Russian invasion of Ukraine | Fewer tweets, more discussion

Suedesi said:
I think one of the guests on HBO's Bill Maher mentioned Putin's ask was:
1) Ukraine to pledge not to join NATO
2) Crimea recognized as part of Russia
3) Recognition of the two separatist regions of Luhansk and Donbas (not sure if this meant separation from Ukraine or being republics within Federation of Ukraine)

Obv a negotiated solution >>> protracted war
Click to expand...

The Ukrainian government might agree to the 1st two items, provided they can still join the EU. And if they join the EU, then membership of NATO becomes less important because EU member states collectively have considerable defensive forces, some of which Ukraine could invite into their country.

They might also agree to item 3, provided it involves only the pre-invasion parts of Luhansk and Donbas.
 
moses said:
Can you not read? Matt is standing with them. So they'll be fine.
Click to expand...
As a woman bleeds out and her husband cries in anguish, Matt will be there to inhale deeply and say "You're crying now but you weren't crying when Mark Crossley saved the only penalty I ever missed. Just sayin..."
 
GlastonSpur said:
The Ukrainian government might agree to the 1st two items, provided they can still join the EU. And if they join the EU, then membership of NATO becomes less important because EU member states collectively have considerable defensive forces, some of which Ukraine could invite into their country.

They might also agree to item 3, provided it involves only the pre-invasion parts of Luhansk and Donbas.
Click to expand...
I think that's probably right, with pre-invasion territorial limits being key.
 
Wing Attack Plan R said:
I kinda like to see a poll here to gauge what everyone’s belief is regarding Putin’s real objectives: is he stopping with Ukraine? Are the Baltic nations next, followed by Poland and Slovakia? Will he continue creeping westward? I personally think that is Putin’s true goal: to retake everything formerly controlled by the Soviets.

So in other words, everything short of taking him out is merely appeasement. It pushes the decision onto someone else while allowing Putin to grow stronger. As much as we don’t like it, war is inevitable, and by that I mean WWIII.

Do we really want another Cold War with sporadic outbreaks of violently hot war? Democracy itself is at stake, and I think In this globalized economy we are able to see that dictatorships and totalitarianism just don’t mesh with a viable future. Putin is now a war criminal. There is no way back into the graces of the G8 or the security council with him in charge; he’s an international pariah. So it all ends for him with a rope. In the meantime, how many lives are we willing to sacrifice to continue living in our bubble?
Click to expand...

I don't think any NATO state is seriously under threat of Russian invasion. If it ever were then Russia has already abandoned that idea after seeing how their war against Ukraine is going. There is no way Russia can compete with Western armies - especially in an war of aggression - if not by using weapons that leave nothing to conquer. Against the NATO, the only thing in their arsenal is basically nuclear jihad.

I think your take on democracy being at stake is an interesting topic. I used to think that democracy as a form of government - altthough it is easily the most ethical one - has severe weaknesses compared to dictatorships if you are looking at it neutrally. Basically because dictators can make decisions much more quickly and see them through with much more consequence without having to deal with the opinion of majorites which can be manipulated quite easily. We see that in a lot of things: How China is aggressively expanding economically, how recklessly they can reform certain things (basically force ecological changes on their own population) and so fort

But this war has made me overthink this take. What we're witnessing is a dictator who is making terrible, terrible decisions based on miscalculations that can be attributed to wrong information. And the root of all that is the system of government. People are afraid to tell him the pleasant truth, instead they prefer agreeing with him because it means they aren't in danger. If you suppress opinions, the outcome can never be as good. No human can work properly in isolation, we aren't that objective and need others to discuss matters with. And I'm now convinced that even powers like China will face these difficulties. There's no progress without free minds, there are no good decisions by people who are surrounded by bootlickers.
 
Nuclear Jihad sounds horrific.

I was reading about the Tsar bomba test in 1960. It could cause 3rd degree burns 68 miles away from the blast zone, I mean wtf.

Houses hundreds of kilometres away were destroyed, doesn’t bare thinking about!
 
Raoul said:
Putin doesn't have the resources for a protracted war. He's already lobbying China for help only 3 weeks in.
Click to expand...

