Russian invasion of Ukraine | Fewer tweets, more discussion

Exclusive: US prepared ‘rigorously’ for potential Russian nuclear strike in Ukraine in late 2022, officials say

In late 2022, the US began “preparing rigorously” for Russia potentially striking Ukraine with a nuclear weapon, in what would have been the first nuclear attack in war since the US dropped atomic bombs on Hiroshima and Nagasaki nearly eighty years before, two senior administration officials told CNN.

The administration’s fear, a second senior administration official told me, “was not just hypothetical — it was also based on some information that we picked up.”
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https://edition.cnn.com/2024/03/09/...ial-russian-nuclear-strike-ukraine/index.html
 
VorZakone said:
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Macron taking the matter actually seriously. I've loved his switch in rhetoric on this. We have an imperialist nut-case on the move again in Europe. PUTIN WANTS LAND AND RESOURCES. How many times does this have to be said?

All these people saying "just give him Ukraine" or "Ukraine has to give up and come to the table", have you never opened a fecking text book? The only difference this time is the fascist imperialist has nukes and seems happy to threaten their use unless he gets to recreate the Russian Empire.

I don't know why the west is still so slow here. Give every country that wants it membership in NATO, bring back full scale European military industrial production. Tax people more to fund it. The dithering is pathetic.
 
WPMUFC said:
Tax people more to fund it.
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Yeah when people are struggling to pay rent and buy food/medicine, let's tax them to build more bombs. I wonder who they would vote for in the next election.
 
Laurencio said:
Staggering lack of geopolitical understanding from the Vatican.
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Considering they are gods representive on earth, they have never really performed well on geopolitics, human rights and consensual sex and all that.
 
Gehrman said:
Considering they are gods representive on earth, they have never really performed well on geopolitics, human rights and consensual sex and all that.
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It's at least consistent, but if I'm a geopolitical chess player, I'd of dug my hooks into the Vatican and its people long ago. Easy game when they've got so many skeletons in their vaults.

I tend to believe putin has his hooks in everyone though. At least Macron has started fighting back of late.
 
WPMUFC said:
Macron taking the matter actually seriously. I've loved his switch in rhetoric on this. We have an imperialist nut-case on the move again in Europe. PUTIN WANTS LAND AND RESOURCES. How many times does this have to be said?

All these people saying "just give him Ukraine" or "Ukraine has to give up and come to the table", have you never opened a fecking text book? The only difference this time is the fascist imperialist has nukes and seems happy to threaten their use unless he gets to recreate the Russian Empire.

I don't know why the west is still so slow here. Give every country that wants it membership in NATO, bring back full scale European military industrial production. Tax people more to fund it. The dithering is pathetic.
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You are right. Unfortunately, we have pathetic leaders. Scholz and Biden would both be good leaders in normal times, when nothing really happens and they could just concentrate on internal economic growth and social measures. Unfortunately, against expansionist dictators like Putin we need someone more hard-core, like Churchill, someone that would make Putin worry.

Actually, if we had such a leader in the past 20 years (instead of useless "leaders" like Obama and Trump and Merkel), Putin would not have invaded Ukraine in the first place, and thousands of people would not have died and millions of Ukrainians wouldn't have lost their homes. Avoiding conflict against dictators is usually not a good idea, history has shown that multiple times ... but we don't learn.
 
I am ashamed of this pope. He is as pro Russian as he can be
 
VorZakone said:
And if Russia hits European troops with air strikes?
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That just becomes a lose-lose situation for Putin. There would be a response depending which countries troops was hit obviously. Most likely in the form of increased support/supplies. It may very well force European countries over the line that we all want them to cross, from half-assed help to actual dedication in Ukraine winning the war.

A direct military response would involve a strike on Russian forces within Ukraine, may as well let Ukraine do that with new toys without the extra geo-political pain, but I suppose it would send a stronger message to do it directly. What's Putin going to do then? Continue hitting European troops? All his remaining goals in Ukraine shatter overnight if he escalates it to exchanging fire with European forces, and that's even if the US sits back.

Sure he'd pile on the nuclear rhetoric, but as long as it all stays contained within Ukraine no one is taking him too seriously with it. Maybe there's an angle where escalating with other European countries is actually his goal, I can't think of much rational behind that though.
 
