Topic: Russian Invasion of Ukraine[In Progress] - page 331. (Read 61111 times)

The crisis has deepened in Ukraine ,  President Putin said last night that Russia will recognize Donbas areas as Independent states and will send military troops inside Ukraine to these areas, NATO countries will certainly react to it. Let's watch and wait how the situation unfolds. The markets have shown strong reaction to this news and  entire  financial got spooked and dumped.

AFAIK there hasn't been any significant resistance inside those regions for a long time. There's tight control by the local authorities (pretty much dictatorships - with permanent curfews etc). If no one was able to put up much of a fight there against those forces, surely nothing is going to happen now with the arrival of Russian military reinforcements.

The question is how much further will Putin move into Ukraine. It's possible that he will play tough for a few months and "negotiate" to get Luhansk/Donetsk/Crimea recognized as part of Russia by the West in exchange for a peace deal. But in a sort of macabre way, it would probably be better for Ukraine in the long run if Putin tried to move further. This could bankrupt Russia and end up with a complete withdrawal like Afghanistan in 1980s. At a huge cost to both sides.

Any country can say whatever they want. The US said that Juan Guaidó was the legitimate president of Venezuela despite him never having any real hold over the country; they recognized the anti-Assad forces as the true leaders of Syria; they recognized the anti-communist regime as the legitimate leaders of Vietnam in the Vietnam War; they long recognized what is now Taiwan as the legitimate leaders of all of China; etc. In all of those examples, the force backed by the superpower lost. I don't know that Ukraine will ever retake effective control of those regions, but it's not as if Russia's declaration is what will put an end to the issue, and it's not as if Russia is the only country with a history of making these sorts of declarations.

If the disputed territories had mostly Ukrainian nationalists, I don't think that Russia could hold it long-term (even if they could win every single battle fought). But the issue is that a sizable percentage of the population in those regions supports Russia. And if Ukraine is too weak to retain the territory, Russia is willing to exert force to take it, and many more residents are willing to fight for Russia than against Russia, then it seems inevitable that the territories will go to Russia.


The "Russiagate" stuff is indeed largely conspiracy nonsense, but Trump is more transactional and self-interested than Biden, so I think he'd be willing to lift sanctions in a few years if he could negotiate a deal with Putin which looked like a win.

There has been fighting going on at the border of the disputed territory between the Ukraine military and the separatist militia. Presumably, there is Ukrainian military equipment and personnel at the border of the area that separatists occupy.

Why would they bomb the territory they already control, makes no sense.

If Ukraine were to agree to give up parts of its country that are under the control of separatists, it would avoid bloodshed associated with war, and would not really change much in terms of Ukrraine. This would be an ideal outcome for Ukraine.

I think this is a good indication that an invasion is imminent. Russia may initially claim to be going into areas controlled by separatists under the pretext of "liberating" those areas, but there is always the potential that the Russian military will not stop at those areas. Any invasion is going to be accompanied by airstrikes (likely), so if Russia limits airstrikes to the areas controlled by separatists, the invasion is likely to be limited to that area.

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update:
an invasion appears to have started

Ahem... wasn't Lithuania technically "part of another country" when it was recognized by Iceland in 1991?

Anyway, technicalities aside, yes, Donetsk/Luhansk is Russia's Trojan horse to send troops there (after being promptly asked to do so by the people of the new countries) and then perhaps expand a hundred or so km into Ukraine because they will need a buffer zone to defend from those pesky Ukrainians. Kharkiv is a goner too probably, eventually.

So, Putin today officially recognised Luhansk and Donetsk People's Republics as independent stats. It's something unbeleavable how president of one country can simply decide that part of another country will be independent state.
With this action he probably will find reason to justify sending Russian troops to Donetsk and Luhansk to protect people from "regime" of Ukraine. And later simply accept these states into Russia like they did with Crimea.
In Putin speach there was lot of shit said, like threat from Ukraine to make nuclear weapon.

