Russian invasion of Ukraine | Fewer tweets, more discussion

Raoul said:
If Russia takes Ukraine, it will already have direct borders with 4 NATO countries to worry about Moldova being a buffer.
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It will soon have another very long one in Finland. If they take Ukraine, they'll immediately border 7 NATO countries, 8 if you count Kaliningrad. If they incorporate Belarus, essentially their entire Western border will be with NATO pretty soon.
 
nimic said:
It will soon have another very long one in Finland. If they take Ukraine, they'll immediately border 7 NATO countries, 8 if you count Kaliningrad. If they incorporate Belarus, essentially their entire Western border will be with NATO pretty soon.
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It will somehow be the West’s doing.
 
klsv said:
What buffer? He already has a border with NATO with Estonia and Latvia, as well as Kaliningrad sandwiched between Lithuania and Poland and Turkey across the Black Sea from the occupied Crimea.
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Estonia and Latvia represent a single front and invading Kaliningrad goes literally nowhere. He doesn't want a second front opening up somewhere else.

Northern Norway doesn't count as its impossible terrain.
 
11101 said:
Estonia and Latvia represent a single front and invading Kaliningrad goes literally nowhere. He doesn't want a second front opening up somewhere else.

Northern Norway doesn't count as its impossible terrain.
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It definitely counts, or else you should tell our army command. It's not exactly an avenue to invade Europe, though. If they ever want to invade Norway, they'll stage landings along the entire coast, like the Germans did.

They've actually got some practice invading Northern Norway, they were busy liberating it from the Germans at the end of WW2. "German territory" in Europe at the time of surrender basically amounted to a few pockets and Norway.
 
choccy77 said:
Be so funny if after Putin took Ukraine and say Moldova, he then went after Belarus. Would teach those scumbags a lesson.

Sadly, would not be good for Europe.
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Putin got Belarus after the last elections. Lukashenko miscalculated and had to run a complete sham election, in good probability losing to a protest opposition candidate, and he maintained power with the military, supported by Russia to crush the protests. The price he paid was to make it a complete puppet state, whereas previously it was bouncing between Russia and the EU. It’s worth pointing out, for example, that Belarus still doesn’t officially recognise Crimea as part of Russia, although it does de facto now. Belarus slipped into Putin’s clutches in the last two years already.
 
nimic said:
It will soon have another very long one in Finland. If they take Ukraine, they'll immediately border 7 NATO countries, 8 if you count Kaliningrad. If they incorporate Belarus, essentially their entire Western border will be with NATO pretty soon.
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Good point.
 
I guess NATO just needs to add a subtitle to its name like in bad movie sequels:

NATO 2 - We studied history, and land invasions of Russia do not work.
 
This message being spread far and wide now.

Seems to be a response to the shelling in Karkhiv and mostly Mariupol, the stories coming out of there sound horrific. Seems they are systematically shelling the city district by district. The Mayor has stated there will be hundreds of dead civilians but they can't count the bodies because the shelling has been constant for 16 hours.

 
TMDaines said:
Putin got Belarus after the last elections. Lukashenko miscalculated and had to run a complete sham election, in good probability losing to a protest opposition candidate, and he maintained power with the military, supported by Russia to crush the protests. The price he paid was to make it a complete puppet state, whereas previously it was bouncing between Russia and the EU. It’s worth pointing out, for example, that Belarus still doesn’t officially recognise Crimea as part of Russia, although it does de facto now. Belarus slipped into Putin’s clutches in the last two years already.
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Makes sense.
 
Simbo said:
This message being spread far and wide now.

Seems to be a response to the shelling in Karkhiv and mostly Mariupol, the stories coming out of there sound horrific. Seems they are systematically shelling the city district by district. The Mayor has stated there will be hundreds of dead civilians but they can't count the bodies because the shelling has been constant for 16 hours.

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Thats not a great message...
 
MTF said:
That's not a thing that should ever be done again. Let the security services try to figure out who might be spying, but a person's nationality can't be held against them in a free society.
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Yes it can and yes it should.
 
Simbo said:
This message being spread far and wide now.

Seems to be a response to the shelling in Karkhiv and mostly Mariupol, the stories coming out of there sound horrific. Seems they are systematically shelling the city district by district. The Mayor has stated there will be hundreds of dead civilians but they can't count the bodies because the shelling has been constant for 16 hours.

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This is war. It will get more brutal and brutal and hateful.
 
Simbo said:
This message being spread far and wide now.

Seems to be a response to the shelling in Karkhiv and mostly Mariupol, the stories coming out of there sound horrific. Seems they are systematically shelling the city district by district. The Mayor has stated there will be hundreds of dead civilians but they can't count the bodies because the shelling has been constant for 16 hours.

