Originally Posted By thanosnap:

It just occurred to me that if you are Ukrainian, the idea of Ukraine being thought of as a pawn, Crimea being only 20% ethnic Ukrainian, or Russian exports being important to the world economy might really anger you. And there does seem to be some Ukrainians on this board. I mean, how many non-Ukrainian Americans are going onto telegram, translating posts, and reposting it here in English?

But you also have to realize Ukraine is 1/2 of 1% of the world population and almost zero percent of the AR-15 style rifle using population. They issue AK-74s.  Ukraine wasn't even a close ally of the US until now. So, not everybody looks at it through the lense of a Ukrainian, especially in an AR community. The world as a whole is pretty much aligned against Russia now, but each country and citizen of that country has their own interests and views which may not 100% align with Ukrainian interests and views.

Originally Posted By Saltwater-Hillbilly:


"almost zero percent of the AR-15 style rifle using population"  Congratulations on outing yourself.  Up until now, I was willing to give you the benefit of the doubt.  This statement shows how little you have been following the actual war.  Canadian DIAEMCOs, American M16 and M4 variants from many manufacturers, M16A1 variants from God-knows-where, Police and Commercial AR-15s, and various Stoner-derived rifles from many sources have become ubiquitous among the Ukrainians.  Plus, various FN rifles, M14s, CEMTEs and so forth are also issued.  While AK-74s are a plurality (and probably a majority) of individual weapons issued, the number of AR-series weapons present in Ukraine is not anywhere near "almost zero percent".  It is almost inconceivable that Ukraine will continue the AK74 as their primary weapon in the future, as anything in the future will almost certainly be something in a STANAG caliber, and the stuff they have in STANAG calibers will probably hang around in reserve units and police use for a lot longer than the AK74.  The reason I say this is that we had several pages of discussion when the M14's showed up as to when they would show up as parts kits; the consensus was more-or-less that, since they look good in parades and are a STANAG caliber, they would probably end up equipping territorial militia, military cadets, and honor guards in Ukraine for a long time before they ever show up anywhere as a parts kit. This was a pretty memorable part of the thread and occurred nearly a year ago.

Originally Posted By Saltwater-Hillbilly:


"almost zero percent of the AR-15 style rifle using population"  Congratulations on outing yourself.  Up until now, I was willing to give you the benefit of the doubt.  This statement shows how little you have been following the actual war.  Canadian DIAEMCOs, American M16 and M4 variants from many manufacturers, M16A1 variants from God-knows-where, Police and Commercial AR-15s, and various Stoner-derived rifles from many sources have become ubiquitous among the Ukrainians.  Plus, various FN rifles, M14s, CEMTEs and so forth are also issued.  While AK-74s are a plurality (and probably a majority) of individual weapons issued, the number of AR-series weapons present in Ukraine is not anywhere near "almost zero percent".  It is almost inconceivable that Ukraine will continue the AK74 as their primary weapon in the future, as anything in the future will almost certainly be something in a STANAG caliber, and the stuff they have in STANAG calibers will probably hang around in reserve units and police use for a lot longer than the AK74.  The reason I say this is that we had several pages of discussion when the M14's showed up as to when they would show up as parts kits; the consensus was more-or-less that, since they look good in parades and are a STANAG caliber, they would probably end up equipping territorial militia, military cadets, and honor guards in Ukraine for a long time before they ever show up anywhere as a parts kit. This was a pretty memorable part of the thread and occurred nearly a year ago.

Originally Posted By Saltwater-Hillbilly:


"almost zero percent of the AR-15 style rifle using population"  Congratulations on outing yourself.  Up until now, I was willing to give you the benefit of the doubt.  This statement shows how little you have been following the actual war.  Canadian DIAEMCOs, American M16 and M4 variants from many manufacturers, M16A1 variants from God-knows-where, Police and Commercial AR-15s, and various Stoner-derived rifles from many sources have become ubiquitous among the Ukrainians.  Plus, various FN rifles, M14s, CEMTEs and so forth are also issued.  While AK-74s are a plurality (and probably a majority) of individual weapons issued, the number of AR-series weapons present in Ukraine is not anywhere near "almost zero percent".  It is almost inconceivable that Ukraine will continue the AK74 as their primary weapon in the future, as anything in the future will almost certainly be something in a STANAG caliber, and the stuff they have in STANAG calibers will probably hang around in reserve units and police use for a lot longer than the AK74.  The reason I say this is that we had several pages of discussion when the M14's showed up as to when they would show up as parts kits; the consensus was more-or-less that, since they look good in parades and are a STANAG caliber, they would probably end up equipping territorial militia, military cadets, and honor guards in Ukraine for a long time before they ever show up anywhere as a parts kit. This was a pretty memorable part of the thread and occurred nearly a year ago.

