Russian invasion of Ukraine | Fewer tweets, more discussion

hellhunter said:
Wasn't Kherson shelled and bombed for days?
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I meant on the day it was stormed. Probably the mayor or the forces there saw it was a lost cause and gave up in the end. The first scenes of the Russians entering it was literally a few Russians walking on the streets without armor and without any shooting or resistance.
 
TMDaines said:
Crimea, Donbas, Belarus, Ukraine, Transnistria, Moldova…
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He has no intention of stopping there. The next phase will be to foment trouble within former eastern block countries to flip a few of them through revolutions, then use the new puppet governments there as a way to expand further. The only way to stop him will be through war or by suffocating him from within through protracted, long term nuclear option sanctions.
 
Danny1982 said:
I meant on the day it was stormed. Probably the mayor or the forces there saw it was a lost cause and gave up in the end. The first scenes of the Russians entering it was literally a few Russians walking on the streets without armor and without any shooting or resistance.
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Yeah, seems the military largely gave it up for the time being. I guess the locals can only engage in minor resistance and need to keep their powder dry until the Russians are a bit more stretched.

Raoul said:
He has no intention of stopping there. The next phase will be to foment trouble within former eastern block countries to flip a few of them through revolutions, then use the new puppet governments there as a way to expand further. The only way to stop him will be through war or by suffocating him from within through protracted, long term nuclear option sanctions.
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Yeah, I’m with Kasparov on this. Not going to pretend to know what the best solution is though.
 
TMDaines said:
Does anybody know the current thinking in Moldova about this? Do they not consider themselves likely to be entirely to come under threat from Russian and Transnistrian forces? I am assuming there is no appetite for them to go on the offensive?
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Really good video posted here the other day and explains quite a lot including Moldova.

 
Raoul said:
He has no intention of stopping there. The next phase will be to foment trouble within former eastern block countries to flip a few of them through revolutions, then use the new puppet governments there as a way to expand further. The only way to stop him will be through war or by suffocating him from within through protracted, long term nuclear option sanctions.
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If he wants Moldova he has to go through Ukraine. He could take both and stop knowing that NATO and the West won't get involved in fear of starting a nuclear war. He's called our bluff ultimately.
 
TMDaines said:
Yeah, seems the military largely gave it up for the time being. I guess the locals can only engage in minor resistance and need to keep their powder dry until the Russians are a bit more stretched.
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The Russians have control over it and have put a marital law type policy into effect. The mayor there has apparently negotiated this with the Russians to prevent more fighting. Bizarrely, the Russians have agreed and are allowing the Ukrainian flag to continue to be flown over the city.
 
TMDaines said:
Yeah, seems the military largely gave it up for the time being. I guess the locals can only engage in minor resistance and need to keep their powder dry until the Russians are a bit more stretched.
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Yes the mayor confirmed no Ukrainian soldiers there so assume a retreat sometime yesterday at the latest.
Kofman’s prediction was moving through Kherson to then assault Odessa so I guess we’ll see if he’s right.
 
Raoul said:
Some of these yachts are bonkers. I was reading about a different one that cost a fraction of this one, that apparently had an annual operating cost of 30m.
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A chef I used to work with had a stint on Deripaska’s super yacht when it was in Ibiza. He said it was the most grotesque thing he’s ever done. They have all the ingredients helicopter’d in from all over Europe. When they were out of the harbour the deckhands would throw all the waste over the side - plastic, metal, the lot. They’d do buffets which had lobster, caviar, truffles etc etc and nobody would eat it and it would just end up over the side.


On the plus side he did bring back a few large jam jars of caviar which would have cost about £2K each and after service we made some blinis and scoffed a whole jar with some crème fraiche and a bottle of champagne that went in the book as spillage.
 
Can see Russia taking Moldova and then Ukraine split along the river like East/West Germany. Russia will want the buffer from NATO
 
RedSky said:
If he wants Moldova he has to go through Ukraine. He could take both and stop knowing that NATO and the West won't get involved in fear of starting a nuclear war. He's called our bluff ultimately.
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What bluff? The West wasn't gonna intervene militarily for either Ukraine or Moldova. I think most people knew this already.
 
VorZakone said:
What bluff? The West wasn't gonna intervene militarily for either Ukraine or Moldova. I think most people knew this already.
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Hypothetically speaking, and if Moldova was cool with it, why not bring NATO troops there before the conflict? So it wouldn't be NATO interfering in an ongoing conflict, Putin would have to start a conflict with NATO
 
hellhunter said:
Mariupol under constant shelling for 14 hours straight, also residential areas, according to their mayor.
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Mariupol is gonna be a bloodbath. Putin has been largely restrained in bombing Ukrainian cities (no bombing is good but if you compare it to how Russia bombed in Syria you get my point), I guess because he doesn't want to antagonize the Ukrainian people, but in Mariupol there will be no mercy in the fight, because that's where the Azov battalion (which Russia and the DPR really really hate) is situated. They will take very few prisoners from Mariupol and the Azov battalion knows that, and they will surely fight to the last man and the last bullet.
 
