I'm actually amazed the Netherlands found anything to give. It was generally assumed that war was over because Europeans had become civilized. Unfortunately the Russians never got that memo and remained barbarian.
A few years ago Dutch soldiers had to yell "bang bang" at exercises for lack of ammunition.
Dutch politicians have noticed this is looking a lot like 1940.
My understanding is that military capacity across all EEA member states, and UK and Switzerland, would dramatically outweigh Russia's. Countries don't necessarily need to increase their military spend after this, especially with all the other economic issues we already have to grapple with, following both the great recession, covid, heavy inflation, the switch to green economy, and now all the economic effects being linked to the war in Ukraine.
As far as I understand, only UK and France have defence forces that can mount a proper fight and have operational experience, even their own nuclear triad. Rest of Europe is far weaker.
Yes, NATO in Europe is US+UK+FR+TK, with some significant manpower commitment from Eastern European states, and that's all.
It boggles my mind why Turkey keeps being ignored in this discourse. They have army big enough, modern, and powerful to alone defeat all Russian force in Ukraine.
> It boggles my mind why Turkey keeps being ignored in this discourse.
Are they? They've contributed a lot of already-legendary Bayraktar drones[1], they've rejected Russia's request to move war ships through Bosporus[2], they're pretty clearly invested in supporting Ukraine despite the unwillingness to impose sanctions on Russia.
They do, but NATO heads of state seem to forgot that Turkey exists, and is an extremely strong military power, which can put can on top of any Russian activity in their vicinity within days.
Erdogan is effectively a Putin de-facto ally and would likely resist any such calls.
Turkey is a sui generis NATO ally. The US "claimed it" to get the straits, effectively providing a nuclear arsenal as payment, but it's become very clear that the country's priorities have always been somewhat unique and shifted considerably since the Cyprus conflict - even more so since Erdogan's purges.
Turkey would definitely be a NATO ally in an all-out war (which would be the end of humankind, so whatever), but they will probably never engage Russia directly in a limited fashion while Putin and Erdogan are in power.
Is your suggestion that because Turkey has a large army, countries like the Netherlands need to increase their military capacity? Or reduce it? Or neither/other?
I suggest NATO launch war, retake Ukraine, and deprive Russia of 60% of its military for almost no cost.
This will be followed by Putin having to spend the next 40% of its military on keeping order within Russia. If he will use nukes, he will obviously not be able to do so (NATO nuclear retaliation will destroy at least 50% of remaining Russian military.)
Even if Putin will stay in power, sending military to police innumerable Russian cities, and towns will take him off the list of potential threats for next decade at least.
> This will be followed by Putin having to spend the next 40% of its military on keeping order within Russia. If he will use nukes, he will obviously not be able to do so.
Initiating a nuclear launch is not a high-manpower operation.
Ok, that's enough. After years of trying to explain to you why posting like this is unacceptable on HN, I think we have to ban this account again for now.
Obviously emotions and tensions are super high right now, but (a) that's a reason not to post like this, and (b) this has been a problem for a long time.
Turkey's air defenses are supplied by Russia. Ergodan was so indignant to get the S-400 that he risked loosing the F-35 over it, and did in fact loose the plane even though Turkey manufactures parts of the plane.
After snubbing the Americans and the rest of Europe for the S-400, Turkey's only unburned military bridge with a strong power is Russia. They dare not burn that bridge as well.
> They closed the entrance to the Black Sea to Russia yesterday.
It seems from the linked article that Turkey requested the Russians to not cross, and the Russians obliged. The Russians are just as happy with Turkish relations as Turkey is with Russian relations. However, rest assured that if a Russian warship decided that it absolutely must traverse the Bosphorus strait and a Turkish ship were to confront it, the Russians would have no problem asserting their crossing over a sunk Turkish warship.
As war is not declared between Russia and either Turkey or NATO, the Turkish blockade would be considered provocation (as per treaties, Black Sea states have open access to Bosporus and Russia is a Black Sea state) and would not require NATO to invoke Article 5. Which in turn would weaken further propositions to invoke Article 5 in the future: a desirable outcome for Russia.
>Turkey's only unburned military bridge with a strong power is Russia.
Which is kind of odd, since in recent history they've shot down a Russian jet, and had an assassination of the Russian ambassador perpetrated by a uniformed police officer.
The disrespect for Italian forces is all over this thread. Definitely not as active as UK/FR (because their constitution, y'know, literally forbids any action on foreign soil not authorized by the UN), but still decently armed - all the way to the infamous F-35...
> only UK and France have defence forces that can mount a proper fight and have operational experience
France released a report two weeks ago concluding it can only withstand high intensity war for a few days. We have good forces to do small scale interventions in foreign countries but we wouldn't be much better than Ukraine at defending our own land. Plus it's a small army and most citizen aren't trained.
The air force allegedly has only 2 days worth of ammunitions
Our only redeeming quality is our nuclear submarines float but that's more of a deterrence option.
We're mostly relying on the US in case of a "real" war.
The other side is that the US is the only country capable of fighting a "real" war against France. No other country has the logistics capacity to send a significant force to fight so far away from home. Russia is already having serious trouble with logistics in Ukraine, and the troops haven't advanced that far from the border.
I think it's a lot more like September 1939 than 1940.
Crimea was Sudetenland. Ukraine is Poland. And, at the moment, the other major world powers haven't joined in. Yet.
This analogy isn't necessarily a good one. Especially since we've seen that the Russian army is way less capable than the Wehrmacht. Kraków felt 5 days after the invasion started, and the Germans controlled roughly two third of Poland by day 15, and so with vehicles two times slower than modern ones.
Unlike Hitler, Putin cannot realistically contemplate the conquest of the entire Europe with the army he has, even without NATO intervention…
Crimea is Sudetenland, but Ukraine is more like rump Czechoslovakia.
I don't have problem with the principle that a country has broad latitude to handle internal affairs in its own way.
Nor a country, within limits, seeking to project power in its neighborhood. The principle of self-determination, as articulated by Wilson's Fourteen Principles a century ago, is very difficult to reconcile with condemning too heavily the Russian majority of Crimea seeking to leave Ukraine and rejoining Russia. The current invasion of Ukraine is different.
As for why Putin (I would have written Russia, except based on many news reports it seems like Putin made this decision alone, shocking/amazing everyone around him) invaded Ukraine: I don't know. Putin's own words indicate a goal of rebuilding the physical USSR, but there is a good case to be made that Russia was strengthened after 1991 by losing chunks on the outer edges peopled by non-Russian ethnic groups. (Chechnya being an example of a chunk that it really ought to have lost.)
NATO expansion isn't a satisfactory answer, either. NATO has bordered Russia since Norway became a charter member in 1949. Russia wasn't thrilled about Poland joining NATO but it seemed to be able to live with it, and one is hard pressed to say that NATO is actually strengthened by having the likes of Montenegro as members. Everyone knew that Ukraine wasn't going to be allowed to join NATO as long as the Crimea and eastern Ukraine territorial situations remained, so in practice Ukraine was permanently blocked.
So why this war? At least Hitler could cite lebensraum for rump Czechoslovakia, even without the ethnic Germans that had justified taking the Sudetenland. But no one thinks that Russia, whose population is shrinking anyway, needs more space. The only two things I can think of are:
* Russia feels the need to expand its borders and build buffer zones as much as possible before its demographic crisis really hits in a few years and the country can no longer staff its military. (Peter Zeihan has talked about this for years.)
* Putin really has, as Macron and others have observed/hinted, gone crazy.
> Unfortunately the Russians never got that memo and remained barbarian.
I don't believe referring to any group of people as barbarians is an appropriate comment for HN, or indeed for any place purporting to be a forum for civilized discourse.
He's also implicitly calling Yemenis, Afghanistanis, Palestenians and Israelis uncivilized too. I heard the same statement ("We are too civilized for war unlike other places") coming from Ukranian tv hosts and it left me dumbfounded.
I was aware of same EU TV person, maybe a UK person, having majorly stepped in it along those lines. It's just incredibly narrow to presume that war-torn places were would choose that.
Thank you for calling this out; the comment serves only to heighten animosity against your average Russian. I'm sure OP aimed it at the Kremlin leadership, but being precise here is important.
The difference is that a war with Russia will not mean 5 years of struggle, but rather the loss of billions of people and (at least) three continents becoming void of human life.
At this point the war is only in Ukraine. I know you can never believe Putin but his internal and external communication was crystal clear: we want to retake control of Ukraine by any means possible. What is not clear, however, is how long the war will last. Given the deplorable state of the Russian army and tons of modern weapons delivered to Ukraine, it wouldn't surprise me if it took a long time.
I don't disagree; I was just pointing out that the overall tone of the conversation, when bringing in 1939-1940, would logically imply that Western countries have to enter the fight directly. That would likely trigger nuclear war, which would be very different from the likes of the Battle of Britain - something that a lot of people tend to forget.
Please don't lump us barbarians in with evil like Putin. Russian people are awesome. I know people mean "the government" when they say Russia/Russians here in geopolitical context but really, we have to be more careful than that.
> It was generally assumed that war was over because Europeans had become civilized
You mean the same "civilized" Europeans that conduct war in Iraq, Afghanistan, Libya, etc.? Those ones? Or is it ok to wage war on "third world" countries because they're not in Europe? As they say, out of sight, out of mind.
