UKRAINE WAR - 1 YEAR AND GOING.

[LaCroix]

Russia increased the draft age from 27 to 30. Prepare for another round of mobilization, 500k give or take.

Seems they finally have the first batches of Mosin-Nagant rifles back from their the soak in the Evapo-Rust.

[Khaat]

I expected this. Someone forgot the purpose of surveillance was to surveil.
Drone footage of the Russian strike

What I didn't expect is that someone above "flyboy" gave the go-ahead to do it.

And the software was wiped, but no cinematic "auto-destruct" for the drone.

[GrosseAdmiralFox]

I've seen that Wagner has been complaining about lack of ammunition in general for the last month or so and that if they don't get ammo soon, they'll pull out of Bakmut... causing that entire front to collapse.

[Solauren]

Hopefully, Wagner will pull out, and that WILL cause the entire front to collapse.

Ukraine could then reclaim all the territory Russia has taken over the last decade, capture alot of Russian assets, and then stop at the actual border.

That would represent a huge blow to Russia, and one that they'd have trouble recovering from (lost manpower, lost hard ware, lost resources, etc).

That kind of loss could get Putin removed from power. Hopefully with someone more reasonable taking his place.
(i.e; "Okay, it was all Putin and his cronies, they're under arrest. We'll hand them and our prisoners over for your prisoners, keep the hardware, and we're calling it a day.")

Quite frankly, getting Putin and his highest level supporters into their custody would probably mean more for the Ukraine the financial reparations. (It Russia was smart after turning over Putin, they'd liquidate his assets and be prepared to hand them over to get sanctions lifted)

[GrosseAdmiralFox]

Hopefully, Wagner will pull out, and that WILL cause the entire front to collapse.

Ukraine could then reclaim all the territory Russia has taken over the last decade, capture alot of Russian assets, and then stop at the actual border.

That would represent a huge blow to Russia, and one that they'd have trouble recovering from (lost manpower, lost hard ware, lost resources, etc).

That kind of loss could get Putin removed from power. Hopefully with someone more reasonable taking his place.
(i.e; "Okay, it was all Putin and his cronies, they're under arrest. We'll hand them and our prisoners over for your prisoners, keep the hardware, and we're calling it a day.")

Quite frankly, getting Putin and his highest level supporters into their custody would probably mean more for the Ukraine the financial reparations. (It Russia was smart after turning over Putin, they'd liquidate his assets and be prepared to hand them over to get sanctions lifted)

The sad reality is... it won't change for the better. The most likely scenario is that Putin gets replaced by someone that is even more hardline than Putin (current bets is the head of the intelligence service, who makes Putin look like a fluffy bunny in the hardline department), and that goes to a bag of marbles that the mods have hard-locked on this thread. The crazy thing is that we're watching a mockumentary live, which is the scariest thing.

[LadyTevar]

I expected this. Someone forgot the purpose of surveillance was to surveil.
Drone footage of the Russian strike

What I didn't expect is that someone above "flyboy" gave the go-ahead to do it.

And the software was wiped, but no cinematic "auto-destruct" for the drone.

Had to suffer a lot of commercials because I wanted to see it more than once.

Either way, the belly camera shows there's one prop with the tip clipped off, at least one other clearly twisted out of alignment.
Looking at photos of that drone model, it has a V-shape double tail. I'm betting from the damage to the propeller that at least one of those tails was snapped off by the Russian plane. Very good reason to wipe the databank and ditch the rest.

[LaCroix]

With Ukraine managed to blow up the main ammo depot in Bakhmut, the frantic attempts of the Russian forces to storm the city at all cost have suddenly died down. instead of up to 100 atacks per day, overwhelming defenses with volume, it's now 20-30, and there have been no further advances into the city.

Vuledar also had a last attempt, and again, the Ukrainians managed to repel.
Turns out they found an ingenious tactic that no one has yet come up with - they had some ammo that scatters mines, and instead of using it to just quickly mine an approach, they fired it over the enemy forces just when they started an ambuch, which ment that the retreating forces suddenly ran into minefields that hadn't been there, yet. No wonder they wiped out whole brigades worth of gear in that area. NATO analysts are definitely gettign their money's worth out of this conflict, so far the Ukrainians have come up with quite a lot of ideas that are worth incorporating into the handbooks.

