Russian invasion of Ukraine | Fewer tweets, more discussion

GlastonSpur said:
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8 year old article, but not seen that before. So somewhere between 15%-30% of Crimeans voted in favour of annexation according to that document, those of voting age at the time at least, and even that's while under all the threats and whatever other election fraud Russia normally employs.
 
tomaldinho1 said:
This is why I’m convinced NATO & Ukraine accepted long ago they couldn’t hold the East but had to bog down the Russians as long as possible to secure the rest of the country + train up their soldiers. It was never realistic to get all this NATO hardware into country, soldiers up to speed and then shipped to where it could be useful (without it getting cruise missiles on route). Get soldiers trained properly in the West, allow meaningful weapons and tech to arrive, fortify the rest of the country and buy as much time as possible - sanctions despite people wanting them to work immediately are starting to tell. Then the long long slog to reclaim the country.
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The only problem I have with that approach is that a lot of territories might already have fallen by then. At the same time, we can expect Russian troops to do far worse things than Milosevic's cronies did during the 1990s in those occupied territories. Worse of all is that Russian troops in those occupied territories are not feeling very threatened yet. It is just not acceptable in this context.

If what Mark Hertling said about the Ukrainians being quick learners is true, we shouldn't need this much time before they can master the weapons systems and then use them to launch a sweeping counterattack that can crush anything back to the original borders.
 
GlastonSpur said:
A US administration that would pull out of NATO (under a re-elected Trump, for example) is not going to provide intel to Europe in the event of a Russian invasion - it's more likely to be cheering on the Russians and praising Putin for his "strength".

Nor would the US/UK relationship continue be strong. The UK would see a US withdrawal from NATO as a fundamental betrayal of an alliance that has kept the peace in Europe for its members since the end of WWII. It would be the end of an era - and with it the end of any special relationship between the UK and US.
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You have a grossly overinflated sense of the standards in modern British political life.
 
TwoSheds said:
You have a grossly overinflated sense of the standards in modern British political life.
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It's not about political standards, it's about hard-nosed pragmatism. A US administration that had pulled out of NATO (in the scenario in question) would clearly no longer be a reliable ally, having opted instead for some short-sighted "America First" bullshit isolationism, or perhaps even worse ... a supporter of Putin's Russia.
 
Adisa said:
Seem Nevalny has been sent to Siberia.
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Vladimir isn’t in Siberia. It’s one of the worst prisons in Russia though in terms of torture reports.
 
I would imagine Putin wants to kill him at some far flung location (accidentally of course) or else stop him from tweeting, which he has somehow apparently continued to do whilst in his previous location.
 
Raoul said:
I would imagine Putin wants to kill him at some far flung location (accidentally of course) or else stop him from tweeting, which he has somehow apparently continued to do whilst in his previous location.
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Is he actually tweeting himself or is someone tweeting on his behalf?
 
sport2793 said:
Is he actually tweeting himself or is someone tweeting on his behalf?
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He gives out his messages to his lawyers or to his wife when they visit and then they post it.
 
RedDevilQuebecois said:
The only problem I have with that approach is that a lot of territories might already have fallen by then. At the same time, we can expect Russian troops to do far worse things than Milosevic's cronies did during the 1990s in those occupied territories. Worse of all is that Russian troops in those occupied territories are not feeling very threatened yet. It is just not acceptable in this context.

If what Mark Hertling said about the Ukrainians being quick learners is true, we shouldn't need this much time before they can master the weapons systems and then use them to launch a sweeping counterattack that can crush anything back to the original borders.
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I guess the military planning will be thinking months maybe even years ahead and making hard decisions about which towns can't be reinforced - I'd think they are heavily fortifying the West/Kyiv as it stands. The only hope I see in the short term is the sanctions - there are lots of signs they are having an effect: Russia's economy in for a bumpy ride as sanctions bite - BBC News otherwise I can easily see this still being news in 2023 and beyond.
 
This number seems quite high and would explain the trains of new armor on their way to the Russian front lines.

 
GlastonSpur said:
It's not about political standards, it's about hard-nosed pragmatism. A US administration that had pulled out of NATO (in the scenario in question) would clearly no longer be a reliable ally, having opted instead for some short-sighted "America First" bullshit isolationism, or perhaps even worse ... a supporter of Putin's Russia.
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We're not pragmatic, we're not competent, were not principled. Our politicians are infantile, knee jerk and thick. And it plays well with a lot of the public - enough to work in our shit voting system.
 
shamans said:
So is this ending any time soon or not. Any hope? What's the sentiment?
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Definitely not ending soon I think. I'm still surprised the sanctions aren't changing Russia's calculus. A big deal was made about them, primarily to turn the Russian elites and population against Putin but he has a serious grip on power.
 
shamans said:
So is this ending any time soon or not. Any hope? What's the sentiment?
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Doesn’t look like it is. Ukrainian army is stagnating at the moment and actually slowly loses territory due to an overwhelming advantage that Russia has in artillery.

No one really knows how vast are Russia’s reserves in terms of arms and equipment. Ukraine obviously has the prospect of getting some heavy artillery from NATO but not all of this comes soon and some of them require a rather lengthy training before Ukrainian soldiers can use it.

