Russian invasion of Ukraine | Fewer tweets, more discussion

[RoadTrip]

Even in Russia there must be a way to prevent him from just doing it though.

I would hope so. But, Russia is a complex political environment. Putin has literally for years developed an inner circle which is fiercely loyal and perhaps with a very similar mindset and outlook on the world. Unfortunately it’s not like the US, for example, which can withstand 4 years of a lunatic. Although see how much damage he did in 4 years. Putin has had decades to corrupt anyone in any position of power. That’s what causes me fear because he just has no checks and balances to what he does because anyone in any position to do so is already his lackey.

 

[Oly Francis]

He is losing the war. Everything shows that he's miscalculated this or was misled by intelligence telling him what he wanted to hear.

Hopefully, the CIA has got some backchannel thing going on to ensure a bloodless Palace coup would happen and prevent him from going nuclear.

He's not loosing the war, he's loosing this battle. It seems he thought it would be far easier to take Kyiv so he sent his cheapest army. Now that it's not working, the only question is, what will he do? I don't see Putin considering for one second the idea of retreating defeated, so it's pretty likely it will escalate. For how long, how, I have no idea, but unless there's a coup in the making (we have no tangible evidence that it'll happen), it's likely it'll get dirtier. Less targeted attacks, more missiles/bombs, better/deadlier troops, more propaganda about Ukraine fighting dirty to justify civilian casualties etc.

 

[Foxbatt]

RT still have a few people ready to parrot their message it seems.

What is the difference? It's not as if the USA has not invaded any country? A lot more than anyone else.

 

[Mike Smalling]

TB2 time?

 

[Redlyn]

Did I miss the US moving nukes to Ukraine?

Not yet since they are not a NATO member, the very thing Putin is trying to prevent. They have nuclear weapons in some other NATO states.

 

[Raoul]

Why should you? When the Indo Pakistan war was on and the Americans wanted to censure India, it was the Soviets who stopped it. When the 7th fleet was on the coast of Bengal it was the Soviet nuclear submarines who put a block to it.
If India didn't, then you should be ashamed of yourself.

So you think India should be promoting the subjugation of Ukrainians to Vladimir Putin? Interesting.

 

[marktan]

I know it seems laughable to some, but this is genuinely one of my major concerns. Not necessarily resulting in nuclear obliteration of the world, but this attitude in general resulting in escalation upon escalation. In other words, the hit to ego of defeat is more painful to bear for someone like Putin than the cost to humanity of doing something drastic.

I mean wasn't world war one just a series of smaller events that led to a huge war that no one saw coming? Alliances and escalations led to a full blown war.

Add in Putin who's had 20 years of getting what he wants with no rebuke, with no domestic pressure and surrounded by yes men and you have the tinderbox.

 

[Frosty]

Okay I'm living in a parallel world where I find myself agreeing with Marco Rubio.

 

[altodevil]

Hectic needs to make a "how would you cope in a post-nuclear warfare world" thread

 

[adexkola]

Weren't Yugoslavia removed from Euro 92 during their war, through which Denmark qualified and won?

Following a UN sanction. (If only Russia and China weren't on the SC)

Also, Yugoslavia as a country didn't exist by that point (not as the world knew it 5-10 years prior).

 

[Redlyn]

With all the countries around the world which are condemning Russia, will China be seeing the potential and drop Vlad as they won't want to be associated?

Nah China is loving this leverage. Russia will have to be attached like a umbilical cord to China. They are literally on their knees with China if everyone else cuts them off.

 

[sglowrider]

Seems the Russians have been simply sending their forces into Ukraine to die or get captured with no evidence of any ability to feed or house them once in country. If a Russian armor vehicle were to leave Belarus or Russia to attack Ukraine, there's no where for them to stop, refuel, fix broken things, facilities to sleep, shower, be fed etc. A total disaster in planning by the Russian military so far.

Isnt that the basic Soviet philosophy? Designed for very short battle exposure?

Like their aircrafts for example are designed for like 4 hrs of battle because of the Soviet philosophy of swarming the NATO front lines in overwhelming numbers? Rather than a more precision approach. They don't expect their pilots or aircrafts to survive long.

As a result the Soviet hardware design philosophy is always cheap and in mass. So less thought is put into even the maintenance engine and parts. So they rather just replace entire engines instead of repair in a lot of cases.