All in all, we see signs of the Moscovian offensive culminating. No clue if the Ukrainians ar going to let them keep going on on fumes to make the fun last a bit longer or if the counterattack is imminent, but it seems they have gotten pretty much all out of Bakhmut that was possible, and then some. Only the still wet ground an the not yet delivered tanks are stoping them at the moment.

[LaCroix]

They have even started handing out summons in St.Petersburg... Shit is bad if they think they need to dip into that source.
Surprisingly enough, I have not yet heard about summons in Moscow.

Well, another 400k into the grinder.

People looking into getting themselves a russian mail order bride should not yet rejoice at the positive outlook, there are signs that soon, there will be female conscription, too - there have been reports that they are already starting to recruit female convicts into the army,

[Juubi Karakuchi]

https://www.independent.co.uk/news/worl ... 02869.html

Ukraine war – latest news: Slovakia to send Kyiv Soviet jets as Xi set to meet Putin
Vladimir Putin’s Kremlin retorts that Soviet-era jets will be destroyed without impacting course of war

Andy Gregory

Slovakia will send its 13-strong fleet of MiG-29 fighter jets to Ukraine, becoming the second Nato member behind Poland to answer president Volodymyr Zelensky’s pleas for planes to help Kyiv repel Russia’s invasion.

Prime minister Eduard Heger announced his government’s unanimous decision on Friday to send the grounded fleet of Soviet-era jets, just hours after Poland’s Andrzej Duda declared plans to send four jets within days, with more to follow.

The Kremlin retorted on Friday that the fighter jets would be destroyed and would not make a difference to the course of the conflict.

It came as Moscow announced that China’s president Xi Jinping has accepted an invitation by Vladimir Putin to conduct a state visit to Russia on Monday.

China and Russia struck a “no limits” partnership in February 2022, just weeks before the invasion of Ukraine, and Beijing has recently offered to broker peace in the war.

Meanwhile, Russia was likely trying to recover debris from the US surveillance drone it allegedly intercepted over the Black Sea, according to the Pentagon.

Now for the jets. 17x old Mig-29s ain't much, but that's just to start; and at least the Ukrainians will know how to handle them. If Poland does hand over its entire stock, that's 35x planes altogether, while Bulgaria has 11x AFAIK. I don't know if anyone else would be willing to part with theirs.

[Solauren]

Now for the jets. 17x old Mig-29s ain't much, but that's just to start; and at least the Ukrainians will know how to handle them. If Poland does hand over its entire stock, that's 35x planes altogether, while Bulgaria has 11x AFAIK. I don't know if anyone else would be willing to part with theirs.

Considering how poorly Russian/Soviet equipment has been performing during this conflict, alot of others might be considering giving that old equipment to the Ukrainians so they have room for new, better equipment, and at least see some use get out of the old gear before it no longer works.

Also, one has to appreciate the irony of old Soviet/Russian gear being used to stop a Russian military offensive.

[wautd]

Or, they were trying to disable it in a way it could be salvaged.

Getting shot up and crashing, or blown apart by a missile, tends to negate that possibility.

I would not be surprised to find out both pilots 'vanish' over this little stunt, as I don't think Putin wanted anything that blatant against NATO/US at this point.

Actually it turns out they got awarded by the Russian State

[EnterpriseSovereign]

Now for the jets. 17x old Mig-29s ain't much, but that's just to start; and at least the Ukrainians will know how to handle them. If Poland does hand over its entire stock, that's 35x planes altogether, while Bulgaria has 11x AFAIK. I don't know if anyone else would be willing to part with theirs.

Considering how poorly Russian/Soviet equipment has been performing during this conflict, alot of others might be considering giving that old equipment to the Ukrainians so they have room for new, better equipment, and at least see some use get out of the old gear before it no longer works.

Also, one has to appreciate the irony of old Soviet/Russian gear being used to stop a Russian military offensive.

The Ukrainians have not hesitated in taking equipment captured from the Russians and using them against their makers

[Broomstick]

Either way, the belly camera shows there's one prop with the tip clipped off, at least one other clearly twisted out of alignment.
Looking at photos of that drone model, it has a V-shape double tail. I'm betting from the damage to the propeller that at least one of those tails was snapped off by the Russian plane. Very good reason to wipe the databank and ditch the rest.

Pretty sure part of the tail was NOT clipped off. If it had been the drone would have been uncontrollable, unsteerable, and incapable of straight and level flight. The tail might have sustained some damage, but "snapped off" would not be an applicable term.