So yeah, at this point the likeliest scenario is a rather lengthy war until one side completely depletes it’s resources — be it personnel, money or arms & equipment.
 
@harms any news on total Moskva casualties? It feels like that story has completely died even though we still don't know the true casualty amount? Or maybe I missed some numbers?
 
VorZakone said:
@harms any news on total Moskva casualties? It feels like that story has completely died even though we still don't know the true casualty amount? Or maybe I missed some numbers?
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They’ve at least admitted that the casualties were participating in the special operation, which means that their families got proper compensation (because originally they weren’t, the ship simply collapsed without any reason). But no real news, only a lot of parents trying to get info on their “missing” kids (and one father got prosecuted for discrediting Russian army, I believe).

The original estimation (not official — officially they’ve admitted 1 or 2 deaths, something absurd) was around 40 dead but no one knows for sure even now.
 
TwoSheds said:
We're not pragmatic, we're not competent, were not principled. Our politicians are infantile, knee jerk and thick. And it plays well with a lot of the public - enough to work in our shit voting system.
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Glaston's attributing any of India's democratic principles to the British Empire's brutal colonisation, I think you're barking up the wrong tree. It was one of the low points of this thread until another guy started praising Saudi Arabia's war crimes in Yemen.
 
Blue and gold, wish rushists die or fold. In the last 4 days, I have lost 3 more of my friends. I hate putin and I hope he and his cronies feel all the pain that they have caused before they die. Russian Federation could and should have been one of the most wealthy and progressive countries in the world, instead they are now like a cancer to global stability, safety and economy . Feck "put ler", may he rot in pieces asap.
 
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I’ll say some strong words around this Germany gov., absolute amateurs and clowns undermining the whole of central/northern Europe.

Failed to make a strong stance:



The next day Putin makes a mockery of these weak hands by putting even more pressure:



Also backtracking after the initial meeting with Lithuanian president on the stationing of Nato troops in Lithuania:



This will have long-term consequences for Germany.
 
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This is the sort of fascist regime these clowns still have a hope to make a peace deal with, it still hasn’t clocked with EU leaders that they’re up against an evil in its purest form. Deluded and weak. Instead of thinking off-rumps for Putin, they should focus on delivering heavy weapons in proper quantities to Ukraine as swiftly as possible to stop the needless losses of Ukrainian lives.
 
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Rajma said:
I’ll say some strong words around this Germany gov., absolute amateurs and clowns undermining the whole of central/northern Europe.

Failed to make a strong stance:



The next day Putin makes a mockery of these weak hands by putting even more pressure:



Also backtracking after the initial meeting with Lithuanian president on the stationing of Nato troops in Lithuania:



This will have long-term consequences for Germany.
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Is Germany sort of playing the role that the USSR did vis-a-vis Germany, before the invasion in summer of 1941? Preferring to believe that there is room for cooperation with someone who ultimately wants to come and steal your lunch?
 
Rumours going around from "intelligence sources" a couple days ago of Putin being in a coma after a bad op are not at all worth repeating.

However when Kadyrov feels the need to come out and deny them for some reason... Can't help but raise an eyebrow.
 
MTF said:
Is Germany sort of playing the role that the USSR did vis-a-vis Germany, before the invasion in summer of 1941? Preferring to believe that there is room for cooperation with someone who ultimately wants to come and steal your lunch?
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In essence, it's an interplay of various different factors that at times are connected to each other. For instance, the Nazi past of Germany has made the country very skeptical of military in general and peace is the most important objective for most people. So dialogue is always the first choice which explains to an extent the strategy Merkel was pursuing. But obviously, this is also a welcome excuse for businesses or even politicians to make unehtical business with a country that attacked a sovereign state in 2014 - you can simply justify it by claiming "well, it is important to trade with them".

And then the east of Germany is obviously more Russia friendly in general and opportunistic politicians utilize that as well. Especially since that part of the country is poorer, the parties targeting the working class like the SPD, the Lefts and the AfD (far right) are as well in some cases.

So it is complicated. For instance, especially among the Boomer generation, there are many here who are genuinely worried that people are cheering about an increase of military fundings or that we are delivering weaponry to Ukraine which could escalate the war. Those aren't Putin friendly people, they are first and foremost afraid and were brought up to avoid any sort of military conflict.
 
Beans said:
In that hypothetical situation, perhaps.

I wonder if a second Trump administration would be able to pull out of NATO, if indeed they need congressional approval as I’ve read. Plenty of Republicans in the house and senate are backing Ukraine aid. Cuddling up to Russia has a different look now, and most of the country has experience seeing the Russians as the bad guys.
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Most Americans believe US should stop being the world's police since costs a lot of money to the tax payers. US has more than 200K men and women in Europe and Asia not counting countries in the middle east, so in other words the Europeans before Russia's invasion was like let the yanks spend the money to protect us which is wrong, Europe is more than capable to protect themselves and they showed they have better military equipment than Russia, they just need to get together and work together. France and UK invested in their military changing to high-tech (even they show to the public they spend less- not). Russia did what Trump couldn't - European countries spending more money in the military and probably waken a small giant called Germany and the rise of Poland's military.
 
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