The contrary. The Nazis were sure that the West won't react to the Nazi invasion of Poland. They were so sure that Von Ribbentropp wanted to place a bet with ciano on the matter. The same seem to happen with Putin. He felt that the West won't react on Ukraine.
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.
The contrary. The Nazis were sure that the West won't react to the Nazi invasion of Poland. They were so sure that Von Ribbentropp wanted to place a bet with ciano on the matter. The same seem to happen with Putin. He felt that the West won't react on Ukraine.
I'm kinda interested to know the point you are making. Are you saying that you think this conflict has the same likelihood or potential for escalation as the German invasion of Poland had?
Sure - but NATO did react in the case of Ukraine, and has been arming Ukraine so it could successfully defend itself. So while Germany did overrun Poland and while that event was the start of a series of successes for Germany at the start of WW2, Russia failed to overrun Ukraine and currently has no logical reason to attempt any other invasions.
Reading your post again, I suppose you are simply drawing parallels between the starts of both events and not trying to predict next events or outcomes. But even those parallels are quite far-fetched: (A) it is quite common that countries that start a war have a strong nationalistic streak and that (B) not everyone is in a mood for war (especially post-19th century); (C) played no role in Hitler's conquests towards the west and I think not much for the Poland invasion either; (D) I am not sure how the German army was overrated, and it certainly featured no major embarrassments or disappointments early in the war (unlike Russia); and (E) Belarus is entirely incomparable to 1930s/40s Italy in terms of geopolitical influence/power or military strength.
On a very high level, I can see the similarities, but if you consider each point properly, I think there is very little of substance to it.
It’s strange to say the least to compare as equal the Russian army‘s early performance with the Third Reich’s given the latter’s incredible advances early in that war. It alone almost nullifies the credibility of the argument. But I won’t delve into it more as we might be veering off-topic.
Exactly. I have been watching Netflix documentaries about WW2 recently, and they never mention that Germany's army was overrated. They seem to have overrated the power of their airforce, but for the most part, their losses (or disappointments; see Dunkirk) were due to tactical errors and the simply much larger capacity of the US and Russia in terms of manpower and weaponry.
Yeah - but then this has been a geopolitics discussion since @devilish's first post, so I suppose it'll all be moved over to that thread soon anyway.
The time for such comparisons, if there ever was any, is long gone. Even the fact that the WW2 had actually happened means that the current situation won’t be able to go exactly the same way, it’s existence in our past obviously affects our decisions drastically.
Not to say that the parallels between Nazi Germany and Putin’s Russia are very far fetched though.
As for the more relevant news — it looks like the shit is finally going down… hopefully we’ll hear good news tomorrow, the Ukrainians are understandably not telling much and listening to Russian sources (they’ve already said that the counter-offensive has failed) is simply pointless.
Not to say that the parallels between Nazi Germany and Putin’s Russia are very far fetched though.
As for the more relevant news — it looks like the shit is finally going down… hopefully we’ll hear good news tomorrow, the Ukrainians are understandably not telling much and listening to Russian sources (they’ve already said that the counter-offensive has failed) is simply pointless.
My initial point was to highlight the comparisons between the political scene during that time which lead to WW2 and the current situation. However I find myself thinking that there's more to that. Putin loves history. Its said that when he was a government official he had Peter the Great's photo on his desk. This passion was evident when he spoke about Ukraine and its role in the Russian empire. I believe that the guy's political strategy is influenced in some way to Hitler's successful (though tragic) 1938-1939 strategy which saw Germany seizing land while a complacent West looked the other way. Even now despite NATO showing some teeth he is still banking that Europe-US would lack the resolve to keep supporting Ukraine in the long term.
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According to Barbero, the Nazi army was so unprepared in entering Austria that 70% of its military vehicles broke down before they entered in Vienna.
Its at 12.00. Apologies but its in Italian.
That's an excellent comparison, as the Wehrmacht didn't really have to fight in Austria. This scenario looks a lot like what Putin hoped for in Ukraine, and maybe if Austria had fought back the outcome would have been similar to what is happening now.
As @stefan92 said, there was no fighting in Austria. What does it matter what kind of equipment they sent there? In Poland and in the west, they clearly didn't have such issues when they were actually doing a military in invasion.
This is exactly the history that Putin loves
The one that isn't able to withstand any real scrutiny. Peter the Great predates photography but roughly a century. I know that you didn't mean that but it was so fitting.So yeah, seriously, I wouldn't try to explain his actions by using actual history, considering that his biggest adviser on history is Vladimir Medinsky. I'm too lazy to properly explain this but they did spend the past 20 years rewriting history to fit their narrative.
https://scheerpost.com/2022/08/29/chris-hedges-ukraine-and-the-politics-of-permanent-war/
part of a lengthier article which has much less to do with ukraine than it does with the concept of permanent war, something the author has a long history of writing about from a critical viewpoint. of interest here is the above. apparently some of the equipment will take months, or much longer, to reach ukraine. added to everything else we know about the war so far and the idea that ukraine is a counter attack away from beating russia back or that the sanctions will sort it all out in a few weeks, which is said by some every few weeks, becomes ridiculous. we're in for a long war of attrition, which most probably already know. also not really a secret as many, high up on the american side, made it known they wanted this to be russia's afghanistan which is increasingly where things seem to be.
