Russian invasion of Ukraine | Fewer tweets, more discussion

I can't fathom how Ukraine could ever forgive Russia for this invasion but if chemical weapons are used that's just another level of evil. It'll never be forgiven/forgotten.
 
I can't wait to go on YouTube in 20 years and look at Oversimplified to describe what happened in this crapalooza of a war.

For reference sake here are their previous on Russia - the Russians might put up with alot but they do eventually rise up, they must have another Lenin or someone who won't want to put up with Putin.




 
The Kremlin spread rumors and disinformation about Canadian sniper Wali being killed shortly after arriving in Ukraine a few weeks ago. Well, Wali says hello.



He also gave this assessment about life on the battlefield.

 
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Precaution said:
can't wait to go on YouTube in 20 years and look at Oversimplified to describe what happened in this crapalooza of a war.

For reference sake here are their previous on Russia - the Russians might put up with alot but they do eventually rise up, they must have another Lenin or someone who won't want to put up with Putin.
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We do, he’s in jail. Oversimplified video on this would be a good way to close this gestalt.
 
tomaldinho1 said:
Maybe general public interest but not otherwise, NATO is getting a free hit at it’s direct rival. Lethal and non lethal aid will keep flowing into Ukraine, sanctions will be kept as long as possible.
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Yep, I don’t think this needs the attention span of the public. Unfortunately for the Ukrainian people this is currently a very nice scenario for NATO as they’re able to use it as a reverse proxy war against Putin. Only if things escalate does it become uncomfortable for NATO.
 
Pexbo said:
Yep, I don’t think this needs the attention span of the public. Unfortunately for the Ukrainian people this is currently a very nice scenario for NATO as they’re able to use it as a reverse proxy war against Putin. Only if things escalate does it become uncomfortable for NATO.
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Sorry, but this line of reasoning is bullshit. It is not "a nice scenario for NATO". NATO was not interested in a proxy war with Russia, or any confrontation at all. The western countries were building more and more economic links with Russia. Germany abandoned its nuclear reactors and got dependant on Russian gas, they just completed a new 10 billion project and they had no reason to destroy this. I have never read anything suggesting that any European country wants a confrontation with Russia. And actually nobody expected that Putin will ever do something so terrible as invading Ukraine. This invasion is such a terrible thing that Europe had to accept large economic losses, nobody wanted that. It is Putin's fault, he and the Russians who support him started this war.
 
frostbite said:
Sorry, but this line of reasoning is bullshit. It is not "a nice scenario for NATO". NATO was not interested in a proxy war with Russia, or any confrontation at all. The western countries were building more and more economic links with Russia. Germany abandoned its nuclear reactors and got dependant on Russian gas, they just completed a new 10 billion project and they had no reason to destroy this. I have never read anything suggesting that any European country wants a confrontation with Russia. And actually nobody expected that Putin will ever do something so terrible as invading Ukraine. This invasion is such a terrible thing that Europe had to accept large economic losses, nobody wanted that. It is Putin's fault, he and the Russians who support him started this war.
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Well said.
 
frostbite said:
The western countries were building more and more economic links with Russia. Germany abandoned its nuclear reactors and got dependant on Russian gas, they just completed a new 10 billion project and they had no reason to destroy this
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This now looks more like it is 'building dependency on Russia', and it looks like Putin has read it that way...wonder what history will make of what looks like it might turn out as a massive strategic error from a country which leads in Europe?
 
frostbite said:
Sorry, but this line of reasoning is bullshit. It is not "a nice scenario for NATO". NATO was not interested in a proxy war with Russia, or any confrontation at all. The western countries were building more and more economic links with Russia. Germany abandoned its nuclear reactors and got dependant on Russian gas, they just completed a new 10 billion project and they had no reason to destroy this. I have never read anything suggesting that any European country wants a confrontation with Russia. And actually nobody expected that Putin will ever do something so terrible as invading Ukraine. This invasion is such a terrible thing that Europe had to accept large economic losses, nobody wanted that. It is Putin's fault, he and the Russians who support him started this war.
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Yeah, i don't see how this benefits european countries as well. Not to mention some countries have had to massively increase military budgets because of the increased threat.
 
frostbite said:
Sorry, but this line of reasoning is bullshit. It is not "a nice scenario for NATO". NATO was not interested in a proxy war with Russia, or any confrontation at all. The western countries were building more and more economic links with Russia. Germany abandoned its nuclear reactors and got dependant on Russian gas, they just completed a new 10 billion project and they had no reason to destroy this. I have never read anything suggesting that any European country wants a confrontation with Russia. And actually nobody expected that Putin will ever do something so terrible as invading Ukraine. This invasion is such a terrible thing that Europe had to accept large economic losses, nobody wanted that. It is Putin's fault, he and the Russians who support him started this war.
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Great job in Ukraine. Keep it up.
 
