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Russian invasion of Ukraine | Fewer tweets, more discussion
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In the latest episode of the United Hour Podcast, Nik (@Rood) is joined by CEO Duncan Drasdo and Financial Director Andy Green from the Manchester United Supporters Trust for a special episode on all things behind the scenes at Old Trafford including a brief history of MUST and their aims today, views on INEOS and Sir Jim Ratcliffe so far, and the Old Trafford regeneration.
I guess "Serbia" your location isn't a real country and is part of Yugoslavia right?
If they were before they certainly aren't now.
I think that's the crux of it, there is no "compromise" that Putin would have been happy with. To him Ukraine is Russian and must do as he says, history, diplomacy and ethics be damned.
And as for nuclear war, talking about shelters is good, worrying about it is not. Prepare for the worst and hope for the best. It's still an unlikely outcome from all this.
I think it was Estonian PM Kaja Kallas who I saw speaking on Soviet negotiation tactics, still in use in Russia. She said their tactic is to make maximalist demands and refuse to negotiate. They believe the West is weak and will give something for nothing in order to prevent conflict at the end.
I see the end game here as Ukraine taking everything back with russia still having the official position that the four regions are still theres.
Really unlikely Russia uses nuclear weapons even when they lose crimea.
Of course Ukraine could stop at Crimea if pressured by the west however I think the west want them to take Crimea as-well because Zelensky’s rhetoric on Crimea has changed massively since the start of the war when he wanted Russian troops to withdraw to pre February boundaries.
It’s all or nothing here.
Really unlikely Russia uses nuclear weapons even when they lose crimea.
Of course Ukraine could stop at Crimea if pressured by the west however I think the west want them to take Crimea as-well because Zelensky’s rhetoric on Crimea has changed massively since the start of the war when he wanted Russian troops to withdraw to pre February boundaries.
It’s all or nothing here.
That’s always been their tactic and the west has been weak until now, voters will go through hell this winter and usually politicians would appease voters however this has gone further than politics its now about freedom.
The west is now playing russia at their own game however for the first time Russia have no where to go, if Ukraine take back Crimea I think it could be spun very easily. “The Four regions are now apart of Russia, mission success, special operation over”.
"Elon Musk personally rejected a Ukrainian request to extend his satellite internet service to Crimea, the SpaceX CEO fearing that an effort to retake the peninsula from Russian forces could lead to a nuclear war, according to a report published Tuesday."
If governments stand strong he's gonna make sure Russia keeps Crimea. Fool.
https://www.businessinsider.com/elo...k-in-crimea-amid-nuclear-fears-report-2022-10
If governments stand strong he's gonna make sure Russia keeps Crimea. Fool.
https://www.businessinsider.com/elo...k-in-crimea-amid-nuclear-fears-report-2022-10
It is simple to deter Russia using nuclear weapons. NATO can declare that, if Russia uses it, USA will declare Putin, Medvedev & Co. as terrorists and will use all means to hunt and kill Putin and his gangs, like how Laden was treated.
Thugs never listen to reasoning, but they listen to forces, and they are scared of death.
Thugs never listen to reasoning, but they listen to forces, and they are scared of death.
Putin has said nothing to the world about a nuclear red line, Musk thinks he decided to announce it through Musk? Who's saying he didn't actually talk to Putin? Where did he get that idea from, then?
I'm not really sure what to think anymore. From one hand I'm reading and hearing Russians are running out of missiles and how its madness they're using it on civil infrastructure, on the other hand they have those in abundance and are using it to send Ukraine into dark.
Mobilisation wont work cause they wont be prepared or equipped but if they still have a lot of fire power to strike Ukraine it doesnt look good. On the other hand it seems Ukraine has enough weapons to defend against those and bring a lot of missiles down.
Also while it's good Ukraine is on the offensive can they keep it up numbers wise, cause they certainly have big losses too although nobody mentions it.
Had a wee talk with a friend in a whatsapp group, he was all about Musk's proposals being reasonable.
So they attack Ukraine and for the sake of peace they get all 4 regions as a reward..
Mobilisation wont work cause they wont be prepared or equipped but if they still have a lot of fire power to strike Ukraine it doesnt look good. On the other hand it seems Ukraine has enough weapons to defend against those and bring a lot of missiles down.
Also while it's good Ukraine is on the offensive can they keep it up numbers wise, cause they certainly have big losses too although nobody mentions it.
Had a wee talk with a friend in a whatsapp group, he was all about Musk's proposals being reasonable.
