Russian invasion of Ukraine | Fewer tweets, more discussion

harms said:
The positive of this hypothetical change is that they would most likely want to ease up the sanctions, and I'd imagine that getting the army back out of Ukraine won't be enough to do so. Whoever hypothetically does this, they won't have the same political capital as Putin has as it's very much tied to his personality. They'll need to show economical growth etc., which is almost impossible to imagine without active collaboration with the outside world.

The negative is that everyone in Putin's close circle who can theoretically instigate that coup d'etat have been tied by blood — he made sure that anyone of significance were on the record supporting the invasion.

I'm done imagining positive scenarios though.
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And even that positive scenario might turn into another false dawn, like when Putin seemed to move west early in his reign.
GlastonSpur said:
I would hope so, unless by some miracle a genuinely pro-democracy, pro-Western leader were to take power in Moscow. But unless that happens, Russia has moved from merely being unfriendly, to now being an enemy state that needs to be reduced by all means possible short of direct military combat.
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I get that, and I don't know what the alternative would be either; but as @Demyanenko_square_jaw said, it's also rather sad to be advocating for the misery of some 140 million people, isn't it.
 
Rajma said:

These should be kept far away from the EU for foreseeable future.
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If EU have brains, they will be kept far away. Allowing Serbia to join would basically mean a self destruction.
 
dove said:
If EU have brains, they will be kept far away. Allowing Serbia to join would basically mean a self destruction.
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Essentially giving Putin veto power. Vucic is almost as much a lapdog of Putin as Lukashenko is.
 


And then there are people here trying to prove me Russian people have nothing to do with it and it's only Putin.
 
dove said:


And then there are people here trying to prove me Russian people have nothing to do with it and it's only Putin.
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While true the problem isn't as big as that tweet makes it sound. It's just a minority of those 2.5 million that support Putin.
 
Carolina Red said:
Ali Velshi calling for the curtain to drop

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At a minimum, it would signal the UN to get involved through its responsibility to protect doctrine. If it doesn't then it will forever be ignored in every future conflict with similar circumstances.
 
sglowrider said:
Based on Harms and that video of the general sentiments of the Russian public, I doubt if any compromise can be reached any time soon.
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Then Russia must be defeated and be seen to be defeated. It is the only way. You can't compromise with this, unfortunately there are many dangers in this for us all. But what is the alternative?
 
Very good thread on the manpower problems Russia will be facing unless they declare a state of war and start mobilizing the reserve.
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the hea said:
Very good thread on the manpower problems Russia will be facing unless they declare a state of war and start mobilizing the reserve.
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Good thread. What I wonder even if they call up conscripts and dig into their equipment reserves, is how effective can such formations be (inexperienced non-volunteers and older equipment)? Are they going to try an attrition strategy at the risk of losing virtually all of their force?
 
MTF said:
Good thread. What I wonder even if they call up conscripts and dig into their equipment reserves, is how effective can such formations be (inexperienced non-volunteers and older equipment)? Are they going to try an attrition strategy at the risk of losing virtually all of their force?
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There are very big questions marks over what equipment will be able to provide the newly raised units? They have a ton of old Soviet armour that may be in a state of disrepair, and the ones that get going would be basically soda cans to the modern atgms.
 
MTF said:
Good thread. What I wonder even if they call up conscripts and dig into their equipment reserves, is how effective can such formations be (inexperienced non-volunteers and older equipment)? Are they going to try an attrition strategy at the risk of losing virtually all of their force?
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Those conscripts are months away from being battle ready, mind. Current batch of conscripts were camped outside Ukraine's borders for months participating in war games. If these are sent to frontline within weeks, that will just reek of desperation to achieve quick goals. In that case, these will be nothing short of civilians with guns.
 
The Firestarter said:
There are very big questions marks over what equipment will be able to provide the newly raised units? They have a ton of old Soviet armour that may be in a state of disrepair, and the ones that get going would be basically soda cans to the modern atgms.
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TBF even their modern tanks seem to be soda cans to modern atgms.
 
the hea said:
TBF even their modern tanks seem to be soda cans to modern atgms.
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They have design flaws that exacerbate this, however at least out times you can determine what type of tank it was. The old stuff is rendered basically unrecognisable .
 
