I agree with you. I find it interesting just how predictable this apparently all was. I also agree with the poster above saying we shouldn't have to molly coddle Russia. I also believe that Russia is a mafia state controlled by a very few and that a huge proportion of the population there really have nothing to live for. I found it interesting that this was predicted and that there is apparently a substantial body of opinion out there that this is purely of the west's (read USs) making.
Russian invasion of Ukraine | Fewer tweets, more discussion
- Thread starter Wednesday at Stoke
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Maybe I don't follow it as closely as some others but I've not seen any media trying to make out as if the Ukranians are not taking losses in their advances over the last 2-3 months. They will obviously be taking huge losses every time they drive the Russians back from an area.
Regardless of the ukr losses they are getting their arse kicked. Have you seen how much territory and equipment they have lost already?
Putin is not starting nuclear war over Ukraine.
Putin is not "backed into a corner" or anything of the sort. He completely safe in any one of his many ivory towers. His control over security services and the Russian people is evidently tighter today than it ever has been. There is nothing to suggest otherwise than some very speculative clickbait articles. Putin is still, mostly likely, the wealthiest man alive.
If he uses a nuke, "tactical" or otherwise, Russian forces in Ukraine get wiped out within a week. All international support and neutrality from India/China etc would cease, this is a red line for all countries. He would go from being safe as houses to becoming a target of assassination from both internal and external forces. Russia is not under threat from NATO or anyone else, never has been, never will be.
Putin knows all of this.
When Russian boots leave Crimea, he can tell the Russian people whatever the feck he wants and they will lap it up, they have no choice, they may even believe it after a few weeks of brainwashing. He will likely just blame NATO for everything, probably keep the country in a state of war, instil a siege mentality and continue lobbing missiles across the border as long as he has them.
The only thing that seriously worries me is how susceptible we all are to Russian propaganda, psyops, whatever you want to call it. The biggest threat to the world and Putin's most effective weapon is Russian propaganda and their control over the world's media and politics, not nuclear weapons. He also knows this.
Putin is not "backed into a corner" or anything of the sort. He completely safe in any one of his many ivory towers. His control over security services and the Russian people is evidently tighter today than it ever has been. There is nothing to suggest otherwise than some very speculative clickbait articles. Putin is still, mostly likely, the wealthiest man alive.
If he uses a nuke, "tactical" or otherwise, Russian forces in Ukraine get wiped out within a week. All international support and neutrality from India/China etc would cease, this is a red line for all countries. He would go from being safe as houses to becoming a target of assassination from both internal and external forces. Russia is not under threat from NATO or anyone else, never has been, never will be.
Putin knows all of this.
When Russian boots leave Crimea, he can tell the Russian people whatever the feck he wants and they will lap it up, they have no choice, they may even believe it after a few weeks of brainwashing. He will likely just blame NATO for everything, probably keep the country in a state of war, instil a siege mentality and continue lobbing missiles across the border as long as he has them.
The only thing that seriously worries me is how susceptible we all are to Russian propaganda, psyops, whatever you want to call it. The biggest threat to the world and Putin's most effective weapon is Russian propaganda and their control over the world's media and politics, not nuclear weapons. He also knows this.
Well said. And If Baltics had not been allowed to join NATO, at the very least they would have had separatist "republics" (with the "help" of Russian Military) in eastern Latvia and Estionia (and both states resembling Moldova at best, a lot more poor and dysfunctional), and these people would be saying "we shouldn't have allowed Poland and Finalnd to join EU/NATO, they should be neutral, they were part of Russian empire etc etc". If Poland and Finland hadn't been allowed to join western institutions - would just have had a repeat of their past conflicts with Russia - and these people would be saying "shouldn't have allowed Germany to unite and join west it should be neutral bla bla bla".
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A neutral Ukraine is out of the table. First of all there's no one in the world (Ukrainians or non) who believes that Russia would hold its end of the bargain especially with Putin around. Such deal would be rejected from the Ukrainian side and no one would invest money in Ukraine as they know that the Russian fascists will probably return in few years time to finish the job.
The nuclear boogey man isn't feasible either. If that had to happen then Russia would lose every ounce of support and cooperation by anyone. The country would find itself more isolated then North Korea is, secondary sanctions would be imposed which means that China, India and co will cut ties with Russia. NATO would probably go to war and while it probably won't invade Russia it would most certainly make a clear out of any Russian soldiers in Ukraine. That mean thousands of Russian soldiers would return home in body bags. There's no way Putin would survive this. Russia will make Putin the culprit of this mess and we all know how they tend to treat fallen Tsars.
