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Comment by throwaway4good | Hacker News Reader

So if Ukraine falls, what will happen to these funds?

Ukraine as a whole is not falling. Russia might succeed in taking Kyiv, but it seems far less likely they’ll ever succeed in taking Lviv, which is where the Ukrainian war effort is effectively being directed from. President Zelensky remains in Kyiv for morale reasons, but Lviv has become the de facto Ukrainian capital. And Lviv is only 70 km from the Polish border, and so has easy supply lines to NATO territory, plus Russia will be very wary of bringing the fighting too close to the border with NATO given the risk that any fighting there might spill over the border and lead to NATO becoming directly involved in the war.

Don't count on NATO. Putin has said if any other country interfers there will be consequences never seen be before. Remember, he has nuclear weapons to destroy the planet many times.

NATO is already helping with supplies and such. They just can’t get involved directly with their own soldiers and such.

Supplies won't hinder Russia to invade Lviv.

Morale and coordinated action of the Ukrainian army are needed for that. Remember that the Ukrainian army is rather young. They started mobilization this week. Russia has years of fighting experience, not alone from Syria. I certainly sympathize with Ukraine, but I am not convinced that they can stop the massively stronger aggressor.

Edit: Russian troops are not very efficient and morale might be questionable in some parts. But Putin does not care how many of them die. He has hundreds of thousands more.

Russia said they would take the capital in 3 hours. It’s now day 4. People need to stop underestimating the people of Ukraine.

It's not underestimating the people of Ukraine. Putin can have his soldiers killed for months and years. And he seems crazy enough to do it.

The Ukraine does not have enough soldiers and not enough infrastructure to last that long.

The Russian armed forces in belgorod? Refuse to go into the Ukraine. Although Russians are told there’s 0 deaths to Russian forces and such, information is leaking into Russia. There’s mass protesting happening there. I don’t believe the war will last long enough for Putin to be able to keep throwing lives at it.

That coupled with Germany, the US, Czech Republic, and NATO supplying supplies, weapons, etc into Ukraine. The longer it goes on the more likely it seems Ukraine will survive.

Unless Putin goes fully insane and wants to nuke Ukraine or something. Let’s hope Putin tops himself in a bunker before then.

> There’s mass protesting happening there.

Like a couple of thousands out of 145 millions?

The vast majority of the population has only access to state controlled propaganda. Even if they have learned for generations that their leaders and their media can generally not be believed, the vast majority believes that NATO is threatening Russia and they have to defend themselves.

Why are you so desperate to downplay what's happening as if it's nothing and has no affect?

Remember that many NATO countries have been paying more to Russia than to Ukraine for years and still want to continue to pay.

One could say, well the former is profit from energy business and the and the latter is aid, you can't compare those. Doesn't matter. Putin can go to war only because Russia has made profits from exporting energy. And still energy exports are excluded from sanctions.

I would be glad if what is happening were enough to stop Putin. But I am far from convinced that it is enough.

> Putin can have his soldiers killed for months and years. And he seems crazy enough to do it.

Can he really? If he upsets too many important and powerful people in Russia, Putin risks being removed in a coup, or assassinated by his own military or intelligence services. If this war drags on for too long, if too many Russians die, if damage to the Russian economy becomes severe, that outcome starts to become a real risk for him.

Every dictator rules only because the support of his clique. If Ukraine holds long enough to firmly convince oligarchs that Putin will destroy their businesses before he captures Ukraine then he'll be influenced to back off or assasinated.

> Putin has said if any other country interfers there will be consequences never seen be before. Remember, he has nuclear weapons to destroy the planet many times.

NATO can make nuclear threats too. They are too classy to make them publicly like Putin does, but who can say they aren’t making nuclear threats and declaring red lines of their own behind closed doors?

Also, while Putin can make these threats, is he sufficiently suicidal to actually act on them? If he did, the likely end result would be both Russia and NATO reduced to smouldering wastelands. Even if he was suicidally insane enough to give the order, the Russian military might refuse to carry it out, they might turn on him instead.

Since you ask that, here's an option which seems to support Ukrainian defence without sending money to Ukrainian entities (edit: well, in this case it is the Ukrainian embassy in Czech Republic, so don't know if that helps): https://supportukraine.cz/en.html

However, I don't see any indication other than the links at the bottom that this isn't just some random scam site from a throwaway account.

I did a quick verification on my own, but it's not final, and I wrote "seems to".

1. Domain registration points to Ondrej Filip, allegedly CEO of CZ.NIC who reposts links from Ukrainian embassy in Czech Republic. Not clear if it matters if WHOIS privacy is on.

2. Email and URL match those of the Ukrainian embassy in Czech Republic. I am trying to reach out to them and confirm. Phone numbers listed on czechia.mfa.gov.ua are not picking up and I don't want to occupy the life and death support hotline.

3. Awkward web design was not an indicator to me, considering the page must have been launched in haste.

Cross-check help would be appreciated. If you find the site untrustworthy, I will reply to the source where I saw this link posted ASAP. I won't dox my main HN account on this topic.

If you have any doubts, donate via UNHCR's Ukraine emergency page (Google it, since you should not trust the direct link I post if you think I’m a scammer). It supports refugees, but not military action.

Edited.

Thanks for the followup. I didn't call you out as a scammer necessarily, just that there are many opportunistic people who look to profit in times of crisis by exploiting people's good nature, so just warning people to keep their wits and verify.

Edit:

I looked into it and it's also linked in a post from the official Embassy of Ukraine in Prague page on Facebook too [0]. Thanks for the info.

[0]: https://www.facebook.com/UkraineEmbassyinCzechia/posts/49393...

Thank you, I don't use Facebook enough so didn't think of that.

Just contact customer service they’ll refund you within 5 business days…

It's a wire transfer, not a physical. Numbers will be reset.

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