 

[RoadTrip]

He is losing the war. Everything shows that he's miscalculated this or was misled by intelligence telling him what he wanted to hear.

Hopefully, the CIA has got some backchannel thing going on to ensure a bloodless Palace coup would happen and prevent him from going nuclear.

It’s what, day 4? He obviously hasn’t just sent his entire military to Kyiv. As much as I wouldn’t want it to be true it just sadly isn’t. He might have miscalculated how much it would take, but it’s bonkers to think it means his underlying objective will have changed. He just has to throw more at it, sadly.

 

[JamesB__]

Countries should be limited to 500 nukes. USA and Russia having 6000+ goes beyond it being a deterrent.

The good that wasted money could do to their countries pisses me off.

 

[Frosty]

BBC:

Ukraine's military has just given an update on Sunday's fighting.

Writing on Facebook, the general staff of Ukraine's armed forces described Sunday as "a difficult time" for the military, saying Russian troops "continue shelling in almost all directions".

Latest reports suggest Russian troops have taken Berdyansk, a southern port, but earlier Ukraine said it had fought back an attack on the country's second biggest city, Kharkiv.

 

[RoadTrip]

I mean wasn't world war one just a series of smaller events that led to a huge war that no one saw coming? Alliances and escalations led to a full blown war.

Add in Putin who's had 20 years of getting what he wants with no rebuke, with no domestic pressure and surrounded by yes men and you have the tinderbox.

Precisely. But, it’s also a straw man to just compare to WW1 and WW2. Things are obviously hugely different now, not least because attacking the economy is not only easier but also more effective. Notwithstanding that though, at the heart of the issue, what you’re saying is absolutely correct.

 

[UnofficialDevil]

Russians destroyed the legendary Antonov An-225, apparently. Blew it up.

 

[Foxbatt]

That's rather condescending of you, implying to an Indian that he should let something that happened half a century ago define his foreign policy views today.

Why? You don't know what my connections to India are.

 

[nimic]

Isnt that the basic Soviet philosophy? Designed for very short battle exposure?

Like their aircrafts for example are designed for like 4 hrs of battle because of the Soviet philosophy of swarming the NATO front lines in overwhelming numbers? Rather than a more precision approach. They don't expect their pilots or aircrafts to survive long.

As a result the Soviet hardware design philosophy is always cheap and in mass. So less thought is put into even the maintenance engine and parts. So they rather just replace entire engines instead of repair in a lot of cases.

I don't think that's a very accurate assessment.

 

[Sarni]

There must be additional authorization needed for a first strike to be ordered if we're talking about the nuclear option here. I'd understand a quick response time is needed to retaliate but surely Putin doesn't have the power to simply press the button whenever he feels like it?

I don’t think we know how that works in Russia but for US to launch them president’s order is enough.

 

[nimic]

Why? You don't know what my connections to India are.

Okay, what are your connections to India?

 

[RoadTrip]

Countries should be limited to 500 nukes. USA and Russia having 6000+ goes beyond it being a deterrent.

The good that wasted money could do to their countries pisses me off.

Absolutely not saying that reducing nuke numbers is not for the positive, but how many? 500 you say. Why not 100? Or 1000? It’s a fantasy world where having a nuclear cap would work. By definition, the point of having nukes in the first place is what would cause such a measure to fail.

 

[sglowrider]

That's why the US tomahawked Iraq into stone age before sending mass of troops on the ground. I'll never forget those images, it was mesmerizing and frightening at the same time.

It's amazing to think that in WW2 they would have required like 200 aircrafts just to hit one target with the loss of 20-40% of those aircrafts -- never mind the inaccuracies of the bombing and the collateral damages.

 

[Tarrou]

If Putin was left with two choices, either concede victory to Ukraine or nuclear armageddon, which would he choose? I tell you know, he'd go with the latter.

I'd say there is maybe a 1% chance, but even that is terrifying enough

he controls most of the Russian media, and historically if things have gone bad he just spins it in his favour and carries on as normal..

probably take a small piece of Ukraine and claim victory and that was the plan all along

 

[FootyGirl88]

 

[sun_tzu]

As others have said, the best solution now would be for the Russians to step up and remove him.

