Russian invasion of Ukraine | Fewer tweets, more discussion

NLunited said:
Damn right, if the next president is right-wing they might back Russia, which would be a fatal mistake. I can’t really imagine that happening, but I could not imagine Trump winning and he did.
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Backing Russia would be rather unpopular move with the whole US military, I reckon they would rather drastically reduce the aid amount.
 
The Firestarter said:
Backing Russia would be rather unpopular move with the whole US military, I reckon they would rather drastically reduce the aid amount.
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Not to mention pretty much all of Europe outside of Russia and Belarus. Whoever gets elected President will still be under pressure from the EU to keep up donations.
 
Mike Smalling said:
Not to mention pretty much all of Europe outside of Russia and Belarus. Whoever gets elected President will still be under pressure from the EU to keep up donations.
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The UK+Poland and other central Europe nato without Hungary. The rest would not mind that much I feel.
 
NLunited said:
I don’t think Ukraine will settle for anything less than 100% control of their territory including Crimea.

That makes it hard to predict how this war will end. It could end with Putin losing control.
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They have to have that posture in public. But the reality is not that simple at all. I think they would do great getting all the Eastern and Southern territories back while giving up Crimea.

But for now, they are struggling to make a kilometer a day in the whole front line. It is not that it is their fault for saving lives; it just shows how difficult reality is.
 
Gehrman said:
I dont know. It depends on how much money and young people's lives the leaders are willing to sacrifice. Borders change in war. Denmark lost quite a bit of its southern territory after ww2 despite Germany being the losers. Its a cost benefit exercise in human lives.
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Ukrainians have a deep historical hatred of Russia and in particular the former Soviet empire that Putin wants to recreate, I don't see them giving up the fight based on territory or cost because of this
 
Mike Smalling said:
Not to mention pretty much all of Europe outside of Russia and Belarus. Whoever gets elected President will still be under pressure from the EU to keep up donations.
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It's easy to talk about supporting UA, but actually providing helpful aid is a whole different story. When I say that Biden can't let the U.S. and NATO directly involve Russian troops earlier because they're afraid of the negative reaction from Republicans and want to keep their moderate support, people find it funny. But they seem to forget that the main Republican candidates are either pro Putin or aspiring dictators. Both of them wouldn't care about Europe anyway. Even if Biden remains in office for the next term, it's highly likely that the Senate will be controlled by Republicans. We are not even talking about some of the elements from the left who wants to end this war.
 
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The United said:
They have to have that posture in public. But the reality is not that simple at all. I think they would do great getting all the Eastern and Southern territories back while giving up Crimea.

But for now, they are struggling to make a kilometer a day in the whole front line. It is not that it is their fault for saving lives; it just shows how difficult reality is.
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I think that compromising their territory has gone out the window after the brutalities and kidnappings perpetrated by Russian soldiers, the systematic level of destruction and cruelty.

Ukraine understands Russia wants to stamp them out once and for all.
 
NLunited said:
I think that compromising their territory has gone out the window after the brutalities and kidnappings perpetrated by Russian soldiers, the systematic level of destruction and cruelty.

Ukraine understands Russia wants to stamp them out once and for all.
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Of course, it has gone out the window for UA. But the UA does not have the ability to push the RA troops out of their country any time soon, if ever. So what are their options here long-term? People have to look behind the scenes. All these "we are here for the long term" statements are for PR. It is not because they don't want to, but because they just can't. The only actor who can keep it somewhat long-term here is Putin because he is a dictator and he does not hold himself accountable to his country. Unless, of course, he gets killed first.

It does not mean I know the solution or what will happen. It is just very tiring when you think about it, especially since the outcome probably will not be what we would like. But it also doesn't make much sense to believe that Ukraine would refuse to stop this war until Crimea is liberated or something
 
The United said:
But the UA does not have the ability to push the RA troops out of their country any time soon, if ever.
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Of course they have the ability, it's called time. No country can afford to wage war for decades, especially an imperialistic war under sanctions. Even if the western countries completely stop their support and the conflict would freeze, Russia can't stay indefinetely in Ukraine and lose daily men and equipment. Ukraine on the other hand fight for their independence and surviving, they will do this indefinitely, no matter the cost. There will come a day, when Russia must say enough is enough. Is it next year, in 5 years, in 10 years? This will depend on our support. Putin has lost, the question remains when.
 