So they attack Ukraine and for the sake of peace they get all 4 regions as a reward..First of all, it is not clear at all that putin will use nuclear weapons.
Secondly you commit the common fallacy of talking about this as a conflict between Russia and the west. It's not. Fundamentally it is a conflict between Russia and Ukraine, with the latter fighting for their independence and freedom.. The west only enters the picture because Ukraine's fight is something worth supporting.
Talk about 'keeping Ukraine neutral' is not reality based. For one, the west does not have the power or authority to decide that. Secondly, Ukraine did and does not want that. They desire closer ties with western Europe, as did the Baltic countries. Thirdly, this would not have prevented Putin from invading in the first place.
The reactions of 'neutrality' you were hoping for has already happened in 2008 when Russia invaded Georgia. In fact, the Ukraine invasion followed the exact same template. The difference this time is the response from Western powers.
Putin cries about nato expansion is if it has been the design of nato to expand eastward. But the reality is that the neighbours of Russia have been extremely eager to join nato because they knew it was only a matter of time before Russia would attempt invasion otherwise. Poland and the baltics now enjoy security against this threat and Ukraine suffers from not having it.
Saying they won't support a new vote but should pretend to support Musk's proposal to sew division. Insightful watch.
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Well said.
Interesting:
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https://audiovisual.ec.europa.eu/en/video/I-230995
Joseph Borell's speech was rather open and damning to some EU leaders to assess their future.
Joseph Borell's speech was rather open and damning to some EU leaders to assess their future.
sigh
It's sad that they all seem to think taking Ukraine is about NATO. It's not and has never been. Some correctly mention that Russia originated from Kiyv and therefore it is clear that Ukraine has to be part of a "Greater Russia". The so called "strategic blunder" saved the Baltics and because war appeared to be inevitable there should have been a much more serious push for Ukraine and Georgia to join NATO.
I fundamentally disagree with all of these.
The premise from Kennan is that we must cuddle Russia like a child. Why should we favour Russias infantile wishes over Poland and the Baltics, who are now EU members and have benefited tremendously from the west receiving them welcomingly?
And ask those countries, they for sure would have said, then and now, that this was always going to happen. Because it has before. The neighbours have Russia have a far more intimate understanding of how Russian aggression works because they have been continously exposed to it for centuries now. They, like these quoted figures, warned of what was coming, but inevitably so, and without the callous cost considerations of Russian appeasement.
Kissinger, classically, talks about this whole thing as if only the great powers have agency and dismisses the will of the ukrainean people.
Mearsheimer makes the same fallacy. "the west is leading Ukraine down a path." sorry, but what utterly patronising bullshit. Colonialism in drag. I won't bother addressing the rest. All of it is imperialist apologism.
It is not the responsibility of the west to cuddle the pre-modern militant imperialism of an intransigent nation. And it is certainly not the responsibility of the west to sacrifice on that altar the wishes for freedom, democratic open societies and secure sovereignty of countries in the European sphere, simply because they have the misfortune of neighbouring Russia.
These analysts have already been proven wrong. It has proven to be a great decision from 'the west' to welcome Poland and the Baltics with open arms when they reached westward with alacrity. I dread to think of how central and Eastern Europe would look like today if we had just turned away and said 'they are Russia's sphere of influence.'
If there is something to be learned from 21st century geo politics, it is that the west ought to be vigilantly supportive of countries that desire democracy, open societies and sovereignty to do so. It should be clear by now that the non democratic greater powers will not find their path to our way of thinking through trade, prosperity and good will, as neo liberals believed. On the contrary, they will subvert democracy wherever convenient for them. The responsibility of the democratic block in the 21st century is to support democracy against such assaults.
Today that is Ukraine. In ten years, it will likely be Taiwan.
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Reading his tweets from recent days no mention of war in Ukraine and pretty onesided regarding American policies.
What evidence do we have, other than Putin’s words, that he would be happy to go into a nuclear war? I would say it is very, very far from ‘clear’.
Ukraine did not need to be neutral, they should just be free and allowed to make their own choices. Trying to deny them that right because Russia doesn’t like it is not a solution, you may as well hand them over to Russia is what you want is for them to not get close to the West.
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Interesting, yes, but outdate views of men that only think on a nation state/ geopolitical level. What about the agency and wishes of the people and voters of Lithuania, Poland and now Ukraine? Should they all be forever subject to the geopolitical whims and wishes of the toxic wife beater Russia?
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.
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.
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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.
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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.