Russian invasion of Ukraine | Fewer tweets, more discussion

pratyush_utd said:
Thats not for me to answer and can only speculate. I guess if you see NATO as a hostile force then, its expansion near your country is a threat you cant ignore. Ukraine inclusion will make Russia vulnerable as in event of war, oil supply can be easily cut which will result in paralysing Russia. It would be wise for NATO and Russia to have some buffer space and keep Ukraine as neutral ground. But we have crossed that line long back.

Some concessions have always been made to keep the peace.
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Strategically that would have been a wise decision, but the problem is, that the European way obviously is far more appealing, as proven by the amount of further SU members being part of NATO/EU today. Russia's way wasn't attractive, and the way the Russians dominated the SU and suppressed other ethnic groups didn't help their cause.

As they are trying to force their will upon bordering states they lost their right to be legitimately concerned about NATO coming closer.
 
stefan92 said:
It's a good question, but an important point might be, that it simply is not on route at all, it appears to be the world's biggest traffic jam at the moment. It's a distance you can easily drive in half a day, yet they are barely moving forward. So they might be hit if they start moving, but at the moment it might just not be that important.
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VorZakone said:
Probably several reasons for it. The convoy is protected by anti-air weapons, the Ukrainians don't have the capability to destroy it, the Ukrainians might think it's a waste of their capabilities to attack the convoy and they're reserving it for other locations.
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TheReligion said:
I imagine because Ukraine has no air superiority and are using its weapons elsewhere, potentially strengthening the west of the country
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I understand these comments but couldn't they have at least placed mines In the roads ?
 
VorZakone said:
I'm really curious how the Russian population responds to all this increasing isolation.
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It's hard to know what is true in a war.... But if the narrative we have over here is true about russian media ... That it is still saying it's an operation in the Donbas only then there must be a huge disjoint with that and what Russians are seeing ... Companies closing.... Credit cards not working... Stock market closed....
 
Mihai said:
What is that?
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Sorry I should have said hybrid warfare, not asymmetric.

Asymmetric warfare is any conflict where the two powers are unequal militarily.

Hybrid warfare is any kind of conventional or unconventional tactics of subversion. So fake news, or manipulation of social media (both of which Russia used in 2016 in the UK referendum and US election). It is basically a form of propaganda for the digital age.

A long, detailed discussion here: https://www.nato.int/docu/review/ar...mplexity-and-trust-as-the-antidote/index.html
 
Frosty said:
Sorry I should have said hybrid warfare, not asymmetric.

Asymmetric warfare is any conflict where the two powers are unequal militarily.

Hybrid warfare is any kind of conventional or unconventional tactics of subversion. So fake news, or manipulation of social media (both of which Russia used in 2016 in the UK referendum and US election). It is basically a form of propaganda for the digital age.

A long, detailed discussion here: https://www.nato.int/docu/review/ar...mplexity-and-trust-as-the-antidote/index.html
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Yes, I agree and I am familiar with the concept of hybrid warfare.
 
christinaa said:
I understand these comments but couldn't they have at least placed mines In the roads ?
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Maybe they did and that's why it is moving very slowly - if the Russians have to make sure it's save to use the road, it would massively slow them down.
 
sun_tzu said:
It's hard to know what is true in a war.... But if the narrative we have over here is true about russian media ... That it is still saying it's an operation in the Donbas only then there must be a huge disjoint with that and what Russians are seeing ... Companies closing.... Credit cards not working... Stock market closed....
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The narrative is true but people are not stupid.

We had the same situation in the 90s. Everyone under 70 knew that what the state controlled media was saying was bs and figured out ways to learn the truth, at least parts of it.

And this was before internet became widespread.
 
christinaa said:
I understand these comments but couldn't they have at least placed mines In the roads ?
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“The main body of the large Russian column advancing on Kyiv remains over 30km from the centre of the city having been delayed by staunch Ukrainian resistance, mechanical breakdown and congestion. The column has made little discernible progress in over three days.” according the the Ukrainian MOD. So, it's fair to assume that there are some sort of counter-attack measures to delay the convoy.
 
Mihai said:
“The main body of the large Russian column advancing on Kyiv remains over 30km from the centre of the city having been delayed by staunch Ukrainian resistance, mechanical breakdown and congestion. The column has made little discernible progress in over three days.” according the the Ukrainian MOD. So, it's fair to assume that there are some sort of counter-attack measures to delay the convoy.
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Lesson learned: Don't invade a country at a time when everything is muddy and you can't really drive offroad. Disabling a few vehicles just stops everything.
 
tomaldinho1 said:
That’s not my question, I understand the political side but, again, why are people using it as fact as if it somehow justifies Russia’s actions. (See the post I replied). It’d be like if Europe bombed the UK after Brexit and people were like ‘oh but there’s actually two sides to this…’

Ukriane should be free to join whatever it wants, BRIC, NATO, Russia or just do it’s own thing without the threat of a bloody invasion.
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Absolutely bang on. Well said.
 