That brings us back to the damaged propeller blades. That sort of damage means the prop is out of balance. At normal speeds that would set up severe vibrations. A friend of mine who lost a prop blade while flying described as like riding one of those paint-shaking mixer machines at the hardware store. If those vibrations get severe enough they can start causing damage, literally shaking the machinery apart. So the only thing to do, when props are damaged/imbalanced, is to kill the engine power, let the prop swing free, and start gliding. The part of the video where the damaged prop is still spinning is the part "windmilling" - it's being moved like one of those pinwheel toys, the force of the wind it is traveling through providing the motion, not the engine power.

That meant the drone would only stay in the air a limited amount of time. It was probably set up for "best glide" speed or range using the control surfaces and the time used to remotely wipe data.

[wautd]

ICC judges issue arrest warrant for Vladimir Putin over alleged war crimes

Arrest warrants issued for Russian leader and his children’s rights commissioner for ‘unlawful deportation’ of Ukrainian children

The international criminal court (ICC) in The Hague has issued an arrest warrant for Vladimir Putin for overseeing the abduction of Ukrainian children, sending Russia another significant step on the path to becoming a pariah state.

In granting the request for warrants by the ICC prosecutor, a panel of judges agreed that there were “reasonable grounds” to believe Putin and his children’s rights commissioner, Maria Alekseyevna Lvova-Belova, bore responsibility for the “unlawful deportation” of Ukrainian children.
Vladimir Putin
What does the ICC arrest warrant for Vladimir Putin mean in reality?
Read more

The warrants are the first to be issued by the ICC for crimes committed in the Ukraine war, and it is one of the rare occasions when the court has issued a warrant for a sitting head of state, putting Putin in the company of the Libyan leader Muammar Gaddafi and the Sudanese president Omar al-Bashir.

Gaddafi was toppled and killed months after his warrant was announced. Bashir was also ousted and is currently in jail in Sudan, though he has yet to be transferred to The Hague. Putin is likely to evade justice in the near future: Russia does not recognise the court’s jurisdiction, and insisted on Friday it was not affected by the warrants. But the Russian leader will face limits on his freedom of travel to the ICC’s 123 member states, further deepening his isolation.

In deciding to issue the warrants, the ICC pre-trial chamber of judges considered keeping the warrants secret but decided that making them public could “contribute to the prevention of the further commission of crimes”.

It is unclear how many children have been taken from Ukraine by Russian forces. Last month, the Yale Humanitarian Research Lab published a report alleging that at least 6,000 children from Ukraine had been sent to Russian “re-education” camps in the past year. In a statement on Friday, the ICC prosecutor, Karim Khan, said: “Incidents identified by my office include the deportation of at least hundreds of children taken from orphanages and children’s care homes.”

Khan said many of the children had been put up for adoption in Russia and that Putin had issued a decree expediting the conferral of Russian citizenship on the children, making them easier to adopt.

“My office alleges that these acts, amongst others, demonstrate an intention to permanently remove these children from their own country,” Khan said. “We must ensure that those responsible for alleged crimes are held accountable and that children are returned to their families and communities … We cannot allow children to be treated as if they are the spoils of war.”

“There are reasonable grounds to believe that Mr Putin bears individual criminal responsibility for the aforementioned crimes,” the ICC judges’ statement said, adding that he both committed the acts directly and failed to stop others from doing so.

The Kremlin was defiant in the face of the ICC announcement.

“The decisions of the international criminal court have no meaning for our country, including from a legal point of view,” the foreign ministry spokeswoman, Maria Zakharova, said on her Telegram channel. “Russia is not a party to the Rome statute of the international criminal court and bears no obligations under it.”

Lvova-Belova told Russian media that the arrest warrant reflected “appreciation” for her work “to help the children of our country, that we don’t leave them in the war zone, that we take them out”.

Ukraine’s president, Volodymyr Zelenskiy, estimated the number of deported children at far more than 16,000 and said the warrants represented “an historic decision which will lead to historic accountability.

“It would have been impossible to enact such a criminal operation without the say-so of the man at the helm of the terrorist state,” Zelenskiy said.

Wayne Jordash, a Kyiv-based international human rights lawyer and managing partner of Global Rights Compliance, said that the warrants for Putin and Lvova-Belova were likely to be the first of many.