Originally Posted By AROKIE:

No doubt, I think everyone who's been following this war closely since before the invasion knew that knowledge.. he's shown a lot even with his spelling of words. No one spells Kyiv .."Kiev"  in the western world, and to say it's because of a recipe is clown shoes ignorant lol

New Ukrainian M4-WAC47 rifle 'a strong political message to Russia'

It is now up to Ukrainian soldiers to decide if the brand new M4-WAC47 assault rifle   a special descendant of the legendary American-made M16 rifle   is good enough to eventually retire their decades-old workhorse Kalashnikovs.

A year after the initial announcement, the first batch of 10 new rifles is now undergoing firing trials by Ukraine's Special Operations Forces, National Guard and Border Service.

Among those, one rifle was also sent to one of the army brigades deployed in the Donbas war zone for assessing its merits and flaws in actual combat, as the UkrOboronProm defense industry concern's spokesperson Roksolana Sheyko confirmed to the Kyiv Post.

Designed by the U.S.-based company Aeroscraft specifically for Ukraine, the new M4 model came into the spotlight last year for being adapted to chamber both old Soviet-era ammo, still extensively used by all Ukrainian troops, and the munitions that are universal for NATO, the standards of which Ukraine seeks to adopt by 2020.

https://www.kyivpost.com/post/6837

In a New Year's statement on Jan. 3, 2018, Ukraine's central state arms company, UkrOboronProm, or UOP, announced it had delivered the initial batch of WAC-47s to unspecified units by way of American firm Aeroscraft. Ukrainian officials first revealed plans to purchase the rifles in January 2017 and the country expects to eventually issue the guns across both its active and reserve military units and to personnel in other state security services. It would be an important upgrade for these organizations, which use dated variants of the legendary Kalashnikov AKM pattern as their primary service rifles at present.



Ukraine and Russia have been embroiled in a serious conflict since 2014, when the Kremlin seized the Crimea region and began actively supporting separatists seeking to break away from the government in Kiev. This all followed a popular political uprising that ousted Ukraine's previous Pro-Russian President Viktor Yanukovych. Though the two countries are not openly at war, by all accounts Russian troops have been actively engaged in fighting with Ukrainian troops on Ukrainian soil as part of a complex, hybrid war.
"For our country and the Ukrainian army, M16 production in Ukraine is a real step towards Euro-Atlantic structures," UOP said in the October 2017 statement. "Every country that has teared [sic] itself away from Russia's orbit, went or is going through this difficult stage, [is] taking many years and demanding great effort."

Underscoring these statements is UOP's partnership with Aeroscraft, a division of Worldwide Aeros Corporation. The firm's main business is lighter-than-air craft, such as blimps and tethered aerostats.

Igor Pasternak, who grew up in Soviet Kazakhstan, first founded Aeros Limited in Soviet Ukraine in 1986, becoming one of the Soviet Union's first private engineering firms to appear under Premier Mikhail Gorbachev's Perestroika reforms, according to his company's website. Pasternak subsequently immigrated to the United States in 1993 and has steadily become an outspoken critic of Russian President Vladimir Putin and his policies, especially with regards to Ukraine.

In 2016, Worldwide Aeroscraft signed a separate deal with the Ukrainian border guard to supply unspecified surveillance equipment. At the time, Pasternak said this contract was part of the U.S. government's larger program to provide non-lethal military aid to Ukraine.

In December 2017, President Donald Trump's administration approved a commercial license for the sale of Barrett M107A1 .50 caliber sniper rifles to Ukraine, which seemed to indicate a departure from the policies of President Barack Obama. It's not clear if this was necessarily the case, though. That month there was a separate report that Texas-based AirTronic USA had quietly secured similar approval for the delivery of a number of its Precision Shoulder-fired Rocket Launchers, or PSRL, an upgraded version of the Soviet RPG-7 rocket-propelled grenade launcher, to Ukraine in 2016.

If Aeroscraft has actually produced any version of WAC-47 in the United States it would have needed a similar waiver to actually deliver them to Ukrainian troops. Though Trump has often called for better relations with Russia, there is no indication he would've necessarily been inclined to block this particular sale or any future ones.

The administration has gone back and forth in its tone toward the Kremlin, sometimes criticizing its involvement in conflicts in Ukraine
and Syria, its potential support for insurgents in Afghanistan, its intransigence over North Korea, and its aggressive foreign policy. In December 2017, there were reports that Trump was considering a larger lethal arms package for Ukrainian forces that would notably include Javelin anti-tank missiles to help counter Russian armored units in the country.

If nothing else, the guns will be an important upgrade over the older AKM types. One can see the M4-WAC-47s as a larger metaphor for shifting American policies toward the conflict in Ukraine and the Ukrainian government's own desire to develop even closer ties to the United States and Western Europe.


https://www.thedrive.com/the-war-zone/17797/ukraines-new-ak-m16-mashup-rifle-is-symbolic-of-the-countrys-morphing-strategic-reality

Originally Posted By AROKIE:

No doubt, I think everyone who's been following this war closely since before the invasion knew that knowledge.. he's shown a lot even with his spelling of words. No one spells Kyiv .."Kiev"  in the western world, and to say it's because of a recipe is clown shoes ignorant lol