Yeah, Ukraine can't win war against Russia. But now Russia is spreading agenda that Ukraine will attack Eastern region which is under control of separatists. How stupid it would be when there probably 170k or more Russian troops dislocated by the border.
Avoiding invasion is best interest for Ukraine, but they don't have many tools in their hands when they have such neighbour.

I have no idea what Zelenski would be willing to offer. I agree that the Russians generally cannot be trusted when it comes to guarantees of peace.

The problem is that Ukraine likely cannot win a war against Russia if Russia is willing to continue any war it is fighting. Ukraine can possibly make the war too bloody for Russia to continue, and eventually win when Russia withdraws. Even if Ukraine did win this way, they would still incur heavy losses themselves. So trying to avoid an invasion is in Ukraine's best interest.

Do you mean that they would give up offcially Luhansk and Donbass which is under control of separatists? Or you mean giving up piece of Eastern Ukraine which is under of control of Kyiv? I think that none of these scenarios is possible. When it comes to Russia, promise of peace means nothing and it don't gives any guarantees that they won't come here again.

Haven't followed up what exactly has happened in Ukraine, however, invading it's territory won't surprise me. Let me remind you that Russia invaded and claimed most of the region of Crimea, back in 2014, it wouldn't surprise me if Putin is aiming on an expansive policy.

If such thing occurs, it will have disastrous consequences for both worldwide economy, but also in human life. A war would be the last thing we'd want now, hopefully, NATO will step in before the situation turns into a disaster.

It is hard to say what is actually known, and how reliable the intelligence is.

When we withdrew from Afghanistan, the US intelligence predicted that it would take months for the Taliban to take over the country when it actually took about 48 hours, and there was nearly zero resistance. Now US intelligence is saying that Ukraine could fall within 48 hours of Russia launching an invasion. I am not sure the basis for that prediction, however, I do believe there will be much more resistance to an invasion as Ukraine has resisted Russia in recent years.

It does appear that western intelligence was right about a false flag operation. There was a bombing against the leader of a separatist group that had no casualties. I would expect a failed assassination attempt to have some civilian and/or security casualties.

Putin has claimed to be withdrawing his troops from the Ukraine border, but there does not appear to be evidence of that. It does appear that war is imminent.

The best time for Russia to invade would be after the Nordstream 2 pipeline is complete (perhaps one year later), during the winter, when Europe would be dependent on Russian gas via the pipeline. Germany and Frace appear to be the weak links in potential sanctions against Russia. That is fitting considering that an invasion of Ukraine would be the biggest war in Europe since WW2, and neither country was on the right side of either world war (Germany was part of the Axis, and France quickly fell).

Trump is not going to start a new war in response to a Russian invasion, although I do believe he would be open to continuing military operations in the region if he is convinced that is what is best for the US. Trump was harder on Russia than either Obama or Biden, despite the baseless claims of being a Russian agent.

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The Ukraine president has called for a meeting with Putin, so the two sides can come to a peaceful "settlement". It is possible that Ukraine will be willing to give up some of its territory in exchange for the promise of peace. This could be seen as a win at home for Putin (which is likely the root cause for the Russian aggression), and would avoid the bloodshed associated with war.

I don't think it's just the Biden administration that's being played, we all are.  The fact that Biden has relaxed Trump's sanctions against Russia has emboldened Putin.  I'm not big on conspiracy theories, but I have no doubt that a shady menage trois exists between Putin, Zelenskyy, and Biden.

Biden also has a lot of lobbyists to whom he must answer, and the one lobby he's been answering to for the last 49 years lost a revenue stream when he pulled out of Afghanistan.  For four years Trump tried to pull out of Afghanistan, and for four years he was obstructed because he had no intention of starting another conflict.  There's also no chance that Trump would have abandoned billions of dollars worth of weapons in Afghanistan, which would have effectively left the US with a weapons surplus.  That's not good, if your goal is protecting the MIC's revenue streams.

