Sinteres posted:

You obviously don't think Russia's doing all of this to overthrow Lukashenko either, so I don't know what point you're trying to make with that response.

BoldFace posted:

https://twitter.com/IAPonomarenko/status/1495464102415802370

Vincent Van Goatse posted:

I could see Russia trying to force some sort of basing deal down Batka's throat so they can keep substantial forces just across the border from Kiev even if they do draw down their present deployments. Then again I'm not actually clear on the specifics of present security agreements between Russia and Belarus so this might already exist.

Vincent Van Goatse posted:

You're probably right, but look at it this way:

It was daylight madness to let conscripts play with Buk launchers near a civil aviation flyway. It was madness to escalate the situation in Ukraine by massing an army on the borders and madness to jeopardize Nord Stream 2 and Russian standing in Europe and elsewhere in doing so, and madness to mass an invasion force in the middle of a global Pandemic if this is all a bluff, or even if it isn't. Presumptions of sanity are therefore not given. Why should they be?

Knightsoul posted:

Don't you think it's been madness to expand east NATO presence in the last 20 years, and then expect Russia to stay calm and not retaliate some way?

Knightsoul posted:

Don't you think it's been madness to expand east NATO presence in the last 20 years, and then expect Russia to stay calm and not retaliate some way?

eke out posted:

sounds like a bad sign

https://twitter.com/howardfineman/status/1495563857280081920

Sir Bobert Fishbone posted:

This seems extremely far-fetched.

Conspiratiorist posted:

Joining NATO was equated with joining the Western European order.

Post-Soviet Russia wanted in on it too.

Conspiratiorist posted:

Invading Ukraine "in its entirety" is something Russia's military is logistically incapable of, and they know it. More importantly, trying to occupy the entire country would result in far too many dead Russians and Ukrainian relatives of Russians to be acceptable domestically.

BoldFace posted:

Raenir Salazar posted:

I do feel the West made a huge mistake generally in not basically providing post-Soviet Russia with Marshall Plan levels of foreign aid; they got a little during Bush Sr, but it dried up due to domestic political issues and a strong desire domestically for a "peace dividend" and a severe cutting back on military spending. If Russia was given some kind of associative membership into the EEC right around 1992 and avoided Shock Therapy because the aid would've allowed for state ownership to continue to function long enough for the economic transition to a mixed market economy; the world would've been a very different place and the US would have a northern flank on China right now.

Conspiratiorist posted:

Invading Ukraine "in its entirety" is something Russia's military is logistically incapable of, and they know it. More importantly, trying to occupy the entire country would result in far too many dead Russians and Ukrainian relatives of Russians to be acceptable domestically.

Raenir Salazar posted:

How so? War isn't just about comparing numbers, otherwise Barbarossa wouldn't have gotten as far as it did against the Red Army's 50,000 tanks and 20,000 planes.

Sinteres posted:

If they do invade, I think bluffing that they intend the attack to be more serious than it really is so they can intimidate the government into collapse and/or send the country into disarray and/or appear to make concessions when they stop short of those maximalist goals might make sense, but yeah I really really don't think anything beyond Kiev seems very realistic, and even Kiev seems like a longshot to me.

Generation Internet posted:

The Eastern European nations joined NATO willingly and had plenty of motivation to do so after 50 years of Russian occupation.

What gives Russia the right to retaliate against sovereign states that join defensive alliances?

Conspiratiorist posted:

Taking cities is a bitch and a half and under Russian doctrine involves turning them into rubble, plus the Western half of Ukraine would be an insurgency nightmare for sustained occupation.

Even if we assumed that domestically they were willing to accept >10k dead Russian troops over the course of a week, >50k dead civilians would be unacceptable given Ukraine's close cultural and historical ties with Russia.

Vlad's looking for a realistic win here. They'll take Mariupol. If they're feeling real dangerous they'll push to the Dnieper. Beyond that? Far too much to lose for little gain.

Yeah. I've said it before but Western media pushing the optics that taking Kyiv is in the cards means it can be used as an apparent compromise.

I believe Russians have been at the least feeding this kind of info to leaky divisions to have it make its way to the media.

Knightsoul posted:

In 2018, at the bucharest convention, our genius NATO officers declared boldly that we would integrate into our happy family called NATO, countries like Ukraine and Georgia.
THAT was a turning point.
Do you remember what happened just 8 days later? Let me remind it to you: russians tanks were freely running up Georgia's rear end while Georgia's president was cryin' on the phone with french president Sarkozy, asking for a westerner intervention and in response the french told him to shut the gently caress up and wait for the end of russians operations.

Knightsoul posted:

It's not a question of "rights" or "wrongs", it's just the reality of geopolitics.
Russia since 5 centuries ago has been an empire, and like every other empire its mindset is determined by spheres of influence: Russia right now is a shadow of the former Soviet Union, but still can't accept that an alien organization to her (NATO) expands to its very doorsteps.
It's very reasonable, if you're smart enough to undertand that geopolitics rules didn't die with the end of cold war era.
In 2018, at the bucharest convention, our genius NATO officers declared boldly that we would integrate into our happy family called NATO, countries like Ukraine and Georgia.
THAT was a turning point.
Do you remember what happened just 8 days later? Let me remind it to you: russians tanks were freely running up Georgia's rear end while Georgia's president was cryin' on the phone with french president Sarkozy, asking for a westerner intervention and in response the french told him to shut the gently caress up and wait for the end of russians operations.
Hilarious, isn't it?
All this mess called "ukrainian crisis" is all on our western shoulders, and in the end (a bitter end) only Ukrainians people will pay the price: the price for have tried to pretend to be more than an ant on the shoulder of the russian bear.