Demyanenko_square_jaw said:
Not hard to take any moral high ground against statements like that. You've basically raced to the bottom as quick as Putin with that sort of view, rolling back your morality into a brutal radicalised mindset. Good to know it was only mildly tongue in cheek though, and not every Russian person would have to be killed. Even as a joke, stuff like that coming from someone that from reading your other posts seems to have little tie or real knowledge of the region just pisses me off. It never takes long for the more reactionary of minds to go straight to calls about crushing and purging entire nations after governments have created conflicts like this. understandable perhaps from those currently directly effected by unjust aggressive/imperialistic conflicts, be it Russian, American, Chinese inflicted or whoever...however to see it coming from someone probably sitting in a comfortable existence in a prosperous country, it's deeply depressing and just screams to me of the sort of minds easily manipulated into following an unjust path in the first place. Forgive me if i've been too presumptuous of your circumstance, but it's the overall mindset of those that go down these routes that galls me and contributes nothing good or constructive.

you don't have to tell me about the bleak situation in Russia, i'm invested in both countries through friends and family and have made a choice to leave years ago due to the slide into fascism that Putin has presided over . Too much so to be responding to off-hand trash like that comment, but i'll allow myself the once.
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This is a very emotive post, and there is nothing wrong with that, given the circumstances. My question to you is to look back at the post that you quoted, and tell me which parts you actually disagree with so strongly.

I would like nothing more than a peaceful Russia that was properly integrated into Europe. We have enough problems in the world with China and the US, my policy has always been that Europe needs to be united in order to be on an equal footing with those two on a global level.

Unfortunately as I said before, it feels like we have passed the point of no return now, and that peaceful co-existence is no longer possible. Russia is an enemy of Europe and an enemy of democracy. At the start of this war I thought it would be a spark for the Russian people to rise up against autocracy. Other than a few protests at the start (including brave folk like harms), that hasn’t happened. It seems more like a general apathy and willfull ignorance - I expect most Russians know they are being lied to, they just don’t care enough to do anything about it. As time goes on and you see the atrocities and war crimes being committed, it becomes harder to shrug it off as just “Putins war”.

As stated, the only reason Putin has been allowed to go unchecked is because he cries “nukes” whenever he doesn’t get his way. That is an untenable political situation. If the Ukraine invasion succeeds, the next thing we hear will be “remove the sanctions or nukes” and maybe “NATO borders to pre-1997 state or nukes” etc. the only question right now is whether to intervene now, or to wait until razing and genocide of Ukraine is complete.
 
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Walrus said:
... we have passed the point of no return now, and that peaceful co-existence is no longer possible. Russia is an enemy of Europe and an enemy of democracy. ... If the Ukraine invasion succeeds, the next thing we hear will be “remove the sanctions or nukes” and maybe “NATO borders to pre-1997 state or nukes” etc. the only question right now is whether to intervene now, or to wait until razing and genocide of Ukraine is complete.
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I agree that peaceful co-existence with Russia is no longer possible. However, Putin has no chance of erasing Ukraine from the map. His military forces are taking a severe beating, and at this point it's more a question of how long this can continue without those forces collapsing entirely ... as has already happened NW of Kyiv where his forces have retreated all the way back over the border, complete with troops and vehicles now contaminated with radioactive dust.
 
GlastonSpur said:
I agree that peaceful co-existence with Russia is no longer possible. However, Putin has no chance of erasing Ukraine from the map. His military forces are taking a severe beating, and at this point it's more a question of how long this can continue without those forces collapsing entirely ... as has already happened NW of Kyiv where his forces have retreated all the way back over the border, complete with troops and vehicles now contaminated with radioactive dust.
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And yet it begs the question - what then, if Ukraine successfully defends itself? I can’t imagine Putin accepting that and he needs something to take home to soothe his ego and claim some sort of win. He might see a bit more collateral damage as being that “win”.
 
Walrus said:
And yet it begs the question - what then, if Ukraine successfully defends itself? I can’t imagine Putin accepting that and he needs something to take home to soothe his ego and claim some sort of win. He might see a bit more collateral damage as being that “win”.
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Well, yes, he will continue - as he's doing now - to inflict damage on Ukrainian cities and infrastructure.

However, I'm pretty sure his war aims have been drastically reduced. What he wants now is control of the Donbas and Luhansk regions in the east, plus a land bridge across the south connecting Crimea with Russia. Whether he get these - or whether he can hold onto them if he gets them - is still an open question.

If I had to guess, I'd say he'll get the land bridge, but not complete control of Donbas and Luhansk. It'd be another open question as to whether Ukraine would, at that point, accept a freezing of the status quo in return for a ceasefire, or whether they'd instead opt to keep on fighting to push the Russians all the way back to their pre-February invasion positions.
 
GlastonSpur said:
Well, yes, he will continue - as he's doing now - to inflict damage on Ukrainian cities and infrastructure.

However, I'm pretty sure his war aims have been drastically reduced. What he wants now is control of the Donbas and Luhansk regions in the east, plus a land bridge across the south connecting Crimea with Russia. Whether he get these - or whether he can hold onto them if he gets them - is still an open question.