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My thoughts on this, are this attitude, whilst understandable, The Ukraine should remain as dignified as possible, because the world is watching and on their side for all the correct reasons.

Don't give in and lose your principles, no matter how horrifically hard it is, which is what Russia wants.
 
I just don't know what the end game is here for Putin. Complete and total control of Ukraine, then what? Face charges from the west for war crimes? Not a chance! So what's the alternative...he carries on fighting?
 
How would it go if putin is charged with war crimes? Would he be arrested if he ever left the country?
 
Shane88 said:
How the feck does a yacht cost nearly $1 billion?
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It's a massive thing (156m long) and built in a very luxurious way. So the price is not really surprising. It took Lürssen 52 months to build it.
 
choccy77 said:
My thoughts on this, are this attitude, whilst understandable, The Ukraine should remain as dignified as possible, because the world is watching and on their side for all the correct reasons.

Don't give in and lose your principles, no matter how horrifically hard it is, which is what Russia wants.
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The problem is that its easy to say that when it's not our family, friends and children being bombed and killed. It's not like Ukraine are getting their hands dirty and killing Russian civilians, it's all coming one way.

Honestly, I get it. If it was my family being bombed and having artillery launched at them every day then i'm not sure I could be so forgiving either. Hateful scenario whatever way we look at it.
 
worldgonemad said:
How would it go if putin is charged with war crimes? Would he be arrested if he ever left the country?
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He's not getting charged with war crimes as long as he's the head of state in Russia, and he's not getting arrested as long as he's head of state in Russia.
 
RedSky said:
The problem is that its easy to say that when it's not our family, friends and children being bombed and killed. It's not like Ukraine are getting their hands dirty and killing Russian civilians, it's all coming one way.
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I totally agree, but he is playing straight into Putins hands.

Tomorrow Putin will use those words to claim to his country how Ukraine are killing their people.

They gave him a piece of actual truth.
 
The Corinthian said:
That’s some blue sky thinking. What do you think will happen to the foreign national men women and children if they’re not allowed to leave the country?
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Maybe their countries will arrange for them to leave? Just how they should already have done.
 
worldgonemad said:
How would it go if putin is charged with war crimes? Would he be arrested if he ever left the country?
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International rules and norms such as warcrimes, the Geneva Conventions, the ICC etc., generally don't apply to powerful states, because they simply won't go along with any of it (a vast majority of the time) because no one can force them to. These bodies are usually reserved for powerless middle of the road nations who don't have the luxury of ignoring them. In summary, don't expect anything to happen to Putin on the war crimes front unless there's some sort of revolution in Russia where the new rulers capture and hand him over.
 
If NATO did want to intervene, let’s say, beyond a proxy war stance, is there any middle ground between being militarily all in or all out? I guess air strikes could theoretically be possible without actually putting troops on the ground, perhaps?
 
Conor said:
Good lord. Maybe get them badges too? It's so easy to see how the world just makes the same mistakes over and over.
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Now you're being stupid.

Why should a country not round up people from an enemy country?
 
choccy77 said:
I totally agree, but he is playing straight into Putins hands.

Tomorrow Putin will use those words to claim to his country how Ukraine are killing their people.

They gave him a piece of actual truth.
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Everything Russia comes out with is propaganda and heavily regulated. I have to believe that the majority of Russian civis don't want war and I have to believe that the majority don't believe Putin either but are just so shit scared to do anything about it. Russians aren't Evil people, they're just highly unfortunate to be ruled by one, I hope that most of the West and the World population understands this.
 
Rektsanwalt said:
I mean, it's absolutely rational to have a closer look at some individuals in that case, but you're talking about...camps? For people of a certain nationality?

This thread has gone south for quite a while imo, but there's new levels of low hit every day by the minute it seems
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Stop being over dramatic, I'm not talking about concentration camps for Jews etc., ffs.
 
IWat said:
Completely different, the Geneva Convention makes specific references to the treatment of POWs. Filming soldiers being soldiers is fine.
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That’s mental. Showing acts of barbarity is fine, but showing acts of humanity isn’t?
 
Simbo said:
This message being spread far and wide now.

Seems to be a response to the shelling in Karkhiv and mostly Mariupol, the stories coming out of there sound horrific. Seems they are systematically shelling the city district by district. The Mayor has stated there will be hundreds of dead civilians but they can't count the bodies because the shelling has been constant for 16 hours.

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This is a stupid message (regardless the ethical and moral aspects). First, you don't take prisoners in war to protect the enemy troops, you take them to protect your own troops they capture. Second, those captured troops could be used for good propaganda, and your best bet at the moment is the media war, this makes you weaker on that front, not stronger (add to that most people won't sympathize with these kind of messages). And third, this will only incentivize the Russians to be more resilient in their fight and unwilling to surrender.

I have no idea what benefit you achieve with these statements.
 
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