“More will come over the next few months. This has got to be a sort of warning shot across the bow,” Jordash said.
Kremlin likely to spin ICC arrest warrant as proof west wants to remove Putin
Read more

The Russian leadership has been overt about its taking Ukrainian children to Russia and placing them in camps or putting them up for adoption by Russian families. On 16 February, Lvova-Belova appeared on television telling Putin about the programme and thanking him for being able to “adopt” a 15-year-old boy from Mariupol, the south-eastern Ukrainian city that was devastated and occupied by Russian forces.

“Thanks to you, now I know what it’s like to be a mom of a Donbas child,” she told Putin.

“There’s a clear case here against Putin,” Jordash said. So I think it’s good to see the prosecutor focusing on children’s rights. I think this is what international prosecutors have failed to do over the last 20 years, so this is a good focus, as it’s one of the worst crimes being committed.”

The warrant for Putin’s arrest was welcomed by Josep Borrell, the EU foreign policy chief, who called it “the start of the process of accountability” and by the UK’s foreign secretary, James Cleverly, who said “those responsible for horrific war crimes in Ukraine must be brought to justice”.

The US was more guarded in its response. Joe Biden said that Putin had clearly committed war crimes and the ICC’s decision was justified. But the US is not an ICC member, and the Pentagon has resisted cooperation with the ICC out of fear that US soldiers could potentially be pursued by the court.

“There is no doubt that Russia is committing war crimes and atrocities in Ukraine, and we have been clear that those responsible must be held accountable,” Adrienne Watson, the national security council spokeswoman said. “The ICC prosecutor is an independent actor and makes his own prosecutorial decisions based on the evidence before him. We support accountability for perpetrators of war crimes.”

Reed Brody, a veteran war crimes prosecutor and author of To Catch a Dictator, a book about the pursuit of Chadian leader, Hissène Habré, said the warrant “makes Putin’s world a smaller place”.

“I don’t think we were expecting to see him travel to France or Ukraine anytime soon, but he’s got to be careful,” Brody said. “Obviously, these are crimes that never go away. They will hang over his head forever and making them go away is very hard. We’ve seen time and again that the wheels of international justice grind slowly, but they grind exceedingly fine.”

I wonder where where Putin's regime got their ideas from

[LaCroix]

It has begun.

There have been severe shelling and airstrikes at all known southern defense lines, while the uaf have executed reconnaissance in force at various places.

This is to map the actual strength of those, find weak point, or even potential to circle cut around those by starting further east and cutting back west.

Anyway, it means the offensive is imminent, probably at the start of April.

[LadyTevar]

Either way, the belly camera shows there's one prop with the tip clipped off, at least one other clearly twisted out of alignment.
Looking at photos of that drone model, it has a V-shape double tail. I'm betting from the damage to the propeller that at least one of those tails was snapped off by the Russian plane. Very good reason to wipe the databank and ditch the rest.

Pretty sure part of the tail was NOT clipped off. If it had been the drone would have been uncontrollable, unsteerable, and incapable of straight and level flight. The tail might have sustained some damage, but "snapped off" would not be an applicable term.

That brings us back to the damaged propeller blades. That sort of damage means the prop is out of balance. At normal speeds that would set up severe vibrations. A friend of mine who lost a prop blade while flying described as like riding one of those paint-shaking mixer machines at the hardware store. If those vibrations get severe enough they can start causing damage, literally shaking the machinery apart. So the only thing to do, when props are damaged/imbalanced, is to kill the engine power, let the prop swing free, and start gliding. The part of the video where the damaged prop is still spinning is the part "windmilling" - it's being moved like one of those pinwheel toys, the force of the wind it is traveling through providing the motion, not the engine power.

That meant the drone would only stay in the air a limited amount of time. It was probably set up for "best glide" speed or range using the control surfaces and the time used to remotely wipe data.

Thanks Broomstick

[EnterpriseSovereign]

Russia will 'respond accordingly' if Britain sends depleted uranium shells to Kyiv, Putin says

Vladimir Putin has warned that Russia will “respond accordingly” if Britain sends depleted uranium tank ammunition to the government in Kyiv.

The Russian leader claimed the UK was supplying Ukraine with “weapons with a nuclear component”, pointing to British plans to the send the Ukrainians depleted uranium shells along with a squadron of Challenger 2 main battle tanks.

Depleted uranium is the material left after most of the highly radioactive form of uranium is removed from the natural uranium ore.

The British Ministry of Defence (MoD) dismissed Putin's warning, saying the armour-piercing shells had been standard equipment for decades and were “nothing to do with nuclear weapons or capabilities”.