The solution must be political. Russia would probably keep Crimea with total cooperation from Ukraine on the matter but it would relinquish the rest of Ukraine and it would promise never to mess in Ukraine's politics ever again. The Russian dwarf will sell Crimea, the 'de nazification' of Ukraine + the reduction of sanctions as a win while Ukraine will join NATO and probably the EU as well.
Instead of asking the white, wealthy, comfortable Americans for whom this essentially plays out as a war game exercise, ask the citizens of the newer countries whether being part of NATO has been beneficial for them.
The casual racism and the devaluing of the people of the countries of Eastern Europe outside of Russia is appalling. Are they all supposed to be subject to the tyranny of Russia forever?
Ukraine isn't more pro-Russian than Baltic states anymore, at least since 2014. And since the start of the war it is arguably less pro-russian.
The prevalence of pro-Russian views in Ukraine has often been exaggerated, often with implication that "pro-Russian" means in favor of joining Russia or that ethnical Russians are mostly in favor of joining Russia.
In fact, for decades the majority of Ukraininans were in favor of joining EU. Even the "pro-Russian" politicals like Yanukovich run on platform of more closely aligning with EU, since they knew they would not have a chance otherwise. After 2014 the majority also wanted to join NATO.
Of course, Crimea is different with mostly Russian population - but you also have such regions in the Baltics. In fact, after the annexation of Crimea and Donbass in 2014 - the rest of the country became pretty united in pro-EU and anti-Russan stance, with a minority advocating neutrality. And in 2022 the country became even more united. The evil irony is that Russia literally annihilated many of the remaining relatively pro-Russian cities like Mariupol with large parts of previously pro-Russian population dying, becoming pro-ukrainian or fleeing (with pro-Russian people rather fleeing to Russia and vice versa).
Putin is creating exactly the opposite of what he wanted - all of the territory that will remain under Ukraininan control after the war will be very pro-ukrainian, anti-Russian and there would not be any difference in that between the east and west any more. Pro-russian ukraininans will be as rare as pro-russian Poles.
Russia running out of money
All of these views have the underlying assumption that Russia is actually powerful and should command a sphere of influence in Eastern Europe. It's not.
Also, does anyone waste breath arguing that Saddam/Iraq didn't do enough to assuage US concerns about WMD programs in the run-up to the Iraq War?
I'm still amazed at seeing people fail to grasp the very basic concept of democratic republics having free will and the right of self determination as opposed to be vassals to the greater and/or nuclear powers. That's the main principle in line here.
For the rest, yes, people die at war and that's why we usually try to avoid it; yes, the Russian army is getting its ass kicked at the moment and that's not a propaganda tool (unless is covenient for Russia's state TV to openly admit losing territories, suffering huge blows and having to change command); and yes, propaganda and info wars are a major factor in today political's power struggle. And personally I think they're gonna be the biggest challenge of our generation, as the ones before had the World Wars and the Cold War to face.
Last but not least, there's little chance that Putin decides to use nukes. Mainly because it has nothing to gain from that. It doesn't put him in a stronger position.
For the rest, yes, people die at war and that's why we usually try to avoid it; yes, the Russian army is getting its ass kicked at the moment and that's not a propaganda tool (unless is covenient for Russia's state TV to openly admit losing territories, suffering huge blows and having to change command); and yes, propaganda and info wars are a major factor in today political's power struggle. And personally I think they're gonna be the biggest challenge of our generation, as the ones before had the World Wars and the Cold War to face.
Last but not least, there's little chance that Putin decides to use nukes. Mainly because it has nothing to gain from that. It doesn't put him in a stronger position.
Here's the text for those who prefer to read.
"You - the United States - take care of our security. You - China and Russia – provided the basis of our prosperity. This is a world that is no longer there."
https://www.eeas.europa.eu/eeas/eu-...g-speech-high-representative-josep-borrell_en
I absolutely adore those quotes from former Western strategists who somehow managed to delude themselves into thinking that Russia didn't do anything wrong before 1996 and only after that they started to turn into this weird hybrid of mafia state with a former empire. They even managed to delude themselves into thinking that this invasion happened because Ukraine was joining NATO without it.