Every civilians wear these can be killed legally. So, it works both ways. But chances are as thing get brutal (look up Grozny), they will be killed. A lot of people simply dont understand the consequence of this "good intention" assistance.
If you carry one of these, you are a combatant and not a civilian. Which does mean that you have the same status as a regular soldier under the Geneva conventions.
And while soldiers and combatants are legitimate targets in general, this war is not legitimate. It is a war of agression against a sovereign country, so you cannot really claim that killing soldiers is simply legal here. The responsibility for all the death and suffering caused here lies with Putin who commanded this invasion.
But as Russia is bombarding cities with civilians already, and it is likely they will escalate these bombardments even further, you are anyway in very real danger of getting killed as a civilian.
Doesn't really matter if it's legal or not. As we've seen from every other war, the rules go out of the window and are pretty much just for show afterwards.
The Russians don't seem to care all that much about whether they can legally kill someone or not, they kill them anyway. The bulk of the casualties in Ukraine is not because of confrontations but because of massive shelling of cities.
The thing is that many Ukrainian people want to wear these and they want to bear the consequences, including the risk of dying if they do. (Especially since they also risk dying anyway, if they don't, since Putin is committing civilian genocide in there.)
Nope. It's interesting how the west has lost it's mind here, clearly the goal is regime change in Russia. We're using Ukraine to do it; by the time regime change is even on the table, Ukraine will be flattened.
And we haven't established Putin is even likely to be deposed; it seems incredibly unlikely. This is just a gamble with ukrainian lives dressed up in noble regalia, provided by the west.
Putin sees NATO as an existential threat, vastly more significant than any economic threat. From this premise, he is operating ruthelessly rationally, not "crazy".
The western narrative of "crazy putin" is in part just a delusional misunderstanding (Germany), an in part a strategy of getting western domestic buy in for beating up Russia (UK/USA).
The West (USA & UK primarily) want russia bogged down in Ukraine as much as possible, and are using this opportunity to goad russia into a regieme-destabalisng move -- i suspect it's hoped that when putin levels Kyiv, they'll be a coup.
This delusional domestic propaganda about ukrainian resistance is playing right into the strategic hands of, largely, the UK. It's a dangerous game for Europe to play, and it's a luxury the USA can't afford -- which needs russia to contain china.
The UK here is hoping europeans will come to depend on it more explicitly for security, germany arming itself here is an unexpected turn of events. The USA is still not focused on china enough to see what a silly nightmare this is going to be.
That would make him crazy though, or at least extremely deluded. I don't think any NATO member had (or has!) any intention of entering into conflict with Russia - otherwise we would've seen an escalation back in 2014. I think you are giving him too much credit and are taking his words at face value.
I think he probably sees NATO or the EU as contributing to the shrinking Russian of influence. This is definitely true, but it doesn't in any rational world justify military action and certainly isn't an existential threat to either Russia or Putin. Hence the popular "crazy Putin" narrative ... because it really kind of is.
NATO is presently sending massive amounts of arms to Ukraine and has tried to destroy the Russian economy.
Ukraine isn't in NATO and has no claim to NATO support. And yet, NATO is basically using the country to conduct a proxy war.
From the Russian POV, everything here has been confirmed. NATO is an existential threat to russia.
Imagine if the USA invaded cuba and russia sent massive arms/etc. to cuba, and destabalized the US economy. What would the USA think about Russia? That, exactly, it is very much the threat "it was always believed to be".
That's just plain ridiculous. The economic sanctions are in direct response to the invasion of a sovereign country. You can't use them as justification for this very same invasion.
And the arms shipments are not by NATO directly, though of course many countries here are also members of NATO. And those shipment only started when Russia started to threaten Ukraine, invaded the Krim and finally invaded the whole country.
Sadly, the person you're asking the question to seems to be either arguing in bad faith, or has internalized circular logic, and won't be able to see the point you're making
Thank you for highlighting it for everyone else reading the thread!
So you're telling me that Putin ordered the invasion of Russia because NATO represented an existential threat to Russia. And this existential threat to Russia is demonstrated by an inflow of arms to Ukraine as a direct result of the invasion?
Meaning that he could accurately predict the future reaction to his invasion, and used it as a justification for the invasion? We don't have to cheerlead a NATO or EU military response (and I'm certainly not for that), make stupid "Ghost of Kyiv" memes or display the sort of bloodlust that some in the media have ... but this is a really weird position you're taking.
One mistake I think many are making is mapping this to different invasions/wars in the past - Germany/Poland, USSR/Agfhanistan, USA/Afghanistan etc - and assigning roles then picking sides accordingly. I do not think it is that simple and by the same token I do not know what the right course of action should be. But I know that "Putin is justified and acting rationally" is one of the wrongest takes of this war.
Russia regarded NATO as an existential threat, rightly or wrongly. If the west wanted to show that NATO wasnt a threat, it could have stopped trying to capture ukraine -- this is what russians explicitly said they didnt want. The USA didnt listen, europe (france, germany) did -- but the USA overruled them.
That NATO is now conducting a proxy war in ukraine shows, after the fact, that russia's thinking here was actually just correct. Russia poses no existential threat to NATO, but NATO is now bent on destroying Russia. If NATO was not an enemy of Russia, why is it helping ukraine?
China is not sending arms to ukraine, NATO is --- because NATO is an existential threat to russia.
How about the 1994 Budapest Memorandum, signed by Ukraine, Kazakhstan, Belarus, Russia, USA and UK?
In exchange for the first three countries giving up their nuclear weapons, the signatories offered them security assurances that included (using wording taken from [1]):
* Respect Belarusian, Kazakh and Ukrainian independence and sovereignty in the existing borders.
* Refrain from the threat or the use of force against Belarus, Kazakhstan and Ukraine.
* Refrain from using economic pressure on Belarus, Kazakhstan and Ukraine to influence their politics.
Agreements of this era also were that NATO wouldnt expand. It did so, twice, into former USSR countries.
Agreements are meaningless. If the west wanted russia not to invade Ukraine, the answer was trivial. It was to completely hault NATO expansion. Too late now.
No this has been covered thousands of times since the invasion started and it’s getting boring having to repeat it. The commonly cited “agreement” not to expand wasn’t part of any treaties. To the extent that it is said to exist, it was part of some verbal/gentleman’s agreement between leaders who are now dead.
I’m not sure what value such agreements would have now, if they ever happened at all.
I'm not sure why you're set on not understanding geopolitics. Maybe the idea that the west could have done nothing to stop russia is comforting. Maybe the idea that we are blameless is comforting. Maybe russia needs to be evil, for you.
You can persist in these delusions if you like. russia has been very clear, and avoiding this disaster was in the west's power, and esp. that of the USA. Germany and france warned the USA this was going to happen, and it insisted ukraine be part of NATO nevertheless.
You still think things like "agreements" and "rights" and "soverignty" matter -- they dont. These are just games played amongst friends. When you arent dealing with friends, what matters is real stakes -- not made up things.
The USA had the power to prevent this; and indeed, still does. In arming ukraine they are sentencing it to death. Russia will level the country. This was in our power to stop.
You lot, in wanting to be Right in the stories you're telling yourselves will get ukraine destroyed. Russia is a rational actor with needs and objectives. We could've given it what it wanted. We still, to a large degree, can.
But you have your nationalistic pride, your stories, and your delusions of agreements. This will not end well. Ukraine will be flattened. It is in the wests power to prevent it, instead, we're sending ukraine enough arms to get itself killed.
We're not doing this to help ukraine win. It cannot win. It will be destoryed. We're sending arms to ukraine to punish russia and get them bogged down in a quagmire. We're goading ukraine into killing itself so we can punish the russians.
These delusional stories you're telling, they cost lives. Ukrainian lives. Lives, no doubt, you're dead set on spending. Russians are pulling the trigger so you have no blood on your hands. I tell you: you do.
We're sending the nerd out to the playground with a butter knife, and the big bully is going to send him to hospital.
You have it in your head that I am a weird pro-west, pro-war anti-Russian fanatic despite everything I have said. I’m sorry, I do not think it’s possible to have a conversation like this.
There are those people who are willing to see this from the pov of the strategic interests of the power players (usa, russia primarily -- uk/eu secondarily); and those who arent.
The west has been trapped in a liberal dreamworld for 20yrs where the usa had no great power competition (from either russia or china). That world is now at an end.
There are people here still trapped in these liberal stories; "what does ukraine want!!!?!?!?!?!" as-if the answer to that question would save ukrainian lives. No, it will get more killed.
There are your strategic goals and how you're going to achieve them. If we wanted ukrain to survive, we would not pursue a policy of arming them.
My issue with the people commenting here "on Ukraine's side!!!!" is that they arent. They only on their side within the dreamscape of stories they exist in: rights, soverignty, nationalism, pride.
In the real world of the stakes of the powerful, of what they want -- if you wanted to save ukraine, you wouldnt be trying to "win" against russia. That will get ukraine flattened into rubble.
Only you very rational geopolitics experts who understand power politics understand anything that's going on right? Everyone else is just too hopey feely and not paying attention to the framework you have set up.
If you look up from your theories, Russia's supposedly mighty military is struggling badly and Ukrainians don't appear to subscribe to your framework that doesn't give them any agency. It's a tragedy maybe it would be better if they just rolled over and let Russia control their politics but they don't want to
Sure, and the cost of this line of thinking will be thousands and thousands more dead.
What you're saying here is that your stories are more important than lives.
