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As someone living on the eastern NATO border this has been a most interesting week. In the Chinese proverb way.

Ghosts of 1939, about which I’ve heard stories from my grandfather and was taught in history lessons, suddenly came to life just around the corner. The only consolation is that the west finally saw the Kremlin for what it always has been - a treacherous, lying dictatorship that seeks to enrich itself through any means and cannot be trusted.

Putin managed to do in a single week what multiple US presidents couldn’t in years - remilitarization of Germany. Also, he managed to get Scandinavia to join NATO and dismissed any ideas some countries might have had about leaving EU for decades.

Europe will pay a price which is unknown, but it is certain it will be huge. You just don’t quit drugs (cheap energy) in a week. There will be massive projects undertaken to public dismay.

Ukraine, unfortunately, cannot win - it already lost, even if Russian forces withdraw this instant. The question which remains is can Putin still win. He must be given an option, otherwise this ends really, really ugly.

Care to elaborate on what "Ukraine has already lost" means? Is joining the EU the loss? I would assume that if Russia withdrew this instant, Ukraine would likely survive this. No?

It's not joining the EU. Its application has been accepted. Bosnia's application was accepted in 2003 and it's most certainly not in the EU.

Even if the war ended right now, Ukraine has hundreds of thousands of refugees to move and shelter, huge amounts of destroyed infrastructure to repair and work around, most of their army expended, and a lot of civilian losses. They also won't get Crimea back, and they probably can't hold onto the separatist regions either.

Provided that the world continues to rally around Ukraine and gets critical supplies to the population centers they may avoid grievous additional losses, but Ukraine is unavoidably much worse off than it was pre-invasion.

If history taught me anything, a retreating army will destroy everything around them just to damage their enemy and make their life hell. Imagine if Russian troops just flood Ukraine with land mines, it would take decades to make the country safe again. It’s been 30 years and Croatia is still riddled with land mines.

To an extent, this has already happened.

https://reliefweb.int/report/ukraine/landmines-still-pose-th...

I think that if Russia pulls back its troops Ukraine has a bright future. Even if Crimea and the other two regions are lost it will receive more investment than it would have received otherwise. Both the EU and the US want Ukraine to become a succesful EU country.

The Ukrainian people also seem to have a strong will to build/rebuild and defend Ukraine so they are reliable partners unlike the cases we've seen in other countries.

Russia pulling back is more unimaginable now than a Russian invasion was in January.

How long can Russia hold such a massive country surrounded by NATO allies?

I don't think there's a single scenario where Russia wins.

With a change of the regime in Kremlin, it's quite imaginable.

I suppose that a lot of the Russian elites, locked out of their wealth and prospects, would be more than happy to see and even effect a serious change of the leadership. I hope they have a fair chance.

A huge lot of non-elites would support that, too.

They cannot hold this territory. They will have to.

They don’t. They’ll happily raze everything just so Ukrainians can’t defend. Then they’ll equally happily lend money on good interest so they can rebuild.

> Then they’ll equally happily lend money on good interest so they can rebuild.

Ukraine agreeing to the loan would mean agreeing to debt slavery.

Precisely the point.

You don't think the EU would be motivated to lend at competitive rates in this scenario? If not, i would love to understand your logic.

Lend to a Russia-occupied Ukraine?

The US couldn't manage to wipe out the Taliban in Afghanistan, nor prop up its replacement for more than a couple of weeks after two decades of preparation and $2.3 trillion in investment. Ukraine's insurgency would be supplied by allies with deep pockets and modern tech; Russia's occupation would be funded by a sanctioned Russia and the same army that's already struggling to meet their objectives in the early stages.

Russia leaves Ukraine in defeat in at some point in the future. The question is largely how many innocent dead are left in the wake.

my pet theory that they can't leave ukraine right now because they are stuck. totally messsed up logistics. this giant convoy could run out of supplies/fuel. they maybe literally can't drive out. ukranian drones started to blow up trains with fuel inside russia yesterday and belorusian partisans started to screw with train system in belorussia (for real, they demolished a bunch of control equipment centers. trains can't go anywhere). their communication is shit (https://twitter.com/sbreakintl/status/1498619303717142529?s=...) and some of them simply can't reach command center to get orders

I am worried they might create an uninhabitable belt on the western borders of Western Ukraine by nuking it with 10-100kT tactical nukes as they don't really care about people of Lviv and around and that would solve also their Polish "friendship" problem. A similar strategy was planned by French in the case of a war with USSR, nuking Poland, Czechoslovakia, Hungary, Romania, so that the USSR army couldn't pass to Western Europe. I think all options are on the table, unfortunately.

What makes you think that the US and EU have any real interest to see Ukraine succeed? Besides believing their platitudes and propaganda, I mean.

Thinking like a trader: wheat, corn, iron, coal.

Thinking like a person: no more wars in Europe.

The wider West is only too happy to pay the price of accommodating refugees and reducing fossil fuel dependency .. and may even be happy to risk all out nuclear war to defend our "way of life" and liberal freedoms.

We now have the perfect excuse to unleash all the decades long pent up hate of Putins regime.

Ursula Von de Leyen seemed to capture the zeitgeist when she slipped up and said "Ukraine is part of us" or words to that effect. Attack on Ukraine is felt as an attack on the West .. even on the other side of the world.

Oh, it will survive. Chechnya, Georgia, Syria, Iraq, Crimea, etc., they all survived. But…

Rebuilding infrastructure lost this week will take billions of dollars and years of time. Some displaced people won’t come back. More of both with every passing week of this tragedy. That’s completely discounting people who died.

Russian people, the normal citizens, also lost, and lost big. The currency and market sanctions have blown up savings and businesses basically overnight. Also, don’t forget that every other Russian family has Ukrainian relatives.

I think you're saying that Ukraine has lost the battle, but I'm saying they can still win the war. Virtually every country in Europe has had to undergo post-war reconstruction at some point in its history. I don't think that means they lost. They're still there, after all.

But lost I mean opportunity cost of waging war (yes I know it isn’t a choice) is devastating. It sets them back 20 years. Basically a generation of development has been lost.

It sounds cheesy, but if they're still a country and have allies and citizens who believe in their future, I don't consider that a loss. A loss would be if the dust settles and, for one reason or another, Ukraine is not recognized as a country anymore (either because Russia declares them as theirs and the rest of the world just forgets about it, or because they simply can't sustain themselves anymore).

Germany took Poland to start WW2. Did Poland lose?

> Germany took Poland to start WW2. Did Poland lose?

Kind of, yeah: After WW2, Poland was part of the Warsaw[1] Pact for forty years. And if Communism hadn't fallen, they'd still be.

___

[1]: The name becomes doubly ironic in this specific context.

Actually, it's Putin who cannot win. Even if he threw everything he had and managed to occupy a country of 44 million people, second largest in Europe by landmass - he wouldn't be able to hold it. That would require the kind of resources he doesn't have. Also the minute he withdraws, which is just a matter of time, ukrainians will kill his puppet government and take their country back. So yeah, Ukraine will suffer major losses, but ultimately time is on their side.

I hope the records of which citizens were given arms, will be destroyed before falling into Russian hands, and that people manage to hide those arms well.

No records, they’re simply handing out weapons, armour and munitions to any Ukrainian who wants them. Not just Ukrainians either.

There are conflicting reports on that. From a Reuters journalist in Lviv: https://www.reddit.com/r/worldnews/comments/t4ebff/comment/h...

Thanks for the correction.

Not true. Every gun has an ID registered to it.

> dismissed any ideas some countries might have had about leaving EU for decades

Let’s not steal the credit from Boris Johnson and Theresa May for that.

I'm not sure Theresa May gets any real credit for Brexit as a concept. She didn't campaign for it; she was just daft enough to think anyone could negotiate something that satisfied the multitude of unworkable or contrasting promises.

She decided that her country should actually proceed with Brexit and has chosen the process for it.

The electorate decided that with the result of the referendum. Boris Johnson won the election with a landslide on the promise that he'd leave.

I'm a bit annoyed that people say 52% is "the electorate said...", and the referendum was non-binding, the government could've said "OK, but here are the effects of Brexit and why we're not going to proceed...".

Which is what the general election was for. Boris got into power on the back of promising to deliver...

It's easy to forget, but the last 2 elections were based on getting Brexit done. The first one did not go terribly well for Theresa May, the second went well for Boris. The difference was the leader of the party - the policies were not radically different to a layman. It's hard to see it as more than a popularity contest.

> Boris got into power on the back of

An electoral system where the majority of votes cast were not in his favour

Wouldn’t have changed anything, except perhaps May would have been removed sooner and Johnson would have been made leader to fight and win the 2017 GE. There’s no way the Tories could have ignored the referendum results.

She also laid out the notorious "red lines" that made any sensible deal impossible.

> she was just daft enough to think anyone could negotiate something that satisfied the multitude of unworkable or contrasting promises

Another take: She didn't realize that Boris Johnson wanted power, and therefore would do everything possible to undermine her. There was no way to make a deal with Johnson.

> Let’s not steal the credit from Boris Johnson and Theresa May for that.

They didn't have an original idea in their lives. The idea is Dugin's, the funding comes from the Russian tax payer, the public face was Nigel Farage, the campaign strategy and slogans come from Dom Cummings.

Most succinct and overall best summing-up I've seen, thank you!

One tiny quibble:

> the funding comes from the Russian tax payer

And perhaps mainly from the ordinary European who heats with gas.

At this point, Putin will likely achieve his goals regarding Ukraine (which I can’t imagine he’ll ever be willing to give up) in the near term, at huge human and economic cost, unless (a) NATO decides to step in after all (unlikely), in which case all bets are off, or (b) China decides to join the West in opposing Russia (quite unlikely, they don’t have much reason to), or (c) Putin is overturned from within Russia (also unlikely it seems to me). The situation is pretty much doomed to get uglier and to remain ugly for quite some time.

The diplomatic channels are still open. Let's see if a miracle comes off it. I'm optimistic since there's not much left for Putin to prove. Europe is terrified and has wisely chosen to not engage with the Russian military.

The absolute worst would be the continued escalation of economy warfare forcing China's hand in the conflict.

Putin wants Russia, Belarus, and Ukraine (Great Russia, White Russia, and Little Russia) unified, to restore the Russian empire and to reunify the Russian people. This is not about proving something, it’s to restore historic justice and to undo the humiliation and tragedy of Russia’s breakup over 30 years ago, in the eyes of Putin. His legacy depends on it, and also he believes that if it doesn’t happen soon, then it will become impossible, because of the cultural contagion of the West. That possibility is something Putin can’t stomach, and preventing it is worth a lot of Russian hardship to him.

EDIT: Just to be clear, I believe Putin is delusional. Just trying to explain what appears to be his world view, based on his speeches and published articles.

No, comrade, it is NATO's fault. How dare they prevent the other Eastern European countries from being invaded.

Their point is that the invation is for a reason. Whether you agree or not, a lame snarky sacarastic comment doesn't change that.

Yes, and it seems to be "ego", which seems like a poor justification.

It’s more about identity than about ego, I’d say. If Russia isn’t Russia anymore, if a large part (or, worse, all) of it gets westernized, if the Russian culture seemingly erodes, Putin’s life will turn out to have been meaningless. His self-worth is irreversibly tied to it. That’s why authoritarian leaders are generally unable to say “oh, I guess I was wrong after all”.

> If Russia isn’t Russia anymore, if a large part (or, worse, all) of it gets westernized, if the Russian culture seemingly erodes

What do you mean? You should have seen the surge of the Ukrainian culture in Ukraine after it westernized. After all, it's not the west that suppresses cultures in the region. If anything, it is the Russian regime.

