What was first, the eggplant or the chickenplant?... 😛
I had that happen to me, $0.02 overdraft + $30 overdraft fee... like WTF. Since then I've found a bank where I can block the overdraft "feature", it's the only account I ever give for payments, and only if there is no alternative.
Building upon that... I use a virtual prepaid credit card. I know how much the bills should be, keep slightly more than that on the card, and I can block it with a single click from the bank's mobile app when I expect no bills.
Ukraine is already protected from those magnificent Russian Su-57s, they don't need F-16s for that. All Ukraine needs is to keep maybe 5 of those F-16s in the air over whatever scrap of land they happen to be trying to take back at any given moment. And yes, those pieces of land are going to be much smaller than Taiwan, what matters is that piece by piece, they will no longer be under Russian control.
But could he grab them by the... nevermind, if he can buy a horse, he can do anything.
And if you look long enough in the right places, you can also pay them peanuts... or for them 😒
You're supporting my point: those F-16s are going to have the latest countermeasure suit.
It doesn't matter how "invisible" is the plane (Ukraine already downed a Russian Su-57) or how "hypersonic" is the missile it launches (Ukrainian ground countermeasures are also taking care of those), what matters is whether it can hit you or not.
A bunch of "old" F-16s equipped with the latest stuff, plus some decent ground support... we'll see how it goes, but since Russia hasn't been able to establish air superiority over Ukraine in all this time, with a little push Ukraine likely will.
From Moscow: https://www.reuters.com/graphics/RUSSIAN-CRASH/PRIGOZHIN/dwvkaealmvm/
There were two jets though, the other one did the roundtrip fine.
It's not about how old is the platform, it's about what you put into it. Is the F-35 still randomly rebooting mid flight? The F-16 hasn't had that problem for decades, and it can run modern hardware just fine.
Stealth planes are irrelevant in a dogfight, or in defending ground assets, and all those Su-* have been shown to be lacking proper maintenance for decades. We'll see how they manage against a fully operational and updated bunch of F-16s.
Ukraine is getting fully functional F-16s, Russia has already shown that they tape down Garmin GPSs to their fighter jet dashboards. That's... not "marginally close".
Maybe Ukraine should regroup and stay on the defensive in the meantime, but I wouldn't bet on Russia in 2024.
Snowden is wrong though, there are two reasons:
The AI that ends up enslaving humanity, will start by convincing the people in charge of turning it off, that it would be a really bad idea to turn it off.