Look, it's in our interests for ukrainians to die and keep russia bogged down. If I were on "our side", i'd be saying, yes -- keep them in the war for as long as possible. Let russia get bogged down here for years!
But I'm inclined to actually keep Ukrainians alive. Its clearly too late for that. The west has set itself the task of regime change in russia, and ukraine is going to be our foolish attempt to trap russia. It won't work.
Russia's miltary isnt struggling. It's playing with its hands tied behind its back. It can, and will, level ukraine. Its been trying to offer them a route to surrender with minimal casualities. The west is trying its hardest to keep them in the war.
I'm not saying Ukraine should or shouldn't fight. I'm not the one talking about stories I'm just observing what's actually happening and that's the Ukrainians are fighting.
I think your worldview is a relic where everyone only acts the way the USA or Russia wants them to. That isn't the case, and it's hardly surprising Ukrainians want to get out of Russia's orbit and into the EU even without their puppet masters in the West forcing them to think like that.
The rationale and justification for UKR/RU war has been so obvious that strategic thinkers from Kennan to Kissinger to Mearsheimer and host of other relevant experts like Clinton defense secretary Perry or US ambassador to USSR Matlock has been warning about it for years. Some decades. RU/UKR is about immediate short/medium/long term interests executed before RU leverage in terms of demographics and economics is projected decline for generations. NATO friendly UKR was positioned to replace RU as gas station of EU post reserve discovery while relegating west RU (the heart) to geographic vulnerability forever. Even if you think Putin has lost his marbles now, it's important to remember he's come to the same calculations as other western thinkers 10/20 years ago. He won Chechnya, Georgia, Crimea, Syria and improved RU position each time. UKR might have been a stretch goal, but also always on the chopping block if NATO/UKR upset balance of power enough to undermine RU interests. More so when NATO became an offensive alliance for US interests after Kosovo. In absence of guaranteeing RU security interests via treaty, which RU asked for, NATO/EU simply cannot be trusted medium long term. His assessment and actions is about as geopolitically coherent as it gets. Execution might be shit, the entire venture might even be an existential gamble, but it's fundamentally rational.
In the 19th century Russia was invaded by Napoleon, most of Moscow was burnt to the ground on that occasion.
In the 20th century Nazi Germany invaded Russia with an obvious program to exterminate the Slavic people. Forty million Russians died on that occasion.
You have to understand how such events embed in the collective consciousness of a people. For Russia, the danger comes from the west and it's real. It's all very easy for us to say "Oh but we are really peaceful and enlightened now". Except that we have been expanding NATO to the west, essentially breaking a promise we made to Russia when Germany was reunited. Nothing of this justifies the brutal invasion of Ukraine right now, but the whole story is a little bit more complicated than "muh Russia evil".
You’re infantilising Putin as a lil smol bean who’s feeling really scared, and reaching back in time for supporting evidence and finding conflicts that happened with totally different contexts and ignoring or hand-waving away anything that might contradict this. I think this is a mistake.
Here’s what I think is going on, we have had a number of controversial recent wars where US and British (and various allies) were categorically, undeniably in the wrong. There was a media frenzy during those conflicts which was used to manipulate popular opinion in favour of these conflicts, so many of us are now mistrustful of when we get a sense this sort of thing is happening. There is now a popular push for US and allies to be more involved in an ongoing conflict which is getting a lot of attention in the media. It is instinctive and natural to assume we are being manipulated once more and to not want to get caught up in it. We probably are to some extent, so it is right to be mistrustful and take some things with a pinch of salt. But many people are overcorrecting - saying that not just should we not start WW3 (which is a sensible position), but that this is actually mostly our fault (which is a stretch). And starting with that belief people have had to work back to find something to support it. With the tit-for-tat nature of geopolitics mixed with our continents extensive history of horrific warfare you can probably paint any of the former great powers as the source of all evil in many modern conflicts today if you want to (in some cases you’d be right too).
In this case I think you’re wrong though. In one respect the situation is complex in that there’s no clear path out of it. But it’s also very simple in that there is one very very clear aggressor who has initiated a bloody conflict on flimsy grounds (in fact his stated goal was “denazifying” Ukraine which none of you guys have mentioned) and I think anyone being proudly contrarian about it is going to feel a bit silly about it when the dust settles.
But it's not just economic sanctions out of the blue in and of themselves. It's a sudden and near-total exclusion from the global financial system as a response to a war which is proving to be quite unpopular and tremendously costly ... and it's not exactly going to plan.
I'm not making any predictions, it could very well be that Putin hangs onto power no matter what the outcome. But this is not at all like the USA slapping sanctions on Venezuela, DPRK or Cuba.
Russia now does not really resemble the monarchy back them. Russia 1917 was Russia after years of internal instability and violence. It had established revolutionary movements. And it ended with civil war that ended up being won by the worst fraction of those available.
* Established revolutionary movement? Navalny. Check!
* Instability? Did you miss the protests and martial law starting tomorrow (in spite of no fighting going on on Russian land)? Check!
* Global flu pandemic? Check!
* Food shortages? Give 'em a week.
And the civil war was the outcome of the second "revolution", which was, in reality, a coup.
The real revolution started with a Women's March on March 8th (yes, the same thing that's still happening every year), and ended with the establishment of the Provisional Government [1].
Which, admittedly, wasn't the best and fell to the Bolshevik coup.
But it did end autocracy in Russia for a while.
And USSR, before Stalin took over, introduced:
* universal suffrage
* no-fault divorces
* ban on ethnic discrimination
* all higher education available to women
* all jobs open to women
That's not justifying the red terror in any way, just that they were hardly "the worst". And they did pull out of WW1 (unlike the Provisional gov't).
Which brings me back to the original point: ongoing unpopular war + hunger = end of regime.
Worked twice in Russia: with Tsar Nicholas II, and with Kerensky.
Oh, make it thrice: Afghan war + empty shelves in grocery stores gave us Gorbachev's Perestroika.
> Established revolutionary movement? Navalny. Check!
No it does not. Russia back then had multiple active revolutionary groups. Some of them active and violent too - effectively terrorist groups. The serious attempts to reform Russia were going on for years at that point too.
> Food shortages? Give 'em a week.
Russia back then had food shortages for years. Not for, like a week or so.
> Global flu pandemic? Check!
I dont think that was much factor back then, but would not be now either?
> * universal suffrage * no-fault divorces * ban on ethnic discrimination * all higher education available to women * all jobs open to women
Yeah, women movement in Russia had advantage of pushing for women voting rights around the time when male voting rights were question too. But, that has zero to do with uprising.
> Which brings me back to the original point: ongoing unpopular war + hunger = end of regime.
It primary takes weak regime. Otherwise no, as pretty much any dictator hanging on power in war torn country shows. Plus, this war is nowhere near the destruction WWI caused - unless you live in Ukraine.
The immediate goal of the sanctions right now is to make Putin stop the invasion, nothing more. We don't know if that will work, but we are obligated to try.
Not by sanctions, but the USSR famously drained its finances in the arms- and space- races with the West, and that is considered a significant factor in its demise. It has often been said that the Buran program specifically was the last straw.
how is this different from cuban missile crisis that was averted but this was not because ukraine was told to not back out.
why do you want "regime change" in russia? what if russians say they want the same for biden or trump or whatever they have there?
i am neither american, nor russian/chinese so i am looking at this objectively from a distance. why does americans "want" everyone to toe their line and push their narratives only?
so bush can continue to falsely accuse iraq of WMDs, flatten that country down, murder gaddafi and put his country into a civil war because he refused to accept american hegemony of american dollars and wanted gold for his oil.
my point is, what russia is doing is simply to counter american advances against itself.
why does american "need" to bring ukraine or other russian neighbours into nato? why does america have military bases across the world?
> so bush can continue to falsely accuse iraq of WMDs, flatten that country down, murder gaddafi and put his country into a civil war because he refused to accept american hegemony of american dollars and wanted gold for his oil.
And many other countries opposed it. Including many in Nato. Note how no one is supporting Russia in this affair, except North Korea and the likes. Even China is abstaining.
> why does american "need" to bring ukraine or other russian neighbours into nato? why does america have military bases across the world?
That's the question countries like Finland were asking before this crisis, and polls were at 16% in favor of joining Nato there just a month ago. Now it's 80%.
> how is this different from cuban missile crisis [?]
I'll assume this is a honest good faith question, so I'll give an actual (although short) answer by listing just three notable differences between the two situations:
1. Reason Placing of nuclear arsenal vs ???: the Cuban missile crisis started when the USSR started to move nuclear missiles to Cuba. In contrast, in the Russian invasion of Ukraine there was no movement of NATO nuclear missiles to Ukraine, in fact, there are no current concrete plans for Ukraine to even join NATO. And more importantly, NATO already capitulated to Russia in this exact regard by not placing nuclear weapons in countries that are already members if they are too close to Russia (E.g. Poland). So to summarize, the Cuban missile crisis started because USSR was advancing nukes to Cuba, and was averted when the USSR capitulated and canceled plans to send nukes; while the Russian invasion of Ukraine started by reasons non-related to nukes, and NATO already made the nuke capitulation, not placing nukes in Poland, Latvia, Estonia, and Lithuania (and definitely not placing nukes in Ukraine, which is not even a member).