This is all complicated by the divide within Ukraine itself.  There's a significant difference in culture and even language between Western and Eastern Ukraine, with the east being inhabited by predominantly ethnic Russians.  I think Putin is hoping to incite a civil war within Ukraine, and aligning himself with the east, but I think he is underestimating the Eastern Ukrainians' indifference over which corrupt government collects their taxes.  
 

He and his administration probably does in fact believe that, but I still lean toward thinking that they're being played. I don't think that Russia will do anything that will result in most NATO countries saying, "Yep, that was definitely an invasion of Ukraine, so now we're doing all of the crushing sanctions we'd planned." If Russia fully withdraws without much incident like they've been publicly saying, then at this point it'd be a big blow to the credibility of Biden/America/NATO. Even more likely is that they continue their threatening posture to keep the West in an uncomfortable state of limbo for months.

I wouldn't bet much against an invasion, though, and on the other side of the argument, if Putin knows that he eventually wants to take a piece of Ukraine, now would be the perfect time. The energy market is currently uniquely favorable to Russia, German politics biases them strongly against cutting all ties with Russia, Putin needs a boost in his domestic approval, etc. Also, if Trump is president in 3 years (a distinct possibility), then an attack against Ukraine years in the past under Biden isn't something that Trump would particularly care about.

It looks like if they will do something, we're most likely to see it in the next few days.

So nice of Putin to tell Biden, how polite 

Is this the video you're talking about? https://twitter.com/OlgaNYC1211/status/1494787928022781960

Clearly faked.

Mass coordination by Russian media to report the story instantaneously, check.

No casualties reported, check

Excuse for Putin to invade, check.

Additional Ukrainian troops will be on standby in response to the false flag, and Putin will then further blame escalation on Ukraine. He's quite an evil man.

According to President Biden, Putin has decided to invade and will do so in the next few days. Also today, there was an apparent bombing in Ukraine that may have been a false flag operation intended to create a pretext for an invasion.

Good speech by Johnson, but it's like talking to your own hand. In Russia people were always the cheapest and most expendable resource. The Soviets knew many sons and husbands would not be returning home from Afghanistan, but that did not stop them from waging that stupid, pointless war.

A nice example of Russian mentality is the Warsaw Pact war plan, which is a plan of invasion of Europe developed in the 60s. In short, they were planning to use nuclear weapons on the whole continent and immediately send in soldiers equipped with basic gear like gas masks and special coats. The idea was to send Hungarians, Romanians, Poles first, the moment the nukes hit, and make sure they are pumped full of anti radiation pills, well fed and told the gear will keep them safe, to make them feel good for a few days and keep fighting. Expendables first. It's not the only time the Russians acted in this manner. The Ukrainians did the same in Chernobyl when they delayed the evacuation of Pripyat and did not inform the world that there's a cloud of radiation going West.

Germany wants their Nord Stream 2 pipeline, and I recall reading that they would halt the pipeline if Russia were to invade (so brave of them, yes). It begs the question as to what actually would stop Russia if they know that NATO countries are split on what to do in the event of an invasion. The US made it clear they will not get involved, they'll just station troops in surrounding countries to watch at the dumpster fire in Ukraine.

If Russia will start actions in Ukraine, I believe that Germany will impose some kind of sanctions. But it will be just for the eyes to show that they're doing something and these sanctions won't hurt Russia much. Maybe they will froze somene's bank account or ban them from entering EU.
You have good point about weak US presidents. Same can't be said about Germany. Russia started their actions shortly after Merkel left office and new chancellor don't have that much weight in politics. I even had to Google who he is for the context.

This is a very serious situation and Putin is not fucking around.

Boris Johnson has just said to Putin:

"If Russia pursues this path, many Russian mothers' sons will not be coming home."

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qW9AFBfl0N0

Maybe that's the reason why crypto and stocks are crashing lately.