Maticmaker said:
This now looks more like it is 'building dependency on Russia', and it looks like Putin has read it that way...wonder what history will make of what looks like it might turn out as a massive strategic error from a country which leads in Europe?
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Germany has been buying Russian/Soviet gas for about 50 years now. This is the most stable relationship between the two countries and made sure that diplomatic channels always stayed open. So it is not new that Germany depends on Russian gas, and you shouldn't see the Nordstream project necessarily as increasing dependency, but as a way to ensure operational security of the pipelines especially against Ukraine who sometimes tended to steal gas when they tried to enforce their will on Gazprom to pay far less than market price for Russian gas.

Had Ukraine be a reliable transit country the incentive for Nordstream would have been much smaller.
 
frostbite said:
Sorry, but this line of reasoning is bullshit. It is not "a nice scenario for NATO". NATO was not interested in a proxy war with Russia, or any confrontation at all. The western countries were building more and more economic links with Russia. Germany abandoned its nuclear reactors and got dependant on Russian gas, they just completed a new 10 billion project and they had no reason to destroy this. I have never read anything suggesting that any European country wants a confrontation with Russia. And actually nobody expected that Putin will ever do something so terrible as invading Ukraine. This invasion is such a terrible thing that Europe had to accept large economic losses, nobody wanted that. It is Putin's fault, he and the Russians who support him started this war.
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I'm sure you are right that NATO did not want this war. But now that Russia started it, NATO has a strategic interest to keep it going to wear down Russia's army and ensure it isn't a threat anymore.
 
frostbite said:
Sorry, but this line of reasoning is bullshit. It is not "a nice scenario for NATO". NATO was not interested in a proxy war with Russia, or any confrontation at all. The western countries were building more and more economic links with Russia. Germany abandoned its nuclear reactors and got dependant on Russian gas, they just completed a new 10 billion project and they had no reason to destroy this. I have never read anything suggesting that any European country wants a confrontation with Russia. And actually nobody expected that Putin will ever do something so terrible as invading Ukraine. This invasion is such a terrible thing that Europe had to accept large economic losses, nobody wanted that. It is Putin's fault, he and the Russians who support him started this war.
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Completely disagree. Nobody wanted war but this is the best situation NATO could have hoped for (and by NATO particularly the US).

Russia hasn’t even attacked NATO and yet is getting crippled beyond anything we’ve ever seen before, NATO hasn’t deployed a single soldier to the frontline but is essentially getting a ringside seat to assess Russian military and test a load of its tech in real world scenario. Take away the emotion because we’re normal people and look at it high level - NATO is getting a free hit on the country it was created to defend against.

Ukraine is paying the heaviest of prices but I think it would be naive to not understand how NATO is going to benefit from a severely weakened Russia for decades to come.
 
stefan92 said:
I'm sure you are right that NATO did not want this war. But now that Russia started it, NATO has a strategic interest to keep it going to wear down Russia's army and ensure it isn't a threat anymore.
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That's not how it works. If that was the reasoning of NATO, they'd do all this in 2014 and get rid of Russia after they invaded Crimea. Or at least they'd stop depending on Russia's gas. The bullshit about NATO has to stop. Russia attacked a country without any reason. People in the West want to help them, NATO or not NATO. It's quite simple actually. What is NATO after all? It is Germany, England, USA, Greece, France... There isn't a "NATO country", it is free individual countries that make decisions. All the western countries want to help Ukraine because nothing like this has happened in Europe since Hitler.
 
