A really good article that summarises why the information war and online spectating of this conflict is different, even if the groundwork was laid in Syria and other recent conflicts:
Russian invasion of Ukraine | Fewer tweets, more discussion
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In the latest episode of the United Hour Podcast, Nik (@Rood) is joined by CEO Duncan Drasdo and Financial Director Andy Green from the Manchester United Supporters Trust for a special episode on all things behind the scenes at Old Trafford including a brief history of MUST and their aims today, views on INEOS and Sir Jim Ratcliffe so far, and the Old Trafford regeneration.
I wonder if Putin knows what's happening here and he just cant avoid it, or he's oblivious? China will be pulling the strings in Russia before he knows what's hit him.
Taiwanese anti-ship missiles fired from land and air, American aircraft, surface navy, subs, Australian subs and whoever else from the "West" happens to have assets in the region.
Successfully invading and conquering Taiwan would be an incredibly difficult proposition for China.
Shit like this needs to be amplified. They are all in on the blood money.
These Russians better start learning Chinese. It's a whole new world for them.
But she did nothing wrong....
Great work from the Navalny crew in putting all of this together. His YouTube channel is a treasure trove of stuff like this and it’s time for all of his content to be more widely publicized.
Overseas power projection is an incredibly difficult thing to do even without an invasion. China is still a long way off that capability especially when foreign powers are involved.
Plus this new big budget military China is creating is untested in combat and has limited training opportunities. They almost need a war to teach them what they don't know.
You think that the "West" will be involved in direct combat if the war was to break out?
That's why this whole invasion thing is a red herring. Unless Xi is as deluded as Putin, he will be humiliated by the massive losses that will be inflicted. Besides, why invade Taiwan -- that means Xi has to destroy half the island to control it. Then what's the point?
Because the Russians keep bombing them… oh wait! You’re talking about the oligarchs. Silly me.
I was thinking about this. If the west wants to really hurt Putin, they should watch Navalny's videos and sanctions everyone who appears in them.
Actually that fits with my thinking. Here is a (bit long) thread about Russian economy and it's power structures: https://nitter.net/kamilkazani/status/1501370616158556161#m
tl;dr: Oil and gas were taken over by Putin's mafia friends, old style oligarchs a tier below are only accepted in a bit more complex industries. Abramovich being forced to sell his oil business for cheap and now active in metallurgy fits this perfectly.
So of course he is an oligarch, but I still think it's wrong to see him on the same level like Deripaska. He isn't part of Putin's inner circle.
Only 12 days into the war and they are in need of selling some of their assets already?
I bet when presented with options by his peeps; the best, most pessimistic and most realistic scenarios of the impact of the war, Putin's advisors' projections never came close to what they are facing now.
Putin will turn Russia into a vassal state.
Poor Roman. I feel sorry for him. Nothing worst than being poor then rich and now back to being poor again.
How will he survive on the $2-3Billion that's left?
When you hate the US/NATO so much, that you become the junior partner to China.
I disagree. Xi is biding his time but one day in the future they absolutely will invade. Look at how many amphibious landing ships they are building. They know they can't do it yet so they're taking the time to build up the equipment they need, and watching how the world responded to Russia here.
Put it another way, if the roles were reversed the US could invade Taiwan and nobody could stop them. That's where Xi wants to get to.
When you hate the US/NATO so much, that you become the junior partner to China.
Wasn't that already the case? I have been under the impression for a while that Russia are essentially under China's wings whether they noticed it or not.
Humanity at best against the backdrop of humanity at its very worst.
Have to wonder if there already isn't a modern version of Molotov-Ribbentrop pact between Russia and China.
They're certainly building a military very focused on that mission, and also to counter how the US would like to respond (with their carrier-targeting long-range missiles and island chains). The US will need to design new capabilities of its own that can intervene in that fight in a way that China will take more years to build a counter. Basically a specific arms race around attacking & defending an amphibious strike. If they don't then one day a Secretary of Defense will be informing a US President that even if they want to intervene to stop China's invasion, they can't realistically do it.
Not quite in my view, although there's no clear markers of these things so it's open to anyone's opinions. My reasoning is that while China does dwarf Russia economically, Russia is still militarily more fearsome because of their much bigger nuclear arsenal. I think China was happy to see Russia create problems for the established "Western order" that it also seeks to weaken, and that they would mutually support each other where possible but not have China really "veto" any of Russia's plans. If Russia can't grind to a more solid victory in Ukraine then I think that between the economic impact and the military losses (although big nuclear arsenal intact), then Russia really loses it's independence in terms of planning further geopolitical moves.
His Instagram is incredible: https://www.instagram.com/occhicone98/
I see your point. I never really took the military side into account because China are too vast and my understanding is that the terrain is mainly extremely treacherous(lots of jungles, forrests, hills and moutains) for anyone to be an actual menace let alone Russia coming from Russia and that's ignoring the vast difference in population. My view was almost entirely in terms of economy and how China became crucial for Russia.
But if he looks at the great Russian military stumbling across Ukraine, what hope is there for a Chinese sea invasion? Remember -- China has ZERO military war experience.
Also, he uses a lot of Russian hardware. And it ain't doing so well in Ukraine.
I think this Russian special military exercise will give him some pause for thought.
When you hate the US/NATO so much, that you become the junior partner to China.
The thing is that Putin doesn't see himself as inferior to China. He expects to be in equal standing with China. This is where the tension will blow up in the mid-term.You must be joking right? The Russian Oligarchs with billions in fortunes that collude with and enable the Putin regime have in your eyes nothing to with this?
Admittedly different Oligarchs will have different standing in Putin's circle. We, the readers, are not very savvy on what goes on behind closed doors. But those that still maintain their freedom and their Russian wealth over there (when it could be seized by Putin) would have bent the knee to him and if they are not using their wealth to further his grip on power, they are at the very least not using it to loosen it. Otherwise they would go Khodorkovsky's way.
EDIT: Although I presume it functions like a racket. They all funnel some money to him indirectly, making him very rich, while buying his protection that way. Which means they are allowed to keep their wealth and operations without fear of it being seized by the state, so long as they don't make any waves.
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Is everyone with those capabilities planning an invasion then? Is Germany's new military spending a sign Britain should be afraid?
China has the capability to boost military spending significantly and until they do it's bizarre to claim an invasion is being planned. It makes zero sense for China in it's current direction. China will always claim Taiwan that doesn't mean they plan to invade, nor is Taiwan invading China for the same reason.
This is why they're building Mosaic Warfare as DARPA calls it. Drone swarms assisting existing aircraft, ships etc to command them. They think it will make everything 50% more lethal and 50% less likely to sustain losses and can carpet cover a large area.
Yeah, I'm not talking next year. This is 10-20 years away at least imo. China hasn't been buying much Russian hardware in a long time either they've been busy developing their own.
Hmm! And we all know how that one ended up.