Pretty good speech by Biden just ended
Russian invasion of Ukraine | Fewer tweets, more discussion
- Thread starter Wednesday at Stoke
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Russia is going to lose its mind over this, but they previously claimed that Biden stole the election so they really don't have any room to get mad.
That being said, it doesn't really help things.
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As I thought, Putin has moved beyond the pale for NATO and the West. I don't think sanctions will be lifted for as long as he remains in power, be it weeks, months or years.
“We only want to keep people in Donbas safe…”
[bombs civilians in a city 900+ miles away]
I don't think they will be lifted either since the purpose of using sanctions has changed. Pre-invasion, they were used as a carrot and stick approach to modulating Putin's behavior. Post-invasion, they are being used to destabilize and destroy Putin's power until he is removed. Therefore, Putin attempting to withdraw from Ukraine wouldn't alleviate the sanctions.
What if Putin said he would take his troops out of Ukraine only if the sanctions were lifted. Do you think the West would agree to this?
If that includes Crimea then sure.
And they tidy up all their mess. Gonna need a lot of dustpans and brushes.
Similarly, how much would you need to be paid to go onto the TV and sell all your credibility to push this disinfo? It’s genuinely beyond the pale.
Understandable from the Ukranian POV. It's just empty tough talk from Biden aimed at a domestic audience who fall for such things.
No change of policy to be seen.
This is so not convincing.
Given what they were working with, this is probably the best denial they could come up with.
I read somewhere the western response could be against russian affiliated assets in other countries so it wasn't a direct NATO - Russia thing. Eg Wagner group getting wiped out by a cruise missile or two.
It likely wouldn’t work since he has proven consistently that his word means nothing. It also wouldn’t address the need to penalize him for all the death and destruction he has caused.
If he pulls out, it would be as an act of desperation and self-preservation, not because he thinks it would get the sanctions lifted.
Looks like we are now entering the next level of conflicts: https://www.reuters.com/world/russi...eacekeepers-zone-nagorno-karabakh-2022-03-26/
In short, the war between Armenia and Azerbaijan over Nagorno-Karabakh in 2020 ended with a big win for Azerbaijan who took two thirds of the region, but was forced to stop there as Russian peacekeepers (yes, really) entered and made sure they won't take the rest of it. You know what the Turkish made Bayraktar drones are doing to the Russians in Ukraine? It's exactly that system that gave Azerbaijan a huge advantage.
Now it appears like these peacekeepers are needed in Ukraine, so Azerbaijan seems to be testing if they can safely take the rest of Nagorno-Karabakh
In short, the war between Armenia and Azerbaijan over Nagorno-Karabakh in 2020 ended with a big win for Azerbaijan who took two thirds of the region, but was forced to stop there as Russian peacekeepers (yes, really) entered and made sure they won't take the rest of it. You know what the Turkish made Bayraktar drones are doing to the Russians in Ukraine? It's exactly that system that gave Azerbaijan a huge advantage.
Now it appears like these peacekeepers are needed in Ukraine, so Azerbaijan seems to be testing if they can safely take the rest of Nagorno-Karabakh
Well, feck them. Peskov better try to tell the people of Mariupol how Biden's speech is more inflammatory than what is happening on the ground over there; it's not gonna go down well. Those idiots living in their Kremlin ivory tower all deserve to be called out.
Meanwhile, womp womp womp.
Tom Nichols is on the opposite side of the Ukrainians mentioned as he wants to avoid any confrontation with Russia due to the potential strategic nuclear exchange that likely can occur.
This is what I've been wondering. The West has supplied a load of weapons but mostly hand weapons and drones. Which is good but where's the really good sht at? Ok they cant set up a no fly zone but what about more anti missile systems. Tanks. Planes. Long range missiles etc. If we really want Ukraine to flatten the Russian army they need to more no? Think what damage they could do with a load of long range missiles that can take out the ships for instance or they could have taken out that convoy that was moving along at a mile an hour for like 3 weeks.
They are not trained to use any of those systems and it would take months to years to do so. Hard to do in an active conflict.
Anti-aircraft missile systems have also been supplied - e.g. the UK's Starstreak system, which is the world's fastest short-range surface-to-air missile.
But we need to remember that there's no point in supplying weapons that the Ukrainians haven't been trained to use, or can't be easily learnt how to use. Also, it's more difficult to transport into Ukraine big and bulky items that can't be hidden in a car boot or inside a civilian van. Anything transporting a tank, for example, could much easily be identified from the air and attacked.
They can contract people to do it…
Mercenaries?
Absolutely fecking surreal to see BBC News leading with reports of missile strikes on my wife’s hometown. I couldn’t get my head around it being the centre of the media world for the last few weeks even. It’s like when a film such as Children of Men has the mock-up BBC reports. Just feels like fiction.
Watching these things just fly in (all the way from the Black Sea!) is mental. They look so harmless and easy to intercept.
Watching these things just fly in (all the way from the Black Sea!) is mental. They look so harmless and easy to intercept.
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Is this true though? Obviously volunteers from the bakery wont have any idea but they have a trained military that I presume know how to fire missiles. Yeah might take them a bit to figure out new systems but not months/years. Send them to Poland for a couple of weeks training.
With regards to getting the systems in. Yeah that seems difficult. But again. Is this impossible or just difficult? Our intelligence probably know exactly where the Russians are. Just need to figure it out.
I'm sure NATO knows at all times where all Russian aircraft are above Ukraine, but knowing where they are is not the same things as stopping them from firing missiles or dropping bombs. For the latter you'd need NATO directly engaging in combat with Russian pilots - and that's been wisely ruled out.
I'm pretty sure that NATO countries - bar Hungary - are not withholding from Ukraine any weapons or weapons systems that Ukraine could, on a practical basis, make use of and that can be sent into Ukraine with a low chance of being destroyed before they get to where they're going to.
Apparently this kid is saying he’s Ukrainian and has seemingly been forced to fight for the Russians. feck’s sake
Aside from the logistics of getting them there, it also must be considered that NATO doesn’t want to chance the Russians getting their hands on any of our tanks or learn any lessons about defeating them in direct combat.
What change of policy do you want?
Using these weapons is easy, a child could do it. Maintaining them long term, however, they would need training. SAMs and any kind of RPGs or wire-guided missile is literally point and shoot. We should be sending them the “disposable” type of weaponry for this reason. Javelins, any Close Combat Missile System – (CCMS) TOW (Tube-Launched, Optically Tracked, Wireless-Guided and Tube-Launched, Optically Tracked, Wire-Guided) Missile is a bit more complicated but not much. That’s probably why the Polish MiGs were turned down too: who’s going to maintain them?
To be fair, the question he was responding to was asking about, among other things, tanks and planes.
But yes, absolutely right about maintenance knowledge being key to operating highly sophisticated weapons like mobile missile launchers, tanks, and planes, and that knowledge takes time to gain. Ukraine already has MiGs in their Air Force, so they’d likely be okay with those, but non-Soviet Bloc equipment they’d likely have a steep learning curve to overcome.