to help Ukraine win.
My point is that these F-16s are not European technology or Europe's to send. They are European in name only. The only way to send these aircraft to Ukraine, provide long term support , and provide replacemens to the countries who have sent them to Ukraine, is with extensive United States involvement. The F-35s are also US jets, and the US has no intention to send them over to Ukraine. Europe does not have much of a say here, they are beholden to whatever decision the United States makes.
As for Gripens, Rafales, Eurofighters, the domestic European fighters Europe could give to Ukraine without US involvement, Europe can't send these to Ukraine without reducing the readiness levels of their domestic air forces to unsatisfactory levels. Europe cannot maintain their own domestic defence and support another high intensity conflict in Ukraine simultaneously. Macron said as much. This is why only a dozen or two Mirage 2000s have been promised so far.
Outside of the Ukrainian context, most European nations want F-35s instead of domestic European fighters as replacements for their ageing 4th generation fleets, because F-35s have stealth capabilities and there is no domestic European fighter with stealth capabilities.
Agree with you on that, as it is the situation just prolongs suffering in Ukraine. Europe and NATO should properly defend Ukraine, including with troops if necessary. In any case the fear of escalation is bs, because if Russia gets what it wants, it will not stop with Ukraine.
nato is a trench coat filled with nations with 2 agenda's that take precedence over defending ukraine:
the united states wants its minerals and is using its leverage of weapons to force the ukrainins to sign over minerals rights without any future guarantees of security; robbing them of a future income from this natural resource.
europe want's them to sign over guarantees of future economic ties with strings of future austerity measures as disguises to ensure that eu will have permanent access to the ukrainian market; robbing them of the ability to keep their future economic independence.
the ukrainians were fooled into believing that they could join the nato fold by the americans and the only thing they got for it is a dissolution of their future sovereignty like the vassals states of africa and latin america.
They should but they won't. Because their actions contradict their words. And Trump says the quiet part out loud.
There was a ceasefire deal which Ukraine almost accepted. Then Boris Johnson intervened and said Europe and America would 100% super duper most definitely support Ukraine to win the war pinky promise no cap on a stack fr fr.