Russia's Afghanistan was Afghanistan.
soviets though wasn't it. but yeah, they mean it's russia's turn to bleed, after america's recent war there.
Agree with this. If there is a comparison to be made with ww2 I’d say that at the outset of this conflict, Russia-Ukraine was more like Germany-Poland. And the difference is that the West has been on to this scenario for the last 10 years (no doubt with Poland 1939 in mind). This has led to years of planning and improving the Ukrainian army, and a very fast and strong resupply at the start of the invasion, meaning that Russia’s invasion has not followed the same pattern as Germany’s did)
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Formula One CEO Stefano Domenicali said the sport has no plans to hold future races in Russia.
The Russian Grand Prix was scheduled to be held in Sochi this year before moving to Igora Drive in St. Petersburg in 2023, but F1 canceled the race after Russia invaded Ukraine. Domenicali said the sport has no intention of returning to the country.
"I've always believed that you should never say never," Domenicali told Sport Bild magazine, per GrandPrix.com. "But in this case, I can promise for sure -- we will no longer negotiate with them.
"There will be no more racing in Russia."
https://www.espn.com/f1/story/_/id/34448352/formula-1-ceo-no-more-racing-russia
The Russian Grand Prix was scheduled to be held in Sochi this year before moving to Igora Drive in St. Petersburg in 2023, but F1 canceled the race after Russia invaded Ukraine. Domenicali said the sport has no intention of returning to the country.
"I've always believed that you should never say never," Domenicali told Sport Bild magazine, per GrandPrix.com. "But in this case, I can promise for sure -- we will no longer negotiate with them.
"There will be no more racing in Russia."
https://www.espn.com/f1/story/_/id/34448352/formula-1-ceo-no-more-racing-russia
Always been fascinated by deception tactics.
Re-tweeted by Higgins (Bellingcat founder). The bushes picture is killing me.
Was this made with the Sims 3?
Re-tweeted by Higgins (Bellingcat founder). The bushes picture is killing me.
Kent Brockman, Channel 6 News. Is this a joke?
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Reminiscent of the Allies ghost army.
My goodness, those would be seriously staggering numbers if true. Can't help but feel slighly sceptical. Will be interesting to see if the UN and such corroborate this.
This was reported in April:
https://www.pbs.org/newshour/world/over-10000-civilians-killed-in-mariupol-siege-mayor-says
Wouldn't be surprised if it was true, Russia practically razed the city.
Then you have a situation where the Russian soldiers had to fight a stubborn defender with pressure from above, would not surprise me if they took out those frustrations on the defenseless.
I knew there's a large chuck of casualties missing from occupied areas in the overall estimates, but that's much worse than I expected.
The claim is 87k documented, plus 26.7k undocumented in the mass graves etc, plus the undiscovered bodies still not found under the rubble.
A little off topic but:
EU member has regained its independence from Soviet occupation in a bloody and tragic battle against the tanks sent by him and she comes up with that?
I still can’t believe the ignorance of leaders in the western european countries. Not to mention the chernobyl disaster, him celebrating crimean occupation, etc.
EU member has regained its independence from Soviet occupation in a bloody and tragic battle against the tanks sent by him and she comes up with that?
I still can’t believe the ignorance of leaders in the western european countries. Not to mention the chernobyl disaster, him celebrating crimean occupation, etc.
Nonetheless he made it possible that the wall through Germany could be opened peacefully and that the reunification could happen.
Yes it went different in your country, but it's too easy to dismiss Germany as a "Western European country" when it was partially under Soviet control just the same way Poland etc were.
The way this went was the first step of getting Eastern and Western European countries into the same fold and about 15 years later you joined as well.
Gorbachev definitely didn't do the right thing in every case, but here he opened the path to the big European Union we know today.
Edit: and I think it's not that offtopic, as the German contribution is often discussed here: while the way the iron curtain was opened lead the way to close ties to Eastern European countries it also lead to Germany not having problems including Russia in that. So I guess it's safe to say if Gorbachev had tried to stop the collapse of the GDR by force, Germany wouldn't have built such close ties to Russia as it did that quickly.
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He didn’t do it peacefully as evident by the massacres in multiple countries at that time but he soon realized that bankrupt soviet union won’t be able to hold it together anyway while the soviet imperialist ideology never left him.
As I said it was peaceful in Germany and of course that shaped the General perception here.
I think I acknowledged that it didn't went the same way in other countries
Yeah I don’t deny that, all I’m saying is western leaders are still out of touch about soviet/russia when they choose to glorify such characters.As I said it was peaceful in Germany and of course that shaped the General perception here.
I think I acknowledged that it didn't went the same way in other countries
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