2. Blockade vs Invasion: When the Cuban missile crisis started, the USA didn't launch a full scale assault on Cuba with boots on the ground and bombardment of major Cuban cities, it didn't kill Cuban military and civilians alike. Instead the USA just instituted a blockade. I agree that a blockade is also an act of war, but there is a big big difference in level of escalation.
3. Back down back to previous status quo vs down back to anexation: In the Cuban missile crisis, a back down by Cuba and the USSR meant the return of the previous status quo of a Cuba without nukes but still free and still hostile to the USA. It didn't include a regime change, breaking of the alliance between Cuba and USSR, or subjugation of Cuba to the USA. Cuba continued being a USSR aligned state to the end, and its government continues independent to this day. On the other hand, if Ukraine backs down, it won't be to the previous status quo, a back down by Ukraine means the current country ceases to be, Russia is aiming at a regime change with Ukraine becoming a vassal territory of Russia (or broken into many vassal territories). Could you imagine what would be the result of the Cuban missile crisis if the USA demands where that Cuba became a USA territory like Porto Rico?
So yes, Ukraine was told to not back out, because backing out means annexation by a dictatorship and the death of the democratic country of Ukraine. Not a compromise most Ukrainians are willing to take.
As a Russian: yes. What people seem to not understand is that Putin does not really a key figure here. Not the only key figure.
The only reason he started the war is because he was assured by his generals that they can do the whole thing rather quickly. Putin does not do any information analysis, he does not use internet at all (his words, not mine). He only read repots presented to him in paper.
So when he was giving the order he was sure that he's into an easy game. Gerasimov^1 on the other hand most likely knew what he was doing.
At the same time Putin does likely realise that russian army is not capable agains NATO, not in an offensive scenario at least.
He does not view at as a conquest for sure (at least as long as we are talking about the Russia vs West+Baltics. Can't say same thing about other former USSR republics)
So when the generals say, hey there's Finland, sitting there all by itself, right next to us. It'll take us two weeks, nice and clean. And Sweden's up next, we can get Ikea and Abba too. But we must hurry, in another month or two they might join Nato. Just sign here, mr president.
Btw if what you're saying is true, then that's all the more reason to replace Putin with someone who's capable of keeping the military in check. They're never good masters.
>So when the generals say, hey there's Finland, sitting there all by itself, right next to us. It'll take us two weeks, nice and clean. And Sweden's up next, we can get Ikea and Abba too. But we must hurry, in another month or two they might join Nato. Just sign here, mr president.
Well, yes. This is simplification of course, but generally - yes. Obviously you have to keep cultural aspects in mind.
Sweden going into NATO is bad but not as bad as Ukraine because Ukraine is basically part of Russia from Putins point of view. Them joining NATO or EU is like Chechnya going for independence (again) from Putin's\military point of view.
Russian invasion wasn't started by the West. It's not a game.
Supplying weapons and enforcing the strictest economic sanctions is the least the West can do to ensure Ukraine's — and its own — survival.
Nobody is "using" Ukraine. The invasion was in the works for a decade; the country has been at war since 2014.
And if Putin's kleptocracy figures pulling back forces, returning captured land, and paying for the damages caused is the best way to go, Ukraine would take it.
Conversely, if Ukraine falls, they have no reason to stop at Ukraine.
I hope anyone with a sense of self-preservation understands that empowering Putin's regime in Russia by inaction is suicidal.
So I stand with Ukraine, and I hope you will, too.
The USA used Ukraine (and Georgia) in 2008 when it told NATO that it must tell putin that Ukraine was joining, despite no one else wanting it to. That's why all this is happening.
Putin himself c. 2000 wanted russia to join NATO/EU -- and has found the USA's rejection and containment of russia post-USSR incomprehensible. When the USA insisted on neighboring states joining NATO, that's when Russia took this stance of NATO=Threat -- because, frankly, that was the USA basically said.
Ukraine is being used again now. If the west wanted your people to survive, they would not have just proven to putin what a threat NATO really is -- by arming you, and by attacking the russian economy.
The UK/USA has basically just confirmed the need for russia to conduct this war, and has given him every reason just to level your country. That is what's about to happen.
Dude, your comment is absolutely bizarre, and that’s the most charitable way to interpret it.
NATO is a defensive alliance, and isn’t a threat to anyone, unless you consider being able to deter nuclear warheads as a threat then sure, go ahead. So, yeah, if you have a bunch of nukes, which you plan to use/threaten their use, then I guess your neighbors joining a defensive alliance would be perceived as a threat.
I think more or less the world is trying to move to a post-violence order, and I think it’s been made clear by their actions that Russia is threatened by that, for some reason. I can’t imagine why they don’t have more allies…
No one in this thread appears to be able to see the world from the Russian POV. That is precisely why this is all going to end in catastrophe.
Imagine Asian countries (China, Russia, etc.) had a military alliance that was working its way up through south america, gaining memebers, placing nukes. And one day it says, Mexico is going to join.
I can tell you, if that had happened in Peru, the USA would have invaded -- let alone mexico.
This naiveity of "presumably we're the good guys and russia can see that", is a delusion that will lead to mass ukrainian deaths.
I mean, that’s not happening right though, is i? I presume if there were such an alliance, it would be because there are benefits to joining one.
Maybe that’s why there aren’t any as you described.
NATO isn’t the result of some hypothetical thought experiment. It exists because it offers tangible benefits to its members. So for your counter example to be valid the same would to have be true for such an alliance, in which case the world would probably be a very different place and probably not as bad at all as how you were arguing.
There's nothing here about "we're the good guys", and the only naïvety in this thread is believing that Russia's invasion was caused by Ukraine wanting to join NATO... after Russia invaded, took Crimea, and established LNR/DNR puppet states in 2014.
Again, as a Ukrainian, let me tell you: it's never been about NATO. Russia has been suppressing Ukrainian statehood for centuries: betwen the disbanding of Zaporozhska Sich in the 1700's and the conquest of independent Ukraine by the Red Army in 1918, there's plenty of history before NATO even existed.
Read the editorial that Russian-controlled media has published about their victory in Ukraine ahead of schedule [1].
It's about control. It's about Ukrainian statehood being erased. It's about Ukrainians not existing as people, only as "little-o-Russians" - malorossy (they made up a goddamn word for us!). It's about Ukraine being permanently aligned with the Russian state, which, in turn, exists to serve the interests of one deranged person.
We don't want that. Please help us hold the line, because you'll be next if you don't.
Read that article to see the future Russia has in store for us — and for you.
To Russia, Ukraine "is not a country", merely a part of Russia that's behaving in error [2]. Of course, that vision is extensible to cover the entire world. Ukraine, Belarus, Baltic states, Eastern Europe (aka "brothers slavs") — and that's just the beginning.
These are just stories. Russia is ruthelessly concerend with its own strategic interests; not these stories. If you leap into them, like the Russian public or delusional westerners looking to excuse their own stupidity, you will be blinded to the actual situation.
Russia wanted Ukraine to be a neutral state, and that has been its policy until 2008 when the USA insisted it join NATO.
International politics is not about stories; that's domestic politics -- leaders tell them to their own people to spin their geopolitical interests.
Russia wants to retain it's great power status in the world, as it transitions to USA/China/Russia. Everything it has been doing since 2008 is to rebalance its power against USA/NATO encroachment, and ensure its security for the next 50 years.
Russia will now level your country to the ground. There is no "standing with ukraine", that is just asking for more cities to be destroyed.
The only question is how much the west makes russia destroy ukraine, in order to trap russia further in the quagmire. Ukraine will be obliterated before the USA/UK is done -- we will not save you, we will only arm you to your death.
The goal is regime change but I think you had the wrong country there: the country where Russia wants regime change is Ukraine. The West was happy to let Putin live out his natural lifespan so far, I'm sure that barring this war they'd have been happy to let him continue.
If the West doesn't support Ukraine people would be calling the West hypocrites for not defending a democratically elected government asking for help. A country they said they'd help. If they do support them it's for their own gain and they're using them.
I would say everything but arming Ukraine was the right move. I'dve kept sanctioning the central bank till later, if they started with bombardment as they're doing now.
People down-voting me right now may not want to hear this, but in a year's time they'll see the results. Several major ukrainian cities won't exist any more.
There is no Ukrainian victory here; Russia can level the country whenever it wants. The logistics of an invasion force are hard, but they will be solved. All that's being preserved now is pride and nationalism -- people and their lives are being destroyed.
Putin won, militarily, this war when he decided to invade, the only question for the west is what price we want him to pay. Right now, ukraine is being used as a stick to beat putin with -- we're going to make him pay strategically, but the actual cost will be born by ukraine.
Being Indian, I'm part of quite a few circles where I've seen exactly this sentiment: helping Ukraine fight Russia is just prolonging Ukrainian misery because Russia is just going to go full scorched-earth if a quick annexation doesn't work out.
But what's the alternative? Just allow any large nation annex sovereign territory because the target is too weak to resist on its own? So is the suggestion that Ukraine should have just quickly analysed the relative strengths, and surrendered immediately?
This will only embolden Russia (and China, eventually) to go for land grabs all over the place without any fear of retaliation.
China going on land grabs is in the near future, it's a structural necessity. At best, this delays it only a few years.
There is no good outcome here, there are only terrible and bad. The largest threat in the world today is China -- it's rise to superpower is going to be a larger catastrophe than this one.
Russia just wants NATO out of its backyard, that's a cheap price for Russian allegiance on China. It would've been in the wests interests to give them it; letting Ukrainians live.
