Russian invasion of Ukraine | Fewer tweets, more discussion

Don't know if it's been posted, but this is an interesting, sobering interview with Fiona Hill. You might remember her testimony in the Trump impeachment inquiry. She was the Senior Director for Europe and Russia of the National Security Council and who's made an entire career out of analysing and spying on Russians. She's definitely something of a hawk.

https://www.politico.com/news/magazine/2022/02/28/world-war-iii-already-there-00012340
 


This is no longer in the consideration phase - they have just publicly announced that they are suspending all container shipments to and from Russia. Couldn't find an updated news story in English though.

Not sure how big a share of Russia's import and export that is, but it must be a huge blow for their economy. Most likely other shipping companies will follow suit.

I don't think Putin has any idea what he has actually done. More and more sanctions from governments and companies will follow. The economy will be in ruins very shortly.
 
Either way it's a very grim reality. Sadly I think your scenario is pretty realistic currently. We may get to a point where splitting Ukraine into East and West may be the least terrible outcome, though still absolutely awful.

Going by what's happening so far Russians seem to have very little interest in Lviv etc.
Depends on which 'borders' Putin wants to redraw. It could be to reclaim the old Soviet states, its could be looking back to the early 1900's, or even further back to the 1700's. I do think there's going to be a massive issue if Finland is accepted into NATO. At worst he could be seeking a New World Order and global domination.

That Fiona Hill interview..
 
One thing is for sure though, unless Putin withdraws, sanctions should stay.

What about a partial withdrawal - say to the donbass region only.... or withdrawing to crimea

would that get a partial removal of sanctions?

Its a really difficult line to draw as no removal = no insentive

Any withdrawal is basically saying something along the lines of its kinda ok to take parts ok ukraine but not other parts

Perhaps recognition of Crimea will be enough for him - but perhaps thats still a red line for ukraine

Perhaps he wants everything east of the river? - which I would have thought is for sure too much for Ukraine to concede?

Sadly I think now the probability is that he simply pounds civilian populations with lots of conventional artillery looking to force Ukraine into a quick settlement and im not convinced that will be enough to bring nato into the conflict - horrible prospect
 
Mentioned this before. By all means send an army but don't broadcast it on TV.

Otherwise, you might as well join the war as far as Putin is concerned.

I think, the EU is taking a calculated, but pretty dangerous risk in a similar way how Putin tried to take a risk with banking on EU and NATO not getting involved.
They're trying to call his bluff now, for example, if he doesn't attack Poland for helping Ukraine, we can assume that he has no interest in escalating this any further towards a World War - if he does attack, well, he would have done it anyway, sooner or later.
 
It is Ukrainians saying that, EU have not said anything I think. Ukrainian Defense said we were giving them all our MIG-29 planes and were allowing them to be flown out of Polish airports. I do not like that one bit considering the one closest to Ukrainian border is literally 8 km from my house.
Think the EU themselves were talking about Jets, just not in detail
 
Where are most of the Ukrainian natural resources like gas, uranium etc? Western or the eastern side of Ukraine?
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This is no longer in the consideration phase - they have just publicly announced that they are suspending all container shipments to and from Russia. Couldn't find an updated news story in English though.

Not sure how big a share of Russia's import and export that is, but it must be a huge blow for their economy. Most likely other shipping companies will follow suit.

I don't think Putin has any idea what he has actually done. More and more sanctions from governments and companies will follow. The economy will be in ruins very shortly.


I work for a shipping company. About 8 of the 10 shipping giants have suspended all shipments to Russia. Import/export by ship is almost done for.
 
Looks like a matter of time before Ukraine might succumb, and while they may not be in EU, they're fighting for Europe here. It remains to be seen how long after war, EU governments start saying, it's done and dusted, let's start returning back to usual life.
In other reports, apparantely, Hungary is refusing to send in any lethal help to Ukraine through their territory, not just theirs, any.

Autocrats stick together.
 
Don't know if it's been posted, but this is an interesting, sobering interview with Fiona Hill. You might remember her testimony in the Trump impeachment inquiry. She was the Senior Director for Europe and Russia of the National Security Council and who's made an entire career out of analysing and spying on Russians. She's definitely something of a hawk.

https://www.politico.com/news/magazine/2022/02/28/world-war-iii-already-there-00012340
Putin tried to warn Trump about this, but I don’t think Trump figured out what he was saying. In one of the last meetings between Putin and Trump when I was there, Putin was making the point that: “Well you know, Donald, we have these hypersonic missiles.” And Trump was saying, “Well, we will get them too.” Putin was saying, “Well, yes, you will get them eventually, but we’ve got them first.” There was a menace in this exchange. Putin was putting us on notice that if push came to shove in some confrontational environment that the nuclear option would be on the table.
yikes
 

Probably not the time and place for the rant thats about to ensue but this sentiment frustrates me.

I feel deeply for the Ukrainian people, but I can't help but feel that their plight (through no fault of their own) has only illuminated the deeply vested racism within Europe. With refugees from Syria the sentiment was that they were all a bunch of undesirable rapists and murderers, merely economic migrants who should stay back and defend their country. Yet with Ukraine its stories of how they're blonde hair blue eyed people just like us, and suddenly Europe has found space in their hearts to welcome refugees.

I do salute nations who've embraced these Ukrainian refugees, I only hope they'd share the same compassion for others who also find themselves displaced through no fault of their own.

Priti Patel and the Tory party as a whole can go feck themselves though, the virtue signalling pricks.
 


Haven't seen this posted anywhere yet. Greed of luxury brands clearly trumps morality. Russia free to buy Italian luxury goods and Belgian diamonds.
 