From his article https://web.archive.org/web/20220227090945/http://en.kremlin...: “The localization policy undoubtedly played a major role in the development and consolidation of the Ukrainian culture, language and identity. At the same time, under the guise of combating the so-called Russian great-power chauvinism, Ukrainization was often imposed on those who did not see themselves as Ukrainians. This Soviet national policy secured at the state level the provision on three separate Slavic peoples: Russian, Ukrainian and Belorussian, instead of the large Russian nation, a triune people comprising Velikorussians, Malorussians and Belorussians.”

So he doesn’t like the alleged “Ukrainization”, and certainly not an additional westernization (you know, with gay people and such).

> Ukrainization was often imposed on those who did not see themselves as Ukrainians

That's a myth, a talking point in the Russian propaganda.

Of course! But my point is that Putin seems to truly believe in that portrayal. If you take what he writes in those essays and says in his speeches at face value, then you can see why he takes the actions he does.

Everyone’s actions can be understood by realizing what they feel and believe. That doesn’t justify the actions, but it explains them. Trying to understand what Putin is about is important to making predictions about how he will react to possible courses of action from the rest of the world.

Hey, it was just a funny take on the parent "from Putin's point of view". I think the guidelines about snark and sarcasm are about what you write in relation to other posters here, not Putin.

Oh I know, but I wasn't talking about the guidelines, just pointing out that a funny take doesn't make something less true, and undermines an important point. Also, I think snark and sarcasm should be allowed even towards other posters. It's healthier.

Is it really just those 3 that 2022 Putin wants back? The USSR had a number of republics bordering China that are now independent. Are those in his crosshairs as well?

I don’t think so, at least not necessarily, because they are not part of Russia’s historical core. He surely would like to have them back in Russia’s sphere of influence, but I don’t think they are essential to restoring Russia’s greatness. Ukraine is in another category.

> I don’t think so, at least not necessarily, because they are not part of Russia’s historical core.

Putin referred, in his war announcement speech, to the USSR as a historical Russia, and blamed it's leaders for allowing it to fall apart, implying that reversing that was among the goals of his efforts; his idea of the “Russian core” appears to be the union of former Soviet and Russian Imperial territory (possibly not including the North American holdings, but who really knows.)

Putin is referring a lot to pre-Soviet Russia in his elaborations. My impression is that his aspirations are more about tsarian Russia than about Soviet Russia.

Why not leave it to Ukrainians to decide if they want to be reunited or not? Why does Putin believe it is right for him to make that choice for them? The fact that his army is actively bombing them makes this argument ridiculous.

Presumably it would be an impossible cognitive dissonance for him to acknowledge (to himself) that actually it would be justified for Ukrainians to turn their back from Russia and join the West. Those people must be misguided/contaminated or defectors, and surely those who can’t be turned back can only be a small minority.

Beliefs like that are not standalone, they fit into a belief system. You can’t overturn them unless you overturn the whole belief system. Seemingly absurd beliefs can come about by the psychological necessity of keeping the belief system consistent. Putin’s belief system probably was formed during his KGB time in the 70s and 80s, and has continued to develop and has become stronger and harder to change since then. He’ll be 70 in October, unlikely to fundamentally change his mind at that age.

Not KGB. This dude and his books https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Aleksandr_Dugin Also run through this article and try to correlate it with todays reality https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Foundations_of_Geopolitics

Not "not KGB", I think -- my guess would be that dude and his books and the KGB. From what I understand of their views, Dugin's fit in pretty well with the KGB's.

Wouldn't it be bizarre if Wales, England and Scotland formed a United Kingdom?

The Scots sure seem to be beginning to think so.

> Putin wants Russia, Belarus, and Ukraine

That's not all he wants. In the map[0] that Lukashenko accidentally(?) leaked today, Moldova is also marked for invasion.

[0] https://www.express.co.uk/news/world/1573902/Lukashenko-bela...

Right, at least Transnistria, which is already separatist (pro-Russian) and has also a complicated history.

As far as I know, no Scandinavian country has joined NATO recently. Yes, there are discussions in Sweden, and even more in Finland, but that is not the same as actually applying for a membership. Such things take time.

And I am not quite so sure about Ukraine being already lost.

I understand that and you’re of course right. This has been perhaps unwarranted hyperbole on my part. The fact is though, this topic was basically inexistent in any public discourse anywhere and as good as unthinkable. It isn’t anymore and that in itself is a tectonic shift.

Sweden and Finland are on approved list to join, they literally just have to put in the paperwork.

Sweden and Finland essentially have a pact, that they will both join or not join NATO together.

During the Soviet invasion of Afghanistan in the 1980s, the Mujahideen had a phrase, "You have the watches, we have the time."

In your assessment, who has the time in this scenario? Russia? Europe? Ukraine?

Russia has the watches. Ukraine has the time. Not sure if I agree in this circumstance, but traditionally insurgency is something of a waiting game.

I feel the same way. I wasn't sure if Russia had some long-game tactical advantage I was hitherto unaware of and wanted to ask.

I've barely followed what's going on in the conflict, but I think some regions of Eastern Ukraine are the insurgents with respect to the Ukraine government. So in their case perhaps they've had the time for the past years and finally Ukraine's watches are winding down there. Great proverb.

Then maybe you should go bone up on what has happened in the last week or so before commenting? Things have moved quite a bit compared to the state that you describe, to put it very mildly.

No I know enough to know about the separatist regions, if not by propaganda then by actual action because western governments have begun to scrutinize business dealings with entities in those separatist regions, not just Russia. If everybody had to be actual experts in something before commenting on it here, there would be zero comments about any Russia/Ukraine story.

Aside from that It's extremely difficult to get reliable information from any source I have found about the details of the situation. I've not seen anything that is contrary to what I said though. Maybe you can enlighten me.

Too much to summarize but you can start here:

https://twitter.com/KyivIndependent

they're pretty good and if they make mistakes they admit them and correct.

So you're unable to even point out what part of my comment was not correct or outdated. Doesn't sound like you actually even know. Maybe you should take your own advice with respect to commenting then.

It reads as though you completely missed the fact that Russia has invaded Ukraine and that therefore the situation you describe is technically correct but taken as a fragment of the whole currently utterly irrelevant.

I can't help that you "read" something I did not write, and can not follow the context of the discussion.

In context it's clear I was talking about this situation of the separatist regions contrasting with the situation of Russia occupying Ukraine. So you're totally out to lunch if you think I completely missed that.

Ok. I found it hard to imagine, but I know one other person that was quite literally so out of touch that he had missed the last week so it was for me at least plausible.

You may find a mirror to be helpful.

Twitter is never a reliable source for anything. Not only because sane people cannot read most tweets because Twitter now asks you to log in.

Kyivindependent is a news agency hosted in Kyiv, they are obviously pro Ukraine, at the same time I've been reading their stuff for the last couple of days and if the news is bad for their side they report it straight. I'd give them a chance.

All the Russian speaking Ukrainians are pro Ukraine and want the Russians out. So how likely do you think it is that those regions are really separatist?

Russia claims that the Russians that are fighting there are "volunteers". So basically everybody in that region knows very well who they are really fighting. Not Ukrainians but Russian "volunteers".

Ukrainians have both the time (they tasted western freedom and don't want to go back, russian troops need to be paid by the day) and the watches (javlins, stingers, US intelligence and now extra jet fighters)

> All the Russian speaking Ukrainians are pro Ukraine and want the Russians out.

How do you know this to be the case?

Charkov is mainly Russian speaking. Show me the media where they are welcoming their invaders.

Here is the media of the current situation. Doesn't seem very welcoming does it?

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ev0x9pqYqvs

https://youtu.be/XnTGHUCN7SQ?t=75

The bravery on display makes me choke up.

People seem to make the mistake to think that the citizens that speak Russian are automatically pro Russian. But that isn't the case, they are Lithuanians first for the most part.

Good luck finding video on YouTube favorable to any Russian viewpoints. “The media” is cultivated to display or at least promote the main narrative of the US policymakers.

> All the Russian speaking Ukrainians are pro Ukraine and want the Russians out.

I didn't say they wanted Russian occupation necessarily, just that they were separatist from Ukraine. They were all significantly in favor of Ukrainian independence from USSR of course.

> So how likely do you think it is that those regions are really separatist?

Are you in denial of the existence of Ukrainian separatist regions and the Donetsk People's Republic and Luhansk People's Republic?

The people there don't want to separate from Ukraine. They identify as Ukrainian.

All the people do not support the DPR and LPR or separation from Ukraine certainly don't want to separate from Ukraine, I'll give you that much.

> All the Russian speaking Ukrainians are pro Ukraine and want the Russians out

The ethnic lines between Government/Separatists aren't that clear and if that were the case, then Putin would be correct in criticising discrimination too.

Ukraine has the time, in the sense that each day that the Russian army is delayed there are more chances that someone in Russia will decide to get rid of Putin. This is roughly what happens to every dictator that doesn't know when to stop, and usually dictators are so much self confident that they soon lose any contact with reality. Putin has gone too far and now he can't withdraw because that would be his political death, and can't drag things for too long because of the above reason, therefore he hopes to bring Ukrainians to their knees as quick as possible, but that can't be achieved without hitting indiscriminately lots of civilians, therefore no matter how it ends, he's already fucked. Also, he presumably knows all skeletons in the closet kept by the oligarchs, so it's very likely that if an international arrest warrant is issued, he'll rather be executed in Russia than surrendered.

That is wishful thinking. Despite the initial blunders, Russia is advancing in Ukraine at the same pace Germany was in Poland. And it's unlikely they'll get worse as time goes on (the Wehrmacht in its time used Poland to massively improve their operational readiness). Dictators in times of war, in countries subjected to isolation, tend to stick around. And even then, the absence of Putin doesn't mean the general trajectory of Russia would change.

I really don't see much hope for Ukraine, and considering the size of the NATO fast response teams, I expect more countries to fold before Russia starts stalling. I'd say every country without its own autonomous nuclear arsenal is at risk. That's includes everyone under America's umbrella.

You and the parent comment are operating on totally different time scales.

Russia will "win" the invasion. But so long as enough Ukrainians (it need only be a small minority) would prefer to die than be subjugated and there are enough others to materially support them the conclusion is a forgone one. The Russian people will run out of fucks to give long before Ukraine runs out of people.

Poland is also a good reference point for the argument you're making. They had a long lasting resistance movement, hundreds of thousands of diehard fighters. Yet it had to wait until 1989 for any sort of independence. As for material support, it assumes both ability and willingness on the part of sympathizers. The ability might be gone were the Baltics or Finland be invaded, and the willingness might vanish when the war takes a sufficiently heavy toll.

>Yet it had to wait until 1989 for any sort of independence.

Is it not fair to say the nuclear deterrent has weakened, and the reason Poland had to wait was because NATO was afraid of supporting the resistance too much?

> And even then, the absence of Putin doesn't mean the general trajectory of Russia would change.

You never know. You could see, in the broadcast Putin's security council meeting the fidgeting and fear of its members. And those are supposedly the people who will take over if Putin croaks.

Russia can and in a way has won 'stage 1', the quick advance. But now they have to keep it, supply their troops and maintain presence and that is a very expensive operation in a country that really doesn't want you. Extra hard when it's cold you have no food and you're running out of fuel. Vehicles are being abandoned and there is plenty of evidence for self sabotage.

Like watching a snake attempt to eat a porcupine.

That's a fairly good analogy. The amount of hand held weaponry flowing into the Ukraine must beat some kind of record.

It is my understanding that a neighboring country has also provided MiG jet fighter aircraft to the Ukrainian air force. Good show on their part.

Contradicting stories about that, some say that deal fell through, which given the publicity they initially attached to it makes it seem as though that was conditional on something, which I have no idea about.