It's the only real solution as I can't imagine the cluster fek of a mess if Russia was to fragment and loose central control .... all the separate regions... thousands of nukes.... loads of nuclear power stations.... would be such a mess

 

[Foxbatt]

It's obvious that it's horrendous that Russia has invaded Ukraine. They should get out now. It's a crime.
But where was this condemnation when Iraq was invaded and bombed to stone age?

 

[RoadTrip]

I don’t think we know how that works in Russia but for US to launch them president’s order is enough.

As others have mentioned whilst this might be principally true, the reality of it is it would require a number of people to effect this before it went through. It isn’t simply a man with a key card and a button. In the case of Russia, it might require the same number of people in the chain, but the difference is it’s also very likely that over the last few decades Putin might have already got yes men in all those positions, which is possible but highly improbable in the US.

 

[Simbo]

Is anyone else concerned about how much of what we've been hearing so far is contradicted by the Klitschko statement saying that they're surrounded?

Are we being fed information far more optimistic than the reality of the situation?

Yep absolutely. Would love it not to be so but we're also susceptible to state disinformation here. Not to anything like the same extent but I always take reporting with a pinch of salt.

He actually went back on his "surrounded" comment.

They are not far off that point anyway so its splitting hairs.

You can believe the situation reports however, there is real time satalite imagary backing up the state of things along with the army of analysts on twitter trying to veryify stuff. Also note that things do change by the hour.

 

[Frosty]

It's obvious that it's horrendous that Russia has invaded Ukraine. They should get out now. It's a crime.
But where was this condemnation when Iraq was invaded and bombed to stone age?

The condemnation was everywhere. Opposition denied the US a second resolution, and millions protested and marched throughout the world, including in the US and the UK. Turkey closed its borders to US troops too.

 

[RoadTrip]

It's obvious that it's horrendous that Russia has invaded Ukraine. They should get out now. It's a crime.
But where was this condemnation when Iraq was invaded and bombed to stone age?

This just isn’t the thread for this, but if you can’t appreciate the differences between the two (and I’m not saying I agree with Iraq by the way), then it’d be a pointless debate with you in ANY thread. Oh and by the way, there was plenty of condemnation for Iraq - before, during and after.

 

[SalfordRed18]

It's obvious that it's horrendous that Russia has invaded Ukraine. They should get out now. It's a crime.
But where was this condemnation when Iraq was invaded and bombed to stone age?

Are the two situations exactly the same?

 

[Foxbatt]

I don’t think we know how that works in Russia but for US to launch them president’s order is enough.

I don't think so. It has to be ratified and confirmed by two more others. The current Chairman of JCs made sure that the uniformed officer who has to confirm it didn't do it without referring to him.

 

[spiriticon]

It's obvious that it's horrendous that Russia has invaded Ukraine. They should get out now. It's a crime.
But where was this condemnation when Iraq was invaded and bombed to stone age?

Not sure about George Bush but I'm pretty sure some are still trying to convict Tony Blair for war crimes

 

[calodo2003]

I don't think that's a very accurate assessment.

Soviet doctrine was based on numerical hardware advantages, not technology.

 

[Simbo]

When they say "new" they mean about 8 hours old, Kyiv in for another hard night for sure but I expect measures have been taken to deal with this.

 

[Rightnr]

It's obvious that it's horrendous that Russia has invaded Ukraine. They should get out now. It's a crime.
But where was this condemnation when Iraq was invaded and bombed to stone age?

Is Iraq being invaded right now?

 

[Sarni]

As others have mentioned whilst this might be principally true, the reality of it is it would require a number of people to effect this before it went through. It isn’t simply a man with a key card and a button. In the case of Russia, it might require the same number of people in the chain, but the difference is it’s also very likely that over the last few decades Putin might have already got yes men in all those positions, which is possible but highly improbable in the US.

Yeah and I’m frankly not that certain anymore that they wouldn’t resort to that. We are all projecting how there must be someone within his circle who would stop this but chances are there isn’t.

 

[calodo2003]

I don’t think we know how that works in Russia but for US to launch them president’s order is enough.

Goes through more hoops than that.

 

[RoadTrip]

I'd say there is maybe a 1% chance, but even that is terrifying enough

he controls most of the Russian media, and historically if things have gone bad he just spins it in his favour and carries on as normal..

probably take a small piece of Ukraine and claim victory and that was the plan all along

It’s painful to say but i really do think the odds are way above 1%.