Russia Invades Ukraine
- Thread starter Birdjaguar
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You got that estimate (gov change) of the goal of this war from Putin himself?
I saw no reason to answer, but since you insist, maybe consider if you are in the know.
In fact, that is exactly where he got it from.You got that estimate (gov change) of the goal of this war from Putin himself?
I saw no reason to answer, but since you insist, maybe consider if you are in the know.
Putin made a public address before his "operation". Not exactly hard to find.
Lexicus
Deity
You got that estimate (gov change) of the goal of this war from Putin himself?
Putin told everyone that this was his war aim in his speech. You could make the case he was dissembling, I guess.
Akka
Moody old mage.
Lots of video around of supposedly russian PoW in their late teens, saying they were told they went in maneuvers or threatened to go or to be shot. Impossible to confirm (no official source, I don't speak Russian nor Ukrainian and I could even less recognize accents or colloquialism), but I wouldn't be surprised as it's kind of a staple of the Russian army to treat its conscript like dogsh*t.
yes I did. Where did you get yours? (bold above). If you are going to be critical of posts, you should show the courtesy of engaging in some discussion about your criticism rather than just making a smartass comment and running away. Oh well.You got that estimate (gov change) of the goal of this war from Putin himself?
I saw no reason to answer, but since you insist, maybe consider if you are in the know.
Right. You know what? I am pretty bored with the thread being about poster vs poster. I trust the war will end up as it will regardless of how many posts I or others have here. So I'd rather spend my time having less anti-fun here.
Fine, but the discussion was about sources of ideas that you started.
Lexicus
Deity
We mortals tremble before the magnificence of your munificence.
innonimatu
the resident Cassandra
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Somewhere on The Telegraph's live feed yesterday. Didn't check with australian government sites.
Germany's announcements about military spending, those are not meaningless!
I don't trust what I see on the media about the willingness to resist. Of course everyone who gets invaded has some willingness to resist - but do they have the means? No means, that willingness soon is rationalized away. All I can take from the current news is that the ukranian government will not negotiate a surrender, and this will go on for a few more days, possibly up to a couple of weeks.
The strategic consequences of trying to make Ukraine an Afghanistan are extremely risky. It's NATO and Russia engaging in direct if unacknowledged war. Just as the bluff of incorporating Ukraine into NATO counting on no russian resistance got called, the bluff of protecting the baltics through nuclear war may end up called as a response to that. And there is no conventional force now to prevent an invasion there. Then we're stuck with a really cold war for the decades along a front running through the old USSR borders. Again: the only present limit on russian actions is russian public opinion - and even so it takes time. We saw that with previous wars around the world.
I think that many people keep missing the fact that the russian government has already shifted stance and accepted that a new cold war is a likely result of this. I dare say that both the most relevant governments here now desire it - Russia and the US. The pain from that was factored in and accepted - disappoint to part of the population, but there's no way back. That is by design. When they said the issue is viewed as existential, they meant it after all.
If the deliberate restraint the russians have been using in Ukraine gets misunderstood as weakness and people think a conventional NATO-Russia is a good idea now - Europe is so screwed.
At the beginning it might be taken as optimist, now if there's light units doing that it must be reconnaissance units, that's why they're light. Ukraine is the second largest country in Europe, and the russian forces seem to be probing for the easier routes, going around defended places, still on the goal of putting the ukranians into untenable positions and leading them to surrender rather than fight. But reports today is that large heavy units are now entering Ukraine also.
The german blitzkrieg over Ukraine, starting from forward position on the old polish-ukranian border, took three months, for a comparison. The soviet reconquest of just eastern Ukraine in 1943 later took 6 months. And those were all conventional wars with no restrictions on bombing cities that resisted. I'd rather see wars continue in this new style than shift to the WW2, or even the "shock and awe", style. Do recall that the "prudent and minuciosly planed Iraq invasion" involved prior heavy bombing of major cities with the explicit aim of shocking the adversary army and population into submission. However "precision" your weapons are there are going to be great civilian casualties in a war conducted that way.
tl:dr: don't get any hopes from the "slow move". The ukranian government didn't collapse overnight, which was a possibility. But it's not winning either. And as this war drags on the risk of it getting nastier increases.
If the gloves get off, he will counter with returning to 1990. Europe continues to act foolish in seemingly aligning with the idea of making an Afghanistan there. Go for the finlandization instead.
This just keeps popping up. Hoping for China to cease supporting Russia on this is foolish in the extreme. The two are effectively allied for the time being. The official chinese statement that matters was made at the UNSC:
It is crystal clear. It supports the russian position, couched in diplomatic language of course.
I also have no doubt that the russian and chinese governments played out the possible outcomes and agreed on courses of action, in that recent meeting. The chance of splitting China and Russia was gone 5 years ago whet the hysterical attacks against Trump scuttled that policy change he tried. The US committed to bring both down, so they allied.
So how wise was all that ant-Trump rethoric using the Russia collusion idea?
I give it zero chance Putin will use nuclear weapons against Ukraine, or even flatten a city. Read his speeches. You have to try to understand the people you are dealing with. Either Putin is a machiavelic/realist leader who will do what's rational, and wasting Ukraine isn't. Or he has the old russian spiritual streak about the motherland and wants Ukraine back over that, meaning he won't destroy it. Either way, if he were to take the initiative of going nuclear as a response to NATO, it will go nuclear on NATO territory. If he goes for WW2 style war, he will go for it on NATO territory - the baltics are the obvious target, to connect with Kalininegrad.