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stefan92 said:
I'm sure you are right that NATO did not want this war. But now that Russia started it, NATO has a strategic interest to keep it going to wear down Russia's army and ensure it isn't a threat anymore.
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There’s a difference between NATO not wanting it before it started and now that it has, wanting Putin gone. They were clearly amenable to dealing with Putin if he was an honest broker prior to the war. Now that he has proven himself to being an unhinged, totalitarian fascist, no one spare one or two desperados like Macron or Orban, wants a psychotic Hitler cosplayer like Putin around anymore, because they know he can’t be reasoned with. This is the slow motion end of Vladimir Putin’s reign and everyone who knows it aren’t going to do anything to stop it.
 
tomaldinho1 said:
Completely disagree. Nobody wanted war but this is the best situation NATO could have hoped for (and by NATO particularly the US).

Russia hasn’t even attacked NATO and yet is getting crippled beyond anything we’ve ever seen before, NATO hasn’t deployed a single soldier to the frontline but is essentially getting a ringside seat to assess Russian military and test a load of its tech in real world scenario. Take away the emotion because we’re normal people and look at it high level - NATO is getting a free hit on the country it was created to defend against.

Ukraine is paying the heaviest of prices but I think it would be naive to not understand how NATO is going to benefit from a severely weakened Russia for decades to come.
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Bullshit. The best that any NATO country would have hoped for, is to have peace and prosperity and the Stock Market to go up. That's how politicians get elected in the West. If you think that Biden wanted this you don't know what you are talking about! Biden was forced to do something, but he'd prefer to just forget Afghanistan and have no more wars during his presidency.
 
Maticmaker said:
This now looks more like it is 'building dependency on Russia', and it looks like Putin has read it that way...wonder what history will make of what looks like it might turn out as a massive strategic error from a country which leads in Europe?
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In retrospect it was a huge mistake. But Europe always believed that Russia after the Soviets will became a good economic partner and that Europe and Russia can help each other build a better future. Nobody expected a war. That's why after 1990, Germany was spending less and less on their military.

Putin reversed all that now, but 12 months ago nobody in the west believed that he is that crazy.
 
Kasparov wrote a book in 2015 called "Winter is coming" and he was actually predicting what Putin will do. I started reading this book a couple of years ago, but I did not finish it because I thought he was exaggerating, he was too pessimistic, and nothing will happen. Well, I was wrong, Kasparov was right. But I guess many European politicians also got it completely wrong. We have all been too optimistic.
 
Maticmaker said:
This now looks more like it is 'building dependency on Russia', and it looks like Putin has read it that way...wonder what history will make of what looks like it might turn out as a massive strategic error from a country which leads in Europe?
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Someone once said that the reason Russia went so rogue after 91 was that the west wasn't serious enough about investing and encouraging democracy there, perhaps we could say that enough attention wasn't paid, or enough simply wasn't done. Whilst what Germany has done with Nordstream and more could be construed as a massive strategic error, let's not lose sight of the fact that a friendly Russia would be more welcome than an unfriendly Russia, as we are now finding out. That Germany tried to deepen economic relations, in the main for it's own benefit, granted, could however also be viewed as an attempt to make good on the post 91 inertia. That paranoid madvlad has in the meantime lost it completely and ensured his place alongside Hitler in the history books I don't think anyone, least of all Germany, could have foreseen.
 
frostbite said:
Bullshit. The best that any NATO country would have hoped for, is to have peace and prosperity and the Stock Market to go up. That's how politicians get elected in the West. If you think that Biden wanted this you don't know what you are talking about! Biden was forced to do something, but he'd prefer to just forget Afghanistan and have no more wars during his presidency.
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Quite agree. Remember, NATO is a defensive alliance. A friendly, democratic Russia is worth more to the West than a destroyed Russia.
 
frostbite said:
Bullshit. The best that any NATO country would have hoped for, is to have peace and prosperity and the Stock Market to go up. That's how politicians get elected in the West. If you think that Biden wanted this you don't know what you are talking about! Biden was forced to do something, but he'd prefer to just forget Afghanistan and have no more wars during his presidency.
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I'm genuinely amazed that people think this war is in the best interests of the US, UK, France, Germany, Italy and every other NATO country...
 
RedDevilQuebecois said:
The Kremlin spread rumors and disinformation about Canadian sniper Wali being killed shortly after arriving in Ukraine a few weeks ago. Well, Wali says hello.