Port Vale Devil said:
Can see Russia taking Moldova and then Ukraine split along the river like East/West Berlin. Russia will want the buffer from NATO
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What buffer? He already has a border with NATO with Estonia and Latvia, as well as Kaliningrad sandwiched between Lithuania and Poland and Turkey across the Black Sea from the occupied Crimea.
 
Port Vale Devil said:
Really good video posted here the other day and explains quite a lot including Moldova.

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Be so funny if after Putin took Ukraine and say Moldova, he then went after Belarus. Would teach those scumbags a lesson.

Sadly, would not be good for Europe.
 
VorZakone said:
What bluff? The West wasn't gonna intervene militarily for either Ukraine or Moldova. I think most people knew this already.
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It's not like this caught the West by surprise, we've had intel that the Russians were planning this for weeks if not (by the sounds of it) months and yet ultimately we've sat on our hands and done very little. We knew this was happening and yet we weren't prepared to hit out with sanctions immediately. Instead its taking far too long. I honestly think we could and should be doing more. That's just my opinion. Don't ask me what, as I don't get paid to think that, but clearly we could be doing more and more importantly being faster and being more prepared.
 
choccy77 said:
Be so funny if after Putin took Ukraine and say Moldova, he then went after Belarus. Would teach those scumbags a lesson.
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Belarus have sort of flown under the radar a bit over the last couple of days. Does anyone know if the sanctions on Russia have also been applied on Belarus?

Would be a convenient loophole if they're escaping sanctions.
 
klsv said:
What buffer? He already has a border with NATO with Estonia and Latvia, as well as Kaliningrad sandwiched between Lithuania and Poland and Turkey across the Black Sea from the occupied Crimea.
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Some expert on Sky was mentioning how flat Ukraine/Poland is and that would be the direction NATO would take as their main attack (never going to attack but how Putin would sell it back home)
 
Raoul said:
If Russia takes Ukraine, it will already have direct borders with 4 NATO countries to worry about Moldova being a buffer.
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It will soon have another very long one in Finland. If they take Ukraine, they'll immediately border 7 NATO countries, 8 if you count Kaliningrad. If they incorporate Belarus, essentially their entire Western border will be with NATO pretty soon.
 
nimic said:
It will soon have another very long one in Finland. If they take Ukraine, they'll immediately border 7 NATO countries, 8 if you count Kaliningrad. If they incorporate Belarus, essentially their entire Western border will be with NATO pretty soon.
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It will somehow be the West’s doing.
 
klsv said:
What buffer? He already has a border with NATO with Estonia and Latvia, as well as Kaliningrad sandwiched between Lithuania and Poland and Turkey across the Black Sea from the occupied Crimea.
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Estonia and Latvia represent a single front and invading Kaliningrad goes literally nowhere. He doesn't want a second front opening up somewhere else.

Northern Norway doesn't count as its impossible terrain.
 
11101 said:
Estonia and Latvia represent a single front and invading Kaliningrad goes literally nowhere. He doesn't want a second front opening up somewhere else.

Northern Norway doesn't count as its impossible terrain.
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It definitely counts, or else you should tell our army command. It's not exactly an avenue to invade Europe, though. If they ever want to invade Norway, they'll stage landings along the entire coast, like the Germans did.

They've actually got some practice invading Northern Norway, they were busy liberating it from the Germans at the end of WW2. "German territory" in Europe at the time of surrender basically amounted to a few pockets and Norway.
 
choccy77 said:
Be so funny if after Putin took Ukraine and say Moldova, he then went after Belarus. Would teach those scumbags a lesson.

Sadly, would not be good for Europe.
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Putin got Belarus after the last elections. Lukashenko miscalculated and had to run a complete sham election, in good probability losing to a protest opposition candidate, and he maintained power with the military, supported by Russia to crush the protests. The price he paid was to make it a complete puppet state, whereas previously it was bouncing between Russia and the EU. It’s worth pointing out, for example, that Belarus still doesn’t officially recognise Crimea as part of Russia, although it does de facto now. Belarus slipped into Putin’s clutches in the last two years already.
 
nimic said:
It will soon have another very long one in Finland. If they take Ukraine, they'll immediately border 7 NATO countries, 8 if you count Kaliningrad. If they incorporate Belarus, essentially their entire Western border will be with NATO pretty soon.
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Good point.
 
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