Russian invasion of Ukraine | Fewer tweets, more discussion

neverdie said:
the argument wasn't that ukraine couldn't make breakthroughs. it was that it couldn't win, partially, which i still think is true but depends on how you define win. does it mean ultimate defeat of russia? because that is beyond ukraine and nato. does it mean taking the lost territory back? these questions were asked by very senior figures in foreign affairs from the outset. they weren't criticisms made by anti-ukranians. they were questions asked by people who wanted clarification over the kind of war their countries were dragging them into. the criticism was always the lack of clarity regarding the goal and ad hoc policy making. saying one thing which implied one level of support one day and another which hinted at something far larger and more escalatory the next.

i do think they're fighting russia to the last ukrainian but that doesn't mean that ukraine can't benefit from it. were the americans not fighting the soviets to the last afghani? did the afghanis care? so of course they're using ukraine. it's not a single-use kind of operation. the ukrainians aren't idiots. they know they have use-value to the west and they know their position. nato wants to fight russia via proxy. ukraine wants to fight russia directly. match made in heaven, no? it's not a contradiction, basically. my only criticism would depend upon what the west does over the next couple of years. not what it's doing now. what happens when the russians push back. and then ukraine pushes back. and on and on. all yet to come.

unfortunately i think this will be a massively drawn out war and last for years with the positions being unpredictable but possibly as they were before february.

the other thing is that if you think people making criticisms of the war are on russia's side, then you have, probably, been misled. some will be, for whatever reason which they themselves will scarcely comprehend, but most are not. most i've seen had almost no negative opinions of ukraine and almost no positive opinions on russia, but a highly critical view of nato. which i think is historically justified.
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And what's the benefit for NATO in all of this?
 
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Rajma said:
But this is not what @neverdie told us. Anyone who believes Nafo was ever a factor in their invasion is simply a fallen a victim to Russian propaganda. The only reason Nafo was ever a problem for Putin is that it prevents him for conducting the genocide in other countries and accomplishing his imperialist aspirations.
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Who could predict that some shiba inu twitter shitposters would be used as a pretext for large scale war in the 21st century, huh? What a timeline!
 
Rajma said:
But this is not what @neverdie told us. Anyone who believes Nafo was ever a fator in their invasion is simply a fallen a victim to Russian propaganda. The only reason Nafo was ever a problem for Putin is that it prevents him for conducting the genocide in other countries and accomplishing his imperialist aspirations.
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And Roger Waters.
 
Meanwhile Russia is more focused on making life as miserable for civilians as they possibly can.

 
Rajma said:
I still don’t get why west is so slow with air defense supplies in right quantities?
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While your question is valid I don't get the connection to the tweet? Air defense doesn't protect against artillery shelling.
 
stefan92 said:
While your question is valid I don't get the connection to the tweet? Air defense doesn't protect against artillery shelling.
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These are cruise missiles though? In this case it was x-22, previously, it also used missiles to attack power grids?
 
Rajma said:
These are cruise missiles though? In this case it was x-22, previously, it also used missiles to attack power grids?
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Oh, then I misunderstood what happened.

The question of air defense is a tough one. Ukraine is huge and it would need a massive amount of AD systems to really protect it completely. I doubt NATO itself has enough, also I do agree they could try harder than they do.
 
neverdie said:
i'd guess china would be happy enough to do that. i think that's probably the arrangement, yeah. from ukraine's pov, nato has guns and money and it wants both of those to fight a war against russia after being invaded. from nato's point of view, it'll be happy that russia is bogged down in war with ukraine. i don't think its a contradiction. the afghanis and arab militias knew that the americans were using them in a proxy war against the soviets but they were still happy to take the stinger missile launchers and anything else going. mutual enemies and all that. but everyone will know how and why they're working together and what and whose interests are in play.
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NATO tried very hard to basically bribe Russia into joining the international order. That's what NATO wanted, was for Russia to join NATO, not fight it.

If NATO wanted to fight, why don't any of them have an army besides the US?
 
Also, @Raoul - I found a better map of the situation the day the war began
UkraineCoTFeb24%2C2022.png
 
Beans said:
NATO tried very hard to basically bribe Russia into joining the international order. That's what NATO wanted, was for Russia to join NATO, not fight it.

If NATO wanted to fight, why don't any of them have an army besides the US?
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It's so absurd to believe that what is currently happening is in any way a desirable scenario for NATO, especially the EU (and Germany in particular). I'm completely sure every NATO member would have loved to avoid all of this.
 
This looks like a good opportunity to set up the Kaliningrad People’s Republic as a buffer zone, followed by a referendum to see if they want to join NATO.
 
Zehner said:
Especially strange since Russia is running out of equipment as well. Even if they have personnel, their resources and production capacities are bound in Ukraine.
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There is no logical explanation for this except that he says these things to support the chancellor who for some reason doesn't want to support Ukraine the way Germany should and could.
 
I said it at the beginning of this war and I will say it again:

The West shouldn't be afraid of escalation. It should be the Russians who are scared of escalation!

Why? Because the West is ten times stronger than the Russians. Unfortunately our leadership is very weak.
 
ShoePolish said:
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It isn't even hard to believe when you consider there is historical precedent for this. If I'm remembering right, Japan hid their carrier losses at the Battle of Midway from not only the general public, but also a significant part of their own high-command. There were also US carriers that they claimed as sunk multiple times, only for them to re-appear again and again in subsequent engagements.
 
frostbite said:
I said it at the beginning of this war and I will say it again:

The West shouldn't be afraid of escalation. It should be the Russians who are scared of escalation!

Why? Because the West is ten times stronger than the Russians. Unfortunately our leadership is very weak.
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I think the fear is the nuclear escalation where everybody loses. Obviously, in a conventional conflict, the US by itself could easily overthrow the Russian regime and US tanks could reach Moscow within a few months.

But, if there is a nuclear escalation, then one being 10x stronger doesn’t make a difference.

Of course, this is not to say that the US (and rest of NATO) should not do anything. They have played this perfectly so far, and as long as the help to Ukraine continues, Russia is fecked.
 
stefan92 said:
There is no logical explanation for this except that he says these things to support the chancellor who for some reason doesn't want to support Ukraine the way Germany should and could.
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Leaving the door open for gas supplies to eventually resume because in fact there really isn't a viable alternative that doesn't mean higher prices being the norm with potential devastating effects on German industry?
 
Revan said:
I think the fear is the nuclear escalation where everybody loses. Obviously, in a conventional conflict, the US by itself could easily overthrow the Russian regime and US tanks could reach Moscow within a few months.

But, if there is a nuclear escalation, then one being 10x stronger doesn’t make a difference.

Of course, this is not to say that the US (and rest of NATO) should not do anything. They have played this perfectly so far, and as long as the help to Ukraine continues, Russia is fecked.
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No, the West did not play it perfectly. On the contrary. There are thousands and thousands of dead Ukrainians and their country has been destroyed for no good reason.

The West should have made the Russians so scared that they will be destroyed completely, that they wouldn't even think of invading anyone. The West has more and better nuclear weapons and the Russians know this too.

Unfortunately, the Western leaders are too weak for anything like that, and Putin knows this. The Ukrainians pay the price. It is terrible to say that "the West played it perfectly".
 
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