> supply their troops

Supply their troops right across their border? Where do you think ukraine is? The side that will have problems with supplies is the one that had their armories, oil refineries, storage facilities, etc destroyed.

> maintain presence

Something they've done for centuries? They don't have to maintain a presence. The ukrainian army will. Notice how there aren't any major battles? Ever wonder why Zelensky is asking the civilians to fight? Because most of the ukranian army is not fighting.

> that is a very expensive operation in a country that really doesn't want you.

Half the country is russian to begin with. More than half the country voted to align with russia. That's why the West staged a coup.

> Extra hard when it's cold you have no food and you're running out of fuel.

It's only going to get warmer and Russia is not going to run out of food nor fuel. You do realize russia is the largest fossil fuel producer right?

> Vehicles are being abandoned and there is plenty of evidence for self sabotage.

Then how come major ukrainian cities are under seige?

Read what you wrote and ask yourself, is it really what's happening or is it what you wish was happening? I don't think the ghost of kiev is going to save ukraine. Unless a major power steps in to help ukraine, it'll be "liberated" in the next few weeks. And then ukranians will go on with their lives. No country is going to step in to fight russia.

> Ever wonder why Zelensky is asking the civilians to fight?

Because the total size of the Ukraine armed forces of allservekces is smaller than the Russian + Belarusian land forces deployed against them, not to count the supporting air and naval forces, where Ukraine is outnumbered by more than an order of magnitude.

> Unless a major power steps in to help ukraine, it'll be "liberated" in the next few weeks. And then ukranians will go on with their lives.

This is as stupid as when people said the same basic thing about the 2003 Iraq invasion. (Something along that line is, IIRC, a big factor in Gen. Franks describing then-Undersecretary of Defense for Policy Doug Feith as “the fucking stupidest guy on the face of the earth”.) People can't be relied on to just go back to their lives when a hostile foreign occupation is imposed, even if the regular forces of the preceding government are comprehensively defeated.

> No country is going to step in to fight russia.

Just like no country stepped in to fight the USSR (or the US) in Afghanistan. And neither of the armies involved in that had the degree of morale and logistical problems the Russian Army has displayed thus far in Ukraine.

The ratio of military advantage Russia has over Ukraine is comparable to what NATO has over Russia — 8:1

Military advantage in materiel needs to be balanced with morale to get the whole picture.

> Because the total size of the Ukraine armed forces of allservekces is smaller than the Russian + Belarusian land forces deployed against them, not to count the supporting air and naval forces, where Ukraine is outnumbered by more than an order of magnitude.

The ukranian army is 250000 strong, there are less than 200000 russians in ukraine. What does army size have to do with anything. Smaller armies have fought larger armies all the time.

> People can't be relied on to just go back to their lives when a hostile foreign occupation is imposed, even if the regular forces of the preceding government are comprehensively defeated.

Ukraine : Russia != Iraq : US. Ukraine is ethnically, religiously, militarily, historically, etc tied with russia. Iraq has nothing to do with the US. Until just 8 years ago, russia and ukraine was intertwined. Yes, if saudi arabia or turkey invaded ukraine, I would expect a massive insurgency. Was there a massive insurgency after the union beat the confederates? Of course not, because we were the same people.

> Just like no country stepped in to fight the USSR (or the US) in Afghanistan.

Sarcasm?

> And neither of the armies involved in that had the degree of morale and logistical problems the Russian Army has displayed thus far in Ukraine.

Right. Because they ghost of kiev is terrorizing them right? You are literally restating intelligence propaganda. It's standard propaganda during war to portray the enemy has low morale. The russians are saying the same thing about the ukranians and the west.

People just cling to propaganda that matches their agenda. The first casualty in war is truth. I would stop believing all the propaganda and just think about what's happening rationally.

Hey I personally know Ukrainians, also those with a military background. And I can tell you, you are full of shit.

You claim that the Ukrainian army, under control of the anti-russian government, is not fighting? Why is that? And the government that staged a coup against the will of the people is now giving those people guns to fight against... who exactly?

Your story is completely contradicting itself kamaraad. Even the Russian speaking Ukrainians want the Russians out.

And guess what, Zelenskyy's first language is Russian.

> Unless a major power steps in to help ukraine, it'll be "liberated" in the next few weeks. And then ukranians will go on with their lives.

If you really the situation this way I can definitely assume you know no Ukrainians at all. It's such an absurd statement given the current situation and how Ukrainians are reacting (I know 2 who just left Sweden to go back there and help), I'm saving your comment to come pester you when the insurgency and urban warfare starts in a few months.

What an utter bullshit comment.

You clearly have absolutely no idea what you are talking about so I'll just stop responding but just know that I got a good chuckle out of this comment because of the incredible disconnect between the situation as it is and your view of it.

> More than half the country voted to align with russia.

Zelenskyy was elected president in 2019 with 73.2% of the votes.

Do you actually believe yourself or do you know you are lying?

> Zelenskyy was elected president in 2019 with 73.2% of the votes.

I was talking about before the coup where the ukranian population voted for a pro-russia president. Not 5 years after the coup. Lets see what the election results will be 5 years after russia takes control over ukraine and propagandize nonstop for 5 years.

> Do you actually believe yourself or do you know you are lying?

Do you really think I was referring to zelensky? Do you really think I would lie about such a trivial thing that anyone could google within a second? Or do you think you misunderstood what I was talking about. What I wrote "More than half the country voted to align with russia. That's why the West staged a coup."

Why did you cut out the "That's why the West staged a coup" part?

Because "That's why the West staged a coup" is also a lie. Ukrainians want to join EU. And if you wonder why, read some history.

NONE of the former Soviet controlled states want to join Russia ever again. Have you noticed they all joined EU? Why is that, because EU "staged coups"?

Maybe EU is able to provide its citizens with a proper life. Maybe the values we have resonate more with people than the values Putin has. Because of this idiot dictator, we have to put more money into our military again, instead of using it to improve our lives.

> Because "That's why the West staged a coup" is also a lie.

I proved I was right in the original post. Also, it is not a lie. It's factually correct.

> And if you wonder why, read some history.

Does it appear to you I know nothing about history, geopolitics, etc?

> NONE of the former Soviet controlled states want to join Russia ever again.

Many don't. But can't say none. Armenia, Kyrgyzstan, Belarus, Kazakhstan have joined eurasion economic zone.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Eurasian_Economic_Union

> Have you noticed they all joined EU?

All?

> Why is that, because EU "staged coups"?

In a way, yes. Not militarily, but financially. Well some militarily. But yes, unfortunately, nations sell themselves to the highest bidder. Just like human beings.

> Because of this idiot dictator

Do you realize that by calling a democratically elected leader a dictator, you are making a mockery of democracy.

> we have to put more money into our military again, instead of using it to improve our lives.

Welcome to our world buddy. Maintaing the american empire is bleeding us try. Imagine if there was no NATO. No EU. No war in ukraine. No wasted money on wars. If NATO disbanded after the fall of the soviet union and european nations remained sovereign, we wouldn't be having so many issues.

Just like the evil soviet empire necessitated the creation of NATO, the evil NATO/EU empire is now necessitating the creation of the "soviet" empire.

If you truly cared about peace, improving your lives, etc, you'd be just as against the NATO/EU empire as you are against putin.

You forgot to answer my question: 'Why did you cut out the "That's why the West staged a coup" part?'

> Do you realize that by calling a democratically elected leader a dictator, you are making a mockery of democracy.

If you call Russia a democracy, you're even more stupid than I thought.

> You forgot to answer my question

> That's why the West staged a coup.

It did not as far as evidence goes it was initiated by Ukrainians themselves. The west did happily supply the weapons to questionable groups, but the will to change was certainly there. If that reduced corruption is another question.

A bit ironic that separatists are called separatists in light of the revolution though. Although the party that came to power after the revolution has since been replaced by the current one. I think they formed just 2-3 years ago.

This perspective seems to be incredibly optimistic. Oil-rich dictators can live a long time, even as they drive their countries to ruin. I don't know that there is much of a power base against him, and he still seems to have broad support from the populace (which might or might not matter).

Take for example Saddam Hussein. His 1980-1988 failed invasion of Iran cost 100,000 to 200,000 Iraqi lives (plus wounded and 70,000 Iraqi POWs held by Iran). Then the 1990-1991 failed invasion of Kuwait cost another 20,000 to 50,000 Iraqi lives… And yet he might well have never lost control, short of the 2003 US invasion of Iraq.

Russia is going to run out of money at this rate. This is not a rich country.

They’re not, while Europe keeps buying their energy.

The mujahideen also had the mountains of Afghanistan. Anyone who is under the illusion that Ukraine can mount a similar insurgency to the afghans has not studied much history.

There are also other factors at play, such as that there are a lot more funds available.

They have skyscrapers. I would be terrified as a Russian soldier to walk in Kyiv. Only a matter of time until you get sniped, cocktail'ed -- or worse.

Or drive there, the number of Javelins and RPGs in circulation handily outnumbers the number of tanks and armored vehicles. It would be like driving into a meatgrinder.

Or fly for that matter, with all the Stingers. I can't imagine flying some expensive attack helicopter, and at any time some Volodymyr can pop out behind a corner with a Stinger and a finger on the trigger.

Skyscrapers can be flattened with enough artillery. The Hindu Kush cannot.

After WW2, Ukrainian partisans fought on until the late forties – without the foreign aid that be expected this time.

Interesting. Do you think Soviets soldiers had a lot in common with the Afghan mujahideen? What comparisons would you make with the Russians now fighting Ukrainians?

Yes, I agree. It really is a shame that Ukraine doesn’t have an 8,700ft, 1,100 mile long mountain range cutting through the western side of the country. Oh wait, never mind, it does.

As much as I wish that were true, you are plain wrong.

Ukraine's highest peak is 6,700, and the Carpathians are at the very western edge of Ukraine - if resistance merely survives in the Carpathians then the Russians have comprehensively won.

"Russia would need significantly more ground forces to conquer Ukraine — far more than the current 3.4 Russian soldiers per 1,000 Ukrainian citizens. The force ratios in successful operations are astronomically higher, such as 89.3 troops per 1,000 inhabitants in Germany (1945), 17.5 in Bosnia (1995), 9.8 in East Timor (2000), and 19.3 in Kosovo (2000). High numbers of troops and police are critical to establish basic law & order. In fact, the number of Russian soldiers in Ukraine aren’t even enough to hold any major cities for long. They will be in serious danger of being picked apart by Ukrainian insurgents.

https://www.washingtontimes.com/news/2022/feb/28/russian-for...

Birthrate may play a role too, turns out. https://richardhanania.substack.com/p/russia-as-the-great-sa...

Along with others here, I'm questioning your "Ukraine...cannot win" comment.

As I see it, they have already won, and will continue to win for a long long time.

What I mean by this is that western countries didn't support them in the way (I feel) they should have, probably because they believed that Russia would easily walk over Ukraine, similar to how it had caused such confusion and prevented a defense in Crimea (I'm not a historian, this is my naive view of those events).

Ukraine stood up to the bully, and showed us (the west) that we were wrong to not believe in them. It isn't over, and it can't be claimed as a victory yet, but they convinced the west that they had enough of a chance that we should come to their aid. They showed us what the Ukrainian spirit is. They have given hope to other regions and countries that may come under threat in the future.

I wonder if they have given China extra pause in their stance toward Taiwan.

If Putin loses in Ukraine, could that also mean the end of his regime in Russia? The Russian people are standing up to him. He has proven that he is not only fallible. Will this also be taken as a sign of weakness to Russians?

You're absolutely right about cheap energy, and it's why I thought this was a strange time for Russia to invade Ukraine. Europe will be coming out of winter in a few weeks. This gives the summer to shore up reserves and build out alternative energy sources. Remember, Tesla built the Adelaide, Australia power plant in less than 100 days[1].