Ragnar123 said:
Of course they have the ability, it's called time. No country can afford to wage war for decades, especially an imperialistic war under sanctions. Even if the western countries completely stop their support and the conflict would freeze, Russia can't stay indefinetely in Ukraine and lose daily men and equipment. Ukraine on the other hand fight for their independence and surviving, they will do this indefinitely, no matter the cost. There will come a day, when Russia must say enough is enough. Is it next year, in 5 years, in 10 years? This will depend on our support. Putin has lost, the question remains when.
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You may be right, since time can be infinite. But for the sake of UA as a country, ideally, they would want to end this thing quickly with terms that favor them. But if those terms include getting all RA troops out of their country, including Crimea, then the UA does not have the ability to make it happen any time soon.
 
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The United said:
But if those terms include getting all RA troops out of their country, including Crimea, then, UA does not have the ability to make it happen any time soon.
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Crimea will depend on the Kherson front. Russia can't stay in Crimea, if Ukraine advances to the border of the peninsula, because unlike in 2014, they have now the weapons to hit the Kerch bridge and isolate Crimea from Russia.
 
The United said:
Of course, it has gone out the window for UA. But the UA does not have the ability to push the RA troops out of their country any time soon, if ever. So what are their options here long-term? People have to look behind the scenes. All these "we are here for the long term" statements are for PR. It is not because they don't want to, but because they just can't. The only actor who can keep it somewhat long-term here is Putin because he is a dictator and he does not hold himself accountable to his country. Unless, of course, he gets killed first.

It does not mean I know the solution or what will happen. It is just very tiring when you think about it, especially since the outcome probably will not be what we would like. But it also doesn't make much sense to believe that Ukraine would refuse to stop this war until Crimea is liberated or something
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Ukraine let Russia take Crimea in 2014 and lost control of eastern regions. They have tried ‘living with it’ it doesn’t work.

The only way for them to move forward and control their destiny is to expel the Russians once and for all. They have realized this and they have been clear about it in their communications and actions.
 
TwoSheds said:
Do you honestly think, knowing what you know now, that this war was avoidable? Imagine even that Ukraine had somehow become entirely pro-Russian and bent entirely to their will, do you think another non-Nato country wouldn't have been next? Not every country on Russia's border can be pro Russian so there will always be a flashpoint with an imperialist nation that wants to expand.
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If NATO had been more pro-active in 2014 then maybe. There are all kinds of moving pieces in geopolitics.

That wasn't my point anyway. You said there is no point looking in to the reasons why it happened and seem to assume that any critical thinking on the build up to the conflict is doing a disservice to Ukraine. You need to understand what leads to conflict. It might be down the list of priorities when you're in the middle of fighting a war, but at some point you need to figure out how you got there. If you don't bother to learn lessons from history then your doomed to repeat it.
 
Bert_ said:
If NATO had been more pro-active in 2014 then maybe. There are all kinds of moving pieces in geopolitics.

That wasn't my point anyway. You said there is no point looking in to the reasons why it happened and seem to assume that any critical thinking on the build up to the conflict is doing a disservice to Ukraine. You need to understand what leads to conflict. It might be down the list of priorities when you're in the middle of fighting a war, but at some point you need to figure out how you got there. If you don't bother to learn lessons from history then your doomed to repeat it.
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The main reason for this war is that Putin decided it would be easy to conquer Ukraine, that's why he sent that long 64 km convoy against Kiev.

And the main lesson to learn is that NATO should not be accommodating to dictators, as NATO did, both before and after 2014.

This lesson is very similar to the lesson Neville Chamberlain learned in 1937. As you see, we are repeating the same mistakes... unfortunately, people do not learn from history. Back in 1937, England and USA had a lot of people who liked Hitler and wanted to do business with him...
 
Bert_ said:
If NATO had been more pro-active in 2014 then maybe. There are all kinds of moving pieces in geopolitics.

That wasn't my point anyway. You said there is no point looking in to the reasons why it happened and seem to assume that any critical thinking on the build up to the conflict is doing a disservice to Ukraine. You need to understand what leads to conflict. It might be down the list of priorities when you're in the middle of fighting a war, but at some point you need to figure out how you got there. If you don't bother to learn lessons from history then your doomed to repeat it.
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You're acting like you can control extremism though. Russia has been out of control for decades now, of you don't stop them somewhere you've to do it somewhere else. Funnily enough not every deals with everything perfectly, there's not really much point expecting otherwise, you just do your best and send weapons when Ukraine gets invaded. It can all be overcomplicated if you want but there's rarely much benefit - history tends.to repeat itself anyway.
 