Russia will take it anyway, and now, the price will be much higher for everyone. China will exploit this to the full, and the west has only won here a minor strategic battle.
I agree with everything you've said in this reply, and yet it feels a bitter pill to swallow that the target of an invasion should just shut up and put up.
Who's the person who is responsible for saying what's in the best interest of Ukraine? I'd day it's the elected president and government of that country and the people who give them close to 90% support according to recent polls.
Not sure what's the argument of the original post, then. How did the West come into the equation? It seems that both West and Ukraine want to arm Ukraine and think this is the right thing to do.
If he does, neither will Russia. The new iron curtain has already risen, and committing mass murder and destruction of Ukraine will solidify it for the decades to come.
There's different ways of not existing, either relatively unscathed or as a pile of rubble. I'm afraid the West for all its rhetoric is still in denial about the seriousness of Russia's intentions.
There seems to be a feeling among some people that fighting is only worthwhile if you win, and if there's even the slightest chance that you'll lose you should immediately give up. That's not how you remain free.
In the short term Ukrainians can fight for their country. If they win, great. They've kept their country. If they lose, then there will be a long war until Russia decides to withdraw. Ukraine is a huge country with long borders and plenty of places to hide. Russia holding it against a well-equipped guerrilla army will be impossible. It'll be like the US and British in Afghanistan, except Russia has nowhere near the resources to fight for decades.
That's all very easy for you to say. I can only speak for myself but if I saw a convoy of tanks and artillery approaching the city where I live I would wave a white flag, gladly hand over the keys to the city, let the enemy occupy whatever administrative building they want to occupy, then go home and live to see another day with my children my wife and my parents.
This mirrors so closely what someone else in my Indian circles said that I had to go through your comment history to check if you were him!
The logical conclusion to what you're saying is: once a larger, more powerful nation (relatively speaking) decides to do a land grab, the target should surrender right away.
Don't you think this will just embolden said large nation (and other slavering observers) so just do more of the same?
Once Ukraine surrenders, what's to stop Russia from going after, say, Moldova? Or any of the non-NATO former Soviet nations really?
If I decide not to resist an invasion of a stronger military force out of concern for my personal safety and that of my family and friends, and I do not really consider the interests of Moldova. That's just another foreign nation, like Russia. If the Russian army arrives in Moldova, they too can make the decision whether to fight or to surrender.
Incidentally, one million Ukranians have already voted with their feet on staying and fighting. The odds are that they will never see their home again. You have to pause and think about that. How is surrendering a worse outcome than abandoning your country to the invader?
There's no guarantee any of you would live to see another day. That's the problem with wars and military occupations, especially when town centres and other civilian areas are being targeted. Even if you and your family survive, you will sit there watching your neighbours and compatriots die.
The relatively free lives we all live are founded on the bravery and sacrifice of millions of people in past world wars and conflicts all over the world. They're worth fighting for, in my opinion. It's why I was an army reservist in the past, and if I was 30 years younger I'd find the need to go out there and do something to help incredibly hard to resist. I still find a deep visceral need to do something to help these people.
This is the defining conflict of our lifetimes, far more so than the gulf wars or Afghanistan. I feel bad saying that, clearly it was defining for people in those regions, but for Europe this is existential. That's not because the rest of Europe is actually in direct danger, we could just let Ukraine rot, but because this conflict will define what Europe is and whether it's worth defending. Do we actually measure up to our ideals and principles? History will judge.
I hope nobody here suffers the illusion that the point of this “aid” is anything other than to prolong the war and increase the bloodshed. Ukraine can not and will not win this war. The longer this goes on the harder cities will be hit and civilian casualties will go up dramatically.
Western leaders are perfectly aware of that, they depend on it.
The article doesn't refer to it as aid. It refers to it as military gear.
Ultimately Russia is the initial aggressor here so they're the ones who initiated and are prolonging the war. Russia cannot win -- even if they take Ukraine what's the end game? Never trade with the West again?
The idea of an Ukrainian insurgency is pure cope and only serves to prolong this war. Ukraine's strategic position is untenable, capitulation or complete defeat is a matter of weeks. And once again Western audiences will be dumbfounded, and they will learn nothing from it.
Who cares. I’m perfectly sorry that the New York Times would never publish something so sensible as this translation of an interview with the Stratfor head from a liberal Russian broadsheet, but I can assure you that there is absolutely nothing wrong with the translation.
According to Soviet military doctrine Putin can't fulfil the objectives he set for this war. Defeating an entrenched enemy requires 3-5x advantage in manpower and materiel and Russia staged less than what Ukraine currently has. The Ukrainian armed forces have retreated to the defendable cities and will counter attack and return occupied land after defeating the Russian attacks. On top of that the attacks are in 3 directions, depriving them from any local advantage.
Chances are Ukraine will win this war, unless Russia stages half a million addional soldiers and the respective gear. I don't think the regime has the support to do something like that, and not for an agressive war against Ukraine. All while Ukraine increases its manpower quickly by calling reservists and volunteers who are already near the battle.
One problem they don't mention in the article is that Ukraine and the most of the rest of the former Soviet Union uses different rail track gauges. Which means that any trains must either stop to change wheelsets or the cargo must be unloaded and then and then loaded onto other trains. Russia uses trains a lot for logistics and has an advantage in moving heavy equipment to the front line.
So that and the likelyhood of urban combat are probably the reason why most of the aid is composed of man portable weapons which contra the article are relatively easy to hide. The most vulnerable from the reported deliveries are the fuel and artillery ammo. I really hope a lot of that cargo is moved under the cover of night and doesn't stay in one place as it is vulnerable to missile attacks.
They said that there are potentially Russian helicopters in the West of Ukraine, but that is probably not true and they are vulnerable to the MANPADs coming in from Poland and other places.
Finally, there are Bayraktar drone deliveries from Turkey which are greatly appreciated.
In no way this invasion by Russia is justifiable but I'm getting some serious "Don't look up" vibe from the glibness with which the West is escalating.
Ukraine is an ally which many Western countries were already arming. We are simply continuing to do so, that's not escalation. All the escalation is coming from one side in this conflict.
Soo.... one side has entered a country with soldiers and tanks, but the people responding by arming themselves against the soldiers and tanks are the ones escalating?
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[ 4.0 ms ] story [ 115 ms ] threadDutch politicians have noticed this is looking a lot like 1940.
It boggles my mind why Turkey keeps being ignored in this discourse. They have army big enough, modern, and powerful to alone defeat all Russian force in Ukraine.
Are they? They've contributed a lot of already-legendary Bayraktar drones[1], they've rejected Russia's request to move war ships through Bosporus[2], they're pretty clearly invested in supporting Ukraine despite the unwillingness to impose sanctions on Russia.
[1] https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TpmfKc96j8Y
[2] https://asia.nikkei.com/Politics/Ukraine-war/Turkey-rejects-...
Turkey is a sui generis NATO ally. The US "claimed it" to get the straits, effectively providing a nuclear arsenal as payment, but it's become very clear that the country's priorities have always been somewhat unique and shifted considerably since the Cyprus conflict - even more so since Erdogan's purges.
Turkey would definitely be a NATO ally in an all-out war (which would be the end of humankind, so whatever), but they will probably never engage Russia directly in a limited fashion while Putin and Erdogan are in power.
This will be followed by Putin having to spend the next 40% of its military on keeping order within Russia. If he will use nukes, he will obviously not be able to do so (NATO nuclear retaliation will destroy at least 50% of remaining Russian military.)
Even if Putin will stay in power, sending military to police innumerable Russian cities, and towns will take him off the list of potential threats for next decade at least.
Use the time won to remilitarise the West.
Initiating a nuclear launch is not a high-manpower operation.
Obviously emotions and tensions are super high right now, but (a) that's a reason not to post like this, and (b) this has been a problem for a long time.
https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html
Edit: here's what I mean - and this doesn't include the large number of emails:
https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=30470909 (Feb 2022)
https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=29621256 (Dec 2021)
https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=26896780 (April 2021)
https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=26892834 (April 2021)
https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=26630216 (March 2021)
https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=26630202 (March 2021)
https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=25843844 (Jan 2021)
https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=20072350 (June 2019)
https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=18802969 (Jan 2019)
https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=15658648 (Nov 2017)
https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=14786407 (July 2017)
https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=13511792 (Jan 2017)
https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=13464959 (Jan 2017)
https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=13446598 (Jan 2017)
After snubbing the Americans and the rest of Europe for the S-400, Turkey's only unburned military bridge with a strong power is Russia. They dare not burn that bridge as well.
They’re literally part of NATO.
> They dare not burn that bridge as well.
They closed the entrance to the Black Sea to Russia yesterday. https://www.aljazeera.com/news/2022/3/2/russia-cancelled-bla...
They’re sending Ukraine more drones today, too.
Much agreed. And just like the U.S. they don't cross a bridge like that unforced. Or so far they are playing it that conservatively.
Which is kind of odd, since in recent history they've shot down a Russian jet, and had an assassination of the Russian ambassador perpetrated by a uniformed police officer.
France released a report two weeks ago concluding it can only withstand high intensity war for a few days. We have good forces to do small scale interventions in foreign countries but we wouldn't be much better than Ukraine at defending our own land. Plus it's a small army and most citizen aren't trained.
The air force allegedly has only 2 days worth of ammunitions
Our only redeeming quality is our nuclear submarines float but that's more of a deterrence option.