What happens when Europe faced with the threat of a lack of energy going into next winter?

[1] https://news.sky.com/story/elon-musk-wins-50m-bet-with-giant...

> probably because they believed that Russia would easily walk over Ukraine

Sorry to be brass, but why would NATO support Ukraine? Its not a strategy ally. There aren't any special resources there. I don't know why the US was tempting Ukraine to join NATO in the first place.

With neighbors like Ukraine has article 5 is the obvious temptation, USA didn't have to do anything. Believe it or not Ukrainians can have their own opinions and not everything they do is because of they are pawns

There are several guilty parties. US/NATO are not fully responsible.

I can't help but read that as you acknowledging Ukraine deserves some of the guilt of wanting to join NATO instead of just the USA's fault, which is definitely not what I meant. Russia is the lone guilty party in this invasion, or more specifically Putin, I feel pretty awful for the poor soldiers who are getting killed in foreign land or forced to play role of occupier to hostile locals. People who understand his concerns about NATO are people who have bought his lies.

Question: Whose fault was the Cuban Missile crisis and post-crisis economic sanctions of Cuba?

Mostly the fault of the USA. But lets not forget the ridiculous scale and number of military interventions Cubas worldwide. They were hardly an innocent bystander during the cold war but a very active opponent.

In what ways was the US tempting Ukraine to join NATO? Because NATO expansionism is the core of Russia's propaganda, along with other non-sense like clearing the country of Jewish Nazism.

Bucharest Summit Declaration 2008

> NATO welcomes Ukraine’s and Georgia’s Euro-Atlantic aspirations for membership in NATO.

https://www.nato.int/cps/en/natolive/official_texts_8443.htm

It's 2022. You're pointing to a declaration that is 14 years old. Do you have anything more current? Why the invasion now?

I have been wondering the same thing; what was the trigger? Maybe new ties to Turkey:

> Over the past two years, NATO member Turkey and Ukraine have bolstered defense industry ties, including an agreement by Turkish drone-maker Baykar to build a production facility near Kyiv for its popular Bayraktar TB2 drone. The Ukrainian government has also dubbed Turkey "one of its key economic partners."

https://www.dw.com/en/turkeys-intelligence-agency-abducts-ar...

Russia Annex Crimea in response to that in 2012. Russia's power and economy is weakening. They needed time to prepare their forces and complete their Crimea annexation. We also had COVID in 2019-2022.

So Ukraine says "hey, we think we probably want to join NATO". And NATO responds "cool, that sounds good", and... so what? Ukraine is a sovereign nation and should be allowed to ally itself with whatever country or group it wants to. Perhaps Russia should take a hard look at why Ukraine didn't feel that allying with Russia would be in their best interests?

So, Mexico is a sovereign nation and should be allowed to ally with North Korea or Iran, right?

The USA would be understanding of Mexico’s sovereignty and stand by while North Korea sends military aid to Mexico, installs their elite sons and daughters as board members of Mexico’s largest corporations, and blatantly strategizes who will become the “elected” leader of Mexico.

Perhaps you should take a hard look at the reality of what all powerful nations do when they feel threatened by their foes close to their borders. Ignoring it is at everyone’s peril.

To add: "Cuba is a sovereign nation. They should be allowed to store Russia's nuclear missiles." /s

> So, Mexico is a sovereign nation and should be allowed to ally with North Korea or Iran, right?

AFAIK they are allowed to do that. And if they did, the USA should take a long hard look at itself and think why Mexico wanted to do it.

There, do you have any more strawmen for us to burn?

> Mexico is a sovereign nation and should be allowed to ally with North Korea or Iran, right?

Yes.

Or, more realistically, China.

Is this supposed to be trap of some kind?

I didn't say NATO, I said "the west", but you're right, I probably should have said "the world" or something else.

A major superpower decided to invade a sovereign country with absolutely no provocation with the goal of extending their borders. This isn't the first time this has happened, and it won't be the last. It shouldn't be allowed.

Let's be clear here as well. Russia is not the only country to have done this. Western countries have been just as guilty in the past.

You are not correct when you say “without provocation”. The UKR government had been assaulting its own ethnically-Russian citizens in Donbass four 8 years. Russia went in to stop that. There are many journalistic documents that prove those societies.

Link to the documents? I appreciate we are getting differing stories depending on what media you see.

I'm not sure what to believe anymore, honestly. Certainly there has been military action between Kyiv and the separatists. But there's been so much anti-Ukraine propaganda coming out of Russia in the past 8 years, plus what seems to be questionable or incomplete reporting from Western outlets, that it's hard to know where the truth is.

Did the separatist movements start because of Russian agitation, or because of actions the government of Ukraine took? Is Ukraine targeting ethnic Russians in the Donbass region, or are they just attacking separatists, who maybe(?) happen to mostly be ethnic Russians? I'm having a hard time understanding the true history here.

> with absolutely no provocation

This is false. NATO in 2008 invited Ukraine to join. This is the equivalent of Cuba inviting Russia to setup a military base on US borders. The US's reaction was to economically nuke Cuba.

https://www.nato.int/cps/en/natolive/official_texts_8443.htm

The US did not invade Cuba...

Ok, there was the Bay of Pigs, but the US pulled out support at the last minute. Had they invaded Cuba we'd be using that as an example of where the US did the wrong thing by invading a sovereign country (there are other examples...FYI, I'm not American).

As I commented elsewhere, this is a 14 year old invitation.

> The resultant lack of food and medicine to Cuba contributed to the worst epidemic of neurological disease this century.

https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/8942780/

We didn't take up arms, we just starved Cuba to death and didn't give them access to modern medicine.

Though I am aware of the blockade (I'm not American), I was not aware of the humanitarian crisis it caused.

The document you linked clearly states that the US now recognizes this was a mistake.

"The Inter-American Commission on Human Rights of the Organization of American States has informed the US Government that such activities violate international law and has requested that the US take immediate steps to exempt food and medicine from the embargo."

But your initial comment was if Ukraine provoked Russia, so you're going down a rabbit hole of history that has no bearing on this.

You think an embargo is a blockade is US policy?

The US agreed not to invade again and also remove missiles in Europe in return for the missiles being removed from Cuba.

That's conspicuously not what happened with Ukraine. It could not be more not what happened with Ukraine.

Cuba makes no sense as an argument about current events, and if it did, one could have a conversation without random whatabouts.

russia wanted to deploy forces in the USA's borders. USA wants to deploy forces on Russia's borders.

I don't see the difference.

Yes, I was working with your premise! The parallelism as you see/state it.

You don't see a difference in what caused the crisis, right, sure.

THEN what happened?

In both cases, there was precedent for violating sovereignty. Bay of Pigs with the US, and Crimea with Russia, among other things.

But the US agreed to not invade again, and Russia on the other hand...invaded.

No, NATO didn't invite Ukraine to join. Ukraine wanted to join but NATO didn't reach unanimous decision to allow Ukraine to join. Back then Germany voted against Ukraine joining, out of consideration for Russias interests. Since then, there was no new movement for a NATO membership. And again, during the last minute diplomatic efforts, the German chancellor very clearly offered to Putin, that the question of an Ukrainian NATO membership would be decided quite far into the future. So there was no actual thread of a NATO membership - any claims of that were just a made-up reason by Putin. Also, while a lot of former Warshaw Pact countries did join the NATO, the NATO didn't install a permanent military presence in those countries.

> NATO welcomes Ukraine’s and Georgia’s Euro-Atlantic aspirations for membership in NATO

https://www.nato.int/cps/en/natolive/official_texts_8443.htm

This is on NATO's website from 2008 meeting. How is "welcomes" not be interpreted as an invitation?

Well, yes, it is an invitation. But NATO didn't let the Ukraine join, that was blocked by at least Germany. And on during his visit in Moscow, Chanceller Scholz basically offered Putin that Ukraine joining into NATO could be very far in an undetermined future.

> Also, while a lot of former Warshaw Pact countries did join the NATO, the NATO didn't install a permanent military presence in those countries.

Well, after those countries became NATO countries their own militaries were NATO militaries, so of course NATO has a permanent military presence in those countries. Unless they totally demilitarised.

Comparing the Cuban missile crisis to now is mindblowing...why do people think it makes sense as a defense of Russia?

The USSR put missiles in Cuba, and got the US to agree not to invade and to withdraw missiles from eastern Europe.

We need to know about the parallel universe where the "NATO aggression" results in Russia agreeing not to invade Ukraine.

> If Putin loses in Ukraine, could that also mean the end of his regime in Russia? The Russian people are standing up to him. He has proven that he is not only fallible. Will this also be taken as a sign of weakness to Russians?

I believe that’s the play EU and NATO is going for. Putin made a mistake so obvious and of such magnitude that the western powers decided to go for the jugular. The risk is of course that it doesn’t work, as it didn’t in Belarus. We’re facing Cold War remastered in that case.

> I wonder if they have given China extra pause in their stance toward Taiwan.

> If Putin loses in Ukraine, could that also mean the end of his regime in Russia? The Russian people are standing up to him.

If we see a loss of Putin's power in Russia as the world and his own population lionizes against him, a botched Taiwanese invasion could lead to a similar outcome in China.

Lots of food to chew on for the strategists.

A key difference is that Chinese citizens, soldiers, and leaders won’t lionize against the state. Nationalism is total. But no doubt China is taking notes.

Last time I was there (in college during Obama's presidency), most of the students I got close to secretly told me they disliked their leaders but couldn't do anything about it.

I attended lectures taught by incredibly nationalistic professors with an almost religiously fervent level of support for the CCP's "triumph over the America and the world" (paraphrase, but true to the content). Most of the young folks either didn't care or harbored distrust. They told me corruption was rampant and people were bitter.

After the earthquake, people really hated on the CCP.

Anecdotal, but it really shaped my opinions.

Look at Hong Kong. They clearly hate it, but they can't do anything about it.

More likely, to me, is that China will see what did and didn't work with Russia's invasion or Ukraine, and take those learnings when they go for Taiwan. I unfortunately don't see Taiwan's position getting better because of any of this.

Also, I expect that the Chinese government has tighter control ("physically" and propaganda-wise) of their people than is the case in Russia. So I don't know that we'd see demonstrations or protests if China invaded Taiwan. Also I would guess that more people in China believe that Taiwan should be ruled by Beijing than people in Russia who believe Ukraine should be ruled by Moscow. Unfortunately I can't find polling numbers on this, which isn't surprising, as that data may not exist outside of some Chinese intelligence system.

> I wonder if they have given China extra pause in their stance toward Taiwan.

I expect so. But China is a great power, and Russia is only a regional power. It's much easier and cheaper to isolate Russia.

China's claim on Taiwan is 1000x more valid than the Russian claim on Ukraine, and the world would react differently. I say this as someone who likes the RoC, and thinks they have a right to self-determination.

Ultimately, though, China is trying to win the economic and political game. You need a large military to play that game as a great power, but you don't have to actually invade people to exercise military power. And wars are terribly costly when you're trying to modernize infrastructure. Decoupling China from the US would be terribly costly to both sides, while trade is profitable. So they use that to buy a sphere of influence, largely in Africa and South America. Putin is the idiot who still thinks he can invade his way to a sphere of influence, which hasn't really worked out for anyone after the Spanish-American war.

> China's claim on Taiwan is 1000x more valid than the Russian claim on Ukraine

I think you got it backwards: Taiwan's claim on China is more valid - after all, they are the original China unspoiled by the demon of communism.

That's exactly the point – if both countries claim to be the rightful owners of both other countries, they are not really separate countries.

Sure, in the same way that the confederacy's claim on the south is valid.