Russia is a small economy but it's asset rich - gas, oil, iron, manganese, chromium, nickel, platinum, titanium, copper, tin, lead, tungsten, gold. If he has to sell his soul to the Chinese in order to fund this, he will.
 
you wonder what Le Tiss’s agent is advising him when he comes out with all this crap.. or maybe he quit years ago as he’s a lost cause
 
dal said:
Nuclear Jihad sounds horrific.

I was reading about the Tsar bomba test in 1960. It could cause 3rd degree burns 68 miles away from the blast zone, I mean wtf.

Houses hundreds of kilometres away were destroyed, doesn’t bare thinking about!
Click to expand...
Yup. Nice thing though, there are no weapons like that anymore. China still keeps a few ones that have yield in megatons, while Russia and the US have the weapons mostly in hundreds-kiloton yield and are shunning the last ones in megaton yield.

Still pretty terrible weapons though.
 
Mr Pigeon said:
As a woman bleeds out and her husband cries in anguish, Matt will be there to inhale deeply and say "You're crying now but you weren't crying when Mark Crossley saved the only penalty I ever missed. Just sayin..."
Click to expand...
:lol:
 
This guy is a Scottish-Aussie doing a full critique of military hardware with a touch of humour. He made me :lol::lol::lol: hard while explaining perfectly why the T-90 is shite, and the video aged extremely well since September.



Russia can delete their own tank industry after watching this.
 
BeforeKeanetherewasRobson said:
Why listen to experts. Matt Le Tissier has cast his usual wisdom…

Click to expand...


I've noticed there is something highly in common with accounts that feature that pink flower emoji next to their name. Anti-vax, anti-'woke' people who spend all day talking about how they hate people 'virtue-signalling' for a cause and how they see something or are in on some secret the rest of society does not know. Ironically they are the sheep they accuse everyone else of. I've never seen the self-proclaimed independent thinkers not have the same opinion as each other.
 
Plus I would like to know who Le Tissier means when posting about "not sure why that's so offensive to so many people". Who was offended? Sounds like he is just making something up to update the desperation to appear persecuted.
 
berbatrick said:
Do you think 80s Afghanistan is a good model for any other country? Not just the utter devastation during the war itself, but what came after wasn't fun either.
Click to expand...
The point is I don’t see how anyone could settle to live in this Russia, or a puppet state, under Putin. It’s absolutely a cause worth fighting and dying for for the Ukrainians. We are far along now from what people died for during Euromaidan or during the recent Belarussian waves of protests.
 
Boycott said:
I've noticed there is something highly in common with accounts that feature that pink flower emoji next to their name. Anti-vax, anti-'woke' people who spend all day talking about how they hate people 'virtue-signalling' for a cause and how they see something or are in on some secret the rest of society does not know. Ironically they are the sheep they accuse everyone else of. I've never seen the self-proclaimed independent thinkers not have the same opinion as each other.
Click to expand...
One of the replies…

(I’m trying to separate ‘Matt Le Tissier, the one man goal of the season scorer’ and ‘Matt Le Tissier the idiot’).

 
Best thing for putin to do now would be try to end war on somewhat face saving terms (crimea as part of russia, recognized dnr and lnr, no nato as minimum), then step down and have a yes-man put in his place to rid of most sanctions, but proceed with personal agenda in background.
There's just no way he can go on after this, we're probably looking riots level of opposition in terms of going back to dealing with Russia with putin in charge and i don't think he was ever going to be satisified with just Ukraine.
 
ShoePolish said:
Best thing for putin to do now would be try to end war on somewhat face saving terms (crimea as part of russia, recognized dnr and lnr, no nato as minimum), then step down and have a yes-man put in his place to rid of most sanctions, but proceed with personal agenda in background.
There's just no way he can go on after this, we're probably looking riots level of opposition in terms of going back to dealing with Russia with putin in charge and i don't think he was ever going to be satisified with just Ukraine.
Click to expand...

It would be the best thing for him to do but there's no way he's going to do that. He's an idiot.
 
You must log in or register to reply here.