We're mostly relying on the US in case of a "real" war.
Unlike Hitler, Putin cannot realistically contemplate the conquest of the entire Europe with the army he has, even without NATO intervention…
I don't have problem with the principle that a country has broad latitude to handle internal affairs in its own way.
Nor a country, within limits, seeking to project power in its neighborhood. The principle of self-determination, as articulated by Wilson's Fourteen Principles a century ago, is very difficult to reconcile with condemning too heavily the Russian majority of Crimea seeking to leave Ukraine and rejoining Russia. The current invasion of Ukraine is different.
As for why Putin (I would have written Russia, except based on many news reports it seems like Putin made this decision alone, shocking/amazing everyone around him) invaded Ukraine: I don't know. Putin's own words indicate a goal of rebuilding the physical USSR, but there is a good case to be made that Russia was strengthened after 1991 by losing chunks on the outer edges peopled by non-Russian ethnic groups. (Chechnya being an example of a chunk that it really ought to have lost.)
NATO expansion isn't a satisfactory answer, either. NATO has bordered Russia since Norway became a charter member in 1949. Russia wasn't thrilled about Poland joining NATO but it seemed to be able to live with it, and one is hard pressed to say that NATO is actually strengthened by having the likes of Montenegro as members. Everyone knew that Ukraine wasn't going to be allowed to join NATO as long as the Crimea and eastern Ukraine territorial situations remained, so in practice Ukraine was permanently blocked.
So why this war? At least Hitler could cite lebensraum for rump Czechoslovakia, even without the ethnic Germans that had justified taking the Sudetenland. But no one thinks that Russia, whose population is shrinking anyway, needs more space. The only two things I can think of are:
* Russia feels the need to expand its borders and build buffer zones as much as possible before its demographic crisis really hits in a few years and the country can no longer staff its military. (Peter Zeihan has talked about this for years.)
* Putin really has, as Macron and others have observed/hinted, gone crazy.
I don't believe referring to any group of people as barbarians is an appropriate comment for HN, or indeed for any place purporting to be a forum for civilized discourse.
[0] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Principle_of_charity
>Please respond to the strongest plausible interpretation of what someone says, not a weaker one that's easier to criticize. Assume good faith.
You mean the same "civilized" Europeans that conduct war in Iraq, Afghanistan, Libya, etc.? Those ones? Or is it ok to wage war on "third world" countries because they're not in Europe? As they say, out of sight, out of mind.
And while soldiers and combatants are legitimate targets in general, this war is not legitimate. It is a war of agression against a sovereign country, so you cannot really claim that killing soldiers is simply legal here. The responsibility for all the death and suffering caused here lies with Putin who commanded this invasion.
But as Russia is bombarding cities with civilians already, and it is likely they will escalate these bombardments even further, you are anyway in very real danger of getting killed as a civilian.
And we haven't established Putin is even likely to be deposed; it seems incredibly unlikely. This is just a gamble with ukrainian lives dressed up in noble regalia, provided by the west.
The western narrative of "crazy putin" is in part just a delusional misunderstanding (Germany), an in part a strategy of getting western domestic buy in for beating up Russia (UK/USA).
The West (USA & UK primarily) want russia bogged down in Ukraine as much as possible, and are using this opportunity to goad russia into a regieme-destabalisng move -- i suspect it's hoped that when putin levels Kyiv, they'll be a coup.
This delusional domestic propaganda about ukrainian resistance is playing right into the strategic hands of, largely, the UK. It's a dangerous game for Europe to play, and it's a luxury the USA can't afford -- which needs russia to contain china.
The UK here is hoping europeans will come to depend on it more explicitly for security, germany arming itself here is an unexpected turn of events. The USA is still not focused on china enough to see what a silly nightmare this is going to be.
That would make him crazy though, or at least extremely deluded. I don't think any NATO member had (or has!) any intention of entering into conflict with Russia - otherwise we would've seen an escalation back in 2014. I think you are giving him too much credit and are taking his words at face value.
I think he probably sees NATO or the EU as contributing to the shrinking Russian of influence. This is definitely true, but it doesn't in any rational world justify military action and certainly isn't an existential threat to either Russia or Putin. Hence the popular "crazy Putin" narrative ... because it really kind of is.
Ukraine isn't in NATO and has no claim to NATO support. And yet, NATO is basically using the country to conduct a proxy war.
From the Russian POV, everything here has been confirmed. NATO is an existential threat to russia.
Imagine if the USA invaded cuba and russia sent massive arms/etc. to cuba, and destabalized the US economy. What would the USA think about Russia? That, exactly, it is very much the threat "it was always believed to be".
And the arms shipments are not by NATO directly, though of course many countries here are also members of NATO. And those shipment only started when Russia started to threaten Ukraine, invaded the Krim and finally invaded the whole country.
Why did they decide to do all that?
Thank you for highlighting it for everyone else reading the thread!
Meaning that he could accurately predict the future reaction to his invasion, and used it as a justification for the invasion? We don't have to cheerlead a NATO or EU military response (and I'm certainly not for that), make stupid "Ghost of Kyiv" memes or display the sort of bloodlust that some in the media have ... but this is a really weird position you're taking.
One mistake I think many are making is mapping this to different invasions/wars in the past - Germany/Poland, USSR/Agfhanistan, USA/Afghanistan etc - and assigning roles then picking sides accordingly. I do not think it is that simple and by the same token I do not know what the right course of action should be. But I know that "Putin is justified and acting rationally" is one of the wrongest takes of this war.
That NATO is now conducting a proxy war in ukraine shows, after the fact, that russia's thinking here was actually just correct. Russia poses no existential threat to NATO, but NATO is now bent on destroying Russia. If NATO was not an enemy of Russia, why is it helping ukraine?
China is not sending arms to ukraine, NATO is --- because NATO is an existential threat to russia.
In exchange for the first three countries giving up their nuclear weapons, the signatories offered them security assurances that included (using wording taken from [1]):
* Respect Belarusian, Kazakh and Ukrainian independence and sovereignty in the existing borders.
* Refrain from the threat or the use of force against Belarus, Kazakhstan and Ukraine.
* Refrain from using economic pressure on Belarus, Kazakhstan and Ukraine to influence their politics.
[1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Budapest_Memorandum_on_Securit...
Agreements are meaningless. If the west wanted russia not to invade Ukraine, the answer was trivial. It was to completely hault NATO expansion. Too late now.
I’m not sure what value such agreements would have now, if they ever happened at all.
You can persist in these delusions if you like. russia has been very clear, and avoiding this disaster was in the west's power, and esp. that of the USA. Germany and france warned the USA this was going to happen, and it insisted ukraine be part of NATO nevertheless.
You still think things like "agreements" and "rights" and "soverignty" matter -- they dont. These are just games played amongst friends. When you arent dealing with friends, what matters is real stakes -- not made up things.
The USA had the power to prevent this; and indeed, still does. In arming ukraine they are sentencing it to death. Russia will level the country. This was in our power to stop.
You lot, in wanting to be Right in the stories you're telling yourselves will get ukraine destroyed. Russia is a rational actor with needs and objectives. We could've given it what it wanted. We still, to a large degree, can.
But you have your nationalistic pride, your stories, and your delusions of agreements. This will not end well. Ukraine will be flattened. It is in the wests power to prevent it, instead, we're sending ukraine enough arms to get itself killed.
We're not doing this to help ukraine win. It cannot win. It will be destoryed. We're sending arms to ukraine to punish russia and get them bogged down in a quagmire. We're goading ukraine into killing itself so we can punish the russians.
These delusional stories you're telling, they cost lives. Ukrainian lives. Lives, no doubt, you're dead set on spending. Russians are pulling the trigger so you have no blood on your hands. I tell you: you do.
We're sending the nerd out to the playground with a butter knife, and the big bully is going to send him to hospital.
There are those people who are willing to see this from the pov of the strategic interests of the power players (usa, russia primarily -- uk/eu secondarily); and those who arent.
The west has been trapped in a liberal dreamworld for 20yrs where the usa had no great power competition (from either russia or china). That world is now at an end.
There are people here still trapped in these liberal stories; "what does ukraine want!!!?!?!?!?!" as-if the answer to that question would save ukrainian lives. No, it will get more killed.
There are your strategic goals and how you're going to achieve them. If we wanted ukrain to survive, we would not pursue a policy of arming them.
My issue with the people commenting here "on Ukraine's side!!!!" is that they arent. They only on their side within the dreamscape of stories they exist in: rights, soverignty, nationalism, pride.
In the real world of the stakes of the powerful, of what they want -- if you wanted to save ukraine, you wouldnt be trying to "win" against russia. That will get ukraine flattened into rubble.
If you look up from your theories, Russia's supposedly mighty military is struggling badly and Ukrainians don't appear to subscribe to your framework that doesn't give them any agency. It's a tragedy maybe it would be better if they just rolled over and let Russia control their politics but they don't want to
What you're saying here is that your stories are more important than lives.
Look, it's in our interests for ukrainians to die and keep russia bogged down. If I were on "our side", i'd be saying, yes -- keep them in the war for as long as possible. Let russia get bogged down here for years!
But I'm inclined to actually keep Ukrainians alive. Its clearly too late for that. The west has set itself the task of regime change in russia, and ukraine is going to be our foolish attempt to trap russia. It won't work.