VorZakone said:
Yeah, this sounds like fantasy to me. I highly doubt European nations are willing to risk war with Russia.
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Its an unlikely scenario that was probably fanned by Macron's recent comments. But one could just as well make a credible argument that not engaging with Russia now would only delay the inevitable war after Putin takes over all of Ukraine.
 
Raoul said:
Its an unlikely scenario that was probably fanned by Macron's recent comments. But one could just as well make a credible argument that not engaging with Russia now would only delay the inevitable war after Putin takes over all of Ukraine.
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That"inevitable war" with NATO or the EU more or less equals a suicide run for Putin at that point. Keep the Russian war machine occupied and taking heavy losses, while simultaneously rearming the EU and NATO is the best strategy for long term stability in Europe. Countries need time to catch up militarily, to sort out the energy shortage that followed the Russian invasion and stabilise the economy.

Europe benefits from providing Ukraine with the means to fight Russia, which gives them time to rearm and delays the Russian war machine's growth, but if they comit troops popular support for Ukraine will plummet. No one is going to be happy about losing soldiers in a long and dragged out war. The number of soldiers doesn't matter here, for NATO to make a dent they have to involve some pretty heavy arms in addition to troops which changes the calculus of the war. Victory right now is an end to hostilities in Ukraine and continued Ukrainian independence, with NATO involved it becomes a case of Moscow asking "how far into Russia could they go".
 
Raoul said:
Its an unlikely scenario that was probably fanned by Macron's recent comments. But one could just as well make a credible argument that not engaging with Russia now would only delay the inevitable war after Putin takes over all of Ukraine.
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Why would war be inevitable? Even with a Trump presidency, I don't see Russia trying to attack NATO. Russia will likely continue all sorts of hybrid tactics to divide Western countries and we should counter that. But I don't expect war.
 
VorZakone said:
Why would war be inevitable? Even with a Trump presidency, I don't see Russia trying to attack NATO. Russia will likely continue all sorts of hybrid tactics to divide Western countries and we should counter that. But I don't expect war.
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If the EU isn't united and strong enough and the US doesn't look likely to honour a call for article 5, Putin might think that certain countries in Europe would follow the US example and not answer the call, and risk it.

It's an unlikely scenario, but I know that is the scenario defence ministries across Europe are considering right now.
 
VorZakone said:
Why would war be inevitable? Even with a Trump presidency, I don't see Russia trying to attack NATO. Russia will likely continue all sorts of hybrid tactics to divide Western countries and we should counter that. But I don't expect war.
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Because Putin's objective is to expand. He's not going to just get Ukraine and not use it as a foundation from which to pursue other conquests. Not that I think he will actually take over Ukraine since the population would continue fighting him even if he takes over more land.
 
Laurencio said:
If the EU isn't united and strong enough and the US doesn't look likely to honour a call for article 5, Putin might think that certain countries in Europe would follow the US example and not answer the call, and risk it.

It's an unlikely scenario, but I know that is the scenario defence ministries across Europe are considering right now.
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The EU isn't united now and 2 major members of NATO aren't in the EU either
 


The net effect of the Western sanctions is that the West has cut itself off from resources it needs, in return for cutting Russia off from things it doesn't really need.
 
Suedesi said:


The net effect of the Western sanctions is that the West has cut itself off from resources it needs, in return for cutting Russia off from things it doesn't really need.
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"favourable to the long term development of the Russian economy" Good lord, I couldn't get past there, comical. The Russian economy is dead, they just playing weekend at Bernie's with it. The rouble is worthless and foreign reserves are drying up. They are now beholden to China to function.

They are no doubt doing a very good job of adapting and managing it, but its just a matter of time. Probably too much time to affect this war unfortunately. Either way, these sanctions should have been in place 10 years ago.
 
Simbo said:
"favourable to the long term development of the Russian economy" Good lord, I couldn't get past there, comical. The Russian economy is dead, they just playing weekend at Bernie's with it. The rouble is worthless and foreign reserves are drying up. They are now beholden to China to function.

They are no doubt doing a very good job of adapting and managing it, but its just a matter of time. Probably too much time to affect this war unfortunately. Either way, these sanctions should have been in place 10 years ago.
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Im hearing a matter of time since they were many people that said that russia could not hold 3 months of war

Also about the reserves for a few months

Matter of time...and here we are

So far seems putin was well prepared for the eventuality.
 
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