“It looks like the West indeed intends to fight Russia until the last Ukrainian,” Putin said during a news conference in Moscow with China’s President Xi Jinping.

“If that happens, Russia will respond accordingly, given that the collective West is starting to use weapons with a nuclear component.”

He did not elaborate on what the response might be, although the Russian leader has previously made ominous threats towards the West.

In response, a MoD spokesman said: “Alongside our granting of a squadron of Challenger 2 main battle tanks to Ukraine, we will be providing ammunition, including armour piercing rounds which contain depleted uranium.

“Such rounds are highly effective in defeating modern tanks and armoured vehicles.

“The British Army has used depleted uranium in its armour piercing shells for decades. It is a standard component and has nothing to do with nuclear weapons or capabilities.

“Russia knows this, but is deliberately trying to disinform.”

The spokesman added that independent research by scientists from groups such as the Royal Society had assessed that any impact to personal health and the environment from the use of depleted uranium munitions was “likely to be low”.

The comments come after Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy on Tuesday chaired a meeting of top defense and security officials, focusing on coordinating arms and ammunition supplies for the Ukrainian army as well as information security.

A day earlier, European Union countries endorsed a fast-track procedure aimed at providing Kyiv with sorely needed artillery shells to repel Russia’s invasion forces.

Ukraine’s presidential office reported that at least three civilians were killed and 10 others were injured by Russian shelling in the previous 24 hours.

It said that Russia fired on the southern city of Kherson and its suburbs more than 60 times over that period, killing one person and injuring seven others across the Kherson province.

Fierce battles continued in the eastern Donetsk region, where Russia is straining to encircle the city of Bakhmut in the face of dogged Ukrainian resistance.

As fighting across Ukraine raged on, Putin warmly welcomed Xi Jinping to the Kremlin on Monday, starting a three-day visit the two major powers described as an opportunity to deepen their “no-limits friendship.”

China is looking to Russia as a source of oil and gas for its energy-hungry economy, and as a partner in standing up to what they both see as US domination of global affairs.

Xi Jinping's invitation to China followed the International Criminal Court (ICC) last week issuing an arrest warrant for the Russian president over war crimes in connection with his alleged involvement in abductions of children from Ukraine.

Last Russian Not last Ukrainian, Putin.

Russian missiles destroyed in occupied Crimea, Ukraine says

An explosion in the north of Russian-occupied Crimea has destroyed missiles belonging to the Kremlin, Ukraine's defence ministry said.

The region's Russian-appointed governor reported an incident in the same Crimean town, Dzhankoi.

ITV News has been unable to independently verify the reports.

A statement by the Ukrainian military agency said multiple Kalibr cruise missiles were destroyed by an explosion, without explicitly saying Ukraine was responsible or what weapon had been used.

According to the statement, the missiles were being carried by train and destined to be launched from submarines.

The agency implied that Ukraine's government was responsible, saying the explosion continues "the process of Russia's demilitarisation and prepares the Ukrainian peninsula of Crimea for de-occupation".

Moscow seized Crimea in 2014 in a move that many countries condemned as illegal.

Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy has vowed to re-capture all Ukrainian land now occupied by Russia, including Crimea.

Meanwhile, the Russian-appointed governor of Crimea, Sergei Aksenov, said falling debris from the explosion injured one person and damaged a home and store.

He did not mention that cruise missiles were hit, specify why the anti-aircraft weapons were fired or how the injury and damage were caused.

Throughout the war, reports have surfaced of attacks on Russian military bases, assassinations and other targets in Crimea, with Ukraine rarely, if ever, explicitly claiming responsibility.

Elsewhere, Japanese Prime Minister Fumio Kishida began a surprise visit to Ukraine on Tuesday, coinciding with Chinese Premiere Xi Jinping's trip to neighbouring Russia.

Mr Kishida is expected to meet President Zelenskyy in the Ukrainian capital, Kyiv, and "affirm his commitment to defend the rules-based international order".

His visit comes as it's been announced that around £4 million has been raised for the International Criminal Court (ICC) to help support its investigations into alleged war crimes in Ukraine.

Last week, the court issued an arrest warrant for Russian President Vladimir Putin as being "allegedly responsible for the war crime of unlawful deportation of population [children] and that of unlawful transfer of population [children] from occupied areas of Ukraine to the Russian Federation".

[Batman]

We should accuse Russia of ALWAYS using nuclear weapons, everywhere, because all of their ammunition contains atoms.