I think she kind of skips several stairs in that interview. She goes from they injected polonium to some former Russian spy, so they have already gone nuclear, to Putin will use nuclear weapons.

Also, I am not sure how do the hypersonic missile changes the course of anything. Neither country is able to defend against a massive ICBM/SCBMs anyway, so even without hypersonic missiles, US and Europe are toast. So is Russia, which I think is why this is not gonna happen.
 
I work for a shipping company. About 8 of the 10 shipping giants have suspended all shipments to Russia. Import/export by ship is almost done for.

So they will be left with whatever is produced within their own borders, as well as what they can trade over land with the likes of Belarus, China, and Kazakhstan, but with their currency taking a pounding that must be limited as well. A default seems likely.
 
I think sanctions staying or not will depend on the west's assessment on whether Putin is likely to fall.

If they think he'll sustain and just rule over a broken economy then the worst of the sanctions are probably just going to empower him and his anti-west successors. That could be an even far more dangerous situation.

I wouldn't be surprised if most are in time pulled back and only those targeting Putin and his oligarchs remain.
 
Watching BBC news and Victoria Derbyshire has got to be the news anchor equivalent to Liz Truss.

In other news, Sergei Lapdog has just said the US should take its nuclear weapons back from countries as far away as Germany.

This is why I think sanctions should be here to stay. If Putin wants war with NATO, no logical reason will stop him, so hammer him where it hurts for his cabal - their pockets and criminal luxury.
 
I have a question.
Ukraine President is calling for a no fly zone over the country, yes a good idea, but who will police this ?
The Ukraine Air Force are not in a position to do it, cant see NATO wanting to do this , can you just imagine US and UK jets patrolling the skies and shooting down a Russian MiG.
 
I also don't understand this. Should be the easiest target to hit ever. Russia may have air superiority, but surely artillery or missile strikes would still be an option.

Damage the roads ahead and behind and then attack them so they start to move directly into IEDs.

They should get a few Afghans to show them how to disable the convoy because they have had a lot of practice.
Time to play dirty.
 
I have a question.
Ukraine President is calling for a no fly zone over the country, yes a good idea, but who will police this ?
The Ukraine Air Force are not in a position to do it, cant see NATO wanting to do this , can you just imagine US and UK jets patrolling the skies and shooting down a Russian MiG.
That's the issue with a no fly zone. The idea is feasible, but just not enforceable without serious escalation
 
So they will be left with whatever is produced within their own borders, as well as what they can trade over land with the likes of Belarus, China, and Kazakhstan, but with their currency taking a pounding that must be limited as well. A default seems likely.
And Gucci, Prada, Louis Vuitton, Givenchy and Belgian diamonds.
 


Haven't seen this posted anywhere yet. Greed of luxury brands clearly trumps morality. Russia free to buy Italian luxury goods and Belgian diamonds.


It's reprehensible for sure, but it won't do the Russian economy any good. These products are relevant for a small minority of the people, and not in any way essential.
 
Our forces giving up half of our combat planes and openly letting them operate out of Poland is just recipe for disaster. We are going to be left with almost no combat planes. Maybe I am overreacting but this sounds just dumb.

NATO ought to send you guys a loaf of F-16's to replace the Mig-29's you've given away. It should be done immediately. They should also deploy some top line fighter aircraft over Poland to defend your airspace - having said that, looking at the shit performance of the Russian airforce, you'll be fine.
 
I hate it when people call something 1984-esque, but the Russian and Belarusian governments' relationship to truth is surely 1984-esque. I just saw reports that the Belarusians claim that not only do they have no plans to join the invasion (while reports are coming in that they've already joined the invasion), no Russian troops have even invaded Ukraine through Belarus. It's so obviously untrue that you have to wonder if anyone is buying it.
 
It's hard to predict whether it's just rhetoric aimed at intimidating, or a genuine threat. I lean towards the former.

Yeah, I can't see nukes being used proactively like that, it's a last chance detterant. Even if his plans would be foiled here, he still has a very large army back home, and he can reset, cling on to power while drawing rest of the world back into cold war, and see out his next 14 years in power doing what he did before, seed chaos in NATO from within.
Their economy is in tatters, but also western influence over russians is diminishing rapidly. He'll make a siege mentality, be a lidl North Korea for a while, and one by one, european powers will go back to trading with them, while keeping sanctions against selected few people, who don't give a shit about them anyway.
Dropping a nuke, even a single one, would be saying, ah shit, I'm done for, all plans gone to waste, lost power in Russia, lets just go out with a bang.
 
Our forces giving up half of our combat planes and openly letting them operate out of Poland is just recipe for disaster. We are going to be left with almost no combat planes. Maybe I am overreacting but this sounds just dumb.

I can certainly understand the concern, but isn't Poland currently being filled with additional NATO forces?

Letting fighters operate out of NATO countries may give Putin an excuse to escalate, but he would also be fighting on multiple fronts suddenly and surely lose. He only really has the nuke card, which is of course also a major concern.
 
I have a question.
Ukraine President is calling for a no fly zone over the country, yes a good idea, but who will police this ?
The Ukraine Air Force are not in a position to do it, cant see NATO wanting to do this , can you just imagine US and UK jets patrolling the skies and shooting down a Russian MiG.

The normal course of action would be a UN authorised no fly zone - but of course due to russian veto that wont happen

Cant see nato agreeing to it as the hungarians are trying to stop wepons being sent there and Italy / Belgium insisted on still being able to sell luxury goods and diamonds to Russia to pass other sanctions.

Biden has been pretty clear about not committing us personnel to date

It would take a monumentally stupid person to commit UK jets to such a task alone... but that said we have boris and

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so we are certainty capable of making a stupid decision