TwoSheds said:
You're acting like you can control extremism though. Russia has been out of control for decades now, of you don't stop them somewhere you've to do it somewhere else. Funnily enough not every deals with everything perfectly, there's not really much point expecting otherwise, you just do your best and send weapons when Ukraine gets invaded. It can all be overcomplicated if you want but there's rarely much benefit - history tends.to repeat itself anyway.
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You can control extremism through various means. Everything from long term solutions addressing the causes, to swift and brutal suppression. And then anything in-between. No solution will eradicate it but it can keep it in check.

Geopolitics is very complicated. The most complicated and dangerous thing that has existed since the dawn of society. The Ukraine war is happening and we can't turn back time so we have to deal with current situation but we have to understand how we got here. History does often repeat itself, mostly because people don't learn from history.
 
You can't make peace with people who have castrated, tortured and raped people.

Russia should have settled for Crimea...now they will have to cower behind their old borders and hand over war criminals before anyone lets them rest.

Russism needs to be crushed once and for all otherwise we will be revisiting this conflict like we did with Vietnam....Afghanistan...Iraq...Syria etc.
 
frostbite said:
The main reason for this war is that Putin decided it would be easy to conquer Ukraine, that's why he sent that long 64 km convoy against Kiev.
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He clearly thought it would be simple to conquer Ukraine but that isn't going to be the main driver. Just because you can (think you can) do something doesn't mean you do it. Ukraine moving towards the west is a threat to Putin's regime so he took what probably seemed like the most reasonable option to him. Swiftly take control of Ukraine and the West/NATO would be too slow to react. Once he had control of Kyiv then NATO wouldn't be able to do anything.

frostbite said:
This lesson is very similar to the lesson Neville Chamberlain learned in 1937. As you see, we are repeating the same mistakes... unfortunately, people do not learn from history. Back in 1937, England and USA had a lot of people who liked Hitler and wanted to do business with him...
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Agreed. The similarities with what's happening in Ukraine and the economic conditions in the West are eerily similar to the 1930s. Including the rise in fascism and the like.
 
buchansleftleg said:
You can't make peace with people who have castrated, tortured and raped people.

Russia should have settled for Crimea...now they will have to cower behind their old borders and hand over war criminals before anyone lets them rest.

Russism needs to be crushed once and for all otherwise we will be revisiting this conflict like we did with Vietnam....Afghanistan...Iraq...Syria etc.
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Quite. Once they become brutal enough then war is inevitable, it's more a question of where and how. In a way we're fortunate that Ukraine is big and strong enough to defend itself with the right help. Georgia wouldn't have been so lucky for example.
 
buchansleftleg said:
You can't make peace with people who have castrated, tortured and raped people.

Russia should have settled for Crimea...now they will have to cower behind their old borders and hand over war criminals before anyone lets them rest.

Russism needs to be crushed once and for all otherwise we will be revisiting this conflict like we did with Vietnam....Afghanistan...Iraq...Syria etc.
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How did "we" (?) revisit any of those conflicts?
 
Bert_ said:
He clearly thought it would be simple to conquer Ukraine but that isn't going to be the main driver. Just because you can (think you can) do something doesn't mean you do it. Ukraine moving towards the west is a threat to Putin's regime so he took what probably seemed like the most reasonable option to him. Swiftly take control of Ukraine and the West/NATO would be too slow to react. Once he had control of Kyiv then NATO wouldn't be able to do anything.
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Ukraine was a threat to Putin regime? How?

Ukraine moving towards the West, Ukraine moving towards China, Ukraine moving towards the Klingons, Ukraine moving towards whatever... was never a threat to Russia. Please don't repeat this meaningless bullshit, it's just Putinist Propaganda.

Putin destroyed all his internal opposition, then in 2014 he captured Crimea without any repercussions, then he decided he will capture the rest of Ukraine easily. Because he decided he is the reincarnation of Peter the Great or something. Putin is an imperialist, and that's what imperialists do when they have the chance.

Putin messed up but Russians are still with him. Can you imagine how much they'd love him if he actually had managed to capture Ukraine in 2022? He'd be God in Russia. For eternity.
 
frostbite said:
Ukraine was a threat to Putin regime? How?