[Crazedwraith]

Depleted Uranium rounds are bad mojo we should be cautious about using but from sheer metal toxicity not because they're nuclear weapons.

[Batman]

Definitely, DU rounds are nasty, but they are no more 'nuclear' than any other projectile.

[GrosseAdmiralFox]

Depleted Uranium rounds are bad mojo we should be cautious about using but from sheer metal toxicity not because they're nuclear weapons.

Here's the thing, if you want a tank dead then DU is your real bet. Unless you somehow get GURPS High-Density projectile technology (which requires artificial gravity to properly manufacture), you're going to use DU over tungsten carbide (which is just as bad).

[His Divine Shadow]

I wonder if the alternatives like tungsten are that much better to breathe in, it's that they get partially vaporized and turned into dust when used which is bad isn't it.

[Broomstick]

In general, breathing any form of dust/smoke is bad for you.

I do think the word "uranium" freaks people out. Depleted uranium is less radioactive than regular old uranium and it's not the radiation that's the big danger. Uranium is chemically toxic and can mess up your lungs, liver, kidneys, and heart. My information is that it's the kidneys that DU is most likely to affect badly, but since the most likely route to get it inside your body is to inhale the dust it's also a source of lung problems, including, long term, lung cancer since it's an alpha emitter, even if a weak one (it's decay products, though, are beta emitters which are more penetrating, but even so there's usually not a sufficient quantity to pose a large hazard). However, it's the kidney problems that most likely will take you out decades before DU gives you cancer. This link states that the chemical risks of DU is about a million times greater than the radiological risks The point being that it's not the radiation that's the problem. It's the chemistry. But like I said, in many minds uranium=radiation=death. It really should be uranium oxide dust=chemistry=renal failure=dialysis or transplant or death

An interesting side note is that members of the military don't seem to suffer adverse effects, at least not in militaries that provide protective gear and training to their soldiers. Which makes sense - if you're taught how to properly handle a toxic substance you're far less likely to suffer toxic effects. The problem is this shit stays in the environment and can be stirred up by normal activities. This leaves civilians vulnerable because they probably don't have the training, the gear, or often even the awareness that the hazard exists in a particular area.

Tungsten appears to be less of a problem - negligible radiation (by lay terms, "none"), and less chemically toxic, but it's not entirely safe. It looks like with tungsten there's the possibility fucking your lungs up which can be just as bad/fatal as fucking up your kidneys. Oh, and a long-term risk of cancer. Having a lot of tungsten dust around because of a battle fought in the past is not good for you either.

The take away here should be War Is Bad. For a lot of reasons, and for a long time after the shooting stops.

[EnterpriseSovereign]

Slovakia delivers first four Soviet-era MiG-29 jets to Ukraine

The first four of 13 Soviet-era MiG-29 fighter jets that Slovakia decided to give Ukraine have been safely handed over to the Ukrainian air force, the Slovak defence ministry said.

The ministry said the warplanes were flown from Slovakia to Ukraine by Ukrainian pilots with help from the Slovak air force, Ukrainian personnel and others.

“I thank (all) involved for a fantastic professional job,” defence minister Jaroslav Nad said.

The ministry said the remaining MiG-29s will be handed over to the Ukrainian side in the coming weeks.

It said it will not provide any additional details until they are safely in Ukraine.

On Friday, the Slovak government approved a plan to give Ukraine its fleet of 13 Soviet-era MiG-29 fighter jets, becoming the second Nato member to heed the Ukrainian government’s pleas for warplanes to help defend against Russia’s invasion.

Slovakia grounded its MiGs in the summer due to a lack of spare parts and expertise to help maintain them.

Fellow Nato members Poland and the Czech Republic stepped in to monitor Slovak air space.

Slovakia previously signed a deal to buy 14 US F-16 Block 70/72 fighter jets but delivery was pushed back two years, with the first aircraft to arrive in early 2024.

The Slovak defence ministry said on Wednesday the United States has offered Slovakia 12 new military helicopters as compensation for the fighter jets the European country is giving to Ukraine.

Under the offer, Slovakia would pay 340 million US dollars (£276.39 million) for the Bell AH-1Z attack choppers in a deal worth about one billion dollars (£810 million).

US foreign military financing would cover the other 660 million dollars (£536.51 million).

[LadyTevar]

If it just me, or is all this trading of military equipment like a giant game of Catan?