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Comment by netsharc | Hacker News Reader

I thought Putin wanted to attack in the depths of winter, when German/W. European leaders would be afraid to take action for fear of losing the Russian gas and freezing their constituents' butts in the cold (although still in the comfort of their apartments), but maybe he got stuck with this late February date after with Xi Jinping demanded he not upstage the Winter Olympics[1], and not wanting to wait until next winter.

Hah, losing a war because of scheduling conflicts.

On the topic of freezing, I wonder if EU countries can send firefighting planes to drop water on top of these Russian soldiers, under the pretense of "We got reports from the Ukrainian government that there were forest fires!".

[1] https://www.nytimes.com/2022/03/02/us/politics/russia-ukrain...

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They could have asked their friend Vlad to stop the invasion and not kill civilians, but instead they were worried about their Olympics.

And not only that, the Chinese were all too happy to turn around and tell Putin what the Americans where sharing with them:

> After one diplomatic exchange in December, U.S. officials received intelligence showing Beijing had shared the information with Moscow, telling the Russians that the United States was trying to sow discord and that China would not try to impede Russian plans, American officials said.

I guess it's not surprising. China stands to benefit even from the sanctions imposed on Russia. Money, technology, spare parts, electronics, etc. flowing into Russia will probably go through China. If Russia loses, they win. If Russia wins and NATO looks weak, they win too. Well played.

> I guess it's not surprising. China stands to benefit even from the sanctions imposed on Russia. Money, technology, spare parts, electronics, etc. flowing into Russia will probably go through China. If Russia loses, they win. If Russia wins and NATO looks weak, they win too. Well played.

On the other hand, the EU is realizing it needs to become more self-sufficient, sooner. This weakens the power that China and Russia have - all for a pretty meaningless war, in a time when EU has the capability to start relying less on these countries. It seems like such a terrible move by Russia, not just for their own economy, but by motivating others to start investing more in themselves.

> China stands to benefit even from the sanctions imposed on Russia.

If Russia loses, then a West-supported democractic underdog took on an authoritarian superpower and won. That's gotta make CCP leadership uncomfortable with regards to Taiwan.

The airspace is not safe, especially for large, slow planes from foreign nations.

It's a joke

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