Russian invasion of Ukraine | Fewer tweets, more discussion

This of course presupposes that Putin is mentally stable and a rational actor. If he isn't, then I think he doubles down on violence and the chances of NATO/EU military involvement inside Ukraine go up significantly.

This is why his puffy face worries me.
 

This war needs to stop before they start sending in war planes to annihilate people, it really isn’t that important for such large scale loss of life. It will just escalate and escalate at this point.
 
What has been known to happen before is a number of active troopers “take leave” together…what they do on their holidays is nothing to do with the government…

The good old secondment to MI6 is the one I am aware of. Not heard of the leave one before!
 
What europe should do as well is turn off the oil and gas taps from Russia and get them elsewhere. I imagine it would be difficult. But that would really cripple the russian economy given 30 to 40 percent of their GDP is from selling oil and gas to europe and elsewhere.

Solution is to feed Europe through Iberian Península with US, Algerian, Angolan and Nigerian gas, until recently France was against a pipeline passing through Pyrenees, but now they are considering it. Sines terminal has an enormous capacity to store and process liquid natural gas into gas.
 


Sounds great.
But we have to ask:
How many are serviceable.
Are they of an equivalent standard to those of Russia and not inferior capability.
Does Ukraine have sufficient trained aircrew to be able to operate these jets.
Do each of them have an up to date IFF system so as to be recognised as not Russian jets.
And do they have sufficient ground crew to be able to service and maintain them.
 
It’s essentially so the US can have a strategic position in Europe. Anyway it matters not. The point I was making is the EU alone (as mentioned) doesn’t present much of a threat militarily to Russia. You need to bring the UK and US to the table.

Accepted.
 
You know as well as I do if Ukraine start with the air attacks they will too and then it could go anywhere.
You hopefully also know as well as I do that the Russians have been using their air force in this war since Day 1. As have the Ukrainians.

I really don't understand what "escalation" you expect to happen here. The air has been a part of this war the whole time.
 

Yup. Looks like the only real one who exists is meme called General Denaturov.

The forever drunk Russian general who was handled a military title through connections with Putin. He never fired a weapon, he was just a bodyguard and suddenly he's leading the invasion and he don't know what's happening around him. Also he's directly responsible for Roma gypsies stealing a Russian tank in village of Ljubimovka.

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Sounds great.
But we have to ask:
How many are serviceable.
Are they of an equivalent standard to those of Russia and not inferior capability.
Does Ukraine have sufficient trained aircrew to be able to operate these jets.
Do each of them have an up to date IFF system so as to be recognised as not Russian jets.
And do they have sufficient ground crew to be able to service and maintain them.
Very much so, plus how much longer will Ukraine have viable airbases to operate out of?
 
Sounds great.
But we have to ask:
How many are serviceable.
Are they of an equivalent standard to those of Russia and not inferior capability.
Does Ukraine have sufficient trained aircrew to be able to operate these jets.
Do each of them have an up to date IFF system so as to be recognised as not Russian jets.
And do they have sufficient ground crew to be able to service and maintain them.

I wouldn't be able to answer any of these questions, but I believe the Ukrainian military would've stated what they capabilities are in terms of aircrew, service and maintenance. They would've probably asked for something else had they not have enough personnel. What is the point in having them stationed during a war?
 
So they found out about it in last 4-5 days?
Yeah, this expelling spies stuff is never at face value. If they're actually intel operatives that you already knew of, best to keep monitoring them and their contacts. The only thing you get out of expelling diplomatic personnel is that the number of people with immunity that can potentially be intel operatives gets reduced.
 
Sounds great.
But we have to ask:
How many are serviceable.
Are they of an equivalent standard to those of Russia and not inferior capability.
Does Ukraine have sufficient trained aircrew to be able to operate these jets.
Do each of them have an up to date IFF system so as to be recognised as not Russian jets.
And do they have sufficient ground crew to be able to service and maintain them.

Ukraine's Air Force currently operates Mig-29s and Su-25s, among others. All of Bulgaria, Poland and Slovakia are part of NATO so IFF should be ok, right?.
 
I don't get it. It is espionage. They had to be booted out, with or without the invasion.

Depends what they’ve been up to. Sometimes it’s a calculated risk to keep them around and just follow them, but the invasion gives them the pretext to boot them out without too much fuss (although we’ll see).
 
What europe should do as well is turn off the oil and gas taps from Russia and get them elsewhere. I imagine it would be difficult. But that would really cripple the russian economy given 30 to 40 percent of their GDP is from selling oil and gas to europe and elsewhere.
Likely Russia will turn it off themselves. They can’t get paid for it now excluded from SWIFT.
 
Depends what they’ve been up to. Sometimes it’s a calculated risk to keep them around and just follow them, but the invasion gives them the pretext to boot them out without too much fuss (although we’ll see).
The Russians will likely expel the same number of diplomats from the US mission in Russia. If some of those are actually CIA case agents, then that's fewer case agents the US has to work sources in Russia.
 
Michael Kofman is saying now that he is starting to see a shift in tactics from the Russian army that will likely lead to more success for them (waiting for logistics to catch up, using multiple units in concert after softening areas with artillery and airstrikes). Will be concerning to see if this leads to an increase in civilian casualities and/or inability of UKR military to maintain the success they have so far.
 
I don't get it. It is espionage. They had to be booted out, with or without the invasion.

Every country has 'known' spies that are official diplomatic employees of an embassy with all the perks that brings, and they're kind of tolerated by the host nation. Sounds like they're being booted out here to make a statement.

Every country also has the undeclared spies and they're the ones that get the firing squad when they're caught.
 
I don't care either way. I just want folks to stop acting like FIFA and UEFA did this for Ukraine.

Of course they didn't. They did it because no one wanted to play a Russian team and they had no choice.

UEFA did sever ties with Gazprom though, who had brought a lot of money. That's something at least.
 
You hopefully also know as well as I do that the Russians have been using their air force in this war since Day 1. As have the Ukrainians.

I really don't understand what "escalation" you expect to happen here. The air has been a part of this war the whole time.
I'm actually surprised the air battles haven't happened to the scale I thought up in my head (based on the air skirmishes between India and Pakistan in 2019...a lot of birds were involved there)
 
What europe should do as well is turn off the oil and gas taps from Russia and get them elsewhere. I imagine it would be difficult. But that would really cripple the russian economy given 30 to 40 percent of their GDP is from selling oil and gas to europe and elsewhere.
That is not feasible at this point in time is think.

What this war has made abundantly clear is that energy politics is security politics. I expect the EU will be putting all their efforts into achieving energy independence from potentially hostile actors asap. But that is years away.