Ukraine moving towards the West, Ukraine moving towards China, Ukraine moving towards the Klingons, Ukraine moving towards whatever... was never a threat to Russia. Please don't repeat this meaningless bullshit, it's just Putinist Propaganda.

Putin destroyed all his internal opposition, then in 2014 he captured Crimea without any repercussions, then he decided he will capture the rest of Ukraine easily. Because he decided he is the reincarnation of Peter the Great or something. Putin is an imperialist, and that's what imperialists do when they have the chance.

Putin messed up but Russians are still with him. Can you imagine how much they'd love him if he actually had managed to capture Ukraine in 2022? He'd be God in Russia. For eternity.
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It's a threat having a neighbour you share a huge border with outside of your influence. That's not hard to understand.

It's Russia's fault that Ukraine and all the other border countries have moved towards the west because they know "partnership" with Russia ends one way. Subjugation to Russia. Their prospects are better when aligned to Western Europe. That doesn't mean Russia will just accept that though. They use force to stop those countries abandoning them, hence the current war and all the other examples over the past 20 years.
 
Bert_ said:
It's a threat having a neighbour you share a huge border with outside of your influence. That's not hard to understand.

It's Russia's fault that Ukraine and all the other border countries have moved towards the west because they know "partnership" with Russia ends one way. Subjugation to Russia. Their prospects are better when aligned to Western Europe. That doesn't mean Russia will just accept that though. They use force to stop those countries abandoning them, hence the current war and all the other examples over the past 20 years.
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No, it is not a threat "having a neighbour you share a huge border with outside of your influence". What the feck is that?

What are you saying? Are you saying that Russia should control all the countries that have a border with them??? And they are justified to have wars against them if they don't control them???

It is Russia that is a threat to the countries around them. The counties around them are not a threat to Russia!
 
frostbite said:
No, it is not a threat "having a neighbour you share a huge border with outside of your influence". What the feck is that?

What are you saying? Are you saying that Russia should control all the countries that have a border with them??? And they are justified to have wars against them if they don't control them???

It is Russia that is a threat to the countries around them. The counties around them are not a threat to Russia!
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Of course it's a threat. If war happens and you need to secure your borders then having a friendly nation as a buffer reduces the resources required to secure the border. If the nation you share the border with is un-friendly or has your enemies based there then that is a major military threat. You do what you can to reduce that threat.

That's not justifying Russia's invasion at all. It's abhorrent what they are doing but we live in a world dominated by realpolitik.
 
Bert_ said:
It's a threat having a neighbour you share a huge border with outside of your influence. That's not hard to understand.
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Most countries have neighbours outside of their inffluence. China, Japan, the US, even Russia itself. Why didn't Putin invade Finland, Estonia and Latvia then?

As a de facto dictator with no real inside opposition he didn't need any real reason. He could have said that their president was a jewish Nazi (oh...). He just thought he could get away with it like in 2014. Plus, there was no real threat. As of February 2022 no military superpowers with half of the world's nukes at their disposal have been attacked. At this day the count stands (but we should add "by any other than themselves" at the end).

It was kind of expected that most people in russia would believe his every word, but I'm mesmerized at some responses from the outside.
 
TwoSheds said:
Quite. Once they become brutal enough then war is inevitable, it's more a question of where and how. In a way we're fortunate that Ukraine is big and strong enough to defend itself with the right help. Georgia wouldn't have been so lucky for example.
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The war happened for calculated, self-serving geopolitical reasons deemed beneficial to Putin's regime (likely decided on by a small inner-circle) not because some abstract level of higher cultural brutality had been reached which means it's now inevitable. For the wider public outside of the political class, i'd have argued it's the vast depoliticised apathy that is a much bigger cause in allowing things to go this far, not widespread bloodthirst for rape and war, or really even any coherent ideological commitment to expansion and Russian supremacy among the greater public. There's enough of the latter aspects in a more incoherent form (and far more so lack of educated awareness of historic imperialism/colonialism that enables it) to win a significant chunk of support after the regime initiates something (especially relatively small scale like Crimea or Georgian conflict), however outside of a tiny number fringe ultranationalists/ hardline communists there wasn't any public desire to invade ex-empire/ussr countries and take back big chunks of land for revanchist reasons. You can see that in the way the regime has handled propaganda towards Ukraine since 2014: the "it's not a real country, it's our land historically and we're justified in taking control if they do x y z" aspect is there, but the real thrust for actually building to direct action is an appeal to people's humanity and ethnic solidarity (ethnic russians/pro-russians being unjustly persecuted/attacked in donbas).

