Reports: Turkish F-16s shoot down Russian Su-24

[The Enclave Government]

I find it somewhat ironic that the country who shot down an unarmed US U-2 recon plane and a Korean airliner for violating their territory is up in arms when one of their armed military aircraft receives the same treatment.

I'm sorry, why would they not shoot down reconnaissance aircraft?

elwher.... that was the USSR, not russian federation. that was also a half century ago.

[Great Confederacy of Commonwealth States]

I'm sorry, why would they not shoot down reconnaissance aircraft?

Because it was mean.

Because the US has world sovereignty. Duh.

[Esperantujo 2]

The murder of the Russian pilots exposes one of the anti-Russian arguments: that Western bombing is good because it attacks only IS, whereas Russian bombing is bad because attacks IS's allies as well.

This statement has no flow and makes no sense. Could you please rephrase it?

I'm not sure what you don't understand here. I'll try and break it down here.
1. Western planes have been bombing IS territory.
2. However, western governments have attacked the Russian intervention because the Russian planes have been attacking groups formally outside IS. I'm not sure which they are, but I guess they include al-Nusra and the Free Syrian Army.
3. The group that murdered the pilots was not formally part of IS, but behaved in the same way, murdering the pilots, contrary to the Geneva convention.
4. If the Turkish government was really against IS, they would grant air corridor rights to Russia and other forces combating IS.

[Tmutarakhan]

The claim of the Ukrainian far right is ludicrous. If Ukraine was "giving up" nuclear weapons, then so were all the other republics of the Soviet Union.

Kazakhstan and Belarus were the other republics which gave up nuclear weapons stored on their territories. Of course, they also got the same guarantees from Russia, that Russia would respect the exact borders the USSR left them with; but Russia has not (yet) reneged on that guarantee except in the case of Ukraine.

[SD_Film Artists]

Yeah but it's not as if they were making a bee-line towards Ankara, they just cut across a small bit of land which happend to be part of a flight circle which was mainly in Syria.

Russia should learn to avoid shortcuts that infringe upon the airspace of countries that have indicated they will shoot down any aircraft that fly into their space from Syria.

Yes, Russia should do that, but it's still disproportionate to shoot at aircraft just because they moved over Turkey's airspace for 17 seconds. The UK doesn't react like that even when Russia makes blatent tests to our airspace.

[Tmutarakhan]

If the Turkish government was really against IS, they would grant air corridor rights to Russia and other forces combating IS.

But Russia is not combatting IS at all. You are arguing that the forces Russia is combatting are also bad people, but that is a separate issue.

[The Emerald Dawn]

Russia should learn to avoid shortcuts that infringe upon the airspace of countries that have indicated they will shoot down any aircraft that fly into their space from Syria.

Yes, Russia should do that, but it's still disproportionate to shoot at aircraft just because they moved over the Turkey's airspace for 17 seconds. The UK doesn't react like that even when Russia makes blatent tests to our airspace.

An Aircraft violating the US' airspace for 17 seconds would be able to drop enough munitions on D.C. to turn it into a radioactive wasteland.

Don't base intent on time.

[Tmutarakhan]

Su-25 couldn't hold a candle to the Su-24 and I'm pretty certain the Su-34 isn't even in service.
The Ukrainians "inherited" jack shit. It was all Russian equipment, the Ukrainians just refused to return it until they got guarantees.

You can't just "buy" nukes. It's not a thing. Ukraine has precisely zero facilities with which to produce nuclear arms, probably zero expertise with which to begin to do so and no-one's going to provide nukes to Ukraine (NATO nuclear-sharing programme, which is just distributing US free-fall B-61 bombs, for example) because that will make Russia absolutely flip.

Ukraine knows how to build ballistic missiles without a doubt. They probably just can't produce nuclear warheads for them.

They probably can, if they ever choose to. They have physicists and operating nuclear plants, with more under construction; they could build a plant to make warheads, but could scarcely expect to keep it secret that they were doing so.

[Napkiraly]

I find it somewhat ironic that the country who shot down an unarmed US U-2 recon plane and a Korean airliner for violating their territory is up in arms when one of their armed military aircraft receives the same treatment.

I'm sorry, why would they not shoot down reconnaissance aircraft?

He's pointing out the double standard held by Russia, not that they didn't have a reason to shoot it down.

[The Emerald Dawn]

Ukraine knows how to build ballistic missiles without a doubt. They probably just can't produce nuclear warheads for them.

They probably can, if they ever choose to. They have physicists and operating nuclear plants, with more under construction; they could build a plant to make warheads, but could scarcely expect to keep it secret that they were doing so.

"Hey guys, we're not keen on that refinery you're building."

"Is themepark, for children."

"That's a parallel centrifuge, unless you have plans to build enough medical imaging systems to provide every child in Africa his own MRI, you're building nukes."

"Is big themepark."

[Imperializt Russia]

Ukraine knows how to build ballistic missiles without a doubt. They probably just can't produce nuclear warheads for them.

