Topic: Russian Invasion of Ukraine[In Progress] - page 327. (Read 60788 times)

It is so hard to see these heart breaking news, specially after when the whole world saw a corona wave which was a threat to all of us human beings beyond all imaginary national borders, the common people of all countries should voice together against all types of wars. Politics and ego will kill humanity faster than what meteorites did to dinosaurs. Hopefully peace prevails! 

You were right about where Russia's military was going to attack from. We will see if Putin stops with Ukraine or if he continues west.

I think this would be unlikely. Before the attacks started, Zelensky tried calling Putin, but he did not answer, and Zelensky had publicly stated that he would be willing to negotiate for peace. I don't see any reason why Putin wouldn't make this demand before starting military action, as starting military action is risky, even for a dictator. Being that there has been an insurgency in eastern Ukraine for years now, I don't think Zelensky would have been strongly opposed to giving eastern Ukraine in exchange for peace.

There are reports of a Russian "hit squad" whose intentions are to kill Zelensky and his family. If these reports are accurate, it would remove credence to Putin offering peace in exchange for Eastern Ukraine. Or at least that any such offer would be credible.

The Russian economy is approximately 1.5% the size of the US economy. I don't think Russia would be able to finance a years-long insurgency the same way that the US did in Afghanistan. Sanctions against Russia will make it more difficult to continue to finance any war in Ukraine or elsewhere in eastern Eurpoe. Russia's big stick is its large stockpile of nukes. If not for their nukes, a war against Russia would be trivial to win because they lack the manufacturing capacity to continue to produce weapons that are needed for war.

---

The Ukraine government has asked its citizens to make Molotov cocktails. If citizens make these (and use them against the Russian military) in large enough numbers, the invasion would quickly get expensive for Russia in terms of soldiers and military equipment.

---

Russia was able to take control of the Chernobyl nuclear power plant that is currently decommissioned. Putin likely wants control over this site because it would potentially provide an easy path to Kiev.

---

There were anti-war protests in Russia yesterday (Thursday), which is especially noteworthy because Russia does not tolerate dissent.

---

Biden was reportedly presented with options to launch a cyber-attack against Russia in response to the invasion of Ukraine.

In what may or may not be related, the hacking group "Anonymous" has said they are in the process of attacking Russia via cyber attacks. This raises the question if "Anonymous" is actually an apparatus of the US intelligence agencies and/or US government.

Why does every war always involve America in it and act like a 'hero' for an oppressed and weak country? Is it true that America wants to help Ukraine to avoid war? Or is it America that wants this war to happen so that its influence can expand and it can bring down Russia without sacrificing its own people by 'choosing' the location of the war in Ukraine? Brilliant Scenario supported by Media that is easy to pay, perfect!

The question I suppose is how much does any of this actually harm Russia, and does it harm the west too?
Putin isn't really dependent on a network of allies, I would assume that Russian government officials are mostly replaceable 'yes men'.
An international travel ban, cancelling flights etc., would probably be met with a shrug of the shoulders. Russia would respond tit-for-tat by banning all western flights over its own ludicrously vast airspace, which would hurt the west.
An arrest warrant probably wouldn't bother him either.
Blocking Russian gas/oil sales harms the west.
Trying to cut Russia out of the financial system means they'll probably just cozy up to China some more.

I'm certainly no expert on any of this, just trying to understand what his limits are or what possible western response could cause him any concern at all. The only thing is NATO countries sending in troops, which seems very unlikely. So what's left? The west providing background support to the Ukranians, leading to some horrible attritional war that could continue indefinitely.

The most effective thing that could be done is to deport the children of Russian officials and propagandists from the United States and the European Union. Naturally, with the subsequent seizure of property. Many children of Russian officials live and study in the United States on Russian corruption money. At the same time, their parents pretend to be patriots and tell propaganda on Russian TV aimed at inciting hatred towards these countries. This data is not some kind of secret, it has been on the Internet for many years.
For example look this video: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mjuNQZYqNjY
Or this which is very fresh: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mJ2GC_tdmwk
It is without subtitles, but everything must be clear. Russian oppositionists constantly talked about this, but the influence of propaganda on TV is very strong.