Even something as brazenly cynical as the invocation of the great historical enemy (Nazis/fascists) ideology taking root in Ukraine ended up with greater precedence than appeals of the "take back that which belongs to us/which we once controlled" variety. While i fully believe in taking collective societal responsibility for allowing things to get to where they are, i don't feel the idea that has been pushed over the last year of this being a war russian people wanted just as much as Putin's/regime did really holds up to deeper scrutiny, though i understand its initial use in showing the war has gained notable support (how much is extremely hard to properly assess). It's nonetheless a very manufactured, depressingly avoidable situation caused by the elites, rather than something that had any widespread public backing (or even expectation of it actually happening, unlike other recent avoidable conflicts) beforehand. Though i do sadly think had Putin maintained some sort of democratic facade, and outwardly pushed a case to gain public support for a more contained invasion/reclamation of the supposedly persecuted seperatist areas of Donbas, he would get more than enough to claim it as the will of the people.

Putin himself is likely the same as he always was in his willingness to use force, if not his competence on what he can get away with/succeed in. His actions in entering this conflict, and the conduct of the army within it, are another predictable replay of what we all know can happen with long-term autocrats making increasingly irrational decisions - and how a military tends to decay to its worst aspects and act when under a regime that is both not very competent and increasingly authoritarian. Especially when faced with a stubborn insurgent element, or capable external opponent that has been propagandized at length.
 
Bert_ said:
Which ones do China and the US have? Japan is an island nation and has no land borders.
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Your neighbours aren't only the ones you share a land border with.

China: Japan, South Korea, Singapore, Taiwan itself.
Japan: North Korea, China, Russia.
US: Cuba, Russia itself (Bering).

Bert_ said:
NATO
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Finland wasn't a member of NATO then. Wasn't even applying.
 
Krakenzero said:
Your neighbours aren't only the ones you share a land border with.

China: Japan, South Korea, Singapore, Taiwan itself.
Japan: North Korea, China, Russia.
US: Cuba, Russia itself (Bering).
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A land border was what I was referring to. You can send massive formations over land. It's by far the biggest risk you have militarily. None of the above comes close to that.
 
Bert_ said:
A land border was what I was referring to. You can send massive formations over land. It's by far the biggest risk you have militarily. None of the above comes close to that.
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Which leaves us with the previous question of: When has a nuclear power been attacked/invaded before in history?

And, if there's even a remote chance of that, isn't Finland (who wasn't in NATO either) as dangerous, if not more?
 
Krakenzero said:
Which leaves us with the previous question of: When has a nuclear power been attacked/invaded before in history?

And, if there's even a remote chance of that, isn't Finland (who wasn't in NATO either) as dangerous, if not more?
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NLunited said:
Finland only recently joined.
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Finland is an EU member and has been strategically close to NATO for decades. They had an official line of neutrality up until recent evets, same as Sweden and Ireland. They are all de-facto NATO countries though. And so de-facto off the table for Russian invasion. It's now de-jure for Finland and soon to be the same for Sweden.

And to the second point. No nuclear power has ever been invaded because of MAD theory. Nuclear powers have only existed for 70 years or so though and have never really been in a situation were MAD theory has come into play. They will only ever come into play when borders are crossed/threatened.
 
Bert_ said:
Which ones do China and the US have? Japan is an island nation and has no land borders.
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Almost every neighbour of China except Pakistan and Russia is hostile to some degree. India, Japan, Vietnam, Taiwan, Philipinnes...

Bert_ said:
Finland is an EU member and has been strategically close to NATO for decades. They had an official line of neutrality up until recent evets, same as Sweden and Ireland. They are all de-facto NATO countries though. And so de-facto off the table for Russian invasion. It's now de-jure for Finland and soon to be the same for Sweden.

And to the second point. No nuclear power has ever been invaded because of MAD theory. Nuclear powers have only existed for 70 years or so though and have never really been in a situation were MAD theory has come into play. They will only ever come into play when borders are crossed/threatened.
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Finland had major trade ties with the USSR, politicians of both countries were quite cozy during the cold war, they even flew MiGs. Sweden took a pretty hard line on Vietnam (much stronger than any NATO member). They were also part of the neutral countries monitoring the Korean armistice.
I don't think either were de-facto NATO, even if they were west-facing.
 
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