How much flying hours? At least 500?
How much for what?? It took them around 50 hours to wing. 500 hours is 160SOAR level of flight time.
You can do the hug the ground flight once you are somehow familiar with the craft, so anywhere between 50 to 100 I supposed.
Should give some M1117s as well that I mentioned. In any case whether 2 months from now or post war, at least the Ukrainians have them.
I don't think we will, not in the near future.
I mean it would be probably better off to send them MRAP or even Stryker (which I think is what they really need, more so than Humvee)
Notice taht M1117 was for light cavalry scout, Ukraine does not actually have people trained in this capacity, all their armoured unit are either tanks or IFV. They can use it on the SOF tho, but i heard they are quite fond of the buggy.
Probably keep them busy in the long run while other frontlines are being pushed or flanked. Considering the Russians are desperate to make up the losses with criminals directly from prisons, the Russians have at least few weeks training before they those in. Probably even a rotation at most for winter if possible. So the Ukrainians have the opportunity.
What the Ukrainian doing is what we called "Show of Force" they basically show their hands to Russia, knowing they can't escape, and they can't hold, and hoping sense will prevail and they will give up and go home.
Ukraine should already have enough troops and ways to attack Kherson, using the same "Bite and Hold" technique the Russian uses in the East and grind down Russian defence and take Kherson bit by bit, they didn't do that, most likely because they want to preserve the city.
Crazy for that to happen, that its only far back in June considering that's like 5 months around since the war started. Wagner tends to be more independent and making quicker decisions and have more experience since they have fought in Syria and Africa.
Wagner was the one of the few unit that have recent experience in war, the last war before Syria for Russia is in late 90s and early 20s in Dagestan and Chechen, that was way too long ago, and that;s why their regular troop can't really fight.
It also worth notice that the war in Ukraine has degraded Russian interest in Middle East and Africa, it's exactly because they had rotated a lot of Wagner people from those country and that degraded their local partnership, and in this case, they start recruiting from prison is not a good sign for force regeneration, I think if this war continue, and Russia continue to depend on their PMC, it will bring permanent shift for Russian Interest in Africa and Middle East
@jhungary
Total no fly zone. Every Russian target in Ukraine gets bombed in the air by NATO while Ukrainian troops pushed on the ground. Also Putin has to be really stupid and desperate to do this with the world watching including his own people, the people of Ukraine who won't forget what Russia has done (if nukes were used), wouldn't be surprised to see Ukraine getting their own nukes in near future to prevent it happening again. Did anybody see the U.S. nuke Afghanistan when we lost the war? Russia should just get out like they did in Afghanistan during the 1980s without resorting to nukes.
It kind of depends of the mandate of No Fly Zone. If the No Fly Zone is created to demilitarise an area, then yes, they can engage ground target if they had determined that it was a legit military target inside a demilitarised area. If not, they can't target ground vehicle like the Iraqi No Fly Zone and the one over Serbia in the 90s.
Ukraine will also not be able to launch their aircraft, and drone, so there will be set back here, but then most intel are provided by NATO to Ukraine anyway, it really wouldn't matter much