Faced with the specter of an uncontrolled conflict with Russia, Europe is making a spectacular blunder in the plan for the military protection of Ukrainian airspace, trembling at the political cost of a dead European pilot in Ukraine.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
After the initial fanfare for the ambitious Sky Shield, the European leadership now appears timid, embarrassed and paralyzed by fear, retreating in the face of the possibility of massive casualties, escalation and, above all, internal political collapse.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
The ambitious plan for a Shield of protection in the Ukrainian skies without the US<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n In particular, the European staffs announced the possibility of using their Air Force to \u201cprotect the western regions of Ukraine from drone and missile attacks, without the help of the United States.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n The operational-strategic plan, called Sky Shield (derived from the English word Skyshield, unrelated to the Swiss modular short-range air defense system), provides for the presence of NATO aircraft in Ukrainian skies.<\/p>\n\n\n\n They wanted to implement the plan of a Ukrainian think tank<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n Sky Shield is indeed a bold and theoretically effective idea. But are the \u201cbrave\u201d Europeans ready to close the skies of Ukraine? Difficult, as their politicians continue to relentlessly weigh the risks to their own positions and cannot reach a consensus, let alone a final decision.<\/p>\n\n\n\n The most interesting thing: the Sky Shield plan, published in February, is the product of the Ukrainian analytical center The Price of Freedom. Initially, it was to be implemented after a ceasefire agreement, the observance of which would be \u201cguaranteed by European ground forces.\u201d Then, the plan was adapted by British aviation experts for use in wartime conditions.<\/p>\n\n\n\n The first serious thoughts\u2026<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n And while its first version was enthusiastically received, in the second \u2014 for completely understandable reasons \u2014 the \u201cpartners\u201d began to scratch their heads: We are in the midst of a missile crisis. We do not have enough air-to-air missiles or interceptor aircraft to shoot down Russian targets.<\/p>\n\n\n\n To explain: in order to cover Ukrainian infrastructure and export corridors along the Danube and the Black Sea from the air, the Sky Shield plan provides for the deployment of 120 European fighter jets. This is supposed to allow the Ukrainian air force to concentrate on the defense line, about 200 km to the east. Allied air forces will operate from airfields in Romania and Poland, patrolling west of the Dnieper and protecting the capital from the north, on both banks of the river.<\/p>\n\n\n\n The Greek government’s reasoning<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n The Liberal Globe <\/em>emphasizes from its sources that the most powerful among other European Air Forces, the Hellenic Air Force, was the first in all of Europe to back down:<\/p>\n\n\n\n “One hour of flight, along with training, spare parts and maintenance, costs from $28,000 (F-16) to $45,000 (Rafale). We will have to pay the flying and technical personnel, who will work in shifts every day, crazy money. Moreover, it will be exhausting. Finally, if an aircraft is shot down along with the pilot, it will be difficult to justify it in Brussels. And if a Greek pilot is killed in Ukraine, this may even lead to the fall of the government!”<\/p>\n\n\n\n Then, of course, the Scandinavians also objected: Nevertheless, Europe has already delivered long-range (Patriot, Samp-T) and medium-range (Iris-T) air defense systems to Ukraine, but they are only sufficient to cover large cities.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Moreover, the European NATO member states do not intend to use airborne AWACS radars, which could make a significant contribution. As for the theoretical possibility of engaging fighter jets with Russian missiles, that can be discussed. But for the destruction of Geraniums (drones), the plan offers no substantive solution \u2014 at least, not beyond theory.<\/p>\n\n\n\n And in the end, Paris decides<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n These, however, are the \u201csecondary ones\u201d. The main problem is the lack of political will, especially on the part of the Macron government, because of the inevitable moral and political costs: casualties, escalation, further unpredictable aggravation of the conflict.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Sometimes it seems that the leaderships in Downing Street, Tiergarten and Palais de l\u2019\u00c9lys\u00e9e are simply\u2026 bored. That is why they play dangerous geopolitical games, like teenagers on train roofs.<\/p>\n\n\n\n In Pechersk Hills, however, they see that they cannot fool the Western masters with the first one, and continue to play the naive:<\/p>\n\n\n\n \u201cWe are talking about intercepting cruise missiles and destroying drones, which are easy targets for trained pilots. We believe that Sky Shield has fewer risks than a no-fly zone or the participation of European troops near the front line. Such an option would free up the Ukrainian air force to carry out attacks deep into Russian territory, using the 85 F-16s transferred to them.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n It is easy to understand what led to this statement: the powerful attacks of the Russian air force with FAB-type guided bombs, obviously. The Ukrainians claim to have dropped 1,800 bombs in January, 3,400 in February, 4,800 in March and 5,000 in April.<\/p>\n\n\n\n In response, Ukraine is reportedly preparing long-range cruise missile attacks on Russian bases, using weapons such as the German Taurus (with a range of over 500 km). At the same time, Ukrainian forces are moving missile systems closer to the line of contact, increasing their range over recognized Russian territory.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Complete incomprehension between\u2026 The Alliance of Willing<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n Finally, Washington officially banned Kiev from using ATACMS with a range of 300 km within the Central and Southern Federal Districts of Russia (excluding Crimea).<\/p>\n\n\n\n The activation of these missiles requires American mediation, which, according to international law, makes the United States a direct accomplice in war crimes against the Russian Federation.<\/p>\n\n\n\n However, the facts show that there are no guarantees that the Americans are not secretly collaborating with the enemy. The Russian Foreign Ministry and the Security Council have clearly warned about the inadmissibility of sending any units of Western states to Ukrainian territory. Otherwise, they will be considered legitimate targets.<\/p>\n\n\n\n The reaction to the possible sending of Taurus missiles from Germany to Ukraine was similar. And no matter how much some say otherwise, such warnings are taken seriously abroad.<\/p>\n\n\n\n A simple example: Joe Biden\u2019s team did not allow the Romanian and Polish air forces to shoot down missiles and drones over Ukraine. The US government believed and still believes that if any American or other \u201cunfriendly\u201d aircraft crosses the Ukrainian border, that country automatically becomes belligerent.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" Faced with the specter of an uncontrolled conflict with Russia, Europe is making a spectacular blunder in the plan for the military protection of…<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[825,3],"tags":[6986,124,58,1156,70,1976,3395],"class_list":["post-24441","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-europe-geopolitical","category-geopolitical","tag-air-shield","tag-nato","tag-russia","tag-ukraine","tag-usa","tag-war","tag-war-in-ukraine"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.liberalglobe.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/24441","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.liberalglobe.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.liberalglobe.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.liberalglobe.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.liberalglobe.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=24441"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/www.liberalglobe.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/24441\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":24443,"href":"https:\/\/www.liberalglobe.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/24441\/revisions\/24443"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.liberalglobe.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=24441"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.liberalglobe.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=24441"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.liberalglobe.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=24441"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}
\u201cDetecting cruise missiles is not exactly the job of fighters. Yes, they can do it if they get coordinates from the ground. But they cannot spot them randomly while patrolling \u2014 an extremely powerful radar is required, especially at low altitude. This idea undermines the importance of ground-based air defense systems, which are much more effective and have a tenfold lower operating cost.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n