Not being content with having the most threatening situation in Europe since WW2, people want to escalate it? If you're very afraid of Russia, make peace and rearm. Don't hasten to escalate a war while unarmed!
Though I wold suggest kicking the US out of continental Europe and replacing NATO with a west-central european alliance should be first priority, no getting caught up on other's strategies. At least the french and the germans are likely to balance each other now, no need for an US so caught up in internal infighting that no longer can do diplomacy competently.
It hasn't been a ww2 affair so far, quite the opposite. It has been much as Georgia back in 2008, except the scale in Ukraine is larger. We should hope it continues that way instead of going ww2 style!
I remain unconvinced that the goal is limited territorial gain along the SE portions of Ukraine. Getting out of the rest would mean it being immediately converted into an anti-Russia armed camp by NATO. And I believe their NATO expansion concert was not an excuse for territorial gain but the main driver of this war. So they can't just take the most pro-russia portions of Ukraine and leave the rest. But this depends on whether you believe Putin as being sincere on his public speeches or not. They surprised me as I had though russian concerns and proposals were more like starters for further negotiation, but invading Ukraine kind of made those concerns more credible.
To put it briefly: what best do to about the war and the whole mess deepens on what you believe. About russian aims and determination, about its internal politics, about the conventional force of its army. I had hoped for the "fog of war" to be lifted by day 3, but for me it hasn't yet. My position was cautious and unfriendly towards the ukranian government at the start for escalating tensions around the two eastern regions, remains cautious. But I'd like to see a Ukraine in one piece and little damaged come out of this. I'm not convinced that supporting ukranian resistance is the best option now, waiting to see if there are negotiations and what's put on the table.
I can see that the readings of the situation by many other people, including several governments now., favor backing ukranian resistance. That course is dangerous.
The next few days may actually be focused on economic consequences of all this, rather than military developments. Retaliating on Russia by arming ukranians is not immediately doable, contrary to ideas some people here may have. The pressure will be economic, and the countermoves from Russia are obvious: cutting off exports entirely, as they will not be taking payment they can't spend. How then other countries will cope, and there are third countries not involved on this fight that are going to be affected, is impossible to foresee. But medium term, its an economic depression and a worldwide wave of political instability. Poorer countries will take the hit sooner.
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Thorgalaeg
Deity
The war should be decided with a barehanded combat between two representatives of the government of both countries, lets say Putin vs Kiev major.
Not too many tried to, even during peacetime. Now when most are in frenzy mode, it's hopeless.
AmtrakQuebec
King
I floated that idea a couple days ago... although mine was in a heroes reference and I chose BOTH the Klitschko brothers for Ukraine
I floated that idea a couple days ago... although mine was in a heroes reference and I chose BOTH the Klitschko brothers for Ukraine
Given that we have a boxing champion versus a skilled karateka, that would actually be very interesting.
Related comic:
Spoiler :
Zardnaar
Deity
Dark helmet.
Quoted in place of your entire post.
I disagree with you on the "West wants another cold war" and your seemingly "It's all the US's fault." Russia has not been back into a corner by hostile nations. But those topics are less important than where we are now. We are in a state of war that could spread and true to to his earlier word, Putin keeps raising the stakes as Europe decides the UK is worth defending against an invasion. It is too early to tell and unlike reading a book on Poland in 1939, where the action is so easily compressed, we have to endure it day by day to discover the end game. Much like the Poles (and the rest of Europe) did during the first 3 weeks of September 1939. We at least have much more "news" much more quickly than then. For us, almost everything depends upon Putin showing his hand and revealing his endgame. the longer he holds out, the more serious thigs will become and the worst it will be for Russia in the long run.
At best we can accept Putin's pre invasion statements as true and he is looking to make Ukraine into another Belarus. The rest is speculation.
Verbose
Deity
Not going to happen. It's like not even an astronomically remote possibility.
Verbose
Deity
I think Putin well consider them very reasonable – but amount to Ukranian surrender in short order.
ywhtptgtfo
Emperor
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I do pay attention to your humble person because you aren't just some random Russian throwaway account. You are red_elk. You've been around for more than 15 years and have written 15K posts. During all this time, you frequently provided unique perspectives on a lot of topics some of which I agree with.
It is well understood that there is a natural inclination to defend our places of origin, but there needs to be a point at which we have to look at ourselves and question the objectivity of our stance. Your repeated demonization of Ukraine is akin to accusing the murdered wife of an abusive husband of being a who_e who isn't a saint to cry over. At this point, it doesn't matter if you successfully proved that the wife slept with 10 men or that she engages in anti-Russian propaganda because the crime that stands above all else (by far) is that she got murdered.
Russia is poised to be ruined in many ways in the foreseeable future and self-delusion will not help the Russian learn anything in navigating out of this near-global ostracization. Hitler and the Nazis' blamed their everyone else for Germany's sorry state after WWI (a war very much started by Germany and allies) and ended up destroying much of their country and neighbours (including your very own Russia). You may argue that this is all a NATO/EU conspiracy but you should be aware that the opposition to Russia is spreading rapidly across the rest of the world. Not even India, China, Hungary, or Greece are backing Russia so it's a sign that something is seriously wrong with whatever Russia is doing, no?
Sometimes it's not the end of the world to admit your country has done wrong and speak out against it so that the mistake is not continued further. Patriots do that and nationalists don't. Elena Chernenko seems to be a patriot and which one of that are you?
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