They probably can, if they ever choose to. They have physicists and operating nuclear plants, with more under construction; they could build a plant to make warheads, but could scarcely expect to keep it secret that they were doing so.

I'm not an expert on ex-Soviet nuclear processing, but I'm going to assume that Ukraine A, does not enrich its own material or make its own fuel (since the UK, western Europe and Russia enriches and manufactures a fair amount, if not all, of eastern Europe's ex-Soviet fuel stocks). Enrichment plants must be of a certain capacity in order to enrich to a weapon state and you need a vast reprocessing plant to generate the plutonium to bypass the ballache of generating HEU.
For scale, the reprocessing plants the UK is taking offline in the next few years will remove a third of the world's commercial fuel reprocessing capacity.
One third.

Ukraine could not produce these facilities, would never be allowed to, and even if it started tomorrow would be like 10-20 years away from developing a weapon and fitting it to weapons it owns.

[Spirit of Hope]

This statement has no flow and makes no sense. Could you please rephrase it?

I'm not sure what you don't understand here. I'll try and break it down here.
1. Western planes have been bombing IS territory.
2. However, western governments have attacked the Russian intervention because the Russian planes have been attacking groups formally outside IS. I'm not sure which they are, but I guess they include al-Nusra and the Free Syrian Army.
3. The group that murdered the pilots was not formally part of IS, but behaved in the same way, murdering the pilots, contrary to the Geneva convention.
4. If the Turkish government was really against IS, they would grant air corridor rights to Russia and other forces combating IS.

1) Yes they have.
2) Because Russia has been attempting to support the Assad Regime instead of fighting ISIS. This is a regime that began this whole mess by firing on peaceful protesters, and using chemical weapons.
3) They also aren't signatories of the Geneva convention. While shooting at downed pilots is wrong, it is no where near the level of burning captured pilots alive, beheading journalists and POWs and strapping archaeologists to ancient wonders as you dynamite the ancient wonders.
4) Turkey has. Turkey has carried out its own air strikes against ISIS and has allowed US bases in Turkey to carry out strikes against ISIS. Russia however is not necessarily striking against ISIS (see point 2), and Turkey may not like Russia using its air space to better drop bombs on those rebels Turkey supports against Assad and ISIS.

[Tmutarakhan]

Russia should learn to avoid shortcuts that infringe upon the airspace of countries that have indicated they will shoot down any aircraft that fly into their space from Syria.

Yes, Russia should do that, but it's still disproportionate to shoot at aircraft just because they moved over Turkey's airspace for 17 seconds. The UK doesn't react like that even when Russia makes blatent tests to our airspace.

You're an island. Testing the borders of a zone claimed out at sea is not the same as flying over your land. If a Russian plane buzzed over Dover, just clipping the corner of the island a little tiny bit, it would be blown to smithereens.

[Imperializt Russia]

I'm not sure what you don't understand here. I'll try and break it down here.
1. Western planes have been bombing IS territory.
2. However, western governments have attacked the Russian intervention because the Russian planes have been attacking groups formally outside IS. I'm not sure which they are, but I guess they include al-Nusra and the Free Syrian Army.
3. The group that murdered the pilots was not formally part of IS, but behaved in the same way, murdering the pilots, contrary to the Geneva convention.
4. If the Turkish government was really against IS, they would grant air corridor rights to Russia and other forces combating IS.

1) Yes they have.
2) Because Russia has been attempting to support the Assad Regime instead of fighting ISIS. This is a regime that began this whole mess by firing on peaceful protesters, and using chemical weapons.
3) They also aren't signatories of the Geneva convention. While shooting at downed pilots is wrong, it is no where near the level of burning captured pilots alive, beheading journalists and POWs and strapping archaeologists to ancient wonders as you dynamite the ancient wonders.
4) Turkey has. Turkey has carried out its own air strikes against ISIS and has allowed US bases in Turkey to carry out strikes against ISIS. Russia however is not necessarily striking against ISIS (see point 2), and Turkey may not like Russia using its air space to better drop bombs on those rebels Turkey supports against Assad and ISIS.

Was there anything conclusive on the Ghouta chemical attacks?

So far as I'm aware, it never stopped being a "he said she said" situation. The west said they had definitive proof the government forces did it and... never released it. The UN concluded that... chemical weapons were used, which was never in dispute.

[Atomic Utopia]

Ukraine knows how to build ballistic missiles without a doubt. They probably just can't produce nuclear warheads for them.

They probably can, if they ever choose to. They have physicists and operating nuclear plants, with more under construction; they could build a plant to make warheads, but could scarcely expect to keep it secret that they were doing so.

Light watet power reactors cannot produce weapons grade plutonium, which is required for nuclear weapons; however, hiding s graphite moderated air cooled plutonium production reactor and plutonium processing facilities in a fake oil refinery could definitely be done quite easily. Now, the Ukraine is most likely not doing this as it would make them a pariah state, but they could, just likr Switzerland, have a secret nuclear weapons program.