In the same way that the North’s claim on the US South is valid. Mainland China is the Confederacy. Taiwan is the Union. Taiwan and the North were the original governments.

Taiwan was a frontier until the Nationalists, losing the civil war to the Communists, fled there. Taiwan has never been the government of China. Are you saying the Nationalists were the original government of China? They didn't exist as a party until the 20th century and didn't last as a party in mainland China past 1949.

I don't say that to support the CCP - the only legitimate government is one chosen by the Chinese people - but saying "Taiwan and the North were the original governments" is plainly false. The Confuscian emporers, going back 2,000+ years and lasting until ~1911 (with many interruptions), would have by far the best claim on 'original government'.

> Taiwan's claim on China is more valid - after all, they are the original China unspoiled by the demon of communism.

I absolutely support the freedom of the people in Taiwan - and of those in all of China, though only the ones in Taiwan have it - but the parent doesn't make sense to me:

What is the "original China"? Imperial, Confucian China, which (including many interruptions) goes back over 2,000 years, and ended in ~1911? The predecessors to imperial China? Neither has anything to do with the Nationalists (who fled to Taiwan when they lost the civil war to the Communists).

> Russia is only a regional power

Which region would that be?

Europe. It has no power in Asia, Africa, Americas.

Once I learned their economy is as big as the Benelux, it's even smaller than you can imagine. They are still riding the good old Soviet days.

Their military spending is less than France and Germany combined.

The world would react differently to a CCP invasion of Taiwan for sure, but not in the way you imply. It would be a full scale war against US, Japan, Australia, UK at least right away. With the current president, being a democratic country the US people can of course choose an isolationist president and change their policies.

> China's claim on Taiwan is 1000x more valid than the Russian claim on Ukraine, and the world would react differently. I say this as someone who likes the RoC, and thinks they have a right to self-determination.

The PRC claim to Taiwan is about as weak as can be. They have after all _never_ ruled the island. The mainland and Taiwan have only been unified (if you can call the 45-49 “unified”) for four years in the last 125 years. Moscow ruled Ukraine up until a generation ago (not that I think that gives Russia any claim to Ukraine).

The PRC’s claim to Taiwan is ludicrous.

>given hope to other regions and countries that may come under threat in the future.

To be determined. I surmise Ukraine will go the way of HK/Belarus and demonstrate that shitpost supremacy is not a counter to disproportionate military force. That getting drunk on propaganda manufactured and reinforced by liberal western media is ultimately going to trigger harsher reprisals and bloodier escalations. The alternative to Putin's quick "special operations" / decapitation strike is UKR cities getting shelled to rubble that we witness now. PRC will learn not to half measure in the name of cross strait "brotherhood", strategy can change but enduring geopolitical interests do not. We're now setup for an even bloodier resumption of Chinese civil war, and TWers will see the cost of porcupine strategy and prolonged insurgency and connect the dots of how much more hopeless doing so on an isolated island will be.

>What happens when Europe faced with the threat of a lack of energy going into next winter?

What's the sociopolitical aftermath of EU embracing migrants? People are fickle once policy touch their lives, it's much easier to turn on the gas spigot again, waive away sanctions, reduced promised military expenditures than to kick out already settled migrants. There's also Trump 2024.

That's a reasonable take. But on the other hand...

It took 20yr to replace the Taliban with the Taliban and that was without much external meddling. How's Syria doing? This could very much turn into "Iraq for white people" and unlike Ukraine does not have strong internal race/religion animosity (well it kind of does, but those regions left in 2014) that can be harnessed to keep the pressure off the invaders and puppet government.

With the west providing the people of Ukraine with financial, material and ideological support this has the potential to become an incredibly bloody conflict. Ukraine is 40million people. If even 1/10th of that say fuck it that nation is a level of ungovernable that is hard to appropriately quantify. I don't think many people appreciate the kind of "once in generations" abyss eastern Europe is staring into.

Or I could just be wrong and Ukraine could roll over. After all they were ruled by Russia historically and it hasn't been that long. Time will tell.

they already had a couple of revolutions when elections got rigged. now, based on what i am reading, even people that were pro-russian forever, after all the shelling hate russia with passion. it's will be much more than 1/10th

edit: there is an inflow of Ukrainian male population into Ukraine. There is Foreign Legion now

How Taliban's Afghanistan and Syrian clusterfuck doing is precisely the right question. UKR "winning" = potentially decades as a collapsed state, which RU would rather have than UKR embracing west / replacing RU as gas station of EU. And with respect to RU and NATO / west EU, we're early days and have not seen RU responding to EU economic warfare and direct military support. RU unable to respond in kind doesnt mean they won't do so proportionally in other realms like cyber that makes EU lose proportionally less than RU but in aggregate more. Things can get a lot uglier for everyone now that bottom is out, I think we're on verge of entering territory of total non-kinetic warfare.

> I surmise Ukraine will go the way of HK/Belarus and demonstrate that shitpost supremacy is not a counter to disproportionate military force.

What does this even mean?

You also have no idea what you're talking about, because HK was part of China (just a "special administrative region"), and Belarus isn't democratic and wasn't invaded by another country to get taken over. The situation in Ukraine is dramatically different. You're talking like Ukraine has lost the war and Taiwan is next, but, besides that you're being hyperbolic and, again have no idea what you're talking about, you're disregarding the reality that Russia cannot sustain this war either economically or by force in Ukraine (they may be able to take control of the country but won't be able to occupy it forever, there is way too much resistance) and that Taiwan will likely have more direct military support.

It means there is IMO collective delusion on UKR chances of "winning" due to manufactured misinfo landscape in western filter bubbles. By winning I define as UKR remaining a viable state with semblance of domestic serenity in face of RU pursing long broadcasted security interests. RU may not achieve it's OG strategic goals but it can ensure UKR regress and stay a collapsed buffer state with relatively minimal intervenion indefinitely. Which is still better than West leaning UKR long term.

Ditto with TW who has UKR tier of military support on paper, i.e. help country defend itself, except it's significant easier for PRC to turn TW info a isolated failed state if the geopolitical calculus neccessitates it. The reality is it costs a lot to integrate these regions RU/PRC but little to spoil them. UKR lost the war the same way Afghanistan did, it won't be a normal country for generations.

You're still stating that Ukraine has lost the war and it's 1. currently not true, and 2. not a forgone conclusion. Stop pretending that it is.

My predication, for the record: Putin is mad, old, and he certainly would not care to die these days looking outside the window into a sea of mushroom clouds. I'm virtually certain that he had at least one dream about this in his sleep - maybe long time ago, in the '80s.

So he is mad, surrounded by yes-man with a populace that is used to being lied to all the time, used to the feeling that they know more than what is allowed to say publicly, you can read The Master and Margarita, written about hundred years ago, that describes this same exact feeling.

Ukrainians, in an act of fatal heroism will fight; all that gets bloody. Kiev stands; Russians will try to starve the city to death; won't let any humanitarian help into the city; West will try to not lose their cool about the atrocities; but then something happens; some image that just surpasses the cruel picture of war we already have; people in West will demand justice; it will be hard to be bystanders when millions of lives are at stakes so obviously. That will be on a Friday. On Sunday, we defconned our way back to the stone age; world population will be back to 500M to 1B within this year.

And a new world will be born.

The Master and Margarita is possibly my favourite fiction book. It never leaves you.

Suuuch a great read.

My pet theory is that Putin has received a diagnosis of some kind. One that has made him accelerate the actualisation of his dreams of Soviet reunification.

Maybe he has the cancer he has used to kill so many others with.

Parkinson's

Can dementia be ruled out?

A demented dictator with nukes?

He sees himself as more of an imperialist tsar, quite different in the Russian context.

https://www.thesun.co.uk/news/17796241/vladimir-putin-botox-...

Remember when he said he hasn't decided if he'll stand for re-election? [1]

Something is definitely not adding up.

[1] https://www.reuters.com/world/europe/putin-says-he-hasnt-dec...

"If only there was some way to quickly solve carbon emissions, climate change, and the pandemic all at once."

Monkey's paw twists...

“He must be given an option, otherwise this ends really, really ugly.”

Assuming we are still in a world where pure madness is not an option (nukes), it is possible Putin will commit to a protracted occupation of Ukraine (years). The west has a, how to put it, a lack of consistent ability to pay attention to a drawn out occupation in a land far far away (that shit might as well be middle earth to us).

Putin has said in his own words that if Russia is to be left out of the world, then why should Russia care what the world thinks?

They will occupy Ukraine for years, maintain and build relations with Iran, Brazil, China, India. The west will go through its own turn over, Trump may run again in 2024. It could be years, the EU could turn right wing. Border states will have to stop being romantic and start really incorporating the half a million Ukrainians (soon to be more, Britain has already Brexited because their population will not tolerate migration. Watch how awful the reality of the refugee crisis will be).

It will be 2032, years later, with new government powers all over the world. It’ll be a changed world, but perhaps not as ‘green’ as people believe. India and China increase their energy demands and Russia is still there to provide it. Like the Taliban, the world may tire of them by then and capitulate. Now they own Ukraine, and have demonstrated an ability to survive isolation.

The game plan may not be shock and awe or nuclear destruction, but a true willingness to simply endure. We are buying the narrative that Putin has lost because the invasion is taking so long, but in reality the whole thing is supposed to be a long drawn out operation. We’ll be tired of hearing about Ukraine in month 2, 3, 4 …. we’ll be exhausted. Reddit front page will be back to mostly cat videos. The window of opportunity is really on Ukraine and the west to do something now, not Russia.

The UN can walk out of the chamber in protest, but cannot even ratify a modest peace keeping force. Not one country dare even send planes to create limited no fly zones over certain places, even Chernobyl. Most of us are not watching the poker hands carefully here. Just because you have two face cards to start with, doesn’t mean the flop won’t be a bunch of 2s and 7 of clubs. The flop is what’s going to get Zelinsky either killed in a air raid or exiled if he is smart.

The modern world is the slow apartheid state of Palestine, the silent destruction of Syria and Yemen, the ignored subjugation of Hong Kong, the forfeited Afghanistan to the Taliban, the tacit acceptance of Khosgi killing in an embassy. The occupation of Ukraine or the valiant liberation of a democratic state? Which of those two fits with all the others?

But now, it is much closer to home.

Europe sees a lot of parallels with what happend right before ww2 (germany taking a bite here and there; testing responses; extending influence and gathering resources)

couple of months of sanctions. Not sure how many russians will want to endure. Of course putin will try to turn it into some patriotic narative, but truth will spread. Holding ukrain will not be simple. People there have tasted freedom. It will not be so easy to feed government news to them.

Very well written, I have similar weird feeling that the start of this war was important point in multiple plans which were designed for years and meant to be realized for decades and in the end can result in totally different world than we have now.

how certain you are..

Who won and lost is not clear. West always writes Russian's off too early. They did subjugate Chechnya. In fact they were so effective that now their shock troops in Ukraine are Chechens.

On other hand every nation is born in blood and this is Ukraine's real birth. Likely the country will be smaller, lots of people will die, but this is the time it becomes a real nation(well it started in 2014). It is time to prepare for insurgency in the west Ukraine. It took Stalin 6 years to finish off UPA. But they were surrounded and without any help, plus they faced NKVD. Ukranian insurgency in the west with arms flowing through Carpathy will make Russian regret they were ever born. There will be nothing pretty about it.. but there will be no victory for the tsar this time.

Any victory Putin has will be entirely phyrric. The west are determined to inflict severe economic damage on Russia. Which considering they represent about 50% of global GDP they are well capable of doing. Putin's reached the point of desperation where's he's hinting at using Nuclear weapons. That of course will never happen, the generals will put a bullet in him before they let him destroy their country.It almost feels like the Japanese attack on Pearl Harbour, they roused a sleeping giant in the form of the USA which went on to crush them. This time round the sleeping giant is the EU and they're going to flatten Russia economically.