Conspiratiorist posted:

For context, the Russian approach to successful city fighting is very straightforward:

First, level the block you're advancing into with artillery and airstrikes.

Second, advance with recon infantry teams that put thermobaric RPGs into any remaining structures that might house possible points of resistance.

Third, advance with general infantry backed by armor to clear anything that isn't dead, dying, or wishing it was.

It's real loving bad and Russian leadership knows it looks real loving bad. They'll avoid it as much as possible.

Conspiratiorist posted:

For context, the Russian approach to successful city fighting is very straightforward:

First, level the block you're advancing into with artillery and airstrikes.

Second, advance with recon infantry teams that put thermobaric RPGs into any remaining structures that might house possible points of resistance.

Third, advance with general infantry backed by armor to clear anything that isn't dead, dying, or wishing it was.

It's real loving bad and Russian leadership knows it looks real loving bad. They'll avoid it as much as possible.

Knightsoul posted:

It's not a question of "rights" or "wrongs", it's just the reality of geopolitics.
Russia since 5 centuries ago has been an empire, and like every other empire its mindset is determined by spheres of influence: Russia right now is a shadow of the former Soviet Union, but still can't accept that an alien organization to her (NATO) expands to its very doorsteps.
It's very reasonable, if you're smart enough to undertand that geopolitics rules didn't die with the end of cold war era.
In 2008, at the bucharest convention, our genius NATO officers declared boldly that we would integrate into our happy family called NATO, countries like Ukraine and Georgia.
THAT was a turning point.
Do you remember what happened just 8 days later? Let me remind it to you: russians tanks were freely running up Georgia's rear end while Georgia's president was cryin' on the phone with french president Sarkozy, asking for a westerner intervention and in response the french told him to shut the gently caress up and wait for the end of russians operations.
Hilarious, isn't it?
All this mess called "ukrainian crisis" is all on our western shoulders, and in the end (a bitter end) only Ukrainians people will pay the price: the price for have tried to pretend to be more than an ant on the shoulder of the russian bear.

SopWATh posted:

Why would they try to avoid that? If they’re already seen as the bad guys, does being “really bad” mean much?

BIG FLUFFY DOG posted:

Putin’s also seems to want Ukraine so bad in part for sentimental nationalist reasons. He commonly says Russians and Ukrainians are both descended from Kievan Rus. Is he willing then to obliterate Kyiv from the map?

Conspiratiorist posted:

Taking cities is a bitch and a half and under Russian doctrine involves turning them into rubble, plus the Western half of Ukraine would be an insurgency nightmare for sustained occupation.

Even if we assumed that domestically they were willing to accept >10k dead Russian troops over the course of a week, >50k dead civilians would be unacceptable given Ukraine's close cultural and historical ties with Russia.

Vlad's looking for a realistic win here. They'll take Mariupol. If they're feeling real dangerous they'll push to the Dnieper. Beyond that? Far too much to lose for little gain.

Yeah. I've said it before but Western media pushing the optics that taking Kyiv is in the cards means it can be used as an apparent compromise.

I believe Russians have been at the least feeding this kind of info to leaky divisions to have it make its way to the media.

BIG FLUFFY DOG posted:

i cannot accept the idea of putin being stupid enough to try to occupy the entire ukraine much less use reserve troops to try to do it??? Occupying is a lot harder than invading see: iraq/afghanistan. so wouldn't you use the dudes who are in their prime and have actual recent experience fighting vs a dental hygenist who trains on weekends???

SopWATh posted:

Why would they try to avoid that? If they’re already seen as the bad guys, does being “really bad” mean much?

Raenir Salazar posted:

If the war is quick enough they don't have to be there for long.

SopWATh posted:

Why would they try to avoid that? If they’re already seen as the bad guys, does being “really bad” mean much?

BIG FLUFFY DOG posted:

They’re seen as the bad guys in the west which they don’t care about. Russian state media is heavily invested in portraying Russians as the good guys. A leveled city that Russians can actually point to on a map would be difficult to hide or censor.

Knightsoul posted:

It's not a question of "rights" or "wrongs", it's just the reality of geopolitics.
Russia since 5 centuries ago has been an empire, and like every other empire its mindset is determined by spheres of influence: Russia right now is a shadow of the former Soviet Union, but still can't accept that an alien organization to her (NATO) expands to its very doorsteps.
It's very reasonable, if you're smart enough to undertand that geopolitics rules didn't die with the end of cold war era.
In 2008, at the bucharest convention, our genius NATO officers declared boldly that we would integrate into our happy family called NATO, countries like Ukraine and Georgia.
THAT was a turning point.
Do you remember what happened just 8 days later? Let me remind it to you: russians tanks were freely running up Georgia's rear end while Georgia's president was cryin' on the phone with french president Sarkozy, asking for a westerner intervention and in response the french told him to shut the gently caress up and wait for the end of russians operations.
Hilarious, isn't it?
All this mess called "ukrainian crisis" is all on our western shoulders, and in the end (a bitter end) only Ukrainians people will pay the price: the price for have tried to pretend to be more than an ant on the shoulder of the russian bear.