Lithuania, then Poland and annex everything all the way down to Serbia and form an alliance with Serbia.

The US will 'invoke' article 5 and go home without firing a single shot.  That is what I am afraid is going to happen.

The guy has Parkinson's so he might go all the way to non-existent DDR. 

For him, time is of the essence so I expect quick moves IF he captures and subdues Ukraine.

It's difficult to guess where he's going to stop, but this map shows the NATO countries. What are the chances of Finland suddenly applying for membership? The west is looking pretty powerless at the moment, and bringing Finland in is one of the few things they can do that will hurt Russia.

Belarus is effectively part of Russia at the moment, and is housing a load of Russian troops. Lukashenko has chosen his side.

If Putin takes Ukraine, this would just leave Finland and I suppose Moldova caught between NATO and "Russia". Presumably even Putin wouldn't push into the Baltic nations, but a direct link to Kaliningrad must be tempting, and with Belarus under the thumb, all he needs is a tiny chunk of Lithuania.

I don't know what news sources you're following but there are plenty of unlikely-to-be-fake reports showing Russian troops moving outside of the disputed regions, like from Crimea into southern Ukraine, and also in the north-eastern part of the country.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HaJCwY9YBQ0&t=143s

True, but then it suffered decades of Soviet brainwashing, moral, ethical, and physical degradation.

Soviet people have different moral and ethical values than Europeans.

As for Putin, to this day he cannot get over the loss of the USSR territories.  This is what is driving his decisions.  A shame and insecurity.

He lives in the past and wants to restore respect and dominance the Soviet Union once had.

Instead, he is going to get an international arrest warrant.  

He already arrested over 1700 Russians who went to the streets to protest this aggression.

I would say that the greatest harm to Russia was not the fall of the USSR but its establishment in the first place.  

The "invasion" of the territories that Russia already occupied since 2014 didn't surprise me; I expected them to do something like that and then stop there. But just before going to sleep last night I was shocked to see that they were apparently doing a full invasion, and I stayed up until 2AM watching the situation unfold...

The information on what's happening is very spotty. Is it possible that Russia "only" did some airstrikes, but they're not going to send in any ground troops outside of the eastern territories? I heard a rumor that Putin gave Zelenskyy an ultimatum to cede eastern Ukraine within 12 hours or else Putin would continue with a full invasion, but I don't know if this comes from a reliable source.

It'd definitely be possible for Ukraine to fight off Russia with a years-long insurgency. The West will be giving them endless supplies, so Russia would have a much harder time than the US had against Afghanistan, for example. But I don't know if the Ukrainians have the will to fight Russia for years, and I don't know that I'd even recommend that they do so, since the costs of this sort of insurgency would be so high.

This situation is so, so tragic. Ukrainians deserve to be free, but many are going to suffer and die for no reason, and the country will probably fall under an authoritarian regime. Russians will suffer a lot, as well: I see no world in which this action does anything but massively hurt the average Russian. Relations between Russia and the West will get even worse. Nothing against the people of these countries, but how does it make any sense that the US has better relations with Vietnam, Japan, and Saudi Arabia than Russia? Russia is part of Europe, their culture descended from Ancient Greece and Rome...

Not only that.  They should be confiscating all assets of Russian nationals and companies outside of Russia, period.

Western multinational companies have to leave Russia or be banned from doing business outside of Russia.

Arrest all Russian government officials outside of Russia.  UN convoy, Russian diplomats.  Confiscate their assets.

Impose a travel ban on all Russian citizens. Freeze assets of all financial institutions that use the SPFS payment system.

Cancel all flights to/from Russia.  Issue an international arrest warrant for Putin, his family, and his associates.

I told you so.