In the long run present day nominal GDP doesn't matter. For example, after world war I Germany had a very bad economic situation. Land, natural resources and culture matter. Russia is the largest country on Earth. China is the largest population and largest economy. India is a close second. The fact is Eurasia does not need the North Atlantic Empire.

Time will tell but much of the vaunted "Western" prosperity is a fading high from the now 70 year old post war era. It is not inevitable that America leads forever.

I wouldn't be too cocksure.

Also, things like population trends or nominal GDP are very changeable over the course of short decades. What matters is resources, land and will and unity of purpose.

> It is not inevitable that America leads forever.

I agree. At the same time, it seems fairly fundamental to me that people in a free functioning democratic society will always be more productive and able to outcompete those suffering under a dictatorship.

> Any victory Putin has will be entirely phyrric

His victory is pyrric from a western, democratic point of view. From his point of view, it's a win - Russia is an authoritarian regime; the population (up to an extent) doesn't matter. People actually started to be jailed due to protesting already.

I don't think it's realistic that an insurrection will happen, but it'd be interesting to read opinions from Russian people.

> They did subjugate Chechnya. In fact they were so effective that now their shock troops in Ukraine are Chechens

They leveled Chechnya and finally had to cut a deal with Ramzan Kadyrov and his father to get him to switch sides in exchange for putting him in charge. I don't see a Kadyrov like figure popping up in Ukraine.

> this is Ukraine's real birth

Nestor Makhno would have probably disagreed with you.

Bogdan Chelmnitsky, Ivan Mazepa, and diverse other Hetmans would probably disagree with Makhno. As would Askold, Dir and Prince Oleg...

But, hey, TIL: Makhno invented the Technical. Cool, thanks!

I think you could even argue that the 2nd Hetman constituted a Ukrainian state with some sense of a separate Ukrainian identity (Russian officer corps aside). I'm not really making any statement here about the situation prior to WWI, as I'm way less familiar. I'm only pointing out that there existed the idea of a Ukranian state made of Ukranian people prior to the dissolution of the USSR.

Yeah, Makhno was a really interesting guy.

>In fact they were so effective that now their shock troops in Ukraine are Chechens.

afaik they were the first to burn in bombed convoy.

"Ukraine, unfortunately, cannot win - it already lost, even if Russian forces withdraw this instant."

Ukraine can win, they just can't meet the bulk of Russia's forces head on. They can, however, defeat Russia in time, and with the support of allies that time can be short. If Ukraine comes out of this an EU member then they will have profound and victory that will benefit Ukraine for generations.

This is an opportunity. Putin has rolled the dice and thrown the first punch. Russia needs punishment in the form of military humiliation and Putin has given the West a once in a century moment to deliver exactly that.

indeed.. I think there is a chance Europe will offer air support in Ukraine, and get drawn into this conflict, and thus be at war with Russia. which will mean EU, USA, UK, CAN, AUS .. will be at war with Russia. ie. WWIII.

I see the attack on Ukraine as an existential threat to the West as a whole - and Im probably not the only one asking if maybe its worth risking nuclear conflict. Can we trust Putin with a nuclear arsenal in any case, even if he withdraws ?

It's not really WW3 unless China joins.

"The West" vs. Russia is just a military execution of Russia.

What’s the plan to stop their nukes?

Leave no doubt that MAD still applies.

That reality remains the one means we have of stopping their nukes.

Insane take, the west vs Russia in open confrontation ends in a nuclear winter.

Nothing - as in literally nothing - is worth seriously risking nuclear conflict. I can’t believe intelligent people are even entertaining this thought. The war is a travesty of the highest order, but I fear an existential threat to the West far, far less than the extinguishing of human civilization. Even the worst authoritarian empires, on a multi-generational timescale, can be outlasted. Nuclear war cannot.

well this is what Putin is gambling on - that he is willing to go closer to the nuclear brink and thus will win. That was true a month ago, I'm not sure its true today.

Wars are not decided based on pure logic - we are somewhat intelligent apes, we will risk it all to defend our tribe - particularly if we feel the aggression is unfair and unjustified.

Democracy is worth the risk. Defeating a “superpower” dictatorship is worth the risk.

If the risk is too high, no it is not, almost tautologically so. If nothing is left of humanity but a smoldering crater, then democracy is, and always has been, entirely meaningless. And the survivors (if any) would never forgive us.

Your logic is left over from pre-nuclear times, when it still made sense. As horrifying as it might be be to face this cold, post-nuclear calculus, we must do it to survive as a species. Which is not to say that we should not push back against aggressive dictators — we must, as much as we are able — but conventional warfare between nuclear powers has to forever be off the table.

Rule by a dictatorial kleptocracy renders humanity entirely meaningless. We must always fight against dictatorship and must never let it win. Better dead than yield to dictatorship.

It renders humanity less meaningful for a temporary period of time. Empires and regimes always dissipate eventually. Nuclear annihilation renders humanity meaningless forever. It is an unfathomably selfish preference, especially given that countless humans with meaningful lives have lived under kleptocratic dictatorships. I do not consent to be part of your death wish.

(But I do desperately hope and pray that Ukraine somehow manages to beat Russia back without massive loss of life.)

>>> Nothing - as in literally nothing - is worth seriously risking nuclear conflict.

> If the risk is too high, no it is not

Which shows why your original statement was wrong: It depends on how high the risk is. If the risk is low enough, it may be worth taking.

Remains only to find out exactly how high it is... Which becomes, AFAICS, an investigation into the psyche of Vladimir Putin.

Maybe I was unclear. This is why I used the phrasing "seriously risking".

So "serious" = "high"? Yeah, then of course I agree. The trouble is only determining is the risk high/serious or not.

On the whole, I lean towards Putin not being quite that crazy -- and hey, remember that even the Soviet Union had that ultimate safeguard, officers willing to disobey orders -- so it shouldn't be all that high. But it's hard to say for sure.

> I think there is a chance Europe will offer air support in Ukraine

I was thinking about that. They are now going to deliver some Migs to the Ukrainian army, because their pilots can already operate those. But let's say they don't have enough pilots for that, who is to say who's operating those Migs? Some Polish volunteers that joined the foreign army recently?

Russia also pulled that stunt in the east where Russian "volunteers" are fighting alongside the separatists.

> They are now going to deliver some Migs to the Ukrainian army

No, they aren’t. That now-deleted tweeted from an adviser to European Parliament doesn’t reflect reality, and has been denied by NATO, Poland (who was the one state specifically rumored to be providing planes), and every other source its been attempted to be confirmed with.

damn

I think people are underestimating Putin and Russia. This is a regime willing to poison dissidents in foreign countries with nerve gas and radioactive isotopes. If you think Russia won’t bring that heavy hand to Ukraine you’re kidding yourself.

My prediction is the West will give material aide, but Ukraine will fall and we’ll enter another Cold War.

To suggest the West will go to war is just wishful thinking. Ukraine will be sacrificed for a temporary and unstable peace in Eastern Europe. Putin called NATO’s bluff and NATO won’t push harder.

In the post WW2 era, the Allies pulled together to institute the Marshall Plan which rebuilt Europe's infrastructure and led to diplomatic alliances to deter expansion of the Iron Curtain.

That didn't happen overnight, and neither will energy independence.

What kind of big projects do you think will create public dismay? Infrastructure projects create jobs, which increases economic activity and boosts stock market indices. Why would this be a problem for the public?

> That didn't happen overnight, and neither will energy independence.

Thing is, if energy independence doesn't happen overnight, climate change might renderer Europe and US uninhabitable.

The only countries that profit from that is those that have access to artic circle.

Putin has managed to get the EU to be pretty much united on a subject, that's something that I never thought I would see in my lifetime.

Inversely, I'm concerned that it's strengthening relations among Saudi Arabia, Russia, and China. In the worst case, this is barreling towards a Cold War 2.0 where nations throw humanity out the window for political leverage:

* Saudi Arabia has consistently rebuffed Biden's calls to pump more oil [1]. Even after releasing oil from our strategic reserves, oil futures have jumped over 10% in a single day [2]. As discussed in the article, high prices only aid the Russian kleptocracy.

* In an attempt to appease Saudi Arabia, the US added more sanctions on Yemen, undoubtedly worsening the humanitarian disaster there [3].

* Similarly, China is propping up the major Russian exports of Wheat [4] and natural gas [5]. Again, to our detriment, under the consideration that wheat futures went up today (8% I think?).

[1] - https://www.axios.com/biden-drill-oil-saudi-arabia-energy-co...

[2] - https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2022-02-28/oil-stead...

[3] - https://foreignpolicy.com/2022/02/28/ukraine-russia-war-spil...

[4] - https://www.scmp.com/economy/china-economy/article/3168278/u...

[5] - https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2022-02-28/gazprom-p...

This is the thing that drives me nuts about people in my country (USA). Especially the conservatives, those who buy the "America First" line and think we should be more isolationist. Embracing alternative (which usually ends up being renewable) energy sources seems like a no-brainer to reduce our dependence on the Saudis et al. Oil has given that region ridiculous amounts of geopolitical power.

But I guess "green energy" is a "dirty librull" thing, so they can't get behind it even if it would dovetail with their foreign policy platform in other ways.

Tiniest, off-topic nitpick: Finland is Nordic but not Scandinavian.

I think humanity could use the lesson of a catastrophic near-world-ending nuclear event. Look on the bright side, the future of humanity will be much more certain after we get through this learning.

>Europe will pay a price which is unknown, but it is certain it will be huge. You just don’t quit drugs (cheap energy) in a week.

I mean, surely it is a massive disruption, but...<gestures vaguely at the Berlin airlift and currently ongoing LNG shipments to Europe>.

Saying the price will be huge - compared to what alternative right now? Are there really any costs that are not opportunity costs?

This development changes “transitory” inflation into a potential long term problem. Do not disregard that: inflation is what causes democracies to fail.

Everybody told Germany that it's not a good idea to build this pipeline. Well, it was an expensive way of learning it.

Putin financed German green party, that also shut down nuclear reactors. He is not stupid.

https://www.thetimes.co.uk/article/german-green-group-brande...

And they also lobbied to get gas into EU taxonomy as renewable (and succeeded!).

WTF. German Green Party is more pro USA and pro NATO than Biden.

They are literally more interested in USA than German interests.

> He is not stupid. He's seemingly angered / disgusted the entire earth: that's stupid.

China seems to be content for now

Why wouldn't they? China and Russia are not natural allies and they both have an interest in maintaining influence over energy-rich Central Asia.

Russia invading Ukraine gives China license to further deepen its relations with its neighbours, without worrying too much about Russian blowback.

It's the same situation as when the US invaded Afghanistan and Iraq. China got a get out of jail free card in terms of ramping up military and establishing territorial claims in the South China Sea. No kerfuffle with the US, who were simply too deep into a quagmire to care.

This is not about the green party, but a separate foundatation, which creating a lot of embarrassment now, though: (Sorry, is in german)

https://www.tagesspiegel.de/politik/umstrittener-einsatz-fue...

The article doesn't talk about the Green party, but rather of a (supposedly) environmental group related to the SPD, the centrist party of Scholz and Schröder. Though Merkel had ample time to stop North Stream 2, and didn't.

The Green party was founded in the 80s, and being anti nuclear is part of its founding axioms. It's also a majority position in Germany. The Greens were also opposed to NS2 from the start.

This is correct.

First, some background. The Green party in Germany has traditionally been anti-Russia:

Germany’s new political alignments paved the way for this revolution. Scholz’s Social Democratic Party (SPD) governs with the values-driven Greens and the liberal Free Democrats, both of which advocate a tougher line toward Moscow.

