That's what they asked for.

Volodymyr Zelenskyy asks for Australian Bushmaster armoured vehicles in address to federal parliament
Posted Thu 31 Mar 2022 at 4:47pm, updated Thu 31 Mar 2022 at 9:27pm

"Ukraine's President Volodymyr Zelenskyy has urged Australia to help arm his country and send Bushmaster armoured vehicles to help his forces fight against Russia.

"For example you have very good armoured personnel vehicles, Bushmasters, that could help Ukraine substantially, and other pieces of equipment that could strengthen our position in terms of armament."

"If you have an opportunity to share this with us we would be very grateful.""


The Bushmaster is used as a troop carrier, patrol vehicle, weapons deployment platform and ambulance.

https://www.abc.net.au/news/2022-03-31/ ... /100956534

violet wrote: ↑Mon Apr 04, 2022 5:48 pm

Woody wrote: ↑Mon Apr 04, 2022 5:16 pm Whoo hoo the Australian government is sending FOUR Bushmaster APC's to Ukraine. Thats going to help to stem the Russian invasion.

Anything extra will be a help. Many items have been asked for.

Why don’t they just give them fighter jets or something? How does a bushmaster pass muster but a fighter jet does not?

Yea, should give them one of the nuclear powered subs Oz is building..

violet wrote: ↑Mon Apr 04, 2022 5:48 pm

Woody wrote: ↑Mon Apr 04, 2022 5:16 pm Whoo hoo the Australian government is sending FOUR Bushmaster APC's to Ukraine. Thats going to help to stem the Russian invasion.

Anything extra will be a help. Many items have been asked for.

Why don’t they just give them fighter jets or something? How does a bushmaster pass muster but a fighter jet does not?

A part of me (not objective) wants there to be more direct involvement, but you have to be careful what you wish for.

Dependent upon where from, and how military aid is delivered, there is a risk of other countries being brought in, and directly targeted.
A vehicle, as mentioned, is one thing, but providing aircraft a completely different issue. They can’t simply be handed over. Changing identification isn’t a quick paint job. Technical differences between what seem to be the same aircraft type can be huge, requiring significant amounts of training. That training would need to be delivered by qualified personnel. The presence of foreign military, and directly assisting, not just advising, could have consequences far beyond the borders of the conflict as it exists now. At present, this is just a regional, small but nasty conflict; I’m not trying to down play it.
Drag a NATO country into this, and it could have the potential of being European wide. History has two of those in its books already.

violet wrote: ↑Mon Apr 04, 2022 11:04 pm Appreciate the feedback.
I had thought the vehicles would cross into the lethal aid category but I see now that it’s just a people carrier as far as anyone else is concerned.

I was aware that lethal weapon involvement would shift up from third to fifth gear.
As I already (wrongly) thought the bushmaster could be considered lethal, I thought why stop there ? Give them some jets too.

Yeah, pretty stupid of me to forget that someone in Ukraine would need to have done the training to fly any aircraft provided (an important detail).

Thanks for not treating me like the class idiot when pointing out the obvious

I wouldn’t say stupid. It’s a reasonable question, but the consequences could easily be overlooked in the immediate effort to do something.