Russian forces took control of Chernobyl. This vis very concerning thing and danger not just for Ukraine, but for whole Europe. And they probably are going to use Chernobyl card to blackmail Europe.
Where is sanctions? These things made by EU and USA isn't sanctions, it's just attempt to show that they're doing something. And Putin probably is laughing from it. It's time to isolate Russia from world. Block them from SWIFT system, stop import to Russia, remove them from all international organizations, stop all flights to Russia. But they don't have balls for it. Best what they could is tell that they're "deeply concerned"
Cлaвa Укpaїнi!

Ok, let me rephrase a little bit - he's not rational in the European/Western understanding of a rational leader. He doesn't have to care about elections for example. But yeah he's cold and calculating, just on an entirely different scale of values. Anything the West can offer him in potential negotiations has little or no value to him. Even "don't accept Ukraine into NATO" is probably just a strawman, he's likely more excited about carving his name into history as the conqueror of ancient Russian lands or whatever he called it.

https://twitter.com/marcorubio/status/1496702809097527297

Tulsi Gabbard (democratic politician from United States) had a similar opinion - resolution through diplomacy. It simply does not take into account the demands Putin would want.

I too was one part of the crowd thinking Russian aggression could have been stopped with diplomacy just recently...and then Putin launches a military invasion with bombings and missile strikes. That ship has sailed. My initial thinking was an invasion could be pushed off by making concessions about NATO, and then Putin would move the goal posts later and demand more. Though now it is clear, you do not negotiate with unstable regimes, it does not work out well. See North Korea and Iran and where the U.S. has taken that diplomacy - no where. Russia will roll through Ukraine, you're right, but perhaps some resistance from Ukraine would be better than conceding their entire country to a murderous dictator that wants to see the USSR rise again.

Side note - what's particularly interesting is the repeated pattern of giving up nuclear weapons and than proceeding to be invaded because there is no way to defend a nation without weapons of mass destruction and mutually assured destruction. Some of those Soviet era nukes Ukraine had in the 90's would have been a great deterrent.

I've been wrong about Putin (including in this very thread!), so am happy to be wrong again... I'd certainly agree that he can't be negotiated with, or at least not very successfully, but for me one of the scariest things about him is that he seems very rational. It may be my misunderstanding based on his media persona and a lazy stereotype of the cold, calculating Russian, but I don't think this invasion is some hot-headed emotional action. I think he's assessed all the variables, and is confident that he will come out of this stronger than when he went in.

Everything seems to have fallen into place for him (or maybe he has been carefully manouevreing maneuovering orchestrating it all). He knows that the US won't send troops in. He has China on-side. And Russia isn't particularly dependent on the West for anything, and any sanctions that would really hurt (e.g. on gas or oil) would arguably hurt the West more by pushing up global prices.

I'm interested to find out if he seems rational to anyone else, or if it's just me seeing something that isn't there.

Time to cut off the SWIFT access may be?

NATO isn't going to step in, in fears of causing a larger scale attack towards other NATO countries. Russia's invasion isn't justifiable, more than 50 deaths have already been recorded, with multiple injuries. To be honest, I didn't expect Putin to go that far, however, it wasn't unexpected, since it has already happened in the past, with Crimea in 2014.

Unfortunately, I don't see Putin stopping anytime soon, this war will have serious consequences not only in human lives, but also financial for the whole European countries.

This Russian Inavsion of Ukraine and the forth coming war about it is getting out of hand and really serious. I don't know what is really the cause but, attacking a nation unprovoked is seriously out of place and the threat form Russia is so real. Not only limited to Ukraine but also, to other nations that dares to assist in some ways. It feels like a propaganda to see how far they could go in tempting the world power and at most, Putin isn't blinking on the threats from international communities. Do we hope to see any resolution in this, rather than a war...!

And here we're starting to see what could be the beginning of WW3. Ukraine's mistake was not joining NATO soon enough, now it can't be guaranteed anything.

I'm glad no one I've seen online so far is buying the "peacekeeping" bullshit. We all knew this is gonna happen after they invaded and annexed Crimea. Putin saw the West in disarray (thank you Rona) and struck. If you think about it, this is probably his last best chance to capture any significant amount of land before things go back to "normal".