The Centralist SPD has in the past been pro-Russia, in particular under Gerhard Schröder:

Faced with indefensible Russian actions, the “dialogue” wing of the SPD has seen its arguments crumble. The most visible advocate for pro-Russian positions, ex-Chancellor Gerhard Schröder of the SPD, has come under fire from the entire party leadership for his positions on the boards of Russian energy corporations such as Nord Stream AG, Rosneft, and just recently Gazprom (although that is still pending). Schröder has in a matter of weeks gone from being one of Russia’s most valuable assets in Germany to a political liability.

From https://foreignpolicy.com/2022/02/27/putin-war-ukraine-germa... which has a lot of useful background.

It's green groups within the SPD that were funded by Russia, not the Green Party. From the originally linked article:

It is the creation of Manuela Schwesig, the state’s Social Democratic premier, who is an ally of Gerhard Schröder, Germany’s former chancellor and chairman of Nord Stream II.

Schröder has been attacked by political opponents for his close relationship with Vladimir Putin, the Russian president

This is false information.

1. When first decisions were made for exit from nuclear, Greens were indeed the partner in the coalition government, but back then Putin was just elected as a president of Russia and could not possibly influence that decision in any way.

2. It was Angela Merkel (CDU) in coalition with FDP, who signed off the current plan to shut down all nuclear plants by 2022. By the moment this comment is written, not all of them are completely shut down yet, and Robert Habeck, the minister of economic development from Greens, is not excluding the possibility of expanding their life time.

3. Putin has never financed Greens or any other major party in Germany, as this is directly forbidden by German law.

> This is false information.

> 1. When first decisions were made for exit from nuclear, Greens were indeed the partner in the coalition government, but back then Putin was just elected as a president of Russia and could not possibly influence that decision in any way.

Wait, wasn't that decision taken in 2012, after Fukushima -- is that what you are talking about?!?

Because in that case, talk about "false information"! I mean, sure, it's technically correct -- the best kind of false information -- but misleading AF: Back then Putlin was just elected as President of Russia after a four-year stint as Prime Minister to circumvent (then-)constitutional term limits, following his previous two terms as President. You know, those weird years 2008-2012 when suddenly the Prime Minister of Russia turned out to be a much more important and powerful position than President? (Weird how that suddenly ended after Putler's re-ascension to the Presidency in 2012.)

ex-chancellor of Germany as well as many high-ranking German (ex-)politicians are getting sweet spots in Russian oil/gas businesses

https://www.faz.net/aktuell/politik/ausland/ex-kanzler-gerha...

This article doesn’t say anything about The German Green Party or the shutdown of the nuclear power plants.

Not "everybody", those who has an interest in doing so, number one being the USA (including commercial interests).

Gas is still a hot commodity in the world and Russia will sell it, anyway, and maybe still to Germany as they've announced they were restoring normal gas flow through Poland to Germany.

Now, the good general point that one would have hoped all countries understood by now is: Don't become too dependent on a single supplier for anything, especially energy.

Poland in particular knew exactly what would happen. And it did. They were disregarded as Russophobes with legacy baggage. Turns out they had valid reasons all along, the west just thought that they can trade around those issues, but they failed to understand that Putin does not think like a trader. He thinks like a dictator.

to clarify, "thinking like a trader" means Putin ought to tolerate continued NATO expansion, with American missiles placed on Russia's front porch, just because the west is a buyer of Russian gas?

The western politicians and the public acting surprised after ignoring all the warning signs all these years is truly amazing to watch.

Russia is literally surrounded by NATO in Kaliningrad and I’ve only seen it mentioned once somewhere on Twitter, and not by Russians. This is Russian propaganda to make westerners feel guilty and blame their politicians.

Somehow this Russian propaganda has been parroted by every Western expert to the left of Hitler for the last couple of decades. Putin is clearly playing the long game.

Even Russia itself is "surrounded" only because they threaten the countries around them and NATO is a defensive force to protect those adjoining countries. The only reason not to join NATO is the possible and totally inappropriate Kremlin response.

Saying "look at the map, NATO surrounds Russia" is sort of akin to looking at a map of city lights on the earth and calling it a heat map of murders. Not the greatest analogy, but hopefully gets the point across.

Interestingly, Kaliningrad is also brought up every single time in order to dismiss the argument raised in the parent comment. I wouldn't call your comment US propaganda because it's such a throw-around these days that one could automatically use it to dismiss people that don't share your view.

The crucial difference, in case is not clear, is that a missile placed in Ukraine would hit Moscow, the capital of Russia, in minutes. This is much more threatening to core Russia interests and Putin would not live with it.

Before rushing to putting all the blame on Russia just because "Putin-bad": I would strongly encourage people who are interested to know more to watch the following talks, from ages ago, given at reputable US universities because let's be honest, none of us is geopolitical historian two weeks ago on this topic so why don't we all do a bit more research.

[1] A good overview of the history, 7 years ago from a talk @ U Chicago. (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JrMiSQAGOS4)

[2] Another one from a talk @ Yale: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8X7Ng75e5gQ

Kaliningrad has also been 'purged' of its German population. There are no Germans in Kaliningrad today.

In Crimea and in some parts of Donbas the inhabitants identify as Russian.

> The crucial difference, in case is not clear, is that a missile placed in Ukraine would hit Moscow, the capital of Russia, in minutes. This is much more threatening to core Russia interests and Putin would not live with it.

So what? So could one from Latvia or Estonia. (Not to mention Leningrad.) So you're saying that justifies him invading and subjugating those countries too, aren't you?

I heard many of these arguments along the lines of "NATO is responsible for the war in Ukraine because they shouldn't expand" - like prof. John Mearsheimer's famous video.

The point is, these experts may understand geopolitics, but they don't understand people. These countries don't join NATO because the USA pushes them or because "NATO wants" to expand. They do it because they're afraid of an aggressive state with a history of offensive wars. They don't want to became Putin's vassals like Belarussians who recently tried to decide about themselves and met with violent terror. So yes, in the mind of Putin it's the fault of NATO, but it is a very sick point of view.

in bulgaria there is a saying: only nato can save you from nato

you are in misunderstanding why countries join the alliance

I don't know about bulgaria, but this is absolutely, categorically not true in the Baltics and in Poland. The primary motivation is to not become a russian puppet state... again.

> These countries don't join NATO because the USA pushes them or because "NATO wants" to expand.

Of course smaller countries with less security guarantees want to join NATO! It's the most powerful military pact and once you are in you can go around punching up against much larger countries! Who wouldn't want to?

Even Russia wanted to join NATO, an idea floated after WWII when the Russians fought against the Nazis alongside the allied forces. Of course that was dismissed as a pipe-dream because the existence of NATO was to contain Russia to the east.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Russia%E2%80%93NATO_relations#...

> Of course that was dismissed as a pipe-dream because the existence of NATO was to contain Russia to the east.

Ironically, you have just confirmed what Russia believes justifies its actions in Ukraine.

not trying to "confirm" anything here... if you actually look at any of Putin's interview this is basically the only thing he kept on blabbering about... of course nobody in the west should or care to listen to the "madman" but the warning sign has been flashing all along.

AFAIK Chechnya did not aspire to NATO and still Grozny got leveled.

> Who wouldn't want to?

Nobody sane.

Perhaps if Russia's neighbours didn't feel threatened by Russia they wouldn't want to join NATO?

It's not so easily to transport gas from western russia to china though. Russia can't just build a pipeline overnight to china.

https://www.aljazeera.com/videos/2019/12/2/power-of-siberia-...

Meanwhile Nord Stream 1 still flows at full throttle.

Spring has just started, close the Russian pipes.

It's just about 22h00 here, and -6°C outside the window. Spring has not started...

Yes? Is that unusual? The last frost date is May or June where I come from. We could survive cutting our heat use in half. Better than going to war.

Nothing unusual. Just an answer to the previous comment, that felt thrown over one's shoulder : a whole continent won't switch its energy sources in a couple of days.

This might be too abrupt for buyers. Tax them instead?

It's all up to you https://www.google.com/maps/place/Anlandestation+Nord+Stream...

another full throttle thing:

Viktor Kharitonin and Roman Abramovich are linked to the ownership of the Nurburgring race track. Both are on the sanctioned oligarchs list.

https://edition.cnn.com/2018/01/30/politics/full-us-list-of-...

Viktor Kharitonin is #43, Abranovich is #2.

https://www.autocar.co.uk/car-news/motorsport/russian-billio...

Money is flowing from Europe to Ukraine to support that side of the war. Unfortunately way more money is flowing from Europe to Russia, to support the other side of said war.

If the war so far has shown anything, it's that Russia hasn't been converting money to military efficiently.

And so far there's been a very large inflow of critical military equipment to Ukraine, while Russia has been hit with giant economic sanctions.

Whether we like it or not, the world is global (and has been so since at least the 19th century).

Politicians and populists can huff and puff all they want, but Europe needs gas, and it gets that gas from Russia.

> Europe needs gas, and it gets that gas from Russia.

As an American living in Europe, I've just learned this fact last week, but I'm curious if the US gets its gas from the middle east, why hasn't Europe been doing the same? Ever since the fall of the USSR, it's not like western Europe welcomed Russia back into Europe with open arms (to my understanding, Russia is the entire reason NATO still exists). By comparison, Europe barely seems to register the middle east's existence (aside from when refugees start crossing the border in large numbers or when supporting US invasions). So politically it seems like they'd be a much better economic partner (especially since western Europe and the US are on generally good terms and the US has been heavily involved in making sure their oil interests in the middle east remain "secure").

Is it that Russian gas is actually cheaper but the US wouldn't buy from Russia?

The US does not get their gas from the middle east. Out of 252,610 total units, 250,890 came from Canada. Everything else is a rounding error. [ https://www.eia.gov/dnav/ng/ng_move_impc_s1_m.htm ]

TIL, thanks especially for the link!

idea was that if europe trades with russia, russia can be influenced to act in a civil manner. (at least partially)

there is also fact that german ex cancelor (schroeder) is at russian gas and oil companies now (i.e. russia made good friends to make right decisions)

FWIW, the U.S. is a net exporter of fuel. They import some, and I assume that's because they export even more. In any case they are energy independent as of the last couple years. I assume one big reason to do so was to avoid the security risk of having to protect their oil interests overseas.

If world is global, which it is, gas can be bought from some where else.

Physics and logistics would have a word ;)

i guess the question is who can lost longer, Europe with their energy crisis or Russia with their war. iirc the transactions involving energy between Germany and Russia have been excluded from the SWIFT sanctions, or it was at least on the table, which is probably what got Germany on board. If the energy crisis deepens i bet more and more exceptions will be made to the sanctions to keep the gas pipelines flowing and flowing cheaply.

"But, out of a sense of political self-preservation, they stopped short of barring energy transactions with Russia. The result is that Germany, Italy and other European nations will continue purchasing and paying for natural gas that flows through pipelines from Russia — through Ukrainian territory that is suddenly a war zone." https://www.nytimes.com/2022/02/26/us/politics/eu-us-swift-r...

edit: in the US, oil hit $106/bbl which is a 7 year high

This is an incredibly cynical view. The purchase of that gas directly leads to the murder of Ukrainians and the death of democracy.

These comments are hilarious. US invades Iraq and kills a million Arabs. Not a peep. Still connected to swift. Visa still works. Russia invades Ukraine and the entire world is outraged and demanding to cut Russians off from anything and everything.

Western value of the day, week, month, and decade: hypocrisy.

There's nobody to do it! We invade with NATO, absolving the need to ask US Congress for authorization and implicating all of the allies who could ever consider a coordinated sanction as they are all now culpable!