He also gave this assessment about life on the battlefield.

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The guy smiles a lot. He seems almost happy. Like, he's doing what he loves sort of happy. Which is bizarre considering what it is he's doing.

I struggle to get in the mind of guys like him. My best guess is that after spending big parts of their life on the battlefield, their mentality and mindset must be irreversibly altered. Civilian life must feel downright boring for them. Everyone else tries to flee the war and they are happy to wade in it. A form of madness, if you will.
 
frostbite said:
In retrospect it was a huge mistake. But Europe always believed that Russia after the Soviets will became a good economic partner and that Europe and Russia can help each other build a better future. Nobody expected a war. That's why after 1990, Germany was spending less and less on their military.

Putin reversed all that now, but 12 months ago nobody in the west believed that he is that crazy.
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Because the west was completely de-attached from the reality, Poland/Baltic states were constantly labeled as panic stations and valid observations were constantly dismissed as nothing more than war mongering. Putin was always a total evil if only people have bothered to look closer.
 
Rajma said:
Because the west was completely de-attached from the reality, Poland/Baltic states were constantly labeled as panic stations and valid observations were constantly dismissed as nothing more than war mongering. Putin was always a total evil if only people have bothered to look closer.
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Yes. Most western countries and NATO as a whole was probably too timid, too pacifist, too focused on economy. All that is good actually, and that's the world I'd prefer to live in.

However, these good qualities actually encouraged Putin to invade Ukraine because he believed that NATO will do nothing. I hate Reagan, but if the US had someone like Reagan as President and if he said that an invasion of Ukraine will bring direct military response from the US, Putin would not dare do anything and we'd still have peace and thousands of people would still have their lives intact. Unfortunately, sometimes you need hawks to have peace...
 
frostbite said:
Yes. Most western countries and NATO as a whole was probably too timid, too pacifist, too focused on economy. All that is good actually, and that's the world I'd prefer to live in.

However, those good qualities actually encouraged Putin to invade Ukraine because he believed that NATO will do nothing. I hate Reagan, but if the US had someone like Reagan as President and if he said that an invasion of Ukraine will bring direct military response from the US, Putin would not dare do anything and we'd still have peace and thousands of people would still have their lives intact. Unfortunately, sometimes you need hawks to have peace...
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Let's not forget the effect that 9/11 had. Counter-terrorism became the lead security concern for at least the 10 years following, and also helped drive the invasion of Iraq, which was a blunder to say the least.

I agree that there can be some deterrence value to hawkishness, the main issue with hawks is often that they are hawks about both important and unimportant matters. I'm thinking about how guys like Rumsfeld and Cheney thought that invading Iraq would "show our power" to other nations, while instead it just reveals foolishness.
 
MTF said:
Let's not forget the effect that 9/11 had. Counter-terrorism became the lead security concern for at least the 10 years following, and also helped drive the invasion of Iraq, which was a blunder to say the least.

I agree that there can be some deterrence value to hawkishness, the main issue with hawks is often that they are hawks about both important and unimportant matters. I'm thinking about how guys like Rumsfeld and Cheney thought that invading Iraq would "show our power" to other nations, while instead it just reveals foolishness.
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Bush was a criminal and the war in Iraq was definitely a blunder. But back then, some people believed that the US will bring Democracy to the Middle East. Sure, that was stupid, and we don't know what the decision makers believed probably they were not that naive, but at least some people had good intentions. And definitely the US never had any plans to annex Iraq, it was always a temporary thing. Still, it gives an excuse to other countries to stage invasions without good reasons, and this is the lasting legacy of Bush jr.
 
frostbite said:
Bush was a criminal and the war in Iraq was definitely a blunder. But back then, some people believed that the US will bring Democracy to the Middle East. Sure, that was stupid, and we don't know what the decision makers believed probably they were not that naive, but at least some people had good intentions. And definitely the US never had any plans to annex Iraq, it was always a temporary thing. Still, it gives an excuse to other countries to stage invasions without good reasons, and this is the lasting legacy of Bush jr.
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I agree, but just what I meant mostly was that the US' strategic focus was shifted from Europe in the meantime, and many bilateral relationships were handled mainly on the basis of what the other country could provide to counter-terrorism/power projection in the Middle East. Russia at times as well.
 
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