If I had to guess, I'd say he'll get the land bridge, but not complete control of Donbas and Luhansk. It'd be another open question as to whether Ukraine would, at that point, accept a freezing of the status quo in return for a ceasefire, or whether they'd instead opt to keep on fighting to push the Russians all the way back to their pre-February invasion positions.
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If the West continues to supply the hardware, the Ukrainians may want to keep pushing back.
 
stefan92 said:
While true the problem isn't as big as that tweet makes it sound. It's just a minority of those 2.5 million that support Putin.
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Putin got 80% of votes among russians in Germany in 2018. There are numerous caveats here (vote rigging etc - although not usually done in foreign voting locations), but in general he is quite popular even among russians abroad (a bit less so in places with lots of relatively recent and highly-educated migration from Russia like UK). No opinion poll - even independent ones - shows less than 50% support of Putin/war.

I am from Belarus, lived in Russia for many years (before moving to West). So let me compare Russia with Belarus so that you see that unfortunately Russians do not have much of an excuse.

In Belarus we have an even more brutal regime. It consolidated power, seized all the media, started rigging the elections etc long before Putin. Yet - in 2020 Lukashenka for all accounts lost the election (in Germany he got like 3% among belarusian living here) and survived only by brute force with hundreds of thousands demonstrating. Any independent opinion poll shows that his support does not exceed 30% (and is next to zero among Belarusians in the west). Contrast this with Putin who never had below 55-60% approval from russians (and much smaller protests, only a couple of 50-100k in Moscow - a city of 10m+ population - 10yrs ago, others much smaller). So you cannot really say "russians do not have access to free media/are afraid to speak out/live under repressive regime" etc. It all applies to Belarusians but we do not support our so called "president". Plus the majority of russians have a positive attitude towards Stalin, which says it all really.

There is something deeply wrong with Russian nation at the moment - not unique in history, but they are in their "Germany in the 30s" moment. I hope they will somehow get out of this and reinvent themselves but no idea how.
 
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Carolina Red said:
That’s fair.. point I was making though is the Russian government has to recognize a differentiation between NATO and non-NATO states.
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Yes, I understand. But didn't the Russian government already say that NATO is in a war against them because of the military help it provides to Ukraine? And that the West as a whole is also in a war against them because of the economic sanctions? I think that various Russian officials already said quite directly that the West is participating in this war... and they don't really differentiate between "directly" or "indirectly", "economic" or "military"...
 
From the Russian UN mission:
Russian Federation requested a meeting of the UN Security Council in connection with the provocation of the Ukrainian military and radicals in the city of Bucha.
The idea behind the next crime of the ‘Kyiv’s regime’ is the disruption of peace negotiations and the escalation of violence.”
 
frostbite said:
Yes, I understand. But didn't the Russian government already say that NATO is in a war against them because of the military help it provides to Ukraine? And that the West as a whole is also in a war against them because of the economic sanctions? I think that various Russian officials already said quite directly that the West is participating in this war... and they don't really differentiate between "directly" or "indirectly", "economic" or "military"...
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This is true, at the same time, I mean, I reckon they could fire on Swedish or Finnish peacekeepers… but that would be a really really bad idea considering how things are going against Ukraine, who are equipped with Soviet era stuff.
 
Frosty said:
From the Russian UN mission:
Russian Federation requested a meeting of the UN Security Council in connection with the provocation of the Ukrainian military and radicals in the city of Bucha.
The idea behind the next crime of the ‘Kyiv’s regime’ is the disruption of peace negotiations and the escalation of violence.”
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The only thing to come out of that meeting should be a forced recusal of Russia to any Ukraine-related matter at the UN followed by the full revoking of Russia's veto power once and for all. Feck their status as a permanent member of the UN Security Council.
 
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Frosty said:
From the Russian UN mission:
Russian Federation requested a meeting of the UN Security Council in connection with the provocation of the Ukrainian military and radicals in the city of Bucha.
The idea behind the next crime of the ‘Kyiv’s regime’ is the disruption of peace negotiations and the escalation of violence.”
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Pretty clever, framing the Ukranians pushing invaders out of their country as a "disruption in peace negotiations and escalating violence". Might seems strange on the verge of nonsensical to some in the West, but I'm sure in Russia the media coverage will make it look like Ukraine is instead trying to push into pro-Russian areas (of which there are fewer everyday).

I'm a little surprised the propaganda boys didn't claim that Ukrainian soldiers killed the people in Bucha. But then they only have so many resources to produce propaganda, and can't be as fast as actual news.
 
Beans said:
I'm a little surprised the propaganda boys didn't claim that Ukrainian soldiers killed the people in Bucha. But then they only have so many resources to produce propaganda, and can't be as fast as actual news.
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You work for Putin?

 
Yeah, I took a deep dive into pro-Russian English Twitter. I understand that there are some things that are uncomfortable for Ukraine and the west to admit, it is a war after all. They do seem to live on another planet, though. They actually try to convince people how civilians in Bucha were pro-Russia and killed by Ukrainians after the Russiana retreated two weeks ago (the Russian line is that they already left March 20).
 
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