I would be content with that if our leaders just said it like that. Join the gang by implicating yourself. I too kind of bore over the juvenile moral arguments that have too many contradictions to count. It's not supposed to sound edgy, I could totally roll with "at least they're honest".

> Not a peep

The Iraq invasion had at least some small fig leaf of multilateralism. Russia has no friends on this misadventure, only hostages.

Yes, Germany under Gerhart Schroeder sharply rejected the war. Coincidentally he is also a main figure of Nord Stream

I was surprised by the "million Arabs" figure. For others that were also curious about it, this seems like a reasonable spot to start searching for data https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Casualties_of_the_Iraq_War

It seems to me rather unreasonable to ascribe all of that to the US. On the other hand, there are probably plenty of westerners (me included) that think American leadership should be treated as war criminals for starting that war, at the very least for the false information on which the invasion was justified (whether because of malice or incompetence on their part). Even then, even if the western sactions are self-serving, that does not make this war any less wrong, and Ukraine's desire for existence and self-determination any less valid.

Well said. I don't think GP deserves to have their comment killed; there is a certain amount of hypocrisy when comparing today's response with that of the Iraq war. It was not justified, has killed a huge number of people both directly and indirectly and was waged with impunity.

We are right to point this out, and the comparison holds to a certain degree although it is far from perfectly analogous. But two wrongs don't make a right, and I'm sure plenty of us would have wished there existed an external power that could have made the Bush administration reconsider how they perpetrated the whole thing.

On a deeper level, the current situation is a conflict of principles; rule of law versus authoritarianism. The former system works better, and enthusiastic debate and denouncement of mistakes democratic governments have made is certainly a part of that.

So someone else will buy it up for cheap, right? Then in a year or two, or maybe even less, the gas will flow again and the buyer(likely someone "connected") will be raking in the cash.

germany is big AND wealthy buyer. Not eveybody can buy so much at current price.

also storage of natural gas is problematic.

> also storage of natural gas is problematic.

I think the GP's "buy it up" meant the pipeline, not gas.

The owners/shareholders are Russian, German, French, and Dutch. Others could buy up the assets cheap -- but would take the risk of future sanctions again.

Edit: I guess the only buyers might be other Russians or China?

Here's an interview from today with the economics director, Silvia Thalmann-Gut councilor for Zug Canton:

>The company had to file for bankruptcy and the entire workforce of 106 people is released. 140 people were incorrectly spoken of yesterday.

https://www.srf.ch/news/schweiz/konkurs-angemeldet-nord-stre...

edit: earlier: entire staff of Gerhard Schroeder's office has resigned

https://www.bild.de/politik/inland/politik-inland/ukraine-kr...

Is halting Nord Stream 1 on the list of incoming sanctions ?

It is not, gas is exempt from sanctions. I don't think the EU had much of a choice on that one. Their dependence on Russian energy is pretty significant.

With all the talk about finding alternative suppliers I assume in the long term it is on the list, but it needs quite some time to prepare for that. It's not just Nord Stream 1, there are also the Yamal–Europe pipeline through Belarus and the West-Siberian Pipeline through Ukraine.

Geopolitics aside, I'm always happy to see fewer long-term investments in fossil fuels.

Instead of a pipeline, there will be two LNG import terminals.

Expensive gas encourages clean alternative deployments. No one is leaving fossil fuels unless it’s painful to keep using them, so it’s good for more pain.

Problem is, there aren't many alternatives... at least not yet. Wind and solar have proven to be not as reliable as nuclear, and in recent decades the EU has shut down most of their nuclear energy sources. BTW, nuclear is a fairly green source of energy, minus the meltdowns, accidents, and waste -- which to my understanding operators have become better at dealing with.

https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=30501636

What's with the downvotes? Yes there are plenty of green sources of energy, just not sufficient storage to account for ebbs and flows of energy generation.

I did not downvote, but you’re overemphasizing unnecessary storage. You overproduce with renewables and use some utility battery storage for grid stability; robust transmission and hydro storage (if available) are also necessary. It’s simple not necessary to store days worth of power to move to a majority renewables powered grid (per the citations in my above link).

I'm of the mindset that the west needs to use every tactic to the fullest in this economic battle.

Yes it will hurt the west, yes it will hurt innocent civilians, but we need to make the real effects hurt Russia faster than Putin can make this suffering seem patriotic. We need the suffering to start faster than Putin can find his way around the sanctions. Far better to have a few weeks of large economic chaos than to drag it out for years, or to have to escalate to a war involving two nuclear armed parties.

How is that not escalation that could lead to MAD?

My hope is that oligarchs would rather try to suicide Putin than have ten yachts but nowhere to go to because it‘s nuclear winter everywhere.

Armchair generals are a dime a dozen on social media.

Analysts from all over the spectrum have been warning about the Ukraine red line for decades.

https://threadreaderapp.com/thread/1498491107902062592.html

These people were right, but the alternatives they propose do not sound realistic. They are aimed at rational actors. The fact is, people living in those countries do not want to be Russia again and a civil war was always the only way this could end, NATO application or not. See Chechnya or Georgia.

This is very interesting.

It’s worth pointing out that Ukraine never actually did join NATO (and arguably was a long way from it) and war was still the outcome.

The right of Ukrainians to self determine their country’s future shouldn’t hinge on the whims of Putin or Russia in general.

Yes, I know that is a moral position at odds with politics and reality

> Yes, I know that is a moral position at odds with politics and reality

Aren't they usually? That's how one knows that it's a moral position.

It's not escalation because so far, the sanctions haven't had an effect on the ground in the Ukraine. If Putin pulls out of the Ukraine and the world keeps ratcheting up sanctions, then that would be escalation.

How is not applying more sanctions until they are effective anything less than appeasement? Which does not have a great historical record...

I believe it can seriously get out of control. With warfare you can take your finger off the trigger and it stops but with an economy things can get wildly out of control. I feel like Putin will launch nukes before giving up his regime and if his economy becomes an existential threat then you can connect the dots.

You think it’s easier to undo the effects of total war than it is to undo the effects of sanctions?

Between a shooting war and an economic war I suspect that the former is far more likely to get out of control.

Any action or reaction (including no reaction) could lead to MAD depending on how you see it. Russia has seen fit to escalate significantly despite basically no change in international posture towards Russia since 2014.

Economic actions can be reversed much more easily than military action. Sanctions and frozen accounts have an undo button. Dead people and destroyed cities cannot be undone.

I see economic action as the one most likely to have immediate effects internal to Russia that would undermine support for the war rather than bolster it.

Surprisingly, I think the West _is_ actually willing to risk nuclear war over this.

I would not be surprised if EU offers interim membership to Ukraine, and then offers air support / no fly zone - calling Putins bluff and widening the conflict.

I think Europe _should_ regard war on Ukraine as a declaration of war on Europe, and the rest of the west _should_ regard war on EU as war on all Western countries.

One reason for this is that if the West does not retaliate towards this aggression, then others will surely follow - perhaps Russia decides Lithuania is part of Russia after all, or Chinese leadership is emboldened to 'take back' Taiwan ?

Even if Russia withdraws tomorrow, can the West trust a madman with nuclear weapons ?

I think the West is at war with Russia today, even if we haven't admitted it to ourselves yet.

Russia will not be allowed to win in Ukraine. It's too close to central Europe.

Also Visa and MasterCard services are absent in Russia as of today

> Also Visa and MasterCard services are absent in Russia as of today

I'm not sure if this is quite the case - can anyone confirm? Their statement seems to muddy the issue but I believe they have only stopped working with sanctioned banks.

yep, habr.com is making a list of services currently not working

https://habr.com/ru/news/t/653761/

Domestic payments in Russia are handled by SPFS without any issues, the problems are with cross-border payments and Apple/Google Pay tied to cards of the sanctioned banks.

readers of HN, any good geopolitics analysis to read (websites, channels, books, else) ?

To those who are being exposed to this only because of recent events, here's what has happened before all this:

- 2011 - Nord Stream 1 nearing completion and Nord Stream AG starts thinking about two more lines (which would later be named Nord Stream 2)

- 2015 Jun - Decision to build Nord Stream 2 was made https://amp.dw.com/en/gazprom-inks-plan-for-new-gas-pipeline...

- 2017 Apr - Financing agreements signed https://www.ft.com/content/32898bae-28f3-11e7-9ec8-168383da4...

- 2018 Jan - Germany officially grants permit https://www.reuters.com/article/us-nordstream-germany-permit...

- 2018 May - US diplomats start talking about sanctions https://www.rferl.org/a/us-warns-russian-german-nord-stream-...

- 2018 Jul - Trump scolds NATO General Secretary over European energy relations with Russia https://youtu.be/Vpwkdmwui3k

- 2019 Jan - US ambassador to Germany threatens sanctions https://www.dw.com/en/us-ambassador-richard-grenell-threaten...

- 2019 Dec - US sanctions Nord Stream 2 https://www.dailysabah.com/americas/2019/12/21/trump-signs-7...

- 2020 Dec - US continues to protest, Germany continues to build https://www.thelocal.de/20201206/work-set-to-resume-on-nords...

- 2021 Jan - Trump sanctions the Russian ship building Nord Stream 2 on his last day at the office https://www.reuters.com/article/us-usa-nordstream-sanctions-...

- 2021 Jan - EU sanctions it too https://www.commonspace.eu/news/european-parliament-approves...

- 2021 May - US waives the sanctions on Nord Stream 2 https://www.reuters.com/business/energy/us-waive-sanctions-f...

- 2021 Jun - First line construction is complete https://www.osw.waw.pl/en/publikacje/analyses/2021-06-10/con...

- 2021 Sep - The full construction of Nord Stream 2 is complete https://www.reuters.com/world/europe/final-piece-nord-stream...

- 2022 Jan - Nord Stream 2 registers German subsidiary as a part of the certification process https://www.reuters.com/business/energy/nord-stream-2-regist...

This is a result of over a decade of planning and construction with governments, corporations and companies of Germany, UK, France, Austria, Switzerland, Finland, Estonia, Sweden, Russia... and probably more countries to provide cheap and reliable and climate friendly energy source to Europe... and it is just an addition of 2 more pipes to a pipeline that is already operational for a decade now... and the construction is already complete.

Give it a few years, the American media clowns will find something else to distract their peasants with; meanwhile the project will move a few hands, will see some rebranding and the sanctions will be quietly lifted. It has happened before and it will most definitely happen again. It will take something much more drastic than what's happening in Ukraine for that to not go through.

I really hope so. The US has had major interests in not having this completed, and getting this up and running only just to spite them would be worth it.

What's the big deal about a second pipeline?

Additional pipelines double the previous capacity.

The US has two main political interests when it comes to the use of natural gas.

One of them is anti-fossil fuels and would not like to have a world where a large portion of the western world relies on fossil fuels.

Another faction is invested in the US fracking industry, one of the products of which is natural gas. The gas from fracking can be liquified and shipped in large quantities to Europe because it already relies on a lot of it.

Both of these interests have a common enemy: Russia.

if you can see behind the paywall, here's a WSJ article:

https://www.wsj.com/articles/nord-stream-2-gas-pipeline-lays...

Thanks. I've changed the URL to that from https://www.srf.ch/news/schweiz/konkurs-angemeldet-nord-stre..., which is not in English. We have deep respect for other languages, but HN is an English-language site.

Makes sense. Also because the original article is not really about the Nord Stream 2 bankruptcy but a short interview with a regional politician about rights the 106 employees that where let go have and tax losses for the canton/state (it is kind of the Delaware of Switzerland) with many of the companies with ties to russia expected to have a similar future.

This is good for bitcoin?

Reply on news.ycombinator.com