TMDaines said:
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It's hard to say how much of this is them trying to distance themselves from that decision retroactively but it's a good sign anyway. Deripaska, Fridman speaking out, Abramovich forwarding Chelsea money to a fund to support Ukraine...

It's been my daily 3 minutes of optimism, I'll go to hopeless desperation & existential dread now.
 
VorZakone said:
I'm really curious how the Russian population responds to all this increasing isolation.
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I think they will think that the West hates Russia and basically trying to start a war against them. YOu have to remember that the propaganda that's being fed to them -- denazification (a morally correct thing to do considering what the Nazi Germans did during the war) --- and then to protect the ''Russians'' living in the Eastern parts of Ukraine from the genocide being initiated by the Nazi Ukrainians.

This military incursion is the right thing to do and yet the West is generating some propaganda that Ukrainians are being killed when really its the Russians that are being killed.
 
I'm sorry but I can't stop laughing at the word "Blyatzkrieg". Saw it on Reddit.
 
TMDaines said:
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I'm not quite grasping who these "in the presidential administration" people are supposed to be. Certainly not those who handle military, security and intelligence affairs, because you can't plan and start a war without those people. So who is left out? People who handle economics and internal political affairs? Great, but its the military and security staff that I want to hear disapproval from.
 
TMDaines said:
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Whatever else happens in the coming days and weeks (and I fear it will be bloody and brutal), the image of Putin as a moustache-twirling evil genius has been absolutely shattered. Blundering and poorly-advised buffoon, is more apt.

He is undoubtedly an idiot. A dangerous idiot, but an idiot nonetheless.
 
MTF said:
I'm not quite grasping who these "in the presidential administration" people are supposed to be. Certainly not those who handle military, security and intelligence affairs, because you can't plan and start a war without those people. So who is left out? People who handle economics and internal political affairs? Great, but its the military and security staff that I want to hear disapproval from.
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The thing is that they apparently really did not plan a war, but just a quick military raid. Their logistics and tactics absolutely didn't look like they were prepared for war at first, they are just now slowly catching up to the fact that they actually have to fight a war instead of just driving quickly into Kyiv and replacing the president.
 
Starting to feel as if we are on a cusp of a big refugee/fleeing crisis from Russia too, with foreign students and workers now really considering their future there:



harms said:
It's hard to say how much of this is them trying to distance themselves from that decision retroactively but it's a good sign anyway. Deripaska, Fridman speaking out, Abramovich forwarding Chelsea money to a fund to support Ukraine...

It's been my daily 3 minutes of optimism, I'll go to hopeless desperation & existential dread now.
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Me too, buddy. Keep up the good fight.
 
MTF said:
I'm not quite grasping who these "in the presidential administration" people are supposed to be. Certainly not those who handle military, security and intelligence affairs, because you can't plan and start a war without those people. So who is left out? People who handle economics and internal political affairs? Great, but its the military and security staff that I want to hear disapproval from.
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No, there's literally presidential administration — Anton Vaino, Sergey Kiriyenko etc. Aside from Kiriyenko, technically Vaino's deputy, they aren't that well-known publicly but it's a very important institution in Russian power hierarchy. Although while they were arguably the most important political institution at some point, they've been losing their influence over the past few years with Putin preferring FSB & other law enforcement agencies.
 
stefan92 said:
The thing is that they apparently really did not plan a war, but just a quick military raid. Their logistics and tactics absolutely didn't look like they were prepared for war at first, they are just now slowly catching up to the fact that they actually have to fight a war instead of just driving quickly into Kyiv and replacing the president.
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Rob Lee mentioned this on Twitter. It's like there was a bizarre disconnect between leadership and lower ranks. And part of the reason why the soldiers didn't care about preventing from being filmed pre-invasion. No operational security measures basically.

I think a lot of bizarre facts will come out.
 
MTF said:
I'm not quite grasping who these "in the presidential administration" people are supposed to be. Certainly not those who handle military, security and intelligence affairs, because you can't plan and start a war without those people. So who is left out? People who handle economics and internal political affairs? Great, but its the military and security staff that I want to hear disapproval from.
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A lot of these reports remind me of transfer gossip. A lot of completely unverifiable reports that tell people what they want to hear or that paint random stuff as if it's huge news. Media grabbing clicks.
 
VorZakone said:
Rob Lee mentioned this on Twitter. It's like there was a bizarre disconnect between leadership and lower ranks. And part of the reason why the soldiers didn't care about preventing from being filmed pre-invasion. No operational security measures basically.

I think a lot of bizarre facts will come out.
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I think it was more a huge intelligence failure. If those reports can be believed leadership and lower ranks were absolutely in sync thinking that they would not really have to fight, but this was just wrong.

But I agree with your final statement, this whole operation looks like there might be a lot of bizarre details.
 
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