[Of the Quendi]

After series of violations of the Turkish sovereignty on the part of the Russians its perfectly understandable that the Turkish government would eventually feel the need to do something like this. As they arguably warned that they might do more than a month ago.

[SD_Film Artists]

Yes, Russia should do that, but it's still disproportionate to shoot at aircraft just because they moved over the Turkey's airspace for 17 seconds. The UK doesn't react like that even when Russia makes blatent tests to our airspace.

An Aircraft violating the US' airspace for 17 seconds would be able to drop enough munitions on D.C. to turn it into a radioactive wasteland.

Don't base intent on time.

I was basing it more on the context of the route; the plane was obviously cutting through a tiny section of airspace as part of a wider loop in Syria.

[Imperializt Russia]

They probably can, if they ever choose to. They have physicists and operating nuclear plants, with more under construction; they could build a plant to make warheads, but could scarcely expect to keep it secret that they were doing so.

Light watet power reactors cannot produce weapons grade plutonium, which is required for nuclear weapons; however, hiding s graphite moderated air cooled plutonium production reactor and plutonium processing facilities in a fake oil refinery could definitely be done quite easily. Now, the Ukraine is most likely not doing this as it would make them a pariah state, but they could, just likr Switzerland, have a secret nuclear weapons program.

They can, it's just awkward as balls to do the on-load fuelling required and not very efficient in generating.
Technically speaking, light water reactors, particularly Gen-IIIs (will) produce more plutonium than Magnox did - though this is with a million caveats. "Weapons grade plut" as opposed to "plut" being one of them.

[The Emerald Dawn]

An Aircraft violating the US' airspace for 17 seconds would be able to drop enough munitions on D.C. to turn it into a radioactive wasteland.

Don't base intent on time.

I was basing it more on the context of the route; the plane was obviously cutting through a tiny section of airspace as part of a wider loop in Syria.

According to NATO tracking, it wasn't just nipping across that section.

Also, when you're a bomber near a non-targeted nation's borders, you really have a responsibility to know where you is.

[Atomic Utopia]

Light watet power reactors cannot produce weapons grade plutonium, which is required for nuclear weapons; however, hiding s graphite moderated air cooled plutonium production reactor and plutonium processing facilities in a fake oil refinery could definitely be done quite easily. Now, the Ukraine is most likely not doing this as it would make them a pariah state, but they could, just likr Switzerland, have a secret nuclear weapons program.

They can, it's just awkward as balls to do the on-load fuelling required and not very efficient in generating.
Technically speaking, light water reactors, particularly Gen-IIIs (will) produce more plutonium than Magnox did - though this is with a million caveats. "Weapons grade plut" as opposed to "plut" being one of them.

Well, yes, you do not need your reactors to re-fuel while online and not be power reactors, but then you must find some way to avoid the IAEA as well as wasting billions on something that will be offline half of the time. It should be noted that the plutonium in the gen III units will be worse for weapons use due to higher burnups, making it even more useless.

[Rothschild]

Turkey shoots down a Russian aircraft, even though the Su-24 may or may not have violated Turkish airspace, they posed no threat to Turkey. The only threat it posed to was enemies (IS and other guests) of an allied state (Syria) who invited them to fight in the first place. Now everyone wants to bomb IS so why not co-operate and allow for overflight between the anti-IS nations?

[The Emerald Dawn]

Turkey shoots down a Russian aircraft, even though the Su-24 may or may not have violated Turkish airspace, they posed no threat to Turkey. The only threat it posed to was enemies (IS and other guests) of an allied state (Syria) who invited them to fight in the first place. Now everyone wants to bomb IS so why not co-operate and allow for overflight between the anti-IS nations?

Because Turkey coordinating an air corridor with Russia would require both parties to agree beforehand to flight corridors, times, and numbers.

It isn't as easy as "Just come on through".

[Imperializt Russia]

Turkey shoots down a Russian aircraft, even though the Su-24 may or may not have violated Turkish airspace, they posed no threat to Turkey. The only threat it posed to was enemies (IS and other guests) of an allied state (Syria) who invited them to fight in the first place. Now everyone wants to bomb IS so why not co-operate and allow for overflight between the anti-IS nations?

Because Turkey coordinating an air corridor with Russia would require both parties to agree beforehand to flight corridors, times, and numbers.

It isn't as easy as "Just come on through".

It's worth remembering that establishing air corridors is the practice that lost USAF an F-117 over Kosovo.

[Valaran]

Now everyone wants to bomb IS so why not co-operate and allow for overflight between the anti-IS nations?

On the contrary, the sad truth is that no one's priority is to fight IS, except maybe the Syrian Kurds and the Iraqi Army.

[Novus America]

Turkey shoots down a Russian aircraft, even though the Su-24 may or may not have violated Turkish airspace, they posed no threat to Turkey. The only threat it posed to was enemies (IS and other guests) of an allied state (Syria) who invited them to fight in the first place. Now everyone wants to bomb IS so why not co-operate and allow for overflight between the anti-IS nations?

The issue here occurred because Russia was NOT bombing ISIS and killing ethnic Turks along the Turkish border.