At least 4 downed russian helicopters in 18 minutes today. Must be a record.
If this happens it can only mean Russia's economy is in serious trouble. The issue is it's impossible to believe anything coming out of Putin's mouth as he has lied so many times.
Would be interesting to know how they downed them, as Ukraine's air defence is evolving
It can happen when there’s poor communication with air forces having different front lines on their maps to what’s going on in reality, they might have entered into Ukrainian controlled areas without realizing and got wrecked (this is what actually happened when they downed several jets on the same day recently).
It's already Afganistan reanactment and despite its not a year old its way worse.
At least he can't be accused of being dogmatic or stubborn. His views have certainly shifted.
Sure, I was more interested in the actual systems used - MANPADS, systems like Tor or Osa, or maybe SPAAG like the Gepard? I'm curious how much these systems are currently used near the front.
At least he can't be accused of being dogmatic or stubborn. His views have certainly shifted.
Amazing what money, personal security, and dangling a couple of Italian villas can do to a man.
Might just be offering it to sew discord with no intention of following though. Would be a clever move I think, though maybe he should have waited a bit till it's colder and prices of energy are (presumably) higher.
Or just a daily supply of hookers & blow courtesy of Messr Putin.
At least he can't be accused of being dogmatic or stubborn. His views have certainly shifted.
There’s similar videos of Putin in the film Svideteli Putina (2018). It is terrifying how extreme people can become.
Putin: Ukraine does not exist as a country, it has a false history, it has been part of Russia and we are gonna enforce it become part of Russia again.
Dans from the Caf and a few US fossils (Kissinger, Chomsky et al): The West is to be blamed for the war cause they pushed Ukraine to join NATO (which actually never happened).
Mearshimer again...All those predictions before 2000 weren't about Ukraine, they were about other former Eastern Bloc countries that joined NATO in the late 1990s and Russia's reaction to it. Those predictions were undeniably wrong, but political realists apparently can't be wrong, so after 20 years they recontextualised those texts and now they pretend that they were about Ukraine all along. If those countries actually took the advice from "leading geopolitical scholar" or "America's greatest ever foreign policy strategist" in their infinite wisdom, they would be in the same boat as Georgia, Belarus, Ukraine or Moldova are today. But in their stupidity they assumed that Russia was only temporarily dealing with internal problems and warzones they created by that point were a hint of what was coming to them and pressed to join NATO anyway.
The articles and speeches from 2014 onwards were after Russia already invaded Crimea and it was already apparent that the West wasn't going to do anything meaningful to stop it.
Unrelated, but calling a guy who ate up the dumbest Russian propaganda and claimed that shooting down MH17 was done by Ukrainians as "famed scholar of Russian studies" is really funny.
Also theres a bit about the West backing neonazis in the land where nazis supported hitler in ww2...
And Vučić saying Hungary was pushed to invade Serbia in 1999.
Those 2 caught my eye the most.
Another Sims moment for the spymasters at FSB
Nina Khrushcheva describing the atmosphere in Russia as Orwellian.
This is a very blunt, but also important speech. Us people in the EU can no longer hide in this world and just enjoy our cake. We will have to sacrifice parts of the lifestyle we have enjoyed for so many years, to avoid being held hostage by the superpowers of this world.
If we can do this without the EU crumbling from within im not sure though, hopefully...
There is a video that shows the trucks arriving. It can only be seen shortly as it drives behind the red one, but the truck in the background looks like it could fit the X-Ray. It's just that they don't have another camera angle to properly show it
I'm guessing with manpads of sort.
One definitely can't believe anything Putin says, although it would make sense that they are running out of money and resources due to sanctions and expenditure on the war.
Far worse indeed. They only lost about 15k troops in a decade in Afghanistan and are currently moving towards 100k lost in 8 months.
Or trying to feed the discord? I was reading an article yesterday that there's a significant part of the population in eastern Germany (poorer already and hit hardest by the current situation - I know you know, but not everyone might) that wants the German government to stop sending weapons Ukraine and restore its relations with Russia, in order to be able to receive gas again. When winter really starts, these movements may get larger and more serious all over Europe - and they will feel strenghtened by believing that Russia would be ready to restore gas delivery if only the European countries lifted the sanctions (and repaired the Nordstream pipes, I guess).