Russia's miltary isnt struggling. It's playing with its hands tied behind its back. It can, and will, level ukraine. Its been trying to offer them a route to surrender with minimal casualities. The west is trying its hardest to keep them in the war.
Within the month ukraine will be rubble.
I think your worldview is a relic where everyone only acts the way the USA or Russia wants them to. That isn't the case, and it's hardly surprising Ukrainians want to get out of Russia's orbit and into the EU even without their puppet masters in the West forcing them to think like that.
If Russia attacks one of the NATO member states, that will change and NATO will act.
In the 20th century Nazi Germany invaded Russia with an obvious program to exterminate the Slavic people. Forty million Russians died on that occasion.
You have to understand how such events embed in the collective consciousness of a people. For Russia, the danger comes from the west and it's real. It's all very easy for us to say "Oh but we are really peaceful and enlightened now". Except that we have been expanding NATO to the west, essentially breaking a promise we made to Russia when Germany was reunited. Nothing of this justifies the brutal invasion of Ukraine right now, but the whole story is a little bit more complicated than "muh Russia evil".
You’re infantilising Putin as a lil smol bean who’s feeling really scared, and reaching back in time for supporting evidence and finding conflicts that happened with totally different contexts and ignoring or hand-waving away anything that might contradict this. I think this is a mistake.
Here’s what I think is going on, we have had a number of controversial recent wars where US and British (and various allies) were categorically, undeniably in the wrong. There was a media frenzy during those conflicts which was used to manipulate popular opinion in favour of these conflicts, so many of us are now mistrustful of when we get a sense this sort of thing is happening. There is now a popular push for US and allies to be more involved in an ongoing conflict which is getting a lot of attention in the media. It is instinctive and natural to assume we are being manipulated once more and to not want to get caught up in it. We probably are to some extent, so it is right to be mistrustful and take some things with a pinch of salt. But many people are overcorrecting - saying that not just should we not start WW3 (which is a sensible position), but that this is actually mostly our fault (which is a stretch). And starting with that belief people have had to work back to find something to support it. With the tit-for-tat nature of geopolitics mixed with our continents extensive history of horrific warfare you can probably paint any of the former great powers as the source of all evil in many modern conflicts today if you want to (in some cases you’d be right too).
In this case I think you’re wrong though. In one respect the situation is complex in that there’s no clear path out of it. But it’s also very simple in that there is one very very clear aggressor who has initiated a bloody conflict on flimsy grounds (in fact his stated goal was “denazifying” Ukraine which none of you guys have mentioned) and I think anyone being proudly contrarian about it is going to feel a bit silly about it when the dust settles.
I'm not making any predictions, it could very well be that Putin hangs onto power no matter what the outcome. But this is not at all like the USA slapping sanctions on Venezuela, DPRK or Cuba.
Sanctions on Russia can recreate these conditions.
* An out-of-touch autocrat? Check!
* Established revolutionary movement? Navalny. Check!
* Instability? Did you miss the protests and martial law starting tomorrow (in spite of no fighting going on on Russian land)? Check!
* Global flu pandemic? Check!
* Food shortages? Give 'em a week.
And the civil war was the outcome of the second "revolution", which was, in reality, a coup.
The real revolution started with a Women's March on March 8th (yes, the same thing that's still happening every year), and ended with the establishment of the Provisional Government [1].
Which, admittedly, wasn't the best and fell to the Bolshevik coup.
But it did end autocracy in Russia for a while.
And USSR, before Stalin took over, introduced:
* universal suffrage * no-fault divorces * ban on ethnic discrimination * all higher education available to women * all jobs open to women
That's not justifying the red terror in any way, just that they were hardly "the worst". And they did pull out of WW1 (unlike the Provisional gov't).
Which brings me back to the original point: ongoing unpopular war + hunger = end of regime.
Worked twice in Russia: with Tsar Nicholas II, and with Kerensky.
Oh, make it thrice: Afghan war + empty shelves in grocery stores gave us Gorbachev's Perestroika.
Putin's turn now.
[1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/February_Revolution
No it does not. Russia back then had multiple active revolutionary groups. Some of them active and violent too - effectively terrorist groups. The serious attempts to reform Russia were going on for years at that point too.
> Food shortages? Give 'em a week.
Russia back then had food shortages for years. Not for, like a week or so.
> Global flu pandemic? Check!
I dont think that was much factor back then, but would not be now either?
> * universal suffrage * no-fault divorces * ban on ethnic discrimination * all higher education available to women * all jobs open to women
Yeah, women movement in Russia had advantage of pushing for women voting rights around the time when male voting rights were question too. But, that has zero to do with uprising.
> Which brings me back to the original point: ongoing unpopular war + hunger = end of regime.
It primary takes weak regime. Otherwise no, as pretty much any dictator hanging on power in war torn country shows. Plus, this war is nowhere near the destruction WWI caused - unless you live in Ukraine.
For history's sake.
https://www.cnn.com/2022/03/11/business/russia-potanin-putin...
how is this different from cuban missile crisis that was averted but this was not because ukraine was told to not back out.
why do you want "regime change" in russia? what if russians say they want the same for biden or trump or whatever they have there?
i am neither american, nor russian/chinese so i am looking at this objectively from a distance. why does americans "want" everyone to toe their line and push their narratives only?
my point is, what russia is doing is simply to counter american advances against itself.
why does american "need" to bring ukraine or other russian neighbours into nato? why does america have military bases across the world?
why does america have to be the world police?
And many other countries opposed it. Including many in Nato. Note how no one is supporting Russia in this affair, except North Korea and the likes. Even China is abstaining.
> why does american "need" to bring ukraine or other russian neighbours into nato? why does america have military bases across the world?
That's the question countries like Finland were asking before this crisis, and polls were at 16% in favor of joining Nato there just a month ago. Now it's 80%.
I'll assume this is a honest good faith question, so I'll give an actual (although short) answer by listing just three notable differences between the two situations:
1. Reason Placing of nuclear arsenal vs ???: the Cuban missile crisis started when the USSR started to move nuclear missiles to Cuba. In contrast, in the Russian invasion of Ukraine there was no movement of NATO nuclear missiles to Ukraine, in fact, there are no current concrete plans for Ukraine to even join NATO. And more importantly, NATO already capitulated to Russia in this exact regard by not placing nuclear weapons in countries that are already members if they are too close to Russia (E.g. Poland). So to summarize, the Cuban missile crisis started because USSR was advancing nukes to Cuba, and was averted when the USSR capitulated and canceled plans to send nukes; while the Russian invasion of Ukraine started by reasons non-related to nukes, and NATO already made the nuke capitulation, not placing nukes in Poland, Latvia, Estonia, and Lithuania (and definitely not placing nukes in Ukraine, which is not even a member).
2. Blockade vs Invasion: When the Cuban missile crisis started, the USA didn't launch a full scale assault on Cuba with boots on the ground and bombardment of major Cuban cities, it didn't kill Cuban military and civilians alike. Instead the USA just instituted a blockade. I agree that a blockade is also an act of war, but there is a big big difference in level of escalation.
3. Back down back to previous status quo vs down back to anexation: In the Cuban missile crisis, a back down by Cuba and the USSR meant the return of the previous status quo of a Cuba without nukes but still free and still hostile to the USA. It didn't include a regime change, breaking of the alliance between Cuba and USSR, or subjugation of Cuba to the USA. Cuba continued being a USSR aligned state to the end, and its government continues independent to this day. On the other hand, if Ukraine backs down, it won't be to the previous status quo, a back down by Ukraine means the current country ceases to be, Russia is aiming at a regime change with Ukraine becoming a vassal territory of Russia (or broken into many vassal territories). Could you imagine what would be the result of the Cuban missile crisis if the USA demands where that Cuba became a USA territory like Porto Rico?
So yes, Ukraine was told to not back out, because backing out means annexation by a dictatorship and the death of the democratic country of Ukraine. Not a compromise most Ukrainians are willing to take.
Do you honestly think Putin will stop his conquest if he gets easy success in Ukraine?
The only reason he started the war is because he was assured by his generals that they can do the whole thing rather quickly. Putin does not do any information analysis, he does not use internet at all (his words, not mine). He only read repots presented to him in paper.
So when he was giving the order he was sure that he's into an easy game. Gerasimov^1 on the other hand most likely knew what he was doing.
At the same time Putin does likely realise that russian army is not capable agains NATO, not in an offensive scenario at least.
He does not view at as a conquest for sure (at least as long as we are talking about the Russia vs West+Baltics. Can't say same thing about other former USSR republics)
[1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Valery_Gerasimov
Btw if what you're saying is true, then that's all the more reason to replace Putin with someone who's capable of keeping the military in check. They're never good masters.
Well, yes. This is simplification of course, but generally - yes. Obviously you have to keep cultural aspects in mind. Sweden going into NATO is bad but not as bad as Ukraine because Ukraine is basically part of Russia from Putins point of view. Them joining NATO or EU is like Chechnya going for independence (again) from Putin's\military point of view.
They (someone) just decided to be proactive here.
Russian invasion wasn't started by the West. It's not a game.
Supplying weapons and enforcing the strictest economic sanctions is the least the West can do to ensure Ukraine's — and its own — survival.
Nobody is "using" Ukraine. The invasion was in the works for a decade; the country has been at war since 2014.
And if Putin's kleptocracy figures pulling back forces, returning captured land, and paying for the damages caused is the best way to go, Ukraine would take it.
Conversely, if Ukraine falls, they have no reason to stop at Ukraine.
I hope anyone with a sense of self-preservation understands that empowering Putin's regime in Russia by inaction is suicidal.
So I stand with Ukraine, and I hope you will, too.
Putin himself c. 2000 wanted russia to join NATO/EU -- and has found the USA's rejection and containment of russia post-USSR incomprehensible. When the USA insisted on neighboring states joining NATO, that's when Russia took this stance of NATO=Threat -- because, frankly, that was the USA basically said.
Ukraine is being used again now. If the west wanted your people to survive, they would not have just proven to putin what a threat NATO really is -- by arming you, and by attacking the russian economy.
The UK/USA has basically just confirmed the need for russia to conduct this war, and has given him every reason just to level your country. That is what's about to happen.
NATO is a defensive alliance, and isn’t a threat to anyone, unless you consider being able to deter nuclear warheads as a threat then sure, go ahead. So, yeah, if you have a bunch of nukes, which you plan to use/threaten their use, then I guess your neighbors joining a defensive alliance would be perceived as a threat.
I think more or less the world is trying to move to a post-violence order, and I think it’s been made clear by their actions that Russia is threatened by that, for some reason. I can’t imagine why they don’t have more allies…
Imagine Asian countries (China, Russia, etc.) had a military alliance that was working its way up through south america, gaining memebers, placing nukes. And one day it says, Mexico is going to join.
I can tell you, if that had happened in Peru, the USA would have invaded -- let alone mexico.
This naiveity of "presumably we're the good guys and russia can see that", is a delusion that will lead to mass ukrainian deaths.
Maybe that’s why there aren’t any as you described.
NATO isn’t the result of some hypothetical thought experiment. It exists because it offers tangible benefits to its members. So for your counter example to be valid the same would to have be true for such an alliance, in which case the world would probably be a very different place and probably not as bad at all as how you were arguing.
Again, as a Ukrainian, let me tell you: it's never been about NATO. Russia has been suppressing Ukrainian statehood for centuries: betwen the disbanding of Zaporozhska Sich in the 1700's and the conquest of independent Ukraine by the Red Army in 1918, there's plenty of history before NATO even existed.
Read the editorial that Russian-controlled media has published about their victory in Ukraine ahead of schedule [1].
It's about control. It's about Ukrainian statehood being erased. It's about Ukrainians not existing as people, only as "little-o-Russians" - malorossy (they made up a goddamn word for us!). It's about Ukraine being permanently aligned with the Russian state, which, in turn, exists to serve the interests of one deranged person.
We don't want that. Please help us hold the line, because you'll be next if you don't.
Read that article to see the future Russia has in store for us — and for you.
To Russia, Ukraine "is not a country", merely a part of Russia that's behaving in error [2]. Of course, that vision is extensible to cover the entire world. Ukraine, Belarus, Baltic states, Eastern Europe (aka "brothers slavs") — and that's just the beginning.
Read it.
Thank you, and stand with Ukraine.
[1] https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/technology-60562240
[2] https://www.rferl.org/a/in-first-interview-since-departure-r...
Russia wanted Ukraine to be a neutral state, and that has been its policy until 2008 when the USA insisted it join NATO.
International politics is not about stories; that's domestic politics -- leaders tell them to their own people to spin their geopolitical interests.
Russia wants to retain it's great power status in the world, as it transitions to USA/China/Russia. Everything it has been doing since 2008 is to rebalance its power against USA/NATO encroachment, and ensure its security for the next 50 years.
Russia will now level your country to the ground. There is no "standing with ukraine", that is just asking for more cities to be destroyed.
The only question is how much the west makes russia destroy ukraine, in order to trap russia further in the quagmire. Ukraine will be obliterated before the USA/UK is done -- we will not save you, we will only arm you to your death.
Russia can go fuck itself. Nobody cares - or should care - what they want anymore.
And the "power status" is already nothing more than a story - the one only fools can believe in.
>Russia will now level your country to the ground. There is no "standing with ukraine", that is just asking for more cities to be destroyed.
Tsk, tsk, tsk. Two weeks of war, and they managed to take Kherson and are busy trying to destroy Mariupol.
Looks like "arming us to our death" had an opposite effect, friend.
Wake-up call: you don't just level the largest country in Europe with a population of about 40 million people.
And if you do, you still don't win. Cities can be rebuilt. Any sort of support of going along with Russia cannot be, at this point.
>we will not save you, we will only arm you to your death.
Yes, please. Can you start now?
That's because the Russian POV is murderous genocide
https://twitter.com/maxseddon/status/1499400893111832588
There is no pleasing people.
People down-voting me right now may not want to hear this, but in a year's time they'll see the results. Several major ukrainian cities won't exist any more.
There is no Ukrainian victory here; Russia can level the country whenever it wants. The logistics of an invasion force are hard, but they will be solved. All that's being preserved now is pride and nationalism -- people and their lives are being destroyed.
Putin won, militarily, this war when he decided to invade, the only question for the west is what price we want him to pay. Right now, ukraine is being used as a stick to beat putin with -- we're going to make him pay strategically, but the actual cost will be born by ukraine.
But what's the alternative? Just allow any large nation annex sovereign territory because the target is too weak to resist on its own? So is the suggestion that Ukraine should have just quickly analysed the relative strengths, and surrendered immediately?
This will only embolden Russia (and China, eventually) to go for land grabs all over the place without any fear of retaliation.
There is no good outcome here, there are only terrible and bad. The largest threat in the world today is China -- it's rise to superpower is going to be a larger catastrophe than this one.
Russia just wants NATO out of its backyard, that's a cheap price for Russian allegiance on China. It would've been in the wests interests to give them it; letting Ukrainians live.
Russia will take it anyway, and now, the price will be much higher for everyone. China will exploit this to the full, and the west has only won here a minor strategic battle.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Battle_of_Grozny_(1994%E2%80%9...
There seems to be a feeling among some people that fighting is only worthwhile if you win, and if there's even the slightest chance that you'll lose you should immediately give up. That's not how you remain free.
In the short term Ukrainians can fight for their country. If they win, great. They've kept their country. If they lose, then there will be a long war until Russia decides to withdraw. Ukraine is a huge country with long borders and plenty of places to hide. Russia holding it against a well-equipped guerrilla army will be impossible. It'll be like the US and British in Afghanistan, except Russia has nowhere near the resources to fight for decades.
The logical conclusion to what you're saying is: once a larger, more powerful nation (relatively speaking) decides to do a land grab, the target should surrender right away.
Don't you think this will just embolden said large nation (and other slavering observers) so just do more of the same?
Once Ukraine surrenders, what's to stop Russia from going after, say, Moldova? Or any of the non-NATO former Soviet nations really?
Incidentally, one million Ukranians have already voted with their feet on staying and fighting. The odds are that they will never see their home again. You have to pause and think about that. How is surrendering a worse outcome than abandoning your country to the invader?
I suspect Jews who fled Europe during WWII might have a compelling answer to that question.
How about the non-genocidal Afghan war, where it's probably better being a resettled refugee in the West than having to sell your kidneys? https://www.nytimes.com/2021/02/06/world/asia/selling-buying...
The relatively free lives we all live are founded on the bravery and sacrifice of millions of people in past world wars and conflicts all over the world. They're worth fighting for, in my opinion. It's why I was an army reservist in the past, and if I was 30 years younger I'd find the need to go out there and do something to help incredibly hard to resist. I still find a deep visceral need to do something to help these people.
This is the defining conflict of our lifetimes, far more so than the gulf wars or Afghanistan. I feel bad saying that, clearly it was defining for people in those regions, but for Europe this is existential. That's not because the rest of Europe is actually in direct danger, we could just let Ukraine rot, but because this conflict will define what Europe is and whether it's worth defending. Do we actually measure up to our ideals and principles? History will judge.
Lavrov being Lavrov here. Russia itself is flirting with danger at an unprecedented scale.
Western leaders are perfectly aware of that, they depend on it.
Ultimately Russia is the initial aggressor here so they're the ones who initiated and are prolonging the war. Russia cannot win -- even if they take Ukraine what's the end game? Never trade with the West again?
As the US learned over the past two decades, that’s not the end of the war.
The idea that the Ukranians will just be like "welp, we lost, we're Russian now" seems... cope-y.
That won't happen again.
"Three Cultures God Destroyed Because of Homosexual Sex"
"Russian Prophecies of Antichrist & End Times - "Salvation of the World is from Russia" by RF Staff"
Yikes.
Chances are Ukraine will win this war, unless Russia stages half a million addional soldiers and the respective gear. I don't think the regime has the support to do something like that, and not for an agressive war against Ukraine. All while Ukraine increases its manpower quickly by calling reservists and volunteers who are already near the battle.
So that and the likelyhood of urban combat are probably the reason why most of the aid is composed of man portable weapons which contra the article are relatively easy to hide. The most vulnerable from the reported deliveries are the fuel and artillery ammo. I really hope a lot of that cargo is moved under the cover of night and doesn't stay in one place as it is vulnerable to missile attacks.
They said that there are potentially Russian helicopters in the West of Ukraine, but that is probably not true and they are vulnerable to the MANPADs coming in from Poland and other places.
Finally, there are Bayraktar drone deliveries from Turkey which are greatly appreciated.
https://www.railway.supply/en/variable-gauge-axle-systems/
Ok then.